Both died in 2024
The list of notable Chattanooga area residents who died in 2024, published in this paper earlier this week, should have included the names of Fred Skillern and Moses Freeman.
The list is drawn almost exclusively from the published obituaries in the Times Free Press, which are submitted by families of the deceased, but neither Skillern’s nor Freeman’s family submitted an obituary.
Skillern, a former influential District 1 Hamilton County commissioner and Board of Education member, died in January. He served around 20 years on the school board and was appointed to the commission in 2001, then was elected to three terms before losing in 2014.
A businessman, he was a watchdog of taxpayer money, financially wise and desirous of quick, efficient meetings when he was commission chair. Behind the scenes or publicly, as when he and his wife donated $3 million in memory of their son to develop a cancer institute at CHI Memorial Hospital, he also was a noted philanthropist.