Look Around
As a board member of Child and Family of Tennessee I would like to congratulate you on a great article [Nov. 1] highlighting the excellent work Kate O'Day has done in restructuring the social service agency.
However, there was one glaring hole in the analysis of the recovery the agency has made. That was the omission of the many hours given by Mike Devoto, president of the board during the year when Kate was hired. He was responsible for many vital moves made in order to preserve the work being done.
Mr. Devoto would spend as many as 30 hours a week working with the employees at C and F to ensure the work would continue. He did so with a constant eye on the needs of our local community.
Each meeting was begun with Mike reminding us as board members that we were East Tennesseans helping East Tennesseans. It is not like he had nothing else to do: He is the president of Kel-San.
I have been in meetings with him at the agency while he was offering valuable management advice while simultaneously answering his cell phone tending to major decisions concerning Kel-San. I just felt that he really deserves some recognition for the many hours of work he has put in, and I sincerely believe that the Child and Family would not be here today if he had not exerted the leadership he did.
I must say one other comment about the article on Child and Family. While they are to be congratulated for all the hard work they have done to restructure, there are so many social service agencies that have continually received good state monitoring reports, remained fiscally responsible with donor and state dollars, kept well within their means, and still served a significant number of the most needy in our area.
I would love to see the media highlight all of these quality services rather than sensationalizing difficulties in the social service community.
Fr. Ragan Schriver
Executive Director
Associated Catholic Charities of East Tennessee
Knoxville
A Real-Worlder
This is an open letter to Superintendent of Schools Charles Lindsey.
I was born in 1945 and have a 36-year-old son. We both learned our "Readin', Ritin' and Rithmitic" in grammar school. We both got through high school without any computers.
About two years ago, Mary Lou Horner, county commissioner, made that statement and was booed by you and your colleagues. My mother and I said "Amen!" to Mary Lou.
It would have been a sad day in the '50s and '70s, if every student—rich, poor, almost middle class—had to have a computer to learn. And, that's the problem. They are not learning; they're only learning to cheat. How do I know this? I was a tutoring volunteer for a second grade class two years ago and was astounded by 7-year-olds wanting to take tests on a computer. They could not—repeat, could not—take the test by themselves and get it right. No wonder the ACTs are down in this state for college entry.
My son did graduate from college, and after an early retirement from South Central Bell, I attended two different schools to keep my brain active. (Ha ha, you say.) Anyhow, I was a second honor student at age 39 at a broadcasting school, and the same in college English and psychology at Cooper Institute, Knoxville Business College, for two years.
I like to read, write, and do my math, without a calculator. In broadcasting school, I learned how to figure ohms and watts with a calculator, but I couldn't do it today.
I don't own a computer, don't want one, and wouldn't use it if I did own one. I like to live in the real world, with my three R's.
Brenda Edmundson
Knoxville
Open a War Debate
Thanks for your Ear to the Ground item [Oct. 18] about the News-Sentinel's blackout over the peace movement. I noticed it too, and wrote to them to complain, but of course they didn't print my letter.
I'm not at all sure I agree with the war's critics, but my confidence in its promoters, never very high, continues to sink. We need an open debate.
Joe Finucane
Knoxville
...According to Needs
Guess we all know which section of the Metro Pulse catches Commissioner [Mike] Arms' eye [Nov. 1 Incoming]. If he ever looked beyond the last few pages he would see there are plenty of other advertisers besides the ones to whom he referred.
Personally I love your little paper and support a lot of your advertisers. And I don't even have a penis in need of enlargement.
Mary Wroughton
Knoxville
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