Newby’s also is asking for volunteers to help receive items, organize, box, tape, label and load them. The goal is to have items boxed and trucks full and ready to deliver on Thursday. Volunteers can call Todd Adams at 901-870-7633.

Items needed that are going to be delivered to Moore, Oklahoma, include:

Bottled water
Gatorade
Wipes
Diapers
Baby formula
Hand towels
Individually wrapped snacks
Work gloves
Money
(No clothing)

Robert Pera’s company, Ubiquiti Networks Inc., is still moving forward with installing some of its wireless Internet products at FedExForum. In response to a tweet last week asking whether that’s still happening, Pera tweeted in response: “Yes! Installations and testing going on as we speak. SSID [blog note – the public name of a WiFi network] should be “FedExForum WiFi Test.” It will be perfect before next season.”

Meanwhile, CNBC’s Jim “Mad Money” Cramer gave a shout out to Pera’s company on a recent episode of his TV show. Cramer, during one of his recent “Lightning Round” segments on the show, said of Ubiquiti – “I happen to like this kind of company.”

Ubiquiti’s stock has been on an upward trajectory over the past couple of months, climbing from $13.88 a share March 1 to $15.06 May 1. It stood at $19.75 at the end of the day on May 20.

Pera also recently rejoined the list of U.S. billionaires, according to Forbes.

Nominations will be made by the public and chosen each year by a committee based on the educator’s impact, years of service and other contributions. For the tribute, a large granite centerpiece will be surrounded by bricks engraved with the names of each inductee.

No more than 10 candidates will be chosen each year. Click the photo below to make a nomination.

Just tweeted this a few minutes ago. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has issued his first veto and it is of the bill nicknamed the “ag-gag” law, which made it a crime to record alleged animal abuse of livestock and conditions that violate animal abuse laws and not turn it over to law enforcement within 48 hours.

Here is Haslam’s veto message in its entirety.

“Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Tennessee.  Farmers play a vital role in our state’s economy, heritage and history.  I understand their concerns about large scale attacks on their livelihoods.  I also appreciate that the types of recordings this bill targets may be obtained at times under false pretenses, which I think is wrong.

Our office has spent a great deal of time considering this legislation.  We’ve had a lot of input from people on all sides of the issue.  After careful consideration, I am going to veto the legislation.  Some vetoes are made solely on policy grounds.  Other vetoes may be the result of wanting the General Assembly to reconsider the legislation for a number of reasons.  My veto here is more along the lines of the latter.  I have a number of concerns.

First, the Attorney General says the law is constitutionally suspect.  Second, it appears to repeal parts of Tennessee’s Shield Law without saying so.  If that is the case, it should say so.  Third, there are concerns from some district attorneys that the act actually makes it more difficult to prosecute animal cruelty cases, which would be an unintended consequence.

For these reasons, I am vetoing HB1191/SB1248, and I respectfully encourage the General Assembly to reconsider this issue.”

They are AIS Inc., a local team led by a biomedical engineer student from the University of Memphis. It’s building a leadless, single surgery GPS- and Bluetooth-enabled hybrid cardioverter defibrillator. Better Walk is led by a team of biomedical engineering students from Georgia Tech that’s making a redesigned crutch that eliminates a common crutch complaint – the discomfort in the underarm due to axillary nerve damage.

Cuff-Gard is led by a nurse from West Memphis and has designed a disposable skin barrier to protect and extend the life of blood pressure machine cuffs. Health and Bliss is led by a team from Baltimore and is attempting to revolutionize the way people detect strep throat by introducing a patented self-contained screening test. Mobilizer has a device that’s modeled after a wheeled walker but includes shelves and attachments that help carry around other things like IV drips and oxygen tanks, and SurgiLight is led by a team that’s designed an LED light for use in surgeries.

Starting today, the companies will go through a mentorship-driven, 12-week program of instruction and hands-on activities. Each company will get $50,000 in initial seed capital from co-investors Innova and MB Venture Partners.

The 12-week program will culminate in Demo Day on Aug. 8, when the participants will pitch to a group of investors. Finalists could receive as much as $100,000 in additional capital and the opportunity to further develop their businesses in Phase II of the program. And, there’s the potential for additional funding from investors.

Melissa Lee, one of the three hosts, wondered on air “Why is he talking to the local paper?” Her co-host Carl Quintanilla chimed in, “I think it’s a local-boy-done-good-story.” And finally, Jim “Mad Money” Cramer, piped up – “Yeah, REAL good!”

And it’s true, Jones – the brother of Peter Schutt, president and CEO of The Daily News Publishing Co. Inc. – has “done good.” He’s one of the richest men in America. He’s renowned for reasons that include his correctly predicting the stock market convulsion of 1987.

Jones was on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in recent days to talk about his work with the Robin Hood Foundation, the group he founded that fights poverty in New York City. Twenty-five years after its founding, the organization has given away more than $1.25 billion.

“You cannot have significance in this life if it’s all about you,” Jones told CBS’ Scott Pelley. “The only way to break the cycle of poverty is higher levels of education attract higher levels of income.”

Sponsored by ArtsMemphis and Blues City Tours, the service launched this week at the Memphis Hop bus stop on Beale Street. Memphis Hop operates Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., with hourly stops at Graceland, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, The Children’s Museum of Memphis, Memphis Pink Palace Museum, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis Zoo, Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, Beale Street, AutoZone Park, The Peabody, National Civil Rights Museum, Blues Hall of Fame and the Metal Museum.

One-day tickets to ride cost $20 for adults and $15 for children ages 12-17. The service is free for children under age 12. Tickets can be purchased on the bus, at the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, at the AutoZone Park box office, at Graceland, or at MemphisHop.com.

The mobile market will begin making stops at 15 area locations June 2, Kenneth Reardon, a professor and director of the graduate program of City and Regional Planning at the University of Memphis, told an audience of community leaders, parishioners and volunteers gathered at St. Patrick.

Reardon also shared the history behind the mobile food market and thanked the many community partners who have helped get the project off the ground.

St. Patrick Parishioners and members of the community await a blessing and dedication for a Memphis Area Transit Authority Bus that has been transformed into a rolling deliverer of healthy foods for the city’s neediest areas.

The Green Machine Mobile Food Market will begin making stops at 15 city locations beginning June 2 to sell fresh, affordable produce supplied by Easy-Way Produce Stores.

Antonio Raciti, a University of Memphis visiting professor in city and regional planning, speaks with a local parishioner on the newly rehabbed bus. Raciti created the overall design and detailed construction plans for transforming the bus into a retail sales environment.

The word came Thursday afternoon that Sid Selvidge has died.

Summing up what he meant to Memphis music is very difficult because his contribution covers so much ground as musician, as an influence, as a counselor on the intersection of music and the lifestyle of making music. And then there was the example of continuing to pursue with dignity and determination something that all too many people believe is neither art nor a pursuit for anyone but the young on their way to some other goal.

Realizing the limitations of trying to encompass all that Selvidge meant to a city with an abundant and ongoing musical firmament, I’ll go for this:

He was an artist with his music in the manner and determination of a painter or a sculptor. And that will be his enduring impact – a body of work that even now is being evaluated and posted on Facebook and YouTube.

Some of the bravest people I know are musicians who take their songs, their voices and perhaps a guitar or a piano onto stages, big and small, temporary and permanent, and connect with audiences night after night.

That is what Sid Selvidge did for a long time in our city and continued doing almost up to his death. He was our troubadour and our portal to the essence of a music that met official resistance and world-wide acceptance and questioned whether either was the point.

Some of us watched much of the journey from the pre-Beatles coffee house days of folk music at places like the Bitter Lemon on Poplar Avenue to the Beale Street Caravan-Levitt Shell residencies.

Others came across him intermittently over the years, a reference point in a city that to those of us who live here doesn’t seem to change fast enough but which has changed tremendously to those who no longer live here.

Still more encountered the old records turned CDs turned digital files in which his voice and his art at first surpassed the technology and then the technology managed to begin to capture what those who saw him live encountered.

The encounter will continue although the body of work is now complete.