Friends of South Cumberland State Parks, Inc., has hired Ned Murray as its first-ever Executive Director. “FSC is now 30 years old. As one of Tennessee’s largest Friends groups, we are now supporting multiple Tennessee State Parks in the South Cumberland Region,” noted FSC President Tom Sanders. “The challenges our parks are facing are significant, as the parks become ever more popular with visitors. Our mission, to support our park managers and their priorities, while also helping to conserve, protect and maintain these unique and environmentally significant places, requires us to strengthen our organization and increase our capacity to support these parks. Bringing Ned on board is, for us, an outstanding step forward.”

Murray, who has a life-long passion for the outdoors, has successfully led nonprofit organizations through growth, maturity, and transformation. Murray’s experience includes strategic planning, fundraising, friend-raising, communications, marketing, partnership development, governance and organizational leadership. “These are the skills necessary for Friends of South Cumberland State Parks to reach a new level of organizational maturity and resilience,” Murray explained. “My passion for this work is rooted in the beauty, wonder, and diversity of this amazing part of the world,” he added, “The South Cumberland region remains such a wonderful area thanks to many folks who have worked and fought so hard to protect, preserve, and maintain the most unique areas of this wonderfully diverse landscape.”

Murray will work with FSC committee chairs and its Board of Directors to continue implementation of its current five-year strategic plan, and to guide the process for plan updates. “We are excited to have Ned’s expertise, coupled with his knowledge of our parks and their environmental significance,” noted Sanders. “Ned will be instrumental in helping us build a stronger volunteer organization by engaging with the people and organizations who care about the parks and who want to help enhance FSC’s work with their time, talents and financial support.”

“When my wife Lucy and I began a conversation about where to make our new home base, it was a short conversation. We both knew that we would settle on our beloved Cumberland Plateau. No place feels more like home. No place offers more of what we value in life. It will be incredibly rewarding to help support the Friends of South Cumberland State Parks and its people to develop greater potential to positively impact the ecological, educational, environmental, and recreational life of the community and its visitors,” Murray added.

Murray recently retired from his position after 19 years as Head of School for the Episcopal Day School in Augusta, Ga. Prior to that he was Associate Headmaster at Baylor School in Chattanooga. In both communities he was also an active member or board member of several nonprofit organizations, including Boys and Girls Club of Chattanooga, Augusta and Chattanooga Rotary, SAIS, and the Augusta Chapter of American Red Cross. He was a founding organizer of both the Elementary Schools Research Collaborative and The Youth Board Augusta. Murray holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the Virginia Theological Seminary, a Master’s Degree from UT/Chattanooga, and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of the South.

Ned and Lucy reside in Sewanee. Lucy, an alumna of SAS and an environmental educator, is a Georgia Master Naturalist and has begun the Tennessee naturalist program offered through FSC. They have two sons, both of whom are graduates of the University of the South.

To learn more about Friends of South Cumberland State Parks or to become a member, visit

https://www.friendsofsouthcumberland.org/