Museum event honors award winners
Longtime Knoxville TV executive James M. Hart and University of Tennessee President Emeritus Joseph E. Johnson were honored during a recent banquet as the newest winners of the “Heroes of Southern Appalachia” award at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris.
The Oct. 1 event was the museum’s second Heroes of Southern Appalachia awards ceremony, designed to honor “a person of Southern Appalachian heritage who embodies the spirit of the region with characteristics of perseverance, fortitude, self-reliance, and service,” according to the museum’s website.
“The accomplishments of each recipient have brought greater awareness and understanding of Appalachian culture,” the website says.
The museum’s first Heroes of Southern Appalachia awards were given in November 2019 Gen. Carl Stiner of LaFollette and the late Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. of Huntsville. That event was held in conjunction with the celebration of the museum’s 50th anniversary.
At that time, Museum of Appalachia President Elaine Irwin Meyer said, “We thought honoring those who truly embody the spirit of the Appalachian people and have fearlessly and selflessly served this region would be a wonderful way to commemorate this milestone anniversary.”
Meyer, the daughter of the late museum founders John Rice Irwin and Elizabeth Irwin, also was on hand for the event.
“This was my father’s hobby,” she said of the museum during her remarks Saturday night.
As for the Heroes awards, “There are so many people who embody the spirit of Southern Appalachian people,” she said.
James M. Hart, whose father was WBIR-TV’s general manager when the station began in 1956, came back to Knoxville in the early 1980s to take over as general manager at the TV station.
Together with Stephen W. Dean, Hart helped create the “Heartland Series” of documentaries chronicling life in rural Appalachia.
In the early 2000s, Hart became executive director of the Friends of the Smokies group, of which he still serves as president.
Dean was on hand to give Hart the Heroes award, assisted by former Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Gary Wade.
The Heroes award for Dr. Joseph E. Johnson was presented to his daughter, as Johnson was not able to attend.