The first weekend in December of 2001 brought perfect weather for our
Old North Knoxville Victorian Holiday Home Tour. Ably chaired this
year by Dani Owenby, the 9 names and 1 church on the tour saw
about 1,000 eager visitors go through on Saturday evening and Sunday
afternoon. Not even the rescheduled Tennessee/Florida football game
kept people away. A new twist this year was having all the Kroger
stores in the greater Knoxville area pre-sell tickets to the event.
What a boon! Thank you Kroger!!! Will you do it again next year?
PLEASE!!!
Just a few of the highlights and thank you’s include: the
pre-tour party put on this year by David Vogel. Great job,
David! We all had a great time. The decorating judges Debbie
Kelsey, Donna Carr and Tracey Peterson deserve a special
thanks for sorting out 6 winning houses from all the wonderful ones
found in our neighborhood. This year's winners were Heather Mize at
1418 Armstrong Avenue, Scott and Debbie Ramsey at
1609 Fremont Leonard and Lisa Givens at 1123 Harvey, Tim
and Lori Smith at 230 East Baxter, Stephen Henderson at
205 East Oklahoma and Kevin Jeske and Andrew Polyak at
303 Oklahoma. Congratulations and thanks for the tour making the
neighborhood more festive for the tour.
We can't say enough thanks to the wonderful neighbors who allowed
all those people to traipse through their homes. Annalee Bohon and
Jo Wiley, Dennis and Patty Earl, Jeff Lockett Mike Branam and
Tom Havasy, Ellen Massey and Mike Horner, Kim
Davis and Fred Sahms, Lynn Fuson, Stephen
Henderson, Brian Easley and the wonderful folks at St.
James thank you all so much! It was fun wasn’t it, Fred?
We want to say a special word of thanks to Alan and Barbara
Coggins. Alan and Barbara moved from the neighborhood
physically several ago, but they are still neighbors in every other
sense of the word. Both of them worked the tour and added
immeasurably to the success of it.
We have to acknowledge and say thank you for the dedication and
work of the tour committee. Starting shortly after the 2000
tour, this group met monthly, then as we got closer, bi-weekly and
finally weekly to insure the neighborhood was ready for the tour.
Thank you Andy Anderson, Tomica Miller, Pete Creel, Jesse Ursery,
Lynne Palmer, David Vogel and Marvin and Dodi Payne.
Others who couldn’t be there all the time but certainly
added to the success include Ernie Roberts, David and Beth
Booker, Kim Davis, Tom and Donna Brechko and Annalee
Bohon. I know I probably missed someone and apologize for
it. It doesn’t mean that you are unappreciated!
Finally, thanks to all the volunteers who manned the homes, buses,
ticket booths, and did all the other things necessary to make the tour
a success. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Note: Photos by David Booker
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