Brittany Trentham was sitting in her bedroom when she heard the sound of tires screeching outside.

”I heard everything but I couldn’t really tell what it was,” said Trentham.

Just outside her bedroom window, a white super-duty Ford F-350 blew the stop sign across from her house and plowed through the family’s garage.

”Within one minute he has ran through our garage, hit our front porch, tore down our horse fence, and shot off down the road,” said Trentham.

The garage was an addition to the Trentham’s house they had been working on for almost the last decade.

Trentham and her husband designed the addition to their farmhouse in 2014 and finally came around to seeing the dream turn into reality.

The couple, along with their two daughters, stood outside their home Wednesday, in front of the super-duty-sized hole in their partly finished addition, thanking God it wasn’t worse than it was.

”It’s tough but I think we’re on God’s timing, and I think we’re on God’s timing all along and I think he has a purpose in this,” said Trentham.

Trentham believed there was a higher power at work Wednesday.

She said the rain forced her family inside when normally they would have been working in the garage at the time the truck hit. Adding that the family’s large trailer, which was parked between the garage and bedroom, likely saved the white truck from catapulting all the way into the very bedroom she was sitting in at the time the whole event happened.

”If the trailer hadn’t been here, the driver would have driven into my bedroom where I was sitting, and if it hadn’t been raining my family would have been standing here in the garage,” said Trentham. ”I have no doubt that is God’s divine protection over our family, he already knew what was going to happen.”

Trentham said the entire event took no more than a minute.

”As crazy as it sounds a 2×4 through the windshield, no headlights, leaking oil all over the place and some pretty substantial damage he was all out of here within a minute,” said Trentham.

The family’s surveillance cameras caught 12 seconds of the collision, showing a 2×4 through the front windshield and extensive damage to the truck.

Two days after the initial post by the sheriff’s office, a spokesperson said officials had recovered the Ford F-350. The Blount County Sheriff’s Traffic Safety Unit will continue investigating the case.

Story courtesy of WVLT

The Knoxville Transportation Authority votes to approve proposed changes to Knoxville Area Transit service during a public meeting.

Starting August 29, KAT will reduce, cut and change routes due to “continuing and worsening workforce shortages”.

“This is a completely unprecedented situation,” says Isaac Thorne, Director of Transit for the City of Knoxville in the release. “We currently have 156 operators out of the 200 needed to operate our pre-COVID service levels. Our bus operators are working hard to try to provide this current level of service to the community, but we must step back for a while with our service levels while we continue to redouble our hiring, training, and retention efforts.”

The proposed service reductions:

Elimination of Routes 10 – Sequoyah and 19 – Lakeshore/Lonas
Reduction of all Sunday service schedules, with the last downtown departures at 5:15 p.m.
All weekday and Saturday evening service ends earlier, with the exception of core routes 11, 12, 22, 31 and 41 continuing through an 11:15 p.m. line-up.
Reduced hours on Route 13 – Beaumont
Reduced weekday frequency on Route 42 – UT/Ft. Sanders Hospitals, added one 10:30 p.m. trip for hospital staff at both hospitals
Reduced frequency on Orange and Green Line trolleys
In addition to these service reductions two route changes are proposed:

A new proposal to serve West Town Mall (outbound only) via Gleason Drive
A proposal for a route change on Route 12 – Western to use 5th Avenue to University (rather than Arthur and Boyd) through the Mechanicsville area.

The full details of these proposed changes can be found by going to https://katbus.com/

Governor Bill Lee spoke out Wednesday following reports of negative comments that were made about public school teachers.

Governor Lee was reportedly at a reception in Cool Springs hosted by Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn. Governor Lee is working to bring “classical charter schools” to Tennessee and wants to create a partnership with Hillsdale to expand civics and the K-12 education approach.

During their meeting, Dr. Arnn reportedly said that “teachers are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”

In response to these comments, Governor Lee said on Radio Station SuperTalk 99 with Matt Murphy that the statement was made regarding a national conversation about teaching, not Tennessee teachers specifically. He then went on to blame the ‘left-wing agenda’ that he said exists in the public school system and that people who oppose the education laws passed in the state took the comment out of context.

“There is a recognition, there is an agenda, by many in this country a left-wing agenda frankly that creeps its way into our public school system, at the detriment of our teachers which was mainly, broadly what that conversation was about,” Governor Lee said. “That’s why we in our state passed a law prohibiting Critical Race Theory. That’s why we in our state passed a law that allowed parents to have access to what their kids have access to in a library so that the folks that are opposed to the laws that we passed it does creep its way into, and that was the broad subject of the conversation.”

The Tennessee Democratic Party said in an official statement last week that they feel that the Governor did not take the necessary measures to defend the teachers of Tennessee and has not done anything since the event to condemn the reported comments made by Dr. Arnn.

“This is a new low for the Governor and proves to us once again that he needs to be replaced in November. He has repeatedly abandoned our teachers and is attempting to dismantle our educational system,” said Hendrell Remus, TNDP Chair.

The Williamson County Democratic Party added that they stand in solidarity with public school teachers across Tennessee, especially those in Williamson County.

“We will not stay silent when our public school teachers have had two of the hardest years in recent history during the Covid pandemic,” Dr. Jenn Foley, Chair of the Williamson County Democratic Party. “They have risked their lives to teach our children, and we must boldly stand up and support them now and every day. I have three kids in our wonderful public schools, and I know firsthand how hard they work for our families. We cannot allow our leadership to decimate our public schools.”

“Families move to Williamson County because of the great quality of life and the excellent public education we provide our children,” Courtenay Rogers, Vice Chair of Williamson County Democratic Party. “Our schools are one of the main reasons businesses choose to relocate to our community as well, and we need to be focused on increasing funding and improving teacher salaries and benefits, not calling our teachers dumb.”

The Governor added that he and his administration had invested billions of dollars into the state’s education program and will continue to advocate for Tennessee educators as long as he is Governor.

“I will put our teachers up against anyone in the country when it comes to their performance and their value, and that was not what was up for debate that night, and that is not what is up for debate today,” Governor Lee said. “Teaching is a calling; I’ve said it is not a profession; it’s a calling. Our Tennessee teachers are called, and they have sacrificed greatly with tremendous results.”

Story courtesy of WVLT and WSMV