Well-known Cherokee dancer killed in accident

photo Scott Crisp, a Cherokee traditional dancer, performs as audience members look on at the Cherokee Days of Recognition in Red Clay State Park in Cleveland, Tenn.

Scott Crisp will never pound the earth with the Cherokee bear dance again.

McMinn County, Tenn., resident Crisp, a widely known traditional Cherokee dancer, storyteller and historian of Cherokee lore, was electrocuted Monday while working on his catering truck just outside Etowah.

Crisp, 45, and friend Kimbal Hyde were working on the wiring in the truck around lunchtime Monday when Crisp told Hyde a metal table in the truck was shocking him, according to a McMinn County Sheriff's Office report.

Crisp had started moving the wiring under the table as he looked for the problem when, Hyde said, his friend starting yelling for help.

Hyde, seeing Crisp's hand clenched around the wires, kicked the wires away and immediately called 911 and started CPR until an ambulance arrived, the report states. Hyde tried talking to Crisp but he was unresponsive.

Crisp was pronounced dead at Starr Regional Medical Center, just a mile away from the accident site.

McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy, also a local historian, said he and the boisterous Crisp had worked together on American Indian history and culture projects over the years.

"He was friends with everybody. He was somebody who represented his culture well and represented his community well," Guy said. "He was a great resource for all those things, and he'll really be missed."

Meredith Willson, chairwoman of Athens, Tenn.'s Pumpkintown festival committee, said Crisp, of Cherokee descent, was a fellow committee member who brought vitality and culture to the festival in McMinn County's seat.

"It's just a shock. He was the heart and soul of Pumpkintown," Willson said, noting Crisp was active with other local history organizations.

"Scott was just 20-something when he started at the [McMinn County Living Heritage] Museum," she said.

Crisp "was pretty well renowned in the Southeast and he even went as far as Michigan," she said. "What he lived for was to do powwows and Cherokee gatherings."

Willson said Crisp would have been at a Pumpkintown committee meeting Wednesday, but now they're discussing dedicating the next festival in his honor. He will be buried today at McMinn Memory Gardens.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.

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