Nominations are now open for Union County Business & Professional Association Man & Woman of 2021. Anyone in Union County may make a nomination. Nominees shall be residents of Union County or gainfully employed in Union County or a current member of UCBPA. Nominees may perform service as a result of their job or as volunteers and demonstrate good citizenship for others to emulate.

Heritage Festival happens every year the first Saturday of October. Great music, great food, learning about heritage skills, and the pride of supporting our local community are just a few of the reasons that this festival is such a treasure here in Union County. However, there is a lot happening leading up to festival weekend. UT Extension Union County holds a haybale decorating contest, pie baking contest, and judging of festival exhibits each year the week before the festival.

For me, it was a once in a life time experience and I wasn’t going to miss it.
Many, many years ago, we were visiting were relatives in Ormond Beach Fla. Being the geek that I am, I had checked the NASA website for Space Shuttle launches. Yes, they were still launching them at that time. Anyway, it so happened there was a scheduled launch during our visit.

This is a fancy carrot salad. Of course i call anything fancy if it has marshmallows in it.

As the 2021 theme says, tourists from area counties as well as several states plan to “Take a Country Road” for the Union County Heritage Festival on Saturday, October 2.
Just follow Thunder Road (Hwy 33) and Wilson Lane to all of the festivities in Wilson Park. Visitors can board the free shuttle (the big yellow bus) sponsored by Monroe Bus Lines, State Farm Insurance, and City of Plainview to view the Quilt Show, talk to the authors, and eat some country cookin' at the Union County Museum.

Maynardville, TN, October 2021— Union County residents want children in need around the world to receive a gift this Christmas season and to experience the love and hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ.
“Anyone can be a part of making an eternal impact on the lives of children this holiday season simply by packing a shoebox gift filled with school supplies, toys, hygiene items like a toothbrush and a “WOW” item like a stuffed animal or soccer ball,” says Amie Winstead, Area Coordinator.

Mary Johnson addressed the Union County Commission at its September 27 meeting regarding the construction of a pharmaceutical chicken farm by Alpes Sanfer, Inc., in Sharps Chapel.
The company would place eight barns with 9,000 chickens in each barn on one of the oldest farms in Sharps Chapel, according to Johnson. Sanfer will be developing pathogen-free eggs to be used in making vaccines. The facility will employ approximately 30 people at an hourly rate of $13 to $17 but have made no promise to hire Union County residents, according to Johnson.

There is nothing that can compete with the smell of fresh baked biscuits!
Biscuit baking is a tradition in this region and there are many who will share fond memories of baking biscuits with their family. However, there are many who have never baked biscuits and would like to learn! Every year, 4-H combines education and the nostalgic reminder of baking biscuits with family by setting up a booth at the Tennessee Valley Fair.
Groups of students come in shifts to learn how to make biscuits and pass them out to patrons visiting the fair. It is a hit!

Would you like to purchase farm fresh products all year? You can!
You won’t have to miss any of that farm fresh beef and pork, dairy products, eggs, honey, soaps, balms and other products from your favorite vendors. You’ll also be able to order some of those late peppers, potatoes, winter squashes, greens as they are harvested, and, be the first to purchase fresh spring produce!

Every August, on a bright and sunny summer morning, students from across East Tennessee load up their grills and meet at the Appalachian Gray Fair in Gray, Tennessee, between Kingsport and Johnson City.

John 21:12 KJV:
[12] Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine.
It’s the third meeting Jesus is hosting for some of his disciples after his Resurrection. Like any good host, Jesus wants everyone to be relaxed before they really get into the serious business at hand for them. So he starts his meeting with a fish fry as it were. Fish sandwiches to be exact or at least their version of a fish sandwich, which was simply bread and fish—a highly appropriate meal for a meeting with a bunch of fishermen, cooked by someone that once said, “man does not live by bread alone.” (Matthew 4:4)

In the summertime, fresh from the garden, Mother would stir up a cucumber and onion salad. She never put sugar in her dish. I do. She combined vinegar, salt and water with the sliced cucumbers and onions. Mother never used sour cream in anything. We didn't have a refrigerator back in the day.

I was at the tender age of 16 when I received the message. It wasn’t a text since we didn’t have smartphones back in the ’80s. And no, it wasn’t a note somebody slipped to me during class. This one came from a higher source.

Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry
It’s early autumn now, nights getting cooler, days getting shorter with cool mornings and warm afternoons. Some trees are showing color and goldenrods are bright yellow with flowers.
Goldenrods are the last honey flow for the bees before winter sets in. The reptiles are searching for underground places to overwinter in. Black bears and groundhogs are hunting food to build fat reserves for their upcoming hibernation.

The annual application period for the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program is October 1-7, 2021. New application materials are available online and at the UT Extension office.
Please note Hay Storage and Hay Equipment rotate each program year. Hay Equipment will be offered in 2021-2022. Approval notifications are scheduled to be mailed mid-December.
Program purchases can be made starting October 1, 2021, and must be completed by the program’s final reimbursement request deadline.

Tennessee SNAP Recipients Encouraged to Assess Food Needs and Spending

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — For the first time in several decades, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is revising a guideline called the Thrifty Food Plan, which helps determine Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits nationwide.

After the experience of a nine-month pregnancy and delivery, few of life’s pleasures measure up to taking the new baby out to meet the world. That could be in the form of a walk, run or hike. The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has some thoughts for you to keep in mind on how to best enjoy that experience and avoid injury.

I was on my way to work the other day. I was tuned in to the BBN radio station and heard a preacher tell a joke. A preacher was in the pulpit preaching his sermon. He noticed all through the sermon that a lady kept staring directly at him.
When the service ended, the lady marched up to the preacher and said, “There are frayed strings on your bow tie and they have been driving me crazy all through your sermon. Your attire is offensive to me!”

September is noted for having heavy dews that bejewel cobwebs and soak your feet when walking through grass. The reason is that nights are getting longer, which allows the grass and other objects more time to drop below the dew point temperature and moisture in the air condenses on the cooled surface. Dew forms on vegetation more readily than other surfaces such as pavement because leaves and grass typically are thin and suspended in the air, causing them to cool more readily to reach dew point temperature.

Most people in my family asked, “Maynardville where? Why in the world are you going there?”, which of course required a long answer. Here is the shortest version I can manage. Actually, it isn’t very short.

Workers who lift for a living need to take longer or more frequent breaks than they now do to avoid back injury, according to a new study at Ohio State University. The study also suggests that people who are new on the job need to take breaks even more often than experienced workers, and that the risk of injury is higher at the end of a work shift.

I didn’t grow out of my fascination with trains. To this day, I still get excited when I see one and I also love to hear its lonesome whistle. But the one who actually witnessed the raw power of a train was my mom.
Back in the early eighties, she worked at a business in Powell that sat across the road from the railroad tracks. One day, she stepped out of the building and heard the loud revving of an engine. She looked toward where the train tracks crossed Emory Road and saw a delivery that was truck stuck on them. Yes, stuck.

The Autumn Equinox is one of two times of the year when the Sun is exactly above the Equator and day and night are equal in length. That’s as far into the science of what’s going on that I’ll go. It’s the astronomical beginning of fall, which is my favorite season of the year. After a long hot and humid summer, the crisp cool mornings, balmy temperatures, and visual clarity of lower humidity are very welcome.

As the young child walked through the rows of chickens her eyes lite up as she lifted her head to see a lighted Ferris wheel spinning in circles waiting for her to catch a ride.
This moment is one many of us have experienced walking through the fair as a young child and even still we feel a small glimmer of child like happiness when we see the line of carnival rides, games, and those delicious, candied apples.