280 Living
280Living.com
May 62013 May 2013 | Volume | Issue 9
neighborly news & entertainment
The Tradition returns
Opportunity captured Chelsea mom gets dream job offer on USA reality show By MADOLINE MARKHAM
Two-year tournament winner Tom Lehman will attempt a “three-peat” for this year’s Regions Tradition at Shoal Creek June 5-9. Read more about the tournament in this issue.
Community page 8
To market, to market
Valleydale and The Summit Farmers Markets will open for the season in mid-May, and Mt Laurel will follow soon thereafter. Find more details inside.
Special page 14
INSIDE Celebrations...6 Community .....7 Food .............. 10 Business ....... 11
School House ... 20 Sports ............... 26 Opinion ............. 28 Calendar ........... 30
Pre-Sort Standard U.S. Postage PAID Birmingham, AL Permit #656
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Skeet were flying through the air on a sunny California day, and Tracie Marcum’s job was to photograph them — one step of her sports photography training as a contestant on new USA reality show The Moment. Marcum, 37, was a long way from her Chelsea home, but there was something much more uncomfortable about the situation. She witnessed her mother’s suicide by gunshot inside their home 30 years ago. “I don’t do guns,” she told the camera. “If this is part of my assignment, I can’t do this.” Lou Jones a Sports Illustrated photographer, had set up the exercise not knowing Marcum’s background; he only knew it was good training for a final challenge she would face to photograph stunt pilots from inside a helicopter. But after talking to her husband on the phone, Marcum did what seemed like the impossible. “Face your demons, and they won’t be your demons any more, right?” she said as she walked onto the range. “It was tough, but I am glad that I sucked it up and did it,” she said, reflecting on the experience. “I realized at that moment I had to overcome that fear
Chelsea resident Tracie Marcum works with The Moment host Kurt Warner and Sports Illustrated photographer Lou Jones as a contestant on the new reality show. The show airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on USA. Photo courtesy of USA/Colleen Haves.
and stop letting that be something that held me back.” Rewind a year: Marcum was an operations manager for a software company in Inverness. She had owned a wedding business for 10 years but sold it 12 years ago. After that, she only pulled out her
camera for her kids’ youth sports games. Her son, Taylor, now 17, played youth football and baseball, and daughter Kennedi, 10, played softball and basketball. And somewhere in photographing her kids, a bigger dream was born: sports photography.
The sports world was nothing new to Marcum. Her dad raised her on Alabama football when she was growing up in nearby Wilsonville, and she writes a blog, gridirongirl. com, to inspire women to learn more
See MARCUM | page 29
Miracle Man As Tripp Nichols approaches his first birthday, his family still seeks a diagnosis By CLAYTON HURDLE On May 7, Tripp Nichols and his family will celebrate the end of a long, trying year in which the baby boy from Chelsea overcame odds again and again. Born without complication in May 2012, Tripp began suffering from chronic seizures soon after his birth. His epilepsy has caused vision impairment and devel-
opmental issues, yet no doctor has been able to diagnose Tripp’s seizure disorder. Doctors told Tripp’s parents that he wouldn’t live to his first birthday. “It’s hard when you wake up every morning to be positive,” Jessica, Tripp’s mother, said. “It’s hard to watch him hurt. We know what he’s missing out on, so it’s hard for us not to create a handicap for him.”
Jessica and her husband, Nick, have done everything in their power to help their son improve, but they knew early on that their efforts alone would never be enough. The Nichols family makes regular trips to Memphis, Tenn., to visit the Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. Tripp has also been to South Carolina,
See TRIPP | page 29
Tripp Nichols began suffering from chronic seizures after his birth. Photo courtesy Jessica Nichols.