UT alumna Carol Aebersold (bachelor’s in music education, 1970, and former music teacher in Scott County and Cleveland) and her daughter, Carol Bell, are the creators of the Elf on the Shelf phenomenon, which has placed an elf in hundreds of thousands of homes to watch over children and report to Santa at night. In 2005 they prepared the book (which started the craze) but could not get it published, so they published it themselves. Her daughter, Christa Pitts, sold her home and moved in with her parents, while Bell maxed out her credit cards to get the book printed.
In 2011 Elf on the Shelf inspired The Elf on the Shelf: An Elf’s Story, an animated television special on CBS. Aebersold wrote two original songs for the show. In 2012 the elf appeared as a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the brand went global.
Abersold and her husband, Bob, visited the campus in fall 2013 (her first trip back since graduating) and toured the new Natalie L. Haslam Music Center. They subsequently established a $100,000 endowed scholarship in the school.