Nora Robinson

Nora Jean Robinson, a longtime resident of San Francisco and the Bay Area and a 12-year resident of Knoxville, former executive of large corporations and non-profits, has died on September 16, 2023 from injury sustained after a fall. She was 64. Robinson had a career in communications most notably with Applied Materials as senior director of corporate marketing communications where she influenced the image and perception of the company and did award-winning work with a global reach, traveling extensively in Asia and the Middle East. In Tennessee, she worked with KaTom Restaurant Supply managing web content and the YWCA of Knoxville and the Tennessee Valley directing high-profile events and fundraising as a member of the executive team. Her volunteer community service included locally Glencoe-Elliott Condominiums Board Member, Knoxville’s City People, Knox Heritage, and the Knoxville Opera, as well as the Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley. Robinson was a lovely person, caring and kind. She was smart and funny with a quirky sense of humor, and a lateral thinker who could always find a practical, work-around solution. She enjoyed planning trips and, in her younger days, camping and hiking in our national parks. A talented artist, she created work in 2D and 3D, focusing in recent years on craft—basketry, wood and needlework, ceramics, and jewelry making. She had a wide variety of cultural interests, including medieval illuminated manuscripts; the California missions; Appalachian and Native American arts and crafts; and jazz, reggae, sacred, country, and blue grass music. She received a B.A. in Fine Arts from California State University and an A.A. in Electro Mechanical Drafting from Chabot College. She loved her family fiercely and is survived by Sarah Robinson of Athens, Greece, and her husband Nassos Felonis and daughters Claire and Christina Felonis. She is also survived by her lovable Jack Russell Terrier Hardy (named after the English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy), adopted after the recent loss of her sister Ellen, who now again needs a home. A reception will be held Saturday, September 30th, at the Building 2 patio of the Hamilton House Condominiums, 1400 Kenesaw Avenue in Sequoyah Hills, from 2:00 - 5:00 p.m. to celebrate Nora. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Nora’s memory to Americans for the Arts.

Tributes

Nora Robinson

November 24, 1958 - September 16, 2023