Hope, Chuck, Jr.

              
ORAL HISTORY OF CHUCK HOPE, JR.
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
June 14, 2016

 
MR. MCDANIEL:  This is Keith McDaniel, today is June 14, 2016. I'm at my studio here in Oak Ridge with Chuck Hope. Chuck is, Chuck is my mechanic, and my City Councilman, among, among other things, and my friend. So, so, Chuck, thanks for being here.
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You've had an interesting life, from what I understand. I used to work for your mother, years and years ago, at, and when she was the editor at the Roane County News, and I remember hearing about your adventures back then, from her. But, I know you grew up in Oak Ridge, so, so let's start at the beginning. Tell me, you know, tell me about your family, where you were born and raised and, you know, something about going to school.
MR. HOPE: Well, it, really, with my family, it starts way back. My great-grandfather was relocated off of the property on, in the Wheat community, when the war effort started.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: Yep, back in the '41, '42 time frame. He lived in, he was actually relocated from the Norris project 'bout five, 10 years before that, and then moved to the Wheat community, and got relocated twice. So the whole family got relocated twice within about a 15 year span.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Being, and that's what it was. It was the 1938 or '39, they moved people out for the Norris Dam project. Six or seven years later, they, and many of them came to Oak Ridge, to Robertsville ... 
MR. HOPE: Yep.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... area, and to, you know, and this area, and they had to move again, when the government came to town.
MR. HOPE: He was down off Gallaher road, right by the river, lake bottom property, good fertile land.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, my grandfather, then, was one of the guards when Oak Ridge started to become then Secret City, he was one of the guards that patrolled the area. Then, the family relocated into the Oliver Springs, Roane County portion of the area. Mom and Dad chased jobs, got married in the late '50s, early '60s, and chased jobs. So, I was actually born in Chicago, Illinois.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, were you? Ok.
MR. HOPE: I was there for one whole winter and that was it. That's all my mom and dad needed of Chicago, and the bitter winter. So, they wound up leaving Chicago, and going from Chicago, to West Palm Beach, Florida ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: ... where my brothers were born, and lived down there until early '70s, and, basically, came home, came back to the Oak Ridge area. Mom and Dad were both from the Roane County area, and so, they settled in Oak Ridge in '74, and we've been here ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You, so, what year were you born?
MR. HOPE: I was born in 1962.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok, so, you were 12 when you came to Oak Ridge.
MR. HOPE: I was.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Eleven or 12. And you said you had brothers?
MR. HOPE: I do, I have two younger brothers.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Two younger brothers, that's right, that's right. So, you were 12, and you came to Oak Ridge, you said, '74.
MR. HOPE: '74.
MR. MCDANIEL:  '74. And so, tell me about where you, where you, you moved to, and where you went, started going to school.
MR. HOPE: Went, started going to school at Jefferson, or not Jefferson, Robertsville Middle School.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Well, then it was Robertsville Junior High.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Junior high, yeah.
MR. HOPE: And so, I went through junior high at Robertsville.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Which was through the ninth grade then.
MR. HOPE: It was through the ninth grade, and then, went on to the high school, and graduated in 1980 from the high school. We grew up in the Highland View neighborhood.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, ok.
MR. HOPE: We lived up off of Waltham Place. There was a small house that Mom and Dad had, had gotten, and we moved up, and we moved, grew up there. Ran around in the woods, run over on the North Ridge trail, before it was ever called the North Ridge trail. You know, Mom said that when the street lights were on, you come in the house, but until the street lights are on, stay outside. So, we stayed outside, and was always doing something through that time.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure, sure.
MR. HOPE: So, yeah, that's where I grew up, in the Highland View area.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Now, what did your dad do?
MR. HOPE: My dad's with, at that time, was working, when we first moved back up here, he actually worked for Bell South, in their motor pool division.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, ok.
MR. HOPE: He was a, you know, was a self-taught auto mechanic, and was working in that field for, ever since the '60s.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: He was working for Bell South, in their motor pool, and then, went out, independently, on his own, in the late '70s, and opened and closed several shops on his own after that.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right, right, right. And, I guess, that's how you, you got to be a gearhead, or, so to speak ...
MR. HOPE: Yeah, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... you know.
MR. HOPE: I guess I was always a gearhead. In my early childhood, I raced go-karts, and was always around dirt track, tracks, and asphalt race tracks, you know, watching race cars, and stuff. So, I was a gearhead by, you know, true and true, through the heart. But, I didn't really think, when I was growing up, and coming through high school, that I would actually be in the automotive field. I, I actually was, during high school, when I was working summer jobs, and stuff, I learned to become a brick mason, and was a block and brick mason, and was doing that full time, right out of school.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: I, actually, graduated high school when I was 17. So, I was working as a block and brick mason work, and was actually going to Roane State to become an architect. That's ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Who were you working for?
MR. HOPE: Independent contractors over in Knoxville. One guy by the name of Frank Gifford is who I worked for, did a lot of work for him back then. We built a number of buildings down along Gay Street. We bricked a number of buildings down along Gay Street in Knoxville, and several housing communities, Fox Den, Village Green, those areas.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Did a lot of houses back then.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: This is in the late '70s, and, like I said, I was going to school, night school, to become an architect, night school at Roane State, and was going to become an architect. As fate had it, was involved in a traffic accident, on a motorcycle ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: … in Solway, coming home from a rain out day on construction day. This was, this all happened about 19 days before me and my wife, of 34 years this Sunday, were getting married.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: And, I was held up, was bummed up with a bad foot, broken foot, for a number of months during this whole process. The gas station next door to my dad's car lot, at the time, became available. At 19, and absolutely knew everything that you need to know in life at 19. We've been there, we both have, we've had those 19-year- olds experience that.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, sure, sure.
MR. HOPE: And, that's how I got into the gas station, repair business, at that time.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: So, I opened up a mom and pop gas station, and couple of years later, my dad came to work with me, and he ran the towing business of my company, and ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Was this up near where you are now?
MR. HOPE: No, this was actually on the corner of Turnpike, and Illinois Avenue.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, is that right?
MR. HOPE: Mmm-hmm... Those old, people may realize, remember it as the old Esso station.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, it's empty now, it's that empty lot.
MR. HOPE: It is. It's a vacant lot.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah. It's the only one that's empty on that corner.
MR. HOPE: It is.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, I remember that ...
MR. HOPE: Yeah. When I took it over, it was a Gulf station. Right after that, about two years after I took it over, it turned into a BP station, and we ran that until 1992. Started in 1982, and ran that for 10 years. In 1992, I quit selling gas, and I moved down to the old building, next door to my building is now ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right. On the hill ... on the ...
MR. HOPE: ... and went straight mechanical. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I got out of the gas station, the gas selling business, and went straight mechanical, and did automotive repair and towing. And it was in that building.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Why, why, why'd you get out of the gas station business? Was it, just, tough.
MR. HOPE: Just, yeah. I mean, you were ... 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wasn't much market, I mean, wasn't much profit, or what?
MR. HOPE: Very, very tough market, and you, you're making pennies, for hours and hours of work.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: I mean, you have to sell thousands of gallons of gasoline, to turn just a few pennies per gallon.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: So, it was, we were making a lot of money for the gas company, but wasn't making a lot of money for ourselves.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: So, the time and effort involved in it, the insurance you have to carry for it, the tank regulations that the state were, and the federal government made you go through over the years ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... just weren't worth the investment. So, I went to, back to night school, got my Master's certification in auto tech, and ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Where did you get that from?
MR. HOPE: Through the ASE program, the Automotive Service Excellence program.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: It's a nationwide program. So, I worked on that, got a Master Tech certification, and went to work in the shop.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah. 
MR. HOPE: And ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  So you said, so you had, you did repair ...
MR. HOPE: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... vehicle repair, and then, you also did towing.
MR. HOPE: We did.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah. And, you said your dad, kind of, did, ran the towing part for you?
MR. HOPE: He did. I ran the, at the time ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... the gas station, and the automotive repair part of it, and Dad ran the towing business ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... and did that until he retired. He worked for, me and Dad worked together 18 years before he retired.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: When he retired, we sold the tow trucks off, and that was kind of his retirement party. So ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Well, there you go.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  There you go. Well, good.
MR. HOPE: So, we continued to do repair shop. About, I'd say, in the late '97, '98, time frame, I was really tired of doing, just providing for myself, and a few people, so I put myself through management school.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: I went through a management success program, and, in about nine months, graduated from that program, that normally takes about a year and a half to do. I started working on the business, instead of in the business.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: I put people to work for me. I've got three technicians that work for me now, and two people that work for me in the front office, in the service running department. So, that's where I really started to learn the other side of the business. Not just provide a business for my own paycheck, but provide a business for multiple families to work for me ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: ... and provide that paycheck for them.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure. Now, when did you build your new facility?
MR. HOPE: Actually, the new facility is getting to be nine-years-old this year.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really? Wow.
MR. HOPE: It was in 2008 that we built that. I actually bought that property in 2005, and paid the undeveloped property off and then, in 2008, used that for collateral to build the new building.
MR. MCDANIEL:  To build the new building.
MR. HOPE: And so, I had the big building. October of 2008 is when I moved into that building, so ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  So, you've been in, you've been in business in Oak Ridge for ... ?
MR. HOPE: Thirty-four years.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Thirty-four years.
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  The same amount of time you've been married.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, yeah. I keep telling everybody everything's going good. It's, it's been a great marriage, and a great business ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wow.
MR. HOPE: ... and both are going strong today.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, well, that's good.
MR. HOPE: I've got two sons. I've got my son, Chuck, my oldest, is 27. And, my son, John, is now 22.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Chuck is a mechanical engineer and works and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. John is 22, and lives between. He's got about three jobs he does. He works all the time. He's been, he's in between Crossville, and here, in Oak Ridge, so, some days he's in Oak Ridge, and some days, he's in Crossville.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, thank goodness for cell phone? We get to stay up-to-date, and current with him.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Let's go, let's go back to when you moved here when you were 12. What was, what do you remember about Oak Ridge in your, as a teenager?
MR. HOPE: Oh, as a teenager, it was, you know, I, I enjoyed it. I mean, I, when I was 14, back then, the Tennessee Highway, Department of Transportation, you were allowed to get your motorcycle drivers' license.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, is that right? Ok.
MR. HOPE: And, if you could drive a motorcycle, with less than a five horsepower engine on it ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, roughly a 125 cc engine ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... or less, you could pass the test, you could get your drivers' license. It was a restricted drivers' license.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: Well, that restriction, to me, was wide open. I mean, it allowed me to go anywhere in the city I wanted to go. So, I enjoyed the city from east to west, north to south. I mean, as far, I could go out to Melton Hill Lake, and go to the dam, and go fishing, or go swimming out at the swimming place. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I could easily get to Carbide Park, and go swimming out there. I had friends on both ends of town, whether we went to Robertsville or Jefferson, it didn't matter, time you were in high school, you could, you know, you could go all the way.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You were buddies, yeah, you'd go all over the place.
MR. HOPE: Right. You know, we'd go down into Oliver Springs, so, I had friends down in Oliver Springs, and certainly down in Marlow community, so, I enjoyed it. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I mean, I really had a good time. My brothers, and myself, we were just three years apart, between me, and my youngest brother.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: So, there's three of us. So, we were always doing something, whether it was against each other, or with each other.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure, sure. I understand.
MR. HOPE: I remember playing, you know, ball sports for the Boys' Club. I mean, Lawrence Hahn, to this day, I shake Lawrence Hahn, every time I see Lawrence Hahn's hand ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: ... I shake Lawrence Hahn, I shake his hand.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I mean, he was a big influence on me. He was one of the biggest male influences on me, of that time.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Same thing with Keys Fillauer. Keys Fillauer was probably the first male influence I had outside of my dad, that weren't athletes, or something of that nature.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah, yeah ...
MR. HOPE: You know, a true male, a mentor, to me. And ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  He, he, you know, when I interviewed him, not too long ago, he talked about his civics class ...
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... at Robertsville. And so, did you go through that civics class?
MR. HOPE: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I don't remember who it was I was talking to, but it was somebody, just not too long ago, that said that Keys was his absolute favorite teacher he ever had in school, because he made it interesting. So ...
MR. HOPE: Keys was, to me, more of a mentor, and showed me things that you could do as a, as a, from a male perspective.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: It was that male perspective influence that I had for him, from him.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Ms. Miller was my favorite teacher.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, is that right?
MR. HOPE: Absolutely. Alice Miller was an English teacher I had in the ninth grade. I give her the credit for my graduating high school. She, literally, taught me the patience to read. I, I, at that point, had faked reading all the way through school.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: I could read, but at the basic, simplest terms.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Basic, yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: I did not have the passion, or the love for reading that I have today, and it was her, it was her influence, of that time ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Did she realize that, and she took ... ?
MR. HOPE: She did not, until later on. When I saw her several years after graduating, and starting my own business and everything, it was probably 10, 12 years after graduating high school ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... that I actually ran into her, and let her know how big an influence she was in my life.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wow.
MR. HOPE: So, she did. She brought me the passion and the desire to read, and to continue to go after the things that I needed to know. To allow me to go after more education. If it hadn't have been for her, I don't know that I would've graduated high school. I would've probably quit school.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: Yeah. I just was not happy in school, it was very frustrating. Then, she just taught me the love of reading, and it allowed me to get through, even the most mundane reading task.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: You know, as you go longer and longer in school, you know, there's more and more reading involved.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: Whether it's in math or it's in English, or science or whatever, there's just a lot more reading load to do. So you have to have that desire to want to learn, and to educate yourself.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Now, what about other things in high school? Were you involved in other things?
MR. HOPE: Played, played high school football ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, did you?
MR. HOPE: ... through my sophomore year. And, played with Emory Hale, would've loved to, that's probably the one regret I had in high school, I, I did not play on the '79 or '80 state championship games. I had, me and Emory had a come-to-meeting meeting type deal ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... and he wanted me there a hundred and ten percent of the time and, at the time, I was very independent, and had to work because I was dating. You know, when you date girls, you have to have money.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And so, I siad, "Coach, I can give you all I can give you on Friday night, but come Saturday morning, I'm going to be working somewhere. I got to make some money."
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I said, "There's a date night on Saturday night or Sunday night and, you know, I love football, but I like girls better." And so, it really came down to, that, you know.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: But I enjoyed it. I mean, I've been a diehard Wildcat fan ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... my whole life, you know ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: ... even before I was at the high school level. Played my, my sophomore year.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I enjoyed it. So, enjoyed having the relationship I did with Emory Hale, even though I didn't play with him. It's just like I enjoyed my relationship I had with Big Ed Neusel.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: I had a long-standing, almost every one of my friends, at one time or another, worked for Big Ed.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really? Tell me, tell me the Big Ed story.
MR. HOPE: Well, you have to understand, Big Ed came in the early '70s, and started that business. And, by the time the late '70s, early '80s rolled around, he was very well established at that point. And he truly ran a ... a great business, if you were a youth.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, if you were ...
MR. HOPE: Yeah, if you were a youth ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... young boys.
MR. HOPE: ... if you were that 14 to 16 year age bracket, and you're looking for that first job, he gave you the opportunity to instill those working traits in you.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: Hard work, dedication, make sure you come to, to work, and had a lot of people work for him.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: The only reason I never worked for Big Ed's is, I refused to cut my hair.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, really?
MR. HOPE: Yeah. That was back in the… You have to understand, Big Ed was a drill sergeant in the Marines.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: And, he had that Marine instill, that life instilled in him, from down to the core.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, he had, and, he had that cut, he had that haircut.
MR. HOPE: And, the one thing, back then, that you could never do, it wasn't, it was long before hair net days.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: When you worked for Big Ed, you had to, you had a haircut. You had a boy haircut. You didn't have a girl haircut, or like he called it, a sissy haircut.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: You had to, you had to go get a boy haircut.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You had to look like a boy, a young man.
MR. HOPE: Unbeknownst to a lot of people who know me now days, I had long, curly red hair back then. (laughter) So, and I'm sure Ed knew my first name, but I was always known as Hope.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: So, every time I'd go in to see one of my friends, he'd go, "Hope, come here." And he'd be standing at the end of the bar in his white t-shirt, and his white apron.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: He'd sit there, and he'd have that toothpick in his mouth, and he'd say, "Here, here's five dollars. Go down to Ken's and get you a haircut, I'll put you to work." I'd said, "No, I'm not going to work for you, Big Ed. (laughter) I'm not cutting my hair to go to work for you." I said, "I'll put it in a ponytail." "No, boys don't wear ponytails." So, but he had a big influence on me. I just loved going in and talking to him one-on-one. That's one thing that you have to have is, you know, if Ed liked you, he would give you the shirt off his back.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: And Ed was the type of guy that never wanted the fame, never wanted to, to be recognized in public. He just wanted to do what was right. He was such a big influence on generations of people that came through the place.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the story that I've always heard, that kids, for years, for decades, young people got their first job at Big Ed's.
MR. HOPE: Absolutely. Absolutely. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  You know, so ...
MR. HOPE: You, you'd get your first set, taste of discipline outside of your family from Lawrence Hahn, if you were a boy.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And you got your first job opportunity from Big Ed ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... if you were old enough to do so. Mr. Hahn had, you know, he had to lay out some discipline on a number of kids in this town. But, you know, it's one of those things that I look back now, and Mr. Hahn taught me respect.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yep. Yep.
MR. HOPE: You know, he taught me to respect not only yourself, but others. He taught me how to behave around others. Outside of the influence of your mom and dad.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: You know, your mom and dad are always going to instill your manners and mannerisms and stuff like that. But Lawrence demanded you to have respect for him, his staff, the fellow people that were there, whether it's somebody you're playing with or somebody you've know or a visiting teen that was playing ball. And so, Mr. Hahn taught me respect and taught me manners.
MR. MCDANIEL:  He had that job, he worked for the Boys' Club for 51 years.
MR. HOPE: Yes, he did.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I interviewed him, I guess, a couple of years ago, and he ... he talked about, he said, "You know," he says, "I was kind of old school when it came to discipline." He says, "You couldn't get away with that now."
MR. HOPE: No. Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I said, "No, you, you couldn't." But, but here's a perfect example. You're a perfect example of why that worked, you know.
MR. HOPE: I hope so. I mean, that was when I made the decision to run for City Council. When I was appointed to City Council, and then ran for City Council for my first term, one of the things that, that made me decide that, was the influences, and the relationships I've had growing up and living here in the same community for, now, over 40 years.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah.
MR. HOPE: You know, I had so many people come up to me, whether it's, you know, the little ladies that I used to cut their grass for. Tom Hill was one of the first guys that gave me a job.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: Tom Hill gave me the job at the Oak Ridger. I talked him, actually, I credit Tom Hill for giving me the taste of entrepreneurship.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: Tom gave me my first paper route. And, in, within three months, I had taken the one paper route, and convinced him into turning that into three paper routes. I got the paper routes on either side of me, and I put two 10-year-olds to work for me. I was 12 at the time, and was working, and I owned, I owned the three paper routes.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right, right.
MR. HOPE: I divided it up into two paper routes, and gave it to two 10-year-olds, and took half the cut. So, Tom Hill is who I credit for my first taste ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  So, so you didn't have to deliver papers, you just had to make sure they were delivered.
MR. HOPE: It's all in management, it's all in management. (laughter) I'd make sure the paper's there, and then, if the kids couldn't do it, I would pick up ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  You would do it, yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: ... their paper route.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: But I was already out cutting yards and stuff like that. So, I liked the income of the paper routes. Loved the tips around Christmas time that everybody gave you.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, yeah, yeah.
MR. HOPE: You know, so, that was a big thing. So, I actually put in, and then, I was one of the first ones to get a motor route when I, as soon as I turned 16, and got my driver’s license to drive a car.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Tom let me have a motor route.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Did he?
MR. HOPE: We delivered papers down in Marlow, and Oliver Springs and Roane County area. So, he gave me the first taste of being on my own and making money ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... and making that commitment, and having to pay for those papers when they, you know, were due and stuff.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure, sure, sure. 
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Well, that's great. The ... So, so, what kind of trouble did you get into in Oak Ridge when you were 16?
MR. HOPE: Whew!
MR. MCDANIEL:  That you can talk about? You know, probably the statute of limitations is gone.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, the statute of limitations is gone.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You still might, you still might not want to (laughs) tell, tell some of it, but, that's up to you.
MR. HOPE: You know, I, I didn't really get into a lot of trouble, outside of just, you know, the, the occasional hustle and bustle, the, the scuffle that you'd get into with ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, yeah, yeah...
MR. HOPE: ... you know, boys, you know, chasing girls, and stuff like that. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: You had to be a Bravo, and, or not. My biggest thing was either speeding tickets, or traffic incidences on my motorcycle.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I, there were several times, there were several cops in the area that really did not like me when I was on that little 125 Suzuki ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... because I would leave the roadway and go across the field or the woods, and get away from them, on a number of occasions. (laughter) So, you know, there was the occasional knock on the, my mom and dad's door from a police officer saying ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: "We need to see young Mr. Hope." So, we had those number of things, but that was my biggest thing. It goes back to the racing days. You know, I raced go-karts when I was young, and then, started racing stock cars when I was in the, actually, in the early '80s, right after I went into business.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Well, that's, and I want to, want to talk to you about that just a little bit, here in a minute, but the ... So, what were you, what were your things to do in Oak Ridge when you were a teenager? I mean, where were places, what were the, your, to take ...
MR. HOPE: You always had your ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... where you'd take girls on dates, and things such as that?
MR. HOPE: The skating rink was probably the biggest one.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, where was that?
MR. HOPE: That was down where Wholesale Plumbing Supply is now ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: ... down on east end of town. Hot Wheels Skating Rink was out there. And, you had that. You had the, everybody loved to go, and hang out at the Putt-Putt. You know, the Putt-Putt, the original Putt-Putt was in behind the, where Krystal's is now.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: The actual back parking lot of Krystal's was the Putt-Putt course.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Was the Putt-Putt course, yeah.
MR. HOPE: You could go out there, and hang out and, you know, go there. Of course, back then, it was video games, and it wasn't the video games we have today, it was the arcade games.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: Pinball, and Pac Man and all that, so you had Family Center and Fun Center. You had a couple different places where you could go and, you know, you'd go to a couple of the pool halls, and play pool, you know. Bowling alley, during the winter, when it was cold, you always had Ark Bowling Lanes, before there was ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Now where was, where was that?
MR. HOPE: Ark Bowling Lanes was, basically, where Revco is today.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Revco? You mean, CVS?
MR. HOPE: CVS.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Revco, CVS.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok, right, right, right ...
MR. HOPE: Where CVS is today, the Ark Bowling Lanes were right there. Best fried chicken that this town used to ever have.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: There was a little restaurant right there, and they had a fried chicken that was to die for. (laughter) I used to love to go in there and get a half a fried chicken for lunch. You could get a, you'd go in there when we were at the high school, and go in there for lunch, and get a half a fried chicken, and a Coke ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... for about four bucks ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wow.
MR. HOPE: ... and it was the, it was great fried chicken. But, so, there was a number of things for us to do as youths.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I mean, you know, if it was summer time, you were either at Carbide Park, or Melton Lake, or the swimming pool, itself. Yes, there was always something going on. You know, by the time I was in, a teenager in high school, I had, kind of, graduated through the Boys' Club program.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah.
MR. HOPE: My brothers were still going through that, since they're younger. So there was a lot going on there. I was already starting to work. I mean, I, I went to work early on.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I actually lied about my age, and went to work for Krystal's, and, restaurant, when I was 14, to work at their night shift, because they'd just opened up the drive-through.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: This was when drive-throughs were very new ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Very new.
MR. HOPE: … to a, to a lot of different companies, and restaurants were just trying them out. It was one of the newest things out then. They needed the night shift person. Well, I went to work, until they gave me my W-2 form, and they looked at my birthdate and they realized that, Hey, you're about two years too young to be working the night shift here.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You know, speaking of, speaking of drive-throughs, I can remember -- and this is going to show my age, but that's Ok -- I can remember when I was a senior in high school, this was 1975, that the only place in the whole area that had a drive-through, was a Taco Grande, or something, in Knoxville. It was on Kingston Pike. It was the only place, only restaurant that, that we knew of that had a drive-through. So, you're, you're absolutely right. Drive-throughs didn't come around until the '80s you know, really.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, it was the late '70s, early '80s, when drive-throughs became the big rush for all the fast food restaurants.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah. And I remember going to the McDonald's. That was the first McDonald's I ever went to was the one on, you know, the Turnpike, and that was about where, what? About where ...
MR. HOPE: Where Walgreen's is now.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Walgreen's, that's what I was thinking ...
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... about where Walgreens.
MR. HOPE: It actually had, like, car hop at the time.
MR. MCDANIEL:  It did, it did.
MR. HOPE: You could cruise the McDonald parking lot, that was the big thing back ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  And you ...
MR. HOPE: It was a little before I was driving, but you'd go over there with buddies, and there would be cars, guys in hot rods cruising through the parking lot.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You'd pull up, and you could either, you could either walk to the window and order, or somebody come take your order, or something, I remember. I was just a little kid when we did that. But, it had the, it had the traditional arch, golden arches on each side ...
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... you know, of it. 
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I remember that.
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  So ...
MR. HOPE: Lot of us remember, back then, too, the, what was then the Burger Queen.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah, that was the Burger Queen.
MR. HOPE: The Burger Queen. And, it was down where the Honeybaked Ham store is now.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, ok, all right.
MR. HOPE: When that building was where it's at now, that was where the Burger Queen was.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Burger Queen.
MR. HOPE: Not Burger King, but the Burger Queen.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Was, was, like, the Mayflower and all that, was it still around then, or not?
MR. HOPE: It was. The Mayflower was in its last legs. Of course, you had, you had Blue Circle, that was where the Dodge dealership across from the hospital is now.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yep, yep.
MR. HOPE: It was there. You had the, what was the name of the restaurant that was underneath Grove Center for years and years?
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, it was, well, it was the ... the Oak Terrace.
MR. HOPE: The Oak Terrace.
MR. MCDANIEL:  The Oak Terrace.
MR. HOPE: The Oak Terrace. It was still around.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Was it still around?
MR. HOPE: And, you'd, the one that was, a lot of people used to go to, and still went to for, at least on Friday and Saturday nights, was the Guest House. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MR. HOPE: Alexander Inn still had the Atomic City Bar and Grill up there, and ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... and they had a little restaurant back there and, you know, everybody'd go in there for a restaurant, to eat on Friday nights and Saturday nights.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wasn't there a pizza place in ... ?
MR. HOPE: The Back Door?
MR. MCDANIEL:  The Back Door. Now, where was that? Is that where ... ?
MR. HOPE: It's down off of Jefferson Circle ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  That's what I was thinking.
MR. HOPE: ... where J, J&M Butcher Shop is now.
MR. MCDANIEL:  The Butcher Shop is now. Yeah.
MR. HOPE: That was the, yeah, that's where they used to have bands on Friday and Saturday nights come in there.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And I interviewed the lady, I can't recall her name right now, the lady who ran it, and played in the band. I don't remember her name, but I, but I interviewed her ...
MR. HOPE: Yeah, that was a good pizza joint.
MR. MCDANIEL:  … three, three or four years ago, or something like that.
MR. HOPE: That was actually before Big Ed's time ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... or about the same time. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: You know, Big Ed's come in, the Back Door pizza place was the thing.
MR. MCDANIEL:  So, you mentioned earlier, that once you got into your 20s, you started racing. I mean, like, serious racing. Tell me about that.
MR. HOPE: Yeah. I guess I was about 24 or so, 20 ... yeah, 24, 25. I had been around race cars my whole life. My dad raced cars, you know, I'd race go-karts in the '70s.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yep.
MR. HOPE: Then, came up into the '80s, and it was the, the late, mid '80s. It was about '84, '85, that I started racing. And, I raced dirt track. You know, right here, people don't realize it today, but one of the most famous dirt track, race tracks around, in the whole United States, was Atomic Motor Speedway ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... that was out here, just past the Melton Lake Dam, next to ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, right by the interstate.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, right by the interstate ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  The interstate, yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... where Cross-eyed Cricket is, near it.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And, right there was the fastest third, dirt, high-banked, dirt, late model track that you could go to.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: It was the fastest dirt bank, high bank track that you could go to. Clay dirt. So, I literally cut my teeth racing at Atomic Speedway, which was 20 minutes from home…
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: … one of the most famous dirt track, tracks around. Then, Crossville Speedway, and other dirt tracks are around. We're in the clay belt of the, you know, the Southeastern quadrant of the country, and so, there was a lot of red clay that's in the dirt. From Georgia, up through the Virginias, and over to Alabama. So, a lot of race tracks in this area are built from dirt, and not asphalt. And if you go down farther into the South, or you go up the East Coast, or out in the Midwest, most of the race tracks, of the time, stock car racing tracks, were of asphalt.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: But, in this area, predominantly, 90 percent of the race tracks are built in dirt.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Because it would work, that was good for it.
MR. HOPE: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I mean, you know.
MR. HOPE: And that's what we used. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I mean, it goes back to the old car NASCAR root days, when they were racing NASCAR back in the '50s and '60s ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: ... everybody raced on dirt tracks.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, exactly.
MR. HOPE: So, that's how I come into ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  And all those guys learned on the, on the back woods, dirt roads, you know.
MR. HOPE: Yep, you know, dirt gravel roads of, you know, the ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Transporting moonshine.
MR. HOPE: Absolutely. So, they, so that's where I learned to race. So, and that was a big part of my life back then. I mean, I worked, I worked to race. I mean, I was working all the time to put money in the race car, and go race.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, literally, I won hundreds of races out at Atomic Speedway over the years, and was the Terror of Crossville for a while. Nobody could beat me at Crossville Speedway.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Really?
MR. HOPE: In 1989, I won 19 of 21 races, at Atomic Speedway.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Did you really? Wow.
MR. HOPE: So, I had a really fun, phenomenal winning streak out there.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I bet the guys were ready for you to retire, weren't they?
MR. HOPE: They ... A lot of them were ready to push me into retirement. So ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  I bet.
MR. HOPE: We raced stock cars and dirt track cars up until 2000. And, the significance of 2000 was that my son, Chuck, who was born in '89, he came along, and he actually, at 10-years-old. His mama said he couldn't race anything until he was 10-years-old. So, in 2000 was the year he was turning 10, we went and sold all the dirt race track cars, and bought dirt go-kart stuff.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, really. Ok.
MR. HOPE: So, we put Chuck in the race, in the go-karts, third generation Hope kid to run. My dad raced dirt tracks, I raced go-karts, and dirt tracks and now, it was time for the third generation ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... to step up and carry the torch.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: And we, literally, raced go-karts all over the country.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wow.
MR. HOPE: For about a 10 year span there, we raced everywhere you could possibly race in the Southeast, from as far away as West Virginia, and Virginia, all the way out through Illinois, out through to Mississippi, all the way up to the Mississippi River…
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wow.
MR. HOPE: … and anywhere in the Southeast. I mean, we raced all over, and had a, a great family experience of our kids growing up racing dirt go-karts.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Because that really was a family, family ...
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... project. It wasn't just, you know ...
MR. HOPE: We, we raced everywhere. I mean, we had the big trailer, and the big truck, and we'd go racing. Didn't matter where it's at, whatever the big race was, or weekend was, we went and raced there. So, we had a lot of fun. So, let's see, three generations of the Hope men raced, and cut their teeth on race cars. (laughter) And, I think that's what influenced Chuck to become a mechanical engineer.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: He had that natural ability of being a gearhead and that just fit hand-in-hand with him becoming a mechanical engineer.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Wow, wow...
MR. HOPE: Johnny was the younger one, and Johnny gyrated more to ball sports.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Did he?
MR. HOPE: Johnny played a lot of soccer. So, if we weren't racing, and chasing go-karts around the country, we were chasing him around a soccer field ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... and, going all around, traveling, playing soccer.
MR. MCDANIEL:  My goodness.
MR. HOPE: That was probably one of the most rewarding things I did when I was a, an adult, when my kids come along, and I was, you know. One of the benefits of owning your own business is that, you have to find the time, and spend the time, doing the things you want to do. One of them was working with my kids through sports, and activities.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: I didn't learn that lesson until a… One of the most profound lessons that I ever learned in life was my dad, when my wife was pregnant with my first child, I was, literally, working around the clock.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I was working six, seven days a week. My dad come in on a Saturday night, and asked me, "What are you doing here at the shop?" I said, "I'm making money. I got to work." He says, "Aren't you about to have kids?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Was I ever home when you were growing up?" I said, "Well, you were always working." He says, "And I regret every moment of it."
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: He says, "Go home and spend time with your family." He says, "Your kids will grow up in the blink of the eye." He says, "Go home and spend the time with them, and you can find out ways to enjoy yourself." My dad left, and I was still working on that car, and I worked for about another 10 minutes. I turned around, it was very quiet in the shop, nobody going on, had the radio blaring in the background. I looked around and just, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was one of those infinity moments ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... that you just, epiphany time, you know, yeah, and you sit there and say, "I believe he's right."
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I shut the hood on that car, and I never worked another Saturday in 34 years I've been in business.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Is that right?
MR. HOPE: And, I don't work on Sundays.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I spend the time with family.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: My kids are grown now.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, I go to the golf course, or we, me and Mary, go out to breakfast on Saturday mornings. But, and everybody that works for me has family.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And it's one of the things I've always told them, is that, you know, your family will only be small for a little while. Your grandkids will only be small for a little while.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, enjoy the time you have, you know, spend the time. If you go to church, go to church on Sunday.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Relax.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: If you got time to spend time with them, go to the lake, or go to the ball game, or go to the ball field. Go spend time with them on Saturday. So, my dad gave me one of the most valuable life lessons I ever had, and I was probably 24, 25, you know. Let's see, I was, Chuck was born when I was 26, so, I was 26-years-old ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... when I got that lesson, so ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: A half of a lifetime ago ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... I got that lesson, but it was a very profound lesson that my dad gave me.
MR. MCDANIEL:  So, so you're, so you have a business in Oak Ridge, you grew up here, you know a lot of people.
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, I guess, you decided, you decided you wanted to become a City Councilman.
MR. HOPE: I did. I think ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Tell me, tell me about that process, and what led to all that.
MR. HOPE: I guess what led to it was, back in 2005, I had the, the ... distinct pleasure of going through Leadership Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: I had known a lot about Oak Ridge, I had been involved in Oak Ridge, had been involved with the Chamber, at the time. Had been, been, you know, engaged, I thought, in the Oak Ridge community by being a business owner.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And raising kids and, you know, coaching ball sports, and stuff of that nature.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: But I'd never really sit down and went through the background, you know, what makes Oak Ridge run, what makes it tick? So, I had the chance to go through the Leadership Oak Ridge program. Carol Smallridge was the executive director at the time, and it was, like, the perfect storm with me. Going through that really opened my eyes, and said, look, you know, there is a lot going on here, but it takes, it takes commitment from a lot of people to make it happen. So, it was the perfect storm-type confluence that, I now had the spark and the energy, and I was in the right spot with my business, and I had good people working for me that allowed me to spend some time. And, I started thinking, you know, this community has been very blessed to the Hope family. It has allowed me to, to be raised here, to graduate high school here, to marry my high school sweetheart, to raise my own family, and to continuously run a business for that time. You know, I was in the business, now, over 20 years at that time, and, you know, it'd really given me a lot and I felt I needed to give back to the community. So, I got involved and I got engaged with the Chamber board, Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. I got involved with the Convention and Visitors Bureau Board, me and you sit on that board together ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... about the same time.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Was on the Beer Board, permit board. And so, was very engaged, civically, you know. I think that's what allowed them to see that I was such engaged, civically, that I was a possible good candidate for an appointment when Tom Hayes decided to step away from City Council. Because City Council got extended, the time frame, the term got extended by a year and a half.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: And Tom did not want to go through that. So, he stepped down, and that allowed me to, to run for that, or be appointed for that. I got appointed onto that ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  And how, how did that process take place. Did you just tell people that you were interested in it?
MR. HOPE: I told people that I would, I would consider the possibility, if so nominated.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, I was nominated by the City Council. Then, I had to be voted on, and I, I won the majority vote, but it was not a unanimous.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: I mean, it was a four-to-two vote, at the time.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Welcome to politics.
MR. HOPE: Welcome to politics. (laughter) So, but, I got on, and then, as soon as I got involved, I got very immersed in that. Of course, when you do something like that, you have to resign from the other positions, especially if it's any civic appointed position. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, really? I see. Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So, being on the Beer Board, permit board, or the Convention and Visitors Bureau board, I had to immediately resign from those positions ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: ... because they were appointed by City Council ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... and then, I'm sitting on City Council.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah, exactly.
MR. HOPE: So, I had rotated through my Chamber of Commerce board position at that time, so I didn't have to resign from that.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: So ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  And what year was that when you were appointed?
MR. HOPE: That was 2011.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok. So, just, just not, you know, five years ago.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, five years ago.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, so ...
MR. HOPE: So, it's 2011, and so, I was appointed and I went through the, MTAS [Municipal Technical Assistance Service] program has an elected officials' academy program.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Now, what is MTAS?
MR. HOPE: MTAS is Municipal Services Training Association, that the state of Tennessee does, and uses University of Tennessee, as its platform to give technical assistance to community, communities, counties, cities.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right. It's ... it's the state's support for, for municipalities ...
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... in the state. Right, right.
MR. HOPE: Yeah. It gives them the platform to give them the professionals and/or experts in, on various number of fields that they themselves may not have ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, exactly ...
MR. HOPE: ...that expertise in.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... exactly.
MR. HOPE: So, they allow an elected officials' academy program. And so, I took that, and that really, really helped educate me, as far as how to become a good City Councilperson. You know, make the good decisions, understand what the Robert’s Rules of Order are, understand the process of when you start to come up with an idea, when's it time to become a resolution, when's it time to present this as an ordinance for the city.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: How to work with city staff, and then, how to work with, in our case, the city manager. Since we are a weak form of government, here in Oak Ridge, we have a city manager. Then we, the seven council members, elect our mayor among us seven, versus an at-large election like Anderson County's, at-large where they elect the mayor, and the mayor is ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: ...  is the, the at-large majority winner there.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, exactly.
MR. HOPE: So, you know, there's a little difference in distinction in how counties and cities are run.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: So, that allowed me to do that. Then, I actually, in 2012, had to run two elections, because the city charter meant that if I was going to be on the council as an appointment, at the first possible general election, I had to run for the remaining term of that particular appointment. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  (laughs) So, in the spring, you had to run for ...
MR. HOPE: So, actually, in the ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... six months.
MR. HOPE: Actually, it happened in August.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, did it?
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: It was August of, it was July of 2011, that I was appointed.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Then, in August of 2012, was the first general election of Anderson County.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: Which, Oak Ridge sits in Anderson County, so it was the first general election. So, I had to run, and I actually had an opponent, that decided to run for me, basically, a three month term ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  That's right.
MR. HOPE: ... because we were elected in August, and then, that election lasted until ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  November.
MR. HOPE: ... November.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Then, in November, I was up for a four-year regular term.
MR. MCDANIEL:  So, you had an opponent for, for a three year ...
MR. HOPE: For a three month term.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Three month term. Right.
MR. HOPE: So, I won that, that term, and then, turned right back around, and I don't even think I took some of the yard signs out.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I'm sure, probably.
MR. HOPE: I just flipped them around and put them on the fresh side, and put them right back out there. And then, ran for the normal election cycle, which was then, in November, and won the election for my, then, first official term of, of office. And so ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  And how many, how many years is that?
MR. HOPE: It's a four-year term.
MR. MCDANIEL:  It's a four-year term. So, you're coming up on the end ...
MR. HOPE: Correct.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... of your first official full term, you know.
MR. HOPE: Right. Even though I've been on the council five years ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... I'm at the end of the first full term, prior to that.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right. And so, and you just, you just announced that you're seeking re-election ...
MR. HOPE: I am.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... for City Council and if people listen or watch this after November the 8th, they'll know how you did.
MR. HOPE: They will know that (laughter) they will know that. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  They will know ...
MR. HOPE: So, but, you know, I've enjoyed the time, it's been a, my, my time on City Council has taught me so much, both professionally, and personally.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: It's allowed me to have a tremendous amount of personal growth. It's allowed me to have a tremendous amount of professional growth.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: It's allowed me to really understand time management to the ninth degree, because to do all the things you have to do to be on City Council, running your own business, providing paychecks for people, trying to have a, you know, your own personal life involved in trying to go through that whole process over the last five years, has really taught me how to manage and hone my timing skills. It allows me to interact with a number of people, all over the community. It's allowed me to interact with some great people on staff, and the city staff. There are some really dedicated individuals on city staff. Add to allow to work, and work with those. I've worked with a couple different city managers, now. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: We've had, we've had, actually, we had a, Jim O'Connor was the city manager, when I first came on, and then, Gary Cinder, was the interim city manager ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... during the process, and then, worked with Mark Watson as he's come along in his position. So, it's allowed me to work with a couple of different people there, a couple different school board superintendents.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: I, I, you know, get to work in, alongside the community, in the community with Keys Fillauer, and Bob Eby, on school board.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And Angi Angle on the [school board], and a lot of different people. And, the City Council, the current sitting council. I enjoy working with everybody on City Council.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: I think it's a remarkable set of people that are dedicated to the city of Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Let me ask you a question: What is, what is the most rewarding thing about sitting on, being a City Council member, and what is the most challenging thing for you, personally?
MR. HOPE: The most challenging thing for me, personally, let me answer that first.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Ok.
MR. HOPE: The most challenging thing for me, personally, is to constantly keep myself reminded that this isn't what's best for Chuck Hope, or Chuck's Car Care, or Chuck Hope's family, this is what's best for us as a community.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: And, to keep that in mind, always, when we're sitting on council. We're elected by the people, for the people. And, we have to constantly keep that as a reminder. We're elected at-large. So, I'm looking for the best interests of the 30,000 people that are represented in Oak Ridge.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: So, that's probably the biggest challenge: is to always keep that in mind.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Are there ... are there times, though, if that, obviously, there are times when you could look at a situation, and say, well, it would be better for me, personally, if it went this way.
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  You know.
MR. HOPE: And there's been a number of times that has, that has, that thought process has gone through my head, but, you know, that's, that's the challenge of it ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... is that you can't allow your personal influences to sway the vote, you know.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: You can't allow yourself to say, well, this'd be good for me, as a business owner.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, yeah.
MR. HOPE: But, this is not a good decision for us, as a city.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: And, as being a representative of the city, you have to keep that in mind.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure, sure.
MR. HOPE: You know, the, probably, the most rewarding thing is the, "thank yous," I get. You know, I get a lot of people that'll come up to me, "Thank you for doing this," "I couldn't do this job," "I don't have the patience for this job," or whatever. And people will compare. I've had a lot of people, you know, I've had people that have not said, "thank you."
MR. MCDANIEL:  Well, sure.
MR. HOPE: Have said the far opposite of, "thank you." (laughter) But, you know, it's, it's their ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  "You" is the, "you," is the second word, though, right?
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah. (laughs)
MR. HOPE: A lot of the times, it's been ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  A lot of the times, it's been that.
MR. HOPE: And it's not been, "thank you," but ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, it's the other thing. (laughs)
MR. HOPE: Yeah, but, you know, it's part of, it's part of the price ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... of being an elected official.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: You know, when you put yourself out there, you have to expect that, you know, there's no matter how hard you try, you're never going to be the overall answer to everybody in the community. And, you have to be ok with that.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: You have to, and, you know, I like to, to get a read of the community, and, and vote with the majority, and how we vote to a lot of things. I ask for feedback, you know.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: And, some of that feedback's very negative feedback.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: But I take that all in stride, because that's somebody's opinion.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: They are, that opinion means enough to them for them to voice that opinion, in some platform, whether ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... it's through email, or through a letter, or a phone call. Because I own my own business, I have a lot of people that'll just come right into the business, and say, "Hey, I need to talk to my City Council member."
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: They're not there to talk to Chuck Hope, Chuck's Car Care owner.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: They're there to talk to Chuck Hope, City Council member. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: And so, I stop and I take the time, and we go into my office, and we have that conversation.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: And, it's, you know, that's ok. I mean that, because I want everybody that is just as passionate for the betterment of Oak Ridge, to feel that way.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Whether I agree with them or not, or whether they agree with me or not, it's good for us to be able to debate the issues, and to talk about those issues, and have differences of opinion.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, well, you know, that's one thing that ... that I have, I have an issue with, is that some people can't, they don't realize that just because you may completely disagree with each other doesn't mean that you don't respect the other person's right to have their opinion ...
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  ... you know, and respect them as a person, you know, as a fellow human being, a fellow, a neighbor. But you may completely disagree. A lot of people don't understand that. Let me ask you another question, and this is kind of unique, because I know you use social media some, to get feedback.
MR. HOPE: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  How has social media impacted your building to, to be an effective City Council? Has it enhanced it? Or has it, or, or is it a, is it a distraction?
MR. HOPE: That's, that's probably a two-edged sword that you're on sometimes. Social media can do both.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: It's certainly a way to enhance your ability to get a pulse of the community. But, if you interact with it too much, I think, it's a very easy platform to get misquoted on, or the intent of what you're trying to say misread. So, you have to be very careful on social media. You, and I think, as any local elected official may find out, you have to be burned by social media ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... a couple of times before you say, ok, you know, your mom can tell you the water's hot in that boiling pot of water, but some of us just have to reach up there, and put our fingers in it ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... to be one hundred percent sure.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I think you have to be burned by social media, a couple of times, before you learn to use it in small doses.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: And in the proper manner, and proper which way you can do it. Because you can get so spun up, and there's so many people that it becomes all-consuming, their whole life is spent, you know, surfing the net, surfing social media, and going to all the different social platforms ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... and just being engaged, they ... I heard a great quote the other day. We have got, technology has probably, brought us closer together than ever before. We can communicate with anybody in the world in seconds.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yep.
MR. HOPE: But we stay so isolated because we all watch that little four by six screen in front of us, that we don't even see the world that's going around us ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... around us. So, it's one of those things like that, that you've got to be careful.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, I had a, I interviewed a lady the other day who's a servant of the city, and what she said was that, people will say things on social media that they would never say to your face.
MR. HOPE: Absolutely.
MR. MCDANIEL:  I mean, they'll be hateful, you know, and ugly.
MR. HOPE: Downright mean.
MR. MCDANIEL:  She said that was, that was the thing that really surprised her about her serving on the school board, is that people were just, can be ugly on social media.
MR. HOPE: But, here again, I take it with a grain of salt, you know. I don't allow that. Look, if you're not happy with me, I'm the type of person, and I'm a fairly simple person.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: You're not happy with me, you come to see me, we'll sit down, face to face, and we'll figure out our disagreements.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yep, yep.
MR. HOPE: If you don't like me, ok. That's all right, too. I mean, I'm just not the person that's going to be liked by everybody, all the time, everywhere.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yep, sure.
MR. HOPE: And I understand that and I'm ok with that.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure.
MR. HOPE: I hope that I didn't offend you, and if I have offended you, then we'll get through that, and I'll apologize if there's any perceived, you know, offenses.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: But, you know, I, at the end of the day, I don't allow somebody's opinion of me to be a ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  To, to affect your opinion.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, exactly.
MR. HOPE: I'm, I'm pretty stable in that area, and got pretty big shoulders. Running my own business for as long as I have, you know, I've met my fair share of people mad at me, and I've tried to mend the bridges the best I can.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: But, you know, that's all right.
MR. MCDANIEL:  That's all right, that's ok. Obviously, you, you have enough people in town that like you, they voted for you. So ...
MR. HOPE: Yeah, yeah. And I continue to run a business every day. So ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  And hope, and hope, and you continue to run a business, you're still in business, so ... So, what, what's the future for Chuck? 
MR. HOPE: Ahh, the future ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  I mean, you're young, you're a young man, you know.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, well, yeah. I, I feel a little, I feel a little older. I think I'm a young man, an old man, in a young man's body, sometimes. (laughter)
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: I tell people it's not the, it's not the miles in the body, it's the miles in the mind, that will make you old or young.
MR. MCDANIEL:  It's like, and this is one of my favorite movie lines of all times was, Indiana Jones, said, "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage."
MR. HOPE: It is the mileage.
MR. MCDANIEL:  And, as a car guy, you should, that should be a good saying for you. (laughs)
MR. HOPE: Yeah, exactly. That's it, that's the quote.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: But, you know, I enjoy this part of life. My kids are grown now, they've gone through their education process, they're starting their own lives. 
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: My oldest is going to get married at end of this year ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... so, that's a new chapter in our life to see. Me and Mary have gone through the, the whole cycle of our, our marriage, as far as, we had a time before children, that we were married ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... for about seven years, before we had kids.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: Then, our kids come along, we raised our kids. Now, we're in that area ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: ... after kids...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: ... and, before grandkids. So ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... we enjoy that. You know, as I've gotten older, I've, I'm a competitive person by nature, always have been. I mean, from the time I was either playing ball sports, racing go karts, or racing cars, I've always been competitive. So, a lot of my competitive juices these days are used up on the golf course.
MR. MCDANIEL:  There you go.
MR. HOPE: I go out to the golf course and play golf. I enjoy my time. I enjoy my time with my family, whether it's with my mom. (My dad passed away a couple of years ago)…
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: ... but, I enjoy being with my mom. My brothers all live close by, in Kingston, or here in Oak Ridge. We, between the three of us, we have nine sons.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Oh, wow.
MR. HOPE: And so, you know, there's a lot of nephews to ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  There's a lot of testosterone in the Hope family, isn't there?
MR. HOPE: There is. (laughter) You know, I don't know that we're ever going to throw a girl out there ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: ... but we may be able to one of these days. But ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  You might have a, a little granddaughter.
MR. HOPE: Yeah, we could wind up with all granddaughters, when it was all said and done. (laughter) But, you know, I enjoy the time we spend with family.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: That, that means a lot to me.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Did you ever think about leaving Oak Ridge?
MR. HOPE: You know, I never did. I think, maybe when I was a teenager.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, sure.
MR. HOPE: You know, when I was going to school, I was a block and brick mason, and was going to school to become an architect. I thought, then, that that would be it. But once I, you know, I'm a firm believer is that, God gives you things. You know, He, lot of times, life gives you a bed you have to lie in. It's whether or not you want to be, make it an unmade bed, or are you going to pull the covers up, and enjoy what you've been given.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right, right.
MR. HOPE: And so, I've tried to enjoy what I've been given in life.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: And so, once I started my own business, Oak Ridge was home.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: When we were young, we moved quite a bit. When Dad and Mom were chasing jobs ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah, sure, sure, sure ...
MR. HOPE: ... in the '60s, and '70s, we grew up in certain areas, but we moved a lot.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Right.
MR. HOPE: And, by the time I got married, I just ...
MR. MCDANIEL:  You just didn't want to do that, did you?
MR. HOPE: I didn't want to move any more. And Oak Ridge is home.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I love to go visit places. Love to, I love to visit anywhere in the country.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: I've been all over the country and continue to, to see things new every year.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Yeah.
MR. HOPE: But, when something about coming back into the hills of Tennessee, it's home for me.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Well, Chuck, thank you so much. Thank you for your service to our community, and thank you, both as a business person, and as a public servant on City Council. I appreciate you coming in today, and talking about your life.
MR. HOPE: Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this for us, Keith.
MR. MCDANIEL:  Sure, sure.
[End of Interview]