Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ordered the status in accordance with the Honoring Hometown Heroes Act.

Jack Gleason and Phinn Waters, a senior and a sophomore, are shining at the top of the Saints’ pitching rotation.

The trial in the lawsuit between Memphis Grizzlies’ star Ja Morant and Joshua Holloway over a fight during a pickup basketball game is delayed indefinitely. 

Tom Lee Park is expected to welcome its 500,000th visitor this month, eight months after its formal opening on the Labor Day weekend. The park closes next Sunday for the Riverbeat load-in, but will reopen partially between the music festival and the SmokeSlam barbecue contest.

Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee campaigned on vouchers in both 2018 and 2022, but the bill’s chances of becoming law appeared in jeopardy last week. Lawmakers questioned the cost, the effect on private schools and the changing nature of the legislation.

This jigsaw puzzle features a photo by Ziggy Mack.

U.S. Rep. David Kustoff, R-Germantown, is also running unopposed in his August primary after the state GOP kicked perennial contender George Flinn out of the primary.

For the 2022-23 school year, 28.52% of DeSoto County students were chronically absent.

Chris Herrington ranks the Grizzlies roster on a holistic view. It’s the kind of thinking that might guide team decision-makers in the contract and trade decisions that could come this summer.

For years, Memphis officials warned of a budget hole. For years, the U.S. government papered it over. This coming fiscal year appears to be a different story.

Are you ready for it? Today’s sudoku is a hard one!

The Memphis Police Department conducted a “Sea of Blue” Sunday night, April 21, for Officer Joseph “Rusty” McKinney.

“Everybody got a festival celebrating their own heritage and ethnicity,” David Acey said. “So, our efforts in the early ’60s was to develop something that could get our people into their history and culture.”

Also happening this week: Loudean’s closes in Cooper-Young and Mayor Paul Young presents his first city budget proposal to City Council.

“With newfound bucks from FedEx Corp., Tigers football coach Ryan Silverfield says, ‘The bar should be set as high as it can be.’ It beats flailing along with a shoestring NIL budget in a stadium needing modernization.”

While past votes on County Clerk Wanda Halbert’s office and its problems have been unanimous, Monday’s vote may not be. The commission also tries to take a final vote on changes to Shelby County Land Bank after delays.

Far too many people, including children, in Memphis continue to end up on the streets, living in cars out of the parking lots of libraries and Walmarts and disappearing into the background of the hustle and bustle of this city.

Relying on his experiences overseas, Justin Ash is opening an Irish pub in the Old Towne district of Olive Branch.

South Main Art District pioneer Ephraim Urevbu is looking to make an art incubator for international and local artists to display their work, no matter their background. 

“He feeds the fish, he harvests the fish, he processes them, he sells it and he delivers it,” restaurateur Ben Brock said of Earl Lake. “It’s not even mom-and-pop; it’s just pop.”

“Then you find yourself legitimately considering letting someone slice open your rear to insert a TicTac made of yams that will get you closer to ‘normal,’ whatever that even means.”

Julie Pierotti, the Dixon’s Martha R. Robinson Curator, said that the show is a cross-section of art currently being made in the region.

The percentage of students who are chronically absent from schools jumped dramatically in Memphis from the 2018-19 school year to the 2022-23 school year. It’s a national trend that’s also seen in the area’s suburban schools.

Related story:

Chronic absenteeism: Myriad of issues keep MSCS students home

Arrington Maiden’s story has plenty of parallels to that of Memphis starter Seth Henigan, and the Tigers seem to love the young Texan.

In Munford, they knew Joseph “Rusty” McKinney as an Eagle Scout and a band kid. Saturday, the town honored him by assembling at the football stadium to form a giant, solemn M.