Coffee County continues the process of fulfilling the Director of Schools position.  Now Grundy County begins its search for a new leader.  Thirteen applicants are interested in replacing Jody Hargis, the retiring Director of Schools.  John Franklin Bruce, Manchester, Tenn. a retired manager has applied, along with Mary Ann Gemmill, Naples, Fla.; former chief administrative officer, Collier County District School Board. Gemmill was a finalist for the Coffee County director. The Grundy County School Board hopes to hire someone by the end of the year.

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development is warning more than 10,000 people that their extended unemployment benefits will expire soon. The Extended Benefit program is tied to the state’s unemployment rate. Since that rate recently dropped to 8%, the program is coming to an end. Those affected are claimants in the last 20 weeks of the 99 weeks previously available. They will receive their last benefit payments the week of April 12. Approximately 10,000 people should receive notices in the coming days of their benefit expiration. They will not be eligible for benefits again until they earn qualifying wages. Labor and Workforce Development Commissioner Karla Davis said in a news release that as Tennessee’s employment opportunities improve, other federal benefits could be reduced as well.

Jeffrey Fann, 47, of Cannon County was dumping his garbage when he fell into the county’s trash compactor, hit his head and died. Cannon County, like many rural counties, doesn’t have home trash pick-up. Instead, residents take their trash to the transfer station.  After the trash is compacted, it is sent to a landfill.  Saturday evening, Fann was standing on the back of his pickup truck while throwing his trash into the transfer station’s trash compactor.  Eyewitnesses say he slipped inside the compactor and fell to his death. The compacting machine wasn’t running, but Fann his hit head on the metal and died from that injury at a hospital. County officials were already studying how to improve the way they collect trash. In fact, they had already brought in a state consultant to do a study. The County Executive says redesigning the transfer station will be costly, but adds that the county ought to put up a gate so people can’t park too close to the compactor.

A proposal that would allow public buildings to display such “historically significant documents” as the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, and the Declaration of Independence, now heads to the governor for his consideration. The measure was approved 30-0 by the Senate on Monday evening. The companion bill unanimously passed the House 93-0 last week. The proposal would allow the documents to be displayed in the form of statues, monuments, memorials, tablets or in any other way that in the words of the legislation “respects the dignity of such documents.”

Eric Stewart

A large amount of members of the mining industry in Tennessee staged a protest against a bill pending in the General Assembly to ban mountaintop removal. The group of miners and engineers wore T-shirts and held up “Legalize Coal” signs at the entrance to the legislative office complex in Nashville on Tuesday. The bill (sponsored by Rep. Mike McDonald of Portland and fellow Democratic Sen. Eric Stewart of Winchester) would ban any mining that alters ridgelines more than 2,000 feet above sea level. Opponents argue that Tennessee doesn’t practice mountaintop removal mining, in which mountain ridge tops are blasted apart to expose multiple coal seams. The resulting rock and debris is dumped in streams, creating what the industry calls valley fills.