Podcast No. 97: James "JR" Ross of West Tennessee Healthcare
Did you know that West Tennessee Healthcare employs over 5,800 people? That's a pretty big impact. Today on our podcast, Kevin Adelsberger interviews the organization's president and CEO, James "JR" Ross, about his journey through the medical world, his West Tennessee roots, and the future of the hospital and the many other services offered through WTH.
To learn more about West Tennessee Healthcare, visit their website.
Kevin Adelsberger and his wife Renae moved to Jackson for college (proud Union alumni) and have stayed ever since. Jackson has since taken hold of Kevin’s heart, and he looks forward to continuing to grow with the city. Kevin opened Adelsberger Marketing in 2014 and saw working with Our Jackson Home as a way that he could serve the city he loves. Kevin and Renae are members of First Baptist Church and volunteer with the youth group there and with Madison County CASA.
Production, editing, and photography by Kevin Adelsberger.
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On the corner of Carriage House Drive and Wiley Parker Road sits a white building with the words “Madison Place” in big, bold letters over a series of black panel windows. I would assume that if you walked up to most anyone you know that frequents Jackson, Tennessee, and mentioned Madison Place, they’d say, “Oh yeah, that’s the place with the hair salons in it.” Well, friends, business owner Jensen Vinson wants you to know that Madison Place is not just hair salons. “Madison Olive Oil is Jackson’s best-kept secret!” she tells me, and she’s right.
With family and friends in town for the holidays, it’s a perfect time to introduce them to West Tennessee’s best food, and this fall’s #OurJacksonTable recap is a great place to start. Check out what we tried the last few months, then join us as we hit 150 restaurants visited by the end of spring.
This summer has been jam-packed of great meals, a lot of which were enjoyed at restaurants celebrating new locations. Get the scoop on where we’ve been, old and new, and what’s tickling our tastebuds right now.
Don’t let the summer fun end once 731Day passes! August is full of one-of-a-kind entertainment and so many opportunities to support local non-profits in special ways. Check out our top event suggestions.
Blares of music echo throughout the Harris Sports Performance building as members enter through the silver steel door. Familiar with the daily bootcamp routine, they huddle around owner Nicholas Harris, prepared to stretch before the intense workout. Harris’ tenacious voice magnifies as he briefs his clients on the selected workout, pumping up the team. “Whatever your 100% looks like, give it!” he says. “Like always, we are here to work hard and give our best, so let’s get it!”
I woke up to a phone call around nine in the morning; my friend’s neighbor’s grandmother’s employee had just quit his job, and they needed someone to come in immediately. Naturally, I was next in line. I drove across town to a strip mall I had never seen before and wandered into an unmarked restaurant where I was greeted by two golden lions, the king of Thailand (who was placing a call on an old brick phone), and a particularly satisfied Buddha.
While perusing the West Tennessee Farmers’ Market, it would be hard to pass by the mountain of deep green vegetables and neon radishes of Rose Creek Farms, owned by Ray and Ashley Tyler. Their farm is nestled in a valley in Selmer, Tennessee, with a little over one acre of active farming land. With the help of high tunnels and row covers, they’re able to extend the typical season barriers to grow deliciously tender greens and veggies all year round.
By most standards, I’m a baby vegetarian, as I’ve only been a vegetarian for three-and-a-half years. But in those years, I’ve seen my body do incredible things. Let me back up a little bit. After having my first child, I struggled with losing the sixty pounds (yikes) I’d gained during pregnancy. I talked to a friend of mine who I’d always considered “the healthy one,” and she gave me some of her favorite recipes. I noticed all of them were meatless. So I decided to cut out meat, but just for a little while because, hello, bacon!
“I want you to close your eyes and imagine waking up on Christmas morning with all of the gifts your family and Santa Claus has brought you under the Christmas tree,” third grade teacher and author Natalie Cravens tells her students at West Chester Elementary in Chester County. “Now, while keeping your eyes closed, imagine being very sick instead and waking up in a hospital room void of presents on Christmas morning.”
It’s the woman at the bus stop holding a toddler’s hand. It’s the woman using food stamps in front of you at the grocery store. It’s the woman at the soup kitchen who can sing like no one else. These women and their families eat, sleep, and live a few blocks away but their stories are too gruesome to share, and it makes us a little uncomfortable to talk about them, much less look at them, eat with them, or live with them.
I have always felt some connection with Jackson, Tennessee—possibly because my grandfather was the first chiropractor in Jackson. (For those who might of known him, he was located off 45 down from the Red Cross building.) So in part you could say my roots are here in Jackson.I was born and raised in Lexington, Tennessee. Growing up, my mom, twin sister, and older brother would load up into a red station wagon and head out to Jackson, listening to Neil Diamond’s “Cracklin’ Rosie” cassette tapes.
It seems like we are constantly bombarded by fast food commercials and diet ads. If we aren’t getting a burger then we need to be taking a weight loss pill. Or hey! Why not both at the same time? Our society is constantly on the go, grabbing whatever we can reach to put into our body. We approach every part of life with this fast-paced mentality, including the most important thing: our health. Advanced medical knowledge is still crippled by bad lifestyle habits.
Balance. Poise. Grace. Stamina. All things that are waning for this thirty-seven-year-old man. Honestly, I never had a lot of physical grace or poise. In my athletic years, I generally excelled by crashing, slamming, and flinging my body all over the court or field in order to succeed. I was never a graceful athlete. Unfortunately, for me, the workout at Pure Barre required all of the aforementioned attributes.
I remember being in the locker room as a seventh grade basketball player at Tigrett Junior High School and coming to the realization that I was going to have a hard time keeping up with most of the guys on the court. I had some normal feelings of insecurity and nervousness, but nothing out of the ordinary for a prepubescent boy in 1992. Fast forward twenty-five years and those feelings came back in a hurry as soon as I walked into the CrossFit Jackson gym.
The first rule of Fightshop is: you don’t talk about Fightshop. Wait. That’s not it. That’s Fight Club, the Brad Pitt and Edward Norton film where dudes just generally beat the snot out of each other. The Fightshop is sort of like that, except you’re beating on bags, not people. And we can definitely talk about the Fightshop because it’s tough to find a better workout around town. The first thing I noticed during my first visit was the plethora of heavy punching bags hanging from a black, metal contraption.
Sitting in an intro philosophy class my sophomore year at Union University, I was asked a question: Would it be ethical to sacrifice a person (or a few people) in order to find the cure for cancer? Well, yes, of course it would, I said. We’re talking about cancer, right? I was nineteen and, apparently, omniscient—or so I thought at the time. The certainty of an arrogant college student is a certainty like no other.
2017 is not even a week old yet. The taste of black eyed peas and turnip greens may still linger in your mouth. The ink on that list of “resolutions” is barely dry. Thoughts of a future dance in your head as you sneak that last bit of Christmas candy from the aluminum foil-wrapped plate from your in-laws’ house. Maybe you’re not a candy person but a leftovers kind of guy. I mean, who wants to waste food, right?
Yoga. The word creates images of handstands and people twisting their bodies into pretzels. I always thought that in order to be considered a true “yogi” I needed to be able to contort my body in painful, unnatural ways. Despite that, yoga was intriguing to me. I watched videos online and became more familiar with the terminology, slowly understanding what makes millions of people practice everyday. I even started to notice a shift in how I carried myself.
I was never a baller. I wanted to be one, though. The grace and fluidity with which truly great basketball players move is unparalleled in any other sport. I was jealous. I’m tall and used to be pretty thin, but I never had the grace the true athletic players seemed to have. Gravity appeared to have a stronger hold on me than it did my teammates and my opponents. Sure, I was able to dunk a ball for a period of time in my 20’s and early 30’s, but it was off one foot and more of a “rim grazer” than a true “flush.”
Noah was five years old when we found out that he had cancer. He was in my Sunday School class and would come walking down the hallways at church with this skipping kind of swagger and the biggest grin on his face, like he knew something—or maybe had just done something. He was always smiling. So one day I asked him why he smiled so much. He grinned even bigger and said, “I don't know.”
A little over a year ago, I spent the summer exploring as many nearby state parks and national parks as I could squeeze into my schedule and my budget. After shedding more than a few dollars in kayak and canoe rentals, I decided to consider what it would be like to actually purchase a kayak. After some research and shopping around, I plunged into becoming a kayak owner.
People hate to exercise because they don’t have fun doing it. The idea of exercise being fun may sound so morbid to you that you laughed as soon as you saw "exercise" and "fun" in the same sentence. Let’s face it: if you live a sedentary lifestyle (e.g. you have been compared to the likes of a potato, Netflix asks you more questions than real people do, or your family has put you on a soda budget), you could be at risk for a chronic disease that’s easily preventable.
The popularity of frozen yogurt has really taken off in the past few years. The first time I had it, I was sold! It is much different than ice cream, and with the right topping choices, much healthier because of the probiotics that occur naturally in yogurt. The best part of eating frozen yogurt is choosing from all the fantastic toppings, and today’s featured business, Yogurt Square, has an awesome selection.
Hello Jackson’s inaugural feature is one of my personal favorites: Tulum—a distinctive, fresh Mexican restaurant. Tulum serves many traditional Mexican dishes but with gourmet flare. Owner Daryl Fortner and his team decided to do something a little different than the stucco, cactus, and sombrero decor you find in most Mexican restaurants. They instead went with a “Playa” theme that would give guests the feeling of being on a relaxing mini-vacation.
Over the past few years, many people have become interested in juicing for health benefits, but it is a long and messy process. Pour Me Some Juice takes on the work by providing delicious, raw juice blends with the nutrition that our bodies need. You won’t find many people who care more about health and nutrition than owner Tiffany Finney, who started the business because of her passion for raw food and juicing.