The Rogersville Review

ROGERSVILLE — Hawkins County native-turned-national storyteller Doc McConnell was known for his quick wit, country charm and stories of life on Tucker’s Knob. This week, having yielded on Saturday to complications from a stroke, he is mourned by the community he cherished and remembered by peers as a renaissance man.

“Not only was Doc a dear friend, he was a partner in developing and growing the storytelling movement in the United States and throughout the world,” said Jimmy Neil Smith, founder and president of the International Storytelling Center. “People may not fully understand his influence as a major force in the revival of storytelling.”

Smith was introduced to Doc’s tall tales as an observer of “Doc McConnell’s Old Medicine Show” at Jonesborough Days in the early 1970s.

“I said, ‘We’ve got to have him for the storytelling festival,’ Smith fondly recalled on Monday.

The following autumn Doc was featured at the National Storytelling Festival, then in its second year. According to Smith, Doc’s continued commitment to the event each year thereafter was integral to its success and vital to the establishment of the International Storytelling Center.

“There is nothing he hasn’t done here,” Smith continued. “In the earlier years he and I would sit in my office on a cold, winter day and search for storytellers to attend the festival. In those days there were precious few people who considered themselves a storyteller.”

Thirty-five years later finding enough storytellers isn’t a problem. The festival is internationally recognized and attracts tall tales from around the world to the center’s home at Jonesborough each October.

“[Doc] would do everything from picking up our storytellers at the airport, to helping us set up chairs,” Smith said. “He was an organizer, a performer, and part of our volunteer staff. So, it’s hard to answer what Doc did for us, because he did everything and helped make it all happen.”

McConnell also served on the storytelling center’s first board of directors and Smith said he was instrumental in helping start other storytelling festivals throughout the United States.

“While we started the first storytelling festival here in Northeast Tennessee, Louisville [Kentucky] created the second festival of its kind. Doc was featured there to help get the festival started and now it’s one of the largest in the United States,” Smith said.

While for many years Doc made regional and national appearances, he was also been featured on TV shows such as “Hee Haw,” NBC’s “Today Show,” ABC’s “Sunday News,” “PM Magazine,” and “American Trails.”

He was heard on National Public Radio’s “Folkways USA” and “Prairie Home Companion,” featured in Newsweek magazine, and was author of two best-selling books called “Stuff ‘n’ Things and Reliable Remedies” and “The Vienna Sausage Cookbook.”

For many years he was also a regular columnist for the Rogersville Review.

Most recently he was nominated as Tennessee’s first Storytelling Laureate.

“[Doc] was a ‘Johnny Appleseed’ who planted seeds that grew into a new storytelling event,” Smith concluded. “He would go to great lengths doing whatever it took to bring happiness to people.”