The Daily Pulse

It wasn't too long ago that the very idea of saving empty or ramshackle historic buildings in Knoxville was considered a lost cause. (Heck, even restoring the non-empty ones seemed beyond some people's imagination.) But Knoxville's mindset has come a long way since then, and the preservationist group Knox Heritage is one of the reasons why. 

Josh Flory's reporting that there are rumors that Urban Outfitters is the major retailer that we reported last week might be coming to downtown. Flory says on his Property Scope blog at the KNS website that Jennifer Holder of First Tennessee Bank and the CBID, and CBID member and local developer Jeffrey Nash both said they'd heard the rumor. 

Blue Ridge Mountain Sports has kicked off another local relief program for victims of the Haiti earthquake: You can now donate your old tents or tarps for distribution to survivors. Go to Blue Ridge's Knoxville store at 4610 Kingston Pike (588-2638) to drop off your old gear and help provide much-needed shelter.

"All tents & tarps will be inspected and shipped to Convoy of Hope in Missouri, a 501(c)3 non-profit aid relief agency with staff working directly out of the Convoy of Hope warehouse outside of Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince. Since the earthquake, Convoy of Hope has shipped 12 shipping containers of badly needed food & supplies in addition to their staff providing medical aid to injured Haitians."

Full press release on the jump.

Yesterday, radio journalist Ann Lloyd announced she was no longer employed by WUOT. While some details about what prompted the situation are still lacking, Lloyd today made it clear she had been dismissed, not downsized. She weighed in with these words in a Facebook letter to reporter Rose Kennedy, which arrived an hour or so after the Facebook group Boycott WUOT 91.9 FM formed on her behalf:

KNS is reporting that the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg will have to move when its lease expires in 2012. Arrowmont officials say they're looking at sites in Knoxville and Greeneville, and are also exploring the possibility of buying the current property.

The school was informed in 2008 by Pi Beta Phi fraternity that PBP--which founded the school in 1912--was interested in selling the 14-acre property. Chris Barrett wrote about it here.  

AC Entertainment's Paige Travis posted on the Tennessee Shines facebook page today that DoubleJay Creative won a Mid-South Emmy Award for directing episode 6. DoubleJay is the same company that produced That Evening Sun, the locally shot movie starring Hal Holbrook.

Watch the award ceremony here, and see Larsen Jay take the stage @ 1:35:00.

Watch episode 6 with The Steeldrivers, Shawn Camp, Darrell Scott, and the everybodyfields here.

Read all about Tennessee Shines in Jack Neely's MP cover story.

Radio journalist and announcer Ann Lloyd is no longer working at WUOT, she reported on Facebook about an hour ago. When we find out more about what was apparently an unwilling split, we'll let you know what's going on. 

In our cover story last July, Jack Neely made a strong argument that Jim Thompson's photography had a lot more to do with the formation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park than the photographer credited in a certain documentary that recently aired on PBS. (He also followed it up with a column on the documentary.) 

The Chrome Pony isn't the only local night spot reaching out to a new--and gay--audience. The Bearden spot 4620 Reinvented, which started out as a jazz/piano bar back in the 1990s and has been hosting rock shows for the last few years, is apparently set to reinvent itself once again as the gay nightclub Velvet.

The old 4620 website is down; assume it'll forward you to Velvet sometime soon. The grand re-opening is set for Wednesday, Feb. 3.

The Huffington Post has picked up on a Twitter exchange between UT football recruit Markeith Ambles and WNML 990 radio host Heather Harrington. Ambles, a blue-chip wide receiver the Vols have been trying to get back in the fold after he decommitted last month in the wake of Lane Kiffin's departure, sent a tweet to Harrington that said he was on his way to Knoxville and "whenever I got there me and u need to go bone to bone pretty girl."

Harrington slammed the door on that possibility this morning: "Really? I am not a vol hostess and I don't hang with recruits RT."