I gave my first reading of my children’s novel, Gentle’s Holler, in Sylva, North Carolina, in the spring of 2005. I noticed a woman in the front row, Dot Connor, in her sixties with a shy smile and eyes bright and alive with curiosity. I wondered why she was there, because it was mostly children gathered. I learned she was the daughter of Mary Jane Queen, a mountain ballad singer, and my book reminded her of her own large family.
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.
UT is a leader in the development of alternative fuels, the university is enjoying its best year in recent history in terms of state funding, and Dr. Bill Bass has solved the mystery of “The Big Bopper”—these and other stories in this edition of UTopics.
Perhaps no name in commerce is as well known as that of Wal-Mart, and Don Frieson (Knoxville ’90) has mapped his way to the company’s top echelon. Frieson recently moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, as senior vice-president in charge of operations in Wal-Mart’s central division. Previously the UT business grad was a vice-president and regional manager in Maryland.
For years Cormac McCarthy, Knoxville’s most famous living literary son, had something of a cult following. He seemed doomed to labor under the aesthetically fulfilling—if financially problematic—moniker of “writer’s writer,” a serious craftsman whose work remained a secret shared among a few fiercely loyal souls. The secret is now out.
Ask conservation ecologist Dr. Luke Dollar to describe the moment when he felt farthest removed from the University of Tennessee campus, and he’ll likely cite Madagascar, where he’s logged nearly 6 years researching mammalian predators. Chief among them is the enigmatic fossa (pronounced “FOO-suh”), a 20-pound carnivore that blends a mountain lion’s agility and cunning with the sheer bellicosity of a mongoose.
Foosas help control the predators that devour the human food supply on Madagascar. So when Luke Dollar discovered villagers had killed a foosa, he launched a poster campaign to “Save the fossa, save the harvest.” The campaign has been a success, says Dollar, and its effectiveness has inclined him to expand his educational efforts to the youngest members of Malagasy society, most of whom receive fewer than five years of formal education.
Recently my wife Kathy and I, both loyal Tennessee Volunteers since 1966, traveled to China for a vacation and Far East sightseeing. One of the unique features of the two-week excursion involved a scenic cruise down the Yangtze River, which flows from its headwaters in the Kunlun Mountains through the central part of China to the Yellow Sea.
One of the world’s premier musical ensembles will bring its extraordinary talents to the university’s Knoxville campus this fall. The Boston Camerata will perform three concerts as part of the Medieval and Renaissance Semester spearheaded by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
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.
Ron Frieson toasted retirement, not with a glass of wine, but with an entire wine store—his own. Frieson (Knoxville ’81) took early retirement from his position as president of BellSouth Operations in Georgia, and he and his wife opened WineStyles Cascade in southwest Atlanta last fall.
Many people say they want to travel when they retire. Globe-trotter Ginny Thigpen says, “Do it today.” This retired college professor from Gallatin, Tennessee, has visited six of the seven continents and has Antarctica on her schedule for ’08 or ’09.
How many people dream of following their passion—doing the work they’ve always longed to do? Tish Lowe (Knoxville ’75, ’78) did just that when she moved to Florence, Italy, in 2003 to study painting. Lowe formerly worked for International Finance Corporation, which has a mandatory retirement age of 62.
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.”
A new softball stadium and basketball practice facility taking shape in Knoxville are changing the campus landscape and boosting UT’s reputation as a powerhouse of intercollegiate athletics. Three women made seven-figure gifts to help make these projects happen. Why? The reasons are as interesting as the women themselves.
