Tracy Knauss at work at the Photo Doctor offices on Bailey Avenue.
Tracy Knauss has long been known as Chattanooga's hang gliding guru and he is as adept at a less-daring occupation - restoring old photos. Not to mention he is a wizard at card tricks.
The family was living at Dallas, Tex., when he was born to Jack and Hallie Jean Mayes Knauss. The Knauss family was originally from Germany, though they lived at Allentown, Pa., for six generations. One branch went west to the Dakota Territory in the 1880s. It was there that Tracy's grandfather met his wife, who was a full-blooded Norwegian.
Jack Knauss was in World War II. He was on a pier in Galveston, Tex., when he met Hallie Jean, who had made a trip from Fayetteville, Ark., to visit her half-brother.
Jack Knauss was first a brickmason, working on the Dallas Morning News building and Parkland Hospital among other Dallas landmarks. Tracy remembers that the family garden was always lined with ornate brick patterns.
Jack Knauss later got into manufacturing, and the family moved to Terrell, Tex., where he served as mayor. They also lived at Arlington, which at that time had fewer than 50,000 residents.
Tracy Knauss was a talented pitcher, and he was on the SMU baseball team. He switched after his freshman year to Centenary College at Shreveport, La., where he got more playing time. He was the first Centenary student to finish with two degrees - business and philosophy.
He chose Uanderbilt University for his masters in education and space science. He still uses the latter training - teaching astronomy classes at McCallie School.
It was in 1976 during his last year at Vanderbilt that Tracy began hearing about the daring sport of hang gliding that was going on at Aetna Mountain. A tram was built at the cave attraction in Lookout Valley, and hang gliders would ride up and soar down into the valley.
Tracy says, "This was the only place I knew of where they were hang gliding. I just loved it. It was such a rush." So much so, that he moved to Lookout Valley and slept on a door at the building where the tram motor was housed.
He was involved in the hang gliding operation during the day. John Burkhalter, John Benidido and Bill Barr had started Cloudmen Glider Crafts. They built hang gliders and gave lessons. At night, the multi-talented Knauss was a magician, doing sleight-of-hand card magic for various groups.
He began hang gliding with Dick Stern and Don Guess. Dick Stern's daughter, Becky, was hanging around the hang gliding camp at the time. She later became Criminal Court Judge Rebecca Stern.
From what began as some very short flights at Aetna Mountain, some began soaring off a bluff of Lookout Mountain for longer and longer rides in the sky. Don Guess had an 11-minute flight. Then Lee Park soared for two hours. Tracy stayed up an amazing five hours. Then another hang gliding pioneer was up for 11 hours.
But it was a dangerous sport, and several people lost their lives going off the Lookout bluff. Tracy said, "Many were going off with hardly any training or not any at all."
He borrowed $2,000 and bought the main jumping off point on the mountain. He named it McCarty Bluff after the man he acquired it from. Tracy began charging those who went off the bluff, but he also insisted they have a certain amount of training.
Tracy said, "Lookout Mountain with its long ridge is the perfect place for hang gliding. You can fly up and down the mountain for 30 miles."
At the same time, he began publishing a hang gliding magazine. Glider Rider was a tabloid publication that gained a subscription of about 8,000.
He also started publishing Chattanooga Life and Leisure. It was around for over four years.
Tracy had always had an interest in genealogy and photography and learned how to take an old faded and tattered family picture and make it look like new. He began to make interesting collages of his family photos.
He said, "A friend asked me to do one for him. Then someone else wanted one too. I decided I ought to start charging."
He began operating the Photo Doctor on Bailey Avenue. His office is on the left just after you go over the viaduct past Central. And he continues his involvement in his gliding publication. "I still work 80-100 hours a week," he says.
Tracy married Donna Guess - another of his hang gliding acquaintances. Their daughter, Megan, is a sophomore at Birmingham Southern. Their son, Travis, is a junior at Baylor School.
Tracy Knauss can be reached at the Photo Doctor at 629-5378.