At Home in Clay County

At Home

Clay County

Serving the community since 1848.

First Bank of Alabama is the oldest, continuously operating bank in Alabama. Since 1848, we’ve supported the people and organizations that have worked to make our towns and communities stronger. We’re proud to say we were first to invest in this area and dedicate ourselves to helping it grow, and we’ll always be here to ensure the people and businesses of this area are able to take advantage of all the opportunities the future holds.

1848 - 2023

Meet the Times-Journal staff

David is the Publisher/ Editor of the Clay Times Journal and the At Home in Clay County Magazine. The Clay-Times Journal has been owned by the Proctor Family for 80 years. He is the President of the Company.

Ray is the Sports Editor of the Clay Times-Journal. He has been a staple figure with the CTJ for 48 years . He coordinates coverage of all sporting events and the layout/design of the paper.

Tammy is the Editor of the At Home in Clay County, as well as the Managing Editor of the Clay Times-Journal. She oversees the daily publishing operations and supervises personnel. She has been with the CTJ for 12 years.

Breanna is the Assistant Managing Editor of the CTJ and is very instrumental in the layout and design of the paper. She assists in photography, writing articles, and ad design of the Clay Times-Journal.

Connie is the wife of Editor David Proctor. She retired from the Clay County School System after 25 years and is the Office Manager for the Clay Times-Journal. Connie is the Vice-President of the company.

Mike has been taking pictures and writing stories for the Clay Times-Journal for over 50 years. He is also a contributing writer for the At Home our Clay County Magazine.

Nick (Black Lab) and Charlie ( Golden Doodle) are our CTJ Therapists. They provide emotional support on those hard deadline days. Nick (named after Nick Saban) likes long walks, is rambunctious , loves to sleep all day and party all night. Charlie is a big, loving ball of fluff, who eagerly demands affection and attention, AND he loves playing in the mud, much to his parent’s dismay. The proud parents are David and Connie Proctor.

www.claytimesjournal.com

Ray Stansell

David Proctor

Tammy Andrews Breanna Minter

Mike Pettus

Connie Proctor

Nick and Charlie Proctor

About the Cover: Phoenix Dash Gravette seems to be having some trouble with his tractor and he’s not too happy about it either. But he’s not always so solemn, as you can see in the photos below. He is about as photogenic as it gets. Phoenix is the 8-month old son of Zach and Angela Gravette and just so happens to be the grandson of CTJ Managing Editor Tammy Andrews. His other grandparents are Jeff Griffin, Dennis & Pat MacArthur and Robbie & Sherry Gravette. This little boy might be loved JUST a little bit.

Special thanks to Klay Watts at Wayne’s World of Watt Nots in Lineville for being so accommodating with the taking of this photo.

The Legend of John Henry by Mike Pettus

Rochester by Ray Stansell

George Beale, Jr. by Ray Stansell

by David Proctor

Jack Stewart by Ray Stansell

Whaley by Tammy Andrews

Cover photo by Breanna Minter

John Henry: the man behind the steel driving legend

Statue of John Henry outside of Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, WV (courtesy of Explore Summers County – WV – John Henry Museum)

By Mike Pettus / Clay Times-Journal

The above verse is from Johnny Cash’s song, “The Legend of John Henry.” Dozens more verses have appeared for over a hundred years, catapulting John Henry into one of America’s greatest folk-lore legends. The above verses depict a powerful black man who drove steel jacks into rock faces to make holes for placing explosives. Explosives were packed into the holes to blast for railroad excavations. The legend arose, in the Post War Between the States era, after John Henry was challenged to race a steam powered rock drilling machine. John Henry was known as the greatest of the steel drivers. He was determined that a machine was not going to replace him and his fellow steel drivers. John won the race and beat the rock drill. Sadly, as the contest ended John Henry collapsed and died. Although John died, the legend of his heroic deed spread rapidly among the black railroad workers and then traveled far and wide among workers of all races. John Henry became a greater than life American hero loved by all. By the 1920’s, several English professors specializing in folk ballads started collecting and publishing John Henry verses. Their searches prompted further research to discover if the famous John Henry race was based on a historical event. A quest began for when and where the race occurred. The writer has a personal interest in John Henry’s legendary race with a steam powered rock drill because of the story his grandfather told him.

A Clay County Connection

As a young boy, the writer first heard the story of John Henry from his grandfather, E. G. Smith. E. G started out as a teacher and later became a merchant in Lineville. He frequently contributed newspaper articles to the Birmingham News. E. G.’s father, Woodie (W. B.) Smith, was a lifelong Lineville merchant and one of the founders of Lineville College. E. G.’s oldest brother, Walter Scott Smith, was a lawyer, realtor, and

a one term state senator. Walter owned the Lineville Headlight from 1907 until 1920.

E. G. Smith often told the writer about his father and oldest brother Walter Scott taking a train trip, in the fall of 1888. The trip was made on the newly opened Columbus and Western Railroad (C &W) line from Goodwater to Birmingham. (This writer wrote about the C & W railroad in the first edition of At Home in Clay County. The C & W was the first railroad to cross Clay County.) Walter and his father boarded the train in Goodwater to travel to Birmingham. During the trip, the train was halted near the eastern approach to the Oak Tunnel near Leeds due to some track repair work ahead. Passengers were allowed to disembark from the train during the pause. Some railroad employees entertained the passengers with an account of a race between a man named John Henry and a steam powered rock drill machine at the current site the previous year. They pointed to a steel rod stuck in the rock at the crest of the southeast portal of the tunnel. According to the employees, this was where the race took place. The rod, which they explained, was a jack used in railroad construction to make holes in rocks, for blasting. They said the jack was intentionally left there as a memorial to John Henry who died from exhaustion after winning the contest with the rock drilling machine. The writer’s grandfather, E.G. Smith, did not know if the jack was the one John Henry was driving at the time of his

“JohnHenrysaidtohiscaptain,amanain’tnothinbutaman, butifyoubringthatSteamdrillround,i’llbeatitfair andhonest,i’lldiewithmyhammerinmyhand ButI’llbelaughing,cuzyoucan’treplaceasteeldrivenman”

May Smith, Walter S. Smith, E. G. Smith, and Grace Smith (Photo M Pettus family collection)

death or if the railroad company placed it there. When the train resumed the trip, the engineer gave a whistle blast in the middle of the tunnel to honor Ole John. The writer learned later from E. L. Voyles’ journal that most engineers blasted their train whistle, in the middle of Oak Tunnel, each time they passed through.

Many years later, the writer was reading from the journal of E. L. Voyles, who was a road superintendent for the Seaboard Air Line from 1912 until 1954. Voyles wrote about seeing a steel rod stuck in the southeastern portal of Oak Tunnel when he visited Oak Tunnel in 1912, and again in 1914. Upon examination, he confirmed the metal rod was a railroad drilling jack (E. L. Voyles journal online). A picture of this jack appeared in the Central of Georgia Magazine in 1930. A copy of the picture was shared with the writer by the late James Deason, who was a lifelong employee of the Central of Georgia Railroad. The exposed section of the steel jack has since disappeared. It is claimed by some sources the jack was cut off with a hack saw and taken as a souvenir by someone.

Trips to the tunnel

In 2011, the writer was doing research on the construction of the C & W Railroad. He made a trip to the Coosa and Oak Tunnels near Leeds which are less than two miles apart. Prior to visiting the tunnel sites, a preliminary trip was made by the writer to obtain permission from the land owner who owned the land above Oak Tunnel. Both approaches to this tunnel go through very long, narrow, steep cuts. It would be not only dangerous to approach this tunnel

by walking the rails, but it would also be illegal.

Since the writer only wanted to photograph a portal of the Coosa Tunnel, he found a place close to the northwest portal on a narrow dirt road to take the photograph. The writer along with his oldest son, Mark, and oldest grandson, Landon, then made an enjoyable trip to the Oak Tunnel to take photos and look for anything that might remain of the old railroad jack at the crest of the southeast portal. We didn’t locate any evidence of the jack but we didn’t have time to stay and search very long.

This photo taken of steel driven into ground vertically about the diameter of a railroad drill jack (Lower center of photo) note similar location compared to old photo of the jack taken in 1930 at Oak Tunnel

Recently, the writer decided to visit the Oak Tunnel once again since he was planning to write an article about John Henry for At Home in Clay County. Permission was obtained from the land owner once again to access the tunnel via his property. The writer was accompanied by his youngest son, Steven, and Steven’s oldest son, Duke. We were prepared to do an extensive search of the area around the crest of the southeastern portal of the tunnel with metal detectors. Using a copy of the old picture of the railroad jack, we were able to orient ourselves where the jack might be in relationship to the tunnel’s entrance. We found the top bolted plates of a series of tie back anchors that had probably been installed some time after the tunnel was built in 1887. Tie back anchors are long rods installed to prevent rock slides. Without disturbing the anchor tops, our search produced a piece of steel that was driven in the ground vertically. Although the steel rod seemed to be in the right

Construction of Trestle on Central of Georgia Railroad – Hatchet Creek (Jerry Voyles Collection)

1930 photograph of drill jack stuck in crest of southeastern portal of Oak Tunnel (Scanned from the late James Deason collection)

(Photo M Pettus)

Closeup of the steel driven into crest of southeast portal of Oak Tunnel

place and it was the same 1 ¼ inch diameter of a railroad jack, there is no proof it was a jack. Comparing the photo we took recently to the old photo of the jack, they both appear to be close to the same place, in relationship to the tunnel portal. After taking photographs and completing our search, it was fun for the three of us to sit on the side of the tunnel portal for a while. We took the time to entertain Duke with the story of John Henry.

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Coosa Tunnel southwest portal 1880’s (Jerry Voyles collection)

Southwest portal Coosa Tunnel - 2011 - Mark & Landon Pettus

(Photo M Pettus)

Mike Pettus at top of Oak tunnel 2011

(Photo Mark Pettus)

Steven, Duke & Mike Pettus at Oak tunnel (Steven Pettus)

Oak Tunnel gets a new advocate for the location of John Henry’s race

The writer’s interest in the John Henry story, was bolstered in 2002, by a well-researched article by a professor from The University of Georgia named John Garst. “Chasing John Henry in Alabama and Mississippi: A Personal Memoir of Work in Progress.” This article appeared in Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association. Garst made a strong case advocating Oak Tunnel near Leeds, Alabama as the site of the historic race between John Henry and the steam powered rock drill. Although Mr. Garst , offered no written newspaper or periodical accounts from 1887, he presented strong evidence supporting Oak Tunnel as the site of the historic race between John Henry’s famous race.

The writer has searched to no avail for over two decades for a written account of John Henry’s famous race from a newspaper or other periodical dating from the time of the event. With the benefit of Mr. Garst’s writings and other information found by writer since 2002, the time has come to present another account of John Henry’s famous with the steam powered rock drill.

Steel driving hammer men

John Henry was a steel driver. What is a “steel driver” or “hammer man”? Steel drivers were men who made

holes in rock formations by driving precision steel rods called jacks. The holes were packed with explosives for blasting during the construction of railroad grades and tunnels. The jacks used by steel drivers were made of high tempered steel with a sharp point on the end which resembled a coal chisel, usually had a twist in it. The metal driving crews were often organized in what was called a swing crew which consisted of seven men. The crew would include three drivers who hammered the jack and three shakers or holders who would raise and twist the jack between blows to avoid getting it stuck. The other crew member was a loader who supplied the jacks. The holders often used an instrument called a spoon to remove material from the hole as needed. Some hammer crews were called “double jack “steel drivers. The driver and shaker would alternate jobs periodically.

Types of jacks

There were two types of jacks. The most widely used type was the “SR” or solid steel jack. They came in lengths from two feet to sixteen feet in two-foot increments. A two-foot jack was driven in first then replaced with a four-foot jack, then a six-foot jack, and so on. As the hole deepened the loaders continued supplying longer jacks. When the sharp end of the jack became dull, it had to be resharpened and retempered.

Another type of jack was the “CR” or composite jack. These jacks were hollow and came in two-foot sections which could be screwed together and connected as the hole got deeper. The advantage of these jacks was the removable tip. When it became dull, another sharp tip could be screwed on. A driving cap was screwed on the driving end of the jack. Drivers often started the day with a two-inch driving cap and later in the day as they became more fatigued, changed to a threeinch driving cap.

Steel driving was a complex vocation that required intelligence, rhythm, timing, and teamwork. Accuracy with the hammer was imperative because missing the jack could seriously injure the holder’s hand. A jammed jack caused huge delays in the construction. The shaker or holder was the team leader and chanted work verses to regulate timing and pace. Steel driving crews were paid higher wages than other railroad workers and usually moved from one job site to another when their work was completed. It is interesting to think that many different verses were probably created to fit the location and kind of rocks into which they were drilling. (E.L. Voyles Journal shared online by Jerry Voyles).

The level of skill of steel drivers cannot be over emphasized. Although strength and stamina were necessary, these men were highly skilled at which technique to use in each situation. The railroads had no choice but to pay more for this precision work.

John Henry, according to many, was known the greatest and highest paid hammer man of them all. Although steel driving crews consisted of all races, they were largely made up of black workers. Many of these men had been former slaves who took advantage of their limited opportunities to earn decent wages. Decent wages in railroad construction were low but the steel drivers made better wages than other railroad laborers (Johnson p.23, Cummins letter).

Mechanical steam powered rock drills arrive

Between 1850 and 1875, about 110 patents were issued for steam powered rock drilling machines. In 1871, Simon Ingersoll applied for a patent for his rock drill and established the Ingersoll Rock Drill Company. In 1876, the Burleigh steam drill, invented by Fowle Burleigh, was the first rock drill successfully used on a job. It was used in the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts. Several years later Ingersoll purchased the Burleigh patent and merged with the Burleigh Company. (Https: www.chinadrillingtools.cn/portfolio-items/rock-drilling-tools?amp=1).

In 1888, the Ingersoll-Sergeant Company was formed and headed by Henry Clark Sergeant who improved earlier steam drills with his new air compressor design and perfected the compressed air powered rock drill (https://wi101.edu/ object-history-ingersoll-sergeant-pneumatic-rock-drill/).

Eventually compressed air rock drills replaced

Ingersoll rock drill (Ingersoll-Sargeant Drill Co. 1903 catalog)

the steam models. The steam powered rock drills were cumbersome and required the operator to wear protective clothing to prevent being injured with the scalding hot steam. Air powered rock drill models were well suited for mining where it was not safe to operate steam powered equipment. It required a kerosene burner to make steam.

As rock drilling machines were perfected and put into use, the stage was set for the replacement of steel driving crews over time. This process took several decades to evolve. Manual steel drivers would continue to be used for smaller and more remote jobs. The modern machine age was upon the world. Rock drills, by the latter 1880’s, efficiently drove and rotated the jack as it drilled into rock. The new improved machines mechanically imitated the technique used by steel driving crews.

Nowadays, air driven jack hammers are still used on large jobs to penetrate and break up rock. Lighter electrical jack hammers have been developed in recent decades to replace heavier air powered jack hammers on smaller jobs. Any person, who has used a jack hammer on hard rock has an appreciation for the skills of the hammer men of the 19th century. The term “jack” in jack hammer comes from the jacks used by steel drivers of yesteryear. Electric hammer drills use hammer type blows and rotation to effectively penetrate hard substances. They have less torque and drill more effectively than traditional drills. The cordless impact wrenches commonly used today have replaced traditional corded electric drills for many jobs.

The early search for the historical John Henry

By the 1920’s, the John Henry legend had spread far and wide over the land. The search began for a historic John Henry behind the folk-lore ballads. In 1919, John H. Cox, an English professor at the University of West Virginia who specialized in folk ballads, published an article about a West Virginia man named John Hardy. He had a reputation as a steel driver. Cox speculated the John Henry ballads might be a myth based on Hardy’s life. However, John Hardy did not fit the firmly established narrative of John Henry (Johnson p 5-6). John Hardy was hanged for murder in 1894.

Guy Benton Johnson, a sociologist, who specialized in the study of folk ballads and black culture,

continued the quest to find the history behind John Henry. Johnson wrote John Henry: Tracking Down a Negro Legend in 1929. Over time, Mr. Johnson became convinced the John Henry and John Hardy stories were totally separate and that there was an authentic historic John Henry. Mr. Johnson went to Talcott, West Virginia, the location of the Big Bend Tunnel on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad (C & O), and interviewed several people. He also ran ads in newspapers asking for written letters from anyone who had information about John Henry. Among those who replied to his ad were three black citizens who gave very interesting accounts of a John Henry in Alabama. One of the respondents was C. C. Spencer of Salt Lake City, Utah. Mr. Spencer wrote a very compelling letter claiming that the John Henry race with a steam powered rock drill occurred in Alabama. C. C. Spencer claimed to be fourteen at the time and an eye witness of the race. Some of the specific

information presented by Spencer motivated Johnson to request a second letter from Spencer to obtain more information.

Spencer stated John Henry’s full name was John Henry Dabner from Holly Springs, Mississippi, who had been sent to Alabama to work at “Cruzzee” Mountain Tunnel by railroad contractors Shea and Dabner (Johnson p 19 – 22). This information from Spencer is interesting to note because the Columbus and Western Railroad (C & W) had to tunnel through two mountains southeast of Leeds, Alabama. The first mountain encountered was Coosa Mountain then two miles further they constructed a second tunnel through Oak Mountain. It would be credible to connect “Cruzzee” which sounds like “Coosie” in local dialect to the way many people in Alabama pronounce Coosa (Garst p. 226). Spencer’s letter stated that “Cruzzee” Mountain was fifteen miles from an ore mine at a place named Red Mountain (Johnson p 19 – 22). He accurately described the location where Red Mountain near (Birmingham *) is located which was the site of ore mining (*added by writer).

Mr. Spencer claimed John Henry was a former slave of the Dabner family. The chief engineer for the C &

W Railroad was Captain Frederick Y. Dabney (Garst p. 16). Mr. Spencer stated John Henry’s last name as Dabner which could easily have been meant for Dabney. The odds are highly against Spencer’s random use of the word Dabner as a name .

Mr. Johnson also received a letter from Mr. F. P. Barker of Birmingham that claimed Birmingham was the location of the famous John Henry race. Barker stated in his letter to Johnson he was driving steel on Red Mountain at the time John Henry was working at “Cursey” Mountain. Barker said there was a real John Henry who beat the steam drill (Johnson p. 22). Once again Cursey very possibly was Mr. Barker’s spelling of the word Coosa.

Mrs. Glendora Cannon Cummings of Lansing, Michigan wrote a letter giving information obtained from her father and uncle. She gave the year of the John Henry race as 1887 and stated it happened at Oak Mountain, Alabama. She wrote John Henry was working for contractors Shae and Dabney. Mrs. Cummings stated the steel drivers were the highest salaried railroad workers and that John Henry made the highest salary of any of them. She mentioned the names of two workers, Lazarus and George Collins,

whose names have appeared in some verses of John Henry ballads. She said they were real people, who worked with John Henry (Johnson p. 23).

Author Guy Johnson had respondents to his newspaper ad which placed the John Henry race at various places. However, several replies to his ad claimed Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia was the location of the race. Johnson later visited Talcott and the surrounding area. He interviewed citizens who claimed the race had occurred at Big Bend Tunnel. However, several people he interviewed who worked in and around the Big Bend tunnel during its construction in 1871-72, claimed to have no knowledge of the race there (Johnson pp. 27 – 44). One interviewee, Sam Wallace, Claimed to have worked in an around the construction of Bend Tunnel told Johnson in 1927 that never heard of John Henry until two years prior. He went on to say, “I’m sure there was never a steam drill at the tunnel” (Johnson p. 34, 35).

This writer believes the three letters to Johnson claiming Alabama as the site of the race were more convincing than the evidence for Big Bend. Despite acknowledging the Alabama claims warranted further investigation, Johnson did not seriously pursue them.

Johnson made the following statement as his reason for choosing Big Bend instead of Oak Tunnel in Alabama, as the site of the famous John Henry race.

“I have never seen any such reference to any of the Alabama places mentioned above. Furthermore, the Big Bend Tunnel was built ten years before the alleged date of construction of the Cruzee or Cursey Mountain in Alabama. It therefore has priority rights” (Johnson p. 26).

All indications seem to show Johnson had made a very rudimentary check of the Alabama claims (Johnson p.25). One can only imagine what he might have discovered if he had traveled to Alabama and put forth the effort he did in West Virginia.

Another author and English professor on the staff with John Cox, at the University of West Virginia, was Louis W. Chappell. He specialized in folk- lore with a special interest in folk song study. Chappell wrote, John Henry; a Folk-Lore Study in 1933. He wrote with conviction that there was a historic John Henry. Chappell concluded John Henry’s race against the rock drill, occurred at Big Bend Tunnel near Talcott, West Virginia. In reviewing Chappell’s book, this writer saw no compelling evidence to support his

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conclusion about location of the race. In the writer’s opinion, the letters from Mr. Spencer, Mr. Barker, and Mrs. Cummings to Guy Johnson offered more evidence of the event than any other evidence presented by Johnson or Chappell.

The search for Historical John Henry continues in the 21st Century

Cox, Johnson, and Chappell did a great job advancing and compiling many versions of John Henry folk-lore and ballads. The gap between the time of their writings and the actual historical event had been around fifty years. Lacking any earlier written accounts, they had to interview people who were advanced in age which made it harder to obtain accurate historical information about John Henry. Unfortunately, the latter two authors failed to exploit very good testimony from claimants placing the race in Alabama. At least, Johnson stated the Alabama claims needed further investigation. Chappell did not seriously consider the Alabama claims. As the John Henry legend continued to grow throughout the 20th century Big Bend Tunnel was thought by most people to be the site of the historic race between John Henry and the steam powered rock drill.

The 6,500 foot long Big Bend Tunnel is located just off West Virginia Route 3, just 1.2 miles west of Talcott, West Virginia. The site is adorned by a historical marker and a statue of John Henry. The original tunnel sits adjacent to a newer tunnel put into service in the 1930’s. Talcott in Sumners County is complete with a John Henry Museum. Accessibility and development of the Big Bend Tunnel has helped advance and promote the site as home of the famous John Henry race. By contrast, Oak Tunnel, the alleged Alabama John Henry site, cannot be accessed from any road. It is easier to advance a legend from a location people can see and visit. Of course, the legendary John Henry is big enough to be shared by more than one location, but the writer’s quest is to locate the one and only historic location, of the John Henry race.

John Garst, whose writings are listed in the introduction, has advanced the search for historic John Henry through his research on the topic. He has researched and connected the dots from the written letters of the three people Mr. C.C. Spencer, Mr. F. P. Barker and Mrs. Cummins who had been misunderstood by Johnson and overlooked by Chappell. Garst has helped place Leeds, Alabama solidly into the picture as the likely historical site of the John Henry race.

The writer recommends Mr. Garst’s book which is available online to anyone who wants to do a deeper dive into John Henry.

A noted historian Scott Reynolds Nelson, published his book Steel Drivin’ Man – John Henry – The untold Story of An American Legend in 2006. Mr. Nelson offers a well-researched story of the building of railroads in the post southern reconstruction. Nelson found a record of a John W. Henry who was a convict in Virginia. His research led him to believe that John W. Henry was the legendary John Henry. John W. Henry was leased by the Virginia Penitentiary from 1868 – 72 to work as a laborer during the construction of the Lewis Tunnel in Virginia. The Lewis Tunnel was constructed by the C & O Railroad who also built the Big Bend Tunnel.

Based on his research, Nelson claims the historic John Henry race occurred at Lewis Tunnel. Nelson dismisses the idea of the race occurring in Alabama. The writer disagrees with the concept that a leased convict could be conscripted to be a steel driver. Convict leased laborers in southern railroad construction were generally used as common laborers. Steel driving as previously stated was a highly skilled occupation. The railroad did not make steel drivers rich but they had to pay them a better wage than they did other laborers (Cummins letter, Johnson p 27). For instance, if the work was not done precisely, a stuck jack caused other drivers to pull off their job to free the jack with a hoist (E. L. Voyles Journal online).

A disagreement arose between Garst and Nelson, as to the location of the historic John Henry race site. Some of their disagreement was voiced online on the History News Network blog. In one exchange Nelson

Rare 1887 photo of C & W locomotive at southeast portal during construction of Oak Tunnel (Jerry Voyles collection)

wrote that two of Johnsons Alabama advocates, Mr. Spencer and Mr. Barker had been dismissed sixty years ago by Louis Chappell in his book. He did not mention by name the other Alabama claimant, Mrs. Glendora Cummins. In doing so he seemed to be willing to accept Chappell’s dismissal on face value without serious consideration of their testimony.

John Henry’s legendary victory over the steam drill

In the absence of a more detailed account of John Henry’s famous contest, the writer will reconstruct an account of the race using what is deemed the most credible sources of information. These include the following: The letters written by C. C. Spencer, Mrs. Cummings, and Mr. Barker to Guy Johnson in 1929; E. L. Voyles’ Journal account of the race; and interviews with several citizens including Jerry Voyles were also useful. In the writer’s opinion, C.C. Spencer is the only credible witness of the race, to write an account of John Henry’ famous race.

According to C. C. Spencer, a salesman from New York visited the C & W contractor at the construction site of Coosa and Oak Tunnels. In E.L. Voyles’ account the salesman’s name was a Mr. W. X. Stevens from Washington D.C., Mr. Stevens who was staying in a hotel in Birmingham, attempted to sell the new Ingersoll - Sargeant rock drills to the ore mines. The new drills could be converted from steam to operate on compressed air (E.L. Voyles Journal online). He had heard of the construction of two tunnels at nearby Leeds. The contractor informed the smooth-talking salesman he had a guy “who could beat his damned old drill any day” (Johnson page 19). As the banter continued, the salesman offered to set up the machine and give it to the railroad company free if John won the race. The contractor sent for John Henry and offered him a suit of clothes and fifty dollars if he could beat the machine. John Henry, who had never seen or heard of such a machine, assured the contractor he would beat it. The race was set up for three weeks later (Johnson p. 19). In C.C. Spencer’s letter to Guy John Johnson, the date of the race was September 20. According to Jerry Voyles the date of the race was Friday, September 30, 1887 (interview Jerry Voyles 2-14-2011). Railroad workers worked half a day on Friday so it would have been a good time to hold the race with less disruption of work. One can imagine how John Henry must have felt the night before the race. He knew he was up against a tough battle that

would affect the job security of him and his fellow steel drivers. Besides, fifty dollars and a new suit of clothes was a great incentive! Fifty dollars was surely more money than a steel driver ever saw at one time.

On the eventful day, John had already picked the camp’s best shaker, Lazarus, to work with him (C.C. Spencer gave the shakers name as Reuben Johnson). The day of the contest was a hot sultry day with thunderstorms and rain expected. According to Jerry Voyles’ sources, the Georgia Pacific Railroad ran a special train loaded with spectators to the Leeds Depot. Georgia Pacific was used was because the C & W trestle across the Cahaba River was not yet completed. The excited spectators were then taken the rest of the way via stage coach and dropped off a short walking distance from the contest site. The location picked for the contest was near the survey flags at the edge of the proposed crest of the southeastern portal of Oak Tunnel would soon be located. John Henry and Lazarus had already setup near the survey flags while W. X. Stevens was still setting up his rock drill fifty feet away. According to E. L. Voyles’ sources, Stevens had to convert his machine to be used on steam. It had

been demonstrated earlier with compressed air at a mine on Red Mountain. Stevens proved to be inept at operating the Ingersoll -Sergeant rock drill he was trying to sell. He struggled setting up the machine because of the cumbersome protective clothing he had to wear to protect from being scalded. As the contest started, the tripod of the machine slipped on wet slick rock caused by a rain shower and it had` to be reset. While Stevens was bumbling around with the machine, John and Lazarus were driving their

into the arms of Lazarus. As water was thrown on John to cool him down and revive him, John gasped to Lazarus, “I am blind and dying.” He then asked for his wife. When she arrived, she put John’s head in her lap. John’s last words were, “have I beat that ole machine” (Johnson p 20). According to E. L. Voyles’, account John’s wife’s name was Poly Ann. In his account, John was buried in a special place near the tunnel. According to C. C. Spencer John’s wife wound up in West Virginia as a cook at the Elkhorn Tunnel construction site. According to Voyle’s account Poly Ann stayed on as a cook until the Oak Tunnel construction ended. The railroad then provided her with a small shack near the tracks so she could be near John’s grave (E. L. Voyles’ Journal online).

Conclusion

In retrospect, we will probably never know the exact details of the John Henry race on that fateful day. If the race drew a crowd of several hundred spectators, the question is why hasn’t a newspaper account of the event turned up over the years. Perhaps the size of the crowd present for the event might not have been as large as Spencer remembered in his letter. Many historians, folk -lore researchers and others have searched with no success for an account

steel jack at a pace never before witnessed. One can imagine the cheers of fellow railroad workers and spectators who were cheering for John and Lazarus to defeat the noisy newfangled rock drill.

As the contest progressed, despite some hydration, the sultry heat and stress of the heavy blows being delivered took a toll on John. With adrenaline flowing and the excitement and stress of the race John probably did not drink as much water as he needed to fully hydrate. According to Mr. Spencer, John Henry was using a heavier 14lb. hammer, which he had requested from the contractor for the contest. Nine-pound hammers were commonly used by steel drivers. Several years ago, the writer interviewed two older citizens of Leeds whose grandfathers told them John used a pair of nine-pound hammers with shorter handles lashed to his wrists for the contest. All other accounts tell of John using one hammer. At the end of the contest, John Henry was the winner. He beat the new machine by several feet. Sadly, moments after winning the contest, that would immortalize him as one of the greatest American heroes, John collapsed

In contrast, an obscure event like the Wesobulga Hanging of 1881 in Clay County, Alabama has been well documented. After many years of research, the writer found several articles about the hanging including front page coverage in the Atlanta Constitution.

Despite a lack of published written accounts about the John Henry race, the writer still believes a stroncase can be made that it actually happened and that it occurred at the Oak tunnel near Leeds, Alabama in 1887. The accounts from various sources presented in this article by E. G. Smith, E. L. Voyles and letters to Guy Johnson from Mr. C.C. Spencer, Mr. F. P. Barker and Mrs. Glendora Cummings weave together to make a very credible narrative. Mr. John Garst’s extensive research and writing seals the deal.

Although the history of John Henry might be a bit incomplete, his legend has catapulted him in American folk-lore as one of our greatest heroes. The statement most often attributed to John is, “A Man ain’t nothin’ but a man.” This should remind us of the worth and dignity of every individual. “Ole” John Henry transcends all boundaries of economic status, race and culture.

East bound Norfork Southern (NS) engine emerges from southeast portal of Oak Tunnel built. The 136-year-old tunnel still being used. On crest of cut left of the locomotive is where the famous James Henry contest was held.

(Photo M Pettus)

New delis open at both locations!

Rochester book looks into life of famed fortune teller

By Ray Stansell, The Clay Times-Journal

We all have a fascination for the unknown – for situations that appear to be true, even if they are opposite to everything we believe or understand. That’s the case with Clay County’s famous fortune teller, the late Irene Teel of Millerville.

We featured her in the December 2022 edition of “At Home in Clay County” in an article written by coworker, Tammy Andrews, and now Clay County retired social worker and historian Linda Rochester has completed an entire book about Mrs. Teel that she has been working on since 2007, titled “Irene Teel: Psychologist, Social Worker, Fortune Teller, Witch”. Linda began collecting the interviews of those who went to Mrs. Teel who died in 1964, and Linda’s goal was to find out how the readings played out in the lives of the people who went to her. At the time, Linda wasn’t thinking of putting the interviews in a book. She just began asking people if they went to Mrs. Teel everywhere she went. She made notes on napkins, scraps of paper, and anything she could grab at the beginning. She interviewed people in the nursing homes and churches, by phone, and in person in their homes. She even did some in the mornings at McDonalds or Jordan’s in Ashland and Clay County Exchange (farm and garden supplies) in Lineville. One lady willingly shared her stories from her death bed, knowing that this would be an important part of history. “The main reason that I didn’t go ahead and finish the book earlier was because I kept getting stories. I added two more interviews after I already had a draft of the book from the publishing company,” said Linda. Because the book is a series of interviews with many different people, Linda explained that writing it

was much more difficult than writing a novel. “Each interview was a short story with a beginning and end. I didn’t think of breaking the book into categories with similar stories until toward the end of the process. Also, creating a Table of Contents and a Source Citation page where people could locate their family, alphabetically and by page number, took additional time. Starting each category with a bit of narrative about the section gave the reader some idea of what was happening in Clay County and to its citizens at the time.” “Probably the most interesting stories in the book involve where Mrs. Teel actually recommended some type of intervention,” Linda said. “That is where Mrs. Teel took some risks. You could not do what she did with her fortune telling today.” An example of intervention in the book involved what Mrs. Teel told a man to do when his horse was stolen. She drew a map to the location of the horse, but she advised the man not to take the horse back by force. Instead, she told him to take someone with him and where to park his

truck with a trailer on back. The location where they parked couldn’t be seen by the property owner. She then told him to walk down and inquire about buying a horse. “Ask if you can ride it,” she said, “and then load the horse in your trailer and leave.” The man took another person with him to sit in the truck. He did as she said, and he never heard from the thieves again.

The importance of animals in the lives of people at the time was a big take-away from the book for me. There were several stories about people who had their pets and hunting dogs stolen. One story involves a man’s dog that was killed by a neighbor after it killed his chickens. The dog owner got his gun and was going to kill the neighbor before a family member forced the gun away from him.

Several generations of Rena Teel’s family gather at her birthplace. L to R: Marvin, Ben, Rena, and Dollie Teel, Ettie and Henry Scroggins, while Rena’s parents, Jim and Molly Vansandt, are seated in the front, holding Baby Louis Scroggins.

Today, we love our pets, but back then having cattle, hogs, chickens, and other domestic creatures was a matter of life and death for poor people trying to get through long winters. One of the stories involved someone having a salt box full of meat stolen right after they had killed a hog. Although Mrs. Teel told the victim family who had the meat, they chose not to confront the neighbor because it would cause problems for the rest of their lives. This was the case with many

incidences of theft and other personal life situations. During a time where people didn’t move around much, they chose to try to make do. Another important take-away from stories in the book was that grudges did not seem to get passed down from generation to generation. “Some of the people I interviewed did not want me to use the names of people accused of stealing because there are still descendants living in the county,” she added. “That is a really nice thing to say about Clay County. We take care of each other.”

From the writer’s standpoint, I was amazed at how many people chose to use Mrs. Teel’s services, especially

Photo: Ammie Anderson’s book , Irene Vansandt Teel

when church-goers of that time in history looked at fortune telling to be a gift from the Devil. Their disregard of her gift happened even though Mrs. Teel professed faith in Jesus Christ and believed that her powers came from God. High school and college students often came to see her at the risk of getting in trouble with their parents. Preachers of the Gospel even came to see her, and one of them told about his experience. Rev. Bob Curlee, Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ashland, went to see her, and said that he “hijacked” the Pastor of the First Methodist Church to go with him. Brother Curlee said the Methodist preacher was scared to death! There were also people who had no belief in fortune telling who ended up going to Mrs. Teel out of desperation. Finding missing persons seemed to be a specialty for Mrs. Teel. She gave specific directions in some cases, but in others, she would take a piece of paper, maybe an old paper bag, and draw out a detailed map of where to find the person or animal (or body). What makes this even more amazing is that Clay County was filled with woods, underbrush, and basically unfriendly terrain, where she could have never been, yet she would draw an accurate map to wherever the person or animal was located. One of the most notable cases was that of a missing child in the Sylacauga area during the winter. The father went to her, and she gave directions. He came

back saying he did not find the little boy, but she told him he needed to go about another 200 yards. Sure enough, there was the child, still alive because the dogs who had gone with him had slept on top of him and kept him warm and safe. He had been missing seventeen hours. Four news outlets did stories on the incident, but Mrs. Teel was never mentioned in any of those accounts. While there were many doubters, the Teel book reveals how beloved the Teels were in the Millerville area. They were always helping people in need with food and other items, plus they attended church. Later in life, however, Mrs. Teel would sit in the vehicle in the

Ben and Rena Teel are shown with their children, Dollie and Marvin.

Pictured above, The Teels are buried in a plot some distance away from the rest of the cemetery at Big Springs Baptist Church. Some believe church folks didn’t want a clairvoyant buried with the other folks, but it may be that this is where she wanted to be herself according to Mrs. Rochester.

church parking lot during services. Why? She never told anyone!

Linda and I discussed an aspect of Mrs. Teel’s life that perhaps many people don’t think about. While we would like to know what is ahead in our lives,

if we stop and think about it, this would be a heavy burden to bear. As a little girl, she foretold the death of her own little brother and warned her mother. Her mother disregarded the warning, and the little boy died. Irene also foresaw the death of one of her own children. Mrs. Teel saw sadness in some of the futures of those who came to her. Sometime she mentioned it, but other times she kept it to herself. She admitted in one reading that there was nothing that could be done for the client as a reason not to mention what was going to happen. That her gift was unfortunately not a gift at times, she never discussed. She spent her early years crying over some of the things she faced, but that appeared to disappear as she aged. She seemed to accept life’s limitations with grace. In one of the Mrs. Teel readings, someone mentions a cartoon he saw somewhere with the caption “Psychic Wins Lottery”. The joke behind the joke is that we don’t read that caption because it didn’t happen. In other words, if Mrs. Teel could predict things, why didn’t she predict the big things? If she could have known, for example, which team would win the baseball World Series, she would have been rich. Perhaps she would have felt that would be misuse of her gift, even if she did know the winner.

Mrs. Teel herself knew that her powers came and went. They weren’t at her control. The thought worried her periodically throughout her career. There is no answer, except to say that she knew what she knew and no one, including herself, knew why there were things she did not know.

The category that Linda thought of as being the least successful for Mrs. Teel regarded minerals in the ground. Throughout the history of Clay County, and to the present, people have wanted to know if gold or other valuable minerals might be here, but so far, her

predictions haven’t yielded much.

Irene died in May of 1964, and she and husband Ben are buried on the outskirts of Big Springs Baptist Church, in the edge of the woods, at a church she never attended. She wanted to be buried there because she had happy memories of the time when she and Ben lived next door to the cemetery. It is odd that their graves lay outside the main cemetery. It was said that church people of the day did not want her buried with the others because of what they believed to be the source of her powers, but the truth was that it was her request to be buried behind the cemetery. Why? No one knows.

Whatever the case may be, people are still anxious to read and hear stories about her. Linda’s first run of 300 copies sold out immediately, and she placed another order, and another. At present, she has sold 600 books. She had the book printed in a manner that allows it to be sold for a reasonable price, $15. The profits from the book go to the Clay County Historical Museum on the square in Ashland. I love to read about real events, past and present! I was fascinated by the accounts in this book and went through it as

fast as I could, then went back over much of it in the course of writing this article. The stories are very interesting, and the history woven into the book by the author makes for a great read. You can buy one locally at: The Ashland City Library, Teel and Teel PC Family Law Firm in Rockford, Alabama, The Clay County Museum which is open on Saturdays, 9:00-1:00, by contacting Linda Rochester or the Clay County Historical Society page on Facebook. At this time, there are no plans for outside sales on Amazon or any other internet outlet though that is an option for the future.

Last, but not least, let me also give a plug for the museum. Linda gave me a detailed tour the day I interviewed her. There is a wealth of local history there, and one could spend days pouring over the documents, bound newspaper copies, and so much more.

I suggest if you’re interested in any Clay County history of any kind, go by and visit with them during those Saturday hours, plus buy a copy of Linda’s book if you don’t already have one!

Dreams of a country boy

By David Proctor, The Clay Times-Journal

A native of Delta, Alabama, Richard Sprayberry was born and raised in Clay County’s north eastern corner. Growing up, Richard loved the outdoors. At a very early age, he was hunting, fishing and shooting quail with his father and uncles. During this time, they taught him the importance of the outdoors, and how to value it, and his young mind soaked it all in. Richard attributes many of his accomplishments to the fond memories and experiences of his childhood. A rare find, Richard is a very sincere man, and you can tell by talking to him that he’s genuine with everything he says. Richard grew up at Mt. Olive Church in Delta, and God was a very big part of his family’s life. Richard graduated in 1977 from Lineville High School. Richard will tell you he’s still a die-hard Lineville

Aggie, “I support the Clay Central Volunteers and the new school. I know my grandchildren go there. But, when they throw the last shovel of dirt on me when I’m in the ground- I’ll still be a Lineville Aggie!”

Richard has been employed by RSquared Solutions, a company that sells meat and produce worldwide, for 20 years. He’s been in sales all of his life.

However, all of us go through life with a dream to do something out of the ordinary. Some people, for example, want to skydive and feel the rush of falling 120 miles an hour, or drive a race car- but they never do because they’re too afraid. Some people may want to run for public office but are too afraid they’ll be beat. Richard felt this way, but his dream was to write songs. And one day, while going down the interstate in the 1990s, he did. “It just came to me,” said Richard. “I pulled off the side of the road and wrote it in 10 minutes.” This song would be his first, and would be

Richard Sprayberry plays his guitar at Mountain View Plantation

titled A Hill Called Calvary. But the song was not recorded immediately, as most are. Richard left the lyrics sitting on a desk for 25 years before he felt God speak to him. Richard says that God told him that He gave him the talent to write that song, and that he needed to record it and share his talent with the world. “I went down to Lineville to the Carter’s place, and they helped me put it all together,” Richard said. “A company called Canyon Creek Records heard the songs and contacted me about representing me.”

After that, Richard began to write more songs, eventually compiling an album titled Homecoming Day, featuring eight tracks, including A Hill Called Calvary. Richard shared each of their stories:

Homecoming Day

This was about my childhood growing up at Providence Church, and the experiences I remember. They had church at Providence one time a year. Out in the cemetery, I would see my grandmother, Sarah Ellen Sprayberry, place flowers on all of the graves. Some of the graves were just rocks, but she knew where every one of them were, and who they were. That inspired me. This song is currently #77 in Christian Country Top 100.

Don’t Weep for Me

This was about my wife, Cynthia’s, grandmother

Mildred Newell. She was such a godly woman. Near the end of her time here on Earth, she told me, “Richard, don’t feel bad for me. I’ll be going home soon. I’m talking about going home to Heaven. That will be a glorious day for me.”

Sometime After Midnight

This song is about being ready to go when the Rapture occurs. This was written by myself, Bo Attaway, Dennis Nix and Jason Turner. They were here from Arkansas visiting me and turkey hunting. I had started the song and we finished it in about 10 minutes. This song went all the way to #10 in Christian Country music.

Thank You, Dad

A dear friend of mine and his father had been having some problems. Suddenly, his father died and he was never able to tell him how sorry he was for their trouble, and thank him for all he had tried to do with him. I related that to me and my father, and all the prayers he prayed for me in my darkest times.

The Blood

This is about Jesus and the blood He shed on the cross to save me.

The Crossroads

I believe that in all of our lives, we all come to a crossroads. We have to choose which direction we want our life to go in. We all have to make that decision.

Sarah Ellen Sprayberry along with Richard’s Aunt Katherine Sprayberry in the 1940s.

This is a very important song to me, because I chose to go the right way in my life.

Those Days

This is me reflecting on my days growing up on the farm with all of my relatives. All of the good times that we had together. It was such a simple and quiet time, unlike today, where everyone is always on their phones. Back then we didn’t even have phones. Everyone visited with each other. It was just good times.

Richard added, “All of these are just simple songs about me growing up. They are all God inspired.”

Richard shared that he does not earn any profits from CDs sold, “All the money is put back in to God’s work. We don’t take a penny of it.”

Richard never forgot his roots growing up in rural Delta. After hunting and fishing so much during his childhood, Richard had a dream to open a hunting lodge. “I had no idea how to start,” Richard said. “I talked to people, and little-by-little, we began putting it together. We had no money, but I had a dream.” Richard used all of his knowledge he had learned from his father and uncles, and opened Mountain View Plantation in Delta, Alabama in 2002. “It’s unbelievable what we’ve done with it. It has surpassed all of my expectations,” Richard said.

The lodge started with 160 acres and an old farmhouse. Today, the hunting grounds spread across 4,000 acres, and people from 48 states and 6 foreign countries have visited- the furthest of which being from Sudan in North Africa. The lodge has also hosted school and family reunions, and takes about 5 or 6 people to manage per weekend. “My family have all helped, and

continue to help, tremendously,” Richard added. “I have many repeat customers from Birmingham and Atlanta. They want to escape the hustle and bustle of city life, and escape to a quiet, clean rural area. They sit around at our fire pit and tell stories.”

“I’ve always been bad about telling stories. I like to talk about my life experiences,” Richard said. “People would always tell me that I need to write a book, and so I did.” Richard says the book, Recollections of a Country Boy, includes stories about the way he grew up and things that have happened to him. But he says the most important thing in the book is the importance of knowing Jesus. “That is the most important thing,” he said. “Everything I have and everything I have done has been because of Him. All of my dreams that have come true are because of Christ.”

Richard says the goal he’s always strived to achieve stems from a lesson learned from his father. “He told me growing up that we’re all only here for a short

“We had no money, but we had a dream”

Richard and one of the first turkeys killed at Mountain View

time,” Richard began. “We don’t own anything; everything belongs to God- we just borrow it for a little while. But my goal is to leave everything in better shape than I got it.”

Richard said in closing, “I want everyone to know that without God I am nothing. If someone somewhere is touched by my music, book, or stories, and is brought closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a personal relationship, then I have succeeded. There is nothing in life more important than a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and spending your days spreading the good news of how only He can save you. It’s the most important thing in life.”

Owner: Russell Anderson

Scenes from Mountain View Plantation

Dr. George Beale, Jr. relates colorful stories of his journey

By Ray Stansell, The Clay Times-Journal

Dr. George L. Beale, Jr. might have been destined for the medical profession, based on his heritage from his parents. His mother, Peggy Beale, was a registered nurse who oversaw the iron lung ward at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. Dr. George Sr. interned at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, and they met at the hospital. Following a visit to the premier of “Gone with the Wind” at the Fox theater in Atlanta and other social engagements, they were engaged and later married.

Peggy was the daughter of two Irish immigrants who came to America and settled in Hendersonville, NC. Enoch Ewart Ruff was Protestant, and Delia Concannon was Catholic. Both sides of the family disowned them. All 19 girls on the boat from Ireland changed their names to Delia. Why? No answers. At Grandfather Ruff’s funeral, his identical twin came unannounced. Imagine the consternation!

George Beale Sr., a longtime physician in Ashland, was the son of Charles Roddenberry Beale and Irma Powell, both of Cairo, GA., the county seat of Grady County, the poorest county in Georgia. Charles Beale obtained a degree in Animal Husbandry from the University of Wisconsin. Grandmother Irma obtained a degree from the Southern Conservatory of Music following her college education. George Sr’s father passed away when Dad was only eight months old. He

died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. He, his brother, and mother moved in with members of the Powell family. Dad became a sort of a red headed stepchild and had to get up at 4 a.m. every morning to build a coal fire in the Powell family’s rooms so they would not be cold when they got up. He never got over his hatred of fireplaces.

Even with the obstacles in his way, George Sr. attended Emory University in Atlanta and went straight into Medical School at Emory in his Junior year. After graduation from medical school, he was drafted into the Army and went to England during World

Dr. George Beale, Jr. at work

War II. He was the Venereal Disease Officer for England and Europe. As such, he was directly responsible for all penicillin use, and was one of the very first Physicians to administer penicillin. It was strictly forbidden to divert the use of penicillin from the troops to anyone, including local British doctors. Somehow, penicillin was always available for children with meningitis. I wonder who was responsible? In France, the Battle of the Bulge got within 15 miles of his field hospital, and the Army issued M-1 rifles to everyone there. Fortunately, Allied Forces prevailed. From there, Beale Senior transferred to Guam in the Pacific theater, which he and his friends found to be a much better situation. George Jr. says, “There is a picture of my dad in the top of a palm tree holding a beer and eating ice cream, but it was not available for this article. He initially wanted to go into pathology, but when he began to see the tissue specimens from the OR, he decided he could do at least that good and began a surgical residency at the Tampa VA.”

“We lived on an island in the center of Tampa Bay, on the bottom floor of a beautiful stucco home covered in climbing roses. The VA chief of surgery lived upstairs, and Dad frequently took me with him to draw his boss’s prothrombin time. I can still see the leftover blood swirling down the sink. Dad often went to work in a small motorboat. All was not perfect in paradise, however. Across the street,a large Boxer dog decided I made a great play toy and whenever possible would run me up to the top of our fuel oil tank.”

“Following his residency, he and his childhood friend, Albert Trulock, decided to start their surgical practice

in Albany, GA. Dad and Albert Trulock were close friends who grew up together. They were hooligans growing up, I have heard. In that era, one partner would work and send money to the other partner who was starting the practice. After the practice was established, the second doctor would move into the

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Dr. Beale on Ecuador mission trip

practice. Dad was the second doctor. Dad answered a letter in the Southern Medical Journal from one Cecil P. Horn, MD seeking a surgeon. He answered this and came to Ashland. Unfortunately for Trulock, he loved it here and stayed. One oddity: Dad and his longtime friend Trulock died of heart attacks within

24 hours of each other.”

“Dad wanted me to start school at age 5, but Alabama would not let me start because the cutoff was age six. My parents sent me to live with my grandmother in Cairo, GA. The only contact I had with my parents was a once weekly three-minute phone booth call. I was only given money for that much time, so the operator would cut off the call at that point. I would

recognize that drug store phone booth anywhere. I was able to come back to school in Ashland and did well. I have a report card message sent home by Mrs. Roy Bonner (4th grade) saying I was improving in math and possibly even now liked it a little. I still remember one moment in her class. She was cutting pieces of homemade cake for her students. I got up there quickly to get some, but she made me go to the back of the line. Naturally, I was upset, but when

With grandmother in Georgia

Report card note was a sign of things to come.

I got back to the desk for my turn, Mrs. Bonner cut me a piece of cake twice as big as anyone else’s. “Sometimes it’s better to be last,” she told me, and I have not forgotten that. In junior high, my parents were forced to send me to Georgia Military Academy in Atlanta after my mother became ill. Dad was simply unable to care for all us kids and practice medicine too. It then was “grow up time” for a fat redneck kid from Alabama. Despite the hype, Clay County High School was a better school.”

“Despite the early difficulties, I graduated Summa Cum Laude. My Emory student advisor placed me in all advanced classes because of my ACT scores. I was placed in an advanced calculus class despite never having taken regular calculus. It was extremely difficult, and I had little clue on how to do that level of math. Still, the teacher, a Mrs. Neff, agreed to give me a “D” with the stipulation that I never darken her door again. I never did. That was my only bad grade, and I made all A’s subsequently. I was accepted into Phi Beta Kappa in my junior year. I was next accepted into the University of Alabama School of Medicine. I was selected for Alpha Omega Alpha my junior year. One of the Professors I met, Dr Tom Sheehy, a

Pam and Dr. George Beale, Jr.

retired Colonel, and former Chief of Staff at Walter Reed Hospital, talked Steve Davis (he and all his brothers kicked for the Crimson Tide) and I into taking an internship in the U.S. Army. Steve and I were stationed at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was a huge pink hospital that was originally built to take the massive number of wounded that were expected in the invasion of Japan.”

“Along the way, I met the delightfully precious Mary Stone from Millerville, AL. We had been married only a short time when the stress of medical school, internship, and my absence became too great for her. Today there are programs in Medical Schools to help spouses deal with this stress. We divorced, sadly, and I went on and served a year as a General Medical Officer with the 25th Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning) at Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu.

I met my wife, Pamela (now of 49 years), who was an Army Nurse, while working on the pulmonary

ward at Tripler. We got married at the end of 1973 in Jessup, GA. We were almost separated when I got transfer orders to Redstone Arsenal, but I was able to stay at Tripler with the assistance of Colonel Kamen, my Chief of Medicine. He later became Chief of Outpatient Services at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. Pam and I rented a home on Onipaa Street. At the edge of our back yard was a cliff with a 1,000-foot drop with no fence to prevent anyone from falling. It overlooked Pearl Harbor. We could see the aircraft carriers and nuclear subs come in. Pam had this little fiberglass sports car (Lotus Elan) that could really go. I remember driving 100 miles per hour through the Dole Pineapple groves each day to work.”

“During that time, before my residency began, I worked in the ER at Schofield Barracks. In one weekend, I saw over 2,000 patients (with the help of numerous Corpsmen), the most patients I ever saw in my life.

I did my Internal Medicine residency at Tripler and

Dr. Beale at his graduation

later received a Cardiology fellowship at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco. In San Francisco we could open the drapes in our Sausalito condo and look out on the Golden Gate Bridge. Clint Eastwood lived in the neighborhood below (Treasure Island), and there were times the Goodyear Blimp flew by our balcony. At that time, San Francisco was a clean and safe place with numerous excellent restaurants. It’s not that way now!”

“I then did a tour of duty at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in Ft. Bliss, El Paso, TX.”

“Following that tour I was a partner in medical practice with my chief of cardiology in Tucson, Arizona for two or three years, consulting in cardiology at several hospitals. While I was there, one of my patients was a member of the Mafia. Because of him there were numerous FBI around, and my phone got tapped a lot. I didn’t like that, so when Dad died, I came back home to take care of my mother and worked with Dr. Horn until he died.”

“I was asked by the paper to recall several amusing stories. I was working in the ER one day, and there was a man sitting on a gurney. I was trying to be pleasant, so I asked the man how he was doing. He

replied, “My neck is broken, how are you?” I asked how did he know? He said my ears are too close to my shoulders! He was right.”

He related another story. “A group of three or four people came in and asked, “What kind of place is this? We’ve been calling 911for thirty minutes and never got an answer.” I told them I was sorry, but Clay County didn’t have 911 yet.”

Another true story. “A man was out in a wagon with his teenage son picking up firewood and loading it in the wagon. The young man was not doing his part, so his daddy was angry at the end of the day. As they unhitched the mules, he told the son, “Son, you ain’t far from a damn fool!” The son answered, “Just a wagon tongue between us, Daddy!” His father was not amused and gave the boy the worst whipping he ever had!”

“One of my patients was a person whom stinging insects avoided. For whatever reason there was something in his system that kept them from attacking him, no matter what he did around them. They also would not attack his pulp wooding partner. These people do exist, but they are rare! One early morning as they were driving to their worksite, they saw a very large

hornets’ nest. They stopped and retrieved the nest, stopping up the bottom hole with a stick. Then they went to Hop Sim’s grocery in Delta and laid the nest on the counter. The buzzing from the hornets inside became louder and louder, and the nest started bouncing. I am told that what followed was the fastest exit of the coffee clique ever seen.”

“A certain young woman came to the office requesting a motorized wheelchair. She was paralyzed in her left arm and leg secondary to being struck on the head with a golf club as a child. I asked her why she needed a motorized wheelchair when she already had a regular wheelchair. She told me that when she tried to push herself in the wheelchair she would only go in circles because of her paralyzed left arm. It was definitely a learning experience for me.”

“There was an extremely obese woman who continually made a nuisance of herself. She came down to the hospital and followed the doctors up and down as they made rounds. She would talk incessantly. She had big bulges of fat under each jaw. One day she followed my father as he made his rounds. She asked him if he thought she had mumps. He told her, “We’ll never know, we’ll never know”.”

The emergency room always seems to bring out some

good stories. “I saw a truck driver in the emergency room. He had gotten sick between here and Wedowee and had to pull off the road. The rescue squad brought him to our emergency room. He had an alcohol level that was over 500 and evidence of acute pancreatitis. This level of alcohol is consistent with alcohol poisoning. I talked with him, and he was incredulous. He said he had only had one beer earlier in the day. Someone in the emergency room - I never knew who - called out, “It must have been a 50-gallon drum.”

Another one in the patient tale category went as follows: “I had a patient come to the office and as usual asked him what I could do for him. He said that he wanted me to know that if they found his wife murdered down at Lake Harris that he did not do it. Fortunately, as far as I know, nothing ever happened to the lady.”

“Then on one occasion, I had to protect my personal property, I had purchased a new pickup. There was a crow that persistently ate the rubber around the bed light. I had told that crow multiple times to stop-they can understand you, you know. Finally, things came to a head. I brought my shotgun to the office. I saw the crow walking around outside the office. I told my current patient “Excuse me.” I took my shotgun and walked out on the side porch. This crow was so sure

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of himself that he just walked around on the ground. It was an easy shot, and that crow was gone. I then resumed my clinic.”

“I started practicing medicine in 1974 and I enjoyed it until the ‘computer thing’ brought on by President Obama. I would come home, eat supper and be up until 11 p.m. every night getting everything on the computer. I got tired of the craziness.”

“Pam was always understanding, but sometimes something would come up and she wanted to go somewhere, and I could not because of the obligations of the medical practice. You just can’t schedule for the unexpected, and that is very hard for your family.”

“While I overcame a number of obstacles in my life, as do many others, many of my ancestors were not so fortunate. Daddy and Uncle Charles were the first men in many generations to live past 40. Our family tends to die in accidents, particularly in the month of February. A lot of my family members died on both sides in the Civil War. Several were hung after being captured by the enemy, some were shot in battle, and they ranked from privates to generals.”

In closing, there are a couple of items in Beale’s and wife Pam’s lives in their retirement that need mentioning.

Dr. Beale and his wife, Pam, are very active in the Ashland First United Methodist Church. “I started a food bank, and Pam and Suzanne Luker help me operate it. We expanded it to take food to people in need at the Ashland and Lineville Housing Authorities. We go to Birmingham and pick up the food, and Stan Gaither from Ashland Housing and Charles Bass from Lineville Housing send help to sort and pack it. This is done through a USDA program.”

“We also take snacks to Ashland and Lineville Elementary Schools for the teachers to give to students they feel don’t have enough to eat on the weekends,” he added.

As noted earlier in this article, he was in the U.S. Army and so was Pam. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and was honorably discharged in 1996. “I’m proud to be a veteran and the honorable discharge is very special. We were also awarded Viet Nam Theatre ribbons for the support we gave from the United States, but I don’t make a big deal out of that because we didn’t actually serve over there. We know several doctors who did and some lost their lives over there.”

“Coach Weems is... Coach Weems”

By: David Proctor Clay Times-Journal

Jerry Weems was born in 1948 in the Wellborn Community in Calhoun County. At the age of 4, his mother left his family, including himself, his father and two brothers. They moved in with his grandmother on a small 10-acre farm in Wellborn. “We had a pasture with cows, chickens and hogs. We had huge gardens that we got our food from,” said Jerry. Jerry and his brothers, Ricky and Randy, were all very close in age. From a very early age, Jerry was very sportsminded. “When we weren’t working in the gardens or doing chores, we were playing sports,” he said. “If it was football season, we’d play football. If it was basketball season, we’d play basketball.”

Jerry began playing youth baseball at the age of 12 in Anniston, at the time, there were no sports programs in Wellborn. As he got older, Wellborn grew and developed sports programs, and Jerry played football there. At only 13 years old, Jerry already knew he wanted to be a coach. “My head football coach at Wellborn was Ed Dupree,

Coach Weems at his Calhoun County Sports Hall of Fame induction in 2015

and my basketball coach was John Adcock. They were both very influential in my life in a positive way. I would see those coaches and I felt like that was something that I wanted to do. I wanted to have an influence on people, as they had me. Everything I was doing from that time on was to achieve that goal,” Jerry said. “You might say that sports have been my life. I’ve never desired to do anything else. I’ve never considered it a day in my life. That’s how much I liked it.”

“I’ve always been blessed to be around good people beginning in high school and following me through college,” said Jerry. Ruby Abbott was a coach at Wellborn and good friends of the Weems Family.

Abbott was also a coach at Jacksonville State. Because of his friendship, Jerry was able to get a job at Jacksonville High School coaching baseball as he attended college at Jacksonville State. Weems also coached baseball at Wellborn. After graduating from Jacksonville with a

BS in Physical Education, his first job was becoming the Head Coach of Varsity basketball at Cleburne County High School in 1971. Weems was also the assistant football coach. Weems also went back to school at Auburn and got his Master’s Degree while working during this time. After coaching at Cleburne County for two years, Weems coached at Dadeville in the same position for 3 years. Weems would go on to win a total of 599 basketball games as a coach. Weems’ coaching career would change drastically when he was asked by Clay County High School to come coach in 1976. He became head basketball coach and assistant football coach under Coach Richard Beverly and later Coach Danny Horn. Both Beverly and Horn are now Hall of Fame coaches. “I never dreamed that I would wind up being there almost 40 years,” Weems said. “Nor did I ever dream that I would achieve the success that I have.” Weems moved his family to Ashland after only visiting the town one time. Weems would remain coaching at Ashland until the school closed following the 2011-2012 school year.

“Today, I get letters and phone calls from former players and students of mine. It makes it all worth it when you get those,” said Weems. Coach Weems was inducted into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Calhoun County Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.

When asked if he was superstitious when it came to

games, Coach Weems said he was not, “I’ve never been superstitious. I always did the same planning. If I did it right, the game was going to happen the way it was going to happen.”

“My philosophy has always been very simple,” said Weems. “When I’m coaching, I build from the ground up. I teach fundamentals and repetition early on. I’ve never cursed in front of my players, so I didn’t allow them to. I always told my players that you will be remembered for something. I tried to teach them good work habits, and to always do the right thing in life.”

Coach Weems won 2 state championships as a basketball coach. Weems reflected on one lost state championship, “We were tied, and our ball rolled around the rim of the goal four times in the last quarter- and fell out at the buzzer.” Weems was a part of 5 football state championships as the Ashland Panthers’ Defensive Coordinator. His defense at Ashland is a part of a state record that still holds- 55 wins. “Awards were never in my mind,” said Weems. “That’s not why I did it.”

When asked what he credited his success to, Coach Weems credited his wife, Carolyn. “If I hadn’t married her, I probably would’ve never finished school. After we married, I realized we were going to have a family to provide for, so I buckled down and started taking it seriously.” Weems gave Carolyn much praise, saying, “I had to be away from our family a lot when I was

“Kids in Clay County were different from any other kids I ever coached.”

on the road coaching. Times were tough when we were losing. She raised the kids a lot on her own.”

Weems also credited good athletes to his success as a coach, “Good athletes make good coaches.”

Weems reflected on one particular Panthers’ season, “We elevated our program to a certain level, but hadn’t crossed over into the championship mode we needed to be in. We had played Wedowee and they beat us in regular season, and we ended up in the playoffs with them. We had an incredible week of practice, and we beat them on their own field. After that game, the team’s mindset moved to another dimension,” Weems said. “From then on, we started winning the playoff games. Kids in Clay County were different from any other kids I ever coached. Something about their will to win was different.”

Weems’ statistics as a coach at Clay County High School says it all. Weems coached a total of 442 games during his time at the school, winning 341 (a 77% percentage!). Weems was a part of 51.2% of all games ever played at CCHS, as the school played 863 games from its beginning to its closing in 2011.

“One year, we went to Auburn’s basketball camp and I carried 5 players from Clay County,” said Weems. “We played against schools our size, and beat them all pretty hard. They moved us into a different bracket with larger schools, and we held our own. Two of the players I brought were Billy Ross, and my son Lance Weems.” Ross became a star at Clay County

High School and ended up playing at Appalachian State, and set the Alabama state record for the most 3-pointers in a game. Lance came along and later broke that record, scoring 10 3-pointers in one game. “I knew early on that Lance was going to be gifted in sports. Before he could even walk, he would try to dribble a basketball. I could tell he had good hand-eye coordination,” Coach Weems said. “I bought him a basketball goal for our driveway when he was 5 years old. I remember waking up to hearing the ball bouncing outside because Lance would be practicing before he went to school.” Lance also would visit Westside, a largely black community, and play with his friends there. Coach Weems said that Lance learned a lot from the older kids there who played with him and mentored him. “That really helped him down the road,” Weems added. “But I never pushed him to do anything. He always did it because he enjoyed it.”

“At one basketball camp we went to, Coach Sunny Smith, who was the head basketball coach at Auburn, told me that one day Lance would play Division One ball somewhere. Lance was in 5th grade at the time,” Weems said. “It wound up that he got a 4-year scholarship to play at Auburn University. He played from 1992-1996, and he still holds the 3-point record there.”

There’s an old saying about coaches- sometimes they have more influence over children than the parents. That’s simply because coaches probably spend more time with them than the parents do. Coach Weems has certainly had an influence on those who have played

Lance Weems

under him, becoming a parental figure to players for 42 years.

Weems added, “My wife and children were very supportive of my career, even though I had to be away from them so much. My daughters were all very athletic as well, but girls’ sports programs were limited at the time. My daughter Shelley did get a scholarship to Southern Union to play softball.” Weems other daughters were Tracie, Kerrie and Mindy.

Weems, who is now 75, does a weekly sports radio show on God’s Country Radio with Coach Kris Herron and Rusty Taylor. Weems also does Friday Night Football play-by-play sportscasting with Taylor during football season.

Faith has played a large part in Weems’ life, as he grew up attending church with his brothers and grandmother. Weems has now been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Ashland for 30 years. “I can’t imagine anyone trying to raise their family without the Lord in their life,” said Weems. “I’m very thankful for all the blessings I’ve been given in my life.”

Former player under Coach Weems (19771979) and Current Central High School of Clay County Coach Danny Horn: “I played football, basketball & baseball under Coach Weems. He was always very well prepared and very knowledgeable on all three sports. Coach Weems is kind of a sports junkie. He’s a very intelligent guy. I have gone to Coach Weems for advice and his opinion on a lot of different things in coaching. He was always a no-nonsense guy, strictly business. 6 state championships have been won with him as a defensive coordinator. Coach Weems is also a big family man. He’s a good husband and father. He’s very strong in his faith, and his players always respected him very much.”

Former player under Coach Weems (1977-1979) and Former Lineville Aggies Coach Steve Giddens: “Coach Weems is a very intelligent guy. We were always very well prepared. When we played, we played against bigger teams than us, but we were

always competitive. He wanted to win. After I graduated and came to Lineville and started to coach against him, I started to learn more about him and his philosophies when it comes to coaching. We had a lot of competitive games. You got to admire a guy whose coached over 40 years. He has a great character and a hard worker.”

Former Coach Kris Herron: “I took the head coaching job at Ashland after it was offered to Coach Weems, who turned it down. He was content in his position, and so he became my defensive coordinator. We worked together extremely well. Coach Weems was always very well prepared, and never got over-emotional. He’s very calm in tough situations. I learned a lot just by watching him and listening to him. If I ever had any questions as head coach, I knew I could go to him for advice. He believed in fundamentals and hard work. It was always all about the kids to him, in his 42 years of coaching it was always all about the kids. Coach Weems has not only been an inspiration to me as a coach, but I’ve admired his devotion to his family and his faith.”

Stanford Simmons is a former player (basketball and football) under Coach Weems who was a parade all-American who ended up getting a scholarship to play football at Auburn University. Simmons had this to say about Coach Weems: “Coach Weems was Coach Weems. He was always the same. You knew what you were going to get with him. He really cared about the kids, and he made us want to be successful because he was so devoted to his job. He was a very hard worker, and he was someone you felt like you could talk to. He always expected to win every game, but he never downed us if we didn’t.”

Coach Weems and Danny Horn

Stanford Simmons

Kris Herron

Steve Giddens

Former players remember legendary Lineville football coach Jack Stewart

By Ray Stansell Clay Times-Journal

The late Coach Jack Stewart was a football legend at Lineville High School (Alabama), along with Saks High School in North Anniston.

He graduated from Lineville in 1948 and went on to Jacksonville State where he lettered in football two years before receiving his degree.

Stewart’s first job was at Bowdon, Georgia High School as a football assistant, but he proved he could do much more. He led their girls’ basketball team to the state finals and did the same with varsity baseball.

He arrived in Lineville to coach football just days before the season began in 1959, but his impact was immediate. The Aggies lost their first game to a tough Lincoln squad, 14-7, but the team finished 6-3, losing by one to LaFayette and being upset by the rival Clay County High Panthers (Ashland as they were called back then) 25-6. He would never lose another game to the Panthers during his time at Lineville.

The next two years, the Aggies went 10-0, and the 1961 team was named State Champions by the Birmingham News and Post Herald. (There were no high school playoffs in those days, so winning a poll title was the only way a team could achieve that honor).

The 1962 team went 9-1, losing only to B.B Comer, a loss that ended a 21-game Aggie winning streak. (Lineville had not played Comer for several years.)

In 1963, the Aggies went 7-2-1, losing to Cleburne County and Linden in the “Paper Bowl” (19-6) hosted by the Patriots of that school. The tie was 7-7 with LaFayette, and a former Bulldog player would tell the writer they partied over tying Lineville. We were both students at Southern Union at the time. The highlight of the 1963 season was the Aggies’ first victory ever over B.B. Comer, 13-0 (other than the 21-0 win over Ashland in the last Clay Bowl to be played on Thanksgiving Day).

The next two years saw the Aggies go 5-3-1 on schedules that included much larger schools as a lot

of programs in the same class did not want to play them. In 1964, the Aggies tied Shelby County of Columbiana to break a long winning streak for the Wildcats.

Coach Stewart’s final tally at Lineville was 52-123.

He moved on to Saks High School in north Anniston for the fall of 1967. This was a new school that had only one winning season in its first six years of existence. They would go on to enjoy one unbeaten regular season and a playoff win before falling to eventual 3A champion Russellville in 1968 under Stewart’s leadership.

His record at Saks would be 70-40-4 with a life-

time count of 123-51-7 for both schools. Stewart left coaching to work in sales with Smith Sporting Goods, owned by his long-time friend, C.S. Smith, for the rest of his time of employment.

Again, he wasn’t just great in football as he led the Aggie basketball teams to the finals for two straight years.

He was named to the Alabama High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame, Class of 1995, and the Calhoun County Hall of Fame. Stewart also served on the AHSAA District Board for 11 years.

Any coach will tell you that you first have to have players who want to work hard in order to win, and Stewart had plenty of those over the years. The writer talked with a number of those players, and they all had good things to say about him!

The first ones I talked to was a pair of brothers, Brenford and Steve Davidson, both of whom played for Stewart his last two years at Lineville (1965 and

66) and Johnny Ingram’s first year.

They were both loaded with great memories of their football playing days, and both of them loved Coach Stewart.

Steve said, “One reason I admired and respected Coach Stewart so much is that he was also a friend to us. You could talk to him about any personal problems you had, not just football. He was very strong on discipline, too!”

Brenford chimed in, “No matter whether you were a starter or not, he was like a second daddy. He was one of the best I’ve ever seen. When Stewart left Lineville for Saks, it was like Alabama losing Bear Bryant. The next year, we played Saks down here, and the game ended in a 7-7 tie. We had a chance to win on their goal line, but could not get in for the score. Our center, Bobby Pettus, had gotten hurt, and that probably cost us the game. Coach Stewart came over and told us the tie was a good thing for him.”

Brenford shared a memory from their junior high

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years, too. “Coach Stewart had always called me Berford, and we played Ranburne. They were playing their B team against us, and our running back was hurt. He put Steve in at running back, and I was blocking for him on a play on which we scored. I got a good hit on one of the Bulldogs’ big players to help spring Steve for the score. Coach Stewart came over and told me, ‘I’ll never call you Berford again. That was one hell of a block’!”

Brenford related how he decided one time he would skip practice a couple of days while his dad was in the hospital. When he went to get his jersey for game day, Coach Stewart told him he had not practiced and could not play. “I begged him to let me play, and he finally agreed, but I had to run 75 laps around the football field. He sat up in the bleachers and watched as I ran. He even let out a smile once in a while, and he did let me walk a little during that time. We didn’t get water breaks during practice, so we would race to the water fountain when practice was over because we had a lot of incentive.”

“We had lots of fun under Coach Stewart,” Steve added, and his brother agreed, saying, “One year, he tore his sport coat off. We lost to Dadeville, 53-7, but we were the only team to score against their first team all season.”

The Davidson brothers also admitted they slipped around and smoked while they were members of the Aggies football team, but they never got caught. Brenford said he went out to “Smokers’ Alley” behind the main high school building one day and was going to smoke a cigarette, but he heard Stewart was about to come out there. He got away from Smoker’s Alley in a hurry!

For those who don’t know, it was not uncommon for high schools to have unofficial smoking areas

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Students could also go to town during lunch, and there was a service station around where the Lineville Fire Department stands now. Brenford and Steve related how they and other boys would go down there and crowd the little rest room to smoke. “There was so much smoke coming out of the restroom, it was like a cloud over it,” Brenford said.

One thing Stewart told them was, “When you line up against another player, let him know you came to play. You want to win every play. You may not do it, but by the fourth quarter, you will have worn him down, giving you and your team a chance to win the game.”

Brenford also told how Stewart was strict about curfews. “He would stand around in town until 10 o’clock to make sure everybody got in. Steve and I would be riding around with our Uncle Pete and would have to duck down when we came through town.”

In the last issue of the Times Journal before the final Clay Bowl between Clay County and Lineville in 2011, former Aggie Jim Ed Gates related a story from his senior year, the state championship season. He said he and the late Glenn Cooper, another senior on that great team, got caught smoking by Coach Stewart. It was the week of the Roanoke (Handley) game, and the Tigers were always a tough matchup, but Stewart wasn’t going to let them off easy. He told them they could not play in that game, but they begged and begged until Stewart finally pointed at the football field and told them, “Get down there and run laps until I tell you to stop if you really want to play in this game.”

Edward Gates

I don’t know how long they actually had to do

laps, but Ed swore they were out there for a couple of hours before Coach Stewart told them they could stop running. The Aggies shut out the Handley Tigers, 34-0, that Friday night!

Oh, by the way, Coach Stewart was a smoker himself, but the players didn’t cross him on the no-smoking rule!

Wayne Adams, an outstanding player who graduated in 1964, said, “Coach Stewart always put me on Doyle Griffin in practice during one-on-ones and similar drills. One day, we were doing one-on-ones, and I went down to the other end to get away from Doyle. Coach Stewart found me anyway, and we did a drill in which players face each other from five yards away. I was on the goal line facing Doyle who started running toward me from the five-yard line. I was supposed to tackle him before he got to the goal line, but he knocked me out cold as a tater.” (Sadly, Doyle passed some years ago as did several others who are mentioned in this article.)

He added, “Stewart was very much a disciplinarian, but he was fair. He knew how to get the best out of you, which to me is the sign of a good coach,” then gave the following example:

“We always hung out at the Red and White Restaurant which was owned by Roscoe East, father of our classmate, Linda East Peek. One night we got through practice, and our curfew was at 9 p.m. Teammates and classmates Jamie and Jimmy Butts were with me, so I carried them home. Instead of going up Highway 49 on the way back home to Delta, I went straight up Highway 9, and when I passed by the Red and White, he was sitting in the parking lot. I didn’t know he was there, and it was already 9 p.m. when I went by, so he knew I could not be home before curfew. I had to run six or eight laps after practice when I was already given out.”

Another 1964 graduate, Mickey Morris, said, “He expected you to give 100 percent in whatever you were doing, football or whatever. He would not take any less because he knew what you were capable

of. If you played for him for three years that went a long way in your outlook for the rest of your life. I can credit him for one thing. I never smoked in high school because he was so hard against that, and I didn’t smoke the rest of my life. That’s been good for me.”

Morris added, “We had to take those big old brown salt tablets, and Coach wanted you to eat handfuls, but you got no water during practice, even during the summertime. The team manager, Curtis Harrison, would bring wet towels, and we’d suck what water we could out of them. The towels would have guys all the way around chewing on them!”

Micky also mentioned, “If you got caught out after curfew, he would make you run laps, then tell you, “You stay out again tomorrow night,” daring us to do it again!”

Jamie Butts was an undersized All State guard from the class of 1964 who was one of those who epitomized what Coach Stewart taught. He sent a tribute to me by Facebook Messenger, “How does one discuss what Coach Jack Stewart’s influence meant to later life? I haven’t thought about the many applications until now, but I will try. First, I will say

playing for him afforded me and my brother, Jimmy, an escape from a less than ideal home life. Remembering his many influences to never give up helped me complete one of the military PT exercises that went from the finish line directly to the hospital with bronchial pneumonia! When I went into medical sales and was given the worst territory in the nation, his influence helped me take it to the number one territory, outselling everyone over two regions. I was then promoted to Regional Manager of the worst region in the country, and once again his influence helped me take that region to within 0.5% of the number one slot nationally. None of this was easy and some considered it impossible, so much so that the parent company brought me to Denmark to share my strategy with European management. Based upon his premise that “Any given team can be beaten by any given team on any given day” means one simple premise. The “how to” for anyone properly trained is sufficient for the task at hand. What must always be added is the “Why”. It is the most important part of the equation! That is what causes a seemingly superior opponent to lose. The “how to” may be superior but the “why” is not! I am 77 and still live by the simple lessons Coach Stewart imparted to me as a young teenager!”

Ronald Dewberry played quarterback and did the place kicking for Stewart’s last three years at Lineville. “I had a very good career at Lineville. Charles Reynolds was our junior high coach when I was in the ninth grade, and he was a great man, too. Coach Stewart would not let ninth graders play on the varsity, but I was the manager and got to go with the team on the away

games.”

“I started playing varsity in the tenth grade, and it was the love of my life. Two of my grandsons played at Hoover under a great Christian coach, Josh Niblett. He treated the boys on his team like his sons, and Coach Stewart treated us like his sons. You could have fun with him, and he would talk to you. If you said something bad, he would correct you. I have always heard people say you get hurt playing football, but it’s the best learning tool for the game of life. You may be in the dirt and just had somebody run over you, but you’ve got to get up and keep battling. He said, “I’m not the smartest coach, but we’re going to outwork the others.” He was a special man; if I had not had a dad, I would have wanted him to be my dad.‘’

“I’ve seen him get mad at practice, and I’ve seen him cry after games. We would practice hard on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then run plays on Thursdays, many of which we never ran in a game. We knew how if we needed one of them, and it happened one night”

“We were playing Lafayette, and we were trailing 13-12. He called me over and asked me what I thought. It was fourth down with about 40 seconds remaining in the game, and I told him I could not throw a long pass as they would be all over it. I suggested we try the Utah Pass to halfback Roger Mezick because I felt he could break it. It was almost like a screen pass as the linemen released as the back drifted a short distance down the field. I threw the ball to Roger, and he ran around and zigzagged all the way for a touchdown for the win. The PAT made the final 19-13. We had never run that play in a game.”

(The writer was at that game, and it’s still one of

Assistant Coach Johnny Ingram and Coach Stewart

Ronald Dewberry

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my favorites. The LaFayette crowd was already celebrating. Suddenly, you could have heard a pin drop on that side of the field.)

“Our toughest game was Shelby County, and they had a very long winning streak. We fought and fought, and we ended up tying them to break the winning streak and their record. The next year, we went over there, and they beat us pretty bad.”

“He would see you in the halls, in class or wherever and speak to you. We were just average players who loved each other; you could see it in the players’ faces in the huddle. Their expressions would say, “We’re not giving up!” That was because of Coach Stewart. He said you never fail until you quit trying, and it’s the same with life, you don’t fail until you quit trying.”

“If you got beat, no one said a word going back on the bus. You learn from your mistakes and try to overcome them. At Lineville you knew where the people would be on Friday night. You would see guys like Buster Robertson, Burl Gibson, Jim McClellan and many others, and it meant a lot to us. We were all in.”

Ronald related a story that not many people know. “He was going to Georgiana before our senior year. We cried together, and I told him I knew he would make lots more money, but we need you and you are making men out of us boys. The next week, I found

out he was going to stay. It was wonderful for me and my senior class.”

“He is one of the most admired and respected men in my life. He gave me many other things through raising my family, doing business, and when I went to Desert Storm.”

“As far as players, I believe Gerald Short was the best running back and Winford McDonald the best athlete, playing defensive end and wide receiver. He had the moves, and he was a fine athlete and is still a fine person.”

A.T. Thompson (still known around Lineville

as Alton) was the quarterback on the 1961-62 state championship team. He emphasized the respect Coach Stewart had for his players and the student body in general.

“Our previous coach left just a few days before the season opened, and we only had six or eight plays ready for the first game, but we went on to win six games that season. We went undefeated the next season and again the next and won the state championship. He was not fire and brimstone, but very low key, but here’s how he could get to you. I didn’t play a lot our 10th grade year, and one night Gerald Short and I were hanging out at the Red and White Café. We were out past curfew, and someone yelled, “Coach Stewart’s coming!” Elmer Reeves dived behind the counter, but Gerald and I were kind of dumb about curfew because I don’t think we had ever had one, so we just sat there. Coach came in and informed Gerald and I we were going to have to run laps. We decided we would just quit, but Coach stopped us in the hall at school one day. He told us he felt we were making a mistake, so we agreed to come back. We still had to run the laps. After we got to know him, we would never have done anything to hurt him. The team might not have missed me, but Gerald Short would have been another story.”

“Other than that, we didn’t have a bunch of superstars; we had a heck of a coach. Truman Anderson

only weighed 190 pounds on the offensive line, but he went to Chattanooga and started for the Moccasins. There were several other good ones up front, and while I had to call most of the plays, all I had to do was give it to Short, Reeves or Woody Dean. We rarely threw the ball because we didn’t have to.”

“Reeves had the quickest feet, and he would be by me as soon as I handed him the ball running up the middle. If he ran off tackle, it was hard for me to get the ball to him. I would have to keep it or fumble. It took Short a little bit to get started, but when he did, look out!”

Larry Mitchell was the quarterback on the 196263 Aggie football team as well as point guard on the basketball team, also coached by Stewart. The football squad went 8-1, and the basketball team came up a point short in the state 2A title game.

Like A.T. Thompson the year before, Larry called his own plays and gave the ball to Gerald Short most of the time. “Some of the best times of my life were being on the football and basketball teams,” he said. “In basketball, I looked to pass the ball to Wayne Adams who was a good player and shooter. Gerald Short basically played defense and served as a great rebounder, along with center Franklin Whaley. We really didn’t run a lot of plays and didn’t score a lot of points, but just passed the ball until someone got open. Although not much came up in our personal relationship, I think I was one of

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Coach Stewart’s favorite players. He got along with almost everyone, but he never mistreated or yelled out at anyone. I came back home after graduation one time, and he had sent word for me to call him. He could not remember a particular defense we had run, and it seemed like our conversation helped him. We had played man-to-man, 2-1-2 and a 1-2-2. One time I was eating a lot of roasted peanuts at some type of pep rally outside at school. He told me I should not be eating that many; I don’t know why, but I didn’t after that.”

Larry’s brother, Tommy Mitchell, gave us a different take on Coach Stewart by talking about his contributions to improvements in the football facilities.

He said, “I was thinking about Coach Stewart other than the games, and one of the things I do remember is that when he first came, I was in the ninth grade and kind of the manager of the team. I worked at the dressing room with him, as he was up there a lot, helping clean uniforms, polishing footballs and generally trying to make everything look good. He was trying to upgrade the facilities, and he was able to lead the way to get a practice field complete with goal posts constructed behind the dressing rooms. One of the reasons he did this was to keep the football field in good shape. We had been practicing on the football field, and that kept it torn up.”

“He also got the football field re-sodded. A lot of the PE classes would come out there and mark it off, then people would take a steel rod and make a hole in the field, and another group would bring in sprigs of grass. He was out there constantly watering that field

Assistant Coach Gerald Dial, Ronald Dewberry, Wayne Griffin and Coach Stewart.

over the next several weeks.”

“He was working with Mr. Fred Rush, the Ag teacher, and the FFA. They would help refurbish visitors’ side. It was basically just a steel frame with wooden boards. The boards got warped from getting wet over a period of time, so new boards were placed on the visitors’ side. He was constantly trying to upgrade the facilities for the players and for the fans who came in. He was not just an overseer; he did a lot of the work himself with the bleachers.”

He related to me that my dad, Evans Stansell, built the trophy case in the school after being asked to do so by Principal Mr. Jack Dick and Coach Stewart. He added that his brothers, the late Jerre and Bennie Mitchell, would go over to Dad’s shop to watch him work. Those two also played for Coach Stewart.

Getting back to Coach Stewart, Tommie said, “He was always trying to get the best out of us. Coach

Stewart was a smoker, but I was a smoker, too, so I would sneak around and smoke. He was gone someplace before the season started, and wasn’t around when practice was supposed to start. We were working out on our own in shorts and shirts, running some, and some of us were smoking back there. Coach Stewart got word of it, and he called us in. “I heard y’all were smoking back here; not only are you not supposed to smoke, it’s an embarrassment to me and you. He explained he knew it was hard to quit smoking, but he made a commitment to us to stop smoking, and we all agreed to quit. I remember one day, a lot of teachers, Coach included, would sit around in the ag building, eat snacks and talk. I walked in there, and he was sitting at the table smoking. He looked at me, and I looked at him and never said a word, and he never brought

it up. The thing is, we didn’t quit smoking either. We both kind of back-tracked on it. I eventually did quit in my 30’s because I began to realize the dangers of smoking.”

Truman Anderson was an offensive and defensive lineman for the Aggies and earned All-State honors as a tackle on the 1961 championship team. He would go on to play college football at the University of Chattanooga where he would be a starter on the O-line. “We just had so much respect for Coach Stewart, we did not want to let him down. One thing I can remember him telling us, “Guys, you can do anything in this world if you want to do it bad enough, and you are willing to put in the work it takes to get there.” I’ve tried to live by that, and it’s helped me more than anything.”

“He was almost like a father figure to me. My dad died during my senior year in February after football season, but Jack Stewart was there. He was one of the first ones to show up my house.”

“He was just a great guy and nobody wanted to let him down. That’s why we were as good as we were, plus we had a lot of good players and that made us the good team that we were. Once in a while someone would get in trouble and would have to run laps, but fortunately, I was not one of those. I didn’t want to disappoint him.”

“I attribute my getting to go play college football to Coach Stewart, and he came up there and watched practice a time or two while I was playing. I had other promises to play college ball that didn’t work

out. Kenny Fender and I went to see Alabama play every home game our senior year. An assistant coach had promised we would have a shot at a scholarship there; we even met Coach Bryant before every game. When the season was about over, the assistant coach took a head coaching job, and we never heard from them again.”

“Jacksonville State invited me up there, and the coach even let me scrimmage in practice in pads with the team during spring training. I’d never heard of that and haven’t heard of it since. They never offered me, but Coach Harold Wilkes, Assistant at Chattanooga, invited me to come up, so I ended up playing for the Moccasins. We played Tennessee and Auburn every year I was there, and we played other big schools like Memphis. We played Houston and lost 40-0 when Warren McVea was there.” (McVea was the first African American player at Houston and is still regarded as one of the best running backs in the state of Texas football history.)

Gerald Short’s name came up in several of the interviews on Coach Stewart, and he shared a funny story but one they didn’t find funny at the time. He said, “The madest I ever saw him was one night when we were playing Roanoke, I believe. We were messing around and got behind at halftime. He ripped his sport coat off, and buttons went all over the dressing room. He got on our butts big time, and we tore up their butts in the second half after he gave us that scolding.” Like several others who were interviewed for this article, Short said he never heard Coach say a cussword. He didn’t have to; he could still make the players be ashamed for slacking or messing up.

As far as life influence by Stewart, Short said, “He straightened me out, and that is all I can tell you. He was an amazing coach, and the best thing I ever saw come to Lineville.”

I will share a couple of memories I have of Short, too. In our junior year, the Aggies and Heflin (Cleburne County) were tied at 7-7 for most of the game. Finally, in the

fourth period, he broke an 80-yard touchdown, and the PAT made the score 14-7. During the run, he lost his shoe, and I still remember they had a timeout before the PAT while he tied his shoe. Unfortunately, there was no picture like there would be now. The Tigers did come back and score with less than a minute left in the game, but Jimmy Butts blocked the kick to preserve a great 14-13 victory.

Everyone remembers what a great runner Short was, but he could throw the football 40 or 50 yards with ease when Coach Stewart would allow a rare pass attempt, one that would often result in a score or set one up. On top of that, his punts went high and long, pinning opposing offenses deep in their own territory.

Mike Cleveland played for Lineville starting with the 1962-63 season after his family moved back to Lineville due to a tragedy that took the life of his father. He explained his dad was the resident engineer with the top job at Ft. Benning, Georgia, but he went back to the family logging business. He was killed in July, 1961 in a logging accident. “Mom had never worked, and I was 14. My brother Kenny was already out of school. Mother had to go back to work, and we moved back here with our other relatives. I turned 15 in April and started to Lineville after Christmas break.”

“I played baseball and basketball down there, but baseball was my passion. Lineville didn’t have a baseball team, but Coach Stewart asked me to try out for football, I had never played anything but cow pasture ball, so he helped me to learn the game. Having lost my dad, I could have gone in any direction, but he gave me focus to concentrate on football and it became a passion. He built a house right across from us, and his wife, Allie, and my mother were good friends. Both did a tremendous amount in helping us.”

“There was one game I saw his face turn red as a beet during halftime. He had his coat buttoned, but he ripped it off and buttons went flying all over the room. He had the ability to make us listen and inspire us to give all we got. I loved him to death.”

“I remember one instance in my senior year when

we were a small team. Dan Cooper and I were Captains, and we were both around 150 to 155 pounds. Jim Roberts, our fullback, was a little bit bigger. I played both ways, and we played LaFayette on Homecoming. We were not doing well, so he pulled all the starters out of the game; myself and one more asked to be put back in. That was the type of a person he was. I could not ask to have been mentored by anyone better – he went a lot further than football in helping us. He had an old 1952 Chevrolet, and we would practice until dark. Most parents got off at 4 p.m. because they worked at Higgins Slacks. He would load those kids up and take them home because their parents were already gone. That’s the kind of person he was. Everyone I think was special to him.”

“My junior or sophomore year, he was going to leave for another job, I remember him talking to the team, and everybody broke down and cried like crazy, and he changed his mind. It was a better paying position, but he had a heart bigger than Texas. My last year, I was ahead in my classes, so I only had two that I had to attend. That allowed me to hang out with Coach Stewart most of the day. He would take

me with him when he would go to Smith Sporting Goods in Saks to pick up uniforms and other equipment. I feel like he kept me from veering off into a bad position.”

“After I was elected co-captain, I had a bad day in practice. I went to him and told him I didn’t deserve to be a captain. He sat me down and told me everybody has a bad day. I picked it up from then on out.”

“The highlight of my playing career was getting into the Paper Bowl in Linden, and he bought us all new blazers for the trip. He could be stern, but he wanted you to play your best. He would put his arms around you and cry with you if you had a problem. That’s a quality not found in a lot of coaches, and that’s why we tried to give it all on the field.”

“When we lost to B.B. Comer in the 1962 season, it broke a 21-game winning streak. That was the first time I ever saw guys cry. That helped me see just how serious football was in Lineville.”

“He didn’t cut any slack. For example, we did a drill called “Bull in the Ring” that is outlawed now. If we lost or had a bad game, you dreaded practice the following Monday. You knew it would be difficult.”

“I kept books in basketball but didn’t play that sport. The roster was deep, so I ran track to stay in shape for football. When I graduated, I told him I was

going to walk on at Auburn. He told me, “You’re not big enough, you’ll get hurt,” then suggested wrestling instead.”

“One thing is funny to me now, but was not at the time. I played both ways, and we were playing a team that passed a lot. He installed a new defense where the defensive ends dropped back on pass coverage. I was lost as a cooter on that one. On the first play, we changed to the new defense, and I was supposed to cover a back out of the backfield; I was like a deer in the headlights; he chewed me out and we never ran that defense again.”

“On offense, we ran a play called 817 Reverse Pass, during which I would block and then release, and I was the sole receiver downfield. It worked well as we were a run-first team. If we did that on third down and didn’t get yardage for a first down, it was rough on me because I had to come back and run pass coverage after we punted.”

“The first pass I ever dropped was in the left end zone facing the field house; people ragged me for quite a while because it mattered to everybody in those stands. I hated it, but didn’t let it bother me too much since we already had the game won.”

“After a game, my shins were bloody from teams who ran the toss sweep which was also one of our favorite plays. Munford ran that every other play my

“The first pass I ever dropped was in the left end zone facing the field house; people ragged me for quite a while because it mattered to everybody in those stands. I hated it, but didn’t let it bother me too much since we already had the game won.”

“After a game, my shins were bloody from teams who ran the toss sweep which was also one of our favorite plays. Munford ran that every other play my senior year, and I had to try to keep the runner from getting outside. We never lost to Ashland when I played, and I still remember the muddy game with them on Thanksgiving my senior year. That was the last time the game was played on Thanksgiving as the state started the playoff system the next year.”

Bobby Pettus said, “When I was playing, I was young and always getting into things, but I got a lot of guidance and mentoring from him. I probably would not have finished high school, but he sat me down and talked me into staying in school and playing football. He reminds me a lot of the way I

see Coach Danny Horn instill discipline and treat everyone the same at Central High School now. He was a good person to be around and was a lot like a father. He would help you out, and he made you study. If you needed help with a subject, he saw that you got it.

I cannot remember hearing him say anything like a cuss word, but he would get on to you. He was more of a leader who would make you want to be more like him - mean what you say and do what you say, and if you don’t, don’t say anything.”

Stewart was already at Saks during Pettus’ senior year, and they played Lineville down here. “My knee got blown up in the second quarter, and when I looked up, he was the first person I saw,” Pettus said.

Getting back to his playing days under Stewart, he told a story about being in the ninth grade and having to hold the blocking dummies for the linemen to hit. “Jamie Butts wasn’t very big, but he would hit you and knock you down,” Pettus said. “Stewart was an outstanding coach and won a state championship. It

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Bobby Pettus

was picked by sportswriters back in those days before the playoffs. I’m just glad I got be a part of some of his teams. I was young, and I appreciate the years I played for him. I would not be where I am in life if it were not for him.”

Mike Young never got to play varsity for Stewart, only junior high, but he feels the same as those who did. “He was a good man, he didn’t cuss, but he could throw a fit. If you didn’t do what he told you to, he gave you a chewing. He’d whoop your butt in a minute, especially us football players,” he said. “The year after he went to Saks, he had an open date up there and came down to watch us play. He gave us a halftime talk for Coach Johnny Ingram. It was the same atmosphere as when he was here, and we went out and played the way Jack Stewart wanted us to play in the second half. He was our number one and always will be.”

Young went on to tell a story that is shared by some of the others in this article. “One time, he caught me smoking and made me run 50 laps, but he would smoke a cigarette on the sideline while we were playing!”

“We were actually kinfolks. He and my daddy were cousins as my grandmother Young was a Stew-

art. We never let anyone at school know that, but I didn’t know until after he left Lineville.”

Larry Thornbury, now a retired teacher who came to Lineville to coach the Aggies and never left the county, gives a perspective on being a player and helper for Coach Stewart at Saks High School.

He said, “When Stewart came to Saks to coach the Wildcats, things began to change, and you noticed it. Poles between the field and stands were moved back out of the way. He had new grass planted on the football field and a new practice field constructed. Previously, we practiced on the football field and kept it torn up. One of the local Commissioners hauled in dirt and dumped it in a hollow next to the football field to make the practice field.”

“We went 3-4-1 our first year, but two of those losses were to Oxford (7-0) and Wellborn (7-6),

Coach Larry Thornbury

and Wellborn won the state championship in their class. The coaches dressed alike in practice and at the games. They had red shirts. What surprised us all is that he washed our clothes, including those we wore in practice. After we played a game, we had to lay out our pants, shirts and other items in neat order. We also had white strings for our shoes for the games. We had to polish our shoes, too. He would check, and if someone had not shined his shoes, he would go get a can of polish and make the player do it. We also got a new baseball field.”

“He set a culture that was unreal. On the field, he believed you did everything right, or else. We only had five plays, and he would not allow a passing play until we were around the 50-yard line. He said that there are three things that can happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad (for those who are not familiar with football, the bad things are the pass is dropped, or worse, a player from the other team catches it. If your own player catches it, that’s good, but coaches in Stewart’s day generally hated throwing passes.) His theory was to let the other team make the mistakes, and you would get the win in the end. We would run the same plays over and over. There was one called 44 Lead. We ran that

same play nine times in a row in a game.”

“He never cussed a player, but one day we were not doing well in practice. He turned and walked away, but stopped, turned around and said, “I’m going to my damn office, and I’ll be back”. He did come back later.”

“I also played basketball for him, and there was a drill called suicides that we always looked to see when it was being run. What most people don’t realize is that he coached in both Alabama All-Star football and basketball games. In basketball we were told to play defense and dive for loose balls.”

“Another thing about Stewart is that he had to play against teams with great coaches. Lou Scales was at Alexandria, and he, too, was great in basketball as well as football. Oxford had Bill Burgess and Jack Grizzard in that era, to name a couple. Wellborn was also tough and well-coached, and there were others.”

“One year Centre (Cherokee County) and Heflin (Cleburne County) held joint scrimmages before the season opened. This was against the rules of the Alabama High School Athletic Association, but Stewart did not report that, even when asked about it by Bubba Scout from AHSAA. The Wildcats lost to Centre in the opening game, but their fans said the

Indians were 3-0 when they played because of those scrimmages. Coach Stewart would not break the rules, but he had been in favor of a pre-season jamboree instead of a spring jamboree for a long time.”

“In that day, the coach could not call the whole team over during a timeout, but when he talked to one player, it was like he had talked to the whole team. Now, a coach can do that which is good.”

“I was originally assigned to Jacksonville High School to do my student teaching, and my advisor would not agree to let me do it at Saks, although the school was in sight of our house. No one could get their student teaching assignment changed, but Coach made a call, and I was reassigned to Saks. I got to work with him and help cut grass and do many different things and actually didn’t teach a required PE Class for the final weeks because the advisor told me to just stay and help Coach Stewart. That gives you an idea about how powerful he was in the community.”

“Later, when he had gone to work for Smith Sporting Goods, I asked him about getting some Shimble Shirts which are cutoff T-shirts to wear under pads. He brought me some and said they were courtesy of

C.S. Smith.”

Phil Murphy was a fullback at Saks High School who played there during the years that included the Wildcats’ state runnerup season. Speaking of Coach Stewart, Murphy said, “He was a father that I unfortunately never had. My dad was a good guy with bad habits – an alcoholic, and he died at age 42. I was 15 when I met Coach Stewart when he was hired to be coach at Saks High. I played on the junior high team and was fortunate to have him as a big, big part of my life. He would call me into his office, and he would give me a series of words to try to let me know he cared, knowing the situation with my dad. Coach Stewart was leading me down a trail with these conversations that he hoped would help carry me to a brighter future. He knew my dream was to play for Coach Bear Bryant at Alabama, but that was a stretch.”

“Coach didn’t preach about being a Christian,

Phil Murphy

per se, but I feel he had a good relationship with the Good Lord. He asked me to go to a Christian conference in North Carolina and come back and start a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter. Because of that and everything I learned from him, by the time I got to Tuscaloosa I was ready physically, emotionally and spiritually to fulfill my lifelong dream of playing for Bear Bryant and the Alabama Crimson Tide. I walked on, and one day after I had a really good practice, Coach Bryant called me to his office. I was scared to death, but when I got there, he handed me a scholarship and told me he wanted my autograph. Our freshman group went 37-4 in our careers there. Coach Bryant was gonna win or gonna kill us to get there.”

“Most importantly, what he did also helped prepare me for my life’s work as a pastor and leader of young people. I will cherish that until I go to heaven. I didn’t know how a daddy was supposed to act, but what he showed me made me feel a lot better. I started at Linebacker my sophomore year and made All Calhoun County. Saks had not beaten Wellborn, Alexandria or Oxford, but we changed that around. He taught us how to beat everybody.”

Another Saks great who set all kinds of records at

that school and went on to have a record career was running back Boyce Callahan. He said after Stewart’s death, “Coach Stewart was one of those men in my life who made an impression on me by teaching ethics, hard work, fair play and loyalty. It takes someone like him, someone you can admire to do that. Some of us are very fortunate to have fathers to help train us, and then we are fortunate to have a few other men in our lives who will also give us training and direction we need to be good citizens. He was one of those people.”

Richard Duke said, “My parents refused to allow me to play football. I went out anyway. Coach Stewart (“Coach” hereafter) talked to my parents. I played football, and my parents never missed a game, even when I sat on the bench.”

“One particular story I remember about Coach was this:

Ricky Duke

My junior year during a basketball game at another school, Coach got mad and called the referee by his first name and complained loudly and got ejected by the official. We tried even harder after that, but I do not remember if we won.”

“My senior year we were supposed to beat Ashland in football. The players on the team believed it was a foregone conclusion we were going to win. I went to a movie the night before concerned. I advised Coach that I was concerned. He was also.

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We did not play well and players were getting hurt and coming to the sideline during the game. Coach said at halftime, “The next time one of you sissies gets hurt, go up into the stands and have your parents take your sissy ass home. That was the halftime talk. We barely won. (I was bleeding profusely during the second half, but the sideline had no existence for me until, finally, Coach took me out. I went back in when the bleeding stopped.”

“Coach determined how to win against Ashland in that game. He told Quarterback Ronald Dewberry to hand the ball to halfback Roger Mezick who ran straight behind the end and tackle. We ground out

Lineville Aggies dressed up to go to the Paper Bowl in Linden in 1963.

four to five yards per carry until Mezick was in the end zone.”

“I remember when one of the football players got in trouble with a teacher, the following morning Coach was sitting in the back of that teacher’s class (with the player in trouble in that class). 50 laps followed by that player, which Coach counted.”

“We used to do all kind of things with respect to the “L Club” initiation. It got rough sometimes the last night of the initiation in the basketball gym. Coach went to the gym one night and looked through the window and saw what was happening. All rough stuff after that ended during his regime.”

Rodney Williams played football for Coach Stewart in the 1965 and 1966 seasons and for Coach Ingram his senior year.

He told a sad story in which Stewart had a big role. “My parents were killed in a vehicle accident in August of 1965, and I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I had plenty of places to go live, but they were in Ashland or Talladega. I was a true Lineville Aggie going into my sophomore year. My uncle in Talladega wanted me to live with him, and I stayed with him a couple of weeks and was not happy at all. I came back

to Lineville, and I’d had a call from Coach Stewart. He told me, “Come on and live with me and my family.” I played for him for my sophomore and junior years. When he had an offer to coach at Saks High School, he asked me to go with him, but I was not interested in going there either. I wanted to finish at Lineville. James and Ruby Duke told me I could live with them that year.”

“The fall after he left Lineville, we played Saks to a 6-6 tie with Coach Johnny Ingram and his assistant, Gerald Dial.”

Williams emphasized, “Stewart was the coach of all coaches. If a guy needed shoes or a jacket, he made sure the player got it. He was every football player’s second dad. I have nothing but great thoughts about him and his family.”

One story does not include a name but shows Stewart’s compassion and was given to the writer by a classmate. In one of the earlier years, a player’s girl friend came up pregnant. In that day and time, it was considered to be a huge scandal when that happened. The mother of the girl sent her daughter to a home for unwed mothers, a common practice in that day to avoid the shame associated with the situation. When

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wanted us to pile up and took a picture of the pile. The picture caption and the article that ran was “A Pile of Power”. We all thought that was pretty good.”

McDonald related that since Coach Stewart was from around the Ofelia Community where they lived, he would often come back for Homecoming Day at Mt. Prospect Baptist Church. He and a friend whose name I don’t remember would always say, “Okay, we can have a cigarette now,” after their coach went home.

That continued with his career as Revenue Commissioner of Randolph County.

“When I was in office, Coach Stewart would come by almost every week and visit with me for a little while as he was in sales for Smith Sporting Goods out of Anniston. I never knew when he was coming, so I had to watch my cigarettes. I would not smoke in front of him, even after I was grown because of the respect I had for him. He mentioned that article by George Smith one day, and said we had more power and guts than most people did, but mainly we just wanted to win badly enough. I never remember going into a game where I felt like we were going to lose, and I think we were all that way.”

“Coach Stewart carried us up there to Smith’s several times during school and bought stuff for us.”

“I loved him because he loved me and all the other players. He would do anything for them. He was that kind of a man. When I had my heart attack, someone from the Anniston Star called him about me. He told the Star reporter, ‘Winford McDonald was the best pure athlete he had ever coached.’ That was a pretty big compliment coming from him, and it was somewhere around January 1986 or 87.”

“We had some good players who were good people, and we all got along with each other, too. We would still do anything we could for each other.”

McDonald then turned to the loss of his beloved coach. “I hated when he got cancer, and I went to see him a few times.”

Here, McDonald’s voice began to break with emotion as he discussed Stewart’s final days on earth. “I wanted to go see him, but his wife said that he was really bad. She said, ‘I’ll tell him that you called.’ I didn’t get to see him the last time I wanted to. I heard about him dying on Friday at the ball game, and I spent about half the game crying.”

McDonald was also crying as he finished telling this story, and this just sums up how much Coach Jack Stewart meant to all of his players!

Shirley Whaley: A Diamond in the Rough

By Tammy Andrews Clay Times-Journal

Young’s Drug Store in Lineville has been a staple in the community for over 50 years now and continues to thrive, despite the many challenges independent pharmacists face in today’s economy. While you may have seen many of the faces change throughout the years at Young’s, there are still a few familiar faces you will see when you go there. One of those faces is Mrs. Shirley Whaley, or more affectionately referred to as “Miss Shirley”. Shirley has been a faithful employee of the company since 1991 and just celebrated her 86th birthday. And despite a few setbacks along the way, she is still going strong and has no intentions of retiring anytime soon.

To know her is to love her, simply stated. Shirley is one of the most pleasant people you will ever be around and serves as an excellent role model in every sense of the word. From her strong, Christian values to her amazing work ethic, she is the whole package. She is appreciative of everything she has and everyone she knows. In fact, there are so many good things to say about her, it’s hard to focus on just one particular character trait. But it’s her work ethic that stands out more than anything, and that starts at home.

Shirley was born and raised on a farm in the Christiana community, just over the Randolph County line. Her parents, Jenkins and Vera Gregg, had milk cows, and sold milk to the Carnation Milk Company in Dadeville. “I can remember getting up at the crack of dawn as a little girl to help milk the cows before we even ate breakfast, because The Carnation Company would send a truck every morning to pick up the milk and we would have it ready for them”, said Shirley “ We had to keep it cool in these big barrels and they would

carry it to Dadeville.”

Shirley had two siblings; brother, Albert and sister, Mavis, who all had their own chores to do every day. In addition to milking the cows, they helped pick up eggs, feed the chickens and other animals, both before and after school. “We cooked and cleaned too. We didn’t have to ask questions about what to do, we just did it, because we knew it had to be done.”

One memorable account Shirley talked about was when her brother, Albert, got very sick with appendicitis when he was maybe 6-7 years old and almost died. Since there wasn’t a hospital close by, she remembered that the doctor had to come to their house when his appendix ruptured. “I remember that he had to perform surgery on Albert on our kitchen table. They had to take one of his ribs out because that’s how they drained the infection back then.” Shirley said that Albert was so sick that he missed a year out of school

trying to recover. “A nurse stayed here with us during his recovery time. I think about this a lot at times now, with all these smaller hospitals closing and wonder if we might get back to this kind of medical treatment at some point in rural areas.”

Shirley and her siblings had to ride the ferry every morning and afternoon that crossed the Tallapoosa River to get to school in Randolph County. “It wasn’t a very long ride, maybe 15 minutes, one way. I remember Grover Poole was the one who drove it and he lived right there beside it.” Shirley remembers the year that she graduated high school, when they had begun construction on the old bridge that crosses Highway 48. “We would sit on the ferry and watch them every day, as it was being built. It always amazed us what all they could do underwater to build it up and how much progress they could make in a day’s time. We were always excited every afternoon on the ferry ride home to see how far they had come since that morning.”

When Shirley graduated from Randolph County in 1956, she married Glover Whaley and they moved to the Frog Level community in Wedowee. She went to work at the GE plant in Oxford. When GE closed down, they moved to Lineville in 1958 and has lived in the

A young Shirley

same spot to this day.

She went to work at Higgins Company in Lineville. She worked there for the next 27 years and enjoyed every minute of it. She made lifelong friends there, some that she referred to as “being just like family”. “We really were like one big family there and we had the best time”, she said.

Shirley and Glover welcomed a daughter, Donna and later a son, Ricky. Her family grew during her almost 30-year span at Higgins, with the birth of her granddaughter, Dana and then three grandsons, Jack, Nathan, and John Ross.

When Higgin’s shut down abruptly in 1991, Shirley stumbled upon a new work family when Don Hogan, Young’s Drug Store owner called and asked her to come to work there. “That was the best move I ever made because I have loved every minute of it for all these years,” she said.

Back then, Young’s was located on Highway 49 north in downtown Lineville and it had a very popular soda fountain inside. Shirley didn’t have a particular job assignment, she just worked where she was needed at in the store. She always loved seeing all the people with their children coming to the soda fountain to get ice cream, a milkshake or an orangeade. Don remembers Shirley fondly, as both an employee and a friend. “Shirley was always very dependable and a good worker, always dedicated to whatever task she had at hand. We didn’t have to be a boss to her, she just did what she was supposed to do without being told,” said Don. “She served as almost like a second mother to all the high school workers we had that came through the store. She never criticized or fussed at them, but monitored them quietly to make sure they were doing everything right. She was just exceptional in that way. In return, they thought the world of her.”

When the store changed ownership, and Roger Graben

Young’s Drug Store

became Shirley’s boss, he had nothing but good things to say about her too. “When I think of Ms. Shirley, the first thing I always think of is the 11th commandment: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.

She is one of the few people who live up to that every day. I worked with her six years and I never heard her say a bad word about anyone else. Her work ethic was amazing, she got along with everyone and everyone liked her. “

When Eric Smith took over at Young’s, he found Shirley to be as big of an asset as the two previous owners. “There’s just so many good things to say about Shirley, I wouldn’t even know where to start. I wish I had 10 more just like her, but it would take a tall person to fill those shoes. She is like the foundation of Young’s, and everyone’s rock. Her work ethic is to be admired. She is somewhat of a living legend around here now.”

Shirley dearly loved all of her three employers during her time at Young’s and spoke fondly of each one. “I’ve had three of the best bosses with Don, Roger and Eric. They are all good men and they were good to their employees as well. They treated me just like family

Shirley & Glover

and I feel blessed to have known them all.”

Recently, Shirley had the misfortune of falling and

cracking her hip for the second time. After a brief rehab stay, she is back at it though and couldn’t wait to get back to work. Long-time employee, Rhonda Robinson, said Shirley would call her every day she was in the hospital, worrying about whether things were getting done there. “I finally just printed out all the statements and took them to her. She folded them, put them in envelopes and put stamps on them to mail while working from home. It didn’t surprise me though. Shirley has always been a great worker and makes sure things get done. She is the most positive person that I know. She is just precious and I love her dearly. We all do”, said Rhonda.

The newest pharmacist addition to the Young’s family, Kaelee Harris had this to say about Shirley: “You just can’t keep a good woman down. No matter what hardship is thrown her way, she eagerly bounces right back to work, usually before she’s even cleared by the doctor.

Whenever we need to know something about someone, we just ask Ms. Shirley. She greets everyone with a kind word and never forgets a face, once she meets you.”

Shirley has seen a lot of changes during her 32 years at Young’s, in her work life and her personal life as well. She learned how to operate an old cash register in the beginning of her employment, where you had to count out the change back to them and saw things gradually change over to all computers. This wasn’t easy for her

Glover, Ricky, Shirley and Donna as a young family

to learn, but she said she eventually caught on. “I’m still not an expert at it, but I know enough to get my job done”, she said smiling. She saw them move to a new location and a brand-new building on Highway 9.

Sadly, after 48 years of marriage, Shirley lost Glover, in 2005 at the age of 70, due to complications of diabetes. She clung to her faith to get her through this difficult time. Several years later, her family grew yet again, and she was blessed with two great-grandsons as well, Tanner and Trevor.

Things have changed for her after her fall, and she still has to use a walker some to get around. She hates having to rely on one, but knows that it is necessary. It does nothing to slow her down either and she still works three days a week at Young’s, with no intention of quitting. “ I’m not going to retire and I don’t even want to. I love being with people and working with them. I’m not planning on retiring as long as I’m able and the good Lord lets me.”

Shirley’s children and her family absolutely adore her and feel blessed to have had her as the matriarch of their family. She has served as an excellent role model to the growing family and has been the greatest influence and inspiration to every one of them.

Daughter, Donna Adamson says her mother’s work ethic is untouchable. “If some of these young people

Shirley, running register at old Young’s Drug store

just had half the work ethic my mama had, this world would be a better place. Whatever needed to be done, she just did it, no matter how she felt and she never complained. I can remember as a little girl, I would tell her that I was too sick to go to school or church, she would say you don’t know if you’re sick if you’re

still in bed, and then tell me to get up and stir around a while to see if I felt better. She’s just a good person and loves life. She loves to garden. I have never heard her say a bad word about anyone, which is really saying something. She’s just a blessing to me and we are lucky to have her.”

Son, Ricky Whaley added this: “I am very proud and honored to have the privilege to call Shirley Whaley my mother. She is absolutely the nicest person a boy could ever hope to have for a mother. If a person wanted to know what Christ-like character looks like, a great place to start would be with my mother. I have observed her live my entire life according to Matthew 22:37–40; 37: And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend … I have been fortunate to have her godly influence over me since the day I was born. All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to her. A favorite quote of my mother’s that I have thought of so many times during my life is: “we can’t control what everyone else does, we just have to give account

Shirley & Glover

for ourselves.”

Just like the dinosaur, the Shirley Whaleys of the

world are becoming extinct. The silent generation are some of the best people we have left. Discipline, perseverance, resilience and a strong work ethic pretty much describes all of them. The women of her era were raised to work hard, take care of family, use the Bible as life’s handbook, and just do whatever needed to be done. That’s how it’s supposed to be done, yet these kind of morals are rarely taught anymore. I think we need to get back to the basics of life.

Thank you, Shirley for leading by example and enriching the lives of so many others.

Shirley celebrates 86th birthday

Broccoli Pesto Pasta

By Julie Andrews

If you’re looking for the world’s brightest and most flavorful pasta salad – you’ve found it!

• 8-ounces pasta

• 4–5 cups broccoli florets, cooked and cooled

• Zest and juice of ½ medium lemon

• ¼ cup fresh basil leaves

• ¼ cup fresh Parmesan cheese

• ¼ cup nuts (pine, walnuts, almonds, pepitas)

• 3–4 cloves garlic, peeled

• ½ teaspoon coarse salt

• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

• ½ cup pine nuts (optional)

• ¼ cup chopped fresh herbs (basil, parsley)

Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Let pasta cool.

Place cooked broccoli, lemon zest and juice, basil leaves, Parmesan cheese, nuts, garlic, salt and black pepper in the bowl of a food processor. Process on low while drizzling olive oil in through the vegetable shoot until desired consistency is reached, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary. Place in the refrigerator until ready to use (while pasta cools or if making ahead). Toss broccoli pesto with cooked pasta until thoroughly combined and transfer to a serving bowl. Top with pine nuts (if using) and fresh herbs.

“Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.” – Dean Koontz

One thing is for sure about our readers- you love your dogs! Thanks to everyone who sent in pictures of their pets to our office to see them featured in our magazine. See them featured on the next few pages:

Submitted by Angela Wright

“Buddy”- submitted by Tammy Mckleroy

“Beau”- Submitted by Richard Sprayberry

Submitted by Karen Caldwell

Submitted by Lyndsy New

“Otis” - Submitted by Kim Griffin

“Cash and Hank”

Submitted by Alicia Harris

“Cletus”- Submitted by Reggie Barnsdale

“Chance”

Submitted by Kayla Marie

Submitted by Ginger O’Neil

Submitted by Susan Camp “Daisy Mae”- Submitted by Paula Smith

Some of our readers also submitted some different pets you may not see everyday!

Submitted by Kathy Freeman

“River”- Submitted by Danielle Shafer

“Thunder”Submitted by Samantha Coryell

Submitted by Summer Morris

Submitted by Ashley McClure

Clay County Etiquette

By Tammy Andrews / Clay Times-Journal

Every county has their way of life and Clay County is no exception. But I’ve taken the liberty of jotting down a few tips for you, just in case you are new to the area. You can thank me later.

Get familiar with mud- Most people don’t like mud, but here, we embrace it. We work in it, park in it, roll in it, and play in it. We even make mud biscuits. How many of you have ever eaten a good ole’ mud biscuit when you were little? Raise your hand…or not. It’s ok, you don’t have to answer that. That’s between you and the man upstairs.

Fishing- Yeah, we have fish too. Lots of fish. We fish all day and then come home and fry it up…Clay County style. Lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams, we aren’t scared

to fish anywhere. If the weeds are too high for comfort, we fish with a gun nearby, just in case something slithers up to us. Then we just shoot it…and eat it too. Hey, don’t judge, after all it’s protein.

Sports- What can I say about this category? Umm, everything. We live for football here. In fact, we even move holiday celebrations to accommodate the big games. Here, you’re either for Alabama or Auburn, there is no in-between. Pick one and stay there. You can’t straddle the fence on this one…it’s for your own protection, believe me. There’s a law in Clay County that you can shoot someone if they change sides. Now, I have never seen this happen, but I’ve heard a few things. When the Iron Bowl is on, you can pretty much drop a bomb in Lineville and Ashland and nobody’s gonna get hurt. Businesses close, and phones are turned off. If you wanna rag someone about the score, make sure you know the person you’re ragging, or you’re gonna lose some friends, or family , or teeth for that matter…and possibly even an eye. That’s

Clay County Cattlemen’s Association

A magnificent view of Talladega National Forest from your own campsite!

Several miles of wilderness trails and incredible night time stargazing.

Watch the sun set behind the hills, relax and enjoy the peaceful serenity of nature’s beauty.

Roomy sites with full hook up, sun canopy, fire ring and picnic table.

just some good advice for you to heed. Just sayin’.

Food- We take our eatin’ very seriously here. If it’ll lay still long enough, we’re gonna fry it up. Any small animal is not safe when we’re hungry. Just put it on the grill and wrap it in bacon, because bacon goes with everything. The bigger the animal, the bigger the get together.

Parties- Yeah, we like to party here and we can make a good time just about anywhere we go. On a river bank, lake side, camp site, or just in the back yard. Put on some Hank, throw some logs on that fire, and crank up the radio and you got yerself some good ole’ fun. And we like it that way…

Volunteer- This is a big word around here. If you live in this county, you have been one of these at one point in time. Where do you think our football team got their name? We have 18 volunteer fire departments and a volunteer rescue squad. We have organizations, clubs, and non-profit organizations. Our county relies heavily on volunteers. And they don’t disappoint either. If you have a crisis, they are right there with you, rolling up their sleeves and jumpin’ in to help. It’s a great place to live. Gotta be careful on this category too, or you will find yourself so far in the volunteer status that your job will interfere with it.

Fun- The sky is the limit on this category. We may not have a mall around here, but we have all the fresh, clean air you can stand. Just step outside and take a whiff. You can’t find that in any big city. Here, we make our own fun and we have all the resources you need. Mountains,

valleys, lakes, and dirt roads. Riding four-wheelers, river-floating, hunting, fishing, mud riding, walking, running, swimming, camping…I could go on for days. It’s just a great place to live. But again, be careful because we grow on you like a fungus and you’ll soon find yourself a citizen.

People- Clay County folks are the best people you will find anywhere. We are a typical small town where everyone knows everybody’s business. Sometimes good, and sometimes not so good. But generally, all round great people who will give you the shirt off their back if they think you really need it. On the down side, don’t think you gonna run to the store in your pajama pants with no makeup on and think you aren’t gonna see anyone you know. It’s not gonna happen. I’ve been to the grocery store for one thing and ended up staying gone for three hours.

Religion- Yeah, we have religion. In fact, we take our Bible very seriously. We like to call it “Handbook for Life”. Anything you wanna know, it’s all right there. You got a problem, look it up. I promise you, there’s an answer there somewhere, but whether you choose to follow that answer is up to you. You don’t need Google for that. We go to Church, we tithe, and we pray…all day everyday. You got a problem you can’t solve, you pray about it. End of story.

Now, all of this may sound like Redneckville to you, but we just call it home in a Mayberry sense. Any banjo tunes you may hear are strictly for fun and not to be fretted over. Come check it out for yourself…you might just like it.