No’Ala Shoals, March/April 2016 by No’Ala Studios

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NANCY O’NEAL: BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCE OF SHIFT DESIGN CAMP

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March/April

features 2016 Renaissance Awards

44 The Golden Girls

16 Nancy O’Neal: Back Home for the First Time

No’Ala’s biennial recognition of the folks whose generosity, creativity, and ingenuity help make the Shoals the best place on earth to call home.

The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, oﬀers solace to nature’s grande-est dames. by jennifer crossley howard

From Madison Avenue to a Florence cattle farm, a daughter of the Shoals picks up where her ancestors left oﬀ.

by allen tomlinson, with matthew balentine, carrie barske, camille bennett, christi britten, michelle rupe eubanks, anu fields, jolie guillebeau, sara kachelman, beth loften, nick murphy, emily haltom olsen, ian sanford, keith sims, dede liles srygley, dan waterman, faith landers woods, and linda young photos by patrick hood

by sarah gaede photos by patrick hood

54 Respite Night: An Invitation to Wonder

30 Design Shift Take away their devices, and 100 industrial design students camp, create, and change their perspectives.

by allen tomlinson photos by abraham rowe

Area churches open their doors and their hearts to special needs children. by caroline garnet mcgraw photos by patrick hood

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editor’s letter « Allen Tomlinson

A Renaissance person is deﬁned as someone who is proﬁcient in more than one area. This issue, we’re going to introduce you to 24 of them.

no’ala advisory board Jeremy Britten Anne Bernauer Vicki Goldston Leslie Keys Tera Wages

Every other year, since 2010, we have asked our readers to tell us about the people in the community who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make this a better place. There are only two rules, really: the person must be living at the time of nomination, and the person cannot be a politician. We want the people in the shadows, the unrecognized heroes who roll up their sleeves and volunteer or do extraordinary things with their careers to help other people, to help the community, or to help make this a better place.

Ashley Winkle

You responded. We sent your nominations to previous Renaissance Award recipients and asked them to choose the one person for each of our five categories that they thought best represented what we were looking for. Our categories are Arts and Culture, Science and Medicine, Business and Leadership, Service and Spirituality, and Education. The top vote-getter overall was named our Renaissance Person of the Year. This year, instead of just bringing you the stories of the five category winners, we decided to profile all 24 of the finalists. After all, these people are the heart and soul of our region. We paired spectacular photography by Patrick Hood with short descriptions from friends and co-workers, and put together a profile piece about these remarkable people. David, Matt, and the rest of the staff here at No’Ala had nothing to do with the nomination or selection of these people—but we could not be happier with the group. If you see them in the grocery store, at church, or downtown, stop them and thank them for all the things they do. And as you look around and consider the wonderful people who make up this community, jot down a name or two for our next Renaissance issue—we’ll do it again in 2018! The groundhog didn’t see his shadow this year, which means we are supposed to have an early spring—and we are ready. As this issue goes to press—and, by the way, this issue contains more than just Renaissance people, so take a look!—we’re hard at work on the Entertainment issue, which always signals the beginning of warmer weather. Shop the Shoals, y’all, and thank our advertisers for their support. Happy spring!

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contents

Going (and growing) oﬀ the grid

30 © Abraham Rowe

everything else 12 14

Calendar Selected Events for March/April 2016

Cryin’ Out Loud

No’Ala is published six times annually by No’Ala Studios PO Box 2530, Florence, AL 35630 Phone: (256) 766-4222 | Fax: (256) 766-4106 Toll-free: (800) 779-4222 Web: noalastudios.com

That Which Does Not Kill Us… by sara wright covington

Market by tara bullington photos by patrick hood

118

Standard postage paid at Florence, AL. A one-year subscription is $19.95 for delivery in the United States. Signed articles reﬂect only the views of the authors and do not necessarily reﬂect the views of the editors. Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertisements.

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter Five: Ida by debra dombrowski hendrix illustrations by rowan finnegan

124

© 2008-2016 No’Ala Studios, All rights reserved. Send all correspondence to Allen Tomlinson, Editor, at the postal address above, or by e-mail to allen@noalastudios.com. Letters may be edited for space and style.

Food for Thought Puttanesca on the Ritz by sarah gaede

126

To advertise, contact us at (256) 766-4222 or sales@noalastudios.com.

Parting Shot by patrick hood

MARCH/APRIL 2016 Volume 9: Issue 2 ••• Editor-in-Chief C. Allen Tomlinson Chief Operating Oﬃcer Matthew Liles Creative Director David Sims Advertising Director Jamie Noles Features Manager Roy Hall Graphic Designer Rowan Finnegan Web Designer Justin Hall Editorial Assistants Tara Bullington, Dylan Andrews Proofreader Carole Maynard Distribution Kathleen Bobo ••• Contributing Writers Matthew Balentine, Carrie Barske, Camille Bennett, Christi Britten, Sara Wright Covington, Michelle Rupe Eubanks, Anu Fields, Sarah Gaede, Jolie Guillebeau, Debra Dombrowski Hendrix, Jennifer Crossley Howard, Sara Kachelman, Beth Loften, Caroline Garnet McGraw, Nick Murphy, Emily Haltom Olsen, Ian Sanford, Keith Sims, Dede Liles Srygley, Allen Tomlinson, Dan Waterman, Faith Landers Woods, Linda Young ••• Contributing Photographers Patrick Hood, Abraham Rowe, Tera Wages ••• Contributing Illustrator Rowan Finnegan •••

The editor will provide writer’s guidelines upon request. Prospective authors should not submit unsolicited manuscripts; please query the editor ﬁrst. No’Ala is printed with vegetable-based inks. Please recycle.

Connect with us on Facebook: No’Ala Mag Instagram: noalastudios, Pinterest: NoAlaStudios, and Twitter: @NoAla_Magazine

Permit Us to help you Shoreline Construction Permitting

If you are planning a project in or near the water, we can help with the 26a permit you may need to do the work. TVA is required to review and approve – before they begin – shoreline construction activities across, along or in the Tennessee River and its tributaries. At TVA, we’re here to serve the people of the Valley. For more information visit tva.com/river/26apermits or call 800-882-5263.

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calendar

Thursday, March 3 – Wednesday, April 13 Artistic Renderings of Youth Exhibit 7th–12th grade artists from Colbert, Franklin, and Lauderdale counties exhibit their work in this juried exhibition coordinated by area art teachers. Mon-Fri; 9:00am-4:00pm; Free; Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, 217 East Tuscaloosa St; (256) 760-6379 Thursday, March 3 – Saturday, March 5 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival Nominated by Southeast Tourism Society as one of the Top 20 Events in the Southeast for the month of March, the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival is an exciting event consisting of film screenings, panels, discussions, and celebrations throughout the Shoals area. For complete information, including film titles, screening times, and locations, visit lindseyfilmfest.com Friday, March 4 and Friday, April 1 Florence First Fridays The exciting monthly event gathers artists of all kinds—musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, hand-crafted jewelry creators, and more—for a community-wide celebration. 5:00pm-8:00pm; Free; Downtown Florence; firstfridaysflorence.org Thursday, March 10 UNA Writer’s Series: Writer Justin Cronin The UNA Writer’s Series is pleased to announce that Justin Cronin, author of the best-selling books The Passage and The Twelve, will read from his works. A book signing and reception will follow. 11:00am; Free; Performance Center of the GUC, UNA Campus; (256) 765-4238 Thursday, March 10 – Sunday, March 13 Dorothy Meets Alice Two of literature’s most famous young ladies meet when a boy puts off a book report until the last minute, then suddenly finds himself in a strange place somewhere between Oz and Wonderland. Thur-Sat 7:00pm and Sunday 2:00pm; Admission Charged; Shoals Theatre, 123 N Seminary St, Florence; (256) 764-1700 Saturday, April 9 Shoals Symphony at UNA presents Sangrias at Sunset An intimate parlor concert with conductor Dr. Daniel Stevens and friends. 7:30pm; Admission Charged; Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts; (256) 765-5122; shoalssymphony.una.edu Thursday, April 14 – Sunday, April 17 Driving Miss Daisy Widow Daisy Werthan isn’t safe behind the wheel anymore, so her son hires an unemployed African-American man to serve as her chauffeur. In a series of scenes spanning 25 years, the two discover that despite their differences, they have more in common than they ever believed possible. Thur–Sat 7:30pm and Sun 2:00pm; $15; Shoals Theatre, 123 N Seminary St, Florence; (256) 764-1700 Friday, April 15 Southern Circuit: Tour of Independent Filmmakers Presents Althea at The Ritz Theatre Althea Gibson emerged as a most unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world of the 1950s. Althea’s life and achievements transcend sports, from her roots as a sharecropper’s daughter to her sudden fame which thrust her into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement. 7:00–9:00pm; $8; The Ritz Theatre, Sheffield; (256) 383-0533; tvaa.net

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cryin’ out loud » Sara Wright Covington I’ve realized that a crisis can bring out the crazy in us all, and we ﬁnd ourselves saying things completely outside of who we are.

THAT WHICH DOES NOT KILL US… One of my favorite guides to writing, a book by William Zinsser titled On Writing Well, advocates letting someone someon else’s brilliance tell your story in their own voice, using their direct quotations. Zinsser writes, “H “His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land land.” I’m going to do exactly this, as some brilliance I’ve recently come across is of greeting card writer Emily E McDowell, whose biting wit more eloquently illustrates the point of this essay far better tha than I ever could: “Together, we can find a cure for the phrase ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us strong stronger.’” Very simply put, McDowell is marketing to the masses the universal truth that people sa say really, really ridiculous things when they are at a loss for words. My youngest daughter wa was diagnosed with cancer last summer, and I began following McDowell on social media when my friend Stephanie and I were marveling over how it seems that when people ssimply don’t know what to say, they often say the first thing that comes into their brain. b McDowell is also a cancer survivor, and her sass and snark have manifested throughout her illness. Her version of dark sarcasm peppered with non-floral hint hints of hope have resonated deeply with me, as I found myself flailing to cope in a se sea of everything happens for a reason-esque phrases thrown at me everywhere fro from doctor’s office kitten posters to cashiers at Publix. I’ve never met Emily M McDowell, but if we did meet, I would be tempted, in a very non-stalker-like w way of course, to throw my arms around her and declare us soul mates. Three days after my daughter’s diagnosis, we were sent to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and told to pack bags for two weeks, but to be prepared to stay for a month. In that excruciating three-day waiting period, I quickly realized how many times I have been guilty of using those very same cliché comfort phrases I now found echoing in my ears. In the past, I’ve often prided myself on always thinking before I speak. I’m rarely the person who puts her foot in her mouth, and on the rare occasion when I do spew off the first tthought that enters my brain, I’m regretful almost immediately and will lie aawake for days turning it over in my head. But again, people, myself included, so sometimes say really, really ridiculous things when they don’t know what else to say. Lucky for me, very rarely were these people close to me, but usually just acsay quaintances or, in a couple of cases, complete strangers who were just scrambling qua for ssomething to say when they somehow caught wind of the situation. A few of favorites: my fa daughter is going to be fine! I read all about her type of cancer on the internet. Your da It has, like, like a 95% survival rate. I know how hard ha this must be. My little one just had his tubes out and it was awful. Do they think there is something that causes this type of childhood cancer? Do your kids take they should start taking vitamins. vitamins? Maybe the Were these things said will w ill-intentions? Of course not. Was I hypersensitive to any phrase I saw as insinuation, however silly that might seem, that this was my fault in some way? Yes, defieven a remote insinuatio nitely. As a mother mother, I’ve llearned that “mommy guilt” ranges from neglecting to hand make your child’s nitely valentines for the class party to skipping a night or two of the recommended 20-minute reading at

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bedtime to make sure they get into an Ivy League college to, yes, them getting a cold because you weren’t making them wash their hands enough. And even though I could mostly let these things slide, they still made me want to grab a roll of duct tape and start taping people’s mouths shut. My youngest daughter had cancer—I think this phrase rolls through my head at least a couple of times an hour every day, and I imagine it will forever. And even though it mostly just stays in my head, it’s definitely escaped my lips a time or two over the months as well. I’ve used it as an excuse: I’m sorry I can’t keep the church nursery. My daughter can’t come to church because she had cancer and is immunocompromised from chemotherapy. I’ve used it as a warning: I’m sorry that your dog died. My daughter had cancer last year. And sometimes even as a verbal retort: (to a cab driver when he picked me up at the front gates of St. Jude and asked me if I was enjoying my stay in Memphis) Yes. Cancer research hospitals are just like Disney World. My child may have cancer, but I’m having a flipping phenomenal time. (I cried in the next breath and apologized to him profusely.) So, yes. I’ve realized that a crisis can bring out the crazy in us all, and we find ourselves saying things completely outside of who we are. But, through everything we have gone through over these months, I’ve also learned that we have friends whose blood runs as thick as that of our own families. And for all of the thoughtless things that were said, the people who mattered the most just showed up. And didn’t say stupid things. The days after our daughter’s diagnosis are mostly a blurry vision of dinners brought to my doorstep, care packages for our Memphis stay assembled, and friends shielding phone calls from people for which I didn’t have the energy for making conversation. I even have a vague memory of walking in to find one friend scrubbing the dirty floor of my laundry room on her hands and knees, while two others washed and put away dishes in my kitchen. Another thoughtful friend brought us a notebook and organizational folder filled with maps of Memphis and driving instructions to various places, as well as a list of things to remember to bring (insurance cards, driver’s license, etc.) because she knew I would be too frazzled to think of these things. Friends brought sweaters and blankets to ward off the chill of the hospital, toys and games for the baby, and even books and magazines to keep us occupied. I didn’t ask them to do any of this. Like I said, they just showed up. And didn’t say stupid things. So my advice when faced with comforting a friend having a difficult time is to try and keep your Google searches, home remedies, and Chicken Soup for the Soul quotes to yourself. Sometimes there is so much solace in admitting we don’t have the words for someone, but that we are there for them nonetheless. If you do find yourself without the words, do as I often do and steal someone else’s, provided they aren’t cliché. And when all else fails, there really isn’t a wrong occasion of crisis to say the following: “I’m so sorry you have been dealt this hand. I love you. Now here’s a casserole and a bottle of vodka for you to enjoy while I do a load of your laundry.”

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NANCY O’NEAL BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME by sarah gaede » photos by patrick hood

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EVEN THOUGH NANCY O’NEAL WASN’T BORN IN FLORENCE, ALABAMA—she didn’t even live here until she was 49—she is most certainly from here. In fact, there might not be many people in this town who could claim more of a connection to Florence’s history. One of the bridges over the Tennessee River was named for her great-great-grandfather, Edward Asbury O’Neal. There’s a historic marker at 468 North Court Street commemorating the father-son governors of Alabama—one of whom was the same Edward Asbury O’Neal. Nancy has a connection to Thimbleton, an antebellum home on Tuscaloosa Street, and John Coﬀee, whose granddaughter married O’Neal’s son. Despite her impressive Florence pedigree, Nancy entered the world a few hours southeast of the Shoals, in Anniston, where her father worked for Monsanto. A series of work transfers followed, and a few years later, the O’Neals found themselves en route to their new home aboard the Queen Mary, on Nancy’s ﬁfth birthday.

A SEA CHANGE The O’Neals’ British adventure lasted long enough for Nancy and her brother to acquire British accents, which had to be dropped when another transfer returned the expats to America in the early 1950s. Nancy was enrolled in day school, then shipped off to Foxcroft girls’ school in Middleburg, Virginia. Neither was a good fit. After high school graduation, she was dispatched to Bennett College, a girls’ finishing school in Millbrook, New York. “I liked it because I wasn’t watched 24 hours a day, and I got to pick my classes. Guess what I picked? Drawing, painting, and sculpture,” Nancy remembers.

Above, right: Nancy in high school; Right: One of Nancy’s subjects; Facing page: Nancy indulges in her ﬁrst love of painting in the airy studio she built opposite her cabin.

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NANCY O’NEAL: BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME

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NANCY O’NEAL: BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME

Left: Nancy looks through old photos of her New York advertising days. A portrait of Nancy, painted by her friend Jean Buckley, hangs in the background. Facing page: Reference materials and her paintings share a nook in her spacious studio.

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It quickly became apparent to her art professor that, somehow, despite her peripatetic attendance at varied institutes of learning, O’Neal had never been called upon to write a paper. Instead of failing her on her ﬁrst miserable attempt, this understanding teacher assigned her a make-up project: Go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, pick out your favorite painting, and write a reﬂection on everything you see and feel.

SAVED BY ART O’Neal’s first encounter with Van Gogh’s Starry Night thrilled her, opened her eyes to the power of art, and earned her an A on the paper. Nancy is eternally grateful to that kind teacher. “I wish he were still alive!” she exclaimed with passion. “I would kiss his face!” While she loved her art classes, O’Neal didn’t fit in with what she calls the “fingernail polish crowd” at Bennett. Much to her parents’ disappointment, she failed to acquire the social graces and wardrobe skills required of young women of a certain social standing in the 1950s, so her father sent her to yet another finishing school, in Florence, Italy. She loved the Florence part; the residential aspect, not so much. “I found myself sequestered with a bunch of 19-year-old girls in a 15th-century villa. All they talked about was their fingernail polish. I’ve chewed my nails all my life.” To keep her happy, the headmistress found Nancy an artist to study oil painting with. Upon Nancy’s return from Florence, her father announced, “You’ve got to get a real job. You can’t make a living as an artist.” So in 1964, with a little help from one of her father’s connections, she lucked into a job at the New York City ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, familiar now as the “DDB” in DDB Needham Worldwide. O’Neal began working in the world-famous ad agency’s “bull pen,” slicing large pieces of cardboard with a matte knife for paste up. (This was long before computers, when everything was done by hand).

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NANCY O’NEAL: BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME

At night, Nancy attended Manhattan’s renowned School of Visual Arts, where she learned to put a portfolio together. She worked her way up through cutting and pasting lines of type to assisting art director Jack Beck—a brilliant designer “who popped aspirin all day and played Sgt. Pepper over and over.” In 1970, when Beck left DDB for Ogilvy & Mather, he took Nancy with him, doubling her salary in the process. She was certainly motivated to leave DDB. Nancy recalls a Mad Men moment from early in her career: “I was working with a lovely copywriter on a General Mills campaign. One day he told me what he was being paid. I was making one-third of his salary, although we were considered a team.” When she complained, her supervisor responded, “You’re married. Your husband (she was married at the time) can support you.” “I just said ‘Oh, okay.’ And I just accepted it,” she recalls with irritation. Ogilvy & Mather was one of Madison Avenue’s most influential agencies at the time—maybe the most influential—responsible for many popular campaigns of the 1970s. The iconic American Express tagline “Don’t leave home without it” comes to mind. Carol Channing, Dick Clark, and Peter Falk, just to drop a few names, lent their influential faces to the campaigns on which Nancy worked. Peter Falk, the Columbo actor, showed up for his shoot in body, but not in spirt. Falk didn’t want to wear the new suit picked out for him, and he certainly didn’t want to wear the raincoat. Nancy’s advice from her celebrityhandler? Scotch! An assistant ran out to the closest liquor store, and Falk got sauced. Crisis averted. During her 20 years at Ogilvy & Mather, Nancy says, she ended up as “a fairly good” art director. She started winning awards, which made the clients happy. At one point, she learned that two writers she was working with had been made vice presidents. It took every bit of courage she had to ask her boss why she had been passed over. It wasn’t so much she was a woman, but that she had hurt the head guy’s feelings. Her boss finally went over his head and promoted her. Recalling her career in advertising, Nancy reflects, “If I’d had the confidence as well as the passion, I don’t know where I’d be. I somehow muddled through. I had a ball. I was paid to play.”

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One of Nancy’s most successful accounts was the American Express Card (facing and at right). The “How to Buy” campaign featured several well-known celebrities, including Dick Clack, Carol Channing, and Peter Falk. Photos of Nancy with Clark and Falk were shot on set during the ad campaign’s photoshoots.

Photos courtesy of Nancy O’Neal

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Nancy paints in the style of “plein air,” which simply means to paint outdoors in view of the subject. Her paintings here feature a strong, simple use of form over line, and a sophisticated use of color and light.

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Nancy’s restored cabin is both rustic and elegant. It’s ﬁlled with family mementoes, books, heirlooms, and of course her paintings.

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NANCY O’NEAL: BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME

Left: Nancy treats four of her seven dogs to an afternoon treat; Facing page: The log cabin that Nancy painstakingly restored sits amid 1,600 family acres.

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COMING HOME In 1990, when she was 49, what Nancy describes as “a confluence of upheaval” occurred in her life, and led to her second career. Her ad agency was being taken over by an English company, which meant a shakeout was imminent. She had a health scare (which turned out to be a false alarm). Her uncles who oversaw the family cattle operation, Bill Nuessle and Camper O’Neal, had died, and Hollis Rice, the manager, wanted to retire. All the heirs of Nancy’s generation were scattered around the globe. Nancy herself only came to Florence once a year for the annual meeting of the family corporation required in the bylaws. At the 1989 corporation meeting, someone suggested that Nancy should assume management of the farm. Even though she had no farming experience at all, Nancy saw it as an exciting opportunity that had come along at an opportune time, and would allow her to connect with her heritage. So Nancy abandoned the concrete canyons of Manhattan for Florence, settling in at Thimbleton, the old family home. A year later, as her brother Eddie (Edward Asbury O’Neal V) and his wife Dianne were scouring the countryside for log houses, they came upon the William Koger house, built in 1830, which was in ruins. It was being offered free to anyone who would stabilize it. Nancy fell in love. The day she paid the $10 transfer fee, one end wall and two chimneys collapsed. Nancy knew nothing about preserving old houses, but true to form, she muddled through, and one year later, with a lot of hard work, the first floor was habitable. Cattle farming was also hard work. The process is relatively simple, but it’s not easy. The mother cows are kept healthy, the bulls visit them in a timely fashion, the calves appear, the mothers raise their babies, and when they reach the proper weight, they are sold at auction.

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NANCY O’NEAL: BACK HOME FOR THE FIRST TIME “I loved doing it,” O’Neal says of her cattle farming years. “It was scary, hard, and a lot of it was nasty. Getting out in the winter to feed cows is no fun.” Her favorite part of the job was driving around every morning when the cows were calving, to find, count, and log the new babies. Although Nancy is no longer involved in the active running of the farm, she remains the president of the family corporation. The cattleman who leases her pastureland continues to raise happy, healthy cows, and renowned chefs come to visit the growing calves in anticipation of purchase. In 2006, Nancy sold the Koger house to eager buyers, in order to finish her own log cabin, which Dianne O’Neal had bestowed upon her in a disassembled state. The logs were getting soggy, and it was a “now or never” sort of thing. So Nancy took on another restoration project. The cabin is located in the middle of the cattle farm, right down the drive from Dianne’s two joined log houses, and near the family cemetery. There is plenty of room for three horses, her chickens, and her seven dogs. She also built an airy, light-filled, free-standing studio to finally indulge her first love, painting.

Some of Nancy’s favorite artists are Corot, Turner, for his use of light, Sargent, Eakins, and Hopper. It’s no surprise: Corot and Turner were primarily landscape artists, and Sargent, who was famed for his portraits, tried his hand at a landscape now and then. All were noted for their masterful interplay of light and dark. Nancy most loves painting en plein air, a classic method of painting outdoors with the intent of capturing exactly what is before the artist’s eyes. It’s a one-shot deal, Nancy says. The paintings can’t be ﬁxed in the studio if they don’t come out right. They are ephemeral, she says—“one and done.” When Nancy is painting in this way, she observes, it takes all of her attention. She is taken out of herself, and loses all sense of time. Nancy used to travel for painting inspiration, to such places as Scotland, Provence (“of course”), Arizona, Nova Scotia, and Maine. Now, she says, “I don’t feel the need any more. You can go on forever with little pieces of a 1,600-acre farm.” One can certainly see the inﬂuence of artist Edward Hopper’s work on Nancy’s own paintings—top right: Hopper’s Cape Cod Afternoon, next to Nancy’s painting of a typical New York City view (above, left).

For someone who calls her approach to life muddling through, Nancy O’Neal has overcome many obstacles to follow her passions. She could have ended up driving 2.5 children around Connecticut in a station wagon, nails perfectly polished. Instead, she steadfastly, even though perhaps haphazardly, followed the pursuits that challenged her and gave her joy. She is still discovering, still learning, and still, very competently, muddling through.

DO YOU SUFFER FROM: • Shortness of breath • Numbness • Chest pain or tightness • Burning or tingling in your legs • Weakness or coldness in your legs or arms • Pain in the neck • Headaches • Heart burn, indigestion, or burping If so, these could be signs of cardiovascular disease. If you are suﬀering from any of these symptoms, Dr. Ajit Naidu and Dr. Brian Cole, Board Certiﬁed Cardiologists at the Cardiovascular Institute of the Shoals can help determine if these are serious. We give second opinions, too!

Please call 256-766-2310 for an appointment. 2415 Helton Drive, Suite A, Florence , AL 35630 • Phone 256-766-2310

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allen tomlinson » photos by abraham rowe

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A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

a recipe for one of the most wonderful things you’ll ever witness, or for the biggest barn-burning disaster of all time. Take a group of highly talented creative people, most of whom are students, add a design challenge (or two, or three), mix it up with design professionals and teachers, and see what they will come up with. That doesn’t sound too bad, but the recipe isn’t ﬁnished. Now tell these designers that they will be camping out for a week, in tents or under the stars. Fun, right? But did we mention that they are camping in rural Alabama near a place called Seven Springs Lodge—and “Rattlesnake Saloon”? And—this is the real clincher—there are no computers allowed. Or tablets. Or cell phones. Period. That is probably the scariest part of the entire experience, for a 20-something yearold participant. No electronic devices for an entire week! The name of this experience is “SHiFT,” and it’s designed to shift perspectives and open new channels for cooperative creativity. The brainchild of Owen Foster, a Shoals area native, industrial designer, and the chair of Industrial Design at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and his friend and associate John McCabe, the program was designed to take a maximum of 100 students and give them a nontraditional educational experience that would change their outlook and approach. It would essentially shift their perspectives. “Students today are great data collectors,” said Owen, “but knowledge requires experience to create wisdom. We take

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A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

these students and place them in the middle of 3,000 acres of beautiful land in northwest Alabama, and issue a diﬀerent challenge every day.” The experience begins with a morning lecture from a highly credentialed professional; past speakers have included professors, but also professionals from companies such as Dell, Google, Proctor and Gamble, IBM, Eastman Chemical Company, and others. Talks are about a variety of topics, from design themes to the concepts of community-building and passion for one’s work.

Above: Owen Foster and a student discuss a design project; Facing page: Mornings begin with a lecture

Then, working in teams, the students are given a daily project and collaborate to design and fabricate to meet the challenge. Teams compete against each other for prizes, but that’s not the true value of the process: “The entire experience allows people to share their cultures, their backgrounds, and their stories, and they learn from each other, teach each other, and create with each other,” said Owen. The fact that high-tech tools are not a part of the process means that participants must be especially creative in their problem-solving process. “Each SHiFT session revolves around a central theme,” he said. “Our themes have touched on items of local culture, such as music, Tom Hendrix’s Wall, and FAME Studio. When we focused on music, one project was to build a musical instrument, and later in the session we were joined by some Muscle Shoals musicians for a jam session, and students were able to play the instruments they had created. One session’s chal-

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and presentation of a design project.

lenge was to build a totem to be hunf in special places on the property, and one team built beautiful, oversized dreamcatchers; another session’s project was to build a mechanism that would deliver water over a certain distance, and one group engineered an ingenious catapult to do that.” Part of the fun is ﬁnding ways to solve design problems without being able to research online; another challenge is to use non-traditional materials to create the end result. The projects challenge the teams to think way outside the box and become resourceful to solve problems. History comes into play, as well as thought-provoking sessions that force participants to consider personal challenges that they might have never considered. One session planned for this summer, for example, will teach students about the challenges Anne Sullivan faced when helping Helen Keller, and will ask them to create solutions for children with special needs. In asking a student to design a musical instrument, in another challenge, Owen and the SHiFT crew were able to teach about the roots of music in this area and the ability to ﬁnd rhythm and harmony from non-traditional materials. “The topic for the session determines the challenges,” said Owen. “We’re forcing the students to be observers, because designers have to see details, and capture those details to create. Part of the goal is understanding the dynamics of people.” “And,” he adds, “some of the best lessons learned here are from the failures. Millennials tend to be very reliant on their devices, and they do not see failure as a positive. We have observed that after these camps,

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A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

“The topic for the session determines the challenges. We’re forcing the students to be observers, because designers have to see details, and capture those details to create. Part of the goal is understanding the dynamics of people.” OWEN FOSTER

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A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

they become more aware of everything around them. If you experience this and it changes your world, you will infect those around you, and the entire world can be changed that way.” An important part of the experience is the escape from an established routine, to spend time with others exploring the natural world. The land around Rattlesnake Saloon is 3,000 acres of forests, creeks, caves, and trails, a retreat from schools or cities and an opportunity to unplug and reconnect.

Above: One project involved transporting water from one place to another, which a team solved by creating a catapult system. Facing page, top right: Another method

William Foster, Owen’s brother, is the proprietor of Rattlesnake Saloon. The restaurant, an actual saloon tucked under a gigantic rock outcropping, was opened on Labor Day 2009, and consistently earns attention and rave reviews from regulars and from travel writers, who are fascinated by this unusual venue. The Fosters grew up between Tuscumbia and Cherokee, and have deep attachment to the land there. “We kept having these conversations about how to bring a

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for delivering water from one place to another; bottom right: Students celebrate the successful completion of a project.

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A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

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OWEN FOSTER

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A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE

“Students today are great data collectors, but knowledge requires experience to create wisdom. We take these students and place them in the middle of 3,000 acres of beautiful land in northwest Alabama, and issue a different challenge every day.” OWEN FOSTER

different type of experience to Owen’s students, and it seemed natural to invite them here,” said William. So that’s exactly what they did. One of the most surprising things, for the outside observer, is the cost. A week at SHiFT only costs the students $180, plus the cost to get themselves to Alabama. That makes it within reach for the student who wants to stretch, grow, and experience design in a totally new and different way. “This whole thing, a design camp, was initially designed for students, but more and more design professionals are joining us,” said Owen. And for the first time, this past December, SHiFT held a session away from Alabama, at Bays Mountain in Kingsport, Tennessee. The focus of this session was “The Story of Making.” What’s next? For the SHiFT team, the next step might be to broaden the experience even further, with up to four sessions per year. Two of these might even be held in international locations. “We would like to hold SHiFT sessions in Argentina, Wales, China, Taiwan, and at other great spots here in the U.S.,” said Owen. In the meantime, the Foster brothers and the SHiFT team are having a ball, watching these students undergo transformation. “I’m surprised every day they are here,” said William, “and it’s like watching little people play. They get pens, paper, and hand tools, they are inspired, and they create.” It’s transformative—and that’s the shift. For more information about upcoming sessions, visit shiftdesign.us.

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At Alabama Outdoors, we want everyone to experience life in the great outdoors. Like you, we live busy and active lives, and we bring you the trusted products and brands that have enhanced our outdoor experiences. That is why for forty years, we have been the local retailer of choice for the apparel and gear to take you there. Join us, and celebrate the great outdoors.

#BEOUTDOORS ALABAMAOUTDOORS.COM

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by jennifer crossley howard » photos courtesy of the elephant sanctuary in tennessee

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In the rural outskirts of Southern Tennessee, some 80 miles from Nashville, lies the path to the Volunteer State’s lesser known destination for stars. Here, on more than 2,700 acres of loblolly pine, bamboo, and lakes, former entertainers retire to run wild. In the small town of Hohenwald—population 3,700—The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee provides a place for elephants that have lived in captivity to thrive, shielded from the public. In midwinter, with its skeletal trees, gray sky, and one front yard full of clawfoot bath tubs, Hohenwald looks more like the setting for a Southern gothic fairy tale than the home to 14 elephants. The sanctuary’s elephants are veterans of zoos and circuses, often both, and all of them are female because they tend to cooperate better in performance environments than bulls. The public watch African and Asian elephants online through EleCams, which film behavior ranging from the mundane to spirited rumbles, trumpeting and trunks beating against the ground. On a recent 20-degree day, the elephants stayed in their barns. If the sun is out and it is below freezing, they are usually allowed outside briefly. “From sunup to sundown we’re checking on them, throwing them hay,” said Stephanie DeYoung, the sanctuary’s director of elephant husbandry. “Every day is different.”

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Seeing an elephant cavort in the snow looks unnatural, yet Asian species fare better in cold weather than their African sisters. Hohenwald, which means “high forest” in German, accurately describes the elephants’ playground and “forever home,” as DeYoung calls the sanctuary. Popular elephant pastimes include pushing down tall, skinny trees and sleeping in the woods. In its 21 years, 27 elephants have lived at the sanctuary, and retiring an elephant to Hohenwald can take months or years. Histories of dangerous encounters with their keepers send some animals here, while private owners of some animals decide to remove them from public life for their wellbeing. Others retire after a life of performing that can lead to health problems. Elephants can live 70 or 80 years, DeYoung says, and many come to the sanctuary at midlife or younger. “We take in elephants of any age,” she added. “It’s not just a bunch of old ladies who come here.” Hohenwald is the only other elephant sanctuary accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries in the United States besides one in Galt, California. The sanctuary

Misty enjoys a morning stroll.

survives on total private funding from 30,000 donors around the world, and it employs 44 people on a $2 million payroll. The sanctuary’s 2015 budget was $3.5 million, and fundraising yielded more than $4 million. Donors stretch from as far as Fiji to down the road.

“She would kind of stand out by the barn like ‘am I okay to walk around and do what I want?’” DeYoung said.

“Our mission is focused on providing them a natural habitat and giving them as much of a natural habitat as possible in captivity,” said Janice Zeitlin, CEO of the sanctuary.

Asian elephants roam a 1,700 acre habitat, and African elephants occupy 70 acres, with 230 acres to be added for them. Elephants that retired together from a circus dwell on 200 acres. The sanctuary began leasing 200 acres from International Paper in 1995 and purchased land in 2003, expanding to 2,700 acres.

Often cramped living conditions in zoos and circus stalls can lead to chronic arthritis and foot disease. “Elephants need vast amounts of space and the ability to move, and a lifetime of performing in the circus has very limited opportunity to do that,” DeYoung said. Newfound freedom provides amusement and education to staﬀ. When Hadari, an elephant from the Nashville Zoo came to Hohenwald in September, she didn’t know what to do. Most elephants at zoos are on a schedule so they are visible to visitors as much as possible.

At night, Hadari split her sleeping between the barn and outside just because she could.

The sanctuary’s eldest elephant is Shirley, whose life at 68 years old rivals Hemingway’s legendary adventures. She was captured in Asia when she was ﬁve years old. In the 1950s, while she was traveling with a circus in Cuba, Fidel Castro took power, and his forces held the circus captive. Shirley then survived a shipwreck oﬀ the coast of Nova Scotia that killed two other elephants. In 1975 while in another circus, an elephant broke Shirley’s right hind leg, which left a permanent bend, but she’s still standing. She came to the sanctuary in 1999.

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“The stories these elephants have are almost as if someone made them up,” DeYoung said. “That’s the reality of captive elephants.” The sanctuary’s brick welcome center in downtown Hohenwald—nestled between a market and a print shop—will transform this year. The expanded, renamed Elephant Discovery Center will open in early 2017. Additions are projected to cost $1 million for the purpose of teaching visitors about the sanctuary’s mission and its residents. An outdoor breezeway area is set to open this fall, and a 40-seat theater, expanded gift area, and multimedia exhibits will open next year. “It’s going to be really busy, noisy, and exciting in a very short amount of time,” said Todd Montgomery, education manager at the sanctuary. “I know we will have people from all over the world.” Howard+Revis, a Washington, D.C.-based design ﬁrm that has worked with the Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution, is heading the project. “We know that educating the public is what will provide a better life for captive and wild elephants for generations to come,” Montgomery said. He visits area schools and leads distance learning programs online, connecting to 19 states, Canada, and the United Kingdom in 2015. He has also connected virtually to libraries, a birthday party, and a hospital in chats akin to Skype.

During such chats, children, perhaps craving their own freedom, usually understand the plight of elephants in captivity. “They get it, like yeah an elephant should have time to push over a tree if they want to,” DeYoung said. She is not surprised by intrigue of elephants. “There’s something about elephants that people just love to learn bout,” she said. “In general, people think elephants are really fascinating animals. Very rarely do you have someone who says, ‘Uh, I’m not into elephants.’” The Elephant Discovery Center will add three jobs at most and will rely heavily on volunteers. Besides the discovery center and school visits, the sanctuary maintains a public face through national ambassadors, and a YouTube channel, and by providing college scholarships to Lewis High School seniors. “Something we work on and are really proud of is how we do a lot of work and show people we are a part of this community,” Montgomery said. His classroom visits earned him fame with local school kids. “He’s got his own little fan club here, it’s great,” DeYoung said. Leaving the elephants oﬀ display garners a mystique and opportunity for education that can be lost at the zoo, DeYoung said.

interaction with elephants or guarantee to see them, according to Montgomery. The Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries guidelines recommend limited public access at sanctuaries, including tours strictly for educational value, and no direct interaction with elephants. Researchers occasionally study there, but they do not interrupt the solitude of the elephants. Last fall, Duke University tested night drones to be used in the African country of Gabon to count forest elephants. And when elephants die, necropsies precede on-site burials. Veterinary staﬀ from the University of Georgia and University of Tennessee perform necropsies. The sanctuary shares ﬁndings with organizations to learn more about caring for geriatric elephants. Elephants are encouraged to bond, but they aren’t expected to get along, DeYoung says. But time has eased bad blood. “We have elephants who have been here 10 years and could not get along and had playdates, and for some reason about six months ago during one of their playdates they didn’t want to separate and have been together ever since,” Zeitlin said. Shirley, the sanctuary’s oldest resident, snacks on pumpkin in the late afternoon.

“Our ability in being really creative in teaching people about elephants, you lose a lot of that if you’re standing there staring at an elephant,” DeYoung said. “You’re not reading the graphics and really taking in the educational experience.” Zeitlin and DeYoung attribute some of that growing interest to The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus decision to retire all of its performing elephants by this May. Those elephants will reside at the circus’s Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida, a facility that has attracted controversy. “[That decision] has boosted a lot of interest in this facility because people Google ‘elephant’ or ‘where do elephants go when they retire’ and that sends them here,” Montgomery said. “At a micro level, we are getting a lot of phone calls and a lot of emails asking what does retirement mean, what happens with your elephants? So It’s moving the public conversation about that forward.” Though the public is not allowed inside the sanctuary, VIP donors may tour the sanctuary’s infrastructure but have no

Those three elephants—Minnie, Ronnie, and Debbie— moved to Hohenwald after residing in Illinois with the Hawthorn Corporation. The United States Department of Agriculture prosecuted the corporation, which trained and leased elephants to circuses, for violating the Animal Welfare Act. “You see one, you see all three,” DeYoung said. “I can’t help but think it’s because they’ve been allowed to build their relationship in their own time in their own way.” Sukari and Rosie followed Hadari in November from the Nashville Zoo. Together, they make up the “Nashville trio,” as DeYoung aﬀectionately calls them. She speaks of the elephants the way a bemused but no-nonsense mother might talk about her children. Sanctuary caregivers use no dominance with the elephants, practicing Protected Contact Management. They use a barrier, usually a 10-foot wall, between them and the elephant as well as physical distance and fences. During a medical exam, vets use bamboo rods with masking tape on the ends to guide the animals to place their body parts into wall compartments. They receive positive reinforcement if they comply.

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Ronnie, Minnie, and Debbie take in the sanctuary’s 2,700 plus acres.

“They have the choice to participate,” DeYoung said. “If they show a fear of something, we build up that conﬁdence, they can walk away.” “We have a saying around here,” she added. “We go by Elephant Standard Time. If the elephants today aren’t feeling it, we will try another day. That’s where not having visitors really makes a big impact on how we manage our day.” The decision to adopt Protected Contact Management followed the death in 2006 of caregiver Joanna Burke, according to Zeitlin. She was killed by Winkie, an Asian elephant from Burma, who still lives at the sanctuary. Burke was standing close to Winkie assisting during an eye exam when the animal knocked her down and stomped on her. During that time, the sanctuary followed Free Contact where barriers are rarely, if ever, used. Discriminating elephants with dangerous pasts or being lax around more docile animals is not an option, DeYoung stressed.

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“That’s how accidents happen,” she said. Anxiety is far from DeYoung’s thoughts when she’s with the elephants. “It’s not a fear,” she said. “It’s a healthy respect. There’s a big difference…The fear would be if you worked with people you didn’t trust.” To build confidence among caregivers and other staff, a fulltime safety manager audits safety practices and equipment. Almost three years ago, the sanctuary introduced training levels for working with elephants that includes months of reading, tests, and mentoring. “People underestimate all the hard work that goes into it,” DeYoung said. “They are dangerous animals, and we don’t take that for granted at any point in our day.” Following Burke’s death, the sanctuary received more national attention when a co-founder sued after she was fired.

In its 21 years, 27 elephants have lived at the sanctuary, and retiring an elephant to Hohenwald can take months or years. Elephants can live 70 or 80 years, DeYoung says, and many come to the sanctuary at midlife or younger. The sanctuary is still involved in a lawsuit with Carol Buckley over the ownership of an elephant. In 2010, the sanctuary board ﬁred her. She was also president and chief executive. “There were no answers,” Buckley said, by phone from Nepal. “The board completely surprised me with their action to remove me.” She was barred from the sanctuary, where she lived, and left behind Tarra, a now 42-year-old Asian elephant she had raised since Tarra was two years old. The pair had not been separated for 35 years, and before settling in Tennessee, they traveled for 10 years with circuses and for 10 years worked in zoos. Buckley realized that zoo life left Tarra with little stimulation and space to roam. “As time went on, Tarra grew larger, and I was not satisﬁed with the lifestyle,” she said.

ganization began providing training for elephant handlers, trainers, and riders and elephant foot care in 2010. Buckley said the sanctuary has not allowed her to see Tarra in ﬁve years but, “I do know how she’s doing,” she said. Montgomery, in an email, said the sanctuary has allowed Buckley to see Tarra. Regarding Buckley’s surprise at her dismissal, he wrote, “I believe that those many people and board members that were involved in addressing the events that were presented to the board because of Ms. Buckley’s actions and complaints from others about her would strongly disagree.” Blais departed from the sanctuary in 2011, and is building an elephant sanctuary in Brazil, for which he recently received a grant from the Hohenwald sanctuary. Zeitlin commends Blais’s and Buckley’s work.

After 10 years of dreaming and studying about a place for captive elephants to reside, Buckley found a piece of land in Tennessee, which she calls “special and holy.” She and Scott Blais, then a former elephant keeper, opened the sanctuary in 1995. “It was glorious,” Buckley said. “It was culture changing in America.” She generally supports non-dominant free contact when taking care of elephants. Buckley says caregiver Joanna Burke was under strict instructions not to be around Winkie without a barrier. She did not disclose this fact after Burke died, she said, because she did not want to appear like she was blaming Burke for her own death.

“It’s great that they’ve taken their experiences here and are building them to help elephants around the world,” Zeitlin said. She declined to comment on Buckley and her relationship with Tarra, but said the lawsuit “is down to one issue and it is on the ownership of Tarra.” Buckley is optimistic that she will see Tarra again soon. Despite their diﬀerences, Buckley and the sanctuary share one common goal. She applauds The Elephant Discovery Center and its purpose to inform the public. “Any time you educate, I think that’s a fabulous thing,” Buckley said. “Education is the key to change.”

In collaboration with the National Trust for Nature Conservation in Nepal, Buckley’s Elephant Aid International or-

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Join us for

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, MAY 20 and 21 STORIES, SONGS, AND THE SINGING RIVER

9:00am—4:30pm

6:00pm—9:00pm

Guillot University Center, University of North Alabama

McFarland Park - under tent •Rain location: Norton Auditorium, UNA Campus

Thursday, May 19 9:00am and 1:00pm $25.00

SHOALS HISTORICAL TOUR

Wednesday, May 18 7:00pm, GUC Performance Center

AN EVENING WITH DONALD DAVIS

SEPARATE TICKET REQUIRED: $10 • May be purchased prior to the event or on location.

This tour will include Ivy Green– the birthplace of Helen Keller, the Rosenbaum House— designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and Tom’s Wall– a Native American memorial, noted as one of the top 10 environmental arts in the United States. 10:00am GUC Performance Center $5.00 (Cost included for Tour Ticket holders)

The MUSCLE SHOALS DOCUMENTARY A private showing of the award winning ﬁlm about the music history of the Shoals area. 1:30pm, $25.00

The SHOALS MUSIC TOUR

Visit the W.C. Handy home & museum and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, along with such landmarks as FAME Studios and the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. With tour guide Walt Aldridge, singer/songwriter. 2:00pm GUC Performance Center, $5.00 (Cost included for Tour Ticket holders)

Kathryn: The Story of a Teller

A private showing of a documentary about world renowned Kathryn Tucker Windham. Thursday, May 19 7:30pm, GUC Performance Center — FREE Featuring Walt Aldridge, Kate Campbell, Donny Lowery and Mark Narmore

SINGING RIVER SONGWRITERS’ ROUND

the lyrics of your favorite songs? Join us for a songwriters’ round to hear some amazing music and stories of the inspiration behind them!

6:00-9:00pm

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND:

THREE ON A STRING threeonastring.com

Friday, May 20 9:00-12:30, GUC/Loft Morning Session Lunch - PREPAID ONLY GUC Performance Center, ONLY $12 PER PERSON!

COUNTRY FRIED CHICKEN WITH ALL THE FIXIN’S Served on site as lunch on Friday, May 20. Meal tickets must be purchased by Friday, May 13. Tickets may be purchased via mail-in registration or online at www.una.edu/storytelling. NOT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE THE DAY OF EVENT. 1:30-4:30, GUC/Loft Afternoon Session

Saturday, May 21 7:00pm

THE DILLPICKERS thedillpickers.com

This year, we are kicking the festivities oﬀ early with exciting prefestival events—so sit back in your rocker, sip on some sweet tea, and stay awhile!

On the University of North Alabama campus Florence, Alabama www.una.edu/ storytelling 1-800-TALK UNA

Have you ever wondered what meaning lies within

www.una.edu/storytelling march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

Andrew Willis spends a quiet moment playing at Respite Night.

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RESPITE NIGHT: AN INVITATION TO WONDER

by caroline garnet mcgraw » photos by patrick hood

As I rush out the door and into my car late on a warm Friday afternoon, I think, Man, it has been a long week … I wish that I could just stay home … But I won’t cancel. I’m on my way to volunteer at the monthly Shoals Respite program for special needs families, and I gave my word that I’d be there. The Alabama Lifespan Respite Resource Network (ALRRN) defines “respite” as “temporary relief for caregivers who are caring for individuals of any age who have disabilities, chronic or terminal illnesses.” Since my younger brother Willie has autism, I know firsthand just how vital respite services can be for families. Author Anne Lamott says that the three great prayers are “Help,” “Thanks,” and “Wow,” and for my part, I believe her. So instead of bailing, I whisper, “Help!” Admittedly, this isn’t the first time I’ve struggled to get myself to Respite. Every month a part of me wants to curl up with a book or a How I Met Your Mother rerun instead of playing Duck, Duck, Goose. As an avowed introvert, I’m familiar with this internal tug-of-war. Nevertheless, I’ve been volunteering with Shoals Respite since its inception in August 2013. I’ve missed a handful of months due to travel or illness, but mostly, I’ve kept on showing up. Why? Because “my” kids are there. Respite may not be my natural milieu, but the part of me that wants to be present to the kids keeps winning out. I suspect that many volunteers share this struggle. After all, we know what we’ve signed up for: three hours of chasing kids around, playing games, and trying to

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prevent destruction of church property. As of this writing, Shoals Respite is hosted by six area churches: Faith Church, Underwood Baptist Church, Eastwood Church of Christ, Lee Heights Baptist Church, and Crestwood Church of Christ. Regardless of venue, the kids always try to get into restricted areas. The experience is loud, occasionally uproarious, and totally worth it. From 6pm to 9pm on the second Friday of each month, children with special needs and their siblings receive supper, group activities, and organized chaos, all free of charge. The program also carries a signiﬁcant social beneﬁt for participants. Magdalena Lira is on the Shoals Special Needs Hub Board, and she serves as a network leader for Autism Society of America’s Birmingham chapter as well. Her son, Alex Lira, participates in Shoals Respite each month. In speaking about Respite, Lira says, “It’s been really great for [Alex] to socialize with other kids. The program gives him a time to be in a smaller group setting than school. One of the kids that comes to Respite goes to the same school, and now he’ll say, ‘Hey, Alex’ in the hall, and that makes Alex feel good. Here, they make friends and have something in common.” Likewise, fellow special needs parent Amy Barnes sees Respite as a powerful socialization venue for her 14-yearold son Sidney: “At Respite, Sidney can come up to anyone and interact. He’s going to initiate things, and [volunteers] will respond. He can practice social skills and interacting in a low-risk environment.” Special needs parents like Lira and Barnes know better than to take such opportunities for granted. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that exclusion, misunderstanding, and prejudice were the norm. Prior to the United States’ deinstitutionalization movement in the 1970s, an overwhelming number of individuals with special needs lived in isolated, neglectful, and abusive conditions. Thankfully, much has changed in the past few decades. From a statistical perspective, the number of people in institutions has dropped dramatically. As Robert Prouty and K. Charlie Lakin (eds.) note in Residential Services for Persons with

Developmental Disabilities: Status and Trends through 1998, the number of people with developmental disabilities in public institutions declined from 149,892 in 1977 to 51,485 in 1999. And as a society, we’ve made great strides toward disability awareness and acceptance. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act celebrated its 25th anniversary in July of 2015. As the ADA.gov website notes, “The ADA is one of America’s most comprehensive pieces of civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination and guarantees that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstream of American life—to enjoy employment opportunities, to purchase goods and services, and to participate in State and local government programs and services.” In short, including people with intellectual and developmental diﬀerences in our workplaces and communities is the law, and has been for a quarter of a century now. Though we still have a long way to go when it comes to fully embracing the personhood, gifts, and contributions of people with special needs, we’ve come a long way too. As Barnes says, “People [with special needs] used to be prisoners in their own homes. Now, our kids have a practice of getting out of the house and interacting with others, going out into the community. Staying in the house all the time isn’t good for [Sidney] or for us.” And getting their children out of the house and into a fun, accepting environment gives parents peace of mind. Lira observes, “Having a child with special needs takes up a lot of time. [Respite] helps me to be at peace that he’s socializing, and it helps me have a break too. At home, I’m constantly checking in [with Alex], ‘Are you okay, are you happy?’ This gives me a break from drawing him out.” As Lira mentioned, Shoals Respite also gives special needs parents and guardians some much-needed time to themselves. As the ALRRN notes on their website, AlabamaRespite.org, “ … an estimated 850,000 Alabamians are caring for a loved one at home, providing over 800 million hours of unpaid care.” As such, respite is cited as the mostrequested service from caregivers. However, “Respite … [is] one of the most diﬃcult [services] to access due to lack of

THOUGH WE STILL HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO WHEN IT COMES TO FULLY EMBRACING THE PERSONHOOD, GIFTS, AND CONTRIBUTIONS OF PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS, WE’VE COME A LONG WAY TOO.  | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Each child with special needs is paired with a respite buddy; they share supper, games, and story time together.

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a 15-year-old son, Brently, with a rare genetic condition called L1 Syndrome. In fact, Aycock’s is the only family in Alabama with L1 registered within the genetic department. Since Aycock’s family receives 14 hours of respite care per week through Medicaid Waiver, she understands the benefits of respite programs firsthand. She says, “Being able to give another family a break [through Shoals Respite] is awesome. When they asked me to be a coordinator, I was so excited. I love working behind the scenes each week, getting ready, putting all the pieces together.” Aycock remembers what life was like when she had less respite support, and she wants to serve parents facing similar challenges. She recounts, “Before, I didn’t have much time because Brandon [her son who passed away] was so sick. [During Shoals Respite], I was so grateful to just go and sit somewhere, to get bills paid, to go to Walmart.” She’s not the only parent who feels that way. Family participation is increasing at Shoals Respite; nowadays, 20-plus children regularly attend. Each child is paired with a volunteer “buddy,” usually in a 1:1 ratio. At my first Respite, I was paired up with a boy named Andrew Willis. Andrew and his brother Jackson Willis both have Fragile X, a genetic disorder that affects development. As such, Shoals Special Needs the brothers have a high need for Hub Board, pictured support, and I’ve been paired clockwise from right: with one or both for the last two Stuart Ausborn, Magdalena Lira, Tonya Aycock, and years. At first, we were matched Cindy Vandiver. together because of my experience in the special needs sector. (In addition to being a special needs funding and availability, stringent eligibility requirements, sibling, I spent two years serving as a and long wait lists.” Access to consistent, quality respite care live-in caregiver for adults with intellectual helps to alleviate caregiver stress, increase individual health disabilities, including Fragile X.) But now, I ask to be paired and wellness, and strengthen families too. with Andrew, Jackson, or their typically-developing sister Ashton because we’re all friends. The founders of Shoals Respite, Kristy McKinney, Crystal Magruder, and Mary Eastman, understood this implicitly. In addition to having Fragile X, Andrew also has a McKinney and Eastman have sons with special needs, and tremendous smile. When he calls out, “On your mark, get Magruder works for United Way of Northwest Alabama. set, GO!” and grabs my hand, I can’t help but smile back as And Shoals Respite’s current coordinator Tonya Aycock has we race. Andrew’s running face is pure, unfiltered joy. The

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sight of it inevitably moves me to a silent expression of the second great prayer: “Thanks.” Every month, I wear workout clothes to Respite because Andrew and Jackson love to run. And on this particular Respite night, we’re a bit short on volunteers, so I’m paired with both. As a result, I get an excellent cardiovascular workout. I always try to interest the boys in the group activities, but after two years of sharing time, I know that it is not realistic to expect to do crafts with them for more than three minutes. Respite is about meeting each child where they are. For Andrew and Jackson, that means plenty of running, with the occasional pocket of solitude. I may not have autism or sensory processing disorder, but I understand the need to take a break. In one such moment, Jackson heads outside, pushing open the church’s double doors. I follow, stopping when he stops, right at the edge of a fenced-in field. He looks up at the night sky. Since Jackson usually repeats a few key phrases, I’m surprised when he launches into a soliloquy I’ve never heard before: “Turn off your flashlights. Get out your telescopes …. See the planets. The stars. The moon. The Milky Way. Wow! Wow! Wow!” Jackson is likely reciting from a book or movie, but I don’t know which one. He glances at me, pauses, then runs through the lines again. Once again, he looks over at me with expectation in his eyes. Not knowing what else to do, I start repeating the words after him. He beams. Together, we chant, “The planets, the stars ...” It feels strange at first, but the awkwardness dissipates almost instantaneously. Soon, we’re looking up at the vast sky and saying, “Wow!”, and it doesn’t seem silly at all. There’s magic in this moment, in the third great prayer. And as I stand with Jackson in the gathering dark, I know that we are blessed.

Caroline Garnet McGraw is the creator of AWishComeClear.com, a blog devoted to helping readers choose love, lose fear, and ﬁnd home. Visit and receive free copies of her three digital books, designed to bring you back to what matters most. Caroline was a featured speaker at TEDxBirminghamSalon in September 2014. An honors graduate of Vassar College, she lives and works in Florence with her husband, Jonathan. Together, they provide websites and communication services for small businesses and nonproﬁts. Visit TheMcGraws.net to learn more.

Caroline Garnet McGraw © Tera Wages

For more information on Shoals Respite, visit their Facebook pages. (Search: BREAKTIME, or SHOALS SPECIAL NEEDS HUB INC.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

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market » By Tara Bullington »

Photos by Patrick Hood

A SLAP ON THE WRIST

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62 »

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64 »

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66 »

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They are your neighbors, your friends, the people you see at the grocery store. You see them at church, or on the streets during First Friday; maybe you serve on a committee with one of them. These people, though, are extraordinary. They are passionate, energetic, and work tirelessly behind the scenes to help make this area so special. They are our Renaissance Award finalists and recipients for 2016, and they are remarkable. Every other year since 2010, No’Ala has asked its readers to tell us about these people, and you have obliged. We only have two rules: the person nominated must be living at the time of nomination, and cannot be a politician. We pass the names along to our previous Renaissance Award recipients, and they choose five category recipients. The top vote-getter is named the Renaissance Person of the Year. This year, we are profiling all 24 of our finalists. This is an exceptional and diverse group, different in many ways from each other, but sharing one important trait: they are making a difference. Take some time to learn more about them, and we think you will agree.

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2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | A RTS AND C ULTURE E DSEL H OLDEN , R ENAISSANCE P ERSON OF THE Y EAR R ECIPIENT , A RTS AND C ULTURE

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The Renaissance Award recipient for Arts and Culture—and the Renaissance Person of the Year—is a familiar face to most in the Shoals. He’s a man who really needs no introduction: Edsel Holden. “If the definition of a Renaissance Person is one who is proficient in a variety of things, Edsel absolutely fits the bill,” said one of his friends. In fact, he has a connection to every category we honor—as a businessman, he was a Vice President at NAFCO and helped it grow to national prominence. In service, Edsel took it upon himself to hold annual concerts as fundraisers to help with the purchase and renovation of the Shoals Theater, and has raised countless dollars to that end. His connection to science and medicine have to do with his three children, whom he and Inez raised and inspired; two are doctors.

Edsel has had a lifelong fascination with music. Born in Decatur, he moved to Florence in high school and finished at Coffee High, where he played trumpet in the marching band. His career took him into business, but his joy has always been music—he was one of the trumpet players in the recording studio who played for Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” for example, and no one has been able to match his community theater roles as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man, among others. He took a leadership role with the W.C. Handy Music Festival, recruiting musicians and entertainers during the early years of that event. After retirement from NAFCO, he began an annual concert series called “Edsel Presents,” in which he showcases music from the Greatest Generation and talent from his multitalented musical friends—all to raise money for worthwhile causes. In fact, even in a year of somewhat challenging health issues, he is planning his next show, to be held at Florence High School’s auditorium in June, to benefit Shoals Scholar Dollars and the Florence Fine Arts Academy (FAFA). It will be memorable!

In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn’t creak.” —Tom Robbins

“He has taught so many of us, through example,” said another friend. “The arts in the Shoals area have been forever impacted by his eﬀorts, through his work with the W.C. Handy Festival, the Zodiac Players, Shoals Community Theatre, and by that amazing voice and his showmanship. He’s a gentleman, he has a huge heart, and I am proud to call him my friend—and my mentor.” And we are proud to call him our Renaissance Person of the Year. He is truly a Renaissance Man.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | A RTS AND C ULTURE D R . I AN L OEPPKY F INALIST , A RTS AND C ULTURE

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Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Dr. Ian Loeppky has been Professor and Director of Choral Activities at the University of North Alabama since the fall of 2003. He is also the founder, artistic director, and conductor of the Florence Camerata (currently celebrating their tenth year). Ian is a member of many state, national, and international music organizations and has worked as a singer, scholar, conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and arranger in the United States and internationally. These are the impressive facts about Ian’s professional life. He and his wife Dana have a beautiful three-year-old daughter, Emma. An avid Winnipeg Jets hockey fan, Ian holds dual citizenship in Canada and the U.S. But to actually begin to know the man and to get a glimpse of his heart, you must see him conduct a choir. Better yet, sing in a choir he is conducting! His ability to communicate the music is amazing. I have sung with the Camerata since the second season. I have taught music and directed choirs since before Ian was born, and I can say with authority that Ian Loeppky is one of the ﬁnest musicians and choral directors I have ever known. I had the privilege of teaching in the UNA Department of Music and Theatre with Ian for eight of my 25 years as an adjunct there. After attending a Collegiate Singers concert in 2004, I wrote a letter to Ian to thank him for the enormous contribution he is making to the lives of our music students and to our community. In the letter I mentioned that as I looked into the faces of the singers, I saw “that total immersion into the music, that love of singing as one body, that true joy…and I heard it.” The letter ended with, “Your love of the music and the students is as obvious as your varied musical talents. It is also quite obvious that the students admire, respect, and love you. Thank you for taking them on the musical journeys they will remember the rest of their lives. We are very fortunate to have you at UNA (and in the Shoals area), and I hope you continue to touch lives here for many years.” And he has. —Linda Young, Owner/Voice Teacher, Young Music Theatre Workshop; Assistant Conductor, Florence Camerata march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | A RTS AND C ULTURE J EFF AND M ICHELLE E UBANKS F INALISTS , A RTS AND C ULTURE

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Among my first tasks as the newly-elected president of the KennedyDouglass Art Center Volunteers was to locate a new chairperson for the annual Arts Alive Festival. The Festival is a highlight of the Shoals cultural calendar, and locating new leadership was no small task. I set about asking people for suggestions; each of those preliminary phone calls and conversations had two names in common: Michelle and Jeff Eubanks. Fortunately for me—and for Arts Alive—the Eubanks agreed to helm the festival. With their enthusiastic Yes, Arts Alive gained two diligent supporters of the arts, and I gained two new friends. Michelle and Jeff brought a renewed energy and an unbridled enthusiasm to Arts Alive, forming a sterling committee of likeminded volunteers, all of whom share their vision of creating a vibrant arts festival that would attract both artists and art-lovers. The Eubanks also attracted a fresh group of new artists, many of whom are personal friends of the couple, who are long-time supporters of outsider art. Michelle and Jeff also re-introduced music to the park, brought in numerous food trucks to the festival, and added what proved to be the very popular children’s tent. Because of their relentless energy, 2015’s Arts Alive was a resounding success. The Eubanks’ youthful optimism, commitment to their community, and genuine love for the arts make them true Renaissance people. —Emily Haltom Olsen, President, Kennedy-Douglass Center Volunteers

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | A RTS AND C ULTURE J ANE F RITH F INALIST , A RTS AND C ULTURE

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Jane Frith is a collector. She accumulates art, animals, people, stories—wonderful stories of her years as a teacher, of artists she’s met, of travels she’s taken. It’s impossible not to be caught up in the excitement of hearing her recount one of her many adventures. Did you know that she’s been on “The Howdy Doody Show” as a child? She has, and she has the photo to prove it. My husband, Jeﬀ, and I count ourselves among her collection. We were just beginning to bring some folk art pieces into our home, and Jane provided histories and details and background that opened up a new world to us. We were hooked. Jeﬀ and I looked forward each year to the art shows Jane would host in her home, and, while there, we learned even more. It fostered in us the passion we now have for folk art and artists, and, I believe, planted the seeds that would grow into our willingness to lead the Arts Alive festival for a two-year period. Teaching is a gift that comes naturally to Jane. She was educated at the University of Alabama, and she spent time in the Tuscaloosa and Florence city school systems. Her students remember a lively, energetic, and fun presence who made learning fun and engaging. Jane has had a life-long love of learning that she says was inspired by her father and spilled over in all aspects of her life. In 2015, Jane fought her way back from a devastating car accident. While she may move about these days on four wheels instead of two legs, the spirit inside Jane isn’t diminished a bit. That delightful woman with a heart for service is right there, leaning forward and telling you the best stories you’ve heard. I guarantee you’ll learn a thing or two and laugh a lot. —Michelle Rupe Eubanks, Co-Chair, Arts Alive march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | A RTS AND C ULTURE B ARBARA B ROACH F INALIST , A RTS AND C ULTURE

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I met Barbara Broach long before I actually remember the meeting itself. As a kindergartner, our class walked to Kennedy-Douglass for a tour of the museums, and I had the honor of sending the letter of thanks after the visit. I have Barbara’s successor, Libby Jordan, to thank for finding the thank-you note after all those years and returning it to me. As an adult, I was able to renew my relationship with Barbara through our work on the annual Arts Alive festival. Her accumulated knowledge of the arts and artists was an invaluable resource to me and Jeff, my husband, who have served as the cochairmen of the festival, as well as to the entire committee. If the dates align, that trip I took with my kindergarten class coincided with Barbara’s very early tenure at Kennedy-Douglass. She took over the buildings after they were willed to the city by Mr. Hiram Kennedy-Douglass, and she immediately set about creating the museum culture for which Florence has become known. She traveled to conferences and lectures; she immersed herself in learning how to operate museums as well as ways to grow them. She was smart about hiring people who knew more than she did, and she made sure all those who entered the doors felt welcomed upon arrival and a little more cultured when they departed. One of Barbara’s best stories about serving as the director of museums for more than 35 years has to do those early days. The house, which couldn’t be considered a museum just yet, was thought to be occupied by the spirit of Mr. Kennedy-Douglass. As she tells it, she walked in that first week on the job and said, “I’m going to need your help to do this, Mr. Kennedy-Douglass. Can I count on you to guide me?” With her storied career behind her, I’d say he did just that. Barbara grew the museum system to include Kennedy-Douglass, the Indian Mound and Museum, the W.C. Handy Museum, and the Rosenbaum Home. That is something for which we can all be thankful and enjoy now and in the years to come. —Michelle Rupe Eubanks, Co-Chair, Arts Alive march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP A LISON S TANFIELD , R ECIPIENT , B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP

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And how things have changed in the past 20 years! In 1995, when Alison began, the tourism budget was $98,000; today it’s well over a million dollars. Operations are now handled from a beautiful, technology-rich Visitor’s Center at McFarland Park, a far cry from the cramped oﬃces at Renaissance Tower. And Alison’s responsibilities grew along with the organization, to include oversight of sports and specialty events, communications, IT, and visitor experiences.

Alison Stanﬁeld is a storyteller, and she’s spent the past 20 years of her life telling the story of the Shoals, beginning as an administrative assistant with Florence-Lauderdale Tourism and working her way up to Director of Operations. Her love of this place has always been evident. During her tenure, Florence-Lauderdale Tourism has won awards, including being named “Tourism Organization of the Year” at the Alabama Governor’s Conference on Tourism in 2015. Alison has won awards herself—for example, Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association named her the “Tourism Professional of the Year” for 2015. Through her work, the entire Shoals area has an increased awareness of the importance of tourism, because “heads in beds” provide economic developments that positively aﬀect everyone who lives here.

“Alison defines energy and grace under pressure,” said one of her admirers. “You’re likely to find her leading a walking tour of downtown Florence, registering fishermen at a huge tournament, or traveling to industry trade shows to promote the Shoals area. Somehow, in between all of that work, she still finds time to work with Zeta Chi, a philanthropic sorority for women, and serve on the Underwood Sports Complex Board of Directors. She and her husband, David, are also parents to two amazing young teenagers.”

I learned the value of hard work by working hard.” —Margaret Mead

In a crowded ﬁeld of business professionals, the Renaissance Award panel chose Alison as the recipient of the 2016 award for Business and Leadership. But if you ask her about her accomplishments, she’s probably going to subtly begin talking about this wonderful place. She’s a storyteller, and her favorite subject is the Shoals.

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2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP C ARMEN AND K AI -U WE E RDMANN F INALIST , B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP

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I met Carmen Erdmann at, of all places, the Birmingham Airport, back in 2005. She’d ﬂown into town to attend the birthday party of a mutual friend, and I collected her at the airport. Carmen and I had never met in person before that night; only a brief phone chat preceded our introduction. Even so, we talked non-stop during the drive to the Shoals. We were old friends, right from the start. A few months later, Carmen returned for another event. This time, she brought her husband, Kai-Uwe. Throughout the evening, Carmen and Kai charmed everyone with stories about art, food, travel, and so much more. Kai brushed me up on my paltry German and Carmen on my rusty Spanish. I learned that they lived under the “Hollywood” sign in Los Angeles, a claim to fame in my humble opinion, and that they were looking to buy land and settle down in the Shoals. Little did I know when we parted that night that within a year the couple would set up permanent camp in the Shoals area. And what energy, enthusiasm, and sheer joy they’ve brought with them! Carmen’s standard greeting is a big hug and a squeaky kiss—if you’re lucky, she’ll also grant you a nickname. I’ve been dubbed “Baby-cakes,” “Darling,” and “Star Shine.” Likewise, Kai approaches everyone with a smile, a handshake, and then a hug. They are the most loyal, caring people you’ll ever have the privilege to meet. Carmen and Kai dreamed of opening Court Street Market for so long. I couldn’t be more proud of them for turning their dream into a reality. It really is a grand achievement, not just for the Erdmanns, but for all of the Shoals. To walk into the Market is to enter their vision; to be surrounded by their good taste, and their warmth. Come to think of it, Court Street Market is Carmen and Kai, in brick and mortar form: lively, unique, welcoming, metropolitan and yet down-to-earth, and so very real. I can’t wait for a glass of wine and a wonderful chat with them soon. —Keith Sims, CEO/Creative Director, Wellspring Advertising march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP T ERA AND W ES W AGES F INALISTS , B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP

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Someone once asked me, “Which of you is smarter—you or your sister, Tera?” Once I recovered from being asked such a ridiculous question, I answered without hesitation, “I don’t know, but Tera’s classier.” And in fact, Tera Wages is the classiest person I know. She and her husband Wes embody adventure, creativity, and ingenuity. Even more than that, they are people of integrity and incredible kindness. I’ve watched the Wages grow up and build a life together, then build a business and tackle the challenges of parenthood. They’ve handled incredible obstacles and stressors—like having thousands of dollars of equipment stolen—with humor, grace, and dignity beyond their years. It’s such a privilege to watch them grow and support one another as they each achieve their dreams. Wes brings his leadership and skill to every situation he encounters. That can be a boisterous family dinner, a brainstorming team meeting, or an intense three day event leading a team of 18 videographers. His calm and creative presence is something I’m always grateful to experience—and I’m always glad that I get to be a part of his creative process. In our family we joke that Tera is the “most.” As the older sister, in the past I’ve accused her of being the “most demanding” and the “most competitive.” However, I also recognize that Tera is the most dedicated, most determined, and most caring person I know. I’m lucky to work with the Wages, but even more than that I’m so very fortunate to call them family. —Jolie Guillebeau, Artist, Teacher, Perpetual Learner

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP D ANNY H ARDEMAN F INALIST , B USINESS AND L EADERSHIP

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

No one wants to be the first to try a new idea—but Danny Hardeman has a great sense of timing. He also has a sense for what people are looking for, according to Sheffield Mayor Ian Sanford. “Danny is a Sheffield guy who came back home to make a difference,” he said. “He’s not the only person involved in revitalizing downtown Sheffield, but he certainly took the lead, and he got things started.” Danny had an idea that people wanted to live downtown, and he developed upstairs apartments on Montgomery Avenue across from Lola’s Gifts and Flowers as a test to see how it would work. With a gathering place downstairs—Second and 13, a sports bar—and large, luxury apartments upstairs, It worked very well. Today, he has revitalized an entire series of downtown buildings, with retail at street level and residences upstairs, and a movement has begun as others, such as LaQuita Logan and Frank Vafinis, have brought new businesses and renewed interest in downtown Sheffield. Logan’s shop, Zoey Belle’s, in fact, is one of the first new buildings in the downtown area in three decades or more. “Danny has a sense of what will work, he’s willing to take a chance, and everything he does is so...right,” said the mayor. “He’s always a step ahead, and he does excellent work. He has been a huge boost to Sheffield.” Appropriate that the man responsible for beginning a Renaissance in downtown Sheffield would also be nominated for a Renaissance award. —Ian Sanford, Mayor, Sheffield, Alabama

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY B ETH H OWARD AND K RISTA M ANCHESTER R ECIPIENTS , S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Both Beth and Krista will quickly tell you that they are not responsible for this solution by themselves. Countless people have stepped forward to oﬀer assistance, including an eclectic mix of churches from a wide variety of denominations, who are actually the foot soldiers. Room in the Inn has an intake center on Poplar Street where people in need present themselves, and the churches who have volunteered for that night pick up the people and take them to their facilities to provide them a warm meal and a warm place to lay their heads. This organization has become truly community-wide, with hundreds of people involved in the care of those who otherwise would suﬀer, especially on the coldest of winter nights.

One very cold night, when Beth Howard was walking her dog, she began thinking about the people in our area who don’t have a warm place to lay their heads. Tucking her children into bed that night, she realized this was something she had to do something about, and an idea was born. She emailed and texted a group of friends and asked them to gather informally to discuss the needs of the community and see if a solution would present itself.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” —Audrey Hepburn

Krista and Beth will tell you that their organization is not in existence to solve homelessness—that’s a much larger problem, and much more complex. Instead, it’s just about caring for people we see on the streets, people we sometimes overlook, people with no place to go on cold nights. It’s faith in action. That’s why Beth Howard and Krista Manchester were selected to be recipients of the 2016 Renaissance Award for Faith and Spirituality.

She and Krista Manchester met at that organizational meeting, and joined forces to do something about it. The result was Room in the Inn, a multi-denominational eﬀort among area churches to feed homeless and food-insecure individuals and families, and to provide safe, warm overnight accommodations during the winter months.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY M ELISSA H ARGETT F INALIST , S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Melissa Hargett’s height (the former runway model is 5’12”) meant she was always placed ﬁrst in line at school or named group leader, so the other children could follow her. So it’s no wonder that, as an adult, Melissa founded a charity to help underprivileged people, so they too could follow her example. A Shoals native, Melissa returned home from Florida in October 2012 to care for her mother, Doris. After her mother’s passing, Melissa decided to stay in her hometown and give back to the community by creating Shoals Area Families Foundation, which assists temporarily impoverished families with desperately needed ﬁnancial assistance. Families requesting assistance sign up for work at Melissa’s Ups and Downs thrift store as part of an innovative program that provides her clients with training as well as opportunities for giving back to the community. Following in her mom’s footsteps, Melissa also teaches etiquette classes, further improving her clients’ chances for employment. The program increases self-esteem, demonstrating that there is no better feeling than helping others. Melissa’s Shoals Area Families thrift store is located at 602 Veterans Drive in Florence. The 6,000 square foot building accepts donations, processes items, and sells merchandise, all in the name of helping impoverished Shoals families. Melissa also works tirelessly throughout the holidays to make sure any needy child in the Shoals has a great Christmas. The Shoals is a much better place with Melissa Hargett back home. —Dede Liles Srygley, Marketing Designer/KISS FM/ Blueleaf Media, LLC

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2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY C AMILLE B ENNETT F INALIST , S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Steady streams of Shoals residents seek spiritual guidance from this fount of local wisdom. Camille Bennett was raised as a spiritual seeker and has not only continued that legacy with her two sons, but with an entire Shoals congregation. Her duty as a minister extends well beyond the walls of Living Spirit. She is continually pouring herself into the community with helping hands and healing words. Just over a year ago, I called Camille from work one day after experiencing a crippling feeling of helplessness over my guilt and privilege as a white lady. Camille and I met for coﬀee and discussed race, privilege, class, and feminism. A conversation that could potentially be loaded with unease was extremely comfortable and inspirational. She listened and oriented her delivery in a way that tapped my soul. That day we decided to have a program at Florence-Lauderdale Public Library. Camille presented the documentary Freedom Riders. Afterward, a group of mixed generations stayed to talk about their understanding and memories of the Civil Rights movement. It was one of the most meaningful programs I’ve attended. Camille founded the organization Say Something Shoals and has released two videos and held many forums on race relationships in the South. There, scholars and thought leaders provide perspective and historical background to our current racial and political climate. Camille drives these diﬃcult discussions with grace and allowance while guiding everyone away from fault or blame toward remedy. I think of Camille as a freedom rider. One by one we join her, until one day, we all are onboard. —Christi Britten, Program Coordinator, City of Florence Art Museums

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY H ERO L E F INALIST , S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Hard-working and brave. Funny and humble. Those are just a few words to describe the aptly named Hero Le. The very personification of generosity, Hero uses the fortitude he’s developed over the course of his life to help those who cannot help themselves. Born in Vietnam, and stricken with polio at the age of one, Hero’s family immigrated to the U.S. when Hero was a toddler. The death of his beloved father prompted Hero to search for an outlet for his grief; that search led him to his first rescue dog, Merlin. While Merlin marked the end of one journey, his adoption marked the beginning of another, much longer one. Hero set out on a mission to document through video the lives and needs of abused and unwanted animals. Tablet in hand, Hero films short pieces for the web, educating the public about animal cruelty and irresponsible pet ownership. Undaunted by a task many would find difficult even without a disability, Hero has helped place untold numbers of animals in forever homes. Hero is never without his trusty tablet, tirelessly recording, questioning, and publicizing the plight of neglected and unwanted animals, with the sole reward of knowing his work saves lives. Hero represents unconditional love and a true regard for all life as worthy of respect. —Anu Fields, Founder, Distemper Don’t Kill

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY V ICKI G OLDSTON F INALIST , S ERVICE AND S PIRITUALITY

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

My essence, my soul, my core, my path is forever illuminated by the love of my mother; she is among the most influential people in my life. Mom received her ordination and became a minister in 1998. In 2001, my father, the late Bob Goldston, founded Living Spirit Church, where Mom served as lead pastor. In 2007, I answered my own calling and became her assistant. During that time, Mom molded me, tempered my youthful fire, and taught me how to serve and walk in humility. She critiqued my sermons for years, polished me like a diamond, and never, ever stopped encouraging me, even on dark days when I wanted to quit. Mom always said, “Mimi, Living Spirit is for you. One day I will pass the torch.” In 2012 she did just that, and I became minister of Living Spirit and Mom became Pastor Emeritus. A teacher to her core, Mom also imparted her love of culture and encouraged me to take a closer look at my history and the Civil Rights Movement. I listened and began to research and study the movement. I was so inspired that in December 2014 I started the nonprofit organization Say Something whose mission is to unify, heal, educate, and empower our community to realize social justice through non-violent communication about racism. Once again my mom’s guidance was instrumental! Mom now publishes the fabulous online magazine Garden Spices, where she promotes diversity through articles on art and culture contributed by people worldwide. It is truly remarkable that at age 64 she started a beautifully executed, technology-based project, continuing a lifelong trend of defying stereotypes and social norms. Vicki Goldston has poured into me and countless others by simply being. She really can’t help it—her spirit is infectious; it penetrates the heart.

The Athenian Players of Athens State University present

Sh l k H l es es by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle April 14 - 16 at 7:30pm April 17 at 2pm April 21-23 at 7:30pm

McCandless Hall Athens State University Tickets at the door

www.athens.edu/athenianplayers

A four-act play written by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based on Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. Directed by Dr. Hugh K. Long

—Camille Bennett

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | E DUCATION D ARLENE F REEMON R ECIPIENT , E DUCATION

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

perfect contentment and heartrending joy, ﬁrst through literature and now in reality. For 22 years I had a quote on my classroom wall by Thomas Huxley: “Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.” Darlene’s creative writing courses have inspired a generation of writers, and her safe classroom was often a refuge for students who needed it most. She does what she experienced herself as a student: she uses “carrots and sticks” to push her students to succeed, and uses her vision to inspire them to experience the world.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” —Albert Einstein

If you have a child who went to Florence High School (or Bradshaw, before its creation), the recipient of the Renaissance Award for Education needs no explanation. Out of a crowd of distinguished and truly wonderful people, Darlene Montgomery Freemon was the panels’ choice for the award, for one reason in particular: they had children whom Darlene impacted, in some way.

As an aside, a note about an appropriate event for a Renaissance Award recipient. Darlene and her husband, Richard, were married in 2004 in a Renaissance-styled ceremony. Richard wore a full suit of armor, and Darlene wore a 14th century Italian gown. They renewed their vows in 2015 as King and Queen of the Alabama Renaissance Faire—very ﬁtting.

In her own words, “I was the child of functionally illiterate parents who never traveled more than 250 miles from home. They loved me, but did not expect me to ﬁnish high school,” she said. “I credit the teachers in my life for using both ‘carrots and sticks’ to push me to succeed. I also credit the teachers for giving me the vision to travel to the 26 countries I have visited. I especially credit the teachers for helping me to become a person who is capable of enjoying moments of

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | E DUCATION J ERRY F OSTER F INALIST , E DUCATION

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

TRUST Our Reputation, Our Promise, Our Name.

Ryan Moore, First Vice President

Chip Hibbett, City President

1131 Wills Avenue, Florence • (256) 766.6300 • peoplestrustbk.com A mentor to young artists for over 36 years, Jerry Foster has indelibly impacted the lives and successes of his students. His career, diversified by leadership in art, band, and chorus, has encouraged children of all ages to challenge their potential in the fine arts. During his 14 years as Art Instructor to Florence City Schools, Mr. Foster has served a pivotal role in the development of FAFA, the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, which has created a number of new opportunities for students seeking to pursue artistic careers. Jerry Foster refers to his art classes as “Life 101,” and in my two years under his instruction, I had little cause to wonder why. He accommodated muralists, sculptors, cartoon artists, any track the student chose—but the life lessons were not optional. Pushing his glasses back on his nose to examine the piece before you, Mr. Foster would tell you what you did (or didn’t) want to hear. There was no need to apologize if your paint was incorrectly mixed, or if your drawing had gotten lazy. It was simply assumed that you would fix it. Immediately. In his classroom, art became less of an intangible natural phenomenon and more of an insistence on hard work and practice. The magic of a well-executed sketch, a creative rendering of a hand or apple or feather, was accessible to any student with the patience to create it. Mr. Foster granted artistic liberty as it was earned. Slowly the sketches gave way to photography portfolios, high-fashion dresses, and large-scale sculptures. The successes were rewarded, displayed with honor before the class. But not before a more challenging project had taken its place on the drawing board. A network of self-proclaimed “Foster kids” have sprung from Jerry Foster’s classroom, many of them professional and part-time artists. It was no rare thing to see a graduate return to the classroom after years of work, current project in tow. If we didn’t know it then, we know it now: the best of us will always be good for another lesson. —Sara Kachelman, Student, The University of the South

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | E DUCATION D R . M ICHAEL P RETES F INALIST , E DUCATION

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

I met Mike while working toward my bachelor’s degree in geography at UNA. While those early classes weren’t particularly difficult, the creative way Dr. Pretes engaged with his students managed to make them impactful. He shared stories and anecdotes from his own experiences, and his lectures always included personal photos from his travels—we rarely discussed a locale Mike had not visited! In addition to his stellar work within the classroom, Mike is also committed to educational outreach beyond UNA’s lecture halls. His efforts in the wider community are admirable, including regular visits to area high schools and elementary schools, retirement communities, and professional groups, where he shares his enthusiasm for geography with students and adults alike. Dr. Pretes has made other, more indirect, contributions to our local area, too, and I serve as an anecdotal example of this. After receiving my B.S., Mike encouraged me to pursue a master’s degree, and to do so outside of my regional comfort zone. Because of his encouragement I went on to receive a M.A. from the University of Wyoming, and I am now seeking a PhD at UNC-Greensboro. Without Mike, I am certain I would not have accomplished nearly as much. And I’m hardly the only example of Mike’s inspiration. Many of Mike’s students can trace their educational success to Mike’s mentoring. Dr. Pretes has always encouraged local students to expand their horizons and conduct research. I have no doubt many UNA geography students’ first experience outside of the South is somehow connected to Dr. Pretes, either via his field courses or his constant encouragement for students to go out and see the world. It seems like every year Mike brings new undergraduate students to academic conferences to get them involved. The experiences of local students outside of the area broadens our cultural horizons. Without those experiences, we likely wouldn’t fully appreciate the charm and warmth of the Shoals. I hope to one day bring my training home and invest it in the Shoals just as Mike has done. —Matthew Balentine, Teaching Assistant, PhD Student

News, classical music and more 88.7 FM Muscle Shoals • 100.7 FM Huntsville www.apr.org march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | E DUCATION D R . J EFFREY B IBBEE F INALIST , E DUCATION

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

I had the good fortune to be introduced to UNA’s campus and its people by Jeffrey Bibbee, during a campus tour, back in 2012. If you’ve never had the pleasure of a Jeffrey Bibbee-led UNA tour, you’ve missed a real treat. Jeffrey’s knowledge of UNA is deep and wide. His entertaining, informative stories about the campus’s history and its roster of fascinating characters are interrupted by shouts of “Hello, Dr. Bibbee!” from passing students rushing between classes. And there are a lot of those interruptions; Jeffrey seems to know everyone. Once you get to know him, it’s really no wonder he’s so well known, or well liked. As a faculty member and current head of the history department, Jeffrey makes himself available for numerous committees and university events, providing support and faculty advocacy, both within the department and the university as a whole. Jeffrey’s dedication to the wider community—as a board member, Florence-Lauderdale Library lecturer, or Room in the Inn volunteer—is a natural extension of his professional commitments on campus. But Jeffrey’s love for his profession becomes truly evident in his dedication to the lives of his students, both as scholars and human beings. From the moment students arrive on campus, Jeffrey is there, welcoming them to their new dorm homes and encouraging participation in campus activities, like Step Sing or student safety programs. In the classroom, Jeffrey motivates and engages students with a combination of a showman’s wit and a scholar’s knowledge of history. In leading study abroad trips to London, Jeffrey introduces students, many of whom have never left the United States (or even the South), to a broader world of knowledge and humanity. Jeffrey is a dedicated educator and citizen. We are truly lucky that he has chosen the Shoals and UNA as his home. —Dr. Carrie Barske, Assistant Professor of Public History, UNA

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | E DUCATION D R . T IFFANY B OSTIC -B ROWN AND D R . T ERRANCE B ROWN F INALISTS , E DUCATION

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

From the moment Drs. Tiffany Bostic-Brown and Terrance Brown arrived on campus, their students have been the beneficiaries by their professionalism, generosity, and encouragement; they are powerhouse members of the UNA music faculty. Terrance and Tiffany graciously allowed me to be a member of the ever-growing opera program at UNA, and I have learned so much from the experience. I must admit, though, that arriving for my first opera rehearsal as the new kid on the block was quite intimidating. The group had just performed its biggest show, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which I watched in awe. I wanted so badly to be a part of the show—performing in a UNA production had been on my wish-list since freshman year. Terrance and Tiffany welcomed me with open arms and smiles. They surely knew how intimidated and scared I was of this daunting task, but they put me at ease with their professionalism, kind words, and confidence. And, despite my small role, each of them showed me the same attention as the main cast, and in the process, made me feel valued. As a former student, I can attest to the fact that were it not for their input and knowledge, I absolutely would not have the desire to be the type of performer or teacher I am today. —Nick Murphy, Music Teacher, St. Joseph Regional Catholic School

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S CIENCE AND M EDICINE D R . A JIT AND D IVYA N AIDU R ECIPIENTS , S CIENCE AND M EDICINE

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Cardiology because of the ability to control bleeding, and is used widely throughout the Shoals. And that’s just one of the innovations Dr. Naidu has introduced to the area.

Dr. Ajit Naidu is a cardiologist, raised an educated in Chicago, the son of a prominent pediatric neurosurgeon (his mother), and is a man who has brought innovative techniques to the Shoals for the treatment and control of heart disease and vascular issues. The list of those procedures is long, technical, and intimidatingsounding—“Ajit was doing radial approach cardiac catheterizations when he came in 2007,” said one of his friends, for example. “The technique at that time (in which a cath procedure is performed by going through a vein in the wrist, rather than through the chest or leg) was in its infancy, but at the Cardiovascular Institute of the South, in Houma, Louisiana, where he trained, the technique was considered usual and customary.” The procedure is now considered to be the preferred technique by the National Guidelines of the American College of

Interestingly—and sadly—Dr. Naidu’s brother, Joseph, died of an undiscovered cardiac problem, and Ajit and his wife, Divya, were determined to turn tragedy for their family into help for others. Divya has been instrumental in creating the Joseph Naidu Foundation, which provides free screenings of all types to residents of the Shoals area, in hopes that discovery of undiagnosed problems can lead to treatment and prevent the fate of Joseph Naidu. Divya is also very involved in the Shoals Community Clinic, a medical facility located on site in the middle of a subsidized housing neighborhood on Florence’s west side, which provides free medical and dental care for those who otherwise couldn’t aﬀord it.

Cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.” —Hippocrates

Another admirer said, “The Naidus have a wonderful energy of possibility about them. You grow up hearing the old axiom that ‘you can do whatever you set your mind to,’ and the Naidu’s make me believe it. From Dr. Naidu, I have learned to keep striving toward my goals; from Divya, I have learned intelligent compassion.” In big ways and small ways, the Naidus make a huge diﬀerence in the health of our community, and for that, we congratulate them for being named the 2016 Renaissance Award recipients for Science and Medicine.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S CIENCE AND M EDICINE L IZ D AVID , RN, NTP F INALIST , S CIENCE AND M EDICINE

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Liz Davis’s gentle spirit and kind smile are indicative of her philosophy of health and wellness. Liz has guided mothers, fathers, business leaders, and farmers into a life of awareness and community sharing. When Liz and Collins Davis moved to the Shoals and opened Bluewater Creek Farm to the public, the natural cycle of seasonal, local eating emerged as a priority for our community. Yes, she is a registered nurse and nutritional therapist, but her hands-on understanding of food and how our bodies process nutrients is unparalleled because she is also a farmer. Beyond that, she is also a mother. It may seem as though she has a lot to juggle, but Liz is all about balance. She goes above and beyond to educate families and inspire them to “follow their gut.” Instructional sessions on fermented veggies, family nutrition, juicing, and more have set many families on track with new approaches to wellness. Whether it is a tour on the farm, a workshop, or a personal consultation, Liz has set many on the path to a more accountable, sustainable lifestyle that feeds emotional and physical well-being. It’s a romantic notion to imagine living a holistic life on a farm with a family. Liz turns that romance into sacred hard work with achievable outcomes. —Christi Britten, Program Coordinator, City of Florence Art Museums

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2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S CIENCE AND M EDICINE D R . K AREN L ANDERS F INALIST , S CIENCE AND M EDICINE

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

This year marks Dr. Karen Landers’ thirty-ninth as a pediatrician. As the Assistant State Health Officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health, she advocates tirelessly for childhood vaccinations and disease control—specifically, eradicating tuberculosis— and in so doing, protects the health of all our fellow citizens. She has also made considerable strides in the promotion of the state’s Women, Infants, and Children’s (WIC) program. It is humbling to witness someone so fulfilled in her work that she never notices the clock. “Dr. K,” as many affectionately call her, works disease outbreaks late into the night and transports patients to Children’s Hospital, sometimes in her own car. Even after everyone else has gone home, she remains, ensuring every last patient has been tested, vaccinated, and educated. And her patients appreciate her dedication. One of the finest compliments that can be paid to any of us is to be remembered fondly. Countless times during her career, patients have returned to reminisce fondly about their experiences with her as their doctor. Dr. Karen Landers’ vision of protecting the public’s health is best expressed through her motto, “Each patient is an individual; the correct treatment of one improves the lives of all.” Her expansive mission has helped Public Health Area 1 stand out as one of the best teams in the state. She is a legend in her own right, as her resilience, determination, and enthusiasm for her trade continue to make a positive impact on the well-being of all citizens in Alabama. —Faith Landers Woods, Protocol and Event Consultant

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2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S CIENCE AND M EDICINE D R . A MIT R OY F INALIST , S CIENCE AND M EDICINE

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Dr. Amit Roy has been described by his co-workers as intelligent, visionary…and kind. A chemical engineer by training, Dr. Roy came to IFDC in 1978 and was immediately taken by the organization’s capacity to change the world. In his words, “Our mission is to alleviate hunger and poverty around the world, and specifically for IFDC to develop new and improved nutrition projects and technologies.” Dr. Roy began his chemical engineering training at the Indian Institute of Technology, and in India he saw hungry people every day. In the mid-1960s, India was in the middle of a severe drought, and farmers left their fields to find work in the cities. There were starving people in the streets, and that made a lasting impression on Roy; he decided to focus his life’s work on alleviating that need. Early in his career, a member of the IFDC Board of Directors said something to him that he never forgot: “Remember, Amit, it’s all about people. Whatever you do, always keep this in mind.” That fueled Dr. Roy’s passion and commitment, and it was something he never forgot. Sure, IFDC is about helping teach people how to feed themselves—but it’s more than that. It’s about helping people thrive. Upon his retirement, IFDC employees (and there are more than 800 of them) put together their thoughts as they bade Dr. Roy farewell. Your vision, combined with an entrepreneurial spirit and practical sense of how to make things happen, have enabled IFDC to survive in difficult times and to evolve and grow far beyond what its founders could have imagined. Thousands of agroinput dealers in Africa and Eurasia are better equipped to serve hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers, thanks to your leadership and the dedicated team. —Dan Waterman, Retired Director of International Training, IFDC

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

2016 R ENAISSANCE A WARDS | S CIENCE AND M EDICINE J AN H ANNAH , RN, BSN F INALIST , S CIENCE AND M EDICINE

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Academic Excellence in a New Location

She has always been the kind of person who, if I called about my mom’s chest pain or my daughter’s broken arm, would answer the phone and help, even if it meant I found myself in the emergency room with a loved one. That’s who Jan Hannah is; it’s what she does, and she would want me and my loved ones to have the kind of care she would expect to receive. Thankfully, for me as well as for our community, she’s the nurse manager at the Shoals Hospital Emergency Department, and, although I’m a nurse, too, I know that Jan is right there, overseeing the people and families who need her the most at what is often their most diﬃcult time. And let me tell you: Jan is dedicated, often staying later and arriving earlier if it means making sure a particular patient is taken care of to her satisfaction. We completed our nursing degrees together at the University of North Alabama and, even then, what seems like a lifetime ago, she was helping her fellow students, always going the extra mile. She wanted to learn everything she could in order to be the best nurse she could be, and it’s one of the reasons I would trust her with my life, and the lives of my family members, today. Not only is Jan dedicated, but she’s compassionate, deeply compassionate. She cares for others in a way that you don’t often see in today’s society. I suppose that goes back to always answering the call. Sometimes, as when I’m on the other end of the line, it means she’s answering her cell phone in order to respond to my questions. At the hospital, it might mean she’s answering an overhead page, running down the hallways or up the stairs in order to respond to the need. Regardless, Jan’s dedication and compassion for her patients and her role at Shoals Hospital can’t be understated. It’s one of the many reasons I’m proud to call her friend and co-worker. —Beth Loften, RN, CQO, Shoals Hospital

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

Come grow with us! Riverhill School will break ground this summer on a new building in a new location on Darby Drive in Florence. We’re planning to be in our new school in the Fall of 2017. This new 32,000 square foot facility will position us to grow and continue to provide academic excellence - in a new place. Watch for more announcements concerning our new venture. If you’re interested in academic excellence for your children, we’re enrolling now for Fall of 2016. Contact Mary Jane Fowler at 256-764-8200 or visit www.RiverhillSchool.org.

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

Late last year, No’Ala began a serial story about Eleanor, the woman who murdered her husband and asked her hairdresser and his partner to help bury him in the backyard. Each month, Shoals area writes have helped us tell this bizarre and interesting tale; last month, Sarah Gaede told us about Eleanor’s four other husbands and gave us a peek inside her background to help us understand the circumstances that shaped her. Through the words of 12 Shoals-area writers, we’ll continue to tell this tale, one chapter per issue, until you know these Southern characters as if you were related to them. If you missed the first four installments, well, bless your heart—just go to www.noalastudios.com and get caught up, now, you hear? They say revenge is a dish best served cold. In this installment, Debra Dombrowski Hendrix tells us a tale of a loyal friend and a wickedly clever plan for revenge, served boiling hot. Please remember that this is a work of fiction and does not represent actual people, living or dead (although truth can be stranger than fiction). Enjoy!

a Favor for Eleanor Chapter Five: Ida by debra dombrowski hendrix » illustrations by rowan finnegan

Eleanor lay on a narrow mattress and listened to the distant rumble of thunder. Whenever lightning lit the room around her and bounced off the stark walls, she was reminded of Wuthering Heights. In the black and white version of the movie, a bereft Heathcliff looks down on Cathy’s remains, which are sprawled upon a pile of pillows, and begs her to haunt him. “That Lawrence Olivier certainly was a handsome man,” Eleanor said to herself, stretching. “I bet he would have made a fine husband.” Her mood shifted when she stretched a bit too far and nearly fell from the bed. “He would have been a better husband, at least, than the five good-for-nothing scoundrels I did marry.” She flinched as the storm broke and rain slapped at the security glass in the window. “And I am sure he was a more honorable man than those backstabbing hairdressers, Tommy and Randy, who called attention to my predicament.” Rolling onto her back with a groan, the one-sided conversation devolved into a mumble, “To think I was loyal to them for years…decades. For nearly 20 years I didn’t let another beautician touch me.” Eleanor obsessively smoothed lank, dirty hair away from her face. “But what happened when I ask for one small favor and a bit of loyalty in return? The little squealers ratted me out to the police. I only asked them to dig a hole…and help me roll the body into it.” Concluding her monologue she muttered, “I’ll teach them to turn their backs on true-blue customers.” The following day dawned brightly across the River City and as Tommy and Randy made their way to the salon, they took note of the damage done during the night. At several points along the route they were forced to navigate around broken tree limbs, loosened roof shingles, and runaway trash bins. “I’ll be surprised if any of our clients make it in this morning,” said Tommy, anticipating a slow day.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter Five: Ida

Randy snorted, “You must be joking. Today is Friday and no one I know is going to start the weekend, much less go to church on Sunday, with unwashed hair.” Sure enough, as they rounded the corner they spied Miss Ida Rasch seated on the bench outside their shop, The Mane Event. As usual, Ida’s ancient blue handbag was parked in her lap, her ankles were crossed modestly, and her sensible shoes dangled several inches above the pavement. “You’re right on time as always, Miss Ida!” Randy crowed, as he unlocked the door and held it open for the grandmotherly figure. “Thank you, dear. That’s more than I can say for you this morning,” Ida replied as she made her way to the coat rack. Turning back to the men she asked, “I hate to be a bother but would it be possible for you to get me a small cup of coffee?” “Yes, ma’am!” Tommy and Randy said in unison and stepped into the storeroom to start the coffeemaker and ready themselves for the day. They were confident Ida—and her everpresent handbag—would greet incoming customers. Sure enough, when they returned wearing black smocks and carrying steaming mugs, they found she had seated herself at the first sink and was chatting with Louisa “The Mouth of the South” Parker. When everyone was settled, Tommy lowered Ida’s head into the bowl and pumped out a generous amount of heavily-scented jasmine shampoo. During the course of any given day, Randy could tell what time it was based on the location of particular ladies around the salon. If Ida was in his chair, Louisa Parker was at the second sink—today waiting for a perm—and Lily Herbert Peach was leafing through an issue of Cosmo, waiting for him, it must be around 9:00 on a Tuesday or Friday morning. The morning progressed as expected until 9:46. That was when disaster struck. Today everyone was in his or her place: Tommy was locking down Miss Ida’s coif using a secret formula spray the ladies were sure, but did not care, contained Elmer’s glue. Lily was seated at the dryer in the corner and Louisa sat in Randy’s chair while he rolled her hair and squirted it with sulfurous permanent solution. The exception to this normal scene was that Louisa and Randy were screaming red, bloody murder. The feral shrieking scared the bottle of spray right out of Tommy’s hand. He and Miss Ida locked eyes in the mirror for a split second before Tommy kicked the bottle to the side and scurried to the other man’s station. The remaining patrons of The Mane Event made their way over at a less hasty pace. At Randy’s booth they found Louisa seated with

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

the hem of her cape balled in her fists and Randy who stood holding great broken clumps of Louisa’s hair. “Heaven have mercy!” Tommy gasped before stepping to the side in an attempt to block the view of the other clients. Randy stopped screaming but stood stock still, staring at the mess tangled between his fingers. Predictably, Louisa’s hysterics continued unabated. “My hair! My ha-ir! Randy you devil, you Satanist, what have you done to my hair?” Louisa spun the chair away from the mirror and screamed directly at the crown of Randy’s bowed head, “Fix it! Fix this! You will fix this!” Tommy had never witnessed such upheaval in the salon. It was almost as shocking as the gruesome scene at Miss Eleanor’s house earlier in the year when they discovered her husband’s long dead body. The memory made him shiver. Randy finally looked up at Tommy, confused. “I don’t know how this happened,” he said as a roller broke away and fell from the nape of Louisa’s neck. “I just don’t know how this could have happened.” In due course Ida was sent home with a bribe and a request, “Today is free of charge, of course, and we would appreciate it if you didn’t mention what you saw to any of your friends.” Tommy then mechanically brushed out Lily’s lovely tresses and set her do with a fresh bottle of glue-spray while Randy tried to calm Louisa and salvage what was left of her hair. Afterward he called local hairdresser friends to farm out the day’s remaining customers. Saturday appointments were cancelled “due to contagious illness,” which seemed less horrible than the truth. A sleepless Sunday and manic Monday passed as Tommy and Randy disposed of and replaced every hair product in the salon, and washed every instrument in an attempt to cleanse the shop of whatever had caused Louisa’s hair to disintegrate like cotton candy in the rain. On Tuesday Tommy and Randy arrived back at the shop and checked the answering machine. Its light flashed with six cancelled appointments. “It could be worse,” Tommy tried to remain optimistic, “all 12 of today’s ladies could have made their excuses. You can be sure Louisa called everyone she knows and badmouthed us.” Thinking for a moment he added, “She probably put an announcement in the church bulletin.” “Oh, be serious,” Randy countered, pouring them each a cup of coffee. “She is far too vain to reveal the real reason for her new pixie-style hairdo.” “That may be true but you can bet she told her nearest and dearest we ruined her life. I just worry about what,” Tommy

stopped when the little silver bell on the door rang and Miss Ida entered. He completed the thought ght in a stage whisper, “I just wonder what this will mean for the he rest of our clientele.” The men straightened as Ida approached, ached, “Good morning, boys!” she chirped, bright as a cardinal nal in a red trench coat. “Mighty fine day we’re having, don’t you agree?” “Yes, Miss Ida,” intoned Tommy. “Indeed, Miss Ida!” sang Randy, a bit off key. Removing her coat and replacing the blue handbag in the crook of her elbow she asked, “I don’t suppose you u boys could get a thirsty customer a hot cup of coffee, could you?” “Well, of course we can,” replied Randy, moving toward the back room. When he disappeared behind the curtain Ida asked Tommy, “Is the pot fresh?” “I’ll ask Randy to brew a new one before he runs errands.” Turning to smile at the tiny woman Tommy said, “and let me get you a few of those little almond crescent cookies you like so much.” “There’s a good fellow.” Ida reached out and patted his arm maternally. Then he, too, disappeared leaving Ida on her own. When Randy left for the post office the shop grew quiet. Tommy was lost in jasmine-scented thought while he cared for the only client of the morning. After a while Ida broke the silence and asked, “Whatever happened to your assistant, Theresa?” “You’ll never believe it,” Tommy said, coming back to life and warming up to a juicy story. “Do you remember that barge captain boyfriend of hers? It turns out he’s from new money—the recycling business. We used to call them junkyards,” he paused to rinse copious lather from the bowl of the first sink. “His brother created some kind of computer program for salvage yards and made a fortune. Anyway, the brother was killed in a tragic boating accident—bass boat meets barge, ironically — and left all his money to his next of kin: Theresa’s boyfriend.” “Well, I never,” Ida said from under a white towel. Tommy helped her return to an upright position. “Yes, indeed,” Tommy replied, turning wistful. “Right now he and Theresa are living the high life down in Destin.”

“Well, I never,” she repeated peeking out from under the towel and looking up at Tommy. Catching his eye she said, “It just goes to show, one never really knows a person’s whole story.” “Yes, ma’am, it does indeed,” the thought of Eleanor’s escapades appeared, uninvited. “I know that only too well.” Randy returned triumphant with Doreen Glover on his arm. Ecstatic that she kept her appointment Randy treated her like a prize of war and made to escort her all the way to his booth. As they marched past, Doreen recognized Ida’s voice and stopped, peeking over the half-wall separating Tommy’s cubicle from the common area. Doreen smiled at Ida, whom she had not seen in months, and greeted her formally. Ida return the kindness by asking, “How is your little Douglas, dear?” Doreen’s smile faltered and her eyes grew sad. “Oh, he’s dealing with it in his own way, and thrown himself into his music,” she replied. “The little man spent all his birthday money on a new microphone and wanted nothing more than to show it oﬀ to his favorite sitter.” Allowing Randy to steer her into his chair she raised her voice, “He misses Ms. Eleanor but he is getting by. Thank you for asking.” With her hair in rollers, Ida walked over to Doreen, “Douglas is a handsome little towheaded boy. Naturally fair like his pretty mama.” Reaching into her handbag, she came out with an entire bag of butterscotch candies. Extracting a cellophane disc she pressed it into Doreen’s hand.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter Five: Ida

A sleepless Sunday and manic Monday passed as Tommy and Randy disposed of and replaced every hair product in the salon, and washed every instrument in an attempt to cleanse the shop of whatever had caused Louisa’s hair to disintegrate like cotton candy in the rain.

Doreen wondered about the strange statement but dismissed it as a quirk of the elderly. An hour later she didn’t remember the conversation at all as she sat, dumbfounded, staring into the mirror at her unintentionally sky blue hair. By the following Friday all but four Mane Event clients cancelled their appointments. Ida was the only remaining semiweekly customer. Seated snugly in Tommy’s chair she was at the center of his attention. Even Randy seemed to have deserted the salon. Empty cups littered the counter and Tommy, normally solicitous to an extreme, failed to offer Ida something to drink. Unprovoked she announced, “No coffee today, dear, I have had my fill.” Tommy went through the motions of combining and rolling, drying and unrolling her hair. “I just don’t understand it,” he said, finally raising the topic. “How could our secret recipe spray have turned Doreen’s hair blue?” “For Douglas” she offered. Then, “Did you ever explain to him what happened to Eleanor? You know,” she looked up at the men, “that his former babysitter is a homicidal maniac?”

Ida looked up at Tommy’s reﬂection in the mirror, “Doreen’s hair certainly was an interesting shade when I saw her in the drugstore.”

Doreen shook her head and squeezed the sweet, “Thank you for the compliment and the candy but isn’t calling her a ‘maniac’ a bit uncharitable, Miss Ida?”

She closed her eyes and held her breath as Tommy engaged an economy-size can of Aqua Net. No sign remained of the home-brewed hair spray.

In response to the question, Ida looked embarrassed but pleased. “Yes, dear, it is uncharitable and I do apologize.” She turned toward the row of hair dryers, “This year has been a trial for us all.”

During a break in the aerosol assault she continued, “Back in my day we called that color ‘haint blue’ and painted it on the porch ceiling to keep away the bugs. I must say,” Ida lowered her voice, “it looks better on the ceiling than it does on her.”

Looking back at Doreen she turned solemn, “You are a good person and I do regret any misfortune that might befall you,” and with that cryptic statement she allowed Tommy to lower the dryer hood over her face.

Tommy turned the chair and pulled at Ida’s bangs, “We are nearly ruined, Miss Ida. I am afraid of what will happen to the salon.” Unfastening her cape he concluded, “We appreci-

 | noalastudios.com | march/april 

ate the loyalty of clients like you but we don’t know how to recover from this.” “Well, Tommy dear,” Ida said, emphasizing the endearment and gathering her belongings, “it’s no less than you deserve, is it?” Tommy startled, “Miss Ida, I am sure I don’t know what you mean.” “Well, you did ruin poor Eleanor’s life, after all,” she said, digging into the blue purse, producing two, crisp $20 bills. “It seems to me fate has extracted her price.” Tommy stepped back and grabbed onto a faux column for support. “Fate?” he breathed heavily. “Miss Ida, what on earth are you saying?” “Didn’t you know, dear? Eleanor is my cousin.” Ida retrieved her raincoat and turned a gleaming eye on Tommy. “What?” he asked and immediately began to perspire. A trickle of sweat ran down his temple and onto his ﬂushed cheek, “What? What?” “My mother and Eleanor’s father were brother and sister,” Ida calmly replied as she reached once again into the handbag. Tommy wondered if she had a gun. Nothing would surprise him at this point. “I—we—I mean to say,” Tommy stuttered and wondered when Randy would return from his errands. Moving behind the desk he created a barrier between himself and the little woman. “I never knew that!” “Oh, yes. Yes,” Ida replied, aligning on the counter small objects from her bag. “We didn’t grow up together since my mother was closer to her sisters, but…we are kin, Thomas.” Tommy looked at the assemblage of household items Ida placed before him and found a tiny bottle of blue food coloring and two large bottles of Nair hair remover. His mouth fell open. Ida made her way to the door and exclaimed, “It’s just a wonder what a person can get at a dollar store. Why, you can ruin a well-established business with only ﬁve dollars, a thirst for revenge, and a few minutes alone.” Passing Randy on her way out she called, “Cancel the rest of my appointments. I plan to try that To Dye For salon over in Leeds.” “After all, boys,” she called from the sidewalk, “blood is thicker than hairspray.”

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

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food for thought » Sarah Gaede

PUTTANESCA ON THE RITZ I love to try new recipes, but once in awhile it’s good to have something to fall back on, something requiring little thought that I can whip up at the last minute without going to the grocery store. It recently occurred to me that I return to the same ingredients over and over again—canned tomatoes, Kalamata olives, capers, garlic, and, of course, olive oil. It also dawned on me that I often use these same ingredients in variations on a common theme—puttanesca. Pasta puttanesca, which literally means “in the style of a prostitute”, or, as I like to call it, “Naughty Girl Pasta,” is believed to date from the mid-twentieth century. A 2005 article from Il Golfo, a daily newspaper serving the Italian island of Ischia, claimed that sugo (sauce) alla puttanesca was invented in the 1950s by Sandro Petti, owner of an Ischian restaurant and nightspot. According to the article, Petti’s moment of inspiration came at closing time one evening. A group of customers wanted something to eat, but he was low on ingredients. They instructed him: “Facci una puttanata qualsiasi” or “make any kind of garbage. All Petti had on hand was pasta (of course!), four tomatoes, two olives, and some capers, with which he made a pasta sauce that was an instant hit. He later included it on his menu as spaghetti alla puttanesca. Recipes for pasta puttanesca vary according to preference. The Neapolitan version is made without anchovies. Chili peppers are sometimes added. With the salty, flavorful capers, olives, and anchovies, and the fragrant garlic, it’s a real umami bomb. Traditionally the sauce is served Spaghetti alla Puttanesca with spaghetti, although it also goes well with penne, bucatini, linguini, and • 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil vermicelli. • 4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped I have provided three different recipes alla puttanesca: one the classic pasta, one a pizza, and one a super-healthy fish version I came up with recently while I was experimenting with baking in foil. All are easy to make, and just enough different from each other to add all three to your repertoire.

• 1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes in purée, preferably San Marzano, squished through your fingers • 1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and halved • 3 anchovy fillets, chopped, or 1 tablespoon anchovy paste (optional) • 1 1/2 tablespoons drained capers • 1 teaspoon dried oregano • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes • Salt and black pepper to taste • 12 ounces spaghetti or other pasta • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley • Freshly grated Parmesan, optional Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic; sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, olives, anchovies or paste, capers, oregano, and crushed red pepper. Simmer sauce over mediumlow heat until thickened, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain pasta; return to pot. Add sauce and parsley. Toss over low heat until sauce coats pasta, about 3 minutes. Serve with Parmesan if desired (I like mine without). Serves 4. I cut this recipe in half for 2 people, and refrigerate the extra tomatoes (not in the can!) for another day.

Puttanesca Pizza I make pizza at least twice a month. This is one of my absolute favorites. I make my own dough, and bake it on a pizza stone that has been preheated in the oven for an hour at 500 degrees. You can buy prepared dough at Publix in the bakery, press it into a metal pizza pan, and bake at 450 degrees until browned and bubbling. • • • • • • • • • • • •

Prepared pizza dough, enough for a 12-inch pizza Cornmeal 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 teaspoon dried oregano 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Italian cheese blend (NOT the kind with cream cheese) 2 large garlic cloves, ﬁnely chopped 20 or so Kalamata or other Greek olives, pitted and coarsely chopped 3 tablespoons capers, drained 3 thin slices red onion, separated into rings 1 large ripe tomato (8 ounces) seeded, diced, lightly salted, drained, and squeezed dry Freshly ground black pepper Dried red pepper ﬂakes to taste

While dough is rising or coming to room temperature, preheat oven and stone, if using. Combine the shredded cheese with the garlic, and prepare the other toppings. When ready to bake, place a sheet of parchment paper on the peel, sprinkle lightly with cornmeal, and stretch the dough out into a large circle (or press it into the pan). Pour the olive oil on the dough to help smooth it and make it easier to stretch. Sprinkle the oregano on the crust, followed by the cheese, olives, capers , onions, and tomato. Add a few grinds of pepper. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until edges of crust are golden. Serve with red pepper ﬂakes on the side, if desired.

Snapper Puttanesca • • • • • •

2 6-ounce red snapper, grouper, or tilapia filets 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil Salt and pepper to taste Dried oregano to taste 1 large garlic clove, very thinly sliced 1/2 cup halved grape or cherry tomatoes, tossed with 1/2 tablespoon olive oil, salt, and pepper • 1/2 cup Kalamata or other Greek olives, pitted and coarsely chopped (I like to mix black and green) • 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed • 1 1/4-inch thick slice red onion, separated into rings Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Tear off a sheet of heavyduty aluminum foil, twice as long as it is wide (18x36 inches.) Fold crosswise across the middle, then unfold. Dry fish with paper towels, rub on both sides with the 2 tablespoons olive oil, and place next to each other left of the fold line. Sprinkle fish with salt, pepper, olives, and oregano to taste. Scatter garlic, tomatoes, capers, and onion rings over fish—it doesn’t really matter in what order. Fold the right half of the foil over the fish, and seal on all three open sides with double folds. Make sure the folds are tight. Place on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and let sit unopened for about 3 minutes before serving. I use my kitchen shears to cut the package open from the middle, being careful of steam. I like to serve this with couscous, orzo, or rice to soak up the juice. To double, make 2 packets with 2 filets each.

march/april  | noalastudios.com | 

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parting shot » Patrick Hood

“IF YOU CAN’T RUN WITH THE BIG DOGS, YOU’D BETTER STAY ON THE PORCH”

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