Stories from Sunday, September 6, 2009

KNOXVILLE -- Luck, as they say, is when preparation meets opportunity. Tennessee had quite the audience for their season-opening 63-7 shellacking of Western Kentucky on Saturday at Neyland Stadium. Offseason comments by new head coach Lane Kiffin and a staff plucked from various levels of football had both fans of the Volunteers and curious onlookers providing all the opportunity they could ever ask for to leave a first impression...

The rebuilding process for Community's youth-dominated football team continued Friday night as they endured a 41-0 loss at Eagleville in both squads' first District 9-A/2A game of the season. "We just got ourselves in a hole that we couldn't get out of, being a young ball club and inexperienced," Viking coach Johnnie Frost said. "We're still learning how to come out of the gates, execute, and set the tone."...

The wind was whipping the flags of states and nations over the Celebration grounds Saturday night -- and the horses were whipping the crowd into a frenzy just below. After 11 days of classes, triumph and heartbreak often riding side by side, it was time to declare the World Grand Champion of the 71st annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration....

A young Bedford County man lost his life in an early morning accident Saturday west of Shelbyville. The body of Matthew J. Cooke, 23, of Whitaker Road was found near his overturned pickup truck in a field near Joe Fleming Stables, HIghway 64 West, authorities said...

Most Bedford County students will not watch President Barack Obama's televised back-to-school speech live on Tuesday. In a statement issued late Friday to principals, administrators and the Times-Gazette, Bedford County School Superintendent Ed Gray cited the demands of the instructional schedule and the danger of politicizing the classroom...

A Shelbyville woman who gave birth to a baby that tested positive for drugs will spend at least the next year in jail after pleading guilty Thursday. Kristine T. Buie agreed to a sentence of three years on the charge of aggravated assault before Circuit Court Judge Lee Russell...

Most teenage girls enjoy being up to date with the latest fashions and trends. They also are supposed to love getting all dressed up and made up ... right? Not for my 17-year-old sister Jessica. Her idea of applying makeup is a light powder and mascara. I don't believe the words "foundation" and "lipstick" even exist in Jessica's vocabulary...

Marijuana was found on a man being searched at Bedford County Jail Tuesday, Shelbyville police said. Timothy Aaron Newsom, 23, Frank Martin Road, allegedly attempted to conceal a bag containing 1.27 grams in his left side waistband, Officer Gregg Loyd's report said...

It was the final Friday night of the annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration across town, but the loudest cheers may have come from Eagle Stadium as Shelbyville Central came from behind to defeat visiting Franklin County 16-14 in a huge District 8-AAA slugfest...

Cascade more resembled the team most thought they would be coming into 2009 as they totally dismantled No. 7-ranked Forrest 38-7 in a key District 9-A showdown Friday night at The Stable. After a pair of losses to start the season left them banged up physically and broken down mentally, the Champions played like a team with a sense of purpose in their fourth straight victory over the rival Rockets...

Someone, please, remind me why we have children. I know we have to continue the species and keep Johnson & Johnson's Band-Aid division in the black, but other than that, really, why do we have kids? I'm writing this, thinking about last weekend. As the Celebration got rolling, I got to rolling home later and later every night. ...

I was all set to write a column this week about pregnancy woes, but I had a lot of trouble getting it to come together. So, I decided to do what my co-worker Sadie Fowler did a few weeks ago. I decided to give my own answers to a few of the Sunday Conversation questions...

I am really not much of a salad person, so it's sort of odd that I have featured a few salads in this column this summer. If you notice, however, the salads came from sources other than myself (Whitney Danhof made a chicken caesar recently and another friend of mine had me over for jicama salad)...

Everybody needs somebody. Those striking words came from a special woman I know named Jane, a frank but caring mother, wife, sister, daughter, teacher, friend, aunt -- and caregiver. Over the past several months, Jane has sacrificed many of her and her immediate family's own needs to care for her brother, a terminally ill cancer patient. Her brother is divorced and his daughter and son are unable to take care of him full-time...

Rod Cleveland watched his idol do it for years, but he never thought he could come close to creating the same intricate art his grandfather created, no matter how closely he watched. "I watched him for 30 years and one day he stopped making pieces for me and told me I could do it myself," Cleveland, 41, said. "I was amazed by his work."...