In Memoriam 2024: Media & Entertainment

Alicia Henry

Visual artist, beloved Fisk professor

Beloved Fisk University professor and visual artist Alicia Henry was everyone’s favorite. For Fisk students, her steadfast support and quiet enthusiasm often made her their favorite professor. In the art community, her bold but enigmatic artworks were frequently cited as the city’s best. 

Henry was born in Chicago on May 11, 1966. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, then studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture before receiving an MFA from the Yale University School of Art. Among her many accolades were a Joan Mitchell Foundation award, a Ford Foundation Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has been shown at influential institutions like the Whitney Museum and the Drawing Center in New York, as well as Nashville’s own Frist Art Museum, which hosted Alicia Henry: Black and Blue in 2003. She was also respected internationally, and had recently been featured in solo shows in both Canada and the U.K.

After graduating from Yale, Henry taught art in Ghana with the Peace Corps, and upon returning to the U.S. she worked on South Dakota reservation Pine Ridge. Drawn to the art collection at Fisk, Henry decided to relocate to Nashville in 1997. In 2023, a retrospective of her work titled simply Alicia was exhibited in Fisk’s galleries. The curator, Fisk’s director Jamaal Sheats, was one of her first students.

Henry died Oct. 16 from cancer. At her request, Fisk University’s Alicia Henry Scholarship fund was established for art students at Fisk, where she was on staff for nearly 30 years. She is survived by her mother Katie Henry, her sister Charla, her brother Julian, her niece Gaybrielle Henry and her sister-in-law Gia Gates-Henry. —Laura Hutson Hunter

Nikki Giovanni

Stargazer, poet, teacher of power and love

I learned Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa” in school, when no other poet — no idea of what a poet could be — looked like me in the classroom. No other contemporary Black poets crossed the school pages, and we barely glanced at Langston Hughes. 

I loved learning of her love for Tupac when I too newly loved Tupac. Much later, I learned of her participation in the Black Arts Movement. I learned that she wrote powerful works right here in Nashville at Fisk. I learned she trusted her voice, cowered for no one, responded in her truth, treated every moment of feeling alive and Black as a kind of revolution. 

In 2022, over lunch at Sewanee, I learned what fancy bottle she ran to the liquor store to buy if Toni Morrison planned to visit her and Virginia Fowler’s home. She looked up at stars. She stretched her soul to Mars. When I learned she exited this side of breath, I wept. Joy-tears for what she gave us. And grief-tears because I love her. 

And she loved herself! I learned that when creating from a deep well, why scrape the muck from the bottom when it could be filled with true love instead? So I learn to love myself too. Thank you, Nikki Giovanni. —Ciona Rouse 

Joe Elmore

Journalist, host, aficionado

To multiple generations of Tennesseans, Tennessee Crossroads was and is essential viewing. For decades, Joe Elmore was the face of that popular Nashville PBS program, and a warm and welcome presence in living rooms across the state and the Southeast.

An Arkansas native, Elmore received a journalism degree from Arkansas State University and a master’s degree in broadcasting and film from the University of Memphis before anchoring the weekend news desk at Memphis’ Fox affiliate. But before long, Elmore brought his kind face and buttery baritone to Crossroads, where — for more than 30 years — he reported on the Volunteer State’s diverse array of artists, craftspeople, communities and natural wonders. Elmore was also a musician and a car aficionado, and hosted automotive cable programs including Horsepower TV and Musclecar.

A legend in local broadcasting, Elmore was always game for new experiences — whether that meant sampling the fare at a roadside diner or crank-starting an ornery vintage car, the task was always performed with a smile on his face. He was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Nashville/Midsouth Chapter’s Silver Circle in 2014. After a long struggle with illness, he died in June at 80 years old. —D. Patrick Rodgers 

Robert “Bob” Mode

Visual artist, Vanderbilt professor

Bob Mode was a real mensch. Ask anyone who had the privilege of being his colleague during his 45-year career at Vanderbilt University, which recruited him to the faculty in 1968. Ask any of the thousands of students he educated and mentored during his four-and-a-half decades as department chair, director of graduate studies, and director of undergraduate studies for the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt. Ask anyone who worked with him on public art issues with the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies and the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt.

Ask his wife, artist Carol Mode. Ask his daughter Emily, his son Dan, his brother Art and other cherished family members. Ask anyone who spent even 30 minutes with Bob on the Vanderbilt campus, shared a table at a dinner party, sat beside him on a flight to Europe, where he and Carol traveled often, or chatted at an opening reception at Cumberland Gallery, which for years represented Carol.

With Bob Mode, there was no such thing as small talk. He was genuinely interested in what you were working on, how your family was, how you were, where you had recently traveled, new places you had eaten, what show you had last seen. He listened, he engaged, and he was quick with a laugh, a pat on the back or a reassuring hand on the shoulder.

Bob Mode was a brilliant, kind, gentle man. A true mensch. Ask anybody. —Kay West

Steve Lowry

Photographer, journalist 

For more than 30 years, if there was a Belle Meade party, a society soiree, a black-tie ball, a white-tie gala or a music industry hoedown, Steve Lowry was there. Rather than a cocktail, he held a camera, and in his quiet, unassuming way, he captured countless moments that were treasured by clients and subjects.

Lowry was a teenager when he dedicated himself to pursuing a career in photojournalism and moved from Kentucky to Nashville to achieve it. He started at the Nashville Banner, which was then the city’s daily afternoon newspaper. Like other staff photographers, he chronicled the Metro Council, Capitol Hill, the courthouse, crime, fire and tragedy. Unlike many of his colleagues, he cheerfully took on Nashville’s party scene with Betty Banner, the paper’s longtime society scribe.

When the Banner folded in 1998, Lowry’s music-biz connections took him to TNN, then to the Ryman Auditorium as the in-house photographer. He had a prolific freelance business, shooting for Music Row labels, publicists, nonprofits and corporations, and his work appeared in Billboard, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, The Tennessean, Music Row and many more local and national publications.

Even in the face of severe health challenges, he ended every conversation with the gentle words, “Enjoy the day and those around you.” —Kay West

Mary Neville

Artist, Tennessee Watercolor Society board member

Artist Mary Neville, a West Virginia native, studied at both West Virginia University and Parsons School of Design. She was an accomplished watercolor painter, and she taught commercial art at a West Virginia high school before meeting Garth E. Neville, an engineer with the Dupont Corp. After they married, the couple relocated to Old Hickory, and were married for 62 years until his death in 2018. 

She served on the board of the Madison Art Center and the Tennessee Watercolor Society, and she was a member of the Nashville Artist Guild and the Kentucky, Southern and Tennessee Watercolor Societies. She is survived by nephew Richard Laidley Field, his wife Jami and their three children, as well as her cousin Thomas Laidley Hutchinson. —Laura Hutson Hunter

Mandisa Hundley

American Idol contestant, Fisk Jubilee Singers alumna, Grammy winner  

Much of America met Mandisa Hundley in 2005 when she auditioned for American Idol. A successful backup singer, she took center stage and eventually finished ninth in the competition.  

But Nashville met her much earlier than that. Hundley graduated from Fisk University in 2000 with a degree in music and was part of the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers during her college years. She was remembered by her classmates in a celebration of life earlier this year. She was also remembered by her Nashville-based American Idol colleagues — including Danny Gokey, Melinda Doolitte and Colton Dixon — who honored her with a rendition of her hit song “Shackles” on a live broadcast of the show’s latest season earlier this year. 

After American Idol, Hundley released a half-dozen albums in the contemporary Christian and gospel space. She frequently collaborated with Christian music scene heavyweights TobyMac, Amy Grant, Matthew West and Kirk Franklin, among others. In 2014, she won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Album with her record Overcomer. 

Hundley died in her Franklin home at age 47 in April. —Hannah Herner

Alice Zimmerman 

Gallerist, public servant, fierce ball of fire

There’s an archival photo from The Tennessean that shows stylish people, wine glasses in hand. It is captioned “A packed crowd mixes and mingles at the Zimmerman/Saturn Gallery during the ‘An Artrageous Evening Saturday’ event Nov. 14, 1987.”  Somewhere in that throng is the fierce ball of fire Alice Zimmerman. 

The rest of the story goes like this: The Chicago native grew up in Atlanta, moved to Nashville to raise her two children, and Nashville was never the same. With her friend Nancy Saturn, she founded Zimmerman Saturn Gallery, the first art gallery on what was then a very sketchy Second Avenue. There the dynamic duo launched the careers of many young local artists.  

The gallery was one of five that hosted the first Artrageous, founded in 1987 and spearheaded by John Bridges; it grew into one of the best parties of the year, as well as Nashville CARES’ biggest fundraiser.  As executive director of the Metro Arts Commission, Zimmerman co-founded the annual Summer Lights music and arts festival, which ran from 1981 until 1997. 

Professionally, she segued out of the arts world and into public service, creating the Special Advocate of Victims of Violence Program at Nashville’s Night Court, co-founding the Mary Parrish Center for Victims of Domestic Violence and, in 2003, receiving the YWCA Academy for Women of Achievement Award. 

On Dec. 3, the Metro Council passed a resolution posthumously honoring Zimmerman’s life and legacy, noting, “When Alice saw injustice in the world, she set out to fix it.” By force of her steel will, she did. —Kay West

Courtney Harkins 

Actor, musician, hard worker

Even though Courtney Harkins spent just a short time in Nashville, she left a lasting impression on the local theater community. Originally from Pittsburgh, Harkins grew up loving music and theater. She performed throughout high school and college, and was also an accomplished flutist, going on to earn a degree in music education from Duquesne University. Harkins moved to Nashville in 2017 and quickly established herself with local organizations, including Circle Players (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Newsies the Musical, The Full Monty) and the Larry Keeton Theatre (9 to 5 the Musical).

She would later return to her native Pittsburgh, where she remained until her untimely passing on Aug. 23 at just 31 years old. Nashville friends and fellow actors remember Harkins for her unwavering kindness, good humor and professionalism. “Courtney was such fun and extremely talented, although she was never one to flaunt that,” says Zach Williams, who often shared the stage with Harkins. “She was a hard worker and had such great enthusiasm — whether she had a lead role or was part of the ensemble. She just wanted everyone to be at the top of their game, so that the show could be its very best.” —Amy Stumpfl

Adele Akin 

Actor, talent, theater community fixture 

If you’ve attended many community theater performances in the past 40 years or so, you’re likely familiar with Adele Akin, who died on July 3 at age 70. Born in Jamestown, N.Y., Akin attended Fredonia State University before serving in the U.S. Army. During her time in Germany, she was attached to the Entertainment Showcase, where she performed for NATO military and civilian audiences. Akin went on to graduate from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and later received a degree in theater arts from Thomas A. Edison State College. She and her family moved to Nashville in 1983, and she served for many years as executive director of the Tennessee Board of Bar Examiners.

A fixture in the local theater community, Akin performed regularly with Circle Players, ACT 1, Boiler Room Theatre, Towne Centre, Pull-Tight and more. Favorite roles included Martha in Arsenic and Old Lace, Gooch in Mame and Miss Hannigan in Annie. “For fellow actresses in the same age group, Adele was one of those stellar performers who made you want to just leave when she showed up for auditions,” says actor Pat Street. “But you couldn’t bear a grudge. You knew there was going to be no one better for the role, whatever it was. And once she was in a cast with you, there was no one more loving and accepting.” —Amy Stumpfl

Lewis Kempfer 

Actor, director, author, jack-of-all-trades

Growing up in Denver, Lewis Kempfer discovered an early love of singing and acting. He moved to Nashville in 1995 to pursue a career in country music, and would go on to earn a degree in management from Trevecca Nazarene University. He co-founded the Boiler Room Theatre in 2000, serving as the company’s managing director and resident “jack-of-all-trades.” Audiences often marveled at Kempfer’s uncanny ability to maximize BRT’s tiny space, as he directed and designed big splashy musicals like A Chorus Line, Anything Goes and, perhaps most famously, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast — all on a stage that measured just 16 by 28 feet. His elaborate, themed lobby displays also were legendary.

An award-winning author, Kempfer would chronicle BRT’s unique story in his 2022 book 120 Seats in a Boiler Room: The Creation of a Courageous Professional Theater, while his 2019 memoir Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just Having a Bad Life explored personal trauma and struggles with depression and addiction. Kempfer moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to pursue a dream job with the Walt Disney Co., and eventually returned to his native Colorado, where he was a member of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus and volunteered as a reader for sheltered animals. Friends remember him for his beautiful singing voice and sweet spirit. Kempfer died on May 14 at the age of 58. —Amy Stumpfl

Tom Mason 

Musician, actor, raconteur, pirate

Tom Mason was a self-described musician, actor, raconteur and pirate. But for those closest to him, he will be remembered simply as a kind and generous friend. Originally from Minnesota, Mason picked up the guitar at age 11, and was a regular in the Twin Cities music scene before settling in Nashville in 1993. Over the next 31 years, he became a beloved collaborator, playing in various bands and establishing his own, Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers, in 2010. He produced several albums of original Americana and pirate music, and was inducted into the International Pirate Hall of Fame in 2023.

As an actor, Mason toured nationally with Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash and performed with Actors Bridge and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, among others. Audiences will surely remember his swashbuckling turn as Feste the Fool in NSF’s delightful Twelfth Night in 2021. Though undergoing cancer treatment, Mason contributed original songs and served as music director for the production.

“I’ve played with a million musicians here in Nashville, but Tom was special,” says fellow musician and actor Laurie Canaan. “He wasn’t afraid to let you in. He was unabashedly himself — so genuine, so full of joy. He had the biggest heart, and I’m forever grateful to have called him my friend.” Mason died on Aug. 31 at age 65. —Amy Stumpfl

Jeffrey Buntin Sr. 

Television producer, Old Nashvillian, advertiser

Jeffrey Wayne Buntin was Middle Tennessee gentry and Old Nashville through and through. He belonged to the fifth generation to live on his family’s farm in Robertson County. He was a thoroughbred horse breeder, polo player, golfer, avid Civil War historian and member of multiple hunting clubs. He graduated from Montgomery Bell Academy and the University of the South in Sewanee. Yet for all his deep roots in centuries of tradition, Buntin made his professional mark in an inherently modern and lightning-speed field.  

He entered advertising in his early 20s through his father’s company Buntin & Associates Inc. In 1972, with a $5,000 loan, he founded Buntin Advertising (which later became The Buntin Group). Buntin grew to be the largest advertising agency in the state and one of the top 25 independent marketing firms in the country. Among the homegrown brands that got the Buntin touch were Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Dollar General Corp., HCA and Captain D’s. In the television industry, he founded Hawkins Street Productions, which produced a series of shows on the fledgling TNN and was an original organizer and owner of WZTV-TV (later sold to Fox Media). 

He served on countless boards, but his most enduring loyalty outside his family was to the Richland Creek Commerce Association, a group of contemporaries — many of them grammar school classmates — who grew up exploring Richland Creek. A founding member, he enjoyed the company of his oldest and dearest friends until his death. Sixteen RCCA members served as honorary pallbearers at the service at Christ Church Cathedral, where the Buntin family worshipped for generations. —Kay West

William Wister Goodman

Photographer, veteran, collector

During the Korean War, Bill Goodman served as a combat photographer with the 1st Marine Division and a light machine gunner, for which he was awarded the United Nations Medal, the Korean Service Medal and the Good Conduct Award. Back in Nashville in 1952, his machinist job with the L&N Railroad must have seemed pretty dull, so when an old Marine buddy told him of a photographer’s position at the Nashville Banner, he applied. He started a 30-day trial at the Banner in 1954; the successful tryout turned into an award-winning 35-year career with the afternoon paper. 

Goody — as he was known in the newsroom and among fellow lensmen — specialized in aerial photos and police action pictures. His war experience clearly prepared him for the dangerous assignments he calmly took on, and he was highly respected as a courageous photojournalist. Throughout his newspaper career he covered fires, accidents, crime scenes, shootings (including the shooting of his own son, Berry Hill Police Officer Mike Goodman), Nashville’s race riots in the 1950s and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s. 

After he retired in 1990, he collected photographs related to Nashville history, developing them from negatives shot by other colleagues and himself.  The Bill Goodman Nashville History Photographs Collection (circa 1853 to 1985) at the Nashville Public Library consists of 94 scanned black-and-white photographs, including aerial shots of the implosions of the Andrew Jackson and Sam Davis hotels, photographs of the Maxwell House Hotel after it was destroyed by fire, views of Nashville from Fort Negley, the 1940 frozen Cumberland River, and victory parades after World War I and World War II. —Kay West

Jason Steen

Scoop Nashville proprietor

When I learned that Scoop Nashville proprietor Jason Steen died, I started flipping through a decade’s worth of texts and direct messages with the controversial figure. 

I hated a lot of what Scoop did. Reporting often petty or sensational crime was his specialty, and the endless string of mugshots that adorned his now-defunct site was a case study in harmful clickbait journalism. A lot of those “stories” — often just rewrites of police affidavits — had the effect of preserving some people’s worst moments. But his work was so widely read that the Criminal Clerk’s office removed those affidavits from easy public view. Looking back, many of our texts were me chiding him for something and him telling me I didn’t understand the “new journalism.”

Perhaps his worst practice was charging people a fee to have their stories (and photos) removed from his site. I knew people who bought their DUI arrests off of his site, a kind of modern-day blackmail that’s been outlawed in many states. He once teased on Twitter — his weapon of choice — a sensational set of facts from one prominent Nashvillian’s out-of-state divorce filing. But that story never hit his site after a check made it into his pocket. 

But to dismiss him as only an internet rogue is a misunderstanding. He was always willing to live his life publicly, and that meant owning up to his own failings too. Whether it was his own arrest and mugshot, a business flameout or the subsequent bankruptcy, or even his battle to stay alive, Steen was an open book. And he could be quite helpful if it meant making information public. There are many reporters, like myself, who were tipped off by Steen over the years to dozens of “legitimate” stories. 

“Don’t hate me, hate the game,” he once told me. The vitriol directed at Steen in death by people he harmed was so strong it forced his family to delete his death notice (and comments) from a funeral home site. It was awful, but as his sister noted, he would have loved the attention. —Steve Cavendish

Sophie Marie Rhoten

Entertainment industry veteran

The leading acts in star-studded Nashville do not exist without a whole city’s worth of talent, passion and commitment. Brentwood’s Sophie Marie Rhoten embodies the all-around love for entertainment that makes these industries work.

Rhoten came to Middle Tennessee with her family as a 1-year-old, establishing herself as a musician, actor and friend in the city’s far-ranging limelight. She moved among the TV sets, photo shoots and music videos that make up Tennessee’s entertainment industry, including stints on CMT’s Nashville and Still the King. Her life frequently brushed with those of superstars, as with her role as a stand-in for LeAnn Rimes, but her experience helped keep all the less shiny aspects of show business running. The firm that helped place Rhoten’s talent — On Location Casting — remembers her for the enthusiasm and joy she brought to every set. Outside the spotlight, she was a musician, daughter, aunt and avid traveler, having made a last trip to Rosemary Beach in the final days of terminal illness. —Eli Motycka 

John Henry Britton Jr.

Journalist, witness, friend

There is no such thing as a brief description of John Henry Britton Jr.’s life, which spanned 86 years and a host of cities, states and communities across the Midwest and South. Journalists earn a living accumulating stories, and Britton — through instinct, commitment, talent, intelligence or some combination — always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. 

Son of a Nashville school teacher and minister, Britton headed to Lincoln University in Missouri after graduating from Pearl High School in 1954, later transferring to the University of Michigan and finally Drake University, where he earned a journalism degree. Britton lived through the integrated South as a student and reported on it, beginning his reporting career in Atlanta, then moving to Chicago, eventually rising up the masthead at legendary Black news and culture magazine Jet. After stints at Motown Records, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in D.C., and The Washington Post, Britton settled into academic public affairs. He found his way back to North Nashville in 1998, joining Meharry Medical College as an associate vice president.

The HistoryMakers, a national nonprofit effort to record and archive notable Black Americans’ personal stories, sat down with Britton in 2005. He died on March 9. —Eli Motycka