|
Incredible Shrinking PR
What if the biggest and best-known public relations firm in Tennessee faded away and nobody noticed? The Ingram Group was founded by Tom Ingram, former aide to Gov. Lamar Alexander, and after he left Lewis Levine grew it into the largest public relations firm in the state, paying Ingram a royalty all the while. Ingram went on to a lucrative contract as head of the Knox Area Chamber Partnership and then got a buyout to leave. He now works in Sen. Alexander’s office.
But the Ingram Group has fallen on hard times. Now when you call the Knoxville number for the Ingram Group you get the recorded voice of Monroe Free telling you welcome to Tennessee’s only statewide public relations company. Well, not really.
The Knoxville and Memphis offices of the Ingram Group have closed. Levine has left the company. The Nashville office is about a third the size it used to be.
Things started to go to hell when Levine decided to replace Susan Williams as head of the Knoxville office. George Korda had left, taking some clients with him. Someone decided to hire Monroe Free, head of a rescue mission for the homeless. Williams and everyone else left to form SRW Associates on Gay Street. All the clients went along. Free is now working from his home.
The Ingram Group is now headed by former Whittle executive David Gerard.
The website still lists offices in Nashville and Chattanooga.
Women Bail on Bredesen
Two women friends with prominent positions in the Bredesen administration appear to be unhappy enough to jump ship. Betsy Child was a director for former Mayor Victor Ashe. Then she jumped to TVA as a close associate of COO Norm Zigrossi and TVA board member Johnny Hayes. Hayes was a big fund-raiser for gubernatorial candidate Phil Bredesen. That resulted in Child becoming Commissioner of Environment and Conservation, much to the chagrin of state environmentalists who never heard of her.
Anna Windrow has long been a top lobbyist in Nashville, partnering with Dick Lodge at Bass, Berry and Sims. Bredesen recruited her to join his mayoral office in Nashville and then help run his gubernatorial campaign as a policy adviser and fund-raiser. Since the election she has been a special assistant to the governor and has advised him on legislation. Lodge’s wife joined Bredesen’s cabinet.
Last week, Windrow abruptly quit her job, with no explanation.
To the surprise of the Bredesen administration, Child applied for a job at UT, but after being interviewed, did not make the final cut for the job of vice-president in charge of public relations.
There is speculation in Nashville that both women have clashed with Deputy Gov. Dave Cooley.
Separate but Equal?
State Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, has asked for a Fiscal Review audit of the desegregation plan for higher education, with special emphasis on Tennessee State University. The plan resulting from a lawsuit, which has been in the courts since 1980, has cost the state millions and Dunn wants to know how the money was spent.
While a federal judge and the state of Tennessee decided to spend $100 million thus far and plan to spend another $140 million to desegregate TSU, white enrollment is 10 percent less that it was when the desegregation plan was implemented. Dunn points to remarks by AC Wharton, a member of the desegregation monitoring committee, who said the very idea that the school needs more white students to be a better university was offensive to “all right thinking African Americans.” (Wharton is now the Shelby County Mayor.)
It is Dunn’s contention that while a federal judge and the state of Tennessee have spent millions trying to desegregate TSU, the administration has made no effort to change the character of the school as a black university.
Dunn contends that expenditures like a $500,000 study of minority enrollment are a waste of taxpayer money if the institution prefers the status quo.
Politics as Sports
Friends say Haywood Harris, the Sports Information Director at the University of Tennessee, is considering a run for Knoxville City Council. Harris is a stalwart of the West Knox County Republican Club, but he is probably best known for being half of a comedy team that includes Gus Manning. They do a pre-game show on the Vol network. They took their act to radio during the recent Republican primary, doing commercials for House candidate David Wright that sounded like those geezers that used to do the Bartles & James wine cooler commercials.
Harris would be running in the district that includes West Hills, against Councilwoman Barbara Pelot.
Meanwhile, Councilman Rob Frost, from the Fourth and Gill area, has already had a fund-raiser. He reportedly only has one potential opponent thus far, a Wiccan that advocates legalizing marijuana.
Looking Out for Employees
There is a Democrat in the General Assembly that chairs a committee that is supposed to look out for employees and consumers. You may be surprised to know that he has collected taxes from the employees of his company for the last three years, but instead of turning the money over to the IRS he spent it on other things.
State Rep. Ben West owes almost $1 million in back taxes but thus far, he still sits in the chair at House Consumer and Employee Affairs Committee instead of in the dock. West has been in the House for 20 years, representing a Nashville district. His father is a former mayor of Nashville and his brother is now the vice-mayor.
Newschannel 5 in Nashville reports that West also has tax liens for 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2003.
West’s attorney promises that he will pay the employee withholding tax, though it has been three years since they began accumulating.
November 24, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 48
© 2004 Metro Pulse
|
| 
