Mike Sparks / photo courtesy of WGNS

In a final fit of silliness before the Republican primary, State Rep. Mike Sparks dubbed himself a “fool” for hanging out with black folks earlier this year instead of spending a day rubbing elbows with gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd at MTSU.

Sparks, who considers himself a defender of the black race, if not savior, made the odd statement while fending off criticism on a WGNS Radio talk show about comments he made at a legislative meeting about teacher pay.

You might be wondering what spending a Saturday at Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church has to do with teacher pay rates, and the answer is absolutely nothing (say it again).

But that is typical fare for Sparks, a Smyrna Republican who bounces from topic to topic like a SuperBall, making it hard to pin him down. It also tends to lead to cauliflower ear when talking to him on the phone.

Here’s how it all came down. The week before the Aug. 2 election in which Sparks was facing Smyrna Town Councilman Tim Morrell in the Republican primary for the 49th District House seat, local blogger Michelle Willard posted a video of Sparks presenting a bill in March during a House Education subcommittee. The legislation required teachers’ names and salaries to be posted online, and most education groups opposed the measure. With it, Willard wrote a short op-ed about the legislation, which Sparks withdrew for lack of support.

During the meeting, Sparks said, “It seems like there’s a misnomer out there that folks think that teachers are very low paid.”

The blog led Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed to post a Facebook response defending the work of teachers, who start at a salary of $35,000 in Tennessee. Reed, who taught for several years in Smyrna elementary schools, now owns a teacher supply store and felt it necessary to speak up for teachers.

Sparks, who is taking journalism classes at MTSU—apparently to learn how to cope with media criticism—labeled the whole thing “fake news,” even though it used real comments he made and poked fun at him, which is the right of bloggers, reporters, columnists and other cynics. He also put together his own Facebook video designed to make it seem lobbyists and legislators supported his bill.

During an interview about the matter, Sparks said it was ridiculous we were even talking about the subject, considering there are so many problems in the world, ranging from opioid addiction to county employees having to use port-a-potties at the county landfill. Of course, Sparks thought the matter about teacher pay was important enough to sponsor the legislation earlier this year, putting an unfunded mandate on local school systems to publish all of that information.

So why not talk about it now?

Well, because it was another attempt by the media to make him look bad, and just a few days before the primary at that.

During the WGNS interview, he pointed out the media tried to do the same thing to him last year when he sponsored a resolution to honor an obscure Louisiana author. It turned out the resolution recognized a man who wrote about the redemption of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest who, as we all know by now, was a Southern hero and still is to many who refuse to surrender more than 150 years after Robert E. Lee did. Never mind the fact Forrest owned and traded slaves before the war and was the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The resolution also mentioned Sampson Keeble of Smyrna, the first black man elected to the Legislature following the Civil War.

The Legislature’s Black Caucus had asked Sparks not to sponsor an initial resolution recognizing Forrest and Keeble, so he hid it in a different resolution honoring the author of Forrest’s redemption story and placed it on the consent calendar for non-controversial items. The entire House, not just the Black Caucus, was pretty pissed off after finding out it supported a resolution honoring Forrest’s life.

Anyway, just to show how much he respects African Americans, during the WGNS interview he said he could have gone to an MTSU commencement this year and spent time with Boyd but a friend called and encouraged him to go to an event held by an African-American group at Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church, a predominantly black church along Old Nashville Highway that dates back to the post-Civil War era.

“You know what I did? A fool like me? I go and hang out with all the black folks all day long,” Sparks said on the show.

He also referred to the late Dr. George Smith and Murfreesboro artist Mary Watkins, who purportedly told him if it weren’t for his efforts they wouldn’t know about the exploits of Keeble. But he didn’t utter one word about joking or being sarcastic, so we’re left to try to figure out what he meant, and the perception isn’t good.

Sparks didn’t answer a phone call or text message seeking comment on his WGNS statement, when he also backed up his previous words about teacher pay, saying he believes the state is paying teachers “adequately,” though it could do better.

Sparks contends the bill was designed to create more transparency and let Tennesseans know how much progress the Legislature has made in improving teacher pay.

But what his legislation was really designed to do, though he won’t admit it, was to make teachers look bad. While first-year teachers make $35,000, the average teacher pay in some of the better-funded school systems, Murfreesboro City, for instance, tops $51,000.

And at a time when teachers are blamed for every ill in society, they really shouldn’t be complaining about low pay.

Yet for someone who normally can’t stop talking, Sparks went strangely quiet just before the election. Maybe someone told him to zip it.

Incidentally, Sparks’ use of the word “misnomer” is a bit of a misnomer. He really meant “misconception.” But what can we expect from someone who calls himself a “fool” for hanging out with black folks, even if he’s trying to make a point with sarcasm?

How SMART Can I-24 Be?

The Tennessee Department of Transportation is set to embark on a plan spending tens of millions of dollars to make I-24 and Murfreesboro Road a SMART Corridor for 30 miles from Nashville to Murfreesboro.

The question remains, though: How much money will it take to make this corridor smart? And are we really that smart if we spend the best days of our lives driving on the most congested stretch of highway in Middle Tennessee?

TDOT will be ponying up about $37 million starting later this year to put in technology, signs and other stuff designed to let TDOT communicate with motorists and notify them about wrecks and other incidents—possibly using cellphone apps—and tell them to get off I-24 onto Murfreesboro Road and then back on to the interstate. Over a 12-year period, the state expects to spend a total of about $125 million on improvements to roads and ramps, in addition to an Intelligent Transportation System, according to Rep. Barry Doss, a Lawrence County Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee.

For anyone who’s ever gotten stuck in wreck-related traffic on I-24, this sounds great, because the uncertainty of what’s making you sit in gridlock is almost as bad as the wasted time. But people who’ve driven to Nashville and back for any period also know trying to get over to Murfreesboro Road and make any headway is almost as infuriating as sitting at a standstill on I-24.

Moving thousands of vehicles simultaneously is tough. On the other hand, if TDOT completely revamps the ramps and installs traffic lights that make people move, even if gradually, it just might work.

But Rutherford County is projected to have about 450,000 people in less than 20 years. So look for this to be a never-ending project, one likely to take a lot more than $125 million to get real smart.

Farewell

After four years of writing columns for the Murfreesboro Pulse, I am saying goodbye. It’s been a blast, mainly because Bracken Mayo lets me cuss sometimes using the written four-letter word (though I’m told some of my more colorful language is edited out). Anyway, I’m taking a full-time job as legislative reporter for The Daily Memphian, covering the General Assembly and state politics, and it will take every bit of my energy to keep Memphis readers stocked with stories and columns. So farewell, friends, and—in the words of Neil Young—“Keep on rocking in the free world” and stay away from Russian dictators.