Tuscaloosa Magazine Fail 2019 by Tuscaloosa News

ALSO INSIDE: R&R CIGAR LOUNGE SUMTER COUNTY SHRIMP BACK-TO-SCHOOL FASHIONS NORDIC WALKING 6 INTRIGUING PEOPLE & SO MUCH MORE

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TOWN TUNE

FROM LITTLE BIG TOWN TO THE TSO, TUSCALOOSA IS ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC

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editor’s letter

Editor-in-chief Becky Hopf Design Editor Lindi Daywalt-Feazel Photographers Gary Cosby Jr. Jake Arthur Copy Editors Amy Robinson Kelcey Sexton Amanda Daoud, intern General Manager Bobby Rice Advertising Director Charlie Callari Prepress Coordinator Chuck Jones Published by The Tuscaloosa News 315 28th Avenue Tuscaloosa, AL 35401 Executive Editor Michael James Senior GL Accountant Carolyn Durel To advertise 205-722-0173 To subscribe 205-722-0102

all. One of the good four-letter words, like L-O-V-E or O-R-E-O, or, if you’re a college football fan, N-I-C-K. Spring gets credit for rejuvenation, what with all the bright colors popping up — green grass, Barbie pink azaleas, yellow pollen — but the credit for new starts should really be given to fall. For the first decades of our lives, fall marks the start of a new school year: a new grade, new school supplies, new clothes (unless you’re a Catholic school girl who has to wear her older sister’s uniform hand-me-downs). Fall means back to school for many and a flood of memories from that time for the rest of us. The benefits of a proper education are far too many to list but, perhaps, the greatest gift schooling gives us is the ability to read and write. In this issue, we celebrate back to school not only with fashions from local children’s shop Lily Pads, but we asked some of the popular former school kids in town to share an all-time favorite book. Our panel ranges from writer Rick Bragg (he took advantage of his learning by being both a reader and a writer, as did another panelist, The Tuscaloosa News editor Michael James) to Easty Lambert-Brown, whose joy of literature went so far that she opened up her own bookstore. As for me, you can’t beat the rags-to-riches fairytale story of Cinderella. But, more recently, I’ve made two discoveries that I dearly love, including one that took my affection for it by surprise. One is “Flower Children: The Little Cousins of the Field and Garden” by Elizabeth Gordon. It was written in 1910 and can be read in minutes. I stumbled upon it in an antiques store in Connecticut five years ago. Clever, imaginative and clearly written by someone with a passion for flowers, page by page, Gordon selects a flower type, and, accompanied by a colorful drawing depicting her description, her words bring to life the personality of that variety of flower. “Grandfather Dandelion had such pretty hair, along came a gust of wind and left his head quite bare …” The surprising one is “The Virginian, a Horseman on the Plains” by Owen Wister, also an oldie but goodie. Published in 1902, it has cowboys, adventure, humor and romance. It will always be a favorite two-fold, for the story and where it took me and also for how I happened upon it and the memory it evokes. Friends from

What’s crazier than seeing a log cabin in the middle of a modern subdivision? How about a fake Holstein cow corralled in the front yard? See Page 28 for the story.

Texas had come to Tuscaloosa for a family wedding and asked if their son, Ben, could hang out with me while they attended the wedding. Ben, who has Down syndrome, was around 12 at the time. They thoughtfully sent me a bookstore gift card, as a thank you, and, on a lark, I spotted the book and bought it. Texans. A classic western novel. I read it and I loved it. And it will always fondly remind me of my Saturday afternoon with Ben. We also celebrate music in this issue, and, in particular, recent Tuscaloosa guests Little Big Town. Nichole Bray Walker sat down with the band before their show at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater in August and shares the fun interview that ensued. We visit Sumter County Shrimp farm, the halfa-century-old Panola United Methodist Church barbecue, peek inside the Hinton Cabin where Burt Reynolds has been among the houseguests, meet rising culinary star Harley McNeal, step inside R&R Cigars and Mark’s Mart, learn a little about the men and women who create amazing stage sets here in town, pick up a pole and take up Nordic walking, and marvel at the photos in Terry Corrao’s “Father Daughter” book. So, curl up in your favorite spot, dive into each of these stories, and enjoy one of education’s greatest gifts. Read.

Becky Hopf, editor Reach Becky Hopf at becky.hopf@tuscaloosanews.com.

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FALL 2019

VOLUME 18, NO. 3

CONTENTS

28 8 08 DINING OUT

In a tradition that dates back half a century, the Panola UMC Barbecue is still going strong.

18 EVENTS

22 22 FOODIE NEWS

Mark’s Mart in Northport has a little of everything; and meet eighth-grader Harley McNeal, who is a baker extraordinaire.

36 ANTIQUES

Tuscaloosa is celebrating its 200th year. Some items from its past can be found at the Alabama Antique Market.

40 COVER STORY

T-Town has become Tune Town, with big acts like Little 28 AT HOME Big Town, Nelly, TLC and Flo Built with centuries-old logs, the Rida taking over the stage at the Hinton Cabin has been a retreat for Tuscaloosa Amphitheater and Hollywood stars like Burt Reynolds events like the Druid City Music and Bob Hope, and a legendary Festival taking over in venues college football coach. all over town.

Places to go, things to see and do.

ON THE COVER ALSO INSIDE:

R R&R CIGA LOUNGE SUMTER SHRIMP COUNTY L -SCHOO BACK-TO FASHIONS NG WALKI NORDIC UING 6 INTRIG E PL PEO H UC M & SO MORE

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TUNE

TOWN

Little Big Town was a big hit with its performance at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater on Aug. 16. The band has ties to the state with, from left, Sumiton’s Jimi Westbrook, his wife and Samford University grad Karen Fairchild Westbrook, Samford grad Kimberly Schlapman, and Phillip Sweet. Photo by: Gary Cosby Jr. • See story: Page 40

TO W N TO E TT LE BI G A LI V FR O M LI O SA IS LO A SC , TU U SI C TH E TS O E SO U N D O F M W IT H TH

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48 ARTS

Meet the designers who bring Theatre Tuscaloosa’s stages to life.

54 BOOKS

Terry Corrao’s “Father Daughter” captures this unique relationship through a collection of photos.

58 BUSINESS

Fall means school, football and Sumter County Shrimp.

64 64 HOBBIES

Pull up a chair and light up a stogie at locally owned R&R Cigars.

76 FASHION

It’s back to school and the crew at Lily Pads has looks that are smart and will keep your kids at the head of the style class.

70 RECREATION

Nordic walking is pacing itself to become a popular activity for all ages.

74 BOOKS

Back to school means back to the books. Current and past Tuscaloosa residents, from Rick Bragg to James Spann, share some of their all-time favorite books.

87 6 INTRIGUING PEOPLE

Meet six folks who are making a difference in our community.

100 ON THE SCENE

The best bashes, parties and charity events of the season.

106 LAST LOOK

A snapshot that captures life in West Alabama.

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DINING OUT

Going BY DONNA CORNELIUS PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

AFTER MORE THAN 70 YEARS, THE PANOLA BARBECUE STILL DRAWS A CROWD f you weren’t looking for it, you’d likely drive right past an old wooden building in a tiny Sumter County community called Panola. Now showing its age, the structure once was a busy place. It ﬁrst housed a school and then the Panola Study Club, an organization of women who dressed up in hats and gloves for meetings. Behind the building is a shady grove that is quiet most days except for bird calls and squirrels’ chatter. But every year, for one Thursday in June, the grove wakes up. It ﬁlls with people who live nearby and who come from distant towns and cities to celebrate an event that’s been around since the 1940s: Panola United Methodist Church’s barbecue. The guiding spirit behind the barbecue is Clyde Marine. The lively 92-year-old was born at nearby Windham’s Landing, named because it was a stop for the steamboats that once chugged up and down the Tombigbee River. >> CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The hours-long process of shredding the pork is done by, from left, Justin Bryant, Reed Marine, Bill Goodwin, Tony Junkin, Doug Lewis, Tim Alexander, Caleb Marine and Louis McBride. • Ida B. Poe pours one of many gallons of tea into a washtub. • The Panola United Methodist Church. • Jeff McClure and Landon McClure ready the meat for shredding.

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Marine said the barbecues started in the late 1940s as get-togethers at people’s homes. He attended his first barbecue in 1947 with his fiancée. “The Oliver family here had two sons, Bill and Jim, who played for Alabama,” Marine said. “They wanted their friends to see Panola, so they brought them over for a barbecue.” At first, one hog was enough to feed the guests. But as the cookouts grew larger, so did the need for more pork. “People here were farmers, and each family would donate a hog,” Marine said. “But the hogs ranged from 20 pounds to 300 pounds, so that meant different cooking times. Now, we get the hogs from a commercial hog grower and take them to a federally inspected slaughterhouse. At first, though, they killed the hogs and did everything on site.” By the mid-1950s, the pig-roasting parties had become so popular that they turned into fundraisers for Panola United Methodist Church and moved from front yards to the grove.

CHURCH AND COMMUNITY

A few miles away from the barbecue site is the church, built in 1860. Stairs once led up to a slave balcony — both the stairs and balcony were demolished in 1933 — and a center aisle separated men and women. You can still see traces of the original hand-hewn wood siding in the walls and, in some places, hand-forged nails.

FROM TOP: Generations of the Marine family participating include Clyde Marine, his daughters Kathy Marine and Connie Marine, great-granddaughter Anna Marine Sanders (Connie’s granddaughter), and his daughter Lisa Marine Johnson. • Connie Marine carries to-go plates to guests.

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DINING OUT

Fans hang from the high ceilings over a handsome pulpit, communion table and pews, some of which came from the old Panola Methodist Episcopal Church. A picture of Christ on the back wall was given by Julia Tutwiler, an Alabamian known for her efforts in education and prison reform, on the occasion of her friend Annie Little’s marriage to James Park. The cemetery beside the church holds the remains of some of the Panola area’s ﬁrst settlers, who came from Edgecombe County, North Carolina. The oldest gravestone is dated July 13, 1840. The cemetery’s residents include Revolutionary War and Confederate soldiers, a young mother and her four infant daughters buried close together, and a survivor of the Eliza Battle, a steamboat that burned on the Tombigbee in 1858. Today, Panola United Methodist Church is still an active congregation, hosting not only Sunday school and services but also weddings, christenings and funerals. Easter and Christmas are marked with tradition-rich ceremonies, and many former members return on the second Sunday of October for the annual homecoming celebration that includes a covered-dish dinner. But over the years, membership has dwindled. Connie Marine, Clyde Marine’s daughter, said the decline in the number of church members led to changes in the barbecue. “We used to have the barbecue four times a year — in April, May, June and July,” she said. “Now, we have it only once a year, and friends, family and community members pitch in to help.”

BARBECUE DAY

Preparations for this year’s barbecue on June 27 began the day before. That’s when pit master Milford Unruh arrived from his house several miles away in Geiger. He’s called “Big M,” and it’s easy to see why: He’s so tall he has to duck to keep from banging his head on the beams over the pits. At about 1 p.m. on June 26, Unruh and his helper, Joe Terry, started cooking six hogs — each weighed about 159 pounds — in brick-lined pits. >>

THIS PAGE, COUNTERCLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The hogs, each weighing nearly 160 pounds, are cooked on a giant pit. • Clyde Marine attended his ﬁrst PUMC Barbecue in 1947. • Kathy Marine and Terrie Alexander prepare the desserts. • Phyllis McClure places tablecloths on the picnic tables. • Milford “Big M” Unruh, Tim Alexander and Jeff McClure prepare bowls of shredded meat.

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DINING OUT Unruh also cooks for several barbecue clubs — invitation-only groups that host sometimes elaborate cookouts in Sumter County and the surrounding area. “I put the hogs on and salt them down — I just use salt,” Unruh said. “I keep them at 150 degrees for three to four hours to warm them up. Then I build the ﬁre up to 275 degrees. By that time, it’s breaking day.” He sets an alarm clock in case he nods off and, if the worst should happen and a ﬁre breaks out, keeps a 10-pound bag of baking soda in his truck. “By the early morning hours, the napping’s over with,” Unruh said. Clyde Marine said it takes a ton of wood to barbecue a 200-pound hog. “We use hickory,” Marine said. “Hickory bark is so hard to remove that chip mills don’t want it, so we get it from them.” On barbecue day, sauce-making starts at about 10 a.m. The sauce was made in a big black pot for about 30 years. The pot was stolen several years ago, its shattered remains found in the woods surrounding the grove. But one tradition remains: The sauce is still stirred with an old axe handle. It’s not a one-person job; this year, church member Jeff McClure watched as his 9-year-old grandson, Landon McClure, took a turn. “We buy 18 gallons of ketchup to make the sauce, and we end up with about 25 gallons of it,” Connie Marine said. “I think our sauce is better than anyone else’s.” Men arrived at about 2 p.m. to gather around a long wooden table to start pulling the meat. “It’s all done by hand — no chopping,” Clyde Marine said. “When the hogs are barbecued, we’ll have about 55 pounds of meat. Everybody gets a half-pound.”

The time-honored menu is a simple one. “We have meat, potato salad and desserts,” Connie Marine said. “Everyone is responsible for 10 pounds of potato salad, two cakes and 2 gallons of iced tea, and we have white bread — ‘light bread.’ ” She said 50-75 plates are prepared ahead of time for to-go orders. Both she and her father are a little sad that so many people take their plates home to air-conditioned comfort instead of staying to eat at the picnic tables in the grove. At this year’s barbecue, rain didn’t dampen the attendance. People were standing in line with their umbrellas well before the 5 p.m. start time. No one gets in a hurry, because there are choices to be made. “Everyone uses her own recipe for potato salad,” Connie Marine said. “Some want it with onions, some without, some with mustard.” If choosing a potato salad is hard, picking a dessert is a real test of decision-making. Many of the sweets come from recipes that have been used for years. A lemon cheesecake made from the late Jarral Parker’s recipe always disappears quickly, as do other favorites, like Phyllis McClure’s blueberry cake. McClure isn’t a Panola native but loves her community and her church. Like other church members, she’s on her feet from the barbecue’s start to ﬁnish. “I was always a Methodist and wanted to get involved when we moved here,” she said. While the barbecue has been held several times in spite of rain, one incident a few years ago caused a stir. “One year, we gave the option of coleslaw,” Connie Marine said. “That didn’t go over well.” Her father agreed, chuckling.

Landon McClure carries a pail of sauce.

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DINING OUT

THIS PAGE: The Panola United Methodist Church historical sign. • Louis McBride, Connie Marine, Ben Johnson and Terry Jack Johnson begin the process of plating the meal.

Barbecue favorites

Several years ago, Panola United Methodist Church members put together a cookbook, “Treasured Recipes from Home.” The book includes recipes for quite a

few desserts that are favorites at the barbecue. We’re publishing the recipes pretty much as-is, product brand names included.

Sunshine Cake INGREDIENTS: • 1 Duncan Hines butter cake mix • 1 stick or ½ cup butter • 4 eggs • 1 can mandarin oranges • 1 large container of Cool Whip • 1 large can of crushed pineapple with juice • 1 small package instant vanilla pie mix INSTRUCTIONS: Beat cake mix, butter, eggs and oranges together. Bake in three layers at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Mix together Cool Whip, pineapple and pie mix for icing. — Bobbye Hagler

“People threatened to quit the church over that,” he said. While many who come to the barbecue are “home folks,” some with connections to Panola and the church travel long distances to attend. Kathy Brown drove from Alexander City to bring her great-uncle, Fred Baker. “His late wife, Anne, always made caramel cakes,” Brown said. “My daughter, Robin Brown Bussie, made the cakes from her recipe, and we brought them.” Cecile Horton, who grew up in Panola and now lives in Tuscaloosa, contributed a big bowl of potato salad every year until ill health prevented her from doing so. But her daughter, Cindy Montgomery, and son-in-law, Richard Montgomery, came from Tuscaloosa for the event. And Horton’s former employee, Sarah Adams, sent potato salad that was made from Horton’s recipe and put into a large container with Horton’s name written on the top. For a long time, tickets to the barbecue were $8. They’ve gone up to $10, but there are no complaints. “At the end, if there’s still meat, we package it to sell in 2-pound packages,” Connie Marine said. “There’s a waiting list for that; things can get kind of tense if you’re not careful.” Her father said that even though the barbecue is held only once a year, it’s a lot of work. “Every year, we say that this one might be our last,” he said. But looking around at the smiles of hardworking church members, hearing those who attend call out a cheerful, “Hey! How are you?” to friends and neighbors, smelling the smokiness of the roasted pork and the tangy sauce, and watching all ages come together for food and fellowship, you have to believe that if the barbecues ever stopped, there would be a revolution that even the coleslaw debacle wouldn’t equal. “It’s all done in a spirit of love,” Connie Marine said.

Lemon cheesecake

Caramel Icing The late Anne Chaﬁn Baker made this icing for the cakes she brought to the barbecue. Family members of her husband, Fred Baker, drive several hours every year to bring him — and a cake made in her honor — to the event. INGREDIENTS: • 3 cups sugar • 1 stick butter • 1 cup milk • ½ teaspoon vanilla INSTRUCTIONS: Combine 2½ cups sugar, butter and milk in a 3- or 4-quart pan and begin cooking. Brown ½ cup

sugar in a skillet and add to the syrup that’s already cooking. Cook to 238 degrees (soft ball stage). Remove from heat. Cool, add vanilla and beat to consistency for spreading. If icing becomes too stiff, a little cream may be added to thin it. Beating makes it good.

More recipes on Page 14 >> 13

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DINING OUT

speed. Add cream cheese, beating well until light and fluffy. Alternately add flour and eggs, beginning and ending with flour. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack. — Lisa Marine Johnson

Blueberry Cake INGREDIENTS: • 1 Duncan Hines butter cake mix • 1 cup powdered sugar • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese • 1 (8-ounce) carton of Cool Whip • 1 can Lucky Leaf blueberry pie ﬁlling

Strawberry Cake Bertha Rittenberry, the author of this recipe, passed away several years ago. But her family members continue to make this cake for the barbecue. INGREDIENTS: • 1 box Duncan Hines butter recipe cake mix • 1 small package strawberry Jell-O • 2/3 cup Mazola corn oil • 3/4 cup frozen sweetened strawberries, thawed • 4 large or 5 medium eggs INSTRUCTIONS: Put all ingredients in the large bowl of an electric mixer. Blend on low until well mixed. Beat on medium speed 4 minutes. Bake in 2 greased and ﬂoured 10-inch round cake pans or one 9-by-13-inch pan at 350 degrees about 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely. For frosting: Mix 1 box sifted confec-

tioner’s sugar and 1 stick margarine at room temperature with a scant ½ cup strawberries. Mix well and spread on top and sides of cake. Note: A 1-pound box of confectioner’s sugar has about 3½ cups.

INSTRUCTIONS: Make cake according to the directions on the box. Split cake to make 4 layers. Cream sugar, cream cheese and whipped topping together. Alternate cake, cream cheese mixture and blueberry ﬁlling until all parts are used. Top with blueberry ﬁlling. Refrigerate. — Phyllis McClure

Crusty Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Blueberry Pound Cake

INGREDIENTS: • 1 cup butter, softened • ½ cup shortening • 3 cups sugar • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened • 3 cups sifted cake ﬂour • 6 eggs • 1 tablespoon vanilla

INGREDIENTS: • 1 Duncan Hines butter recipe cake mix • 1 (8-ounce package) cream cheese, softened • 2 eggs • ½ cup oil • 2 cups fresh blueberries

INSTRUCTIONS: Cream butter and shortening; gradually add the sugar, beating well at medium

INSTRUCTIONS: Mix all ingredients except berries for 4 minutes. Stir in berries. Bake in preheated oven at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes. — Connie Marine

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EVENTS

“Annie Jr.”

Things to do, places to go, people to see this

fall ENTERTAINMENT

Side by Side with Huxford Symphony Orchestra

Sept. 30 • Moody Music Building Concert Hall • Tuscaloosa Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra director Adam Flatt and Huxford Symphony Orchestra’s Blake Richardson combine their multitalented forces for this performance that features Legeti’s Atmospheres and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. For tickets, visit www.tsoonline.org.

“Intimate Apparel”

Oct. 1-6 • Marian Gallaway Theatre • Tuscaloosa “An African-American seamstress sews intimate apparel for a wide range of clientele in 1905 and navigates romance and life’s hardships while carrying the secrets of others.” That’s how the University of Alabama describes its production of the thought-provoking play. For more information or tickets, visit https://theatre.ua.edu.

Oct. 4-6 • The Bama Theatre • Tuscaloosa The sun will come out tomorrow, and again and again. The Tuscaloosa Children’s Theatre is bringing this beloved play, perfect for the entire family, to Bama Theatre. Buy your tickets early — it’ll be a “Hard Knock Life” if you miss out on this one. For more information or tickets, visit www.tuscaloosachildrenstheatre.net.

“Steel Magnolias”

Oct. 4-13 • Bean-Brown Theatre • Tuscaloosa “If you can’t say anything nice about anybody, come sit by me.” That’s just one of the many memorable lines in one of Louisiana playwright Robert Harling’s beloved sort-of-true story, “Steel Magnolias.” Performed by Theatre Tuscaloosa, it’s a play about the strength of women that has, for decades now, brought audiences to both laughter and tears. It’s good stuff. For tickets, visit www.theatretusc.com.

“Blue Suede Shoes” Oct. 4-6 • BJCC Concert Hall • Birmingham

The Alabama Ballet is conducting this fulllength ballet that features dances to Elvis Presley songs. The storyline follows three friends from their high school “blue suede shoeswearing” days of the 1950s through the ‘60s and ‘70s. The 90-minute show promises to excite with 16 sets and 280 costumes. The costumes are “all designed by American fashion icon Bob Mackie.” For tickets, visit www.alabamaballet.org.

Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre Oct. 8-11 • Dance Alabama! • Nov. 12-15 • Both at Morgan Auditorium • Tuscaloosa

These two events are productions from the heart — and, yes, a pun, SOLES — of dance students at the University of Alabama. Dance Alabama! productions are masterminded by UA students who dance and choreograph the entire show. Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre is choreographed by UA’s dance faculty and performed by their talented students. For more information or tickets, visit https://theatre.ua.edu.

“Buried Child”

Oct. 18-22 • The Actor’s Charitable Theatre • 2205 Ninth St. • Northport Sam Shepard won a Pulitzer Prize for this play about family drama and secrets revealed. Presented by the cast and crew of The Actor’s Charitable Theatre. For tickets and information, visit www.theactonline.com.

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EVENTS

From left, Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas and Joe Jonas, of The Jonas Brothers, perform on stage during their “Happiness Begins” tour.

The Jonas Brothers

• Nov. 13 • BJCC Legacy Arena • Birmingham • They’re back! Joe, Nick and Kevin are bringing their brotherly love and their resurrection to Birmingham with new songs (“Cool,” “Sucker”), and even some from their breakout careers (Nick’s solo career, Joe’s tunes with DNCE, and Kevin’s well, not sure on that one.) For tickets, visit www.ticketmaster.com.

“Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” opera world premiere

Bicentennial Celebration St. • Oct. 21 • Moody Music Building Concert Hall • Tuscaloosa

The Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and University of Alabama Opera Theatre present, together, the world premiere of the opera by composer Joseph Landers. Landers is a UA professor who wrote this original opera to honor the state of Alabama’s bicentennial, which is being celebrated in 2019. For tickets, visit www.tsoonline.org.

“The Pirates of Penzance” Nov. 11-17 • Allen Bales Theatre • Tuscaloosa

UA Theatre and Dance calls it “opera light.” You can just call it fun. Even if you’re not “the very model of a modern major-general,” you’re going to be singing or humming or

having that famed Gilbert and Sullivan tune going through your brain long after the curtain falls. And that’s a good thing. For tickets, visit https://theatre.ua.edu.

“Frost/Nixon”

Nov. 13-24 • Bean-Brown Theatre • Tuscaloosa Richard Nixon: Watergate. David Frost: talk-show host who has lost his appeal. Both trying to redeem themselves. A play written from a true television event — a sit-down interview, broadcast on television, between the two. It did not bode well for the ex-president. For tickets, visit www.theatretusc.com.

“The Importance of Being Earnest”

Nov. 19-22, Nov. 24 • Marian Gallaway Theatre • Tuscaloosa Oscar Wilde’s comedy ﬁrst premiered in London in 1895 and remains a favorite. It is

set in Victorian London and pokes fun at Victorian society. Spoiler alert (in case you haven’t had a chance to see the play or the movie in the last 124 years) it centers on John Worthing, who invents a brother, “Earnest,” and misbehaves when he pretends to be this made-up brother, and, well, romance and nonsense ensue followed by a fun twist at the end. For tickets, visit https://theatre.ua.edu.

“The Elf on the Shelf”

Nov. 21 • BJCC Concert Hall • Birmingham Oh, you parents of little ones. You know all too well about that dang elf and its spying, mischievous ways. But the elf delights your kid(s), so, why not add to the fun and take them to this Birmingham Broadway Series show that follows the lives of Scout Elves. For tickets, visit www.ticketmaster.com.

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EVENTS

“The Watsons Go to Birmingham”

LITERATURE

Dec. 6-15 • Bean-Brown Theatre • Tuscaloosa

Annual Holiday Celebration

Dec. 16 • Moody Music Building Concert Hall • Tuscaloosa Holiday favorites are performed by Tuscaloosa-area musical favorites: the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, Alabama Choir School, Prentice Concert Chorale, and Shelton Singers. For tickets, visit www.tsoonline.org.

Booked for Lunch: Cassandra King Conroy

Nov. 20 • Fayette Civic Center • Fayette WILLIAM MORROW/MAGIC TIME LITERACY

This is how Theatre Tuscaloosa describes the play: “It’s 1963 in Flint, Michigan, and 10-year-old Kenny’s peaceful world is about to turn upside down. His parents are planning a family road trip to take his rebellious older brother, Byron, to Birmingham to learn some manners from strict Grandma Sands. In this reliable, funny, and touching story of an African-American family, tragedy turns to hope and faith.” For tickets, visit www.theatretusc.com.

The late Pat Conroy’s wife, Cassandra King Conroy, has recently published a memoir, “Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy.” In the book, she shares her 19 years with her fellow novelist husband, Pat, the man behind such new classics as “The Prince of Tides,” “The Water is Wide,” “The Lords of Discipline” and “The Great Santini.” She’s appearing as part of Fayette County Memorial Library’s “Booked for Lunch” lecture series. The noon event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not necessary. For more information, call the Fayette County Memorial Library at 205-932-6625. It’s located at 543 Temple Ave. N. in Fayette.

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THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

Members of the Alabama Choir School.

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EVENTS

FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY Second annual Tuskaloosa Oktoberfest

Oct. 5 • 301 Bistro • Tuscaloosa

Moundville Native American Festival

Oct. 9-12 • Moundville Archaeological Park • Moundville A celebration, in its 31st year, of Native American culture. A true example that learning can be fun. For ticket information and more, visit www.moundville.museums.ua.edu.

Monster Makeover

Oct. 30 • Drish House • Tuscaloosa The Tuscaloosa News partnered with Woodland Forrest Elementary School for the 10th annual event that features kids’ monster drawings reinterpreted by adult artists just in time for Halloween. The artwork is exhibited and put up for auction. The event, which is from 5:30-7:30 p.m., includes face painting, bounce houses, live music, food and drinks. For more information, visit the Monster Makeover page on Facebook.

THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

The afternoon-long event (noon to 6 p.m.) is a Bavarian-style festival to beneﬁt the Tuscaloosa All-Inclusive Playground. Bavarian food, a dachshund race, an Oompah band and dancing are among the offerings. For more information, visit www.tcpara.org.

Andrew McCall bends vines to form a basket as he creates crafts at the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Kentuck Park.

48th Kentuck Festival of the Arts Oct. 12-13 • Kentuck Park • Northport

The two-day festival draws thousands of attendees and hundreds of artists and artisans to Northport each fall. There’s music, art, crafts, storytelling — it’s a festival for all ages. For ticket information or more details, visit www.kentuck.org.

Tuscaloosa 200 Birthday Party & Holiday Parade Dec. 13 • Downtown Tuscaloosa

The yearlong celebration of the city of Tuscaloosa’s 200th birthday concludes with the unveiling of the Bicentennial Sculpture at Manderson Landing along the Riverwalk, the sealing of a time capsule, the ofﬁcial lighting of the city’s Christmas tree at the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse and the annual Tuscaloosa Christmas Parade. All are free events. For more information and times, visit www.tcpara.org and www.tuscaloosa200.com.

Others: Check online for other early holiday events, like Northport’s Dickens Downtown, Christmas Aﬂoat along the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk, and the Holiday Singalong hosted by The Tuscaloosa News.

ROAD TRIPS United States Post Ofﬁce Murals

This is a call-before-you go suggestion, to make sure the murals are still there and the doors are open. From 1934 to 1943, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Procurement Division commissioned artwork — murals featuring American life — to be placed in public buildings where all people could view the works of art. The murals are all over the country and are a project of the U.S. Postal Service to preserve the ones that remain. Check the cities to see if they still exist and where they are, but here’s a list for Alabama: Atmore (“The Letter Box”); Enterprise (“Saturday in Enterprise,” in the Enterprise Public Library); Eutaw (“The Countryside”); Fairﬁeld (“Spirit of Steel”); Fort Payne (“Harvest at Fort Payne,” in the Hosiery Museum); Hartselle (“Cotton Scene,” inside Hartselle Chamber of Commerce); Luverne (“Cotton Field”); Bay Minette (“Removal of the County Seat from Daphne to Bay Minette”); Montevallo (“Early Settlers Weighing Cotton”); Monroeville (“Harvesting”); Oneonta (“Local Agriculture-A.A.A. 1939”); Ozark (“Early Industry of Dale County”); Russellville (“Shipment of the First Iron Produced in Russellville”); Tuskegee (“The Road to Tuskegee”); and Tuscumbia (“Chief Tuscumbia Greets the Dickson Family”).

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BY DONNA CORNELIUS, THE SNOOTY FOODIE | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

Foodie adventures:

SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO WIDEN YOUR CULINARY HORIZONS

’m always a little envious of people who say they never watch TV. But I do wonder what they do instead on a boring old weeknight. Read? Catch up on work? Make their children, who would surely rather be watching TV, carry on meaningful conversations or play board games? Most Saturday mornings, I sleep a little later than usual, linger over my coffee for an extra 30 minutes, and get ready for a relatively non-productive but relaxing day. But early on one Saturday in July, I leaped out of bed (well, maybe not so much leaped as rolled), ate a quick breakfast, grabbed my apron and was at my friend Kelly Pridgen’s house by 8 a.m. The two of us were headed on a one-day road trip to Spring Hill, Tennessee, for a cookie decorating class. This wasn’t the ﬁrst foodie adventure for Kelly and me. We’ve taken cooking classes at Sur la Table in Birmingham, learning how to make our own pasta or create a festive buche de noel — a chocolate Yule log — during the Christmas holidays. Another Birmingham outing was when we met Clif Holt, the chef at Little Savannah restaurant, at the Pepper Place Saturday Market. We shopped with him, met some of his favorite farmers, and then headed back to his kitchen to cook — and then eat — what we’d bought. In Tuscaloosa, we were part of an enthusiastic bunch who decorated Valentine cookies under the direction of expert baker Kate Waddell at Monarch Espresso. And Kelly and I recently got together at my house to make macarons ﬁlled with fresh peach jam. If you’ve never tried making these delicate little meringue cookies, let me just say that there are many, many ways that things can go horribly wrong. Thankfully, Kelly is an expert macaron maker, so the results of our efforts turned out not only tasty but extremely Instagram-worthy. Back to our Rocky Top Road Trip: I was a little nervous about the class, which was billed as “intermediate.” Decorating cookies or cakes is not something I do every day — although I do like baking. My dream is to one day appear as a contestant on “The Great British Bake Off” TV cooking competition. Only two problems: I’m not a Brit, and my baking skills are still a work in progress. The folks on that show whip up things like tarte au citron (a classic French lemon tart) and kouign-amann (a pastry that has more butter than Paula Deen’s fridge), which for me would be a challenge to pronounce, much less make. When we arrived at the home of Laura Watson, our instructor and the owner of Laura’s Custom Cookies, I quickly realized that I was not going to

be the star student. But the four-hour class turned out to be fun, and I was able to produce some reasonably lovely cookies. That’s because Laura was a patient teacher and also because Kelly was right beside me and I had no qualms about copying what she did. To reward ourselves for our hard work, we drove an extra 45 minutes to downtown Nashville to eat at Henrietta Red, a place Kelly was eager to try. After reading the menu online, I was just as enthusiastic. We shared small plates that we ordered as we went along, starting with oysters served with lemon, the house cocktail sauce, and classic and watermelon — yes, watermelon — mignonette. Next, we had woodroasted oysters followed by a seafood crudo cocktail and then beef tartare. Our only caloric splurges were the wood-ﬁred bread with anchovy butter and an updated version of peach cobbler with a lemon biscuit and lavender sherbet. For food-crazy folks like us, it was a memorable day. I’ve been on other fun foodie road trips, too. For a long time, a visit to the Charleston Wine and Food Festival was a top item on my culinary bucket list. I was able to check that off last year when my husband, my mom and I visited the Holy City for several days of unabashed gluttony. We tasted all kinds of dishes at the festival’s Culinary Village, discovered a to-die-for pecan-ﬂavored liqueur, and met chefs not only from the South but also from places as far away as Hawaii. We also ate at several Charleston restaurants, and let me say here that just like in New Orleans, you’d have to try really hard to get a bad meal in this South Carolina city. Last fall, my mom, sister, niece and I had a blast at the Harvest Wine and Food Festival at Florida’s WaterColor resort. This event is smaller than the Charleston extravaganza, but we had so much fun that we’re planning to go again this October. While food is always a highlight of these types of outings, the best part is when you experience classes, festivals and new restaurants with family and friends. Even making something in your own home can be more fun when you’re in the kitchen with someone who gets as excited about successfully making macarons as you do.

— Donna Cornelius is a Tuscaloosa writer whose motto is: So much food, so little time. Contact her to share recipes, restaurant news or anything food-related at donnawcornelius@bellsouth.net. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @blonderavenous.

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FOODIE NEWS

EPICUREAN

EVENTS

Birmingham Greek Festival

Oct. 3-5 • Birmingham This is the 47th year of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral’s three-day festival celebrating Greek culture and cuisine. There’s no admission charge; food plates are individually priced. The event also has Greek music and dancing, a Greek market and tours of the church at 307 19th St. S. For more information, visit www.birminghamgreekfestival.net.

Cahaba River Fry-Down

Harley McNeal, daughter of former Alabama football player Kareem McNeal, is shown with some of the confections she created.

A heart for baking:

Meet a 13-year-old who’s already at home in the kitchen

arley McNeal just started her eighthgrade year at Tuscaloosa Academy. She runs track, plays basketball, and as a school Ambassador helps new students feel welcome at TA. She’s a gymnast, too, competing with the Bama Bounders. But one of her favorite activities doesn’t involve sports or school. At age 13, Harley has been baking for ﬁve years. She has some good examples to follow. One is her dad, Kareem McNeal. An instructor at Shelton State Community College’s Wellness Center and a former University of Alabama football player, he has a reputation in Tuscaloosa for his mouth-watering cheesecakes. Rene McNeal, Harley’s mom and TA’s math department chairman, likes to cook, too. But Harley said her fascination with baking really got started when at age 8

she attended a summer baking camp at her school. Since then, she’s continued to work on her skills and now is responsible for making all her family’s Sunday desserts. “I get recipes mostly from Food Network,” she said. “Sometimes, I like to tweak them.” For example, she jazzes up a Food Network vanilla cake recipe by adding cheesecake pudding mix to the batter for a “cheesecake cake.” She makes two of the cakes, puts strawberry jam between the layers, and ices the whole thing with buttercream frosting. She’s got plenty of eager taste-testers at home in her twin brother, Tyler, and her older brothers, TA seniors Kevin and Carson, who also are twins. “Carson’s favorite cake is lemon, and Kevin and Tyler like anything with peanut butter,” she said. In addition to cakes, Harley’s baking repertoire includes treats like blueberry >>

Oct. 6 • Birmingham Teams compete to see who cooks the best catﬁsh and side dishes, and festival-goers get to sample the dishes and vote for their favorites. The event is from noon-4 p.m. at Railroad Park, 1600 First Ave. S. Tickets are $20. For tickets and more information, visit www.frydown.com. Proceeds beneﬁt the Cahaba River Society.

Southern Soiree

Oct. 13 • Bessemer The Birmingham chapter of Les Dames d’Escofﬁer International hosts this sunset dinner that features food and drinks from top women chefs and restaurant owners. It’s from 5-8 p.m. at The Barn at Shady Lane, 290 Sunbelt Parkway. Tickets are $125 and sell out quickly; buy them through a link at www.ldeibirmingham.org. Proceeds provide scholarships and grants to support women in food and the culinary arts.

West Alabama Food Bank’s All Aboard

Oct. 17 • Tuscaloosa This fundraiser will be from 6-9 p.m. at the Tuscaloosa River Market. On the menu are food and drink samples from Tuscaloosa restaurants, music and a silent auction. In the weeks before the event, watch for more information and buy tickets at www.westalabamafoodbank.org. Tickets also will be available at www.eventbrite. com and at Alabama Credit Union ofﬁces. Proceeds help end food insecurity in West Alabama.

Breakin’ Bread

Oct. 20 • Birmingham The Birmingham Originals, an organization of Birmingham independently owned restaurants, will host this annual food festival. Tickets include unlimited food samples. There’s also beer and wine plus entertainment. It’s from 1-5 p.m. at Pepper Place, 2829 Second Ave. S. For tickets and more information, visit www.birminghamoriginals.org.

The Garden Party

Nov. 3 • Tuscaloosa Schoolyard Roots will present its eighth annual Garden Party at 5:30 p.m. at the Tuscaloosa River Market. Tuscaloosa area chefs and farmers pair up to offer food, and there’s also locally produced beer and a silent auction. New this year: Schoolyard Roots is partnering with the Tuscaloosa YMCA Family Center to offer childcare and a children’s Garden Party during the event. To buy tickets for adults and kids and for more information, visit www.schoolyardroots.org. All proceeds support the organization’s school-based programming for West Alabama K-5 elementary schools.

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FOODIE NEWS scones, cupcakes, cake pops and cinnamon rolls. She also doesn’t mind cooking savory dishes. “She makes pizza and did a pasta dish with homemade Alfredo sauce,” Rene McNeal said. “I usually don’t like Alfredo sauce, but this — I could just drink it.” Even experienced bakers often buy ready-made fondant, a thick icing used to decorate cakes and pastries. “I think the kind you buy at the store is too sweet, so I make my own,” Harley said. “I made blue fondant for a cake for a pool party.” Her favorite appliance is her KitchenAid stand mixer. She and her father both have one — and it’s not unusual for both of the mixers to be whirring away as dad and daughter work on their own creations.

While she still has a few years to decide, Harley already is thinking about a career in food. “I’d like to have my own bakery one day and also to go to culinary school,” she said. She has a head start with her baking skills — and it’s likely she’ll be a good businesswoman, too. “During the school year, people will start asking for cakes, so I’ll make them and sell them,” Harley said. Her father makes cheesecakes for Cravings and River and also takes special orders. He’s especially busy around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Harley has agreed to help him on one condition: that she gets 25% of the proﬁts.

Harley’s Recipes Key Lime Cake INGREDIENTS: For the crust: • 2 cups crushed graham crackers • ¼ cup sugar • ½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted For the filling: • 6 tablespoons fresh Key lime juice (use bottled juice if you can’t find fresh Key limes) • 1¼-ounce package (1 envelope) unflavored gelatin • 2½ cups heavy cream • 10 (1-ounce) squares of white chocolate, chopped, plus 1 to 1½ ounces grated or shaved into curls • 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened • 1 cup sugar • 1½ tablespoons lime zest INSTRUCTIONS: For the crust, mix together the graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Press into the bottom and 1 inch up the sides of a 10-inch springform pan. Set aside. For the filling, pour lime juice into a bowl and sprinkle gelatin in to soften it. Bring ½ cup of the heavy cream to a simmer in a saucepan. Remove from heat and add the 10 ounces of white chocolate, stirring until smooth. Stir in the gelatin and lime juice mixture and allow to cool. With an electric mixer, blend together cream cheese, sugar and lime zest. Slowly beat cooled white chocolate mixture into cream cheese mixture. Using clean, dry beaters, beat the remaining 2 cups of heavy cream until it forms peaks. Fold into the white chocolate mixture, then pour into the crust. Cover and freeze overnight. Remove from freezer and run a sharp knife around the inside

of the pan to help loosen the cake. Release the springform ring from the pan, move the cake to a serving plate, and grate or curl 1 to 1½ ounces white chocolate over the cake. Cut into wedges with a knife that’s been dipped into hot water.

boil. Let it cool and put it in a squeeze bottle. Squeeze it over the cakes, wrap them in Saran wrap and freeze them.”

Vanilla Cake

INGREDIENTS: • 2 sticks salted butter, at room temperature • 1 stick of shortening, such as Crisco • 1 16-ounce bag of powdered sugar • Optional: vanilla extract, cocoa powder or other ﬂavorings

INGREDIENTS: • ¾ cup butter • 1½ cups sugar • 3 tablespoons of canola oil (Harley likes it better than vegetable oil because it has a more neutral taste) • 4 eggs • 2½ cups all-purpose flour • 2½ teaspoons baking powder • ½ teaspoon salt • 1¼ cups whole milk • 8-ounce package of gelatin or pudding mix (choose the flavor you want) INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat two 8-inch cake pans with baking spray (Harley likes Baker’s Joy). In a mixer, cream together butter, sugar and oil for about 2 minutes. Crack the eggs into a cup, and add them to the mixture one at a time. Add flour, baking powder and salt and mix just until combined. Turn the mixer on low speed, and pour in half the milk. Then pour in the other half and mix. Mix in the gelatin or pudding. Pour the mixture into the two cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Harley’s tip: “I let the cakes cool and then level off the tops and put them on a rack to finish cooling. If you’re not going to use them right away, boil 1 cup of water and then add one cup of sugar. Bring it back to a

Buttercream Frosting

INSTRUCTIONS: In a mixer, cream together the first three ingredients and flavoring if you’re using it. Mix at low speed; you can increase the speed once the powdered sugar is incorporated. Mix until the frosting is light and fluffy.

Blueberry Scones Makes 8 scones INGREDIENTS: For the scones: • 2 cups all-purpose ﬂour • 1 tablespoon baking powder • ½ teaspoon salt • 2 tablespoons sugar • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks • 1 cup fresh blueberries • 1 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones For the lemon glaze: • ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice • 2 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter • 1 lemon, zest ﬁnely grated

INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sift together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Using 2 forks or a pastry blender, cut in the butter to coat the pieces with the flour mixture. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Fold the blueberries into the batter. Take care not to mash or bruise the blueberries so their color won’t bleed into the dough. Make a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the heavy cream. Fold everything together just to incorporate the ingredients; don’t overwork the dough. Press the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 12 by 3 inches and about 1¼ inches thick. Cut the rectangle in half, and then cut the pieces into halves again, giving you 4 (3-inch) squares. Cut the squares in half on a diagonal to give you the classic triangle shape. Place the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush the tops with a little heavy cream. Bake for 15-20 minutes until they’re beautiful and brown. Let the scones cool a bit before applying the glaze. Make the glaze: You can make the glaze in a double boiler or in the microwave. Mix the lemon juice with the confectioner’s sugar until the sugar dissolves. You can do this in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water if you’re using the double-boiler method; use a microwave-safe bowl if you’re using that method. Whisk in the butter and lemon zest. Continue whisking in the double boiler, or microwave the glaze for 30 seconds. Whisk the glaze to smooth out any lumps, then drizzle the glaze over the scones. Let them set for a few minutes before serving.

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FOODIE NEWS

Meals and grills

From meats to Maldon salt, Mark’s Mart has a tempting array of things to cook and eat BY DONNA CORNELIUS | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Jacob King cuts meat in the butcher’s work area at Mark’s Mart. • Jac and Mary Crisler study the choices of main dishes, side dishes and desserts in the coolers. • The selection of products is large. These three shelves are some of the pickle choices. • Baked goods sold include breads, rolls, pastries and cookies, among other offerings.

ark’s Mart isn’t all about the chicken swirl. But the trademarked creation — an 8-ounce or more rolled-up chicken breast with dried beef, bacon and seasonings — is associated so closely with the market that the company’s website is www.chickenswirl.com. The popular chicken concoction is just one of many food choices available at Mark’s Mart, a longtime Selma institution that opened a Northport store in March. Owner Rodney King said the idea behind the specialty market is “meal and grill.” “Our concept is built for family events like cookouts and birthdays,” King said. “You can get things here that let you cook most of your meals on the grill.” His father, Odis King, opened the Selma Mark’s Mart in 1978. After graduating from the University of Alabama, Rodney King worked in the meat side of the wholesale business, calling on many independent grocers and distributors. That gave him some valuable experience when he joined his dad at the Selma store in 1993. King said he intended to open a Tuscaloosa area store several

years ago. But the deaths of his parents and two brothers — including Mark King, for whom the stores are named — put those plans on hold for a while. Finding the right location for the second Mark’s Mart was key. King said the Selma market is in a building built in 1938. He found a similar vibe in an old dairy barn that’s now the home of the downtown Northport store. While the front of the building is ﬁlled with an impressive variety of products, the back has a butcher shop. Beef is high quality, and King said all of it is aged the same. King developed the chicken swirls — and they’re a big draw for customers like Bill Thomas of Tuscaloosa. He said he and his wife, Neilann, have become fans of the store. “Mark’s Mart has great chicken swirls — large enough to feed two people,” Bill Thomas said. “They also have amazing steaks and baking potatoes, and everyone needs to try the salmon swirls, too.” King said the salmon swirls, with house-made crabmeat stuffing, were added about ﬁve years ago. “Lots of folks have trouble cooking salmon just right,” he said. “The swirls are pretty foolproof because they don’t dry out.” >>

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FOODIE NEWS

FROM LEFT: Rodney King poses on the porch at his store, Mark’s Mart. • Retail manager Marla Parks works on a merchandise display. • The exterior of Mark’s Mart. Located in downtown Northport, it was once a dairy barn.

Golden-brown whole chickens spin slowly in one of the store’s recent additions: a Wonder Roaster, which King said was the ﬁrst rotisserie machine ever made. Other meat offerings include smoked ribs, locally produced ham, farmed shrimp from Boligee, rabbit sausage, ground duck, and sushigrade tuna. Those with hearty appetites may want to check out the tomahawk steaks, a cut of beef rib-eye that gets its name from the long bone that’s left intact. Amish farmers from Troyer Country Market in Ohio deliver cheeses, summer sausages, bacon and butter. King said Troyer’s Carolina Reaper cheddar cheese packs some heat but that many customers like it. Trays of stuffed mushrooms and stuffed baked potatoes, dips, chicken salad and other foods are produced in the store’s kitchen. Other items are carefully chosen before they make it onto the shelves or into the coolers. “We’ve been using a lot of Alabama products, like honey, cheese straws and jellies,” King said. The local angle is especially prominent in the cheese straw section. These savory treats come from a variety of makers: Joyce’s Cheese Straws in Selma, Nan & Co. from Tuscaloosa, Mook Mills Cheese Straws, which got its start in Tuscumbia, and Labbe’s Cakes and Catering in Selma. Other Labbe’s products at Mark’s Mart include dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, bread and pies. “Tomato pie is the best seller, and there’s also buttermilk, lemon and chocolate,” King said. More sweet treats include pies from Pie Lab in Greensboro and Dean’s Cakes in Andalusia. King said he’d be happy to hear from more Tuscaloosa vendors. The store already carries made-in-T-town products like Sweet Home Chicago jellies and jams and Miss Emily’s honey. In keeping with the store’s grill-friendly mission is its large selection of sauces and seasonings. There’s everything from Hoover Sauce, originally made in the Mississippi Delta to marinate ducks since that area has many duck hunters, to Mr. Ellis’ Signature Meat Seasonings, another Selma product that has labels bearing a “Mr. Ellis” signature. Maldon sea salt, the darling of good cooks, comes in regular and smoked versions. “This area buys a ton of this stuff,” King said of the seasonings and

sauces, adding that pickles of all kinds and salsas are other top sellers. Mark’s Mart has gift certiﬁcates and gift baskets. For the baskets, foods can be paired with the store’s gift items, like pitchers and beer glasses etched with elephants, deer and turkeys. Also in the gift area are hand lotions, soaps and aromatic heart-pine coasters. Rodney isn’t the only King at Mark’s Mart. His son, Jacob, is the meat and wine specialist for both stores. “Mark’s Mart has been around my entire life,” Jacob King said. “I enjoy being here — I love it to death.” The former UA student said he was pleased with the Northport store’s reception. “We opened toward the end of March, and it was supposed to be very low-key,” he said. “But word evidently spread to a whole bunch of people. We sold out in three days and had to close to restock.” On a recent weekday afternoon, Mary and Jac Crisler from Tuscaloosa were checking out choices in the sauce section. “This Irish Gold sauce — do you think it would taste good with broccoli?” Mary Crisler asked, with Jacob King assuring her that he didn’t see why not. Marla Parks, the store’s retail manager, said this kind of interaction isn’t unusual. “Customers ask for cooking recommendations,” she said. “At ﬁrst, I’d have to run into the kitchen and ask somebody. Now, I usually know.” Parks had earned a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from UA and was job-hunting when a friend told her about Mark’s Mart. “I’d worked in the food business before — though not at a cash register — and I just hopped in,” she said. She said the store’s pies are popular, as are frozen casseroles like those from Dirt Road Gourmet, based in Eclectic. “We can barely keep the poppy seed chicken casserole in stock,” Parks said. “Some people come in often for the same chicken salad, and we have one customer who comes in twice a week for Joyce’s Cheese Straws.” At Mark’s Mart, shoppers can choose from their favorite products and make discoveries, too. “We like to think there’s something new on our shelves every week,” Jacob King said.

IF YOU GO: Mark’s Mart is at 2300 Fifth St., Northport. The store manager is Mitchell Lewis. Hours are 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-8:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 3:30-7 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, call 205-710-5636, visit www.chickenswirl.com or follow the market on Facebook. 26

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AT HOME

CABIN INTHE SUBURBS

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AT HOME

BY BECKY HOPF PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR. t’s 2,200 square feet, sleeps 12 and has a history of guests that includes movie stars and a college football coaching icon. And it can be rented through VRBO. The Hinton Cabin, located in Tuscaloosa’s Hinton Place subdivision, is a neighborhood curiosity. Built with logs that are centuries old, it anchors a corner lot, has a pool in the backyard, a fake cow in the front yard and is surrounded by modern homes built in the 1980s and 1990s. George Hinton, the cabin’s original owner, had six daughters and was a very busy and successful businessman. His main house was in Taylorville, but Hinton desired a nearby retreat where he and his family could get away, relax and just enjoy being together. He decided a log cabin would make a picturesque hideaway amid the rolling pastures of what was once his family’s business, Hinton Dairy. No longer a working dairy farm, it was an inviting site, with ﬁelds and ﬁsh ponds. “I’m one of six girls, and a lot of us lived out of town, so it was a place to come to. We grew up in Taylorville,” said Mary George Howell, one of George Hinton’s daughters. “Daddy wanted to build a place where we could all get together, a summer place. My father used to have a dairy farm down there. We sold milk. We had cows there.” His sister, Mary Jean Hinton, oversaw the building of the cabins — there was also a smaller one — in the mid-1960s. Adjacent to the cabins is the Hinton family cemetery. >>

Built with 200-year-old logs, the Hinton Cabin stands out in all the best ways

The log cabin suddenly appears, amid modern homes, on a corner of the Hinton Place subdivision.

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AT HOME

“The logs are very old because they were brought in from another place,” Howell said. “My aunt, Mary Jean Hinton, found the logs. I don’t know where, but the logs are old. They were used to build the cabin. I think the cabin was moved from a place up on the river. There is a log cabin on the hill, across the road, that was also our log cabin. That was the ﬁrst one. It is a very old log cabin. It’s the logs that they were built with that are old.” As the story goes, Howell’s mother initially wasn’t enthusiastic about going to the cabin once their land was subdivided. She had loved visiting there and sitting on the cabin’s front porch, taking in the views of the cows out in the pasture. So George found a life-sized fake cow and calf and placed them facing the cabin’s porch. They may not have been real, but she’d always have cows to view. “They had a good sense of humor,” Howell said of her parents. “I have no idea where he got them.” The Hintons added a pool that is believed to be one of the ﬁrst heated pools in Tuscaloosa. It was heated by a stove in the log pool house. The cabin survived a tornado that stormed through Hinton Place and Tuscaloosa in 2000. Though many of the surrounding homes suffered damage, including, Howell said, the family’s main home, the cabin lost some trees, but none touched the structure. FROM TOP: Though he sold the home to Lawrence J. Keating in October of 2018, Richard Remaley purchased the cabin in 2008, living in it for a time then turning it into a vacation and game-day rental. • One of the guest rooms. The cabin can sleep 12. • Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, Bob Hope, Burt Reynolds, Sally Field and Jan-Michael Vincent are among the many guests George Hinton entertained in the home. Reynolds and Field stayed as private houseguests. The others played many a card game and socialized around the table with Hinton.

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ABOVE: The master bedroom has an en suite bathroom. The headboard is made of cypress root. LEFT: The pool house is made from timbers. A stove inside heats the pool.

The cabin was built in the dogtrot style and has undergone extensions and renovations with each of its owners. The Hintons sold it to John Wendth around 1997 or 1998. His updates included the kitchen. He used timber from sawmills for the cabinets and seating area. Richard Remaley was the third owner, purchasing it in 2008. He replaced the dining room floor with oak and put tile in the first-floor bathroom. The newest owner is Lawrence J. Keating, who bought it from Remaley in 2018. Keating is currently working in the Philippines. He and his family plan to eventually move back to Tuscaloosa and live in the cabin. Meanwhile, his sister, Carol Ann Skinner, is overseeing the property, which is listed as a VRBO rental. She’s the perfect caretaker because, after all, she’s the one who discovered it after he sent her to check it out among listings he found online. >> 31

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AT HOME

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: The entry into the cabin features photos of its famous and frequent guest Paul “Bear” Bryant. • The cabin was built from logs that are two centuries old. • The pool is believed to be the ﬁrst heated outdoor pool in Tuscaloosa. • The front porch was originally screened in and was strategically placed facing what was once Hinton Dairy farm. • The open kitchen and living room area. • The phone is believed to have been used in the Hinton general store.

“He wanted something unique, and his wife said she was fine with unique, as long as it wasn’t out in the wilderness somewhere. This fit the bill,” Skinner said. “I saw the listing online and thought, ‘Wow.’ Just ‘Wow.’ I went there the day before I was scheduled for a showing, and, when I pulled up and saw the cow, I started laughing and took a photo and sent it to my brother. The owner (Richard) drove up and I told him I was coming the next day to see it, and he said, ‘Come on in. I’ll show you.’ I went in, and, by the time I left, I thought if my brother doesn’t buy this, I’ll probably disown him. I mean, ‘Bear’ Bryant hung out there. What more would you ask? He bought it. And it’s just perfect.” With the home comes the lore. George Hinton was great friends with Alabama’s head football coach, the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant. Coach Bryant was a frequent visitor, meeting Hinton and friends for card games at the dining room table or just to hang out and relax. And he brought his famous friends along, too, like comedian Bob Hope. Tuscaloosa was a filming location for the movie “Hooper” in the late 1970s. Co-stars, and romantic couple, Burt Reynolds and Sally Field were invited by Hinton to stay free of charge at the cabin during filming. Jan-Michael Vincent, who was also a star of the film, visited there as well. >>

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AT HOME

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AT HOME

“One of the movie people knew Daddy and asked him if they (Reynolds and Field) could be down there and stay because they didn’t want to stay in a hotel because people would bother them,” Howell said. “So Daddy let them stay down there, and I guess they stayed a couple of weeks.” Hinton even supplied the famous guests with a butler. “I called down there to see if my children’s friends could come meet Burt, and she (Field) said no. She said he is such a sex symbol we could not come. We were letting them stay there free. And she said that to me,” Howell said. “My daddy was very generous with the public. There were many parties there. I would ask the people who were having the party or who were using it how they knew Daddy, and they’d say they really didn’t know Mr. Hinton, that they’re heard that he was real generous and they called him and he said they George Hinton entertained celebrities could.” and their friends, including Paul “Bear” Each of the ownBryant, who brought movie star Bob ers, and the current Hope to the cabin. caretaker, holds the home dear. Remaley was the ﬁrst to make it a vacation rental, but it’s clear the home will always be special. “We had our family reunions here,” Remaley said. He’s also an expert tour guide, pointing out special nuances of the home, like an old crank phone on the kitchen-area wall that he says was originally used in Hinton Brothers grocery near Big Sandy; or the water spigot behind a door under the stairwell, the same small space that once served as a whiskey bar and hid a stereo system; or a “caper chart” pinned inside the stairwell door that the children had to follow for their daily chores. “This was George’s farm. People would come and hunt doves and quail here. There used to be a locked gate that you had to come in through to get to the cabin, for security and so that people like Coach Bryant could come to the cabin and not be bothered,” Remaley said. “I wish these walls could talk. I know there would be some great stories.”

Interested in renting the Hinton Cabin? It’s listed as The Historic Hinton Cabin on www.vrbo.com.

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ANTIQUES

TUSCALOOSA

BICENTENNIAL Tuscaloosa’s past can become part of your present. On these two pages, with the help of owner Tammy Meadows, we share items that have been part of Tuscaloosa’s past and can be found at Alabama Antique Market. Some items are for sale. Some are for merely remembering and appreciating. PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

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1. This witness stand chair once sat, for many years, in the original Tuscaloosa County Courthouse. 2. Worthington Electric was once a thriving business in Tuscaloosa. 3. The early washing machine, with wringer, came from a Tuscaloosa home. 4. The cabinet and early television inside came from a home in Coker. The top of the cabinet is leather. 5. The metal ice cream counter is from Perryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Creamery, which was on River Road. 6. The high school no longer remains, but the wool band uniform from Tuscaloosa High School keeps its memory alive. 7. The refrigerator came from a home in Tuscaloosa. Meadows estimates it dates to the 1920s or early 1930s. The bottles inside are all from local dairies. 8. The hall tree came from the Greensboro estate of Margaret Cross. 9. This Delview Dairy Milk bottle was from a dairy in Tuscaloosa. 10. The stove came from a home in Tuscaloosa and is estimated to date back to the 1800s. 11. This century-old pianoforte once ďŹ lled the walls of a local home with music. The jugs and crocks were also used at homes in the Tuscaloosa area and are decades old.

IF YOU GO: Alabama Antique Market is at 3929 Rice Mine Road NE in Tuscaloosa. It is open seven days a week, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and Sundays from 1-6 p.m. The phone number is 205-462-3487. Find the Alabama Antique Market on Facebook for more information. 37

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COVER STORY

LITTLE BIG TOWN COMES TO

T-TOWN INTERVIEW BY NICHOLE BRAY WALKER • PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR. (CONCERT) • PHOTO BY KENT GIDLEY, THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA (UA BASKETBALL GAME)

n Aug. 16, one of the hottest groups in country music, Grammy Award winners Little Big Town, performed on one of the summer’s hottest days, outdoors at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater. And they couldn’t have been happier. Three out of the four singers, Jimi Westbrook, Karen Fairchild Westbrook and Kimberly Schlapman, all have ties to the state of Alabama. And Phillip Sweet is from just a few states away, Arkansas. Jimi Westbrook, a major Crimson Tide fan, lived in Tuscaloosa for four years, beginning when he was 4. He grew up in Sumiton. His wife and bandmate, Karen, grew up in Atlanta, but her family is from Geraldine, Alabama. And Kimberly grew up in Georgia but went to Birmingham’s Samford University. That’s where she and Karen became good friends — and songmates. Just before they took the stage at the amphitheater, the band sat down with Nichole Bray Walker, a University of Alabama Athletic Communications student assistant when she was in school at Alabama, for a quick interview. Full disclosure, Nichole is Jimi’s niece, which also makes her Karen’s niece, which also made for a fun interview.

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August. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Outdoor concert by a river. What made that idea so appealing? Jimi: “We’re in God’s country. This is Tuscaloosa, Alabama!” Karen: “We haven’t been here in a while.” Jimi: “I think the last time we were here was when we stayed in the hallway of the City Hall because there were tornadoes everywhere.” Kimberly: “We were with Sugarland.” Jimi: “Yes, we were with Sugarland, and we had to eventually cancel that show. I was talking to somebody about that today. We sat in that hallway of the city hall for hours.” Karen: “Yes, we did.” Jimi: “Hours.” Kimberly: “Yes! That’s right! I’d forgotten about that.” Karen: “A lot of it has to do with coming back to a market that we haven’t been in a long time so that we can be with fans that we haven’t seen in years. We’ve played

Birmingham. We’ve played other places in Alabama, but we haven’t played Tuscaloosa in a long time.” Phillip: “What’s really bad is Jimi heard the murmurs of football season starting.” Jimi: “This is perfect timing.” Phillip: “We just had to go over to the (UA football) facilities today to check it out.” Karen: “Twofold. The fans and football.” Jimi: “This is kind of my hometown, too.” (At this point, Jimi’s mom, who is also in the room, reminds all that they lived in Tuscaloosa for four years.) What are your ties to the state of Alabama? Karen: “Kimberly and I went to school together at Samford University and that’s where we met. So, really, if we hadn’t met, the band would have never met. We didn’t know Jimi was down the road. Well, at that time we didn’t know.” Jimi: (teasing the girls) “Well, I knew … ” Karen: “My mom was born in Geraldine, Alabama, on top of Sand Mountain, and my grandparents were born there, too, so I have

tons of Alabama roots. My grandparents have been gone a long time, but I spent every summer on Sand Mountain. So I feel like I’m even more deeply rooted than just the fact that we went to college there and then I ended up marrying an Alabama boy. People ask me if I’m an Alabama fan, and I’m like, ‘Hey, I was born into that.’ My granddaddy and my husband.” Tuscaloosa has a great appreciation and a place in their hearts for Little Big Town, particularly how the band came to its and the state’s aid by taking part in the Tornado Relief Concert in 2011. How important was being a part of that to you guys? Phillip: “Gotta take care of mom and them (referring to the Westbrook family ties).” Kimberly: “I feel like that tornado happened right after we were here.” Karen: “It was the week after. The exact week after.” Kimberly: “So that was very ironic but also just made it all the more real because that same thing could have happened that day when we were all here.” >>

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Jimi: “Yeah. We all — I think even Phillip, who doesn’t really have a huge connection to Alabama, feels connected because we’re all family. They have their Alabama history — the girls do. It’s important for us to do things like that where we can try to make some kind of difference with what we’re doing. When they asked us to lend our voices, we were like, ‘Yeah. Absolutely.’ ” Do you remember where you were when you heard about the tornadoes that swept through Tuscaloosa and Alabama on April 27, 2011? Karen: “Where were we? I feel like we were on the road when it was happening.” Kimberly: “I’m sure we were.” Karen: “Touring.” Jimi: “Yes, because it was the next week (the week after they had been in Tuscaloosa when the concert with Sugarland had to be canceled because of weather).” Phillip: “People were sending videos.” Jimi: “I remember watching the videos online, and seeing the devastation. That was (his voice trails off with the memory) ... It was a big impact. It was like, that kind of devastation in such a small, little tight-knit community. It reaches into a lot of homes.” Karen: “And we’ve met people from Oklahoma and from Texas and from Ohio — there was recently a really bad tornado in Dayton — and you just see it level people’s homes and churches and schools. It does so much devastation. It takes the whole community to get it back on its feet. And they always do. The Houston ﬂood — we’ve been involved in so many things, helping with the CMA Foundation to help get music instruments back to the children’s hands from the ﬂood in Houston. We’re constantly trying to give back. I mean, we could always do more, but it feels good when we get to give back, especially to our hometowns and communities.” Jimi and Phillip were recently in Tuscaloosa taking part in an event for Nick’s Kids Foundation (Nick and Terry Saban’s charity). Karen: (teasing) “Yeah. We weren’t invited.” Kimberly: (wistfully, also teasing) “We like kids.” How did that come about? And, yeah, why weren’t you two invited? Karen: (pretending to be dejected) “They don’t think we’re golfers.” Phillip: “Jimi and I play golf. Through the years, we’ve played golf together, and he got

invited so he invited me.” Jimi: “I’ve been able to come down for a few (football) games and have met some people at the university, and they’ve always been very kind to me and to the band. We even sang the national anthem at an Alabama-Auburn basketball game … ” Nichole: “Yeah. I set that up!” (The group laughs.) Karen: “Now you need to work on us singing at a football game this fall.” Nichole: “That would be awesome.” Jimi: “Those relationships — they reached out a few years ago about that tournament. I kept trying to get down there, and our schedule shifts and changes so much that it just never worked out. This was the first year that we actually had some time that was open. We went down and we had a blast. It was really so much fun. We got to meet so many people.” Phillip: “Nick Saban made a birdie for us.” Jimi: “Yeah. He made our first birdie. He said, ‘Here. You can count this.’ ” Karen: “Of course he did.” Jimi: “Of course he did (make the birdie). And it was four days after he’d had hip surgery.” Was that the first time you’d met Nick Saban? Jimi: “That was the first time.”

Was he everything you expected him to be like? How you thought he would be? Jimi: “He was super kind. And quite the putter.” And you guys went to practice today (before the concert at the amphitheater)? Jimi: “Yes. We got the royal treatment today. I felt like a recruit today. I was like, ‘Sign me. I commit.’ We got to go in the stadium. They put our name up on the board. That was pretty amazing. It was awesome to see. I just think it’s an honor to walk into a program that has such an unbelievable process, a proven process, of creating these young men that are achievers and strivers, and they work hard. And Nick has set that. I call him Nick. (This makes them all laugh.) I’m sorry — Coach Saban. You know, he’s created this thing here, and to actually go in and witness the program and to see how much work goes into it in a football ﬁeld full of people that are doing all these drills — the organization was unbelievable. Just to be able to witness the process. Some of our band guys went over with us, and they have other allegiances teamwise, but they were blown away, too. They were excited to go see that, too, because there aren’t many processes that you know that are proven like this one is, and to go in and witness it was really amazing.

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Karen: “Our drummer, Hubert Payne, came. He played football, and now he coaches his son, so he loved that.” Jimi: “Yeah. He was anxious to go soak it up. He just wanted to see the process and the program. It was really amazing to watch.” Is it true that during college football season, the band, as in Tide fan Jimi in particular, has it written in the contracts that satellite or some sort of service be provided at their venue on dates that both Little Big Town and Alabama play? Jimi: “It’s not in the contract, but it will be now. I like that.” Karen: “It not in the contract but it is … ”

Jimi: “It’s highly recommended.” Kimberly: “You know the saying if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy? Well, on game day, if Jimi ain’t happy … ” Karen: “It’s not in the contract. It’s in our personal band commitment with our management that they do everything in their power to get satellite for Jimi.” Jimi: “I am not a diva on the road — until football season. That is when I, if I have a diva card, I play it on Saturdays. I have satellite, and, if I don’t, we’re moving the bus. No matter how far we have to walk.” Karen: “And now he has a son on the bus that agrees.” (At this point, Jimi’s mother, who is also in

the room, interjects that Jimi has been this avid about Alabama football all his life, sometimes to the detriment of the family’s furniture when Alabama wasn’t playing well.) Karen: “My memories, too, of Thanksgiving and having the Alabama-Auburn game right around then — we have three-quarters of the family who are Alabama fans and a quarter of us are Auburn fans? It’s tension-ﬁlled. I actually stay in the kitchen.” Jimi: “Yeah. When we were in Gatlinburg (at a family Thanksgiving gathering) and all of you got to experience that … ” Karen: “When we were up in Nashville a bunch of us were together (watching the game) … The Westbrooks are serious about their football.” Jimi: “It’s serious. It’s serious.” Music tours leave little time for actual touring of a city. Are there any must-sees or food that you’ve got to have when you’re in Tuscaloosa? (At this point, when the word Tuscaloosa is said, Siri pipes in on someone’s iPhone and announces that Alabama kicks off its football season on Aug. 31 and gives the details of the opener.) >>

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Jimi: “Siri just pointed out the schedule! Thank you, Siri. You’re now my favorite.” Kimberly: “I just have to say, I went to Evangeline’s for lunch and it was deeee-licious. It was the best chicken salad. The best chicken salad in the state of Alabama. It was delicious. They were really kind over there.” Jimi: “I mean, you know, Dreamland. You’ve got to always include Dreamland. That’s like a historic place.” Karen: “What’s Dreamland? Barbecue?” Jimi: “Yes.” Karen: “I’m about to send somebody out to get me something.” Kimberly: “Are you about to pull out your diva card?” Karen: “I might get some chicken salad.” Do you guys feel like you are ambassadors for the state? Jimi: “I never thought about that, but, yeah.” Phillip: “I would take that honor.” Jimi’s niece Michelle: “Homewood, Alabama, always gets a shout-out with these girls.” Kimberly: “Oh, yeah!” Karen: “Jimi has a sign — of course he does — coming into Sumiton, Alabama, and Elijah, our son, always asks us why I don’t have a sign coming into Atlanta. I say, ‘Well, it’s a little different. Nobody cares if I’m coming into Atlanta.’ ” Kimberly: “We’re part of the orientation at Samford, Karen.” Karen: “We are?” (Side note: Jimi’s niece, Michelle, had just told Kimberly about the orientation video at Samford, so this is the ﬁrst time Karen has learned it as well.) Jimi: “I love that. I’m good with being an ambassador.” Phillip, do you feel like you’re an ambassador for Arkansas? Phillip: “I think so. I mean, I don’t know how good of an ambassador I am. I don’t think I have a sign.” Have any of you had any on-stage mishaps? That you’re willing to talk about? (They all burst into laughter.) Jimi: “You can hear by all the snickers that we have them, but we can’t talk about them.” Kimberly: “Let us think of one that happened that we can tell.” Jimi: “I remember one time, back when we ﬁrst started, we were on stage. We were opening up for Phil Vassar. Did Karen actually…” Phillip: “She tripped over the pedalboard.” Kimberly: “She fell.” Phillip: “She fell. Phil Vassar went to pick

In 2003, Little Big Town invaded Coleman Coliseum and sang the national anthem before the Alabama-Auburn basketball game.

her up but drug her.” Jimi: (laughing) “He couldn’t get her up to her feet, but he kept walking. And so he just kind of dragged her…” Kimberly: “While he’s still singing. So he only had one arm, which was why he couldn’t get her up.” Jimi: “Which is unusual because Karen would be the last person you’d think that would have the mishap.” Was she laughing? Jimi: “Oh yeah. You had to laugh.” Kimberly: “It was either laugh or cry.” Kimberly, do you have one? Kimberly: “I have one, but I can’t tell you while that’s (the recorder) running.” Kimberly: “There have been so many close calls for me. Like, I’ve been a little wobbly sometimes because of my shoes. I’ve almost fallen so many times. I can’t think of a mishap. Phillip had a woman after him one night on stage. She scaled like a 12-foot wall to get to him.” Phillip: “She climbed to the front of the stage, and before anyone could get to her she just wrapped around me. I’m still trying to sing and play ‘Bring it on Home.’ Finally someone got her off.” Jimi: “We found out that lady broke her leg later trying to get out of the place.” Phillip: “(She was trying to) escape.” Jimi, do you have one? Jimi: “I’m just a walking mishap. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.” Phillip: “What about throwing your guitar at

the end of the show?” Jimi: “Oh, a couple of months ago. I always throw my guitar to my guitar tech, and it’s a good 15 to 20 feet.” Phillip: “It’s a long toss for a guitar.” Jimi: “It’s a long toss. Me and Wheels (the tech) are always locked in and are really good, but every now and then you’ll throw one and the guitar turns weird or something. So, not too long ago I threw my guitar and it was an errant throw. It turned over and went head down and Wheels snagged it at the last minute but rammed it into the wall. But that was all on me.” Kimberly: “He caught the guitar.” Jimi: “He caught the guitar, but it took a lick.” And ﬁnally, the state of Alabama has produced a rich talent pool of musicians and singers: W.C. Handy, Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Hank Williams, Lionel Richie, Randy Owen and Alabama, Emmylou Harris, Percy Sledge ... Jimi: “Percy Sledge? Wow.” How does it feel to be part of such an incredible legacy? Jimi: “That’s amazing. You know, I do notice that a lot, that there are a lot of musical people that come from this area and Alabama. Yeah, that rich tradition of talent — that’s crazy.” Kimberly: “That’s an honor.” Jimi: “It’s amazing.” Kimberly: “It is. It’s royalty.” Phillip: “Makes me wish I’d come from Alabama. But Arkansas has some pretty good ones, too.”

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COVER STORY

The Commodores were among the allstar lineup at the Bicentennial Bash, an all-day concert free to the public at the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater.

UNE

OWN

T-TOWN HAS BECOME A DRAW FOR GREAT MUSIC AND, AS THE WEATHER GETS COOLER, THE SOUNDS MOVE INSIDE BY MARK HUGHES COBB PHOTOS BY THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

fter a smoking summer, fall cools down, musically anyway, around the city. The Tuscaloosa Amphitheater currently has no shows booked for September or October, according to Birmingham-based booking agent Red Mountain Entertainment. That could change by our publication time as the vagaries of tour scheduling and contracts change, but it’s unusual for the Amp to leave football season untouched. Since its 2011 inaugural season, the roughly 8,000 capacity venue has booked roughly April until October, prime fair-weather touring months. Among shows set in past late summer-early falls have been Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson; Neil Young and Crazy Horse, with Alabama Shakes opening; Hall and Oates with St. Paul & The Broken Bones; Kings of Leon and Dawes; Willie Nelson and Jamey Johnson; Eric Church; Rascal Flatts and The Band Perry; Umphrey’s McGee; Widespread Panic; Alabama; Darius Rucker; Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson; The Beach Boys; Lumineers; Fun with Tegan and Sara; The Avett Brothers >>

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COVER STORY

Live at the Plaza

with Grace Potter and The Nocturnals; Gotye and Missy Higgins; Kelly Clarkson and The Fray; Alan Jackson; Train; Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top; 3 Doors Down, Theory of a Deadman and Pop Evil; Pretty Lights and Sound Tribe Sector 9; and Jill Scott. But the Amp did pack shows earlier in the season. The March 30 Bicentennial Bash, though not part of the Amp’s regular season, packed in far and away the venue’s best-ever one-day lineup, with Blind Boys of Alabama, Moon Taxi, Commodores, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, and Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit rotating out on the main stage. Regular season acts booked included Nelly, TLC and Flo Rida; Hank Williams Jr.; Rob Thomas; Kenny Chesney; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Zac Brown Band; Chris Stapleton; Keith Urban; Jason Aldean; Fantasia; and Tedeschi Trucks Band with Drive-By Truckers. In August alone, more than 60 bands played here, including not just a string of Amp shows — Dierks Bentley, Kidz Bop, Little Big Town, Pentatonix, Mary J. Blige with Nas — but the inaugural two-day Druid City Music Festival, headlined by Big Boi, Blackberry Smoke, Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires, CBDB, Break Science, Turkuaz, TAUK, Southern Avenue and others, playing Government Plaza on Day 2. Day 1 featured a variety of regional and touring bands frequenting venues in and around downtown, with a battle of the bands held in the River Market earlier on Day 2. The ninth annual Johnny Shines Blues Festival, celebrating the legendary bluesman who lived out the last decades of his life in Holt, moved to the Leroy McAbee Activity Center for 2019. Earlier in the year other musical or musicrelated gatherings returned and expanded, at least one of them under a new moniker. The June Black Warrior Songwriters Festival represented the second year for an event begun in 2018 as the Druid City Songwriters Festival, changing, in part, to avoid confusion with the new DCMF, driven by Tuscaloosa Tourism & Sports, with assistance from the Bicentennial Commission, Mercedes-Benz, Pepsi, the city and others. The free Live at the Plaza concerts returned to Friday nights from June through early August. April brought the River Fest fundraiser, the third annual Roots Fest in the plaza, and an expansion of the Druid City Arts Festival, which spotlights visual art but includes music, from one day to two. One of the biggest musical events of the summer, a June 7 album release, actually dates back to 1973, when Neil Young ﬁrst played this city with bluegrass-oriented band Stray Gators. Recordings from that Memorial Coliseum

show were released on vinyl and CD this year, as the simply titled “Tuscaloosa.” Though some of his 2012 Crazy Horse set drew from decades-old music, the live album (which cut a handful of tunes from the show) and Young’s 2012 setlist don’t share a single song. Young did play “The Needle and the Damage Done” and “Cinnamon Girl” at both concerts, but neither made the “Tuscaloosa” album. For upcoming months, musical joys must derive from smaller performances and a series of regular events. The Cypress Inn, under new management, has started a series of shows at its Pavilion; the Prentice Concert Chorale will kick off its 2019-20 A Magical Musical Mystery Year with a concert devoted to music by The Beatles; and the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra began its celebration of its 40th season Sept. 30, in a joint concert with the Huxford Symphony Orchestra. • Sept. 20: Chris Lane and Adam Hambrick, 9 p.m., Druid City Music Hall, doors open at 7:30. www.druidcitymusicalhall.com. • Sept. 26-27: “Let It Be,” a Beatles tribute concert performed by the more than 40-yearold Prentice Concert Chorale, an auditioned choir of professional and amateur singers. Times and venue TBA. Tickets will be $15 general, $10 for students. www.prentice concertchorale.com. • Sept. 27: Southern Halo, 8 p.m., Cypress Inn Pavilion. Tickets $15 show only, $30 meal and show. • Sept. 30: The Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra performs “Side by Side with Huxford Symphony Orchestra,” 7 p.m., Moody Concert Hall, University of Alabama campus. TSO Music Director Adam Flatt will conduct along

with Huxford Music Director Blake Richardson; piano soloist will be Clayton Stephenson. The concert will include “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” Ligeti’s “Atmospheres,” and Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto no. 3.” www.tsoonline.org. • Oct. 21: World premiere of Joseph Landers’ “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” opera, featuring the TSO, led by Flatt, with Paul Houghtaling and the UA Opera Theatre, 7 p.m., Moody Concert Hall. • Oct. 27: Rylee Green, 9 p.m., Druid City Music Hall, doors at 7:30. • Oct. 30: Big Wild, Evan Giia, Ark Patron 8:30 p.m., Druid City Music Hall, doors at 7:30. • Nov. 8: Farmer’s Daughter, 8 p.m., Cypress Inn Pavilion. Tickets $15 for show only, $30 for meal and show. • Nov. 8: Frank Foster, 9 p.m., Druid City Music Hall, doors at 7:30. • Nov. 22: Jon May, 8 p.m., Cypress Inn Pavilion. Tickets $10 show only, $25 meal and show. • Nov. 25: The TSO will perform “Seeking, Finding,” 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, featuring Margie Johnston as chorus director, on Haydn’s “Symphony no. 44 ‘Trauer’ (‘Mourning’),” Ives’ “The Unanswered Question,” the Schubert “Mass no. 2 in G” and Mozart’s “Ave verum corpus, K. 618.” • Dec. 7: The 17th Annual Holiday Singalong, Capitol Park, time TBA. The Tuscaloosa News provides lyric sheets, accompaniment, song leaders, food and drink; all are invited. Family and pet-friendly. • Dec. 16: The TSO’s annual holiday concert, 7 p.m., Moody Concert Hall, with the Prentice Concert Chorale, Alabama Choir School and Shelton Singers.

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Dr. Terry Olivet alongside Greased Lightning.

MAKING A SCENE

THEATRE TUSCALOOSA’S DESIGNERS BRING SETTINGS TO LIFE BY KELCEY SEXTON • PHOTOS BY PORFIRIO SOLORZANO/SHELTON STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE • PHOTOS (DR. OLIVET) BY EMILY RUSSELL/THEATRE TUSCALOOSA “The Secret Garden”

“Hairspray”

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“Once Upon a Mattress”

great set can transport audience members to the world in which the production they’re seeing unfolds. Theatre Tuscaloosa’s sets are no exception. The local group, which works out of Bean-Brown Theatre on the Shelton State Community College campus, is known for its ability to spirit viewers away to far-off places — particularly with its beautifully done sets. Whether it’s the fantastical Neverland in “Peter Pan,” Anatevka in “Fiddler on the Roof” or Rydell High in “Grease,” Theatre Tuscaloosa brings these settings to life. “The mounting of a stage play in live theater is a lot of work,” said Dr. Terry Olivet, who has been a volunteer with Theatre Tuscaloosa for the past 18 years and served on its board of directors for about 16 of those years. “People walk in and sit down … the curtain opens and they say, >>

“Grease”

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Dr. Terry Olivet working on the “Grease” set.

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“Oh, that’s pretty,” or, “I wonder how they did that,” and few people probably realize the amount of creativity that has gone into it, the hours of work from the designers and the technical directors and just the labor of turning that mental picture and concept into a physical structure on stage.” Olivet is a former heart surgeon who started a practice in Tuscaloosa in 1979. After retiring in 2002, he decided to dedicate some of his free time to an outlet that is near and dear to his heart — theater. “I’m a lifelong theater fan and buff,” he said, adding that it is his and his wife’s go-to entertainment outlet. “As soon as I retired, I kind of asked myself, you know, ‘What do you really enjoy? What makes you happy? How do you think you’d like to spend some of this time that you’re now going to have instead of working at the hospital?’” Olivet said. “And theater kind of is something I really feel good about and enjoy.” He took several theater-related courses at Shelton State and discovered a fascination with stagecraft, he said. That includes aspects such as “building sets, designing sets, lighting, sound, rigging and all the things that go on the technical end.” Olivet also has acted in four major Theatre Tuscaloosa productions — he was the rabbi in “Fiddler on the Roof” — but he prefers the technical side of things. “My job as a heart surgeon was very much the use of my hands,” he said, and technical theater work in a way continues that craft. It can include carpentry, building platforms or walls, erecting scaffolding, rigging and even electrical wiring for stage lighting — he helps with whatever needs to be done, working with

“Second Samuel”

Technical Director Wheeler Kincaid, Scene Shop Foreman David Skelton and others. A production of “Peter Pan” had a set so large, Olivet said, that Charlie Dennis, the set designer at the time, had to direct stagehand trafﬁc backstage during the show to ensure that all the “jigsaw puzzle pieces of the set” went where they were supposed to offstage as space was so cramped. Set movement during a show is rehearsed and choreographed just as the acting is, Olivet said, and it’s done as quickly as possible by stagehands who are dressed in black. A recent production of “Grease” required that the racing car Greased Lightning be

brought on and off stage for a few scenes. A two-door 1948 Chevrolet coupe that Kincaid found and bought in Mississippi was transported into the Theatre Tuscaloosa body shop and transformed into the iconic cherry red convertible. Olivet said the car “kind of helped steal the show,” adding that people wanted their photos taken with it afterward. “There are a lot of technical things on the set that are designed for beauty, for utility, for getting the message across and helping to tell the story, but at the same time, all of it involves safety,” he said. “You don’t want your workers getting hurt; you don’t want your actors to get hurt.” >>

“Grease”

“Cabaret”

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“The Producers”

Accidents can happen, though. Olivet’s shin collided with a pipe during backstage production in “Grease.” “It’s very recent. I’m still healing,” he said, laughing. “I’ve got I guess blood, sweat and tears left on just about every set.” Marla Moss, a scenic artist with Theatre Tuscaloosa, is another who has put in countless hours behind the scenes. Seeing her daughter perform in her ﬁrst play, “A Christmas Carol,” ignited her love for theater, she said, and inspired her to get involved with Theatre Tuscaloosa around 2005. After taking a theater appreciation class at Shelton State, Moss auditioned for a part — which she landed — then began volunteering and was offered a job with Theatre Tuscaloosa. “Before you know it, I was working like every show after that,” she said. “I just fell in love with theater. I absolutely fell in love with it. It’s so expressive. ... Every one of the shows, there’s so much artwork, so much detail, so much thought and hard work that goes into it to make it come alive for the people who are in there and they have not

a clue how much work went into it. It’s very, very inspiring.” Every individual leaf on the set background for Theatre Tuscaloosa’s “Fiddler on the Roof” was hand-painted using a brush, and “all of them were me,” she said. “Hours and hours and hours of hand-painting.” Moss, who does construction work on top of her work as a scenic artist, is “a Jackie of all trades.” She sometimes builds and helps with other tasks in addition to painting, but her role as scenic painter is integral: to bring texture and dimension to ﬂat surfaces within the set. For instance, for a production of “Ragtime,” Kincaid wanted the set to look like a patina metal bridge — and it did, but it was wood Moss painted to look that way, which she said was a lot of work. “Manipulating the paint to make it look lifelike is where I come in. You can draw me any picture,” Moss said, “but I can make it come to life. That’s what I do. I basically breathe life into the set.” She also said that in every scenic piece that she paints now, she leaves a hidden dragonﬂy somewhere as an homage to her

Wheeler Kincaid

mother, also an artist, who passed away in 2009. Growing up, her parents always encouraged her to pursue art, she said, and theater is what “actually let me express in so many different ways the love and the passion and the beauty that I see in every set that I do.” “I’ve had people come up and ask me for parts of the set (after shows),” she said. “Several people took home pieces of the brickwork that I did (for “To Kill a Mockingbird”). That was foam that was carved and made to look like brick.” Moss works with several other area companies, including Tuscaloosa Children’s Theatre and UA Opera Theatre. And she recently worked on Red Mountain Theatre Company’s production of “My Fair Lady.” She also designed her ﬁrst set last year, for “The Little Mermaid” with Tuscaloosa’s Actor’s Charitable Theatre. Transporting audiences is her favorite part of what she does. “(Theater productions are) many people working together for one big, huge painting that is actually moving, if you think of it like that. It’s fantastic,” Moss said.

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LIFEwith FATHER TERRY CORRAO’S PHOTO BOOK CAPTURES THE BONDS BETWEEN DADS AND THEIR DAUGHTERS

he bond between fathers and their daughters is on full display in “Father Daughter,” Terry Corrao’s book of black and white photo essays. Her portrait series, 22 years in the making, often shows an intimate side of fathers that others don’t see. “That was a major goal in this, to capture those ﬂeeting moments with a glance or holding of the hand. You can catch those heartwarming moments when you can see that bond and that relationship and that trust — it was something I really strived to capture in the series,” Corrao said. It all started with her own father, who passed away in 1994. “It was a really great relationship,” said Corrao, who now lives in Tuscaloosa but spent much of her adult life in New York. She grew up in sunny Southern California, grilling out on the patio and roughhousing with her dad. “I was the ﬁrst of three girls and my dad was very young at heart and

he just loved to do things with us, just very involved. He was very encouraging.” In fact, she selected the book’s cover art, of a choreographer helping his daughter perform acrobatics in a lake, because it felt so familiar — and she wasn’t alone. “I chose that because that was one of the premier memories of my childhood, with dad in the pool, and it was so funny when the book came out how many daughters said the same thing.” Corrao is partial to action shots, such as another of a dad swinging his daughter around amid freshly melted snow. “I think that so much more of a father-daughter relationship is based on doing things together.” The fathers she photographed often weren’t used to being in the spotlight. “Almost every single shoot, the dads would say, ‘Gee, you know, we have few if any pictures of just me with my daughters.’ ” The moms were often in the background, even reaching out to Corrao to encourage the photo session and suggesting a location or activity.

BY AMY ROBINSON | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR. 54

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ABOVE: Terry Corrao with her book, “Father Daughter,” at Ernest & Hadley Booksellers in Tuscaloosa. FACING PAGE, FROM TOP: Actor Martin Landau and his daughter, actress Juliet Landau. • Italian ﬁlm producer Dino DeLaurentiis and his daughters. • Al Hirschfeld and his daughter, Nina West. Hirschfeld was famous for working Nina’s name into his Broadway caricatures.

“They all seemed to know how important it was to document this relationship between father and daughter.” Influenced by magazines of the 1950s and ‘60s with their expanded photo essays, and constantly being exposed to classic films such as “Notorious” and “Citizen Kane” through her filmmaker husband, Corrao decided to tell her story with black and white photographs. Her husband helped her select the perfect photos from each shoot. “We’d make Xeroxes of all the prints and lay them on the floor, and build an arc of a story in a way, much like you build a movie.” She started out photographing family and friends, then their friends. Sometimes she stopped strangers on the street, including

a father-daughter team at a balloon festival and a dad holding his young daughter at a Bolivian parade. She captured some famous faces, such as ﬁlm producer Dino De Laurentiis with his ﬁve daughters. Through working as a personal assistant to producer Tim Burton on the movie “Sleepy Hollow,” she photographed actor Martin Landau and his daughter, actress Juliet Landau (Drusilla on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) at the launch party: “They were just delightful.” She even photographed television producer James Burrows, of “Friends” fame, in his backyard. “That was just phenomenal,” she said. “He’s great, he was really funny … he was thrilled with the shoot. I think he used it as his screen saver. He adores his girls.”

At least two faces may be familiar to West Alabama readers: George and Vershonya Archibald, photographed at Archibald’s BBQ in Northport in 2013. “We’d gone over there and gotten some ribs and everything, and I had met George Archibald and I just thought it was such an incredible place, so I went back and asked him if he had a daughter and if we could do a photo shoot and he said yes, it would be great,” Corrao said. Three weeks after the shoot, she said, Archibald’s health took a turn for the worse. He died in 2017. “I’m so glad I caught him when I did.” Some of the photos include four-legged family members. “Oh, I love ones with the animals,” Corrao gushed. “I mean, they basically wandered >> 55

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into the picture, and so I love it when something so natural and spontaneous like that happens and it just adds to the family dynamics I think, because those dogs definitely feel like family members.” One photo features a father holding his week-old infant as their dog inspects the new arrival, realizing “he was no longer an only child.” Corrao laughs at the memory of the dog: “He was enormous and he slobbered so much!” There are lots of photos taken in New York and California, and even in Paris, London and Kenya (on a movie set that, ironically, featured lions that were imported from California and more camera-ready than the native felines). Corrao and her husband ended up in Tuscaloosa after their son got a job at the University of Alabama. “The hospitality has just been unparalleled; people have just been so warm and embracing. It’s just fantastic.” And she found “so much talent” to help with her project. “I was really able to finish this book because we were in this great university town.” She was filled with euphoria when she saw the books coming off the press in Canada. “It was really the equivalent of giving birth, the same kind of joy as when my kids were born … because this was going to be the legacy

I was going to leave my kids,” she said. “The poor printer was so bafﬂed when I started to cry.” The book was a silver award winner for cover design at the 2017 Benjamin Franklin Book Awards. Corrao has been promoting it with support from Ernest & Hadley Booksellers in Tuscaloosa and Alabama Booksmith in Homewood, among others. She’s done book signings all over the U.S., including locally at Kentuck Art Night in Northport. And she’s kept up with many of her subjects. “I stayed in touch with a lot of them and they’ve just been so supportive,” Corrao said, adding that most of the girls went on to become professionals — her cover girl even joined Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, a dance company in Monaco. “My stepmom had a saying: ‘You never know when you say hello …’ and it’s so true. You just have to kind of keep yourself open to the universe and things happen.” Corrao is glad she can leave a tangible legacy. “I think we’re all put here on earth to leave some sort of legacy for the future generations, and we have to just sort of ﬁgure out what it is, what kind of mark we want to leave.”

WHERE TO GET IT “Father Daughter” can be found online and at the following stores: Ernest & Hadley (signed ﬁrst editions), Lady in Lace, and Lou & Co. in Tuscaloosa; Alabama Booksmith in Homewood (signed ﬁrst editions); and various other U.S. locations.

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BUSINESS

UMBO SUCCESS STORY SUMTER COUNTY SHRIMP ARE A SEAFOOD LOVERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DELIGHT

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n landlocked Sumter County, 60 miles west of Tuscaloosa and just east of the Mississippi border, ponds full of jumbo shrimp probably are the last thing you’d expect to ﬁnd. For two families of farmers in Bellamy, though, raising shrimp is their business, and business is good. To talk about Sumter County Shrimp, you have to go back 60 years to a farmer named Frank Allison, who drilled an artisanal well 1,300 feet into the ground hoping to draw clean water to give his cows. The well worked and water began to ﬂow, but much to Allison’s ire, it was extremely salty and of little use on a cattle farm. For 50 years, the well seemed more like a curse than a blessing. >>

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Farm manager Eric Hasty empties a trap after checking the size and quality of the shrimp. • A close-up of the shrimp several weeks before harvest. • Co-owner Lee Stegall (left) with farm manager Eric Hasty.

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“Many, many, many millions of years ago, all this was covered by ocean and there are areas of land like ours that just have enormous salt deposits beneath them,” said Lee Stegall, Allison’s grandson. “Our well is 1,300 feet deep and where we’re drawing our water out, there’s just a very high concentration of salt, which the groundwater has absorbed as it’s sat down there, and as a result we get salty water.” Fast-forward a few decades, and Stegall is working on the same property, and the water from the well is still highly salinated. By chance, Stegall took a work trip to Demopolis in 2013 and heard talk of a farmer in Forkland who made the best of similar circumstances. That man, David TeichertCoddington, founded the Greene Prairie Aquafarm and raises shrimp using the salt water beneath his own land. Teichert-Coddington agreed to meet Stegall in Bellamy and immediately told him he needed to be in the shrimp farming business. The idea grew in Stegall’s head for three years, as he researched the industry and traveled the Southeast to attend meetings and visit other operations. “The farming community has been the best help in getting us where we are,” Stegall said. “We are not the first shrimp farm in Alabama, and the support and guidance the others have provided has been invaluable.” Eventually, Stegall discussed the possibilities with his friend Shawn Templeton, whose family agreed to come on as partners, and in 2016 Shawn Templeton and his wife, Eddie Templeton and his wife and the Stegalls founded Sumter County Shrimp. There, Stegall and Templeton raise Pacific white shrimp, which are typically native to the eastern Pacific Ocean between Mexico and Peru. Each of their six saltwater ponds is stocked with 600,000 shrimp, but the farmers harvest only 120,000 per pond. That means the families produce about 720,000 adult jumbo shrimp a year. “We have a premium product that is cleaner than any shrimp you’ll find in the world, completely free of any kind of pesticides, pollutants, antibiotics or preservatives, and they’re grown sustainably,” Stegall said. “Even though I love Gulf shrimp and have no problem eating them, everything that washes down the Black Warrior River from Tuscaloosa ends in Mobile Bay where the shrimp are growing — even our Gulf shrimp have some pollution in them.” >>

THIS PAGE: Stegall and Hasty examine the progress of the shrimp. The shrimp grow from larvae purchased in Fort Myers, Florida. FACING PAGE: The pond was originally formed from well water and is salty, perfect for growing shrimp. • Lee Stegall retrieves a shrimp trap.

ABOUT SUMTER COUNTY SHRIMP: To learn more about Sumter County Shrimp, visit its Facebook page by the same name, where Stegall says the staff can communicate most effectively with customers. In Tuscaloosa, they plan to set up a trailer and sell their shrimp this fall in locations next to the Wells Fargo bank on McFarland Boulevard North and beside Dunkin’s Pharmacy on Highway 69 South. 60

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“We have a premium product that is cleaner than any shrimp you’ll ﬁnd in the world, completely free of any kind of pesticides, pollutants, antibiotics or preservatives, and they’re grown sustainably.” LEE STEGALL

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The only thing added to the ponds in Bellamy is potassium, which occurs naturally in the ocean and is added only in small quantities. In the long term, Sumter County Shrimp aims to supply Alabama restaurants with its product and to increase its retail presence in area stores, but for now it primarily sells directly to consumers on the side of the highway in Tuscaloosa and at a few stores in Birmingham. Customers can purchase a 5-pound bag of jumbo shrimp for $30, and Stegall said the shrimp are easy to freeze and taste just as good and as fresh after they’ve been thawed. Selling the shrimp this way isn’t the ideal business model, Stegall said, but one issue they aren’t worried about is customer retention. “There’s been a lot of learning curves on this adventure and we’ve made a lot of mistakes, had lots of problems and we were hoping to have a better marketing plan,” he said. “But the good news is once someone tries our shrimp, they love them — there’s no problem getting them back again.” As with any other crop, shrimp farming is a seasonal business. Stegall and company purchase millions of certified pathogen-free shrimp larvae from Fort Myers, Florida, each year and place them in their ponds back in Bellamy during the spring when the salt water is warm enough for them to survive and grow. Four or five months later, in September and October, it’s time to harvest, which is its own bizarre but wonderful process. “Harvesting the shrimp is nothing like what you have ever imagined, and the technology we use, I never even knew it existed,” Stegall said. “We actually have a fish pump that pulls all the shrimp and all the

water out of a pond and pumps into a de-watering tower. We call it the Shrimp-and-Slide.” The shrimp come out onto a stainless steel grate where the water drains through and the shrimp slide through. “I never knew you could pump a ﬁsh without hurting it at all, without damaging even an antenna,” Stegall said. This daylong process doesn’t allow any cut corners — the farm must pump an entire pond at once and collect the shrimp as that water is drained away. With an ideal crop, they harvest more than 600,000 shrimp in a single day, typically on a Thursday. With the prize in hand, Stegall, Templeton and their staff spend Friday and Saturday selling the iced-down shrimp in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham before repeating the entire affair on another pond the next week until all six are empty and their nearly 720,000 shrimp are harvested. In the next few years, Stegall would like to expand sales into additional markets and increase the farm’s productivity by stocking nine ponds instead of six, raising the number of shrimp raised per year to around 1 million. Stegall is adamant that he never could have made the dream of Sumter County Shrimp a reality without help — he credits the Templeton family and his farm manager with getting the enterprise off the ground and maintaining it every day. “I just want to say I didn’t do this alone,” Stegall said. “The Templetons are our partners in this, and Eric Hasty is our farm manager here — they have all been instrumental in getting this going and keeping it running.”

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NOT JUST A

BUSINESS R&R CIGARS HAS BECOME A COZY DESTINATION

BY STEPHEN DETHRAGE | PHOTOS BY JAKE ARTHUR

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or Reagan Starner and his dad, Randy, cigars are more than something with which to celebrate after the Crimson Tide beats Tennessee every October — they’re big business and, at their best, cigars are unifying, bringing people of all backgrounds under one roof for a common interest. Together with their wives, Leslie and Debbie, Reagan and Randy own and operate R&R Cigars, Tuscaloosa’s premier cigar shop and liquor bar, which does business out of a two-story mansion on Sixth Street downtown. Reagan Starner said owning the shop was not part of his original life plan — he actually graduated from Liberty University School of Law in Lynchburg, Virginia. “When I was in law school, I opened up a cigar shop with a guy in Lynchburg and worked there for a year and a half, but when I graduated law school, I didn’t want to practice law,” he said. “So we looked at markets that were underserved, and the cigar industry in Alabama had forgotten about Tuscaloosa. This city hadn’t had a shop for ﬁve years before we opened because nobody wanted to come here.” >> CLOCKWISE, THESE TWO PAGES: The entrance to R&R Cigars. • Co-owner Reagan Starner relaxes in one of the smoking rooms. • The humidor room contains a large selection of cigars for purchase. • The Churchhill room includes a portrait of the smoking room’s namesake.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: The store and cigar lounge is located in a restored historic home on Sixth Street in downtown Tuscaloosa. • The cloud room. All the smoking lounge rooms have one or more televisions so friends can gather and watch sporting events together. • Scott Lary, left, and Donnie Nelson, enjoying life on the porch. • Christian Williams is among the staff, and cigar aﬁcionados, at the store.

Reagan moved to Tuscaloosa and dived in, opening a store in January 2012 on the corner of University Boulevard and 28th Avenue, but 18 months later, the property owner terminated the lease and demolished the building to make way for residential development. The Starners were undeterred, though, and had leased the house on Sixth Street ahead of time to prepare for the coming demolition. They opened the new lounge on their last day in business at the ﬁrst location. “I’ve always been really proud of how we were able to go from there to here and open on the same day,” Starner said. “This store has never seen a day with zero sales in the seven and a half years we’ve been here.” They purchased the new building in 2014 after leasing it a year and have been serving customers and improving the space ever since. Now, R&R Cigars boasts seven smoking rooms and a 2,000-square-foot front porch. The store sells more than 1,000 unique cigars, and its bar offers 80 kinds of craft beer and an unmatched selection of 150 premium whiskeys, bourbons, rums and more. This idea of always expanding, adding new rooms and new offerings every year, changing out the furniture every three years, is central to the Starners’ business philosophy. >>

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The spirits room.

“I think that change is one of the most important things in life. I’m never afraid of it and I embrace it,” Starner said. “Too often, we become so obsessed with not changing things that we end up stagnating ourselves, our minds and our businesses because we’re so set in our ways that we can’t adapt when our circumstances change.” By reinvesting the store’s proﬁts into the business and expanding and improving wherever possible, R&R continues to create the best possible experience for customers and has developed a national reputation as a top-notch destination for cigar lovers. For the Starners, the national stage is the only one that matters. “We don’t want to be the best cigar shop in the state of Alabama, we don’t want to be the best in the Southeast — we compete on a national scale, and that’s always been our goal and our focus from day one,” Starner said. “We want to be the best cigar shop in the United States.” Starner said part of that effort has been ﬁghting the stereotype of the average cigar smoker — an older man in his 50s or 60s, a grandpa, a banker, an attorney. At R&R, he said, the clientele is as diverse as it gets. Smokers of all ages, all races, all political backgrounds and sports fandoms, all are welcome. “This industry is at a point now where we need to start looking for different customers, but I want to break the mold on that, and we’ve

started to do that here,” Starner said. “I’m really proud of that.” Starner said customers range from young college students to the older professional crowd, and his wife, Leslie, even hosts viewing parties where women of all backgrounds get together to smoke cigars, drink bourbon and watch “The Bachelorette.” Although their focus is on the everyday and showing peak hospitality to regulars and new customers alike, Starner said, the TennesseeAlabama rivalry is still huge business. This year, he said, the shop is partnering with La Flor Dominicana, a cigar brand founded in Santiago, Dominican Republic, to create a custom Crimson Tide-themed cigar available only at R&R Cigars, so don’t forget about them come the third Saturday in October. “I hope Alabama never loses to Tennessee ever again,” Starner said, laughing. The constantly improving and expanding store, the well-trained and courteous staff, the outrageous liquor and beer selection — all these and more come together to make R&R something special for the Starner family and for all who visit. “It’s not just a cigar shop, it’s a parlor and a bar, and that’s all just as important as the cigars are,” Starner said. “We’ve established R&R as a destination spot for Alabama fans and cigar smokers across the country, and I couldn’t be happier.”

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Dr. Leroy Hurt leads a class in Nordic walking at the YMCA of Tuscaloosa.

WalkTHIS WAY BY STAN GRIFFIN â&#x20AC;¢ PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

NORDIC WALKING TAKES FITNESS IN STRIDE

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alking remains a popular option for those seeking activities that provide both leisure and health-related benefits. Winter, summer, spring and fall, locales for walking are plentiful in Tuscaloosa. When the weather allows a stroll outdoors, the University of Alabama campus, Snow Hinton Park and the Tuscaloosa Riverwalk are some local favorites. When the weather is not cooperative, or a person just wants to stay indoors, University Mall, Tuscaloosa County Park and Recreation Authority activity centers, and the University of Alabama Recreation Center all have walking tracks or contained areas. One twist to this exercise that is slowly but surely beginning to catch on in and around Tuscaloosa is the form of Nordic walking. This is more of a total body form of walking that can be enjoyed by non-athletes as a health-promoting physical activity and by athletes as an actual sport. Nordic walking is performed utilizing specially designed walking poles similar to poles used for skiing. A key figure seeking to introduce the numerous benefits of Nordic walking to local communities is Dr. Leroy Hurt, associate dean of community engagement for the University of Alabama’s College of Continuing Studies. >> LEFT: Members of OLLI’s Nordic walking class enjoy a hike around Tuscaloosa’s downtown YMCA. BELOW: Dr. Leroy Hurt leads a Nordic walking class in stretching exercises before they walk.

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LEFT: Gail Hasson gets her poles set for a Nordic walking class. BELOW: A close-up of the handles of the poles.

Largely through a program in the university’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a member-directed organization that provides adults with social, educational, travel and leadership opportunities, Hurt directs classes and conducts Nordic walks. “If you’ve seen people cross-country skiing, that is what (participants) look like when they’re Nordic walking, except there’s no snow and skis,” Hurt said. “They have these poles that look like trekking poles, but they’re designed differently because the idea is that you push off with them as you’re walking, and by pushing off you’re involving your upper body in the effort. Walking goes from being primarily lower body to being the full-body experience. I’ve been tracking research articles on all this, and all the health numbers go in positive directions because of that, and it raises the intensity of walking so you’re actually burning more calories, and you’re getting your heartbeat up a little higher and you’re doing all these positive things that you get from exercise.” Hurt said the poles used for the sport, which originated in Finland in the 1960s, are not yet available on a retail basis, but can be ordered online. He keeps several in stock for his classes because participants who take to the sport tend to immediately request to use the poles while they are walking. Hurt ventured into the world of Nordic walking in large part due to his own health considerations. “I realized I was getting to the age where running was less practical because of the impact on my joints and all,” he said. “I was looking for a full-body aerobic activity, and for the time being, I was doing elliptical machines and the like, but it got kind of boring being in the gym the whole time on the machine where you don’t go anywhere. With Nordic walking, I could get outside and get around and be in the world. You could also walk with other people, so you could be getting a decent workout and still talk with friends as you’re out there walking. The

facilities that have indoor tracks, you could do it there, too, (in order to perhaps beat the heat or avoid inclement weather).” Hurt has taught Nordic walking for about four years for OLLI and for the Tuscaloosa Park and Recreation Authority. He has also taught the sport at various retirement communities and places such as Aldridge Botanical Gardens in Hoover and the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham. He said the sport is unique in that it can be enjoyed by a wide range of individuals. “It’s pretty amazing because you can customize the intensity level,” Hurt said. “If you’re feeling really athletic, you can give yourself a very high-intensity workout because you can treat it like a training circuit. There’s a video of a fellow who goes out and drags tires around while he Nordic walks. It’s tailorable to whatever your level is. People who also have disabilities find that it’s a really handy way to exercise. For example, the person with Parkinson’s disease, that is a popular application with Nordic walking because you have the ability to balance and still get a good workout.” Primary benefits of Nordic walking include the enhancement of agility, balance, posture, motion range and endurance. Among those who have reaped the benefits, and the enjoyment of the sport, is Tuscaloosa’s Dorothy Peacock. “Several years ago, Dr. Hurt listed a Nordic pole walking instruction in an OLLI course catalog, and by the end of the class, I bought poles from Leroy and have used them daily ever since,” she said. “Osteoporosis and poor balance and (being 83 years old) put limits on my mobility. Nordic poles make it possible to attend OLLI classes, go on bus trips and visit (places such as) Toronto. With the elderly, falling often results in catastrophic injury. Nordic poles greatly reduce this risk.” Hurt will be leading Nordic walks Oct. 6 at Aldridge Botanical Gardens from 2-3:30 p.m. and Nov. 16 at the Van de Graaf Arboretum and Historic Bridge Park in Northport from 7:30-9 a.m.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED For more information regarding his walks or classes, you can reach Hurt via Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/NordicWalkingGuy, on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/LeroyHurt and on his blog at http://www.nordicwalkingguy.blogspot.com 72

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BOOKS

BY BECKY HOPF | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR. AND THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

PAGES

FOR THE

AGES BOOKS THAT WILL ALWAYS BE FAVORITES all is back-to-school time, and one of the greatest gifts education gives us is the ability to read and write. So, in honor of the return to classes, we polled some Tuscaloosa residents, past (James Spann) and present (all the rest), to share a book they’ve read that transported them or deeply affected them, a book that will always remain a favorite.

Rick Bragg

NOVELIST/COLUMNIST/ WRITER/COLLEGE PROFESSOR

I’m like a lot of kids who fell in love with reading. Reading was a way to travel. Otherwise it was contained by a pulpwood road here and a timber road there and a ﬁeld. Not to be too dramatic, but that was it. That was how I traveled. My favorite book as a boy growing up ﬂuctuates as I get older and touch on it in my memory, but a couple have stayed with me. I think about books that helped me — it helped me travel. And one of those was a book called

“Savage Sam.” It was by the same man who did “Old Yeller” (Fred Gipson). I’ve always loved dogs, and “Savage Sam” was the story of a kidnapping by these renegade Indians who kidnapped these folks in the Texas hill country. The dog, to make a long story short, comes to rescue him. It just had everything. It had running gun battles. It had trudging through the wilderness, starving to death — with a good dog at your side helping you. It was just an adventure. I read it for the ﬁrst time when I was in elementary school, and I’ve probably read it 15 more

Walt Maddox

MAYOR, CITY OF TUSCALOOSA

When I was in college, I read “The Cost of Courage” by Carl Elliott. Mr. Elliott was an Alabama congressman who authored the student loan legislation, which has provided tens of millions of Americans the opportunity to afford college, including myself. In the mid-1960s, Congressman Elliott decided to take on the George Wallace political machine and it cost him dearly both politically and ﬁnancially. Elliott’s courage to do what is right, instead of what is popular, has always inspired me!

times in my life, partly because we didn’t have many books in the house. We had the New Testament and spring seed catalog and not a whole lot more. So that one and “Old Yeller.” But “Old Yeller” was incredibly sad. They made movies of both of them. And, of course, I grew up with “The Hardy Boys.” I read a whole lot of these books called “You Were There,” events that say you were there. Like, you were there at the Alamo. You were there at the sinking of the Bismarck in World War II. You were there at the Battle of New Orleans. It was history, but it was written for kids. My basketball coach, Orville Johnson, he noticed that I liked to read and always encouraged me, which was good because I sure

didn’t come by basketball naturally. I was a shooter. If a basketball even rolled my way by accident (it did not bode well). Every time, this time of year I think about getting a new notebook. Getting that new notebook and having access to the library. And getting your literature reading — like your American literature reader or your English book or reading “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” Reading Mark Twain. Reading his story about the giant leaping frog. I always think about that. If you ever want to feel old, just look around and look at the children carrying cellphones. Our book bags, our little satchels, they weighed 70 pounds. Because we read books. And I miss that.

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BOOKS

Fuller Goldsmith

FOOD NETWORK “CHOPPED JUNIOR” CHAMPION

(From his mother, Melissa Goldsmith): Last year during his freshman year of high school Fuller read “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption” by Laura Hillenbrand. He said he loves World War II books and liked this one because he got to know what a real veteran’s life was like before, during and after the war. He also liked that Louis (the main character) was so strong, both mentally and physically. He admires that no matter how hard things got, Louis never gave up. It is something he remembers as he endures continuing cancer treatments or challenges that come with being a chef.

Michael James

EDITOR, THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

Several books have captivated me for one reason or another, over the years, and choosing my second favorite would be difﬁcult. Choosing my favorite was easy — George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” I read it for the ﬁrst time in high school and its overarching theme — the menace of totalitarianism — was frightening, but the means envi-

sioned by Orwell to achieve it and sustain it — Big Brother, the Thought Police, Newspeak to name some familiar examples from the book — were enthralling. And believable. “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is a study in the utter subjugation of individual freedom to the state, but this was not a new concept. To me, the power of the book is in the introspection Orwell requires of the reader, who must contemplate how he or she would respond to that dystopian world. I’m sure it inﬂuenced my decision to enter a profession whose foremost responsibility is to keep an eye on government.

Easty Lambert-Brown OWNER OF ERNEST & HADLEY BOOKSELLERS

I first read “A Room with a View,” by E.M. Forster, in 2002 in preparation for a trip to Tuscany. Although it was written in 1908, it gave me a terrific feel for Tuscany and Florence in particular. The book spawned my interest in early 20th-century literature and the thoughtful language used by the authors of that time. To this day, when I see a photo of the Florence Duomo, it brings tears to my eyes. When I returned to Florence last year, I read the book again and everything I could get my hands on about the Medicis and Michelangelo. Yes, it is a totally addictive book with divine benefits.

Steve Anderson

FORMER TUSCALOOSA CHIEF OF POLICE

One of my favorite books is “Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacriﬁce of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown” (by Eric Blehm). The reason this is one of my favorite books is due to the fact it chronicles the challenges and struggles of Adam Brown and how he overcame one adversity after another in his life to become a true American hero. This book reminds me that we all face adversity in life and how we deal with those adversities determines who we are capable of becoming.

James Spann

AWARD-WINNING METEOROLOGIST, WBRC-TV BIRMINGHAM /NOVELIST

My favorites ... the Rick Bragg trilogy ... “All Over But The Shoutin’,” “Ava’s Man” and “Prince of Frogtown.” I heard Rick speak at the University of Alabama several years ago, and I connected with him on a very personal level as he shared his life story. My next chore was ordering these three books. I had a hard time putting them down. Rick has a God-given gift. Others have experienced a troubled/challenging childhood, but few can put it all into words like this. In some ways, my life mirrors Rick’s journey. He is a master storyteller and writer, and these three books are, in my opinion, his ﬁnest work. In a way it encouraged me to tell my own story. I can never write like Rick Bragg, but I can try.

Special thanks to The Tuscaloosa Public Library and Ron Harris and Jennifer Estes, Yvette Joyner at the Tuscaloosa Public Library’s Weaver Bolden Branch, and Kay Kirkley and Michelle Leonard at the TPL’s Friends of the Library Bookstore, all of whom helped in pulling the books that were photographed from their shelves. 75

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FASHION

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FASHION

ON LAYLA: Habitual Girl black knit velvet detail dress.

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FASHION

ON BRYLEE: Habitual Girl white puff sleeve top with Habitual Girl denim skirt. (Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s posed with Hope Chandler).

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FASHION

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FASHION

ON SARAH FRANCES (LEFT): Habitual Girl crimson dressy romper. ON LAYLA: Habitual Girl black knit velvet detail dress. ON BRYLEE: Habitual Girl white puff sleeve top and Habitual Girl denim skirt.

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FASHION

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FASHION

ON SARAH FRANCES (LEFT): Habitual Girl green rain jacket; Ragdolls & Rockets black stripe tee; Tractor black moto jeggings. ON LAYLA (CENTER): Habitual Girl frayed hem jeans with Habitual Girl mustard stripe tee. ON BRYLEE: Habitual Girl mustard sweatshirt with Tractor denim jeans.

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FASHION

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FASHION

OPPOSITE PAGE, ON SARAH FRANCES: Habitual Girl Crimson dressy romper. ABOVE: Beckett Chapin, left, and Landon Plowman wait patiently while their sisters are photographed.

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FASHION

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INTRIGUING

PEOPLE

Meet six folks who make a difference in our communities

ASHLEY MORRISON Equestrian/ horse farm owner/trainer

LUKE LINDSAY

Eagle Scout

DON SALLS

Oldest UA football letterman

LESLEY BRUINTON President-elect, NSPRA

CORNELIUS CARTER Dancer/dance instructor

CLINTON HUBBARD JR. Senior pastor

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 1

Ashley

MORRISON EQUESTRIAN/HORSE FARM OWNER/TRAINER

BY STEVE IRVINE PHOTO GARY COSBY JR.

shley Morrison’s journey into a lifetime in the equestrian world began with a bit of Christmas fortune. In other words, Santa was good to her. “Actually, when I was 6, I went to the Kentucky Horse Park with my family,” Morrison said. “I fell in love with horses there. I came home and asked Santa Claus for a horse for Christmas. He brought me a horse. And my love grew from that. Once you get the bug, it’s hard to escape it.” Instead of escaping, Morrison rode her love of horses to a lifetime in the equestrian business. She is a former team captain of the equestrian club program at the University of Alabama, the owner/trainer of Westminster Farms in Northport and the current coach of a UA equestrian team that has grown leaps and bounds since its inception. “I wanted to be a vet,” Morrison said. “When I worked for a vet here, when I was growing up, I realized I can’t see large amounts of blood without passing out. That didn’t work out for me. (I wanted to do) something with animals, I love animals. I’m very fortunate that I’m able to do something every day that I love. That’s not something most people can say.” And it all started with that happy Christmas. “Santa Claus brought me a Tennessee walking horse,” Morrison said. “I had him at a

barn here in town. They were all jumping their horses. My horse was not bred to jump, but I started jumping him anyway because I wanted to do what everybody else was doing. Finally, my dad decided he would buy me a jumping horse.” She competed in 4-H and local competitions in jumping and eventually advanced into the national circuit. She was team captain of the UA equestrian team in 2000 and 2001 and is a 2002 graduate. “Basically, it was a couple of people who got together for a club sport,” Morrison said. “We kind of said, ‘Hey, let’s make an equestrian team.’ Several of us got together. We didn’t have a coach or anything. We traveled without expenses paid to different shows in Alabama. It was a very new, very basic program, but we had lots of fun. I still talk to some of the people that I was on the team with. It was a small group of horse people, but we stay in touch.” She had job options coming out of college, most notably in pharmaceutical sales, but only had one employment desire. That was at the farm her father had bought a few years prior “after seeing how amazing it was and how wrapped up I was in horses.” Westminster Farm has grown into the top Hunter/Jumper facility in the area. “It changes from day to day but, basically, in the morning we do a lot of riding and training before the kids get out of school,” Morrison said when asked if there is a typical day at the farm. “We do a lot of clipping, like if some of the horses have to be tidied up — their manes,

their bodies. We have to get them where they look really nice. Sometimes we have people come from out of town to try horses. We get a lot of sale horses from different parts of the country. We’re known for the sale of horses as well. People ﬂy in to try horses, so we have to make sure the horses look nice. Basically, the college kids who want to ride and take lessons come midmorning or after lunch. After about 3 o’clock is when the rush of kids from school come. We usually teach until about 7, 7:30 at night. It’s a full day for sure.” Morrison said she sees kids every day who remind her of herself as a youngster. One of those is fellow trainer Reid Rickett, who grew up riding at Westminster Farm and eventually competed at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Her busy days also include serving as the Hunt Seat coach for the UA Equestrian program. She gets an up-close look on how different the club looks from when she was a student. “We’ve grown so much,” Morrison said. “The school supports it. They have right about 20 horses that they feed and take care of. They have a staff there. We have roughly about 20 to 30 people each year. We compete at nationals every year. We won a national championship with one of the riders last year. Last season, we won our region. It’s a huge deal now, we’re very proud of it. I think we had 70 people try out to be on the team. The majority of the team are people coming from out of state. It’s spread and the word has gotten out. People are coming to school, actually, to ride on the team.”

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Name: Ashley Hayden Morrison Age: 40 Hometown: Tuscaloosa Personal: Children, Austin Kocher, 10, and Aiken Kocher, 6; parents, the late Jerry Morrison (father) and Jan Morrison; and Jeanne (mother) and Russell Hodgins. People who have inﬂuenced my life: My dad. He was an extremely hard worker and would do anything to take care of his family. He was always thinking how he could improve this or that and I loved his drive. Something people don’t know about me: I wanted to be a vet, but I can’t see blood. I literally will pass out at the sight of blood. I tried to overcome it by working for Dr. St. John, but he would ﬁnd me from time to time passed out from the blood (I’d see), so I had to have a reality check and change my desire to be a vet.

My proudest achievement: My two beautiful boys, Austin and Aiken, and my farm. My dad and I had the dream of running a successful show barn here in Tuscaloosa. He and I worked together to make that happen. I love my barn and my clients. It’s a ton of work, but I’m really proud of what we’ve built here and I know my Dad would (be) as well. Why I do what I do: I have always loved being around horses, and I love to watch kids grow up in the equestrian world. It’s amazing to see the kids that ride and kids that don’t. The things that seem so important to the normal teenager these days like the crowd they are in, getting nails and hair done regularly, basic gossip ... are typically not even a thought to a teenager in the horse world. Horses offer a sense of therapy that is unexplainable and the way we bond and develop trust in and out of competitions with a horse is amazing. With all the peer pressures that are consuming to kids these days, it’s nice

to see them come to the barn, let all that go and just bond with their horse. It’s not about one person being better than someone else because when you throw the horses in the mix as your partner in a competition, it all changes and offers its own challenges. They aren’t machines where you push a certain button and they always do that exact thing. You are actually having to tell a horse what to do through aids but do it in a way that no one can tell you are asking the horse to do anything. So essentially you are working together in a competition to make it look like you are thinking the same thing and controlling a 1,500-pound animal with its own brain to do what you want. That is amazing to me, and I love to learn the horses and understand what they enjoy and help the riders get the best out of their horse by encouraging techniques and not force. When it all comes together and they accomplish their goals, it’s amazing and makes working in 100- or 20-degree weather so worth it. 89

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

Luke LINDSAY NO. 2

EAGLE SCOUT

BY TIFFANY STANTON PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

e’s played piano in front of crowds as part of Demopolis’ annual Christmas on the River festivities, played both a Sith and a superhero as a staff member at Camp Horne’s summer Cub Scout gatherings, and helped restart Demopolis High School’s Scholars Bowl team. But one of the most exciting moments of 18-year-old Luke Lindsay’s life might have been in April 2017, when a gaggle of choir kids swarmed the gaga ball pit he and his family and friends had finished constructing at First United Methodist Church Demopolis literally moments before. “The kids at our church love gaga ball, it was a sensation at our church camps, so I knew my pit would be a hit,” he recalled. “But we finished it and the kids were walking out of the building to the playground across the property, and they saw it and were like ‘Gaaaaaagaaaa baaaaallll!’ and that was it, within 30 minutes of finishing.” Lindsay built the pit as his Eagle Scout project, and he found the kids’ reactions especially fulfilling because he’d struggled for ideas for months before remembering his church family’s love of the game, a modern

version of dodgeball. Undertaking to build a permanent pit would meet Scout rules stipulating an Eagle Scout project could not benefit Boy Scouts, must require planning and must need fundraising. And when Lindsay found pit specifications online, he realized that even a novice builder like himself could design a permanent game site more cheaply than a premade version could be bought. So he priced parts, scouted out a spot, recruited help and pitched the idea to the church board. They, too, knew it was a winner and approved Lindsay’s plan with full funding. After that, Lindsay and a crew of six family members and friends constructed the pit over a weekend, finishing on a Sunday afternoon just as the young Methodists completing choir practice walked out the church door. The work was the final step in Lindsay’s journey to a Court of Honor ceremony, making him one of the 4% of Scouts who climb the ranks all the way to Eagle. The award earned pride of place on Lindsay’s college applications and garnered Scouting-based scholarships that, added to Presidential and Engineering scholarships from the University of Alabama, have most of the college freshman’s costs covered. But he claims Scouting gave him more than bragging rights.

“I know that ‘Eagle Scout’ is something good to put on a resume, but it’s what you learn doing it that actually makes it worth it,” he said. “The experience grows you; it makes you mature. The phrase ‘boys to men’ fits here.” Lindsay started Scouting in first grade, and it wasn’t exactly a constant delight in the beginning. He had scares with ticks and cuts, and during his first year as a staff member in training, he sunburned badly enough to warrant first aid and desk duty. But along the way, he found mentors and support that turned worries into memories, and he fell in love with camping and nature. He also realized he wanted more. “The point of Scouting is to have fun. It’s there so kids can be exposed to the outdoors and build character, and that’s what I was doing at first,” he said. “But when I went from Cub Scout to Boy Scout, I started having a larger service-to-outdoors-to-fun ratio, and it all started clicking.” What clicked was the idea that becoming an Eagle Scout might be a worthwhile endeavor. He realized he wanted to challenge himself, and the 21 merit badges and service project required to earn Scouting’s top rank seemed just the way to do it. So in 2016 he interned on staff at Camp Horne Boy Scout Camp in Tuscaloosa, helping teach and entertain Cub Scouts in their first camp experiences. He earned badges

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in ﬁrst aid, cooking and camping, and participated in skits and gave speeches, among other things. “I kept going and kept going and kept going until fast-forward to today and I’m a staff member for four years,” he said. The process changed him, he thinks, drastically. “I was a lot more of an introvert before I started working at Camp Horne,” he said. “I was quiet. I was shy. I didn’t like to talk much. But working on staff helped me come out of my shell.” Hayes Looney, the Black Warrior Council’s program director, agrees. By the summer of 2019, Lindsay was full-time staff. He served as the camp’s digital media director and was one of Looney’s best employees. “I’ve known him since he was probably about 12 years old, and it took me a while to convince him that being on staff was something he wanted to do, but I knew how great of a kid he was,” Looney said. “Now, just to see him going to the honors programs and getting involved in all

this university stuff that we’ve seen posted online every day, it’s just amazing to me.” The scholarships haven’t surprised Looney, though. Lindsay was one of three local Scouts to earn the Black Warrior Council’s $1,000 Tanner scholarship this year, and Looney said the teen’s qualiﬁcations were never in doubt. “He has a remarkable record in school, just great marks everywhere. He’s involved in a lot of things and has a high ACT score,” he explained. “So it was a nobrainer for us, on our side.” Lindsay began his ﬁrst semester at UA this fall. He’s taking computer science courses and sharing a dorm with other Eagle Scouts. He hopes to keep Scouting in his life through Venturing, a Scouting program for 18- to 21-year-olds, and by continuing to work with the programs at Camp Horne. Whatever happens, he knows Scouting is part of who he is now. “You’re held to a different standard when people hear ‘Eagle Scout,’ ” he said. “You’re called on every day to make a difference.”

Name: Luke Lindsay Age: 18 Hometown: Demopolis Personal: Parents, Austin and Beth Lindsay; brothers, Jim, 16, and Ben, 13. People who have inﬂuenced my life: Larry Hay, Scoutmaster, and Hayes Looney, council program director, because they encouraged me on my path to Eagle Scout. Something most people don’t know about me: Have played piano for 11 years and have played in nursing and retirement homes. My proudest achievement: That I still care about helping others and making a difference. Why I do what I do: A lot of people have invested in me, and I want to pay them back.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 3

Don

SALLS OLDEST UA FOOTBALL LETTERMAN

BY CHRIS MEGGINSON PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

r. Donald Joseph Salls has accomplished what he set out to do when he penned his book “Live and Love to be 100” in 1995. The University of Alabama’s oldest living football alumnus turned 100 this past June. “I am blessed every day that I wake up with my family, with my wife and with my friends, and living where I am … I’m so happy,” Salls said. “Having a beautiful wife that is so sweet, loving and caring for me, I’m one of the most fortunate persons in the entire world.” Salls’ life, like many others, has been one of seasons. Born June 24, 1919, in Trenton, New Jersey, to a Canadian-born father and New Jersey-born mother, Salls ﬁrst moved south nearly 80 years ago from White Plains, New York, to Tuscaloosa to wear a University of Alabama football jersey and play for Coach Frank Thomas. “The ﬁrst thing I smelled was the (Gulf States) paper mill and onion grass. I thought, ‘I’m going to go home and not come back to Alabama. It’s not for me,’ ” Salls recalled. The 169-pound fullback and linebacker stayed, strapped on his leather helmet and

helped lead the Crimson Tide to a 24-7 record the next three years, including wins in the Cotton Bowl to take the Houlgate System national title in 1941 and the 1942 Orange Bowl. The 1941 season included game-winning touchdowns by Salls at Tennessee and at No. 14 Tulane. The headline in The Tuscaloosa News read “Ironman Donnie” the day after the comeback in New Orleans, saying Salls was “the nation’s strongest running back for his weight” as “he carried half a ton of Tulane beef over the goal line to score the clincher.” Salls, however, recalls the trip to Miami three weeks later as one of his best days on the gridiron. “I had a lot of yards that day,” he said. After graduating from Alabama, the ROTC student joined the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant and departed for Europe with the 79th Infantry. He was shot in the hand in France in 1945 and doctors also discovered he’d suffered a broken back, the reason he couldn’t dig his own foxholes, said his wife, Diane. The injuries in battle earned Salls a Purple Heart. Football remained in his blood for the next 20 years. After returning to Alabama in 1946, Salls completed his master’s degree at UA and became head football coach at Jacksonville State University. Similar to his ﬁrst year in Tuscaloosa, the journey there was not easy.

Name: Dr. Donald Joseph Salls Age: 100 Hometown: White Plains, N.Y.; he and his wife, Diane, now live in Fairhope Personal: Married to Diane Gatewood Salls. People who have inﬂuenced my life: Former University of Alabama football head coach Frank Thomas. Something most people don’t know about me: I am always consulting with the Lord, and I do my isometric exercises regularly. My motto is “I Iove life, I love the Lord and I love my wife.” My proudest achievement: My successful coaching and teaching careers and inﬂuencing the lives of students at Jacksonville State University; also, having Salls Hall named in my honor and becoming professor emeritus. I loved my work. Why I do what I do: To show people I love life by being joyful and positive.

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“They didn’t have anything. They didn’t have a good field to practice on, nor did they have a good field to play on. We had to play on the high school facilities my first year at Jacksonville State,” Salls said. “And if you don’t think I felt like a rookie, I hated it, but I got over it and finally got our own practice field and our own stadium. It was hard to begin.” Leaning on the discipline he learned from Coach Thomas, he led JSU to a programrecord 95 career wins, seven conference and nine All-Americans during his tenure, which came to a close in 1964. He said his success at JSU is due to the support of JSU President Houston Cole, who released 33 scholarships, good players and good assistant coaches such

as Ray Wedgeworth and Tom Roberson. He was reunited with many of his former players at his 100th birthday bash at the Paul W. Bryant Museum in June. “It was fantastic. It was like old home week to see players I hadn’t seen in so long and to visit with them and talk with them,” Salls said. “I know what an effort they had to make to be there. I appreciate it.” Late in his coaching career, the father of four began looking for additional ways to make money. He developed a national isometric exercise program, “Ten Static Exercises in One Minute” (XSXIM), and placed ads in Life magazine, Look, Reader’s Digest and the Sunday newspapers. For $2, Salls would mail

you his pamphlet. Letters began to ﬁll his P.O. Box. He still uses XSXIM exercises daily along with his 160 natural tips from his book, primarily the consumption of vitamins C and E, to remain healthy and in shape at 100. “His stomach is as hard as a brick. He beats on his stomach all the time. He really stays in shape. To be 100, you’d never know it,” Diane Salls said. Putting football coaching in the rearview mirror in the 1960s, Salls completed his doctorate in physical education and nutrition at New York University and continued to spread isometrics and teach at JSU until 1981. After decades of annual travel with Diane to favorite destinations like Mexico and the Smoky Mountains, Salls now resides at the William F. Green State Veterans Home in Bay Minette, where he is known for his art. He spends up to four hours a day drawing and enjoying being outside observing the birds, ﬂowers and nature. And he occasionally returns to Tuscaloosa for football games and to visit with former Alabama athletes in the A-Club room at Bryant-Denny Stadium. His most recent football game trip was the 2018 Iron Bowl. His honors over the years have included JSU’s naming its athletics dormitory Salls Hall in 1966, induction into the JSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985-86, induction into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1992 and receiving the University of Alabama’s National Alumni Association Paul W. Bryant AlumniAthlete Award in 2003.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 4

Lesley

BRUINTON S PRESIDENT-ELECT, NSPRA

BY BECKY HOPF PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

he comes from a family of overachievers. Both her parents were educators. Her sister, Kristina Hendrix, is corporate director of communications for technology company Dynetics and has worked as a contractor for NASA and the Department of Defense. Her brother, Richard Hendrix, is a former University of Alabama basketball star who is in his 12th season of playing professional basketball overseas. So it should be no surprise that the oldest of the three Hendrix kids also has made an impact, the most recent of those successes coming Oct. 1, 2019, when Lesley Hendrix Bruinton ofﬁcially took on the role of presidentelect of the 1,800-member National School Public Relations Association. “We never had one of those family meetings where my parents said to go out and do these things,” said Bruinton, 40. “But my father did have this quote that was famous in my family when we were growing up. It was, ‘Don’t bring embarrassment to the family.’ ” So far, so good. “We joke about him saying that, but I think we all took it to heart. We knew the expectations were great. My father was a coach. He would tell us,

Name: Lesley Hendrix Bruinton Age: 40

Hometown: Athens

Personal: Husband, Theo Bruinton; daughter, Saleah; and son, Max.

People who have inﬂuenced my life: Growing up, my retired schoolteacher parents not only expected us to work hard, hustle and persevere, but have integrity and be a good sport in victory and defeat. (These are lessons my husband and I are teaching our children.) But it was my 11th-grade English teacher who played a key role in shaping the person I would become. Her passion for the craft of writing — the ability to paint pictures with words — launched my professional journey by unlocking my passion for the pen. At the time, it seemed unbelievable that a small-town girl could make a career of writing. I proudly say I am who I am for the investment teachers made in my life. Something most people don’t know about me: I was a TV journalist who not only covered local news, but also anchored weekend sports and helped launch a college football show that still runs today. Working as a reporter taught me to be curious about others and life to understand their stories and empowered me to speak truth to power. People who know me well

know that I can usually suss out an intriguing story from others unprompted and that I am willing to challenge others if things seem unjust.

My proudest achievement: In 2016, I decided to return to school as a working mom to pursue a graduate degree. My children saw my sacriﬁce and my success. For me, having them see my example of working hard toward a goal has created opportunities for us to talk about their own goal setting and the work required to achieve it.

Why I do what I do: I never wanted to work in education. In fact, I ran from it. I remember my mom working late in her classroom after the custodians had turned out the lights. I remember staying at the high school gym most of the fall and winter twice a week because my dad was a basketball coach. My entire life revolved around school! I always knew that being a journalist wasn’t a forever job, it was a “for now” job. But, after the birth of my daughter, I found myself looking for a schedule that would accommodate family life and ended up — you guessed it — working for schools! This work has allowed me to combine my history and my passion. I know I am working in my calling telling the stories of students and teachers in the Tuscaloosa City Schools. After more than 10 years with TCS, the story just keeps getting better!

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‘Don’t complain. Always do a good job. If you don’t win, congratulate the other person and mean it. If you feel like you need to cry, wait until you get in the car. Always be gracious in victory and in defeat.’ ” Bruinton is public relations coordinator for Tuscaloosa City Schools. It’s a role that encompasses all levels in the city’s school system. She is adviser, spokesperson, crisis manager, cheerleader. The Athens native graduated from the University of Alabama in 2000 with a degree in communication and information sciences with an emphasis in telecommunication and ﬁlm. She started out in television, working for seven years in two markets, as a reporter in Panama City, Florida, from 2001 to 2004 and then in Birmingham as an anchor and reporter for CBS 42. She and her husband, Theo Bruinton, lived in Tuscaloosa, so she was commuting to Birmingham. After her ﬁrst child, daughter Saleah, was born, the commute and time demands became challenging. With perfect timing, the Tuscaloosa City Schools had an opening in public relations and hired her as coordinator. She held that job for 19 months until the recession hit, and among the cuts to the system was her job. Her career path led her back to Birmingham and a public relations job at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. She worked there from 2010 to 2011 until the

Tuscaloosa City Schools reposted her job and lured her back. “I was 8½ months pregnant with my son Max when I took the job,” said Bruinton of her return. “Five and a half weeks after I started, an E4 tornado hit Tuscaloosa, damaging three of our schools. A week and a half later, I had a baby. When I returned to work from maternity leave, I had a new superintendent. It wasn’t your typical start to a job.” She joined professional afﬁliations, among them the Alabama School Public Relations Association, where she served as president for two years, from 2014 to 2016. A joiner and a producer, she also became part of the Public Relations Council of Alabama and the National School Public Relations Association. She won that association’s highest award, the Gold Medallion, twice. Presidential candidates for the NSPRA are required to submit at least two letters stating why they are interested in taking on the role. They are also required to submit a letter of support from someone within the organization. Bruinton had 24 letters of support for her leadership. The letters came from members in 14 states and two more from Canada. Come Oct. 1, 2019, she’ll spend one year as president-elect, taking the year to learn her impending role as president, which will ofﬁcially begin on Oct. 1, 2020. The president

presides over board meetings three times a year for the organization, which was founded in 1935. She’ll administer and supervise the annual seminar in New Orleans, expected to draw some 1,100 attendees. She is undaunted by the major task she is about to undertake — and juggling it with a demanding full-time job in Tuscaloosa and a busy family life. “I’m a ﬁrm believer that anything is possible,” said Bruinton, who went back to school, online, to earn a master’s degree of science in strategic communication from Troy University in 2018. “I didn’t want to have a regret that I didn’t try when taking on the role as president became a possibility.” In between her duties with the NSPRA, she’ll continue to move forward in her city schools role — and continue a somewhat celebrity status with the kids. “When I introduce myself to kids at schools, I tell them I’m the one that calls their parents to tell them school has been canceled,” Bruinton said, smiling. “I really enjoy my job. I get to talk about the most important profession in our society: teaching. I do set big goals for myself and typically write them down. Case in point: run for national president. Next is to get my doctorate. We are all goal-oriented in our family. We all blazed our own trail.” 95

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

Cornelius NO. 5

CARTER DANCER/DANCE INSTRUCTOR

BY KELCEY SEXTON PHOTO BY COREY RIVES VISUAL ART

ornelius Carter was well on his way to becoming a track star before discovering his passion for dance as a high schooler. “It was completely an accident how I got into dance,” he said. His senior year, he decided to take a dance class for the fun of it but quickly realized that he loved it. Carter auditioned for a Webster University undergraduate program in St. Louis — “on a fluke and a bet from a friend” — and earned a scholarship. When he shared the news, it caught his dad by surprise. They were a family of athletes, and Carter was known for running track. “Well, with my father it was, ‘What? You’re going to college for dance?’ ” Carter said. “But my family ended up being very supportive. I came from a family (where) once you chose something, if you could find a way to make it happen or work for you, they would support you. But you had to find a way to make it work.” And make it work, he did. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in dance from the

Conservatory of Theatre Art at Webster University and a master of fine arts in dance from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu. He joined the Cleo Robinson Parker Dance Ensemble and studied on scholarship at The Ailey School in New York. While at The Ailey School, he auditioned and was invited to study dance at a studio in Iceland. “Here I was, this young man born and raised in the South, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be having my first commercial success in Europe,” he said of his time in Iceland as a commercial artist. “So it was just absolutely an amazing, fun time.” He became artistic director of the first contemporary dance company and school in Reykjavík, Iceland, a city that has become his second home over the years, he said. Carter’s extensive career includes serving as a faculty member at the American Ballet Theatre, the American Dance Festival (in Russia and in South Korea) and the Bates Dance Festival as well as being dean of students at the Harvard Summer Dance Festival. He has presented his choreography in France, Holland, Austria, Vienna and Lithuania at the American Choreographers Showcase and has served as guest rehearsal director for Dance Brazil.

Name: Cornelius Carter Age: “Old soul” Hometown: Greenville, Mississippi People who have influenced my life: I draw influence and inspiration from so many people; however, the students and faculty at the University of Alabama have been truly influential these past 27 years. Something most people don’t know about me: For all the performances and all the lectures and all classrooms and stages I have been on, I am still an introvert. My proudest achievement: Working at UA for 27 years. Why I do what I do: To pass along my experience and knowledge in an effort to mentor students as they search for their hopes and dreams. Pay it forward.

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Carter continues to travel abroad, most recently teaching at the Gus Giordano Dance School in Chicago and showcasing his new work with Dance-Forms’ 76th International Choreographers’ Showcase at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Another place he is able to call home is the University of Alabama, where he began teaching in 1992. He retired this year after dedicating 27 years to the Capstone as a dance director and instructor and also as artistic director of Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre, a pre-professional dance company that he founded at the university. “I can truly say I was very blessed to be able to have an amazing community in Tuscaloosa,

both at the university and in the community at large,” he said. “There’s nothing like being an artist in a place where you feel you were very supported by all people. I think that’s very important.” One work he choreographed during his time at UA allowed him and some colleagues and about 15 students to travel to Lyon, France, and take part in the International University Biennial Festival of Dance in 1994. “That one I will never forget in my life,” he said, “because that one was also the beginning of a career I was able to share with my colleagues and students, and it all started at the University of Alabama, and to this day, we have continued that tradition where faculty

are still taking students abroad to perform.” Over the years, many of his former dance students have worked “professionally in companies nationally and internationally,” he said. Students in the Alabama Repertory Dance Theatre get the opportunity to work with guest choreographers, often from across the world, while preparing pieces to perform for spring and fall concerts. Carter said he enjoys watching them ﬂourish during their careers at UA. “I think I’ve always been in awe to know that I was working at the beginning of the developing stages of all the students’ processes,” he said. “You’re at the beginning to witness their brilliancy. “It’s probably the most beautiful feeling in the world. I think that’s why most artists do this, because you get to really see students and faculty, and all of us grow right in front of each other’s faces.” Throughout Carter’s career, he has earned numerous accolades, including the 2001-2002 Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award from the Alabama Alumni Association and the National Outstanding Doctoral and Research Universities Professor of the Year award by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Washington, D.C. “Twenty-seven years of feeling completely supported by the community and university at large, and that still gives me the energy and the courage to continue to renew myself and rediscover a new path of adventures in this wonderful career called dance,” Carter said. In his retirement, he will continue to travel — “traveling is in my veins” — and work abroad in the dance community. “That is the one thing about being an artist: You always are looking to discover the unknown. It’s like being a scientist in a way. You don’t ever reach a plateau because you’re always in a state of discovery. That’s one thing I love about my life — I want to live in a state of discovery. “I have no regrets. The only things I regret are the things I haven’t done yet and it’s simply because I haven’t done them,” Carter said with a laugh. He also intends to return to Tuscaloosa and further his partnership with the Capstone. “I’ll be working with the University of Alabama until the day I die,” he said. “Alabama forever.”

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 6

Clinton

HUBBARD JR. SENIOR PASTOR

BY DONNA CORNELIUS PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

he only way the new senior pastor of First United Methodist Church Tuscaloosa could have been welcomed more enthusiastically on his first Sunday is if he’d pulled crimson and white shakers from behind the pulpit and yelled “Roll Tide!” Every seat was full at Dr. Clinton Hubbard Jr.’s first appearance at the July 7 morning service. Chairs had to be brought into the sanctuary, and those who couldn’t fit in went to the church’s Chitwood Hall to watch the service on TV screens. Hubbard is the first black pastor in the church’s 201-year history, and he replaced longtime FUMCT Senior Pastor Ken Dunivant, who retired after 18 years at the church. Those two factors might be daunting to many, but Hubbard is seasoned at meeting challenges. Early on, he wrestled with making the commitment to a full-time ministerial career. “My first appointment was a two-

point charge in Oneonta and Trafford,” Hubbard said. “I was still a part-time minister, working for the city of Birmingham. I was going to school, working and pastoring.” One night, his telephone rang. “It was a doctor calling,” he said. “He said, ‘God told me to send you to the Here’s Life Conference. I’m going to pay for everything.’ So I went. “On the last night of the conference, Dr. A. Louis Patterson, who was the pastor of a large Houston church, gave a talk called ‘When Is a Man Ready to Preach?’ I knew he was talking to me. I called Ellen Collins, who had become my prayer partner, and we talked and prayed and cried together. She told me God would provide. So I started the process. I haven’t regretted it since.” Hubbard and his wife, Gloria, both are Birmingham-Southern College graduates. He has a master of divinity degree from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and a doctor of ministry degree from Atlanta’s Interdenominational Theological Center. Attending Emory seemed at ﬁrst to be insurmountable. “I couldn’t afford to go, but I knew God would prepare the way,” Hubbard said. The school year was about to begin,

Name: Clinton Hubbard Jr. Age: 58 Hometown: Birmingham Personal: Wife, Gloria; children, Melanie, Sasha and Clinton III (Trey). People who have inﬂuenced my life: My mother, Ruby B. Hubbard; James Cotton Sr.; Ellen Collins; and countless laity and clergy throughout my ministry. Something people don’t know about me: Beneath this serious posture, I like to have fun and enjoy life to its fullest. My proudest achievement: Personally, my family. Professionally, it has been working with outstanding laity to lead the New Beginnings UMC merger. Why I do what I do: It’s my ministry calling from God. The excitement and joy of being an instrument God uses to share the Gospel message, introduce and help nurture relationships with Jesus and living it out with fun and enthusiasm.

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and he hadn’t heard from the college’s financial aid office. But he decided to start classes anyway. “I got sent from line to line and finally ended up with the financial aid director,” Hubbard said. “She said, ‘Clinton Hubbard? We’ve been waiting for you all morning.’ I never had to get a student loan and had zero debt when I graduated.” One of the biggest hurdles of his ministerial career came in 2011 when he was executive director of ethnic ministries for the United Methodist Church’s North Alabama Conference. Three Birmingham-area churches — Douglasville, Mount Pleasant and Wright’s Chapel UMC, which was Hubbard’s home church — faced flagging membership. “I went to the district superintendent and said, ‘They’re going to close if we don’t do something,’” Hubbard said. “I knew they needed to be together.” He met with the churches’ pastors and with lay members. “I put in print a copy of their metric — their

average worship attendance and so on — for the past 10 years,” Hubbard said. “The idea for the merger never came from me; it came from them, and I never had to bring it up. They voted overwhelmingly to merge.” Although it wasn’t his intention, he was appointed to serve as ﬁrst the interim minister and then the full-time minister of the new church, New Beginnings United Methodist. “When I served there from 2013 to 2016, it was the largest African-American church in the conference,” he said. “It’s wonderful what can happen when people come together and realize it’s not about the buildings.” In addition to serving as the pastor of several Alabama churches during his 37-year career, Hubbard was superintendent of the North Alabama Conference’s Cheaha District before coming to FUMCT. He said that although he knew a cross-racial ministerial appointment likely was on the horizon for him, he wasn’t expecting Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett to send him to Tuscaloosa. “I was totally surprised, totally shocked,

totally numb,” he said. But just as he’s met other challenges with faith and enthusiasm, Hubbard is looking forward to leading the church. “I love the ministry,” he said. “We’re supposed to make disciples, to introduce people to Christ and to be his hands and feet. Everybody has a ministry. You just have to see what God wants you to do.” He’s excited about his new hometown, too. “I’m a big sports fan and am intrigued by the football culture here,” he said. “I want to be involved in the community as well as the church.” He and his family like bowling and board games and love traveling. “God made a great, big beautiful world, and I want to see as much as possible of it before I leave it,” Hubbard said. He’s made it possible to see one small part of that beautiful world every day. “One of the ﬁrst things I did when I moved into my ofﬁce here was to turn my desk so it faces the prayer garden,” Hubbard said.

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ON THE SCENE

NICKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S KIDS FOUNDATION LUNCHEON AUGUST 1, 2019 BRYANT-DENNY STADIUM PHOTOS | GARY COSBY JR.

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ON THE SCENE

14 1.

2. 3. 4.

Ellen Potts and her family pose for a photo with Nick and Terry Saban. UA cheerleaders with Nick Saban Gina Echols, Dana Smith, Daniel Smith and Greg Echols LaDerrick Smith and Vicki Kerr

6. 7.

Trae Haughton, Megan Haughton, Jack Haughton and Boyd Haughton Karen Hudson and Steve Hudson Marlon Jones, back, with Jason White, Kayden Young and Everett Jones United States

Marine Corps Sgt. Michael Spence, Staff Sgt. Britten Warren, Gunnery Sgt. Sheldon McCartney and Gunnery Sgt. Michael Ferguson Tyler Williams, Royal Williams and Deâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Erica Hines

10. Greg McKelvey with Amanda Mennen, Avery Mennen, Addison Mennen and Mary Powell 11. Tua Tagovailoa and Sophie Payne 12. Liz Montgomery and Johnny Montgomery 13. Patti Jackson and June Murray

16 14. Ronetta Leatherwood and Zyren Davis 15. Molly Ward, Leigh Ann Ward, Jaime Magnon and Kameron Carden 16. Kennedy Richardson, Preston King, Stephanie Reinhart and Nicole Gelb Duga

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ON THE SCENE

FOCUS 50+ THE WHITE GALA ON THE BLACK WARRIOR

AUGUST 16, 2019 TUSCALOOSA RIVER MARKET PHOTOS | JAKE ARTHUR

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Avery Bacon, Stacey Bacon, Lisa Harris and Sabrina Champion Cynthia Lee Almond, John H. England and Rose Nash Lesley Smits, Monica Lee and Jordin Goldsberry Larry Bates, Nelda Bates, Suzy Robinson and Joe Robinson Selena Spaight and Samaria Spaight Joel Dorroh and Lynn Brooks Amelia Yessick and Morgan Mann Tomeka Royster Bates and Stanley Bates Standing, Ben Porter, Aubry Reeves, Paul Lasseter, Elizabeth Cobb, Harris Cornett and Camille Cornett; seated, Janice McCollum and Jane Joslin

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ON THE SCENE

UWWA YOUNG LEADERS SOCIETY/ ALEXIS DETOCQUEVILLE APERITIVO ITALIANO MIXER JULY 11, 2019 HOME OF MIKE AND DEBBIE REILLY PHOTOS | JAKE ARTHUR

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Mark Crews and Jheovanny Gomez Brett Jones, Debbie Reilly and Jessie Jones Julie Mann, Katie Todd and Ken Todd Sara Beth Spearing, Patricia Powe and Caroline Williams Cason Kirby and Norman Crow Jennifer Horn, Jessica Wilson and

Chelsea Burroughs Will Hewson, Alison Ferrer, Anna Kay Springer and Jeff Springer 8. Christa Fanning and Brittany Floyd 9. Alex Smith, Bill Buchanan and Cheryl Buchanan 10. Ken Todd, Case McNeil and Matthew Spearing 7.

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ON THE SCENE

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH 5K AUGUST 17, 2019 GOVERNMENT PLAZA PHOTOS | GARY COSBY JR.

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5 Derek Edwards, Terry Wiggins, Kaci Anders and Alyssa Dick 2. Bebo Patton, Robin Patton, Leesa Hollowell and Jason Bearden 3. Mackenzie Hudson, Ashton Brannon and Mary Peyton Mullin 4. Ryley Gray, Tricia Gray and Brooks Gray 5. Bobby Plott, Blair Plott, Thomas Plott, Scott Cochran and Cissy Cochran 6. Reese Grantham, Stevie Creel and Lucia Grantham 7. Chaz Gunter and Aja Sims 8. Cynthia Peebles and Dora Chandler 9. D.B. Rains and David Rains 10. Carol Plott, Barbara Plott, Courtney Plott and Heather Plott Sanders

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AUGUST 13, 2019 BRYANT CONFERENCE CENTER PHOTOS | GARY COSBY JR.

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ON THE SCENE

UNITED WAY WEST ALABAMA CAMPAIGN KICKOFF

Sarah Patterson, Patrick Murphy, Michelle Diltz and Jackie Wuska Julie Bowen and Kim Watkins Anna Kay Springer and Kyle Phillips Jordan Plaster, Daniel Pruet, Kelli Wolfe and Zach Wolfe Samyra Snoddy,

6. 7. 8.

Cristy Gilliam and Andrea Alexander Tara Newman and Teresa Channell Caramyl Drake, Candace Elmore and Sherry King Pam Washington, Ella Stewart, Chris Stewart and Tiffani Langston Emily Bryant and Alexis Grant

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LAST LOOK

RUSH HOUR PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR. Fall has officially arrived, and, for college football fans, nothing signals its return like the moment University of Alabama mascot Big Al leads the cheerleaders and team onvto the field for the Crimson Tideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s season opener against Duke in Atlanta on Aug. 31.

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