Baptist’s heart, lung transplant program marks 25 years of saving, improving lives

Lifestyle feature for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 21, 2010

Brad Bradshaw “died” three times and can recall one of them.

On the day he was discharged from the hospital after his heart transplant, something went wrong with fluid build-up in his chest, and he was “going downhill quickly,” he recalls. Typically, there would have been a nurse by his side 24 hours a day, but for whatever reason, there wasn’t one nearby this time. There was, however, a physician with the surgical team standing just outside his room.

“They ran in, sliced me open and brought me back,” Bradshaw, 58, said. “That was quite an experience.”

Despite downplaying this instant of his life, Bradshaw still refers to his heart transplant four years ago at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis as “a miracle.”

The heart and lung transplant program at Baptist Memorial Hospital has seen 287 heart and 87 lung transplants since its inception in 1985. Celebrating its 25th year this year, it is the only such heart transplant program in the city and the only lung program in West Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi … (read more)

Parents’ opposite schedules can be blessing for family life, obstacle to couple time

Lifestyle feature for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 16, 2010

At an hour when most people are settling in for the night — the children put to bed and an anticipated DVD slipped into the machine or a glass of wine poured — there are those who are donning FedEx identification or police badges, kissing their spouses goodnight and leaving for work.

Angela and Aaron Feathers are one such couple. Angela owns Evergreen Montessori in Midtown, and her husband, Aaron, is a police officer working the 11:30 p.m.-7:30 a.m. shift Downtown. It’s a schedule they have adhered to since 2000.

“They’ve grown up with him coming home, trying to help with breakfast and then shoving us all out the door so he can go to sleep,” Angela said of the couple’s children, ages 10, 8 and 2-year-old twins.

The tasks involved in running a household, running a business or holding a job can often be overwhelming. It can take a village, yet sometimes that village is not on task at the same time. And that, it turns out, is not always a bad thing, depending on the work schedule. The police force rotates days off, so Aaron may have the weekend off one month, but not the next.

“It works,” Angela said. “During the week it works. On the weekends, if he doesn’t have those days off, the children are up at 8 o’clock in the morning at the latest when he’s coming home. But he has to sleep, so he misses birthday parties or whatever they have to do on the weekends. Or he’s up chugging gallons and gallons of coffee to participate in whatever we’re doing. So that’s when it is the hardest.” … (read more)

Attorneys bring ‘wealth of experience’ to classroom

Legal news story for The Memphis Daily News

Nov. 12, 2010

With a collective 126 years of working legal knowledge among them, three of the top lawyers in the city are pleased to be sharing their experiences with students at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.

Those attorneys are Leo Bearman, Albert Harvey and Hunter Humphreys, and they are three of 40 area attorneys and judges leaving their briefs and briefcases in the office at the end of the day to don the guise of teacher.

“Our program would not be nearly as strong as it is without the support of local judges and attorneys,” said Kevin Smith, dean of the law school. “They bring a wealth of experience from practice to the classroom.”

In addition to the adjunct professors, the law school has 24 regular faculty members. One of the most crucial sections for adjunct faculty is the legal methods course where a professor will work with a handful of students to teach the intricacies of brief writing. It is a more writing-intensive class with the professor taking the lecture material and readings and going into detail about them … (read more)

Fall back, but spring forward into clean room

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 11, 2010

With the time change, we’ve fallen back into a new routine here at home, one with dark afternoons and well-lit mornings. Last weekend, I roused my little farmers early to harvest the wheat, thresh the grain and tend to the pullets in the brooder.

Just kidding, these kids don’t know a horse from a radish and are as confused as any other city kid about the sudden difference in night and day. As confused as I am; I had to Google farming terms to come up with “pullets” and “brooder.”

What we did do that day was to convince them in their newly sunlit morning that it was springtime. They were so disoriented when I started going from clock to clock, falling back — actually moving time backward to their amazement — that I was able to convince them that it’s a whole different season.

And with this new spring season comes — what else? — spring cleaning.

We live in a house shared with friends, another family, bringing the total number around our table to nine people. It’s a group that makes a mess, that creates clutter and chaos and three full recycling tubs of refuse per week. So at least a couple of times per year, these rooms need to be cleaned. Or at least the debris thinned out … (read more)

Memphis Crossroads Fall 2010

Feature story and Q & A for the Fall 2010 issue of Memphis Crossroads magazine.

Spicing Up the Flats: An artist duo lends their quirky, stylish imprint to downtown’s newest mixed-use building.

On the front lines with John Duncan, vice president of member development

Fellowship program helps faith communities mobilize for environmental leadership

Lifestyle cover feature for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 7, 2010

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'”

The passage from Genesis could be used by both sides of the environmentalism debate as to who has the right-of-way with regards to treatment of the land, sea and sky.

“We use the word ‘stewardship,’ which really has to do with care for one’s household,” said Jim Boyd, Episcopalian minister, president of Bridges and certified Green Faith Fellow. “For the most part, Protestant Christianity has used that to say, ‘God gave it to us, we can use it as we will,’ when its true meaning is very different from that.”

The Green Faith Fellow program was founded in 1992 in New Jersey by a coalition of Christian and Jewish leaders to “inspire, educate and mobilize people of diverse religious backgrounds for environmental leadership,” according to its website, greenfaith.org.

“What we do as a Green Faith Fellow is try to enlarge our frame of knowledge from within our religious traditions in such a way that we can bring that knowledge to bear on the issues and concerns that affect our communities and the natural world,” Boyd said … (read more)

Lokion celebrates 10 years with ’10×10′ music gift

Feature news story for The Memphis Daily News

Oct. 29, 2010

From offices at 88 Union Ave., high atop Downtown Memphis and overlooking the Mississippi River, Megan Jones feels on top of the world.

Her company, Lokion, was recently named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing companies in the country for the fourth year in a row, an accolade that comes as the company celebrates its 10th anniversary in business.

“Any small business administration statistic will tell you that getting to a decade is quite an achievement from a small business point of view,” said Jones, president and CEO.

To celebrate this accomplishment, Lokion is not looking to acquire gifts as on the average anniversary or birthday, but is instead giving a gift. Beginning Friday and lasting until midnight Sunday, the company – in partnership with the Memphis Music Foundation and AT&T, which is providing the hosting – will be making available 10 songs by 10 Memphis musicians.

The “10×10” offering is their way to say thank you and “pay tribute to the city that has sustained us for a decade,” Jones said. “It’s a celebration where the present doesn’t come to us, it goes out to our clients, friends and partners.” … (read more)

You mean there’s no daycare at book club?

Because I Said So column for The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 28, 2010

Heeding the directive put forth by booksellers, librarians and The Oprah, my wife, Kristy, has finally joined a book club. Two book clubs, in fact. We are a well-read family.

I know what you other husbands out there are vicariously anticipating for my life now — nights free, maybe a bar, perhaps a sporting event or truck pull.

Well, let me tell you the first rule of Book Club. Unlike “Fight Club,” it is not “do not talk about book club” (believe me, that is not the second or third rule, either).

No, the first rule of book club is “no children allowed.” What kind of rule is that? One decreed by tired, stressed moms, that’s what. So this new activity on the family calendar leaves me with a house full of kids and all of their needs and demands.

I question whether these so-called book clubs have any real literary merit. Literature has always meant an escape, the means to travel to a faraway land from the comfort of our own home and forget the real world for a time. Kristy, a high school English teacher no less, is now using it as an escape, literally, to another house across town (or across the street. We can see you over there!) for an evening … (read more)

Kuhn’s legal career veers to airport

Law Talk profile for The Memphis Daily News

Oct. 21, 2010

The legal profession is somewhat of a family business for Brian Kuhn, recently retired Shelby County attorney and newly appointed legal counsel for the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority.

With siblings practicing in Florida and Memphis, and a father who was president of the American Bar Association in 1966 and partner with McDonald Kuhn PLLC, he decided to follow suit.

“By the time I came along, I had a father and two older brothers in law so I had to figure out what the heck they were talking about,” Kuhn said, “so I went to law school.”

It’s a passion and interest that has never waned, carrying over into his new role, a second career of sorts.

“I’m very excited, extremely excited,” he said about his new position and the opportunity to work in a field of law he hasn’t previously worked … (read more)

Stay-at-home dads face unique opportunities, challenges in raising kids

Feature story for The Commercial Appeal

Oct. 17, 2010

When the economy faltered and downsizing entered the lexicon, families began having to make difficult decisions.

One of those decisions involved whether one parent would stay home with a child or children, in part to defray child care costs. Increasingly, that parent was the father.

Many families didn’t see it coming: the pink slip, the sudden downtime, the new schedule involving not board meetings and business lunches, but naptime and “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Even with the 1983 film “Mr. Mom” as an omen, fathers may not have heeded the warning of the film’s star, Michael Keaton, and the dire implications of whole days spent in front of soap operas or in supermarket aisles.

They are referred to as SAHDs, and these stay-at-home dads are a new trend in parenting whether by design or circumstance.

“I used to work five days a week, eight hours a day. Now I work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and I’m on call the other eight hours,” jokes Ken Hughes, a 42-year-old stay-at-home dad in East Memphis. “It’s so much harder than work. … There’s no off time.” … (read more)