Bits of Stone for March 30, 2008

$2 million gift from Maryvillian aids UT

UT baseball fans are pleased with plans under way for improvements being made and planned for Lindsey Nelson Stadium. The improvements are expected to take UT baseball to the next level in player development.

The stadium is named for the late nationally known sportscaster, Lindsey Nelson, who graduated at UT. Thanks to a $2 million lead gift toward the improvements by a Maryville High graduate, the playing field will be named for another Lindsay, spelled just a little differently.

Robert M. “Bob” Lindsay, a 1944 Maryville High graduate, made the lead gift as a memorial to his father, R. M. “Russ” Lindsay.

Improvements include a new clubhouse, locker room, weight room, batting cages, coaches offices and additional seating along the first base line. Phase II, scheduled for completion next year, calls for resurfacing of the playing field, a new press box with elevator, and additional permanent stands down the third base line.

Russ Lindsay was an All-Southern fullback on the undefeated 1914 football team, known as the first UT team to defeat Vanderbilt. The team won the all nine games and was champion of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In 1896, the Vols had gone undefeated but played only four games and didn’t win any championships.

Russ played first base on the UT baseball team and in 1914 was considered the best “plunging” fullback in the South. He also played basketball for UT.

Russ married and following Bob’s birth, July 27, 1925, in Knoxville took a job with Babcock Lumber Co. in Alcoa and moved to Maryville. Bob played basketball and football at Maryville.

Staying ahead of academic requirements, Bob said he rode the White Star bus to attend summer school at Knoxville High. Once in the Navy he was enrolled in training programs at Union College in Schenectady, N. Y.; Holy Cross University in Boston, Massachusetts, and finished his degree work at Vanderbilt. He played baseball at all three schools. He earned his masters at University of Pennsylvania at the prestigious Wharton School of Business in Transport Economics.

He served the nation 29 years in the Navy and through the U.S. Department of Foreign Service. In addition to his naval training in WWII, he served during the Korean War, being a supply officer on the USS Epping Forest in the Western Pacific. During the Vietnam War, he lived in Vietnam and worked closely with the U.S. Embassy.

Much of his time was spent overseas after the war, assisting with economic development in Tunisia, Turkey, Nigeria and Vietnam. Upon return to the United States in 1970, he served 14 years with the Department Agency to International Development.

He and his wife Mary moved to Columbus, Ga., following his retirement in 1985. Mary is deceased and Bob, who suffers from macular degeneration, recently moved into an assisted living facility.

Often readers think tax dollars support UT athletics. However, UT is one of fewer than 10 athletic departments in public universities in the country that receives no funds from state subsidies or taxes.

Elizabeth Irwin’s death is loss to Appalachia

began writing this column about some national publicity John Rice Irwin had received we were informed of the passing of his wife, Elizabeth, 72, of congestive heart failure.

We were saddened to lose a friend and longtime acquaintance. John and Elizabeth founded the Museum of Appalachia at Norris a number of years ago. John is a gifted mandolin player and a member of his Museum of Appalachia Band. Elizabeth was the vocalist and played the spoons, a not too easy task.

We often “brought John down to earth” by reminding him that it probably requires more musical skill and coordination to play the spoons than a mandolin.

Elizabeth established their first rate gift shop while John was bringing in many tools and treasures of Appalachia to be saved in the museum which has received worldwide recognition.

John Rice is featured in the first “Walk into America, classic hikes with local storytellers” series in the April issue of The National Geographic Traveler magazine.
The first month includes stories by James Conaway in Maine, Florida and Tennessee. The July-August issue will feature walks in Kansas, New Mexico and Wyoming.

The white haired Irwin, 77, is a repository of local history. He related some of the history of Big Valley where he grew up. In the story, he took the writer to the valley where he was raised before much of it was covered by Norris Lake following construction of the first TVA dam.

Age and chronic heart problems have limited John’s walking, but he accompanied the writer to visit some of the long abandoned spots, including cemeteries where his forefathers are buried.

Master Sergeant Keeble is surprised by award

om Keeble, Air Force retired and Blount resident, paused briefly when he first read about Master Sergeant Woodrow Wilson Keeble receiving the Medal of Honor posthumously.

We wrote about the honoree, first Sioux Indian to receive the nation’s highest award. Presented to relatives a few days ago, it honored a man who died in 1982, While the two are not related, obviously there are not too many Master Sergeant Keebles around.
“Our” Sgt. Keeble is a native of the Prospect area and is a nephew of Blount County Commissioner John Keeble.

W.D. ‘Doc’ Shadden is returned to Etowah

William D. “Doc” Shadden, a honor student in the 1942 class at Everett High School, died March 17 at Maryville Health Care Center.

His family moved to Blount County from Etowah when W.D. was in high school. Interment was in Green Hill Cemetery in Etowah.

Former Alcoa Mayor’s son featured

The just-out Spring issue of The University of Tennessee Alumnus magazine includes a three-page feature about three alumni who live in Friendship Village in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The three are Oscar Marion Brumfiel and his wife Julie and Murray Warmath.

Brumfiel, 90, is the son of the late Alcoa Mayor O.W. Brumfiel. Marion was involved in a number of academic and military organizations on campus, the 1940 yearbook reveals. He worked at the ALCOA plants as a co-op student while earning a degree in mechanical engineering at UT and later, after WWII military service, a MBA at Minnesota. Before retiring, he worked for Honeywell in Minneapolis. Julie was a home economics major.

Warmath, 95, a former line coach for Neyland, zips about the place in his motorized scooter. Warmath became head coach at Minnesota and took the Gophers to a national championship in 1960,

While he knew who Warmath was, Brumfiel had never met him until they met at the Friendship Village.

512 downed airmen rescued in Yugoslavia

One of the most interesting and successful stories we have read about World War II was written by Kevin Morrow in the April/May issue of World War II magazine.

It details the rescue of 512 U.S. airmen, many injured and sick, out from under the Germans’ noses. Many of these Americans were from the numerous air crews that had been shot down on missions to bomb the Nazi railroad marshalling yards and oil refineries in Romania.

The event was heavily involved in politics resulting from the disagreement between various factions within Yugoslavia as well as within the Allied command and between the Italians and the Yugoslavs.

The rescue effort was strongly opposed by the British - even Churchill - the U.S. State Department, and communist sympathizers (then our allies) but with the help of Serbs in the area, the 15th Air Force, and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) the job was accomplished.

But it did not happen before OSS Director William “Wild Bill” Donovan appealed directly in a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt who overruled the British. Friendly Serbs hacked out a 700-yard runway on which four C-47s landed at dusk on the first rescue flight. The next morning another flight had heavy fighter cover which attacked Nazi installations in the area as a diversion.

Agents were inserted to help establish the rescue effort and 4,000 Chetnik soldiers deployed around Pranjani to deflect any German interference. On Aug. 9, 1944, the first evacuation occurred. Over a period of time 512 American airmen were rescued without a loss of life.

Tito eventually overcame the Serbs in this area and though he was considered our ally, his snipers constantly fired on our 91st Infantry Division troops while we were in the area of Trieste. Tito wanted the valuable port for Yugoslavia but the U.S. thought it belonged to Italy. So even in those days there was terrible unrest among the various peoples of Yugoslavia.