Welcome back. Glad you're here.

This week has a certain "things are moving" feeling to it. A nearly 90-year-old airport just made history, a local institution is celebrating 77 years of quietly doing things right, and the weekend is stacked with reasons to get out of the house. Let's get into it.

In today's post:

There's a building sitting just outside Kingsport's city limits that has been doing quiet, important work for this region since 1937.

Most people call it TRI. Some still call it the Tri-Cities Airport. What it is, really, is a nearly 90-year bet that this corner of Appalachia deserved to be connected to the rest of the world.

The airport started as a collaborative, cost-sharing effort between Kingsport, Johnson City, Bristol, and Sullivan County. The smaller airfields in each city were no longer practical, so the four communities decided to build something together. The federal Works Progress Administration helped construct it during the Great Depression, cutting two hard-surface runways out of the Sullivan County landscape. They dedicated it as McKellar Field on November 5, 1937. Fire trucks lined the runway. People showed up in their good coats.

Kingsport has held a seat at that table from the beginning, with a standing appointment on the airport authority board and a real stake in whether this place grew or shrank. That means every new route, every new airline, every full flight out of Gate 6 is partly a Kingsport story.

This week, there's a good one to tell.

On May 21, American Airlines launched daily nonstop service from TRI to Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The inaugural flight drew a crowd. Fire trucks lined the runway for a water cannon sendoff as the plane headed north toward the Windy City. Airport CEO Gene Cossey said the first day delivered a full flight in and a full flight out.

For Cossey, it landed personally. He called the project more than seven years in the making, and said the region has long had more passenger demand than available seats. Getting more seats to more places has been the mission.

Chicago O'Hare is one of the most connected airports in the world. A nonstop to ORD means the same thing a runway in Sullivan County meant in 1937: one less reason to leave, and one more reason to stay.

And it doesn't stop there. United Airlines launches its own nonstop service to O'Hare on June 8, running three flights daily. Two major carriers. Daily service. Direct to Chicago.

The bet they made in 1937 is still paying out.

And if you've been looking for a reason to finally make the trip, stay tuned. Coming up, we're putting together a full "48 Hours in Chicago from TRI" video guide. Everything you need to make the most of a long weekend in the Windy City, starting right here at home.

Most people know the name. Not as many know where it came from.

Select Seven Credit Union has been part of this region for 77 years, but the story starts long before the name did. It began as Pet Dairy Employees Federal Credit Union, receiving a federal charter on March 15, 1949. The original charter covered employees of Pet Dairy Products Company across several southeastern states. A small, member-owned cooperative built around a single employer and a single idea: neighbors looking out for each other's money.

That idea turned out to have legs.

Through the 1980s, the credit union began quietly expanding, adding select employee groups beyond Pet Dairy. By 1992, the growth warranted a new name: Johnson City Federal Credit Union. That same year, property on West Market Street was purchased, enabling share draft accounts, check-cashing operations, safe deposit boxes, and drive-up windows. A merger with Johnson City Employees Credit Union in 1993 brought in more than 1,500 new potential members.

The "Select Seven" name came in 2015, following a 2014 charter expansion that formalized what had long been true in practice. The credit union now serves anyone who lives, works, worships, or attends school across seven counties in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia: Washington, Carter, Unicoi, Hawkins, and Sullivan in Tennessee, and Scott and Washington in Virginia.

From a dairy company's employee fund to a regional financial institution. Seventy-seven years. The same core promise, just with more people included in it.

They recently broke ground on their first freestanding branch in Kingsport, after operating out of a retail space on East Stone Drive for the past decade. Worth knowing. Worth supporting.

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A few things worth getting off your couch for:

Twilight Alive featuring Ultimate Garth Brooks Tribute | Tonight, 7 PM | Broad Street Free, outdoor, and a good excuse to be downtown on a Friday night. One of the better ways to kick off a weekend in Kingsport. Details

Disney Descendants | This Weekend | Renaissance Theatre If you've got kids, or just appreciate a good show, this one is worth catching before the summer really gets rolling. Details

May Final Friday Food Truck Rally | Saturday | Downtown Kingsport Good food, good weather, good people. Hard to argue with that combination. Details

441 Kilkenny Road

New construction in the Indian Springs area. Split-foyer layout with an open main level featuring a kitchen with quartz countertops and an eat-at island, three bedrooms, and two full baths including a private primary en-suite. Downstairs has a finished rec room, bonus room, full bath with laundry, and a two-car garage. High-efficiency heat pump, hybrid water heater, and a 10-year warranty on both. Minutes from I-81, the airport, and an easy drive to Kingsport, Bristol, or Johnson City.

So here is the question. What do you think they're asking for a new construction home like this in the Indian Springs area?

Full listing at sellstateline.com.

What do you think they're asking for 441 Kilkenny Road

Vote down below

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This newsletter works best when it's a conversation. If you know a story that needs to be told, a person doing something interesting, or a place in Kingsport that matters to you, send it my way. Every documentary, every feature, every post starts with someone saying "you should look into this."

That's it for this week. Thanks for trusting me with your inbox. Let's tell some stories.

Talk soon,

Ryan