Rationalists of East Tennessee Newsletter
September, 2009
Tribute to Jerry Sillman:
Sunday July 26, 2009, Jerry Sillman, one of the founders of RET, died. Arguably, without Jerry and his wife Ann, the Rationalists of East Tennessee would not exist. Jerry and a few others started the Reality Fellowship back in 1995. Their first official meeting was in the basement of the Candy Factory (see middle picture below). In no time, the group grew and changed its name to the Rationalists of East Tennessee. Jerry worked tirelessly to provide content and dialog for roundtables and book club discussions. His high aspirations and expectations energized all of us and made each of us more committed to ensuring the success of RET.
I learned important details in those early days from Jerry and his wife, Ann. They would make sure everything was set up early before meetings, greet and excitedly converse with all new guests, and they were always looking ahead at what could be done to make each RET event better than the next. Jerry inspired me to volunteer, serve on the board, take on the coffee set up duty (he knew how important this was!) and to be ready for the next opportunity with which RET could be involved.
I am indeed very, very grateful to Jerry. Thanks go to Phil King who supplied these pictures of Jerry from various RET events. Some more memorials from other members appear below.
From Ralph Isler:
I first became involved with RET around 2001 because of
Jerry. I had seen an announcement that as the subject for a roundtable
discussion, a replay of one of Bill Buckley's Firing Line programs would be
shown - the one where evolution was debated with three guests on each side of
the question. It was Jerry's idea to do this. Since I had missed most of the
program on PBS, I decided to come to the meeting. As I arrived at the door of
the Candy Factory, Jerry was struggling to get a television monitor and video
player into the building so I gave him a hand. The group was friendly and
congenial (and I had known Phil King from work) so I decided to join. A few
weeks later, Jerry suggested that we also meet on the third Sunday each month
to discuss a set of CD's he had purchased on the great philosophers, and the
group agreed. So that is how the third Sunday became known as philosophy Sunday
(just in case anyone is wondering).
I was sorry to see Jerry disassociate himself from the group. He always had
interesting points to make to any discussion. Anyhow, I remember him as the
person who led me to RET.
From Al Westerfield:
My favorite remembrance is how the Sillmans were gracious enough to host the preliminary test of the water dowser's try for the Amazing Randi's million-dollar prize. Someone name Dave Buck set up the test, which was witnessed not only by RET members and friends of the dowser but also recorded for a local television station. All admitted that the test was fair. Quite naturally, the dowser's results were no better than chance.
From Carl Ledendecker:
Jerry was a real activist. He organized for many causes
but what started out as "The Reality Fellowship" and became "R.E.T."
was his most successful start up.
He had the gumption and energy to bring people together for a cause. He found
some disgruntled Unitarians and then contacted any and all national
organizations that might have interested members. That is how he came across my
name. I had listed myself as being interested in starting a group with the
"Skeptical Inquirer/Free Inquiry" guys and was sitting around
wondering how to actually form a group. Jerry took care of that problem.
He liked to have things under control. The morning of one meeting he had to go
into the emergency room. He was having some heart problem and asked me to meet
him at the hospital. As they were rolling him on a gurney through the hall he
was giving me a list of things he had planned for the meeting. For Jerry,
potential heart failure wasn't going to get in the way of a good cause.
He was a frequent letter writer to the Maryville paper and took on many nutty fundamentalists
with a cool head and no ranting. He took on the Blount County commissioners
face to face every time they thought that their job was to promote
Christianity. Jerry did a lot of good.
JerryŐs memorial service will be held on September 19, a Saturday at 11AM at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Swannanoa Valley in Black Mountain North Carolina.
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New Members:
Someone suggested a great idea at a recent board meeting and that was to list new RET members in the newsletter. I plan on doing this each quarter from now on. But, to catch up, here are a list of people who joined RET as due-paying members over the last 12 months: