Sarah Brobst wins Felicia Award

Sarah Brobst

Sarah Brobst, visitor services director at Ijams Nature Center, won the 2025 Felicia Harris Hoehne award from Keep Knoxville Beautiful. Brobst also owns a design company, Sarah Brobst Designs, where she specializes in one-of-a-kind salvage and repurposed art and jewelry. Learn more here.

Back in 2017, Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero presented the first Felicia Harris Hoehne award to long-time community leader and volunteer Felicia Harris Hoehne.

The award, named for Harris Hoehne, is presented annually to honor an individual who exemplifies Keep Knoxville Beautiful’s mission to promote a cleaner and greener Knoxville, Rogero said at the time. Quoting from the city’s website:

“Harris Hoehne, a driving force behind the Spring Place Neighborhood Association, served for about 50 years as a professional research librarian at the University of Tennessee. She joined the Keep Knoxville Beautiful board in 2009, and her commitment to the KKB mission (and her reputation as an avowed scourge of roadside trash) is legendary. In a room full of beautification advocates, she’s probably the only person known to hire crews to pick up litter in other people’s neighborhoods!”

Mrs. Hoehne and the late Edythe Nell McNabb are the only honorary board members of Keep Knoxville Beautiful.

Notes & Quotes

Outdoor Knoxville, a calendar produced by Legacy Parks Foundation, is has a comprehensive list of upcoming local outdoor events. Find it here.

Keep Knoxville Beautiful’s February Saturday Spruce Up also will be the eighth annual North Knoxville Community Cleanup and Tree Planting. It will be Saturday, February 28, 2026, 9 a.m. to noon. Volunteers will gather at Northgate Plaza to pick up litter from the plaza and adjacent Third Creek. The trees will be planted on the campus of Whittle Springs Middle School in conjunction with Trees Knoxville. Details here.

Here’s a reel from Fall Creek Falls showing a frozen scene that’s flat beautiful.

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