The rise and fall of Jake F. Butcher is legendary in Tennessee. The architect of the 1982 Knoxville World’s Fair, a former Tennessee gubernatorial candidate and the founder of United American Banks, Butcher and his brother C.H. at one time controlled an empire of 40 loosely affiliated banks and savings and loan associations. But their billion-dollar paper empire came crashing down the day after the fair ended when 180 federal bank investigators seized all their banks simultaneously, halting their ability to transfer assets from one bank to another. The findings? Bank acquisitions had been completed through a pyramid of unsecured loans, forged documents and fraud. One of the largest bank failures in American history, the FDIC estimated that its Butcher-connected losses equaled over $380 million. Hundreds of people and businesses in Knoxville and elsewhere in Tennessee took a financial bath.

Bankrupted, and with his lavish lifestyle that included a 40-room mansion swept away, Jake Butcher was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Seven years into that term, Butcher was paroled. (C.H. also served time and was paroled. He died in his Georgia home in 2002 of an aneurysm.)

So where is Jake Butcher now?

The 70-year-old Butcher lives in the quaint Atlanta suburb of Canton in North Metro Georgia, about a 45-minute commute from the Phoenix City. Though divorced for 15 years, he has re-established familial ties with his wife, the former Sonya Wilde, whom he calls his “best friend.” Wilde is a former movie and television actress, who had roles in Bonanza and Perry Mason, and who for a time replaced Carol Lawrence as Maria in the Broadway production of West Side Story. Together they live in the BridgeMill subdivision near their youngest son, Jason (two of Jake’s other three children still live in the Knoxville area. Jake has seven grandchildren with another on the way.) Subdivision amenities include a championship golf course, aquatic center, mini-golf course and a restaurant. The subdivision backs up on 1,700 acres of forest and six miles of shoreline on Lake Allatoona.

And Butcher is still working. Currently he operates a business brokerage firm with offices in both Chattanooga (Jenkins Road) and Atlanta (Maple Drive) called “THE CAPITAL PARTNER$ GROUP.” (The company does or has done business as various entities including “Business Brokers of Atlanta” and “JBF Investments.”) As managing director, Butcher is essentially a middleman, a money finder, using his vast network of personal connections to bring people together to broker deals. Butcher still counts many of Tennessee’s top business and political leaders among his friends, including FedEx founder Fred Smith—a fellow Marine—and Tennessee congressman Zack Wamp, with whom Butcher says he long ago attended Bible school. (“We both needed it,” Butcher quips.)

Business Tennessee caught up with Butcher in Nashville in May where he was staying at the Holiday Inn Express across the street from the Frist Museum for $90 a night while working on a development deal in nearby Sumner County. Still describing himself as a “Yellow Dog Democrat,” Butcher sports a Harold Ford Jr. for Senate sticker on the rear window of his Lexus SUV, alongside a Semper Fi sticker. En route to a photo shoot at Centennial Park, home of a replica of the Greek Parthenon, Butcher recalls how he was in Nashville the day the tornado of 1998 ripped through the downtown area causing him to seek shelter in the basement of a Midtown building. Nearing the location of the photo shoot, Butcher, an avid history buff, rides the brakes of his SUV repeatedly while trying to read the inscriptions on the bases of the many statues surrounding the Parthenon complex.

Asked why at 70 he is still working, Butcher says it’s due to his financial situation. “I just made so many mistakes,” he says. How is he doing financially? “I’m surviving. I’m not doing great. I’m doing okay. But I’m not going to help myself by tooting my own horn. That’s been true ever since the debacle occurred.” Are there any federal restrictions on his business activities? “No. I suppose I paid my dues.”

What was it like to spend seven years in prison? “You just do it. There’s no choice.” Is it hard to believe he’s now 70 years old? “Like Jack Benny, I wish I was always 39.” How exactly does he feel about what happened 23 years ago? “I think God has forgiven me, and I hope everyone else will too.” To all appearances, Butcher is leading a wholesome life and earning every dollar he makes by the sweat of his brow. But not everybody believes that to be the case. Oak Ridger Sandra Lea, author of Whirlwind: The Butcher Banking Scandal, who has long chronicled Butcher’s escapades, reports that Butcher continues to make bankruptcy “a way of life.” According to Lea, Butcher’s modus operandi is forming an entity under the name of a family member or like-minded colleague, borrowing heavily against the entity, paying none of the accumulating bills or employee taxes, then bankrupting the entity after a year or two, collecting big dollars for his efforts. She offers as one example Jake’s Cowboy Travel Plazas, which at one time operated a handful of truck stops across the Deep South. But there is also Southern Value Homes, Plantation Pines Petroleum, X-Po USA, and more than 90 others that Lea’s documentation connects to Butcher business addresses.

Lea also provided Business Tennessee with documentation showing that Butcher is one of the silent investors currently proposing a half billion-dollar destination resort development at the site of the Circle G Ranch in DeSoto County, Mississippi, just south of Memphis. The late Elvis Presley once owned the ranch, the place he shared his 1967 honeymoon with wife Priscilla. Horn Lake planners approved zoning for a golf course and entertainment resort last year. Publicly leading the investment—in the proposal stage for five years now—is CGR International and its owner J.D. Stacy, an Atlanta-based developer and former manager of the late NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt.

Butcher provides few specifics about his current business dealings. “I don’t want to get in to where I’m at and what I’m doing or anything like that.”

Physically fit and in good spirits on the day of his visit with Business Tennessee, Butcher comes across as a man determined not to let his scandalous past define who he is. Every bit the charmer he was a quarter century ago while squarely in the public eye, Butcher is quick to tell a funny story or a good joke, appearing in every case to see the silver lining in life despite the clouds. One example is when he admonishes that he is in better shape physically at 70 than he might have been otherwise due to the fact that he could not drink alcohol during his years in prison.

Speaking of silver linings, one can’t look at the skyline of Knoxville without feeling a significant amount of appreciation for what Butcher accomplished for that community. But now over 20 years since his empire fell, Butcher’s long shadow may at last be fading. Political analyst Frank Cagle recently opined in Knoxville’s Metro Pulse that the psyche of the Knoxville business community is only now truly emerging from the hangover induced by the Butcher bank collapse. “The Big Sleep is over, and this place is on the move,” Cagle writes. “It only took a generation.”

Jake Butcher is not the only Tennessee business leader of past note whose present status is worth looking up. Following are some other names who managed to log enough time on center stage that their absence is noted and current whereabouts pondered.

Boner of Contention

When the U.S. House of Representatives installed Ohio Republican John Boehner (pronounced ‘Bayner’) as Majority Leader in February, the need to clarify pronunciation of the congressman’s name inspired respected Beltway newspaper The Hill to humorously allude to former backbencher Tennessee 5th District congressman Bill Boner. Boner, whose term in Congress was soiled by an investigation into his financial dealings, later served as mayor of Nashville, defeating then Nashville businessman Phil Bredesen in a run-off election in 1987.

Boner’s term as Nashville mayor was more memorable for his personal foppery than civic contribution. While in office and still married to his third wife, Boner announced his engagement to local entertainer, Traci Peel. The lovers later appeared on hit television talk show Donahue where Boner played harmonica and Peel raved about Boner’s stamina in the bedroom to a national audience.

Boner did not seek reelection. In 1991, he brought Shoney’s founder Ray Danner in as an equity partner on a pallet factory in Tompkinsville, Ky. But, alas, small town life didn’t suit Boner, and he asked Danner to buy him out. He wound up in Atlanta where he became a restaurant franchisee for a time. But Boner eventually came back to Nashville, where, following a series of professional fits and starts, he found steady employment as house father and principal of the Tennessee Preparatory School, a state-operated residential school for orphaned, neglected and abused older children.

The state eventually closed the prep school. Today, Boner is a social studies teacher, a student-driving instructor, a mock trial club faculty advisor and a basketball referee working at Franklin High School in Williamson County. While he declined to participate in a full interview, Boner did say, “I’m doing what I’m doing, and I’m enjoying it. All is well, and God is good.” Boner’s boss, FHS principal Willie Dickerson, also declined a full interview request, stating that she respected Boner’s wishes “to remain out of the limelight.”

According to background interviews with several FHS students, Boner is a popular teacher well regarded for the real life experience he brings to the classroom (interestingly, the very thrust behind Gov. Bredesen’s newfangled program to rapidly license business professionals who desire to teach in Tennessee high schools). And, yes, many if not most of Boner’s students—his honors students in particular—realize that the affable Boner once defeated Bredesen in a political contest.

Speaking to Boner in person today, even briefly, he comes off as down-to-earth, relaxed and comfortable with his current status in life, and sources close to Boner confirm this perception to be true, adding that he has also become quite religious. Sources additionally say that Boner is honest and open about the fact that he screwed up in office. One source colorfully and succinctly explains, “There’s no bullshit to him anymore.”

Though he has remained physically out of the spotlight, Boner’s name has not. Each year Nashville’s alternative weekly newspaper, The Nashville Scene, hands out facetious awards detailing “crimes, misdemeanors and all-around goofs” by newsworthy people. Begun while Boner was still in office in 1990, “The Boner Awards” pay homage to Nashville’s most flamboyant mayor, whose antics in office arguably set the city back a generation in its efforts to shed its image as a hick-town.

Fit to Print

Frank Leeming arrived at his new post as publisher of the Kingsport Times-News in the late 1970s following stints as a business editor and business manager of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He would become one of the most controversial people in the history of the Gateway City.

“If I made a mistake, it was probably bringing big city journalism to what was then a small town,” Leeming says. “It rubbed some people the wrong way.”

Leeming’s penchant for journalistic integrity “caused him problems,” says one Kingsport businessperson who remembers Leeming’s tenure. For instance, Leeming chose not to be active in any local service organizations such as the chamber of commerce for fear of being influenced toward a certain brand of coverage. He also didn’t ingratiate himself to local car dealers and real estate players, traditional advertisers at a daily newspaper. Nor did Leeming ever play down a news story because it had the potential to embarrass a local power broker. But he was equitable in his approach. For instance, he steered the story of his own son’s arrest following a high school prank onto the paper’s front page.

Leeming also alienated some Sullivan Countians with his aggressive redesign of the newspaper. Changes included more aggressive local coverage and editorial pages, the establishment of reader panels, the introduction of color, the reduction of story “jumps,” and the use of community leaders to pen commentaries. The results? Under Leeming’s guidance, the Tennessee Press Association judged the Times-News best in the state, beating out newspaper stalwarts in much larger Tennessee markets.

Leeming is actually the man responsible for Kingsport’s moniker as the “Gateway” city. Historically called “The Model City” because MIT students on behalf of the Kingsport Development Co. of New York, which owned the area, had designed its street grid, Leeming alternatively coined the city as the “Gateway to the West” in his search for a slogan to brand a new market-publishing product the Times-News was launching.

Though Leeming markedly improved the quality and look of the paper, its owners, the Rau family, fired him in 1983. Why? Leeming explains that when he arrived at the paper it enjoyed operating profits of 38%, but by 1983 that figure had dropped to a still quite healthy 33%. “To them, that wasn’t good enough,” he says.

The Rau family was “very kind” in the separation agreement, Leeming reports. He and his wife, Joyce, the former president of the Humane Society of Sullivan County, subsequently went in search of a newspaper to buy. They found one on San Juan Island off the coast of Washington State in the middle of Puget Sound, a premiere sailing destination known as the Hyannisport of the West Coast. Together the Leemings spent nine years building the newspaper into a profitable venture. They sold it in 1992 for what Business Tennessee understands to be in excess of seven figures.

The Leemings then retired to America’s largest gated community, Hot Springs Village in central Arkansas, home to 13,000 residents, nine lakes and seven of the state’s top 10 golf courses. Leeming says he proceeded to play golf for the next 14 years. But last November, Leeming came out of retirement to become managing editor of the Hot Springs Village Voice, which keeps residents of the village (where the median age is 67.1 years) abreast of local happenings.

It hasn’t taken Leeming long to make new enemies as a result of his reporting. In one recent edition, a Village resident was quoted threatening to sue Leeming for defamation. Another Village resident, James Ray—also a director of the property owners association, which runs the community—has started his own Web site, the HSV Sentinel, largely to combat what he perceives as “Fabricating Frank’s” distortion of the facts.

“All we do is report what’s going on,” Leeming calmly responds when asked about criticisms of his work. “Nobody has sued us yet.”

Unum Improvident

In Chattanooga, and particularly inside the offices of one of the city’s largest employers, Unum-Provident, the name of former company CEO J. Harold Chandler is mud.

The Wofford College valedictorian and football quarterback built his corporate credentials working for various banking entities. But he got his big break when Provident Life and Accident Company of America, a century-old, highly reputable Tennessee insurance giant (though at the time a company experiencing significant operating losses) named him its ninth ever chairman and CEO. Chandler quickly re-made the company, shed divisions, and eventually led a $5 billion merger with Maine-based Unum Corp. to form UnumProvident, a company that writes about one third of the disability insurance in the country.

Bad press stemming from lawsuits alleging the company failed to pay claims teamed with disappointing financial results eroded Chandler’s golden boy status. It all culminated when Forbes magazine, using as its criteria shareholder return and executive compensation, named Chandler among the five “worst” CEOs in America. UnumProvident’s woes reached a national television audience when CBS’ 60 Minutes aired an unflattering report on the company. A few months later in 2003, Chandler was fired. Much to the dismay of many company employees and shareholders, he received a $17 million severance package. A lawsuit he later filed against the company netted him an additional $2.9 million.

Chandler joined with other investors to buy benefits enrollment firm Turner P. Williams & Associates of Nashville. The company became Benefit Partners of America, a worksite-marketing firm that designed, marketed and administered voluntary insurance programs via payroll deduction for large U.S. employers. Chandler assumed the post of chairman and CEO.

The following year, USI Holdings Corp. of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., acquired Benefit Partners. Terms of the local deal weren’t disclosed. According to a press release at the time, the acquisition was expected to add approximately $4 million of revenues to USI on an annual basis. Chandler was named director of strategic development. With 72 offices in 19 states, USI is now the 10th largest insurance broker in the United States.

In his spare time, Chandler is one of two vice chairman of the “Campaign for Wofford,” the largest capital campaign in the history of the South Carolina-based school. The campaign’s chairman is Jerry Richardson, the owner of the Carolina Panthers professional football team.

Business Tennessee attempted to contact Chandler for an interview, but USI Holdings’ national corporate communications specialist Maria F. Slippen replied that she had “spoken with Mr. Chandler and he prefers to decline.”

Chandler’s replacement at Unum- Provident, Tom Watjen, was quoted in the January edition of Insurance Journal stating that UnumProvident had been cleansed of the “arrogance” brought about by market dominance. “It was very much a top-down, ‘don’t really care what the employees think’ attitude,” Watjen added.

An ABA for Effort

Long before the NBA Grizzlies relocated from Vancouver to Memphis, professional basketball in the Bluff City meant the Memphis Pros of the American Basketball Association, or ABA (remember, with the red, white and blue basketballs?)

In 1974, then ABA commissioner Mike Storen made the surprise move of buying the Memphis franchise away from owner Charlie O. Finley, better known as the flamboyant owner of the Oakland Athletics professional baseball team. Some histories have written that Holiday Inn hotel magnate Kemmons Wilson and music icon Isaac Hayes of Stax Records joined Storen as local investors in the purchase. But contacted recently, Storen says the only person he ever got money out of was entrepreneur, longtime Memphis sports supporter and future Kansas City Royals owner Avron Fogelman.

Storen has enjoyed a long and storied career as a sports executive. Highlights include the signing of basketball great Oscar Robertson to the first six-figure contract in American sports. He also played a central role in what turned out to be the ABA’s failed negotiations to sign Lew Alcindor to the first $1 million contract in sports history.

After taking over the Memphis ABA franchise, Storen changed its name to the Sounds and designed a new logo. But after two years under Storen’s watch, the league’s owners decided they preferred independent ownership and pushed the sale of the team to a group in Baltimore.

After the ABA folded, and the Sounds name and logo copyright was allowed to drift back into the public domain, Storen says his friend Larry Schmittou adopted them “lock, stock and barrel” for his minor league baseball franchise, the Nashville Sounds. “I didn’t make an issue out of that,” Storen says. “Larry was a good friend and business associate, so I was glad to have the name and design live on.” Schmittou remembers it differently. “When we came up with the name in 1978, my lawyer looked to see if it was trademarked and it wasn’t,” Schmittou recalls. “Why? What does Storen say?”

ABA fans in Memphis might recall seeing Storen’s young children hanging around the Mid-South Coliseum on game nights. Storen’s daughter, born Hannah Storen, grew up to be a pioneer among females in the field of television sports broadcasting. Today known as Hannah Storm, she is a popular CBS morning news personality.

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Storen held numerous prominent executive roles in the world of sports, including with the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and even Fogelman’s Memphis Grizzlies USFL football team. Today, the Atlanta resident is managing partner of the South Georgia Wildcats, a minor league arena football team based in Albany, Ga. Under Storen’s guidance, the Wildcats are one of the nation’s most financially successful arena squads. “I also dabble in real estate and sports marketing consulting,” Storen says. “But 90% of my time the last two years has been devoted to this arena football franchise.”

The Commish

During his tenure as a state lawmaker from 1990 to 2000, clinical psychologist Page Walley chaired the committee and co-sponsored the legislation that created the Tennessee department of children’s services. In 2002, Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist appointed the LaGrange native, then manager of his own behavioral health consulting firm in Jackson, commissioner of the very department he helped forge, a sprawling state agency with a half-billion dollar budget and around 4,000 employees. Walley’s expertise and work ethic proved solid assets for the department. But, as in most states, commissioner posts in Tennessee are political appointments. When Sundquist’s term ended, so too did Walley’s run in the post.

hortly after Republican Bob Riley took office as the Governor of Alabama in 2003, he brought Walley in to lead Alabama’s Department of Children’s Affairs, a smallish department responsible for child development programs like Head Start. But Riley did so with other motives in mind. In the state of Alabama, certain commissioner posts, including the one overseeing children’s services, are filled by a bipartisan state commission. An uncommon approach, it is intended to weight professional experience over political favoritism. Riley set out to build the political capital he needed with the commission to convince it to appoint the Republican Walley to the post. He succeeded nine months into his term.

Walley now leads Alabama’s biggest state agency, the $1.2 billion department of human resources, which handles the state’s food stamp program, day care licensing and child abuse investigations, among other duties. It has developed a reputation dating back 14 years as a national model among children’s services agencies. It’s also one that gets plenty of scrutiny. The Birmingham News reported last year that several former department employees left Walley’s agency only to return as consultants with higher pay, drawing federal scrutiny. More recently, The News reported that Walley had been moonlighting as a private psychologist a few hours a week.

“Our paper in Birmingham is one that can write a story without seeking all the facts,” Walley says.

No one was questioning the number of hours Walley put in following recent hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. Walley was on the front lines of providing emergency shelter and food for thousands of Alabama residents and evacuees.

Riley faces reelection this year, having already disposed of his primary opponent, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore (the man removed from office for defying a federal judge’s order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building). If, as is expected, Riley wins reelection, Walley’s position as a top bureaucrat in Alabama would appear secure. But what does the more distant future hold for Walley? He says he’s “intrigued” by a possible return to elective office. But now based in the college town of Auburn, Walley says he’s also held conversations with the head of the local university’s psychology program about creating an institute focused on finding solutions to social challenges.