BRISTOL, Tenn. -Merle Dickert spent years helping Harry Scanlan build a positive reputation for Bristol's Paramount Center for the Performing Arts.
On Aug. 7, she will take the helm as the Paramount's executive director, replacing Scanlan who decided to retire after heading the center since 1994, according to a news release from the Paramount.
"He's a very private person," Rob Simis, Paramount Board of Directors' president, said of Scanlan. "He went to see his dad in the Midwest at the end of June. He said he'd had a lot of time to think about it, and that he'd been on a fast train and maybe it was time to get off." Born in Manchester, Iowa, Scanlan grew up on a 200-acre farm.
