Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

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Sundquist Overlooks Wilson Trail

In recent years, the Legislature has gotten carried away with naming things after friends. But Gov. Don Sundquist may have outdone everyone. A few weeks ago the governor named the 283-mile Cumberland Trail after Deputy Gov. Justin Wilson. The trail—about half of which is blazed at this point—will eventually stretch all the way from near Chattanooga to the Cumberland Gap National Park along the Virginia-Tennessee border, likely becoming one of Tennessee's most popular hiking destinations.

Why name such a prominent thing after Wilson? According to Sundquist, the deputy governor deserves it because of his work as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, his effort in securing "significant reductions" of air pollution from TVA, his success in helping to clean up the Pigeon River, and other things.

Wilson says he was deeply honored when he heard about the naming. But he was also a bit embarrassed. A while back, Wilson had an overlook on the part of the trail near I-40 named for Sund-quist. "It's the prettiest overlook on the trail," Wilson says. "But I got a trail, and he got an overlook."

By the way, a few months ago, a 2,000-acre state forest in Cocke County was christened theMartha Sundquist State Forest.

Haslam Happenings

If the ability to assemble impressive host committees for campaign gatherings is any measure of a candidate's strength, then Bill Haslam is clearly the host-with-the-most in his bid for mayor.

Next week there's a barbecue dinner for Haslam in East Knoxville on Monday and another in South Knoxville on Thursday. The host committee for the East Knoxville dinner, to be held at the home of Vine Middle School Principal Montina Jones, includes an array of political and community leaders. County Commissioners Diane Jordan and Tank Strickland, School Board Chairman Sam Anderson and former city council members Theotis Robinson, Bill Powell, and Raleigh Wynn are all on the list. So is NAACP president Dewey Roberts, the director of the Partnership for Neighborhood Improvement, Terence Carter, and the head of the Black Business Contractors Association, Mark Deathridge.

Similarly, in South Knoxville, County Commissioners Larry Clark and Howard Pinkston, Knox County Trustee Mike Lowe, former school board chairman Jim McClain, and former city councilman Gary Underwood connote political clout on a host committee that's equally diverse. Everyone from business and neighborhood association leaders to football legend Rick Hill are among the co-hosts who "cordially invite you to meet our candidate for mayor and his wife Bill and Crissy Haslam."

Next week's events follow up on a dinner earlier this month in Fountain City and a reception for lawyers that bore the names of 135 of them on its host committee. Haslam's campaign treasurer, Wayne Ritchie, says a lot more responded to a solicitation of Knoxville Bar Association members, but there wasn't enough space the invitation to include any more names.

Haslam's opponents naturally minimize the impact of his gatherings so far in advance of the election. "I think it's way too soon to be holding events like this. You can't sustain momentum for that long, so I don't think it's made much difference," says Bud Gilbert. Along with Gilbert, the other declared candidate, Madeline Rogero, has also said she's spending most of her time this fall on developing her campaign strategy and organization building.

Tell it to the Hand

The Nucleus Knoxville bunch, that serious-minded group of young(ish) Turks who figure they're setting up to take over this town, were having their monthly meeting over lunch at Riverside tavern. Their custom is to invite a speaker for an off-the-record chat, and they'd had a bit of a problem with that when former Chamber Man Tom Ingram pronounced the Knoxville News-Sentinel "the worst newspaper in the state." Word of his remark got back to N-S publisher Bruce Hartmann, prompting a philosophical discussion of the meaning of "off the record." The guest at the most recent meeting was Ingram's successor Mike Edwards, who was assured that his remarks would be totally off record. Edwards, who is not the most polished speaker around, was talking up a storm when someone had to go the bathroom, and, in the process, discovered that Edwards' entire speech was being piped into the men's room.

Diner Downer

The sign is still up on the squat masonry building on Union Avenue just off State Street, but Joanne's is closed and Joanne Burkhart has died. The diner was a gathering place for downtown denizens for years. Joanne was in the business for nearly four decades, first helping her former husband, the late Earl Denton, run the Farragut Diner in the old hotel building of the same name and later on Church Avenue near Gay Street. Joanne sold her Union Avenue place to a former employee, Lib Bennett, several months ago and died of cancer early this month. Bennett and a partner recently sold their interest in Joanne's, a building that was once Eula's. It's always housed an eatery, and a workman has been in there lately renovating for a proposed Tex-Mex cafe, to open in January. No cheap beer or malt liquor in this regeneration, he says; just food.