Piedmont Magazine by Consolidated Publishing Co.

contents 4 Piedmont, AL

A History of eco-torism 8 Town Folk Curtis Pope

| Piedmont, Alabama

10 Town Folk Millard J. Young, Jr. 12 Town Folk J.B. Strickland

contents 16 Unique Venue Lagarde Lake Lodge 18 History Abounds Images

20 Cahoun Co. Sports Hall of Fame 26 Area Churches 28 City Officials/Dept.

Piedmont, Alabama

A product of Consolid ateD Publis h i n g Staff John Alred Publisher Eddie Burkhalter Writer Laura Gaddy Writer

Trent Penny & Anita Kilgore Photographers Shannon Martin Advertising Executive Benita G. Duff Layout & Design Address correspondence to: Piedmont, Alabama: A great place to call home P.O. Box 189 Anniston, AL 36202

A great place to call home |

“There is no lovelier section in the South than the environments of Piedmont.” — old Piedmont Inquirer article

cover story

OurTown A history of eco-tourism Eco-tourism, or what folks used to call getting outdoors for a while…

n an article dated July 16, 1899, in the Piedmont Inquirer the writer discusses the beauty of the town. “Nestled in one of the loveliest valleys the eye ever rested upon, surrounded by majestic mountains, beautiful streams and fertile lands, dotted with lovely homes, Piedmont reigns queen of all and fairest of all, a typical southern town embowed in beauty and loveliness. If nature has lavished her charms upon our ideal little city, she has also scattered them in rich profusion all around and about her, for there is no lovelier section in the South than the environments of Piedmont.” Before the bicycles, locomotives brought them to town. Visitors came to enjoy the pastoral landscape of Piedmont by the train-loads prior to the panic of 1893. They came from cities like Selma and Mobile and Talladega looking to enjoy the mountains and to swim and ride horses and maybe dance a little when the sun went down. And they stayed in three grand hotels. The BordenWheeler, the Signal in Bluffton and the Piedmont Springs Hotel all received their life’s blood from the vein that was the rail line. The tracks carried vacationers to the area just as it carried iron ore from the Rock Run furnaces toward the belching smokestacks of Birmingham.

“The railroad sold them all as resort areas. They would tell their customers, go to Borden Springs and spend the week. Enjoy the mountain air,” said Jack Holder. Holder is the director of the Eubanks Welcome Center which along on the Chief Ladiga Trail, drawing visitors from countries across the globe eager to ride along the trail and take in the scenery. Born in Anniston, Holder has lived in Piedmont since the early 1960s. He retired in 1998 after 36 years with the Winn-Dixie grocery chain, and took the job at the center about five years ago. Soon after he opened the popular visitors center 7 days a week, allowing plenty of opportunity for cyclists and runners to rest a while and talk about the town and it’s history. Watching cyclists and joggers along the trail has opened Holder’s eyes to the possibilities the old tracks still offer Piedmont. The center’s logbook sitting on a stand just inside the front door regularly records visitors from all over the world. “All of them don’t stop here. We can turn in 400 or 500 registered guests, but that’s not near what actually comes by here,” said Holder. Eco-tourism, or what folks used to call getting outdoors for a while, has been pumping new life into towns

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PiedmontAlabama similar to Piedmont. The 2010 Cheaha Challenge drew nearly 1,000 cyclist to Piedmont, and the inaugural Terrapin Tri-county Adventure Race had more participants than most said was possible for a first-time triathlon event. Each of these events are examples of the draw Piedmont offers through the natural beauty of its’ surroundings. In the fall, Holder said droves of Snowbirds from Midwestern states will come in on their bicycles to enjoy the turning leaves and beautiful views along the trial. Many of them will park their recreational vehicles with tags from Ohio and Michigan and Indiana behind the center for a few days while they ride the trail to and from Anniston. “You don’t see many of them from the Midwest in the summer, but in the winter they’re tracking south,” said Holder. But before the bicycles… Major Samuel A. Belding of Watertown, Mass., came to Piedmont to make his fortune when iron was king. Belding bought four acres of land northwest of the center of town and started construction on the Piedmont Springs hotel in 1890. When completed, the 36-room wooden three-story hotel seated 50 in the main dining hall and had a dance pavilion and a live orchestra on special occasions. Vacationers enjoyed hiking trips and drinking fresh, clean spring water, something Gerald Whitton said was not taken for granted back then. Whitton is the President of the Piedmont Historical Society.

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“Mineral spring water was probably as good as you could get,” said Whitton. He described how well water, where nearly everyone got their water, all too often became dangerously toxic due to all sorts of “environmental” problems. Carefully put, there were very few sewers prior to the turn of the century, said Whitton. All three hotels, The Piedmont Springs and neighboring Borden-Wheeler and Signal Hotel, stayed busy with folks looking to get outside for a while, or eco-tourists, but it all came to an end around 1893. The panic of 1893 was considered the worst economic depression the nation had ever known until the Great Depression began in 1929. The Borden-Wheeler hotel burned in 1935. The Signal Hotel is gone too. The Piedmont Springs Hotel sat vacant until Margaret M. Barber of Philadelphia bought the building, donating it to the city of Piedmont with the stipulation that it be used as a school and named after her good friend and temperance worker, Francis E. Willard. The Alabama legislature created the Piedmont school system in 1900 and the hotel found a new vocation. The hotel sat vacant for some time after the school moved into a new building on Main Street. It too was lost in a fire in 1960. The trail, and the town, will continue to draw visitors from far away looking to enjoy what the country has to offer. As the old Piedmont Inquirer article states, “There is no lovelier section in the South than the environments of Piedmont.” •

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TownFolk - Curtis Pope

urtis Pope didn’t pay the $5 for his first barber’s license. He cut the license issuer’s hair instead. It was 1948, and after bartering for the piece of paper that made him legal, Pope began working in the profession that has carried him through 64 years. He turned 86 this year and is still cutting hair in a shop in Piedmont. People don’t forget Pope’s City Barber Shop, the one on North Center Avenue that a Hollywood set designer couldn’t replicate with a month and a pile of California money. When Tanner Latham found a small rubber change purse that advertises Pope’s City Barber Shop, given to him by Pope more than 25 years ago, he took a photo of it and posted it on Facebook. Latham, a Piedmont native who works as a reporter at a National Public Radio affiliate in Charlotte, N.C., recalled the barber shop with astonishing accuracy, even though he hadn’t stepped into it in decades. “I remember the albino deer in the glass case. I remember we would park behind the shop in that parking lot and come in through the back door,” Tanner wrote in an email to The Star last week. “That entrance was so dark, and I would edge around an old sink, and then walk into the big room.”

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The legendary white deer in its glass case against the far wall is not a true albino, Pope is quick to point out. It’s a piebald he shot in 1974. People tend to get the two confused, Pope said. An owl perched on another case was a gift from Pinky Burns, the local trapper and storyteller who died in 1999. Latham remembered three barber chairs, the one in the middle never used. Pope said barbers must buy a license for each chair and he only pays for two. Pope and his co-worker of nine years, Anita Williams, work among the bottles of emerald green Osage rub and Pinol pine-tar shampoo, and layers of news clippings a half-inch thick that paper a low wall with stories about the Piedmont Bulldogs and the Spring Garden Panthers. “If it had been a big place I’d have filled it up,” Pope said of his tendency to keep things awhile. On any given day, conversation inside the shop centers on a half-dozen topics: local news, sports, hunting and fishing, tall tales and straight-out lies. “You hear everything. Some of it’s true. Some not. There’s some people that can tell some good stories,” Pope

By Eddie Burkhalter

Piedmont’s Curtis Pope still behind the barber chair after 64 years said. “Course I can tell some good ones myself.” A decorated war veteran, Pope told a story about eating on a military base once, a meal he said was made of horse meat. “Somebody asked me, how’d you know it was horse meat? Because a guy hollered ‘whoa’ and it stopped chewing in my mouth right away,” Pope laughed. He reads the newspaper every morning, front to back, and can discuss every article, but Pope said politics and personal matters are usually best left alone. “I get a big kick out of it. A lot of times it’s best to keep your mouth shut. Don’t talk about somebody because in Piedmont just about half of the people are related,” Pope said. Pope grew up at the foot of Dugger Mountain, where in the winter months the low sun casts a shadow over his grandfather’s homestead and the cold stays until spring. He grew up tending the family’s crops, and said they were as “as poor as old Job’s turkey.” His father died

Nov. 20, 1925, of typhoid fever. He was raised by his mother, stepfather and grandfather. His grandfather gave each of the six boys a nickname; Dutchman, Coot, Buckshot, Redhorse, Punkknot and Bozo. Pope got Dutchman because his great-great-grandmother was Dutch, and growing up, Pope’s grandfather couldn’t understand her when she spoke. “And I jabbered when I was little,” Pope said. He married his wife, Loretta, a year after getting his barber’s license. The two raised five children together. “You caught up on them honey-do’s yet?” Pope asked a man in work clothes sitting in his Piedmont barber shop Saturday. “You never will be. We’ve got to have something to do.” Loretta died in January 2011. Pope fought during World War II in the Philippines, Japan and Korea. He and a friend, Buford Sewell, bought a pool hall with three pool tables and three barber chairs in 1950 in Union Springs. After being called that year to fight once again in Korea, Pope finally

returned a year later, left his business to his partner Sewell and barbered at Fort McClellan from 1952 to 1958. He opened his Piedmont shop in 1958. When asked if he was among a mass of soldiers in a black-and-white photo hanging on a wall in his shop, Pope said no, “but them old boys kept me from starving.” He still owns his grandfather’s homestead out by Dugger Mountain, but said this year something strange happened there: The spring that gave his grandfather the reason to build his home on the land has run dry. “First time it’s ever gone dry, as far as I know of,” Pope said. A larger creek nearby — oddly named Dry Creek — has gone dry a half-dozen times in his life, and after a good rain it always comes back, but the spring’s never run dry, Pope said. “Cut it down pretty short?” Pope asked a man in work clothes Saturday as he climbed into the barber chair on the far left of three — Pope’s chair. “Nice and short,” the man answered. •

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TownFolk - Millard Young Jr.

You don’t have to look far to see what Millard Young. Jr., has done for Piedmont. By Laura Gaddy

he improvements to the old train depot, the development of Piedmont High School and the expansion of its field house are all, in some way, better because of Young. And the tiny gas station that bears his family name has become a signature feature of the city. For all of those reasons, and several more, Young has been named as Piedmont Journal Citizen of the Year for 2012. He received a plaque of recognition for the award earlier this year at a city council meeting. “He does a lot of things behind the scenes that people don’t know about, but he doesn’t seek or want recognition,” said John Alred, publisher of the Journal. Young’s family company, Young Oil, has been part of the community since 1941. That’s when Young’s parents, M.V.

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Young, Sr., and Ruth German Young, moved to Piedmont to start a private-brand service station and farm supply fuel service. Later Milliard Young married Paula Ann Sanford and began a family. After the senior Young died in 1963, Millard Young, and his mother took over the company. Millard Young was 29. Today Young Oil continues in Piedmont, and three of Ann and Millard’s children have taken an active role in the company – M.V. Young III, Pamela Young and Brian Young. The company stayed local, Brian Young said, because the family loves to spend their time in Piedmont and the areas that surround it. In the Piedmont area “I can go out in the woods, ride a

four-wheeler, ride a horse, hunt,” Brian Young said. “I would have a hard time doing those things in Birmingham.” Business opportunities and recreation interests aren’t the only reasons Milliard Young loves the community. Millard Young also has a particular interest in Piedmont City Schools and in Jacksonville State University, according to those who know him best. “He has a strong love for his community,” his daughter, Karen Kisor said. Millard Young has worked in the concession stands for the Piedmont Booster Club, he helped erect a sign in front of Piedmont Middle School, and from 1976 to 1981 Young served on the Piedmont City School Board. Millard Young also has a special appreciation for Jacksonville State University, his alma matter. Since graduating from the university in 1952, he has supported it on several occasions. Millard Young helped erect a Jacksonville State University sign on Rudy Abbott Highway, sponsored fundraisers for the university, helped charter buses for fans to attend away games and has served on boards associated with the university. Young was also named Alumnus of the Year at Jacksonville State University in 2003. Young is the third person to receive the honor since the Journal began issuing the honor in 2010. Matt Akin received the award in 2010 and Keith Ward received the award in 2011. •

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TownFolk

- J.B. Strickland

Sticking power Strickland’s Hardware

Business can be tough for an independent in the day of the great box stores.

trickland Hardware has been in Piedmont for 70 years. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House when J.B. Strickland decided to open the first of three incarnations of his store. His son, John Strickland, bought the business in 1986. Strickland can remember a time when weekend shoppers stayed so late that dinner time lost its’ meaning. They’d keep the shop open until the crowd thinned enough to warrant closing, he said. “It might be 10:30 or 11:00 on a Saturday night,” said Strickland. “Things changed.” Back then people just didn’t go out of town to shop, said Strickland. But as shopping trends changed, so did Strickland’s Hardware. The hours are now 7:30 to 5 Monday through Friday. No Sundays, and they close at 3 on Saturday. The merchandise has changed, too. J.B. started off

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selling auto parts as a Western Auto store, and over the years added pots and pans, fishing tackle, guns and ammunition, watches, knives, bicycles, and shortly after Thanksgiving, box after box of Christmas toys. These days what makes Strickland’s unique is what they don’t do. They don’t make you buy stuff you don’t need. “We’re still kind of old fashioned here,” said Strickland. Nails are sold by the pound and not just by the box. If you want 37 feet of rope, they cut it that way. And they stock what people are looking for, which Strickland said, is often something to fix a lawnmower with, or a part for a leaking toilet or a couple of cans of fresh paint for a bedroom makeover. “To stay here this long we’ve had to adapt and survive. Find our niche for what we can sell and make our living at,” said Strickland. “You just have to keep evolving.”

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Sticking power Strickland’s Hardware “To stay here this long we’ve had to adapt and survive. Find our niche, you just have to keep evolving.” —John Strickland Strickland described his father as a fair person who liked people and enjoyed his business. A man who never had a problem treating a customer like a friend, because, as Strickland said, they were. Strickland’s wife. Linda, said that J.B’s easy manner and his willingness to go out of his way to help his customers and his community, was passed down from father to son. “He has always felt that that was his calling,” said Linda. The two will celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary this month. After getting his business degree at Jacksonville State University, John Strickland decided to head to Huntsville and start a new life and a new career, but things changed. He said he found himself unhappy in his work. “My dad was beginning to talk retirement so we moved back down here, and he did retire about 10 years later,” said Strickland. Linda and John had two children. Adam, their son, is 34 and works for an insurance company in Birmingham. Julie is 29 and lives in Memphis with her husband and a new baby named Bennett Johnston. Any mention of the grandbaby and Strickland lights up like a brand new string of Christmas lights. As for passing the family business down to his son, Adam, Strickland said he never

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pressured his son to follow his lead, and he’s glad to see Adam is happy and living the life he wants to. “He worked here like I did during high school and college, but I guess it just wasn’t in his blood,” said Strickland. When asked about his plans for his own retirement, he said he just wasn’t sure yet. “That day could come in a few years. I’ve had some health problems and that’s dictated a whole lot of how long I’ll stay here, but I’d like to find a buyer and see the business keep going. It’s kind of one of those things, it’ll just kind of happen when it happens,” said Strickland. Among a stack of old photographs Strickland keeps in his desk is an old black and white photo of a 1947 Chevrolet truck. His dad sold it years ago, and since then the truck has changed hands countless times, evolving from an auto parts truck to a farm truck, a pulpwood truck and according to Strickland, “a little bit of everything.” Over the years the truck evolved and its’ owner found ways to keep it relevant and useful. Eventually it was bought and restored by a man that lives just outside of town. He hasn’t brought it by to let Strickland see it yet, but he promises he will. “Would you believe that thing’s still running?” asked Strickland. •

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UniqueVenue

Lagarde Lake Lodge open for rental

ike the set of a 1950s movie, the Lagarde Lake Lodge seems almost frozen in time. Recently opened as a rental, the sprawling 8,500square-foot Piedmont home was built by the ready-mix concrete and concrete block manufacturing magnate John B. Lagarde. Lagarde died in 1999, but the Anniston businessman set up a trust prior to his death to ensure the home he loved would remain in his family. Such a large home comes with a great deal of upkeep, said one of Lagarde’s four grandchildren, John Hancock, and the family decided it best to offer it as a rental to help offset the cost. The home was first built in the late 1930s as a log cabin. The 40-acre lake in front of the home was just a swamp back then, said Hancock. Over time, Lagarde added onto the home until it became what it is today. Lagarde had a serious love for hunting big-game animals. Mounted animals from all corners of the world adorn almost every nook and cranny of the home, save for the bedrooms. Photographs on the walls show Lagarde on safaris in places like Australia, New Zealand, Africa and South America. More than 100 of Lagarde’s prized mounted animals are now displayed in the Anniston Museum of Natural History’s John B. Lagarde Africa Hall and North American Hall. As one would expect for the home of a man in the concrete business, the material is everywhere. Many of the walls are made of concrete block, and the entire ceiling is crafted from it. Most of the surfaces were made and colored to appear like tongue-and-groove, rough-sawn wood, so the feeling isn’t one of cold concrete but rather simple country craftsmanship.

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Much of the home’s furniture is crafted from juniper fir trees taken from the 4,000-acre grounds. Two large ivory tusks were fashioned into posts for handrails that lead down a set of stairs into a great round room filled with some of Lagarde’s mounted animals. Saving such an impressive home became the family’s mission, each taking time out of their schedules to spend hours cleaning and repairing what they could. Cracks in some areas of the ceiling had to be repaired and the pool needed a massive renovation, Hancock said, but the family managed to make it all happen. “One thing I’ve learned out of the concrete business is how to patch it,” Hancock said. The home is as much a piece of history as it is a beautiful place to stay. It’s a place that Lagarde always made sure others got to enjoy as much as he did, often inviting friends over for gatherings, taking them hunting on the grounds or spending quiet afternoon fishing in the lake. “He knew he wanted to preserve this for people to see,” lodge manager Connie Durham said. Tenants at the lodge won’t be completely alone, though. Several dozen geese tend to linger around the lake out front, but they belong there. “He loved his geese,” Hancock said, describing how his grandfather’s first gaggle of geese would follow Lagarde everywhere, taking swims in the pool and eventually learning how to fly right in front of the home. They’ve since multiplied. Guests of the lodge can prepare meals in the full kitchen or request catering. The lodge is also available for special events such as luncheons, one-day seminars, receptions, parties and dinner events. Visit Lagardelakelodge.com for more information, or call them at 256-499-6726. •

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HistoryAbounds

1. The Chief Ladiga Trail 2. Downtown Piedmont 3. Sears House 4. Train Station Museum

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Piedmont, Alabama

SportsHallofFame

members

Carlton Rankin was a letterman in football, basketball, baseball and track before graduating from Piedmont High School in 1959. He played two years of varsity basketball, was a sprinter in track and began playing baseball as a sophomore when Piedmont resumed the sport but his accomplishments on the football field made him one of Alabama’s most sought after high school players. In football, Rankin lettered for Bill Farrell as a freshman in 1955. For the next three seasons, Rankin started at quarterback and tailback in Piedmont’s varied offenses. As a junior in 1957, Rankin was his team’s leading rusher, averaging 4.5 yards per carry. He scored one of Piedmont’s two touchdowns as the Bulldogs defeated Oxford 12-0. Rankin’s 2-yard touchdown run gave Piedmont the lead for good in a 24-13 win over Cherokee County. He led a second half comeback that produced a season-ending 20-7 win over Cleburne County with a touchdown pass, a touchdown run and two extra points. Rankin was chosen as one of eleven players on the all-county first team. In 1958, Rankin served as a co-captain and helped Piedmont to an 8-1-0 regular season and the school’s first appearance in the Anniston Quarterback Club’s postseason charity game, the Turkey Bowl. Rankin rushed for a Turkey Bowl record 229 yards and two touchdowns as Piedmont defeated Wellborn 26-6, avenging its only loss. During his senior season, Rankin scored 24 touchdowns, kicked 18 extra points and rushed for more than 1,000 yards. The Anniston Quarterback Club named him back of the year from Calhoun County schools. He was a unanimous choice for the eleven-member all-county first team, picked by the head coaches of Calhoun County. Rankin was named one of eleven members of the Class AA allstate team in 1958. He was one of five Alabama players selected for the Orlando Sentinel’s 39th annual All-Southern team and was chosen as a high school All-America by the Wigwam Wisemen. Rankin accepted a football scholarship to the University of Alabama and later declined an academic scholarship to Northwestern prior to enrolling at Alabama. He was a co-captain for the North squad in the AHSAA North-South All-Star football game at Tuscaloosa in August 1958 just prior to beginning his freshman year at Alabama. At Alabama, Rankin lettered at quarterback in 1962. He served as a student assistant coach at Alabama in 1964. In 1965 and 1966 Rankin coached backs as an assistant at Jacksonville State. Howard Waldrep

Waldrep played football in high school but basketball was the sport in which he excelled. He was a two-year starter for F.L. (Bulldog) Johnson at Anniston High School. In 1948-49, Waldrep’s senior season, Anniston was 22-4 and Waldrep was named firstteam all-tournament at the Sixth District tournament. Following graduation from Anniston in 1949, Waldrep went to Snead Junior College in Boaz on a basketball scholarship. Military combat service in the Korean conflict interpreted his time at

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Snead. After his discharge from the Army, Waldrep enrolled at Jacksonville State. In both his junior and senior seasons, Waldrep led Jacksonville State in scoring. In 1953-54, he averaged 22.6 points. In 1954-55, his average was 17.9. As a junior, Waldrep scored 36 points in one half against Livingston State and led his team in free throw shooting or the season, hitting 90.3 percent of his attempts. Both marks remain JSU records more than 50 years later. After graduating from Jacksonville State, Waldrep became head basketball coach and assistant football coach at Piedmont. During his 12-year tenure as basketball coach, Waldrep’s Piedmont teams were 19292. In 1960-61, the Bulldogs were runner-up in the Sixth District Class A tournament and won their first two games in the state tournament before finishing fourth. Waldrep’s 1965-66 Piedmont team won the Calhoun County basketball tournament – defeating Oxford, Alexandria and Anniston in succession. Waldrep ended his coaching career after one more season. He was an administrator at Piedmont for two years then became principal at Wellborn were he served for 25 years. While at Wellborn, Waldrep served on the Alabama High School Athletic Association Central Board of Control for 12 years. He is a member of the Jacksonville State University Athletic Hall of Fame and the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame.

Jim Simmons

A native of Piedmont, Jim Simmons played three seasons of high school basketball for the Bulldogs and coach Howard Waldrep, starting at guard and serving as team captain as a senior. That year, Piedmont finished second at the Sixth District tournament and won two games at the state tournament. Despite his abilities on the hardwood, football was the sport in which Simmons excelled. He was a first team All-County tackle as a junior in 1959 under Bill Farrell. Piedmont won its first eight games then lost to Alexandria to finish the regular season 8-1-0. In the annual Turkey Bowl game that year, the Bulldogs avenged their only loss with a 25-14 win over the Valley Cubs. In 1960, Piedmont again won the Turkey Bowl game to avenge a regular season loss. This time the Bulldogs defeated Oxford 13-0 and finished 7-2-1. On defense, first-year head coach Jim White moved Simmons from tackle to middle guard to help close down Oxford’s running attack. Simmons served as a co-captain for Piedmont as a senior. Following his senior season, Simmons was again named first team All-County as a tackle. In addition, he was also named first team All-State at tackle. When the University of Alabama offered a football scholarship, Simmons accepted. At Alabama, he lettered at defensive tackle in 1962, 1963 and 1964 and was a starter for two years. The 1962 defense limited 10 regular-season opponents to 39 points. In Simmons’ three years as a varsity starter at Alabama, the Crimson Tide was 29-4 with eight shutout wins. Included in those 29 victories were 38-0 and 21-14 wins over Auburn in 1962 and 1964 and bowl victories over Oklahoma 17-0 in the 1963 Orange Bowl and Ole Miss 12-7 in the 1964 Sugar Bowl. His 1964 team was Southeastern Conference champion and a national championship team.

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Piedmont, Alabama

SportsHallofFame members

From 1982 to 1993, Simmons was the executive director of the Birmingham Football Foundation, sponsor of the All-American Bowl post-season football classic and the inaugural Southeastern Conference football championship game. The SEC championship game, the first playoff game in NCAA Division 1A football history, was played in Birmingham’s historic Legion Field.

W H Kimbrough

Kimbrough played high school basketball in Dadeville and Opelika before following older brother Ed to the University of Alabama. At Alabama, Kimbrough was the leading scorer on the Crimson Tide team that won the 1934 Southeastern Conference basketball tournament. He was leading the SEC in scoring in 1934 until a broken jaw suffered in practice ended his season prematurely. Kimbrough arrived in Piedmont in the fall of 1934, following his graduation from Alabama. At Piedmont he was head basketball coach for three years and assisted Clair Strickland with the football team. His first Piedmont basketball team was Sixth District tournament runner-up to Calhoun County High of Oxford and advanced to the Alabama High School Athletic Association state tournament, then one tournament for all schools, before losing to powerful Tuscaloosa. In the 1935-36 season, Piedmont was again Sixth District runner-up. In their second trip to the state tournament, Kimbrough’s Bulldogs finished second, losing in the championship game to Sardis, the Sixth District champions. In the fall of 1937 Kimbrough became head coach in football and basketball at Sylacauga. His fi ve Sylacauga football teams were 346-4. In his second year at Sylacauga Kimbrough revived the Aggies’ rivalry with Talladega and promptly won all four of his meetings against Talladega. Kimbrough returned to Piedmont in 1942 as superintendent of the Piedmont city schools and high school principal. In 1945, with no one else available to serve as coach, he coached the Bulldogs to an 8-0-0 record in f ootball. As an administrator Kimbrough helped establish the Calhoun County basketball tournament. He was a member of the AHSAA Sixth District board of control for more than ten years and also served as AHSAA president.

Bill Farrell

Bill Farrell starred at Jacksonville High School before graduating in 1943. He played football at Jacksonville State and served as captain of the then Eagle Owls football team in 1946 before graduating in the spring of 1947. His first coaching job was at Ohatchee. The school had not fielded a football team the previous eight seasons and Farrell’s 1947 team was 0-7-2. Two of the next three years Ohatchee had winning records. The

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1948 Indians downed rival Alexandria 14-0. In 1951, Ohatchee was 8-0-2 and Calhoun County champions. A 20-13 win over Oxford in the final game of the 1951 season protected Ohatchee’s first undefeated season and gave Farrell his second consecutive win over Oxford. He was recognized as Calhoun County coach of the year. From Ohatchee, Farrell moved to Piedmont in 1952. Piedmont supporters were accustomed to winning teams but the Bulldogs had experienced losing records in each of the three previous years. Farrell produced an immediate turnaround as his first Piedmont team ended 8-2-0. The Bulldogs had winning records in seven of his eight seasons at Piedmont. Farrell’s Piedmont teams were 54-20-1 overall. His final two Piedmont teams were 9-1-0. The 1958 Bulldogs defeated Wellborn 26-6 in the Turkey Bowl to avenge their only regular season loss. In the 1959 Turkey Bowl, the Bulldogs again emerged as champions. Piedmont downed Alexandria 25-14 and once again avenged its only regular season defeat. From Piedmont, Farrell spent 10 years as a principal – two years at Lineville, one in Georgia, then seven years at Ohatchee. During the 1970-71 school year he was vocational guidance director for the Calhoun County school system. Farrell returned to coaching at Anniston in 1971. The Bulldogs had managed only one winning season in the previous seven years. By 1972 Anniston was 7-3-0 and Farrell’s peers named him the Calhoun County Big Six coach of the year. Farrell was Big Six coach of the year again in 1973 and 1974, sharing the award with Jack Stewart in 1974. In 1973 he was also voted North East Alabama Conference coach of the year. The 1973 team was the first at Anniston to complete a regular season schedule undefeated and untied. It was also the first to reach the AHSAA playoffs. He left Anniston after the 1978 football season then returned in 1986. When he retired midway through the 1987 season his overall career record was 134-69- 7. Farrell was inducted into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

Bobby Wilson

Though he is no longer living, Bobby Wilson’s career as an athlete and a coach came full circle in June. Wilson, a Piedmont native and graduate of Piedmont High School, was one of six members of the Calhoun County Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2013. The group was honored at the ninth annual induction banquet Saturday. The ceremony took place at the Oxford Civic Center for the first time. Wilson, whose final season of high school football came in 1942, was never formally recognized for his pigskin prowess because he played in an era when no All-County teams were selected in Calhoun County. Wilson played in a time when backs who could run, pass and kick were known as triple threats and he could do it all. As a senior, he returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown in Piedmont’s 47-0 win over Jacksonville. Later in the season, he again returned the opening kickoff for a score as the Bulldogs downed Cherokee County 34-0. That same year, on the first play from scrimmage in Piedmont’s 24-2 win over Oxford, Wilson intercepted a pass and returned the interception 30 yards for a touchdown. The Anniston Star reported that Wilson then missed a drop kick for the extra point but

kicked the ball so far that it took players, officials and Boy Scouts 10 to 15 minutes to find “the ball” so the game could continue. When the 1942 season ended, Wilson had scored nine touchdowns himself, passed for five touchdowns and drop-kicked 14 extra points as the Bulldogs finished 7-2-0. Four days after Piedmont’s final game, Anniston Star sports editor Marshall Johnson wrote that in addition to running and passing, Wilson kicked off, punted, kicked extra points and played excellent defense. Johnson quoted Piedmont principal and superintendent W.H. (Zeke) Kimbrough as calling Wilson “one of the best high school backs that has ever come under my observation.” With World War II raging, Wilson joined the United States Army shortly after graduating in the spring of 1943. He fought in Europe and served about three years. Returning home in 1946, Wilson tried out for football at the University of Mississippi and earned a scholarship. At Ole Miss, he lettered in both football and baseball. In football, he intercepted 10 passes as a senior in 1949, an SEC record that stood until 1982. Included was an interception Wilson returned 99 yards against Florida. Wilson recorded 20 interceptions for his career, still an SEC record. In 1950, his senior season of baseball, he was named captain and selected for the All-SEC team. Wilson could have played football professionally with the Philadelphia Eagles but signed a minor league baseball contract with the Cincinnati Reds. After three successful minor league seasons, he gave up baseball at age 28. Johnny Vaught, his football coach for most of his time at Ole Miss, recommended Wilson for a high school coaching position in Mississippi and he coached both

football and baseball in Mississippi high schools for the next 12 years. In 1964, Vaught recommended Wilson for another position, this one at Carson-Newman College. Wilson taught at Carson-Newman for 26 years and served as baseball coach for 23 years. His first CarsonNewman team won the NAIA national championship. Prior to his death in Jefferson City, Tennessee, on June 21, 2008, Wilson was inducted into the NAIA Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986, the Ole Miss Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Carson-Newman College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995. Saturday’s Calhoun County Sports Hall of Fame ceremony completes the circle of recognition for Wilson. Despite his many accomplishments, Wilson was a modest man who never talked about himself unless urged to do that. Wilson and Larry Gowens, himself an outstanding athlete at Piedmont, were second cousins. Gowens was seven or eight years old when Wilson left for military service, too young to remember him as a high school player. “We lived two doors down from them in the mill village when I was growing up and he was going to Ole Miss. That’s the way I got to know him real well. He was kin to me and every time he came home I went up and stayed with him most of the time. He wouldn’t say much about himself. You’d have to ask him to get him to even talk about it,” Gowens recalled. “He really liked Ole Miss. He played football and he did good in it but he loved baseball and that was his game really.” Gowens said Wilson once told him how he came to play in Oxford, Mississippi. “He went by Mr. Kimbrough’s office, the superintendent at that time, when he got out of service and he told Mr. Kimbrough, ‘I’d like to

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Piedmont, Alabama

SportsHallofFame members go to college and play ball with somebody. Reckon you could get me a tryout?’ He said, ‘Well, Robert, a Penny boy is going from Piedmont next week to Ole Miss. Why don’t you just ride down there with him.’ So he went down there with Penny and he got a scholarship. That’s the way he got to Ole Miss.” After Wilson gave up playing baseball and started coaching in Mississippi, return trips to Piedmont became more difficult and less frequent. “He never did come back to Piedmont after that much,” Gowens said. “I guess his wife (Martha) was working and he was, too. A few times he came but he said he just didn’t have time to come back much – not that he didn’t want to, he just didn’t have time to do it.” After retiring from Carson-Newman, Wilson traveled to Piedmont more often to visit with and check on his older sister, Nellie, and his younger sister, Amy. “He was just a good guy all the way around and he didn’t brag about it either,” Gowens concluded.

A sister’s memories Thomas Bible’s Hall of Fame plaque will hang in library When Sibyl Darsey talks about her brother, Thomas Bible, she hardly speaks of his accomplishments as an athlete – although that is what most people are likely to talk about first when they remember the strong, accomplished football player from Piedmont who went on to play for Bear Bryant – she talks about a boy who made a practice of putting others before himself. She talks about a boy who, when he discovered fellow classmates at Piedmont High School were picking on his younger sister, he made it clear to everyone just how he felt about it. Thomas Bible died tragically at the age of 21 while on a fishing trip with his then 9-year-old nephew, Gary Wayne McCurdy, in Mobile. His new fishing lure became caught underwater so Thomas dove into the water to fetch it, having just eaten, said Darsey, and cramps set in. McCurdy started to jump in to try and save his uncle but Thomas told him to get help instead. Bible was inducted into the Calhoun County Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. Two plaques were made bearing Bible’s image and his story. One plaque was placed in the Hall of Fame in Anniston and the other given to Darsey. She’s kept it hanging on a wall in her living room since bringing it home, but has decided that the plaque would better serve her brother’s memory by being placed in the Piedmont Public Library where all who knew him, or have heard about him, can see it. “The selfish part of me wants to keep it here for myself, but I’m going to do it for him,” said Darsey. Darsey described a difficult childhood for herself and her brother.

24 | Piedmont, Alabama

There was never enough money to buy decent school clothes, she said, and so she seldom ventured into the lunchroom where she would surely be teased because of her appearance. During one particular lunch period, her brother came looking for her. “I was hiding in the girls’ bathroom. He said ‘Cybil, if you don’t come out of their I’m coming in.’ My feelings were hurt. I had cried until me eyes were all red and puffed up. So he picked me up and carried me down there and sat me down in front of them. The whole lunchroom was full,” said Darsey. “He said, ‘This is my little sister and I’m proud of her, no matter what she wears, or what she has or doesn’t have. If anybody else makes fun of her they will answer to me.’ From that point forward everybody was nice to me.” Thomas was a standout basketball player at Roy Webb Junior High School before playing football for Piedmont. “He played in the first ball game he ever saw,” said Darsey. Thomas and his Bulldog teammate Carlton Rankin went on to play on Alabama’s 1961 National Championship team. Bible won a starting spot on Coach Bryant’s 1962 team after All-America tackle Billy Neighbors moved on to the NFL, but tragically he was never able to start at game at Alabama. He died on June 12, 1962, just after his spring semester. Darsey remembers a Thomas who, after being prodded once too often by a hard-nosed coach everyone called Bear, decided to level the playing field so-to-speak. “Bear Bryant was always on Thomas. He wanted him to be good. He told Thomas, he said, ‘You aren’t hitting hard enough. You can’t hit anything.’ So Thomas ran as hard as he could to hit this guy and Coach Bear Bryant was standing right next to him, so Thomas hit him instead. Knocked him flat on his back. “And that is one of the cutest stories. I have a lot of precious memories of Thomas, and I have a lot of sad memories of him. It was nothing he did. He was a good kid. He was my momma, my daddy, my brother, my sister. He looked out for me.” The Piedmont City Council, at the request of late State Rep. Lea Fite, passed a resolution last year that would have named Alabama 200 after Tom Bible. After Fite’s sudden death the move to rename the highway sort of fell through, said Darsey. She would like to see it come to pass. Hard work and a willingness to do what it took; that’s how she remembers her big brother. He would do everything he was told to do, even painting the school library, which she said earned Thomas a few dollars for school clothes. He would sprout fields for a quarter a day. “Hard work. He was so unique. He would literally give you the shirt off his back. He was so free-hearted,” his sister said. Robert Darsey, Sibyl’s husband, said their 9-year-old grandson was named after his famous uncle. The young Thomas Barnes plays baseball now, and his granddad said he is trying hard to live up to his namesake. Later this week Darsey will hang her brother’s plaque in the library, but she’ll carry home with her the lessons learned from watching her strong older brother, a boy who always looked out for others first; lessons she said have helped make her the person she is today. “Thomas taught me morals,” she said. “He taught me life lessons. He taught me how to always treat my fellow man right, because that was the kind of person he was. He always treated people right, as best he knew how. He used to tell me that a good person was good even when nobody was looking.” •

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AreaChurches DAILEY STREET BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-6301 106 SOUTH CHURCH STREET PIEDMONT, AL 36272

NORTHSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-6735 400 EAST HIGHWAY 278 BYPASS PIEDMONT, AL 36272

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-9496 105 NORTH MAIN STREET PIEDMONT, AL 36272

PISGAH BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-3079 150 COUNTY ROAD 67 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

HOLLEY CROSS ROADS BAPTIST CHURCH 256-435-7498 1441 CHINCH CREEK ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272

PLEASANT ARBOR BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-2277 4825 COUNTY ROAD 29 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

JONES CHAPEL BAPTIST CHURCH 256-492-0108 11441 ROCKY FORD ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272

RABBITTOWN BAPTIST CHURCH 256-435-2880 2450 RABBITTOWN ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272

LIBERTY BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-1811 2465 COUNTY ROAD 29 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

REPUBLICAN BAPTIST CHURCH 256-927-2170 6125 COUNTY ROAD 14 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

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ROCK RUN BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-9578 HIGHWAY 29 PIEDMONT, AL 36272 THANKFUL BAPTIST CHURCH 256-447-8071 308 NORTH CHURCH STREET PIEDMONT, AL 36272 WELCOME BAPTIST CHURCH 256-492-7926 3415 TOM CAT ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272 CHURCH OF CHRIST 256-447-9311 105 MEMORIAL DRIVE PIEDMONT, AL 36272 HIGHWAY NINE CHURCH OF CHRIST 256-447-2397 23035 AL HIGHWAY 9 NORTH PIEDMONT, AL 36272

APOSTLE DOCTRINE CHURCH OF GOD 256-447-4878 824 PIEDMONT CUTOFF ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272 CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE 256-447-1557 403 CEDARTOWN HIGHWAY PIEDMONT, AL 36272 EXIE CONGREGATIONAL HOLINESS CHURCH 256-475-5273 8215 COUNTY ROAD 14 PIEDMONT, AL 36272 NANCES CREEK CONGREGATIONAL HOLINESS CHURCH 256-447-7507 15695 AL HIGHWAY 9 PIEDMONT, AL 36272 COVENANT OF GRACE 256-435-4359 4800 AL HIGHWAY 21 NORTH PIEDMONT, AL 36272

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL METHODIST CHURCH 256-447-9741 310 SOUTHERN AVENUE PIEDMONT, AL 36272

YOUNG’S CHAPEL METHODIST CHURCH 256-492-5553 44 YOUNGS CHAPEL ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272

WESTSIDE CH CHURCH 256-447-7445 401 ANNISTON AVENUE PIEDMONT, AL 36272

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 256-447-6829 107 EAST LADIGA STREET PIEDMONT, AL 36272

FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF PIEDMONT 256-447-7421 300 NORTH MAIN PIEDMONT, AL 36272

ARRINGTON CHAPEL CHURCH 256-447-3888 795 COUNTY ROAD 181 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

CONGREGATIONAL HOLINESS CHURCH 770-832-2923 3475 POSSUM TROT ROAD PIEDMONT, AL 36272

PIEDMONT SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH 256-452-5846 3140 Hwy. 9 South, Desmond T. Doss Drive, P.O. Box 519 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

GOSHEN UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 256-447-6039 625 AL HIGHWAY 9 SOUTH PIEDMONT, AL 36272

CHURCH OF THE ROCK 256-447-2721 6142 OLD PIEDMONT GADSDEN HIGHWAY PIEDMONT, AL 36272

EXTENDED HAND CHURCH 256-282-1557 209 TAYLOR STREET PIEDMONT, AL

MOUNT PLEASANT CME CHURCH 256-447-9319 305 LEA STREET PIEDMONT, AL 36272

SAINT LUKE FBH CHURCH 256-447-1990 614 DRAPER STREET PIEDMONT, AL 36272

CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 256-447-7275 23746 AL HIGHWAY 9 NORTH PIEDMONT, AL 36272

UNION GROVE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH 256-447-0210 2495 COUNTY ROAD 45 PIEDMONT, AL 36272

WELL SPRING CHURCH 256-492-2806 11040 US HIGHWAY 278 EAST PIEDMONT, AL 36272

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CityOfficials&Departments City Council Rick Freeman - Mayor Mary Bramblett - District 1 Frank Cobb - District 2 Kenny Kelley - District 3 Brenda Spears - District 4 Bill Baker - District 5 Terry Kiser - District 6 Administrative Office Michelle Franklin - City Clerk 109 North Center Ave. P.O. Box 112 Piedmont, AL 36272 Phone: (256) 447-3560 Fax: (256) 447-2958 Hours: Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Calhoun County Annex (Next door to the Piedmont Administration Building) License Renewal, Tags, Property Tax, etc. Tabatha Brewster (256) 447-3566 Office Hours: Monday – Friday 8:00a.m. – 4:30p.m. (Closed 11:30 – 12:30 for Lunch)

Piedmont Power & Light Supervisor: Phillip Johnson Asst. Supervisor: Casey Ponder Phone: (256) 447-3587 Piedmont Water Works, Gas and Sewer 128 South Center Ave. Phone: (256) 447-9066 Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8:00a.m. - 5:00p.m. Lee Young – General Manager Jesse McKnight Superintendent Piedmont Fire Department Business Calls: (256) 4473364 Fire Calls: (256) 447-9011 Mike Ledbetter - Interim Fire Chief Cale Donaldson - Fire Captain Piedmont Police Department Chief Steven Tidwell

28 | Piedmont, Alabama

Sergeants Sgt. Don Glover Day Shift Patrol

Communications Supervisor and Records Clerk

Supervisor Sgt. Freddie Norton Night Shift Patrol Supervisor

Supv. Bobbie Beavers Communications Officers

Investigators Sgt. Carolyn Durham Investigations Supervisor Corporals Cpl. Shannon Kelley Day Shift Patrol Supervisor Cpl. Matt Thacker Night Shift Patrol Supervisor Patrol Officers Patrolman Sheldon Estes Patrolman Nathan Johnson Patrolman Jamie Parris Patrolman Jason Hammett Patrolman Jesse Little Patrolman Ray Henderson

PCO Barbara Cromer PCO Marie Kerr PCO Doris Ingram PCO Kaylynn Russell PCO Shannon Hogue

Piedmont Municipal Court 312 North Center Ave. Phone: (256) 447-3571 Fax: (256) 447-3376 Helen Kirkpatrick – Court Clerk Janet Henson - Court Magistrate Office Hours: Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Phone: 256-447-9091 Fax: 256-447-6119 Address: 121 West Ladiga Street Piedmont, AL 36272 EMERGENCIES: DIAL 911

Traffic and Misdemeanor Court 1st and 3rd Monday of each Month (Court Begins at 3:00p.m.)

Revenue Department Amy Ragsdale - Revenue Officer Phone: (256) 447-3564 Office Hours: Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Public Works & Maintenance Department Ricky Jackson – Public Works Supervisor (256) 447-3572 Billy Reynolds Maintenance Supervisor (256) 447-3583

Building Inspection and Code Enforcement Carl Hinton - Building Inspector/Abatement (256) 447-3596 Piedmont Public Library 106 North Main Street Piedmont, AL 36272 Phone: 256-447-3369 Fax: 256-447-3383 Monday and Friday - 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Tuesday and Thursday 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Saturday - 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Piedmont City Schools Superintendent Mr. Matthew Akin School Board Members Jackie Spears - Board President Leon Garrett Shannon Ray Michael Ingram Lin Latta

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