Mobile Bay THE LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE FOR MOBILE AND BALDWIN COUNTIES
January 2020
THE TRAILBLAZER ISSUE
+
THE PEOPLE SAVING THREE MILE CREEK
MOBILE BAY’S
NEW CLASS OF
40 UNDER 40
NINE MORE + GREEN HEROES
MEET THEM! PAGE 57
SIX BOLD WOMEN ROBERTA SWANN
Mobile Bay N.E.P. paddles Three Mile Creek
leading the way Local leaders blaze trails and raise the bar, protecting our resources and bringing innovative ideas to the Mobile area
BREAKING NEW GROUND IN THEIR FIELDS
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CONTENTS | VOLUME XXXVI / ISSUE 1
OLD MEETS NEW IN THIS DINING ROOM STYLED BY MARCH + MAY DESIGN. PHOTO BY SUMMER ENNIS ANSLEY
JANUARY 2020
38
Watershed Awards MB recognizes 10 champions of sustainability with our inaugural Watershed Awards
48
Beautiful Layers The sister duo behind March + May Design shows how to achieve the look
57
40 Under 40 If this year’s crop of young leaders is any indication, Mobile’s future looks brighter than ever
When asked who would be featured on a Mobilian Mount Rushmore, 38 percent of this year’s 40 Under 40 winners suggested Hank Aaron, while 33 percent chose Joe Cain. Learn more about the 2019 class of young professionals on page 57.
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 5
CONTENTS | VOLUME XXXVI / ISSUE 1
JANUARY 2020
32 16
ON OUR COVER Roberta Swann, director of the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, shows MB Three Mile Creek. PHOTO BY MATTHEW COUGHLIN
26 9 EDITOR’S NOTE
PILOT MICHELE FINN OF ORANGE BEACH / PHOTO BY PATRICIA DUNNE KIM KELLY OF SOPHIELLA GALLERY / PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU CHEESE BREAD AT THE SPIFFY FOX PUB / PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU
10 REACTION 13 ODDS & ENDS 15 THE DISH 16 TASTINGS The Spiffy Fox Pizza and Pub settles into Leinkauf Historic District
29 SPOTLIGHT Yoga instructor Manja H. Podratz teaches healthful, mindful living
18 BAY TABLES Bring home The Noble South’s 40 Under 40 party menu
32 SPOTLIGHT The female hurricane hunting pilot who calls Orange Beach home
26 FINE ART Kim Kelly of Sophiella Gallery gives her tips for starting an art collection
36 AWARENESS Bay-area children play a little safer thanks to swim instructor Meg Johnson
80 JANUARY CALENDAR 86 LITERATURE Author Audrey McDonald Atkins muses on the home remedies of old 88 TRADITIONS Food writer Emily Blejwas finds solace in the act of remembering
96 ASK MCGEHEE When did Alcoa operate in Mobile? 98 IN LIVING COLOR Mobile’s last muledrawn streetcar, pictured in 1901
92 LITERATURE Author Casey Cep on the mysteries of Harper Lee
Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” is the most expensive artwork ever sold, fetching $450 million at an auction in 2017. Not quite ready to part with your millions? On page 26, let Sophiella Gallery owner Kim Kelly give you the basics on starting a local (and slightly more realistic) art collection.
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Mobile Bay VOLUME XXXVI
No1
JAN 2020
PUBLISHER T. J. Potts Stephen Potts Judy Culbreth EXECUTIVE EDITOR Maggie Lacey MANAGING EDITOR/WEB Abby Parrott EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Amanda Hartin PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Virginia Mathers ART DIRECTOR Laurie Kilpatrick EDITORIAL INTERN Carlyle Ascik
ASSISTANT PUBLISHER
EDITORIAL CONSULTANT
ADVERTISING S R. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Joseph A. Hyland Anna Pavao ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Jennifer Ray
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
ADMINISTRATION CIRCULATION Anita Miller ACCOUNTING Keith Crabtree
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Audrey McDonald Atkins, Eleanor Inge Baker, Emily Blejwas, Mallory Boykin, Catherine Dorrough, Hallie King, Kari Lydersen, Tom McGehee, Breck Pappas CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
Summer Ennis Ansley, Matthew Coughlin, Elizabeth Gelineau, Kathy Hicks, Wendy Wilson ADVERTISING AND EDITORIAL OFFICES
3729 Cottage Hill Road, Suite H Mobile, AL 36609-6500 251-473-6269 Subscription inquiries and all remittances should be sent to: Mobile Bay P.O. Box 43 Congers, NY 10920-9922 1-833-454-5060 MOVING? Please note: U.S. Postal Service will not forward magazines mailed through their bulk mail unit. Please send old label along with your new address four to six weeks prior to moving. Mobile Bay is published 12 times per year for the Gulf Coast area. All contents © 2020 by PMT Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the contents without written permission is prohibited. Comments written in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the ownership or the management of Mobile Bay. This magazine accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photography or artwork. All submissions will be edited for length, clarity and style. PUBLISHED BY PMT PUBLISHING INC .
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EXTRAS | EDITOR’S NOTE
OUT WITH A BANG WE SENT OUR 40 UNDER 40 AWARD WINNERS OFF IN STYLE WITH CONFETTI CANNONS AND A NEW ORLEANS SECOND LINE — EXACTLY THE WAY I HOPE YOU WELCOMED THE NEW YEAR!
Hometown heroes
S
ometimes good things happen by accident. We set out to kick off 2020 with a healthy dose of inspiring content in this annual Trailblazers issue, gathering stories of authors, artists, entrepreneurs, pilots, wellness experts and more. All of these local individuals have had incredible careers that make us want to also dream big. What our staff did not anticipate, however, is that most every single one of these incredible spotlights would come from local women. No doubt when MB was founded, coming up on almost 50 years ago, the stories of our local women focused on recipes, fashion and fun. And while we still adore these topics and focus on them often, it is rewarding to also see trailblazing women doing things the rest of us might never have dreamed possible. Flying high, starting businesses and working to better our community are efforts I can get behind. Kudos to them for setting the example for not just our daughters, but for all of us. In addition to these spotlights, we are proud to present our inaugural Watershed Awards, honoring the efforts (big and small) to better our local environment. These hardworking heroes are preserving the natural landscape for all of us, maintaining, and at times, restoring, the high quality of life in south Alabama. Just as amazing are the impressive individuals in our 11th annual class of 40 Under 40, each of whom is profiled in this issue. The young talent in our fair city and its surrounds is astounding, and with this accomplished group at the helm, our future certainly looks bright!
Maggie Lacey EXECUTIVE EDITOR
maggie@pmtpublishing.com
MB’s FAVORITE UNDER 40! The team at Mobile Bay Magazine would like to recognize one of our own under40s, photographer Elizabeth Gelineau. As a freelancer, Elizabeth has shot countless memorable images for the magazine over the years while building her business from the ground up. Aside from wedding and editorial photography, Elizabeth is incredibly generous with her time and talents throughout the community, performing pro bono work for organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Catholic Women’s Conference and McGill-Toolen’s Dancing with the Stars event. From the bottom of our hearts, we salute the endlessly talented, patient and cheerful Elizabeth Gelineau!
LOVE THIS ISSUE
BADGE OF HONOR THE BANANA DOCKS IN DOWNTOWN MOBILE PAID THEIR WORKERS ACCORDING TO THEIR BADGES, WHICH HELD THEIR NAME AND POSITION. WE LOVED SEEING THIS ONE IN PERSON AND HEARING FROM THE MURRAY FAMILY. (PAGE 88)
GOOD LINES MB WAS THRILLED TO PADDLE THREE MILE CREEK IN A KAYAK HANDBUILT BY HUSBAND AND WIFE DUO RYAN AND JASON GILLIKIN. KNOWN AS A CHESAPEAKE 17 — MADE FROM PLANS BY CHESAPEAKE LIGHT CRAFT — IT IS 17 FEET OF FLAWLESS OKOUME PLYWOOD THAT GLIDES THROUGH THE WATER LIKE NO OTHER.
THIS AND THAT WE LOVE MARCH + MAY’S LAYERED LOOK (PAGE 48). IT’S INSPIRED ME TO TRY MY OWN FUN FABRIC COMBO OF LADYLIKE FLORAL AND BOLD GEOMETRIC! WHAT DO YOU THINK? DECONSTRUCTED STRIPE AND LOTUS GARDEN, BOTH SCHUMACHER FABRICS
YOUR BEST SHOT WITH NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS IN FULL FORCE — ALONG WITH FLU SEASON — I’M POUNDING DAILY LEMON GINGER SHOTS FROM FOY SUPERFOODS. IT’S THE 2020 VERSION OF GRANDMA’S ELIXIR WE TALK ABOUT ON PAGE 86.
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EXTRAS | REACTION
Tell us how you really feel ...
Find additional local stories on mobilebaymag.com. Here’s what’s new on the website!
DINNER AND A SHOW On November’s cover story, featuring Southern National’s Chef Duane Nutter
Meet the Winners DUANE NUTTER / PHOTO BY MATTHEW COUGHLIN
- Logan Jeffrey Sport Great guy, fantastic personality. - Camilla Petrie-Wayne What an excellent article. Well done. - Ben Jarrell Wonderful restaurant. Great service, food and bar. - Luke Adams That’s one good looking chef!
GLOWING RE-’VIEW’
- Smith Hanes
On November’s feature, “50 Best Restaurants”
Fabulous article. Can’t wait to try your new dishes, Duane.
I loved the November issue. Many of my favorite restaurants were highlighted, and a few new ones were brought to my attention for future visits. One huge omission on your part was not listing Boudreaux’s in Daphne in your “Restaurants with a View” section. You will simply not find a better sunset view with the Mobile skyline in the background. Plus, the Cajun food served there is worth noting on its own merit.
This guy is the truth. Go visit him! - Tyler Kendrick
BE INSPIRED On November’s spotlight of Cheryl Hale Quinnelly and her Girl Be Brave movement The “Today Show” is next! Keep on sharing your story and uplifting so many people. - Natalie Herndon-Kloza
- Ken Jatczak
THE NATURAL LIFE On November’s feature of Fairhope’s Nature Nine Farms
Great choice of featured articles, MB. I just ordered a subscription.
We visited Polyface Farm when we were in Virginia last year. Happy to see similar in Baldwin County!
- Natalie Kay
- Robyn Clackler Warren
Want to share your thoughts and reactions? Email maggie@pmtpublishing.com. 10 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
Go online for extended interviews with the impressive young leaders featured in this year’s class of 40 Under 40 (page 57).
Share your Proposal Did he pop the question over the holidays? We want to hear about it! Go online to share your proposal story with us, and we’ll post your engagement online and on social media — for free!
PHOTO BY ELIZABETH GELINEAU
This man is a food wizard. Show him some love!
- Liz Damson Freeman
[MORE ONLINE]
New Year, Fresh Start If you’re anything like us, you probably made a New Year’s resolution to eat better. We’ve compiled some of our favorite recipes so you can start 2020 on a healthy (and tasty!) note.
Join Our Email List Finally, an email you actually want. Get the latest in fashion, food, art, homes, history and events delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for our email list at mobilebaymag.com.
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 11
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EXTRAS | ODDS & ENDS
A Vision for 2020 text by MB EDITORIAL STAFF
Y2K 20 YEARS AGO
According to the Birmingham Business Journal, the state experienced very few issues in connection with the computer glitch. Mark Kelly, the City of Birmingham’s public affairs director at the time, told the Journal, “The highlight of the evening was when Ole Miss kicked a field goal to beat Oklahoma.”
THE EVE OF JANUARY 5 BRINGS
TWELFTH NIGHT an English folk custom marking the end of Christmas merrymaking. On this evening, which also lent its name to a Shakespearean comedy, it was customary for the gathered company to toast one another from the wassail bowl.
THE FLU HATES
RED!
[ NOTABLE OPENINGS ]
BRAIDED RIVER BREWING CO. is set to open its taproom on St. Louis Street this month.
The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 brought with it a slew of folk-medicine remedies, including wearing the color red. According to some records, “the flu is the Devil and Devil don’t work with red.” Other outdated cold and flu remedies-of-old include mustard, turpentine, leeches and enemas.
Check out pg. 86 for one local woman’s cold remedy.
Resolutions by the Numbers
60%
of Americans make New Year’s resolutions
8%
follow through with their goals
100% of you are discouraged right now
wun·der·kind - noun -
: someone who achieves success or shows great talent at a young age.
Meet a new crop of wunderkinds in this year’s 40 Under 40 on page 57.
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FOOD | THE DISH
Bite of the Bay MB’s contributing food fanatics share the local dishes that made them hungry for more.
SOFT-SHELL CRAB AT FELIX’S FISH CAMP. PHOTO BY SUMMER ENNIS ANSLEY
LUCY PRYOR SLATON, President, Junior League of Mobile
THE RED OR WHITE PIZZA AT RED OR WHITE “Red or White is a great spot for a girls’ night out or date night! I love that you can pick your favorite wine or try something new from the vast selection. Try pairing your wine with their red or white pizza. It has a smoky roasted pepper sauce, Italian sausage, whole milk ricotta, mozzarella, and crumbled feta cheese and is baked to perfection in a wood-fired oven. It’s great to share, or take home your leftovers.” RED OR WHITE WINE • 104 DAUPHIN ST. 478-9494 • REDORWHITEWINE.COM
ERROL D. CROOK, MD, Abraham A. Mitchell Chairman of Internal Medicine, USA Health
SOFT-SHELL CRAB AT FELIX’S “I tried an old favorite that I have not had for quite some time, the soft-shell crab at Felix’s. It did not disappoint. The crabs were fried to the right tenderness, and the sauce was as good as ever. The sides of turnips and coleslaw made the meal. Crab claws and crawfish as appetizers prepared us for the main dish.” FELIX’S FISH CAMP • 1530 BATTLESHIP PARKWAY, SPANISH FORT • 626-6710 FELIXSFISHCAMP.COM
MARIETTA URQUHART, Commercial Associate & Realtor, WhiteSpunner Realty
FRIED CATFISH FINGERS AT ED’S “The fried catfish fingers paired with turnip greens was a great choice for lunch. The fish was fresh, battered lightly with cornmeal and was melt-in-your-mouth good. The greens were also fresh and cooked as they should be — with plenty of pork for seasoning. The catfish fingers aren’t always on the menu, so my suggestion would be to order them while you can!” ED’S SEAFOOD SHED • 3382 BATTLESHIP
CECIL CHRISTENBERRY, Owner, Old Tyme Feed & Garden Supply
RIBS AT TEXARBAMA BBQ “Get Texas-style barbecue right on Fairhope Avenue the next time you have a serious hankering for slow-cooked, perfectly seasoned brisket. I certainly loved my half-pound slab with coleslaw, smoked mac and cheese, fresh onions, dill pickles and a fine slice of Texas white bread, to boot. I absolutely had no room left for some mighty tempting banana pudding or chocolate pecan pie. TexarBama BBQ — my kind of place!”
PARKWAY, SPANISH FORT • 625-1947
TEXARBAMA BBQ • 212 1/2 FAIRHOPE AVE.,
EDSSHED.COM
FAIRHOPE • 270-7250 • TEXARBAMA.COM
What dishes made you drool and left you hungry for more? Share them on our Facebook page! january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 15
FOOD | TASTINGS
The Spiffy Fox Pub text by HALLIE KING • photos by ELIZABETH GELINEAU
I
n the window of an unassuming duplex on the occasionally one-way Monroe Street, flags fluttering in the breeze across from Leinkauf Elementary, peers an exuberant bemonacled fox alongside two brews and four words: The Spiffy Fox Pub. If you aren’t well-versed in gastropub tongue from overseas, the title might leave you scratching your head. But owners Zachary and Anne Morgan, of Welsh, Irish and Scottish roots, know a thing or two about traditional pubs. Although plastering “drunken” on a building just steps away from an elementary school seems crass, Anne determined that “spifflicated,” the Prohibition-era synonym for tipsy, was not only less off-putting but also easily abbreviated to “spiffy.” At first glance, a spiffy fox appears classy and alludes to English foxhunters in dapper red coats and hats. But for those in the know, it still simultaneously alludes to drunken bar fare of yore. The husband and wife duo met in college, where Anne studied to become a nurse and Zachary a priest. When they moved to Anne’s home state of Minnesota, Zachary enrolled at the Minnesota School of Bartending on the side, attaining a sommelier license
alongside his trade as a liturgist. He opened a brewery next door to a pizza parlor — expanding his ever-growing resume to include the skills of a beer sommelier, all while also working at the Cathedral of St. Paul — and it was there that he pulled yeast cakes from the brewing process to produce the first pizzas of his own. Spiffy Fox pies are no run-of-the-mill platforms for Parmesan. With the freshest ingredients, Zachary begins with housemade dough that cold ferments for three days, allowing small bubbles to form. After incorporating air into the dough, it’s massaged and stretched rather than rolled or tossed to maintain as many air pockets as possible. This process gives impeccable rise and texture to the foundation, which is then topped with handmade sauce — consisting only of the brightest Stanislaus tomatoes from California — Irish cheeses and locally-sourced toppings. “A liturgist’s job in the sanctuary is to make sure that you create an environment that’s conducive to a prayerful atmosphere,” Zachary says. “In the kitchen, it’s just a different venue … It’s just pizza, and it’s just pub grub, but we do it with an eye for detail and quality that makes the dining experience worth coming in to enjoy.” MB
The Spiffy Fox Pub • 1455 Monroe St. • 509-1311 • thespiffyfox.com 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m., 4 – 9 p.m. M - F; 12 – 9 p.m. Sa; 4 – 9 p.m. Su, takeout only. 16 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
TUSCAN PIE
[ ON THE MENU ]
PUB FRIES Duck fat fries have three distinct flavors when served with sweet and spicy cilantro-jalapeño mustard, punchy remoulade and creamy buttermilk ranch.
FISH AND CHIPS Traditional cod pairs with in-house tartar sauce and pub fries with a side of Zack’s Red Beans and Rice.
’BAMA BANGERS AND FRIES Special-ordered Conecuh brats sit in split-top rolls with Creole mustard, dilled onions and candied jalapeños, for kick, alongside beans and fries.
TUSCAN PIE A blanket of verdant spinach drapes chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, salty capers and white sauce on a crispy crust with sweet balsamic glaze.
SPICY PIE
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FOOD | BAY TABLES
A Celebration of 40 Under 40 Young professionals gather to celebrate the 11th class of MB’s 40 Under 40 honorees with dinner, drinks and a raucous second line. text by MB STAFF • photos by ELIZABETH GELINEAU
W
ith Champagne cocktails flowing and the sounds of a brass band ringing merrily through the halls of The Steeple on St. Francis, 40 young professionals and their dates gathered for the 11th annual Mobile Bay Magazine 40 Under 40 awards. It was an evening of mingling with friends, old and new, laughing, networking and sharing a family-style dinner. Upon entering the The Steeple, a former church built in 1895 that was converted into a music hall and event space, explosions of silver and gold décor greeted guests while servers passed hors d’oeuvres and the wine flowed freely. A New Orleans-style second line by Blow House Brass Band led guests to the dinner table. 18 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
After a locally sourced dinner prepared by The Noble South, guests nibbled on MoonPies while swaying to an encore performance by Blow House with a confetti send-off. The dinner was generously sponsored by Alabama Power, without whose support this event would not have been possible. The 40 Under 40 awards seek to honor young professionals who have made a significant impact in their fields of business while at the same time giving back to the community with their time and talents. Each year, MB receives several hundred nominations, all of which are impressive beyond measure. The panel of judges has the difficult task of bringing the count down to just 40 to be honored with a special event and coverage in the magazine. Turn to page 57 to meet this year’s class. MB
MENU Prepared by The Noble South
APPETIZERS Green Curry Crab Salad Confit Chicken Lollipops with Alabama White BBQ Sauce DINNER Cornbread-Stuffed Pork Loin with Satsuma Sauce Roasted Root-Vegetable Hash with Rosemary Vinaigrette Grilled Broccolini with Carmelized Onion, Local Citrus and Parmesan Delicata Squash with Pecan-Maple Beurre Noisette
clockwise from top left Honoree Laura Searcy, vice president and commercial relationship manager at IBERIABANK, peruses the menu curated by The Noble South. MoonPies with gold confetti sprinkles served double-duty as an eye-catching table feature and delicious dessert. Brooke Dodson of Beard Equipment Company enjoys the night’s family-style dinner. A simple yet elegant tablescape, with a twirl of serpentine down the table’s length, set the scene for an unforgettable dinner. opposite Blow House Brass Band led a second line to the dinner table and closed out the night with a raucous performance.
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Cornbread-Stuffed Pork Loin with Satsuma Sauce SERVES 10
Cornbread Stuffing & Pork Loin 1 1 4 1
tablespoon olive oil large onion, diced ribs celery, diced 5-by-7-inch pan cooked cornbread, cooled and crumbled (any recipe will work) 4 eggs, lightly beaten 1 cup chicken stock 1 cup chopped parsley 1 pork loin salt and pepper, to taste cooking twine
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add onion and celery and cook until soft, approximately 5 minutes. Add crumbled cornbread, eggs, chicken stock and chopped parsley and stir to combine. Remove from heat and set aside. 2. Remove silver skin from the outside of pork loin. Cut a slit down the length of the loin, going about 90 percent through. Open up the loin to lay flat. Using a meat mallet, pound the pork until it is of a similar thickness all over. Season with salt and pepper on the inside. 3. Place cornbread mixture longways down the middle of the loin. Roll the pork loin to enclose the stuffing and place cut side down in a large roasting pan. 4. Cut 10 12-inch strips of cooking twine. Slide the twine under the loin every 2 - 3 inches and tie tightly in a knot. Cut off and discard the loose ends. Cook loin until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Remove from oven and let rest 15 minutes. Slice into 1-inch pieces and arrange on a serving platter, then drizzle on Satsuma Sauce, below, before serving.
Roasted Root-Vegetable Hash with Rosemary Vinaigrette SERVES 10 4 Yukon gold potatoes, diced 4 sweet potatoes, diced 2 turnips, diced 4 radishes, diced 4 carrots, cut into 1/2-inch rings 1/4 cup olive oil salt and pepper, to taste 1/2 cup chopped scallions
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Blanch all root vegetables in salted boiling water until tender, approximately 5 - 7 minutes. Drain and add all vegetables to a large roasting pan. Toss with olive oil and roast until browned and starting to crisp. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with scallions and Rosemary Vinaigrette, below, before serving.
Rosemary Vinaigrette MAKES 2 CUPS
1/2 cup picked rosemary leaves 1/4 cup Creole mustard 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 3 tablespoons honey pinch salt and pepper 1 cup olive oil
1. Add all ingredients to blender, except olive oil. Puree on low speed. Slowly add olive oil with blender running until vinaigrette thickens. Season with more salt and pepper, if needed.
Grilled Broccolini SERVES 10 3 2 2 4
bunches broccolini tablespoons olive oil tablespoons butter onions, sliced into thin strips salt and pepper, to taste 2 Meyer lemons, peeled and segments removed 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1. Blanch the broccolini in salted, boiling water for 1 minute. Remove from water and place in an ice bath. Remove from ice bath and dry on a paper towel until ready to use. 2. Place oil and butter in a large saute pan over medium heat. Once butter has melted, add onions and cook on low, stirring constantly, until onions begin to brown but not burn, approximately 30 - 40 minutes. Keep warm or reheat before using. 3. Grill blanched broccolini on an outdoor grill or a griddle until charred on both sides. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and place on a platter. Top with caramelized onions, Meyer lemons and Parmesan. Serve immediately.
Satsuma Sauce MAKES 2 CUPS 1 quart fresh-squeezed satsuma juice 1 quart chicken stock 3 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 2 whole star anise 1 bunch fresh thyme 4 cloves garlic, chopped pinch salt and pepper 2 ounces cold butter, cubed
1. Add satsuma juice to a large saucepan. Over medium-high heat, reduce the juice by half. Add chicken stock and continue to reduce again by half. 2. Add all remaining ingredients except butter. Continue to reduce until there are 2 cups of liquid remaining. 3. Strain out any solids and return liquid to pot. Add cold butter to hot sauce, whisking vigorously until combined. Use immediately. january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 21
clockwise from top left Delicata squash with pecan-maple beurre noisette. Waitstaff greeted guests with trays of Champagne cocktails to kick the night off with jazz-inspired libations. Green curry crab salad, also known as East Indies Salad. Archbishop Thomas Rodi, guest of honoree the Rev. Victor Ingalls, provided the night’s invocation.
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Delicata Squash with Pecan-Maple Beurre Noisette SERVES 10 4 delicata squash 1 pound butter 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1/4 cup maple syrup 1/2 cup chopped pecans pinch salt and pepper
1. Cut off ends of squash and use a butter knife to remove the seeds. Cut into 1-inch rings and set aside. 2. Put butter in a pot and cook on medium heat until golden brown but not burned. Once browned, remove from pan. Add vinegar, maple syrup, pecans, and salt and pepper. Whisk to combine. Hold at room temperature until serving. 3. Roast squash rings in a 400-degree oven until browned and tender but not mushy. Place on a platter and top with pecan brown butter sauce. Serve immediately.
Green Curry Crab Salad SERVES 8 1/4 cup green curry paste 2 cups canola oil 1 large yellow onion, diced 2 pounds jumbo lump crabmeat, picked for shells 1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon fish sauce juice of 2 limes 1 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups ice water
1. In a blender, combine green curry paste and canola oil. Blend until smooth, approximately 1 minute. Let sit for 10 minutes before using. 2. Place half the diced yellow onion in a large bowl. Top with the crabmeat, followed by the last of the diced onion. Pour the curry oil through a strainer directly onto the crab and onions, pressing to make sure all the oil gets through. Add vinegar, followed by fish sauce, lime juice and salt. Top with ice water. Do not stir. 3. Place in fridge and allow to sit overnight. Stir only right before serving.
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PEOPLE | BAY LIFE
Evening Snapshots Guests mixed, mingled and dined at the 11th annual 40 Under 40 awards dinner, sponsored by Alabama Power. photos by ELIZABETH GELINEAU
1
2
3
4
6
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5
7
1. Janice Towns with son and honoree Jeremy Towns 2. Arin Craig with husband and honoree Matthew 3. Honoree Austin Bradford 4 . Brent Boyd with wife and honoree Whitney, and honoree Ryan Long with wife Cindy 5. Honoree Alison Jones with husband Keith 6. Former honoree and guest Haley Van Antwerp with honoree Corey James
8
9
7. Honoree Lee Dzwonkowski with wife Kristen and honoree Brooke Dodson with husband John 8. Honoree Tripp Ward with wife Natalie and honoree Leslie Lash with Brandon Rayburn 9. Archbishop Thomas Rodi and honoree the Rev. Victor Ingalls 10. Morgan Wieczorek, wife of honoree Steve 11. Honoree Brooke Dodson with husband John and Hadley Binion with husband and honoree Bruner Binion 12. Honoree Trey Byrum with wife Catie
11 10
13. Marshall Hunt with honoree and wife Sherrica, and honoree Carl Harper with wife Cecily
Find more photos this month on our Facebook page and at mobilebaymag.com.
To learn more about the
young professionals honored at this year’s 40 Under 40, flip to page 57.
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If you would like to nominate another outstanding young mover and shaker, follow Mobile Bay on Facebook, and keep an eye out for applications in late summer.
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 25
THE ARTS | FINE ART
The Art of Collecting Professional photographer and Sophiella Gallery owner Kim Kelly shares tips for starting your own art collection. text by AMANDA HARTIN • photo by ELIZABETH GELINEAU
A
dmittedly, art — and the thought of starting an art collection — can be intimidating. Perhaps even stepping inside a gallery feels outside your comfort zone. But Kim Kelly, owner of downtown Mobile’s Sophiella Gallery, hopes to change that. Kelly says she, like most gallery owners, offers a no-pressure-to-buy atmosphere where gazers can linger and admire. “I enjoy it when people come in and take their time in the gallery,” she says, petting Scout, her gallery dog who immediately puts me at ease. My head is aswirl in a sea of color and artistic styles, and I won-
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der how a buyer ever makes a decision. “There’s something inside you that will connect to a piece of art,” Kelly explains. “Maybe it’s something that hearkens back to your childhood or a particular color you’re fond of. Buying original art is exciting, like adding a piece of fun jewelry. But if you have to ponder too long, you should probably keep looking.” And whether that “jewelry” is in the form of ceramics or canvas, Kelly says, “It brings me joy to put artists together with people who are looking for art and to help people see that they, too, can be art collectors. It’s not just an elite group of people.” MB
Starting Your Collection 1. Establish the location. Choose where the art will be displayed and consider the room. What size canvas would work best? Would a horizontal or vertical piece work better? Do you want something large and dominating or a smaller accent? 2. Know your interests. Art themes run the gamut. Are you drawn to abstract art, landscapes, still life? More important than style, however, is finding a piece that makes you smile. 3. Ask questions. No need to be shy — most gallery owners are eager to share their knowledge. Learning about artists and the stories behind their pieces creates an emotional connection. 4. Consider your budget. Art is an investment, but that doesn’t mean you have to break the bank. Emerging artists’ works are a great value, and established artists often offer original prints at affordable prices. 5. Mix it up. Don’t buy a piece just because it matches your sofa or color scheme. Art should flow and complement the home’s feel, however. When adding pieces to an existing collection, a commonality, such as matching frames, creates a cohesive look. 6. Take it for a test drive. Many galleries offer a trial period during which you may take a piece home to see how it works in your space. 7. Take your time. Buying art should be fun; there’s no need to rush the process. Don’t be afraid to visit a gallery more than once before making a purchase. If you find yourself constantly thinking about a piece, you’ve found the one.
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PEOPLE | SPOTLIGHT
Mind & Body With an emphasis on joyful, healthy living, yoga teacher and energy healer, Manja Podratz, helps her students take a mindfulness practice from the mat to their daily lives.
text by ELEANOR INGE BAKER • photos by WENDY WILSON
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n 2015, as Manja H. Podratz, Ph.D., stood in front of her first yoga class, she found herself confronted with students’ needs that she did not feel equipped to meet. “These were real people with real questions,” she says. “They sought out yoga to help them with insomnia, anxiety and depression. Some struggled with recovery from knee and back surgeries, post-che-
motherapy and old injuries that had never really healed. Many of my students were not in yoga class for fun. They wanted to develop a practice that would improve their health.” Inspired by the needs of her students, Podratz continued her yoga training and branched out to become a certified brain health coach, certified
above: Germanborn Podratz was introduced to yoga at age 6. Since 2008, she’s been offering international, intensive yoga retreats to yogis in the Bay area.
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“... I HELP MY STUDENTS TO REMEMBER WHAT BRINGS THEM JOY, TO RECONNECT TO THEIR PURPOSE IN LIFE, AND TO SEE LIFE AS A CONSTANT FLUX THAT WE CAN MEET WITH AWARENESS AND STRENGTH.” – Manja Podratz
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life coach, certified hypnotherapist and master teacher of Reiki, spiritual healing through laying on of hands. “My goal is to help my students take their mindfulness practice from the mat to their daily lives. They are often frustrated with their circumstances and tormented by negative self-talk. I help my students to remember what brings them joy, to reconnect to their purpose in life, and to see life as a constant flux that we can meet with awareness and strength.” Podratz leads her students toward a balanced life, combining yoga, meditation and healthy living. She is currently earning a doctorate in integrative medicine to greater expand what she can offer her students. Podratz’s ties to yoga run deep. She was born and raised in Communist East Germany before the Berlin Wall came down and began receiving her
first instruction in hatha yoga from her father at the age of 6. “He also introduced me to relaxation techniques,” she says. In 1999, Podratz was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Following this diagnosis, she completely changed her diet and lifestyle, living on raw food for two years and then as a vegan ever since. This aided in her recovery, and since then she has given birth to three children at home. Then, in 2001, a sports accident caused the fracture of three vertebrae in her spine — yoga served as an invaluable part of her rehabilitation. “These experiences allow me to empathize with my students as they face seemingly insurmountable hurdles in their lives. I have forged my own path through yoga, meditation, Reiki and healthy living. I believe I can help lead my students to find their own way to wellness.” From 1998 to 2006, Podratz practiced kundalini, prenatal and hatha yoga in Germany. She came to the United States in 2008 and received her 200-hour teacher training from Shanti Warrior Living Yoga School in Mobile.
Manja’s upcoming schedule
International retreats to Costa Rica, Belize and Italy are a unique offering Podratz brings to the Bay area. “Intensive yoga retreats were always my intention,” she says. “A week of healthy food, movement and mindfulness allows students the space to assess where they are on their life’s journey and where they’d like to go.” She acknowledges the limitations modern schedules and demands have posed for students trying to take their yoga practice to the next level. “A deep immersion is difficult to achieve in the bustle of our daily lives,” she says. “Taking a week to travel to the jungles of South America or to the history-steeped island of Sicily gives students the opportunity to dig in. Enjoying beautiful places and new experiences with like-minded yogis is, of course, a plus.” And the students who attend Podratz’s retreats leave feeling inspired. One student commented, “I was able to use her theme of ‘inner space meets the open sky’ to help me refresh and come back with a new outlook. In this intimate setting, we felt supported: mind, body and spirit. We had excellent meals, teas and snacks, with all
the amenities for the body, including a Reiki session, breathing practices and yoga asana practice. The meditation and yoga nidra nourished my soul. We had plenty of free time to read, to relax in the hot tub and at the beach, and to engage in enlightening conversation. I feel more equipped to face my busy schedule with a greater knowledge of how to handle stress.” Podratz offers workshops as well as private classes, which she describes as one of the most important aspects of her mission. “These students include post-chemotherapy patients and teenagers on the autism spectrum who may not feel comfortable in group classes but still want to do something for their health. It is tremendously rewarding to see others recover and become strong and confident, especially when they are able to live authentically and are in love with their lives.” MB
1. Diet and Hormonal Balance six-week program: The initial free presentation will be on Friday, January 10, from noon to 1 p.m. at Synergy Yoga & Pilates in midtown Mobile. After that, the 6-week program meets once a week in the afternoon. yogawithmanja.com/ diet-and-hormonal-balance 2. Our Chakra System: On Saturday, February 1, from 10 a.m. to noon at Synergy Yoga & Pilates, Podratz will host a workshop on the chakra system and how to use it as energy sensors, generators and transformers to shift from the material to the subtle realms and back and to align the vital body for holistic well-being. 3. Upcoming International Retreats: Podratz will host a retreat on a private island off the coast of Belize this Memorial Day. However, registration for this retreat is now closed. She will then hold a weeklong retreat in Sicily, Italy, in May 2021 and another in Belize in September 2021. For more information, visit yogawithmanja.com.
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PEOPLE | SPOTLIGHT
A New Frontier In a plane, ship or control room, one Orange Beach woman is in the pilot seat, and she wants to bring other women with her. text by K ARI LYDERSEN
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s Hurricane Katrina brewed over the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, Michele Finn piloted a powerful jet up from the Yucatan Peninsula toward the storm, in a “jagged” pattern designed to collect data about the hurricane’s path and intensity. She was the first female “hurricane hunter” pilot for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and was also the first woman to pilot a Gulfstream IV jet for the agency. The aircraft, which is used for hurricane surveillance, can fly 4,000 miles without refueling and more than 40,000 feet above the earth. When Finn graduated high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1984, “Nobody was telling women, ‘Hey, you can go be a pilot’, period, let alone do something like that,” recalls Finn, who was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, as a child. “Nobody was telling a girl in Oklahoma graduating in 1984 that she could drive a ship,” something Finn also did during her career with NOAA. In 2010, Finn moved to Orange Beach, Alabama, to take a job as deputy director of NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico disaster response center. She retired from NOAA with the rank of captain in 2013. She is now starting her next role: supervising coastal restoration projects for the engineering firm Volkert, funded with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill restitution money. In November and December of 2019, Finn was part of the largest-ever all-women expedition to Antarctica, among more than 100 women convened by the organization Homeward Bound. Its aim is to build women’s leadership over the next 10 years by bringing 1,000 women in science, technology,
engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) fields to the awe-inspiring frozen continent. Immersed in an ecosystem that differs vastly from the Gulf Coast, yet faces parallel environmental challenges, Finn and her cohorts underwent intensive leadership and strategy training meant to help them elevate other women and build their own careers. Finn says she applied for the highly competitive program in part to discover what trailblazing means for her after retiring from NOAA. “I haven’t come up with any answers yet, but I’ve discovered new questions to ask myself,” Finn says on day three of the
left Michele Finn stands amidst the penguins and icy peaks of Antarctica, as part of Homeward Bound’s all-women expedition. right Finn and fellow voyagers experience whale sightings at the southernmost tip of the world. PHOTOS BY KARI LYDERSEN
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PHOTO BY PATRICIA DUNNE
expedition, which included a Zodiac ride over frigid waves to a rocky spit populated by seals and penguins.
Road to Adventure Finn was a “normal kid,” as she describes it, who didn’t necessarily show signs of the unconventional path she ended up taking. She went to Texas A&M University at Galveston to study marine biology because she had fallen in love with the ocean during annual family trips to the beach. It was at school that she met her future husband, now captain of a ship doing offshore construction for the energy sector. At Texas A&M, Finn became entranced by the maroon university ship called the Texas Clipper that headed out each summer on research trips, and one summer, she got a job as a student worker on the ship. Then, when a NOAA recruiter came to campus and offered the possibility of piloting ships around the world, Finn was hooked. NOAA was dominated by older men, but, according to Finn, they were supportive and encouraging. “The crew on my first ship didn’t coddle us, they didn’t treat us like little dolls. They made us work our butts off, they treated us fairly and were really good to us,” she says. “I was trained to not only drive ships, pilot planes and do fieldwork but to manage people who were older and more knowledgeable than myself, which was something I was going to have to do my whole life. You’re going to walk into a lot of situations where people will know more than you. I learned how to do that when I was 22 years old.” The first ship Finn piloted was a NOAA ship that surveyed
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pollution along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Then NOAA sent her to Hawaii to work on conservation of the Hawaiian monk seal. At the same time, she worked to get a master’s degree in zoology. After experiencing the maritime world, Finn got the chance to train as a pilot. First, she flew a plane called the Twin Otter used for surveying coastal pollution. She did a stint as deputy superintendent of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, in California, then returned to the skies after a few years to fly the Gulfstream IV as a hurricane hunter. She was also responsible for aircraft maintenance and operations — another position not typically held by a woman. While she enjoyed the act of flying, it was the objective of the mission that always drove her. Conveying accurate predictions of a hurricane’s trajectory and intensity is crucial to saving lives and property, as it allows officials on the ground to develop the best evacuation and response plans. Finn chased down severe winter storms as well as hurricanes, each offering their own challenges, but Katrina was perhaps the most memorable. “Sometimes you fly over the top and see this perfectly formed storm right below you,” she explains. But Katrina was at an altitude higher than her plane flew. “We were flying through [atmospheric] convection nobody else would fly through,” she recounts. Finn paved the way for more women to become hurricane hunters at NOAA. In 2018, the agency announced its first hurricane hunting flight copiloted by two women, Rebecca Waddington and Kristie Twining, who chased down Hurricane Hector. Waddington had participated in the second Homeward Bound voyage to Antarctica in 2017 and recommended that Finn apply for the ini-
tiative. Finn sees this as an example of how pioneering women can support one another across generations, with younger women mentoring or supporting older women and vice versa.
From Whales to Turtles On the bow of a ship surrounded by brilliant blue and white icebergs, a whale flipping its tail in the distance, Finn describes how this ecosystem, so different from Mobile Bay, inspires her to continue her work at home. Along with her restoration work in the Gulf, she volunteers with animal rescue and sea turtle protection initiatives. “Antarctica’s beauty and biodiversity is so awe-inspiring, you don’t need to look for it,” she says. “People from all over the world are working mindfully to preserve it. At the same time, I believe our community is motivated to preserve Mobile Bay and our coasts and can have an impact regionally, nationally and even globally.” MB Kari Lydersen is a Chicago-based journalist, author and journalism professor at Northwestern University. She travelled with the expedition to Antarctica courtesy of Acciona, a Spanish global renewable energy company that sponsors Homeward Bound. www.karilydersen.net.
below When not travelling the skies or the seas, Finn lends a hand to save wildlife right here along the Gulf Coast. PHOTO COURTESY MICHELE FINN
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GUMBO | AWARENESS
Staying Af loat Meg Johnson is spreading awareness and changing statistics in her corner of the world — one child at a time. text by AMANDA HARTIN • photo by ELIZABETH GELINEAU
so prominent is because there’s not enough awareness,” she says. “I think every parent should know the statistics. Everyone talks about car seats and vaccines, but no one is talking about drowning. Water takes our babies more than anything else.” To combat these grim statistics, Johnson and husband, Matthew, teach self-rescue skills year-round. “Our goal is to minimize fear and increase confidence,” says Johnson, whose students call her ‘Eg — because that “M” sound can be hard to articulate. “ISR gets a bad rap. People think it’s a controlled drowning, and it’s not. Fear should not be a part of this.”
Waterproofing
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unlight peeking through the curtains woke Coley Boone that Saturday morning. After a quick breakfast, her family piled in the car and headed to her parents’ Fish River home. It’s how they spent most weekends. The day’s unseasonably warm weather called for dipping toes in the water, and a quick jaunt by boat to the nearby sandbar would fit the bill perfectly. While grown-ups gathered floats, Boone’s 18-month-old daughter, Lucy, danced around the pier, keeping time with the cicadas’ late spring hum. The glint off the lapping water cast an almost dreamlike glow on the toddler’s face. The picture-perfect scene would soon erupt in chaos.
Reality Check “It’s not like the movies,” Meg Johnson says of drowning. “It’s quiet, it’s fast. There is no thrashing and screaming.” Johnson, a certified Infant Swimming Resource (ISR) instructor and owner of Gulf Coast Swimfants, has spent the last six years informing parents of this stark reality: In the U.S., drowning is the No. 1 unintentional cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 and the second leading cause among children ages 5 to 14. “The reason that it’s
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The ISR program, developed in the ‘60s by psychologist Harvey Barnett, goes beyond traditional swimming lessons. It teaches infants and young children how to survive in water. According to Johnson, lessons are taught slowly and incrementally through sensory motor touch. “The idea behind it is that children learn how to survive the same way they learn to not touch a hot stove twice,” she explains. “It’s the way children learn best. An instructor’s job is to set up the lesson so that the child understands exactly what is being said through touch. For example, I pick a child up anytime he or she does something that would make them float. It’s like clay; I am shaping their float.” Lessons last only 10 minutes apiece and are held five days a week for four to six weeks. Children are taught to hold their
breath underwater, to roll onto their backs and to float unassisted, all fully clothed. “By the end of the first week, the child is thinking, ‘I’m good at this!’” Johnson says with a proud smile. “More so than anything, children are learning one of the most valuable lessons in life: It was hard and I was scared, but I stuck in there and now I’m good at it. When you see that in children as young as 18 months old, it’s amazing. I think it shapes their little psyches.”
“Everyone talks about car seats and vaccines, but no one is talking about drowning. Water takes our babies more than anything else.” – Meg Johnson
A Life Saved That late spring day in 2016, Lucy stepped backward off the pier and fell into the water below. But she didn’t become a statistic. “By the time I got my hands on her,” recounts Boone, “she was coming to the top of the water and was smiling. She instinctively knew to hold her breath and swim to the surface.” ‘Eg is proud of her former student. “Parents are giving their children the gift of never knowing the fear of water,” Johnson says, adding, “To be clear, we are proponents of gates and pool locks. This is a final layer of protection. We instructors have the ability to change the statistics in our area, and I think I was created to make an impact in my little corner of the world.” MB
opposite Meg Johnson, ISR-certified instructor, wears a “Live Like Jake” swim shirt, a nod to the foundation of the same name that is devoted to bringing awareness to drowning prevention. Jake Roarke lost his life in a drowning accident in 2013 at the age of 2.
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MB’S INAUGURAL AWARDS HONORING THE EFFORTS – BIG AND SMALL – TO PROTECT OUR LOCAL ENVIRONMENT text by CATHERINE DORROUGH • opening photo by MATTHEW COUGHLIN
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t should come as no surprise that over the past 20 years, the population of Mobile and Baldwin counties has swelled by more than 90,000 people, from just over 540,000 to nearly 632,000. The secret is well and truly out: Folks know we’ve got a good thing going down here. From our sugar-sand beaches to the labyrinthine channels of the Delta, the Bay area is brimming with vitality. As local development marches on, sustainability has come into sharper focus. We’re situated in the heart of the North American Coastal Plain biodiversity hotspot, one of 36 global hotspots that are biologically rich but also dangerously threatened. With that reality in mind, individuals
and organizations are finding innovative ways not only to promote healthy growth but also to repair past environmental damage. Well established groups like Mobile Baykeeper are leading the charge toward a future in which our towns work in harmony with our ecosystems. At the same time, regular people everywhere are making small but important changes that deserve our applause. We’d like to recognize 10 leaders whose work is setting the bar in local sustainability. Their efforts show that, with ingenuity and effort, a healthy future is within our grasp. These are the recipients of Mobile Bay Magazine’s 2020 Watershed Awards:
The Lodge at Gulf State Park This Hilton property is a beacon of sustainable tourism, boasting a trio of prestigious environmental certifications. It has achieved LEED Gold status and SITES Platinum certification and is the first certified Fortified commercial building in the world. LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the most widely used green building rating system in the world. The Fortified system measures a project’s hurricane resilience, while SITES recognizes projects that feature sustainable landscapes. “SITES was important
THE LODGE AT GULF STATE PARK
because of The Lodge’s large site and sensitive coastal dune environment,” says Rebecca Dunn Bryant, cofounder and principal of Watershed, an architecture and consulting firm. “This is the first SITES project in Alabama and the first hotel to achieve SITES certification.” Watershed served as the Gulf Coast Sustainability Specialist for The Lodge’s design team, which was led by Atlanta-based Rabun Rasche Rector & Reece and Lake Flato Architects in Texas. The new Lodge has more rooms than its predecessor, which was wiped out during Hurricane Ivan, but it takes up a fraction of the dune environment. The landscape design revolves around rebuilding the site’s natural protective dune structure, including a natural plant palette that provides habitat for beach fauna and absorbs more than 600,000 gallons of stormwater annually, recharging the freshwater aquifer that serves the Gulf Shores area. In terms of resource consumption, “Hotels are notorious energy hogs,” Bryant says. “By using shading to reduce heat loads, efficient lighting and cooling, and smart systems that turn off the AC when balcony doors are open, we were able to reduce energy demand by 30 percent.” The
ON PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT: 1) Meredith Montgomery, Publisher, Natural Awakenings Magazine 2) David Nelson, Owner, Braided River Brewing Company 3) Gary Gover, President and Chairman, Earth Day Mobile Bay 4) Mark Berte, Executive Director, Alabama Coastal Foundation 5) Madison Blanchard, Project Coordinator, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program 6) David Hanna, Oyster Shell Collector, Oyster Shell Recycling Program 7) Kelley Barfoot, Outreach Coordinator, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program 8) Jason Kudulis, Restoration Project Manager, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program 9) David Spies, Board Member, Earth Day Mobile Bay 10) Suzi Spies, Board Member, Earth Day Mobile Bay 11) Roberta Swann, Director, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program 12) Tom Herder, Watershed Protection Coordinator, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program 13) Rebecca Dunn Bryant, AIA, Principal, Watershed
THE LODGE AT GULF STATE PARK
Lodge also features turtle-friendly lighting and bird-friendly glass, which has markings almost invisible to humans but clearly visible to birds. This is especially important given Mobile Bay’s position along the Mississippi Flyway, a migratory route for more than 325 bird species. “The Lodge demonstrates how site restoration can be both a visitor amenity and a resilience strategy,” Bryant says.
Roberta Swann As the director of the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, Roberta Swann helps to guide community leaders in their efforts to improve Alabama’s coastal resources. The NEP, a division of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, plays a role in a variety of initiatives on both sides of the Bay. THREE MILE CREEK The restoration of Three Mile Creek is a standout project. “This watershed is unique, as it represents a microcosm of the City of Mobile — from the University of South Alabama at its headwaters to the Port at its mouth; from wealthy communities upstream to poorer communities in the lower reaches,” Swann says. “The population through the watershed is a melting pot of ethnicities, incomes, ages and political views.” Until the mid-20th century, Three Mile Creek was the main drinking water source for the City of Mobile. “It has since fallen on hard times as an urbanized stormwater conveyance, failing to meet standards for even ADEM’s lowest use designation, Agricultural and Industrial,” Swann says. Goals for the project include: improving water quality, providing
“If kayaking in a boat in certain sections (of Three Mile Creek), you feel like you are in the Delta, until you hear the song of an ice cream truck and realize you are in a highly urbanized city.”
-Roberta Swann
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PHOTO BY KATHY HICKS
THE MOBILE-TENSAW DELTA
access to the creek, protecting and improving the health of fish and wildlife, restoring the heritage and cultural connection between the watershed and the community and preparing for climate resilience. Key partners include the State of Alabama, MAWSS, Alabama Power and the University of South Alabama. “The diversity of public and private sector champions has resulted in this being a priority for the City,” Swann says. The restoration plan is operating on a 10-year target timeline, which started in 2016. Swann says that, with the momentum building around the creek’s transformation, she anticipates major improvements along the creek within the next five years. PHOTO COURTESY REPUBLIC SERVICES
To donate to the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, make a gift to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and note that the contribution is intended for the NEP. To volunteer with the Three Mile Creek restoration project, email mbnep@mobilebaynep.com.
Alabama Coastal Foundation Oyster Recycling Program When local restaurant-goers order up a dozen oysters, there’s a good chance they’re contributing to a program that has become instrumental to the ecological health of Mobile Bay. With the help of a National Fish and Wildlife grant in 2016, the Alabama Coastal Foundation (ACF) began recruiting restaurants to recycle their oyster shells instead of sending them to a landfill. Their initial goal was to recruit 30 restaurants within two years and collect five acres of shells per year, but within 11 months they had met their first goal and doubled the acreage they could cover. Although the grant was complete by September of this year, the program continues to thrive due to restaurant buy-in and online “Shuck a Buck” donations. Oyster shells collected through the program go back into Alabama waters to create oyster reefs, where new oysters grow. These reefs provide habitat for fish, shrimp, crabs, and other animals and serve as natural breakwaters that protect shorelines. Moreover, they promote a thriving oyster industry, which improves water quality: One adult oyster can filter 15 gallons of water per day. “One of the great things about the Alabama Oyster Shell Recycling Program is that we have an advisory committee composed of restaurant representatives, nonprofits and governmental leaders to help us make decisions about the program, including on where shells go,” says ACF executive director Mark Berte. “ACF calls that approach ‘inclusive environmental stewardship,’ and we try to embed that in all of our work.” The ACF has just written a new grant to 9,807,387 oyster expand the program to Birmingham restau- shells were rants, and Berte says they will do the same collected for for Montgomery, Auburn and Tuscaloosa in recycling as of December 2019. the future. To see the list of participating restaurants or make a #ShuckABuck donation, go to joinacf.org.
That is the weight equivalent to 210 elephants.
Braided River Brewing Co. Love of the outdoors is deeply ingrained in the identity of Mobile’s new Braided River Brewing Co. The brand is inspired by the way the rivers of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta slow down, spread out and connect with one other. “To us, loving our environment means not only respecting and stewarding the resources we use to brew our beer, but most importantly, preserving our beautiful Delta for future generations to enjoy,” says founder and brewmaster David Nelson. To that end, the company’s goal is to be one of the most eco-friendly businesses in the region. They are using the Brewer’s Association’s Sustainability Benchmarking Tool to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) and to post results publicly. This tool is, “in our opinion, the most rigorous and comprehensive benchmarking tool available,” Nelson says. “By using a common set of KPIs, we are able to compare ourselves to other environmentally minded brewing operations.” Nelson’s team is setting up shop in the Wheeler Building in downtown Mobile, and they’re finding ways to be efficient wherever possible. The mix includes LED lights, a tankless water heater, added insulation, oversized brewing tanks and a steam-powered brewhouse. They’re also aiming for LEED certification.
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Nelson credits Watershed’s Rebecca Dunn Bryant for lending her expertise in benchmarking and finding ways to continue to improve. “We’re also fortunate to be partnered with the Alabama Coastal Foundation and Mobile Baykeeper,” he continues. “We’re excited to contribute to the work they do and to have them as a sounding board for our ideas and initiatives.” The taproom is scheduled to open this month.
Meredith Montgomery Her resume includes painting portraits, conducting conservation research biology, directing a community nature center and teaching yoga. In 2010, Meredith Montgomery embarked on another branch of her career when she took the helm at the Gulf Coast edition of Natural Awakenings. “Somehow this publishing job managed to encompass a lot of my experience and interests,” she says. “It’s focused on health and sustainability, which I am passionate about; it allows me to use my creative side; and my nonprofit and fundraising background was helpful with the sales and marketing side of the business.” Natural Awakenings is a network of magazines published in 29 states across the U.S. Montgomery is a member of the national editorial team, which interviews experts and makes the content available to local publishers. Publishers choose which national articles best suit their market, then complement them with stories that sit close to home.
PHOTO BY KATHY HICKS
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For example, Montgomery recently paired a national story on urban gardening with a local piece about a group in Mississippi that builds community gardens in urban food-insecure neighborhoods. “It’s encouraging to see that there are many progressive initiatives happening in our own backyard, and I want to shed light on those efforts and support them whenever I can,” she says. “We try to balance inspiring stories with actionable guidance. You don’t have to install solar panels, become an outspoken activist or buy an electric car to make a difference, but everyone can conserve energy, express their opinion to local leaders and drive less.”
Woody, Jim and Shannon Walker Plastics: miracle of modern engineering, gigantic problem for the world’s oceans. The equivalent of a full garbage truck’s worth of plastic enters the oceans every minute, according to a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum. The plastics don’t biodegrade, either; they simply break down into smaller and smaller components, until they suspend in the water as microplastics. This has implications for seafaring animals all the way down the food chain, from birds and turtles to microscopic organisms smaller than plankton. The owners of the OK Bicycle Shop and Liquid Lounge in downtown Mobile are doing their part to curb this alarming trend. Brothers Jim and Woody Walker and Jim’s wife, Shannon, have switched from single-use plastic straws, takeout containers, cling film, and togo cups and utensils, despite the higher cost of compostable alternatives. They had already started using paper straws earlier this year when they connected with Plastic Free Gulf Coast, a program run by Mississippi State University with support from the NOAA Marine Debris Prevention Grant. Funds from this program helped the Bike Shop and Liquid cover the cost of compostable to-go products. Though a few customers have walked out over the “politics” of the switch, most have been supportive. Regardless of the cost, the Walkers remain committed. “We have to take better care of this planet,” Jim says. “Where else are we going to live?”
PHOTO COURTESY HARTMAN-COX ARCHITECTS AND ROBB WILLIAMSON
The Federal Courthouse Before the new federal courthouse graced St. Joseph Street in downtown Mobile, the site consisted of a parking lot, a couple of buildings and an asbestos contamination. Today, it’s the LEED Goldcertified home of the U.S. District Court, U.S. Magistrate Court, U.S. District Clerk of Court and U.S. Marshals Service. The courthouse was built under the direction of the US General Services Administration, with Hartman-Cox Architects as design architect, URS/AECOM as architect and engineer of record, and W.G. Yates and Sons Construction Company as contractor. “It’s a very complex building, and there were a lot of prerequisites on how things are organized and arranged that needed to be integrated with the envelope of the site, the overall design, and the elements that are sustainable,” says Lee Becker, of Hartman-Cox. “I think one of the things that made that so successful is that we had a great team that worked on this project together. We listened to one another,” says project manager Amy Rice.
“One of the concepts we wanted The Courthouse to get across was a sense of place,” features Energy Starshe continues. The design team inrated equipment, high corporated artistic elements that pay efficiency lighting, homage to Mobile’s rivers and deltas. water conserving The window spandrels include five plumbing, solarreeds, symbolizing Mobile’s five rivpowered water heating ers. The interior features Italian glass systems and lowmosaics of native plants by artist Jaemitting materials. son Middlebrook. Justitia, a canoe sculpture by New Orleans-based artist Raine Bedsole, greets newcomers on the front lawn. Exterior landscaping consists of native plants that promote pollinator activity and don’t require irrigation. Underground, collection tanks capture close to 95 percent of stormwater and allow it to percolate back into the earth, reducing runoff. Certain project requirements pertaining to security and protocol conflicted with LEED standards. For example, LEED awards points for utilizing natural light, but due to the size of the site and courtroom design guidelines, the team had to rely instead on artificial light. Given those realities, the team focused instead on other, achievable areas of green design: sustainable site use, water efficiency and indoor environmental quality.
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Across the street, the renovation of the John A. Campbell U.S. Courthouse is scheduled to wrap up in June. Once complete, it’s expected to meet the LEED Commercial Interiors gold standard.
Bayou La Batre Seafood Waste Processing Plant This LEED Gold-certified plant for the Gulf Coast Agricultural Seafood Cooperative in Bayou La Batre recycles 5,900 tons of shrimp and crab waste per year. Built by White-Spunner Construction, it is one of the few LEED-certified industrial sites in Alabama. The $6 million, 13,000-square-foot facility processes and dehydrates seafood waste, then converts it into products such as animal feed and organic fertilizer. As a facility that diverts waste away from landfills and finds marketable ways to recycle it, the core concept of the plant is rooted in sustainability. However, the building also utilizes an array of green features that enhance its environmental bona fides. Notably, the plant uses onsite renewable energy, including solar and geothermal heating. Solar collectors heat an anaerobic digester that processes the waste. The plant also captures wastewater and methane gases rather than releasing them into the environment. It uses a biomass filter to contain odors within the building. While it is sometimes the case that sustainable choices are more expensive, in this instance the plant actually saves local processors around $250,000 per year in transportation and landfill fees.
Gary Gover Each spring, dozens of environment-minded organizations come to roost for the day at Fairhope Municipal Park on the shores of Mobile Bay. They man educational exhibits, organize craft stations and sell environmentally conscious wares, while a roster of bands sends live music floating over the crowd. This is Earth Day Mobile Bay, where an attendee can examine specimens of local marine life brought by the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, admire raptors and reptiles from the Alabama 4-H Science School, get gardening tips from Baldwin County Master Gardeners, and watch a collection of environmental films curated by the Mobile Bay Sierra Club, all under one tree canopy. Several people have steered the event over the years, but today Gary Gover serves as chairman and president of the board. Joined by fellow board members Suzi and David Spies, they start preparing for the April event each January. Gary recruits exhibitors, David maintains the website and Suzi arranges the music and entertainment. “The event has incrementally become more stable and predictable over the years,” Gover says. “For the most part, we have had the exhibitors determine how they can best support environmental goals for the community.” Now, however, the board hopes to
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MARSHLANDS WHERE THE MOBILE-TENSAW DELTA MEETS MOBILE BAY
position the event to direct attention to climate change, especially as it can be addressed at the individual, family and community levels. To sponsor or exhibit at Earth Day Mobile Bay 2020, on April 18, go to earthdaymobilebay.org.
Dog River Clearwater Revival When the Dog River Clearwater Revival (DRCR) was founded 25 years ago, Dog River had the dubious distinction of being on Alabama’s 303(d) list, which designates impaired or threatened waters. “Today that is not the case,” says executive director Debi Foster. “A lot of the practices that allowed that kind of degradation are no longer permitted.” However, the group’s work is far from complete.
PHOTO BY KATHY HICKS
200+ volunteers removed thousands of pounds of litter from the Dog River Watershed in the 31st Annual Alabama Coastal Cleanup in September 2019
“The biggest threat to the health of Dog River is sedimentation,” Foster says. Urbanization in the western suburbs of Mobile has affected the headwaters of many of the watershed’s creeks. “The continued march of asphalt west has increased the flow of stormwater into a drainage system that is unfiltered.” At 95 square miles, this is the largest urban watershed in the Mobile Bay area. Its estuary is the cradle of a rich mix of marine life. “Communities have made their living out of these waters,” Foster says. “We’re known for our seafood all over the world. The sustainability of our culture depends on our ability to retain the way of life that’s associated with these estuaries.”
In addition to monitoring water quality, engaging with city and county leaders, and attacking the river’s chronic litter problem, the DRCR also promotes community connections to the water through its bike trail and scenic blueway. “If you are out on a boat and looking at the wetland at eye level, it gives you a different perspective than if you’re passing over it on the interstate,” Foster says. “Go spend a quiet day unplugged, unconnected, and see where our roots came from.”
To donate or volunteer with Dog River Clearwater Revival, go to dogriver.org. The 2020 Dog River Mud Bottom Revival Music Festival will be on April 26. MB
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 47
B E A U T I F U L
Two sisters-turned-design-partners share how to add balance to your home décor by mixing it up and layering it on. text by MAGGIE LACEY • portrait by WENDY WILSON • home photos by SUMMER ENNIS ANSLEY
T
he most beautiful homes are made even better by enlisting the discerning eye and experienced talent of an interior designer. When a good designer is involved in a project from the very beginning of a build, however, every aspect of the home is more successful. So it was with a young family’s charming home project just a stone’s throw from the Country Club of Mobile golf course when sisters-turned-design-partners Rachel Anderson, left, and Natalie Roe, right, were hired to draft the plans. After a number of years working separately out of town and out of state for well-respected architects and designers, honing their skills and learning new methods, Roe and Anderson moved home and joined forces in June of 2017 with the creation of March + May Design. Their design studio operates out of a renovated storefront on Old Shell Road, where they offer help with home plans, renovations and refreshers. In this inviting home, every nook was well-planned, each piece of furniture found its natural home and the resulting décor shines with beautiful layers of color, texture and history. It’s a look that can be replicated by balancing old with new, sleek surfaces with texture and a hefty dose of granny-cool with an updated edge.
48 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
A fabric that had once fallen out of favor is back in a major way. The billowing silk curtains of the 1980s and ‘90s get a chic reboot with a slim metal rod, tiny tailored pleats and a perfect floorskimming length. While curtains are a major investment, don’t be afraid to try a bold, contrasting color! For another old-modern mix, pair that antique dining table you inherited from grandmother’s attic with clean-lined chairs that have been upholstered in colorful fabrics. Yellow velvet pops on these oval-backed beauties. Meanwhile, a geometric rug designed for high-traffic spaces wears well in the dining room. In the kitchen, Parisian bistro barstools bring a sense of history while sleek gold pendants hint at the Atomic Era. The white cabinets and countertops provide a fresh backdrop that unites the various fabrics, textures and styles. The homeowner is a serious cook, so top of the line appliances and plenty of workspace were musts in the design drafted by March + May but not at the expense of gorgeous natural light. Lots of windows make working in this functional space a happy pleasure. NOT YOUR MOTHER’S
SILK CURTAINS
50 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
Durability and easy cleanup are no-brainers in family seating. This banquette was upholstered in indoor/outdoor fabric IN THE KITCHEN on the backs and vegan leather on the seats for kid-proof daily dining. The blue vegan leather relates back to the curtains in the kitchen and the wallpaper in the adjacent powder bath, continuing a theme to unite the different spaces. A bold blue Dash and Albert indoor/outdoor rug is a must in high-traffic zones, like the one you find between the kitchen island and the massive Wolf range. March + May pushed the wall of the kitchen out just enough to grab another window and a great storage nook. “It keeps the room from being one big box, making the home feel older than it is,� Roe says. WIPEABLE SURFACES ARE
TOPS
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FLORALS FEEL
FRESH AGAIN The floral wallpaper in the little girl’s bath was a major commitment, but solid accents, such as the curtains, stool and vanity, keep the room from feeling busy. Neutral floors, counters and trim tone it down as well. With a fussy wallpaper, keep everything else tailored. These cafe curtains are a more modern update on a classic window treatment that has experienced ups and downs in popularity through the decades. Now with clean brass hardware and a tailored fit, the look is current all the way. “We love a cafe curtain for the privacy it gives without sacrificing light!” Roe says. A vintage-style bed looks fresh and fun when painted an unexpected color. The cool blue keeps the pinks from going too sweet. The butterfly bolster was a last-minute addition to the fabric plans. Once the little girl saw it, she had to have it! Its bold colors balance out the softer shades of the other fabrics.
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The blue silk curtains in the living room were the first fabric March + May chose for the home. Custom drapes are a commitment, so choosing a color that will stand the test of time is a must. However, that does not mean white and linen are the only options!
ADD PUNCH WITH
COLOR TOP TO BOTTOM
March + May chose a soothing green shade for the den and coated the walls, trim and ceiling in the same hue (albeit in different finishes), creating a cocoon of color that makes a clean backdrop for art, furniture and fabrics.
Vintage-inspired iron beds look great with a fresh coat of black paint. March + May layered it over a traditional oriental rug that the homeowner had rolled up in the back of the attic. Casual nautical prints and a modern pop-art lamp are contrasted with a weathered wooden chest and old-fashioned buffalo check blankets. No two things look like they came together, but they certainly belong with one another now.
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GET THE LAYERED LOOK
1.
2.
5. 3.
4.
TRY THESE COMBOS FROM MARCH + MAY 1. Serene abstract art pairs well with vintage oyster plates. GREEN VINTAGE OYSTER PLATE AT ANTIQUES AT THE LOOP • WHITE PORCELAIN OYSTER PLATE AT COTTON CITY ANTIQUES • ABSTRACT PAINTING BY CHRISTINA BAKER
2. A textured wood side table perfectly balances a more modern table lamp. CAST STONE TABLE LAMP, TO
side clean geometric designs. LAOS GEOMETRIC FABRIC BY THIBAUT • TROPICAL LANDSCAPE FABRIC, ANANAS BY SCHUMACHER
4. Upholster a vintage Victorian settee with an updated performance velvet in a fresh color. PERFORMANCE VELVET, AMORI BY PINDLER IN AZURE, ROSEPETAL AND OLIVE
THE TRADE ONLY WELLESLEY CANE SIDE TABLE BY REDFORD HOUSE
5. Unlacquered brass faucets get a patina with age that looks sleek next to the rough rattan stool. UNCOATED
3. Floral fabrics add movement and soft edges along-
BRASS KITCHEN FAUCET BY NEWPORT BRASS • IMPORTED RATTAN COUNTERSTOOL, TO THE TRADE ONLY
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 55
56 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
UNDER Young professionals from both sides of the Bay impact their fields and give back to their communities. interviews by AMANDA HARTIN AND BRECK PAPPAS photos by MATTHEW COUGHLIN AND ELIZABETH GELINEAU location FUSE PROJECT
[ PROUDLY SPONSORED BY ]
[ SPECIAL THANKS TO ] SOHO Events for providing the table settings for the awards dinner and Fuse Project for opening their doors for the photo shoot.
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 57
HANNA ALEMAYEHU, M.D., FAAP
CHESLEY ALLEGRI, CIMA ERIN DELAPORTE
MATRISZA ALVAREZ
Assistant Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, Pediatric Surgeon, University of South Alabama Heath Systems, Children’s & Women’s Hospital
Financial Advisor, The RadcliffSchatzman Group at Morgan Stanley
Director, Camp SMILE, United Cerebral Palsy of Mobile
Since joining the pediatric surgery department in 2018, Hanna has made a significant impact on the care of pediatric surgical patients. She recently created a Chest Wall Deformity Clinic at USA Children’s & Women’s Hospital, which not only provides state-of-the-art equipment but also dramatically reduces pain for a historically painful procedure. She previously taught a course in minimally invasive surgery at the International Pediatric Endoscopic Group Conference in Chile and is currently working to create a medical mission trip in 2020 that will aid underserved communities in her home country of Kenya. ALMA MATER
Georgia State University; Weill Cornell Medical College HOMETOWN Nairobi, Kenya SPOUSE + CHILDREN
Miles; Tafari (7), Golden (3) FIRST JOB Administering telephone surveys for a market research company in London WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
A flight attendant
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB The privilege and reward of mak-
ing a lifelong impact on a child and a family.
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Upon joining Morgan Stanley’s Mobile branch in 2018 to work as a financial advisor with the Radcliff-Schatzman Group, Chesley immediately added a flair of energy, innovation, ambition, community outreach and service to the financial team. Working with families, retirees and business owners, she is consistently ranked among the branch’s top tier in performance, all the while contributing back to the community in which she was raised. Chesley serves on the board of The Weeks Bay Foundation as well as Mobile Baykeeper’s Young Advisory Council. In 2019, she was named the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Woman of the Year.
Matrisza has been a part of Camp SMILE for most of her life, beginning as a counselor at the age of 14 and moving through the ranks to the role of director, where she has served for the past six years. Aside from garnering thousands of dollars in donations, Matrisza guided the camp through the American Camping Association Accreditation process, an accreditation which helps maintain Camp SMILE’s high standards of operation. By adding the “Miles for SMILEs” fundraiser to the annual calendar, Matrisza has created an event that has raised more than $10,000 in the past two years. ALMA MATER
ALMA MATER
University of South Alabama HOMETOWN Grand Bay
Auburn University HOMETOWN Fairhope
Jake; Keller (2)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER + CHILDREN
Ryan Easterling; Rudder (4-year-old yellow lab) FIRST JOB Selling silver queen corn for my dad on the corner of highways 27 and 104
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
Warehouse Bakery
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Bring back the ferry or a high-speed train between the Eastern Shore and downtown Mobile
HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Worst driver
SPOUSE + CHILDREN
GUILTY PLEASURE Instagram dogs IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Encourage more restaurant variety Downtown. Mobile has so much to offer with authentic Southern cuisine, but I would love to see more diversity. HIDDEN TALENTS I am really good at finding lost things, but nothing that I personally lost, only things other people have. FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Being with the campers and
watching them grow along with the camp. Some of our campers have been coming for decades!
BRUNER KENDRICKBINION T. DUNKLIN Commercial Relationship Manager, Regions Bank
Bruner began working at Regions Bank in 2008 and has since garnered 11 years of commercial banking experience. He currently maintains the professional designation of a certified treasury professional through the Association for Financial Professionals. Bruner is a Chairman’s Club Recipient, which is an honor bestowed to the top 10 percent of commercial bankers across Regions’s 15-state footprint. He is a metro board member for the YMCA of South Alabama with a focus on finance initiatives, as well as a member of Dauphin Way United Methodist Church, the Senior Bowl Committee and the Downtown Mobile Rotary Club. ALMA MATER
The University of Mississippi HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Hadley; Calder (7), Mack (4) GUILTY PLEASURE Foosackly’s
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED 1) Always be honest and
tell the truth 2) the Serenity Prayer
HIDDEN TALENTS The floss FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Working with clients and col-
leagues who trust me enough to ask my advice when faced with both challenges and opportunities
WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? Mobilians who
served our country’s military, in particular those who saw combat.
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 59
WHITNEY BOYD
AUSTIN BRADFORD ERIN DELAPORTE
BRITTANY BROWN, MSN, RN
AVP, Branch Manager, The First, A National Banking Association
Resident Director – Wealth Management Advisor, Merrill Lynch
Whitney is a dynamic and charismatic branch manager with over 14 years of banking experience. A natural-born leader, she has led a branch for the past six years that is always on top in the categories of production, sales and new accounts. Whitney is also the 2019 leader in service hours for the entire bank, which includes 54 branches across Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana. She serves on several boards and advisory committees, including Victory Health Partners Baldwin County and Kiwanis Club Daphne, and she also organizes the bank’s local Ronald McDonald House volunteers.
Along with his vital role as a certified financial advisor, Austin became the resident director of the Mobile Merrill Lynch office in 2017. Under his leadership, which involves the management of 23 employees, the office has grown in both size and revenue. Austin has been an active participant in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program for the past seven years and is always looking for ways for his employees to support the community, such as serving at the Feed America Food Bank or by donating to Clark Middle School’s “in-house shopping experience” for underprivileged students.
Director of Operations, Department of Internal Medicine, USA Health
ALMA MATER
ALMA MATER Auburn University HOMETOWN Selma, Ala. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Stephanie;
Auburn University HOMETOWN Brewton, Ala. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Brent; Audrey (14), Colton (11), Townsend (8) FIRST JOB Cashier at Winn-Dixie WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
Chuck’s Fish
HIDDEN TALENTS
Twirling a baton
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Having the flexibility to be out
in the community. I think nowadays there are so many banks in our area, the main thing that will set me apart is being able to go visit with my customers when they can’t necessarily get to the bank. If they need me, I am there. 60 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
Caroline (7), Turner (5), Graham (2) WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
A professional baseball player GUILTY PLEASURE Krispy Kreme doughnuts BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED You can’t control other
people’s actions, but you can control your reaction to them. HIDDEN TALENTS The ability to remember obscure sports details from past sporting events
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Building relationships with people
and simplifying the financial aspect of their lives
Brittany began her career as a pediatric intensive care nurse at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital eight years ago. Today, as director of operations for internal medicine, she is responsible for the management and direction of all aspects of operation for over 15 clinics, where her professionalism, passion and leadership shine through. An avid member of Aubreigh’s Army, Brittany raised more than $15,000 for the Baldricks Foundation and shaved off all of her hair, donating it towards a wig. Brittany also works with local high schoolers on resume writing, interview skills and career-focused concepts. ALMA MATER
University of South Alabama HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Taylor; Tucker Aaron (9), Laura Elizabeth (3) GUILTY PLEASURE I love ice cream. The crazy thing is I am lactose intolerant, but it hasn’t slowed me down yet. HIDDEN TALENTS I’m fluent in every Disney song imaginable. My family and friends call it my “stupid power.” WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE MOBILE?
Diversified. Mobile has so many different people from different walks of life. The beauty that every individual has to offer contributes to the city’s beauty.
ERIC C. BROWNE KENDRICK T. DUNKLIN Theatre Teacher, Baker High School; Artistic Director, Joe Jefferson Players; Acting Instructor, Actor’s Edge Studio and Sunnyside Theatre
Eric has been involved in theatre since he was 14, working as an actor and director in productions across the state. He moved to Mobile in 2006 and, since then, has directed 47 productions. Eric has spent 13 years in theatre education with the Mobile County Public School System and has been recognized many times for his contributions to the city’s dramatic arts, including five outstanding production awards at Joe Jefferson Players. He’s also the recipient of the Mobile Theatre Guild’s Danny Conway Award for Outstanding Service and was a 2017 Arty Award finalist in arts education for the Mobile Arts Council. ALMA MATER
University of Montevallo; Spring Hill College HOMETOWN Union Grove, Ala. CHILDREN My dog Marlowe is 6 years old and lives the spoiled life of an only child with a single parent. GUILTY PLEASURE All of the Terminator movies and the Batman films. I visited Warner Bros. studios a couple summers ago and actually started weeping when they let me touch the real 1989 Batmobile and flip on the Bat signal. True story! FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB I get to see young people fall in
love with the theatre every day!
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TREY BYRUM Owner and Founder, Alabama Pipe Welders Academy, Scottsman Tools
In just two years, Trey has founded and now runs a technical trade school that trains classes of 50 students towards certification as pipe welders and has developed a line of proprietary and innovative welding tools, some of which are now patentprotected. A nuclear-certified pipe welder himself, Trey applies skills he learned in the U.S. Navy to develop a real-world-oriented curriculum for his students. He was recently recognized by the American Welding Society in an article in the Welding Journal, and he serves on the executive council of the Mobile Section of the American Welding Society. ALMA MATER U.S. Navy HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Catie;
Bailey (15), Madison (13), Jeremiah (9), Mary Catherine (6), Carly (1) FIRST JOB Painting address numbers on neighbors’ curbs for five bucks a pop WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? A pirate HIDDEN TALENTS I’m awesome at
magic and perform shows for my kids’ birthdays.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB I’m able to work every
day with my wife, dad, brother, nephew-in-law and other family members. BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “If you will just do what’s
right, you will see miracles.” 62 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
MATTHEW D. CRAIG, ED.S.
SHERRICA DAVIS-HUNT
BROOKE DODSON SEAN H. GLEASON
Assistant Principal, Bay Minette Elementary School
Director of Institutional Advancement, Bishop State Community College
Accounting, Beard Equipment Company
Matthew has been a dedicated educator in the Baldwin County Public School System since 2004. As an assistant principal at Bay Minette Elementary School, Matthew has brought a ray of sunshine to the faculty and school with creative faculty, family, and student scavenger hunts, rousing games at faculty meetings and continuous trivia contests. He is currently working to implement a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) initiative in the school, and he wrote the curriculum for a “Guys With Ties” training program, in which boys learn to make eye contact and how to shake hands properly. ALMA MATER Auburn University,
Grand Canyon University, Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, University of Alabama at Birmingham HOMETOWN Goreville, Ill. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Arin; Sawyer (5), Charlie Rose (1) HOBBIES Piano, baking cheesecakes, working out and playing keys for CityHope Malbis IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD... Advocate for small / local businesses and work to ensure the youth of our community stay here when they enter working society
With over 10 years of experience in domestic and international marketing and business development, Sherrica is well-versed in the art of fostering and sustaining business relationships. She attended the Tobin School of Business at St. John’s University in New York, worked on Wall Street as an analyst for a boutique investment-banking firm and served as vice president of resource development for United Way of Southwest Alabama. Now at Bishop State Community College, she raises funds to assist students with the resources they need to accomplish their academic and personal ambitions. ALMA MATER Talladega College;
St. John’s University
HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Marshall;
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB My boss allows me to use my
Braxton (17), Malachi (9), Madisyn (4), Kaven (1) FIRST JOB McAlister’s Deli on Government. I gained 15 pounds eating the fresh-baked cookies on my shift. I had to go on a dramatic diet to fit into my Azalea Trail Maid attire. IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD... Expand the public transportation system. I would love the ability to take the train Downtown for the day and not worry about parking.
creativity in ways that offer opportunities for our students to express their creativity.
SOCU and Dumbwaiter
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
Brooke has been with Beard Equipment Company since 2005, working in various departments from the rentals division to accounting. Described as a self-driven individual who always puts others first, Brooke played a major role in helping to grow the company outside of Mobile, which now includes nine locations in Florida. She also dedicates much of her time and talent to organizations such as United Way of Southwest Alabama, USA Children’s & Women’s Hospital and Wilmer Hall. She is a vital member of her company’s “Digging for a Cure” committee, a 5-year-old initiative to raise funds for cancer research and treatment. ALMA MATER Hollins University HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN John;
William (8), Jack (4) HOBBIES Reading, traveling and spending time with my family
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED Treat others the way you
want to be treated.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB It’s very meaningful to work in
a third-generation family business that my grandfather started 50 years ago. Both my parents worked in the business and now my sister and I both work with our husbands at the company. It gives us a great sense of pride to carry on the traditions and values that my grandfather and parents started. january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 63
KELLY DORGAN, PH.D.
A. PATRICK ABE HARPER,DUNGAN, JR. ESQ.
ASHLEY STEVEN HARRIS LEE DZWONKOWSKI
Senior Marine Scientist, Dauphin Island Sea Lab
Attorney, Adams and Reese LLP; Co-Owner/Co-Founder, Association Football Club of Mobile, LLC
Vice President, Private Banker, Trustmark National Bank
Recognized as one of the brightest junior faculty members of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Kelly is making a mark in marine science research and education by expanding the lab’s knowledge of marine sediments and the diverse community of marine organisms, mostly worms, that live within these sediments. She recently received a prestigious CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation, intended to give early-career faculty, such as Kelly, the support to advance both their research and educational programs in their department or organization. Kelly’s community involvement includes a variety of educational opportunities to help expand the community’s knowledge of marine science. ALMA MATER University of Califor-
nia, Santa Cruz; University of Maine
In addition to serving as president of the University of South Alabama National Alumni Association, Patrick has established himself as a go-to legal resource at Adams and Reese LLP. Patrick makes each case he works on personal, thereby strengthening the firm’s client relationships in Mobile. He has been practicing law since 2011, representing multiple utility boards, planning commissions and providing legal counsel to a number of Fortune 500 companies. He also serves on the board of directors of AFC Mobile, helping to further the semi-pro soccer team in Mobile by bringing in athletes and revenue. It’s a great family-friendly entertainment option for the city. ALMA MATER University of South
Alabama; University of South Carolina
Lee has spent the last 10 years assisting Mobilians with their banking, asset management and planning needs. Over the past six years as a private banker for Trustmark Bank, he has earned one of the bank’s highest awards, the Perform Award, five times, affirming his ability to work with multiple business units to meet the needs of clients across south Alabama. Lee, a member of the 2018 class of Leadership Mobile, is actively involved in his community as a member of the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church vestry and the Mobile Touchdown Club. ALMA MATER University of Alabama HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Kristen;
Lee (4), Caroline (2)
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
HOMETOWN Yorktown, Va. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Michael;
HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Laurie;
Myles (23 months)
Jonas (9), Rowan (6) FIRST JOB Delchamps cart collector, (or as it was called then, “buggy boy”) GUILTY PLEASURE Fried chicken livers from Hart’s HIDDEN TALENT Not really hidden from many, but I like to sing. I’m the “retired” lead singer of the band Speck (circa 2001 - 2004) and a current karaoke junkie.
fishing
Most likely to copy-edit other people’s high school superlatives.
accomplish their financial goals
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED Don’t turn down an op-
portunity to travel because you have too much work to do. I took this advice and spent a month in Antarctica.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Marine science is very interdis-
ciplinary – I really enjoy learning new skills from other fields (engineering, physics, chemistry) and applying new techniques to figure out how the ocean works. 64 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
A professional golfer
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Continue the redevelopment of downtown and bring more activities to the downtown area and waterfront HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Most likely to be a Spring Hill dad
WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? Jimmy Buffett, Jer-
emiah Denton, Hank Aaron, Joe Cain
HOBBIES Hunting, golfing and
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Helping individuals and families
CHIPGATES HARTIN, DAY III,MD DMD, MS Prosthodontist, Day Gates, DMD
Having practiced in Mobile since 2011, Day is one of only three board-certified prosthodontic dentists in the state of Alabama. He recently opened a new, state-of-the-art clinic on Old Shell Road to serve patients in the Mobile area. The current vice president of the Mobile Area Dental Society, he is also a member of the Alabama Dental Association and American Dental Association. As an instructor for the Alabama Dental Hygiene Program, Day passes on his knowledge and experience to dental hygienists in training. He also enjoys serving as a member of the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church vestry. ALMA MATER Sewanee:
The University of the South
HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Andrea Ros-
sillon; Sam (6), Dan (4), Genevieve (2)
FIRST JOB Running the bumper
boats at The Track in Gulf Shores
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
F-16 fighter pilot
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED The greatest gifts that
can be given are love, knowledge and health.
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Incentivize local homegrown businesses and entrepreneurs instead of the big out-of-town corporations.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB When a patient says, “You gave me
my life back.” january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 65
CARL HARPERHEISTERHAGEN KASEEE. SPARKS Vice President/COO, Harper Technologies, LLC
From tinkering on old equipment with his grandfather to opening Harper Technologies with his brother in the early 2000s, Carl is happiest when he’s faced with a technological challenge. Known as a calming presence around the office, he has helped lead the company to a period of amazing growth and has been a mentor for countless technicians gaining experience in the field. Carl has the pleasure of serving on the board for Dearborn YMCA and the Eastern Shore Art Center and is very involved in company charity initiatives, such as supplying dinners for the Ronald McDonald House. ALMA MATER University of Alabama HOMETOWN Daphne SPOUSE + CHILDREN Cecily;
Zachary (9), Victor (5), Isaiah (4), Ian (newborn) FIRST JOB Playing the piano for my church’s Sunday School WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? Aside
from technology, music is my second passion. I always knew that if I didn’t end up in IT, it would be something music-related. GUILTY PLEASURE A good movie / TV series and a glass of merlot
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “Always be a man of your
word, and protect your family name. It was bestowed to you unblemished, and should be given to your children the same way.” 66 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
LIZA MARILYN HEATH
ALISON BAXTER HERLIHY
REV. VICTOR P. INGALLS
Lower School Spanish Teacher, UMS-Wright Preparatory School
Lawyer, Alison Baxter Herlihy, P.C.
Vocations Director for the Archdiocese of Mobile, Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mobile
Born in Puerto Rico, Liza has been an educator for more than 15 years and has taught in Morocco, Florida and Alabama. When teaching Spanish, her mission is to impart a passion for the language in a way that’s new, inviting and purposeful, whether that means playing her guitar in the classroom or taking her students around the school singing Spanish Christmas carols. Liza serves as a volunteer translator for Make-A-Wish Alabama, and she was chosen to present at the American Council of Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) 2019 Conference in Washington D.C. ALMA MATER University of Puerto
Rico, Río Piedras Campus
HOMETOWN Guaynabo, Puerto Rico SPOUSE + CHILDREN Micah;
Josué (11), Salma (9)
GUILTY PLEASURE TV shows from
Spain and Turkish soap operas
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Foster the importance of learning foreign languages and invest in language learning centers for all age groups. HIDDEN TALENTS Playing the violin and Latin dancing
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB I love the smiles, hugs, compli-
ments and wild-tastic comments. Seeing my students grow in confidence about learning Spanish and being a part of their life training truly makes my day, every day!
When Alison opened her law practice in 2011, she was one of the youngest female solo practitioners in Mobile. She has focused her career on family law, including divorce, child custody, child support mediation and adoption. Alison has also represented children in both delinquency and dependency proceedings in juvenile court. In addition to teaching courses for the University of South Alabama’s paralegal program, Alison is an active member of the Mobile Bar Association and was a founding mentor for Strickland Youth Center for Girls’ Leadership Program, which provides positive female role models to girls who are on probation through the juvenile court system. ALMA MATER
University of Texas at Austin; University of Alabama School of Law HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Garrick Ogburn; Bowie (our cat)
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? I wanted to
be a lawyer for as long as I can remember … or, a drummer in a rock ’n’ roll band.
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
For lunch, I would take them to my husband’s restaurant Nourish Café for healthy, made-from-scratch cuisine, of course. For dinner, I would take them to The Noble South.
A graduate of St. James High School in Montgomery, the Rev. Victor attended two years at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia and an additional four years at the Pontifical North American College, America’s Seminary in Rome, Italy. In his current role, Victor is responsible for building a culture of vocations throughout the Archdiocese of Mobile, which is an area that stretches from the Gulf to Montgomery. He helps young people on their way to discerning religious life, as well as helping people discover that their vocations may lie in their married lives or through a life of consecration. Victor is known for asking, “Why not Alabama”for the next generation of priests and missionaries. ALMA MATER Furman University HOMETOWN Montgomery, Ala. WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
A garbage man.
GUILTY PLEASURE Stand-up
comedy, McDonald’s French fries
HIDDEN TALENT Playing the
harmonica, freestyle rapping
HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Most Likely to Become Mayor
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Create more opportunities for young people to learn trades as well as have hands-on experiences with different professions. january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 67
68 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
COREY JAMES
ALISON BRUMFIELD JONES
ERINKENNEMER DELAPORTE BEN
Director of Operations, Innovation PortAL
Founder/Owner, Mission Fitness
VP, Commercial Banking Market Leader, Bank of America, N.A.
Corey graduated summa cum laude from the honors college of Saint Louis University. As director of operations, Corey uses his intelligence and intuition when consulting start-up businesses. His day-to-day tasks include business plan management, pairing mentors and investors, marketing, communications and community development initiatives. Corey has also planned and executed Mobile’s Startup Weekend, and his motivation and proven track record have earned him trust from leadership. Within the community, Corey serves as an instructor for the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps Program. ALMA MATER Saint Louis University HOMETOWN New Orleans, La. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Emily;
Sofia Francis (newborn) HOBBIES Rock climbing, cycling, podcasts, audiobooks and bourbon
Alison founded Mission Fitness with the goal of strengthening the community, both physically and through raising awareness and funds for local nonprofit organizations. Since opening its doors just over two years ago, the studio has infused nearly $20,000 into programs like Rainbow Mobile, The Fuse Project, Dance Without Limits, McKemie Place and many more. The avid traveler lives by the quote, “You are not an important person, but you have important work to do.” Internationally, Alison has demonstrated love to people in the slums of Mumbai and orphanages in Rwanda. Locally, she shares her passion with everyone who walks into the studio and has offered free classes to military and discounts to children who require special fitness training. ALMA MATER Ole Miss HOMETOWN Pascagoula, Miss. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Keith;
fur babies, Addie and Cain
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
Cheese Cottage
Depending on who you ask, it was either a veterinarian, an actress, a teacher. (My 7th grade language arts teacher declared I would be a “woman who would go to the spa!”) GUILTY PLEASURE Chalkboard labels. There is nothing in my life that hasn’t been properly labeled and stored.
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Invest in entrepreneurial infrastructure and resources, create tax incentives for artists to move Downtown and put bike lanes (almost) everywhere.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB I get to work with our region’s
best early-stage, high-growth entrepreneurs. Through that, I befriend passionate people disrupting a wide range of industries.
Ben is described as a natural speaker who is passionate about people. Regarding his role with Bank of America, N.A., Ben successfully leads the entire commercial banking operations in the Gulf Coast. This passionate drive led to his nomination for and completion of Leadership Mobile, class of 2019. Ben is the board president of McKemie Place and is also the acting executive director. Other community leadership roles include serving on the board of the Red Cross and on the finance committee at Dauphin Way Methodist Church. Ben served on the 2019 Real Men Wear Pink campaign through the American Cancer Society. ALMA MATER Auburn University HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Erin;
Wells (7), Hayes (4)
GUILTY PLEASURE Carpe Diem
red velvet cake
FIRST JOB Tire technician BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “Put your head down,
focus on the task and go to work. Live in the vision not the circumstance.”
HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Best Dancer
IF I WERE MAYOR I WOULD...
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Focus on the education system, workforce development and homelessness.
Make exercise and community service mandatory. It would be burpees not burritos for lunch, friends.
nies achieve their financial goals.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB I love helping people and compa-
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 69
LAUREN E. LAMBRECHT, M.D.
LESLIE LASHT. DUNKLIN KENDRICK
RYAN LONG
OB-GYN, Azalea City Physicians for Women, P.C.
Senior Vice President, Director of Marketing, The American Equity Underwriters, Inc.
VP of Pre-Construction Services/ Director of Construction, The Highland Group
During her time with American Equity Underwriters, Leslie has implemented many firsts, including their first-ever national advertising campaign, a monthly newsletter, a corporate video campaign and a digital marketing strategy. Her commitment to media relations has led to AEU receiving numerous honors, including the 2019 Best Companies to Work For in Alabama. She is an active member of the Insurance Marketing Communications Association, and serves on the association’s board of directors. Leslie volunteers with the Baldwin County Humane Society and the Animal Rescue Foundation of Mobile, and she is a member of the planning committee for the Focus Women’s Conference in Mobile.
In addition to his role with The Highland Group, Ryan is president of MAAAC (Makos Academics, Arts and Athletics Club). The foundation was created to help raise funds for the new Orange Beach Middle and High schools. As president, Ryan led the board in raising over $500,000 since April 2019. He is also a board member of the Orange Beach Sports Association, member of Leadership Baldwin County, and member of Associated Builders and Contractors Alabama’s Future Leaders in Construction - Gulf Coast chapter. Beyond his accomplishments, Ryan is actively involved in coaching youth sports, and he recently starred in the community production of “Willy Wonka.”
Lauren graduated magna cum laude from Harding University, where she held a two-year research grant with NASA and received the Physical Science Student of the Year award from faculty and administration. While in residency, Lauren served as chief and received awards for Best Resident in Gynecology and Best Resident in Urogynecology and Pelvic Surgery. Outside of work, Lauren volunteers with Victory Health Partners, offering her expertise to females who are without insurance. She is also one of the founding board members for Savvy Giving by Design, a nonprofit that designs bedrooms for children who are undergoing cancer treatments. ALMA MATER
University of Tennessee, College of Medicine HOMETOWN Memphis, Tenn. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Zac; James (6) and Joshua (6) FIRST JOB Banana Republic
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? Astronaut HIDDEN TALENT I can cook really
well. I make good cocktails, too.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB What keeps me going are the
beautiful moments with my patients. It is my privilege to take care of women. BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “Much is required from
those to whom much is given, for their responsibility is greater.” Luke 12:48 70 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
ALMA MATER University of North
Carolina at Charlotte
HOMETOWN Charlotte, N.C. WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
Teacher, writer
GUILTY PLEASURE Instagram WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
Sunset Pointe in Fairhope
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE MOBILE? An intriguing intersection
of grit and class, of old and new. One of the South’s best-kept secrets.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB I love seeing the direct impact we
have on our members’ businesses.
ALMA MATER Auburn University HOMETOWN Childersburg, Ala. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Cindy;
Walker (9), Marshall (6)
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? A ninja,
but when I found out ninjas don’t really make money, I wanted to be an architect. BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “There is no way to
happiness; happiness is the way.” HIDDEN TALENTS Card/magic tricks and arguing. To this day, I have never lost an argument.
WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? John D. New,
Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr., Hank Aaron and Tim Cook.
LAUREN METZGER, DMD, MSD Periodontist, Coastal Periodontics and Implant Dentistry, P.C.
Despite only being 29, Lauren is already bringing new and innovative ideas to Coastal Periodontics, such as minimally invasive surgical techniques and the use of biologic materials. While in dental school, Lauren traveled to Honduras to provide care to patients with limited access. As for now, she volunteers with Donated Dental Services for Dental Lifeline Network. Lauren’s community service also includes advocating equality for the LGBTQ+ community, and she and a peer established the Mobile chapter of The Bevy, a social group that provides a space for LGBTQ+ women to network, socialize and engage with the community. ALMA MATER Birmingham-South-
ern College, UAB School of Dentistry, University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE Ronni Ferris-Metzger GUILTY PLEASURE Going to the grocery story HOBBIES Soccer, traveling, hiking IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Add more crosswalks and fix sidewalks to make Mobile more walkable.
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
La Cocina, China Doll, Foosackly’s and The Noble South FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Working with patients and my
work family. It’s always satisfying to see the before and after results of treatment. january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 71
72 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
CULLEN MILLSAP
TIFFANY MITCHEM, PHARMD
LOREN BURROUGHS MODISA, MPA
Vice President, Legal Imaging
Clinical Pharmacy Manager, Southern Cancer Center
Diversity Coordinator, University of South Alabama, College of Medicine
As partner and vice president of Legal Imaging, which is a service-disabled veteran-owned small business that performs digital forensics and eDiscovery for the legal field, Cullen continues to grow and push the business by using skills he learned as a sergeant in the United States Marine Corp. Business partners note Cullen’s ability to lead through effective decision-making while performing under pressure. Outside of work, Cullen volunteers his time to Veterans Recovery Resources, a local nonprofit that provides mental, physical and emotional care to veterans and their families. He also donates a portion of the proceeds from Mad Dawg’s BBQ Sauce, a wholesale business he started, to Veterans Recovery Resources. ALMA MATER University of Alabama HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Andi; Hill (2) FIRST JOB Custard Cottage, next to
the Dew Drop Inn.
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
Hawaiian fire dancer. My family and I lived in Hawaii when I was 4. I would watch these guys at luaus, and I had made my mind up. I know now that was never really an option. HIDDEN TALENT I love to cook, and my wife never complains. BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “This too shall pass.” Any
time I find myself in a difficult or trying situation, it helps me remember that eventually it will end.
Tiffany is described as a driven person with an infectious, friendly attitude. In her almost 2-year tenure with Southern Cancer Center, she has achieved the Accreditation Commission for Health Care’s Accreditation for Specialty Pharmacy with Oncology Distinction, an honor only seven pharmacists within Alabama, and only two in the Mobile Bay area, have received. Tiffany is a member of the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association and the US Oncology Network’s Oral Oncolytics Task Force and Pharmacy Operations committee, among others. Outside of work, Tiffany is Cub Scout Pack 47’s den leader and Friends of Scouting committee chair, and she has helped organize events such as Coastal Cleanup. ALMA MATER Ole Miss HOMETOWN Robertsdale, Ala. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Brian;
Ian (8), Reid (4) HOBBIES Cub Scouts with my oldest, binging Netflix and asserting my board game dominance GUILTY PLEASURE
Paying professionals to clean my house HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Most Likely to Get ID’ed at 30
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “A comfort zone is a
beautiful place, but nothing grows there.”
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Give our city’s first responders a raise because they are some of the hardest working people I know.
LoRen firmly believes that every person’s story has value. As the diversity coordinator within the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, she works to highlight pathways to medical school for students historically disenfranchised from STEM careers and strives to find ways in which to illuminate and celebrate the differences that make each member of the USA Health System unique. LoRen served as a health policy and advocacy intern for the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation before joining the Peace Corps for two years as an HIV/ AIDS civil society capacity building volunteer in Botswana. ALMA MATER University of South
Alabama; Eastern Kentucky University
HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Donquiel;
Eriana (9)
FIRST JOB Ross Dress for Less in the
Mobile Festival Centre
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Implement a tax to help alleviate the educational disparities at local public schools situated in areas with lower property taxes.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Every day, I get the op-
portunity to tell students that they belong, that they deserve to take up space, and that the future of our society, as we know it, is dependent upon them. january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 73
JAKE PARKER, P.E. Mobile Engineering Leader, Hargrove Engineers + Constructors
Jake is a licensed professional engineer in six states and is also a LEED (Leader in Energy Efficient Design) accredited professional. He leads a team of nearly 350 direct-report engineers and designers in project execution. In 2015, Jake was recognized as Electrical Engineer of the Year by the Mobile Council of Engineers. His project leadership, which spans multiple industries, earned him an invitation to become one of Hargrove’s associate owners. Jake is an active member of Tau Beta Pi, the oldest engineering honor society in the nation, a lifetime member of the University of South Alabama’s Alumni Association and his church, Christ United Methodist. ALMA MATER
University of South Alabama HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Jennifer; Eden (9), Reed (6)
WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP? Accountant GUILTY PLEASURE Double Stuf
Oreos and milk
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
Start at the Haberdasher, then head to The Noble South or Von’s Bistro IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Probably be completely bald; it’s not a position I envy. But I’d certainly be focusing on city infrastructure, Downtown/ waterfront development and community facilities (a new pool would be great). 74 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
VIRGINIA RADCLIFF, M.D. Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician, Pulmonary Associates of Mobile
After graduating magna cum laude from medical school and completing residency and fellowship at Duke University, Virginia returned home and joined Pulmonary Associates of Mobile in 2015. She holds certifications from the American Board of Internal Medicine and is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine and critical care medicine. Virginia has worked to bring new technology to Mobile, such as computer assisted navigational bronchoscopy. She is active in the Mobile chapter of L’Arche, an international community that provides assistance to persons with intellectual disabilities. ALMA MATER University of Virginia HOMETOWN Mobile HOBBIES Running, tennis HIDDEN TALENTS
Sleeping late when I can, functioning with no sleep when I need to. HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Most Likely to Succeed
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “For the secret in the care
of the patient is in caring for the patient.”
WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE MOBILE? Old, but
in the best way.
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB The variety. I get to do anything
from emergent invasive procedures to talking college football with patients in the office to helping end-of-life transitions with comfort and dignity.
RYAN REBOWE, M.D. Plastic Surgeon, The Park Clinic
As the newest associate partner at The Park Clinic for Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery, Ryan brings a microsurgical breast reconstruction program to Mobile Infirmary Medical Center. This program will provide specialized care to breast cancer patients in the area that was not previously available. An accomplished researcher, Ryan has won multiple awards and written multiple book chapters. He has an extensive history of service, including a surgical mission trip to Cochabamba, Bolivia. Ryan is a member of St. Ignatius Catholic Church. He has plans to participate in the first Casting for Recovery workshop in Mobile, which is an organization focused on breast cancer survivorship and wellness through fly fishing workshops. ALMA MATER University of Virginia HOMETOWN Baton Rouge, La. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Danielle;
Addison (4), Eleanor (2) HOBBIES Fly fishing, hunting, college football HIDDEN TALENT Best dancer at wedding receptions
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Provide free Botox for the entire city
WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? Chris Park, Ro-
berta Swain and Christina Massinople FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Seeing the transformation in the
way people feel about themselves when I am able to correct whatever problem they have.
january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 75
MILLIE RUSSELL, CIC
LAURA SEARCY
KEITH SHERRILL
Director of Infection Prevention and Employee Health, Springhill Medical Center
VP, Commercial Relationship Manager, IBERIABANK
Founder / CEO, Haint Blue
Since becoming director of infection prevention and employee health in March 2016, Millie has led a team of nursing and clinical leaders to a 50 percent reduction in hospital-acquired infections. Throughout her tenure, Springhill Medical Center has been awarded “excellent” status every quarter in nosocomial infection rates. Millie is board-certified in infection prevention and is the current president of the local Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology chapter. She’s involved in the community as a member of the Junior League of Mobile and as a committee member of Wine Fest, which benefits Catholic Social Services. ALMA MATER Auburn University HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Ben;
Laura has been a banking professional for 20 years, with 10 of those at IBERIABANK. During that time, Laura has helped grow the bank into one of the top 10 banks in Mobile. She is described as being well-rounded, having served in many roles, including branch manager, retail market manager and business banker. While excelling professionally, Laura is also very active in the community. She has served on numerous boards and committees and is currently active with Girl Scouts of Alabama, Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Alabama, American Cancer Society Vintage Affair and the Joy of Life Mardi Gras Ball. HOMETOWN Theodore SPOUSE + CHILDREN Dustin;
friend and I ran a summer camp for younger children. We had different activities planned every day — we made good money that summer!
Cortlynn (18), Carleigh (16), Cooper (13) FIRST JOB Cashier at Food World HIDDEN TALENT Cake decorating and baking GUILTY PLEASURE Taking an annual girls trip with the three best friends anyone could have!
when the talent won’t work hard.”
Move the airport and bring in airlines with more direct flights to larger cities
Palmer (9 months), baby #2 due in spring
FIRST JOB In fifth grade, my best
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “Hard work beats talent
WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
NoJa. The ginger doughnuts are the best! WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? Jimmy Buffett,
Hank Aaron, Joe Cain and Celia Wallace 76 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Keith graduated magna cum laude with a degree in aeronautics before joining the Army, where he spent 14 years as an Army Ranger. Upon military retirement, Keith obtained an MBA from William & Mary’s School of Business where he learned to think like a renaissance manager and developed a drive to become a revolutionary leader. Keith is passionate about making the highest quality beer for this community, as well as taking care of people and the environment. As of May 2019, Haint Blue was named an official Certified B Corporation, a designation that requires for-profit organizations to meet rigorous standards. There are only 14 breweries in the world with this certification. ALMA MATER The College of
William & Mary, Virginia
HOMETOWN Seattle, Wash. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Gracie;
Sammy (6), Mary Virginia (2) FIRST JOB Cart boy at The Pines Golf Club HIDDEN TALENTS I can fly a helicopter, and I can open a beer bottle with virtually anything lying around. BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “Don’t be so hard on
WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE MOBILE? Hospitable FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB The relationships I have built
WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? Preston Griffith,
with our team and clients and the role I play in their lives
the Crichton Leprechaun, Abe Partridge and Eugene Walter
yourself. A good businessman is only right 51 percent of the time.”
JEREMY R. TOWNS Medical Student/President, RANSOM (Radical Athlete and Student Oasis Ministry)/Next Level Sports Camps
Jeremy is described as a unique individual, a leader for this generation and a fearless follower of Christ. He is a former NFL player, having had stints with the Washington Redskins, Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles. The Radical Athlete and Student Oasis Ministry, of which Jeremy is founder, is a student organization whose mission is to spread the news of Christ. The organization has spread to four colleges, including Auburn University, and is quickly growing. In addition to being a medical student, Jeremy gives back to the community through speaking engagements. ALMA MATER Samford University HOMETOWN Dolomite, Ala. HOBBIES Spreading hope and
working out
FIRST JOB Walgreen’s GUILTY PLEASURE Brownies BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “Don’t give up.” HIDDEN TALENT Playing baritone WHAT DID YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GREW UP?
Doctor, professional athlete
WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE MOBILE?
Family-oriented
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Impacting the lives of college
students and young people january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 77
TRIPP WARD Community Affairs and Business Office Manager, Alabama Power Company
Tripp has made tremendous impacts along the Gulf Coast during his 10 years with Southern Company, two of which have been with Alabama Power. He is described as being committed to the growth and success of Baldwin County, as evidenced by his assistance with the area’s economic and workforce development. Tripp serves as secretary for the North Baldwin Chamber of Commerce, president-elect for the Bay Minette Rotary Club and chair of the North Baldwin Young Professionals. Tripp is a Big with Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Alabama, and he serves on the St. Michael Catholic School Advisory Council and the Parish Council for St. Agatha Catholic Church. ALMA MATER University of
West Alabama
HOMETOWN Meridian, Miss. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Natalie;
Emma Elizabeth (12), Hampton (9) HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Class Favorite
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Enhance an awareness of building and developing our youth programs. I would also work closely with schools to foster a relationship between industry and future workforce development. BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “You make a living by
what you get. You make a life by what you give.” That is what life is about, making a difference! 78 mobilebaymag.com | january 2020
STEVE WIECZOREK
CHRISTOPHER SCOTT WILLIAMS
Head Men’s Soccer Coach, Spring Hill College & AFC Mobile
Member (Attorney), Hand Arendall Harrison Sale LLC
Steve is the longest tenured head coach and winningest coach in Spring Hill College men’s soccer program history. He led the team to their first NCAA tournament, and they finished with their first ever National Top 25 ranking. In addition to coaching, Steve leads a staff of coaches, and he established the Badger Soccer Academy camp program for boys ages 5 to 18. Due to his leadership, he was named Spring Hill College Mentor of the Year in 2017. The popular and adept coach holds a premier diploma and advanced national goalkeeping diploma from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in sports management from Troy University.
Chris graduated magna cum laude from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and was named a Crowe Scholar. In addition to his experience with complex litigation, Chris has been instrumental in helping launch and grow the firm’s Cybersecurity Practice Group. As such, Chris was selected as a 2019 Mid-South Super Lawyer Rising Star. He is an active participant in the South Alabama Volunteer Lawyers Program and is a current member of the Leadership Mobile class of 2020. In the community, Chris serves as president of the Fairhope Kiwanis Club, volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters and member of St. Lawrence Catholic Church. He also spends time coaching his son’s sports teams.
ALMA MATER Fairfield University,
Troy University
ALMA MATER Spring Hill College HOMETOWN Mobile SPOUSE + CHILDREN Creagh;
dogs, Bella and Jackson
Bennett (7), Cullen (6) FIRST JOB Runner for the late Thomas P. “Corky” Ollinger, Jr. He encouraged me to become a lawyer. HIDDEN TALENTS My wife says I’m exceptional at being cheap.
HOMETOWN Bayonne, N.J. SPOUSE + CHILDREN Morgan; two WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE MOBILE? Eclectic WHERE WOULD YOU TAKE AN OUT-OF-TOWN GUEST TO EAT?
Ed’s Seafood Shed
HIGH SCHOOL SUPERLATIVE
Most Likely to Become a Coach HIDDEN TALENT Snoring
IF I WERE MAYOR, I WOULD...
Build a T-line Downtown.
WHO WOULD BE ON MOBILE’S MT. RUSHMORE? Hank Aaron,
Jimmy Buffett, Bishop Michael Portier, the Mitchell Family and Joe Cain
BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED “It can take years to build
your reputation and professional trust and one mistake to destroy it.”
FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR JOB Every day I learn or experience
something new in my cases, from the proper way to construct a home to the latest cyber scheme. MB january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 79
EXTRAS | CALENDAR OF EVENTS
ICE SKATING AT THE WHARF
A Fresh Beginning!
THROUGH JANUARY 4
MOBILE MAKERS: LEGENDARY CARNIVAL ARTISTS OF TODAY 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. M, W, F, Sa. A look at some of the creative geniuses who work behind the scenes to bring Mardi Gras to life.
THROUGH JANUARY 5 LEE M. HOFFMAN: A LEGACY Explore the diverse talents that Hoffman exhibited in his career. MOBILE MUSEUM OF ART MOBILEMUSEUMOFART.COM
THROUGH APRIL 19
THROUGH JANUARY 5
FROM FORT TO PORT AND BEYOND Delve into the city’s rich architectural history with maps, building materials, elevations, photographs and more.
Step inside the lives of various local artists by looking at a re-creation of their own studio or work space inside the museum. In addition to the large-scale installations exploring the work and creative spaces of Casey Downing Jr., Bruce Larsen and Nall, each has selected an emerging Alabama artist to represent the next generation. MOBILE MUSEUM OF ART MOBILEMUSEUMOFART.COM
BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME BELLINGRATH.ORG
JANUARY 6
MOBILE CARNIVAL MUSEUM MOBILECARNIVALMUSEUM.COM
SOUTHERN MASTERS
more. Admission: $14 for adults; $8 for ages 5-12; free to members and to ages 4 and younger.
MOBILE MUSEUM OF ART MOBILEMUSEUMOFART.COM
JANUARY 2 - FEBRUARY 29 WINTER CAMELLIA AND COLD HARDY DISPLAYS 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. View Bellingrath Gardens’ famous camellias and an interesting winter garden filled with the blooms of ornamental kale, cabbages and mustard, pansies and violas, cyclamen, tulips and
LENDINGTREE BOWL 6:30 p.m. The LendingTree Bowl has built a reputation for fielding some of the most competitive and exciting games of the bowl season. Tickets: $45, sideline (reserved seating); $15, end zone (general admission) LADD-PEEBLES STADIUM LENDINGTREEBOWL.COM
JANUARY 6 - 12 ICE SKATING AT THE WHARF 4 - 10 p.m. M - F. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. Sa./Su. Grab a pair of skates and glide, spin or fall into the season. Cost: $12 (incudes skate rental) THE WHARF • ALWHARF.COM
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JANUARY 10 - 19
JANUARY 18
JANUARY 23
“MANDATE FOR MURDER” 7:30 p.m. F / Sa. 2 p.m. Su. Solve the mystery when a murder occurs.
THE ROBERT CRAY BAND 7:30 p.m. An evening with the five-time GRAMMY Award winner. Admission: $35, $45, $55, $75.
SENIOR BOWL SUMMIT 8 a.m. - noon. The second annual summit brings together world leading experts to share their thoughts on breaking barriers in the office, on the field and in the boardroom. Jeremy Schaap, host of ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” will lead five panels, and keynote speaker Gary Vaynerchuk will provide attendees with skills and lessons they can implement in a practical manner. Tickets: $85, $125; VIP: $225.
CHICKASAW CIVIC THEATER CCTSHOWS.COM
JANUARY 10 - 26 “THE GRADUATE” 7:30 p.m. F / Sa. 2 p.m. Su. Get seduced by Mrs. Robinson. Tickets: $10 - $20. JOE JEFFERSON PLAYERS JOEJEFFERSONPLAYERS.COM
JANUARY 12 SERVISFIRST BANK MOBILE MARATHON 7:30 a.m. Participate in the full or half marathon or five-person relay. Proceeds benefit L’Arche Mobile. DOWNTOWN MOBILE MOBILEMARATHON.ORG
JANUARY 15 VIEWING THE WINTER SKY 5:30 - 7 p.m. Guests are encouraged to bring binoculars and flashlights. Admission: $14 for adults; $8 for ages 5-12; free to members and to ages 4 and younger.
MOBILE SAENGER THEATRE MOBILESAENGER.COM
JANUARY 18 - MAY 10
DINOSAURS AROUND THE WORLD Learn about the ways volcanic activity, plate techtonics and land bridges affected the ways the dinosaurs roamed the globe. Admission: $6 - $20. GULF COAST EXPLOREUM EXPLOREUM.COM
JANUARY 22 BEN RAINES EVENT 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. The award-winning environmental writer will give an update on his adventures. Admission: $14 for adults; $8 for ages 5-12; free to members and to ages 4 and younger. BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME BELLINGRATH.ORG
MOBILE SAENGER THEATRE SENIORBOWL.COM
JANUARY 25 THE REESE’S SENIOR BOWL 1:30 p.m. See the nation’s best collegiate football players face off against one another before heading to the NFL. Tickets: $10, $20 and $30. LADD-PEEBLES STADIUM SENIORBOWL.COM
BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME BELLINGRATH.ORG
JANUARY 17 THE BLACK JACKET SYMPHONY PRESENTS LED ZEPPELIN 8 p.m. Experience sound-for-sound re-creation of one of Led Zeppelin’s hit albums. Tickets: $27, $32. MOBILE SAENGER THEATRE MOBILESAENGER.COM
“SOCIETY SHELL III SO LONG SLICE” 7:30 p.m. Sa. 2:30 p.m. Su. See the production written by Tom Perez. Admission: $15, $20. MOBILE THEATRE GUILD MOBILETHEATREGUILD.ORG
THE ROBERT CRAY BAND
JANUARY 17 - FEBRUARY 2
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JANUARY 25 SOUTHEASTERN COMBAT CHAMPIONSHIPS IV 7 - 10 p.m. Eminence Promotions is a martial arts promotions company, promoting the Southeast’s best kickboxing, wrestling, Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, and MMA and is sanctioned by the Alabama Athletic Commission. Tickets: $25 - $525. INDIGO GIRLS
ABBA SHRINE TEMPLE EMINENCEPROS.COM
JANUARY 25 BATTLEFIELD BLITZ 5K AND FUN RUN 8 a.m. Held on Alabama’s largest Civil War battlefield, the Blitz is a unique community event that benefits park programming and preservation. Preregistration: $20 for adults; $15 for ages 12 and under. HISTORIC BLAKELEY STATE PARK BLAKELEYPARK.COM
JANUARY 29 ARCHITECT GEORGE B. ROGERS: HIS CAREER IN RETROSPECT 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. No architect has had such a lasting impact on Mobile as George B. Rogers. His career included office buildings, club houses, mansions and a worldclass garden. Join museum home director Tom McGehee for an overview of Rogers’ work. Admission: $14 for adults; $8 for ages 5-12; free to members and to ages 4 and younger. BELLINGRATH GARDENS AND HOME BELLINGRATH.ORG
JANUARY 25 - 26 “BRAVURA” 7:30 p.m. Sa. 2:30 p.m. Su. Hear classics from Tchaikovsky, Strauss and Brahms. Admission: $15 - $80. MOBILE SAENGER THEATRE MOBILESYMPHONY.ORG
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[ FEBRUARY HIGHLIGHTS]
FEBRUARY 1
FEBRUARY 15
INDIGO GIRLS 8 p.m. Hear a preview of the duo’s new album, as well as old favorites.
24TH ANNUAL “BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY 5K RACE” 8:10 a.m. Lace up for this Port City Pacers race on Dauphin Island.
MOBILE SAENGER THEATRE MOBILESAENGER.COM
FEBRUARY 6 - JULY 5 SOUTHERN MASTERS II: MARION “PINKY” BASS, RUTH MILLER, & MIRIAM N. OMURA Explore how these three female Southern artists have mastered their mediums. MOBILE MUSEUM OF ART MOBILEMUSEUMOFART.COM
FEBRUARY 8 MOBILE OPERA WINTER GALA CONCERT 7:30 p.m. Enjoy an evening with acclaimed mezzo-soprano Suzanne Marie Lommler and Maestro Bernard McDonald. MOBILE OPERA • MURPHY’S AUDITORIUM MOBILEOPERA.ORG
DAUPHIN ISLAND • PORTCITYPACERS.COM
FEBRUARY 15 2020 SWEETHEART 5K, SEA TURTLE 1/2 MARATHON AND SWEETHEART 1-MILE FUN RUN 7:30 a.m. Choose from one of three races. THE HANGOUT GULFSHORES.COM
FEBRUARY 25 MARDI GRAS DAY Celebrate the Carnival season with various parades culminating in the height of the festivities on Fat Tuesday. VARIOUS LOCATIONS
FEBRUARY 29 FEBRUARY 15 SCOTTY MCCREERY 7:30 p.m. Welcome the country singer back to the Port City. MOBILE SAENGER THEATRE MOBILESAENGER.COM
28TH ANNUAL ORANGE BEACH SEAFOOD FESTIVAL & CAR SHOW 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Enjoy food, arts and crafts, and more at this fundraiser for the Orange Beach Sports Association. THE WHARF ORANGEBEACHAL.GOV
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For more information on the 2020 Mobile parade schedule, visit mobilecarnivalmuseum.com. Friday, February 7 6:30 p.m. Conde Cavaliers Parade
Saturday, February 8 2 p.m. Bayport Parading Society Parade 6:30 p.m. Pharaohs’ Mystic Society Parade 7 p.m. Conde Explorers Parade
Thursday, February 13 6:30 p.m. Order of Polka Dots Parade
Friday, February 14 6:30 p.m. Order of Inca Parade
Saturday, February 15 2 p.m. Mobile Mystics Parade 2:30 p.m. Mobile Mystical Revelers Parade 6:30 p.m. Maids of Mirth Parade 7 p.m. Order of Butterfly Maidens Parade 7:30 p.m. Krewe of Marry Mates Parade
Sunday, February 16 6:30 p.m. Neptune’s Daughters Parade 7 p.m. OOI Parade
Monday, February 17 6:30 p.m. Order of Venus Parade 7 p.m. Order of Many Faces
Tuesday, February 18 6:30 p.m. Order of LaShe’s Parade
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Thursday, February 20 6:30 p.m. Mystic Stripers Society Parade
Friday, February 21 6:30 p.m. Crewe of Columbus Parade
Saturday, February 22 12 p.m. Floral Parade 12:30 p.m. Knights of Mobile Parade 1 p.m. Mobile Mystical Ladies 1:30 p.m. Order of Angels Parade 6 p.m. Mystics of Time Parade
Sunday, February 23 2:30 p.m. Joe Cain Parade 5 p.m. Le Krewe de Bienville Parade
Monday, February 24 12 p.m. King Felix III Parade 12 p.m. Floral Parade 3 p.m. MLK Business and Civic Organization Parade 3:30 p.m. Monday Mystics Parade 4 p.m. Northside Merchants 7 p.m. Infant Mystics Parade 7:30 p.m. Order of Doves
Tuesday, February 25 10:30 a.m. Order of Athena Parade 12:30 p.m. Knights of Revelry Parade 1 p.m. King Felix Parade 1:30 p.m. Comic Cowboys Parade 2 p.m. Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association 6 p.m. Order of Myths Parade
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THE ARTS | LITERATURE
When Life Gives You Phlegm, Make Phlegmonade With Southern Grannies around, who needs a pharmacy anyways? excerpt from the book THEY CALL ME OR ANGE JUICE by AUDREY MCDONALD ATKINS
T
he cold and flu season is upon us — at least it’s upon me in all its snotty, wheezing, hacking glory. As I snuffle about trying to think of something, anything, to make me feel better, I can’t help but remember some of the home remedies Mama and Granny inflicted on me as a child. Home remedies consist of one part tradition mixed with one part placebo, but little did I know as I gagged my way through many a “cure,” that they were actually onto something. Let’s start with saltwater nose drops. When you’re all stopped up and can’t breathe, there’s nothing like water up your nose to make you feel better! Actually, a gentle mist up the old schnoz helps irrigate those clogged up nasal passages, flush out some of the goo, and keeps those mucus membranes moist. Not to mention that the salty taste in the back of your throat will remind you of last summer at the beach when that huge wave knocked you down, and you were sucked under by the surf and dragged through the sand until you managed to crawl up onto the beach panting and gasping and feeling like the whole Gulf of Mexico shot up your nose. But, hey. At least you were at the beach and not sick and shivering at home. Along with the congestion usually comes a cough. You know what will help a hack? Honey. You know what helps it more? Garlic. Put them together and what have you got? The most vile cough remedy that will ever pass your lips. As a child, I dared not so much as clear my throat in front of Mama lest she come at me with a spoonful of her reeking remedy from a sugar-crusted Ball jar she kept in the kitchen cabinet. But “they say” that these supposed antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, immune-boosting superfoods do pack a powerful punch. That is if you can just choke a dose down.
Now Granny was a big fan of Mentholatum. It is an ointment. A salve. A petroleum jelly. A thick, greasy balm that when slathered on your nekkid chest and run by the fingerful up your nose is remarkably soothing and smells wonderfully of camphor and menthol. Now in my extensive minute(s) of research regarding the healing properties of Mentholatum, I have been unable to find any proof that it is in any way beneficial to someone suffering from congestion. In fact, I ran across several articles that intimated that it might not necessarily be good for you at all. Here’s what I do know for absolute sure, when your granny slathers the salve on your chest, wraps a scarf around your neck to keep it all warm and gooey, and puts you to bed with a kiss, well, you just can’t help but feel a little bit better. Now if all of this fails to drive away the demons, there’s always steam — the last, worst resort. Get a big mixing bowl and a bath towel. Then put a kettle of water on to boil. When it’s good and scalding hot, pour that water in the bowl, hold your head over it carefully, and drape the towel over your head and the bowl, creating your own little sauna of healing. For a double whammy of medicinal mojo, put a dab of Mentholatum in the bowl before you add the hot water. Try to take deep breaths of the steam for as long as you can stand it. Yes, the snot will flow freely from your nose and into the
Born and raised in Citronelle, Atkins shares stories about growing up and living in the South in her book, “They Call Me Orange Juice,” and at her blog audreyatkinswriter.com.
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bowl. Your eyes will burn. You will feel like your flesh is melting from your skull. But after just a little while, you will actually be able to breathe easier. Bonus: your complexion will appear remarkably clear and dewy. As an adult, however, during those times when phlegm abounds, I choose to heal myself with what I like to call phlegmonade, otherwise known as a hot toddy. This magical elixir combines honey with hot water, lemon juice, and the granddaddy of Southern cure-alls, bourbon. You’ve got your superfood, your steam, your Vitamin C, and a little something to make it go down easy. You should be feeling better just reading about it! Now don’t think that my toddy is just an excuse to drink during the day, a little nip for “medicinal purposes,” wink, wink; nudge, nudge. There are some who say that because the alcohol dilates your blood vessels somewhat, your mucous membranes can better combat the infection. That bourbon is fighting for you. It’s science, y’all. And who am I to argue with science? Unlike a comforting warm beverage, the home remedies of my childhood seem to mainly work under the premise that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That is why I firmly believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of collards. Yes, collards. Whenever Sarah, who looked after me and kept house for Granny, would make collards, she would always give me a big cup of the potlikker. “Come here, baby, and drink this all up. It will make you strong,” she would say. And she was right! As you cook those magic greens down, the iron and Vitamin C and all the other goodness leaches out of the leaves and into the broth, where it is usually (gasp!) thrown away! Don’t let all those nutrients go down the drain; drink ’em up! Salty, smokey, warm, and vaguely greasy in a good way, potlikker was and still is one of my all-time favorite things. And I am strong. Just like Sarah said I would be. At least I will be again. After one more toddy. MB
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GUMBO | TRADITIONS
In Rembory Local writer Emily Blejwas finds that the act of remembering is almost as important as the memories themselves.
text by EMILY BLEJWAS • portrait by ELIZABETH GELINEAU
I
Stockton, a woman told me about how she and her siblings am sitting with Tita Murray, who will turn 99 this carved their initials into sweet potatoes, so each could claim month, and her daughter Lucy in a sunny house on the right potato when it came out of the oven. Dog River on the first day of November. Tita is telling Every time I hear a new story, I think: “There is so much me about the banana docks in Mobile, where her huswe are missing,” and, “We will never capture it all.” I’ve taken band was a stevedore, as well as his daddy before him. Lucy to pleading with audiences for help. “Every day a million stoshows me a collection of badges worn by the dockworkers. ries go untold,” I tell them. “If each of you could just interEach is silver, with the company name, Murray, across the view a family member or write an article for your local paper top, and underneath it, the worker’s role: beltman, feeder, or keep a journal even, every little bit helps!” carman, holdman, ripe carrier, passer, wharf cleaner. WorkBut, why do I do this? The old world ers were paid according to these badges, is disappearing, as it always has and aland in Tita’s day, in silver dollars. I have ways will. So what difference does it make never heard of this, and I am thrilled. “I like to think of ‘rembory’ whether we know the details? Why do we Tita talks about her mother, too. “The as remembering memory. work so hard to capture our history? Why funny thing about her,” she says, “she never As if the memory alone is not do we yearn to know our pasts so deeply? made just one cake. I don’t know why. She Why do I feel that electric charge every time made two cakes every time she made them. enough, but in the act Tita shares an old memory, like waking up One was for somebody, but the other one of remembering the memory, every morning to her father grinding coffee … she just found somebody to give it to.” we somehow strengthen by hand in a grinder mounted to the wall, She mostly made “1, 2, 3, 4” cakes: 1 cup it, and thus, strengthen then watching him raise the steaming cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 eggs and 4 cups flour. to his face and, if it was too strong, saying, Lucy loved helping her grandmother with ourselves.” “That coffee would walk to Coden!” the cakes so much she would “play sick” While listening to Tita, the editor voice and skip two or even three days of school at in my head keeps asking annoying questions Christmastime to cut fruit for the fruitcakes, like, “What do you want the focus of this to be? How are you given to every parishioner at Government Street Methodist going to frame it? What else do you need to ask?” I mostly siChurch as a holiday gift. lence it, so I can bask in the presence of someone so thoughtful Since I began presenting on “The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods,” I have heard so many stories like these. In and kind and warm, with nearly 100 years of living behind her. Montgomery, a woman told me about her grandparents arguAnd as I drive away, under the green leaf canopy that covers the ing every year about how much whiskey to put in the Lane quiet streets of Dog River, I realize the interview wasn’t about cake. Her grandfather would finally cave, only to tell his sons one thing anyway. It was never about one thing. It was about all the things. It was about 40-pound stalks of to sneak more whiskey in when his wife wasn’t looking. In
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bananas hanging on Tita’s front porch. It was her two aunts headstone that says “In Rembory” at the top. I don’t know “as different as daylight and dark.” It was the sad pause in what it means. “Maybe they just couldn’t spell, ha!” my greatthe sentence about losing her son. It was drinking Kool-Aid aunt Janelle said. She also said once, “One thing I know we for the first time in a New York hotel and watching her need’s some pecans.” daughter go around and around in the revolving doors. It “For what?” I asked, and she just looked at me. was moving to Fearnway Street as a girl, when the street was “For everything!” paved with wooden blocks that floated away Anyway, I like to think of “rembory” as rein a heavy rain. membering memory. As if the memory alone is “If each of you could It was all the details and traditions and not enough, but in the act of remembering the memories that make a life — in a particujust interview a family memory, we somehow strengthen it, and thus, lar combination for each person, so that no member or write an article strengthen ourselves. two of us are alike. Maybe that is why we The night before I interviewed Tita and for your local paper or love learning these things. They’re a way of Lucy, on Halloween, I took a picture of my keep a journal even, every 13-year-old son putting his gloves on his little holding on to people we know will slip away someday. I remember my own grandmothsister’s cold hands while we were out trick-orlittle bit helps!” er, LaVonia, as much by her past (how she treating in Midtown. She is beaming up at scooped ice cream at Hardie’s on Dauphin him, and upon seeing the photo, an 85-yearStreet for 10 cents an hour, always rolling her eyes at that old family member wrote, “I will always remember, when part) as by us dancing in the kitchen, the way she laughed, the I was a first and second grader, my big brother would take perfume she wore. Her memories about old times deepened off his wool mittens to warm my face with his sweaty hands her identity to me and deepened my memory of her. Her on our walk to our country school. It still warms my heart.” memories became mine; part of her became part of me. So, Such a small detail, to hold so much. MB if we lose the details, maybe we lose little pieces of ourselves. We become less textured human beings. It makes sense, then, Emily Blejwas is a writer and the director of the Gulf States that our hearts beat stronger when encountering old memoHealth Policy Center in Bayou La Batre. Stay tuned over the ries that seem inconsequential on the surface, because when coming months as MB presents excerpts from her fascinating book you blow the dust off, they’re actually the marrow of life itself. “The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods.” In LaVonia’s family graveyard in Mississippi, there is a
top left Tita Murray, top right, with her parents and siblings in the mid-1940s. top right Unloading bananas at the banana docks in Mobile. PHOTOS COURTESY TITA MURRAY
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THE ARTS | LITERATURE
Furious Hours Before her visit to Mobile later this month, bestselling author Casey Cep talks with MB about the case of Alabama’s probable serial killer, the Rev. Willie Maxwell, and Harper Lee’s true crime book that never was. interview by BRECK PAPPAS
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions. How did you first come across the case of the Rev. Willie Maxwell and Lee’s interest in it? I first heard about the case when I went down to report on “Go Set a Watchman” a few years ago for The New Yorker. The whole world was excited about a manuscript Harper Lee had written before “To Kill a Mockingbird,” but it turned out there was this other, stranger story she’d tackled in the decades after her celebrated novel that almost no one knew about.
B
y the time Harper Lee found herself in the Alexander City courthouse, the Rev. Willie Maxwell had already lost five family members to mysterious deaths and had collected their life insurance payouts. At the funeral of his fifth supposed victim, Maxwell himself was shot dead. Despite hundreds of witnesses to this last crime, Maxwell’s murderer was acquitted — thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend. It had been 17 years since Lee published “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and in the case of Maxwell she thought she had, finally, found the subject of her next book. But what became of the project? In her first book, Maryland-born author Casey Cep explores that very question, offering a portrait of Alabama’s most beloved writer in the process.
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Writer Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Did a similar feeling inspire you to move forward with this project? That’s such a lovely thing for Morrison to have said, and she certainly lived by her own credo — so many of her novels are truly original works filled with a beauty and moral seriousness that’s all her own. I think I know what she means, though, in one sense. I knew from the beginning that I wanted my book to be more than one genre: not just true crime, but also political history, literary history and biography, too. When you’re writing about someone as famous as Lee, it’s always tempting to focus mostly on that one life, but I knew I wanted to tell not just her story but those of these other, less well-known people that she intersected with
so spectacularly over this incredible crime. What do you think it was about the case of Maxwell, besides the sheer number of his supposed victims, that drew Lee’s attention? That’s a great question. Lee was drawn to true crime, so she read a lot of it and followed lots of criminal trials in the news. But she had family in Alex City, so she had a home base when she came to research Maxwell, and the place where she stayed on Lake Martin wasn’t so far from her sister in Monroeville and her other sister in Eufaula, so she could be near her family while she pursued the project. Beyond those pragmatic reasons, though, I think the Maxwell case had a deeper appeal: the story let her scrutinize the career of a couple of interesting lawyers, consider the religiosity and superstitions of rural people, and focus on a case of vigilantism that asks difficult questions about justice and violence — and suggests answers far more complex than the comparatively palliative ones proposed in “Mockingbird.” It wouldn’t have been lost on Lee that such a true crime book would have elicited comparisons with Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” (for which Lee helped research). To what extent do you think Capote’s book shaped Lee’s approach to this project?
Lee absolutely would’ve known that she would be compared to Capote, and to some extent she herself framed her true crime project as a kind of corrective to what Capote had written. She was incredibly disapproving of literary trends that muddied the waters of fact and fiction, and in particular felt that Capote’s “nonfiction novel” had stretched the truth in unacceptable ways, so she deliberately set out to build her book from pure fact, what she called “old-fashioned journalism.” Much has been written and speculated about Lee, who was a notoriously private person. In your research, what were you most surprised to discover about the author? It’s true that Lee was incredibly private, and I write in my book that because of it, even her mysteries have mysteries. It made the reporting difficult, but it also means that every new fact is so satisfying for readers — that Lee loved Gilbert & Sullivan musicals, that she once lived next door to Hall & Oates, that she enjoyed Mets games and watching Alabama football. Overall, though, I think I was surprised — pleasantly surprised — to realize that privacy isn’t the same as misanthropy. She was a very social, witty, engaged person; she just didn’t want the world to know about it. You share some similarities with Lee: Aside from your mutual interest in the case of Maxwell and your ties to New York City (as a writer for The New Yorker), you both spent time studying at the University of Oxford, and you’ve said that you even looked like Mary Badham (the film version of Scout) growing up. Taking that into consideration, while researching for this book, was it ever surreal to tread the same ground and, in some cases, to interview the same individuals as Lee? I think it surprises a lot of people to learn that I found the Alabama portions of Furious Hours a lot easier to report and write than the New York portions. I’ve actually never lived in New York City, and I think january 2020 | mobilebaymag.com 93
it’s incredible that Harper Lee was brave enough to drop out of college and move there as a young woman. I had to walk around her neighborhood on the Upper East Side and talk with her friends and neighbors to learn more about the city, because I knew a lot more about small towns than about Manhattan. But you’re certainly right that over and over again I had the surreal experience of realizing I was truly following in her footsteps when it came to the Maxwell Case. My favorite example of this was interviewing a court reporter who in the middle of our interview went and found the $1,000 check that Harper Lee had written her for a copy of the court transcript — she’d saved the canceled check all these years! And now the question you probably hate — what do you think became of Lee’s book about the Reverend? Oh, gosh. I actually love this question, but I do hate that I can’t answer it with more certainty. For me, one of the core mysteries of the book is not only how much of “The Reverend” Harper Lee wrote, but what she did with it, because there are some famous examples of her destroying manuscripts. So I think it’s a frustrating kind of uncertainty for some readers, but an exciting kind for others. I’ve heard from some book clubs who surprised each other by having such wildly different answers to this question! Where did the process of writing this book take you geographically? Mostly, Harper Lee’s family lived around Monroeville and Eufaula and Auburn, and she had a lot of close friends in Tuscaloosa, some going all the way back to college. So my reporting took me to those places, but also to the archives in Montgomery and to meet some sources in Birmingham — and of course I spent a lot of time around Lake Martin working on the other parts of the book. What is one of the most memorable experiences you had while researching for and writing this book?
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There are so many people around Alabama who opened their homes or their family archives to me, so I’m grateful to them, as well as to the librarians and archivists around the state who helped me locate documents or old newspaper clips or track down sources. Some of my most meaningful days were in the basement of the Horseshoe Bend Regional Library in Dadeville and at the Archives in Montgomery. That probably doesn’t sound very memorable, but when you’re writing a story about a 50-year-old crime that involved many private or secretive people, every fact you manage to eke out becomes quite thrilling. If you could ask Harper Lee one question, what would it be? I think the tricky thing here is making sure Lee was obliged to answer! During her lifetime, all sorts of people asked her all sorts of personal and professional questions that she hardly ever answered them. But assuming that she was obliged to answer, I’d ask a strategic question: did you keep a diary, and, if so, where is it? There are lots of other questions that might be answered by that one, including ones I get asked all the time — was she ever in love, did writing make her happy, what did she do with all her days and with all of her money, and on and on and on… Grits, collards or boiled peanuts? I can only assume the question is “in what order would you eat these,” not having to choose between them! If so, then collards are the appetizer for grits, and boiled peanuts are the dessert to both. MB
Casey Cep is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her first book, “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,” was an instant New York Times bestseller. Join Cep for a discussion and book signing at the Ben May Main Library on January 23 at 6:30 p.m., hosted by the Friends of the Mobile Public Library.
Excerpt from “Furious Hours”
Lee did want accuracy, but when she tried to start writing, she found that facts were in short supply. To begin with, it was difficult to reconstruct the life of a sharecropper’s son (the Rev. Maxwell). History isn’t what happened but what gets written down, and the various sources that make up the archival record generally overlooked the lives of poor black southerners … Day after day, Lee sat down and tried to make a book out of, or around, those gaping holes. She had once fantasized about a kind of secular monastery for writers where, supported by the government, they would be locked away with nothing but bread and water. Her own disciplines were less draconian: she liked to sleep late, start writing around noon, take a break for dinner, then carry on until deep into the night. She tended to write longhand first, and then, at the end of every day, she typed a fresh copy of her draft — “picking out the nut from the shell,” she called it — on the Olivetti typewriter she’d finally bought to replace her faithful old Royal. “I work very slowly,” Lee acknowledged. “A good eight-hour day usually gives me about one page of manuscript I won’t throw away.” But her necessities were few, “paper, pen, and privacy,” she once joked, later amending the list only slightly: “A tremendous pot of coffee helps, but is not essential.” Lee liked to claim that other people, too, were not essential. “You depend entirely upon yourself and no one else,” she had once said of writing, but in fact “To Kill a Mockingbird” had come into being through the extensive editorial direction of Tay Hohoff. “If the Lippincott editors hadn’t been so fussy and painstaking,” Maurice Crain once wrote, “we wouldn’t have had nearly so good a book.” But Crain and Hohoff were both dead, leaving Lee without the literary help-meets who
had once guided her from draft to publication. By the time she sat down to write her true-crime book, she had outlived her literary agency as well as her publisher. Lee valorized solitude, but the sociability of reporting was better for her, not least because it countered her depressive tendencies. But here she was, alone again with her typewriter and nothing to do but write. Every day, her to-do list consisted of the same single item: write a book. Even on days when she did manage to get something done, she could never cross it off. Making the story of the Reverend into the book she was now calling “The Reverend” wasn’t turning out to be as straightforward as it seemed, and soon the optimism of “coming back” that she had expressed when leaving Alexander City faded into the pessimism of “doomsday.”
Excerpted from FURIOUS HOURS: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep. Copyright © 2019 by Casey Cep. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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HISTORY | ASK MCGEHEE
When did Alcoa operate in Mobile? text by TOM MCGEHEE
According to a biography of former congressman Frank Boykin, a visit to New York in 1924 led to the eventual construction of an Alcoa (Aluminum Corporation of America) plant in Mobile more than a decade later. Boykin was an early riser and noticed another hotel guest waiting for the restaurant to open for breakfast. Thinking the older gentleman reminded him of his father, he invited him to share a table. Boykin recounted that he had missed hearing his companion’s name but did register that he was visiting from Pittsburgh. As his table companion dined, Boykin raved endlessly about the wonders of his corner of southwest Alabama and all that it had to offer. As they parted, Boykin asked his new friend to repeat his name. It was Andrew Mellon, who at the time was serving as secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He also happened to be a major investor in the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which had been renamed Aluminum Company of America in 1907. Mellon said he had enjoyed the meal, adding, “No one has ever talked to me like this before.” Mellon reportedly kept Mobile in his thoughts and mentioned it to Alcoa officials who were actually quite familiar with the port that handled incoming shipments of bauxite from South America to a refinery in the North. By the mid-30s, with aluminum in growing demand, Mobile was selected for the company’s second refinery. A $4 Million Plant Construction began in a swampy, snakeand mosquito-infested tract of land north
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ABOVE Alcoa constructed its multimillion-dollar Mobile plant in 1937. Forty-five years later, a labor union voted down a request that would have allowed a smaller operation to survive. The entire site was cleared in 1986. PHOTO COURTESY MOBILE PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTIONS
of the Alabama State Docks in August 1937. Workers regularly had to be pulled out of the mud, usually without their boots, which were never found. Pilings disappeared into a seemingly bottomless pit of mud. Miraculously, the Alcoa plant took shape and was up and running by June 1938. Mobile’s sprawling new Alcoa operation made headlines around the nation, and other companies noticed. As the decade came to a close, Alcoa was joined by Scott Paper, the National Gypsum Company and the Ideal Cement Company. Mobile’s economy was booming. The Mobile plant was soon producing 34 percent of the industry’s output of alumina, which was then converted to aluminum. Alcoa expanded its plant during World War II, and production of alumina jumped from 1,800 to 2,400 tons a day. Operations went on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and
the aluminum was used to build airplanes to bomb Japan, the company’s previous leading customer. From Aluminum to Cargo Ships By the early 1950s, Alcoa Steamship Company was operating a fleet of 40 ships that visited 59 ports. General freight had been added to the mix, and there were also three passenger-cargo ships, which sailed in and out of the Port of Mobile. A $12 million expansion was completed in 1952, and employees could take advantage of a scholarship and tuition aid program by 1956. Mobile’s Alcoa plant paid some of the highest wages in the Mobile market and offered numerous fringe benefits described as being among the best in the world. At the decade’s end, Alcoa had 800 employees and a multimillion-dollar impact for Mobile and Mobile County.
Boom and Bust Alcoa continued to prosper and announced the plant’s fourth expansion program in the early 1970s, but problems were on the horizon. The demand for alumina began to wane as new competitors flooded the market. By 1982, management of Alcoa sought to convert the Mobile operation to an alumina chemical plant, which would have necessitated a drop in personnel by over 50 percent. If the market for alumina picked back up, many of those employees were assured they would be rehired. In March 1982, members of United Steelworkers voted against the changes sought by management. Alcoa’s response was quick: “We have no alternative but to cease operations.” This left 550 union members and 220 members of management unemployed. As one unhappy union member was later quoted, “There’s a time to fight and this wasn’t it.” The impact on Mobile’s economy was quick. In addition to taxes paid and one of the region’s largest payrolls, the plant had once used enough natural gas in a month to heat 12,000 homes in a year and enough electricity in a minute to supply the needs of 22,000 households. The company closed the plant in barely two weeks’ time and promptly shipped materials and equipment to other locations. All hopes of reopening the operation ended in 1985 when Alcoa declared the closing to be permanent. The corporation declared a $14.7 million loss for the final quarter. Within a matter of months, wreckers arrived. An estimated 40,000 tons of steel were salvaged and sent off on barges to scrap dealers. Some 120 tanks that once held alumina were removed. Nothing recognizable survives. Although Alcoa is now a $40 billion firm, it has no presence in Mobile, where, ironically, Austal is building some of the world’s greatest aluminum vessels. MB
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END PIECE | IN LIVING COLOR
Mule-drawn Streetcar, c. 1901 Photo courtesy S. Marion Coffin Collection, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama Colorization by Dynamichrome Limited
Transportation in Mobile changed drastically at the turn of the 20th century. Mule cars gave way to electric streetcars, which then succumbed to a burgeoning automotive industry. By 1901, only one muledrawn streetcar remained in service, and it was driven by Doc Bennett (pictured holding the reins). Bennett died in 1904, about the same time as his mule. In 1920, the American Electric Railway Association reported, “The old mule car and some old cast iron switches are now in a building … at Monroe Park to show the present generation the kind of cars and track work in use before the days of electric cars.” Do you have any mule car photos? Let us know! Email ahartin@pmtpublishing.com.
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