Cookeville Mayor Wishes You A Witchy Christmas

Since we began covering the City of Cookeville’s controversial takeover of the area’s half-century-old Christmas parade after Mayor Laurin Wheaton caved to local LGBTQ+ activists, new details have emerged. 

Thanks to an outpouring of messages from concerned locals, The Pamphleteer has learned that Wheaton not only strong-armed the churches originally hosting the parade into turning it over to the city but also appointed the leaders of Cookeville Inclusive who have publicly identified as witches to take an active role in the Christmas tradition’s planning. No, these are not overly zealous fans of The Craft or Wicked. They actually think they are witches. And Mayor Wheaton was happy to hand them a community-facing role.

In a more bizarre turn, an activist who goes by the name Emily Woods Witch on social media is the daughter of Cookeville’s director of Leisure Services—the department in charge of parade logistics. 

Following the “statement of faith” brouhaha that The Tennessee Holler’s Justin Kanew sensationalized in October, Mayor Wheaton called a meeting of the city council, Putnam County government officials, and volunteer community parade organizers. According to sources who attended the meeting, the Mayor and Putnam County Superintendent Corby King pressured the organizers into turning control of the event over to the city.

“As the meeting started, the Mayor told the pastors, ‘You’re just going to have to give the parade over to us,’” said an individual in attendance who wishes to remain anonymous. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Another source who wishes to remain anonymous corroborated this account of events.

🪑 Courtroom Update: Wallen Chair Throwing Incident Though some speculated that Morgan Wallen’s criminal case would likely go before a grand jury, his lawyer, Worrick Robinson, procedurally waived his right to both a preliminary hearing and grand jury yesterday. According to the Tennessean, the move keeps some of the case’s details under wraps—for the time being—and kicks the proceedings to criminal court. During an interview with WSMV4, Robinson indicated that the decision was made by Wallen, and the next step will be to try and settle the case by coming to some sort of “an agreement with the party, all the parties, and finding a court date to address that.”

Wallen was arrested back in April after he allegedly threw a chair off the rooftop of Chief's Bar in downtown Nashville. Luckily, it didn’t hurt anyone, though it did land just feet away from two MNPD officers. Wallen later apologized to the police and his fans on X stating, “I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility.”

A month after his drunken charade, Wallen headlined Nashville’s Nissan Stadium in front of crowds holding signs encouraging their beloved hellion to throw a chair off stage. Adding to the lore, the owner of Chief's Bar, Eric Church, put a plaque on the rooftop that reads: “Don’t even think about it, you are not Morgan Wallen.” 

Though his fans love him, Metro Council made it clear that they do not appreciate the country crooner’s antics. In May, 30 of the 40 members rejected a committee-approved resolution to allow the aerial encroachment permission Wallen needed to put up a standard-issue honky tonk neon sign in front of his new downtown bar, This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen. Though the establishment is now up and running, its grand opening was delayed over the summer when the Metro Beer Permit Board denied Wallen’s catering permit and a temporary permit, according to Scoop.

🎄 Where Are You Christmas? Did you know Nashville hasn’t held its annual Christmas Parade since 2019? This morning, the Banner brought up this blue Christmas saga in an article outlining the part COVID played in the demise of Music City’s nearly hundred-year-old tradition. While Downtown’s Councilmember Jacob Kupin expressed interest in trying to find a way to reignite the holiday spirit, it seems some drama with a former parade sponsor, Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge owner Steve Smith, has poisoned the well. According to the Banner, Smith stopped funding the parade “when his friend and business partner Kid Rock was removed as parade grand marshal in response to disparaging remarks he made about television personality Joy Behar” in 2018.

🎡 Fairgrounds In The Red Despite the Nashville Fairgrounds yielding diminishing returns, Metro is still sleeping on NASCAR. In March 2023, the Nashville Board of Fair Commissioners approved Bristol Motor Speedway's proposal to lease the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway. The plan included a racetrack renovation to attract NASCAR and other major racing events.

During yesterday’s Board of Fair Commissioners meeting, Chairman Jasper Hendricks raised concerns about the fairground remaining in the red while waiting on the mayor and the council to make a move on the two-years-stale deal. “As a board, I think we need to start being realistic about the future of the property,” said Hendricks. “Every year that we're in a million-dollar deficit, that's a million dollars the county could have done something within public education or violence prevention or something else in the community.” He went on to explain that the drawn-out process has been personally draining and that the board should address the continued failure of the site by balancing the books.

DEVELOPMENT

• New York-based spa, sauna company plans first Nashville spot in Wedgewood-Houston (NBJ)
• Milkshake Concepts to open third Nashville restaurant in 2025 (NBJ)
• Cool Springs office building sells to Florida firm (NBJ)
• Dollar General preps 575 store openings in 2025 (Post)

✹ ON LAST WEEK'S ASSASSINATION

Anyone who has experienced an acquaintance or loved one fall prey to debilitating mental illness is familiar with how Luigi Mangione's family must feel. In many ways, it's worse than death. He is still alive, but the person looking back at you feels alien. Just comparing Mangione's mugshot and body language to prior pictures of him reveals a man whose psyche has been severely damaged.

To add to this pain for the Mangione family, they now must pay witness to him being lionized by unwitting fools who have projected all manner of things onto him. Mangione's motivation appears to be no more sophisticated than the outbursts of an individual who could not accept his circumstances, likely felt slighted by this cosmic injustice, and instead of persevering through his particular difficulties, arbitrarily decided to murder a person in the healthcare industry—if for no other reason than that he seems to believe his pain vaguely originated there.

He was not beaten down like a dog by "capitalism" or whatever. He was too weak, too cowardly, to face the reality of life, and instead of working to accomplish whatever ends a moderately ambitious Penn graduate would desire, took a crude shortcut to generate a legacy for himself. In his wake, he has left nothing but destruction. The crudely written, uninspired manifesto reveals how desperate he was merely for notoriety, bolting on a flaccid justification for his targeting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson that in the context of his beliefs, could've applied to any well-off person.

If you can't condemn this openly and resoundingly, what can you condemn? It's pure, unfiltered resentment that is being unleashed here, and it's aimed at the "well-turned out" not necessarily just the "rich." His motive, character, and mental state, is a Rorschach test. The rush to associate him or claim his association with whatever niche political ideology purportedly birthed him is like when a random jihadi in London stabs a passerby and ISIS sticks up its hand and says, "Uh, yeah, uh, that was us." The guy was severely mentally disturbed. There was no higher purpose to his act. He served no God, no greater ideology. He strove for nothing. His act was meaningless and tragic. End of story. DAVIS HUNT.

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🪕 The Price Sisters @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info

🎄 Leslie Odom, Jr.: The Christmas Tour with the Nashville Symphony @ Schermerhorn Symphony Center, 7p, $40+, Info

🎄 Trans-Siberian Orchestra @ Bridgestone Arena, 7p, $50.56, Info

🎸 A Night with Cody Jinks & Ward Davis @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, $45.70+, Info

🎸 Stefanie Joyce @ The Underdog, 10p, $10, Info

🪕 Bluegrass Night @ The American Legion Post 82, 7p, Free, Info

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.