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).
Tuesday, the city votes for a new mayor.
by David CookWhat if it had been your father beaten? Your son cavity-searched? Your daughter groped?
by David CookEarlier this month, Hugh Willett, editor of the Roane County News, received an email from a young journalism student — not quite out of school — named Reagan England.
by David CookDo you know the most dangerous thing on earth?
by David CookIt was winter 2019.
by David CookFor the last five years, Donald Trump has lived in my body.
by David CookThis is an invitation.
by David CookWednesday afternoon, a friend and I took a walk through Pleasant Gardens Cemetery, the African American burial ground on Missionary Ridge.
by David CookI remember early March.
by David CookOn Tuesday, Hamilton County recorded a record 510 positive COVID-19 cases.
by David CookSixty years ago this month, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Chattanooga.
by David CookFor the last 261 days, ever since the coronavirus appeared in this county on March 13, an untold number of men and women have devoted and risked their lives to save ours.
by David CookThis Thanksgiving, you're not going to intentionally undercook the turkey, are you? Some salmonella and gravy for your guests?
by David CookWhen the pandemic began, Troy Rogers and Tony Oliver bought $100 worth of Walmart groceries and began feeding people across the city.
by David Cook"Where is your country? he said.
by David CookLife feels like a flood right now. The waters are so high, so torrentially fast.
by David CookHow do we fight without fighting life itself?
by David CookRecently, I heard of a local man who, in the pre-dawn dark, gets up early to run his neighborhood streets.
by David CookSeveral years ago, we were named the Most Bible-Minded City in America. So, tell me:
by David CookSix months...and three weeks.
by David Cook