Two exceptional JROTC cadets from South-Doyle High School have achieved a remarkable milestone by securing full-ride Army ROTC scholarships, paving the way for their college education without the burden of financial strain.
Zach Barrier and Sam Trumpore, both deeply committed to serving their country, will be attending Carson-Newman University together, embarking on their journeys toward becoming officers in the United States Army.
For Barrier, the legacy of military service runs deep within his family, stretching back to the Revolutionary War.
“It’s kind of a family legacy,” Barrier said. “It feels like I’m part of something bigger than myself.”
With an interest in becoming a physical therapist, Barrier recognizes the scholarship’s value not only in alleviating financial stress but also in providing a secure future with a fulfilling career.
Trumpore’s motivation stems from the career prospects and the opportunity to serve his country, and he views the scholarship as a gateway to pursuing his passion for criminal justice, with aspirations of attending law school post-graduation.
His journey through JROTC has not only instilled discipline and work ethic but has also served as a catalyst for personal growth, transforming him from a reserved kid to a confident leader.
“It’s really opened my eyes to how much I can do if I just put my mind to it,” Trumpore said. “It helps you build a work ethic and learn to stay committed to things.”
Both cadets credit their involvement in JROTC for shaping their character and providing invaluable leadership experiences.
Barrier, who has held various leadership positions within the program, highlights the program’s impact on his athletic pursuits, enhancing his performance on the baseball team and fostering a sense of camaraderie among his peers.
Trumpore emphasizes the transformative power of JROTC, which not only helped him discover his passion for running but also equipped him with the resilience and determination necessary to overcome challenges.
Retired Maj. Marcus Vartan, the JROTC instructor, highlights the program’s primary objective of nurturing well-rounded individuals who are committed to serving their communities.
Through extensive community service initiatives, including Civil War cemetery clean-ups and food bank volunteering, cadets are instilled with a sense of civic duty and empathy, preparing them for future leadership roles.
“Our mission is to motivate young people to be better citizens,” Vartan said. “And we see that mostly through community service, in becoming good teammates, and working as a team.”
This year’s service learning project was working to solve food insecurity in East Tennessee through partnerships with Beardsley Farms and Second Harvest Food Bank.
On campus, their continuous improvement project had the battalion renovate an old rugby shed into usable conference rooms, study spaces, and a weight room for the cadets.
The Cherokee Battalion also set the JROTC national record two years ago for the most flags retired: 6,132 in total.
These projects are just the beginning of the program’s involvement in their community and school.
Vartan emphasizes the significance of the Army ROTC scholarships in recognizing cadets’ academic, athletic, and leadership achievements, and last year, South-Doyle had a record of three cadets who earned the coveted scholarship.
As Barrier and Trumpore embark on their college journeys, they epitomize the values of dedication, service, and leadership instilled by the JROTC program.
With the support of the Army ROTC scholarships, they are poised to make significant contributions to their communities and nation while pursuing their academic and professional aspirations.
For National Coaches Day, Hall Pass sat down with four Knox County coaches, all of whom are highly respected. For this piece, they dug through a lifetime of memories and shared advice for their students.
Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length or clarity.
Gwen Jackson, Girls Basketball Coach at Austin-East High School
How long have you been coaching, and what initially drew you to be a coach?
I have been coaching since 2005. I tore my ACL and was pregnant with my daughter when I was released from the Phoenix Mercury. I wanted to do something different while I was rehabbing my knee and coaching was it. I started out coaching at my old high school in Eufaula, Alabama where my career began, and coached my baby cousin Terran Condrey. She went on to play at Baylor, and she played and won a National Championship there playing alongside Brittney Griner. Then I coached in the CIAA at Saint Paul’s College for three years as an assistant coach and one year as a head coach. Then I coached at Austin-East High School from 2012 to 2018. I took a small break and then had the opportunity to come back and coach last school year, and I am still here to date. Coaching is my passion, my calling. I love it to the fullest and thank God for the platform.
What is the best memory you have as a coach?
My best memories as a coach are coaching my daughter and my son. Tennessee Knockout Elite is my and my husband’s AAU team and watching my daughter Janiya and my son Jaiden follow my legacy is such an honor and a blessing. Watching them be coached by their father is even bigger. They are truly something special.
What life lessons do you try to teach your student-athletes?
I try to teach them about being a good person, a good student, and then a good athlete. Grades and character are highly important as an athlete. Athletes represent a brand, a name, an organization, or a school. Playing for a team is bigger than you. Then I focus on competing, giving it our all, and being accountable is important.
Eddie Courtney, Football Coach at Farragut High School
How long have you been coaching, and what initially drew you to be a coach?
I’ve been coaching for over 45 years, and I’ve been here at Farragut for most of those years. It’s been a good place to work, teach, coach, and have kids come through here. It’s been a very positive thing for me all these years. That’s why I’ve stayed here. I’ve had some opportunities to go to other places this is where I was comfortable to coach the way I felt like I needed to coach. The community wants successful things going on around them, and they support you. It’s been a very positive thing for us.
What’s your favorite thing about Farragut?
We just try to be the best we can here. In this community, they want people to do well, they support you, and try to give you all the resources they can. I guess now I’ve been through five or six principals all these years, and they’ve all been people who’ve kept up this reputation and tradition we built here. We’ve had some really good principals here. I’ve seen a lot of kids come through here who wanted to go college, get a degree, be successful, and be a good athlete.
What life lessons do you try to teach your student-athletes?
I teach all my kids a little bit about being an adult, decision-making, and being a strong person. You live with integrity. You stand on your own two feet, do the best you can to work hard for things. Things are not going to be given to you. When you have setbacks, you have to revert back to your training or the culture of your program because those are things that carry you through. If those are not solid things, then you’ll stay scattered and not know the direction you’re trying to go. Just be real, take advice, and be coachable. Communicate with your coaches and your teachers, and give them respect because they’re trying to help you. I also tell them to find a passion they really enjoy doing. The sooner you find out what it is you really want to do, the sooner you can apply yourself to be successful in doing it.
Carol Mitchell, Softball Coach at Gibbs High School
How long have you been coaching, and what initially drew you to be a coach?
This is my 31st year of coaching. I initially had no intentions of being an educator or a coach. That was not something that was on my radar. I was a math major and I didn’t know what I was going to do with a math degree. I took some education classes and ended up getting certified to teach. It just so happened that I went to school here and there was a math position available. My old softball coach, who was still here coaching at the time, was like, “Come on, let’s go.” I helped him my very first year, and then the second year, he went to coach baseball, and I took over the softball job. It’s been interesting. It seems like it’s gone by really fast.
What is the best memory you have as a coach?
It’s really hard to narrow it down. The obvious choices would be the state championship teams. In a few of those state championships, we were kind of expected to win. 2017 was our most recent state championship and that one was special. We’d always been a AA school, but for four years we were bumped into AAA. I think I used it as motivation to be better because people knew we were good at AA, but they didn’t think that we would do very well in AAA. When we ended up winning the state, that kind of solidified that we could play at pretty much any level. That was a really proud moment.
What life lessons do you try to teach your student-athletes?
It doesn’t really matter how talented you are, if you work hard to achieve something, you can achieve that goal. I’ve had situations where a kid is a sophomore and doesn’t get to start until their senior year, but they keep working and finally, they make it to starter. Or maybe they never make it to be a starter, but they are one of the leaders on the team because of their work ethic. You can outwork people at work and be a great employee. You can work hard and be a valuable person on a team, at your job, or in life.
Don Madgett, Track & Field and Cross-Country Coach at South-Doyle High School
How long have you been coaching, and what initially drew you to be a coach?
This is my 27th year as head coach in both cross country and track. I think probably my high school experience led me to this life. Cross country has a lifestyle that goes with it. The team culture and being able to maintain that as a coach was something that was appealing to me.
When I started teaching, I knew from reading the paper that there had been some good runners here at South-Doyle. One of them, Anthony Norris, is the principal of South-Doyle Middle. He was an all-state runner-up, but he had run for Coach Prince, who was still here when I got here. He was a mentor of mine for a bit, but what I found was that this place had a rich history in this building. There have only been three coaches ever at South-Doyle since 1968. Melvin Maxwell was the first, and he coached for about 29 years. Then Prince was the coach for a bit, and then I have been the coach for the past 27 years.
I’ve always held the ideal of the long-term teacher coach. Community coaches have value. Some coaches change schools. Some only stay in the profession for a little while, but I think the ideal for me has always been to stay in one place. Once I found my place, I would want to stay forever if I could. As for why I’ve stayed here, as one of our assistant principals said, “At this school, running was sacred.” It was the highest compliment I’ve been paid in my coaching career.
What is the best memory you have as a coach?
Successes are always nice. In my first year, we qualified for state, and we had the region meet down along the river in Sequoyah Hills. There was a little dock going out into the river and the team ran and jumped off it for their celebration afterward. That was the fall of 1997, my first year as head coach.
What life lessons do you try to teach your student-athletes?
Cross country is the sport where you can find that you can do things personally you never thought you could do, and that’s something that you can take into other realms in the larger life and bigger world.
This sport is one where you can come to high school without all the skill sets you might need in other sports, but if you’re willing to work at it, be patient, and put some time in, you can be successful in high school and have a great career.
So-Kno Robo at the 2023 Smoky Mountains Regional competition that qualified them for Worlds.
So-Kno Robo, South-Doyle High School’s robotics team, returned from the FIRST Robotics Competition in Houston with a winning robot and an energized perspective to encourage STEM in South Knoxville.
Often referred to as “Worlds,” the FIRST Robotics Competition welcomes over 600 teams from across the globe to compete in a robotics game.
FIRST releases the game guidelines to the participating teams in January, and the teams have until mid-March to design and build their robots before regional competitions begin.
This year, the game called for the robots to move cones from the floor onto poles and inflatable cubes onto wooden boxes. Several teams crafted robots with arms or elevators to lift and place the game pieces, but So-Kno Robo thought outside the box.
“What we figured out really early is that we could be really consistent if we launch it,” said engineering teacher and So-Kno Robo sponsor Kathleen DeVinney.
This spark of ingenuity led the team to win the Creativity Award in their division at Worlds and a nickname around the competition: the Cube Experts.
While the team performed well at the competition, DeVinney’s favorite moment of the trip had nothing to do with robots.
“They have this block party and seeing the kids have so much fun with kids from a completely different team from across the country was a moment like, it’s more than just robots,” she said. “It’s the connections that these kids get to build with these other people that they’ve never met before that are just like them.”
DeVinney hopes that the success of the team invigorates the students and the South Knoxville community around robotics and STEM.
So-Kno Robo has been involved with nearby schools to mentor their LEGO Leagues, an international robotics group for elementary and middle school students. They also attend the schools’ STEM nights to show off their robots to create interest in robotics. The involvement and exposure at an early age will prepare them for robotics when they enter high school, DeVinney said.
She also believes more students at South-Doyle will be inspired by their peers and find an interest in robotics.
“We have a lot of diverse kids here, so this gives them the opportunity that they maybe never would’ve had to get them excited for STEM and engineering and wanting to keep going with it,” DeVinney said.
Watch videos of their FIRST Robotics Competition matches and more information on their season here.
South-Doyle High School athletic director and football coach Clark Duncan (left) and KCS energy manager Zane Foraker discuss new LED lights that were recently installed at South-Doyle and stadiums across Knox County.
A project that aims to save energy and improve lighting for Knox County students is making a visible difference at high schools across the county.
Earlier this year, the Board of Education approved a proposal from Trane Technologies to convert school lighting to LED technology, using new and retrofitted fixtures. The $26.1 million project is fully self-funded through guaranteed utility and operational savings, and will replace existing lighting in classrooms, parking lots and other settings.
Perhaps the highest-profile change has come at athletic fields. Replacement lighting has now been installed at most of the district’s stadiums, and has not only resulted in improved visibility, but also provides additional features to promote school spirit.
Unlike traditional stadium lights which need to warm up, the LED system can be turned on and off immediately. The new system can also provide light-show style displays with multiple colors and patterns.
Clark Duncan, football coach and athletic director at South-Doyle High School, said the quality of the Trane system was immediately noticeable, especially compared to the previous system.
“There were times on our field that there were dark spots, at times it wasn’t lit well enough,” Duncan said. “We were told that the new system was going to be like daytime, and oh my gosh, it’s just like daytime. It’s like noon at nine o’clock. It’s amazing how well you can see.”
At South-Doyle, School Security Officer Michael Cain has worked with student leaders who asked to implement a light show after the third quarter of football games. With approval from administrators, students pick a song that is played as part of the display.
Cain said student attendance has risen this year, adding that “To me it makes Friday nights even better.”
Ultimately, of course, the lighting project is all about reducing energy consumption and providing savings for schools across the district — even on the football field.
Zane Foraker, energy manager for Knox County Schools, said that instead of turning stadium lights on several hours before a game, coaches can now wait until they’re needed. After games, they can be automated to turn off at midnight. Most important, he said, is the cost savings from lower energy use.
“This is paid for with the energy savings. So over the term of the contract Knox County is not spending any money on these, they pay for themselves.”
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