A Maryville tire shop manager has tried for four school years to retire a faded Back-to-School banner. Each warranty claim brings an identical replacement and a fresh bag of zip ties.
Visit Knoxville clerk covers Ohio on misdelivered trophy with souvenir sticker
A Visit Knoxville clerk signed for a top-honors trophy meant for the Knox County in Ohio and covered the word Ohio with a $3.99 souvenir sticker. Visitors have since tried to buy it.
Greene County clerk wants 1788 payroll out of her office
GREENEVILLE — Louise Cantrell has asked several times for someone to take the 14 deerskins out of her office at the Greene County courthouse. She needs the bottom drawer for maps.
Spirit Christmas inherits animatronic nobody wants to move
KNOXVILLE — Rhonda Teasley would like whoever measured the back door at 9630 Kingston Pike to come back and measure it again with the door open. She has worked the Nov. 1 changeover there for three different chains, and the six-foot animatronic has outlasted all of them.
Heron on Little River keeps handing back Walland man’s released trout
WALLAND — For four seasons a great blue heron on the Little River has been picking up the trout a catch-and-release fisherman lets go and laying them back on the gravel beside his boots.
Halls man hired sheep to stay indoors, has been outside every Saturday setting out chairs
HALLS — A Halls man hired sheep to clear the poison ivy off his back slope so he could stay inside, and has spent every weekend since setting out folding chairs for the neighbors who come to look at them.
Sequoyah Hills man returns same library book for 14th time and is handed it back
KNOXVILLE — Walt Dossett, 69, finished a library book in April 2019 and has been trying to return it ever since. Each time, the desk hands it back with a new due date and a bookmark.
Gay Street manager pays 1911 grocery account under a loose paver
KNOXVILLE — Dennis Talley keeps $4.12 in a sandwich bag in his truck’s console so he can get it under a loose paver on Gay Street before work. A paving crew found the 1911 ledger that says he owes it, and nobody at any of four banks can say to whom.
Oak Ridge badge clerk says AI task force hasn’t called, but everyone else has
OAK RIDGE — Joyce Ledbetter has run the badge counter at a contractor visitor office since 2007, and she would like it noted that nobody from the White House’s new AI task force has contacted her. Everyone else has.
Retired Neyland staffer still dusts 31 left shoes, none of them claimed
KNOXVILLE — Hollis Loy, 77, retired from Neyland Stadium in 2011 and still visits the lost-and-found shelf, which holds 31 left shoes from 40 years of home games and no right ones.
Cabin manager disputes bear warning as review from guest who never stayed
GATLINBURG — Cabin manager Lyle Whaley has sent a Gatlinburg police bear-feeding warning to his booking site’s review-removal team four times, on the grounds that the reviewer never stayed.
Pruitt family moved uphill from Norris Lake in 1935 and back in 1936, kept both mileage forms
ANDERSON COUNTY — Wanda Pruitt Sizemore keeps two TVA mileage forms in a bread bag under her oven. Her grandparents moved their house up a ridge in 1935 and back down in 1936, and both trips were paid.
Sign shop worker asks which of two Cusick Road ramp signs is the real one
KNOXVILLE — A TDOT sign-shop worker lettered CLOSED PERMANENTLY for the Cusick Road ramp, then received a second sign reading THROUGH FALL 2027, and would like to get back to his speed limit sign.
Retired driver rides his old KAT route every Tuesday to make sure it still runs
KNOXVILLE — Earl Lawson, 79, has paid the fare on his old KAT route every Tuesday since 1996, and keeps a pencil notebook of the stops he has been told were “temporarily” moved.
Beaver Creek moonshiner kept his still warm for 61 revenue visits
A misfiled box of Bureau of Prohibition reports describes the same warm still, the same dent and the same cup on the same stump across ten years of visits to Walter Blevins’s hollow.