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County Commission honors Westview Lady Chargers

Story by Shannon Taylor Senior Investigative Reporter

The County Commission gave special recognition and passed a resolution to honor and congratulate the Westview High School Lady Chargers Division I—Class 2A State Champion Basketball Team. The resolution was sponsored by all eight Martin Commissioners: Larry Taylor, Larry Kelly, David Bell, Brian Donavant, David Hawks, Billy Hazelwood, Jack Vincent and Roger Donaldson.

The Resolution states that the Westview High School Lady Chargers recently completed a very memorable 2022-23 season by capturing the Tennessee State Division I Class 2A State Championship trophy at the Blue Cross Basketball Tournament in Murfreesboro. “The outstanding squad undeniably completed the most successful season of any team in Weakley County and the Lady Chargers finished their season with a record of 33 wins and only one loss.”

The Lady Chargers finished post-season play as district, regional and sub-state champions. “The Lady Chargers were honored to have an outstanding young lady, Jada Harrison, who was awarded with the 2023 TSSAA Miss Basketball title and at the State Championship game Jada Harrison, McCall Sims, Jillian Brigance and Mary Anna Chester were named to the TSSAA 2A All-Tournament Team, Jillian Brigance broke the All-Time highest field goal percentage by scoring 92% of her shots, Jada Harrison was named Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive season.”

The Lady Chargers were led by Head Coach Brian Haskins who was supported by “the best group” of assistant coaches with Lauren Freeman, Randy Moore, Burton Ruteledge and Mike Swaim.

“The team had surpassed fan and financial support from the entire Martin and Weakley County community and due to the fact that a number of regular season, district, regional and substate games was played at home it is undeniable of the financial impact this team has made to the Westview High School, City of Martin and Weakley County economy.”

In message from the mayor, Weakley County Mayor Jake Bynum said that the update for the Director of Weakley County Schools and the time for the interviews has been set for the public on Monday, March 27. Chairmen of the Weakley County School Board, Steve Vantrease, said that the agenda for that should go out March 17.

The surplus of the HVAC units left at the Weakley County Detention Center was approved. All six financial resolutions were approved. All passed previously through their respective committees except for the school budget amendment which did not pass through HEED.

Commissioner Brian Donavant spoke on the school fund and said, “I just want to express to Mr. Frazier and to his team my appreciation for following up with some additional information about that. It was very helpful for me, and I just want to go on the record and say that after we received that information, I am beyond impressed with the comprehensive nature of that.”

Commissioner Larry Kelly said that he concurred with what Donavant said, but he had concerns about the financial aspects of it. “You say it’s going to be $4,000 per student?”

Frazier said, “We don’t know that for sure, that’s just the number that we’re using.”

Kelly wanted to know what happened after the four-year grant was concluded. Frazier said that hopefully the infrastructure would be taken care of up front and then the revenue generated each year from students taking the courses would be enough to pay the teacher’s salary. Kelly said that he hoped Frazier was right.

A resolution was approved which authorized Weakley County to join the state of Tennessee and other local governments in amending the Tennessee State-Subdivision opioid abatement agreement and approving the related settlement agreement. Commissioner David Bell asked, “What will the money be used for?” Bynum replied that, “100% of the money that the state will receive from the opioid abatement settlement, 15% goes to the state general fund, 15% goes to every participating subdivision and it is supposed to be used for abatement purposes—that money is at the discretion of each of the subdivisions, the counties, to use kind of how they want to, however, so that’s 30% of monies, the remaining 70% of the money, 35% of the remaining 70% also goes to subdivisions that has to be tied to some sort of an abatement project so funding drug courts, job placement programs in the jail, treatment facilities-those kind of things.” Bynum said that they were putting together a task force to figure out where those monies are best utilized.

The next County Commission meeting will be held on May 15 at 5 pm.