15 Minutes and Counting
People just love that "monkey nurse." And People magazine
does too. Recently, the magazine ran a full-page article and big color picture
of Beverly Pressgrove -- dismissed from Methodist Hospital for administering
to a chimpanzee -- posing outside of Methodist South, reading fan mail.
"I may not be a nurse again," she told the mag, "but I bet
I could get a job at the Memphis Zoo."
Don't bet on it.
"As a nurse she is trained for very specific human care conditions,"
says Memphis Zoo director Charles Wilson. "She's probably very good
as a nurse, but that doesn't translate to the hundreds of thousands of other
species." Wilson also says Pressgrove might be deterred from zoo life
by the pay cut involved.
How Soon We Forget
It wasn't all that long ago that the Southern Baptist Convention was advocating
a boycott of Disney. But it looks like time -- even very small amounts of
it -- does indeed heal all ills. On September 20th, the Baptist Memorial
Health Care Foundation is sponsoring the Baptist Kids Festival at The Hutchison
School, which includes a Fun Run, complete with door prizes. The prizes?
Let's see Airline tickets. A stay at The Peabody in Orlando. Oh yeah, and
some tickets to Disney World.
Monthly
Affirmation
The results of the self-congratulations sweepstakes are in, and the winner
is ... Lisa Houston Montgomery, publisher of the free monthly Women's
News of the Mid-South.
"I can't seem to take my eyes off our July issue. It's the best issue
we've ever done," Montgomery fawns in the publisher's note in the August
issue, which -- since she doesn't say anything, glowing or otherwise, about
that issue in the note -- we can only assume she thinks is a piece of crap.
Wanted: Synonym For "Hay"
We don't need one, really, but the marketing people at the Tennessee Department
of Agriculture could probably use a hand. "Hay Plentiful in Tennessee
Hay Directory," begins the news they just couldn't wait to tell us.
And it goes on: "The Tennessee Hay Directory is an excellent way to
market and buy hay. The annual hay directory is a computerized list of current
hay sources and ..." You get the idea. And, we assure you, that ain't
... yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clout
We've got tons of it, baby, as anyone could tell by seeing Flyer
editor Dennis Freeland Sunday night on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon
on Channel 3. He was the one right there next to Elvis impersonator Joe
Kent and McGruff, The Crime Dog; the one whom Jerry Tate introduced as Dennis
Freeland of the Tri-State Defender.
School System Hires Five More Principals
by Tanuja Surpuriya
emphis
City Schools came a couple of steps closer to filling all the principal
positions for the 1997-98 school year. Last week, five new principals were
named at White Station Middle School and Berclair, Levi, Spring Hill, and
Whitehaven elementary schools. Now, only Vance Middle School is still without
a principal.
And while a new principal has already been named at Colonial Junior High, MCS officials are still uncertain about when he will start. Colonial's new principal, David Forster, is still in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada, where he was the principal of Lago Lindo Middle School. Forster was hired even though he did not have the proper visa or permit to work in this country.
Judy Faris, administrative assistant to superintendent Dr. Gerry House, says House hired Forster knowing he did not have a proper work permit, but that "his qualifications were excellent."
"He is well worth the wait," she says.
Forster has had 20 years' worth of experience in site-based decision-making, which is a new concept MCS plans to use in Memphis. The idea is to get individual schools to start making their own decisions concerning their campuses, instead of having all directives come from the board, says Faris.
She thinks Forster's paperwork will be cleared in the next couple of months so he can assume his position by October 1st.
Currently, general science teacher Laura Williams is serving as interim principal at Colonial. Williams says she has had some experience taking on administrative duties when principals have been absent in the past.
Ad Contracts Keep Video Scoreboard Off Liberty Bowl
by Dennis Freeland
The
33,310 fans who watched Mississippi State host Memphis at Scott Field in
Starkville last weekend saw replays on a new Sony Jumbotron video scoreboard.
The 28,216 who attended the Ole Miss-Central Florida game in Oxford also
watched replays on a new Jumbotron. But the 30,171 who attended the first
regular-season NFL game in Memphis Sunday watched no replays. Liberty Bowl
Memorial Stadium is not equipped with a video scoreboard.
StadiaNet Sports installed the Jumbotron video boards in Starkville and Oxford at a cost of approximately $3.4 million each, it recoups its investment by selling advertising. The company and the schools divide the ad revenue once the initial investment is repaid.
StadiaNet Sports has offered to install a Jumbotron at the Liberty Bowl, but the deal has not been finalized. "We did have a meeting with the people from StadiaNet Sports," says John Malmo, chairman of the Memphis Park Commission. "But our situation here is a much more complex matter than are those in either Oxford or Starkville."
Malmo says the Liberty Bowl tenants -- the NFL Oilers, the University of Memphis, the Southern Heritage Classic, and the Liberty Bowl game -- all have individual contracts involving stadium advertising.
"The advertising pot for stadium advertising is not a bottomless pit," Malmo says. "The Oilers want as big a chunk of that pie as they can for their games. The same can be said for the others."
Malmo says it would be unfair to say the Oilers nixed the Jumbotron deal. "They have a contract and the contract is very explicit about advertising," he says.
The Jumbotron is still under discussion. "I would anticipate that we will work something out," Malmo says. "All of us want it. I think it would be a tremendous addition."