For our premiere episode, we broke from our usual one-on-one format to bring you an abbreviated — but nonetheless colorful and complicated — history of the Nashville Banner: a look at the days of a two-newspaper city, from people who lived it, day in and day out, in the storied newsroom at 1100 Broadway.

This episode was first broadcast in April 2024.

Guests

• Parker Toler, paperboy
• Mary Hance, reporter aka Ms. Cheap
• Kay West, writer aka Betty Banner
• Robert Churchwell Jr., son of Robert Churchwell, the first Black reporter in Nashville
• Tam Gordon, reporter
• Bruce Dobie, reporter
• Larry McCormack, photographer

Credits

• Host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or Amazon.

Further reading

• Alive, Dead and Alive Again: A History of the Nashville Banner

The post A Look Back at the Old Banner — From People Who Were There appeared first on Nashville Banner.

From a young age, Hal Cato knew he wanted to help others — from a chance encounter with a senior in an assisted living center to recruiting friends to help him deliver Meals on Wheels. That drive has brought him into leadership at some of Nashville’s most prominent nonprofits — including Hands On Nashville, Oasis Center and Thistle Farms. And it brought him very close to a run for mayor.

“I’m still attracted to the underdog today, those who are marginalized and just sort of on the outskirts,” Hal says. Today, he sits at the helm of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which oversees more than 1,500 funds and hundreds millions of dollars to help those in need. How to best direct and coordinate those resources in a fast-changing city is a challenge Hal feels up for, even if it means changing

Disclosure: CFMT is a sponsor of Banner & Company. Sponsors do not influence coverage.

Guests

• Hal Cato, CEO, Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee

Credits

• Host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon or iHeart Radio.

The post Hal Cato: CEO, Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee appeared first on Nashville Banner.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations, raising questions about the feasibility of such an operation and, at the same time, causing fear in immigrant communities across the country. Here in Nashville, local authorities have stayed away from strident rhetoric, but this week Tennessee lawmakers introduced two bills aimed at undocumented immigrants — one that would require law enforcement to transport them to “sanctuary cities” and another that would require state IDs to distinguish citizens from noncitizens.

Tessa Lemos Del Pino is the granddaughter of migrant farm workers who once associated with the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez. Today, she is the executive director of Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors, a nonprofit law office that helps people navigate the complex and time-consuming immigration system. Her office has been inundated with messages this week, as the specter of drastic enforcement measures hangs over undocumented Tennesseans and their families.

Guests

• Tessa Lemos Del Pino, executive director, Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors

Credits

• Host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon or iHeart Radio.

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“I had a brain bleed. I was in a coma. I had a broken jaw, broken nose, crushed eye socket, crushed sinuses, collapsed lungs. They had to intubate me twice. I mean, his intent was to kill me.”

The Dept of Justice’s investigation of Trousdale Turner is now prompting some former staff to tell their stories, including a female guard so badly beaten by an inmate in 2020 that she’s never been able to work again.

“I was in a coma for eight days,” she told the Banner.

The former guard, whose identity we have protected, is just now talking about what happened to her. She was among the first wave of new guards at the prison when it opened in 2016. She’s undergone at least four surgeries and is worried about millions in medical bills, her declining credit and ultimately losing her home.

Update: After publication, District Attorney Jason Lawson from the 15th District told the Banner that Robert King Vaughn Jr. was quietly prosecuted for attacking the other woman in this case. He was sentenced to 60 years for aggravated rape and 60 years for attempted first-degree murder, to be served consecutively for a total sentence of 120 years.

The post Former CoreCivic Prison Guard Talks for First Time Since Horrific Beating at Trousdale-Turner appeared first on Nashville Banner.

It’s on the periphery of a busy Mt. Juliet shopping center, a place few people explore. But here’s a question. Even after 10 years or more, when pollution caused by construction is out of sight, should it ever be out of mind?

You don’t need to be a scientist to notice that something is going on at this site near The Paddocks shopping center in Mt. Juliet: The water is fuzzy and orange and it’s been the subject of litigation spanning more than a decade.

The developer says it’s done its best to clean up a small tributary that’s well hidden from view. However, an environmental group says walking away should not be an option.

The post What’s the Source of the Orange Water Flowing Behind a Mt. Juliet Shopping Center? appeared first on Nashville Banner.

The 2024 election is in the books. At the city level, Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit measure won big. What was different this time, as opposed to the failed 2018 plan? As expected, Republicans dominated statewide elections, but what comes next for Democrats, who eked out a must-win seat in the state legislature but made no significant gains?

And with a second Trump administration on the horizon, what could that mean for Tennessee’s congressional delegation? Demetria sits down with three members of the Banner team to dissect the results and discuss key takeaways.

Guests

• Steve Cavendish, president and editor
• Stephen Elliott, metro reporter
• Sarah Grace Taylor, state government reporter

Credits

• Host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon or iHeart Radio.

The post Nashville Election 2024: Analysis appeared first on Nashville Banner.

On a cold night in 1985, the Rev. Charles Strobel, then pastor at Holy Name Catholic Church in East Nashville, invited the people who were trying to sleep in the parking lot to come inside. This gesture, which he already knew might alter the course of his life, eventually grew into a citywide program known as Room In The Inn, now comprising 200 congregations, offering shelter and warm meals to those in need. It has become a national model, and the city’s first permanent supportive housing facility, Strobel House, bears his name.

Charlie, as most knew him, passed away in August 2023. Three years earlier, he sat down with his friend John Spragens for an interview. The Banner‘s Demetria Kalodimos was behind one of the cameras as Charlie shared some of the major influences on his life: an encampment of unhoused men who befriended him as a child; attending school in Washington, D.C., during the height of anti-war protests there; a professor who read the Sermon on the Mount every day. This special episode draws from that interview.

Guest

• Rev. Charles Strobel, founder of Room In The Inn and author of the posthumously published memoir The Kingdom of the Poor

Credits

• Producer and host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Editor: Steve Haruch

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon or iHeart Radio.

The post Rev. Charles Strobel, founder of Room In The Inn appeared first on Nashville Banner.

In some ways, his upbringing helped prepare Tyler Mahan Coe for creating the breakout country music history podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones. After all, his father is David Allan Coe, and Tyler spent more than a decade touring with him as a member of his band. He also has childhood memories of stars like George Jones, thanks to a connection with producer Billy Sherrill.

But even that kind of proximity to country music doesn’t guarantee a gift for storytelling, or Tyler’s maximalist approach to taking the genre’s many crisscrossing storylines and turning them into wide-ranging, richly contextualized episodes. The podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones is the work of a true obsessive who not only cares deeply about the subject matter but also how it connects to other currents of history and culture. Tyler has adapted Season Two of the show into a new book focusing on George Jones and Tammy Wynette, with illustrations by former Nashvillian Wayne White.

Guest

• Tyler Mahan Coe, host of Cocaine & Rhinestones and author of Cocaine & Rhinestones: A History of George Jones and Tammy Wynette

Credits

• Host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon or iHeart Radio.

The post Tyler Mahan Coe, creator of Cocaine & Rhinestones appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Bo Mitchell has represented District 50 for a dozen years and the Bellevue representative has been an often pugnacious presence as part of the Democratic superminority in the state House. His opponent this time, Goodlettsville’s Jennifer Frensley Webb, entered the race as Republican after she won a seat on the Metro Council last year.

Because we at the Banner believe in more than just soundbite coverage, I sat down with Mitchell for a one-on-one interview. We think you can tell a lot about a candidate when you listen to them in their own words — much more so than in a 30-second ad or a flyer that’s been mailed to your home. 

Unfortunately, Webb declined our invitation to talk about the race. After multiple scheduling issues, a representative for Webb said that she just couldn’t carve out the 15 minutes we needed from her schedule.

Early voting in Tennessee begins on Wednesday. You can find individual pages with written questionnaires for each candidate as part of our 2024 Voter’s Guide.

The post Hear Bo Mitchell on the Race for House District 50 in His Own Words appeared first on Nashville Banner.

A few days before Christmas in 2008, a six-story tall, 84-acre mound of coal ash — a byproduct of burning coal — collapsed at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tenn. The toxic sludge burst through a retaining embankment, knocked houses of their foundations and tossed cars around like toys. All in all, a billion gallons of toxic sludge filled the Emory River and 300 acres of the surrounding community of Kingston.

In his new book Valley So Low, writer Jared Sullivan examines the spill, the years-long cleanup and its aftermath. Although TVA officials told the public the coal ash was not toxic, many of the workers who toiled to remove the waste from the area eventually became sick. The book focuses on one small-time attorney and the legal battle that ensued over whether TVA and Jacobs Engineering, the company it contracted to remediate the site, should be held responsible.

Guest

• Jared Sullivan, writer and author of Valley So Low: One Lawyer’s Fight for Justice in the Wake of America’s Great Coal Catastrophe

Credits

• Host: Demetria Kalodimos
• Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

Subscribe to Banner & Company on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Amazon or iHeart Radio.

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