Women's Tribute: The Gleason Gazelles

For more than 50 years, a group of women in Gleason has worked behind the scenes to make sure their small town has at least one week every year when everyone can gather together.

The Gleason Gazelles, founded in the early 1970s, is best known for organizing the annual Tater Town Special, a weeklong series of events leading up to Labor Day weekend that draws residents, former residents and families back to town.

“Our job is to bring together the community of Gleason,” said longtime member Jennifer Cook. “That’s our whole job in a nutshell. We just want to bring our community together, to gather together.”

In 50 years, the group has built a legacy that speaks for itself. Twenty Gazelles currently serve the Gleason community, all of whom joined with the primary goal of keeping the Tater Town Special tradition alive. Some members, like Cook, also have a deeper tie to the group.

Cook, a registered nurse who serves as the Tennessee Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program coordinator for West Tennessee, can’t remember a time when she wasn’t connected with the Gazelles. Her mom was one of the group’s inaugural members in 1972. Cook was born a year later.

“When you’re a Gazelle, your whole family is unofficially a Gazelle,” Cook said. “As a Gazelle kid, you pick up sticks and you tote ice and you haul drinks to ice ‘em down. You do the grunt work.”

Now, Cook finds herself and other members continuing the tradition, enlisting their husbands and children to help with Tater Week preparations.

The Gazelles rotate leadership roles, with a president typically serving a two-year term. Cook served about five years as president.

“It’s a lot of work,” Cook said. “You meet once a month at the beginning of the year. Then, as we get closer to Tater Week, we start meeting every two weeks. Then we meet every day.”

Planning for the next Tater Town Special begins almost immediately after the previous one ends. The group typically starts meeting again in late winter, months before the event takes place.

During Tater Week, the Gazelles organize a full schedule of activities for the community, from bingo games and contests to parades and other events.

To keep activities as free as possible, the group holds a few fundraisers throughout the year, including the Tater Town Beauty Review and a barbecue cookoff. Local churches, businesses and industries also donate money and prizes to help support the week’s activities.

“There are a lot of industries in Gleason that give back when it’s Tater Week time,” Cook said. “We are very, very, very blessed to live in Gleason.”

The Gazelles want to ensure the tradition continues long after the current members are gone.

“I really want my grandkids to enjoy it,” Cook said. “I want them to be able to look forward to and enjoy the Tater Town Special like I have my whole life.”

With that goal in mind, the Gazelles try to introduce younger women to the group, teaching them the traditions in hopes they will eventually take over the responsibility of organizing the event.

“We’re not going to live forever,” Cook said. “So we have to have other people who come alongside us and do those things.”

Currently, the Gazelles range in age from their mid-20s to their 60s, representing the perspectives of several generations. Membership is by invitation only, with potential members recommended by current Gazelles.

When current Gazelles president Jennifer Baumgartel was invited to join the group, she said there was no question. She looked forward to the Tater Town Special every year growing up, and she wanted to jump in and help the Gazelles continue the tradition.

Baumgartel, who works in telephonic nurse case management for Optum and focuses on women’s health and fertility patients, has been a Gazelle for about six to eight years.

She became president earlier this year, taking on responsibilities such as organizing meetings and helping guide planning for the next Tater Town Special. Still, she said the group functions more as a collaboration than a hierarchy.

“We all have that goal of trying to be together, working together to promote our community,” Baumgartel said. “It’s great to hear everybody’s ideas and see the heart that each woman puts into this event. I feel like they’re an extension of my family.”

For Baumgartel, the purpose of the group remains centered on the same idea that started it more than five decades ago: to give the people of Gleason an opportunity to get together and show pride in their town.

“Being from Gleason, it really is something special,” said Baumgartel.