Dan Conaway
Opinion: Angels are and have been with us
What made them angels was the sacrifice they made expecting no recognition at all.
Dan Conaway
Columnist
Dan Conaway is a lifelong Memphian, fascinated and frustrated with his city, but still in love. A columnist since 2010, his distinguished advertising career has branded ribs in the Rendezvous and ducks in The Peabody, pandas in the zoo and Grizzlies in the NBA. Stories in Memphis tend to write themselves. He’s helped a few along. Two book collections of his columns have been published.
There are 321 articles by Dan Conaway :
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June 2021
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Opinion Opinion: The importance of bridges
Bridges are magic. They connect, enable, overcome, elevate. They make big things possible when they weren’t before. They make it reachable for the many rather than the few, doable, accessible.
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Dan Conaway Opinion: A pink palace by any other name won’t sound as sweet
It seems that the people managing the museums want to call themselves something other than the Pink Palace. But we “the locals” will never call the Pink Palace anything else. Even with a primer to explain whatever a MoSH is.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: A road trip from Memphis to Memphis
We haven’t been on the big road trip in two years — the one we used to take every year to visit family and friends. We haven’t seen our son-in-law in two years, our daughter in a year and a half. Our dogs haven’t seen their dogs.
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May 2021
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Dan ConawayOpinion: A new course of optimism, from Sweetens Cove to Overton Park
The remarkable Sweetens Cove Golf Club inspired Parks Dixon’s campaign to bring its designers to Memphis and turn them loose on Overton’s storied but long neglected nine.
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Dan Conaway Opinion: We live in the Great State of Mediocrity
Tennessee ranked 29th in U.S. News & World Report’s Best States ranking for 2021. ‘Here’s the scientific explanation, and I’ll try to be brief: Our state legislature is mean-spirited, small-minded, short-sighted. And cheap.’
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Dan Conaway Opinion: Public schools are in a fight for their lives
Government support is grudgingly given to public schools, because of legal requirements. In fact, our state has been sued to provide even that support. That’s why it’s so refreshing to see Richard Myers call for private money to help public schools.
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Dan Conaway Opinion: Not vaccinated? There are plenty of shady trees at Elmwood
While ignorance has always been preventable and COVID-19 is now preventable, nothing can prevent stupid in 100% of us. Not getting a vaccine is all about you, a selfish and self-indulgent exercise.
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April 2021
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Performing ArtsOpinion: Theatre Memphis’ leading lady, a force in high heels and sequins
When she took over as executive producer, Theatre Memphis was full of debt with no endowment. Now the theater is in the black, full of hope, with an endowment, and a major capital campaign nearing completion.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: What’s in a name? Put it to the Snuff test and find out
Few companies understand what cub copywriters know: the public will shorten anything that’s too long for their use.
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Dan Conaway Opinion: When the name is wrong, the smell is no rose
‘“Liberty” works in Philadelphia, where Bud Dudley and the Liberty Bowl came from, but it has no unique meaning in Memphis.’
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Dan ConawayOpinion: After an Arctic blast, scratch and look for green
People say wait, give things a chance. Take a limb and scratch it. Look for green. If there’s even a trace of green, there’s hope for recovery.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: Close Riverside Drive to cars; open it to those who really count
What have we learned from the hard lesson of Overton Park’s greensward? What has the COVID experiment taught us?
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March 2021
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Dan ConawayOpinion: If you’re copying, it’s not yours
Dan Conaway: While we ignore Mud island, we’re giving Tom Lee Park more plastic surgery than the attendees at the Academy Awards, and if we’re going to make the Fairgrounds ours, the Coliseum has to be part of it and original thinking is required.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: There are embarrassing people in our House. And Senate.
Maybe the state’s largest population areas will get out the vote and get Tennessee into the 21st century. Georgia called. They want us to know that it’s possible.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: Fill a prescription. Or buy a house.
The shot I’m getting is hard to get, and costs more than our first house. The stuff in this syringe must come from cells scraped from the belly of the dragon Smaug by Hobbits.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: Fire and ice. And friendship.
You may have seen the photo with the story about the brutal weather — firefighters pushing to free an ambulance stuck in the snow and ice. Michael Rowland was in that ambulance. Nothing brings the value of friendship into focus like a threat to a friend.
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February 2021
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Dan Conaway Opinion: We all need the bridge to Binghampton
Binghampton is at the very center of our city but far from the center of our attention. We drive through it en masse every day on Walnut Grove and Sam Cooper, largely ignoring the decline to our left and right.
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Dan Conaway Opinion: Still crazy. Still right.
The fight continues to easily access our history, to stand on our oldest ground above our best view of the Mississippi, to make traffic Downtown make sense.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: Driving us crazy
It’s one of the more interesting things about daily life in Memphis, and one that just might kill you. We can’t drive. Worse. We’re proud of it.
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Dan Conaway Opinion: Our kids are under house arrest
Dan Conaway: “Our kids, Memphis kids, our tomorrow, have to get back in classrooms. Today. Period. Every day they don’t is another day falling further behind.”
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January 2021
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Spirit of Memphis In memoriam: Ode to the olive boat captain
On John Simmons’ last visit, Carnival Memphis presented him their highest honor. That’s particularly interesting since John was instrumental in founding Curbi, the Carnival society named for those who stood on the curb and watched the Carnival parades go by.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: A century of campfires, warming a century of leadership
As a scout, it’s up to you. If the food you make is inedible, you and your fellow scouts don’t eat. If you pitch your tent in the wrong place, you and your tentmate are going to get wet. If you don’t reach down to help, no one else climbs up.
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Dan ConawayOpinion: This time, Georgia moved the chains
A UT devotee remembers a heart-stopping 1968 game, but says, “This time around, I’m a Georgia fan.”
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Dan ConawayOpinion: To those who ‘circle the drain,’ thanks
Citizens all over greater Memphis – all over the country – watch over things every day, caring enough about all of us to make sure the greater good is served by the maintenance of the things we care about.
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