1982

On a snowy winter day in early 1982, the Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce hosted city officials, country music personalities and a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd to proclaim part of main street “Johnny Cash Parkway”. Festivities were centered at the Amqui Station in front of the House of Cash. A resident of Caudill Drive, Cash told the crowd about driving along the Hendersonville shoreline fifteen years prior and seeing a man building a house. He told the man that he wanted that house to be his own.
An amusing memory of the day the road was dedicated to Cash came from Chamber President Bob Dulany. With limited space on the Amqui Station porch, Dulany became concerned when the U.S. Representative of Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District assumed he was to take one of those seats. Dulany had to confront the politician, asking him to take a standing spot instead. Several years later that person who was asked to yield his seat would be sitting in the office of the vice president of the United States, Albert Gore Jr.

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1970

In early February 1970, a handful of business leaders met for lunch to discuss the possibility of creating a chamber of commerce for Hendersonville. City Manager Sam Walton had escorted the notion of a chamber around town for several months and invited several business people to listen to advice from Gallatin Chamber President Bud Coley. Those attending also included Mayor Dink Newman, Jim McCloud, Cosmer Mir, Harvey Gardner, Elbert Jones, and Jack Simpkins. Others joined later: Bill Burgess, Johnny Cash, J. Dennis Sanders, John Steinhauer, Ralph Jones, Jerry Hunt, Johnny Hayes and William Sudekum. At that first meeting, Walton was selected chairman of the group, a position that would lead him into becoming the founding president. The board chose three projects for the coming year: develop plans for an airport for Hendersonville, prepare a directory for the Hendersonville Area and encourage the construction of an industrial road north of Cherokee Road to the railroad tracks. (The land later became Drakes Creek Park.)

 

More immediately, though, the chamber board edged into the debate concerning overcrowded schools in Sumner County. The bulk of the problem—using portables and split-shift school days—was at Hendersonville schools. The chamber’s board passed a resolution that “supports, urges and recommends that the Sumner County Quarterly Court be reapportioned at the earliest possible date.” Chamber officers felt that the root of the overcrowding problem was that Hendersonville had grown to 40 percent of the county population but was represented by less than 20 percent of the county legislative body. Courts agreed with the chamber and forced the county districts to be redrawn in mid-1972.

 

That led to the election of more county legislators from Hendersonville. They pushed through increased taxes and increased spending to pay for more school buildings. Within the next decade, the county built Wessington elementary, Indian Lake elementary, Hunter middle, and Beech high.

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1974

In late February 1974 the Concerned Citizens of Sumner County conducted a study of the costs of creating a school system for Hendersonville separate from the county system. The organization, seeking money to address overcrowded classrooms and overflowing schools, had taken their concerns to the county commission, state courts and the commissioner of education’s office.

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1971

On February 27, 1971, Mayor Dink Newman was reelected. At the time, the city government was composed of three commissioners. After each election, the three commissioners chose a mayor from themselves to be responsible for kissing babies, cutting ribbons, and chairing city meetings. Newman, first elected in 1968, won his uncontested commission race in 1971 with 30 votes from the city’s 532 people. The commissioners then reelected him to serve as mayor.

 

1972

A year later, on February 28, 1972, the population exploded when many residents were unwillingly annexed into the city. Newman and the other commissioners needed to pass three readings of the annexation ordinances and allow residents 30 days to contest them. The commission passed the first reading on January 13 to add ten square miles to the city’s 3.63 square miles. The local newspapers reported nothing of that action or the second passage on January 27. The commissioners set a special meeting and passed third reading a day later while the newspaper stayed quiet again, allowing the 30-day clock to start ticking quietly. When that clock hit midnight February 28, the city jumped to 17,000 people. Too late to contest the annexation, many residents marched to city hall for years, complaining about the Overnight Annexation.

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