Knoxify

In case you’re won­der­ing who’s a dud and who isn’t, give our County Com­mis­sion inter­views a read.

In the val­ley of orange that we live in, there is much empha­sis on the time-honored tra­di­tion of foot­ball, bas­ket­ball, and other pop­u­lar sports.

In the midst of the orange blood that we all swim and live in, there is a large move­ment of young new sports that are emerg­ing on a gigan­tic plat­form that most of us (even I) ever thought possible.

Wake­board­ing in Knoxville is one of the fastest grow­ing sports to emerge in recent years. This barely 17-year-old sport has begun to grow at rapid rates here locally. With much of the action sports that sur­round us today, there is also a cul­ture that goes with it. Just as the pride of Ten­nessee Vols bleed orange to show faith, many of these wake­board­ers do the same through their daily lifestyles.
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Update: Eliz­a­beth Der­wort sub­mit­ted a more refined ver­sion of Mr. McMillan’s answers to us today. She stated: “For some rea­son I attached the wrong one and sent you the rough draft with spelling errors. I have attached the cor­rected doc­u­ment in hopes that you would be able to repost it. This is our error and not Mr. McMil­lans. We typed and sent the doc­u­ment for him, and failed to send the right one. I would hate for our error to neg­a­tively effect Mr. McMil­lan in any way. Could you please reply back or give me a call at the num­ber listed below to let me know if this is pos­si­ble?” The changes are reflected below.

Our 32nd inter­view has been con­ducted with Mike McMil­lan seek­ing your vote for Knox County Clerk.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Mike McMil­lan and I live in East Knox County on land set­tled by my ances­tors before Ten­nessee became a state. I have a degree in polit­i­cal sci­ence and a Mas­ters in Edu­ca­tion from The Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee Knoxville. I have taught at Gibbs High School for more than 30 years. I am a for­mer County Com­mis­sioner deal­ing with more than a decade of Knox County bud­gets. I have seen the leg­isla­tive side of local gov­ern­ment and decided that I would like to be a part of the admin­is­tra­tive side. Given the present cir­cum­stances in Knox County, the can­di­dates for the office and my qual­i­fi­ca­tions, it became even more appar­ent that cit­i­zens needed some­one who had a record of trust. I also believe I am the best per­son to improve employee morale while offer­ing the best ser­vices pos­si­ble. I will require proof of the wheel tax exemp­tion which is not being done at present. I am not a part of any pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion or any present polit­i­cal faction.

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U.S. Navy vet­eran Chuck Williams answers our Knox County Com­mis­sion ques­tions. Williams is run­ning for Knox County Com­mis­sioner 2B.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

I am Chuck Williams Knox County Com­mis­sioner can­di­date for Dis­trict 2B. I am hap­pily mar­ried with a daugh­ter Shaunni and son Chris and two beau­ti­ful grand­kids. I am an Ele­men­tary Edu­ca­tion major at the Mag­no­lia Avenue Cam­pus of Pel­lis­sippi State Tech­ni­cal Com­mu­nity Col­lege. I am also a sub­sti­tute teacher for the Knox County Board of Edu­ca­tion (I am mainly at Ful­ton High School). I am a very proud eight year vet­eran of the U.S. Navy. I am seek­ing the office of Knox County Com­mis­sioner because I feel that Dis­trict 2 is the for­got­ten dis­trict. Our roads are in sham­bles, when it rains a lot of our roads are flooded due to the poor sewage sys­tems in our area.
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A Hal­lerin Hill radio show reg­u­lar by the name of Fos­ter D. Arnett, Jr. is up for Knox County Clerk.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Fos­ter D. Arnett, Jr. and I am a life-long res­i­dent of Knoxville/Knox County. I am a grad­u­ate of Bear­den High School and the Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee. I have been mar­ried to my wife Dot­tie for 24 years. Dot­tie was hired by the Knoxville Board of Edu­ca­tion in 1983. She cur­rently is a kinder­garten teacher at Sequoyah Ele­men­tary school. I divulged the day I announced Dot­tie teaches in the Knox County School sys­tem. There is not a con­flict of inter­est here because the Knox County Clerk’s Office has no con­trol over the Board of Edu­ca­tion, as it should be and Dot­tie will retire in three years. We were not able to have chil­dren so we have a Golden Retriever named Dugan and a res­cued dog named Lucy. Read the rest of this entry »

Our third School Board inter­vie­wee is Lau­rie Alford.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Lau­rie Alford and I am here to give the peo­ple in the 5th School Dis­trict a Bet­ter Choice for their school board rep­re­sen­ta­tive. I have lived in Knoxville most of my life, I attended Bear­den Ele­men­tary, Bear­den Jr. High, and grad­u­ated from Bear­den Sr. High school. My hus­band Mike and I have been mar­ried for 16 years and we have one GREAT son, Patrick who attends Rocky Hill Ele­men­tary. We live in the neigh­bor­hood that I grew up in and we are very active in it, my son’s school, his activ­i­ties, and our local gov­ern­ment. I am per­son­able and very hon­est and open.
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Up until now only one school board hope­ful had stopped by. Karen Car­son gladly answered our ques­tions as she runs for Knox County School Board.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

I am a mom, nurse, and vol­un­teer. My hus­band Joe and I have lived in Knoxville since 1990. We have three chil­dren, TJ, 19, a sopho­more at Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee, Doug 17, a junior at West High School, and Rebeka, 13, a seventh-grader at Far­ragut Mid­dle School. I am a reg­is­tered nurse who has spe­cial­ized in pedi­atric health care. I I have worked at East Ten­nessee Children’s Hos­pi­tal since 1990, my pedi­atric care expe­ri­ence keeps me aware of the health and edu­ca­tion needs of chil­dren and their fam­i­lies. I began vol­un­teer­ing with PTA when TJ entered school. I have held numer­ous lead­er­ship posi­tions at the school, County, and state level of the PTA. I cur­rently serve on the board of direc­tors of the Teacher Sup­ply Depot, The Great Schools Part­ner­ship, and his East region direc­tor of the Ten­nessee School Boards Association’s Fed­eral Rela­tions Net­work. Read the rest of this entry »

Dis­trict 4 has a good pool of can­di­dates to choose from includ­ing Logan Brum­mitt. He will be run­ning for Knox County Com­mis­sioner Seat 4B.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Logan Brum­mitt and I am 29 years old. I am an Insur­ance Agent here in town work­ing for Asso­ci­ated Insurors in Franklin Square. I was born, raised and have spent the major­ity of my life in Knox County. I grad­u­ated from Far­ragut High School in 1996. In col­lege, I went to Cleve­land State Com­mu­nity Col­lege for 2 years on an aca­d­e­mic schol­ar­ship, grad­u­at­ing with my Asso­ciates Degree while play­ing base­ball there too. After CSCC, I trans­ferred to The Uni­ver­sity of Ten­nessee to play base­ball. I played 2 years at UT and fin­ished by grad­u­at­ing in Decem­ber of 2000 with a B.S. in Finance. I am now a mem­ber of the UT Letterman’s club and I am on the board for the Young Pro­fes­sional Lead­er­ship Com­mit­tee. The YPLC helps bring young pro­fes­sion­als in Knoxville together while rais­ing money for Cys­tic Fibro­sis. I pas­sion­ately believe that local gov­ern­ment is the purest of form of pol­i­tics in which it does not mat­ter what party affil­i­a­tion you have. What mat­ters is the com­mon goal to make Knox County the best it can pos­si­bly be.

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Prop­erty taxes just got eas­ier with Fred Sisk. He is run­ning for Knox County Trustee.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Fred Sisk and I am run­ning to be the Knox County Trustee. I am a native of Pow­ell and grad­u­ated from Ole Miss in 1978 with a Bach­e­lors of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion. After grad­u­a­tion I worked in my fam­ily busi­ness’ until I began work for the Trustee’s Office in 1989 under then Trustee Robert L Broome. Dur­ing my 18 years in the Trustee’s Office I have worked from a account­ing clerk posi­tion up to the Deputy Trustee’s posi­tion. Dur­ing that time I stud­ied and learned every­thing as much as I could about the Trustee’s Office. I’ve taken edu­ca­tional classes and train­ing sem­i­nars and became a mem­ber of the TGFOA Ten­nessee Gov­ern­ment Finance Offi­cers Asso­ci­a­tion which is an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to the train­ing and advance­ment of local and state gov­ern­ment finance offi­cials. Read the rest of this entry »

Ed Shouse con­tin­ues our County Com­mis­sion inter­view series. He is run­ning for Knox County Com­mis­sioner 4B.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

I am 57 years old; I came to Knoxville (from Birm­ing­ham) in 1970 to attend UT, got a job, worked my way through school and never left. I worked over 18 years in the bank­ing indus­try and the last 16 years in the rail­road busi­ness. I recently retired as a Vice-President from Gulf & Ohio Rail­ways, a local com­pany that runs the Knoxville & Hol­ston River Rail­road, a 20 mile short­line rail­road here in Knoxville that deliv­ers over 6,000 car­loads a year. My pub­lic ser­vice includes being a mem­ber of the Knoxville City Coun­cil, where I chaired the Audit Com­mit­tee for 6 years and served on the City Invest­ment Com­mit­tee (which invests the City’s sur­plus funds). Like most Knoxvil­lians, I am tired of the self deal­ing actions of our County Com­mis­sion. I feel that there should be a strong ethics pol­icy that restricts nepo­tism and for­bids Knox County employ­ees from being mem­bers of the County Com­mis­sion. I have lived in the 4th dis­trict for over 30 years. I am mar­ried and my wife and I have a 10 year old son who attends Bear­den Ele­men­tary. Thanks for your inter­est in our com­mu­nity and in bet­ter government.

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