“For better or worse, the Tennessee State Museum would not be where it is without Lois Riggins-Ezzell. She has run the museum since 1981, when it was an afterthought to both the state and the budget, with just six employees, in the basement of James K. Polk building. She has grown the staff and the collections and archives, and she has led the decades-long push for a building of the museum’s own.”