Clarksville Living Magazine — April 2025

The April 2025 issue of Clarksville Living Magazine serves up Urban Ministries' Empty Bowls fundraiser and brings Civil War history to life at the Surrender of Fort Defiance.

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The issue leads with Empty Bowls, the Urban Ministries fundraiser that Executive Director Jodi McBryant calls “truly a labor of love on an ever growing scale.” Groups gathered for bowl-painting parties to create one-of-a-kind pieces for guests, and local businesses stepped up in record numbers — a hunger-relief event built entirely from community hands.

A local-history feature takes readers to Fort Defiance, which each February hosts re-enactors and Civil War enthusiasts for the Surrender of Fort Defiance, complete with the firing of muskets and a cannon. Re-enactor Nora Blake explains her group portrays the 9th Kentucky, a Union Volunteer Infantry unit based in Murfreesboro and originally formed in Tompkinsville, Kentucky — a reminder that many Tennesseans left the state to join the Union Army. John Blake laid out maps and pictures showing where the campaign unfolded, and explained what made the region strategically important: until 1862 this was a major iron-producing area, its furnaces feeding the war effort once fighting began.

The issue carries the breadth of a spring number: community events and fundraisers, business profiles, and the food, photo and calendar coverage that anchor each month. The hunger-relief and living-history features sit alongside the lighter seasonal fare.

Together they give the issue its shape — a community feeding its neighbors in the present while keeping careful hold of the history in its own backyard.

Table of Contents

• Hannah Charles Poetry (p. 5)
• Empty Bowls (p. 8)
• Surrender of Fort Defiance (p. 12)
• Black History Month (p. 16)
• Six Shutters at River City Clay (p. 20)
• Veteran Business of the Month (p. 22)
• Clarksville Police Chief (p. 24)
• Casino Night (p. 26)
• Cookie Crawl (p. 28)
• Jubilee at CMC Public Library (p. 32)
• Fun Facts (p. 33)
• Sip, Smile, & Enjoy the Bubbles (p. 36)
• Business After Hours (p. 38)
• Doubletree by Hilton Riverside (p. 40)
• Mad Hatter’s Family Event (p. 42)
• Kiwanis Club Book Giveaway (p. 44)
• Chelsey Brooke Cole Part 2 (p. 10)
• Petal Power (p. 14)
• Our Lucky Moon (p. 18)
• Charley Jordan (p. 29)
• Waxheart (p. 34)

Regular departments

• Calendar (p. 45)