Leadership breakfast to highlight hero’s legacy
“We found, as we were growing, we needed to share some of our leadership and some of our values with our newer members, and we needed to do it in almost a classroom or a structured format,” said Tim Eichhorn, partner/senior advisor at Rather & Kittrell who organized the event.
“We wanted to make sure we had a chance to do it our way, to do it the way we felt leadership and accountability can help our clients, help our firm grow,” he said. “That blossomed into saying, ‘This message is pretty valuable, actually, and wouldn’t it be a good idea to somehow multiply it for some of our business leaders, for us and our homes, for our schools and our communities as a whole?’
“So, we came up with this idea of this leadership breakfast,” Eichhorn said.
The breakfast is open to the public, and there is no admission charge, but those planning to attend are asked to register at https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/zufkyvg
The event benefits the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association, of which Eichhorn, a former Marine, is a member. While there is no charge to attend, people will have an opportunity to donate to ETVMA, which maintains the memorial.
“Our speaker is Chris Edmonds, a local pastor and son
of Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds,” Eichhorn said. “Chris is the author of a book on his father.”
The late Roddie Edmonds, who died in the 1980s, was a World War II veteran who posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor at the White House last March.
“Chris received it on behalf of his father,” Eichhorn said. “Those actions he was cited for were (while being) in a World War II German prison camp.
“Young, 24-year-old Master Sergeant Edmonds was the senior leader of about 800 soldiers in the camp,” he said. “The Germans had called them out in formation on a given day in January 1945 and they demanded all the Jews in the group of 800 step forward and be identified.
“And, Master Sergeant Edmonds stepped forward, and his response was ‘We are all Jews,’ which, of course, frustrated the Germans and wound up saving the lives of those soldiers,” Eichhorn related. “So if you think about it, the way I translated that and the way I’m approaching this breakfast, is we all face personal and business decisions under varying degrees of pressure.
“Our goal is to talk in the community about leadership, and Master Sergeant Edmonds is an example,” he said.
Rather & Kittrell is looking at Edmonds’ exploits in that prisoner of war camp to see his moral compass.
“Chris had been on a journey for 10 years to get this Congressional Medal of Honor in place and finally approved by the president,” Eichhorn said. “Master Sergeant Edmond’s name will join 15 other Medal of Honor recipients from East Tennessee — those names include Sgt. [Alvin] York, Buck Karnes and Farragut’s Mitchell Stout — already inscribed upon the East Tennessee Veterans’ Memorial at the World’s Fair Park.”
The late Edmonds name will be inscribed as the 16th Medal of Honor recipient on that memorial.
