Clarksville Living Magazine — April 2025
The April 2025 Clarksville Living Magazine serves up Urban Ministries' Empty Bowls fundraiser and brings Civil War history to life at the Surrender of Fort Defiance.
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The issue led with Empty Bowls, the Urban Ministries fundraiser that Executive Director Jodi McBryant calls “truly a labor of love on an ever growing scale.” Groups gathered for bowl-painting parties to create one-of-a-kind pieces for guests, and local businesses stepped up in record numbers — a hunger-relief event built entirely from community hands.
A local-history feature took readers to Fort Defiance, which each February hosts re-enactors for the Surrender of Fort Defiance, complete with the firing of muskets and a cannon. Re-enactor Nora Blake explained her group portrays the 9th Kentucky, a Union Volunteer Infantry unit — a reminder that many Tennesseans left the state to join the Union Army. John Blake explained what made the region strategically important: until 1862 this was a major iron-producing area, its furnaces feeding the war effort once fighting began.
The recurring departments round out a spring number that gives the issue its shape — a community feeding its neighbors in the present while keeping careful hold of the history in its own backyard.
“Empty Bowls is truly a labor of love on an ever growing scale,” said Jodi McBryant, Executive Director of Urban Ministries; groups had held bowl-painting parties to create one-of-a-kind pieces, and local businesses stepped up in record numbers. At Fort Defiance, re-enactor Nora Blake explained her group portrays the 9th Kentucky, a Union Volunteer Infantry unit — the living-history side of an issue that fed neighbors in the present while keeping the past close.
Table of Contents
- Hannah Charles Poetry (p. 5)
- Empty Bowls (p. 8)
- Chelsey Brooke Cole Part 2 (p. 10)
- Surrender of Fort Defiance (p. 12)
- Petal Power (p. 14)
- Black History Month (p. 16)
- Our Lucky Moon (p. 18)
- Six Shutters at River City Clay (p. 20)
- Veteran Business of the Month (p. 22)
- Clarksville Police Chief (p. 24)
- Casino Night (p. 26)
- Cookie Crawl (p. 28)
- Charley Jordan (p. 29)
- Jubilee at CMC Public Library (p. 32)
- Fun Facts (p. 33)
- Waxheart (p. 34)
- Sip, Smile, & Enjoy the Bubbles (p. 36)
- Business After Hours (p. 38)
- Doubletree by Hilton Riverside (p. 40)
- Mad Hatter’s Family Event (p. 42)
- Kiwanis Club Book Giveaway (p. 44)
Regular Departments
- Calendar (p. 45)
