Howdy, Shelby County. It’s Wednesday, May 24, the last day of school for students at Germantown Municipal Schools and Collierville Schools. 

The end of the season means student athletes from across Shelby County are wrapping up with the 30th edition of “Spring Fling.” This annual event, which started in Murfreesboro on Tuesday and runs through Friday, determines TSSAA state champions in baseball, soccer, softball, tennis and track and field. The Daily Memphian’s John Varlas has a wrap-up of Tuesday’s best and today’s schedule.

THE NEED TO KNOW

A ruling is due by June 2 in a case brought to challenge Tennessee’s “drag ban” legislation. Drag entertainer DeeDee spoke during a news conference held last February by the Human Rights Campaign in Nashville. (John Amis/AP images for Human Rights Campaign file)

Drag ban decision set for June 2: A two-day trial in Memphis over the state’s new drag ban wrapped up on Tuesday, and U.S. District Court Judge Thomas L. Parker has until June 2 to issue an opinion. (That happens to be the day before the Mid-South Pride parade on Beale Street. Coincidence?) Memphis-based Friends of George’s theater company filed a lawsuit in March challenging the new law, which prohibits “adult cabaret performance” on public property and in places where children may be present. The law was scheduled to take effect April 1, but the suit led to a temporary restraining order against enforcement.

Fourteen congregations in the metro area, including Christ Church Memphis, have received permission to leave the United Methodist Church. (Courtesy Christ Church Memphis)

Breaking up is hard to do: Christ Church Memphis (one of the largest United Methodist Church congregations in West Tennessee) and 161 other UMC congregations in Tennessee and Western Kentucky received permission to leave the denomination in a vote on Monday. The congregations that are leaving the UMC are doing so in part because they don’t agree with the church’s recognition of same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people. But Rev. Tom Fuerst of First United Methodist Church said the issues go deeper. “I don’t want to minimize what queer folks in our congregations experienced. But I think we’ve got to see this as a larger American issue and not just over this singular subject,” Fuerst said.

Greenlaw community member Casio Montez spoke during a meeting on Tuesday about plans to use the Greenlaw Community Center for a youth curfew center. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)

Greenlaw won’t be a detention center: The Greenlaw Community Center will not be used to hold Downtown youth in violation of a newly enforced curfew rule. The Memphis Police Department had been planning to house kids picked up after hours at the center. But the plan was changed after the MPD heard concerns from the community. Now, the City of Memphis says the MPD will take kids violating curfew rules to their neighborhood precinct or to call their parents to pick them up. But MPD chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said, “We don’t have the capacity to pick up children and take them where they need to go.” The MPD still plans to run its community programming at Greenlaw.

Airport operating revenues in 2024 are projected to be up by 14.6% compared to 2023. Officials say the projected increase in revenue is due primarily to more “traditional parking levels and increases in passenger traffic.” (Brad Vest/Special to The Daily Memphian)

Airport revenues may take off: On Tuesday, the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority board approved a $156.3 million operations and maintenance budget for 2024. Operating revenues for 2024 are projected to increase nearly 15% due to increases in passenger traffic and parking, and that revenue will be supplemented by $6 million in federal coronavirus relief funds and $6 million in surplus funds from 2023. The Daily Memphian’s Rob Moore has the budget breakdown.

QUOTED

Arlington Community Schools board member Kay Williams had concerns about the pay raises for board members that were approved on Tuesday. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)

“Accepting this compensation ... puts us out of line with other municipal school boards.””

— Arlington Community Schools board member Kay Williams
The Arlington school board approved pay raises for board members on Tuesday night that nearly double their salaries. The increase was originally included as an item on the board’s consent agenda, but Williams asked to remove it to force a discussion — which got a little heated on Tuesday. ACS board members were already the highest paid among local municipal school school district before the raise. 

THE NICE TO KNOW

Tom Lee Park has undergone renevations, and that boosted Memphis’ parks score on a new report. But the score was still low. (Holly Whitfield/The Daily Memphian file)

No walk in the park: Memphis parks scored 79th in a list of 100 parks on a national park index released by the Trust for Public Land on Wednesday. The low score was mostly due to issues around access and equity. Access was defined by the percentage of residents who live within a 10-minute walk of a park, and that’s about half of the city’s population. Equity was calculated by comparing access to park spaces based on race and income. But even though Memphis scored low this year, the score was still an improvement over last year.

Some suburban school districts shared their scores from a key benchmark of state-mandated tests for third graders. (The Daily Memphian file)

Testing, testing: Suburban school districts have begun releasing preliminary percentages of third graders at risk of retention under a new state law. According to the law, third graders who don’t score highly enough on the English Language Arts portion of the TCAP risk being held back a year, but they can retest and take part in summer learning camps and tutoring to avoid retention. This year, 60% of Tennessee third graders scored below proficient on that section of the TCAP, and our own Abigail Warren has a breakdown of how suburban students fared. In other suburban school news, the Germantown Municipal School District unanimously approved a $86.7 million budget — with a 3% cost-of-living increase for all employees — on Tuesday. 

Twenty-five contenders pulled qualifying petitions on Monday, May 22, to get on the October Memphis ballot. (Bill Dries/The Daily Memphian)

Who’s running for office? A total of 25 people pulled qualifying petitions to run for City of Memphis offices on Monday. That included three of the nine Memphis City Council incumbents (Edmund Ford Sr., Ford Canale and Jeff Warren) and five candidates for Memphis mayor (Karen Camper, J.W. Gibson, James Harvey, Michelle McKissack and Brandon A. Price). The Daily Memphian’s Bill Dries has all the numbers from the first day that potential candidates could start the process to get on the October ballot.

Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant brought the ball up the court during game five in the playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers on April 26. (Brandon Dill/AP file)

All the sports: Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant’s second social media gun video went viral over a week ago, and the team is still waiting on news of his expected suspension. What’s the hold up? The Daily Memphian’s Chris Herrington has a few thoughts on that and he speculates on what kind of suspension we might expect for Morant. In other sports news, reporters Parth Upadhyaya and John Martin discuss former Memphis Tiger Kendric Davis’ NBA prospects and the Tigers’ sub-par performance in the transfer portal in their Tiger Talk column. Plus, The Daily Memphian’s Tim Buckley looks at a “doozy” of a trade made by 901FC this week.

“Years ago [Memphs and Shelby County] used our numbers to apply for a grant for a sewer system and used our population,” said DeSoto County Supervisor Mark Gardner. “Now they’re kicking us off their sewer system, so [I’m] a little bit skeptical when they want to use our numbers for something.” (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Bad blood? DeSoto County and the City of Horn Lake are opting not to participate in a multi-billion-dollar federal grant program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Memphis metro area. The program, administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, allocates $4.6 billion to local governments that implement plans to reduce emissions, and Shelby County was tasked with inviting neighboring jurisdictions. But some DeSoto County supervisors took issue with the idea of partnering with Memphis due to an unrelated, ongoing dispute over sharing a sewer system.

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

If you have a few minutes, I’d highly recommend taking a deep dive into this Twitter thread from Melvin Purdy. In honor of Memphis’ 204th anniversary, Purdy assembled a treasure trove of vintage Memphis television commercials. These will take you way back.

You’ll find all the classics here, like the Fleming Fine Furniture commercial that ran during Saturday morning cartoons.

And the Watson’s Pools ad that you couldn’t avoid in the early 2000s.

My favorite, though, is this weird Mall of Memphis commercial. You’re “still the one” in my heart, Mall of Memphis.

Enjoy your time on memory lane. I’ll be right back here with your news recap in the a.m.

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