In a world full of scandals and breaking news, it is easy to forget that we live in a place full of good-hearted people who go the extra mile with nothing to gain in return. Mila Vazquez is such a person.
Mila was born of humble beginnings from a small island in the Philippines. When asked about her childhood, Mila drifts in thought, “Growing up, we didn’t have much, but we always shared what we DID have. My father was always inviting people to eat or stay with us. He has always been a very giving person.” Following in her father’s footsteps, Mila wanted to pursue a career path that would help people. That decision led her to the healthcare field as a physical therapist.
Mila Vazquez has a passion to help with reasons that become more and more obvious as she talks, “Growing up, there was a big ship that came to our island. It was full of mission workers who came especially to help our village and the villages around us. As a child, it was at that moment that I said to myself, ‘I want to be one of those people when I grow up.’ Now, it is like I am living that dream by making a difference for my people of the Philippines as well as my patients here in the United States. It makes me very happy. When I get a thank you card or a friendly call from a patient or their family, it just makes my day.”
As a physical therapist at DeKalb Community Hospital and Stones River Hospital, Mila often goes the extra mile by going with her patients to their doctor’s appointments, calling to check on them and being their friend. We asked one of Mila’s patients what they had to say about her, and they replied, “My family was so very happy the first time that I told them that my physical therapist came to my doctors visit with me,” they continued, “My doctor took extra time to talk with Mila and she made sure that I really understood my treatment plan. I never imagined having anyone so concerned about me. She cares and it shows.”
Going the extra mile with her patients is not the only thing that makes Mila extraordinary. Mila speaks with gratitude about her opportunities in the U.S. , but has never forgotten where she came from. With this in mind, Mila has started ‘The Philippine Project’ – partnering with The Filipino American Association of TN to help raise money to give back to the people and place that raised her. She has hosted charity luncheons featuring homemade cuisine from her childhood home along with asking her friends and co-workers to donate money at designated times, like casual Jean Fridays, where employees bring in a donation in return for the perk of wearing jeans. With the donated funds, Mila purchases shoes and basic necessities and travels to the Philippines every year to share her blessings with children and adults alike.
So, the next time you purchase a pair of shoes, go to the doctor or see someone in need—-think of Mila and count your blessings — then share them!
Pictured: Mila Vazquez helps a patient’s recovery through physical therapy.

The Board of Education has taken up the budget committee on its offer to partner with the county in making sure School Resource Officers are in every DeKalb County School.
During Thursday night’s meeting, the Board voted 4-0 to include in its proposed budget for 2013-14, a total of $73,839 to fund salaries and benefits of two new SROs. Board members Johnny Lattimore, Charles Robinson, Billy Miller, and Doug Stephens all voted for it. Board members Kenny Rhody, John David Foutch and W.J. (Dub) Evins, III were unable to attend the meeting.
Members of the county commission’s budget committee voted 4 to 1 Tuesday night to include funding for two new SROs in the proposed county general budget, but only if the school board would vote to fund two (salaries and benefits) in its budget.
Director of Schools Mark Willoughby had expressed to the budget committee Tuesday night that he didn’t think the school board would go along with funding SROs given the fact that schools were being asked to cut another $147,000 from the proposed school budget to meet last year’s funding levels. But during Thursday night’s school board meeting, Willoughby said partnering with the county appears to be the only way schools were going to get more SROs. “The county commission (budget committee) stated that if we would fund two then they would fund two. Basically it was my interpretation that if we didn’t fund two then there would not be two (any new SROs) funded,” said Willoughby. We feel that it is very important to help provide safety for all people involved in our school system. Its either us fund two or not have any Resource Officers except for the one the Sheriff already provides out of his current budget,” said Willoughby.
During Tuesday night’s county budget meeting, committee member Larry Summers made a motion that the county general fund two new SRO’s (salaries and benefits) if the school board does the same with the county general to pick up all the expense of training and equipping the new officers with patrol cars, guns, etc. The vote was 4-1. Committee members Wayne Cantrell, Marshall Ferrell, and Jerry Scott joined Summers in voting for the motion. Jack Barton voted against it, since he wanted the county general budget to fund all four new SROs.
County Mayor Mike Foster then polled the twelve county commissioners present at the budget committee meeting to see how they felt about funding two SROs if the school board were to fund two SROs. All but three commissioners said they favored it. However when polled about the county general funding all four SROs, a majority of the commissioners said no.
The county budget committee will meet tonight (Friday) at 6:00 p.m. at the courthouse to act on the school board’s proposed budget.

The DeKalb County Board of Education revisited its proposed budget for the 2013-14 year Thursday night, making more than the $147,000 in cuts requested by the county budget committee.
Removed from the proposed spending plan are two new assistant soccer coaches, one for the girls and one for the boys program at DCHS and a proposed new cross country coaching supplement. Total savings from those cuts combined comes to $8,355. A proposed new teaching position in the gifted program will be cut to part time. A previously federally funded special education teaching position, to be funded from the general purpose (local school budget) will be cut to part time.
Altogether, cuts were made in varying amounts from a total of thirty six line items in the proposed budget for a total of $148,355, more than meeting the request of the county budget committee. “We took $500 here and $1,000 there in different places, in several different categories, just a little here and a little there to come up with the amount of cuts that was requested,” said Director of Schools Mark Willoughby.
While school officials had anticipated having to use up to $1.2 million of school reserves to balance the 2012-13 budget, the school system actually ended up in the black for the year. “We were fortunate this year to end without using any of our reserves. This budget does not request a tax increase to the county. This budget is again tight and we hope we can come out ahead again next year without using any reserves,” said Willoughby.
The proposed school budget does not include a property tax increase. The rate for schools would remain at 55 cents per $100 of assessed value. However, the budget proposes to use $1,237,960 of school BEP reserves and fund balance if needed to balance the budget by the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year.
Total school revenues come to $19,314,324 including $14,004,000 in State Basic Education Program funds and $2,362,429 in current property tax funds. Total school expenditures are $20,478,445.
In order to meet requirements of the federal Affordable Health Care Act, the budget includes funds to offer single coverage health insurance to all full time classified employees (support staff) who want it, beginning January 1, 2014. Employees who take the school system up on its offer will have to pay ninety dollars per month. The school system will cover the rest. No additional insurance benefit will be offered to certified personnel.
The proposed budget calls for certified employees to receive a one time bonus instead of a 1.5% pay raise. Director Willoughby said in a previous meeting that approximately $40,000 in state funds will pay for the bonuses which comes to about $160 per employee.
The budget includes funding for two new teacher positions at DeKalb Middle School
One new P.E. teacher at Northside Elementary School
One new extra teacher position (instead of two) which may or may not be needed depending upon enrollment at the elementary school level: (position not to be filled if not needed)
One full time and one part time federal teacher positions moving to general purpose schools (local budget)
Under the Gifted Education Program: One new gifted part time position:
Under Special Education Program: A half time psychologist
Other new positions included in the budget:
Assistant band director (working primarily at DeKalb West School) (supplement)
Two new Middle School Soccer Coaches (supplement)
One baseball coach at DeKalb West School (supplement)
The budget also includes a $4,150 pay raise for the Transportation Supervisor
The county budget committee will meet tonight (Friday) at 6:00 p.m. at the courthouse to act on the proposed school budget.

If you pay for your children’s school lunches, you’ll have to ante up a little more this coming school year.
The DeKalb County Board of Education Thursday night voted to increase the price of school lunches five cents, going from $1.45 to $1.50 for pre-kindergarten students to fifth graders and from $1.70 to $1.75 for sixth through twelfth graders. Breakfast prices will remain the same at $1.00 for all students. Prices for adults at schools will remain at $2.50
This is the third year in a row the school board has voted to hike school lunch prices.
Stephanie Dyer, School Nutrition Supervisor, has said in previous meetings that prices have to increase until they get to $2.51 under USDA regulations, or the school system risks losing its increase in food reimbursement rates. “Each year we have gone up ten cents. However this year with our funds we’re able to just go up five cents and still be in good shape, said Dyer during Thursday night’s meeting. “Hopefully we’ll stay like this for a couple of years. That’s what we’re hoping for. They are becoming a little bit more lenient on that,” she said.

The DeKalb County Board of Education voted 4-0 Thursday night to award the base bid on the DeKalb West School addition to J. Cumby Construction of Cookeville, the lowest bidder on the project.
The base bid amount is $2,179,000.
But since the overall project costs of more than $4.8 million dollars is over available funding by approximately 25%, the board is exercising its option to make deducts and to re-bid a new roof on the existing West School building to bring down the costs. “We have checked and we can make deducts from the contract of the lowest bidder,” said Director of Schools Mark Willoughby. ” We are doing a pre-bid inspection next Tuesday, July 16 on the re-roof project because everything came in above what we had expected our estimates to be. We will bid that again the following Tuesday, July 23. Everybody is in agreement that we can make those deductions. If two Tuesdays from now we get a lower bid than what was in the contract, we will take that lowest bid. If we have a lower bid on the bid date then we will go with that bid. If the lowest bid is in the contract, we’ll go with that bid,” he said.
According to Director Willoughby, deducts can also be made on equipment for the kitchen/cafeteria renovation to save money. ” We have deducted on the cafeteria approximately $83,000. We are taking our old equipment and putting in the new kitchen. That is also equipment put in there such as milk coolers. We don’t have to purchase those. The company we purchase the milk from will supply the milk coolers. That’s a savings. We have also met with other kitchen suppliers this week. We have requested if we buy things from certain vendors, we think we can save at least $20,000 more,” said Willoughby.
The school board’s action on accepting bids is subject to approval of the county commission.
The board of education learned last month that the DeKalb West School building project is more expensive than the architect originally anticipated.
Jason Morris of Kaatz, Binkley, Jones & Morris Architects, Inc. of Mount Juliet, informed the school board that the total costs come to more than $4.8 million dollars. The county commission, last summer approved a $3.4 million note to cover this project and other school roofing work.
J. Cumby Construction of Cookeville had the overall lowest bid of the three bids submitted at $3,534,000.
The base bid was $2,179,000 to construct the new addition and $75,341 to purchase the roofing materials; $509,000 (alternate 1) to re-roof the existing building and $192,872 to purchase the roofing materials; and $846,000 (alternate 2) for the kitchen/cafeteria renovation and $12,866 to buy the roofing materials. The project also included a cost of $986,924 for energy efficient renovations by Johnson Controls.
The DeKalb County School System last year received approval from TEMA and FEMA for grant funds of more than $1.5 million to build eight tornado safe rooms at DeKalb West School. The spending plan calls for local funding to meet a 12.5% FEMA grant match for building the rooms. The proposed addition will be constructed in the front of the school, including the eight classrooms, restrooms, a new secure entrance, an office, clinic, conference room, and guidance and teacher work area. The county is paying for additions not covered by the grant.
The county commission, last summer approved funding for the DeKalb West School project in the form of the note to cover the local grant match for the safe rooms along with an $850,000 cafeteria and kitchen renovation at DeKalb West School as well as roofing projects at DeKalb Middle School, DeKalb West School, and Smithville Elementary School.

Casey Curtis, of Smithville, received the Gary Pickett memorial scholarship from Tennessee Tech University’s College of Business.
Curtis is a senior studying business management and a graduate of DeKalb County High School. He was one of more than 100 students to receive a scholarship from the College of Business this spring. The college distributed nearly $143,000 this spring to its top students.
“We are proud of this outstanding group of students,” said James Jordan-Wagner, dean of TTU’s College of Business. “We are also extremely pleased with the support we receive from businesses and alumni in supplying the private funds for scholarships. In these trying times, they have responded by increasing the amount that we could award this year.”
“These awards recognize our students’ achievements and help us to attract quality students to TTU.”

Some one hundred youngsters ages five to twelve have been learning more about football during the first ever Tiger Pride Football Camp this week at DeKalb County High School
USA certified football coaches and other volunteers have spent the week teaching kids the basics of the game. “We’ve been wanting to put one of these together for quite a few years and with John (Kilgore’s) help this year and the organization we’ve got one going and we’ve had a hundred kids out here each and every day and it’s just a great thing to be able to instill that Tiger pride and a little football knowledge in these young guys,” said DCHS Football Coach Steve Trapp.
“We’ve got a lot of our high school guys, a lot of guys who graduated last year and in years past who have come out to help us. They are actually running the drills for us. The Junior Pro coaches are here. Its helping all levels of football here in DeKalb County,” said Coach Trapp.
“Football has got popular in the last four or five years,” said John Kilgore, who helped organize the camp. “Coach Steve (Trapp) has turned the program around at DCHS and its got more kids interested,” he said.
On Thursday, the last day of camp, a scrimmage game will be played for each age group.