People who had a way with words in the news last week:
“I’ve been at so many town halls where they’re like, ‘Yay, the EPA is here, and they’re going to save the day.’ Uh, no. They’re not. But I need you here because we’re going to have to save our own ass.”
— Consumer advocate Erin Brockovich on the importance of awareness and grassroots efforts.
“My constituents don’t need a walking park or picnic tables. They need jobs.”
— Tennessee state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, on the industrial vision for McDonald Farm.
“I think a lot of people going through cancer would just prefer you just to talk to them about it, ask them point-blank. It becomes their life and kind of everything they know, and so sometimes it is nice just to talk about it.”
— Sid Lanier, whose girlfriend of four years, Brinley Corbin, died from cancer in April. The town of Trion, Georgia, is building a dog park in Corbin’s memory.
“It’s rare for a founder to have that kind of mentality … They typically treat the property like a sacred place, and she said she saw it as the Lord providing an asset.”
— David Arthur, CEO of Precept, on his mother and Precept cofounder Kay Arthur, who died in May at 91. The global Bible study ministry sold its headquarters to Skyuka Hall, a school for students with learning disabilities.
“The jobs boom has been great for Chattanooga, including for its poverty, but there’s more to reducing poverty than just the jobs boom.”
— Howard Wall, director and chief economist for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Center for Regional Economic Research, on poverty in Chattanooga.
“I believe everybody in Walker County would agree that we really appreciate Roper’s presence here.”
— Allyson Ford, president of the Walker County Chamber of Commerce, on the Roper plant in LaFayette, Georgia. GE Appliances recently made a $180 million investment in the facility.
“This is an excellent community. It’s a very patriotic community, and that’s one of the reasons I enjoy living here.”
— Mike Schlote, who helps coordinate the Ringgold Veterans Flags program, after some flagpoles that were previously feared stolen were returned. The person who had taken them mistakenly thought they were scrap metal.
“I thought it was such a simple bill that said we just want to codify access to contraceptives and IVF. I had no idea it would mushroom the way it did. It opened my eyes. It really did.”
— State Rep. Iris Rudder, R-Winchester, cosponsor of legislation that codified the right to access fertility treatments and birth control in Tennessee and the 11th-hour effort to derail it.
“I really don’t think my great-grandparents could have imagined what we are now.”
— Tennyson Dickinson, park director and great-granddaughter of cofounders Carl and Minette Dixon, on the 100th birthday of Lake Winnepesaukah.
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