Southern Middle TN Today News with Tom Price 8-3-26

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Southern Middle Tennessee Today

News Copy for August 3, 2026

All news stories are aggregated from various sources and modified for time and content. Original sources are cited.

Medacta Makes Maury HQ (Press Release)

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Deputy Gov. and Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter and Medacta International officials announced today that Medacta will expand its footprint in Tennessee by relocating its U.S. headquarters and expanding its manufacturing operations to Maury County.

To further amplify the company’s growth, Medacta will relocate and expand its U.S. headquarters from Franklin, Tennessee to Spring Hill. Additionally, Medacta is co-locating what will become its U.S. manufacturing hub in Spring Hill. The major expansion will be carried out in several stages and is designed to strengthen the company’s global supply chain for medical devices as well as operational footprint.

Upon completion, the new development site on Jim Warren Road, near the intersection of I-65 and Saturn Parkway, is expected to create more than 200 new jobs across manufacturing, corporate operations and other supporting roles and represents an investment of $85 million.

Medacta, a Swiss-listed company, was founded in Castel San Pietro, Switzerland, and is a global key player specializing in the design, production and distribution of innovative, personalized and sustainable solutions for joint replacement, sports medicine and spine surgery.

Switzerland is one of Tennessee’s top partners for foreign direct investment (FDI) with more than 40 Swiss companies across the state that account for more than 4,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in capital investment.

Quotes

“Tennessee continues to compete and win on a global scale, attracting world-class companies like Medacta that choose to grow their business here. As the home of Medacta’s U.S. headquarters, our state is proud to support the company’s continued investment in Middle Tennessee. This expansion and the creation of 235 new jobs reflect the confidence international companies have in Tennessee’s skilled workforce, strong business climate and commitment to long-term success.” — Gov. Bill Lee

“Our state has earned a global reputation as a leader in healthcare and medical device manufacturing, with Middle Tennessee serving as the heart of one of the nation’s most dynamic healthcare ecosystems. Medacta’s continued growth reinforces the strength of this industry and the advantages our state offers companies looking to innovate, expand and succeed. I look forward to seeing the company’s continued impact in the years to come.” — Deputy Gov. and TNECD Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter

“Medacta’s vision and commitment is to improve the care and well-being of orthopaedic and spin surgery patients. Our differentiated innovations, products and solution offerings are targeted to improve patient outcomes and are part of Medacta’s success in delivering above-market growth over the past years. This new development project in Spring Hill will not only assist us in our further growth strategy but will also strengthen Medacta’s U.S. footprint to enable a healthy and active lifestyle for every patient in the U.S. We are delighted to have found this great location and intent to advance the project without delay.” — Francesco Siccardi, CEO, Medacta

“Team Maury has consistently worked toward providing higher wage opportunities and diversifying the local economy. Medacta’s announcement brings world-class medical device headquarters and production functions into the community, helping it reach both of these goals. I extend a warm welcome to Medacta and express my sincere appreciation to all of our economic development partners who assisted in this effort.” — Maury County Mayor Sheila Butt

City to Rebrand (MSM)

The City of Columbia and a consulting firm launched a discovery campaign last week in the hope of finding and refining its “brand.”

The Franklin-based municipal-branding firm Chandlerthinks, which has worked with about 135 towns and cities in the last nine years, sent its personnel down to Columbia for the first rounds of branding sessions. Selected groups of citizen “stakeholders” were invited first to give their opinions of what the city’s brand is. A public-information session was also held on Tuesday night to explain the process and its goals to the public.

Steve Chandler, the founder of Chandlerthinks, explained that the city’s “brand” includes far more than its logo or what the logo portrays. To make this point, he asked people to consider the city’s current logo: though it’s well-drawn and shows several things that have helped make the city famous — specifically, a mule, President James K. Polk and the old county courthouse — it doesn’t capture popular or firsthand impressions of the city, and by itself it doesn’t drive investment, tourism, relocation or the other phenomena that are the lifeblood of Columbia.

“A logo has a job to do, but it’s not to sell by itself,” Chandler said. “No one ever said, ‘Hey honey, we’ve got to go visit this place. Check out their logo!'”

Instead, a city’s full “brand” is made up of much more emotionally potent ideas: its history, neighborhoods, schools, public spaces, social fabric and culture, service businesses and industries, major assets and their use, and the city’s reputation, good or bad — not only among residents, but also surrounding communities, their governments, and people far away.

“Municipal branding’s got a more difficult task than any branding I’ve ever seen… Unlike any business I can think of, a municipality is also a place. And that is why you showed up,” Chandler told the attendees at the branding information session. “[A municipality’s] story is important and people take great pride in it… This process is built to understand that [story].”

The brand, Chandler and his team made clear, is inseparable from Columbia’s history and present. Rather than throw away what’s made people want to live here, the city must hold onto those qualities and even put in the work to improve them, in order to grow in a sustainable and attractive way.

“Preservation is as much about branding as promotion… Let’s make sure we don’t lose the character that’s important to us,” he said. “The richer the story, the better the reputation is of a city.”

The brand can also lead, directly or not, to city policy. When ChandlerThinks first studied Columbia’s branding a decade ago, it recommended several policy decisions that have become embedded in the new Columbia and its publicity, from the creation of a tourism department to the addition of the word “President” to all the historical markers of sites associated with James K. Polk. Brand-discovery work led the city to intentionally reinforce parts of its identity and activate its under-used potential, which ten years later have now become some of the most important parts of its self-presentation.

“We want to hold onto the identity that we have… [during] the transition period,” said Hanna Miller, the city’s public information officer. “It’s important to put that on paper… [so] everyone in the city knows what that is.”

To start piecing together the brand that exists in people’s minds, ChandlerThinks are now canvassing for the opinions of Columbia residents. Sometime in the next few weeks, the city will release a survey to the public to get their thoughts on the city’s brand, at which time Main Street Maury will publish the link to the survey. Residents are urged to take it in order to help steer Columbia’s branding and development in the directions they want.

“The purpose of all this research, is that the branding and position is created by the people that live and work here,” said a ChandlerThinks consultant. “It has to be authentic, or else… it would fall flat… The story has to come from you.”

Seasonal Changes Impact Employment (MSM)

The annual summer break, which temporarily sidelines many school employees such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers and custodial staff, contributed to an expected increase in county unemployment rates in June, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD).

Unlike the statewide rate, county rates are not adjusted to account for seasonal impacts on employment.

Unemployment rates increased from May to June in 94 of Tennessee’s 95 counties. Maury County was the lone exception; its rate fell one-tenth of a percentage point.

Eighty-four counties reported unemployment rates of less than 5 percent. The remaining 11 counties had rates of 5 percent or greater, with the highest at 6 percent.

Cheatham and Sevier counties recorded the state’s lowest unemployment rates for June at 3 percent. Cheatham’s rate was up six-tenths of a percentage point over May, and Sevier’s rate was up four-tenths of a percentage point.

Five counties — Wilson, Williamson, Sumner, Dickson, and Rutherford — followed with rates of 3.1 percent.

Perry County had Tennessee’s highest unemployment rate in June. At 6 percent, it was seven-tenths of a percentage point higher than the previous month.

Hancock County had the next-highest unemployment rate at 5.7 percent, an increase of 1 percentage point over May. Pickett County’s rate was 5.6 percent, up eight-tenths of a percentage point.

TDLWD has compiled an analysis of the June 2026 county unemployment data.

Tennessee will release statewide unemployment data for July 2026 on Thursday, August 20.

ROSS Program Helps Families (MSM)

The Columbia Housing & Redevelopment Corporation has been hard at work helping to get people housed, employed and financially stable. Integral to their work is the Resident Opportunities and Self-Sufficiency (ROSS) program, newly endowed with a $273,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The ROSS program’s job, said Resident Services Coordinator Dona Anderson, is to educate people about how to get benefits and employment, make them job-ready and healthy, and get them involved in their communities.

“A lot of people need housing, but there’s more that they need,” said Dr. Trent Ogilvie, the president of the Housing & Redevelopment Corporation. “I call them the wraparound services that go into them being able to stay within their housing and have a good quality of life. Those are the resources that we bring to people.”

ROSS has had many government agencies, churches and nonprofits as its partners in this work. The American Job Center meets monthly with its beneficiaries to help them find employment at a range of places, get onto unemployment and supplementary benefits, and improve their resumes or interview skills. The University of Tennessee Extension Office once sent someone to teach ROSS clients how to make healthy budget meals with a few ingredients.

Among their nonprofit partners, Sleep in Heavenly Peace has built and donated beds with bedding to children who would otherwise sleep on the floor; the Beta Rho chapter of the teachers’ fraternity Delta Kappa Gamma solicits and donates different types of living supplies each month; and the Retired Teachers’ Association regularly raises money at its meetings to pay families’ housing deposits, late rent and utility bills. Certain banks have sent their employees in to teach financial-literacy classes too.

Some of the most generous and hands-on helpers are local churches. The Graymere Church of Christ’s “Into the City” program has bused inner-city kids to its Vacation Bible School every summer for almost a decade and paid bills via its “Benevolence” program. The Carmack Boulevard Church of Christ regularly takes kids from the Creekside neighborhood to a science museum free of charge. And Destiny Church throws regular parties for the Northside neighborhood.

Individual donors have also done a great deal for Housing & Redevelopment clients. On top of donations throughout the year, the community has always given school supplies to the Corporation’s annual “Back-to-School Bash,” and they raised $25,000 for the “Grace for the Gap” drive at Christmas 2025, to fund an unusually high volume of applications for rent relief around that time.

“We don’t want nobody to be put out of their home for the holidays,” Anderson said.

“We have letters from a lot of those residents, who wrote their story about how [Grace for the Gap] helped them during that time,” agreed Ogilvie.

Ogilvie explained that community support is integral to good outcomes for both adults and children.

“I find that it’s during those critical times that things can quickly go off the rails. If you lose the house, then you’re upset and then there’s a domestic issue, and then the kid acts out in his behavior at school, and then it just starts snowballing,” he said. “But if you can maintain your house and your sanity, have people around you that you know care, then that shows the kids that there’s a community who cares about you… And that does a lot for the young people, to see a community support them and embrace them… That’s why the ROSS program is so important… they know they can call somebody, send somebody a text that says ‘I need help.'”

Anderson testified that laying this sort of groundwork really does build up successful lives for the ROSS program’s clients.

“People became homeowners out of working with us, budgeting, getting the right tools. It can be a big success story,” she said. “Columbia Housing is a good place to [start], but it’s really a steppingstone… [When] a lot of people started here, they didn’t have any income, and now they’re RNs and have [other] good professions. That’s what you want… it makes you feel good when you see that.”

New Park in Culleoka (MSM)

Maury County Parks and Recreation cut the ribbon on Culleoka’s new Sweetwater Park, now open to the public at 2420 Mooresville Pike. The park’s name reflects the English definition of “Culleoka,” which, according to Wikipedia, means “sweet water” in an unspecified Native American language.

Former County Commissioner Debbie Turner, who represented District 8 on the County Commission when the park was in her district, called it her “greatest accomplishment.” She hopes for future improvements such as basketball courts, soccer fields and pickleball courts, but said she is “very happy” with the current park.

“I sat on that commission and voted on… other parks [for other communities] in the county. I represented a district and a community that does so much, but I’d see them hardly getting anything,” she said. “I just made it my mission that I wanted to get a park for Culleoka, and I started working on it and getting the word out there… I was very overwhelmed when I got here this morning, because this was beyond my wildest expectations… There’s nothing greater than coming in and seeing children already on the playground.”

The current District 9 commissioners, who represent Culleoka and its new park, credited Turner with getting the ball rolling.

“If Debbie hadn’t gotten started, it might have never gotten finished,” said Commissioner Jerry Bridenbaugh. “The community is really thrilled with this, we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback.”

“I cannot tell you how excited I am to have this park open. This has been the dream of a lot of people… that have worked on it and built it,” said County Mayor Sheila Butt.

When Butt took office, she learned that county parks were subject to a moratorium on grant funding because of noncompliance at the county’s Chickasaw Landfill. Once she and other personnel got the landfill closed, the county became eligible for funding once again.

“I raised three little boys, three years apart, and a lot of times during the day — we didn’t have a lot of money to go shopping… [or] bowling — you know what we did? We went to the park… [and] built relationships,” she recalled of her own parenting. “We had playdates… mom days… [and] picnic lunches at the park. The park was part of our community, and that’s exactly what this park is going to mean to Culleoka.”

Parks Director Al Ray thanked Wayne Lindsay, Jennifer Miller and his other workers.

“Y’all have a parks staff working for you that’s like two-for-one people. We run lean and mean because of that, and I want to recognize them,” he said, to applause from the audience. He thanked District 64 Rep. Scott Cepicky for helping the grants that funded the park; local realtor Jimmy Dugger for making “a nice donation” to build the park shelter that will later be dedicated to him; and the Culleoka Community Club.

“It’ll just get better, I know [Parks Director Al Ray] has got plans to add things here… We’ve heard ‘putting green,’ we’ve heard ‘splash pad,’ we’ve heard ‘full basketball court,'” said Commissioner Bridenbaugh. “It is a prime spot.”

And now, Your Hometown Memorials, Sponsored by Oakes & Nichols Funeral Home…

Sarah Louise Hunt Quirk, 77, passed away on Friday, July 31, 2026, at Maury Regional Medical Center. She was a longtime resident of the Theta Community of Maury County.

A graveside service will be conducted on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, at 2:00 PM at Quirk Family Cemetery, 4581 James Jenkins Road, Columbia, Tennessee 38401. Online condolences may be extended at www.oakesandnichols.com.

And now, news from around the state…

Governor’s Race Tightening (CDH)

Less than a week before election day in Tennessee, a new poll shows the GOP gubernatorial primary to be a toss-up between U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and U.S. Rep. John Rose — with Blackburn's once-commanding lead narrowed to 3.5 points as Rose surges.

Internal polling from the Blackburn campaign obtained by The Tennessean shows Blackburn with a 17-point lead over Rose.

The poll showing the tighter race surveyed 800 likely Republican primary voters, of whom 34.5% said they'd support Blackburn, 31% supported Rose and 25.6% supported state Rep. Monty Fritts. Another 9% were undecided or declined to answer.

Rose held a narrow lead among those who had already voted, with 36% saying they'd voted for Rose, 35% voting for Blackburn, 27% for Fritts and 2% declining to answer.

The poll was conducted by OnMessage Inc. from July 23 to 25. Pollsters contacted 800 likely Republican primary voters, stratified by county to reflect historical turnout. It has a 3.5% margin of error.

“The race has closed up dramatically,” pollster Wes Anderson told The Tennessean. “As we fly into the final here next Thursday… it’s going to come down to whether Marsha can outrun the cheetah or the cheetah catches her. The momentum is clearly on Rose’s side.” 

It's the first poll that's been made public since reports that Blackburn was the target of a U.S. Senate ethics investigation. The Tennessean exclusively reported July 30 that the probe ultimately determined Blackburn's office violated Senate ethics rules by using government resources to bolster her 2024 Senate reelection bid. The survey also came after Blackburn made headlines in Nashville for not answering questions from a NewsChannel5 TV reporter while waiting for a slow elevator.

The poll was not commissioned by any campaign. Anderson said the gubernatorial survey questions were added onto a survey for a corporate client. Anderson has worked for Rose in the past but is not currently associated with the Rose campaign. His business partner Brad Todd is working for Rose.

Blackburn's campaign manager Abigail Sigler criticized the poll.

"Any pollster who won't release the full demographics is hiding something," Sigler said. "This is a desperate attempt by political consultants to get their candidate to invest even more than the $13 million of his own money he's already poured in. Marsha Blackburn is going to be the Republican nominee and then the 51st Governor of the state of Tennessee."

Internal polling from the Blackburn campaign showed Blackburn 17 percentage points ahead of Rose and 20 points ahead of Fritts. Asked who they would support in the primary, 42% supported Blackburn, 25% were for Rose and 22% for Fritts, with 11% undecided.

"Despite John Rose and his allies' continued attacks on Senator Marsha Blackburn, she has a huge lead in the GOP primary for Governor," states the confidential poll memorandum, dated July 31. "With only 11% undecided, it would be incredibly difficult for either Rose or Fritts to make up the huge gap between Sen. Blackburn and them."

Polling firm Fabrizio, Lee & Associates contacted 800 Republican primary voters via cell phone, landline and text message between July 26-28.

Anderson said that in the three decades he’s polled in Tennessee, the gubernatorial primary is the closest primary race he’s seen.

“If I were a betting man, I would probably abstain from betting on this one. I don’t think I can call it, I think it’s that close,” Anderson said, calling victory "a jump ball."

“Does the bulwark that the Blackburn campaign has tried to put up survive the surge? Or does the surge and the momentum shift, accrue to John and beat her?" he said.

Rose’s campaign manager Chris Devaney said the poll is consistent with the campaign's internal data. 

“This poll matches our own internal polling that shows that John Rose continues to gain momentum and Senator Blackburn’s numbers are collapsing,” Devaney said.

Polling around the governor's race has shown Rose consistently gaining on Blackburn since her 58 percentage point lead last January.

Earlier this month, the Rose campaign released an internal poll that found him just 15 points behind Blackburn, with 15% undecided. Days later, Blackburn's political strategist Ward Baker released an internal polling memo showing Blackburn with a 31-point lead during the same time frame.

A smaller separate poll of Republican and independent voters in the 5th Congressional District found Blackburn about 12 points ahead of Rose, with 16.5% undecided. The Tennessee Journal first reported the survey, which contacted 400 likely Republican voters via phone and text message on July 28 — days after the OnMessage poll.

Tori Venable, state director of Americans for Prosperity Action dismissed the OnMessage poll, saying it does not align with the data collected by AFP volunteers knocking doors for Blackburn.

AFP operatives have knocked on more than 150,000 doors across the state for the Blackburn campaign.

“I know this is a bs poll. How? @AFPStatePAC IS talking to thousands of Tennesseans every day,” Venable said.

Venable said AFP volunteers had more than 3,500 conversations with voters last week, and nearly 2,000 said they had already voted or planned to vote for Blackburn, while 438 told AFP volunteers they supported Rose, Fritts or someone else. About 32% were undecided. 

“The big news is @VoteMarsha is going to be our next Governor!” Venable said in a social media post. “If every single undecided broke for one of the other guys and they somehow combined all the votes, then someone would be at 44%. Blackburn still wins.” 

Final Story of the Day (Maury County Source)

The time-honored, immersive holiday attraction, ice!™, returns to Gaylord Opryland with an all-new theme as part of the resort’s 43rd Annual A Country Christmas, running November 6, 2026, through January 2, 2027. 

This year, Gaylord Opryland proudly unveils ice! featuring Home Alone™, where the beloved holiday classic comes to life in more than two million pounds of brilliantly sculpted ice. Centered around the iconic McCallister home, the experience unfolds across 11 interactive walk-through scenes, beginning with a striking exterior that draws guests into the story before inviting them inside. From sledding down the grand staircase and joining the lively mannequin party to recreating the unforgettable aftershave moment, each vignette captures the heart, humor and nostalgia of the film.

The artisans behind this extraordinary masterpiece travel more than 6,400 miles from Harbin, China, known as the “Ice City” and home to the world’s largest ice and snow festival, to bring their craft to Nashville. The team uses more than 6,000 massive blocks of ice and dedicates approximately six weeks and more than 12,000 hours to create the 17,000-square-foot frozen attraction. Following a detailed 300-page design plan, they use chisels, grinders and chainsaws to transform ice into a breathtaking holiday wonderland.