Author: Halley Johnson

Over the last few years, plans to create a public skatepark in Memphis have gone from nonexistent to certain and back again. Though the city first approved the project’s $440,000 budget in 2008, conflict over the park’s location has stalled the project. But last week, Memphis mayor A C Wharton’s announcement that Tobey Park would become home to the skatepark allowed advocates to breathe a sigh of relief.

“I’m so happy that we’ve got a mayor who responds to the needs of the city’s people,” says Aaron Shafer, founder of SkateLife Memphis, the organization that led the charge for a skatepark. SkateLife’s series of events and demonstrations has brought the skating community out in full force.

“Obviously, it’s needed,” says Matt Wright, founder and executive director of FaithSkate Ministry, which has set up temporary skating ramps in the parking lot of the Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett every other weekend for the last three years. Like Shafer, Wright is a longtime skateboarder who’s worked to create opportunities for Memphis skaters.

“It even surprised me how much response there was,” Wright says of the program’s popularity, which grew from five to 35 kids in the first few months. “We weren’t marketing it at all. It just shows you what a need there is for kids to skate here in Memphis.”

Wharton emphasized the skatepark’s potential for helping local youth be more physically fit, something Wright and Shafer have been saying for years.

“Other sports are celebrated by the community,” Wright says. “You see hundreds of kids playing baseball in one place, but the skateboarding community is fragmented. There’s nowhere to tell them to go.”

Shafer says Tobey Park is a perfect location for what he hopes will be a community-wide attraction, especially in light of the nearby dog park and other proposed developments in the area.

“There’s been a lot of interest from the non-skating community,” he say. “We’re interested in bringing people together from different parts of Memphis.”

The enthusiasm shown by groups such as FaithSkate and the public has proven to Shafer that the park’s programming can do just that.

Local firm Askew Hargraves Harcourt & Associates will partner with national skatepark designers Wormhoudt Incorporated to work on the park, and the UrbanArt Commission has been tapped for an on-site public art project.

“There’s that cliche saying that it takes a village to raise a child,” Shafer says. “I’d say the same for making a skatepark.”

The thrift store at the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association (MIFA) has helped support the organization for more than 15 years. Faced with diminishing profits earlier this year, however, MIFA hired Memphis transplant Amy Hoyt as the store’s new director.

While the core of the store’s operations remains the same, the store has undergone some visible changes. A longtime thrifter, Hoyt has revamped the labeling system, added a clearance rack, and implemented a new pricing system — changes that have increased traffic to the store and gotten the attention of other local nonprofits.

Hoyt sat down with the Flyer to talk about how she combined her expertise and interests to create her dream job. — Halley Johnson

Flyer: How did you get involved withMIFA? Amy Hoyt: A friend of mine worked at the Church Health Center and she said, “I hear there’s trouble a-brewing at the MIFA thrift store.” I was a volunteer there, and I thought I can do something about this.” So I just sent them an e-mail saying, “Hey, this is my background.” And it worked. I just showed up in my thrift-store getup, and they put me in charge.

What about your background qualified you to run the store? In a way, everything. I was the director of a small museum before I moved here. All my background is in nonprofits. I’ve never worked retail, but I love thrifting. It’s been my passion for years. You know, I was a teenager in the ’90s when that really came into vogue, so it’s just been something I do.

It seems like a natural fit for you.

It’s absolutely a dream come true. One of my friends came in the first day I was working here and said, “Isn’t this kind of like an alcoholic working at a liquor store?”

The first few weeks my paychecks and how much I was spending in the store were pretty much even.

What separates the MIFA store from other thrift stores in the area? A lot of it is curating. I work really hard to separate the clothing that wouldn’t be purchased — the stuff with stains or tears, no one is going to pay for those things. But for people who don’t have much, they’re perfectly functional.

And MIFA’s special, because when you donate to the MIFA store or you shop here, it goes right back into Memphis. Many other thrift stores are national chains, so they only give back a portion to the city they’re in.

You’re not a native Memphian. What made you choose to live here? My husband and I moved here from Iowa. That’s where we were born and raised and went to college, but we always visited Memphis. For years we’d come down for weekends, and now we live in South Main. It was Elvis who brought us here, and it was the city that brought us back. Now I can’t ever imagine leaving — I’ll be going out in Elmwood Cemetery.

For more, visit Halley Johnson’s Save Memphis blog at memphisflyer.com/blogs/SaveMemphis/.

On July 16th, neighbors of Midtown’s Lick Creek awoke to find their streets filled with storm water — and they weren’t surprised. Despite years of resident outcry and city deliberation over solutions, flooding from Lick Creek continues to be a problem.

Less than a week after the most recent flooding, however, city councilman Jim Strickland proposed hiring an independent engineer to evaluate Midtown’s storm-water system.

Mary Wilder, president of the Vollintine-Evergreen Community Association and a member of the city’s Lick Creek storm-water coalition, says the issue is simple: There’s nowhere for the water to go.

“What we’ve got is a two-gallon bucket — a system that will only hold so much water — and four gallons of rain,” she says.

A 2006 study by outside engineers called for a series of small detention areas throughout the creek system, but the city’s most recent plan was to concentrate its detention efforts in the Overton Park greensward.

“They really haven’t been following [the study’s] recommendations,” says Martha Kelly, president of Park Friends, a Midtown nonprofit opposed to the creation of an Overton Park detention area. “Instead, they’re focusing on one enormous construction.”

Both Wilder and Kelly lament the lack of consideration given to alternate solutions, and they hope that bringing an outside engineer to the table will help find the best solution.

“Let them be open and honest,” Wilder says. “Maybe they’ll say the study’s fine – let’s go ahead with it. Maybe they’ll say let’s look at some other ideas.”

Kelly agrees: “Our group wants to make sure that our park isn’t harmed unnecessarily and that we do something that will help the situation. We all want a plan that will actually work.”

Technology has made it possible for many activities to take place in the comfort of your own home: communication, education, even medical treatment. Now a team led by the University of Memphis’ Kimbrough Oller, professor of audiology and speech language pathology, has added diagnosis of disorders such as autism to the list.

The researchers built on existing diagnostic tools, namely the LENA (Language Environment Analysis) system, a device that labels vocal recordings. Oller’s team then added an automatic analysis based on 12 vocal development parameters.

The result? A tool that allows automated analysis of massive quantities of vocal recordings, eliminating countless hours of tedious work.

“A manual analysis would require such critical and exhaustive attention that it would never get done,” Oller says.

Oller’s team studied more than 1,000 recordings from 200 children. They found that the sounds autistic children make before learning to speak are different from those of children with more normal development — and distinct enough to be distinguished and diagnosed through the automatic system.

Diagnosis of autism now depends largely on the assessment of parents and doctors. Adding an objective diagnostic tool is a potential game-changer, Oller says.

“There are all sorts of precursors to this effort that will get folded into the project,” Oller says, noting the possibility of earlier and more widespread diagnosis for diseases with vocal indicators. “What this does is add a completely objective method to supplement other methods.”

Equally important is how easily the tool can be used. The LENA system is small, affordable, and available for use in households.

“How well it’s worked has surprised all of us,” Oller says. “This invention was bound to occur in the future, but it’s incredible that we’re already at a level where it’s practical to use.”