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One Who Presides
Dennis Reedy, president of the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association, asked for a motion to approve the slate of new officers on Thursday night. The motion was made, seconded and then approved by voice vote. With that, I was elected to be the new president of the group.
The rest of the evening consisted of making plans for the year ahead. Our next meeting will be held in the William M. Bass Forensic Anthropology Building, which should insure a good turnout. Special Agent in Charge Richard Lambert said he would give us a briefing on cyber-terrorism threats at an upcoming meeting.
A few events are already on our calendar. The Alumni Association will help promote the Law Enforcement Memorial Run on May 12. Our annual field trip to FBI Headquarters and Quantico is locked in for August. I found out that one of my responsibilities as chapter president will be to attend the National Citizens Academy Alumni Association annual conference in Denver this September.
On a sad note, we learned of the death of FBI Chief Division Council Martin J. King. We all knew Mr. King from his annual presentation to the Citizens Academy on the legal powers and limitations of the FBI. The Alumni Association voted to make a donation to the memorial fund being set up to benefit his family.
Hooverville
A huge movie poster for “The FBI Story” hangs on a wall in a hallway at the FBI Academy in Quantico. The movie came out in 1959 and Jimmy Stewart autographed the poster in 1989. My son and I saw the poster during a field trip to Quantico with the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association in 2010.
Last week, I read a press release from the Knox County Public Library about an event on Sunday. They were having a free screening of “The FBI Story” because an early scene is set at the old Knoxville Library. Local historian Jack Neely spoke before the screening. He pointed out that the Knoxville scenes were filmed on a sound-stage somewhere, not on-location.
The library had set out ginger snaps, warm cider and popcorn. There were two scenes in the movie where boxes of ginger snaps were plainly visible. I thought they must have deliberately chosen to serve ginger snaps at the screening but the woman who provided the treats said it was just a coincidence.
The movie has the feel of a “Dragnet” marathon with a few elements of “The Glenn Miller Story” thrown in for good measure. Stewart’s FBI partner is played by Murray Hamilton, who also played Mayor Larry Vaughn in “Jaws.”
Later I watched the film’s trailer online and saw an erroneous claim that “Warner Bros. filmed it exactly where it happened.” Maybe the New York and Washington scenes were filmed on location, but probably not the Oklahoma or South America scenes and definitely not the Knoxville scenes. In a scene set in 1924, an FBI agent played by Jimmy Stewart proposes to a Knoxville librarian played by Vera Miles. She says no, unless he quits the Bureau. If the library has another screening, they can point out that the FBI’s Knoxville field office opened in 1937.
Academy, a Comedy
The featured article on the front page of Tuesday’s Knoxville News Sentinel was a first-hand account of Jamie Satterfield’s experience in the FBI Citizens Academy. Her experience was a lot like mine. I took the eight-week class two years ago. The article was a topic of conversation at the annual FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association holiday party on Tuesday night.
The group often holds its monthly meetings on Tuesdays, which is the same night that I perform each week with Einstein Simplified. When this year’s holiday party was being planned, I suggested that the event could be held at Side Splitters Comedy Club since I was going to be there anyway. Side Splitters turned out to be an ideal venue. Activities chair Pat Payne chose a menu of salad, chicken parmesan, risotto, mushroom ravioli, and shrimp.
Dinner was served in the showroom at 6:00 p.m. After we ate, Association president Dennis Reedy and Special Agent in Charge Rick Lambert made a few remarks from the stage. Lambert presented the outgoing officers with awards to show the Bureau’s appreciation. Pat Payne and I also received recognition for our efforts in helping to plan activities throughout the past year. Once the meeting was over, the showroom doors were opened to the general public. The FBIKCAAA members stayed for the 8:00 p.m. improv show, comprising about half of the audience.
Tall Order
FBI Special Agent in Charge Rick Lambert was on TV shortly after I got home last night. Coincidentally, I had just talked with him at the graduation ceremony for this year’s Citizens Academy class at the FBI building. Each new graduate posed for a picture with Mr. Lambert. The other board members and I were there to invite the class to join the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association and to attend our holiday social at Side Splitters Comedy Club.
Lambert and Dr. Bill Bass were interviewed on Fox 43 for a story about Neyland Stadium and the Body Farm, which aired right after the season premiere of “Bones.” The feature was part of a series called “Tennessee Truth or Tall Tale.” Anchor Beth Haynes and producer Amanda Dill investigated the claim in “The Blind Side” that there are bodies under the playing field. Readers of my blog know that the stadium houses a skeleton collection in the Anthropology Department’s offices, not buried under the turf.
After a commercial break, Todd Howell reported on the effect of weather on decomposing bodies.
Welcome to the Gun Show
The monthly meetings for the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association often fall on Tuesday nights. When they do, I have to leave early to get to the weekly Einstein Simplified show. I’m thrilled that the FBIKCAAA decided to hold its annual holiday party on a Tuesday night at Side Splitters Comedy Club. After the buffet dinner, I’ll hop onstage with the troupe and be part of the evening’s entertainment.
Our last two meetings actually took place on Saturday mornings. In September, we met at the East Tennessee Cremation Company. In August, we had a range day at the Knoxville Police Department’s training facility.
Stacie Bohanan, the public affairs specialist for the FBI’s Knoxville field office, allowed me to bring a camera crew from “Smoky Mountain Morning” to range day. I recently got a copy of the footage so that it can be shared with those who attended and might have missed seeing it the first time.
part 1
part 2
Crema-tour 2
“What exactly do you do for a living?” asked one of the members of the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association. He was
wondering why I seemed well-versed in the process of cremation. He didn’t know that I had already taken a tour of the East Tennessee Cremation Company and that I had read about the place in several books by Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson.
The FBIKCAAA held its monthly meeting at the crematory this morning. We saw a bit more than I did last year when I toured the place with the Bone Zones team. During the course of our visit, we saw a funeral director deliver a body. It was in a body bag, which he and Helen Taylor placed into a cardboard casket and then into the large cooler. We saw another cardboard casket taken out of the cooler and then placed into a cremator (pictured). We saw three bodies at various points during the cremation process. Two had to be moved forward to be closer to the flames. One was finished and was ready to be raked into a large container.
In the next room, we saw a container of brittle bones pulverized into “ashes” by the processor. That particular set of cremains was placed into a biodegradable Earthurn. One cup was placed in a regular Ziploc bag, which will be given to the family members. They may choose to scatter or save the ashes.
Bang, Zoom!
Members of the FBI Citizens’ Academy learn a lot about the mission of the Bureau during the nine-week course. The most memorable experience was when they put lethal weapons in our hands on range day. Those of us who are active in the FBI Knoxville Citizens’ Academy Alumni Association were anxious to get back on the KPD range and do it again. Our opportunity came yesterday.
Like I did two years ago, I shot four weapons on the range and tried two scenarios in the simulator. Yesterday the agents showed us a few new things. The Phil E. Keith Training Center now has a live fire shoot house in which the agents can storm into a room and take control of an unexpected situation. The first thing the FBI SWAT team did was toss in a flash-bang grenade, which was deafening. They then had to shoot the target that represented a bad guy but not the target that represented a hostage. Before our lunch break, we saw a demonstration of rappelling down a building in full SWAT gear.
After lunch, we got to go for a ride. The two Knoxville Police officers who train all the officers to drive squad cars took us for a ride around the driving course and over their state-of-the-art wet pad. The water is recirculated rather than wasted. We were told that Knoxville will host a law enforcement convention next year and that the wet pad will be a highlight of the tour.
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