Discover Ct. Clair April & May 2015

Wild Game Dinner • History of Cropwell • Free Lunch Preserving Nature • Dancing With Our Stars • Bruce Canoles

April & May 2015

Handing Over the Reins Croyle children, Brodie and Reagan, continue Big Oak Ranch legacy

HILL, WEISSKOPF H P.C. ILL, & ATTORNEYS AT LAW

Providing a broad range of legal services to individual, business and local governmental clients including:

· · · ·

Civil practice Governmental affairs Corporate Law Personal injury

· · · ·

Real Estate Domestic Relations Estate law Wills and probate

· · · ·

Workers compensation Fraud Wrongful death Criminal defense

James E. Hill Alexander M. Weisskopf Candace B. Crenshaw Matt E. Gossett Judge James E. Hill, Jr. of Counsel Moody Professional Building, 2603 Moody Pkwy, Suite 200, P.O. Box 310, Moody, AL 35004 6441 U.S. Highway 11, Springville, AL 35146

Phone (205) 640-2000 or (205) 467-2225 Fax (205) 640-2010 No representation is made that the quality of the legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers.

Features and Articles Discover

The Essence of St. Clair

Handing Over the Reins

Brodie Croyle, Reagan Croyle Phillips taking over at Springville’s Big Oak Ranch

Page 43 Cropwell Early Years

Wild Game Dinner a huge success

Cropwell After the War

Page 8

Plenty Happening

Preserving Big Canoe Creek, American Chestnut orchard Page 38 Dancing With Our Stars Page 62

Page 14 Page 22

Free Lunch for Kids

Page 28 Page 54

Bruce Canoles Page 58

Iola Roberts School Page 66

Business Review

Northside Medical Expanding Page 70 Promoting the Lake Page 80 Thrift Store and Coffe Shop Page 82 St. Clair Ranks High Page 86 New Vein Center Page 86

April & May 2015

www.discoverstclair.com

5th Annual Car Sale Event!

Auto Loan with rates as low as

.99% APR*

Over 200+ Cars and 10+ Dealers to choose from.

Join us as we partner with 10 local dealers for our 5th Annual Car Sale Event. We’ll have a team onsite to assist with questions and financing. The two day event is happening at Heritage South Credit Union’s Hwy 280 Main Branch in Sylacauga - don’t miss it.

May 15 - 16 Friday & Saturday Get pre-approved today by calling, visiting us online, or coming by one of our branches.

256.245.4776 | myhscu.com/carsale

*APR advertised is the credit union’s lowest rate and is available only to borrowers with excellent credit. This is a limited time offer. Please call us at (256)245-4776 or visit your closest branch for more details.

Federally Insured by NCUA

Writers AND Photographers Carol Pappas

Graham Hadley

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. After retiring, she launched her own multimedia company, Partners by Design Inc. In addition to marketing, design and web services for companies and nonprofits, Partners publishes Discover, various community magazines for chambers of commerce and Mosaic Magazine, a biannual publication of Alabama Humanities Foundation.

Graham Hadley is the managing editor and designer for Discover The Essence of St. Clair Magazine and also manages the magazine website. He has won more than 20 awards for reporting, editorial writing and graphic design.

Leigh Pritchett

For almost 30 years, Leigh Pritchett has been involved in the publishing industry.

She was employed for 11 years by The Gadsden Times, ultimately becoming Lifestyle editor. Since 1994, she has been a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in online and print venues. She holds the Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Montevallo.

Jerry C. Smith Jerry C. Smith’s interest in photography and writing go back to his teen years. He has produced numerous articles, stories and photographs for local websites and regional newspapers and magazines, including the St. Clair County News, Sand Mountain Living, and Old Tennessee Valley. His photos have appeared in books, on national public television, in local art displays and have captured prizes in various contests. A retired business machine technician and Birmingham native, Jerry now lives near Pell City. He recently published two books: Uniquely St. Clair and Growing Up In The Magic City.

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. After a 30-year career, he decided to dust off his camera skills and pursue photography full time.

6

Elaine Hobson Miller 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. including American Profile, Woman’s World, The Dallas Morning News and The Birmingham News. She is the author of two non-fiction books, Myths, Mysteries & Legends of Alabama and Nat King Cole: Unforgettable Musician. 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 http://www.countrylife-elaine.blogspot.com.

Mike Callahan Mike Callahan is a freelance photographer who resides on Logan Martin Lake in Pell City. He specializes in commercial, nature and family photography. Mike’s work has been published in Outdoor Alabama Magazine, Alabama Trucking Association and Alabama Concrete Industries magazines. Publishing his work to the internet frequently, he has won many honors for pictures of the day and week.

Jim Smothers

Jim Smothers had his first work published in The Gadsden Times in the late 1960s when his father, sports editor Jimmy Smothers, had him take games called in from youth sports coaches and put a camera in his hands at Jacksonville State basketball games. For more than 40 years he has been a writer, photographer, graphic artist and editor at publications in central Alabama for which he has won dozens of Associated Press awards. He has degrees from Jacksonville State University and the University of Montevallo and also studied at the Winona School of Professional Photography.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

From the Editor

Of booming business, angels and legacies As April dawns with its traditional hint of spring, it seems our array of stories takes on a different hue, much like the light of longer days and the warmer weather beckoning us outdoors.

Business is really starting to boom with new construction, ribbon cuttings and expansions telling St. Clair’s story of continued growth. No wonder Auburn University’s Economic and Community Development Institute ranked the county fifth in the state in economic vitality. You can read all about it in our business section along with real-life examples of that vitality.

But the local economy isn’t all that is humming these days.

As warmer weather takes hold, outdoor festivals and activities ratchet up more than a few notches. Lakefest on Logan Martin, Homestead Hollow in Springville and a host of other events will certainly keep the calendar ahead full.

This issue is full of history, too. As is our custom, we will step back in time in our Traveling the Backroads feature.

This time, the destination point is Cropwell, a place so full of history we hope it will evoke a series of ‘I-didn’t-know-that’ responses from our readers.

Also in this edition, we are focusing on the angels among us — ordinary people doing some extraordinary good works.

We are inspired by the group of business people in Pell City who got together to provide free lunches every month for every elementary school in the school system. They found a need, and they are filling it. Another group has, too. The Pell City Line Dancers raised an impressive $10,000 for American Cancer Society in its annual Dancing With Our Stars.

Meanwhile, Brodie Croyle and sister Reagan Phillips are

taking over the reins of Big Oak Ranch from their father, John.

It marks the beginning of a new era for the strong foundation laid when John started the Springville ranch in 1988 so girls who needed a family and a home would have one. Need found.

Need filled.

It’s stories like those that touch our hearts and make us stand a little taller, no doubt buttressed by the pride that all of them — the people, the places, the inspiring acts of kindness — can be found within our borders.

There is plenty more in this month’s edition of Discover.

Come along with us as we discover it all together.

Carol Pappas Editor and Publisher

Discover The Essence of St. Clair

April & May 2015 • Vol. 23 • www.discoverstclair.com

Carol Pappas • Editor and Publisher Graham Hadley • Managing Editor and Designer Brandon Wynn • Director of Online Services Mike Callahan • Photography Wallace Bromberg Jr. • Photography Arthur Phillips • Advertising Dale Halpin • Advertising

A product of Partners by Design www.partnersmultimedia.com 6204 Skippers Cove Pell City, AL 35128 205-335-0281

Printed at Russell Printing, Alexander City, AL 7

8

Wild Game Dinner Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Jim Smothers

Roy Chamblee turns bacon-wrapped quail and venison for diners at Ashville’s First Baptist Church.

Event attracts more than 350 men The menu could have come from a Montana hunting lodge: smoked venison; bacon-wrapped quail; venison cube steak; venison meatballs; elk spaghetti; wild game gumbo; brunswick stew made with moose, squirrel and wild turkey. But the Wild Game Dinner actually took place at the First Baptist Church of Ashville thanks to the contributions of several hunters from St. Clair County.

“It was a way to bring in guys in a friendly, fun atmosphere,” said Pastor Dr. Jay Stewart. “Sometimes people are not interested in going to church because of preconceived ideas, fair or unfair, but something like this, guys relate to it because of the outdoor nature of whole thing.”

The church sold 357 tickets at $10 each for the Feb. 21 evening event, which was far more than its Fellowship Hall could seat.

Diners had to eat in shifts in order to accommodate the crowd. Each person got a sampler plate that included as many of the dishes as they wanted to try, plus baked beans, potato salad and pie.

Church and community volunteers began cooking at 7 that Saturday morning. By the time the event started at 6 p.m., outdoor writer and chef Mike Bolton had smoked 450 quail, and Marty Crews of Big Boyz Barbecue had cooked 500-600 pounds of venison.

“This was the brainchild of one of our members, Tom Watson, who came to me with the idea,” said Stewart, who has been at FBCA since July 2014. “We felt like men would have a chance to come with buddies, sit around and talk, swap hunting stories, laugh, eat some things we don’t ordinarily eat. We have lots of events for women, and we wanted to do something for the men in the community.”

Watson served as song leader, minister of music or associate pastor at seven Southern Baptist churches from Alaska to Alabama over a 42-year career. Recently retired and a relatively new member at FBCA, Watson said the dinner was designed to attract men who wouldn’t come

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

9

Wild Game Dinner Mickey Farmer stirs a pot of Brunswick stew at the dinner.

to a Sunday church service but would come to dinner and experience wild game and try for a prize.

“We had a lot of big-time speakers, guys who had outdoor television shows, Christian guys who came in and gave their testimonies,” said Watson of the past events he organized.

Hank Hough of Texas-based Kingdom Dog Ministries was the featured speaker for the event. He used his dog, Preacher, to illustrate how God’s children should show obedience to Him. “Our church guys didn’t know what to expect, being the first year,” said Watson. “I challenged them to make a donation, and 12 to 15 of them came through, so we had some money to buy nice prizes with. Some of the smaller prizes were donated, but we bought the four guns we gave away.” They also gave away an Auburn football helmet autographed

by Pat Sullivan, a deer tree stand, deer feeder and a quail hunting trip.

“Alan Clayton, the baseball coach at St. Clair High School and an avid bird hunter, guides hunts in northeast Alabama at the Stick Lake Hunting Preserve near Fort Payne,” Watson said. Scott Duel, owner of the preserve and the physical therapist at

10

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

St. Vincent’s St. Clair Named Top Performer St. Vincent’s St. Clair has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval. The Joint Commission has also recognized St. Vincent’s St. Clair as a 2013 Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® in pneumonia. The Top Performer program recognizes hospitals for improving performance on evidence-based interventions that increase the chances of healthy outcomes for patients.

At St. Vincent’s St. Clair we offer inpatient, outpatient, and advanced diagnostic services together to enhance the quality of life for families in our community.

Our specialized services include an emergency department, surgical services, orthopedic services, neurological services, physical therapy, occupational therapy, occupational medicine, sports medicine, pain management, a sleep disorders center, vein care and advanced wound care.

For more information, visit www.stvhs.com/stclair. For a physician referral, call Dial-A-Nurse at (205) 338-3300.

7063 VETERANS PARKWAY | PELL CITY, AL 35125 | (205) 338-3301

stvhs.com/stclair

Adam Abernathy turns pieces of bacon-wrapped venison in front of Ashville’s First Baptist Church.

12

Bo Cater (black shirt and camo pants) brings three boys to the serving line, Ian Higginbotham, Case Burton and Crawford Warren (nearest camera).

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Wild Game Dinner

When you can’t be there.

Always ere is…

Back in Motion in Springville, donated that hunt, according to Clayton, who will personally guide the winner with his own dogs.

Other sponsors, including businesses such as Central Seed & Supply and the St. Clair County Co-Op in Ashville, donated buck jam, deer cain, salt licks, deer sauce, T-shirts, turkey calls, a 50-pound bag of milo for deer feed plots, caps, Mike Bolton game cookbooks, BBs and targets.

Most of the men there either saw the notice about the dinner on the church’s marquee or were invited by a friend. Clint Vickery of Albertville, who attends Flow of the Spirit Church, saw the sign on the marquee. “You don’t often get to try elk,” he commented.

Ashville resident Jeremy Gidley brought his 7-year-old son, Isaac, whose favorite dish was the elk spaghetti. Mark Coupland of Odenville also saw the marquee notice. “I had deer at an Auburn game several years ago and wanted to try some more,” he said. Another Odenville resident, Jeremy Byers, was invited by a friend who attends FBCA. “I’ve been deer hunting since I was 10 years of age in Sumter County,” Byers said, but he liked the other wild offerings, too.

FBCA member Patsy Fouts, Ashville, was conspicuous as one of the few women present. Three others were in the kitchen, and one was shooting photos for the church directory. Fouts brought her two grandsons, Brett, 12, and Brady, 10.

As the diners finished their meal, they made their way to the church sanctuary, where singer and pianist Tim Lett of Chandler Mountain Baptist Church entertained with gospel songs. The sanctuary was almost packed with men of all ages, their arms around their sons, grandsons or nephews.

Many were dressed in camo coats and hats. Ashville Mayor Robert McKay was there, and so was a Jefferson County game warden, Kerry Bradford, who took a lot of good-natured ribbing about the legality of the kills that furnished the meat for the menu.

After everyone was seated in the sanctuary, 13 youngsters took to the stage to participate in a coyote-call contest. Two young winners received brand new BB guns, and all contestants received hunting caps.

The dinner may become an annual event, according to Stewart, who said plans are already under way for next year. l

Helping with the little things.

On the road to recovery.

Assisting with everyday life.

Making sure Dad’s OK.

A helping hand when you need it most.

30 Comer Avenue Suite 1 Pell City, AL 35125 205-824-0224 820 B Franklin Street Huntsville, AL 35801 256-539-1400 3021 Lorna Rd Suite 100 Birmingham, AL 35216 205-824-0224

visit

WWW.ALWAYSTHEREINC.COM

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

13

Modern day Cropwell’s best known character, Clayton Garner 14

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Traveling the

BACKROADS

CROPWELL

A crossroads full of history Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Michael Callahan Submitted photos From his front porch on Hardwick Road, Clayton Garner can see what used to be the entire business district of Cropwell. A couple of doors to his left is the old Hardy Jones home, built in the early 1800s. Across the street from that is Cropwell Baptist Church, organized in 1888.

A large vacant lot and two homes separate the church from the small rock building that once housed a post office, drug store and doctor’s office. Next to that, on the corner of Highway 34 but facing Hardwick, is the brick building where the Roberson Store used to do business.

“Most of what is now Cropwell used to be corn and cotton fields,” says Garner, 83. “Crops did well here. That’s why it was named Cropwell.”

Garner, the self-appointed historian of Cropwell, didn’t move to that community until he bought the derelict Capps house in 1975. But he has amassed quite a collection of early deeds, records and stories about the town. He can tell you who lived where and when and a lot of other details that make history come alive.

The earliest settlers came to what is now Cropwell in 1815, soon after Andrew Jackson’s treaty with the Creek Indians opened up the Alabama Territory to settlers. “Many of them came from Virginia, because their tobacco farms wore out,” Garner says. Among those early families were the Robersons, who crossed the Coosa River at a ferry that became known as the Roberson Ferry. Other early families were the Collinses, Colemans, Mays and Joneses.

A handwritten manuscript dated April 28, 1953, written by Charles E. Keel and found among some papers of a former Odenville school teacher, says Cropwell was first located at Roberson’s Ferry. The Robersons were later to play an important role in the development of the community.

Although Garner’s family didn’t help settle Cropwell, his ties to the community run deep because of the house in which he lives. It was originally a one-room structure built

by Caleb Capps in 1826, making it the second oldest house in St. Clair County, next to the John Looney house near Ashville.

“Capps homesteaded all the land from here south to the Coosa River,” Garner says. “Then he sold the house to Calvin Cox in 1840, and in 1853 John W. Jones moved here from Virginia and bought it, adding two rooms and the porches. Jones was Cropwell’s first merchant, establishing a general merchandise store next door to this house. He was also the postmaster. He’s the one who named Cropwell.”

Cropwell’s post office was built from rocks picked up in local cotton fields.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Cropwell’s first school was built in 1889.

15

Traveling the

BACKROADS Jones’s daughter, Addie, married J.R. Roberson, who opened a grocery store in Cropwell in 1869. He kept that store until he succeeded his father-in-law at the Jones store and merged the two, calling the new store Roberson and Jones. Through the years, it went through at least one more name change as various members of the Jones and Roberson families ran it. Eventually, the townsfolk just started calling it Roberson’s store.

The Roberson store closed 30-40 years ago, but Garner has many of its “day books” that someone found in a warehouse and gave him. In meticulous detail, they record charge accounts and payments from a time long before computers stored such information. “Folks settled their accounts once a year when they picked their cotton crop,” says Garner. “They paid in cotton. That’s the reason we had the big cotton warehouses.”

Hardy Jones, unrelated to John W.’s clan, owned a large, two-story white house about two doors north of the Capps house. He built a “honeymoon house” between his and the Capps house for his son, Blair, when Blair marred Dixie Mays.

She was the sister of Mary Mays, who lived in the Mays house across the street and next door to Cropwell Baptist Church, according to Garner. The Mays family originally owned a large farm in what is now the Mays Bend subdivision on the shores of Logan Martin Lake.

“They (Jones and Mays families) built the Mays and Jones Department Store, a complete dry-goods store that had New York fashions, in downtown Pell City,” Garner says.

Garner’s ties are further cemented by the fact that Pat Roberson, son of J.R. and Addie Jones Roberson, brother to Jones Fall Roberson, and the founder of Union State Bank, was born within the walls of the Capps house. So was Bettie Scott, longtime city clerk for Pell City. And the community’s first school principal, Roy Gibson, boarded at the house with his wife in 1915 until they could find a place of their own.

Before the Civil War, one of the first trading posts in the area was established at Cropwell by William T. Smith, according to Charles Keel’s manuscript. Smith carried hardware, groceries and medicines. When the war broke out, Smith enlisted, leaving his store in the hands of a clerk. When he returned at the end of the war, bearing the rank of colonel, his business had dwindled to nothing. But he re-opened and in a short time added farming and a sawmill to his operations. While Garner doesn’t recall seeing Smith’s name in any of his documents, he acknowledges that there was a sawmill at one time at Seddon, which adjoins Cropwell.

Smith, known to the locals as, “Little Billy” or “Little Billie,” depending on whose manuscript you are reading, was a member of Company F of the 10th Alabama Infantry Regiment, which was organized at Cropwell. According to Mattie Lou Teague Crow in her article, “Cropwell: Proud & Colorful History,” which appeared in the St. Clair Observer newspaper on April 26, 1972, J.O. Truss was captain of that company, and later became a major. The City of Trussville in Jefferson County is named after him. According to Garner, his company was organized by John W. Jones, who had been appointed a colonel by “the governor or whoever made those types of appointments,” Garner says.

“Those soldiers mustered under an old apple tree that was on the Capps property, then marched to Montevallo to catch a train and join General Lee’s army in Virginia,” Garner says.

16

Garner has several of the ledgers, or day books, from the Roberson store.

NOTABLE CHARACTERS OF CROPWELL One of the most prominent preachers in the early days of Cropwell was Jesse A. Collins, whose family was one of the first settlers of the town. Crow says his father, Jeremiah Collins, spent his days “drinking, gambling, fox hunting and horse racing.” An anonymously-authored, typed manuscript in the Ashville Museum & Archives states Jesse decided to be a preacher, so his mother sent him to a college in South Carolina to study for the ministry. When he returned, his father told his wife, “You have ruined a good gambler.”

Jesse preached throughout five counties, sniffed snuff after the custom of his day, and in 1840 established Cropwell’s first church, Coosa Valley Church. Crow said his greatest accomplishment, however, was to baptize Jeremiah when the latter was 92 years old. “He tied the frail old body to a kitchen chair and ducked him in the muddy Coosa,” she stated.

In 1888, some of the members of the Coosa Valley Church organized Cropwell Church, which later became Cropwell Baptist. Long before that church was built, Cropwell folks held their Sabbath School in the Masonic Lodge, which, according to some sources, was the first lodge chartered in St. Clair County, in 1857.

“The new church was like the Coosa Valley one, where the early settlers gathered before the preaching hour, exchanged news of all the community, and after the sermon, had lunch,” says the author of the anonymous manuscript. “Occasionally, other sermons were preached in the afternoon.”

Cropwell’s first post office was established in 1833 and operated under the name Coosa until 1834. In 1837, it became the Cropwell Post Office. James Roberson was the first postmaster.

But the postmaster best remembered in Cropwell was Amanda Funderburg, who served from 1928 until her death. “She and her sister lived in the post office,” Garner says. A postmark of the day she died, September 1, 1981, is engraved into her tombstone in Valley Hill Cemetery.” She was a little bitty red-headed woman, very efficient,” Garner says. “She never married.

In 1889, Cropwell built its first school, after its children had attended classes at Coosa Valley Church and at Easonville. It was a two-room structure located behind the Roberson store,

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Complete your Bachelor’s Degree in Pell City.

We Specialize in Skin Cancer Detection and Treatment including: Biopsies, Full-Body Skin Exams, Mole checks, Skin Cancer Surgery and Reconstruction.

Seeing patients every Tuesday in Pell City office or Monday, Wednesday and Thursday in St. Vincent’s East office.

Give us a call to set up your appointment.

Features include: • Classes one night a week

Huntingdon College Evening Bachelor's Degree • Three 5 week sessions at JSCC Campus, Pell City Classes begin soon!

CALL TODAY Jane Blackburn

205.812.2703 JSCC Campus, Pell City jblackburn@hawks.huntingdon.edu

www.huntingdon.edu/evening

• • • • • •

each semester One-on-one advising SACS accredited Affordable tuition, no fees Financial aid available Easy transfer No online classes

Elena M.Llivina, MD

"Huntingdon is consistently ranked among the top regional colleges by U.S. News and World Report"

HUNTINGDON COLLEGE W. James Samford, Jr. School of Business and Professional Studies

T

oday, while we may use more modern tools to do the job, our core mission is still the same.

Provide reliable service at the most affordable price possible.

We are your electric cooperative.

Traveling the

BACKROADS

A more recent look at buildings that remain

and was used until a more modern school was built in 1918.

Roy Gibson became the first principal of the school in 1915, remaining until 1926. The citizens of Cropwell were the first to vote for the county’s 3-mill tax that funded the 1918 structure.

Cropwell’s first doctor, James P. Turner, came to town in 1900. He worked out of his house, which was on a knoll behind the Roberson store, facing what is now Lakeside Park.

In 1929, he built the small rock building next door to the store, using one side for his office and the other for his pharmacy. It was the pharmacy side that later housed the Cropwell Post Office.

“He had one of the first cars in Cropwell, a 1906 Maxwell,” Barnett Lawley says of his grandfather Turner. “The school was where the Boy Scout building is now. My grandfather would leave in the car, and the teacher would let the children out to see it.”

Lawley says local cotton farmers supplied the materials and labor to construct the rock building. “They picked up the rocks from their fields and gave them to him then pitched in and built it for him because they couldn’t pay their doctor bills,” Lawley said. Back then, doctors made house calls, and Turner used his Maxwell to make his rounds. “He would be late getting in at

18

night after delivering a baby and had about three wrecks in that car because he fell asleep,” said Barnett’s wife, Deanna. “So he got to using his horse and buggy for night calls, because if he fell asleep, he knew his horse would get him home.”

Deanna says the late J.D. Abbott, who owned the Food Center in Pell City, told her that Dr. Turner rolled his own pills on a marble-top table in the pharmacy. “He said that Dr. Turner had a wart on the end of his tongue, and when he was giving a patient a shot, he’d stick out his tongue, startling and distracting the patient. Then Dr. Turner would give the shot.”

She says the pharmacy became a place for the town to congregate and get news. “It got to where mail would be delivered there for the town folks, and that’s how it became the post office,” she said.

A GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY LESSON IN ONE Although Clayton Garner grew up in Pell City, he made many trips to Cropwell as a child. He remembers Dr. Turner’s house and how his sick patients often stayed in its rooms.

“We lived in what is now the Industrial Park in Pell City, next to the Avondale Mills village,” he says. “I had a goat, and my daddy sold it to Grady Donahoo, whose land adjoined the

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

The RPM Group

E XPERIENCE | C OMPASSION | R ESULTS

Chad J. Richey, CFP® Senior Vice President–Wealth Management Senior Resident Director Portfolio Advisor, PIA Program 205.298.7467

Merrill Lynch 100 Grandview Place, 2nd Floor Birmingham, AL 35243 http://fa.ml.com/rpm

Life’s better when we’re connected® CFP® is a certification mark owned by the Certified Financial Planning Board of Standards, Inc., and is awarded to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements.

Merrill Lynch Wealth Management makes available products and services offered by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (“MLPF&S”), a registered broker-dealer and member SIPC, and other subsidiaries of Bank of America Corporation (“BofA Corp.”).

Investment products: Are Not FDIC Insured Are Not Bank Guaranteed May Lose Value The Bull Symbol, Merrill Lynch Personal Investment Advisory, Merrill Lynch and Life’s better when we’re connected are trademarks of Bank of America Corporation. © 2014 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.

ARTRNKJD | AD-12-14-0293 | 470944PM-0314 | 12/2014

Now offering FUNCTIONAL DRY NEEDLING 85 Plaza Drive Pell City, AL 35125

205.338.6106 therapysouth.com

Alabaster/Pelham | Auburn Bessemer/McCalla | Chelsea | Clay/Pinson | Crestline/Mtn Brook Fultondale/Gardendale | Greystone | Hoover | Hueytown | Lakeview/Southside Liberty Park/Irondale | Riverchase | Talladega | Trussville/Roebuck | Vestavia

TRUSTED EXPERIENCE. COMMUNITY TIES. COMMON HISTORY. FOR GENERATIONS. • Mortgage Lending • Checking and Savings • Consumer and Business Loans • Treasury Management

A Century of Banking On Alabama.

866-888-8330 | aliantbank.com

All offers of credit subject to approval.

EQUAL HOUSING

LENDER

Traveling the

BACKROADS

The Robersons didn’t have slaves, but farm workers. Some of them are pictured here.

Mays Home, now relocated

20

Roberson farm. Mack Abercrombie, a former Pell City mayor, is Grady’s grandson. The Donahoo house was in what is now the Pell City Sports Complex, and much of the farm is under the waters of Logan Martin Lake.”

The green Victorian Roberson home place stood where the Pell City Civic Center is now, according to Garner. It was moved onto Airport Drive when the city bought the park property, then it burned down.

“Some of the Roberson tenant houses sat near the entrance to the park,” says Garner. “The big barns, hog pens, mule barns were there, too. There were more Roberson tenant houses in another section of the park, closer to the Roberson house. All of those came down before the city bought the land.”

The Donahoo house sat on one side of what is now the entrance road into the sports complex. Across that road sat the Scott house, and next to it was a blacksmith shop. “Jessie Armstrong’s father was the blacksmith,” says Garner. “They (the Armstrongs) lived by the Mays house.”

Grady Donahoo moved everything, all the big barns, his house, and his tenant houses, to the other side of US 231, where he set them up again, according to Garner.

“He moved everything except the well and four pecan trees,” he says. “The tenants then went somewhere else and found other employment.”

The house belonging to banker Pat Roberson and his wife, Byrdilee, still exists. It, too, is across the sports complex entrance road from the civic center, down a winding lane that ends at a modern house belonging to the Tutwiler family. The sports complex road, which ends abruptly at the lake, used to be part of Highway 25, which had to be re-routed after the lake claimed it, Garner said.

“Mr. Pat Roberson built a nice little house for his maid, Miss Elvie, near his own house,” Garner recalls.

“Everyone knew her, because she spent most of her lifetime there.”

After he moved to Cropwell, Garner often visited “Mr. Pat,” who had no children and was known as a very private person. “I’d take him goat milk,” Garner said. “He liked that.” Garner was there a few weeks before Roberson died when a car pulled up and Miss Elvie got out.

“She come walking up to the kitchen door, and she says, ‘I come to nurse Mr. Pat.’ She’d been gone a good many years because her house had been torn down. Mr. Pat says, ‘Well, Miss Elvie, come in, you know where your room is.’ You see, when Mr. Pat would go off on business trips, she’d stay there with Miss Bertie Lee, who felt safe with Elvie there. Miss Elvie stayed and helped out until Mr. Pat died.”

The Robersons had farm workers, but they never kept slaves, according to Garner. He recalls seeing a photograph in the dining room of Pat and Byrdilee’s house that had the Robersons lined up in front of a number of African-Americans. “I said, ‘Mr. Pat, how many slaves are in that picture?’ He said, ‘None, those are all of our workers, and we treated our workers like family and friends.’”

Civil War re-enactors helped dedicate the Cropwell Confederate Memorial.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

2670 Old B’ham Hwy. Sylacauga, AL 35150

Phone: 256-245-8920 Toll Free: 866-354-BOAT (2628)

SPRING IS HERE. Celebrating of 50Years Serving You GET READY FOR Sales • Service • Parts A GREAT SUMMER! www.sylacaugamarine.com

Looking for rural real estate financing?

Call Alabama Farm Credit Your Rural Lending Expert

Alabama Farm Credit is here to help you with your next purchase of farmland, recreational property or timberland.

Our lending professionals understand the intricacies of financing rural land, and have the qualifications you need in a local lender. In addition to living in St. Clair County, they have a combined 18 years of experience with Alabama Farm Credit, as well as can-do attitudes, farming experience, and degrees in finance and agricultural economics.

Jim Tollison Jr., Vice-President Jim.Tollison@AlabamaFarmCredit.com

Ben Burton, Loan Officer Ben.Burton@AlabamaFarmCredit.com

Alabama Farm Credit Talladega Credit Office (256) 362-0507 AlabamaFarmCredit.com

We are specialists in financing:

• Timberland • Farmland • Recreational property • Country homes and homesites • Farm operating expenses • Equipment • Agribusiness operations Established in 1917, Alabama Farm Credit is a rural financing cooperative. When our co-op does well, we share our earnings with our customers through patronage payments.

Part of the Farm Credit System

Traveling the

BACKROADS

Roberson’s Store, later David Tims Antiques 22

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

CROPWELL Beyond World War II

Story by Jerry C. Smith Photos by Michael Callahan and Jerry C. Smith Submitted photos Sporting a rich heritage of hard-working farmers and entrepreneurial merchants, Cropwell and her sister-village, Easonville, were well-positioned to share in America’s post-war prosperity, even as plans were being rushed to annex one town and demolish the other.

These warm little communities once nurtured St. Clair pioneers and their grandchildren. Often competitive in crucial matters like basketball games, citizens of both towns were of one accord that they were NOT a part of Pell City, even though many worked for its leading industry, Avondale Mills.

Pell City was a bustling urban center, while Cropwell and Easonville natives preferred a much simpler lifestyle. According to Carol (Richardson) Gann, Benny Mathis, Sadie (Wilson) St. John and Jean (Abercrombie) Mathis, that’s what older Cropwell folks really began to miss as times and fortunes changed with the coming of Lake Logan Martin and annexation into Pell City.

“We are better people for having been raised in Cropwell,” explains Carol, “but when the (lake) water came up, our whole way of life changed,” a sentiment echoed by many elderly residents.

In the period following World War II, Cropwell was just a small crossroads settlement, but one that fairly pulsed with rural vitality, especially during fall harvest.

This was cotton country, so the Easonville and Cropwell gins ran full-time during picking season. As in most rural areas, schools adjourned to allow entire families to work their fields, desperately gathering and ginning their crops before bad weather intervened.

Benny Mathis related, “On ginning days, wagons were lined up for hundreds of feet. I don’t know how they kept up with all that.”

“It was always fun riding the wagons full of cotton going to the gin, but a much rougher ride coming home in an empty wagon,” Sadie St. John said.

Jean Mathis added, “Sometimes teenage boys would put paste wax or lard on their shoes, then make them shine like mirrors by jumping around in cotton bins.” Such were the simple pleasures of life in those days and places.

‘GOOD OLE DAYS’ REMEMBERED A few years ago, more than three dozen of Carol’s former classmates gathered for a Cropwell School reunion in Coosa Valley Elementary’s lunchroom. Your writer was privileged to photograph this event, as well as indulging in some really good Baptist food and overhearing many cherished tales of former students’ school days, often punctuated with hugs and tears.

According to Carol, some had to walk a mile or more just to catch the school bus. If they missed it, they might thumb a ride with Mr. Gibbs as he traveled from Easonville to Pell City, or walk the whole distance.

Built in 1918, Cropwell Elementary was a simple, one-story wooden structure, sheathed in black tar-paper. There were two outhouses on opposite sides of the back lot and a wood stove for heat. Recess was spent jumping rope, playing jacks, shooting marbles, flipping one another into the air with a circus-like “jumping board” across a log, and hiding underneath the school building to smoke.

Like any grammar school, Cropwell had its special people with a flair for the outrageous. Jean Mathis recalls the mischief of her brother, Mack Abercrombie. He once set a sedge field afire next to the school, but was best known for driving a farm tractor up the school steps and into the entrance way, crashing through the floor, for

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

23

Traveling the

BACKROADS Cropwell School

which he had to work and pay for its repairs. Mack eventually became mayor of Pell City.

Another regular was Nurse Zackie, who traveled among all St. Clair schools, giving physical exams and often-painful inoculations. Zackiephobia is a recurring theme among many St. Clair folks.

Carol tells that there were no free school lunches or relief programs in those days, so kids often shared with those who could not afford their own. She also recalls that most girls’ dresses and boys’ shirts were made from material salvaged from fertilizer bags and flour sacks, often tailored by the town’s official seamstress, Effie Patterson. Easonville native Gerald Ensley adds that he often wore trousers made from guano bags, a durable but very coarse, scratchy fabric.

All that remains of Cropwell School today, other than hundreds of fond memories, is the old lunchroom, now serving as a Boy Scout hut. It’s on Alabama 34, just west of Golf Course Road. Greenfield School for Colored Children, mostly unknown to later generations, was a block or so farther east on Alabama 34.

Downtown Cropwell hosted a handful of stores, a blacksmith shop, grist mill and other public services, mostly centered around the Jones-Roberson mercantile building, whose imposing edifice still stands at the corner of Hardwick Road and Alabama 34. The mercantile was literally a hub of commerce in Cropwell, similar in size and purpose to another establishment owned by the Harmon family in Easonville.

Today, this fine old building, built in the 1890s from heart pine and site-made bricks, conveys its age and history to all the senses.

24

Back door detail, Roberson’s Store/Tims Antiques

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Thousands have used this well-stocked mercantile emporium as a civic center, polling place, post office, financial house and market for local cottage industries, including moonshine liquor.

Personal anecdotes abound; there are two large-caliber bullet holes in the front door, fired by an irate customer sometime during the store’s pre-war years. There are still people today who firmly swear the place is haunted, recounting incidents of unexplainable noises and perceived presences during the building’s quieter hours.

Neither community had official town halls, councils or mayors. Local matters and decisions were handled mostly on a case-by-case basis by the town’s most prominent merchants, such as Fall Roberson, whom some facetiously compare to TV’s Boss Hogg. But there were also local admirers who named their children after Fall.

According to Gerald Ensley, the Roberson family created Union State Bank shortly before the Depression, using only $10,000 as venture capital. One of the Robersons had earned this stake while seated in the New York Stock Exchange.

Gerald fondly remembers his childhood, during the years of World War II. He said there were no paved roads anywhere near Cropwell and no electrical or phone service except within a block or so of U.S. 231, which was unpaved even though it was a federal highway.

Long-distance calls could only be made at the telephone switching office. Gerald’s family home, near the former Sears location on present U.S. 231 South, had no phone, so to make a call, he had to walk a mile to Mrs. Smith’s house, near presentday St. Clair Shores, always leaving a nickel in a wooden box beside her phone.

These conditions were not fully resolved until after the war, due to a shortage of strategic materials and manpower. In fact, U.S. 231 was finally paved by German prisoners from a POW camp, built on property now used as Lakeside Park.

Gerald’s uncle, Jerry Pike, was one of the POW camp’s overseers. Gerald recalls going with his father to the prison at night in a 1935 Plymouth to take his uncle some supper in an old lard bucket because the camp’s food was so bad.

Like all normal boys, Gerald and his friends had a streak of mischief. They loved to steal Lucky Strike cigarettes from Uncle Jerry’s pack to throw them over the prison fence and watch inmates fight over them. It finally dawned on Pike that he was buying a lot more Luckies than he was smoking and soon put a stop to their fun.

According to Gerald, foundations from the old POW structures can still be seen in the park’s wooded areas. The camp area later served as a building site for a now-extinct sawmill started by a local doctor who had forsaken his medical degree after deciding he could make more money sawing wood than bones.

WHEN THE LAKE CAME David Tims recalls driving through a demolished Easonville on old U.S. 231 as rising waters began to lap at the road’s edges, and also remarked about how odd the town’s vacated grounds looked with all those brand-new boat docks with no water beneath them.

Sensing explosive growth in the near future, David bought out a small general store in 1962, across the road from Roberson’s. Jessie Morton, its previous proprietor, also owned some nearby farm acreage, a dairy, and a huge colonial home a few doors west of his store.

The Morton house now belongs to David and his wife, Peggy, who grew up just down the road on the Cosper farm and

drinks Casual Dining fun music for the whole family entertainment dine out child friendly fun Steaks, Burgers and more

large screen tvs drinks laughs music Cropwell Commons Shopping Center

food

Now Serving Breakfast Saturdays 8:00 - 11:00

family

DINE WITH US AT

CROPWELL COMMONS

patio dining

2101 Stemley Bridge Rd. Pell City, AL • Open Mon.-Sat. 11 am til ?

(205) 884-3625 (DOCKS)

#1 Service Center on Logan Martin Lake

We have Mercury & Yamaha Bulk Oil

COMPLETE SALES, SERVICE & PARTS FOR YOUR BOAT

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

NEW & USED BOAT SALES

25

Traveling the

BACKROADS

attended Easonville School. Nicely restored, the old home now serves as a public gallery for the Tims’ extensive art collections.

David had rightly guessed that his location would be a popular entry point for fishing and recreational boating at the new lake, as well as a handy convenience store for newcomers who would soon be moving in, thus filling a niche left by Roberson’s huge mercantile operation across the street.

And he was right.

After a few anxious months of waiting for momentum to build, Tims’ Grocery began to flourish, first as a place for the dam’s builders to pick up some lunch, then later as a fullfledged water-sports supply store, where he sold fishing tackle, snack foods and bait. David tells that he kept one man busy all day dipping thousands of minnows for fishermen trying their luck at the new lake.

David did a great business selling bologna and loaf bread to school-bus-loads of migrant farm workers during cotton harvest. These crowds soon became so unwieldy that he finally allowed only a few at a time in his store. The bus drivers found an even better way. They would write to-go orders from the workers, then let the store fill them while almost everyone stayed on the bus.

Tims’ Grocery also served the needs of work crews from Easonville, who were demolishing the condemned town’s infrastructure and digging up graves for relocation. His little store fairly hummed with activity, proving that timing and location really are everything.

David reminisces that Bear Bryant sometimes visited his store during various functions at the swanky, brand-new Pine Harbor Golf Club, which had been developed by Cropwell’s “Bookie” Fraim. David said Bear always bought Chesterfield cigarettes.

As the little store prospered, David began to buy used furniture and other curios, selling them in front of his store. It was a truly prophetic venture, the beginning of a lifetime career in antiques.

David bought Jones & Roberson’s old location in 1970, later adding a full-sized auction area while still preserving the building’s historic value. Today, it serves as David Tims Antiques, the hub of more than a half-dozen buildings used by the Tims family for collectibles transactions.

Many architectural treasures can still be seen there. Its threshold has been worn thin by countless footsteps from more than 125 years of commerce, no doubt many of these steps from children’s bare feet.

Also present are the massive back doors and locking bar, with their distinctive diamond-shaped patterns of nails, equally spaced across the doors’ widths, altered only by hash marks and names placed there by David to preserve a record of his grandchildren’s heights as they grew up.

Tims’ auctions are now held in the former Western Auto/ Goodman Furniture store building on Cogswell Avenue in downtown Pell City. These lively events, held twice each month, draw eager crowds as David auctions off truckloads of consignments, estates and imported goods while family members handle auction ring logistics. In fact, business is so good that all food and drinks are free during sales.

Gerald Ensley also had the foresight to cash in on Logan Martin’s potential. In the early 1960s, he bought several acres

26

Cropwell School Boys Basketball Team of land on Alabama 34 between Cropwell and the river, where he built a Barber Milk-sponsored Dairyland store, similar to Dairy Queen. Like most Logan Martin ventures, it prospered under the business’ original owner, eventually being operated

by Ensley himself after that owner retired.

Gerald has worked tirelessly over the years, providing construction and investment options for various projects that sprang from the new lake. He was on-track to bring Alabama’s first Walmart to the area adjacent to Cropwell’s Valley Hill Cemetery, for which he had negotiated with Sam Walton himself, but various zoning problems prevented completion of this project.

Gerald has answered a question that piques some younger Cropwellians: How come it’s called Valley Hill Cemetery, when it’s not in a valley and there’s not a hill in sight? “When I got hold of it, there WAS a hill there — a real big one, full of rock,” he explains.

“I cut the whole thing down with my heavy machinery, to clear the land for WalMart. The deal fell through, but not until after I’d spent a lot of time and money moving that hill.”

Travelers and younger locals passing through Cropwell are mostly unaware of the town’s rich heritage. Its only obvious hints of former grandeur are the old Roberson store and post office, the Morton house, and the Mays house, saved from demolition and moved to an obscure spot near Lakeside Park, once intended as a St. Clair welcome center. But work stopped years ago, and the grand old home is currently reverting to waste and ruin while awaiting a more deserving future.

Some see Mays House as a tombstone, symbolic of a town and its people who once thrived here.

Let’s hope this fine old home is rescued while there’s still time. Cropwell deserves a nicer epitaph. l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

POWER TO

HOME

© 2015 Alabama Power Company

Safe, affordable, reliable electricity is one form of power we provide, but not the only one. Meet Rita Burns. She recently built her fi rst home, and with the help of Alabama Power, was able to make sure it was as comfortable and efficient as she imagined it could be. With a simple call to Alabama Power for advice and direction, Rita now has a comfortable place that her whole family can enjoy. That’s power to turn a house into a home. That’s Power to Alabama.

Watch Rita’s story of comfort at AlabamaPowerRealTalk.com.

There is such a thing as a free lunch

With children from left, Charlie Robinson, Jerry Woods, Fred Casey, Dr. Leah Stover, Doug Bailey, Erica Grieve, Allison Walsh, Matthew Pope and Dr. Michael Barber.

Businesses band together to help feed children 28

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Barber touts benefits of free lunch program

Specializing in Residential & Lake Home Sales Property Management & Rentals

Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Michael Callahan “On the count of three. One, two, three!,” beckoned Pell City Superintendent Michael Barber. Sixty young voices — in unison — rang out in an animated reply across the lunchroom of Walter M. Kennedy School.

“THANK YOU!,” they said, putting the perfect exclamation point on a good idea that has caught on across the school system.

The object of their gratitude stood in the front of the room, scarcely able to conceal their smiles. It was a group of business people who saw a need and filled it by filling the lunch plates of a school full of children — for free.

It’s a not-so-random act of kindness that plays out each week in schools throughout the school system. It’s lunch, courtesy of Town & Country Ford, Woods Surfside Marina, Tradesman Co., Robinson Law Firm and Metro Bank.

Doug Bailey, general manager of Town & Country, came up with the idea when he received an email about his own daughter’s lunch account being low. It sparked thoughts about the struggles of parents every day, trying to meet financial obligations that seemingly never end.

In turn, it became the catalyst for what Bailey called a “crazy idea” for his business to feed a school one day.

The first month was in October. By November, five other businesses chipped in, and now the goal has become feeding one school one week each month en route to covering every elementary school twice per year.

Of course, if more businesses join the effort, the goal is within reach that much quicker.

“We want to support people who support us,” Bailey said of the program that helps parents with a financial obligation that really does make a difference.

Bailey said he took his inspiration of paying it

Sharon Thomas, Broker 205.365.8875 www.SharonThomas.net www.SharonsDreamHomes.net Sharon@sharonthomas.net NEW LOCATION 30 Comer Avenue Pell City, AL 35125

205.338 SELL (7355)

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

29

Free lunch Signs of paying it forward

forward from the late Curtis Capps, a successful businessman who was at the heart of scores of good works throughout the region. Capps had told him Pell City was a “community that takes care of its own.”

By the businesses feeding children in the school system for free, it takes that burden off of the parents. “Our families get a little reprieve at a time when there are so many demands on them financially,” Kennedy School Principal Dr. Leah Stover said. “These are hard-working families who take responsibility for their children. It really is a blessing.”

Charlie Robinson of the Robinson Law Firm couldn’t agree more. “It’s not about us. It’s about the kids and their families and giving back to a community that has been good to us. It hit home to

30

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Logan Martin's Trusted Name in Docks

• SEAWALLS • DOCK RENOVATIONS • BOATLIFTS • ELECTRICAL & UNDERWATER LIGHTING

• CUSTOM DOCKS • BOATHOUSE CONSTRUCTION

3620 Martin Street South, Cropwell

www.tradesmanco.com

205-338-7500

Free lunch

Barber explains how the students’ free lunch came to be. me when I saw that a gallon of milk cost more than a gallon of gas. When parents are both working, they have bills and obligations that come along with family. That’s tough.”

Metro Bank’s vice president, Matthew Pope, talked of the relationship between good nutrition and learning. Children cannot focus when they are hungry.

“This gives them the opportunity to meet their fullest potential,” he said.

“The rewards of giving back have been so well received by the community,“ said Fred Casey of Tradesman. “We have received thank you notes from parents. I am thankful for the opportunity to give back to the community. It has just been a pleasure to us — phenomenal.”

Jerry Woods echoed the sentiment. “It is great to give back to our community,” he said.

“These kids’ parents made my business the last nine years.”

“This is one of the most wonderful programs I’ve seen in my 28 years in the school business,” Barber said. “It is encouraging to see the community get behind these kids.” It forms a strong connection between business and schools. “It makes a difference. It’s good all the way around.”

Clean plates all around the lunchroom with smiles from adults and kids to match are a good indicator that Barber’s assessment is exactly right. l

32

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

The Future of Tough® All-New F-150 DURABILITY

• New high-strength alumnium-alloy body and steel frame • AdvanceTrac® with Roll Stability Control™

C A PA B I L I T Y

• Best-in-Class Towing • Best-in-Class Payload • BoxLink™

I N N OVAT I O N

• 8-Inch LCD Productivity Screen • 360-Degree Camera • 110v400w AC Inverter Outlet

P OW E R

• New 2.7L EcoBoost® • New 3.5L Ti-VCT V6 • 3.5L EcoBoost®

• 5.0L Ti-VCT V8

Buying, selling?

Consider it done when you trust our team.

Josh Kell, Broker

Cell: 205-913-8772 josh@kellrealty.com

Kirk Mabeus

Cell: 256-390-8926 kirk@kellrealty.com

Karen Baltz

Cell: 256-312-6172 kbaltz@kellrealty.com

Buddy Simpson

Cell: 205-913-0817 buddy@kellrealty.com

Zandra Hyatt

Cell: 205-229-5712 zandra@kellrealty.com

WWW.KELLREALTY.COM 17 Court St West Ashville, AL 35953

Office: 205-594-5391 • Toll Free: 800-542-9376 Fax: 205-594-2620

FOREVER PRESERVED Big Canoe Creek & Chandler Mountain Orchard Big Canoe Creek photos by Liz Brooke Orchard photos courtesy of Freshwater Land Trust 34

Story by Carol Pappas Submitted Photos It’s more than just a job for Wendy Jackson, executive director of the Freshwater Land Trust. When a piece of land, a creek or a stream can be preserved, it’s about the future.

It’s about her grandchildren and their grandchildren. It’s about partnerships, where public and private entities come together to preserve the past for the future. And it’s about sharing those protected treasures for generations to come.

Few know that better than Doug Morrison, who heads up the Friends of Big Canoe Creek in Springville.

Since 2009, he and his group have been working with Freshwater Land Trust, St. Clair County Commission and City of Springville to protect this pristine area as a nature preserve in the state’s Forever Wild program.

Atop Chandler Mountain, Jerry and Janice Lanning know the value of the work, too. Their acreage is being preserved as an orchard growing a blightresistant American Chestnut Tree, one of only two such orchards in Alabama and the state’s base of operations.

“It looks like a go,” Jackson said of the Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve, which is nearing an expected real estate closing in coming months. Forever Wild, a state program that buys land to protect and preserve it, has made an offer, and the landowner has accepted.

“Mayor (William “Butch”) Isley and the City Council of Springville, the St. Clair County Commission and the Friends of Big Canoe Creek really stepped up to the plate and did what others around the state have been trying to do,” Jackson said. Their success will mean 327 acres of land fronting Big Canoe Creek near Homestead Hollow can be preserved for the future and shared for the public to enjoy.

“We are so excited. It really is testament to a lot of leadership in St. Clair County. A lot of other counties

Paddlers make their way on Big Canoe Creek

35

FOREVER PRESERVED

Honda volunteers help plant new tier of trees

haven’t seen this success,” she said.

In addition to the obvious win on the environmental side, Jackson called it a “huge win on the economic front” because it is expected to lure tourism dollars to the county.

“This is a great example of how we work,” she said. “We’re not an advocacy group. We don’t file lawsuits. We believe hunters and anglers are some of the greatest conservationists, helping to preserve places that matter.”

Based in Birmingham, FWLT does its work in an eight-county area through public and private partnerships and a tool called a conservation easement. “It helps keep family lands in family hands,” she explained. Landowners can continue to farm or manage a forest while preserving it for the future. They can protect the land from future development and “preserve a way of life they care about.”

There are estate planning tools through conservation easements that can reduce estate taxes, but many people don’t know of their existence because the act that created it was not passed until 1996.

“We want to make sure farms stay farms,” she said. “In 50 years, we will need to feed two times the people we feed now. The average age of a farmer today is 60, and we’re losing farms every year.”

And they want to ensure that lands rich in biodiversity like Big Canoe Creek are protected and preserved. “Doug Morrison has really been a hero in this along with the city and county. He has really been a champion and stayed on it.”

“We are thrilled that this project is moving forward,” Morrison said. “The Friends of Big Canoe Creek originally nominated this parcel in July 2009. We were later approached by an adjoining land owner and nominated a second tract in April 2010. In May of 2010, we partnered with the Freshwater Land Trust and conducted a Bioblitz on the nominated parcels.

The Bioblitz was an intense 24-hour biological survey in an attempt to record all the living species in the area, land and water.

“We had groups of scientists,

Bioblitz partners 36

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

H A Z E LWO O D ’ S Greenhouses & Nursery

205-338-3952

925 23rd Street North Pell City

GROW WITH A PRO

Crape Myrtles • Bedding plants • Hanging baskets • Lilies • Hollies

Knock-Out Roses • Annuals • Perennials • Ground cover plants • Deciduous shrubs

Ferns • Potting soil • Fertilizers • Peat Moss • Ceramic Pots

THE ROBINSON LAW FIRM, P.C.

Charles E. Robinson, Jr. Charles E. Robinson, Jr. Laurie Mize Henderson Judge Charles E. Robinson, Sr. Renay Bertella Judge Charles Meg WilliamsonE. Robinson, Sr.

205-594-5133 205-594-5133 www.rlflaw.net www.rlflaw.net

Ashville-Main Office Location Sixth Avenue-Court Street West P.O. Box 370 Ashville, Alabama 35953 205-594-5133 Fax: 205-594-5134

“No representation is made as to the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than those performed by other lawyers.”

Blepharoplasty (Eyelid Rejuvenation) Abdominoplasty Breast Augmentation Breast Lift Liposuction

Make the right choice

When you choose a plastic surgeon, you want an experienced surgeon you can trust.

Dr. Shelby Eich is a board certified plastic surgeon and a third generation Alabamian, who specializes in putting his patients first.

With plastic surgery as his exclusive practice, he knows the special needs and desires of his patients.

His office is an accredited surgery center which enables most patients to never step foot in a hospital, offering them the privacy they want.

Choosing the right plastic surgeon for you is a monumental decision. Make it easier with Dr. Shelby Eich, a plastic surgeon with the skills and experience you can trust.

Mommy Makeovers Body Contouring after Weight Loss Rhinoplasty Botox & Juvéderm Treatment of Skin Cancers

Dine-In, Carry-Out or Drive-Thru Order Today 205 338-1443

Pell City Location 1911 Martin Street South, Suite B Pell City, Alabama 35128 205-594-5133

Let us us handle handle all all your your legal legal and and real real estate estate needs needs in in St. St. Clair Clair County.

County.

Let

Facelift

Good service and great meals at affordable prices Dine-In • Carry-Out 13 Central Alabama• Drive-Thru Locations 1700 Martin Street North Pell City Order Today 205-338-1443 Order Online www.GoldenRuleBBQ.com

200 Pilot Medical Drive, Suite 100 Birmingham, AL 35235-3445

(205) 856-6155

www.eichplasticsurgery.com

Hamburgers Hot Dogs

Barbeque Beer

FOREVER PRESERVED biologists, naturalists and volunteers participating. Some of the groups attending were professors and students from Birmingham Southern and Samford, a biologist from the Nature Conservancy, folks from Alabama Rivers Alliance, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, photographers from the Conservation Photographers of Alabama, and of course, many volunteers from the Friends of Big Canoe Creek.

After the first tract is acquired we are hopeful the second tract can be added.”

When the property gets its official designation, it will become a nature preserve. Its nomination letter describes it as “hilly, forested terrain and aquatic and riparian habitat in and near Big Canoe Creek, including the drainage of a significant tributary of the creek.”

It has “abundant creek-side scenery and wildlife habitat. High points on the property afford views of the uppermost section of the Big Canoe Creek watershed, including beautiful rural Canoe Creek valley and the opposing ridges of Pine and Blount Mountains. The site is suitable for hiking, bird watching, paddling, mountain biking, horseback riding and a variety of other outdoor activities.”

“This endeavor is truly a community driven project,” Morrison said.

One of the many plant species found at Big Canoe Creek 38

Approaching storm on creek

A heron at creek’s edge DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

“Serving the St. Clair County and surrounding areas.”

Let us help you with:

• ALL HOMES • ALL LAND • ALL AREAS • ALL THE TIME

American Chestnut tree before blight. They can grow between 50 and 100 feet tall and were called the Redwoods of the East.

American Chestnut making comeback Meanwhile, another environmental project is taking root in St. Clair County on Chandler Mountain, where the Lannings have donated land for an orchard to regenerate a blightresistant American Chestnut Tree.

Originally known as the Redwoods of the East, these enormous trees — once found in Alabama and St. Clair County — became extinct because of a Japanese blight accidentally introduced in the United States in the early 1900s.

Once the blight spread, there was no stopping it. It wiped out these majestic trees, completely changing the landscape of the Eastern United States. “My mother remembered seeing them as a child,” Jackson said. After that, they were gone.

Working with the American Chestnut Foundation, timber companies and other groups, FWLT is involved in the St. Clair project, which is predicted to take decades to reach its goal of a blight-resistant tree.

“It’s a long-term proposition,” Jackson said. The tree is planted and at a certain age, the blight is introduced. If it survives, that tree is propagated. “It’s a multigenerational thing that will take decades for complete regeneration.”

And just as partnerships have worked well in the Big Canoe project, partnerships are playing a key role in this one, too, she said. Timber companies are helping with seedlings. A whole team of work volunteers from Honda Manufacturing of Alabama laid pipe for an irrigation system and planted another tier of trees to expand the orchard.

What is happening on top of that mountain is a valiant effort to bring back trees that the country’s founding fathers used to build furniture and split rail fences. They were trees that provided food to support an abundance of wildlife. It’s about the ecosystem, and it’s about timber for wood products — all interested parties working together to make something good happen.

But it’s more than that, Jackson said, adding a personal view of it. She knows it can’t come to fruition in her lifetime. “My goal is for my granddaughter to one day be able to walk under the shade of a Chestnut tree” — a simple pleasure she wants for her grandchildren and the generations that follow after. l

Paula Krafft REALTOR®

Cell: (205) 365-9612

paula@moodyrealtyal.com

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009019468321

MOODY REALTY

2841 Moody Parkway Moody, Alabama 35004 Office: (205) 640-7671 Fax: (205) 640-1795

www.moodyrealtyal.com

https://www.facebook.com/moodyrealtyal?ref=hl

Lifetime Member Club of Excellence

40

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

24/7 Excitement Pearl River Resort is the South’s premier gaming and entertainment destination…a place where you’ll find fun in every corner and friendly service to make you feel welcome.

Pearl River Resort is located in Choctaw, Mississippi just north of Jackson, MS, and is owned and operated by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

Follow Us!

Scan Here!

Pearl River Resort • Choctaw, MS near Philadelphia • 1.866.44PEARL(1.866.447.3275) • www.pearlriverresort.com A development of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

41

42

Handing

over the reins

Croyle children inherit legacy of love

Story by Leigh Pritchett Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Reagan Phillips, Brodie Croyle and John Croyle enjoy a moment together on the ranch.

The house buzzed with the afternoon’s activities of five school-age girls.

Karen was learning to tune her guitar, and Rosa giggled as photos were snapped of her. Emmalee showed off her newly organized closet. Lorenza discussed her plans to build a Hobbit hole in Tennessee and work for Lifeway Christian Resources. With a big, thick book to read, Gail curled up in a comfy chair. Although time was drawing near for the group to leave for church, Tony and Rhona Osborne remained unruffled. They gently urged the girls toward the goal of getting to the Wednesday-night service on time.

The Osbornes have much experience in raising children.

They have, after all, parented more than 52 children in the last 25 years.

“My wife and I feel like this is what we’re called to do — be parents,” said Tony. They have been houseparents with Big Oak Ranch for 25 years and have the same passion for it as when they first started.

The reason is “them,” Rhona said, pointing to the five young ladies growing up happy and healthy. Rhona has seen healing taking place in the girls’ lives, and it touches the mother’s heart within her.

“They, way too often, minister to me,” Rhona said.

The Osbornes are just one of the houseparent couples at Big Oak Girls’ Ranch near Springville. Theirs is one of eight homes at the ranch, situated on 325 acres of rolling hills, woodlands and pasturelands along U.S. 11.

Another house will be completed this summer, said Brodie Croyle, associate executive director of Big Oak Ranch that 64 children call home.

“We are never full,” said Reagan Phillips, Brodie’s sister and director of Big Oak Ranch’s childcare team. Big Oak will always make room for more children — always.

The Osbornes’ longevity is not unusual for Big Oak Ranch.

Brodie said the Osbornes’ commitment is the kind of calling

43

BIG OAK RANCH

A success story in the making

Rhona and Tony Osborne

for which the administration looks when selecting houseparent couples.

Houseparents are the frontline warriors of the ranch, he said. They are with the children each and every day. These “moms” and “dads” exemplify what God intended for a husband and wife to be and the children see this consistently.

The houseparents show what “family” truly means and lovingly incorporate others into it, said Brodie and his dad, John Croyle, who is founder and executive director of Big Oak Ranch.

The family units live, work, play and worship together. They laugh together. They cry together.

The houseparents model the four promises on which Big Oak has functioned since its inception: “I love you.”

“I’ll never lie to you.”

“I’ll stick with you until you’re grown.”

“There are boundaries; don’t cross them.”

Being in an environment where these promises are kept on a daily basis creates a sense of love, security and permanence for any child, but especially for a young person from a background of abuse, neglect or abandonment.

As further demonstration to the youths that the commitment is real and long term, Big Oak seeks custody whenever possible. This lets the children know that no one is going to send them away or walk out on them, explained John.

“They’re not bad kids,” he said. “They come from bad circumstances.”

44

At Big Oak Ranch, the element that makes a success story is the healing that has occurred in a child’s life.

“Success is if we can change the cycle of dysfunction they came from,” said Reagan Phillips, director of Big Oak’s childcare team.

One indication that the cycle is on a course of correction is when a child comes to understand what a “family” is.

A recent email from a houseparent tells how 6-year-old Keegan* — who came to Big Oak from a very abusive environment — has learned in a short time what “family” truly means.

“This morning … Trent*, Chase* and Keegan were eating breakfast and looking at all the birds in the back yard. There was a very large group of black birds eating in the grass. Off to the side was one lonely dove, also eating. The group of black birds started making their way toward the dove.

“Trent and Chase, being typical teenagers, started giving a ‘play by play’ of what they were watching. It went something like this, ‘Look! All those black birds are ganging up on that brown bird! They’re going to get him. Haha …’

“Keegan spoke up and said, ‘Maybe they are going over to say, ‘Hey’ and make him a part of their family so they can take care of him.’” *Names have been changed to protect privacy.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Beyond the entrance lies a new beginning

Discover Springville: It's what you've been looking for

Laster Sundries

Buy 6 cupcakes, get the 7th cupcake

free!

6432 US Hwy 11 205-467-0800 Open daily Monday through Saturday

Soup*Sandwiches*Ice Cream*Floats*Sundaes

Step back in time to the good ole days!

HAIR FORCE

Full Service Family Hair Salon

205- 467-3185 Walmart Shopping Center, Springville

6421 US Hwy 11

Suzy Holt, Manager

www.thesweethousecakes.com

We specialize in all Cut, Color, and Permanent techniques.

205-286-2291

Pandy Agnew

INTERIORS The best Mexican food in town

Nationally known interior designer serving central Alabama for more than 25 years

— UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT —

DRY NEEDLING AVAILABLE AT BACK IN MOTION PT

Open Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Sundays, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

Happy Hour Tuesday-Thursday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m.

What is it?

A treatment procedure that involves multiple advances of a filament needle into a muscle to relieve pain.

6468 US Hwy 11 205-452-2140 www.facebook.com/casadelsolspringville

BACK IN MOTION PT

No job too big or small. Call for a consultation today!

6454 US Hwy 11

205-835-4405 www.thegoodlifebirmingham.com

6460 US Hwy 11 Springville, AL 35146

(205) 467-9298

www.backinmotionpt.net In Alabama, a physician’s referral is required prior to initiating PT treatment

Who could benefit?

Anyone with acute or chronic pain –––– When should I see results?

Positive results are typically seen after 1 to 4 treatment sessions –––– Is it covered by insurance?

Yes. It is a recognized physical therapy manual treatment

Northside Medical Associates A Medical Home for All Your Healthcare Needs COMPREHENSIVE S P E C I A LT I E S

• Cardiology • Dermatology • ENT • Gastroenterology • Nephrology • Oncology • Orthopedics • OB/Gyn • Pulmonology • Sports Medicine • Occupational Medicine • General Surgeon • OB/Gyn

AFTER CARE

APPOINTMENT LINE 205-814-9284

IN PELL CITY AND MOODY OPEN EVENINGS AND SATURDAYS

FOR ALL LOCATIONS

URGENT • SICK • WALK-INS

EXTENDED HOURS

MONDAY - FRIDAY 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM SAT. 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM

ALL INSURANCE PRIVATE PAY MINUMUM WAIT TIMES

ON-SITE PHARMACY MATCHES LOCAL PRICES FREE DELIVERY

PAIN MANAGEMENT

46

FAMILY PRACTICE

ONLY PAIN CERTIFIED, FELLOWSHIP TRAINED PHYSICIAN IN AREA. DR. HORNE-BALLARD 205-814-9284

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

STATE OF THE ART IMAGING COMING SOON

INTERNAL MEDICINE

OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

SERVING BUSINESS COMMUNITY

SPORTS MEDICINE

THREE CONVENIENT LOCATIONS

70 PLAZA DRIVE, PELL CITY 2834 • MOODY PARKWAY, MOODY • 131 FLOREY STREET, VINCENT DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

47

BIG OAK RANCH

Rustic setting makes Big Oak a special place When a need emerges, fill it Years ago, John met a blonde-haired, greeneyed girl at a Department of Human Resources office.

Her name was Shelley, and she was 12 years old.

She was dirty and thin.

Her father had physically and sexually abused her while her mother held her down. Shelley had to undergo surgery to repair damage from the abuse.

John begged a judge to allow him and his wife, “Tee,” to adopt Shelley. The judge denied the request because Shelley would have had to live at Big Oak Boys’ Ranch, which was the only ranch in the Big Oak ministry at that time.

John told the judge that Shelley would surely be dead in six months if she were returned to her parents.

“I was wrong,” John told Discover Magazine.

“It was three (months.)”

Shelley’s life story weighed on John’s heart.

Then, in 1988, he was able to establish a ranch for girls needing a family and a home. It is dedicated in memory of Shelley.

Like its counterpart for boys, the girls’ ranch has multilevel homes in a secure community setting

48

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Privileged to help.

Connie Myers, Agent 2109 7th Avenue North Pell City, AL 35125 Bus: 205-338-9474 www.conniebmyers.com

We’re honored to serve this community for 40 years.

My staff and I look forward to many more with you.

Thank you for your continued support and business.

Get to a better State .

Get State Farm.

CALL ME TODAY. ®

35450 Alabama Hwy. 21 North, 256-362-6113 www.talladegainternational.com

000197986r1

1211030

State Farm, Home Office, Bloomington, IL

ST. CLAIR COUNTY PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

SERVING THE RESIDENTS OF ST. CLAIR COUNTY SINCE 2009

IF YOU NEED A RIDE, GIVE US A CALL!

205-338-1352

BIG OAK RANCH that includes a lake, pool and gym, as well as a barn for horses. Each ranch also has a “transition” home, where residents who are attending college or have entered the workforce learn to become independent.

In addition, the girls’ ranch is where Big Oak’s administrative offices are located.

The girls’ ranch is the second of three ministries for Big Oak Ranch and has been home to more than 600 girls thus far. The other two facets of Big Oak Ranch are in Etowah County – Big Oak Boys’ Ranch near Southside and Westbrook Christian School in Rainbow City.

All three grew from the calling John felt on his life as a 19-year-old.

That summer as a camp counselor, John met a boy whose job was to be “banker” and “timekeeper” for his mother, a prostitute. The boy listened intently to what John taught him and ultimately asked Jesus to come into his heart to be his Savior.

Through that experience, John sensed God leading him to open “a Christian home for children needing a chance.”

In college at the University of Alabama, John played defensive end under the coaching of Paul “Bear” Bryant. During John’s time at the Capstone, the football team won three Southeastern Conference championships and the 1973 National Championship. John was named to Second Team All-American.

Then, the NFL came calling.

John’s plan was to play in the NFL to earn the money needed to start a ranch.

When John told Bear Bryant his intention, the coach explained that a man does not “play” for the NFL; he “marries” it. Bryant advised John to forget the NFL and go build the home for children.

Just before the NFL draft was to take place, John was in a hallway where he was to be weighed and measured. It was there that he made his decision and told officials of an NFL team to use their draft pick on someone other than him.

People who believed in John’s mission – Bryant being one of them – gave financial assistance and, in late summer of 1974, Big Oak Boys’ Ranch was established.

Its name comes from the Bible verse Isaiah 61:3: “And they shall be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.”

John and five boys moved into a farmhouse on 120 acres near Southside.

Tee joined the family seven months later when she and John married.

During the 41 years that have followed, “2,000 children have had a chance at life that might not have had a chance,” said Brodie.

“Our first kid’s 58 now,” John added.

The boys’ ranch has since grown to nine

50

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Learning new skills

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A HOME EQUITY LOAN FROM UNION STATE?

FAMILY MATTERS

• MORE BUYING POWER • LOW RATE FINANCING • EASY TERMS • CUSTOMER SERVICE "Family does matter. That is why I went to Montgomery -to protect the ideals and principles we hold dear....

Just like family.”

Mack Butler, St. Clair County's voice in Montgomery

ck.butler@alhouse.gov Pd. pol. adv. by Mack Butler, PO Box 7184, Rainbow City, AL 35906

Free Delivery

Your Hometown Drugstore & Gift Shop

Your Hometown Drugstore & Gift Shop

2319 Cogswell Ave. Pell City, AL 35125

140 Council Drive Odenville, AL 35120

(205) 338-4903

(205) 629-6303

Your Hometown Drugstore

(205) 594-7088

35767 US Hwy 231 Ashville, AL 35953

BIG OAK RANCH homes. Currently, 55 children live there.

Together, the girls’ ranch and the boys’ ranch can accommodate a total of 144 children, plus 24 transitioning residents. The two ranches are supported exclusively through private donations. According to Big Oak information, about $12,000 is required to provide support for one child for one year.

In 1990, the ranch system added its third ministry – a school. For the price of $1, Big Oak purchased Westminster Christian School, renaming it Westbrook Christian School.

Approximately 700 students from 3-year-old kindergarten through 12th grade go to Westbrook. All Big Oak children attend Westbrook and account for 20 percent of the student body. Other pupils come from Marshall, Jefferson, St. Clair, Cherokee and Etowah counties. More than 500 students pay tuition to attend this private school, John said.

Tee, an educator for more than 30 years, teaches calculus there.

Westbrook has a 98-percent graduation rate, John said. Last year, the senior class garnered $2.2 million in scholarship offers.

As for Big Oak Ranch, “we’ve got 20 in college right now,” John said.

All in the family When Brodie and Reagan came home from the hospital as newborns, they had 60 big brothers, Brodie said.

And the family progressively got bigger through the years.

“We had the perfect childhood, we think,” Reagan said.

Year after year, she and Brodie watched their parents live out their faith in Jesus and selflessly show love to hundreds of young people.

Reagan and Brodie also witnessed time and again the brokenness that had occurred in the lives of many children.

Brodie tells of a particular scene that happened when he was 5 years old.

A vehicle with a man and three boys inside pulled up at the ranch. The man explained that his girlfriend had given him an ultimatum – it was either her or his children.

The man said he was choosing his girlfriend.

The oldest of the three boys quickly decided that living at Big Oak sounded pretty good to him. The middle child bolted from the vehicle and ran away. It took ranch staff members three hours to find him.

The youngest child – a 6-year-old – clung desperately to the man. The child begged his father not to leave him like the boy’s mother had done.

Years later, Brodie would come to understand that what he saw that day as a kindergartner significantly influenced the mission he would have as an adult.

After high school, both Brodie and Reagan went to the University of Alabama on athletic scholarships. Reagan played basketball until a back injury ended her career. From 20022005, Brodie was starting quarterback for the Crimson Tide.

From there, Reagan became a model in Europe and Brodie an NFL player with the Kansas City Chiefs from 2006-2012.

Afterward, Brodie and wife Kelli returned to Tuscaloosa, where Brodie worked in real estate for a time.

Concluding that the “catwalk” was not the life she was called to lead, Reagan went back to Tuscaloosa to earn a master’s degree in counseling.

Brodie and Reagan grew to realize that all their earlier

52

Croyle talks about the need and the calling to fill it.

experiences — how they grew up, what they saw happen in the lives of broken children, how their parents cared so deeply – were molding, shaping and preparing them for a purpose.

Their parents’ ardent devotion to protecting and helping children had become Brodie and Reagan’s devotion as well.

As a result, Reagan – wife of John David Phillips and mother of three boys – came back to the ranch. She is now leading the childcare team, which is the ministry arm of the ranch.

Understanding that his heart was at Big Oak, Brodie returned there as well and assumed the leadership role of day-to-day operations of the ranch.

Brodie and Reagan say they are completely committed to carrying on the work their parents began.

“This is not a job to us,” said Brodie, father of two boys. “…

We’re going to continue to do what God called our family to do 40 years ago. We will continue to be faithful.” l For more information about Big Oak Ranch, as well as the books John Croyle has authored, visit www.bigoak.org.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Having a baby isn’t just about deciding which hospital any more.

Because when you have your baby at St. Vincent’s East, you work with your birth designer to customize your birth wishes and make important decisions about your birth experience. Learn more about designing your own birth experience at idecidehow.com.

What’s Happening?

Tour de Blue in 2014

54

Plenty!

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

When warmer weather emerges, people naturally flock to the outdoors.

Around St. Clair County in coming months major events will have folks out and about and enjoying some of the best fun and fellowship the county has to offer.

Circle the date. Here’s a sampling of what’s in store in upcoming, major events:

Chicken Head Run, April 11

The Zack Mason Memorial Chicken Head Run will mark its third year, featuring a 5K, 10K and 1 mile fun run at Lakeside Park on Logan Martin Lake. Registration begins at 7 a.m. The race begins at 8 a.m. Registration is $20 and includes a t-shirt and a chance for great door prizes. Register on site or online at www.active.com. Proceeds benefit the Zachary Mason Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Chicken Head Run

Tour de Blue: Cycling for Prostate Cancer Awareness, April 25

The 8th annual Tour de Blue bicycle ride is the fourth entry in the Alabama Backroads Century Series, recognized as one of the top cycling events in the Southeast. The ride starts and finishes at the 65-acre corporate campus of Red Diamond in Moody. There are several exciting cycling routes, including a 107-, 76-, 48- and 13-mile option. All routes offer rolling SAG support and well-stocked rest stops. The cost includes an event T-shirt and a post-ride meal provided by Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q. A Tour de Blue jersey is also available for purchase. Early bird discounts are available on Active.com. The ride benefits the Urology Health Foundation’s prostate cancer screening and awareness efforts across Alabama. For further information and to register, please visit www.tourdeblue.com or contact Sherry Wilson at 205-445-0117 or swilson@urologyal.com.

Lakefest in-water boat show

Logan Martin Lakefest, May 15-17

One of the Southeast’s largest in-water boat show features the latest boats and lake lifestyle products from vendors at Lakeside Park on Logan Martin Lake. It features live music, food, fireworks and plenty of fun for the whole family.

Hours are from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday; and noon to 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Homestead Hollow Arts and Crafts Festival, May 8-10

The spring festival at Homestead Hollow in Springville features one-of-a-kind, handmade arts and crafts as well as pioneer demonstrators who take you back in time with wood carving, blacksmithing, soap making, wood stove cooking, quilting and even whiskey making from an original working still. Tour original cabins, learn about beekeeping and enjoy live musical entertainment and an array of food.

Homestead Hollow

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

55

Hometown Block Party, June 7

Food, music and fun for the whole family in this free event in downtown Pell City. An outdoor music festival, it features various stages strategically placed around the courthouse square and City Hall, featuring all genres of music. Vendors line the streets with food, items for sale and with informational booths and giveaways.

There are also rides and games especially for the kids. It is sponsored by the Greater Pell City Chamber of Commerce.

Block Party

Summer Lights on Logan Martin, June 20

A lighted boat parade debuts on the lake, beginning at Woods Surfside Marina and ending at Lakeside Park. Boats will be bathed in lights, and there also will be docks decorated for prizes. The festivities are from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Toughman Alabama Half Triathlon, Aug. 16

Toughman is a national race series and will return to Lakeside Park in Pell City with several hundred competitors from multiple states participating. It is a 1.2mile swim, 56-mile bike ride and a 13.1mile run. A 5K race will be held that same morning.

Major Fishing Tournaments, April-June

Swim leg of Triathlon

National anthem at tournament launch

56

Lakeside Park will be the launch site for a series of major fishing tournaments, which annually bring thousands of boats and anglers to Logan Martin Lake. Those tourneys and dates are: • May 2 — FLW-BFL Bama Division • May 9 — Alabama Bass Trail • May 23 — Mark’s Outdoors Fishing & Expo • June 27 — BASSMasters Weekend Series

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

May 15, 16 17 at Pell City Lakeside Park

free public admission made possible by these sponsors:

Bruce Canoles Logan Martin resident fulfills dream, publishes novel 58

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Words and Photos by Jim Smothers When one of those birthdays with a “0” on the end crept up on Bruce Canoles, he took stock of his life’s goals and achievements and found something missing.

He’s been a busy fellow: husband and father — check; Ph.D. in economics — check; successful career with one of the world’s best-known investment firms — check; early retirement to operate his own business–check; international game hunter — check.

But the Mays Bend resident had a long-term goal he wanted to fulfill: to be a writer and publish a novel. And it was time to get busy.

He has completed two manuscripts, and the first one of those to make it to print is a tale of the South that has been his home for a lifetime. Dogs of Summer draws on the lifestyles and power structure in a fictitious rural Alabama county and what happens when a botched criminal investigation erupts into a Ruby Ridge style standoff. That brings in state and federal law enforcement agencies and the national news media, with a reporter from Chicago becoming a central character in the story.

Canoles has been an avid reader of fiction throughout his life and has made it a habit to collect news items and personal anecdotes that he thought would work well in the stories he hoped to write. He also drew heavily on personalities and people he has known through the years, usually combining elements to create his characters. The settings and people he brings to life will strike familiar chords with people at home with the Rural South.

A Jefferson County native, Canoles was raised in the Minor community. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout at 14. At that time, the regional Scouts Council held an annual Eagle banquet.

Each Eagle would be accompanied by someone representing a career in which the scout was interested. Canoles chose magazine writer Romaine Smith who worked for Southern Living.

He studied at Auburn University, where his interest in politics grew. He was twice elected president of the school’s Young Democrats, and in 1974, he became the first Auburn student ever elected to the Lee County Democratic Executive Committee. During that time he met a state trooper who was running for sheriff against a powerful and entrenched incumbent. Canoles wound up managing his campaign during the last month before the election when another staffer had to resign. Even though the trooper did not win, Canoles learned volumes about Southern politics and about the uniquely powerful position of county sheriff.

From Auburn, Canoles headed to the Midwest where he earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Illinois at Champaign. He was hired by Merill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith as a commodities specialist. He spent a summer as an intern on Wall Street.

“That opened up a world to me I never knew existed,” he said.

But he didn’t want to live there. So he moved into retail brokerage and became the manager of Merrill, Lynch’s office in Anniston. That was during an era when the trend was to move “Wall Street to Main Street,” and he thrived in that position. He even earned the company’s Resident Manager of the Year award during that phase of his career. He also wrote several professional articles, which were published in trade publications.

While working there, he bought property on a then-lonely part of Logan Martin and built a weekend retreat styled after a

hunting lodge. He and his wife, Jan, now live there full time and operate a three-county property-management company.

He lived for eight years on property near Munford, bordered on two sides by the Talladega National Forest, an experience that gave him fodder for Dogs of Summer.

Canoles developed his writing style with a group of friends in Pell City several years ago that formed a writers’ group. He and Van Foreman, Dr. Catherine Douglas, Anne Powell, Faye Hall and Jan Canoles were the core of the group that met at each other’s homes to read what they had written. Most wrote short stories, but Canoles was working on chapters of Dogs of Summer. After the readings, the writers would discuss each other’s work and offer critiques and suggestions.

Canoles was a fan of literary giants Steinbeck and Hemingway, and more recently John Grisham and screenwriter Dick Wolf.

He has heard other writers talk about trying to break through “writer’s block,” but says that’s something he’s never experienced.

“I’ve been to a lot of seminars and listened to a lot of writers talk,” he said. “I’m writing when I’m in the shower, or driving down the road. I’m thinking about it. And then when I sit down, it just flows. Jan says when I sit in the shower until the hot water runs out, she knows what I’m doing.

“Almost all the characters are based on people I have known or know of,” he said. “When I hear a colorful character use words or a phrase in an unusual way, I write it down. Some of

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

59

Bruce Canoles

Canoles writes his novels on a legal pad, usually on the porch of his lake home.

this stuff you really can’t make up.”

Canoles does most of his writing with a pen on a legal pad on the porch of his lake home. The fresh air and view of the lake let him connect with the world outside the confines of his house without walls to block his imagination.

He’s also learning more about the business of selling books.

When he first submitted the manuscript for Dogs of Summer, it ran to 44,000 words. He was told it was too short and would do better at around 60,000 words. So he wrote some additional chapters, even adding what he considers to be his favorite character in the book — aging heiress Anna Grayson, who is comfortable in her own skin, but not with the chipmunks in her back yard. Her response to the vermin is unique and one that Canoles swears is based on a real incident.

He knows of three book clubs that are using Dogs of Summer for their discussions, and he has offered them some questions to use for their discussions. He wants his books to be entertaining, but to also communicate on multiple layers to help readers come away from the book with more than just a good story.

Even the title of this book holds several meanings.

His other completed work, Megiddo’s Shadow, had been accepted by a small, family-owned publishing house, but one of the owners died just before his book was about to be printed.

Lawyers are having to work out the details for Canoles to get back the rights to his own book, which will give him some time

60

to promote Dogs of Summer in person, on Facebook and in other venues.

He’s learned that the other manuscript is considered too long at 210,000 words for an author’s first published book. And while Dogs of Summer takes place in 46 days in a single rural county, Megiddo’s Shadow is set in five countries over a span of five or six years.

He calls it an apocalyptic thriller, part of which was inspired by his clipping habit.

He ran across a story about a Roman Catholic priest who was elected to Congress and some of the concerns that raised about potential conflicts between national interests and church interests. “What if a priest were elected President?,” he wondered. But that’s a story for another day.

Canoles hopes to do some local book-signings and talks about Dogs of Summer. For now it’s available on Amazon.com as a paperback ($8.99 plus P&H) or as an e-book ($3.99). Signed copies can be ordered directly with a check for $12 (postpaid) from Bruce Canoles at P.O. Box 810, Pell City, Alabama 35125.

The book is getting excellent reviews on Amazon with comments such as “riveting,” “well-written” and “fast-paced.”

It also has an epilogue which ties up loose ends about what happened to the characters after the last chapter — a nice touch.

Amazon has it classified as both Southern Drama and Realistic Fiction. l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Š2013 California Closet Company, Inc. Franchises independently owned and operated.

Designs for every room.

Custom designs to fulfill your dreams and suit your lifestyle.

Call today to schedule your free in-home design consultation.

709 Third Avenue North, Birmingham 800.448.1915 | CaliforniaClosets.com

AL Birm_Discover_8x4.77_0613.indd 1

6/11/13 10:47 AM

Where Your Hometown Doctor Is Always In. Monday through Friday 8:00 am - 8:00 pm

PCIFM welcomes Robin Solberg, CRNP, to our staff.

Located at St. Vincent’s St. Clair Medical Plaza 7067 Veterans Parkway, Suite 200 Pell City, Alabama 35125

205-884-9000

Specializing in Family Healthcare, now with extended hours that work with your busy schedule.

dancing stars with our

Pell City charity event raises $10,000 You might call a ticket to it a hot commodity if you looked around the room with a capacity crowd of more than 500 to see the 2015 version of Dancing With Our Stars.

And you would be right.

Thirteen groups and couples danced their way into raising more than $10,000 for the American Cancer Society, an evening that featured ordinary citizens who stepped onto the dance floor and wowed the crowd with an array of moves, shimmies and surprises.

An insurance salesman donned a polka dot dress and wig to keep up with “the girls.” Police officers showed their moves to the tune of Bad Boys, and what better song for firefighters than Disco Inferno?

It was all in fun and all for a good cause.

When the evening concluded and trophies awarded, the real winner was evident — the American Cancer Society — and the real hero was Pell City Line Dancers, who started the

62

Couples winner: Officer Jessie Burgos and Kim Gossett Myers

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Pell City High Dance Line wins group title

Treblemakers

Pell City Players’ Nicole Walters ‘shimmies for the crowd.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

63

dancing stars Jackie Vandegrift and Murray Echols

People’s Choice Award, Candy Crush Crew

Barbara Miller and Steve Shaeffer

Pell City Police dance to ‘Bad Boys’ event a year ago.

Doris Munkus, who heads the group, called it “great entertainment.” The money will go toward helping cancer patients with gasoline for trips to treatments, wigs, prostheses, makeup, lodging at Hope Lodge in Birmingham and research at UAB Cancer Research.

Munkus had high praise for all the dancers who donated “time and talent” to the event, making it yet another success story for the Pell City Line Dancers’ fundraising effort for the American Cancer Society.

The support of the community has made it one of the top events of the year. “I love Pell City,” she said. “It is a great place to raise a family.” l For more photos and video, go to: www.discoverstclair.com 64

Flashback Friday Gang

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Historic Tour of Homes

Free Events

Idlewild, Home of Mrs. William B. McGehee, Jr., 1279 Eastaboga Road

Historic Courthouse Square Tour the oldest continuously used courthouse in Alabama

Friday & Saturday ~ 10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Manning Hall, AIDB Campus, South Street Mr. and Mrs. William B. McGehee, IV, 416 Cherry Street Mr. and Mrs. Matthew L. Peters, 504 East Street, South

Separate tickets required for the following events: Wine & Cheese Reception Heritage Hall Museum, South Street Friday 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. ~ $5.00 Donation at the door Ghosts of Talladega Tour, Oak Hill Cemetery Friday at 5:00 & 5:15 p.m. ~ $5.00

Heritage Hall Museum Exhibits: Anita Stewart Photographs and Altered Books and Assemblages Local Crafts Market in the Musuem gift shop

Taste of Talladega Luncheon, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, North Street Friday & Saturday at 12:00 p.m. ~ Tickets $15.00

Talladega Public Library, Geneology Room – “Visiting the Past” Talking Tent (storyteller) on the lawn Tribute to Mr. Weaver, including wooden shoe forms and photographs

Luncheon at Trinity United Methodist Church, 405 Battle Street West Saturday 11:00 am until 2:00 p.m. ~ Tickets $7.50

Historic Talladega Ritz Theatre Tour an Art Deco theatre from the 1930s.

Tablescapes by Women’s Ministry of Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, The Talladega Regional Family Life Center, 405 Battle Street West Saturday 11:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. ~ Tickets $7.50

Information Centers

Spaghetti Dinner, Historic Masonic Lodge, Court Street Friday 3:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. ~ Tickets $5.00 Lodge will be open for tour from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

FRIDAY ONLY

www.TalladegaChamber.com http://aprilintalladega.org//

April on the Square Join us for a fun-filled Block Party with local food, artists, vendors, inflatable moon walks, and live music.

The Greater Talladega Lincoln Area Chamber of Commerce 201 East Street, South – 256-362-9075 Jemison-Carnegie Heritage Hall Museum 200 South Street, East – 256-761-1364

More than a pharmacy...

We take the time to fill all your needs Like us on Facebook for lastest tips and offers

• $4/$10 generic medication list • Convenient drive thru • Diabetic supplies & internet refills • Durable medical equipment

We specialize in taking good care of seniors and veterans.

Phone 205-753-4000

72 Plaza Drive in Pell City, Alabama • Hours: M-F 9am-9pm, Sat. 9-4

Conveniently located in Northside Medical Associates complex

www.northsideapothecary.com

FREE DELIVERY • We Match Local Pricing

Iola Roberts Elementary Dr. Michael Barber with first yearbook and portrait of Miss Iola Roberts

Celebrating 60 Years of Education 66

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Students get acquainted with those that came before them

Preserving the places that matter.

Saving tomorrow, today.

Present day teacher Yulanda O’Neal

Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr. Submitted photos It’s the classic, “If these walls could talk,” when you walk through the doors of Iola Roberts Elementary School.

Step into the lobby, and the portrait of one of the most iconic figures in Pell City history hangs prominently as if still keeping watch over her namesake school. Gaze at the wide staircase leading up to the upper floor of the school. “It looked a lot bigger then,” you can almost hear all grown up Iola Roberts alumni remark as they bring their own kids and grandkids to the school they once attended.

“There’s a lot of history here,” said Dr. Michael Barber. Not many know that better than he does. After all, he was a student there. So were his children. He served as the school’s principal and now, he is superintendent of the school system.

That history — 60 years of it — will be celebrated April 28 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the school.

It will be an opportunity for alumni, parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, friends, faculty and administration to celebrate 60 years of Iola Roberts Elementary School.

When the school was renamed for Miss Roberts, Gov. George C. Wallace headlined the festivities. At the time, the newspaper reported, “Members of the Pell City Lions Club will see one of their top projects become reality Sunday when the name of the

You can help preserve the special places that matter in St. Clair County.

Make your tax deductible gift today: www.freshwaterlandtrust.org 2308 First Avenue North Birmingham, Al 35203 205-417-2777

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

67

Iola Roberts Elementary

New gym a center of activity at renovated Iola Roberts South St. Clair Elementary School will be changed to the Iola Roberts School, thus honoring a great lady who has perhaps taught school continuously in St. Clair County longer than any other person.” Miss Roberts taught 45 years in Pell City along with three other years in Ashville and Ragland.

She taught at Avondale Mills School, which later merged with South St. Clair School.

When South St. Clair opened, a 1954 St. Clair News-Aegis article described it as “Pell City’s ultra modern 22-classroom elementary school..” It also stated, “Traffic jams in the halls will not be a problem due to their massive structure,” a feature still evident today.

It talked of the “spacious auditorium” many will remember — it doubled as a gymnasium — which has now been redone as a state-of-the-art library. A brand new gymnasium as well as Fourth Grade Academy have been added to the school campus to form today’s Iola Roberts Elementary School.

Present-day faculty have been busy planning the 60th Celebration, and they are encouraging young and old alike: “Don’t miss it!,” they say.

Old photos and yearbooks, a slideshow, a video of former students, faculty and administration, plenty of good food and a hefty share of “remember whens” will be the centerpiece of the festivities. A cookbook of faculty favorites from special meals prepared over the years will be on sale, and tours of the newly renovated Iola Roberts will be provided.

It is a chance to reminisce and an opportunity to see what Iola Roberts Elementary is all about today.

To reserve a place at the reception, check them out on Facebook or call the school at 205-338-7312. l

68

Today’s students Skylar Pitts, Jullianne Kirk, front, and Olivia Keith, center

Yesterday’s student, Andrew Wright, grew up to be principal of the school.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

New school opens in 1955 to much fanfare

MAY 8, 9, 10

ARTS + CRAFTS FESTIVAL TICKETS AVAILABLE AT GATES ADMISSION INFORMATION: ADULTS $7, KIDS 3-12 $3.

2 & UNDER FREE. PARKING FREE. For More Information Contact Us At

www.homesteadhollow.com OR 205.467.2002

DELICIOUS SOUTHERN FAVORITES

Restaurant & Butcher Shop 140 Purple Heart Blvd Springville, Alabama

(205) 467-2650 (205) 467-0111

Visit us on

THE FRESHEST MEATS • GREAT FOOD • RELAXED DINING

St. Clair Alabama

Business Review Louis

Dr. Rock Helms (left) and Dr. Michael Dupre’ discuss next building phase.

70 • DISCOVER The EssenceDISCOVER Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2013 of St. Clair •The Business Review

Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Northside on the move to create ‘medical home’ In 2001, Dr. Rock Helms — not too far removed from medical school — founded a practice in his hometown of Pell City. By 2015, it is setting a new standard in health care for the entire region.

Construction crews are putting the finishing touches on Northside Medical Associates’ latest venture, a state-ofthe-art imaging suite, and plans by Williams Blackstock Architects for another phase of the burgeoning practice is on the drawing board. It will be a 40,000-square-foot addition that is a joint venture with a diverse group of specialists.

The Northside partnership of Helms, Dr. Michael Dupre’ and Dr. Bob Whitmore is on the move to make Northside what Helms describes as a “medical home” for the region.

The comprehensive services they offer can all be found on the same campus just south of Interstate 20 off U.S. 231.

It’s a new trend that has started in health care around the country, giving patients full access to their primary care, specialty physicians and diagnostic testing all in one place.

It is spurred by a push from Medicare that has “naturally been progressing” — a concept that makes practical sense for the practice and patients alike.

Dupre’ is overseeing the imaging-suite project set to open soon. It is hard to conceal the excitement — and the pride — when he talks about it. A wide-bore, open MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, is the centerpiece of it, the only one of its kind in St. Clair County. Before, Northside had to send its patients to larger, metropolitan areas to acquire these kinds of services. Now, it’s just a few steps from their doctor’s office in an 8,000-square-foot addition built by Goodgame Company.

What sets this cutting-edge diagnostic tool apart, Dupre’ explained, is not only its precise imaging capabilities but its openness, quietness and its quickness. No longer must patients endure a lengthy process in cramped and noisy conditions.

Toshiba’s unique technology puts the magnet in a vacuum container that doesn’t allow the transmission of sound.

The patient and technician could carry on a conversation there is so little noise, which wasn’t possible with the old technology. “The imaging plane is wider so you don’t even have to have your head inside to get the scan most of the time,” Dupre’ said.

And it’s quicker. Most studies take 15 minutes or less. It has the ability to test 25 patients a day versus the 10 to 12 average with the older technology.

An added benefit, since it is done outside a hospital setting, is that the patient usually has much lower co-pays,

Dr. Dupre’ explains the benefits of new MRI as it is being installed.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • August & September 2013 The Essence of St. Clair • 71 Business Review • DISCOVER

Business Review

Northside

Dr. Dupre’ points out the precise imaging of the latest technology at Northside.

similar to a doctor’s visit.

Dupre’ said the partners saw a “huge need” for this phase of their practice, especially in sports medicine, geriatrics and for the veteran population. “We want to keep our patients here. We felt like it fit well with our vision.”

The vision continues with a multi-specialty building planned for construction in the fall of 2015 with completion expected by summer 2016. While specialties are part of the practice already, this will enable specialty physicians to own part of the facility and be housed along with other physicians Northside is recruiting. Additional imaging will be included as well.

The newest phase of Northside’s medical home will include cardiology; ophthalmology; optometry; pulmonary; ear, nose and throat; orthopedic surgery; dermatology; urology and gastroenterology specialists.

Meanwhile, Northside has reached out to other areas to provide medical services in other communities where there is a need. In recent months, Northside clinics have opened in Vincent and Moody with full-time staff. The Moody location offers after care in the evenings and on Saturday as well.

Northside’s main location has been offering after care for years, recognizing a need to become more accessible and more flexible in its hours of operation.

In today’s environment, it is “challenging to survive in a smaller practice,” Helms said. Demands on a one or two-

72

Dr. Helms talks about Northside’s vision of a ‘medical home’ for region.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

MB

Home isn’t just a place. It’s a feeling.

Metro Bank

“Come

Home

To

Us”

Personal Banking Business Banking Mortgage Loans Business Loans Insurance Services (Insurance is not FDIC Insured)

CD’s & IRA’s

w w w. m e t ro b a n k p c . c o m (205) 884-2265

Business Review

Northside

Dr. Dupre shows architectural rendering of expansion to come. doctor practice take their toll, and it gives larger practices an opportunity to look at multiple locations and expand services to areas of need.

A separate company, Northside Services, has been formed to assist other practices with tasks like billing, coding, quality measures and accounting — “all the things it takes to run a practice,” Helms said.

Its outreach has begun to focus on occupational medicine. “Employers are under pressure to keep insurance costs down,” so

74

Northside is working with companies and industries to institute wellness programs and develop on-site clinics where the doctor conducts exams at the company, Helms said.

It is Northside’s way of seeing medical needs throughout the region and filling them, much like its in-house pharmacy, Northside Apothecary, fills prescriptions and even offers free delivery.

As Helms puts it: “We are trying to create, basically, a medical home where you can obtain all your healthcare needs in one place.” l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

It’s Not Candy!

“Yes, some kids are popping prescription drugs like candy.

They think they’re safe because they’re used by adults. Join us in protecting our children from this danger. Secure your prescription medications.”

-- Richard J. Minor District Attorney

Want to see more or read the entire magazine online?

discoverstclair.com Get a delivery subscription for only $19.95 per year

Teens abuse prescription drugs more than any other illict drug

Teens believe prescription drugs are “safer’ than street drugs

3 out of 10 teens do not believe prescription pain releivers are addictive

ILLEGAL PRESCRIPTION DRUG USE CAN BE DEADLY

More Lake Homes for Sale. More Local & National Buyers. Local Expertise.

Nicole Walters

Realtor, Lake Expert

(205) 753-0225

NicoleWalters.com

Scotty Walters Lake Expert

(205) 533-5476 Come Meet Us At Our Booth At

LAKE HOMES REALTY LAKEHOMES.COM

Business Directory

Business Cards

76

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

77

Business Directory

Business Cards

78

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

79

Business Review

Promoting Logan Martin Lake Cooperative effort creates guide & map

Partners by Design, the Pell City-based multimedia group that created Discover Magazine, has launched a new magazine and resource guide for the Logan Martin Lake region.

Logan Martin LakeLife was developed through a publicprivate partnership called the Economic Alliance for Logan Martin Lake, which included City of Pell City, Pell City Industrial Development Board, St. Clair Economic Development Council, City of Lincoln, City of Riverside, Greater Pell City Chamber of Commerce, St.Clair Commission and Alabama Power Co. The 100-page magazine is a comprehensive guide to the lake.

Also included in the magazine is an additional 16-page map book showing the lake in great detail.

“We saw a need for an in-depth resource guide that promoted the lake as a region, and we are proud to have developed this alliance with these entities to bring it to fruition,” said Partners President and CEO Carol Pappas.

It will be used to market Logan Martin Lake as a destination point, an enhancement to the quality of life found in the area and as a recruiting tool for business, industry and residential growth.

The free guide is being distributed in St. Clair, Talladega, Jefferson and Calhoun counties and around the state. It also is available through its online component, loganmartinlakelife. com, in its entirety as an e-edition.

Partners by Design also publishes Discover, the Essence of St. Clair Magazine, Alabama Humanities Foundation’s Mosaic Magazine and quality of life magazines for chambers of commerce throughout the region.

80

Your Guide to Living on the Lake

loganmartinlakelife.com

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Business Directory

Piers Keith

Seawalls 205-473-5750 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

81

Business Review

Two great things, one building Thrift store and coffee shop opens in Pell City

Officials cut the ribbon marking the opening of Foundry Thrift Store and The Cup Coffee Shop.

82

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Story by Graham Hadley Photos by Michael Callahan and Wallace Bromberg Jr. Foundry Ministries is raising the level of hip and cool in Pell City with the opening of its new combination thrift store and coffee shop downtown.

With the ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, March 6, kicking off two days of celebrating the opening, the Foundry Thrift Store and the Cup Coffee Shop became the latest charitable business venture run by Foundry Ministries.

Foundry Ministries is a faith-based organization dedicated to helping men and women who are struggling with substanceabuse problems, said Amy Jones, director of marketing.

All of the money generated by the new store and coffee shop will go directly to supporting the ministry’s mission, she said.

Foundry Ministries generally is not actively looking to expand its supporting business base, but the staff are always on the lookout for new opportunities — that is exactly what presented itself in Pell City.

And that opportunity opened the door to a whole new business model for the charity.

“The original vision of what we wanted to do was such a smaller scale than what we ended up with today,” Jones said.

“It was a very interesting story. There is a sweet couple by the name of Stan and Teresa Cartee. They owned the building and made the decision to close out the store they had. They called us and asked if we would be willing to receive the store. We got it for free.

“The leadership team headed to Pell City. We were there in the middle of this incredible building with the exposed rafters and bricks and everything. … In that moment of time, we knew we would have a store here, and then we looked to the left and said, ‘There would be a great place to sit and have coffee.’”

It took six months to reconfigure the building and find and train staff, and along the way, things just kept coming together for the somewhat unconventional business model of merging a thrift store and coffee house.

“As we began to dream of additional ways to fund this mission, the opportunity came to team with Red Bike Coffee Company, and they do all our roasting locally in Irondale. The blend that we sell is specific to the Foundry,” Jones said.

Jones added their success has been greatly facilitated by the City of Pell City, the Chamber of Commerce and the community as a whole.

“We are really getting a positive response from the community. Pell City embraced us with both arms.”

Jones also said the local workforce was a great resource when it came to hiring staff.

“We have found a good labor pool to pull from. Our barista lives about 10 minutes from the store, and the manager has family here. So they are connected to the community, and that is what we wanted,” she said.

“Those local connections will help us work with churches and other agencies in the area that will let us help bring our ministry in the city.”

The Foundry wants to be a resource not just within the scope of its own mission, but to help out other groups in the Pell City area.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

83

Business Review Customers line up for coffee during the Cup opening day.

Stan and Teresa Cartee donated the building.

Clothing and other items are sorted and cleaned before being sent back to the Pell City store.

84

Thrift Store/Coffee Right out of the gate, the thrift store and coffee shop helped with a food drive for the Love Pantry where customers who brought in canned goods received a discount on what they bought at the store.

The thrift store-coffee shop business model combined with a strong focus on community is already proving itself to be a success.

“The thrift store is doing great, hitting all the projected targets. The coffee shop is brand new, so that is all testing, but we are expecting it will go strong,” Jones said, adding that the success here may mean they will open similar businesses elsewhere.

“If this works, we plan to use this as something of a model.”

That success will directly impact the lives of the people served by the Foundry Ministries.

Jones said they take a three-stage approach to recovery: helping people deal with the addiction and lead healthier lives, promoting growth through discipleship and group meetings, and training and building skills to enter the workforce once they are done with the program.

That last part works in conjunction with the thrift stores and the behind-the-scenes operations that support them — everything from car repair, to retail work to electronic repair — to give the participants real-world work experience.

“We do a job assessment with them, what their skills are, what they really want to do at the end of these 12 months. So they might work on the cash register, drive a truck or work in our electronics department where they fix things like computers and appliances” that are sold in the stores, Jones said.

With Super Thrift Stores in Cullman and Fairfield, the Foundry Ministries has the store side of the business down to a science. They have drop boxes all over Birmingham and their service area, run collection trucks, and can take donations at their stores. Donated items are shipped back to Birmingham, sorted, and sent to the stores with the highest demand for them.

They take in a wide range of clothing and household goods, but no large appliances or mattresses. The mission will take small appliances and other electronics — even if they are broken.

“We also will come and happily pick up a car, even if it does not work. We have an auto center that will fix it or scrap it for parts, and that money will go back to the ministry,” Jones said.

The Cup Coffee Shop, which also boasts free wifi, is open Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Thrift Store is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Whether you are buying your first boat, upgrading your current boat, or just need a place to store and enjoy your boat, we want your experience enjoyable and relaxing. Come visit us for all your boating needs.

THE ONLY AWARD WINNING CUSTOMER SERVICE ON LAKE LOGAN MARTIN

Business Review

In Brief

St. Clair ranks fifth in economic vitality According to Auburn University’s Economic and Community Development Institute, St. Clair County earned a fifth-place ranking in economic vitality compared to other counties in Alabama. This ranking illustrates the following components when ranking Alabama counties: • Population Growth (change for 2000-2013 and 2010-2013) • Workforce Readiness ( percent of high school graduates and percent college graduates) • Personal Income (median income & poverty rate for the period 2008-2012) • Employment (unemployment rate for 2013 and job change for 2006-2011) The top-five ranking counties were three metro areas: Shelby, Madison and Baldwin, in addition to two large counties, Elmore and St. Clair.

St. Clair County came in third in the percent job change category with an increase of 28.4 percent in jobs between 2003 and 2012. This compares with a United States percent job change of 7.4 percent and an Alabama job change rate of 6.5 percent.

In addition, it saw a 33.3 percent population increase between 2000 and 2013, with a 3.2 percent population change occurring between 2010 and 2013. The State of Alabama saw an 8.7 percent population increase between 2000 and 2013 and a 2.4 percent population increase between 2010 and 2013.

The unemployment rate in St. Clair County is ranked number 1 with only 4.4 percent unemployment. The United States unemployment rate is at 7.4 percent, and the state of Alabama has an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent.

This news came out on the heels of the U.S. Census Bureau’s announcement that St. Clair County currently leads the state with an increase of 15.4 percent in median household income since 2009.

“Every other year, ECDI produces the Alabama County Economic Vitality Index, which ranks counties based on population growth, educational attainment, income and employment growth,” said ECDI’s Dr. Joe Sumners. “St. Clair County ranked fifth overall, due primarily to its strong growth in both county population and jobs.”

“This study is proof of many successful years of policy to support wealth creation and economic development,” said County Commission Chairman Paul Manning. “We have been fortunate to have a prime location with two interstates to utilize for commerce, but the people and businesses are locating in St. Clair County because of the opportunities for success that are offered here. This is the reason our local economy is so strong.”

“The St. Clair County Commission and the mayors all work so closely together to push this county forward,” said Lyman Lovejoy, chairman of the St. Clair County Economic

86

Development Council Board of Directors. “They work to keep business costs low and to increase the quality of life. I am not surprised that we have achieved this ranking because of the good growth our county is experiencing.”

Brian Hilson, president and CEO of the Birmingham Business Alliance, agreed. “St. Clair County’s high ranking in the Economic Vitality Index is a validation of not only its consistently improving economic performance, it is also a reflection of the outstanding leadership of the county. Leaders in business, government and economic development in St. Clair work well together to help the county and its communities realize their economic growth potential. The St. Clair County economy is an integral part of the Birmingham metropolitan area, and it is creating more and better jobs and career opportunities for its citizens, which leads to an improved quality of life.”

BIRMINGHAM HEART CLINIC OPENS NEW VEIN CENTER Birmingham Heart Clinic (BHC), which operates clinics in St. Clair County, has opened the BHC Vein Center to diagnose and treat venous disease at 100 Pilot Medical Drive, Suite 185, in Birmingham.

The cardiologists at BHC Vein Center are treating venous disease with minimally-invasive procedures, resulting in less pain and quicker recoveries for patients. The BHC Vein Center offers many services in detecting and treating venous disease, including duplex ultrasound, ablation therapy, laser therapy and more.

About 15 percent of people in America have venous disease, which is caused by diseased or abnormal veins.

When vein vessels become damaged or weak, blood flows backward causing the veins to stretch, swell and twist. One of the most common and visible signs of venous disease is spider veins, which appear as small, purplish or blue clusters of veins on the leg. Varicose veins are larger, bluish veins which may look enlarged.

Venous disease may not present itself until leg pain or skin problems emerge. Venous disease symptoms may include the following: · Swelling or heaviness in legs · Leg pain or cramping · Visible varicose or spider veins · Discoloration of skin · Dry or weeping eczema · Leg ulcers · Restless legs Venous disease can progressively get worse over time due to the pressure created by the backflow of blood in the legs.

This may lead to additional spider and varicose veins, and in some cases can lead to swelling and venous ulcers. l

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • April & May 2015

Trust the

BafiinndTyoeuar m to

Dream Lake . e m . o H Your Real Estate Needs - Our Specialty Lifetime Member of Club of Excellence

www.loganmartinlaketeam.com

Because we have been serving clients throughout St. Clair County since the 1990’s, we have a strong comnnection to the area. We develop lasting relationships with our clients, working with them to resolve concerns and issues as

3 AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENTS

3 REAL ESTATE 3 PERSONAL INJURY

3 DIVORCE 3 CRIMINAL MATTERS

they arise. During this time, we have handled hundreds of cases in a variety of practice areas, including: personal injury, real estate, business law, commercial litigation, governmental affairs, criminal law and family law.