WJLE’s Fearless Forecasters College Football Talk Show Airs Today (Thursday) at 4:30 p.m.

November 30, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

Grant James remains the leader among WJLE’s Fearless Forecasters picking college football winners after thirteen weeks of the season.

Grant has a record of 139-56 followed by Ricky Atnip at 135-60, Jared Davis and Scott Goodwin each at 134-61, Chad Kirby and John Pryor each at 133-62, Dewain Hendrixson 132-63, and Darrell Gill and Scott Brown each at 128-67.

For the week, Grant James had the best record at 14-1. Darrell Gill, Scott Brown, Chad Kirby, and John Pryor were each at 13-2, Scott Goodwin and Dewain Hendrixson each at 12-3, and Ricky Atnip and Jared Davis were each 11-4.

Two Fearless Forecasters hit their underdog picks last week. Ricky Atnip added 7 points to his total as Kentucky upset Louisville 38-31 and Scott Brown got on the board with 2 points as Iowa defeated Nebraska 13-10.

Overall, Jared Davis still leads in underdog points with 47.5 followed Ricky Atnip with 33.5, Dewain Hendrixson 30, Darrell Gill 18, Scott Goodwin and John Pryor each at 12.5, Chad Kirby 6.5, Grant James with 3 points and Scott Brown 2.

Today (Thursday) the Forecasters will be picking winners in the following games:

New Mexico State vs Liberty, Oregon vs Washington, Oklahoma State vs Texas, Miami (Ohio) vs Toledo, Boise State vs UNLV, SMU vs Tulane, Georgia vs Alabama, Louisville vs Florida State, Michigan vs Iowa, Appalachian State vs Troy, UTC vs Furman, Delaware vs Montana, North Dakota State vs Montana State, Youngstown State vs Villanova, and in the NFL the Indianapolis Colts at the Tennessee Titans.

Catch the Fearless Forecasters on WJLE today (Thursday) at 4:30 p.m. on AM 1480/FM 101.7 and LIVE streaming at www.wjle.com.

The program is sponsored by the Charles D. Atnip Realty and Auction Company, DeKalb County Ace Hardware, Middle Tennessee Natural Gas, FirstBank, DeKalb County Insurance, Gill Automotive, Love-Cantrell Funeral Home, Davis Auto Body, and Domino’s Pizza.

November 30, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County High School Tuesday recognized its staff member, students, and parent of the month for October.

Each received a certificate from the school and a gift card for a meal from Kilgore’s Restaurant. A different restaurant offers a meal gift card to each month’s honorees.

Roy Goodwin, a custodian was selected by the administration as Staff member of the Month while Freshman Kason Nichols and Senior Mallory Hollingsworth tied as Co-Students of the Month, voted on by the teachers. Hollingsworth was unable to attend Tuesday’s award presentation. The parent of the month is Crystal Gayle Young and this honor was based on a winning essay written by her daughter, Lillie Grace Young, a freshman at DCHS.

Thomas Cagle, Assistant DCHS Principal explained why both Nichols and Hollingsworth were named Students of the Month.

“Kason is part of our flag corps. He is responsible for taking down the flag and folding it every afternoon and putting it back in my office before he leaves. He has been doing that since the beginning of the school year. That is something we started this year. Kason does an outstanding job with that. Other than that he is just a great student. We have really enjoyed getting to know Kason this year and having him part of our school. He is with Ms Amy Cantrell and works with her in that classroom. Kason is a really bright student for us to have here at the school,” said Cagle.

“Mallory is another one of those students who diligently works through clubs and other activities to be a face around the school and to help make school better,” said Cagle. “She was also nominated and voted on as student of the month. We did have a tie this time for the first time ever. I thought it was fitting to award both Kason and Mallory rather than choose one or the other”.

“I love being a student here,” said Kason. He is the son of Jamie Nichols and Grady Murphy and he has a brother and three sisters. Kason said he and his family farm and have cattle and horses and he wants to continue farming after high school. Ever the outdoorsman, Kason said he also enjoys riding his four-wheeler. When asked how he felt about being named student of the month and how much he enjoyed his high school experience, Kason summed it all up in one word “good”. Kason is a member of the FFA club at DCHS.

Goodwin, a longtime custodian at DCHS, counts it an honor and privilege to have been selected a Staff Member of the Month.

“It’s a great opportunity to be here as custodian at DCHS. I Love the staff and children and I love my job,” said Goodwin. Prior to transferring to DCHS a couple of years ago, Goodwin served as custodian at other schools in the district including Northside and DeKalb Middle School. Born and raised in DeKalb County, Goodwin is the father of one daughter.

“Mr Roy is one of our custodians here at DCHS,” said Assistant Principal Cagle. “He works during the day with us. He is here well before anyone else is probably out of bed and he leaves a little bit before school shuts down. We couldn’t be more grateful for the job that Roy does and the relationships that he builds with the students. He is one of those faces everyone knows. Everyone trusts and loves him here. We are very grateful and very fortunate to have Mr. Roy as part of our family here at DCHS. This is a small token of our appreciation that we can show him,” said Cagle.

Meanwhile, Crystal Gayle Young, mother of Lillie Grace Young, was selected as Parent of the Month.

“Lillie Grace Young wrote an essay for her mom, Ms. Crystal. She (Crystal) is a teacher as well. Again, when I look at these essays, I am searching for those that reach out and tell us about the special things that families are doing in the students’ lives that help prepare them to be more successful here. It might be sacrifices or choices families have to make in their own lives that help impact the students. Lillie’s essay was one that reached out to us this month as being an example as she described the quality of care that she is receiving and all the wonderful things her parents are doing to help her be a successful student and person once she graduates from DCHS,” said Cagle.

“I was on my computer and just got the notion to do it (essay) because I love my mom. She buys me things and keeps a roof over my head,” said Lillie Grace. “I wrote the essay in about 30 minutes. It wasn’t that hard”.

“I am honored. It’s a very special award to receive and I am a little surprised,” said Crystal. “I am proud of Lillie Grace. She is a good student and athlete, and she stays out of trouble. She is a good Christian girl and I hope I have had a little something to do with that. She and I are pretty close and I have three other sons. I am a mom. That’s my number one job. Its what I do,” she said.

Crystal, born and raised in DeKalb County, is a 23-year veteran teacher at Smithville Elementary School where she first served as a first-grade educator for five years and then a kindergarten teacher for 16 years. She is now an RTI (Response to Intervention) teacher. Crystal is a graduate of DCHS. She furthered her education at Tennessee Tech where she earned her degree before returning to the school district to teach.

Lillie Grace said she is enjoying her freshman year at DCHS where she is on the girls basketball and softball team and her favorite teacher is Ethan Duke. “He rocks”, said Lillie Grace. As for academics, Lillie Grace likes English and Math. After high school, Lillie Grace said she plans to attend college, maybe Tennessee Tech and pursue a career in the medical field.

November 29, 2023
By: Dwayne Page

A meeting of the minds

For the first time in more than a year, members of the county commission and board of education met together Tuesday night in an informal workshop setting to work toward some funding arrangement for the eventual construction of a new 800 student Pre-K to 2nd grade elementary school to replace the existing Smithville Elementary School complex.

While both County Mayor Matt Adcock and Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said the joint meeting was cordial and productive, no agreement came out of the session. None could at this meeting since it was only a workshop.

“It was a productive conversation. I think we (county commission) answered a lot of questions, and we received a lot of answers to questions we had. We still haven’t worked things out. After talking with the school board, we have learned they apparently have more needs than we thought they had,” said County Mayor Adcock.

The existing Smithville Elementary School, originally built in 1958, now is 70,557 square feet in size, and had an enrollment in August of 550 students. As far back as 2017, a facilities study by Upland Design Group, concluded that the school, which had mold and other concerns, should be replaced and repurposed for other uses. In October 2022 the architects estimated the project cost to build a new Smithville Elementary School was $46,199,875 at that time.

School Plans

If such a project is funded with a long-term bond commitment, the county might not be able to undertake another school building project for years to come. At the meeting Tuesday night, school officials pointed out that while the core building of Smithville Elementary is now 65 years old, the other four schools are aging as well. The high school is 60 years old and both the middle and west school are close to 50 years old. Northside Elementary has been in existence for almost 25 years.

As for this project, what the group learned from County Mayor Adcock and the county’s fiscal agent Steve Bates is that although a $40 million school project could be funded without a property tax increase or even a wheel tax using available local option sales tax funds and interest income on bond proceeds, the school board would need to be willing to contribute $2 million from its $10 million fund balance (reserves) to make the plan work. The county would also need a commitment from the cities and school board to extend the existing sales tax agreements between the parties which expire July 16, 2037. Under those agreements, the cities turn over to the county for schools a greater percentage of their local option sales tax collections than they would otherwise be required to do. That money goes into what is called the Local Purpose Tax Fund for Schools to help fund school operation and debt.

“The best-case scenario would be to extend the sales tax agreements between the county, cities, and school board (beyond 2037) in order to do 30-year bonds but do an emission of bonds to build the school and amortize it over a 15-year period with a $ 2 million contribution from the Board of Education from their fund balance together with a contribution from local purpose (local option sales tax fund). Under this plan, we (county) would take $5.6 million (from local purpose/sales tax fund) together with the school’s $2 million contribution and together with bond proceeds issue an amount of bonds to build the school. By amortizing it quickly over 15 years then it opens up future borrowing capacity for another school to be built once that issue is paid off,” said Bates.

The Board of Education is reluctant to make a $2 million commitment from the school district’s fund balance because of other needs including some that are state mandated which either are being or may have to be financially supported locally from the fund balance (reserves).

“We all understand a new school needs to be built but the tricky part is how are we going to fund it? We actually need three or four new schools, but we can’t get to the second school until we get the first one built,” said Director Cripps.

“We have concerns about them (county) asking us to contribute $2 million from our fund balance (reserves). Right now, we (school district) have close to $9.9 million in our reserves (fund balance) and that is healthy but when you run a budget of up to $29 million then $9 million is not a whole lot of money and to think that we could possibly be pulling $2 million out of that and suddenly be down to $7.9 million left in reserves is a cause of worry for me. We (school district and school board) have been good stewards of the money and because of that we have been able to give pay raises to our employees without having to ask the county commission for more local funding to do that and I would not want to harm that ability. I would like for us (school district) to be able to take care of our business with our money and not have to ask for more from the county,” said Director Cripps.

“There are also mandates we have to meet which are not funded by the state,” Cripps continued. “Right now, we are able to cover those (costs) with some of the grants we have been able to write because of COVID but those end this year so we will have to come up with additional money to fund those mandates and that comes at a cost to our local budget. So again, it concerns me having to go into our (school) reserves for anything and if we have to go deeper into our reserves to help pay for a new school that scares me even more. And really, although we certainly need new schools, if we don’t have quality teachers and quality support staff in our building working because we are not able to take care of them with their pay it really doesn’t matter what kind of building you have,” said Director Cripps.