News - Friday, October 28, 2016

By David Laprad

Chattanooga has some wicked cool stores that cater to particular tastes and needs. Chalk it up to entrepreneurial spirit or a healthy local economy – or both – but downtown alone is packed with unique shops that seem to have sprung wholly formed out of fertile creative minds. One especially interesting new retailer is Refinery 423 Mercantile, which offers select goods for men.

By David Laprad

Over 50 students from 12 area schools have been trained and added to the Hamilton County Youth Court. Juvenile Court Judge Robert Philyaw administered the oath during a brief ceremony Tuesday, Oct. 18.

After the ceremony, Judge Philyaw thanked local school administrators and the attorneys at Miller & Martin and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBS) for their support. “While youth courts contribute to a decrease in recidivism by providing a peer-operated disposition mechanism that allows young people to take responsibility, be held accountable, and make amends for violating the law, its true value and long-lasting effect lies with the students who are exposed to the law, the judicial process, and professionals like these during a meaningful extracurricular activity,” he said.

MTSU student Emily Webb cobbled together enough money to pay for her first year and a half of expenses.

But in the last year, she had to borrow $5,000 to keep alive her dream of earning a degree from Middle Tennessee State University, a dream made more difficult by ever-increasing tuition and living costs.

The Chattanooga Bar Association Monday night celebrated Mediation Awareness Week at PLACE. Pictured from left to right are attorney Joe Manuel, CBA Executive Director Lynda Hood, attorney Roger Dickson, attorney Pat Vital, and Hamilton County Circuit Court Judge Neil Thomas. Excluding Hood, all are legal professionals serving as mediators and advocates in this jurisdiction.

The October session of Leadership Chattanooga addressed opportunities for meaningful leadership in the community, including within local government. Julie Baumgardner, president and CEO of First Things First, started by presenting a largely overlooked story from 9/11: after the attacks on the World Trade Center, as bridges, tunnels, and train tracks were closed, the only way off of Manhattan was by boat. This was the largest maritime evacuation in history. Who was responsible for such a herculean effort? The captains and crew of hundreds of tug boats, fishing charters, sight-seeing tours, and ferries. None of them had ever planned or trained for such an event, but they still found the courage to lead over half a million people to safety in less than nine hours.

Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel is broadening its intellectual property practice with the addition of Paul Forsyth. Forsyth, a licensed patent attorney with nearly a decade of experience, will counsel clients on intellectual property matters, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, licensing, and trade secrets.

The closer we get to Halloween, the more often I’m asked about haunted houses and other topics that might be part of a property’s colorful history. Whether the site of alleged ghost hauntings, notorious affairs, a felony, or death (natural, murder, or suicide), each property’s marketing opportunities are varied and unique.

I’ve become cynical about trailers for scary movies. Anyone with a modicum of editing skill can slap together a good preview out of 90 minutes of footage, no matter how bland the film is. So when the trailer for “Ouija: Origin of Evil” made me perk up, I remembered how many times I’d felt like Charlie Brown, extending my bag again and again in the hope of something good being dropped in, only to see I’d been given another rock, and tempered my expectations. Well, movie fans, open your bag in good faith this Halloween because “Ouija: Origin of Evil” is a treat.

Tennessee begins the easy part of its football schedule Saturday night at 7:15 (ESPN2) against South Carolina in Columbia.

Just don’t tell UT coach Butch Jones this is the easy part of the schedule.

No. 18-ranked Tennessee (5-2, 2-2 SEC) opened as a 13.5-point favorite against South Carolina (3-4, 1-4) and will be favored the rest of the season against Tennessee Tech (3-5), Kentucky (4-3, 3-2), Missouri 2-5, 0-3) and Vanderbilt (4-4, 1-3).

The Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council has awarded Mary Sanders, a 13-year veteran of the real estate industry, the Accredited Buyers Representation Designation. Sanders is a graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the Realtors Institute. She is with Real Estate Partners, and is licensed in both Tennessee and Georgia. Sanders a member of the National, Tennessee, and Chattanooga Association of Realtors.

Smart home owners know it’s important to take precautions to protect their valuable long-term investment – and, more importantly, their loved ones that live in it.

October is Crime Prevention Month, and the National Crime Prevention Council (ncpc.org) offers homeowners these tips to keep your house and your family safe from crime.

What is schematic design, and how do architects use it during the process of developing a new home? After the owner has decided upon the list of rooms and functions within a home, the designer will begin the schematic design phase by sketching, with the goal of giving some organization to the overall context. These drawings are usually simple, rough in character, and fluid in nature. The object is to define how the rooms respond to and interact with the whole of the project, which includes the site as well as the interior spaces.

Halloween is almost here. When you’re passing out candy, you’ll see many “scary” costumes that will probably just make you smile. But in real life, you can easily find some things that truly are frightening – such as bad investment moves.

The Tennessee Historical Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office last week announced that grant applications for the Historic Preservation Fund will be accepted beginning Nov. 1. Total awarded funding is expected to reach $250,000. The grants will be made from a portion of Tennessee’s share of the Federal Historic Preservation Fund.

ArtsBuild is accepting nominations for the 2017 Ruth Holmberg Arts Leadership Award. This annual award recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the arts in Chattanooga and who is actively engaged in the cultural life of our community. The award honors an individual who, through his or her exemplary efforts, has significantly contributed to building a stronger community through the arts.

Free rides to the polls

Officials with GoVoteCHA have partnered with a team of pastors and community leaders to offer free rides to the polls to any voter residing in Hamilton County. This transportation service will be provided during early voting, which will continue through Thursday, Nov. 3, and on Election Day (Tuesday, Nov. 8). There are four early voting sites in Hamilton County:

Looking back, I’m struck by the irony: This column’s shutting down at year’s end. She’s been around, in one form or another, for 32 years. Read that: I’ve been on deadline, like, forever.

And only recently am I seeing strategies that I ought to have employed, if not from the start, then from 2005, when the I Swear Crossword began to run alongside it.

A familiar problem is popping up again across the Volunteer State. Many businesses are reporting receiving a solicitation letter from an entity calling itself the Tennessee Council for Corporations, a private, out of state company that offers – for a fee – to file business documents on an entity’s behalf with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Division of Business Services.