Charities and Non-Profit Corporations:

1. Nathan Anderson Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust Fund Inc. It is the entity that keeps the cemetery grounds mowed and trimmed.

2. Ringgold Celtic Games - an annual event sponsered in conjunction with the Appalachian Celtic Connection

3. President and Program Director for WAAK. FM 94.7 - a non-profit radio station in
Catoosa County, Georgia.

4. Founder of the Limited Government and Inalienable Rights Society.

5. Fort Oglethorpe Parade Grounds Inc.

Community Involvement

Nathan Anderson Cemetery:

Since the late 1970's Marshall has represented Nathan Anderson Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust Fund. Below you will see a recent newspaper article regarding that trust fund. For the last 25 years he has served as its president.

Tornado cleanup strains cemetery funds

Ann Buchanan examines the grave of her late husband Sonny Buchanan after her daughter called her saying "There's a billboard on top of daddy." The Buchanans relocated to Ringgold, Ga., 37-years-ago this month after their Resaca, Ga., home was totaled by a previous tornado.

Photo by Dan Henry /Chattanooga Times Free Press.

RINGGOLD, Ga. Marshall Bandy’s heart sinks as he looks out at fallen tombstones and tree limbs spread across the cemetery filled with his relatives dating back to the Civil War.

“All I could think of is half a million dollars to clean it up,” he said, a month later in the backroom of his two-story white-paneled law office.

The 62-year-old Ringgold native is no stranger to preserving his family history.

His law office off LaFayette Street was once the house of his great-aunt Mabel Adams, where Bandy spent many summer nights sleeping in a back bedroom with a cracked window. Across from his desk, a black-and-white photo of Adams sits on a shelf above a tattered family Bible used in 1858.

MORE INFORMATION

To find a relative buried in the Nathan Anderson Cemetery, go to nathanandersoncemetery.org, where every tombstone is photographed and organized alphabetically.

Through the window, the trees block a view of the cemetery about a quarter mile down the road and named after his great-great-great-grandfather Nathan Anderson, who dedicated the original portion of the lot in 1842. The cemetery is the oldest one in the area, he said.

Before Adams died in 1983, his great-aunt made him promise he would watch over the Nathan Anderson Cemetery and not let the trust fund she had spent her life saving up go to waste, Bandy said.

After the deadly April 27 tornado, Bandy visited the cemetery to see the damage. Powerful winds had knocked over many tombstones. Tree limbs had snapped off, and trees were uprooted, in one case, pulling up a part of the cemetery’s black-topped road. At least one crypt was exposed.

Bandy, who is on the board of the cemetery’s trust fund, said the board is struggling to find the money to keep the grass trimmed, much less remove the fallen trees and limbs left behind by the storm.

But the destruction might be a blessing in disguise. The damage may spark interest from family members who have ancestors buried in the cemetery, Bandy said.

“It’s one of those things that is a wake-up call,” he said.

*

When Ann Buchanan got the call that her husband’s gravesite had been covered by a Ruby Falls billboard, she felt a different kind of grief.

No stranger to the destruction of a massive tornado, Buchanan lost her home in a 1974 tornado that swept through Resaca, Ga. As the winds began to become fierce last month, she prayed, “Lord, I just had my house repainted; don’t let my house get hit again.”

While her house was spared this time, the sign covering her husband’s grave was a different loss. Her husband, Glenn Buchanan, was buried in the Nathan Anderson cemetery in 2006 after a long fight with diabetes and a kidney transplant.

“It broke my heart to see that laying on it,” said Buchanan, who was married for 42 years. “You know it didn’t affect him, but it throws you for a loop.”

Buchanan hasn’t been back since the billboard was removed, and she worries her husband’s tombstone will be scraped or cracked.

The land originally belonged to Cherokees who until their removal from the land in the 1830s buried their dead there, Bandy said. Slaves in unmarked graves and Union and Confederate soldiers also were buried in the cemetery, he said.

Before the storm, the cemetery board had collected only $150 toward the yearly fund to keep the grass mowed, he said. But after the April storm blew through, family members began to step up to clean the property and donate more funds.

Gilbert Childers, who has generations of relatives buried in the lot, began to cut away fallen branches and overturn the fallen tombstones around his family’s plot as soon as he saw the damage.

For the next few weeks, he recruited volunteers at the Ringgold United Methodist Church and asked them to help clear the cemetery. A man from Kennesaw, Ga., and a family from Ooltewah were among the volunteers, he said.

“It was just a huge job,” he said.

One month after the storm, most of the cemetery has been cleared by volunteers and groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans. But the larger task of clearing the stumps and branches and the monthly upkeep still are pressing, Bandy said.

“We are looking for people that have an interest in history and genealogy to help us,” he said.

Since the storm, Bandy said he has contacted the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation and wants to work with its leaders to erect a memorial in their honor. Bandy said he also would like to see a monument to the slaves buried in the cemetery.

The key now is to find families with ties to the cemetery and its history, he said.

“We have people buried in that cemetery [from] all over the Chattanooga area,” Bandy said

Celtic Games:

He has also been active in introducing new people to the community by way of being a sponsor to the Celtic games brought to Catoosa County by the Appalachian Celtic Connection. Below you will see a photograph of the 2010 games that were held on Marshall's property.

Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009

The Highland Games returned to Ringgold on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009. This event was sponsored by the Appalachian Celtic Connection, WAAK Radio, Marshall M. Bandy, JR. PC and Ringgold Telephone Company.

Three World Records were set by the athletes competing in these games. These athletes were in competition with athletes competing at the Ocala, Fla. Highland Games. The Ringgold athletes won the Ringgold Cup by having the best overall combined scores.

WORLD RECORDS SET - Three world records were set at the Ringgold Highland Games held on Saturday, Oct. 3. Records were set in the Sheaf Toss, Hammer Throw and 56 pound weight for distance. The athletes in Ringgold were also competing against a team of athletes at the Ocala, Fla. Highland Games. The Ringgold team won the Ringgold Cup by having better overall scores. The Cup will stay in Ringgold until next year's competion. The athletes are shown presenting the Cup to Marshall Bandy, a major sponsor of the event.

WAAK FM 94.7

In order to bring local information to the people via media, Marshall incorporated a business entitled "Boynton Educational Radio". Its purpose was to apply for an FM broadcast license for a low power FM radio station. The FCC window opened for this application in early 2000. It took over five years for the application to work its way through the Federal Communication bureaucracy. In 2005 the license was awarded to Boynton Educational Radio.

Marshall paid for, funded and constructed the tower, studio and related facilities. The radio station broadcast 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Its web address is waak.catt.com. Below you will see an article that appeared in the Chattanooga Times Free Press regarding WAAK.

Occasional Cameo Appearances by other interesting individuals.

Broadcast Station ownership and experience:

Below is also a picture of Wolfman Jack. From 1984 until 2000 Marshall was the owner of WSGC 101.9 FM and it was the Oldies Rock and Roll station for the City of Chattanooga. Pictured is Wolfman Jack, one of the syndicated personalities that appeared on the station. This photograph was made in 1989 in Chattanooga at a station promotional event.

Pictured above are members of the RDS Forum. The RDS Forum is a group of FM engineers, FM radio manufacturers and broadcasters that came together in the early 1990's to establish a standard for data broadcasting. If you own a new automobile it probably has an RDS radio. That radio will allow you to display text for Amber Alerts and song, title and artist, etc.

Marshall has been a member of the RDS Forum for many years. This photograph was taken in Glion Switzerland at the Hotel Victoria in 2003 which is the location of the annual meeting of the RDS Forum. Pictured are left to right, Dietmar Kopitz of Geneva Switzerland, Marshall's nephew Mark Bandy of Savannah, Georgia, Bev Marks of the United Kingdom and former BBC engineer, Marshall Bandy of Ringgold, Georgia, Johnny Beerling Chairman of the RDS Forum and former manager of Radio Four of the BBC and Glenn Rager, an employee of Data FM.

Fort Oglethorpe Parade Grounds is another non-profit corporation Marshall has worked with to help the community. Its purpose is to restore the polo grounds in Fort Oglethorpe to their original appearance. One day it will be an open green space for public activity including, but not limited to, polo contests, marathons and other related promotional events which would assist the Fort Oglethorpe community in its effort to attract tourist. Its goal is to remove the school buildings and ball fields and other nuisances from the original polo ground facilities and restore it to a scenic attraction and at the same time have an ongoing passive recreational facility for local residents.