| Sources |
- [S74] Atchley Funeral Home Records, Volume IV, 1987-1999, Larry D. Fox, (Smoky Mountain Historical Society), 19 Jul 1995.
Lillian Rucker Chandler obituary
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 15 Jan 2003.
Don Steven Chandler obituary
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 25 Dec 2007.
Year-long ordeal hasn't diminished McMahan's faith, optimism
By: STAN VOIT Editor
December 25, 2007
By STAN VOIT
Editor
The man who started the annual Martin Luther King Day parade in Sevier County won't be walking in it next month. It won't be for lack of desire.
Joseph McMahan is lucky these days he can even walk. Or breathe. His slow, steady gait gives away his condition. So does the scar across his scalp.
A little over a year ago McMahan, after weeks of symptoms that included bumping into things, was diagnosed with an extremely rare brain tumor, in the cerebellum portion of his brain. The tumor was made worse by the presence of Rosai-Dorfman disease, a rare disorder characterized by over-production and accumulation of a specific type of white blood cell (histiocyte) in the lymph nodes of the body, most often those of the neck. The histiocytes cluster together and can attack parts of the body, including the central nervous system.
How rare is it? McMahan said he was told by doctor at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center in Knoxville that he was only the 23rd person they had heard of to have a tumor affected by that disease.
On Nov. 14, 2006, McMahan underwent surgery to remove the tumor. He then contracted bacterial meningitis during his nine-week hospital stay. Then he got a urinary tract infection likely caused by being bedridden most of the time.
In all McMahan has had five surgeries to fix the original problem and subsequent problems.
"It was very scary," he said from the couch in his Sevierville home. McMahan is now on disability. While he can drive, he still has trouble walking and spends much of the day glued to his laptop and watching television. He is easily fatigued. But he's also still around.
"I've always tried to live a good clean life," he said. "This whole thing is still very scary. I feel so fortunate to have come through it."
Last Christmas McMahan was in a hospital bed, his future unclear. This Christmas he'll be with family around the dinner table. His speech is almost back to normal.
McMahan is the man chiefly responsible for Sevier County's parade in observance of Martin Luther King Day. He spent months in 2005 getting support from local officials and putting together the program with school children and elected officials. He missed the parade last year because of his surgeries. He'll be on hand this year, but not as a participant, Still, he'll be recognized on the program at the courthouse following the parade.
"He was the forerunner of that parade," Elder Zack Flack, McMahan's pastor at Boyds Creek Church of God in Sevierville, said of his friend. "I know he'll miss walking in it. I just tell him to thank God he's here to see it."
McMahan, a former teacher in the county schools and one of its first black faculty members, had rarely been sick during his life when he began having symptoms in the summer of 2006.
"They were getting progressively worse," he said.
An MRI found the tumor and led to the surgery in Knoxville.
Tony Allison, McMahan's brother-in-law and a Las Vegas casino dealer, was among family members who came back for the surgery.
"I took that Thanksgiving off and came to be with Joe," Allison said. "I was with him when he got the bad news. I listened as the doctors went through the whole thing. Today is such a blessing to see how well Joe is doing. The surgeons did such an amazing job. At one point it was looking grim, but now things are looking good for him."
McMahan said his faith helped get him through the ordeal.
"It was strong to begin with, but it's been strengthened by this," he said. "I've never been disabled before. It's opened up a whole different world for me. Now I understand what those who are going through this are going through. It's something I wouldn't wish on anybody."
Flack agrees that McMahan's faith has sustained him, saying he spent lots of time with McMahan in the hospital praying with him and reassuring him about God's plan and what life holds in store for all people.
"I told him not to lose faith," Flack said, "to realize this is something you go through, a season of your life. We all have different seasons in life, and there are things we don't understand in that season. There are many people around you, people you see, who are a lot much worse off. I told him to look at things in a positive way."
That pep talk worked.
The one-time jogger now struggles to make it from the couch to the bedroom or bathroom, but he does it. He has made progress since the initial surgery 13 months ago and believes, as his doctors do, that he'll walk steady and unaided soon. The shunt in the back of his head is a permanent fixture. He is on a steroid, which he said has led to type 2 diabetes, but he is not on a restricted diet.
"I've never been depressed about it," he said. "I'm happy to be alive and home."
So are his family members. They include his wife of 16 years Phyllis, who works in the dietary department at Fort Sanders Sevier Medical Center; and sons Jermaine, Isaac and Joseph, all students at Sevier County High.
n svoit@themountainpress.com
- [S47] Sevier County, Tennessee and its Heritage, Sevier County Heritage Book Committee, (1994, Don Mills, Inc.), 264.
- [S23] Atchley Funeral Home, (http://www.atchleyfuneralhome.com/), 17 Apr 2010.
Joseph Paul McMahan
August 06, 1960 - April 17, 2010
Birthplace: Morristown, Tennessee
Resided In: Sevierville Tennessee USA
Visitation: April 22, 2010
Service: April 22, 2010
Cemetery: New Salem Cemetery
Joseph Paul McMahan – age 49, of Sevierville, went home to be with the Lord on Saturday, April 17, 2010 at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, after a courageous battle with illness. A scientist, teacher, community organizer and naval veteran, Joseph was born in Morristown, Tennessee on August 6, 1960, the oldest child of the late Joseph Lee McMahan and Betty Collins McMahan of Sevierville. Joseph attended Sevier County High School. Having served as a hospital corpsman for the US Navy, Joseph completed his education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (MSc Entomology/Plant Pathology, 1996; BA Economics/Business, 1991). After working in California as a plant pathologist developing disease-resistant strains, Joseph returned to Tennessee in 2001 to commence a teaching career. He worked tirelessly to help organize Sevier County’s first parade observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day (2006) before being diagnosed that fall with an extremely rare brain tumor, requiring surgery. Joseph was a member of Boyds Creek Church of God and a former member of Rock of Ages Baptist Church (Morristown).
Joe was preceded in death by grandparents Odie and Henrietta McMahan, Paul and Ophelia Collins; father Joseph; and infant sister Ophelia Ann.
He leaves to cherish his memory: devoted wife Phyllis McMahan; his loving mother Betty; sons Jermaine Chandler, Isaac McMahan and Joseph Quentin McMahan; granddaughter Zaria Chandler; sisters Lisa Faye McMahan of Knoxville, and Tammy McMahan and brother-in-law Anthony Allison of Las Vegas, NV; sisters-in-law Roslyn Kyle, Breatrice (Dan) Wilkerson of Jefferson City, Tanja Weatherspoon, Carmen Chandler; brothers-in-law Jerry Chandler, Kent (Deanna) Chandler; faithful aunt Lillie in Atlanta, Ga.; uncle Bob and aunt Rosemary of San Jacinto, Calif.; cousins Charles (Diane) Treece of Murfreesboro, Carl (Jackie) Bragg from Morristown; Joseph’s church family at Boyds Creek Church of God, and a host of other relatives and friends around the globe.
We will forever miss Joe’s loving heart, deep faith, warm smile, community spirit and his questing, inquisitive scientist’s mind. “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (II Timothy 4:7).
The family will receive friends from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, April 22, with a Celebration of Joseph’s life to follow at 7 p.m. in the West Chapel of Atchley Funeral Home, 118 East Main Street, Sevierville, with Elder Zack Flack and Rev. Carl Bragg officiating. Interment will be 11: 00 a.m. Friday, April 23, in New Salem Cemetery, Sevierville, with military honors provided by the American Legion, Post #104. Arrangements by Atchley Funeral Home, Sevierville. www.atchleyfuneralhome.com
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 19 Apr 2010.
MLK event organizer loses ‘valiant’ fight with cancer; civic leader McMahan was 49
Joseph McMahan walks down Bruce Street during the first Martin Luther King Day celebration in 2006. (File photo Curt Habraken/The Mountain Press)
By STAN VOIT
It was in 2005, and Joseph McMahan and his wife Phyllis were on their way back to their Sevierville home after attending a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in nearby Jefferson County.
“Why,” McMahan said to his wife, “can’t we have a celebration like that in our hometown?”
In January 2006, the first Martin Luther King Day celebration in Sevier County was held, and McMahan organized it, got local officials involved and led the procession. Illness curtailed his involvement after that, and on Saturday he lost his long battle with a brain tumor. He was 49.
“He worked so very hard at getting the MLK celebration established,” General Sessions Court Judge Dwight Stokes, chairman of the local event committee, said of McMahan. “The passing of Joe McMahan is a great loss for the entire Sevier County community.”
Jamesena Miller, who served on the MLK committee with McMahan and was a member with him at Boyds Creek Church of God, said McMahan’s determination to start an MLK observance in Sevier County grew in part out of his involvement with Leadership Sevier. Miller is a Leadership board member who nominated him for membership in a class several years ago.
“The community has lost a fine young man who worked tirelessly at his church and with the MLK celebration,” Miller said. She said McMahan never missed a Sunday church service unless he was too ill to go.
“He always had a smile on his face,” she said, “even though a lot of times he’d probably rather have been home in bed. But he pushed himself on out. He was an inspiration to the people who knew him.”
The Sevier County MLK observance has grown to include a walk from the courthouse to First Baptist Church, a program inside the church and a community chorus that rehearses music to perform during the event.
“I am very saddened to learn of his death,” Carroll McMahan (no relation), special events coordinator for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce and an MLK committee member, said. “I know he had a long, hard struggle and he put up a valiant fight. He had been such a community-oriented person for such a long time.”
McMahan and his family lived in the house on Burden Hill in Sevierville that his grandfather built. While most in his family left Sevier County when they were adults, McMahan stayed here to raise his family, which included a son, Isaac, a Sevier County High senior who earned a football scholarship to college.
Stokes said McMahan worked as much as he could with the committee for the 2010 MLK celebration before his condition worsened.
“We will definitely honor him with some special recognition for the next celebration,” Stokes said. “He deserves it.”
The family will receive friends from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, followed by the funeral in the West Chapel of Atchley Funeral Home. For the complete obituary, see Page A4.
svoit@themountainpress.com
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
Groom's Name Bride's First Name Bride's Maiden Name County Date of Marriage File #
MCMAHAN JOSEPH P PHYLLIS M NOT GIVEN KNOX 09-27-1991 52301
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