Your Friday at a glance:
- Weather: High of 52 with a deep freeze settling in tonight.
- What to eat: King’s Cake. Try this mardi gras recipe ahead of the March celebration.
- What’s interesting: A study has ranked Tennessee as the state with the best road quality.
- What’s to do: The Harlem Globetrotters and comedian Ron White will be in town this weekend. Here are all of the Chattanooga area events coming up in the next few days.
Good morning, Chattanooga!
Out of 400 people working in U.S. Xpress maintenance shops, fewer than 10 are women.
For Bella Hampton, tinkering ran in her blood. But she also felt the pressure of what society might expect of her, especially now as a mother and wife.
“I was always into turning wrenches,” Hampton says. “As a kid, I took my TV apart and put it back together, an old box TV. My mom was like, ‘We don’t do that, that’s not what ladies do.'”
In 2020, Hampton completed her training at Chattanooga State Community College and is now one of a few women in the company’s maintenance ranks. She calls the work “addicting.”
“It’s uncommon, but you’re starting to see a lot more women entering the industry,” said Morgan Dolan, a senior recruiting manager for U.S. Xpress who focuses on filling shop roles and corporate maintenance jobs.
Now for some recent stories:
POLL PUSH: Tennesse is starting its search for poll workers for the 2022 elections.
JUDGING JUDGES: With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, President Joe Biden committed to install a Black woman to the post. Here learn about some of the assumed front runners.
NEW JOBS: A deck and railing producer is bringing a plant and 310 new jobs to Tennessee.
-Tierra Hayes, thayes@timesfreepress.com
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