Terry Kelly:
CLASS OF 1975
Bradley Central High SchoolClass of 1975
Cleveland, TN
Middle Tennessee State UniversityClass of 1983
Murfreesboro, TN
Cleveland State Community CollegeClass of 1978
Cleveland, TN
Terry's Story
School
After graduating from Bradley in 1975, I continued my educational pursuits (ha, I just didn't want to grow up nor get a full time job.) I spent three fun filled years (its a two year school remember) at Cleveland State Community College before graduating with an Associate of Science degree. Thinking that would be sufficient I went job hunting. I landed one at Kmart working in the garden center and later shipping and receiving where I stayed for one year. Then I began tending a brick layer handling blocks, and wheelbarrows full of mortar. I only lasted there about 7 months. Next, I moved on to the the job that would change my life forever. Tri State Truss Company in Tasso Tn. The company hired me and I worked there for a bit over a year as a general laborer assembling roof and floor trusses until one morning while working I had the experience that led to where I am today. While lifting a floor truss out of a hydrallic press, a coworker pressed the wrong button at the wrong time and the press squeezed my middle finger along with the truss. After a visit to the emergency room and about four stitches later the end of my finger was reattached and my finger nail was gone. It had been yanked free of its mooring point. That day I recall as vividly as today and as I looked at my blood soaked bandage I decided that I must go back to school as I only had nine healthy fingers left. I enrolled in college two weeks later.
Two years later I graduated from MTSU with a Bachelors of Science degree in outdoor recreation with a double minor in biology/sociology. (the three years at Cleveland State helped me get the minors) I decided I was going to try and become a National Park Service Ranger. My dad had been working with the US Forest Service in the Cherokee National Forest over in Polk County for about 15 years and he was a true inspiration to me by encouraging me since High School. I was just too lazy and didn't want to put forth the effort I knew it would take to get a degree. Nearly loosing my finger was the last straw. It is really funny that an injury could provoke me to return to school but it did.
Four months after finishing at MTSU I landed my first National Park Service job. Gulf Islands National Seashore in Pensacola Fl. They hired me as...Expand for more
a very green rookie. Working on a 5 mile long barrier island doing beach patrol on atv's and four wheel drive vehicles was great. Particularly when you are single. But winter time came and it was a very lonely place to be. After a year and a half I transferred to Big Cypress National Preserve, just west of Miami. It was a great place to be, during the winter. I got out before the mosquitos came. I stayed just six months. I changed agencies and went with the US Fish & Wildlife Service at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge up the coast in West Palm Beach, I could not afford the cost of living there so after about three months I applied and was hired a few more miles up the east coast to at Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in St. Augustine. I loved the city, the people and the climate was nice too but the job was way boring as there were no patrol vehicles for me to drive and therefore not much law enforcement action. I stayed for one year. I continued my northward trek where I ended up in Kentucky. and Mammoth Cave National Park. After staying for nearly two years and being told by management that I was too aggressive. Citing and arresting the locals is not what they wanted me to do. They made me a structural firefighter. That job scared me so off I went again applying at yet another park in Kentucky. Cumberland Gap National Park was my next stop and I stayed there for only three months. Still looking for my "nich" I saw an opportunity to return to Tn. The job was located on the Natchez Trace Parkway near Hohenwald Tn. I applied there and was hired. The year was 1989 and I have been here ever since patrolling the Tennessee and Alabama portions of this grand rural road is a genuine pleasure.
I met a gal in 1998 and then three years later in 2001 married (yes my first time) a beautiful woman named April from Hohenwald. Two years later, we had a son we named Leyton Spencer. He is now 6 years old and is attending kindergarten and doing well. He inspires me and makes me smile every day of the week. He also tells me when he grows up that he wants to be a garbage man.... I don't think, he will need any college for that! HA!
Now, at 53 years of age, mandatory retirement is just four years away in February 2014. What will I do next?
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