Institute asks local teachers to apply for training event
Teachers from across the region will have the opportunity to get hands-on training using cuttingedge tools at Chattanooga’s inaugural Digital Fabrication Institute later this month.
More than 200 educators are expected to attend the institute through a partnership between the Public Education Foundation, Hamilton County Schools, the Hamilton County Education Association and the NEA Foundation.
The initiative is one of three efforts funded by a $150,000 grant from the NEA Foundation.
The four-day event will give participants a chance to engage with and learn how to use 3-D printing, laser engraving/cutting, vinyl cutting, CNC routing, microcomputing, and more. The initiative is a strategic effort by PEF to expand on some of the other programs launched in Chattanooga and Hamilton County in recent years such as the Volkswagen eLabs.
“Chattanooga is quickly becoming identified as a leader in digital fabrication education. The institute allows us to share this innovative work with the country,” Public Education Foundation President Dan Challener said in a statement.
“This is just a part of the process … but this is not closure for us,” Dickson County Sheriff Jeff Bledsoe told reporters following Wiggins’ capture. “Closure will only come once we can honor and lay Sgt. Daniel Scott Baker to rest, and that we can see a prosecution begin.”
Ray Crouch Jr., the district attorney general for the 23rd Judicial District, announced Friday that the state will seek the death penalty for both Wiggins and Erika Castro-Miles.
During a Friday morning news conference, Bledsoe read a statement by Baker’s wife, Lisa Baker.
“There are no words to describe the level of devastation that myself and family are dealing with,” Bledsoe read. “The family and I would like to thank our amazing local community for the outpouring of love and support being shown during this most difficult and trying time.”
Two large wreaths of navy blue, black and silver ribbons hung from the double doors of the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office administrative building in Charlotte. They each had black bands, one with Sgt. Baker’s name and the other with “EOW 5-30-2018,” for the law enforcement code for “end of watch.”
Bleary-eyed deputies walked in and out of the sheriff’s building, some with their 13-hour search shift just ending.
“It’s one less person we have to be fearful of, but there are a lot of them out there,” said Sherry Mulbarger, 64, whose son is a deputy who served under Baker.
Since Wednesday morning, local, state and federal authorities had been tirelessly searching for Wiggins, concentrating on a 3-mile radius around where Baker’s vehicle was found in a wooded area off Bear Creek Valley Road in Dickson County.
Baker had been found dead inside the vehicle.
Wiggins, a felon with a violent criminal history spanning over a decade, was wanted on multiple warrants at the time of the shooting, including one for reportedly attacking Erika Castro-Miles at a motel in Kingston Springs and stealing her four-door Saturn the day before the shooting.
The event began about 7 a.m. Wednesday, when a male resident reported seeing a suspicious vehicle.
“Everything escalated from there once [Baker] discovered that the vehicle was reported stolen,” Bledsoe said Friday.
Bledsoe said the officer’s vehicle ended up 2 miles away “by the suspect’s actions.” Authorities have not released further details about the incident.
On Wednesday night, the TBI arrested 38-yearold Castro-Miles of Dickson on a first-degree murder charge in connection with Baker’s death. The woman, who authorities say knew Wiggins, is being held without bond in the Dickson County jail.