Discover St. Clair August and September 2021 by Discover The Essence of St. Clair

Author T.K. Thorne • Lyman Lovejoy’s Success Ashville’s Rock House • Black Jacket Symphony • Retail Growth

August & September 2021

Ice cream parlor comeback A hit on historic mainstreets

History Keeper Teacher’s efforts to preserve the past

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Discover The Essence of St. Clair August & September 2021

ICE CREAM

T.K. THORNE

ROCK HOUSE

A classic treat making comeback in downtowns

Untold stories of Civil Rights Movement

Four generations in Ashville home

Traveling the Backroads Influential educators

History Keeper

Love of past leads teacher to preserve memories

Page 14

Bassmaster Elite

Springville angler makes splash at Neely Henry Page 20

Black Jacket Symphony

Returning to Logan Martin Page 32

Medical Community

Ascension St. Clair almost a decade of service Page 48 Recognizing founders of Lakeside Hospice Page 60 Medical specialists covering every need Page 64

St. Clair Business

New shopping experiences part of retail growth Page 72 Lyman Lovejoy’s 50-year success run in real estate Page 80

w w w . d i s co v e r stc l a i r . co m

Writers AND Photographers Elaine Hobson Miller

Carol Pappas

Carol Pappas is editor and publisher of Discover St. Clair Magazine. A retired newspaper executive, she served as editor and publisher of several newspapers and magazines during her career. She won dozens of writing awards in features, news and commentary and was named Distinguished Alabama Community Journalist at Auburn University. She serves as president/CEO of Partners by Design, the multimedia group that publishes Discover.

Joe Whitten Joe Whitten was born in Bryant on Sand Mountain. When he arrived in Odenville in 1961 to teach at St. Clair County High School, he found a place to call home. He and his wife, Gail, taught across the hall from each other. He continues to live in Odenville in a 1904 house they called home for 36 years. Joe was active in the Alabama Writers’ Conclave and the Alabama State Poetry Society. The society named him Poet of the Year in 2000. Joe has also published a number of St. Clair County local history books.

Leigh Pritchett Leigh Pritchett is a wife and mother. She earned the Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Montevallo. In the late 1990s, she left a career with a New York Times Regional Newspaper to be a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer. She was blessed with the opportunity to spend 22 years homeschooling her three children.

Linda Long Linda Long has worked in communications for more than 25 years in print, broadcast, nonprofit promotion and special event planning and implementation. Her writing has appeared in Business Alabama Magazine, Technology Alabama, Mobile Bay Monthly, Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, Partners Magazine, Birmingham Magazine, Alabama Alive, Cahaba Talk, Hoover Outlook and Shelby Living. She served as news and special projects producer for NBC13 News, where her work won national, regional and state honors, including two Emmy Award nominations.

Elaine Hobson Miller is a freelance writer with a B.A. in journalism from Samford University. She was the first female to cover Birmingham City Hall for the Birmingham Post-Herald, where she worked as reporter, food editor and features writer. A former editor of Birmingham Home & Garden magazine and staff writer for Birmingham magazine, she has written for a variety of local, regional and national publications. She is a member of Alabama Media Professionals and NFPW (the National Federation of Press Women). Follow her weekly blog about life with a dozen four-legged critters, life in the country and life in general at www.countrylife-elaine.blogspot.com.

Scottie Vickery Scottie Vickery is a writer with a degree in journalism from the University of Alabama and was a reporter for The Birmingham News. Her first assignment was covering St. Clair and Blount counties. She has more than 30 years of writing and editing experience and her work has appeared in a variety of publications. She also has worked in the nonprofit industry.

Paul South

Paul South, a native of Fairfield, is an Auburn graduate with a degree in journalism and a double minor in history. He also has a Juris Doctorate degree from the Birmingham School of Law. Although sports writing was always his first love, he had a versatile career as reporter, columnist and first full-time sports information director at Samford University.

Wallace Bromberg Jr. Wally was born in Birmingham. He graduated from Mountain Brook High School in 1973, and went on to Auburn University where he graduated in 1976 with his BA in History and minors in German and education. Wally’s skills in photography blossomed during college. Upon graduation, he entered his father’s business, National Woodworks, Inc. He and his wife, Nettie, an artist, own Gallery of Eden.

About THE Cover

Lexi Wright, 6, enjoys a good old-fashioned favorite – ice cream in a waffle cone. Of course, today’s twist is dipped chocolate on the cone. She is the daughter of Shannon and Zack Wright and the granddaughter of Jenny and Richard Alverson. Lucky her! Her grandparents own Sweet Sue’s Ice Cream Shop in Pell City. Photo by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

From the Editor

Celebrating 10 years of Discover Imagine a cake with 10 candles on it. We can. Discover, the Essence of St. Clair, Magazine just celebrated its 10th birthday. They say if you do what you enjoy, you’ll never work a day in your life. While we haven’t exactly been taking it easy for the past decade, there’s no mistaking we have enjoyed every minute. It was August 2011 when our first magazine rolled off the press in Alexander City. We loaded them up in a rented U-Haul truck and proceeded to deliver them to high traffic areas all over St. Clair County. The month prior, we were busy gathering stories we wanted to share. We had been up on Chandler Mountain to tell the story of bouldering, a world-class sport and attraction right here in St. Clair County. We visited an Odenville beekeeper whose honey was all the buzz around Alabama. We got a bird’s-eye view from a spectacular home perched atop Chandler Falls, and we followed a couple of ‘Noodlers’ who reach under murky waters, boat ramps and rocks to catch catfish from the Coosa with their bare hands. But we didn’t stop there. We made our way through Shoal Creek Valley, devastated by a deadly tornado that ripped at the very heart of that community three months earlier, and we shared their story of heartbreak, tragedy and resilience. “We are Shoal Creek,” a hand-painted sign proclaimed as you entered miles of destruction, and you couldn’t help but feel we were a part of that community – whether you lived there or not. We even ascended the top of Gulf Hollow to hear the motivation of the state’s two top conservationists at the time. Not only were their missions common, but their roots run deep in St. Clair County soil as natives. And we headed over to Beason Cove for our inaugural Traveling the Backroads, an historical series still as popular today as it was 10 years ago.

Discover

By the time the next issue rolled around, it was as if we were visiting old friends. You welcomed our magazine into your homes and businesses with such enthusiasm. We may not have whistled while we worked, but we sure did smile a lot. Still do. In my first column, I wrote: “In the pages of this magazine, we hope to capture that diversity, that unmistakable essence of St. Clair that make it both a destination point and place we call home. Every other month, we invite you to come discover its essence right along with us.” We’ve traveled many a mile since then, and we hope we delivered on that promise. As we blow out the candles on our first decade, we just want to say thanks for allowing us to share the stories of people and places from our home. Here’s to the next 10! Turn the page and discover what’s in store along with us. Carol Pappas Editor and Publisher

The Essence of St. Clair

August & September 2021 • Vol. 61 • www.discoverstclair.com

Carol Pappas • Editor and Publisher Graham Hadley • Managing Editor and Designer Dale Halpin • Advertising Toni Franklin • Graphic Designer Brandon Wynn • Director Online Services

A product of Partners by Design www.partnersmultimedia.com 1911 Cogswell Avenue Pell City, AL 35125 205-335-0281

Printed at Russell Printing, Alexander City, AL 7

Scooping it up at Sweet Sue’s

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

How sweet it is!

Ice Cream parlor making comeback on St. Clair’s main streets Story by Elaine Hobson Miller and Carol Pappas Photos by Carol Pappas and Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Laster Sundries

Ice cream dripping down your chin, blackberry cobbler stuck between your teeth. How sweet it is to enjoy these fruits of summer, especially at St. Clair County’s two new ice cream shops. Sweet Sue’s Ice Cream Shop in Pell City and Laster’s Sundries by The Farmhouse in Springville are providing summer treats year ‘round on each side of the mountain. How sweet is that? Laster’s Sundries has been a fixture on Springville’s Main Street since 1927, when Lee and Otis (Ma) Laster opened it as a drug store, soda fountain, ice cream parlor and gift shop. It has gone through several owners in its 94-year history, and even sat

empty for a few years, but it’s back in business now as Laster’s Sundries by the Farmhouse. Owners Bryan and Brandi Zargo also own The Farmhouse on nearby Purple Heart Boulevard. That’s where they do a lot of the prepping of the sandwiches they sell. My husband saw that the building was for rent, recognized an opportunity, and said, ‘Let’s do it!’” Brandi Zargo says. “The nostalgia was part of the appeal of the place.” Laster’s is full of nostalgia, all right. The soda fountain was bought from Robert M. Green & Sons of Philadelphia, Penn., for $2,125. There are two hand-carved, walnut backbars and

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

How sweet it is! companion cabinets out of a Mississippi saloon. The old fountain is made of black and white marble with an elaborate mahogany shelf and mirror behind it. Two ionic columns flank the mirror, and egg and dart molding surround it. Old-fashioned wire ice cream tables and chairs provide much of the seating, in front of antique mahogany floor-toceiling showcases that formerly housed a “wide range of gifts for every occasion,” including birthdays, weddings, baby showers, etc., according to a copy of an early menu that is now displayed in one of the cases. Collectibles, such as Fitz & Floyd, Boyd’s Bears, Harmony Kingdom, Dezine Fairies, Christmas collectibles and decorations, chess sets, Galileo thermometers and more were available at one time, and the original Laster’s even had a bridal registry. Today, those gift items are gone, but there are many souvenirs left on display, including some old medicine bottles, newspaper clippings about the place and several photographs of smiling faces about to be smeared with ice cream. One shows a group of Little Leaguers lined up on the red-and-white Coca-Cola bar stools, while another shows a mixed group of girls and boys peering over the counter. The Zargos hand-dip Blue Bell ice cream and serve it by the cone or by the cup. Sensitive to the needs of their customers, they started washing their ice cream scoops between servings when one customer with a peanut allergy pointed out that some of their frozen stuff contained nuts. “We hope to get some sugar-free and even dairy-free ice cream choices soon,” Brandi says. “Bryan likes to adapt to the season, too, the way we do at the Farmhouse, so we’ll be adding some soups for the fall. We’ll also be serving coffee soon.” Laster’s has always served ice cream, and Zargo wanted to keep that aspect of the business. But he knew that ice cream wasn’t enough to keep him afloat, so to speak. He wanted to maintain consistent hours, too, so he decided to add sandwiches to the mix. “He put a question out on What’s Happening in Springville (Facebook page) that asked what people wanted for Springville,” Brandi says. “Many folks mentioned a sandwich shop.” Laster’s serves almost a dozen different

Laster’s owner Bryan Zargo serves ice cream and more.

Satisfied customers at Sweet Sue’s

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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How sweet it is! sandwiches, and Bryan seems to come up with a new one each week. The menu includes Laster’s Club (smoked turkey, ham, provolone and cheddar), Blackened Chicken Salad (a mixture of smokehouse chicken with chopped pecans, creole mayonnaise and red grapes on ciabatta bread), Zargo’s own take on the traditional tuna melt and BLT, as well as a Smokehouse Ruben and Grilled Pimento Cheese sandwich. Each can be accompanied by potato chips, broccoli slaw, pasta salad or a cup of fruit. Canned soft drinks, tea and lemonade make up the drink list. Bryan’s brownies and cookies are available, too. In the deli area, Laster’s sells their sides and Boar’s Head meats and cheeses by the pint, quart and pound. A former minor-league baseball player and ex-Marine, Bryan went to culinary school at Virginia College and worked at the Fish Market in Birmingham and The Club, then became executive chef at Bellini’s in Shelby County before opening The Farmhouse and then Laster’s Sundries. The Farmhouse opened a year ago in the midst of the COVID pandemic, but has done well, according to Brandi.

Sweet Sue’s

Jenny Alverson and husband Richard knew they wanted to open a business, but they weren’t quite sure what it would be. But when they saw the historic building for rent on Pell City’s downtown main street, Cogswell Avenue, it sparked a nostalgic whim, and Sweet Sue’s Ice Cream Shop was born. “We fell in love with the idea of ice cream – old-timey sundaes and banana splits – things you couldn’t find anymore,” Jenny says. The concept fit perfectly inside the historic 1890 structure thought to be Pell City’s first brick building. The building was perfect, too, with its exposed brick walls, outdoor seating and plenty of room for colorfully painted booths and tables inside – just like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. And it certainly fit as an age-old tradition. When you think of celebrations and gatherings, she says, ice cream usually plays a starring role. “Ice cream just seems happy.” She and Richard grew up in the smaller towns of Odenville and Ashville, so they knew Pell City well. “We went to Pell City for all the important stuff,” Jenny recalls. “St. Clair County feels like home.” Since opening May 6, the Alversons, along with their children who help out – Shannon, Kaylan, Mayli and Thomas – have added to the menu. Pimento cheese and chicken salad sandwiches, nachos, hotdogs, sausage dogs, barbecue salads and pork sliders offer fare for another eatery in downtown Pell City. “We haven’t made an actual menu yet,” she says. “We’re seeing what works.”

Charlotte and Juliette Steele enjoy an after school treat at Laster’s.

Coffee is coming later and probably old-fashioned lemonade. “We’re doing it slowly to see how it all goes,” she says. So far, so good. The staple, of course, is ice cream with dozens of flavors – waffle cones, cups and even a “bubble waffle,” which is warm on the inside, crispy on the outside and tastes like a waffle with ice cream nestled inside. For a smaller sweet tooth, baby bubbles are available, too! For Jenny, the ice cream shop brings back precious memories from childhood, when her grandmother used to take her for a treat. It also reminds her of being able to feed a family without breaking the pocketbook. With four children of her own, she knows the value of taking them somewhere special and still being able to treat them all for under $10 just like her father did with her and her four siblings. Judging by the response as customers stream in and out, Sweet Sue’s is as popular as the Blue Bell ice cream it serves. “We couldn’t ask for a better community. The support the community has given us and the excitement they have shown that we’re open have been huge. “We wanted to make people happy with something fun. No matter what kind of day they’re having, ice cream can just change everything.” l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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Vicki looks through a photo album of family, friends, remembrances. 14

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

HISTORY KEEPER Love of the past drives teacher, writer, preserver of memories

Story and photos by Carol Pappas There is no disguising Vicki Harmon’s passion for history. Its roots run as deep as her family tree, most of it firmly planted in St. Clair County earth. Fact is, it goes much deeper than that. She penned a play for her hometown’s centennial, Our Town. She co-chairs the History Committee for Heart of Pell City, a downtown revitalization effort. She was a docent for the Smithsonian exhibition, The Way We Worked, which melded a local history exhibit with the national one. On Saturdays in April, you’ll find her sharing stories about local history with newcomers and old timers alike in the April Walking Tours downtown. And on social media, her stories about growing up in Pell City that she’s preserving for her children and grandchildren are garnering quite a following even outside the family. She says her love of history started in childhood. She seemed to always have a seat nearby when grownups talked about the past. Her mother, Matilee Truitt Dorough, was one of the first women elected to a countywide position – circuit clerk – and they “sat at the table and talked politics” while an inquisitive youngster listened. “I listened to all of it very intensely,” she recalled. Her grandmother lived next door. Small in stature, her grandmother was a huge influence in Vicki’s life through the stories she told her. Her grandmother was only nine years old when she began working in “the mill” – Avondale Mills. “She would tell me about life in the mill village.” When The Way We Worked came to Pell City and a group created a local version as a history of Pell City, it centered on the mill. A significant portion of Pell City’s history happened with the mill as its centerpiece. “The scenes of mill life were so similar to what my grandmother told me about her life.” Her grandmother was so small, her job was to reach into the equipment and pull the thread through the material. For much of her life, she blamed her poor eyesight on those early years, squinting to see the thread. Her grandmother married and had a son who died shortly after birth, but she persevered. “I asked her once if she was upset that she was denied a childhood.” Her answer was a swift ‘no.’ “We had food to eat, a house to live in and a little money coming in” because

Top Right: Family celebrates the burning of the outhouse at Eden. Vicki is on her father’s shoulders, her two sisters are in front and her uncle with his son on his shoulders. Bottom: Grandmother and Vicki’s two sisters – Judy, the oldest; Jane, the middle; and Vicki, the youngest, at their home in Eden

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

HISTORY KEEPER

Heart of Pell City honors Vicki as “Volunteer of the Year” as husband, Randall, looks on

of mill life. Her biggest regret? “Not having an education,” Vicki said. Her family pushed education. “They instilled curiosity in me to learn a little more,” she said. “Mother had above-average intelligence. She read all the time. We had a wealth of books to read in our house.” Vicki grew up in Eden and graduated from Alverson Draughon Business College. She landed a job at Liberty National Insurance while husband, Randall, went to school to become a draftsman. She credits being in the right place at the right time for that first job. “The head attorney was looking for a secretary. I interviewed, and he hired me that day.” A few years later, her first son – Lyle – came along, and she decided to return home and be a full-time mother. Two more children followed – Heath and Dorian. When Dorian was 3, Vicki made good on the lesson she learned from her family long ago. She started college at Gadsden State, when local classes were held in Pell City at Duran North. She later transferred to UAB, earned her education degree and taught in Pell City Schools for 25 years. Always the team, she and Randall would juggle schedules to accommodate raising their children, Randall often taking half vacation days to be home with the kids while Vicki was in class. “They were hard times,” he said, “but we made it.”

Sharing the passion

When she first started teaching, Kennedy Elementary, djrtaught all subjects. Later, she was able to teach her “favorites” – math and history. “I absolutely loved it.”

Surrounded by antiques, Vicki prizes the camel back/ball and clawfoot sofa that belonged to her mother.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

HISTORY KEEPER

As a docent for The Way We Worked, she took students back in time, sharing the stories of mill life she had heard while growing up. “It lit my fire,” she remembered. “I was so excited and thrilled” to be a part of it. “I enjoyed it so much. I enjoyed seeing the people who grew up here that I hadn’t seen in years.” She especially remembers a man who stood gazing at an exhibit photo of a beautiful young girl. “That was my wife,” he told her. She had passed away a few years earlier. “Seeing the children, especially younger children, I really enjoyed it,” she said. The exhibition was held at CEPA, Center for Education and Performing Arts, and she and other docents would take children into the theater to share historical facts about what they were about to see. “Some of them actually listened,” she said with a smile. “Of course, they enjoyed the exhibits.” That was seven years ago, and she is now working with the advisory council of the newly formed Museum of Pell City Board of Directors to help establish a museum. The museum will be located in the city’s Municipal Complex and will house Pell City’s The Way We Worked exhibit along with Making Alabama, the state’s bicentennial exhibit created by Alabama Humanities Alliance. Annually, she shares stories about the history of Pell City during the April Walking Tours. The wall of mayors, framed portrait photographs of every mayor, is her specialty. “That’s my love. I stick with the facts. I try not to bring anything that’s not valid. If I don’t know something’s true on a mayor, I don’t repeat it.” Nearly two years ago, her grandson Sloan “Boo” Harmon was tragically shot and killed. To help cope, she began writing on Facebook about growing up and sharing historical stories – something she intended for her children and grandchildren. “When Boo was killed, it was all I could do to keep my sanity. I didn’t think people would read it, but they asked for more and more.” It’s a precious legacy she hopes generations to come will appreciate. “The older they get, the more they appreciate it,” she said. “That’s the way we were. The older we got, the more we appreciated our past.” History repeats itself – with a little help from folks who treasure it.l

When Vicki wanted an old-fashioned basket, Randall – quite a handy craftsman – obliged. He personalized the bottom with an etching and his initials.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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It’s Time!

BASSMASTER ELITE

Springville angler Wes Logan makes a splash at Neely Henry

Wes cradles his championship trophy after Bassmaster Elite win.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Story by Paul South Photos by David Smith Before a high and tight pitch that got away, Wes Logan had dreams of big-league life on the baseball diamond. The same visions that fueled his younger Springville High Tiger teammate and current Detroit Tiger Casey Mize danced in Logan’s head. But the pitch that nailed Logan just below the right eye in a game against Moody – he still feels the hurt from time to time – charted a new course for his life. The bad pitch broke multiple bones near the eye, he says. “It was 18 or 19 bones, something like that. It was a bunch of ‘em. It shattered everything.” “I really thought I was going to play college baseball and fish on the side,” Logan says. “But that eye injury kind of shifted the focus. I ended up getting a degree in heating and air conditioning from Gadsden State. That’s when I really started focusing on bigger tournaments and trying to fish more regionally instead of just here locally. I was pretty successful doing that, fortunately. Things kind of happened pretty fast for me. I did very well in some key tournaments, and here we are four or five years later in the (Bassmaster) Elite Series.” Earlier this season, his second on the tour, Logan hooked a big win close to home. Some might say it was like hitting a walk-off grand slam in your home ballpark. Logan captured the Whataburger Bassmaster Elite Series event at Neely Henry Lake, waters he had fished since he was 5. He also has a runner-up finish at Guntersville Lake in his creel. Logan came from behind on the rain-drenched Neely Henry tournament’s third day and held on to capture his first Bassmaster Elite title in 14 tries and the $100,000 prize that comes with it. “That was a blessing for sure,” Logan says. “That was a special week.” While the 26-year-old has always loved to fish, it would be a

Wes fishing in the tournament. Photo by Bassmaster

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

BASSMASTER ELITE Despite the weighin delayed until Monday, a sizable crowd turns out.

Wes with winning catch

Photo by Bassmaster

Wes and family all smiles 22

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

hackneyed cliché to say he dreamed of making his living with rod and reel. But now, he’s living a dream, played out before fishing fans on national TV. “As a kid, you always feel like you want to do that.… But from where I was at 18-19 years old to five or six years later winning an Elite and backing it up with a second place at Guntersville, it’s a dream come true, really.” For Logan, the Elite Series packs a particular challenge. “The biggest thing that I’ve seen that makes me a better angler is the caliber of fishermen that I have to compete against and their work ethic,” Logan says. “It just makes me want to work that much harder and realize that if I don’t put in the work and the effort and the time, you’re not going to make it.” And it takes some breaks. “There has to be some luck involved, the good Lord blessing you a few times,” Logan says. “Putting yourself in those situations is what separates the good ones from the great ones.” Logan will quickly tell you he’s not near to being among the great ones yet. But before he fished his first pro event at 17 – a Bass Fishing League event at Neely Henry – his dad, Doug, gave him some good-natured ribbing, while gently reminding of the high standard his folks set for him as far back as T-ball. Logan laughed at the memory. “He told me before I left that morning, ‘If you don’t win, don’t come home, because you’re not welcome here,’” Logan said. “Obviously, he was kidding, but it was him instilling in me that just because you go out there and fish, don’t let that be good enough. Always try to be better. Always try to do the best that you can. Just that drive to be the best, whatever you’re doing.” His family is an important anchor for Logan’s career. Too, when he needs grounding, he walks a few steps to his boat garage, a man-cave filled with lures, rods, reels, sponsor shirts and hats, lots of hats – and his boat. Sometimes, in the quiet, he climbs aboard the boat and just thinks. “I’ll just go out there and sit in my boat and just tinker with tackle. Sometimes you sit there and realize how blessed I am to be living a very large amount of people’s dreams. It’ll bring you back and kind of level you a little bit.” If you want to know how grounded he is, consider his victory celebration after the win at Neely Henry. Dinner at Gadsden’s famous Top O’ the River restaurant and one of its signature appetizers – fried pickles. “You gotta have the fried pickles and pickled onions.” It was a low-key night. “It was a family deal. My parents, my great girlfriend, two of my best friends. Nothing crazy. It was a good evening.” Now, he’s on a course to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of bass fishing. Only the circuit’s 40 best anglers qualify for the year-end event. At the time of this writing, Logan was in the top 10 for Angler of the Year honors. “Right now, everything’s going good for Wes Logan,” he says. “We’re going to try to keep the train rolling as good as we can.” And as the train rolls, Logan doesn’t forget where the journey started. Kids will reach out to him on social media, and he always responds. When you grow up in a town like Springville, kindness matters. “I’m still the country boy from Springville, Ala., who just loves bass fishing,” Logan says. “Just because I’m on the Elite Series and the good Lord blessed me to win an Elite tournament, we’re all human, I’m just like everybody else. I just love to fish and I’m fortunate to have made it my job.” l

2022’s

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

NOW ARRIVING

Traveling the

BACKROADS

Educators’ lasting impact

Professor Yancy 24

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Story by Joe Whitten Submitted photos “Any person or persons who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read, or write, shall upon conviction thereof of indictment be fined in a sum of two hundred and fifty dollars.” This doleful Alabama law underscores the importance of education. Enacted in 1833, the law aligned with other Antebellum states’ laws which resulted from literate slave Nat Turner’s brief rebellion of 1831. Until then, slaves could be openly taught to read and write. Turner’s Rebellion ended in three days, and he was hanged. Sometimes referred to as the “Black Moses,” Nat Turner was literate, preached from the Bible and influenced both races. From his rebellion, slave owners realized that educating slaves was dangerous. Therefore, soon after Turner’s execution, slave states began passing laws forbidding educating Blacks – slave or freedmen. Ex-slave Frederick Douglass would later write, “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” So, it’s no wonder that after the Civil War and toward the end of Reconstruction in Alabama (1874), freed slaves began organizing their own churches and schools. Established Dec. 17, 1868, the Alabama Black Baptist Convention urged their members to foster education through the local churches. In his history, Uplifting the People, Three Centuries of Black Baptist in Alabama, Wilson Fallin, Jr., records: “In 1870, the convention advised its churches ‘to build schoolhouses and churches in their own means, declining all union with others, unless absolutely necessary.’” In St. Clair County, though, Ashville’s Black citizens had the “union” and support of White citizens in establishing the first school for children of former slaves. Old St. Clair County records show that on April 15, 1872, Pope Montgomery and wife deeded to the Methodist Episcopal Church a building to serve as a church and a school for “colored children.” That church was named St. Paul’s and continues today. About 90 years later, this school evolved into Ashville Colored High School and in 1965 to Ruben High School. According to Mrs. Bessie Byers’ valuable handwritten history of the school, the 1872 school began with two teachers who “were qualified to teach by having passed the teachers’ examination.” Attendance increased, and in a few years, more teachers were added, and both St. Paul’s Methodist Church and Mt. Zion Baptist Church served as classrooms for grades 1-7. Students sat on the church benches. Potbellied stoves supplied heat, and the men provided the wood and pine knots for starting the fires. The school had no PTA, but parents and community came together to support education. Mrs. Byers writes, “The parents began having ‘Saturday Nights at the Hall.’ Admission was 25 cents, and every child who came was given 25 cents to spend on goodies, such as parched peanuts, cookies, and drinks. The money collected went to the teachers to purchase blackboards, chalk, erasers, and other necessities.” These Saturday nights not only provided teachers with essentials but also brought the community together for fellowship. Those attending enjoyed spelling bees, poetry

Professor Lloyd Newton

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Traveling the

BACKROADS readings, games and singing. This community camaraderie has all but vanished in the whirlwind of today’s business. As years progressed, music became part of the curriculum. Many of the students had natural musical gifts though they never had lessons. Mrs. Byers wrote of Ila and Eva Byers, “They could play any melody once they’d heard it, although they’d never taken piano lessons. Each day,” she recalled, “a time was set aside when lessons were put aside and every child sang, filling the building with the sound of beautiful old Spirituals.” She mentions that four graduates of Ashville Colored High School formed a quartet called The Happy Four and sang to groups as far away as Chattanooga. If they added a fifth member, they called themselves The Happy Five. Margaret Bothwell LeFleur, class of 1963, recounted, “We had a little group of us girls called The Red Skirt Gang, and we used to sing the songs of the day – like Sincerely.” Gloria Williams, Gloria Woods, Pauline Mabry, Doris Turner and Margaret sang with the group. By 1935, the school needed a new building. Mrs. Byers recorded that the County Board of Education, led by Superintendent of Education James Baswell purchased from Jim Beason three acres on the “hilltop known as Jim Beason’s pasture,” where the Board constructed a three-room frame building. “It was a neat building,” she wrote, “painted white, with large classrooms and numerous windows. It was known as Ashville Colored High School, with grades one through 12.” The new school had running water but no lunchroom. Attendance grew quickly and the board added two more rooms. Five teachers gave instruction. Earlier times Let’s go back to1897 for a moment, for that year in Ashville was born to Wash and Sarah Yancy a baby boy they named Ruben. Sarah Yancy’s 1963 obituary lists Ruben’s siblings: Della Mostella, Gordan Yancy and Myrtis Noble. Ruben was the one destined to move Ashville’s Black school forward in the 1940s when he was known as “Professor Yancy,” principal of Ashville Colored High School. Information about Professor Yancy remains scant. Where he attended college seems a mystery, although 91-year-old Boone Turner recalls that Professor had several college degrees and “When school was out for the summer, he would take off to Chicago and take up classes.” He probably started at Millers Ferry, Wilcox County. He was teaching there when at age 21, he enlisted in the U.S. Army on Sept. 28, 1918. Teachers were exempt from registering, but he patriotically enlisted. However, the war ended less than two months later, and he received an honorable discharge on Dec. 26, 1918. Just where he taught after the war and what year he arrived in Ashville to teach is elusive. By 1947, Professor Yancy had been appointed principal of Ashville Colored High School. Some local senior citizens recall him well. Joe Lee Bothwell recalled, “When he told you to do something, he meant it. He was all about you learning.” Boone Turner said, “I can tell you he was a good man. He was the principal of the school and taught classes.” His influence was on both Black and White communities, Boone said. When White parents whose children

Margaret Jane Williams Bothwell needed tutoring in math, they sent them to him for tutoring. Jay Richey, whose dad, J.W. “Shag” Richey, principal of Ashville High School and later St. Clair superintendent of education, recalls hearing stories of the math tutoring and how “extremely intelligent” Professor Yancy was. As a well-educated, hometown man, Professor Yancy was respected throughout Ashville. Mrs. Byers observed that he “commanded the respect” of both students and parents. He also knew his students deserved a better school building with a lunchroom and library, and he set to work to bring that dream to fruition. “White citizens of Ashville,” Mrs. Byers wrote, “helped Mr. Yancy plan the new building,” which took several years. When Professor Yancy’s health forced him to retire, Lloyd Newton took over as Principal. On Feb. 26, 1958, Professor Yancy died, never seeing the fruit of his labor. The community’s love for him moved them to successfully petition the board of education to rename the school for him. Therefore, at the dedication of the new building, Dec. 15, 1965, they changed the name from Ashville Colored High School to Ruben Yancy High School. Eloise Williams recalled that after integration there was a move to change the school’s name, but Brother Clifford Thomas led the way in gathering petition signatures to present to the board of education to keep the name Ruben Yancy. The board approved. The school served the middle school for some years and now serves alternative education students. Under Professor Yancy’s photograph in the dedication day program appears these words: “The school is being renamed in honor of the late Prof. Ruben Yancy who was a native of

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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BACKROADS

Ashville and principal of Ashville Colored High School from 1947 to 1956. Because of his humanitarian efforts, the community has grown and become a better place to live. His life was an exemplification of all that is embodied in ‘The Teacher’s Creed.’”

Another legend Professor Lloyd Newton’s education career in St. Clair County made him a legend not only in Ruben Yancy High School but also in the integrated Ashville Elementary School. Lloyd’s father was a cotton farmer in Sumter County, according to a retirement article in The Anniston Star, Aug. 11, 1985. His mother died when he was three and his father married again. Erroll Newton, Lloyd’s son, recalled that after his dad graduated from high school, he lived with relatives in Fairfield, where several other relatives lived and worked. One of his aunts recognized Lloyd’s scholastic aptitude and introduced him to the president of Miles College. He enrolled in Miles, lived with his aunt and worked his way through college. The United States had entered World War II, and Lloyd joined the Navy where he was a first class motor machinist mate for four years. Erroll Newton says of his dad, “During WWII, the military was beginning to integrate all branches of service, and it was in the Navy that he developed his skill as an instructor.” According to the Anniston Star, “After working for Seaboard Railroad, the Navy, and (attending) Wayne State University in Michigan, he landed back in Alabama.” “It was after being discharged after WWII that he began his odyssey to further his career,” Erroll said. “He worked as railroad porter in the Ford Foundry and the Fairfield Foundry, and continuing college in Michigan.” “Back in Alabama,” Erroll continued, “He ran a nightclub in Fairfield a while before Dr. Bell, president of Miles College, gave him a reference to teach veterans in St. Clair County. A St. Clair News-Aegis article of Nov. 14, 1991, states that Professor Newton returned to his home state in 1947 and that he spent 37 years in St. Clair County education. Teaching veterans seems to be the beginning of his education career in St. Clair County, but at some point, he began teaching for Professor Yancy and taught until he became principal and was known as “Professor Newton.” Thousands of children profited from his teaching and mentoring, and each has a memory, as does his son, Erroll, who spoke for himself and his deceased brothers Lloyd, Jr., and Paul when he said, “To me he was just ‘Dad.’ With me not having a mom, he played both roles, and he did a good job. When we came along, he kind of took the reins off, so to speak. It was like, ‘If you want to advance, I’m setting an example for you. You choose your own way, though.’ He was Dad; that was him to me.” And later he was Granddad to Terrell, Chery, Shawn (deceased) and Ryan and several greatgrandchildren. Margaret Bothwell LeFleur credits her teachers and Professor Lloyd Newton at Ashville Colored High School for much of her own success in teaching. “All of our teachers were dedicated,” Margaret recalled. “Mrs. Marcelline Bell taught seventh- through 12th-grade English. We had textbooks, but we didn’t have a library. But she taught us the Dewey Decimal System even though we had

Margaret LeFleur at 75th birthday

no library to use that knowledge in. However, when I went to Bethune Cookman College, I knew how to use that system in a real library! Our teachers knew what we needed, and they did their best to compensate for the deficiencies.” Margaret’s dad drove her to Attalla twice a week for piano lessons for there was no Black piano teacher in Ashville. She progressed quickly, and as a seventh-grader played for high school graduation. She accompanied the school choir, which Professor Newton directed. In college she majored in music, which led to her career of teaching music in the schools of St. Paul, Minn. After Margaret’s mom bought her a typewriter and instruction book, Professor Newton helped her learn typing, and she became an office assistant to him during her high school years. Eloise Williams remembers Professor Newton as one who “set examples for the kids, and he and the teachers did a good job educating us.” She recalled that he disciplined when misbehavior called for it. She also knew him as the principal of Ashville Elementary School where her son attended the integrated school. “When the law passed,” she said, “the school had to integrate. Our kids had a hard time. The Whites weren’t used to the Blacks, and the Blacks weren’t used to the Whites. It was new thing for all of them. It didn’t work for a while, but then it smoothed out, and they began to get along with each other.” Mrs. Williams is lovingly known as “Sister Ella” in Ashville today. Most folk from the 1960s years agree that Professor Newton’s respect by both races, his professional demeanor,

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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BACKROADS and his calm guidance helped ease tensions of integration in Ashville. When Ruben Yancy ceased being a Black school in 1969, the County Board placed Professor Newton over the elementary grades at Ashville High School (grades K-12) where J. W. “Shag” Richey served as principal. When he moved to the central office of the county board, Mr. Keener became principal of Ashville High School and Professor Newton, principal of Ashville Elementary School, where he served until he retired in 1985. Jay Richey said of Professor Newton, “He was first class, and a loyal school man to my daddy, and I loved him dearly. Whatever job needed to be done, Mr. Newton did it well.” Recalling his father’s career, Erroll added that his “Dad considered Superintendent D.O. Langston a great asset to him” during his administration, and his “faculty members assisted him over the years.” He also mentioned the love of his “endless number of students.” Professor Newton’s students and teachers hold his memory dear. Maurice Crim started teaching for Professor Newton in 1957 and described him as “a man of integrity who was very supportive of his teachers. There were no problems for we all got along well there.” “He had a deep booming voice that made you automatically respect him,” student Joy Walker Raysaid. Others, too, recalled his voice and his love of singing. Glorine Williams became his daughter-in-law when she married Erroll Newton. “Growing up, I remember Mr. Newton coming to my home, and he always talked about the importance of education, attending school and doing your best no matter what. He believed in helping students, and he didn’t show favoritism with anyone. Everyone was treated equal.” His teachers at Ashville Elementary speak fondly of him. “Mr. J.W. Richey hired me,” recalls Beth Jones, “but Mr. Newton was my first principal. I remember ‘the Professor,’ as Mr. Richey affectionately called him, as a strict father to his teachers. He also had a firm but kind rapport with his students. “My first year, I had 43 fourth-graders. That year, Mr. Newton reminded me of something very important. The two of us were standing in the hallway at dismissal time, trying to find ways to get poster projects home. There was one last poster with no way to get it home,” she said. “As a new teacher and taking this lighter than I should, Mr. Newton chided me; for that last poster, even though not the best, demanded the same respect as any other. That poster was his work and important to the child. The child who made it was important. As a young, impressionable teacher, I never forgot Mr. Newton’s words to me, words that colored my entire career.” Susan Kell also has memories of the professor. “When Mr. Newton came to Ashville elementary, I was teaching first grade. I later became librarian and worked with him until his retirement. “Mr. Newton cared deeply for the Ashville community, especially the young children of Ashville Elementary. The 1970s were before school nurses, so he took care of the sick and all the playground ‘boo-boos.’ He once removed a tick from a child’s ear.

Seated are Eskle Smith and Margaret Williams Bothwell; children Jelanna snd Jamila LaFleur. Standing, left to right, are Rebecca Bothwell Ephraim, Tia Moseley, Brenda Bothwell Moseley and Margaret Ann B. “This, however, is one of my favorite Mr. Newton stories. There was a disturbance in the lunchroom, so I walked to the table to investigate. I heard, ‘Is too.’ ‘Is not.’ ‘We do.’ ‘Do not.’ I asked, ‘What is the problem?’ and a child replied, ‘We do have a school doctor, and there he is,’ as Mr. Newton walked into the lunchroom.” “He wore many hats other than principal – teacher, friend, counselor, singer, and yes, medical doctor!” Professor Newton retired in 1986 and continued his influence in St. Clair County through the Alabama Retired Teachers Association, serving on the Committee for Protective Services, and in service to his church. As a man of Christian faith, Professor Newton served as deacon and Sunday school teacher at Mt. Zion Baptist in Ashville. Well known for his basso profundo voice, he sang in the church choir and often sang solo. Combining his love of singing with his love of children, one wonders if when he arrived at the empty school some mornings, he may have voiced the old children’s gospel refrain: Jesus loves the little children, All the children of the world, Red and yellow, black and white They are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the children of the world. “Children are the greatest thing in my life,” Professor Newton told Viveca Novak of The Anniston Star, and his loving influence continues in the multitude of lives that he touched in his lifetime. Professor Newton, St. Clair County thanks you.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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Black Jacket Symphony Returns to Logan Martin Performing Tom Petty’s ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ Submitted Photos

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DISCOVER The The Essence Essence of of St. St. Clair Clair •• August August & & September September 2021 2021 DISCOVER

Fans gather on the water and on land for the previous BJS concert covering Queen.

The Black Jacket Symphony is again partnering with The Center for Education and Performing Arts, AmFirst and the City of Pell City for the summer’s biggest lake event. Join the festivities by boat or on land on Friday, Sept. 3, for a live performance of Tom Petty’s ‘Damn the Torpedoes.’ The event will be held at the Pell City Sports Complex on Logan Martin Lake as a kick-off for Labor Day weekend with an unforgettable concert under the stars sponsored by America’s First Federal Credit Union. Reserved VIP squares and general admission tickets are available. VIP squares accommodate up to four individuals. General admission areas will be open to all tickets. Fans are allowed and encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs for seating. On-site parking will be free but limited. Please carpool when able. Site access will open at 6 p.m. with the show starting at 7:30 p.m. “Last year’s inaugural Live at Logan Martin event was only possible thanks to CEPA’s many partners, especially AmFirst, LakeFest, the City of Pell City and The Black Jacket Symphony,” said Jeff Thompson, CEPA executive director. “It was the highlight of our year, and we think it was for many others as well. We’re ecstatic to be able to bring it back in 2021.” Due to the generosity of sponsors, the event is free to boats and will feature large video screens for optimum viewing. “As Pell City is our newest branch home, we are thrilled to bring the Black Jacket Symphony’s performance of Tom Petty’s ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ to the community and to our members,” said Bill Connor, AmFirst president and CEO. “We hope that this event will bring a much-needed evening of safe, outdoor fun for music lovers of all ages.” Proceeds benefit CEPA Management Corp. and its efforts to increase access to the performing arts in St. Clair County. In 2020, more than 800 attended on land and another 1,000 were estimated to have viewed the event from the water. The event raised funds that helped support both CEPA Management Corp. and the Logan Martin Charity Foundation during a difficult year. Limited VIP and general admission tickets are available. Additional event information can be found at liveatloganmartin.com. Sponsorship packages are available at all levels. About Black Jacket Symphony Never attended a Black Jacket Symphony concert? Remember putting on an album and listening start to finish? Relive that moment with a live concert experience unlike any other as the Black Jacket Symphony recreates a select classic album live in its entirety – note for note, sound for sound – plus a full set of greatest hits from the evening’s artist. BlackJacketSymphony.com SPONSORS Title: America‘s First Federal Credit Union Gold: City of Pell City Gold: Nicole Anderson / Lake Homes Realty Gold: Rambo Marine Gold: St. Clair Tourism Gold: United-Johnson Brothers of Alabama Silver: Aultman Dental VIP: Billy Shute / Webb & Co. Realty What: The Black Jacket Symphony presents Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ Where: Pell City Sports Complex at Lake Logan Martin When: Friday, September 3, 2021 @ 8 p.m. Tickets available at www.LiveAtLoganMartin.com Ticket Price: $25 GA; $200 VIP Squares (admits 4); Free on water For more info, email jason@aframemgmt.com

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Author T.K. Thorne with one of her rescue horses

T.K. Thorne

Springville author pulls back curtain on untold stories of Civil Rights Movement Story by Scottie Vickery Photos by Graham Hadley Submitted photos Author T.K. Thorne was just a baby when her mother and grandmother attended secret meetings of White residents who were willing to drive Blacks to work during the bus boycott in Montgomery. It was a bold move – and a dangerous one – during a time when the Ku Klux Klan ruled with threats and violence. “After one meeting, a cross was burned in my grandparents’ yard,” Thorne said. “My grandfather, who was a very gentle man, borrowed a shotgun and sat up all night. It was not until years later that I learned of my grandmother and mother’s courageous stance for civil rights.” Although her family’s story didn’t make the pages of her newly released book, Behind the Magic Curtain: Secrets, Spies, and Unsung White Allies of Birmingham’s Civil Rights Days (NewSouth Books), Thorne shares many little-known or untold stories of White citizens who quietly or boldly influenced social change. “Much of the truth of Birmingham in the civil rights era is ugly, plain and simple. This book is not an attempt to revise that truth,” Thorne wrote in the book’s introduction. “The darkness, however, is always what allows the light. And in Birmingham’s darkness, individual lights grew – some from shades of gray that bloomed into sparks, some lanterns of courage.” Thorne, who lives with her husband, Roger, on 40 acres on Straight Mountain just above Springville, said she was first approached via email by four Birmingham men – Bill Thomason, Karl Friedman, Doug Carpenter and former Birmingham News reporter and photographer Tom Lankford – about writing the book. They wanted to tell the stories “of those who worked for peace and racial progress under extraordinary circumstances in extraordinary times,” she wrote in the book’s preface. That led to eight years of intense research, during which she interviewed 50 people, read numerous books, combed the archives of several newspapers and watched many video interviews in the Birmingham Civil Rights Museum’s collection. The process seemed overwhelming at times, and the book includes 682 footnotes, which, along with the bibliography, take up 32 pages.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

T.K. Thorne “The research and writing were interwoven,” she said. “One would make me have to do the other. The biggest challenge was the time frame. I had all these vignettes, but I felt it was my responsibility to use them in a chronological way that made sense.” During the writing process, Thorne said she realized just how much we can learn from history. “There were some power players who made a huge difference, and there were other players, like women who were not in powerful business positions, who found ways to make an impact,” she said. “The lesson to me is that it doesn’t matter who you are, you can make a real difference.”

Finding her voice

The path to author was a winding one for Thorne, who grew up as Teresa Katz in Montgomery. Her father, Warren Katz, taught her to question everything, and her mother, Jane Katz, was the state chairperson for the League of Women Voters. Her mother exemplified, among other things, the principle that “one’s primary responsibility in life is to make the world a better place,” according to Thorne. After abandoning her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut in order to meet aliens, Thorne briefly considered a career as a writer after her grandmother, Dorothy Merz Lobman, helped her fall in love with books and stories. “By the time I was 15, I knew that was where my heart was, but I also knew making a living at that was a longshot,” she said. Thorne, 67, eventually earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Alabama, and after landing a job as a grant writer for the Birmingham Police Department in 1996, she was tasked with applying for funding for a computer-aided dispatch program. In order to better understand the need, she rode along with police officers. The grant was awarded, the department got its first computer, and Thorne applied for the police academy. “I enjoyed not knowing what was going to happen next,” she said. “I just wanted to try it. I had no idea it would turn into a career.” She served more than 20 years with the department, working as a patrol officer and detective and climbing the ranks before retiring as captain of the North Precinct and becoming executive director of Birmingham’s City Action Partnership, a position she held for 17 years. Through it all, she never stopped writing. Her first three books were published while she was still juggling the demands of a fulltime career, which she left in 2016. She’s published two awardwinning historical novels, Noah’s Wife and Angels at the Gate, and the first two books in a trilogy (House of Rose and House of Stone) are set in Birmingham and feature heroine Rose Brighton, a police detective who discovers she is a witch. Her first nonfiction endeavor, Last Chance for Justice, focuses on the investigation of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. Thorne said she thought that book was the reason she was approached by the four men – three of whom died before the book was published – about writing Behind the Magic Curtain. “I asked them if they were making the mistake to think that I was a civil rights expert because I wrote that book, because that wasn’t true,” she said. Instead, Bill Thomason told her it was her Noah’s Wife that convinced him she was author for the job. “He said, ‘Anybody who could write about a woman who has been dead for thousands of years and make me believe that’s how it happened can write this book,’” Thorne said with a laugh.

Thorne shows off her latest book in her library

Pulling back the curtain

She wasn’t convinced she’d take on the project until she read some of the notes Lankford had written during his time covering the Civil Rights Movement. Lankford, who passed away in late 2020, was a controversial journalist who was embedded with law enforcement and worked with local police and FBI agents in secret wiretapping and intelligence operations. In addition to his detailed notes and journals, he had an amazing memory, Thorne said, adding that the first notes he shared made the decision to write the book much easier. “I was hooked,” she said. “I was just so intrigued, and I realized this man was on the in-inside. That began the journey of researching this book.” As captivated as she was, Thorne was also a little wary. “That I relied extensively on (Lankford’s) memories and notes does not mean that I endorse all his methods or actions,” she wrote in the book’s preface. Despite the controversy surrounding his methods, Thorne said Lankford’s unique perspective gave him the ability to document the events of the time in a way no one else could. “I think the closest thing I could say about what motivated him is that he was driven by wanting to tell the truth,” Thorne said. “He admitted to me that he crossed the line as a journalist; he was too close to his subject matter. But he said, ‘I wouldn’t take a bit of it back.’” While researching the book, Thorne relied on the skills she learned in the police department. “The job of a detective is to discover what the truth is and trying to tell it without bias,” she said. Many of the truths she discovered involved White leaders of the Jewish, Christian, business and education communities; others were just White citizens who followed their hearts. Regardless of their standing in the community, they all “quietly and moderately or openly and boldly” worked for change. The following vignettes are among those she shared: • Karl Friedman, an attorney and one of the men who

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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T.K. Thorne T.K. Thorne, far left, at 4 years old playing in a swimming pool made out of an old tire and tarp in 1958 at the home of Civil Rights leaders Bob and Jean Graetz. Bob Graetz was a White minister of a Black congregation and joked that this was “the first integrated swimming pool in Montgomery,” Thorne said.

approached her about writing the book, “had many deep friendships across the color line,” Thorne said. One of those friends was J. Mason Davis, a young Black civil rights attorney. Friedman and attorney Jack Held often ate lunch out of the courthouse’s vending machine with Davis, who wasn’t allowed in a downtown restaurant. Later, all three became partners at Sirote & Permutt, of which Friedman was a founding partner. Friedman hosted many meetings of Black leaders at his home, and a bullet was shot through the front window as a result. • Eileen Walbert knocked on doors in the Black Rosedale community of Homewood to encourage the residents to help integrate the White schools. She picked the children up and took them to school and often brought them home with her so they could swim in her backyard pool. Having a cross burned in her yard and receiving threatening calls from KKK members did not deter her. “I was learning how to be brave,” she said in a 2014 interview with the Homewood Star. “A bully, if you let them know you’re not scared, they’ll back off.” • Paul Couch, a detective with the Mountain Brook Police Department, was moved to action on his day off when he heard about the murder of 13-year-old Virgil Ware, who was killed the afternoon of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four young girls. Virgil was riding on the handlebars of his brother’s bicycle when two 16-year-old White boys on a red motorcycle shot him with a .22 pistol. Couch followed a hunch and drove around the Fultondale area to look for the shooters, Thorne said. After he copied down the motorcycle’s tag number, the case was solved in two days. The shooters received probation. • White people in a green car came to the aid of James Ware after his brother was shot. After seeing James on the

road with Virgil’s body, they asked the teenager if there was anything they could do to help. James asked them to go find his mother and bring her to the scene, which they did. More than three decades later, James still remembered the act and said, “I would like to thank the White people in the green car – whoever they are, for helping me and my family that night.”

A quiet home

Thorne wrote the book from her mountaintop home, a beautiful place that reminds her of her childhood visits to Virginia and Clifford Durr’s farm at “Pea Level” on Corn Creek in Wetumpka. The Durrs were longtime family friends, and she has many special memories of the cabin there, including the time she sat on the front porch with Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat on the bus sparked the Montgomery bus boycott. Clifford Durr, an attorney, was one of the men who bailed Parks out of jail and later served as her counsel. For the most part, though, Thorne remembers the fun she had playing in the creek and climbing on the nearby boulders. “That was my favorite place in the world,” she said. That’s why, when a real estate agent showed them the land and the nearby Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River, Thorne was sold. “We’re going to live here,” she told her husband. It proved to be the perfect spot to quarantine, finish the book and reflect on the lessons she’s learned and the impact she hopes it will make. “The main thing I learned is it’s complicated,” she said. “We are wired as human beings to want the simple story. We want heroes and bad guys. That simplified version of history is an illusion, though, and that is true of all history. We need to learn from that because if we can understand our history, we can better determine our present and our future.” l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

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DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Graham Hadley Some call it the Rock House because of the building materials used for its walls. Others call it the Weaning House because several young newlyweds have lived in it. Historically, it is known as the R.E. Jones House, after its builder and original occupants. Regardless of what you call it, this Craftsman-style house on U.S. 231 near downtown Ashville has been home to four generations of a local family with the fifth due in June. That’s a lot of love and laughter for a house that’s only 76 years old. “My daddy started building the house right before WWII,” says Ross T. Jones, the current owner and a former transportation supervisor for the St. Clair County Board of Education. “He went to war before he could finish it and returned in 1945, then completed it in 1946.” Ross’ daddy, Ross Earl (Buddy) Jones, was born in 1909. He was the son of Ashville businessman Green T. Jones, who co-owned the Jones and McBrayer General Store with A.L. McBrayer of Ashville. The store sold everything from milk to coffins. After graduating from high school, Buddy Jones worked for the county and for his father, delivering coal in the winter and ice in the summer to area customers. Buddy married Lorene Montgomery, whose father, Walter Montgomery, had purchased the land where the Rock House stands in the late 1800s for $500, a horse and a saddle. The 3.5 acres of land came with an existing house. Lorene’s parents lived in that house, which is next door to where the Rock House was built, until they died. Ross Jones’s nephew lives there today. By the time Buddy was drafted, he had finished the two back bedrooms, central hallway and kitchen of the Rock House. “My mom and brother, Jerry, lived there while dad was on active duty,” Ross says. When he returned from the war, Buddy finished a third bedroom, the breakfast nook, living room and dining room. The rooms were kept warm by a wood heater in the hallway. Its flue has since been removed and covered over. “There was an outhouse on the property back then, and we’re not sure when the indoor bathroom was added,” says Ross, who was raised in the Rock House. “It was probably about the time Ashville got a sewer system, because we’ve never had a septic tank here.”

Four generations: Ross T. Jones, Laura Norris, Gracie Merritt and daughter Hattie Grace

Original stone arches over the porch

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

ROCK HOUSE The warm living room with its fireplace

Glass-fronted cabinets off the kitchen in the breakfast nook

He has the original blueprints for the house, which was patterned after a rock home in Albertville. His father gathered the rocks for the foundation and outside walls in the afternoons after he got off work. He and a co-worker took the company truck after making coal or ice deliveries and picked up rocks in various fields around Ashville. He dumped them into a big pile in what is now the backyard. “Folks were glad to get them out of their fields so they could grow crops,” says Ross. When Forney Coker started laying the stones, he soon announced to Buddy Jones, “You don’t have half enough.” So, Buddy continued his rock gathering until he had the amount needed. Some of those rocks support the house from underneath. Two 20-foot-long rock columns, each about 2.5-3 feet in height and two feet wide, start at the back and end where the hallway stops and the dining room begins. The front porch wraps around half of the right side of the house and uses six rock columns that measure 2.5 feet on each side. Each column is topped with a concrete banister. The columns and walls were formed by building wood frames, stacking rocks in them and pouring concrete into the frames. After the concrete set, builders moved the frame higher, added more rocks and concrete, then repeated the process until the columns and walls reached the desired heights. There are two ways to enter from the front porch. An arched entryway rises above French doors at the main entrance, which takes you in through the dining room. To the left of the dining room is the living room, which can be entered through a single outside door. “Grandmother used that door, but hardly anybody else has since her,” says Laura Norris, Ross Jones’s daughter. “Most use the French doors into the dining room.” Behind the dining room is a breakfast nook that leads into the kitchen. The hallway runs from the dining room to the house’s only bathroom at the back. The breakfast nook, kitchen and back bedroom are off the right side of the hall, while two bedrooms and a small closet between them are off the left side. The back bedroom on the right is being used by the current residents, Laura’s daughter, Gracie, and her husband, Stoney Merritt, as a laundry room, storage room and extra closet. A side door enters a tiny area that used to house Ross’ mother’s washing machine, and that area leads into the breakfast nook. “There are only three closets in the house, including the utility closet in the hallway,” Laura says. “There’s a brick fireplace in the back bedroom and another one in the living room that are original. They are so shallow, we think more coal than wood was burned in them.” Several newlyweds rented the house after Buddy and Lorene’s death. Laura didn’t live there until she married Michael Norris in late 1999. They lived there until 2001. Jonathan Jones, Laura’s brother, moved in when he returned from college, staying until he moved to Huntsville in 2005. In 2006, Laura and Michael returned to the Rock House, this time turning it into the offices of their startup company, Laboratory Resources and Solutions (LRS). When LRS moved into their current office in downtown Ashville in 2017, Laura turned the cottage into an Airbnb for a couple of years. “We had a lot more business than I thought this area would have,” Laura says of that enterprise. “Roses &

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

ROCK HOUSE

Lace Bed-and-Breakfast next door had closed, and we got a lot of guests from wedding venues and Talladega race fans.” That incarnation ended in August of 2020 when Gracie and Stoney moved in as newlyweds. When their daughter, Hattie Grace,was recently born, she became the fifth generation of the same local family to live in the Rock House. “Mom and dad helped us do a few renovations before we lived there in 1999, and Michael and I have done all of the renovations that have taken place since 2006,” Laura says. She and Michael kept the original hardwood floors in the living room, dining room and front bedroom, had the dirty carpet ripped up from the hallway and back rooms, then replaced the pine that was under that with more hardwood, and had all hardwood floors stained to match. All doors and windows are original, but the roof is fairly new and so is the wiring and plumbing. Plaster walls were patched and painted throughout the house. They also added heating and air. “I wanted to maintain the original character of the house,” Laura says. “I tried to save the original sink in the kitchen, but it was rusted through.” The bathtub is original to the house. Ross tiled parts of the plaster walls alongside the bathtub during the 1990s to create a shower. While re-wiring the house, their electrician fell through the plaster ceiling in the hallway. “We had to call in a plaster guy to fix it,” Michael Norris says. It wasn’t the first time that had happened, though. “I did the same thing when Laura and I lived here,” Michael says. “We were putting insulation in the attic, and you have to walk on the wooden beams, and there’s still bark on them. The bark came off and I fell through.” Two outbuildings are original to the property, one a barn, the other a shed. The barn was built by Ross Jones’ maternal grandfather, Walter Montgomery, and the white shed by his father, Buddy. “The third door of that white outbuilding on the right was the outhouse,” says Laura. “My grandfather moved grandmother’s washing machine out there after it caused the floor at the side entrance of the house to rot. He covered the hole where the outhouse had been with a slab of concrete and put a drain in it for her wash house.” Laura had the kitchen remodeled for Gracie. She replaced brown appliances from the 1960s with stainless-steel editions, added a dishwasher and replaced the flooring with gray, interlocking tiles. She kept the cabinets that were built by Wilson Construction of Ashville in the 1960s. “We put new doors on them and painted them white,” she says. “The old ones were stained from years of cooking.” She put in quartz countertops, with white subway tiles for the backsplashes, a gray under-mount sink of a composite material, and added modern light fixtures. “We had to special-order the wall oven to fit the 30-inch space,” Michael says. “The standard is 36 inches.” The Hoosier cabinet in the breakfast nook belonged to Laura’s grandmother on her mother’s side. “She made lots of biscuits on it,” says Laura’s mother, Beth Jones. “The marble countertop in the breakfast room is from the soda fountain in the original Ashville Drugs, when it was next door to Teague Mercantile.” This is Gracie’s second time to live in the Rock House. “I wasn’t even two when we moved,” she says. “I learned to walk in the hallway. I had grid marks on my feet as a child from walking on the floor furnace (now a cold air return for the HVAC system). I’m using a dresser and vanity that belonged to

Hoosier cabinet in the breakfast nook

Front door still uses the original key to lock

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the original owner, my great-grandmother, and she used them in the same bedroom.” Laura used the same pieces of furniture as a teenager, then Gracie used them as a child where her parents live now on County Road 33. “They came back home,” Gracie says. Her favorite spots in the house are the kitchen and front porch. “There’s always a breeze on the porch,” she says. Her grandfather, Ross, adds, “In the summers it doesn’t get hot in here.” Laura still has the original key to the front door, although she thought she had lost it when the child of an Airbnb tenant took it out of the door when his family traveled back to Texas. “I couldn’t open the front doors without it, so I called the family, and they found it in their child’s belongings and sent it back to me,” she says. Gracie has many fond memories of playing in the backyard with her younger brother, John-Michael, and exploring the woods behind the backyard. “There used to be a big crabapple tree that we climbed a lot,” she says. The limitations of just one bathroom and few closets will eventually propel Gracie, Stoney and little Hattie to find a larger home, but in the meantime, there’s no place that she had rather be, she says. “I like the idea of living around so much family history.” l

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Almost a decade of health care service to region Story by Leigh Pritchett Photos by Graham Hadley My, how time does fly. It does not seem so long ago that St. Clair County’s hospital moved into its current facility overlooking Interstate 20 in Pell City. On Dec. 10, 2021, Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair will mark its 10th anniversary in that new building. The 79,000-square-foot hospital opened with 34 medical-surgical beds; six intensive care unit beds; an emergency room with 10 examination rooms and two trauma rooms; a surgery center; diagnostic lab and imaging amenities. During those 10 years, many other services have been added, and hospital utilization has risen steadily, said Lisa Nichols, hospital administrator. “Our volume has increased for inpatient, and we grow and grow every year,” Nichols said. Outpatient services keep expanding, offering more specialty physicians, so that St. Clair residents may get the care they need right in the community, Nichols said. Multiple physicians with offices in other cities maintain satellite locations in the hospital’s Physicians Plaza, Nichols said. The plaza also is home to three private practices – in pain management, ophthalmology and dialysis – as well as a medical equipment supplier. In the past year, a urology clinic was added, and patients can have their procedures done at the hospital. “They are really getting busy,” Nichols said of its schedule of procedures.

New Ascension branding on St. Vincent’s St. Clair

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY

Medical offices housed in the Physicians Plaza next to the hospital

Also during the past year, the number of specialists available to inpatients through the hospital’s telemedicine program grew to include neurology and psychiatry. Currently, the hospital has five-day, in-person coverage for cardiology, which will increase soon to seven days with telemedicine, Nichols said. The hospital, she continued, has more than 115 physicians on staff in various fields, namely, family practice, internal medicine, cardiology, pediatrics, emergency medicine, anesthesiology, general surgery, orthopedics, otolaryngology, gynecology, ophthalmology, pain management, gastroenterology, podiatry, radiology, pathology, neurology, psychiatry (through telemedicine only) and nephrology. Added to that is an array of outpatient services, such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy (children and adults), radiology (MRI, CT and bone density), diagnostic lab, hyperbaric and comprehensive wound care, outpatient

New name, same core values

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

VISION FULFILLED A decade ago, St. Vincent’s St. Clair opened its doors to a new era in health care for our community, providing unparalleled services and quality care 24/7. The staff and management truly are our heroes, and we thank them for their service to our community each and every day and for making our vision come true!

St. Clair County Health Care Authority

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ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY surgery, sleep disorders lab, diabetes education, sports medicine and respiratory care. “On any given day during the week – Monday through Friday – we offer services to an average of 300 people per day,” Nichols said. “We see a lot of people in one day.” Incidentally, that figure does not include the individuals who see doctors at Physicians Plaza, receive treatment at the dialysis center or visit the medical equipment supplier, Nichols said. The emergency department alone is treating 60 to70 patients a day, she said. “The last fiscal year, we saw 22,496 patients” in the emergency department. Employment at the hospital stands at about 227, but the number swells to 300 when contract employees from Touchpoint (food service and environmental service) and Medexcel (maintenance) are included.

A storied history

St. Clair County Hospital, as it was known then, opened in 1970 as a Hill-Burton facility and had 68 beds, Nichols said. That hospital was situated just a few miles east of the current Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair and across the interstate. The University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital (UAB), in 1985, assumed management of St. Clair County Hospital. In 2002, Eastern Health Systems took over leadership. Then, Eastern Health Systems and St. Vincent’s Health Systems merged in 2007. On Dec. 10, 2011, St. Clair County Hospital closed, and St. Vincent’s St. Clair Hospital opened, Nichols said. The new hospital had come to be through the efforts of Ascension St. Vincent’s, the City of Pell City, St. Clair

The new physical therapy section of the hospital

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY

Entrance to Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair

County Commission, St. Clair Economic Development Council, St. Clair County Health Care Authority, physicians, associates and the community, Nichols said. Recently, Ascension – the parent of St. Vincent’s Health Systems – was incorporated into the local hospital’s name. Thus, Pell City’s hospital now is called Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair. Ascension’s website (www.ascension. org) states that the parent group is “one of the leading non-profit and Catholic health systems in the U.S. ... The national health system operates 2,600 sites of care – including 146 hospitals and more than 40 senior living facilities – in 19 states and the District of Columbia.” Since Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair moved into the present facility, the number and spectrum of surgeries have increased markedly. More surgeons have joined the staff to meet growing demand. Nichols said the types of surgeries performed at the hospital include, for example, urological procedures, gastroenterological procedures, total hip and total knee replacement. Teams are available five

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ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY The hospital as it looked almost a decade ago.

days a week for both general surgery and gastroenterological procedures. The hospital offers advanced technology and equipment, a spacious environment and “a great staff that live in this community, who want to provide great care,” Nichols said. The radius of care encompasses more than just the local community. “We proudly serve patients from all surrounding counties, ... Etowah, Calhoun, Talladega, Jefferson, (etc.) – (all) the counties that touch St. Clair,” Nichols said.

Focused on quality care

Improving access of care for the community was the reason for building a new hospital and continues to be the focus of the staff each day, Nichols said. “That is a continual goal for us.” It not only is accomplished through more services and medical staff, but also attention to treatment and quality of care. Both the hospital and its diagnostic lab are accredited

Architects at the time of opening, from left, Chuck Penuel, Russ Realmuto and Jared Bussey 56

Almost 10 years have passed since the last patient was transferred from the old hospital to the new one.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY

Signs on the property honoring the hospital doctors, nurses and staff

through Joint Commission. The hospital has established an extensive quality team that works to assure the level of care for all patients. The hospital consistently receives good scores in patient satisfaction, Nichols said. In addition, Joint Commission has recognized Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair as a top performer in the state and nation for pneumonia quality measures. Nichols said those measures include identification, treatment and prevention of pneumonia cases for inpatients. Concentrating on its mission of improving access to care, the hospital provided a free, COVID-19 vaccination clinic and, as of late June, had given injections to 2,310 individuals, Nichols said. “We were happy that we could offer it.” She added that the entire hospital staff appreciated the outpouring of support from the community – the prayers, meals and snacks – during the difficult days of the pandemic. “We are so thankful for the support from the community during the COVID surge,” Nichols said. “We are truly blessed to be part of such a wonderful community.”

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ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY Standing in front of the portrait honoring the Millers are, from left: Bill Hereford, Janis Miller and Paul Garing.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Lakeside Hospice Celebrates 30th anniversary of founding

Children born into all kinds of circumstances have dreams and dreams are powerful. WE DO WHAT WE DO BECAUSE CHILDREN HAVE DREAMS.

Story and photos by Carol Pappas It truly was pioneering – creating a hospice organization that was faith-based and nonprofit. The year was 1991, and hospice care was simply a concept in St. Clair County, Alabama. But two trailblazing medical professionals – Dr. Alex Miller, and his wife, Janis, a registered nurse – believed in the cause and brought it to fruition. “The whole concept was Alex’s vision,” his widow, Janis Miller said at a Founders Day celebration at Lakeside Hospice for its original organization – St. Clair Care, A Hospice Inc. Thirty years ago, there was no hospice in the county. With funders, much of it from the Millers’ own pockets in the beginning, and a staff of four, St. Clair Care set the standard. That fledgling staff – the Millers, social worker Sylvia Ossinga and Chaplain Van Foreman – set out to offer 24/7 care to patients in their final days, dying with dignity in the comfort of their own home. When Lakeside Hospice Board Chairman Bill Hereford notified longtime board member Isabella Trussell that a 30th-anniversary celebration was in the works and that the Millers would be honored with a special Founders Day, her reply was simple: “It’s about time.” Thirty years ago, the Millers’ vision was historic; their mission, unrivaled. They took six patients into their care before Medicare would even reimburse. Today, thousands of patients and their families have felt the comforting hand of Lakeside Hospice’s care. “The debt we owe them we couldn’t possibly repay,” Hereford said. “The four of us concentrated efforts where they needed to be,” Miller said on Founders

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ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY Day. “We attended every death. We were the only hospice in the country with a full-time physician on staff that went into the home.” She was quick to point out that the journey had plenty of help along the way. Lakeside needed a place to meet in its infancy. The late Margaret Bryant, owner of Data Control in downtown Pell City, stepped forward, offering half the space of her office “gratis. She provided everything, including her love,” Miller said. They would become the best of friends, and Margaret’s son, Todd, would become Miller’s godson. The act of his mother offering space and support and witnessing firsthand the mission of hospice’s care “taught me and made me what I am today,” Todd Bryant said. “It taught me to be a giving person. Giving is what hospice is all about.” “It was needed in ’91 when there was no hospice. It is needed now more than ever,” said Trussell, who cared for her own father at home with no services available at the time. “There are so many people who could not take care of a loved one at home without hospice.” And at Lakeside, they make sure no one goes without those services. It never has. It has been providing indigent care since Day 1. “It’s always been there. I am proud of that,” Trussell said. Paul Garing, Lakeside Hospice’s executive director, unveiled a portrait of the Millers that now hangs in a special place in the foyer of the office, greeting all who enter, a reminder of the driving force behind it all. “They had a common love for this mission,” Garing said.

Portrait of Dr. Alex and Janis Miller

Early Days

“Hospice belongs to the people of St. Clair County,” Dr. Miller said as opening day approached in March 1991, and the course was set for the comprehensive community effort that would follow for the next three decades. The first officers were: • Ray Miller, president • Lawrence Fields, vice president • Elma Smithson, secretary • Kathy Guin, treasurer • Bruce Etheredge, executive board • Lyman Lovejoy, executive board • Elizabeth Parsons, executive board • Dr. Miller, executive board Other board members were: Charles Forman, Dr. Russell Barr, the Rev. Don Cross, the Rev. Van Foreman, Dr. John Haynes, Sonny Kilgroe, Isabella Trussell, Ernest White and Betty Ossinga. Famed watercolorist Wayne Spradley created the first logo – a pair of doves with one sheltering the other with a wing. Donations began coming in from individuals, businesses and organizations under the fundraising leadership of then Mayor Lawrence Fields. A grief support group formed, meeting at St.

Todd Bryant, Miller’s godson, tells of the impact of hospice and giving. Simon Peter Episcopal Church. By June of 1991, 25 volunteers went through six weeks of training and graduated. By Christmas, the Millers hosted an open house at their home to thank hospice staff, volunteers and supporters. A scrapbook of photos with captions tells what can only be deemed as the beginning of a success story: “It’s been a great first year. We’re tired and we’re proud.” “We’ve just accepted our 50th patient in nine months.” “Happy New Year to 1992!”

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Pell City Internal and Family Medicine

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Story by Jackie Romine Walburn Discover staff photos St. Clair County medical practices are partnering with specialists from larger municipal area to bring specialty medicine – from cardiology to surgery to dermatology – closer to home. “Having the specialists here in our office offers continuity of care for patients, plus convenience and familiarity,” says Pell City Internal and Family Medicine (PCIFM) office manager Terri Woods. “The response from patients is always positive.” The specialists now seeing patients through PCIFM lease offices at the practice’s facility at 41 Emience Way in Pell City. When needed, the internal and family medicine physicians refer patients to specialists who bring staff and see patients in Pell City on a regular basis. The medical specialties often needed by patients of Pell City’s internal and family medicine practices include cardiology, orthopedics, general surgery, gastroenterology, nephrology (kidney care), podiatry and dermatology. Currently PCIFM has five medical specialists who see patients on referrals from the local practice. Each specialist’s offices schedule appointments and have medical staff who come to the Pell City offices. Medical specialists now seeing patients in Pell City through PCIFM include: Dr. Karl E. Hofammann III, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine, total joint replacement, hand and wrist surgery and general orthopedics. He practices at Orthosports Associates offices at Citizen’s Baptist Medical Center, St. Vincent’s East and Pell City Internal and Family Medicine. Dr. Vinh Nyguyen, a general surgeon who focuses on areas and organs of the abdomen and related organs, specializes in invasive or minimally invasive surgical techniques with the latter reducing recovery time and stress on the patient’s body. He has offices in Birmingham, Oneonta and Pell City.

Leading Providers For: • Chest Pain & Hypertension • Minimally Invasive Therapies for the Heart and Upper/Lower Extremities • Treatment of AFIB • Venous and Vascular Treatment of the Legs • Cardiac and Vascular Imaging

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100 Pilot Medical Dr., Ste. 300 Birmingham 205.856.2284

100 Pilot Medical Dr., Ste. 185 Birmingham 205.815.4800

BHC at St. Vincent’s BHC at Northside BHC at St. Vincent’s Medical Center Blount Gardendale 2217 Decatur Hwy. Gardendale 205.518.7660

74Plaza Drive Ste. 2B Pell City 205.815.4818

150 Gilbreath Drive Oneonta 205.274.3323

ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY Optometry and ophthalmology

Dr. Raj Patel, a board-certified dermatologist trained in micrographic surgery and cutaneous oncology. A native of Shelby County, Dr. Patel is the only ACMS (American College of Mohs Surgery) fellowship trained in Mohs and reconstructive surgeon in Shelby and Chilton counties. Working with Truye Dermatology, Dr. Patel has offices in Alabaster, Birmingham, Clanton and in Pell City at the PCIFM. Dr. Alvaro A. Aldana, a cardiologist with Grandview Medical Group. He specializes in intervention with coronary, renal and peripheral vascular disease and is board certified in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology. A native of Columbia, he earned his medical degree from Javeriana in Bogotá and completed a fellowship in general and interventional cardiology at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Ill. In addition to office hours at Pell City, he sees patients at Alabama Cardiovascular Group in Birmingham and Grandview Medical Group Primary Care and Cardiology Trussville. Dr. Jay Long, a general surgeon specializing

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Sports medicine

Yeah, it’s still a little early for Halloween, but we’d like to get an early start on the ghostly season. We want to do a feature on St. Clair County hauntings. Do you know of any? Are there places in this county that scare the heebie-jeebies out of you and anyone else who ventures inside (houses? buildings?), walks through or even near (cemeteries?), crosses (streams? bridges?) or otherwise comes into contact with? Are there places with ghostly reputations or that just seem eerie? Do you have some stores passed down from your Grannie or Paw-Paw? Please let us know PDQ. Write to Elaine Hobson Miller at ehm47@ windstream.net with suggestions and ideas. Be sure to include your name and telephone number so she can get in touch with you. After all, she may be writing about the supernatural, but she’s no seer!

Transfer Programs - Career Programs - Dual Enrollment Aff ffo ordable Tuiti tio on - Guaranteed Credit Transfer - Online Classes Four Convenient Campuses - Personal Att tte enti tio on - Flexible Scheduling

(205) 856-7704 j ef fer s o ns t at e. ed u

ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY

The campus of Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair in bariatrics, who sees patients at Birmingham Minimally Invasive Surgery (BMI.com) in Birmingham. Associated with St. Vincent’s East and St. Vincent’s St. Clair, Grandview and PCIFM in Pell City, he provides a one-on-one consultation with all patients to begin their weight-loss journey. He and a multidisciplinary team offers support before and after any surgery with monthly support meetings, nutrition classes and customized high-protein diets. At Northside Medical Associates, which becomes “Complete Health – Pell City” at the end of August, having specialists on site “helps ensure that the care patients need is convenient, even when being sick is not,” says Clay Barnett, corporate communications manager for Complete Health. It is a primary care medical group Northside joined in October of 2020. “We strive for easy access and having these groups on our campus certainly makes that a simpler task, especially for our patients who might not be comfortable driving into metro-Birmingham to an intimidating hospital setting,”

Obstetrics is one of the many specialties available in St. Clair County.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

HAS MOVED

We are excited over our new location and upcoming

WELLNESS CENTER that is offering

Chiropractic Care and Massage

205.884.1160

SPACE AVAILABLE FOR HEALTH SERVICES

422 Martin Street - Pell City

ST. CLAIR MEDICAL COMMUNITY

Northside Medical Home, which becomes Complete Health-Pell City at the end of August, hosts a multitude of specialties

Barnett adds. He noted that since Northside joined forces with Birmingham Internal Medicine Associates (BIMA) and Complete Health the group has become the Birmingham area’s leading primary care group. The addition of medical specialists, who lease office space at Northside’s 80,000-square-foot campus on Plaza Drive, complements Northside’s existing state-of-the-art imaging, on-site pharmacy and a 365-day-per-year Urgent Care center serving the people of St. Clair County. The Northside medical practice, founded in 2001 with three physicians, has grown to more than 150 care providers and staff in four medical offices, including Moody, Springville and Trussville. Northside has more than 12 specialist physicians and practices seeing patients at Pell City offices, says Shelley Gallup, clinical services manager for the practice. The specialist groups lease space within the Pell City facility and respond to referrals from Northside’s 12 physicians and 16 nurse practitioners but are not directly affiliated with Complete Health. Offering expertise in medical specialties including obstetrics and gynecology, ear, nose and throat, oncology, cardiology,

Callahan Eye Clinic is located in Physicians Plaza.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

ophthalmology, general surgery, gastroenterology, orthopedics, dermatology, nephrology and podiatry. Now seeing patients in Pell City via Northside and Complete Health are specialists: Dr. Lewis Schulman, an OB/GYN physician with Grandview Medical Group, who specializes in obstetrical and gynecological care, urinary incontinence management, contraceptive options and hormone therapy. Dr. Julie Taylor, a board-certified physician in obstetrics and gynecology with Ob-Gyn South and on staff at Brookwood Medical Center and St. Vincent’s St. Clair. Specialties include adolescent medicine, high-risk obstetrics and robotic surgery. Dr. Justin Aldred, an obstetrician and gynecologist with Ob-Gyn South, has specialties including high-risk obstetrics, laparoscopic/robotic surgery and urinary incontinence. Dr. Stephen Favrot, an otologist with ENT Associates, treats otologic and general otolaryngologic disorders. His areas of interest include treatment of hearing loss and balance disorders and of tumors of the skull base. He treats children and adults, including cochlear implantation and the bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA). Dr. E. Scott Elledge, an otolaryngologist with ENT Associates, specializes in head and neck surgery, pediatric ENT, nasal and sinus disorders and allergies. Cardiologists with Birmingham Heart Clinic in Birmingham specialize in treating coronary, carotid and peripheral disease with minimally invasive procedures to repair aortic aneurysms (PEVAR), replace aortic valves (TAVR) and transcarotid artery revascularization. Surgeons from Eastern Surgical Associates of Birmingham specialize in minimally invasive laparoscopic and robotic surgery and operations in the areas of oncology, endocrinology, gastrointestinal disorders and vascular disorders. Vision First Eye Center is a full-service eye care facility owned by Dr. Mark Bearman and Dr. Mark Mclintock. Vision First’s Pell City office at 74 Plaza Drive, specializes in laser cataract surgery and iDesign guided iLASIK surgery.

Birmingham Heart Clinic 71

St. Clair, Alabama

Business Review

Starbucks, strip mall under construction at U.S. 231 and I-20 72 • DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • Business Review • August & September 2021

Story by Linda Long Photos by Carol Pappas

Retail growth

New shopping experiences ahead for entire St. Clair County region

The raucous rat-a-tat-tat of a jack hammer; a bulldozer’s piercing, warning beeps as it goes into reverse; a low, steady rumble as dump trucks empty their loads. Construction sounds may be noise to most of us, but to Don Smith, they are music to his ears. Smith, executive director of the St. Clair County Economic Development Council, is seeing retail expansion throughout the county these days as businesses rise up from 2020, the worst economic period in our nation’s history since the Great Depression. According to Smith, St. Clair County did better than most places during the pandemic, placing it in an enviable position – a huge blip on many retailers’ radar screens. “Unlike most large urban areas, the communities in St. Clair County fared quite well during the 2020 pandemic,” he said. “Overall, there was an 8% increase in spending locally despite the nationwide economic shutdown. That combined with our community consistently being one of the top 10 fastest growing counties in the state has the cities of St. Clair on the radar of many retailers. That construction “music” also sounds good to Brian Muenger, Pell City’s City Manager. He said new retail space is now being built on Dr. John Haynes Drive at the location of the old Hardee’s building, which closed in 2019. Overlooking the interstate at U.S. 231, the new shopping center, called Coosa Commons, is to be anchored by a Starbucks at the northern end and contain an additional 7,000 square feet of retail space. “Having a national brand (like Starbucks) at this location will make it a big draw for locals and travelers alike,” said Muenger. “Highway 231 carries over 25,000 vehicles per day, and this site will be visible to I-20, which has a daily count of above 50,000 vehicles per day.” Muenger explained that the property was acquired by the McSweeney family, who own and operate the automobile dealership adjacent to the property, shortly after Hardee’s closed. Having a well-designed, modern commercial space at this area will be a wonderful complement to their dealership, which is striking in its own right,” said Muenger.

A new Freddy’s Steakburgers is on its way.

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Business Review

Retail Growth

Conceptual rendering of All American Ford in Odenville According to Smith new construction or recently completed construction and the opening of new businesses is under way throughout the county. “Multiple new eateries have been announced and are currently in construction or attempting to hire a full staff before opening their doors. These include The Farmhouse restaurant in Springville, the Purple Onion Deli and Grill in Moody and Freddy’s Steakburger now under construction in Pell City. Construction has also begun on the new Ford dealership in Odenville. Putting the new retail growth into perspective, Smith noted, “Some retailers are only interested in existing empty shopping centers, but we have very few vacant spaces, so new construction is really the only option in a vibrant community like ours. Rising construction costs will likely slow some of the new retail growth as those retailers wait until construction costs come back down.” Signs have gone up for a strip mall development, Logan Martin Commons, on U.S. 231, south of the intersection of the highway with 19th Street and Alabama 34 in Pell City. Good Ole Boys Barbecue has signage there, calling the property its future home. Further south, construction is nearing completion on a strip center in the area of U.S. 231 and Rabbit Branch Road.l

Sign on U.S. 231 South announces new commercial development

74 • DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • Business Review • August & September 2021

Celebrating 50 Years in Business

Lake Property ∙ Land ∙ Commerical ∙ Residential 11520 U.S. Hwy 11 Odenville, AL 35120 lovejoyrealty.com

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2021

Business Directory

Business Cards

Business Directory

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Business Review

Lyman Lovejoy

Success story on a 50-year run

80 • DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • Business Review • August & September 2021

Story by Carol Pappas Discover staff photos It’s not hard to understand why Realtor Lyman Lovejoy has earned the nickname, “Mayor of St. Clair County.” Just like the leader of a bustling community, you will usually find him at the center of a flurry of activity, whether it’s a civic endeavor, developing a residential community or playing a pivotal role in economic development. His love for St. Clair County is unmistakable. His work over the past 50 years to promote it, showcase it and yes, sell it, is undeniable. The nickname does have original ownership. “I coined the term mayor of St. Clair County because his impact on this county has been tremendous,” said prominent attorney John Rea. “His reach has impacted every community in this county. Not only has he had a phenomenal run of business for 50 years, he has been heavily involved in economic development with the Economic Development Council.” ‘Impact’ is an ideal word to describe his efforts over the years. As Rea noted, Lovejoy’s impact transcends lines and has been on both the public and private side. His longevity in the real estate industry has not gone unnoticed either. The St. Clair Association of Realtors honored him in its annual recognition luncheon for achieving the 50-year mark. Along the way to 50 years, Lovejoy has seen the ups and downs of business but always weathered the storm, no matter how dark it seemed. None seem as dark as the Great Recession of 2008. “In ’08, we owed a lot of money, but we paid our bills, and we learned from it,” Lovejoy said. His son, Shawn Lovejoy, credits his resilience and success to his “ability to care for people, his integrity and his positive attitude. He is incredibly resilient. ‘Quit’ is not in his vocabulary.” Couple that with his community first, not business first attitude that drives him, and the picture of him as an ambassador for his adopted home of St. Clair County comes into focus. You’ll probably find the name of every commissioner, chamber official, mayor and councilman in his phone. He never hesitates to call them with news of interest or just to say hello. “I get along with all of them,” he said. If it’s a civic gathering, a council session or a commission meeting, you’ll more than likely find him there, too. He likes to know what is going on, but more important, how he can help. It’s not unusual to see him in the middle of a flurry of activity. He has been known to entertain in a musical group at nursing homes and senior centers and is active in his church, First Baptist of Ashville. He served on the St. Clair EDC and later was awarded its Chairman’s Award. He has played leadership roles with the St. Clair Association of Realtors, served as chairman and is a member of the Ascension St. Vincent’s St. Clair Hospital Board, and he is a past member of the Alabama Real Estate Commission, a gubernatorial appointment.

From left, Richard Knight of Metro Bank, Lovejoy and Bill Ellison, 2021 EDC Chairman’s Award winner, at annual EDC event

Lovejoy and the team at Lovejoy Realty honored for 50 years in business

Lyman at the Ford dealership groundbreaking in Odenville

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • Business Review • August & September 2021 • 81

Business Review EARLY YEARS

The time was 1971. With only a high school education and zero experience, he decided to go into real estate. Some may have thought he would never make it, but he was determined to prove them wrong. He and his young wife, Catherine, were a team – “a one-two punch,” Shawn Lovejoy recalled. They worked many tireless hours – her doing the books and squeezing every dime and him out meeting, greeting and handshaking. They call it ‘people skills,’ and those who know him would agree Lovejoy certainly has the corner on that market. And it set Lovejoy Realty on a journey of success as a leader in St. Clair County. Over the years, relationships only strengthened. “We’ve sold some of the same people houses five times,” he said. He’s given many a young person a start on land ownership. With $500 down, he has financed young people “who never owned a piece of land in their life – hundreds of them – still do.”

Lyman Lovejoy

St. Clair Realtors honored St. Clair Association of Realtors recognized other companies and individuals in its annual luncheon in addition to years of service. Due to COVID restrictions in 2020 that prevented an in-person event, combined annual awards were presented this year – this time in person at Premier Cinema and Entertainment Center.

Shirley Kujan

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Ed Gardner Sr., who served as the first executive director of the St. Clair Economic Development Council, said, “It is not possible to think St. Clair County without thinking Lyman Lovejoy, they are synonymous.” Lovejoy served as chairman of the EDC for many years. “There are many reasons why St. Clair County has experienced significant quality growth over the past 20 years but when you break those reasons down, you will find Mr. Lovejoy as a component in most,” he said. “First of all, there has never been a more prominent ambassador or proponent for a worthy cause. His enthusiasm and warm, friendly demeanor permeates every meeting, public or private, and immediately exudes trust and confidence by those in decision-making positions.” His community before business philosophy puts him in an elite class. “Lyman has ALWAYS placed the best interest of St. Clair County above all other considerations, including personal gain,” Gardner said. “He will always make himself available for meeting with anyone anywhere if there is a chance that his presence will add to the possibility of bringing investment into our county.”

THEY ARE: • Shirley Kujan – 2021 Realtor of the Year • Becky Bowman – 2020 Presidential Cup • Crystal Watkins – 2020 Rookie of the Year • Mike Carr – 2020 Professional and Leadership Award • Shirley Kujan – 2020 Realtor Community Award • Coosa Valley Mortgage – 2020 Small Affiliate of the Year • Pruitt, Tudisco & Richardson – 2020 Large Affiliate of the Year • Paula Krafft – 2020 AAR Realtor of the Year Nominee and 2020 Past President

His people skills set him apart, Gardner added. “Lyman’s love of his fellow man brings him into personal contact with more people than most public officials. There are no barriers recognized by him when it comes to reaching out to people. He is just as accommodating to those of low income and minorities as the highest corporate and political officials, always demonstrating the same concern.” Doing the right thing is his trademark. “His integrity, honesty and impeccable character is evident in every transaction, therefore you never need to wonder where he stands on an issue,” Gardner said. “If you do the right thing, you know that your decision will meet with his approval.” l

Lovejoy slingshot hunt, a community tradition

82 • DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • Business Review • August & September 2021