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The 2008 Trailblazer Award can best be
understood by tracing the life of John Rice Irwin, the founder, heart
and soul of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee. Building his
living history museum over a span of 40 years, collecting the artifacts
of his mountain people and his past—and more importantly, the oral
histories behind them. The 2008 Trailblazer award is respectfully and
admirably presented to John Rice Irwin.
Irwin, now 77, said he’s lost none of his “zeal, zest, admiration and love for the people of this region.” On the land his ancestors settled in the 1780s Irwin’s interest in the history and stories of his people was sparked and kindled at an early age. As he listened to his grand- parents’ tales and watched as they tended their farms and flocks even as a youngster, he saw that the only record of their way of life was through their stories and the physical objects they left behind. Irwin was eventually to take to heart his Grandfather Rice’s advice: “You ought to keep these old-timey things that belonged to our people and start you a little museum sometime.”
After serving in the U.S. Infantry during the Korean conflict, receiving his bachelor’s degree (magna cum laude) at Lincoln Memorial University with majors in history and economics. He later earned a master’s degree in international law from the University of Tennessee. He was a teacher, school principal, and in 1962, became the youngest elected superintendent of schools in Anderson County, and the youngest superintendent in the state.
Irwin became a man with a mission, traveling the countryside in his spare time to find and “save the past” before it was discarded or destroyed. As Irwin often states, “if you take the people out of the item, you have, to a great extent, destroyed its importance.”
The Museum of Appalachia grew from a single log building to an extensive village-farm complex, encompassing more than 35 original mountain structures, thousands of authentic Appalachian artifacts, gardens surrounded by split rail fences, and a variety of farm animals in a traditional farm setting. The Museum has been featured in dozens of national magazines, including a Smithsonian article noting: “John Rice Irwin has built such a name for himself” that the Museum he founded is often referred to as “John Rice Irwin’s Museum of
Appalachia.”
A mandolin and guitar player himself, Irwin founded his own mountain music group, the Museum of Appalachia Band, which has performed on several national television programs and on a film shown at Disney theme parks throughout the world.
Author of seven nationally and internationally distributed books. He was one of
29 MacArthur Foundation Fellows in 1989, one of three Southerners (and the only Tennessean) to receive the honor that year. In 1992, the East Tennessee Historical Society honored him, as one of nine East Tennessean’s “whose accomplishments have distinguished them far beyond East Tennessee.” Of all the accolades and awards he has garnered over the years, however, he prizes most the designation by his hometown of Norris as the 1988 Citizen of the Year.
Thus, mirroring the mission of the Uncle Dave Macon Day's Festival, as the mission of Irwin’s Museum of Appalachia has always been to “preserve the past for future generations.” we proudly bestow to John Rice Irwin the 2008 Trailblazer Award. |
