WBIR Channel 10 reporter Johnny Maffei visited a farm in Sumner County where the story doesn’t start with a new development deal or a flashy lawsuit. It starts with dirt, family history, and a way of life that, according to the owners, has been passed down since 1787.
The Gregory family says they’ve been farming the same land since the Revolutionary War era, and now they’re fighting to keep it as the Tennessee Valley Authority proposes a power line route that would cut through their property. Maffei’s report frames it as a clash between a modern infrastructure project and a family that sees its farm as more than a plot on a map.
John Gregory, speaking in Maffei’s piece, didn’t sound like someone pretending the farm is easy. He sounded like someone who chose the hard path because it’s the only one that feels like home.
“Farming is in my blood,” Gregory said. “I can’t shake it.”
He added that he’d probably be better off financially and his back would feel better if he’d chosen a different career, but he said this is what he’s going to do until he can’t do it anymore.
A Historic Farm That Still Feeds People
Maffei described the farm as a working place with a local footprint that goes beyond one family. The Gregorys sell meat, he reported, and they even host kids for farm school classes.
That detail matters because it shows this isn’t just private land used for private pleasure. It’s part of the community’s food and education ecosystem, and for a lot of people, farms like this are the last living link to what the area used to look like before subdivisions swallowed everything.
Maffei also noted the timing felt symbolic. With the country approaching America’s 250th celebration, he pointed out that this family is still fighting for land acquired in the Revolutionary War era. It’s one thing to talk about “heritage” in abstract terms, but it’s another to see a family still standing on the same ground, still working it, still treating it as an inheritance they’re responsible for, not just an asset they can flip.
Gregory told Maffei that TVA came out, did surveys, and conducted studies on his land. But beyond those visits, he said he hasn’t gotten much clear information about what’s happening next.
That lack of clarity is what fuels the family’s frustration, because when a big agency is present on your land with maps and surveys, it doesn’t feel like a casual maybe. It feels like the beginning of a process you didn’t choose.
“We Gave Them Permission” And Then The Silence
Maffei reported that the family first learned the project might cut through their land when a TVA surveyor showed up and asked to survey. Gregory said the surveyor showed his father a map of the plan, and at that point the family was left asking, “What are you going to do?”
Gregory told Maffei they gave TVA permission, and then the process accelerated in terms of activity but not communication. He said TVA came and surveyed, then did a historical study and an environmental study, and then another surveyor came again.
But Gregory said nobody reached out to clearly say, “This is definitely happening,” or to discuss buying a piece of ground, or to explain what the plan would mean for the family.
He described trying to get answers and being sent “up the totem pole,” which is a familiar phrase for anyone who has tried to get a straight response from a large organization. You keep calling, keep emailing, and you keep getting passed to someone else, as if the goal is to exhaust you into silence.
Maffei said the family has reached out, but that action didn’t seem to build until local leaders and country singer John Rich spoke out against the project. That’s an interesting part of the story because it suggests the turning point wasn’t a quiet complaint. It was public pressure.
And that’s also where the story starts to feel like a modern version of an old problem: the people with land and history still have to fight for attention when power and infrastructure are involved.
Local Leaders Push TVA To Reroute The Line
Maffei reported that Sumner County Commissioner Jeremy Mansfield is asking TVA to seek an alternate route off the farm.
Mansfield framed the request as a matter of priorities and principle. He said it should align with TVA’s “environmentally friendly” motto, and he argued that if TVA truly wants to act that way, it shouldn’t put high-power transmission lines through prime pasture land and break up farms.
Mansfield also described the land in a way that reinforces why the issue is bigger than one property line. He said it’s a 648-acre original land grant tract involving multiple families, including extended relatives and cousins, and he said other nearby families would also be affected as you go up Wallace Road.
Maffei’s report made that point clear: the Gregorys are the face of the story, but they aren’t the only ones concerned. The route could ripple outward, impacting multiple landowners tied to the same historic grant.
It’s also worth saying plainly: once a big line goes through a farm, it changes the farm forever. Even if the land technically remains owned by the family, the use of it can shift, access can be restricted, and the “feel” of the place changes in a way that can’t be undone by paperwork.
“If A Bee Knows To Get Away From It, It’s Probably Not Good”
Maffei’s report included a moment from Gregory that wasn’t about legal routes or policy statements. It was about what the family thinks the line could do to the land’s living systems.
Gregory told Maffei he doesn’t sell honey, but he mentioned a nest of bees on the property – one he said he climbed into a tree and worked hard to get. He said the power line would be right next to where that bee nest is now, and he believes the bees would leave.
“That oughta tell us something about it,” Gregory said. “If a bee knows to get away from it, it’s probably not good.”
That line isn’t scientific proof of anything, but it’s a strong emotional argument because it reflects how farmers think. They watch patterns. They notice when animals avoid certain areas. They take cues from the land because the land is their job and their life.
And in the middle of a debate about transmission reliability, that kind of lived observation matters to the people who actually live there. Gregory isn’t trying to sound like an engineer. He’s trying to explain why this feels risky and disruptive from the ground level.
TVA Pauses The Project, But Nobody Has A Timeline
Maffei reported that TVA says it has paused the project for now.
That’s a significant development, but the way he framed it suggests “paused” isn’t the same as “solved.” The family and local leaders, he said, are hoping for a permanent solution, not a temporary quiet period.
When Maffei asked TVA about a timeline for a permanent answer, he reported that a spokesperson said there is no timeline.
That’s the kind of response that leaves families stuck in limbo. You can’t relax because it’s not over. You can’t plan because you don’t know what’s coming. And you can’t sell the idea of “certainty” to the next generation when the future of the land is being discussed in meetings you’re not in.
Maffei reported TVA says it is listening and wants to learn more, and that it plans to establish a landowner task force to strengthen collaboration and transparency for projects that could impact communities. TVA describes the goal as listening, learning, and working with people who know the land best, and balancing reliability needs with respect for property rights and community values.
It’s the right kind of language, at least on paper. But families like the Gregorys tend to judge systems by what happens next, not by what’s promised in a statement.
Why This Fight Feels Bigger Than One Farm
Maffei’s report lands because it captures a tension a lot of Americans understand, even if they’ve never owned land. The tension is between “progress” and “place,” between a big entity saying a project is needed and a family saying the cost is too high.
It also raises a tough question: when a family has held land for generations, what does “ownership” really mean if a route can be planned through it without clear communication, leaving them to chase answers up a chain of offices?
And there’s another layer that’s hard to ignore. Farms aren’t just sentimental. They’re working businesses. Break them up, and you can break the economics. A line can cut pasture patterns, restrict future building, and change how the land is used, even if the family still technically “owns” it.
Maffei ended with the project paused and the family still hoping for a permanent reroute. For now, the Gregorys are still farming, still teaching kids, still selling meat, and still trying to protect land they say has been theirs since 1787 – because in their eyes, losing any piece of it isn’t just a property dispute. It’s the end of a story that started before most of the country even existed.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
