Donnie Ellis is on the move, and folks from Halls and Knox County may have a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Reach him at dwellis@earthlink.net
Donnie started with the Halls High School Key Club and has stayed with Kiwanis for 38 years. He will be installed this year as governor of the Carolinas District.
“I check out the website of KnoxTNToday every day to keep up with what is going on back there,” he wrote. Bless his heart.
Donnie has been living in Charlotte, but says he’s always wanted to live close enough to the ocean to walk to it. And now he will.
Great to hear from Donnie. He’s still appraising real estate and has worked for the VA for 15 years. He recalled memories from the Shopper days “with Wanda Slagle, Betty Lane, Charlie & Martha Roberts, Thea Few, Mary Fritts.”
I think of Donnie often, too. Highlights include hiring a high school kid to write sports and out of the box he called referees at a recent basketball game “the three blind mice.”
That drew the late Elbert Fielden (grand exalted head of all referees) thundering into the Shopper office, demanding justice, plus an apology and maybe Donnie’s head.
Fast forward 20 years, I recruited Donnie into Real Pro Real Estate. We hosted an open house one Sunday in a place so sticky that we bought Windex and some paper towels and washed the surfaces.
And Donnie recruited me to help him sell Christmas trees when the Halls Lions Club gave it up. Donnie rebranded the program to No Ugly Trees (or NUT). Yes, that was us out in the parking lot of Halls Center, mostly freezing and rarely selling.
The common theme was we lost money – doing the newspaper, selling real estate and marketing trees. We do share lots of great memories, though. I may drop in on Donnie and see if I can walk to the ocean.
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today Inc. This was written for our Saturday newsletter, but then held until today (Monday). Guess we’ll stick with M-F newsletters unless we have something bigger to say.