Speaker 1: Dolphin Riggs
Speaker 2: Julie Tanksley
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to On the Trails with Dolphin Riggs, stories of nature, laughter, and healing. We're here today with a very good friend of mine, Julie Tanksley, that I have known for several years now, and highly respect probably as much as anybody will ever respect. Julie, I want you to please introduce yourself and go into your background a little bit as you want to, as you can.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Well, my name is Julie Tanksley and I was born and raised in Florida. I come to Tennessee. Both my parents were born and raised in Knoxville after they had separated when I was real young, I had stayed with my father and was raised in Florida with him. I was there until I got married and had my first and one and only child and moved to Athens, Tennessee, and I've been in Tennessee since 1990. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
That's about the time I met you a little bit later, a little bit earlier, isn't it? Guess I must have met you around 99 or so,
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Or Yeah, I know that I had met you close to 20 years. It's been a long time. Dolphin. I know. Really have. And I was working at Calhoun Police Department and had met you and started I'd met you at Lowe's, coming into Lowe's a lot, and I had seen you around. I just didn't need any plants or anything at the time.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah. And then there was one day there you were out in my plant department. That's where our friendship began.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yes, yes, absolutely. You were really interested in the law enforcement and of course that's a part of your past as well.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
It sure is. It sure is down in Florida as well.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well go ahead with your story of your background,
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Like the totality of it or I guess who I am today, which I've been through a lot in my lifetime. The way that I grew up, it made me who I am and who I wanted to be. I knew from a real young age that being in law enforcement was what I wanted to do, and it was basically in the sixth grade, they had asked me to be like the bus patrol and you got to wear this little orange thing going across your chest and you got this little badge, and they had asked me to do that, and at first I didn't want to because I was heavily into sports and everything else, but I had agreed and then I did it that one time and they had asked me to do that for the rest of the year because I had showed compassion for the smaller kids getting in line and wanting to go get to class when the bell goes off, and I would always be the last one off the field and going to class.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
And so I don't know if it just came natural to me or what, but at that point is probably the first time in my life where I thought maybe that might be something I want to do when I grow up and I contribute A lot of the wanting to help and make a difference was the way that I had grown up and was raised. My father was an alcoholic and he was abusive mentally and physically, and he wasn't drinking. He was a good guy, but when he was, he was a different character. And I have a little brother that's four years younger than me and I protected him and watched out for him, and we would literally count how many beers he'd had and if anybody came over we would watch to see if they brought a bottle of liquor and if they did, we just basically just went and hid. Like I said, we read him, which helped me in my career of reading body language and it's actually saved my life in the field a couple of times. Just reading the body language of somebody I can contribute to my dad for that.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
But yeah, reading his body language, finding out how drunk he was, we knew how bad he was going to be and what kind of night that we were in for. I took care of my brother, I hid him out, then I would go hide and everything and it was just, we learned to survive. I'd always wanted to be with my mother, and my mother was in Knoxville at the time, and when she left my father, but I guess I should start out, how I got in Florida was my dad. I can't say it was, I could understand why he become an alcoholic because I don't, because you need to make wise choices in life. And he just didn't do that obviously because he had went to prison when he was, I was told when he was 14, he had robbed people. He had stabbed people.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I was told that he was known as Lover's Lane Bandit in Knoxville. So he had had robbed a liquor store and they got into a pursuit with him and fire was exchanged and he had allegedly killed an officer, and I was told that he got life in prison. He got out and was paroled when he was 32, and he stayed at Brushy Mountain. Of course, when he got drunk, he talked about where he was put in the hole and how long he had to stay because he had allegedly killed people while he was in prison. He really didn't have a chance to be rehabilitated or anything. They just let him go. And then when he came home on parole, he was running around getting with the wrong crowd, and my grandmother talked to his parole officer and said, you better do something with him. He is out here running around. Just go ahead and lock him back up. And she was that Christian that thought you should walk the line. And she wanted her son to walk the line. And the parole guy came to my dad and said, you better do something because your mother's going to get you put back in prison.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So he went and married my mother. My mother was I think 12 years younger than him and her father. My other grandfather was a contractor, so he had gotten the contract to build Disney World. And so we moved, or they did, moved to Orlando and he had built the castle there at Disney World after I was born. He had passed away with cancer three months later. I didn't really get to know him, and I really wished I would've gotten to know him, but at that point my parents went ahead and just stayed in Florida because my mother's mother was still there. So she still continued there. And then I was probably, I think I was in the first grade whenever my mother left my father and all that had happened and she had taken us back to Knoxville, and I remember my little brother being so little, so I still protected him back.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Then my father showed up one day in Knoxville and I was so excited to see my dad. The next thing I know, I was picked up and put in a car by my dad's sister and my brother was done the same way. I remember looking out the back and my dad had smacked my mother and knocked her to the ground and stole her car. So he kidnapped us basically and took us back to Florida. I know he used it as, you want your kids then come on back and be with me, which she didn't. And I don't blame her. I don't blame her at all for that, which also helped me in my law enforcement career as to knowing domestic violence and that horrible things like that does happen. It happens every day and a lot of officers, they become calloused and they don't see the big picture. They just go call after call after call to the same thing and they lose their compassion for it. So I guess growing up a lot with all that I had went through had made me the officer that I was and had been, and I'd been doing it for 36 years, and a lot of officers don't even make it that long. So I had to have been called to do that. And I think that was my whole purpose of being here is to do that and try to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You have the time that I've known you. I've watched you as police chief in two separate places, go in knowing that you were facing a corruption situation to start with, that you have fought as long as I've known you, you have fought corrupt departments and corrupt situations and never backed down from it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I did. I was stubborn. I was very stubborn. I was going to make a difference and then I'm not leaving. You're going to throw me out. I'm not a quitter. So they did, but I made, I did what was right, and I mean the challenges alone coming up here from Florida and I started the academy in Florida, and then when I moved up here, it was walking into a different world. I was in awe. I could not believe how they discriminated, and that's where I learned about that. But I continued on and I did, and they said that I was the first female chief for both departments, and then I was the second female chief for the state of Tennessee, and I was the first deputy for Mittman County. So I mean, at the time it really didn't mean a whole lot to me. I just thought that I was just doing what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
But of course, you do things you want your children to be proud of and to take notice and rub off on them and do what is right. And it's for sure, I didn't do it for the money. There was never any money. So I hope I paved away for women in law enforcement, the discrimin that these departments that they do is just unreal. I mean, they want to make fun of female officers because they wear fingernail polish or because they don't feel like they're tough enough or anything. And so maybe I've made a difference in that as well. I hope so.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Well, you're certainly a pioneer and you leave some pretty big footprints to follow.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, I appreciate it, dolphin. Thank you. I love you for it.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Well, it's true. It's true. I've watched you for a long time now and there's no one I trust anymore. So you do. You set an example that I hope a lot of women will follow because there are women now in law enforcement, not as many as there would like to be, but I know a lot of ladies that are doing a real bang up job, and I guess it's not even fair to call 'em ladies. We kind of dropped that when we started the Title IX stuff and wanted to be women rather than the lady title. But I had some of my, I guess growing up, I tell people when they ask me where I grew up, I tell 'em I haven't yet. So that kind of takes that away. But I was a part of that Title IX movement when women were trying to get their equal rights on the athletic fields and in sports and in teaching and education and all of that.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
And it was a hard fight. And now we are kind of finding ourselves back in that same place again, having to reestablish that movement. But women do make a difference. And I think during that time was when the Virginia Slims tennis tournaments were being played, and the big logo for that was, you've come a long way, baby. And we all thought, wow, we've really done something. Now we've got the Virginia Slims, we've got these big tournaments. And they were saying, we've come a long way. And then they mess up by saying, baby, it's like you just got to stab. You got to put a little stab in there somewhere. But yeah, we've come a long way in law enforcement and other and all fields. So I really do respect what you've done in the field itself. You've taken on some hard stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, yeah. Political, small city town politics. And I left one department and came back four years later and got it up and going again and did it again. Oh no. And I'm like, what is wrong with me? Well, you just weren't finished. Yeah, no, that is true. That's my stubborn streak. Very good.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, we have the same stubborn streak going Now you have one more stubborn streak we're going to mention here just because I think you've set a precedence of how you fight and for yourself and for the rights and good. And I do know that your grandmother was carrier of Lou Gehrig's disease that has kind of come into your gene pool there too. I know that that part of your fight is that stubbornness that's born into you. Can you share with us a little bit how you're dealing with that?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, basically I have a paralyzation in my throat. I get strangled a lot of times where normal people can eat cereal as a demonstration. You have your solid and then you have the liquid. I have to consciously pay attention when swallowing because I will get strangled. A lot of times with foods like that. I just usually stay away from that and just don't do it. But sometimes I can't help it and I have to go get a bowl of cereal. It had started out like that. I had been noticing it, and I went to the doctor and she sent me to a specialist, and basically he said, your throat in certain areas are paralyzed. And then I went back to my other doctor and I had told her that my grandmother had passed away with Lou Garrett's disease, and she gave me that look and I said, is it hereditary? She said, yes. And if I'm not mistaken, I think she says it's predominant in females. And some of my blood work, there was some indicators. So she said, there's only two places that test for that. And she said, I can send you to it and we can get tested. And I said, is there a cure? And she said, well, no. And I said, then I don't want to know. I'm just going to live life as it is and it be what it is.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I've tried to contain it by what I eat and stuff, but I still get strangled at times. And also another thing is the weakness in muscles and legs. And I haven't kind of noticed that. How I kind of feel about it is it's kind of lying dormant and it just is going to spring out any minute, of course. I don't know. And I just don't want to know. I'm going to live life and I'm just going to just do my thing. But I did talk to my aunt on my mother's side, and there's several of my cousins on their side that are females in their older years, they got it or it showed up reard its head up and a couple have died. And I think there's two that are still alive if I ever get old,
Speaker 1 (17:53):
But
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I'm not. I'm going
Speaker 1 (17:54):
To be young forever. There you go. There you go. We'll just keep you young. Keep you young and laughing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And I know everyone out there that's hearing this will be sending their prayers to you as well, to keep you young and laughing and safe.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah. I had a thought while you were just saying that, and I don't remember what it was now, which is normal. I think one of the things I was going to say with it was that you had told me one time when we were talking about your dad that one of the things that once you had a chance to go over and see what brush your mountain looked like and how it felt over there and had an idea of what your dad had gone through, that you were able to understand a little bit more and you had chosen not do anything that he wanted to do or that was part of who he was, and that you absolutely would do the opposite and become the opposite. And since he hated policemen or hated cops, you went and became not only a cop, but a police chief and have done such a great job. I just wanted to bring that up. You touched on that, but I don't know if it was to show that what he had done actually was what forced you into some of the things you're doing now.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
He despised preachers anything to do with religion, but even though I knew deep down he would call on God but didn't want to tell me he didn't believe in him, and he made fun of preachers in church. And I remember being in the sixth grade, I purposely went to church. I had the bus, the van would come around and pick everybody up, and I would go every Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, every chance I got. And I noticed he never said anything. He would not, he wouldn't say, no, you can't go or anything. I would get on that bus and I would go and I did. Up until, well, we couldn't go anymore. And then we moved. But growing up, I did. I married a preacher and I became a cop. Everything against him I did. And it was kind of like, I would be like, aha, what are you going to do about it?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And then he wouldn't do anything. And when I become an officer, he had told me one time, one time only that he was proud of me. And I thought the world was coming to an end that day. I couldn't understand it because I was going to show him I was not going to be anything like him, which I just couldn't, didn't want to be. And it was like I did not want anything that was negative, his negativity. I did not want it to come out. I didn't want it to take over me. I was not going to be like that. And I just drive through my life to make sure it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And even my brother tells me, which my brother, I tell him that he's a lot like our father, but he's like, you're nothing like dad. And I said, I won't never be like him. And I don't know, dolphin just, it was with me ever since I was a child. And I loved him. He was my father. I mean, he had a stroke in Florida and I went down there and I picked him up and I brought him back to Tennessee and I took care of him, and I put him in a place that I had to pay for and I paid for it, and I took care of him up until the day he died. I paid for haircuts and clothes and everything. So I felt like I did what I was supposed to do with taking care of my parent, but I didn't want to be anything like him. And I loved him, but I just was going to stop that part and that negativity right there with me and my family and moving on to with my children, my child. I wind up just having one and it being a male. And I do, I watch him close. I don't want him to be anything like my father,
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And I'm sure he won't be. Oh me. Well, Julie, I appreciate you and you speaking so openly, and I love you. Absolutely. We got to keep you safe. Thank you.
