Kennedy Agee: A Faithful Follower Rebounds

November 2, 2020
By: Bill Conger

DeKalb County High School basketball player Kennedy Agee is fighting to come back to the court after a third debilitating injury.

The junior Tiger basketball standout was playing in a travel ball tournament in Alabama on August 16 when she hurt one of the major ligaments in her right knee.

“I went around a girl and went to shoot a lay-up, and when I pushed off, my knee gave out and buckled and snapped my right ACL this time,” Kennedy remembers.

“When it happened the third time, Josh and I were standing out on the court with her, and he said, ‘Why us?’” her mom January Agee said. “We don’t know. We’ve been through a lot of emotions.”

“As a father, you try to give the answers of why in life, and I don’t have any answers for her right now,” DMS Basketball Coach Josh Agee adds.

Growing up the daughter of a coach, the 17-year-old girl had always been around basketball, but her interest took off in third grade.

“In middle school I realized it was time to start pushing harder,” Kennedy says. “My dreams have always been to play at Tennessee Tech.”

“Her dreams may not be done yet,” her dad said. “You always want your kid’s dreams to come true, and that’s probably been the hardest thing for me.”

Over the last nine years Kennedy has played year round for a travel league, the DeKalb Middle School Saints, and now D.C.H.S. Two years ago, she had her first ACL injury on the left side in the 4th period of a game against Warren County. She worked her way back in seven months instead of the nine doctors expected, but when she returned for a scrimmage game on October 30 of last year, the ACL on her left knee gave out again. Still, she never even thought of quitting.

“Basketball is too big a part of my life to give it up. I just kept pushing.”

Kennedy went through her second surgery on her left ACL, completed her therapy rehabilitation, and started lifting weights and running sprints.

“My expectations were to get back out there and play the game I love. I know that a lot of people in the county have been rooting for me, and they’ve always kind of been waiting around waiting to see me play. I still wanted to make my journey of playing college basketball come true. There were always the doubts, but you push through it. You suck it up and go.”

“Being a coach’s kid, you have to earn it more just to show I don’t play favoritism,” Josh says.

“She’s very inspiring to me the way she’s handled the adversity and come back twice and now has to deal with it again.”

“In that instant of the third time, it was like all the hard work and the hopes and goals and dreams crashed, said January, a teacher at DMS. “When you’re a basketball family, like we are, it’s a hard pill to swallow.”

“When I first went down on the floor, I really couldn’t believe what was happening again,” Kennedy says.

In that moment the Christian youth, who is a member of Smithville First Assembly of God, knew God had this.

“I just felt a peace from Jesus come over me that everything was going to be alright. The Bible verse that kept running through my head was in Daniel 3: 18: ‘If not, he is still good.’ I knew that no matter what happened whether I stepped back out on the floor again that my life was going to be okay.”

“When our daughter says that she still praises God through all of this, basketball takes a back burner, and we figure we’ve done something right,” says her mother. “She has handled it phenomenally. She was pretty down the first day. The second day she started making jokes about it. We even brought her orthopedist a punch card that I had made that said, ‘Buy two, get one free; ACL reconstructions’,” she says with a laugh.

“She has been inspiring to be honest,” her dad says. “She is mentally stronger than anybody I’ve ever seen. She’s handling it like a champ.”

The day after the latest injury, Kennedy was mowing the yard for her neighbor who had recently experienced a stroke.

“I have been raised by two wonderful Christian parents and a wonderful Christian family,” Kennedy says. “I’ve always had that foundation to stand on. Once you start going through trials, you learn to pray about it and dig deeper in your Bible about it and find ways to show that it’s going to be okay. I can’t tell you how many times the Lord has shown no matter what you face, no matter what valley you’re in the Lord is standing with you and it’s all going to be okay in the end. He always has a purpose for your life whether it’s what you want or not. He has a greater plan that sometimes we don’t see.

What happened happened, but I need to use that to glorify God because without Him I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that I did. Basketball has also given me the opportunity to share His love to others.”

“We have to keep trusting that something good is going to come out of this,” her mother says. “We don’t know what it’s going to be. There’s got to be a reason for it.”

The trials for dad remind him not to take anything for granted.

“We don’t know when our last days on this earth are going to be,” Josh says. “Live every moment like it’s your last, and enjoy the ride. If I could go back and do it over again, that’s the one thing I would do more. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed her playing like I should. I’ve never got to sit back, watch and just be dad.”

Recovering now from her third surgery, Kennedy is striving to rebuild her body with the hopes of playing her senior year with her cousin Averly Agee, who will be a freshman.

“She’s got that determination of she’s not going to let something keep her down,” Mom January says. “We may go through a fourth one [ACL injury] She has too much love for it.”

Kennedy continues to hold tight to her desire to play college basketball. Just this past week Kentucky Christian University checked up on her again and invited her to the campus for a visit. Who knows where her faith and determination will take Kennedy next?

November 2, 2020
By: Bill Conger

After 16 years as one of the pivotal figures with the Haven of Hope, John Quintero has handed over the business reigns at the agency to mental health counselor Samanthia Curtis, LPC-MHSP. While he has stepped down as Executive Director, he will remain intricately involved on the mission side.

“John has always been the ‘level head’ in leading the organization and keeping the organization moving forward,” says Kay Quintero, who founded the Haven with her husband in 2004.

John Quintero was working a demanding 24/7 job at a plant when he felt the Lord leading him to leave the company, and in short order he and his wife joined the Mission Services Corps starting in the basement of Smithville First Baptist Church.

“I didn’t have a grand plan,” Quintero said. “Somebody else had to have a grand plan.”

His wife, Kay, had been providing counseling through the chapel at the Tennessee Prison for Women.

“Our thoughts were to do the same thing here,” he says. “but down there we didn’t realize we had a captive audience in more ways than one where up here we didn’t have that.”

“Our goal to start off was to help hurting ladies,” Quintero remembers. “It soon became very apparent that there were people hurting besides the ladies. We modified that to help hurting people.”

Over the years the Quintero’s have ministered to the DeKalb County area in a variety of ways including offering support groups, classes, and visits to the Housing Authority communities to give away cool pops.

“John has been a wonderful role model both personally and professionally, says new Haven of Hope Executive Director Samanthia Curtis. “John has a huge heart for helping hurting people and always doing the right thing. He is very genuine with people and doesn’t make them feel like he is looking down on them. I have watched him share God’s love with sincerity through the years. I think that is what Jesus would do. It is what He asks us to do and John does it. He is willing to go the extra mile and really serve people. I feel like this is a God given gift, and I have enjoyed learning from him.”

“Looking at John shows the true meaning of what it is to be a servant of Christ,” says Rita Bell, a friend and former Haven employee. “He and Kay would go out of their way to take people to Nashville for rehabilitation or for recovery. There is no selfishness in them. They are wonderful at glorifying God and furthering his mission.”

Located at 301 West Main Street, the Haven grew from a ministry to also encompass the town’s first ever professional counseling center. Half of the not-for-profit organization serves the community with professional counseling while the other section is devoted to ministerial needs such as connecting people to resources and offering a variety of support groups and classes in anger management and parenting just to name a few.

“I’m proud of the ministry portion that we’ve done,” Quintero says. “We’ve helped people in a lot of different ways get back on their feet.”

A large part of the ministry has also assisted people striving to live a drug free life. Quintero is a team member of the Recovery Court in Smithville and leads a weekly class called “Hurts, Habits, and Hang-ups.”

“His heart is so warm for the drug community that’s recovering,” says longtime Haven volunteer Anne Huebner. “He understands their hopelessness. He understands they’re afraid. He understands they’re taking a step forward, and he encourages.”

“A lot of times people come in that won’t look us in the eye. They sort of have their heads down, and they don’t say very much. To see that head come up, to see their involvement increase, to see smiles on their faces, to have a conversations with them that they start or respond to you is very meaningful to me.”

Quintero says overall it has been a very good journey.

“Maybe the thing I think of the most is being able to see people grow spiritually, grow responsibly and allowing God to change them.”

November 2, 2020
By: Dwayne Page

The 2020 statewide muzzleloader/archery season for deer opens in Tennessee on Saturday, Nov. 7 and continues through Friday, Nov. 20 in all of Tennessee’s deer hunting units, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. The opening of muzzleloader season in the state has a permanent opening date of the third Saturday before Thanksgiving.

For Unit CWD only, in addition to muzzleloader, gun season will open on Nov. 7. Unit CWD, in the western portion of the state, is now comprised of 11 counties and was established after the confirmation of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in December 2018.

Muzzleloader firearms are defined as those firearms which are incapable of being loaded from the breech. Muzzleloading firearms of .36 caliber minimum, plus long bows, compound bows and crossbows are legal hunting equipment for this season. Hunters are also reminded that they must meet the blaze orange requirements while hunting.

The statewide bag limit for antlered bucks is two. No more than one antlered deer may be taken per day. Hunters are allowed the following antlerless bag limits: Unit L-3 per day, Unit A and B-2 total, and Unit C and D-1 total.

In Unit CWD, there is a limit of three antlerless deer per day with no season limit and the statewide bag limit of two antlered deer.

For the exact boundaries of the different deer units, hunters can refer to the 2020-21 Tennessee Hunting and Trapping Guide, available where hunting and fishing licenses are sold and at all TWRA offices. In addition, regulations and other information for Unit CWD are included on pages 26-33 of the guide.

A list of the state’s permanent annual opening hunting dates is on page 11 of the guide. The guide can also be viewed at TWRA’s website at www.tnwildlife.org.

Resident hunters, ages 16 through 64 must possess in addition to other appropriate licenses, an annual big game license for the equipment used. Lifetime Sportsman license, Junior Hunt/Trap/Fish, Adult Sportsman license and Permanent Senior Citizens license holders are not required to purchase supplemental big game licenses.

In addition to private lands, including public hunting areas, several wildlife management areas (WMAs) will be open to hunters during this muzzleloader season. Hunters need to refer to the 2020-21 Hunting and Trapping Guide for a listing of these WMAs or go to TWRA’s website.

Tennessee’s gun season for deer opens in units A, B, C, D, and L on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. This year’s date is Nov. 21. The season for gun/muzzleloader/archery will then continue through Jan. 3, 2021. Archery equipment is legal during muzzleloader and gun seasons. Muzzleloaders are legal during gun season.

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