A Christmas Message From Our President

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/12/25/weekly-address-merry-christmas-president-and-first-lady?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email541-text2&utm_campaign=holidays

Organizing Committee of the Great Golden Gathering - Christmas Dinner

Representatives of 6 of the 15 former African-American High Schools in upper East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, gathered to have a Christmas dinner on Saturday, December 12th.

The event was held at the Carver Recreation Center in Johnson City, and was hosted by the Langston Heritage Group, Langston High School.

Click on the arrow below and turn your computer speakers on, to see a slide show of the dinner:

By the way, in case you haven't heard... based on the success of the Great Golden Gathering 2015 Reunion, the Organizing Committee did vote to continue the tradition of get-togethers.

There will be another Great Golden Gathering in 2017, celebrating and continuing the friendships, the education and the family relationships the alumni of all the 15 high schools share.  Spread the word... we want to make the next reunion even bigger and better with even more schools involved.  The Organizing Committee wants and appreciates participation from all the schools' alumni.  To get involved, all schools alumni associations are invited to have representatives on the Organizing Committee.  Please contact Calvin Sneed at douglassriverview@gmail.com  Thank you for your continued support!

Girls Inc. marks 'The Big 5-0'

This story courtesy the Kingsport Times-News

By Katherine Scoggins

Fifty years ago, The Girls Club of Kingsport met in a large white house located at 1102 Mill Street under the direction of Betty Newman Iverson. At the time, Girls Clubs had as their focus “to prepare girls to be better wives and mothers.” To that end, the domestic arts - cooking, sewing and household management - were stressed.

Over the next few decades, the Girls Clubs underwent major changes; growing into a national, then international association - marked by the name change in 1991 to Girls Incorporated: Strong, Smart and Bold. From that point on, education, wellness and an holistic approach to growing up were emphasized, while life skills, such as sewing, cooking, nutrition, arts and heritage were incorporated as “teaching moments.” History has it that a young girl in a focus group told the organization that the new name should be Girls Incorporated, because “growing up is serious business.”

It is a slogan that Girls Incorporated takes very seriously.

   Girls Inc. of Kingsport was also undergoing major changes within its organization. A large new building, equipped with classrooms and offices, a playground, fields for various sports, a gym and kitchen, was built. Additional staff was added for classroom and off-site instruction, transportation and security. The land was given to Girls Inc. of Kingsport by Mac Houkom, while funding for the new site was kicked off by the local chapter of Business & Professional Women. The remaining monies were raised by the community and United Fund. The building was dedicated debt-free.

   A name change, the dramatic shift in purpose, and a beautiful new facility all helped raise awareness and bring attention to the “new” look of Girls Incorporated, but there is much more to the success of the local agency.

   “From day one, the directors and staff have had vision, outstanding business sense, and dedication,” says Julie Wright Short, the current president and CEO of Girls Inc. of Kingsport. “But not just the employees: we have been very fortunate to have strong board leadership over the years and high expectations from staff, volunteers and the board. It has been decades of work by many, many individuals and groups, all focused on excellence and success for the future.”

The success of the agency is apparent as one enters the building and sees the “trophy case” filled with plaques Girls Inc. of Kingsport has been awarded over the years.

   “The awards are due to the hard work of everyone, not just the executive director,” says Wright Short. “Betty Iverson took the concept of the Girls Club and made it a success; Brenda White-Wright exposed so many, many people to what we do in Kingsport’s agency; Nada Weekly kept our organization and facility afloat during a terrible recession; and Lana Moore, while not an executive director, served on staff during the late 90s and early 2000s as program director.” While Wright Short has not finished her tenure, the Girls Inc. Affiliate of the Year Award for the Southeastern United States, Expansion Award, and Outstanding Girl awards in that trophy case are certainly a result of her leadership skills, hard work and genuine love of the girls she serves.

Chyna Robinson is a 14-year-old student at Dobyns-Bennett High School and a current participant at Girls Inc. of Kingsport. Talking with her, one can not help but be drawn to her naturally outgoing, bubbly personality. Although she’s involved in many activities at Girls Inc., she says her favorite is the Ambassador’s Club, a group of older girls who mentor fourth- and fifth-grade girls, setting a good example and encouraging them. Most of all, though, she says they listen. A great believer that “every child has potential,” Chyna loves working with young children and hopes to one day work with them on a professional level. She has found that her experience working with the younger girls has taught her patience, good communication skills, and the importance of accountability.

   Chyna is a wonderful advocate for Girls Inc., possibly because she has some history on her side: both her mother and grandmother attended Girls Inc.

   Strong, Smart and Bold ... generation after generation.

   To learn more about the programs or how you can support the Girls Inc. of Kingsport effort, visitwww.girlsincofkingsport.org  , Girls Inc. of Kingsport on Facebook, or call 423-247-2321

2015 Riverview Seniors Christmas Dinner

Welcome to the 2015 Riverview Seniors Christmas Dinner!

The event was held on Saturday, December 5, 2015 in the Douglass Room at the V.O. Dobbins Sr. Complex, sponsored by South Central Kingsport Community Development.

Seniors of our community were treated to a song by New Vision Youth member Makiyah Blye, poem by member Feliciana Banks, inspirational songs by Sister Lisa McElrath and a "super salute" to Chef Orvil Bond, who fixed and coordinated the holiday meal for the seniors.

The highlight of the event was a mini fashion show featuring some of our seniors modeling their beautiful fashions.

Click on the arrow below and turn your speakers up to see and hear a slide show of the dinner:

MERRY   CHRISTMAS  TO  ALL!

Congratulations to the Bradley's!

Arthur Lee Bradley Sr. and Dorothy Thomas Bradley of Kingsport celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary Nov. 24, 2015.

   The couple was married Nov. 24, 1955, in Trenton, Ga., on Thanksgiving Day.

   They celebrated their anniversary in Birmingham, Ala., by attending the wedding of their son Arthur Bradley Jr. to his wife Amy, along with her daughter Alexandria.

   Mr. Bradley retired from Kingsport Press after 32 years of dedicated service as an electrician. Mrs. Bradley worked at Mason Dixon Truck Lines for 19 years in the accounting department.  She also served as secretary at the Douglass Elementary-High School in Riverview for several years until it closed.

An Interview with Danny Glover

Daniel Lebern "Danny" Glover, born on July 22, 1946 is an American actor, film director and political activitst.  Glover is well known for his roles as Albert Johnson in "The Color Purple," Detective Sergeant Roger Murtaugh in the "Lethal Weapon" film series, cowboy Mal Johnson in "Silverado," Michael Harrigon in "Predator 2," corrupt cop  James McFee in "Witness," Colonel Isaac Johnson in "Shooter," detective David Tapp in "Saw," and George Knox in "Angels in the Outfield."  Glover has also appeared in amy other movies, television shows and theatrical productions.  He's also an active supporter of various humanitarian and political causes.

Glover is also a supporter of union causes, crediting that to his parents, both members of the United Postal Workers Union, while he was growing up.

In Chattanooga recently to tour the Volkswagen of American plant, I had the opportunity to sit down with him and talk about his memorable career in films.

One of the beauties of the degrees of success I’ve had, is that we can remember movies by a certain topic or gestures or lines, and I’ve had the great fortune of being in those types of movies that have memorable lines, gestures and topics.  You go from one film to the next film to the next film to the next film, and sometimes you don’t recognize the cumulative impact of a career when you see it in retrospect.  I had a guy stop me in the gym where I was working out, and he asked me about getting into films.  I told him that everything I do is, to a large extent, is to increase my capacity.  

I also told him the cumulative impact of what I’ve done allows me to get into a particular state of mind and focus within a process of doing a film, within the work methodology of doing a film.  I didn’t just develop that overnight, it’s a process, and I realize that each film is a testimony to my own growth, to my own development, my own development, my own understanding about what I’ve done.  I think it’s a metaphor for life in a way, the level you live life, the better you get at living life.

Are you a method actor?

You want to call it method acting, but I call it “emersion acting.”  I’ve studied the great theories about acting, and sometimes you read something and starting thinking, I do that organically, I don’t have a name for it, but organically that’s where I go.  

I remember early in my career, I had a difficult time auditioning, because of a combination of a couple of things.. I felt uncomfortable in the process, I felt intimidated by the process.  The other thing is, you go into an audition and you do what you want to do, you read the material and the material responds to you intuitively and instinctively, not what you expect the director would want.

In the early stages when I started doing that, I’d audition one, two scenes, a little part in television or something like that, what I began to realize is, I felt more comfortable after the audition.  Yeah, I would want the job, but I felt ‘Danny, did you accomplish what you wanted to accomplish when you went in to the audition?’  ‘Was this how I wanted to respond to the words and to the scene and to the moment and this was your presentation’ and not what I expect the director to say?’  The director could say  ‘oh I like that’ or he could say ‘I don’t like that, but try this… that’s interesting, but try this.’  If we did it that way, I would feel real comfortable and so I began to judge myself during the audition process and I became less intimidated by the process itself.  Within the framework of the audition, you’re able to get the most out of your performance. 

8 year old Daniel Glover

My mother was born in Lewisville, Georgia.  Part of my moral upbringing was my mother always saying ‘I’m eternally grateful for the upbringing I got from my own mother, because I didn’t pick cotton in September, I went to school in September.’  She went to Payne College, graduated from there in 1942, made her way up to New York after teaching a year in high school, met my father in 1942 or 44, courted and married at the end of 1944.   By that time, they had relocated to San Francisco because my father had been transferred in the Army to out there, from upstate New York to LA to Oakland.

Danny and James Glover

With my mother and father, you have to understand how they were in the emerging movement of civil rights.  Eventually, they went to work for the U.S. postal service, and they always felt that they were doing something important.  It was interesting to see how they were seeing the emerging civil rights movement and were right at the very start of it.  The postal service was primarily African-American at that time, and to see the civil rights movement get started, they felt that they were doing something very important.   I go around the country and speak and one of the things I ask is, ‘how many of you had parents, grandparents or relatives in the postal service?’  A lot of hands go up.  The post office was always a place where you could work and build a family at home, or you could use it as a jumping off point to another job.  They could be anywhere.. San Francisco, Chicago or New York, but they could tune in to see what was happening in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and some of the civil rights battlegrounds.  That was the childhood I came into.  

When I was watching the Montgomery bus boycott on television in 1955, the meaning of that was reinforced by my parents, the dynamic, the importance of that news item.  I was fortunate to have my parents reinforce how important that was to my future.  Not everyone who came in that generation had that.

On "The Color Purple"

It’s celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, you know.  You always feel like you’re endowed because you’re chosen to do something that’s important.  As actors, producers, directors and participants, we felt this was an important film.  Every one of us came into it with that, from Steven Spielberg the director, to Quincy Jones the producer.. I’m thinking of even the CEO of Warner Brothers who came to the set and spent time with us.  Everybody felt that within their hands, this was something that was very important.


Every one of us gave so much of ourselves in our relationships to the roles and in the way in which we bonded, not just as actors but as people.  To have something that’s important to do and feel that it’s important is special.  People still talk about The Color Purple.  I run into people that weren’t even born when The Color Purple came out and say ‘I hated you in The Color Purple!’  All of us as actors were in the early stages of our careers.  Every single one of us.  None of us had done anything, I don’t know that Whoopi had ever done her first film, Oprah hadn’t done anything except her TV show, it was her first film.

It got enough nominations.  Do you think "The Color Purple" should have won an Oscar?     I can’t tell you that.  Geraldine Page (who won the 1985 Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Trip to Bountiful, and beat out Whoopie Goldberg) was a brilliant person, gave a brilliant performance.  She’d been around as an actress, everybody knew who she was… Lionel Ritchie did win an Oscar for his original song ‘Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister, Sister)', Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey may have canceled each other out (for Best Supporting Actress), I don’t know.  And then, it may have been the kind of social dynamic at that time.   I think the conversation surrounding the image of African-American men at that time was valuable.  I think it was important discussion, essential discussion.  I would have been disappointed if that discussion had not emerged at that time, because what The Color Purple does, is, because it’s an expressive film, it gives people the chance to have opinions, their own questions.  

The issue of racism promotes a sense of self-protectiveness, like ’there’s no spousal abuse in the black community,’ ‘there’s no child abuse in the black community’ and all that.  It makes you protective about the historical portrayals about things that we know, happened.  For years, people bought into those stereotypes.

On the "Lethal Weapon" movies

It was fun doing those movies, it was a great experience, a great time working with Mel Gibson.  I loved working with Mel, just the improv we were able to do, the easiness, the comfort in the situations.  I can say for myself, and I hope Mel can say the same thing that there was a level of comfort.  I really think of the special moments.  We did four of them, and I think that’s enough.  No more 'Lethal Weapons.'   To quote a phrase, ‘we too old for this @#$%.’ (laughs).  But it was really, really, really special.

On "Predator 2"

I’ll tell you a little story.. I was offered a role.. I was in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theater, doing a play, 1986, the beginning of 1986.  I got offered a script and it was the first Predator.  The reason why I looked at it.. the first thing that you see, the first action in the role they wanted me to play, is where the man is abusing a woman.  I could not do another role abusing a woman… I’m sitting in Chicago and the hotbed of discussion after The Color Purple… I just couldn’t do another role abusing a woman, so I just turned it down.   And then, they came to me with Lethal Weapon and I took that one.  They came with three different roles, and I took that one.

Wonderfully, incredible guy came to me about Predator 2 and he presented the idea of doing it because the whole team was back, the writer was back, the special effects team was back.. I have two films I’ve done that I feel that I was bigger than life in, in which I felt that I could control the space.  Silverado for me, and Predator 2.

Silverado was the one where I played this iconic cowboy you know, and the character carries this one gun, a Henry rifle.  And then, when he’s around his father, he has two of them.  An iconic role.. against all odds. 

Then in Predator 2, it was like ‘who’s the baddest cat in your space, and the baddest cat says ‘I’m gonna challenge you.’   Mano y mano.  I was the baddest guy in his space.  What happens?  I kill him, and then the others come around, and I’m like ‘alright…. who’s next?’  (laughs)  That’s a form of movie making, a form of storytelling.  You see it in the graphic novels, and things like that.  I was about 42, 43.. in the best shape in my life, best shape I’ve been in.  I was running on the beach, had my training, I was lifting weights a lot more than I am now.  I was really feeling it in that movie.

On his new Christmas Movie, "A Meyer's Christmas

It’s really a lovely little story.. we’ve got a super cast, a who’s who.  I play the patriarch of the family, a very successful man with a very successful family, and I lose my wife the prior Christmas and this is the first Christmas without her.  There is the realization of how much we depended on her for the big things and also the little things in our lives.  She was the mediator of our arguments, she prepared all the dishes that we all enjoyed, and she was part of all of our relationships.  Now, she’s gone.  

At the end, we find out that we have to find a new way to adjust our lives and adjust without her.  All of us are rather tense, especially my sister-in-law Mo'nique.  I’m the one who organized the family get-together this time, my wife normally did that, the woman that I had been married to for 40 some-odd years.   Christmas was always special to our family.

  It’s a lovely little script, David Talbott is the writer and director, and really did an admirable job.. it’s funny, crazy at times, but it’s beautiful because it’s family. 

Welcome to Southeast Tennessee and welcome to Chattanooga.

Thank you.  It's been a good visit.

                             ---Calvin Sneed

The 2015 Kingsport Christmas Parade: Santa Claus Has Come To Town!

As always, it takes the Santa Train to bring the big guy's message to town.

The world's longest Christmas Parade signals the message that the spirit of giving all year long, has taken center stage.

Just like children along the 110 miles of the old Clinchfield rail line from Shelbiana, Kentucky to Kingsport, thousands gathered at the old Main Street depot, to receive candy and gifts tossed into the crowd, a tradition that dates back to 1943 along the railroad tracks.

Below are pictures of people, floats and the atmosphere that is the annual Kingsport Christmas Parade... an event we have enjoyed in Riverview all of our lives, and can now pass on to our future generations!


Click here to see video of Santa arriving at the station:



Click here to see an overview of the Toy Toss:



Click here to see an up-close and personal view of the Toy Toss:



Click here to see the Sullivan North High School Marching Band in the Parade:



Click here to see the Sullivan South High School Marching Band in the Parade:



Click here to see the Dobyns-Bennett High School Marching Band in the Parade:



Click here to see Santa riding by on his fire engine sleigh:



Click below and turn your speakers up for the slide show of the 2015 Kingsport Christmas Parade:


Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Annual Riverview Seniors Christmas Dinner

CLICK ON THE POSTER TO MAKE IT LARGER

Douglass alumni group helps Lincoln students stay warm

THIS STORY COURTESY THE KINGSPORT TIMES-NEWS

By RICK WAGNER

rwagner@timesnews.net  

KINGSPORT — Some students at Lincoln Elementary School will be warm in new coats, hats and gloves this winter, thanks to the Sons and Daughters of Douglass and a grant from the city of Kingsport.

The Sons and Daughters group, alumni of the former Douglass High School that served black students before desegregation, donated the winter wear items last month for distribution to students who needed them at Lincoln Elementary. The school distributed the items this month to about 60 students; another distribution will occur around the first of December.

“The students were so excited they had their coats, hats, and gloves on going home, and I think it was 70 degrees out,” said Marsha Musick, a social worker who is the family liaison at Lincoln, where the principal is Shelia Newland. “They will need them very soon. What a blessing.”

This marks the second year the Douglass group has donated items to Lincoln students. Last year’s offerings were food, socks, T-shirts, sweat shirts and school supplies, said Andrea Watterson and Judy C. Phillips of the Douglass group.

Musick said the school works with families in the community to look at students’ needs in determining recipients of the coats and other items.

The grant was for $2,500, with about half that amount going for the items handed out recently. The rest of the money will be spent on items for the December distribution, Watterson said. Phillips said last year the Douglass group went shopping twice at both Kingsport Walmarts, while this year’s items for phase one came from Burlington Coat Factory. She said retailers give the group deals and discounts on the items, which go to students ranging from Pre-K to fifth grade. Lincoln has about 470 students.

Watterson worked for nine years as a cook in the Lincoln cafeteria and is a former vice president of the Douglass group, and her cousin, Alan Watterson, helped with the donated clothing.

“All of my children attended here,” Phillips said.

Watterson, Phillips and Sandy Wilmer were members of the Douglass group’s committee for this year’s clothing distribution.

Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Board Meeting

The Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Board will meet this Saturday November 14, 2015.

 

The meeting will start at 1PM and will be held in the Eastman Board Room of the V. O. Dobbins Sr. Complex tower, 2nd floor.

 

We need to finalize the plan(s) for our Membership Drive Committee lunch/dinner. The Community Room is reserved for next Saturday 21 November 2015 for the Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni .

 

Any suggestions or ideas from alumni and community are welcomed by the fundraising committee.

 

Please mark your calendar for Saturday, November 14, 2015.

 

Please bring a friend, neighbor, or member with you. All are welcome.

 

Alan M. Watterson, President

Sons and daughters of Douglass Alumni

Fighting Homelessness in Kingsport

This is a worthwhile effort especially in Riverview and our community.  Please click the arrow in the center of the pictures to play video:

Please click on the link below to sign the petition to bring attention and awareness to the problem of homelessness in our city:

Link to Petition

Fundraiser for Jacqueline Paige Bond-Turner

There is a fundraiser for our own Jacqueline Paige Bond-Turner who has cancer and will be going to Vanderbilt Hospital in late November to have her stomach removed.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE POSTER
TO THE RIGHT FOR MORE
INFORMATION


Her kids are part of New Vision Youth and the fundraiser is to raise money for the family to help out with her medical and lodging bills that will occur during her stay at Vanderbilt. 

Donations also accepted.  

Thanks in advance!

Citizen Police Academy Graduates

   Kingsport Citizen Police Academy Graduates at the Board of Mayor and Aldermen Meeting - Photo courtesy Jeff Fleming

                                              Congratulations!

Bethel's Holiday Bazaar

Bethel AME Zion Church, 812 Maple-Oak Lane, will hold its annual Holiday Bazaar on Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Dress in your favorite biblical costume and take a picture with “The Great Pumpkin.” Breakfast, lunch, baked goods and holiday decor will be sold.

2015 Red Ribbon March Announcement

The annual Red Ribbon March will be held on Tuesday, October 27, 2015 from 4 PM to 6 PM.

We will march around the community holding signs about being drug-free.  There will also be an essay-writing contest and a pizza party after we march.

We are partnering with the Kingsport Police Department, New Vision Youth, the Riverview Boys and Girls Club, South Central Kingsport Community Development, and the Riverview Residents Association.

Everyone is welcome to come out and help us march for a "Drug Free Community!"

For more information, contact Alvasia Blye at the Riverview Residents Association, 423-863-1111, Johnnie Mae Swagerty, New Vision Youth, 423-429-7553, or Tay at the Riverview Boys and Girls Club, 423-967-1589.

2015 Riverview Fall Clean Up

The Fall Clean Up in the Riverview Community

Participants:  New Vision Youth, South Central Kingsport Community Development, Kingsport Public Works, the Community Corrections/Probation/Parole Program and Riverview Neighborhood volunteers.

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Event Coordinator Johnnie Mae Swagerty


SLIDE SHOW OF THE CLEAN UP AND THE LUNCH AFTERWARD (turn speaker audio on)

Annual Dues Increasing for Douglass Alumni: Programs and Overhead Cited

It will cost you a little more to be a member of the Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Association of Kingsport.


At its meeting on Saturday, October 10th, the alumni board has approved a three-tier system of increased dues, designed to allow members to show their support for the alumni association with different amounts and contributions.

Beginning next year, alumni dues for the Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Association will rise from $25.00 dollars a year, to the three levels of support:

$50.00 dollars a year at the bronze level

$75.00 dollars a year at the silver level

$100 dollars a year at the gold level.

"We have different fund raisers from time to time to keep our bottom line all right," says alumni president Alan Watterson, " but to fund programs that we do during lean months, sometimes we just don't have the money.  $25.00 has supported us for a while, but if we're going to survive, an increase in the dues is necessary."

"Compared to other alumni associations in the area, I'm suprised that we've been able to get by with 25 dollars a year," he says.  "We just can't afford that anymore."

When he took over as president at the Douglass reunion back in July, Watterson echoed a growing sentiment on the board, that many Douglass alumni and their descendants in Kingsport and beyond, are not members of the association.

"This was their school," Watterson said then.  "Douglass was the school years ago for all black children where we got good educations from good teachers.   To not be in its alumni association is almost a disservice."

He's also urging people to join the Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Association and be part of something special.

"Our alumni numbers are dwindling fast," he says.  "The alumni and their descendants need to hold on to the heritage of this school.  Once it's gone, it's gone forever.  If you lose that history, you lose part of yourself," he says.

At the board meeting on Saturday, Watterson launched a recruitment drive designed to bring more members to the alumni association.  "We want people to be part of our community," he says.  "Helping us support our programs and grow them is important for our young people.  This is their heritage, too."

In other action, the Board is making a move to focus also on fundraising.  Admiring the success of recent fish fries, board members have formed a fundraising committee.  Its goal is to come up with different interesting and fun ways of raising money for alumni programs and the board's overhead.  Board members Sandy Wilmer, Pam Sensabaugh and Thelma Watterson volunteered to be on the new fundraising arm of the alumni association.

Any suggestions from alumni and the public are welcomed by the fundraising committee.

Elsewhere, Board member Doug Releford told the group that it's time to begin thinking about continuing a special project to purchase needed items for many underprivileged children at the Lincoln School.

Last year, the alumni association applied for and received a community development block grant that it used to buy school supplies and book bags for students at the school, considered one of the poorer schools in the Kingsport city school system.  As it turns out, after Lincoln School administrators told the association what the children were having to do without, the list of supplies expanded to include snack items, clothes, shoes, and warm coats for the winter.


The association spent almost $700 dollars it received from the grant.  "Those kids were so appreciative of what they got back in the spring," Releford says.  "I really think they would have done without, if we hadn't done something for them."

"Many of those kids come from broken homes in our community, and they don't have a lot of the luxuries of other children in the school system," he says.  "Our mission has always been to help those in the community who need it, and we'll step up and do what we can this fall, so the kids at Lincoln can have the same learning opportunities as the other kids in the school system."

Andra (Puddin) Watterson, Thelma Watterson, Ozine Bly and Judy Blye are on the School Supply committee, checking into partnerships with area merchants and putting smiles on the faces of children during the upcoming cold months.

If you'd like to help, please contact the members of the committee, or at douglassriverview@gmail.com.

Please check the calendar on the Douglass website's main page periodically.  You'll now be seeing upcoming events of the Alumni Association and the community that will keep you updated on what's going on in our association and the neighborhood.

The next meeting of the Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Association will be on Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 1 PM, in the Eastman Board Room of the V.O. Dobbins Sr. Complex.

All Douglass alumni, their descendants and anyone else are invited to attend the meeting.

If you've not ever been to a meeting, you're asked to please come and join the group.  A lot gets done, in the spirit of, and continuing the legacy of..... the Douglass High School of Kingsport.

Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Board Meeting

The Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Board will meet this Saturday, October 10, 2015.

The meeting will start at 1 PM and will be held in the Eastman Board Room of the V.O. Dobbins Sr. Complex Tower, 2nd floor.

Please bring a member, friend, neighbor.  We welcome new ideas and suggestions.

This will be a covered dish meeting, so bring your favorite dish and share with members and friends.

Please mark your calendar for Saturday, October 10, 2015.  We have several old and new business items on the table to discuss.



Alan M. Watterson, President
Sons and Daughters of Douglass Alumni Association, Inc.

The Huff's Anniversary

Danny and Peggy Huff celebrated their 50th anniversary on August 29, 2015, cruising around and touring the Hawaiian Islands.


Both Danny and Peggy were born and raised in Greeneville, Tennessee and both attended the George Clem School (grades 1 to 12) where they were high school sweethearts.  They graduated in 1964, and were united in holy matrimony by the late Reverend C.C. Mills, Sr. on August 29, 1965.

Mr. and Mrs. Huff moved to Kingsport, Tennessee where they set up housekeeping for the next 50 years.

To their union, they were blessed with three children, Vicki of Oak Park, Illinois...... Danny, Jr. of Kingsport........ and James Edward of Knoxville.  They have also been blessed with seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!