Several people have called me after the stories about tattooing houses. One call was from Robert Lee “Bobby” Fields, whom I have not seen since school days and had not spoken with in over 60 years. It seems that Edgebert Lee and Melba Lovell had stopped by to see him and brought a copy of the Union County Shopper. Bobby and his wife now live at Strawberry Plains. Bobby retired from Bell South with 37 years of service.

Bread pudding is an old fashioned dessert. Back in the day you made do with what you had. Going to the grocers more than once a week was unheard of. Bread pudding was my first attempt at making a fancy dessert. It was at my second job. I made ten dollars a week plus room and board.

A very prominent educator suggested we use this slogan for www.HistoricUnionCounty.com, "Today's Events are Tomorrow's History”. We all know we can’t change history, but we can improve our future by knowing the successes and failures of our past. Our goal for www.HistoricUnionCounty.com is to promote businesses and bring jobs to our community.

The miracles found in snow stems back to when I was a little girl, about 6 or 7. The Christmas forecast was for sunny and warm temperatures, in the 60s, but I prayed for a white Christmas. I had the childlike faith that it would snow. My grandfather, Roscoe, was teasing me by saying, "It's not going to snow. It's going to be too warm." I replied, "Don't you believe in the Bible?

December 15 is the deadline for ACA 2018 health insurance enrollment. If you have health insurance for 2018, great! If not, you may want to check on ACA Marketplace Health Insurance for security and to avoid tax penalty. In 2015 Union County had a 18.8% uninsured rate among working age adults, much higher than the state average.

The winner of the Gip's Mill contest is Deana Rutherford. Deana you have won a $20 gift certificate to Gip's Mill Country Store and Deli. You can pick up your prize at the Union County Vendor Mall during their normal business hours located at 155-A Durham Drive Maynardville, TN. We hope you enjoy your time at Gip's Mill.

For nearly 20 years now, Union County High School has taken time each Veterans Day to welcome and honor Union County's veterans with a program prepared, produced and performed by the students themselves with coordination from Union County General Sessions and Juvenile Court Clerk Barbara Williams.

Williams is slow to take credit for the program, but guest speaker retired U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Dooley Buckner recognized her from the podium, saying, "She has worked tirelessly for almost 20 years to coordinate this event for the students, the veterans and the community."

Last Saturday evening, a packed house enjoyed dinner catered by Pete's Place and witnessed the naming of the 2017 Union County Business & Professional Association Woman and Man of the Year. Cindy Wyrick chaired this year's committee.

The Booker Farm (circa 1750) located on Luttrell-Corryton Road in Union County was the second property in Union County to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eighty-nine acres of the Booker Farm was registered along with a collection of historic buildings and landscape comprising a historic district that documented rural architecture and agriculture in Union County. It is the second oldest century farm in Union County and well represents the settlement patterns of this Appalachian Region. The farm lays divided by the Luttrell-Corryton road.

I knew it! I just knew when I wrote about tattooing that some of that had taken place in Union County and that I would get some feedback. Sure enough, John Brown, an elementary school classmate and much decorated Vietnam War veteran who had lived on Monroe Road, called to say he had participated in a few episodes that, in Maynardville at the time, was called Tic-tacking. Since I didn’t find that in the dictionary and since it is the exact same description as I mentioned earlier–they were tattooing houses.