-R-
Return to Williamson County Authors
Return to Williamson County Authors
Dave Ramsey graduated from Antioch High School and attended UT–Knoxville. Returning to Nashville, he entered the real estate business but after phenomenal success, found himself at rock bottom, a victim of the changing climate in real estate and banking. Ramsey’s book, syndicated radio show, and Financial Peace University seminars share the lessons he learned as he dealt with this experience, both financially and spiritually.
–How to Have More Than Enough, 2009
–The Total Money Makeover, 2007
–48 Days to the Work You Love (with Dan Miller), 2007
–The Money Answer Book, 2005
–The Red Racer, 2003
–Financial Peace Revisited, 2002
–Priceless, 2001
–More Than Enough, 1999
–Financial Peace, 1992
W. Paul Redick, a native of Camden, was a graduate of Cumberland University, Peabody College, and Vanderbilt University. He is best known as headmaster of Battle Ground Academy from 1950 through 1968. Redick served as teacher, coach, and intramural director at Castle Heights Military Academy and as Tennessee state director of special schools. From 1936 to 1960, he served as director at Camp Hy-Lake in the Cumberland Mountain area.
–They Preached Me a Sermon, 1984
–It Happened at Hy-Lake, 1972
Alison Touster Reed was born in Nashville and moved to Williamson County as a child. She received her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Vanderbilt University, and she was founding editor of the Cumberland Poetry Review. Reed has been published in more than 100 magazines, and critics favorably received her poetry books.
–Bid Me Welcome, 1978
–The First Movement, 1976
Andrew Reese was born in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His interest in writing began with his father who was a popular writer of articles and stories about antique cars. After receiving a civil engineering degree from Cornell University in 1975, he obtained a masters degrees in water resources and business from Colorado State University and Boston University respectively. His technical articles, some of which are considered classics, culminated in a bestselling textbook called Municipal Stormwater Management. In 2006 he began a nonprofit organization called The Freedom Resource. It supports the “Sozo” model of emotional healing which is spreading as a network among first responders around the world. He is a popular speaker in his technical field and in the area of inner healing. He lives in Burwood.
–Freedom Tools, 2008
–Municipal Stormwater Management, 1996, 2003 (2nd ed.)
Major John Reid was a Virginia native, but he moved to Tennessee in 1807. He settled in Franklin in 1809, where he practiced law. Reid served as Andrew Jackson’s military secretary throughout the Indian wars and at the Battle of New Orleans. He had written only the first four chapters of The Life of Andrew Jackson when he died. Major Reid’s friend, John Henry Eaton, completed the volume. The book appeared from a Philadelphia publisher with both names on the title page.
–The Life of Andrew Jackson (with John Henry Eaton), 1817
Richard Samuel Reynolds was born in 1893 and was living in Franklin at the age of four. He studied at the Institute, the old Ninth District Public School, under Miss Mabel Johnson. He then attended Battle Ground Academy. After embarking on his career as an engineer, he built a dormitory for Middle Tennessee Teachers’ College (now Middle Tennessee State University) in Murfreesboro.
–The Engineer Reports: We Would Be Building with Stone, Brick and Steel; and a Way of Life as an Engineer Finds It, 1972
From a childhood in Brighton, Michigan, and college years in Dallas, Texas, Constance Rhodes moved to Nashville in 1993 hoping to land a record deal. Instead, she found herself working for Sparrow Records as marketing director until her personal experience with disordered eating and chronic dieting led her to establish FINDINGbalance, an organization to help others resolve the problems of eating disorders and lifestyle management. As part of her work, she has written a practical book on the subject as well as continuing to write and speak nationally about the life-changing freedom of true self-acceptance. Rhodes lives in Franklin with her husband and son.
–Life Inside the Thin Cage, 2003
Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, Kathy Rhodes is a sixth-generation Mississippian, who moved to Franklin in 1988. Her works have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and literary anthologies, including Simon & Schuster's Chocolate for a Woman's Soul II and all three editions of Our Voices. She is the creator and editor of the e-zine Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, a Place for Emerging and Established Writers to Publish Their Works. Her first book is a collection of 50 personal essays.
–Pink Butterbeans, Stories from the heart of a Southern woman, 2005
Thomas C. Rieke, a native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a United Methodist pastor for more than thirty-five years and served four different churches in Ohio from 1959 to 1972. He then lived in Williamson County for more than ten years while serving the United Methodist Church and other organizations in the area of finance and stewardship. He has written numerous articles on the subject. Rieke moved to Oakland, California, to head his own firm, the Network for Charitable Giving.
–The Generosity Option: Planning Options for Contemporary Disciples, 2002
–Funds for the Future of the Church, 1999
–VISION/30, 1998
–Generous People in Action, 1993
–Strengthening Our Congregation’s Stewardship, 1981
–How to Give Away Your Debts and Other Experiences in Stewardship, 1980
–The Circuit Rider, 1979
–Opportunities in Stewardship for Concerned Christians in a Local Church (with John C. Espic), 1975
Tom Riley grew up in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on the campus of the Potter Children’s Home where his father was superintendent. He attended college at David Lipscomb University and then became a minister, serving churches in several places before coming to Franklin in 1994 as the senior minister of the Fourth Avenue Church of Christ. He has also been an adjunct teacher of Bible at Lipscomb. On submitting several topics to Covenant Publishers, he was encouraged to write on baptism, resulting in his first book. The more recent book is intended to assist small prayer groups and includes both text and space for journaling.
–Praying with Jesus: Experiencing New Depths in Prayer (with Tom Cook), 2001
–Dying to Live Again: the Grace of Baptism, 2000
Ann Marie Rizzo is a native of Buffalo, New York, where she studied political science at Ithaca College. She obtained her Ph.D. from Syracuse University. Rizzo was director of the Institute for Public Management at Florida International University in Miami. In 1988 she moved to Franklin and became professor of public administration at Tennessee State University. She has published numerous articles in professional journals.
–The Integration of Women in Management, 1991
–Innovations in Teaching Public Affairs and Administration, 1981
Susan McDonald Roberson was born in Nashville where she graduated from Glencliff High School and David Lipscomb University. She became a self-employed accountant and has lived in Brentwood since 1986. Roberson has an active interest in genealogy and family history.
–The Martin-Barnhill Families (with Louise Lynch), 1985
–The Stephenson Family: Past and Present, 1984
Betty Jean Rhodes Robinson grew up
in Straight Creek, Kentucky, on the Kentucky side of the Cumberland Gap. Music was an important part
of life there. After high school, she went to Washington D.C. where she worked as a typist
at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the last days of Herbert Hoover. She
and her husband built a home in Brentwood during the 1970s. Betty Jean
began to write music and in 1973 was Billboard’s
choice for female country songwriter of the year. Robinson developed her own
television program, “Up on Melody Mountain,” seen on the Trinity
Broadcasting Network which is shown around the world on twenty-seven
satellites. She has sung in
–Up on Melody Mountain, 1997
Roley, Scott
(1952 - )
A minister of Christ Community Church who lives in the HardBargain
section of Franklin, Scott Roley has long been interested in leading Christians
to understanding and action concerning the poor and how their lives play out in
affluent America. He grew up in suburban Washington D.C. As a sixth-grade child,
he had encounters with both Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy. From these
national leaders he became interested in helping those in need. Although he
started his adult life as a musician, he felt the pull of the church and social
justice. In 1989 he came to Christ Community Church as a youth pastor. Over the
years his understanding and interest have grown, leading him eventually to write
his book.
–God’s Neighborhood, 2004
Mary Waller Ross lives in Marlow Heights, Maryland, but was born in Hubbard, Texas. She taught school in Franklin, Tennessee, and Moultrie,
–Essence Is Not of Time, 1984
–April and October: Collected Poems, 1981
As an Iowa farm boy, Tim Ross decided in the fifth grade that he wanted to be a weatherman. After majoring in meteorology at Texas A&M, he worked as a weatherman in Dallas and Oklahoma City. He started writing short nonsense rhymes to make the weather report interesting. His audience, as well as a professional writing friend, encouraged him. The result is a series of rhyming verse books on weather with a work kit for each book to help elementary school classes enjoy the subject of weather. In 1999, he moved to Franklin to be a meteorologist, first for Fox 17 television and later for WSMV. He has often visited schools to read his books and talk about weather.
–Bruce the Goose and the Blueberry Juice, 2007
–High Flying Frequency Fluctuation, 2007
–Please Don't Bug Me, 2007
–A Thump, a Bump and a Dump, 2007
–Bucky Saves the Day, 2007
–A Sunday Surprise . . . Is Our Minister Sinister?, 2003
–Dr. Merlin McMasters’ Weather Disaster, 2003
–Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Twister, 2000
–Brewster, the Rain-Makin’ Rooster, 1999
Growing up in western New Mexico, Rowell worked on ranches, construction crews, and guided big game hunters in the Gila wilderness before serving in the air force. He then earned a B.A. at William Jewell College in Missouri and an M.Div. from Midwestern Baptist Seminary in Kansas City. His career has included being a pastor, writing for both secular and Christian publications, speaking for conferences and retreats, and editing both printed books and an audio resource for preachers. Rowell moved to Franklin to serve as a teaching pastor for The Peoples Church.
–Go the Distance: 21 Habits and Attitudes of Those Who Finish Well, 2002
–Preaching with Spiritual Passion, 1998
Laurence Rubin, a native of Connecticut, lives in the Grassland area. He taught mathematics and computer programming at Nashville State Technical Institute. The book he co-authored is intended for second-year technology students. It contains many examples of BASIC language computer programs and includes exercises for various technologies.
–Programming in BASIC for Technology Students (with Darrell Abney), 1986
Corneille McCarn Rucker was born in East Nashville and grew up there and in Hawaii where her father was attorney general. While attending Vanderbilt University, she was the first woman to publish in The Fugitive, the poetry journal published by the famed Fugitive poets. Throughout her lifetime she continued to write at her home near Charlottesville, Virginia. Every Christmas for more than 50 years she sent a Christmas poem to her friends. Rucker lived several of her last years in Franklin.
–Christmas Is Love, 1987