By Ray Hill One of the more fascinating, as well as disturbing, stories in Tennessee history is that of Camille Kelley who became Judge of the Memphis Juvenile Court. A widow, Camille Kelley was a star in the crown of the Crump machine and when she assumed the bench, she was one of only two […]
By Ray Hill Bryant Winfield Culberson Dunn was born July 1, 1927, the son of Aubert and Dorothy Dunn. Anyone who has had the pleasure of hearing Winfield Dunn cannot help but hear the soft Southern lilt in his voice, which is a reminder of the fact Governor Dunn was born in Mississippi. In fact, […]
By Steve Hunley In his recent report to the Knox County Board of Education, Superintendent James McIntyre has raised the issue of having students evaluate teachers. Evidently the state has some new idea about allowing students to evaluate teachers and is dangling some $700,000 if Knox County will adopt the proposal. McIntyre’s report cites a […]
By Ray Hill President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to Tennessee several times during his presidency. It gave local politicians the opportunity to bask in the glow of Roosevelt’s magnetic presence and the people of Tennessee to actually see the jaunty tilt of FDR’s large head, cigarette holder firmly clenched between his teeth. The popular image […]
By Ray Hill Just a few years following America’s bloody Civil War, as states were readmitted to the Union, old Confederates began to arrive in Congress. The United States Senate particularly came to be dominated by Southerners, who occupied most of the powerful committee chairmanships. It has been frequently said the Senate was the South’s […]
By Ray Hill West Virginia was once one of the more reliably Republican states in the country. Following the Great Depression and the rise of the machine headed by U. S. Senator Matthew Mansfield Neely of Fairmont, the election of 1932 changed the political landscape in West Virginia. Herman Guy Kump was elected governor […]
By Steve Hunley The media barrage has begun and Superintendent of Schools Jim McIntyre is doing his best to spin the drop in ACT scores in Knox County. Like a stressed circus poodle, Dr. McIntyre is spinning, jumping, and barking that the results don’t mean a thing in light of the fact the folks who […]
By Ray Hill Before Strom Thurmond, Theodore Francis Green was well known for some years as being the oldest member of the United States Senate. First elected when he was sixty-nine years old, Theodore Francis Green frustrated several generations of aspiring politicians who figured a vacancy was imminent. Green served twenty-four years in the Senate […]
By Steve Hunley The Knoxville News-Sentinel has published yet again another of its predictable editorials, clamoring for the public to support our schools. The Sentinel was right about one thing, probably by accident. Expectations from the public from Superintendent McIntyre and the school system should be high. Knox County is currently over $1 billion in […]
By Ray Hill Margaret “Peggy” Timberlake Eaton has been the subject of books and even one Hollywood film (The Gorgeous Hussy) and is oftentimes portrayed as the vixen who nearly caused the collapse of President Andrew Jackson’s administration. The controversy over Peggy Eaton certainly did cause Jackson’s Cabinet to collapse. At the heart of the […]
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