The Trail of Tears District Boy Scouts honored Kenneth âCoonâ Victory with the Smyrna âGood Scout Awardâ for his service to the community and raised $10,000 in donations at their annual luncheon last week.
About 40 people gathered inside the Smyrna Train Depot to support the Scouts and celebrate Victoryâs receiving of the highest honor for citizenship of the Middle Tennessee Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Victoryâs wife, Esther, and daughter, Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed, were also in attendance.
The council has been giving out the award to a distinguished community member each year since 2017, according to Trail of Tears Senior District Executive Phillip Heikkinen. This year, Victoryâs name was one of the first to come up in the discussion of nominees.
TAYLA COURAGE
Connecticut-native Kenneth Sawyer said that this large stone
marker wasnât visible when he first moved into his Murfreesboro
home last August. It was covered behind masses of overgrowth and
tree saplings. He, Rutherford County Historical Society member
James Allen Gooch and President of the New England Historic
Cemetery Restoration Project, Inc. Michael Passmore have put in the
work to restore the family burial site of the Carothers and
Fletchers over the last few months.
TAYLA COURAGE
Rutherford County Historical Society member James Allen Gooch
demonstrates witching, a âlow-techâ process used to locate graves
in the cemetery. The same process was once used to locate sites for