Our Semi-Annual Complimentary Letter

The single bright spot in this gloomy Sunday, my second in Knoxville, was the discovery of Metro Pulse. Fine job, folks: informative, lucid, useful, and crisply executed. Seems there's more to K'ville than strip malls and a preponderance of orange clothing. If I had access to a car, I'd likely sniff out some of the wonderful places and things you so ably describe. Still, it's nice to know they exist.

Special thanks to Joe Tarr and Ryan Collins for their splendid work on your cover story ["4 Weeks at the 5th Ave. Motel," Vol. 8, No. 44]. Tarr writes young, but he writes well. Compassion without condescension, sentiment without bathos. I loved it. Collins has a fine eye and nice timing. This is a team with some formidable skills, and it's a damned shame the world puts so little value on the written word or B&W photography. And if I mention that hammers have claws rather than teeth, it subtracts nothing from the sum of my admiration.

Enough with the gushing! I'm now a fan, and Metro Pulse will make next Sunday's hike to Winn-Dixie shorter. Thanks and be well.

Michael Griffin
Knoxville

Some More Names for "The Knoxville 100"

Pat Roddy
Frank/Dwight McDonald
Oliver Smith
Jimmy Smith (believe it or not, but he SAVED First American Bank from going bust in the early 1990s—ask around)
Andy Holt

Oh well, you said we wouldn't all agree...

Mac Overton
Hong Kong

And More...

Beyond the above, we also received letters from readers nominating the following:

* Vol football standout, textile industrialist, and UT supporter Herman Delmas "Breezy" Wynn

* Actress and fashion entrepreneur Polly Bergen

* Guy Lincoln Smith III (son of Guy L. Smith Jr., whom we did include), founder of the modern Knoxville Zoo

* James Dickason Hoskins, president of UT from 1934 to 1946

* Myles Horton, the maverick social activist from Hickman County who founded the Highlander School