It was the year one of Nashville's sports legends met a fate no one could have imagined, or wanted. It was the year two of the secret shapers of the city as we know it were gone within a few weeks' time, and the year two of the cornerstones of our R&B heritage were stilled forever. In some cases the losses made headlines and brought traffic to a standstill; in others, public notice in no way measured the impact these lives brought to bear on the city. Here, in the words of writers, friends, colleagues and close confidantes— and in stories of death-defying risk, brazen hilarity and sober reflection—are some of those we lost.

ARTS & LETTERS

DAN MILLER

1941-2009

Journalist, television host, longtime WSMV-Channel 4 co-anchor

by Demetria Kalodimos

I miss him at the stoplight every night.

Though we worked the late shift, and didn't see much traffic, we always stopped at the same red light on the ride home.

He'd turn left

I drove straight.

But never before exchanging a funny face, a complaint about today's radio playlists, or a prompt to listen to a certain Porter Wagoner tune on 650...

When Dan Miller took that last left turn, there was still so much to say.

So many more things he wanted to accomplish and write down and do.

A radio show, a screenplay, hosting the Oscars (I told him he'd be great)

Making an embarrassing toast at Squirt's wedding, watching his grandchildren succeed.

As we pause at the last light of 2009, I search for words...and find a few for tonight's ride:

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

—Kenji Miyazawa

ROBERT CHURCHWELL SR.

1917-2009

Pioneering African-American journalist, columnist, Nashville Banner

by Pat Embry

We want our trailblazers to have neat, tidy, awe-inspiring stories. That's not who, or what, Robert Churchwell Sr. was all about.

The Jackie Robinson of Southern journalism wasn't the type to steal home with spikes high. Nor would you describe his dignity—and he was a dignified man, at ease in coat and tie—with the clichéd "quiet."

He was a tough guy, that's what he was.  

When Churchwell was hired at the Nashville Banner in 1950, he broke the color barrier for Southern journalism at a prominent newspaper. It was an unheralded revolutionary development, and one not without controversy. The local black community at times criticized him for working at the then-notoriously segregationist newspaper. It sure was better than being a bellhop, though, his previous gig.

 It took him years to so much as land a desk in the Banner offices at 1100 Broadway, though, relegated as he was to working from home. Took a while for Jim Crow to clear out his own desk, you see. For the last 20 years of Churchwell's career, he covered education—no high-profile column on the editorial page for this trailblazer.

After his 1981 retirement, Churchwell was the recipient of numerous journalism honors. Shortly before the Banner folded in 1998, he was coaxed into writing that high-profile Banner editorial column. By that time, the paper's managing editor was a young African-American woman.

 Churchwell, whose papers reside not in Nashville but at Atlanta's Emory University, lived just long enough for Barack Obama's swearing in as president of the United States. His ultimate legacy, though, is family. Churchwell and his wife, Mary, raised a house full of achievers: five children, educators and medical professionals all. The eldest, longtime Metro schools administrator Robert Churchwell Jr., recalls that early on "The Old Man" instituted mandatory family housecleaning chores, each and every weekend, accompanied by classical music on the stereo. No exceptions. At night, missing curfew by so much as a minute meant dealing with The Old Man.

His widow recalls their children bringing him pieces they had written for school. Her husband's typical first reaction: "Hand me a pencil."

 Tough guy. Tougher journalist.

G. ALEXANDER HEARD

1917-2009

Vanderbilt chancellor, 1963-82

by E. Thomas Wood

A single episode from the turbulent 1960s defines Alexander Heard's chancellorship in the minds of many Nashvillians, for better or worse. When Vanderbilt's Impact Symposium invited Black Power advocate Stokely Carmichael to speak on campus in 1967, the resulting firestorm of opposition from university trustees and other influential locals appeared to threaten his career.

Supporters rallied in defense of Heard, who was determined to maintain an open forum on campus for even the most controversial ideas. But after supporters of Carmichael rioted following his speech, Nashville Banner publisher and V.U. trustee Jimmy Stahlman blamed Heard directly in an editorial. To this day, there are people of means in Nashville who refuse to donate to Vanderbilt out of continuing pique over the Carmichael incident.

To much of the student body and faculty, however, Heard emerged a hero. When Columbia University tried to hire him away a couple of years later, an outpouring of pleas from supporters on campus helped sway him to remain and "complete the assignment" at V.U., according to university historian Paul Conkin.

If Heard's fortitude cemented his legacy, it was his acumen that got him to the chancellor's job in the first place. A protégé of renowned political scientist V.O. Key, Heard published a book in 1952 predicting the rise of a Southern wing of the Republican Party, even though the South at the time remained solidly Democratic.

In 1956, he briefed a congressional committee on how unions and corporations were getting around campaign-finance laws, decades before the era of McCain-Feingold. In 1967, he addressed another committee on the widening gap between college costs and income from tuition, advocating federal aid six years before Congress created the Pell Grant program.

Small wonder, then, that presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon each named Heard to commissions and task forces on issues ranging from presidential campaign costs to intergovernmental relations to campus affairs.

EDDIE JONES

1924-2009

Former Nashville Banner editor, executive vice president of Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, gatekeeper of the city's secrets

by Liz Garrigan

If you're enjoying an on-the-rocks elixir at a Nashville bar, raise a toast to Eddie Jones. There are many reasons—too many civic contributions to list—but the one in front of you dates back to 1967, when Jones was the primary political strategist in the referendum campaign to approve liquor by the drink. (Before that, you had to bring your own bottle and mixers, which of course is no fun at all.) Back then, he was working officially at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce—but it was behind the scenes that he was shaping the city.

As a founding member of the secret Watauga society, the circle of affluent Nashville businessmen whose progressive puppetry guided the city on issues of the day, Jones worked largely within circles of privilege and power. Like his contemporary and fellow Wataugan Nelson Andrews, he saw how power was shifting within and outside the city, and he got wealthy up-and-comers from the city's burgeoning suburbs to join forces with Nashville's boardroom class, developing grand civic plans and attracting industry and jobs.

Jones was an insider's insider—enough so that he made an ill-fated run for mayor in 1987. He returned that year to the Nashville Banner, where he'd been a cub reporter nearly four decades earlier. Partly out of journalistic pride, partly because he'd paid his dues, he wanted the story first and he wanted it right. "He did not suffer PR folks lightly who foolishly either didn't point the news toward us first, or at the very least leave something juicy for the p.m. cycle," says Banner veteran Pat Embry, who worked with him.

Long after the afternoon newspaper's office went dark and the storied institution was shuttered in 1998, information remained currency for Jones. He got a swank office and title at the PR firm Dye, Van Mol & Lawrence, though it wouldn't have mattered if his client list were utterly nonexistent. He was an ex-officio member of the press, and he had a bunch of calls to make.

As with his close colleague Andrews, the loss of Eddie Jones leaves a huge tear in the fabric of the city. His number's still in my Rolodex.

Full Eddie Jones obituary

IDANELLE "SAM" McMURRY

1924-2009

Second headmistress of Harpeth Hall School

by Nicki Pendleton Wood

If you could shape the ideal headmistress in a girls' school, she'd look a lot like Idanelle S. "Sam" McMurry. Comfortable in her skin, quietly commanding in presence, judicious and perfectly poised, she was the ideal that parents envisioned for their daughters in the years when women's roles were changing from "hope to marry a prince" to "want to be a Supreme Court justice."

McMurry arrived at Harpeth Hall in 1963 to find no alumnae office, no development, and no administrative assistant. She set to work on fundraising almost from scratch, overseeing creation of a development office that raised $1 million for a new library by 1966. She presided over the creation of the middle school and the launch of "Winterim," the off-campus study program. Under her leadership, the curriculum expanded to include the "soft" sciences, women's basketball went to full court, and non-athletes could choose from non-team, ball-free activities such as dance and aerobics.

McMurry left Harpeth Hall in 1979 for an equally distinguished career at Hockaday, a Dallas private school. Harpeth Hall's institutional memory didn't forget her, and it seems a piece of her heart stayed at the school. In 1999, she told an interviewer that her 16 years at Harpeth Hall were the most meaningful in her career.

Her middle initial "S" stood for goodness-knows-what, so someone stuck her with "Sam"—which she was called by everyone, bold and timid, at a time when calling adults by their first names was simply not done. "Sam" was okay with it. Like the leadership she never asked for, she wore her nickname easily. Whether as Idanelle, Miss McMurry, Ms. McMurry or Sam, a generation of Nashville old-girls feels fortunate to have known her.

Full McMurry obituary

Chantay Steptoe-Buford

1960-2009

Longtime researcher, archivist, The Tennessean

A three-decade veteran of 1100 Broadway's fourth-floor archive, the ebullient Steptoe-Buford was a persistent ray of light in the Tennessean's musty morgue. She was a novice reporter's best friend, faced her own adversity with admirable toughness, and made life better for anyone who came in contact with her.

Full Chantay Steptoe-Buford tribute

ARTS & LETTERS REMEMBERED

TIM CHAVEZ

1959-2009

Journalist, blogger, passionate advocate for charter schools and immigrants' rights

As a Tennessean columnist, and later at his blog Political Salsa, Chavez never let ideology sway his firm convictions of right and wrong: liberals and conservatives alike felt the lash of his scorn, if he felt they were putting dogma above decency. His blog reporting of the Juana Villegas story, which triggered a national outcry, was a public service as well as a major scoop—a fitting cap to a feisty career.

Full Tim Chavez obituary

HERBERT C. GABHART

1914-2009

Chancellor and retired president of Belmont University

Henry Gibson

1935-2009

Actor, child stage star, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer

Even though Gibson, the master comic and character actor whose milquetoast looks could turn sinister with a shift of the light, was a native Pennsylvanian, he will always be associated with Nashville for his role as Haven Hamilton, the country star who shows his true colors during the assassination climax of Robert Altman's landmark 1975 film Nashville. He was one of us.

EVA TOUSTER

1914-2009

Poet, emerita professor of English at Peabody College, co-founder and editor, Cumberland Poetry Review

For 40 years, Touster hosted a biweekly gathering where poets read, shared and critiqued one another's work.