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A NATURAL STORYTELLER A little bit of daydreaming in her college accounting class led Cynthia Sim- mons to the creation of her rst character, The Lonely Bean.
PEOPLE
A NATURAL STORYTELLER
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A little bit of daydreaming in her college accounting class led Cynthia Simmons to the creation of her rst character, The Lonely Bean
STORY BY ERIN COGGINS PHOTOS BY JOSHUA BERRY
AAs a self-proclaimed fabulist, Cynthia Simmons is a natural storyteller. That natural ability and a little bit of daydreaming in her college accounting class led to the creation of her rst character, the onely ean
Although Simmons was pursuing a degree in accounting, her creative side wanted to design webpages, so she decided to obtain a minor in studio art. One of her projects in the class was to create something she had an interest in.
“I have always loved to sketch and draw. I drew the story and characters out and created a story page for the project,”
Simmons said. “I got an A on the project.”
That college project turned into the children’s book “The onely ean which immons self published throu h Amazon in 2019. The story about the last bean left on a child’s plate encourages children to eat all the of the food on their plates to be healthy. The bean wants to serve his purpose.
“I like to tell funny stories; things to make you laugh,” immons said he onely ean tells children not to ive up or eat all of your food. I just want people to be able to take things from my stories.”
Although the story has been published, Simmons is not through with her journey with the lonely bean, or as she refers to him, “her little guy.”
“I have made little beans out of socks to use in children’s workshops. I toss the kids the beans and when they catch it, they have to share their names,” Simmons said. “I want to create color pages, little bean bags and maybe some chocolate beans.” esides brin in her character to life for the ids in her workshop, Simmons wants to animate them in an APP that will allow the drawings to move. She is currently working with her 15-year-old son, Eli, to make this happen.
“When Eli was little, I would test my stories out on him to see if I could get him to sit still, now he is going to run my website,” Simmons said. “He is taking a course on coding at New Century High School, and we are both researching what is the easiest, cheapest, most used platforms out there. He takes on one project and I the other.” n fact, immons rst boo is truly a family pro ect he dedicated the book to her husband.
“He encouraged me to do it. I had it all ready and he told me to just do it,” Simmons said. “It felt awesome when I saw the book and I felt that I had conquered the world; that I had accomplished something huge, and he had encouraged me to do it.”
Simmons’ books are a combination of her creative sketches and her talent for writing poetry. She prefers that all her stories rhyme. Her inspiration though, comes from many
places. She worked as a creative art teacher at a Headstart one summer and noticed that kids say funny things. It was at this job that another one of her “little guys” was created.
“It was nap time, and I was eating chips. I saw a spider in the window. I thought I did not see that spider until I was eating chips,” Simmons said. “I decided to write a story about a spider that eats potato chips.”
That spider is the subject of Simmons’ next book. The story is written. All she needs is the time to sketch out the full story.
“I work full-time and like all full-time working Moms, it is di cult for me to nd the time to do the thin s want to for fun sometimes,” Simmons said.
In the meantime, Simmons continues to write down her ideas, usually on sticky notes.
“There are sticky notes everywhere. I do not throw away anything because I usually sketch or write ideas on any piece of paper can nd, immons said then place them all in a massive book of concepts to keep them organized.”
Although Simmons has plans to publish more books, she still en oys the ourney that her rst little uy has taken her on.
“My little guy is his own character. He and I are cool. He is not mad at me for the ending of the book,” Simmons said. “I still look back on him and the book and say “yeah, that was fun. I did that.”
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PEOPLE
MAKING “SWEET” HISTORY
Local home-school students learn rst hand how state government works while getting sweet potatoes named as the state vegetable
STORY BY ERIN COGGINS PHOTOS BY JOSHUA BERRY
Madison Living 27 I In the June issue of Madison Living Magazine, we brought you the story of a home-school group in the Madison area that made history by successfully working to get the sweet potato named the state vegetable. Here is a brief recap and update to that story.
Since 2011, Kristin Smith of Harvest has shared her love of history and government by teaching homeschooled families through her group, The Learning Exchange, and through the co-op extension of HOPE Christian Academy. She was leading a class through Alabama History in 2019 when they discovered that Alabama had not named an o cial state ve etable his sparked a lesson in civics which spanned over two years and included two di erent classes of home schoolers
The lesson culminated last Month when, on Thursday, July 8, Smith and 13 home-schooled students stood with Governor Kay Ivey, Senators Garlan Gudger and Tom Butler, and Representatives Randall Shedd, Andy Whitt, and Parker Moore on the front steps of the Capitol where the governor signed the law designating the sweet potato as Alabama s o cial state ve etable Governor Ivey congratulated the students on their “good work”.
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The home-schoolers also met and were praised by Speaker of the House Mac McCutcheon and were honored to hear words of wisdom and encouragement from Senators Gudger and Butler and Representative Whitt.
Senator Gudger took the class on a VIP tour of The State House where they were allowed to visit both chambers of the state legislature. The group was invited to tour the Capitol building where they met with Secretary of State John Merrill, who also congratulated the students, spoke about his position, and took questions from the students.
The class was treated to lunch by Hunter McBrayer, the Executive Director of ALFA’s Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association, and John Allen Nichols, ALFA’s Agriculture Counsel. While in Montgomery, the class also received VIP treatment at The State Archives, toured a civil rights museum, picnicked at Riverfront Park, visited Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and stopped at the First White House of the Confederacy.
The students included Kyra Smith, Matthew Ray, Kiley Ray, Kaleb Ray, Lawren Wright, Skyler Williams, Luke Wagner, Andrew Silvertooth, Emma Burnette, Landon Burnette, Lillian Parry, Caroline Parry, and Si’Mya Hampton.
“It was incredible to see where our state laws are made,” Matthew Ray, 16, said about the student’s trip to the state capital. Kyra Smith, 16, added, “ It was exciting to see all of the history that we read about in class!”
Senior Kiley Ray, 18, who will be a Freshman at Jacksonville State this fall said, “I loved getting to meet our elected o cials and in uirin about their li es and disli es about their job.”
“I felt famous with all of the people we were able to meet. The whole trip put into focus how much of a change regular people (even kids) can make with some hard work,” Andrew Silvertooth, 11, said. Andrew also received an invitation from Representative Parker Moore to work as a Page in the House of Representatives next session.
Andrew’s mother, Jennifer, commented, “The trip to Montgomery was the culmination of the hard work of two classes and the amount of doors it is opening for our kids to pursue their dreams and continue learning about our state government is amazing! I think being there and seeing it all in person really added some perspective that these kids will remember for their entire life. They would never get education from strictly being in a classroom.”
The group also received statewide and national exposure with a feature on Simply Southern TV.
The show premiered locally on July 11 on WAFF-TV 48 in Huntsville and was rebroadcast on national cable network RFD-TV the following Wednesday.
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