Ugandan Culture Comes to DeKalb County

April 14, 2024
By: Bill Conger

A flavor of true African culture filled Smithville First Baptist Church when the Sozo Children’s Choir took the stage April 7.. The Ugandan choir made a tour stop in DeKalb County, telling about their mission and showcasing part of the lifestyle.

“The whole beginning part is to kind of expose people to African sounds, and colors and dance and style,” Ministry Outreach Leader Miguel Zayas explained. “Some of the songs were written by Ugandans. Some of the songs had Ugandan, which is their language, in it. So we have songs that are worship songs that everybody knows. So we want to have a good mix of both.”

The children’s joyous voices and vibrant enthusiasm led the people in a worship experience that had them on fire for the music and the ministry.

“Every even year we bring a group of kids from the village that we serve and our people that came in off of the rescue program to come to the United States to tour and tell their stories,” Zayas said. “We get a chance for them to have a missions trip to come to the US. Most have never been outside of their village, definitely not outside of Uganda. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and really what we want to do in that is show the kids what God can do when we submit our lives to Him.”

“I love the roads,” Alex said when asked about what he likes about America. Miguel explained that the roads in Africa can be rough and quite bumpy to travel on.

Alex is a big fan of the plain chicken wings and Ssanyu likes to munch on eggs and especially cheese since that’s not available in her country. They both have spent more than a year preparing for this tour of the U.S.

“People are very welcoming, very loving,” Ssanyu said. “What I liked about today is that I got an opportunity to stand in front of people and worship the Lord.”

“Don’t ask me to sing or dance like the kids,” jokes Miguel, who is also the choir director. “We have a group of professionals in Uganda, a true choir director who teaches all the lines, breaks out all the harmonies. We have a choreographer who works on all the dances. So, the kids are in our care practically for a calendar year from January on to the end of the year, and then they’re performing the entire time when they’re in the US. The next picking of a choir will happen somewhere in July or August. They’ll move into a home with us in January of 2025 to prepare for 2026.”

Zayas explained that Sozo Children exists to empower vulnerable children to become thriving leaders for Jesus Christ.

“God gifts us with some of the most vulnerable children in Uganda in the villages and townships around where we’re working,” Zayas said. “The government or the police or the village gets involved, they call us, and they say we need to have a child rescued from either rape, abuse or neglect. There’s a variety of things that happen unfortunately in some places in some children’s lives. So, we immediately jump into action, figure out a plan and a way in which we’re going to rescue that child.”

The Sozo Children’s choir continues its tour in parts of Alabama and North Carolina the rest of this month before traveling to New York in May. To find out more about the organization, to make a donation or sponsor one of the children, go to www.Sozochildren.org.

April 14, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Gloria Johnson of Knoxville was in Smithville Saturday for a campaign event hosted by the DeKalb County Democratic Party.

Johnson is among four candidates vying for the nomination of the Tennessee Democratic Party in the primary on August 1. The winner will likely face first term Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Brentwood in the November General Election. The term is for six years. Blackburn has one opponent in the state GOP Primary in August.

After a potluck meal, Representative Johnson spoke to supporters and then had a meet and greet.

Johnson spoke with WJLE after the event.

“The campaign is going great. We are showing up everywhere. That’s one of the things this campaign is going to do. We are going to visit every county. We are so excited about the crowds we are bringing and the people that are fired up for this election. I just can’t thank the people enough for all their support,” said Representative Johnson.

Currently a Democratic member of the Tennessee House of Representative from District 90 based in Knoxville, Johnson explained how she became interested in politics.

“I was a schoolteacher and taught for 27 years. I taught special education. I really wasn’t into party politics or politics at all. I voted but really wasn’t involved or engaged. I got involved because of Barack Obama. He really spoke to me about so many things. I said I am a schoolteacher, but you (Obama campaign) can have all my weekends and my vacations, and I will work for your campaign,” said Representative Johnson. “I got trained up with a lot or organizers and after that (Presidential) election was over I wanted to get involved locally because what affects you is what is happening locally. I started getting involved in issues like healthcare and public education. I already was involved because of public education. I really wanted to work for Medicaid expansion because my sister was very ill and lost her insurance after a time because everything was so expensive. She finally got her insurance back because of the pre-existing conditions problem going away thanks to the ACA (Affordable Care Act). The more you find out the more you want to work for these things that are so good for Tennessee families. Making sure every family has access to health care. Making sure that everybody, no matter your zip code, has a great public school, and make sure that everybody is earning a living wage so they can feed the family and keep the lights on, buy the medicine they need, and maybe take a vacation and retire in dignity. That’s the American dream. Everyone should be able to access that who works a 40-hour week. These are policy choices made at the state, local, and federal level. We are sent to work for the people of Tennessee and that’s what I intend to do,” said State Representative Johnson.

Johnson gained national attention a year ago when she and two other state representatives, Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville faced expulsion votes from the Tennessee General Assembly after taking to the floor of the State House unrecognized to protest gun violence. Johnson was the only one of the three legislators not to be expelled. Both Pearson and Jones later reclaimed their seats in a special election.

April 12, 2024
By: Dwayne Page

Another new school resource officer position is being created for the DeKalb County School District to be filled by a female officer starting with the 2024-25 school year bringing the total number of SROs locally to six. The other current five SROs, funded by the state, are all men assigned one each to Smithville Elementary, Northside Elementary, DeKalb West, DeKalb Middle, and DeKalb County High School.

During Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, the Board of Education voted 6-1 to fund in the 2024-25 budget at the request of Sheriff Patrick Ray, a new SRO to serve primarily as a rover between DeKalb County High School and DeKalb Middle School. Board member Danny Parkerson was the lone vote against the move. Although funded by the school district, the new school resource officer, like the other five, will be employed directly by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department and the funds for the positions directed into the sheriff’s budget.

Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said he supports the addition of a new SRO position.

“Anytime you talk about kids you want safety first and our goal is to provide every resource that we can to make them feel safe when they come to school. Having another SRO from the sheriff’s department in the school just reinforces that commitment. We also want to put as many positive role models in the schools as we can. When those kids see a friendly face (SRO) they can identify with at school and outside of school that’s just a win-win for them and our community,” said Director Cripps.

“I want to thank Director of Schools Cripps and the school board for giving us this position,” said Sheriff Ray.

The sheriff first raised the idea of expanding the SRO program last year and to have the additional officer cover for another SRO who has to be absent due to sickness or some other reason.

“The way we have been handling that is to use the middle school SRO to substitute for an SRO at one of the other schools and to have the high school SRO cover both the high school and middle school but that makes it hard on the high school SRO because DCHS is our busiest place in the school system as far as what SROs do,” said Sheriff Ray at the time.

Although it may have been necessary, staff members at DeKalb Middle School were not particularly happy that their SRO had to be the one to cover for other schools.

During the school board’s workshop Thursday night, prior to the regular monthly meeting, a DMS educator expressed her concerns.

“This school year up to this point we have had our SRO at a different school for twenty-four and a half days. There have been a few times when we had to call the high school SRO and he was in the middle of a situation there so that put us waiting until he could get over here. Fortunately, I am very thankful it was never something life threatening. I know sometimes there has to be a substitute, but it hurts us a lot when we have to lose our SRO because our students know and trust him. Its nice to have that person here,” she said.

“I feel like when a car (SRO vehicle) isn’t present out front, we are sitting ducks,” said another DMS teacher. “They know there is nobody here. I know we had to call him (high school SRO) one time and the radio didn’t work so we had to physically call his cell phone to get him to come because the radio frequency didn’t work at that particular time. Our SRO is needed here for the safety of our staff as much as our students. And with having no walls in the building (between classes) that creates another safety concern,” she said.

Sheriff Ray has not yet announced the name of the new SRO, pending her completing SRO training, although she has been working for some time as a deputy and her base pay is currently $50,601 plus benefits according to her salary tier level with the sheriff’s department.

“We plan to put this female deputy as an SRO at the DeKalb Middle School/DCHS complex. She will be a rover between those schools unless an SRO is absent on a given day at one of the other schools, then she would substitute for that SRO there,” said Sheriff Ray.

Because SRO’s have to work with female students as well as males, Sheriff Ray said having a female SRO in the schools only makes since.

“Female students might feel more comfortable talking to or confiding in a female SRO to assist them in certain situations,” he said.

Now that the decision has been made to create the new SRO position, Sheriff Ray said training has been scheduled for her this summer.

“A regular deputy can’t just go to school and become a school resource officer. To be an SRO, proper training of 40 hours is required with protocols to follow regarding juveniles. That and much more is part of the schooling they must have. We had already prearranged a training at the end of June hoping the school board would take this action and now that they have, we will go ahead and get that underway,” said Sheriff Ray.

Last year the county received state money for each of the five schools to fund the School Resource Officer (SRO) positions. Each school was granted $75,000 for a total allocation from the state of $375,000, which is recurring each year, to be administered by the sheriff’s department in operating the SRO program. The state funds pay the salaries of SRO officers and are used for SRO related needs.

Previously, the sheriff’s department had SROs working at each of the five schools in DeKalb County funded locally, three of them by the county and two by the school district.

The SRO staff currently consists of Roger Whitehead at Smithville Elementary, Joe Pack at Northside Elementary, Joseph Carroll at DeKalb Middle School, Sergeant Chris McMillen at DCHS, and Billy Tiner at DeKalb West School.