Long before Wallace Earl “Wally” Clendenen became a World War II veteran, Knoxville businessman and familiar figure in the community, a few terrifying moments on the Bald River put the 19-year-old student to a test of courage.
On May 10, 1941, Clendenen and fellow Tennessee Wesleyan College student Marvin B. Gass, 20, were near a waterfall outside Tellico Plains when Gass fell into the river.
Gass was dazed and swept into water about 8 feet deep. Making the situation even more dangerous, he was only about 30 feet upstream from the brink of a higher waterfall…