Judy Gooch
The Atomic City Sportsmen Club is having its 31st annual Martin Luther King Fellowship Breakfast on Monday morning. The community is invited, a press release said.
The Breakfast will be held on Monday, January 21, at Spurgeon Chapel AME Zion Church at 100 South Benedict Avenue in Oak Ridge. The program begins at 8 a.m., and this year’s keynote speaker will be Judy Gooch, owner of Judy Gooch Interiors of Oak Ridge.
Gooch has been active in community affairs for the past 25 years.
In 2005, she was appointed to serve on the Tennessee Board of Regents by Governor Phil Bredesen. In 2008, Tennessee State University, formerly known as Tennessee A & I, requested that honorary degrees be awarded to the university’s fourteen Freedom Riders from the early 1960s.
The initial vote denied the request for the Freedom Riders, the press release said.
However, Gooch had studied the important role that the Freedom Riders from Tennessee A & I played in the history of the civil rights movement. She continued to be an outspoken advocate, and with the help of Reverend Harold Middlebrook, the Tennessee Black Caucus, The Tennessean, and USA Today newspapers, the TBR reversed its decision and agreed to allow honorary degrees to be awarded to the Freedom Riders, the press release said.
Gooch received her undergraduate degree from Carson Newman University and her master’s degree in furnishings and interiors from the University of Georgia. From 1981-1993, she served as an adjunct professor teaching interior design courses at Carson Newman. In 2009, Judy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater, Carson Newman.
Locally, Gooch has served on the Board of Directors for Girls Inc., is an active member of Altrusa of Oak Ridge, and is a member of the Oak Ridge Public School Education Foundation Board.
Judy Gooch and her husband, Warren, have two sons, Ryan and Matt, who graduated from Oak Ridge High School in 1999 and 2001.
There will be no charge for attending this event, but donations to the Sportsmen Scholarship award will be accepted, the press release said.
Please contact David Mosby at (865) 482-4193 or mosby1@aol.com for more information.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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