Happy Friday, Memphis. It’s Oct. 25, and a section of Hollywood Street near Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium will be renamed today after Glenn Rogers Sr., the first Black athlete to join the Memphis Tigers football team. And you can pick up a pair of the new Ja 2s as the Nike pop-up truck rolls into town.

Tonight, the Memphis Grizzlies should face off with their old friend-turned-foe Dillon Brooks as they play the Houston Rockets in Texas. Brooks has been dealing with some knee pain but is expected to play. Sadly, the Grizz won’t get their first chance against old mate Steven Adams; he’s still dealing with that pesky knee issue following last season’s surgery.

Saturday is a homecoming in more than one way. The Grizzlies come back to play the Orlando Magic in their first regular-season home game, and the Memphis Tigers football team has their homecoming game against Charlotte. In non-sports events, the Orange Mound Music Festival comes back for a second year at the Harriett Performing Arts Center, and there’s “dirty mackin’ R&B” (you know it when you hear it) with Tyrese, Ginuwine and Tank at the Landers Center. Check out The To-Do List for way more ideas.

THE NEED TO KNOW

Jury rules in jail-beating case: A jury has rejected a lawsuit against Shelby County brought by the mother of an inmate who was beaten in jail. Cordero Ragland was hit in the head with a brick by another inmate in December 2021, and his family says he was left with a traumatic brain injury. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Ragland has been in the news a lot lately. He was recently ruled incompetent to stand trial over a 2017 drag-racing case that left Memphis woman Lisa Sloan with a brain injury that eventually led to her death. And he’s back in jail on a warrant from Arkansas over a shooting in a Little Rock nightclub in 2017. 

“Residents are being more diligent in taking preventative steps, businesses are providing more security and law enforcement has beefed up investigations ...,” said Shelby County Crime Commission President Bill Gibbons. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Crime is still down: You might not know it by watching the evening news, but crime in Memphis is continuing to drop. The overall crime rate in Memphis went down nearly 11% through the first three quarters of this year compared to the same time last year. Property crime was down more than 20%, and major violent crime rate was down almost 3%. Even vehicle thefts were way down — by a whopping 35%. But there was one type of crime holding things back. 

FedEx produced a report with Dun & Bradstreet that takes into account FedEx’s global economic contributions. (Jim Weber/Daily Memphian)

The ‘FedEx Effect’: Though FedEx is facing some headwinds (business speak for challenges that hinder growth), it still managed to contribute more than $85 billion to the global economy last year. That’s according to a new report that looks at FedEx’s global contributions, including revenue, labor and GDP. That bit of good news is what Raj Subramaniam, president and CEO of FedEx Corp., calls the “FedEx Effect,” which shows the value of the company’s economic contributions around the world. The Daily Memphian’s Jane Roberts has a look at the numbers.

The old Porter Junior High School is being renovated into a mixed-use project. (Bill Dries/The Daily Memphian)

Coming soon to South City: The old Porter Junior High School in South City has been through several temporary remakes: a community center and a police boxing program to name a couple. But the old school seems to finally be getting a new life for real this time, thanks in part to a $3 million federal grant secured by U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis. The anchor of the renovation is an early childhood center by Porter-Leath that will serve two-to-four-year-olds, and it’ll also house a cultural arts museum that pays homage to the area’s schools and musical history. The Daily Memphian’s Bill Dries stopped by on Thursday to see the renovation in progress.

MEET MEMPHIS

Captain Albert Glenn was one of the first Black FedEx pilots. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

When Albert Glenn began flying for FedEx in 1983, he was one of only eight Black pilots there. And throughout his 25-year flying career, Glenn earned more than 18,000 flight hours. But his passion for flying extended beyond the skies. In 1985, Glenn started teaching and mentoring Black students in an independent solo flight program at Tuskegee University, and he spent nine summers teaching there. He was also the driving force in starting the Luke Weathers Flight Academy in Olive Branch. Now on Saturday, Glenn, 70, will be inducted in the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame.

THE NICE TO KNOW

“We are trying to recalibrate how we think about our offense,” Memphis Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins said. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)

Come to Memphis, Maine: There’s a different kind of “mane” being talked about in the Memphis Grizzlies world. It’s the state of Maine, home to the St. Joseph’s College of Maine Monks men’s basketball team. That’s where new Grizzlies assistant coach and the head of player development Noah LaRoche came from, and a number of other new staff and coaches have ties to the small college, too. They’re bringing with them a new style of playing that our own Chris Herrington calls “The New Offense ™,” and Grizz writer Drew Hill goes deep into how it made its way down south. In other Grizz news, Herrington looks at what we learned from the team’s season-opening win and reminds us that Marcus Smart’s still got game for an “old” man. And in even more Grizz news, the late Jerry West is getting memorialized on the FedExForum court. 

The new Kroger at 5270 Airline Road held a grand opening on Wednesday, Oct. 23. (Michael Waddell/Special to The Daily Memphian)

Move over, Super Kroger … and make room for Mega Kroger. That’s right. There’s a new Mid-South Kroger, and it’s really big. After years of delays, the new store opened in Arlington this week with a Starbucks, The Little Clinic and super-sized produce, meat, beauty and wellness departments. If you plan to check it out soon, you might opt for next Tuesday, but you’ll want to come in costume. 

Schuyler O’Brien (left) and Scott Tashie (right) at the new City Silo location in East Memphis. (Sophia Surrett/The Daily Memphian)

City Silo sneak peek: In just a matter of weeks, our Daily Memphian staff, many of whom are regulars at City Silo Table + Pantry, will have to walk further from our office at Clark Tower to get our Kale Caesars and Silo Burgers. City Silo is closing its Sanderlin Center spot and moving into a larger space on South Mendenhall Road late next month. With the move comes a revamped menu featuring something called “lemon ash,” which sounds better than the name implies. Read more about that and Blue Note Bourbon’s new limited-edition flavor. In other food news, our $10 Deal this week takes you to an “easy-sittin’-and-stayin’ diner” serving up eggs with “voluptuous” yolks. (Truly, if you haven’t experienced food writer Joshua Carlucci’s food poetry, you’re missing out.)

Trey Draper, left, celebrated with Memphis Tigers teammates Austin Nichols (middle) and Anthony Cole in 2013. (Lance Murphey/AP file)

Where is Trey now? Longtime Memphis Tigers fans may remember Trey Draper, the former point guard and fan fave from 2010 to 2014. In the years since, he’s coached at Mitchell High School and trained Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant, and he’s also been a color analyst for the ESPN+ broadcast of Tigers women’s basketball home games. Now, he’ll be doing the same for Tigers’ men’s basketball home games. In other Tigers news, Coach Penny Hardaway addressed the apparently smoothed-over Tyreek Smith situation, and he gave an injury update on two players who should be good to go for the team’s second and final exhibition game on Monday.

Southaven plans to spend about $1.5 million turning the former Fred’s retail store into an additional municipal courthouse. (The Daily Memphian file)

Discounts to depositions: A former Fred’s retail store in Southaven will be repurposed into a new municipal courthouse. The city’s Board of Aldermen voted this week to award a design contract to Memphis-based UrbanArch. The move comes as Southaven prepares to open a second police station in Silo Square. “When your police [are] more active, your court is more active,” said Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite. 

Clay Bailey

Yay for Clay: Our very own suburban editor Clay Bailey may spend his time with us pouring over copy about Germantown, Collierville and the like. But Bailey has a long history of covering Memphis sports, dating way back to the long-gone Memphis Press-Scimitar and spanning every NBA season since the Grizzlies’ 2001 arrival. And he still covers sports for The Associated Press on the side. Bailey will be honored as one of three inductees in the 2025 Hall of Fame class for the Tennessee Sports Writers Association. Congrats, Clay!

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

A since-deleted Facebook post from a woman complaining that a man asked her to go on a first date at Huey’s went viral earlier this week. “Hueeeeyyysss? Where they spit at the ceiling?” she wrote. In case you missed it, you can catch up in this Memphis Flyer story.

Since then, the whole Memphis social-mediaverse has weighed in, and opinions seem to be varied. 

Even Huey’s got in on the fun by reminding us that they have a two-for-one happy hour, which quite frankly, seems worth the risk of a falling toothpick.

Alrighty, that’s all, folks. Have a great early Halloween weekend! 

.....