Joe Tennis - Features Writer / Bristol Herald Courier

Email: Jtennis@bristolnews.com

Features writer and "Tennis Anyone?" columnist Joe Tennis joined the Bristol Herald Courier in 1993.

A Virginia Beach native, Tennis spent his early years traveling to the Tri-Cities to visit his grandparents in Greeneville, Tennessee, about an hour south of Bristol. A graduate of Radford University, Tennis began his journalism career as a freelancer for The Virginian-Pilot in 1990. He later served as an intern and correspondent for The Roanoke Times and spent a year as a staff writer for the Kingsport Times-News.

Tennis' love of local history, waterfalls, lakes and scenic mountains inspired his first book, 2004's "Southwest Virginia Crossroads" (The Overmountain Press), an illustrated history and guide that Tennis said he wrote "to prove the state does not stop in Roanoke." Tennis subsequently released two more books, "The Marble and Other Ghost Tales of Tennessee and Virginia" (Backyard Books) and 2007's "Beach to Bluegrass" (The Overmountain Press), which follows a journey across Virginia on U.S. Highway 58.

His work for the Bristol Herald Courier has won numerous awards from the Virginia Press Association, Tennessee Press Association, Northeast Tennessee Tourism Association and Society for Professional Journalists. He and his wife, Mary, have two children.