The Early Word: Jeff Crane is leaving, but the Art Museum battle wages on
Are you ready to shop ’til you drop? Today is Friday, July 26, the start of Tennessee tax-free weekend, which mostly applies to clothing and school supplies. See here for a list of what is and isn’t included. Also, the 2024 Olympics kick off in Paris today (France, not Tennessee), but we won’t see any action from local athletes until next week.
Early voting ahead of the Aug. 1 election ends on Saturday. And two big milestones will be celebrated: Activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee will reflect on the 60th anniversary of Mississippi Freedom Summer at the National Civil Rights Museum, and Backbeat Tours is hosting a special tour and Elvis tribute-artist show for the 70th anniversary of Presley’s first live rock show.
On Sunday, singer-songwriter Mark Edgar Stuart celebrates his fifth album release with an afternoon show at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way. And the Memphis Botanic Garden hosts an art auction where all of the artists are anonymous. For more weekend ideas, check out The To-Do List.
Memphis Tigers deputy athletic director Jeff Crane, who has been filling in as the interim director, is leaving for “a similar role at South Carolina,” according to a source close to the situation. Crane is returning to his roots: He previously worked as the executive associate athletic director at South Carolina. Meanwhile, former Virginia deputy AD Ed Scott starts his new job as the Tigers athletic director on Monday.
Friends for Our Riverfront, the group trying to stop construction of the new Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Downtown, is seeking an appeals court ruling to reverse a June decision in which they claim Chancellor Melanie Taylor Jefferson made a mistake. In that June ruling, the group claims Taylor Jefferson did not distinguish between a temporary injunction and a temporary restraining order when she denied the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction sought nine months earlier. FfOR claims the area where the new museum — to be rebranded as the Memphis Art Museum — is going isn’t in line with the intended use of a “public promenade” set aside by the city’s founders.
Plus, a Main Event security guard will stay in jail, a new fund may spur Downtown development and Comeback is canning Memphis water.
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Bianca Phillips
Bianca Phillips is a Northeast Arkansas native and longtime Memphian with two decades of experience in local journalism and public relations. She’s a diehard morning person who spends her free time training for marathons and ultras. And she’s the author of “Cookin Crunk: Eatin’ Vegan in the Dirty South.”
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