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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder, and Justin Theroux as the Deetz family.

Flappers, greasers, beatniks, hippies, punks, yuppies, and new wavers have all come and gone. But for some reason, goths endure. What is it about the floridly morose aesthetic that still compels kids and adults (excuse me, “elder goths”) to wear black and walk by night? Some say Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, the first novel that is unambiguously science fiction, was also the first goth chick. It’s hard to beat her commitment to the bit: She lost her virginity on her mother’s grave and kept her dead husband’s heart in a jar on her desk. The modern goth package started to come together in the post-punk era of 1979, with Peter Murphy’s plaintive wail on Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi Is Dead.” Siouxsie Sioux, one of the Sex Pistols’ Bromley Contingent, adopted the fright wig haircut and turned out songs like “Halloween” and “Spellbound” with her band, the Banshees. Her sometimes guitarist Robert Smith made depression sound fun (or at least cool) with the Cure. 

In 1986, Siouxsie and the Banshees hit it big on U.S. college radio with “Cities in Dust,” a song about wandering through the ruins of Pompeii. Two years later, Winona Ryder copped her look for Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice. Ryder came by it honestly. At the time Tim Burton cast her as the girl who could see ghosts, she was a 16-year-old daughter of bohemian parents, who had raised her on a commune. LSD pioneer Timothy Leary was her godfather. When the literature-obsessed teen was introduced into a conventional California high school, she was relentlessly bullied by the popular girls, and retreated into theater. The combination of wide-eyed innocence and cynical angst she brought to the role of Lydia felt real because it was real. 

Ryder and Micheal Keaton reunite in their roles after 36 years.

Beetlejuice was an unexpected hit. It was only Tim Burton’s second movie, after the rollicking Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, but his goth aesthetic was already fully formed. It was a manic free association of Hammer horror films and carnival fun-house craziness. Ryder would get goth with him again, opposite her real-life boyfriend Johnny Depp in Edward Scissorhands, and further burnished her goth bona fides as the outsider anti-hero in Heathers and as Mina Harker, for whom Gary Oldman “crossed oceans of time” in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. She proved herself to be one of Gen X’s best actors throughout the 1990s by stealing the show in Little Women and Night on Earth. 

But Ryder, and everyone else, always had a soft spot for Lydia the proto-goth. When she signed on as the mom in Stranger Things, her only request was that they had to make room in her shooting schedule if the long-awaited Beetlejuice sequel happened. And now, after many stops and starts, it has. 

Like its predecessor, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a glorious mess of a film. I’ve been rhapsodizing about Winona’s return to the black, but Michael Freakin’ Keaton is also back as the ghost with the most. He’s still stuck in the afterlife, but he’s moved up in the netherworld, now commanding an office full of freelance bio-exorcist ghosts and ghouls. On his desk is a picture of the one who got away, Lydia. But while he’s living his best afterlife, his ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) reappears and starts re-murdering ghosts. This attracts the attention of ghost detective Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe). 

Meanwhile, on the prime material plane, Lydia has committed the worst Gen-X sin: She’s sold out. She uses her supernatural detection talent as the host of Ghost House with Lydia Deetz. But while she’s taping the latest episode, she sees Beetlejuice, the only thing that ever really scared her, in the audience, and storms off the set. Her boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux) is also her show’s producer, and their relationship is troubled and uneven. “This is the last time I dig pills out of the trash for you!” he gripes, knowing full well he will do it again. Her first husband Richard (Santiago Cabrera) disappeared on a research trip to the Amazon, and their daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is parked at a swank boarding school, where she’s relentlessly bullied by the popular girls. She’s there because her grandma Delia (Catherine O’Hara) made a big donation to the art school. 

One of the cool things about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is that the characters have actually grown and changed in the years that have passed. Lydia’s taken the cool-teen-to-troubled-adult pipeline, familiar to many Gen-Xers. Delia was a hopeless dilettante artist in the first film. Now, she’s got a huge gallery show in New York alongside the “Picasso of graffiti art.” While she’s still a raging narcissist, her art’s pretty good now. Astrid, like Lydia before her, sees right through the adults’ carefully constructed facades, and kinda hates them for it. 

The plot of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is episodic and scattered. Burton’s visual sense remains impeccable, but he still misses the level of writers he had for Batman Returns and Ed Wood. What saves the film is its sheer exuberance. Michael Keaton is 72, but his manic energy is still intact. Ryder lets a little of the old Lydia peek out from beneath her exasperated mom routine. The whip-smart Ortega is a worthy successor to Ryder’s effortless intensity. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice never quite recaptures the original’s dark magic, but you’ll be having too much fun to care. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
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Art Art Feature We Recommend We Recommend

Brooks’ “Roll Down Like Water” Celebrates Andrea Morales’ Photography

Andrea Morales, Southern Heritage, 2017 (Photo: Courtesy Andrea Morales)

Andrea Morales has been making photographs since she was a child, and yes, “making photographs” is the right phrase here. Not taking photographs, capturing, or shooting. For Morales, these words are too aggressive to describe a process that is about building trust and intimacy between the photographer and the photographed individuals, or, as Morales calls them, her collaborators. 

She’s been working in Memphis as a photojournalist for a decade now, making photographs of the community. You probably recognize her name from her work as the visuals director at MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, but she’s also been featured in The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and TIME Magazine, among many others. Now, to add to her impressive resume, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art has opened an exhibit of 65 of her photographs of Memphis and the surrounding region, titled “Roll Down Like Water.” 

Taking its name from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech in Memphis, in which he said, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” the exhibit, says its curator Rosamund Garrett, is “a portrait of America through Memphis.”

“There are some tremendously famous photographers from this area,” Garrett says, “but I really feel that Andrea looks at things through a very fresh lens, and she looks at this region very directly, very earnestly, in a way that still allows the magic of this place to come through.”

Morales engages in what’s called movement journalism, an approach to journalism that emphasizes community over objectivity. This, in turn, makes the Brooks the first museum to showcase movement journalism, and the first to publish a catalogue on it. 

It’s also the first time Morales will have her photography in a major museum exhibition. Of course, she’s used to her photographs being seen publicly on a large scale, with them being in publications and such, but this, she says, is different. She even shrugs when asked if she sees her work as art. “What’s art?” she ponders. “It’s hard to answer that.” 

But in this exhibit, not in a publication with someone else’s byline, a headline she didn’t she choose, or quotes she didn’t pull, the photos can stand alone. “It does feel like something’s being restored, I guess,” Morales says. “I’m struggling with identifying exactly what, but it feels like something’s restored. It’s like back to that feeling of the moment [of making the photo] because you have that moment and then you kind of have to tuck it away because this photo has to exist in this one context [of an article]. But this is all existing in the context of me and Memphis right now. That’s been crazy. It feels very special to be honored this way, to be able to hold this much space.” 

“Roll Down Like Water,” Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1934 Poplar Avenue, on display through January 2025.

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News News Blog News Feature

City Council Questions MATA’s Transparency During Presentation

Photo: Justin Fox Burks

Memphis City Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton said that the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s (MATA) interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin had been “gifted an issue” and criticized the agency for not asking for help in their budget crisis. 

These comments came after officials noted that the agency had been operating in an unrestricted budget deficit for the last 10 years.

“To hear that this is a 10-year-long thing that you all have known about — that you didn’t have enough money and never said anything to anyone is very disturbing,” Cooper-Sutton said. “I don’t think you would run your household for 10 years and no one would say anything.”

Cooper-Sutton went on to call out the organization’s Board of Commissioners for not speaking up as well, and that they should share in accountability for the agency’s financial burdens.

“No one knew there was a deficiency coming down the pipeline? No one?” Cooper-Sutton said. “I’m going to tell you what my spirit is discerning — someone is lying and not telling the truth. You’re not going to tell me that the educated board with all those alphabets behind their name that no one knew and saw this coming for 10 years? It’s unbelievable.”

Mauldin responded saying she remembers being two doors down from her predecessor and had no idea that the agency was facing financial hardship.

“The board didn’t know,” Mauldin said. “From the moment that we gave full visibility over what was happening with the finances, I shared that information with the board and we have as governance partners to try to right this ship. I know that it’s unbelievable, I know that it’s unacceptable but we have done everything in our power to bring this in-line so that we could provide the service this city needs and deserves.”

Today’s meeting follows the passage of the transit authority’s budget for Fiscal Year 2025 which resulted in more than 200 layoffs and the suspension of routes. Riders and community members have openly called on the council to intervene in the agency’s problems. The council had also requested that MATA appear before them every two weeks to provide updates in hopes of increasing transparency. 

Mauldin said that her team was “beaten down” and that all they want is to make things right.

“Our goal is to develop a robust transit system that positions Memphis to compete nationally,” Mauldin said. “The city deserves that and we want to give it to the city. We’re committed to providing insights and context necessary to be a part of the solution and help drive the city towards a successful future.”

MATA’s presentation covered their financials, staff optimization, and the steps they plan to take moving forward. Mauldin was joined by external chief financial officer Hamish Davidson, chief of strategic partnerships and programs Erik Stevenson, and chief development officer John Lancaster.

Davidson highlighted that MATAs debt has grown over time due to increased costs and a decrease in ridership and flat funding. He added that the budget affects on-time performance and they are currently operating at a $85 million budget, with a proposed balanced budget of $67.8 million.

“This is not something that occurred in one year,” Davidson said. “This is something that has been continuing for many years.”

According to Davidson, this is something that the media and others had been “lambasting” the agency about, and wanted to note that their deficit wasn’t an annual loss.

The approved budget shows that a majority of MATA’s funding comes through grant revenue ($64 million) with the City of Memphis being its primary funding source at $30 million. The rest of their budget is supplemented by their operating revenue of $3.7 million from passenger fares, advertising, and charters.

Councilwoman Pearl Eva Walker noted that the council’s assessment of MATA’s  troubles stemmed from lack of on-going information and updates, as opposed to understanding of finances.

In hopes of adding context to the operational side, Lancaster explained that their problems also stem from their density and size of their service area. MATA covers nearly 300 square miles with a fleet of less than 100 buses. For comparison, Lancaster said they operated more than 300 buses in a little over 100 square miles in the 1970s.

Stevenson said they had to reduce their workforce in order to stay in line with their budget. As a result 18 trolley workers, 29 administrative personnel, and 52 unionized personnel were laid off with 75 eliminated positions.

While the agency presented a PowerPoint in hopes of providing answers, the council was still not pleased with their presentation, prompting several questions and comments from council members. Walker noted that the presentation was very “general.”

Councilwoman Rhonda Logan questioned if employee perks such as employee vehicles had been reduced as the company works to cut down on spending. Mauldin said she would provide the council with a detailed list of these things, including the context in which they exist.  

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CannaBeat: Cannabis Group Follows Through on Promise to Sue State

Credit: Budding on Unsplash

As promised, the Tennessee Growers Coalition (TGC), the state’s advocate for the cannabis industry, sued the state over new rules it says are “void” and threaten the industry. 

State lawmakers passed new laws last year to regulate the burgeoning cannabis industry in Tennessee. Among many other things, the new law made the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) responsible for regulating the cannabis industry in the state. Late last year, the department issued a draft of new rules for cannabis producers and products. 

The department updated those rules in July after a public comment period. However, TGC said state officials did not include ideas from the nearly 19,000 public comments in the new rules.

Instead of blending those ideas into a set of final rules, the TGC said agriculture officials issued emergency rules. The timing and procedure of issuing these new rules form the basis of the cannabis industry’s lawsuit filed Friday. The process, TGC said, “imposed an immediate and irreparable threat of harm” to the businesses of its members.

“TGC members’ businesses and livelihoods are at stake by being forced to adapt their business practices to regulations, change the type of products they sell, and how they manage compliance while paying a license fee under regulations that are void as a matter of law,” reads a statement from the group. “The (TDA) has nothing to lose while TGC Members risk losing everything.”

The new rules still include new THC standards for THCA and CBD flowers. New limits could see those products removed completely. The new rules would also allow police to arrest manufacturers, retailers, and consumers for selling or possessing these smokable products, according to Cultivate Tennessee, another hemp advocacy group.

The new state rules redefine THC to include a product’s total THC. This includes a lot of THCA — the cannabinoid that produces a “high” — smokeable products.

“They’re trying to redefine it by combining two different cannabinoids,” TGC executive director Kelley Mathis Hess told us last month, “two different things, when it should just be Delta 9, and Delta 9 only. They’re trying to put a limit on [THCA] but the limit would, basically, ban a lot of it.” 

Hess said these products are probably the most popular products on the market right now. Many small businesses have built their business around sales of these products, she said. Removing them could prove fatal to them. 

TGC promised to fight the rules in court last month. A court date for the lawsuit has been set for next Thursday, September 19th. 

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Film Features Film/TV

Music Video Monday: “Owl in My Backyard” by Delta Stardust

You might know Michael Graber as a member of the long-running combo Bluff City Backsliders. The picker has a new project called Delta Stardust.

“Delta Stardust began as a studio project,” he says. “We were seeking that alchemical, psychedelic sound from blending acoustic, electric, and digital instruments. We also wanted to capture a haunted, mystical Memphis/North Mississippi vibe even as the music — the song forms and sonic undercurrents — kept expanding. We call the genre ‘roots psychedelic’ music.”

Graber provides vocals, 12-string guitar, electric mandolin, bass, drone box, percussion. Andy Ratliff plays acoustic mandolin and electric guitar. John Kilgore adds harmonium, mellotron, synth, and percussion, while Jesse Dakota plays drums.

Graber describes the first single “Owl in My Backyard” as “part of a talking animal series of ecstatic wisdom poems that I set to music.” It’s the first single off of the album Snakes Made of Light, produced by Graber and Kilgore, which will be released on the Robot Distro label in late October.

The music video by Blackfeather Studios is as charming and handmade as the music. The owls are not only in the backyard, but on a boat and in a kaleidoscope. They’ll help you unwind for five minutes.

If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.

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Sports Tiger Blue

Friendly Fire

Mario Anderson (photo by Wes Hale)

Memphis Tiger football would not be where it is today — and Ryan Silverfield would not be in charge of the program — were it not for Mike Norvell. The Tigers travel to Tallahassee this week for a Saturday confrontation with Norvell’s current team, the Florida State Seminoles. It’s hard to imagine a more poignant game against a former coach in the history of the Memphis program.

Should your memory be unusually short, Norvell arrived in Memphis as a rookie head coach before the 2016 season (with Ryan Silverfield a member of his staff). If you were familiar with the 35-year-old Arizona State assistant then, you frankly spent too much time on college football. But in just four years, Norvell won 38 games, led the Tigers to three appearances in the American Athletic Conference championship game (winning in 2019), and earned the most prestigious bowl berth (the 2019 Cotton Bowl) in Tigers history. That’s how you get the Florida State gig before your 40th birthday. Last season, Norvell’s fourth at FSU, the Seminoles went 13-0 but were somehow left out of the four-team College Football Playoff. (After several players opted out of the Orange Bowl, Florida State was crushed by Georgia.)

Florida State will not go 13-0 this season, having lost its first two games, to Georgia Tech and Boston College. Memphis will not be facing a Top-10 team this weekend, a disappointment for a program favored to win a “Group of 5” league but thirsty for an early-season attention grabber. Blowout wins over North Alabama and Troy go only so far.

Last July, I asked Silverfield about facing his former boss early in the 2024 schedule. “I’m gonna treat it like any other game,” he said. “I’ll see some of my closest friends down there. I’m from Jacksonville. If I didn’t get this job, I might still be sitting next to Mike, coaching his offensive line. But once training camp starts, I won’t give that game a single thought until the Sunday [before].”

To translate, it will be an emotional game for those with fond memories of Mike Norvell in Memphis (read: anyone who saw a game from 2016 to 2019). But for Ryan Silverfield and the current Memphis Tigers, the contest has to be treated like a step — among 12 games on the schedule — toward a higher goal. And the only way to stack wins toward a conference championship (and playoff contention) is going 1-0, week after week. Thus Florida State is “any other game.” 

The Seminoles will play better than the 0-2 team they are. The Tigers will likely fall short of the standard they’ve set by outscoring two teams 78-17. But quarterback Seth Henigan is climbing the Tiger and AAC record charts with every contest and the Memphis ground game seems to be in the capable hands of Mario Anderson (125 yards on 17 carries against Troy). This Saturday’s showdown in Tallahassee will be a fun and, yes, sentimental showcase for a Memphis team still rising.

• As for the U of M basketball program, coach Penny Hardaway is once again surrounded by smoke. (Didn’t he ask for this upon taking the job six years ago?) An anonymous letter to the NCAA alleges both financial and academic misdeeds on Hardaway’s watch. You can safely ignore the padding of recruits’ wallets. (See the $20 million it has reportedly cost Ohio State to build its current football roster.) But if academic fraud involving Malcolm Dandridge can be traced to Hardaway, it will be a sad and awkward exit for a local legend. That’s a big “if,” of course. Here’s to a day we can again discuss Tiger basketball without a cloud of scrutiny growing thicker and darker. 

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Film Features Film/TV

Now Playing Sept. 6-12: Beetlejuice!

Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. (Courtesy Warner Bros.)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Tim Burton’s all-time classic from 1988 gets a sequel after 36 years. Winona Ryder returns as Lydia Deets, the goth girl of your dreams now all grown up. She’s the host of Ghost House with Lydia Deets, and the mother of Astrid (Jenna Ortega), a teenager who is just as gloomy as Lydia once was. When they return to their old home in Winter River, Astrid discovers the portal to the afterlife in the family home’s attic, and releases Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). Catherine O’Hara returns as Delia, Lydia’s art dealer stepmother, and Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci, and Justin Theroux are along for the supernatural ride. 

The Front Room

Brandy returns to the big screen as Belinda, a mother-to-be who is expecting her first child with her husband Norman (Andrew Burnap). But just as the couple is building their new nest, they have to take in Solange (Kathryn Hunter), Norman’s stepmother who was long estranged from his family. Now, they will realize why she has been estranged, and deal with the shocking consequences. Max and Sam Eggers, brothers of The Northman’s Robert Eggers, direct this A24 suspense film from a short story by Susan Hill. 

It Ends With Us

Blake Lively stars as Lily Bloom in this hit adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestseller. Lily is caught between Ryle (Justin Baldoni) an intensely emotional neurosurgeon, and Atlas (Brandon Sklenar), her old flame. Can she stop her family’s generations-long cycle of abuse?

“Mama’s Sundry”

On Thursday, Sept. 12 at Crosstown Theater, a new collaboration between Memphis filmmakers Brody Kuhar and Joshua Cannon will make its debut. “Mama’s Sundry” is a 15-minute documentary about Bertram Williams and Memphis musician Talibah Safiya‘s neighborhood garden project.

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On the Fly We Recommend We Recommend

On the Fly: Week of 09/06/24

This weekend is your last chance to see Crosstown Arts‘ “MANE” and “Hidden Gems.” (Photo: Crosstown Arts)

Alex Warble Art Show
West Memorials
Friday, September 6, 5-8 p.m.
While Broad Ave. is hosting its Sidewalk Sale as part of its First Fridays on Broad, Alex Warble will have an art opening of new works. Warble, who finds inspiration from nature, Memphis, and pop culture, is known for his pictograms with teeny tiny characters lined up on the canvas.

Nick Black 
Halloran Centre
Friday, September 6, 7:30 p.m.
Remember when that guy was walking around with a mattress on his back and posting it on the ’gram? Well, he’s having a show to release his newest album, THE MAD ALBUM. We’re not sure how necessary the all caps are, but whatever. We’ll let him do his thing. Tickets are $25, and you can get them here. 

10 Minute Play Festival 
TheatreWorks
Friday-Saturday, September 6-7, 8 p.m. | Sunday, September 8, 2 p.m.
A lot can happen in 10 minutes. That’s 600 seconds. For Emerald Theatre Company (ETC), 10 minutes is all it will take for one vignette to be performed in the 7th Annual 10 Minute Play Festival, which will have 10 vignettes total. For this year’s festival, all the one-scene plays adhere to a theme, “Remember When,” with each one set in a moment of historical significance. Get tickets here.

Clutter from the Crypt Halloween Market
Hi Tone
Saturday, September 7, 5-10 p.m.
Shop till your jaw drops at this market ’cause goodness knows what you’ll find among all the hard-to-find vintage Halloween and utterly spooky art. Entry is free and this is an all ages event!

Cyrena Wages 
Overton Park Shell
Saturday, September 7, 7 p.m.
Music is more than a vanity project for Cyrena Wages. (You’ll get that pun in just a second.) This May, she released her debut album Vanity Project (read about it here), and now she’ll be performing at the Shell for the Orion Free Concert Series. 

“MANE” and “Hidden Gems”
Crosstown Arts
Closes Sunday, September 8
Crosstown Arts presents “MANE” and “Hidden Gems” curated by Najee Strickland and Kiara Sally in the Galleries at Crosstown Arts. “MANE” explores how Southern speech has shaped Memphis artists’ view of community and themselves while “Hidden Gems” includes artists with modest visibility and offers them an opportunity to show up and be uncovered. This is your last chance to see the shows, so hurry fast.

Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories
Novel
Tuesday, September 10, 6 p.m.
Get baked at Novel as bestselling food writer and Nashvillian Anne Byrn celebrates the release of her new book Baking in the American South: 200 Recipes and Their Untold Stories, filled with Southern  recipes and the stories behind them. Byrn will be in conversation with Kat Gordon, owner of Muddy’s Bake Shop. 

Spillit: Life Is a Festival
Theatre South at First Congo
Thursday, September 12, 7-9 p.m.
Spill the tea at Spillit’s Life Is a Festival — except you only have seven minutes to tell your story AND it has to be about a festival, celebration, or gathering of some kind. AND if you have the best story, you win the night! That’s how Spillit works. Don’t want to talk? Then bring your listening ears. One, two, three, eyes not on you. Admission is $10. 

The Crosstown Arts Film Series Presents Mama’s Sundry
Crosstown Theater at Crosstown Arts
Thursday, September 12, 7 p.m.
Crosstown Arts presents a special screening of the new documentary Mama’s Sundry, made by filmmakers Brody Kuhar and Joshua Cannon. The 15-minute film is about Bertram Williams and Talibah Safiya’s collaborative garden that produces not just food but also education and service initiatives. A panel discussion moderated by Tom Shadyac will follow. Admission is $5. 

There’s always something happening in Memphis. See a full calendar of events here.

Submit events here or by emailing calendar@memphisflyer.com.

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News News Blog News Feature

Legal Professionals Urge SCOTUS to Stop Tennessee’s Gender-Affirming Care Ban

Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Legal experts have filed a brief on behalf of transgender youth in the state in hopes of stopping a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors from taking effect.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) said they are urging the Supreme Court of the United States to stop the state from banning hormone therapy for trans adolescents.

Last week ACLU-TN joined the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in filing a brief on behalf of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 16-year-old transgender daughter, Dr. Susan Lacy of Memphis, and two families who filed anonymously.

This brief is in response to a June 2024 decision to hear a challenge to Tennessee’s ban. Advocates claim the law is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee, said that Tennessee and other Southern states have “become a testing ground for targeted assault on the constitutional rights of trans Tennesseans.”

In September of 2023 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed for the law restricting transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care to remain in effect. The ruling came months after the court initially blocked the law from taking effect in July of the same year.

Governor Bill Lee signed the legislation into law March of 2023, and it prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. This legislation makes gender-affirming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible, and trans people in Tennessee will not have access to this care until they reach the age of 18. Similar restrictions have been made in states like Arkansas and Alabama.

“Every day this law remains in place, it inflicts further pain, injustice, and discrimination on trans youth and their families,” Cameron-Vaughn said in a statement. “Make no mistake — if the Supreme Court fails to protect trans Tennesseans’ access to the medical care they need to survive and thrive, local politicians will go even further. They will continue to rewrite the history that our schools teach, discriminate based on what we look like, where we’re from, and who we love, and control if, when, and how Tennesseans choose to start their families.”

Parents of the 16-year-old plaintiff said it has been “painful” to see their child not be able to access “life-saving healthcare,” and they’ve had to travel outside of the state for care.

“We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving,” Samantha Williams, mother of 16-year-old L.W., said. “Tennessee’s ban has forced us at great expense to seek routine healthcare visits out of state and may at some point force us to leave Tennessee — the only home our children have ever known. No family should have to make this kind of choice.”

Officials said oral arguments are expected to be heard this term.

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News News Blog News Feature

Land Deal Could Create New State Forest, Protect Memphis Water Supply

Tennessee is working to purchase 5,477 acres of forest land near Grand Junction from the Hobart Ames Foundation. The land is part of the Wolf River watershed. (Photo: Wolf River Conservancy)

About 60 miles east of Memphis near the Mississippi line, verdant hardwood trees and ecologically exceptional streams weave through thousands of acres of rolling hills.

The land is home to a diverse array of aquatic and terrestrial life, decades-old archaeological sites and a watershed that feeds into the aquifer where hundreds of thousands of Memphians source their drinking water.

If all goes to plan, 5,477 acres of this land will soon become Tennessee’s newest state forest, securing its preservation for posterity.

The land is a portion of the 18,400-acre historic Ames Plantation, a privately owned tract in Fayette and Hardeman Counties amassed by Massachusetts industrialist Hobart Ames in the early 1900s.

For the last several decades, the Hobart Ames Foundation has partnered with the University of Tennessee’s AgResearch and Education Center to maintain and study the land and its history. The university’s website calls the center “an 18,400-acre laboratory” home to an archaeology field school, vet school, forestry camp, tree research nursery, row crop research fields and more.

When the roughly 5,500-acre portion of forest hit the market around early 2023, Tennessee’s forestry division rushed to piece together funding to buy it.

Deal cobbled together at ‘breakneck speed’

Work toward the purchase was already underway when State Forester Heather Slayton was appointed to her role this January. After calling her staff to inform them of her new title, “my second act was to call the Hobart Ames Foundation to let them know that we were hustling to get this project off the ground,” she said. “In the relative scheme of forest legacy projects, it was breakneck speed.”

A man paddles down the main stem of the Wolf River in West Tennessee. (Photo: Wolf River Conservancy)

The land was only on the market for a short time before the Hobart Ames Foundation agreed to remove it and allow the state “a little bit of time” to patch together the funds to “keep it protected and conserved in perpetuity,” Slayton said.

News of the project surfaced in August when the state Department of Agriculture brought an approval request to a State Building Commission subcommittee, warning that the land “will be under immediate threat of development if sold to a third party.”

The forest is located near Grand Junction, about 30 miles south of Ford’s new BlueOval City electric vehicle manufacturing plant.

“This tract is important and irreplaceable as it maintains the longest continuous research tree nursery in the country. It also contains one of the best examples of long-term, well-managed bottomland hardwood forest in West Tennessee,” the request states.

Slayton said an initial $16.9 million to secure the purchase will come from Tennessee’s Heritage Conservation Trust Fund, in addition to about $1.5 million in state wetland funding and help from other state agencies. Tennessee’s Division of Forestry applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Legacy Program, which helps keep working forests kept intact. The program would cover 75 percent of the total $22.5 million purchase price, with state funds making up the remaining 25 percent. If the federal grant is approved, the plan is to repay the Heritage Conservation Trust Fund’s contribution, she said. Including additional costs, the total worth of the project is around $24.3 million, Slayton said.

The total worth of the project is around $24.3 million.

The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit conservation group, will act as an intermediary to purchase the land from the Hobart Ames Foundation and sign over the contract to the state.

Zachary Lesch-Huie, Tennessee state director for The Conservation Fund, said the land is valuable for a multitude of reasons. It contains a major part of the upper fork of the Wolf River, which feeds the aquifer system responsible for Memphis’ water supply. It’s home to several species prioritized by Tennessee for protection, and features an “outstanding” forest habitat. There’s potential for future recreational and educational opportunities there, including hunting, river access, hiking, and continued archeological research on more than 40 historical sites on the property.

The purchase is not yet final — Lesch-Huie said the process is going well but could take several more weeks, barring any unforeseen snags. He said he credits the land’s excellent condition to the stewardship of the Hobart Ames Foundation and the University of Tennessee.

“I also want to give credit to … the Hobart Ames Foundation, because their willingness to even do this important deal for the state of Tennessee is what this (project) hinges on,” he said. “All these conservation deals rely on a willing landowner, and they are that.”

The University of Tennessee declined to comment on the pending deal, and the Hobart Ames Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

Once the sale is complete, the University of Tennessee will continue to manage the property alongside the state and continue its tree nursery research project.

“The information that comes out of the research for tree genetics and how to produce healthier, more resilient trees helps the forests of all the rest of the State of Tennessee as well,” Slayton said.

Safeguarding the Wolf River and Memphis drinking water

The north fork of the Wolf River flows through this portion of bottomland forest — essentially a river swamp or forested wetland — on the Ames property. It meets the Wolf River in Moscow, Tennessee, and the Wolf River then flows into the Mississippi River at Mud Island, north of Downtown Memphis.

Wetlands are really integral to protecting and providing clean water, so this system helps to do that for about 2.8 million people downstream in the city of Memphis area and the surrounding counties.

– Heather Slayton, Tennessee State Forester

Memphis is the largest city in the country that relies fully on ground water, according to the University of Memphis.

Ryan Hall, director of land conservation at the Wolf River Conservancy, said the entire tract of forest land lies within an aquifer recharge zone for the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Rainwater is slowly filtered through layers of sand, purifying the water. Natural sand aquifers are separated by thick clay that protects water from contaminants, according to the University of Memphis. But thinning clay and breaks in its surface in several areas throughout Shelby County pose ongoing pollution concerns.

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“Wetlands are really integral to protecting and providing clean water, so this system helps to do that for about 2.8 million people downstream in the city of Memphis area and the surrounding counties,” Slayton said. “So just being able to protect that wetland function of creating clean water for those people is really, really special.”

The Wolf River Conservancy aims to preserve the Wolf River watershed as a natural resource and provide conservation education. The organization is working to build a Wolf River Greenway trail through Memphis. The group has acted as supporters and advocates of transforming this land into a new state forest, Hall said.

“(The property) has been stewarded well for a long time, and now we know it’s going to be stewarded well in perpetuity, so that peace of mind is just — the Wolf River Conservancy and all of our volunteers, donors, we’re very grateful that this is happening,” he said.

A rich cultural site

The Ames property was one of several large plantations located in the area in the 1800s, Slayton said.

“This particular forest block and the larger Ames property has a very rich cultural history of enslaved people in this part of Tennessee,” she said.

The University of Tennessee, in partnership with the Hobart Ames Foundation, has done extensive research on the property, identifying historical artifacts and tracing ancestors who lived there.

The greater Ames property features the Ames Manor, a cabin, and the remains of multiple 19th-century buildings, including houses, stores, churches, schools, cotton gins, and the quarters of enslaved people, according to the university. There are 26 known cemeteries on the property, including up to six burial grounds for enslaved people, some of which have more than 100 graves.

“That’s another part of this project that’s super exciting: keeping it in public ownership so we can protect the cultural significance of the property,” Slayton said.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.