Those who follow local bands and musicians are mourning, along with the family of 18 year old Evan Twitty of Knox County. He died Friday night when police say he was driving east on St. Thomas Road in Knox County and failed to yield and drove an SUV into the path of a semi which was north on US 41. The tractor-trailer left the road and turned over. Twitty was dead at the scene. He was wearing a seat belt. The driver of the semi, 49-year-old Paul Brandle of Hawesville, Kentucky was trapped and had to be freed from the cab of his semi. He was taken to Good Sam for treatment of injuries that were not life threatening.
Twitty who would have been 19 this coming Saturday, was famous in the finger style guitar community winning accolades from nationally known guitar players like Thom Bresh who expressed his shock and sadness on social medial over the weekend. In 2016 and 2017 Twitty won the Traditional Category at the Merle Travis thumb picking competition at Mountain View Arkansas. In 2016 he was named International Instrumentalist of the Year and Teenage Performer of the Year by the Country Gospel Music Association in Branson, Missouri. Twitty was a South Knox grad and was studying Audio Recording at Vincennes University.
The Celebration of Life is at South Knox High School this Friday at 11-am.
A go-fund me campaign has been started to help his family pay for funeral expenses.
www.gofundme.com/f/evan-twitty-memorial