Spencer TN and or surrounding areas

[Robbied]

calls you three or four times, pays for you to fly out there, and books your flight and makes you leave the day after you get there? This should say something, to those that are listening.

Regarding the school system in Van Buren- have you considered homeschooling?

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by yarddawg

Not a problem. Fly to the coordinates 35.615, -85.473

Then you'll have to back out a little to see what's going on. This takes you to a point on 111 just south of where Baker Mountain Road crosses. It's about a mile and a half from Hawk's bluff, there are strip pits closer but these are really easy to see. There are strip pits on both sides of the highway and some additional areas that are reclaimed strips.

Here's a little more help.

TopoZone - USGS Smartt Mountain (TN) Topo Map


That's a link to a topographic map of the area on topozone in which the strip mined areas have been added in purple (standard color for revisions of USGS maps). Really makes them stand out in disturbing technicolor.

Thanks! I see what you mean.

I bet they don't give a tour of that place.

I imagine there are a lot of people that will buy and never research any of this.

[seenitallb4]

Greed, stupidity and lack of due diligence almost always ends in financial ruin for those who do not do the math and understand the risks of investing!

[spencerite]

Spencer is probably not for you. I have lived here for over 7 years and love it but you have very high expectations and have not done your homework. It is a simple very small town. The people are good hearted and hard working and the majority of them are working poor. We have a Gas station or two, dollar store and a Save-A-Lot market, one bank. The school is adequate for the area and the teachers are dedicated and most from the area and know the students outside of school. Very tight knit community. I would try Cookeville again or maybe a larger area like outside Chattanooga.

[papa16]

Spencerite

I have land in Spencer and I want to build. I am an old dad 50 with a 10 month old. I want to move up in 5 years. My question is how are the kids with new kids who move into the area? I don t want to have him be considered an outsider. Are there opportunities for him to play sports. We have PAL here and my older boy 15 plays city baseball, football and soccer. As for myself I am a home body, I don t need much and I love the area. My wife said she doesn t need much either as long as she can drive to a mall somewhere sometime. Tks for the help

[seenitallb4]

The mall has 5 stores. So if you go to the mall and visit one store only, you can go 5 days straight and not go in the same store twice.
They also have an Applebee's! Wooo hooo!

[mrs1885]

I live about 10 minutes from Spencer and my kids go to school there.

Now, keep in mind that my kids started school in SW FL where the annual budget is in the many millions, and they love Spencer. I had my 2nd son withdrawn from school in Florida as they told us he had a learning disability and was 'unteachable'. When we moved I went in and asked if they had a GED program and told them all about his Florida schooling. They asked if we'd be willing to put him in a regular class and just let them be very intense in his education. We agreed. They got him through all 4 years of high school in a single year and he got to graduate with his class.

My next child has severe ADHD. The Florida schools told us he wasn't allowed on campus without taking his meds before school and a second dose at school. His dosage was so high he was having a hard time eating due to stomach aches. We moved here and they said if we wanted him on the meds, fine, but if not they would work with him. Well, we took him off immediately. It's been less than 18 months and he's a different kid. Excellent behavior, good grades.

The teachers in the school are more dedicated than any I have ever seen in my life. They volunteer their time after school to tudor any kids that need it for free. They finally got an ROTC program going, but the military told them the instructor had been retired too long and they wouldn't certify him to teach the class. The entire school - students and teachers alike - pulled together and somehow have convinced them to let him take a class to be certified to teach it. The kids were beyond ecstatic.

They have wonderful programs in place. My kids are enrolled in an Adopt-A-Grandparent program that they love. After school the kids go to the nursing home across the street and they are each assigned a grandparent to visit with. They help them write letters to family, eat meals, go for walks, etc.

The best part is how close everyone is. When my son graduated, the ceremony moved me to tears. Not just because he had worked so hard and overcome so much, but because the kids and the administration and the staff actually cared about one another. The guys would get their diploma and hug the teachers. Several of them were even carrying teachers around the stage! It was so wonderful to see a school where the teachers mean so much to the kids and vice-versa.

They got the juniors involved in the ceremony too and at the end, the seniors 'lit the way' for the younger junior class with a long line of lit candles for them to walk through. They still have prayer in their ceremonies, something very important to us. All in a school who's graduating class was under 40 students.

As for the mall, Seenitall is right. The closest is the 5 star mall in McMinnville and it's only got a couple stores in it. If your wife is looking to do 'shopping' like it sounds like, she's going to want to go to Nashville. She may settle for Murfreesboro or Cookeville, but she's not going to be happy if she's one of those 'shopping types'. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but the people in our area are very hard working, down to earth, God fearing, country loving, flag waving people. We don't need shopping malls to live and prefer our life without them. We don't drive Escalades and Navigators and even if we had the money we wouldn't want to.

As for how the kids are to new kids in the schools, my kids have had no problems. Now, the kids have come home and talked about new kids that are snobs, and those kids have it rough. Any kid walking through those doors that acts like their doo doesn't stink is going to be beyond miserable. But as long as he comes in with an open mind and is friendly and doesn't 'look down' at the kids there, he should be fine.

As for sports, basketball is the big thing. My kids all played football in Florida, so that was a big change. But the girls basketball team kicks butt - they are amazing!! I think there's a baseball team of some kind, but I'm not sure. I've only seen a bunch of people playing in the field once or twice, so it's possible that it's just a group that's gathered after school or something. ROTC is big and getting much bigger pretty quickly. And they have cheerleading for the basketball team for the girls.

If you come up with any other questions, let me know. I'd be happy to help.

[TNMtMama2008]

We did our homework and learned that even when the mining places have "cleaned up their sites" the groundwater has been affected for many miles. Well water has to be treated before use. We shutter to think what contaminants are in the water. Yard Dawg is correct in the assessment of what happened to the land. We were some of the unsuspecting out-of-state people that bought one of those pieces of property from a dishonest developer. We are SO sorry we did not do our homework. We were promised a beautiful development with utilities. After we sold our house and got up here, we learned it was all a lie. Now we own a pretty piece of property in the middle of nowhere that we can barely reach without an ATV. Couldn't give it away at this point. BEWARE!!!

[Wingz]

Originally Posted by yarddawg

... the southwestern part of Van Buren has been

1) clearcut
2) strafed and bombed, there was a major artillery range in the area during WWII
3) strip mined, much of which was not reclaimed.

I have never understood why the state allows them to clear cut hardwood forests of oak, hickory, walnut and maple, then "replace" it by planting pine trees. It will never be the same environment. We need to harvest hardwood to make furniture and flooring, but why not require them to replace what they cut with the same species. I know - it's cheaper to plant pine trees.

I fly over the Plateau once or twice a month and the amount of clear cutting and unreclaimed strip mines makes you sick. There is a HUGE area right next to the south entrance to Fall Creek Falls that has been cleared (probably not visible from the road). Now it will become a pine forest, which is not native to the Plateau.

Speaking of Fall Creek Falls, a ranger there said the orange stains on the rocks in the creeks there are from stuff that has leaked into the ground water from nearby strip mines.