MCMINNVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — What most of us want is just to find that calling in life that gives us purpose. At 75, a man has that. It's in telling stories that his community might not otherwise hear, and he's glad to have you listen.
"I'm in my 70s, and I have lived it!" said Wayne R. Wolford Sr.
That includes the time he went to a show in St. Louis in the late 60s and nearly played drums for Ike and Tina Turner.
"The drummer wasn't there," Wayne smiled. "They said, 'is there anyone who can play drums?' I just threw my hand up real fast. Yeah! Next thing you know, guess who walked in the door? The drummer."
He also nearly played pro football. He's been a barber, a teacher, and an author. However, Wayne's also telling stories of a whole lot of other people too.
"History can be lost so easy," he said.
Wayne lives in McMinnville in Warren County. While there are people dedicated to telling the stories of the most prominent figures of Black history, Wayne figured someone needed tell the stories of the people connected to his home too.
"A voice came to me and said, 'Wayne, I know you're retired, but I got one more thing for you to do. You're gonna start a Black history museum,'" he remembered.
The Black History Museum of Warren County Tennessee's moved into a spot on West Main Street.
"It was a hospital, that's what it was," said Wayne, looking around the room.
You see a lot of people with Warren County ties in there. That includes Mark Gwyn, former director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
"He brought in everything except his handcuffs and gun," Wayne laughed, gesturing to a display.
"Carl T. Rowan, he was the head of the United States Information Agency," Wayne continued, looking at another display. "When he spoke, he didn't bite his tongue. He was real."
"I tried to get all the people of color who served in the military," he said, showing a room full of pictures of men and women in uniform.
"This school right here, a Rosenwald School, was one of the first schools for Blacks in this town," Wayne said, walking into a room made to look like an old school house.
"There used to be two semi-pro baseball teams here."
For a storyteller, who was once a barber, a teacher, and almost a pro football player and drummer for Tina, life's been leading to this. This is his calling.
"We've got a lot of people who have done good things in Warren County," Wayne said. "I wanted to let people know we were here."
