A drive through Karns these days will only produce a handful of locations that reference the community’s original name, Beaver Ridge. There’s the United Methodist Church, the Automotive Center and, of course, Old Beaver Ridge and Byington Beaver Ridge cemeteries.
The metamorphosis to Karns began just over a century ago, with the construction of the first Karns High School in 1913. The school was named in honor of Knox County’s second school superintendent, who had passed away two years prior in 1911.
Thomas Conner Karns
Thomas Conner Karns was born Feb. 28, 1845, in Knox County to Charles W. Karns and Nancy Ellen Conner. He grew up on his parents’ farm near Powell Station with his sister, Sarah, and two brothers, John M. and William Charles. He was stricken with typhoid in adolescence and was left with permanent lameness and lifelong pain as a result.
The Civil War delayed his education, but he graduated as salutatorian of the class of 1871 from the University of Tennessee. Never mind the fact there were only 4 graduates in that class.
Karns’ working life was a mix of journalism, education and gentleman farming. When he first left school, he began writing for “The Knoxville Chronicle” before moving on to papers in Chattanooga and Nashville. He moved back to Knox County and was elected school superintendent at age 28 for a term from 1873 to 1875. During his educational career, he made the transition from teaching to administration and back several times.
After his stint as superintendent ended, he taught at the Masonic Institute (a “normal” school for women in Cleveland, Tennessee), then principal at Chattanooga High School. A lifelong Baptist, Karns then moved on to a professorship in English and foreign languages at was then called Carson and Newman College in Jefferson City. He eventually landed back at UT in 1886.
At UT, Karns was a professor of pedagogy, meaning he taught students how to teach more so than advancing scholarship on any one particular subject. But he was a firm believer that all teachers should have three years each in Latin and Greek studies (“The Professors of Teaching: An Inquiry,” Wisnieski/DuCharme-1989).
Karns’ grave at Glenwood Cemetery
Karns was a popular speaker in Knox County and throughout East Tennessee. During summer breaks, he attended Farmers’ Agriculture Society meetings as well as hosting his own teaching institutes. He retired from UT in 1899 and returned to life as journalist. He was the agricultural editor for “The Knoxville Journal and Tribune” and wrote a farmer’s column under the pen name of Uncle Zeke. He also wrote agricultural papers and columns for other periodicals as well.
In his later years, Karns moved to Florida in hopes of relieving some of the grief from his lifelong afflictions, a common prescription of the time. He died in Orlando on April 30, 1911, and was returned to Knox County to be buried in Powell’s Glenwood Cemetery where his parents are also buried.
Beth Kinnane is the community news editor for KnoxTNToday.com.