Kingsport Spirit

I recently completed my four-year term on the Kingsport 9-1-1 Board as “Citizen Fleming.”

It was a tumultuous time in the aftermath of COVID, and the mayor thought my experience might be useful. So I was happy to take a turn.

But I came away with something more valuable than I expected: a renewed appreciation for the people who are always there, whether we think about them or not.

Do you know what I was reminded of?

9-1-1 never closes.

Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Three hundred sixty-five days a year.

Not for Christmas. Not for Independence Day. Not even for COVID.

During a global pandemic, when we quite literally didn’t know whether we were going to live or die, 9-1-1 operators still reported for duty. They had families, fears, and uncertainties of their own. But someone had to answer the phone.

There are two expressions I hear often at church: “stand in the gap” and “watchmen on the wall.”

Both seem particularly appropriate.

These are the people who stay awake so the rest of us can sleep safely. They’re the ever-present lifeline in the night, standing in the gap between a cry for help and the arrival of help.

And behind every voice answering those calls is a person with a family, a life, and someone waiting for them to come home.

I wish every citizen could see what I’ve seen. In fact, I wish I had seen more of it before becoming city manager.

My four years on the board were something of a full-circle experience. They reminded me of serving on the Grand Jury, where I gained an entirely new appreciation for the criminal justice process.

Even with a degree in political science and decades in public administration, I discovered how much I still didn’t know. The same was true of 9-1-1. You can spend an entire career in city government and still discover how much goes on behind the scenes.

I suppose I’m beginning to sound like a dinosaur, but I was around when 9-1-1 came to Kingsport in 1988. I was four years into my career when Police Chief Jim Keesling and Fire Chief Conner Caldwell made it their mission to ensure Kingsport met the highest possible standards.

But our story actually began earlier.

Before 9-1-1 became the familiar universal emergency number, Kingsport already had a local version: 246-9111.

It was operated by a department called Central Dispatch, which, as I recall, was housed in an old World War II bomb shelter beneath the Civic Auditorium.

Quite literally, out of sight and out of mind.

Central Dispatch did much more than handle emergencies. City management relied on it for after-hours calls involving virtually every city service. Citizens became conditioned to call 246-9111 for just about anything, from water outages to whether school was in session.

Is court in session? When will my road be scraped?

You name it. They’ve probably heard it.

Remember, this was long before websites, mobile phones, and apps. If you needed an answer after hours, you picked up the telephone and called somebody.

And old habits die hard.

In fact, probably my proudest accomplishment during my four years on the board was working with the city to finally untangle the relationship between 246-9111 and 9-1-1. What once made perfect sense had become an unnecessary burden on emergency communications operators.

Today, the city is using technology to direct non-emergency calls to the appropriate departments rather than tying up 9-1-1 resources. It’s a practical improvement, but an important one. It helps reduce operator burnout and allows dispatchers to concentrate on what matters most: genuine emergencies.

Sometimes good stewardship isn’t about building something new. It’s about recognizing when an old way of doing things no longer serves the people it was intended to help.

But making 9-1-1 work as an emergency system has always required far more than having someone answer the phone.

A 9-1-1 system is only as good as the information behind it and the training of the people answering the calls. Otherwise, it’s little more than an answering service.

One of the many stops along my 35-year career was helping establish the city’s Geographic Information System, or GIS. An important part of that assignment was cleaning up the address database, known as the Master Street Address Guide, or MSAG.

I remember working through reams of green-bar computer printouts filled with mismatched street names and addresses. I was the only employee assigned to the task, and it took about a year to work through the errors until there were none remaining.

Before 9-1-1, it didn’t matter nearly as much if West Sullivan Street appeared in city or county records as Lee Highway or Knoxville Highway. Those inconsistencies had accumulated over decades.

But when an emergency occurs, an address isn’t just a mailing location. It helps determine where a call goes and where help is sent.

Accuracy can be a matter of life and death.

And cleaning up the database was only the beginning. Every new address had to be coordinated with the appropriate agencies, including the telephone company, post office, and utilities.

Today, with cell phones, location pings, and geolocation technology, emergency communications have become even more complicated. The technology has changed dramatically, but the fundamental responsibility hasn’t.

Get the right information to the right people as quickly and accurately as possible.

Another thing I came to appreciate more fully during my board service was the unique relationship between Kingsport 9-1-1 and city government.

The 9-1-1 Board isn’t a typical city board, committee, or commission. The Emergency Communications District is a separate legal entity with its own responsibilities and governance. It has a close relationship with the city, but it is independent.

Kingsport’s original Central Dispatch was a city department. Today’s Emergency Communications District operates within a statewide framework and is measured against standards applicable to emergency communications districts throughout Tennessee.

But Kingsport had a head start.

Thanks to the foresight of Chiefs Keesling and Caldwell, and the support of city government, professional management was part of the culture from the beginning.

We weren’t starting from scratch.

One of the most important decisions was hiring Al Brose, a professional emergency communications manager who came to Kingsport from North Dakota.

Al once told me that, back in North Dakota, they dispatched emergency services for the entire state from the state capitol. He was accustomed to the township-and-range system of identifying locations, where the land was laid out in orderly grids.

He learned pretty quickly that wasn’t going to work quite the same way in the hills and hollers of East Tennessee.

Our roads follow ridgelines and creek beds, addresses don’t always make sense, and getting from one place to another can be a lot more complicated than it looks on a map.

But Al understood that effective emergency communications required more than knowing where things were. It required sound management, reliable systems, well-trained people, and the ability to adapt to the community being served.

He guided Kingsport 9-1-1 through its formative years capably and admirably, helping build the professional foundation that others would continue to strengthen.

Over the years, that foundation was reinforced by people who understood something I have always believed about public service: Good stewardship means preparing for needs that may not become apparent until long after we’re gone.

They envisioned a freestanding 9-1-1 center and developed a plan to make it happen without debt.

They anticipated growth, changing technology, the need for backup systems in a disaster, and the importance of having a properly trained workforce.

Training, training, training.

They scrimped. They saved. They planned. They invested.

And in 2015, that vision became a reality.

Today, Kingsport 9-1-1 has something many organizations struggle to achieve: a strong financial foundation and reserves to prepare for the unexpected.

I’ve often thought about Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper. While the grasshopper enjoyed the summer, the ant prepared for winter.

Good stewardship isn’t always popular. Money saved for tomorrow can look like money that ought to be spent today. But when winter comes, we’re awfully grateful someone planned ahead.

And, interestingly enough, some people still want to criticize the ant.

None of this happened by accident. It happened because people cared enough to build something that would outlast their own service.

And that brings me to some extraordinary people.

Dr. Kenneth Calvert has served seven four-year terms on the 9-1-1 Board. Twenty-eight years. Think about that. He’s a full-time pastor who has volunteered his time for longer than many people spend in an entire career.

Vivian Crymble has served 20 years, and Mary Margaret Denton 16.

And then there’s Dr. Mickey Spivey, who has served on the board for eight years. But his contributions go back much further. As medical director for Kingsport and Sullivan County for many years, Mickey has brought a perspective that’s absolutely essential to emergency communications. He’s the one who continually reminds us that behind all the technology, budgets, buildings, and policies, there are medical protocols that must be followed, and lives that depend on getting them right.

He’s kept that responsibility at the forefront of our decisions. I’ve come to appreciate how important that voice is around the table.

And then there’s Joe May, the attorney who has faithfully counseled and guided the organization through decades of change.

Joe was already here when I arrived in 1984. And here we are in 2026, forty-two years later, and he’s still serving.

Organizations need visionaries, but they also need people who provide continuity, sound judgment, and a steady hand.

Joe has been that kind of servant. And I don’t use that word lightly.

A faithful public servant. What a gift to a community.

That’s not just longevity. That’s commitment. That’s institutional memory. That’s service above self.

Quite frankly, it’s hard to imagine the future of Kingsport 9-1-1 without people like them.

And I would be remiss not to remember John Moser.

John devoted 34½ years to the Kingsport Fire Department, rising through the ranks from firefighter to chief. But retirement from the fire service didn’t end his commitment to public safety. He continued serving on the 9-1-1 Board, helping guide the organization through important years of planning and progress, including the opening of the new center in 2015.

He passed away in 2020, leaving behind a legacy of service that continues to benefit this community.

I think about the collective wisdom represented by these individuals and so many others who came before us. They gave their time, their judgment, their experience, and their hearts to something most citizens rarely see.

And I think about the dispatchers themselves.

The ones who answer calls from people experiencing what may be the worst moments of their lives. The ones who must remain calm when someone else cannot. The ones who have to think clearly, act quickly, and move on to the next call, even when the last one was heartbreaking.

Most of us will never know their names.

We won’t see the holidays they missed, the family dinners interrupted, or the emotional burdens they carried home after a difficult shift.

But we’re all better off because they were there.

As the saying goes, we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Yet in so many ways, these giants are ordinary people. Our neighbors. People we see at church, at the grocery store, or across the table at a community meeting.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things, often without recognition.

Serving on the 9-1-1 Board reminded me that public service isn’t measured only by the decisions we make, the buildings we construct, or the titles we hold. Sometimes its greatest measure is simply being there when someone needs us.

I’m grateful to the mayor for giving me the opportunity to serve. I’m grateful to my fellow board members, past and present, for their wisdom and friendship. And I’m especially grateful to the professionals who carry this responsibility every single day.

I came to the board thinking I might have something to contribute. I left with a much deeper appreciation for what others have contributed, often for decades.

So tonight, when you turn out the lights and settle into bed, remember that someone else is still awake.

Someone is watching over our community. Someone is ready to answer when help is needed.

And should you ever find yourself calling 9-1-1 in the middle of the night, remember that the reassuring voice on the other end of the line belongs to a person with a family who loves them, too.

We owe them all a great debt of gratitude.

They are our watchmen on the wall. And every day, without fanfare or recognition, they stand in the gap.