From dirt to diamonds
Farragut's jeweler returns to his lifelong passion
The same fingers that file, cut and polish jewelry have, for more than five decades, steered handlebars and pressed accelerators on dirt bike courses across the country.
“If I ever was to get a tattoo, this hand would say, ‘Vice,’” Terry said of his left hand, which holds each piece of jewelry he touches. “And this one, the right one, is the tool. One holds, and one does the work.”
Terry’s appreciation for that craft began in his 20s as he returned from Tennessee to his native Louisiana for an apprenticeship that taught the method behind the magic at his Farragut store.
But his first love — with racing and all the adrenaline his young body could handle — began years earlier in his hometown of Kentwood.
With a population just more than 2,000 today, the Louisiana town near the Mississippi border is known for the artesian well supplying drinking water for New Orleans.
But in the late 1960s and early 1970s, another concept breathed life into the region: dirt-bike racing.
“I played a little pee-wee football when I was young, but motocross was coming on strong,” Terry said.
And for the son of an insurance salesman who did mechanical work on the side, that cultural push was all the 13-year-old Terry needed.
Once his parents relented, Terry hopped on a green 1972 Yamaha — an exact replica of which sits in his barn today.
“And that,” Terry said with a smile, “is my beginning. That little motorcycle.”
The family soon moved to Tennessee, where Terry’s father took over a Suzuki store in Oak Ridge. They bought a track called Buttermilk Churn, and Terry’s father joined forces with others in the sport to form the National Motorcycle League, where Rick Terry turned pro at just 16 years old.
“We raced 20, 30, 45-minute motos, and I could do the mile in five minutes flat,” Terry said of he and his brother Mike, whom he referred to as “the best sibling anyone could imagine.”
At Clinton High School, Terry met his eventual wife Patty before attending Roane State Community College.
But soon, Terry went looking for something beyond racing to make a living. So he returned to his home state to work for a family friend, a jeweler-for-hire who just had come into ownership of a full store.
“He’s operating that and just got this store, and he needs help,” Terry said. “Patty and I had just gotten married in 1980. He says to me, ‘Pack your bags. You come watch what I do as a craftsman, stay here and help me out with some construction work.’”
“I got thrown to the wolves real quick on the craft part of sitting at the bench as a jeweler,” Terry added. “But I rose to the occasion, and over the next six years, we grew to three stores, did in-house manufacturing and had a refinery for taking gold and turning it to pure gold.”
In the mid-1980s, Terry returned to Tennessee to operate The Goldmaster, a jewelry store his parents placed in Oak Ridge’s Franklin Square.
Eventually, that store expanded to three. But in 1997, Terry branched out on his own in Farragut as a one-man show, occupying the same corner where his store sits now at 11320 Kingston Pike.
It has evolved over the years, along with Terry’s motocross career.
He spent nine years
away from the sport in Louisiana, then returned to the track when he moved back to Tennessee.
“At 30 years old, all the gear I had on, it was older than every kid at the starting line,” Terry said with a chuckle. “And I kicked their ass.”
Terry remained on the track for the next two decades, even overcoming a broken pelvis to win a national title two years later.
In the years since that trophy, life has changed for Terry.
He still works with customers from his bench in Farragut, though his sons Blake and Matt handle more of the day-to-day store duties now.
He still hops on dirt bikes with his 91-year-old father, Joe, and is eager to show off pictures of his sons and grandsons on machines of their own.
He even digs into his Cajun roots at every opportunity, making jambalaya and hosting friends when LSU is in town to face Tennessee.
Yet even beneath the joy, there still exists a hint of the eager 13-year-old, yearning for a chance to sit at the starting gate with an engine rumbling below him.
“It’s my intention to race again,” Terry said. “Some of my fondest memories are of doing that. I’m a blessed man.”
