Will Skelton

Will is a retired Knoxville, Tennessee, attorney with Bass, Berry & Sims (and previously Baker, Worthington, Crossley, Stansberry & Woolf), and served as a Captain in the US Marine Corps 1966-1969. He served as Vice Chairman of Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander’s Commission on Tennessee Outdoors (1986), whose recommendations included both wilderness and greenways. Will was an organizer and General Coordinator of the Coalition that obtained Congressional designation of most of the Cherokee National Forest’s wilderness areas and subsequently was editor of “Wilderness Trails of Tennessee’s Cherokee National Forest” published by UT Press in 1992 and a revised edition, “Cherokee National Forest Hiking Guide,” published in 2005. He was later an active member of the Tennessee Wild Wilderness Campaign.

Will was active in getting Knoxville started in building greenways and was an organizer and Chairman of the Knox Greenways Coalition and subsequently Chairman of the Knoxville Greenways Commission. He has received numerous awards from various groups, including Forest Conservationist of the Year from the Tennessee Conservation League, Volunteer Service Award from the Tennessee Recreation & Parks Association, Distinguished Service Award from the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, and the Sarah Hines Award from the Sierra Club’s Tennessee Chapter. He was included in “The Best Lawyers in America” and is a member of the Knoxville Track Club’s Hall of Fame.

He is a past organizer and Chairman of both the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club and Knoxville’s Harvey Broome Group of the Sierra Club. Will was a founding board member of Tennessee Parks & Greenways Foundation and Legacy Parks Foundation and has been a long time Board member of the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club. He was also a founding Board member of SAWS and served as their Vice Chairman from 2014 to 2016.