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Hi, there!

I am an award-winning writer, editor, and social media professional with more than 15 years of experience crafting strategic content and telling stories about higher education institutions. As executive editor of the University of Tennessee’s alumni magazine, I am responsible for the strategic and creative vision of a marketing piece that goes to 100,000 alumni and friends twice a year. And for 10 years, I have helped manage and grow UT’s main social media accounts, serving as interim manager various times during my tenure with the team.

Writing & Editorial Work

Torchbearer

Tramell Tillman on Fame and the Art of Transformation

Ask Tramell Tillman (’14) what it’s like to be a celebrity and he’ll humbly say that he doesn’t know—he certainly doesn’t feel like one. But after his work on the critically acclaimed Apple TV show Severance and walking the red carpet at the Emmy Awards, it’s hard to deny that Tillman’s time in the spotlight has come—and it’s just getting started.

While Tillman was excited to see celebrities like Oprah Winfrey at the Emmy Awards, he says he was surprised by other celebrities saying they were ne
Torchbearer

Connected by Purpose

Imagine a row of beads laid out on a table. Some are spread farther apart than others. They are all different shapes and colors. They may seem to have nothing in common when viewed individually, but when you put them on a string, they become part of something bigger—suddenly the beads are connected. Just like those beads, communities, cities, counties, towns, and parks along the 652 miles of the Tennessee River are now becoming connected through the Tennessee RiverLine Partnership, an initiative
Torchbearer

A Legacy of Her Own

When Tamika Catchings (’00, ’05) played basketball at Tennessee she always looked to her coach, the legendary Pat Summitt (’76), but not just to learn her plays.

“I used to watch Pat when she didn’t know I was watching her,” Catchings says. “She was so humble and she never saw a stranger. Everybody who worked in a facility, she knew all of them and always spoke to everybody. I try to follow her example.”

During Catchings’s storied career on the court she won an NCAA championship and four SEC t

Personal Writing

Cassandra Sproles •

King of the Blues

About 14 years ago, I had the distinct honor of getting a phone call from B.B. King. I was a rookie reporter at the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Mississippi, and had been working on a story, not about King or his music, but about a man that the musician counted very dear—Luther Henson.

Henson had recently passed away in Greenville. He was 101 years old, had lived in three different centuries, was born to a slave, and was nearly lynched. However, most importantly, he was an educator

Notable News Outcomes

Dolly Parton History Class

In 2017, I produced a story in Torchbearer magazine about a class focused on Appalachian history through the lens of Dolly Parton. After pushing this story out on social media and receiving a quote tweet from Parton, the story went viral. It garnered organic attention from outlets including NPR, Rolling Stone, Southern Living, the BBC, and the Wall Street Journal. The story resurfaced when the creators of the Dolly Parton’s America podcast said in an interview that reading about the history class had been an impetus for the show. UT once again received national attention when students in the class were featured in multiple episodes of the podcast. 

Students Named Peyton 

Eighteen years after former NFL star Peyton Manning played at UT, there was an uptick in first-year students with the name Peyton—19, to be exact. I interviewed several of them for a Torchbearer story and found out that most had been named for Manning. This story made national headlines and was picked up by Bleacher Report, NFL.com, and several local news outlets.