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Welcome to About Town, where we take a deeper dive into one neighborhood each week while also highlighting the latest news, developments and back stories from Memphis’ neighborhoods. This week’s focus: Frayser
It’s not often you see someone leave their full-time job as a University of Memphis business officer to start a neighborhood driving school.
Teresa Landrum-Caswell opened Caswell Driving School in August 2020, though given the timeframe, that meant every driver improvement, defensive driver course was virtual.
For the first nine months, Landrum-Caswell remained a full-time U of M employee and part-time Caswell Driving School one. Though Caswell Driving School’s owner concluded for her venture to thrive, she needed to go all in.
Earlier this month, Caswell Driving School held a ribbon cutting ceremony opening its first physical location, 1025 Whitney Avenue, Suite 101B.
“It shouldn’t matter what ZIP code you live in to determine what opportunities you have,” Landrum-Caswell said. “If you live in 38127, you should have the same opportunities as people who live in 38113, Germantown or Cordova. It’s just about who is going to step up, use their gifts, follow their passion and step out and do it.”
So why a driving school? Well Landrum-Caswell remembers the difficulty in teaching her daughter how to drive. There was no driving school nearby for them to take her, and while the Caswells taught Xzavia Wilson how to drive – not everyone has the same opportunity.
The most exciting part about the recent announcement for Landrum-Caswell is the availability of driver’s education courses in Frayser. Driver’s education classes begin at Caswell on July 31. The classes consist of 30 hours in the classroom and six hours behind the wheel.
Expansion within the building is already underway to increase student capacity from 10 to 20.
With a staff of three, a physical location and in-person classes underway, Caswell Driving School hopes to become a mainstay in Frayser for years to come.
More About Town:
Volunteers and employees of office of Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris targeted the 38128 ZIP code in North Memphis, because of its prominent Spanish speaking-population, citing a disparity in local vaccination rates among Hispanic communities.
 Janeita Lentz knocks on doors to hand out vaccine information literature. Saturday, July 17th, 2021. (Lucy Garrett/Special to the Daily Memphian)
The owner of 502 S. Second seeks a $50,000 grant to help fund her $1.1 million plan to convert a vacant part of Downtown’s old MGM film warehouse into the Luxe Jazz Suite.
The precinct site sold for $3.5 million after being appraised at $6 million, setting up a council debate about whether to take the best offer now or wait for a better one.
 Plans for the old Memphis Police Department building on Union include a mixed-use development of a boutique hotel, condominiums and a six-bay retail strip. This rendering shows the retail building at left, with a dining patio at the front. (Credit: designshop)
The council also gave final approval Tuesday to new historic overlay districts in Crosstown and Vollintine-Evergreen, took its first vote on a pipeline infrastructure review board and passed an ordinance banning landlords from putting the belongings of those they evict on city rights of way.
More than two months have passed since Monty Frazier’s firing from the Arkansas Department of Transportation, and he’s kept quiet. But now, he’s ready to talk.
 Monty Frazier (left), a heavy bridge inspector with the Arkansas Department of Transportation, is the only person who has been fired for overlooking the crack that formed in the Hernando DeSoto Bridge. (Shelly Frazier, Daily Memphian file)
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