Mark Kennedy is a columnist whose work appears in several sections of the Times Free Press. His human interest column "Life Stories" appears each Thursday in the Region section. He also writes the "Test Drive" automotive column in the Saturday and Sunday Business sections and the "Family Life" column in the Sunday Life section. He is contributing editor of the Edge business magazine. Kennedy has won the Tennessee Press Association's first-place awards for column writing 10 times, and is also a five-time winner of the newspaper's Best of the Best contest in the columnist/reporter category. He has also been the newspaper's features editor, Sunday editor and opinion editor. Before the merger of Chattanooga's two newspapers in 1998, he was the coordinating editor of the Chattanooga Times. Kennedy lives on Signal Mountain with his wife and two sons.
This photograph from Chattanooga's Armed Forces Day parade in May 1958 is brimming with mid-century nostalgia.
by Mark KennedyIf anybody understands the chemistry that binds identical twins, it should be Kaitlyn and Madison Hitch.
by Mark KennedyMy sister, who is in her 50s, recently mused to my 13-year-old son, "Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat."
by Mark KennedyThis 1953 photo features the northbound Dixie Flyer, a famous passenger train that passed through Chattanooga on its route from Chicago and St. Louis to Florida and back.
by Mark KennedyIt's not a moment Eric Zumbrun will soon forget.
by Mark KennedyI saw a meme on Facebook last week that made me laugh. It read: "It's weird being the same age as old people." That's exactly how I feel: Older, but unfinished.
by Mark KennedyWho doesn't love a parade?
by Mark KennedyLloyd and Winnie Flessner met in the 1940s at the Calvary Evangelical United Brethren Church in Lansing, Michigan.
by Mark KennedyThe year was 1947. Chattanooga businessman Hugh Wasson, president of the Colonial Baking Co. here, had just been elected mayor of the city, promising more budget transparency and new school construction.
by Mark KennedyI'm teaching a class (face-to-face) at a local university this semester. At the same time, our older son, 18, just left home to attend college in Alabama.
by Mark KennedyPhil Spencer, 84, bought his beloved property on South Chickamauga Creek 20 years ago with a grocery sack full of money.
by Mark KennedyAs the Chattanooga Red Wolves soccer club warmed up minutes before its first-ever game at CHI Memorial Stadium in East Ridge Aug. 1, the brand-new stadium's PA system cranked out an old Elvis Presley hit: "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You."
by Mark KennedyIntegrity. Diligence. Compassion. Translated to human actions, these three words can mean: Do the right thing, work hard and love others.
by Mark KennedyFresh out of Samford University in the early 1960s, Birmingham native Jim Pesnell went to work for International Harvester. His sales job entailed driving a big truck.
by Mark KennedyWhen Nashville native Marley Lentz arrived for a marketing internship at Chattanooga's Office Furniture Warehouse in 2016, he was handed a "to-do" list by the boss to complete during his time with the company.
by Mark KennedySometimes the generation gap in my family feels like a canyon.
by Mark KennedyThis 1953 photograph recalls the heyday of the Home Stores, a chain of Chattanooga-area groceries.
by Mark KennedyFourteen years ago, Brandon Ellis hit rock bottom.
by Mark KennedyThis is the week I've dreaded for 18 years. Our older son — our firstborn child — leaves for college.
by Mark KennedyFor much of the 20th century, Incline Drug and Surgical Co. in St. Elmo was a hub for healing and a center for commerce.
by Mark Kennedy