Marshall County Good Life Magazine - Spring 2014

Marshall County

Predictions on the Bassmaster Classic?

Records will fall in ‘gi-normous’ event Some great ideas for adding an outside living area to your home Yachting couple respond to the lure of America’s Great Loop

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Contributors

Welcome

Welcome back, readers; and welcome fishing fans to our community

T

o those who saw our first issue, it’s good to have you back. Thanks for your inspiring landslide of kind comments about number one.

To those visiting Marshall County for the Bassmaster Classic, we’re tickled you’re here. If you lift enough rocks, you can find folks who somehow manage to miss out on the area’s abundant beauty and the inherent goodness of most everyone here. Sure, we’re not perfect. But for people we’re about as good as it gets.

So, enjoy your visit. Enjoy our people. Enjoy our lake and the communities surrounding it. And if you want to come back, to visit or live, we’d be glad to share our good life with you.

It’s that good life that this magazine celebrates.

On the practical side, there’s information inside about times, locations and shuttle buses for the Classic.

You’ll find interesting comments from our two resident Classic winners and more, too.

This issue has a shining example of our good people in a tribute to the late Dot Moore, a fine Marshall County transplant whose vision and work will continue her inspiring impact for years to come.

Perhaps inspiring you to undertake a home project is our story on Mark Gullion’s outdoor living space.

Call it casually comfortable and elegantly lush.

Want an inspiring adventure? Check out the little trip Frances and Chuck Ruddy took. It’s called America’s Great Loop Cruise.

As a coincidence, the big doin’s with the Classic coincide with the 75th anniversary of Guntersville Dam, the sprawling lake it created and the lifestyle that sprung from it. You can read about that, too.

Here’s to good weather for the Classic and, beyond that, an inspiring good life for us all.

David Moore Publisher/editor 4

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

Patrick Oden has degrees from Utah State and a master’s from Ohio State, where he furthered his knowledge of photography and visual communications. Beyond his professional photography and design work, he’s been dealing with frozen water pipes lately at home in Claysville.

Marshall County Extension Agent Eddie Wheeler lists what he likes best about spring: warm weather and sunshine, finally; shrubs and trees beginning to bloom and bud; daffodils and tulips pushing out of the soil; brown grass turning green; folks excited about gardening.

Long-time Arab High School English teacher Annette Haislip loves the spring because her green thumb comes out of hibernation and joyfully pulls her outside. The downside to nicer weather and longer days is that being outside cuts into her reading... well, some.

If you’ve met Sheila McAnear, Good Life’s advertising and art director, you might think she smiles a lot. You’ve not seen anything yet. Her oldest son, with a Stanford law degree and waiting to take his bar exams, accepted a job in Washington, DC. His favorite place in the world. No one smiles more than a proud mom.

Publisher and editor David Moore admits he’s lost face before. But this time he’s lost his own face. (Maybe that’s not bad...) Encouraged by his wife, he’s grown a goatee. Well, sorta. It still needs work. If you see him, pretend it looks good.

He needs a break.

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Inside

Regular features...

8

Good Fun

The Classic is not all that is happening

14 Good People

Friends offer memories of Dot Moore

On the cover: A fisherman enjoys an evening of solitude on Lake Guntersville.

Solitude, however, will be a bit scarce during the Bassmaster Classic, which could draw record crowds. Pictured here: Blue lace-capped hydrangea is one of Mark Gullion’s favorite plants in his outdoor living area.

Read more about Mark and the Classic in this spring issue of Good Life Magazine.

20 Good Reads

Photos by David Moore

Grafton and “W,” Cornwell and “Dust”

22 Good ’n’ Green

Three favs: dogwoods, cherries, redbuds

25 Good Cooking

“Southern Pleasures” you’ll want to try

32 Good Eats

“Pizza Doctor” is cooking at Mater’s

Special features...

34 Outdoor living areas

Mark Gullion offers tips for creating a wonderful living area in your yard

40 The lure of the loop

Step aboard the Oasis as the Ruddys take you 7,000 miles by river and sea

48 Lane vs. fish

2012 Classic winner Chris Lane talks about fishing and his greatest catch

54 A ‘Gi-normous’ Classic

What’s the Classic hold in store?

Local title holders give you a preview

56 The coming of the lake

75 years ago TVA first closed the gates

of the dam, creating a new way of life

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

Vol. 1 No. 2 Copyright 2014 Published quarterly

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

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Good Fun

Catch the Classic... at a lake near you This is your chance to see the

world’s premier bass fishing event without having to travel.

The jewel of Marshall County, Lake Guntersville, will host the 2014 Classic Friday-Sunday, Feb. 21-23.

Fishing in the Super Bowl of anglers, the top 56 pros on the BASS circuit last year will be vying for the massive first-place trophy and a $300,000 check.

Though other top tournaments have come to Guntersville, this will be its first time to host the Classic since 1976. Rick Clunn took his first of four Classic titles that year en route to becoming a bass fishing legend.

Locally – and nationally – many eyes will be on Chris Lane, winner of the 2012 Classic, who will be fishing on his home lake. Lane and Boyd Duckett, winner of the 2007

Classic, talk more about the event on Page 54.

You can view the daily blast-offs at 7 a.m. from Guntersville City Harbor, just south of the bridge on Blount Avenue. The Classic Expo (open most of the day) and the weighins (4-7 p.m.) will take place at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center.

There is no charge to any of the events.

Parking congestion is expected, but the city of Guntersville is offering free park-and-ride service to and from the blast-off all three days. The shuttles will run from 5 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and pick up until 11:30 a.m. at Errol Allen Park a few blocks away.

Shuttle stops are at: • Marshall County Park One north of Memorial Bridge • Guntersville High School • Factory Connection parking lot, Ala. 79

• Guntersville Elementary School • Guntersville Middle School • Lurleen B. Wallace Pavilion on LBW Drive Visitors staying at the hotels in Guntersville or Lake Guntersville State Park can ride the shuttles to and from those locations.

Vendors at the blast-off will sell coffee, hot chocolate and Classic merchandise. Downtown restaurants on Blount Avenue will be open for breakfast all three days, and businesses will be welcoming visitors to the Classic.

Two final notes: • Wear warm clothes.

• Activities and times are subject to change. For up-todate information visit: www. marshallcountycvb.com; or call: Lake Guntersville Chamber of Commerce, 256-582-3612.

– David Moore

See art, Dance with the Stars, wear a Touch of Red • February-April – Traveling art Mountain Valley Arts Council has a traveling art exhibit touring Marshall County this year. Among the local artists featured are Adam McBride, Anne Blue, Nall, Sandra Merlo, Jennie McBride, Monica Martin, George Goff, Vicki Dodd, Robin Rankin, Kyle Atkins, Doris Leverett, and Gene Black.

The exhibit opened at the Albertville and Grant libraries in January. In 8

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

February it will be at the Guntersville Library, moving to the Boaz Library in March. In April, you can see it at the Arab Library and the Albertville Museum. It will be at Lake Guntersville State Park in May, then repeat the rounds with different works at each location starting in July.

Want to show, host an exhibit or other information? Call: MVAC at 256571-7199.

• Feb. 8 – Dancing as Stars The Fourth Annual Dancing as Stars will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at Guntersville Town Hall. A fundraiser benefiting Marshall County Home Place, it features six exhibition performances by professional instructors and plenty of open dance floor time.

Included in the $65 individual ticket price are heavy hors d’oeuvres provided by Crawmama’s. Beer and

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wine will be available for $2 each. Table sponsorships are available.

Net proceeds go to a building fund for more apartments to assist the homeless – providing them with a hand up, not a hand out, as Hope Place director Lee Hoggle puts it.

For more information: 256-582-2360.

• Feb. 6 – Taste of Albertville The beer and wine tasting is set for 5-7:30 p.m. at The Crossroads Mall on U.S. 231 in Albertville.

Tickets are $12, and a cash bar also will be available.

The event is sponsored by the Albertville Commercial Development Authority, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Marshall County Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

For more information: 256-891-8200.

• Feb. 28 – Sips and Strokes Georgi Bragg is back in Guntersville 6-8 p.m. Friday with a fun painting session for adults, even if you don’t know how to paint.

The event will be held at the Aviation Center at Guntersville Municipal Airport.

Class size will be limited to 20.

Cost is $30 per person. Art supplies will be provided. Participants are welcome to bring their own beverage and perhaps an hors d’oeuvre to share.

For more information: 256-571-7199.

• March 7 – A Little Touch of Red The Sixth Annual Little Touch of Red

• Feb. 12 – Nick Saban His first appearance in Marshall County, the Alabama football coach will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Snead State Community College Bevill Center. Saban will talk about leadership followed by a question and answer session. For reserved seat tickets, which are $125, contact: 256-753-2599 or staceyswhite@charter.net.

General admission tickets – $100 each – are available at the chamber of commerce offices in Arab, Albertville and Guntersville. The event is sponsored by Union Chapel United Methodist Church and Farmer’s Insurance: The Herbert Agency.

For more information, call: Katy Norton, 256-388-9376.

– a benefit for the Marshall County Red Cross – gets underway at 6 p.m. Friday at Guntersville Town Hall.

Persons of Interest will perform for dancing, and there will be food, beverages, live and silent auctions.

Debbie Head will share her story of the April 27, 2011, tornado that hit her home in the Ruth community near Arab.

Jack Powers of Guntersville will be honored with the SuSu Powers Memorial Award, named in honor of the late Red Cross board member disasterrelief volunteer. Mark Brickey of Sand Mountain Toyota will be honored with the Clara Barton Humanitarian Award.

Tickets are $50 per person. Table sponsorships with perks are available.

• February – FISHART

To coincide with the Bassmaster Classic, this free, monthlong show at the Mountain Valley Arts Council gallery

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to – surprise! – fish and fishing. Local and regional artists include Adam McBride, Anne Blue, Robin Rankin,

Karen Gretchel, Jennie McBride, Jennifer Baker, Pamela Watters, George Goff, David Hancock, Brian Kucera,

Barbara Laughbaum, Dianne Barnett, Donnie Weir and Becky Scheinert. Also on exhibit will be several paintings by Frank Gee, on loan from the

Guntersville Art Museum and Cultural Center.

For more information: 256-571-7199.

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• April 12-13, Art on the Lake The 53rd annual show by the 21st Century Club runs 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday featuring over 120 artists and craftsmen from the Southeast and beyond.

Food vendors, outdoor games, rides, a bake sale and more make it fun for the entire family! Expect a crowd at the Guntersville Recreation Center.

For more information, visit: www. artonthelake-guntersville.com.

• Feb. 14-16 and 20-22 – “Seussical”

Nationally acclaimed Arab Musical Theatre presents a musical

stage adaptation of all of Dr. Seuss’s children’s books. The Cat in the

Hat leads the story of Horton, an elephant who discovers a speck of dust containing Whos. From there it goes to all the wonderful places Seuss created. Staged in the Arab High School auditorium; matineés at 2

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• All year – Artist registry Got talent? Here’s a chance to share it.

With the advent of the new Arts and Entertainment District in Guntersville, Mountain Valley Arts Council is compiling an artist registry to include singers, musicians, face painters, caricature and street artists, dancers, jugglers, clowns, mimes... you get it.

It’s a chance to perform at the new Errol Allen Park downtown. Plus businesses will use the registry to hire artists for their own specific events during the A&E district hours.

The registry is open to any artist who doesn’t mind traveling to Guntersville.

For more information: 256-571-7199.

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Good People

Snapshot: Dot Moore

• Born: 1933 in Port Au Prince, Haiti; • Early years: Daughter of a Marine general, she and her sister, Dr. Patricia Glover, got a panoramic window on the world, seeing much of the U.S., Guam, Germany, Japan, China, Philippine Islands, England, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Jordan, Greece and France.

Family: Husband, Ernie Moore (divorced); two grown children, Lynn and Robert Ernest “Robin” Moore; • Settling down: Moved to Guntersville, 1963; • Honors: Voted one of Guntersville’s 100 most influential people during the 20th century; Alabama Governor’s Award for Volunteers in the Arts and Humanities in 1988; Guntersville Chamber of Commerce’s 2004 President’s Cup for Lifetime Community Service.

• Proudest accomplishment: Dubbed by WBS member Andy Hunter as the Founding Mother of The Whole Backstage.

Dot Moore

Friends offer their remembrances of The Mother of the Whole Backstage Story by David Moore Portrait by Ty Smith Teacher. Stage director. Visionary.

Artist.

Dot Moore possessed a prismatic soul that painted her shining light in every color of the personality rainbow.

But she is perhaps best known as the Founding Mother of Marshall County’s community theatre group: The Whole Backstage. Sprung from tragedy, the WBS continues 41 years later as a testament to Dot’s ability to see and bring out the good in all people and things.

The Founding Mother died April 8, 2013, at her home on Browns Creek Road. She was 79.

Her spirit will be very much alive this February as The Whole Backstage presents “The First 40 Years: A Tribute to Dot Moore.”

WBS members, past and present, will honor her memory with a performance of musical numbers and dramatic scenes from shows that Dot directed, including Camelot, Fiddler On The Roof, Hello Dolly, Man of La Mancha, The King and I, The Sound of Music and Brigadoon. WBS veteran Jan Price will direct the revue.

Five of the many people who called her friend and worked with Dot over the years provided the following thoughts on various aspects of the light that shined through her prismatic soul...

1. Johnny Brewer

A speech instructor and the retired

theatre director at Snead State Community College, Brewer is a 37year veteran of The Whole Backstage who has directed plays and served as board president. He recalls Dot’s vision and the impact of the WBS...

Dot Moore’s Whole Backstage represents an idea of family, working together, dealing with adversity, doing the best you can and nurturing friendships. The impact of that would change the lives of countless people across Marshall County.

Dot was influential in encouraging people who might not have otherwise been inclined to get involved in music, theatre, art or literature.

She had direct and indirect influence with our area schools and school systems to begin and maintain a performing arts program.

Dozens of young individuals embarked on professional or semiprofessional careers in the performing arts as a result of having worked with her.

Dot inspired thousands of young people and adults to give more of themselves than they thought possible.

All in all, she was an encourager of lifelong dreams.

Her vision of The Whole Backstage as we know it came into its own in 1973 after the Guntersville Teen Club evolved with the integration of adults. “The grownups were now seeing how much fun we were having,” she often commented.

They rehearsed in church basements, living rooms, gyms and on the beach at the Guntersville State Park. Performance venues included the Guntersville Town Hall, the

5impressions Albertville Recreation Center, Snead College Fielder Auditorium, the Fort Payne Opera House and even the Von Braun Civic Center in Huntsville.

But Dot’s dream was to have a permanent home for the WBS, and in 1979 the late Mayor Bob Hembree Sr. arranged for use of the auditorium and stage of the former Guntersville Elementary School. By 2003, The Whole Backstage occupied the entire building and a major renovation was implemented.

Dot’s dream of a permanent home became a reality. But her vision was far more reaching than one might realize. You see, bricks and mortar, the new fly system, an orchestra pit, the costume storage and dressing rooms are not The Whole Backstage; rather it’s Dot’s vision of people working together to create beauty and art.

2.

Jaton Meyer From sets and costumes to directing and board member, Meyer volunteered with WBS for some 30 years. During that time she and Dot developed a close friendship, which Jaton recalls here...

I met Dot in 1976. She had a small cheese and bread shop with a space in the back for Whole Backstage rehearsals. It seemed strange that one person would work so hard and give so much of herself to stage a play.

I didn’t know her yet, but I knew about her and was a little intimidated.

She made one feel so at ease and comfortable, however, that I soon got over that. And, as I got to know Dot, it became clear how much she absolutely loved what she was doing.

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

15

Since I had never been involved in community theatre, I knew nothing about how it all came together.

But Dot began teaching me about painting sets and sewing costumes.

She said the costumes would be seen from 30 feet away so not to waste time clipping threads.

We always laughed and said her costumes needed a haircut.

While we were “working,” we had a lot of time to talk, and from that our friendship grew. But I can’t honestly say I had a special claim on her friendship. She was a friend to everyone.

It didn’t make any difference who someone was or where he or she came from. Dot always saw some good in that person’s soul.

Anything you wanted or needed to talk about... Dot would listen to all of our problems and assure us that everything would work out. Even with our teenagers.

Dot taught me to see the good in everybody, to accept people as they are. But, as our friend, she also made a positive impact on everyone involved in the theatre.

As a director, she helped solve any production problems that came up, always saying, “Don’t worry. It will work out. That’s the magic of The Whole Backstage.”

Dot Moore meant so much to me. So much to us all. That was her magic as a friend.

3. Diane DuBoise

For many years, Dot was a mentor and a second mother to DuBoise, who remembers her as a visionary of the stage...

I don’t believe I have ever met anyone like Dot. She was a creative, passionate and caring person, on and off stage.

Dot’s personality was infectious!

When you got around Dot you just felt good about yourself and all that you were doing – not just on the stage but as a person.

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Show will be a tribute to Dot Performances for “The First 40 Years: A Tribute to Dot Moore” will be held Feb. 7-9 and Feb. 13-15.

Sunday shows are at 2 p.m., the others start at 7 p.m.

Tickets – $18 and $16 for seniors and students – are available at: http://www.wholebackstage.com; or 256-582-7469.

The Whole Backstage theatre office is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.

She enjoyed directing shows with some true meaning, some basic truth, at their core. Dot was so successful as a director because she could envision that truth on the stage. As a director she wanted her cast to truly understand that meaning so that the audience would get it, too.

Working with Dot as an actress, her assistant and co-director was always exciting. When we did “Man of La Mancha” in 1993, she built a wonderful scale model of the set. When she was blocking out the scenes she used pill bottles as people.

When we where directing “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” she told me she was making the jeweled Egyptian collars for the costumes out of the empty inhalers she had from her breathing treatments. I didn’t see how it would work… but it did.

Dot had the ability to see things and then to make them happen. That applies to people, too. She believed that everyone has talents, and, no matter what, anyone that wanted to be part of the theatre should be.

She and I knew each other for 24 years. She was my mentor, friend and adoptive mom. I loved her and miss her so, but I am so blessed to

have worked with her. I know I am who I am today because of Dot. She was able to envision that in me.

4.

Denise Resler Resler met Dot 20 years ago and has been involved with the theatre ever since. Beyond WBS, both were transplants and military brats, so they shared a lot in common. Resler recalls Dot as a lover of life...

Every day for Dot was an opportunity for a new adventure, and I believe Dot loved the adventure. She viewed every day as a chance to do something great, and it was always in an artistic way. I believe that part of her philosophy was live life to the fullest, and she was a shining example to everyone she met.

She must have had a little bit of Will Rogers in her soul because I don’t think she “ever met a man she didn’t like.”

Dot’s outlook was always sunny. You can see that in all of the artwork she created. Her love for bright colors and cheerful subject matter is prominent in her work.

I would call many of her pieces whimsical. They always bring a smile to your face and lightness to your heart.

She loved creating and had many ongoing projects at any given time. Her artwork – be it painting a backdrop, designing and building sets or designing and making costumes – always showed her love of life and love for creating things of beauty.

Dot was a confidant and a mentor to many. She inspired her students to reach for their goals and dreams, and she always had their backs.

I believe that Dot had a special talent of uplifting a disheartened soul. You always knew you would feel rejuvenated and optimistic about whatever was troubling you if you could just talk to Dot. There is no doubt in my mind that my life is

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FATHER OF EIGHT seeks energetic lady. Must love GRANOLA EATING, CAMP kids, be fit and ready to jump LOVING, WORLD TRAVELER SINGLE, ARTSY LADY SEEKS in and join the fun. Military seeks woman of my dreams.

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227 Cullman Road, PO Box 630 agent seeks customers Please be employed and willing Arab, AL 35016 one special to relocate.person Especially fond of looking for Having real Bus: 256-586-2644 Fax: 256-586-2645 black andand white tuxedo for your car, home lifecats. alanmurphyagent.com

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No representation is made that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

17

Remembering Dot Moore in this provided photo are, from left, Johnny

Brewer, Jaton Meyer, Dr. Bill Moss, Diane DuBoise and Denise Resler Dot was one of the most inspiring teachers I’ve ever known. Her humanities class at Marshall County and later Guntersville high schools was a life-changing experience for myself and countless other students.

She taught us to explore a subject’s meaning, not only with the brain, but with the heart. She made it relevant by asking us to think in terms of personal experience. She encouraged us to

better because I was lucky enough to have Dot share her love of life with me.

5.

Dr. Bill Moss A career counselor at Wallace State Community College, Moss was a former student of Dot’s and longtime member of the old Guntersville Teen Club. He recalls her as a teacher of life...

Lorna S O’Leary, AAMS® Financial Advisor

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18

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Edward Jones

making sense of investing

examine ourselves within the subject, therefore learning not only the subject but also about ourself.

Dot challenged us to critically think about the humanities – what they mean in our lives – and helped us understand the deeper meaning of life through the arts. Through this challenge and help, we developed a deeper sense of what it means to be human.

At her memorial service, Bobby McCormick, another former student, eloquently summarized her importance to all of us when he said that she showed us the door to ourselves.

As a final class assignment, she had us publish “1,” a magazine of student poems and art. I saw a copy recently, and it was fascinating. It contained a poem by Mike Jennings, who was killed with two other students in a 1968 alcohol-related car crash. It was as if Mike were speaking to us from the grave when he talked about how little there was to do for high school kids in Guntersville.

Walter Alves, a disciple of Dot’s and founding member of the The Whole Backstage, notes that the uproar caused by these student deaths provided the impetus for a town meeting at which the idea of starting a teen club first came up. It was Dot, of course, who helped make this idea a reality, and the Guntersville Teen Club evolved into another of her pet projects – The Whole Backstage.

Dot, you were that rare person whom we all felt we could trust, the one who helped us begin to understand and honor the beauty of ourselves. What greater lesson on life could be taught?

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FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

19

Good Reads

Kinsey Millhone enters the world of the homeless in ‘W’

Cornwall leaves Scarpetta’s new victims strangely dusted

n “W is for Wasted,” Sue Gafton is nearing the end of the alphabet in her series of mysteries featuring plucky private detective Kinsey Millhone. This time Kinsey is drawn into the rather complex lifestyle of the homeless and their own rules of survival.

A homeless man with no identification is The homeless do not found dead on a park want our pity, nor do bench with only a scrap of paper – that they deserve our scorn. has Kinsey’s name We want them to be like and phone number us, but they are not. written on it – in his pocket. As she seeks to discover his identity, she finds a connection to her father’s family previously unknown to her and a motley assortment of relatives she is not eager to embrace.

She is also drawn into a world of medical research that uses the homeless as clueless participants.

Eventually, she uncovers a doctor who is falsifying data for personal gain and whose treatment was instrumental in the victim’s death.

An old lover makes a brief appearance but ultimately Kinsey is again alone and dependent on her own resources, but a half a million dollars richer as a result of the inheritance from the murdered distant cousin.

– Annette Haislip

orensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta cannot follow advice and again teams up in Patricia Cornwall’s “Dust” with long time partner Detective Pete Marino as they race to discover the identity a of serial killer before he kills again.

Four women’s bodies are discovered You have always gone carefully posed too far. The body and wrapped in a is what you are strange white cloth. A mysterious brilliantly responsible for and not hued iridescent dust who did it and why. covers their bodies.

As the two search for clues they find the murders are connected to a financial investor embezzling clients’ funds to support a lavish lifestyle, a corrupt FBI official tampering with DNA evidence, illegal surveillance of civilians with advanced drone technology and the distribution of a new type of designer drug.

Assisted by FBI husband Benton Wesley and computer whiz niece Lucy, Scarpetta and Marino desperately search for the killer even as three more brutally slashed bodies are found. As clues are uncovered, all the evidence points to a murder committed seventeen years earlier, a mysterious illegitimate birth, and – the circus coming to town.

As usual, Cornwell weaves a good tight story keeping the reader’s attention until the last page is turned.

– Annette Haislip

I

20

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

F

Why We Are Your Community Bank We are part of this wonderful community. We were born and raised here.

We're your friends, family and neighbors. Your money stays in this community helping it to grow and prosper.

Stop by Peoples Bank of Alabama today at Albertville (256)891-2265, Arab (256)931-8500, Boaz (256)840-9998 or Guntersville (256)582-5024, and you'll see we have a lot more than money invested in this community.

Arab Parkway 910 N Brindlee Mtn Pkwy Arab, AL 35016 (256) 586-7708 www.PeoplesBankAl.com

We have it all!

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A college preparatory curriculum for boarding and day students in grades 7-12, co-ed.

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www.stbernardprep.com FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

21

Good ’n’ Green

Three beautiful spring bloomers you can plant Story by Eddie Wheeler Marshall County Extension

I

Photos by JoAnn Cleveland and David Moore

like a lot of things about spring, and blooming trees that paint the landscape with color or contrasting snow-white are high on the list.

Among the favorites are the eastern redbud, dogwood and flowering cherry trees. Their beautiful blooms provide excellent color and let us know beyond a doubt what season it is.

Consider planting some of these – or some more, as the case may be.

Contact me with questions: 256-5822009 or wheeled@aces.edu.

Flowering cherry trees prefer full

sun in rich, acid soil, moist but well

drained. Most grow 15-30 feet tall. The showy flowers may be white or pink,

single or double; some are fragrant.

Double-flowered varieties tend to hold

their bloom longer. Flowers occur before or with the leaves. The new leaves are

often bronze when unfolding, turning

deep green in summer. Fall color is

often bronze to yellow-orange. Fruit is

seldom produced. Yoshino cherries grow

to 45 feet tall and 45 feet wide.

22

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

With dogwoods, homeowners get four-season appeal. Growing 20-30

feet tall, they have white (sometimes pink or red) bracts centered with

small clusters of yellow flowers in the spring. Light green leaves provide summer shade. They put on a brilliant fall show of scarlet to reddishpurple foliage and clusters of small red fruit that last into winter – or until birds eat them. The interesting bark texture and branches help

create an excellent winter silhouette. Dogwoods like acidic, well-drained soil with lots of organic matter and mulch. They can take full sun but perform best in partial shade. They are often used as a backdrop for rhododendrons, azaleas, or other spring-flowering shrubs.

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tiny pinkish-purplish flowers that appear on twigs, branches and even the main trunk. They grow well

in full sun to partial shade, responding best to light shade. The trees thrive in moist, rich soil but are

adaptable to most soil types, including those that are acidic or alkaline. After flowering, the trees produce heart-shaped leaves that can start out purple in

some cultivars, but are usually green with yellow fall color. Eastern redbuds produce clusters of flat green

pods that change to brown when mature. They have a tendency to grow as a multi-trunk tree and are effective as a specimen or understory tree.

1321 Blount avenue - guntersville

www.guntersvillefeedStore.com FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

23

Visit & Shop Arab’s

Northgate Shopping Center The Right Gift For Every Occasion

Come Visit Us And Try What’s New Open Tue-Sat. 11am-2pm & 5pm-8pm Sunday 11am-2pm Closed Monday

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Framing, Gifts & Home Decor

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Angie Click , Tara Daniel, Chana Decker Address BeAuTy ConsulTAnTs: Cindy Brannum, Brittany upton Phone Number Business Hours 256-586-4176 256-586-6212

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Good Cooking

Southern Pleasures from the Arab Mothers’ Club

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

25

Mothers’ Club’s second cookbook again celebrates southern culinary delights F

Story and photos

by David Moore

or 15 years, area cooks have served up delicious recipes from the pages of “Simple Pleasures – From Our Table to Yours.” The popular cookbook was a 50th anniversary project of the Arab Mothers’ Club.

Commemorating its 65th anniversary, the club late last year published a second cookbook, “Southern Pleasures – Let’s Say Grace.”

Like its predecessor, it’s sure to provide years of culinary pleasures for the families and friends of those who use it in their kitchen. The book’s pages also are scattered with bits of area history and southern sayings, such as “A shared recipe in the South is more precious than gold.”

Here is a sampling of some of the hundreds of recipes in the book prepared by club members at the home of Andrea Elrod...

SAUSAGE WONTONS

As was its 50th anniversary cookbook,

the cover of the Arab Mothers’ Club new cookbook features a work by

internationally acclaimed artist Nall,

formerly of Arab. Titled “Birth of the

New South,” the piece represents Harper Lee’s iconic “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The cookbooks are available for $25 in

Arab at Jones Pharmacy, Coker-Berry and Fine Things. They can be ordered

by calling Natalie Burke: 256-738-8043.

Other members of the club’s cookbook

committee, chaired by Andrea Elrod, are

Leah Bishop, Jana Couch, Tiffany Loftis,

Brandi McDonald, Christy McDonald, Mary Shumate and Ashley Spethman.

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FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

1 package wontons 1 pound sausage 1 cup Monterey jack cheese 1 cup cheddar cheese 1 small can black olives 1 cup ranch dressing

Fry sausage and mix in all ingredients except wontons. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place wontons in muffin pan by pushing them down into muffin pan. Bake until hardened, about 5 minutes. Let wontons cool, then fill with sausage mix. Place in oven for additional 10 minutes until cheese melts.

STRAWBERRY SPINACH SALAD

2 10-ounce bags of spinach, washed 1 quart of strawberries, sliced 1/3 cup of toasted, chopped pecans

Dressing 1/3 cup sugar 1/4 cup white vinegar 1/4 teaspoon of paprika 1/4 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

Sausage wontons 1/2 cup of vegetable oil 1 tablespoon of poppy seeds Place spinach in large bowl and top with sliced strawberries and pecans.

Place all dressing ingredients in a sealable jar and shake to mix. Apply dressing liberally over salad, toss lightly. Serve immediately.

SWEET GREEN BEAN BUNDLES

3 14-1/2 ounce cans of whole green beans, drained 1 pound bacon, cut in half 1/2 cup butter, melted 1 cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon garlic salt Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray non-stick spray in 9x13 inch cooking dish. Wrap 7 green beans with bacon and put in dish. Repeat, using all beans and bacon. Combine butter and brown sugar in a small bowl.

Pour over bundles. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Cover with foil and bake 45 minutes. Makes 8 servings.

CAVATINI

1 pound ground beef 1 pound mild ground sausage 1 medium onion, chopped 1 green pepper, chopped

Strawberry spinach salad 1 3-1/2-ounce package pepperoni slices, chopped 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes 1 26-1/2-ounce can spaghetti sauce 1 16-ounce package shell macaroni, cooked 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese Cook beef, sausage, onion and pepper in a large skillet over medium heat, stirring until meat browns and crumbles. Drain well; set aside.

Combine pepperoni, tomatoes and spaghetti sauce in a large bowl; stir in meat mixture and pasta shells.

Spoon half of mixture into 2 lightly greased 11x7 baking dishes; sprinkle with half of Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. Top with remaining pasta mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until heated; top with remaining cheeses. Bake 5 additional minutes. Makes 6 servings.

GARLIC AND WINE PORK CHOPS

2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons butter 6 thin sliced pork chops 10 cloves garlic, crushed 1-1/2 cups red wine 1/2 cup beef broth

Sweet green bean bundles 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1 bay leaf salt and pepper Heat oil and butter in a large skillet over high heat. Salt and pepper both sides of the pork chops. Sear the pork chops on both sides until they are lightly golden (about 2 minutes per side). Remove the chops from the pan. Reduce heat to medium and add crushed garlic cloves; cook them until they are golden brown.

Add red wine, beef broth, balsamic vinegar and bay leaf. Reduce the sauce down until just slightly thick.

Add the pork chops back to pan and cook in the sauce until they are cooked all the way through. Makes 6 servings.

FRESH TOMATO TART

1 refrigerated pie crust 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese 3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil, divided 1 large clove garlic, sliced into 8 slivers 6-8 plum tomatoes, cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch slices 1/2 tablespoon olive oil 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

27

HONEY MUSTARD DRESSING/DIP

2 cups mayonnaise 1 tablespoon prepared mustard 1/2 cup honey Place mayonnaise in bowl. Mix in mustard then honey. Great condiment for salads and dipping sauces.

SWEET POTATO DUMPLING

8 frozen sweet potato patties, cut in half 2 packages of crescent rolls cinnamon 2 cups water 1 cup brown sugar 1-1/2 sticks of butter 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 tablespoon vanilla

Planko Parmesan chicken cordon bleu Place pie crust in a 10 inch tart pan according to package directions; trim excess pastry along edges. Generously prick bottom and sides of pastry with a fork; bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes. Sprinkle cheese into pastry shell and top with 2 tablespoons basil; sprinkle garlic over cheese and basil. Arrange tomato slices on top; brush with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet; place baking sheet on lower rack of oven. Bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven; sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon basil. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. Makes 8 servings.

PANKO PARMESAN CHICKEN CORDON BLEU

6 chicken breasts, pounded flat or cubed 6 slices provolone cheese 1 pound thinly sliced ham 28

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

toothpicks 2 eggs 1/4 cup plain flour 2 cups Panko breadcrumbs 1 cup plain breadcrumbs 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1/4 cup melted butter Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix milk and egg in small bowl and whisk together, set aside. Place flour in shallow dish, set aside. Mix breadcrumbs, Panko breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese together, and then mix in melted butter, set aside.

Lay each chicken breast flat; place slice of cheese, and slice of ham on each chicken breast, roll and secure with toothpicks. Coat each rolled up chicken breast with flour, dip in mixed egg mixture, then roll in breadcrumb mixture. Place on cookie sheet. Bake 45 minutes until golden brown. Wonderful served with honey mustard. Makes 6 servings.

Sprinkle each sweet potato with cinnamon, roll in crescent roll, and place in 9x13 baking dish. Mix water, brown sugar, white sugar, butter and cornstarch in saucepan; heat until boiling. Add vanilla and pour over dumplings. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until crescent rolls are golden brown. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon and sugar.

Wonderful with the addition of fresh cranberries and/or chopped pecans.

WHITE CHICKEN CHILI

2-3 boneless chicken breasts 1 onion, chopped 2 cups chicken broth 1 packet McCormick White Chicken Chili Seasoning 1 cup water 1 4-ounce can chopped green chilies, undrained 2 15-ounce cans Northern Beans, undrained 1 10-ounce can Rotel tomatoes or regular diced tomatoes Bake chicken at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes then shred or cut into cubes. Sauté onion in oil until translucent. Add 2 cups of chicken broth. Stir in packet of white chicken chili seasoning and cook for 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 30-60 minutes. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and shredded cheese.

GREEN CHILI CORN MUFFINS

1-1/4 cups cornmeal 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese 1 8-ounce can cream-style corn 1 cup sour cream 1 4-ounce can chopped green chilies 1/2 cup canola oil 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Off ooppss O h h S S e e h T Th

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray mini muffin tins with cooking spray. In a small mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal, salt and baking powder. Add the cheese, corn, sour cream and green chilies. Stir until lightly combined. Add the oil and eggs and stir until everything is combined. The batter will be stiff. Place about 1 teaspoon of batter into each muffin cup. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Serve warm.

TOMATO GRITS

2 cups water 1 1/4 cups milk 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup quick cooking grits 1 stick butter 1 tablespoon butter 1/3 cup diced green onions 6 ounces Velveeta 1 teaspoon garlic powder 2-1/2 cups shredded cheddar, divided

Dogwood Plaza

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busy b’s Paint & Decorating, Inc.

Delectable Chocolates, Baked Goods & Specialty Cakes 1938 Brindlee Mountain Parkway, Arab

256-586-2462

The Interiors Workroom Inc. Kathleen Baker

deSIgn SPecIAlISt

Paint blinds

Chair Cushions window treatments Motorized treatments upholstered Headboards designer Fabrics designer trims roller shades roman shades upholstery bedding draperies slipcovers

area rugs 1954 nortH brindlee Mountain Parkway dogwood Plaza • arab, alabaMa 35016

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cheese on top for last 5 minutes of cooking time. Makes 12 servings.

MACARONI AND CHEESE CASSEROLE

1 pound Velveeta cheese 8-ounces elbow noodles 1 can cream of mushroom soup 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon butter 1 cup mayonnaise 1 small jar of pimentos, chopped 1 small onion, chopped finely 1 small can of mushrooms Cook elbow noodles as directed on package. Drain noodles and mix remaining ingredients. Spray casserole dish lightly with cooking spray. Pour mixed ingredients into casserole dish and bake covered at 325 degrees for approximately 25 minutes or until bubbly.

BISHOP PIE

1 cup butter 2 cups self-rising flour 1-1/2 cups chopped pecans, divided 1 8-ounce package cream cheese 1 cup confectioners sugar 3 cups non-dairy frozen whipped topping, thawed and divided 3 3-1/2 ounce packages of instant chocolate pudding mix 3 cups whole milk

Bishop pie 1 10-ounce can Rotel 2 eggs, lightly beaten Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring water and milk to a boil, add salt. Slowly add grits and return to a boil. Stir for 1 minute. Reduce heat, cover and cool for 3 minutes. Stir grits. Add 1 stick butter, stirring until melted. Cover and cook until grits are thick and 30

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

creamy 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. In a medium skillet, sautĂŠ onions in remaining 1 tablespoon butter for 1 minute. Add Velveeta, garlic powder, 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar and onions. Stir until cheese is melted. Add Rotel and mix well. Add beaten eggs. Stir well. Pour grits into greased 8x11 casserole dish. Bake 40 minutes.

Sprinkle remaining cup of cheddar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In medium saucepan melt butter, stir in flour and 1 cup pecans. Continue stirring until a thick paste is formed with no flour lumps. Press into bottom of 9x13 inch pan and bake for 15 minutes; remove from oven and cool. Combine cream cheese, confectioners sugar and 1 cup of topping. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed for 2-3 minutes.

Spoon onto crust; smooth with spatula. Combine pudding mix and milk in large bowl and beat well.

Pour over cream cheese layer and set aside. Once chocolate layer is firm, spoon on remaining whipped topping. Sprinkle remaining pecans on top and refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving. Makes 12 servings.

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FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

31

Good Eats

Good Eats

The Pizza Doctor Education and entrepreneurship are about more than just the dough

I

Story and photos

by Patrick Oden

n August 2013, Albertville moved one step closer toward the resurgence of the historic downtown area when the old Hammer’s Department Store became home to a well established name in local cuisine. Sitting squarely in the middle of the once thriving mercantile building, Mater’s Pizza and Pasta Emporium is offering Marshall County residents a new dining option with a distinct feel of nostalgia.

When you walk through the front door of Mater’s at 108 E. Main Street for the first time, you can’t help but feel like you’ve been there before. Perhaps it’s the sight of tiny hands reaching for the bright red knob on the blinking and beeping Mrs. Pac-Man machine.

Maybe it’s the smell of freshly baked pizza eliciting memories of postballgame celebrations. It might even be the sound of chatter coming from the large tables surrounded by families, spanning generations. Whatever it is, 32

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

one thing is certain, it will remind you that once there was a time when pizza night wasn’t just making a phone call when you’re too tired to cook. It was an outing … for children, an adventure.

When Dr. Leslie Brown decided to open the first Mater’s franchise location, she set forth to combine the familiar elements of the Sardis and Gadsden Mater’s where she once worked with the original architecture of the old Hammer’s building. Plaster was removed to expose original brick walls and flooring discarded to reveal the original wood. Even the display window, which once featured Hammer’s newest products, now functions as a stage for artists and musicians to share their talents in a family-friendly atmosphere.

While there is little question that Mater’s will establish itself as an Albertville treasure, it’s really one of Albertville’s newest residents whose vibrant personality, love of family and selfless nature make the story of Mater’s worth telling.

Leslie, originally of Fyffe, has dedicated her life to helping others.

Leslie holds master’s degrees in both counseling and education as well as a doctorate in education leadership, and despite opening Mater’s, continues to spend her days helping young people as a guidance counselor at Collinsville High School. With no children of her own, Leslie awakens at 5 a.m. each morning to make the commute from Albertville and returns to close the restaurant most nights.

The walls of Mater’s are adorned

with photos from family vacations abroad as well as charming black and white images of previous generations of Leslie’s family. Family is very important to Leslie, and hers is actively involved in various aspects of the restaurant. But so is her extended family. Amongst the staff of Mater’s you will find both students of Leslie’s as well as faculty and staff members who are having to work second jobs to supplement their income.

“If it weren’t for God, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this,” said Leslie humbly, and it is in that spirit that she has, for years, made annual mission trips to Haiti, donating her time and financial resources to help a people who have touched her heart. Leslie is setting up a foundation to help those in need in the small third world country and says her mission trips to Haiti help keep her grounded.

Leslie’s dedication to her family, students, community and strangers

a world apart is nothing short of inspirational. “I didn’t do it (open Mater’s) for the money, I did it to help people,” Leslie said.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” Leslie said. “I don’t think I’m smarter than anyone else, I just have a lot of stick-to-it-ness.” It would be hard to argue either of those statements. It would be equally as challenging to unknowingly speculate at the depths of her humanity.

role in the young restaurant, it may be Leslie who takes your order on your next trip to Mater’s, or Leslie who washes the plate you burden with the thin slice of artesian pizza.

Or she may simply stop by your table to ensure your visit exceeds your expectations.

One thing is certain; her genuine desire to provide her clientele with a quality dining experience can be sensed by the twinkle in her eye, her warm and cheerful smile, and her humble nature.

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Add a fabulous outdoor room to your home Story and photos

by David Moore Think of adding an airy, comfortable and beautiful new room to your home. Not your house, per se. Your home.

Instead of a ceiling, however, you might have a lush green canopy of tree foliage. Instead of walls of wood or Sheetrock, you might have hydrangea with an assortment of cathead or delicate lace-capped blooms for pictures.

You’ll want furniture, of course, but it needs to be the outdoor variety. Other décor might include accents of impatiens or coral bells in urns or other containers.

A fieldstone fireplace. A small pond with lazy goldfish swirling about. You can use stepping stones and planking for floors with perhaps a ground covering of purple and green carpet bugle.

That describes the room – the outdoor living space – Mark Gullion added to the backyard of his home in Arab and enjoys much of the year. How you create such an addition to your home is open to any direction your imagination and budget lead.

Mark offers three good tips gleaned from his own project, which is moving into its fifth year, and his experience as a home designer and general contractor...

1. Start with what you have

“That,” Mark says, “is the number one thing.”

Don’t try to force round pegs into square holes or elements of shade into the bright sun.

34 FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

Mark built his house 14 years and ago and shared it with parents, Lavoid and Virginia, until his dad died in 2009. Virginia continues to live there.

The front of the house is Greek revival in style and rather formal. In the old days such a home would feature formal gardens. But the back of the Gullions’ house is more casual, designed with basement access and an upper deck off the main floor. It’s also shady.

“That’s what I liked about it,” Mark says. “When you

went down the steps, you went into a whole different world back there.

“So you work with what you’ve got. You couldn’t have a sun garden. There were too many trees, and I wanted to have a natural setting.”

2.

Create a focal point The center of attention can be an existing element – a tree or rock formation; the house itself. In this case, if

For the fireplace, Mark bought four types of fieldstone from one of the stone yards near Susan Moore in Blount County. Charlie Owens of Hokes Bluff did the stone work over three weeks, adding his professional touches to a design Mark provided.

It’s great having a true, old-fashioned fireplace, built of brick and rock veneered, but Mark says pre-fab units are available to cut costs.

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

35

Mark’s concrete benches are both decorative and functional, as are his large

urns, found at Mike’s Merchandise. Yard art is a matter of taste. A few touches

of whimsical can go a long way. Mark likes his rabbit, sitting quietly among thriving hydrangea at far right. As a reminder, hydrangea and other might

look small when you first plant it, but in a couple of years it will be much larger. “I want instant satisfaction,” Mark laughs. “But you have

to read the instructions. They will tell you how big it will get.”

36 FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

Mark has a wide variety of hosta. Most of it he buys locally at Gibbs Garden Center in Holly Pond, Frog Hollow in Strawberry or Stewart’s Lawn and

Garden in Scant City. One variety he’s looking for is the Empress Wu, which

grows up to eight feet wide and four feet tall with 18-inch leaves. His giant blue hosta, center photo, is one of a few he lets bloom. Once a plant blooms, he says, it’s finished its life cycle for the year. To keep it really pretty for foliage, clip the blooms before they come out, he says.

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

37

Marks feeds the koi he

keeps in a pond behind

the house. He used to keep small koi in the container

fish pond in his outdoor

living area until they

were large enough for the

big pond, but heavy rains

threw off the pH balance in the pool and they

died. Now he keeps only

goldfish there. If you keep fish in a container pond,

he says, the water needs

to be at least 24 inches

deep to protect them from

hungry raccoons.

you don’t have a focal point to work with, you can create one.

Mark started with wooden decking he built himself that included a raised “pool” with bench seating that matches the upper deck on the house. He created the “pool” from a 300-gallon stock-watering tank he bought at Tractor Supply, added a pump and filter and goldfish.

Existing stepping stones down to the area from both sides of the house were repositioned to access the new decking and a boardwalk.

An electrician ran conduit under the boardwalk to power path lights, outdoor sockets and the fish pool pump.

The project grew from there with Mark making additions each year.

Next was the fireplace. Then an eating deck with an outdoor table and chairs.

“You can do it all at once,” he says, “but I think it’s more fun when it evolves.”

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FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

3. Picking your plants

All along Mark has added plants to his outdoor living area, creating a casually elegant garden.

While the area is full of azaleas and rhododendron, from a decorative and practical standpoint many of his plants are in containers, from clay pots to large urns. These not only provide mobile accents to the area, but many plants simply do better in containers where they don’t have to compete with trees and shrubs for water.

“Besides,” Mark says, “I like moving stuff around.”

Always consider what plants will fare best in the microecosystem of a particular area. Sunlight is one important consideration.

Before buying plants invest a little time sitting in the area during different times of the day. What’s shady in the morning may be

cooking all afternoon.

Plan for the seasons so as to keep something continually blooming or at least green. Mark’s lenten roses bloom about February.

He pinches back his mums all summer, forcing them to bloom in the fall.

Tropicals, bright in the summer, bask during the winter under grow lights in the basement.

This year he’s irrigating part of the yard where he wants to grow fescue, but he doesn’t want to irrigate his outdoor living area. He wants better control of it.

“Some things like a lot of water, some don’t, so I hand-water all of them,” Mark says. “It’s a good way to unwind for an hour in the evenings.”

Of course another way to unwind in his outdoor living area is sitting around the fireplace with company in the fall or dining under the trees on a fine summer eve.

Blue lace-capped hydrangea is one of Mark’s favorite plants in his outdoor living area

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39

Frances and Chuck Ruddy, above, enjoy a Chesapeake sunset.

Photos for this story provided by the Ruddys. Map copyrighted

by Raven Cove Publishing and used with permission.

From Guntersville, Ruddys make epic 2-year, 7,249-mile cruise in response to the intriguing...

L ure of the L oop The Oasis pulls into Fairview Marina in

Rock Creek off the Chesapeake Bay.

F

Story by David Moore

or most people around here, boating entails cutting a happy wake across Lake Guntersville for a few hours.

Maybe a whole day. The more adventurous might cruise to Decatur, Chattanooga or even Knoxville.

Chuck and Frances Ruddy are not most boaters.

Aboard their 52-foot Sea Ray, the Oasis, they embarked upon America’s epic boating adventure – a two-year, 7,249mile voyage around the Great Loop. From the Guntersville Yacht Club, they sailed to Mobile, circumnavigated the long leg of Florida, crossed the gulf stream to the Bahamas, then returned to the Eastern Seaboard. Proceeding north, they followed the spring weather, explored the Chesapeake Bay, cruised up the Hudson and Erie Canal, then crossed Lake Ontario to join Georgian Bay and the North Channel to transit Canada rejoining the Great Lakes near Mackinac

Island. From Chicago they sailed down the Illinois and the Mississippi, then up the Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers returning triumphantly to their home port.

Crazy. That’s what some folks think. But once the Ruddys learned about it, the lure of the loop became irresistible.

“It sounded like a great adventure,” Chuck says. “It intrigued us. I guess it was really me, but Frances went along with it. She was a trooper.”

Since they ended up where they started, the destination was hardly the point of the odyssey. It was the journey itself.

And ports of call and people they met became enduring aspects of the epic trip.

While many “loopers” make the voyage in one year, the Ruddys were in no rush and allocated two years, breaking up the cruise with extended stays in various ports and side excursions off the typical route. Through it all, the Oasis lived up to its name with a luxurious saloon, FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

41

The Oasis has what Chuck calls a “one-butt galley” equipped with a two-eye electric stove and a small microwave

convection oven. Frances put it to continual good use. “Before we left, I stocked us to the hilt,” Frances says of provisions.

“Every place we stopped that had a courtesy car or store nearby, I would restock. We had more than enough food.”

three staterooms, two full heads with showers, five flat-screen TVs and enough navigation equipment to fly the Space Shuttle. About the closest they got to roughing it was listening to the Super Bowl on Sirius Radio because DirecTV wouldn’t pick up the game.

“More hardship,” Chuck says wryly.

Though never cramped on-board the Oasis, living in close quarters with another person that long creates some stress.

“If you don’t know someone really well,” Frances interjects, “after two years of being that close, you will know them pretty well after you get back.”

“But we’re still married,” Chuck likes to say.

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FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

With Captain Chuck at the helm

and Frances as first mate, the Oasis left Guntersville in its wake on Sept.

7, 2010. Via the Tennessee River and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, they reached Fairhope 10 days and 608 miles later.

Marinas weren’t always available, and they charged about $2 per foot of boat length, which adds up. So most nights they anchored in protected coves or tied up at municipal docks.

Safely moored in the evenings, relaxing after dinner, Chuck consulted the detailed charts loaded on his iPad and planned out the next day.

The Oasis’ two diesels – Thelma and Louise – were thirsty girls, so Chuck

cruised at 9-10 mph for fuel efficiency.

If he wanted to reach an anchorage 70 miles away, he planed for about seven hours cruising plus time to anchor or dock and get the Oasis ship-shape again. A retired Navy submariner, Chuck was in his element.

While daily planning was important, long-term scheduling flew in the face of the idea behind the whole trip.

“The worst thing to do would be to schedule being somewhere along the route on a particular day to meet someone,” Chuck says. They did meet up with friends along the way but always with a loose window and the understanding that the Oasis might or might not be there.

This lack of timetable allowed

Frances stands in the palatial saloon, which has plenty of seating and an entertainment center with Bose

surround sound. Among her many other amenities, the Oasis offered the Ruddys two full heads (“bathrooms,” for landlubbers) with showers, four thermostats for climate control, and central vacuum cleaning.

extended stays if the mood hit.

Fairhope was the first. A few days there turned into nearly a month. The marina had a courtesy car and the Oasis’ self contained electrical systems kept the AC purring even when shore power was not available.

“It was,” says Frances of Fairhope, “one of our nicest stops.”

W

hen they left Guntersville, the Ruddys were already quite familiar with their floating home.

They’d bought the Oasis through Erwin Marine in 2005. Docked at Lake Guntersville Yacht Club – where Chuck is a former commodore – they lived on-board four years between homes at nearby Gunter’s Landing.

“We traveled a lot with work then, but living on the boat was more or less like living in a house,” Frances says.

“We had a car and the convenience of the yacht club.”

They spent so much time planning and provisioning the Oasis for the loop that living on-board again required little adjustment. Frances says the routines were different, however, including an awareness of freshwater use. And cleaning up was essential to prevent clutter.

“I keep up the inside all the time,” she says. “But wiping down the outside was fighting a hopeless battle with the bugs and dew. I gave up on that pretty soon.”

When weighing anchor early for a

long day, the Ruddys grabbed coffee and maybe cereal on the bridge.

Otherwise, alarm clocks were seldom used. They awoke to sunlight in the cabin and pulled out by 8-9 a.m. after Frances cooked bacon and eggs. Lunch was usually sandwiches underway.

By 2-3 p.m., Chuck was looking for the evening’s anchorage or marina, and by 4 p.m. or so they’d have the Oasis moored and ship-shape.

Frances cooked dinner on-board about two-thirds of the time, even if a restaurant was near. After chores, happy hour and a shower, she says, it was sometimes easier – and always cheaper – to cook than dress up to go out.

“I might suggest spending $30-$40 FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

43

for a nice meal, but Frances wanted to cook,” Chuck says.

“She would put together something great. Sometimes she caught crabs, and we’d have steamed crabs, crab cakes or crab soup. I had to watch my weight.”

T

raveling the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Oasis plowed down Florida’s panhandle, changing latitudes bringing beautiful waters and postcard days.

“The sunrise occurred as we moved into the channel and cast a beautiful orange glow on the scenery,” Chuck wrote of the day they sailed into Apalachicola. “This trip was like a cruise through a tropical jungle with dolphins jumping on the bow and an unspoiled landscape of cypress, pine and palm trees.”

But fall was making its presence felt with occasionally stiff winds, high swells and rain.

On Nov. 9, the Oasis ventured out on the high seas, making a 140-nautical-mile crossing from Apalachicola to Tarpon Springs that took her 70 miles from land. The big Sea Ray, says her captain, thrived in these waters, despite 8-10 foot swells.

“He’s a great pilot and a great captain, so I had no worries,” says Frances, perhaps stretching it a bit with “no worries.” She doesn’t know how to swim.

The Oasis and crew spent a month enjoying Key West. Departing on Dec. 28, they veered off the standard loop route for a two-month excursion through the sapphire and emerald waters of Bimini, Berry Islands, Nassau and the Bahama Exuma Island chain down to George Town, at latitude 23 on the Tropic of Cancer.

Serendipity often sailed with the Oasis. For instance, back in Florida they ended up spending a month in Melbourne at the invitation of John and Andrea Hogan, whom they met in Key West. Here they just happened 44

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

to witness the thunderous and final launch of Space Shuttle Discovery at nearby Cape Canaveral. They were still there to witness the sonic boom and its landing.

“Leaving (Melbourne) required the full power of the Oasis’ two power plants to pry Frances’ fingers off the dock as we departed,” Chuck wrote. “I had the distinct impression she wanted to stay longer.”

The Oasis cruises on her home lake.

Another side excursion took them 160 miles up the St. John’s River at Jacksonville into Old Florida. Frances counted 100 alligators before they became old hat and she gave up.

One side excursion took them to Ocracoke and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They later spent three months plying the ChesapeakeAnnapolis-Baltimore area – Chuck’s old sailing waters.

Further serendipity led to meeting Dave Butler of Huntsville, a member of the Guntersville Yacht Club, who owns the 110-year-old sailing yacht Witchcraft. Sailing with Dave aboard the 66-footer, says Chuck, was simply exhilarating.

I

n November 2011, after boating some 4,500 miles, the Ruddys wintered the Oasis in Maryland and came home to Guntersville for R&R. They returned in April 2012 and excitedly launched the second leg of the Great Loop on May 1.

They navigated the Chesapeake and Delaware canals, then sailed down Delaware Bay, around Cape May, up the coast and into New York Harbor, hailed by the Statue of Liberty. From NYC they tooled north up the scenic Hudson, west on the Erie Canal, then north again on the short Oswego Canal.

The Oasis churned into Lake Ontario June 6 and headed northeast for a 60-mile side trip, plying the Thousand Islands straddling the U.S.Canadian border on the Saint Lawrence. The area, Chuck says, provides for spectacular boating.

He and Frances found further adventure traversing the 44 locks – many self-operated by hand – along the narrow Trent-Severn Waterway, which meanders 240 miles between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay. It’s considered one of Canada’s most spectacular waterways, and the Ruddys readily agree.

Delightful weather and people augmented the section.

One of several surprise expenditures arose on Georgian Bay at the top of Lake Huron. While beautiful, its 30,000 islands and granite rock outcropping – above and just below surface – present tense navigational challenges. Inching through a channel there, the Oasis’ port prop scraped the rocks, resulting in a three-day repair job that required a diver.

Lake Michigan offered a much more pleasant surprise.

“We had perfect weather and calm seas,” Chuck wrote. “The lake is crystal clear and makes a beautiful turquoise and sparkling white wake behind the boat. The shoreline of western Michigan is unspoiled scenery of sand dunes and beaches with very little visible development.”

On July 21 they reached Chicago

and parted the next day on the inland river system of the Cal-Sag Canal and the Calumet, Des Plaines and Illinois rivers.

Clockwise, from top: Picton, Ontario; rainy windshield;

Sanford, Fla.; manual lock on

Canada’s Trent-Severn Waterway; Chuck checks his charts in Canada

Sections are heavily industrialized and the Ruddys found dirty water, debris and commercial boat traffic to dodge and, seemingly, hundreds of bridges. One of them has the lowest clearance on the Great Loop – 19 feet. Chuck inched the Oasis under it, expecting any minute to hear a sickening scrape that never happened.

Also unsettling were the Asian carp that would leap onto the deck.

“They are dangerous and messy,” Chuck says. “When they land on your boat they leave a slimy bloody stain. It would be hard to imagine operating a smaller boat or a personal watercraft on these waters.”

Conditions didn’t improve on the Mighty Mississippi. For starts, it’s not a boating river, Chuck says, it’s an avenue of commerce. Heavy barge traffic kept the captain on alert.

Industry clogged the scenery. What’s more, water was low that summer. In places the Oasis plowed through mud.

Stranding her was a distinct possibility.

Many marinas and anchorages didn’t have enough water to even float the boat, leaving them in the channel at night. To minimize chances of being rammed at night by runaway barges, tug captains advised Chuck to anchor on the insides of bends or the downstream sides of wing dams or bridge abutments.

“It’s a stressful body of water to be on, and we had to do 13-14-hour days,” Chuck says. “I was strung out.”

“We were weary,” Frances says.

Then again, any adventure worth its salt entails hardship.

With growing relief, on Aug.

7 they left the brown Mississippi at Cairo, Ill., for the green Ohio and cruised onto the Cumberland River that afternoon.

Kathleen Brooks, a close friend, joined them for the remainder of the trip. After a three-day breather, they embarked and entered the Tennessee at mile marker 25, only 334 miles from Guntersville.

“When we got to the Tennessee, it 46

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

Chuck and Frances aboard the Oasis in St. Augustine. Formerly a Westbrooks, she grew up in Morgan City north of Arab, graduated in 1961 from Union

Hill School and met Chuck in Huntsville in 1984 while working there for SCI. They married in 1986. From 1987 to 2009 Frances was a quality engineer for Unitek in Virginia. Chuck grew up around the Chesapeake Bay and

joined the Navy in 1960. He served in submarines the whole time, spending

a cumulative six years under water. He was engaged in submarine espionage

when he retired in 1981 after being selected for lieutenant commander. He then worked for Hughes Aircraft (which later became Raytheon), which brought

him to Redstone Arsenal. After Chuck retired from Raytheon in 2009, they

moved to Guntersville in 2000 and now live at Gunter’s Landing. They have three grown children between them and six grandchildren.

was... Aahhh, so nice,” Chuck vividly recalls.

Two days later, at mile marker 215, the confluence of the Tennessee and Tenn-Tom Waterway, the Oasis crossed the memory of her wake left

nearly two years earlier – officially closing the Great Loop – and she backtracked the rest of her way home.

Along the way, Linda Asp, Karen Dobbins, Steve and Gwen Alverson and Harry and Helen Fachet joined

Back in her home port at the Guntersville Yacht Club, the starboard side of Oasis reflects a sunset over calm waters. the Oasis crew for the triumphant return. Aug. 15 found the lock gates at Guntersville open and welcoming them for the final 10 miles to the yacht club.

Larry Heddon was there snapping pictures as Capt. Chuck Ruddy, First Mate Frances Ruddy and their wellwishing crew docked the Oasis – an event toasted more than once with champagne cocktails. The sailors were home from the Great Loop.

T

he Oasis traveled some 7,250 miles, burned 4,547 gallons of diesel fuel and transited 111 locks. But the Great Loop isn’t about the destination.

It’s about the trip itself.

“We never once thought we had to hurry back,” says Frances. “We wanted to meet people and see as

much as we could, and that’s what we did.”

Chuck, she laughs, would sail the Great Loop again in a heartbeat.

Would she?

“I’m not so sure,” she says. “It was all good and exciting until close to the end... more good times than bad times.

There are a lot of places I would go back to, but I wouldn’t do the whole thing.”

Many people conquer the quest in boats much smaller than the Oasis, but the Ruddys enjoyed her luxurious embrace. Since the trip, however, they have downsized to a 42-foot Tiara, which they thoroughly enjoy.

Chuck also started a yacht delivery service: Yachtstar Marine Services.

It’s provided them the opportunity to sail as far as Chicago and the

Chesapeake – this time using someone else’s fuel and credit card.

But hardly a day passes without his thoughts drifting to the Great Loop.

“I’ll think of some of those times waking up on the marshes of South Carolina without another man-made object as far as the horizon, only wildlife and birds,” he says.

For those who can’t resist the intriguing lure of America’s Great Loop, Chuck offers this wish: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.

Dream. Discover.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

47

After winning the 2012 Classic, his new hometown of Guntersville proclaimed a Chris Lane Day,

gave him the keys to the city and threw him a parade. For Chris it was, of course, a family event.

With him before the parade are wife Holly and from left, Cal, Hannah, Colman and Hunter.

Of all the trophy fish BASS-pro Chris Lane has ever landed

Guntersville is his dream catch Story by David Moore

I

Photos provided by Pro Fishing Management

t’s the kind of life that might make Chris Lane jab a treble hook into his thumb. Well, at least pinch himself.

After fighting through financially thin times, not only is he making a good living as a pro fisherman, but he’s reached the pinnacle of the fishing world. In February 2012 Chris lugged 51 pounds and 6 ounces of fish to the scales to win the Bassmaster Classic. The $500,000 he lugged back to Guntersville bought a house

on Signal Point for him and his wife, Holly, and their sons, Cal and Colman, and daughters, Hunter and Hannah.

“It’s the house the Classic bought,” Chris beams, sitting at his dinning room table, his world championship Bassmaster trophy on display 15 feet away. “It’s like living some kind of dream, completely. You pinch yourself.”

The dream is set to continue Feb. 21-23 of this year, playing out not in a good night’s sleep but on the real and rich waters of Lake Guntersville with the chance to win his second Classic, this time, to his thrill, in his front yard.

Maybe he does need to stick his thumb. Reality doesn’t always get this

good. Like a lunker from the lake, you don’t always land a long-running dream – a dream for Chris, 38, that dates back to his youth.

Youngest of three boys with a younger sister, he grew up in Lakeland, Fla. “Everywhere there was a lake, a pit, a pond, a stream, and that’s where we were, every part of the day. Life was good. We had a blast.”

Even as a youngster he was intently aware of the Bassmaster Classic. “‘The Dukes of Hazard’ would go off, and we’d have our homework done, and the Classic would come on. I remember lying on the floor in front of the TV with my brothers and FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

49

Chris Lane insists that, hands down, Guntersville is the best lake in the entire country. just having an absolute blast – and all of us having the same aspiration of becoming professional fishermen.”

Those aspirations were spawning.

After casting a rod and reel four years or so with his dad, grandfather and brothers, Chris entered his first tournament when he was about 7. In a few more years he’d already won one.

“I remember missing some big fish in that tournament, and it bothered

Boyd Duckett

2007 Bassmaster Classic Winner

me,” he says. “Not to the extent it does today, but it still bothered me.”

Chris’s competitive spirit fights

like a 10-pounder.

But it wasn’t necessarily other fishermen he put himself up against.

Or even himself, always striving to get better. Chris was – and still is – competing against the fish.

“I would get mad because they

came off,” he says. “I have always had a competitive nature for the fish itself, trying to figure out how to get the big ones to the boat.”

Chris went on to land a sales job in the phosphate industry, but landing fish was always more fun for him and the brothers.

Chris caught a lot of fish. He made a little money at tournaments and club events. Self-assurance grew. Then,

We’re so proud to call Marshall County home. We could have moved anywhere and we chose Guntersville. The people in this area are the kind of neighbors I want to spend the rest of my life around.

– Boyd Duckett, president and CEO www.duckettfishing.com

50

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

888-603-0005

in 2003, at Kissimmee, Fla., he got a whopper shot of confidence weighing in at 12 lbs. 1 oz.

“When I set the hook, I knew it was a big one. When I saw it jump, I knew it was my biggest fish ever,” he recalls. “The adrenalin was pumping like mad. If it had been in a tournament, I probably would have lost it, I was so excited.”

Jacked up with his record bass, the next day Chris won a BASS club event at Lakeland and began climbing the Bassmaster ladder in earnest and fishing for a paycheck.

“We all had jobs and worked hard,” he says of his brothers. “But when the opportunity came to become professional fishermen, we jumped all over it and went in head first.”

He qualified for the 2008 Classic and reached the top of the ladder two years ago, winning the Classic on the Red River in Louisiana.

But you don’t stay forever at the top. You can’t make bass bite. In the

2013 Classic he finished 41st. Last year continued to be rough waters and making the 2014 Classic, hosted on the lake he holds dearest, looked iffy.

“We were in the Classic. We were out,” Chris says. “It got down to the last event.”

I

n the final Elite Series event, the Plano Championship Chase, was held in Michigan in August. Chris, a largemouth expert, knew exactly how many points he needed to qualify for the Classic. But Lake St. Clair is smallmouth territory, upping his odds.

None the less, he shocked a lot of folks by making the top 12 cut for that Sunday. He was already feeling better about his chances when he returned to his hotel room where he soon became insanely ecstatic.

“I did the math and added everything up,” he recalls. “I knew if I broke down Sunday and didn’t score another point, I would still make the Classic. Once I realized that, I was

bouncing off the walls, jumping on the bed. I was crazy.”

He would not be watching from his dock. He’d be fishing from his boat.

But his shoe-in didn’t ease Sunday’s fishing pressure. He still had a job to do, and he did it in grand fashion, grabbing first place with a three-day total of 82.4 pounds.

Lake Guntersville, here he comes.

Some people think that fishing one’s home lake offers a competitive angler a similar advantage home teams might enjoy in, say, football.

Others, however, talk about the home lake disadvantage.

“The disadvantage is that everybody is expecting you to do well,” Chris says. “You know the lake.

You know good spots.”

But you can, he continues, know too much for your own good. If a spot is a little slow and you’re getting antsy, there’s a tendency to hurry off to another spot you know. But productive spots and how you fish the

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entire lake changes with conditions and seasons. Though Chris has been in Guntersville nearly five years, he’s been on tour most of the winters.

“I don’t feel any home lake pressure because I don’t remember fishing here in January and February or March in the five years I’ve lived here,” Chris explains. “So I feel I am going into this Classic with a clean slate, looking at the lake as I would a new lake somewhere else.”

The Lanes formerly owned a

house for a while in Winter Haven, Fla., then lived out of a motor home as they traveled the circuit. His Bassmaster winnings were never guaranteed and not always lucrative.

Unlike small fish, though, he couldn’t afford to throw them back.

Professional fishing is not all glory. There were tough years. They struggled financially. Traveling the circuit kept him from his family.

In 2004 they were in Guntersville for an 2004 Everstart tournament.

During a break, he and Holly had a picnic at Guntersville State Park at an overlook with a panoramic view of the lake. They discussed how, after fishing Guntersville over the past dozen years, they found themselves drawn to this place.

“We said if there was ever an opportunity to move wherever we wanted to, this would probably be it,” he says. “I think the power behind that statement comes because

I have traveled the country fishing tournaments and been to a lot of beautiful places, but the people and the town and the county here are like no other.”

And, of course there’s the lake, big, beautiful and bountiful.

Finally, in 2006, Chris hit it big, including a $71,000 win at the Southern Open on Lake Okeechobee.

The next two years brought nice paydays, too.

The opportunity he and Holly discussed on their overlook picnic in 2004, knocked in 2009. The Lanes made good on their dream. They rented a house on Signal Point Road.

In 2012 they bought a house three doors down with his winnings from the Classic.

“It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my family has been blessed more than we could ever imagine,” Chris says. “After winning the classic it was like, ‘Holy cow!’ It was neat being able to give back to so many sponsors that supported me for years on the road.”

That’s not all he got to give back to.

I

t takes more than Chris ever imagined to fish successfully on the Bassmaster circuit.

“You have to perform at the highest level, a level that surpassed what I thought it was to be a professional fisherman. You have to perform above what you think it

takes to do well.”

You have to have faith in yourself, Chris continues. But it also takes faith from his family.

“My wife and kids,” he says, “have that faith in me.”

He calls moving to Guntersville and Marshall County a life-changing experience for the whole Lane household. People accepted them with open arms, accommodated them in myriad ways.

“It made it easier to be a family.

It’s a place I would want to raise my kids. There are 10 churches to every bar. A lot of places are not like that in the world today, and we have a responsibility to raise our kids to be... well, good kids, I guess, is the way to put that.”

With Cal rapidly approaching his teens and three more kids to follow, Chris laughs and says he has a lot to look forward to.

“I know how I was as a teenager.

Me and my brothers were pretty crazy. I guarantee you, I have it coming right back to me.

“But it’s good. They have great friends here. We are members of First Baptist Church. Life is good,” he laughs again. “Good Life Magazine.

Life is good.”

That’s not to say it couldn’t get better. Chris could win his second world title fishing on his home lake.

If he does, he might have to take the treble hook test just to make sure he’s not dreaming.

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53

The guys who have been there predict...

Records will fall at ‘gi-normous’ Classic Story by David Moore

Look it up in the dictionary if

you need, and if you can. The word is “gi-normorus.” That’s what kind of event Chris Lane says the 2014 Bassmaster Classic will be. It’s set for Feb. 21-23 on Lake Guntersville.

“This town, this county, can probably expect the biggest thing they’ve ever seen in the amount of people and exposure coming here,” says Chris, who will be competing in the event and hoping to win his second world championship, this time on his home lake.

“A must-see Classic.” That’s what

Boyd Duckett has to say about the event.

A pro on the BASS circuit, Duckett moved his family and business – Duckett Fishing – to Guntersville last year. To his regret, he won’t be fishing in the Classic on his home lake this year. But he knows a thing or two about the biggest gig in the fishing world. He won the 2007 Classic.

Marshall County’s two bass world fishing champions predict fresh ink for the books. Records will fall, they say.

Kevin VanDam holds the Classic record for the winning weight with the 69 pounds 11 ounces he caught at the 2011 Classic in Louisiana.

“That will be smoked at

Guntersville,” Boyd says.

Chris believes it, too.

“The single-day record weight is 29 pounds and some change.,” Boyd says. “That one’s a goner, too. The total weight of the field will also be broken.”

Expectations are high that a lot of fish will be caught by 56 top BASS fishermen from 2013 who qualified for this year’s Classic.

“The lake has the potential to do it,” Chris says. “If there was ever a time or place for that to happen, this will be it.”

Barring bad weather, Boyd says, attendance as well as many other Classic records will likely go down in

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the books for Lake Guntersville.

Chris said he was told last fall by avid anglers that they plan to take off the week before the Classic and come to Guntersville to watch the pros and learn where they fish.

“They can’t wait to watch it.

They can’t wait,” Chris says. “This will be one exciting event for this town. This place is going to be busy.

The Classic will be one gi-normous event. Gi-normous.”

Guntersville, Chris says, is the

best bass lake in the entire country, hands down.

“Fishermen keep coming back, and the lake keeps getting pounded and pounded, and yet it continues to produce. It’s a very big lake, and you can catch them from one end to the other. I don’t think you can go a halfmile and not go over a very big school of fish somewhere.

“With everybody that moves here,

with everybody that comes here to fish, I would say it’s the number one economic booster in the county,” he says. “I think the visitors will be surprised.”

All Classic sites are good for fishing. But on the ambiance and amenities side, Guntersville has a big edge, Chris says.

“We have the ability to show people a really good time all day long here in Guntersville and Marshall County,” he says.

Chris’s family and friends will be part of the gi-normity of the event.

To accommodate them, he has reserved all of the houses on Signal Point that were made available to rent for the event with the exception of one that was long-reserved by a family from Florida coming the whole week for the Classic.

Some of his family will be staying with his dad and mom, Bob and Peggy Lane, who moved to

Guntersville from Florida and built a house next door to Chris.

Both of Chris’s brothers are pros on the Bassmaster tournament circuit.

Arnie Lane, 40, missed this year’s cut, but is not about to miss attending the event.

In 2012, Bobby Lane, 39, and Chris became the first brothers to fish a Classic against each other in 28 years. They’ll do it again this year.

Should Bobby win, the Lanes will become the first brothers to ever win Classic titles.

H

owever the brotherly duel ends, all in all Chris, like Boyd, says this is a classic Classic people don’t want to miss.

And if the record falls for the biggest bass ever caught on Lake Guntersville or the heaviest three-day total, Chris certainly wouldn’t mind being the one to topple it.

“I would love to.”

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55

Unless noted, photos with this story are from TVA archives, including

that of a diver and, at left, the clearing of cypress trees in Warrenton, looking northeast toward the river bridge.

Also shown here are overview plans for Guntersville Dam.

The dam, the lake and a way of life mark their T

Story by David Moore

75th

anniversary

conditions also impeded navigation, which, with a lack of electricity hampered, at best, business.

“We were flat on our backs in the streets,” a Florence newspaper editor wrote in 1933, “and there were no cars to run over us.”

Early in the 1900s, the U.S.

New Deal acts President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed. TVA concurred with the Coles Bend site and on Nov. 27, 1935, authorized the Guntersville Dam project.

Construction started Dec. 4, 1935.

Meanwhile, 74 miles downstream, work had been underway for two years on Wheeler Dam, which would be completed that November.

Progress was flowing into the upper Tennessee Valley.

he countryside did not change in the magical blink of an eye 75 years ago, but it was pretty close to it when the Tennessee Valley Authority closed the spillway gates on the newly completed Guntersville Dam on Jan. 16, 1939.

Eleven days later, the once fertile Tennessee Valley bottom farmland of ot everyone, however, Marshall County had viewed the dam project become the bottom of as progress, nor spelled a sprawling 69,000“dam” that way, not with the acre lake that, today, federal government taking measures 76 miles their lands. And there were long, from Guntersville other concerns.

Dam to Nickajack Referring to TVA as Dam in southeastern one of those “alphabetical An early lifestyle effect the dam had was jobs; Tennessee, with 949 demons” from Congress, workers are shown here in December 1939. miles of shoreline, a Guntersville Mayor W.D. maximum depth of 45 Newman predicted that the feet and average depth dam would ruin the town. of 15 feet.

Early rumors placed the Army Corps of Engineers began Lake Guntersville was born and, site above Guntersville at Buck’s investigating possible dam sites in many ways, so was a new way of Island, and some people believed near Guntersville. In 1914, it life. Many aspects of this new way the town would be wiped out and recommended a location at the of life did not occur as quickly as the “every soul from here to Wilson physical change that abruptly washed northern end of Street Bluff, between Dam” drowned. In a newspaper piece Fishers Hollow and Walker’s Point, over the countryside, but the change he wrote in 1946, Newman says that about five miles upstream from was just as profound. once people realized the dam would Even before the Great Depression, the present dam. Congress never be downstream from Guntersville, approved funding. Further work in the the outcry was that it would flood all life for many in the region was 1920s identified additional possible hardscrabble, an ongoing grind eking of the good bottom farmlands and sites, including a place the Corps of out a livelihood with hoe and mule people would starve to death.

Engineers called Coles Bend Bar. in extremely poor soil sorely lacking TVA tried to calm the fearful The region, however, continued fertilizer. The Tennessee River wasn’t waters, issuing assurances that a reliable farm partner, flooding in the slowly drifting on the status quo until Guntersville and the region would 1935, two years after the formation winter and spring and all but drying come out a winner.

“Those assurances were not in of TVA, which was one of the first up in the Alabama summers. Those

N

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

57

Note the cofferdam visible between the giant piers that will hold the gates. The price tag on the massive

undertaking was $33,188,040. Adjusted for inflation through 2012, that would be well over $541 million.

The initial cost includes land acquisition, engineering and construction of the dam, locks and three hydro-electric generation units, according to TVA’s technical book ”The Guntersville Project.”

A fourth hydro unit was added and put into operation in 1952. A larger lock was added in 1965.

vain,” Newman wrote in hindsight.

“The government paid the property owner for what was taken. Many a mortgage was paid with a substantial balance for the owner. Very few would have been willing to give back to the Government the amount they received for their land.”

In many instances, he said, sentiment played a greater part in the transaction than the actual value of the land.

“Like all great movements, TVA was here to stay, and its benefits were not for Guntersville alone, but for all North Alabama in time of peace and 58

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

for the nation in time of war. With all these advantages in mind the majority considered our new development a benefit to the city.”

A

t its peak, the TVA project and its myriad related projects created 3,500 jobs.

The new reservoir required purchasing 110,145 acres of land.

Of that, 24,426 acres were forested and had to be cleared. Trees were removed but large fields of stumps remained, particularly in Browns, Roseberry, Mud and North and South Sauty creeks.

In addition to displacing 1,182 families, workers had to relocate 14 cemeteries and more than 90 miles of roads.

Plenty of shallows had to be dredged to created a Congressionally mandated nine-foot-deep navigation channel from the new dam site to Hales Bar Dam in Tennessee, predecessor of Nickajack. Between the two, a smaller dam at Widows Bar was partly dismantled, a dike was built to protect the town of Guntersville from flooding when the lake backed up, and spans of the relatively new George S. Houston

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This January

1939 TVA photo shows water

roaring through at least seven of the spillway gates of

the newly completed dam. Work on the powerhouse on

the south shore

continues. The three hydro units went

online in August, October and

December 1939.

Bridge were raised as much as 17 feet to accommodate river traffic at lake level.

Eugene M. “Gene” Simonson, whose dad was a foreman on the Guntersville project, spent several young years in the midst of this. In his memoirs, written for Old Huntsville magazine, he noted some of the other projects that employed people.

A section of what today is U.S. 431 at Honeycomb was moved to higher ground. The entrance to Honeycomb Cave had to be plugged because it would be flooded and no one knew if or how much water might leak through it. Swamps were drained for mosquito and malaria control.

Simonson, 11 to 14 during this time, lived with his family at a village TVA built about a half-mile from the dam site to house workers.

At its peak, TVA estimates, about 500 people lived there in 36 family homes, six bunkhouses that slept 360 workers, a separate bunkhouse for 52 staffers and engineers and a women’s dorm that slept 25.

Simonson says the village included a library, auditorium, commissary, 60

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

cafe, filling station, community and hospital buildings and recreation facilities for golf, softball and skeet shooting. TVA-operated buses ferried him and other students 28 miles a day to and from Marshall County High School.

G

untersville Dam essentially has four sections: a long earthen dike extending from the south bank, the powerhouse, the concrete and steel-gated spillway section and the locks on the north side. Before work on any of it started, three cofferdams had to be built.

Cofferdams are temporary enclosures in the water around a dam site, allowing the area inside of them to be pumped dry so work can be done on the project. Navigation requirements, flood stages and other issues required building cofferdams in three stages at Guntersville.

The first enclosed the area around the initial lock. The second allowed the construction of 15 spillway bays. The third-stage coffer served the remaining spillway bays and powerhouse.

Initially there was only one lock. From its river wall to the powerhouse, the concrete gravity spillway is 850 feet and comprised of 18 spillway bays set apart by large, angled gate piers. The crest of the spillway rises 20 feet from its rock foundation, while the gate piers loom about 80 feet above the foundation.

Resting on the spillway crest between every set of piers is a 40x40-foot steel gate. The gates are in two sections for flexibility in regulating discharge and are raised and lowered by two gantry cranes with 80-ton capacities that travel on rails along the spillway deck.

Three men were killed in the course of the mammoth project.

While it was underway, archaeological excavations had to be completed at the sites of former Cherokee villages and mounds that would be flooded by the new reservoir. Some of these were near the Houston bridge on Henry and McKee Islands and included a former village site thought to be Tali, which Hernando de Soto visited in 1540s.

As the dam neared completion, some workers were transferred to other TVA dam projects, but many were laid off.

Simonson says his father tried to transfer to the Kentucky Lake dam project but got laid off. The family moved to Arkansas in January 1939, even as TVA was preparing to close the spillways.

“I would have liked to have stayed,” Simonson said recently from his home in Huntsville. “I would have liked to have seen it fill up. I would have thought it would take several months.”

On Jan. 11, 1939, six days

before TVA closed the spillway gates, the Guntersville Advertiser got a boom from the project in terms of a full page ad taken out by 17 businesses, professionals and others in town, inviting folks to come and see the area before the land was flooded.

As they rose, the waters of the Tennessee spread out and covered Browns Valley, Big Spring Valley, Henry and McKee islands, old ferry sites and farms. Life-long landmarks, if not already razed, were soon inundated.

Not quite 6 at the time, Betty Taylor lived in Guntersville, but she missed the big event.

She was born in 1933 to Loree Grant and Quintes Donavon “Dono” Taylor, who was sheriff of Marshall County in the 1930s.

Initially, the family had lived at the jail, but her parents didn’t want her subjected to jailhouse language, so they were living on Hill Avenue when the lake began to fill.

“There was a lot of excitement,” Taylor said recently, but that’s all she recalls.

Decades later she learned why.

“I asked my mother about it and said, ‘I don’t remember the water rising.’”

They weren’t all instant, but great changes came with the lake’s

creation, not the least of which were recreational. People enjoyed parks on the water, above, building houses and cabins on the shores and cruising the expansive waters in boats. Continuing benefits today

include Lake Guntersville hosting the Bassmaster Classic in February.

“You didn’t see it,” her mother replied. “I didn’t want you to watch.”

She explained she hadn’t wanted her daughter to witness what happened to the animals.

“She said the animals were pitiful.

The rising water drowned a lot of them,” Taylor said.

Her parents knew the dam was needed, she said, but many people flat out resented the government forcing them off their land. Some, Taylor said, had sat on their porches with shotguns, 62

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

refusing the leave.

With the dammed river rising, the lock was put into permanent operation on Jan. 24, 1939, eight days after the gates were closed. On Jan. 27, TVA began the discharge of normal flow over the spillway.

Lake Guntersville was filled.

T

oday, Guntersville is one of nine dams on the Tennessee River, part of a 49-dam system TVA operates across a seven-state service region.

Like its other projects, the agency says, Guntersville Dam represents the fulfillment of the mission that TVA maintains to this day: • To improve the economic prosperity of the Tennessee Valley and its citizens through the management of the river and other natural resources; • To provide affordable electricity generation; • To prevent flooding and maintain a navigable channel for the 652-milelong river;

Guntersville Dam and the headwaters of Lake

Guntersville, photographed by David Moore from a

powered parachute piloted by Jerry Fouts of Arab. The

lake fluctuates only two feet during the year. At normal level, the Tennessee River drops 39 feet at the dam.

• To provide economic and recreational opportunities for both valley residents and tourists to the area.

Writing back in 1946, Mayor Newman’s words work well for the 75-year-old dam and lake: “...In the brief span of a few months, this city was surrounded by a revised agricultural program superior to the old.

“We acquired a fisherman’s paradise unexcelled in America, a navigable water system uniting us

with world trade, young and growing industries that have replaced the income from the bottom lands, a recreational area where the old may enjoy the evening tide of life and the young can find every outlet for their pent-up energies.”

NOTE: In addition to those mentioned above, thanks to the following for their assistance with this story: • Pat Bernard Ezzell, Public

Relations and Corporate Information, TVA; • The Advertiser-Gleam; • Sarah Brookshire of the Guntersville Historical Society, who authored a piece on the 50th anniversary of the lake and dam in the Gleam; • Larry Smith, president of the Guntersville Historical Society, author of “Guntersville Remembered”; • Julie Patton, director, Guntersville Museum.

FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL

63

Ronald Bearden has a passion for living, and that’s no fish tale.

s

The right treatment in a convenient location made the difference for this avid sportsman.

You might call Ronald Bearden of Sand Mountain a serious fisherman. He got hooked as a child and today he’s a regular at local bass tournaments. When Ronald received a serious cancer diagnosis, he was glad to learn that Marshall Cancer Care Center offered the perfect treatment for his colon cancer and lymphoma.

Today Ronald is cancer-free and back to his true passion. We’re just glad he slows down to wave as he passes our place on the way to the lake.

The Marshall Cancer Care Center offers a convenient mid-county location between Guntersville and Albertville.

Mr. Bearden and hundreds of patients like him are benefitting from convenient local access to treatment at the Marshall Cancer Care Center. We invite you to be a part of our community’s continued support through the “Closer To Home” campaign — please contact Andrea Oliver at 256-571-8026 or email foundation@mmcenters.com.

256.894.6750 • mmcenters.com Located on US Highway 431, just south of Cracker Barrel in Guntersville.