John Shearer: Random Thoughts About Lady Umpire, GPS Donor, Deaths And Baylor Baseball

Amid the seemingly rare City Council and mayoral budget bickering and ousted Regional Planning Agency director Dan Reuter’s accusations of a too-development-friendly planning commission, some uniting news has surfaced in recent days.



One example is a woman who literally calls people out being welcomed into a select group. Jennifer Pawol, 48, became the first woman to umpire a big-league game when she took part as a substitute in the Braves-Marlins series in Atlanta beginning Aug.

9.



The 48-year-old former Hofstra University softball catcher had been a part-time softball umpire before deciding to become a fulltime umpire in 2016. Through sheer perseverance, she finally got her chance nine years later, and I liked the way she demonstratively called runners out or safe on TV.



It was a great moment for baseball and women, unless you happen to be a supporter of the male-dominating themes in “The Handmaid Tales” show. She showed that little is holding women back these days in most fields.



As an Atlanta Braves fan, I was also glad the uplifting and history-making event occurred with the Braves and in Atlanta. The Braves were also involved in such other memorable Major League moments as Hank Aaron surpassing Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974 and the Braves’ stopping Pete Rose’s 44-game hitting streak in 1978. Both of those also occurred in Atlanta, where the Braves also clinched the 1995 World Series.



I tried to see where all she worked in the minor leagues and if she ever umpired a game involving the Lookouts or even one in Chattanooga but could not find much detail.



Another woman who stood out was in the news locally for her gift of more than $8 million to Girls Preparatory School to sustain a teaching fund. It was a name not well known locally: 1960 graduate Charlotte Frances Fox of Atlanta, who had died on April 27 at age 82. After graduating from Emory University, she had worked as a pioneering woman in the financial world before making a good amount of money.



I found her obituary, and it also recalled her attending Camp Nakanawa near Crossville as a child and enjoying playing tennis there. That had been a popular girls’ camp for those who attended GPS and elsewhere for years.



Her obituary also said she was survived by her partner and closest friend, Jean Roberts, and brother, George Fox, and his children. She had been born in Chattanooga to Blanche and George Richard Fox.



The Chattanooga Public Library happened to have a copy of the 1960 GPS annual, Kaleidoscope, and I found a little more information on her. While Nancy Currey was the class president, Betsy Gould was voted Most Likely To Succeed and Anne Dudley was the May queen, Ms. Fox did apparently find her niche and way to stand out as a student.



Active in several groups from music to dance to the Christian Forum club, she was also president of the Welfare Club. The paperback-but-detailed yearbook said the Welfare Club gave to such causes as the old United Fund, the March of Dimes, and the cancer and heart funds when they had names different from today. And at Christmas, they sponsored the filling of boxes for the Red Cross and the collection of clothing for the Jefferson Street School.



So, early on at this school then headed by principal Hannah Tucker, Ms. Fox knew the importance of giving back.



Her yearbook writeup under her photo uses these descriptions to sum her up: “Sports clothes, curly blond ducks, more bounce to the ounce, amiable, affinity for wood carvings, Foxy or Le Renard, and beauty, making beautiful.”



In a humorous writeup on one page talking about the class members’ wills they were leaving behind in 1960, she said she was leaving “my calm, cool and collected ability to speak in public to Camille Salisbury, who always seems so nervous.”



Among the also-light-hearted predictions, the yearbook said she would become the “wolf” warden at the Bronx Zoo.



She did go on to aid some Bruisers at GPS after probably continuing to speak confidently in the financial world, and the school is no doubt thankful for what is being described as the second largest gift ever. I know a number of years ago alumna Elizabeth Lupton Davenport, the daughter of Coca-Cola bottler Cartter Lupton and widow of Krystal executive Rody Davenport, gave a nice gift to the school, but I am not sure if that is the top one.



Sometimes I wonder if I went into the wrong line of work, as I have not known anyone working in the financial world who has not enjoyed a very comfortable living, although I read in one book how hard they have to work sometimes. Some financial people even become hedge fund managers. I guess my life in contrast could be described as more like a hedgehog.



But hats off to the late Ms. Fox and her gifts and talents she has shared with others at the school she attended for six years. That class apparently had multiple sets of twins, based on the yearbook names and photos, and she did double duty herself in leaving a legacy for others.



Hers has not been the only GPS-related death that caught my eyes recently. It was just announced that Mrs. James (Alice Sue Fleming) McCullough died this week at age 100. She had worked in the business office at GPS but was best known as being one of the parents back in the early 1950s who saw a need for a special school for intellectually disabled children.



That led, of course, to the founding of the Orange Grove Center. She was also an early leader of the group and might be the last adult leader from those early days of the praised facility to die.



Plenty of others locally and beyond have passed, too, pointing out that hopefully almost all of us are able to leave behind something positive through our God-given or God-inspired gifts. Astronaut Jim Lovell died at age 97, and he became known more for landing on the Earth instead of the expected moon after some technical issues caused problems.



Commanding Apollo 13 in 1970 at a time when the world was starting to get bored with the space race after Apollo 11 had landed successfully on the moon a year earlier, he and the crew were heroically able to bring the ship back after problems arose. I never will forget excitedly watching the return on TV at Bright School one Friday afternoon in April of that year. It was an event dramatically recounted in the 1995 movie starring Tom Hanks.



Sometimes these days it seems like heroes or honorees are handpicked by politicians of both sides, and that seems to damage the universal appeal in the eyes of some. But Mr. Lovell was a hero for all with his coolness amid chaos. And most would say so are those local people who helped rescue the local flood victims this week, despite the fact at least four people lost their lives. Thank you to them for their service.



I wonder how I would have done if I had seen someone in distress in a flooded area. Hopefully I would not have curled up like a hedgehog!



Another interesting person to die recently was former Judge Walter Williams. Elected in 1991 as City Court judge in Chattanooga, he gained national media attention for his unique, no-nonsense and hands-on approach to trying to reform law breakers.



I know John Wilson of Chattanoogan.com perhaps first brought attention to him by voluntarily covering some of his antics in his early days and reporting on them in the Chattanooga News-Free Press.



In the mid-1980s, I had covered City Court for the News-Free Press, too. Media-friendly judges John Taylor and Bill Cox were then on the bench, and it operated well, but it was still interesting watching the transformation under Judge Williams. I remember he even wanted the doors and walls into the court cleaned of smears and dirt.



I got to talk with Judge Williams once on the phone after I saw where a white woman who had taught at Howard back in the early days of integration had died. I thought her story would be interesting to highlight, and Judge Williams kindly shared some memories of her on his 1990s’ version of a cell phone as he drove home one night. I remember the former top student in 1970 said he liked her and ranked her up there with some of the praised black instructors he also had at Howard.



Another successful Chattanoogan to die recently, and who had also found success in the business and financial world like GPS alum Ms. Fox, was Mike Aiken. A 1971 graduate of Baylor School, I remember attending Baylor Camp in about the late 1960s, and he was my counselor. Looking back as an adult, I realize now that he had a natural charisma and plenty of personality that helped carry him far in life. Several of the Aikens have possessed that trait.



He first became a doctor like his friendly and servant-oriented father but maybe found interests in other areas. I remember around 1990 or later, he had apparently found some kind of successful market related to insurance or health-care policies or something like that. As a result, the parking lot behind the Red Bank office he used on Dayton Boulevard near my father’s optometry office was always full of cars perhaps belonging to phone or staff workers.



He no doubt found his place in the world before his unfortunate passing on July 21 at age 72.



At least one other Baylor graduate has certainly also found his place. 2021 graduate Nick Kurtz, who also played at Wake Forest, is tearing up the Major Leagues right now as a rookie for the Athletics. In a game on July 25, he hit four home runs.



The 6-foot-5 athlete attended Baylor from 2018-21 as a boarding student and played basketball, too, after transferring from Manheim Township school in Lancaster, Pa. He had apparently become familiar with the Baylor program because in 2015 he had played on a 12-and-under Baseball World Cup team with future Baylor teammates Cooper Kinney and Danny Corona.



Cooper Kinney, the son of then-Baylor co-head coach Mike Kinney, went straight into professional baseball after they graduated in 2021 with a state championship. He is playing for the Montgomery Biscuits – a Tampa Bay farm team -- against the Chattanooga Lookouts this week. I saw the first game of Thursday’s double header while enjoying virtually all kinds of concessions but biscuits, and he was playing first base for Montgomery.



In the final inning, as Montgomery was trying to rally, he had a chance to be a star with the bases loaded, but he struck out. However, he did get a hit in each of the two games.



With his .247 batting average, he still has a little work to do to reach the Major Leagues with former teammate Nick Kurtz and maybe get to be called out or safe by Ms. Pawel.



But as Mr. Kurtz, Ms. Pawel, Ms. Fox, Dr. Aiken, Judge Williams, and Mr. Lovell showed, dreams are attainable.



And as Ms. McCullough and the rescuers and many of these others also demonstrated, sometimes your contributions benefit others more than just you.



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Jcshearer2@comcast.net