by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

“Mooney’s has always told me what to do,” said Joan Thomas, Mooney’s Market and Emporium owner and mother. “Mooney’s is my child.” Thomas, soon to be 71, is retiring, but the ‘why’ behind that decision and what it means is as complex and nuanced as the market’s origin story.

The same year Raymond and Hazel (Goodman) Sanders built a home there, the mud-rut road passing their house was transformed into the legendary Dixie Highway, a road most people now refer to as Highway 41A. The Sanders sold gas, lived in the back, and out-front sold a miscellany typical of a general store. Thomas describes the location then as “in the middle of nowhere” between Sewanee and Monteagle. To put her observation into perspective, Monteagle did not officially incorporate until 1962.

Transfer of ownership of the Sander’s property over the next several decades followed matriarchal lines. Hazel hailed from the Goodman family who long ran the University farm. The next owners, Ward (Hazel’s brother) and Francis Goodman, claimed kinship to a woman who married into the Mooney family. Enter Paul and Georgia Mooney, namesakes of the present market.

The couple had a huge garden and sold vegetables. On the side Paul did lawnmower repair, while Georgia advertised her passion with a hand-lettered wooden sign out front, “African Violets for Sale.”

“I wish I could find that sign,” Thomas reminisces. Age caught up with the Mooneys, and they sold the property. Unoccupied for decades, the building fell into disrepair, the door standing ajar welcoming in rain.

In 2011, Thomas broke her leg, a complex fracture requiring steel to rebuild her stability and months in a wheelchair. Her then husband drove her around the property one afternoon. A few days later she was at the bank. “I wanted to save the building,” she said. “It came on me like a mission. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it.” She credits carpenter Paul Cahoon for thinking “outside the box” and insisting, “We can fix this.” Cahoon pressure washed the interior, banishing black mold, and did major carpentry rehabilitation, reinstalling the original stucco exterior on a replaced wall. Freed from her wheelchair, Thomas was there every day painting and scraping. “It became obvious to me what was in every room,” she said, recalling the mystical transformation she began to envision.

Her psyche battled her, though. Did she really want to open a store? Thomas was an accountant and bookkeeper by profession. “I always worked from home,” she insisted. In May of 2012, she put a handwritten sign in the window that read, “goat cheese.” “I had a little ice chest with some Humble Hearts goat cheese, a few antiques, and a tiny bit of Claire Reishman’s homespun yarn,” Thomas remembers. “Every week I started ordering more stuff and putting in more shelves.” Before long Mooney’s was selling a stellar array of organic groceries, ranging from grains to candy to organic lemons; fresh local produce, some raised on site in the garden and greenhouse she erected in back; natural health and beauty products and supplements; vintage and handcrafted art, especially creations by local artisans who would bring her pottery, furniture, glassware, and jewelry; yarn, yarn craft, and yarn art supplies; and, of course, by way of a nod to Georgia Mooney, African violets along with other plants and gardening tools.

“Georgia lived to be 103,” Thomas said. “She loved the store’s name, but not the sign.” Yet the smiling yellow moon logo over the door fittingly radiates the whimsical enchantment visitors encounter within. “I love this place. Every room is magic,” observed an interstate traveler who discovered Mooney’s by accident. “We stop every time we pass through on our way to Chattanooga,” said another.

But Thomas confessed, “In high school I had this vision of myself being an old lady with a backpack.” An art major in college, with a special love for the fiber arts, Thomas recently built a studio in her home. “I haven’t worked on a loom in 30 years,” she acknowledged. “For the past 30 or 40 years I haven’t had time for myself.” She set a goal of transitioning out of running Mooney’s over three years and working from home again by the time she was 70. When she opened Mooney’s, Mooney’s became her art, with bookkeeping on the side. Now her artist self is calling her to chart a different course.

Mooney’s is open seven days a week, a schedule in part determined by the need to sell perishable products. For a number of years, Thomas was at the store every day. “When you have a new baby, you don’t get any time off.” Finally, Thomas was able to take one day a week off, then two, then three. “She’s 14 now. She just started high school,” Thomas joked about her “special needs child.”

Thomas has two full-time employees and two part-time. “I struggle with giving up what Mooney’s gives me,” she admitted. “But me going away, doesn’t mean Mooney’s has to go away.”

Thomas has talked with two people who expressed an interest when they learned of her plans to sell the store. “There are offers on the table. I’d give a really good deal to the right person,” she insisted. “Obviously a new owner would want to make changes, but I want someone who will maintain the spirit of it. I wouldn’t just disappear. I’d be there to advise them in the transition.”

From the beginning, the small building on the Dixie Highway epitomized what a general store is — a place that caters to what the community wants and can’t get anywhere else. Thomas’s looms are waiting for her. Mooney’s is waiting for that special someone to mother the magic.

Phone Thomas at (931) 924-7400 or stop by Mooney’s to visit. “I’m there almost every day,” Thomas said, “even on my day’s off. Every day there is a joy.”

The new menu at the Blue Chair Tavern is a story about where the trail from the Low Country meets the road of Appalachia.

“The Blue Chair Tavern menu is Low Country cooking influenced by the Appalachian food culture, with a Creole Cajun emphasis,” said Chef Rick Wright.” It’s the commonality of it all — shared ingredients and cultures. It’s a merger of Creole, Spanish, French, Indigenous, and Scots — the diversity of people, their traditions and all their stories. That’s the heart and soul of food, and I want to carry those traditions forward.”

Wright is passionate about good food and people having access to good food.

“This passion comes from my heritage. I grew up in poverty in eastern Kentucky. I learned to cook from the women in my family — grandmother, mother, aunts. We cooked at home and ate food from the garden.

“All my life I have seen a lack of access to food and how it affects people. People struggle to put food on the table. Children go to school hungry or jacked up on sugar. Food insecurity outreach is a big need, and it is something I will continue to be involved in.”

This commitment to access good food has led to action. While the Director of Sewanee Dining, Wright started the Kitchen 2 Table program to benefit the Community Action Committee. The program receives unused portions from McClurg Dining Hall and repackages them into freezer safe, microwaveable meals. On average, the food donations create 500 meals a month for the CAC to share with their neighbors.

He also played a key role in the South Cumberland Summer Meals program, which provides meals to children and youth ages 2-18 at community partner sites in Franklin, Marion, and Grundy counties.

With the UT Grundy County Extension office, he opened a commercial kitchen, which provides nutrition education and serves a monthly community meal.

He has worked on creating healthy menus for the Jewish Federation and the American Heart Association. He also volunteers with World Central Kitchen, which serves chef-prepared meals to communities impacted by natural disasters and during humanitarian crises. “They call me when they need me,” said Wright.

“When the Blue Chair closed, John Clark, C’82, called me and asked if I wanted to go into business at the Blue Chair,” said Wright. “I didn’t see how it could work because the facilities needed work. It’s a tiny space which creates challenges. Then I realized other than places such as Shenanigans or the dining hall, you can’t really go out to eat every week in Sewanee. There aren’t that many every-day-working-man venues where you can get something good to eat at a good price. Plus, the closest place to get barbecue is in Monteagle. A smokehouse and a tavern were a piece of business entirely missing.”

Since the Blue Chair Tavern opened, Wright said the Shrimp Po’ Boy, gumbo and the smash burgers have been the most popular items on the menu. “We do everything from scratch. Food is sourced locally and regionally, such as produce, shrimp from the Gulf, and wild caught catfish. We will be using bison from the Lost Cove Farm, and lamb from Emmett Lodgson. We will soon run a blue plate special, which we are calling the purple plate, with food sourced locally.”

Current hours are 4–9 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. When the downstairs kitchen comes online, brunch and lunch will be offered. Provisions will also be available such as smoked meats, and pasta dishes purchased by the pound, boxed lunches and premade casseroles. Pizza offerings are also on the horizon. There are vegan and gluten free options available.

“We want to be the third place, where you can get a good drink, a good meal and feel included,” said Wright. “The story of The Blue Chair has always been about community and comfort, and we will continue that. I respect all that good work that has come out of there.”

The Blue Chair Tavern is located at 41 University Ave., Sewanee. To keep up with the next chapter of the Blue Chair Tavern, follow them on Facebook. Better yet, come on in and pull up a chair at the table. — reported by K.G. Beavers

by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

“Everybody knows what the caste system does to the people under the boot, but we don’t often talk about the inherited psycho trauma of what it does to the people who are wearing the boot,” said author Wright Thompson taking questions on March 24 in Convocation Hall about his new book “The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi.” A New York Times bestseller, frequently touted by reviewers as the “best book of the year,” “The Barn” is an eyes-wide-open journey into a storm of social, agricultural, political, and economic forces all manifestly blamable for the 1955 torture and murder of the 14-year-old black youth, Emmett Till. Thompson claims the Mississippi delta where the torture and murder occurred as his home. Unpacking Thompson’s comment about the psycho trauma experienced by the boot wearer underlies his prayer for the book. “This is a very precarious time for the South and to be Southern and to be proud of being Southern. Is there still such a thing as the South? What is our culture? What are our values? This book exists to me as a prayer that we might find a way to have a unified tribe of us.” The “us” Thompson speaks of are those who inherited the legacy of the former boot wearers, the slave holders, lynchers, and Jim Crow macrocosm that once dominated the culture.

Thompson’s long litany of locations erecting post-civil-war confederate monuments seemed as though it would never end. He juxtaposed the list to the decision confronting Till’s friend, 18-year-old Willie Reed who hid in the brush outside the eponymous “barn” of the book’s title and listened to Till’s screams turn to whimpers turn to silence. Reed chose truth. Reed and Till’s Uncle Mose who witnessed Till’s murderers yank him from the bed in the middle of the night were the first two black men to ever testify against white men. “We have no statues of Willie Reed,” Thompson pointed out.

Plagued by death threats, Reed fled to Chicago, found work and married. Twelve years passed before Reed could bring himself to tell his wife he even knew Emmitt Till.

Jeff Andrews who in 1984 bought the farm where the eponymous barn still stands knew nothing about the barn’s history even though his family was from a neighboring farmstead. Ultimately, Andrews’ father told him about the barn’s significance. “He [Andrew’s] was very kind to all the Till family members who were always coming out there,” Thompson said, “but he doesn’t understand what any of it has to do with him. And the reason is every single person of authority in his life, every coach, every scout master, every preacher, every parent told him it didn’t have anything to do with him.”

“Is there still such a thing as the South?” Thompson asked. “Who are we?”

Till’s best friend growing up in Chicago was his cousin Wheeler Parker. Sixteen-year-old Parker travelled to Mississippi with Till in the summer of 1955. Asleep in the adjacent room, Parker woke up when the men who abducted Till stormed into his room, but they passed him over. They wanted Till to avenge his whistling at a white woman minding the counter at a country store.

Asked what does justice look like to you, Reverend Parker, now 86, answered, “Memory.”

“Justice is never forgetting,” Thompson said. “Justice is you telling that story. Justice is every person here walking away with that story now part of their understanding of their home.”

“In the bookstore, there is almost nothing that says The University of the South,” Thompson stressed. “There’s one T-shirt, it says Sewanee. There is only one place called the University of the South. It feels incumbent in a place like this to model what it means to be Southern, in the way you go about your lives and your traditions and your values and how you relate to your neighbor. If there’s going to be a South, let it start here.”

Veteran investigative journalist and Sewanee resident Lee Hancock brought Thompson to the attention of the program’s sponsors, the University’s Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation, the Sewanee School of Letters, and The Sewanee Review. Following his talk, Thompson signed free copies of “The Barn” available to everyone attending.

by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

In a split vote at the March 29 Monteagle Council meeting, the council voted down Alderman Dean Lay’s motion, that “Sargent [Alhafiz Ibn] Karteron be dismissed from employment from the town of Monteagle effective immediately for his actions previous to and including [the arrest of] Rodney Kilgore.” Heated discussion followed the vote, with Monteagle business owner Kilgore threatening a resident, “I’ll knock the piss out of you.” Under pressure from Monteagle police, Kilgore honored officer Chad Locke’s request to leave the meeting.

Lay’s motion referenced Karteron’s Sept. 15, 2025, arrest of Kilgore for false imprisonment, vandalism, and resisting arrest. In support of Lay’s motion, Alderman Dan Sargent said, “We’re a body responsible to the citizens of Monteagle that voted us into this seat. The judicial system has ruled in favor of the business operator arrested wrongly … the charges were dismissed and he’s been expunged … we have the responsibility to act.”

Mayor Greg Maloof responded, “I called the investigator of the district attorney. He said the case was closed. There were no proceedings against the officer.”

Concurring, Police Chief William Raline said, “I have not received any written complaints on him [Karteron]. He’s not done anything illegal or immoral in my eyes. If he has done that, bring it up. Let’s investigate it.”

Lay and Sargent voted for dismissal. Maloof, Alderman Grant Fletcher, and Alderman Nate Wilson voted no.

Applause followed the vote. Explaining his decision, Wilson said, “We have a lot of strong opinions on this matter, but what we don’t have as a council is written documentation and a written statement of fact. Rodney, if you have an issue, I encourage you to fill out a complaint form which will start the investigative process.”

Kilgore countered with complaints and accusations and threatened a resident who disagreed with him. More applause followed Kilgore’s departure.

Kilgore has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Karteron, Raline, and the town of Monteagle seeking $9 million in damages “for violations of rights secured to the Plaintiff under the United States Constitution.” Maloof said the council could not discuss the lawsuit because the case was under litigation.

In other business, the council approved funding for several civic projects: $8,500 for American Holly evergreen plantings on the greenway; $3,500 for landscaping at City Hall and the police station; $1,300 to retain a designer for the Veterans Park project; and $1,048 for tables and chairs at the Senior Citizens Center. The center also received a $100 donation from Crippled Hookers Taxi and Towing, as well as $250 in towing services, and the offer of a free ride to and from the center’s bingo night.

Likewise on the civic enhancement front, Monteagle has several grant projects underway. Trees received from a Tennessee Division of Forestry grant will be planted at Hannah Pickett Park and the fire hall, with planting by High Canopy tree service at no cost to the town. A TN 250 semiquincentennial grant will fund a mural on the west side of the fire hall. And donation will fund the planting of an American Holly tree on the greenway to serve as the town’s official Christmas tree.

Taking on new business, the council approved a resolution to apply for a Community Development Block Grant for waterline improvement; a resolution required by the state governing incurrence of indebtedness; adoption of a debt policy to comply with state law; and a resolution to enter into a loan agreement to finance critical sewer treatment needs.

In another split vote, the council approved a task order requesting the city’s engineer to conduct a study (cost $55,250) to determine the financial impact of development on present and future water and sewer infrastructure needs. Maloof observed many municipalities and cities charged developers impact fees to cover future water and sewer infrastructure costs. Lay voted against the task order, arguing Monteagle could charge impact fees for residential development. Fletcher pointed out, “The only thing we’re voting on tonight is giving the engineer permission to move forward. When we get ready to look at impact fees, that will be a whole separate policy, and we can exclude residential if we need to.”

Monteagle will host an Easter egg hunt, music, and a potluck lunch from noon to 2 p.m., April 4, at Hannah Pickett Park. A “Put litter in its place” town cleanup is planned for 9-11 a.m., May 2.