Home Care In Clinton, TN

CLINTON, Tenn. (WATE) — Darell Keith had a problem. His starting quarterback went down early in his first season as the Dragons’ Head Coach. The next quarterback in line was a freshman, his son Josh, who had no experience at the varsity level.

“He was 135 pounds, five foot four, I felt like a horrible parent but we had nobody else at that time,” said Coach Keith. “I watched him get beat and battered. I’ve watched him grow as a man physically and mentally. It’s been the best blessing any man could ask for.”

“I stepped on, and it felt like I never stepped back off,” added Josh Keith.

That’s because Josh Keith hasn’t stepped off. From starting that first game as a freshman, to now a senior, Keith has stayed Clinton’s starter for the past four seasons. It’s a dream he’s had since the age of three.

“He said I’d like to be a quarterback. I said, ‘Well son, I don’t think you’re going to be very tall. I said that’s a very hard position.’ He said, ‘That’s what I’m going to play. I’m going to play quarterback.’”

The reigning region 3-5A quarterback of the year is not only playing, but will continue playing in college at UT Martin as part of just the three percent of high school football players to go Division I.

“My height, some people think of it as an issue and some people think of it as a chip on your shoulder,” said Josh. “But you know I never let that stop me from what I want to accomplish in life and what I want to do on the football field and off the football field. I’m just very grateful for what I am and what I have.”

He’s grateful for the lessons he’s learned from his coach, and dad, along the way.

“How to handle things, how to be poised, how to be a leader, mainly how to be a leader. How to lead men.”

Coach Keith said his son has also taught him a few life lessons.

“How to be a better dad, how to be a better husband, and how to be more loving and kind.”

But most importantly, they’re grateful for the time they’ve spent together.

“When I go off to college, I won’t be able to experience it again obviously because my dad won’t be coaching me,” said Josh. “I won’t be able to go to the house after a football game and talk about what I can do better from the game we just played. What I’ve been able to be blessed with these past three years and this last year, I’m very grateful and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

TN Writers | TN Stories: Rachel Louise Martin: A Most Tolerant Little Town

In graduate school, Rachel Louise Martin volunteered with a Southern oral history project. One day, she was sent to a small town in Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to undergo court-mandated desegregation. But not everyone wanted to talk. As one founder of the Tennessee White Youth told her, “Honey, there was a lot of ugliness down at the school that year; best we just move on and forget it.”

For years, Martin wondered what it was some white residents of Clinton didn’t want remembered. So she went back, eventually interviewing over sixty townsfolk—including nearly a dozen of the first students to desegregate Clinton High—to piece together what happened back in 1956: the death threats and beatings, picket lines and cross burnings, neighbors turned on neighbors and preachers for the first time at a loss for words. In A Most Tolerant Little Town, Rachel Martin weaves together over a dozen perspectives in a kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a tumultuous turning point for America. The result is a spellbinding mystery, a riveting piece of forgotten Civil Rights history, and a poignant reminder of the toll on those who stand on the frontlines of social change. You may never before have heard of Clinton, Tennessee—but you won’t be forgetting the town anytime soon.

This event is part of our TN Writers | TN Stories series presented in partnership with Humanities Tennessee, Chapter 16 and Vanderbilt University Press. Readings and discussions take place in the Digital Learning Center at the Tennessee State Museum. All events include an opportunity to purchase books through the Museum store and get them signed by the author.

Rachel Louise Martin, Ph.D., is a historian and writer whose work has appeared in outlets like The Atlantic and Oxford American. The author of Hot, Hot Chicken, a cultural history of Nashville hot chicken, and A Most Tolerant Little Town, the forgotten story of the first school to attempt court-mandated desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board, she is especially interested by the politics of memory and by the power of stories to illuminate why injustice persists in America today. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Linda T. Wynn is the Assistant Director for State Programs with the Tennessee Historical Commission and a former member of Fisk University’s faculty, where she taught subjects in history and public administration in the Department of History and Political Science. A co-founder of the Nashville Conference on African American History and Culture, she is an active scholar and contributor to numerous publications including Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee, which she co-edited with Dr. Bobby Lovett (1996); and editor of Journey to Our Past: A Guide to African-American Markers in Tennessee. She currently serves as Chair of the Metropolitan Historical Commission of Nashville and Davidson County.

Last week, my wife and I took our two kids down to the Sevierville/Pigeon Forge area for a few days. It was our last little family getaway before back-to-school season really goes into full gear, and I am happy to say that, overall, everyone enjoyed the trip.

One of the main reasons we decided to go to Pigeon Forge was to take the kids to Dollywood. Neither one had been before, so we figured now would be a good time since they are both big enough to go on rides and enjoy most of the offerings there. We all did a rollercoaster together, and while I think it was the smallest “real” coaster in the park, I still screamed in absolute terror the entire time that the ride was in progress. Needless to say, I don’t do rides too well.

Other highlights of our visit to the land of Dolly included a pleasant tour around the premises on an authentic steam engine, and just generally taking in the sights and sounds on a day that was mostly perfect weather-wise.

The highlight of the entire trip, for me, was probably when we decided to stop and check out the Museum of Appalachia in Clinton, Tennessee while on our way back home. Despite seeing and hearing about it for years, I had never visited, and while I was pretty certain that my wife and I would find it interesting, I wasn’t too sure about the kids, who are ages five and ten.

As it turns out, we all thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the museum. It was well worth the price of admission, featuring a ton of interesting artifacts and several structures to walk through. There were old cabins, furnished with items that would have been commonly used during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as an old log church, a one-room school house, and barns, among many other exhibits.

While making our way through the museum’s Appalachian Hall of Fame section, one exhibit in particular caught my eye. It was dedicated to a Dr. O.E. Ballou, who lived between 1907-1973, and, as you might have already guessed by the last name, had ties to our local area here in Whitley County.

A summary of Dr. Ballou’s life accompanied the exhibit, which also included photos and a Holy Bible that once belonged to him. The summary, written by Dr. Ballou’s daughter, Nancy, said, “Despite his inauspicious birth on June 11, 1907, in an obscure and impoverished mining camp in eastern Kentucky, O.E. Ballou later became a prominent and revered physician and community leader.”

According to the re-telling, Ballou and his family eventually moved from Bell County to Williamsburg, where he and his brothers worked their way through college. After attending Cumberland College, the future doctor would earn his B.S. degree from Lincoln Memorial University in 1928, and then his Masters from the University of Tennessee in Memphis in 1932.

Ballou began a private practice in Clinton, where he lived and worked for fourteen years. His daughter recounted house calls all over the area where her father would commonly accept payment for services rendered in the form of chickens, corn, potatoes or firearms.

“During World War II, with the influx of people coming to build Oak Ridge and men needing physical exams for the draft, he was declared essential to the war effort,” Nancy wrote of her father, saying he was given citations by the president, and was able to remain a civilian.

Eventually, Ballou left his general practice due to some issues relating to his physical health, opting to move to Memphis to do a residency in eye, ear, nose and throat medicine.

I read that Dr. Ballou was an “avid golfer and sportsman,” and that he was also a supporter of the University of Tennessee, holding memberships in the U.T. Century and Faculty Clubs.

Dr. O.E. Ballou suffered a fatal heart attack while dove hunting in early September, 1973. If any of our readers have additional information about Ballou that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear it. Please, feel free to contact me via e-mail at [email protected].

For more information on what all the Museum of Appalachia has to offer, visit them online at www.museumofappalachia.org. If able, you should definitely take the time to visit. You won’t be disappointed!

The Oak Ridger

Military veterans from Anderson County are again invited to a community veterans breakfast Nov. 11 at the Clinton Community Center, 101 S. Hicks St.

The “chow line” opens at 8:30 a.m. and there will be a brief program at 9, according to a news release.

To accommodate a larger crowd, the breakfast will be in the gymnasium of the Community Center.

The breakfast, hosted by Anderson County citizens, is locally sponsored this month by Daniel Forrester Law Office.

In addition to the breakfast, Walgreen’s will be on hand to offer free flu shots.

Anderson County residents and community volunteers work together to make the breakfast a free monthly event that will allow veterans of all ages and branches to fellowship and share stories together. Veterans are welcome to bring spouses, family, or friends. The city of Clinton is recognized as a special sponsor for hosting the monthly location and setup. Local media are especially recognized for their role in letting veterans know about the breakfast each month.

Many generous donors are also recognized for providing monthly door prizes.

The Dec. 9 breakfast will be sponsored by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, Rep. John Ragan and Rep. Ed Butler; Jan. 13, 2024 is sponsored by Chancellor Jamie Brooks; and Feb. 10, 2024 is sponsored by the Clinton Lions Club.

To learn more, email [email protected], or visit Facebook and search for Veterans Appreciation Breakfast – Anderson County. To sponsor a breakfast, contact Terry Frank at 865-310-4097.

Anderson County Veterans Day Parade

Anderson County’s 16th annual Veterans Day Parade will begin at 10 a.m. Nov. 11.

The parade lineup will begin at 9 a.m. in the parking lot on Gilliam Street, between the Clinton Community Center and the Clinton High School football field.

According to a news release, the parade will start on Gilliam Street, turn right onto West Broad Street, left onto Main Street, pass in front of the Anderson County Courthouse, right on Market Street and end at Cullum Street (right off Market).

All veterans are invited to participate and everyone is encouraged to come out and support veterans, past, present, and future.

CLAXTON, Tenn. (WATE) — The Tennessee Valley Authority officially retired the Bull Run Fossil Plant in Claxton on Friday, according to a release from the TVA.

The plant provided more than 270 million megawatt hours of electricity since it went into service in 1967. Bull Run finished it’s final stretch with a 48-day continuous run to burn down the remaining fuel onsite, the TVA said.

Bull Run was originally designed to produce up to 950 megawatts. At the time, it was nearly 1.5 times as powerful as the largest units that were in operation. Recently, it was still able to generate 765 megawatts, according to the TVA. While in commission, the Bull Run plant was awarded the title of the “Best Heat Rate” in the United States 14 times.

This decision to close the plant has been years in the making, as the TVA says it is planning to retire its entire coal fleet by 2035.

The future of the site, including the 800-foot-tall, reinforced concrete chimney remains uncertain, as the TVA said no decision have been made and it is considering many options for future use of the site. Some of the potential options mentioned by the TVA include potentially using the site for battery storage or installing a synchronous condenser at the site, but an environmental review process, public input, and TVA Board approval will be needed for a final decision.

According to the TVA, every employee at the Bull Run site was given their first choice of post site retirement options, including a new position within the TVA, remaining onsite as a part of the transition team, or retirement.

Bull Run’s retirement comes less than a month after a report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation revealed that the TVA is vulnerable to generators going offline during extremely cold conditions, such as the cold snap that prompted the TVA to institute rolling blackouts on December 23 and 24 last year.

After the blackouts, the TVA released a statement saying that the blackouts were caused by an increased strain on their power systems, adding that it was conducting a review on why the strain happened and to find corrective actions to prepare for future significant events.

Earlier this year, the TVA sought an updated National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit that would allow them to retire the plant by the end of 2023. This decision came after the TVA voted in 2019 to retire Bull Run and the Paradise Unit 3 power plants.

In addition to retiring its coal power plants, the TVA is hoping to expand its solar energy resources and has set a goal to add 10,000 megawatts by 2035.