Where His Heart Is

Terry Scholes enjoys the successes of Scholes Scholars more and more each year.

In his years as founding principal of EMC Structural Engineers in Nashville, Terry P. Scholes ('79) made his marks on blueprints in orange ink. "My blood has always run orange," says Scholes. "But it also stands out. Everybody in this town knows that if it's an orange mark, it's mine."

Scholes has made his mark on future Vols in his industry by establishing the Terry P. Scholes Engineering Scholarship Endowment in 2005 and making it a co-beneficiary of his 401(k). A highlight of his year is his annual visit with the Scholes Scholars in the Tickle College of Engineering.

Matthew Lyons, who graduated with a civil engineering degree, says: "The Terry P. Scholes Scholarship was a huge blessing and allowed me to study civil engineering abroad. This once-in-a-lifetime trip to Shanghai immersed us in Chinese culture while we studied about sustainability and smart infrastructure."

Scholes's estate gift will one day enhance the endowment even more, but seeing current students benefiting from his scholarship led him to say, "I want to do it now." In 2014, Scholes increased the size of the endowment, and in 2018 he committed to doubling it again over the next eight years.

Scholes earned his bachelor's in civil engineering in 1977 from Belmont College and began his master's degree in the Tickle College of Engineering.

"I didn't know what structural engineering was, but as soon as I learned about it, I said, 'That's right,'" he says. "I'm one of the rare people who got to do what God made me to do, what I was gifted to do, born to do, and called to do. And I got to do that because of UT."

His favorite professor was Edwin Burdette. In 2011, Scholes was one of several civil engineering alumni who made significant gifts to name the hardened concrete lab in the John D. Tickle Engineering Building in honor of Professor Burdette.

"Everybody loved Ed Burdette," says Scholes, "and he was a great teacher, but I also found out that he was from Weakley County, where my mother's family was from, and his father was from Paris, Tennessee, where my father was from. He knew some of my uncles."

Scholes married Linda Fagg, a high school friend and a psychology major at UT. "We had dated on and off, and then started dating for real." While Linda finished her BA, they lived in married student housing.

After graduation they moved to Nashville, where Scholes founded Engineer Management Company, which became EMC Structural Engineers. They have two children, Joshua and Emily, who are also UT alumni. Joshua earned his BS and MS in aerospace engineering at UT in 2004 and 2005. Emily got her BS in child and family studies with a psychology minor at UT in 2006. She met her husband, Jerrod Waffird, at the UT Alumni Association Davidson County All-Sports Picnic.

Scholes first started giving back to UT by contributing to the college's general scholarship. Twenty-six years after graduation, he established the scholarship in his name to annually benefit civil and environmental engineering students.

When Scholes first established the scholarship, he expressed gratitude to UT "for helping me make my dream come true."

"It's meaningful for me to create a scholarship," Scholes says. "It's a dream that I'm able to give substantially to something I love. Helping the students—that's where my heart is."

Make a meaningful gift to UT that will have lasting impact on future Vols. Contact the Office of Gift Planning at 865-974-3388 or giftplanning@utk.edu to begin your journey.