Chet Atkins’ widow passes away

The widow of the late country music legend Chet Atkins passed away. Ms. Leona was a performer before she married Chet and performed with her twin sister. Chet met and fell in love with her in 1946. Peter Cooper of the Tennessean wrote a great article about the two of them and their long-lasting marriage.
Chet will always have a special place in my heart. I was as nervous as could be when I met and interviewed him in Crossville in 1996. He was kind, funny and endearing. He made our interview easy and after a few minutes I felt like I was chatting with an old friend. Now, his longtime partner in life will join him. God bless the Atkins family.

Widow of Popcorn Sutton plans public memorial

I just read where Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton’s wife had him disintered from his grave and will re-bury him at a new location because people were vandalizing Popcorn’s grave. There will also be an elaborate memorial service in which Popcorn will be carried by a 100 year-old hearse pulled by horses. The article appears here in the Knoxville News. Fred Brown is a great writer.

Being arrested for a poke

This is crazy! I just read a story on the Tennessean about someone who was arrested for violating an order of protection by poking someone on Facebook. Is this getting out of hand or what?

A most interesting vehicle!

Seeing this vehicle absolutely amazed me! It takes a lot of ingenuity and courage to take a perfectly good mini van and make it into a pickup truck. This fella down in Crossville, Tennessee did just that with this Chevy Astro Minivan. I like to call this an Astro Camino. I love living in the south! This is priceless. A useable utility vehicle. He was towing a trailer of scrap metal. I told my friends about this a few weeks ago but didn’t have my camera to get the picture. Then I saw it again today. What a find!

Searching for Ghosts

This was an interesting piece I recently read about in the Hilltop Express. A woman who got caught in someone’s home tried to talk her way out of it by saying she wasn’t robbing the home – no she was in there looking for ghosts. Here’s the full story by my friend Dale Welch:

A Monterey woman, who, according to the police report, said she was really looking for ghosts, found only trouble instead.
Wendy Hargis (aka Oliverson), of Hwy. 70N was charged with aggravated burglary in the incident.
According to Monterey Police Detective Sgt. Jackie McQuiston, he responded to a call about a person breaking into a house on S. Poplar St., in Monterey. The homeowner had gotten a call from an alarm company that a silent alarm had been set off inside the house. When the homeowner arrived, he allegedly found Hargis and held her at gunpoint until police arrived.
Sgt. McQuiston alleged that Hargis had used a bucket and battery to get up to a window that she broke out to gain entry. Once inside, she went through the cabinets and things inside the residence.
The homeowner reported that it looked as if she was gathering things to take out.
When asked by Sgt. McQuiston, what she was doing there, she reportedly replied that she was looking for ghosts.
Hargis was transported to jail and a 2008 Chevy pickup truck, which turned out to be a rental vehicle, was impounded by police. Hargis goes to court on July 27.

Sorry

If there’s anybody who reads this or checks this blog on occasion I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while. I have been so busy with work I haven’t had a chance to do hardly any writing. I promise to start adding more stuff again. Thanks for looking!

Cumberland County Playhouse – COMING HOME

This weekend the Cumberland County Playhouse will have a benefit concert and silent auction titled Coming Home. The event is May 9 at 6:30 p.m. for the silent auction and the concert starts at 7:30. What’s so great about this event is that there are dozens of actors, performers and stage technicians coming back to Crossville, TN to the Playhouse for this event to help raise money for the Playhouse. Many of these people who got their start at the Playhouse are now seasoned professionals. There is also a FACEBOOK page on the event HERE. On the FACEBOOK page you can see some clips of the rehearsals for the performance. This is going to be a great night for a great cause. If you’re anywhere around Crossville, TN this weekend don’t miss the event on Saturday night. Tickets are still available. Singing, dancing and a meet and greet with the performers afterwords as well as a silent auction with Broadway Memorabilia.

The Price of Loyalty

In these hard economic times it’s getting so bad you can’t even trust your own mama in the South!
They say everyone has their price – the price of when loyalty to somebody stops and the $dollar$ factor kicks in. Well, in Crossville, TN that figure was $5,000 for one mother. She knew her son had done some vandalism – graffiti painting – and as soon as she heard the reward amount she turned him in. This story has had me laughing all week. Sounds like a pretty high reward for the crime.

Last Heartland Series Episode filmed

A couple months back I wrote about the Heartland Series being cancelled by WBIR TV in Knoxville. Apparently the last episode was recently filmed and Fred Brown wrote this story. As a viewer I think it is a very poor decision. Of course the station is blaming it on the poor economic times, yada yada yada, but then I read this story A good friend of mine works for Gannett in Louisiana and she has been forced to take a total of 2 weeks off without pay. Obviously Gannett doesn’t care about the viewers’ opinions or their everyday employees who are getting the job done for them.
The Heartland Series is a great educational show. What a poor decision to cancel it after 25 years! That show has lured a lot of viewers to WBIR in Knoxville. I honestly think they will lose a lot more. There are a lot of upset viewers.
There is a facebook petition group who are protesting the show’s cancellation, but the network and station have done nothing to attempt to save the show. Maybe if they get enough input they will change their minds. To sign the online petition follow the link here.

Spring time snow in Tennessee

Just when the azaleas started to bloom and the temperatures were in the 70s with sunshine 2 days ago – wham – we get whacked with a cold front carrying along with it snow showers. They called off school today for goodness sake. 1-2 inches of snow on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Here are my bushes this morning:

They were just starting to bloom!