The Volunteer Spirit in Sequoyah
Among our long-time Sequoyah Hills volunteers Nancy Bills is a stand-out. For two decades Nancy has given her time, energy, and wisdom to many projects, all of which have helped make Sequoyah Hills the beautiful neighborhood it is. And for every project, from the historic overlay to installing flower beds, she built an effective team, inspiring other volunteers to work with her.
Nancy’s devotion to our neighborhood has deep roots. She and husband Sam moved to their Scenic Drive home in 1967. They had looked at newer neighborhoods further west, but Sequoyah Hills prices were actually lower in the 60s than those in areas that now have much less appeal. And Sequoyah was convenient for Sam, who worked at the university.
The Bills grew up together in Lewisburg, TN, and married in 1959, while still UTK students. By the time they moved to Scenic, they were raising three children—daughters Sandy (Patterson) and Dana (Traylor) and son Sam, Jr., called Bo. The children attended Sequoyah School, then Tyson Junior High, and West. Both daughters still live in the neighborhood.
When her youngest reached middle school, Nancy began selling real estate with Wallace and Wallace, a career she continued for 22 years. Sam in the meantime was advancing at UT and would retire in 1994 as Director of the Evening School to focus on Bills Asset Management, the company he had founded two years earlier, which now includes son Bo and grandson Carter.
Sam served on the KP-SHA board for about 10 years. When Nancy retired from real estate in 2000, Sam stepped back, and she began her volunteer career with the board, working first to develop a Neighborhood Watch program.
One of the most demanding project Nancy led was the three-year effort, starting in 2003, to obtain a Neighborhood Conservation Overlay for the Scenic Drive area, a street that dates back to 1921. Committee members—Nancy, Lisa Gammeltoft, Kirby Bell (now Collins), Robin Porter, and Kaye Stoneking—developed guidelines with the help of Ann Bennett of the Planning Commission and went to every house in the affected area to get enough signatures for the petition to proceed through the Historic Zoning Commission, the Planning Commission, and City Council.
At times, Nancy says, this effort was difficult because there was so much misinformation as well as neighbors actively working against it. But they succeeded, and the overlay passed in 2006. The resulting plan (Designation Report and Design Guidelines), with its trove of neighborhood history, can be found at https://knoxplanning.org/resources/historic/guidelines/city/Scenic%20Drive.pdf . In the years since, Nancy notes, the plan has proved to be effective and noncontroversial.
As significant as the overlay is, Nancy says her “most important and proudest achievements” have been planting trees, shrubbery, and flowers in the public spaces of the neighborhood. Noting the high loss of older trees from Sequoyah Hills, Nancy was curious about the best replacements. She enlisted the help of the late Ed Buckner, UT Forestry Professor Emeritus; Tom Simpson, East Tennessee Regional Urban Forester; and neighbor Sara Christensen, a graphic designer. In 2007 they published Recommended Trees for the Kingston Pike-Sequoyah Hills Residential Area.
Not long afterwards, Nancy worked with Ann and Tom Callcott to secure funding for the master plan for trees and other plantings on the Cherokee Boulevard median. KP-SHA obtained grant funding for a professional landscape architect to develop the plan, which was completed in 2010. Nancy was particularly interested in maintaining the flower and shrubbery beds on the median and in the traffic islands and intersections, most of which had been installed by the Sequoyah Hills Preservation Society (now part of KP-SHA). Although the City has departed from aspects of the original plan, trees continue to be planted, and KP-SHA maintains the memorial tree program for the median.
Nancy and daughter Dana installed the native plant bed on the Indian Mound, with plants given by Mrs. Jim Scott, Sr., from her garden in Rocky Hill and by neighbors in Sequoyah Hills. When the Scenic-Southgate intersection was reconfigured, Sara Hedstrom designed a garden of shrubbery and flowering plants. Nancy worked with Tamara Warner and Barbara Hillard, among others, to install the garden along the intersection walkway. Caitlin Zeanah heads the landscape committee now, which maintains this and the other public gardens.
In discussing each of these projects, Nancy is quick to recognize the contributions of all the neighbors and professionals who helped achieve success. In short, she has been not only a wonderful volunteer but also a phenomenal leader. We are so lucky that the Bills chose Sequoyah Hills all those decades ago!