The Tennessee RiverLine announced the recipients of its 2022 awards at the 6th annual Tennessee RiverLine Summit, which was held on January 23, 24 and 25, 2023 at Lake Guntersville State Park in Guntersville, AL. The Tennessee RiverLine’s awards program recognizes communities, individuals, and organizations who best demonstrate leadership through their commitment to the transformational vision for North America’s next great regional trail system, and who embrace its guiding principles through innovative Tennessee RiverTowns programming.
“The Tennessee RiverLine is powered by partnerships. It stands as a testament that we can achieve something together that no one could accomplish alone,” said Brad Collett, Director of the Tennessee RiverLine and Professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “Our team, the UT Institute of Agriculture, and our principal partners, UT Knoxville and Tennessee Valley Authority, continue to be inspired by the many and innovative ways that our partners in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee put these ideas into practice in their community and across the region.”
This year’s awards celebrate partners who have made substantial contributions to the ongoing impact and development of the Tennessee RiverTowns Program. Their individual and collective efforts in 2022 exercises the program’s potential as a framework for collaboration to fulfill the vision for the Tennessee RiverLine and the economic development, public health, resource stewardship, and equitable access benefits it promises future generations.
In 2022, more than 220 volunteer members who constitute the 20 Tennessee RiverTowns Local Leadership Teams organized river animation and stewardship events, advocacy efforts, and other initiatives to raise awareness of the Tennessee RiverLine and facilitate community engagement. Each community’s Local Leadership Team is offered the opportunity to nominate a single member of their team who demonstrates exemplary effort and leadership through their participation as an Extra Mile Award recipient. Rena Purdy received one of the 2022 Extra Mile Awards. Purdy, who is Executive Director of the Wayne County Joint Economic Community Development Board, has worked tirelessly on the Tennessee RiverLine program in Clifton, TN.
“All of our partners have made meaningful and essential contributions to the Tennessee RiverLine initiative this past year,” said Lizzy Gardner, Tennessee RiverLine Programs Director. “We’re moved by the effort and commitment these recipients have shown, and it’s their impacts that will further inspire the work we share to make the Tennessee RiverLine vision a reality.”
The Tennessee RiverLine is North America’s next great regional trail system, a multi-generational initiative that offers economic development, public health, resource stewardship and equitable access benefits to 2.4 million people in diverse Tennessee River communities in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.
