Coach Jerry “Red” Foster Has Passed Away (VIEW VIDEO OF CEREMONY HONORING HIM IN JANUARY)

By: Dwayne Page

DeKalb County has lost one of its most beloved teachers and former basketball stars.

Jerry “Red” Foster passed away Tuesday at his residence after a long battle with cancer. The funeral arrangements for Coach Foster are incomplete at this time and will be announced along with the names of family survivors today (Wednesday) by DeKalb Funeral Chapel.

Coach Foster’s passing comes almost seven months after he was honored in a jersey number retirement ceremony on Friday, January 26 at DCHS between the boys and girls basketball games with Cannon County.

Fellow class and teammates of Foster along with his high school coach Harold Luna returned to their alma mater in a show of support for him and to witness the retirement of his high school jersey number 32. A large crowd including family, friends, and students also turned out for the ceremony that night.

(VIEW VIDEO BELOW OF COACH FOSTER’S JERSERY NUMBER RETIREMENT CEREMONY ON JANUARY 26)

“I am honored. Its something that you never expect to happen but I am glad to see it happen. It was just great to see as many people turn out as they did tonight. A lot of my classmates were here and it was really great to see them show up. A lot of them came from a pretty good distance away,” said Foster who spoke with WJLE after the ceremony.

“I had a wonderful career. I played for three college coaches and two professional coaches, but my high school coach Harold Luna was probably the best coach I ever played for,” Foster added.

Foster excelled in basketball at an early age and went on to become a star athlete on the high school, college, and professional level. After his playing days, Foster was a high school basketball coach for several years. In recent years, he had been a physical education teacher at Northside Elementary School.

Jerry’s basketball career began at College Street Junior High School under the late Coach Elzie McBride and later at DCHS under former Coach Harold Luna. He starred as a member of the Tiger basketball team from 1972-76. During his time at DCHS, Foster was a part of over 80 wins. He was named All-District, All-Region, Upper Cumberland MVP, 1st team All-State, and was named the Class AA Player of the Year in 1976. He was selected to play in the East/ West All Star game that same year.

After leaving DCHS, Jerry went on to star at Bethel University in McKenzie, Tennessee. As a member of the Bethel University basketball team from 1976-80, he scored 1,879 points and grabbed 1,440 rebounds earning 1st Team All Conference in both his junior and senior years as well as being named an NAIA All American after his senior year.

Jerry was then selected in the 4th round of the 1980 NBA draft by the New York Knicks and later signed a professional contract in the European League. After two professional seasons in South America, he decided to end his basketball career.

After his playing days, Foster stayed in the game of basketball through his love of coaching. He returned to DCHS, as freshman boys’ coach from 1983-89 compiling a 92-22 record. He then moved to Jackson County High School as head boys’ coach from 1989-93 compiling a 101-87 record in four seasons, before returning once again to DCHS to direct the Lady Tiger basketball program, a position he held for seven years, from 1993-2000 with his teams recording a 93-85 record.

After leaving the coaching ranks, he continued to teach physical education at Northside Elementary School and continued to teach the game of basketball to youth of DeKalb County through the after school program. He was making plans to retire at the time of his passing.

August 14, 2018
By: Dwayne Page

Over the coming weeks the DeKalb Prevention Coalition will be focused on a campaign from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called “Rx Awareness”, which is the CDC’s first prescription opioid overdose prevention campaign to raise awareness of prescription opioid abuse and overdose.

DeKalb County’s current mortality rate for drug overdose per 100,000 population is 29, ranking the county 11th worst among the 95 counties in Tennessee and higher than the state rate of 22.

Listen for the public awareness campaign radio ads daily on WJLE, click the web ad on the WJLE website homepage, or view the video below to learn more.

The Rx Awareness campaign is evidence-driven and tells the real stories of people whose lives were torn apart by opioid use and abuse.

The Rx Awareness campaign focuses on adults ages 25–54 who have taken opioids at least once for medical or nonmedical (recreational) use, and it highlights the importance of reducing prescription opioid misuse and abuse to prevent overdoses. The goals of the campaign are to:

• Increase awareness that opioids can be addictive and dangerous; and

• Increase the number of individuals who avoid using opioids nonmedically (recreationally) or who choose options other than opioids for safe and effective pain management.

The first story is about Ann Marie. She never expected she’d lose her son to prescription #opioid overdose.

Ann Marie’s son, Christopher, was a great student and a gifted baseball player, and he was very close to his mother and sister. When he was 20 years old, Christopher was in a minor car crash and was prescribed opioids for back pain following the crash. Christopher’s tolerance grew quickly, and he sought out doctors who would prescribe him more opioids. He increased his intake from one pill a day to 25 pills a day. Ann Marie described how these pills and his addiction completely changed her son: everything he had worked for no longer mattered to him, he had trouble sleeping, often did not come home at night, and became defensive and combative toward the people he loved. Ann Marie tried admitting him to various treatment facilities, but he was either rejected or kicked out for poor behavior. Without help, his addiction persisted and intensified. Within roughly two years of beginning to use prescription opioids, Christopher overdosed and died at just 22 years old.

Ann Marie has been passionate about sharing her loss in the hopes of saving others from this tragedy. She started Christopher’s Reason, a place where people suffering from opioid addiction can be directed to the treatment they need.

August 14, 2018
By: Dwayne Page

A 16 year old boy charged with raping two young children made a recent appearance in Juvenile Court.

The teen is accused of molesting a 5 year old child on May 19 and a 4 year old on July 19 in restroom facilities at the fairgrounds in Alexandria during separate ATV racing events.

The boy is now in state custody based on separate offenses against him in Putnam County and is undergoing a mental evaluation. His next juvenile court hearing is October 25 at which time  Judge Bratten Cook, II will learn the results of the mental evaluation and possibly whether the state will seek to have the boy tried as an adult.

The case was investigated by the Alexandria Police Department and DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department.

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