The Parks Foundation on Dec. 29 announced the induction of two Chattanoogans into the Walnut Street Bridge Walk of Honor: Merv Pregulman, businessman, philanthropist and former NFL football player, and John “Jac” Chambliss, attorney. Their plaques will join former recipients Leslie Jordan, Emmy-award winning actor; Adolph Ochs, publisher of the New York Times and The Chattanooga Times; Bessie Smith, blues singer; and Harry Jackson, veteran advocate.
The commemorative plaques were placed on the east side of the bridge at the south end, and include the individual’s name and a smaller line above the name noting their achievements.
Mervin Pregulman
Born in 1922 in Lansing, Mich., Pregulman is a former All-American football tackle and center who played for the University of Michigan Wolverines (1941–43) and in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers (1946), the Detroit Lions (1947–48), and the New York Bulldogs (1949). In 1982, Pregulman was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame.
Not only a skilled athlete, Merv has been a successful businessman, serving as the president and CEO of Siskin Steel & Supply Co. in Chattanooga. He followed in his father’s footsteps, who also enjoyed a successful business career in Lansing.
His biography at the University of Michigan Athletic History site says: “Originally a center, he was shifted to guard, then back to center, where his accurate passes were a vital factor in Michigan’s famed single-winged attack. Smart and aggressive, he never turned in a performance below the high standard he set for himself.”
Sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote that Pregulman was “the best combination center, guard and tackle the Middlewest had known in years.”
In 1969, Pregulman was selected for the Michigan Wolverines’ all-time football team. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1982 and the University of Michigan Hall of Honor in 1988. He was also part of the second group inducted into the Michigan Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1986.
In 2005, Pregulman was selected as one of the 100 greatest Michigan football players of all time by the “Motown Sports Revival,” ranking 61st on the all-time team. In 2004, Pregulman was the 13th person to receive the Gerald R. Ford Award. The award is the highest honor bestowed on a former University of Michigan athlete and is given for “excellence in scholarship, sport and society.”
In 1944, Pregulman was inducted into the United States Navy, in which he served as a gunnery officer on the USS Taluga in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The Taluga left Norfolk, Va., in October 1944. On December 10, 1944, the ship reached Ulithi, an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, which served as her base of operations until the end of World War II.
For the next 11 months, Pregulman and the Taluga crew were in and out of Ulithi picking up oil and other supplies there and carrying them to units of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During that time, they supported carrier strikes and landings on Luzon in the Philippine Islands, landings on Okinawa, strikes on Formosa, and the final sweep of the Japanese home islands in the summer of 1945.
Between April and July 1945, Pregulman and the Taluga crew spent much of their time in and around the anchorage at Kerama Retto, just west of the southern end of Okinawa. At dawn on April 16, 1945, 10 kamikazes attacked their formation. One of the kamikazes dove at Taluga, strafed her deck, and then made for her superstructure. The attacker careened off the ship’s bridge and hit the wheelhouse. However, only 12 men were injured, and the oiler was soon back in action. Pregulman normally would have been in the wheelhouse, but he went on deck just before the attack. He recalled: “If he had been five minutes later, I would have been in the wheelhouse and I certainly wouldn’t be here.” He recalled that the plane sheared off the top of the wheelhouse, and blew a hole in the deck, but no American soldiers were killed.
Over the past 50 years, Pregulman has become one of the most respected community leaders and philanthropists in Chattanooga. While he was president of Siskin Steel, Pregulman was also the chairman of the Siskin Memorial Foundation and played a lead role in building the Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation. Even after he retired, he remained active as the Foundation’s vice-chairman.
Pregulman is a former president of the Jewish Community Federation of Greater Chattanooga. Pregulman noted that local Jews use the Federation as common ground for Chattanooga’s diverse Orthodox, Conservative and Reform congregations. Pregulman said: “It ties together all the various different philosophies.”
Pregulman was a driving force for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a member of the University of Chattanooga Foundation’s board of trustees, a leader at The McCallie School, played an important role in raising money to build Finley Stadium, and has served on the board of directors for the Finley Stadium/Davenport Field Corporation.
Pregulman has been particularly active in community service efforts directed at improving health care, and has received awards from the Tennessee Medical Association and the Chattanooga/Hamilton County Medical Society.
In 1997, Pregulman and his wife were given Chattanooga’s top philanthropist honor at the 10th Annual National Philanthropy Day Luncheon and Award presentation, for their varied efforts since moving to Chattanooga in 1957. After his wife spoke, Pregulman said of her, “Helen comes by charity work very honestly. When you talk about philanthropy and community, there’s no need to write them down on paper; the words come from the heart.”
In 1998, Pregulman and his wife endowed a scholarship at the University of Michigan. The Mervin and Helen S. Pregulman Endowed Scholarship Fund is awarded based on students’ leadership ability, financial need and commitment to work in the Jewish community after graduation. Pregulman said: “Helen and I are committed to Jewish communal service. We see it as essential to the health and vitality of the Jewish communities throughout the world. The students ... will play an integral role in administration and related activities at synagogues and Jewish Community Centers in the future. We hope to encourage more leadership from our young adults through this scholarship program.”
John “Jac” Chambliss
Chambliss was born in 1910 to John A. Chambliss and Margaret Sizer Chambliss of Chattanooga. He was educated at the Webb School of Bell Buckle, the Virginia Military Institute, Southwestern (now Rhodes) College and Cumberland University Law School. He entered his family’s law firm, Sizer, Chambliss & Kefauver, in the summer of 1932, and practiced until his death. His grandfathers were Alexander Wilds Chambliss, several times mayor of Chattanooga and later chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court, and attorney James Burnet Sizer. Alexander Chambliss founded The Chambliss Shelter for Children.
“Jac ... is a Renaissance man,” said Max Bahner, his law partner for 46 years. “He was a man of letters, he was a man of athletics, he was a people person and a consummate trial lawyer,” Bahner said. Chambliss was the third generation of the Chambliss family to practice law in Chattanooga.
In addition to his legal career, he served as a gunnery officer in the Navy in World War II in the South Pacific.
Active in the Episcopal Church, he was for many years a teacher, vestryman and lay reader at the Church of the Good Shepherd.
He served on a number of corporate boards, among them Richmond Hosiery Mills, Tri-State Telecasting, TAG Railway, Standard-Coosa-Thatcher, Provident Life & Accident Insurance and Gilman Paint & Varnish. He was active in the founding of St. Barnabas Nursing Home and served several terms as president of the YMCA.
With a talent for writing both poetry and prose, for more than 60 years he contributed columns to the local newspapers and was sought after as a speaker. A guitar and banjo player, he composed and sang ballads for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Chambliss was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London, and he both lectured and chaired lectures there.
Married in 1934 to Bena McVea of Baton Rouge, La., the couple spent many winters in Winter Park, Florida, and traveled extensively. He also was a talented photographer. One of his proudest accomplishments was serving as co-founder of the Citizens Good Government League, a nonpartisan group dedicated to promoting better government on the local level.
The Parks Foundation
The Parks Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes and helps maintain the bridge, oversees the placement of the plaques on the Walnut Street Bridge. In 2009, the City of Chattanooga removed the original brass plaques that had been installed in the 1991 bridge restoration campaign. Due to the high value of scrap metals, the original brass plaques were being taken from the bridge.
The Foundation has completed the replacement of the original plaques on the bridge at no cost to the original participants. This effort was funded by the sale of the original brass plaque and the sale of new zinc plaques. New plaques continue to be available for individuals, families and institutions.
The new zinc plaques cost one hundred dollars per plaque and are available for purchase online at www.walnutstreetbridge.org or by calling 423-702-6868. The original brass plaques are being sold as paperweights or decorative framed art.