Month: January 2020

Categories
News News Blog

Register by Monday to Vote in the Tennessee Primary

Super Tuesday in Tennessee is coming fast (Tuesday, March 3rd). If you want to vote and haven’t registered, you have until this Monday, February 3rd, to get ‘er done.

Go to GoVoteTN.com, the online voter registration system set up by the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office. (Or scan the QR code in the above graphic). Any U.S. citizen with a driver’s license or a photo ID issued by the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security can register online.

Voters can also download a paper voter registration application at GoVoteTN.com or pick up an application in person from the county election commission, county clerk, register of deeds, or public library. Completed paper voter registration applications must be submitted or postmarked to the local county election commission office by February 3rd.

Early voting begins Wednesday, February 12th and runs Mondays through Saturdays until Tuesday, February 25th.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Rising Stars Challenge Looks to Be Very Grizzly

Brandon Clarke, Ja Morant, and Jaren Jackson Jr.

The selections for the Rising Stars Game held during NBA All-Star Weekend were announced this morning, and there are three Memphis Grizzlies on the Team USA and Team World rosters. 

Brandon Clarke, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Ja Morant have been selected to participate in this year’s Rising Stars Game. Clarke will be suiting up for Team World, while Jackson Jr. And Morant will be representing Team USA on the court. 


Congratulations are in order for these three members of the #GrzNxtGen.

See the full roster for both teams here.

Want to watch the game? 

The 2020 Rising Stars Game  will tip-off at 8 pm CST on February 14, 2020, airing nationally on TNT. 

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Honeyland

The Oscars are not an international film festival. They’re very local.”

That’s what director Bong Joon Ho said to Vulture when he was asked about Parasite becoming the first Korean film to be nominated for Best Picture. It’s funny because it’s true. Hollywood has been called a “mill town,” and the Academy Awards are basically just an annual industry banquet with an incredible PR team. The awards are usually settled by voters who are either too busy to see enough films to make a meaningful decision or hopelessly out of touch with the zeitgeist or both. Controversy is guaranteed — this is a feature, not a bug.

Originally, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn’t even consider films made outside of the United States. After giving out honorary awards for several years to films like Bicycle Thieves and Rashomon, the first Best Foreign Language Film was Federico Fellini’s La Strada in 1957.

One reason non-Hollywood films have always been an afterthought at the Oscars is because non-English films with subtitles have traditionally been a hard sell in America. But as the country becomes more diverse, that has been changing. These days, Malco Theaters regularly devotes screens to Bollywood movies. As I write this, the Telugu film Disco Raja is playing at the Majestic. The mainline Hollywood studios have become more and more dependent on foreign box office, which might be another incentive for the Academy to open up internationally. The subtitled Roma won Best Foreign Language Film and earned a Best Director award for Alfonso Cuarón in 2018, but a subtitled film has still never won Best Picture. Parasite, which I think is the best film from a pretty good year, has a chance to make history.

Another subtitled nominee has a chance to make history this year. Best Foreign Language Film got a long-overdue name change to Best International Feature Film, and Honeyland is nominated for both that honor and for Best Documentary. It’s no surprise the film has resonated. It’s a humane and fascinating story told with nuance and compassion for all of its subjects by directors Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov.

The project reportedly began life as a short film about efforts to preserve the area around the River Bregalnica in North Macedonia, until the directors met Hatidze Muratova. She is a beekeeper living with her 85-year-old mother in some of the roughest and most remote terrain in Europe. When we first meet her, Muratova is climbing along a treacherous mountain ridge to get to a rocky outcrop where a hive of bees has taken shelter. She takes a honeycomb and gently coaxes bees into her handmade, conical hive. She sings to the bees as she works, giving the impression that she’s not so much robbing the hive as she is recruiting workers.

Hatidze Muratova tends her hives in Honeyland.

Muratova’s world is timeless, idyllic, and lonely. She and her mother are the last two inhabitants of an abandoned village. Her beehives are tucked into nooks and crevices in crumbling stone walls that look like they could be 100 — or 1,000 — years old. Her golden rule is to never take more than half of the honey from any one hive, to ensure the bees have plenty to eat for themselves. Although she frequently works without protective equipment, we never see her get stung by a bee.

The natural rhythms of Muratova’s life are interrupted by the arrival of a family of itinerant farmers — Hussein Sam and his wife and seven children. They arrive in a caravan of cattle, trailers, and tractors, filling the silent hills with noise. At first, Muratova is happy to have new people to talk to. The Sams clearly have their hands full, and she’s got the farmer’s instinct for cooperation. But when Sam decides to take up beekeeping, conflict becomes inevitable. The contrast between his boxy, mass-produced hives and her handmade, organic hives becomes the film’s central visual metaphor. Muratova patiently tries to explain the sustainable, traditional beekeeping methods developed over thousands of years, but Sam has hungry mouths to feed and a pushy client who wants to move as much product as possible.

There are no good guys and bad guys here, just struggling people responding to incentives. Honeyland is cinéma vérité, which means there’s no voice-over and no talking head interviews. But there is more character and story in the film’s 87 minutes than in most $100 million blockbusters. As Bong Joon Ho said in his Golden Globe acceptance speech, “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Major Differences of Opinion continue on MATA, New Voting Machines.

Although the Shelby County Commission is relatively bipartisan in its functioning, certainly in comparison to other bodies elected by partisan contest (read: Congress, the Tennessee state legislature), the occasional issue can prompt ideological cleavages to surface.

As circumstances at Monday’s regular public meeting demonstrated, there is a Republican hardcore — consisting of (in rough order of ideological purity) Amber Mills, David Bradford, Brandon Morrison, and Mick Wright. The commission’s fifth Republican, chairman Mark Billingsley, is a de facto centrist, using his position to mediate between factions of all sorts, including those that are party-based.

The current deliberations on whether and by what means Shelby County government should buttress MATA (Memphis Area Transit Authority) provide a case in point. Support for county financing of MATA is strongest among the commission’s city-dwelling Democrats and problematic to the extent that a commissioner’s base is in the suburbs, where Republicans dominate.

Jackson Baker

for voter-marked ballots, shooting video of county commission debate on concept

This is especially the case regarding the debate on the county wheel tax, the $50 annual fee assessed on automobile ownership that has been proposed as the basis, via a new surcharge, for financing the county’s assistance to MATA. The wheel tax, created in 1957 to aid school construction, has always been controversial, especially as, over the years, it was tapped for purposes rather than education. But this latest proposal to add a $20 assessment earmarked for MATA, has really fired up opposition.

The initial test vote, the week before last, topped off at five commissioners in committee; nine votes would be needed to enact a fee increase, and that first preliminary vote of 5 to 4, with 2 abstentions, clearly indicated there would be very little progress toward approval without substantial modifications.

Further negotiation proved possible, however, as Sheriff Floyd Bonner added his voice to those of county Mayor Lee Harris and the various commissioners, and a hook was attached to the original proposal that gave it immediate relevance to the distrustful suburban commissioners. The recent de-annexation of several territories from the city of Memphis left those areas without claim to Memphis Police Department law enforcement. It was obvious that new sheriff’s deputies would be needed in the de-annexed areas and just as obvious that new funding would be needed to pay for them.

Hence the reshaping of the proposed county MATA legislation, earmarking a percentage of the new wheel tax surcharge for the purpose of hiring new deputies. Some version of that concept, with or without specific bifurcation from the wheel tax proper, is currently under discussion both within the commission at large and under the auspices of a new Transportation Ad Hoc Committee created by chairman Billingsley and co-chaired by Commissioners Tami Sawyer and Mick Wright, pillars, respectively, of the Democratic and the Republican base.

Meanwhile, the wheel tax itself is under renewed attack. GOP Commissioner Morrison took the lead with a proposed resolution to subtract an annual $5 from the existing $50 wheel tax, to be offset by eliminating the commission’s $2.6 million annual fund for community enhancement grants. Money to make these grants is distributed equally to each member of the commission and then to individuals and a variety of causes deemed worthy by the commissioners. The ability to assign such lagniappe is especially significant for the Democratic commissioners of the economically underserved inner city. They are correspondingly viewed with something approaching indifference in the Republican suburbs.

Morrison’s proposal was a nonstarter in committee and, when brought to the floor of the regular meeting on Monday, begat a parade of vocal opponents from an audience jam-packed with spokespersons for the numerous programs, agencies, and causes that have benefited from, and in many cases have depended on, the enhancement grants.

So overwhelming was this response that Commissioner Wright posed the obvious response, an amendment, that passed without objection, to strike all reference to grants from the wheel tax reduction proposal.

As popular (and as inevitable) as that action was, it left the resolution without any visible or obvious means for offsetting the potential loss to the budget, which was recalculated on the spot to be $3.6 million annually.

Even so, the now-denatured measure was submitted to a vote, and four commissioners — all members of the aforementioned GOP hardcore of Mills, Bradford, Morris, and Wright — still voted for it, clearly as a symbolic gesture only.

What all this augurs is the likelihood of vigorous argument over the budget when that process begins some weeks from now, and several ad hoc skirmishes over expenditures between now and then.

• For several years, sentiment had been mounting among local voting-rights activists for new voting machines, and at length the Shelby County Election Commission, county Election Administrator Linda Phillips, and the Shelby County Commission all concurred in the necessity for such refurbishing, inasmuch as scarcely a single election has occurred in the last several decades without some mishap — and often a full-blown scandal — marring it.

The issue is, which kind of new machine. All principals acknowledge that the new machines, which Phillips has said she hopes to have on hand in time for this year’s August round of voting, must have “paper trail” capacity, for purposes of accuracy. The main source of debate at the moment is whether the new machines should allow for “voter-marked” ballots, filled out by hand and subject to a verification process including scanning by machine, or rely instead on machine-marked ballots, the printed results of which can be checked before final casting.

Phillips has said she prefers the latter process, maintaining that there is an 8 to 12 percent chance of voter error with voter-marked paper ballots. Proponents of such ballots deny those statistics and counter that the process of machine-marking ballots allows for fraud by means of computer hacking.

Democratic Election Commissioner Bennie Smith makes the latter point and last week conducted a demonstration before the county commission of how just a hacking could occur.

While the commission must approve the final funding for the new machines, it is the Election Commission which will determine the type to be purchased. An RFP (“request for proposal”) has been issued by the SCEC, and responses are expected on behalf of both types of voting machine. A group of pro-voter-marking activists turned up at last week’s meeting of the Election Commission and were denied permission to speak, on grounds that the RFP process was incomplete, though Smith and Republican Election Commissioner Brent Taylor demurred from the prohibition.

A group of the activists, with Smith in tow, lobbied the county commission on behalf of a resolution backing the voter-marked machines on Monday. Sponsor Van Turner acknowledged that the ultimate decision lay with Phillips and the SCEC but noted, “We can withhold funding.” Phillips countered: “And we can sue.”

In the end, the county commission sent the matter back to committee for further discussion.

Categories
News News Blog

Health Department Debunks Internet Rumor of Coronavirus at 201 Poplar

CREDIT: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Health Department Debunks Internet Rumor of Coronavirus at 201 Poplar (3)

Nope. Not according to the Shelby County Health Department Thursday afternoon.

“That is absolutely not true,” said Joan Carr, the department’s public information officer. “There are NO coronavirus cases or suspect cases in Memphis or specifically 201 Poplar.”

As of Wednesday, the virus has only been confirmed in four states — California, Washington, Illinois, and Arizona — by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials in Arkansas are awaiting test results for a patient who had recently travelled to China, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. That patient is in isolation and test results are expected tomorrow.

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

But if you tuned into Memphis social media Thursday, you might be wondering if the coronavirus has spread to the confines of the Walter L. Bailey Jr. Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar.

Health Department Debunks Internet Rumor of Coronavirus at 201 Poplar

 

Health Department Debunks Internet Rumor of Coronavirus at 201 Poplar (2)

Carr said the annual, seasonal flu has killed eight children in Tennessee so far this year and has put thousands of people in the hospital. The flu is spreading through Shelby County right now, she said.

“We are literally giving the flu vaccine away at all the public health clinics right now, and very few people are taking advantage of it,” Carr said. “If Memphians are really worried about respiratory viruses, they should go out and get a free flu vaccine, because they are far more likely to get the flu from someone in the next cubicle than they are to get the novel coronavirus from China.”

Categories
Music Record Reviews

In Dolemite Is My Name Score, Scott Bomar Puts His Weight On It

“You’ve been blessed by Moses.” Those were the words uttered by none other than Isaac Hayes when he visited tracking sessions for the soundtrack to Hustle and Flow.  While that Craig Brewer film led to Three 6 Mafia winning an Oscar in 2006, much of the picture’s music marked the breakout of local producer, composer, and bassist Scott Bomar, and it was during his sessions that Moses descended.

Now, with Bomar’s soundtrack to Brewer’s latest, Dolemite Is My Name, that blessing has come to fruition. As Bomar recently told Variety, “I would say any Memphis influence that’s in the music is through the influence of the film scores that Isaac Hayes did. Isaac…was a very big influence and mentor to Craig and I both. I feel like that blessing has continued into this project, because he would have really loved this. We use three of the musicians on the score who were in his group who played on the scores to Shaft, Tough Guys and Truck Turner: Willie Hall (on drums), Lester Snell (on keys) and Michael Toles (on guitar).”
Courtesy Memphis Music Hall of Fame

Scott Bomar & Don Bryant

Bomar has always had impeccable instincts in choosing his players, as with the globe-trotting Bo-Keys, who purvey classic soul with front men like Percy Wiggins and Don Bryant. Some of those players overlap in this project, though there are some other cameos as well: actor Craig Robinson, regional blues lifer Bobby Rush, Beale Street royalty Blind Mississippi Morris, and trombonist Fred Wesley, who played with James Brown for many years, also make appearances.

Needless to say, this is one funky, soulful soundtrack, a veritable encyclopedia of 70s motifs and riffs. Wah-wah guitar, clavinet, organ, and punchy horns abound, all grounded by the rock-solid rhythms of Bomar and drummer Willie Hall. Having said that, many imaginative flourishes abound. “Pur Your Weight On It,” for example, employs some period-authentic synthesizer and unorthodox, high register bass notes to disarming effect. The campy “Ballad of a Boy and Girl,” sung by Eddie Murphy and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, makes for perhaps the most powerful use of kazoo in any major motion picture soundtrack.  And, as with so many classic Isaac Hayes tracks, the heavy funk is decorated with some gorgeous orchestral embellishments.

Beyond Isaac Hayes, amidst all the pitch-perfect funkisms, there are some unexpected influences on this music. As Brewer told Variety, “I told Scott Bomar that I wanted him to treat the score for Dolemite Is My Name as if it were a little bit of like a superhero movie. I wanted there to be a “Rudy theme,” just like there would be a Luke Skywalker or Captain America theme.”

Scott Bomar

Bomar adds, “The theme to Superman was definitely a reference for this film. With the melody that we call the Rudy theme, the first time we hear it is in the beginning of the film where he’s creating the character and experimenting with the comedy routine; by the end of it, with the music building, he’s pulling a wig out of a box in the closet, and when the wig is revealed, that’s where we first hear this theme. It’s used a few times throughout the film, and then the last time we hear it is at the end when they’re going to the premiere; when Rudy steps out of the limo, that’s where the Rudy theme is fully developed. And, definitely, the reference there was the theme from Superman.”

Aside from the two tracks sung by Robinson, the track by Bobby Rush perfectly captures the gritty roadhouse blues vibe, fired by his uncanny delivery, and Blind Mississippi Morris, accompanied by Jason Freeman, brings things down to earth as the album’s closer. All in all, it’s a grand survey of the sounds that make this place burn with musical passions, expertly curated and assembled by one of the city’s greatest contemporary producers.

Hear Scott Bomar speak with author Robert Gordon about this and other music he’s created, tonight at the Memphis Music Listening Party, Thursday, January 30, 7 pm, at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library. Free.

Categories
News News Blog

Bank Robber Pleads Guilty Mid-Trial

CREDIT: Memphis Police Department/Facebook

Memphis Police Department/Facebook

A video shows Arnold Eden’s robbery of the Hope Federal Credit Union in 2017.

Before all the proof had been laid out in federal court, Arnold Eden must have decided he’d seen enough.

Eden, 52, was on trial this week for the 2017 robbery of the Hope Federal Credit Union on Ridgeway Road. Law enforcement officials had a video of the robbery that showed Eden’s face. They also had fingerprints he’d left on a glass door as he left the bank.

With all of this, Eden pleaded guilty to the robbery during the course of the jury trial, U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant announced Thursday.
[pullquote-1] According to Dunavant’s office, Eden entered the bank at 1:17 p.m. on July 3rd, 2017. He gave the teller a note demanding money. The teller told officials the note said, “I have a gun. I have nothing to lose. I want two stacks of hundreds.” The teller gave Eden $2,602 in cash. Eden then fled the scene.

You can see the exchange in this video:

Bank Robber Pleads Guilty Mid-Trial

“These disturbing and brazen acts of violence will not be tolerated, and will be met with firm resolve, quick investigative action, and aggressive federal prosecution,” Dunavant said in a statement.

A defendant taking a case all the way to federal court is rare these days, according to the Pew Research Center. Researchers there said nearly 80,000 people were defendants in federal criminal cases in 2018, but only 2 percent of them went to trial. The overwhelming majority (90 percent) pleaded guilty instead, while the remaining 8 percent had their cases dismissed.

Most defendants who did go to trial were found guilty, either by a jury or judge.

Eden faces up to 20 years in federal prison followed by 3 years supervised release. His sentencing is scheduled for May before U.S. District Court Judge Mark S. Norris.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

What an Editor Does

When someone asks me what an editor does, I like to tell a story from my days as the editor of Pittsburgh Magazine in the late 1980s.

My publisher at the time was a bright, charming woman and very active socially. One Saturday night, she met a distinguished brain surgeon at a dinner party. Over the course of the evening, the surgeon regaled my publisher with story after story — the drama and intrigue of surgery, the tragic diagnoses, the miraculous successes, funny tales from the operating room, the ebb and flow of life and death.

He made quite the impression, apparently. I say this because on Monday morning my publisher called me into her office and informed me she’d “assigned” Dr. Raconteur to write a feature for the magazine, putting some of the tales he’d told at dinner down on paper.

I had one question: “Can he write?”

“Of course, he can write,” she responded. “He’s a brain surgeon!”

Silly me.

So, I followed up with “Dr. Anderson” the next day and went over the mechanics of turning in a story to the magazine.

“We’ve got you slated for the December issue,” I said. “So we’ll need the copy November 1st. Around 3,500 words or so.”

“Sure,” the doctor said. “That gives me six weeks to knock it out. No problem at all.”

“Great, I’ll check in with you around that time.”

You know where this is going, don’t you?

The good doctor did not have the story ready on November 1st, when I called.

“When’s the latest I can get this to you?” he asked. (Pro tip: When an editor hears this question from a writer, it means, “I haven’t started writing yet.”)

“No later than November 15th,” I said. “And that’s the drop-dead date.”

On the 15th, I got 6,000 words or so from Dr. Anderson. I say “words” because that’s what I got — anecdotes with no coherent organization, no beginning, no conclusion, just “stories” that read like they’d been dictated to a secretary. Which, I found out later, was exactly what he’d done.

I had no real backup plan to fill the space in that issue, and besides, my publisher had promised him he’d be in the magazine. So, I took the manuscript home and worked on it for two solid days, trying to give it some sort of structure, a narrative flow. Basically, I rewrote the damn thing from scratch, and we managed to get it into the December issue.

My publisher was delighted with the story. The doctor was also delighted, apparently choosing not to notice that what appeared in print under his byline bore very little resemblance to the word salad he’d given me.

Six months later, I was sitting with the publisher and my editorial staff around a dinner table at the William Penn Hotel. We were there for the Golden Quill awards, which annually honor the best journalism in Western Pennsylvania.

You know where this is going, don’t you?

When it was announced that Dr. Anderson’s riveting tales from the operating room had won Best Magazine Feature, the editorial staff’s eyes rolled so hard you could hear them click in their sockets. I pasted on a smile and went to the podium. When I returned to our table after accepting the award, my publisher, who knew what I’d been through with the doctor’s story, laughed and said, “See, I told you he could write.”

And that’s basically the life of an editor: You work in the weeds and try to help your writers produce better stories. It’s a collaborative gig, and I’ve loved it for almost 40 years.

Okay, you probably don’t know where this is going, but good editors know when to cut to the chase: I’m retiring as editor of the Flyer soon. I’m not leaving the paper or the company, but I think it’s time for me to step off the editor’s weekly treadmill while I’m still younger than most leading presidential candidates. We’ll be conducting a search for the next editor over the next few weeks. Experienced only. Must have a feel for the city, know how to lead a great staff, and have a way with words — their own, and others’. Stay tuned.

I plan to continue writing a weekly column for the Flyer (and occasional features) and also to do some writing for Memphis magazine. I’m just leaving the 40-hour grind — and any future Dr. Andersons — to my successor.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Ukraine Blues: A Test Drive of Mama’s Little Yella Pils

If you’ve ever been to Ukraine, specifically the city of Kharkov, about 20 miles from the Russian border, you realize that the fact that they’d elect a comedian and star of such rom-coms as Office Romance 1, 2, and 3 as president is entirely plausible. Even advisable.

It’s not an easy place to get to either: an eight-hour flight to Amsterdam, another four hours to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, and then a final hour leg on a hulking Soviet-era Anatov that moves through the clouds like a barely sky-worthy sofa.

When I was there, the Russians hadn’t pulled their little cross-border stunt yet, and while everyone knew that they were cooking something up, no one knew what form said stunt was going to take. So the Ukrainians did what most of us do when an ill-advised ex shows up musing about getting back together. They started drinking heavily.

Of course, given the over-abundance of history in these parts, they never really stopped drinking. And they’ve gotten very good at it. They aren’t ale folk over there; they mostly go in for Bohemian pilsners to wash down a local spirit called pertsivka, which is just horilla made with hot peppers. (Horilla, it was explained to me, was what Americans who don’t know the difference call vodka). All of which is soaked up with black bread and sausage. What is an intrepid writer to do when he finds himself in a place like Kharkov? He goes native.

Contrary to popular belief, Bohemia is not the home of the University of Colorado, nor is it a neighborhood in San Francisco; it is the westernmost region of the Czechs. Since the last reshuffling of Europe, it’s been located in the Czech Republic. It is also the place where sneers about pilsners being boring go to die.

Admittedly, this was an odd line of thought to be having in that great whacking beer isle of the Midtown Cash Saver, but it’s also pretty bent to get paid to drink at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday. So, there we are. I was staring at a six-pack of Oskar Blues Mama’s Little Yella Pils — and perhaps it was the inescapably Ukraine flavored impeachment theatrics — when I found myself reaching for this Bohemian pilsner and wondering where I could find some black bread. Mama’s Little Yella Pils is a clear golden, medium-bodied lager with a flavor that doesn’t faint away like the more watered-down American version. Using a lot of German malts and yeast, it’s cool-fermented and has a light touch of the Bavarian hops. It will pair well with the usual, just a little better: hot dogs, burgers, and in the rainy back-end of winter, a massive bowl of chili. And given the winter we’ve been having, it doesn’t cancel itself when the weather goes off-script. It’s a brew that you can enjoy, whether you want to give it much thought or not. This is beer as best supporting actor, not the lead — a role the current president of Ukraine wishes he had.

I can’t say that it took me back to those long, strange days in Kharkov. Which is probably a good thing: I recall being packed into one of the city’s buses and seeing a boy, maybe 12, walking down the street with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, holding a 16-ounce beer. I wasn’t the only one who saw him, just the only one who thought the whole thing was a little bent. He stopped to say something to a policeman. I don’t know if the kid was speaking Ukrainian or Russian, but the cop gave him a light.

In sum, Oskar Blues is a good beer for a picnic, after work, or to look across a surreal political climate and say, in that English-as-a-second-language accent, “We’re screwed. We are so totally screwed.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

20 < 30 The Class of 2020

CREDIT: Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

This is the eleventh year the Memphis Flyer has asked our readers to tell us about outstanding young people who are making the Bluff City a better place. We had a record number of nominees, so narrowing it down to 20 was more difficult than ever. We do this so Memphis can meet the leaders who will be shaping our future. Even though we live in a time of uncertainty, speaking to these talented 20 never fails to fill us with hope.

Here they are: Your 20<30 Class of 2020.

Photographs by Justin Fox Burks

Special thanks to Central Station Hotel for hosting our photo shoot.

……

Austin Rowe

Austin Rowe

Realtor

Austin Rowe wants you to Make Memphis Home. He adopted the motto three years ago when he got his realtor’s license, and he’s been putting people in houses ever since — he’s on track to sell $4.5 million worth this year. “I tell people all the time that Memphis has an undercurrent of soul that can’t be seen, it can’t be heard, it just pulls you in.”

Rowe lives in Midtown with his partner Taylor and their corgi Rivendell. He is active in Friends For Life and president of the Memphis chapter of the National Association of Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals. “I like the diversity in my neighborhood the most. You have African-American families, young white families, and older retired people living here. You have Latino families, Asian families. It’s everything about what America is supposed to be.”

……

Jared Boyd

Jared “Jay B.” Boyd

Reporter, Daily Memphian

After three years in Mobile, Alabama, Jared Boyd couldn’t wait to return to Memphis. “You know, home is home.”

When the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media graduate was offered a job at the Daily Memphian, he jumped at the chance. “I think the big thing about working here is how many well-respected stars are in this newsroom,” he says. “It’s like coming to work for the Avengers every day.”

Boyd’s other passion is music. “I started writing and recording in my bedroom when I was 12,” he says.

These days, he is the co-host of Beale Street Caravan, the long-running syndicated radio show that highlights music from Memphis and beyond. On the weekends, he can be found in the DJ booth. “Central Station is my home base … People come there and visit from as far away as London, and I love having conversations with people about music. It’s fun to be in that space and be the total brand ambassador.”

……

Paris Chanel

Paris Chanel

Modeling Agency Owner, Social Media Influencer

This is not the first time Paris Chanel has been on the cover of the Memphis Flyer. Most recently, the owner of the Paris Chanel Agency graced these pages on Valentine’s Day 2019. “I started [modeling] when I was 12,” she says. “It was love at first sight, and I haven’t stopped.

“Growing up in the industry, there weren’t a lot of girls who looked like me. And I thought, the lack of diversity is deep here. So I wanted to do something different. I want to be able to show diversity in all forms. We represent models who aren’t the standard shape and size. We have plus-size models, and we’re looking to get plus-size men on board, too … Everybody deserves a time to shine. So that was my thing — I wanted to create a new avenue for people who probably wouldn’t have been given the chance to explore their dreams.”

……

Ethan ferguson

Ethan Ferguson

Tech Entrepreneur

The first company Ethan Ferguson founded was Augseption XR, which offered augmented reality services for education uses. The second was Cinilope, which is developing new uses for drones. The most remarkable part of the story is, Ferguson is a 20-year-old sophomore at Rhodes College. “I decided  to put down roots in Memphis during high school. I had clients in my hometown, and I really wanted to keep working with them in the future. Being able to stay in Memphis to grow my business has been an amazing opportunity for me.

“Things are changing, and much of that has to do with the education system. We need to put education first. We need to be ready for the new, more automated, high-tech economy. Many of our students are being underserved. Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot to upgrade from the old way of thinking to a  new one because the technology is everywhere.”

……

Ayo Akinmoladun

Ayo Akinmoladun

Dean of Instruction, Cornerstone Preparatory Elementary

“I graduated from Georgetown in 2013,” says Ayo Akinmoladun. “When I was in D.C., I did student teaching, and I realized that a lot of educational inequality popped up in D.C. So I looked all over the world until I saw Teach For America. They matched me here in Memphis. I’ve been here for seven years. I’ve seen the effect the political and the educational landscape has on students. I think, how can I change the narrative as a black educator here? As a rising principal, how can I change the narrative so students have access to college and [the same] opportunities as their peers?”

Akinmoladun says just seeing someone who looks like them at the head of the class can help encourage students who might otherwise get discouraged. “Black male teachers make a difference for low-income black boys. [With them], they are 29 percent more likely to pursue college and 39 percent less likely to drop out of high school.”

……

Terrica Cleaborn-Thornton

Terrica Cleaborn-Thornton

Lil’ Miracles Food Truck and Catering

Terrica Cleaborn-Thornton says she got her gifts from her mother. “We’ve catered for dignitaries. We’ve catered for Tom Shadyac, the Hollywood producer and U of M professor.”

When Cleaborn-Thornton thought it was time to upgrade to a food truck, she approached her mother with the idea. “We went to her right after she found out she had stage one cancer. ‘Mom, we have a gift. People flock to your home for food — all races, nationalities, and classes. Let’s serve.’ She said she wouldn’t do it unless we were giving back. I said, ‘We’re going to make it our mission that every homeless person, or someone in need, gets to eat for absolutely free, no matter what. That’s when we came up with the Pass Forward initiative.

At Lil’ Miracles Food Truck, what would usually be tips are put toward feeding anyone in crisis, no questions asked. Thornton calls the needy people who come to her for help Wandering Angels. “If you give people a reason to give back, they will.”

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Deveney Perry

Deveney Perry

Resilient Communities Manager, BLDG Memphis

This Spelman College alumna and native Memphian is taking on equitable community and economic development in Memphis. “I’ve been working on a national initiative that works with communities to ensure community voices and decision-making guide equitable growth and development. The growth and development will benefit their health as well as their economic opportunities.” 

Perry’s work for BLDG Memphis includes things like supporting North Memphis communities to achieve and maintain land ownership, revitalizing public spaces that actually work for the people living there, and building the trust that society needs to thrive.

“We start community engagement at the point of a transactional need. We don’t start at the point of just building relationships. … Community engagement is not a one-time thing that is based on a need or an agenda. It’s a relationship that’s built over time. That’s how we’re able to support and revitalize Memphis neighborhoods.”

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Gene Robinson

Gene Robinson

Germantown High School Football Coach

“I played football at Whitehaven High School, and that was my way to a free education,” says Gene Robinson. “I got a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina. It was there I got my passion for being able to come back to Memphis and show these young people the opportunities. When I got there, I was like, wow, there are all types of people here, and we’re all getting a free education through the game of football. You hear, ‘This kid can’t succeed,’ but get them on a college campus and get them a degree … well, most of my friends now have good jobs.”

When Robinson returned to Memphis after his collegiate career as a letterman defensive back, he became a coach for Fairley High School football, where he led the Bulldogs to three consecutive regional championships. As 2020 dawned, he moved to Germantown High School.

“I wanted to come back to Memphis because this is where I learned my grit, my grind. I wanted to give these kids a way out.”

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Rod Erby

Roderick Erby

IT Auditor, International Paper

Roderick Erby has always been a good student. Looking back, he says he realized that he didn’t succeed alone. “I’ve had many informal mentors who, throughout the years, have taught me things that, at the time, I didn’t know I needed … I didn’t realize the gravity of that until I got to college.”

When he’s not keeping the information systems humming at IP, he devotes himself to mentoring people. “I have a mentee in graduate school and one who is about to graduate from high school. Here at International Paper, we have a scholar group of eight or nine kids we meet with every other Monday. They’re juniors in high school. One thing I always find I can help people with is professional etiquette … More recently, I’ve become interested in positive mental health practices. That’s where I’ve helped a lot of my friends who are even my age understand what it means to take care of their mental health, to get a therapist, and to be really intentional about making sure they’re okay mentally, as well as physically and spiritually … That’s what it comes down to for me: helping people. I’ve learned things. I’ve had a lot of experiences. Anything I can do to pass that along to other people to help them, that’s what makes me feel good.”

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Kevin Brooks

Kevin Brooks

Filmmaker

The two-time Memphis Film Prize winner, Sundance fellow, and youngest-ever board member for the Memphis and Shelby County Film and Television Commission started his trajectory when he saw The Matrix at age 6. “I just really loved how that movie was very entertaining, but at the same time, it has moments that I felt were deeper than just action … That’s just kind of always stuck with me. I want to make entertaining films, but I want it to cause you to really think and leave the theater different than when you came in. That same year, my dad came home with a camera, so it’s like everything kind of played together. It was just meant to be, I guess.”

After the success of “Night Out,” the short he co-directed with Abby Myers, Brooks is working on a documentary and his first-ever feature film, which he plans to shoot in Memphis. “The best artists are the ones who know how to kill the ego and know it’s about serving the audience. That’s what you’re doing: You’re making something that can touch someone, and change someone’s life.”

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Victoria Young

Victoria Young

Attorney, Baker Donelson

Before Victoria Young went to law school, she was a teacher. “I love teaching, but the changes I want to see made aren’t going to be done in the classroom. In order for me to have the effect I want to have, I would need to understand policy and how policymakers and legislators think. … It feels like the manifestation of a dream. I am blessed not only to practice law, but to be able to practice law in Memphis at a firm that has such a rich tradition and a rich history.”

For most people, that would be enough. But not for Young. She started spin classes while in college at Duke University, and when she returned to Memphis, she started Spincult, a boutique cycling studio in the Medical District.

“I wanted Spincult to be a hub for the anchor institutions of the Medical Center, but I was also building a place for me, as a grad student, to enjoy. … I wanted it to be a place where people who do the heart work can come and get a hard workout in.”

Earlier this month, Young welcomed her first daughter into the world. “Now, it’s even more important that I’m able to show her that you have to genuinely invest in the people you care about, and the places you care about.”

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Kevin Woods

Kevin Woods

Urban Farmer

“When I came to Memphis about six years ago, I saw opportunity. There was so much blight around, vacant lots that I could utilize. I started looking at how to acquire some of these lots and went to the land bank and purchased a few. I was just trying to make urban farming a viable option for people in the city. … My urban farm is where all the blight is, where people are not likely to end up. People don’t want to live there. I was in those kinds of communities, trying to inspire people to either grow their own food to eat or to make a viable income for themselves. I haven’t reached that point, where you can sustain yourself from urban ag, but I’m going to keep working until I can do that.”

Woods, who also works as a project coordinator for Memphis Area Legal Services, renovated a formerly blighted house where he lives with his new baby Uriah. “I think we’re fighting toward a Memphis for everybody. Memphis has so much personality, so much flavor. It’s unfair to keep it in just one neighborhood.”

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Joi Taylor

Joi Taylor

Alumni Director, Choose 901

Joi Taylor’s job is to keep talented young people in Memphis. “I was born and raised here. This is my city.”

She started working at Choose 901 in May 2017. “We have five local partner schools in the City of Memphis,” she says. “The whole idea is, after these kids graduate from these partner schools, they enter our program. Right now, we have over a thousand alumni in this program. Our objective is to connect them with opportunities, to mentor them. Anything they need to get ahead in life, it’s our job to connect them with that. But at the same time, to equip them with the skills and know-how to apply what they’ve learned from their mentors to the workplace. … Our whole thing is to make sure that the next generation of leaders in Memphis is well-equipped to take over and be the best that they can be. We want to improve the city of Memphis and [to help people] understand the leadership that’s in place now, so they won’t be clueless when it’s their turn to follow their dreams and take their rightful place as leaders of this city.”

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Cara Greenstein

Cara Greenstein

Senior PR + Social Media Manager, Doug Carpenter and Associates

Cara Greenstein started her first food and lifestyle blog while she was in college in Austin, Texas. “Caramelized was a school project I started in a public relations writing class in 2012. It combines my passion for writing and story time with cooking and entertaining. When it originally started, it was just to practice my writing skills in the blog medium. But after I turned it in for a grade, I wanted to keep doing it.”

Her writing gained the attention of the Austin Chronicle, and her readership has continued to grow from there. “More recently, I’ve been working with national brands and products to be their lifestyle ambassador while also balancing the great food and lifestyle scene of my city.”

As soon as she graduated, she came back home. “I was watching Memphis’ development get started. I was seeing Downtown and the energy that was being reinvested, and I wanted to be a part of it. I actually met Doug Carpenter, who is now my boss at DCA, when I was a senior and considering my next move. It was even more compelling after that conversation. … I’m looking to build a city that is better connected.”

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Katherine King

Katherine King

Senior Engineer, FedEx

“I am looking at what FedEx will be five to 10 years out,” says Katherine King. “My work involves looking at vision systems, robotics, and exoskeleton technology, which falls into general human augmentation technology. I get pretty excited about my job!

“When I was first looking for a way to connect with Memphis, I looked for places where I could find people like me, people in my community. Coming from Mississippi, and as someone who came out in college, I didn’t really have a community that identified with me as being part of the LGBTQ community. OUTMemphis was one of the first places that I looked. They just had so many opportunities to get involved.”

King has been an advisor for the OUTMemphis PRYSM youth group and met her future wife through the Metamorphosis Project. For the last two years, she has been the director of the Outflix Film Festival. “One thing I’m excited about, and have really tried to push for at the festival, is to broaden the idea of the LGBTQ voice when it comes to film. … I think there will always be a place for the coming out story in our community, but there’s room for more stories beyond that first step out of the closet.”

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Daniel Bastardo-Blanco

Daniel Bastardo-Blanco

Ph.D. Student, UTHSC St. Jude Integrated Biomedical Science Program

“We are interested in understanding how the immune system works — how the body defends itself against cancer, against bacteria, and infection. In particular, I’m interested in understanding the molecular processes that drive the development of specialized immune cells. We use a number of tools to dissect which molecular players are key in the development of T-Cells, highly specialized white blood cells.”

Bastardo Blanco has a talent for communication that is the envy of many in his field. He has been published in everything from Nature to The Commercial Appeal. He is a freelance journalist and blogger who has advised his colleagues on “Bringing your science out of the journal and into the world.

“I am truly fascinated by the power of science,” he says. “I really believe science has the power to change life and to make the world better. But since I have become a scientist, I have come to realize there is a disconnect between scientists and the general public. We don’t really make a big effort to bridge the two, and we depend on each other.”

He is the founding president of the Venezuelan Alliance of Memphis and the former head of the UTHSC Graduate Student Executive Council. Next month, his research in Memphis will reach its climax when he defends his Ph.D. thesis.”This is coming in great timing for me because it’s really a conclusion of a very big chapter of my life.”

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Carrington Trueheart

Carrington Trueheart

Cellist, Iris Orchestra

Carrington Trueheart didn’t start playing cello until the eighth grade, a full decade later than most people who perform at his rarified level. But that didn’t stop the Raleigh/Frayser native from obtaining his master’s degree from the University of Memphis and playing with some of the best conductors and musicians in the world. “One thing that music has taught me is, the more you know, the more you don’t know. I feel like every time I enter a new chapter of my life, that circle becomes bigger and bigger. So if you ask me if I’m a natural, I say maybe. But I have to work at it a lot.”

Trueheart is currently the Artist Fellow for the Iris Orchestra. “Part of the fellowship is addressing social inequity in the arts,” he says. “It’s a wonderful program that allows us to do a lot of community outreach. We get to play for kids at Le Bonheur and Hope House. We travel all over Memphis teaching kids in schools. It’s been a big part of my transition from being in school to being a professional.”

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Goldie Dee

Goldie Dee

Entertainer

Goldie Dee, aka Micah Winter, thrives in the spotlight. “What really gives me anxiety is being in a room that is uncontrolled. When I go into an event space and I’m not an MC or a performer, I want to control it. If things are going off the rails, I feel it is my duty to jump in and contribute to the success of it. I get more anxiety being offstage watching people fail than I do being onstage failing.”

As the new historical marker at Evergreen Theater attests, there has long been an underground drag scene in Memphis. By performing in nontraditional venues and prestigious events such as the Cotton Carnival, Goldie Dee has been instrumental in bringing drag into the mainstream. “I’m on the board of Friends of George’s. It was one of the original discos here in town, which operated from the 1970s to the 1990s. We now operate as a charitable group. We have about four big shows a year under the TheatreWorks umbrella. We do three major donations a year of $10,000-$15,000.”

During the recent holiday season, she estimates she spent upward of 50 hours a month on stage. “That is my goal with Goldie: To be very visible at all times.”

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Katrina Dorse

Katrina Dorse

Executive Director, Big Heart Fund

“I grew up in Memphis,” says Katrina Dorse. “I was one of those young people who … said ‘I’m never coming back.'”

She was pursuing a master’s degree in social work in Washington, D.C., when she became pregnant. “This was not in the five-year plan I had laid out,” she says.

Dorse returned to Memphis to have her baby with support from her family. “Kellen was born with seven congenital heart defects.”

About 1 in 100 babies are born with heart disease. Kellen spent three of his five months of life at the Le Bonheur cardiovascular intensive care unit, with Katrina by his side. “When I look back on our journey, I see I was very fortunate because we had a lot of support.”

But the other families in the ICU didn’t have that kind of support, so Dorse started the Big Heart Fund, which helps families of ill children with things like housing and other expenses. “You go through this experience that nothing in life can ever prepare you for, but at the end of it you’ve got this wealth of knowledge and experience that you can share with another family. If for nothing else, just to let them know that they’re not alone.”

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Sherrie Lemons

Sherrie Lemons

Communications Director and Clinic Liaison, Memphis Full Spectrum Doula Collective

In 2018, Lemons was named Planned Parenthood’s Young Volunteer of the Year. One factor behind the award was her work as an abortion doula. “We’re the hand-holders of the abortion procedure. We provide physical and emotional support for each patient as needed. If the patient wants us in there with them — consent is a huge factor in what we do — we go into the room with them, we are in there throughout the procedure. … We give them whatever they need.”

Lemons is a native Memphian who is clear-eyed about the kind of future she wants to help build for the Bluff City. “I really want an equitable city. I don’t want to see Memphis associated with the level of poverty that it is currently associated with. … I truly want Memphis to be for everyone. I don’t want that to just be a tagline, putting a smile on a city that has struggled.”