Stan’s Story

Stan was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and lived in East Point, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta) until the age of 17. After high school, Stan attended Milligan College in East Tennessee from 1967 to 1971. There he wrestled and was a stand-out pitcher on the baseball team. In May of 1971, he graduated with a BA degree, majoring in health and physical education and minoring in biology.

After graduation, Stan taught science for one year at Washington College Academy, also in East Tennessee. At the end of that school year, Stan tried out for and signed a free-agent contract with the Detroit Tiger organization in Bristol, Virginia: He pitched for the Bristol Tigers of the Appalachian League for one and a half seasons before being released.

In 1973, Stan was hired by Washington County, Tennessee schools as a coach and science teacher at Daniel Boone High School, where he met and married his wife, Treva, in 1974. He started the wrestling team from scratch and assisted in football and, of course, baseball. Stan was certified in Tennessee to teach all science subjects and health and physical education. Over the course of his career, he taught general science, physical science, Biology 1, chemistry, and physics. Stan has always said that if you want to “really” learn and gain an understanding of something, teach it! It was during these years that he feels he learned the most.

After a 31-year career in education, Stan retired in 2003. He and Treva raised three daughters and a son who all graduated from Daniel Boone High School. When his son graduated in 2003, Stan decided to “go out” with him.

During his years coaching wrestling, football, and baseball, he found himself massaging the necks, shoulders, and knees of athletes in order to improve their performance, and many times students remarked, “Hey, Coach, you’d be a great massager!” It was after retirement that these subliminal suggestions resurfaced and he knew exactly what he was supposed to do.

Stan graduated from The Center for Massage and Natural Health in Asheville, North Carolina, with honors in March of 2007, and got hired by Kind Chiropractic where he worked as a licensed massage therapist and chiropractic therapy assistant from July 1, 2007 until August of 2015. This provided a tremendous learning experience, and he owes much of his current knowledge to Drs Kind and Ballard. “They guided me and instructed me through the years while, at the same time, allowing me to develop my own method and patterns of treatment for a wide variety of medical conditions. I very much enjoy seeing clients experience improvement in the state of their health as we reduce or remove their pain through therapeutic massage.”

Beginning in 2012, Stan began attending seminars to learn the John F. Barnes system of Myofascial Release (MFR). As a result, he has been incorporating MFR into his treatment modalities. “I truly believe that myofascial restrictions lead to many forms of disease (dis-ease) if not treated properly.” In August of 2015, Stan was one of four therapists who actually worked alongside John Barnes (considered to be the Father of MFR) at his Malvern, Pennsylvania treatment facility for five days treating John’s own patients. At this point, Stan only lacks three courses in order to achieve the expert (or top) level of myofascial release as a practitioner.

In September of 2015, Stan resigned from Ballard and Kind Chiropractic in order to open his own treatment clinic in Jonesborough, Tennessee. “We named our clinic Therapeutic Massage of Jonesborough and on September 1, 2022, we began our eighth year of practice!”

In addition to being close to the “expert” level in MFR, Stan is, of course, a Tennessee Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) and also has completed the requirements necessary to be a Certified Medical Massage Practitioner. (MMP)