Every year, the Memphis Flyer asks our readers to nominate outstanding young people in Memphis who are making a difference in their community. We chose the top 20 from an outstanding field of more than 50 nominations.
Memphis, meet your future leaders, the 20<30 Class of 2024.
Sara Barrera
Economic Development Manager, Downtown Memphis Commission
After studying sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Barrera returned to Memphis to earn a degree in urban planning from the University of Memphis. She found the Downtown Memphis Commission to be a perfect fit for her talents and interests. “It’s been really rewarding to get to work with some small business owners that are trying to open up their first business, or people who are venturing out into neighborhoods that have been neglected for a long time and want to take on renewed faith in getting some stuff established out there.”
Courtney Blanchard
Chief of Staff, Greater Memphis Chamber
A native Memphian, Blanchard interned at the Tennessee legislature before working at the economic development and governmental affairs office at the University of Memphis. She followed her mentor, Ted Townsend, to the Greater Memphis Chamber, where he is now the president and CEO. She describes her role as “The Convener” for the business organization. “We’re very intentional about the economic development that we work with at the Chamber because we don’t want the tide to just drive for some, we say that if the tide hasn’t risen for everyone, we’re not doing our job. We can’t leave anybody behind.”
Briana Butler
Associate Attorney, Baker Donelson
“I’ve known since a very early age that I wanted to be a lawyer,” says Butler, who was only the second person in her family to finish college. “I didn’t really know what that would look like, but I knew I wanted to go to law school.”
Her dreams were complicated when she became pregnant. “I had my son at 18, so it was my second semester of freshman year of college, a particularly difficult time.” She managed to juggle the demands of both young motherhood and higher education, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Memphis in only three years and earning a degree at Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. At 23, she achieved her goal of landing a job at Baker Donelson. “Every single day, I feel like I’m taking a class. … If you have a seemingly unrealistic goal — which, my goal was unrealistic — create a very detailed plan. It gives you small little chunks that are more doable and more realistic to get you to the seemingly unrealistic goal.”
Sarah Cai
Co-Owner/Chef, Good Fortune Co.
The mind behind Downtown’s favorite noodle shop grew up in Memphis, until her father moved the family to Guangdong, China, when she was 13. “When I was in college, I started working in hospitality and one of my mentors actually recommended that I try being a line cook, since he noticed I had a lot of passion for food. I tried it and absolutely loved it.
“My dad’s from China, my mom’s from Indonesia, so they were immigrants to this country. As we were growing up, they would always take us home as they could afford it, a trip every few years or so. From a young age, I was exposed to whole different types of culture, all different types of cuisine. And so I think being exposed to such variety of cuisine really helped develop my palate and also gave me a lot of experiences that people have never had before. When I decided to open Good Fortune, I was like, I think it’s got to be in Memphis. It just felt right to me.”
Lionel Davis II
Energy & Infrastructure Executive, Johnson Controls
“I’ve always been somewhat of a tinkerer; some may call it mischievous,” says Davis, who turned his talents into a mechanical engineering degree and moved to Memphis from Little Rock for his current job. “We spend over 90 percent of our time in buildings, and the pandemic highlighted the value of indoor air quality. These are things that my company and my industry have prioritized.”
Davis serves as the first Black president in the 80-year history of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)’s Memphis chapter, as an assistant basketball coach at Binghampton Christian Academy, and as the former co-chair of the young adult ministry of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church. “I really feel as though once you understand that your life is not solely meant to enrich yourself, the greatest among us is the one who serves the least among us.”
Ahmad George
Artist
“I’ve always been drawing, I’ve always been doodling,” says George. “My high school teacher, Mr. Adair, who’s passed now, sadly, he really saw a future for it in me.”
George attended the much-missed Memphis College of Art and devoted themself to their painting. After successful gallery appearances in Miami and Spain, George recently had their first solo Memphis show at Crosstown Arts, “The Molasses Man and Other Delta Tales.” They describe their art as a kind of uncanny realism. “I like the psychological aspects and sensory aspects of art. I want to make people feel things, and not necessarily an overwhelmingly sad or bursting with happiness feeling.”
George’s painting, The Molasses Man, from their Crosstown show was acquired by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art this past November.
Sondra Pham Khammavong
ALSAC/St. Jude Talent Acquisition Liaison, Asian Night Market Founder
The native Memphian plays an important role at ALSAC. “I recruit students nationwide to join our internship program,” she says.
But you probably know the fruits of Khammavong’s other passion. When she founded the Vietnamese Student Association at the University of Memphis, she was following in her family’s footsteps. “My grandpa was one of those first [Vietnamese] that did come here to Memphis. So I’m just excited to continue the foundation that he started and the roots, even though I was born here in America, but just want to keep that heritage going and now that I have kids, just to be able to incorporate them into the culture.”
Most recently, she helped create the Asian Night Market, which attracted more than 8,000 people to Crosstown Concourse. “The Asian Night Market is the first in this city where we brought all the vibrant Asian cultures to one place with something that people love, which is food,” she says. “It was so amazing to see the city come together for a diverse event. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that, especially for the Asian community.”
Alexa Marie Kintanar
FedEx Express Avionics Engineer
After a stint as an Apple Genius piqued her interest in electronics, Kintanar got an internship at FedEx. “I tried it, and I caught what they call the aviation bug from the get-go,” she says. “I saw how massive this technology was and how impactful it could be around the world, and we saw a lot of that actually during the pandemic.”
Kintanar is the first-generation offspring of Philippine-American immigrants. “A lot of what I wanted to do was make them proud — take all the hard courses, get all the scholarships. But also at the same time, make sure I loved what I was doing because I knew from a very young age that if you don’t love what you’re going to do, then it’s torture. You can’t have a job that you hate.”
She pays her good fortune forward as a member of REACH Memphis. “I participate in a lot of mentorship programs. Currently at FedEx, I work with the outreach program to Memphis City Schools for aircraft maintenance. We go to schools with students who don’t have as many opportunities, or aren’t aware of the opportunities that they have.”
Brooks Lamb
Author, Farmer, Land Protection and Access Specialist, American Farmland Trust
This Rhodes College graduate’s passion is the land. “Most of my work lies in trying to support small and midsize farmers because they have been getting squeezed and undervalued and underappreciated for quite a long time.”
His two books are about our relationship to the Earth. “Overton Park: A People’s History looks at that in a more urban-focused, very Memphis context, and the way that people have really served as stewards of the park for generations. My newest book is called Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place. It looks at the challenges that small and midsize farmers face, paying particular attention to challenges from farmland loss and farmland conversion from sprawl, haphazard real estate development, and challenges from agricultural consolidations. For farmers of color, there are issues of systemic racism and injustice in the past, but also still very much in the present.”
Emma Less
Senior Manager of Development, Overton Park Shell
“I don’t think you can grow up in Memphis and not appreciate music,” says Less. And there is no better place to appreciate music than the Overton Park Shell. “I remember going in high school and being so impressed that it was a place for everyone, and that you could hear really amazing bands. … I think there’s a lot to be said about the fact that it is free, and that means that you can decide to come the night of, and enjoy it with all your friends. You don’t have to worry about getting tickets and planning ahead, and that also means there’s more opportunity for anyone to be able to come regardless of their ability to pay for music and the arts.”
Less’ fundraising work aims to keep the music free. “Every time I carry the bucket through the crowd, it’s always just so lovely. It’s something that came from when the Shell was first built in 1936, and they passed a hat around. It’s always been important that the community has the buy-in and feels that they’re a part of the Shell, because it is theirs, too. Whether you’re giving us $5 or $5,000, it doesn’t matter.”
Richard Massey
West Tennessee Vice President, Tennessee Young Democrats
The Marion, Arkansas, native is currently a sophomore at the University of Memphis, majoring in political science and legal studies. “What really propelled me to get involved in Memphis was the modern-day lynching, which I would describe it as, of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the Memphis Police Department, who deprived that man of his life in the most repugnant manner imaginable just 80 yards away from his mother’s residence. That propelled me to go to the city council, the first city council meeting of 2023, following the death of Tyre Nichols and demand a slate of important police reform measures.”
Massey has also been involved in labor issues and in fighting anti-LGBTQ bills in the state legislature, a body he hopes one day to join. “I think it’s important to remind the naysayers, those people who want to undermine youth contributions to these pivotal conversations, that the youth are at the forefront of every major issue affecting Memphis.”
Savannah Miller
Director of New Works, Playhouse on the Square
Miller, a writer and dramatist who graduated from Dartmouth College and has already had five of her own plays staged, took over the New Works program in 2023. Under her watch, entries surged to more than 500 plays and musicals from playwrights all over the globe competing for two slots on the Playhouse on the Square stage.
“I would love for Memphis to be on the map as a place for writers. Before I first came here, I was thinking music. I was thinking visual arts. I was thinking history. I don’t know if I was thinking so much writers and theater artists, but I should have been because we have an amazing pool of talent here in Memphis. I feel like my job as a curator of voices is to showcase that to the world, to get these opportunities out there to people, and let other folks outside of the Mid-South see what we’re doing here in Memphis.”
Jessica Morris
Counselor, Christian Brothers High School
Morris originally wanted to be a therapist, she says. “However, the more I researched, the more I realized that many mental health issues arise in childhood. Yet in the state of Tennessee, there is only one school counselor for every 458 students. I realized that school counselors have a more preventative effect on student mental health. This convinced me that I belong on the front lines, helping teenagers develop into healthy, emotionally stable adults.
“I think today’s teenagers are facing a near-constant overload of technological stimulation,” she says. “My department’s role is to offer our students a safe, calming environment where they can talk with a trusted adult away from the noise and stimulation of their lives. We take proactive measures in talking to our student body about cyber-balance, how to evaluate one’s mental well-being, and how to ask for help.”
Jordan Occasionally
Musician
Born a singer, Occasionally decided to devote their life to music full-time at age 15. They earned a music business degree at the University of Memphis. “I started releasing music during the pandemic in 2021, and it went viral on TikTok and the rest was history,” Occasionally says. “I can say that the local community has been very loving to and receptive towards my music, and it’s given me the courage to break into the L.A. market, or into the New York market, or even around across the globe, the UK market. I wouldn’t have been able to get there without Memphis loving me first.”
At the same time, they have embraced activism, organizing Black Lives Matter protests and advocating for the unhoused community. “Toni Morrison said that all art is political. … I feel like I had an obligation along with having a platform. Anytime you have a stage, what you do with it matters.”
Elijah Poston
Musician/Director of Operations, Jack Robinson Gallery
A foundational member of the Smith7 Records collective, Poston began getting attention for his music at a very early age. He created the public access TV show Kids Do Positive Thingz to showcase young talent in the Mid-South. After graduating from Loyola’s music program, he designed the music theory curriculum at Visible Music College. The multi-instrumentalist taught guitar and released music from his band Doter Sweetly. Today, he can be found on drums with General Labor and is prepping new music from a new group, Great Fortune.
Meanwhile, the position at Jack Robinson Gallery has opened up new vistas for Poston, who has begun dabbling in poster design. “I obviously stay busy because when I’m not here, I’m doing General Labor. I’m teaching at the U of M. And when I’m not doing that, I’m doing one of the other projects that I’m doing. But it is a lot. I was very lucky to have been introduced to everybody here, and it ended up being a perfect fit.”
Amira Randolph
Youth Leadership Program Manager, Memphis Urban League Young Professionals
“I feel a real devotion to my city,” says Randolph. “Every time that we as a community can come together and do things to refresh Memphis, to move it forward into time, to make it a safer place for everyone and be more inclusive, that just makes it even better. And so whenever there’s an opportunity for me to do that, use my talent to do that, then I’m going to take it for sure.”
Randolph got her devotion to service from her father Ian, and says she believes mentorship is the key to helping at-risk youth thrive. “That is my whole drive and purpose. I deeply, deeply care about our youth. I know how important it is to have somebody there. You can be surrounded by family and surrounded by friends, and you still need that person to guide you outside of that.”
Chloe Sexton
Baker and Owner, Bluff Cakes
As a producer for WREG-TV, Sexton was responsible for the political talk show Informed Sources. “Baking was just kind of this hobby that I used to blow off steam. I left TV, and I went into marketing. When the pandemic hit, everybody lost their jobs, and I was terrified. I was trying to learn how can I take all the skills that I have with television, with writing, with storytelling, and with marketing, and blend that into making my little hobby something profitable that’s gonna help me survive a pandemic. That’s how Bluff Cakes came about. Oh, did I mention I was pregnant?”
Now, Bluff Cakes ships Sexton’s creations all over the country, where her more than 2 million social media followers gobble them up. “The best advice that I learned was, if you’re gonna throw yourself into the public eye, you need to grow a thick skin very fast. … Also, trust your gut. It’s not as important as people think it is to follow trends. I would say it’s wildly more important to start your own.”
Jake Warren
Corporate Credit Analyst, First Horizon Bank
“Finance was just my bread and butter. I’ve always been a numbers guy, kind of my cup of tea,” says Warren.
He loves “being able to help others achieve their goals, whether it be an individual preparing for retirements, buying their first house, or just helping a small business continue to grow. The end product is really what I enjoy most. There’s a lot of things behind the scenes like lots of graphs, spreadsheets, making predictions, trying to figure out what the best game plan is for them. It is hard work, but at the end of the day, just seeing others succeed is what keeps me going.”
Warren was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of 4 and was involved in the Make-A-Wish program. Now with CF in remission, he is on the Mid-South chapter’s board of directors. “Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time getting ready for an event with the Make-A-Wish Foundation we’re hosting in February. My kitchen is full of boxes of silent auction items!”
Brandon Washington
Tennessee Young Adult Advisory Council
At age 15, Washington was thrown into the Tennessee foster care system. Now, he is a sophomore at Rhodes College, and ran for City Council Super District 19 in the 2023 elections, where he garnered more than 16,000 votes.
“I had just came from D.C., advocating up there for expansion of resources for foster care. Two or three weeks later, President Joe Biden signed into law the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which expanded SNAP benefits to include aged-out foster youth, which is something that we were advocating. I realized that young people, we don’t have to wait until we’re more experienced to make change. We can actually make change now. We just need the platform to be heard.”
Washington is an international studies major, with the goal of one day becoming secretary of state. As for Memphis City Council, “I’m already preparing to run in 2027 for the same position.”
Olivia Whittington
Real Estate Manager, AutoZone
“I manage the opening of AutoZone stores from site selection all the way to store opening,” says Whittington, who studied urban planning at the University of Memphis. “It’s been a great experience for me, and I’ve learned a lot.”
When she’s not busy expanding the AutoZone empire, she volunteers with Memphis Animal Services, “doing videos and photography for the dogs that are on the ‘urgent list’, who are basically slated for euthanasia. Those get shared with Memphis Animal Services and then other rescue groups around the country. There are groups online that will share that information to try and find a foster adopter or rescue for those particular dogs. And it can be hard, because you can’t save all of them.”
She says she feels obligated to help find homes for these dogs in distress because “the problem won’t get any better if people just want to look away from the problem.”
[Ed. Note: An earlier version of this story listed incorrectly listed Amira Randolph’s as affiliated with the Boys and Girls Club of Memphis. She is no longer affiliated with the organization. The Memphis Flyer regrets the error.]