Hello, Mid-Southerners. Welcome to your Tuesday, Nov. 16. Today is a Memphis City Council day, with the body hearing about cost increases for work to City Hall as well as (most likely) postponing a vote for a consolidation charter commission. The Shelby County Schools board also has a memorandum of understanding with the sheriff’s office back on its work session agenda, and there’s another community forum to discuss the area’s crime issues, at the Pursuit of God Transformational Center in Frayser. 

Project Green Fork is hosting Reharvest Memphis, a culinary experience to rethink food waste (yes, think dishes made with surplus food), at Comeback Coffee. And the U of M men’s basketball team — now No. 11 in the AP’s poll — will host Saint Louis at the FedExForum. 

THE NEED TO KNOW

A student at The Lab School of Memphis reaches for a sanding tool during a class project. The mask requirements in the area’s private and public schools are in flux with a new state law and legal challenges. (Houston Cofield/Special To The Daily Memphian file)

Masks are back. For now: The next stop in the state’s mask merry-go-round likely comes Friday, when a federal court in Nashville will hear arguments about a new Tennessee law that would ban mask mandates. In a lawsuit brought by eight students with disabilities — including one from Germantown and one from Collierville — Middle Tennessee U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw stopped the new law from going into effect and ordered the state to maintain the status quo for now. In the meantime, Shelby County Schools has continued its mask mandate and the Germantown Municipal School District has returned to masking due to the status quo provision.

Sting operation: Did y’all hear about the swarms of deadly scorpions flushed out by unprecedented storms in Egypt? Well, Memphis’ own SCORPION just came out, too, but this one was brought out by rising crime. Its less catchy name is the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods and it’s the Memphis Police Department’s new 50-person unit, created to help bring crime down by 5% in the next year. 

Tanja Mitchell, (middle) along with several Greenlaw/Uptown residents and supporters spoke out against a proposed St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital parking garage on Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)

Uptown doesn’t want to be Downtown: Uptown and Greenlaw residents are continuing their fight against a proposed seven-story parking garage for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Parks Not Parking 901 presented findings Monday from a community survey; of the 93 people surveyed, 90% were opposed to the parking structure. As one longtime area resident said, “We respect the work of St. Jude. ... We’d like more of your employees to live here. We don’t want your cars.”

QUOTED

“There are cars piling up in the right lane, and I can’t turn out of [Esporta Fitness] without almost getting smoked by a car jumping out of the right lane. Cars trying to turn right to come into Whataburger — that’s a major concern.”

— Collierville Design Review Commissioner Lance Hepner
A new Whataburger is slated for Collierville’s West Poplar Avenue, but the site of the proposed restaurant would be just west of an existing (and busy) Chick-fil-A. The suburb’s Design Review Commission approved a preliminary site plan last week, but under it, Whataburger will not face West Poplar. 

THE NICE TO KNOW 

The James Lee House on Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)

Sharing James Lee: Two couples are now the new co-owners of the James Lee House. J.W. Gibson and his wife, Kathy Buckman Gibson, remain the majority owners of the Victorian Village bed and breakfast but they are now joined by a couple from Chicago and another from Memphis. The change also comes with a renewed mission to bring more people into the Adams Avenue home, through both private and public events. “This is a Memphis treasure and we want other folks in Memphis to really feel that, experience it, understand that and love it,” Buckman Gibson said. 

Kenneth Bradshaw

Building a legacy: The area’s first casualty of COVID-19 was Kenneth Bradshaw, the director of Facilities Administration for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center until his retirement in March 2020. Twenty days after his retirement party, Bradshaw succumbed to the pandemic virus. But his story started in North Memphis, where, as a kid, he dreamed of one day becoming an architect. It didn’t work out for him, but it might for others now that his family and friends have established the Kenneth James Bradshaw Design Camp Scholarship Endowment at UT-Knoxville. 

Three 6 Mafia members perform on MTV’s Total Request Live at MTV Studios on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)

Rap battle: Memphis’ own Three 6 Mafia will go head-to-head with rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony in a new Verzuz battle next month. The live music “competition,” created by record producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, has noted artists go back and forth as they perform their hits and are basically judged by people on the internet. Longtime loyal readers of The Early Word may remember the two groups were scheduled to do battle in April 2020 but it wasn’t an official Verzuz. 

Mobility set to go up: Construction on the new Downtown Mobility Center should begin soon. A permit was filed late last week for the $40 million parking garage, which will be located just north of the Orpheum Theatre and is slated to include nearly 1,000 parking spaces, retail space, bike storage and showers.

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

A Grizzlies season-ticket holder shared an update yesterday about longtime FedExForum usher LaVelt Hill. 

Hill actually started with the Memphis Chicks at Tim McCarver Stadium and worked RiverKings games at the Mid-South Coliseum and Tigers games at The Pyramid. In April, Grizz fan Adrian Shavers found out that Hill needed a kidney transplant and set up a GoFundMe for him. The fundraising effort quickly became successful with donations from the entire Grizzlies community, including Marc Gasol, JaMychal Green and Robert Pera.

Aaaaaaand since you made it all the way to the bottom, I’ve got more good news. I’m going to reward you with a giveaway. 

I’ve got tickets to the University of Memphis Tigers football game versus Tulane on Saturday, Nov. 27, and I’ll give a pair to the first two readers who email me at mcashiola@dailymemphian.com and tell me their favorite reason for reading The Early Word. 

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day! 

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