Category: People
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Patriots to Pioneers: Tracing My Connection to Becky Boone
I grew up hearing stories about my father’s roots in Clintwood, Virginia, in Dickenson County. It’s just over an hour’s drive north of Kingsport, Tennessee, near Virginia’s border with Kentucky. I still treasure my copy of Meet Virginia’s Baby, a book highlighting Dickenson County, the youngest in the Commonwealth, formed in 1880. What I didn’t…
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Kingsport in the 1890s, the Bridge Between the Boat Yard and the Model City: The E.C. Barnes Story
Many know Kingsport as the “Model City” incorporated in 1917, but it didn’t happen from a blank slate with a big bang. Before the planned city, there was a thriving riverport community. King’s Port (or Boat Yard) was settled in 1761, incorporated in 1822, and faded after the Civil War as railroads replaced boats as…
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Cornerstone of a Community: The Stone Family Story
Tom Parham was recently inducted into the Dobyns-Bennett High School Alumni Hall of Fame. These are Jeff Fleming’s remarks upon his induction. I want to tell you a story with all the triumphs, tragedies, and unexpected twists of a bestseller. But this isn’t fiction—it’s the story of the Stone family, a family whose history is…
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From France with Love, Germaine Bus
One of the last articles I wrote must have sounded too much like a eulogy, because I got phone calls asking what happened. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Nothing happened. It was a milestone birthday and I’ve learned to tell people how you feel before you can’t.” When we moved to our home in 2002,…
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Kingsport’s Bain vs. Batman’s Bane
If you know anything about Batman, you know that Bane is a villain. But Kingsport’s Bain is one of the good guys. I’m always fascinated to learn the names of the people who built this town from scratch, names that were otherwise unfamiliar to me and perhaps lost to time. They may not have been…
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John Campbell: 4th Quarter
April 10, 2024. Today is John Campbell’s 75th birthday. The start of his 4th quarter. If you know John, you know he loves sports, especially UT football. So, 4th quarter seems like the most appropriate reference. 4th Quarter is a rallying cry. Players hold up 4 fingers. Fans respond with applause. You can acquiesce or…
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Ross N. Robinson
Generations of Kingsport eastside students have grown up singing, “Let’s give a cheer to RNR, to the colors white and blue”. As a John Sevier alumnus, RNR’s archrival, I never gave much thought to the man behind the school’s name. In my formative years, RNR might as well have been in a neighboring city. The…
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The Little Girl of Rotherwood Mansion
Virgealia “Jill” Denny Looney Ellis was a leap year baby in 1928. Since 2024 is a leap year, I wanted to honor her. Mrs. Ellis was the counselor for generations of students at both Douglass High School (before integration) and Dobyns-Bennett High School (after integration), including me. She made a lasting impression, and I was…
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The Bachman Legacy: How a Kingsport son became Chattanooga’s ‘First Citizen’
The Brainerd Mission is featured on the cover of this month’s Tennessee Historical Quarterly magazine, published by the Tennessee Historical Society. So, how does this relate to Kingsport? Read on. The article is based on the remembrances of Chattanooga historian Anne Bachman Hyde (1868-1959) as told to her by her father, Jonathan Waverly Bachman. A…
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Roots of Change: Nancy Garrett’s Green Legacy
When I first began working as a naive city planner, I was under the false impression that the city had the ultimate say on all things related to building a city. I quickly learned that what matters most is private investment and the city’s ability to influence it. The city’s professional staff can propose practical…
Kingsport Spirit 