EDUCATION, PART 1 A New Kind of Preschool Opens in North Memphis Although a new school in North Memphis opened with barely a whisper 11 weeks ago, it could prove to be one of the loudest voices in the crusade to bring educational opportunities back to the inner city. Named for the region in the Biblical story in which Jesus welcomes children into Heaven who were originally denied entrance, Perea Preschool is housed in Caldwell Elementary on Henry Avenue. It is just blocks from Children's Palace Learning Academy, where a toddler died this summer in a day care van. Perea opened with 48 3-year-old students and a nine-member teaching staff thanks to the philanthropic support of area business persons and the Church Health Center. Instrumental in the school's creation is Kelly Garrett, known for setting up Texas' first charter school and helping to found New Hope Christian Academy downtown. Garrett hopes Perea will alleviate some of the dissatisfaction many Memphians have with early childhood education options. Perea teachers must be certified in early childhood development and are paid $30,000 a year with health and retirement benefits -- a far cry from the minimum wage most early-child educators receive. "A lot of kids come to us with low social skills and, in addition to our educational curriculum, we teach them how to resolve conflict and deal with their anger in constructive ways," he says. Garrett says one boy, who would scream piercingly whenever he wanted something, learned in a short time to express his feelings using words. "It was a huge step in the right direction," says Garrett. "In two years we are convinced that our kids will be on par with some of the wealthiest kids." Tuition for the school is a dollar a day, which most parents pay monthly. The school will add another grade with 48 more students next year. "I've read in the paper that there are a lot of frustrated inner-city families who care about their children's education, but think they can't afford quality," Garrett says. "We want to see that turn around; we want to serve this neighborhood." -- Ashley Fantz EDUCATION , PART 2 Groups Urge More Art for Public Schools While funding for arts educa-tion in public schools continues to dwindle, the Memphis City Schools Board of Education is considering making a strong commitment to include public art in all school designs. On Monday, the board heard a proposal from the Center for Arts Education and UrbanArt Commission that would allow local and regional artists to create artworks -- either functional, educational, or purely aesthetic -- that would be paid for by setting aside 1 percent of the construction budget of each school for art enhancements. For example, money that would be used for benches and kiosks in a commons area could instead be spent to add murals to the walls or design those pieces more artistically. While board members won't vote on the plan until October 18th, the proposal got the support of most members, who said making art in schools a priority instead of a luxury is an idea a long time coming. "We've decreased our allocation toward arts in the schools a little bit more every year," said board member TaJuan Stout Mitchell. "I hope that if we go with this, we will look at increasing that funding, too, so we won't end up frustrating our kids who see all this creativity around them and then don't have the tools to do it themselves." Others stressed the need for diversity in both the types of art and artists, the use of local artists and students, and possibly working with University of Memphis art students. Only board member Sara Lewis was not completely sold on the idea. Agreeing that more art in schools is needed to inspire kids ("No wonder children want to escape from school," she said. "They look like barns."), she is concerned about the cost and control of designs, especially in light of the brouhaha over the Brooklyn Museum of Art's tax-dollar-supported exhibit featuring a painting of the Virgin Mary splotched with elephant dung. "We're not going to have that mess that's going on in New York," she said, adding that if the plan is approved, she wants all the art designs brought before the board for approval. -- Tanuja Surpuriya Bluestock Is a Hit Blues guitarist Buddy Guy gets down home on the stage of the New Daisy Theatre at Bluestock. The third annual blues conference and festival drew an estimated 10,000 fans to Beale Street last Friday and Saturday. ELECTIONS Candidates Begin to Take Notice of Hispanic Voters The Census Bureau estimates that there are about 12,000 Hispanic residents in Memphis. Those who live within that community say that number is much larger, perhaps around 100,000 people or more. But it's obvious to anyone who's paying attention that Memphis' Hispanic population is growing quickly. The Shelby County Election Commission can't tell how many Hispanics are registered to vote, since they only classify voters as "black," "white," or "other." Earlier this year commission officials estimated Hispanics might make up about 1 percent of Memphis voters, but that number may have increased thanks to voter registration drives. In any case, political candidates have begun to take notice of the Spanish-speaking community in Memphis and to court their vote. They haven't always done so with finesse, though, as when Joe Ford bragged that he had hired a "Latin-American-speaking secretary" for the city council. But hey, they're trying. A number of mayoral candidates have promised Spanish-speaking 911 dispatchers. In other races, city councilman E.C. Jones, whose district includes Frayser and Raleigh, has campaign signs that ask for voter support in both English and Spanish, and councilman Myron Lowery has promised to assess the needs of Hispanics in Super-District 8. -- Heather Heilman HISTORY Facing History Founder Speaks at Fund-Raiser It isn't your parent's history class -- well, sort of. Facing History and Ourselves is taught in more than 80 Memphis-area schools and nationwide. Its rigorous curriculum is designed to introduce students to people who actually lived history, from Holocaust survivors to civil rights activists. The program's ultimate goal is to teach tolerance and a broader understanding of different cultures. In 1976 Memphian Margot Stern Strom began the program while teaching history in Massachusetts. She'll speak at a Facing History fund-raising banquet on October 25th at The Peabody. Teachers, students, and other members of the community are expected to attend. "No one ever talked about race when I was growing up in Memphis," she recalls. "I just knew that there were certain boundaries between me and black people. When I began teaching, I knew that historical events had to have a human context to them so that students could relate to them, see them as significant and real." The evening will also honor Justice Richard Goldstone, a South African constitutional court judge whom Nelson Mandela has recognized as one of the country's premiere anti-apartheid leaders. He will speak and then meet with a group of students to discuss the slow reforms his country has made since the white-rule of apartheid ended in 1994. Strom told Goldstone about the program when she visited him at The Hague where he acted as chief prosecutor of Bosnian and Rwandan war crimes. "I had no doubt that this was a program that was relevant for my country and America," he says, from his home in Cape Town. "This sort of thing wasn't discussed when I was a student so it's an opportunity for me to share with younger people." He is among several noted members of the organization such as Steven Spielberg and Bill Moyers. Students use a CD-ROM of Holocaust memoirs edited by the film director and watch Schindler's List. They're also given a comprehensive packet of first-person stories about racial polarity in Memphis. Concentration camp survivor Nina Katz has visited classrooms and several Facing History workshops to tell her story. When America and Britain liberated Germany, she was the last member of her family alive. Barely 56 pounds, she woke up in a Czechoslovakian hospital unable to recognize the shell she had become. She moved to Memphis after she had regained her strength and married her childhood sweetheart, also a camp survivor. "Facing History is not just about what happened to me," she says. "It's about what happens to everyone when there is only hate -- that can be on a large scale like Germany or in smaller forms anywhere else." For tickets, call 452-1776. -- Ashley Fantz ROCK-AND-ROLL HEAVEN Elvis Auction Starts This Weekend If last WEEK was any indication, Elvis Presley Enterprises could expect a bonanza when the estate auctions off thousands of King-related items in Las Vegas this weekend. On Thursday, a number of Elvis items went on the block at Christie's in London in what has been described as the auction house's biggest pop music sale. A black voile shirt worn by the King sold for $32,500 and a two-piece suit worn was sold to the Hard Rock Cafe for $21,000. EPE officials, however, don't expect that auction to dampen enthusiasm for their three-day sale. The gavel falls Friday on the largest auction of Elvis memorabilia ever. Some 2,000 items -- everything from Elvis' early report cards to a vintage metallic-blue Mercedes limo -- are on the block. The minimum $1.3 to $1.8 million the auction is expected to bring in is going toward the building of Presley Place, a transitional housing project to be located in downtown Memphis. The auction is taking place in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel and will be carried live over the Internet on EarthCam.com. Pre-auction bids are being handled over the Web site icollector.com. --Mark Jordan DOWNTOWN Fire Museum Is One Year Old Light a candle, but be careful -- the Fire Museum of Memphis is celebrating its first birthday this week. Housed in a former fire station at 118 Adams, the museum has seen about 30,000 visitors cross its threshold since last October. Executive director Bob Brames thinks attendance will double next year. "We've got museums from places like Boston and New York and Massachusetts calling us," he said. "They've never seen anything like this." While most fire museums across the country focus on collecting fire station antiques, the Fire Museum of Memphis has put its focus on using the latest technology to teach fire safety. For example, computer games that are set up like arcades test you on finding escape routes, and the Fire Room actually simulates a living room on fire, complete with smoke and hot air. But keeping in mind that future mistakes can be avoided by learning from the past, the museum throws in plenty of history with the technology such as several antique fire trucks, including the city's first fire engine, Little Vigor. And Ol' Billy, an animated horse, narrates Memphis' fire history, while a bas-relief sculpture outside the museum honors the 46 firemen who have died in the line of duty. While kids are the museum's best customers (about four school groups a day), guest services manager Amie Petronis says firefighters all over the world have made pilgrimages to the Memphis museum, too: "It may be that they were in town to see Graceland, or something, but when they realize [the museum] is here, they're amazed." It's not uncommon to see a retired firefighter giving tours or sitting in the gift shop ready to answer questions about fighting fires, she says. The museum is celebrating all this week with, of course, a fire sale in the gift shop and a fire truck parade downtown on Saturday. --Tanuja Surpuriya ECONOMY Commissioners Approve Bond Issue Shelby County took on another $213 million in debt last week. The county is already $1.12 billion in the hole, but county commissioners voted last week to issue bond anticipation notes to fund school construction and the jail expansion. Since the commission will vote on each project individually, there's always the chance (however remote) that they won't use the whole $213 million amount. Commissioners Julian Bolton and Mark Norris voted against the bond issue. Both expressed concerns about the county's spiraling debt. "We need to sober up financially," Bolton said. "In a minute, we're going to be $2 billion in debt." -- Heather Heilman Making A Difference in Millennial Memphis - 19 Paula Kovarik, Emily Bishop, and Robin Marvel have put the grass back into the so-called grassroots effort. The women have been volunteering their Wednesdays to pick up beer bottles and other trash from the area around the train trestle over McLean between Central and Evelyn in Midtown. The trio has been clearing leaves and dead trees and even has plans to spruce up the area with a garden. However, trash remains a constant problem. But the women have found a solution to even that: trash cans that would be permanently mounted (the portable trash cans they bought quickly disappeared) and pleasing to the eye. Working with the Cooper-Young Community Association, the women have found the cans they need, which are identical to ones already used in the plaza area at Cooper and Young. For this worthwhile project, the Cooper-Young Community Association will receive the 19th Making a Difference in Millennial Memphis grant. As part of its 10th-anniversary celebration, The Memphis Flyer is giving away $50,000 in grants of $1,000 each. The money is provided by an anonymous Memphian who hopes to encourage what might be called "good works" -- little things that improve the quality of life in Memphis. The grants are disbursed by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis. Grants are available to any nonprofit in the Memphis area. To apply, send a proposal on the organization's stationery to: Making A Difference The Memphis Flyer, P.O. Box 687, Memphis, TN 38101

			Fly on the Wall How Not To Pick Up Women Some guys just don't know how to be cool with the ladies. Last week actress and Franklin, Tennessee, resident Ashley Judd was surprised by a stalker who entered her home pretending to be a police officer. Guy Dukes, a 32-year-old Louisville, Kentucky, security guard whom Judd has a restraining order against, didn't harm the actress and left when police (the real police) asked him. Furthermore, reports that Judd had actually been convicted of killing Dukes once before only to find out he was still alive, and that she then set out to murder him under the impunity of a ridiculous plot device, double jeopardy, turned out to be false. Nerds Unite Hopefully, you celebrated National Techies Day last Tuesday with the reverence due a totally made up holiday. The day of appreciation for the nation's tech workers was founded by CNET and Techies.com in cooperation with several corporate sponsors, including FedEx. In town, the overnight deliverer planned to celebrate with a barbecue luncheon for all its information technology employees, while the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce arranged for 300 techies to go into schools and talk to students. Here at the Flyer, we had a full slate of nerdy activities planned, including rousing games of pin the peripheral on the hard drive and bobbing for mice, and at nap time publisher Kenneth Neill read us the inspiring story of Bill Gates while we keyboarded data. It was a glorious time. Moonlighting How do injured quarterbacks fill their days? Rather than just sit around watching TV, apparently they go on TV. With his Tennessee Titans in first place in the NFC Central (despite their first loss of the season Sunday), injured Titan QB and former Alcorn State star Steve McNair used his down time to appear on last Friday's edition of the new Candid Camera. McNair joined two other NFL QBs on the program. The Giants' Kent Graham pretended to be a trucking company executive who "traded" his employees to a rival firm. Denver's Bubby Brister played a job interviewer who would interrupt applicants by throwing office supplies around the conference room to Broncos receiver Ed McCaffrey. For his part, McNair played the part of a guide at a Nashville tourist bureau booth. When visitors asked McNair for directions, he pulled out a whiteboard and pointed them on their way with an Xs and Os diagram. Hilarious. A Note To His Adoring Public "Popper could care less. Popper was reached in his private jet heading to Vegas to gamble and drink and was quoted as saying 'Fuck it. 'I refuse to have this tour feel like work in any way. If it isn't fun or useful in even the most remote way, then I got no business being here now, and I got better things to do than talk to your ass.'" -- from Blues Traveler lead singer John Popper's bizarre and rambling press release cancelling nine shows on his current tour, including his Memphis date originally scheduled for this Friday, October 8th.