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Two city buildings to get new cooling
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Lisa Hobbs
Updated: Apr 28, 2011, 11:31 PM
Published: Apr 29, 2011, 12:30 AM

McMinnville City Hall and its Vehicle Maintenance Department will be cooler in the summer. Officials voted to replace a unit in the first, and install a unit in the second.
City hall is cooled with a chilled water cooling system that’s 42 years old. Occasionally, the system stops working and leaves most of the building without air conditioning, including Regions Bank that has a lease on the first floor.
After going out for bids to remove the old unit and install a new chilled water cooling system, the project was awarded to Bob’s Central Air Conditioning in the amount of $61,560.
The city’s Vehicle Maintenance Department is located behind McMinnville Fire Department on Main Street. It has ventilation, but no working cooling system.
“I want to say thank you to everyone who votes yes on this,” said Alderman Billy Wood about the installation of an air conditioning unit in Vehicle Maintenance. “It’s like an oven down there in the summer months.”
After taking bids to install a Carrier 10-ton split cooling system, the job was also awarded to Bob’s Central Air Conditioning with a bid of $11,000. A warranty for one-year labor and parts, as well as a five-year warranty on the compressor, is included in the contract.
Both projects were included in the 2010-11 fiscal year budget.
Local farm partnership brings fresh beef to Warren County Schools
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Published: Apr 2, 2025, 11:31 PM

Warren County Schools has beefed up lunch menus this school year through a new community partnership. Thanks to a collaboration between the district’s School Nutrition Department and Barton Creek Farms, students at Warren County High School, Warren County Middle School, West Elementary, Eastside Elementary, and Dibrell Elementary are enjoying locally sourced, farm-fresh beef in their lunches as part of a pilot program.

The initiative, spearheaded by Terri Mullican, Director of School Nutrition, has already shown great promise in its first few months. The partnership with Barton Creek Farms, located in Rock Island, Tennessee, ensures that the beef served is not only local to Warren County but of the highest quality. Barton Creek Farms specializes in farm-to-fork beef, with grass-fed and grain-finished cattle. Each calf is born and raised in Rock Island and goes through USDA-inspected processing, ensuring it meets the strictest safety and quality standards.

“When the opportunity arose to provide fresh, local beef, we knew it was a no-brainer,” Mullican said. “The fact that it’s a product from right here in our community makes it even more special. We can’t wait to implement it district-wide.”

Barton Creek Farms delivers fresh ground beef to the district monthly, and the nutrition

department incorporates it into homemade recipes such as lasagna, meatloaf, chili, and tacos.

As of now, the beef is being served at five schools, but the ultimate goal is to expand the program to all ten lunch-serving schools in the district.

The pilot program originated from a conversation between Mary Roller of Barton Creek Farms and Mullican. Roller, recognizing the farm’s potential to support local schools, reached out to gauge the district’s interest in serving local beef to students. Around the same time, a Warren County school board member contacted Mullican to share information about a similar partnership in neighboring Dekalb County, which helped push the initiative forward.

The timing worked in the district’s favor, as the nutrition department was able to fund the purchase of the beef using existing resources, eliminating the need for additional funding. Now that the pilot program is enjoying a successful run, the department has budgeted to extend the partnership district-wide for the 2025-26 school year.

Dr. Grant Swallows, Director of Schools, praised the program’s economic approach to student nutrition.

“This pilot is a perfect example of how we can use local resources to continue providing nutritious, healthy meals for our students,” he said. “We are grateful for partnerships like this one that benefit both our students and our local community. We always strive to support our local businesses when we can because our community is so good to us.”

In addition to working with Warren County Schools, Barton Creek Farms also partners with local restaurants to offer farm-fresh beef on their menus. The farm’s offerings include ground beef, steaks, roasts, and custom cuts by the quarter, half, or whole cow, meeting diverse consumer needs.

As the program continues to grow, the district hopes to expand its focus on farm-to-school meals, benefiting students’ health and connecting them to the agricultural roots of the community