by Wesley Bryant | Apr 17, 2025 | Franklin County, Stories
A STUDENT IN our community today will walk the halls of Congress with a pinned American flag on their chest. A student in our community today will pray their knees still hold when their nerves get the best of them as they walk the steps to the stage to accept a...
by Jeriah Brumfield | Apr 17, 2025 | Franklin County, Stories
SANDY SCHULTZ sat in her first-year nursing class at Middle Tennessee State University. Heavy textbooks rested in her lap.. She stared at human anatomy diagrams, feeling disconnected, as if they belonged to someone else’s story. Her mother was a nurse, and she’d...
by Jeriah Brumfield | Apr 17, 2025 | Franklin County, Stories
JOSH NEAL, the principal of Winchester Christian Academy’s Upper School, remembers his eighth grade year as the moment that jumpstarted his career in education. “There were a couple of teachers along the way who inspired me to become a teacher,” he recalled. “My...
by Jeriah Brumfield | Apr 17, 2025 | Franklin County, Stories
IN THE tiny “classroom” of her childhood playroom, Diane Gipson was already a teacher. Barbie dolls and teddy bears sat in neat rows, listening intently as Gipson pointed to chalk scribbles on a board and assigned homework no one would complete. She didn’t know it...
by Jeriah Brumfield | Apr 1, 2025 | Franklin County, Stories
SLOW-COOKED BARBECUE fused with the cozy scent of wood smoke as Bob Reynolds leaned out of the Squidbilly Vittles BBQ food truck window, greeting the growing line of customers with a smile. Behind him, tongs clattered and sizzling meat hissed, audible even through the...
by Jeriah Brumfield | Apr 1, 2025 | Franklin County, Stories
LAURA LOWNDES sat quietly beside her father in the car. It was her favorite time of day when the world slowed down, and she could simply be with her dad. Maybe it was the engine’s steady rumble, the brakes’ soft creak, or the way the tires kicked up dust...
