Category: News

The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration is changing procedures at its annual competition that are used to detect signs that a trainer has applied painful chemicals to the horses’ legs in a banned practice known as soring.
The celebration’s board of directors on Monday announced the changes that will, for the first time, make the results of chemical tests public and result in trainers immediately losing their trophies and prize money if caught abusing horses.
In the past, chemical test results were delayed, but this year the show is expediting the results so they will be available during the event that begins Wednesday and runs through Sept. 1 in Shelbyville.
Soring is a banned practice that exaggerates the breed’s high-stepping gait in competitions.

Motorists driving past the Tullahoma Utilities Board (TUB) office on South Jackson Street will see a crew install a new electronic sign in front of the building. The utility decided to upgrade the sign it installed last spring to a higher-resolution model. Last week TUB sold the 5-by-8.5-foot sign to the City of Winchester for $19,600, a sign that according to Brian Skelton, the utility’s general manager, the utility spent $50,000 to buy the sign last March, and it has been operating in front of the office for roughly two months. Upgrading the sign will cost TUB an additional $25,000, but the TUB manager says the new total cost of $75,000 still comes in below the original $100,000 estimate. The purpose of the sign, the general manager said, is to promote TUB and the services the utility offers, particularly LightTUBe television, Internet and telephone services.

AEDC workers are getting the tools they need to inspire young minds and encourage students to consider careers in engineering.
Seventeen AEDC and Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) employees and four local teachers visited the Challenger/STEM Center at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga this month, where they took part in classroom activities that they can now share with students at local schools.
The Challenger Center is an informal science education facility that exists as a living memorial in honor of the Challenger crew and is designed to promote the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to students. There are 48 Challenger Learning Centers located around the world.
AEDC workers took part in more than a dozen classroom activities from the perspective of the student.
AEDC also received several teaching kits as part of the workshop. The kits contain the tools to teach the lessons they learned at the Challenger Center and will be available to lend out either to local teachers or to complex employees that want to take them to a school.

There’s a new license plate and the proceeds benefit the American Red Cross in Tennessee.
Red Cross supporters now have the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives and show pride in the organization by purchasing the American Red Cross Tennessee license plate.
The cost for each Red Cross license tag is $35. The proceeds will go to statewide disaster readiness, preparedness and response.
To purchase a Tennessee American Red Cross license plate, supporters may log on to american.redcross.org/tnlicenseplate and pay for their plate via credit card online.

Tennessee Commissioner of Labor & Workforce Development Karla Davis announced that Tennessee’s unemployment rate for July increased to 8.4 percent, up from the June revised rate of 8.1 percent. The national unemployment rate for July 2012 was 8.3 percent, 0.1 percentage point higher than the June rate. Economic Summary: Tennessee’s July unemployment rate is the highest since December 2011, but is still 1.0 percentage point below one year ago Total nonfarm employment increased 6,400 jobs from June to July. There were increases in local government, education/health services, and durable goods manufacturing. There were small declines this month in administrative/support/waste services. Over the year, nonfarm employment increased 32,900 jobs, with increases in durable goods manufacturing, government, and health care/social assistance.

AEDC has decided to expand its current natural gas supplier’s role and responsibility for the safe and reliable delivery of natural gas. On July 1 the Elk River Public Utility District (ERPUD) signed a new 10-year, $35 million contract with the government for natural gas, operations and maintenance of pipelines to AEDC and now an expanded operation supplying gas through an ERPUD-replaced distribution system. The government previously owned those lines and ATA, the operating contractor at AEDC, previously operated and maintained them. The new piping replaced aged piping that needed upgrades. All valves, equipment, meters and connections were upgraded. AEDC points of delivery were reduced and connections to abandoned sites were terminated. All this work ensures AEDC and ERPUD that natural gas supply and service for the next 10 years will be performed with the least amount of operational risk.

An American woman who sent her adopted Russian son back to Moscow is appealing court-ordered child support for him because she said she cannot afford to pay $1,000 a month. Torry Hansen, who currently lives in Redding, Calif., filed a notice of appeal Tuesday after a judge in Tennessee last month upheld his decision to order her to pay $150,000 in child support. Hansen was living in Shelbyville in April 2010 when she sent the young boy back to Russia with a letter that said he had violent behavior problems and she no longer wanted to be his mother. In the court records, Hansen says she is unemployed and has no income and asks the court to halt the child support while the case is appealed.

 

The Humane Society of the United States is launching a hotline and reward for people to call in tips about abuse of Tennessee walking horses and the group is advertising the hotline on a billboard outside the breed’s national show in Shelbyville this week. The Horse Protection Act prevents a form of abuse called soring, a practice of using chemicals and chains to train horses to perform high-stepping gaits for shows and competitions. The society said in a news release they are offering a reward of up to $10,000 to anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and conviction. The group said their number and the reward are posted on a billboard installed near the venue where the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration starts on Aug. 22. Anyone with information on this cruel practice should call 855-NO-SORING.

The Tennessee departments of Health and Agriculture are alerting Tennesseans about an ongoing outbreak of Salmonella linked to cantaloupes grown in southwestern Indiana. Cantaloupes grown on one farm have tested positive for the same type of Salmonella causing illness in Tennessee and several other states. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and affected states are collaborating in an ongoing investigation to identify all possible sources of contamination and prevent additional cases of illness. At this point no cantaloupes grown in Tennessee have been confirmed to be involved in this outbreak. Persons who recently purchased cantaloupes grown in southwestern Indiana are advised not to eat them and discard any remaining cantaloupe. Consumers can contact the store where they purchased cantaloupe to ask about the origin of the fruit. Based on the available information, consumers can continue to purchase and eat cantaloupes that did not originate in southwestern Indiana. Inquiring at the point of sale is advised. Many cantaloupes have the growing area identified with a sticker on the fruit. If no sticker is present, consumers should inquire about the source. TDH has identified six cases of Salmonella infection associated with this outbreak. The Tennessee patients reside in several counties; three of the patients were hospitalized.

According to a report prepared by Bill Bishop, editor of the news site DailyYonder.com, Coffee County has seen more people going to college in the last 40 years, joining the rest of the country in what has been a massive increase in the number of adults who have earned college degrees. In 1970, 10.8 percent of those over 25 years of age had college degrees in Coffee County. By 2010, 19.0 percent of adults here had completed college. The percentage of adults with college degrees in Coffee County was less than the national average of 27.9 percent in 2010.
The number of adults in the United States with college degrees has nearly tripled since 1970, when only 10.7 percent of adults had graduated from college. But the percentage of adults with degrees in counties with small cities, such as Coffee County, while increasing, has generally fallen behind the proportion of college-educated residents in urban counties. The good news for rural America is that it has caught up in every other measure of education. Only 18.6 percent of the adult population in Coffee County had failed to graduate from high school in 2010. Nationally 15 percent of adults had not completed high school; in Tennessee, the rate was 17.5 percent.