25 Facts About Ray Jenkins

Ray Howard Jenkins was an American lawyer, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, throughout much of the 20th century.

Ray Jenkins is best known for his role as special counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations during the 1954 Army-McCarthy Hearings, earning broad praise for his aggressive questioning of the hearings' two complainants, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Secretary of the Army Robert T Stevens.

Ray Jenkins was born in Unaka, the second child of Columbus Sheridan "Lum" Ray Jenkins, a physician, and Amanda Nicholson.

When Ray Jenkins was still young, the family moved across the mountains to Monroe County, Tennessee, initially settling in the Rural Vale community, but moving to Tellico Plains within a few years.

At the age of 13, Ray Jenkins enrolled in the preparatory department at Maryville College, but moved back home upon the opening of Tellico Plains High School, from which he eventually graduated.

Ray Jenkins initially worked in the law office of aging Knoxville attorney Alvin Johnson.

Ray Jenkins mostly argued justice of the peace cases late at night in McAnnally Flats and other run-down parts of Knoxville.

Ray Jenkins worked as a debt collector for the Haynes-Henson Shoe Company, later writing that he hunted down debtors across the region and "pleaded, cajoled, bullied and threatened" them until they paid.

In 1927, Ray Jenkins formed a partnership with Erby Ray Jenkins.

In 1938, Ray Jenkins defended Knoxville bail bondsman Ed McNew in a high-profile case in which McNew was accused of shooting at a photographer trying to take his picture.

In court, Ray Jenkins accused the photographer of harassing and goading McNew, and even had McNew, who had fallen ill, wheeled in on a stretcher to testify.

In 1947, Ray Jenkins defended Burkett Ivins, a revenue agent who had been accused of killing a man in Etowah, Tennessee.

Ray Jenkins's initial questioning of Stevens was congenial, provoking constant laughter from the chamber.

In 1954, shortly after the Army-McCarthy Hearings, Ray Jenkins joined the team to defend Clarice Kidd Shoemaker, a Scott County woman accused of killing her husband in a jealous rage.

Ray Jenkins grilled the dead man's mistress on the stand, read aloud to the jury a passionate letter she had written him, and painted her as a ruthless homewrecker.

In 1957, Jenkins again took part in a nationally-publicized trial when he joined the defense team of Colonel John C Nickerson Jr.

In 1961, Ray Jenkins helped defend eccentric Knoxville businessman and politician Cas Walker, who had been accused of tax evasion.

Ray Jenkins carefully selected a jury of "the common people," from whom Walker had long drawn undying support.

In 1962, Jenkins helped defend June Newberry, a Lenoir City woman accused of murdering Ann Gowder, the mistress of her husband, Raymond.

In 1939, Jenkins ran for the 2nd District congressional seat, which was vacant following the death of Congressman J Will Taylor, but lost in the Republican primary to John Jennings.

Ray Jenkins worked as a campaign manager for both Senator Howard Baker Sr.

In 1954, following the Army-McCarthy Hearings, Tennessee Republicans attempted to recruit Ray Jenkins to run against Democratic Senator Estes Kefauver, but Ray Jenkins refused.

Ray Jenkins spoke in favor of the dam before the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1965, and blasted environmentalists who stalled the project with the snail-darter controversy in 1975.

In 1960, Ray Jenkins sold his Sequoyah Hills house, which had been built by his in-laws, the Nash family, to the University of Tennessee for use as a manse for the school's presidents.

Ray Jenkins' memoir, entitled, The Terror of Tellico Plains, was published by the East Tennessee Historical Society in 1979.