This is today, folks, but it will be great if you can make it.

  • What: A posthumous celebration of From Out of the Smokies: Stories of Fly Fishing and Life, a memoir documenting Charlie Tombras’s life
  • When: Tuesday, October 14, 2025, at 5:30 p.m.
  • Where: East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay St., Knoxville, Tennessee.

Join us for a posthumous celebration of From Out of the Smokies: Stories of Fly Fishing and Life, a memoir documenting the late Charlie Tombras’s incredible life. Speakers include Dooley Tombras and Dr. Warren Dockter.

Knoxville native Charlie Tombras may be best known for his 57-year leadership of the 2025 Ad Age Advertising Agency of the Year, the Tombras Group, but in this moving memoir, he chronicles his personal journey, letting business take a backseat.

Born and raised in the Smokies, Tombras grew up exploring mountains and streams, fostering an appreciation for nature and fly fishing that would follow him through a tour of duty in Vietnam and into adulthood. With a relatable, often humorous style, Tombras recollects adventures spanning eight decades and the resulting lessons of friendship, loss and love that he learned along the way.

From tales of white-water canoeing in Northern Labrador to grief-stricken seasons of loss, Tombras’s memoir provides a nuanced portrait of a successful man – in business and in life.

In 2022, Charlie Tombras led efforts to establish the Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with the goal of increasing overall enrollment at the college and supporting historically underrepresented students in the program.

Charlie Tombras was the chair of the Tombras Group – a 475-person creative, digital marketing, media buying and branding agency headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, with offices in New York, Atlanta, Washington, DC, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He died on July 2, 2025, in Knoxville at age 83. His full obituary is here. Knoxville author and PR practitioner Laura Mansfield said, “Charlie was larger than life. He was one of a kind, an archetype to inspire and emulate. His legacy lives on.”

For more information about today’s ETHC program and to RSVP, visit here.

Kelley Weatherley-Sinclair, community engagement manager at ETHC, contributed information for this report.

Kelle Jolly and Will Boyd

New Jazz show in North Carolina

Kelle Jolly and Will Boyd are producing a six-month jazz and soul concert series at the YMI Cultural Center in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. The shows are every fourth Friday and Saturday of the month starting in October. Tickets are on sale – both single or a six-show pass. Here.

In memoriam: Lois Russell created links between Knoxville’s Black and white residents

Lois Russell

Lois Lawrance Russell, mother, educator and community leader, passed away on October 8, 2025, at 101. Raised in Elgin, Illinois, Mrs. Russell completed an associate degree and a master’s in international relations in 1947 from the University of Chicago. She began her career staffing participants in the post-WWII Nuremberg Trials.

She and husband Wendell Russell moved to Knoxville in 1950 and she began a 46-year career at Knoxville College, teaching American history, international relations and political science.

Through her community connections she launched many student careers by securing internships with local businesses, city agencies and community organizations. Her countless social and community connections created linkages between Knoxville’s black and white communities. After retiring from Knoxville College, she worked part-time promoting professional nursing education programs at UT Medical Center.

Family information and her civic involvement are outlined in her obituary, here. Services will be held on Saturday, October 18, at 1 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral, 413 Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville.

Notes & Quotes

Broadacres Neighborhood Association will host a fall resident meeting at 6 p.m. today (10/14/25) at Inskip Grill on Emory Road. Eating dinner is optional.

Knoxville Jewish Alliance invites the community to remember October 7, 2023, by honoring those lost and expressing gratitude for those who came home. The event is 5-7:30 p.m. (drop by any time) on Thursday, October 16, at AJCC, 6800 Deane Hill Drive, Knoxville.

Vallie Collins, a survivor of “The Miracle on the Hudson,” will speak at Rutherford Memorial United Methodist Church, 7815 Corryton Road, Corryton, Tennessee, on Sunday, October 19, at 5 p.m. This is a free event to the community, but donations to a love offering are encouraged. Tickets not required. (Personal note: I’ve heard Vallie speak and she captures the terror of passengers and their relief at the heroics of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger in landing the plane in the Hudson River. Well worth hearing.)

Olde Concord Fall Festival will be Saturday, October 25, 2025, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Choto Masonic Lodge. Supporting LIFT East Tennessee; local vendors, local music, food and beverage trucks.

Corryton Possum Chase: Saturday, October 25, 2025, at 8:15 a.m. It’s fun to run in the country. And proceeds support the Corryton Community Club and Hospitality Food Pantry. State records races – 2, 4 and 8 miles.

Quote: “Having a plan enabled us to keep our hope alive. Perhaps in a similar fashion, people who are in their own personal crises – a pink slip, a foreclosure – can be reminded that no matter how dire the circumstance, or how little time you have to deal with it, further action is always possible. There’s always a way out of even the tightest spot.”   – Chesley Sullenberger Read more here.

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