Today at Brentwood Home Page

Happy Thursday!
The sun returned this afternoon, just in time for some Thursday night football. Ravenwood's playing at home; the Titans are playing downtown, and college ball is on TV. And, of course, the 'Dores are going to take it to Western Carolina on Saturday!
Today at Brentwood Home Page, you'll find our second slide show. We may just get good at it if we keep trying. This one features pictures of the incredible new library at Brentwood High School. OK, it's not entirely new but it could be. Check it out.
In BrentWord, I share a few of my favorite Facebook friends thoughts. Hope they don't mind.
Dr. Jim Wellborn starts his new parenting column that's all about parenting TEENS. Yes, we still need some help and advice even when the kids get older. In fact, we need more of it.
Jill Burgin has new column on what she didn't do over summer vacation.
And there are lots of new postings on our inside sections, many of them contributed by readers like you.
So, there you have it. If you haven't checked out www.brentwoodhomepage.com, you can now. We're putting new stories up everyday. Please sign in so you can start getting our email blasts. Actually, sign up even if you are already getting the email blasts. You'll then be eligible for contests and giveaways of things like tropical vacations and gold bars and Titans PSLs and season tickets. And if you believe that ...
But please do sign up, and spread the word about "the go to place for everything Brentwood."
And, of course, thanks for reading

Brentwood Home Page lives!

Dear BrentWord readers,
It's been a pleasure sharing news and nuggets about life in Brentwood here at brentword.blogspot.com over the past several months. But today I'm happy to announce that Brentwood Home Page (www.brentwoodhomepage.com), Brentwood's only independent, online "newspaper" is now live and my blog will move over to that site immediately.
This site will remain active in case anyone wants or needs previous posts. Who knows, I may even post fresh news here once in a while just to keep life interesting.
In the meantime, please check out our new website. The official launch date is Sept.1, but we activated our beta site in order to get feedback, constructive critiques and suggestions from people like you, and to tackle technical issues we didn't know existed until the site went live. For instance, if you are on a Mac, we've learned the home page runs really wide, though inside pages seem fine. We hope to have that solved ASAP.
I'll still be twittering @brentword, but we have a Brentwood Home Page twitter account too, @brentwoodhomepg. Please follow us! We'd also love for you to become a Brentwood Home Page fan on Facebook. Our goal is 500 fans by Sept. 1.
Thanks to all who have mentored, coached, supported and second-guessed Kelly Gilfillan and I as we've undertaken this venture. More than one of you has told us we won't take a vacation for the next three years.
Good thing Brentwood's such a great place to live.

Introducing Brentwood Home Page

City's only exclusive news source
plans 'soft launch' this weekend

Sorry BrentWord the blog's been lacking in fresh material over the past few days. The kickoff party for Brentwood Home Page, our new independent, online "newspaper" exclusively covering Brentwood, took place Tuesday. The site, www.brentwoodhomepage.com, is going live in a few days with its official launch September 1. As you can imagine, it's been busy around the BrentWord/BHP home office.
What can you do, dear readers, to make Brentwood Home Page a success?
Read it, critique it and send us suggestions over the next few weeks to help us get all the kinks out before we tell the masses it's here.
Once the site is live, if you belong to a Brentwood-based civic organization with a meeting or fundraiser or lecture coming up, add it to our community calendar. Have a car or diamond ring to sell? List it in our free classified sections. Do you have a story idea to share? Send me an email at susan@brentwoodhomepage.com.
If you own a business or a professional office here, consider advertising with us, or listing your business in our business directory. We'll be happy to send you a media kit or meet with you to discuss all the possibilities. Email kelly@brentwoodhomepage.com for details.
If you see news happening, email news@brentwoodhomepage.com.
Follow us on Twitter @brentwoodhomepg and become a fan of Brentwood Home Page on Facebook.
And most of all, please tell others that http://www.brentwoodhomepage.com/ is "The Go To Place for Everything Brentwood." Or at least it will be soon.
BrentWord will find a new home on the website too, along with Jill Burgin's "Joyride" and Dr. Bill Fleet's "Sawdust and Turnip Greens" columns. Dr. Jeff Wilson's unique look at how life and faith intersect will be featured in his weekly column "Ankle High in Deep Water." And Brentwood-based environmentalist Don Green will be writing on "green" issues that concern our city.
More regular features are planned and many other talented journalists will be contributing writers.
Thanks for being part of the amazing ride that's been BrentWord.blogspot.com these past six months. Brentwood Home Page will be much more.
Hop on the train and let's start this journey together.

Mayor: Fairview pig went gangbusters

Don't ever think Mayor Betsy Crossley is one to make excuses. No sirree, she gives credit where credit's due, and in this case, she gave it to a little brown pig that put her piggy to shame.
The second annual Mayor's Pig Race Friday helped kick off opening night activities at the Williamson County Fair and our Brentwood mayor tried her best to retain the crown won last year by then-Vice Mayor Paul Webb. Alas, it wasn't to be.
County Mayor Rogers Anderson's pig brought home the bacon, by winning two of the three heats.
"My pig was doing great, and I really thought we had it until right at the very end when that pig just held up," she said. "The Fairview mayor's pig just came up gangbusters." And beat hers by about 25 snouts, she said.

Since she was just elected to a two-year term, she said she looks forward to coming back and trying again next year. She added she will spend the off-season in training. Not sure exactly what she means, but when she puts her mind to something look out.

Speaking of the fair, check out its website to see what's happening out there today and the rest of the week. Plus, here's a link to a Tennessean story about how corporate sponsorships help keep our local fairs afloat.
Maybe the 2010 edition will be the "Williamson County Fair presented by Brentwood Home Page." It has a nice ring to it.

Williamson County Fair website: http://www.williamsoncountyfair.org/
Middle Tennessee fairs find ways to stay afloat: http://tinyurl.com/BWcountyfairs

Not giving in to bum knee

Speaking of the mayor, Betsy let her friends on Facebook know that she is having knee surgery on Thursday.

What's the matter, I asked her.

What's not the matter, she replied, rambling off a long list of things like arthritis, a torn meniscus, something about a burr and a this and a that; well, you get the picture.

So how long are you going to be out of commission? I asked.

"Well, I'll probably miss Rotary on Friday," she said, but noted she expects to be back in the office on Monday, albeit on crutches.

As for tonight's City Commission meeting, she said it should be "pretty mundane and boring," but hinted by the time September rolls around, things should liven up again. I think that's good news...

Warning: Think twice before attacking

Since January of 2005, about 400 Brentwood women haven't gotten mad. They've gotten RAD.

The Brentwood Police Department offers free Rape Aggression Defense classes several times a year. The most recent class graduated Thursday night.

BrentWord intern Shanna McHenry took the class to write a first-person story on the RAD program. But even if she wasn't "working" it, as a college student, she was a great candidate. In fact, several mom and college-age daughter teams took this most-recent class together.

On Thursday, they put together all the tips, moves and defensive actions they had learned earlier in the week. Good thing their would-be attackers, aka Brentwood Police Officer Mark Wood and RAD volunteer Jeff Knutson, were well protected though they looked like red Michelin men. These ladies didn't hold back.

I won't steal any more of Shanna's thunder, so look for her story, video and a slide show when Brentwood Home Page launches in coming weeks.

And if you're a lady, age 14 or older, give serious thought to signing up in the future. I know I am!

Post 200: Breaking and exclusive news from the BrentWord home office

This is my 200th BrentWord post! Hard to believe that's possible.

On April 13th, I started BrentWord in order to cover the Brentwood City Commission race and Brentwood in general (http://brentword.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-day-dawns.html). Over the past four months, the blog has grown into something much more. But I've also experienced a growing frustration with it. The format is too limiting, and the pay ... well, suffice it to say the Leathers' last emergency fund is on its last leg.

So this seems like a most appropriate time and place to share what I hope is big news. My business partner, Kelly Gilfillan, and I have formed BrentWord Communications LLC and will launch Brentwood Home Page -- http://www.brentwoodhomepage.com/ -- "the go to place for everything Brentwood" in the weeks ahead.

I'm a professional reporter, editor and 27-year veteran of the newspaper business. Kelly has an impressive background in marketing and sales. Our goal? If you live or work in Brentwood, we want to be your home page. We want to be where you come to find news stories and pictures and party news about Brentwood. We'll have business news and obituaries and tomorrow's weather forecast. Sorry, no comics, but for at least a time after we launch, I expect there will be a few funnies to laugh about. Please laugh with us, not at us, as we learn the ways of the Web and grow our content.

Already you've gotten a taste for what we hope to include on a regular basis -- information about what's going on in your neighborhood. I toot my own horn that BrentWord was the news leader in coverage of the recent home burglaries that have taken place here and the subsequent police investigations and actions that led to the arrest of five suspects. Expect more of the same in the months ahead.

And remember Jill Burgin, whose column was long a favorite of Williamson A.M. readers every Sunday morning? She's going to be one of our featured columnists, along with a few others I'll wait to surprise you with.

But we can't do it alone. Brentwood Home Page will need input and information from every corner of the city, and every club, sports team, house of worship and school to truly make it a community "newspaper" --- without the paper, that is. If you have news or a calendar item to share, mail it to Brentwood Home Page, P.O. Box 3704, Brentwood, TN 37024-3704. Our new email system will be set up soon but in the meantime, feel free to email items of interest, story ideas and party pics to brentword@comcast.net. Just put Brentwood Home Page, or BHP as we've started calling ourselves, in the subject line. Don't forget to include your name and a daytime telephone number.

Remember I mentioned that almost-empty emergency fund? Brentwood Home Page is the perfect place to advertise your business, your sports team, your professional practice. For more information, email Kelly at Kelly@brentwoodhomepage.com.

So there it is. A scoop from the BrentWord home office. Stay tuned for details as they develop. And in the meantime, if you have news tips, ideas or comments, please don't hesitate to share them. Until the launch of Brentwood Home Page, BrentWord.blogspot.com, and Kelly's blog at www.outsidethebrentwoodbubble.blogspot.com are still alive and well.

Thanks for being part of this wonderful ride. We are truly blessed to live here.

Susan