FINDING THE HEARTBEAT oF HEALTH CARE

Transcription

March 3-9, 2011, Vol. 5, Issue 10
special emphasis: HEALTH CARE
Finding the
heartbeat of
health care
Special coverage
on the medical
industry’s biggest
issues and concerns
Page 14
revealing
Bill Courtney and the
Manassas football
team have the nation
cheering.
character
Page 24
Oscar win for ‘Undefeated’ shines light on Courtney’s work at Manassas
Photo: Lance Murphey
26 Sports
The Memphis Tigers head into the regular season finale looking to clinch the C-USA tournament’s
top seed, while the Memphis Grizzlies are playing superbly without a reliable backup point guard.
weekly digest: page 2
financial services: page 8
real estate: pages 28-29
arts and food: pages 34-35
EDITORIAL: page 38
A Publication of The Daily News Publishing Co. | www.thememphisnews.com
www.thememphisnews.com
2 March 3-9, 2012
weekly digest
Get news daily from The Daily News, www.memphisdailynews.com.
Early Voting Totals
Top 21,000 Ballots
Shelby County Republicans responded
during the just-closed early voting period to
a still-undecided race to be the party’s national challenger to Democratic president
Barack Obama in November.
And Memphis Democrats responded to
a hotly contested five-way race to decide
the Democratic nominee for General Sessions Court clerk, one of only two countywide offices the party currently holds in
Shelby County.
Together, voters in both parties contributed to a turnout of more than 21,000
early ballots in the voting period that ended
Tuesday, Feb. 28, in advance of the March
6 Election Day.
The 21,355 early vote total – representing 3.5 percent of the 611,000 registered
voters in Shelby County – was less than the
early voter turnout of more than 30,000 for
the 2008 Tennessee presidential primary in
Shelby County, which was held in February
of that year. But it was twice the early voter
turnout countywide for the 2004 presidential primary.
The 2008 presidential contest was an
open race with no incumbent. The 2004
race for the White House was a successful
re-election bid by incumbent Republican
President George W. Bush.
The end of early voting Tuesday signaled
the beginning of campaigns by Republican
presidential contenders Mitt Romney, Rick
Santorum and Newt Gingrich to claim
some or all of Tennessee’s delegates to the
August Republican national convention
in Tampa.
Television ads for all three candidates as
well as a set of attack ads have been running
in the Memphis market for several weeks. Borod & Kramer Becomes
Part of Apperson Crump
The 97-year-old Memphis law firm of
Borod & Kramer PLC is closing its doors.
The firm will leave its Downtown office
in Brinkley Plaza and move its attorneys
and staff to 6070 Poplar Ave., where they’ll
become part of Apperson Crump PLC.
Borod & Kramer managing member
Bruce Kramer has been involved in a number of highly publicized legal cases, and
he’s also known for his work on behalf of
victims’ rights.
Among his most publicized cases,
Kramer successfully represented Sidney
Shlenker against the city of Memphis over
management of The Pyramid. In the famed
“Deep Throat” case, Kramer successfully
represented actor Harry Reems against the
United States.
Kramer has spent the last year looking
for a Memphis law firm that would be the
best fit for his attorneys and staff. He said
he’s at a point in his career where he didn’t
want to spend the remainder of his time
involved in managing a firm.
ServiceMaster to Fill
100 IT Positions
The ServiceMaster Co. plans to hire 100
new IT workers for positions ranging from
technical support to management.
All of the positions will be based in
Memphis supporting the ServiceMaster
home and commercial services American
Home Shield, Merry Maids, Terminix, TruGreen, AmeriSpec and Furniture Medic.
The Memphis-based company is holding a job fair March 10 at the Hilton Memphis, 939 Ridge Lake Blvd., from 10 a.m. to
2 p.m. to take applications for those jobs,
which are among 350 local jobs ServiceMaster will add through June. The company
is adding 6,700 jobs nationally during the
same period.
Most of the jobs require experience and
a bachelor’s degree in computer sciences
or a related field. An associate’s degree is
acceptable for some of the jobs.
FedEx Takes 6th Spot
On ‘Admired Cos.’ List
FedEx Corp. is No. 6 on Fortune magazine’s list of the most admired companies in
the world. The annual ranking by the busi-
ness magazine puts the Memphis-based
company two positions higher than it was
on the 2011 list.
The rankings are based on nine attributes that deal with a company’s reputation
and performance.
FedEx has been in the top 20 of the list
since 2001.
Harding Univ. Wins
Research Challenge
The CFA Societies of Arkansas, Memphis and Mississippi recently announced
that Harding University won the local
competition in the CFA Institute’s Research
Challenge. CFA stands for chartered financial analyst.
Harding now advances in April to the
Americas regional challenge, where it will
compete with universities from Canada, the
U.S. and South America.
The CFA Institute Research Challenge
offers students the opportunity to learn
from leading industry experts and their
peers from the world’s top business schools.
This year, more than 100 CFA Institute
member societies will host local competitions with more than 2,500 students from
more than 500 universities worldwide.
Sponsors of the local Mid-South Research Challenge were the CFA Societies
of Arkansas, Memphis and Mississippi, as
well as FactSet.
REVIVING 5,000 YEARS
OF CIVILIZATION.
SHEN YUN. For Chinese, the words evoke a sense of wonder,
“A great boost.
— Marguerite Piazza
Famous Soprano and Philanthropist
magic, and the divine. To audiences who have seen it, they recall the
experience of a lifetime—a moment so powerfully beautiful it touches
the soul.
For 5,000 years in China, culture was heralded as a divine gift. Its glory
was long the inspiration of countless artists and poets, until this heritage was nearly lost…
Today, New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts seeks to revive this
once-majestic tradition by creating a production worthy in its beauty
of this noble history—something that enriches the lives of audiences in
powerful, lasting ways.
Discover the grandeur of a fantastically rich culture, that of classical China, brought to life through brilliantly choreographed dance
and mesmerizing, all-original orchestral compositions. Magnificently
cosumed dancers—the world’s elite—move in poetic arrangements
that evoke pastoral beauty, imperial drama, and the glory of an ancient
civilization.
This season, discover what art was meant to be. Discover Shen Yun.
MARCH 6-7 7:30PM, 2012
CANNON CENTER
ALL-NEW SHOW | WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA
ShenYun2012.com
Hotline: 1-888-389-1614
Online: shenyun2012.com
Price: $50, $60, $80, $90, $120
March 3-9, 2012 3
EdR to Build Phoenix-Area
Collegiate Housing
Memphis-based apartment-focused
real estate investment trust EdR has executed agreements with Concord Eastridge
to develop, own and manage a $52 million
mixed-use collegiate housing community
adjacent to the Phoenix Biomedical Campus and three blocks from Arizona State
University’s downtown campus.
EdR will be the majority owner and will
manage the community upon its summer
2013 completion. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based
Concord Eastridge is developing and constructing the housing, which will be owned
jointly by the two companies.
Construction is expected to begin next
week.
The development will include 609 beds
within 326 units One of the residential
buildings will offer 7,500 square feet of retail
space at the street level.
NAWBO to Talk Funding
For Women-Owned Biz
The Memphis chapter of the National
Association of Women Business Owners will
host Pamela Marshall, executive director of
Memphis Area Association of Governments,
at its March 13 networking event, 5 p.m. to 7
p.m. at the The Crescent Club, 6075 Poplar
Avenue, suite 909.
Marshall will speak on funding for
women-owned businesses.
As MAAG’s executive director, Marshall’s
responsibilities include managing a policy
board of elected officials in Shelby, Fayette,
Tipton, Lauderdale, Crittenden and DeSoto
counties.
D’bo’s Wings n’ More’s Boyd
Restaurateur of the Year
Memphis Restaurant Association honored local restaurateurs at its annual banquet Sunday, Feb. 26.
MRA Restaurateur of the Year was
awarded to David Boyd of D’bo’s Wings n’
More.
Terry Sesti, vice president of On Premise
Sales for Athens Distributing, was awarded
associate of the year for his dedication to
Athens and kind spirit.
Meanwhile, Joe Campbell, the late
president of the Memphis Division of US
Foods, was posthumously honored with
the Outstanding Service Award for success
in increasing US Food’s presence in the
community and being an ardent support
of the MRA.
Robert Chapman, late owner of Molly’s
La Casita, was posthumously honored with
a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The annual banquet and fundraiser’s
theme this year, “Gettin’ Back to Our Roots
Y’all,” featured a salute to traditional Memphis fare.
The menu, prepared by Peabody chef
Andreas Kisler, included a fried green tomato bar, fried chicken stuffed with a sweet
corn soufflé and Delta cornmeal peach
upside-down cake.
Funds generated from the banquet help
cover general operating expenses that allow
MRA to continue its educational programming and governmental services for the
Memphis restaurant community.
Fred’s Inc. Reports
February Sales
Memphis-based Fred’s Inc. has reported
total sales of $159 million for the four-week
fiscal month of February, the first month of
fiscal 2012. Fred’s total sales for the month,
which ended Feb. 25, increased 4 percent
from $153 million in February 2011.
Comparable store sales for the month
declined 0.7 percent compared to an increase of 0.9 percent in the same period
last year.
Fred’s operates 700 discount general
merchandise stores, including 21 franchised
stores, in the southeastern United States.
Artspace Seeks Artist
Feedback on Development
Artspace Projects Inc. will host an event
Wednesday, March 7, to solicit feedback
from the local arts community on the project it is developing at the former United
Warehouse building, 138 St. Paul Ave.
The meeting will be held from 5:30 p.m.
to 7 p.m. in the Hyde Gallery at Memphis
College of Art and will allow artists an
opportunity to view basic architectural
renderings and concept artwork of the
building, which will serve as a live/work
space for local artists.
Artists are welcome to visit and speak
with the Artspace staff and local architects
about special amenities and features they
would like to see included in the eventual
development.
Artspace’s mission is to create, foster
and preserve affordable space for artists
and arts organizations.
Janna Hacker Speech Svcs.
Opens in Germantown
Janna Hacker and Associates Speech
Language Pathology Services has opened
an office at 8596 Farmington Blvd., suite 1,
in Germantown.
JHA, which has been in business four
years, has five speech language pathologists, an occupational therapist and an oral
myofuctional therapist.
The therapists work with children and
adults, and provide services at the office and
at private schools in the Memphis area.
Therapy services for children improve
each child’s speech-language skills, social
skills or feeding skills. Services include
evaluations, therapy sessions and social
group therapy sessions.
Adult services include voice, articulation and language therapy.
Minority Biz Council Hosts
‘Strategic Fits’ Seminar
Memphis Minority Business Council
(MMBC) will host a quarterly training
seminar called “Strategic Fits: Building Successful Joint Ventures & Strategic Alliances,”
Thursday, March 8, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at
its offices, 158 Madison Ave., suite 300.
The seminar will focus on minority
businesses seeking to grow their enterprises
in a competitive market and corporations
seeking key suppliers who can provide cost
savings.
By partnering, minority businesses
can achieve cost savings, expand their
footprints, generate economies of scale, increase production capacity, pool resources,
commercialize new products or facilitate
weekly digest
entry into new markets.
HORNE’s Memphis Office
Hires Tax Services Manager
The Memphis office of HORNE LLP,
one of the nation’s top 50 accounting and
business advisory firms, has hired Scott
Brawdy, certified public accountant, as a
manager in tax services. He joined HORNE
with more than 10 years of tax experience
within industry and public accounting
environments.
He specializes in state and local tax
matters, and his responsibilities include
income and franchise tax, sales and use
tax, business incentives and state credits,
unclaimed property, and advocacy/controversy matters.
Morgan Keegan’s Pettey
Recognized by Barron’s
John Pettey III, a managing director with
Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc., has been named
to Barron’s list of “The Top 1,000 Advisors”
in the country.
The 2011 list was published Feb. 21 and
ranked 1,000 advisers from all 50 states and
the District of Columbia.
Pettey ranked seventh of 15 qualifying
advisers in Tennessee and is the only one
from Memphis. Pettey manages more than
$450 million in client assets.
He joined Morgan Keegan in 1999 and
is a member of the firm’s senior advisory
council.
MAA Announces
Pricing of Common Stock
Memphis-based MAA announced Monday, Feb. 27, that it is offering 1.7 million
shares of common stock at $62.23 per share
in an underwritten public offering. The offering is expected to close March 2.
MAA intends to use the net proceeds to
partially fund acquisition and development
plans for 2012, repay existing indebtedness
and other general corporate purposes.
Formerly known as Mid-American
Apartment Communities, MAA is a self-
4 March 3-9, 2012
weekly digest
administered, self-managed apartmentonly real estate investment trust, which
currently owns or has ownership interest
in 48,537 apartment units throughout the
Sunbelt region of the U.S.
Stuttering Fdtn. President
Honored by Memphis Group
The president of the Memphis-based
Stuttering Foundation has received a
community service award named for her
father.
Jane Fraser was honored with the Malcolm Fraser award during the 42nd annual
Mid-South Conference on Communicative
Disorders. The award is presented annually
by the University of Memphis chapter of the
National Student Speech Language Hearing
Association.
In 1988, Malcolm Fraser was the first to
receive the award. When he died in 1994,
the award was renamed in his honor. He
had founded the Stuttering Foundation
in 1947.
Jane Fraser is co-author of “If Your Child
Stutters: A Guide for Parents,” in its eighth
edition.
On Location: MEMPHIS
Releases Festival Lineup
On Location: MEMPHIS has announced
the official selection for its annual international film and music festival to be held
April 19-22.
The festival will be held at Malco Paradiso, Malco’s Studio on the Square and Malco
Ridgeway Four.
The categories include feature films,
documentaries, live action shorts, animated films, music videos and student-created
films at the collegiate level.
In addition to the selected films, the festival will include several special screenings,
including “Back Door Channels: The Price
of Peace,” a documentary that explores
how President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian
President Anwar El-Sadat worked to broker
a peace treaty in the Middle East.
Other screenings – including a Bollywood event, a Hispanic cinema night and
a senior film event – will be announced
later.
The festival also will include a music
lineup, workshops and panels.
This year, along with the official selections, which qualify to win juried awards,
the festival will allow filmgoers to vote for
the Fan Favorites Award.
All official selections can be found at
www.onlocationmemphis.org. Passes that
include entry to all films, parties, workshops and panels are $60.
FROM THE BLOG
Adonis Thomas Could Play for Tigers
In Conference USA Tournament
Editor’s Note: “From the Blog” is a weekly feature that highlights
some of the enterprising work our staff and contributors post on The
Daily News blog, blog.memphisdailynews.com.
UTHSC Prof Gets Grant
For Autism Research
Dr. Lawrence T. Reiter, associate professor in the University of Tennessee Health
Science Center Departments of Neurology,
Pediatrics, and Anatomy and Neurobiology,
has received a $412,344 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke, a subsidiary of the National
Institutes of Health.
The award will fund a two-year study
focused on advancing research into autism
and other neurological diseases.
The main goal of Reiter’s research is to
develop a method to investigate the neurons of patients with neurogenetic diseases
using primary teeth or pulled teeth.
DON WADE | Special to The Memphis News
T
he season might not be over for Tigers freshman Adonis Thomas,
after all. Ankle surgery appeared to have ended the season for the
athletic 6-6 forward, but after a recent victory, coach Josh Pastner said
Thomas was progressing and could return by the Conference USA
Tournament March 7-10 at FedExForum.
“The doctors feel there might be a chance,” Pastner said.
Thomas has been shooting, but Pastner said Thomas would need
to participate in full practice with the team before he could play in a
game. In 16 games this season, Thomas averaged 9.7 points and 3.6
rebounds in 26.3 minutes. Despite the injury, there has been widespread speculation that if Thomas entered the NBA Draft, he would
be selected in the first round. Thomas had not said publicly what he
plans to do after this season.
Baker Donelson Adds
Fletcher to Board
Gregory Fletcher has been elected to
the board of directors of the law firm of
Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell &
Berkowitz PC.
Fletcher, who also heads Baker Donelson’s advocacy department, is a shareholder
in the firm’s Memphis office. His practice
has included the trial of complex ad valorem, franchise, excise and sales and use tax
cases on behalf of railroads, telecommunications companies and manufacturers; and
the representation of businesses in cases
involving asset valuation, construction, real
estate disputes, royalty disputes, and diverse contract claims and business torts.
His awards include recognition by
The Best Lawyers in America as a leading
attorney in the areas of tax litigation and
Locate your supplies near
their demand.
Dozens of small warehouse and flex spaces
available in Northeast Memphis.
Meanwhile, sophomore Antonio Barton, who was injured in the
Feb. 28 win over Central Florida, was found to have only a bone
bruise and foot sprain – not a broken foot as originally feared.
controversy, commercial litigation and
construction litigation since 2005.
St. Jude Doctor Honored
For End-of-Life Care
Dr. Justin N. Baker, director of the Division of Quality of Life and Palliative Care at
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, has
been named recipient of the 2012 Hastings
Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards for
outstanding leadership and research on
palliative care for children.
The awards are given annually by the
Cunniff-Dixon Foundation, whose mission
is to enrich the doctor-patient relationship
near the end of life, in partnership with
The Hastings Center, a bioethics research
institute that’s done groundbreaking work
on end-of-life decision-making.
The nomination and selection process
is administered by the Duke Institute on
Care at the End of Life.
Construction Spending
Slips in January
Contact Michael Greenberg
at 901.507.3429 or
Justin Lubin
at 901.507.3428.
Multi-Family & Commercial Real Estate
www.MRGMemphis.com
A sharp drop in commercial building
projects caused a slight decline in construction spending in January. But the dip
comes after previous figures were revised
much higher.
Construction spending edged down
0.1 percent in January, the Commerce De-
partment reported Thursday. That is the
first drop since July. It follows a 1.4 percent
increase in December and a big rise of 1.9
percent in November. November’s figure
was revised up from 0.4 percent.
Construction of factories, hotels and
power plants all fell sharply in January,
pushing down nonresidential construction
by the most in a year.
Government construction spending
also fell. Federal construction spending
dropped while state and local spending
ticked up.
Spending on residential construction
rose 1.8 percent, driven by a big gain in
single-family home building.
Overall construction spending dipped
to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $827
billion, down slightly from December.
Last month, December’s construction
spending total was reported as $816.4 billion, but that was pushed up by the big revision to November’s figures. Large revisions
to construction spending aren’t unusual.
Unemployment Applications
Dip to Four-Year Low
The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to
the lowest point in four years, a further sign
that the U.S. job market is improving.
A seasonally adjusted 351,000 people
sought unemployment aid, down from
353,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That matches the
March 3-9, 2012 5
contributors
four-year low reached three weeks ago.
The improving numbers show that
steadily fewer people are being laid off and
suggest that some companies are stepping
up hiring.
The four-week average of applications,
which smooths out weekly fluctuations
in the data, also fell last week, to 354,000.
That’s also the lowest in four years.
Applications for unemployment aid
have fallen steadily since the early fall and
are now down nearly 15 percent since October. When applications drop consistently
below 375,000, it usually signals that hiring
is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.
John Ryding, an economist at RDQ
Economics, said the drop in unemployment
applications can be attributed to a “marked
improvement in the pace of job creation.”
Economists expect another strong
month of hiring for February, similar to the
average net gain of about 200,000 jobs in
each of the previous three months.
The economy added 243,000 net jobs
in January, the most in nine months. The
unemployment rate dropped for the fifth
straight month, to 8.3 percent, the lowest
in nearly three years.
Healthier economic growth is spurring
greater job growth. The economy expanded
at an annual rate of 3 percent in the final
three months of last year.
weekly digest
March 3-9, 2012, VOL. 5, NO. 10
Elvis' death on Aug. 16, 1977, in Memphis.
Travel Booking Sites Prevail
In Tennessee Tax Lawsuit
Hotel booking websites including Priceline, Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz have
prevailed against more than a hundred
Tennessee counties and municipalities in
a legal fight over hotel tax collections.
A federal judge granted a summary
judgment in favor of the online travel
companies last week, The Tennessean
reported.
Senior Reporter
Dries, from Memphis, has been a reporter for more than 30
years. His career stops include The Commercial Appeal, WHBQ
AM, WREC AM and WLYX FM 89 way back in the 1970s! He now
covers legal issues and other news.
528-5277 | [email protected]
Double J Smokehouse & Saloon opened
Friday, March 2, in Downtown Memphis’
South Main Historic Arts District.
The eatery, owned by John Harris and
Jeff Stamm (hence the “Double J”), is located at 124 G.E. Patterson Ave., taking over
the space vacated by Beignet Café and Blues
Bar earlier this year.
Double J Smokehouse’s menu will
feature a variety of steaks and ribs. A flyer
posted Tuesday on the restaurant’s Facebook page reads, “Cold Beer & Great Food
... Open Late.”
New Elvis ‘Icon’ Exhibit
Opens at Graceland
A new exhibit chronicling Elvis Presley's
influence on pop music performers has
opened at Graceland in Memphis.
The exhibit, called "Icon: The Influence
of Elvis Presley," opened Thursday at the
Graceland tourist attraction. It includes 75
items on loan from the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame and Museum, plus other memorabilia from artists who have been influenced
by Elvis.
Items featured in the exhibit include
a suit worn by U2 frontman Bono on the
group's "Zooropa" tour; a leather jacket
worn by Bob Dylan that appears on the
album cover "Real Live"; and artifacts from
James Brown, Elton John, Joan Jett, Bruce
Springsteen, The Beatles, Katy Perry and
other performers.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of
General Manager Emeritus
E D RAINS
Publisher
Associate Publisher & Executive Editor
JAM ES OVE RST RE E T
Managing Editor
L ANCE AL L AN WIE D OWE R
Deputy Managing Editor
andy meek
Meek, from Memphis, covers politics, the business community
and other news of general interest. He has won awards from
the Tennessee Press Association and the Society of
Professional Journalists.
E RIC S MIT H
Senior Reporter
B IL L D RIES
Senior Reporter
ANDY ME E K
Reporter
SARAH BAKE R
Reporter
AIS L ING MAKI
Associate Editor
KAT E S IMONE
REPORTER
SARAH BAKER
Sarah Baker covers commercial and residential real estate,
transportation and logistics. A native Memphian, she previously worked for two regional magazines in Knoxville.
Lead Pressman
TOMM Y COON
Pressman
ROB E RT S H ANNON
Pressman
CE D RIC WAL S H
Graphic Designer & Photo Editor
B RAD JOHNSON
Bernanke Notes Economy
Better Than Expected
Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Wednesday, Feb. 29, that the economy
has performed better in recent months than
the Federal Reserve had expected. If the
trend continues, he said the Fed might have
to reassess its outlook for a slow recovery.
Investors appeared to take Bernanke’s
more optimistic tone as a signal that the
Fed is less likely to adopt further steps to
boost growth. It could also mean that the
Fed could back off its plan to hold its key
interest rate near zero until late 2014.
Analysts said Bernanke’s speech was
notable for what it didn’t include: any
mention of a new round of government
bond-buying.
President & CEO
PE T E R SCHU T T
E RIC BARNES
Senior Reporter
Double J Smokehouse
Now Open in South Main
bill dries
Graphic Designer & Illustrator
E M ILY MORROW
Senior Production Assistant
REPORTER
AISLING MAKI
Aisling Maki covers health care, the nonprofit sector and small
business. Her career has included newspaper and magazine
writing, broadcast and new media.
SANDY YOU NGB LOOD
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L AU RIE B ECK
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AUDIT PENDING
6 March 3-9, 2012
news
AutoZone
Reports Profit
Up 12.7 Percent
real estate & development
ANDY MEEK | The Memphis News
W
henever Memphis-based auto
parts retailer AutoZone Inc. has
reported quarterly results in
recent memory, the headline hasn’t really
changed much. Just the numbers do.
And the company’s latest earnings show
it’s still comfortably in the fast lane, with
AutoZone posting its 22nd straight quarter of
double-digit growth. For its just-ended second quarter through Feb. 11, AutoZone also
posted its 13th straight quarter of more than
20 percent growth in earnings per share.
“We are optimistic and excited about the
remainder of the year,” AutoZone chairman,
CEO and president Bill Rhodes said during
an earnings call with investors.
The company, which is the leading autoparts retailer in the U.S., reported profit of
$166.9 million Tuesday, Feb. 28, up $18.9
million or 12.7 percent over the same period
last year. That’s basically the same growth
rate the company’s profit experienced in its
prior quarter, when it reported a $19 million
increase.
Diluted earnings per share increased 24.4
percent to $4.15 per share from $3.34 per
share in the year-ago quarter.
Domestic same-store sales – a key retail
metric that measures growth at stores open
at least one year and sets aside the growth
coming from new store additions – increased
5.9 percent during the quarter. During the
quarter, AutoZone opened 29 new stores in
the U.S. and six new stores in Mexico.
As of Feb. 11, the company had 4,580
stores in 48 states, the District of Columbia
and Puerto Rico in the U.S. and 287 stores in
Mexico for a total store count of 4,867.
“We continued our focus on improving
parts coverage; hiring, retaining and training
the best automotive parts professionals; and
growing our commercial business,” Rhodes said in a release about the company’s
accomplishments during the quarter. “The
commitment of our more than 65,000 AutoZoners to providing trustworthy advice is
what sets our company apart, and it is their
dedication to meeting and exceeding our
customers' needs that leads to our success.”
AutoZone paid $173 million to buy back
501,000 shares of its common stock during
the second quarter at an average price of
$345 per share. Mid-day Tuesday, AutoZone
shares were trading above $370.
At the end of the second quarter, AutoZone had $486 million remaining under its
current share repurchase authorization.
AutoZone chief financial officer Bill Giles
pointed to rising gas prices as a headwind to
the company’s sales potential, since a boost
in prices at the pump drives down total miles
driven among consumers.
Bright spots for the company’s business
remain the age and size of the U.S. fleet on
the road today. There are about 240 million
vehicles that are on average 10.6 years old
being driven today, according to Rhodes.
Andy Cates of Colliers International gives the keynote speech to the Memphis Rotary Club at the University Club on Feb. 28.
The Right Place
Cates touts robust industrial market as way for city to compete
SARAH BAKER | The Memphis News
W
hen people think of Memphis, they might picture an
aerial shot of Downtown –
skyscrapers, The Pyramid and all.
But Andy Cates’ view of Memphis is
different. He sees the city’s “dirty, industrial real estate.”
“Some of it’s dirty, some of it’s not,
but most people think it is,” Cates said.
“And it’s where the heart and soul of our
city is, where the lead hits the ground.”
While addressing the Memphis
Rotary Club Tuesday, Feb. 28, the executive vice president of brokerage services
at Colliers International explained how
Memphis’ manufacturing and distribution sector is poised to move forward.
And he should know – Cates and his
team closed on 67 deals in 2011, averaging more than one a week. His most
recent high-profile transaction was
placing Kimberly-Clark Corp. in 556,000
square feet in Airways Distribution
Center in Southaven, along with Matthew Stauber of Colliers International
Chicago. Cates’ theory is that the local
industrial market took its biggest hit in
2009, when Hewlett-Packard Development Co. LP vacated five properties
totaling 2.2 million square feet.
“They had termination options in
their leases, and so when they cancelled
their leases, all of a sudden, everybody
went, ‘Whoa, hang on a second,’” Cates
said. “We were already going to feel the
effects anyway of the recession, and
that really hurt.”
What that move did though, Cates
continued, is kept Memphis from
getting overbuilt because the city had
“solid, good product” that needed to be
absorbed. That’s why all of the delivery
seen last year was built-to-suit, such as
McKesson Corp.’s new 680,000-squarefoot drug manufacturing warehouse in
Olive Branch. Cates said in the DeSoto
County submarket the bulk of the facilities are Class A. It started to emerge as
an industrial player in the last 15 years,
beginning with Williams-Sonoma’s massive build-to-suit distribution center.
“Then investment came and they
said, ‘We’ll buy that, we’d love to have
that as a cap rate,” Cates said. “That sort
of solidified small-town Olive Branch
as institutional grade investment – a
place where people could buy their
product. When that happened, developers like IDI, Panatoni, Hillwood, H&M
and Prologis all said, ‘Wow, if we build
it, somebody will lease it,’… and ‘Wow,
institutions will buy it.’ That really
pushed the development, in conjunction with the state of Mississippi being
competitive.”
But Cates will tell you that what’s
good for Mississippi is good for Memphis, and vice versa. It’s the cities like
Nashville; Indianapolis; Cincinnati;
Columbus, Ohio; Kansas City, Mo.; and
Louisville, Ky., where “the rubber really
hits the road.”
The value range for buildings in
Memphis compared to those in other
markets is a definite advantage, Cates
said.
“We have a competitive advantage
on the basis of what our real estate is,
and also with the transportation and
logistics angle as well,” he said.
Cates is bullish about investment
being made on railroad infrastructure
here by Canadian National Railway Co.,
BNSF Railway Co. and Norfolk Southern
Corp.
“What’s really key to what’s going to
be the next future for Memphis is not
totally the rail, but the effect it will have
on the impression that these other customers have,” Cates said. “If you think
about the amount of infrastructure that
they have, I think that will really drive
folks to our market. I feel like with that
type of investment, good things will
come.
“Memphis stands in the right place
at the right time to really benefit from
hopefully an emerging economy. We
have all of the parts there, now it’s time
to shake the hands, make it happen,
get in front of people, and really close a
deal.”
March 3-9, 2012 7
news
community
Navy SEAL Shares His
Missions for Success
DAVID ROYER | Special to The Memphis News
D
avid Rutherford had an epiphany
in the laundromat during his
fourth year of college. He had
turned down the wrong path in life, partying too hard and studying too little. He was
going astray, so he made a drastic change.
His effort to right himself led to eight
years in the military, priceless training as a
Navy SEAL and, these days, a career as an
author and motivational speaker, sharing
the tools that helped hone his success as
part of the Navy’s elite special forces with
everyone from children to CEOs.
“What I did was, I took all the lessons
I learned going through training, and I
learned in teams, and I learned in my life,
and I came up with eight simple missions
for kids to use to enhance their self confidence,” Rutherford said, explaining how
his experiences as a SEAL trainer and later
among children in Afghanistan led to his
first book in 2006, “Field Manuals for Kids:
Get Squared Away.”
What started as a guidebook to inspire
children has grown to apply to adults in
the business world, as well. Rutherford
shared his missions for success with
Memphis recently, with three back-to-back
appearances last week, including one at
the monthly Lipscomb & Pitts Breakfast
Club meeting.
The keys to overcoming negativity, he
said, are maintaining self-confidence and
living a team-oriented lifestyle. Businesses
especially need to make certain their
employees are committed to operating as a
team in order to reach their potential.
“Once that team life sets in, you can
start to achieve,” Rutherford said Feb. 23
before meeting with about 100 business
and military leaders for a question-andanswer session hosted by CB Richard Ellis
at The Peabody hotel, then addressing
nearly 500 supporters of the Chickasaw
Council, Boy Scouts of America at a fundraiser in an adjacent room.
He called the Boy Scouts “one of the
greatest organizations in the history of our
country” and said he was honored to share
his knowledge with scouts and their supporters. The local Boy Scout council hoped
to raise $1.1 million at the event, which
attracted guests like Mayor A C Wharton Jr.
Rutherford, who has appeared as a
guest on FOX News, is riding a wave of
interest in the SEALs following the killing
of Osama bin Laden by a team last May.
“Act of Valor,” a new movie starring real-life
Navy SEALs, hit screens nationwide Friday,
the same day that his second book, “Field
Manuals for Adults: Self Confidence” was
released by his own publishing company.
After the military, Rutherford worked
as a contractor in Afghanistan, where he
witnessed a generation of children growing
up amid extreme poverty and war. The
experience inspired the concept for his
company, Team Froglogic – “frogman” is a
name for Navy SEALs – along with his first
book and a series of YouTube videos.
“Whether you’re an 8-year-old kid in
Masar-i-Sharif (Afghanistan) or an 8-yearold kid in Memphis, Tenn., the same
things are true across the world: Kids need
self-confidence, period, and I feel like I’ve
developed another tool for people to use in
their toolkit of life.”
Jeremy Park, communications director for Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance, invited
Rutherford to Memphis to speak Friday
for the Lipscomb & Pitts Breakfast Club
meeting, which attracts business leaders
from across the city. Businesses are looking
for military-style organization, Park said,
which made Rutherford a natural fit for
his group. But Rutherford’s experience as a
mentor and role model made him a good
fit for the Boy Scouts too, he said.
Life is hard and even motivational
speakers get down sometimes, said Rutherford, who now lives with his wife and
child in Asheville, N.C. But physical and
mental exercise and a relationship with
God refuel him when he is low on energy.
His mission is to keep others as motivated
as he is.
“I lived in a very dark place for a lot of
years and I feel like I’ve been given a fourth
or eighth chance,” he said. “With all these
things, I feel this energy in me that just
comes out. I can’t contain it.”
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8 March 3-9, 2012
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Fed Report: Activity
Picks up in Memphis
‘Beige book’ shows economy is slightly improving
T
he Federal Reserve sees an improving economy and a pickup in economic activity in the
central bank’s Eighth District, its regional
territory that includes Memphis.
A report released this week by the Fed – the socalled “beige book” – notes that economic activity
in the Eighth District has expanded at a modest
pace since the Fed last looked at the area.
The report is a broad national survey of economic conditions published eight times every year.
The latest report notes an increase in manufacturing activity and in the services sector, while
residential real estate activity has declined somewhat and commercial real estate market conditions
have been generally mixed.
Overall lending at a sample of large banks in
the district that includes Memphis showed little
change in activity during the fourth quarter.
In a statement accompanying the beige book
release, Ruben Hernandez-Murillo, an economist
with the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve,
said that manufacturing is expanding at a steady
pace across the Fed’s regional districts.
“Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve
districts suggest that overall economic activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace in
January and early February,” the report notes.
Nationally, the beige book shows a manufacturing expansion under way across the nation, with
many districts reporting increases in new orders,
shipments or production. Reports of consumer
spending were generally positive except for sales
of seasonal items, and the sales outlook for the
near future was mostly optimistic, according to the
report.
The report also shows an uptick in hiring across
several districts. Most of the districts that provided
data for the beige book on hiring reported a slight
increase, and the Eight District was among those
reporting increased hiring in manufacturing.
Zeroing down to the Memphis area, that’s
certainly been the case. January unemployment
data will be out later this month. And the alreadyreleased December numbers were encouraging.
The Memphis metro area’s jobless rate dropped
below 9 percent in December for the first time
since late 2008. The unemployment rate was 8.8
percent in December, down from 9.4 percent in
December 2010.
Housing continues to lag in the Eighth District,
according to the beige book. The Fed’s figures show
that compared with 2010, total 2011 home sales
were down 2 percent in Memphis.
Total 2011 single-family housing permits also
decreased in the majority of the district metro areas
when compared with 2010.
Nevertheless, seeds continue to be sown in
Memphis to boost more manufacturing, commercial real estate and industrial activity in the area.
Colliers International executive vice president of
brokerage services Andy Cates told the Memphis
Rotary Club this week that the city finds itself “in
the right place at the right time” to benefit from a
re-emerging economy.
Waddell Turns Page
On ‘Funky Year’
T
he parting remark David Waddell left with the audience at his company’s yearly “State of the Union”
presentation this time last year was that he wanted
them all to be optimistic in 2011.
Waddell, president and CEO of Memphis-based financial planning firm Waddell & Associates, also had a theme
that could be summed up in three words: America is rising.
Twelve months later, though, Waddell has a different assessment about the past year that he described at the outset
of his 2012 “State of the Union” Feb. 23 at the University of
Memphis FedEx Institute of Technology.
2011 was “really kind of a funky year,” Waddell said, one
that was replete with natural disasters, the Arab Spring, congressional gridlock, a U.S. credit downgrade and more that
all combined to make panicked investors pay more attention to their emotions than to market fundamentals.
That meant the investment positions that firms like
Waddell & Associates built during the year on the basis of
careful analysis of fundamentals tended to take a hit because the market, in Waddell’s words, went “Pavlovian.”
“This time last year I said it was time optimism strikes
back,” said Waddell, whose weekly column in The Memphis
News can be found below.
That was the case until about April, he explained, adding that by the end of 2011, there was essentially a bubble
in pessimism. One of the slides described 2011 as a year in
which there “few ways to win, lots of ways to lose.” And his
firm admittedly took it on the chin during the year.
Waddell said 2011 was one of the most frustrating years
ever for many investment professionals. His firm’s portfolio
strategy is weighted 45 percent to growth investments, 45
percent to value investments and 10 percent to “special situations.” His firm was down in each category by year’s end.
“That gave me pause and sent me on an autopsy mission,” Waddell said. The answer he settled on, after analyzing the firm’s offensive and defensive investment moves,
was that “We didn’t get dumb last year – smart was just out
of favor.”
The View From High Above the Global Economy
were over twice as fast as
Reframing the Global
their five-year growth rates
Economy
pre-default.
This week I will summaFurthermore, these ocrize my 30,000-foot view
casional national defaults
on the global economy.
did not derail global ecoWhile the news flow may
nomic growth. Reports of
revolve around Europe, the
Greece mattering have been
global economy no longer
David Waddell
looks to the Old World for
the worldly greatly exaggerated. What
leadership. To understand
investor does matter is the European
banking system. While the
and accurately forecast the
future economy, we must redirect our gaze American economy and the European
economy are roughly the same size, the
from the Old World to the New World.
European banking system is four times
larger and equally as vulnerable.
The Old World
However, the ECB has liquefied the
There are three concurrent crises in
banking system, nullifying the risk of colEurope: a sovereign debt crisis, a banking
lapse. Markets have calmed, and credit
crisis and a growth crisis. Let’s consider
spreads have narrowed. Reports of ecoeach. Greece is broke. They can either
nomic contraction among indebted Eurostay in the Eurozone and deflate their
pean nations crippling global economic
economy or they can default. Frankly,
growth have also been exaggerated. The
history suggests they would be better off
Italian, Spanish, Greek and Portuguese
defaulting. Over the last 15 years, couneconomies combined represent less than
tries that have defaulted experienced
5 percent of global GDP. In size, the Greek
five-year growth rates post-default that
economy approximates the economy of
Maryland. These economies can hibernate for years without meaningful global
economic consequence.
The New World
With the Old World economies burdened, where will growth come from?
Where the people come from. Of the
seven billion people on the planet, only 1.3
billion reside in the developed world and
all of the incremental population growth
occurs in the emerging or New World
nations. Globally, urbanization levels will
rise from 50 percent today to 70 percent
by 2050.
This mass urbanization of the emerging world is the fuel powering global
economic growth. While the New World
contributed 53 percent of global economic growth between 1996 and 2005,
it contributed 83 percent over the last
five years, while Europe contributed 5
percent. A downshift in European growth
goes barely noticed within today’s global
economy, where the emerging markets
constitute 50 percent of global GDP.
While the Old World may be burdened
with debt, the New World is not. In fact,
combining the deficits of the Old World
with the surpluses of the New World produces a global government debt situation
far below threatening levels.
When we measure global prosperity, the reduction in wealth among the
Old World nations since the great recession has been more than offset by the
increases in wealth among the New World
nations. Only three years after the greatest financial crisis since the great depression, aggregate global wealth hit record
levels at the close of 2011. Proving again
that crises are merely speed bumps on
the road to prosperity.
David Waddell, who is regularly featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today
and Forbes, as well as on Fox Business
News and CNBC, is president and CEO of
Memphis-based Waddell & Associates.
March 3-9, 2012 9
/QPG[/CTMGVU'ZVTC
Stephen Jones and Tom Villalta
aren’t afraid to go against the conventional wisdom. They began buying big
bank stocks in 2010, when most investors were dumping them. The investments have paid off this year, and
their mutual fund has already returned 14 percent in less than two
months.
Betting on banks
InsiderQ&A
What they do: Run Jones
Villalta Opportunity
(JFOVX), a mutual fund
that ranks in the top 2
percent of all large-cap
value funds for three-year
returns
What drew you to banks initially?
Villalta: You cannot find a more disparaged or unliked group with as much
angst being directed toward it, whether it be from politicians or individuals
from the Street. You’re seeing this reflected in shareholder meetings and,
from the political standpoint, with regulations that are being enacted.
Jones: I can remember I made a tele-
What they suggest: Get
interested in stocks when
they’re hated
Tom
Villalta
Stephen
Jones
vision appearance, it was probably
early 2010, and I commented on how
much we liked the big money center
banks and how undervalued we
thought they were. It was humorous
to us the number of disparaging comments made about me personally simply because I thought they were a
good value. I’m on the board of a
bank, and it’s a wonderful business
model when the cost of money is as
low as it is, and they’re able to lend it
out at higher rates.
What they own: The fund
has big stakes in Citigroup,
Goldman Sachs, Bank of
America and other banks
But isn’t demand for loans weak?
Villalta: Our thesis with regard to
banks isn’t predicated on significant
loan growth of any kind. It is a valuation play. Strictly on a valuation basis,
with no growth attached to them, they
should be trading at a higher rate.
group is among the least risky of the
groups that we have. There’s a need
for lending. There’s a need for investment businesses. It’s a very competitive environment, which we like. When
you have businesses where the implied expectations are very low, the
risk comes down significantly.
What do you mean by valuation?
Villalta: They look cheap on a book
value basis. They should be trading at
book value, (which is how much accountants say a company is worth if
its liabilities are subtracted from its assets. Many banks are instead trading
below their book values). When we
saw banks falling in summer, early fall
of 2010, we were very actively buying
more shares of pretty much all the financials that we own.
Whoa, banks are less risky?
Villalta: I think you could make a case
that a company like Apple is an undervalued stock. But if you take a look at
its operating margins that are 50 percent higher than its competitors, that
worries me. There’s a lot of room to
chip away at the competitive advantages they have.
Have you made money on your
Bank of America investment?
Villalta: We’ve made money on all of
our financial positions within the portfolio. I continue to believe that this
Answers edited for content and clarity.
AP
B E H I N D T H E B R A N D PA N E R A B R E A D ( P N R A )
Sticking with utilities Serving up
Utility stocks are a disappointment. Although the stock
market is off to a great start this year, investors are
worried that utility stocks’ nearly 15 percent climb in 2011
— topping all of the industries in the Standard & Poor’s
500 index — was too far, too fast.
Utility stocks are down 3.5 percent so far in 2012,
compared with the 9.3 percent rise of the index.
Yet they’re still good long-term buys. Several financial
analysts point out that utility stocks offer relatively high
dividends, look set for steady profit growth and aren‘t
expensive.
One of the reasons that Citi
Investment Research analyst
Brian Chin is optimistic is their
recent poor performance.
He points out that over the
last 20 years — nearly every
time utility stocks have trailed
the market by this much over
40 trading days, they did
better than the S&P 500 over
the next 12 months.
The stocks’ recent decline
has also made them cheaper, relative to their earnings.
Utility stocks have an average price-earnings ratio of
13.5, meaning they trade at 13.5 times their earnings per
share over the last 12 months. That’s down from 14.9 in
late 2011.
Over the last decade, utilities have had an average
P/E ratio of 13.5. But that could rise to 15 or even 17,
according to Credit Suisse analysts. That’s because
yields on bonds and savings accounts are low, which
makes the dividends that utilities pay even more
attractive.
Utilities in the S&P 500 have
an average dividend yield of 4.1
percent, twice the 2 percent yield
for the index.
Credit Suisse also forecasts
earnings growth of 3 to 6 percent
for regulated utilities, which tend to
have steady earnings. Suggested
buys: Edison International (EIX)
and CMS Energy (CMS), which
run regulated utilities in California
and Michigan, respectively.
profits
The nation’s economic doldrums
haven’t dampened consumer
appetite for bakery and cafe
operator Panera Bread. Quite the
opposite, in fact.
The casual restaurant chain has
benefited from consumers trading
down from more upscale restaurants.
That’s not to say Panera has
staked out dining’s bargain
basement, either. The company
charges slightly higher prices than
most fast-food chains. Even so,
turnout at Panera’s restaurants has
grown and so have sales.
The St. Louis-based company
has seen its profit climb every
quarter going back to the summer
of 2008, right before the financial
crisis hit.
Panera has responded by
adding more locations and even
These utility stock mutual funds all have four-star ratings or better from Morningstar and dividend yields above 3 percent.
raising prices, a move that’s helped
Morningstar gives Franklin Utilities fund its top gold-medal rating for future performance expectations.
boost its average check amounts.
5-yr.*
10-yr*
Expense
Dividend
The company has more than
Fund
Symbol
1-yr return
return
return
ratio
yield
1,500 bakery-cafes under the Panera
Franklin Utilities
FKUTX
14.4%
3.7%
8.6%
0.76%
3.4%
Bread, Saint Louis Bread Co. and
Paradise Bakery & Cafe brands.
ING MFS Utilities
IMUIX
6.8
5.3
n/a
0.76
3.6
Panera recently announced it will
JHVIT Utilities Trust
JEUTX
6.8
5.0
11.7
0.95
3.7
open more of its pay-what-you-want
MFS Utilities
MMUFX
6.8
5.2
12.0
1.04
3.2
cafes, part of what the restaurant
chain calls its effort to help feed the
Source: Morningstar; Data through Feb. 29 *annualized
&=,8390 $,<.350DAP
Source: FactSet
Thursday’s close: $156.09
Price-earnings ratio: 34
(based on last 12 mos.)
52-week price range
$96.68
$160.88
1-yr. stock change:
34.8%
1-yr. S&P 500 change: 5.2%
Market value:
$5.0 billion
Target stock price: $162.22
Avg. broker rating:
SELL
HOLD
BUY
hungry in a dignified way. The
company currently operates three
such cafes.
Panera has raised its earnings
outlook for 2012, forecasting, at
worst, an increase of 18 percent in
its earnings per share.
Data through March 1
Alex V&*("&..*/).;AP
.QECN5VQEMU
COMPANY
TICKER
AT&T Inc
T
52-WK RANGE
LO
27.27 8
CLOSE
HI
31.94
AutoZone Inc
AZO
Boyd Gaming
BXS
8.23 5
16.25
BYD
4.12 6
11.01
Community Hlth Sys
BKI
22.45 9
38.50
CYH
14.61 4
42.50
CXW
18.41 9
26.43
CMI
79.53 0 124.69
BancorpSouth
Buckeye Technology
Corrections Corp
Cummins Inc
Delta Air Lines
255.45 0 377.78
DAL
6.41 7
11.64
DDS
37.87 0
62.09
DOV
43.64 8
70.15
DD
37.10 7
57.50
EDR
7.16 9
10.90
FDX
64.07 8
98.66
FHN
5.38 7
11.72
FRED
10.27 8
15.27
GTXI
2.27 3
6.86
Intl Paper
IM
15.45 7
21.63
IP
21.55 0
36.00
Kellogg Co
K
Kroger Co
KR
Macy’s Inc
Dillards Inc
Dover Corp
DuPont
Education Realty Tr
FedEx Corp
Fst Horizon Natl
Freds Inc
GTx Inc
Ingram Micro
Isle Capri Casino
Kirklands Inc
LifePoint Hosp
ISLE
3.90 5
9.89
48.10 5
57.70
7.69 0
17.25
21.14 8
25.85
LPNT
28.95 8
43.45
M
22.50 0
38.34
KIRK
CLOSE THUR. %CHG
30.63
+.04
378.44
+3.96
8.03
+.02
12.19
35.29
24.91
25.51
+.35
+1.13
-.33
+.45
121.65
+1.08
60.43
-.71
9.64
64.05
51.33
10.40
91.12
9.52
13.78
3.30
19.30
35.20
6.47
52.26
16.45
24.44
39.30
38.85
-.17
+.03
+.48
+.12
+1.13
+.12
-.07
-.16
+.17
+.05
+.12
-.09
+.50
+.65
+.33
+.88
YTD% 1YR%
WK MO QTR CHG RTN P/E
DIV
+0.1
s
s
s
+1.3 +13.9 46 1.76f
+1.1
s
s
s +16.5 +45.2 19
+3.0
s
s
s +10.6
-24.8 27
+0.2
t
t
s
+7.6
-25.1 dd
+3.3
s
s
s
+5.5 +31.3 14 0.28f
-1.3
t
s
s +42.8
-38.2 11
+1.8
s
s
s +25.2
+0.9 17
+0.9
t
s
s +38.2 +20.7 13
-1.7
s
t
s +19.2
-12.7
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s +34.6 +44.9
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t
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s +10.3
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COMPANY
MedcoHealth Sol
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0.04
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Monsanto Co
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... Navistar Intl
52-WK RANGE
LO
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MHS
44.60 0
69.10
MDT
30.18 6
43.33
MRK
29.47 9
39.43
55.10 5
73.36
MON
58.89 9
83.95
MLI
32.37 8
49.86
71.49
... Mid Amer Apartments MAA
Nike Inc B
NAV
30.01 3
1.60
NKE
69.43 0 108.28
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PNK
8.06 5
15.50
0.20
RF
2.82 7
7.81
RNST
11.80 6
17.59
SLE
15.66 0
20.57
SNN
42.07 5
58.34
SJM
66.43 7
81.40
STI
15.79 5
31.03
... Pinnacle Entert
1.26 Renasant Corp
1.64 Sara Lee Corp
0.28
+1.3
s
t
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0.52
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s
s +19.0
-17.9 17
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s +18.9 +30.3 11
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Smucker, JM
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+2.4 17 0.24f Synovus Fincl
-4.0 13
TICKER
... Sysco Corp
... Thomas& Betts
1.05 Trustmark
... Tyson Foods
1.72
UPS class B
0.46
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... Utd Technologies
... Verso Paper Corp
Wright Medical Grp
SNV
0.94 7
2.77
SYY
25.09 6
32.76
TNB
37.51 0
72.39
TRMK 17.06 8
25.89
TSN
15.60 7
21.06
UPS
60.74 0
77.55
UTX
66.87 7
91.83
VLO
16.40 7
31.12
VRS
0.85 1
6.00
WMGI 13.37 7
19.05
THUR.
66.85
38.00
37.79
62.77
80.15
45.73
41.76
CHG %CHG
-.74
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-.38
+.40
+2.77
-.27
-.02
YTD% 1YR%
WK MO QTR CHG RTN P/E
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0.68
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+4.5 14
0.92
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Dividend Footnotes: a - Extra dividends were paid, but are not included. b - Annual rate plus stock. c - Liquidating dividend. e - Amount declared or paid in last 12 months. f - Current annual rate, which was increased by most recent dividend announcement. i - Sum of dividends paid after stock split, no regular rate. j - Sum of
dividends paid this year. Most recent dividend was omitted or deferred. k - Declared or paid this year, a cumulative issue with dividends in arrears. m - Current annual rate, which was decreased by most recent dividend announcement. p - Initial dividend, annual rate not known, yield not shown. r - Declared or paid in preceding 12
months plus stock dividend. t - Paid in stock, approximate cash value on ex-distribution date. PE Footnotes: q - Stock is a closed-end fund - no P/E ratio shown. cc - P/E exceeds 99. dd - Loss in last 12 months.
10 March 3-9, 2012
Good News
At Tax Time?
Ray’s Take
If you haven’t started taking care of your
federal income tax filing with the IRS, it’s time to
get a move on: April 15th seems to come around
awfully quick. But, while you’re hustling to get
your paperwork in order, keep in mind that there’s
actually some good news for 2012 when it comes
to income taxes.
Due to inflation, a number of changes have
been made that should help lower the federal
income tax bill for most taxpayers in 2012. These
include
increases in
personal and
dependent
exemptions,
an increase in
standard deductions and
ray & dana Brandon an increase in
rays of wisdom
tax-bracket
thresholds. You can find a complete list of the
changes at the IRS.gov website, or just ask your
tax preparer.
While none of these adjustments is huge, they
should make some difference in your tax bill. Plus,
there’s one particular change that can give your
retirement savings a boost as well as reduce taxes
– a $500 increase in the contribution limit for
many retirement accounts to $17,000. This applies
to 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, the federal Thrift
Savings Plan and some 457 plans.
Even if you don’t save or invest for your future
in any other way, this is one avenue you should
take advantage of. The money you put in one of
these retirement accounts not only defers taxes on
those funds, it also is in position to grow over time.
However, don’t expect the good tax news to
continue into 2013. A number of short-term tax
reductions are set to expire unless extended. While
it’s possible some of these might be extended, it’s
unlikely they all will.
In particular, you might be looking at an
increase in taxes owed for dividends and capital
gains. In addition, there’s always the chance of a
complete tax overhaul. There’s even been talk of
scrapping the current tax code in favor of a valueadded tax.
In short, enjoy your tax advantage this year but
keep your ears open for changes in the future.
Dana’s Take
Paying taxes has aggravated people going
back to biblical times and beyond. Whether paid
in shells, pelts or food, I’m sure whoever paid
that first tax resented it just as much as we do in
the Internet age. We want the roads, sewers and
services, but we always grieve saying goodbye to a
chunk of our earnings.
Make sure you’re taking advantage of one of
the best things your blood, sweat and tears have
built: America’s national parks.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a Tennessee treasure. Visiting Yellowstone National Park
was our best family vacation to date. This summer,
just like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s
“Vacation,” Ray and I plan to stand on the edge
of the Grand Canyon with our kids. We’re paying
to preserve these wonders – might as well enjoy
them.
Ray Brandon is a certified financial planner and
CEO of Brandon Financial Planning (www.brandonplanning.com). His wife, Dana, has a bachelor’s
degree in finance and is a licensed clinical social
worker. Contact Ray Brandon at [email protected].
real estate & development
Photo: Brandon Dill
Piles of scrap metal are seen at Worley Brothers Scrap Iron & Metal, located near the Wolf River.
Scrapping Plans
BILL DRIES | The Memphis News
Worley turns North Memphis property into salvage yard
C
overed in vines and behind a
chain-link fence on the corner
of Plum Avenue and North
Thomas Street are several white posts
that are the last remnant of what was
once the Lazarov junkyard in North
Memphis.
The posts are rumored to be
hand-me-downs that once marked
an entrance of the old North Memphis Driving Park before the state
banned betting on horse races in
1905, shutting down the racing industry statewide and the storied horse
racing track there in particular.
The park became the ground on
which much of the North Memphis
heavy industrial footprint of the
1920s to 1970s was built. The scrap
and salvage business has long been
a part of the North Thomas Street
commercial and industrial corridor
that runs south of the Wolf River to
Chelsea Avenue. So has change.
“We’ve still got industrial mixed
with churches next to houses next to
schools,” said Eddie Hayes, executive
director of the New Chicago Community Development Corp. “It’s still kind
of a hodgepodge.”
There are new signs the scrap industry is about to enlarge its footprint
on the northern end of the corridor
by the Wolf River. It began when
Worley Brothers Scrap Iron & Metal
moved into the old Armour-Dial Inc.
building at 1554 N. Thomas St. last
year and put a new coat of white
paint with red trim on the worn-looking building in the process.
The Memphis City Council in
February approved plans to turn the
68 acres of land around the building
into a junk or salvage yard.
The business declined comment
on its plans when contacted by The
Daily News. But City Council member
Lee Harris talked with the owners
when the application came in.
“I’m fully behind them,” he said.
“This site, in particular, they want to
make their premier site.”
Worley has a scrap yard across
the street, on the west side of Thomas
by the Wolf River flood wall. It also
has a facility on Chelsea Avenue and
another on Illinois Avenue.
“I think the Worleys have a very
serious commitment to Memphis
and a very serious commitment to
being a good neighbor,” Harris said.
“You look at the building – it’s got
fresh paint. It’s got a new fence. It’s
got a great landscaping plan. It looks
good.”
To the north of the building is a
large open lot that was once the sight
of enormous industrial works for several companies that stretched from
the east side of Thomas all the way
back to a set of railroad tracks that
curve to form the eastern as well as
the northern border of the property.
All that remains on the otherwise
open land is a brick gate behind a
chain-link fence that was once the
entrance to a matching brick building that was the start of the massive
complex. It was home to E.L. Bruce
Co. Inc., Humko Products Division
and the Kraft Foods Inc. plant. North
of the cluster in the area’s prime was
the PepsiCo Inc. bottling plant as well
as a Levi Strauss & Co. plant and a
Uniroyal factory and sales site.
Bruce opened in 1921 and became the largest hardwood flooring
manufacturer in the world. Humko
opened in 1930 making shortening
and later other food products. The
Firestone Co. plant, further east of
Thomas Street, followed in 1937.
The brick gate will remain, according to Harris, along with a streetside landscaping cover that was being
worked on this past weekend.
“The parcels they put together
were for sale for a long time. They put
together all those different pieces of
property and they are going to use
them,” Harris said. “They are a serious employer in this town. They run a
pretty serious trucking operation and
the business they do is real compatible with the steel industry.”
The Uptown Community Association originally opposed the specialuse permit for Worley Brothers,
asking the Land Use Control Board
to deny it. That opposition was gone
by the time the council took its vote
on the permit. Hayes said he has
watched the changes with interest
along with others who live along and
travel the corridor every day.
“On the surface, I think we need
as much commercial as possible,”
Hayes said. “I’ve watched them growing. … Hopefully it will help attract
some other stuff to the neighborhood. We need more jobs. That whole
industrial area there could use some
more stuff.”
March 3-9, 2012 11
NONPROFIT SECTOR
Study: Books from Birth
Making Indelible Mark
AISLING MAKI | The Memphis News
“T
he Little Engine that Could”
may be the perfect metaphor
for Shelby County Books from
Birth, a program that sends a new, ageappropriate book each month, at no cost,
to all enrolled children from birth to age 5.
The classic American book about an
optimistic, persistent little train that overcame the odds to meet its goal is the very
first book children enrolled in the program
will ever receive.
When the Shelby County Books from
Birth was first launched in 2005, many
predicted it would fail. But the program
chugged along, ultimately becoming the
single largest affiliate of Dolly Parton’s
Imagination Library’s 1,400 programs
worldwide.
“Luckily for us, we had a couple of
visionaries who really believed in the program,” said Nora Capwell, executive director of Shelby County Books from Birth.
She was joined Thursday, Feb. 29, at
a press conference at the Benjamin L.
Hooks Central Library, 3030 Poplar Ave.,
by Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr., who
said the program faced what seemed like
insurmountable obstacles from the time of
its inception.
“We had all the reasons why this program was not supposed to work,” Wharton
said. “People move around all the time.
There is a lot of mobility – that’s true. The
“
All the things that we do
in life, all the things that
we accomplish, start with
our ability to read and
understand. What better
way to also build family
unity than to read?”
– Mark Luttrell
Shelby County Mayor
post office won’t forward the books – that’s
true. Children won’t get them if nobody
forwards the books – that’s true. But to
each of those, we said ‘We’ll change it.’”
Books from Birth approached the U.S.
Postal Service to request that they place
all books returned by mail in one place. A
group of retired teachers then volunteered
to track down the children’s new addresses
to deliver their books.
“We’ve gone from being that program
that was not supposed to have worked to
that program – not merely in West Tennessee or in the state of Tennessee – but that
program in the United States that has become the largest, in spite of all the odds,”
Wharton said.
Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell,
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam and First
Lady Crissy Haslam were among those
who joined Wharton Thursday to praise
the positive findings of new research that
shows Books from Birth is making an indelible mark on the lives of young children.
The findings of the research – a collaborative effort among Books from Birth,
Memphis City Schools and the Memphisbased Urban Child Institute Research –
confirm that the program has a significant
impact on local children’s school readiness. Fifty-one percent of children who
participated in Books from Birth represented low and middle-income families,
but regardless of family factors such as
income, participating children were shown
to have better home reading practices and
higher reading scores than children who
were not enrolled in Books from Birth.
“As a group, children who received
books from the Books from Birth program
reached school in stronger shape,” said Dr.
Doug Imig, resident fellow at The Urban
Child Institute, who conducted the study.
“In fact, on an 86-point scale of reading readiness, these kids are eight points
higher than children who are not enrolled
in the program. This difference remains
even after we adjust for family income and
preschool experience.”
The findings are significant for Tennessee, which ranks 41 out of 50 states
regarding indicators of well-being, and
Shelby County performs among the worst
in Tennessee.
According to the most recent U.S.
Census data, Shelby County is home to
68,000 children under age 5. Since the program’s inception in 2005, more than 33,000
children have “graduated” from Shelby
County Books from Birth and 31,000 are
currently enrolled – each receiving the
same monthly book, regardless of where in
the county they live.
“All the things that we do in life, all the
things that we accomplish, start with our
ability to read and understand,” Luttrell
said. “What better way to also build family
unity than to read?”
The goal now is to enroll the other
37,000 children in the county who are not
receiving monthly books, and to garner additional community involvement around
volunteering and donating to the program,
which costs just $12 a year per child.
“We need more private support to
make this work,” Haslam said.
The Daily News Publishing Co. Inc. is
a supporter of Shelby County Books from
Birth.
Church Giving Supports Historically Black Colleges
Church. In order to learn more about the
relationship between these colleges and
the church, we talked with Dr. Hopson and
The power of your church
share our conversation with you.
giving may be stronger than you know. For
We asked Hopson, executive director
example, did you know that when you give
of the Black College Fund
to the United Methodof the United Methodist
ist Church you are
Church, why the church
supporting 11 historiestablished these colleges
cally black colleges or
and why has it continued to
universities (HBCU) in
support them. She shared
addition to supporting
with us that the UMC has
your congregation?
always had a passion, tradiThat’s right. You are
part of a long tradition
MEL & Pearl shaw tion and belief in the power
now managed by the
FUNdraising of knowledge.
“As the Civil War ended,
church’s Black College
it was painfully clear that the education
Fund under the leadership of Dr. Cynthia
that had long been denied to slaves would
Bond Hopson.
severely hamper their self sufficiency if not
As you may be aware, HBCU have
addressed,” she said. “The people called
been transforming the lives of individuMethodists (through the Freedmen’s Aid
als, communities and our country since
Society, founded during the 1860s) saw
before the Civil War. Eleven of these 105
an urgent need and addressed it. This
institutions are private-church related
ministry to the educationally underserved
colleges founded by the United Methodist
Part one of a two-part series
remains, and we see it as essential to empowerment and self determination.”
According to a history of the Black
College Fund, written by Dillard University
President Emeritus Dr. Samuel DuBois
Cook, “Without question, the UMC has no
peer or competitor, either quantitatively
or qualitatively, in terms of church support
for its HBCU. No other mainline communion approaches the United Methodist
level of generous and sustained financial
support.”
The UMC provides funding, conferences and technical support to its member
colleges. Most of the support is unrestricted and goes directly to the institutions
to help keep their tuition and fees low, to
enhance the infrastructure, to create new
programming – whatever it takes to stay
competitive.
Hopson sees HBCU as uniquely suited
– historically and otherwise – to nurture,
challenge and mentor their graduates to
be instruments of change whether they’re
running a school board, multi-national
corporation or a university.
“These institutions attract the best and
brightest in addition to those who have
the potential to be great,” she said. “They
inspire them to ‘find a way or make one’ as
the Clark Atlanta University motto says.
The small class sizes and low teacher/
student ratios allow the faculty, staff and
administration an opportunity to provide
personalized attention and a family-like
environment. Students can’t help but
flourish and soar.
“We get some of our most effective,
committed, talented and innovative leaders from these institutions,” Hopson said.
To learn more about the UMC Black
College Fund visit www.gbhem.org/bcf or
call (615) 340-7378.
Mel and Pearl Shaw are the owners of
Saad & Shaw. They are the authors of “How
to Solicit a Gift: Turning Prospects into
Donors.” Visit www.saadandshaw.com or
call 522-8727.
12 March 3-9, 2012
EdR Sees Q4
Net Loss Of
$5.8 Million
A DV E RT I S I N G & P R
Celebration of Creativity
ADDYs honor city’s best advertising campaigns, professionals
T
he same day Memphis-based EdR
announced it would have a majority
interest in developing, owning and
managing a $36 million cottage-style community near the University of Mississippi,
the collegiate housing company reported a
fourth quarter net loss of $5.8 million compared to fourth quarter 2010.
That translates to a net loss of $0.07 per
diluted share during Q4, compared to a
net loss of $1.8 million, or $0.03 per diluted
share, during the same period of 2010. EdR
attributed the loss to an impairment charge
of $7.9 million during the quarter.
Analysts were offered those totals during
EdR’s Q4 and full-year 2011 conference call
Thursday, Feb. 23, after market close.
But EdR’s Q4 net operating income
reached $17.1 million, up 14.5 percent – or
$2.2 million – from Q4 2010. Core funds from
operations for the three months ended Dec.
31 was $12.5 million, compared to $9.5 million during the same period in 2010.
Full-year core funds from operations
notched $32.7 million, a 25.4 percent increase from $26 million during 2010.
“Two years ago, we implemented a plan
to create long-term value for our shareholders,” EdR President and CEO Randy
Churchey said on the conference call with
investors. “It started with a complete evaluation of the business, and resulted in us
restructuring our property operations team,
our processes and our information technology systems. These efforts, which were
completed throughout 2010, have paid off
handsomely, yielding market-leading leasing
results for the last two years.”
Churchey added that same-store operating expenses have been tightly controlled
and that EdR has shifted its focus to larger
institutions with robust enrollment growth,
as well as on collegiate housing communities
that are on or closer to campuses.
“Over the last two years, we’ve purchased
over $210 million of collegiate housing assets
that met this criteria,” Churchey said. “In
addition, we will be delivering over $311 million of owned developments in the summer
of 2012 and 2013.”
Formerly known as Education Realty
Trust Inc., the developer, owner and manager of collegiate housing changed its name to
EdR – aligning it with its NYSE ticker symbol,
EDR – in January. EdR owns or manages 60
communities in 23 states, with more than
34,200 beds within more than 11,100 units.
During Q4, the University of Kentucky
selected EdR to negotiate the potential revitalization and expansion of more than 9,000
residence-hall beds within the next seven
years. The first phase, which breaks ground
this spring, includes EdR assuming management of the university’s 6,000 beds as well as
the development, construction and ownership of a 601-bed, $25.8 million freshman
honors housing community slated for an
August 2013 opening.
EdR in Q4 bought four communities with
1,184 beds for $116.7 million. Eight communities were added in 2011 for $189.7 million.
Laurel Amatangelo of archer-malmo and Zachary Whitten of Combustion hold a number of ADDY awards and Best of Interactive award from the 2012 Memphis ADDYs at The Cadre Building on Feb. 25.
T
he gold-plated columns and
crystal chandeliers of The Cadre
Building were right in line with
the American Advertising Federation
Memphis’ 2012 ADDY Awards ceremony, themed “Hustle + Workflow.”
All “pimps, players and winners”
that produced the best in local advertising and all of the disciplines associated
with it were recognized Saturday, Feb.
25, in the historic Downtown building
at 149 Monroe Ave., with the tagline,
“Damn, it feels good to be a winner.”
AAF Memphis presented 63 gold
and 68 silver awards during the ceremony, emceed by “The Bell Ringer” – Stan
Bell from V101.
Harvest Creative presented the
theme, based on the 2005 Memphismade movie “Hustle & Flow,” which
follows the story of a pimp who, amid
a midlife crisis, attempts to become a
successful hip-hop emcee. But, playful
theme aside, the night was a welldeserved celebration to an industry
that often puts in long nights, endless
revisions and a devotion to design, said
Andrew Holliday, partner with Harvest.
“It’s a really important event for the
advertising community,” Holliday said.
“It’s our one event of the year where we
all kind of come together and compete
and mingle and enjoy a good night out.
It’s fun to see what everybody else has
been doing throughout the year and
some of the different work. And it’s
important to keep us relevant to the rest
of the country.”
Harvest picked up seven honors,
including Best of Self Promotion for
Harvest Holiday Tractor.
Red Deluxe Brand Development
took home Best of Show, presented by
AAF’s 2011 silver medal award winner
Bob Vornbrock, for its “Play It Down”
cinematography for client Baptist
Memorial Health Care Foundation.
The 30-second video was part of a PSA
to educate teenagers about protecting
their hearing.
The campaign, which also included
an interactive app, earned Red Deluxe
five other gold awards in addition to its
Best of Show recognition. Red Deluxe
took home 23 honors overall, including
honors for its presentation of last year’s
ADDYs theme, “You Have Failed to Conform to the Federation.”
Taking home the most ADDYs, however, was archer-malmo, with 33 total
awards. The advertising and marketing
agency scored Best of Copywriting for
its Beale Street Caravan campaign, and
also picked up three gold awards for the
poster series.
In addition, archer-malmo racked
up several honors for its Taropop illustrations and T-shirt designs.
Following closely was design and
advertising firm Combustion, with 31
total honors. The agency won Best of
Outdoor and several other gold honors
for its Elvis Presley Enterprises billboard
campaign, as well as Best of Print for its
Indie Memphis poster and Best of Web/
Interactive for client Memphis College
of Art’s Facebook page.
Other multiple award winners were
inferno, Counterpart Communication Design, Sullivan Branding, Switch
Creative, Modern Production Concepts,
Exhibit A Inc., Simple Focus and Tactical
Magic.
The second annual People’s Choice
Award – the only award that is voted on
by Memphis’ advertising peers – was
given to The Orpheum Theatre for its
Orpheum Summer Movie Poster Series.
The picture ads – featuring images
from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Big
Lebowski,” “The Wizard of Oz” and
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” – also
scored the Orpheum a gold ADDY in the
Poster Campaign category.
All gold awards were the standard
crystal-inspired, 3-D triangle ADDY, but
the “Hustle + Workflow” inspiration was
sprinkled throughout the remaining
awards. All silver award recipients, for
instance, were given a silver-foiled split
of champagne, as opposed to the usual
certificate of years past.
Also, best of awards resembled 40ounce malt liquor bottles, and the Best
of Show trophy mimicked an 80-ounce
beverage container.
And Harvest implemented the first
Judges were Monika Royal, recruiter
with TiER1 Performance Solutions in
Covington, Ky.; Chris Wells, associate
creative director/art director with Crowell in Salt Lake City; and Bill Brookshire,
senior art director with Stone Ward in
Little Rock, Ark.
ADDY entries were up 10 percent
this year, a testament to the local advertising industry’s strength, Holliday said.
March 3-9, 2012 13
education
‘Wheel’ Now in Motion
For New School System
T
hose on the schools transition
planning commission called it
“the wheel.”
Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald
called it “the wheel of education.”
The wheel is a set of principles for
the coming consolidated countywide
school system. And it was approved
by the planning commission last week
as a prelude to this week’s anticipated
vote on a structure for the new countywide school system.
The seven principles arranged in a
wheel in the PowerPoint presentation
surround the central goal of applying
them to every student.
They are: engaged parents; a culture and climate of high expectations;
effective instructional leaders; effective
teachers; rigorous implementation of
standards; tailored interventions and
support; and quality and accessible
educational choices.
The concepts of every child being
ready for school and every student
ready for success in college and/or a
career are on either side of the wheel.
The concept of general terms with
specific meanings was debated and
nearly sidetracked by a survey of planning commission members that was
informal and reflected some priorities
that not all on the commission could
agree to, at least initially.
Like the committee that drafted
recommendations on the school
system’s structure, the educational
services committee was twice as big as
the 21-member planning commission
itself.
Daniel Kiel, professor at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys
School of Law, chaired the committee,
which included education experts from
both of the local school systems as well
as other experts who were consulted.
The goals are an important first
step to set the purpose for the school
system’s structure.
“There is work to do for every
school in Shelby County,” Kiel said.
He went through a checklist of
combined school system statistics
showing an enrollment decline of an
average of 1 percent for each of the
past five school years.
The survey list of priorities, he
emphasized, were meant to trigger a
discussion.
Intervention with students was fifth
in a list of the top five priorities in the
survey. Early childhood education was
at the top. But Kiel acknowledged there
are some real funding limitations to
expanding that for now.
Planning commissioner Katie Stan-
logistics
Int’l Flight Reduced
D
elta Air Lines Inc. will end
regular daily service between
Memphis International Airport and Amsterdam’s Airport Schiphol
starting in September.
The service that began under a
Northwest KLM agreement in 1995 will
return in the summer and remain on
a seasonal basis after that.
Atlanta-based Delta and other
global air carriers have long lamented
the difficulty of maintaining trans-Atlantic service in the winter off-season
for tourism as travel to and from
Asian and Latin American markets
continues to grow across different
travel seasons.
Delta had cut the Amsterdam
flights to four days a week effective
last September. At the time, it was
billed as a seasonal reduction even
as other cutbacks were part of Delta’s
strategy of making permanent cuts to
its capacity.
Delta’s announcement of the
changes to the Memphis-Amsterdam
route followed KLM’s announcement
of its summer schedule last week.
The KLM announcement made
no mention of Memphis but outlined
a strategy of “selective growth” in
North America including AmsterdamAtlanta service four times a day when
the Atlanta airport opens its new
international terminal in June. The
service is also being offered four times
a day at Detroit and three times daily at
Minneapolis and New York City’s John
F. Kennedy Airport.
Glen Hauenstein, Delta executive
vice president of network planning
and revenue management, reminded
those on an earnings call that anyone
can make money with trans-Atlantic
flights during the summer season, but
it’s harder during winter.
“The game is not to give back the
profits you make in the summer during the winter, Hauenstein said. “We
didn’t do a good job of that.”
ton, a former president of the Shelby
County Education Association, said
the idea of intervening with students
during a school year before they fail
or fall too far behind is an important
priority with teachers. She emphasized
behavioral intervention.
Shelby County Schools superintendent John Aitken told the group last
year that intervention is a strategy that
has changed education practice across
the country and is a reality in both of
the county’s public school systems
because of new state standards and
federal Race to the Top standards.
“Both districts have good interventions in place,” said planning commission chairwoman Barbara Prescott.
Bartlett Mayor Keith McDonald had
concerns about several of the principles if they were to be undertaken by
the school system and no one else.
“I’ve got a problem with three or
four of these being the responsibility
of the school system,” he said. “I don’t
believe we’ve seen an example of a
school system that’s been able to get all
of these things within a system.”
That included the goal of engaged
parents.
“Whatever limited resources we
have in education, I don’t think we
have enough resources to do all of
those things nor can we force parents
to be engaged,” McDonald said.
“The school system can do some
things with engaging parents,” Kiel
said. “But a school system can also be
intentional about working with other
groups that might do an even better
job of engaging parents.”
Shelby County Schools leaders
have long touted the school system’s
requirement of PTA chapters at every
school in the county system.
But planning commissioner Joyce
Avery called for the involvement of
churches and retired teachers as mentors.
“In a Norman Rockwell world all
parents are involved,” she said before
contrasting that with “the real world.”
“Many of the parents are not capable
of helping their children. Are we going to look toward the churches and
retired teachers to be mentors of those
children? The parents are not always
capable of helping.”
Planning commissioner Tommy
Hart also urged the group to be cautious about “the prism” through which
it looks at the reformation of Shelby
County Schools and that reformation’s
point of contact with parents and the
community. Hart saying different generations with different levels of education should be able to understand the
goals.
“If we could outlaw one thing, it
would be acronyms,” Hart said. “I hear
now from my children who are college
graduates – they struggle with what
the school system is trying to say with
acronyms.”
Res. Real Estate
Market Should
Improve in 2012
When I am asked, “How’s the real
estate market?” I often think I sound like a broken record: “Inventories are good, mortgage
rates are at historic lows, now is the best time
ever to buy.”
Yet, there are a lot of folks not listening to
the message. Why? This quarterly column will
explore the factors affecting the residential
real estate market, industry predictions, as
well as some possible answers to get buyers in
the market again.
Some potential buyers mistakenly think
they cannot get a mortgage. However, more
than 12,000 homes sell every single day in the
United States. Of those, around 75 percent get
mortgages, which
judy mclellan means approxiguest column mately 9,000 buyers get mortgages
every day, even though banks and mortgage
lenders have indeed gotten stricter on their
guidelines.
One word of caution to reinforce: Real estate is local. Do not let the national headlines
blow you away.
You will begin to see more and more articles about something called shadow inventory. Shadow inventory is made of foreclosed
homes that banks and mortgage companies
have in the pipeline but are held up because of
state and government pressure due to discovered robo-signing problems.
The holds on foreclosures are loosening up,
and it is predicted that by the end of the year,
this shadow inventory across the country is
going to be hitting the market. In those areas
with the most exposure, inventory supplies will
go up, meaning downward pressure on home
prices.
Good news for us is that in November, USA
Today published a map showing their findings
of shadow inventories across the country,
dividing states into four categories: those with
0-5 months, 5-9 months, 10-50 months, and
50+ months of this shadow inventory that,
barring some type of government intervention,
will be hitting the market. Tennessee was in the
lowest category of 0-5 months of inventory.
A significant variable to what happens
in the real estate market is consumer confidence. As the consumer confidence index
goes up, more buyers will "get off the fence"
and into the market. It is important to keep a
close eye on this number.
We believe rates will remain in the 30-year,
4 percent range until mid-year, rising to 4.5
percent by year-end. Inventory will be down,
existing home sales and prices will be flat and
maybe down just a little for first quarter; picking up from there, sales will likely be up about
4 percent for the year and sale prices ending
up 2 percent to 3 percent for the year.
We predict new home starts and sales will
be up considerably for the quarter (primarily
in the up-to-$300,000 price range), rising to
a 15 percent increase for the year, and we believe new home prices will increase 5 percent
for the year.
All in all, an improving real estate market
for 2012 with the breakout year coming in
2013.
Judy McLellan is a Realtor with Crye-Leike
Realtors Inc. Her website is judymac.com.
14 March 3-9, 2012
special coverage
special emphasis : health care
HOME ALONE
“
F
or many senior citizens, access
to homemaker services – such as
housekeeping and grocery shopping – enables them to continue living
in the comfort of their own homes for as
long as possible.
Melanie Keller, executive vice
president of Meritan – a Memphis-based
nonprofit that provides a vast array of
services for seniors – said as little as two
two-hour visits each week can mean the
difference between placing a senior in a
hospital or nursing facility.
“It makes good, common economic
sense to invest in some of these in-home
services,” she said. “I would even classify
meal delivery and homemaker services
as preventative. If you have good nutrition and a clean home environment,
then your health status is going to be
better overall.”
For some seniors, a home health
worker may be the only person with
Just the federal cuts in
home care since 2008
have been about 16
percent. Home health
is about 4 percent of
Medicare spending,
yet it’s taking 10
percent
the cuts
in Locationsthatneed
nscreensofthe
Dixonof
Hughes
blue.
Medicare, so it’s very
disproportionate.”
– Melanie Keller
Executive vice president, Meritan
maps
Access to in-home health services
declines as need rises
whom they interact regularly, and that
companionship can help prevent depression, which has detrimental health
effects.
The need for homemaker services
continues to grow, with the first of the
nation’s 70-million strong baby boomers
turning 65 last year.
“We’re getting ready to get inundated
with people who need those services,”
Keller said.
But despite the aging population,
home health care continues to see cuts
at both the state and federal level. Keller
said Medicare only provides skilled services, such as nursing and occupational
therapy, and does not reimburse for
convalescent care.
“Just the federal cuts in home care
since 2008 have been about 16 percent,”
said Keller, who also serves on the board
of the Tennessee Association for Home
Care, a statewide nonprofit. “Home
health is about 4 percent of Medicare
spending, yet it’s taking 10 percent of the
cuts in Medicare, so it’s very disproportionate.”
According to TAHC, TennCare
– whose Choices program provides
non-medical long-term care services
for the elderly and disabled – last July
implemented a 4.25 percent cut for
home health.
“The plan in the budget is to eliminate the homemaker part as a standalone benefit,” Keller said. “If the person
needs homemaker services, they would
blend that with the personal care. But
homemaker services by themselves –
that environmental support – would
completely go away.”
In addition to the reduction of
homemaker services, other services
under the TennCare Choices program
scheduled for rate reductions are
personal response systems and home
NATIONAL RESOURCES
MEMPHIS OFFICE
Partners
The Dixon Hughes Goodman Healthcare Services Group
David B. Baggett
has become a critical part of the healthcare delivery
Gregory M. Bostian
system. We represent over 1,000 hospitals, physician
P. Anthony Clark
groups, senior housing and care, and home health/hospice
Robert C. Davis
providers with an entrepreneurial spirit and an emphasis
Buddy Dearman
on innovative solutions to seemingly chronic conditions.
William M. Hope
Paul Hopkins, Deb Holzmark and John May lead our
Memphis healthcare service team with one common
goal — to help our clients build financial health by
improving operational efficiencies and quality of care.
Paul R. Hopkins
Kenneth L. Johnson
Jorg Kaltwasser
Jeffrey A. Kitterman
John A. May
Mark H. Nicolas
Alexandra L. Sinkular
Paul Hopkins
Deb Holzmark
John May
dhgllp.com • 999 South Shady Grove Road Suite 400 • Memphis, TN 38120 • 901.761.3000
March 3-9, 2012 15
special coverage
2012 Busy Year In
Health Care
LaQuita Dawson of Meritan takes a blood pressure reading at the home of patient Howard Green. Green receives home
care seven days a week, 12 hours a day.
delivered meals. Personal response
systems provide Choices clients with
immediate access to a call center for
help in emergency situations, and the
rate change will reduce the number of
companies able to provide the service
to Choices clients.
The rate reductions for home
delivered meals will also reduce the
number of organizations able to
provide that service to Choices clients.
Keller said budget cuts include a 19
percent reduction in frozen meals and
5.8 reduction in hot meals delivered to
client homes.
“I know it’s going to affect this
area, and have an even greater impact
on the rural areas because it’s a little
more difficult to provide services in a
rural area when you’re talking about
time and travel,” she said.
More home health cuts came in
January, after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services refused to
pay states for an error in payments,
resulting in an additional 4.25 percent
cut in home health.
“There will never be enough
public funding,” said Kathryn Coulter,
chief development officer for the
Aging Commission of the Mid-South,
which contracts with various home
health agencies for nonmedical
services. “We certainly have lots of
private pay providers for home care,
so if individuals have the resources,
there are services in the community
that can be purchased. Unfortunately,
I don’t think there will ever be enough
public money to provide the care for
everyone who needs it.”
There is a sliver of good news on
the horizon. A bill by state Sen. Mark
Norris and Rep. Gerald McCormick is
currently moving through the General
Assembly to restore close to 2 percent
of the January cuts to TennCare home
health reimbursement.
Keller said she regularly meets
people facing difficult decisions,
including leaving their jobs to care for
aging family members.
“And then you have people leaving
the workforce,” she said. “Personal
care out of pocket, through a reliable
agency, is about $16 an hour at least
four hours a day. Most people can’t afford it. And if you have people staying
at home, that ultimately impacts the
economy.”
Keller said that from an economic
standpoint, it simply makes more
sense to keep seniors out of hospitals
and costly nursing home facilities,
and living in their own home environment for as long as possible.
Memphis Heart Clinic, Stern Cardiovascular Merge
T
he 14 physicians of Memphis Heart Clinic have
joined Stern Cardiovascular Foundation, one of the
region’s largest cardiology group practices.
Stern just more than a year ago became part of Baptist
Memorial Medical Group, a nonprofit medical group foundation affiliated with Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp.,
which includes more than 300 physicians representing 31
specialties in West Tennessee, Eastern Arkansas and North
Mississippi.
The transition will be official Thursday, March 1, and
BMMG and Memphis Heart Clinic leadership say patients
should expect it to be seamless.
Dr. Joseph Samaha, Memphis Heart Clinic president,
said his organization’s merger with West Clinic in 2007 allowed Memphis Heart to grow rapidly and brought professional management and security to the clinic.
Stern Cardiovascular Foundation president Dr. Steven
Gubin said the alignment with Memphis Heart Clinic will
enable physicians to offer access to a larger team of cardiology specialists.
Recent BMMG acquisitions include Memphis Lung
Physicians, Boston Baskin Cancer Group and others.
This year is positioned to be very
interesting in the world of health care, which is
guaranteed a place in the news for the rest of the
year. In addition to the big stories, some smaller
one will grab the limelight as the medical industry
deals with changing trends and developments.
In March, the Supreme Court is scheduled
to listen to arguments regarding health care
insurance and the requirement that Americans
buy insurance or pay a penalty. The court has
set aside almost six hours to hear the oral arguments and the outcome will most likely have an
impact on the presidential election. President
Barack Obama is defending the requirement as
a constitutional effort by Congress to address a
national crisis while 26 states led by Florida and
an independent business group oppose the law
due to the belief that the requirement exceeds
the authority of
ronnie Williams Congress.
guest column
This year has
not shown explosive, economic growth and the economy is an
issue that permeates most industries, including
health care. With high unemployment and underemployment, people will continue to delay treatment because of the lack of financial resources to
obtain medical care. Without proper medical care,
many folks may ask Santa for a doctor’s kit this
Christmas. Between now and then, volumes and
associated revenues will probably be soft at hospitals, ambulatory centers and physician offices.
To improve outcomes and lower costs in 2012,
the medical community will focus on accountable care, bundled payments, patient-centered
medical homes and clinical integration. These
fancy terms all revolve around higher quality care
for the patients and reduced costs for hopefully
everyone involved. While implementation of these
practices comes with certain challenges and
obstacles, the rewards will be high for the patient
and the health care system.
Similar to other industries, information technology developments will continue to enhance
and improve solutions in the health care field.
Information technology is an integral component
in transitioning to new models where medical
information is distributed in a timely and effective
manner. Efforts to implement electronic medical
records, computerized physician order entry and
health information exchanges will become more
widespread this year as health care providers
work to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
No matter your political beliefs, everyone can
agree that health care will be part of the discussion when the final contenders for the White
House are decided. Leading up to November, the
candidates will need to discuss their plans for
dealing with Medicare and health care in general.
The health care issue can be a lightning rod for
debates and should have a major impact on the
results at the polls. Health care will be a hot topic
in 2012, with the economy possibly being the
only other issue to garner more attention. As the
year progresses, the medical community will be
watching with great interest to see what changes
are brought forth from the highest offices in our
land. Whatever happens this year, the changes
will affect almost everyone.
Ronnie Williams is the director of finance for
HealthChoice LLC.
16 March 3-9, 2012
‘If Only’ Answer
Is Balance
A lot of you probably have to
manage your fair share of “if only” employees.
People who love to constantly and vocally
proclaim, “I could do a better job if only I had
this, or if only I had that. If only I had more
people, or more time, or more money, or
more whatever – I could make big things happen around here.”
Are these people correct? Are their
comments or complaints valid? According
to some examples in nature and an interesting experiment going on at Michigan State
University, the
correct answer
seems to be no,
and then yes, and
then no again.
In nature,
when there is
a shortage of a
chris cRouch
SMART STUFF critical resource
4 WORK (such as food,
water, sunlight,
etc.) one species tends to dominate the environment. As the critical resource becomes
more abundant, a balanced ecosystem develops and many species survive and prosper.
For example, in a forest, tall trees survive
and prosper when they catch an adequate
supply of sunlight. They, in turn, form a canopy that allows other species that require less
sunlight to survive, such as ferns and moss.
As the critical resource continues to increase
and becomes overabundant, one species
dominates the environment again. So yes, we
can have too much of a good thing at times.
Years ago, researchers at Michigan State
University developed what they refer to as a
Digital Evolution Laboratory and launched a
computer experiment called Avida. To make
a long story short, Avida tracks the birth,
life and death of many generations of digital
organisms that each have the potential to
evolve and solve a math problem.
I know it sounds a bit weird, but solving
math problems is to these digital organisms
as having a successful life is to humans.
Since this is all done on computers, the
critical resource in this case is digits or numbers. When the researchers feed a low supply
of numbers into the program, only one type
of digital organism survives. As they increase
the number supply, three or four different
digital organisms emerge and coexist. However, when they feed an overabundant supply
of numbers into the program, once again,
only one digital organism survives.
There are some other very interesting discoveries related to the Avida experiment. Remember, success in this experiment involves
solving a mathematical problem. When
they cut back on the resources, researchers
also discovered that the digital organisms
increased their success rate (from 23 of 50
successful trials, to 50 of 50 successful trials)
and solved the problem five times faster. Less
resources, more success, quicker results –
isn’t that a bit odd? This evidence seems to
support the fact that flooding a business with
resources is not the answer to the “if only”
complaints. This also supports the fact that
people often perform best when they have
a 50/50 chance of success. If things are too
difficult, they get frustrated. If things are too
easy, they get bored. Humans seem to perform best when they encounter reasonable
but achievable challenges.
special emphasis : H E A L T H C A R E
SMALL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
Ambitious Growth on Tap for Locally
Owned Firm Med Communications
MICHAEL WADDELL | Special to The Memphis News
P
harmaceutical consulting firm
Med Communications Inc.
is expanding its presence in
Memphis, with plans to soon move
into a larger office space to accommodate anticipated growth over the next
several years.
In April the company will move
from 910 Madison Ave. to the Memphis
BioWorks building at 20 S. Dudley St.
“The BioWorks Foundation Group
is very business-oriented, especially in
health care delivery and biotechnology, so it really fits us well to move our
operations over there,” said Dr. Allen
Scoggin, president and CEO of Med
Communications.
Med Communications contracts
with various pharmaceutical and biotech firms to provide evidence-based,
regulation-compliant information to
physicians, pharmacists, nurses and
patients. It is one of only six companies
of its kind in the country, and it is the
only such company based locally.
“We answer questions related to
drugs and drug therapy for the companies as if we were sitting at those
companies, but we do the work here in
Memphis,” said Scoggin.
The company’s impressive, mostly
confidential national client list includes
local company GTx Inc. Scoggin credits
his company’s success to his professional staff, which consists only of
graduates from top 10 doctor of pharmacy programs that have completed
residency training or advanced degree
programs in health care.
“We have an exceptional staff of
highly trained individuals who have
either had a residency, a fellowship
or some other type of experience at
a pharmaceutical house,” said Scoggin, whose company now employs an
average of 45 to 50 people, with 20 to
25 people at the office in Memphis
Allen
Scoggin is
founder,
president
and CEO
of Med
Communications,
a medical
information
consulting
firm.
and the others outsourced. “We do not
hire people straight out of pharmacy
school.”
The current staff also has an average of five to eight years of individual
practice experience in infectious disease, pediatrics, pulmonology, oncology, critical care medicine, cardiology,
and other subspecialties of medicine.
The busiest months for the call center come during the fall and winter and
can bring in as many as 3,000 calls due
to questions about seasonal vaccines
produced by a few companies. But
most of Med Communications’ current
clients do not make seasonal vaccines,
so call volume remains relatively steady
for most of the year.
Scoggin formed the company in
1998, after he and a former student
had bumped into each other at a trade
show and began brainstorming the
idea in 1995.
Being located in Memphis has
multiple advantages for the company.
Being in the central time zone allows
Med Communications to provide lateafternoon service to large companies
on the East Coast, and being close to
the health sciences research center of-
“
fers its staff access to the area’s extensive health care resources, including
a regional medical library and other
health care facilities and businesses.
“We started the company coming
out of an academic environment at the
University of Tennessee, and we tried to
bring as much of that approach as we
could to focusing on response to questions of a medical information nature,”
said Scoggin, who served as a UTHSC
faculty member for 30 years.
Med Communications focused primarily on medical information support
services in its earlier years, but recently
it has taken on a larger consulting role.
And more growth is expected over the
next few years.
“We expect to double the size of our
company in the next three years,” said
Scoggin, who attributes the company’s
ambitious growth plan to Dr. Barbara
McKinnon, Med Communications
director of business development, who
joined the company three years ago.
Med Communications recently
partnered with SpokenHere to provide
translating and interpreting, and the
company will debut the new service
later this year.
Magna Bank genuinely
cares about the success
of our company.
”
— Brian Hull, CFO
Contact Magna Commercial Division to learn the
many ways we can help your company succeed.
Magna Commercial Division
901.259.5642
magnabank.com
March 3-9, 2012 17
Data Present Big Picture for LSON Students
ERINN FIGG | Special to The Memphis News
T
o University of Memphis’ Loewenberg School of Nursing student Joni
Gossett, 38108 is more than just a
ZIP code. It’s also a diagnostic tool.
“As a group, we research the crime
rate, income levels, household numbers
and general health conditions in the
area,” said Gossett, who also is president
of LSON’s Student Nurses Association.
“Part of the project is assessing the needs
of the community. Environmental conditions, communications, housing facilities,
even perceptions of that community can
all affect our diagnosis of a patient.”
Gossett, who is in her fourth semester
of Loewenberg’s five-semester Bachelor
of Science in Nursing program, is referring to the school’s ZIP code project,
one of several ways LSON students learn
about the significance of geographic,
demographic and socioeconomic data in
patient care. According to leading industry studies, a strong educational emphasis on research, data collection, statistical
analysis, informatics and cutting-edge
technology is necessary to better equip
nurses to serve an increasingly diverse
and aging population.
In 2010, the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and The Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation published the report
“The Future of Nursing: Leading Change,
Advancing Health,” which sets forth
recommendations for transforming the
country’s nursing industry of more than
3 million members into a stronger, more
influential force in the nation’s changing
health care system.
One of the report’s key recommendations is for a more highly educated
nursing workforce facilitated by overall
improvements in the education system,
which would include competencies in areas such as evidence-based care, leadership, systems thinking, basic health policy
and quality improvement. The report
challenges nurse leaders to work together
to increase the national number of nurses
with a baccalaureate degree from 50 percent to 80 percent in 2020.
In Tennessee that current number is
closer to 45 percent, said Lin Zhan, dean
of Loewenberg School of Nursing. She
echoes the report’s stance that a more educated nursing workforce would be better
equipped to meet increasingly complex
health care demands, particularly when
modern health care often depends on
the use of sophisticated technology and
highly developed analytical skills.
“Nurses now have to utilize informatics, technology, electronic patient records
– we have much better data now that
shows us where the gaps are in improving patient outcomes,” she said. “Nurses
need to be able to use that technology
to improve the efficiency and quality of
health care.”
Educating students in collecting and
evaluating data plays a major role in
developing nurses with strong decisionmaking and patient assessment abilities.
“Our community health course, for
instance, teaches students not to just look
at an individual and his or her family, but
to also examine that patient’s societal
group, aggregates, diversity,” Zhan said.
“What are the health issues in that particular population?”
Shelby County and the Memphis area,
for example, have several region-specific
health issues, according to stats provided
by the Nursing Institute of the Mid South,
a member collaborative comprised of local hospitals and schools of nursing that
aims to “facilitate a top-quality regional
nursing workforce that drives top-quality
care in a changing health care environment.”
Obesity is particularly prevalent
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Gossett said the integration of community and patient care is one aspect she
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“We’re not policy makers, but the
more information we can collect about
our patients’ contributing situations, the
better we can help our patients adapt to
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18 March 3-9, 2012
Cushing’s Day Gig for ‘Betterment of Humanity’
RICHARD J. ALLEY | Special to The Memphis News
Freeworld frontman
Richard Cushing at
home on stage or in a
laboratory
I
n February, senior research assistant
Richard Cushing began working with
the Pathology Department of the
University of Tennessee Health Science
Center in the Tissue Services Core and
Repository.
The repository is a warehouse of more
than 3 million pieces of human tissue
from hearts, lungs, kidneys and livers,
as well as biopsies of various types of
tumors. The samples are available to doctors, researchers and students to conduct
studies on and compare to those of a
patient’s.
“I’m facilitating, not just one professor, but anyone who needs it, a wide
variety of different tissue types and
samples for them to do research with or
cure people’s diseases,” said Cushing, who
will prepare and stain slides, or core the
tissue samples, to be sent to those who
cushing
requested it.
Work in the repository is not the 48year-old Cushing’s first gig at UTHSC. He
every time you get or renew your
driver’s license.
Register to be an organ and tissue donor
www.DonateLifeTn.org
www.DonateLifeArkansas.org
www.DonateLifeMs.org
For more information, contact
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901-328-4438 • www.midsouthtransplant.org
began work with the facility in 1989 in
the laboratory of Daniel Goldowitz where
he studied Developmental Neurogenetics, focusing on cerebellar disorders such
as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s disease and
autism.
April 2010 found him in the lab of Tiffany Seagroves and that facility’s research
into breast cancer.
Today, though he may not be conducting the research himself as he did with
Goldowitz or Seagroves, he’s still working
to accomplish the same goal and he feels
the same weight of expectation on the
tasks at hand.
“It’s all for the betterment of humanity, it’s philanthropic, it’s all to help
people either be cured of diseases or to
help people find a cure for diseases and,
ultimately, that’s what all research is for,”
he said.
Coming from a background of laboratory research is invaluable to the repository, said the center’s director, Dr. Anand
Kulkarni.
“He understands both sides of it and is
very sensitive to the patient information
that we get,” Kulkarni said. “He understands my entire lab structure and how it
works.”
Having grown up with 80 miles of
woods behind his parents’ home in Raleigh where he spent much of his time as
a child helping any sick animals he would
find, Cushing’s interest in the sciences
began with the dream of becoming a
veterinarian.
It was a quest that led him from Christian Brothers High School to the University of Tennessee at Martin.
“Apparently you don’t really focus on
small animals, dogs and cats, until later in
vet school and so I spent a lot of my time
out on a UT farm dealing with cows and
pigs and, frankly, unless they’re on a plate,
that wasn’t really what I was interested
in,” he said.
He left UT Martin for then-Shelby
State Community
College and ultimately found himself at the University
of Memphis where
those combined
college credits led
him to a degree in
biology, and his
interest in research
to UTHSC.
It’s a career path
that has shown a
remarkable consistency.
And it’s the same
dedication that is
apparent in Cushing’s second career
as the frontman
of FreeWorld, a
longtime, popular
jam band that is a
mainstay in Memphis bars and clubs and is celebrating its
25th year this year.
“The entire time I’ve been studying
biology during the day, I’ve been playing
music at night and it’s been parallel paths
that have served me well forever,” Cushing said.
Cushing’s work with music is as
altruistic as his work as a researcher. He
sits on the board of several organizations
including the Memphis chapter of the
National Academy of Recording Arts &
Sciences, the Memphis & Shelby County
Music Commission and the Beale Street
Brass Note Committee.
“We’ve come a long way and there’s a
lot that’s been changed and helped over
the years, but there’s also quite a bit more
that needs to be done,” he said.
“Though he has a ‘day gig,’ as we say
in the music world, he is very, very passionate about the position of the Memphis musicians and their well-being,” said
Kurt “KC” Clayton, past president of the
Memphis chapter of NARAS, and who
sits on the board of the Music Commission with Cushing. “He comes from the
musician’s side, not the corporate side,
but what the musicians are going through
in their day-to-day struggles of paying
debt, paying bills and providing for their
children.”
Dueling careers and a family of two
young sons with wife, Lori, would seem to
create an insurmountable to-do list, leaving little downtime between work, dinner
and homework, and the 300 gigs played
last year.
“The whole problem in the scenario is
getting enough sleep,” he jokes.
Though his Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle
requires a lot of him, he’s not about to
forfeit the satisfaction he gets from either.
“Research isn’t boring, it’s an exciting field to be a part of,” he said. “Again,
it’s philanthropy, it’s helping people. … It
makes you feel good.”
March 3-9, 2012 19
Panel: Tennessee Has ‘Incredibly Robust’ Bioscience Community
M
embers of the region’s scientific, medical, academic and
business communities seeking more knowledge about innovative
early-stage investment strategies in the
biosciences packed the ballroom of The
University Club, 1346 Central Avenue, on
Thursday, Feb. 23, for a panel discussion
hosted by Memphis Bioworks Business
Association.
The event, co-hosted by partners Life
Science Tennessee and the Southeastern
Medical Device Association, centered on
the TNInvestco Program.
Launched in 2009 by the Tennessee
Department of Economic & Community
Development, the program has allocated
$200 million in tax credits to a cross-section of venture capital funds with broad
experience in developing new companies
in Tennessee.
Thursday’s discussion was moderated
by Henry P. Doggrell, vice president, general counsel and secretary of Memphisbased pharmaceutical company GTx Inc.,
and each of the four panelists represented
TNInvestco venture capital firms.
Panelists were Charlie Crawford,
senior analyst with Innova Memphis;
Joe C. Cook III, principal of Nashvillebased Limestone Fund; Gary Stevenson,
co-founder and managing partner of MB
Venture Partners; and Dr. Brian Laden,
co-founder of Nashville-based Tri-Star
Technology Ventures.
Stevenson said there’s never been a
better time than the present for bioscience startups in Tennessee.
“In our history of investing over the
last 10 years, there’s never been this much
opportunity in the state of Tennessee,” he
said.
“That’s good news. Let’s remember
what it really represents; there’s a pool of
capital here for investment in Tennesseebased startup companies.”
He said the real investment is in the
multiplier effect – getting innovative
companies to a place where they can
attract additional venture capital firms
from outside the state, making Tennessee
a net importer – and not an exporter – of
venture capital.
Laden said Tennessee’s life science
sector is “incredibly robust.”
“It’s our thesis that there was sort of
this untapped need out there because
of a lack of capital, and it’s proved to be
overwhelmingly true,” he said.
“The number of deals that find us is a
lot. We also go to universities. Our funds
and some others have a particular interest
in university-based technologies, so we
maintain relationships with the universities in state and, in fact, around the country, looking for life sciences type of deals.”
Laden said one of the great benefits
of the TNInvestco program has been the
strong, collaborative bioscience investment network that’s emerged.
When asked what qualities Innova
looks for when making an investment,
Crawford said the firm primarily looks for
a company to which they can add value as
a long-term partner.
“We look for a business where we can
add value beyond our capital in the form
of our experience and our expertise,”
Crawford said.
“We tend to be very active investors.
We don’t just write a check and walk away
in five years and hope to go the mailbox
and find our returns. We’re going to be
involved in management on a weekly
and sometimes daily basis, helping build
value.”
He also said effective management is
a critical component in seeking out startups with tremendous growth potential.
“In many cases I’d rather have an
excellent management team and a good
technology, not the other way around,”
Crawford said. “A management team with
startup experience that understands that
we all have titles in a startup company,
but everybody’s going to be involved in
doing a little bit of everything, is very
important.”
Cook said venture capital firms provide much-needed solid business experience, including management expertise
and tremendous resources, to bring the
early-stage startups to fruition.
“The regulatory environment uncertainty and everything else is really
different than a lot of other industries that
don’t have some of the same risks,” Cook
said.
“So the marrying up of the management team and the technology and a
market need is something that we spend
a lot of time on early to see if there’s a
good fit…we’ve got to have those pillars in
place because there are different ways to
go about developing technologies.”
Memphis Bioworks Business Association’s next luncheon, “Building the Talent
Base for Bioscience: Workforce Development Initiatives in the Mid-South,” will
take place March 15 at the University
Club. Visit www.bioworksbusiness.com to
register.
Present Tense
New Art from Memphis
Ali Delgado, Tea Tree, colored pencil
“Memphis is continuing to grow into a thriving arts community.
To inspire and encourage young artists in the area, we are pleased
to present outstanding artwork by some of the most talented high
school students in this exhibition. We are proud to be a part of
Memphis’ cultural landscape and are excited to see it blossom.”
February 3 – April 10, 2013
Jim Meeks – Managing Partner, Northwestern Mutual
EMPHIS
insurance / Minvestments
/ ideas
present-tense-memphis.com
dixon.org
®
20 March 3-9, 2012
Wright Medical Q4 Net Sales Decrease 8 Pct.
W
right Medical Group Inc.
reported its net sales fell 8
percent to $126.9 million in the
fourth quarter, compared to $138.3 million during the same period in 2010.
The Arlington-based orthopedic
medical device company said U.S. sales in
Q4 were negatively impacted by distributor transitions that occurred the previous
quarter, as well as challenges associated
with implementing enhancements to the
company’s compliance processes.
Q4 net income totaled $1.2 million,
or $0.03 per diluted share, compared to
net income of $8.9 million, or $0.22 per
diluted share, in Q4 2010.
Wright Medical’s net income for the
quarter ended Dec. 31 included after-tax
effects of $2.8 million of charges associated with the cost restructuring; $3.4
million in expenses associated with a
deferred prosecution agreement; $2.4
million of non-cash, stock-based compensation expense; and a $1 million
income tax provision for an estimated IRS
audit liability, the company stated.
The company’s Q4 net income, as adjusted, was $6.7 million in 2011 compared
to $11.8 million in 2010.
Arlington-based device company reports
sales of $126.9 million
“Although our fourth quarter results
were stronger than anticipated, we are
not satisfied with our 2011 financial performance relative to the market opportunities,” Robert Palmisano, who was appointed as Wright Medical president and
CEO in September, said in a statement.
Palmisano also said that his and the
company’s priorities over the next several
months are to “grow its foot and ankle
business above market rates, run a more
focused and efficient ortho-recon business and increase cash generation” to
drive growth and shareholder value.
Palmisano said the company plans
to make significant changes over several
months.
The first is to invest in converting
a large portion of the company’s U.S.
independent distributor foot and ankle
territories to direct-sales representation,
with the intent of maximizing growth
opportunity and increasing sales productivity, benefiting its ortho-recon franchise,
which continues to be an important part
of the company’s business, it said in a
statement.
Palmisano in the statement also said
Wright Medical plans to significantly reduce inventories and increase investment
in medical education and foot and ankle
product development to drive market
adoption of new products and technologies.
He said Wright will also pursue internal and external development opportunities to expand its extremities and biologic
product portfolio.
“As our guidance implies, these transformational changes for our business will
require significant investment in 2012,
which will negatively impact our full-year
2012 results,” Palmisano said in the statement.
“However, we believe these investments will generate significant future
returns, including accelerating foot and
ankle sales growth rates and improving
inventory management and cash generation. We are enthusiastic about our plan
and look forward to executing our current
strategies and improving our performance.”
Wright Medical on Thursday said the
company anticipates its full-year 2012 net
sales to be in the range of $472 million to
$489 million, as compared to $512.9 million in 2011.
With regard to restructuring charges,
the company anticipates incurring pretax charges related to its cost restructuring plan, which was announced in
September, to range from $18 million to
$25 million.
Wright also anticipates significant improvement over 2011 with 2012 free cash
flow expected in the range of $25 million
to $30 million, an annualized growth of 73
percent to 107 percent.
In September, Wright announced
plans to cut its workforce by 6 percent –
or about 80 employees – as part of a cost
restructuring plan to promote growth and
profitability and build shareholder value.
Other steps to cut spending that were
announced at that time included streamlining certain parts of its international
selling and distribution operations, cutting the size of its international-product
portfolio and adjusting plant operations.
March 3-9, 2012 21
Rumors Target Medtronic Spine Business
M
edtronic Inc.’s weak third
quarter Spinal sales reported
last week reignited speculation
that the global medical device giant could
eventually sell its Memphis-based Spinal &
Biologics Business.
The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press
reported Feb. 21 that Medtronic’s tepid
earnings, coupled with comments made
by Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak during last
week’s Q3 conference call, indicated the
company might consider selling its Spinal
unit.
The article said Ishrak’s comments
implied a dramatic change of some sort
is needed in the spine business when he
said, “While we continue to believe in the
potential of this market, we urgently need
to see meaningful signs of improvement
from our current initiatives. If we do not,
we will need to reassess our strategy and
approach for this business.”
The speculation is nothing new. Rumors of a possible sale of the company’s
Spinal unit, headquartered at 1800 Pyramid Place, began swirling this past summer, when an article in The Spine Journal
claimed surgeons on the company’s
payroll failed to disclose complications
that arose during clinical trials of its Infuse
bone-growth protein product.
On July 5, a report from Forbes
questioned whether the Infuse controversy would lead to Minneapolis-based
Medtronic selling its Spinal business,
saying a note from Lawrence Biegelsen,
a senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities,
had suggested the possibility of a sale.
According to the report, Biegelsen
listed several possible outcomes that could
result from The Spine Journal papers, with
one being the potential sale of the entire
spine business.
And in a July 6 blog post, Twin Cities
Business magazine also reported Biegelsen’s prediction that Medtronic could
potentially sell its spine business amid
scrutiny of Infuse. According to the post,
Biegelsen said he thought “investors would
generally welcome the decision to divest
the spine business if the price is right.”
In an emailed response to a message
left with Medtronic’s communications department, the company stated: “Medtronic
is the global leader in the Spine business,
which we believe has significant growth
potential despite the difficult current market conditions in the US. Our entire focus
is executing strategies to accelerate growth
and help increase patient access to life
changing therapies. Nothing has changed
with respect to this commitment.”
Despite the negative publicity and
speculation about the possibility of a
Spinal unit sale, Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc.
analyst Jan Wald said he thinks divestiture
would be the least likely option.
“I think all options are going to be
explored, or could potentially be explored,
one of which might be selling the Spine
unit,” Wald told The Daily News. “But
when pushed on that a little bit, I think
there would be other things that could
be done before that option was actually
taken. … That’s probably one of the last
strategies that they would employ.”
The medical device industry as a whole
has been beleaguered by a decrease in procedure volumes and delayed reimbursement, mostly driven by the recession.
Despite an aging American population,
losses of jobs, homes, investments and
retirement accounts in recent years have
resulted in the postponement of medical
procedures generally labeled elective, such
as knee and hip replacements.
Although Medtronic last week reported
Q3 worldwide revenue was up 2 percent to
$3.9 billion, the company fell short of industry analysts’ consensus projection of $4
billion in sales.
Medtronic saw emerging market
growth, with international sales accounting for 45 percent of its Q3 worldwide
revenue.
And revenue from Biologics – also
based in Memphis – was $188 million, a
20 percent decline on a constant currency
basis, driven by declines in U.S. sales of Infuse and partially offset by revenue growth
in other Biologics.
“I am pleased that a majority of our
business mix continued to report strong,
consistent revenue growth in the upper
single digits,” Ishrak said in a statement
last week. “However, this was masked by
continued challenges in our U.S. (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) and Spine
performance. Stabilizing these businesses
along with delivering on our key strategic imperatives of improving execution,
optimizing innovation and accelerating
globalization should position us well to
deliver long-term sustainable growth.”
Ishrak, a former president and CEO of
General Electric’s health care systems business, took over leadership of Medtronic in
June, and analyst and industry stakeholders are still gauging his style and strategies.
“Everybody’s trying to learn more
about him and his thought process,” Wald
said. “He’s got a lot of stuff working. He’s
trying to understand the business, and I’ve
heard other parts of the organization were
being restructured. There’s a lot going on
there.”
22 March 3-9, 2012
Oxford Laboratories Opens New Facility
England-based company unveils state-of-the-art lab on Distribution Drive, plans to hire 40
O
xford Diagnostic Laboratories
Monday, Feb. 27, unveiled its new,
state-of-the-art, 35,000-squarefoot facility at 5846 Distribution Drive,
which is expected to bring as many as
40 new high-paying, highly skilled jobs
to Memphis within the next year, and as
many as 65 new jobs total in the future.
“Those are relatively short-term projections,” said John Kelly, Oxford’s senior
operations director. “The size of the facility, the volume that we could process here
over time – we could potentially be looking
at significantly more than that. I mean, this
facility can fit 100 people or more. We’re
just keeping our projections conservative
based on today.”
Kelly said the company is currently occupying just 20,000 square feet of space in
the $2 million facility.
“There’s about a third of it that we
haven’t touched yet,” he said. “We fitted
out for our two-year revenue buying projections, so in two, three, four, five years
and beyond, we might move into more
space.”
Thirteen positions have already been
filled, said Dr. Peter Wrighton-Smith,
CEO of parent company Oxford Immunotec Ltd., a global immunology-focused
diagnostics company with headquarters in
Abingdon, England.
The company, founded in 2002 based
on research at the University of Oxford,
employs about 115 people worldwide,
including 60 in the U.S.
The company’s U.S. headquarters,
Marlborough, Mass.-based Oxford Diagnostic Laboratories, is a national reference
laboratory offering testing for tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis, whose symptoms include
weight loss and persistent cough, was once
a leading cause of death in the U.S., but is
now successfully treatable if discovered in
time. Some people who are exposed to the
infection may never become ill, but latent
TB may become active if the immune
system is weakened.
The tuberculin skin test has been
around for a century. Oxford, however,
innovated the T-Spot technology platform,
a cellular blood test for the detection of
both active and latent TB infection. The
company’s first product, T-Spot TB Test
was approved in 2008 by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration.
Oxford’s Memphis laboratory will serve
as the company’s primary U.S. testing
facility for TB.
Monday’s announcement and ribbon
cutting was attended by a mix of company
representatives, city, county and state government officials, and leaders from FedEx
Corp., the Greater Memphis Chamber, the
Economic Development Growth Engine
(EDGE) and general contractor Linkous
Construction Co. Inc.
“On behalf of the EDGE board, (Memphis) Mayor (A C) Wharton and (Shelby
County) Mayor (Mark) Luttrell, we want
to welcome you to the community,” Reid
Dulberger, president and CEO of EDGE,
told the crowd Monday. “You are really in
our sweet spot. Biomedical companies
are a growing part of this area’s economy.
We’re so very pleased you’re here working
with the city, the county, the state and the
chamber to see what we can do as a team.
We’re looking forward to not simply your
operation here today, but many more of
these kinds of ventures.”
Child Life Specialists Ensure Patients’ Comfort
N
ext to a full-size MRI machine
at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital sits its identical miniature
version, perfectly sized for a doll and
decorated with friendly cartoon fishes
and other smiling sea life creatures.
The pint-sized play copy’s purpose is
to help pediatric patients understand the
procedure, using a doll or a teddy bear for
“practice.”
It’s one of the many ways Le Bonheur’s Child Life specialists work to calm
children’s fears by explaining procedures
in an age-appropriate manner that builds
trust and provides comfort and security.
Child Life specialists use play, art and
music to help answer children’s questions
and process their emotions during what
can be a frightening time.
Specialists also emotionally prepare
children for surgery – allowing doctors
and nurses to focus on clinical preparations – by offering distractions and
medical play, and educate staff and family
members about how to position children
for comfort.
Dr. Derek Kelly, pediatric orthopedic
surgeon at Le Bonheur and Campbell
Clinic, said he regularly relies on Child
Life specialists before and after procedures.
“People are coming at you with
needles and they’re talking about surgeries and using big words you can’t understand,” Kelly said. “Child Life does a great
job of distracting and calming down these
kids and making the interaction seem as
fun as possible, and decreasing the fear
factor as much as possible.”
He said the post-operative use of
Child Life specialists oftentimes results in
the decreased need for pharmaceutical
pain management.
“They’re alleviating a lot of their fear
and helping them to control their pain,
especially some of my more apprehensive patients,” Kelly said. “They do a lot
more than just come and play with your
patients; they’re really therapeutically
quite helpful.”
When Lauren McCann started in Child
Life at Le Bonheur seven years ago, she
was one of only four specialists. Today, as
Child Life manager, McCann is part of a
team of 29 specialists scattered throughout the hospital.
“People have a hard time seeing us
with our toys and our games and think
we’re doing nothing more than playing all
day, but they get it when they see us with
a 4-year-old who’s lying down calmly and
seems to be having fun,” McCann said.
She said Le Bonheur CEO Meri
Armour and the entire executive staff
recognized the need to expand its Child
Life Services.
“The hospital is really invested in the
fact that children need more than medicine to get well,” McCann said. “So we
really started to push towards every unit
having their own specialist so we could
build really become part of that team.”
It’s a growing field, and Le Bonheur
offers a competitive, intensive, 14-week
internship in Child Life. Only two interns
are chosen each semester out of about 40
applicants, most of whom have degrees in
child development or family studies.
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7945 Wolf River Blvd., Suite 130
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Germantown, TN 38138
*American Heart Association (Thom, 2006)
March 3-9, 2012 23
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Healthcare reform remains a hot topic with new rules and regulations taking effect each year through 2013. We’ll
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Cocktail reception to follow.
$25 to register at www.memphisdailynews.com/seminar
2012 SEMI NAR C AL E NDA R
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24 March 3-9, 2012
COV E R STO Ry
revealing
character
Oscar win for ‘Undefeated’ shines light on Courtney’s work at Manassas
n
Photos: Lance Murphey
Local businessman Bill Courtney, former offensive coordinator and assistant head coach of the Manassas High School football team, greets players Eric Fulton, right, and Je
T'aime Wiggins during a recent visit to the school. Courtney and some of his players were featured in a documentary about Manassas, “Undefeated,” now in local theaters.
St o r y b y A N DY M E E K
Not long after the Oscar for
Best Documentary Feature was awarded
to “Undefeated” during the 84th annual
Academy Awards, the film’s big-name executive producer excitedly sent out a flurry
of tweets.
“Dreams do come true!! Hard work
pays off!!” read one of them from rapper
Sean “P. Diddy” Combs at the end of a big
night for the movie, which is about the
struggles of the Manassas High School
football team and the local businessman
who came to the North Memphis school as
a volunteer coach.
That particular missive from Combs,
who reportedly broke down in tears after
watching the movie for the first time, also
represents the theme of the film and of
the message behind the inspiring brand of
tough love and leadership brought to the
team by that coach, Bill Courtney.
He’s the owner of lumber company
Classic American Hardwoods with a longtime love of coaching football and a desire
to give back to the community.
Starting in 2003, he worked on and off
the gridiron to get the demoralized Manassas football team to do something extraordinary – start believing in itself.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Courtney
didn’t have anything to say about himself
an hour or so after the Oscar announcement Sunday, Feb. 26. Emailing from Los
Angeles, Courtney replied only that he was
“happy for the directors and the kids.”
A fitting comment, indeed, because
there’s much to be happy about surrounding the film. It screened last fall at the Indie
Memphis Film Festival and opened here
March 2 after getting an initial limited run
around the country earlier in February.
Meanwhile, Combs – who became executive producer of “Undefeated” a couple
weeks before the Oscars – will be involved
with the film’s studio, The Weinstein Co.,
on a dramatized remake. And daytime talk
show host Ellen Degeneres has announced
that she’s giving $10,000 to Manassas.
Hard work clearly has paid off for the
filmmakers, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin.
But also for the inner-city students at
Manassas, where principal James Griffin
said all of the attention will “go a long way
toward keeping the fire lit.”
It’s also paid off for Courtney, a
businessman whose company today has
offices around the world, has weathered
the recession and who started out “with no
family money, kind of wing-and-a-prayer.”
His is a story likewise fueled by the
brand of commitment he brought to the
Manassas players whose team at one point
was so hard up for money it resorted to
what from the outside might seem like a
desperate move: The team was charging far
better teams to play Manassas so it could
raise money for the season.
Before he ever stepped into the locker
room at Manassas, the competition Courtney was first involved in was that of a
small-business owner. He launched Classic
American Hardwoods in North Memphis in
2001. He once told The Daily News he runs
the company according to an old adage:
“When they’re yelling, be selling. When
they’re crying, be buying.”
“It was started out of my living room,
and one thing led to another, it took a
lot of luck, and the reason I’m here is the
original piece of property I bought was just
cheap,” Courtney said in his office a few
days before leaving for the Oscar ceremony.
“For my business, you’ve got to have space,
you’ve got to have roofed space and it
needs to be developed. This was cheap,
fenced and that’s it.
“If you’d have been here all those years
ago, you’d have passed by … a lot of stuff.”
That’s because the area around his
original acreage was not yet developed and
looked like much of North Memphis in the
declining years after the area’s heyday.
One of the Manassas teachers in “Undefeated” describes the neighborhood as
looking like New Orleans after the flood,
except that North Memphis never had the
flood. Nothing has been the same since the
urban and industrial heartbeat of North
Memphis slowed in the late 1970s and early
1980s, with the biggest blow coming in the
form of the closing of the Firestone plant.
The closing and demolition of other
industrial giants along Thomas Street followed, leaving only an open field where
their large industrial works once stood. On
a winter day when the trees are bare, a person can see the new Manassas High all the
way from Thomas, its brickwork brighter
and newer than the worn single-story brick
structures sprinkled between the gaps with
driveways and steps leading to open lots.
For his part, Courtney started amassing
land around his property, clearing it after
he bought it.
“Now I’m glad I did, because I’m using
it,” he said. “Back then, I did it because in
our business, a lot of people come to see
you and to see the lumber before they start
buying volumes of it. Some people prefer to
go on what they call mill trips, where they
go around to mills and see the lumber and
then make the decision who they’re going
to do business with.
“We do a lot of business with people
overseas. You get a German guy from Stuttgart, he gets off his plane at the airport
and gets in his car and says, ‘OK, this is nice
enough,’ and then he hits the road half a
mile from here, he might have been liable
to turn around and go home. It was really
bad.”
Courtney got involved at Manassas a
few years after starting his company thanks
to Jim Tipton, who works as the company’s
southwest territory manager. Tipton came
to Courtney at one point to say his Sunday
school class had started doing some volunteer work, he wanted to get involved and he
ended up driving to Manassas, walking in
and introducing himself.
Not long after, he saw the needs of the
football team and decided to let Courtney know. One of the problems Courtney
March 3-9, 2012 25
“
Film still: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company
Team photo of the Manassas Tigers from Dan Lindsay’s and T.J. Martin’s film
“Undefeated,” which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
wanted to fix early was the team’s practice
of charging other teams for the privilege of
beating them handily.
“My first year we won four games, and
that was pretty amazing,” Courtney said.
“But I was like, why was Manassas going to
play the previous year’s state runner-up in
4A football? I couldn’t understand it. And
my heart was breaking. Because these kids
who did start to commit to practice, who
were starting to buy in, were getting literally broken up.
“It irritated me. It hurt me. It was taking
a bunch of kids from the inner city who
already felt second class and telling them
to come play football and have your butt
handed to you.”
Courtney said he went to the administration to get the practice to stop.
“They said, ‘How are we going to pay for
it?’ And I said, ‘We’ll figure it out,’” Courtney recalled. “Jim started a 501(c)3, and
we started going around telling the story,
getting people to donate. We bought new
equipment. Bought new jerseys. We just
leveled the playing field. We gave them the
same things kids out east get.”
Race and class are undercurrents in
the “Undefeated” story that are left to the
viewer to ponder. One of the filmmakers
told The Los Angeles Times the kids set the
tone for “Undefeated.” And because they
didn’t bring it up, the filmmakers didn’t
either. Griffin said “Undefeated” could be
looked at as a kind of “Blind Side II,” referring to the film dramatization of Michael
Oher, a homeless black youth taken in by
a wealthy white Memphis couple who is
cared for and goes on to become a professional football player.
There are similar dynamics in “Undefeated,” such as the white authority figure
mentoring a group of black inner-city students playing football. And two years after
“The Blind Side,” the Academy awarded
“Undefeated” with a golden statue. But in
“Undefeated,” notions of race are overshadowed by themes of hard work and the
triumph of the underdog. That’s what the
filmmakers were trying for, at any rate.
“When I went over there, there was no
agenda,” Courtney said of his time at Manassas. “I was just going to coach football.
And at the end of the day, they didn’t look
at me as their white coach, and I didn’t look
at them as my black players. I was coach,
they were players, that was it.
“And there’s a story under every helmet.
You don’t just demand respect because
you’ve got a whistle and a hat. You earn
respect. And I think you lead by first serving. You find out where (the players) live,
you find out who they live with, whether it’s
a mom, a dad, an auntie or a grandmother.
And when you learn that story, and that
kid’s willing to tell you that story because
he believes you actually care, that’s when
they buy in.”
One of the key lines in the movie from
Courtney is that football doesn’t build character; it reveals character. Character is what
he preached to the players. And he motivated them not so much by giving them a
playbook with a winning formula than he
did by giving them a foundation for life.
“You preach commitment,” he said.
“Coming to practice every day is commitment, but also marrying your baby mama
is commitment. You preach discipline. Doing what your coach says and saying ‘Yes,
sir’ is being disciplined, but so is having the
– Bill Courtney
discipline to not talk back to teachers or
Former coach, Manassas High football team
parents or to walk away from a fight instead
of getting in one.
“You preach character. To me, the true
measure of a man’s character is how he
handles his failures. How do you handle
things when you’re being hit in the mouth?
You preach
that on a
daily basis,
and then you
walk it. And
if you walk
it, they start
to believe it.
And if you can
show them
how these
things can
make a difference in your
life, then it
changes from
just a bunch
AP Photo: Joel Ryan
of noise from
Rich Middlemas, TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay pose with their Oscars for
a guy who’s
Best Documentary Feature for their work in “Undefeated” during the
older than
84th Academy Awards on Feb. 26.
them to being
something worth listening to. The X’s and
the O’s are a hell of a lot less important to
me than character development.”
When I went over
there, there was
no agenda. I was
just going to
coach football.
And at the end
of the day, they
didn’t look at me
as their white
coach, and I didn’t
look at them as
my black players.
I was coach, they
were players, that
was it.”
26 March 3-9, 2012
SPORTS TICKER: Clint Dempsey scored in the 55th minute Feb. 29 to lead the U.S. men’s national soccer team to a
historic 1-0 win over Italy. It marked the first time in 11 games over 78 years the Americans had beaten the Azzurri.
sports
A N A L YS I S
THE PRESS BOX
DON WADE
On-the-Job
Training For
Grizz PGs
G
rizzlies Coach Lionel Hollins bravely sent rookie backup point guards
Josh Selby and Jeremy Pargo into
the game … with 25 seconds left in what
would be a 96-85 Grizzlies victory over the
Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday, Feb. 29,
at FedExForum.
Until then – until the clock had almost
struck zero – the coach simply didn’t trust
them.
“Nobody’s grabbed the job and said,
‘I’m your guy,’” Hollins said before the
game.
Selby played about five minutes in
the first half and it was his first appearance after an assignment with the Reno
Bighorns of the NBA Development League.
Upon his return, he contributed three
points and one assist but really didn’t look
any different as the Mavericks outscored
the Grizzlies 12-7 while Selby was in and
Conley was out.
Truthfully, it probably would have been
the same result with Pargo. The rookies
are virtually interchangeable – both stronger and quicker than Conley, yet neither a
fraction of the player Conley is. Iron Mike
played 38 minutes and had a double-double with 20 points and 10 assists against
the Mavs.
“They’re both good listeners,” Conley
said. “They ask questions and we talk all
the time. Pargo’s a great scorer and Josh
can get in the paint at will.”
Which would be swell if they were
supposed to be scorers first – they’re not
– or were enrolled in Point Guard 101 at
NBA State and not playing for a potential
playoff team.
Hollins used shooting guard O.J. Mayo
at the point through the first four minutes
of the fourth quarter, a strategy admittedly
aimed at “buying a little bit of time.”
Also, securing a bit more production.
Pargo and Selby each average around 3
points and 1.5 assists per game. Pargo has
42 assists with 35 turnovers; Selby has 27
of each. So they do distribute the ball, just
to people wearing the wrong jersey.
“My main thing is limiting turnovers,”
Selby said of what he learned in the DLeague, “taking care of the ball.”
Right answer, but there’s more to the
job than that.
“The job of a point guard is first making everybody else comfortable,” Conley
said. “You’re second. That’s what they’re
learning.”
Here’s hoping against hope one of
them somehow graduates early.
Don Wade is a former sports reporter
for The Commercial Appeal. His column
appears weekly in The Memphis News.
Tigers Right Their
Wrongs Heading Into
Postseason Play
The University of Memphis Tigers play their regular season finale against Tulsa on Saturday, March 3, then return home to
host the Conference USA tournament at FedExForum March 7-10.
Team finally clicking after ups, downs, drama and injuries
DON WADE | Special to The Memphis News
T
hey assumed greatness. Assumed it as opposed to
earning it and proving it.
That’s the quicksand in which this Tigers basketball season started.
The college basketball world told them they were a Top
10 team and the Tigers decided they would need, oh, a few
days on the beach at the Maui Invitational in Hawaii to
prove they were really Top Five and better than Michigan,
Georgetown, even Duke.
They brazenly talked of New Orleans in March, site of
the Final Four, and made it sound like the path there was
the Big Easy.
They spoke of their collective talent being so overwhelming that it was like having “eight or nine starters” and
point guard Joe Jackson insisted roles did not matter, that
they were the Memphis Musketeers – all for one and one for
all.
“I’m not gonna trip about nothin’,” Jackson vowed before
the season began.
Yet before December was over, Jackson did exactly that.
He was so distressed about his role on the team that he
missed a game while considering a transfer.
All along the way, various players made no secret of their
displeasure with playing time by striking pouty poses when
pulled from games by Coach Josh Pastner.
By late February the ever-patient head coach, after
watching his team sleepwalk through a loss at UTEP, was so
disgusted with the collective attitude of entitlement that he
took drastic measures:
He briefly locked the players out of their own locker
room and didn’t allow them to practice wearing anything
bearing the word “Memphis.” He permanently removed the
names from the backs of their jerseys.
Whether those moves had an impact or the timing is
March 3-9, 2012 27
sports
boxes that are supposed to be checked,
coincidental, the Tigers have notched
meeting basic expectations, rebuilding
three straight decisive wins. The last of
their reputation, and advancing from
these was an 84-55 dismantling of a 20there.
win Central Florida team that beat them
“We control our own destiny and
in Orlando by a point on Jan. 18 when
we’ve clinched at least
Keith Clanton cona share of first place,”
verted a lay-in and was
Pastner said. “That can’t
fouled by senior Wesley
The Tigers are
be taken away.”
Witherspoon with four
checking the boxes
Guard Antonio Barseconds left and then
that are supposed
ton’s foot injury at the
hit the game-winning
to be checked,
end of the first half of
free throw.
meeting basic
the UCF game provided
“We played soft, let
a scare. But with no
them get anything they
expectations,
fracture (a sprain and
wanted,” Will Barton
rebuilding their
a bruise), he should be
said of that loss that
reputation, and
ready for the C-USA
never should have hapadvancing from
tourney, which starts
pened.
there.
here on Wednesday,
So the victory over
March 7. Freshman
UCF on Tuesday, Feb.
Adonis Thomas (ankle
28, on Senior Night at
surgery) has begun
FedExForum, reprepracticing and also is expected back by
sented the righting of a wrong. It also
then. The Tigers will have a first-round
provided a fine sendoff for Witherspoon,
bye and begin play on Thursday, March 8.
who scored 15 points, grabbed seven
With their 22 wins and an RPI ranking
rebounds, made four steals and handed
of 18, the Tigers shouldn’t have to worry
out two assists.
about making the NCAA Tournament
The Tigers have clinched at least a
field.
piece of the regular-season Conference
Even without any victories over
USA title and will carry a 22-8 (12-3)
ranked teams, the Tigers have done
record into the last game at Tulsa, on
enough to prove they are tournamentSaturday, March 3. The stuff of greatness?
worthy. Winners of seven of their last
Hardly. But the Tigers are checking the
COACH
FIRST
3 YEARS
WINS
J. Calipari
2001-03
71
J. Pastner*
2010-12
71
L. Finch
1987-89
67
G. Bartow
1971-73
63
W. Yates
1975-77
61
B. Vanatta
1957-59
56
D. Kirk
1980-82
50
E. Lambert
1952-54
50
D. Ehlers
1963-65
43
M. Tarry
1949-51
40
M. Iba
1967-69
31
*Pastner’s third season still ongoing
Each 5K participant receives a long-sleeve T-shirt with
the registration fee of:
5K
5K
n
& fun ru
benefiting the children of Hope House
$20 – Pre-Registration (submitted by March 29, 2012)
$25 – Race Day Registration (March 30, 2012)
$3 discount for groups of 10 or more and for MRTC members (5K only)
Registration
5:15 p.m.
Fun Run Start
6:00 p.m.
cmyk
ALL AGES FUN RUN
$12 – Pre-Registration (submitted by March 29, 2012)
$15 – Race Day Registration (March 30, 2012)
5K Start
6:30 p.m.
Support Provided By:
Food & Fun!
usic!
Awards! Live M
cmyk
Harbor Town Square, Mud Island
13th ANNUAL
FOR
Memphis coach Josh
Pastner is about to become
the winningest head coach in
Tigers hoops history for the
first three years. After last
season, Pastner had 49 wins,
the most in a coach’s first
two years. Now he’s one win
shy of setting a new record.
Friday, March 30, 2012
presents…
HeLP
eight, what lies before them now are great
opportunities to improve positioning and
perhaps get to a No. 6 seed.
“This is the time of year when you
want to start clicking,” said forward Tarik
Black. “Now is the perfect time.”
He’s right. And the schedule now sets
up well.
There is no reason the Tigers shouldn’t
be able to win three straight on their
home floor to capture the C-USA Conference championship.
If they do that and beat Tulsa to end
the regular season, they would have a 26win resume even if they were still to lack a
Top 25 ranking.
“And we’re definitely a Top 25 team,”
said junior D.J. Stephens. “We just needed
time to mature.”
Said Witherspoon: “We’re as good as
we want to be. Sky’s the limit.”
Yes, that’s just talk. But it sounds more
like confidence born of results rather than
arrogance born from assumption. Their
Top 10 national ranking is long gone, the
names on the backs of their jerseys are
long gone, and soon all that will be left is
win-or-go-home competition.
“If teams take us lightly,” Will Barton
said, “that would be foolish by them.”
And if the Tigers take other teams
lightly, well, we’ve already seen what that
looks like.
Pastner Ties
Calipari For
Wins in 3 Years
generated at BeQRious.com
REGISTER TODAY!
Register Online:
www.HopeHouseMemphis.org
RACE/WALK HOTLINE: 901-272-2702 ext. 216 or 206
28 March 3-9, 2012
news
r eal estate & de v elo p ment
Miconi Finds Success During First Year
S
tart-up firm Miconi Project Management has completed several projects
in the Memphis area in recent
months, and has more in the pipeline.
Warren Miconi founded the firm on
April 1. It provides real estate project
management and consulting services to
clients with operations in Mississippi and
the Mid-South.
“The first year was really such a success,” Miconi said. “The biggest hurdle I’m
finding … is getting the word out to people
that I can help them. That there is an option for them to go out there to give them
expertise when they’re building, developing, renovating or relocating a facility.”
The most recent deal Miconi Project
Management has touched is acting as an
owner’s representative for the expansion of
LifeDOC Diabetes & Obesity Clinic in the
Cresthaven Professional Building at 1068
Cresthaven Road, suite 300.
LifeDOC’s owner had worked with Miconi in the past and contacted him about
90 percent into his expansion plans at the
East Memphis office building. LifeDOC
expanded from 4,191 square feet to 8,134
square feet, renovating a few existing
offices while adding a new lobby, ophthalmology practice, additional exam rooms
and a hydration/patient area.
Patrick Reilly with CB Richard Ellis represented the landlord, American Strategic
Income Portfolio-III, and the tenant hired
Miconi to represent its interest.
“He called me out of the blue, they had
a lot of their programming done, and I just
jumped in and said we can do this with
the furniture and we made some other
changes in the project,” Miconi said. “They
have an office manager, Eliza Castillo, that
I worked very closely with and the COO,
Dwight Cowan, but they kind of really
relied on me to help make sure that we got
the best value, the best functionality out of
the space.”
Another set of projects Miconi Project Management has been involved with
entailed working with Southaven utility company Atmos Energy Corp. in the
development of two Silver LEED-certified
facilities in Mississippi. Both service centers opened in September.
In Greenville, at 782 U.S. 82, Atmos’
facility spanned 8,063 square feet, with a
new warehouse of 5,501 square feet and
a completely renovated office that was
2,562 square feet. Malcom Kretschmar of
Kretschmar Realty Inc. represented Guarantee Bank on the sale.
Meanwhile, Atmos built a 9,821square-foot facility in Natchez with 4,320
square feet of new office and 5,501 square
feet for a new warehouse. Glen Green
represented the seller of the land.
And while it never materialized,
Miconi also assisted a then Tunica-based
Jimmy John’s franchisee in Southaven in
the scheduling and construction budget.
“They hired me, I got everything teed
up to go, and then we got caught in lease
negotiations,” Miconi said. “I come from
a real estate company, I don’t lease, but
I do critically analyze documents for my
clients. And I told them of the liability
that the lease had in it for them; it didn’t
give them a timeframe and they were on a
timeframe. After going round and round
with the landlord and the landlord’s agent
in North Mississippi, they said you know
what, this isn’t the timing for us, and they
literally picked up and left. They weren’t
going to stick around for something that
wasn’t going to get done for them and they
were happy as could be about that.”
Miconi Project Management is currently working on a convenience store
renovation, among other deals. Only one
other person besides Miconi assists in the
transactions – the intern, former University of Memphis quarterback and University
of Mississippi student Matt Malouf.
INKED
CK’s Moves Into Jackson as Part of Expansion Plan
A longtime Memphis diner chain is expanding its presence into the Jackson, Tenn., market.
CK’s Coffee Shop has signed a five-year lease for 1,390
square feet of the existing 4,900-square-foot Old Medina
Market Gas Station at 2800 Old Medina Road.
Barry D. Maynard with Trezevant Realty Corp. represented CK’s of Memphis Inc., made up of Chicago
brothers-in-law Randy Gross and Jerry Vela, who started
buying CK’s in early 2010.
Eden Smith, co-owner of the Old Medina Market Gas
Station, handled the landlord’s side, including representation of Old Medina Associates NE LLC, in care of RMR
Investments Co. LLC.
CK’s has 10 locations in Memphis, including seven
that Gross and Vela own, and three that CK’s founder Gene
Sullivan still owns.
The first Madison County CK’s Coffee Shop should
open within the next two weeks, Maynard said, adding
that the location on the highway at the highest trafficked
intersection in Jackson was ideal real estate for the 24-7
restaurant user.
“It’s an upscale existing C-Store that has high volume
that used to have a restaurant inside of it,” Maynard said.
“We’re taking their old restaurant space and converting
and rebranding it with CK’s.”
Gross and Vela’s goal is to elevate the CK’s brand, Maynard said, while also staying true to its Memphis history.
“CK’s is going to revamp and come back in the market
with a little more metro, new-age, modern look to it, but
at the same time, kind of have that ’50s casual diner type
deal,” Maynard said. “Kind of like what the old Johnny
Rockets used to have.”
And besides Gross and Vela, Maynard said up to five
operators will open CK’s regionally as “basically a fran-
chise.”
“I’ve found some pretty high-net worth people that
have money to open up as many as long as they’re doing
well,” he said. “I imagine counting Northeast Arkansas,
North Mississippi and West Tennessee, you’ll see six to 10
of them in the next year.”
In other Trezevant deals, Professional Driver’s of
Georgia Inc. has signed a 38-month lease for 4,000 square
feet at Stage Coach Collection, 7174 U.S. Highway 64, suite
111, in Bartlett.
Maynard represented the landlord, American Properties. Chris Mims, vice president with Dallas-based Swearingen Realty Group, represented the tenant.
The company started in Georgia as a temp agency for
truck drivers, but now it’s a job hiring firm for “everything
you can imagine job-wise,” Maynard said, with 35 locations in multiple states.
Professional Driver’s of Georgia already had a presence
in Memphis, but the new Bartlett locale is a much larger
space that will allow the tenant increased efficiencies for
its operations, Maynard said.
“They’ll have people in there 24-7 on call because
they’re also going to run the administrative and finance
side of the whole company as well as the existing temp
agency,” Maynard said. “It’s good for Bartlett to
get them as an office filler. It’s a viable business, they’ve got strong financials. It’s good for
Memphis that they want to expand and see
opportunity here.”
On the multifamily front, Samuel Adefeyisan has purchased the Ashley Manor Apartments – two separate buildings with a total of
16 one-bedroom condo units in Midtown
– from John P. Waddell and Nancy S.
Waddell for $1 million.
The purchase was financed with
an $850,000 trust deed through Magna Bank.
The apartments at 129 and 137 N. Belvedere St. sold
for $62,500 per unit. The 2011 appraisal from the Shelby
County Assessor of Property was $72,200 per unit.
Steve Woodyard, president of Woodyard Realty Corp.
who has sold Ashley Manor for five different owners since
1984, represented all parties.
The buildings were built in 1920 and were converted
and renovated for sale as condominiums in 2007 and
2008 in the range of $119,900 per condo, according to a
Woodyard Realty statement.
And CB Richard Ellis Memphis brokered the sale
of two Mid-South multifamily properties in February
– Parkview Apartments in Memphis, and Sunset Village Apartments in Pine Bluff, Ark., for $2.6 million and
$730,000, respectively.
Parkview Apartments, constructed in 1974, sold on
Feb. 27. CBRE’s Blake Pera and Tommy Bronson III represented the seller, City National Bank, in the sale to local
buyer Parkview Memphis Apartments LP.
Parkview Apartments is a 384-unit property in the
Raleigh/Bartlett submarket at 4616 Scott Crossing Drive. It
has two-bedroom floor plans that average 900 square feet,
and amenities include a swimming pool and washer/
dryer connections. The 2011 appraisal of the Class C
complex by the Shelby County Assessor of Property was $3 million.
Meanwhile, Sunset Village, constructed in
1971, sold Feb. 22. Bronson and Pera worked
alongside Ted Bailey and Richard Cheek of The
Multifamily Group LLC in Little Rock, Ark., to
represent the seller, Tritex Real Estate Advisors
II Inc., in the sale to RJN LLC.
Send commercial lease announcements to Sarah Baker, who can be
reached at 521-2464 or [email protected].
March 3-9, 2012 29
news
r eal estate & de v elo p ment
Sullivan Inks Lease for Toyota Center
S
ullivan Branding has finalized its
lease in the Toyota Center, where
it will move about two-thirds of its
workforce by the end of the week.
About 40 of Sullivan Branding’s 65
Memphis employees will relocate from 400
Union Ave. to occupy approximately half
of the sixth floor of the 175,000-squarefoot, eight-story Downtown office building
at 175 Toyota Center, near the intersection
of Third and Union.
“We finished our lease, I think last
week, and we’ve been waiting forever,
packed up and ready to go,” said Brian
Sullivan, owner and principal of Sullivan
Branding. “When we finally got the word,
we jetted it.”
The deal comes after LRK Inc.’s recent
announcement that it had consolidated
its Memphis office space on the Toyota
Center’s fifth floor, occupying about 22,000
square feet. LRK had been headquartered
in the building – including space on the
sixth floor – since 2000 after completing
a renovation of the entire building along
with AutoZone Park.
Sullivan Branding is the result of cs2
advertising acquiring Thompson & Co. in
September. The combined 80-person firm
– specializing in marketing, advertising,
public relations and Web development –
also has 16 associates in its Nashville office
in partnership with Evette White.
Sullivan Branding also has about 25
The Daily News, Memphis
esday, February 14, 2012
Page 3
MEMPHIS REAL ESTATE RECAP
R E A L E S TAT E R E C A P
Belmont
Village
Senior
Downtown
Mixed-Use
Bldg.
SellsSells
for $1.5M
in Foreclosure
Living
for $16.9
Million
KATE SIMONE | The Memphis News
Poplar Oaks Cir
605 QUAIL HOLLOW ROAD
EMPHIS, TN 38120
N Quail Rd
Was
h
bur
ns E
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pe
r Ln
Gen
Mon
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gie
S2
ron
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ow
oll
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a
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nd S
t
er
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en
n
S Fro
Barb
o
H. Is
abe
ll St
SC
ente
nt S
t
n Av
e
y
kw
Unio
P
by
Kir
ale Amount: $16.9 million
ale Date: Jan. 26, 2012
uyer: 6605 Quail Hollow Road LLC
eller: Belmont Village Memphis LLC
an Amount: $36.5 million
an Date: Jan. 31, 2012
aturity Date: February 2013
ortgagor: 6605 Quail Hollow Road LLC
orrower: Belmont Village Landlord LLC
nder: Health Care REIT Inc.
etails: Belmont Village-Memphis, a senior living
Belmont Village
Memphis
ro A
lley
S 3rd
St
SM
ain S
t
ommunity at 6605 Quail Hollow Road, has sold
r $16.9 million to an Ohio-based real estate
Gay
oso
One One O’ Six
Ave
vestment trust.
Lofts Condominiums
605 Quail Hollow Road LLC, an affiliate of
ealth Care REIT, bought the 120-unit center
om its Texas-based ownership group, Belmont
6605 QUAIL HOLLOW ROAD • MEMPHIS, TN 38120
llage Memphis LLC. In conjunction with the
urchase, a $36.5 million loan was filed,
listingS. MAIN ST. • MEMPHIS, TN 38103
92-96
elmont Village Landlord LLC as the borrower, 6605 Quail Hollow Road LLC as the mortgagor and Health Care REIT Inc. as the
nder.
elmont Village-Memphis
a three-story,
Class A senior living center built in 1999 on 3.8 acres at the southwest corner of Kirby
92-96iss.
main st.
arkway and Quail Hollow Road. The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2011 appraisal was $8.5 million.
Memphis, TN 38103
lease was signed in conjunction with the purchase in which Belmont Village Tenant LLC will lease the property through January
sale
amount:
$1.5
million
027 from five entities,
including
6605 Quail
Hollow
Road LLC.
ublicly traded Health Care REIT Inc. invests in senior housing and health care real estate. As of Sept. 30, the last date for which
CR has released information,
theFeb.
REIT10,
owned
898 properties in 45 states.
Sale Date:
2012
Buyer: Community Bank, North Mississippi
Seller: Hugh H. Armistead, substitute trustee, on behalf of Community Bank, North
Mississippi
Details: Community Bank, North Mississippi, has bought back nine condominiums
505 S. MENDENHALL ROAD
The Orlando
listed for space
Cedar Mill
Co. St. and 96 S. Main St.
and about 2,700 square
feet ofaddress
commercial
at 92ance
S. Main
EMPHIS, TN 38115
LLC is a private residence.
Seller Summer Commons LLC bought
in One One O’ Six Lofts Condominiums at a foreclosure
sale,
paying
$1.5
millionsale
for
the property
at a 2009
foreclosure
ale Amount: $7.25 million
5110
SUMMER
AVE.,
5124
SUMMER
AVE.,
the
properties.
for $3.5 million.
ale Date: Feb. 9, 2012
5126 SUMMER AVE. AND 5130 SUMMER
uyer: Cedar Mill LLC Built in 2007, the building has 21,621 square feet comprising 18 townhomes and
AVE. MEMPHIS, TN 38122
U.S. 64
eller: Mid-America
Apartments
LPfeet of commercial space, according to a 8385
2,660
square
master deed
filed the year
MEMPHIS,
TN 38133
Sale Amount: $4.8 million
an Amount: $7.25 million
it
was
built.
Of
that,
the
space
foreclosed
upon
includes
nine
townhomes
Sale Date: Jan. 23, 2012
Sale Amount: $3.8 million totaling
an Date: Feb. 9, 2012
Buyer:
Summer
Commons
Investors
LLC
11,453
square
feet
and
all
the
commercial
square
footage.
Sale Date: Feb. 1, 2012
aturity Date: n/a
Summer Commons
LLC into foreclosure
Buyer: WXSSI
Wolfchase LLC
nder: 2589738 Manitoba
Ltd.
The
condos and Seller:
commercial
space went
proceedings
after previLoan Amount: $5 million
Seller: Wolf Chase Partners LLC (73.4
etails: Orlando, Fla.-based Cedar Mill
ous owner BJN LLC Loan
defaulted
on
a
September
2010
loan
for
$1.4
million
through
the
Date: Jan. 26, 2012
percent interest) and Chrisafis Family
LC has bought the 227-unit Cedar Mill
north
Mississippi
bank.
LLC (26.6 percent interest)
partments in Hickory Hill North’s 38115 Maturity Date: Feb. 1, 2022
IP code from Mid-America Apartments
P for $7.25 million. Cedar Mill LLC
ed a $7.25 million trust deed through
589738 Manitoba Ltd. The transactions
osed Thursday, Feb. 9.
edar Mill is a Class C complex of 209
partments and 68 townhouses built in
employees housed at 85 Union, in the
old Smooth Moves building. That 10,400square-foot, 12-year lease was signed
by Thompson & Co. founder Michael
Thompson in December 2010 after the
agency was housed at 50 Peabody Place for
15 years prior. Since Sullivan Branding is
moving mainly boxes, Sullivan expects the
relocation to be complete within the next
few days.
“We had to move some people from
400 (Union) to 85 (Union), some people
from 85 to Toyota and some people from
400 to Toyota, so it’s a process,” Sullivan
said. “But we’re getting close to being
finished. We don’t have too much left to
move, we didn’t have to move a lot of furniture; it’s just mostly boxes. End of February
we’ll be done.”
Lender: Symetra Life Insurance Co.
Details: Summer Commons Investors
LLC has bought the Summer Commons
Retail Center at 5110 Summer Ave., 5124
Summer Ave., 5126 Summer Ave. and
5130 Summer Ave. from Summer Commons LLC.
Cs2 has leased the 16,525-square-foot
building at 400 Union from Judy Sossaman
since 1995. It’s currently listed for sale with
NAI Saig Co.’s Edward Saig.
The deal has been in the works for
quite some time, Sullivan said, but there
was a holdup due to the Toyota Center’s
current owner, Orlando, Fla.-based Parkway Properties Inc., and soon-to-be owner,
Santa Monica, Calif.-based Hertz Acquisition Group LLC.
“There were a lot of people that had
to sign a sublease agreement,” Sullivan
said. “Parkway, I think, technically still
owns it, but they wanted to check with the
prospective owners.”
Will Barden of Barden Commercial Realty represented Sullivan Branding in the
new Toyota lease. Chris Brown with Grubb
& Ellis Memphis represented the landlord.
Sullivan said the move is a better fit,
both for Sullivan Branding’s client and
employee perspective.
Details: WXSSI Wolfchase LLC has
bought the 34,600-square-foot Shoppes
of Wolfchase center at 8385 U.S. 64 for
$3.8 million from Wolf Chase Partners
LLC, which held a 73.4 percent interest in
the site, and Chrisafis Family LLC, which
held the remaining 26.6 percent interest.
1.7 acres in galleria
GIVING BACK
of memphis
JEREMY PARK
sale Amount:
$3.3 million
Sale Date: Feb. 17, 2012
Buyer: US Real Estate LP
Seller: TN Cordova Germantown
LLC
Details: An affiliate of Dallasbased Capview Management LLC
has bought a 1.7-acre Staples office
supply store site in the Galleria of
Memphis
in
Last week wePlanned
reflected onDevelopment
a recent visit
fromCordova
LPBC guestfor
speaker,
Joseph Michelli,
$3.3Dr.
million.
Greenville,
who shared the personal and community value
S.C.-based
Cordova
Germantown
of creating
a legacyTN
statement
– one sentence
LLC
–
the
building
developer
that defines our impact on Earth and how– sold
others
remember
we areN.
gone.
thewill
site,
whichusisafter
at 2335
GermanThis week let us explore an organization with
town
Parkway,
to
a
San
Antoniothe mission of helping people affected by HIV/
AIDS
live well:
Friendsnamed
For Life Corp.
based
entity
US Real Estate
Friends For Life Corp. has been serving the
LP.
Mid-South for 27 years. Established in 1985
The
site
is Committee
part of an
as the Aid
to End
AIDS
by 11.5-acre
a group
of friends
whose
ones werecorner
dying from
site at
the loved
northwest
of North
complications associated with HIV/AIDS, the
Germantown Parkway and Marorganization later became known as Friends
Place
thatwith
currently
houses an
For ket
Life and
merged
another nonprofit,
Aloysius
Home, to significantly
expand
its
88,840-square-foot
Kohl’s
departservices to include permanent supportive
ment store. TN Cordova Germanhousing.
town
bought
theoldest
parcel
formost
$850,000
Now, as
one of the
and
comprehensive
AIDS
service organizations
in June and
financed
it at the time
in the southern United States, Friends For
with a $2.1 million loan.
Life annually serves an average of 2,500
Bills
for the
most recent transacindividuals
affected
with HIV/AIDS.
Whenare
it comes
to sent
programs,
Friends For in Daltion
to be
to Capview
Life has a comprehensive, client-centered
las.
Staples
Inc.
opened
its first two
approach that includes education, housing,
Memphis
stores
in
November.
food, and healthy life skills, along with a strong
Making
Friends For
Life
support network. Through collaboration with
more than 25 medical providers, social service
905and
james
st. companies, the
agencies
pharmaceutical
memphis,
tnWellness
38106University,
organization
coordinates
which
offers a variety
educational
and
permit
cost:of$2.6
million
skills-building programs with an emphasis on
learning how to live with HIV/AIDS.
The group’sAthens
Nancy Fletcher
Food Pantry
Owner:
Distributing
Co.
is the second-largest food pantry in the MidTenant: Athens Distributing Co.
South, providing up to 16 tons of food per month
Contractor:
to over
1,500 personsLinkous
affected byConstruction
HIV/AIDS,
including
250 children. Permanent supportive
Co. Inc.
housing is provided in an agency-owned
Details: Athens Distributing Co.
apartment building with other housing provided
could
add a 53,700-square-foot
through
tenant-based
rental assistance.
With an estimated
10,000to
individuals
warehouse
addition
its 905 James
living in the Mid-South affected by HIV/AIDS,
St.
site.
The
wine
and
spirits
wholethere is much that we can do to help further
saler
and
distributor
recently
Friends For Life’s efforts. Part of its goal is tofiled a
helpbuilding
heighten awareness,
acceptance
permitfacilitate
application
with the
and promote prevention in the community.
city-county
Office
of
Construction
Personally having friends affected with HIV/
AIDS, many stories are touching. For instance,
one friend was infected through a blood
transfusion related to a medical emergency.
Friends For Life offers HIV testing, along
with prevention education that is extremely
valuable for our community to be equipped
with facts.
Code Enforcement, listing Linkous
Construction Co. Inc. as the contractor. Athens’ 905 James site already
includes a 91,568-square-foot warehouse built in 1973 and improved in
1997. The property also includes a
rail spur line.
The buildings are on a 9.4-acre
parcel northeast of the corner of
James Street and Ryder Avenue
roughly bounded by Interstate 240
(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway) to the west.
The assessor’s 2011 appraisal is
$1.4 million. Athens began in 1967
and has three market presences:
Nashville, Chattanooga and Memphis. The local presence is Athens’
third market and its largest, with 21
counties in its service area, according to the company’s website.
cordova’s trinity ridge
Business Center
loan amount: $4.9 million
Loan Date: Feb. 3, 2012
Maturity Date: n/a
Borrower: Shofar Realty ADA
Compliant LP
Lender: Bank of the Ozarks
Details: Montreal-based Dalfen
America Corp. – working under the
affiliate name Shofar Realty ADA
Compliant LP – has filed a $4.9 million trust deed through Bank of the
Ozarks for the eight-building Trinity
Ridge Business Center in Cordova.
Dalfen bought the center in November for $7.6 million. A previous deed
states addresses include 7730 Trinity
Road, 7740 Trinity Road, 7750 Trinity
Road, 7760 Trinity Road and 7866
Trinity Road.
The 235,000-square-foot Trinity Ridge Business Center industrial park is on 22 acres north of the
intersection of Trinity and RaleighLaGrange roads.
30 March 3-9, 2012
community
Calvary Again Hosts Waffle Shop,
Preaching Series to Honor Lent
Tradition of nourishing bodies and souls at Downtown Memphis church dates back to 1928
I
n a Memphis tradition dating back to
1928, locals from all walks of life gather
each weekday during Lent at Calvary
Episcopal Church to nourish their bodies
with warm, home-cooked meals and their
souls with the word of God and the fellowship of neighbors.
The 2012 Lenten Preaching Series
and Waffle Shop runs through the end of
March at the mother parish of the Episcopal Church in Memphis, 102 N. Second St.,
in the heart of Downtown.
“The two go together but they’re also
separate,” said Robyn Mauldin, communications coordinator at Calvary Episcopal
Church. “You can come and eat lunch at
the Waffle Shop if you don’t have time to
hear the speaker. Or you can just come and
hear the speaker, or do both.”
The preaching series takes place
Monday through Friday from 12:05 p.m.
to 12:40 p.m., and the Waffle Shop is open
weekdays from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
“We have different races, religions,
genders, and we really try to have a diverse
group of really fabulous preachers,” Mauldin said. “Some are nationally known and
some are local. They’re all so great.”
The preaching series, which features
20 Christian, Jewish and Muslim thought
leaders, kicked off late last week with the
Rev. John Pitzer of New Orleans, formerly
of St. Peter Catholic Church Memphis.
Last week’s speakers included Millington-based Phyllis Tickle, author and
founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly, who describes
herself as “an evangelical Episcopalian.”
She was followed by Rt. Rev. Michael
B. Curry, an Episcopal bishop from North
Carolina, known for preaching the gospel
with a blend of humor, storytelling and
sound theology. Other out-of-town speakers this season include Dr. A. J. Levine,
an Orthodox Jew and professor of New
Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt
University in Nashville; Dr. Marcus Borg,
Canon theologian at Trinity Episcopal
Cathedral in Portland, Oregon; and the
Rev. Daniel P. Matthews, rector emeritus at
Trinity Wall Street in New York.
Local Memphis speakers include the
Rev. Dr. Frank Thomas of Mississippi
Boulevard Christian Church; the Rev. Sonia
Walker of First Congregational Church;
Fr. Nicholas L. Vieron, pastor emeritus at
Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church;
Professor Yasir Qadhi, Islamic theologian,
scholar and instructor at Rhodes College;
and Rabbi Micah Greenstein of Temple
Israel, who 12 years ago became the first
Jewish leader to speak in the long-running
series.
These weeks leading up to Easter and
Passover are a time of reflection for people
of many faiths, and therefore a perfect
time to make spiritual connections with
neighbors, whether they evolve through
praying together or dining together.
For more than 80 years, Memphians of
different faiths have gathered during Lent
to break bread together in Calvary’s dining
hall whose east-facing wall is painted with
words from Luke 1:53: “He has filled the
hungry with good things.”
According to “The Great Book: Calvary
Protestant Episcopal Church 1832-1972”
by Ellen Davies-Rodgers, the Waffle Shop
began after church member Mamie Walworth Tate attended Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at Christ Episcopal Church
during a visit to Springfield, Ohio.
Impressed with the project’s success and the money it generated for the
church’s missionary work, Tate carried the
idea back home to Memphis.
The Lenten menu today still features
many of the same meals prepared using
the original recipes: chicken hash, fish
pudding, spaghetti and rye bread, tomato
aspic, Boston cream pie and, of course,
waffles made from scratch. Meal prices
range from $2.50 for a bowl of chicken
noodle soup to $9 for fish pudding with
potatoes, slaw and corn sticks.
“All of the favorites have returned. It’s
delish,” Mauldin said. “And there’s no tipping and there’s no tax.”
Visit www.calvarymemphis.org for
more information.
ad v e r tisin g & p r
Bigfish Finds Bigger Pond in Midtown
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Editor’s Note: Per Bigfish’s request,
this entire interview was done via Twitter.
Certain words and phrases of Tim Nicholson’s responses will appear in parentheses,
due to slang used during the course of the
interview given the medium through which
it was conducted.
B
igfish LLC will soon relocate its
office to a larger space inside
Minglewood Plaza, a move that the
local website development and marketing
company hopes will better enhance the
creative process.
Bigfish, which will turn 10 later this
year, is housed in a 1,200-square-foot
space near Memphis International Airport.
The firm set up shop at 2200 Democrat
Road seven years ago due to its proximity
to a “small telephony remarketer” client
– a company Bigfish is presently in the
process of helping to reinvent.
But by March 12, the firm will move
across town to a 2,200-square-foot space
at 1555 Madison Ave., joining anchor
Minglewood Hall, as well as tenants Oasis
Hookah Lounge & Café, Revive Energy Bar
and Inked Tattoo Experience.
“We were looking for a more creative
environment both from the standpoint
of workspace and community,” said Tim
Nicholson, founder and owner of Bigfish.
“We eat and play in Midtown. We find inspiration there. Especially in the (CooperYoung) area just around the corner. And a
music venue? Come on.”
Bigfish will be leasing from The DeHart
Group – the company that renovated and
reopened Minglewood Plaza in early 2009
as a mid-size, mixed-use entertainment
venue after pumping $5 million into the
facility. Built in 1938, past users of the
63,750-square-foot space include Strings &
Things and Tastee Bread Co.
Nicholson stumbled upon the available space through his friends at Christ
City Church. The church, led by pastor
Jonathan McIntosh, began leasing space in
Minglewood in September 2010, believing
it to be the culture-forming heart of the
city for 20- to 40-somethings.
Nicholson hopes Bigfish’s relocation
will achieve a similar goal of better linking
its following.
“The move to Midtown is an investment in our ability to help our clients
create meaningful connections with their
audience,” Nicholson said. “My aim is …
our clients and their customers, members
and patients.”
Bigfish’s Memphis payroll currently
includes 10 full-time employees, and the
agency is looking to add another art director. Bigfish also employs two in Nashville,
a venture it started two years ago to collaborate with its Memphis office.
Bigfish creates websites, develops
brand strategies, designs logos and implements marketing communications that
enable its clients to win new business,
communicate with their members, manage customer relationships, expand their
fraternity or sorority, and evangelize their
brand message.
Chi Omega Fraternity was Bigfish’s first
client and remains the firm’s oldest client
today. Other organizations Bigfish has
been involved with include Zeta Tau Alpha
Fraternity, and most recently, the firm has
started a new young alumni and foundation campaign at Delta State University.
“We’ve really connected (with) the fraternity sorority community at the national
level,” Nicholson said. “We believe in their
value proposition.”
That work has taught Bigfish “a lot
about connecting with women,” which
in turn led the firm into the health care
sector. Recent projects include the website
Baptist100.org, in celebration of Baptist
Memorial Health Care Corp.’s centennial this year, as well as the branding and
website for NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital
in Jonesboro, Ark.
Bigfish is also the creator of the “Stuff
Memphians Say” video, which has already
surpassed 35,000 views on YouTube in the
less than two weeks since it was posted.
March 3-9, 2012 31
M em p his N E W S M A K E R S
Irving Leads Animal Cell Therapies
TAYLOR SHOPTAW | The Memphis News
Adam M. Irving is Memphis-based CEO of San Diego-based
Animal Cell Therapies Inc.
Hometown: Baton Rouge, La.
Education: Louisiana Tech University, bachelor of arts speech communication
Work Experience: Eighteen years in
medical device and pharmaceutical
industries; . The last two ventures
were successful IPOs.
Family: Wife, Shawn; sons, Davis, 12,
and Brady, 2
How did you get involved with Animal Cell Therapies? Interestingly,
I was recruited by a good friend and
mentor. There were also strong influences from a key director on the ACT
board who I respect. He is a hardworking pioneer who has built many
successful companies. It is an excellent fit.
What are the challenges of running a San Diego-based company
from Memphis? The airline indus-
try and 2,000 miles. Seriously, the
obvious challenge is balancing work
and family. The good news is we are
considering several options. While
San Diego is rich in stem cell talent,
we are not bound there. Our founder
and CSO (chief scientific officer),
Dr. Kathy Petrucci, and myself are
exploring options to locate in other
markets and potentially may reside in
areas we do our foundational clinical
work. Some states are more business-friendly than others.
What is the mission of Animal
Cell Therapies? We are dedicated
to helping animals live longer and
healthier lives. Pet owners also stand
to benefit from our work. Specifically,
we will develop stem cell therapy in
areas of unmet need. Cell therapy
offers unique reparative and anti-inflammatory properties. ACT will build
a meaningful business by leveraging
unique cell therapy and rich IP with
a thoughtful clinical and commercial
plan.
irving
Saint Francis Medical Partners has
announced the affiliation of Dr. G.
Phillip Schoettle Jr. and Dr. James W.
Blatchford III. Their new office, Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Associates, is in the Lowenberg Building
on the Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis campus.
Linda Bonnin has been appointed as
interim vice president for Communications, Public Relations and Marketing at the University of Memphis.
Bonnin succeeds Bob Eoff. Bonnin
has served as associate vice president
of Communications, Public Relations
and Marketing since 1999.
Melvin Shaw has been honored as a
Memphis Living Legend for 2012 by
New Sardis Baptist Church. Shaw is
principal of Saad & Shaw – Comprehensive Fund Development Services.
The Association of Women Attorneys has announced its 2012 board
officers. They are Emily C. Taube,
president; Lucie K. Brackin, immediate past president; Frances M. Riley,
president-elect; Jennifer Himes, vice
president; Lisa Gill, secretary; Brittan
W. Robinson, treasurer; and Tracy
Bradshaw, historian. AWA committee
chairpersons include Keating Lowery, Diana Comes, Erin Phillips, Louise Chandler, Jennifer Himes, Mary
Morgan Whitefield, Michele HowardFlynn, Megan Arthur, Ashley Martin
and Judge Kay Spalding Robilio. The
organization awarded Shelby County
District Attorney General Amy Weirich the Marion Griffin-Frances Loring
Award for outstanding legal achievement.
Elizabeth T. Collins has been elected
a fellow of the Tennessee Bar Foundation. Collins is a partner in the firm
Thomason, Hendrix, Harvey, Johnson
& Mitchell PLLC and has been practicing law in Memphis for 23 years.
Lauren Reaves has been promoted to
account executive at archer-malmo.
Ben Helm and Matt Whitaker have
been promoted to senior art directors.
Generational
Marketing
Fundamental experiences shape
a collective generation – wars, political
changes, scientific advancements, entertainment and pop culture trends. These
experiences, especially those encountered during one’s formative years, have
great influence over a generation’s values
and core beliefs, preferred methods of
communication, product needs and
buying decisions. Understanding these
shared beliefs is at the heart of generational marketing.
Big brands appreciate the need to
understand a target market including
generational nuances. That’s why we’re
surprised when they make generational
marketing blunders, like focusing marketing on current
customers with
little more than
a nod to the
future generation.
Today’s customer
is one thing, but
your next generation of customer
Lori turner- – that's the next
wilson
guerrilla sales big thing. Ignore
and marketing them and risk
brand irrelevancy.
If big brands with their resources can
make this misstep, smaller companies
should take heed to avoid following suit.
For decades, Levi’s was the jean of
choice for baby boomers (born 1946 to
1964). Comfortable with their leading
market share, Levi’s became complacent.
In the 1990s, however, baby boomers
were no longer responsible for the lion's
share of jean sales, and Generations X
and Y saw Levis as "their parents' jeans,"
an undesirable position in the fashion
category. Jean sales plummeted. Reclaiming that market share would prove a long,
arduous process.
Eastman Kodak is a more recent casualty of the generational marketing war.
Despite inventing the first digital camera,
Kodak was fearful to stray too far from its
roots – in film and film-based cameras
– and was slow to fully embrace digital
technology and commercialize it.
The brand wasn't listening to its next
generation of customer – Gen X – which,
if asked, would have clearly shouted collectively "no more film." By the time they
turned their sights fully toward the digital
world, the brand was irrelevant to Generations X and Y. The financial investment to
convince them otherwise, combined with
competitive pressure, was insurmountable. Kodak declared bankruptcy.
The lessons learned are serious.
Don’t lose sight of your next generation of
customer. Seek their feedback on product
and service developments often. And
never forget to target your marketing so
it resonates with that generation's shared
beliefs and values.
For more about generational marketing, visit www.redrovercompany.wordpress.com.
Lori Turner-Wilson is an award-winning columnist and managing partner of
RedRover Sales & Marketing, www.redrovercompany.com.
32 March 3-9, 2012
M em p his L aw Talk
Finance Fuels Lamberson’s Law Career
C
hristopher Lamberson, a new addition to the
management committee at Glankler Brown
PLLC, got interested in pursuing law as a career
in a roundabout way.
It started with a family-fueled knack for business and
finance that included some practical, hands-on experience, followed later by enrollment in law school as a way
to continue that interest.
Lamberson is a transactional attorney. A lot of his
work involves business deals, such as acquisitions and
dispositions of businesses, and commercial real estate
deals.
He’s been with Glankler since the fall of 1999, but he
clerked a little with the firm before that.
“So, really, I’ve been kicking around the halls for
about 15 years now,” Lamberson said.
Lamberson represents various private companies
and their owners in transactions that include mergers,
acquisitions, dispositions and structured finance, and
also provides general commercial representation.
In addition, he represents commercial property
owners in connection with the acquisition, development, rehabilitation, leasing, financing and disposition
of multifamily, retail, industrial and office projects. And
he works with both borrowers and lenders in all areas of
secured lending, including bond-financed transactions.
Lamberson received his bachelor’s degree from
Washington & Lee University in 1995 and his Master of
Business Administration and law degrees from the University of Memphis in 1999.
Lamberson lives in Germantown with his wife, Kelly,
and daughter, Lucie, 7.
“When I was in high school, my father got me interested in business and finance,” Lamberson said. “I
remember he bought me a dozen cassette tapes to learn
how to use a Hewlett-Packard financial calculator.
“In college, I spent a couple of summers buying mobile homes, rehabbing them and reselling them through
purchase money loans. And I guess that kind of taught
me a lot about finance and taught me even more about
lamberson
people.”
Lamberson said he became interested in working at
Glankler, one of the biggest firms in town, because of its
reputation.
“I knew about them from an early age,” he said. “In
fact, I was and still am friends with one of Frank Glankler’s sons and kind of grew up with him. Frankly, I’d
always wanted to come over here.”
Glankler announced the 2012 members of the firm’s
management committee last month. The committee
addresses firm matters and advises other members and
staff on administrative issues.
Lamberson
said he focuses
on mid-sized
companies and
has dealt with a
lot of sellers and
first-generation
business owners
who have run
and grown their
companies and
are now looking
for an exit.
He said those
are rewarding
deals because
they involve
helping people
reach their goals
at a key moment
toward the end
of their business
career.
That’s also
part of what
he enjoys most
about his job –
that his particular
brand of law does not have the adversarial aspects of
courtroom work.
As far as advice for young or aspiring attorneys, Lamberson stresses the importance of hours logged in the
cockpit, so to speak.
“If you’re going to be a transactional attorney, you
have to realize that law school is essential, but there’s no
substitute for experience,” he said. “There’s a relatively
steep learning curve, and it’s very difficult to teach something like that in a classroom setting. So it’s a little bit of a
trial by fire when you get out of law school and you get to
my side of things.”
A Person or Product by Any Other Name ...
A couple of weeks ago, I devoted
almost an entire column to one item
of viewer mail. No one complained, so
I might as well do it again. Less than a
week after hearing from Carole Hanna of
Memphis, I heard from Daphine Craig:
“I have always enjoyed your crossword
puzzles, which appear in The Memphis
News,” Daphine wrote. “Olive Branch,
Miss., my hometown, is a suburb of Memphis. I’m glad to see you have Mississippi
roots.”
Daphine was inspired to write by my
mention of my grandmother in a column
a few weeks back.
In said column, I mused a bit on the
name Fleming and introduced my grandmother, the late, great Leo Cranford,
of Mt. Olive, Miss. – no relation to Olive
Branch.
I learned the word “oleo” from Leo,
who was called “Mama Dedo” by all 19 of
her grandchildren.
My mother – in Jackson, Miss., where
I was born – had
taught me the
word “margarine.” We called
it butter, even
though it wasn’t.
Back to
Daphine’s
note:
VIC FLEMING
“I
have
found
I SWEAR
that crosswordpuzzle creators love multi-voweled words.
… I grew up on a farm where I enjoyed
‘real butter.’ I was unaware of oleo until I
went away to college. When I married a
‘city boy,’ I didn’t realize that people could
prefer oleo to butter.”
The email from Olive Branch continued: “My first name is Daphine, which
rhymes with caffeine.
There are constant misspellings and
mispronunciations, but I live with them. At
least you have a noteworthy ancestor, Sir
Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin and Nobel Prize winner.
To my knowledge, there are no famous
or infamous Daphines.”
I can’t say that I’ve ever known a
Daphine, but I think it’s a cool name, especially since it rhymes with caffeine and
isn’t a three-syllable version of Daphne.
One in 50,000 women is named Daphine.
By comparison, one in 450 males is
named Victor. But … only one in 100,000
females is named Victor. So, in a sense,
Daphine’s name is more common than
mine.
My sister, Nancy Lucile Fleming Sloan,
died in 2009 at the age of 64. Way too
young. She was the second of Mama
Dedo’s 19 grands to pass. These first
cousins were produced by Mama Dedo’s
six children, who themselves were born
between 1917 and 1929: Norfleet (my
mother), Lucile, Don, Mary Jon, Peggy
and Lynn (male).
In addition to yours truly and sister
Nancy, those cousins include seven Cranfords: Bruce, Clay, Don (deceased), Mark,
I Swear Crossword
Fleming’s weekly puzzle Page 36
David, Patty, Martha Carol and Lynette;
four Battes: O.K. Jr., Margaret (“Marty”),
Martha O’Shella (“Shellie”) and Richard;
three Martins: Stanley (female), Sydney
(female) and Jeff; and two Butlers: Raymond and Paul David. They’re scattered
across at least five states.
It’s doubtful that all 19 of us will ever
again get our names in the paper (which,
once upon a time, was a really big deal) at
the same time. But … it’s now happened
once. So, Cuzes, if you want to write me a
note, feel free.
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in
Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at
the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at [email protected].
March 3-9, 2012 33
M em p his S TA N D O U T
Mallory’s Route Leads Him to CRE Career
N
eely Mallory IV comes from a
long line of logistics executives,
with ancestry dating back to
Memphis’ early days as a cotton hub.
These days, Mallory is learning the
ropes of supply chains from a different
vantage point: through some of the city’s
top producing industrial real estate professionals.
Mallory has been named an associate at Cushman & Wakefield/Commercial
Advisors LLC, after joining the firm in
July as brokerage intern.
“I primarily work on a team with Wyatt Aiken and Jeb Fields, who have really
kind of mentored me and tried to teach
me as much as possible,” said Mallory, 23.
“In the Memphis commercial real estate
market, I’m lucky to be with those two
guys. I am learning everyday and I will be
for a long time.”
Mallory is a product of Memphis University School and the University of Virginia, where he majored in economics.
After graduation, when many of his
friends from school were moving to cities
MALLORY
like New York or Washington to launch
their careers, Mallory knew he’d return
to the birthplace of his family’s empire,
Mallory Alexander International Logistics.
“I was always of the mind-set that I
was going to come back to Memphis,”
Mallory said. “This is where I wanted to
be long-term, so this is where I wanted to
be immediately. I wasn’t going to try and
go to a company outside of the city that
I love. I wanted to be close to my family
and was able to achieve that.”
Mallory always wasn’t dead-set on
office and industrial real estate, but after
being introduced to Commercial Advisors, he solidified his decision.
“This wasn’t really planned at all,”
Mallory said. “But I think I knew really
during the interview process, I met
with a bunch of people at Commercial
Advisors who really stuck out to me,
their character and their passion for the
company, it was something I really just
couldn’t turn down.”
With no formal real estate training,
Mallory tries to approach every project
that he works on as an opportunity to
soak up industry knowledge.
“I really don’t have a typical day and
that’s why I like what I’m doing right
now,” Mallory said. “Some days, I’m out
and about visiting properties, going on
tours. Sometimes, I’m in the office running analysis. Sometimes, I’m meeting
with our clients in their offices and in
our offices. I don’t get into just a standard routine that gets boring and monotonous.”
And, although now they’re on different sides of the table in the professional
sense, he tries to pick up as much as possible from his grandfather and father,
Neely Mallory II and Neely Mallory III.
“They’re great sources of knowledge
for me for every part of my life, but in
particular, the real estate industrial industry is something they have expertise
in,” Mallory said.
“So it’s really good to talk to them
and hear their opinion from the perspective of the user of property. I’m very
lucky to have them as resources in addition to everybody else at Commercial
Advisors.”
Special Emphasis Issues
What’s Coming Up
FEB. 25
FINANCIAL SERVICES
MAR. 3
HEALTH CARE
MAR. 17
RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE
12n-3p
OFFICE
&
MAR. 31
INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE
APR. 14
MEMPHIS PUBLIC COMPANIES
For information about advertising in these upcoming issues,
contact your account executive or Advertising Director
Don Fancher at 901-528-5283 or [email protected]
34 March 3-9, 2012
arts & culture
t h e at e r
Teens Awaken in Broadway Musical
JONATHAN DEVIN | The Memphis News
L
ove and flowers aren’t the only things
that bloom in spring, at least according to an award-winning Broadway
musical premiering at Circuit Playhouse in
March.
In “Spring Awakening,” teenagers’
natural urges and unanswered questions
combine in a rush of rock music to spell
out the drama of becoming an adult.
“Sometimes an adult society will forget
or not want to remember what it’s like to
be a teenager,” said Dave Landis, Playhouse on the Square resident company
member and director of the show, which
opens March 2. “The teenagers in the show
discover that sex is part of human nature.
If society puts you into a box, it frustrates
you into wanting to know more.”
And there you have the force behind
the show’s plot – a group of teenagers
around the age of 16 and living in a small
provincial town in 19th century Germany
are led by their newfound physical feelings
to experiment with previously taboo sexual
issues. Information is hard to come by and
their parents’ refusal to address sex as an
issue is magnified by pressure to succeed.
The Broadway adaptation with book
and lyrics by Steven Sater and music by
Duncan Sheik won eight Tonys in 2007 and
started a cult following among teenagers. That’s a far cry from the treatment of
the original play version written by Frank
Wedekind in 1891.
If German society doesn’t strike most
people as the most repressive society in
history, Landis said that the teenagers in
the story would grow up to be the generation that followed Hitler into the Third
Reich. They were taught to do as they were
told without question. Establishing somewhat extreme levels of order in households
and schools provided the glue that would
later regiment legions of Nazis.
“It was regarded as a play that probably should not be produced and I believe
it was banned for several decades because
Photo: Courtesy of John Moore
“Spring Awakening” at Circuit Playhouse explores the physical awakening of a group of
teenagers in a repressed, provincial German town. The show won eight Tonys in 2007.
of its subject matter,” Landis said. “It’s still
set in the 1890s, but it has that (teenagerish) melodramatic feel. When you’re a
»
teenager everything is life and death. What
the Broadway show has done is take these
moments when we go inside the kids’
heads and turn them into rock concerts.
The show has this contemporary feel and
basically you’re getting a glimpse at the
kids’ inner turmoil.”
Still, Landis said, the themes are timeless and relevant to teens today. Peer pressure, suicide and teen pregnancy are all on
the menu. The show opens with a teenage
girl asking her mother where babies come
from. She’s told only to love her husband.
Melchior, played by Ben Laxton, is the
first of the teens to take his awakening to a
state of rebellion after he falls for a girl he’s
known all his life and ...
“Things happen,” Landis said.
To augment the uniform conservatism
of the adults in the play, all of the adult
roles are performed by one man and one
woman, David Foster and Carla McDonald. The cast is filled out by Sarah Hoch,
Nick Mason, Andrea Rouch, Michael
Thomas Grant, Kelsey Hopkins, Kyle Blair,
Cassie Thompson, Christian Green, Kilby
Hodges and Sam Shankman.
To add to the sense that the teens are
actually on trial for their feelings, some
audience seating will be available on stage,
set rather like a jury box.
“If I can make a plea to any adult parent who might want to come see the show,
I think it does promote at least a certain
level of awareness that there’s responsibility from all angles of society to keep the
lines of communication open,” Landis
said. “If we’re all completely honest, we did
the exact same thing when we were that
age.”
That said, the show is not for young
children. It contains sexual language, adult
situations and graphic descriptions. The
Broadway show also contains brief nudity,
but Landis said he was leaving it to his
actors to decide if they felt led to do that
or not.
“Spring Awakening” runs through
March 25. For tickets, visit www.playhouseonthesquare.org or call 726-4656.
happenings
» Community
The Exchange Club Family
Center will hold its annual
Hands of Hope Auction
Party Saturday, March 3, at
7 p.m. at The Columns at
One Commerce Square. The
evening will include a silent
and live auction, live music, an
interactive light show, dancing
gourmet food stations and
a cash bar. Cost is $90 per
persons and $160 for couples.
For tickets, call 276-2200.
The Memphis Rotary Club
will meet Tuesday, March 6, at
noon at the University Club of
Memphis, 1346 Central Ave.
Allen Godfrey, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming
The Orpheum Theatre will present “The
All New Original Tribute to the Blues Brothers”
Saturday, March 3, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 4,
at 7 p.m. at the theater, 203 S. Main St. For tickets,
call 525-3000 or visit www.orpheum-memphis.com.
Commission, will speak. Cost
is $18 per person. For reservations, email Taylor Hughes at
[email protected].
Cannon Wright Blount will
continue its series of seminars that teach professionals
how to use the accounting
software program QuickBooks Wednesday, March 7,
from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the
firm, 756 Ridge Lake Blvd. The
two-hour classes cost $75
per person. Seating is limited.
To reserve a place, visit www.
cannonwrightblount.com/
resources. For more information about the QuickBooks
seminar series, call Debbie
Bossé or Cathy Russell at
685-7500.
Talk Shoppe will present the
seminar “Maximizing Your
Tax Savings with Real Estate
Investment Property” with attorney Wis Laughlin Wednesday, March 7, from 9 a.m. to
10 a.m. at the Better Business
Bureau, 3693 Tyndale Drive.
For more information, call Jo
Garner at 482-0354.
The 15th Annual YWCA
Benefit Luncheon will be
held Wednesday, March 7,
at noon at The Memphis
Marriott-East, 2625 Thousand
Oaks Blvd. Former NFL player
and actor Victor Rivas Rivers
will speak. Cost is $100 per
person and the luncheon will
benefit the YWCA Greater
Memphis. To reserve a seat,
call 320-6002 or visit www.
memphisywca.org.
The Better Business Bureau
will host a luncheon Thursday,
March 8, at 11:30 a.m. at the
BBB, 3693 Tyndale Drive.
Andy Wise of Action News 5
will share consumer protect
tips. Cost is $10 and seats are
limited. For reservations, contact Susan Harris at sharris@
bbbmidsouth.org or 757-8617.
The Memphis Business Alliance will present a seminar
titled “Five Tips to Collecting
More Receivables” Thursday,
March 8, from 11:30 a.m. to
1 p.m. at the Crescent Club,
6075 Poplar Ave., suite 909.
Attorney David Mendelson
will speak. Cost is $15 for
members and $20 for nonmembers. To register, email
contactus@cresecent-club.
com or call 684-1010.
Eighty3 will host an evening
of free tastings for Memphis
food and beverage industry
service staff, including bartenders, wait staff, hostesses
and doormen March 11 from
10 p.m. to 1 a.m. at the restaurant, 83 Madison Ave. Only 30
reservations will be accepted
each Sunday. For reservations, email full name and
place of employment to info@
eight3memphis.com by noon
HAPPENINGS, CONTINUED
ON PAGE 36
March 3-9, 2012 35
food & wine
RE S TAURA N T I N S I D ER
Engage Social Media
For Restaurant Success
FREDRIC KOEPPEL | The Memphis News
Take a Ride
With ‘Biker’
Zinfandel
A
L
et’s be blunt: If a restaurant does
not utilize every available form
of social media, it risks losing a
competitive edge. And just having a
website doesn’t count anymore, especially a website that doesn’t do anything
for the customer and isn’t up-to-date. A
restaurant must maintain an active and
reactive website, Facebook page and
Twitter account, and it doesn’t hurt to
post videos frequently to YouTube.
“Why should I do that?” asks the restaurateur or chef/owner. “I have a loyal
customer base. They love me and my
restaurant whether we post to Facebook
or not.”
Listen to Chris Leo, writing recently
on Foh Boh – The Restaurant Network
(fohboh.com):
“Social media sites like Twitter
(and) Facebook … give you exposure
to the world. They also give you access
to people that hours of television spots
and thousands of dollars of newspaper ads can't do. Social media is the
perfect platform to demonstrate your
restaurant's uniqueness, your exquisite
cuisine and the fantastic atmosphere a
diner can expect, when coming to dine
at your establishment.”
Or, closer to home, Kerri Guyton,
an account manager with Obsidian
Public Relations in Memphis, says,
“Social media is a fantastic (and free)
tool for restaurants and bars to use in
communicating to their audiences on a
regular basis. It takes a little more work
on the restaurant’s side to maintain that
communication. It’s not just a one-time
ad or flyer with the weekly specials. It’s
a conversation between the restaurant
and its audience about what’s going on
at the restaurant, what the chef is cooking in the kitchen, what he’s buying at
the farmers market and so on.”
I spent a morning looking at 20
websites for well-known local restaurants, ranging in style from gastropubs
and neighborhood bistros to fine dining,
including old-line establishments and
new places. The results were surprising
and a little shocking.
Of those 20 websites, four provided
no links to Facebook or Twitter. Only two
offered links to videos on YouTube. Only
one of the websites included descriptions of daily specials. Several did not
provide an online reservations function.
One website – this is the shocker – didn’t
even offer menus, or anything else for
that matter, just a picture, an address
and phone number. Friends, it’s not
2002 anymore, and a 2002 mentality or
arrogance won’t work.
“Wait,” you say, “I post daily specials
Fredric Koeppel
MEMPHIS
GRAPEVINE
Illustration: Emily Morrow // Source: Shutterstock
on Twitter and Facebook, why should I
do it on the website too?”
Because if people Google your
restaurant, they don’t get your Facebook
page or Twitter account, they get your
website, so all the information – all
the friendly and helpful and current
information – should be right there. The
more you make people search your website for pertinent information, the less
useful and more annoying it is.
Many of these local dining websites
provide notices of newspaper reviews
and awards their restaurants received,
but it doesn’t impress potential customers to read a review from five years ago
or to be told that the establishment was
voted “Best New Restaurant of 2004.”
That’s ancient history.
I’m not an expert in marketing – if
I were I’d be a household name and
pulling down the Big Bucks, right? – but
I’ll offer here a summary, gleaned from
some Google research and talking to a
few people, of a few steps that restaurants can make to maximize their use of
social media.
Know yourself; know your audience;
keep on message. Few are the independent restaurants that can be all things
to all people. Your menu, your location,
building and interior, the atmosphere,
the style of service, all determine what
your restaurant is, the audience it attracts and the image you want to convey.
Let all your social media outlets reflect
that image consistently.
Make sure that your website exploits
every strategy of search engine optimization (SEO). Say, for example, that your
menu is on your website in PDF form; if
someone types “best veal chop Memphis” into Google, your lauded veal chop
won’t show up because Google doesn’t
recognize PDF documents. That’s not
good SEO.
Embrace online review sites and
provide links to reviews of your restaurant on Google, Yelp, Open Table
and Urbanspoon on your website and
Facebook page. Don’t sweat the negative reviews; they may contain seeds
for needed change and improvement.
Reacting online with anger to a negative
review makes you look like a smallminded sore loser.
Be creative, not generic. Nobody
wants to read “Come in tonight for a
glass of wine.” Use your website, Twitter
and Facebook page to post interesting
entries about the creation of new dishes
and cocktails, special events, celebrity
sightings (with photos), videos of trips to
the local farmers markets or farms and
other suppliers. Put videos on YouTube.
Use social media to build loyalty.
Guyton again: “Social media can be utilized to build familiarity, and hopefully,
loyalty. Audiences kind of expect that
now, especially those under 35. They expect to ‘get to know the brand’ in order
to award their loyalty, and with those audiences ‘watching’ on social media, it’s a
perfect venue for restaurants and bars to
communicate and to become relevant
to those audiences.”
wine nicknamed “Biker” would
probably conjure the idea of
a burly, bearded guy wearing
motorcycle colors, midnight black shades
and an old German army helmet astride
a powerful Harley, hurtling down the
highway in a roar of power and arrogance.
The Four Vines “Biker” Zinfandel 2009,
Paso Robles, however, while
being fairly burly, does not
come across as a two-fisted,
no-holds-barred blockbuster.
In fact, there’s a certain paradoxical sense of balance and
decorum about the wine,
though it is undeniably
forthright and flavorful.
The winery goes
back to 1994. As often
happens in the California wine industry, Four
Vines underwent several
relocations and changes
in ownership, but what
did not change is the
emphasis on regional and
single-vineyard zinfandel
wines and an unoaked
chardonnay. Winemaker
is Christian Tietje. I recently tasted four
of the winery’s zinfandels, and the one
I’m recommending – though the others
aren’t bad – is the “Biker” 2009.
The color is dark ruby. Aromas of
black currants, plums and blueberries are
permeated by briery, brambly elements,
graphite-like minerality and a burgeoning
presence of dried fruit and flowers and
exotic spice-like cloves and sandalwood;
there’s essence of fruitcake and dark
bittersweet chocolate in the depths. The
wine is dense, intense, chewy, almost
viscous in its ripeness and concentrated texture, though it’s never heavy or
simpleminded. Flavors of slightly spiced
and roasted black and blue fruit are deeply tuned to the structure of finely milled
tannins and polished oak. It’s a big boy,
but not a bad boy. As soon as I finish writing this notice, I’m going to make a pasta
dish with smoked tomatoes and wild boar
sausage. I think you get the idea.
FOR YOUR VERY
OWN BOTTLE
BUSTER'S LIQUORS & WINES
191 S. Highland St., $27
great wines & spirits
6150 Poplar Ave., $27
WINERY OF GERMANTOWN
7841 Farmington Blvd., $27
36 March 3-9, 2012
Week of 2/27/12 - 3/4/12
happenings
The Weekly
Crossword
HAPPENINGS, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 34
Edited by Margie E. Burke
The Weekly Crossword
ACROSS
1 Liquor purchase
6 Postpone
11 Mosque tower
13 1987 Toni
Morrison novel
15 Catch in a trap
16 Oval-shaped
wind instrument
17 Lab animal
18 Seaplane part
20 Morning moisture
21 Pesky bug
23 Like a bad
muffler
24 Raunchy
25 Brilliant success
27 Hoopster's target
28 Important exam
29 What Rolaids
spells?
31 Colonize again
33 Dragon's home
35 Bad-mannered
36 School term
40 Fast food item
44 Group of three
45 Fairytale legume
47 Analyze,
grammatically
48 Tear to pieces
49 Daily drudgery
51 Bringing up the
rear
52 Pub pint
53 Piece of advice
55 Afternoon social
56 Twisting
58 Skater's hangout
60 Three-syllable
poetic foot
61 Marching chant
62 Forest clearing
63 Skier's stopover
DOWN
1 Bankroll
2 Put into service
3 Type of club
4 Critter catcher
1
2
3
by Margie E. Burke
4
5
11
6
12
8
9
10
13
15
14
16
17
18
21
22
25
19
23
26
29
24
27
30
33
36
37
20
28
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Copyright 2012 by The Puzzle Syndicate
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39 Rider's strap
49 "Duck, duck"
Wading bird
41 Annoying
Fake drake
follower
42 Heart of the
50 Model stick-on
Ardor
53 Like Hamelin's
In favor of
matter
43 Shoot again, on
Plain to see
piper
54 Decorate again
Library
a movie set
46 Shenanigan
57 Restful resort
transaction
11 Corporate
59 Wine choice
marriage
12 Mortise's mate
13 Rocket stage
Answer to Last Week's Crossword
14 Dilly-dally
S T A B
S P A M
A F A R
19 Wedding cake
A O N E
S M I L E
S E R A
section
I D E A
P A N D A
S I G N
22 Final part
D O W N M A R K E T
A G O G
24 Like some
P O R T E R
N I N N Y
translations
R A Y O N
S Y M B O L
26 Poke fun
O C E L O T
E A R N
E B B
28 At one's limit
I N T E G E R
N A M E D A Y
30 Temper tantrum L E I
R E A D
D E P I C T
32 Temp. teacher
L A N D E D
T I T H E
34 Go back to
P R O E M
I N R O A D
press
O O P S
W A T E R L E V E L
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Rock layers
A G E S
E T U D E
M A G I
37 Soon, in poetry C U R E
F O R G O
I R I S
38 Quartz, for one H E A R
T R E E
C Y S T
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Difficulty : Medium
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Answer to Last Week's Sudoku
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Copyright 2012 by The Puzzle Syndicate
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HOW TO PLAY
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Each row must contain the
numbers 1 to 9; each column
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must contain the numbers 1
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to 9; and each set of 3 by 3
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boxes must contain the
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numbers 1 to 9.
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The Memphis Chapter of Executive
Women International will meet March 15 at
5:30 p.m. at Chickasaw Country Club, 3395
Galloway Ave. Mychell Mitchell from the FBI
Victims Specialist Department, will speak.
Cost is $35 per person. Reservations are due
Friday, March 9. To reserve a place, contact
Deborah Vaughn at 726-3498, 373-6081 or
[email protected].
The Southern Women’s Show will be held
Friday, March 9, through March 11 at the
Agricenter International, 7777 Walnut Grove
Road. The show will be open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday. Cost is $10 at the door and $9 online
in advance. For more information, www.
southernshows.com.
» The arts
59
Sudoku
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7
Friday, March 9. Reservations are limited to
one event per person.
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Theatre Memphis will present “Circle Mirror
Transformation” through Sunday, March 4, at
the theater, 630 Perkins Road Extended. For
tickets, call 682-8323 or visit www.theatrememphis.org.
The Brooks Museum League will hold a
fundraiser, “Celebrities on Canvas” Saturday,
March 3, at 7 p.m. at the Memphis Brooks
Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Ave. Tickets are
$75 per person and proceeds benefit the
museum. For more information, visit www.
brooksmuseumleague.org.
Gallery Ten Ninety One will host an art
opening for the exhibit “So Memphis and
Garden Series – Two Exhibits by Kay Coop”
Sunday, March 4, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at
the WKNO Digital Media Center, 7151 Farms
Road. The exhibit will run through March 29.
For more information, call 458-2521.
The Rhodes College Department of Music
will host a performance by oboist Courtenay
Harter and pianist Brian Ray Monday, March
5, at 7:30 p.m. in Tuthill Performance Hall in
Hassell Hall on campus. The performance is
free and open to the public.
The Circuit Playhouse will present “Spring
Awakening” through March 25 at the theater,
51 S. Cooper St. For more information or
tickets, call 726-4656 or visit www.playhouseonthesquare.org.
Theatre Memphis will present “Chicago”
Friday, March 9, through April 1 at the theater,
630 Perkins Road Extended. For tickets, call
682-8323 or visit www.theatrememphis.org.
The Buckman Performing & Fine Arts
Center at St. Mary’s School presents “Nature: Its Colors and Shapes – Paintings by
Musette Morgan and Ceramics by Christine
Ruby” at Buckman, 60 Perkins Extended. The
art will be on display through April 20. For
more information, call 537-1483 or visit www.
buckmanartscenter.com.
March3 3-9,
2012 37
37
March
- 9, 2012
public notices
Misc. Notices
Shelby County
PUBLIC NOTICE
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THE
UNDERSIGNED WILL SELL, TO SATISFY
LEIN OF THE OWNER, AT PUBLIC SALE
BY COMPETITVE BIDDING ON MARCH
13, AT 11:45 AM AT THE EXTRA SPACE
STORAGE FACILITY LOCATED AT:
4994 RALEIGH-LAGRANGE
MEMPHIS, TN. 38128
901-388-9272
THE PERSONAL GOODS STORED
THEREIN BY THE FOLLOWING MAY
INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO
GENERAL HOUSEHOLD, FURNITURE,
BOXES, CLOTHES, AND APPLIANCES.
B010 MYNESHIA FOSSETT, B038
STARVEINA JOHNSON, D009I ROCHELLE
JONES, G026 WANITA ALLEN.
PURCHASES MUST BE MADE WITH
CASH ONLY AND PAID AT THE TIME
OF SALE. ALL GOODS ARE SOLD AS IS
AND MUST BE REMOVED AT THE TIME
OF PURCHASE. EXTRA SPACE STORAGE
RESERVES THE RIGHT TO BID. SALE IS
SUBJECT TO ADJOURNMENT.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11211
NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE OF
PERSONAL PROPERTY
Notice is hereby given that the
undersigned will sell, to satisfy
lien of the owner, at public sale by
competitive bidding on March 14,
2012 at 9:30AM at the Extra Space
Storage facility located at:
2010 W. Poplar Ave
Collierville, TN 38017
901.853.6382
The personal goods stored therein
by the following may include, but are
not limited to general household,
furniture, boxes, clothes, and
appliances.
Sharmika Williams-Deen #018
Sharmika Williams-Deen #126
Mark Pippins #255
Purchases must be made with cash
only and paid at the time of sale. All
goods are sold as is and must be
removed at the time of purchase.
Extra Space Storage reserves
the right to bid. Sale is subject to
adjournment.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11212
PERSONAL PROPERTY
competitive bidding on MARCH 13,
2012 at 11:15 A.M at the Extra
Space Storage facility located at:
4805 SUMMER AVE
MEMPHIS, TN 38122
901-682-1746
appliances.
PAUL BRUCE #543; JUAN SERNA
#107
Purchases must be made with cash only
and paid at the time of sale. All goods
are sold as is and must be removed at
the time of purchase. Extra Space Storage reserves the right to refuse any bid.
Sale is subject to adjournment.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11213
PERSONAL PROPERTY
2012 at 9:30AM at the Extra Space
2625 Mt. Moriah Rd.
Memphis, TN. 38115
(901) 794-1223
appliances.
Marcus Casey #17, Leon Flowers
#62, Cornelius Rahming #63, Kevin
Scott #101, Monica Redmond
#124, Damian Kohel #148, Annice
Wilhite #213, William Allen #325,
Malvin Williams #333, James
Vinson #343, Lisa Cain #468,
Kiana Porter #619, Antonio Bunch
#764.
Extra Space Storage reserves the
right to refuse any bid. Sale is subject
to adjournment.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11214
PUBLIC NOTICE
LIEN OF THE OWNER, AT PUBLIC SALE
BY COMPETITIVE BIDDING ON MARCH
13, 2012, AT 9:45 AM AT THE EXTRA
SPACE STORAGE FACILITY LOCATED AT:
2673 MT MORIAH TERRACE MEMPHIS,
TN 38115, PHONE NUMBER 901-3629360. THE PERSONAL GOODS STORED
THEREIN BY THE FOLLOWING MAY
INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO GENERAL HOUSEHOLD, FURNITURE, BOXES,
CLOTHES, AND APPLIANCES.A&H CARTAGE FREDERICK ASKEW #406, NICOLE
WALLACE #557, JOEL WHITE #1113,
TARA GARRETT #C3203, AMORITA
WEST #B8210, CHRISTOPHER MCGHEE
#B8408, COURTNEY WALL #B8504,
KEAMRA NORMAN #B8508, VERONICA
FARMER #B8803. PURCHASES MUST
BE MADE WITH CASH ONLY AND PAID
AT THE TIME OF SALE. ALL GOODS ARE
SOLD AS IS AND MUST BE REMOVED
AT THE TIME OF PURCHASE. EXTRA
SPACE STORAGE RESERVES THE RIGHT
TO REFUSE ANY BID. SALE IS SUBJECT
TO ADJOURNMENT.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11215
PERSONAL PROPERTY
Notice is hereby given that the undersigned will sell, to satisfy lien of the
owner, at public sale by competitive
bidding on March 13, 2012 at 11:00
AM at the Extra Space Storage facility
located at: 5675 Summer Ave Memphis
TN 38134 901-372-6180
The personal goods stored therein by
the following may include, but are not
limited to general household, furniture,
boxes, clothes, and appliances. CHASITY JONES #B009A, REBECCA ANN
AGE #C028, MANAGERS UNIT #D005,
VIRGINIA SPIOTTO #D005, RAYMOND
FOOTE #E030, LEESA REED #E042,
BRIAN WILLIAMS #F032. Purchases
must be made with cash only and paid
at the time of sale. All goods are sold as
is and must be removed at the time of
purchase. Extra Space Storage reserves
the right to refuse any bid. Sale is subject
to adjournment.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11216
PUBLIC NOTICE
BY COMPETITIVE BIDDING ON March,
13, 2012 AT 10:45 AM AT THE EXTRA
7301 WINCHESTER RD MEMPHIS TN
38125 PHONE NUMBER 901-759-1736
THE PERSONAL GOODS STORED HEREIN
BY THE FOLLOWING MAY INCLUDE, BUT
ARE NOT LIMITED TO GENERAL HOUSEHOLD, FURNITURE, BOXES, CLOTHES,
AND APPLIANCES. DIANE SIMON #239,
1ST CLASS MONTESSORI #280, LENOAH HIBBLER #321, SHARON TYLER
#377, TERESA SPILLERS #52, WILLIE
BARNETT #68, TIFFANY PUGH #74,
WILLIE BARNETT #802, WILLIE BARNETT
#807 1998-MARK TWAIN-BOAT, VIN#
M15979AH. PURCHASES MUST BE
MADE IN CASH ONLY AND PAID AT THE
TIME OF SALE. ALL GOODS ARE SOLD AS
IS AND MUST BE REMOVED AT THE TIME
SUBJECT TO ADJOURNMENT
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11217
PERSONAL PROPERTY
competitive bidding on 03/13/2012
at 11:30 AM at the Extra Space
4961 Covington Way
Memphis, TN. 38128
901-372-0864
appliances. #17 Leo Smith Jr.,
#26 Kimberly Jordan, #48 Felicia
Tillis, #263 David Sullivan, #327
Ivy Mitchell, #402 Farrell Lee, #423
Sergio Vieyra.
to adjournment.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11218
PERSONAL PROPERTY
2012 at 10:30 A.M. at the Extra
Space Storage facility located at:
7222 Riverdale Bend
Memphis TN 38125
(901) 751-2824
appliances.
#99 Derrick Shaw, #213 Remita
Trowery, #713 Jackie Williams
to adjournment.
Mar. 3, 2012
Mhn11219
PERSONAL PROPERTY
Notice is hereby given that the undersigned will sell, to satisfy lien of the
owner, at public sale by competitive
bidding on March 14, 2012 at 11:00AM
at the Extra Space Storage facility
located at:
900 N. GERMANTOWN PKWY
CORDOVA, TN 38018
901-757-8988
boxes, clothes, and appliances.
149-ANGELA HARRIS, 384-MARIA
PEREZ, 344-SHANNA MOORE, 447-ANGELA BISCEGLIA, 387-RICHARD MEANS,
11-NIKKI HUNTER
Mar. 4, 2012
Mhn11220
PUBLIC NOTICE
BY COMPETITIVE BIDDING ON MARCH
14TH AT 11:30 AM. AT THE EXTRA
8000 AUTUMN CREEK DR. CORDOVA,
TN 38016, 901-759-5691. THE PERSONAL GOODS STORED THEREIN BY
THE FOLLOWING MAY INCLUDE, BUT
ARE NOT LIMITED TO GENERAL HOUSEHOLD, FURNITURE, BOXES, CLOTHES
AND APPLIANCES. THE PROPERTY OF:
KENYA LACY 331, CORTNEY BRACK
386, SHERILYN LEATHERWOOD 804.
PURCHASES MUST BE MADE WITH
CASH ONLY AND PAID AT THE TIME
OF SALE. ALL GOODS ARE SOLD AS IS
AND MUST BE REMOVED AT THE TIME
SUBJECT TO ADJOURNMENT.
Mar. 4, 2012
Mhn11221
RELATED INFO
Also read our daily edition, The Daily
News, in print or online every business
day for public notices for Memphis &
Shelby County.
Go to www.memphisdailynews.com or
call 683.NEWS for more information.
PERSONAL PROPERTY
Notice is hereby given that the undersigned will sell, to satisfy lien of
the owner, at public sale by competitive bidding on March 14th, 2012 at
11:45AM at the Extra Space Storage
facility located at:
3175 N. GERMANTOWN RD
BARTLETT, TN 38133
901-386-5746 FAX 901-386-8094
boxes, clothes, and appliances.
H316 Sandra Hewins, G357 Michael
Land, L411 Joshua Shepp, A28 Heavenly
Flowers and More
Mar. 4, 2012
Mhn11222
The Memphis News
Call 683-NEWS
Toa visitor, itÕs barren desert.
Toour supporters, itÕs bustling with life.
Even the most arid landscapes are home to Earth’s amazing species. The Nature
Conservancy is dedicated to protecting the variety of plant and animal life on Earth—
even when found in the most unlikely places. The Nature Conservancy has protected
117 million acres in 28 countries. With your support, that number will keep growing.
Visit nature.org or call 1-888-2 JOIN TNC.
San Rafael Desert, Utah © David Muench
4His message is made possible by the generous support of this publication.
38 March 3-9, 2012
opinion
Manassas High’s Story
Part of Memphis’ Story
A
local white businessman
volunteers to lead a struggling inner-city football
team to an undefeated
season, yielding an Oscarwinning documentary film.
It sounds like a story right out of the
pages of the old Manassas High School
that stood for decades in the center of
a North Memphis that no longer exists – racially segregated by law, a place
where factories stood along side modest neighborhoods.
Except it is the story of the new
Manassas High School, an all-black
school in a poor neighborhood where
the population continues to dwindle
some 30 years after many of the factories closed. Some factors in the part of
North Memphis where this story takes
place have not changed.
That applies to the power on one
person to make a difference because
that difference is in the lives of others
who in turn changes the lives of still
others.
Bill Courtney – the volunteer coach
in “Undefeated” – probably seems to
some to be very different from the players he coached.
But you barely have to scratch the
surface of Memphis history to understand that Courtney is the owner of a
lumber company called Classic American Hardwoods and that Manassas
– old and new – are in the same area as
the epicenter of the city’s once-thriving
hardwood industry.
On the large open lot northwest of
Manassas once stood E.L. Bruce Co.,
in its prime the largest hardwood floor
manufacturer in the world.
Courtney watched the nearby Wolf
River rise with some trepidation less
than a year ago and moved some of his
stock around the yard to dodge the high
water. Maybe he and his players didn’t
have much in common in the view from
a distance. But that underestimates the
power of place that has always been
part of the identity of being a Memphian.
It’s not just where we live. It’s where
we used to live, where we work, the
places that exist in family stories passed
through previous generations.
These are real places with a real
connection on which new stories are
being made every day – not dreams, not
storylines.
Most of us live those stories with
no idea that an audience larger than
those around us is watching. If we are
lucky we come to see that our identity
is a matter of realizing we have more in
common once we take the very small
risk of reaching out that can seem so
intimidating.
Behind the Oscar talk is someone
who didn’t let what was dictate what
could be. He saw others struggling in
ways different than his own and identified with the struggle instead of the
differences.
Football analogies to life are easy.
We’ll end with a quote from Courtney
who was talking about his team and not
in the abstract.
“There’s a story under every helmet.”
What Does City Mean to You?
Memphis is at its best when we work
Last week we asked readers
cooperatively. Collaboration and giving
“What does Memphis mean to you?”
This question is the driving force behind is a hallmark of this great place. Other
cities might be the formal dining room
the creation of a community narraof music, but Memphis is the kitchen.
tive that will help us align our efforts
And everyone wants to be in
and come together with
the kitchen."
a shared voice so we can
Mary Nicole Blum: “To
sing about our city in
me, Memphis means oppitch-perfect unison and
portunity. As a young adult,
harmony.
once set on moving out of
To say we were overMemphis in order to land a
whelmed with heartfelt re‘decent’ job out of college, I
sponses is an understatement. We received countJeremy Park now see the opportunities
giving back here – for the ‘young and
less emails of personal
naïve’ – to pave the way for
stories, special moments,
other young professionals who feel
favorite places and amazing snapshots
the same. There are opportunities for
that deserve to be shared.
young adults to find jobs they love in
So, over the next few weeks, my
Memphis, and if we don't stay and use
plan is to share some of the responses
and to ask you to submit more, because our crafts to mold this city, it will never
reach its potential.”
I think you will see that each testimoShelley Baur: “Though not born
nial is a thread that comes together to
form a beautiful tapestry illustrating the here, Memphis means home, and I love
living here. I love Memphis, with all of its
place we call home.
faces of authenticity, soulfulness, great
Paul Morris: “Memphis is the underart forms in all shapes, colors, sizes (esdog that when you least expect it wins
pecially, the music!). … I love celebratyour heart. We come from behind and
ing Memphis with friends near and far
invent a new way of doing something,
like rock 'n' roll or the self-serve grocery when pockets of excellence are highlighted in national media – like Booker
store or curing cancer in children. We
T. Washington High School's recognidon't brag or even think that much
tion by President Barack Obama. … I
of ourselves. We're humble and we're
love [when our grandchildren] fall in
real. We have an old soul that has been
love with the new playground at Shelby
through much misery and is able to
Farms. …”
persist through much more. We are the
Now, what does Memphis mean to
blues, enjoying our depths and keeping
you?
the beat going for a brighter future.”
Ken Steorts: “Memphis means comJeremy Park, director of communicamunity. A city big enough to offer every- tions at Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance and
thing one desires and small enough to
director of the Lipscomb & Pitts Breakfast
do it with a personal touch. Like we sit
Club, can be reached at jeremyp@lpinsuron the river with a front porch to gather. ance.com.
Memphis is Tangled Up, So Let’s Just Tango On
A NEW WAY OF SEEING THINGS.
New Orleans is the city that throws
the country’s biggest party about this
time of year, putting on the biggest show
in return for a few colorful beads and
trinkets since the Indians gave away
Manhattan. It is also the city so much
larger than life that Katrina couldn’t
drown it, the subsequent loss of virtually
every support system couldn’t kill it, and
a slow and painful recovery can’t keep it
from partying harder and smiling wider.
From beneath that dark and troubling water, a city’s spirit bubbled to the
surface. In the same arena the country watched those dark and troubling
scenes of human desperation, the
country watched the BCS Championship in January.
So how does the city of Louis
Armstrong, the Neville Brothers, Al Hirt,
Bourbon Street and po boys see the city
of Handy, Elvis, Al Green, Beale Street
MEMPHASIS
dan conaway
and barbecue?
Over lunch at the Downtown
research center, The Little Tea Shop, I
asked that question of my distinguished
panel of one – Harry Freeman, from New
Orleans by way of Starkville.
Harry has much to teach us by his
own example. I met him not long after
he arrived, and he asked about getting
involved in the city. When he said he
was interested in music and community
radio, I suggested he check out WEVL.
He’d already done that and, in fact,
was already hosting his own show, The
Country Club, on the station. When he
mentioned an interest in books, I said
he might look into library programs –
maybe reading on the library station.
Yep.
He was already doing that, already a
member of Friends of the Memphis Public Library. And Friends of the University
of Memphis Library. And friends of this
and that citywide. Harry, unlike many
Memphians, doesn’t sit around wondering what happened, he gets out and gets
involved in what’s happening.
He sees a city sisterhood between
the Crescent City and the Bluff City,
born of the same river, warmly blessed
of abundant personality, coldly struck by
tragedy, world famous for music, always
ready with a story and something to eat
and drink. He was struck by lyrics in the
Broadway musical, “Memphis,” saying
our “streets are paved with soul.”
And I believe Harry and I are kindred souls in wondering why Memphis
chooses to concentrate on its problems as if no other place in the world
has them. Why the assets of our rich
diversity, inventive nature, giving heart
and creative DNA are largely ignored,
replaced by a morbid fascination with
the liabilities of ignoring and isolating
our poor and hopeless.
In short, why aren’t we celebrating
and elevating a great town, healing its
wounds and nurturing it to good health,
instead of occupying a dark and troubling place, waiting for it to die?
“In New Orleans, Harry said, “we can
choose to just deal with the trash in the
street or to dance in them while we do it.
We choose to dance.”
I’m a Memphian, and it’s time we
danced.
Dan Conaway, a lifelong Memphian,
longtime adman and aspiring local character in a city known for them, can be
reached at [email protected].
March 3-9, 2012 39
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2400 Poplar Bldg
2400 Poplar Ave
88 Union Bldg
88 Union Ave
Arcade
540 S Main
Atrium I
6800 Poplar Ave
Atrium II
6999 Poplar Ave
Bank of America
6060 Poplar Ave
Bank of Bartlett
6281 Stage Road
BankTennessee
30 N. Second St
Bari Ristorante
22 S Cooper St
Barksdale Restaurant
237 Cooper
Bartlett Library
5884 Stage
Bluefin Restaurant
135 S Main St
Bluff City Coffee
505 S Main
Bogie's Deli
2098 LaSalle Place
Bon Ton Café
150 Monroe Ave
Bookstar
3402 Poplar Ave
Brother Juniper's
3519 Walker Avenue
Burke's Book Store
936 S Cooper
Butcher Shop
101 S Front St
Café Eclectic
603 N McLean
111 Harbor Town Sq
Café Ole
959 S Cooper
Cartridge World
1603 Union Ave
Cheese Cake Corner
113 G.E. Patterson
CK Coffee Shop Locations
1698 Poplar Ave
3139 Poplar Ave
509 Highland
567 Perkins Extended
Clark Centre
5100 Wheelis Drive
Community Bank
6465 Quail Hollow
Cordova Country Club
7400 Cordova Club Dr
Davis-Kidd
387 Perkins Extended
Denny's
164 Union
Eastgate Office Bldg
5118 Park Ave
Emerge Memphis
516 Tennessee St
Exxon
252 E Highway 72
1375 Germantown Pkwy
3487 Poplar
4491 Poplar
2905 Kirby
7010 Winchester
5949 Stage Rd
1369 Sycamore View
7616 Poplar
Falls Bldg
22 N. Front St
Fino's
1853 Madison
First Tennessee Bank
4990 Poplar
Flying Saucer
130 Peabody Place
Fogelman Executive Center
3700 Central Ave
Fox & Hound
847 Exocet Dr
Front Street Deli
77 S Front St
Great Wines
6150 Poplar Ave
Guardsmark
22 S. 2nd St
Grubb & Ellis
5400 Poplar Ave
Half Shell
688 S Mendenhall
Happy Mexican Restaurant
385 S 2nd St
Highpoint Grocery
469 Highpoint Terrace
Huey's
7825 Winchester
1771 N Germantown Pkwy
77 S. Second
Jason's Deli
1199 Ridgeway Road
585 Chickering Lane
Java Co
3133 Forest Hill Irene
Kroger
1366 Poplar Ave
300 I-40 Service Rd
2269 Lamar
4270 Summer Ave
540 S Mendenhall Rd
3444 Plaza Rd
3226 Thomas
2632 Frayser Blvd
3545 Austin Peay
8039 Highway 51 N
5995 Stage Rd
4315 Highway 70
7615 Highway 70
2130 Exeter Rd
676 Germantown Rd
1675 Germantown Rd
9050 Highway 64
6660 Poplar Ave
1230 N Houston Levee
3830 Hickory Hill
7942 Winchester Rd
2835 Kirby Pkwy
3685 Houston Levee
240 W Poplar
4770 Riverdale
465 Stateline Rd
7251 Interstate Blvd
7427 Goodman Rd
3095 Goodman Rd
2380 Mt. Pleasant Rd
Lenny's Sub Shop
3593 Riverdale
Main Library
3030 Poplar Ave
Majestic Grill
145 S Main
McEwen's
122 Monroe
Memphis Brew
3573 Southen Ave
Brinkley Plaza
80 Monroe
Memphis City Hall
125 N Main
Memphis Regional Chamber
22 N Front, Ste 200
Miss Cordelia's
737 Harbor Bend
Office Max
1460 Union
7720 Poplar Ave
On The Border Restaurant
4552 Poplar
Otherlands
641 Cooper
Pearl's
303 S Main St
Perkins Restaurants
3455 Poplar Ave
5112 Park
1340 S Germantown Pkwy
Pete & Sam's Restaurant
3886 Park Avenue
Piggly Wiggly
729 White Station
1620 Madison Ave
Pyramid Liquors
120 Auction Ave Ste 101
Republic Coffee
2924 Walnut Grove Rd
Riverside BP
694 Riverside
Sekisui
2990 Kirby Whitten Rd
2130 W Poplar Ave
1884 N Germantown Pkwy
50 Humphreys Center
25 S Belvedere Blvd
4724 Poplar Ave
Shelby County Court House
140 Adams
Shell
7617 Poplar Ave
Shrine Bldg
66 Monroe
Smoothie King
3452 Poplar Ave
Soul Fish
863 S Cooper
Southern Folklore Café
123 S Main
Starbucks
1850 Union
Suntrust Bank Bldg
5350 Poplar Ave
93 Monroe
T. J. Mulligan's Locations
362 N Main St
8071 Trinity Road
TGI Friday’s
186 Union
The Corkscrew
511 S Front St
The Cupboard
1400 Union
The Edge Coffee House
394 N. Watkins
The Little Tea Shop
169 Monroe Ave
Tops BBQ
1288 Union Ave
Trinity Commons
Trinity @ Germantown Pkwy
UT Medical Center Area
839 Jefferson Ave
West Street Diner
2076 West St
White Station Towers
5050 Poplar Ave
YMCA
245 Madison Avenue
3548 Walker Avenue
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FINDING THE HEARTBEAT oF HEALTH CARE

Transcription

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