Good Thursday evening! This is The Weekender, a final look at this week’s news from the Independent Herald. The Daybreaker (Monday) and The Weekender (Thursday evening) are our two news-first newsletters. We publish several other newsletters throughout the week, as well as our regular E-Edition on Thursday and our Varsity E-Edition on Sunday (during sports season). If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of these newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Buckeye Home Medical Equipment. Serving Scott County and several other communities in the Upper Cumberland region, Buckeye is a full-line DME providing home health equipment to its patients.
Burchfield School celebrates 100 years
ONEIDA | At a ceremony Friday night, Burchfield School celebrated 100 years of education in the West Oneida community.
Dating back to 1926, the school is as old as the era of eight-month education in Scott County. It opened as a three-room, frame building with three teachers, replacing the nearby Cotton Creek School, which had ballooned to 65 students but had room for only one class and one teacher.
J.B. Carson, H.C. Smith and Hezekiah Burchfield were the people responsible for locating a tract of property for the new school. The county’s superintendent of schools that year was Oliver Etheridge Jeffers. The school was built on four acres of property donated by Hezekiah Burchfield, and the school was named in his honor.
As time passed, the school grew. In the mid 1940s, the school grew to six teachers and a cafeteria was added in the basement. In addition to six teachers, there was a janitor and two cooks on staff. The enrollment was 280 in 1948, the year the new building was completed.
The school’s first full-time principal was Duane Limburg. The longest-tenured principal was Randy Shelton, who served 23 years in that capacity. The current principal is Emily Brooks.
At Friday’s ceremony, two former principals were in attendance: John Watson and Tonja Bond. Shelton and Limburg were unable to attend. Other principals through the years have included Lonnie Keeton, Hoyal Jeffers, William “Champ” West, Oscar Cotton, Charlie Allen, and Bobby Lee Smith.
Several awards were presented at Friday’s ceremony. Three-year-old Pre-K student Maverick Pemberton was recognized as the school’s youngest student. Natalie Lloyd, a New York Times best-selling children’s author, was recognized as the school’s “Student of the Century.” Verlie Webb was recognized as the “Volunteer of the Century.” John Roy Thompson, 99, was recognized as the oldest living former student. Ruth Whittenburg — the daughter of former principal Oscar Cotton _ was recognized as the school’s oldest living former employee. Doug Sharp was recognized as the “Coach of the Century.” Carol Burke and John Watson were recognized as the “Teachers of the Century.”
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Federal agency declines to extend railroad NITU, as firms say agreement is reached
The federal Surface Transportation Board has denied a request from conservation non-profit Trust for Public Land (TPL) to extend a Notice of Interim Trail Use (NITU) for the former Tennessee Railroad corridor between Oneida and Devonia, as the organization says it has reached an agreement with RJ Corman to acquire the old railroad grade.
In a decision handed down March 24, the STB declined to issue a sixth extension of the NITU that was originally granted to Oak Ridge-based Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning in 2020. The agency had said in Spring 2025, when it issued a fifth extension of the NITU, that it would be the last barring “extraordinary circumstances.”
TPL had argued earlier in March that there are, in fact, “extraordinary circumstances.” The firm said it reached an agreement with RJ Corman in December to acquire the railroad corridor, with an anticipated closing date of January 2027. It added that it has completed some of its due diligence on the property, including title work and an appraisal, but needs more time to complete other steps, including an environmental site assessment and boundary survey.
Corman, which purchased the railroad from National Coal Company and later filed for abandonment, removing the rails and timbers from the railroad bed, filed a letter stating that it did not object to the extension.
However, the STB disagreed, saying that the work TPL has in front of it to acquire the property is not extraordinary.
Additionally, the STB said that while TPL and Corman “indicate that some sort of agreement has been reached,” they “offer competing descriptions.” The agency added that a joint filing by TPL and Corman would be needed to constitute a notice of a trail use agreement.
Echoes of the Tennessee Railroad Foundation, a group of Scott Countians supportive of the proposed recreation trail, said on May 1 that Corman and Trust for Public Land have reached that trail use agreement. A representative from TPL has not responded to a request for comment.
TPL added significant muscle to the proposal to establish a 41-mile recreational trail between Oneida and Devonia when it signed on as a sponsor last year. That move cast national weight into what had previously been a regional fight.
The proposed trail — which would be open to bicyclists and hikers but not motorized vehicles — has pitted tourism promoters and cycling enthusiasts against landowners whose property neighbors the rail grade. The latter have argued that abandonment of the railroad should cause the right-of-way to revert to the neighboring landowners. The former counter that most of the railroad corridor was purchased fee simple when the railroad was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Regardless, the NITU was granted under federal law and Supreme Court precedent that requires abandoned railroads to be preserved for potential future use with an interim use as a recreational trail.
As negotiations have continued, supporters of the rail-trail have purchased and installed barriers at many access points along the railroad corridor in an effort to stop ATV trespassing and ease landowners’ concerns. When TPL submitted its request to extend the NITU in March, it included several resolutions of support from local governments. However, only one of those resolutions — from the Town of Oneida — was from a town that is located on the railroad corridor. Other letters were received from the towns of Wartburg, Oak Ridge, Clinton, and Norris. Both Scott County and the Town of Huntsville have gone on record in opposition to the proposed trail.
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ICYMI
Threads of Life: This week’s Threads of Life newsletter is in remembrance of Rella Burchfield, Barbara Bond, Rondon Hutson, and Wyatt Lowe. » Read It
Echoes in Time: This week’s Echoes in Time newsletter takes a look back at the 1935 dynamite blast that destroyed much of the town of Helenwood. » Read It
The Weekend
☀️ Weather: A warm, dry weekend is on tap. We’ll approach 80° on Friday with sunny skies, push into the 80s on Saturday, and approach 90° by Sunday afternoon. Check out our daily Eye to the Sky updates on our Facebook page— published each morning at 7 a.m. on the dot.
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⛪︎ Featured Church
Fairview Missionary Baptist Church
Denomination: Baptist (Missionary)
Pastor: Charles Lowe
Address: 8939 Baker Highway, Huntsville
Services
Sunday Morning: 10 a.m.
Sunday Evening: 6:30 p.m.
» See the complete Church Directory, and thank you to our sponsors of the Church Directory.
Scenic Sale!
This week’s sale items at Scenic Foods in Huntsville! The sale continues through Tuesday. Sponsored content.
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Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)