LOVE LOGAN MARTIN

Heron’s lunch - Tim Badgwell

Harmon’s Point in fog - Max Jolley

Love Logan Martin Lake

Facebook group Facebook group seeks to bring seeks to bring community together community Story by Roxann Edsall Submitted Photos together

Sunset winner - Julie Harper Martin The faces behind connecting the lake community – from left, Priscilla Willingham, Rebel Negley, Carol Cosper Meadows, David Smith

Love Logan Martin Lake

Does anyone know a good pet sitter? Can anyone send me a picture of the water level on Treadwell Island? Are there alligators in Logan Martin?

When people want answers to these and so many other questions on and around Logan Martin Lake, often they turn to their phones and computers. Just a quick search or post on Love Logan Martin Lake Facebook group and an answer is just moments away.

Want to know where to get fresh blueberries? Need a reference from someone who has had a good experience with an area plumber? Or maybe you want to let everyone know about a great band playing next weekend on the lake. Get it out there to the community in a few easy clicks.

With more than 14,000 members, the Facebook page keeps three administrators busy checking out 10 to 20 posts a day from people wanting to share on the social media site. Even more time is spent checking out potential members to be sure they are somehow connected to the lake.

“We try to keep it classy, keep it informative and keep it relevant,” says page creator and administrator Rebel Negley. They do not allow political posts, spam, business advertising or profanity. “I would say 99% of the time they follow the rules,” she adds. “If we consistently see a problem, we add a rule. We just want it to be a place where you can find peace. While we don’t allow businesses themselves to post, it’s fine to get recommendations from people who have used those particular services.”

What they do is connect people around the Logan Martin Lake community. Having grown up coming to the lake, she has a deep love for it and all that it means to the community. Negley admits that many of the posts are pretty simple – people looking for restaurants on the lake or wanting to know the time of the holiday fireworks.

The greater purpose is to develop relationships with others who love Logan Martin. “We like it to be like family,” says Negley. “There have been times when we’ve heard about deaths within the families in the group. Or the time we had a family who had a house fire. They were pretty much taken care of by the community through the information received and disseminated on our page.”

Negley has lived on Coosa Island for 20 years, the last 17 with her husband, Michael. Her daughter and grandchildren live in Louisville, Ky.

She credits the members with the growth of the group. “The people have made the group, not me,” she says. “They are so willing to interact with others and so willing to share their pictures or their help.”

People who have houses on the lake but don’t live on Logan Martin full time often post asking how the lake levels look during storms. Before and after floods, people look out for others’ homes and property by posting pictures of found items and of potentially dangerous conditions.

Aqua plane - Pam Mosely Smith

“During weather emergencies in particular, I think people rely on crowdsourcing through our site,” says Negley, adding that it helps to have people post pictures if a homeowner is not able to see the situation firsthand.

“I get comments all the time asking to thank the people who have helped others on the lake,” says Negley. “It’s one of my favorite parts of doing this. It’s a testament to how generous and hospitable our residents are.”

There are two other administrators who help with the job of managing the private Facebook group. Each one spends many hours a month reviewing posts to ensure they are relevant and appropriate.

Carol Meadows began helping after Negley had a heart attack a few years ago. David Smith helped for several years but has since gotten busy with other interests. Later, Priscilla Willingham jumped in to help.

Group experts Tim Badgwell and Carl Wallace help out in answering questions on a variety of subjects. A map Wallace created is pinned to the page so that newcomers to the lake can easily find landmarks. Wallace also contributes by updating people about flood concerns and about the higher winter lake level beginning this year. It’s the place to go when you need lake information or want to share something going on around the lake. Member Kelli Lasseter used the platform to start a thread this fall that resulted in a pier-to-pier trick or treating event for community children. Over the last two years, there have been many posts about the Christmas boat parade that a local couple started. This year, that family will not be able to participate, so the buzz on the site is that with the higher winter water levels, other boat owners will be making sure the Christmas boat parade goes on. Activities like these create a positive buzz about the lake, its community and its people – all parts of the goal of the Love Logan Martin Lake group. Many posts each day are simply sharing the beauty of the lake. One post is a series of sunset photos for others “in case you missed it.” Another post announces, “These sunsets at Logan Martin never get old.” There’s even a cover photo contest where members can submit photos to be used as the group’s cover photo for a month. They must be original photographs from the person submitting, in a horizontal format and posted as a comment under the monthly photo contest post. “Connecting as a community is important,” emphasizes Negley. “We’re a lake family. We love the water and are connected by it. It’s a great way to get the lake community information out there and to be unified toward a cause.”

That question about alligators in Logan Martin Lake is a favorite for Negley, who adds, “We’ve gone round and round with that one. I’ve looked and looked and still haven’t found any. But that topic comes up every year.”

That’s not to say alligators couldn’t be on the lake, though. A definitive answer comes from Marianne Gauldin of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife and Fisheries, who states, “Although they are more numerous in the southern half of the state, they should be expected in any lake or river. Logan Martin Lake provides suitable alligator habitat and would not be unusual for an alligator to be seen there.”

So, be cautious and post if you see any.

Regatta - David Smith

Ruby-throated hummingbird - Tim Badgwell

Buck’s Island

A lesson in patience and perseverance

Quinten Edward Lumpkin had a vision. He believed in family, community, the Golden Rule and the American dream. It was his vision that eventually led to a beautiful development of seaside-inspired homes on the shores of the Coosa River. Though he would never see the first home built, the lighthouse on the peninsula was built with him in mind.

He only had $21 to his name when “Buck,” as he’d been called since childhood, came home from the Navy in 1948. When he didn’t find a job in his hometown of Gadsden, he figured he’d just open his own business.

He found a storefront in downtown Gadsden that he could rent for $12.75 a month. Not wanting to use more than half the cash he had to live on, he got his brother-in-law to co-sign on a $150 loan. With that, he opened an engine repair and sales shop that evolved into Buck’s Boats.

The old storefront location didn’t work for long, though, as there was no rollup door to bring in merchandise. They had to turn boats on their sides to fit them through the standard doorway. It was so small that only three aluminum boats would fit inside, with

Story by Roxann Edsall Photos by Richard Rybka

Submitted Photos

enough extra room for five or six outboard motors. They moved to a former Buick dealership, which gave them more space, but still only 10 boats fit in the showroom. In 1969, Buck borrowed enough money to purchase 13 acres on the shores of the Coosa River. He had sold his home to help raise the deposit on the property, so he and his wife, Pauline, had a partially sunken houseboat dredged up and pulled to the property. They cleaned it up and lived there while they figured out how to fund the building of the store. The boats were sold and serviced under a revival tent they got when an evangelist, who was one of their customers, fell behind on his boat payments and offered the tent as a partial payment. Always the creative thinker, Buck saw his chance to fund his building when he read an ad in the newspaper of a Gadsden foundry seeking bids to demolish their building. He bid $10. The next lowest bid was $56,000 from a construction company. The foundry owner refused Buck’s bid, thinking he would likely not have the means to complete the work on time. Undaunted, Buck took out a bond for $56,000 to protect the

Remember When –Remember When –

Buck’s Island development features a seaside style.

The lighthouse that identifies the development is a tribute to Buck.

owner and completed the demolition with two weeks to spare. Then he took the parts and reassembled it on his own 13-acre plot of land.

After a 17-year career with Mercury Motors, Buck’s son, Tony, bought the business in 1989 and renamed it Buck’s Island. Now located just minutes from the shores of Neely Henry Lake, it boasts a staff of 33.

Three generations of the family are now involved in the business. Mary, his wife of 32 years, runs the day-to-day operations. Their daughter Katie is in the sales department, while another daughter, Angela, runs the service department with her master technician husband, Israel.

“As a kid, I loved being here as much as I do now,” says Angela. “I remember wandering around in the old attic space and seeing things brought back from other countries by my grandfather.” She also remembers the fun of jumping from boat to boat in the showroom, a love that her own daughter now shares.

Tony, too, grew up spending his days with his dad at the business. “We didn’t have money for daycare,” explains Tony. “Mom worked in the sales tax office for the State of Alabama, so I’d come to work every day with Dad until I started school. He took a broom one day, cut the handle in half and handed it to me and said to get to work. I helped in the business all the way through high school.”

One day after he had earned a degree in industrial design from Auburn University, Tony asked his dad how he had

Fishing boats fill a large space in Buck’s showroom.

A large selection of pontoons line the entryway to the showroom.

Buck’s recently specialized kayaks to their inventory. Tony Lumpkin

learned his business skills. “I knew my dad had quit school in the 8th grade to support his mother and sisters after his dad died. So I said, ‘Dad, how’d you learn to run a business?’ He said, ‘Son, I learned in Sunday school. I learned that if you treat customers the way you want to be treated, you’ll never want for business.’ ”

That Golden Rule philosophy still drives the business today. “We do a lot of business – about 10 times the business the average boat dealer does. What that means is that we have more stock than most,” explains Tony. “We also don’t sell boats. We help facilitate people in buying a boat and guide them through the process. We try to step into the customer’s shoes and have empathy with the customer. We just treat them like we’d want to be treated.”

Yet another vision

So what does Buck’s Island, the boat sales and service business, have to do with Buck’s Island, the housing development? In short, it was Buck’s dream from the time he purchased the land that one day he would move the boat business to build homes on the water’s edge.

The specialty rescue boat developed by Tony is produced in the Southside location.

“My dad had told me about his vision of building homes on the 13 acres whenever city water was available. We had to get new zoning regulations passed to allow the houses to be built the way we wanted,” said Tony.

He partnered with a builder and in 2000, built the first 10 houses in what they called Harbor Point, a peninsula on the grounds of the property. Three years later, they moved the boat business to a temporary rental building in Rainbow City so they could tear down the building to make room for the rest of the subdivision on the 13-acre plot.

As they were building the new housing on the property, they began building their new boat showroom and service center in a new location on Highway 77. The highway location has provided greater visibility and boosted their business.

The builder has almost completed the last home on the Buck’s Island development, capping the number at 47 homes. The lighthouse Tony built to draw attention to the property on the banks of the Coosa is also a tribute to the man who inspired the development of the brightly colored waterfront homes.

He loved visiting the Caribbean islands and guided Tony in planning the development. “He said to make everyone feel like they’re on vacation when they come home every day,” explains Tony. Sadly, Buck passed away in 1993 before seeing his vision become reality.

What Buck started with his $150 investment has fueled a deeply rooted passion for giving back to community. Buck’s Island sponsors Fish Fest, a day of fishing and seminars, and sponsors more than 40 high school fishing teams. “They’re our future,” Mary underscores.

Editor’s Note: You can find Buck’s Island at 4500 Highway 77. Their inventory includes Bentley and Crest pontoon boats, as well as Skeeter, G3, Avid, Falcon and RescueONE Connector Boats. They’ve also added fishing kayaks and a tackle shop. Three generations of accomplishments are highlighted on the showroom walls.

The new Tackle Shop was addded in 2020.

One of Tony’s RescueONE connector boats is ready to join a first responders team.

See a need and fill it

Buck’s earns worldwide reputation for first responder boat

Story by Roxann Edsall

Coming up with a product that is sold worldwide and helps first responders to be safer and more efficient is something to be proud of. Southside native and business owner, Tony Lumpkin, is profoundly thankful for such an opportunity.

He developed a boat that will connect together with others to build a large floating platform of any shape or size. The design is particularly useful for water rescues, recoveries, dive operations and flood evacuations.

Called RescueONE Connector Boats, they are virtually impossible to tip over when connected, according to Lumpkin. Sold by his Marine One Corporation and assembled at Buck’s Island, the boats are used by emergency rescue teams worldwide. “They’re all over the world and in every state except Alaska,” says Lumpkin. “The Thailand navy has 105 of them, Philippines has 35. We sell about 100 of them a year.”

The idea got started in 1992 when two guys from the Calhoun County Rescue Squad came in to Buck’s Island looking at jon boats for their rescue operation. “They couldn’t find anything that fit their needs,” explains Lumpkin.

“So I listened to what they did and even went out with them on a rescue operation so I could understand what they needed. Then I worked on designing one for them.”

The boats are specially designed to hook together through an interlocking frame design. Figure eight lashings give the connection added stability. Add-ons include a retractable dive platform, a portable fire pump and a stacked boat trailer that can haul two connector boats at the same time.

“In many cases, volunteer rescue squads give their own time to give families closure,” tells Lumpkin. “If I can make something to make their jobs a little easier, I’m happy to do it.”

Children born into all kinds of circumstances have dreams and dreams are powerful.

WE DO WHAT WE DO BECAUSE CHILDREN HAVE DREAMS.

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