The PST Regional Connections Committee (RCC) helps promote opportunities for regional development across Tennessee. The RCC identifies and develops initiatives to meet the needs of PST membership regions of state. Their goals are to:

1. facilitate independent regional development and growth according to each region’s strengths and interests
2. promote a regular exchange of communications and information between PST Regional Representatives and PST Leadership regarding regional planning efforts
3. coordinate plans for a yearly PST regional budget allotment to address regional development and membership growth
4. encourage regions across the state to share ideas and support each other as they discover how to proceed with developing programs and initiatives
5. provide support to Regional Representatives as they work to promote their region’s growth and increase PST membership

Presently, the RCC consists of a group of representatives for three regions (Knoxville, Memphis, and Northeast Tennessee) with an aim to expand into additional regions across Tennessee. 

Patrica Hope

RCC Chairperson & Rep for Knoxville/East Tennessee
Patricia Hope’s award-winning writing has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Mature Living, Upper Room, Home Life, The Tennessee Conservationist, Southern Writers, The Writer, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Agape Review, Number One, Pigeon Parade Quarterly, 2021 Anthology of Appalachian Writers, The Mildred Haun Review, Liquid Imagination, American Diversity Report, and many others. She lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Fred Tudiver

RCC Rep for Northeast Tennessee
Fred Tudiver is a dual citizen of Canada and the US who has lived in the Johnson City area for 21 years. He retired from an academic career in medicine in 2016, finishing a 40-year career at ETSU as full professor, in the department of Family Medicine at Quillen. Fred became a member of PST in the last 2 years and has enjoyed it, in particular the feedback and camaraderie from fellow poets. While he has published in the scientific medical world quite extensively, his poetry writing came about rather recently. His work has been published in Black Moon Magazine.

Ruby Jones

RCC Rep for Memphis
Dr. Ruby Jones is a native Memphian who was born in Mississippi. She retired from the Army as an E-7, Sergeant First Class, in 1996. In 1997 she enrolled in University of Texas, Austin, where she received a Ph.D. in Russian in 2008. Dr. Jones returned to Memphis in 2012 where she has been active in politics and in her church for the last 10 years. She also volunteers with Literacy MidSouth, where she provides adult-literacy tutoring.

2022-2023 Activities

PST's inaugural RCC event was a reading and book sale featuring regional authors, headlined by former Knoxville Poet Laureate Marilyn Kallet. PST and Friends of Oak Ridge Library co-sponsored the event.

PST also partnered East Tennessee State University (ETSU) to hold a poetry contest for  ETSU Creative Writing Students.

Check back for more events in the coming year.