For more information: Teri L Sullivan
WKNO Promotions Manager
901-325-6518
tlsullivan@wkno.org
April 1, 2009
For Immediate Release
WKNO LOOKING FOR MEMORIES OF
DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS
In the role of the Mid-South’s storyteller, WKNO is planning a new Memphis Memoirs show and is looking for photos, films and stories of Downtown Memphis from the 1900’s to the 1970’s. You can help us collect the excitement of and recapture the timeless charm of Downtown Memphis for this upcoming documentary. To submit your memorabilia, call (901) 325-6525 or e-mail wknopi@wkno.org.
“Downtown is always the heart of a city,” said producer Pierre Kimsey. “There’s so much history in Memphis’s downtown and it’s a great time to tell it during a period of such continuing revitalization.”
Memphis Memoirs is more than a local documentary series, more than a history series. It’s a nostalgia series, and its community appeal goes deeper than the love of learning a city’s history. The popularity of nostalgia programs has created a phenomenon called “a shared memory experience.” Nostalgia programs become a city’s scrapbook, of sorts.
The phenomenon in Memphis began in 1995, when WKNO called upon the city to send in its memories of fun places and events from Memphis in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. Those memories became Memphis Memoirs: Remember When?, which premiered on Channel 10 in August, 1996. Since then, there have been seventeen Memphis Memoirs in all.
Pierre Kimsey has earned a Telly Award for his documentary Stax Music Academy: From Soulsville to Italy. He most recently produced The Least Among Us: The Prison Paws Project. Other WKNO productions helmed by Kimsey are Joe Scott: Memories of the Negro Leagues; It Matters: Are You Prepared? (both of which recently received a regional Emmy Award nominations) as well as Memphis Memoirs: WKNO – The First Fifty Years.
WKNO is a non-profit, private foundation serving the Mid-South for more than 50 years.
An important community resource, WKNO uses the power of non-commercial public broadcasting to provide the Mid-South with quality educational and cultural programs that inform, entertain, and inspire. For more information: wkno.org.
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