By GEORGIANA VINES
The Venerable Jerry Askew, PhD, archdeacon and small congregation consultant for the Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee, will be presented the Bruce McCarty Community Impact Award by the East Tennessee Community Design Center at a celebration on Oct. 16 at Historic Ramsey House.
Askew, who also serves as deacon at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Knoxville, is being recognized as a community leader who has enhanced the lives of others in education, business, community service and ministry, said Duane Grieve, Design Center executive director.
“Jerry’s made a huge difference in our community,” he said.
The Design Center is a 501(c)3 organization that brings professional design and planning services to nonprofit groups and agencies that lack the resources to obtain the services through the private sector. It is funded by competitive grants and donations.
The Bruce McCarty award is named for an architect who founded and was senior designer with McCarty Holsaple McCarty Architects, a leading Knoxville firm, and who is considered the visionary for the Design Center. He died at age 92 in 2013 after a career of more than half a century of design, particularly with a modern motif.
Grieve said the Bruce McCarty Community Impact Award is granted to those who have demonstrated a commitment to building a better future for this region. The award will be presented at the Design Center’s annual fundraiser, which will be 5-9 p.m. at the Ramsey House at 2614 Thorngrove Pike.
Tickets are $150 each and can be obtained at communitydc.org/ramsey. Heavy hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be available as will a silent auction and valet parking.
Askew, who grew up in Ahoskie, N.C., graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976 with a major in recreation therapy and then got interested in college work so went to the University of Memphis, where he received a master of science, and a Ph.D. degree from Ohio State University in 1982 with a triple major in areas of college development.
He was at the University of Miami in Florida in student affairs before coming to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1985 as dean of students and eventually becoming associate vice chancellor for development and alumni affairs. He left UT in 1998 and served in a number of positions including president of the East Tennessee Foundation, senior vice president at Tennova Health Care, president/CEO of the Alliance for Better Nonprofits and interim CEO of the Knox Education Foundation.
During his full-time jobs, he managed to complete the requirements for his ordination as a Vocational Deacon. He now serves in the East Tennessee Episcopal Diocese working with 16 active deacons across 43 churches.
Grieve said compassion and humility are two of Askew’s greatest attributes and he has an innate ability to connect with people, no matter their status.
A second award that will be given at the celebration is the Annette Anderson Directors’ Award, which recognizes a client of the Design Center that has demonstrated a commitment to making East Tennessee a better place.
Anderson served as the executive director of the Design Center for over 20 years, longer than any other. She is considered among a handful of people who crafted what the Design Center has become. Anderson, who died in 2022, was a long-time communicant at St. John’s Cathedral.
“Annette was truly a devout practicing Christian. She was ethical as a person and in the way she worked in the community,” said the Very Rev. John C. Ross, dean of the Cathedral.
The Anderson Directors’ Award will go to Union County’s Heritage Park, which has a music wall of fame honoring several famous musicians from the county, such as Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins and Kenney Chesney. The music wall became part of a newly-built shed for a local farmers market that is located adjacent to Union County High School. Design Center volunteers worked with the mayor‘s office, Union County Farmers Market and the Union County Opry on the plan.
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Georgiana Vines is a retired News Sentinel associate editor. She is a member of St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral.