On June 1st, 2019, Rhonda Gilliland died during a heart cath procedure. She was shocked back to life and later received a heart transplant. She speaks on the importance of faith and family through the recovery process and what a second chance at life means to her.
Before everything changed, Rhonda Gilliland was simply a daughter saying goodbye to her father. Within hours of his passing, she faced her own life-threatening crisis, entering what she describes as a peaceful place between worlds before returning to a long, painful recovery. A life-saving heart transplant ultimately reshaped how she understands time, loss, and what it truly means to live.
On June 1, 2019, Gilliland sat beside her father as his life quietly slipped away. The room, heavy suspended between breaths and memories. Machines hummed softly in the background, but Gilliland barely noticed them. Her focus was on her dad, the man who had always been her anchor. She held onto each moment, unwilling to let go.
Then, without warning, everything changed. Gilliland’s chest started to physically hurt.
A group of adventurers navigate paths with adaptive gear. Each chair is built to handle the challenges of the trail. They’re able to enjoy access, freedom, and the joy of being outside. Tuesday, April 7, 2026. (Photo by Andromeda Stewart)
A steady rhythm of metal and motion cuts through a quiet trail, the soft clicking of chains, the hum of wheels as hands push left, right, left along a path through Greenway Farms in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Somewhere between effort and ease, mechanics and mountainside, Chattanooga Parks and Outdoors’ Therapeutic Recreation department is bridging a gap. With the help of brand new GRIT adaptive junior wheelchairs, it’s not just about access to local trails, but a sense of belonging that all youth deserve.
Making Chattanooga’s scenic trails accessible to all is no single effort. It is the result of collaboration and dedication shared between GRIT Freedom’s All-Terrain wheelchair technology, the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation’s quality-of-life grant, and the Chattanooga Therapeutic Recreation department’s intimate team. “Really zooming out and saying, all right, so we know it can be done, but it’s how is it gonna be done?” Therapeutic Recreation Department Head Elaine Gossett said. “Chattanooga is a great place to get outside, but it doesn’t necessarily make every trail accessible.”
Ellie Heinichen speaks at the Tennessee Riverpark. She aims to teach the audience about the Therapeutic Recreation Department as well as the many adaptive programs that are available for her son David. The Rec Department organizes adaptive biking and now offers all terrain wheelchairs.
At its core, the initiative addresses a simple, but substantial roadblock: traditional wheelchairs just aren’t built for outdoor trails. GRIT Freedom Chair CEO Derek Johnson explains, “Traditional wheelchairs get stuck on almost anything…rocks, cracks, sticks, stumps, mud, sand… They just aren’t suitable for off-road trails.”
Angie Young tracks the flight of her 1-year-old German Shepherd, Epic, as she jumps for her floating bumper. Epic is a beginner at dock diving. Monday April 6, 2026 (Photo by Hannah Godel)
The words “let’s go swimming!” barely escape Angie Young’s lips before her dog bursts across the backyard dock, eyes transfixed on the red toy she just tossed toward the pool. The four-legged athlete soars over the edge, never losing sight of the prize, even as gravity takes hold, sending him back to earth with a refreshing splash.
What resembles an exciting game of fetch is actually deliberate training for an upcoming dock diving competition at Southern Kingdom Diving Dogs. This backyard setup in the suburbs of Soddy Daisy is one of only two training grounds in the state of Tennessee that aims to transform pets into high-flying competitors.
Angie Young, the owner of Southern Kingdom Diving Dogs, trains local pets how to dock dive and hosts dock diving competitions. Young speaks on all her backyard business has to offer, what dog dock diving is, and how to get started.
Angie Young, the business owner, just finished cleaning the pool and is preparing to begin swimming and dock diving lessons throughout April, in which she’ll instruct local dogs to take a leap of faith and jump as far as they can across a pool.
Jerry Harvey kisses Bonnie the raccoon. Bonnie was a retired education animal. Thursday, March 26, 2026 (Photo by Corbin Winters).
From a sleepy neighborhood street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Opie Acres appears as an 800-square-foot home with a small shed jutting out of the woods. However, behind the privacy fences and the flourishing green backyards, a bustling rehabilitation farm filled with raccoons, opossums, squirrels, and even skunks can be found.
Opie Acres, a nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation farm, is bursting at the seams with more animals than a team of two full-time caretakers and volunteers can handle. The farm provides life-saving medical care to ill, injured, and orphaned Virginia Opossums and other wildlife. Even providing a sanctuary home for animals who can no longer live on their own to spend their last days in the peace and caring arms of Opie Acres.
Isabella Thomson, a volunteer at Opie Acres, speaks about the Wildlife and Opossum Rehabilitation nonprofit and the role volunteers play in rescuing orphaned wildlife. Their organization serves as a safe space for injured animals that are often ignored and seen as pests. They provide medical care and educational resources for the Chattanooga, Tennessee, community, so the animals are not seen as a nuisance but rather as extraordinary animals.
Jerry Harvey, the President and Chief Rehabilitator at Opie Acres, has woven together careers as a veterinary technician, paramedic, comedian, and hairdresser throughout his life, yet the one through line has been his love for animal rehabilitation. “Dealing with people and dealing with different situations of all kinds made a really great wildlife rehabilitator, in my opinion,” said Harvey.
Defend Systems’ active shooter training arrived at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga following a fake active-shooter 9-1-1 call on August 21, 2025. All UTC faculty and staff were required to attend a three-hour Defend Systems training designed to improve preparedness and response to armed violence threats. (Video by Kayelyn McCaslin).
Written by Malcolm Key
Malcolm Key speaks with Sean O’Brien and Brink Fidler about the false-flag shooting alert at UTC in August 2025. The pair discuss their hope to arm people with education in order to confront questions of public safety within higher education.
Run. Hide. Fight. A message of few words, but of massive impact for students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on August 21, 2025. Just one full week into the first semester, students had to act on instinct: barricading into closets and running to the closest outgoing car. Within minutes, city law enforcement redirected to UTC to join campus police in sweeping every inch of campus, prepared to find the threat and establish safety. After the dust settled, and no signs of injury or gunfire were found, UTC Police debriefed, with an emphasis on the question, “How can we do better?”
EDGE sets up this event on the stairs of Chamberlain Field. Students really enjoyed the event. Friday, November 2025. (Photo by Angelina Fraga).
College students today will soon make up the front lines against Earth’s worsening environmental crisis. EDGE (Ecological Decisions for a Global Environment), a club at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), promotes sustainability and environmentally friendly practices on campus and in the broader Chattanooga area. According to Dr. Jodi Caskey, the main faculty advisor for EDGE, the average college student’s environmental awareness remains moldable. The mission is to shape that awareness for a better tomorrow.
EDGE was established as a crisis response. There was a time when smog filled the air of Chattanooga and the lungs of its population. The Tennessee River ran rancid, contaminated with untreated sewage and industrial waste. In 1969, a report released by the federal government’s Department of Health, Education, and Welfare officially named Chattanooga the “worst city in the nation for particulate air pollution.”
Those trying times led to an environmental revolution in Chattanooga and, subsequently, across the country. The founders of EDGE played a pivotal role in that revolution. In the late 70s, EDGE was established as UTC’s very first environmental club. The founders went on to help create UTC’s environmental science department, further strengthening the existing sustainability community.
Joel Westbrook talks about his journey as a wheelchair athlete in martial arts and how his spina bifida doesn’t limit him. He is the first wheelchair athlete to join the U.S. Para-Karate National Team and became an inspiration for those with physical limitations to challenge themselves, so they can take the first steps towards greatness.
Greatness wears many faces. For 18-year-old martial artist Joel Westbrook, greatness is carved into every determined push of his wheels. As the first ever male wheelchair athlete selected for the U.S. Para-Karate National Team, he has become a living symbol that limitations don’t define a person. His journey is proof that true strength is not bound by the body, but by the fire that drives it forward.
Joel Westbrook releases a sharp kiai, a forceful, exclamatory shout in karate. This practice supposedly connected the mind and body, as he executed the final move in his kata. Tuesday, November 11, 2025. (Photo by Angelina Fraga.)
Westbrook was born with spina bifida, a condition that affects how the spine and nerves develop. He can walk short distances using braces and crutches, but his wheelchair is where he feels strongest and most comfortable. Despite the challenges he faces, he has never felt limited.
When Westbrook was around eight years old, he saw a television show with a character performing martial arts in a wheelchair. For most viewers, it was simply a character, but for Westbrook, he saw himself represented in a sport that had always seemed inaccessible. Under the guidance of his physical therapist, Westbrook and his family discovered Green’s Karate in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a dojo known for adapting karate for all students.
Katy Neusner steps in to help pack Sack Packs for children who may not have food at home to help sustain them through the weekend. Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Photo by Alexis Carpenter.
The warehouse lights flicker on as volunteers walk through the door and make their way to rows of stacked pallets and assembly lines. The scent of produce and cardboard boxes mingle in the humid atmosphere, and the sound of pop music fills the large warehouse. Volunteers begin to sort canned goods, bag fresh vegetables, and prepare boxes for distribution.
Yet, beneath this effort lies a growing crisis. The Chattanooga Area Food Bank, a lifeline for residents across 20 counties in Tennessee and Georgia, is dealing with significant funding cuts. A nationwide halt of $500 million in federal food aid, including the suspension of USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation funding, has resulted in the cancellation of multiple truckloads of food. These shipments are now absent from the food bank’s inventory, leaving bare shelves within the warehouse.
In the midst of the working warehouse is Katy Neusner, the Advocacy and Communications Coordinator of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank. As the organization works to bridge the gap left by the funding cuts, Neusner and her colleagues face a task of sustaining their mission amid dwindling resources.
Rachel Sakar talks about her experience in caving and how she is involved in the caving community as a mentor and a teacher.
Beneath the rugged mountains of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, a region known as TAG, is a network that is somewhat unknown to most, boasting intricate passages, waterfalls, and hidden chambers that Blake Webber has devoted himself to exploring and preserving.
Webber, a civil engineering major at UTC and active member of the UTC Wind Ensemble and Men’s Ultimate Frisbee, first discovered caving in 2021 at a local festival.
“I was thrown off the deep end, completing a relatively challenging vertical trip my first time in a ‘real’ cave,” Webber said. “I was immersed in the challenge and felt like I had stepped into another world.”
