Scenic Roots

Kreneshia Whiteside-McGee on “Y’all Don’t Hear Me.” UTC’s Will Davis on “Tennessee Valley Across the Table.” These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

An aerial view of the Riverbend Festival. (Friends of the Festival) The first Riverbend Festival was held in downtown Chattanooga in the summer of 1982. Since Riverbend missed a year during the pandemic, the festival is celebrating 40 years of music this year - starting Friday through Sunday at Ross’ Landing. Mitchell Hall is director of operations - and Samantha Wright is director of sales - for...

Part of a stained glass window at St. Marks United Methodist Church in North Chattanooga. (Preserve Chattanooga) Historic places endure because of the people who save and maintain them for future generations. A half century ago, passenger rail traffic for Chattanooga was in decline. Union Station was demolished, while Terminal Station survived as the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel. “People Saving Pla...

Preserve Chattanooga’s Todd Morgan on people saving places. Celebrating 40 years of music at the upcoming Riverbend. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly (City of Chattanooga) On Thursday afternoon, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly joined us live here on WUTC for our monthly conversation.

Eric Fuller during a press conference on Zoom this week with CO.LAB’s Tasia Malakasis. (The Company Lab) The Company Lab - or CO.LAB - here in Chattanooga defines “sustainable mobility” as “the equitable movement of goods, people, energy and data.” This month, the nonprofit hosted the CO.MOBILITY Summit around downtown Chattanooga - including here on our campus at UTC - launching a new business ac...

(ChaTech) The Scenic City Summit is the largest IT professional development conference here in Chattanooga. Next week, the one-day summit, hosted by the Chattanooga Technology Council or ChaTech, comes to our campus here at UTC - on Friday, June 2nd starting at 8:30 AM in the University Center. Vicki Farnsworth is Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer here at UTC - and Jen LaRose is with C...

(Stockvault) Hundreds of thousands of cybersecurity positions are open across the country, and hundreds of those job opportunities are within an hour drive of Chattanooga. A new, accelerated program on our campus - the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga - will train qualified applicants to help meet the growing demands of the cybersecurity workforce. UTC is now recruiting highly motivated stud...

For students at UTC, a hands-on path to cybersecurity jobs. This year’s Scenic City Summit comes to the UTC campus. Eric Fuller on his new role as CO.LAB’s Executive in Residence. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

At CNP Haiti in Ville De Léogâne, Haiti. (CNP Haiti) For years, the Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti - a nonprofit here in Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley - has helped women and families to break the cycle of malnutrition in a remote and mountainous area of southern Haiti. The staff on the ground - in the Leogane region - is 97 percent Haitian. But in the past two years, their work has b...

Gideon Thomas (Chattanooga Trend) Gideon Thomas is a health care entrepreneur here in Chattanooga. In 2019, she founded Serious Health, which provides in-home medical care services. Her company places elderly and disabled clients into the personal homes of nurses who care for their daily needs. Under a care model known as “Next of Kin,” the clients receive the same services from the nurses as they...

How Serious Health builds an emerging model of care. Against the odds, the mission of CNP Haiti endures. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

Londie Price (The Peach Cobbler Factory) One minute, you’re running a hair salon - and the next, your business is cobbler and banana pudding. Londie Price is the owner of The Peach Cobbler Factory on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in downtown Chattanooga. Last year, she won the New Business of the Year Award from the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga - and these days, she’s finding ways to gi...

(Creative Commons) Chuck Alsobrook is Veterans Service Officer for Hamilton County. He was the first person hired for the job when the position was created in 2016 - to help the thousands of veterans who live in the county with benefit claims and other needs. Ahead of this Memorial Day, he stopped by our studio. Chuck Alsobrook (Hamilton County Mayor's Office)

Chuck Alsobrook on serving veterans in Hamilton County. Londie Price of The Peach Cobbler Factory in Chattanooga. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

(The Company Lab) On this edition of “Scenic Roots,” a few voices from the recent CO.MOBILITY Summit at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga: investor and AOL cofounder Steve Case, in conversation with Craig Fuller of FreightWaves - and Tasia Malakasis of The Company Lab with Lauren Usher of gener8tor on the CO.LAB Sustainable Mobility Accelerator.

From a Black Lunch Table gathering. (Black Lunch Table) The Black Lunch Table is an oral history archiving project focused on the lives and works of Black artists in communities across the country. One of the cofounders: artist Heather Hart, whose “Oracle of Connection” installation is on display in the courtyard of Stove Works here in Chattanooga. On Friday and Saturday, Stove Works will host a s...

Aerial view of Montague Park. Montague Park is the largest urban park in Chattanooga. Its 45 acres are home to Sculpture Fields at Montague Park and the Chattanooga Football Club Foundation. An urban design and landscape planning process is now reimagining the park, to revitalize the space for this century. Two public meetings on Tuesday will solicit community input for the project: a morning sess...

A chance for community voices to reimagine Montague Park. How the Black Lunch Table will fill in the gaps at Stove Works. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

(Velvet Chair Experience) What is now Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. in downtown Chattanooga was once known as Ninth St. For decades, nightclubs along that street in what was then a Black neighborhood showcased jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and soul - a music scene rivaling Beale St. in Memphis and Bourbon St. in New Orleans. At the end of this month, a new concert series - the Velvet Chair Experi...

(rawpixel / Creative Commons) There’s a saying: “If you can measure it, you can manage it.” The Community Culture Index is a data-driven effort to measure how well employers in Chattanooga are building diverse and inclusive workspaces, from the people they hire to the practices they follow. The index surveyed small businesses, large employers, nonprofits and government entities - and overall, it f...

Doing the work of inclusion - and measuring it - in Chattanooga. Jazz & uptown soul for the Velvet Chair Experience at the Bessie. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”

The logo for the Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts and Ideas. (Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts and Ideas) Juneteenth commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans on June 19th, 1865 - more than two months after the end of the Civil War and nearly three years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Next month on June 19th, Juneteenth will be recognize...

The back of a BetterFi T-shirt. (BetterFi) Grundy County - an hour northwest of Chattanooga - has one of the highest percentages of payday loans in the State of Tennessee. BetterFi is a local nonprofit in that county - based in the town of Coalmont - that aims to “end predatory lending one loan at a time” by refinancing those loans and educating people about debt, saving them money and improving t...

BetterFi’s relief from payday loans in rural Tennessee. This year’s Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts and Ideas. These voices - and more - on this edition of “Scenic Roots.”