by Sonia Young

Siskin Children’s Institute will present the multi-platinum selling band Starship, featuring Mickey Thomas, at StarNight, the much-anticipated annual fundraising gala.

Co-chairs Alnoor and Gina Dhanani of The Double Cola Company invite all to the event on Saturday, August 24, at the Chattanooga Convention Center.

Mickey Thomas has established himself as one of rock music’s most recognizable stars, making his mark in 1976 as lead vocalist with The Elvin Bishop Band. In 1979 he joined Jefferson Starship as lead vocalist, and the group immediately scored a No. 1 hit with “Jane.”  With this new sound and powerful vocals, the group was renamed Starship and continued to record an amazing string of hits, including Oscar nominated No. 1 hit “Nothing Gonna Stop Us Now” from the movie “Mannequin.” From that time on, every Starship album released since 1979 has gone Gold, Platinum or Multi-Platinum. In Addition to Mickey, band members include Jeff Adams, John Roth, Phil Bennett, Darrell Verdusco and Stephanie Bennett.

StarNight guests will enjoy a full night of entertainment, beginning with the cocktail hour featuring local vocalist Robin Grant and rounding out the night with Bizz & Everyday People, a Nashville based group, to keep you dancing at the StarNight After Party.

StarNight 2019 opens with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m., then moves to a formal dinner followed by a concert performance by Starship featuring Mickey Thomas.  The fun continues with the after party music and dancing from Bizz & Everyday People.

Sponsors for this fabulous event include Double Cola Company, Siskin Steel & Supply Company, SecurAmerica, Hamico, Southeastern Salvage, JoAnn Yates, CBL Properties, Athens Distributing, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Entercom.

The Siskin Children’s Institute has been serving children with special needs and their families since 1950. For more information visit siskin.org/starnight.

By Ann Henley Perry
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Hunt Davidson was born in Atlanta, but spent most of his childhood in nearby Rome, Ga. However, the four years his family spent as missionaries in Bolivia during his formative years made quite an impression.

“After going to a public high school, I attended Covenant College, where I earned a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies. During that time, I studied abroad at Oxford. That semester re-oriented me from jock to nerd. After graduating from Covenant in 2011, I dabbled in a [master of science] program at Belmont, but dropped out to pursue my [master of teaching degree] at Covenant. After obtaining this degree, I began my teaching career at Chattanooga Christian School, punctuated in the middle with a year [of] grad school at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., where I earned a [master of liberal arts] degree.”

When asked how he became interested in teaching, Hunt expounded, “This is a simple and strange story. I never thought of myself as a teacher until I was 22. After a misbegotten grad school attempt in 2012, I had a conversation with Jim Drexler at Covenant. He encouraged me to consider the M.A.T., which I did.  I haven’t looked back since! I credit Dr. Drexler and the MAT program at Covenant for helping me see my calling. “

Chattanooga Christian School was home to Hunt in his first years of teaching. He taught history there for five years, including freshmen and junior courses in economic literacy, civics/government, U.S. history, and his personal favorite, ancient and medieval history.      

When he is not working, Hunt enjoys time with his beautiful family. Hunt met his wife, Tera, during his senior year at Covenant in 2010, which happened to be her junior year in college.

“I joined the running club just to get to know her - I hate running,” Hunt confessed. “We were married in the summer of 2012 and have been in Chattanooga ever since, with the exception of our 14-month adventure in Annapolis, Md., in 2016.”

Tera co-founded and helps run a local house cleaning business called Mountaintop Maids.  They are the parents of two sons, Roman Arthur Davison, almost 3, and Abraham Edward Davidson, 1.

While CCS was a wonderful fit for Hunt, he decided to take a chance on his dream. “In short, Tera and I decided that this was a good time for our family to take a risk: small children, no debt, and a clear and robust vision. So, we are going for it, and if we fail, we’ll be all the better for it. I’d rather be 70 and have taken a risk and failed than regret not taking the risk to begin with because I was a coward,” Hunt said.
With great courage, Hunt is launching the Logos Tutoring Program. Hunt formed a group of eight middle school-aged young men who will join with him to read books and spend time outside together, integrating their hearts, minds, and bodies into a whole along the path towards manhood. He will lead with the dual perspective of a teacher of the humanities and as a father of young sons.  

Hunt’s family has a 70-acre farm where he intends to take the boys to read and share good literature with them while also enjoying nature. During their time on the farm, the boys will build bonfires, scavenge for food, explore, recite poetry, and learn about the earth.

Casting his vision, Hunt contemplated, “I want to create a space for boys to grow together in heart, mind, and body, thus becoming more fully integrated in the path towards manhood. I want to teach them how to ask and pursue the right questions, and how to rest in ambiguity and paradox. I want to stir their vital energy of curiosity, which, if not cultivated mentally and physically, will atrophy. Having taught high school history for four years, I have seen too many boys remain boys during that vital time between 14-18. My heart is to spur my students towards true manhood through reading books and working with our hands together.”

Hunt’s plan is to guide them through a robust curriculum of great books where they can learn the arts of reading, writing, listening, and speaking through communal inquiry into some of the greatest books ever written. Boys will participate in a tutorial during which they meet with Hunt one-on-one once a week for an hour. During this time, they will discuss the student’s essay about a question regarding that week’s reading. The whole group of students will also meet together once a week for an hour or so for a seminar.
Hunt claims, “Students will meet to have a rousing, freewheeling discussion about the book that they have all been reading and writing about on their own.” Books the students may explore include such classics as “Lord of the Flies,” “Treasure Island,” “Hatchet,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Catcher in the Rye,” among many others. Hunt’s goal is to combine the seminar and tutorial to create a weekly rhythm for each boy that is both intensely personal and individualized through the one-on-one tutorial and intensely communal through whole-group seminar.    

Hillwood, the name of the family’s land on Lookout Mountain, includes 10 acres of bucolic cleared pasture, a creek, and about 60 acres of woods to explore. Weekly, Hunt and the boys will visit the property at Hillwood (located about 15 minutes south of Covenant College on Highway 157) to learn about the earth, fall in love with nature, and learn lessons out in the wild.
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While eight boys are enrolled now, Hunt has room for four more, with a capacity of 12. If interested, you can call Hunt Davidson at (706) 936-0125 or email him at hunt.davidson@gmail.com. What a tremendous educational gift this will be to our community!

The guiding principle of the Logos Tutoring Program for Boys is centered within the Greek word Logos. This word has a meaning that grows deeper the more one delves into it. It has been translated as speech, reason, account, counting, ground, plea, proportion, discourse, gathering, ratio, word, plan, principle. The preeminent Greek-English lexicon Liddell-Scott describes it as “that by which the inward thought is expressed; the inward thought itself.” Logos is the Greek word in the Gospel of John that English-speakers translate as “Word,” in reference to Jesus, who is described as the Logos embodied. Logos is the foundational logic behind any good argument. It is the unifying principle that animates and rules the cosmos. It is that by which we live and move and have our being. It is the Tao. It is the divine spark that resides in every human. Logos is before all things and by it all things hold together.

Logos is fundamentally connected to language. The capacity for man to use language is divine. It is of God. In light of that fact, one of the most important elements of the Logos Tutoring Program is engagement in truthful speech - that is, to use our speech, both written and oral, to speak truth in love. To that end, truthful and brave dialogue is perhaps the essentil element of the program.

If one becomes a master of language, and if this mastery submits to love, he becomes competent enough to take on any problem or vocation, strong enough to pick up the heaviest load he can carry and walk forward, brave enough to get kicked in the teeth by the world and stand up again, compassionate enough to lay down his life for his friends.
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For those of you who are familiar with J. R. R. Tolkien’s masterpiece, “The Lord of the Rings,” you can consider the Logos Tutoring Program as a training ground for potential members of the Dunedain.

The Signal Mountain Community Guild is a civic, welfare and social organization with a purpose of enriching the community and preserving human and natural resources in cooperation with other civic, cultural, educational and social organization.

Each year the SMCG awards a scholarship to a student in the 37377 zip code. This year, the presentation took place at the end of the Guild’s summer picnic at the home of Rose Opengart. Lucy Kathryn Combs, a graduate of Notre Dame High School, was chosen for her academic performance and commitment to serving others. She will receive a $1,000 scholarship for 2019-2020.

Established in 1928 with 13 members, the SMCG also sponsors a book club, craft nights, a holiday cookie swap and the famed Dogwood Luncheon during which a Signal Mountain Woman of the Year is named.

Go to signalmountaincommunityguild.com for more information.