Member of the class of 1896 and president of the Women’s League of the university, Helen Thorburn was the institution’s first female employee. She was appointed assistant registrar, assuming her duties on September 9, 1895.

Laura Thornburgh, who wrote under the name Laura Thornborough, is best known for The Great Smoky Mountains, which was first published by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1937. A 1904 UT graduate, she participated in a wide range of activities on campus. She was a member of Chi Omega sorority and Phi Kappa Phi; served as … Continued

Ground was broken for the Thornton Athletics Student Life Center on March 3, 1999. The grand opening of the newly constructed Thornton Athletics Student Life Center was on April 21, 2001. The principal donor making this facility possible was Chattanooga businessman and UT Board of Trustees member John C. Thornton, who contributed $1 million. Thornton … Continued

John “Thunder” Thornton was born and grew up in Maryville, Tennessee. He earned the bachelor’s degree in business management from Tennessee Wesleyan College in 1975. He began his business career selling knockoffs of oriental carpets. In 1984 he founded American Rug Craftsman, the nation’s largest producer of decorative floor mats. The company continually posted $100 … Continued

Grace Francis Thorpe [NoTen O Quah] earned the baccalaureate degree from UT in 1980, not long before her 60th birthday. Her Sac and Fox nation name, NoTen O Quah, means “Woman of the Power of the Wind that Blows Up Before a Storm,” and she lived up to her name both as a Native American … Continued

The music for “Three Little Fishes,” a nonsense song, was written by UT student Josephine Carringer, and she modified the words of an English nursery rhyme, “Over in the Meadow” to fit the tune. In the summer of 1938, Berenice Iddens had heard the verse from a friend and recited it to her friends, Josephine … Continued

John Tickle graduated from UT in 1965 with a BSE in industrial engineering and also holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina. He became the owner and president of Strongwell Corporation, the world’s leading pultruder of fiberglass reinforced composite structural shapes and building systems. In 1924 the first phase of Strongwell was established … Continued

Country music star Pam Tillis attended UT in 1979. The daughter of country music great Mel Tillis, she began to study music at the age of eight and studied classical piano at Blair Academy. She sang with her father at the Grand Old Opry when she was eight. At age 15, she began singing in … Continued

In honor of athletics trainer Tim Kerin, the University of Tennessee Campus Ministries’ Council and the Athletics Department annually sponsor a special food collection at one of the home football games to aid Second Harvest Food Bank. The drive is targeted toward providing emergency food baskets for needy families during the holidays. As a special … Continued

The Tim Kerin Sports Medicine facility, located in the Anderson Center, is the current location of the facility first opened in Neyland-Thompson Sports Center as an 8,000-square-foot facility. It is operated by the Athletics Department’s sports medicine staff. The facility provides health care and wellness to each student-athlete. The licensed pharmacy was the first state-licensed … Continued