The Flyer‘s cover story for August 13, 1998 (11 years ago to
the very date of this week’s issue), concerned the conclusion of a
county-wide election that had some surprising results — one of
which illustrated the importance to candidates’ hopes of celebrity
gained elsewhere. (Pay attention, Jerry Lawler!)
With the vote-counting still incomplete and convinced that suburban
voters might have doomed his reelection hopes, Criminal Court judge Joe
Brown — then as now a TV judge as well — was writing out a
formal complaint. As I wrote then: Watching him scribble furiously,
Election Commission chairman O.C. Pleasant said casually, “You know,
you finished ahead in the early voting.”
“What!” said Brown, coming to a dead stop. He mused about the
disclosure briefly, then wadded up his still-unfinished letter of
complaint and walked away from the counter. “What the hell. I’m out of
here!” he said, forgetting all about his earlier grievance.
In the same issue, John Branston documented how shaky the 1997
merger of Promus Corporation and Doubletree Hotel Corporation had
become. As Branston noted, “The chiefs found out they didn’t like each
other.” The “eye-opener” was “the departure of [Mike] Rose, former
chairman of Promus and president of its Memphis-born predecessor,
Holiday Inns. … That someone of his stature would resign they took as
an indication of how strained relations were at the top.”
We also editorialized in that issue in favor of the state’s “Yes or
No” method of voting on appellate judges’ tenure. “On balance,” we
wrote, the Tennessee Plan had “served the purpose of responsible
— and responsive — justice.” For what it’s worth, the plan
has just survived, with unexpectedly modest changes, a fresh all-out
challenge to it in the 2009 session of the legislature.
