Marshall Good Life Magazine - Winter 2019

MARSHALL COUNTY

Sand Mountain Park designed to be a $60 million game changer

The New Yorker had no idea what awaited his first Christmas in Alabama WINTER 2019 | COMPLIMENTARY

Dr. David and Shirley Chupp learn the power of a dangerous prayer

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Welcome

Contributors Jan Fink writes from her Arab home when not contending with all the mishaps in her life.

Recounting a disastrous Christmas incident in this issue, she demonstrates her talent for finding humor in what befalls her. Earlier this year, she published her first novel, “Licking the Salt Block.”

Vaughn Stewart created this cartoon – it hangs in the museum – depicting the warm welcome DAR officials received when they visited Grant in 1922, prior to founding the school there.

‘The medium is the message,’ and same goes for the Grant museum

A

relatively new museum has opened in Marshall County. And because that’s the sort of thing I created my job for in 2013, I paid a visit to Gunter Mountain to see it. (See pages 72-74.)

“The medium is the message,” media philosopher Marshall McLuhan wrote in his 1964 book.

In the age of Facebook, Twitter and other social media, the seemingly odd maxim remains ever relevant – that the content of the message overshadows the character of the medium, but it’s that character that plays the biggest role in society.

Does McLuhan’s assertion apply to Good Life Magazine? Perhaps, but my guess is that you wonder what that has to do with the Kate Duncan Smith DAR School Museum and Archives – which is about the town of Grant as much as it is the school.

McLuhan’s phrase came to mind as my camera and I browsed through the exhibits. I couldn’t help but think how appropriate it is to house the museum in the log cabin – one of the school’s earliest buildings – that the community “raised” in 1935.

The cabin is the medium, an exhibit that ultimately outweighs in social importance even the cool stuff inside – at least that’s how my mind works.

Mo Mc PUBLISHING LLC Proudly printed in Marshall County by BPI Media of Boaz 6

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In this issue, Steve Maze writes about an entertainer and his band who rolled into Arab back in 1946.

Little did the capacity audiences at the old Ritz realize they were watching the “Father of Bluegrass” and several others who would go on to stellar music careers. (Spoiler alert: None of them were Steve.)

Deb Laslie sold her mainstay bookstore in Cullman, but that doesn’t means she’s totally taking it easy.

“I have dogs that still get up at 5:30. That honey-do list I worked on for 15 years now has MY name across the top. Not sure how that happened. I never catch up on my reading.” And she still has a deadline for reviews.

In spite of his busy NASA schedule and making time to write novels, David Myers also takes time to sample new dining venues. His motto: “If you gotta take time to eat, you might as well eat good!” With an attitude like that, writing restaurant stories for GLM is a perfect fit.

After long hours giving the ads in this issue that special holiday appeal, advertising/art director Sheila McAnear cranked up her natural gas log fireplace for a long pre-winter nap. That didn’t happen. Instead she got out some old unfinished paintings with the firm intent to finish before starting on new ones.

David Moore recently hit 68. No news there.

But it was news nine years ago when his wife, Diane, pronounced him old. (She used a funnier description.) Not his age, she said. It was because he started taking Porter, their dog, in the car with him everywhere he went. “Hero,” Porter barked.

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

Vol. 7 No. 1 Copyright 2019 Published quarterly

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

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

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Inside 10 | Good Fun

A virtual Christmas parade of events are on tap for the winter

18 | Good People

Even before Room in the Inn, the Chupps took in the homeless

24 | Good Reads

Your winter list: ‘Stars of Alabama’ and ‘Nothing Ventured’

27 | Good Cooking

Ashley Spethman offers some good tips and great recipes

36 | Good Eats

Bubba Ritos makes it as simple as 1, 2, 3 to “get your grub on”

38 | For the party

Jeannie and Pat Courington deck out more than just their halls

44 | Good Getaways

Your other house is decorated – the Governor’s Mansion

48 | 1946 concert

Folks in Arab had no idea he’d become the Father of Bluegrass

51 | Sand Mountain Park Most people have no grasp of how big this game changer is

60 | A Christmas visit

The New Yorker had no idea what awaited when he met her family

64 | A big band dream

For years John Harvey dreamed of melding Allman Bros. with jazz

72 | Out ‘n’ About

Museum tracks the path of Grant and DAR growing up together On the cover | A toy musician celebrates Christmas in the Arab home of Sandy and Robin Rotellini. Photo by David Moore This page | Craig Woodward shot this photo of a studio musician recording his cousin John Harvey’s dream.

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On the tour are the homes of, counterclockwise from above, Mike and Sandy Clower, Steve and Gena Vinyard, Anne Pollard, Tim and Xan Curran and Duke and Theresa Spain. Photos by Pam Krichev.

Holiday Tour of Homes is again a double event on Dec. 2 and 8

T

he Guntersville Ladies Civitan Club’s Holiday Tour of Homes is again a double event – meaning double options and fun.

Friday’s event will be 6-8 p.m. Dec. 6 at The Reserve at Lake Guntersville, starting with champagne and heavy hors d’oeuvres at the clubhouse.

• Guests will then be taken nearby to the uniquely furnished home of Steve and Gena Vinyard. The home has keystones salvaged from the family farm and tremendous views off extensive decks.

Choose specific times for staggered tours on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 8, chauffeured by Guntersville Transit.

• Anne Pollard’s Buck Island home might have been plucked from the Adirondack Mountains, a tribute to her late husband.

The birch-bark dining room has a panoramic view of the lake.

• Across the street from Anne is the waterfront home of daughter, Xan, and Tim Curran. They have a sweeping view of the lake from a beautifully landscaped, parklike setting.

• Mike and Sandy Clower’s home also has a lake view. The living room and kitchen are open, with a vaulted ceiling and fireplace creating a sense of openness and ease.

• Duke and Theresa Spain’s home on Shoreline Circle has 14-foot ceilings in the open living areas, marble floors, tons of windows and a pool with a lakeside patio and fire pit.

After you visit all four homes, return to the clubhouse at Gunter’s Landing for refreshments and shopping with local merchants and artisans.

Friday night tickets are $60; the Sunday tour is $35. Tickets are limited and none will be sold at the door.

Buy tickets at the Monkey’s Uncle and Stach & Co. in downtown Guntersville, Coldwell Banker’s offices in Guntersville and Albertville and online at the Ladies Civitan Facebook page through Eventbrite. The tour is not handicapped accessible.

Proceeds again benefit Phase 2 of Every Child’s Playground and other community projects.

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Good Fun

Holidays offer lots to do • Now-Nov. 31 – Heather Baumbach exhibit Mountain Valley Arts Council presents the wide-ranging work of this Lowe Mill artist from Huntsville. Heather is inspired by travel, her family and the beauty of everyday life – images that evoke emotion and nostalgia.

Heather enjoys working in acrylic, fiber, watercolor, ink and dabbles in any other medium she can get her hands on. She also holds over 25 years of design and production experience in stage, television, film, and visual merchandising, ranging from The Cherry Lane Theatre, The Santa Fe and Los Angeles Operas and Fantasy Playhouse Children’s Theatre to Comedy Central and clothing retailer Anthropologie.

The MVAC gallery, at 300 Gunter Ave., Guntersville, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. For more info: 256-571-7199.

• Now-Dec. 6 – Ho! Ho! Ho! (help) Create some “Good Fun” for those who aren’t financially able to do so this Christmas by donating to the Marshall County Christmas Coalition. The group has received applications for over 1,500 children for sponsorship, and additional crises always happen.

All applicants are screened and verified for need.

Sponsor a child – or several – as individual, business or a group.

Sponsors are encouraged to spend at least $100 (tax-deductible) per child, and donations may be made in honor or memory of someone.

For more info on playing Santa: www.christmascoalition.org; or 256-582-9998.

• Now-Dec. 28 – ART Market

The second ART Market is in progress at the Mountain Valley Arts Council gallery, where some dozen local artists are selling their original works. The perfect opportunity for you to find some original holiday gifts.

The gallery, at 300 Gunter Ave., Guntersville, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Saturday. Admission is free. For more info: 256-571-7199.

• Nov. 14-16 – “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” Internationally acclaimed Arab Musical Theatre presents this classic musical-comedy based on Charles Schulz’s famous cartoon characters, in which Charlie Brown embarks on a quest to discover what it means to be a “good man.”

Staged in the Arab High School auditorium, all shows start at 7 p.m. except the Sunday matinée at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15 adults, $10 students and are available at the door or online: amtshows.org.

• Nov. 21-Dec. 31 – Festival of Trees; Huntsville fine art collection The Guntersville Museum will feature more than 30 Christmas trees, gorgeously decorated by community organizations. The 5-7 p.m. opening night reception is free to members; non-members enter for $15, which covers membership for a year.

At the same time, the Woodall Gallery in the museum will officially open “Rebels with a Cause: American Impressionist Women,” a fine arts exhibit curated by the Huntsville Museum of Art. It focuses on the strong influence that the radical movement of French Impressionism had on American women artists of the

Museum will have a small forest of Christmas trees, top, and a fine exhibit of American female, French Impressionist art rebels. Above is Alice Rosenblatt’s (American, 1894-1975) painting of the Cuenca River Canyon, Spain.

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late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their names may be unfamiliar, but in their time they were true rebels in the art world.

The museum is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Tuesday-Friday; 1-4 p.m. weekends; free admission. For more: www. guntersvillemuseum.org; or 256-5717597.

Everyone is invited to the Skinny Turkey run Nov. 30 in Boaz.

Really. You know it’s got to be fun.

• Nov. 29–Dec. 31 – Christmas in the Park Be sure to catch the winter wonderland created by some two million lights at Arab’s traditional Christmas in the Park. It kicks off at 6 p.m. the day after Thanksgiving when Santa helps flip the switches of lights bedecking Arab City Park.

The park is lit nightly from dusk to 9:30 p.m., weather permitting. There will be entertainment opening night and on the weekends in the Old Rice Church at the historic village. Admission is free to see the lights.

In conjunction with Christmas in the Park, Santa will be at Arab Historic Village – located in the park 6-9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, starting Nov. 29 and going through Dec. 21. Snap a photo with the kids and Santa, have fun, eat a snack and

hammer reindeer shoes at the blacksmith shop. Admission to Santa in the Park is free for kids 2 and under, $5 per person.

The park and village are located 844 Shoal Creek Trail. More info? Call: Arab Parks and Rec, 256-586-6793; visit www. arabcity.org; or visit on Facebook.

• Nov. 30 – Skinny Turkey Run The race starts at the Boaz Rec Center and runs through town. The 10K starts at 8 a.m.; the 5K at 8:10. Register at the rec center at 314 North King Street or at: runsignup.com. Entry fee before Nov. 17 is $30; $40 from then to 6:00-7:00 a.m. race day. Proceeds benefit Second Chance Animal Shelter.

For more info: facebook.com/boazrec; nicole.presely@cityofboaz.org; 256-5937862.

• Nov. 30-Dec. 20 – Free gift-wrapping – Arab The Arab Chamber of Commerce is offering free wrapping for all Christmas gifts purchased in Arab. Bring the receipt and a box if needed. Drop off your purchases 9 a.m.-5 p.m., MondayThursday. Ends at noon Dec. 20.

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Whether you are having a Christmas Party, Family Dinner or preparing a comfort meal for these cool Winter evenings, we have what you need at great prices! Each of our locations is managed and staffed with friendly, knowledgeable folks who are happy to serve you!

Don’t forget to check out our weekly Ad circular.

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• Dec. 1-23 – Free gift wrapping – Guntersville Lake Guntersville Chamber of Commerce is offering free gift wrapping for any gift you purchase in town. Bring your receipt and your own box. The chamber is open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday-Friday.

p.m. at Errol Allan Park downtown.

Sponsored by the city’s Tree Commission, there will be Christmas singing by the two elementary school choirs and hot chocolate and cookies too. Need more info? Call: 256-5717561.

• Dec. 5– Albertville Christmas Parade It starts with the tree lighting at 5 p.m. at Rotary Park and a performance by the elementary choir. The parade, sponsored by the Civitans and Albertville Chamber of Commerce, starts at 5:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church, goes up Main Street, cuts over on Sand Mountain Drive, then loops back to the church on McDonald and Jackson. Register floats for $15 at the chamber or online: albertvillechamberofcommerce.com.

For more info, call the chamber: 256878-3821.

After the parade bring the kids to Christmas on Main at Albertville First Baptist Church for refreshments, skating and a snow machine.

• Dec. 1 – Arab Cookies with Santa The Arab Civitans invite young and old to its annual, free get-together with Mr. Claus. The fun goes from 10 a.m.-noon at the Arab Fire Department.

The Civitans provide a free photo with Santa, and kids can have cookies, juice and milk in the bay with the fire trucks.

• Dec. 2–Dec. 20 – Free gift-wrapping – Albertville BYOB – bring your own box – along with a receipt from any merchant in town to the Albertville Chamber of Commerce during regular office hours for free gift wrapping.

• Dec. 3 – Guntersville tree lighting The city’s annual 20-foot Christmas tree lighting ceremony starts at 5:30

• Dec. 5 – Arab Christmas Parade

The annual Christmas parade starts at 6 p.m. at Arab First Baptist Church and runs south down Main Street to Snead. The theme is “Stories of Christmas” and the grand marshal will be Charles Whisenant, winner of the Arab Chamber of Commerce’s 2019 Outstanding Citizen Achievement Award and editor of The Arab Tribune.

Registration forms are available at the chamber office on North Main Street. It’s free to enter the parade, but there is a $35 float fee to be eligible for $100, $75 and $50 awards. For more information or to participate, call: Arab Chamber, 256586-3138. You can also register at: arab-chamber.org.

• Dec. 5-8 – ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ The Whole Backstage presents the hilarious Christmas classic. Directed by Celeste Stapler and Wesley H. Rorex, it’s about a couple who struggle to put on a church Christmas pageant and are faced with casting the wild Herdman kids – perhaps the most inventively awful kids in history. There is all

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Stand in reverent awareness at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery. Photo by Jose Vazquez.

• Jan. 27 - History Tour of Montgomery That’s the deadline to register, the cost is $99 for this Black History Month trip to Montgomery. Marshall Medical Center’s GoldCare 55+ program is offering a historianguided, motor coach tour of Montgomery. Visit Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther kinds of mayhem – and fun – when the Herdmans collide head on with Christmas.

Adapted from Barbara Robinson’s best-selling young adult book, it’s a holiday staple for theatre groups across the United States with great roles for children and adults.

The Whole Backstage is located at 1120 Rayburn Ave. in Guntersville.

Performances are at 7 p.m., ThursdaySaturday; Sunday matinée is at 2 p.m.

Tickets – $20 adults, $18 seniors, $12 students – are available at the WBS office 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays; by phone at 256-582-7469; or at: www. wholebackstage.com.

• Dec. 6 – Boaz Christmas Parade Boaz’s traditional Christmas Parade has two big, new changes – it will end this year at the new Old Mill Park in downtown where the city’s new 40+foot Christmas will be lit. There will be 14

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

King preached. Tour the fascinating Rosa Parks Museum.

Absorb the nationally-acclaimed Legacy Museum and be moved by the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Visit restored 19th and early 20th century homes in Old Alabama Town and enjoy some soul food at the Davis Café. For more information: 256-571-8025; or 256-753-8025 (Arab).

Santa, live music, hot chocolate, the works.

The parade starts at 5:30 p.m.; the theme is “Year of our Stories.” Dec. 2 is the last day to register; entry fee is $10. For more info contact: Boaz Area Chamber of Commerce: 256-5938154; or boazchamberassist@gmail. com.

• Dec. 6 – Guntersville Parade, Open House A downtown open house and the annual Christmas Parade are on tap this Friday.

The North Town Merchants Association kicks off the shopping season with many shops offering specials, sips and snacks until 7 p.m.

The parade begins at 6 p.m. at Scott Street one block past the chamber of commerce, then makes its way down U.S. 431. The theme is “Stories of Christmas.” Applications

are available at the Lake Guntersville Chamber of Commerce or online at: www.lakeguntersville.org in early November. There is no fee to enter, but you need to register. For more info: 256-582-3612.

Dec. 7 – Children’s Christmas Card Awards Mountain Valley Arts Council will hold awards ceremonies for its 10th annual card contest. The reception is 2-3 p.m. at the MVAC gallery. More than 200 students’ artwork from across the county will be on display throughout the month.

The MVAC gallery, 300 Gunter Ave., Guntersville, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Saturday. Admission is free. For more info: 256-571-7199.

• Dec. 7 – Grant Christmas Parade Sponsored by the Grant

Chamber of Commerce, kicks off at 1 p.m. Saturday and runs through downtown.

• Dec. 7 – A Night Before Christmas This annual Christmas tradition in Guntersville is 3-7 p.m. Saturday. See Santa and Mrs. Claus, ice skate at the rink, see the Bethlehem marketplace with live animals at Guntersville United Methodist Church, ride a toy train if you’re a kid, take a carriage ride, decorate cookies, visit the Mistletoe Market and more.

This big, free, Guntersville event is sponsored by North Town Merchants Association. Businesses not only will be open and offering sales, but offering refreshments and fun activities, too.

• Dec. 10 – Lights of Love For families of loved ones who have died this past year, Shepherd’s Cove Hospice will hold its annual celebration with holiday lights and music. For information on sponsoring lights, ornaments and luminaries visit: sclightsoflove.com. The ceremony is from 4-6 p.m. at 408 Martling Road in Albertville.

• Dec. 13-14 – Downtown Christmas Open House This is the inaugural year of what the Albertville Chamber of Commerce expects to become a tradition, along with Cookies with Santa.

Open house is 5-9 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Hear the high

school choir. Meet the Grinch and Mr. and Mrs. Santa. Decorate cookies and T-shirts. Weather’s will be grilling and offering tastings. And more is being planned.

The event is spread out along Broad Street from Albertville Home Bakery and Coffee Shop to the fire station, and east on Main Street to the chamber.

Follow the Christmas tree trail and vote on your favorites at participating businesses, which will have sales and events of their own.

Cookies with Santa will be from10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the chamber. It’s free, and there’ll be drawings for gifts.

You can take your own pix or have professional pictures made with Santa.

The City of Arab invites you to visit our . . .

25

TH

C

ANNUAL

hristmas IN THE PARK

November 29 - December 31

Admission is free to walk the park and view the lights Located at Arab City Park at 844 Shoal Creek Trail, Arab, AL

Lighting Ceremony is Friday, November 29 at 6 pm Lights on from dusk to 9:30 pm daily (weather permitting)

Santa In The Park at the Historic Village 6-9 pm Nov. 29 - 30, Dec. 6 - 7, Dec. 13 - 14, Dec. 20 - 21

Nightly admission: age 2 and under FREE, $5 per person (no family passes) More info:

Call 256-586-6793

Visit www.arabcity.org

Email

parkrec@arabcity.org

Like us on

facebook

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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• Dec. 15-16 – ‘A Child, A King’ That’s the title of Arab First United Methodist Church’s annual Christmas cantata, which again will be accompanied by an orchestra. The performance will be held in lieu of the regular worship services at 11 a.m. that Sunday in the sanctuary. The public is also invited to a community performance at 7 p.m. Monday.

Arab First UMC will hold its annual Christmas Eve candlelight and communion services at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Dec. 24.

For more information, call the church office during regular business hours: 256-586-5792.

Make your reservation now with MMC’s GoldCare 55+ to enjoy a 2020 spring trip to Mobile.

• Now-Feb. 27 – Springtime in Mobile Payment and registration are due Feb. 27, but you might want to plan now to visit Mobile March 26-29 with Marshall Medical Center’s GoldCare 55+ group. The package includes a three-night hotel stay, baggage handling and 10 meals.

Eat lunch at the Magnolia Restaurant at Bellingrath Gardens, another meal aboard the battleship USS Alabama and a final night at Herron Lakes Country Club with your own Mardi Gras party. Travel to Dauphin Island, walk the Living Marsh Boardwalk and visit the 7,000-gallon sting ray touch pool.

Explore the Civil War Fort Gaines. Cost per person is $698 double, $645 triple and $880 single. For more information: 256-571-8025; or 256-753-8025 (Arab).

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• Jan.-Feb. – Kayla Clontz exhibit Mountain Valley Arts Council will exhibit the works of Kayla Clontz in painting, mixed media and photography this month. Details were not finalized, but it will be fun for the emerging Guntersville artist, the former owner of Kayla’s Cottage. Kayla graduates in mid-December from UAH with a degree in fine arts with a concentration on painting and drawing, and following her exit exhibit there she has her first public show at the MVAC gallery.

“It’s exciting,” she says.

The gallery, at 300 Gunter Ave., Guntersville, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Saturday. Admission is free. For more info: 256-5717199.

• Jan. 25-Feb. 17 – Eagle Awareness Lake Guntersville State Park hosts this popular winter event – started in 1985 – that highlights bald eagle watching for all ages. The Saturday (5:30 a.m.-5 p.m.) and Sunday programs (5:30 a.m.-2 p.m.) are free and include guided field trips to view eagles in their natural environment, live bird demonstrations and notable speakers.

Too early to drive to the park? Make a fun weekend of it with one of the park’s special overnight combo packages with discounted lodge rooms, camping, fine food at the Pinecrest Dining Room and more.

For more program info, call the nature center: 256571-5445; for campgrounds, call: 256-571-5455; for other reservations call: 256-505-6621; or google it.

• Feb. 7-8, 13-16 – ‘Godspell’ The Whole Backstage will put its touch on the original New York stage production by John-Michael Tebelak. Directed by John Davis Rollings and Diane DuBoise, this production will have choreography

by Kennedy Pickard and musical direction by Karen Fancher.

The Whole Backstage is located at 1120 Rayburn Ave. in Guntersville. Performances are at 7 p.m., weekdays and Saturdays; 2 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets – $20 adults’ $18 seniors, $12 students – are available at the WBS office 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays; by phone at 256-582-7469; or at: www.wholebackstage.com.

Sup

r u o Y port

y t i n u m

m r u o o Y C Support ! y t n u Co

Money spent in Marshall County stays in YOUR community A message from

Arab Chamber of Commerce Albertville Chamber of Commerce Boaz Area Chamber of Commerce Grant, AL Chamber of Commerce Lake Guntersville Chamber of Commerce Good Life Magazine/MoMc Publishing

B Boaz Area Chamber of Commerce

Chamber COMMERCE Grant, AL

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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Good People

5questions Story by David Moore

I

t was a dangerous prayer, but that didn’t stop Dr. David and Shirley Chupp.

“We prayed God would break our hearts for what breaks his,” Shirley says.

An invitation to experience the harsh realities of the world, the prayer eventually led them in 2012 to help found Room in the Inn, Marshall County. It’s a cold-weather homeless shelter program hosted by 27 area churches.

Prior to Room in the Inn, the Chupps sheltered homeless people in their own home in Guntersville. While many would consider that dangerous, the Chupps considered it the Christian thing to do, and it provides a telling window into the couple who became high school sweethearts in Rome, Georgia.

They met in 1975 when a friend invited David to a Bible study. Shirley was there.

“I went so my friend would shut up,” he laughs. “I went and never left. And I met Shirley.”

Though Shirley was on David’s mind as he finished high school, neither medicine nor the homeless were. He wanted to be a chemical engineer until he realized it required much more desk time than he imagined.

So he ended up with a religion/ philosophy degree from Shorter University in Rome and worked full time as an associate pastor at Garden Lakes Baptist Church in Rome, Georgia 19831986. Shirley earned a degree in family and consumer science at Berry College and went into teaching.

As a harbinger of full houses to come, in 1986-88 they served as cottage parents at a children’s home. In addition to their own two sons, they helped raise nine teenagers.

Meanwhile, all the time David spent as associate pastor visiting parishioners in the hospital made him reconsider his high 18

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

David & Shirley Chupp Saying dangerous prayers and finding ‘room in the inn’ for Marshall’s homeless school counselor's advice that he wasn’t cut out to be a doctor.

“It made me think that was my calling,” David says.

Shirley taught in schools in Clayton County, Georgia, and Quincy, Massachusetts, as David got his MD at Emory and did his residency in Boston.

I

n 1994, the Chupps told a physician recruiter they wanted to live in a small town with a good hospital within five hours of Rome. So it was they visited Guntersville that spring and met David’s future partner, Dr. John Packard of Marshall County Pediatrics.

“We loved it immediately,” Shirley says.

“From the get-go,” says David, making it unanimous. They moved in 1995, as soon as he finished his residency.

Some years earlier, wanting but unable to have another child, they naturally turned to adoption, something close to the adopted Shirley’s heart. Several fostering attempts, many prayers and 10 years later, with their youngest son now a senior, they adopted Meriel.

“When you pray for something that long, God shows out,” Shirley says. “The child has been a blessing every day of her life.”

As a senior in 2018, Meriel accepted a volleyball scholarship to Covenant College and became the first athlete from Marshall Christian to play collegiate sports.

Meanwhile, prior to Meriel, Shirley had become a mentor to a series of young, single-parent mothers. In 2005, she began teaching parenting classes through Guntersville First United Methodist Church’s Genesis Program.

“We realized poor parenting was a symptom of other problems,” she says.

“We started praying for counselors to assist them. God has a sense of humor and sent me back to school.”

It was 2012, the year after Shirley

earned her master’s degree in pastoral counseling, that she and David prayed that dangerous prayer. Soon after, they began offering shelter to people in their own house.

“I’d come home from work and wouldn’t know who’d be living there,” David says. “But it’s all good.”

A family with five kids stayed for several months. A woman out of rehab with nowhere to go stayed two years.

“We had a big house,” David says.

“We had empty rooms and some people didn’t have any rooms. That doesn’t work in God’s economy.”

I

t began to dawn on the Chupps – Marshall County has a homeless problem.

Initially, in discussing this with others, they heard denial, or heard that, if a homeless facility were built, it would draw the homeless from elsewhere.

“Our homeless are fairly invisible,” David says. “But we have whole families living out of their cars. And pets. I have seen all of that.”

Later that year, a group of preachers from the pastor associations in Guntersville, Albertville and Boaz invited Shirley to a meeting to discuss the matter. And discuss she did, moving the preachers with her observations. In the proverbial fullness of time, a committee formed to assess the issue agreed that Marshall County has a homeless “challenge.”

Statistics were needed, and Shirley says schools were a logical source.

“Every school system has a homeless liaison,” she says. “All of the schools are great to work with. They identified

Shirley and Dr. David Chupp are shown at right during Marshall Medical Center’s 2018 Winter Ball where they received the Healthcare Heroes award for their work with Room in the Inn. Photo provided.

SNAPSHOT: Shirley and Dr. David Chupp

EARLY LIFE: Shirley – adopted daughter of Forrest and Lena Lanham, grew up in Rome, Georgia. David – son of Don and Mary Chupp, now of Arab; born in Atlanta, also grew up in Rome.

FAMILY: Married in 1979. Three children: Jeffery, Rome, Georgia, married to the former Julia Evans of Guntersville, children Trey, Kate and Samuel; Andrew, of Bloomington, Indiana, married to the former Meredith Godwin, children Benjamin and Laura; Meriel Chupp, sophomore and volleyball captain, Covenant College.

EDUCATION: David – degree in religion, philosophy, Shorter University, 1981; medical degree, 1992, Emory University; residency at Boston Children’s Hospital, 1992-95. Shirley – family and consumer science degree, Berry College, 1981; MA in pastoral counseling, Asbury Seminary, 2011.

CAREERS: David – associate pastor, Garden Lakes Baptist Church, Rome, Ga.; Marshall County Pediatrics, 1995-present.

Shirley – taught school 15 years in Georgia, Massachusetts and Guntersville middle and high; pastoral counselor, staff, Guntersville First United Methodist Church, 2011-2019; currently executive director, Marshall County Homeless Ministries.

ACTIVITIES: Family time, grands, watching Meriel play volleyball; mission projects and medical work, Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador and Ghana. Shirley – cooking, sewing, time permitting. David – interim music minister, praise team leader at local churches; Whole Backstage productions; has written four musicals for local theater.

RECOGNITION: Jointly recognized as Marshall County Interagency Council’s 2013 “Humanitarians of the Year; Shirley – named Lake Guntersville Chamber of Commerce’s 2014 “Citizen of the Year;” David – awarded Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2017 “Master Pediatrician.”

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

19

350 county students with no permanent address, which means homeless.”

Meeting with other interested residents, the committee studied model homeless programs to emulate.

While earning her master’s in counseling at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, Shirley had worked with a Room at the Inn (RITI) program in nearby Lexington. The program, initiated by Father Charles Strobel in Nashville in the winter of 1985, had become a national model in big cities.

Though Marshall would be RITI’s first rural program, Shirley says the program had much going for it. It required no capital outlay, could be quickly set up using church facilities that sit vacant most of the week, and besides helping the “guests” or “neighbors” it provided churches and groups opportunities for hands-on ministries.

“It was September,” she says, “and we felt the urgency to get something up and running.”

S

o that very month, in 2012, Marshall County Homeless Ministries was formed. Shirley and David have served on its board, and she served as its president until January 2017.

The non-profit serves as an umbrella over four entities: • RITI, Marshall County.

• Neighborhood Inn – a 16-bed transitional house in Guntersville.

• An assistance program – funded by United Way of Marshall County. Money is allocated for utilities, rent and even some house payments that helped thwart homelessness.

• An outreach program – it helps those not qualified for other programs as well as needed assistance during the warmer months when RITI is closed.

Daily from November to March, volunteers pick up RITI guests at designated sites and shuttle them to that night’s rotating host church. Greeted by hospitality teams, they are given a hot meal, warm fellowship and a place to sleep that night.

Guests are screened for drugs, alcohol, violent crimes and sex offenses.

Day programs offer instruction in life, job and relationship skills as well as spiritual development. Employment is offered along with volunteered 20

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

transportation to jobs with businesses that have agreed to hire the homeless, including Wayne Farms, Farm Fresh, Alatrade, Kabco Builders in Albertville and Kappler in Guntersville.

“When it was so cold in 2017, 37 guests for a few weeks is the largest group we’ve had,” says Shirley. “Some have houses, but they are substandard and cannot stay warm; they are not truly homeless. All guests can stay in the program as long as they abide by the rules and work toward goals they set when moving in.”

On top of all else, Room in the Inn is enlightening.

“It’s a huge educational tool both for the homeless and the churches because we are trying to overcome stereotypes from both sides,” David says. “People at church sometimes think that all of the homeless are unwilling to work and involved in drugs and bad decisions.

And many of the homeless have been hurt by the church and see it as a place of judgment.

“That changes when the church welcomes them in to spend the night.”

1.

David, you have said that about half of American families are within two paychecks from being on the streets.

Can you explain and expand upon that statistic?

It’s based on data from the Federal Reserve as well as the University of Chicago. It was redone last winter when we had the federal shutdown.

Most people are just one pay check away from having to dip into their savings. Meanwhile the Federal Reserve study showed that more than half of the country has less than $400 in savings.

A CBS survey showed that 20 percent had less than a day’s spending money in savings.

That highlights a problem that has existed for a long time. If people have no liquid capital, no savings, and they lose their job, they can’t afford to pay for their house or apartment rental or whatever.

What happens then is they have to make decisions with what money they have. They can eat or make a car payment or buy gas or wash clothes. Lack of personal hygiene or transportation makes them unemployable.

Most homeless people are still working when they become homeless.

And then they make bad decisions and they spiral down.

Even though the unemployment rate is very low, homelessness remains at a constant or increasing rate, depending on where in the country you are.

2.

Shirley, what are some of the ways people can help the program, whether they are members of participating congregations or not?

Other than housing people at their church, congregations and others could collect items that we need. Keep a donation box. Most of that is paper items and personal items, cleaning supplies.

We can always use something like a Walmart gift card to buy emergency items. We have people who come in and have nothing or are an odd size that the thrift store does not have.

Last year, someone gave us some gift cards. We had eight guests starting work the next morning at one of the chicken plants, and I was able to buy them all boots before they started – which was great.

We need volunteers at the day program. They could be teachers, people to provide transportation, someone to just come by and offer some encouragement to our neighbors. We have so many who are illiterate. Just to have someone come by and read a form they have to fill out is huge.

I think you gain insight into the day to day struggles of those who live at or below the poverty level. We make the observation that we don’t have anything to eat when we don’t find what we want and many people literally don’t have anything to eat. But in our bubble we don’t always see that.

We also have a great tool called the poverty simulation, where we put people in role-play situations in an effort to help them understand the challenges of navigating day to day life at the poverty level. It’s a great tool.

3.

How does Neighborhood Inn fit into Marshall County Homeless Ministries, Shirley?

The former Ogden House has become

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the Neighborhood Inn. This shelter is not homeless housing. It provides transitional housing. Think about an emergency room and a hospital. The emergency room would be the transitional house, and the hospital would be the homeless shelter.

You need an entry point for people who are homeless to be able to get help.

From there, they are referred to other resources for help in the long term. But you have to have a starting place.

That’s what the Neighborhood Inn is – a starting point.

The reason we don’t want a shelter in Marshall County is because it would take away the opportunities Room in the Inn provides for hands-on ministries within the churches. And you take away the healing of the homeless neighbors that come from being in local churches.

When they become more stable, many of our homeless neighbors will become a part of the congregation of the church where they spent the night. We’ve seen that happen lot. I think it’s because they feel comfortable there. “I spent the night there. These people love me.”

4.

You’ll be staging “Making Room for Christmas” again this year with a whole new show. You wrote last year’s production, David. Did you write this one? And can you walk us through the birth of your ideas and their transformation into stage productions?

This is the second year we’ve done a Room in the Inn dinner experience as a fundraiser. It’s called “Making Room for Christmas – the Master Plan.” Lori Boatfield did some writing with me on this one.

Last year we offered a different point of the view of the Nativity based on things I learned in Israel in 2017. It was a hiking trip; Steve Marshall, the attorney general who’s from here, went with us.

We were sitting in a cave outside Bethlehem. It was a cave where shepherds kept their sheep so wolves can’t get them. We wondered why, in the Christmas story, the shepherds and sheep were out in the fields that night instead of in their cave.

Also, we wondered why could David and Mary not find a place to stay in Bethlehem – all of his family was from there. We postulated that they couldn’t 22

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

RITI host churches

Twenty-seven churches serve as hosts for Room at the Inn, Marshall County. As such, they rotate sheltering people from November through March. Several other churches serve in support roles. Host churches are: Arab FBC, Arab FUMC, Gilliam Springs, Sweet Home, Union Grove FBC, Old Brashiers Chapel, Guntersville FUMC, Epiphany, St. Williams, Connect, St. Minor, Guntersville 7th Day Adventist, Creek Path, Lake City, Real Church, Albertville FBC, Albertville FUMC, The Fellowship, Mt. Vernon, Grace Fellowship, Beulah, Compassion, Mt. Calvary, Solitude, Boaz FBC, St. Paul UMC and New Life Sardis

stay with family because they were scandalous. You did not have children out of wedlock in that day.

So the story of Jesus is that he was born into a homeless situation and had no home during his adult life and was even buried in a borrowed tomb for three days. The story is that Jesus knew homelessness.

Basically the play was a back-and-forth look at first century and modern times showing a new take on homelessness … not as a negative but as something we should embrace, that we can learn from.

So we told the story of The Room in the Inn in a very different light.

This year the story revolves around a guy who is fed up with the commercialism of Christmas, so he and his family are going to do things right – have a more Jesus-filled Christmas. But things don’t work out as planned.

His master plan included them serving meals at a soup kitchen, going caroling at the nursing home and taking gifts to the children at the children’s home. There is a lot of humor in this. Part of the idea is he wants there to be more Jesus in Christmas, but he gets frustrated at all of these people that the Jesus of Christmas loved. He sees homeless people and he’s

turned off. He learns lessons through his daughter and an unlikely teacher – a homeless man.

I do enjoy the writing. It’s a good creative outlet for me.

Last year we raised $38,000, and we’ll do better than that this year. We’ll have two nights of dinner theater and one regular seating show. A few seats remain for the dinner theater.

5.

What is something most people don’t know about Dr. David and Shirley Chupp?

(Shirley) We attended different high schools in the same town and different colleges in the same town. And neither of us has the occupation that our original college degree prepped us for.

David’s not a drummer, but he has played solo drums at a concert in front of over 10,000 people – in knickers. His current hobby is studying Old Testament Hebrew. He’s completed three years of course study online through the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also donated a kidney to a friend in 2014.

(David) Shirley has uncanny navigation skills and can always find her way anywhere without problems. I can get lost in Marshall County without GPS. A wealthy Egyptian man in Cairo approached me once and asked through an interpreter, “Is this yours?” He was pointing at my wife. He offered me what I am told is a very good price, but not what she is worth.

We have both been strip-searched in a foreign country.

I once met Cheryl Crow in the Children’s Hospital in Boston but had no idea at the time why she was famous.

I met Ted Williams at a Space Shuttle launch and had no problem knowing why he was famous. I once sat by Barry Bonds in the visitor’s dugout at Turner Field.

I met Jesus in a small church in Atlanta, and no one else compares.

Good Life Magazine For more on Room in the Inn, Marshall County, visit: www. roomintheinnalabama.com; for more “Making Room For Christmas – The Master Plan,” visit Room in the Inn, Marshall County on Facebook.

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Good Reads

Sean of the South weaves a tale that’s sure to move you

‘Nothing Ventured,’ much to gain with Archer’s new novel

ome of you may be familiar with Sean Dietrich, better known as Sean of the South. He is my new favorite author.

If you love a great story with believable characters written in a way that becomes a part of your soul, then you will adore “Stars of Alabama.”

The story takes place during the Great Their lives weren’t Depression. Marigold, beautiful.

In fact, their rejected by her family, lives were hard. And is on her own, pregnant whenever they settled and homeless. Migrant into a routine, along workers Vern and Paul (and Louisville the came something that bloodhound – I love changed it. They always this dog) team up with a seemed to be a few meals widow and her children as away from starvation, they all attempt to survive and they seemed to have the dust storms of Kansas. less each month than Coot, a 14-yearold preacher, is on the they had the month run with money stolen before. But life doesn’t from the tent revival. have to be beautiful to be Destination: Mobile. pretty, Paul thought. All All these lives it needs is red hair. intertwine through the years. You will laugh and rejoice in their successes and weep with them in their trials. This is one book that I will read again ... and perhaps again after that.

– Deb Laslie

ow, exactly, does one become a detective? Jeffrey Archer gives us the answer in his latest bestselling novel “Nothing Ventured.”

It is the story of William Warwick, who, against the advice and wishes of his father (a renowned London attorney) embarks on his “ABC,” was the first thing life’s dream: to become a Fred said when he was detective. introduced to the wetHis journey is much behind-the-ears young like that of any young sprog. He didn’t wait for man; there are rough roads, odd characters, William to ask. “Accept experiences that give nothing. Believe no one. him the self-assurance Challenge everything. It’s and certainty that he has the only law I live by.” found his calling.

Through it all, with determination, uncanny talent, and the blessing of a wonderful mentor and friend, William succeeds. From his early assignments “walking the beat” to his fledgling career at Scotland Yard we watch him turn into the man he knows he can be.

I’ve always enjoyed Archer’s work. He is one of my “go-to” authors with a beautifully written, well-crafted story that isn’t weighed down with expletives. His characters are real, and they become your friends. And after all, isn’t that why we read? To meet new people and experience new things? Your new friends await.

– Deb Laslie

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Ashley Spethman is in her element baking in her kitchen

Good Cooking

Story and photos

by David Moore

A

shley Spethman, wife, mother and extensive cook, operates Old South Sweets and Sundries out of her Cherokee Ridge home. And she’s maybe the only person in Arab who speaks Arabic, which she learned in the Army.

It’s an interesting tidbit, as are some of the cooking tips she’s learned over time ...

• For twice-baked potatoes, use regular sour cream, regular half and half and real butter. Add a couple pinches of kosher salt.

“Then the heat from the oven makes them lift,” Ashley says, “and makes them even fluffier than regular mashed potatoes.”

• Kosher salt? A measurement of its large, irregular crystals is actually less “salty” than that of the easily packed, small crystals of regular, iodized salt. Add more later if desired.

Ashley also adds salt late in the process when cooking to reduce water in soups, chilies and sauces. Otherwise, as the water evaporates, the salt concentration increases.

• The secret to a good flank steak is marinade and how you cut it, she says.

Marinate between six and 24 hours. Any longer, it will be too salty. Also slice the steak against the grain at a 45-degree angle.

“Otherwise,” she says, “you chew and chew and chew.”

• Ashley sets out her butter and eggs the night before so they’re at room temperature when she bakes.

“You have to use the eggs that day, and don’t put them in the sun,” she says.

But she doesn’t take the tip as far as her grandparents did. “They brought eggs and put them on the porch and said they were good for three weeks.”

A

shley grew up in Arab, daughter of Claud Burke and Jane and the late Sid McDonald. The grandparents she references were Jane’s parents, D.C. “Dorsey” and Margaret “Nana” Plunkett

Ashley says her grandmother Nana Plunkett imparted general but important cooking lessons, such as taking cookies out of the oven just as the edges start browning.

She still uses Nana’s almond pound cake recipe but has modified it. You can contact Ashley at: 256-200-2143; or ashleys@oldsouthsweets.com. of Cullman, who also owned a cattle farm southwest of Arab.

It was mostly Nana who taught her to cook and had Ashley mashing potatoes for Sunday dinner by age 9.

Her parents divorced when she was 8. Jane worked, and when Ashley and her brother Liles – now a federal appeals judge – got off the bus after school, she’d cook them bacon and egg sandwiches. She learned to fry potatoes in a skillet.

“Because there was no one else in the kitchen,” Ashley says, “I could make it up as I went along.”

Jane usually cooked supper, she says, had lots of cookbooks and taught her how to follow a recipe. Jane, however, had “strict recipe discipline,” whereas Ashley, unless she’s baking, was always open to modifications.

Like blending ingredients in cooking, Ashley blended a lot of ingredients into her life before settling down back in Arab.

She started school locally but graduated in 1990 from Baylor School in Chattanooga. After a stint at the University of Alabama, she transferred to RandolphMacon in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Unsettled, Ashley quit, moved to Birmingham and worked for an ad agency for a year until office walls closed in on her. For a few years she was a server and bartender. Finally, she turned to the one thing she’d longed to do – at 27, she enlisted in the Army.

A

fter basic training, she was assigned to the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, California, and began learning Arabic.

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

27

There she met Milo Spethman of Casper, Wyoming, who was learning Korean. They married in 2001.

Their daughter Mary Margaret was born into the post 9/11 world in March 2002. Her dad deployed for the first time to Iraq in 2003.

Ashley wanted to stay in the Army, but she and Milo knew it would mean deployment. She couldn’t leave Mary Margaret, but she could get an honorable discharge, and did so.

A

rmy life with Milo meant moving. While stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, Ashley enrolled at Kansas State, earned a degree in public administration with a minor in Arabic. She also led the Army’s Family Readiness Group where her baking skills provided comfort.

“It was a very hard year,” Ashley says. “There were a number of deaths, not just in the battalion but in the company.”

Madeline was born there in June 2005, just prior to the Spethmans transfer to Belvoir, Virginia where Milo was assigned to an Army school to learn electrical engineering.

And he also designed, built and maintained mobile power plants for bases in the Middle East.

Their next assignment was to Fort Bragg, N.C, in 2006. A few weeks later, Milo was deployed to Iraq again, this time to set up power plants. Milo Jr. was born in 2008.

Ashley and kids moved to her grandparents’ farm that fall and began looking for a place to live. Milo Sr. was discharged in spring 2009 and immediately returned to Iraq doing the same work, this time as a civilian contractor.

The Spethmans lived in Arab several years before buying their house at Cherokee Ridge in 2014.

A

shley’s love of cooking and baking turned into a business. She began selling baked goods at bazaars and markets and in 2016 formed Old South Sweets and Sundries.

She spends Wednesdays baking banana or zucchini bread, red velvet cake, carrot cake, lemon pound cake – “Whatever I feel like,” she says. Every Thursday, May through October, you can find her at the Greene Street Farmers Market in Huntsville, and sometimes she sells her goods at the Greene Street Market Store.

From November through Christmas Ashley stays busy with holiday baking for parties and bazaars. She also prepares gift baskets of baked goods. Several local companies purchase 2030 baskets as client gifts.

It makes enough to pay gym fees for kids, she laughs. More importantly, it’s something she truly loves, and working in her kitchen sure beats an office.

Milo, now a drilling coordinator for Houston-based Precision Drilling, travels two weeks a month to oilfields. She packs him a cooler full of frozen soups and casseroles.

“When he’s home, he’s a meat and potatoes guy,” Ashley says. “He’ll eat leftovers until they are gone. It’s awesome.”

The kids are pickier, especially with green vegetables.

Broccoli is the common ground.

“We eat a lot of steamed broccoli,” she laughs.

Here are some of Ashley’s recipes that do not include broccoli ...

Good Life Magazine 28

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

OLD-FASHIONED MOLASSES COOKIES (Based on Nana Plunkett's ginger snap recipe) 5 cups all-purpose flour 1½ cups salted butter, room temperature 2 cups sugar 2 large eggs 1 cup molasses 1 tsp. kosher salt 4 tsp. baking soda 2 Tbsp. ground ginger 2 tsp. cinnamon 2/3 cup cinnamon sugar, reserved In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except flour, cinnamon and sugar, and mix until combined. Slowly add flour to mixer a third at a time until smooth and even. Let cool in refrigerator for 30 minutes before baking. Scoop dough with a 1 Tbsp. scoop into bowl of cinnamon sugar and roll until completely covered. Transfer to parchment covered cookie sheets. Leave at least an inch or so between each scoop. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes or until tops are cracked and edges are starting to brown. Move cookies from pan to cooling racks. When completely cooled, store in airtight container. Makes four dozen.

NOTE: “People today think a ginger snap is a hard cookie from a box,” Ashley says. “I call them molasses cookies. They’re soft.”

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FLANK STEAK 2½-3 lbs. flank steak ½ cup soy sauce ½ cup Greek vinaigrette dressing 1 Tbsp. Montreal Steak Seasoning Cajun seasoning to taste Rinse and pat dry steaks. Combine

sauces and seasoning in a large measuring cup and stir.

After combining, pour mixture over steaks in a large Ziploc bag. Let steaks marinate a minimum of 6 hours up to overnight.

Preheat grill to 500 degrees. Remove

steaks from marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Grill steak 2½ minutes on each side, sprinkling additional steak seasoning and Cajun seasoning on each side during grilling. Let steaks rest for up to 5 minutes after removing from grill.

Serves six.

TWICE BAKED POTATOES 6 large baking potatoes, washed 2½ sticks of butter 8 oz. container sour cream ½-1 cup half and half Kosher salt to taste ½ cup shredded Mexican cheese 1 green onion, diced Can be prepped the day before serving.

Bake potatoes in a 400-degree oven until there is give to the potatoes when squeezed with a pot holder (about an hour). Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes.

30

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

In a large mixer, put butter, sour cream and ½ cup half and half before adding potatoes. Slice each potato in half, lengthwise, and scoop about 85% of each potato into mixer. I generally bake 2 extra potatoes so that I have enough mashed potatoes to “mound” into the skins.

Leave enough of the potato attached to the skin to maintain integrity and hold shape. Set skins aside in a baking pan or casserole dish.

Mix all ingredients adding a couple of pinches of salt. Add additional half

and half if needed to get smooth, fluffy mashed potatoes. When satisfied with the texture, taste to make sure that you have added enough salt.

When completely combined, scoop mashed potatoes into empty potato skins. Cover and chill 45 minutes.

Add shredded cheese to top of potatoes. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes to heat all the way through. Top with diced green onions to serve.

Serves eight.

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31

PEANUT BUTTER BONBONS 1 stick of butter, room temperature ½ cup creamy peanut butter 2 cup confectioner’s sugar Ghirardelli’s dark chocolate melting wafers Mix ingredients completely, except

for chocolate, cover and chill 30 minutes.

Roll into 1-inch balls, cover and chill.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler pot on stovetop and stir until completely melted. Move pot to work surface, remove balls from fridge and dip each

ALMOND POUND CAKE (Based on Nana Plunkett’s recipe) 1 lb. salted butter, room temperature 3½ cups sugar 4 cups all-purpose flour 10 large eggs 2 tsp. almond extract Preheat oven to 350. In mixer, cream butter, sugar, and extract until fluffy. Add eggs one at time, mixing 30 seconds or so between each. Add flour, one cup at a time, with the mixer on slow until combined. Scoop batter into a well-greased Bundt pan and bake 65-75 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool about 10 minutes before removing cake to plate. Once cake is completely cooled, dust with confectioner’s sugar.

NOTES: I like to serve with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. I also make a version of this cake in small Bundt pans, substituting vanilla extract for almond.

(Pictured above; almond cake pictured on page 28.)

32

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

in melted chocolate. Place on wax paper or parchment covered pan to cool and harden.

Will keep in airtight container at room temp for about a week. Up to 3 weeks in fridge.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES powder and soda until combined.

1 cup salted butter, room Slowly add flour mixture to temperature wet ingredients, one cup at a 1 cup granulated sugar time with mixer on slow. When 1 cup dark brown sugar thoroughly combined, mix in 2 tsp. vanilla chocolate chips.

2 large eggs Using a 2½ Tbsp. scoop, 3 cups all-purpose flour transfer cookie dough to pans, ½ tsp. baking powder leaving 2 inches between each 1 tsp. baking soda scoop so the cookies can spread 1 tsp. kosher salt as they bake. Bake 8-10 minutes 2 cups dark chocolate semior until golden on sides and sweet chips top. Let cookies sit on pan for 2 minutes after removing from Preheat oven to convection oven before transferring to 375. Line baking sheets with cooling racks. Makes two dozen. parchment paper and set aside.

Combine butter, sugars, salt, NOTE: I like to sprinkle a bit of vanilla and eggs in a mixer. In additional salt on cookies just as a separate bowl, whisk flour, they come from the oven.

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PEPPER JACK PIMENTO CHEESE 2 lb. block pepper jack cheese (I use Cabot’s) 2 (7 oz.) jars of diced pimento peppers 1 cup Hellman’s mayonnaise ½ can of Original Rotel 4 shakes of Pete’s hotter hot sauce Garlic salt and McCormick’s seasoned pepper to taste Shred cheese in food processor; move to large mixing bowl. Add remaining ingredients and stir until fully incorporated. Taste and add pepper and garlic salt until satisfied. Chill and serve with crackers and celery. I prefer Wheat Thins because they hold up to scooping.

Will keep in an airtight container, refrigerated, for a couple of weeks.

CHEESE STRAWS 2 lb. block sharp cheddar cheese, shredded and room temperature 3 ¼ cups of all-purpose flour 2 sticks of butter, also room temperature 1 tsp. baking powder 2 tsp. kosher salt 1 heaping tsp. cayenne pepper 2 tsp. Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning Paprika (I prefer Hungarian), reserved Preheat oven to 360. In a mixer with a paddle, combine butter and cheese until smooth and creamy (easier if both are truly room temp). In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients (except paprika) and whisk together. Add flour mixture to mixer a third at a time at slow speed. When smooth, fill a star-shaped cookie press with dough; press onto parchment covered cookie sheets.

Bake 16-17 minutes. Remove to cooling racks. Dust with paprika. Cool completely.

Store in airtight container.

GREEN BEAN BUNDLES Fresh French green beans, washed 6 pieces of bacon cooked halfway (should be under-cooked enough that it doesn’t break when wrapped around beans) Greek or Italian vinaigrette dressing Kosher salt and seasoned pepper to taste 34

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

Boil green beans for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from hot water and immediately submerge beans in a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process.

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35

Good Eats

Bubba Ritos Southwest ...

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 to ‘get your grub on’

Story by David Myers Photos by Rose Myers or provided by Delieta Jones

S

ometimes you just want things to be easy.

Going out to eat is not always as simple as it sounds. Especially when you’re blessed with a wife. Rose insists on being hungry before we head to dinner. And she wants the food to be healthy. Me? I’m easy. I’m always hungry, and I’ll eat most anything I can pronounce.

Luckily, we recently found a restaurant that makes everything extra easy for its diners. At Bubba Ritos Southwest Grub, it’s as simple as 1, 2, 3: see what’s available, choose what you want and dig in without much waiting. Now that’s even easy enough for a guy from Louisiana.

We popped into the Boaz restaurant that opened last year on Cinco de Mayo, replacing the previous location. That location had boomed on rental property for 10 years. We were welcomed by the establishment’s motto blaring above its extensive menu: “Get your grub on…”

We obeyed and lined up to get our grub order on.

S

tep One … pick your style.

That means to select between burritos, quesadillas, nachos, bowls (taco salads) or tacos. This does require a little thinking, but it’s just food so it’s not too taxing.

On to Step Two … pick your protein and cheese. Protein is a fancy way of saying meat, which is one of my favorite words. Choices are grilled steak, ground beef, chipotle pork and grilled chicken.

36

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

If you prefer vegetarian, you can choose a premium topping of extra cheese, guacamole or mushrooms.

Finally, Step Three … pick your toppings. Here you can go wild because the possibilities are extensive and for the most part good for you. They include pinto beans, black beans, refried beans, fried taters, sautéed onions, rice, pico de gallo, lettuce, cilantro, onions, tomatoes, black olives, banana peppers, bubba caviar (also known as Texas caviar), fresh or pickled jalapeños and sour cream. Sauces are zesty sour cream, spicy ranch, sriracha, enchilada sauce, spicy and mild salsa.

Entrees come with chips and salsa, which are made in-house. The salsa bar offers mild, spicy, tomatillo and – for a sweet change of pace – pineapple.

N

ow comes my favorite step – digging in. The burrito I chose was as large as a log. Crispy and brown on the outside, it was rolled tightly so that it was easy to pick up and eat. Somehow out of all those dizzying choices, I managed to come up with the perfect combination. It was delicious.

The same was true of Rose’s taco bowl.

The chicken on the bottom was warm,

Working from a fresh and extensive serving bar, among the items the staff at Bubba Ritos is glad to make for you are, clockwise from upper left, nachos, quesadillas and burritos. Locally, the small family chain has restaurants in Boaz, far left, and Guntersville. which partnered well with the veggies and cheese. A dollop of guacamole – whipped up every morning and afternoon – was the picture-perfect finishing touch.

Ditto for a crispy quesadilla, as well as the soft and hard tacos. Warm queso drizzled liberally added a richness that was divine on everything it hit. It seems that no matter what toppings you choose, they all go together delectably.

The owners have hit on a process that’s goof proof, and that’s the beauty of it. You cannot create a bad dish. Now that’s a good business plan.

Dylan and Delieta Jones, who own

Bubba Ritos in Guntersville, Boaz, Rainbow City and Attalla, came up with the concept as a class project when he was in accounting school. It was never meant to be their family’s income.

“We had $2,000 and six credit cards,” she says. “We made it happen. We bought everything used.”

D

elieta is originally from Sardis and Dylan hails from Missouri. The two met on a cruise in 2008. They now live in Rockledge in northeast Etowah County.

There, in a commissary kitchen, a staff of family members cut and season meats

for the restaurants. It ensures consistency, Delieta says.

Bubba Ritos offers a Lil Bubba menu for the kiddos and a Family Pack. The catering side of the business has boomed and has quite a few bookings into 2021.

A salsa bar, an eight-layer party dip, platters, a bubba bar or catering by the pint are just some of the options available for weddings, business events or private parties.

Restaurant hours are 10:30 a.m.- 9 p.m.

Monday through Saturday, and Sunday 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m.

Good Life Magazine NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

37

Pat and Jeannie Courington are throwing their Christmas Party

... And it’s not just their halls that will be decked out – far from it Story by David Moore Photos by Kaydee Roden

P

at and Jeannie Courington held their first Christmas party 31 years ago, the same year they married. It wasn’t a big thing. Pat just wanted them to decorate the house, invite a few good Rotarian friends and their spouses.

No one suspected it would become the start of the Couringtons’ long-running, traditional Christmas party, an event many folks in and around Albertville have come to eagerly anticipate. Perhaps not as a much as a youngster waiting to unwrap the surprises of Christmas morning, but Pat, Jeannie and their friends look forward to the parties – the sharing of joy and cheer – as a way of ushering in the holiday season.

“We had five couples,” Pat says, flipping back through his mind, “just a little social gathering.”

He and Jeannie start ticking them off: George and Winifred Wells, James and Linda Fowler, Dick Adams and the former Jane Adams, Jim and Betty Breland …

“Seems like five but it might have been four,” Jeannie laughs. At any rate, in retrospect it was probably the coldest firstFriday-night of December since 1988.

“It was like 13 degrees,” she says.

“But they all showed up.”

Their former house on Noblitt Street was decked out. Pat made eggnog.

Everyone chatted, laughed, exchanged Christmas wishes.

“We had a good time,” Jeannie says,

“and at the end of that first night we decided to do it again next year.”

So the following year they invited the same crew … plus a few more. It was their last Christmas party at Noblitt Street.

Thereafter, the Couringtons held the events at the house they’d moved to on Eagle Drive.

Their new home was more conducive to parties. And over the years, as they remodeled and the house grew, so too did their parties.

E

ach year – at least until the crowds hit 200 – Pat and Jeannie invited more people, ordered more shrimp. Five or six years ago, Pat quit making eggnog, but other than that the core of the party remained the same – having a get-together

The Couringtons bought their house in 1990, later enclosed the garage for a playroom turned den. After adding a master suite for daughter Ashley, the house has four bedrooms and three and a half baths. They keep it up to date with remodeling and redecorating, assisted by architect/designer Susan LeSueur of the Glenn Group in Arab. to usher in the season of good Christmas cheer with people that meant something to their lives.

And the Couringtons know a wide circle of people.

Pat’s father, the late Pat Courington, Sr., founded Albertville’s WAVU-AM radio station in 1948 and The Sand Mountain Reporter in 1954, when Pat was 13.

By age 16, Pat was on the air at WAVU. Over time, he took over the business reins of the businesses. While the paper was sold in 1999, he still owns the AM station plus WQSB-FM and WKXX-FM. He’s also been in banking and other businesses and still has real estate holdings.

The former Jeannie Frasier was in the real estate business until Ashely was born in 1992, then she operated AL-BO

Travel. She served on the Albertville City Council and ran for mayor in 2008. Since 2011 she’s been executive director of Albertville-Boaz Recycling Center and was named Alabama Recycler of the Year in 2013.

She was also one of the owners who started the upscale Sebastien’s restaurant on U.S. 75 North and later moved it to Main Street.

So, Jeannie explains, as their network of people has grown, so has that invitation list that started with a handful of good friends from Albertville Rotary.

For that first party in 1988, Jeannie wrote out invitations by hand. Ever since, she’s used Alan’s Party Plus, a Birmingham business that helps pick out and print cards.

“I usually have a theme, and I address the cards,” she says. In keeping with the feeling of the parties, she likes to dress up the invitations with glitter, bows or bells and such.

“People like to mark off their calendars for the first Friday night of December,” Jeannie says. Most of them understand the one simple rule: if they are no-shows for three parties, they are out.

D

ecorating the house starts the first of November.

“Pat always liked for things to be decorated,” Jeannie says. “So he lets me decorate the whole house, and people are invited to walk around and enjoy it.”

For years the number of decorations grew, but the “Christmas attic” can only

hold so much. There may be some replacements, but decorations these days mostly get rearranged.

As full disclosure, Jeannie says, “I don’t do the putting up anymore, but I do the taking down. Gina Mastin and Kim Patterson have played decorating elves for the recent years.”

After a month of decorating, they arrive the afternoon of the event with live flowers, then hurry home to change for the party.

For the past few years, Regina Henderson of Rainsville has catered the party.

“There are not usually any leftovers,” Jeannie says.

Shrimp is usually the first thing to disappear. One particularly thirsty year, she had to send out for more beer.

Around the mid 1990s, Pat and Jeannie split the party into two nights to ease the crowding in the house. Some friends were invited for Friday nights, others for Saturdays.

“Each group thought the other was getting a better deal,” Pat laughs. “People would want to come the other night.”

Soon, they built another garage and converted the old one into a large playroom for Ashley, their daughter. In all fairness, she already had a huge bed and bath suite on the other end of the house, and the new room soon morphed into the adult playroom, a graciously large den with a bar.

With the additional space, the Couringtons corralled the party back into one night.

Ashley now lives in Guntersville where she owns Blossom Boutique.

She and Alex Mastin, her husband since 2017, are among those who join the Christmas festivities.

I

nvitations show the party lasting 6-9 p.m. It usually lasts hours longer. Such is Christmas cheer.

“One night, the last people were leaving about 12:30 and a big motor home pulled up,” Pat laughs. “People got out and came on in to the party.”

“We have a lot of people who only see each other this one time a year,” Jeannie says. “They come from Albertville and Boaz, some from Guntersville and even some from Arab.”

Rick Zingenfus, formerly of Compass 40

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

Much of the furniture in the den is moved to the garage to make room for party-goers and the Christmas tree, upper left. The mantel in the living room is e3xtravagantly decorated. There’s always room for the Nativity scene, and the reindeer have a place of their own in a bathroom. Pat and Jeannie, above, don’t get to mix and mingle a lot at their own party. For the most part they post themselves at the entry way by the arrangement of red and white roses, upper right. Making the festivities, well, perhaps a little more festive are bartenders Hollie Rone and Roosevelt Oliver, left. For more on Albertville photographer Kaydee Roden, visit: www.kaydee.photography.

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

41

Over the years, says Jeannie, a number of elves have helped with the extensive decorating. Sherry Pitts, who’s been with the family for 24 years, plays a huge role in getting the house ready. “The late Elizabeth Williams and her sister Betty Oliver have always been there for me,” she says. “And to make the long walk from where you have to park, family friend John Chaney let’s you hitch a ride on a golf cart.” Santa is out front to help greet the arriving guests.

Bank in Albertville, and his wife Ginger, now come from Huntsville for the party.

“For his ‘admittance ticket,’ he gives me a golf ball every year,” Jeannie laughs.

It’s an inside joke: they used to play golf together. Also, since the Courington’s property abuts the third fairway at Albertville County Club, golf balls often pelt their backyard like so much hail.

Others party-goers might bring, say, a bottle of wine as a gift. It’s all unnecessary, but always appreciated.

With last year being the 30th anniversary of the party, many people thought it might be the last. Not so. There’s no end in sight.

“Not as long as we’re healthy,” Pat says.

“And financially able,” Jeannie adds.

They enjoy throwing the parties too much to voluntarily cease and desist.

The revelers do, too. On their way out – at whatever time that might be – friends often tell the Couringtons that the party got them into the Christmas spirit, that they’re ready to go home and start decorating.

“The party is a way for us to be able to give something to people who mean something to us, whose paths have crossed ours,” Jeannie says. “It’s a giving thing.”

Which fits perfectly with “Merry Christmas.”

Good Life Magazine 42

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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43

Good Getaways Story and photos

by David Moore

H

ere’s a Christmas holiday idea ... why not pay a visit to your other house and see how it’s decorated? You know – the mansion in Montgomery where the governor lives.

The house is open to Christmas tours on three evenings in December.

Kay Ivy, the state’s 54th governor, is the current resident. She is, however, only the 13th different governor to live in the mansion since Gordon Persons moved in Jan. 16, 1951, the day of his inauguration.

According to the state website, from the time Gov. William Bibb took the office of the new state 200 years ago in November, until 1911, Alabama governors, while in Montgomery, resided in private homes, hotels and, yes, taverns.

The state bought the first official executive residence for $46,000 in 1911. Emmet O’Neal – No. 34 – was the first governor to live in the military-looking Beaux Arts brownstone on the southwest corner of South Perry and South Streets; last to live there was James “Big Jim” Folsom – No. 42 – of Cullman during his first term. Later used for state offices and a school, the old mansion was demolished in 1963 as part of the construction of I-85.

During his second term, Folsom followed Persons to the current mansion.

It was built in 1907 for the prominent family of Robert Fulwood Ligon, Jr. The state’s purchase of the mansion arose from Folsom’s friendship with

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This Christmas visit your other house ...

The Governor’s Mansion

The mansion, above, shows off its decorations from 2017.

Five first floor rooms are open for touring. One is the dining room, far left, with its mahogany table made in Andalusia and symbolic seat cushions done by the Mountain Brook Chapter of the Needlepoint Guild.

Center, fireplace decorations and flanking trees make the small parlor festive. Ribbons and decorative magnolia leaves are appropriate for the tree in the sunroom, left.

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For a change of pace from the formal Governor’s Mansion, above, yet in line with history, grab a bite with plastic ware on Styrofoam plates, left, at Chris’ Hot Dogs located at 138 Dexter Ave., Montgomery. In business since 1917, it’s not only been a favorite of locals and governors but has served Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, George H.W. and George W. Bush – not to mention Dr. Martin Luther King, Hank Williams and Elvis Presley.

Ligon’s widow, Aileen. The legislature bought the mansion for $100,000 and spent another $130,000 on renovations and furnishings.

Items in the mansion come from all parts of the state. During her husband’s term (1968-’71), Martha Brewer established the First Ladies’ Parlor, inviting each first lady of the house to provide a portrait to hang in the parlor, a collection which has since been discontinued. She also added new draperies and carpeting and refinished furnishings.

During the ‘70s, a swimming pool in the shape of the state was added in the garden area.

Though the Governor’s Mansion was purchased as “the people’s house of Alabama,” it was not always open as such.

That changed in 2003 when First Lady 46

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Patsy Riley coordinated an effort to raise private funds, renovate the mansion and reopen it to public tours.

Good Life Magazine

If you go ...

The Alabama Governor’s Mansion is located at 1142 S Perry St., Montgomery.

It is open for Christmas tours 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Mondays, Dec. 2, 9 and 16. Admission is free, but you do need to pick up a ticket at the gift shop across Finley Avenue to the south of the mansion.

Some 2,200 people visited last year. Michael Walczak, executive director of the mansion, suggests you come around 5 p.m. to get a ticket, or wait until around 6:30, after the opening rush.

Volunteers will be in the five open rooms to answers any questions about the furnishings or history. For more info: (334) 834-3022.

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The man who became known as the Father of Bluegrass rolled into Arab in 1946 Story by Steve A. Maze Photo provided by the author

T

he Ritz movie theater in Arab was known for its “picture shows” during the 1940s and 50s, but it was used for other entertainment events as well.

In 1946, a band rolled into town, its leader from Kentucky. “Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Band” was painted on both sides of their touring car.

On that particular day, Bill’s band was comprised of Chubby Wise on fiddle, Wilene “Sally Ann” Forrester, vocalist/accordion player, bassist Cedric Rainwater and a comedian by the name of Dave Akeman. Then there were two other musicians who’d only recently joined the band – Lester Flatt strummed rhythm guitar, and Earl Scruggs played the banjo in his patented, three-finger picking style.

No one then knew that mandolin picker Bill Monroe would become The Father of Bluegrass.

Nonetheless, capacity crowds of 200 packed the Ritz to see the band perform each of its three shows that day. The band fired the crowd up with a new song Bill wrote and recorded that year – “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

The breakneck tempo of their music and vocal harmony was a huge hit with all three audiences.

Among the adoring fans was a young man by the name of Gerald Satterfield. He had been crippled since birth and it was a common sight to see his grandmother, Savilla Satterfield, pulling him around Arab in a red, wooden, Deluxe wagon with sideboards that contained a pillow for Gerald’s comfort.

During one performance, Bill called Gerald down to the front of the stage and presented him with an autographed photo of the band.

B

etween the first and second performance, the musicians walked to a nearby café. While waiting for their food, Bill put a nickel in the jukebox and played a new song by Charlie Monroe, his older brother and former band member.

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He commented that the song sounded pretty good but said nothing else. None of his musicians said anything either since Bill was bitter about his brother leaving the band.

As with all bands, members come and go. Some move on to try and create their own star in the music business while others grow tired of the exhausting touring schedule and low wages. More than 150 musicians played in Bill Monroe’s band over the years, and he was always bitter when someone left his band – even his own brother.

Some members with him in Arab would also leave to find great success. In fact, many would go on to perform on the Grand Ole Opry.

Flatt & Scruggs would leave in 1948 to form the “Foggy Mountain Boys.” They struck gold in 1949 when Scrugg’s instrumental, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” became an enduring hit.

Their career also got a shot in the arm when they performed the theme song, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” for “The Beverly Hillbillies” TV show.

A

rab’s fiddler extraordinaire, the late Vernon Derrick, met Flatt & Scruggs when they headlined a show in nearby Morgan County at Ryan High School in 1959. Derrick and Lester Flatt got together before the show for a jam session. He and Earl liked Vernon’s musical ability, as well as his showmanship and asked him that night to join them for a short tour. Which, of course, Vernon did.

Vernon joined the Stanley Brothers the following year, and later Jimmy Martin and his Sunny Mountain Boys. He also performed several years with Hank Williams Jr. before retiring.

Howard Watts, who worked under the stage name Cedric Rainwater, also left Bill’s band to join up with Flatt & Scruggs. Rainwater would later work with such stars as Patsy Cline, Ferlin Husky, Cowboy Copas, Lefty Frizell and Hank Williams.

Dave Akeman, Bill’s comedian

that day in Arab, was better known as Stringbean. He went on to perform many times on the Opry stage and later had a career on television’s “Hee Haw.” Sadly, Stringbean and his wife were murdered during a robbery at their modest Tennessee home in 1973.

Back in Arab of 1946, between the second and third performances, Bill sauntered over to Basil Cobb’s store, which today is the Flower Exchange.

The Kentuckian was a huge fan of game fowl, and looked over Basil’s selection of fighting roosters. He liked what he saw and purchased several of them.

T

he last sight fans saw of Bill Monroe that night was when he waved goodbye to them from his touring car. A cardboard box full of roosters was safely tucked underneath a tarp and tied down to the top of his vehicle.

The mandolin picker entered the golden age of his career in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s with his “high lonesome” version of his Bluegrass Boys. Unfortunately, Bill and some of his buddies were on their way back home from a hunting trip in 1953 when they were struck by a drunk driver. It took Bill four months to recover and resume touring.

By late 1950, Bill Monroe’s success was diminishing due to the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll and the new Nashville sound with smooth strings and choruses.

His fortunes, however, began to turn again in the early 1960s with the folk music revival. Although his type of music had always been in the country genre, a more diverse style of musicians and vocalists were picking up the bluegrass sound.

The Father of Bluegrass continued his success and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and even the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence.

He died 27 years ago on Sept. 9, 1996 – four days before his 85th birthday.

Good Life Magazine

Verdell Smith of Arab paid 35¢ for this photo of Bill Monroe, top right, when he and his Bluegrass Band performed at the Ritz in 1946. Also pictured are, from bottom left, Cedric Rainwater, Sally Ann Forrester, Chubby Wise, comedian Dave “Stringbean” Akeman and, upper left, Charlie Monroe. Bill didn’t update his band photos as quickly as they changed. When they played in Arab, his brother Charlie had left the band, and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs had joined it.

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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Sand Mountain Park Big and fun, it’ll be a $60-million game changer

Story and photo by David Moore Illustrations by Chambless King Architects

Y

ou can’t truly start to fathom the scope of Sand Mountain Park without first driving through the 130-acre construction site. The place is huge.

But your drive through the park on the northwest side of Albertville won’t yet allow you to realize just how nice the facilities will be when they open in 2020 – from an outside lazy river and a cavernous recreation center with an indoor pool, to 14 sports fields, 16 tennis courts and an amphitheater that will seat 8,000. It’s all top-notch.

And even if you drive through – you’re welcome to enter from Charleston Street, Nelson Road or Wendy Lane – and even if you pore over the architectural renderings, you still can’t realize the economic impact Sand Mountain Park is projected to have. And that’s not limited to Albertville.

We’re talking about generating an initial $72 million construction impact on Marshall County between 2018 and the summer of 2020 and an annual $46 million operational impact going forward – according to Jacksonville University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research. That’s some kind of return on an estimated $60+ million investment.

Oh … and then there’s this – can anyone start to fathom how much family fun this place will provide for nearly everyone for years to come?

For those unaware of Sand Mountain Park, this is a long-time dream of Albertville government leaders, the city’s parks and recreation department, and residents.

The heavy-lifting on the economic impact

Four basketball courts and an elevated track are only part of the rec center, top. All venues will have full concessions and press boxes with team meeting spaces. Some fields will have grandstand seating; all will have synthetic turf and LED lighting. Individual venues have large concourses, center.

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NELSON ROAD ENTRANCE

NELSON ROAD ENT

TENNIS CENTER 12 HARD COURTS TENNIS CENTER 4 CLAY COURTS 12 HARD COURTS FULL COURT LED LIGHTING 4 CLAY COURTS PRO SHOP/CLUBHOUSE BUILDING FULL COURT LED LIGHTING DECK PROOBSERVATION SHOP/CLUBHOUSE BUILDING SPECTATOR SEATING & TENT SPACE OBSERVATION DECK WALL SPECTATORHITTING SEATING & TENT SPACE SHADE PAVILION HITTING WALL

SHADE PAVILION TRAILHEAD PLAYGROUND ALL AGES RECREATION WITH PLAY TRAILHEAD PLAYGROUND EQUIPEMENT & LAWN SPACE ALL AGES RECREATION WITH PLAY

EQUIPEMENT & LAWN SPACE AMPHITHEATER PARK 8000 SEAT CAPACITY (MIXED PLAZA & LAWN SEATING) AMPHITHEATER PARK 300 VIP ELEVATED BOX SEATS 8000 SEAT CAPACITY (MIXED PLAZA & LAWN SEATING) COVERED STAGE (60X40) 300 VIP ELEVATED BOX SEATS 1600 AMP SHOW POWER & HOUSE LIGHTING COVERED STAGE (60X40) VIP CONCESSIONS AND RESTROOMS 1600 AMP SHOW POWER & HOUSE LIGHTING VENDOR TENT SPACE VIP CONCESSIONS AND RESTROOMS KIDS PLAYGROUND VENDOR TENT SPACE

KIDS PLAYGROUND OPEN SPORTS FIELD OVERFLOW MULTI-PURPOSE FIELD SURFACE OPEN SPORTS REINFORCED NATURAL TURF PARKINGFIELD

OVERFLOW MULTI-PURPOSE FIELD SURFACE

REINFORCED NATURAL TURF PARKING CHARLESTON STREET ENTRANCE

CHARLESTON STREET ENTRANCE DOG PARKS 3/4 ACRE LARGE DOG PARK DOG PARKS 1/4 ACRE SMALL DOG PARK

3/4 ACREWATER LARGE DOG PARK DOGGY STATIONS 1/4 ACRE SMALL DOG PARK COVERED PAVILIONS DOGGY WATER STATIONS COVERED PAVILIONS RV PARK 17 TOTAL LOTS PICNIC ZONES & GRILLS RV PARK INDIVIDUAL UTILITY CONNECTIONS 17 TOTAL LOTS FLEXIBLE PICNIC CENTER GREEN ZONESSPACE & GRILLS DEDICATED HOUSE INDIVIDUAL UTILITY BATH CONNECTIONS COVERED PAVILION FLEXIBLE CENTER GREEN SPACE

DEDICATED BATH HOUSE COVERED PAVILION HIKING PATHS MULCHED PATH THROUGH WETLAND AREAS

HIKING PATHS MULCHED PATH THROUGH WETLAND AREAS

PECAN GROVE PLAYGROUND ALL AGES RECREATION WITH PLAY EQUIPMENT & LAWN SPACE PECAN GROVE PLAYGROUND

ALL AGES RECREATION WITH PLAY EQUIPMENT MULTI-PURPOSE FIELDS

& LAWN SPACE

5 MULTI-PURPOSE SYNTHETIC TURF PLAYING FIELDS AHSAA SOCCER FIELD SPECIFICATIONS MULTI-PURPOSE FIELDS FOOTBALL & LACROSSE FIELD SPECIFICATIONS 5 MULTI-PURPOSE SYNTHETIC TURF PLAYING FIELDS 500 SEAT SIGNATURE FIELD GRANDSTAND AHSAA SOCCER FIELD SPECIFICATIONS LED FIELD LIGHTING FOOTBALL & LACROSSE FIELD SPECIFICATIONS

500 SEAT SIGNATURE FIELD GRANDSTAND

MAINTENANCE FACILITY MATERIAL LAY-DOWN YARD LARGE TRAILER PULL-THRU

BASEBALL 4-FIELD POD 4 ALL SYNTHETIC TURF PLAYING FIELDS SIGNATURE FIELD WITH 800 SEAT GRANDSTAND SIGNATURE FIELD 375’ FENCE STANDARD FIELD 300’ FENCE GRAND SLAM SAFETY FENCING BULLPENS FOR EACH TEAM AT SIGNATURE FIELD BATTING CAGES COVERED SEATING & DUGOUTS PARK LIKE EXPERIENCE KIDS PLAY SPACES 10X10 TAILGATE TENT SPACE IN ALLEY’S SOCCER TOURNAMENT FIELD SPACE

SOFTBALL 5-FIELD POD ALL SYNTHETIC TURF SIGNATURE FIELD WITH 600 SEAT CAPACITY STANDARD FIELD 300’ FENCE GRAND SLAM SAFETY FENCING BULLPENS FOR EACH TEAM AT SIGNATURE FIELD BATTING CAGES COVERED SEATING & DUGOUTS PARK LIKE EXPERIENCE KIDS PLAY SPACES 10X10 TAILGATE TENT SPACE IN ALLEY’S SOCCER TOURNAMENT FIELD SPACE MIRACLE FIELD & PLAYGROUND MIRACLE FIELD MIRACLE PLAYGROUND COVERED SEATING & DUGOUTS SHADE PAVILLION W/ RESTROOMS & CONCESSIONS PARK LIKE EXPERIENCE KIDS PLAY SPACES 10X10 TAILGATE TENT SPACE IN ALLEY’S OUTDOOR SPORTS 2 SAND VOLLEYBALL COURTS 2 BASKETBALL COURTS RECREATION CENTER INDOOR SPORTS 4 BASKETBALL/VOLLEYBALL COURTS MAPLE FLOORS ELEVATED RUNNING TRACK NDIVIDUAL AND GROUP FITNESS AQUATICS INDOOR AND OUTDOOR INDOOR 8-LANE COMPETITION POOL INDOOR WARM UP POOL OUTDOOR RECREATION POOL OUTDOOR SPLASH PAD OUTDOOR LAZY RIVER OUTDOOR WATER SLIDES

SIGNATYURE PLAYGROUND & PAVILION LARGE OUTDOOR COVERED PAVILION LARGE COMMUNITY PLAYGROUND 2 ACRE OF TREE CANOPY SHADING RESTROOMS

WENDY LANE ENTRANCE

NOTE: Drawing is not to scale. It’s been resized to fit this page.

The amphitheater offers seating for 8,000 people on the plaza and lawn. Corporate box offices will also be available. No decision has been made to move the long-running Main Street Music Festival from its downtown location. But along with the amphitheater’s other amenities – including power and lighting capabilities – city officials say the facility will enable Albertville to host not only local and regional talent, but national recording artists. is expected to come from what’s become known as sports tourism. Big, nice facilities can host multi-day regional tournaments that bring in visitors who spend money on food, lodging and sundry services and purchases. This in turn builds the local economy. Membership fees, local tournament play and other factors will add to what sports tourism generates.

And all of this – including the fun – is targeted to start this coming spring when the fields are open to use and this summer when everything else is up and running.

A

lbertville Mayor Tracy Honea is sitting in his office, discussing one of his favorite topics – Sand Mountain Park. With him are John Chambless, co-owner Chambless King Architects in Montgomery, which designed the park, and Jana Cordell, on the project management team for CK Architects, formerly of Arab and now in Guntersville.

Tracy is thinking back to the hazy origins of the park dream.

“There have been park and rec plans for 54

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a lot of years,” he concludes. “The need has been there. It was on the radar in the latter part of 2012.”

About 2015, city officials began working with another firm, but they got no traction.

“Chambless King came on the scene with more enthusiasm and vision,” Tracy says. That was May of 2017. The go-light flashed green in June.

“All of the administration and council was receptive to trying to come up with a plan,” Tracy says. “As things developed, they grew.”

An early suggestion was to build the park all at once, not in phases. It would save a lot of money.

“Early on,” John recalls, “the vision was smaller scaled. That has developed and evolved as we have interviewed and received very thoughtful input from people in the community.”

“We wanted to know what we could do to improve the quality of life through the rec center,” Tracy adds.

“I think the most important directive

is this,” John says. “It’s important to have a beautiful park with lots of tournament play, but the primary purpose is a facility for the community. That is what always drove the plans from a design standpoint.”

An example of that, Jana points out, is that the indoor pool for aquatic tournaments was modified to accommodate recreational swimming.

“We’ve been directed toward community first and tournament play second,” John says. “That said, there will be no better place for tournament play than this park.

“We designed this park to be a boost to the economies of all of Marshall County as well as Albertville by making sure we have the perfect balance of tournament athletics and community designed facilities.”

S

and Mountain Park has been called “a park within a park.” Its amenities are nothing short of impressive and speak to the “premier” level at which the city and architects set the bar.

In addition to an inside eight-lane competition pool with elevated seating, the outdoor aquatics area will feature a warm-up pool, vortex pool, sports pool, dump pool for two huge slides, all-accessible splash pad and a 580-foot long lazy river.

“For anybody who has kids – or future kids coming – this park will fill the need for young and old for many years,” the mayor says.

Indeed. It’s designed for enjoyment and benefit at many levels.

“It’s for competition and recreation,” Jana notes. “There will be training facilities in the rec center for any sport.”

The park will be accessible to all ages, literally. Parts of the walking trial will be designed for enjoyment from a wheelchair. The recreation pool outdoors will have “zero entrances” that gently slope from pavement to water with no encumbering ladders or ledges.

All seven playgrounds will be inclusive and accessible to those with limited mobility. So will the splash pad.

“There will be something for Grandma down to a 2-year-old,” says Jana.

Beyond baseball, softball and basketball facilities, amenities include: • Five multi-purpose, synthetic turf fields for football, soccer and lacrosse • Miracle field for special sports • Indoor running track • 12 hard courts and 4 clay courts for tennis

• Tournament-quality disc golf • Dog parks (for large and small K-9s) • Two racquetball courts • Four-miles of heavily landscaped and lighted trails, some through wetlands • Multi-use facilities for bridge and other such competition • Facilities for yoga classes • 17 RV lots with conveniences • Birthday rooms •18-hole frisbee golf

• Grandstand seating at all championship fields • Picnic scattered facilities • Water slides and splash pads.

“If you have a beautiful park and wonderful facilities, why would you not make that a component of your life?” Jana asks “All you have to do is show up.”

T

he plans for Sand Mountain Park did not come about in an instant or a NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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John Chambless, left, and Jana Cordell, part of the management team for Chambless King Architects, join Albertville Mayor Tracy Honea on a progress walk-through at Sand Mountain Park in October. They are standing in the portion of a 103,000-square-foot recreation center that will be dug out for the competition swimming pool. The indoor facility will also include four basketball/ volleyball courts, workout areas, concessions, wet and dry locker rooms, conference rooms and rooms for birthday parties. vacuum. Creative ways were sought to involve the community in the park.

Case in point: Tracy says the high school band director’s input was sought for the amphitheater.

“We can get the entire Albertville High School Band on the stage,” he says.

Likewise, the city is in talks with the school board about students taking swimming lessons as an elective, especially with Evans Elementary being next door.

“The rec center itself will be able to house conferences and seat up to 2,000,” Tracy says. “That’s the largest indoor venue in the county that I am aware of.

There will be things offered that some of us don’t even know yet.”

One key in the design approach, John says, was to spread out the fields so they lay with the natural topography, which saved money, and allow “park-scapes” inside the venues. Baseball and softball 56

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areas from the usual structured layout of pie-shaped fields radiating from a central, octagonal press box.

“You won’t lose the atmosphere of being in a park,” he says.

Wide concourses access spectator areas.

Playgrounds are laid out in shade.

“We have been very conscious of shade,” John says. “You will be able to play in the middle of summer.”

“There are 22 different buildings,” John says. “There is just a lot going on.

But nothing is extravagant and jumps out at you. You have 130 acres, and it needs to feel like a park.”

W

hile community has come first in nearly all aspects of the project, one of its goals is to attract sports tourism to the Sand Mountain area.

Toward that end, the city contracted with Sports Facility Management (SFM) of Clearwater, Florida to handle the

considerable day-to-day operations of Sand Mountain Park.

Manager Patrick O’Brien says their mission is “to dramatically improve the health and economic vitality of the Sand Mountain region.”

SFM manages 15 sports tourism and recreation sites, including Rocky Mount Event Center in North Carolina, the Myrtle Beach Sports Center in South Carolina, the Hoover Met Complex south of Birmingham, Bo Jackson’s Elite Sports in Ohio, and Spooky Nook Sports in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the largest indoor sports complex in the country.

“The details we considered were not just where to store the Coke syrup, but how to promote the park,” John says. “Having the management team onboard allows us – as we’re completing the design – to fine tune it to match their business plan and the city operational plans.

“The city has needs outside SFM,” he

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The center is actually two buildings connected by a glass-enclosed walkway. Fitness/strength training facilities, general-purpose rooms, conference rooms and offices will be in the smaller building to the left, while the larger building will house aquatics, four basketball/volleyball courts and an elevated track. adds. “There are lot of moving In fact, Sand Mountain Park Monthly and annual memberships costs have parts and they have to respond is expected to support 575 jobs yet to be finalized, but entrance to the park is free. to them all.” annually, which will be a part of Even without a membership, daily passes will be John says Chambless King its $46 million annual operation sold to access some of the facilities, including and the city put considerable impact. aquatics and training equipment. For all updates thought into planning the Inserting the park into a on the park: sandmountainpark.com; or Sand operations and maintenance community that already has Mountain Park & Amphitheater on Facebook. of the park from an economic good schools and cultural standpoint. opportunities will add to an For instance, synthetic already great quality of life on have had great ideas and been super turf was used on the 14 sports Sand Mountain, John says. engaged,” John says. “We’ve had good fields to save on mowing and watering.

“It’s a piece of the puzzle for collaboration.”

Plus, following a shower, the fields will recruiting industry and businesses, MUB has been “a gift,” to work with, such as restaurants and retail,” he says. drain in 45 minutes, allowing tournament Tracy says. “Our contractors are great.” play to continue soon and visitors to “Industry will look closely at all of these Carmon Construction of Albertville leave that much happier. factors.” is general contractor for the rec center, Another expected savings will come “There is not a doubt in my mind,” aquatics and amphitheater. Ra-Lin of from Musco Sports Lighting installing Tracy says. “We currently are seeing a Oxford is constructing the sports fields. outside LED lights for all fields and tick in development inquiries in regard to With all of the numerous subcontractors, courts with a 25-year maintenance plan. hospitality and retail. Several hotels have the project has employed about 660 expressed interest.” people and is generating a $72 million “This has been a very exciting project ots of ball, so to speak, will have economic impact. to be a part of,” John says. “I am excited been played before the first baseball is The expected influx of out-of-town to see what becomes of it. All ideas on ever thrown out. visitors for tournament play will spend paper and lots of beautiful drawings “So many people have had to play their money on food, lodging and other … now it’s coming to life in the third ball together from the outset of this incidentals. Such tourism in turn draws dimension. Now it’s here.” project,” Tracy says. investments in new businesses and new Almost.

“The mayor and council and all jobs for the community.

Good Life Magazine of the people we have worked with

L

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Oh, those sweet memories of his first southern Christmas (not) corner stood the usual cedar Christmas tree Granddaddy had cut and hauled up from the woods.

From my earliest memory, the only met my husband, Will, in the late decoration it ever held ‘60s while living in New was a mixture of Tide York. A year after we were washing powder made into married, he suggested a paste with a little water we take a trip down to and then pulled along the Alabama for Christmas and branches creating the look a chance to meet his new, of a snow-laden tree. My extended family. youngest cousin, 4-year-old As much as I missed Little Jim, sat under the tree my home there, as soon as among the presents picking the suggestion left his lips at bows and wrapping I was filled with terror. My paper. In the fireplace husband had never been grate, a coal fire burned. It south of Manhattan. sizzled, filled the room with And I knew what he was foul smoke and spit angry in for. little burning missiles out I had spent time with onto the linoleum. his family. They were More introductions were sophisticated and proper. made. This alone was time As an American family, they were right up there on Jan Fink commissioned Blount County artist Helen Brown, known consuming and confusing since my clan numbers the same page with Ward for her covered bridges, to paint her grandparents’ farmhouse 40-plus. and June Cleaver, Ozzie and as Jan remembered it from the 1960s. Will’s first Halfway through Will’s Harriet. experience was not quite so bucolic. meeting the multitude, Aunt On the other hand, if Vi began screaming. you researched my family Little Jim was foaming history, you would find us at the mouth. It seems he had lost interest right to embrace and revel in our right on the page titled “Outlaws, Moonshiners in the presents under the tree, mistook the to be colorful and eccentric. I didn’t say and Wild Indians.”

Tide washing powder snow decoration as a word. I just sat back and thought to So you see what I was up against, but candy and had helped himself to a branch. myself, “Just wait.” the visit was inevitable.

The women grabbed him up, rushed We rented a car, trekked South and arrived at my grandparents’ farm randdaddy was on the porch in his him to the kitchen and fed him bacon usual chair wearing a red flannel shirt and grease to clean him out. Little Jim wailed Christmas morning. The old home place his Sunday overalls. His face was covered ‘til the dinner bell rang and someone was located in an isolated area of South scooped him up to keep him from injury with little blots of toilet paper, so I knew Alabama. The house had no running in the stampede that followed. he’d had a little Christmas cheer before water and was heated by fireplaces and shaving.

Big Boy stoves.

My uncles and various cousins were n my family, the call to dinner Downwind of the house was a barn, on the porch, too. They sat, propped sent people of all ages scrambling like pig pen, smokehouse and outhouse. The back in ladderback chairs, some cleaning shoppers at a half-off sale. There was no 40 acres that anchored the old house hunting rifles and others around a big regard, even for the children. If they got were filled with pines, cotton fields and washtub skinning and washing an animal in the way, too bad. The next time they’d rattlesnakes. It had been my home until run faster. the day after high school graduation when I could not identify.

Will hesitated, color draining from his Once at the table, a quick blessing I’d fled the South, headed for the North. face. Then he climbed the porch steps to was said, then it was on. The meal was When we turned onto the dirt lane, shake hands with everyone but the group conducted boarding-house style. The first, the old house and outbuildings came into around the washtub. fastest and the strongest got the most and view. Granddaddy’s old hunting dog, Grandmother opened the screen door the warmest food.

Paddlefoot, was already limping towards inviting us into the living room. In the Aunt Irene, not the most domestic of the car, announcing our arrival. Will Story by Jan Fink

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mumbled something to the effect of “Dog Patch, USA.” I bristled. You know that old Southernborn, Southern-bred thing. We have the

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Paddlefoot runs amok, choking on chicken and a gift scarf Aunt Leona had wrapped in a KFC box. Artwork by Sheila McAnear. our clan, always insisted on contributing to the meal. There’s a saying in our family that she could ruin a peanut butter sandwich and kill kudzu. This holiday she had cooked a turkey.

She proudly placed the platter holding the sad little foul on the table. The once proud bird had been reduced to a quarter of its size and dried to shoe leather.

Unable to carve it, the young men at the table began tossing it back and forth across the dinner table. Then, tucking it under their arms, they ran for long passes throughout the dining room.

This went on until the birdcage was knocked over, and Grandmother put a stop to the game.

Cousin Ida had stationed herself at the far corner of the table right next to Will. She was splendid in appearance.

She asked Will to forgive her looks at the moment, explaining she had been preparing for a date all afternoon.

Not yet having mastered the art of makeup, the brilliant red of her lipstick and rouge and the hot pink curlers in her hair set off a glare that even made the sweet potato casserole cringe. She elbowed Will, yelled for more dressing, and spilled her tea.

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he table became a jumble of moving mouths, arms, hands, and it occurred to me to look and see if Will had even been served. He had, but he seemed to be moving the food around on his plate more so than consuming it.

Suddenly, he raised his hand as if in school and asked for a piece of cake. The table went silent. Forks fell to the sides of plates, raised glasses froze in midair and a total look of bafflement filled each face.

The dessert portion of the meal had not yet been served. What Will thought was cake was cornbread.

It didn’t take my folks long to figure it

out. They hoisted the plate of cornbread and handed it down the table like a bucket brigade. They laughed and pounded the table while Granddaddy shouted, “Give the boy some cake!”

I must say Will handled it well.

“Very interesting. Quite a flavor,” Will said, chewing a bite of the cornbread. This brought more laughter, then everyone settled back to the meal.

Spoons were dropped, drinks spilled, someone was stuck by a fork trying to get the last piece of ham, and Paddlefoot bit Aunt Ruth on the ankle thinking it was a dropped piece of chicken.

With the main courses finished, dessert was served. Will took pecan pie. I asked for Alka-Seltzer.

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ext came the opening of gifts.

This was done with the same lack of ceremony as the Christmas dinner.

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everyone. There is a saying in our family that if anyone had the courage to clean out her barn, the mystery of Jimmy Hoffa would be solved. She never threw anything away. Everything was recycled till it pleaded to be left alone.

True to form, Aunt Leona had wrapped our scarves in old KFC boxes – but had failed to remove the leftover chicken crust from some long ago takeout.

We were all unaware of this until Paddlefoot began choking and coughing up red yarn. In the frenzy of gift opening, his keen hound dog nose had led him straight to one of Aunt Leona’s gifts, and he had consumed not only chicken crust but a good portion of the scarf. The women grabbed him up,

rushed to the kitchen and fed him the bacon grease tonic.

Granddaddy cursed Leona for trying to kill the best hunting dog he’d ever had, children fought, grownups argued, and gift wrapping was strewn across the room until it was knee deep.

In the midst of all the excitement, Aunt Vi had been busy packing the fireplace with discarded gift wrapping. When the roar announcing a chimney fire came, I knew it was time to take our leave.

Three years later, after the birth of our first child, we made the trip back to Alabama. This time to stay.

Manhattan has a lot to offer, but it was not where I wanted to raise my children.

They needed to know their Southern

heritage. They needed to know sweet iced tea, fried green tomatoes, cornbread, redeye gravy, grits, how to say “yes, ma’am and yes, sir” and see an Alabama sunset through tall pines.

And, yes, they needed to know that in the South we don’t hide our eccentricities, but wear them like badges of honor.

As for Will, he agreed to relocate with one stipulation. Holiday visits were OK, but we’d live at least 100 miles from the clan.

Fifty years later, whenever the holidays draw near and Will is asked where he will be spending Christmas, his face grows somber, and he’ll tell you: “Rough country.”

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It started years ago, just the notion of an idea, like a quietly swishing rhythm John Harvey might play on his high-hat. But it built over time, louder, faster, sticks flying on drum heads ... that kind of persistent idea that literally beats in your head. Could he actually meld those strong, southern rock classics by the Allman Brothers into the big band jazz sound he loved? Was that even realistic? Just plain crazy? Well, no it wasn’t. And you can soon hear the proof.

Story by David Moore Photos by John Harvey and Craig Woodward

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ifty years ago, the Allman Brothers Band launched the “southern rock” genre with the release of its self-titled debut album in November 1969. On one of its songs, “Dreams,” Gregg Allman sings: Just one more mornin’ I had to wake up with the blues Pulled myself outta bed, yeah Put on my walkin’ shoes, Went up on the mountain, To see what I could see, The whole world was fallin’, right down in front of me.

For a dozen years, John Harvey has been on his own journey, climbing his own mountain, chasing his own dream. It’s a vision inspired by a deep appreciation of the Allman Brothers Band infused, interestingly, with a strong affinity for big band jazz.

“I’m hung up on dreams I’ll never see,” Gregg goes on to moan.

Not so with John.

He’ll see his long-time dream come to fruition Nov. 22 – a half-century after the Allman Brothers debut – with the release of his own album, a unique amalgamation titled Big Band of Brothers – A Jazz Celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.

Released on Nashville’s New West Records label, it includes an unusual three-sided vinyl album, CD, plus digital download and streaming of early Allman Brothers songs. They’ve been rearranged for a 15-piece jazz band plus two guest vocalists and two guest solo instrumentalists.

John is listed as executive producer and co-producer, but make no mistake – this is John’s heartfelt baby.

“I continue to pinch myself,” he says.

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The big project is an unusual dream for anyone to pursue, seemingly all the more so for a man who was formerly president of HoneyBaked Ham in Atlanta and returned to Guntersville to be general manager of The Advertiser-Gleam, which his grandfather, Porter Harvey started and his dad, Sam, ran for decades.

Then again, John – himself an accomplished drummer – was never far removed from the world of music. More on that shortly, but first some perspective is needed on his latest and greatest musical excursion ...

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ohn inspired these long-time jazz, blues and big band pros to put his visionary treatment to the likes of “Don’t Want You No More,” “Hot ‘Lanta,” “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” and “Dreams.”

“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” written by guitarist Dickey Betts for the Allman Brothers’ second album, is a jazzinfluenced instrumental famous as one of the group’s best improvised concert jams. The Big Band of Brothers, to John’s delight, does the song justice, along with the instrumental “Les Brers (loosely, The Brothers) in A Minor,” clocked at 12:03.

The album’s renditions of “It’s Not My Cross To Bear” and “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” feature guest vocals by eight-time Blues Female Artist of the Year Ruthie Foster. Guest vocalist Marc Broussard, known for his “bayou soul,” sings “Statesboro Blues” and “Whipping Post.”

Other guests on the album are trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, himself a jazz legend, and Jack Pearson on electric slide, who played two years with the Allman Brothers Band and, more recently, in the band Les Brers, a latter-day-version of the Brothers.

John is first to say that making all of

this happen was no solo flight of fancy.

He ran across his co-producer, Charles Driebe, in pursuit of one of his clients, Ruthie Foster. Charles was instrumental in lining up all the guest artists plus securing the label deal with New West.

But it was Mark Lanter, listed as producer, who was John’s first and biggest find. He stirred Mark’s interest via email and phone in the summer of 2017. They met that November and things took off.

A professional drummer since 14, Mark is instructor of jazz studies at The University of Alabama and has a resume longer than the rendition of “Elizabeth Reed” that the Allman Brothers played at the Filmore East.

It was Mark who recruited the musicians who wrote the arrangements that translated the Allman Brothers into big band music. Through his myriad music connections, he also led the effort to recruit the talented Big Band of Brothers.

Probably underestimating his abilities, John says he’s a “lifelong garage-band drummer.” He would have loved to play on his album but felt the quality he sought was beyond the reach of his drumsticks.

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hose drumsticks, however, have been within reach since the sixth grade, the year after Sam returned to Guntersville, his family in tow. John signed up for band at Carlisle Park Middle School, went straight to the drum section, snared a snare and began his first of many musical excursions.

“There is nothing worse than a child who plays drums in the house,” he confesses. “I was not too diligent in practicing for band, but I began playing with other musicians in the basement.”

Within a year John had his first drum set. He was good enough that as a seventh

It probably says something about John Harvey – and Sheila’s tolerance and good nature – that he keeps his drum set just inside the front door of their house. It brings into question John’s reference to himself as a lifelong garage-band drummer.

Besides the drums, the Harvey’s have four grown children: Alice, Evan, Jane and Thomas.

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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It took the Big Band of Brothers to record John Harvey’s album, to turn his dream real. But it also took a cousin, Craig Woodward of Guntersville. “Craig,” says John, “has been my closest confidant throughout this entire endeavor.” And Craig’s had a blast. “I started out working with John through the early phases of the project,” he says, “shooting photos, developing the exact wording for the album title and basically sanity-checking each other on various ideas.” President of BakerWoodward Communications in Huntsville, Craig was a natural for album artwork once New West Records got involved. But the real hero, he says, is BW’s creative director, Jim Callahan, who designed the package and the Big Band of Brothers logo (see page 64.). “It is genius in that it mimics the classic Allman Brothers logo in a respectful way,” Craig says. “Probably the greatest compliment to Jim’s work is that the Allman Brothers organization gave it their blessing, whereas some lesser attempt would not have fared as well.” They’re not alone in liking it. “I’m really pleased with the artwork,” says John. Photo by BakerWoodward. grader he played with the high school marching and concert bands through graduation.

“That exposed me to upper classmen who played with the local band River,” John says. This included Avery Burdett, Libba Walker, Bobby Valentine, Maurice Lacey, and the first of several drum mentors Benny Harrison. Most, if not all, are still working musicians.

“I really looked up to them,” John says. “In fact, I hired them to play at our eighth-grade dance at the old gymnasium.

My cousin Craig (Woodward) and a bunch of hippie high schoolers listened outside the back door.”

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Through high school, John played with Bullet, comprised of Erl Holaday on guitar, Paul Mosley on bass and the “golden throated” Stanley “Bullet” Howell, an athlete who sang Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye with the best of them.

“We played power trio stuff, and, instead of Marvin Gaye, Stanley was screaming Zeppelin, Mountain, Cream and the Who,” John grins. “I have since apologized for fear he may have damaged his voice. He shrugged it off and said it made him stronger.

“We didn’t play out much,” he adds, “but we rehearsed a lot and had a small but enthusiastic following.”

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wo important precursors to John’s new album occurred during high school, each in 1972 and each great, like a Beatles 45 with two “A” sides.

First, he went to Nashville to see the Allman Brothers perform at the fairgrounds. Guitarist-extraordinaire Duane Allman had died the previous year in a motorcycle wreck, but the Brothers jammed on.

“I’m not sure what first drew me to them,” John says – though two drummers would be a start. But appreciation deepened with time.

“They were an ensemble of great

They played together for the first time on Sunday, June 3, 2018, their one and only rehearsal. Mark Lanter, drummer and album co-producer, who pulled the musicians together, was able to provide some direction that night in Birmingham before they started recording the next day. Over their varied professional careers, many of them have crossed paths and played together, causing Sheila Harvey to observe, “Just one big brotherhood.” Her comment inspired the name of the band. players who really knew how to interact musically with each other on stage,” he says. “The element of improvisation comes into play, but you have to have a good song to build that on. And they grew a catalog full of those.”

Later in 1972, Bobby Johnson, the Guntersville band director, organized a trip to Huntsville to see famed jazz drummer and bandleader Buddy Rich. John went.

“I had an immediate affinity for the music,” he says.

His affinity stemmed from two vastly different influences – rock ‘n’ roll guitar gods and Sam Harvey. During rare relaxation at home, Sam would occasionally listen to recordings of something called jazz.

“As a young child I found it distinctly different from what I normally heard, and I was attracted to it,” says John, who still keeps several of his late father’s jazz records.

“My love for jazz in some measure was also born from learning to appreciate improvisation,” he adds, “which goes back to Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page – all great improvisers.”

M

uch of John’s life has been a series of musical excursions. Some led down dead ends, one to tragedy and some to varying degrees of fun and success.

None felt like the path his life needed to follow – though one might argue he ended up where he’s meant to be.

Graduating from high school in 1975, he attended Southern Illinois University.

Influenced by Guntersville photographer Leon Kennamer. John wanted to study photography. His over-exposed aspiration lasted about a year.

John transferred to The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he’d eventually earn a business degree. While there, he briefly stayed in Knoxville to play in a band with his cousin Bruce Harvey. It was a good group … but lasted one gig.

Back in T’town, John clocked his longest professional stint as a drummer one summer playing top 40 at the Holiday Inn Lounge with the Jim Bell Trio. He got the gig after posting “drummer looking for band” messages on campus bulletin boards.

Facing graduation in the summer of ’79, John, like many college kids, had zero career direction.

In either desperation or denial, he took up with a band in Birmingham. After several rehearsals they lost a member.

As a refill, John suggested his buddy, Erl Holaday, from Bullet’s glory days. They’d see how far they could take this excursion.

The night before their musical reunion, however, Erl died in a wreck.

Less than thrilled, John went to work as a computer programmer.

“I was smart enough,” he says, “to know I was not going to make a living playing drums.”

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ne good road chosen was Sheila Matthews, an Auburn grad and traveling dietitian consultant John had known since a Church of Christ roller skating social in middle school.

“I actually broke my arm that night chasing her around the rink,” John says. “I made a great impression.”

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prospects for John except maybe drumming with Cousin Bruce.

Though he played a little music there, he was about to learn a new song – neither jazz nor rock, it would prove sweet and meaty.

After a few job busts, in fall 1980 a desperate John took an assistant manager position at the HoneyBaked Ham store in Knoxville. It was the young chain’s 10th store.

Two years later he was promoted to district manager out of the Atlanta home office. He and Sheila moved there. Their four kids were born there. They even paid their bills. John was bringing home some proverbial bacon now.

The pace was as fast as a drum solo, but John is good at that. With HoneyBaked promoting from within, he eventually made president – at least for a couple three years.

“When I left we had, I think, 83 stores. It was a pretty crazy pace and a very exciting 15–year stint.”

But as the company matured, the dynamics changed. The work was less rewarding from a personal standpoint. John stayed on a couple of years while the founder’s daughter grew into the leadership role, then resigned.

“They sent me off in style, the gold watch and everything,” he says. “They even sent Sheila and me on a long vacation.”

H

ome from that vacation, John had no plan, but “bacon-wise” he could afford some time off to decide on a new avenue. It was a mental “summer vacation” of sorts.

He explored but passed on pursuing architecture, not wanting, he says, to suffer to practice art, which he found was often the case in that profession.

But music? That was an art he’d missed in the corporate world. So he began drumming to the rhythm of three bands, two in Hot ‘Lanta, another with Cousin Bruce in Tennessee.

And an idea emerged from their tight music – record a CD. “I was fascinated with the whole idea but never really recorded,” John says. “This was an opportunity to fulfill this fantasy.”

He contracted with a recording studio in Stone Mountain, and drummed with: • Eleventh Hour on three pop jazz songs; • Mario Marcus Blues Band for a couple of hard rock blues tunes; • Stoker, Cousin Bruce’s band, for southern rock; • And some mixes from all of the above.

Perhaps the highlight was his reuniting with Stanley Howell, who sings five songs 68

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including one from their high school days – Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.”

From this fun mix of styles – which in itself is so “John” – emerged his self-produced CD: How I Spent My Summer Vacation. It came out shortly before he and the family moved to Guntersville in 1998.

I

n recent years Sam had talked with John about possibly coming to The Advertiser Gleam. Now Don Woodward – Sam’s brotherin-law, co-owner and ad manager – was looking at retirement.

“I saw this as another happy coincidence,” John says. “Sheila and I loved the idea of raising kids here. It was also a chance to work with Dad.” John did a brief “internship” as a reporter to get a taste for writing news before taking over the business side and Don’s advertising accounts.

“I don’t know if I’d have ever developed the love Sam and Porter had for being a reporter,” John says, “but the business side was a good way to make a living.”

For a while, anyway. Sadly, newspapers were increasingly losing their financial luster.

And eventually Sam’s time to retire drew near.

So, in June 2014, Sam, John and other family owners sold the paper.

All this while, John had conjured up musical excursions, perhaps enjoying them more than ever.

He played in small jazz combos with Jerald Bailey, GHS band director at the time.

Sometimes Jerald pulled together legit big bands, and John gleefully drummed with them, playing Glenn Miller, Count Basie and the like, first at Civitan Park and later in Cullman.

For over 15 years, he played with the praise team for Guntersville First United Methodist Church. He performed in Whole Backstage productions, twice onstage and several times in the orchestra pit.

John played for the Whole Backstage presentation of “Lovin’ the ’60s.” From that he formed Lake City Jazz with John Federico, Norman Jenkins and David Daniel, gigging frequently around the county for a few years.

During those years a recurring thought wafted through his mind… It was kind of crazy but… But what would those great, old Allman Brothers songs sound like arranged for big band jazz? Was his idea even realistic?

A

ctually, on some level, John already knew in theory his idea was realistic – which is important in understanding the dream

Eight-time Blues Female Artist of the Year Ruthie Foster – shown at the top of page 68 in a publicity photo – came in after the band recordings to sing on “It’s Not My Cross To Bear” and “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’.” She does an annual performance in her hometown of Austin, Texas, and John was invited to attend in January 2019. Her big band ensemble opened with two of the arrangements from John’s album, “I Don’t Want You No More” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” After Ruthie played her own material, she closed her initial set singing “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’.” “I’m sitting in this grand theater, much like the Alabama Theater, hearing her and this smoking band that she assembled,” John says. “I was ecstatic. It’s another fantasy – hate to use the term – the crowd erupts. It’s very gratifying. I’m just on air the whole time.”

Dick Aven of the Big Band of Brothers, wears a vintage Allman Brothers T-shirt during the three-day session at Bates Brothers Recording in Hueytown, left middle and bottom. At top right, co-producers John Harvey and Mark Lanter listen intently during a recording session. After recording each song two or three times, John, Mark and guitarist Tom Wolfe assisted studio owner and chief engineer Erik Bates with the long process of mixing the album.

NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

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began writing sheet music. He behind Big Band of Brothers – A Unusual to recast Allman Brothers music to jazz? corralled 22 fine jazz musicians Jazz Celebration of the Allman Not really. Guitarist Duane Allman once said their to fill 15 seats over the duration Brothers Band. song “Dreams” was “the effect that good jazz has of the session. John bought Back in Atlanta, in narrow had on us.” For more about John Harvey’s three days of recording time at relaxation windows like his album, or order the music, follow Bates Brothers Recording in father had, John listened to jazz. the band on Facebook or visit: Hueytown.

Through that, he discovered Bob bigbandofbrothers.com.

In June 2018, the group Curnow’s 1994, L.A. Big Band held one rehearsal and started recording, The Music of Pat recording the next day. In Metheny & Lyle Mays.

“So much so that it became an itch I the following months guest “If there is such a thing had to scratch,” he says. “I thought I could performances were added, and the studio as a superstar in the jazz world it is Pat process of refinement known as mixing Metheny. Together he and Lyle Mays lead find out how to get charts (arrangements) written, gather people up and play drums was undertaken. the Pat Metheny Group,” John says.

– just like I did with ‘Summer Vacation.’”

The rest, as they say in some circles, is Their improvised jazz placed a But it proved far more complicated, a wrap. Well, almost. premium on harmonies and paved the with finding arrangers as the biggest The dream becomes totally real way to jazz fusion. Bob Curnow, in turn, arranged some of those pieces for big band hurdle. It wasn’t jumped until John finally Nov. 22 with the release of Big Band of Brothers – A Jazz Celebration of the performance and captured high praise from met with UA jazz professor Mark Lanter.

“He was not really sold until we sat Allman Brothers Band. the jazz world – and inspired John’s dream. down and talked face to face and he saw I John, of course, has already heard it “There was no ‘eureka!’ moment,” was not an extremely whacky goofball,” all. He’s jacked. Is pinching himself.

John says of his dream gelling.

John laughs. “I gave him a copy of my “The final product, in my opinion, Rather, over time, in his mind’s ear, CD as my calling card.” is outstanding,” he says. “It’s a feeling he heard hundreds of songs from various of joy. I am hearing the realization of genres that were prospects for such ark put his enthusiasm and a dream that has become manifest to a transformation. But those wonderful, 40 years of jazz experience to work in degree I would not have imagined.” strong, early songs by the Allman November 2017, lining up arrangers who Brothers always felt perfect.

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Out ‘n’ About The Kate Duncan Smith DAR School Museum and Archives began opening regular hours in September from 1-3 p.m., Wednesday-Friday and 10 a.m.

- 1 p.m. Saturdays. Staffed by students, group tours can be scheduled by appointment. Fittingly, the museum is housed in the old administration office and library built of logs in 1935. Heather Green, the school’s executive director says that, according to local lore, it was the last true community house raising in Alabama. “The school and community have grown up together,” she says. A lot of Grant history can be found there. Long used for storage, the building already contained many of the items and records there – they just needed curating. Among the exhibits are the family Bible Kate Duncan’s mother gave her, while dolls in a bedroom setting, are more whimsical. Display cases are arranged along chronological time lines. Standing between two antique sewing machines is a bronze casting of “The Concord Minuteman,” presented to the DAR in appreciation of its support of the men and women of the Army National Guard. The hand-painted corn husk dolls were made

by Lucille Guyton Woodruff, a business and music teacher at the school in 1950s. Mason Kirkland made the model of the Pennsylvania Bell Tower, right, a campus landmark initially built as a water tower by his great grandfather John Kirkland. John, who built a number of the early buildings on campus, also built the model of the log cabin administration building. He carried the model to Pennsylvania so DAR officials could understand the blueprints they had ordered and know what the building would look like. Photos by David Moore.

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NOV. | DEC. | JAN. 2019-20

Postcards

Local historian Larry Smith says the unidentified road above is almost certainly the former U.S. 241 – now Ala. 205 – winding down Sand Mountain before the coming of U.S. 431. If so, that would be Brindley Mountain in the far distance with Dividing Ridge in front of it. The back of the card of Guntersville below, mailed in 1925 to Kalamazoo, Mich., reads, “Here we are way down in Alabama among the mountains and cotton and still going strong.”

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One name wasn’t enough for all we do.

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At Marshall Medical, fitness and wellness are more than just workouts, with a robust slate of services to keep you healthy. And physical therapy services range from occupational rehab to on-field certified athletic trainers.

The new names now better describe these two distinct service lines for what they offer. It’s a healthy change to reflect our community commitment.

Therapy & Sports Rehab

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