Saturday, April 30, 2011

Tennessean: Teens on Finding a Home

The Tennessean takes a look at some older kids who find a family for life:

“The way I felt, I just wanted to get away from everything and have a parent that I could call mom,” the 17-year-old said.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Taft Table Tennis Team Rolls On

The Weekly Wrap Up just got this dispatch from Bill Neely about Taft's continuing success with its table tennis program:


STONE MEMORIAL'S FIRST INTERSCHOLASTIC TABLE TENNIS COMPETITION




Taft won both the singles and doubles by a wide margin, 31-6 for the singles and 9-0 for doubles, respectively.  Several games could have gone either way, but experience appeared to win out even in these close games.  This experience factor advantage is borne out by the fact that Taft won all 14 of the matches which went extra games.  Similarly, of the 2-doubles matches with extra games, Taft won both of them.

Had Stone won half of the extra-game matches, the event scores would have been 24-12 and 8-1 for the doubles, respectively.  It is a stretch, but had Stone won all of the extra-game matches, they would have won the singles event 19-17.  Obviously experience played a major part in this competition.

There are currently 4-schools enrolled in the Program league.   Each school, Rhea County, Taft, Stone, and CCHS comprise the League.   Each school is to play each other (6-events) to complete League play.  Among these 4-high schools, 2 of the 6-planned League competitions have now taken place, and others are in the planning stage.  Rhea County is currently 1 and 0, Stone is 0 and 1, while Taft is 1 and 1 in matches played.

After all 6-League competitions are complete, a League tournament, including all four teams, will determine the overall East Tennessee champion.  Special awards will be presented to winning teams and certain categories of demonstrated individual excellence.

A competition between CCHS and Stone is scheduled for May 7 which will determine the Cumberland County championship and will, of course, impact the draw for the end-of-the-year 4-school tournament.

It is unfortunate that two very important people were not available for this event:  Mr. Joseph Newgarden, owner of Newgy Industries, Inc. and provider of all of the table tennis equipment and Mr. Michael Plummer, provider of the beautiful school shirts, had other commitments.

Figures 2 and 3 show the two teams and their respective coaches Bob Barnett for Taft and Nathan Brown for Stone..  Both have done excellent jobs for preparing their teams given the short notice for the competition. Taft won both the singles and doubles by a wide margin, 31-6 for the singles and 9-0 for doubles, respectively.  Several games could have gone either way, but experience appeared to win out even in these close games.  This experience factor advantage is borne out by the fact that Taft won all 14 of the matches which went extra games.  Similarly, of the 2-doubles matches with extra games, Taft won both of them.

Had Stone won half of the extra-game matches, the event scores would have been 24-12 and 8-1 for the doubles, respectively.  It is a stretch, but had Stone won all of the extra-game matches, they would have won the singles event 19-17.  Obviously experience played a major part in this competition.

There are currently 4-schools enrolled in the Program league.   Each school, Rhea County, Taft, Stone, and CCHS comprise the League.   Each school is to play each other (6-events) to complete League play.  Among these 4-high schools, 2 of the 6-planned League competitions have now taken place, and others are in the planning stage.  Rhea County is currently 1 and 0, Stone is 0 and 1, while Taft is 1 and 1 in matches played.

After all 6-League competitions are complete, a League tournament, including all four teams, will determine the overall East Tennessee champion.  Special awards will be presented to winning teams and certain categories of demonstrated individual excellence.

A competition between CCHS and Stone is scheduled for May 7 which will determine the Cumberland County championship and will, of course, impact the draw for the end-of-the-year 4-school tournament.

It is unfortunate that two very important people were not available for this event:  Mr. Joseph Newgarden, owner of Newgy Industries, Inc. and provider of all of the table tennis equipment and Mr. Michael Plummer, provider of the beautiful school shirts, had other commitments.

The coaches -- Taft's Bob Barnett and Stone's Nathan Brown -- have done excellent jobs in preparing their teams given the short notice for the competition.  

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

AP: Latest on Brian A. improvements

The Associated Press on the latest developments with DCS and Brian A. case -- and quoting Bonnie Hommrich on the last few hurdles: http://goo.gl/34mb0



Monday, April 11, 2011

Start Walking Home Here

The Walk Me Home link is now live, for those of you who are ready to walk -- or just thinking about it:
http://www.firstgiving.com/walkmehome/event/nashville

Take a look! Sign up for the event!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Nifty New Tool from our Pals at TDOT

"For those of you who have employees who travel, especially in urban areas where TDOT has our TDOT SmartWay system(cameras), you might consider sharing this link with them to assist in their travel.
 
"TDOT SmarWay Mobile is for smartphone users (Droid, iPhone, etc). Because it is a mobile website, there is no download, just bookmark it.
 
"This link takes you to the webpage and features a tutorial for using TDOT SmartWay mobile: