Comment on this story Wednesday, Aug. 4 • Knox County school board members vote to let students take cell phones to school, as long as they don’t use them. Students hope they can use the same line of thinking to stock school cafeterias with beer taps and cigarette machines. Thursday, Aug. 5 • Based on Environmental Protection Agency studies, several environmental groups claim that most of the fish tested in Tennessee lakes exceeded recommended mercury levels. The EPA claims it’s all a misunderstanding; it was the fishes’ mettle they were testing, and the little fellows passed with flying colors. Friday, Aug. 6 • Responding to reports that some of their executives have been enjoying lavish dinners and pricey booze on the company’s dime, Tennessee Valley Authority reportedly orders managers to use “sound business judgement” in the future. Let’s see; these guys have been eating steak and lobster, swilling Dewar’s, and inhaling $45 Cubans, all at somebody else’s expense. Their judgement seems pretty good to us. Saturday, Aug. 7 • The Great Knoxville Rubber Duck Race, a non-profit fundraiser on the Tennessee River, returns after a seven-year absence, legalized by the same new state law that brought us the lottery in 2003. We don’t favor gambling. But if people are gonna do it, we certainly prefer they do it in such a way that we aren’t held up 30 minutes trying to buy a Slurpee at the convenience mart. Sunday, Aug. 8 • The News Sentinel reports that Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale has decided that a new West Knox high school might be a great idea, after all—provided voters uphold his recent $30 wheel tax increase in an upcoming referendum. That churning, grinding noise you hear is the sound of Ragsdale’s own wheels, spinning in reverse. Monday, Aug. 9 • Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander has reportedly repaid himself most of the $1 million he loaned to his own campaign for the 2002 election bid. That’s all well and good; but did he remember to say “Thank you”? Tuesday, Aug. 10 • The News Sentinel reports that county employee and local “political operative” Tyler Harber has been suspended for trying to use his business card to get served more drinks at Copper Cellar on Cumberland Avenue. Harber shouldn’t worry much, though; even if he loses his county job, he sounds like excellent TVA material. 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: According to Aaron Killian, “[The] local curiosity is the bronze statue of Kurt, the War Dog Memorial on the grounds of the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine.�Kurt was a Doberman Pinscher who served on Guam during World War II. He saved 250 Marines by scouting out areas ahead of the troops and pointing to warn them when enemy forces were ahead. He was the first war dog killed in WW II when the Japanese bombarded him with grenades on July 23, 1944.” Congratulations Aaron, we’re quite pleased to present you with a four-pack of Jones soda for identifying the memorial. Swing by the office at your convenience for your reward.

Retro MetroFest
Local music legends reunite at festival

On Saturday, Sept. 11, Metro Pulse will hold an evening-long music festival, MetroFest, which will be the first of an annual celebration of local music.

The inaugural festival in Market Square will mostly be a Knoxville music retrospective, with several reunions of bands featured in the book Cumberland Avenue Revisited, edited and compiled by writer Jack Rentfro. Future festivals will have a more contemporary bent.

Included in the line up are reunion shows by The Loved Ones (a pioneering Knoxville rock band from the ’60s featuring Terry Johnson, Barry “Byrd” Burton), Boogie Disease (an outfit fronted by Brain Waldschlager), and Teenage Love (an ’80s band featuring Rus Harper, John Sewell, Joey McPeak and Dale Ashe). Clifford Curry, a soul singer who scored with a hit “She Shot a Hole in My Soul” in 1967, might also perform.

Nancy Brennan-Strange, Jodie Manross, the Rockwells, R.B. Morris, Todd Steed, That (featuring Carl Snow, Rodney Cash and Chick Graning), and Scott Miller will also perform. The concert will benefit James Agee Park in Fort Sanders. The performers are all donating their time and the festival is free.

Benny Smith, Metro Pulse’s director of promotions who has worked for AC Entertainment and a couple of local radio stations, organized the event.

“When I first arrived at the Pulse almost a year ago, publisher Brian Conley told me that one of his goals was for Metro Pulse to produce and present a music festival,” Smith says. “We hope to grow the festival into a two- or three-day event.”

The focus on older bands is intentional.

“We wanted to put on a bash to celebrate the release of the book Cumberland Avenue Revisited, and this event will do just that by featuring artists who were included in the book,” Smith says. “The other reason is we really wanted to honor those who have helped to shape the very eclectic local music scene through the years so that we can move forward next year by featuring mainly new and currently performing bands and musicians. As the first MetroFest ads proclaimed: ‘Before you know where you are headed, you need to know where you have been!’ So this is sort of a theme this year. But we intend to reunite at least one very popular band from Knoxville’s past each year to keep honoring the past.”

The festival date, Sept. 11, was coincidental. “The main reason is that it is an open date on the Vols football schedule, and we really wanted to do this when UT was back in session. It just so happened to fall on a date that will forever be etched in Americans’ hearts and minds. We plan on honoring the importance of that date at MetroFest in a very respectful manner, and then will allow the spirit of the festival to carry the rest of the day. We also have read where Congress is trying to make Sept. 11 a national day of volunteering, charity, and fund raising nationwide, which we believe is a good idea, and we as a company plan to honor in the future if it works its way into becoming a bill.”

—Joe Tarr

Building Season
Gameday Center condos fumble toward occupancy

An ongoing $20-million luxury sports condominium development geared toward University of Tennessee alumni and Volunteer football fans is not finding the same strong market as in other Southeast football towns. Slow sales are stalling additional plans for luxury condos only a stone’s throw away from Shields-Watkins Field.

The first phase of Gameday Center, a single building set in Maplehurst on the tranquil hill between Neyland Stadium and downtown Knoxville, is complete and ready to house Vol fans for the upcoming pigskin season. The Philip Fulmer Building, a motel-looking structure off Poplar Street, has 17 units available for short-term leases, all of which are decorated to evoke the Vol spirit, including pictures of football greats and orange napkin rings. Coach Fulmer doesn’t have his own place in the building, but he is on Gameday’s Board of Advisers, which also includes former players and commentators.

But sales at the new luxury sports condominiums here in Knoxville have been lax compared to other Gameday properties around the Southeast. Only about 60 percent of the units have been sold in Knoxville. That figure pales in comparison to Gameday Center developments at the University of Alabama and Auburn, which are completely sold out according to Bill Shreder, who works in sales for Gameday Center and is the acting property manager for Knoxville’s Gameday Center. Completely furnished condominium units on both Alabama campuses sell for between $149,000 and $320,000. Projects at Florida State and Georgia campuses seem to be going equally well.

“In Tallahassee we’re about 90 percent sold out and construction will be completed in about a year,” Shreder says. “In Athens we’re more than half sold out and construction hasn’t even begun.”

About 11 buildings were bought from Maplehurst by Gameday Centers. The Philip Fulmer Building, which was a ground-up rebuilding of an old, rundown apartment complex, is just the beginning. Other plans include renovating three historic homes in Maplehurst to convert them into condominiums, some of which have already been completed.

The slow sales have stunted other planned developments at Knoxville’s Gameday Center. A Riverfront Club, planned to be perched above Neyland Drive overlooking the river and visible from Neyland Stadium, was slated for ground-breaking in June of this year, according to Shreder.

“I got a notice in June saying it would be postponed, now I have no idea when it will start,” Shreder says.

Other areas of Maplehurst could remain unchanged, as there are currently no plans to sell or renovate several of the buildings.

The Maplehurst Inn, one of two bed-and-breakfasts in the downtown area, has been a Maplehurst fixture and somewhat of a Knoxville secret since the 1982 World’s Fair. “[The Gameday Center] hasn’t really affected our business,” says Sonny Harben, owner and operator of Maplehurst Inn.

“They tried to buy us two or three years ago,” says Harben. “They wouldn’t pay what I wanted and I wouldn’t sell for what they were offering. We haven’t really spoke with them since.”

Other Maplehurst residents feel that the lofty goals of the ambitious development are somewhat misguided.

“The whole thing is ridiculous,” says one Maplehurst resident who preferred to remain anonymous as he tended to his patio grill. “They are trying to make money instead of housing students. There are students, grad students and teachers all living here. We support the university.”

With a majority of planned developments still on hold for the Gameday Center, Vol fans, Maplehurst residents and students alike will have to play wait-and-see. Perhaps the success of such a development could parallel the success of a certain football team just down the hill from the Philip Fulmer Building.

—Nick Corrigan

Open-Air Movies
Series to utilize Market Square for the library’s benefit

A pair of downtown organizations is taking a cue from a few contemporaries by utilizing Market Square for free family-themed movie screenings. Similar series have been successful in Nashville, Richmond, Raleigh, Atlanta and Chicago, drawing thousands of people weekly. The event, titled Movies on Market Square, kicks off on Aug. 27 with a showing of My Big Fat Greek Wedding to coincide with Greekfest, representatives of which will be on hand with a limited number of free passes. People are encouraged to arrive with lawn chairs and picnics at dusk before the films begin with sundown.

In a joint effort, Lawson McGhee Library and the Market Square District Association are responsible for the upcoming series, but initially each had been planning a similar event separate from one another. Mary Pom Claiborne, communications director for the Knoxville Public Library System, says, “When I came to the position, I started working on the idea independently, but it just didn’t make sense to do two festivals.”

Movies on Market Square is being privately funded by sponsorships with all proceeds from concessions benefiting Friends of the Library. Claiborne says the library has over 10,000 titles in its Sights and Sounds audiovisual department, and a movie series seemed like an ideal way to promote its resources. Media sponsors for the event include Metro Pulse, WBIR, B97.5 and Color Central, with more sponsors being sought.

Phoenix Theatres, an upstart theater exhibition based in Knoxville, is producing the series with equipment being rented from a firm in Birmingham, Ala. Claiborne says the goal is to ultimately purchase the equipment.

Claiborne hopes to draw a wider audience for Movies on Market Square than Sundown in the City. “We look for it to be more family-oriented with a different demographic,” she says.

The schedule has been confirmed as follows: My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Aug. 27; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sept. 3; The Princess Bride, Sept. 17; Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Sept. 24; Raiders of the Lost Ark, Oct. 1; and The Goonies, Oct. 8.

—Clint Casey

August 12, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 33 © 2004 Metro Pulse