Michael Robinson has traveled to a lot of places in his life – journeys that have brought a fresh perspective and a unique vision to his social studies classes at Houston High in Germantown.

On Sundays we’re going to try to catch up on the week’s news, late-breaking items, observations and perhaps a recap of stories that were particularly interesting.

The Zadie E. Kuehl Memorial Park in Lakeland soon will expand to include a dog park on land donated by the owners of The Pet Hospitals.

After two months of renovation, Aldi, a discount grocery store with German roots, reopened its doors at 2867 Kirby Whitten Rd. earlier this month.

Shane Horn begins his duties as Lakeland city manager next Monday, Oct. 1, earning $110,000 annually to run the suburb’s day-to-day operations.

With children in the Germantown Municipal School District, a leadership role in two of the suburb’s churches and a background of education in her family, the Rev. Rebecca Luter believes she brings the necessary traits to her new role on the suburb’s school board.

Not very many people have spent a month on a working ranch sleeping under the stars, feeding cowboys three meals a day as they prepared the spring herd. Germantown resident and longtime FedEx employee Steve Gibson is one of those people, cooking from a chuck wagon in an atmosphere far removed from suburbia. “I love being out there and thinking about how it once was like – what were people doing back then and what was it like to eat back then?” said Gibson. “It’s quite interesting studying U.S. history. Everything cowboys are doing now is what vaqueros, descendants from Spain, were doing back then in Mexico.

Dennis Wolf, Lakeland’s future fire chief, expects the suburb’s new fire department will begin answering calls in July, 2019, becoming the last government entity in Shelby County to operate its own fire service. Wolf, former fire chief in Germantown, provided insight on the new department for officials and residents at a Lakeland Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, Sept.18.

Work is underway in Collierville on a new Center Connect streetscape project that promises to transform Center Street leading to the historic Town Square, establishing a new gateway to Downtown Collierville.

Millington is poised for explosive growth as a convergence of factors lead it away from the years as a pit stop for young sailors and into a future of economic maturity.

Germantown's self-imposed 18-month mixed-use multifamily moratorium just passed its halfway point, and only two of the four projects approved before the action took effect are still alive.

Collierville development should continue its optimistic trend with anticipated growth expected for residential, office, industrial, hotels and retail, according to town leaders.

Neighborhood leaders and concerned citizens met at the Carrefour shopping center on Monday, Sept. 17 to discuss a proposed mixed-use redevelopment of the property at Germantown’s western border. The outline plans from property owners Cannon, Austin and Cannon were submitted to the Germantown Planning Commission earlier this month.

Over the years, suburban cities have dealt with cyclical changes in direction. Those times when enough new folks move into a municipality and decide the old folks in office aren’t doing things correctly and orchestrate a change.

Bartlett Police Chief Gary Rikard, leader of the suburban department for 11 years, will retire Dec. 31.