Progress 2014

Progress

2014

A BETTER CHILTON COUNTY FOR EVERYONE

Clanton City Council Mayor Billy Joe Driver, Greg DeJarnett, Mary Mell Smith, Sammy Wilson, Jeff Price and Bobby Cook.

table of contents

Athletes return from concussions Hispanic family shares immigration story Former school for blacks falls into disrepair Roads critical to county’s development Lack of a hospital has had many effects Technology in the modern classroom Payton named Citizen of the Year

A note from the editor

E

ach year, we here at The Clanton Advertiser are tasked with taking a deep breath, looking at the big picture and trying to judge the progress that has been made Dawkins in Chilton County the preceding year—and over the long haul.

The result is this publication, which we call Progress.

Everyone that lives and works here knows that a great deal of progress has been made. This year, we

Progress 2014

4 10 18 26 30 38 48

focused on the fact that in order for progress to be real, it must be felt by all members of the community, not just any one segment.

This reality is highlighted by the story of the Contreras family, Hispanic immigrants turned into business owners. They’ve seen the Hispanic population grow exponentially through their years in Chilton County.

Also, read about how technology is changing classrooms in our schools—so much so that at times we may not even recognize those classrooms anymore.

Progress has been and is being made in Chilton County. Let’s continue to ensure that all share in the benefits of that progress.

Dawkins is managing editor of The Clanton Advertiser.

The Clanton Advertiser P.O. Box 1379, Clanton, AL 35045 205.755.5747 clantonadvertiser.com

Progress 3

Former Verbena football player Phillip Hensley (No. 10) celebrates with teammates after a win during the 2011 season, the year in which he missed several games after suffering a concussion.

File photo by Stephen Dawkins

Comeback kids Improved diagnoses, treatment allowing athletes to return from concussions Written by stephen dawkins

P

4 Progress

hillip Hensley remembers the play.

A junior quar terback for the Verbena varsity football team,

Hensley escaped a few would-be tacklers and took off downfield on Sept. 16, 2011, against Loachapoka.

“I got loose and all of a sudden like three Loachapoka players were closing in on me,” Hensley said. “They ducked their heads,

and I guess I ducked my head, and it was over for me.”

Hensley took a hard hit, with the opposing players’ helmets colliding with his. Despite blacking out momentarily while laying on the field, Hensley was helped up by his teammates, and he looked over to the Verbena sideline to see what play coaches wanted to call next.

“I just couldn’t focus,” he said.

“It was like one eye was looking at the coaches, but the other eye was looking up at the stadium lights.”

Hensley was pulled out of the game, and an evaluation on the sideline—including a question about what he had for lunch that

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day, which he couldn’t remember--confirmed that he had suffered a concussion.

Karen Williams, Hensley’s mother, was understandably shaken.

“I came out of those stands in a heartbeat,” she said.

Hensley was taken to Lemak Sports Medicine and started on a path to return to the football field.

Lemak Sports Medicine’s concussion specialist has handled 114 cases involving Chilton County residents over the past two years, according to information provided by the company.

Of those cases, 44 stemmed from football games.

The sport with the next-most concussions is basketball with 11.

These numbers represent only the concussions seen

by Lemak, not all the concussions that occurred.

D

r. James Sedlis with Lemak said a concussion occurs when there is enough force to a person’s head to cause their brain to move around in the skull. A brain sits in fluid that helps cushion it from minor impacts.

Though there is no structural injury, there is a functional injury, which is oftentimes reversible.

“The typical treatment comes down to one word: rest,” Sedlis said. “The nerve cells have been injured, and we want to allow them to heal. We’re resting the brain. We’re having the kids avoid any kind of activity that would aggravate the injury.”

The rest needed is both physical and cognitive. In addition to avoiding activities involved with sports, patients are encouraged not to watch television or text—or attend school, at least for a while.

“Thinking activities put the same stress on the brain as physical activities do,” Sedlis said.

The precautions are so important because a second concussion before the first has healed can cause permanent damage.

When a trainer suspects an athlete has suffered a concussion, a Sideline Concussion Aptitude Test is conducted and includes physical and mental evaluations. The athlete’s orientation, cognitive ability and balance are all judged by asking questions such as the athlete’s full name and the score of the game.

Symptoms include headaches, nausea, confusion, vertigo and light-headedness. Some symptoms don’t develop until after 24 hours have passed since the injury.

Sedlis said a common myth is that concussions are always accompanied by a loss of consciousness. In fact, only about 10 percent of concussions include the victim losing consciousness.

In Alabama, athletes must be cleared by a medical doctor before they can return to play.

Sedlis sees patients weekly for evaluations to determine when they are ready to return to the classroom

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‘Somebody seeing you walk down the halls, they wouldn’t know you’re injured, so it’s like, ‘Why isn’t he back out there?’’

Phillip Hensley, former Verbena football player

or the football field. Physical therapy and pharmaceuticals can be employed to help with symptoms. The benchmark is when they are cleared of symptoms.

“I wait until they have no cognitive problems, then we can address that return to play,” he said.

According to information provided by Lemak, the average patient with a concussion related to athletics returned to play 14 days from the date of the injury.

S

edlis said the most significant improvement in treating concussions has come from a realization that each case should not be treated the same.

“That has gone by the wayside, and everything is individualized now,” he said. “We have to have a baseline: ‘Is this child different than they are normally, mentally or physically,’ and sometimes that’s hard to tell. Sometimes when you see these kids in the office, you just don’t know them well enough. A lot of times, it’s that gut feeling.”

Phillip Hensley’s high school coach, Mike Harris, is the longest tenured football coach in Chilton County.

He said the diagnoses for concussions are much different than when he started coaching in 1999—and different than when he played football.

Though players who suffered concussions were usually held out for a week, Harris said, it was usually up to a coach to try to determine if a player had suffered a concussion. They did so by seeing if the player’s eyes were dilated.

“If you didn’t say anything and you didn’t go to the doctor and nobody told you different, you could keep right on playing,” Harris said. “The biggest thing now is how everybody is so wary of it, and there’s a

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battery of tests before they can come back.”

Harris remembers suffering a concussion while playing junior varsity football at Ranburne. He finished the game but became sick afterward.

His coach, David Mobley, spent the night with him at a hospital because Harris’ parents were out of town.

P

ublicity about concussions and increased understanding about the long-term effects of multiple concussions have given many parents pause, Karen Williams among

them.

Williams said she won’t let her 8-year-old son, Gabe, play the sport, though he wants to.

“I told him to maybe talk to me when he gets to the JV level, but I think he’s too young right now,” she said.

Sedlis knows there are many concerned parents like Williams. He said based on the research available he wouldn’t necessarily discourage children from playing sports but that parents should use their judgment.

Sedlis did recommend other sports, those of the non-contact variety and also sports like hockey and lacrosse that don’t allow checking until later ages.

Of particular concern is the fact that the younger a person is, the longer it takes them to recover from a concussion because developing brains are more sensitive.

Sedlis said he’s seen concussion cases in patients from toddlers to seniors, but the majority of the cases are in 12- to 18-year-olds and stem from sports.

“Parents get caught up in the hype of special mouthguards or supplements that are supposed to prevent concussions,” Sedlis said. “Really, none of that stuff has been proven to be effective.

“A properly fitted helmet is going to do as much as the most expensive helmet out there. It really comes down to the proper equipment and coaches coaching the proper technique.”

Parents with children playing sports should also be familiar with the symptoms of a concussion.

“Most parents can figure out whether the kid is acting like themselves or not,” Sedlis said.

K

aren Williams knew her son Phillip Hensley wasn’t himself--for days and even weeks after his concussion.

“He just seemed really out of it, really loopy,” Williams said. “He just looked lost. When someone would ask him a question, he would just look at them like he didn’t understand.”

Hensley stayed home for a few days after the injury while he dealt with dizziness and disorientation. He saw a Lemak concussion specialist once a week to evaluate his progress, which was slowed by a stomach virus.

8 Progress

“I was worried it would affect his mental ability because P.J. is really smart,” Williams said. “He was a salutatorian.”

Hensley was more concerned with returning to the football field.

“It’s frustrating for it to take so long because it’s not an injury that’s visible to everybody else,” he said. “Somebody seeing you walk down the halls, they wouldn’t know you’re injured, so it’s like, ‘Why isn’t he back out there?’ But it’s a pretty serious injury.”

Hensley returned four weeks after his injury, for a game against St. Jude on Oct. 14, 2011.

Still, Williams wasn’t convinced her son was completely back to normal.

“I didn’t start believing it until baseball season, maybe February (2012),” she said. “That’s when I started feeling better about it, knowing he was OK.” Hensley hasn’t had any lingering problems from the concussion, other than some neck and back pain that a visit to a chiropractor is enough to relieve.

He earned an academic scholarship to Jacksonville State University, where he’s studying exercise science and wellness, with hopes to one day have a career as a physical therapist. He’ll likely help athletes suffering from concussions and be able to offer firsthand guidance that life will return to normal—even if after a long and frustrating road.

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Feels like

home

Yazmin Contreras (left) stands with her mother, Jema Contreras at the family grocery store Little Mexico on U.S. Highway 31 in Clanton.

The family opened the store in 2001 to provide authentic Mexican products for a growing Hispanic population in Chilton County.

Photos by Jon Goering

Hispanic family sees their immigration story becoming more common Written by emily etheredge

A

lthough Yazmin Contreras was born and raised in America, she knew at an early age she was different than some people in her community.

“When my mom would drop me off for preschool I would grab her legs hoping she wouldn’t leave me alone,” Yazmin, 26, recalls. “There were about 12-15 children in my class and all of them spoke English, so they would stare at me and think there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t talk with them.”

Yazmin and her family moved to Chilton County in the 1980s and were one of just a few Hispanic families transitioning to the area at the time.

“There were not many Hispanic people in Chilton County when we first moved here,” Yazmin said.

“There were no children at the time who could speak Spanish so I often felt like I didn’t really have any friends.”

Times have changed since the 1980s in Chilton County.

The Contreras family represents a growing Hispanic population.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in Chilton County has more than doubled in 10 years.

The 2000 U.S. Census for Chilton County shows that 1,152 Hispanic or Latino people were living in Chilton County.

In 2010, the number grew to 3,420 Hispanic or Latino people living in Chilton County.

Contreras was born in 1987 in Washington state when her parents, Gilberto and Jema Contreras, lived in the region for Gilberto’s job, picking apples.

Gilberto, 57, came to the United States from Vera Cruz, Mexico, with his wife to work with different fruit crops picking apples, oranges and eventually peaches in Chilton County.

“We moved several different places in the United

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States before we came to Chilton County,” Gilberto said. “I came to Alabama in 1985 for a job planting pine trees and that is what brought me here.”

Yazmin (pronounced in English as Jasmine) serves as the translator for both of her parents.

Although Gilberto admits he speaks a “little” English, he speaks in Spanish to his daughter who translates the story of coming to Chilton County.

“When I started planting pine trees I worked in Clanton and Selma,” Gilberto said. “When we first moved to this county we lived in a motel in Clanton that was torn down recently. Yazmin used to refer to that place as her home.”

Gilberto said at the time he moved to Chilton County, he picked peaches during the summer and planted pine trees in the winter.

“When I first started working I worked seven days a week for 12 hours and made $3.85 an hour,” Gilberto said. “I had a family to provide for so it was important for me to work.”

The family later expanded with the addition of Gilbert, born in 1989, and Joseph, born in 1996, both in Selma.

With three children growing up in a Spanish-speaking home, Gilberto wanted his children to learn English.

“I wanted my children to learn to speak the English language because I knew it was important for them to succeed in this country,” Gilberto said. “The only requirement I had was when they came home they couldn’t speak in English, they had to speak in Spanish.”

Yazmin was enrolled in an English-speaking preschool at Clanton First United Methodist Church with Linda Niles as her preschool teacher.

During the time Yazmin was enrolled at the preschool, she was one of the first Hispanic students

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The Contreras family moved to and now owns a store in Clanton. Chilton County’s Hispanic population has grown over the past 10 years.

Photos by Jon Goering

to attend and it was during Niles’ first years as a preschool teacher.

Although Niles could not speak Spanish to Yazmin, she would often comfort a crying Yazmin who was unable to communicate with her peers.

“I remember Mrs. Niles would take me and let me sit in her lap

during story time,” Yazmin said.

“She would let me look at the pictures of the books she was reading and I credit her with helping me learn English really fast.”

Yazmin also recalled many of the children didn’t know what ethnicity she was and her parents taught her to say, “My name is Yaz-

min and I am Mexican.”

“I remember learning that phrase in English and I would walk up to the kids and tell them who I was and that I was Mexican,” Yazmin laughs. “It is funny to think about that now, but I think back then there were a lot of kids who didn’t know what language I

spoke.”

As the years passed, Niles continued to teach preschool at Clanton First United Methodist Church where she is now the director of the FUMC preschool.

Niles said there have been many Hispanic children in the preschool program with many parents shar-

ing the same goal of wanting their children to learn English.

“It is an interesting dynamic because a lot of these children come to us with parents who are unable to communicate in English,” Niles said. “They want their children learning English before they enroll in the public school systems

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14 Progress

but many of the parents have difficulty understanding English.”

With Yazmin, Niles said her main goal was to show Yazmin she was not different than everyone else.

“I think in my mind at the time I wanted to show her that we were no different,” Niles said. “I wanted to teach her that God made all of us and the only difference was the language we spoke. I know I talked slowly and there was a lot of laughter, and I can’t honestly tell you how we communicated but I know we did somehow.”

Niles said Yazmin was often frightened with the inability to communicate with the other children.

“I understood how she must have felt,” Niles said.

“If I were living in a different country I would feel very alone. I just tried to make her feel welcome and loved.”

Yazmin and Niles were able to reconnect years later with Yazmin thanking Niles for the love and kindness she displayed prior to learning English.

“Without Mrs. Niles I am not sure how I would have made it,” Yazmin said. “She went the extra mile with me and I will forever be thankful for that.”

Now, all three Contreras children are fluent in both English and Spanish.

Yazmin graduated from UAB with a degree in international studies and political science.

She has hopes of attending law school with a concentration on immigration.

Gilbert currently attends UAB where he is majoring in electrical engineering, and Joseph is a senior at Isabella High School.

“I am very proud of my children,” Gilberto said. “I wanted them to have opportunities and they have all worked very hard to be able to have them. I pushed them. I told them all of the time I wanted them to be better than I was. My wife and I have worked hard so that they can have a future.”

A

s more than 25 years have passed since the Contreras family relocated to Chilton County, Gilberto said the definition of home differs in his household.

“My children consider the United States their home,” Gilberto said. “For me, my home is in Mexico but I have now spent more time living in the United States than I have in Mexico.”

In 2001, Jema and Gilberto opened the Little Mexico grocery store on U.S. Highway 31 in Clanton. The family wanted to provide authentic Mexican products for

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Gilberto and Jema Contreras (pictured left) came to the United States from Mexico and had three children (pictured) in Chilton County. a growing Hispanic population in Chilton County.

“You can look around and see there are more Hispanics in this community than used to live here,” Gilberto said. “We wanted to be able to provide products for families who have relocated here that might remind them of home.”

Yazmin serves as an interpreter throughout the county for anyone requiring assistance in translating Spanish.

“A lot of people from the Hispanic community know that I can speak English and Spanish so if

16 Progress

they need me to go to the doctor with them or fill out paperwork I will often go alongside them,” Yazmin said.

Yazmin said programs throughout the county have started in recent years with the goal of teaching Hispanic adults English.

“I know a lot of adults have been going to different churches who provide services for them to learn, and the best way for children to learn English is at school,” Yazmin said. “The children at the end of the day end up helping their parents learn the language from

what they have learned at school.”

In January, Liberty Hill Baptist Church was one of several churches in the county to offer a Bible study for Hispanic families in the community.

Pastor Kent Dodson said initially the church started a Hispanic ministry by opening a soccer field alongside the church building.

“We live in an area that has a pretty good Hispanic population,” Dodson said. “We just started providing the place for anyone to come play soccer but we didn’t have a way of communicating with the

‘We are all people...We are all pretty similar.’

Yazmin Contreras

parents of the children. The Lord then opened up a door for us to start a Bible study in January and now we have a way of ministering to these parents through the Bible study.”

Dodson said an interpreter attends the Bible study and translates the English lesson into Spanish.

“We meet on Wednesday nights and it is for adults,” Dodson said.

“If they have children who speak English we will incorporate that into the Bible study and if they have pre-schoolers who don’t speak English yet we have someone here for that as well.”

A

lthough the Contreras family primarily eats traditional Mexican meals for fam-

ily dinners, Jema has learned to make macaroni and cheese and other American staples for her children.

“They love to eat pizza,” Gilberto laughingly explains about his children. “We eat Mexican dishes at home but when they have the opportunity they love to eat pizza.”

One of Yazmin’s favorite Mexican dishes is bistec a la Mexicana (translated in English as Mexican steak).

Gilberto said one American custom he does not understand is “sweetened beans,” or more commonly known as baked beans.

“Red beans aren’t sweet in Mexico,” Gilberto said.

Yazmin said a common American phrase her family has picked up that is not used in Spanish is

“um.”

“I have found that I say the word ‘um’ a lot now,” Yazmin said.

The Contreras family knows they will always retain their Mexican heritage while being American.

“I hope I can always show respect to my culture. I am a firstgeneration Mexican American and the difficulties and sacrifices my parents made for me and my family have made us the people we are today. America is my home but I hope to always be sensitive to my culture. On the opposite side of that, I hope people will always try to be sensitive to those who come from a different culture. We are all people and when you really start getting to know various individuals you find that deep down, we are all pretty similar.”

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Holding on to a Memory Alumni group wants to restore school attended by blacks before integration

18 Progress

W

Written by emily beckett eeds and dense brush envelop the crumbling shell of the old Chilton County Training School on County Road 425 in Clanton.

Spray paint and graffiti cover the walls,

Former Chilton County Training School students Barbara White and Wilbert Bryant stand next to the historical marker erected at the school in the late 2000s.

Photos by Jon Goering

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The Church at Bethel

and the concrete floors bear the weight of discarded aluminum cans, plastic bottles, glass shards and mismatched shoes from unknown trespassers.

The old school resembles the scene of a natural disaster, with piles of rubble and ruin littering the exposed hallways.

To the school’s former students, however, the school’s condition is unnecessary and upsetting.

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The dilapidated condition of the CCTS building and property is a source of concern for the school’s alumni.

Before schools in the county integrated in the late 1960s, CCTS was where many black students attended school and earned their high school diplomas.

People like Chilton County Commissioner Bobby Agee and local U.S. Army veterans Barbara White and Wilbert Bryant are among dozens of former students of Chilton County Training School that are not taking its dilapidated condition lightly.

“For several years, that facility

was the only place that a black citizen could get a high school education in Chilton County, and personally, it hurts me to see it in the condition it is in today,” Agee, 64, said. “If we’re successful in restoring it—if we do nothing to it other than putting in a gazebo and walking park—it would be something to symbolize the importance of that property to graduates of that facility.”

Sitting on nearly 10 acres of land, CCTS opened in 1924 and

served as the only facility in the county that provided a secondary education for black students until the mid-1960s.

Black landowners donated five acres for the school to the board of education, who later purchased an additional five acres.

A fire in 1949 destroyed the original building. The facility was rebuilt in 1951 and upgraded in the 1960s.

Students were bussed to CCTS from elementary schools in Clan-

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‘the whole community would be out here. th ton, Maplesville, Jemison, Thorsby, Billingsley, Verbena, New Convert, Marbury and Ridersville.

CCTS closed in 1969, when new integration laws mandated that formerly all-white schools admit black students.

“They brought all the buses out here, and we all had to go to different schools,” White, 59, said. “It was devastating to be moved like that, but they did it.”

Agee graduated from CCTS in 1968 in the next-to-last class to graduate there before schools integrated.

“You knew that it was coming from national events that were going on at the time,” Agee said.

“You knew that it was just a matter of time that the old segregated system was going to be done away

22 Progress

with. I’m sure it was a challenging time for the students that did transfer, being the first black students to go to an all-white facility.”

White was a student at CCTS when schools integrated.

“We were integrated, but the kids could only relate to teachers they had out here,” White said.

“They were teachers of color.

We still don’t have many teachers of color, and that’s something they’re going to have to work out.

Chilton County is going to have to change.”

In 1994, the state board of education sold CCTS and surrounding property to the Chilton County Firefighters Association for $1, with the intent that the group would use the building as a regional training facility for fire-

fighters, Agee said.

The Chilton County Board of Education passed a resolution for the state board to sell it, and the state board agreed to do so and to include a reversionary clause in the contract.

“There was a reversionary clause that was in the resolution and the deeds that stated once the property was not used for the purpose that it was deeded to them for, it would immediately revert back to the board of education,” Agee said. “The property was never really used for the purpose that it was transferred to them for.

There never was a training facility created there.”

In 2005, a CCTS alumni group approached the Chilton County BOE and asked them to execute

e. this is the only place we had to go.’

Wilbert Bryant their reversionary clause on the property and to sign the property over to the alumni association.

After several meetings—some of which involved the Chilton County Firefighters Association—the board made a resolution asking the state to execute its reversionary clause and take the property back, Agee said.

“Once it was in their hands again, they indicated they would transfer the property to the alumni group,” Agee said. “That was in 2005, when the request went from this board to the state, and we are still awaiting an answer from the state board of education on that request. We felt back then and we still feel that the property is best served usage-wise in the hands of the alumni association.”

According to Agee, the alumni group’s plan was to restore the property to its original state with grant funding, but around 2006, the school mysteriously caught fire and suffered extensive damage.

“Our plan, if we can obtain the property, still is to have something there that will serve as a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of black citizens of Chilton County that graduated from that facility,” Agee said. “A lot of black students graduated from there that have gone on to contribute great things to Chilton County, the state and the United States as a whole.”

The alumni group was able to get the building and property denoted as a historical site in Alabama with a metal marker in the

late 2000s.

CCTS was listed in the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 2007.

“Every two years, we have a reunion of alumni members that graduated from that facility, and we have hundreds of people come back to Chilton County from all over the United States that graduated from there,” Agee said. “We have a weekend of activities dedicated to the memory that we all carried from that facility.”

The alumni group is currently comprised of about 20 people from Chilton County, Birmingham and Montgomery.

If the group was granted ownership of the property, members would first seek grants and then hold local fundraisers for restora-

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tion efforts, Agee said.

“I don’t think that would be a problem coming up with the funds because of the thousands of former students,” Agee said. “If they all contributed $5 or $10, we would be well on our way to being able to do something constructive with the property.”

White said she could envision the property being used as a place to hold alumni reunions in the summertime, or simply a peaceful site people could bring their children and grandchildren to and reminisce about their schooldays.

White said many of her fond memories from the school involved her teachers, including the late Sarah Oden, the late V.T. Williams, the late Dorothy “Dot” Sawyer and the late Gussie Saxon.

“They were like parents to you when you left home,” White said.

“None of us went hungry. They just really took care of us and made sure we learned what we were supposed to learn.”

Agee recognized the late John T. Sims, agriculture teacher at CCTS. A parlor at Agee’s business, Agee Brothers Funeral Home, was dedicated in memory of Sims, who was also the first black city councilman to be elected in Clanton.

Agee also commended former CCTS employee Elem Hill, who was the football coach when Agee played for the team.

“He went way beyond the call of duty to get his teams prepared,” Agee said. “I was one of his football players. A lot of times, he would have to take players home after practice in his personal car.”

Agee said he remembers the camaraderie among students, faculty, parents and community members involved with the school.

Proms, basketball games and other events brought many people together on a regular basis.

“Once a year, they had a May Day celebration,” Agee said. “All

24 Progress

Alumni hope to obtain ownership of the old school building and turn the grounds into a restored historical site and meeting place. of the elementary schools and junior high schools from around the county would come, and they would perform little dances and things on a big field. That was always a big day. It was really a joyous day.”

Bryant, 56, said gospel singings and dances were often held in the lunchroom that coupled as an auditorium with a stage.

“We used to have gospel singings here all the time,” Bryant said. “In the summertime, we had baseball teams … everything out here. The whole community would be out here. This is the only place we had to go.”

As he walked along the chipped tile floors in the sun-speckled hallways of CCTS, Bryant expressed frustration about seeing the school he attended from first to seventh grade in such bad shape.

“Makes me mad,” he said. “This is a waste now. We could have done something with this.”

White said Bryant’s parents were among the people that donated land to build CCTS so black children in the county could receive an education.

“This is part of Chilton Coun-

ty’s history,” White said. “Just to look at it now, I just get sick.”

Agee said he plans to be on the Chilton County Board of Education’s agenda for its regular meeting in February to ask the board to request an answer from the state department concerning the CCTS property.

Agee said his mother, who is 84, attended CCTS. “At our reunions, we have people from her class sometimes be at those reunions,” he said. “We have a great reunion. I think we had close to 400 people at one of our reunions. The majority of those were from out of the county and out of the state.”

Agee, White and Bryant all said they had many memories that will stay with them for the rest of their lives, from the activities they took part in at the school to the interactions they had with teachers that molded them into the adults they are today.

“They used to make sure we were abreast of everything that was going on,” White said. “That was what they taught us – you can do anything you put your mind to.

It made me a better person.”

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Road to somewhere

A piece of equipment operated by the Chilton County Road Department scrapes a dirt road in the county. Roads are an important aspect of the county’s development, officials say.

Photo by Stephen Dawkins

Roads critical to county’s development, officials say Written by emily etheredge

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ot only do roads connect i n d iv i d u a l s in a community, they are needed for the operation of a society.

Roads take people to places, invite industries to develop and transport goods and services to different areas.

“Our roads in Chilton County are

heavily traveled,” Chilton County Engineer Tony Wearren said. “We have more people in a day using our roads than counties who are employing people because we have such a high percentage of commuters.”

Wearren estimates roughly 60 percent of Chilton County residents commute to work out of the county on a daily basis.

With more than 396 miles of dirt roads in the county and 493-495 miles

‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression...roads say as much about you as anything.’

Tony Wearren, Chilton County Engineer of paved roads in the county (not counting roads maintained by municipalities or interstates), Wearren said the county is roughly 1,000 miles of road with 100 bridges.

“This county covers a lot of ground,” Wearren said. “We are very spread out. If you were to think about driving from Jemison to Maplesville to somewhere like Stanton, that is a long way to travel within the same county.”

Wearren, who has been the county engineer for seven years, has spent the last few years working on roads that support a vision of growth for the county.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” Wearren said. “It doesn’t matter how you get to our county. If you have to fly in or come in by a train, you will eventually have to drive our roads.

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When you drive our roads, it is a reflection of who the people are who live in the county.”

Chilton County Industrial Development Coordinator Fred Crawford said having good roads in a county helps attract developers.

“Most industries want near an interstate,” Crawford said. “If they don’t locate near an interstate they want good roads to get them to that interstate.”

Crawford said it is important for a county to have roads that are maintained and serviceable.

“Our county engineer has done an excellent job with the resources he has,” Crawford said. “Our roads compared to some of our other nearby competitors do not necessarily meet their quality and we need to always be looking at ways to upgrade our transportation system.”

Wearren said when he was first hired as the county engineer, bridges throughout the county were a major issue.

“We had more than 30 rated bridges that were close to closing,” Wearren said. “When we complete the RAMP program, we will not have a single bridge that a bus cannot cross.”

The Rural Assistance Match Program (RAMP) is a program where counties and cities are eligible to receive as much as $1 million in state funds to match an additional $4 million in federal funds.

During the Dec. 10, 2012, Chilton County Commission meeting, commissioners voted to participate in the RAMP program.

RAMP allows Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) to sell bonds to provide the local match for participating counties and cities.

Counties taking part in RAMP previously had no projects, or only limited projects, as part of ATRIP due to limited local funds.

“RAMP didn’t require the matching funds we would have had to come up with if we continued under ATRIP,” Wearren said.

Chilton County received $5 million for projects to be completed under the RAMP program.

Under RAMP, Chilton County is expected to complete 20 projects within the next two years for both municipalities and the county.

“The RAMP money is allowing us to accomplish in a few years what it would have taken in decades otherwise,” Wearren said. “That money became critical for improving the infrastructure, but it also shows our dependence on outside entities.”

Wearren said each year, roads in each county throughout the state receive a grade.

“It is a lot like in school,” Wearren said. “The roads get a grade much like you would in school on a test.”

The grading scale starts at 0 and ends at 100, but roads scoring below a 70 are given two years to bring up the score or funding will be cut.

The 2013 average grade for roads in Chilton County was an 81.8.

Fifteen roads scored between a 70-75, 66 roads scored between a 76-85, 25 roads scored between an 86-95 and one road scored between 96-100.

“There is still a lot of work to be done,” Wearren said. “If a county has bad roads people tend to think that area is lacking in progression. At the same time, you have to do the best you can with the resources you have been given.”

James Bailey, a resident who lives on County Road 46, was affected by a bridge that had been out for a couple of years near his home.

“The bridge wasn’t a terrible inconvenience for the residents, but it created a problem for the farmers moving equipment, hay and cattle,” Bailey said.

Commissioners voted in October 2013 to take $144,424 out of the Building Road and Bridge Fund to finish the bridge replacement project on County Road 46.

“County Road 46 had a bridge that was out and now that bridge was replaced,” Wearren said. “Not having the bridge open caused a problem for folks in that area, but that has now been replaced.”

Bailey still struggles with flooding issues on the dirt road near his home.

“The bridge was replaced, but it floods at my home every time it rains,” Bailey said. “The new bridge is welcomed by all, but I still have flooding issues.”

Wearren said due to the importance of roads and bridges in the county, it can often be a sensitive topic with a lot of people.

“I hear from different people all of the time who think the road department isn’t doing anything about their road concerns,” Wearren said. “It is hard sometimes because when people don’t physically see us on a road they think we aren’t working.”

Wearren said he hopes to continue working to improve roads throughout the county, as roads are instrumental in helping an area grow.

“Everyone has to use a road to get somewhere,” Wearren said. “Roads say as much about you as anything.”

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Seeking a solution

As operations manager for one of the two ambulance companies that serve Chilton County, Dewayne Watley has seen the effect of a lack of a local hospital.

Photos by Jon Goering

Lack of a hospital affects county in many ways Written by stephen dawkins

D

ewayne Watley knows as well as anyone what the lack of a hospital in Chilton County has meant for its residents.

Sure, most who live here know someone who was born at the old Chilton Medical Center, or maybe someone who died there. Some might be related to one of the 150 or so former employees who were left jobless when the state shut down CMC in October 2012.

But Watley sees it every day.

As operations manager for CARE Ambulance service in Chilton County, Watley has seen the cost of his business skyrocket. Instead of driving patients minutes to a local hospital, ambulance drivers must navigate Interstate 65 traveling north to Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster or south to Prattville Baptist Hospital. Either way, it’s a drive of about 30 miles, depending on where in the county a patient is picked up.

The longer drives expedite wear on the service’s vehicles. Combine that with increases in the cost of fuel and Medicare, and Watley said the ambulance business feels the pinch.

“We really have to watch what we’re doing here,” he said.

More important than the numbers on a business budget is the impact the lack of a hospital has had on people’s lives.

Watley has seen that firsthand, too, when his uncle, Curtis Minor, passed away the week before Christmas 2013.

Apparently suffering from a heart attack, Minor didn’t make it to an emergency room.

“It’s one of those cases where if [a local hospital] had been open, we might would’ve had a chance,” said Watley, who was born at CMC in 1970. “That really brought it home for me. I knew that sooner or later it would be my family.”

Watley’s uncle hasn’t been the only such case, unfortunately.

Even if they realize what’s wrong with a patient, first responders aren’t allowed by law to take certain measures that may be needed—sedation, for example.

“We can’t sedate people,” Watley said. “We used to

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be able to swing in at CMC, where they would sedate them and put them on a ventilator, and we would continue on to get more treatment.

Respiratory failure is another relatively common situation in

no other way to look at it.” hilton County Commissioner Shannon Welch has been among the local leaders pushing for

of Representatives and was working its way through the Senate as of press time.

The money would be handled by the Chilton County Health Care Authority, which has entered into

which having a local facility could make a difference, as are cases of severe bleeding and allergic reactions.

“The delay in care is definitely costing people their lives. There’s

the construction of a new hospital facility.

A bill that would allow for a referendum on a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase to fund a new facility had passed the state House

an agreement with St. Vincent’s Health System to operate the proposed facility.

Welch said support for the plan has been unanimous--and that this cooperation has been crucial.

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C

“I can’t think of a single elected official who hasn’t been in support of this,” Welch said. “No one wants a tax, but we realize this is going to be a very valuable tax.”

Jemison Mayor Eddie Reed said

here have already been plenty of frightening moments for residents in need of emergency medical care, and the first re-

to a hospital.

If a patient is critical, the fire department may have one or two firefighters ride on the ambulance with the patient to the hospital to help. This kind of cooperation

he doesn’t like to think about what will happen if voters don’t approve the tax.

“If it doesn’t go through, it’s going to be a frightening moment for us,” he said.

sponders who try to help them.

Clanton Fire Chief David Driver said about three-quarters of his department’s calls are medical-related, and about three-quarters of those incidents require a transfer

among agencies becomes taxing when that ambulance trip takes about an hour instead of minutes.

It’s not uncommon for CFD to be responding to three or four calls at the same time.

T

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AUTO COLLISION

Repair/Painting

‘there’s a strong need for a hospital in Chilton County. it’s essential.’

Eddie Reed, Jemison mayor

The department’s total number of calls has also increased since CMC closed.

“Before the hospital closed, a lot of these people would just get in the car and drive to the hospital,” Driver said. “Now, they’re calling 911.”

As Watley and others can attest, Driver said the lack of a local facility causes stress for emergency responders.

“Unless you’ve been in the back of an ambulance pumping on somebody’s chest hoping you make it to a hospital, you wouldn’t understand,” he said.

T

he impact of the hospital’s absence isn’t limited to Clanton, the location of CMC and of a proposed new facility.

Reed said residents in his city feel the ab-

sence also.

“About six months ago, I was sick and had to go to the emergency room in Alabaster,” Reed said. “I would say most of the people there were from Chilton County.

“There’s a strong need for a hospital in Chilton County. It’s essential.”

Reed said the establishment of a health care facility in the county is crucial for continued development, in terms of industry and population growth.

“This is going to determine who is going to move here,” he said.

Fred Crawford, Chilton County Industrial Development coordinator, agreed with Reed’s assessment.

“If voters do not pass a 1-cent sales tax for the construction of a hospital, you might as well stop economic development and close this office,” Crawford said.

Crawford said health care is an important element of recruiting and retaining industry because businesses consider insurance that will have to be paid for worker’s compensation among other factors--not to mention that business leaders want to locate operations in areas where workers can enjoy quality of life.

While a failed attempt to build a hospital would be viewed unfavorably in business circles, Crawford said, a new hospital would be a positive step.

“It shows that Chilton County is moving forward,” he said.

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A new learning e Schools keep up with classroom technology Written by emily beckett

S

tudents in Chilton County schools today have access to technology their parents, grandparents and perhaps even older siblings didn’t have access to years ago.

Most of these students have been exposed to devices like smart phones, laptops and personal tablets since early childhood.

As the rapid advancement of technology continues, local educators weigh in on how much technology has changed in schools in the last few decades and how schools are using technology to enhance students’ education and prepare them for the workforce.

“Not only has technology changed in the past 10 years, but the availability of it has changed as well,” Chilton County Schools Technology Coordinator Kim Arrington said. “When I first began teaching at Chilton County High School in 1996, we taught ‘Typing’ on typewriters. The following year, we added a computer lab and I began teaching Computer Applications.”

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g environment

Chilton County High School student Matthew Davenport tests the robot his team built to make sure it is operating correctly before they program it to operate autonomously.

Photo by Jon Goering

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Arrington said at the time, most teachers had only one computer in their classroom, at their desk, and they used overhead projectors instead of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) projectors.

“Now, many teachers have additional computers for students to use in the classroom, as well as mounted LCD projectors,” Arrington said.

“Some classrooms have interactive boards and tablets to use as well.

Many schools have laptop carts or iPad carts that can be checked out to use in classrooms.”

Arrington said all classrooms in the county have high-speed Internet access, and each high school has a distance-learning lab equipped with laptops and camera equipment so students can take online classes not offered on their campus.

The Academy of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) at LeCroy Career Technical Center in Clanton provides meeting space for students taking online

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Robotics students in The Academy of STEM work together on modules. Remote controlled cars (above) constitute one of the students’ projects.

Photos by Jon Goering

college courses through Access and The University of Alabama’s UA Early College program.

About seven students currently take Access classes, which are online classes taught by high school teachers across the state, or Early College classes online at the Academy.

Classes are conducted via video conferences, email or online message boards according to each teacher’s discretion.

Access classes allow students to take classes, such as foreign languages, that are either not offered at their school or don’t fit into their bus schedule.

“Instead of having to stay where they are, they can come out here and take Access classes,” Sosa said.

Isabella 11th graders Kaylee Cleckler, Unique Robinson and Kacie Adams are taking Access and Early College classes this semester.

“It’s better because we can do it on our own time,” Adams said.

Years ago, Arrington said, it was rare for students to have a computer or Internet access at home, and the computers at school were the first computers many of them had ever used.

“Today, most students have a device and Internet access at home and in many cases their technology is more up-to-date than what is offered to them at school,” Arrington said. “Getting information out to students and parents is much easier today.”

Arrington said the school system has websites, a district Facebook page and a notification system that sends messages to parents about student absences and school delays and closings.

“Parents can currently look online to see attendance, discipline and grades, and they are becoming more dependent on finding school information online,” Arrington said.

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or o bu t tr i

f

Acce sso rie s

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ocal schools have about 2,100 computers and about 850 iPads or tablets, which makes the student-to-device ratio about 3:1.

“Of these devices, most of them are desktop computers,” Arrington said. “All schools have at least one iPad cart or laptop cart that can be checked out to use in classrooms.”

Arrington said she doesn’t remember any technology from when she was in grade school in the early 70s, and she never even used a computer in high school before she graduated in 1982.

“We learned to type on typewriters,” Arrington said. “In fact, most were manual typewriters and we had one row of electric typewriters in the classroom.

We rotated rows each week, so about every five weeks, we were able to use an electric typewriter.”

Chilton County Schools Superintendent Dave Hayden said he remembers everything being on paper when he was in school, from daily lessons to term papers.

“Now, my students are more likely to do research on a computer than they are in a library, and that’s just going to continue and going to become more and more,” Hayden said.

Capital

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www.caec.coop

Hayden referenced a study he read that indicated the work a student in a law library completed in eight hours with books could be completed in one hour with a computer.

“It took as long in a law library to do eight hours’ worth of work as it does one hour on a computer anywhere you’ve got an Internet connection,” Hayden said.

“I rather imagine it’s simpler for a student doing that as opposed to when I used to go to the library, and you’d have three books open at a time to research something.

You can cut down your search time with search engines, obviously, and with different indexes. Students are learning this younger.”

Local educators say children learning how to use technological devices during their education at young ages have an advantage in finding jobs after graduation because the workforce is increasingly dependent on the same technology and needs employees able to operate it.

“We want them to be competitive when they leave here,” Hayden said. “Whether they go to college, workforce [or] military, we want them to be prepared as best we possibly can.”

Arrington echoed this mindset.

“Technology is extremely important, and our goal is to prepare students to be successful in college, careers and adulthood,” she said. “We want them to be able to use technology to solve real-world problems and prepare them with skills they will need to be successful in life.”

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he Academy of STEM at LeCroy Career Technical Center in Clanton is a program that allows high school students to work with technology and robotics kits to design, construct and operate machines for statewide, countywide and national competitions each year.

“Technology allows us to have multiple classes going on at the same time,” STEM instructor Jason Sosa said.

Located at the back of the center’s campus in the former building construction and carpentry department facility, the Academy is the hub for Chilton County’s robotics program.

For Sosa, fellow STEM instructor Jay LeCroy and LeCroy Career Technical Center director Tommy Glasscock, the Academy is the result of a collective dream to provide students with a challenging learning environment and to prepare them for careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.

The Academy’s roots trace back to when Isabella High School housed the county’s robotics team prior to the construction of the new facility at the career tech center.

Jay LeCroy started the robotics team at Isabella in 2009 to inspire students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Isabella also served as the site for other engineering-

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‘We want them to be able to use technology to solve real-world problems.’ kim arrington, Chilton County Schools Technology Coordinator related projects, including an RC (remote control) airplane club.

The club fell under the STEM initiative and became part of a year-round science program occurring outside of the classroom.

The program received donations from former Chilton County Commissioner the late Tim Mims and Brian Langston of Langston Trucking and was able to obtain five outdoor RC planes, three smaller indoor planes and a computer simulator.

In 2011, students from Isabella, Thorsby and Clanton formed the first-ever Central Alabama robotics team.

Sosa and Jay and his wife, Nelda LeCroy, worked with the students after school, overseeing their construction of robots from kits and helping them prepare for robotics competitions.

In November 2011, LeCroy accepted a $9,350 grant from Cawaco Resource Conservation and Development Council for the Mustang Engineering Robotics Program.

With the grant money, the robotics team purchased materials for constructing robots, covered traveling expenses for statewide competitions and paid for mentors with robotics training and equipment.

In August 2012, Chilton County’s robotics program became more accessible to students from all local schools by moving from Isabella to LeCroy Career Technical Center permanently.

The program was publicized as a year-round program designed to benefit students planning to earn four-year engineering degrees, two-year engineering degrees or to enter the workforce immediately after high school graduation.

The first class students take at STEM is Introduction to Engineering Robotics, a course that guides students through learning modules focused on how robots are created and how they operate.

In March 2013, robotics teams from the county earned two awards at Alabama’s 2013 Technology Student Association State Conference in March.

The teams were made up of 11 students from Clan-

Know what’s

Call

below.

before you dig.

Call 811 Before You Dig! It's The Law.

© 2011 The Williams Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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ton, Isabella, Thorsby and Jemison schools. They won first place and third place awards at the event held at The University of Alabama.

The first-place team earned the opportunity to represent the state at the national robotics tournament in Orlando last summer.

Before the 2012-2013 school year ended, a group of STEM students constructed an automated lawnmower, also known as “The Ardumower.”

Students designed and assembled the mower using parts from a motorized wheelchair, a push mower, an Arduino mini-computer and sensors.

LeCroy and Sosa challenged the students to construct a “real world” device that could help the community, and they suggested a lawnmower with hands-free operating capabilities as an option.

After disassembling a motorized wheelchair and having the welding department stretch the metal frame, the students built the automated mower with other parts from the push mower and the Arduino and sensors to detect stationery objects on the ground. They programmed it to cut grass with a handheld remote control or autonomously (without a remote).

STEM students and instructors also work with drones, which are remote-controlled pilotless aircraft, also referred to as small unmanned aerial vehicles.

This relatively new type of technological device could aide in

Robotics students have spent much time over the last couple of years working on drones, including a hexicopter (pictured above).

Photo by Jon Goering search and rescue and agricultural endeavors.

Over the last few years, students have spent time learning how to construct, program and operate drones.

Equipped with cameras, the drones can be programmed to fly to certain areas on a map and take photographs of people or objects on the ground while hovering in the air.

The intervals the camera shutter opens can be controlled and programmed.

Students have built five drones – one ground base, two airplanes and two helicopters – using scrap wood

and parts from engineering kits.

The students could use infrared cameras to attach to the drones for photo capabilities in the dark.

Last year, Jemison High School started a new robotics team for younger students interested in getting involved in robotics before they would be eligible to enroll in The Academy of STEM. JHS teachers Brooke Elliott and Benton Morton formed the Technology Student Association Chapter Robotics Team, the school’s first robotics team, in an effort to cultivate students’ interest in science and math during their early high school years.

CLANTON

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Seventh and eighth graders on the team had the opportunity to tour Alabama Robotics Technology Park’s Mobile Training Lab, a converted 53-foot semi-trailer containing robots and programmable logic controllers implemented in training, education and industry.

The lab provides students and industries in Alabama with education and training in automation and robotics for free.

Elliott said she wants to help start a robotics program for enrichment students at Jemison Elementary.

“One of my goals is to go over there and build a table and take robotics kits,” Elliott said, and added she will host a robo-camp for elementary-

age children in March as a fundraiser.

Elliott will teach an Intro to Engineering class at JHS in the new school year.

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ursing students at Jefferson State Community College’s Chilton-Clanton Campus are able to carry out various medical scenarios in a life-like setting using Meti Learning simulation models that resemble mannequins.

The models, also called “medi-men,” are anatomically correct and are connected to a computer that nursing instructors like Dr. Cindy Danley and Tina Rowe, MSN, CRRN, RN can use to control the models.

The nursing lab at Jeff

State has three models: an infant, a child and a birthing mother.

“We can make them act like a real-life patient,” Rowe said. “We can actually put in scenarios for students—anything from poisoning to electrocu-

tion. They have to make critical decisions to try and save the patient’s life.”

The models have vital signs, heartbeats and breathing sounds, and they can even speak and cry.

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The models allow students to practice treatments and procedures without fear of harming a human patient before they must perform the same things in a reallife setting.

If students fail to administer the correct treatment or make a mistake during the scenario, instructors can program the model to expire as a human might in the same situation.

“I’ve had students cry before when we’ve lost the mannequin,” Rowe said. “It’s easier to come in here before somebody’s life is in your hands. We have a variety of situations we can put them in.”

The Chilton-Clanton Campus acquired the simulation models last summer.

Danley said she has noticed a difference in students’ retention of material with the models because they help ingrain the right things to do for patients in students’ minds perhaps more effectively than lectures do.

“It provides a safe environment to make those mistakes,” Danley said. “The debriefing is probably the biggest part. We can video it and play it back and see what was done and say, ‘What could we have done different?’ It makes a bigger impression.”

Danley said students also have online access to audio and video lectures on Tegrity through Blackboard.

The Learning Resources Center at the Chilton-Clanton Campus is an almost all-electronic library with 160,000 electronic books including thousands of electronic reference sources.

“Students have access to it 24-7, wherever they are,” Coordinator of Learning Resources and librarian Lynda Dickinson said. “The library itself is no longer measured by the number of resources in print.”

The LRC has 14 computers, but the Chilton-Clanton Campus has two additional computer labs for students to use.

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Nursing students April Crawley, Christy Christofides and Alissa Ellis at Jefferson State Community College’s Chilton-Clanton Campus work on a simulation model, or “medi-man,” as part of a class exercise.

Photo by Emily Beckett Dickinson said having nearly all books accessible through the library’s website is especially advantageous for working students who don’t have time to go to the library during business hours because of their jobs.

“The doors of the library close, but the website doesn’t close,” Dickinson said. “By technology making it available electronically online, that levels the playing field a lot.”

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ducators and school officials are constantly searching for ways to purchase and implement technology to help keep local students on a level playing field with other students across the country and to prepare them for their futures.

“We have to work to keep up with technology, and because of a shortage in funding, that is hard to do,” Chilton County Schools Technology Coordinator Kim Arrington said. “We have to keep the infrastructure up to date and once we provide devices, we must keep those devices up-to-date and re-

place them with newer technology as it becomes available.”

Along with funding scarcities, schools must cope with problems technology could present to students, such as inappropriate materials, child predators and cyber bullying.

“We have a monitored network filter to block inappropriate materials,” Arrington said. “We must continue to provide cyber bullying education and resources as well as teaching digital citizenship to educate students about online safety and privacy.”

Each school has an Internet Safety Policy, and all teachers are required to educate, supervise and monitor appropriate usage of the Internet, Arrington said.

“Technology is here to stay, so we must continue to update guidelines and rules and teach students about online safety and judgment of information,” she said. “As always, student safety is our first concern.”

On the other hand, advantages of technology include wider access to information and preparation for college and the workplace.

This fall, LeCroy Career Tech Center will implement a new program called “Advanced Manufacturing Academy.

The program, a partnership with Jeff State and local manufacturers, will include pneumatics, hydraulics and high-level robotics.

Local manufacturers expected to benefit from the program include Johnson Controls, Boatright, SEACO and Wayne Industries.

“It will be available for our high school students as well as those that are in the manufacturing fields or who are seeking employment in manufacturing,” LeCroy director Tommy Glasscock said.

“Students leaving this program will have entrylevel knowledge in Industrial Maintenance and serve in apprenticeship programs.”

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ight county schools and the career tech center have wireless access to allow students to access the Internet wirelessly from any classroom, and two more schools will install wireless access before the end of the school year, Arrington said.

“Once the infrastructure is in place, schools can then concentrate on purchasing mobile devices for students,” Arrington said. “This will be important in the next two to five years, as online testing will replace paper/pencil testing.”

According to Arrington, online textbooks,

online testing, BYOD (bring your own device), and one-to-one student computers are future possibilities for technology in schools.

“Ideally, we would love to be able to provide a laptop for all students at school, but that is very expensive,” she said.

“BYOD is an alternative being implemented in many school systems where students bring their own laptops, iPads or cell phones.”

Arrington said surveys indicate about 75 percent of students have a personal device they would be able to use at school, and many students have more advanced technology at home than they have at school.

“Schools will continue to add interactive boards, document cameras and other technology in order to have 21st-Century classrooms,” Arrington said. “These help to engage students and provide interactive teaching.

School websites are important to provide current and up-to-date information, so we are in the process of updating all websites at this time.”

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More than a ‘ditch digger’ Citizen of the Year works to help Chilton County advance

A

lthough Allen Payton often tells people he is merely a “ditch d i g g e r, ”

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Written by emily etheredge friends, family and business partners describe him as much more.

“He will refer to himself as a ditch digger, which is true, but he does so much more than that,” Chilton County Judge Sibley Reynolds said. “He might throw out that he is merely a ditch digger, but he

understands what is going on. You don’t pull anything over on him.”

Payton was selected to be the The Clanton Advertiser’s 2014 Citizen of the Year.

Each year, a board made up of past Citizens of the Year nominates and selects a new recipient

Allen Payton’s immediate family includes his wife, Melanie Payton; son, Rodney Payton and wife Lindsey Payton; daughter, Mary Beth Easterling and husband Adam; and grandchildren Carter Easterling, Lydia Payton and Mack Payton (not pictured).

Contributed photos of the title.

Payton is the 11th Citizen of the Year, with past honorees including Hollis Jackson, Kenneth Moates, Bobby Martin, Curtis Smith, Jimmie Harrison Jr., Mickey Bates, Gay West, Tony Smitherman, Eddie Reed and Tom Brown.

Payton is most known for his involvement with the Chilton County Healthcare Authority (previously known as the Chilton County Hospital Board) as he was appointed May 1, 2009.

Reynolds said Payton was appointed to the Hospital Board due to a board member passing away and it was from that appointment

in their county.

“Allen wants the community to thrive,” Reynolds said. “He is from here; his family is here and the more it thrives, the more it will benefit his family.”

Payton attended Thorsby High School and graduated in 1979. He later married Melanie Benson Payton and has two children, Rodney Payton (Lindsey) and Mary Beth Easterling (Adam).

Payton has three grandchildren, Carter Easterling, 2; Lydia Payton, 2; Mack Payton, four-months and another grandchild due in April.

“Allen is always humble and thankful for what he has,” Melanie

to branch off into other aspects of construction business including paving and engineering.

“Allen never takes the credit for his success,” Melanie said. “He says God gave him the ability to work hard and work smart.”

Payton also serves on the Chilton County Solid Waste Authority, was a Colonial Bank Board member for several years and has served on the Chilton County Industrial Development Board since 2013.

Jeff Mims is one of Payton’s close friends and said Payton is a “straight up guy.”

“He is very moral,” Mims said.

“If he tells you he is going to do

‘Allen wants the community to thrive. He is from here; his family is here and the more it thrives, the more it will benefit his family.’

Sibley Reynolds that he started getting to know Payton more.

“We started riding to meetings together and hanging out,” Reynolds said. “With everything that happened with the hospital we were thrown together, and I want to say thank goodness for Allen.

He had the time to deal with everything and he either knew who to call or how to call and what we needed to say. He got the ball rolling.”

The Alabama Department of Public Health shut down Chilton Medical Center Oct. 29, 2012, leaving 150 employees without jobs and residents without a hospital

Payton said. “He wants to better the community for everyone and he is always thinking and planning for the future. He will only do things the right way whether it is for himself or others.”

Melanie said Allen started Payton Excavating in 1984 with a used dump truck, trailer and a backhoe.

He was a one-man operation for several years and then changed and incorporated into Chilton Contractors in 1987.

The company now employs 60 people with locations in Thorsby, Jemison and will be moving the primary office to Clanton in spring/summer of 2014 with plans

something, he will do it. We have been friends for about 15 years and we have known each other for a long time.”

Mims said Payton has been a successful businessman and works hard at everything he becomes involved with.

“You will sometimes see him with two radios in one hand and a phone in his other hand and they are going at the same time,” Mims said. “I know that whatever time of day it is he will help me with whatever he is doing. Those friends are hard to find and I am very thankful to be able to call him a close friend.”

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