Union City Rotary Club - Weekly Bulletin & News

Today, we welcome back Jason Simpson, Head Coach of the UTM Skyhawks Football team. Jason took over the head job four years age and it didn’t take song for him to move the UT Martin football team into the upper echelon of the Ohio Valley Conference. After three seasons, Simpson sports a .696 winning percentage, behind Eastern Kentucky’s Dean Hood; Jacksonville State’s Jack Crow; and Eastern Illinois’ Boob Spoo.

Simpson is 16-7 in the OVC and after three seasons he has one OVC championship and come within a field goal of a second championship this past season. He has led the Skyhawks to the Football Championship Subdivision postseason for the first time in school history (2006) and his teams have been ranked among the top 25 in the nation annually.

He enters his fourth season with the second best won-loss percentage in all games among current OVC coaches. He also had five first team All-OVC selections including quarterback Cade Thompson, wide receiver Mike Hicks, offensive lineman Kevin Bannon, defensive lineman Ray Williams and defensive back Dontrell Miller.

Simpson finished fourth in the annual voting for the Eddie Robinson Award, the nation’s best coach. He was named the American Football Coaches Association Region 3 Coach of the Year and he earned the OVC’s Roy Kidd Coach of the Year Trophy.

Next week, should be very interesting, as the Union City Rotary Tour Group visits and brings with them a power point presentation of their recent travels all over Europe.

Their trip was made possible through the Union City Rotary Club and was well documented and up-dated by Glenda Caudle of the Union City Daily Messenger.

Jacob Cross and his wife, Emily accompanied the students on this once-in-a-lifetime experience. They will be present also next week for a full report of the extravaganza. The students were able to keep in contact with home through the cell phone network, which was also made possible free through the generous donation of Cellpage in Fulton.

The students included, Will Arnold, Chambry Callicott, Katey Crews, Kayla Eason, Paige Fisher, Whitney Smith and Andrew Speed. These Students are all part of the class of 2010, Union City High School.

Their first guided tour took them to Calais, France, then on to Brussels, also included the Rhine river in Germany and an overnight in Frankfurt. Wed. it was Innsbruck, Austria and on Thurs. it was Venice, Italy, then Fri. they visited Verona, Italy, also on Fri. they crossed into Lake Lucerne, Switzerland. Sat. was a visit to Paris, France and preparation for the journey home.

Last week, brought a very large crowd to Union City Rotary, as Congressman John Tanner made an appearance as the speaker for the noon meeting. there were many visitors and news reporters on hand as well as our State Representative Judy Barker and several members of John’s staff.

John said "the present is a time of high anxiety in our country, and everywhere you travel you see this, it is fear, it’s real and has to do with some of the events that has happened to us as a people in this decade".

He said if you went back to the year 2000, we were basically breaking even as a country, with expenditures going out and money coming in. In that same year the Congressional Budget Office forecast a five trillion surplus over the next ten years, and he said he could not agree with them because it’s almost impossible to forecast due to fluctuating prices. Then there was a euphoria um, and there was speculation that the Nation al Debt might be paid off too quick. There was a new game plan put into place economically and in June 2001 based on these assumptions. then came 911, two months later, and every assumption that went into that prediction was no longer valid, therefore everyone had to go back and re-do what they had done previously. By the year 2003 the expenditures were over 20% of the GDP and revenue was down 16.3% of GDP.

John said "I think part of our anxiety goes back to 911, because up until then we knew we had the best military that a human being could ever devise, and yet we were still vulnerable to an attack in New Your and Washington, so therefore the subconscious mind has given us cause for anxiety".

"This is were we began going in the hole", he said. Also this is when Americans began borrowing money for mortgages outside the regulatory banking system policies, on the prediction that housing values would continue to skyrocket, and not on the borrowing power of the buyers. In 2008 some members of congress realized what was happening and tried to turn it around and as yet have had no success, therefore we wait and wonder.

Coming Attraction

Sept. 11 - Jacob Cross and Rotary Travel Group

Sept. 18 - UCHS Head Football Coach, Darren Bowling

Birthdays

Sept. 05 - Richard Graham

Anniversaries

Sept. 06 - Skipper and Lou Anne White

Sept. 07 - Bob and Amy Montgomery

Sept. 07 - John, Jr. and Janey Fowler

Sept. 08 - Richard and Anna Graham

Sept. 09 - Michael and Shelia Ervin

Sept. 09 - Ron and Barbara Cooper

It’s Football Time in Tennessee!!!

Tonight

Union City Host Trenton

OCCHS @ Crockett Co.

So. Fulton @ Greenfield

Sept. 12 UTM @ MO State

Tennessee Volunteers open tomorrow hosting Western KY. - Kick-off 11:20 am

Return to Weekly Bulletin News Index page.