Having access to high speed broadband service is quickly becoming the most important differentiating infrastructure of our time. A 2016 report from then Commissioner for Economic and Community Development Randy Boyd, found businesses in Tennessee said broadband enabled 43 percent of all net new jobs and 66 percent of revenues. In addition, 34 percent of businesses classified broadband as essential to selecting their location, and 56 percent noted that it was essential to remain in their location.

I drive down east Emory Road about once a month and pass Block Springs Baptist Church in Blaine. Every time I pass the church, I fondly remember my husband’s Aunt Phoebe Peters who along with her husband, Ed Peters, and daughter, Mary Peters DeVault, were many years members there. Sadly, that family has died, but when we visited about twice a year they always had something for a treat. In summer, it was a start of Aunt Phoebe’s plants.

A number of celebrity suicides have been in the news lately. As a Christian, suicide is not an option for me, but who am I to judge? I was talking with my daughter, Anne, this evening and mentioned an episode that happened to a man I knew years ago. “You should write about that,” she said. I said that I would. Not to make me look good but to show what an influence you can have on another of God's children. Sometimes there are warning signs and sometimes there are not. There was this time. Here goes.

Once upon a time, East Tennesseans shopped in a retail palace, dined in a culinary palace, and were entertained in an entertainment palace. Within a short walking distance of each other along Knoxville's South Gay Street, all three establishments sold an inexpensive product amid luxurious surroundings.

Back in Genesis, Eve had an encounter with a snake. It caused her and the rest of us a lot of trouble. I hate snakes. Oh, I know there are good ones, black snakes and such, that keep the rodent population under control. There is also the other kind. They are on my “kill now” list. They used to be on my “kill now” list, but since I am now on a walker, I seldom venture into their environment.

For those of you dealing with high wedding costs, I may have a solution. Instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on a wedding dress that will be used once, buy some toilet paper and turn your imagination loose. A toilet paper wedding dress has many advantages. The total cost is under $20.00 and it doesn’t have to be dry-cleaned or put in storage. No hemming or altering is necessary. Just tear unneeded sections off. If you’re not satisfied with the design, just start over and make another one. And best of all, it can be recycled.

Mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) is an imported ornamental that is very common in our area and is most noticed when it produces its fluffy pink flowers in the summer. Its commonness is worrisome from a forest health standpoint.

A new study confirms that rocker bottom shoes help strengthen back muscles, improving the spine’s curvature and thus reducing low back pain.

Sports physiotherapy researchers have confirmed, in a new study of their research work into back pain, that unstable shoes improve the strength of back muscles in order to maintain balance and stability when walking. This muscular strengthening contributes to reducing low-intensity chronic low back pain, which can be disabling for those who suffer it.

Most of us have a pound package of bulk pork sausage hiding in the freezer somewhere. If you do, that is the beginnings of a good casserole. I don't consider this recipe a breakfast dish. It is more like a weeknight supper.

Talking about sausage, I remember twenty years or so ago buying bulk pork sausage from someone over on Texas Valley Road. No boughten sausage tasted as good as that one. When I think of pork sausage, theirs comes to mind. Of course, stores sell their own bulk pork sausage in the meat case. That is good, too.

It might be a school record. Scholarships won by the Union County High School class of 2018 topped $1 million, and school counselor Jennifer Pointer said if it's not a record, only the class of 2008 would have come close.