Logan Durham is having a rough—or, maybe that’s “ruff”—year. And he’s enjoying every moment of it. Durham, a sophomore in communications from Cleveland, Tenn., is this year’s lead Smokey, the University of Tennessee’s costumed bluetick hound mascot. He’s assisted by two understudies and a junior Smokey; UT’s Spirit Office typically chooses multiple students to perform as Smokey since the performance schedule is very demanding.
Adam Vicars never expected to follow in his older brother’s paw prints when he got to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, but he did. Adam, 22, who graduates in December with a degree in logistics, spent about 4 years—from 2003 to 2007—as UT’s costumed mascot, Smokey. Adam’s brother, Jason, ’01, was Smokey for 2 -and-a-half years and won the Universal Cheerleaders Association Mascot National Championship in 2000 and 2001. Adam and Jason Vicars are the only brothers ever to have served as Smokey, according to Joy Postell, UT mascot director.
It was a hot Friday afternoon in a remote village in Belize, and the UT group there on a medical mission was ready to call it a day. But they knocked on one more door. That fateful visit could turn out to be a lifesaver for Atiliano Jones Jr., a 15-year-old with a tumor the size of a cantaloupe growing inside his head.
For months, Molly Erickson has been spending her lunch hours listening to live music at WDVX’s daily “Blue Plate Special” concerts. For Erickson, a trained opera singer and an associate professor in the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, attending the concerts in downtown Knoxville is more than fun—it’s research.
Knoxville leadership coach Sharon Hoover was in a restaurant in Italy recently when she struck up a conversation with a couple sitting nearby. “What are you planning to do today?” Hoover asked them. The husband explained that they’d rented a car and were planning to just drive “and have a hundred wonderful adventures” along the way. “Or have a hundred fights,” the wife chimed in.
Yosemite. Check. Yellowstone. Check. Rocky Mountain National Park. Eugene O’Neill’s home. Pinnacles National Monument. Check, check, and check. Hunter and Sylvia Wright have set a goal to visit every U.S. national park and monument, and they’ve already made a good dent in the list.
WDVX began broadcasting in 1997 from a trailer in a campground in Norris, Tennessee, about 18 miles northeast of Knoxville. In an interview with PBS during the station’s early years, manager Tony Lawson reminisced about the station’s humble start: “We were looking for a place to put the radio station—for a studio. We didn’t have any money.”
Erin Moore graduated from the University of Tennessee last spring with an A+ in perseverance. Two years ago, in August 2005, Moore was starting her sophomore year at the University of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina aimed for the Gulf Coast. The university shut down, and Moore fled the Crescent City with a backpack containing two bottles of water, some saltine crackers, and two changes of clothing.
If you visit the Vatican in Rome and then stop for a cappuccino in the coffee bar nearby, you’re likely to run into the Reverend Bernard O’Connor (Knoxville ’94). He may not be wearing orange. And he probably won’t be humming “Rocky Top.” But if you sit a minute and chat, which you inevitably will, you’ll soon learn you’re in the presence of a fellow Vol.
Northern Uganda, where children have long been traumatized by a brutal war, there is a group of rescued girls who call themselves “University of Tennessee girls.” For Professor Rosalind Hackett and a group of students, such stories prove that their efforts to raise awareness—and money—are making an impact.
Tom Coens knew something didn’t look right with the letter. Coens, assistant editor for the Andrew Jackson papers at UT Knoxville, spends much of his time perusing letters, memos, speeches, and other communications to and from Jackson.
Burwell Bell is the second-highest-ranking four-star general in the U.S. Army. He is the U.S. military leader in Korea, charged with maintaining relations with South Korea and monitoring the hornets’ nest of North Korea. But when Bell came to the University of Tennessee to speak, he was--for a time--just “B.B.,” a friend, relative, and diehard Vols fan.
They say a moUThful with a single word. I’m talking, of course, aboUT those new billboards, newspaper ads, and that cool TV commercial toUTing the University of Tennessee, using a variety of words with “UT” in them.
Research at the University of Tennessee may be sweet music to the ears of millions of hearing-aid users. Dissatisfaction and frustration with hearing aids lead many hearing impaired people to stop using, even discard, their expensive hearing devices.
Blood pools on the kitchen floor. Droplets spatter the cabinets. In a small room off the cottage’s entryway, crime-scene investigators study blood spatters on the wall and bloody handprints on the floor. In the bedrooms, they photograph more bloodstains, looking for clues about the crimes that left these gruesome settings.
