David Cook is the award-winning city columnist for the Times Free Press, working in the same building where he began his post-college career as a sportswriter for the Chattanooga Free Press. Cook, who graduated from Red Bank High, holds a master's degree in Peace and Justice Studies from Prescott College and an English degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. For 12 years, he was a teacher at the middle, high school and university levels. A Marshall Memorial Fellow, Cook published in magazines (The Sun, Utne Reader, Geez), academic journals, an anthology on homelessness ("Personal Struggles, Professional Lives: Ethics and Advocacy in Research on Homelessness" — Lexington Press) and an anthology on grandparents and grandchildren ("Grandparenting with Heart" — North Atlantic).
Don't want to talk impeachment. Not yet.
by David CookEvery so often, I get a phone call from a particular Chattanoogan, someone you may know. In fact, if you're an elected leader, he's probably calling you, too.
by David CookThis is a story of starving artists who are starving no longer. Of a building — one of the most beautiful in the city — once in turmoil, now beginning to thrive. And the man — the really great man — holding it all together.
by David CookIn a summertime poll, nearly 65% of Hamilton County residents wanted a tax increase to fund education.
by David CookHeard from an old friend a few nights ago. Name's Will. He's a hard-working Chattanoogan, an unforgettably generous family man and friend. Politically, he's fiercely independent, pledging allegiance, as he puts it, to neither Adam Smith nor Thomas Jefferson, but God.
by David CookWhere is the way out?
by David CookMore than 20,000 plastic water bottles and 150,000 aid station cups were used during last weekend's Ironman, according to race officials.
by David CookFounded in 1979 by the Episcopal Church to help the "poor, homeless, hungry, battered" in Chattanooga, Metropolitan Ministries — or MetMin — turns 40 this year.
by David CookI'm not sure most patients can name the new CEO of Erlanger Health System.
by David CookThe more I think about it, the angrier I get.
by David CookIn July, a group of 50 suit-and-tie African-American preachers, ministers and supporters stood outside the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, declaring it was time for Jim Hammond to resign.
by David CookWriting this column has taken me powerful places; I've met presidents and rock stars, visited prisons, protests and places so secret I can't say in print.
by David CookNot long ago, I was driving home and passed by a construction crew working in the front yard of a neighborhood home. Six of the crewmen stood in the yard. Five were white. One was black.
by David CookTuesday evening, on the hottest day of the year, the parking lot thermometer read 102 degrees in St. Elmo.
by David CookSome 15 years ago, after reading a review from George Will, I picked up Matthew Scully's "Dominion," a haunting nonfiction account of animal cruelty inside factory farming and the theological reasons for fighting it.
by David CookTwo years ago, Sadie McElrath, a nurse practitioner, was curled up on her living room couch, watching YouTube about the plastic and environmental crisis.
by David CookDowntown Chattanooga's proposed Business Improvement District is a wolf in sheep's clothing.
by David CookLong before she swam with bull sharks in Fiji or wept with Buddhist nuns in Cambodia or heard the voice of God while sick on a bathroom floor in Nicaragua, Tracey Carisch sat down one Chattanooga night with a simple glass of pinot noir.
by David CookMore than a century after the lynching murder of Ed Johnson, the healing work continues.
by David CookWe attract people and companies from all around the world. Move here. Work here. Play here. Build here.
by David Cook