Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Mayor Mayfield

There was a new mayor in Music City, at least for one day last week.

Din (pronounced Dean) and Niya Mayfield are winding up the school year in Nashville, where they moved with their mother Melissa after the death of their father, Knoxville City Councilman Danny Mayfield, last March. Few who attended the funeral will forget the little boy in his daddy's hat who tried to comfort the crowd at the end of the service. When Din's 5th-grade class in Nashville got involved in a pilot program giving kids the opportunity to experience a career for a day, Din opted for a political career path. He interviewed for the job with teachers and a group of parents, explaining why he wanted the office, and what qualifications he had. The kids learned nuts-and-bolts campaign essentials like how to write checks and manage their time. By election day, there were two candidates left standing, and Melissa Mayfield says she is proud of the way Din conducted his campaign. "The other little boy took the dirty campaigning route, and accused Din of all kinds of things. It was hilarious. When it got to be Din's turn to speak, he just said that he was the best person for the job because he cares about his classmates and wants nothing more than what's best for the city. He didn't refer to what the other little boy was saying, at all, and he got the votes." As mayor, Din was paid $6.50 an hour and worked with City Council on various civic issues.

The Mayfields will be moving to Danny's home state of New Jersey this summer, but Din says Knoxville hasn't seen the last of him. "He said he wanted to come back to Knoxville one day and become mayor and finish what his daddy started," Melissa says. "We told him we'd keep the house on Clark Street so he'd always have it to come home to."

Spreading the Word

A pair of Knoxville artists, Dean Fisher and Jo Robinson, have sold their renovated Victorian house on Weaver Street at the foot of Sharp's Ridge (featured late last year in Metro Pulse's Urban Renewal column), and moved to the seaside town of Milford, Conn., where they immediately embroiled themselves in a historic preservation controversy. "Our approach to house-hunting was to scour towns for old houses we could restore," Fisher says. A Realtor took them to see a huge and beautiful Victorian farmhouse that was beyond the couple's means, but one of the old barns there had possibilities. They lost hope when they were informed that the property was in the hands of a developer whose plans didn't include the historic structures, which were slated to come down in a matter of weeks. Their only alternative was to buy the barns and the two acres on which they sat for an asking price of a cool million. Jo got on the Internet as soon as they returned to the hotel and located the president of the local historic preservation society, who responded immediately, saying that one of the new mayor's campaign promises was to save the structures, but the town didn't really have the financial means. Cutting to the chase, the Fisher-Robinsons showed the mayor and the historic preservationists what they'd done with their home in North Knoxville, and a deal was forged to turn the entire property into a cultural center. After the mandatory press conference, the Fisher-Robinsons got the barn they wanted for a home studio, and have agreed to collaborate in the cultural center. The transaction was written up in the New York Times, and last week the couple, who lived here for eight years, teaching at UT and showing at Bennett Galleries, packed up the last of their belongings. "We'll be back," says Fisher. "It was a hard decision to leave."

Ferrin Rides Again

Former president of the Knoxville Museum of Art Richard Ferrin has been named the president of Salem International University in Salem, W. VA. The new post will mean a return to the academic world from whence Ferrin came, having served as president of Maryville College prior to assuming the KMA helm in 1993.

Salem International is a private school with about 600 students, a quarter of them from outside the U.S. One of its distinctive attributes is an Equine Studies program, which attracts horse-loving students both nationally and globally. At the same time, Ferrin's wife Wendy is eagerly awaiting the release later this month of her third book, A Girl Who Didn't Mind. It's a bilingual book in both English and Gaelic about an unconventional girl's struggles coping with a conventional school. Any resemblance to Wendy Ferrin's talented daughter, Chaney Rankin (who spent a summer as an intern at Metro Pulse) is more than coincidental. The Ferrins intend to keep their house in Knoxville and just might return here when Ferrin, who is 60, eventually retires.

Hanging Tough

Animal Foundation of East Tennessee founder Brenda Berke wants it known that Knoxville still has a low-cost spay-and-neutering option—for the moment. Unbeknownst to many Knoxvillians, the foundation had been unable to solicit contributions for eight months. The foundation, a charitable organization that provides low-cost veterinary services and operates a no-kill shelter for adoptable animals, depends on donations to operate. From June 2001 through January of this year, while the state investigated a complaint of financial mismanagement, the foundation was not allowed to ask potential donors for money, threatening its continued viability. The state released results of its investigation in April, and though it did find "weaknesses in the organization's internal operations," it found "no evidence of intentional misappropriation of funds," and granted the foundation leave to begin fundraising activities again. Time will tell whether this action comes in time to save the foundation.

More Things Not Happening on Market Square

If you happen to be one of the usual one or two thousand imaginary persons that only seem to throng Market Square on Thursday evenings, take a gander at the square's east side. There, you will imagine you see work being done on several buildings by Earth to Old City proprietors Scott and Bernadette West. Look closely at one of the buildings, and you could swear you see a sign in the window announcing that the Preservation Pub will eventually be opening in it. Really, you should get your eyes checked. After that, you could glance even further down the square and hallucinate a window display full of exotic bric-a-brac, complete with its own announcement of the soon-to-open Ten Thousand Villages Market, "a non-profit alternative trading organization that provides vital, fair income to Third World people by selling their crafts and telling their stories in North America." We're telling you, you're just seeing things. So just move along folks, there's nothing to see here. Pay no attention to the entrepreneurs behind the curtain...