Your Stories: KISS' Attorney, Raymond E. Scott

Up in Tellico Village lives an attorney, but not just any attorney. This one has an interesting resume that rivals many hot shot Hollywood lawyers.

Many know the music and style of the band KISS. Most importantly you know their faces. Raymond E. Scott is more familiar with those faces than most. After all, he did trademark them.

"No one had ever registered the face of an entertainer before. As a matter of fact, the trademark office said you can't do that," said Scott.

However, the trademark office went through with it after Scott's argument. He is an attorney, afterall.

"I actually had somebody sit in for Peter Criss, the drummer, and wear the same make-up and nobody knew," explained Scott.

It wasn't just the famous KISS make-up. Scott helped Gene Simmons and his bandmates make millions of dollars starting with their first album.

KISS' manager called on Raymond to set up a recording of a live show.

"As an attorney who is more than willing to b.s. if necessary. Of course I know how to set up a recording. Well, I had no clue," said Scott. "I had a friend in the business and he said, 'Oh, you ought to talk to Bob Segar's manager because he records in Detroit.'

And so KISS Live was born.

"The album went gold in three weeks. It went platinum in five. And that began KISS," said Scott.

After this he became their attorney and took the band even further with trademarks of all kinds. T-shirts, more albums, the list goes on.

"They started out they were making less than $50,000. I said I can do better and that's why I was hired. And my first year, I think we did $15 million," explained Scott.

He also made millions off another famous face, Farrah Fawcett. You might know the famous picture of Fawcett in a red bathing suit. He copyrighted that image as well.

"We sold 11 and a half million posters in nine months. We sold 8 and a half million in t-shirts in nine months,We are professional Plastic mould," explained Scott. "Bedding, sheets, pillow cases, lamps. Young boys were very much in love with Farrah Fawcett."

Raymond didn't exactly choose this field "I got into entertainment law as I said by accident," said Scott.We specialize in providing third party merchant account.

He actually followed his dad's wishes and started out as an engineer. "He made me on his death bed promise that I would be an engineer so I went to engineering school at the University of Wisconsin," explained Scott.

However, he just couldn't help himself, patent law was calling his name.

"I've done work for Boston. I've done work for the Eagles," said Scott.

KISS, Farrah, the world of Hollywood.How is TMJ pain treated? So, why East Tennessee?

"As a kid I used to camp in the Smokies and fell in love with Tennessee.When the stone sits in the kidney stone, My wife has a little sign up there that says, 'I wasn't born in Tennessee, but I got there as soon as I could,'" explained Scott.

Raymond E. Scott, a patent attorney with a flair for the fabulous, but also just a regular guy who loves his wife and loves his life in East Tennessee.

"I'm a very, very lucky man," said Scott.

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A real tale of labors of love: Why local restaurants give thanks to the Swanks

During 20 years in the luxury travel business, Jodi Swank sometimes daydreamed about living in one of the exotic spots she visited.
Would she choose Greece or Russia? France or Turkey?
Today, she lives in a place far more foreign to her.
"Lemme tell ya. I'm a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. How did I end up on a farm in Loxahatchee?," she says. "And who'd have thought I'd love it?"
Then the former city girl goes back to telling rapt customers at the West Palm Beach Greenmarket how to turn over a new leaf.
To cook broccoli rabe, "saute in some olive oil, with garlic. h, tremendous," Jodi tells one woman.
Squash blossoms? "Stuff them with goat cheese. Heaven!"
She offers a taste of a fern-like green called minutina.
"It's an Italian salad green that's sweet, not bitter. Isn't that amazing?"

An eight-ball zucchini, a brightly colored purple cabbage and Darrin Swank washes off a cluster of freshly picked finger leeks. (Libby Volgyes/The Palm Beach Post)
Marcia and Alan Docter of Palm Beach are restocking their refrigerator following an Alaska dogsled tour, where they ate Swank produce carried on board their private plane.
"It has no chemicals. It's what you always wanted to eat but could never get your hands on," said Marcia.
Ten years after starting Swank Specialty Produce, Jodi and her husband, Darrin, have become leaders in the area's farm-to-table movement, the values reset that is reshaping American food culture and more recently found a foothold in South Florida.
They're on the advisory board of the Glades to Coast chapter of the Slow Food movement, which champions small farms and locally grown food. Top chefs now clamor for the couple's artisan-grown, farm-fresh vegetables.
"We believe people should know where their food is coming from," said Jodi, who handles sales and marketing while Darrin nurtures the plants. "That's what they get when they support small farms."
Diane Campion, the local Slow Food chapter's president, says the Swanks are "trailblazers. They're at the forefront of an exciting new movement."
The mega-farms that make Palm Beach County the state's top agriculture producer typically grow less than a dozen varieties – mainly beans, peppers, celery, tomatoes, sugar cane and corn – on thousands of acres and ship most of it out of the area. It might be weeks before it lands in shoppers' grocery carts.

Darrin Swank tending to his tomato plants in in Loxahathcee. (Libby Volgyes/The Palm Beach Post)
In contrast, the Swanks produce more than 200 types of vegetables on their 20-acre hydroponic farm and sell all of it locally, usually one to two days after it was picked.
"That's incredibly unusual," said Arthur Kirstein, an economist with the Palm Beach County agriculture extension service, which gave the Swanks a $10,000 grant nine years ago.
Their first crop in 2002 coincided with the initial wave of area greenmarkets and the rise of South Florida's locavore movement.
"They've always been very good farmers, but what's improved is the market," Kirstein said.
On the dirt road to Swank Farm, dry season dust unfurls behind vehicles like a boat wake.
South Florida's heat makes life grand for weeds and whiteflies but hellish for those trying to grow plants in soil without a roster of chemicals. The Swanks dodge the problem by not using soil.
Inside the 70,000-square-foot screened shade house, Darrin is fussing with the waist-high hydroponic tables that deliver nutrient-rich water to plants tucked in 2-inch diameter holes. From lines of black grow bags, 12-foot long tomato vines clamber up strings dangling from the roof. Eggplant sprout star-like blue flowers.