Rule, Alcoa!

Sources tell us that the city of Alcoa is asking owners of a large tract of land along Topside Road near Pellissippi Parkway and the river to secede from their citizenship in Louisville—and add their property to Alcoa's expansive fiefdom. The lure is apparently the opportunity to sell their land for the development of a huge Alcoa-backed marina-restaurant-and-baseball-stadium complex which might be considered as a home for the disgruntled Knoxville Smokies. Nothing's signed yet, and the project's threat to a neighboring historic structure may prove to be a stumbling block. A number of Louisvillians are understandably unhappy about the attempted anschluss and the secrecy with which it's being carried out. Alcoa's city manager, Bill Hammond, is said to have levied an official media quietus on the project—so keep this under your hat.

Democracy Season

This summer's political season is making for the standard fireworks. Over the weekend, Democrat Wayne Ritchie, a retiring state legislator, launched a bottle rocket Ray Hill's way. Hill is running the county's Republican party ticket and has taken a paid leave of absence made up of vacation and leave days accumulated on his job as deputy to Trustee Mike Lowe. Ritchie, in a letter that found its way into the News-Sentinel's hands shortly after its composition, asked the state's comptroller to ferret out illegal campaign practices in the trustee's office. A Saturday story by N-S reporter Michael Silence neglected to mention that Ritchie unseated Hill from a state House seat in 1992 and that there is an ugly personal and political relationship between them dating back to that time.

Ritchie said Republicans had asked for the investigation, which is likely, since Lillian Bean pal Bill Stokes (a former GOP chairman and present Friend of Don (Sundquist, that is)) has been advocating a tit-for-tat probe of Hill and everybody else since lame-duck court clerk Bean started being investigated by the county law director's office for awarding "Lillian Bean Days" for politicking.

The same day the Ritchie story broke, GOPers were pig-biting mad over Tommy Schumpert's first TV ad because it lingered lovingly over a photo of Democrat Schumpert and Republican icon, U.S. Rep. Jimmy Duncan. They forced Schumpert's campaign to strip out the Duncan visage, which had accompanied a voice-over about working together.

Meanwhile, Trustee Lowe evidently did a slow burn over the weekend and availed himself of the opportunity Monday morning to call Ritchie on Mike Hammond's WNOX Wake Up Call (Hammond has labeled the investigation of Bean's practices an "outrage") and commence a blistering 20-minute attack of his own. And we've got two glorious weeks to go.

Hoops, Never Out of Season

First, there's the August issue of Esquire with that sappy "Women We Love" spread, replete with the usual cheesy stuff. But tucked into the middle of the photo essay, right next to some chick in a black lace brassiere, is Chamique Holdsclaw, elegant in a black Tennessee practice jersey. Included is a quote from His Airness Michael Jordan, crowning 'Mique "the most exciting women's basketball player ever."

Then, there's Nancy Young, who says, "I guess I just belong at the zoo," of her decision to turn down an offer to head marketing for the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Young, who is director of marketing at the Knoxville Zoo, says the offer was "tempting" but that the zoo is a happening place, and her job there dovetails nicely with her other job of raising two small children, Sam and Olivia. Meanwhile Sports Corp. head Gloria Ray says the Hall of Fame job will be a two-headed thing, and that she is wooing Nan Elrod of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association to head the basketball side.

Then, there's Cheryl Ford, 17-year-old daughter of Mailman Karl Malone (Malone settled an out-of-court paternity suit brought by Ford's mother in behalf of Cheryl and her twin brother, Daryl, who were born in Louisiana the year after Malone graduated from high school). Cheryl Ford is a jam-up basketball player who is on Tennessee's short list for 1999.

Say It Ain't So

Texas gossip columnists are abuzz about Cormac McCarthy, the prize-winning novelist from Knoxville who moved to El Paso about 20 years ago. McCarthy, who is notoriously press-shy, hasn't given an interview or lecture or book-signing in years. But with his latest novel, Cities of the Plain, on the bestseller lists and a major motion picture based on his 1992 novel, All the Pretty Horses, in the works, McCarthy is finding his reticence only adds to popular interest in his personal life. He is, as a four-page profile in the July issue of Texas Monthly asserts, "a ghost celebrity, an urban legend." Anyway, the wags are saying McCarthy, who turned 65 this week, has married a 33-year-old student of literature named Jennifer Winkley; they also claim she's pregnant. But to hard-core McCarthyites who live for the author's blisteringly honest portrayals of working-class loners living on the edge, the most scandalous gossip is that McCarthy and his bride are moving from his legendary hole-in-the-wall rock house on Coffin Avenue to a more conventional chateau in an upscale El Paso suburb called Coronado Country Club. Maybe Cornelius Suttree would have returned to the suburbs, too, if he'd just found the right girl.