At J.W. Wiseman Elementary School in Portland, there is a woman who notices when a child isn’t in their seat. Amber Warren doesn’t wait for a note home. She checks in, in person, the same day — and shows up at extracurricular events for no reason other than to remind a kid they matter. It is a small thing, repeated often enough, that this school year set out to say thank you for.
Noticed, and Known
Warren was named J.W. Wiseman’s 2026-27 Support Employee of the Year. The school describes her as a friend to all, someone whose warmth makes students and staff feel seen and valued. She has, by her colleagues’ account, a standing “I can help” attitude — the kind that takes on whatever challenge is in front of her without being asked twice.
One colleague put it plainly: “This is one of the best humans I know.”
Wiseman also named Alex Domeier, known to his students simply as “Mr. D,” its Teacher of the Year. Colleagues describe a servant’s heart paired with real creativity in the classroom — someone who steps in wherever he’s needed, holds students to high expectations, and makes them want to meet them because they can feel how much he believes in them. One colleague said students under his influence are thriving and growing through their own leadership.
Across town at Clyde Riggs Elementary, the school is honoring school nurse Tammy Gerome, calling her a true cornerstone of the building — compassionate, dedicated, and tireless in the care she gives students. The school said Gerome and a colleague are making a lasting difference in the lives of kids who pass through her office, some on their hardest days.
None of this makes headlines on its own. A nurse who is kind. A teacher who believes in his students. An employee who notices an empty seat. But multiply it across a school, a district, a town — and it’s the thing that actually holds a place like Portland together.
Read the full story at Main Street Media TN.
A Downtown Theater, a World Championship, and a Sold-Out House
Three weeks earlier, Portland’s Temple Theatre filled with a different kind of noise. Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland — two of bluegrass’s most decorated fiddlers — brought their bands to town on Saturday, Oct. 24, and the crowd spent the night on its feet.
The numbers behind the names are almost absurd for a small-town stage: Cleveland has been named the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Fiddle Player of the Year twelve times. Carter has won the same honor six times. Bassist Mike Bud has taken IBMA’s Bass Player of the Year six times himself. Rounding out the band were Cody Looper on banjo, Josh Gooding on mandolin, and Jake Stargel on guitar.
John McCloud, who arranged the booking, said the show was made possible by a local sponsor, Wally Gilliam Realty and Auction. “Jason and Michael are world-class musicians and bringing them to Portland was an honor,” McCloud said, adding that the goal was to make top acts accessible to locals while drawing new visitors into the downtown district.
It worked both ways. Longtime locals filled seats alongside fans who had driven or flown in from Canada, Michigan, Colorado and Ohio — people who planned a trip around a fiddle show in a town of roughly 13,000. When Carter and Cleveland played a duet, the house reportedly erupted. The band closed, the crowd stood and demanded more, and Carter came back out, grinning, to admit he supposed they did have one more in them. Afterward, the musicians stayed in the lobby to meet the people who’d come from four states and one country away just to hear them play.
Read the full story at Main Street Media TN.
A school nurse and a world-champion fiddler don’t have much in common on paper. But both stories are about a place deciding to notice what it has — the people who quietly hold a school together, the stage that can still pull a sold-out crowd from four states away — and saying so out loud. If something good is happening in your corner of Middle Tennessee, we’d like to hear about it.