The following stories were produced by WUOT from conversations recorded by StoryCorps during its visit to Knoxville Oct. 4-Nov. 15, 2010.
>>read more about StoryCorps' visit to Knoxville
>>read Knoxville stories, Jan.-Mar. 2011
>>read Knoxville stories, Oct.-Dec. 2010
Monday, Aug. 29, 2011 -- The Last StoryCorps -- In October 2010, we began running segments from conversations recorded at the StoryCorps mobile booth on Knoxville's Market Square. Sadly, this segment represents our last in this series. During that time, we've met some incredible people and heard their equally incredible stories. To acknowledge them, this last segment represents some of StoryCorps Knoxville's most powerful moments...
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Jeanie and Bill Wilcox
Monday, Aug. 22, 2011 -- Bill and Jeanie Wilcox remember the strange, exciting and eventful days they spent working on the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge. At that time, Oak Ridge was a vibrant, energetic, mysterious military-style outpost of roughly 75,000 people. Like the Wilcoxes, many of them were young, single and looking for love...
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Donna Wright, left, and Sharon Griffith
Monday, Aug. 15, 2011 -- The Appalachians have a long, storied history with coal mining and the families involved with it are painfully familiar with the dangers that accompany the practice of retrieving coal from the ground. In this segment of StoryCorps Knoxville, Sharon Griffith of Knoxville sits down with her best friend Donna Wright and remembers losing her father, a coal miner from Harlan County, Kentucky…
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Kurt and Amy Mundorff
Monday, Aug. 8, 2011 -- On September 11, 2001, University of Tennessee professor Amy Mundorff was a forensic anthropologist working for the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Lower Manhattan. After hearing news of an airliner hitting the nearby World Trade Center, she and her colleagues headed to the site to see if they could help. On this edition of StoryCorps Knoxville, Amy sits down with her husband Kurt to look back on the day that changed everything...
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Bill Sykes and his wife Melissa
Monday, Aug. 1, 2011 -- For fans of Southern rock 'n' roll, Oct. 20, 1977, is an ominous date. That’s the day a chartered twin-engine plane crashed in southern Mississippi, killing six people, including three members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Bill Sykes of Knoxville was on that plane. A freelance videographer, he had just been hired to film some of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s upcoming tour. On this episode of StoryCorps Knoxville, he and his wife Melissa remember that terrible day…
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Susan Montomery and her son, Ian Brinn
Monday, July 25, 2011 -- Susan Montgomery of Knoxville sits down with her son Ian Brinn and looks back on the father she barely knew. Susan’s parents divorced when she was about 18 months old, in part because of her father’s drinking. As an adult, she set off on a long journey to learn more about him, but he died before they could ever talk…
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Julia Meadows
Monday, July 18, 2011 -- Julia Meadows of Knoxville remembers how her boyfriend from Northern Ireland ended their seven-year relationship --and how she's learned so much about herself since...
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Bill Claybough, left, and Billy Minser
Monday, July 11, 2011 -- Billy Minser retired in June after teaching more than 40 years in the University of Tennessee’s Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries. During that time, he had been a tireless and outspoken advocate for the protection of public lands in East Tennessee. In this StoryCorps Knoxville segment, he tells his friend and colleague Bill Claybough how his experience as a foot soldier in Vietnam helped shape his attitudes about public policy and our right to challenge it…
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Patricia Robledo and John Craig
Monday, July 4, 2011 -- Patricia Robledo was 17 years old in 1980 when she, her mother and two of her sisters left the chaos and violence of Colombia for a new home in America. In this installment of StoryCorps Knoxville, she sits down with her husband John Craig and remembers having to say goodbye to an older sister who stayed behind...
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Evelyn Bryan Johnson, left, and Adele McDonald
Monday, June 27, 2011 -- Since 1947, Evelyn Bryan Johnson of Morristown, Tenn., has trained thousands of pilots and tested thousands more for their pilots’ licenses. Because of her devout focus on safety, you could make the argument that she’s also saved thousands of lives, but one life, in particular, stands out. In this installment of StoryCorps Knoxville, Evelyn tells her friend, fellow pilot and former student Adele McDonald, about a helicopter crash she witnessed at the airport many years ago…
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Michael George and his daughter Lauren
Monday, June 20, 2011 -- On this episode of StoryCorps, we take the liberty of extending Father’s Day for another day, and we learn that the best fathers aren’t always related by blood. Michael George was 37 years old when he married Cathy Smith and adopted her young daughters Lauren and Lindsay. Here, he speaks with Lauren about the first time they met…
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Caroline and Patrick King
Monday, June 13, 2011 -- This summer, Patrick and Caroline King of Knoxville will celebrate their 7th wedding anniversary. In this conversation recorded in Fall 2010, the Kings look back on Patrick’s somewhat unconventional, and presumptive marriage proposal...
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Maha, left, and Hanan Ayesh
Monday, June 6, 2011 -- Hanan Ayesh was born in the Palestinian city of Bireh on the West Bank. In June of 1967, she was attending a university in Cairo, Egpyt, but had come home to Bireh for summer break. It was at that time that Israeli and Arab troops engaged in what’s now known as “the 1967 War” or “the Six Day War”, a war after which Israel laid territorial claim to the West Bank. In this StoryCorps interview, Hanan tells her daughter Maha how those six days changed her life—and her plans for the future...
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Bruce, left, and Dana Fox
Monday, May 30, 2011 -- Each year on Memorial Day, we honor the battlefield sacrifices of America’s Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen. On this segment of StoryCorps Knoxville, Dana Fox of Knoxville joins his father Bruce to pay tribute to William Alexander Fox and the men who fought and died alongside him during World War I.
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Betty and Emmit Rawls
Monday, May 23, 2011 -- Betty Rawls of Rockford, Tenn., sits down with her husband Emmit to remember her father. Although he didn’t make much money working for the Southern Railroad, Betty's father took advantage of his employment status with the railroad to take his family on a variety of free train trips around the country, including one to California. That’s where Betty says she learned she could see the world on a shoestring…
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Bill Myers, left, and Bill Folley
Monday, May 16, 2011 -- On May 17, hundreds of gay and lesbian couples will celebrate their seventh wedding anniversaries. On that date in 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage, and couples from all around the United States rushed to Massachusetts to take part in that historic occasion. Among them were Bill Folley and Bill Myers of Knoxville.
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Nicole Posimo, left, and Jennifer Muckerman
Monday, May 9, 2011 -- Mother’s Day was May 8 this year, but there’s never a wrong time to pay tribute to your mother. Last fall, partners Nicole Posimo and Jennifer Muckerman of Knoxville sat down at the StoryCorps mobile booth to do just that...
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Ellen Turner and Helen Ashe
Monday, May 2, 2011 -- 2011 has already been a remarkable year for Knoxville sisters Helen Ashe and Ellen Turner. The 83-year-old twins and founders of the Love Kitchen have been featured on "Oprah," the ABC Television series "Secret Millionaire" and several national news outlets. As a result of the exposure, they’ve been showered with good wishes, and generous contributions of food, equipment and money. However, in the Love Kitchen’s earliest days, the sisters realized their vision of feeding the poor and hungry was not one shared by everyone...
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Bill Pryor, center, with his son Jim Pryor and daughter Becky Hancock
Monday, April 25, 2011 -- Bill Pryor of Knoxville tells his daughter Becky Hancock how a trainload of World War II soldiers gave a young paperboy the chance to help the war effort…
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Joyce Zarubin, left, and her sister Jean Smith
Monday, April 18, 2011 -- Identical twins Joyce Zarubin and Jean Smith of Maryville look back on a critical time in their lives when they both left home--and each other--to go to college...
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Charles Van Beke and his mother Mary
Monday, April 4, 2011 -- Charles Van Beke and his 94-year-old mother Mary talk about Mary's mother Eva Ulicny. Eva emigrated from Slovakia at the age of 16. A single mother, she raised Mary and three other children in a Newark, N.J., tenement while working as a housekeeper...
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If you have locally-related questions about StoryCorps’ visit to Knoxville, please contact Cindy Hassil at chassil@utk.edu or (865) 974-6167.
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