Review ’16
farragutpress looks back one year
Whether or not Tom Cruise or Farragut High School varsity football made the bigger splash in Town, looking back at 2016, is one thing.
But Cruise, Academy Award winning actor who visited Regal Cinemas Pinnacle 18 IMAX & RPX in Turkey Creek Oct. 17 for a benefit screening of his new movie “Jack Reacher Never Go Back,” never “trailed” Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington by 28 points en route to those Academy Awards.
Eddie Courtney’s Admirals overcame a pair of 28-point playoffs deficits en route to the program’s first state championship in Cookeville Dec. 3.
Other highlights included:
• Missing for roughly five years, Adm. James David Glasgow Farragut Monument was “found” and donated to town of Farragut by Stony Point Farm resident Lylan Fitzgerald, on whose property the monument had been located dating back to 1903. Town leaders will place the monument at Town Plaza during a yet-to-be set ceremony.
• Farragut ranked as the sixth “Happiest City in Tennessee.”
• Especially damaging storms in June and extreme drought conditions for most of the year highlighted weather issues.
• Two town of Farragut and two Knox County government officials whose constituents include Farragut residents, plus a native son in District 14 Tennessee General Assembly [state Rep. Jason Zachary], won their first elections in 2016: aldermen Louise Povlin (North Ward) and Ron Williams (South Ward); Susan Horn, District 5 Board of Education representative, and John Schoonmaker, Fifth District Knox County Commissioner.
• Bettye Sisco retired as Farragut West Knox Chamber of Commerce president/CEO after 17 years, while Vice Mayor Dot LaMarche retired from Farragut politics after 13 years as a Town alderman. LaMarche also hosted a National League of Cities Women in Municipal Government Annual Summer Conference in Knoxville in May.
• Ryan Siebe, a former teacher at Farragut High School from 2001 to 2007, returned to FHS as principal in July. He replaced Stephanie Thompson.
