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NETTA Features

Marquee, in partnership with the Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association, provides NETTAs extensive list of members and friends with regular updates and links to articles of interest from the Marquee archives.

GREATER TRI CITIES

Tennessee/Virginia: Making beautiful music.
Resplendent with scenery, rich in history, copious in local culture, right in the center of the Mountain South. The Tri-Cities Tenn./Va. region encompasses far more than Bristol, Johnson City and Kingsport, to include a wealth of towns such as Greeneville and Elizabethton in Tennessee, plus towns such as Abingdon, Norton, Wise, Tazewell and Wytheville in Virginia.

The cool thing about the region is that, collectively, these towns have the resources of a large city—but without all the clutter. Scenery dominates. And within this lush mountain landscape, each component city has a different foundation, a unique character. One thing they all have in common: they are medium- to small-sized towns wrapped in intimate charm.

The youngest of the three central cities, Kingsport, was chartered in 1917 using the latest ideas in urban design, and with the sprawling Eastman Chemical Company, is Tri-Cities’ industrial center. Johnson City is the college town, with the campus and resources of East Tennessee State University. To much of the rest of the country, Bristol is synonymous with NASCAR, the Bristol Motor Speedway being the biggest draw in the region. But Bristol is also the “Birthplace of Country Music,” a title derived from a balmy day in July 1927 when Ralph Peer, a record producer for the Victor Talking Machine Company, came to Bristol seeking to capture the sweet sound of Southern Appalachia. The subsequent sessions produced numerous commercial hits, laying the groundwork for the country music industry.
To the east is Elizabethton, known for its weekly downtown cruise-ins. To the west is Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, and a great place for shopping and storytelling.
 

Further to the southeast is Greeneville and Greene County, where Davy Crockett and Andrew Johnson were born. Greeneville itself is home to Tusculum College, a beautiful campus established in 1794 by the Doak family. A Presbyterian-associated liberal arts college, it is the repository for the President Andrew Johnson Collection.

The hills of Southwest Virginia are literally alive with the sound of mandolins, banjos and guitars throughout the summer with music festivals and various jam sessions. The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons is part of The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail. The trail includes, among other venues, Ralph Stanley’s Museum in Clintwood, The Birthplace of Country Music Alliance in Bristol and the Blue Ridge Music Center near Galax.

The people of Southwestern Virginia and Northeast Tennessee are proud of their heritage, and there are museums dedicated to hard working farmers, those who toiled in the coalmines and the pioneers who settled this rough country over 200 years ago. These heritage museums can be found throughout Greeneville, Elizabethton, Johnson City and Kingsport in Tennessee, as well as Big Stone Gap, Marion, Norton, Pocahontas, Saltville, Tazewell and Wytheville in Virginia.

One feature deserving special mention: Most towns—on either side of the state line—offer access to the Appalachian Trail, the legendary 2,160-mile footpath which runs through the entire Appalachian Mountain chain from Georgia to Maine.

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Doe River Gorge Day Quest

Doe River Gorge Day Quest

Anyone up for a day of outdoor fun? Doe River Gorge’s Day Quest activities promise hours of family-pleasing active connection with the natural splendor of East Tennessee.

During summer Saturdays, Doe River Gorge opens its doors to families and groups who need a relaxing escape. Admission is $16 for adults, while children under eight get in free when accompanied by an adult. Lunches can be pre-ordered, or picked up at the onsite café.

If it’s all about location, then Doe River Gorge, a thriving Christian adventure camp organization, has got it made. Set among three miles of woods, water, cliffs and meadows in Hampton, Tenn., the camp’s opportunities for exciting, energetic escapades are near limitless. Among the camp’s assets are a white-sand lakeshore, a restored 19th century railway and a brand new lodge.

Take a ride by horseback, water-landing zip line or narrow-gauge train—any way you go, the view is remarkable. The sheer beauty of the surroundings, coupled with the joy of dynamic community gathering, assure a day that will become a fond memory and perhaps a fond tradition.

Reservations are required and can be obtained by phone or online.

(423) 725-4010
DoeRiverGorge.com

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Throw Back

Dallas Cowboy Jason Witten brings old-school values to a league infamous for halftime wardrobe malfunctions, locker room towel-dropping and on-field faux-mooning.

Horatio Alger was writing Jason Witten’s biography 100 years before Witten was born.

Alger (1832-1899) wrote formulaic stories in each of which a young boy from a rural background would set off to earn his livelihood in the big city. The boys in Alger’s stories would always face dire hardship, yet triumph through pluck, character and hard work — generally with the help of an older male mentor figure.

Jason Witten’s parents divorced when Witten was 11. His mother, Kim Barnette, moved the boy and his two brothers from Fairfax, Virginia, to Elizabethton, Tennessee, where they lived in the home of Witten’s grandfather, Elizabethton High School football coach Dave Rider.

Witten took to football immediately. After playing for Rider at Elizabethton, Witten won a football scholarship to the University of Tennessee and is now the starting tight end for the Dallas Cowboys. This season he was selected to play in the Pro Bowl, the National Football League’s all-star game, February 13 in Hawaii. The Riders will be by his side for the trip.

“I was so fortunate that at a very young age I had my grandfather coach me on the football field,” says Witten. “He taught me so much, not only about football, but about morals and life. You know, he taught me ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ and why things like that are important. He taught me how hard you’ve got to work to make it to the top level. He taught me to dedicate myself on the field and in the classroom.”

Rider defers such praise to Witten and Barnette. “Their mother raised them. She kept tabs on Jason and Shawn and Ryan. She was always still the boss. But there were never any problems with any of them, especially Jason. You always knew where he was. He was always a good Christian boy. He and his brothers never tried to use having me as the football coach to try to get any special consideration for anything.”

That’s a rare departure for a future NFL player. Many current players have been pampered and given special treatment since their talent level became apparent when they were Little Leaguers. Witten’s talent was certainly apparent at that age, says Rider. “He had natural instincts, especially on defense. He just knew where the ball would be. You couldn’t fool him. His brothers really helped him learn the game. He didn’t play for me until he was a freshman in high school.

“He was also really well-liked, I remember,” says Rider. He still is. Witten is one of the most popular players on the Cowboys roster (along with Southwest Virginia native Julius Jones, the team’s tailback).    “Whenever he comes home, he signs autographs for everyone and always takes a lot of time trying to help people here. He’s still got his feet flat on the ground. He hasn’t gotten the big head.”

As one might expect, celebrity doesn’t come naturally to Witten, but the good manners he was taught as a young man still guide his actions. “It’s very tough when everywhere you go, people know everything about you,” admits Witten, who (just to make his point) stands 6’5”; weighs 261 pounds; misses cornbread, steak and gravy and good home-cooked mashed potatoes when he’s not in East Tennessee; and will make $547,000 next year unless the Cowboys offer him a new contract, which is a hot rumor in Dallas.  “You’re in the limelight all the time, it seems. You know, everywhere you go it feels like everybody’s watching you. You don’t want to make a mistake because you never know who’s watching you. But that’s just part of being a role model.

“I remember when I was a kid and I always looked at certain people and tried to do every move they did and model myself after them. So as a professional athlete, I think that’s a responsibility that you have to take as part of your role,” says Witten. “It can be tough. It is tough. But you learn to appreciate it. Sure, there might be a time you want to sit down and enjoy dinner, but you end up signing 50 autographs. You just adapt to it.

“When guys get done playing, sometimes they miss that drive of having everybody watching them. Other times it does get on your nerves, when somebody tries to take advantage of it, especially when you come home to East Tennessee. But everybody’s so proud that I’m a Dallas Cowboy and that I’m a Pro Bowler. They feel like I’m theirs, and that I’m part of them. To see other people live their lives through you, that’s special. Some athletes don’t like that. I look at it as a challenge that’s part of what I do, and I just try to enjoy it and to help impact other people’s lives and try to breed success.”

That desire to help other people is another Alger-esque aspect of the Witten story. When Alger’s characters achieved success, Alger would have them move on to become mentors in later stories. Witten is beginning to play that role now in Elizabethton. “I don’t get up here very often, but I do have a football camp that I run in the summer, and I try to give a lot of time to the Boys and Girls Club. I try to do things that I think will make kids better people and will allow them to see the success that I’ve had and say, ‘Hey, there’s a chance for me to make it, too.”

Witten’s message to youth is one of hard work, determination and self-reliance. But, he says, the focus isn’t on the sacrifices needed to achieve success, but on success itself. “The motto of our football camp,” says Witten,  “is ‘Dreams Do Come True.’”

Somewhere, Horatio Alger is smiling.

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Resurrected Elegance: Blair Moore House

Blair-Moore House gives exceptional atmosphere, award-winning breakfast and Jonesborough to boot.

Ambling Jonesborough’s Main Street, just steps past the International Storytelling Center, you can’t miss a certain Greek Revival structure. It is stately and a little mysterious, like much of the historic architecture that surrounds it.

But the Blair-Moore House Bed & Breakfast is notable, and not only for its place on the National Register of Historic Places or its luxurious amenities that combine Old World indulgences with traditional Southern comforts. It is also a home that has been brought back from the edge.

Owners Jack and Tami Moore are proud to share the building’s story with guests. Built in 1832 as a private home, the property changed hands until the Moores acquired it in March 1993. It was a daring purchase—pictures bound in books in each room demonstrate the degree to which the structure was positively wrecked. Crumbling brick, rotted boards, peeling walls, and trash and debris littered every single room. The yard was completely uncultivated and overgrown with weeds

The couple moved into the house only two months after their purchase and began a massive restoration effort by hand. Additional pictures chronicle the transformation. Four years and six months later, the Blair-Moore House opened for business, just in time for the Storytelling Festival of October 1997.

A sense of celebration is evident in nearly everything at Blair-Moore house including each of the three exuberantly adorned guest rooms.   
The two upstairs rooms flank the Moores’ residential suite. Visitors ascend a wooden staircase to the second level, with the lower half of the stairwell displaying a traditional-looking mural of an English hunting scene. The red plank floors of the upstairs landing hold a real bearskin rug, a cedar trunk of quilts, a number of decorative items, and entryways to either the Victorian Room or the Western–Native American-themed room.

The Victorian Room provides a more intimate version of the ambiance created in the downstairs drawing room and other, more public parts of the inn. Guests can close the door and visually escape into the muted peacock-blue walls and comfortably sophisticated furnishings. A bed with carved headboard and lace canopy is the focal point of the room, and beyond this lies one doorway to a private porch overlooking the manicured gardens of the rear lawn, and another doorway leading to the private bath and its oversized clawfoot tub.

Meanwhile, the Western–Native American Room offers a perfectly masculine counterpoint to the Victorian Room’s daintier décor. Deep red and clay tones are found here, along with impressive totems, statues and Native American artifacts collected by the Moores. The bed and private bath are equally sumptuous, and the private porch overlooks Main Street.

Downstairs—just past a table bearing complimentary port, sherry and chocolates and the guest kitchen with complimentary red and white wines and sodas—is one entrance to the Suite. Guests in this room also enjoy a private entrance on Main Street. The suite includes three rooms and a front porch on Main.

The front room of the Suite, furnished in deep-green leather, serves as a private living room with windows looking onto Main Street as well as a cultivated English garden developed by the Moores. The bedroom shares a similar view of the garden from plush velvet seating. This room is decorated in sunny yellow and French blue, and the tall canopy bed—which comes with its own step stool—is bedecked in fabric featuring scenes of traditional French life. An easily 8-foot full-length mirror stands in a frame in one corner. The private bath features a clawfoot tub as well as a separate standing shower.

Each morning, guests assemble in the dining room at 9 a.m. for breakfast, which Jack serves formally while wearing a fine suit. It’s an authentic experience—real china, real silver and remarkable presentation. The Moores clearly find joy in this. Tami has trained in the culinary arts with Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, the Culinary Institute of America in New York, LaVarenne at The Greenbrier in West Virginia, and Johnson & Wales University while it was located in Charleston, S.C.

“Some of the menus, I’ve tweaked them over the years,” Tami says. “My specialty is pastries, but I try to create variety. We feature sweet and savory, something to appeal to everyone … I love to cook. I always have, since I was 2 years old.”

She proudly shows an orange apron her grandmother made for her as a child. “Any time we have the opportunity to travel, I like to take cooking classes there,” she says.

It’s easy to see why the Blair-Moore house has been recognized among the top five in Inn Traveler magazine’s “Best Breakfast in the Southeast” list for five years running and named number one for the first time this year. On the day of Marquee’s visit, the menu includes water spiced with lemon and fresh mint, collected from the Moores’ garden; fruit drizzled with honey surrounding a cup of sweet French cream; French toast stuffed with mascarpone cheese and topped with Grand Marnier-marinated fruit and either homemade maple or cherry syrup; sliced Yukon Gold potatoes in a savory provolone sauce; smoked ham and bacon; and toasted pecan and peach muffins, made from fresh peaches brought from NASCAR fans who stay at the inn every year during race weeks.

“This is the only place in the world where I eat French toast,” says Leslie Walker of Maryville, Tenn., in between bites. This is her 21st visit to the Blair-Moore house, and she is proud of her informally recognized “most frequent visitor” status. Other frequent visitors come from as far away as Boston and Baton Rouge, while the visitor from the farthest distance hailed from Russia.

After breakfast, it’s time to read the daily paper in the drawing room, lounge in rocking chairs on the expansive back porch, stroll the grounds or ask Jack to show off his workshop, where he makes “looking glasses” —intricately and artfully assembled mirrors, sometimes using antique glass. One building on the grounds contains furniture he’s restored, as well as some period furniture reproductions he has built by hand. “I like pre-Civil War Southern furniture, particularly from East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia,” he says, caressing the pieces of a sugar chest he is working on.

When it is time to say goodbye, guests will inevitably find it difficult to relinquish the large brass antique key that is necessary to get in the front door.

While you hold the key, you are an insider, privy to a private sanctuary. And that is difficult to leave behind.

Blair-Moore House Bed & Breakfast
201 West Main Street
Jonesborough, TN  37659

For reservations or more information, call (888) 453-0044 or go to blairmoorehouse.com.

Nicole M. Sikora is a freelance writer from Johnson City.

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Johnson City Symphony Orchestra

The symphony orchestras in the Mountain South have undergone a sea change
of leadership in the past year, with new conductors taking over the Asheville Symphony, Johnson City Symphony, and Symphony of the Mountains.

Over the next three issues, we’ll introduce you to

The New Maestros
Tom Stites
Johnson City Symphony Orchestra

When organizations undergo changes in leadership, they often take the opportunity to assess their own identity and values. The Johnson City Symphony Orchestra (JCSO) availed itself of that opportunity over the past season as the organization searched for a new conductor.

The symphony concluded that it is first and foremost a community orchestra. The textbook definition of community orchestra is that the members are not professional musicians whose first and only job is music. They are members of the community who come together to practice and perform classical music.

But going beyond that definition, a community orchestra is involved in the community. Not only is the orchestra as a whole an integral part of the community’s culture, but also its members are active participants in the life of the community.

That’s why Tom Stites is the new conductor of the JCSO. “The difference between a professional orchestra and a community orchestra — I think that it’s purely words,” says Stites. “For me, a professional orchestra is where the players have that as their major job. That allows them to live without an additional job. A community orchestra is a group of people that are members of the community. Many are professionals in the community, who choose to work in music because it’s an important part of their lives. They’re professors, lawyers, doctors, students. I see it as being filled with people that live in our neighborhoods, shop at our grocery stores. Great advantage. They’re the people you go to church with. That’s what it should be.

“In terms of performance, I don’t think there is that significant a difference,” says Stites. “It’s a matter of picking the proper literature. Doing that will entertain the audience and give them a reason to attend and show off the players in their best possible light. If I do that, I’m doing what’s best for the community and the orchestra.”

Stites’ own community ties are unquestionable. He’s been a playing member of the JCSO for a decade (the baton he’ll be wielding now is infinitely lighter than the tuba he’s been playing), and he’s served as the JCSO’s assistant conductor for the past six years. He’s also directed the Science Hill High School Band for the better part of the past 20 years, building an elite program that has represented the city at the Rose Bowl and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades. He’s turned out many of the finest musicians ever to come out of Johnson City, some of whom will now follow his direction as members of the JCSO. “As a lifelong teacher I’ve always stressed to the thousands of kids I’ve taught the idea that music is not something that you leave when you walk out the door of high school. This is a chance to walk the walk and give the musicians in the community a chance to continue to play.”

The Symphony Board gave Stites a vote of confidence by offering him a two-year contract. Previous conductors have received running one-year contracts. But Stites is maintaining his characteristic humility. “I always remember what Gunther Schuller said in The Compleat Conductor. He quoted the concert master of the Vienna Philharmonic, who was asked what he thought of a famous guest conductor. The concert master said, ‘It doesn’t matter. We watch none of them.’ ”

That certainly won’t be the case for Stites. With the JCSO now under his leadership and the Symphony Board fully behind him, for the next two years all eyes will be on Tom Stites.

Rob Summers is a freelance writer based in Johnson City.

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