Readers of the farragutpress still have time to vote for their favorite businesses to win the Readers Choice Awards. “This is our ninth year of doing the Readers Choice Awards,” farragutpress general manager Kathy Hartman said. “I think it creates a competitive bond for businesses in the area. “Also, it’s an excellent way for our readers to show appreciation for the businesses they support,” she added. Among last year’s winners, Mansour Hasan, principal agent with Mansour Hasan State Farm, which won for Best Customer Service and Insurance Agency/Agent, said, ““It always means a lot to me and my team when we win something like that because it kind of validates the hard work and dedication and commitment we put into the community and into serving our customers. “It makes it rewarding to us to be able to get some recognition,” he added. If his State Farm team wins again this year, “we would be extremely excited, honored and it would motivate us a bunch it would validate our efforts are appreciated.” “We’re so blessed; it’s unbelievable,” Rick Terry Jewelry Designs co-owner/master jeweler Rick Terry said about last year’s win for Best Jewelry Store. Rick Terry Jewelry Designs is a “family-owned and operated business that’s been here over 30 years in this community,” he said. “It’s joy. We do as much as we possibly can for the non-profits, the schools and the churches, but they bless us so much, too, and we’re just so thankful for all that.
Read MoreFirst Utility District’s daily testing of the North Fork of Turkey Creek continues following the May 8 sewer line break. However, samples from the testing recently indicated a decrease in E. coli levels. “We’ve been posting this information every day,” FUD general manager Bruce Giles said. The break, which contaminated part of the creek and caused a loss of aquatic life along about 1.5 miles of the waterway, was reported Monday, May 11, according to Town of Farragut and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officials. Giles, who said the work being done is on a 50-year-old sewer line, explained that “we’re replacing the length of the line over several phases.” The leak occurred during that construction, but since the break, “we’ve been voluntarily sampling every day at seven sites,” he said. “On one site above the spill, where the break occurred, we were seeing that decrease, as expected, in all the samples, and the farther away from where the break was, the lower the numbers had been until the rain. “When the rain came, all the samples spiked, including the ones above the [sewer] break,” Giles said. “I had people calling this weekend, asking questions. “What people don’t understand is that creek has been impaired for years, and every time it rains, E. coli samples spike,” he said. “The numbers spike all up and down that creek. That has nothing to do with First Utility District.
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