25 years later: APSU alumna Shana Thornton recalls covering 1999 tornado as student journalist
By: Ethan Steinquest January 19, 2024
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. - When a powerful tornado struck downtown Clarksville in 1999,
Shana Thornton, editor-in-chief of The All State, Austin Peay State University’s student
newspaper, documented the destruction.
Twenty-five years later, Thornton continues to serve the community and share its story in her new role as Montgomery County’s deputy historian. Her primary focus is highlighting the Clarksville area’s Black history and culture.
“Communication with the public is key,” she said. “During the tornado, the public needed information about what happened and how many places were damaged … and I see things in a very similar way as deputy county historian. [Communication] has been my mission as both a historian and a journalist.”
Thornton recalls staying in a house with her friends off Robb Avenue when the tornado first hit. Once it became clear what was happening, The All State’s student journalists quickly mobilized to provide coverage.
“At first, I thought a helicopter was landing on the house because, living in Clarksville, you hear helicopters all the time,” she said. “We all gathered on the front porch and knew that it was a tornado because we could see all the damage and smell everything. It looked like a war zone in Clarksville, and they had shut down large sections of the town.”
Alongside other local news outlets like the Leaf-Chronicle and the Tennessean, Thornton and her team played a vital role in distributing information about the disaster.
“It was a good experience for us as press because we got to learn the rules of covering a natural disaster and access those restricted spaces,” she said. “We were able to walk around the courthouse and all the other areas that were destroyed downtown, take pictures and meet and talk with people.”
Thornton personally wrote an article about the tornado’s impact on the Wilbur N. Daniel African American Cultural Center and assigned and organized other reporters’ coverage.
One of those reporters was Jerome Parchman, now the Houston County Area Chamber of Commerce president. Also a historian, he later worked with Thornton when she established the Clarksville-Montgomery County African American Legacy Trail.
“One of the goals of the legacy trail was to make a list of public places that people could actually go to and learn a little more [about local Black history],” Thornton said. “If they want to dig in, it gives them the opportunity to research these places more deeply. As deputy county historian, I think my journalism background informs me because I want to get as many of these stories and perspectives as possible.”
Thornton plans to use the Clarksville-Montgomery County African American Legacy Trail as a foundation to help the Montgomery County Archives and the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center strengthen their Black history collections. She also hopes to create an exhibition or collection to help historians and writers share those stories with larger audiences.
As the founder of Thorncraft Publishing, Thornton already has plenty of experience working with writers in other contexts. Her company publishes works of fiction and creative nonfiction written by women, and she was inspired to create it while attending graduate school at Austin Peay.
“That’s when I became interested in literature,” she said. “It’s the foundation of people’s perspective and policy … [and] I learned about people who took risks. Even if I didn’t agree with them, I learned how they did business, and it was inspiring to see them creating their own routes of publishing.”
Thornton took that to heart, opting to publish books from many genres instead of carving out a niche – and her efforts paid off. Thorncraft Publishing is gearing up to release “The Blue Box and Memories that Live in the Bones” by Austin Peay Professor Emeritus Dr. Sharon Mabry on Jan. 25 and will follow up later this year with “Inspiration to Action: A Tribute to Jill Eichhorn.” The collaborative work will include creative nonfiction, poetry, monologues and artwork honoring the late Dr. Jill Eichhorn, who was an Austin Peay professor and community activist.
Wherever Thornton’s career has taken her, the journalistic standards and passion for community service she honed at Austin Peay while studying English have remained constant ideals. She continues visiting the University to speak with students, encouraging them to put their work out there and share their voices.
Looking back: APSU reflects on 1999 tornado