Overhome — Hancock County, TN: There are three kinds of people. Locals, Outsiders and Returners (people who grew up here in return for various reasons). I am a returner. I was raised by my grandparents Campbell and Elvie Marion in "Snake Holler." They, like many of their generation, were farmers and didn't finish elementary school. However, part of their uniqueness was they were bootleggers.

Like many bootleggers, it was merely supplemental income and not a bar or hangout for patrons. Part of the unspoken code of the community was that bootleggers couldn't be members of good standing in the church and probably 80% of bootleggers at the time were regular attendees.

Due to being the only child around being raised by their grandparents, I was unique. all changed when I was introduced to the "Sunday School Ladies," being Cora Robertson and Velma Giddins. They arrived from up north New York and Vermont and started doing flannelgraph lessons in all the elementary schools as well as starting a Sunday afternoon Bible School for the children of "Snake Holler."

Through their influence I attended Elm Springs Baptist Church and became a Christian. Soon the church embraced me as a community raised child. Through their church, the "Sunday School Ladies," my uncle, and the Gibsons, I was cooperatively mentored. Though at the time no one called it that.

After high school I became the first of the holler to attend college at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) in Johnson City, TN. At ETSU, I joined a Christian organization called Campus Crusade, also known as CRU. I thought I would be a missionary at this point in my life. After graduation, I married Sherry Peters and thought we would take a break before joining a mission board. We started working in a children's home, where we loved over 200 boys over the next 10 years.

We moved back to Johnson City in 1990 to start a children's home called "Family Place," by that time we had three children and felt led to leave the group home. It was at this time I started coaching basketball for a group of 8-to-9-year-old boys who mostly came from fatherless homes. Their behavior started improving and the school as if I could continue to meet with them after basketball season.

They called this programming "Boys to Men," which soon grew to two groups and a girls group called "Girlfriends" led by Sherry. In 1996, We received our first grant, which allowed us to transition into a full-time program. Since then, the program now called "Rise Up" has mentored over 500 youth and had over 1200 youth in the daily after school program. Approximately 150 youth have attended college, trade school, or joined the military — with many others leading successful lives. This can be attributed to teaching youth they are loved by God, that every child is valuable and unique, along with long term individual and group mentoring. This is my experience as a child being raised in the holler. This is the purpose of returning home and launching the overhaul mentoring project to do for others was done for me.

I have written a book of short stories about my life that have shaped me into the person that I am today called, "Raised in a Holler: A Hillbilly Childhood of Life and Faith".

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