Alison Gerber is editor and director of content for the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
She joined the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2003 and has served as assistant metro editor, metro editor and managing editor. She has been editor of the newspaper since 2011.
Prior to joining the Times Free Press, Gerber was a reporter in Florida. She covered city hall, crime and education at the Naples Daily News and the Fort Myers News-Press.
She is married with a 9-year-old daughter. When Gerber is not in the newsroom, she spends her time cooking, gardening and running with her dog.
Reach her at agerber@timesfreepress.com or @aligerb or 423-757-6408.So things got kinda ugly in the Chattanooga vs. Boone and the Chattanooga vs. Port Angeles contest.
In the grand scheme of things, the Outside magazine contest for the Best Town Ever wasn’t that important. In the news last week, more candidates jumped into the 2016 presidential race, parts of the Patriot Act expired, and it was revealed that the Obama administration expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of American citizens.
Important stuff for sure.
Yet everywhere I turned, people were talking about how their city was gonna take down Boone and bury Port Angeles. Well, that and Caitlyn Jenner.
In case you were in Siberia last week and missed all the hubbub, here’s a quick catch-up: Chattanooga defeated Boone, N.C., in the March Madness-style tournament’s semifinals and then battled Port Angeles, Wash., in the title match. Chattanooga won the title, based on online voting, in 2011, and getting it back seemed a matter of civic pride for many Chattanoogans, who took to social media to talk up their town and plead for votes.