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THE GREENEVILLE SUN Monday, January 25, 2016
OBITUARIES
—
Earlene Branch
Died: Jan. 23, 2016
Earlene Branch, 91,
of Greeneville passed
away Saturday morning
at Life Care Center of
Greeneville.
Arrangements will be
announced by Kiser-Rose
Hill Funeral Home.
Claude ‘Abe’
Light
Died: Jan. 23, 2016
CLAUDE ‘ABE’ LIGHT
Claude “Abe” Light, 85,
of Baileyton, passed away
Saturday with his family
by his side.
He is survived by his
wife: Phyllis; a daughter: Carla Arnold; a
grandson: Cody Arnold;
a
g reat -g ra ndson :
Cayden Arnold; a sister:
Neola Cooter; two brothers: Joe Light and his
wife, Marie, and John
Light; and sisters-in-law:
June Ball, Frances Sayler and Lochiel Light.
He was preceded in
death by his parents:
Cam and Betty Light;
brothers: Clifford, Bud,
Bob and Rod; and an
infant sister.
The family will receive
friends from 4-7 p.m.
Tuesday at Jeffers Funeral & Cremation Service,
downtown chapel.
Friends and family are
asked to meet at 10 a.m.
Wednesday at Jeffers
Downtown Chapel to
go in procession to Zion
Cemetery for an 11 a.m.
graveside service. The
Rev. Bill Rimmer will
officiate.
Memorial contr ibutions may be made to
the charity of the donor’s
choice.
Thoughts and memories may be shared with
the family at www.jeffersmortuary.com.
Reba Shell
Died: Jan. 24, 2016
Reba Shell, 90, of
Greeneville, died Sunday evening at DurhamHensley Health and
Rehabilitation Center of
Greeneville.
Arrangements will be
announced by DoughtyStevens Funeral Home.
FUNERAL
& CREMATION SERVICE
Family Owned and Operated
Rex, Richard and Justin Jeffers
423-639-2141
CLAUDE ‘Abe’ LIGHT
Graveside Service, 11 a.m.
Wednesday
Zion Cemetery
BARBARA ANN MORELOCK
Funeral, 7 p.m. Monday
Jeffers Downtown Chapel
Interment, 11 a.m. Tuesday
Caney Creek Cemetery
REBA SHELL
Incomplete
ROGER L. TIPTON
Military Graveside Service,
11:30 a.m. Tuesday
Mountain Home National
Cemetery
Graceland
Memorial Gardens
“Land of Beauty & Distinction”
Phone: 639-7707
Frankie Dean
Thompson
Died: Jan. 22, 2016
GRAY — Frankie Dean
Thompson, 82, passed
away Friday at Signature HealthCARE of
Rogersville, surrounded
by her children.
Born April 5, 1933, in
Courtland, Ala., she was
the third child of Oscar
and Gretchen Slayton.
A f ter
g raduating
FROM high school, she
met and, soon after,
married a handsome
young sailor named Norman “Tommy” Thompson. They were married
for 59 years.
She was a devoted
homemaker. Her interests and talents included
sewing, painting, cooking, baking and gardening.
Frankie was a member
of Bulls Gap First Baptist Church.
She enjoyed being a
part of the local Home
Demonstration Club.
For many years, she
enjoyed Saturday outings with her daughters
and cooking her famous
chicken and dumplings
for Sunday dinners.
Frankie was known
for her love of sweets,
her homemade chocolate
pies and chocolate chip
cookies will be dearly
missed.
She is survived by her
children: Linda Newberry, Deanie (Jim) Greene,
Mark Thompson, Robin
(Vicki) Thompson and
Debbie (Mike) Byrd;
brothers: Wade (Jackie)
Slayton and Bill Slayton; grandchildren: Rob
and Amiee Newberry,
Tracey Williams and
Jeremy Thompson, Shea
and Kara Greene, Jessica Griggs and Philip
Thompson, and Mandy,
Chris and Rusty Thompson; great-grandchildren; and nieces, nephews, special friends and
neighbors.
She was preceded in
death by her spouse:
Norman Thompson; a
son: Jerry Thompson; a
sister: Katherine Foss;
and a brother: Bud Slayton.
A private memorial service will be held
for family and close
friends.
Condolences can be
sent to the family at
www.snydersmemorialgardens.com.
Snyder’s
Memorial
Gardens in Gray is serving the Thompson family.
Roger L. Tipton
Died: Jan. 18, 2016
Roger L. Tipton, 82, of
Johnson City, formerly of
Bulls Gap, passed away
the morning of Jan. 18,
at the James H. Quillen
Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Mountain
Home.
Roger was born June
24, 1933, in Mitchell
County, N.C., and was a
son of the late John H.
and Rose Masters Tipton.
He retired from the
U.S. Air Force, with the
rank of master sergeant.
He served three tours in
Vietnam. He received the
Bronze Star Medal, the
Bronze Star Medal with
2nd Oak Leaf Cluster, and
the Meritorious Service
Medal.
Mr. Tipton was of the
Methodist faith.
Survivors include two
brothers: Maurice Tipton
of Greeneville and Austin
Tipton of Dandridge; one
sister: Betty Breeden of
Greeneville; and several
nieces and nephews.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in
death by two brothers: Jay
Tipton and LeRoy Tipton
Sr.; and one sister: Jewel
Ervin.
A military graveside
service will be held at
11:30 a.m. Tuesday at
Mountain Home National Cemetery. Family and
friends are asked to meet
at the cemetery for the
service.
Military honors will be
conveyed by the U.S. Air
Force Honor Guard from
Shaw Air Force Base.
Doughty- Stevens
Funeral Home is in
charge of arrangements.
www.greenevillesun.com
OBITUARIES/STATE
Durham Goes Back And Forth
On GOP Leadership Resignation
BY ERIK SCHELZIG
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NASHVILLE (AP) — A Tennessee lawmaker whose questionable
behavior nearly got him ousted
from Republican leadership in the
state House earlier this month
announced Sunday that he was
resigning as majority whip.
State Rep. Jeremy Durham then
went on Twitter to announce he
wasn’t resigning from the leadership position, only to return two
hours later with a slightly-edited
statement to confirm he was stepping down.
Republican House leaders had
expected the announcement as
early as Sunday morning, and the
on-again-off-again nature of the
resignation caught them off guard.
House Majority Leader Gerald
McCormick, R-Chattanooga, had
immediately accepted the resignation, calling it a “good decision”
before Durham appeared to backtrack.
The back-and-forth came the
same day The Tennessean newspaper reported that three women
who work at the Legislature
received inappropriate text messages from the lawmaker. Two
women received messages from
Durham’s phone number after
midnight asking for them to send
him pictures, the newspaper
reported.
Durham told The Tennessean
he didn’t remember sending any
of the messages.
House Republican Caucus
Chairman Glen Casada said he
had been in communication with
Durham much of the day. Casada
said he had urged his longtime
ally to resign from leadership.
“It is the mature thing to do,”
he said.
After the statement was
released, Casada said Durham
contacted him to say it had
only been a draft. The apparent change of heart was “certainly a surprise to me,” Casada
said. The caucus later put out a
slightly revised “approved” version of Durham’s letter blaming
what he called the “relentless
media-driven agenda” for causing unneeded distractions to the
caucus.
Durham did not return messages from The Associated
Press.
Previous revelations included
that Durham in 2014 wrote a
character reference on behalf of
a youth pastor facing sentencing
in federal court after pleading
guilty to child porn possession.
The defendant later pleaded
guilty in state court to statutory
rape of a parishioner who was 16
at the time. The Associated Press
had also obtained investigative
records that showed prosecutors
earlier in 2014 sought prescription fraud charges against the
lawmaker, but that a grand jury
declined to bring an indictment.
The House majority whip is in
charge of incumbents’ re-election
efforts, and some Republicans
worried that Durham remaining
in that role could make donors
skittish. But an earlier bid to
oust Durham faltered on a caucus rule requiring two-thirds of
members vote in favor of proceeding with the effort. While
48 of 73 Republicans voted to
move ahead with the ouster proceedings, that total was one vote
shy of the 49 needed to meet the
threshold.
Before Durham knew the
vote totals in the caucus meeting, he derided what he called
the “kangaroo-court proceeding”
and blamed all negative attention
of his activities on the “liberal
media.”
House Speaker Beth Harwell
last fall had the Legislature’s
human resources chief speak to
Durham about unspecified behavioral issues. Durham brushed
aside questions about that conversation.
“I didn’t know what she was
talking about,” Durham said after
the caucus meeting.
Durham had a history of bouncing back from career-threatening
actions even before his election to
General Assembly in 2012.
As a college sophomore at the
University of Tennessee in 2005,
Durham was arrested for breaking into the home of the new
boyfriend of a woman who had
broken up with him a week earlier. Durham confessed breaking
into the home and taking items
including a guitar, compact disks
and the license plate of the man’s
car. Prosecutors and school officials didn’t pursue the case.
Within 16 months of that brush
with the law, Durham declared
himself a candidate for student
body president running on a campus-safety platform. Durham finished third, and his heavy spending ran afoul of the school’s campaign finance laws, leading 16
students running on the same
ticket to being disqualified from
taking their seats on the student
body Senate.
Durham nevertheless rose in
the ranks to eventually head the
Tennessee Young Republicans,
and parlayed the connections
forged in that role to give him the
inside track for a new House seat
created through legislative redistricting in 2011.
Larger-Than-Life Nashville Politician Dead At 85
BY TRAVIS LOLLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NASHVILLE, Tenn.
(AP) — A family friend
said
larger-than-life
Nashville political figure
John Jay Hooker Jr., who
spent his last days fighting to make physicianassisted suicide legal in
Tennessee, died on Sunday at 85.
Political strategist Tom
Ingram said he received
a message from one of
Hooker’s daughters that
Hooker had died in hospice. He had been suffering from metastatic
melanoma.
Hooker had brilliant
successes early in life
as an attorney. Tapped
in 1958 to prosecute the
impeachment of a Chattanooga judge accused
of accepting bribes from
racketeers, he fell into
the orbit of Robert Kennedy, who was investigating the Teamsters
union. Hooker later
worked as special counsel to Kennedy after he
became U.S. attorney
general, even living in
Kennedy’s house for a
time.
Hooker was one of the
original investors in
Hospital Corporation
of America, a chairman
of STP Corp., partowner and publisher of
the Nashville Banner,
and brief ly chairman
of wire service United
Press International.
He was also a socialite once named to an
international list of the
best dressed men in the
world.
Hooker was a serious
Democratic contender
for governor in 1966 and
the party’s nominee for
governor in the 1970
and 1998 races. Many
AP PHOTO/DAVID GOLDMAN, FILE
John Jay Hooker sits outside his retirement home apartment in Nashville. Hooker, a large figure in Tennessee politics who once worked as special counsel to
Robert Kennedy, spent his last days fighting to make physician-assisted suicide
legal in Tennessee. Hooker died Sunday in Nashville. He was 85.
in Nashville remember
him for the spectacular success and sudden
failure of his Minnie
Pearl’s Fried Chicken
franchise. The company’s demise was used
against him in the 1970
campaign, and Hooker
was bothered for the
rest of his life by the
idea that some people
thought fraud played a
role in the company’s
downfall.
Hooker, who had aspirations to become president, always blamed
P resident
R icha rd
Nixon for the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission’s scrutiny
of his business.
In the 1990s, Hooker
earned the moniker
“gadf ly” in the press
after he began running
and in the courts but
did not succeed before
his death.
Former
Kentucky
Gov. John Y. Brown,
who was co-owner and
CEO of Kentucky Fried
Chicken,
was
also
Hooker’s good friend.
Speaking of Hooker on
Sunday, Brown said,
“I think John, in so
many ways, lived a life
of regret. But at the
same time, he had a
tremendous impact on
the people who came
his way. He had a terrific talent and a very
imaginative vibe. ... He
was a man always chasing whatever the next
dream was.”
repeatedly for political
office as a platform to
file lawsuits challenging campaign financing. He also began filing
suits that challenged
judicial appointments,
keeping at it for nearly
two decades despite losing battle after battle.
He eventually earned a
30-day suspension of his
law license for “frivolous
litigation.”
Last year, Hooker
was diagnosed with
cancer and given six
months to live. He said
the diagnosis was a jolt
that transformed his
life and gave him a new
sense of purpose when
he took up the cause of
physician-assisted suicide. He pursued the
fight to make it legal
both in the Legislature
———
Erik Schelzig contributed to this report.
TVA Seeking Comment On Coal Ash Storage Facility Closures
KNOXVILLE
(AP)
— The Tennessee Valley Authority is planning
to close coal ash storage
facilities at its coal-fired
power plants and is asking for the public to comment.
A draft environmental
impact statement is available online and looks at
the impact of closing the
facilities in place or closing by removal as well
as the impact of closing
10 facilities within three
years.
TVA is also hosting
information sessions.
The sessions start at
5:30 p.m., and locations are listed with the
draft statement and
online comment form
at https://www.tva.gov/
nepa .
Comments must be
postmarked or emailed
by Feb. 24.
Written comments
should be sent to Ashley Farless, Tennessee
Valley Authority, 1101
Market St., BR4A, Chattanooga, TN 37402, or
emailed to CCR(at)tva.
gov.
TVA serves 9 million
people in parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and
Virginia.
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