In 1983, I began a one-year position as a regional scholar-in-residence for the Tennessee Community Heritage Project (TCHP), a state-wide project of the Tennessee Humanities Council (TCH, now Humanities Tennessee, Inc.), working with communities in diverse areas in 19 counties in eastern Tennessee. That pilot year turned into three, and then into a long string of THC grant-funded consultations and community heritage projects, as I began my Ph.D. studies. The first TCH grant project director I worked with was Linda Caldwell, my co-author. Linda is a founder and executive director for a non-profit heritage tourism consortium, which now plans and implements cultural, arts, and heritage grants and public programming.