At the beginning of June, 1987, I was a soon-to-be twenty-two-year-old. I still had challenges with acne and weighed 120 pounds “soaking wet”. I was degreed, certified, and looking for a job.
Actually, I started that process during Christmas break of 1986. I called David F. Coppock, then Superintendent of the Union County Public School System. Mr. Coppock listened to me “pitch” myself for a job, then responded, “I guess you want to come in and fill out an application.” I replied that I wasn’t yet graduated, and he said that was fine, just to put my anticipated date of graduation and certifications.

If you have milk, eggs and bread, you have the fixings for this delicious breakfast or luncheon dish. It's meatless, so you can fix it for supper the night before payday when your pantry is almost empty.

Many expected to say goodbye to the only tanning salon in Union County, Bronzed Brilliance Tanning of Maynardville, last year when the owner passed away. What many do not know is that a patron of Bronze Brilliance Tanning decided to purchase the salon and keep the doors open. Andrea Posani, a frequent customer of the establishment, was heart-struck to find the owner and operator of her beloved tanning salon had passed. When she discovered that the previous owner had no one to take over the salon and that it was up for sale, she decided to take a chance on it.

A nerve becomes “pinched” when the nerve itself has been compressed by surrounding tissues. In some situations, cartilage, bone, or swollen soft tissue can impact the nerve itself. Some of the most common reasons why people develop pinched nerves include:

• Issues related to weight and obesity
• The development of rheumatoid arthritis
• Suffering a traumatic injury playing sports or in a motor vehicle accident
• Stress from poor work ergonomics
• Certain hobbies, particularly athletics, that can lead to a pinched nerve through an overuse injury

The traditional course of college study for undergraduates in the teacher education program for many years, including the 1980s, consisted of a four-year undergraduate program ending with a bachelor’s degree and teaching certification in a specialized area of education. Back in those days, the college academic year was divided into four quarters (including summer, each about ten weeks long), not three semesters (each about sixteen weeks long). Traditionally, the last quarter of an education major’s college career was spent student teaching.

With cell phones and the Internet, few people write letters anymore. Most would not know how to compose an interesting letter. They are so used to sending short blurbs. A detailed letter would almost be like writing a book for them. Another thing—very few people use cursive anymore. Printing is the norm.
I remember my grade school days. I could ace every subject except Penmanship. The old Palmer method was beyond me. Some days I couldn’t even read things I had written a few days before.

Work based students at Union County High School deserve special recognition for their hard work and dedication. This semester the program has eighty-seven students enrolled and working towards their industry certifications. For readers unfamiliar with the program, which receives its certifications through Express Employment, it is a wonderful opportunity for high school students to get a leg up in the work force once they graduate.

It takes some patients by surprise, but one of the first things a chiropractor will do when you visit for the first time is to measure the length of your legs. If you’ve gone to see a chiropractor because your back is bothering you, it’s reasonable to wonder why the doctor is looking at your legs. But here’s the reason: it’s not uncommon for people to have legs that are of slightly different lengths. Since your legs and feet are the foundation on which the body stands, if those lengths differ even marginally, everything above them is going to be slightly off-kilter.

I remember one day at the Union County Board of Education’s Central Office Ms. Pat Baker came in. She announced she was there to fill out her retirement papers. I was most surprised. Ms. Pat said that she knew that one day she would wake up and know it was time for her to retire, and she said that was the very day.

When the forest is laid bare each winter there is a tendency to think of it as a bleak and dreary place. But the basic structural skeleton of each tree can be seen at this time, with every branch, twig, and bud visible, thus revealing how it has grown in the past, and how it has prepared for the future. So put on a coat, go outside and go take a look.

I am thrilled to announce that as of December 2022, Biblical instruction is offered to students of all five elementary schools in Union County. This is provided through an interdenominational program similar to the Bible Lady that many of you grew up with. It is called Bible Release Time and is provided by the Elgin Children’s Foundation.
What is Bible Release Time (BRT)?

The FY23 Union County Budget has a new pay scale for county employees. The pay scale was developed by looking at all current salaries for county employees. Any employee who currently made less than $15 per hour was raised to at least that amount and placed on the schedule without regard to the number of years worked.
So, if employee A makes $8 per hour as a new hire and employee B makes $10 per hour with five years experience, both employees will now make the same $15 per hour.

There’s a new stylist in town and she has set up shop at New You Hair Salon in Maynardville. Tonia Harrison is the newest stylist to join owner Vickie Burkhart’s crew. She has come all the way from Florida, where she was a stylist for 16 years, part of the time as a shop owner.
Earlier this year, Tonia and her husband made the decision to move to Tennessee to be closer to family. The couple has family residing in Union County and Polk County, so they had the tough choice of choosing a new hometown. The wonderful tight-knit community of Union County won their hearts, so they packed up and left Florida. Tonia, however, left behind her salon, Pretty Bird Hair.

Chiropractic is a licensed health care profession that emphasizes the body’s ability to heal itself. Treatment typically involves manual therapy, often including spinal manipulation. Other forms of treatment, such as exercise and nutritional counseling, may be used as well.

What Chiropractors Do

This casserole goes together quickly, since we are using frozen breaded chicken patties diced into bite sized pieces. Just toss it together and bake until bubbly, about 45 minutes.
When you need a great casserole in a hurry, this is it.

Did you always like the lunch your mother packed for you during those long-ago school years? Did your classmates’ lunches look better than the same old boring stuff you pulled from your lunch sack?
If so, you were not alone. But there was a solution. Let me tell you what my son Tom thought up.
If Tom had paid as much attention to his schoolwork as he did in goofing off, he might have been a rocket scientist or at least the vice president. Not so. Goofing off was his specialty.

Country Connections y James and Ellen Perry
As I sit here on my front porch in the late evening afterglow on a cool December day, I see a robin in my front yard.
Immediately my memory goes back to a beautiful soul-searching song by Hank Williams from 1949. This line was in that song: “Did you ever see a robin weep when leaves began to die, that means he’s lost the will to live.”

Unlike most kids, my favorite Christmas song wasn’t “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” or “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.” Nope. It was “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”
Does that sound strange? Being the imaginative kid that I was, I created my own version of a winter wonderland in my head.
Every time I heard that song, it transported me there. In it were snow, talking snowmen (of course), and Christmas trees full of colorful sparkling lights and shiny ornaments.
In other words, it was a perfect place full of adventure.

Soon, people working sedentary jobs will be able to take advantage of an innovation created to prevent troublesome back pain — researchers have created a prototype of an office chair that activates deep muscles and improves trunk stabilization.

Research shows that many people spend almost 80 per cent of their working day sitting and at least half of that time in the same body position. The prolonged and invariable sitting posture is associated with lower back pain due to impaired musculoskeletal control.

My father was a reader. But during the Great Depression books were hard to come by. We didn’t live near a library. Gas to go there was expensive when he only earned forty dollars a month working on a farm, doing the milking and field work. But there was some reading material available at a low price. The pulp Western novels, costing ten or fifteen cents, filled the bill. We couldn’t even afford a newspaper subscription.

Modern living tends to make us too busy to relax, and I’m not the first to tell you that’s not healthy. Humans of any age need to play and let those stress generated hormones that make the heart race and adrenaline flow get out of our system. To many this may involve some form of exercise through various sports, but another way is to just get outside and become more attuned to what's around you. It focuses you to live in the now, with no thought of past or future concerns. A connection with nature has been proven to be healthy and therapeutic, yet severely lacking these days, especially with kids. So let me encourage you to resolve in 2023 to get outside a little more, to be still a little more, and enjoy and learn more about this wonderful place we live in. Here are some possibilities

Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) may prove more effective than usual treatment in alleviating chronic low-back pain, according to a new study funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Back in the day, when we lived on the farm, if I wanted to prepare a Sunday chicken dinner, there was a lot of prep work to do. We only did this if we had company coming. We couldn’t go to Food City and select a package of chicken parts from the meat counter. Nope! Na! Na! No way! In fact, in those days the only chicken I might find at the meat market was a sorry looking whole chicken. Separately packaged breasts or drumsticks were far in the future. I prepped my own.

By now you have no doubt heard the obligatory Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer song ten times on the radio or department store sound systems. The assumption is that because Rudolf is depicted with antlers that he’s a he, and that may be correct. But if you will allow me some natural history holiday fun, it’s possible that Rudolf is a her.