Lillian Mashburn Collection

Lillian Tauxe Mashburn was born on February 12, 1943, to Samuel Louis Tauxe and Jean Sitton Tauxe. After attending Alice Bell School and graduating from Holston High School in 1961, she matriculated at the University of Tennessee with a Bachelor of Science in education in 1965. She taught in Knox County Schools for two years before becoming the executive director of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. She then joined Jake Butcher’s United American Bank as public relations director, serving from 1977-1980. During that time, she operated a public relations firm Public Relations Associates and later LTM consultants. She served as chair of community involvement for Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair. In 1987, she joined the staff of the University of Tennessee as the assistant to the dean of the college of engineering before serving as director of the Office of Federal Relations for the university. She was among the founding members of the Executive Women’s Association and served as the organization’s first president. She has also been involved in a number of other organizations including Church Women United, the Knoxville Women’s Center, Planned Parenthood, and the Board of the Friends of the Knox County Public Library. She served as the University of Tennessee’s Councilor for the Oak Ridge Associated Universities in 2005-2007 before retiring. In 2011, Mashburn participated in a series of oral histories with the University of North Carolina which can be found here: https://lwm.prospect.unc.edu/prsp-exhibit/x-lwmi/

TVA’s Watts Bar nuclear facility was slated to become the last commercial nuclear reactor in the United States. Construction began in 1973, but progress was plagued by delays. In 1985, whistleblowers alerted the press to structural and safety deficiencies and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission halted construction to investigate. TVA finally completed the facility and achieved criticality on January 1, 1996, with commercial operation following close behind.