Discover The Essence of St. Clair June and July 2023

Dr. William Dempsey Partlow • A Tale of Two Farms

New retail development takes shape • Klarissa’s Cakery

June& July 2023

Friday night hero

Honoring Pell City’s Pete Rich

Lyrics for Life

Songwriters gather at Horse Pens 40

ST. CLAIR WEDDINGS

The Proposal

Popping the question by the lake

Caroline Williams and Mark Anderson celebrate with a kiss after he pops ‘the question’ at a lakeside proposal party. Photo by Mackenzie Free.

Writers AND Photographers

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 and was named Distinguished Alabama Community Journalist at Auburn University. She serves as president/CEO of Partners by Design, which publishes Discover and LakeLife 24/7 Magazine®.

Roxann Edsall

Roxann Edsall is a freelance writer and former managing editor of Convene Magazine, a convention industry publication. She has a degree in (broadcast) journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, worked as a television news reporter in Biloxi and as a reporter and assignments editor in Birmingham.

David Smith

David Smith aka BamaDave, is originally from Birmingham. He and his wife Renee made Logan Martin Lake their home 19 years ago. He is a freelance photographer, videographer and professional drone pilot. He has worked for ESPN’s College GameDay Show for the last 25 years as a cameraman and for the last 4 years as the drone pilot. He has won 12 Emmys with the show and was ESPN’s first drone pilot. David is also the owner of Spider Be Gone of Alabama.

Mackenzie Free

Mackenzie Free is an experienced and nationally published photographer with a bachelor of fine arts degree. She is a Birmingham native now cultivating life on a farm in Steele with her husband & 4 daughters.

Eryn Ellard

Eryn Ellard is a freelance writer living in Pell City. She graduated with her B.A. in journalism in 2010 from The University of Alabama. She has been published in The St. Clair News Aegis, Al.com and The Tuscaloosa News, which ultimately led to her securing an internship and becoming internationally published in Cosmopolitan Magazine in New York City.

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.

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. She is a former editor of Birmingham Home & Garden magazine and staff writer for Birmingham magazine.

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.

Robert Debter was raised on his family’s Hereford farm in Blount County and previously served as vice president of the Blount County Historical Society. He has been the archive director of the Ashville Museum & Archives since May 2016 and traces three branches of his ancestry to St. Clair County in 1820.

Richard (RT) Rybka

Richard is a full-time professional photographer based in the Springville area and owner of Natural Light Photography LLC. His 50+ years of experience behind the lens of a camera includes working as a photojournalist for a global technology company. His credentials include many magazine cover shots, standing as a Canon Image Connect Photographer, and member of the Little River Arts Council.

Robert Debter

Elaine Hobson Miller

From the Editor Local color all around us

Throughout my writing career, I’ve always been particularly partial to local color – describing the features of a particular place and its inhabitants. It’s how we come to treasure this place called home.

In the newspaper business as editor, my mantra was always local, local, local. I wanted our reporters to capture everyday life in the community, sure, but more important, to recognize and write about those moments that make it special.

It’s no different in the magazine business. Put everyday people from all kinds of backgrounds together in their favorite breakfast place, and you’re about to witness something special. Here comes the bantering back and forth, the unfettered laughter that emanates so easily and a constant cascade of opinions on everything from traffic on the town square to who’s going to win the big game. That’s local color.

So is the kitchen at Klarissa’s Cakery in Odenville, where a young entrepreneur is making her mark in the business world while serving up a palate pleasing assortment of cupcakes, cookies, cakes and sweets. She has taken her business to the next level – from camper to storefront – and you can’t help but imagine that this is simply the next step of many in this growing success story.

Local color can be found atop Chandler Mountain at Horse Pens 40 most any day, but on Songwriter Festival weekend, it’s not only music to your ears, it’s storytelling that touches the soul.

Living legend Coach Pete Rich provides plenty of color by simply being himself. At 88, he still works out every day and invites one and all to join him. His natural way of impacting young people’s lives for the better have made him an icon in Pell City where the high school football stadium bears his name. His former players will quickly tell you all the ways he positively influenced their lives and when you meet him, you, too, will know it was a special encounter indeed.

Then, there’s Red Hill Farms – two of them – both legacies of a family affair that continue to serve their communities generations later. Both are passing along the ideals instilled in them – a passion for the land, the animals, the bounty they produce and a love of life on the farm they want to share.

Of course, there’s plenty of local color around these parts to last a lifetime and more. In this edition, just have a sampling. Turn the page and discover a slice of local color with us.

Carol Pappas Editor and Publisher

FRIDAY NIGHT HERO

The story of a Pell City football legend

PCHS Coach Pete Rich

Story by Roxann Edsall

Photos by Richard Rybka

Coach Pete Rich is one successful man. He must be; he has a stadium named after him.

The reason for that honor, though, is somewhat of an anomaly. His namesake stadium is home to the Pell City High School Panthers. He never lead his Pell City football team to the most wins of any coach. He did not even serve as head coach the longest. His fame is less about statistics and more about relationships.

His biggest victories are still being realized in the lives of the young men he inspired in his 34 years of coaching high school football. And those former football players, many whom are now retired from successful careers, say Coach Rich was a powerful force in shaping them into the people they are today.

On a Saturday afternoon, more than 50 former players and coaches gather at the Municipal Building. They’ve come from as far away as California and New Mexico to honor their former coach and mentor on his 88th birthday. Just as they did in the lock room decades ago, the men form a huddle and Coach begins their time together by leading them in prayer.

One of those in the huddle was Alabama State Senator Lance Bell, who played nose guard from 1987 to 1989. Senator Bell read a resolution from the Alabama Legislature honoring Coach Rich for his many years of service to the people of Pell City and the state of Alabama.

“Coach Rich was like a second father to me. He taught us about discipline and about life,” the senator remembers. He recalled a time that he suffered a significant injury to his knee during a game. “The call from Coach,” he said, “was the first phone call I received checking on me.”

“He was a father figure for all of us,” adds former tight end Leslie Smith. “He is bigger than life. I mean, the man still lifts weights at 88 years old!” Coach Rich has had that weight room at his home since he started coaching Pell City football in 1969. And it has always been open to any of his players.

“Coach truly saved my life,” chimes in Bobby Watson, tight end and linebacker from 1975 to 1978. “He got me into weightlifting when I was 18 years old,” he tells. “That habit saved me later in life, when, in 2014, I suffered a bilateral quad rupture. I was told I’d never walk again.” Watson credits Coach Rich with teaching him the value of strength training through weightlifting. Weightlifting, rehab exercises and sheer determination, he says, helped him to regain his mobility. Not only is he walking again, he is now a strength coach and weight strength coordinator for the Trussville YMCA.

Sammy Brown, played defensive end during the ’74-’75 season and again the next year. He gets emotional talking about Coach. “He was always open to listen. I could go to his house and sit outside with him and when I left, it felt like a huge burden was lifted. He cared so much about others.” When Brown later had a wife and children of his

“Success is based upon a spiritual quality, a power to inspire others.”

— Vince Lombardi

Pell City High School jerseys, jackets and other memorabilia

Pell City High School sports newspaper clippings

own, he said Coach would often come to his home after his own family Christmas and share in the Brown family celebration.

A hometown boy, Pete Rich grew up in the Avondale Mill Village, played football for Pell City High School, and worked at the mill during the summers. He graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1957 and immediately started coaching football, baseball and basketball at Jones Valley High School.

He started coaching at Sylacauga High School in 1961, where he stayed for eight years. He returned to Pell City as head coach in 1969. After five years as head coach, Rich stepped down from head coach to spend more time directly with his players as defensive coordinator. Rich retired from coaching in 1991, having served on the coaching staff at Pell City High School for 22 years.

In total, he coached for more than three decades. In that time and since then, he has touched the lives of countless people, who consider him a friend and mentor.

His former players are devoted to him and, when you meet him, it’s easy to see why. When he’s involved in a conversation, he is committed to it. He does treat people as if they are the most special person in that moment. His sense of humor is part of his

Sen. Lance Bell presents the resolution

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charm. He’ll often start a story off with “I ought not tell this …” and then chuckle as he tells it.

Coach admits to working his boys hard, but it was second nature to him. “I made sure my kids worked hard. It was just the way I was raised,” he says. “My mama always made sure I worked hard as a kid. I remember coming home from school one day and mama said to get ready because I was about to be picked up to go out and help plow the fields.”

Although he had plenty of opportunities to advance in the world of coaching, he was committed to his community and remained with Pell City High School.

He and his wife, Gwen, raised their two children, Lori (Billingsley) and Brian, in Pell City. “We always had people around the house, either visiting my dad or using the weight room,” says Brian. “It was like Grand Central Station, but it was good. Both Mom and Dad are great. I feel like I won the parent lottery with them!”

Brian did play some football and basketball, but tennis turned out to be his best sport.

Former player Jerry Posey was not quite as lucky in his childhood experiences. His dad suffered from alcoholism and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Coach Rich, he says, was one of the first positive influences in his life. “I was from the housing project, and he was from the mill village,” said Posey. “He treated everyone the same. He was an unbelievable influence for me.”

As the lights come on and fans file into Pete Rich Stadium for Pell City home games this fall, just maybe some will think of the lessons Coach Rich taught. “Nobody’s more special than anybody else,” he said. “I’ve just always tried to make sure everybody felt equally special.”

That’s a win any way you look at it. l

Former players talking with coach

A prayer before the reception

Lyrics for Life

Horse Pens’ Songwriter Festival inspiring music on the mountain

Story by Roxann Edsall

Photos

by Richard Rybka

There is no doubt that music is a powerful tool, touching our heart strings and transporting us through time and space. The words to certain songs speak to our hearts when, oftentimes, nothing else will. Alabama-raised songwriter Mutt Cooper explains, “I always hope the words connect to the audience and that we’re all in the same emotional space at the same time.”

Cooper, who now lives in Georgia, started playing the guitar and writing music when he was just 10 years old. He now works as an occupational therapist, specializing in traumatic brain injury.

Christina Crystal and Nick Biebricher ready to play

Cass Hunter and Mutt Cooper

Nick Biebricher

A navy veteran himself, he works with veterans at Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning. He uses his songwriting skills to address the pain and emotional scars of the wounded, whether they’re military, children or just ordinary people navigating daily life. His song, Tom, has received a lot of attention from Vietnam veterans groups because of its powerful, relatable lyrics.

He wrote the song about his cousin, who served in Vietnam. The cousin, Tom, came back from Vietnam a changed man, a change so profound that he had to live with Cooper’s family and spent most days playing guitar to help him process the pain. “He died in Vietnam, but he didn’t know. He’s got a lot of scars that don’t show,” the haunting lyrics say.

The lyrics to another of Cooper’s songs address the simpler, but broader, issue of aging. The words to I Knew Him When are easily relatable to anyone who has noticed a wrinkle or a grey hair as birthdays come and go.

Staring in the mirror, it’s easy for me to see. The same young man who lives inside of me. Well, it makes no sense, and how can it be?

There’s an old man in the mirror looking back at me.

Cooper recently spent a weekend with more than a dozen other songwriters at the Horse Pens 40 Songwriter Festival on Chandler Mountain. The festival’s organizer, Paul Ensign of C&P Entertainment, has been providing the venue and stage to showcase the talents of local, regional and national touring songwriters for four years. “These guys and gals get up on

Cass Hunter with her CD cover

stage, not just to sing, but to give you the emotion behind the words, the experience that helped to write the song,” explains Ensign.

Texas-based songwriter Thom Shepherd, also a festival participant, agrees. “Everybody’s here to really listen to the lyrics and hear the stories behind the songs.” He and his wife, fellow songwriter, Coley McCabe, have both won awards through the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and have been named Duo of the Year by the Trop Rock Music Association for the past four years. She has played at the Grand Ole Opry four times.

The two met when they were working with different Nashville publishers housed in the same office building. They were married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas in 2015. They tour regularly and enjoy going to songfests to meet new writers and to reconnect with others. They even hold their own songwriter’s festival in Texas called Lonestar Luau. (Editor’s note: You can check them out at Lonestarluau. com.)

“Write for yourself,” says Shepherd. “That’s what a publisher told me years ago. I’d moved to Nashville to perform. Everyone said you’ve got to be able to write, so that’s when I started working on

The perfect music venue at Horse Pens 40

Music fans turned out for the show

that. I struggled at first, but then I was counseled to write for myself, about things that have had meaning to me. That’s the place that hit songs come from. That’s when I started thinking about things like my love of cars.”

His love of old cars is what made him reminisce about seeing his first car again after selling it to an old friend. He went back to visit the man and saw the car, sat in the driver’s seat and opened the glove compartment. “That’s when I started to imagine. What if this car had been owned by someone else and what if that someone had left a note in the glove compartment,” says Shepherd excitedly. “And what if that owner had been a young man going off to war who left the note to the new owner in case he didn’t come back? And what if the car was a Corvette?”

With that story in mind, he collaborated with songwriter Wood Newton and wrote the 2001 hit single, Riding with Private Malone. The song was recorded by American

Megan Kuehner

Country Music artist David Ball. “You always hope one of your songs will touch people’s lives, and this one has,” says Shepherd. “I hear from people who say this was a particular soldier’s song, and he didn’t make it back. It reminds them of that soldier. Others tell me this song is the reason they joined the military.”

Coley McCabe wrote Don’t Open That Door as a response to the loss of her sister, Tracy. The song was later recorded by country star Loretta Lynn. “I wrote it after Tracy passed, never meaning for it to be recorded,” says McCabe. “But it was pitched to Loretta, and she recorded it. I ran into her a few years later and told her I’d written it. It was shortly after her husband had passed. She sang the chorus to me with a tear in her eye. It was sweet!”

Strong family ties also fuel the fire for fellow songwriter Christina Crystal. She has just turned 30 and has been writing songs for 16 years. At the songwriter’s festival, she explained to the audience the background behind several songs she and her husband, songwriter/producer Nick Biebricher, have written and produced, including the very

Christina Crystal

Cass Hunter

Mutt Cooper shows off his CD

personal Ultra Sound, a ballad about the experience of expecting the birth of their son.

Another of Crystal’s favorites is a playful lyric that she wrote and performed called, Dolly, Would You Pardon Me, a fun, upbeat song with a nod to vocal great Dolly Parton. The song was nominated for best country song of the year in 2019 at the Independent Music Awards.

“Hit songs begin with words that make people feel something,” says Shepherd. Pure joy and fun are a hallmark in his huge hit summertime party song, Redneck Yacht Club. Written by Shepherd and recorded in 2005 by country music’s Craig Morgan, the lyrics are an invitation to “Meet us out at party cove. Come on in, the water’s fine. Just idle on over an’ toss us a line.”

If you’re out on this lake this summer, you’re sure to hear it. The power of music is fueled by powerful lyrics. l

Christina Crystal and Megan Kuehner

Christina Crystal and Nick Biebricher playing together

Dr. William Dempsey Partlow

Ashville doctor leader in state mental health care

Dr. William Dempsey Partlow

Story by Robert Debter Submitted Photos

Born in Ashville, Dr. William Dempsey Partlow would become a leader in mental health care, making an impact across Alabama and be instrumental in service to those with intellectual disabilities with a facility named for him.

Long before there was an Alabama Department of Mental Health, Partlow Developmental Center was established in 1923 to allow individuals with intellectual disabilities to receive treatment in a state facility. It was located in Tuscaloosa, two miles from Bryce Hospital, and was the only one of its kind in the state until 1970.

Partlow was born on Feb. 4, 1877, in Ashville to David Alonzo and Modena Catherine (Beason) Partlow, who were married in St. Clair County on Sept. 13, 1866. His grandfather, Dempsey Partlow, came from South Carolina to St. Clair County and was married on Feb. 26, 1839, to Mary Montgomery.

Through his mother, Dr. Partlow is the second great grandson of Edward Beason, a captain in the American Revolution and great grandson of Curtis Grubb Beason, who built the Beason House and the Teague Hotel.

David and Modena started their life together with very little, and they struggled for the first years of their marriage. But love, self-sacrifice and courage led David to open one of the first steam sawmills in northern Alabama.

David and Modena’s love story made a deep impression on their nine children, especially William. He perceived well the limitations of his family’s finances, but this only served to stimulate his determination. Educated with mother’s sound principles and encouraged by her love and devotion, he started making his own way at the age of 16. Deciding early on to pursue a career in medicine, he deprived himself of the usual teenage life and devoted his time to studying.

William graduated from St. Clair College, which became Ashville High School, in 1897. After graduation, he took the position of assistant to the principal at the college and used his earnings to finance his continuing education in the medical field. He studied at the State Normal School at Florence and in 1898, entered the School of Medicine of the University of Alabama at Mobile. On April 3, 1901, William graduated as valedictorian in his class and shortly after, became an intern at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa.

Almost a year later, the young doctor accepted an appointment as a medical officer for the marine quarantine service in Mobile Bay. His chief duties were to visit the ports of Central America, study Yellow Fever and

recommend methods of safeguarding Mobile’s port against the disease.

In October 1902, Dr. Partlow rejoined the staff of Bryce Hospital and ever since was associated with Alabama State Hospitals. Upon his return to Bryce, he served as Assistant Physician and devoted his time equally to Male and Female Wards. In 1908, Dr. Partlow was promoted to assistant superintendent of the Alabama State Hospitals and 11 years later was elected superintendent by the board of trustees of the various hospitals.

In 1923, Dr. Partlow was honored for “his advocacy of the establishment of such a sorely needed institution, and his persistent efforts, which brought into being” the Partlow State School for Mental Deficients.

Dr. Partlow never ceased in his study of the care of his patients and was highly regarded among American psychiatrists. In 1922, his alma mater, the University of Alabama, bestowed him with the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

He was greatly noted in his lifetime for his intelligence and the humane care he showed. During World War I, Partlow was chairman of

Traveling the BACKROADS

the Medical Advisory Board and since 1919, was a member of the State Board of Health. In his WWI Draft Card, Dr. Partlow is described as tall with a medium build, brown hair and blue eyes.

On April 26, 1905, he married Margaret Nixon in Jefferson County, Alabama. They would have 48 years and five children together. Mrs. Partlow was noted as being an inspiring and devoted wife and lady.

Throughout the 16-year period of 1919 – 1935, funding for mental health was not appropriated by the Legislature and through effective management of his administration, Dr. Partlow was able to keep the institution on self-sustaining basis. During this time, his effectiveness led the hospital to raising almost $2 million for modernization and expansion.

Partlow also championed a medical college in Birmingham and was often spoken of and seen as the father of the college.

The doctor passed away at the age of 76 at his home in Tuscaloosa on July 7, 1953, and was interred two days later at Tuscaloosa Memorial Park Cemetery. Margaret was reunited with him three years later on Dec. 14, 1956.

On Oct. 29, 1941, Dr. Partlow was honored in a ceremony at the Bryce Hospital Assembly Hall directed by the Board of Trustees of the Alabama State Hospitals. Dr. George Denny praised Partlow as a great man and credited his qualities of “rare executive ability, iron will, rugged determination, intellectual and moral courage and common sense.”

He also observed Dr. Partlow’s “human sympathy, human

modesty, and sense of humor blending with a rich measure of patience.” Dr. Denny closed saying, “... Dr. Partlow has set a standard of public service in Alabama that merits the accolade of universal acclaim and appreciation ... For he is indeed one of the select number of Alabama’s ‘tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the clouds, in public duty and private thinking.’”

Bryce Hospital

Bobby Welch, Ray Stevens, Jim Wilson and Jeff Corbin (left to right) hold court at The Wisdom Table

SHAW’S BBQ SHAW’S BBQ

Where everybody knows your name… and your business

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller

Photos by Mackenzie Free and Contributed Photos

Mornings at Shaw’s Barbecue in Ashville are a lot like evenings at the “Cheers” bar of 1980s television fame. It’s a place and time “where everybody knows your name.”

Day after day, week after week, the parking lot at Shaw’s is filled with the same cars and pickup trucks. Most of them arrive around 7 a.m., when the place opens. Inside, the tables are filled with the same men in overalls and work shirts, jeans and tees and baseball caps. They are farmers, construction workers, bankers, wrecker service owners and bodyshop repairmen. They are hardworking men and retirees. Sometimes they are politicians, too, when offices are up for grabs.

They eat from Shaw’s menu of traditional Southern vittles like eggs and grits, pancakes, sausage and biscuits, with stout, hot coffee. What they really come for, however, isn’t on the menu. They’re there for the daily dish of tall tales, comedic retorts and a side of answers to the world’s woes.

“Hang around here long, and you’ll get dizzy,” says Ray Stevens, retired owner of a local service station and towing business.

Stevens sits at the same table with the same three men every day: Bobby Welch, owner of B&W Construction; Jim Wilson, retired owner of C.D. Wilson Contracting; and Jeff Corbin of Corbin Services. It is variously called the Wisdom Table, the Table of Knowledge or the Think Tank. An unknown female customer dubbed it The Gauntlet because, as the table nearest the door, a customer has to pass it to get anywhere.

“The amount of wisdom that comes from our table can’t be consumed in one

Southern country staple foods are a big draw at Shaw’s

Skip Shaw (right) often works the register

day,” says Welch. “Before I came here, I was seeing a therapist twice a week; now I see one four times a week.”

And so the repartee begins.

“The Wisdom Table holds court, picks the topics of conversation,” says Skip Shaw, owner of Shaw’s Barbecue for almost 40 years. “Leave your feelings at the door when you come in.”

“The biggest thing we do is solve all the problems of the city,” says Dennis Moyer, a retired Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy and former Ashville rural mail carrier. “We tell the city how to run it, but they don’t listen to us.”

Once you get past The Gauntlet, you’ll find Phillip Gleason and Matt Sims eating together at another table. Gleason, a veterinarian, comes to learn about what’s going on in St. Clair County. “I come for the fellowship every day but Wednesday, when I have a meeting elsewhere,” he says. He lives in Steele, and swings by on his way to Argo Animal Clinic. “We learn stuff here before it becomes public.”

Pointing to Carl Smith of Smith Farms, Gleason proclaims, “That’s the Chandler Mountain tomato man.” Pointing to Cody Green, he says, “That’s the Straight Mountain tomato man.” It’s a friendly rivalry, but it helps delineate between the two. Smith grins and responds with, “They call me Mater. I’m here every morning. Shaw’s serves really good food, and I enjoy the company. The topics run A to Z.”

Matt Sims, known as Matt-Matt, lives by the Ashville Stockyards, about a mile away. Someone at the Wisdom Table points out Matt’s big feet. “You know what that means,” one of the guys says. Wink, wink and raucous laughter follow. Dennis Moyer says Matt-Matt, described by Skip Shaw as a jack of all trades, is always fun to be around, always has a smile. “We kid him about his women problem, try to fix him up, but we are

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Amanda

been at Shaw’s for 12 years, Jalee Sluss just a short time

always a failure,” he says. “He’s a jovial guy.”

Asked why he tolerates the teasing, MattMatt grins broadly and replies, “Cause I learn what’s going on in the county.”

Pete Morrow, retired from ACIPCO, sits at the same table every morning with Dennis Moyer. “The food’s good, but I come to get knowledge from these four,” Morrow says, gesturing toward the Wisdom Table to his right. “I come to learn how to run a business, how to treat people. I came here before Shaw bought it. It was Sharp’s then. Everybody knows everybody here, it’s good food, and on Friday nights they have fried catfish.”

Moyer says he goes because the food there is hot and homemade from scratch, and because his wife won’t get up and cook breakfast. “I usually eat something simple like eggs, but she (the cook) makes good pancakes, biscuits and gravy.”

He says he goes for the camaraderie, too. “It’s a bunch of us old guys, like the old Round Table that used to meet at the drug store (Ashville Drugs). We meet and throw our brains out and come up with a solution. Pete and I sit next to the Table of Knowledge, where

Leftwich (right) has

two are cattlemen and two are retired bankers. Skip has a herd, too.”

According to Moyer, the regulars talk about things the city is doing. “The big topic now is the subdivision Lyman Lovejoy is developing near the Industrial Park,” he says. “It’s a big subdivision for Ashville. We talk a lot of politics, too. It got very heated when (St. Clair Commission Chairman) Stan Batemon was running. He was hot and heavy there during that time. (Former Alabama Chief Justice) Roy Moore comes in from time to time. We have all kinds of dignitaries stopping by.”

The crowd doesn’t cut politicians any slack, either. They once took a former Ashville mayor to task for taking credit for a civic project that he had little to do with. Then a candidate for re-election, he left in a huff!

John Harrison is another regular who comes for the food. He likes to eat at small, local places rather than large chains. “We settle the world’s problem here,” he says. A semi-retired farmer, he’s only there two to three times a week. “It’s mostly gossip and B.S. around here,” he says. “Skip talks to everybody, he doesn’t miss nobody.”

In fact, Shaw’s daughter, Lori, who sometimes helps out at the restaurant, says that Skip is the main reason most of the regulars are there in the first place. “All these guys come for dad … and stay for the food,” she says.

As if on cue, Skip Shaw sits down beside Mater. Wilson hollers, “Get him to tell you about his lady friend and the $150 bottle of wine.” It’s a running joke that refers to an auction that benefitted Shoal Creek Community Center. They tease Skip mercilessly about the auction, and the price of the wine gets higher with each re-telling.

“It’s like the movie, Groundhog Day, same thing every morning,” Mater says. “They always bring up the story about Skip and that woman.”

Shaw bought the place in 1984, and says he eats his own food. “I’m a product of it,” he says, patting his belly. “A third generation of folks (customers) come to eat here now, lunch and supper. I would not be where I am without my customers.”

He says a fire during the COVID pandemic shut him down temporarily and almost did him in. “It was an electrical fire in the back,” he says. “We were closed for eight months. That was back in 20202021. I thought about closing. But the place needed a facelift anyway, so here we are. I’ve been back in business about two years now.”

You won’t find any thin-skinned folks there each morning, Shaw says. “The guys

Shaw’s has made a name for itself with traditional stickto-your-ribs food

who are here are hardy folk who don’t get their feelings hurt easily.”

There are few women in the early-morning crowd, although they begin to drift in with their dads and husbands around 9 a.m. When Barbara Stevens walks in, Jeff Corbin yields his seat to her at the Wisdom Table. She’s Ray’s wife. Soon, a few more regulars drift in, including Don Sharp and Joe Jinright, both retirees. Jackie Vaughn of Vaughn Body Shop plops down nearby.

Ray Stevens decides to call local real estate mogul Lyman Lovejoy, another regular who, for some reason, hasn’t dropped by yet this particular morning. But he’s there within five minutes of receiving Stevens’s call. “These guys could be lawyers,” Lovejoy says, “because they tell the truth in a lot of different ways.”

Stevens nods toward Lovejoy and says, “His Bible has only a front and back cover, no pages between.” Then Stevens gets taken to task for blocking the fire hydrant in front of Shaw’s with his truck. “No problem,” one of the guys says. “Ashville hydrants are dry anyway.”

Jeff Corbin agrees. “I watched my place burn down one day after the fire department tried three hydrants and couldn’t get water from any of them.”

Jim Wilson says primary cook Amanda Leftwich is the one who keeps the place going, “without a shadow of a doubt.”

“I kid everybody, tell ‘em she runs the place, I just work here,” Skip Shaw says of Leftwich. “She’s the main cog that makes everything turn. I’m fortunate to have her.”

His sister-in-law, Debra Meadows, makes the pies. “We do four – apple, peach, chocolate and coconut,” Shaw says. “Sometimes she adds sweet potato in the fall. We serve sandwiches, plate lunches, beef, chicken, smoked turkey. Our

menu is pretty well-rounded, with something for everyone. We have salads, too, and daily vegetables. I’ll smoke meat maybe, but Amanda does most of the cooking. We have three or four women working here every day, and sometimes my daughter, Lori, helps out, too.”

Leftwich has been working for Shaw for 12 years. “My customers are very good to me,” she says. “You know that old saying, ‘Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you see,’” she remarks. “It applies here.”

“What you say here WILL be held against you,” says Skip Shaw, emphasizing the word, “will.” “We have selective memories: We select everything and remember all of it!” l

John Harrison, Joe Jinright and Don Sharp (left to right) have breakfast together

Phillip Gleason (left) and Matt Sims eat together almost every morning

can I learn from our local museum?

Step back in time to discover history you may not have ever heard or seen before through creative exhibits, artifacts, photographs and video. Learn about Alabama, Pell City and St. Clair County History.

See our cutting-edge oral history studio –Real People. Real Stories. Real Life. Let’s make history together!

Proposal

Story by Carol Pappas

Photos by Mackenzie Free

After dating a year and a half, Caroline Williams and Mark Anderson knew they were going to get engaged to be married. But when and where were simply question marks. That is, until Mark devised a plan that would not only include his bride-to-be, but their families and friends, too.

Making all of it a surprise was just another hurdle to be cleared.

Of course, he had to have help to pull it off, so “a quick call to Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jim” was the logical, first step. The funloving couple seemed ideal for the job. After all, Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jim are Laurie and Jim Regan, owners of Pirate Island on Logan Martin Lake and have certainly earned the reputation of perfect hosts, opening their island up to just about every boater on the lake.

“We knew we would get engaged eventually,” Mark said. “It was important to me that the engagement be what we really wanted and really loved. I knew she had always dreamed of friends and family being able to share it, too.”

So, Mark went to work scheming and planning with the Regans, their families and

St. Clair Weddings

their friends. He had looked at special places to pop the question, but they just weren’t “the right place.” He knew it had to be at his aunt and uncle’s – under the willow tree that drapes over the water’s edge.

“The lake had always been an important place in my childhood and growing up. It was a really special place to do it.”

Water had been central in both their lives. Caroline was a Division I swimmer in college. He grew up on Alabama’s coast in Mobile. They met at a friend’s birthday party in Atlanta where they both worked. “We hit right off,” Caroline recalled, “and the rest is history.” They have been together ever since.

“Water was important in both our lives,” he said. “She had been with my family at the lake several times and really enjoyed it,” so he thought, ‘What better place?’ “It’s close. We can have friends. So that’s what we did. I knew Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jim could handle it.”

Mark and Caroline live in Atlanta, so he had to devise a way to get Caroline to come to Pell City and not suspect anything. His story was that they had been so busy, they needed a laid back

St. Clair Weddings

weekend out of Atlanta. “Why not go hang out with Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jim at the lake?,” he asked. And they did.

They went out to dinner Friday night and spent a leisurely Saturday morning with Caroline not suspecting a thing. Then, he had another idea, he told her. “It would be fun to go cruise on the pontoon and check out the island.”

Aunt Laurie made an excuse not to go, and she stayed behind to orchestrate what would come next.

They loaded up on the boat, Jim turned the key, and “it wouldn’t turn on. We (Mark and Jim) were making eye contact with each other like, Oh my God!” Meanwhile, “a train of cars were lined up on Blackberry Lane waiting to turn into the house.”

Jim was texting Laurie to let her know what happened, and he insisted he could get the boat going with jumper cables.

“I felt bad,” an unsuspecting Caroline said. “I kept saying we don’t have to go. It’s OK. It’s not a big deal,

Wedding Specialists &Services

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we can hang out on the dock.”

“No, we’re going on the boat,” Jim insisted. A supportive Mark said, “You know how Uncle Jim is when he sets his mind to something.”

The boat started, and they cruised on the pontoon boat as planned and then headed back to pick up Aunt Laurie, or so Caroline thought. There was a cooler sitting under the willow tree, and Jim asked Caroline and Mark to grab it for him because it was too heavy.

As they started walking over, Mark started his proposal speech. It was at that moment the dots began to connect, Caroline said, and she thought, “Oh, my God, it’s happening! I started sobbing. The ring was in the cooler, he reached in and grabbed the ring and got down on one knee.”

“The first voice I heard was my dad. Then I heard the others, and I saw a huge group of our friends – from

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Charlotte, DC, Atlanta – extended family who came for that moment. It was all the people we love running toward us. It was great.”

“I was very anxious” in the days leading up to the proposal party, Mark said. He thought about all the people involved and all the moving parts. “But at the end of the day, the most important thing is, I’m getting engaged to the girl I love,” he said, remembering how that thought made him calm.

“It was going to work out perfect. I’m not looking at weather and knew we were the first domino to fall. I was going to be engaged to her. However it happened, it was going to work out perfectly,” he said. “It was still different than I envisioned. It was much better than anything I ever dreamed up.”

“I was so surprised,” Caroline said. “I had no idea it was going to be that weekend, and with our family and friends there, it was a whole other level.” Just like Mark, it was well beyond her expectations.

“Girls always imagine their own picture of perfection – the nails, the dress,” she said. “I was wearing a bathing suit cover up left over from high school! It was so perfect – getting engaged to the love of my life with people I love.”

Real People. Real Life Stories.

“When my mother had the beginnings of dementia, she was in Birmingham, and I was in Pell City. Working full time, I couldn’t be there. But Always There could, and they helped her with the things she needed to remain independent -- taking her grocery shopping, making sure she got the right medications at the right time, being a companion. Always There allowed her to stay in her own home and took the worries away from my siblings and I when we couldn’t be there for her.”

• Companionship

• Care Management

• Errands

-- Carol P.

• Bathing and Grooming

• Dressing

• Escorts for shopping

• Laundry and appointments

• Light Housekeeping

• Meal Preparation

When you can’t be there, Always There can.

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Tips and tricks for the Big Day

May a little girl dreams of what her big day will look like –the dress, the knight in shining armor, the flowers, the cake, the tears streaming down her father’s face as he revels in the beauty of the little girl he raised into a successful woman.

All these precious moments are no doubt magical indeed, but they do not always happen on their own. Sometimes the brideto-be needs a little help. And that’s where Angel Phillips comes in.

Phillips, a native of Ragland, and self-taught in the floral business many years ago, she eventually decided to try her hand at wedding planning, and she took to it quite naturally.

She has now been planning weddings for 12 years and stresses to newly engaged couples the importance of hiring a wedding planner. “I don’t care what you cut out, but your wedding planner is the most important,” Phillips stressed. “We think of things you don’t think of on the days leading up to the wedding and on the wedding day.”

Proposals have also changed dramatically especially since COVID. Phillips said that similar to a gender reveal for an expecting couple, entire families are now being included in the proposal. “Any reason to get together with family and friends to celebrate a momentous occasion is what we are seeing now,” Phillips said.

Phillips averages 30-40 weddings per year and takes care of booking vendors, decorations, floral arrangements and music. “I handle all the details, “ Phillips said. “I do like for brides to be involved in invitations and music, they need to know what song they want for their first dance and what song they want to dance with their daddies to.”

She also serves as a liaison for all the vendors and anyone else involved by providing a detailed timeline and making it

Story by Eryn Ellard

The first dance and a beautiful venue

St. Clair Weddings

clear that they are not to contact the bride two weeks before the wedding. This way everyone knows their places, and it cuts down on stress, especially for the bride.

Phillips noted that wedding trends tend to change around every five years or so, and many older traditions are coming back – some with more modern twists. Brides are now wanting bright pretty colors and greenery in their bouquets. They also prefer a cascading hand-tied bouquet with lots of colors and textures.

Couples are also opting for a buffet style reception with grazing boards and charcuteries, rather than comfort foods like chicken fingers. Brisket is a very popular item on a reception menu, as well as a mashed potato bar. Carving stations are also being seen more and more.

As for the rehearsal, the most popular items for rehearsal dinners are tacos and margarita stations. As far as wedding cakes go, bigger is not always better anymore. Brides are now opting for a two to three-tier cake, each tier boasting a different flavor, with cupcakes all around. However, the most popular sweets can be found at the groom’s table. Grooms are moving away from traditional groom’s cakes and moving more toward things like banana pudding, fried pies and anything that guests can “grab and go.”

Venues are also changing drastically. Classic whites, with lots of light, complete with long farmhouse tables are a trend. Candles are also very popular in wedding venues now. Phillips also noted that church weddings aren’t the only venue of choice as they once were.

Photography is always a huge part of a wedding, and brides want more outside photography, first looks with the dad and groom, clean photos, romantic looks with ambience, and candid shots. Phillips also noted that a videographer is just as important as a photographer for brides and grooms these days.

Old traditional ways of paying for weddings have also changed drastically, Phillips noted. “There is no etiquette anymore, it’s all about the bride and groom. It takes a village. Weddings are certainly more hands on with all members of the family.”

Phillips said the most rewarding part of her job is “at the end of the day when you see them dancing and loving each other, you know you have given them the best day ever” Phillips said.

What comes next? As far as honeymoons go these days, couples are opting for all inclusive tropical destinations where they can partake in excursions, surfing, fishing and sailing.

Traditional wedding rings have also evolved over the last several years. Smaller, solitaire rings set in gold are coming back in style but tend to be more expensive.

Another new tradition during the wedding ceremony are live painters. These painters set up and paint while the ceremony or reception is going on and paints the bride and groom. This gives the newlyweds a keepsake of their perfect day forever.

Griffins can help you pick the perfect rings

Bright

colored flowers are in

Buffet-style dining is popular right now

St. Clair, Alabama Business Review

Klarissa Hendrix stands in front of her business

Story by Scottie Vickery

Photos by Mackenzie Free

Klarissa’s Cakery

From camper to storefront, cake creator cooks up success story

For lots of folks, the idea of graduating from high school a year early and building your own business from scratch at 18 would be a tad daunting. For Klarissa Hendrix, it was a piece of cake.

Her mobile bakery business was such a hit, in fact, that three years later she decided to mix things up and make it permanent. This past December, she opened Klarissa’s Cakery in an Odenville storefront and has enjoyed sweet success ever since. It turns out that her ability to dream big and willingness to take some risks, coupled with a lot of hard work and creativity, were the perfect ingredients for a booming business.

“From sunup to sundown, I’m going all day,” she said, adding that she starts baking around 5 each morning. “Most Saturdays, we have a line outside waiting on us to open. It’s been crazy.”

Customers can’t get enough of the mouth-watering treats, which include an ever-changing assortment of cupcakes, brownies, cookies and cakes that are sold whole or by the slice.

Her cake decorating skills help set her apart, and she’s created everything from beautiful tiered wedding cakes to cakes featuring superheroes, lobsters, unicorns, footballs and mermaids – all handmade from fondant icing. “Sometimes people will bring in pictures of what they want, but I love when they tell me I have free rein,” Klarissa said.

Her cakes come in all shapes and sizes, as well. She’s crafted cakes shaped like baseballs, whiskey barrels, pineapples and an RV. Her most popular cake is a Highland cow.

Cupcakes flavors range from strawberry, wedding cake, watermelon and orange Dreamsicle to pina colada, red velvet, lemonade, pistachio, banana pudding and key lime pie.

She’s pretty much done it all – well, almost. “I still really want to do a pickle cupcake,” Klarissa said with a grin.

Although lots of her customers are new

Custom Hot Wheels cake

Business Review

fans, many were familiar with her cakes and cupcakes from her first business, Klarissa’s Cakes and Cupcake Camper. In addition to making custom cakes and filling cupcake orders, she hosted birthday parties and sold cupcakes at pop-up events – all from her refurbished 1970s camper.

“I went to Tennessee with it and took it to all kinds of events,” she said. “I’d do birthday parties and let the kids decorate cupcakes, and I even took it to schools so teachers could decorate them. It was a cute party idea, and people loved it.”

At the time, it was a great way for Klarissa, who had always planned on being a cosmetologist, to explore a new dream that was just beginning to take shape.

COOKING UP A CAREER

Klarissa, who lives in Springville, first began baking as a child. “My mom started letting me use the oven when I was about 9 years old, and I loved watching Cupcake Wars,” a televised cupcake-baking competition on Food Network, she said.

Her grandmother, Vicki Smith (also known as Gammy) has always baked for the family’s holidays and provided additional inspiration. Once they started baking together and exchanging ideas, Klarissa’s excitement grew. “Gammy really helped me,” she said. “We teach each other.”

When Klarissa turned 16, her grandmother made her a cake that featured a sculpted purse with makeup brushes, powders and lipsticks she made out of fondant, an icing that can be molded, shaped and rolled. “I saw her making all these amazing things, and they looked so real,” Klarissa said. “I got really excited about it, and I’d go to her house, and we’d try out all these new flavors and decorations.”

About the same time, Klarissa was working part-time at a bakery in Trussville and began to have second thoughts about cosmetology school. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” she said. “I took a tour of the cosmetology school, and it didn’t really feel right, so I started praying about it.”

Although Klarissa didn’t know what her future held, she knew she wanted it to come quickly. “I was the type who was ready to be done with high school and wanted to start working,” she said. Klarissa, who was homeschooled through Faith Community Christian School, worked hard so she could graduate a year early.

By then, friends were asking her to fill cupcake orders. She got a request for her first wedding cake and began thinking she might be able to turn the hobby she’d fallen in love with into a career. “I knew I couldn’t open a storefront at 17, and I began thinking about a food truck,” she said. “The next day, a friend posted a camper for sale.”

Her parents, Leslie and Bridgett Lupton, renovated the camper while Klarissa focused on baking at home and getting the necessary licenses and permits. Soon, she was able to take her business on the road – literally – and she hasn’t looked back since.

“It’s been working out so far,” she said, adding that after running the Cupcake Camper business for several years, she was ready to find something permanent. After finding the perfect storefront in Odenville, her family, which now included her husband Kody, helped get it ready for the opening in December – just months before her 22nd birthday.

Steel Magnolias made armadillo cakes a thing

Business Review Klarissa’s Cakery

FORECASTING SUCCESS

Opening day was a busy one. “We sold out in the first hour,” Klarissa said. “My grandmother and I were trying to throw cupcakes and cookies in the oven, so we’d have enough to sell. December was a crazy month. We had 27 cakes go out in one day alone, and it really hasn’t slowed down at all.”

Although she’s got lots of repeat customers and is busier than she ever dreamed, Klarissa said she got one review that was extra-special. James Spann, the chief meteorologist for ABC 33/40, declared a creation she made to be “one of the greatest cakes ever.” Spann posts photos on social media of the hundreds and hundreds of decorated cakes and cookies he gets when visiting schools to present weather programs.

“I’ve always wanted to do a James Spann cake,” Klarissa said. She got her wish a few months ago when Leeds Primary School placed an order. “I immediately called Gammy and said, ‘We’re doing a James Spann cake.’”

Although the planning took a while, the pair spent about a week making the different pieces of the creation. It featured a house with an overturned car, a swaying tree, and a tornado with a trampoline in it since Spann

Humble beginnings in a trailer

Business Review

Klarissa’s Cakery

Klarissa shows off one of her delicious cakes

often refers to trampolines that go airborne during storms as the “state bird.” The cake, which was completely edible, also showed a family wearing appropriate safety gear in front of a television in the basement.

“One of the greatest cakes ever,” Spann posted. “It even features someone wearing a helmet watching our live coverage in an underground basement. Amazing!”

NOT JUST DESSERTS

Not long after opening her bakery, Klarissa began getting requests for breakfast, so she now offers sausage balls and a variety of muffins. “I want to say I have the best sausage ball recipe,” she said. “I know that’s a bold statement, but I stand by it,” she said.

Breakfast has been such a hit, she hopes to one day be able to offer lunch as well. For now, though, she’s going to enjoy her success and the fact that her family has been a part of it all. Her grandmother does some of the baking, her mother helps at the counter a few days a week, and her 16-year-old sister, Chloe, has started working there, too.

Although Klarissa wasn’t sure she could make a bakery business work, her mom said she and her husband knew it would be a success. “We knew she was too young at 17 to enter into a legal contract, but the camper was a great way for her to start,” Bridgett said. “She took it and ran with it. She’s always been so mature for her age, so we didn’t doubt she could make it.”

Wedding cakes are also on the menu

The Rise of Retail

Pell City Square to open in September

Story by Carol Pappas

Photos by staff

In the midst of handling the city’s burgeoning responsibilities on the massive development of Pell City Square Shopping Center, an April 2017 memory popped up on Pell City Manager Brian Muenger’s cell phone screen.

It was a photo he had taken from atop the old St. Clair Regional Hospital building. The focal point? Construction of McSweeney Automotive. Except for the spot cleared for McSweeney, nothing else was there, only woods.

What a difference six years later. Not only is McSweeney Chevrolet Dodge Jeep Ram commanding a presence over I-20 and U.S. 231, Starbuck’s, Jersey Mike’s, The St. Clair and Tavern at The St. Clair usher in crowds daily at their thriving nearby businesses to the west.

To the east, the hospital is no longer there. Instead, a 147,000 square foot retail center is taking shape.

A year to the month that dirt was hoisted from ceremonial shovels to begin the construction of Pell City Square, officials are expected to check off the longtime dream from its wish list.

The ribbon is expected to be cut in September on the center fronting I-20 just off U.S. 231 South on John Haynes Drive. An exact date has not been set. That announcement should come about five to six weeks out from opening, Muenger said.

Five Below and other stores are taking shape

Business Review Pell City Square

The development’s early vision is credited to Bill Ellison, who introduced developers to the property and its prospects. Ellison developed the center and surrounding businesses that Walmart now anchors, and the U.S. 231 bridge connecting the two developments now bears his name in recognition of his work in developing the areas.

But that’s not the end of this story. More development is expected at the nearly 18-acre site. It’s just too soon to announce anything official, said Muenger.

He did give a hint at what’s expected, though. The user agreement for the city’s part of the development specifies what should be located there – a “national, sit-down restaurant” like Outback and Olive Garden. While no agreement has been reached, the city and its development team have been working with prospective businesses “in that genre,” Muenger said.

He added that the original plat has been revised to accommodate specific additional businesses, and one, or both, of the outparcels on the western end closest to the interstate may have announcements by the time of the opening of the center in September.

In the meantime, transportation crews have been busily

The project partnering Noon Real Estate, City of Pell City, St. Clair County Commission and St. Clair Economic Development Council represents a major breakthrough in retail development for the city and county, adding familiar names like Hobby Lobby, Old Navy, TJ Maxx, Pet Smart, Five Below, Rack Room Shoes, Ross Dress for Less and Ulta Beauty.

Different construction but part of the main project, the piers have been poured for Hobby Lobby

Ross marks a sign of things to come for Pell City

Business Review Pell City Square

only

on the I-20 frontage. Today, it’s bustling with business and more is on the way.

preparing for increased traffic likely coming its way. The widening of John Haynes Drive has been completed. So has a retaining wall built near U.S. 231 South to give the outlet enough width for a fifth lane, enabling a new outbound turn lane. That will give drivers access to three turn lanes.

Traffic light signalization is being improved at Jeanne Pruett Drive and U.S. 231 to help with the flow of traffic.

What all that means is by September, the city will enter a new era of economic development with the opening of the center and the array of retail it offers to citizens plus the benefits coming to city coffers. First year sales projections are $25 million. At an effective tax rate of 5 percent, that’s an additional $1,250,000 per year. “It’s very material to our local budgets,” Muenger said.

It opens up another corridor for retail growth and other commercial developments are expected to follow. “It closes the gap in retail shopping needs,” Muenger said. And those shoppers “can stay here to find what they need rather than travel outside the city.”

When he thinks back to that photo on his phone – merely a clearing in the woods taken from the rooftop of an abandoned hospital – Muenger can’t help but see how quickly that entire area of the city has transformed.

“It’s extremely exciting for the city,” Muenger said. “We’ve worked for a very long time. It’s very gratifying. It’s what people told us they wanted to see here.”

Come September, it will all be open for business.

Restaurants line another big project just down the road

Muenger’s 2017 photo of McSweeney Automotive preparing for construction – the

development

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Grooming•Boarding•Daycare

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Ford Meter Box acquisition to enable pipe products line expansion in Pell City

The Ford Meter Box Company, Inc., through its whollyowned subsidiary, Baker Coupling, LLC, has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets of Baker Coupling Company, Inc. (“Baker”). This transaction will expand Ford’s line of Pipe Products manufactured in Pell City.

Located in Los Angeles, CA, and incorporated in 1939, Baker is a privately held manufacturer of sleeve-type couplings, transition and reducing couplings, expansion and dismantling joints, tapping sleeves, flanged coupling adaptors and related items. Its engineered products may be found in such large-scale applications as pump stations, aqueducts and treatment plants.

“I am extremely pleased that Baker Coupling Company and Ford Meter Box will join forces after so many decades as respected business partners,” said Baker Coupling President Ram Satyarthi. “The products, cultures and legacies of these two companies are a great match.”

Steve Ford, president of Ford Meter Box, noted, “Baker is a longtime industry ally and a dependable Ford partner. We look forward to the expanded capabilities they will bring to our waterworks and treatment plant customers and utilities.”

PELL CITY’S EISSMANN AUTOMOTIVE HONORED BY ALABAMA GERMANY PARTNERSHIP

The Alabama Germany Partnership (AGP) marked celebrated the 25th anniversary of its founding and recognized German companies that are growing in the state with new investments, including Pell City’s Eissmann Automotive.

Eissmann Automotive has 13 locations on three continents, specializing in car interiors, built-to-print trim components, shifter modules and many other parts for German and domestic automakers such as Mercedes, Audi, Jeep, Tesla, Porsche, Volkswagen and others.

Around 300 industrial, cultural, educational and governmental leaders attended the March 31 event at The Mariott Hotel & Conference Center in Prattville, where they recognized seven German companies for investments valued at almost $200 million in Alabama through growth projects announced in 2022, according to Commerce data.

In December 2022, the German automotive supplier Eissmann announced an expansion to its Pell City facility. The

expansion included a $3.4 million investment in new advanced manufacturing equipment for their new production line. They expected to hire an additional 79 employees to support the production necessary for their new orders.

Companies recognized in addition to Eissmann were: ADS-Tec Energy Inc. (Auburn), Evonik Corp. (Birmingham and Theodore), MBN Automotive (Birmingham), STAR Cooperation USA (Vance) and Winkelmann Flowform Technology L.P. (Auburn).

The AGP, a non-profit member-based organization established in 1998, is dedicated to strengthening the economic and cultural ties between Alabama and a European nation with a large-scale business presence in the state.

“Alabama and Germany have developed a special relationship over the decades,” said Secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce Greg Canfield. “During that time, numerous German companies have launched growth plans in Alabama, bringing benefits that enrich these communities, both economically and culturally.”

Michael Göbel, president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, served as keynote speaker. Other presenters

included Melanie Moltmann, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Southeast of the United States.

The business ties between Germany and Alabama date back decades and have only grown stronger in recent years.

More than 80 German companies have operations in Alabama, and the state opened a business development office in Stuttgart in 2019.

German companies have invested over $10 billion in the state since 1999, according to data from the Alabama Department of Commerce. These projects have created around 18,500 direct jobs.

When the AGP was established, its leadership, comprised primarily of economic developers, recognized that attention to cultural and educational interests — and not just to business issues — would better prepare Alabama for additional German investment.

“The AGP’s mission has remained consistent over the last 25 years, and its leadership — through both individuals and companies — has remained intact,” said Brian Hilson, the group’s immediate past chairman. “The organization’s events and programs bring together people who share the same interest in growing and benefitting from the Alabama-Germany relationship.

“As German business investment in Alabama has grown, so too has the Alabama Germany Partnership, and the presence of Germans who feel at home in Alabama,” he added.

FORT MCCLELLAN CREDIT UNION CUTS RIBBON ON NEW PELL CITY BRANCH

Fort McClellan Credit Union has expanded its multi-county footprint, opening its newest branch in Pell City at U.S. 231 South and 19th Street, a 2,405 square foot facility.

“We are so happy to call Pell City home,” said CEO Angela Smith. “After analyzing which areas would benefit

Fort McClellan Credit Union Board Chairman Joseph Roberson, center, cuts ribbon with CEO Angela Smith (right)

our membership most, it was no surprise that this is where we needed to be. With its ideal location and flourishing development, we were very excited to break ground in Pell City.”

The credit union is based in Anniston with branch locations in Anniston, Jacksonville, Roanoke and Ohatchee. It employs 64 people and offers an array of services, including checking, savings and investment accounts, auto, boat, RV and other loans as well as mortgages.

“The addition of this branch will ensure that we are equipped to better serve our growing membership and extend our roots,” Smith said. “We look forward to serving this community for many years to come.”

and coverage for their customers.

The late Ray Cox, founder of the bank, had as his goal to make a variety of services readily available to all customers, and Metro Insurance fulfills that aim, she said, noting that she was “thankful” to have worked and learned from him and Joe Allinder, who retired as manager of that division.

“We’re very excited to be in our new building,” Smith said. “The new signage gives us more exposure so we can grow and better serve our customers.”

METRO INSURANCE OPENS NEW OFFICE IN PELL CITY

Metro Bank officials cut the ribbon on a new office building for Metro Insurance, giving the independent insurance company greater visibility for its line of products and services.

Located in a newly renovated building next door to the bank on U.S. 231 South, Manager Jill Smith said the new space enables Metro Insurance, formerly known as MB Financial Services, to have more exposure as a standalone entity. It had occupied offices in the bank headquarters.

Longtime Metro veterans are part of the operation there – Smith, who has been with the company 20 years, Crystal Green, 10, and Rachel Powell, 13.

Metro Insurance offers customers a diverse and extensive line of insurance products, including personal, commercial, life and bonds. Because agency represents so many different companies, Smith said, staff are able to offer attractive, competitive pricing

REGIONAL SUMMIT FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR I-59 CORRIDOR

Officials are eyeing the I-59 Corridor Summit, a regional cooperative effort for economic development, as a first step in communities working together for a common good.

Held at The Venue at Coosa Landing in Gadsden, the summit called, Bringing Neighbors Together, is aimed at connecting communities along the I-59 corridor outside their own borders with a common goal of economic development through promoting tourism, fostering workforce development and enhancing job recruitment.

The groundwork was put into place through the efforts of economic developers from Blount, Cherokee, Dekalb, Etowah, Jefferson, Marshall and St. Clair County.

Featured speakers included: Greg Canfield, secretary of Alabama Department of Commerce; Tami Reist, president and CEO, Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association; and Ed Castile, deputy secretary, Workforce Development Division, Alabama Department of Commerce.

Crowd assists with the honors at Metro Insurance ribbon cutting

A tale of two farms

Same name, different missions

Who would think that a city as small as Pell City would be home to not one, but two farms with Red Hill as part of their names?

It may sound a bit confusing, and it can be. But both farms – with much different missions – are bound by family and a desire to share their bounties with their community.

Red Hill Farms, a longstanding legacy around these parts, is located on the banks of Logan Martin Lake off U.S. 231 South and Lakeview Road in the Cropwell area.

Grass fed beef and free-range pork are their specialties, and most Saturday mornings you’ll find owners Vaughan and Christa Bryant selling all kinds of beef and pork from their very own garage market.

The ‘other’ Red Hill Farms is actually Phillips Red Hill Farms and is located on Alabama 34. It has opened a market selling fresh, locally grown produce as well as meats and pork from their farm. Their main emphasis is that of an event center, featuring a petting zoo with llamas, miniature animals and such and playing host to parties of all types.

Let’s take a look at Red Hill Farms – both versions – and perhaps set the record straight.

Red Hill Farms

ITS ROOTS

Story by Paul South

Photos by Richard Rybka

As part of the construction business, Tiffeny Phillips Robertson has put her sweat, heart and mind to some of Alabama’s marquee projects – like the Honda Manufacturing plant in Lincoln and Birmingham’s Protective Stadium.

But her heart has always been here at Red Hill Farms-Phillips Family, the place her parents, Lonnie and Teresa Phillips bought some 50 years ago.

In that half century, the Phillips family, also including little sister, Kayla Phillips Lamb, transformed their spread from a commercial poultry producer for Gold Kist to a spot where folks can find farm-raised beef and chicken, eggs of all sorts, honey from their 45 hives, fresh vegetables and good, oldfashioned hoop cheese in a nod to an old-fashioned country store.

And, perhaps most important – as a venue for birthday parties, corporate retreats, small weddings and as home to a petting zoo – Red Hill Farms-Phillips Family is a place for growing merriment and memories on its 40 acres.

Ducks, chickens and turkeys roam the place, along with dwarf goats, miniature and full-size horses, llamas and alpacas, full-size goats and pigs. A petting zoo opened this year.

James Herriot, the late English veterinarian and author of All Creatures Great and Small, could run a full-time practice here.

Tiffeny and her husband, Chris, became more involved in the farm eight years ago after her mom’s death and a few years later returned from Augusta, Ga., to expand the farm with her father, Lonnie. Now a farm market operates in a red barn that shimmers against green grass. Produce – much of it grown in St. Clair County and in the state – is sold here.

“For the most part, we try to keep at least 75 percent of out produce grown in Alabama if not in St. Clair County,” Robertson says. “We have a lot of amateur and novice farmers.

Red Hill Farms market

Business Review Tale of Two Farms

They grow a bunch of crops, and we buy their harvest from them. They get to see their bounty, and we get to sell it to the public through our market.”

Amish meats and cheeses and rolled butter are also on sale in the market. Candies and fried pies are available to satisfy that sweet tooth. And apple cider vinegar and herbal health teas are among the offerings.

Pell City craftspeople and artists are celebrated as well. For example, local veteran David Carden creates beautiful wood bowls from cypress and magnolia wood.

The market opened in 2022.

“We’re just trying to spread the word that buying from a national chain is not always the best thing,” Robertson says. “Buy local. Shop small. Support local businesses.”

EVENTS BRING VISITORS

Red Hill Farms is always up for a celebration. Right now, Red Hill is taking “baby steps” as an event spot.

“We’re doing any kind of party,” Robertson says. “As we grow, we do small weddings, birthday parties. We let people fish in our stocked ponds. We have a petting and feed experience with all our animals.

Red Hill also takes its animals to local schools as

Family gathers next to their wagon

part of an educational effort.

“As a farmer’s daughter, I always thought that everyone in the world lived like this,” Robertson says. “That everybody knew the difference between a cow or a heifer, but that is not the truth. There are a lot of people who have lived in concrete jungles – big cities – and they have no idea.”

The parties – visitors bring their own food and beverages – are entertained by the horses, Butch and Sundance, alpacas named Einstein and Waylon, and a llama, a “funny little character” named George.

The alpaca named for the mop-topped science genius is easily recognizable. “His hair is everywhere, like Einstein,” Robertson says.

What you don’t see, but you can feel at Red Hill Farms is love –of the animals, of family, of the land, of country and community. Lonnie Phillips is a Vietnam veteran. Tiffeny’s husband, Chris, served in the War on Terror after 9/11.

“We love that people are enjoying (the farm) so much,” Robertson says. “That’s the biggest kick we get out of it. You know, people ask me all the time why we don’t charge more for our parties. One, we are an operational farm and two, I want people to experience it without having to take out a loan,” she explains.

“We’re not necessarily here to get rich. I just want people to know who we are.”

Other plans are in the works, like a place for kids to learn how to rope, or how to milk a cow or goat, or harvest honey from a hive, “Minus the bees, of course. We’re trying to educate as well as provide,” Robertson says.

There’s a joy in experiencing a simple life, she adds. “Everybody just can’t go to a beach resort for vacation. Everyone doesn’t want to deal with the heat and the traffic at an amusement park. They want something to do outdoors. Everybody needs the sunshine.”

Her childhood house – shaped like a barn – is still home for her dad. Every building on the property is red, eye popping on green grass against a blue sky. She and her sister, Kayla, grew up with their parents on this beautiful plot of land as they watched their father work tirelessly to improve the farm, year after year.

“As a kid, I wondered why we were always buying red stuff.”

A director of construction for a major firm, Robertson never thought she would return to the family business. For her, it’s about honoring and preserving her parents’ legacy of labor and love.

“I wanted to preserve it the way it was until it was my time not to be here anymore. I want our toddlers to grow up and understand what their grandparents worked so hard for, fought for and loved so much.”

The Robertsons have a 24-year-old son, Colten, as well as a 3-year-old daughter, named Brooklyn. Kayla Lamb and her husband, Bradley, have 3-year-old twins, Grady, and Madison.

All the children and grandchildren of Lonnie and Teresa Phillips, love the farm and contribute in different ways.

“Our three toddlers believe they are the tour guides for the pet and feed experience. It truly is the cutest thing ever!”

People often ask why she toils seven days a week to make the farm sustainable.

“This is my legacy, my sister’s legacy, and we would like to maintain it that way, until I no longer have a say.”

For more information on Red Hill Farms visit its Facebook page at Red Hill Farms- Phillips Family, email redhillfarms3@gmail.com, or call 205-352-8803.

Wood bowls and other goods for sale

The Other Red Hill Farms

BRYANTS CARRY ON A FAMILY TRADITION

by Paul South Contributed photos

Story

For Vaughan and Christa Bryant of Red Hill Farms, Spring is the season of miracles.

Bare branches blossom. Winter-browned grass goes green. The weather warms and the sun shines and new life bursts into being.

Sometimes, calves new to the world, graze and romp near the Bryants’ driveway.

“Vaughan laughs at me. But sometimes, I love to stop, roll my windows down and just talk to the calves,” Christa Bryant says.

That’s life on a family farm, with time kept by the Creator’s clock – seasonal and steady.

Those sorts of miracles mean Red Hill Farms customers can buy grass-fed beef and free-range pork. The Vaughn family has built and kept a tasty business across three generations.

In the Red Hill story, it seems something more of the Divine has been part of life here beyond the change of seasons. Consider how James Martin Bryant, Vaughan’s grandfather found this now 150-acre spread on the eve of America’s entry into World War II. Originally, 80 acres made up the Bryant homeplace.

As the nation quietly expanded the military in the run up to the war, the Bryant farm in Ohatchee was part of the land taken by eminent domain for the construction of Fort McClellan and Pelham Range.

The James Bryant family – along with their neighbors – had to move. And Providence seemed to take a hand, thanks to a family friend, then the pastor at Mount Pisgah Baptist Church.

“They asked him if he knew of any farms in the area over here, and he did,” Vaughan Bryant says. “That was the beginning of the farm here in Cropwell.”

As for the Good Lord’s role, Vaughan adds, “I don’t have any absolute proof of that. But I think that the Lord is always leading us in the way we should go. And there was a lot of church involvement in our being here.”

For Red Hill Farms, that was the “In the beginning” moment.

James Bryant grew cotton, corn and vegetables, made sweet honey and raised cows, chickens and pigs for food and for finances, hauling his wares to sell in town.

Red Hills meats packaged for sale

That’s the way it continued for the Bryants until 2011. Then, the farm took a turn fitting for the 21st century.

“You know, raising cattle on our scale is kind of a very low profit ordeal, Vaughan Bryant says. “We were looking for something that would bring in a little more income, to try something new. I was to a point in my work career where I wanted to have something going on the farm that would bring in more income, so we tried raising chickens for meat for three or four years. That’s what brought us into the direct-toconsumer marketing that we’re doing now.”

A 2016 story by the United States Department of Agriculture found that 61 percent of farms engaged in direct-to consumer sales had the same owners five years later, compared to 55 percent of farms that did not market directly to consumers, suggesting that DTC farms are more stable.

Now, that direct-to-consumer approach applies to grass-fed beef and free-range pork. Vaughan and Christa are able to run the farm on their own with pork and beef being less labor intensive than the poultry business.

“We thought that we could move into our beef and maybe add pork, and she and I both could take care of that and handle the marketing of it a little easier than we could raising the chickens like we were doing.”

In part, the move was driven by customer demand.

“When we were doing the chicken, people would ask, ‘What about beef?’,” Vaughan says. “People’s comments while we were doing the chickens kind of prompted us to sell the beef and pork that way.”

There is a deep commitment to the land and to raising their livestock in a natural, humane way, thus the free-range pork and grass-fed beef.

“We try to raise our animals as near to the natural way as we can,” he explains. “Now, there’s certain elements – we have to take care of our health and the health of the animals – so we try to stay away from as much of the industrial management style as we can. But we know we have to do a certain amount of medical care from time to time – worming and certain vaccines – but we try to not go overboard in that.”

What’s the difference to the consumer between grocery store meat counter and the Bryant method of raising livestock? Grass and natural grain and sunlight and the animal’s ability to exercise make a delicious difference for hungry customers. He draws from the example of free-range Cornish Rock hens.

“You can give them the ability to eat grain and bugs and (have) sunlight and that chicken will taste completely different from the one that was raised indoors. Same with the pigs.”

Industrial farm-raised pigs live on indoor concrete slabs, with 24/7 food. Free range porkers do what they do naturally, roam and run, eat natural food and wallow in the mud.

As for the taste, a Bryant-produced pork chop is juicier and with a richer flavor, a byproduct of the free-range method and the use of heirloom breeds not used in mass production.

“Don’t cook it twice. Cook it like you would a ribeye steak,” Bryant says of the couple’s favorite Red Hill product, the pork chop. “That thing is so delicious. It’s crazy good. All of our cuts are that way.”

Christa also endorses the thick Red Hill chops as her favorite.

“Our steaks are wonderful. But you can’t get a pork chop anywhere like ours.”

Vaughan has spent pretty much his entire life on the family land, loving time in the pasture among the animals watching

them come into the world and grow.

“Even from a young age, it was in my head that I would someday farm,” he says. “There’s a certain satisfaction from knowing you’re able to foster that animal along to a point where they can be someone else’s enjoyment other than mine.”

More important than raising livestock, farm life played a positive role in the rearing of the Bryant children and grandchildren, Christa Bryant says. Hard work, love and sacrifice are staples of farm life. Vacations are not.

“I do believe we were able to raise our children and grandchildren in a way that provided some character in them in a way that many children are not able to have,” she says. “Of course, they didn’t always see it that way.”

As hard as farming can be, there’s something comforting about a family that toils and produces a product and holds fast to their values in a cryptocurrency, nanosecond world.

Vaughan shares the family farming philosophy. It harkens back to 1941 and a word from an Ohatchee Baptist preacher and Divine Providence. “Raised with the Creator’s design in mind.”

“We enjoy what we do,” Christa says. “And what you would purchase here on the farm came from right here on the farm. Unlike a grocery store we can show you where they grew up.”

Editor’s Note: For more information about Red Hill Farms and a list of their products, visit redhillfarms.com, or call 205812-9953.

Vaughan and Christa Bryant

Final F cus

Life through the lens of Mackenzie Free

When a house becomes a home … and a heart

I never knew I could feel so much affection for a house as I do this one. I’ll admit, I love it far more than I should. Maybe it’s because of the splendid confluence of generations that gather here any given Sunday after church to share a meal. Maybe it’s the small gang of unruly cousins that can be found climbing the pear tree in the front yard or chasing one another through the grass at family gatherings. Maybe it’s because this is a place where people sit on the front porch in the mornings and wave at passing cars and retire to the back porch in the evenings to break beans or shell peas. Maybe it’s because of the beautifully kept yard and garden and the wealth of knowledge that comes from those who tend to it. Maybe it’s because the house always seems to smell of pound cake or cornbread and there is, most reliably, always sweet tea in the fridge. Maybe it’s because this isn’t a life I grew up with, but this house and the people who call it home have raised me in ways they will never fully understand. And they have given my children the most splendid, idealistic, memories of childhood.

They will look back on their time spent here as if it were a movie or a dream … the kind of memories that move in slow motion and seem to be bathed in golden light.

Or maybe it’s not really about the house at all. Maybe this house just represents a life that feels nostalgic … a life so many others remember from their past and have forgotten still exists in some places.

… It still exists here. This house is more than a house, it’s a life force. It almost has a heartbeat.

… And it is the place my heart will forever feel the most at home.

**Dedicated in loving memory to Coy Free, whom we miss dearly & called this house home. And to Rubye, who loved him faithfully for 68 years … and lives there still.

- Mackenzie FreeWife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama