AUGUST 2023

The Issues: I Knew Nashville Before It Became “Nashville”

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief, Timber Processing

The SFPA Expo heads to Nashville, Tenn. August 23-25, to be held at the Music City Center downtown. The event has been held every other year in Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center. It will be interesting to see how it fares. The Expo hasn’t done that well when venturing away from Atlanta, such as to Dallas and New Orleans, but SFPA Executive Director Eric Gee has pieced together a great exhibitor floorplan. It’s possible the show will draw more Midwest lumbermen than in the past. The question is will the Deep South southern pine lumber producers continue to make the trek?

They’re missing out if they don’t, not just to take in the new show venue, or sit in on the Productivity & Efficiency Conference that we organize for the Expo, but to experience Nashville itself. The city is absolutely bursting at the seams (more like already come apart at the seams) with business development and population growth. There’s even talk Nashville may get a major league baseball team, to go along with its existing NFL and NHL sports teams.

I know a little bit about Nashville. Working for Ralston Purina, my dad (and our family) was transferred (as would happen back in those days) from Bloomington, Ill. (where I was born—we actually lived in nearby Heyworth) to Nashville in 1962. Heyworth was a small farm town and all we knew about Nashville was the Grand Ole Opry. I was going into the second grade at H.G. Hill Elementary School while my two brothers were entering seventh and 10th grades at nearby Hillwood High School.

How long ago was that? Well, consider that after school I would come home and my mom and I would watch country music variety shows on television. One was the Porter Wagoner Show, during which he introduced a young girl named Dolly Parton; another was the Bobby Lord Show; and if memory serves me, there was the Bill Anderson Show (who can forget his hit song, “Still”).