Veterans Spotlight

By Stuart Holland | Photo by Hobe Brunson Paul Soares spent 25 years hunting hurricanes & Soviet submarines Knoxville resident Paul Soares served 3 tours of duty in naval aviation. He spent one year as a command…
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Flying, Teaching, and Leading in the 134th Lee Hartley gets up every day knowing exactly what he needs to do. “We’re here to fly airplanes,” says the tall, lanky Doyle High School graduate. In 2018, Col. M. Lee Hartley Jr. became…
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Jonathan Williams, Navy Veteran and business owner, had just returned from his third cross-country bicycle tour. The tours have added up to more than 11,000 miles across 25 states. This latest tour was the 2018 Unity Ride, filming a…
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Stephanie Welch believes everything is connected; the evolution of her life and career in Knox County proves it. She grew up in Boscawen, New Hampshire, "a one-stoplight town" in a rural farming community, north of Concord. She came to…
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Terry’s company office bears the hallmarks of a busy person who knows how to unwind: Working papers on the desk; photographs and awards carefully placed; a giant rack of elk antlers on the wall. He’s the owner of Real-Time Construction in…
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Richard Briggs hates sitting in traffic. “Nashville’s is awful, it’s growing so fast. Middle Tennessee is one of the fastest growing parts of the country.” Richard is a Tennessee State Senator, elected in 2014. He lives in west Knoxville…
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Retired USAF Colonel and former Wing Commander Tim Dearing lives in a comfortable home not far from Tellico Lake, with his wife Lisa, their daughter Harley, and three shy cats. The house is filled with family photographs and keepsakes,…
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Eric Barton is leading a tour around the Villa Collina, his 40,250-square-foot Italianate mansion in Knoxville, high on a bluff above a bend in the Tennessee River. As he explains the energy improvements that he’s overseen, the art and…
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The power at Downtown Island Airport is temporarily shut down while a breaker is replaced, and 63-year-old Mike Copeland sits at the table in a dim conference room. Tall and cheerful, he relaxes in a chair in what appears to be his optimum…
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Leaning out of a HH-43B “Huskie” rescue helicopter, its intermeshing blades spinning inches above the tree tops, U.S. Airman First Class William A. Robinson swung a rescue cable toward the Air Force pilot nearly 100-feet below in the dense…
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