A Walk Around Rocky Top (The Campus, Not the Town)
With all the conversation about schools this week, it put me in mind of a walk I took in early May around the UT campus. Many of us are UT graduates and many more are sports...
Life
COVID-19: 7/9/2020 Update
As the country, state and county continue to hit new levels of infection numbers, attention continues to be focused on both the illness and attempting to navigate normal life. Many businesses remain frozen in place or...
The School Board Receives Its Report (Plus More)
The afternoon started off with Governor Lee holding a press conference discussing a wide range of topics, most of which were centered on opening schools in the fall. He’d instructed TSSAA (the sports arm of the...
COVID-19: 7/8/2020 Update (Including Today’s Health Department Briefing)
It’s mid-week and we’re about to get some tentative answers about schools in the county. Political leaders are making their feelings known. Parents, teachers and students have their own feelings as we’ve struggled with controlling the...
COVID-19: 7/7/2020 Update
I hope your first full week of July is going well. Attention this week and weeks after will be increasingly focused on the looming start of a new school year. The School Board is set to...
COVID-19: 7/6/2020 Update (Including Today’s Health Department Briefing)
I hope each of you had a wonderful weekend with some time with people you love. For those who had to remain apart from family, it was difficult, no doubt. The highlight for us was watching...
COVID-19: 7/3/2020 Update
Happy Fourth of July weekend, everyone. Because of the holiday, there is no Knox County Health Department briefing. It’s a good weekend to think about what we mean when we say we love America. If we...
COVID-19: 7/2/2020 Update
The announcement that masks are now required inside buildings in Knox County has certainly dominated today’s local news. Predictably, it has drawn diametrically opposed reactions ranging from relief at an overdue simple action, to outrage at...
Board of Health Discusses Path Forward: Approves Requiring Masks In Public Buildings
The Board of Health, which is authorized to chart its own course, met for the first time since deciding to follow the Law Director’s suggestion that they yield that right in order to follow the Tennessee...
COVID-19: 7/1/2020 Update (Including Health Department Briefing)
It’s Wednesday. It’s July. Time keeps moving along. It’s hard for me to grasp that this state of semi-weirdness is entering its fourth month. One consensus that is growing is that wearing masks when in groups...