The Rhea Heritage Preservation Foundation exists to celebrate the history, heritage, and culture of Rhea County through diverse programs, exhibits, and preservation of resources.

Dayton’s Scopes Trial celebration didn’t just happen – it all started with Inherit the Wind.

In 1988, an independent playwright-producer, Frank Chapin, visited Dayton wanting to produce Inherit in the courtroom where the Scopes Trial happened in 1925. He learned that that had been done before, and was invited to meet Dr. Richard Cornelius, a Bryan College English professor who had a special love for the Scopes Trial. The two met, Mr. Chapin was challenged to read the trial transcript and turn that material into a historically accurate drama. The result of that meeting was Destiny in Dayton and the annual festivities commemorating the trial.

For 20 years, Bryan College produced the annual play and festivities, with cooperation from Rhea County. Neighbors Ray Legg and Tony McCuiston anchored the cast, most of those years serving as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow respectively. Ray once said he and Tony would practice their lines as they were cutting the grass; every time they came to their fence line they would repeat another line.

In 1992, Tom Davis joined the Bryan College staff and began his 30-plus years association with the festivities. A couple of years later, he invited Rick Dye, then manager of Dayton radio station WDNT, to join the play’s cast as Quin Ryan, the WGN radio reporter who broadcast the 1925 trial.

“Tom came to me and asked me to join the cast. It worked out well,” Rick said. “I had a speech as the play opened, then one to open the second act. The rest of the play I sat next to Dr. Cornelius and listened to his stories about the trial and the people. That got me hooked.”

People with close connections to the Trial were important parts of the festivities during the early years of the festivities. “Frances Gabbert and her brother [Wallace] “Sonny” Robinson, F.E. Robinson’s children, would meet visitors in the museum in the courthouse basement and tell stories about the Trial, their father, and Dayton in the 1920’s,” Rick said.

“Jimmy McKenzie, who was a grandson of Trial prosecutor Ben McKenzie, played his grandfather in the first production of Destiny. Tommy Brewer, who drew the names of the jurors for the Trial, attended several performances,” Tom added.

Over the years, descendants and relatives of trial participants have attended or acted in the play: some of William Jennings Bryan’s great-grandchildren, District Attorney Tom Stewart’s grandson, F.E. Robinson’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Judge Raulston’s great-nephew played the judge; Sue K. Hicks’ great-niece; Walter White’s great-nephew among them.

“When Bryan College relinquished management, Tom came to me to see if the Daytonn Chamber of Commerce would be interested in stepping in,” Rick, then president of the Chamber, remembered. “I took it to the board, they agreed, and the Chamber managed the festival for the next four years.”

During that time the festival presented Curtis Lipps’ original play One Hot Summer, a light-hearted telling, featuring stories that happened outside the courtroom, as well as Darrow’s interrogation of Bryan.

“When the Chamber of Commerce stepped aside in 2012, we faced the challenge of finding another group to take over management of the play,” Tom said. “Rick did the heavy lifting of helping the MainStreet board see how the Scopes Trial story could be a boost in the summer, when there weren’t many things going on in the community. MainStreet agreed, and helped us through the next several years.”

During this time, the MainStreet leadership, along with Rick and Tom, began to look for another script for the July play. Their efforts led to an agreement with Deborah DeGeorge Harbin, who wrote Front Page News, a dramatization incorporating more of the events leading up to and following the trial than had been part of earlier scripts.

“The new play was received well, but in 2013 our director moved away and we were left scrambling,” Tom said. “We contacted the Cumberland County Playhouse to see if anyone there could recommend someone, and Jim Crabtree offered his services.” Mr. Crabtree, then producing director at the Playhouse, revised the Front Page News script, and with the help of his wife, Anne, and colleague Bobby Taylor, produced a play with music, still titled Front Page News.

In response to recommendations from the county commission and with the blessing of MainStreet Dayton, Rick and Tom chartered the Rhea Heritage Preservation Foundation in 2016 as a stand-alone non-profit corporation, primarily focused on presenting the Scopes Trial Play & Festivities. Rick was elected president, and Tom vice president.

“As with any start-up, there were challenges of recruiting a board, defining our purpose and taking over all the financial and legal requirements that other groups had done for us,” Rick said. “At that time we had a number of people who pitched in – Rachel Marshall, Nigel Chadwick, Julie York, Cynthia Rodriguez among others, who got us off to a good start.”

In 2017, with encouragement from George Thacker, Rhea County Executive at the time, RHPF introduced the Summer Nights concerts at the courthouse. The following year, Nokian Tyres, then a new industry in Rhea County, generously offered to sponsor the concerts, and Nokian Tyres Summer Nights were born. This four-week series offers a variety of music every Friday night in June, and attendance has been growing every year.

The COVID pandemic forced cancellation of both Nokian Tyres Summer Nights and Scopes Festivities in 2020, but led to creation of RHPF’s signature educational program, How It Started.

“We were concerned going into 2021 that we still might face limitations on audience size, and that people might not be ready to gather in large groups indoors,” Rick explained. “We contacted a young playwright, Cara Clark, who in very short order researched and wrote How It Started, a one-act play with a very small cast. That summer, we produced it, and a group of teachers attended one performance and were most enthusiastic.”

Building on that interest, RHPF offered to take the play to area schools, with the first road production at Richard Hardy School in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee in 2022, Since then, the play has been performed for Bryan College’s homeschool visitation days and as a field trip event for students at the Rhea County Courthouse. This March program includes the play, a lecture/discussion about the Scopes Trial, and a guided tour of the Rhea Heritage & Scopes Trial Museum. Thanks to founding support from EdFinancial and Humanities Tennessee, this program is presented free of charge.

Now, with the Scopes Centennial upon us, RHPF is gearing up for a spring and summer of trial-related activities, in cooperation with Bryan College, Rhea County Historical Society, Rhea Economic and Community Development office and Rhea County Department of Tourism.

“We are expecting great things this summer, and hope we can lay a solid foundation for RHPF to build on for many years, as we remember this significant aspect of our history and heritage,” Rick said.

For information about these events, visit www.rheaheritage.com or Facebook pages Nokian Tyres Summer Nights, Rhea Heritage Preservation Foundation, or Scopes Trial Plays.