Walker VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3 • SPRING 2015
A publication of the Daily Mountain Eagle
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VOLUME 3 • ISSUE 3
EDITOR & PUBLISHER Jack McNeely
DIRECTOR OF CONTENT Rachel Davis
ART DIRECTOR Malarie Brakefield
CONTRIBUTORS
Jennifer Cohron, Ron Harris, Dale Short, Rick Watson
Advertising
Jake Aaron, Susan Corbin, Jerry Geddings, Renee Holly, Liz Steffan, Tammy Wood
Business Manager Charlette Caterson
Distribution Michael Keeton
Walker Magazine is a publication of and distributed seasonally by the Daily Mountain Eagle, a division of Cleveland Newspapers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored for retrieval by any means without written consent from the publisher. Walker Magazine is not responsible for unsolicited materials and the publisher accepts no responsibility for the contents or accuracy of claims in any advertisement in any issue. Walker Magazine is not responsible for errors, omissions or changes in information. The opinions of contributing writers do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the magazine and its publisher. Our mission is to promote Walker County and to showcase its many attributes as a quality place in which to live, to work and to play. We welcome ideas and suggestions for future editions of the magazine. Just send us a brief note via email.
From The Staff... Since this issue will be on stands for Memorial Day, we dedicated it to those who have given their lives to protect our freedom. We honor men who lost their lives in World War II, Vietnam and during the first Gulf War, in service to their country. We also delve into what happens to those left behind, how they learn to live with the loss and how they remember the fallen servicemen. Our cover story, Joey Sanders remembering his fallen friend, is one that many people don’t know, even as they drive by the F4 Phantom in front of the VFW every day. We talk to Marcia Adkins, who was left a pregnant widow before she graduated high school after her husband was lost in Vietnam. We focus on a local landmark that bears the signatures of servicemen who went off to World War II as well as the story of two brothers lost at sea during the war. The issue is dedicated to service members, but that isn’t all there is. We also have stories of the local talents of blacksmith Russell Colvin and photographer and traveler Luke Dollar. We devoted several pages to the FLW Fishing Tournament that welcomed hundreds of people to our county and infused revenue into the local economy in the process. I hope you enjoy the stories and photos as much as we have enjoyed putting them together.
Rachel Davis, Director of Content
On The Cover Pilot Joey Sanders stands in front of the F4 Phantom at the VFW post 4850 in Jasper.
© 2015 Daily Mountain Eagle
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Mc Neely
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Photo by Jack
Walker Magazine P.O. Box 1469 Jasper, AL 35502 (205) 221-2840 E-Mail: walkermagazine@mountaineagle.com
Get hooked! For your entertainment we have placed this fishing hook (actual size) within the pages of Walker Magazine. This will be a permanent feature for our readers. We hope you enjoy searching for the fishing hook in each issue.
Happ y hunting! Volume 3, Issue 3
Sept. 11th-12th A family friendly music festival featuring all genres of music, great food, arts and crafts and more! AND
IT’S FREE! Make time to attend today. Premier Sponsors: Honda of Jasper/Hyundai of Jasper • Byars-Wright Jasper Orthodontics - David M. Gamotis, DMD, MS King, Wiley & Williams • Daily Mountain Eagle Scott Crump Toyota Supporting Sponsors: Carl Cannon Chevrolet Cadillac Buick GMC First Bank of Jasper • Hager Oil • Alabama Power Want to be a sponsor? Call Tana Collins at 205.221.8529.
Mayor Sonny Posey District 1 Jed Daniel Inc. 1887 Spring 2015
District 2 Danny Gambrell
District 3 Gary Cowen
District 4 Jennifer W. Smith
District 5 Sandi Sudduth
(205) 221-2100 | 400 19th St. W, Jasper, AL 35501 | www.jaspercity.com
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Did You Know? Facts about Walker County
14
Freedom Isn’t Free
21
Brothers in Arms
Memorial Day
Pennington Brothers
28
In Love & War
37
FLW Tournament
44
Snapshots
Marcia Adkins
Tackling Smith Lake
Past events in Walker County
10
Master of the Forge
15
Fateful Flight
24
Leaving Their Mark
32
In The Wild
42
Community Calendar
50
Why I Love Walker County
Blacksmith Russell Colvin
Joey Sanders
World War II Piano
Luke Dollar
What’s going on in the county
Bill Fowler
ADVERTISER INDEX Alabama Outdoor Power Equipment Alabama Power ALFA—Gina Scruggs Allstate—Holladay Agency Bevill State Community College Blackwell’s Body Shop Brett/Robinson—Brandon Hubbard Byars-Wright Carl Cannon Chamber of Commerce of Walker Co. Chipper’s Clipper City of Jasper Daily Mountain Eagle Discount Home Center Downs & Associates 6
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According to the monument that stands at the Walker County Courthouse, Walker County lost 55 men in World War I and 251 in World War II.
The monument also shows the names of 32 service members lost in Korea and 45 lost in Vietnam.
During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the county lost no service members in active combat.
During the War on Terror and most recent Iraq War, Walker County has lost three service men: Richard Gilmore III, Sean McCune and Dusty Parrish.
There are monuments set up to honor veterans and fallen soldiers in Jasper (at the Walker County Courthouse), Sumiton, Cordova, Parrish, Oakman and Sipsey. 8
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Volume 3, Issue 3
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Master of the Forge
Story by Rachel Davis • Photos by Malarie Brakefield
T
hick coal smoke and the sharp clang of steel on steel permeate the air of Russell Colvin’s blacksmith shop in Boldo. Despite rain and cold, he’s at work making new tools and various other items. Every day, the veteran blacksmith makes pieces that range from custom fire place sets to gates and fences. “I grew up on a farm,” Colvin said. “When I graduated high school, I went to Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School. That was in 1983, and I’ve been shoeing horses and blacksmithing ever since.” For thousands of years, blacksmiths have worked metal in the same basic way, heating metal to its malleable point and then shaping it into something usable through various techniques. The earliest record of blacksmiths comes from approximately 1500 B.C. In the early days, blacksmiths heated iron and other metals and shaped it using rocks. Villages couldn’t survive without their blacksmiths, who were responsible for crafting tools and weapons and even nails for building. Centuries ago, getting and keeping the fire hot enough to keep the metal malleable was a challenge that required many resources, but as that process has been refined, the equipment used to heat the metal has gotten smaller and more effective. Despite the advancements, the basics of the trade haven’t changed, it’s still very physical work that requires the smith to swing a hammer hard enough to shape and form the metal. 10
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Through experimenting, blacksmiths learned to mix other metals and elements with iron to create harder, stronger metals, such as steel. Today, Colvin uses various grades of steel depending on what he is crafting. These steels have a wide range of workable temperatures, but Colvin knows what range is best to work each type and manages the temperature of the steel by controlling the air that blows through the coal or coke fire in his forge. He can tell when the temperature is right by the color the hot steel glows. Getting the right shade of orange requires Colvin to keep a close eye on the fire and the metal. “If it’s too cool, we can’t work it, but if it gets too hot, it’ll burn up,” Colvin said, keeping a trained eye on the steel roll in the fire. That roll will become half of a new pair of tongs that will be ready to use within a few hours. The long process often requires the steel to be reheated several times to keep it in the perfect range of workability. Early blacksmiths were called the “king of all trades” because of their ability to craft their own tools when something new was needed. Colvin still often crafts his own tools when he sees a need for something he doesn’t have or is needed for a specific project. Colvin may have had formal training in horseshoeing, but that’s a very small portion of his daily work. He makes everything from useful pieces, such as custom fireplace sets, gates and railings, to decorative pieces like magnolia blossoms and roses. He often crafts special items for gifts and has even had some items displayed Volume 3, Issue 3
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in art galleries. “Most of our stuff is commissioned, so usually when we get something made, it’s already sold,” Colvin said. Colvin is also a businessman, fabricating and shipping adjustable anvil stands all over the country and selling a special welding flux internationally as part of Iron Mountain Blacksmith Products. Colvin spends a lot of time working in his shop, but also teaches classes for those interested in becoming smiths themselves. Friends, fellow blacksmiths and local farriers often gather at Colvin’s shop to create new tools, horseshoes and other items they need. His mom often 12
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stops by the shop, which is behind her house, to see what projects Colvin has in the works. Colvin told the story of a recent grocery store trip with his wife where, upon returning home, he realized he had coal dust on his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Colvin asked his wife. “Well it’s been like that for 20 years,” she replied with a shrug. The blacksmith lifestyle has been largely lost in modern society, but craftsmen like Colvin are keeping the trade alive and introducing it to new generations. •
Volume 3, Issue 3
Russell Colvin takes steel bars and creates tongs and other tools he needs for projects in his workshop. Here, he heats the partially-formed tongs in the fire and hinges them, before they join the other tongs in various shapes and sizes that sit at his workbench.
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Freedom Isn’t F ree
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Volume 3, Issue 3
Fateful Flight Story by Rachel Davis • Photos by Malarie Brakefield Military Photos courtesy of Joey Sanders
A tap on the back of Joey “Gordo” Sanders’ flight suit saved his life more than 20 years ago. Assigned to fly a low-level training mission over Alabama and Georgia on a clear March day, he and his backseater, Tracy Gilbreath, completed their preflight checks. Gilbreath had already climbed inside one of the F4 Phantoms assigned to the National Guard Unit 106 in Birmingham, but as Sanders began to climb into the pilot’s seat, he felt that fateful tap on the back of his leg. Rather than talking over the roar of the engines, he was taken back to the crew van, affectionately called the “bread truck,” and told that he was being rotated to a higher-level mission because another pilot, John McDaniel, was behind in his training hours and needed the low-level flight. Excited to fly the more challenging mission and check out the new missile system that was equipped, he waved goodbye to Gilbreath and McDaniel. Sanders and the other planes had just finished the second of three mock dogfights in the air when the emergency beacon sounded from the plane carrying McDaniel and Gilbreath. Spring 2015
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Above: National Guard Unit 106 poses on the F4 Phantom that is now in front of the Jasper VFW, John McDaniel, is at the top right. Right: Joey Sanders and Tracy Gilbreath often flew together, Gilbreath survived the flight that cost McDaniel his life.
The pilot of the other plane that had been flying with McDaniel sent out a grim transmission. “Two is down, no chutes,” Sanders remembers hearing over the radio. The second plane was circling the rising smoke where the F-4 Phantom carrying McDaniel and Gilbreath hit the ground after exploding in midair near LaGrange, Georgia. Because of the low flying level, the aviators had only approximately 3 seconds from explosion to crash. Badly battered from the explosion, Gilbreath had managed to pull the ejection levers, but the low elevation sent him slamming into the tree tops, further injuring his body with enough force to drive pine needles through his arm. The ejection handles triggered both seats, Gilbreath first and .8 seconds later, McDaniel was ejected. Because of the low altitude of the flight, as well as the speed, that less than a second was the difference in life and death. McDaniel was killed instantly, while Gilbreath was able to 16
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recover from his severe injuries. When Sanders got back to the unit, he realized that the last minute change hadn’t been registered on the flight board. The members of the unit were already mourning Sanders because the board showed he had been piloting the fallen plane. “They said ‘you’re supposed to be dead,’” Sanders remembers. That fact haunts Sanders to this day. “It still bothers me. I wonder ‘why am I still here?’” Sanders said. Later inspections would show the company hired to overhaul and update the planes had included a faulty Volume 3, Issue 3
Readers’
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weld in the engine that caused that plane and several others across the country to crash. The weld allowed 1300 degree air from the engine to pour into the fuel tank, causing an explosion that sent the plane into the ground. “That plane was going to crash whether he was flying it, or I was flying it or Jesus was flying it,” Sanders said. Even after the tragedy, Sanders and the other pilots loved the Phantom and the decade they had spent flying it, because it was their airplane. “It is the most fun airplane I’ve ever flown,” Sanders said. “It was the most challenging airplane I’ve ever flown, but the rewards were awesome.” The Phantoms were first used in Vietnam, but also saw action in the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War,
when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Even now, with all his racing airplanes, the new $31 million FedEx 777 that he was recently trained on and all the other planes he has flown over the years, the Phantom remains his favorite. “There’s not a day that I don’t think about flying that airplane,” Sanders said. “I would trade being able to fly the Phantom for any of my current planes.” When word came down that his beloved F-4 Phantoms were being decommissioned, Sanders took action. “We knew they were either gonna be scrapped, sold to another country or sent to Tyndall Air Force base to be used as drones and shot down, which, as far as I’m concerned, is a cardinal sin,” Sanders said.
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Volume 3, Issue 3
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He researched the procedure to receive one of the aircraft for display and filled out all the paperwork. When he was rejected, he reached out to then-United States Representative Tom Bevill, who was able to help Sanders secure the plane for the Jasper VFW. The plane was brought from the Birmingham Guard post to Industrial Boulevard in Jasper by Chinook helicopter and then towed into place by Vietnam veteran Johnny Gordon. Millions of people have driven past the plane, across from Walker Baptist Medical Center on old Highway 78 for the last 20 years, but many people who drive by the plane each day don’t know that it is dedicated to McDaniel. Sanders maintains the plane, repainting it every five years, in part as an act of service and remembrance to his fallen friend. “Remember at the first of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ where he falls on the grave?” Sanders asks. In the scene, a now-elderly Private Ryan falls to the grave of a comrade who died saving him. He says he has spent every day trying to earn his life, to justify the lives given to save his own. “I’ve tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope, that at least in your eyes, I earned what [you] have done for me,” Ryan says in the movie, with tears in his eyes. “That’s why I dedicated it to McDaniel,” Sanders remembers with tears in his own eyes. • Volume 3, Issue 3
Brothers in
Arms
Story by Jennifer Cohron Family Photos courtesy of Marvin Rogers
As World War II was winding down, Anne Tutwiler of Jasper wrote a letter to the Department of the Navy requesting an anchor that could be incorporated into a memorial marker for her two sons. Ensign Strudwick Pennington, the younger brother, died on the USS Sims in May 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Two years later, Lieutenant Junior Grade Marvin Pennington was lost in the Atlantic when his ship, the USS Warrington, sank during a hurricane. The naval department could not grant the request for an anchor because all manufactured materials were needed in the war effort, but Tutwiler did receive help from the private sector. “Somehow the company that manufactured the anchors got word that this Gold Star mother wanted to put an anchor on a monument in their honor, and they made one for nothing,” said Strudwick Marvin Rogers, the soldiers’ nephew. The monument at Oak Hill Cemetery dedicated to the Pennington brothers includes the anchor, etchings of them in uniform, basic biographical information and a verse from Psalms—“They that go down to the sea in ships, these see the works of the Lord.” Before the war, the Penningtons attended Walker High School. Strudwick Pennington continued his education at Marion Military Institute before being granted admission to the United States Naval Academy. Congressman William Bankhead, a Democrat, wrote a nomination letter on Pennington’s behalf in spite of the fact that the young man’s father, J.M. Pennington, was a Republican officeholder in the state. “Mom always told me that some of the people who were Democrats were not pleased that the son of a Republican got an appointment to the Naval Academy, but he (Bankhead) said, ‘He’s a bright young
Spring 2015
Strudwick Pennington
Marvin Pennington
Left: Anne Tutwiler requested this anchor for a monument in memory of her sons that was placed at Oak Hill Cemetery.
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Siblings Rosalie, Nan, Strudwick and Marvin Pennington sit on the porch at the home of their mother, Anne Tutwiler. The house was located on Birmingham Avenue in Jasper and burned in 1960.
man. Regardless of his father’s political party, he deserves it,’” Rogers said. Strudwick Pennington was set to graduate in the spring of 1942. However, the ceremony was moved up to December after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Pennington was assigned to the USS Sims, a naval destroyer. The Sims was attacked by Japanese bombers off the coast of Australia in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Only 15 men out of more than 250 who were aboard the Sims survived. According to a Daily Mountain Eagle article, Pennington was the third soldier from Jasper to be reported missing in action in the Pacific theater. He was 21 years old at the time of his death. Marvin Pennington played football at Walker High School and Davidson College in North Carolina. He joined the Navy in 1943 after graduating from law school at the University of Alabama. Among his classmates at UA were Frank Johnson, who later became a federal judge, and George Wallace, who was elected governor. Pennington died when the convoy that included the USS Warrington attempted to sail through a hurricane. Several eyewitnesses reported that he was trying to save his shipmates when he was swept overboard. He was 24 years old. The bodies of the Pennington brothers were never recovered. As a result, 22
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a funeral with full military honors was not held for them until the government changed its policy approximately a decade ago. Shortly after the change was made, surviving family members and friends of the Penningtons gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to remember their supreme sacrifice. Clarkie Pennington Hall, their lone surviving sister, accepted the folded U.S. flag on behalf of the family. Rogers based part of the eulogy on the words of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “These two brothers, Strudwick and Marvin Pennington, did fall, but they did not fail. They guarded the treasure of mankind against tyranny— Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. They preserved their heritage and our liberties,” Rogers said. “They poured out for the cause their strengths and virtue and did indeed proffer the last drop of their heart’s blood. To use Churchill’s words, even after 50 years, they are still champions, and they are not forgotten.” • Volume 3, Issue 3
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Story by Rick Watson • Photos by Rick Watson and Jack McNeely
Not every veteran’s memorial involves town squares, marble monuments and flowers. One of Walker County’s most powerful veteran’s monuments sits quietly in the corner of Frances Israel Cafeteria at the Walker Campus of Bevill State Community College in Jasper. It has no plaques or spotlights highlighting it, but it’s an important piece of history. At first glance, it appears the old instrument survived one too many fraternity parties, but a closer look reveals that this piano is a treasure that’s been hiding in plain view for almost 70 years. Carved into every surface of the antique instrument are the names of soldiers who served in WWII. What makes this memorial different is that the soldiers themselves placed the names there as they passed through Jasper during the war. Many of the names are of local boys barely old enough to shave, but some are soldiers from across the 24
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country who found their way to the Jasper United Service Organization (USO) to rest, have a cup of coffee, and listen to a little music—Anything to take their minds off the war raging half a world away. The piano was in an old property, managed by the local American Legion, and when the building fell into disuse in the late 1960s, former Walker College president Dr. David Rowland, who himself is a veteran, worked out a deal with the American Legion to buy the property for future expansion. “The piano wasn’t part of the deed,” according to Jack Mott who attended the final meeting to sign the papers, but the Legion representatives fully supported the college and thought letting them take possession of the piano was a good way to preserve a historical artifact. This explained how the piano wound up in the cafeteria, but how the names of so many WWII soldiers scrawled on it was still a mystery. Volume 3, Issue 3
A search of newspaper archives from The Daily Mountain Eagle during the war years provided several clues. It seems that in the early 1940s the piano was in Lynn’s Pool Room, which was above Crawford Hardware in downtown Jasper. “Everybody was so patriotic during those years after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,” remembers Charlie Watts of Jasper, who was 11 years old when the war broke out. The Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club and the Business and Professional Womens Club joined forces with the American Legion in Jasper to open the USO facility on Third Avenue, which was near the Frisco and L&N rail lines that ran nearby. The Jasper USO was refuge that came to be known as “A Home Away From Home,” for servicemen. When the USO opened for business on March 19, 1943, poolroom owner Earl Lynn gave the piano to Ben Spring 2015
Meadows who was a well-respected local businessman. Meadows’ wife was involved in forming the USO, so she donated it to the facility. Charlie Watts remembers going into the USO as a kid and listening to the soldiers tell stories as they enjoyed a relaxing few hours with the USO hostesses. Billy Baird, a retired pharmacist from Huntsville, spent time in the USO too. His folks owned Bill & Bob’s which was a BBQ restaurant a few doors down from the USO. Most of the troop trains didn’t stop but rocked slowly through the community carrying tanks, cannons and Pullman cars full of troops who would hang out the windows as they rolled through. “My sister Dorothy Nell Baird used to run down to the track to wave at the soldiers as they passed,” said Baird. They would often throw their mailing addresses to her so that she could write to them overseas. Dorothy Nell, and several other young girls, exchanged letters with some of
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those troops. Not long after the USO opened, one of the on-duty hostesses noticed the names of a few soldiers carved into the surface of the piano. When the Meadows were notified, they weren’t upset at all. In fact, they embraced the idea of having all visiting soldiers sign the piano. They purchased a woodcarving pencil to make the job simpler and the names more readable. Even today, most of the names are readable. The names are carved into every surface including the ebony and bone-colored keys. Hansel Hudson of Jasper was drafted into the Army a few days after graduating from high school. The war was over, but the Army needed troops to backfill those coming home from war. While home on furlough in October of 1945, he went into the USO building and added his name on the piano. Hudson still chokes up and his eyes get misty as he talks about friends and family who served overseas. “I know many of the names on this old piano,” he said. Hansel’s cousin Truman remembers the piano too. He signed it after he was drafted in 1943. His oldest brother, David, was drafted early in 1942 and his brother, Craig, a short time later. Truman recently sat at the bench a long time, looking at the names. Both his brothers died in the war. David drowned in New Guinea, and Craig, who was an aerial gunner and a radio operator died when his plane went down in France, killing everyone on board. David’s name is carved into the front-left side of the piano. The piano took on a life of its own when Look Magazine published a picture of Corp. Oliver Waldrop of Oakman, signing the piano in the April 1945 issue. Waldrop had lost his left hand at Auzio Beach, in Italy. Waldrop’s niece, Peg Robarchek, who now lives in North Carolina, said that her Uncle Junior was a teacher before going off to war. He was forever changed by the war. He never taught school again. He struggled with what was most likely post-traumatic stress disorder, related to his war experiences. He died, homeless on the streets in Tennessee, in the 1960s, according to Robarchek. “Each World War II veteran’s name inscribed on the piano is a permanent reminder of their heroism and sacrifice in fighting to preserve our freedom,” said Penne Mott, dean of the Walker College Campus of Bevill State. • Volume 3, Issue 3
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“Peace is the man I love not marching away to be killed.” —from a collection of Vietnam War poetry
Love WAR
In
&
Story and Photo by Jennifer Cohron • Historic Photos Courtesy of Marcia Adkins
In March 1970, Lance Corporal Frank Kitchens Jr. was preparing to board an airplane and return to Vietnam for the final two months of his tour of duty when he took one last opportunity to look around the Hawaiian airport. He was hoping to catch a glimpse of his 17-year-old bride, Marcia. From her vantage point, she had been watching his every movement as he made his way up the flight of stairs, military-issued duffel bag in hand. Although she was waving frantically, she was unable to get his attention. During a recent interview in her Cordova home, the memory was as vivid to her as the moment it happened 45 years ago. “He was still looking back as he went inside. I was devastated because I wanted him to see me waving, but he just disappeared into that plane,” Marcia Adkins said. 28
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Adkins never saw her husband alive again. He died on April 17, 1970—four days before her 18th birthday. Soon after the funeral, she realized that she was pregnant. The war that ended the life of the young man she had loved since the age of 13 would change the direction of hers. Kitchens lived up the street from Adkins (then Marcia Abernathy) in Birmingham’s Norwood neighborhood. After graduating from Phillips High School in 1969, he joined the United States Marine Corps rather than waiting to get swept up in the draft. “He said that if he was going to go then he wanted to be well-prepared,” Adkins said. When Kitchens returned from boot camp, the two teens decided to get married. They were wed in a small, Volume 3, Issue 3
simple church ceremony in June 1969. Although Adkins worried about how her family would react to the news that she would begin her senior year as a married woman, they supported the young couple. There would be no time for a honeymoon. Kitchens was on his way to Vietnam to join a fight that had grown increasingly unpopular after claiming the lives of more than 40,000 U.S. soldiers between 1967 and 1969. The number of U.S. casualties would surpass 58,000 by the time the war ended in 1975. “I wanted him to know that he had a wife and not a girlfriend,” Adkins said of her reasons for getting married in the middle of a war. After arriving at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California, Kitchens phoned his wife and informed her that soldiers could stay off-base at night with their spouses. Her grandmother loaned her the money for the trip. She spent three weeks in California with her young husband before he was shipped overseas. Kitchens wrote a steady stream of letters from the war zone. His tone was always upbeat, downplaying the stark reality that he woke up to each day. Back at home, Adkins could not avoid images of body bags on the nightly news, but she did not personally know any soldier who had been killed. As her senior year of high school progressed, she clung to the hope that Kitchens would return to her soon after graduation. Her prayers would surely keep him alive. “You never think the bad stuff is going to happen to you when you’re that age. I worried all the time but not with a sense of urgency. You can’t live in that kind of anxiety,” Adkins said. In March 1970, two months before his tour of duty was set to end, she flew to Honolulu to meet him for one week of rest and recuperation. “I remember it being a beautiful place. I was so glad to see him, but that’s the first time I was scared,” Adkins said. Adkins overhead snippets of conversation among the other soldiers that left her deeply distressed. In one story, a young soldier found himself alone in enemy territory after getting separated from his unit in an ambush. Over the radio, his comrades urged him to turn on Spring 2015
his flashlight so it could be seen by the U.S. helicopter ready to rescue him. He refused, certain that it would attract attention from the enemy. “All I could think about was that kid out in the bush afraid to turn his flashlight on,” she said. Adkins was also startled by the physical changes she observed in her husband. Muscle had hardened his body. His back was sunburned, and his feet were peel
29
day morning worship. Kitchens was critically wounded on April 15, 1970. He died two days later. He was 19 years old. During the week that Kitchens’ remains were being transported from Vietnam to Alabama, Adkins tried to convince herself that a mistake had been made. It was not until she saw him lying in the glass-topped casket that she began to accept the truth. Adkins was racked with nausea during her final weeks in high school. At first, she attributed it to nerves, but she soon realized that she was pregnant. “I was scared to death, but it was also kind of a comfort because I was going to have his child. That somehow made everything seem less final,” she said. A high school English teacher took her aside after class one day. Adkins admired her in spite of her gruff exterior, which seemed to stem from a difficult divorce. The conversation that the two had would guide Adkins for the rest of her life. “She said, ‘I want you to do something for me: I want you not to be bitter because I’ve been open til bitter all of my life.’ She talked to me like I was an midnight adult. She said, ‘You can go on and do whatever fri. & sat. you want to do. You need to have a good life for you and your child. I know you think that life will never be good again, but it will,’” Adkins recalled. Jason Frank Kitchens was born in December 1970. Steve Adkins, a Walker County native who was teaching at Phillips High School at the time, later married Marcia and adopted her son as his own. Adkins continued her education, first at Walker College and then at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She recently retired from Bevill State Community College. In January, Jason Adkins began serving his second term as superintendent of the Walker County Board of Education. As her teacher predicted, Adkins found a way to be happy again after losing the first love of her life. 205-221-1903 “You can either be miserable, or you can pick up and go on. That’s always been my choice,” MON.-SAT. Adkins said. •
ing from being wet for days at a time. For the first time, Kitchens confessed that he did not want to return to Vietnam. “He never said it in a serious way. He only said it the one time, but I am quite certain that he meant it,” Adkins said. Adkins would later learn that soldiers who served in Vietnam got more superstitious as their tour of duty drew to a close. As one Associated Press reporter wrote in 1968, “There have been too many cases where battlefield savvy, extreme care and an unbroken chain of luck have failed a man at the last minute.” Three weeks after Adkins returned to Birmingham, two somber representatives of the U.S. Marine Corps arrived at her home while she was getting dressed for Sun-
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In The
Wild Story and Photo By Dale Short • Location photos courtesy of Luke Dollar
F
Flying into Madagascar at night can be a surreal experience, says Jasper native Luke Dollar. “When you’re flying across the U.S. or Europe in the evening you can see the cities by where the lights are, but in Madagascar there’s nothing until you get to the capital, Antananarivo, that’s right in the middle of the country. “By daylight you look across the landscape and realize that most of the national forests are gone. You see plumes of smoke where people are burning off grasses where the trees used to be in order to keep doing agriculture, and there’s really nothing else.” It was in this remote land, though, where Dollar discovered a kindred spirit: a rare animal known as the fossa (pronounced FOH-suh). A relative of the mongoose, the fossa may look cute but it has two significant problems: its vanishing habitat of tree-scape, and the fact that it’s an unwelcome predator, particularly of residents’ livestock. As such, it’s an endangered species.
Dollar, who teaches wildlife biology and an array of other subjects at Duke University, and works as a photographer for National Geographic, initially was much more familiar with the better-known lemur—another primate endemic to Madagascar that’s also a favorite prey of the fossa. He was on his first visit to the country as a field assistant on a lemur project when he saw one that had been taken by a fossa. “I pursued the literature for everything available on the species, which was practically nothing,” he recalls. “It would be two years later before I went back to study the fossa and managed to catch one.” Which came first, for Dollar—academics, biology, exploring or photography? “It’s all still happening,” he says with a laugh. “When I was growing up in Walker County I had a lot of opportunities to be out in nature, and then in high school I got into photography. Duke had a lemur center and it got me interested in Madagascar, so it all kind of evolved from there.” Academic interest aside, the animal provided the gateway for Dollar to explore the distant (roughly 9,400 miles from Alabama) country’s ecology and society, and now he’s involved in initiatives to help man and fossa co-exist—with a better quality of life besides. The epiphany came during his visits to Madagascar, he says: “What brought me there was wildlife, but I never expected to realize and be confronted with the understanding that the future and status of preservation of wildlife is integrally linked to the human condition. The country is one of the world’s poorest. It has some 24 million people, compared to 12 million when I started going there, and about three-fourths of the people are subsis34
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tence farmers who grow the food they eat to survive. “So their well-being and their economic status is integrally linked to their ability to be stewards of their natural resources. I would never have guessed, 20 years ago when 100 percent of my reason for traveling to Madagascar was wildlife and biology studies, that nowadays about a third of my focus there is working with people for economic and scholastic development—helping to build schools, and so on—which in the long run has a greater impact than just going somewhere and studying something for a short period of time.” Another project important to Dollar is National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative, which is summarized on the organization’s website as a commitment to “saving lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, jaguars and other big cats in the wild” and “to raise awareness and implement change to the dire situation facing big cats.” While there are no big cats in Madagascar, Dollar says, “the issues are the same—carnivore conservation, and the conflict between humans and wildlife. The fossa is crazy about eating chickens, and in east Africa the lions, leopards and hyenas eat sheep and goats and cows.” One answer to the standoff? General economic development. “People obviously don’t like having predators in their back yard taking their livestock, so conservation efforts depend on the economic development and well-being, and the education and support of local communities who are the ultimate stewards for the preservation of all forms of wildlife. So the common theme is, yes, let’s care about those species but let’s find a way they can coexist with the people who control their fate.” Volume 3, Issue 3
An example? “Habitat loss is by far the largest factor that goes on there, with the driving force being illegal logging,” says Dollar. “But it’s also people needing to cut down forests to have fields to grow rice, so you certainly can’t blame somebody who says, ‘Yes, that’s a beautiful habitat but I need a rice field in order to eat.’ “One alternative to that is working with the people in a partnership to make their lives better and easier. For instance, we can train some folks from the village to work with the eco-tourists and wildlife researchers who come. They’ll pay a lot more than the value of whatever rice you were going to grow, so you can have an easier life—buy your food and have money left over for medicine and perhaps sending your kids to school. If there’s not a school, then let’s work together to build one.” But for researchers and tourists alike, daily life in an undeveloped country can be a considerable culture shock. One challenge for a photographer, for instance, is that “there’s no ‘inside,’” Dollar says. “If there’s no wall and no plug, how do you charge your equipment? Imagine starting at zero. When we go in, we not only have to worry about basic equipment and ways Spring 2015
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to power it, but also to keep the units themselves environmentally safe. If something breaks, there’s no repair shop and you can’t run to the store and buy a replacement.” Solutions to the ruggedness problem include Dollar’s trusty computer—a laptop that’s sufficiently armored to be mostly indestructible. “You can run a truck over this one with no damage,” he says, and drops the laptop on the floor to demonstrate. It bounces back unharmed. “These things happen all the time, not because we’re particularly abusive but because life is just hard, and delicate things have problems coping—-which includes students and other people. It’s a harsh reality.” With a mind-boggling array of aspects to both academic learning about predators, their prey and their environments, and working with villagers for enhanced and more stable lives, what’s the current outlook for progress? Social media plays a large and growing role in helping get the word out to the public about such topics, according to Dollar. “Communicating awareness is particularly important. There are three main pillars: assessment, because you can’t adequately protect what you don’t know; protection in preserving the species in question, which includes working with people on alternatives to destroying the habitats they’re a part of; and communication. “Because if the world doesn’t know what you’re doing, you’re not going to able to tap the resources to support it. And nobody can accomplish any complex task alone.” • 36
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24765 Hwy 69, Jasper, AL 35504 www.SherersFlooring.com beckysherer@sherersflooring.com Phone: (205) 221-3813 Fax: (205) 221-3976
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Smith Lake Tackling
Spring 2015
Photos by Ron Harris
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FLW Tour Qualifier Event: March 26–29, 2015
Erie, PA angler Dave Lefebre holds up the trophy he was presented for winning the FLW Tour event on Lewis Smith Lake.
Community! Volunteers! FLW Tour! Economic Impact of FLW Event • Total Room Nights - 1,441 (Average Stay of Five Nights) • Total Visitors Directly Associated With Event - 288
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[ linda@walkerchamber.us ] • [ www.walkerchamber.us ] 204 19th Street East, Suite 101, Jasper, Alabama 35501 | (205) 384-4571
april - june 2015
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Alabama bass trail tournament
The Alabama Bass Trail Tournament Series Divisional will be at Smith Lake, drawing hundreds of angler teams to the area.
11
The 3rd Annual Chili CookOff Challenge provides activities and entertainment for the community to support the Paula Wade Scholarship and the Civitan Club of Jasper charities. Event goers will enjoy tasting chili cooked by the competing chili cook-off teams and get a chance to vote for their favorite team’s chili in the People’s Choice Awards. It is held each year at Scott Crump Toyota.
EASI ride
This annual motorcycle ride benefits Equines Assisting Special Individuals by raising money for them to provide therapeutic services for those with special needs in the community. The event also features an auction and door prizes at the end of the ride.
11
arc of walker county
Registration is open for the Run 4 Kids 5K, 10K and 1 mile fun run! April 11 at Gamble Park. Registration through March 31st is $25.00 and guarantees you a t-shirt. Register by calling Angela Washington 387-0564, by email at awashington@walkerarc.com or online at www.active.com
23
Candlelight Vigil for Victims of Crimes
The annual vigil for those impacted by violent crimes will be held on the Walker County Courthouse square. The vigil honors and remembers those lost to violent crimes and provides a way for family members to be sure their loved ones are remembered.
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paula wade chili cookoff
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safe kids expo
The first annual Safe Kids Expo will raise awareness of the Walker County Children’s Advocacy Center. The expo will be held at the center and will feature live entertainment, speakers and fun for the kids. Local law enforcement and other groups will be on hand.
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/may The 2nd annual Horse Creek Jubilee will feature booths from numerous local businesses and groups as well as live entertainment and a children’s area. The event will be held in the Dora shopping center at the intersection of Sharon Boulevard and old Highway 78. Admission is free.
taste of walker county
The Jasper Downtown Business Association is hosting a tasting of what Walker County restaurants have to offer. More information is available at downtownjasperal.com.
2
Horse Creek Jubilee
Bama Scramble
8
The 28th annual Bama Scramble will be held on Friday, May 8, at Musgrove Country Club. As always, it will feature a four-man scramble format. Dreamland will be served for lunch.
Volume 3, Issue 3
9
art in the park
The annual juried art show, hosted by the Walker County Arts Alliance, will return to Gamble Park. Artists come from near and far to showcase and sell their art.
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Commercial & Residential The largest fundraiser for the American Cancer Society will be held at Walker High School on May 15. The event will celebrate survivors and remember those lost to cancer.
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Tallulah Bankhead Tribute
Celebrate Tallulah Bankhead’s life with festivities headlined by Bankhead’s goddaughter, Brook Ashley; Tandy Cronyn, daughter of actors Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy; and Keith Thibodeaux, who played Little Ricky on “I Love Lucy.” There will also be an original play, “Mr. Will and Dutch.” See you there, dahling!
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Tiger Tee Off
The annual Auburn Tiger Tee Off will be held at Musgrove Country Club on June 26. Spring 2015
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Walker M agazine
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Rotary Trivia Night February 20 – jasper, AL 1) Kellie Cook, Carol Gordon, Leann Sherer, Bobby and Martha Hosey, James Usrey, Charlie Cook and Susan McKinney 2) Sabrina Keating, Brad Baugh, Sarah Hyche and Holly Trawick 3) David and Dee O’Mary, Burt Hendrix, Phillip Lee, Hoyt and Liba Elliott and Al McAdams Volume 3, Issue 3
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Why I Love Walker County
Bill
Fowler
Bill Fowler, lifelong Sumiton-area resident, longtime Sumiton council member and founding member and director of the Sumiton-area Veteran’s Board, discusses his love for east Walker County. Fowler was instrumental in creating the Sumiton Veteran’s Memorial monument and organizes a wreath laying ceremony each Memorial Day at the site to honor the fallen veterans.
Q: Why have you chosen to spend your whole life in east Walker County? A: I love Sumiton. I’ve had a chance to leave once or twice, but no. I think this is what makes me and I hope to contribute to it in some way. I’m thankful I’m here. I don’t believe I would want to be anywhere else. The only time I’ve ever left was when Uncle Sam called. Q: What do you love most about Walker County? A: The people are what make up a community. This community, in the past, has had a lot of people–including our veterans–that had a dramatic impact on people my age. Now we’re the older group and, hopefully, we can influence some of the younger people. The people here care, not only about the community and welfare of the city, but they also care about each other. People here still care. Having a faith-based community is important too. It gives people a bond and makes them care more about each other. I think that’s why you see so many programs to 50
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benefit children and stop child abuse, like the advocacy center. Q: How did the veteran’s Board get started in the area? A: I found out that a friend of mine, Leldon McLeroy, was receiving a silver star, but had not physically received it. So, we made the presentation there at Frog Festival. At the same time, Mike and Susie Roberts were set up to recognize some of the veterans and so we all pretty much decided ‘hey, we need to do more.’ I told the mayor what I wanted to do, and he was all for it. So we appointed a board and moved forward. Q: How did the memorial come into existence? A: We wanted something that the community could share and be proud of. And I certainly feel that’s what’s standing there now. What we came up with is an area memorial, not just Sumiton. That saying there’ All Gave Some, Some Gave All,’ covers every person who is honored there. We wanted to recognize all members of all services. • Volume 3, Issue 3
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