After nearly 20 years as senior pastor of Idlewild Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Dr. Steve Montgomery leads his last service before retiring on Sunday, May 5. The Daily Memphian asked him to summarize his thoughts as he steps away from the pulpit. He replied with a list of "12 things I have learned in the ministry."

Let’s not lose valuable green space to concrete structures before determining this is what citizens want, as well as the impact on tourism, traffic flow and celebrations. 

There are two reasons low-income families are over-burdened by energy costs: First, much of our housing stock is in poor condition. And second, residents are not well-informed about keeping energy costs down. Heating to 85 degrees in winter while cooling to 68 in the summer is a recipe for bankruptcy.

As the opioid epidemic continues to rage nationwide, the human faces behind it demand we keep looking for answers.

More than 40 years ago, as the Memphis in May International Festival was getting off the ground, the organization's first president was told that he could “tank MIM” and “nobody would care.”

"You’re wondering how I can lead at full capacity battling such a persistent mental challenge. Three things: medication, unwavering purpose and a rigorous schedule."

Angel investing is our way of helping Memphis (and ourselves) continue to prosper. It is incredibly risky, yes, but it is incredibly rewarding in ways that don’t show up on a monthly statement.

The parole board was blown away when a woman who had spent 25 years behind bars, and who was a member of the great books group at West Tennessee State Penitentiary, quoted Herodotus in answer to a question about how she now defined success.

The students we most want to help are often the ones most intimidated by this federal form. The former president of Southwest Tennessee Community College in Memphis said he believes that he lost 1,500 students each semester because the complicated FAFSA discouraged students and their families from applying.

Memphis 3.0 is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and for very good reason. Communities across Memphis are unique places with their own assets that are vital to support future prosperity.

Unlike Atlanta, we live in a city with a mayor who offered police a 3% raise, and when we told him that wasn’t enough, he said that was all he had to give.

In police and prison culture, vulnerability has a bad rap. Not only are you not allowed to express your feelings (except anger), you are not allowed to even have feelings. But isn’t the capacity for tenderness what makes us human? 

Peel back the fancy ribbon-cutting ceremonies and press conferences for new jobs and all you’re left with is handouts to big, connected companies and higher taxes for the rest of us.

Companies want to locate in communities that will work with them long after the ribbon-cutting and headlines are done. We know that our local firms are constantly being courted by other communities looking to grow their economies.

In the late 1960s, African-American students at Memphis State would not settle for second-class citizenship, especially when they paid tuition like their white counterparts, and their parents’ tax dollars supported the institution like the parents of their white counterparts. So they organized.

There’s something wonderful about musical collaborations, both the totally unexpected and the so-perfect-together-they’re-completely-obvious.

Unlike other programs, the Leadership Memphis FastTrack program challenges young professionals and up-and-coming leaders to think outside of their normal scope, giving them a greater appreciation for diversity in culture, background, economics, community, industry and more.

'My insight on diversity had come from experience as the diverse candidate or double minority. My experience had come as a benefactor of diverse hiring initiatives that opened doors that would have otherwise been closed to someone like me.' 

A plan does not gentrify neighborhoods and displace existing residents. In fact, it seeks to provide the framework to avoid exactly that happening and to guide and coordinate investment so that it has broad-based benefit.

Consider the difference between a planned community such as Seaside, Florida, and an overdone Disney sequel. We can simply look to our neighbors in Nashville to see what an overdone sequel looks like in an urban environment.

The presidential campaign of 1968 was a last hurrah for the “Old Politics,” in which political machines and party leaders determined the major nominees. It also highlighted a “New Politics,” in which candidates took their cases to the people, through party primaries and modern technology.

'I volunteer and run for those who want to but say they can't, and for those who can't but wish they could.'

When her husband was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, a woman who started her own business dropped everything to care for him and their three young daughters. Ten years later, the entrepreneurial spirit returned.

When her husband was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, a woman who started her own business from home dropped everything to care for him and their three young daughters. Ten years later, the entrepreneurial spirit returned. 

In a 1973 interview with Ebony magazine, Memphis sanitation worker John C. White said Dr. Martin Luther King's sacrifice stayed with him: “I've had a better life.”