Cullman GoodLife Magazine - Fall 2018 by The Good Life Magazine

CULLMAN COUNTY

Sports artist Daniel A. Moore to exhibit at Burrow Museum Firehouse recipes offer a taste of life for Cullman firefighters FALL 2018 COMPLIMENTARY

Spud Campbell talks about living with the sinking of the Henry Bacon

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AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

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Deb talks about appreciation ... and lots of folks appreciate her burgers!

Food’s still great; roof is new and thanks renewed Good news for you … that hailstorm in March did not harm the consistently great, fresh food Deb Veres, her sons and team serve at Augusta’s Sports Grill. Bad news for Deb … her new roof wasn’t installed until June. But, hey, even that bad news renewed her appreciation for the people of her exemplary hometown. “Our people are strong,” Deb says. “There are people who had hail come through their roof into the Sheetrock and their bedrooms. There are still people without roofs. I appreciate their strength.” She greatly appreciates Joiner Construction. “We were able to stay open because Adam Joiner patched our roof right away,” Deb says. “When he was able to replace the roof, it looked like a lot of ants running around here. They accomplished a major project in three days.” She also appreciates the community’s support for Augusta’s since its March 2015

Steaks – especially with shrimp – are always popular at Augusta’s. Plus, with her deep appreciation of community, Deb buys sweet potatoes locally from Haynes Farm Potatoes and, in-season, strawberries from J. Calvert Farms. Open for lunch, dinner and drinks Monday-Saturday

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opening. For starts, Deb has amassed an army of regular repeat customers. The Deb Veres “awesome” Barkley Plumbing crew that eats there every Friday is just one case in point. Deb says she never could have opened Augusta’s without Cullman Savings Bank, John Riley and Alan Wood believing in her dream and abilities. Small town appreciation. Here’s her greatest thanks … “Grandma used to say she was thankful for work and thankful she could do it. I am, too. I am thankful for my ability, my family and my health – and all these gifts come from God. “We are all in this together,” she adds. “It’s a great community.” Oh … one more item for Deb’s thankful list: Augusta’s has a new roof. |

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Contributors The office, basement, and barn at Steve Maze’s house in the New Canaan community are filled with tons of memorabilia. One interesting thing is a Polaroid photo shown on Page 34 of a special person who sang Skynyrd.

Welcome

A huge crowd takes in the unveiling of the Memphis Belle, a memorial to the bravery and sacrifice of tens of thousands of people.

A hero, his wife and his bomber: story wraps up

or all his faults with women, I still would’ve loved to meet the late Col. Robert Morgan. He was a fearless pilot, a true hero of World War II. I was fortunate to meet his sixth wife, Linda Morgan, who lives at Smith Lake. And I was thrilled – entertainingly accompanied by my son and daughterin-law – to be at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, in June for the unveiling of the meticulously restored Memphis Belle, the B-17 that Robert and crew flew into revered history over the deadly skies of a war-torn Europe. I learned a lot about the famous Linda Morgan is joined at the Belle’s bomber and Robert writing about unveiling ceremony by friends Ernie them in the magazine, and seeing it all Geisen of Cullman, left, and John unveiled that night was very personal Eflinger of Tucson, AZ to me. We saw Linda among the hundreds of people attending an invitation only unveiling ceremony. “It took my breath away,” she later said. “I thought ‘Oh my she doesn’t look real’ – the restoration was so perfect and she was gorgeous – and then I thought, ‘I hope Bob and his crew are looking down and seeing all this.’” What, I wondered, would he have done had he been there with his “new”plane? “Col. Robert Morgan would have had tears in his eyes for about 20 seconds when he saw his beloved bomber so beautifully and skillfully restored,” Linda said. “Then he would have straightened his shoulders, eyes beaming and snapped off a smart salute to her.” I can’t salute him back, but I salute his airplane and all she stands for. David Moore, Publisher/editor 6

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This issue marks Tim Crow’s last Good ‘n’ Green lawn and garden feature. He’s written for us since the summer of 2006. He’s moving out of the Cullman region to the Morgan County office. Thanks, Tim, for sharing your green thumb. As owner of Deb’s Bookstore in Cullman, Deb Laslie spends most of her life surrounded by books. Usually she has no problem picking two to review for GLM, but this time she did. So she sent in six reviews. We made five fit. As ad/art director for two Good Life Magazines, Sheila McAnear stays very busy for any given publication cycle. This cycle, we also have Oktoberfest to produce. That’s as good a time as any to move into a new house ... Publisher/editor David Moore took a certain amount of pride in changing two numbers at the bottom of page 8 to read Vol. 6 No. 1. That means this is the first issue in our sixth year of publishing GLM. Wow. Thanks to all.

Inside 10 Good Fun

Like art? Like Alabama football? See Daniel A. Moore’s exhibit at Wallace

16 Good People

Doris Patterson on Farm City and more

22 Good Reads

Five current books you’ll want to check out

25 Good Cooking

Cullman firefighters share station recipes

32 Good ‘n’ Green

Here are five ideas to consider if you’d like to raise fruit out in your garden

34 JoJo Billingsley

The late Cullman woman sang backup in front of thousands for Lynyrd Skynyrd

38 Night and day

Decorator Teresa Daniel applies her talent at home and gets dramatic results

48 Good Eats

Here’s a look at the community of vendors cooking up a good time at Mae’s

55 Just get moving

Belinda Hyatt: you don’t have to do intense CrossFit training to help yourself

64 Living with a sinking

Of all of the adventures Spud Campbell packed into his life, one stands out

74 Out ’n’ About

History is not all black and white, especially in Cullman during a brilliant fall

David F. Moore Publisher/editor 256-293-0888 david.goodlifemagazine@gmail.com

Sheila T. McAnear Advertising/art Director 256-640-3973 sheila.goodlifemagazine@gmail.com

MoMc Publishing LLC P.O. Box 28, Arab, Al 35016 www.good-life-magazine.net

On the cover: Fall throws its special light and colors on the Historic District in Cullman. This page: The iconic pinup girl on the port side of the nose of the famed B-17 Memphis Belle wears a blue bathing suit. Her near-twin on the starboard wears red. Cullman resident Linda Morgan’s husband flew the bomber into fame during WWII.

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Moore’s bronze statue of “Finish,” above, will be exhibited.

“Crimson Legacy” is as full of symbolism as it is Bama lore.

A ‘Crimson Legacy’ coming to Evelyn Burrow Museum long years, but Danny, arguing long-upheld First Amendment rights of artists, prevailed in federal court n 1892, The University on every major point of the of Alabama fielded its first lawsuit. football team, launching And he never stopped what is arguably the fiercest painting his beloved Crimson juggernaut to ever hit the Tide. college sport. Danny might blush a bit, In 1991, UA but I contend he himself has commissioned Birmingham become a “Crimson Legacy.” artist Daniel A. Moore, a And I’m thrilled to have 1976 alumnus, to produce a helped arrange a rare exhibit painting commemorating the of his legacy of original Capstone’s pending football masterpieces (if you’ve never centennial. Danny – I have the seen an original, you need to) hardest time calling brother and canvas reproductions in number one of my three the first-class Evelyn Burrow younger brothers by his given Museum on the campus of name – had built a stellar Wallace State Community reputation and legionary College. following since unleashing his Daniel A. Moore stands among some of his 77 Alabama “The Burrow Museum photo-realistic style with “The is excited to share Daniel Goal Line Stand” in 1979. paintings. At least 20 of them will hang at the Burrow Moore’s original artwork For the centennial painting, Museum. He’s also done 58 paintings on other subjects of with the public this fall,” Danny built in his studio which his publishing company, New Life Art, has or is selling says Donny Wilson, museum a rendition of Coach Paul prints. For more: www:newlifeart.com. Photo by Jerry Siegel. director. Bryant’s office, filling it with Coinciding with football memorabilia and symbolism. season, the exhibit opens Sept. 11 and continues through Nov. Titled “Crimson Legacy,” it quickly became his all-time, best2. Stop by opening day at 6 p.m. for a reception. Some of his selling, limited-edition print. prints will be available for purchase. “Daniel” would be glad to This six years before his own university filed what I contend autograph one and to meet you. Mom raised him right. was a frivolous lawsuit against Danny, claiming among other Admission to the Evelyn Burrow Museum is free. It’s open 9 things that he’d infringed upon UA’s trademarked crimson and a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. For more white colors. I had fights with Danny when we were little and information: www.burrowmuseum.org; or 256-352-8457. could have told the university he wouldn’t cave in. It took eight Story by David Moore

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• Sept. 1 – Holidaze Spectacular This is the deadline to register for the Nov. 18 holiday kickoff trip to Nashville to experience the Cirque Dreams Holidaze extravaganza. A Broadway musical for the family, it features amazing acrobatics, over 300 costumes, singers, snowmen, angels, reindeer and toy soldiers. The $130 cost includes motorcoach transportation and a reserved seat for the 2 p.m. show. You’ll have time for shopping or lunch on your own at Opry Mills Mall or the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, both festooned for the holidays. It’s sponsored by Wallace State Alumni Association, but you don’t have to be a member to go. Register online: www. wsccalumni.org; for more information call: LaDonna Allen, 256-352-8071.

Fall means fun ’round here • Now through Aug. 31 – “Rendezvous” returns Works by 12 of the top sculptors in the South have “rendezvoused” again at the Evelyn Burrow Museum at Wallace State Community College. The biennial “Rendezvous” exhibition includes pieces by Gokden Alpman Matthews, Walter Black, Everett Cox, Casey Downing Jr., Glenn Dasher, Howard King, Bruce Larsen, Dale Lewis, Ted Metz, Brad Morton, Nov Ontos and Duane Paxson. The exhibit includes a collection of small cast bronze pieces (Morton), an elaborate wall hanging consisting of dozens of pieces arranged to resemble a splatter pattern (Black) and a ship’s figurehead made of driftwood (Larsen). Alpman and King are new to the exhibit. King – who like Ontos, the pseudonym of Jude Johnson – is from Cullman. His works include woodturned vases, platters, bowls and more. Matthews, with a studio at Lowe Mill in Huntsville, specializes in ceramic sculptures and mosaics and draws from

Good Fun

her Turkish heritage and the complex history of Eastern Orthodox Christian Church and Islam. Meet the sculptors at a closing reception 10 a.m.-noon, Aug. 30. Admission to the Evelyn Burrow Museum is free. It’s open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. For more information: www. burrowmuseum.org; or 256-352-8457.

A pre- and post-race black light party will be held for runners. Register at any EvaBank, the Cullman Civic Center, or online at: www.active. com; or cullmanrecreation.org (go to “events” under the “program & events” pull-down tab at the top of the page. Cost is $25 pre-race or $30 Friday night. For more info, call: CP&R, 256-7349157.

• Aug. 3-4 – Midnight Run EvaBank and CP&R’s annual Midnight Run starts Friday at 11:59 p.m. at the Cullman Civic Center. Some 1,000 runners race through the streets passing color and black light glow stations where they will have neon, glowing colors thrown onto them. Serious runners will be directed around the color stations to focus on their times; the race will be chip-timed for accuracy and cash prizes of $200 will be awarded to the overall and masters male and female winners, as well as medals to the top three in each age division.

• Aug. 10- Sept. 14 – 2nd Fridays Shop late and eat great at this happening event 5-10 p.m. at Festhalle Marketplatz, Depot Park and Cullman’s central business district. Each second Friday of the month, you can enjoy a diverse range of activities, including discounts and specials at area boutiques and restaurants, live entertainment, an antique and classic car cruise-in and activities for young and old alike. Artist Alley brings local art and life between Clark Street and 1st Street NE. Don’t leave downtown until you’ve had a chance to check out this cool hotspot. Second Fridays are sponsored by

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce and Cullman Parks, Recreation, & Sports Tourism. For more info: see 2ndFridaysCullman on Facebook. • Aug. 11 – Duck Drawdown Make a ducky day of it at Sportsman’s Lake Park and maybe win $1,000 to boot. Tickets for a chance to win the dough are $5 each or five for $20. (You don’t have to be present to win.) There will also be kayak and canoe races, a kids fishing rodeo, a wild duck prize, concessions, games and activities and much more – all for free. For more info: www.cullmancountyparks.com. • Sept. 2-3 – Sweet Tater Festival & Car Show The 22nd Annual Sweet Tater Festival returns to Smith Lake Park to extend Labor Day weekend for an expected crowd of 5,000 people. Hours are 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday and 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday. Admission is $3 for the weekend. Visit booths selling arts, crafts and food. There’ll be music both days, fun

for the kiddies and the annual Cruise Fest and Swap Meet 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday. Cruise Fest registration is 7-11 a.m. and $15. For more information, call: David Speegle, 256-385-1401. And of course there will be lots of sweet taters donated by the Cullman County Sweet Potato Growers. More info? Call: Smith Lake Park, 256-7392916; or visit: www.cullmancountyparks. com. • Oct. 6 – Inaugural Survivors Celebration Cancer survivor? Great! The Cullman County Bosom Buddies Foundation invites you and one guest to its first Survivors Celebration at Stonebridge Farms in Cullman. The Buddies will honor and celebrate those in the community living with and beyond cancer. To make a reservation – or to sponsor a table for a survivor – contact Louise Cole, foundation president: 256-5035301; or lcole7857@gmail.com. • Sept. 1-Nov. 10 – Turkey, ham, ribs

You can place your orders during this time for Thanksgiving turkeys, hams and ribs from the Cullman County Bosom Buddies Foundation’s fifth annual fundraiser. Turkeys, 15-17 lbs., are $30; hams, 10-12 lbs., $30; full rack of ribs $25. Orders may be picked up 10-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 17; and 10-11 a.m. Thanksgiving Day at Freddy Day Catering, 1628 2nd Ave. NW in Cullman. Will work with businesses on pickups. To order or for more information: Judy Grissom, 256-347-5993; or Mary Dyer, 256-347-0911. • Sept. 17-Oct. 22 Beyond “fetch and stay” Have fun with your best friend at dog obedience classes at the Cullman Civic Center on Monday nights. AKC STAR puppy class (puppies age 3-10 months) will be held at 6 p.m. Combined puppy and adult obedience class (dogs 10 months and older) will be held at 7 p.m. Instructor is Tina Herfurth. The $100 cost covers six weeks of classes plus orientation (with no dogs) on Sept. 17.

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• Sept. 29 – Fair Parade The big annual parade starts at 2 p.m. and runs along U.S. 31 from Cullman First Baptist Church to McGriff Tire and Service. Cost to enter is $20. Register at the fair office at Sportsman Lake Park from Sept-17 through noon, Sept. 26.

The Cullman County Fair was voted best fair in Alabama last year.

• Oct. 4-13 – 64th Cullman County Fair The gates open and the fun begins at 5 p.m., Thursday. Sponsored by the Cullman Lions Club, there will be nightly pageants or entertainment at 7 p.m. and tons of exhibits, prizes and rides on the big midway. Fairgrounds admission is free for kids 9 and under and $7 for all others. Buy a $22 megapass armband (available through Oct. 5 at Peoples Bank branches) for admission and unlimited rides. Admission and individual ride tickets are available at the fair. Senior Citizens Day is 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Oct. 10. Gates open at 5 p.m. weeknights and 2 p.m. both Saturdays and Sunday. For more info, call: 256-734-0661; or visit: www.cullmanfair.com.

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Talk up Cullman with all non-residents you know and meet A message from “We moved back to my hometown of Cullman to raise our kids. I tell people there are so many good opportunities happening here.” – Mike Mullaney, co-owner, Goat Island Brewery AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

The Wallace State Jazz Band will perform Oct 18 along with the Triumphant Quartet at the Caring for Kids Concert.

For more info, call: CP&R, 256-7349157. • Sept. 15 – Derik Nelson and Family Performing unique arrangements of popular music, the innovative technical aspect of their concert unfurls an aural and futuristic visual journey through time and space. Derik, Riana and Dalten have been performing together since childhood. They’ve garnered over 3.6 million views on YouTube, performed in over 90 cities across the USA. In January they gave a “bone-chilling’ performance of The National Anthem for an NFL Seahawks’ home game. The Cullman Community Concert Association opens 2018-19 season with this high-tech trio of siblings with velvety harmonies. The show starts at 7 p.m. in the Betty Leeth Haynes Theatre at Wallace State. A season ticket for all five 2018-19 performances is $75. Tickets at the door are $30. Students are free with a paid adult. For more information, call: Kathy Scruggs, 256-339-4447; order tickets and get information online at: www. cullmancommunityconcertassociation. com. • Oct. 6 – Win $10K fishing Go fishin’ and festin’ at Smith Lake Park’s Fifth Annual Bass Fest. Expect some 200 entrants out to catch the top prize of a guaranteed $10,000. Big fish nets $500, as do the top college, high school and parent-child teams. During the day there’ll be music and other fun activities at the park beach area where weigh-in will be held. Deadline for the $150 registration 14

fee is Sept. 25, and a mandatory meeting will be held at 6 p.m., Oct. 5 at the Agriculture Trace Center. For details and registration visit: http: www.smithlakeparkbassfest.com. • Oct. 3-6 – 37th Annual Cullman Oktoberfest Be on hand for four days and evenings of compacted fun celebrating Cullman’s German heritage. It takes place at Festhalle Platz, Depot Park and the Warehouse District. Admission is free. Numerous churches, restaurants and a caterer will sell authentic German meals at Oktoberfest and around town. There will be costumes and music; the very popular craft beer biergarten, arts and crafts, car show, bratwurst-eating contest, stein-hosting contest, historical tours and much more. Oct. 3 is senior day at the Festhalle with bingo, door prizes and a free lunch for the first 700 seniors 50 and older; entertainment by Terry Cavanagh and The Alpine Express. The official Oktoberfest Magazine, published by MoMc Publishing/Good Life Magazine, will be available at advertisers and the Cullman County Museum starting Sept. 4. • Oct. 18 – Caring for Cullman Concert Moved back one month, the 4th Annual Caring for Cullman Concert this year features award-winning Triumphant Quartet and Wallace State Jazz Band performing in the Cullman High School auditorium. Back for a fourth year, Triumphant Quartet from Tennessee includes West Point graduate Eric Bennett. Together

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

since 2008, the group has been voted Fan Favorite Quartet in the gospel music field numerous times. Doors at CHS open at 6 p.m.; the show starts at 7. Tickets at the door and at outlets are $15; they can be purchased for $18 online: www. goodsamaritancullman.com. All proceeds go to fund Cullman’s free, non-profit Good Samaritan Health Clinic, which provides free medical care to qualified hundreds of uninsured, low-income residents of Cullman County. For more info and ticket outlets: 256-255-5965. • Nov. 1 – “Fantasy Lights” and FDR This is the deadline for Dec. 5-6 trip to Callaway Gardens and Warm Springs, Ga. The former offers the most incredible holiday light and sound show in the South (among the top 10 in the world) with eight million lights and 15 dazzling scenes. The latter is the site of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Little White House,” his vacation cottage on the side of Pine Mountain where you’ll see his unfinished portrait – cut short by his death – his 1938 Ford convertible with hand controls and hear his Fireside Chats. Sponsored by the Wallace State Alumni Association, single occupancy rate is $364 for members and $464 for non-member. This includes motorcoach transportation, accommodations at the Mountain Creek Inn at Callaway Gardens, three meals, admissions, baggage handling, taxes and gratuities. Register online: www.wsccalumni. org; for more information call: LaDonna Allen, 256-352-8071.

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Good People

5questions Story and photo by David Moore

oris Patterson. Mention her name and, depending on who you’re talking to, the association might be anything from a baker of delicious cakes to a Welti community poll worker. Many people naturally link Doris with education. Makes sense; she taught home economics 32 years at Fairview. For many others, her name is synonymous with Cullman County Farm City, also understandable. Last year, the Alabama Farm City Committee named her the program’s top volunteer statewide. Plus she played a big part in the Cullman program being named top in the state for the past six years and runner-up the seven before that. If you think about it, education and Farm City go together like ice cream and a cake she baked. Exposure to farming came before education for Doris, who grew up in the rural areas around Phil Campbell. “My parents didn’t farm, but my granddaddy was a farmer and built the first chicken houses in Franklin County,” Doris recalls. “They held 6,000 chickens each. “I loved it when Grandpa caught chickens. Neighbors would come in to help, and Grandpa would buy a case of Coca Colas and a case of Moon Pies. I always hoped there would be a few Moon Pies and Coca Colas left over.” Her granddaddy grew corn for feed, cotton for cash. Doris helped pick cotton and one killer day managed a personal record of 125 pounds. But there weren’t enough Moon Pies and Cokes to sway her to a farming life. “I respected my grandpa for how much he worked,” she says. “But my goal was to teach. I wasn’t going to pick cotton, though it taught me a lot about life.” 16

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Doris Patterson

Pivot points in life helped make her name synonymous with teaching and Farm City So her limited farming experience became an early pivot point in the course of her life.

or two years Doris bused to and from what’s now Northwest – Shoals Community College and volunteered summers with an Auburn Extension program, teaching under-privileged kids to cook with commodity cheese and powdered milk. She then spent two years at The University of Alabama earning her BS in home ec. During that time, Doris did student teaching in Haleyville, which once brought her to a career tech meeting in Cullman. There she met Tuck Porter, director of the career technical center. He had grown up in the Franklin County crossroads community of Orange, nine miles east of Phil Campbell. Through their geographical commonality, Doris and Tuck struck a bond that would become a second pivot point in her life. After working her way through UA and graduating in 1971, she applied for home ec teaching jobs around North Alabama, though Cullman County was not initially on her radar. But when Tuck heard about an opening at Fairview High, he tracked her down in Tuscaloosa and encouraged her to apply. “I went for an interview that summer,” Doris says. “When I got to the school, the doors were locked. I was wondering what to do when this tall guy in overalls came up and asked if he could help.” She said she was lost. Helping her find a way inside, he said he’d been picking peas and apologized for being dirty. “By the way,” he added, “I’m Jim Boyd, superintendent of education.” “A man in overalls,” Doris thought. “That’s my kind of people.”

oris soon hit a third pivot point in her life – she met Richard Patterson.

An English and bookkeeping teacher at Fairview, he showed up at her apartment in Cullman a couple of times, unannounced, she notes. Richard got proper and asked her out that October ‘71. It wasn’t a great start. “He thought he needed to put on a show because I had been at The University of Alabama,” she says with emphasis. “He was trying to be what he thought I was, but when he found out what I really was, that’s what he fell in love with.” That Christmas he gave her a ring. They married in February 1972 and celebrated their 46th anniversary this year. “I have never thought of leaving him or divorcing him,” Doris laughs. “But I have thought of killing him!” Actually, she calls Richard “wonderful.” “I may be kind, but he’s kind to a fault,” she says. Early on they lived in a mobile home on Patterson family property in Welti. Their mobile home is long gone, but they still live on 60 acres there, some of it pasture land they rent out, some of it wooded, some of it yard and some of it garden, where Richard plants peas, corn and such. “We put up hundreds of bags every year of vegetables,” Doris says. “If I don’t bring corn to church dinners, people know I’m not there.”

ver her 32 years at Fairview, Doris taught thousands of kids – not all of them girls – in what has been changed from “home ec” to “family and consumer sciences.” Her Future Homemakers of America club – now Family Career and Community Leaders of America – won countless FHA competitions statewide and traveled to dozens of places from Boston to Seattle, winning national recognition. In class, Doris concentrated on

SNAPSHOT: Doris Patterson

FAMILY: Born in Russellville to the late Orbie and Dorothy Dolan. Feb. 4, 1972, married Richard Patterson. Daughter Jill Bradberry and husband Brian have three children: Will, 14, and twins Kate and Reid, 12. Daughter Jenny Gay has three children: Carter, 14, Preston, 12, and Grayson, 9. Son David Patterson and wife Brooke have three children: Henry, 11, and twins Grant and Grace, 9. EDUCATION: Phil Campbell High School, 1967; NorthwestShoals Community College, AA, 1969; University of Alabama, BS, 1971; Alabama A&M University, MA, 1976. CAREER: 1971-2003 taught home economics at Fairview High School. ORGANIZATIONS: Cullman Farm City Committee; cochair, Student Investment Foundation for Cullman County Schools; board member, stage director and volunteer, Ms. Senior Cullman County Pageant; chairman of FCCLA individual exhibits, Cullman County Fair; member, Welti Cumberland Presbyterian Church; president of the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cumberland Presbyterian Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ministry; choir member; leader, Renewal Youth.

cooking, food and nutrition, parenting and money management. “I hate to sew and can’t do it very well,” she says. “But I was a good teacher the years I had to teach sewing. I did it really slow so the students could see how to do it.” For her last 18 years at Fairview, Doris was thrilled to teach in tandem with Pat Floyd, whose specialties were interior design and sewing. “She’s fantastic at it,” Doris says. “Our FHA teams won the county fair exhibits every year. People got to hating us, but we had two complementing abilities.” One competition their Fairview FHA students consistently won was creating scrapbooks of their annual programs and projects. That success caught the attention of the Cullman County Extension office, which asked Doris in the mid-‘90s to use her talented students to produce annual scrapbooks for Cullman Farm City. Compilations of local Farm City activities each year, the scrapbooks provide the core of the competition the county entered annually statewide.

The power of $1 in county schools Doris Patterson, who co-chairs the Student Investment Foundation, encourages people to donate as little as $1 per month to bridge the gap in insufficient funding for classrooms in Cullman County Schools. The foundation’s motto is this quote from Ben Franklin: An investment in education always pays the best dividends. Doris readily agrees. “If our people are not educated, what’s going to happen to our world?” she asks. “I would not take anything for the fact that all of my children are college-educated and were able to find good jobs. “I am a firm believer in careertechnical education,” she adds. “We need a skilled work force.” The Student Investment Foundation and Cullman County Schools, Doris says, have always been committed to educational excellence for all students and providing them with knowledge and life skills needed to be successful in life. The 2015 population of the county was 82,005. “If they all gave $1,” Doris says, “they wouldn’t miss it, yet it could do great things for the school system. For more information on how you can help bridge the funding gap in Cullman County schools, contact: TJ Franey, special projects coordinator, Cullman County Schools, 256-736-2454.

ith the success of the scrapbooks, Kim Arndt – a former student of Doris’s who works at Cullman Electric Co-op and then chaired Cullman Farm City – asked her to serve on the Farm City committee. It was another pivot point in the course of Doris’s life. Cullman Farm City’s stated mission is to improve the understanding between rural and urban people as they strive to be “Partners in Progress” in raising and marketing farm products to feed a growing world. Doris is all in. “I’m a ‘yes’ person,” she confesses. “If someone asks me to do something, I usually do it – and do it with all my heart. I believe you’re there to help and to work and to make it better. “I think I’ve missed three or four meetings in all these years. It’s like church: I believe you should go every Sunday and not just now and then.”

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing farmers today? An ongoing challenge, farmers tell me, is the weather. They pray for rain and it doesn’t happen. Then when it starts raining, it doesn’t stop when they 18

need it to. Farmers are at the mercy of the weather. Luckily the hail that hit on March 19 came before most people had done their planting. Labor is another challenge with unemployment being low and fewer itinerant Hispanic farmers because of labor laws. One of the farmers on our Farm City tour said the only people he can get to work are Hispanics. They work hard, but it’s a challenge getting them. They can work at a plant and earn more. Labor is really expensive. Government over regulation ... I don’t know very much about that, but a farmer told me that’s a big challenge.

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Fluctuations in market prices are a challenge to deal with. Some years the crops are bountiful and some years they don’t yield nearly as much and that hurts the farmers. One problem is the growing age of most farmers. We have a wonderful young farmer’s division that the Alabama Farmers Federation and Alfa sponsor, but most of them are second- and thirdgeneration farmers. They are not making as many farmers as they used to. To some degree that problem’s being helped by mechanization and technology. Grandpa had one little plow, and John, the family mule, pulled it. Then he bought a tractor, and he could do two or three times as much in a day as he could with John. A mechanized farm is very productive, but it costs lots of money. And farmers can never stray from home when they have chickens. Farming is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job. That’s always a challenge.

Farm-City Week is celebrated over the six days leading up to Thanksgiving. What do we have to be thankful for in regard to the Cullman Farm City program? First, I am thankful for the Farm City committee members who give their time and talent to promote Farm City activities. Next are our 44 loyal farm city sponsors, who provide financial support for our Farm City activities. Without their annual contributions there would be no Farm City. They pay for the banquet for the students who win poster contests, for our Farm City tours, for speakers, for T-shirts for advertising and for the sweet potato cook-off. Every year we do a “spotlight dinner” on some group, which our sponsors make possible. One of the first groups we spotlighted was the lunchroom workers, who feed our kids food that comes from farms. We had lunch one day for law enforcement and firefighters. People in the city and on farms depend on them. I am also thankful for the young people in Cullman County who are a vital part of Farm City. They volunteer at the banquets and always help with national Ag Day, which is part of Farm City. Young people collect thousands of pounds of food for Cullman Caring for

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Kids. One year, West Point students bagged a trailer truck of sweet potatoes for all of the food banks to give out to people in need across the county. Holly Pond Elementary promoted Farm City with a musical about life on the farm. It was precious and featured about 60 first graders, which was a good opportunity for them to get in front of about 500 people. We are also thankful for media coverage. We get judged on news photos and radio spots. Everything they do counts in our statewide Farm City competition. We are also thankful for the thousands of farm and city people in Cullman County who participate in one or more of the Farm City activities.

What’s your biggest pet peeve?

All of the trash on the side of the roads. We live in a beautiful state, a beautiful county, and it’s ridiculous to have all of the litter we do. It makes me angry thinking of – and seeing – all the trash people throw on the side of the roads. One day Richard and our grandson Carter picked up seven bags – and we’re talking big brown bags of trash – in a half mile stretch on our road. People come there to see the beauty of Welti Falls (see the cover of the spring Good Life Magazine) near our house, and yet folks throw out trash there. We’d like to pick that up, but there is hardly any shoulder on the road there. People could throw their trash on their floorboard. Keep a trash bag in the car. It all goes back to pride – or a lack of it. Growing up, I lived in some terrible houses. At one house, when the wind blew, the linoleum lifted off the floor. But it was spotless. We had pride in whatever house we rented, whether it had indoor or outdoor plumbing. For farmers to feed us, they have to have a healthy planet. Most farmers are particular about the soil and their land. They depend on it for healthy plants and feed pastures for their cattle. We’ve got to take care of it. Some states give you five cents refund on a can, but Alabama doesn’t do that. My thoughts are – where is all of this trash going to end up? One of my former students is a deputy, and the sheriff’s office has a group of inmates who clean the sides of the road. 20

They cleaned up the two miles from U.S. 278 to here, and it didn’t last any time before people threw stuff out again. “Wouldn’t a Styrofoam cup look nice on the side of the road?” Why would somebody even think like that? It’s just a matter of pride … pride in what you have. It should be a matter of logic, too, whether you’re city or farm people.

Shifting gears somewhat … you’re a member of the Student Investment Foundation. Why do you think the work of this group is important? It was started in 2008 by a group of people who were concerned that the county schools needed help financially. My daughter attended the first Student Investment Foundation fundraiser, and I asked about it afterward. She said they were trying to get people to give a $1 a month. I said that didn’t sound like much of a fundraiser, but she said if 30,000 people did that, the foundation would have $30,000 a month to help with education. I got involved about 2010. My friend, Terry Walker, asked me to come on as a committee member, and I did. He and I co-chair the committee. Basically, the foundation raises funds to bridge the gap created by insufficient funding to Cullman County Schools, especially for math, science, the arts and character education. However, we’ve also provided defibrillators for all of the schools. And with all of the recent violence in school we are beginning to focus on what we can do to make our schools safer. Teachers apply for grants, and the foundation reviews the applications. We’ve had to limit our grants to $1,000. One of the first things the foundation asked people to do was contribute $1 per month – Dollars for Kids. We do ours as a bank draft. We do $10. My daughter takes hers out of her paycheck. In the past we’ve held dinners, had a speaker and a silent auction. One dinner raised $50,000. We’ve also had a “noshow ball,” where you did not have to come and that raised $3,266. But we’ve had a hard time getting the word out about the foundation. Ball games and county tournaments last year

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conflicted with our dinner, and we could not find a time to do it. We are working again this year to do a dinner. We have struggled this past year. We still have people who faithfully give monthly contributions, and our money has built up somewhat because last grants were done in 2016. I think it hurt our donations when Cullman County passed the half-cent school tax. That money goes into the general fund. They are unable to purchase defibrillators with it, and our teachers in the classrooms need more technology, more materials for science experiments. I taught 32 years, and lots of money came out of my pocket for my classrooms. All teachers do that. It’s not fair for them to take their own income to run their classrooms.

What’s something most people don’t know about Doris Patterson? When I went to Northwest Shoals Community College, I knew I wanted to major in physical education or home ec. I really wanted to do PE, but I found out you had to pass a swimming test. I was terrified of the water, so I decided on home ec. It’s kind of sad and kind of funny, but after Northwest, my education was so important to me I got an $82 student loan to go to the University of Alabama. I thought that was a lot of money. I also got a work-study job at the University of Alabama Press. We were supposed to have some money at home. But, to be honest, my dad walked out with it, and all of my fees did not get paid at Alabama. I found out about it on homecoming day. I got a letter about being dismissed if the money was not paid. I was badnasty crying. But I lucked out. My roommate did work-study in the financial aid office, and she talked to her boss. By the grace of God, he provided me with $250 student loans every semester for the next two years to cover my fees. It taught me a lesson that has carried me throughout my life. Life is not always easy but never give up on your dreams. Hard work and the grace of God will pay off in the end. Good Life Magazine

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• Dean Koontz: The Crooked Staircase Third in the Jane Hawk series, the bad guys are still very, very bad and will stop at nothing to stop Jane from uncovering their cabal behind a series of mysterious “suicides.” Dean Koontz keeps up the pace and tension and creates the perfect thriller for your summer, fall or any vacation.

• Munro Leaf: The Story of Ferdinand Before the movie there was ... the book. Ferdinand the bull wants to sit on his hill in the shade of the cork tree and enjoy smelling the flowers. But alas, the local townsfolk want him to be the fiercest bull in the bullring. And what’s a bull to do when stung by a bee? Perfect for all ages. Prepare to read it aloud again and again.

• Nora Roberts: Shelter in Place Nora is once again at the top of her game in this suspense-filled story of the aftermath of survivors of a shooting in a shopping mall. One survivor has closed herself off from the world, one has dedicated himself to a career in law enforcement, and one . . . one thinks the death toll at the mall wasn’t high enough. Shelter in Place will have your heart pounding as the pages turn.

• Stephen King: The Outsider A popular little league coach is out of town when an 11-year-old boy is found murdered, but all the forensic evidence and eye-witness reports have him at the scene. After the coach’s very public arrest and incarceration, Detective Ralph Anderson has his work cut out for him in this atypical Stephen King who-dunnit. No monsters or aliens in this one – a great read.

• Francine Rivers: The Masterpiece From the bestselling author of Redeeming Love comes a love story set in the big city. Can mercy and forgiveness shape even the most broken into a stunning masterpiece? Full of amazing yet believable characters, only Francine can tell a story about a graffiti artist and his administrative assistant that resonates with even the most untalented artists among us. Every page is a masterpiece.

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Good Cooking Story and photos by David Moore

Firefighting cooks offer a taste of life and food at CFR stations “You don’t get a body like this unless you know how to cook …” Cooking isn’t part of firefighter job interviews, Doogie laughs, but maybe it ought to be. His culinary skills allowed him to bypass the lowest rung on the

grandmothers and wife’s mom as supercook influences on him. Now he enjoys experimenting with recipes, serious grilling and cooking his go-to meals for his wife, daughter and son. “I like cooking wild game,” Tim

ther than dashing into burning buildings and saving lives as firstresponder EMTs, life as a full-time firefighter is not that different from family life. And so it is that one often finds good cooks among those who work, sleep and eat at the fire house. Cullman Fire Rescue boasts a number of fine cooks, three of whom are Capt. Adam Lackey, Lt. Tim Martin and Adam “Doogie” Taylor. Though not all at the same CFR station, they work 24 hours straight together before getting 48 hours off, meaning the firefighter/ EMT crews spend a third of their time working, sleeping, cooking and eating together. “It varies from shift to shift and station to station,” says Adam, recently promoted to captain. “But someone is usually always cooking.” Adam, Tim and Doogie Waiting for supper at Cullman’s new fire station – – or an emergency call, whichever comes cook a range of dishes, but the nature of their work lends first – are: from left, seated, Adam “Doogie” Taylor, Lt. Jason Lamb, Engineer Jason Doyle, itself to Crock-Pot recipes. That Capt. Adam Lackey; standing, Joey Mollica, CFR Chief Brian Bradberry and Lt. Tim Martin. way, when they rush out on an emergency call, they don’t have to worry about burning down the pecking-order ladder for firehouse chores says. “I like my hamburgers, my cowboy firehouse. – cleaning toilets – and go straight to the cornbread, my Cajun sausage and shrimp Without naming names they laugh kitchen. fettuccine.” about one infamous firehouse cook in Because he had 10 years of experience His cream cheese, bacon-wrapped pork the old Station 2 kitchen who thought as a paramedic, he could answer questions chops and potpies are hits at the station and he turned off the stove before leaving on his new crewmates had about advanced at home. a call. To the cook’s chagrin, the crew EMT training ... hence he was nicknamed returned to find not only their meal burned, after the teen in the old TV “dramedy” dam was a machinist before his but the range hood and cabinetry, too. Doogie Howser, M.D. wife, Ashley, took a job that allowed him Besides cooking at work, he cooks at to pursue his lifelong desire to be a fullf the three cooks, Doogie is newest home for his paramedic wife and their four time firefighter. He says she inspired him to CFR, hired November 2015. His mother kids. to cook, but he’s done it more since joining had him cooking at age 10. Tim’s been with CFR 18 years but has CFR in 2006. “She taught me lots of stuff,” he says. cooked much longer. He credits his two “I got around these guys and liked

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trying new stuff,” he says. For instance, he hunts wild boar and brought home 412 pounds of pork from his last trip to Texas. He made sausage with it and is always ready to fry some up at the firehouse. Such food feeds firehouse camaraderie. “At just about every fire department in the country, the kitchen is the place we gravitate to,” Adam says. “We all sit here talking while somebody cooks.” After a bad call, the city sometimes

tries to bring in grief counselors, but the firefighters think talking together over food probably does more good. Cooking and eating together also build a family-like bond that can ease tensions. In part that’s because of the joking and story telling that goes on in the kitchen. “Our shift has always been real family oriented,” Tim says. “We always support families stopping by to eat with us.” That’s especially true on Saturdays during football season and holidays,

which call for cooking and bringing in big meals, along with spouses and kids. “We cook just like when you go to grandma’s house,” Tim says. “Food is a big part of us.” “They’re good cooks,” CFR Chief Brian Bradberry says from experience. “They’re good firefighters, too.” Below are some of the recipes CFR firefighters use on football game day – assuming they don’t have to respond to an emergency call ...

TIM’S SECRET SUPER BURGER CFR Lt. Tim Martin How good are Tim’s burgers? They’re so good he keeps the exact secret – from everyone. But he allows this much information … Into his meat he adds diced green peppers and an undisclosed seasoning. He uses two patties from a burger press, puts Velveeta cheese between them and grills them for a long time at low temperature. It’s something to go on.

RANCHY ROAST BEEF CFR Capt. Adam Lackey 1 cup water 1 (.7 oz.) pkg. dry Italian style salad dressing mix 1 oz. pkg. ranch dressing mix 1 packet (.75 oz.) dry brown gravy mix 1 3-lb. boneless beef chuck roast 26

Whisk together water, Italian dressing mix, ranch dressing mix and brown gravy mix in a bowl until smooth. Place beef roast in a slow cooker and pour the sauce over it. Cook on

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low until the roast is easily pierced by a fork; 6-8 hours. We enjoy our “ranchy” roast beef as sandwiches made with Kings Hawaiian buns and provolone cheese.

ZUCCHINI NUT BREAD Neville Franks 3 eggs 1 cup vegetable oil 2½ cups of sugar 2 cups zucchini, peeled and grated 3 tsp. vanilla 3 cups plain flour 1 tsp. salt (optional but tastes better) 1 tsp. baking powder 2–3 tsp. cinnamon to taste ½ cup chopped nuts, (optional; any nuts you like) ½ cup raisins (optional) Beat eggs. Add oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla. Mix lightly but well. Add all other ingredients except nuts. Beat/mix nuts well and add to mix with raisins. Grease two loaf pans and divide batter equally. Bake at 325° for one hour. WHITE SAUCE (For chicken or bacon-wrapped dove) CFR Capt. Adam Lackey 6 Tbsp. mayonnaise 2 Tbsp. sugar 1 Tbsp. salt ½ Tbsp. pepper 3 Tbsp. lemon juice 3 Tbsp. vinegar Mix all ingredients. Note: do not salt or pepper meat before applying white sauce. If you do, it will be too salty. BUFFALO DIP CFR Capt. Adam Lackey 2 pkg. cream cheese, room temp Smoked rotisserie chicken ½ cup buffalo wing sauce of your choice ½ cup ranch salad dressing 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Pull chicken and shred. (To save time, we buy the rotisserie chicken already smoked at the local supermarket.) Combine cream cheese, chicken, buffalo wing sauce and ranch dressing. Smooth out into baking dish.

Top with the cheddar cheese. Bake uncovered 20-25 minutes or until cheese is melted and the dip is bubbling on the sides. (Can also be prepared in a slow cooker.) Served with tortilla chips.

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BANANA PEPPERS SAUSAGE DIP CFR Capt. Adam Lackey 1 lb. sausage 12 oz. (two packs) cream cheese, room temp 1 jar of banana peppers, hot or mild Juice from jar of banana peppers

Cook sausage and drain. Cut half of the banana peppers into bite-size pieces. Mix together sausage, cream cheese and banana peppers. Sparingly add some of the

TACO SOUP CFR Capt. Adam Lackey 1 lb. ground chuck 1 large onion, chopped 1 can green chilies, chopped 1 pkg. Hidden Valley Ranch 1 pkg. taco seasoning 1 can pinto beans 1 can ranch-style beans 1 can corn 1 can diced tomatoes 1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes with chilies Brown meat and onion; drain. Add seasoning mixes. Without draining, add vegetables. Simmer 1 hour. Note: can be prepared in slow cooker. 28

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banana pepper juice to increase flavor. Heat in microwave for 5 minutes and stir. Continue to heat for 5 more minutes until hot. Stir. Serve with tortilla chips.

SUPER POTATO SOUP CFR Capt. Adam Lackey 6 cups potatoes, coarsely chopped Â˝ medium onion 1 tsp. salt 2 chicken bouillon cubes 2 cups milk 1 cup Velveeta cheese, cubed Â˝ tsp. pepper Place potatoes and onion in enough water to cover potatoes. Bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer until potatoes are done. Do not drain. Add bouillon cubes and simmer 5 minutes. Add milk and cheese. Continue to simmer until cheese melts. Add pepper and salt; remove from heat and serve.

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DOOGIE’S FIREHOUSE CHILI Adam Taylor 2 lbs. of hamburger meat Salt, to taste Lawry’s Seasoned Salt Garlic powder Worcestershire Sauce 4 cans of Bush’s hot chili beans 2 cans fire-roasted tomatoes 3 pkg. of Chili-O seasoning

1 pkg. of beef smoked sausage Season raw hamburger meat to taste with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, garlic powder and Worcestershire sauce. Brown meat and drain grease. Cut sausage into bite-size pieces and set aside. Open canned vegetables and

put into pot. Add chili seasoning to vegetables. Add browned and drained meat to pot. Add sausage to pot. Bring chili to a simmer and continue simmering until you’re ready to eat. This chili is very thick. You can add small amounts of water if you like it thinner.

FIREHOUSE DIAPERS CFR Capt. Adam Lackey One 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, room temp 1 lb. sausage 1 pkg. of shredded cheese 1 pkg. powdered ranch dressing 2 pkg. crescent rolls 30

Preheat oven to 375°. Cook sausage and drain. Stir together cream cheese, sausage and half of the ranch dressing mix. Separate the crescent rolls and add a heaping tablespoon of mixture into the center of each. Take two

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corners of the rolls and meet in the middle of the mixture; then pull the remaining corner to the center of the first two points (it will resemble a folded diaper). Bake 11-13 min. until crescents are golden brown.

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Good ’n’ Green

Blueberries: With antioxidants and anti-aging properties, blueberries are becoming increasingly popular. The Rabbiteye variety is good for this area. It usually requires little or no spraying and produces fruit in 2-3 years. The key to success is acidic soil with a pH of 4.5-5.2. Test it before planting. Fertilize with a small amount of 10-10-10 or azalea plant food in March, May and July. To promote new growth, annually and lightly prune low-producing and thin old wood.

Plant a ‘farmers market’ in your home garden Story by Tim Crow Regional Extension Agent

ext year, when summer arrives, how would you like to pick your own fruit? From your own yard or garden? With a little work this fall, you could plant your own, instead of driving next summer to a farmers market, fruit and vegetable stands and grocery stores. OK, in the case of a peach tree, you might have to wait a few years, but as the old saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was yesterday. And the second best time is today. I know that sometimes people look at fruit as too much of a challenge to attempt in the home garden. In some cases it can be challenging, but in others it’s not too difficult. So here are five fruits you can grow in a home garden in Cullman County to provide delicious fruit throughout the spring and summer months … 32

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Strawberries: With little to no insect or disease issues, few homegrown fruits offer the easy growing and luscious eating attributes of strawberries. Best planted in the spring, usually early April, they grow in just about any soil, but prefer it well-drained and fertile, with at least 6 hours of sun. The first year it’s best to remove the flowers to help with establishment. There are three types of strawberries: spring- or June-bearing, ever-bearing and day-neutral. June-bearing produce in a 2-3 week period. Ever-bearers produce flowers and fruits from spring to fall. Day-neutral produce throughout the growing season. The latter two are better suited for small garden spaces, because they produce few runners.

Blackberries: There are two main types of blackberries: traditional thorny and thorn-less. That choice is a no-brainer. Blackberries like a soil pH of 6-7. Use a 10-10-10 fertilizer when growth starts in the spring and again just after harvest. Blackberries produce two types of canes: primacanes are new growth; floracanes produce the fruit. Prune the floracanes once the fruit is harvested, and train the primacanes for next year’s production. It is best to train blackberries to a trellis system or some type of climbing structure.

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Muscadines: This native fruit needs a sunny spot, a good trellis system and annul pruning. The Extension recommends a trellis about 20 feet long. With a new plant, train the best two cordons, or main branches, to grow in opposite directions along the trellis. Apply a 10-10-10 fertilizer in May and July. To keep plant size manageable and produce spurs, prune the canes back to 3-4 inches in February or March, leaving 4-6 buds per cane. After a couple seasons, prune out every other spur to help reduce over fruiting and ensure quality. Peaches – If you love peaches – and a challenge – try planting one or two trees. They like an open canopy and sunlight; prune them like an upside down umbrella. Once the tree is properly trained, you need a good spray program. At petal fall in the spring apply a fruit and orchard spray. Apply again when flower shucks begin to split or 7 days after petal fall. From this point apply the spray every 10-14 days. They need an application of Captan plus immunox 2-3 weeks prior to harvest. Use an oil spray around November for aphids and scale insects.

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Story by Steve A. Maze Photos from the author’s collection

dearly loved, he was the family provider. She’d never worked a day in her life, but suddenly found herself in need of a job. Just out of high school, she began

Polaroid photo on my office wall draws a lot of attention from visitors. It isn’t a glossy autographed glamour shot of a movie star, but a simple Polaroid snapshot of a red-haired lady and me. The lady is Deborah Jo White, who sadly lost her life to cancer June 24, 2010. In previous years she stopped by my office several times, but only the most hardcore rock ‘n’ roll fans would have recognized her as JoJo Billingsley – a backup singer for the Lynyrd Skynyrd band during their meteoric rise in the mid-1970s. But it wasn’t her past life that Deborah Jo wanted to talk about with those she met. It was her present and future life that she wanted to share. Deborah Jo and her husband, Tim, moved to Cullman in 1987. I met her in 1996 when she sang at the church I attended in Fairview. Her music ministry was both spiritual and inspirational that Steve Maze used to keep day. She unashamedly spoke this Polaroid photo of him and JoJo on his offi about her total commitment to ce wall. God and the difference it had made in her life. I was very impressed with her message but wondered how she evolved from southern rock to southern singing with a local band and by 1972 had joined up with the rock group Oil Can gospel. Harry. Deborah Jo got her first taste of life Church, I learned, is where it started. on the road when the band traveled to 15 In fact, most singers I have interviewed, countries in 11 weeks. whether rock ‘n’ roll, country or gospel, She had been with the group for 16 started singing in church. Deborah Jo months when she spoke with Bob O’Neal, began at age 3. a friend who did lighting for Lynyrd “The workers on my dad’s big farm in Skynyrd. He said the group planned to hire Senatobia (Miss.) had their own church on some female singers, and shortly after that our property,” she said. “I would sit on the the group’s sound engineer, Kevin Elson, back steps of the church and listen to them called. sing spirituals. Much of my inspiration and “He told me that the band would be style was developed from hearing them.” performing in Nashville and asked me She soon began singing in the choir of to attend,” she said. “He also said that the First Baptist Church of Senatobia and the group wanted to meet me after the was a soloist by age 12. performance. “I was led through some backstage eborah Jo’s father died when she doors after the show and introduced to was 17. Not only did she lose someone she

lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant. Ronnie was sitting in a chair, bare feet propped up, and wearing a black Stetson with a rattlesnake band around it. He looked at me while pushing his hat up and said, ‘She’ll do just fine.’ He didn’t even ask me to audition.” Deborah Jo joined Leslie Hawkins as the group’s backup singers, but they needed a third. Deborah Jo suggested her friend, Cassie Gaines. Two weeks later, the three girls were performing with the band in London. Skynyrd’s schedule was hectic. “We had 275 bookings a year,” Deborah Jo said. “We hit every large and small city three times in the U.S., as well as many other cities around the world in the three and a half years I was with the band. We would usually fly into a city in the morning and fly out that night.”

JoJo Billingsley She sang with Lynyrd Skynyrd, and her smile would set a bird free

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

eborah Jo’s last performance with the group was in August 1977. “I had been told the group was going back to all male members,” she said. “I was tired of the road anyway, and went home to Mississippi. Later, I heard Leslie and Cassie were back with the band. Shortly after, Ronnie called me at my mother’s house and asked me to rejoin the band.” Skynyrd’s schedule called for shows in Greenville, Baton Rouge and then Little Rock. “I told Ronnie that I would rejoin the band in Arkansas since I was within driving distance of Little Rock.” That night, Deborah Jo had a horrible dream. “I didn’t know it at the time, but the Holy Spirit was warning me,” she said, pointing upward. “I had a dream that the band’s plane was going to crash. I made desperate calls to Greenville to warn them, but couldn’t reach anyone. “Finally, guitarist Allen Collins returned my call. I told him about the dream and warned them not to fly on the band’s plane. Allen then told me that he had seen fire

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While touring with Skynyrd, the band always played to sold-out crowds, one of 350,000 people, Deborah Jo says. Here, in her later years, she makes a gospel recording.

coming from one of the engines and that only reaffirmed my fears.” Collins said he would talk to the other band members and call Deborah Jo back. “When he called back, he told me the band had voted to fly commercial after that flight,” she said. “The trip from Greenville to Baton Rouge would be their last time to fly on that particular plane.” And it was.

n Oct. 20, 1977, the band’s plane crashed in Mississippi while en route to their Baton Rouge performance. “Some friends and I were in Memphis celebrating my return to Skynyrd when the phone rang,” Deborah Jo recalled. “It was my mother. She was trying to tell me something but was crying and couldn’t speak. “She finally put my brother on the phone and he told me about the plane crash.” The crash devastated her. She bore the emotional scars for the rest of her life. Six people were killed in the crash, including band members Ronnie Van Zant, Cassie Gaines and her brother, guitarist Steve Gaines. “I was close to all the members of the group who were killed, but especially Ronnie,” said Deborah Jo. “And also Cassie because we had known each other several years before Skynyrd when we worked together in Memphis.” Deborah Jo eventually went on to sing with The Atlanta Rhythm Section, record with Billy Joe Royal, and perform live shows with .38 Special. In 1980, she 36

quit performing when she was attacked backstage by an acquaintance. Shortly after, she met the man she’d marry and moved to Texas. It was there in 1985 that she came back to the Lord in a small Baptist church. “I had drifted away from the Lord over a period of years,” Deborah Jo said. “I shut the door to God after the death of my father. I even thought that God was mad at me, and then I got mad at Him. “All the time the Lord had loved, forgave and restored me. I gave him my confusion and broken life. He gave me peace, joy and a purpose and plan to live His life through me.”

included an article I wrote about Deborah Jo in one of my books, and she joined me at two book signings I had. At one of them, I couldn’t help but grin as I spotted a young couple dressed in Skynyrd attire headed toward Deborah Jo’s table. I knew they were anticipating a lot of stories about the band, but I felt they might hear something else. The couple got their Skynyrd memorabilia signed, as well as a photo with a member of their favorite band. Deborah Jo got to witness to them about the Lord. I think all parties were satisfied in the end. Deborah Jo appeared in the 1996 film about Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Freebird the Movie.” It contained interviews with various band members as well as archive film footage of the group as they appeared in the 1970s. She and her husband invited my wife

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

and me to join them in viewing the movie when it first appeared in Birmingham. It had barely begun when a young Deborah Jo appeared on the screen. Watching in her seat, she threw her head back in laughter and covered her eyes with her hands like someone who had just seen herself in a high school yearbook for the first time in decades. As it progressed, the film became an emotional roller coaster for the former band member. She grew quiet. She laughed. She grew quiet again. “The movie was a volcano of emotion,” she said. “There was extreme joy to be a part of Lynyrd Skynyrd and the film, but footage of the band leaving on their last flight was heartbreaking. It was a blessing to realize God loved me so very much and saved my life.”

eborah Jo kept in touch with surviving band members over the years and was there in 2006 when Skynyrd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Music fans will remember the singer – who died at 58 – for her time with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Many from our area will remember Deborah Jo for her dynamic music ministry. But what I will most remember when I look at the Polaroid photo I still have is her smile. Regardless of how bad things seemed at the time, she was always smiling. Even when she called, I could sense her smile over the phone. That’s what I will remember. Good Life Magazine

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Making a night-and-day difference

Teresa Daniel made good use of neutral and light-colored walls, furniture and decorations throughout her and Garyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house in Holly Pond. The living room is a good example.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

A living room cabinet offers a cameo spot for a small oil painting of the Eiffel Tower, which Teresa and Gary bought while visiting Paris. The small spot of color makes a subtle accent in its neutral colored surroundings. As part of their redecorating project last year, they also installed shiplap over existing Sheetrock walls, updating the look of the room while also adding visual and real texture to the room.

Teresa and Gary Daniel waited five years (and much more) to redecorate their home Story and photos by David Moore

ight and day. That’s the difference a complete redecoration project made to Teresa and Gary Daniel’s house in Holly Pond. Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” would be impressed, even if the Daniels didn’t knock out any walls – at least not yet. The Daniels’ project was actually an exercise in restraint and a reminder of why Teresa loves doing what she does, which is help people decorate their homes through Vintage West Home. 40

It took restraint to be in a store full of furniture Teresa loves and refrain from hauling any of it home for five years, waiting to ensure her budding business wasn’t a bust. “When you start with nothing and build it up with a lot of inventory, that’s taking everything you earn and putting it right back into your business,” she says. “They say it takes five years to show a profit, so I set a goal of five years. I didn’t want to take anything out of the store because I thought I could sell it and make money on it.” The calendar finally turned over five

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

years last fall. Vintage West was thriving. So Teresa cut loose. “I took everything out of the house,” she says. “I repainted, redid everything.” Gary, who does deliveries for Teresa, backed up a truck to their loading dock, and they replaced nearly everything in the house. In June, she added a few last pieces into their den. “It went from dark to light,” Teresa says, delighted with the magical difference. “I fell in love with the house again.” “It makes me realize why I help people with their homes,” she adds. “It’s why I

The family usually eats at the table in the kitchen, a room that bears Teresa’s “look.” “A beautifully decorated interior functions well and shows off the personality of the home,” she says. “A well designed room always has one or more focal points depending on the size of the room.” AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

A chandelier adds elegance and romance to the Daniels’ master bedroom, left. Besides the master bedroom, the house has two other decorated bedrooms and two baths. A wet bar was part of the basement do-over. The Daniels bought re-purposed barn wood for the bar from Southern Accents in Cullman. talk to them and learn what they want out of the space they have. I want to make them feel at home and comfortable in their own house.” Like turning on lights in the house.

agical transformations did not befall Teresa as a birthright. Daughter of Felton and the late Frances Sams, she was born in Macon, Ga. Along with her older brother, Danny, the family moved to the Welti community in Cullman County where her parents had family. Sisters Cindy and Angie came along after the move. Teresa began sewing at age 10, watching what her grandmother did and 42

pretty much teaching herself. At Fairview High School, with dreams of becoming a seamstress, she took home ec from Doris Patterson (featured in this issue on page 16). “She perfected what I already knew,” Teresa says. “She taught me how to do things the correct way.” Before graduating, Teresa found herself married, divorced and pregnant. Misty was born in 1978. Her knight appeared the following June in the form of Gary Daniel, who was just out of the Army, home from Korea. He was from the Center Point area of Birmingham, but his grandparents lived in Holly Pond, and Gary formerly spent

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

summers with them and grew to love their farm on the Holly Pond-Blountsville Road. Gary’s brother was dating Teresa’s sister Cindy, which is how they met. Teresa was 20 when she married Gary in June 1980. They moved onto his grandparents’ farm and in 1986 built the 2,200 square-foot house they live in today. “It was what we could afford at the time,” she says. “It was always small to me, but I always loved it.”

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Use of old barn wood over a wall in the basement den serves several purposes: it adds texture, contrast and interest to the walls. Colors, adds Teresa, have a definite impact on the atmosphere. “They affect mood and are a direct reflection of your personality. The easiest way to decorate is to start out with a source of inspiration, such as a pillow or photo from a magazine. Today, Pinterest is used a lot for inspiration.”

her sewing skills to good use, making draperies and such. “I would design window treatments for decorators out of Birmingham,” Teresa says. “I think, since I was little, I had an eye for decorating. “It’s something I loved to do. It’s a gift, I suppose. People would get me to pick out colors and fabrics. It kind of evolved from that.” Working from what’s now their downstairs den, she operated her own business from about 1985 until 2000. With the kids graduating, Teresa wanted out of the house, to do something else with her life. She and Gary tried their hand at a couple of ventures that didn’t pan out. After her mom died in 2003, she handled financing for her father’s business. She worked several years at Peoples Bank then handled the books for a car auction Gary started. 44

n 2012, when he retired from his auction, Teresa decided to start selling Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and using it to refinish furniture that she sold. It exceeded all expectations. The first month she sold $14,000 worth of paint. She pumped it back into her business. She taught chalk painting classes of up to 20 people. Working out of Gary’s former business on the west side of Cullman, she called her own venture Vintage West Home. “That’s how this business got started,” Teresa says. “And praise the Lord.” Teresa’s business quickly outgrew her initial location. She prayed for a door to open to a location in the Cullman Warehouse District, and one did. Correctly sensing her next step,

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

Teresa wanted to become a true furniture store. Toward that end, she applied to carry Chip and Joanna Gaines furniture line, Magnolia Home Furniture. It’s something else she prayed about, and in April 2016 she visited the Gaines’ showroom in High Point, N.C., where she hoped to meet the couple. “People said I wouldn’t get to carry the line,” she recalls. “Someone even told me that the last day I was in High Point.” So while she was there she pulled a sales rep aside and asked point blank if she would get a distributorship. “She said, ‘Don’t worry. You got it,’” Teresa recalls. Later that day, she was invited to a private reception with Joanna and Chip and got the official word. “That really catapulted me with a look that has become very popular,” she

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Teresa Daniel sits on the back porch swing of her and Gary’s house in Holly Pond. With her are grandkids Graham and Victoria Waldrop, the children of her daughter and son-in-law, Misty and Andrew Waldrop, who live on the same land as the Daniels. Teresa and Gary’s other grown children are: Janah (and Michael) Williams of Madison and their kids, Ella Grace, Savannah and Greyson; and son and daughter-in-law Heath and April Daniel of Fairview and their kids Kennedy and Sawyer. Teresa’s brother, Danny Sams, and his family live in Fairview. Her sisters, Cindy Taylor and Angie Bentley, live with their families in Cullman and Macon, Ga., respectively. Teresa and Gary attend Daystar Church in Good Hope.

says of Magnolia, one of the brands she carries. Knowing she would need more room, she began looking for a bigger location. Almost immediately she spied a for rent sign on the downtown building at the corner of U.S. 31 and U.S 278/Ala. 69. She moved Vintage West Home there in June.

eople sometimes get a mistaken perspective of Teresa’s business success, thinking everything she touches must turn to gold. It’s easier, she says, to simply agree with them rather than explain the hard road winding between yesterday and today. “I learned a lot over the years,” she laughs. “I learned what not to do, that’s for sure.” Teresa also learned a lot about sales 46

from her father, who owned the former Felton Sams Used Cars in Cullman. “Daddy was gifted in sales. He was really good with people,” she says. “That’s where I learned how to deal with people, from him.” “It’s not been easy, but things have fallen into place in recent years. The Lord has opened doors for me to be able to walk through.” It’s easy to get down, to lose confidence in yourself, Teresa says. But she never quit trying. “I am very grateful,” she says. “I always want to give the Lord the praise. I literally walked my faith and believed God all the way.” Her newest venture in that walk has been opening a second Vintage West Home, this one in the Village of Providence in western Huntsville. The project arose from her and Gary

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

helping Janah and her husband plant a church in the area. Janah, who did work at Vintage West in Cullman, manages the new store, which opened in July.

hen the Daniels find time, the next big project blipping on their radar is knocking out the north walls of their house. It will extend their kitchen and living room by 20 linear feet, making the latter a great room. Knocking out walls, of course, is the sort of thing that excites Joanna and Chip Gaines. And before the project is complete, Gary will again back up a truck to their store’s loading dock and haul home a load of new furniture. Even as bright as their home is now, this is the kind of exciting project that, for anyone’s home, makes the difference in night and day. Good Life Magazine

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Good Eats

Mae’s Food Hall: good grub and a community feel

ae’s Food Hall is based upon the trending business model of a food court. But if you spend much time there, a different description might well come to mind – that of a food community. The eatery, located in Cullman’s Warehouse District, is comprised of five food vendors and a bar. There’s also Big E’s Arcade with video games and classic throwbacks skee-ball, darts and basketball hoop shooting. But you sense the sense of community

if you watch how cooks, bartenders and other employees all working for different businesses, interact like good buddies in the office on some project. Most know each other, chat together and eat each others’ food in a way that lends to the casual, friendly atmosphere. That tables – one is built around a swing set – line the center of the hall without dividing barricades, helping the feel of community. All of that fits nicely into developer Shane Quick’s inspiration for opening

• Big Spoon Creamery The ice cream and other treats at Big Spoon are not only tasty, but some of them are works of culinary art, such as the goat cheese blackberry cone, left. Raina Henderson, puts the spin move on a milk shake, left. And Hannah and Angela Gardner of Hayden, above, give an ice cream spoon toast to the treats they just enjoyed at Big Spoon. “It’s awesome,” says Angela, who found out about the Mae’s location from the website for Big Spoon in Birmingham. “But it always makes me go to the treadmill,” she adds with a laugh. “But,” Hannah points out, “It’s so worth it.” 48

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

Mae’s earlier this year. That would be Linnie “Mae” Quick his grandmother, whom he describes as spunky with a flare for southern hospitality. She always kept an extra seat at the table in case anyone from the extended family or the community stopped by. And that’s what you and your family are invited to do … stop by Mae’s. There is often live music, stand-up comedy, bingo or other events going on. Grab a table and enjoy lunch, supper or a good snack in a community atmosphere. Here’s a look at what you can get there …

• Cantina Taqueria You can taste the difference where fresh meets local, says Aimee Domingue Castro, who co-owns Mae’s cantina and another one in Birmingham with her husband, Jorge. She’s tasting that difference in one of their fresh tacos, above, fed by niece, Ella Domingue of LaFayette, La. Another case in point for that fresh taste are the savory chicken nachitos, far left. Other Mexican delights on the menu are five varieties of tacos, from vegetarian and fish to tenderloin. One of the new desserts is the homemade peanut butter brownie topped with a ice cream and syrup. AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

• I Love Bacon This whole concept started with two friends who took various forks in the road and ended up with an old beater food truck wearing an “I Love Bacon” wrap. Four years later it’s evolved into two trucks (in Birmingham and Huntsville) and now brick and mortar – and more bacon – at Mae’s in Cullman. Among the offerings made with “the best stuff on earth” are the inside-out grilled cheese Joey Ramone, above, and the Public Enemy Mac n Cheese with jalapeños, made fresh daily. You can buy jars of the pickles that come on all sandwiches. At right, Dani McBride of Vinemont and Avery Price of Decatur, part of the Mae’s cooking team, offer a tub of the restaurant’s beloved namesake.

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• Link’s Hot Dogs and Hamburgers The Famous Link hot dog and Mushroom Swiss Hamburger, upper and lower left, are two of the gourmet sandwiches cooked up at Link’s by Brian Link (co-owner with his brother, Steve) and his father, William, above. Brian formerly worked as a cook and manager at Moe’s. He liked the business, planned to buy a food truck and hit the roads – but he got a better offer. That’s because Steve happened to pass Mae’s while it was under construction, and met developer Shane Quick’s father, Joe, who was working on the new building. Joe thought a burger and hot dog vendor at Mae’s would be great. “Steve told me,” Brian laughs, “and it spiraled out of control after that.”

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• Strada di Napoli Maestro pizza chef Zac Chain is all about doing it right at Strada. That means making the authentic pizza of Naples, Italy. The process, which you can watch at Mae’s, involves Zac making his own dough in a special mixer, which has its mechanical arms churning and stretching, above. The menu offers numerous toppings for the delicious crust, and its baked in an authentic, imported Neapolitan woodburning oven. “That’s the best pizza I’ve had since Italy,” commented customer Jerald Turner of Fort Walton, Fla., who was in Cullman visiting in-laws. “The pizza is awesome.”

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• Ruckus Ruckus is not only the place to go for signature cocktails, good wine and an array of craft beers, but, as management puts it, the “sound of old friends, new ones made and good times had.” Bryce Poole, top, displays a Bacon Old Fashioned, Ruckus Daiquiri, Paloma, Moscow Mule and Blood Orange Jalapeño Margarita. Chelsea Baugher multi-tasks with aplomb. Paula Hardin of Faulkville, above right, enjoys Ruckus. “This place is so cool,” she says. “And I love to play darts in the arcade.”

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Belinda Hyatt usually works out three mornings and five evenings a week, sometimes running several miles at Sportsman Lake Park, as she is doing here.

The first step in making exercise a lifestyle is to ...

Just get moving AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

A top-ranked fan of CrossFit, Belinda Hyatt advocates any type of exercise Story and photos by David Moore

elinda Hyatt doesn’t wear a clergy collar, a robe or stole. She wears a ponytail, sweats and workout shoes, because that’s what she does – works out. Religiously. And though she’s not a preacher, she is passionate about the message she shares with people about exercise: “Just get moving!” “Working out is my lifestyle,” says Belinda, the administrative assistant at Cullman Economic Development Agency. “It’s a culture lifestyle.” For the past three years Belinda has immersed herself, body and soul, in CrossFit training, a branded strength and conditioning program offered at some 6,500 affiliated gyms nationwide and that many more around the world. Individuals doing CrossFit at these gyms perform an assigned “workout of the day,” or WOD, at an affiliate gym. Annually, 500,000 people worldwide compete in the five-week CrossFit Open. They register online to compete in a new workout each week, which often includes unexpected surprise tasks. Divisions are determined by gender, age and geography, and participants watch eagerly online to see how they measure up. In the 2018 open held in March, in the 56

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

55-59 female scaled-division, Belinda finished first out of 20 CrossFit women statewide in her division. She finished second out of 140 in the Southeast and 15th out of 1,318 division competitors worldwide. Competition driven, Belinda was unhappy with her worldwide ranking. “Making the top 10 was my goal,” she says. “I was so disappointed. I stayed in

the top 10 until the third workout, which included lifting. I’m not a strong lifter.” Her recourse? “Just get moving!” She’s focusing on lifting and finishing better in 2019.

hile relatively new to CrossFit training, Belinda might as well have been born outside and active. She was a youngster with energy to burn.

With 140 pounds of weights on board, Belinda pushes a training sled at ASPT (All Sports Performance Training) on Childhaven Road, operated by trainer Steve Johnson.

“I could never stay inside,” she says. “I was out riding dirt bikes or shooting basketball, swimming … anything outdoors.” At Jones Chapel Junior High, Belinda played what few sports were offered and was a cheerleader. After ninth grade she transferred to Addison High School. Patsy Wilson, Belinda’s PE coach, became a role model and the idea of

a coaching career began running laps around her head. “She coached me in everything,” Belinda says of Patsy. “She was very motivational. She pushed us hard and gave us a desire and love for sports. Strict though, very strict.” Glida Greene, whom Belinda soon met at Addison was – and still is – an even bigger inspiration. Without her

influence, Belinda says, she probably would have shunned the array of available sports Glida invited her to play “I’m not as good as you guys are,” Belinda moaned. “You will be,” Glida replied. “And she made sure of it,” Belinda says. “She took me out and worked with me individually. She didn’t give up on me and made me a better athlete.” AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

Belinda, at left in the mirror above, often joins the intensive Cardio Party Mashup Fitness class taught by Jennifer Lewis at the Cullman Park and Recreation’s Wellness and Aquatic Center. Below, she uses the workout ropes at ASPT, where she formerly led women’s boot camp classes.

Thanks to Glida, Belinda went on to play basketball, volleyball, softball and ran track.

ears later, in April 2008, Glida, a loving force in Addison, perished while running into her burning house in a desperate attempt to save her niece and her niece’s friend who were trapped by flames upstairs.” “She shot up the stairs to save those two little girls. They got to the window but none of them made it out. “She was one of those people everybody loved,” Belinda continues. “She could take the worst person athletically and make an athlete out of her … “She still does motivate me. I think about her a lot. I think of how fortunate I am to be watching my grandson grow up. I think she’d be tickled if she could watch hers. She’s in my heart everyday.” During high school and for eight years after graduation in 1981, Belinda played travel softball. She went to Wallace State, Athens State, then UAB. Instead of coaching, she got married and worked with her husband’s family at the grocery store in Addison. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, and she finished her degree while working. Jake was born in 1989 followed by JCee in 1992. Life settled in and was comfortable. “At the time it was great,” Belinda says. “I got to be with the kids. I didn’t miss anything they ever had.” 58

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

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Belinda Hyatt and Breanna Wilbanks do an afternoon workout on the “assault bikes” at CrossFit 256 next to the Publix as co-owner Chet Graves looks on. They have a fan blowing on them, but most CrossFit facilities are not air-conditioned to help their clients sweat. “It would be easier to get drunk, but you know. I’m excited to get off work and go sweat,” Belinda says. “Some people come out looking so cute. I come out drenched.”

She stayed outdoors when possible, hiking, running, four-wheeling, deer hunting, skiing at the lake and on slopes, ever challenging herself to new levels. Inspiring others to get moving, she taught step aerobic and jazzercise classes, then women’s boot camps, sometimes carrying JCee with her in a car seat.

n 2009 Belinda moved to Cullman. Three years later she quit her grocery job at Hyatt’s Market. That made 2013 a reality check for Belinda. She had an education degree and had started on her master’s, but her resumé was empty other than grocery store work. She worked part time as an administrative assistant at Comfort Care Hospice. A friend, Susan Eller said 60

there was a similar opening at Cullman Economic Development Agency, where she works. Belinda took that job, too, and eventually it became full time. This was also a time when Belinda worried greatly over her son. Jake, however, got involved in CrossFit training, and Belinda, who worked to stay fit during this hard period, soon found herself with a new exercise regimen. “Jake got into it really big, and I played around with it, with him training me off and on for a couple of years,” she says. “Then my daughter got into it, too.” JCee, she adds, has always encouraged her. About three years ago, feeling strong and confident with her training, Belinda walked into CrossFit 256 gym in Cullman with a new goal.

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

She asked owner Chet Graves if she could do the open there. Though she was not a member and it was the day before the first workout of the 2016 CrossFit Open was announced, he said to have at it. Just to participate in the 2016 open had been Belinda’s initial goal, and she did well. But afterward she thought, “I can do better next year.” So she trained harder and did better in 2017. Ditto for this year. And she’s training now for 2019 with the goal of a top-10 finish worldwide in her division.

nd so fitness is Belinda’s lifestyle, evolving through determination to ever do better. She exercises five evenings a week and two or three mornings. Out by at least 5:30, she runs three to six miles

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three mornings a week. She works out five evenings a week. “I never try to just do CrossFit,” Belinda says. “I try to train for anything that might happen, so I might run five miles, take an eight-mile hike, swim laps, register for a Spartan race. Those things excite me. I might do a 5K just because, and one day just do weights.” Belinda confesses that sometimes she surprises herself. Her overall performance in the 2018 open is an example. “My mom died in January,” she says. “The open started in March. I spent a lot of time sitting with her and was way off on my training.” Those who take exercise seriously, Belinda believes, discover what they’re made of near the end of, say, an hour-long workout. “You’re already dead and hurting, but you have 15 more minutes. That’s when you have to push. That’s endurance. “The people who can push through the last few minutes, they’re the people who win. Those who say, ‘You can do this. It’s only a few more minutes.’ Those are the minutes that define what you can really do.”

or those who don’t work out regularly or at all, Belinda wants to encourage you. And though she’s no preacher, she has the passion. “Every workout counts,” she says. “Some people want to put a time limit on it, think they have to workout an hour. If you can only get 15 minutes, it counts.” Some people say they don’t have access to a gym. “You don’t need a gym,” Belinda replies. “All you need is yourself and motivation.” And you certainly don’t have to do anything as intensive as CrossFit. “Do whatever works for you. A brisk walk or hike. Play ball with the kids. Play softball. Play golf. Jog. Do yoga ... “Everybody is different. I can do CrossFit, but it doesn’t matter. Find what works for you” Belinda insists. “Just get moving.”

Getting and staying in shape leaves you ready for whatever physical exertions might come your way ... like Belinda, above, jumping up and down on the beach at Cabo San Lucas in this provided photo.

Good Life Magazine

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

ant something good to put in your body after exercising? Here’s a smoothie recipe Belinda Hyatt enjoys. Besides being good for the body, she says it also helps clean out leftovers … WHATEVER-I-CAN-FIND SMOOTHIE ½ cup unsweetened almond milk 1 cup water Ice cubes

1 Tbsp. natural peanut butter 1 Tbsp. sugar-free chocolate syrup 1 Tbsp. ground flax seed 1 Tbsp. dry oats ½ banana (can substitute handful of blueberries or 3 strawberries) 1½ scoops protein (your choice, but make it a good choice) Throw it all in your Ninja or regular blender. Mix for 1 minute. Enjoy!

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Spud Campbell Living with the sinking of the Henry Bacon

The 441-foot Liberty ship Henry Bacon was named for the architect who designed the Lincoln Memorial in to Spud. Monrad, 7 at the time, was among the 19 Norwegians refugees saved from the Bacon. Here he depicts impressive, though he remembers the waves being much larger and steam escaping from

Story by David Moore

pud Campbell glanced back intermittently from his emergency radio duties in the overcrowded, wave-tossed lifeboat as the torpedoed liberty ship S.S. Henry Bacon lifted its now nakedly exposed bow high against the gale-force wind then sank by the stern into the icy depths of the tempestuous North Sea. 64

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Drowning and freezing among the flotsam were fellow crewmen, friends and a captain Spud admired. The Bacon – on which Spud served as a U.S. Merchant Marine radio operator – was the last ship the German Luftwaffe sank in World War II. Yet to unfold in his now extended life as a survivor were the joys of marrying Bea, raising two children, becoming grandparents and great-grandparents, and

a happy addiction to golf. Career-wise, the Cullman man has now lived a 96-year life of adventures linked to waves – of both ocean and radio varieties – that coursed through the world’s most tumultuous era of history. His adventures took him from atomic weapons testing in the balmy Pacific to nuclear missile radar defenses in the sub-zero environs of Greenland and finally on a 20-year stint overseas with Radio Free Europe.

Washington, D.C. This drawing of the ship before it sank by the stern was done by Monrad Pedersen and given the lifeboat pulling away from the ship as Spud erects the emergency radio antenna mast. Spud calls the drawing the engine room. “He was just a youngster,” he says of Monrad. “It wasn’t a fun day for him.”

The sinking of the Bacon in 1945 remains the most haunting event of his life, the one he tried hardest to repress. Earnal Spurgeon Campbell came to join the Merchant Marine after graduating in 1940 from Meek High in Arley. His grades earned him partial scholarship offers from Alabama and what’s now Auburn, but coming from a farming family of 11 siblings (who dubbed him “Spud”) during the Great

Depression, he still couldn’t afford college. Joining a youth training program instead, he was quickly assigned to technical courses in radio theory and Morse code. From there, the Coast Guard recruited him to the United States Maritime Service Radio Training Station on Gallups Island six miles out from Boston. “I was thrilled … although I hadn’t the slightest idea what this entailed as I had

never been aboard a ship,” says Spud of his newly found niche. “See the world, learn the mysteries of electronics and serve your country.”

fter a year of schooling, he served aboard his first merchant ship in spring 1942. That December, aboard his first Liberty ship, he made his first convoy run, from New York to Liverpool, at a time when Nazi submarines and planes AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

During WWII, 97 Allied vessels were sunk on the Murmansk run by aerial attack, submarine, mine or storm. At least 3,000 sailors died making the trip to supply the Red Army on the Eastern Front. The convoys delivered more than 22,000 aircraft; 343,700 tons of explosives; 1,900 locomotives; 375,000 trucks; 8,700 tractors; 51,500 jeeps; a million miles of field-telephone cable; plus millions of shoes, rifles, machine guns, auto tires, radio sets and other supplies too, according to HistoryNet.com. Below, crew members of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer watch a depth charge explode on April 17, 1943, sinking the Nazi U-175, which was attempting to break into the center of a large convoy.

were sinking 10 percent of America’s merchant fleet. Spud got his first taste of weathering rough seas in a pitching and rolling Liberty ship. He also got his first taste of war as wolf pack U-boats attacked the convoy, sinking 10 ships in five hours. A tanker and a ship carrying explosives blew up dramatically, leaving no survivors – and leaving Spud in his cabin next to the radio shack on the bridge deck, thanking God for his guardian angel. The ensuing years took Spud on numerous convoys, transporting military materiel to war efforts in Great Britain and the Mediterranean to thwart Hitler’s conquest of Europe. Though his first convoy was the worst for attacks, Spud says the merchant crews lived in a nearly constant shadow of danger on the high seas. However, he looked forward to adventuring out on leave in foreign ports, expanding his scope of the world. In one case, he and a friend encountered three Germans who surrendered a Luger to Spud and asked to be taken into captivity. On leave at home in 1944, Spud met Obera McCullar in Birmingham, launching a new lifelong adventure. “She preferred to be called Bea,” Spud says. “I thought of it as short for ‘beautiful.’” On leave again that October, sitting on a bench beneath Birmingham’s statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, he proposed to her. “But we knew,” Spud says, “that our future happiness was in the hands of the gods of war.”

he gods’ hands soon turned bitterly cold. Spud was assigned to the Henry Bacon with Capt. Alfred Carini on the merciless convoy run to Murmansk, a Russian port inside the Arctic Circle. The route would take the Bacon’s complement of 41 merchant seamen and a Navy gunnery crew of 26 within 750 miles of the North Pole. Besides brutal seas and sub-zero temperatures that encased railings, winches and equipment with tons of ice, an average of one in 20 merchant ships on the Murmansk run were sunk by German U-boats and surface ships and 66

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planes operating from the fjord-carved one with depth charges. Near the Bacon, gunners fended them off, and no ships Norwegian coast. Winston Churchill a second sub torpedoed the HMS were hit. called it “the worst journey in the Bluebell’s stern, setting off its depth Then nature walloped them with one world.” charges. It went down in seconds with of the Barents Sea’s worst storms on The Bacon – its holds filled with only one survivor. A third sub heavily record. Temperatures plummeted to -40. 7,500 tons of food, ammunition, damaged Lark and the Liberty ship Spud says the anemometer on the bridge trucks and tanks and four peaked with 112 mph locomotives strapped on winds that turned waves the deck – departed in into pounding mountains. December ’44 from New The assault damaged the York, part of a convoy Henry Bacon’s rudder of 38 merchant ships system, causing it to fall to continue supplying behind the convoy while Russia’s push against attempting repairs. Spud Hitler from the east. credits Capt. Carini with In Scotland, two small keeping the ship afloat. aircraft carriers, a cruiser “That was the most and several destroyers severe weather I had been and corvettes joined the in as far as getting tossed convoy as the strongest around,” Spud says. “It escort Spud had seen. was hard to stay in bed. I They sailed through hadn’t slept in probably fog, sleet and snow. two or three days, and Breakers crashed over everybody else was the ships’ bows. Once on the same way. 2,500-mile trip, Navy “I remember being so gunners on the Bacon busy and trying to do my and other ships fired on a work. With the waves we U-boat that surfaced, but had, you were lucky to be that was the only action. able to walk around.” They arrived safely, if not Spud was busy worn out, in Murmansk on monitoring the radio for Jan. 8, 1945. Morse code signals from During their month the convoy and staggering unloading in port, Spud to the nearby bridge to After the war, Spud –now 96 – worked at WBRC radio in had a chance to interact pass them on to Carini. Birmingham, took classes at UA’s Birmingham Center, repaired with Russians. He was Late morning Feb. 23 TVs at home, later worked for Channel 13 and, for a short time, sadly impressed by found the Bacon some 60 the lid of isolation the miles behind the convoy. was unhappily in the furniture business in California with a communists enforced on The storm had abated brother. He eventually put his radio skills to use at nuclear testing its citizenry by controlling somewhat, but waves sites in the Pacific, radar defense lines in the extreme north and news from the outside were still 30-40 feet tall. for Radio Free Europe. Photo by David Moore world. That’s when a score Before departing, of German torpedo the convoy loaded an bombers, out to attack the unusual return “cargo” of 500 destitute Thomas Scott, forcing both back to port. convoy, decided they’d first pick off the Norwegian refugees who had escaped As the remaining convoy rounded straggling Bacon. from Nazi-occupied Norway via British North Cape, German reconnaissance destroyers. Nineteen of them – women, planes were sighted almost daily. Spud he loud alert for general quarters children and a few older men – boarded says they wondered when further attacks rang through the ship, sending gunners the Bacon. would come. to their stations. But the next attack, on Feb. 18, “I was at the radio room desk ny relief the refugees felt came from Mother Nature. Gale-force when the planes came,” Spud says. He departing Russia on Feb. 17, 1945, winds, strengthening overnight to staggered the few steps through the was short lived. At least three German 68 mph, scattered the convoy. Most pitching passageway to the bridge where U-boats attacked as the convoy ships, including the Bacon, were Carini ordered him to radio the convoy entered the sea from the deep inlet to back in formation by Feb. 20 when they were under attack. Murmansk. The escort HMS Lark sank 25 Luftwaffe planes attacked. Navy Spud couldn’t see much action from

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

the radio shack porthole, but he could from the bridge. He could hear the Bacon’s fiveinch, three-inch and 20mm guns firing. Despite the tossing of the ship, the Navy gunners shot down four or five planes and destroyed several torpedoes in the water. Finally, a torpedo struck near the stern. “You felt a big movement in the ship and almost immediately the stern lowered as the water poured into the hole,” Spud recalls. “I knew we were hit, but I was so busy I didn’t panic.” Actually, he felt a sense of liberation from a long-dreaded threat. “You have pressure on you for years expecting something to happen to you during a convoy,” Spud explains. “When it finally does, it’s almost a relief.” Now Carini ordered Spud to transmit an SOS, the international Morse code signal for an extreme emergency. Dit-dit-dit, dah-dah-dah, dit-dit-dit, Spud repeatedly pecked on the telegraph key. Per standard procedure, the convoy didn’t respond. Doing so would have revealed its position. When it was apparent the ship would sink, with some help from an assistant with minimal radio training, Spud put the convoy codebook in a lead-weighted bag and threw it overboard. He found himself working with a second wind, breathing regularly, doing what had to be done.

apt. Carini ordered the ship abandoned. Efforts were made to lower the four lifeboats. One, lowered empty, smashed against the ship as it rode the huge waves. Storm-damaged, another capsized. Carini ordered all 19 Norwegians – nine children and ten adults, including a pregnant woman – into a third boat, along with six young seamen to handle it. And he ordered Spud aboard with his small emergency transmitter. It and the fourth lifeboat were safely launched. That left most of the crew still on the Bacon. That included two brothers from Mobile, Holcomb and Allan Lammon. Holcomb helped rig impromptu life rafts that saved six of the armed crew and five seamen. He died and was posthumously awarded the U.S. Merchant Marine Meritorious Medal. Donald Haviland, chief engineer of the engine room, gave up his seat in the fourth lifeboat to a younger crewmember and also 68

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died in the sinking. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the Merchant Marine’s highest honor. “Capt. Carini stayed at his position,” Spud says. “The last I saw him, he was still giving orders.” Carini posthumously became only one of two Americans awarded the Krigskorset med Sverd, or Norwegian War Cross with Sword, Norway’s highest honor for military gallantry. On the overloaded lifeboat, the crew rowed hard to keep the 30-40-foot waves from smashing them against the Bacon’s hull. Spud, assisted by the few Norwegian men, fought to erect the antenna masts for his emergency transmitter. By the time he got it going, he was sweating hard and had to throw up over the side. Before the Henry Bacon slid under the waves Spud saw men jumping into the freezing water, thrashing about for something that floated. Capt. Carini remained at his post on the bridge. In the lifeboat, the Norwegian women sang religious songs.

t was not raining, but the cold wind howled across the mountainous seas. Spud broadcasted one-minute emergency messages at 10-minute intervals until his 30-minute battery was spent. That afternoon, after some three hours in the boat, the HMS Opportune picked up the survivors, in itself a dicey operation.

When the 30-foot waves lifted the lifeboat even with the British destroyer’s deck, the men would “pitch” a kid or woman onto the ship before the wave dropped them 30 feet below the deck, Spud explains. When he and the remaining crew finally scrambled aboard, Spud hit the deck. “I had exhausted all of my energy,” he says. “Somebody put me to bed.” He slept a solid 12 hours on a strange bunk, then hand-washed his vomit-stinking clothes and brushed his teeth without toothpaste. “It was,” and Spud pauses, “a strange feeling. I felt guilty because I knew other people didn’t make it. That’s the main feeling I remember when I saw some of those people in the water, knowing I was still alive.” Capt. Carini and 15 of the Merchant Marine seaman perished along with 11 Navy crewmembers. But all of their human cargo survived. The grateful refugees and surviving crew sailed to Scotland. In mid-March, Spud was shipped to New York. He called Bea and said he wanted to get married. Soon. They honeymooned in Florida, but it proved to be only a temporary distraction. For not the first time in his life the haunting of the Henry Bacon soon hit poignantly home. Back in Alabama, Bea’s mother introduced Spud to a visiting woman from North Carolina. She was the mother of Bob

This is the basic Liberty ship layout. Spud’s berth and radio room were on the forward bridge deck. The torpedo that sank the Henry Bacon hit the number 5 cargo hold.

Hunt, an officer from the Bacon who had been Spud’s closet friend. “She had received a telegram that Bob was missing in action,” he says. “She was trying to find out if I could give her any hope. I had to tell her he froze to death, drowned. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. “It was,” he says of the entire episode of the sinking, “a bad adventure.”

Dominoes toppled. In the coming years Spud, Bea and their son Steve and daughter-in-law Nan toured the U.S., Scotland and Norway, taking part in numerous reunions and documentaries about the Henry Bacon. In 2003, at the urging of their daughter Lynda’s son, Chris, and more urging from Steve, who’d read a book written by Spud’s brother and golfing partner, Julian, Spud finally sat down and wrote his memoir titled “Waves Astern,” a radio/ ocean play on the word “waves.”

ver the next five decades, Spud sought challenging ways to support his family using his radio expertise, which led him on adventures, as he calls them, from one extreme of the globe to another. During that time, he tried to force the horrors of that 1945 convoy run to Murmansk from his mind. At times they returned as nightmares. Other times he experienced a sense of vertigo he attributes, at least in part, to those repressed memories and his notuncommon sense of survivor’s guilt. Then, in 1992 – after retiring from Radio Free Europe to Cullman – he and Bea visited Washington, D.C., in response to a surprise invitation from the Russian Embassy to accept a medal for his part in the Soviet effort to defeat Nazi Germany. He found the invite extremely ironic in that he’d spent most of life since 1945 countering Russia’s Cold War strategies. In D.C. he met others the Russians were honoring, some of whom had heard of the

As a radio operator, Spud was an officer aboard the merchant vessels he sailed.

Henry Bacon. Talking to them brought back details Spud had long suppressed. He also met Ian Millar, who’d written about the Murmansk Run and had helped convince the Russians to honor its participants. Before the trip ended, Millar asked Spud to please write his memories and send them to him.

ast August, Spud lost Bea to cancer. He now lives at Morningside Assisted Living – one of the more calm adventures of his life, he grins – and still plays golf with Julian as much as possible. “Life has been interesting to me,” Spud says. “After my work travel and adventures were, so-called, finished, I made all these trips and met people in high places, partied with kings and queens. “After I had to face the facts (of the Henry Bacon) again, I gradually got accustomed to not feeling too bad about it.” It still hits him from time to time, but not like it once did, buffered between so many better adventures. “You get used to anything,” Spud says. “Tears don’t come to my eyes anymore. They used to. But I thank God for the 73 Continued on page 72 AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

With the Cold War heating up, in 1956 Spud accepted an offer with a contractor for the Atomic Energy Commission to work in the Marshall Islands where nuclear weapons were tested. Even though it meant 19 months of separation, he and Bea decided it was best for future family finances. Spud’s job was setting up radio communications between the scattered test sites, the distant mainland and their base on Parry Island. At right, Spud, sporting an island shirt, patches an employee through to his family back home. At the first atomic blast he witnessed on nearby Eniwetok Atoll, Spud disregarded protocol, turned toward the explosion and observed it through dark goggles. “When I saw the bones in my fingers looking like an x-ray photo, I decided I didn’t want to look at any more,” he says. The first hydrogen bomb was tested on Bikini Atoll, 200 miles away. It was still dark, before dawn, but Spud was able to read Cold War newspaper stories by the light of the “man-made sunshine.” After the islands, Spud returned to his family in Bluff Park and worked a while as a transmitter engineer for Alabama Public Television then for a while on developing heart surgery equipment at the UA Medical Center in nearby Birmingham. While at a medical symposium in Washington, D.C., he interviewed and got a “temporary” job with Page Communications Engineers, who were keen on applying his skills to the finalization of the world’s longest tropospheric-scatter link in the Distant Early Warning ballistic missile radar system. With winter bringing long, dark days and -50 temperatures, Spud found himself in late 1959 at Thule (prounced Too-lee), Greenland, again only about 700 miles from the North Pole. Winds once hit a nervetattering 175 mph. Summer got better with 24 hours of light and temps in the 50s and even 60s. The radar system officially went operational Oct. 1, 1960, the day Spud left. He was next assigned by Page to do contract work for Voice of America. During that time the family lived near Washington. 70

AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

Honoring family desires, Spud declined two initial offers to work directly for Radio Free Europe before they made him an offer his family reluctantly agreed they could not resist. The family moved in 1962 to Portugal, and during Spud’s 20 years with RFE they also lived in Germany. In his book, right, Spud writes about the radio his father bought for their isolated, rural farm in Arley, and how it opened him to information about all corners of the world. While working for RFE, it was not lost on Spud that people behind the Iron Curtain were similarly cut off from news from the Soviet Union and the free world. The news and other programming RFE broadcast to deprived citizenry in communist Europe and Russia opened doors for them like that radio in Arley did for him, Spud says. One of his biggest challenges at RFE was getting through and around the Russians’ radio jamming signals. Upper left is the Munich headquarters of RFE and Radio Liberty. At the

upper right is the RFE’s extensive antenna farm in Portugal. Above left, Bea entertains in Europe with Spud. He retired as RFE’s VP and director of engineering in 1982 to a house he and Bea built near Cullman’s Terri Pines, in great part because of their love of golf. AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2018

Continued from page 69

years I’ve had after that happened. “If I had it to do over,” he adds, “I don’t think I would do it any different.” As he states in his book, “I had never allowed the word ‘regret’ to control my thinking.” Good Life Magazine After retirement, Spud and his family traveled extensively to reunions and ceremonies, from among which he received his medal from the king and queen of Norway, near right in the photo. The medal at the far left is from the USSR for his part in supplying war materiel to Russia in WWII – an irony given Spud’s later roles in the Cold War. Also ironic – as well as being a fiscal and emotional blow to Spud and many others – the U.S. did not recognize members of the Merchant Marine as veterans until 1977. In 1999 Spud was presented the Transportation Department Maritime Service Medal during a ceremony at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in honor of his service and sacrifice in the Merchant Marine. The Smithsonian recorded an oral history session with him that’s available online. You can access it by googling: Spud Campbell Smithsonian.

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Out ’n’ About Sometimes we tend to think of history in black, white and shades of gray, since photography in the 1800s and much of the 1900s was black and white. But “history” in Cullman County, especially in the fall, is anything but black and white. The first two photos above and the one immediately to the right were shot in Cullman’s Historic District, much of which last fall was ablaze in color. Color was rampant too at the historic Clarkson Bridge in northwestern Cullman County and the adjacent mill pond there. The takeaways here? Enjoy and immerse yourself in the colorful history of Cullman County. And don’t spend all fall watching football. Or raking leaves. Photos by David Moore.

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