Government and Military

John Dewitt Clinton Atkins graduated from East Tennessee University (UT’s predecessor) in 1846. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Tennessee House and the Tennessee Senate. He was…

Washington Curran Whitthorne (1843) was a U.S. senator from Tennessee in 1886-87 and a U.S. representative. He also was speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Herbert S. “Hub” Walters, who attended UTK from 1915 to 1918, served in the Tennessee House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 1963 to 1964. He endowed the Walters…

Lawrence D. Tyson graduated from UT in Knoxville in 1894. He was a brigadier general, speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, and U.S. senator from 1925 to 1929.

Estes Kefauver (1924) served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 to 1963. He was the Democratic party’s vice presidential nominee…

James B. Frazier, who graduated in 1878, was governor of Tennessee from 1903 to 1905 and U.S. senator from 1905 to 1911.

Clement C. Clay received one of the first degrees granted by East Tennessee College (now UT) in 1807. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives, as a U.S. senator…

James H. Williams, who graduated in 1827, was U.S. minister to Turkey from 1858 to 1861 and Confederate emissary to Britain in 1861.

Maurice F. Weisner, who attended UTK in 1956, is a retired admiral who commanded the Pacific fleet during the Vietnam War. He was vice chief of naval operations from 1972…

David Duvall Thomas, who attended UT Knoxville in engineering in the 1930s, oversaw the U.S. air traffic control centers and retired in 1970 as deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation…