UPDATED: Marvin ‘Stump’ Martin Passes

UPDATE: Visitation for Stump Martin will be at the Heritage Funeral Home in Fort Oglethorpe on Saturday from 1 to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 7 p.m. The funeral service will be in the chapel on Monday morning at 11 a.m.

Marvin “Stump” Martin passed away in a local hospital on Thursday morning.

Martin, 64, leaves behind his beloved wife, Deb; daughter, Misty Dawn; and grandson Austin.

Martin had been hospitalized for various illnesses during the last few months.

He was a proud graduate of Rossville High School where he was a multi-sport athlete. He attended Carson-Newman College and played baseball for the team. Martin was an assistant baseball coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

He wrote sports for Roy Exum at the Chattanooga News-Free Press for more than a decade. When the News-Free Press merged with the Chattanooga Times and became the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Martin covered all aspects of news in the North Georgia region. He hosted radio and had his own TV show, “Stump on Sports” on a local access channel in North Georgia.

Martin left the newspaper and became the director of Park and Recreation in Rossville. He left that job to become the Director of Parks and Recreation in East Ridge in 2011.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.