Kingsport Spirit

I found myself thinking about the inaugural nonstop flight from TRI Airport to Washington Dulles in Northern Virginia—and about my daughter-in-law being on that very first plane, returning home with photos of our nation’s capital glowing in Christmas lights. The Capitol dome was illuminated, and monuments stood lit against the winter sky. It was a poignant reminder that our region’s connections extend far beyond what many people realize.

Around the same time, I was also thinking about the David and Goliath matchup of James Madison University versus Oregon in the College Football Playoffs, and the two ideas began to connect.

Many Tennesseans don’t quite grasp how close JMU—and Virginia more broadly—really is to Kingsport. Harrisonburg is closer than Murfreesboro and Middle Tennessee State University—a comparison that tends to stop people mid-sentence. Once you see that, the mental map of our region starts to shift.

Even JMU’s mascot tells the Virginia story. “Dukes” sounds unmistakably colonial—formal, titled, rooted in old-world hierarchy. Tennessee, the Volunteer State, by contrast, could only have emerged from a frontier society—citizens who showed up by choice, rifle in hand, with no titles required. Dukes versus volunteers. Commonwealth versus frontier. Two traditions, two instincts—and from Kingsport, both within easy reach.

One of the small surprises of living in Kingsport is realizing that Virginia often feels closer than much of Tennessee. Maybe not politically or emotionally—but geographically and historically. On a map, Kingsport appears tucked into the northeastern corner of Tennessee, a place many assume sits at the edge of things. In reality, it sits at the center of something far more interesting.

From Kingsport, Bristol and Abingdon are barely a half-hour to forty-five minutes away. The Barter Theatre and Birthplace of Country Music feel less like out-of-town destinations and more like nearby neighborhoods. Within a few hours, you reach Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, Roanoke, and Lexington—home to Stonewall Jackson and VMI.

That pull toward Virginia is not new. In the earliest days of settlement, Kingsport was widely assumed to be in Virginia. Deeds were recorded, loyalties pledged, and commerce conducted under that belief until formal surveying proved otherwise. Geography and culture had blurred the line long before surveyors drew it.

Long before state boundaries hardened, this region sat at the meeting point of two Americas. To the east lay Colonial Virginia—courthouses, colleges, powdered wigs, and ordered governance. To the west stretched Frontier Tennessee—coonskin caps, long rifles, and a fierce streak of independence. Kingsport grew where those worlds met, shaped by both.

That duality still shows up today. Virginia is a Commonwealth, a system rooted in continuity and institutional authority. Its legislators are Delegates, not Representatives. Tennessee, born of the frontier, prizes transparency and direct accountability, reflected in its Sunshine Law and populist tone.

Those differences became unmistakably real during the COVID years. Virginia took a centralized approach; Tennessee chose a looser path. Nowhere was that contrast clearer than on State Street in Bristol, where businesses on one side of the street were required to close while those just a few feet away in Tennessee remained open. Same street. Same customers. Two governing philosophies.

History reflects the same divide. Our region sits almost evenly between Virginia’s Civil War landmarks and Tennessee’s. Virginia served as the capital of the Confederacy, while Kingsport and much of East Tennessee remained firmly loyal to the Union. It was the same war, fought at the same time, but experienced in very different ways.

The contrasts show up in lighter ways as well. Within a few hours, a Kingsport resident can find themselves at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, or head the opposite direction to Lynchburg, Tennessee—home of Jack Daniel’s. Higher purpose versus higher proof.

They even appear in taxation. Virginia relies on a state income tax and an annual personal property tax on vehicles. Tennessee does neither. That difference reflects deeper cultural instincts about authority and independence.

Kingsport sits squarely at that intersection. We enjoy daily proximity to Virginia’s culture and universities, while living under Tennessee’s independence-minded framework. For many Tennesseans traveling to Virginia, our region is the halfway point. For us, it’s half as far.

In the end, Kingsport’s greatest strength may be that it lives at the center—large enough to offer the amenities of a true midsized city, yet positioned to reach far beyond itself. From here, both Washington, D.C., and Nashville are within reach. Kingsport offers something increasingly rare: the ability to live locally while thinking regionally and nationally—where Dukes and volunteers, powdered wigs and coonskin caps, colonial commonwealth and frontier independence have long shared common ground.