Larry is a native of Weakley County having grown up in Sharon. He graduated from UT Martin with a degree in Business Administration and from UT Knoxville with a Master’s in Industrial Management. After getting his Master’s Degree, he joined Eastman Chemical Company, a division of Eastman Kodak in Kingsport, Tennessee. He worked in a number of corporate communications, public relations and marketing jobs for Eastman. When he retired from Eastman in 2005, he was Director of Global Marketing Communications.

After retirement, he founded True Bearing Communications, a marketing and communications consulting firm. He has worked for clients in the Aerial Mapping, Golf and Transportation business. He has been working with the Kirklands and Development of Discovery Park for the past two years, primarily in the areas of public relations and marketing.

Next week, Ken Williams, general Manager for West Tennessee War Eagles, a semi pro football team out of Jackson, TN visits with an outline of the current season. He will also introduce the staff and players of the team, along with general information on the league itself. We can also look forward to Ken outlining a playoff picture of the upcoming 2010 season.

The War Eagles have been accepted to be a new franchise in the Gridiron Developmental Football League. In their inaugural season, they plan to showcase the best talent in our region and produce a quality product on the field that will also be reciprocated off the field.

Projections say the team will be placed in the Southwest division which looks to be very competitive and therefore give the team an opportunity to make a statement in their inaugural season.

More information on the team may be obtained by visiting kenwilliams@west10wareagles.org. This Web Site will announce new and exciting team and league information.

Last week, was the first full meeting under our new officers, and as in the past year, there was a bit of un-ga-wa going on before the business at hand began.

The intimidators were at it again, this time at the expense of new member Michael Hagan, President and CEO of Reelfoot Bank.

It was Michael’s turn to be roasted as a new member and Mike Cox made the best of it. As always, Mike had done his research, going all the way back to elementary school at Fulton City where Michael attended in his early years. He had some information which you can be sure that even Michael had forgotten, or wishes he could forget, such as his nickname in school, having the last name of Hagan, he was tagged "Festus" of the old Gunsmoke Series. Michael took it all with grace, but his face did get red on more than one occasion. There was another member on the list for the proceedings, but he apparently got news of it and was not in attendance.

Art Sparks adlibbed a bit at the expense of another new member, Wes Kennedy, but ended up letting him off the hook for the time being.

Then it was on to the serious business for the day, as Art turned his attention to the purpose of installing two of our members into that group of "Paul Harris Fellows" of Rotary.

Art had also done some research on these two recipients as well, reminding each one of them of their past, where they went to school, prodding Steve on the difficult time he had finding a job once he graduated from law school and several other mistakes , such as distance perception and a few other discriminating facts which only Art could have dug up.

After a short acceptance speech from Steve, Art introduced the second recipient which was Dr. David Parks (Retired).

When the proceedings ended, both recipients were surprised, by seeing their family file into the room for the purpose of helping celebrate the occasion.