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In an earlier day William “Shade” Mason, was known for driving an auto faster in reverse than others could do in a forward gear,. Shade joined brothers Alley, Mancie, Scott and Jessie in being among the citizens of the old Mason section of the Lowland Community, and had originally come into the area from Stoniga, a community near Bristol. Shade’s brother Alley would marry Loretta Guthrie and move to Morristown, where the family would have 6 children, with little William being the youngest and named for his uncle.

Loretta would pass away when little William was 18 months old, leaving Alley unable to handle the 6 children without a mother, so the youngsters were left with Loretta’s mother, Joella Guthrie, to raise, while Alley would leave. Joella would later marry Rev. Toney Kyle, who brought 2 more children into the family. Rev. Kyle would die shortly after, leaving Joella with 8 children to raise.

It would be a struggle for the family who now lived in a small house on Third North Street. Joella would supplement the family’s meager income with a $54 pension and working at the W.R. Toney home.

Young William would go to the post office to pick up his grandmother’s check, but even seeing it in the box, he would be told that it hadn’t arrived.

Joella would need every single penny to raise her family and 11 year-old William would head to the golf course to work as a caddy. While the other boys would get good bonuses, William’s wealthy golfer would only pay him the minimum amount. Heading to school at Judson S. Hill, William recalled coming home to pick pears off a tree to combine with cornbread for his evening meal. With his birthday on Halloween, “Trick or Treat” evenings provided most of his year’s source of candy.

. A saving grace for young William was that he was a voracious reader. A second blessing would be going to the Morristown College High School, where some of the college teachers would teach high school classes, which provided William with a top grade education. During his junior year, William was in chorus class when he first spotted freshman Naomi Buis, who in 1966 would become his wife and partner and the mother of son Anthony (Cheryl) and grandchildren Anisa and Casey. Even while playing hungry, he would letter in 3 sports while playing against teams that sometimes included grown men. He would graduate from MCHS In 1961 as the class valedictorian.

An academic scholarship would allow William to attend North Carolina Central College for a year until finances returned him to Morristown to take a job at Berkline loading trucks and boxcars. Seeing that he would soon be drafted, he joined the Army to be trained as a clerk typist and stationed in Okinawa to work in a classified communications center. He counts his military service as his saving grace.

Having come from an environment where the siblings had to depend on each other for security, William wanted to make sure that he could take his part. That opportunity came with William locating an Shorin Ryu karate master, Edward Takae, who was teaching classes at the SeibuKan Karate Dojo, the best dojo on the island.. William used every evening and days off to study intensely and would leave Okinawa after 14 months having earned his first degree black belt qualification in an incredibly short time. He had also learned of the peaceful teachings of the sport.

After being discharged and returning home, William was approached by long time friend, Johnny Sims, who had gotten out of shape and wanted William to teach him karate to get back in shape. William had to start out slow with Johnny, who caught fire and became a standout student and assistant instructor. While the recreation center had earlier been segregated, in 1967 center manager Lawrence “Tuck” Tucker gave William a call inviting his class to use the center for practice.

Opening his class to the public, his first students were myself, Kirby Seals, Mike Couch, Lynn Holt, accomplished boxer Johnny Blair, Harry Reed, Albert Wallace, Dexter Kyle, James Wheeler and Bill Vance. William would continue his classes for 30 years as a volunteer who never charged for his lessons. Many others would come in over those years while wife Naomi would earn her own black belt..

My memories of William “Bill” Mason go back over a half century. One of the most vivid of those occurred during a wrestling match at the recreation Center where the crowd was cheering on their favorite huge and strong wrestlers, when the match held an intermission and Willam climbed into the ring with his class. The audience became silent with the class, which couldn’t physically compare with the wrestlers, with the possible exception of Johnny Sims.

The exhibition began with karate fighting demonstrations before moving on to breaking boards with bare hands and feet. That brought out some of the audience’s attention. Concrete blocks were then brought into the ring, with a block placed across two supporting blocks. One student broke that block with his hand, while two more blocks were stacked for stout Johnny Sims to break. Three blocks were then placed across the supporting blocks with black belt William hitting them twice without them breaking. He then switched hands and concentrated so intensely that his neck veins were buldging. The blocks broke and spectators up close could see little streams of blood coming from his hand. The audience was more respectful when William led his team back to the dressing room.

During this time, William wanted to learn more and hooked up with Knoxville grandmaster Garfield Wilson, where after 5 years of study, William was recognized as a Grand Master in Isshin Ryu. William would tell that Grandmaster Wilson’s curriculum was equal to or in some way superior to the Grandmasters he had trained under in Okinawa, and that Wilson remains one of the most capable and respected teacher to this day.

William counts Morristown businessman and former Marine Rick Stone as one of his most physically gifted students, “but who early on was as stiff as a poker”:. Stone was on a New York vacation when he met Grand Master Moses Powell, one of the sport’s most noted grandmasters. The Morristown unit would work to get the money to bring Powell to Morristown ever couple months to teach. Finally taking a 5 year sabbatical, William would start schools in Greeneville, Newport and Morristown with students with his most capable studens as instructor. Returning to teaching and after 58 years in karate, William would be promoted as a Sanuces Ryu Grandmaster 10th Dan in 2015.

To support his family and his sport, William worked at the nylon lab at Enka before becoming Hamblen County’s first black deputy, and later as Morristown’s second black officer in the police department. A more lucrative job would take him to NCR, where he built cartons for 18 months. His Army computing experience would see him called back to Enka as an Industrial Engineer. Seeing an opportunity in computers, he used his G.I. Bill to learn programming and became their program designer. William would leave Enka in 1994 to work as a computer technician at WSCC, where he would work alongside his equally gifted wife, Naomi. The couple would retire on the same day in 2002.

Actual retirement doesn’t seem in the plans for the Mason’s. Naomi’s a gifted artist who’s work can’t be imitated, while they both have done some deep spiritual studies. William has gotten deeply into music and has spread his abilities into music and the natural born perfectionist spreads the joy of music to Alps, the Senior Citizen Center, the Heritage Center, and Life Care of Jefferson City. Still in amazing shape at 80, he remains a person not a person to pick on.

“I just want to make the world a little better and follow the First Commandment,” he ended.