Dresden Enterprise - Covering Weakley County Like the Dew from Heaven for 118 Years

During Thursday’s meeting of the Dresden Site Preparation / Spec Building Review Committee at Dresden City Hall, members agreed to recommend that the City of Dresden apply for a Fast Track grant and to use these funds for the completion of site preparation for a new spec building to be built in the Dresden Industrial Park.

Ken Thorne of Northwest Tennessee Development District, Weakley County Industrial Board Chairman Junior Moore, Weakley County Economic Development Director Ronnie Price, Dresden Mayor Danny Forrester, Dresden Alderman Mike Parrish, and Dresden Finance Director Melanie Bynum were present to discuss grant opportunities.

Summarizing the outcome of the meeting, Mayor Forrester said, “Governor Bredesen and Economic Development have come up with a new grant – a Fast Track grant for rural communities. And we are looking for the opportunity to apply for that grant.” He stated that the new Fast Track grant targeting rural communities differs somewhat from a regular Fast Track Grant in that it does not require having an industry “in hand” before the grant is approved.

Mayor Forrester explained that, providing the Dresden Board of Mayor and Aldermen accept the committee’s recommendation to apply for the grant, the paperwork would be signed and forwarded to the state for its consideration. If the Fast Track grant were approved, the City of Dresden would use the funds to go toward site development of city-owned property at the Dresden Industrial Complex. He stated that once the building pad is ready for the construction of a spec building, the property would be deeded to the Weakley County Industrial Board, which would then apply for grants to fund construction of the spec building.

Mayor Forrester stated that plans call for Dresden’s spec building to be a 100,000 sq. ft. facility, with the possibility of two later expansions of 100,000 sq. ft. each, for a total possible size of 300,000 sq. ft. He noted that there are approximately 70 acres at that location, and when the flood plain land is subtracted, this leaves about 40 total acres for future expansion of the site for industrial development.

During the meeting, Mayor Forrester stressed the importance of Dresden and Weakley County maintaining their status as a recipient of the Governor’s 3-Star Award, which gives added points in determining which governmental entity applying for a state grant will receive grant funding. Using the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding that the county (Dresden and Greenfield) has received recently, he stated that the five additional points that Weakley County received for being a 3-Star community help push it up into the range of those applicants receiving funding. “Out of the 39 communities that applied, we were 16th,” Forrester said. He added that out of all of the communities in the state receiving CDBG funding, only one did not have status as a 3-Star community, and the only reason it received funding was because it had 167 need points. “The break-off point was 169; Dresden was 171; and Greenfield was 169,” he said. “Without these five extra points, that would have been nearly $1 million worth of grants that Weakley County would not have received.”

Mr. Thorne stated that because the Fast Track Grant is new, there is a lot about it that is not known at this time, but he has been advised that communities should contact the state about these grant applications to receive clarification as needed. Thorne stated that the state has not approved any of the Fast Track grants yet, and it is not know if the state will approve “a lot of them in one region, or pick one for each region.”

(Check out the rest of this story in this week's print edition of the Dresden Enterprise!)

Additional law suit filed over mold problem at Westview High School

By David Fisher

Staff Reporter

Another lawsuit was filed in Weakley County Circuit Court on December 20 concerning the alleged mold problem at Westview High School and Martin Middle School, which according to a group of parents, students and teachers at the schools, is causing students to be sick – some severely so.

The lawsuit, filed by Attorney Larry Parish of Memphis, on behalf of Mrs. Carol Hinman and her biological children – Griffin Pochop, age 17, and Dominique Pochop, age 15, who reside on Jenny Lane in Martin, charges that negligence has led to Westview being a public nuisance, and calls for the plaintiffs being compensated for compensatory and punitive damages and recovery of costs and attorneys fees in prosecuting the case.

Defendants named in the case are the Weakley County Board of Education, Richard Barber in his official capacity as director of Weakley County Schools, as well in his capacity as an individual.

The lawsuit recounts some of the pertinent facts concerning Westview High School, where classes began at the newly constructed school on August 25, 1997. It notes that during the summer of 1998, the heating and air conditioning system at the school malfunctioned, causing water to saturate the indoor areas of Westview and generate toxic mold growth inside of the premises. However, it was approximately two weeks before the HVAC malfunction was discovered, by which time vent covers, walls, floors, ceilings, library books, chairs, desks and other fixtures were covered with “slime” (i.e. mold and mildew).

(Read the rest of this story in the December 26th print edition of the Dresden Enterprise.)

Gleason native receives 2007 Rising Star Award

By David Fisher

Staff Reporter

Gleason native Amanda (Stewart) King, BS, RHIA, who serves as the Enterprise Master Patient Index Systems Coordinator at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson, Tenn., recently received the prestigious 2007 Rising Star Award by the American Health Information Management Association.

As a member of the American Health Information Management Association’s Young Leader’s Task Force, King, age 30, has been recognized by her peers as a reliable and energetic visionary. She is president-elect of THIMA, and is working on her Master of Health Informatics and Information Management degree to better prepare for what she expects her job will require in the future.

AHIMA is the leading professional association for health information management representing more than 51,000 specially educated and certified professional, working throughout the healthcare industry. Health information professionals serve healthcare and the public by managing, analyzing, and utilizing data for health system management.

“It was very humbling; I didn’t really expect to get the award, but I was very glad it happened,” King said.

Amanda’s present position of Enterprise Master Patient Index Systems Coordinator at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital was created two years ago when the hospital’s management realized it needed someone to merge all of the possible duplicate numbers in the master patient index. At that time, Amanda was serving as an enterprise master patient index coordinator.

Shortly after assuming her new position, Amanda merged 2,796 medical record numbers (where patients had multiple medical record numbers). During the first year, she reduced the duplicate medical record numbers, report amounting to 2,500 pages, to a mere 186 pages.

(Read the rest of this story in this week's print edition of the Dresden Enterprise.)

Author attends book signing at Weakley County Library

By David Fisher

Staff Reporter

The Ned R. McWherter Weakley County Library, located at 341 Linden Street in Dresden, hostrf a book signing during their Christmas Open House on Thursday, December 20th.

The book, “Blood River To Berlin: The World War II Journal of an Army Medic,” by author Michael Freeland, is a story about a farm boy who dropped out of high school to leave his familiar wooded hills and hollows of West Tennessee to go north and find work in a defense plant. From Detroit, Mike was drafted into the army.

The author recalls the blood-stained beaches of Normandy, the thick backwoods of Bastogne, Werbemont, Aachen, the Sigfield line and a thousand other places where the foxholes, slit trenches and lonely unmarked graves may still be viewed today. The author talks about Allied forces crossing the Rhine River and beyond to a Nazi death camp, where the inmates were starved to death. The story continues until the end of the war, where in the final days of that great conflict, American troops pushed on to Grabow were the 82nd Airborne hooked up with the advanced elements of the Russian Army.

The book is important because it is told not by journalists or historians, but from the lived experiences of common soldiers who were there, who not only saw it happen but made it happen.

(Read the rest of this story in the December 26th print edition of the Dresden Enterprise.)