“Hollywood” is his name. Loving life is his game.
We’ve all known them, from a mostly humorous perspective, as being “a piece of work.” They’re usually upbeat, a friend to all. Seldom do they meet a stranger. They’re interesting, engaging characters. They enjoy relationships.
Mark “Hollywood” Whaley is a genuine piece of work, a real-life character, and a “one-off” kind of guy.
Mark “Hollywood” Haley
He’s an institution of sorts at the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO). Whaley began his law enforcement career 41 years ago in June 1984 at the ACSO as a reserve deputy, and he’s still going strong today as the School Resource Officer (SRO) at Anderson County High School. In August 2024, Sheriff Barker was honored by Hollywood for his 40 years of service to Anderson County.
Life has been hard on this 61-year-old native of South Knox County, reared off Tipton Station Road along with his older siblings, a sister and a brother. He’s an open book about his life—three marriages, both hips replaced in 2017, and throat-esophageal cancer in 2024.
Hollywood, as everyone calls him, has never given up or quit on life, work, or family, on anyone …. or on the kids he loves at the schools he’s served. “A lot of folks would not recover from what I’ve been through, and it would defeat many, but I knew I had to keep going and living for the kids and my seven grandkids and family,” he said. “Life matters to me.”
His ACSO career includes working in the jail, 30 years on patrol, being an administrative deputy, helping as a PIO officer (public information officer), being a DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) instructor for 23 years in schools (the most rewarding part of the job, he says), and an SRO for 10 years. And in 2018, he was one of three candidates running for the new Anderson County sheriff. He lost to his now-boss, Sheriff Russell Barker, a man Hollywood says is one of his best friends and “a great sheriff.”
And Sheriff Barker had a few words to say about his deputy. “Every school wants Hollywood, and if we had a fantasy draft for SRO, he’d be the No. 1 pick.”
His first full-time SRO assignment was at Clinton Middle School in 2013, but he began going to the nine elementary schools in 1995 to teach the DARE classes to 5th graders. After leaving Clinton Middle, he would fill in at the high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools as an SRO while still working patrol.
“I returned to full-time as the SRO at Grand Oaks Elementary in 2022 when Sheriff Barker asked me to come back to work and was there until around October 2023 when I had to have the cancer treatments,” Hollywood said. “I was released from restrictions in December 2024 and was assigned to Anderson County High School then.”
Anderson County High Principal Travis Freeman, who has been at the school for 19 years, points to what he says is Hollywood’s most effective trait. “The relationship-building ability he has is incredible. He spends time investing in these kids, and they absolutely love him. He is super respectful of everyone – kids, our faculty, parents, everybody. He’s always here for our extracurricular activities. He genuinely enjoys our school.”
Hollywood recently danced with the Anderson County Dancing Mavericks team at a pep rally, and the caption on the Facebook video read: “He has some moves!!” Here is the video of that performance: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1445150419917458
Freeman also shared this story. “We had a parent come in who was really upset. The staff called Hollywood, and he came immediately and calmed the guy down. He told him ‘to take it down a couple of notches’ … he just has an easy way of handling and defusing situations like this.”
ACSO Sgt. Wendy Garrison is Hollywood’s supervisor, and she sings his praises. “Hollywood is one of a kind. I’ve never seen him have a bad day. Even during his sickness, he never stopped being Hollywood. He’s always making people smile.”
When he talks about his cancer ordeal in 2024, you quickly understand it was a brutal experience. It started with an earache that would not clear up. Examinations and scans discovered three tumors behind his tongue, he says. Doctors removed them. He had seven weeks of daily radiation on his mouth and throat, four weeks of chemotherapy, and 30 hyperbaric treatments. Doctors had to stretch his esophagus. He lost all of his teeth, developed multiple mouth sores, and ate through a feeding tube for seven months. He missed nine months of work. “It was miserable,” he said.
How did he get the name Hollywood, anyway? That happened at Doyle High School when he and his best friend, Billy Burkhart, had to make up an English class in summer school. “Part of the class was studying acting, and we did some acting, and Billy asked me what the ‘H’ stood for in my name. So I just said Hollywood since we were acting, and it stuck, and it’s what everyone started calling me.” He and Billy graduated from Doyle in 1982, and they remain best friends today.
Away from his work, he’s enjoying life with his wife, Celeste, who helped him through the health issues. She works at Coker’s Ace Hardware in Oliver Springs. His seven grands range in age from 3 to 16 (six boys, one girl) and he spends as much time as possible with them. The family is his stress relief system. Any hobbies? “Besides the family, I loved hunting shark teeth at Myrtle Beach,” he said. “I have a lot of them.”
The worst parts of his job during those 41 years, he says, are “working wrecks in the rain at night on these curvy rural roads, the domestic violence calls, especially when the children were involved, and seeing young people’s suicides because of drugs.” But he lived by one cardinal rule: “When the shift ended, I leave that stuff in the car and do not bring it into the house.”
Let’s hear these words from ACSO Capt. Shain Vowell about Hollywood: “Everybody loves Hollywood and for good reason. It doesn’t matter what he’s got going on in his life … he’s always willing to help someone else. My twin boys are seniors at the school and say the students look up to him as an uncle or a family member.”
And a final word from Hollywood: “God blessed me about working and being in law enforcement.”
Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia. If you have someone you think we should consider featuring, please email him at the link with his name or text him at 865-659-3562.
Aubrey’s Restaurants sponsors our Town Hero.
