Profile 2014

2014

Where are they now?

Catching up with former mayors

Sister cities Montevallo and Echizen’s bond remains strong

A night at the races Drivers satisfy need for speed in Wilsonville A special publication of Shelby County Newspapers, Inc.

Person of the Year

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work Meet our Mayor and City Council members...

Dale Neuendorf

David Ingram

Juanita Champion

Mayor Earl Niven

Tony Picklesimer

...it’s all about family! www.cityofchelsea.com

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Alison Moore Nichols

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W

elcome to the 2014 edition of Profile, our annual publication that takes an in-depth look at the people, places and organizations in our community.

While planning this magazine, we were inspired by the many different people and organizations that are making a difference in Shelby County. In fact, “inspiring” is the word I would choose to represent this publication.

• Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens is our 2014 Person of the Year. Owens has served in his position for more than 20 years and brings experience, leadership and compassion to the job. What many people don’t know is everything else he has done – from founding Owens House, the county’s children’s advocacy center, to working with grief support groups.

• Born and raised in Vincent, Bridgett Jordan-Smith thought she would live in a big city following graduation. Instead, she returned to her hometown and is a Vincent city councilwoman and vice president of Leadership Shelby County, in addition to being a wife, mother, church secretary and child advocate.

• Montevallo and Echizen, Japan officially became sister cities in 2008, though their relationship dates back to 1995. The relationship is stronger than ever, and the partnership fosters cultural, education, industrial and athletic exchanges.

• Bruce Andrews was a familiar face to the Shelby County arts community long before being selected as director of the Shelby County Arts Council in September 2013. He’s got big plans for the organization, including expanding the types of programs offered to include digital art and filmmaking.

• When Alabaster resident Drew Ann Long realized her daughter, Caroline, who has Rett’s Syndrome and is unable to walk, could no longer fit in a regular shopping cart, she decided to create a cart for older special needs children and adults. Seven years later, the shopping cart is now available across the country and may soon be available in Europe.

As you can see, there’s no shortage of inspiring stories in Shelby County, from business success to community involvement to the triumph of the human spirit.

We hope you’ll find a story within these pages that inspires you. n

Profile 2014

Shelby County EDITORIAL Ginny Cooper Drew Granthum Cassandra Mickens Neal Wagner CONTRIBUTORS Stephanie Brumfield Amy Jones PRODUCTION Amy Baldis Jamie Dawkins Jon Goering Amanda Porter MARKETING Jessie Bell Kristy Brown Jody Ellis Nicole Loggins Kari McAdams Rhett McCreight Meagan Mims Kim McCulla Mary Strehle Kari Yoder

Katie McDowell, Editor

ADMINISTRATION

Katie.McDowell@ShelbyLiving.com

Tim Prince

on the cover

Jan Griffey Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens at his home in Helena.

Cover design: Jamie Dawkins Photography: Jon Goering

Katie McDowell Mary Jo Eskridge Jennifer Arias Laurel Cousins Hailey Dolbare Christine Roberts

Shelby County Newspapers, Inc. P.O. Box 947 Columbiana, AL 35051 205.669.3131 4

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inside

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PERSON OF THE YEAR Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens has served the county for more than 20 years

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A NIGHT AT THE RACES Shelby County Speedway brings love of speed to Wilsonville

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PERSON OF THE YEAR Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens has served the county for more than 20 years

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HELENA’S STORM OF THE CENTURY Tornado dramatically changed city’s development

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A NIGHT AT THE RACES Shelby County Speedway brings love of speed to Wilsonville

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HOOPIN’ FOR HEAVEN Westwood Baptist Church Pastor Rick Swing began his career on a basketball court LIFE AFTER OFFICE What are county’s former mayors up to?

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RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME Bruce Andrews brings wealth of talent, experience to Shelby County Arts Council

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LEARNING TO LEAD, LEADING TO SERVE Bridgette Jordan-Smith returns to hometown of Vincent and serves on City Council

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SISTER CITIES Montevallo’s relationship with Japanese pottery village steadily growing 6

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THE BRAKEMAN Columbiana dentist’s passion for trains, history more than a hobby

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A CITY’S LOVE A family’s journey from tragedy to a better life

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THE HORSE DOCTOR Shelby County vet cares for area horses

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POWER BEHIND THE SCENE Catching up with Kim Melton, chief clerk for Shelby County Probate Office

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KEEPER OF OUR PAST Bobby Joe Seales is set to retire as director of the Shelby County Museum and Archives

FILING A WORLDWIDE NEED Shopping trip serves as catalyst for change RUN FOR DAYLIGHT Calera brothers use sports to overcome tragedy, carry on father’s legacy

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Our Primary Care is YOU. SHELBY BAPTIST & BAPTIST HEALTH CENTERS

Home to the Largest Physician Network in the STATE PRIMARY CARE

Meeting Health Care Needs in SHELBY COUNTY At Shelby Baptist Medical Center, we are truly growing with our community.

As Shelby County’s only hospital, we are the primary source of comprehensive healthcare to the people of Shelby County and surrounding areas. We’re excited to continue to provide the latest technology, patient comforts and family-friendly conveniences in the area’s most modern healthcare facility.

Now is a great time to choose a Shelby physician close to home.

CALERA Dr. Thomas Nolen Dr. Kim Paisley Dr. J.D. Shugrue 668.0626

JEMISON Dr. Larry Mikul 668.1616

CHELSEA Dr. Randy Lamberson 678.2688

PELHAM Dr. Bela Patel 620.1089

SPECIALISTS SHELBY ADVANCED ARTHRITIS CARE Dr. Nop Unnoppet 620.8676 SHELBY INTERNAL MEDICINE ALABASTER Dr. Ginger Alred 663.5770 CAHABA INTERNAL MEDICINE ALABASTER Dr. Cynthia Walters 664.7970 VASCULAR & ENDOVASCULAR SURGERY Dr. Steve Taylor 621.0122

W W W. B H S A L A . C O M

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Robby Owens Person of the Year Story by AMY JONES Photographs by JON GOERING

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hen Shelby County District Attorney Robby

Owens sits down with someone who has lost a loved one because of a crime — a murder or a DUI, for example — he can understand

the pain they’re going through. Robby lost his wife of 33 years, Denise, to a different culprit — breast cancer — in 2007, but he knows that “loss is loss,” no matter how that loss occurs.

Sometimes people assume that traumatic or sudden loss, such as in a murder or car accident, is different than losing someone to an illness.

That’s not typically the case, Robby said.

“What people don’t understand is, loss is loss. The depth of despair people feel is always proportional to the closeness of the relationship and the love they had. How the loss happened is much less important,” Robby said. “I understand traumatic loss much more because loss is loss.”

Robby, who volunteers as a facilitator for grief support groups, said his experiences with losing his wife and working with grief support groups give him a strong foundation to rest on when working with victims.

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“I always thought I was sympathetic, and I was. But until I went through it myself, I didn’t understand,” Robby said. “Now, when they talk to me about losing somebody, I get it.”

LOSING DENISE Robby, who grew up on a dairy farm in Helena, has deep family ties to Shelby County. The farmland where he grew up — and now makes his home — has been in the family since 1929, and his grandfather, Ned Bearden, donated some of that land to become the campus of Pelham High School.

Pelham High’s football stadium is named Ned Bearden Stadium in honor of his gift.

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With roots that deep in the community, it’s no surprise that Robby chose to stay close to home for college, attending the University of Montevallo.

While he was there, he met Denise, who would become a schoolteacher and, eventually, his wife.

The two dated for two years and then married.

Robby got a business degree from UM, then went to law school at night at the Birmingham School of Law to become a state prosecutor. He took his first prosecutor job, as an assistant DA in Jefferson County’s Bessemer office, in 1983.

“I thought I could be fair to people and help people who had been victims,” he said of his desire to be a prosecutor. “I’ve never had any regrets.”

After years working his way up the ladder in Bessemer and Shelby County, Robby was elected district attorney in Shelby County in 1992. He’s held the job since then.

Over 33 years of marriage, Robby and Denise raised two daughters, Christy and Lauren, and dealt with all the hills and valleys that come with a long marriage. The last obstacle they would face together, however, began in 2005.

In November 2005, Denise found a lump in her breast — one an earlier mammogram had missed. She had surgery within days, followed by chemotherapy and radiation, but the cancer 10

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eventually spread to her bones and, last, to her liver.

“If you catch (breast cancer early), you can kill it,” Robby said. “If you don’t, it’s trouble.”

In late 2007, Robby and Denise met with her oncologist, who said Denise likely had another two to three years to live. Robby decided to take her on a trip to Disney World, her favorite vacation spot and a special place for the two of them.

Although Denise would need a wheelchair to get around the park, Robby was committed to making sure she would have those memories. They traveled to Orlando and spent a few days enjoying Disney magic before reality struck with a vengeance.

After about three days at Disney, Robby and Denise noticed that her eyes had taken on a yellow tint — a sign that the cancer had spread to her liver.

They immediately went back to Alabama and to the hospital. Days later, she passed away at the age of 56 — two years after the initial diagnosis.

After Denise’s sudden death, Robby’s job became a way to cope with the grief.

However, he needed help making important decisions, and came to rely more on his chief assistant district attorneys, Bill Bostick and Jill Lee. “Part of grief can be disorientation and confusion,” Robby said.

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increased responsibilities as a result, ended up benefiting all three of them — Bostick was appointed as the Shelby County Circuit Court judge by Gov. Robert Bentley in 2011, while Lee has spent the past few years being groomed to replace Robby when he retires.

Lee said although she took on more responsibility as Robby worked through his grief, he was still the unquestioned leader of the district attorney’s office.

She wasn’t unnerved by the prospect of taking more on because Robby was as much a teacher as a leader, she said.

“One thing that he’s always emphasized in this office is bringing people along, and teaching new people new things,” she said. “Robby has been such a positive role model, I thought I was very wellequipped to take on more responsibility.”

Lee said when Robby worked through his grief, it made him even more adept at interacting with victims in the course of his job.

“He’s always been good interacting with victims. I would say now he is great, particularly in cases that involve death,” she said. “He really passionately feels that loss with them, with the crime victims.”

Lee said she learned her own lessons from Robby’s situation.

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about death,” she said. “I have learned, I believe, to appreciate life while I’m living it and to appreciate those around me.”

DEALING WITH THE GRIEF After Denise’s death, Robby went to a psychologist, who encouraged him to contact Community Grief Support Service in Homewood.

Through that service, Robby got involved with a grief support group, which helped him realize others understood what he was going through.

Robby said the hardest part for those grieving is the idea that nobody understands what they’re going through — including them. Dealing with grief is a long process, one that often takes years.

During that time, Robby suffered from mild situational depression.

However, Robby persevered, and worked through the dark times. About four years ago, he joined the board of directors at Community Grief Support Service and enrolled at the University of Alabama College of Continuing Studies to take classes in thanatology, the study of dealing with loss. He got his certification and then became a facilitator for grief support groups through Community Grief Support Service.

PAGE 8: Robby, who lost his first wife, Denise, to cancer in 2007, volunteers with Community Grief Support Service as a grief support group facilitator.

While it took him years to get past his grief, Robby said doing so made him a better person and a better district attorney. PAGE 10: Robby and Denise with with their daughters, Christy and Lauren, and Robby’s mother, Kathleen.

ABOVE LEFT: A collection of memorabilia from across Robby’s years as a district attorney and Shelby County leader. ABOVE RIGHT: Some of Robby’s family photos.

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As a facilitator, Robby works with different kinds of support groups. He works with general loss groups, which include people who are dealing with different losses — some may have lost relatives, some may have lost close friends or other loved ones.

He also works with specific loss groups, in which everyone in the group has experienced the same type of loss, such as that of a spouse.

At first, Robby learned about facilitating to help himself get through tough spots. Soon, though, he realized he could use that knowledge in other ways.

“At the beginning, it was because I wanted to know whatever I could to help myself,” he said.

“Then it was like, ‘Wait, you can help yourself and you can help somebody else too.’”

While it’s not a requirement that facilitators have experienced loss, Robby said he believes the best ones have.

“The best facilitators I’ve ever known were always somebody who had lost somebody,” he said.

Facilitators are there to help group members through the grieving process, but also to tell them the truth from the perspective of those who know.

“We try to make people feel like, ‘You are going to survive this, and you will be normal again, but it won’t be tomorrow,’” Robby said.

“They know I’m the district attorney of a county, and if a district attorney can experience this and relate his feelings, then it’s not that unusual.”

Robby also gained something else from his time in a grief support group — Karen, his second wife.

They met as Robby was dealing with his grief over Denise and Karen was working through the process of grieving for her husband, who also died of cancer.

Robby and Karen, an architect based in Birmingham, have now been married for three years.

a child advocacy center. The next year, the Owens House Children’s Advocacy Center opened.

In the 20 years since its opening, the center has served thousands of children and families through therapy, forensic interviews, abuse prevention programs, support groups and more.

Robby said he got experience in how a child advocacy center could benefit a community after helping to start one during his time as a DA in Jefferson County. He said at first he and his colleagues worried about the expense of such a center, but their worries quickly faded when they saw the impact a center could have.

“If you help people with their problems right now, you don’t have to deal with them later on,” he said.

Robby was also a part of the Leadership Shelby County class of 2012.

Leadership Shelby County, which is based at the University of Montevallo, is an annual program that offers participants a chance to become leaders for Shelby County through participating in full-day sessions on high-priority topics in Shelby County, such as education, economic development or the justice system.

The program’s mission is to enhance the quality of life in Shelby County.

Every year, Leadership Shelby County classes split into groups, each — Robby Owens of which is tasked with coming up with a project to help improve the community. Robby’s group chose to do a project based on his idea, a drug awareness program especially for middle school students in Shelby County.

That became the “Nah, I’m Good” program, which features a website — Nahimgood.org — and a classroom presentation and video.

Robby said he envisioned the “Nah, I’m Good” program as a way to help make up for the loss of the D.A.R.E. program, which educated younger kids about drugs for years until it lost its government funding.

“What most people don’t understand is that somewhere between 60-70 percent of all crimes are drug- or alcohol-related,” Robby said. “Anything you

“What people

don’t understand is, loss is loss. The depth of despair people feel is always proportional to the closeness of the relationship and the love they had. How the loss happened is much less important.”

GIVING BACK IN OTHER WAYS Robby has impacted the community in ways beyond his job. In 1992, when he became Shelby County’s district attorney, he made plans to develop 12

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can do to help people not to choose that path is a good thing.”

THE YEARS AHEAD Robby, who has been a district attorney for 31 years, tentatively plans to retire in October 2014.

He hopes Gov. Robert Bentley will appoint Lee as his replacement, and is marshaling support for her to make that transition.

When he retires, he plans to continue facilitating grief support groups. He keeps in touch with his own group members, and sometimes has them over to share meals together.

He also plans to do some sojourning, in which he travels to smaller churches to lead classes or speak about his own experience with faith. About 10 years ago, he took night classes at Southern Christian University in Montgomery to get a master’s degree in Christian ministry, and he uses the knowledge gained in those classes when he sojourns.

“That was one of the things that helped me survive — strong faith. I don’t know how people survive without faith,” Robby said.

He also plans to go camping more with Karen, and hopes to travel across the United States. Lately, he’s become interested in making music — especially

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country music — and is taking guitar and piano lessons.

He’ll likely also continue making frequent trips to Disney World — at last count, he had been there more than 20 times — which has continued to be a favorite vacation destination for his children and grandchildren.

Robby said as he ages, he continues to learn a lot about himself.

“One of the things that you get is starting to look inside yourself and see who you are and what really matters to you. One of the things I’ve found out about myself is that the things that matter to me are the things that have always mattered to me,” such as faith, truth, honesty and integrity, he said.

Professionally, he’s tried to create a district attorney’s office that’s ruled by fairness and compassion — a legacy he hopes will endure for years to come.

“The most important thing I’ve done with my life so far is raise Christian children and have a Christian wife,” he said. “Otherwise, the most important thing I’ve done with my life is try to use the district attorney’s office to help people. I’ve tried to create an office that is responsive to law enforcement and victims, but at the same time tries to understand the circumstances surrounding people who make mistakes.” n

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A Night at the Races Shelby County Speedway brings love of speed to Wilsonville Story by DREW GRANTHUM Photographs by JON GOERING 14

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tock-car racing.

It’s a phrase that conjures up brightly painted billboards ripping around a track at 200 miles an hour, piloted mostly — with the exception of a few women who seek racing glory — by young, clean shaven men that whose physical appearance land somewhere between GQ cover model and Wall Street go-getter.

At its highest level, it is about money, power and winning, with a little politics sprinkled in for good measure. Have the talent, but not the look? Better luck next time. Have the money, but not the talent?

There’s a seat waiting somewhere.

It’s come a long way from its rough-and-tumble start when moonshiners organized impromptu races to see whose car built to outrun the revenuers was the fastest. That’s not to say it’s all bad; the races are fan-friendly, and one can take their kids to a big event and not worry about a fight breaking out — usually. But many old timers who have seen the sport rise from its roots to the multi-million dollar business long for the days when passion drove the

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sport.

Luckily for those in Shelby County who pine for the days of Richard Petty, Bobby Allison and Dale Earnhardt, there is a place they can go to see drivers battle it out for pure pride and prize money — Shelby County Speedway, a 1/3-mile dirt track in Wilsonville.

Tucked away off Highway 25, the right turn off the main road and subsequent pass over the train tracks is like crossing the threshold to another time.

There are no neon-capitalized sponsor billboards screaming advertisements, no Colosseum-like grandstands jutting up to the heavens nor cleverly placed sponsor blimps buzzing over head here; just a dirt road with flags lining the way to a fork that will take one to either the ticket stand or the hot pit. While it is a far cry from Daytona, Indianapolis or Monaco, one evening spent soaking in the roar of the engines, the smell of the gasoline and the breeze off the cars as they tear into the turns reveals that there is no feeling in the world like the assault on the senses that is a night at the races.

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PAGE 14: Fans sit and watch from tailgates as the the open-wheel modified division races by. LEFT: Driver ride around the track clockwise to help pack the dirt into the track to provide a better racing surface. ABOVE: James is the owner and operator of Shelby County Speedway, while Etheline runs the concession stand along the fronstretch.

A MAN, SOME LAND AND A DREAM Shelby County Speedway is the brainchild of James Ingram, a Wilsonville native with a passion for motorsports. The owner of a construction company, Ingram built the track from the ground up on the land he lives on — with a little help from some friends.

“Well, they had a little track over in Westover,” he said. “They shut it down, and I let them boys talk me into building one over here. It started out not much bigger than a go cart track, and over the years, it stretched out into this.”

Of course, Ingram couldn’t exactly build a track without permission from his wife, Etheline. He was able to cut a deal with her that gave her a job, and him the track.

“It was built (for) a fun thing, not a business,” she said. “But James soon found out he had to have a business license, tax numbers, all that stuff. For him to be able to have the track, he talked me into it. He said, ‘Well, you can have the concession stand.’”

For Etheline, that was all she needed to hear.

“I used to piddle with decorating cakes (to) make my extra spending money, so I fell for it,” she said. “So I had the concession stand. Still got it. That came about, then we found out about all Profile 2014

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the legal things you’ve got to do, and that’s how it became what it is.”

Ingram said having help in the form of owning his own construction equipment allowed the track to be built how he wanted.

“I own my own equipment, and we didn’t work on it all the time,” he said. “If we had a job somewhere, we’d go to work, and then if we got caught up a day or two, we’d come in here and work on the racetrack. It took us a year before we got it ready.”

The track has come a long way from a small dirt oval on the Ingram property into what it is today.

From March 16, 1992 until the present, the Ingrams have done every race set up themselves, which is no small feat.

“We run it ourselves,” James said “A lot of people don’t run their own (track). We have to do most everything ourselves. I even pick up the garbage out here.”

By the time the first car takes a lap on a Saturday night, both Etheline and James have been working several hours.

“Prepping that track’s a job,” James said with a chuckle. “First off, you motor grate it, then it takes all day on Saturday to water it and pack it down and get it ready for them race cars.”

Handling the concession stand isn’t any easier, according to Etheline. Part of making sure the fans have a good time is ensuring they eat well, she said. “(My day)’s ready to kickoff with my cooking,” she said. “I just have to come in and start heating up cheese and chili and the stuff you have hot. You don’t start cooking burgers until people are about ready for them. No one wants one made at noon and then eat it for supper. Then the rest of it is James working down there. “ It’s a labor of love, but still hard work. James said eventually, he’d like a small break to rest.

“Hopefully, just to lease it out to somebody that likes racing,” he said. “If I had a couple of years away from it, I could regroup and start again. I’ve been out here 22 years every weekend except the ones we’re off, and I’ve done all the work out here.”

GEARING UP A right turn at the aforementioned fork in the road leads to the pit area. The pits are a sacred area, reserved only for those who strap themselves in the racecars and those who turn the wrenches.

It’s essentially the country club of the dirt track; ABOVE: Drivers begin to arrive into the pit area.

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CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW: Montevallo’s Chad Glass examines his racecar’s drivetrain after a long season. During the nationl anthem, an American flag is taken for a lap in the bed of the pace truck. Montevallo’s Sandy Dawson looks over pictures from his 25 year racing career, centered mostly around the Shelby County Speedway.

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if you don’t have a pass, you aren’t getting in. No exceptions.

Within the confines of the pit/garage area — which is essentially just a cleared out space outside the first turn with no covering and a dirt floor — there are hundreds of people scurrying about, trying to put the final touches on the cars before the heat races.

A look around the pit area and it appears there are several different budgets in attendance. On one end, there are crate late model racers, full-fledged racers that travel in enclosed trailers. The engine alone on a crate late model costs several thousand dollars, not to mention fuel, tires and spare parts should something break. On another is the Buzz class, small cars such as Honda Civics that have been transformed into race cars by adding roll cages and removing the glass. These cars are relatively inexpensive and come in on flatbed trailers towed by pickup trucks.

There truly is a sense of community in the pits, and at times — as in the case of Sandy Dawson and

Chad Glass — it can be a family affair.

LEARNING FROM THE BEST Sandy Dawson ventures to guess he’s been racing for 25 years — give or take — and while he won’t openly admit it, has been winning that long, too.

Dawson, a logger by trade and a man of few words, said he got into racing after watching one from the stands in Wilsonville.

At his home outside of Montevallo, he and 25-year-old stepson Chad Glass work on their cars in a shop on their property. Both drive Chevrolets, with Sandy’s a white No. 88 and Chad’s a blue No. 24.

While Sandy is an old vet of the Speedway, Chad is just now trying to learn the ropes of the track.

“I started around it when I was 13,” Chad said.

“He started letting me ride around in his car when he was packing the track in, then when I was 15 he let me drive one, and it got totaled out. From then on I kind of focused on football and baseball when I was in high school. I just recently got back into it.”

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One of the reasons Glass got back into the sport was watching Dawson succeed on the track.

“He won about every night,” he said. “Somebody that never drove, he let them drive his car, and they’d win in it.”

Dawson said that was partially true.

“I had a buddy of mine that had a race car and couldn’t ever win a race,” Dawson said. “I let him drive mine, and he’d get out there and win the race with mine. The setup on the car is the main thing.”

By being able to make the car handle the way he wants it to, Dawson said he felt that gave him an edge. For example, the car he races right now was built around 2000. By dirt track standards, it’s the equivalent of driving a Model T, but Dawson still takes it to victory lane regularly.

“That car right there is probably 12-15 years old,” he said, nodding at his Malibu. “I won the championship with it in 1999, its first year on the track. It’s probably the only car left of the ones I started with that’s still running.”

Dawson said he focused more on driver safety, such as ensuring his roll cage was well built.

“The main thing is being safe and putting a cage in them,” he said. “I go extra putting a cage in them. I see a lot of guys that go

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“If it wasn’t fun, we

out there and build them fast, real fast and they don’t last 2-3 races.”

Glass said Dawson’s setups were noticed by most around the track.

“Pretty much anybody that comes to the Wilsonville track comes there with the intention to beat him,” Glass said.

“You can ask around.”

Dawson said he had a few fans in particular he remembered, and said he made sure he does all he can to thank them.

“I’ve got kids that come to the racetrack and come up to me and (say) ‘Let me have your trophy tonight!’ before the race has even started,” he said with chuckle. “I say ‘Man, you gotta wait till I get a trophy!’ Every kid over there, I give a trophy to.”

In order to get those trophies, Dawson works hard to maintain his car.

Essentially a car that was pulled off the street and modified for racing, Dawson said that with the right work, anyone could build a racer like his.

“You just hull it out and put a cage in it,” he said.

“You can build one, work on it all winter, get it ready for summer to race the next year.”

Dawson refuses to charge directly to the front, instead he lets the race come to him.

“I say driving skill and being patient wins races,” he said. “You can get tore up on the first lap and then your race is over.”

Glass said he’s still learning and trying to gain

experience on the track.

“The way I do it, I just ride around in the back,” he said. “By the end of the race, I’d be up third or fourth out of 10 cars because the rest have taken themselves out.

I’m just riding around.”

While the two have different styles and — James Ingram levels of experience, both agree that Shelby County Speedway is a great place for experts and beginners.

“It’s where I’ve always raced,” Dawson said. “I know the track.”

Glass echoed the sentiment.

“It’s a pretty good place to get experience,” he said.

wouldn’t be here. As far as money, there was a lot of years where we didn’t make nothin’.”

BELOW: Sandy Dawson climbs into the cockpit of a car that he has raced since around 2000. RIGHT: A racer pauses for a smoke break while studying the competition.

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THE MAIN EVENT As the evening rolls on, and the sun begins to drop along the western sky, the night’s festivities begin as they have each Saturday night: with a prayer from the PA announcer, the national anthem playing over the sound system while an old Chevy pickup rides the American flag around the track.

Once the pageantry is over, it’s time for business.

Each class of race car comes out and has a heat race that sets the field for the main event.

There are two sections of grandstands at the speedway, but the preferred viewing area is on the outside of the first turn where several fans back their pickup trucks up to the fence. Once the trucks are in park and situated, fans hang off the tailgates, sit in lawn chairs or on the roof of their trucks and watch the action. Spirited debates come up over who should win what race, why Jeff Gordon will never amount to David Pearson and of course, the occasional check for a football or Braves score while going to the cooler to get another beverage As each class comes up, from the crate late model race cars that scream as they head into the turns to the buzz class that really does sound like a mob of angry hornets, the entertainment value never waivers. The fans give the same respect to the halfbroken down Toyota Celica as they do a $50,000 racer.

Heat race after heat race rolls by as the air begins to fill with red clay, Winston smoke and gasoline fumes to create an alluring scent.

In the Hogg class, drivers go door-to-door in Profile 2014

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essentially refurbished old street cars, knocking each other around while trying to gain a position.

It’s a far cry from the major leagues of auto racing. Odds are, most of these guys are content to never take a green flag at Talladega Superspeedway.

Instead, they enjoy their weekday jobs a little more knowing they are one day closer to racing again. If

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for no other reason than competing for a trophy, a little prize money and fun.

After all, according to the man that built the track, that’s what it’s all about: Fun. “If it wasn’t fun, we wouldn’t be here,” James Ingram said. “As far as money, there was a lot of years where we didn’t make nothin’.” n

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Right place, right time Bruce Andrews brings wealth of talent, experience to Shelby County Arts Council Story by KATIE MCDOWELL Photographs by JON GOERING AND CONTRIBUTED

B

ruce Andrews has held many jobs during his adult life.

He’s owned a gallery/ coffee house, worked in sales and even at Starbucks. First and foremost, though, he’s an artist and musician.

Those other jobs have provided the financial means for him to pursue his twin passions of painting and music.

“I’ve always been an artist,” he said.

“Figuring out how to make a living with that has always been a (challenge).”

Bruce now finds himself in a new role as executive director of the Shelby County Arts Council, a Columbianabased non-profit organization. In this new position, Bruce gets to draw upon experience as a professional artist and share that knowledge with a new generation.

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The timing is perfect. The SCAC is looking to expand its reach, and recently launched a capital campaign to raise funds for a state-of-the-art performing arts center in Columbiana.

For Bruce, the position offers a chance to use his passion for the arts and experience as a professional artist for a good cause.

“Sometimes you take jobs because you need the money. Sometimes you take jobs because you have to move,” he said. “And then every once in a while it’s the right place, right time. You say to yourself, ‘This is obviously what I need to be doing.’ I’d say it’s the right place, right time.”

Bruce was born into a Georgia home filled with music and art. With an artist mother and musician father, there was little doubt Bruce would inherit some 25

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of those creative genes.

“I was not only not discouraged, but I was encouraged to do this,” he said of his artistic leanings.

He first began taking guitar lessons as a child, but switched to the harmonica at age 10. Bruce, whose family moved to the Birmingham area in the 1970s, was in bands throughout high school and college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

It was at UAB where he first met Joy, now his wife of 31 years.

Joy was home for the summer from Jacksonville State University.

She and a friend visited the Pi Kappa Alpha house at UAB, where she met Bruce.

On their first date, Bruce took her to listen to the pianist Ray Reach and asked her to dance. Joy was smitten and decided to transfer to UAB. “I decided I liked him a lot, so I didn’t go back to Jacksonville,” she recalled.

The couple settled in Alabaster, and Joy started a dance company where she has taught for 28 years.

They also had two daughters, who are now grown. Both are married, and teach dance like their mother.

Bruce knew he wanted to pursue art professionally, although balancing that with — Bruce Andrews a steady income has been challenging at times. While there are plenty of art and music classes, Bruce had to figure out how to make money from his artistic endeavors on his own.

“There’s a lot about how to make art. There’s not a lot about how to make money making art,” he said.

At times, that has meant doing jobs he feels less passionate about. He worked at Starbucks for a long time for the health insurance and other benefits. He also used to do a lot of decorative painting, such as murals and faux finishes.

Other jobs he found more fulfilling, even when he wasn’t actually creating music or art.

“It’s always been about how to not lose your artistic self and

“And then every

once in a while it’s the right place, right time. You say to yourself, ‘This is obviously what I need to be doing.’

I’d say it’s the right place, right time.”

PAGE 24: Bruce Andrews and George Dudley, members of 2Blu and the Lucky Stiffs, talk about music with the kids at the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Facility on June 4, 2012. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: 2 Blu and the Lucky Stiffs perform Nov. 23 at Blues, Brews and BBQ at the Shelby County Arts Council in Columbiana. Andrews was named executive director of the Shelby County Arts Council in September 2013. “Jerry ‘Boogie’ McCain” by Bruce Andrews. McCain was an American electric blues musician and harmonica player.

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ABOVE: “R.L. Burnside”

by Bruce Andrews. R.L. Burnside was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. RIGHT: 2Blue and the Lucky Stiffs perform at the Shelby County Arts Council’s Regional Folk Art Exhibit on March 8, 2012.

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make a living,” he said.

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, he spent five years as a sales and marketing representative for Brenson Music Group, a large Christian music record label.

He met with musicians, arranged interviews and learned the business side of the music industry before leaving the position to spend more time with his family.

He later opened a gallery and coffee house attached to Joy’s Dance Company, which he operated for more than six years. Called Joy’s Christian Music and Coffee, the store featured live music, art exhibits and, of course, coffee and baked goods.

The coffee house attracted other artists and musicians, including Jack and George Dudley, who, with Bruce, are three of the five members of 2 Blu and the Lucky Stiffs, a Shelby County-based blues band.

“That’s pretty much how Bruce met his band, through our coffee shop,” Joy said.

Bruce and George have been performing together for more than 15 years now, both the band and their blues duo, 2 Blu. George writes music, plays guitar and provides vocals for the band, while Bruce plays harmonica and provides lead vocals.

“We pretty much have a mind meld,” Bruce said of their partnership.

Bruce is also a member of Alabama Blues Machine, a Birmingham-based, award-winning blues band.

All the while, Bruce found time to pursue painting and drawing. He has illustrated a few books, including “The Christmas Angel,” and “Toby the Turtle Who Can Sing.” He often exhibits at galleries in the Birmingham area, and describes his style as “impressionistic with tendencies toward realism.”

Occasionally, his two passions will collide, as with a series of paintings he did featuring famous blues musicians.

Bruce’s involvement with artistic outreach programs began before the Shelby County Arts Council launched in 2005.

He’s been involved with the Alabama Blues

Project, which seeks to educate the public about the state’s rich blues heritage.

He and Joy have long championed the importance of the arts — whether it’s music, painting, dance or theater – in children’s education.

“I think it’s awesome for them to develop those talents. It helps them be more outgoing,” Joy said. “It builds their confidence, their selfesteem.”

Bruce got involved with the SCAC soon after it launched. He began by teaching classes, and even helped develop a few programs, such as a musical outreach program for students at the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center.

Bruce and George Dudley visited the center in June and taught the students, ranging in age from 1318 years old, how to use a harmonica.

“We just started thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to get this in front of kids who are more at a crossroads, who are at a kind of place they can either turn their lives around or not?’ I was thinking, ‘Wow, these kids could really benefit from something like this,’” he said about the program in June.

Bruce believes all children should have access to arts education — and that all can benefit from it.

“I think on a really simple level every kid has an artistic spark in them,” he said.

So, when the SCAC was looking for a new executive director in the fall of 2013, it seemed like a perfect fit.

Terri Sullivan, SCAC founder and director of development, said Bruce brings a “wealth of experience in the performing arts” to the position, as well as a large network of contacts within Shelby County.

In a September 2013 interview, Bruce said he was excited about the new challenge and looking forward to taking the SCAC to the next level with the help of an active board of directors and a county full of supporters.

On a practical level, he’s concerned about profits and raising awareness about the program. He plans to seek government grants and community support.

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He’s also excited about building on the base of programs Sullivan and Susan Dennis Gordon, former director of arts and education, created over the years. He’d like to add classes that “have a bit of an edge to it, a more modern flair, maybe more digital art classes.”

I’m definitely going to do some acting and some filmmaking classes,” he said. “We may even do some drum circles.”

Joy said her husband is passionate about his new position. While he admitted to her he was nervous about his new role, she has no doubt he’ll succeed.

“I’m very proud of my husband. He’s a very talented painter, artist, singer, musician,” she said. “It really means a lot to him to get this job.”

The SCAC is at a crossroads right now. It’s seen steady growth over the years, but is now making a big push to raise $7 million for its proposed arts center. As of November 2013, it has reached close to $3 million, but the next few months are crucial, especially in terms of community support.

That is one thing Bruce is not worried about. His years spent doing odd jobs and art commissions have taught him what it takes to make a location artfriendly.

“You’ve got to have two things, from my perspective, to make it art friendly. You’ve got to

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foster artists and you’ve got to have … patrons of the arts. Shelby County has a good market and patrons,” he said. “I think Shelby County is as good as anywhere in the Southeast for artists.” n Reporting contributed by Stephanie Brumfield.

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Learning to lead,

leading to serve

Story by CASSANDRA MICKENS Photographs by JON GOERING

A

s Bridgette Jordan-Smith grows through this life, so does her concept of leadership.

Leadership is something we’re all capable of, she says, but the question is how do we go about it? Are we serving others or serving ourselves? Are we empathetic or egotistical?

These are questions we must ask ourselves often, regardless of rank or role.

“I’m reminded of a Bible verse, Matthew 20:28: ‘Even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.’ What are we doing to serve? How are we serving others?” Jordan-Smith said.

Born and raised in Vincent, Jordan-Smith, 44, is a Vincent city councilwoman and vice president of Leadership Shelby County, in addition to wife, mother, church secretary and child advocate.

Growing up in Vincent, population 2,003, JordanSmith dreamed of the day she would leave her small hometown for life in the big city. The only problem was that she couldn’t escape her love for Vincent, or her desire to make her hometown a better place.

“I love my little town! There are great people here,” said Jordan-Smith, a 1987 Vincent High School graduate who returned home after earning her bachelor’s degree in child development from the University of Alabama. “Anyone that comes to our community talks about the friendliness of the 30

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PAGE 30: Born and raised in Vincent, Jordan-Smith, 44, is a Vincent city councilwoman and vice president of Leadership Shelby County, in addition to wife, mother, church secretary and child advocate. BELOW: Bridgette Jordan-Smith, pictured at Vincent Municipal Park, jokes that she was tricked into public service, first serving on Vincent’s Park and Recreation Board.

townspeople and how welcoming everyone is. I always want to know who my neighbors are.”

Jordan-Smith is a hometown girl done good, working to fuse small town advantages with big city amenities. She was re-elected in 2012 to serve a second term on the Vincent City Council, representing District 2. Jordan-Smith jokes she was tricked into public service, first serving on Vincent’s Park and Recreation Board. Friends and family suggested Jordan-Smith run for a City Council seat after she shared some frustrations. Jordan-Smith took their advice, running unopposed for her first term.

“When I moved back home, I immediately got involved in the community and it’s been interesting,” Jordan-Smith said. “I saw difficulties with trying to get things done at the park. I thought if I went to a different level, we could accomplish more.”

The city council has since unveiled a fiveyear master plan for the city’s new park, which includes larger fields, a skate park, outdoor exercise equipment and a splash pad for summer fun. The council also is reviewing plans for a new community center nearby.

“We don’t want people to have to go to Pell City or Childersburg just to have a birthday party.

We want their birthday party to be in our park or community

said. “We can have the things big cities have on a practical scale.”

Providing a better quality of life for families is vital to Jordan-Smith’s public service and professional work. She has dedicated her career to enriching the lives of children, most recently as field director of Bright Horizons Family Solutions. As field director, Jordan-Smith travels the country to establish child care centers with trained staffs. Jordan-Smith previously worked as director of Bright Horizons’ Shining Stars Child Care Center at MercedesBenz in Vance and as manager of UAB’s Child Development Center in Birmingham.

“Growing up, we didn’t have much in our community, but we always worked for the children in the community,” Jordan-Smith said. “To make a difference in the lives of children has been my passion forever.”

Jordan-Smith’s passion for child development and education no doubt fueled her desire to be an involved parent at Vincent schools. She joined the local Parent Teacher Organization when her daughter, Bria, entered second grade. Jordan-Smith was later elected as PTO president and remained active in the schools until Bria’s high school graduation in 2012. Jordan-Smith also is affiliated with the National Association for the Education

center,” JordanSmith

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“Shelby County is

of Young Children and the Southern Early Childhood Association, organizations dedicated to improving quality of care and education for young children and their families through advocacy and professional development.

“The key to success for any child is parental involvement. I might — have missed one field trip in 10 years,” JordanSmith said. “For you to know about your child’s teachers, to participate in activities, to know your child’s friends, that’s very important.”

Jordan-Smith’s knack for leadership also spills over into greater Shelby County. She serves as vice president of Leadership Shelby County, a program that enhances budding leaders’ management skills.

Jordan-Smith is a member of the Leadership Shelby County Class of 2006, and stayed involved in the organization post-graduation.

“She was that wonderful alum who came back,”

said Carol Bruser, who assumed the role of Leadership Shelby County coordinator during Jordan-Smith’s class. “She always stays active in the program, and was appointed to the Board of Directors in 2007.”

Bruser added: “She’s one of those rare individuals who works so hard and so diligently to Bridgette Jordan-Smith make things better. It’s the Bridgette JordanSmith Vincent Show on a daily basis, but it’s not just Vincent, she loves the county.”

Jordan-Smith, who will ascend to president of Leadership Shelby County in 2015, said she is fortunate to be among individuals who strive to bring about positive growth and change throughout the county she and so many other love.

“Shelby County is blessed to have such great leaders who are doing a lot of great things. To get to know so many leaders across the county has been wonderful,” Jordan-Smith said. n

blessed to have such great leaders who are doing a lot of great things. To get to know so many leaders across the county has been wonderful.”

Community starts with neighbors who care.

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Sister Cities Montevallo’s relationship with Japanese pottery village steadily growing

Story by STEPHANIE BRUMFIELD Photographs by JON GOERING and CONTRIBUTED ABOVE: Guests from the city of Montevallo’s sister city, Echizen, Japan, performed on the University of Montevallo campus on Oct. 13, 2010.

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M

ontevallo and the city of Echizen, Japan, have a lot in common.

Geographically, both have warm, humid climates, and their latitudes are degrees apart. Culturally, family is the backbone, and hospitality seems like second nature. But these affinities are mere coincidences. The communities’ shared love of pottery, however, is not.

Montevallo and Echizen officially became sister cities in 2008, though their collective history dates back to 1995, when the Birmingham Museum of Art hosted one of the first international exhibitions of Echizen pottery. University of Montevallo art professor Ted Metz received a phone call from the museum’s curator asking if he would be willing to host a workshop led by Echizen potters. Metz reluctantly said yes.

“It always strikes me how it can be such an innocent little thing that can start something big,” Metz said.

“I didn’t even know about the exhibition. I didn’t care about the exhibition, and I reluctantly accepted the invitation because I knew it was going to be a lot of work.”

But even though Metz admits he kind of “backed into it,” he’s glad he did, for that one, reluctant “yes” has since “blossomed in time into something huge.”

Since 2009, Echizen and Montevallo have formally exchanged groups of about a dozen travelers every year, although several informal exchanges occurred years before the sister city agreement was ever discussed.

For instance, in 1996, two University of Montevallo students were invited to study pottery in Japan for an entire year with Jeromon Fujita, a Japanese Living National Treasure and eighth generation potter who met the students at the workshop in 1995. Fujita had been asked by Japan’s emperor to share his techniques Profile 2014

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with other cultures, and he was particularly impressed with Chris Kelly and Tracy Shell, who were graduate students at the time.

Both Kelly and Shell went a year later in 1997, and unbeknownst to Metz, the impromptu exchange would be the first of more than a dozen that would occur over the next two decades. It was also an invitation that Metz said is “almost unheard of,” and one that affected the students tremendously.

“In Japan, you’d make tea for seven years or sweep the studio floor before you get to actually work with the big gun,” Metz said. “So for two American students to be invited to Japan and study for a year was quite amazing.”

About Kelly, Metz said he was “just a regular art student taking ceramics” before going to Japan. “(Kelly) was a good student, but he didn’t know where he was going to end up,” Metz said. “He had Profile 2014

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that experience working in Japan, and he came back a serious potter and ceramics sculptor … and now he’s the chairman of the art department at Piedmont College in Georgia, which has a strong ceramics department, and he takes his students every year to Japan.”

Shell now teaches ceramics at Midland College in Texas.

Kelly said the experience gave him “an advantage and has helped me as I’ve moved forward in my career” while also giving him the unique gift of being able to carry on the Fujita family tradition.

“The Fujita family is known for making a certain type of pot,” Kelly said. “It’s something he taught me. They kind of gave me the gift of their family’s tradition.”

Since then, both Fujita and his son have died, though not before they helped Kelly build a version of the family’s kiln at Piedmont College.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Montevallo students participate in a Japanese taiko drumming lesson during a trip to Echizen, Japan in July 2013. Montevallo students visit a Buddhist temple during a trip to Echizen, Japan in July 2013. As part of a trip to Echizen in July 2013, students participated in an authentic Japanese lunch, as pictured here.

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ABOVE: The cities of Montevallo and Echizen, Japan have agreed to host students every other year on a rotating basis.

“(His son) was the last in the line, so the gift they gave me is kind of an interesting burden,” Kelly said.

“That’s another reason I like that I can take my students back there every year.”

Currently, Kelly said he has taken more than 100 students to Japan, and he isn’t the only one who recognizes the significance of those annual trips. “(Kelly) got to go to Japan for a year, but that experience influenced his whole career and his life, and now he’s taking 30 students a year over there, and that’s going to influence those people,” Metz said.

“Just saying yes to (the workshop) opened up a world of possibilities for lots and lots of other people, and it’s really cool. I feel really good about it.”

FORMING PARTNERSHIPS In preparation for Kelly and Shell going to Japan,

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Metz visited Echizen for the first time in 1997 and began forming relationships with Echizen city officials.

While in Japan, Metz met Naomi Hashimoto, an Echizen city employee responsible for managing international affairs and promoting Echizen pottery.

The exchanges began soon after.

In 2001, a group of eight Japanese drummers came to the United States and performed at Desoto Caverns and the Birmingham Museum of Art, paying their own way and staying on the UM campus during their visit.

In 2002, a jazz and rock band composed of Montevallo High School students went to Echizen and performed at local schools, a trip that was paid for by the Echizen local government.

In 2003, a group of imperial dancers performed at UM, again traveling at their own expense.

In 2004, artistic exchanges were expanded to include middle school students. Five Montevallo Profile 2014

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Middle School students traveled to Japan while students from Miyazaki, Japan, traveled to Montevallo, both groups staying in the homes of their traveling counterparts.

“On the Japanese part, it became part of their city vision,” Metz said. “We were kind of a line item on their budget.”

On the Montevallo side, Metz said the exchanges were possible only because of what he could scrape together, and because of UM’s “generosity to house people” and provide meal tickets.

As the years went by, Metz said it became obvious that the partnership “could really take off ” and become something more if it could gain community backing.

He also realized the project was becoming more than he could handle, so he asked for help.

Help came in the form of then Montevallo city council member – and now mayor – Hollie Cost, Profile 2014

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“Sister cities can

while community backing came in the form of the Montevallo Sister City Commission, a non-profit formed in 2007 with 11 board members. Cost served as the commission’s first president.

That same year, Metz traveled to Japan to present a sister city proposal to Echizen’s mayor. Discussions about becoming sister cities continued into the next year, and the official agreement was signed in October of 2008.

“It’s a designation,” Metz said. “It means your communities are committed to each other, but there are no rules involved. Sister cities can either be real intense or energetic, or they can just be in name only.

Ours is pretty energetic.”

either be real intense or energetic, or they can just be in name only. Ours is pretty energetic.”

EDUCATIONAL TRAVEL The sister city partnership was formed to foster four types of exchanges between the two communities – cultural, educational, economic or industrial and athletic. In the beginning, the relationship evolved primarily through the arts and cultural exchanges, although more recently, education has been the focus.

Since the first group of Montevallo students visited Echizen in July 2009, the cities have agreed to host students every other year on a rotating basis, with Montevallo hosting Echizen students during even years and Echizen hosting Montevallo students during odd years. Exchanges involving groups of about 10-12 students ages 12-16 have occurred every year since then except 2011, when the trip was cancelled because of the tsunami and earthquake, which both occurred in March of that year, though Echizen was not affected by either disaster.

“We felt like us going over there would have been an undue burden on them,” Cost said.

For the exchanges, students are selected based on applications, recommendations and interviews, and once selected, they attend a series of monthly meetings to learn about Japanese culture before going on the trip. They learn by doing research at home and then giving presentations on topics like clothing, music, food, religions, geography and history. About a month before the trip, weekly meetings begin to help the students know what kind of luggage to take and what to pack.

“Some of these kids had never even flown on a plane,” said Cost, who served as a chaperone for the 38

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— Ted Metz

2013 trip to Japan. “Some had never left the state, and so this was a huge, I would say life-altering experience for many of the children that went.”

When students go on the trips, they are responsible for paying for their plane tickets only.

The host city, in this case Echizen, pays for

everything else.

“The same (is true) when they come over here,” Cost said. “They only pay for the plane ticket, we pick them up at the airport and we pay for everything for them until they get back on the plane.”

The city of Montevallo contributes between $1,000 and $2,000 every year to fund the exchanges, with the Sister City Commission covering the cost of field trips and host families absorbing the cost of food and transportation for the travelers, Cost said. In the past, field trips have included trips to the McWane Center, Chattanooga, American Village, Cost’s lake house in Clanton and churches where the host families are members.

“The whole point is for them to really get immersed in American culture,” Cost said. “Sometimes people think, ‘Oh, why do they want to visit Montevallo?’

Well, it’s not just to visit Montevallo. It’s to get immersed in the American culture and to see what families do here.”

The same is true for when Montevallo students visit Japan, though in Japan the cultural immersion is more instructional, Cost said.

“They really focus on teaching you the culture there,” she said. “They taught us how to cook certain things. They took us to an old textile factory, and then we got to make something on a textile loom. They taught us how to make paper. A Buddhist monk taught us how to meditate. They taught us calligraphy. (They provided) all of these real educational experiences that were so enriching to the children and to the chaperones that went over there.”

Metz, who often drives the students around when they visit, said the benefit of both sets of students traveling is untold and immeasurable.

“When you take a 12-year-old and you send them to another country, you don’t know how that’s going to shake down, but it has to influence them in some way,” Metz said. “Traveling is a really good way to get a better perspective on the world and appreciate other kinds of cultures, to realize that there are other ways to do things and other ways to think and other religious Profile 2014

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beliefs and other ways to practice religion and other ways to honor your parents and grandparents and other ways to bury people. It’s pretty different.

“But I know it also influences the Japanese when they come over here. We’ve had several Japanese teachers who teach English to Japanese children who had never been to the United States, and who had never been to an English speaking country. They come here, and they get to practice their English. They get to get a sense of how it’s spoken and how it’s handled, and I know that’s had an impact on how they go back and teach English to their children,” he said.

NEXT STEPS The Sister City Commission is currently looking at ways to expand the third level of the partnership, or economic and industrial exchanges.

“They’ve asked us if we can help them market their work,” Metz said. “They have this great tradition of ceramics in their community, and they sell it well in Japan, but they have no international market.”

So far, the Sister City Commission has held meetings with professionals in business, international shipping, storage and industrial development.

“We’re starting out small, and it may just blossom into something bigger down the road,” Metz said.

“We’re going to let it find its path, and we have to find the right people who are interested in it.”

Because of the quality of the ceramics, Metz said “it would be nice if the only place where you can get Echizen pottery in the United States is Montevallo,” or if a shipping center could be in Montevallo. He also said the possibility of international markets isn’t a one-way deal.

“Conversely, there would be an opportunity for some of our products to go over there,” he said. “We could make in-roads into their community if we chose to.”

Regarding the last level of partnership, athletics, Metz said it hasn’t even been thought about, though he expects the partnership to continue to grow and evolve.

“Some of my best experiences (in Japan) have been my interaction with people, just total strangers,” Metz said. “The Japanese will just go out of their way to take care of any visitors to their country … I remember in Kyoto trying to find a certain temple, and I just asked someone and they walked us to it. It was four blocks away, and they made sure we got there. That kind of thing is not unique. They really go out of their way to accommodate a visitor.” n PAGE 39: Montevallo students pose in front of a statue at Ono Castle. ABOVE: A view of Echizen, Japan.

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Helena’s storm of the century Tornado dramatically changed city’s development Story by NEAL WAGNER Photographs by JON GOERING and CONTRIBUTED

ABOVE: A photo displays the tragedy many families suffered after a tornado ripped through Helena in 1933.

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he disaster was more than 80 years ago, but Eleanor Postell Paty still vividly recalls the night she was thrown from the second floor of her Helena house and into a nearby field.

In 1933, Paty, who was 13 at the time, did not have the luxury of a weather radio or a television broadcast telling her one of the city’s most significant disasters was on its way to her house in the wee hours of the morning.

“We were all at church that Sunday, and the preacher looked outside and said ‘It looks like a bad storm is coming, you all better go on home,’” Paty said. “And that was the only warning we had.

There was nothing else telling us that we were going to have such a bad storm.”

Paty and her family had an uneasy feeling the rest of the afternoon, and went to sleep for the

night before they were awoken by howling winds and driving rain.

“At about 3 a.m., my mother said ‘It looks like it’s about to get really bad,’ and we all gathered in my grandmother’s room, which was in the second floor,” Paty said. “The roof started blowing off, and they told me not to look up. But of course, being 13, I looked up. I caught the whole ceiling to my face.”

Being hit in the face was the last memory Paty had before waking up in a field about 25 feet away, still holding her brother’s hand. Of the six people who were in Paty’s house when the twister leveled it, all were able to walk away afterward.

“Out of everything in that house, all we were able to recover was a radio, a chair without legs and a table,” Paty said, noting she was treated for a gash in her cheek after being blown from the Profile 2014

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RIDE THE TRAIN second story. “The doctor said if the piece of debris that hit my face had been just a fraction of an inch higher, I would have lost my eye. My God took care of us.”

‘IT JUST GOT EVERYTHING’ Of the about 500 people living in Helena when the tornado hit in May 1933, 13 lost their lives in the disaster. Although nobody in Paty’s house was killed in the storm, many of her friends were not as lucky.

“After I had recovered, they took me to the morgue to help identify bodies,” Paty said. “It was a trying time.”

Using a modern Enhanced Fujita intensity scale, the 1933 tornado would be categorized as an EF4, which is near the top of the five-category scale.

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ABOVE: Eleanor Paty and her family lived through the 1933 tornado that destroyed much of Helena. PAGE 45: Helena historian Ken Penhale’s museum contains a wall dedicated to information and photos from the devastating tornado.

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The late-night storm blazed a path of destruction between what is now Rolling Mill Street and Second Street.

“It just got everything,” said Helena historian Ken Penhale, who now runs the Helena Museum on the former site of a building destroyed by the storm.

“It got all three churches in the city, all the homes in the storm path were totally leveled and it got the grist mill.”

Despite the nearby swath of devastation, most of the heart of Old Town Helena was relatively unscathed.

“Old Town had some damage, but I imagine that damage was just due to the vacuum from the tornado,” Penhale said. “For the most part, Old Town was spared. I really can’t say why for sure. I guess that hill (near Rolling Mill Street) protected most of the businesses.

“Had the storm gone 30 feet to the left, we wouldn’t have anything left in Old Town,” Penhale added, noting most of the Old Town buildings standing when the twister hit are still standing today.

When the tornado hit, it put a city already seeing an economic slump on “standstill,” Penhale said.

A LASTING EFFECT In Helena’s early days in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, most of the city’s economy was built around mining and mill operations — the remnants of which still dot the city’s landscape.

The Buck Creek dam near Old Town was a popular spot for the city’s major early industries, and railroads trafficked materials mined in the city to locations all over the South.

But by the time 1933 rolled around, many of the city’s major mines and mills had already closed.

“Most of the major mines were closed, the rolling mill was closed. Helena was on a decline anyway before the storm hit,” Penhale said. “After the storm, so many people moved away and just didn’t come back. It really put the city in a tailspin.”

Many Helena residents hit by the storm built back “immediately” after the tornado, but it took many years for the city to fully recover – both physically and emotionally, Penhale said.

“My mother and grandmother never got over it,” Penhale said, noting his grandmother’s house on Rolling Mill Street was blown off its foundation and his mother’s house was spared completely. “They would be a nervous wreck every time a storm would come through.”

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Most of Rolling Mill Street did not see redevelopment for 20 years after the storm, and Helena’s population remained relatively stagnant until Birmingham’s suburbs began growing in the 1960s and 1970s.

FEW SCARS FROM THE PAST Today, Helena boasts a population of more than 17,000, and few marks remain of the 1933 devastation. “There are very few left who remember the storm,” Penhale said. “Eleanor is the main one, because she was actually in it.”

In the years following the tornado, Paty and her family moved to Birmingham. After moving back to Helena from 1989-1999, Paty and her husband moved to Homewood to be closer to her husband’s physician at Brookwood Medical Center.

“I was real unhappy we had to move,” Paty said.

“I love Helena, and I love everyone there.”

To this day, Paty said she counts her blessings every time she remembers the fateful night she and her family were awoken in the middle of the night by the howling winds.

“It really is amazing and a miracle that we walked away from that,” Paty said. n

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Hoopin’ for heaven Story by AMY JONES Photographs by JON GOERING

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nlike many of those who make spreading the gospel their lives’ work, Rick Swing’s path to the ministry took the shape of a basketball court.

Rick, now the executive pastor at Westwood Baptist Church in Alabaster, was born in Shreveport, La., but thanks to a father in the Air Force, his family moved regularly when he was young. He was primarily raised in Francesville, Ind. — Hoosier country — and fell in love with the game of basketball, as his father loved it before him.

“When you grow up in Indiana, you don’t really have a choice. There’s a basketball hoop on every garage,” Rick said. “It was part of me for as long as I can remember.”

Rick, who eventually grew to be a 6-foot-4 shooting guard, spent some of his high school years in Dayton, Ohio. However, a fateful encounter with his high school coach changed his path.

“I was kind of a big fish in a small pond. I got to play right away and started all four years,” he said.

In his senior year there, 1979, the team set the all-time record for wins in a single season with 20 victories. The college created an “Animal House”like atmosphere, with fans coming to games in toga outfits and other costumes. The Citadel beat Clemson at home and almost beat the Tigers on the road, and Citadel finished second that year in shooting percentage, Rick said.

“It became this place where no (opponents) wanted to come play,” he said. “It was one of those magical years.”

THE NEXT LEVEL

Rick’s career at The Citadel and performance in a seniors-only tournament put him on the NBA radar, and the Cleveland Cavaliers selected him in the fourth round of the 1979 NBA draft.

He stayed with the team through the exhibition FROM HOOSIER COUNTRY season, but at the time, professional teams only TO SOUTH CAROLINA carried 11 players on the active roster. Cleveland already had a shooting guard, Butch Lee, who had When Rick reached his junior year of high school been the collegiate Player of the Year in 1977 and in Dayton, his basketball skills had improved to the had spent time on Cleveland’s injured reserve list. point that he believed he could get a free college He returned to the active roster before the season education for playing the game he loved. He went started, and the Cavs cut Rick. to his basketball coach and asked for help getting a After Rick left the Cavaliers, he got a call from scholarship. He’ll never forget the man’s reply.

Athletes in Action, an evangelistic arm of Campus “His response back to me was, ‘Well, that’s not Crusade, a Christian organization promoting my job. That’s your job,’” Rick said. “That broke my discipleship around the world. heart, because other than my faith in God and my As part of Athletes in Action, Rick would be on family, basketball was my passion.” a team that would play exhibition games against Because of the coach’s attitude, Rick’s family college teams and then, at halftime, would share decided to move to Frankfort, Ind. for one year the story of Jesus Christ with the crowd. It didn’t so Rick could attend Frankfort High School and take him long to make up his mind, even though hopefully follow his dream of playing college European professional teams were courting him, and basketball. he might have still had NBA opportunities.

Like most Indiana towns, Frankfort loved Rick also didn’t enjoy the atmosphere he found basketball.

Relocating to Frankfort turned out to be a shrewd in professional sports, which he found encouraged athletes to focus on pleasure, fame and fortune. The move — all the starters from that year’s team idea of sharing his faith through the game he loved received college scholarship offers.

One of Rick’s friends, who played for a cross-town was vastly more appealing.

Rick’s Athletes in Action team was based in rival school, was considering The Citadel in South Memphis, Tenn., but toured the country. He played Carolina. Citadel’s coach began to recruit Rick too, with the team for three years, until the Athletes and he and his friend went down to Charleston, in Action organization announced plans to move S.C., to see the school.

“I fell in love with the head coach and the college,” the team to Canada. The team’s manager, who did not want to move, founded Spirit Express, a team Rick said.

Even though he had offers from larger schools, he that functioned in the same way as the Athletes in Action team. Rick played for Spirit Express for wanted to go somewhere he felt at home.

Rick’s career at The Citadel was outstanding — at another few years. one point, he was the second all-time leading scorer.

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PAGE 46: Rick Swing’s basketball career gave him many of the skills needed to be an effective pastor.

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THE BEGINNING OF A LIFE IN MINISTRY While Rick played for Spirit Express, he was a member of Ridgeway Baptist Church in Memphis.

Eventually, Rick became the team’s general manager as well as a member of the playing roster. In the summer of 1987, as he was raising money and support for the team, Ridgeway’s administration asked him to be the church’s student pastor for the summer while they searched for a permanent one.

Near the end of the summer, Rick walked into the senior pastor’s office and said he’d be leaving his temporary position in three weeks. He wanted to know if the church had secured another student pastor.

“He looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, we’ve got him.’ I said, ‘Do you mind giving me his name?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m looking right at him,’” Rick said.

After considering the offer, Rick realized that he could spread the gospel at home just as well as he could across the country or the world.

Despite Rick’s lifelong faith — he was saved at the age of 7 and grew up in a Christian family — he had never considered being a minister until the offer came from Ridgeway.

“I never saw myself in that role of being a pastor, a shepherd, a leader, until God put me there,” he said.

Rick’s younger sister, Kelly Carswell, said Rick’s decision to become a pastor wasn’t a surprise to her or to the rest of her family.

COMING TO ALABASTER As a student pastor, Rick and his family moved around often.

“Everywhere God put me in my student ministry life, God did amazing things,” he said.

Eventually, the Swings ended up in Mississippi, and Rick and wife Linda decided it was time to build their dream family home. Not surprisingly, soon after the home was finished, Rick received a call from Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham, offering him a position.

At first, Rick was determined to turn the opportunity down, but Shades Mountain’s administration was dogged in its pursuit. Finally, Shades Mountain called one last time and asked him to pray about the offer. When he and Linda did so, they felt God’s call to accept the opportunity. The family moved to Vestavia in 1996, and Rick worked at Shades Mountain for 12 years.

Five years ago, Westwood Baptist called and he 48

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made the move to the Alabaster church.

Rick, now 56, said his 30-year career in the ministry has been a continuous learning experience — one that has been helped by the discipline and obedience he learned during the years he spent shooting basketballs.

“I certainly see similarities in my faith walk and how difficult that is, and how I became a player that could be drafted into the NBA and how difficult that was,” he said.

Kelly said Rick’s experience dealing with different people and personalities throughout his basketball career has been invaluable to his success in the ministry.

“I think there’s a lot of discipline in being a pastor.

It’s very difficult. You have to come up against adversity and criticism,” she said. “You’re around many different kinds of people. I think that’s very important. We’re very proud of him for his success in the ministry.”

Rick doesn’t spend a lot of time on the court these days, unless it’s with his kids.

“The biggest thing I do now is get out in the driveway with my boys,” he said.

However, he loves going to watch their games, and he and his wife can often be seen in the crowd at UAB’s Bartow Arena.

Kelly said her brother’s relationship with his children is an example for others to follow. She said she’s seen people in the ministry take time for everyone except their families, and Rick works hard to avoid that trap.

Rick remembers what it was like to be a kid himself, and how basketball shaped him even then. One of his favorite memories stems from a Christmas gift.

“The Christmas I got my first pair of Chuck Taylor Converses,” he said. “I was probably 9. I slept in those shoes for a month.”

Another of Rick’s most treasured memories stems from a rite of passage every bourgeoning hoops star goes through.

“I think it was my sophomore year in high school.

I was playing on the junior varsity team. About halfway through the year, my coach came to me and handed me a varsity jersey,” Rick said, smiling. “I’ll never forget that moment, and I’ll never forget going home and putting it on.”

But Rick will always have his priorities, and while basketball is a big part of his life, his faith in God is much more important.

“The most important thing about my life is my faith in Christ. God just used the game of basketball in my life to pull me (to the ministry),” Rick said. n Profile 2014

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www.pelhamonline.com

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Life after office

What are county’s former mayors up to?

Story by STEPHANIE BRUMFIELD Photographs by JON GOERING

DAVID FRINGS Alabaster, 2000-2012

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avid Frings worked as a geologist at Southern Company for almost 30 years before retiring in 2006, when he became the director of the Oak Mountain Interpretive Center at Oak Mountain State Park. Since retiring as mayor, he has continued his work as director while also teaching classes at Samford University. He currently lives in Alabaster with his wife, Jennifer.

Q: What have you been doing now that you’re out of office?

A: Well, I’ve been doing some traveling. Right after I left office, I took a two-week trip to Australia.

It was with a friend of mine who is actually from Melbourne, so I had a good guide. We went up and down the east coast and took about 5,000 photographs of different animals. I got to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef and go down the Daintree River and see saltwater crocodiles 15 feet long off the boat and all sorts of kangaroos and wallabies. I got to go to the Australia Zoo, which I’ve always wanted to do. I climbed the bridge over Sydney Harbor, climbed on top of the bridge. That was interesting seeing all of the little boats and cars below you. I took a cruise last summer with the family after my youngest daughter graduated high school and went down to Jamaica and Grand Cayman and some other stops.

Of course, I was working at Samford University when I was mayor, and I’ve been at Samford since

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2006, so I can continue my work (as director of the Oak Mountain Interpretative Center) through Samford and also as a teacher.

I’ve also been doing writing. In the spring, I started writing a nature column for the original Alabaster newsletter that’s no longer affiliated with the city, so I write a monthly column there as well as some other freelance things. I like writing a lot. Even when I was in office I had started working on a couple of books, so I’m having a little bit more time to work on those.

I’m working on one with a colleague at the university on rock habitats of Alabama, doing photography on the plants that grow in these specialized habitats around the state. Hopefully we’ve got about all of the fieldwork done and it’s just a matter of sitting down and trying to finish up all the writing. I’m working on a book on endangered species, just keeping busy.

I’m spending a little bit more time with the family.

My youngest daughter, Heidi, started at Jacksonville State University in August. She’s in the color guard, so I’ve been going to football games to see her in the band. I guess just generally having fun.

LEFT: David Frings has been the director of the Oak Mountain Interpretative Center at Oak Mountain State Park since 2006, where he has continued to work after retiring as Alabaster’s mayor in 2012.

Q: What is the most fun thing you did as mayor?

A: I think the economic development was fun because you hate to say it’s about money, but if you don’t have money to do things with, you aren’t going to be able to do them. When I came in office, our general fund budget was about $8 million, and when I left office, it was about $24 million. Doing the marketing, talking with the various developers and the various corporations, selling the city and 53

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trying to convince them that it’s a good risk was fun. I remember Starbucks told us that due to our demographics and things that we never really had a chance to get a Starbucks. But we didn’t give up, and now we have three Starbucks. That’s a small retailer, but it’s one that people enjoy a lot. Working to make those projects happen, I liked that a lot because that enabled us to have the money we needed to do all of the other things we needed to do.

Q: Is there anything you miss about being mayor?

A: I guess I miss helping people. I like doing that, but it hasn’t been that much of a shock because teaching students kind of takes the place of that, so I don’t really miss it that much because I have other things that are similar that have filled in any voids that are there. The interaction with people or lending a helping hand, you can do that as a mayor or you can do that as a professor, so it hasn’t been that much of a transition.

— David Frings Q: When you were growing up, did you ever think that you would be the mayor of a town?

A: No, I never thought about it. I never paid a whole lot of attention to politics growing up, so it was never really a plan. The first time I won, I actually entered the race for City Council and dropped out 30 minutes before the deadline and reentered as mayor and ended up winning. I guess until I moved to Alabaster (in 1982) and saw so much potential and not a whole lot happening, not a whole lot getting accomplished. That was the whole reason I ran, because I thought there was potential, and I was right. There was. (The city) just needed some direction and some planning done, and that led us to be very successful.

Q: Have you picked up any new hobbies?

A: No, because I had so many. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve collected rocks and minerals and fossils and worked with plants and animals. I still have a lot of reptiles. I’ve done photography since I was in middle school. I always liked to travel. I’ve been to about 13 different countries now and just want to do more. So I guess I’ve got all the same hobbies, I’m just trying to do as many of them as I can. I’m lucky that a lot of my hobbies really fit into my work. My training is primarily in geology and biology, and everything I 54

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do at work falls into that, so it’s hard sometimes to separate where the work day ends and where the fun stuff begins. I’m very, very blessed and lucky to do something that I like.

BOBBY HAYES Pelham, 1984-2008

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obby Hayes worked for the Birmingham Police Department before becoming mayor, where he led the SWAT team for 13 years and retired after 20 years of service. He currently lives in Pelham with his wife, Judy.

Q: What are you doing now that you are out of office?

A: We go to a lot of football games, (especially) Pelham High School and Chelsea Middle School. We have a grandson (at Chelsea), and we have two at Pelham. We have a cheerleader at Chelsea. We have a dance team member at Pelham, so we see quite a few high school ball games. We do Clemson football with Dabo (Swinney), because he kind of grew up with us, so we go up there when we can.

I also serve on the personnel board for the city of Pelham. We put that in when we were in office.

Right now we’re doing meetings every three weeks, but that was just to get through the budget. The mayor’s office had several requests that had to come through the personnel board, so we put a lot of time into that reviewing the positions that they wanted and agreeing to salaries. For awhile there, that was a pretty full-time job. That occupies more time than anything else right now. That’s about the only thing I do business wise. We stay busy, but we don’t get too carried away. We set our own schedule.

Q: Do you miss anything about being out of office?

A: I miss the people I worked with every day.

We had some great folks there. The staff was, in my opinion, exceptional. The department heads we had were excellent. They took care of their people, they took care of the city and they looked after the citizens. We worked for the people, and that’s the way I explained it to them every time we talked about something. (I’d tell them to) remember who your boss is. It’s not Bobby. In fact, I think that I worked for them. I’m not sure. I didn’t stay there long enough to figure it out, and I was there 24 years. I’m pretty sure that I worked for the employees, and they kept me fooled the whole time making me think I was in charge, but I really wasn’t. They were. But they did a great job, and our city just exploded.

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LEFT: Bobby Hayes’ biggest pastime after retiring as Pelham’s mayor in 2008 is watching football. He goes to Pelham High School and Chelsea Middle School games to see his grandchildren, and he goes to Clemson games to see his friend Dabo Swinney, head football coach for the Tigers, and PHS alum.

Q: What were some of your biggest accomplishments while you were in office?

A: The first time we ran, we ran on bringing the sewer in, doing a privatized sewer system, and when that came in – and 119 was the first area – it just absolutely exploded. When I came in (to office), we had like 6,000 people in the whole city, and we had issued 300 business licenses the year before. When I left, we had right at 20,000-plus, and we were issuing probably 3,000 business licenses at that time.

We picked up (our son) Rick once – he was working at that time for Ross Perot out in Plano, Texas – he flew in once, and we picked him up at the airport one night. We came down the interstate and got off at (Alabama) 119, and he said, “Where are we going?” I said, “We’re going home.” At that time we lived over on Frontier Drive. He said, “Well, where are we now?” He hadn’t been home in about three years. I said, “We’re on 119.” He said, “No way.”

It was just all lights, and when he left, there was a service station up there and a pasture and a goat farm.

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Q: Have you picked up any new hobbies?

A: We won’t miss a high school game to go to Clemson, but we travel to Clemson, we travel to wherever Clemson’s playing and we go down to the beach. We’re on a road called 30A. It’s a beach road between Destin and Panama City. We have a house down there in a little gated community. We enjoy it. It’s a nice little place to go. The house is big enough so all the kids that want to come can come. We have three and each one of them have three, and they’re at the age now where they might want to bring a guest with them, and that’s fine. When we built it, we built it large enough for everybody to be there if they want to be.

— Bobby Hayes they had a show scheduled to open. Well, you can’t have a 10,000-seat amphitheater without restrooms.

We got the sewer done like three days before. It was great, and the show went great. And then buildings just started coming out of the ground. I 55

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mean it was like you just planted seeds and they just exploded, and our city really at that time took off, and that enabled us with all the new buildings to have the money to do some other things that would be good for the people and that they would enjoy. We expanded the city park, we built the Civic Complex, the racquet club. We expanded the tennis center over at the park. We built this golf course. We just did a lot of things to make Pelham a destination, a place that people could come and have anything that they wanted to do within the city limits.

ROSEMARY LIVEOAK Wilsonville, 2004-2012

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osemary Liveoak was an educator for 39 years, first as a teacher at Columbiana Middle School and then as a teaching principal and principal at Wilsonville Elementary, where she stayed for 34 years. She served on the Wilsonville City Council for eight years before becoming mayor. She currently lives in Wilsonville.

Q: Do you miss anything about being out of office?

A: I think what I miss, just like at school, I miss the day-to-day contact with people that I would have had being mayor and being principal of the school, and that’s what I’ve had to adjust to the most. I haven’t missed any of the complaining phone calls though.

And it is different when you’re in a decision-making role and can kind of direct change. It’s different than sitting back and just being a passivist. It’s different.

Q: What do you think were some of your biggest accomplishments as mayor?

A: I think, number one, I feel like I changed the look of Wilsonville, kind of brought it back to that good home-feeling, country-feeling kind of town, and when you pass through, you didn’t just say, “Oh, look at this little dumpy town.” I enjoyed getting the committees and boards going, especially the Beautification Board, because they worked very hard in establishing some of the key areas that kind of brightened up the town.

And of course, connecting to the water system and the improvements that we made in connecting to Columbiana was huge. I don’t think people really knew how close we were to pumping mud. Just this past year in the drought condition, we were at an all-time low, I was told, in that well, so it was a good thing we had already connected to it. To have the big tank, you’ve got reserve water, so that was a win-win I think for the water system.

And I guess the most controversial thing was I 56

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supported buying that bank building from M&F Bank so that it could be retained for a bank or a savings in town since it was already designed for that rather than just letting it go for anything. To me, the possibility of when the economy improved, then there was a possibility of a bank coming back, (and now) there is one coming.

Another accomplishment was the fact that we were moving to improve our planning and zoning by actually going through a process where you study your town, what you would like, how you would like for it to be molded or look in the future, and to us, working through that process made us all take a step back in what we appreciate about Wilsonville and how we would like to see Wilsonville 10, 15, 20

ABOVE: Rosemary Liveoak served as the principal of Wilsonville Elementary before becoming the mayor of Wilsonville in 2004. She retired in 2012.

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years down the road, and that involved a lot of the community. We had open meetings. That was fun.

Also reestablishing all the boards and committees and getting them to where they were full membership and to give them that direction so that they felt like they were a part of the town, that was nice too. I enjoyed that.

We also remodeled town hall and made that a place of pride for the citizens and to conduct business respectfully. To me, that was a huge thing.

Q: Have you picked up any new hobbies since being out of office?

A: New hobbies, no, but I’m thinking about some hobbies to do. First of all, I don’t think you call traveling a hobby, but I’ve always enjoyed that. We had a motor home at one point and have gone from the east coast to the west coast, so I’d like to revisit some of those places and spend a little bit more time than when you’re locked in to a two- or three-week vacation. I went on an Alaskan cruise, and that was kind of relaxing and new. I highly recommend that, as well as retirement. Work hard, keep striving for that retirement, because it is wonderful, it really is.

I always enjoyed art. I enjoyed drawing, and I didn’t do much painting, but I enjoyed, not the craft end of it, but the creativity of art. I’d like to explore some more phases of that to where you can actually hone some skills. As far as hobbies, I don’t have any. I’m just free to try anything.

GEORGE ROY Calera, 1965-1968, 1972-1980, 1984-2009

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eorge Roy Sr. worked at Ingalls Iron Works, which was bought by Trinity Industries, for 45 years before serving on the Calera City Council and becoming mayor. He now lives in Clanton on Mitchell Lake with his wife, Elizabeth Marie, and son, George Roy Jr.

Q: When you were growing up, did you ever think that you would be mayor?

A: I never had any idea that I’d ever get involved in politics, or that I would ever be interested in running for mayor or anything. We were raising a family, and there was nothing there for the kids to do. The first time I ran for council was 1960 because I was raising a family, and back then there were no parks or anything, no ball fields for the kids. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to get into office. I wanted to see if I could help do something so we could have parks and things for kids to do.

Q: What are you doing now that you are out of office?

A: You learn to slow down, and then when you wake up you say, “What exciting thing can I do today?” I’ve remodeled the inside of my house since I retired.

— Rosemary Liveoak Q: What are you doing now that you’re out of office?

A: I’m sitting here (at my house on Mitchell Lake in Clanton) watching the boats go by and looking at the fisherman on the lake. I spend most of my time sitting on the sun deck. We have as good of a view as there is on the lake. I waited really too long to retire.

I should have retired at least four years earlier. I can’t get out here and do what I used to do. Being retired is nice, but if you could do something, it’d be much better.

Q: Have you picked up any new hobbies since you’ve been out of office?

A: I love golf, and every Sunday afternoon after church I had a group that I played with. We played

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RIGHT: George Roy lived in Calera from age 6 until he retired in 2009, minus a stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II when he was stationed in the Philippines. Roy served the city of Calera for decades on the City Council and as mayor.

every Sunday afternoon. After I retired, I played a little of it on the weekends. Now, I don’t know if I could even swing a club.

I used to love to fish. I would fish every chance I got. Now, I got a son-in-law that’s married to my youngest daughter. He loves fishing. I went with him regular until my knees got so bad, but I go some with him some now, especially during the winter.

Q: What was the most fun thing you did while you were in office?

A: The most fun I ever had being mayor was when they had the air show up at the airport. They had the stunt planes.

They wanted to take me up, and of course I wanted to go up.

They said, “Do you want to do all the stunts?” And like a fool, I said yes. And boy we did them all. That was the most fun I ever had in my life. I’m kind of afraid of heights. Upside down, going straight up, over backwards, spinning, I loved it. It was good.

— George Roy

Q: What do you miss about being in office?

A: I miss the workers. We were very close-knit, all 58

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of the employees. We were very close and worked together great. They’d do anything in the world I asked them to do. I was there every day at City Hall – I more or less had to be – because that’s when we started growing, in the ‘90s. There were so many people looking at Calera and coming in that there was always something to do – meet with people, look at land locations, things of that nature. I enjoyed it. It gave me something to do and kept me busy.

The people are what I miss most because I’m out of contact with them.

Q: What were some of your biggest accomplishments as mayor?

A: I think the annexations were big. I would encourage (my council) that every time we’d get a chance to annex something, we annexed it. Calera used to be very narrow, maybe a mile this way and a mile that way. We’ve got room to grow for years.

When we started and the building was good, our population was just a little over 3,000 and it’s right around 13,000 or better now. We’ve grown a lot.

When Sysco came, that was a good start. People began to look. If Sysco looks there, maybe they needed to. We had Ramberg come in there, which was a very worldwide known company. Of course, when we got our Walmart, that gave us a good tax structure. There’s been a lot of good things that have happened there. n Profile 2014

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Alabaster resident Drew Long and her daughter, Caroline, with the first version of a special-needs shopping cart the family developed.

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Filling a

worldwide need

Shopping trip serves as catalyst for change Story by NEAL WAGNER Photographs by JON GOERING and NEAL WAGNER

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rew Ann Long will never forget her worst trip to the grocery store.

In 2006, Long loaded her 6-year-old daughter, Caroline, and her 3-year-old son, Matthew, into the car for a trip to the market closest to the family’s Alabaster home. While most parents can attest to the difficulties of wrangling a few children while checking items off their shopping lists, Long was faced with a dilemma most mothers never face.

Caroline was born in 2000, and was diagnosed four years later with Rett’s syndrome, a nervous system disorder affecting movement and expressive language.

As a result of the disease, Caroline is not able to walk, and relies on a wheelchair for mobility.

“Caroline was in a wheelchair, and I had my son with me, who was 3. It was a disaster trip,” Drew Ann said as she recalled the day the family’s future – along with the world’s special-needs community – took a drastic turn. “I was trying to push the buggy and Caroline’s wheelchair at the same time. I always felt like everyone was staring at me when I went to the store.

“My son ran off and then I ran into a display in the store, and that’s when I thought, ‘This is ridiculous.

This should not be this way,’” Drew Ann added.

“When I got home, I told (my husband) David, ‘I almost lost Matthew today, I ran into a display, this has got to change.’”

HARDER THAN EXPECTED For the first few years of Caroline’s life, Drew Ann’s trips to the grocery store were not different from any other parent’s. Traditional shopping carts offer small seats for infants and toddlers, which provided the perfect solution each time Drew Ann and Caroline went shopping together.

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But as Caroline grew, problems began to arise.

“I think the saying goes, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know,’” Drew Ann said. “It’s not something I really thought about until I was faced with it.”

When Drew Ann began her journey to help Birmingham-area mothers facing the same dilemma she was, she originally thought the task would be easy.

“When we started out, God was good to make me naïve,” Drew Ann said. “I thought it would be easy. I thought, ‘A shopping cart is out there somewhere that serves this purpose, I just have to go out and bring it to Alabaster, Alabama.’”

After searching all over the world for a shopping cart capable of seating an adolescent or adult special-needs individual, the Long family came up with no results.

Instead of feeling defeated, the family decided to do whatever it took to make the cart a reality.

“I never thought I would do what I did. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would get to where we are today,” Drew Ann said. “There is not one part of this journey that has been easy. But it was worth every bit.”

CREATING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING Soon after deciding to build from scratch a shopping cart to market to grocery retailers all over the world, the Long family worked with an Indianapolis-based Indesign professional design firm to design the cart’s prototype.

In 2011, the cart prototype, which was bright orange and gray, arrived at the Longs’ house, giving the family the first tangible proof of their hard work.

“That showed us this was God’s will. We are just the vehicle, and we give God the glory,” Drew Ann said.

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ABOVE: Drew Ann Long uses Caroline’s Cart during a visit to an Alabaster grocery store in 2012.

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“Never in my wildest

dream strengthened Drew Ann’s resolve further, and she reached out to the nation’s largest shopping cart manufacturer, Technibilt, which is based in North Carolina.

“She brought the idea to Technibilt, and presented it to our thenplant manager,” said Technibiilt Sales Manager Alice Little. “He told her it was a good idea, but we were just not ready to embark on it yet.”

Not one to be discouraged, Drew Ann found a smaller manufacturer in Georgia to help make the product a reality. The Long family paid to help create and market the cart before it was picked up by the manufacturer.

“It was difficult at first, because he had never made a cart in his life,” Drew Ann said.

Working with the Georgia manufacturer, the Longs were able to strike a deal with the Belle Foods grocery store chain to distribute the carts in Alabama and a few other states.

From there, demand for Caroline’s Cart exploded.

A SECOND CHANCE

After being turned down the first time she approached Technibilt, the Longs’ fortunes changed after families and caretakers of special— Drew Ann Long needs adolescents and adults started learning about the product.

“It’s hard to get a product on the market, but we knew if a company saw it successful, they would want it,” Drew Ann said. “Technibilt called me back because people called them and told them they wanted this cart in their market.”

Little said demand for carts was widespread and nationwide, prompting the company to sign a contract with the Longs in late March 2013.

“After not getting it off the ground the first time, we started talking with her to make a cart that was safe and was the cart that she envisioned,” Little said, noting several retailers agreed to stock the carts months before they shipped. “This is going to take off once more people see these carts being used.”

About a month after Technibilt shipped the first

dreams did I think we would get to where we are today.”

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batch of blue Caroline’s Carts in early August 2013, retailers in more than 10 states had already agreed to offer the carts.

“Signing that contract with Technibilt was like getting the Sony record deal,” Drew Ann said with a laugh. “We actually signed the contract on Good Friday, which just blew my mind.”

As each month passes, more and more retailers are jumping on board to offer Caroline’s Cart, and it will only take one large national chain to put the product in the public eye across the nation.

“All it will take is a company like a Walmart, a Kroger or a Target to sign on for these carts to take off all over the nation,” Little said. “This is something Technibilt really believes in. I really love this product.”

TAKING IT WORLDWIDE The Longs’ contract with Technibilt also had

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implications beyond the United States’ boundaries.

Because Caroline’s Cart is the only product of its kind on the planet, the family discovered a worldwide demand for the cart.

Technibilt’s parent company, Wanzl, is based in Germany, which presents a big opportunity for Caroline’s Cart.

“Euroshop is one of the largest retail shows in Europe, and Caroline’s Cart will be displayed at the show in February (2014),” Drew Ann said.

Looking back at her journey, Drew Ann said she is still in awe how far Caroline’s Cart has come from its inception.

“The challenges were daily. They were hourly.

Like the saying goes, we’ve found 2,000 ways to not make a light bulb,” Drew Ann said. “I’ve worn out pants because I’ve been on my knees praying.

“We are in a good place now,” Drew Ann said.

“Will the troubles continue? Yes, but God has been so good to us. I don’t see that stopping now.” n

LEFT: From left, Alabaster Mayor Marty Handlon, Matthew, Drew Ann, Caroline and David Long shortly after Handlon presented a proclamation honoring the family.

RIGHT: Caroline Long, left, communicates with her mother, Drew Ann, through the use of an augmentative communication device, which Caroline can control with her eyes.

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Run for daylight Calera brothers use sports to overcome tragedy, carry on father’s legacy Story by DREW GRANTHUM Photographs by JON GOERING

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hen they were young, the Rev. Thaddeus Evans instilled a love of sports and the outdoors in his sons, Ty and J.J. From an early age, he spent time teaching them how to throw a football, dribble a basketball or the proper way to cast a line. He was a busy man, preaching at the Faith Missionary Baptist Church in the Dogwood community in Montevallo alongside his father, but 64

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he was never too busy to be there for his children.

“He worked a lot,” Tara Evans, his ex-wife and the boys’ mother said. “But he always made time for them. Everything they need to survive, he taught them.”

Thaddeus did all he could to make sure those in his life knew he cared about them, she said.

“He was so loving,” Tara said. “Whatever he could do to help people, (he did). His motto was ‘I don’t want my living to be in vain.’”

A kind man, Thaddeus also had a competitive fire that burned deeply. Tara said it showed Profile 2014

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when he played sports, even in a pick up game of basketball. He played just as he lived; with all of his heart.

“They both have competitive spirit like their dad,” Tara said, laughing. “He was very competitive. He didn’t care who you were, he was going to play hard against you. He was that way with everything he did. He was just that compassionate.”

He was especially compassionate when it came to his community, and the people who lived in it, Tara said.

“It’s hard for people now to acknowledge he’s gone,” she said. “We couldn’t go anywhere. He knew everyone. He knew names and faces of everybody he met. That’s the attention he gave to detail. He loved people.”

A man who cared about his family, his community and his faith, Thaddeus did all he could to make sure each breath he took was used to help better the lives of those around him. Although no one realized it at the time, he was building a legacy for his sons to carry on after he was gone.

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‘PANIC MODE’ It was a Saturday like any other. The boys were spending the day with their father, and were going to go fishing, an activity they all loved.

They were at a private pond in Montevallo down Shelby County 17. Ty was finishing his eighth grade year and J.J. was wrapping up fourth grade, both at Montevallo schools.

It was to be a relaxing afternoon that would kick off summer, just like all the other times they went fishing with their father.

Around noon, Ty decided he would try his luck at another pond also on the property. He bid his father and brother farewell, and set off for the other pond.

It was the last time he saw his father alive.

“We were out about two hours,” Ty said. “We separated, and I went to the bottom lake.”

He wasn’t there long before he heard shouting from the other lake.

“I heard yelling, and I thought it was (J.J.) in the water,” Ty said. “I got to the top, and it was my dad. He was missing.”

PAGE 64: Ty Evans drops back to pass in warmups during the 2013 season.

LEFT: “I didn’t have anyone but my brother.

I just stayed close to my brother,” J.J. said of how he handled the tragedy.

RIGHT: Ty (left) and J.J. Evans movedto Calera to live with their mother, Tara (center) following the drowning death of their father.

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ABOVE: “You get the feeling that you can’t do anything,” Ty said.

“After so long, you just have to get over it.” Ty is the current Calera junior varisty quarterback, and is looking to fill the rolw for the varsity in 2014.

J.J. watched in horror as his father’s boat capsized.

“I was on the pier fishing with my step-sister,” J.J. said. “I just started hollering. My brother came up, because he thought it was me. Him and my stepsister were about to jump in to help him. My step mom told them not to jump in. We just sat there.”

Both boys said they felt helpless watching their father’s life slip away in front of their eyes.

“I didn’t know what to do,” J.J. said. “I was just panicking.”

Ty said he wanted to help, but his stepmother kept him from it, realizing it was a futile effort.

“You go in panic mode,” Ty said. “You try to think of what to do, but it’s an adrenaline rush. You really don’t know how to react.”

Rescue efforts were called, and tried to locate Thaddeus in the 12 feet of water. He was eventually found, having drowned.

‘A HARD PILL TO SWALLOW’ The two boys were left without a father, but even more so, they were left without their rock and role model.

“It’s still a hard pill to swallow,” said Tara. “You

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“He was so loving.

Whatever he could do to help people, (he did). His motto was ‘I don’t want my living to be in vain.’”

— Tara Evans can still see the pain in their eyes. They’re both gifted, and when that happened, their grades dropped. To witness him lose his life, that took an even bigger toll.”

Like anyone dealing with loss, pain, anger and sadness served as a revolving door of emotions.

Everywhere they went and everything the boys did reminded them of the man that taught them so much in life.

Eventually however, Ty knew that in order for his younger brother to move on, he had to. He decided enough grieving had taken place, and it was time to channel his emotions into something he could control.

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Ty said. “After so long, you just have to get over it. There’s nothing you can do. Dreaming over it for so long, or hoping things get better defeats the purpose. Everything happens for a reason.”

Although he was reluctant to return to the football field at first, his mother encouraged him to test it out to see if it helped with the grief.

“Actually, when he passed away, I didn’t want to

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go back and play football,” Ty said. “I wasn’t forced to go back, my mom gave me the suggestion to go back and try to see if it helped anything. I went back and it kind of took my mind off things. I put it toward motivation to get better.”

Each found a distraction in the sport their father taught them. For Ty, it was football. For J.J., peace came on the basketball court.

ABOVE: Ty in a pregame warmup during the 2013 football season.

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“It was hard not to think about it,” Ty said. “I did some things to take my mind off it, and went back to playing football.”

J.J. agreed with his older brother. “(My father) taught me a lot of stuff,” he said.

“Fishing, basketball and his skills. My brother and my dad taught me (basketball). I just liked it.”

Slowly but surely, the two regained a sense of normality in their lives following the tragedy.

‘WHEN I PLAY SPORTS, I DON’T THINK ABOUT IT’ BELOW: “I’ve always been protective of him,” Ty said of his brother.

“When I lost my dad, my conscience kind of said I needed to step up and be there for him. He really didn’t have a male figure, so I decided I needed to step up.” RIGHT: A former Montevallo Bulldog, now with the Calera Eagles, Tara Evans said MHS head coach Andrew Zow took Ty under his wing following the tragedy.

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Following the accident, the boys left the Montevallo school district and moved to Calera to live with their mother. The upheaval of changing schools could have been unbearable for the boys if not for athletics.

Ty went out for the Calera High team as a quarterback, where he currently starts at the position for the JV squad.

“He’s got a ton of talent and a tremendous arm,” head coach Wiley McKeller said. “He has tools that can be developed.”

McKeller said one of the things the staff at Calera made sure of was if Ty needed someone to talk to,

there would be someone there.

“Our players have welcomed him with open arms,” he said. “Coach (Jamie) Scruggs and I let him know we’d be there for him. I feel like Ty can come talk to us and trust us.”

Tara said although Ty was only under Montevallo Head Coach Andrew Zow’s tutelage a short time, he helped Ty work through his emotions as well, helping develop his skills at quarterback on the field, and checking in on him and taking him to church off it. Tara said Zow still keeps in touch with Ty. For the two boys, while there is motivation from coaches and teammates, there is one thing that keeps both of the going on the field and court: knowing that their father is watching them.

“I think about it before every game,” Ty said.

“Before every game, we walk the field, we pray and then everybody goes says their personal prayer somewhere. (I pray) for the Lord to watch over me and watch over my teammates as we play the game, and I ask my dad to watch over me. That’s about it.”

In addition to helping his brother use sports to overcome grief, Ty said he knew he had to be the role model for J.J. that their father was for him.

“I’ve always been protective of him,” Ty said.

“When I lost my dad, my conscience kind of said I needed to step up and be there for him. He really didn’t have a male figure, so I decided I needed to step up.”

That includes keeping their father’s name a symbol of pride in the community.

“I just try to do things I feel he’d be proud of,” said Ty. “Our last name is kind of known. I think it would be good to keep it going.”

J.J. said he wanted to play not just for his father, but his brother as well.

“When I play sports, I don’t think about (the accident),” he said. “I think about the game. When my dad passed away, I didn’t have anyone but my brother. I just stayed close to my brother.”

Tara said she and the boys’ older half-brother, Phillip, do their best to help them out, but knows nothing will fill the void of their father.

“I talk to them all the time,” she said. “But I can’t teach them how to be a man. Their older brother — a truck driver — always checks in with them. Even from the road, he tries to fill that role. Even though (Thaddeus) was my ex-husband, he was still my friend.”

So the brothers continue to play on, for their father, for each other and for those close to them.

“They just give me hope,” Tara said. “They’re going to make it.” n Profile 2014

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The brakeman Columbiana dentist’s passion for trains, history more than a hobby Story by KATIE MCDOWELL Photographs by CONTRIBUTED

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hen Tim Nettles was in dental school more than 10 years ago, his wife shared some advice: Find a hobby.

At the time, he was stressed because of school and needed to find a way to decompress during his downtime. A lifelong lover of trains and history, he turned to the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum in Calera.

He became a brakeman – the low man on the totem pole on trains – but he enjoyed the work.

“A brakeman basically helps with the switching of the cars,” he said.

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and assisted passengers. Ten-plus years later, Nettles is an established dentist in Columbiana, and he and his wife, Stephanie, have one daughter.

“The HDRRM gave him a chance to unwind and meet new people,” Stephanie said.

Tim has less time for the HDRRM, although he still takes the required safety classes and volunteers when he can.

What hasn’t changed is his love of railroads and history, which is obvious to any visitor to his Columbiana dental office.

“It’s supposed to look like a train depot,” he said.

“You’re a dentist for life. You don’t change much, and I wanted to do something kind of fun.”

Nettles’ office is a rectangular brick building with large windows and a metal sign declaring “Columbiana Family Dentistry.”

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It’s a landmark in Columbiana, and Nettles said his older clients typically understand the architectural references immediately.

The interior of the building also reflects Nettles’ interests.

Large black and white photos of historic Columbiana hang from the walls. Nettles worked with Bobby Joe Seales, director of the Shelby County Museum and Archives, to find the photos.

He also has old metal signs, train memorabilia and other collectibles. He even has a toy train set for young patients in his waiting room.

A favorite is a metal Columbiana sign from the train depot at the old courthouse.

“It’s not valuable, but there’s only one of them,” he said.

His patients often bring him vintage items, such as a lamp made out of a light that hung on a train. He also finds items from Ebay and train shows.

“I’ve really quit looking because I don’t have anywhere to put stuff,” he said.

Nettles’ love of history, railroads and collecting is lifelong.

He was a history teacher for a few years before deciding to go to dental school. Teaching is a shared passion in his family, with several members, including Stephanie, going into the profession.

“We were all teachers at one time,” he said.

LEFT: Tim and Stephanie Nettles with their daughter. ABOVE: Nettles and his daughter.

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LEFT: Nettles’ dental office was designed to look like a train depot.

CENTER: Nettles began volunteering at the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum in dental school. RIGHT: As a brakeman, Nettles helps with the switching of the train cars.

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In fact, Stephanie now teaches history and government at Shelby County High School.

He and Stephanie met while students at the University of West Alabama in Livingston and married in 1992. They both taught, but after a few years, Tim decided to become a dentist.

He returned to school, this time at the University of Alabama, where he spent several years taking biology, chemistry, physics and other prerequisite work for dental school.

He graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s dental school in 2002 and worked in Ozark for a year.

“I started looking for people in smaller towns who were looking for partners,” he said.

He found Dr. James A. Allston in Columbiana, a town they accidentally discovered a few years prior while lost during a drive through Shelby County. Tim said he and Allston “clicked,” so he joined the practice and eventually bought it from Allston.

The two worked together for several years before Allston retired.

“Sometimes you meet people and just click,” Tim said of the partnership.

After a decade in Columbiana, the Nettles

“Being a dentist affords you the opportunity to know a lot of people, more than you would normally know.”

— Tim Nettles still love it. Tim’s dental practice has more than doubled. Between his job and Stephanie’s, they’ve been able to plant deep roots in the community.

“We really like everything about Columbiana,” Stephanie said. “People here really treated us well.”

For these history lovers, the slower pace of life and the focus on community involvement is the perfect place to raise a family and own a business.

“Being a dentist affords you the opportunity to know a lot of people, more than you would normally know,” he said. “The pace of life here is really nice.

I can come to work and not drive through a traffic light. How many people do that?” n Profile 2014

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A city’s love A family’s journey from tragedy to a better life

Story by NEAL WAGNER Photographs by JON GOERING

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very day since December 2012, Josh Carden has done something he was unable to do for the first 20 years of his life.

Get the mail.

“I go check the mail in the mailbox every day,” Carden, who has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair for mobility, said as a wide smile spread across his face while sitting in his NASCARthemed bedroom.

“He was never able to do that before,” Carden’s grandmother, Louise Pickett, said.

“That traffic out there was so darn bad,” Carden quickly added, his smile slowly fading.

For Carden and his grandmother, no highway will ever hold as haunting a memory as Alabaster’s Fulton Springs Road near its intersection with Interstate 65.

On Monday, Dec. 6, 2010, the family’s world forever changed when Carden’s grandfather, Tommy Pickett, was struck by a car in front of the family’s residence on Fulton Springs Road while crossing the street to pick Carden up from a school bus stop.

Tommy Pickett, 73, was airlifted from the scene to a hospital, where he died the next day.

Because Pickett was Carden’s primary caregiver, the loss was especially devastating for a family already facing daily struggles in caring for a specialneeds child.

“Josh cried a lot after it happened. For a long time, I didn’t think he would ever be happy again,” Louise Pickett said. “His Paw Paw was everything to him.”

“I’ll tell you something. I learned when something like that happens, you can’t do nothing but accept it,” Carden said after a brief pause.

A COMMUNITY RALLIES Carden was a senior at Thompson High School when tragedy struck. Always one to greet friends and strangers alike with a smile, Carden was beloved by his Alabaster classmates and teachers while growing up in the city’s schools.

When the accident left Carden without a grandfather and primary caregiver a few days before Christmas, the entire city banded together to ensure the family was taken care of during the holiday season.

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PAGE 74: Josh Carden, center, is accompanied by Shelby O’Connor of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, right, and Debbie Warner of the Pelham PD during the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics in 2011. TOP LEFT: Jeff Brooks and THS coach Pat Hamrick celebrate Josh Carden’s new house in 2013. ABOVE RIGHT: Josh Carden wheels out onto the THS gym floor during an assembly to welcome him to his new house in 2013.

BOTTOM LEFT: Friends and family gather in 2011 at the site where Carden’s house now stands.

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race at Talladega a few months before the accident.

“All I was trying to do was get Josh a flat-screen TV for Christmas as a way to help get his mind off losing his grandfather,” Hamrick said while recollecting the events in November 2013.

Facing a short deadline before school let out for the Christmas break, Hamrick and other THS faculty members challenged the school’s student body to raise $1,000 to purchase the TV for Carden.

The results of the fundraiser stunned everyone involved.

“The kids raised $13,000 in a few days,” Hamrick said, still displaying a surprised look nearly two years later. “We were able to get the TV, his Christmas gifts, we paid his mortgage for six months, we were able to pay his cable and power bills, we were able to repair his van and pay it off.

“It was a big loss. He was in so much pain,” Hamrick said. “But he makes you feel like, no

matter what he is going through, he’s still happy and he always has a smile on his face.”

MOVING AWAY FROM TRAGEDY Carden and Louise Pickett’s faces still light up when they reminisce about the community’s generosity during the 2010 Christmas season, but nothing compared to what came next.

After a group of volunteers, including Jeff Brooks, visited Carden’s house at 1880 Fulton Springs Road in January 2011, they originally intended to only make upgrades to the house.

But after learning much of the house was not up to city code, the volunteers began looking into building the family a new house.

Brooks and other volunteers worked out a property swap with Alabaster resident Rick Blaising, and recruited the help of architect Jack Donovan – who also uses a wheelchair for mobility Profile 2014

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– to design the house off Washington Lane near the southern end of the city.

“Jeff Brooks is a wonderful man,” Louise Pickett said. “Jack Donovan, Rick Blaising, they are all saints in my mind. I honestly believe that God has a special place in heaven for people like that.”

The family’s house on Fulton Springs Road was not designed for wheelchair access, and presented many challenges for Carden.

“There were so many places he couldn’t go. There were some steps in the old house that he could not get past,” Louise Pickett said.

Besides the logistical problems of living under an interstate overpass and on a heavily traveled road in a rapidly growing city, the Fulton Springs Road house also provided daily reminders of one of the worst days the family had ever experienced.

“It’s a lot easier for us to be off that road,” Louise Pickett said. “Josh didn’t want to be outside (at the old house). It was a constant reminder of what he lost.

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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Josh Carden and his grandmother, Louise Pickett, play with the family’s dogs in their new house in southern Alabaster. Josh Carden’s room features plenty of signs of his favorite sport, NASCAR. Josh Carden received a standing ovation from his classmates when he walked across the stage during Thompson High School’s 2011 graduation.

Local volunteers built this house from stratch for Thompson High School graduate Josh Carden and his grandmother.

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freeze because (losing his grandfather) would hit him,” Pickett added. “We had a lot of good memories there, but (they) were overshadowed by the last few we had. They were horrible.”

‘A DIFFERENT WORLD’ After volunteers and local companies worked for about two years to build the new house from scratch, Carden and his grandmother moved in to the Washington Lane house in the winter of 2012.

Today, the family is enjoying its new home on a quiet, wooded one-lane street perfectly suited for Carden. All doorways and hallways in the house are wide enough to accommodate Carden’s wheelchair, and Pickett’s bedroom is adjoined to Carden’s by a wide doorway.

The house features wooden floors, which make movement easy for Carden, and a large bathroom with a roll-in shower. The walls of his bedroom are covered in NASCAR posters, his flat-screen TV hangs a few inches above his THS diploma and a large trophy atop his bookshelf commemorates his day as grand marshal of the city’s 2011 Christmas parade.

“The way this place is, there’s nothing in my way,” Carden said. “I’ve got freedom.”

“I’ll tell you something. I learned when something like that happens, you can’t do nothing but accept it.”

— Josh Carden “This is like a different world,” Pickett added.

The new house allows Carden to be much more independent, as he is now able to bathe and feed himself, check the mail each day and even visit his new neighbors on a regular basis.

“I’m so happy I could be here to see this. It has made life so much easier for him, and it lets me sleep easier at night,” Pickett said. “I’ve told Josh ,‘I’m going to have to go to heaven one day.

Everyone does at some point.’

“It makes me feel so good to know he will be OK even after I’m gone,” Pickett added.

For Carden, something as simple as being able to travel from his bedroom to the mailbox each day has opened up a world of possibilities while helping the entire family move on from a horrible tragedy.

“He will tell me every night ‘We sure do have a lot to be thankful for,’” Pickett said. “He’ll say, ‘If I still had my Paw Paw, I’d be in heaven right now.’” n

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The Horse Doctor Shelby County vet cares for area horses Photographs by JON GOERING

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CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: Dr. Jud Easterwood walks up to a medical call at Special Equestrians in Indian Springs on the campus of Indian Springs School. Dr. Easterwood is a well-known veterenarian in Shelby County, specializing in equine surgery, reproduction and lameness. Dr. Easterwood stresses the joints of the horse before allowing him to run, which, he says, could uncover any possible problems that may hurt the horse down the road. With help from his assistant, Serenity Walker, Dr. Easterwood checks the gait during the evaluation. Dr. Easterwood graduated from the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine. Molly McCown, owner of Falcon Hill Farm in Wilsonville, looks on as Dr. Easterwood checks the eyes of a horse that was being bought by a customer in Texas.

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CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: Special Equestrians Executive Director Kathleen Claybrook holds Joe while Dr. Easterwood prepares to perform the horse’s dental work. A sign reminding visitors about the health consequences of smoking around horses hangs in the stall of Special Equestrians.

Merlin gets a mouth rinse prior to having his dental work done. Walker holds on tight as Merlin, a horse at Special Equestrians who gets nervous on occassion when people approach him in his stall, tries to avoid a teeth examination.

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Dr. Easterwood drives off from an assignment though the fallen fall foliage.

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Kim Melton

Power behind the scenes Story by STEPHANIE BRUMFIELD Photographs by JON GOERING

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O

ne day every year, Kim Melton shows up to work at the Shelby County Courthouse dressed like a clown.

Decked out in blue, she wears her hair in pigtails and sports pink shoes and striped socks. Her face is covered with painted freckles, clown eyelashes and a shiny, red nose. And she looks forward to it every year.

“I love adoption day,” Melton says. “We dress up like clowns, and we have a carnival. We have popcorns and snow cones and cakes and balloons. We do it in our courtroom and set everything up out in the hallway. We set the adoptions 30 minutes apart and set them all day long.”

Melton, chief clerk for Shelby County Probate Judge Jim Fuhrmeister, says there are a lot of great days in probate court, but the annual adoption days, which are typically held during National Adoption Week in November, are her favorite. All day long the probate court approves uncontested adoptions and helps people create new families.

“Everybody is happy on that day,” she says.

But it’s not all popcorn and balloons in probate court. In between adoptions and marriages, Melton and the probate staff are also in charge of hearing cases about incapacitated adults who need someone

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to manage their affairs, minors who need to be appointed new guardians and mentally ill people who need to be committed to facilities.

The worst days for Melton are the days when the court hears contested guardianships or conservatorships, or cases involving family disputes over who will take care of a child or an elderly person.

“Typically, you’re dealing with an elderly person whose family is fighting over their money or where they’re going to live – either in a nursing home or not in a nursing home,” Melton says.

“The strife between families is just hard, I guess because my family is so close. It’s hard to see sisters and brothers torn apart because of money. (The elderly person) will cry sometimes because they’re seeing their families fight over them. To me, that’s just gut-wrenching,” she adds.

But it’s this dichotomy – both in the types of cases she sees in probate court and the emotions they carry with them – that has kept her at her job for the last 14 years, working with Fuhrmeister in some capacity since the early 1990s.

“I like probate because you’re dealing directly with people,” she says. “Sometimes it’s their happiest moments, and sometimes it’s their worst moments. I just like being able to help people.”

LEFT: Kim Melton has been working with Probate Judge Jim Fuhrmeister in one form or another since the early 1990s.

ABOVE: Kim Melton, Tracy Billingsley and Shelby County Probate Judge Jim Fuhrmeister dress as clowns for the probate office’s annual adoption day.

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ABOVE: Kim Melton and Tracy Billingsley dress as clowns for the probate office’s annual adoption day. RIGHT: In probate court, Kim Melton deals with everything from marriages to guardianships, name changes, elections and more.

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FROM GROCERY STORE TO COURTROOM Born in Kentucky, Melton moved to Shelby County when she was just 4 years old and has lived here ever since. As a child, she grew up in the Indian Valley subdivision, eventually graduating from Alliance Christian School although she attended Pelham High School until her senior year. She moved to Helena in 1990 and has lived there since.

As a high school junior, Melton worked as a cashier at Piggly Wiggly, and she never imagined her next employer would be a law firm.

At the time, Melton’s mother was having her will drawn up at what would later become Jim and Patricia Fuhrmeister’s law firm. She heard they were looking for a receptionist.

“She mentioned she had a daughter who might be interested in working for lawyers,” Melton says. “I went and interviewed, and they hired me off of the checkout line. I was with them until I came (to the courthouse).”

She remembers her first day at the law office like it was yesterday.

“When I started, I walked in, and there was nobody there,” she says. “I got there, the door was unlocked, nobody was there to tell me anything and the telephone started ringing. So I picked it up and just

started.”

She had a similar experience her first day on the job as chief clerk for Patricia Fuhrmeister, who was elected probate judge in 1992. Melton began working as Patricia’s chief clerk in 1999 after long-time-clerk Pat Sewell retired from position. Minutes after Melton arrived for her first day of work in 1999, a couple walked in and wanted to get married.

“I’ve always just kind of been thrown in, and you just do what you can do,” she says.

At the law firm – which changed names several times but is now Allison, May & Kimbrough, L.L.C. – Melton started as a receptionist and gradually became the closing secretary, then a paralegal, and finally a catch-all office manager. She earned her paralegal degree from Samford University by taking night classes part-time while working at the firm.

The Fuhrmeisters joined the firm in the early 1990s as lawyers, where they met Melton. When the chief clerk position came open in 1999, Jim Fuhrmeister said he and Patricia knew she was perfect for the job.

When Melton presented him with cases at the law firm, Jim says he’d look at her and say, “What do you think?”

“And she’d always be right,” he says. “She is very smart and very conscientious.”

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clerk until Patricia died in 2008, which is when Jim Fuhrmeister took over the position, keeping Melton as his chief clerk.

Although most of Melton’s work is still behind-thescenes, she has gained a lot more power since her start at the law firm. As chief clerk, Melton has all of the power of the probate judge – the only thing she can’t do is decide contested cases. Excluding contested cases only, Melton says she can sign Jim Fuhrmeister’s name to anything, checks included.

“It helps the probate court to be able to do that because I can cover a lot of things when he’s not here.

But you want somebody you can trust in that position, and that’s why if a new probate judge came in, he or she could choose that person,” says Melton, the chief clerk is always appointed by the current judge.

“I feel honored because I know you want somebody in that position who you can trust, and to me, that he would choose me is really special.”

Fuhrmeister says he feels lucky to work with Melton, too.

“She knows me as well as anybody from a professional standpoint,” he says. “She knows how I think, how I’m going to see things that are presented to me … She is absolutely trustworthy. She is very local to me and to the people of Shelby County. I am very, very lucky to have her with me.”

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LIKE FAMILY

BELOW: Tracy Billingsley, Kim Melton and Shelby County Probate Judge Jim Fuhrmeister dress as clowns for the probate office’s annual adoption day.

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To say that Melton has worked with Jim Fuhrmeister for a long time would be an understatement. But she has an even longer working relationship with Shelby County commissioner and chairperson Lindsey Allison, one of the three original lawyers at the firm where Melton worked. Melton still sees Allison regularly at the courthouse, and she also keeps in touch with Randy May, who also started with Melton at the firm.

Speaking of Allison, May, Fuhrmeister and all of the other attorneys who have worked closely with her since 1985, she says, “Truly, they are like family to me.”

When she went on dates, they had opinions about the people she dated, just like older siblings would, she says. Fuhrmeister said they would give her a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down” when she would bring her dates to the law office.

“We all liked Brett,” says Fuhrmeister, referring to Melton’s husband whom she married in 1992.

When her colleagues started families, she spent a lot of time with their children, baby-sitting and picking them up after school.

“She changed diapers and made formula, if that gives you a hint,” Allison says.

When Melton got married, they were at her wedding, and May’s children were her flower girl and ring bearer. When she went into labor, she called Jim Fuhrmeister. When her children were born, her colleagues were some of the first people she invited to see them. John, her son, is now 18 and attending Jefferson State Community College, and Laura, her daughter, is 13 and an eighth grader at Helena Middle School.

Speaking of her colleagues, she says, “It wouldn’t bother me at all if they showed up to my house for Thanksgiving dinner. I would think of them as family.”

And Melton isn’t alone.

“She is family,” Allison says. “I am proudest to see her in her current position. I always knew she was smart – and I mean real smart – and she is a hard worker. Judge Fuhrmeister is lucky to have her in that position.”

As a parent, Fuhrmeister says he finds himself going to Melton to talk about parenting issues.

“And she does the same with me,” he says. “It’s a real treasure.”

THE FACE BEHIND ELECTIONS Aside from being able to work alongside people she cares about, another of Melton’s great loves is election season. Fuhrmeister, as probate judge, is the chief election official for the county, and because of that Melton says election years are extremely busy.

“Elections are fun,” Melton says. “They’re very harried and are probably the most stressful thing we do because it’s under such a time limit, and you really have to think on your feet because you have to solve those problems right then when they come in.”

During election years, on top of their regular work, the probate office staff does everything from testing the voting machines to appointing poll workers, training poll workers, helping with the ballots and setting the ballot styles. Melton says it’s “slow at the beginning and then all of a sudden that last month is just crazy.”

“We run every ballot style through every auto mark machine to make sure that it works properly before it leaves the building. We do the public test. We have to proof the ballots. We have to inventory the ballots to make sure every precinct has the right ballots,” she added.

“We just have a lot to do in that last month that is very tedious and that you have to be sure is correct.

You cannot have the wrong ballots at the wrong polling places.”

And with such a presence in the community – visiting every polling location in the county prior to election day – she says it’s easier to be really involved with the community than it would be in other courts.

In addition to speaking at area schools, Melton is known to eat lunch at the Pea Ridge Senior Center, and she serves on a host of civic and community organizations, including the Chilton-Shelby Mental Health Board, the Helena High School Band Booster Club and the Alabama Chief Clerks Association. She is also entering her ninth year as her daughter’s Girl Profile 2014

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“I like probate because

Scout troop leader, and she is a 2011 graduate of Leadership Shelby County.

While Melton says Fuhrmeister makes community involvement easier because he encourages his staff to be involved, he says the same thing about her, noting that she has what he calls a “servant’s heart.”

“She makes my work so much easier. She makes sure things in the office are running, which allows me to work on more global issues that are not in the defined duties of the probate judge,” he says.

Community outreach is also easier, according to Melton, because of the nature of her job.

“The day before an election, somebody from the probate office is at every polling location checking on it,” she says. “We’re just dealing with the community more on a daily basis.”

Melton also gets to know the community by performing marriage ceremonies, many of which have been for people she’s known. She’s performed ceremonies for county employees, parents of her children’s friends and even her brother.

When asked if she thinks she’ll stay in her current

position, Melton says she can’t imagine doing anything else.

“I’ll retire here.

Absolutely. There’s no question in my mind as long as the probate judge — Kim Melton will keep me,” she says.

For her, it’s about “staying in the background and doing little things” for the judge and anybody else who walks through the office door.

“On a daily basis, we might have somebody come in and say, ‘My spouse died last week. What do I do?’

We can’t give legal advice, and we have to refer them to attorneys and things, but we can help guide them on what to do, and we can offer them encouraging words.

“And sometimes that’s what somebody needs.

Sometimes, somebody just needs to know that somebody cares. We can’t give them legal advice, but by the time they leave we want them to leave feeling like we’ve done everything we could do to help them, that we haven’t just turned them away, and hopefully they’ll feel a little bit better. And that’s why I like it. I like that I can try to make somebody’s day just a little bit better.” n

you’re dealing directly with people.”

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Keeper of our

Past

Story by CASSANDRA MICKENS Photographs by JON GOERING and CONTRIBUTED

H

e’s the keeper of Shelby County’s most historic treasures, but if you ask most anyone in Shelby County (or the state of Alabama, for that matter), Bobby Joe Seales is a treasure himself.

Fifteen years ago, Seales intended to fill in for a sick employee for a day or two at the Shelby County Museum and Archives in downtown Columbiana. What was to be a temporary stay became an executive directorship with perks such as serving as a parade grand marshal while donning a top hat and a coat with long coattails, emulating the dress of a bygone era in one of Alabama’s eldest counties.

“That’s how everybody knows me,” Seales said with a proud chuckle, showing off a bookmark-sized museum brochure bearing his portrait in full garb complete with white gloves.

But the perk of all perks, Seales said, is the light bulb moment, that instant when a researcher finds an elusive piece of the family puzzle, and, in a broader sense, the local history puzzle.

“To see people when they find something they’ve been researching ... The joy it brings ...” Seales said.

“It’s addictive.”

Seales is set to retire as executive director of the Shelby County Museum and Archives effective as soon as a successor is found, yet will continue to serve as president of the Shelby County Historical

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Society until his new term expires in 2015. Seales’ definition of retirement is different from, say, Webster’s. He is by no means slowing down. If anything, the Shelby County-born and reared 67-year-old is revving up.

Seales is on the short list to be nominated as president of the Alabama Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, of which he is now senior vice president. He also is a member of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Alabama Cemetery Preservation Alliance, the Friends of the Alabama Archives Board and the Alabama Association of Historians — and that’s an abbreviated rundown.

“It’s a shift to more statewide responsibilities,” Seales said of his retirement. “We’re trying to find someone to take over, so if you know of anyone interested who will work with no pay …”

LEFT: Bobby Joe Seales.

SHELBY COUNTY ROOTS Seales’ Shelby County roots date back to when the county was formed — Feb. 7, 1818. He recites the date as if it were his birthday.

“Shelby County is older than the state of Alabama, which gained statehood in 1819,” Seales said with a teacher’s tone.

His third great-grandparents settled in Shelby County from Fairfield County, South Carolina.

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BELOW: Bobby Joe Seales waves to the crowd and tosses out candy to the kids.

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“I’m thankful the good Lord did not let me be born back then. I know those times had to be hard,” Seales said.

Seales is the youngest of six children born to Charles and Naomi Seales, and grew up to graduate from Thompson High School and Alabama College (now the University of Montevallo) in 1963 and 1967, respectively.

Knowing Seales now, one would assume he studied history in college, but he majored in mathematics. He went on to accept the only job he ever he’s ever had as a corporate credit manager and internal auditor for the Indiana-based National Temperature Control Centers, Inc. Seales was among the first NTCC employees to work outside headquarters. He chose to stay in Alabama to look after his parents.

Family ties were a hot topic among the Seales crew. The questions of if and how so-and-so was related to so-and-so prompted Seales to research his mother’s roots. He published his findings in a book titled “Massey-Stamps Ancestors” in 1970, shortly after he wed an Alabama College co-ed named Diane Brandenberg. The couple, who reside in Alabaster, will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary this year.

“To him, if you don’t preserve history, it’ll be

lost and future generations won’t have access to information at a later date,” said Diane, who was recently elected historian of the Shelby County Historical Society. “He’s made it a top priority to preserve as much history as he can … That’s his main goal in life.”

Seales began building his reputation as a local historian while continuing to trace his lineage back to the Revolutionary War. Following the release of his book, Seales compiled a history of the city of Pelham to be included in the unveiling of the new city map in 1973. He also worked with other Shelby County cities and organizations to compile community histories.

Seales retired with NTCC in 1992 as a corporate credit manager and internal auditor after 28 years of service. He then went on to acquire his real estate license. Seales had no interest in selling real estate, as he was more interested in learning how to buy rental properties for income. Then came the call to fill in for a few days at the Shelby County Museum and Archives.

“I’ve been so blessed,” Seales said. “The Lord sent me to Columbiana to work and I’ve made so many wonderful friends. They’re like family.”

Among those friends is an 80-plus-year-old woman who had traveled to the museum from

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Maryland seeking information about her mother. The woman gave Seales her mother’s name, but she wasn’t sure if it was her mother’s maiden or married name.

“Taking her mother’s first name and starting to see if that was her maiden name, I just pulled an obituary that had the same surname,” Seales said. “The obituary was on her mother’s father.”

The woman, Seales recalled, burst into and tears, and shared that she was adopted as an illegitimate child because her mother was not married when she was born. However, her mother had married before her father’s death.

“We have the funeral home death records and they are indexed. I pulled them and there was her mother listed and she was buried in the Columbiana City Cemetery just behind our building on Highway 47,” Seales said.

“I gave her specific information on how to get to the cemetery and how to go directly to her mother’s grave. She said, ‘I was not expecting to find my mother this easy.’ She couldn’t believe I was able to find it that quickly. But just to help her find that missing link she had for 80-plus years and see her finally get closure on her situation when she want to the cemetery to see her birth mother’s grave was well worth all my years here helping many people.”

LEFT: Bobby Joe Seales is a Shelby County son born and bred. The youngest of six children, Seales graduated from Thompson High School and Alabama College (now the University of Montevallo) in 1963 and 1967, respectively.

MOVING FORWARD The museum, housed in the 1854 Old Shelby County Courthouse at 1854 Courthouse Circle in downtown Columbiana (and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974), moved into the 21st century under Seales’ tenure. Computers were brought in for administrative and research

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“I’ve been so blessed.

needs, and old records and newspapers dating back to 1866 were digitized. Late last year, Seales acquired a state grant to purchase another microfilm reader for the museum.

Seales also wears a public relations hat, promoting the museum throughout metro Birmingham and building the museum’s brand as one of the few, and perhaps only, old Alabama county courthouses to be repurposed as a museum.

“And the Shelby County Historical Society is the largest historical society in Alabama,” Seales said

while pointing to the James Ray Kuykendall Historical Society Award displayed on one of the museum’s walls. “It’s the highest award you can win as a historical society.”

He beams with pride.

Seales said stepping aside as museum executive director is not — Bobby Joe Seales a permanent goodbye, as he plans to volunteer when he can. But it’s time to take on a fresh challenge, and to share a saying Seales has repeated for years. Shelby Countians know it well.

“History not recorded is soon forgotten.” n

The Lord sent me to Columbiana to work and I’ve made so many wonderful friends.

They’re like family. ”

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Bobby Joe Seales tips his hat to the crowd after being recognized for his work as president of the Shelby County Historical Society during a county birthday celebration in Columbiana.

Bobby Joe and Diane Seales at Shelby County’s 193rd birthday celebration and Gov. Robert Bentley Day. Bobby Joe Seales chats with Gov. Robert Bentley outside of the Columbiana courthouse during the county’s birthday celebration.

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