10th Annual Luncheon Benefiting the Knoxville History Project

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

at the Mill & Mine, 227 W. Depot Street

11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

At this year’s annual luncheon, now in its 10th year, KHP will present Duane Grieve with the Captain William Rule Award* for his considerable contributions to what we know about Knoxville history. Duane is one of Knoxville’s key historic-preservationist architects in Knoxville, leading efforts to restore the 1903 beaux-arts Miller’s Building, the 1929 YMCA building, and Emory Place, where he made his office in the former 1880s Victorian Walla Walla chewing-gum factory. Recently, he led the establishment of Everly Brothers Park in Bearden, close to where the Phil and Don Everly lived and went to school at West High. With the help of Graham Nash, Duane obtained quotes from music stars who cite the Everly Brothers’ influence on their own careers, including Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton, and others. Duane served as a City Councilman for two terms and also as vice-mayor. He’s a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a longstanding board member of Legacy Parks Foundation, and for 8 years served as the director of the East Tennessee Community Design Center. He is also a founding board member of KHP.

*The William Rule Award for Lifetime Achievement in Knoxville History honors the legacy of Captain William Rule, a major figure in the city’s history. Captain Rule was a Civil War veteran, a longtime newspaper publisher, a two-time Knoxville mayor, and the author of the city’s first substantial history of the city: The Standard History of Knoxville, published in 1900.

Please help KHP by considering becoming a table host and invite friends and colleagues to learn more about and support KHP. We’ll provide you will all the information necessary to make it easy for you.

Attendance: Since this is a fundraising event, most of our table are host by sponsors and table hosts who invite friends and colleagues to learn more about and support KHP. If you would like to help by becoming a table host, we will provide you with the necessary help and materials so you can invite others.

If you’re an individual or a couple not yet connected with a table host we will be happy to seat you at one of several KHP tables.

 For more information on hosting a table or becoming a luncheon sponsor, please email paul@knoxhistoryproject.org

Sponsorship Packet PDF. Thank you for your generous support.

Parking information: see below sponsors.

Generously Sponsored by:

 

Platinum:

 

Gold:

Kelly & Charlie Baum

Mark & Laura Heinz

Jerry Ledbetter & Merikay Waldvogel

Finbarr Saunders & Ellen Bebb

 

Silver Level Sponsors

Linda Billman & Charles Manneschmidt

Sherri Lee

Rosa Mar

Dationa & Stefan Mitchell

Prof. Pat & Alan Rutenberg

Cindy Spangler

Georgiana Vines

 

 

 

Kindly Supported by our Hardworking Table Hosts:

Charlie & Kelly Baum*

Linda Billman & Charles Manneschmidt*

Cathy Briscoe

Vicki Creed

Eric Dawson

Friend of Cavett Station

Friends of Knox Co. Library

Friends of Old Gray Cemetery

Scott & Lynne Fugate*

Knox Heritage

Rosa Mar*

Nicki Russler

Prof. Pat & Alan Rutenberg*

Finbarr Saunders & Ellen Bebb*

Ed & Lisa Shouse / FirstBank*

Erin Slocum

Pamela Treacy

Kim Trent

Georgiana Vines*

Adrienne Webster

 

also generous sponsors*


 

PARKING SUGGESTIONS

Free Parking: 

Southern Railway Station + Southeast Parking Lot on W. Depot Ave: Limited spaces will be available during the luncheon. 

There are two free city lots under I40 off Williams Street at Magnolia: From Williams Street, you can enter the parking areas to the left or to the right and walk one-two blocks to the Mill & Mine.

St. John’s Lutheran Church, 544 N Broadway: Free overflow parking (opposite Old Gray Cemetery) during the luncheon. Three blocks walk to/from the Mill & Mine. 

 

Paid Parking

Gay Street Viaduct Street Parking: pay via app, $1 per hour.

  1. Jackson Avenue Lot: pay via kiosk or app. $1 per hour (three blocks walk)
  2. Jackson Avenue Street Parking: pay via app. $2 per hour (three blocks walk).

Note: Limited street parking directly on Depot Street: pay via app, $2 per hour but only for 2 hours.

Click Square in right hand corner to enlarge map and view key. 

 

 

 

LAST YEAR’S LUNCHEON

 

2025 Honoree: Dr. Susan Knowles

In 2013, while at the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU, where Dr. Knowles worked for fifteen years, she and her team researched and successfully submitted a multiple-property nomination on the marble industry in East Tennessee, and site-specific nominations for two South Knoxville sites (Mead’s Quarry and Ross Marble Quarry), to the National Register of Historic Places. Her doctoral dissertation formed the basis of the 2016 exhibition, “Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry,” at the East Tennessee History Center, raising the profile of the story of local marble. Dr. Knowles’ work on Tennessee Marble has been published in The Journal of East Tennessee History and in the Knoxville Museum of Art’s comprehensive catalogue, Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee.

Learn more about Dr. Knowles’ work on the Tennessee marble industry here.

 

2025 LUNCHEON PHOTO GALLERY LINK

Photography by Shawn Poynter

 

2025 LUNCHEON VIDEO LINKS

Click on links below to view videos

 

 Paul’s Opening Remarks 
Jack’s Opening Remarks 
Marble City – Tribute to Dr. Susan Knowles 
Dr. Susan Knowles and Jack Neely Q & A


PAST HONOREES

2024 Honoree: William Ross “Sandy” McNabb (1938-2025)

As former director of the Dulin Gallery of Art, Sandy McNabb became a scholar of both the art and architecture of his hometown. After leading a worthy but unsuccessful effort to save an early architectural landmark, the ca. 1812 Robert Strong Mission Home, from highway construction, he co-founded Knoxville’s first sustained preservationist organization, now known as Knox Heritage, which succeeded in saving the Bijou Theatre for future generations. He contributed the essay “Architecture,” a chapter in the East Tennessee Historical Society’s standard reference book Heart of the Valley (1976), and served as president of ETHS during that era. His large-form hardback, Tradition, Innovation & Romantic Images: The Architecture of Historic Knoxville (1991) remains the best-known book about the city’s architectural history. Sandy McNabb Tribute Video link.

2022 Honoree: Steve Cotham

For 35 years, Cotham served as manager of the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection at the Knox County Public Library. He transformed the region’s most valuable research library, greatly expanding the collection’s offerings, introducing a digital catalogue and a tech-trained staff, enhancing its art collection, and incorporating the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound. He published a photographic book, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in 2006.

He retired in late 2021 and is currently working on a book about artists in the Smoky Mountains.

2020 Honoree: Dr. Jim Tumblin (1926-2020)

A well-known and respected historian of Fountain City, Dr. Tumblin’s column “History and Mysteries” in the Shopper News, plus his several books have connected his native community to most of Knoxville, and much of the broad world.

Fountain City: People Who Made a Difference (Celtic Cat Publishing, 2016) features detailed biographies of notable Fountain Citians, ranging from the seminal environmentalist Harvey Broome to popular-music juggernaut Roy Acuff.

Dr. Jim Tumblin Tribute Video link.

2018 Honoree: Robert Booker (1935-2024) 

Bob Booker grew up in the “Bottom” area of East Knoxville, graduating from Austin High School in 1953. Following a three-year stint abroad in the U.S. Army, he returned to his hometown to study at Knoxville College on the G.I. Bill, graduating in 1962 with a B.S. in Education.

As a two-term president of the Knoxville College student body, Booker became active in Knoxville’s Civil Rights movement. In 1966, he was elected as Knoxville’s first black Tennessee State Representative. In the 1970’s he was administrative assistant to Mayor Kyle Testerman, and served on the Tennessee Civil Service Commission. Later he served on Knoxville City Council and was the director for the Beck Cultural Exchange Center for 11 years.

Booker is an renowned author of Knoxville black history, with hundreds of newspaper columns and numerous books to his name, including An Encyclopedia: Experiences of Black People in Knoxville, 1844-1974, Two Hundred Years of Black Culture in Knoxville: 1791 to 1991, And There Was Light!: The History of Knoxville College, Knoxville, 1875-1995, and his autobiography, From the Bottom Up,.

Bob Booker served as an inaugural Board Member for the Knoxville History Project.

Q and A with KHP’s Jack Neely and Bob Booker from the 2019 luncheon:

2023 Honoree: Prof. Fred Moffatt

Prof Moffatt has been documenting the cultural history of Knoxville for more than half a century. He contributed a chapter on art for Heart of the Valley (ETHS, 1976), Knoxville’s seminal historical text, and has written exhibition catalogues for the Knoxville Museum of Art.

His recent books include, The Life, Art, and Times of Joseph Delaney, 1904-1991 (UT Press, 2009); and Paintbrush for Hire: The Travels of James and Emma Cameron, 1840-1900 (UT Press, 2018). 

2021 Honorees: Dr. Charles and Terry Faulkner

For half a century, Dr. Charles Faulkner (1937-2022) used archeology combined with in-depth research to bring out some of the untold stories of Knoxville: of James White’s forgotten final home; of Blount Mansion’s complicated legacy; of the tragedy at Cavett Station; of architectural landmark Ramsey House, of several other sites of log cabins or potter’s shops, often finding surprises beneath our feet.

Graphic artist Terry Faulkner, has worked wonders with the more modern history of Bearden, their longtime home, both in written research and installation of appealing stone markers noting the unique neighborhood’s best stories.

Dr. Charles Faulkner and Terry Faulkner tribute video link.

2019 Honoree: Dr. Bruce Wheeler (1939-2023)

Professor Emeritus Wheeler, a North Carolina native who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, began teaching history at the University of Tennessee back in 1970. For decades, UT’s brighter liberal-arts students looked for any excuse to take his interesting and entertaining classes on multiple areas of American history, and it’s not surprising that his charismatic style has made him a favorite off campus as well.

Prof. Wheeler earned many awards over the years, among them the National Alumni Association Award for Public Service. He naturally developed a curiosity about his adopted home of Knoxville; his modern history of the city, originally a joint project with the late Michael McDonald, first came out in 1982, and is now in its third edition.

2017 Honorees: Bradley Reeves and Louisa Trott

Professional film archivists, Bradley Reeves and Louisa Trott founded the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image & Sound in 2005. That nonprofit has grown in leaps and bounds over the years, and a partnership with Steve Cotham, then manager of the McClung Historical Collection, brought it into the folds of the Knox County Public Library where it still thrives.

Reeves continues to enliven the local history scene with his Smoky Mountain Radio & Archives, while Trott serves as an associate professor at UT’s Hodges Library.