Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber Awarded $50,000 Grant for DCHS Digital Media & Marketing Program
by: Dwayne PageApr 16, 2025
The Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber of Commerce is proud to announce the $50,000 Three Star Grant from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) to support the Digital Media and Marketing Program at DeKalb County High School (DCHS).
TNECD’s Three Star Director Jody Sliger recently visited DCHS to see firsthand the new high-end equipment made possible by the grant funding. This grant, applied for by the Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber, provides students access to cutting-edge technology designed to enhance learning in digital media, audio-visual production, and marketing.
Chamber Director Suzanne Williams shared her excitement for the project:
“What a great opportunity to provide students with the capability to better learn how to use digital media and audio-visual production equipment in marketing by creating promotional videos and social media content for the school and the community. One of our goals is to connect students with local businesses to learn real marketing skills while promoting our county.”
Elijah Cross, instructor for the Digital Media and Marketing class, has been putting the new tools to work. He and his students launched a podcast called TigerNation, learning essential communication and technical skills for modern marketing careers. The new equipment —including high-quality laptops, podcasting tools, and a 3-in-1 Snapmaker system—will allow students to develop advanced media and marketing content.
Brad Leach, DCHS STEM Instructor/Career and Technical Education Director, added:
“Our goal is to prepare learners for careers in planning, managing, and performing marketing activities, as well as managing the movement of people, materials, and products. Many jobs in the marketing career cluster have a bright outlook and are expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.”
Equipment Purchased with the Three Star Grant Includes:
2 Drone Systems
5 Canon Rebel Camera Kits with Lenses
1 Studio Camera with Studio Lighting Kit
1 Zoom Podcast Studio Setup
1 Snapmaker 3-in-1 3D Printer, Engraver, and Router
20 Dell Laptops with Adobe Creative Cloud Photo & Video Editing Software
24 Student Chairs/Stools
8 WorkPro Student Worktables
The Smithville-DeKalb County Chamber serves as the official county administrator for the state’s Three Star Program, which recognizes communities that meet rigorous standards in areas such as planning, leadership, workforce development, education, and economic growth. Certified communities, such as DeKalb County, are eligible for additional incentives and support, including priority consideration in infrastructure, training, and community development funding.
Williams concluded, “I’m so grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Brad Leach who handled all the purchasing, teacher Eli Cross, and the TN Department of Economic and Community Development. This grant ensures our students are equipped with the latest tools to learn in-demand skills and prepare for high-skill, high-wage jobs in our region or beyond.”
About the Three Star Program
ThreeStar is a strategic community development program developed to assist communities in preparing for a better future, for today and tomorrow – and for generations to come.
Participating counties (and cities in these counties) are eligible for a 4% discount (for eligible projects) on both the business development and community development ability-to-pay calculations (CDBG and FastTrack) each year the county fulfills the requirements of the ThreeStar program. CDBG also provides a bonus based on ThreeStar participation up to $25,000. Additionally, only cities and counties that are active participants in the ThreeStar program are eligible to participate in other select TNECD Rural and Community Development programs.
Surprise Retirement Reception held for Betty Lattimore of the Real Estate Team
by: Dwayne PageApr 16, 2025
Surprise, Surprise!
After more than 30 years as a realtor in DeKalb County, Betty Lattimore of the Real Estate Team retired last fall, but she was treated to a surprise retirement reception in her honor Tuesday afternoon at the home of Gina Denman in Smithville.
Family, friends, and co-workers including some bearing gifts, joined Lattimore for refreshments and to wish her a happy retirement.
Lattimore began her career as a realtor with the Sunbelt Real Estate Company and worked there for about four years before founding The Real Estate Team in the 1990s.
Betty said she had no idea when she showed up at Denman’s home Tuesday that a reception had been planned for her. “I was very surprised but thankful,” she said.
Lattimore said she worked with a lot of good real estate agents over the years and together they found homes and properties for many people in DeKalb and surrounding counties. Betty said she had no particular plans for retirement other than to perhaps do some traveling.
She is the mother to Dana Turner and Deddie Johnson and a grandmother.
Higher pay for EMS employees?
by: Dwayne PageApr 16, 2025
Higher pay for EMS employees?
During Tuesday night’s meeting, EMS Director Trent Phipps met with the budget committee of the county commission to ask for hefty hourly pay raises for the 20 EMS medical personnel on the staff. In his request, Phipps is seeking a $5.00 per hour increase in pay for them along with an increase in his own pay going from $61,040 in the 2024-25 budget to $90,000 in 2025-26.
“The line item at the top for my salary. We did that to make me higher (salary) than the highest paid paramedic on the list”, said EMS Director Phipps.
If approved as requested, the total budgeted line item in salaries for the 20 medical personnel combined would increase from $773,406 in the year 2024-25 to $1,021,996 in the year 2025-26. Part time pay would jump from $140,000 to $200,000 and overtime would go from $203,000 to $287,000.
Meanwhile the EMS budgetary line item for contracted services would increase from $40,000 to $75,000 and the uniform allowance would go from $5,000 to $7,000.
The total budget for the ambulance service, if approved as presented, would increase from $1,833,033 in the year 2024-25 to $2,337, 151 in the 2025-26 fiscal year.
DeKalb EMS staff currently work on 24 hours on and 72 hours off schedule.
In addition to addressing the budget committee in person, Director Phipps provided a written explanation for his request.
“Several counties in our area have made significant payroll increases and once again we are finding ourselves behind in the competition for new, young employees. I have a healthy list of part time EMTs and Advanced EMTs, but attracting new paramedics continues to be a problem. In the last few years, we have hired several Basic EMTs that have gone on to complete advanced school and even paramedic school. Some of them are tempted to go to these other counties for better pay and even better benefits. So, retention is a concern. I have submitted information about a few other counties that were found on social media. Some of these are our neighbors like Smith and Cannon, some are farther away but not any larger than DeKalb County. Some of them are running 24/48, so don’t get caught up on the pay rate as much as the yearly salary”.
“Smith County’s starting salary is more than a 15-year employee makes here on the year. The starting pay for Cannon County is our year 17. Cannon is a smaller county with a smaller service and population. They also do not have major tourist attractions like the lake or the Fiddlers Jamboree. Rhea County is very similar in demographics to us. Again, the $65,000 start out for paramedics there is greater than our 15 years pay scale. Bedford County is not a direct competitor to us but they are also starting paramedics out better than our 15-year employees”.
“I understand that many other problems face DeKalb County with jails and schools, but as our community continues to grow, we are going to be very behind on providing care. I would like to suggest a $3.00 to $5.00 raise at the base rate. This will reflect bringing more money for some of the employees that are higher on the pay scale. This will work as a method of retention for the newer employees when they see what a difference 5 years makes on the pay scale,” said Director Phipps.
As for the $35,000 increase costs for contracted services, Director Phipps said “We are using more stuff that involves apps, a cloud-based service through our monitoring to keep up with vital signs and things like that. Its kind of a wave of the future. I am also implementing a drug control program that will cost about $3,000 a year and it tracks all the narcotics where we will scan the labels with cell phones using a proprietary app. It will allow me to track every individual file,” he said.
Budget committee member Glynn Merriman said he thinks a $5.00 per hour increase in pay for EMS medical personnel as requested by Director Phipps is too steep and he isn’t in favor of raising property taxes again, after back-to-back years of tax hikes already.
“On this $5.00 an hour I think that’s going to be hard,” said Merriman. “I know you do great work, but we have had enough with tax increases as it is now. Some of these salaries are way up there. Here’s one (employee) who makes $40,000 and overtime is $6,200 a year. Another one makes $45,000 a year with $10,790 a year overtime. All this overtime is a lot of money. I can’t see giving a $5.00 pay raise. I’m not going to ask the taxpayers for another tax hike. I will not. All this overtime is unreal. Here’s another (employee) with $12,000 overtime. Here’s another with $10,000 overtime, and one with $11,000 overtime. This aint a rich county. I don’t see it,” said Merriman.
In response to Merriman’s concern about overtime pay, Director Phipps explained that “a lot of this year’s overtime that was paid out was filling two positions for about four months. One was filling my position from October 1 until January when I was hired to fill the spot (EMS Director) left vacant. I use mostly part-time people to fill the positions, but they were working the number of hours to pull the overtime. We also had one lady go out on maternity leave,” explained Director Phipps.
“Operating on a 24/72-hour schedule has dropped our overtime payouts significantly,” Phipps continued. “The way the cycles work now there is a couple of cycles in there where you don’t get but 64 regular hours and eight overtime hours. The 24/72 schedule has saved the county a lot of money even though we had to hire more personnel to run the shifts,” he said.
According to Director Phipps a shortage of paramedics creates a demand for them and it’s more difficult to retain personnel when they can make more money elsewhere.
“At the end of the day when you dial 911 somebody is coming and the quality (skill level) of who is coming depends on how much we can pay them,” said Director Phipps. “Every paramedic that works for us has hours upon hours of college credit and more than most nurses”.
“How can we continue to go up (raise salaries) after every other county goes up. There has to be a stopping place”, said Merriman.
The budget committee has not yet acted on EMS Director Phipps’ request.