Comment on this story Wednesday, July 28 • County wheel tax opponents submit to the local election commission close to 25,000 signatures calling for a wheel tax referendum, thereby jeopardizing County Mayor Mike Ragsdale’s latest budget. Ragsdale takes the news surprisingly well, noting that he has even hired a team of special experts from Dade County, Fla., to count and verify the signatures. Thursday, July 29 • In a teleconference with reporters at SEC Media Days, Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer delivers a powerful oration explaining why he refused to attend the annual gathering in Birmingham, Ala. (to avoid subpoena in a lawsuit connected to University of Alabama recruiting violations). Observers say Fulmer’s fiery discourse constituted a much more impressive performance than the last time the UT football program phoned one in—that being versus Clemson in the ‘03 season’s Peach Bowl. Friday, July 30 • According to reports, the wife of a local judge has an unpleasant verbal exchange with a local police officer after she allows her pet chow to poop on a downtown sidewalk without removing the offending residuals. The officer tells her to clean up the mess; she refuses and receives a citation. The only winner in the situation is the dog, which gives everyone shit, and gets away with it. Saturday, July 31 • The granite “Ten Commandments” marker recently banished from an Alabama judicial building is displayed on a flatbed truck in Dayton as part of a multi-city tour. Tour organizers say the marker serves as a monument to God, the American way, and people who can’t tell right from wrong unless the instructions are hammered into a @#$% rock. Sunday, Aug. 1 • The News Sentinel reports that Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam is trying to adopt a “more conscientious” annexation policy. Translation: Unlike predecessor Victor Ashe, Haslam won’t try to annex everything that doesn’t move. Tuesday, Aug. 3 • The News Sentinel reports that Department of Energy officials at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons facility hope to ease disposal restrictions so that they can discard items such as rags and used mop heads without first scouring them for radioactive particles. The new policy would save millions of dollars, while simultaneously imparting a fetching green-tinted glow to drab and unsightly local landfills. Knoxville Found What is this? Every week in “Knoxville Found,” we’ll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you’re the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you’ll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn’t cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send ’em to “Knoxville Found” c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902. Last Week’s Photo: This is a picture of the sign that hangs above the ‘Uniquely Knoxville’ merchandise section of One Vision Plaza, Knoxville’s new visitors’ center. The sign originally hung in... Proffitt’s West Town Mall before the grand opening of One Vision Plaza,” says Erin Burns, public relations manager for the Knoxville Tourism & Sports Corporation. We’re pleased to offer you an advance copy of the book Wild Animus by Rich Shapero in exchange for your sharp eye. Also, it should be noted that mere moments after Metro Pulse came off the press a couple of weeks ago, downtown architect Buzz Goss correctly identified the logo for Volunteer’s Landing that ran in that issue. Along with this belated recognition, Buzz will receive two backstage passes for MetroFest 2004, a day-long festival celebrating Knoxville music, past and present, to be held September 11 on Market Square.

Marathon Wait
Local runners see more than 30 years elapse between 26-mile races

It’s been a long time coming, but the route has been chosen and it’s official: Knoxville will host a marathon. Area running enthusiasts, including the Knoxville Track Club and the Knoxville Marathon Organization—along with city leaders and a group of dedicated volunteers—are working to finalize the details that will bring the first marathon to the city in more than 30 years.

“I think that people have always wanted a Knoxville marathon,” says course director Glenn Richters. “It’s always been someone’s dream.”

The planned 26.2-mile route will meander through downtown and its surrounding neighborhoods, which organizers hope will bring spectators to the streets in support of the runners.

“Our primary interest was to show off Knoxville,” Richters says. “We wanted to get into most of the different parts of town, showing off the different communities and the river.”

The route is evenly distributed throughout the city to showcase neighborhoods and is scheduled to start on Clinch Street Bridge before moving west through Sequoyah Hills on Cherokee Boulevard. The route will then change direction toward downtown along the Third Creek Greenway and, from there, go through Fort Sanders and the Fourth and Gill area to the north. The race will continue into Park Ridge and Caswell Park, the Old City and then across the river to the Island Home community. Finally, participants will head back through downtown and Fort Sanders before crossing the finish line inside Neyland Stadium—where every participant will be shown on the jumbotron upon finishing.

The race is scheduled for Sunday, March 20, 2005 and will also feature a kids’ run with a half-marathon and 5k and for those with no desire to attempt the full 26.2 miles. The half-marathon will follow the regular marathon course through Sequoyah Hills, then return to finish at Neyland Stadium, while the full marathon will move north to the Fourth and Gill community. The 5k and kids’ run will have separate routes and only share only the start and finish with the full race.

In addition, a runner’s expo is planned for Saturday, March 19, at the Knoxville Convention Center. The event is scheduled to include tips for runners, keynote speakers, live music and a pasta dinner.

Registration for the race is $45 before January 2005, but participants can register until March 5 with a small late fee. A limit of 1,000 participants is in place for the full marathon and 2,000 for the half marathon. Cash prizes will be awarded to the top five overall men and women finishers. The top three full marathon finishers in each age group and the top five overall half marathon participants will receive trophies. Everyone who completes the full marathon will receive a shirt and a medal commemorating the run. All Kids’ Run-ners receive a certificate and a ribbon.

Volunteers are needed to work the aid stations set up every mile and a half to provide water for the runners. Despite all the work left to do, organizers say the most important thing is that people come out and show their support.

“Marathons can be big events,” Richters says. “There is lots of room for celebration and activity along the way and it also helps pull the runners through.”

—Nick Corrigan

Greekfest Goes ‘Super’
This year, it’s an event for the World’s Fair Park

For 24 years, the event known as Greekfest has been held at the site of its inception, St. George Greek Orthodox Church on Kingston Pike. Practically every square inch of the property was overtaken annually with the festival’s trappings: tents, tables and a stage area crowded into the parking lot while more tables and chairs packed the church’s classroom area.

Only the chapel remained serene and true to its original purpose, though it wasn’t unpopulated; a visit to Greekfest isn’t complete without a glimpse of the chapel’s stunning ceiling mosaic and an earful of holy music.

Although those cramped quarters haven’t prevented as many as 20,000 people from attending the three-day Greekfest in the past, getting there has been something of a challenge. As the event has grown in popularity, organizers developed relationships with nearby churches, the Western Plaza shopping center and even the Bi-Lo in Bearden for use of their parking lots; in recent years, a bus shuttled festivalgoers from the grocery lot up to St. George at 15-minute intervals.

To hear a live band perform classic Greek music; to see young dancers kick their legs high in traditional dances; to buy an entire box of baklava and dare yourself to save some for later—Greekfest has always been worth the undertaking.

This year, however, Greekfest is lifting Mediterranean merriment to the next level.

Festival chairman Jim Klonaris can hardly contain his excitement over Greekfest’s move to the World’s Fair Park. Besides loving the renovated park’s two-acre Festival Lawn—which he calls “absolutely stupendous”—he says Greekfest has outgrown its parking lot status. “We want to make the event more inclusive to all of Knoxville,” he says. “We want to try to make it as large as Boomsday.” That would make it a “superfestival,” he says. It will be among the first major specialty festivals to take advantage of the north side of the park.

If any local festival has the tradition and potential to become a superfestival, it’s Greekfest. Where most annual events attempt to acclimatize people to attend on the same weekend or at least the same season every year, Greekfest has moved around the calendar with abandon. It’s been held as early as May or as late as October (which explains the occasional, “Didn’t Greekfest just happen?” feeling). And it’s survived—thrived even—as if Greekfest’s calendar-hopping has taught people to expect it to occur whenever.

This year the festival is the last weekend of August, starting with a new event on Aug. 26: a reservation-only premiere night with heavy hors d’oeuvres and wine and a private concert by international Mediterranean music performer Pavlo. Tickets are $50, and 350 of the 500 seats have already been sold.

This year’s biggest change is the addition of a Saturday morning 5K run with accompanying one-mile walk, both beginning and ending at the fair site. The run ties in with the summer Olympics being held in Athens and will include a torch-passing ceremony with children from Special Olympics.

Not much will change about the rest of the festival—much music, dancing and plenty of food.

“We’ve been baking pastries for weeks,” Klonaris says. The pastry sale will begin on Thursday as usual, with orders taken over the phone for pick-up or items available for purchase individually. There should be about 40-to-50,000 pastries available during the festival. That’s good news. Because the fair site can handle up to 60,000 people, and Klonaris wants that many to attend. He has faith people will find out about the change of date and venue; the news is being cast broadly via print, television and radio media, plus a big sign hangs from the church.

One thing he definitely won’t have to worry about this year is parking. “There are 1,400 free parking spaces on and around the fair site,” he states. “That should be more than enough to satisfy people.” Let’s hope that goes for the baklava as well.

—Paige M. Travis

August 5, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 32 © 2004 Metro Pulse