John Campbell grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee and graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1967. He played alto saxophone in the band and participated in the German Club, Science Club and was an active member of the Junior Engineering Technical Society. John earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. While at UT, he was a member of the Pride of the Southland Marching Band and was a Resident Advisor in Gibbs Hall. Additionally, he is a 1991 graduate of the Senior Executive Institute at the University of Virginia and a 1992 graduate of the Tennessee Leadership Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

 

In 1976, John began his career as a planner for Johnson City. Three years later, he was promoted to Assistant City Manager and in 1984, he became the City Manager. While in Johnson City, John was involved in every aspect of the most comprehensive school facility improvement plan in Tennessee, in which Johnson City built four new elementary schools, remodeled and expanded the high school twice, improved a middle school and found community reuse for four 1930s vintage schools. After serving over 16 plus years in that position, John retired.

 

In 2001, following his retirement, John launched his career as a private consultant for business and government. He became the Chief Executive Officer of Networks Sullivan Partnership, an economic development organization. In 2006, John Campbell was hired as Kingsport's City Manager and holds the distinction of the first Dobyns-Bennett graduate to serve in that role. In Kingsport, John was dedicated to the creation of the Kingsport Center for Higher Education and the downtown Academic Village, which in 2009 won the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award given by the Ash Institute of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In fact, the Flagship Center of the Academic Village, Phillips-Campbell Hall, bears his name along with former Mayer, Dennis Phillips. John also taught a public works class for several years for the graduate program in City Management at East Tennessee State University.

 

Under his watch, Kingsport also built John Adams Elementary School and made improvements to J. Fred Johnson Stadium. Other Kingsport projects in which his entrepreneurial skills, leadership and planning expertise excelled include the development of the Kingsport Press site, the building of the Kingsport Aquatic Center, the expansion of Meadowview's Executive Conference Center, the downtown Kingsport parking garage and the building of two new fire stations. After his outstanding accomplishments as Kingsport's City Manager, John retired from this position in June of 2014.

 

He has served on many influential boards including the Northeast State Technical Community College Foundation Board, the East Tennessee State University College of Business Advisory Committee, the Northeast Tennessee Solid Waste Board, the Johnson City Medical Center/MSHA Board, the Johnson City/Washington County Emergency Medical Services Board, the Watauga Mental Health/Frontier Behavioral Health Board and has been an active member of the Kiwanis Club in both Kingsport and Johnson City. He has also served on numerous state boards including the Tennessee City Management Association, Tennessee Municipal League, the TML Risk Management Pool, the Appalachian Educational Laboratory, the University of Tennessee Alumni National Board of Governors and the University of Tennessee Alumni Legislative Council.

 

John was named Tennessee's City Manager of the Year twice - in 1992 and 1999. He was also named Administrator of the Year in 1988 by the East Tennessee Chapter of the American Society of Public Administrators. He was Johnson City's Kiwanian of the Year in 1996.

 

In October 2014, John became Director of AccelNow, an organization which provides mentoring, training, networking and support to entrepreneurs in the eight counties of Northeast Tennessee. Having been directly involved with economic development for over 35 years in this region, John's experiences include membership on two Chamber of Commerce boards, three economic development boards, the largest industrial park board in the region, two incubators and a med-tech corridor concept. He worked with Tennessee Economic and Community Development officials under five governors. While Campbell guided many large capital projects, emphasis was always placed on using best practices to ensure the citizens received a high level of services at the lowest possible costs. Eighteen different city departments received 90 state and national awards and recognitions under Campbell's leadership and both cities received AA Bond rating status during his tenure. John has spent his professional career as an advocate and leader for regionalism and a planner and builder of our beautiful Northeast Tennessee.

 

John, along with his wife Gail, remain strong advocates for our area and Dobyns-Bennett High School.

Graham was born April 16, 1955 in Kingsport, TN. He attended Andrew Johnson Elementary and Ross N. Robinson Junior High and self proclaims to have majored in lunch room and Margaret Bays' music class. He played football, basketball and ran track while at Ross N. Robinson.

 

Graham was a three year letterman in football at Dobyns-Bennett under coaches Fred Walton and Tom Pugh. He lettered in baseball 2 years for Coach John Whited and a 1 year letterman in Track for Coach Dan Crowe.

 

Graham went to Emory and Henry College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Health and Physical Education. He was a 4 year letterman in football and a 3 year letterman in Baseball. He also participated in the Track Club. He received his Masters of Arts in Health and Physical Education from Appalachian State University. He also assisted Appalachian State University as a graduate assistant coach for outside linebackers.

 

His first job was at Powell Valley High School where he was Head Baseball Coach, Assistant Football Coach, Assistant Basketball Coach and taught Health and Physical Education.

 

He worked at Chilhowie High School from 1980 to 1982. He served as their Head Football Coach with a record of 19 wins and 3 losses. He also served as Assistant Basketball Coach. Both teams were District Champions for the 2 years he was there.

 

He came back to Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1982 and served as Assistant Football Coach for 11 years and Assistant Baseball Coach for six years. In 1993, he was promoted to the Head Football coach where he served for 25 years. His football teams were Conference Champions 18 of those years. He qualified for the TSSAA state playoffs every year. He led his team to the State Quarterfinals in 1993, 1997, 2003, 2004, 2011 and 2012. He led his team to the State Semifinals in 1998, 2000, and 2002. He has helped over 100 young men sign scholarships. He has coached 5 players who went on to play in the National Football League. Those players are Mike Fulkerson Dulaney, Teddy Gaines, Gerald Sensabaugh, Daniel Kilgore and Coty Sensabaugh. Coach Clark is the winningest football coach in the history of Dobyns-Bennett. He totaled 233 wins with a winning percentage of 77%.

 

Graham was Conference Coach of the Year 12 times in his career including Big East Coach of the Year in 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, and 2017 and Hogoheege District Coach of the Year in 1981. He is a two-time Northeast Tennessee Coach of the Year and a two-time News-Sentinel 5A Coach of the Year. He served as the Tennessee Football Coaches Association President from 1999 to 2005 and 2012 to 2014. He became President Emeritus in 2014. Graham was inducted into the Tennessee Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2016. He was also named Tennessee Titans Coach of the Week seven times. He was the East - West All Star Assistant in 1997 and the Tennessee - Kentucky All Star Assistant Head Coach in 2003. He was named the Tennessee - Kentucky All Star Head Coach in 2004. Graham is a two time finalist for the American Football Coaches Association Power of Influence Award.

 

The greatest thrill of his lifetime is being the father to three great children. His daughter, Megan Clark, loved Dobyns-Bennett Football more than Barney loved Thelma Lou. She served as trainer for the Indians for many years. She passed away in 2015.  His daughter, Emma Clark, works at the Appalachian Service Project and his son, Rusty Clark is a leasing agent in Nashville, Tennessee and an aspiring musician. He played for the Indians under Graham from 2007 to 2010. Their mother, Marisa Clark did an amazing job raising three wonderful children. Graham is very proud to have coached the Dobyns-Bennett Indians for 36 years and 25 as the Head Coach.

Theodore A. Fritz was born in Kingsport, TN on June 25, 1939 to Bernice and Theodore C. Fritz. He attended Lincoln Elementary School and Sevier Junior High before graduating from Dobyns-Bennett High School in 1957. Ted was proud of his Tennessee heritage and would quickly correct anyone by saying "East Tennessee." Ted was older brother to Donald and Gerald and uncle to Don Jr, Doug and Coach Nathan Fritz who all attended Dobyns-Bennett High School. Sadly, Ted passed away just short of his 81st birthday on May 15, 2020.

 

While at Dobyns-Bennett High School, Ted was active in Key Club as well as sports. He lettered in football and track. He was voted "Most Improved" his senior year in football when Dobyns-Bennett went undefeated. He played tight end and loved to tell his children that their workouts were the hardest and longest in the history of high school football. Off campus, Ted was active in his church's youth group and proudly became and Eagle Scout.

 

Ted went to college at Virginia Tech, where he lettered in track. After receiving a Bachelor of Science in Physics, he went on to graduate school at the University of Iowa for Space Physics. He joined the research group of Professor James Van Allen, for whom the Van Allen Radiation Belts are named. He was one of a cadre of stars to be working for Van Allen developing flight hardware in the early days of space physics. He soon learned the art of designing solid state detectors and flew his first experiment on OGO-4 that performed comprehensive spectral measurements of protons trapped in Earth's outer radiation zone. Ted earned his Ph.D. in 1967 and went on to post doctoral work at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottowa, Ontario and NASA/Goddard followed by research positions at the NOAA/ERL/Space Environment Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where he helped design the Galileo EPD instrument that was flown to Jupiter and then moved to the Space Science and Technology Division at Los Alamos. Following this, he was a Professor at Boston University in the Department of Astronomy with joint appointments in the Departments of Mechanical and Electrical/Computer Engineering for 25 years. Ted was recruited to Boston with the specific goal of introducing a space-based component to the strong ground-based science being done at Boston University. He retired from teaching in 2015 and as Professor Emeritus maintained connections with researchers in the Center for Space Physics.

 

Ted was by training and inclination a hardware developer, and was Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator on more flight instruments than can be listed here. Some notable examples include several early energetic charged particle detectors on Injun, Explorer, and DOD spacecraft. Later, he developed instruments for the POLAR, Viking, CRESS, Cluster and DSX missions. Shortly after arriving at Boston University in 1992, Ted embarked on a long-term career goal to build complete scientific spacecraft with the work done by graduate and undergraduate students. This grew into the popular student focused Boston University - SAT program. Ted was an expert in attracting funding from multiple sources within Boston University, the Air Force and NASA - supporting at times 30-40 students over the summer working on BU - SAT developments. These endeavors led to several small satellite projects including ANDESITE, Cupped and student flights on microgravity airplanes to test the hardware deployment. Ted was in his element working with the legions of students, offering advice while giving them a lot of freedom to plan the instruments and missions. As a supervisor to nine Ph.D. students, he provided insight in research but also cared deeply about them improving as people. He routinely encouraged his students to form strong friendships and relationships with others. His energy and enthusiasm were contagious, and he provided a spark to his research group, the student satellite program and overall to the Center for Space Physics. While all of this was going on, Ted became an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox and the Patriots and held season tickets for all Boston University hockey games.

 

Ted met his one true love, Sally, while a graduate student at Iowa University. They married before leaving Iowa City to move to Ottowa. Ted and Sally hosted a multitude of parties at their home and not just for the "academic crowd" only. These parties included friends and neighbors from various activities and church groups. For the children present, it was a treat to see Ted put on his train engineer cap and run his most amazing train set spanning enormous tables. Ted was a true engineer in all possible meanings of the word. He made things, explained how things worked (in the classroom and outside the classroom) and always paid special attention to the youngest children in any setting. He was the perfect grandfather to family, friends, students and colleagues. Ted always found a home in the local Lutheran Church. He served on church councils, taught Sunday School, put up and took down Christmas trees, served as the usher who offered the warmest welcome hugs and countless other duties. He was most known at church for the many postcards he sent the younger members from all over the world. Ted loved to travel and missed only one continent, Antarctica. The last few years of his life were spent on "bucket list" trips. Ted is survived by his wife Sally, son Greg (custodian of the train set), daughters Deborah and Kimberly and three grandchildren. His laugh and smile will long be remembered by all who knew him.

 

Johnson joined Eastman Chemical company in 1965, doing sales forecasting and econometric modeling for Eastman’s businesses. He was responsible for developing and implementing input/output technology in Eastman’s forecasting process and for developing the company’s first price and production indices. In 1972, he was named to Eastman‘s general management staff with responsibility for approving selling prices for Eastman products. Prior to retirement, he had management responsibilities for Eastman’s international, federal, state and local government relations, EastmanPAC (political action committee) and ELAN (the company’s grassroots network). Johnson was named Vice President of Government Relations in 1996. He retired as the Vice President of Government Relations for Eastman Chemical Company. He is currently retired, but spent eight years as a government relations consultant for King Pharmaceuticals.

 

In 1977, Johnson was elected to the Kingsport Board of Education and served for nine years, seven of which were as President. In 1984, he served as President of the Tennessee School Board Association and was the Tennessee School Board Member of the Year in 1984. He was chairman of the Tennessee chemical Industry Counsel for 15 years. He is a past chairman of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and continues to serve on the board of directors. He formerly served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Business Roundtable. He served for six years as past chairman of the Tennessee Health Services and Development Agency which approves or denies applications for Certificates of Need for hospitals, surgical treatment centers, nursing homes and home health care agencies. He was the deciding vote in support of the Creekside Behavioral Health Psychiatric Hospital in Kingsport.

 

In 1999, Johnson was appointed to serve a six-year term on the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees. As a Trustee, he originated and promoted naming Tennessee‘s basketball floor for legendary head women's basketball coach, Pat Summit. He served a three-year term on the University of Tennessee Athletics board. He currently serves on the  University of Tennessee President Advisory Council. Johnson was also appointed to the Kingsport Economic Development board where he served as Vice President and served on the board until 2020. 

 

In 2018, he was named a lifetime member of the Greater Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce. He is currently a member and treasurer of the Kingsport School System Education Foundation and serves as President of Tribe baseball, a feeder team for Dobyns-Bennett High School baseball. Earlier in his career, Johnson was President of the Kingsport Jaycees and was Kingsport's Young Man of the Year 1972. He started a local Toastmasters group at Eastman in 1968 and the organization continues to exist today, more than 50 years later. He was President of the Kingsport Boys and Girls Club and currently serves on the Board of Directors. Johnson recently served two years as the Chairman of the Tennessee Boys and Girls Club Alliance and was elected to the Tennessee Boys and Girls Club Hall of Fame in 2019.

 

At the national level, Johnson has served as Chairman of the American Chemistry Council's State Affairs committee, Chairman of the Federation of State Chemical Industry Counselors, and as Chairman of the State Government Affairs committee of the American Plastics Council. He was the Chairman of the American Chemistry Council Issue Review team, which sets advocacy priorities for the chemical industry, Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers Public Affairs subcommittee, a member of the Board of Directors of the Business Government Relations Council and the Public Affairs Council, both of which are headquartered in Washington DC.

 

Johnson is married to the former Barbara Nickels of Kingsport and they have two daughters, Beth and Brooke, who received Masters degrees from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The Johnson's have two grandchildren, Bailey who is 19, and Andrew who is nine. They are members of First Broad Street United Methodist Church.