Jay GreesonI have been less than thrilled with the news coming from the leadership of the Hamilton County Department of Education for the last 15 months.
It’s been a pretty dismal stretch. But I caught a reason to believe in better and brighter days Thursday.
The school board voted 5-4 to support Joe Smith’s wise suggestion to table Superintendent Dr. Kirk Kelly’s first budget. It also voted to have Kelly and his team rework the budget until it’s balanced, and then to submit an itemized list of additional needs for consideration.
Debate the dollars and make sense of the cents – and yes, I think the schools need more resources, too – but the truly encouraging part is the supervision and leadership the board demonstrated.
For far too long, the board was either kept in the dark or happy to have the lights off, and the folks at Bonny Oaks had little to no accountability.
Job fares
Earlier this week, Business Insider posted an interesting story that detailed the most disproportionately concentrated jobs in every U.S. state.
Remember this is not the most common jobs in the state, which in 80 percent of the states is “retail salesperson.”
Some of the disproportioned occupations were to be expected.
Case in point, there is an overwhelming percentage of fashion designers in New York, and the folks in Louisiana are more likely to be boat pilots or captains than in any other state.
According to the numbers from May 2016 Occupational Employment Statistics, Oregonians are more likely to be loggers and Nevadans are more likely to be game-industry workers.
Here are the five that surprised me:
New Jersey: shampooers;
Pennsylvania: ambulance drivers;
Missouri: locker and coatroom attendants;
North Dakota: Roustabouts;
Florida: special education teachers;
Locally, Tennessee is flush with medical appliance technicians, Georgia’s was textile machine operators and Alabama’s was tire builders.
To that, of course, we can only say roll, tire, roll.
Signs of the times
I drive around our coverage area quite a bit trying to find interesting stories for this space. (If you have a suggestion, I’m all ears at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.)
Something that has caught my attention during those travels of late: signs.
There are some great signs all around us. Certainly, the overhead interstate messages have become quite glib in their delivery. The Lookouts message board is always good for a smile, and the old-school sayings and beliefs on church signs can often surprise.
Two have jumped out at me lately.
First, at the north part of the county, there’s Maw Hudgins’ Produce and Nursery. It stands amid the trees, the last visible clue of a business that is no more.
Second, closer to downtown, there’s a gas station on Dayton Boulevard that flashes the neon message, “Happy New Year.”
So what if it’s almost May? For a lot of us, that’s a great sentiment no matter what the calendar says.
So, I know it’s after Easter, but Happy New Year, everyone.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and 423-757-6343.