Tuscaloosa Magazine Summer 2019

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OUT! IT’S SUMMER IN THE CITY. LET THE FUN BEGIN.

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ALSO INSIDE: STEADMAN AND ANN SHEALY’S LAKEFRONT CHATEAU THE BIRMINGHAM ZOO THE JUNIOR LEAGUE OF TUSCALOOSA’S 90TH ANNIVERSARY ROAD WARRIORS (ON MOTORCYCLES) 6 INTRIGUING PEOPLE & SO MUCH MORE

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editor’s letter

Design Editor Lindi Daywalt-Feazel Photographers Gary Cosby Jr. Joe Will Field, intern Ally Adragna, intern Copy Editors Amy Robinson Kelcey Sexton Edwin Stanton Taryn Leighton, intern Operations Director Paul Hass 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 Magazine 205-722-0232 To advertise 205-722-0173 To subscribe 205-722-0102

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PHOTO BY LAURA CHRAMER

Editor-in-chief Becky Hopf

had a great childhood.

I’m one of five “kids” who grew up in a household that included dogs, cats, a horse (he didn’t stay inside the house, though I suspect my sister would have let him if she could have gotten away with it), five ducks (gifts, as ducklings, from the Easter Bunny), and a totally fun grandmother who didn’t live with us Among the fun that can be had at The Birmingham Zoo is getting a rare chance to share a salad with a giraffe. But be forewarned: Table manners can be lacking in a giraffe’s but drove across the world. Apparently, licking the hand that feeds you is perfectly acceptable etiquette. causeway from Mobile pretty much every vacation for the trip that also included side trips weekend to hang out with us. to visit relatives in Louisville, Kentucky, horse Summers were the best. My parents’ home is farms in Lexington, Santa Claus Land in Indiana, in Battles Wharf. They get real testy if you call it historic sites (like Daniel Boone’s cabin!) and Fairhope or Point Clear. It lies between the two. camping in the Smoky Mountains. We chased My mother is the fourth generation in her family fireflies at Ferdinand State Forest and took surto live on that property along Mobile Bay, thus rey rides at our great-uncle Fidel’s (yes, he was the snobbery to insist we refer to it by its proper German) farm in Jasper, Indiana. name.

It was exactly what summers should be: a Our summers meant Jubilees (look it up — a time out. crazy phenomenon involving fish and crabs), This issue is all about summer and its possailing, boating, skiing, eating most of our meals sibilities, no matter how simple. A visit to the on our wharf or on our screened-in porch, crabBirmingham Zoo, a road trip on a Harley, a bing, screaming and scattering when Mama house on the lake, swimming lessons, craft projaccidentally dropped a live crab on the kitchen ects.

Even if you don’t have vacation time saved, floor when she was trying to plunge it to its head to a local venue like Bowlero Tuscaloosa. death into a pot of boiling water, and, as all kids Chris Furman and his staff couldn’t have been did up and down the Bay, scampering back to more awesome when we did our photo shoot the house when we heard the ringing of a brass there. bell, signaling time to come inside.

My summers, hopefully, will always mean For several summers, my mother taught an art travel.

This summer, Maine, North Carolina and camp at the Marietta Johnson School of Organic “Battles Wharf” are all on my agenda.

Education where we created papier-mache pupEven if you can’t get away, take a moment, or pets and figures out of Alabama clay. We even 10, to make a memory. You’ll never regret it. had a pet show. I brought my duck, Denise, named after one of my best friends. Denise lost out to a ferret. So unfair.

And, each summer we piled into our station Becky Hopf, editor wagon and headed to my grandparents’ home in Reach Becky Hopf at Indiana. Daddy would take his entire two weeks’ becky.hopf@tuscaloosanews.com.

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SUMMER 2019

VOLUME 17, NO.

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CONTENTS

8 08 DINING OUT

Brick and Spoon, Tuscaloosa’s new brunch and lunch restaurant, brings New Orleans flair with its menu.

14 TASTINGS

Hidden gems you’ve got to taste at local restaurants.

18 EVENTS

28 22 FOODIE NEWS Bradley’s Market is a food lover’s paradise.

28 AT HOME

40 COVER STORY

Bowlero Tuscaloosa offers 40 lanes for bowling, dozens of arcade games, and food and beverage items that are as fun as the venue itself.

46 ARTS

Ann and Steadman Shealy’s home is as breathtaking as its setting overlooking Lake Tuscaloosa.

Ryn Miller is capturing memories with her botanical art.

36 WELLNESS

50 PROJECTS

Purify U aims to transform one’s health naturally.

Places to go, things to see and do.

46

Vinyl Cottage makes things personal.

ON THE COVER

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OUT! E CITY. ER IN TH IT’S SUMM FUN BEGIN. LET THE ag.com

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ALSO INSIDE:

AN AND STEADM EALY’S ANN SH ONT LAKEFR U CHATEA NGHAM THE BIRMI ZOO LEAGUE OR NI THE JU SA’S OO AL SC OF TU VERSARY 90TH ANNI RRIORS ROAD WA YCLES) TORC (ON MO UING 6 INTRIG OPLE PE

The Collins family is making memories together this summer, including a funfilled afternoon at Tuscaloosa’s newest entertainment venue, Bowlero. That’s former University of Alabama football player Sam Collins and his wife, former UA cheerleader Leigh Kirby Collins, and their kids, Mary Mac, Kirby and Anna.

Photo by: Gary Cosby Jr. • See story: Page 40

CH & SO MU RE MO

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54 CELEBRATIONS

The Junior League of Tuscaloosa is celebrating its 90th anniversary.

58 EXCURSIONS

A trip to the Birmingham Zoo is a delight for both young and young at heart.

74 RECREATION

Road-tripping, even when it’s a short ride near town, is a popular hobby for Tuscaloosa’s motorcycle riders.

81 6 INTRIGUING PEOPLE

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

94 KID STUFF

Vance Rose’s SwimKids has taught thousands of kids — and adults — how to swim.

96 ON THE SCENE

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

64 FASHION

The fun is in the fashion — and the games at local venues like Bowlero Tuscaloosa.

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106 LAST LOOK

A snapshot that captures life in West Alabama.

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DINING OUT

Beignets, Benedicts bloody marys BRICK & SPOON UPS THE BREAKFAST-

BRUNCH-LUNCH GAME IN TUSCALOOSA

BY DONNA CORNELIUS | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

Stuffed French Toast Sliders are made with a fruit compote, bananas Foster sauce, whipped cream and powdered sugar.

n 1999, Stillman College football player Eric Beech kicked a field goal to give the Tigers their first modern-era victory on the gridiron. Twenty years later, he’s kicked off a new venture in Tuscaloosa — one that involves not football but food.

In March, Beech brought Brick & Spoon, his breakfast, brunch and lunch spot, to Temerson Square. The restaurant focuses on New Orleans-style flavor and freshly made food with a little fun mixed in.

You know you’re in for a treat when you see servers bringing out concoctions like French toast stuffed with caramelized bananas, eggs Benedict with a crispy soft-shell crab on top, and omelets full of shrimp and tasso ham.

Take a look at the restaurant’s walls as well as its menu. One large hand-painted sign lists an array of bloody mary ingredients, while another has some lighthearted quotes like “Coffee, because adulting is hard” and “That’s too much bacon, said no one ever.”

Those who vacation in Orange Beach may be familiar with Beech’s Brick & Spoon there. He’s owned it for six years and opened another Brick & Spoon in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, last fall.

“When I was 18, I was a host at O’Charley’s,” he said. “I fell in love with the food business. I went to school for communications and got a job in that field, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do.” >>

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DINING OUT

BY DONNA CORNELIUS • PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

Brick and Spoon will prepare its bloody mary with as few or as many toppings as you choose.

This one includes bacon, sausage and shrimp.

The drinks are created with the restaurant’s signature bloody mary mix and seasonal vodka, and include a seasoned rim and mini salad.

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DINING OUT

Returning to the restaurant world, he worked up to a manager’s position.

“But I decided I was tired of making other people money,” Beech said.

He opened the first Brick & Spoon franchise store in Lafayette, Louisiana.

“I’ve been with the company since day one,” he said.

He did his homework before opening his Orange Beach restaurant.

“Research showed that the breakfast/brunch concept was the fastest growing in the restaurant business,” he said. “About 5,000 people live in Orange Beach, but about 6 million vacation there. And at the time we opened, in July 2013, there were only about four places there to eat breakfast.”

His careful planning paid off. The Orange Beach Brick & Spoon made Southern Living magazine’s list of the South’s Best Breakfast Spots, joining high-profile places like Oxford, Mississippi-based Big Bad Breakfast and Brennan’s in New Orleans. Beech’s beach eatery also was one of Travel and Leisure magazine’s top 10 breakfast spots.

The Tuscaloosa Brick & Spoon is in the former home of VeloCity Pro Cycle, a bike shop. Beech transformed the building with big changes, including whitewashed brick walls and a lighted “Brick & Spoon” sign made by Chris Freeman of Metal and Lights over the bar. There are small niceties, too, like tiny vases of fresh flowers on the tables.

But the restaurant’s main attraction is its food.

Beech said some of the most popular dishes are Café Beignets, dusted with powdered sugar and served with seasonal marmalade; Shrimp and Grits with Gulf shrimp, red and green bell peppers, onions, garlic cream sauce and

FROM TOP: Killer Creole Omelet, here served with Parmesan truffle fries, is filled with Gulf shrimp, tasso, onions, red and green bell peppers, and cheddar Jack cheese. It’s topped with house-made hollandaise. • Owner Eric Beech with Marketing Director Stephanie Snyder. • Irish Coffee is made with Jameson Whiskey, Baileys and Fairhope Roasting Co.’s Breakfast Blend Coffee. It’s topped with whipped cream and crème de menthe.

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DINING OUT

a poached egg; and the Crab Cake Benny (Benedict) with bacon-sautéed spinach, poached eggs and house-made hollandaise sauce.

One of the stars of the restaurant’s omelet offerings is the Killer Creole, which has Gulf shrimp, tasso ham, onions, red and green bell peppers, cheddar-Jack cheese and a dollop of hollandaise. On the sweet side, you’ll find banana-centric goodies such as Bananas Foster French Toast and Bananas in Pajamas — crispy banana egg rolls with bananas Foster sauce.

Some menu items come with Brick & Spoon’s grits, which get a taste boost from the fire-roasted corn that’s mixed into them.

While there are plenty of breakfast and brunch options, diners who want lunch food aren’t left out.

The Cali Burger, which has bacon and avocado, and the cheeseburger are served with house-made aioli and french fries. You can add extras like an egg or grilled mushrooms. Also on the “lunch” side of the menu are two po’boy sandwiches, a Grown-up Grilled Cheese with smoked gouda and Monterey Jack, and a soft-shell crab BLT. >>

Bananas Foster French Toast features caramelized bananas, bananas Foster sauce and pecan pieces and is topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar.

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DINING OUT

Brick & Spoon is kid-friendly and offers little eaters a choice of pancakes, grilled cheese with fries, or a breakfast plate with egg, bacon and fries.

If you don’t consider brunch complete without a bloody mary, you’ve come to the right place. The Build Your Own Bloody Mary lets you choose your vodka and the spice level you want — mild, medium or hot. You can pick seven vegetables like pickled green beans, blue cheese-stuffed olives, and asparagus, and you can have even more for a small additional charge.

For a real meal-in-a-glass, extras including smoked sausage, cocktail shrimp, a bacon strip and even a deviled egg are $1 each.

In all, there are more than 50 options for making your bloody mary a memorable one.

Other drinks are mimosas — you can get a trio if you can’t decide on the flavor — plus cocktails like the classic French 75, made with Bombay Sapphire gin and StGermain elderflower liqueur, and a white cranberry Cosmopolitan.

Brick & Spoon serves a coffee blend from Alabama-based Fairhope Roasting Co. Besides straight-up coffee, there are specialty drinks like Irish coffee and the Snow Cap, with Absolut Vanilla vodka, Frangelico and whipped cream.

The Tuscaloosa Brick & Spoon team includes Stephanie Snyder, marketing director; Bear Danford, general manager; and Beech’s business partner, Frank Griffeth.

Beech, a Mobile native, and Snyder are a couple and recently bought a new house in Orange Beach. They’re also in Tuscaloosa frequently — not just because of the restaurant but also because Snyder is a hometown girl with family in town.

The two are expecting their first child this summer.

“I know lots of the restaurant owners in Tuscaloosa,” said Beech, who owned Mako’s Bar on University Boulevard from 2003-06. And there’s another reason he’s glad to reconnect with T-town.

“Alabama football,” he said with a grin.

Mimosa Trio allows the guests to pick any three mimosa offerings, from classic orange juice to pineapple to mango or wild berry.

IF YOU GO: Brick & Spoon is at 2318 Fourth St. in downtown Tuscaloosa. It’s open daily from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. For more information, visit www.brickandspoonrestaurant.com or follow the restaurant on social media.

Crab Cake Benny includes baconsautéed spinach, poached eggs and house-made hollandaise sauce. Pair it with a side of Gouda macaroni and cheese.

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TASTINGS

gems HIDDEN

The best dishes you may not be ordering at Tuscaloosa restaurants

his story starts with pineapple shrimp.

Even though Mr. Chen’s is about 40 minutes round trip from our house, our family loves to get takeout from the 14th Street restaurant.

We’ve made quite a dent in the menu, trying everything from cumin lamb to house-style braised tofu, but my daughter-in-law was the first of us to order the dish that’s become our favorite.

The surprising popularity of Mr. Chen’s pineapple shrimp (see the description below) amongst the Corneliuses prompted my son to suggest this article: hidden gems at Tuscaloosa restaurants and even one grocery store. These are foods you might not consider ordering even if you’re a regular at a particular eatery. Here’s a list of our finds.

BY DONNA CORNELIUS | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

Mr. Chen’s pineapple shrimp: What makes this dish especially tasty is the light, crispy coating on both the pineapple and the shrimp. That’s pretty much all that’s in this concoction; if you want vegetables, choose something else.

I’ll just say that every time I don’t order pineapple shrimp, I end up wishing I had. Mr. Chen’s is at 514 14th St. in Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.mrchenstuscaloosa.com.

Broadway Pizzeria’s muffulettas: Go outside the pizza box and try one of these New Orleans favorites.

The restaurant isn’t stingy with the ingredients; each sandwich is stuffed with pepperoni, ham, salami, mozzarella or provolone cheese, the traditional black-and-green olive mixture, red onions, and remoulade dressing.

A whole sandwich is big enough for at least two people as long as they aren’t total gluttons. There’s a half-size, too.

Broadway Pizzeria has two locations: 2880 Rice Mine Road NE in Tuscaloosa and 4550 Station Circle in Northport.

For more information, visit www. broadwaypizzeria.net.

The Side by Side’s vegetable plate and skillet cornbread: This restaurant is fresh food-driven, so the menu changes based on what’s in season. But whether it’s summer, fall, winter or spring, even the most dedicated carnivores won’t be disappointed if they order the vegetable plate. During an early May visit to The Side by Side, I had the veg plate with succotash, carrots, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, potatoes and a salad. It’s served with crackling cornbread. But for an extra treat, and based on the theory that one can never have too much cornbread, get the skillet version with honey butter, cipollini onions and tasso ham as an appetizer. The Side

by Side is at 2410 University Blvd. at the Embassy Suites hotel in downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.thesidebysiderestaurant.com.

River’s smoked salmon chips: This starter isn’t one you see on many menus — but don’t overlook it in favor of more traditional apps. The chips come with white barbecue sauce, fried capers, pickled onions and the trendy Everything Bagel spice. It’s big enough to share, but one of these days I’m going to go to River and order one just for myself.

River is at 1650 Jack Warner Parkway in Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.rivertuscaloosa.com.

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TASTINGS

The Avenue Pub’s spinach salad: It’s hard to resist the Thai nachos at Ave Pub, and I think the restaurant’s bacon burger is one of the best hamburgers in town.

But try something that’s not traditional pub grub: the spinach salad. Baby spinach is topped with grilled chicken (you can substitute salmon for an extra charge), baked goat cheese, red onions and bacon. Then it’s lightly dressed with Dijon mustard vinaigrette. It’s the perfect lunch dish if you want something on the lighter side without sacrificing flavor. The Avenue Pub is at 405 23rd Ave. in downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.avepub.com.

R. Davidson Chophouse’s seared sashimi tuna: You probably go to this downtown T-town steakhouse mostly for — well, probably not tuna. But treat yourself to this wildly flavorful app before you dig into a Delmonico or filet mignon.

Tuna that’s not top quality has nowhere to hide, and it’s obvious from the first bite that the Chophouse uses a high grade of fish for this dish. It’s served with a dressing of soy, ginger and lime, and the fish has a light coating of sesame seeds. The Chophouse is at 2330 Fourth St. in downtown Tuscaloosa.

For more information, visit www. rdavidsonchophouse.com.

Half Shell Oyster House’s sweet potato creme brulee: It’s the oyster sampler plate that makes me dream about my next visit to this downtown Tuscaloosa restaurant — and, in fact, I’ve yet to meet a dish I didn’t like here. Even choosing a side dish is hard. I love the grilled asparagus with bubbly gorgonzola cheese, and if I’m feeling the need for greens, I go for the pork-stock turnip greens. Here’s the problem: I almost never have room

for dessert. So I just get Half Shell’s version of sweet potatoes because you get a sweet treat and a side all in one.

Problem solved. Half Shell Oyster House is at 2325 University Blvd. in downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.halfshelloysterhouse.com.

Otis and Clyde’s burgers: My friend Connie Coleman tipped me off to this unassuming little restaurant’s burgers.

If you want an old-fashioned, freshly made cheeseburger, do yourself a favor and pay this spot a visit. Burgers are made to order, and you can tell it from the first juicy bite. I don’t know Otis or Clyde, but they must be fine fellows.

Otis and Clyde’s is at 8204 Alabama Highway 69 S. in Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.otisandclydes.com.

Publix’s sub sandwiches: Did you know that these supermarket sammies have a cult-like following and even their own nickname, Pub Subs? It’s true. Southern Living magazine and Thrillist, a popular food/travel/entertainment website, are among media outlets that have sung the sub’s praises. There’s even a Facebook fan page. The Publix website has some suggested sandwiches — the chicken tender sub is a crowd pleaser — or you can customize your order. Publix stores are at 4851 Rice Mine Road NE, 1190 University Blvd., and 1101 Southview

Lane in Tuscaloosa and 2300 McFarland Blvd. and 13556 Hwy 69 N. in Northport. For more information, visit www.publix.com.

Five Bar’s baked avocado: The apps at Five are always so good that I really could make a meal of them. I seldom do, but I could. One of my favorites is the baked avocado with bacon, shrimp and a spicy sauce. Baking the avos gives them a depth of flavor that you can’t get by eating them raw (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and the dish is a nice change from guacamole (not that there’s anything wrong with guac either).

Five Bar is at 2324 Sixth St. in downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Urban Cookhouse’s broccoli salad: Before this restaurant came to Tuscaloosa, I was a frequent visitor to its Homewood store anytime I found myself in that area at lunchtime. And I always got the broccoli salad as a side. When UC opened in T-town, familiarity did not breed contempt: I still order this side dish every time I visit.

It’s tasty, crispy — and best of all, the broccoli is chopped up so that you don’t find yourself gnawing on big old stalks.

Sure, broccoli gets in your teeth, but it’s worth the sacrifice. Urban Cookhouse is at 1490 Northbank Parkway in Tuscaloosa. For more information, visit www.urbancookhouse.com.

We’ve likely missed some of your favorites — this is an article and not a book, after all. If that’s the case, email me at donnawcornelius@bellsouth.net and let me know. There’s always a possibility of “Hidden Gems: Round 2.”

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EVENTS

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

summer

ENTERTAINMENT Live at the Plaza Summer Concert Series

Every Friday in June and July • 6-9 p.m. • Government Plaza

A great way to start a summer weekend. The weekly concerts feature local bands that will please the ears.

Admission is free. Just bring a lawn chair or blanket and

sit back (or up) and enjoy.

Hank Williams Jr. June 14 • 7:30 p.m.

• Tuscaloosa Amphitheater

Bring all your rowdy friends, whether they’ve settled down or not. “Bocephus” is headed to Tuscaloosa, and the son of a country music icon is bringing his own iconic music to the Amp. For a link to ticket information, go to www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

Black Warrior Songwriters Festival June 21-23 • Times/Venues TBA

See and hear — rising talents perform at venues around Tuscaloosa, including, tentatively, Green Bar, Black Warrior Brewing Co., Tavern 1831, Lookout Rooftop Bar at Hotel Indigo and Billy’s Sports Grill. For more information and a schedule, visit www.blackwarriorsongwriters.com.

The Comedy of Errors June 26-29 • 8 p.m.

• The Park at Manderson Landing

It’s the 17th summer season for Tuscaloosa’s The Rude Mechanicals. Bring blankets and chairs for this show, which charges no admission. There’s pre-show live music that starts at 7:30 p.m., so come early to set up a space and enjoy the entertainment. In case of rain, the show moves indoors to the Allen Bales Theatre in Rowand-Johnson Hall on the University of Alabama campus. For more information, call 205-310-5287.

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EVENTS

Celebration on the River July 4 • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater

Free to all is this event that celebrates America’s freedom. You’ll have a blast (literally — it ends in fireworks). It’s music and fun on America’s favorite summer holiday. For a schedule and more information, go to www.visittuscaloosa.com.

Rob Thomas, the Chip Tooth Tour With Abby Anderson June 30 • 7 p.m. • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater

The Grammy Award-winning artist — also known as the frontman for Matchbox Twenty — is “Bent” on bringing his music to the Amphitheater.

His hits with Matchbox Twenty included “3AM,” and his Grammy-winning work included his collaboration with Santana on “Smooth.” For more information on the show, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

Nelly, TLC and Flo Rida

July 23 • 7 p.m. • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater Talk about a triple crown of acts. Nelly has a string of No. 1 hits, perhaps most notably with “Hot in Herre.” Then there’s Flo Rida — just try to get “Club Can’t Handle Me” out of your head after you just read the song title that signals the music in your brain. And TLC? Don’t forget about how the original group introduced us to “Waterfalls.” For more information and tickets, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

Dierks Bentley With Jon Pardi and Tenille Townes Aug. 9 • 7 p.m. • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater

Country comes to town, in music form, with the artist who has 16 No. 1 hits (and counting), including the so-fun “What Was I Thinkin’ ” — his debut single. Talk about a way to kick off a career. For tickets or more information, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

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EVENTS

Pentatonix With Rachel Platten Aug. 22 • 7:30 p.m.

• Tuscaloosa Amphitheater Little Big Town

Likely the inspiration for all those “Pitch Perfect” movies. Pentatonix is an a cappella group that sings hit songs as well as their own original — and lovely — tunes. They sing so well and so on-key that they’ve already won three Grammy Awards since they formed in 2011. For tickets or more information, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

Druid City Music Festival Aug. 23-24 • Times TBA

Little Big Town With Midland Aug. 16 • 8 p.m. • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater

True confession: LBT is a personal favorite. Did you know they sang the national anthem at one of Alabama basketball’s home games about a dozen or so years ago? The group’s members have state ties to Alabama. They’ve won armloads of awards, including Grammys for “Pontoon,” “Girl Crush,” “Better Man” and “Themselves.” A truly ear-pleasing group. For tickets or more information, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

Kidz Bop World Tour

Aug. 17 • 6 p.m. • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater This one is for your mini-me’s. It’s (mostly) kids singing kidfriendly Top-40 hits. Safe for all ears and ages. For more information or tickets, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

It’s a potpourri of music, at venues including Government Plaza, bars and pubs around Tuscaloosa, the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, Bama Theatre and Harrison Galleries. And with music styles that include blues, soul, rock, religious, classic and even the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, there’s a little bit of something for every taste. For details, including the lineup and sites, go online to www. tuscaloosachamber.com. Tickets may be purchased through Ticketmaster.

Mary J. Blige and NAS

Aug. 25 • 8 p.m. • Tuscaloosa Amphitheater She probably had to build an extra room in her mansion just to hold all the Grammy Awards she’s won — nine! And she’s an accomplished actress. He’s a rapper considered a master lyricist. And he, too, doubles as an actor. Hear them sing and perform.

For more information or tickets, visit www.tuscaloosaamphitheater.com.

Mary J. Blige

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EVENTS

FARMERS MARKETS The Farmers Market at the Tuscaloosa River Market 1900 Jack Warner Parkway NE Saturdays • 7 a.m.-noon (all year) • Tuesdays, 3-6 p.m. (April through September)

Northport Farmers Market 4150 Fifth St., Northport Saturdays • Opens at 6 a.m.

Fresh produce from local growers, grass-fed beef, artisan crafts and more can be found at Tuscaloosa and Northport’s farmers markets. For more information on each, visit https://npfarmersmarket.com or www.tuscaloosarivermarket.com.

EXCURSIONS Great Wolf Lodge LaGrange, Georgia •

A water park to end all water parks. Your kids (and your inner child) will have no shortage of fun, or options. Activities include the “Triple Thunder” water slide, “Rapid Racer” tubing, the “River Canyon Run” slide, the freefall “Wolf Tail,” a wave pool, outdoor pool and much more. And, once everyone dries off, the lodge offers character appearances, yoga classes for kids, walks, shows and even “Wolfercise,” which is a family-friendly exercise class. Visitors can stay at the lodge or go for the day. For more information, visit www.greatwolf.com/georgia.

Scott Antique Markets

Atlanta •

An amusement park for adults and treasure hunters, the Atlanta show is held one weekend each month. Summer dates are June 6-9, July 11-14 and Aug. 8-11. Parking is free, and admission is $5 per person. It’s antiques and more in two very large buildings with many vendors. For more information, visit www.scottantiquemarket.com.

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BY DONNA CORNELIUS, THE SNOOTY FOODIE

Seasonings of love WHY I WANT TO VISIT JAPAN AND OTHER CONFESSIONS OF A SALT FIEND

G

et used to the way the salt falls from your hands; experience the illicit thrill of using so much of something we’ve all been taught to fear.”

— Samin Nosrat, “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking.”

If you’re into food and don’t know who Samin Nosrat is, that’s kind of like saying, “I’m a diehard college football fan — but who the heck is this Tua Tagovailoa fellow?”

But in case you don’t know, Nosrat is the author of “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” an awardwinning and bestselling cookbook published last year. The premise of the book is that if you can master the use of the four elements in the book’s title, you can become master of your domain — in this case, your kitchen.

I bought the book and watched Nosrat’s engaging Netflix series based on it. And she turned me into an avid fangirl just with what she says about salt.

Salt and I have had almost a lifetime love affair. I have fond childhood memories of eating oranges right before bedtime and salting every bite.

When I was in college, I was always swiping salt shakers from my sorority house’s kitchen and stashing them in my room so I would never be saltless.

These days, I can count at least 10 varieties of salt in my pantry.

One of my pet peeves when it comes to eating out is to taste the food, find that it’s wildly underseasoned, and search in vain for any salt on the table.

Ideally, of course, the food should be properly seasoned before it reaches the table. I never would have asked for salt at the late, lamented Epiphany when it was open in Tuscaloosa. Chef Tres Jackson’s food always tasted good

Amped-Up Party Mix Makes about 24 servings INGREDIENTS: •1½ sticks salted butter • 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce • 1 tablespoon seasoned salt, such as Lawry’s • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika • 1 teaspoon chili powder • 1 teaspoon garlic salt • ½ teaspoon celery salt • Dash of hot sauce • 3 cups each of Wheat Chex, Rice Chex and Corn Chex* • 1 cup Cheerios* • 1 cup Goldfish crackers (I like the Parmesan or cheddar flavor) • 1 cup mini pretzels or pretzel sticks • 2 cups of nuts (I use pecans and cashews — just pick your favorites) INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Cover two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Melt the butter and mix in the next seven ingredients.

In a large bowl, combine the cereals, crackers, pretzels and nuts. Pour the butter mixture over the cereal mixture and stir gently so you won’t break up the cereal.

Divide the mixture between the two baking sheets.

Cook for about an hour, stirring each mixture every 15 minutes or so.

Cool on paper towels for about 15 minutes. Store in an airtight container. *I’m using brand names here because everybody knows you can’t make authentic party mix without Chex and Cheerios.

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without my insulting it with extra salt — it just wasn’t necessary. The same goes for most high-end restaurants. The lesson here, I guess, is that I won’t quibble about missing salt shakers if chefs know their business. But if not, I’m summoning the server and sending him or her on a salt-seeking mission.

That brings me back to the main point of the salt section of “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” which is: Use salt better, not necessarily more.

I learned from the book what I already suspected: that salt has a greater impact on flavor than any other ingredient. I read that you can’t get the same effect from salting some foods right before eating them that you can if you presalt them. For example, you need to salt most meats, pasta and potato-cooking water, grains, and legumes as early in the cooking process as possible.

One fun fact I discovered about salt from watching Nosrat’s Netflix series: Japan has some 4,000 different types of salt, leading me to immediately write “go to Japan” on my bucket list.

Not being totally clueless, I know that not everyone can salt with impunity for health reasons. But there are still ways to add heavy doses of flavor. There’s a helpful article on The Kitchn website (www. thekitchn.com) that suggests several substitutes, like fresh herbs, lemon and other citrus juices, and cheeses, like Parmesan, which have such an intense salt flavor that you don’t have to add much.

Vinegars also can come off the bench to make a play. I found a great one at Bradley’s Market: Stone Hollow Farmstead’s turmeric vinegar, which has healthy benefits as well as tasty ones.

Whether it’s from the correct use of salt, a sprinkling of herbs or a flavored vinegar, don’t be afraid to bump up your food’s flavor profile. It’s easy to take food from bland to bang-on if you’re willing to experiment and to taste as you go.

Example: Around Christmastime, I walked into my friend Kelly Pridgen’s kitchen and smelled the most delicious aroma. Kelly is an accomplished cook, so I immediately thought she was baking something special that was totally out of my culinary comfort zone.

It was party mix.

Her secret? She took the basic recipe that starts with Chex cereals and bumped up the ingredients. The result was bolder, tastier and much more craveable than the ordinary version.

I took a lesson from Kelly and tried changing up the recipe myself. Here’s what I came up with. It just goes to show that even the humblest of recipes can benefit from concentrating on extra flavor. As you might guess after reading this column, my party mix is pretty dang salty. You’ve been warned.

EPICUREAN

EVENTS

PEPPER PLACE COOKING DEMOS

Birmingham • All summer If you visit the Market at Pepper Place this summer, you can watch chefs and other food folks in action every Saturday at 9 a.m. The lineup of demos includes Back Forty Birmingham on June 15, Urban Cookhouse on June 22, Bare Naked Noodles on June 29, Satterfield’s on July 13, Hot and Hot Fish Club on July 20, and Kathy G & Co. July 27. There’s no charge. Pepper Place is at 2829 Second Ave. S. For more information, visit www. pepperplacemarket.com.

MAGIC CITY CARIBBEAN FOOD AND MUSIC FESTIVAL

Birmingham • June 8 Celebrate the food, music and culture of the Caribbean at this eighth annual event hosted by the Central Alabama Caribbean American Organization. The festival is at Linn Park, 710 20th St. N, from 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

There’s no admission charge. For more information, visit www.cacaoonline.org.

AUBURN FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL

Auburn • June 22 Planning to go to Auburn for the Iron Bowl this fall?

Take an advance trip for this food and wine festival benefiting the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Lee County.

Acre, chef David Bancroft’s highly regarded eatery, is among the participants. The event is from 5-9 p.m. at Twenty-One Acres, 5505 Wire Road. General admission tickets are $105; you can buy a food-only ticket for $55. For tickets and more information, visit www. auburnfoodandwinefestival.com.

BIRMINGHAM TACO FEST

Birmingham • June 22 Sample tacos from Alabama vendors and vote for your favorite at this festive event. Margaritas and other beverages are on the menu, too. The festival is at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, 20 32nd St. N. Advance admission (food and drinks cost extra) is $5; tickets are $10 at the gate. To buy tickets and for more information, including festival hours, visit www. bhamtacofest.com or the festival’s Facebook page.

DINNER BY THE BLOOMS

Mooresville • Aug. 23 and 24 Chef Jakob Reed and 1818 Farms’ Natasha McCrary present these summer dinners, which include a visit with the farm animals as well as appetizers and a four-course meal. If you want to go, better act quickly: Some dinners already are sold out, and each is limited to 24 guests.

1818 Farms is at 24889 Lauderdale St. For tickets and information, visit www.1818farms.com.

ST. WILLIAM CHURCH SEAFOOD FESTIVAL

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.

Guntersville • Aug. 31-Sept. 1 This 48th annual Labor Day weekend festival is at Civitan Park on Lake Guntersville. A drive-through service is from 4-6 p.m. on Friday and reopens at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday for buying quarts of gumbo and Cajun boiled shrimp.

You can eat at the park beginning at 10:30 on Saturday; on the menu are boiled crawfish and shrimp, gumbo, catfish dinners and barbecue chicken dinners. There’s no admission fee. Civitan Park is at 1130 Sunset Drive. For more information, visit www.stwilliamchurch.com.

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FOODIE NEWS

To market, TO MARKET

BRADLEY BAILEY’S NEW STORE IS A FOOD LOVER’S PARADISE

BY DONNA CORNELIUS • PHOTOS BY ERIN NELSON

Bradley’s Market offers food, beverage and gift items.

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FOODIE NEWS

f you’re really into food, Bradley’s Market is likely to send you into a haze of culinary bliss.

Bradley Bailey has filled one section of her Tuscaloosa shop with all kinds of treats, from truffle salt and posh olive oils to everything you need to put together a killer charcuterie board.

Even if food is not your forte, a shopping trip at the market can make your family and friends think you’ve morphed into a kitchen whiz.

“If you’re having a party, you can pick up food, wine, party favors and serving pieces,” Bailey said.

“This store is about gathering people together — it’s centered on entertaining.”

A Tuscaloosa native, Bailey majored in food and nutrition at the University of Alabama.

“I’m a registered dietitian who’s always loved food,” she said. “I really like to bake more than anything.”

After college, Bailey worked as a clinical dietitian at UAB Medical West in Bessemer and then as a nutrition support dietitian at BriovaRx Infusion Pharmacy.

She was inspired by a family member to start a new business in her hometown.

“My aunt, Kim Wilson, owns Lucy’s Market in Atlanta,” Bailey said. “She just celebrated her 10th anniversary. She started by selling produce out of a vacant gas station. Now, her store is four times that big. She has had a great business there, and I thought a similar concept would do well here.”

Bailey started planning her store last fall. It opened in March on Towncenter Boulevard in the former home of American Shutterbug.

“We really wanted to provide a place in town to buy local foods,” she said.

She said some of her top sellers are from Alabamabased vendors. There’s frozen cookie dough from Cookie Fix in Homewood (owner Amy Jason is a UA grad), ice cream balls from Tuscaloosa’s Madeleine Passerini, and goat cheeses, vinegars, jellies and sauces from Stone Hollow Farmstead in Harpersville.

Bailey’s aunt helped her connect with other food vendors from around the South.

“Ladyfingers Gourmet to Go entrees have been a huge hit,” Bailey said. “They’re interesting, healthy entrees. The Mediterranean Skillet Chicken is one of the healthiest options because it doesn’t have all the mayo that’s in some chicken creations.” >> FROM TOP: Decorative accessories and tabletop pieces are among the items available. • Circus candles are among the large supply of birthday party favors.

• The store sells seasonal items as well as gifts and decorations for baby showers.

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FOODIE NEWS

IF YOU GO: Bradley’s Market is at 700 Towncenter Blvd., Suite 2, in Tuscaloosa. It’s open from 9:30 a.m.5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday and from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturdays. For more information, call 205-764-1939, email bradley@bradleysmarket.com or follow the store on Facebook and Instagram.

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: The store features barware, tabletop and decorative items, including some by local artists. • Bradley Bailey. • Glassware, mixers and food items are displayed on a bar cart.

She and her customers are big fans of Ladyfingers’ ham rolls — yeast rolls filled with shaved ham and brown sugar.

The market has Effie’s Oatcakes and pecan Nutcakes plus cheeses to pair with them.

“You can come here and build a cheese board or a charcuterie board,” Bailey said. “We have honeycomb, fruit pastes and almonds.

And our brie from CalyRoad Creamery in Sandy Springs, Georgia, is the best brie I’ve ever had.”

There’s no shortage of sweet stuff at Bradley’s Market.

“Chocolate Heaven out of Highlands, North Carolina, has a flourless, preservative-free, gluten-free chocolate cake that’s so good,” Bailey said. “And Saint Rita’s Cakes from Atlanta has a wonderful cream cheese pound cake.”

Other delights include flavor-rich Banner

Butter, duck fat cooking spray, Daddy Bob’s small-batch pimento cheeses and Creole cheese puffs, and Lambrecht Gourmet’s pecans and toffee.

“We have a lot of gluten-free treats, which can be hard to find,” Bailey said.

The market has wine, too. Some of it comes in pretty cans perfect for a lake or pool party.

Food isn’t the only focus at the store. There’s handmade pottery from Scout and Co. Pottery in Opelika, estate silver, cheese boards, Eva Gordon’s handmade ornamental plates, and preserved boxwood and magnolia creations.

Sophistiplate is a line of paper goods that you have to touch to realize they’re not “real” plates and flatware.

“We have Melamine pieces for outdoor entertaining,” Bailey said. “They’re pretty enough to use for an event at your lake house

or farm.”

She said her shop always will have plenty of seasonal décor.

“I think our gift baskets set us apart,” Bailey said. “A lot of others do them, but ours are unique because you can combine food, wine, gifts — even faux flowers. We offer a bridal registry, too.”

She and her husband, Charlie Bailey, have been married for four years. Their daughter, Anne Everett, will have her second birthday in July. Bailey said her mom, Ree Almon, has been “helping so much” at the shop.

While Bailey got the idea for her market from her aunt, she said she’s putting her own special style on the store.

“We have food like my aunt, but I’ve made this my own — into ‘Bradley’s’ market,” she said.

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AT HOME

BY BECKY HOPF | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

C HAT EA U brilliant StoneWood Farms masters the art of combining elegance with daily family life

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AT HOME

hat do you get when you team a former collegiate gymnast with a former college quarterback? In the case of Ann and Steadman Shealy, the answer is one of Tuscaloosa’s most elegant yet family-friendly homes.

The couple, who met when they were student-athletes at the University of Alabama and married soon after, built StoneWood Farms, a grand French-chateau-style estate that overlooks Lake Tuscaloosa, 13 years ago.

“When Steadman and I found this property, it was wooded,” Ann said. “I see in 3D. I wanted to angle the house in a certain way so that we could experience the best views of the sunrise and the sunset.”

With the help of local builder Mark Hearing, the home has accomplished just that. The postcard view of the lake is enhanced by the placement of a swimming pool. The steps from the home’s stone lanai lead down a tier to the pool area.

“We decided to go down a tier for the pool. I think it helps give the view some depth,” Ann said.

The lanai, which overlooks the lake and pool, has seating as well as an outdoor built-in fireplace for chillier nights.

“We love to be outside,” Ann said. >> CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The main entrance to the Shealys’ home, which is built in the style of a French chateau. • The lanai includes seating and an outdoor fireplace for all-seasons use. • The breakfast room. • The first level includes pianos in two rooms.

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AT HOME

The roofline was raised for scale and to gain space. Ann and Steadman found the antique wrought iron used on the balconies on a trip to New Orleans.

The grounds surrounding the home include a rose garden that flanks the boys’ wing.

“My mama is a gardener. She loves flowers. She’s been my inspiration for the rose garden. We both love antique roses,” Ann said. “I love to sit out there on a bench. It’s so peaceful, one of my favorite spots.”

Ann also enlisted guidance from Petals From the Past, a nursery and garden store in Jemison. A member of the staff there came to Tuscaloosa to advise on plants to use as well as design. Boxwoods are used as borders. The gardens include roses, gardenias, hydrangeas, delphinium and foxglove. There are also herbs and vegetables planted on the grounds.

The quadrant garden, located outside the girls’ wing, has four sections with boxwood, a crabapple tree and Knockout shrub roses among the plantings. A large patch of green grass flanks that garden.

That space has been the site for several weddings. Chairs are set up to face the lake so the guests may watch the ceremony and take in the picturesque backdrop the lake offers. A walk down a nearby hill leads to the Shealys’ dock.

The estate’s grounds, which include a stable for the family’s three horses, are so inviting that it has become a popular wedding destination and event venue. The pool has a 24-by-24 flooring cover so that sections can be decorated with flowers and candles.

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AT HOME

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Ann Shealy on the curved stairwell inside the main entrance. • Ann designed the kitchen island in a “U” shape for both utility and aesthetics. • A view inside the main level. • The view from inside the home’s back door through the lanai and to the lake. • The living room. • A view from the back of the house to the main entrance and stairwell.

“What makes me happiest when we host a wedding is when the mother of the bride comes up to me after the wedding and will tell me that coming into our house makes them feel at home, that it is warm and inviting,” Ann said.

Despite its scale, the Shealys have managed to make their family’s home welcoming and intimate. The furnishings match the scale without being overpowering. Ann and Steadman are parents of five, Jacqueline, Steadman III, Anna Katherine, Robert and John David.

And they have five grandchildren, Caleb, Eleora Rose, Jedadiah, Liam Ezra and Isaiah.

Collette Day, with Gracefully Done in Northport, helped with

some of the furnishings. Color is used throughout, with melon, blues and greens to brighten the living area.

The fireplace mantels in the lanai and the living area are French limestone. There is a marble mantel in the keeping room.

The home features four porches, seven balconies, four fireplaces (two are back-to-back), two chimneys, seven full bathrooms, one powder room, seven bedrooms and two wings. A full apartment occupies one of the wings. The third-floor suite, which they call the “bridal suite,” is a combination guest room (with an en suite bathroom) and bedroom/sitting area/changing area for a bridal party to use. >>

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AT HOME

“I didn’t plan on a third-floor suite,” Ann said. “But, when we were in the building process, me, being a gymnast, I climbed up a ladder to check the space out, and I saw the most beautiful view in the house. I said we have to have a room there. Originally, it was going to be more attic space.”

The stone flooring throughout the main level’s living areas and kitchen is Ancient Castle Travertine. The rest of the home’s flooring is walnut. In the kitchen, the countertops are granite to go with the custom cabinetry. The kitchen island was cleverly designed by Ann. “I wanted it to be U-shaped. I hadn’t seen a Ushaped island before, but it made sense to me,” she said of the space, which allows her to step into the cooking area and be surrounded with easy access to cabinets. “It gave me more cabinet space. It’s very functional. I love how it turned out.”

Light and windows fill the home.

“When I designed the house, I wanted as many rooms as possible to view the lake,” she said.

On the first level, the main entrance doors and the back entrance, which leads to the lanai, are dog-trot style. A breeze runs through the home’s center when both are opened. The antique double doors at the front entrance were a find in Dallas. They are nestled inside an arch.

“I like to open the doors and sit on the sofa and look

at the views of the arch and the roses that are planted in front,” Ann said.

The main level includes the living room, a formal dining room with a table that seats 12, and a breakfast room that seats 10. There are two pianos, one in the living room and the other in the library. The living room is roomy enough that Ann said when their boys were little, Steadman taught them how to ground baseballs, using grout lines in the tiles as baselines.

The ceiling is painted mahogany and trimmed in bronze. The walls are blue with caramel faux paint.

“Painting the ceiling that color just made everything come together and the house more cozy. Before, it was just white and I felt like you lost yourself in the room.”

A stairwell inside the front entrance curves and leads to the second-floor level where two open-concept rooms overlook the living room. The lake is in full view from these areas.

“We wanted those areas to be where people could circulate, watch football, tennis or whatever and still have the view.”

One side of what they refer to as “Steadman’s den area” has a pool table. The other side contains memorabilia from Steadman’s days when he played quarterback at Alabama. A framed photo shows the couple on their 1981 wedding day, posed with guests Paul “Bear” Bryant, UA’s football coach, and Mal Moore, former UA player, assistant coach and athletics director. >>

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AT HOME

“When I designed the house, I wanted as many rooms as possible to view the lake.”

— ANN SHEALY

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The formal dining room seats 12. • The second-floor level includes a pool table in a split area they refer to as “Steadman’s Den.” •The keeping room just off the kitchen.

• The iron balcony railing was a find by Ann and Steadman on a trip to New Orleans. The pool area is a tier down from the main level of the home, designed that way for optimal views. The family often entertains in the pool area. • The “bridal suite” is on the third level. It has a bed, full bath and seating area. In addition to being a family residence, the home is used as a wedding and entertainment venue.

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AT HOME

The living room area overlooks the lanai and the view of the family’s pool and Lake Tuscaloosa.

One wall has a photo of their daughter, Jacqueline, from when she, like her mom, was a member of Alabama’s gymnastics team. There are also two large ceramic elephants, the Crimson Tide’s mascots, which Ann says the small grandchildren love to climb on and “ride.”

“The den was designed for entertaining,” Ann said. “We wanted everyone to be connected and to be able to see the lake when we are entertaining.”

This is the third home the couple has lived in since they married. Ann is a native of Heflin. Steadman grew up in Dothan.

They lived in Dothan before they moved to Tuscaloosa 20 years ago. They also have a vacation home in Inlet Beach, Florida.

They met when Ann was a freshman and Steadman a sophomore at Alabama.

“My roommate was from Dothan, and she had been to a Christian church camp and met him there. She said, ‘I’ve got

someone you need to meet.’ ” They met. And, in 1981, while he was still in law school, they married. Their happily ever after isn’t taking place in a castle, but the chateau is perhaps even better.

“We’ve enjoyed living here,” she said.

“I think Mark (Hearing) did a great job making our ideas come together. We love having the family here, swimming in the pool or just being all together.”

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WELLNESS

BY BECKY HOPF | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

CLEAN LIVING

Purify U is a rejuvenating wellness studio that aims to transform one’s health naturally

TOP: Co-owners Brenda Montrella Branch and her husband, Bill Branch, in Purify U’s salt booths.

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WELLNESS

he transformation begins the moment you walk in the door.

The interior of Purify U, which bills itself as a “rejuvenating wellness spa,” is just that. The décor is completely without clutter. Clean. Bright. Pure.

What happens on the inside of the clients who partake of Purify U’s services is the same, its owners say: Clients emerge from each visit detoxified, revitalized and, as its name implies, purified.

“We pride ourselves with the personal relationships we build,” said Brenda Montrella Branch, who coowns the business with her husband, Bill Branch. “We get to know what their needs are, what their lives are like, their stress level.”

LEFT: The Power Plate helps stimulate circulation, among other health amenities. • RIGHT: Part of the treatments include fortifying supplements.

Purify U opened in Tuscaloosa at TownCenter on Aug. 15, 2018, and has grown, mostly by word of mouth, into a success story.

“We have babies as young as 6 months old who are brought here for our salt therapy treatments. They’ll have runny noses and congestion, and salt therapy helps them sleep better at night,” Branch said. “We have some who come here who are as old as 80. Really, this is a place for everyone. It’s about total wellness. We combine several services under one roof. We encourage better eating habits for better health. We teach people small steps that can lead to a better,

healthier life.”

Branch moved to Tuscaloosa from Pennsylvania seven years ago, packing with her — and adding to over the ensuing years — a solid background in natural health. She is a certified nutritional counselor and certified natural health practitioner with more than two decades in private practice. The Penn State graduate has a doctorate in naturopathy from Trinity College of Natural Health.

“I started Purify U here because I wanted to use the best of services that have been clinically proven,” said Branch, who also owns a store in Pennsylvania that she opened 23 years

ago. “We’ve really had a great success rate. These services we provide could really make a difference in many lives, health-wise. Our services are meant to make you feel good and elevate your well-being.”

The therapeutic services Purify U offers include two salt booths, four infrared sauna suites and three medical grade Power Plates (which stimulate circulation and move lymphatic fluid while providing a whole body workout in as little as 10 minutes). Additional services include naturopathic wellness and body composition scans to personalize each wellness experience. >>

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WELLNESS

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Bill Branch poses in the Power Plates room. • Brenda Montrella Branch in her office. • The infrared sauna therapy cabins.

If you go:

Purify U is located at 500 TownCenter Blvd., Suite B in Tuscaloosa. Its website is www.purifyu.com, and the phone number is 205-764-1396. It’s open from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., on Mondays and Fridays. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the hours are 8 a.m.-7 p.m., and Saturday hours are 8 a.m.-2 p.m. It is closed on Sundays.

Chromotherapy is an added feature to the infrared saunas. There are several light colors to choose from, each with different benefits, such as red for the circulatory and nervous system, strong green for anti-infection, antiseptic and regenerative stimulation; indigo for eye issues; pink for cleansing; yellow for skin purification, indigestion and bodily stress; and so on.

The infrared sauna therapy cabins help provide energy to assist with detoxification, weight loss, pain, skin stimulation, and reduction in stress and fatigue. Salt therapy, also known as halotherapy, clears respiratory and skin conditions.

Each service is offered in a private or semiprivate setting, though patrons may choose to share services with friends or family members.

“We use really pure beauty products. With me, it’s all about ingredients and people not applying toxins to their bodies. Our products are safe for their bodies. Our beauty products are clean. Our supplements are pure. We make our own bath salts and detoxifications,” Branch said.

Purify U offers memberships, packages and individual sessions. Potential members visit and schedule a time for a consultation with a naturopathic wellness or health coach and overview of the spa’s services. A wellness scan and body composition measurement will help determine the best treatments recommended.

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COVER STORY

It’s all fun and games at

BOWLERO

BY STEPHEN DETHRAGE | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

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COVER STORY

owlero, the 40-lane bowling alley that opened on McFarland Boulevard in April, has a tough task ahead — to become all things to all of Tuscaloosa’s bowlers — but management believes they’re up to the task.

Chris Furman, the facility’s general manager, said countless kinds of people enjoy bowling for a wide variety of reasons and that he wants all of them to feel at home at Bowlero.

“We have a strong league base here in Tuscaloosa that we plan to appeal to on weekday evenings. Later at night, we’ll see more of the younger ‘hipster’ demographic and the college crowd, and, during the day on weekends, we see tons of youth birthdays,” Furman said. “Bowling is one of those things that appeals to everyone, whether you’re 4 years old or 84 years old, and we want to kind of have something for all of those people.”

This push to appeal to so many different kinds of bowlers may be just good business sense, but it’s also something of an obligation for Bowlero. >> CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Colorful cafe-style bench seating makes for a comfortable wait between turns at bowling. • Bowlero Tuscaloosa features 40 lanes, 20 on each side. • The food offerings include house specialties, like a pizza cake. • There are more than 70 arcade games available for play.

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COVER STORY

Last year, when the Bowlero Corporation announced plans to open a new flagship facility at the former site of the Bruno’s Supermarket on McFarland Boulevard, Tuscaloosa was already home to two other bowling alleys, AMF Bama Lanes on 15th Street and Leland Lanes in Alberta. Both of those facilities soon will be closed permanently, though, and Bowlero will be the only operating alley left in the Druid City.

Danny Smothers is an avid league bowler who has worked for decades at the pro shop attached to the recently closed AMF Bama Lanes.

“I started bowling in Tuscaloosa in 1989 at the alley there on 15th Street, Bama Lanes, as a youth bowler about 10 years old, and I’ve basically been bowling ever since, at least one or two nights a week since I was a kid,” said Smothers, who was recently inducted into the Tuscaloosa Bowling Hall of Fame.

“As far as bowling goes, I’ve either lived it, breathed it or know something about it.”

Smothers said he is sad to see Tuscaloosa’s two iconic bowling alleys close, but said he was excited and optimistic about the future of the sport and hobby at Bowlero.

FROM TOP: Manager Chris Furman with district manager Victor Morrow. • Danny Smothers not only runs the pro shop but his perfect games landed him in Tuscaloosa’s Bowling Hall of Fame in 2019.

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COVER STORY

FROM TOP: Kirby, Anna and Mary Mac Collins get ready to take a bite of the Behemoth Burger, which comes with giant sparklers on top. • The Coney Mega Dog is among the house favorites.

“Those two houses were where I learned to bowl, and where I met all of my bowling friends and family, where we’ve all hung out on a weekly basis for decades and where we got to know each other,” Smothers said. “To see them close, it’s bittersweet. It’s like a piece of me that is going to just be washed away.”

Even so, Smothers said, dedicated bowlers in the Tuscaloosa area felt that they were being left behind as other facilities in the state and region opened in new, larger spaces with advanced technology and better “eye appeal.” That’s where Bowlero shows so much promise, he said.

“To their credit, they knocked it out of the park with this new facility,” Smothers said. “It’s one of the nicest houses I’ve been inside in a long time, and I’ve been in a lot of them.”

Only time will tell whether Bowlero can serve as a suitable home for league bowlers, the casual college crowd and everyone else in Tuscaloosa who wants to knock down pins, but Smothers said he and Furman have discussed the matter at length and that he believes the staff at Bowlero will make it a priority to make everyone feel at home.

Furman echoed those sentiments, saying his goal is for all visitors to have a memorable experience. >>

If you go: Bowlero is open at 2001 McFarland Blvd. E. seven days a week, every day of the year.

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“We want to deliver delightful guest experiences to everybody that walks through the door in a unique and fun way and make sure everybody has a memorable time,” Furman said. “We’re not looking to have guests who are just satisfied, we want them to be excited and delighted, to want to return in the future and bring their friends and tell everybody about it.”

To that end, Furman and the almost 100 employees at Bowlero attempt to make every aspect of the venue spectacular. The facility features a 70-piece arcade center, a huge bar in the middle of the building with unique signature drinks, and a food menu that includes items like a 6-pound sharable burger and a 2-foot hot dog.

Bowlero also offers themed nights, like unlimited bowling during its weekly “Monday Mayhem” and student discounts on “College Night” Thursdays. The facility also can be rented out, whether by a group of five friends who want to make sure they have a lane, league teams taking up several lanes, or a fraternity hosting a party of 200 people who rent out the entire building.

Furman said the biggest surprise at the facility so far has been how quickly the community took to Bowlero after its soft opening in early April.

“We planned to have our grand opening on April 27th and have a soft opening earlier to get ourselves ready and get into the groove of it and just kind of slowly ramp things up,” Furman said.

“That just didn’t happen — things started pretty immediately and we’ve stayed busy since we unlocked the doors, which is just wonderful. There was no time to break it in and slowly get into the pace, it was just full speed from the beginning.”

Despite the proverbial baptism by fire, Furman said he’s thrilled with the way Tuscaloosa has supported Bowlero.

“It’s honestly been wonderful, we’ve had a great response and we’ve been busy in the best possible way,” Furman said. “We’re very happy with everyone that’s come out, we had a great time with everyone at the grand opening and we’re just excited to be here for the future in Tuscaloosa. We want to make sure we become a staple in the community.”

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“We want to deliver delightful guest experiences to everybody that walks through the door in a unique and fun way and make sure everybody has a memorable time.”

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: A classic convertible greets visitors near the entrance. • The Behemoth Burger. • Arcade fun.

— CHRIS FURMAN

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ARTS

BY BECKY HOPF PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

A new

NATURE AND A GINKGO TREE INSPIRED RYN MILLER’S ART redit a cat for leading Ryn Miller into a career in botanical art design.

“It started with a ginkgo leaf,” said the Tuscaloosa artist. “One of our neighbors had a cat, and my daughter loved to go to their yard to play with the cat. That neighbor had a ginkgo tree. And one day, while I was sitting under the tree while my daughter, Bess, played with the cat, I started to notice the beauty of the tree and its leaves.”

Miller picked a leaf from the tree and took it home. For her, the leaf not only symbolized beauty, but it also was part of a memory she would always treasure: that of witnessing her young daughter getting so much joy from visiting the cat.

She got Bess to trace the leaf with a crayon to keep among her children’s artwork, and, inspired by her recent discovery of botanical art and its beauty, Miller decided to try pressing a ginkgo leaf and mounting it on a matte.

“It was the first thing I ever pressed. I wanted to do it to keep that memory with my daughter.”

That was five years ago. Her friends would see that art piece, and other botanicals she created, and would share memories they associated with certain gardens and flowers and greenery. Miller started creating pieces to give her

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friends, and two years ago, she began selling her matted art, establishing her official business as Ryn Miller Botanicals.

“My husband, John, made my first leaf press with help from our old minister, Charlie Durham, who is a woodworker,” Miller said. “It was a gift for my birthday.”

Miller’s interest in botanical art began years ago. She read about the art form online and researched it in books.

“What I learned was really interesting. They’ve been doing this art form for hundreds of years.”

Over time, she is learning how each type of leaf reacts to pressing.

“Every leaf is different. But now when I touch a leaf, I know how it’s going to press. All leaves take different times to press and dry. Some dry green, some retain their colors. All will eventually fade. That’s something I try to educate people about — they will eventually fade.”

Favorites Miller works with include ginkgo, eucalyptus, Japanese maple, Queen Anne’s lace and lilies — though she says you can’t press lily blooms, only the leaves.

“I’ll send my husband on a grocery run, and he’ll come back with a leaf. I call them his findings. We have a farm in Fosters, and it’s got some fig trees, so we’ll pick and use those as well.

“After I take a botanical out of the press, sometimes I’ll stick it in a book for safekeeping until I’m ready to work with it. I can’t tell you how many times my husband, John, has opened a book and leaves fall out. John says when we’re old, the kids are going to open up these books and wonder why there are all these leaves inside.”

The mother of two — Bess is now 6, and son Robert is 4 For more on Ryn Miller’s Botanicals, — even enlists her children in visit www.rynmillerbotanicals.com. creating pieces.

Follow her on Instagram “They love it. I do clover @rynmillerbotanicals. chains, and Bess picks all my clovers,” Miller said.

Miller sells her work on her website, rynmillerbotanicals. com. Her work also is sold in Tuscaloosa at Bradley’s Market and, in Fairhope, at Lyons Share Custom Framing and Gallery.

She also has displayed and sold her work at shows in cities like Birmingham and Nashville, Tennessee.

Clients can select from works she has already created (she sells them matted, not framed), they can commission a piece, or they can supply their own botanicals for her to matte.

“I’ve been given flowers from a special grandmother’s funeral, greenery from wedding bouquets,” Miller said. “My biggest takeaway is that nature is so personal to everyone. Everyone has a connection. I’m constantly trying new things. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with larger flowers. But I really love leaves and the graphic nature of leaves. And I really enjoy inviting people into my home to see the art. It’s so personal with me. It’s sharing memories.”

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Ryn Miller poses in her home with some of her botanical art pieces. • Eucalyptus leaves framed in the master bedroom. • The leaf presses were a gift Ryn’s husband, John, had made for her. • Leaves drying in the kitchen window.

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PROJECTS

MAKING IT

personal From photos to monograms, crafting has never been more fun — or classy

BY BECKY HOPF | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

Emma Case paints on an anchor-shaped wooden blank.

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THIS PAGE: Darla Campbell, Emma Case and store owner April Case. The store contains hundreds of items that can be personalized, including caps, shirts and signs.

ou can put vinyl on just about everything,” declares April Case, owner and ever-so-creative crafter and designer at Vinyl Cottage in Northport.

Case opened Vinyl Cottage in 2016, and the store’s inventory and its customer base have grown bigger with each passing year. It’s a shop that’s purely personal, as in its customers take a blank canvas — which can be anything from a cup to clothing to a sand chair — and decorate it. The store sells blank clothing items from sizes infant to adult 3X; cups and tumblers, acrylic blanks for keychains and bag tags, earrings, hair bows, mouse pads, wine bottle stoppers, wine totes, car tags, can holders, popsicle sleeves, hats, banners, cosmetic bags, duffel bags, doormats, pet ID tags, sunglasses — the list goes on and on.

Customers can select from adhesive vinyl or heat transfer vinyl depending upon their project needs. Drawings, photos and specific designs can be sent via digital file formats that the store’s staff may be able to convert into a printed transfer that’s ready for application. Cutting the vinyl requires a craft cutting machine, such as a Cricut or Silhouette Cameo.

Customers use their machines to cut their designs from the vinyl. For those using heat transfer vinyl, the store offers customers the use of a heat press in order to apply the vinyl to their garments.

Some of the most popular items this time of year include tees and tanks for adding custom designs. Other popular items are do-it-yourself wedding gifts, including custom labels for the bridal party or as gifts. >>

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LEFT: Summer favorites to personalize include baby clothes, sand buckets and sand chairs. RIGHT: Adhesive vinyl and heat transfer vinyl are available for purchase.

The store custom prints labels for wedding gifts and shower or wedding decor. Customers provide the information to be printed, and they’ll cut the labels for the customers to apply to candles or wine bottles.

Case said it’s a fun hobby for any age. This summer, the store will offer kids’ camps for children ages 8 and older.

“At these camps, we’ll be doing projects with vinyl and with those that don’t require vinyl. We’re planning to teach them to make keychains and decorative wooden blanks and shirts. Those will be four days a week, for three hours a day in June and July,” Case said.

The store also will host craft events for all ages so its customers can learn, or master what they already know.

“We’ll host craft nights and days,” Case said. “Men’s Night Out, group events. We offer a range of activities for people who have craft cutters and for those who don’t. Our customers come in a range of ages, from children to older ladies and gentlemen. The majority of our customers are women, but we have quite a few men who shop with us.”

If you go: Vinyl Cottage is located in Vestavia Center in

Northport at 230 B McFarland Blvd. It’s open from 10 a.m.6 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and on Saturdays from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Find the store on Instagram @thevinylcottageshop, on Facebook or on its website at www.thevinylcottageshop.com.

The phone number is 205-710-5393. Kids Camp for ages 8-13 will be held June 10-13 from 9:30 a.m.-noon. Cost is $114 with a $50 nonrefundable deposit. The balance is due before classes begin the first day. There will be another camp in July.

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CELEBRATIONS

Women WONDER

THE JUNIOR LEAGUE OF TUSCALOOSA HAS BEEN A FORCE IN TUSCALOOSA FOR 90 YEARS

THIS PAGE: The faces have changed over the years, but the dedication to the community has not as several generations of women, including the latest (bottom photo), have served as volunteers in the Junior League of Tuscaloosa.

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BY KELCEY SEXTON | PHOTOS BY JOE WILL FIELD AND THE JUNIOR LEAGUE OF TUSCALOOSA

n its 90 years, the Junior League of Tuscaloosa has made great strides toward inclusivity and diversity, toward bettering and making an impact in the Tuscaloosa community.

The nonprofit organization — which has 300-plus members, all of whom are volunteers — aims to empower women through volunteer, educational and leadership opportunities.

“The league is about training, supporting and encouraging women, uplifting them,” said 52-year-old Karen Thompson, president of the Junior League of Tuscaloosa and executive director of Tuscaloosa Emergency Services. “When you come to this group, you’re looking at meeting different women. It is a really good mix of different personalities, occupations, skill sets.

You come into the league, and you’re able to learn.”

All spots on the league’s executive board update annually; therefore, each leadership position, including president, has a one-year term.

“With that, you come up with new ideas. It’s never stagnant, never stagnant,” said Thompson, whose term ended on June 1, 2019. “Every position rotates out, and a new wave comes in. The beauty when we look back is we survive. We may not transition

well — we laugh about that because by the time you learn your job, it’s time to come out, but that’s good because it forces you to learn something.”

She said the Junior League will be transitioning into a government/management structure, like most nonprofits, which will “help with longevity and help with roles and duties and responsibilities.”

A key priority of the league is to ensure that the money it raises — through events, fundraisers, sponsors, sustainers or from members — goes toward the greater good in Tuscaloosa.

Josephine Davis, 81, who was Junior League of Tuscaloosa president in 1977, continues her involvement with the organization as a sustainer emeritus.

“I think the hardest I have worked in my life was doing my hours in the Junior League,” Davis said. “But, gosh, it’s just so worth it, knowing that you’re helping the community, that you’re raising money.” >>

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She said that during her time as an active member, she built lifelong friendships and bonds with the other women while doing something worthwhile.

“I think the (league’s) mission is to meet the needs of the community, especially in empowering women and helping with the needs of children,” Davis said. “But I think the Junior League here kind of put their thumb on just about everything that has a need, you know. … They’re well aware of what’s going on in the community, and they step up when they see a need that they can fill.”

Throughout March, which also happens to be U.S. Women’s History Month, the Junior League of Tuscaloosa planned events to give back to the community. One such event included recognizing and celebrating local women by giving them cards with motivational messages, along with candy or flowers.

“It was just to encourage those women, women who don’t normally get recognized,” Thompson said, “but just to say, ‘Hey, I see you. I like what you’re doing, and I support you.’ ” The league also raised $5,000 — in less than eight hours, Thompson said — for Holt Elementary School. The reading initiative funds went toward purchasing books for Holt’s students in an effort to encourage them to be reading on their grade level by the third grade.

“We wanted to make sure (our sponsorship money was going to) something our league members would be proud of, something that was invested back into the community and something that was going to

benefit our Adopt-A-School partner, which is Holt,” Thompson said.

Tuscaloosa’s league began as the Junior Welfare Association of Tuscaloosa in 1929, changing its name to the Junior League of Tuscaloosa in 1979 when it joined the nationwide Association of Junior Leagues International. Its start in Tuscaloosa came during the Great Depression when a woman named Mary Lee Gunter, who worked in the local welfare department, gathered volunteers in town to help with welfare projects in the area.

The women helped run and fund a Sick Baby Clinic and sold seals to help fight tuberculosis, which at the time was rampant. In 1939, the organization had one of its biggest fundraising efforts to that point when it published its first Junior League of Tuscaloosa cookbook, printing 500 copies for sale. The league has moved on to many more successful fundraising events, such as the Dragon Boat races on the Black Warrior River each spring, a new favorite. The league helps fund many other programs around Tuscaloosa and West Alabama.

Another transformation in the league was the incorporation of night meetings.

Davis said she could tell toward the end of her presidency that the tide was turning in that direction, “because so many women were working or they didn’t have help with their children until their husband got home and could keep them while they went to a meeting. But they were just as committed. They wanted the opportunity to be in the Junior League, and I was proud of the Junior League for sensing that and moving into the

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nighttime meetings ... it broadened the participation and the people who could be in it, and that’s one of the really important things, I think.”

The Junior League’s rules once required that women be handselected by members to be able to join, which was the case when wvDavis was an active member.

Now, “no one is turned away; all women are accepted,” Thompson said. The group strives to be inclusive and held an open enrollment period for new members in April.

“How we were doing business 90 years ago is not how we’re doing business now,” she said. “So it’s just humbling when you look at all that history, that it just brings not tears of sadness, but tears of joy, that you’re part of a community, part of Tuscaloosa that is growing and thriving, and I think we’re willing to take a lot of steps in the right direction, and that’s real encouraging.”

The league continues to make progressive strides today. Thompson is the first woman of color to be president of the Junior League of Tuscaloosa.

“It’s interesting to be a part of history,” she said. “You don’t wake up one morning and think you’re going to be part of history. Every day you are making history, you’re making your own history, so you don’t think of it as … ‘Wow, I’m going to be etched somewhere in life as the first.’ ” Being approached to participate in Tuscaloosa’s bicentennial events was another historic milestone for the group. Since one member of the

league also is on the bicentennial planning committee, the league has been involved since Day One, Thompson said.

“That’s one of the good things about Junior League, you’ve got someone sitting at the table that’s aware of things that are going on (in Tuscaloosa) that can bring it back to our table and help strengthen our brand,” she said. “So it was like, ‘Oh, we really need to be a part of this.’ ” The league’s mission remains dedicated to training, educating and empowering its members. Thompson admits that some days, that means working through miscommunications, having uncomfortable conversations and starting dialogues about inclusion and diversity.

All of that translates into growth.

“I’m watching women transform, and it’s helping me to make sure I’m doing the same thing,” she said. “Because you do get settled, you do have the same conversations, you have the same friends, you’re comfortable.”

But being a part of the Junior League of Tuscaloosa means volunteering alongside women with different backgrounds and in varied careers.

It also means learning from one another and working to find a common ground.

“It has been quite a rewarding experience to be in (the league) because you get to see things differently,” Thompson said. “You open your eyes, and you see things are not all one way. You see there is a beautiful way of doing things when we come together collectively.”

For more information on the Junior League of Tuscaloosa, visit www.jltuscaloosa.org.

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LIONS, TIGERS

AND BEARS —

OH MY, WHAT FUN A TRIP TO THE ZOO CAN BE!

A fishing cat is seen in its exhibit at the Birmingham Zoo.

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BY BECKY HOPF PHOTOS BY LAURA CHRAMER rom the petite fishing cat (they are avid swimmers) to the king of the jungle, the Birmingham Zoo is a feline lover’s delight.

Same for those who love elephants (and what University of Alabama fan doesn’t?), giraffes, giant tortoises, birds, reptiles (yes, some people actually do like snakes), monkeys, zebras, hippos, rhinos and sea lions. All, and more, including a Komodo dragon, can be found on a trip to the Birmingham Zoo. >>

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A lorikeet perches atop a branch in its exhibit. The exhibit identification guide lists information for rainbow, Australian and marigold varieties of lorikeets. • A red panda reclines in the cradle of a tree. • Kaleb Huffman, 4, feeds a giraffe a snack on a visit with his mother, Kimberly Huffman. • A flamingo is seen in its exhibit.

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The Birmingham Zoo has been a favorite state attraction for children and adults since its opening in 1955. It’s open 363 days a year, closing only on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. It’s a magnet for education, bringing busloads of schoolchildren who learn all about animals, their habitats, conservation, and what a sloth looks like in person.

An easy drive from Tuscaloosa, the Birmingham Zoo is less than an hour’s ride away. It’s got something for every age. There are special events, such as the Bear Encounter with resident North American black bear sisters Bety and Sassy. The Cassowary Encounter introduces visitors to a bird, the double-wattled cassowary, Emil. There are sea lion shows, camel rides, a train ride, a carousel, a Giraffe Encounter where you can feed a giraffe romaine lettuce by hand, a wildlife show, lion training, a children’s yard for petting some of the tamer animals — a chance to brush the fur of a sheep, even. And — who knew this would be at a zoo — visitors can hop onto an inflatable tube and go down a giant slide or get majorly wet and play in the splash pad.

The Birmingham Zoo also offers day camps for kids. Summer Camp is on weekdays, from June 3 to Aug. 2 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Fall Break Camp daily dates are Nov. 25-27, and the Winter Break Camp is on Dec. 23, Dec. 27, Dec. 30 and Jan. 2-3. Kids Day Out events are the Labor Day Camp on Sept. 2, the Columbus Day Camp on Oct. 14 and the Veterans Day Camp on Nov. 11.

Nestled on 122 acres in the Mountain Brook area of Birmingham, the zoo is home to some 700 animals, every one of them (OK, even the snakes) so worth the trip to observe. >> CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Patrons walk under a living breezeway at the Birmingham Zoo. • A green-winged macaw. • A spectacled owl.

• African elephants spray themselves with cool mud. • A pair of sea lions.

• Children see sights from the train. • Black-handed spider monkeys move from space to space in their exhibit areas.

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If you go:

The Birmingham Zoo is located at 2630 Cahaba Road, just south of U.S. 280/31. Parking is free. Admission, not including tax, is $17 for adults, $12 for children ages 2-12, and $14 for seniors 65 and older. For active/retired/veteran/reserve military with ID, it’s $14, and includes spouses and dependents.

For college students with current student ID, it’s $14. Admission is half price for all on Tuesdays, and Birmingham Zoo members receive free admission every day. Wheelchairs, strollers and electric scooters are available for rent. Zoo hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Sunday. More info on the Birmingham Zoo is available on Facebook and its website, www.birminghamzoo.com.

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Lady Ross’s turacos. • A cottonmouth whips its tongue. • Axel Kirk, 5, and Adeline Snider, 3, ride a camel with their grandmother Margie Mayhew. • A Southern ground hornbill. FACING PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Zoo patrons walk by a carousel. • A volunteer helps young zoo-goers. • An Aldabra tortoise. • Patrons check out an exhibit.

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FASHION

!

G N I N N I W Play

d e k oo l r ve e n ve a h es h t clo

od o g so

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FASHION

ON MADISON: BuddyLove palm maxi, $98; Acrylic melon earrings, $20.

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ON MAGGIE: Unpublished bell sleeve jacket, $79; BuddyLove carousel tie tank, $62; Unpublished distressed off-white shorts, $60.

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ON MAGGIE: BuddyLove Dalmatian ruffles dress, $79.

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ON MAGGIE: Do & Be flounce romper, $62; Printed neck scarf, $15; Hammered gold hoops, $20; Coconuts blush snake platform, $76.

ON MADISON: Do & Be structured fan top, $49; Unpublished gray distressed denim, $74; All Weather Bangles, $25; Acrylic lotus flower earrings, $25; Coconuts blush snake platform, $76.

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ON MORGAN: BuddyLove watercolor tank, $65; Unpublished gray distressed denim, $74; Coconuts white leather slides, $29; Gold and hot pink flower earrings, $20.

ON MADISON: Adrienne Lavender ruffles dress, $64; Coconuts blush snake platforms, $76.

ON MAGGIE: BuddyLove summer python top, $69; Unpublished off-white skirt, $60; Coconuts silver sandals, $29.

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ON MORGAN: Adrienne lilac polka dot dress, $64; Beaded heart earrings, $20

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ON MORGAN: Do & Be poppy ruffle romper, $62; Coconuts white leather slides, $29; Turquoise and gold drop hoops, $20.

ON MAGGIE: BuddyLove cherry tie top, $72; Unpublished boyfriend shorts, $60; Coconuts rose gold sandal, $29.

ON MADISON: BuddyLove rainbow star top, $62; Gold All Weather Bangles, $25; Unpublished gray distressed denim, $74; Coconuts white leather slides, $29.

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FASHION

ON MADISON: THML mirrored top, $56; Unpublished boyfriend shorts, $60; Turquoise acrylic hoops, $15.

ON MORGAN: THML stripe pompom dress, $72; Hot pink beaded hoops, $20; Unpublished off-white skirt, $60; Coconuts silver sandals, $29.

CREDITS

Photos by: GARY COSBY JR.

All clothes provided by: THE GOLDEN HANGER Hair and makeup by: CHANEY BOATRIGHT Location/scenes style by: BECKY HOPF

The winning team, from left, Morgan Walker, The Golden Hanger owner Caroline Grimes, hair and makeup stylist Chaney Boatright, Maggie Crow and Madison Franklin.

All the fashions and accessories are from The Golden Hanger, located at 2411 University Blvd. in downtown Tuscaloosa (across from Embassy Suites). Call 205-7105370. The store is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, and closed Sunday. Find The Golden Hanger on Instagram @shopgoldenhanger and online at at www.shopgoldenhanger.com.

Chaney Boatright did the hair and makeup and works at The Nook. Call

her for an appointment at 205-523-1662, email her at chaneyboatright.hair@ gmail.com and follow her on Instagram @chaney.hair.

A very special thank you to Bowlero Tuscaloosa Manager Chris Furman, District Manager Victor Morrow and, from the company’s corporate office, Jillian Laufer, and all the staff on duty the afternoon we did the photo shoot. The staff could not have been more friendly, helpful and accommodating.

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RECREATION

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RECREATION

HIGHWAY TO

SWELL

MOTORCYCLE RIDES, LONG AND SHORT, ARE A BIKER’S HAPPY PLACE

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RECREATION

Bobby Ingram rides his motorcycle on Lake Nicol Road in Tuscaloosa.

BY TIFFANY STANTON | PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR. PHOTOS FROM BOBBY INGRAM hen Bobby Ingram climbed onto his Harley and headed for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in 2016, he saw himself as a motorcycle enthusiast. By the time he arrived in South Dakota three days, one soaking rain and a herd of buffalo later, he felt himself a full-fledged biker.

It wasn’t simply the hundreds of thousands of roaring motors or the nearly 400,000 bikers gathered at the rally that changed the mildmannered Tuscaloosa accountant into a true member of the biker community. It was the 1,500-mile trip itself. And after five years of regular recreational riding, Ingram thinks he can say it always is.

“You get on a bike for maybe 10, 15, 20 minutes and something

transformative happens,” he said. “Anything that is on your shoulders just sort of filters out. It’s a glorious thing. For me, that’s catharsis.”

Daniel Sanford, a regular recreational rider and a salesman at T-Town Harley-Davidson in Cottondale, said Ingram’s feeling is so common that veterans sometimes take up the hobby to fight posttraumatic stress disorder.

He said he’s had customers tell him they’ve tested their blood pressure before and after a ride and seen the numbers lowered dramatically in minutes.

“It’s a combination of excitement and relaxation rolled into one,” he said. “You’re on this large engine, on the open road — that’s freedom. But at the same time, it’s like another zone. That little road you’re on every day in a car changes when you can feel the wind and become part of it.”

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RECREATION

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A close-up of the Harley-Davidson logo. • Bikes gathered at Sturgis for the rally. • Bobby Ingram in his rearview mirror. • Claude Edwards, left, and Bobby Ingram during their road trip to Sturgis, South Dakota.

Ingram’s trip to Sturgis was a test of motorcycle touring’s soothing benefits. He said his journey began on a 105-degree August day and took him and his biking buddy, Bryant Bank President Claude Edwards, through a driving rain in Wichita, Kansas, so heavy it had many car commuters pulling to the side of the road.

When the pair camped out that night, their equipment leaked and Ingram had to take the next day’s miles in soggy gear. And when it wasn’t raining, the sun and heat beat down on them without mercy.

But they stopped and helped a truck driver when his trailer blew over in strong winds. Then later in the trip, they had to pause to allow a herd of buffalo to pass.

The journey included rides through the Badlands and on Needles Highway through the pine forests of the Black Hills. The pair saw Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse in person, without even windows in between them and the view as they traveled. And then they rolled up on one of bikers’ biggest and oldest rallies: Sturgis. >>

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RECREATION

The city of Sturgis, in the southwest corner of South Dakota, has a year-round population of less than 7,000. But at the end of most summers since 1938, it swells by the hundreds of thousands and stays packed with bikers and vendors for weeks.

Participants come for the company of fellow motorcycle enthusiasts, from what Ingram saw on his five-day visit. But they stay for motorcycle races, stunt shows, and the big-name bands their numbers attract — like Bob Dylan, Stone Sour, Five Finger Death Punch, Ozzy Osbourne and Willie Nelson.

The gathering isn’t entirely what one might expect from the depictions of bikers in fiction, either.

Sanford says bikers come from all walks of life and that there are clubs specifically for firefighters and police officers and the like.

Ingram said that while his lack of a beard and visible tattoos sometimes earns him second looks, he’s far from the most conservatively groomed

or white-collar worker in attendance at most rallies. And the gatherings themselves are not typically for the troublemaking purposes shown on TV. Biker gatherings are often fundraisers, in fact. Or awareness campaigns, like the Rolling Thunder event in which Ingram rode in May in Washington, D.C., to raise awareness and accountability for prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action.

He said charity is as big a part of biker culture as roaring engines and racing motorcycles.

“We were on a charity ride last weekend where we had groups like the Devil’s Diciples and the Punishers and all of these tough gang guys on a charity ride for Caring Days (a day program for people with Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders),” he said. “We’re not rowdy. We’re not troublemakers. There are some bad guys out there, but the big thing with bikers is if you show me respect, I’ll show you respect, too.”

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RECREATION

ON THESE PAGES, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A close-up of the front end and logo of Bobby Ingram’s Harley-Davidson. • Bobby Ingram on his bike. • Bobby Ingram, left, and Claude Edwards on their trip to Sturgis, South Dakota. • Claude Edwards (far left) and Bobby Ingram (far right) are given a sendoff by friends and family as they prepare to leave for their long ride to Sturgis. • Tents the Tuscaloosa men used to camp in at Sturgis. • Bobby Ingram’s Patriot Guard Rider’s badge.

Sanford said local bikers gather at his dealership regularly for weekend rides and that he frequently meets passing bikers from other states who stop for maintenance or to collect the store’s version of the tokens Harley-Davidson dealerships distribute throughout the country. He thinks it is fellowship as much as excitement attracting people to the hobby.

“I was telling a guy the other day that if the world could be like most Harley riders are, it would be a better place,” he said. “Because we take care of each other.”

Ingram said he enjoyed his time at Sturgis but that he doubts he’ll make the trip again. There are too many other rides left to enjoy.

Aside from a particularly winding section of the Blue Ridge Mountains known as the Tail of the Dragon, which is the next big trip on Ingram’s list, he said local routes are brimming with scenic views.

Lake Guntersville is popular and worthwhile, as is any road going through north Alabama. He enjoys the ride to Memphis as well. And Alabama Highway 69 North, headed toward Jasper, is full of winding turns through trees and past a stream, making for beautiful views.

He often just hops on his bike and rides an unbeaten path in one direction for an hour or two. Because ultimately, the destination matters less to him than the new perspective a ride can give on everyday places.

“The smells, the sights,” he said. “There’s something about the fact that you’re much closer to the earth. It’s not the danger element, it’s just really an ‘I’m out here in it, I’m feeling the elements, I’m part of it’ element. The wind in your hair is a real thing, and it’s wonderful.”

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6

INTRIGUING

PEOPLE

Meet six folks who make a difference in our communities

PATRICK SMITH

Birmingham chief of police

REV. THOMAS LINTON

Barber/minister

SIERRA WILLIAMS

Martial artist/ amateur softball player

KEVIN CROOM Director of Croom Foundation

FRANNIE CLARK

United Way staff member

KYLE CAMPBELL

Ole Miss associate athletics director for communications

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 1

Patrick

SMITH BIRMINGHAM CHIEF OF POLICE

BY DREW TAYLOR PHOTO BY LAURA CHRAMER

F

or Patrick Smith, Birmingham might as well have been the center of the universe.

Smith, chief of the Birmingham Police Department, grew up in Tuscaloosa’s West End with his 12 brothers and sisters. His father, Jasper, worked for the now-defunct Central Foundry and his mother, Dorothy, was a teacher at the local Head Start. Every once in a while, the family would take the hourlong trip east to the “Magic City,” trips the young Smith treasured.

“If you really wanted to do something as a kid, you were certain to come to Birmingham,” Smith said. “As a kid, I would get excited to come to Birmingham because there was always something new and exciting going on.”

As an adult, Smith’s activities ranged from serving as a Marine in the Pacific to overseeing thousands of officers and their training at the Los Angeles Police Department.

Decades after leaving Tuscaloosa, Smith was finally able to come back home to

Alabama in 2018 to lead the state’s largest police department.

To hear it from Smith, law enforcement was a family business.

His brothers, Anthony and Roger, served for years as officers in Tuscaloosa and Tulsa, Oklahoma, respectively, as a response to seeing how the neighborhood in which they grew up sank into crime and drugs over the years and wanting to do something about it. Smith’s father had served in the Army but always wanted to be a police officer.

Anthony remembers it differently.

As a boy, Anthony Smith recalls a day when Patrick and their father were driving in a car. Out of the blue, their father asked Patrick what he wanted to be when he grew up. The answer was simple: He wanted to be the chief of law enforcement in Birmingham.

“My dad told him to write it down,” Anthony said. “He still has it.”

After graduating from Central High School, Smith joined the U.S. Marine Corps, partially as a way to get out of Tuscaloosa but largely to serve his country. After tours as a mortarman throughout Japan and the Philippines, Smith returned to the United States in 1990 and applied to be a police officer at the Los Angeles Police Department.

A difficult period for the LAPD would follow Smith’s arrival into Los Angeles.

Within a year of joining the force, several LAPD officers came under scrutiny after the beating of Rodney King. When those officers were acquitted of any wrongdoing in the case a year later, thousands rioted through the streets, causing $1 billion in damage, 53 deaths and a growing distrust in the department.

All he saw and witnessed on the job helped Smith when he eventually became a training officer in 1994.

“You cannot be afraid of the difficult conversations with the people who are protesting you,” he said.

Through the years, Smith would rise to becoming a police commander, and after former Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper retired, Smith felt it was a good time to pursue his longtime dream once more.

“For me, this is something that was personal,” he said. “Coming back to Alabama was personal. Taking over the Birmingham Police Department was personal. All these things were things I wanted to accomplish.”

For Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, who chose Smith out of 50 candidates from across the country, the decision was sealed by the reactions from him, his staff and different stakeholder groups.

“He hit the mark in every group, at the top,” Woodfin said.

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Early on, Woodfin said, he was most impressed with Smith’s abilities as a communicator, relaying what he wanted to do with the department and how he could use the department to make the city safer.

“The ability to problem-solve is a rarity,” he said. “Most people can talk about the problem, but most people aren’t talking about the solution to the problem.”

Under Smith, the Birmingham Police Department is looking to increase its ranks — nearly 800 in 2018 with more needed.

“I think the biggest challenge is putting things in place that need to be done in order to thoroughly address and build on the future,” Smith said. “We’ve done a lot within the past year in the community.”

Woodfin said he and Smith are in constant communication and that their visions for the department and the city are aligned, something that is reflected in his community support.

Despite living his dream job in Birmingham, Smith still comes back to Tuscaloosa most Sundays to have lunch with his brothers and sisters in their childhood home.

“We still hold true to the values and things we cared about out here,” Smith said.

Anthony said he is happy to have his brother back.

“We are all happy for him,” he said. “It was something he had wanted and had been working toward his whole life.”

Name: Patrick D. Smith Age: 55 Hometown: Tuscaloosa Personal: Wife, Esther Smith; children, Marjorie, Tia, Jasmann, Patrick and Nicolas; parents, Jasper and Dorothy Smith.

People who have influenced my life: My parents, Jasper and Dorothy Smith.

Something people don’t know about me: I am the youngest of 13 children — lucky No. 13!

My proudest achievement: Fulfilling my lifelong goal of becoming chief of police in Birmingham. I’ve spent 28 years in Los Angeles, and it has always been my goal to return to Alabama to have an impact on law enforcement in the state.

Why I do what I do: Law enforcement has been my goal since I was a kid.

I am fortunate enough to have lived my dream.

By doing so, I’ve never worked a day in my life. It’s been my desire. This is my destiny.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 2

Rev. Thomas

LINTON BARBER/MINISTER

BY CHRIS MEGGINSON PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

F

or more than 70 years, the Rev. Thomas “T.W.” Linton, owner of Howard & Linton Barber Shop, has been cutting hair and preaching the word of God in west Tuscaloosa.

A native of Greene County, Linton moved to Tuscaloosa in 1951 to attend Stillman College. He wanted to study at the Presbyterian-affiliated historic black college not to become a minister, as many of its students did, but a math teacher, though he knew deep down he was running from his true calling.

“I was ducking it,” said Linton, who had also become a barber by trade and has used his math degree to run his business. “I had a calling on my life, but I didn’t want to be one.

Anything but a minister. It’s something every minister wrestles with.”

In the end, his calling won. Linton entered the ministry in 1955 and became pastor of Thompson Chapel Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1956. He would lead that church for 30 years. He’s spent the last 32-plus years as pastor of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, located on 35th Street.

With more than 60 years in ministry and more than 70 years cutting hair, an art he started with friends and family members when he was 13, Linton says he has no plans to retire anytime soon.

“I can’t afford to do nothing. I love doing it and get a chance to minister to people and meet people. I do a lot of ministry here (in the barbershop),” said Linton, who turned 87 in May. Ministry in the barbershop has included an active role in Tuscaloosa’s civil rights movement. Howard & Linton’s Barber Shop, located at 1311 T.Y. Rogers Jr. Ave. (also 27th Ave.), is now a fixture on the Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History Trail.

“It just happened to start here,” Linton said.

Linton was hired by Nathaniel Howard in 1951 to cut hair in the shop. In its prime, Howard & Linton’s Barber Shop kept five chairs full, employed two shoe shiners and had a beauty salon in the back. It became the stop for local ministers, and when Linton learned how to cut the new flat-top style for a minister from Chicago, he became one of the most popular barbers in town for young black men wanting that style in the 1950s and 1960s.

Through those unofficial ministerial meetings in the barber chair, the Tuscaloosa

Ministerial Alliance was formed. Linton became secretary of the Leaders Action Committee and is now the only original leader remaining in Tuscaloosa. He had a front-row seat to history from his stool at the shop’s first chair. The barbershop was where an egged and bloodied Autherine Lucy came to get cleaned up and protected after being attacked on her day of enrollment at the University of Alabama. It was a central pickup point in the carpool system that shut down the city’s public transportation during the bus boycott. And when police and a mob of white men attacked black marchers outside First African Baptist Church on Tuesday, June 9, 1964, the trail of blood went down 27th Avenue to his shop that “Bloody Tuesday.”

“When they hit the steps, they arrested six ministers. Folks met them with baseball bats, billy clubs, brass knuckles, and beat them back into the church,” Linton said. “(In the shop), folks were laying all over the floor, bloody, screaming. I looked up, and all over this wall and floor was blood.”

Ninety-seven were arrested that day, more than 50 were carried to Druid City Hospital and 35 were treated. Linton’s job that day was to call Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to arrange a bail bondsman and to call Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He did. It took

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Name: Rev. T.W. “Thomas” Linton Age: 87 Hometown: Lewiston Personal: Wife, Pearlie (and late wife, Annie Mae); children, Phyllis Linton, Felicia Cash and Thomas Fedel Linton; grandchildren, Joshua Linton and MaLeah Linton; parents, Readus and Christine Linton; brothers and sisters, Maggie Harris, McKenzie Linton, James Linton, Henri Linton, John Linton, Readus Linton and Ruby Smith.

until Saturday to get everyone out of jail. None were prosecuted.

Today, the walls of Linton’s Barber Shop serve as a visual reminder of barber history, personal history and Tuscaloosa’s civil rights history. Visitors often stop by, especially on Alabama football game days, Linton says.

Entering the now-three-chair shop, Linton has on display his collection of some 1,000 shaving mugs, including one from the 1800s. His display includes one of the first electric razors and the pair of clippers Readus Linton bought his son in 1946. As visitors enter the back of the shop, a wall of accommodations to Linton from local, state and federal governments hang on a wall beneath a watercolor-painted sign, “Jesus is Lord.” A room filled with newspaper clippings is next, with news articles ranging from the civil rights events of the 1950s and 1960s and President John F. Kennedy’s assassination to President Barack Obama’s election and former University of Alabama football player Mark Ingram’s winning the Heisman Trophy. A letter from Dr. King also hangs in the shop.

Over the years, Linton has helped hire cashiers to integrate Tuscaloosa businesses and helped hire hundreds of high school boys each summer through a city summer jobs program, which helped avoid riots in the city following June 1964.

A popular speaker, including at the University of Alabama, because of his deep background and involvement in the civil rights movement, Linton has been interviewed by local, national and international media, though he says speaking to students is his greatest opportunity.

“It’s amazing. They’ll sit around, and I’ll tell them what we went through, and the amazing thing about it is you’ll get classes that will be so shocked,” Linton said.

They ask how he can do what he did, how he can work to bring peace and how he cannot have any hate for the bad.

“I’m a Christian,” is his simple response. “Love one another as he loved me. He’s not talking about the same race. He’s talking about people.”

This has been the cornerstone of Linton’s time as a father of three and decades of service to Tuscaloosa.

People who have influenced my life: Eatman High School principal B.R. Jowers and Coach James A Smith; Stillman College instructors.

Something people don’t know about me: I was always doing the right thing.

Jowers used to call me the business manager of the high school.

Proudest achievement: Living for Jesus.

Why I do what I do: Even when I was in high school I had a calling. It wasn’t until I was at Stillman and got married that I went into ministry.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

Sierra WILLIAMS NO. 3

MARTIAL ARTIST/AMATEUR SOFTBALL PLAYER

BY EDWIN STANTON PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

S

ierra Williams is a bully.

But in a loving way.

She’s competed in hundreds of martial arts tournaments in the past 15 years and has taught for five.

When she’s not on the road winning tournaments, the Tuscaloosa native is back home in Tuscaloosa teaching kids martial arts.

“I love teaching. I love kicking those little kids in the eyes and hitting them in the head and pushing them around,” Williams said.

“I’m a bully. They love it, though, that I’m a bully.

“I train my kids with strong enthusiasm.

They also know that I love them and I am there for them.”

Williams, a senior instructor at Strictly Business West Alabama Martial Arts Academy and a black belt, teaches her students all the proper techniques and moves she learned so long ago. Perhaps if she had started her martial arts training at a younger age, she’d be competing on the United States Olympic team.

Last year, she won two gold medals in the Amateur Athletic Union nationals, which qualified her for a tryout with the U.S. Olympic martial arts team.

Then came the bad news.

“They told me I was too old for the Olympic team. I missed out by one year,” said Williams, 33. “It was OK, though. I felt like if it wasn’t meant to be, then it wasn’t for me.

“I’m just now getting the opportunity to do the things that people half my age are getting into because I started so late,” Williams said. “There are kids who are 19 and 20 getting onto the Olympic team.”

It hasn’t been all bad. She did land a spot on Team USA. Williams received a call asking her to come try out for the team, and she thought she would give it a shot.

“It’s about an eight-hour day, nothing but workouts and kicking and punching and endurance training and that sort of thing,” Williams said. “They told me afterwards that I made the team.

“AAU is different from the Team USA national team. AAU is just the Olympic team. The team that I am on now is a points sparring team. It’s a big difference between Olympic sparring and points sparring.”

She will travel to London later this year for the World Martial Arts Games as a member of Team USA and has also stayed with AAU, winning gold medals in tournaments in Georgia and Tennessee.

Williams got her start in martial arts at age 18. Her grandmother, who had been taking classes with Grand Master Harry Lawson for several years, was helping put on a talent show for the community and needed an ice cooler. Lawson had one

available at the dojo.

“I walked in and thought, ‘This place smells like feet,’” Williams said.

She noticed a chain hanging from the ceiling. As she walked past, Williams kicked the chain.

“I grabbed the cooler and was walking with it toward the car,” Williams said. “(Lawson) grabbed me by the shirt and was like, ‘Go kick that again.’ I was like ‘OK,’ because he was a little aggressive. So I go over and kick it again.

“He said, ‘You should come to my class.

I’ll see you on Monday.’ I said ‘OK.’ I had no intentions of going. My grandmother was like, ‘Yeah you should go.’ So I went.”

Soon after, she competed in her first tournament. There were no girls to match up with, so she had to fight boys.

“My first tournament was when I was 18.

I was a gold belt, and I had to fight a blue belt and he was a boy,” Williams said. “I was a lower-belt female fighting a boy. For the first five years of my martial arts career I had to fight in the men’s division.”

Williams said she competes year-round and has about 300 tournament wins under her belt. She plans to slow down the next couple of years and focus on spending more time with family.

There is one sport she can’t seem to say no to, however.

The former Holt High School graduate earned a softball scholarship to Stillman College and a few years ago was introduced

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Name: Sierra Williams Age: 33 Hometown: Holt Personal: Adopted mother, Rosa Scott; godfather, Dennis Wallace; biological parents, Zsa Zsa Williams and Thera Peoples.

People who have influenced my life: My grandmother, Barbara Williams, who was a champion martial artist and was also taught by Grandmaster Harry Lawson.

She raised eight children by herself and created and managed a community children’s gospel group called The Children of Israel, made up of kids from low-income families … My Momma Rose, at age 58, adopted a little bright-skinned baby girl and always got me to try new things and to finish tasks. She was my biggest fan when I started playing softball, attending all my games and, those she couldn’t attend, she would spend hours asking me to give her every detail of the day … And my sisters at The Epsilon Eta Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. Something people don’t know about me: I love to draw.

I love all types of artwork mediums. Paint, charcoal and pencil are my favorites ... I love horror movies, but I’m not too fond of the dark … And I do 90% of my own personal mechanic work.

My proudest achievement: Knowing that despite my trials and tribulations, despite being told that I can’t, despite being a woman, being older, being African American, despite not being rich, despite being too small or too physically weak, despite it all, I DID IT! I joined at 18, I became champion at 23, I threw longer, I ran faster.

I scored those runs, I kicked that kick, I punched that punch, I became World Champion, I became National Champion, I made that team, and now I’m on my way to London for the grand prize. I did it, despite it all.

to a coed team, which set her on a path to play for the Black Softball Circuit in Birmingham.

“I got on to a coed team at Sokol (Park) and Bowers (Park),” Williams said. “Then I got an invitation to play for the BSC. I went to Birmingham and tried out for the travel softball team there. I played with them for a few years.

“We got the world championships in 2017. We won the 2016 small world championships.

“I wasn’t going to play this year but my teammate was like, ‘Play with me this year.’ So one tournament per month I can do.”

Why I do what I do: I do what feels right. Not what feels good, but what is correct. I love to teach martial arts. I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned with my students. It’s fulfilling to watch them succeed. I would like to be an inspiration to them. I would like for them to see me as an example to follow. I don’t want to be the best thing in my students’ lives, I’d just rather be a part in their lives … I play softball simply because it overjoyed my Momma Rose to watch me play. Yes, I’ve gained a love for the sport, but if I had never seen a smile on her face when I played, I would’ve given it up a long time ago. Now that she’s gone, I play because of my Team Blackout teammates.

They keep me going now. They can never take the place of my mom, but they remind me why I started playing in the first place.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

NO. 4

Kevin

CROOM DIRECTOR OF CROOM FOUNDATION

BY STAN GRIFFIN PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

C

ertain youngsters raised in unstable or perilous environments simply may need the right opportunity to help them overcome their backgrounds.

Tuscaloosa native Kevin Croom of College Hill Baptist Church has found that oftentroubled youth can progress and even thrive with just the right mix of structure, opportunity and standard of excellence.

The surname Croom is a familiar one in Tuscaloosa. Kevin’s grandfather, Sylvester Croom Sr., was a prominent minister. His uncle, Sylvester Croom, is a legendary football coach and player (he played and coached in the NFL, played at the University of Alabama, and was head football coach at Mississippi State). Kevin’s father, Kelvin, also played football at the University of Alabama under legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Kevin, a graduate of Tuscaloosa’s Central High School and UA, has carved out his own identity, though, as a songwriter/producer and entertainment entrepreneur. His career requires him to live a bicoastal life, working in California and Tuscaloosa.

One of his latest ventures is the Croom Foundation, a multilayered project combining athletic competition, academics, ministry and life skills, designed to ensure smoother future life paths for participating youngsters.

“For the last nine or 10 years, we’ve had programs, but it was just under the church (College Hill Baptist where his father is the pastor) and different variations of it,” Kevin Croom said. “We really didn’t have a focus on teenagers, and then a young man passed away named Jalen Merriweather (a former Holt High student and athlete) about this time last year, so when that happened, a lot of the teens said, ‘Coach, we need something (in terms of a supportive teen ministry).’ ” He then explored making a basketball league for these teens.

“If you can’t find it, create it,” Croom said. “So I teamed up with Alberta (Baptist Church) and some of the other churches, and we started a league, and the league took off.

Our team had 20 players by itself, and so with those young men I realized that it needed to be more than basketball. So we began getting them ready for ACT (testing). And I also realized a lot of them had anger management (issues), so we needed counseling services.

We teamed up with Tuscaloosa’s Family Counseling Service for things like that which

were bigger than basketball.”

As word began to spread, the enrollment of young people ballooned. Croom noted that the foundation now is serving 150 male youths.

“We originally just had a recreational league and team. But now we’ve got some of the top players in the state, and their parents love the foundation. They love that it is basketball, and they love the fact that every time we take their sons out (on a foundation trip), they are also going on college visits.

Now the ELITE team (he noted that ELITE stands for Everyday Lifting Individuals Through Excellence), in every city that we play in on the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) summer basketball circuit, we actually do a college visit and some type of community service event or have a speaker come speak to them and things like that.”

Besides the basketball league, the church’s Project 180 (which is in its ninth year) allows partnership with the Alberta School of Performing Arts to encourage and celebrate academic achievements by fifth-grade students.

The third layer of the Croom Foundation is College Experience, located on the UA campus.

“Our goal (with that segment) is to allow an outlet for college students to not only do

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Bible study, but to come together with other denominations that want to learn more about God,” Croom said. “Also we want to do round-table discussions about being a college student and life in general. We have hard discussions about the difference between a black student experiencing the University of Alabama and a white student experiencing it. We try to take down the barriers of the college experience.”

Croom said the foundation basically covers young people between the ages of 10 and 25. He said there are definite hopes and plans of expanding it even further. “(At the age of 36) I am able to talk to kids where they can relate and let them still be 14 or 15, but we put pressure on them, and some of them need to mature and things like that,” he said. “But I am not naïve to the fact that they’re 14 or 15 or 16. We make sure they’re not exploited, and we make sure that everybody, adultwise, that comes around them genuinely wants to be there to help them succeed. Our deal is really the kids, and if you bless them, you’re going to be blessed in the end.”

Name: Kevin Croom Age: 36 Hometown: Tuscaloosa Personal: Father, Kelvin Croom; mother, Tracy Croom; sisters, Tamara Croom Dudley and Teresa Bivens; brother, Kennis Croom; grandmother, Louise B. Croom.

People who have influenced my life: Sylvester Croom Sr., my late grandfather; Kelvin Croom, my father; Sylvester Croom Jr., my uncle; Tamara Croom Dudley, my sister; and Louise B. Croom, my grandmother.

Something people don’t know about me: People don’t know that when I was a teen I made money by being a party clown. Some teens cut grass. I juggled,

did magic tricks and made balloon animals.

My proudest achievement: My proudest achievement is when six men from the (Croom) foundation accepted Jesus Christ into their lives and got baptized. I knew then our effort to change lives was working.

Why I do what I do: I do what I do because the only factor that should determine whether a young man can be successful is his will to be successful.

Oftentimes society judges based off financial status, race, neighborhood, etc. My goal is to teach young men that you are a product of your environment until your environment changes. My mission is to change environments one young man at a time.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

Frannie NO. 5

CLARK UNITED WAY STAFF MEMBER

BY CAROLINE GAZZARA-MCKENZIE PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR.

P

aulah and Francis Clark were excited to find out they were expecting a baby boy in the fall of 1968. They were overjoyed with the idea of starting a family. But joy turned into worry when, in October, Paulah went into labor one and a half months early.

Shortly after the baby’s birth, the doctors approached the new parents and told them that their son was born with cerebral palsy, a birth defect that impacted his brain and lung growth in utero. The Clarks were told their son wouldn’t live to age 13. Some doctors even said their son would be a “vegetable” for his entire life.

The doctors’ opinions didn’t matter to the couple. The Clarks were going to make the most of raising their son and giving him the best possible life.

And that they did. Francis “Frannie” Clark is now 50 years old and continuing to prove everyone wrong. Statistically, he probably

shouldn’t be here, but that hasn’t stopped him. For Frannie, every day is a new day to learn something.

“We were all born with a set of circumstances,” Frannie said. “It’s how you use those circumstances that define you.”

For nearly 20 years now, Frannie has worked for United Way of West Alabama, a nonprofit that serves to help the community in any way possible, from financial assistance to education. Frannie has managed the 2-1-1 helpline for most of his tenure. He not only assists with the helpline, but he is also the phone operator for the staff at United Way. Frannie is self-sufficient, living on his own without fulltime in-home healthcare.

Though he uses a wheelchair and can’t drive, he uses public transportation to get to and from work and around town.

Frannie’s start was near Buffalo, New York, where he was born. His parents realized the upstate New York weather was too harsh for their son’s health, so they decided to move to Montgomery, Alabama. The climate would be better for Frannie’s health, and the city had the state’s first “mainstream” class — where Alabama children with special needs or disabilities were integrated with

traditional public schools.

Frannie flourished in school. In 1975, Frannie and his family were a part of the PL 94-142 legislative bill, which mandated educational assistance to all children with handicaps. This bill paved the way for children with special needs to attain a proper education. And in 1977, Frannie was named the Easter Seal Child of Montgomery, meeting then-Gov. George Wallace at the state capitol.

In addition to being a great student, Frannie developed a love for sports. Despite being wheelchair bound for most of his life, he played baseball with his younger brother, Jason, by pitching to him. He also took up bowling, participating in multiple charity events.

In fact, so strong is his dedication to sports, particularly those of the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide, that Frannie is an official honorary member of the A-Club, the Tide’s athletics organization comprised of former male and female athletes who competed in sports at Alabama.

“I’m humble by nature,” Frannie said.

“You either adapt to the situation, or you get crushed. I adapted and do the best I can.”

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He continues to thrive, despite occasional medical setbacks. In the mid-1980s, he underwent a series of back surgeries for scoliosis. This left him bedridden for a time.

And in 2013, Frannie was heading toward his favorite restaurant, Rama Jama’s, when he was hit by a car near his apartment off Bryant Drive in Tuscaloosa. He was pinned under his wheelchair, which was destroyed.

“My wheelchair would have crushed my wrist if I didn’t have cerebral palsy,” Frannie said. “Cerebral palsy makes my bones less brittle, protecting me from the accident.”

Cerebral palsy has never defined Frannie.

In fact, it’s inspired him. Giving back to his community has been a priority, all of his life. He says that helping others is one of the many things that bring him joy, and that he loves every minute of his time working at United Way, which reaches all over the West Alabama community. Frannie knows that one day he won’t be able to do everything on his own but that he’s enjoying everything he’s accomplished so far.

Name: Francis “Frannie” Clark Name: 50 Hometown: Tuscaloosa, although his family is in Montgomery Personal: Mother, Paulah; father, Francis “Fran”; brother, Jason.

People who have influenced my life: Jackie Bowman, who was the liaison between parents and children with special needs and the school system and worked with me from the time I started “mainstreaming” in the public school system in third grade until I graduated high school.

Something people don’t know about me: People assume I like sports, which I do — but I just like helping people in

general. People will come up to me and ask for help with the brackets or picking teams, but I just like to help people.

My proudest achievement: Graduating from the University of Alabama in 1996. For someone like me, with my circumstances, graduating was the proudest moment because it helped me live on my own and find a job.

I wouldn’t be with the United Way for nearly 20 years if it wasn’t for graduating. I’m also the first person on my dad’s side to graduate college.

Why I do what I do: I feel like I owe to people from what I’ve been through to give back. I want to pay it forward. So many people have helped me, and so I want to help others.

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SIX INTRIGUING PEOPLE

Kyle CAMPBELL NO. 6

OLE MISS ASSOCIATE ATHLETICS DIRECTOR FOR COMMUNICATIONS

BY STEVE IRVINE PHOTO FROM OLE MISS

H

is career path twisted a few times, not to mention traveling over enemy lines when it comes to Southeastern Conference allegiance, but Kyle Campbell wouldn’t change anything about where he ultimately landed.

The Fayette native, who graduated from the University of Alabama, is in his 20th year in the Ole Miss Athletics Communications Department. He’s led the department over the last eight years, first as the assistant athletics director and, since November of 2015, as the associate AD for communications.

“I love it here at Ole Miss,” Campbell said. “I work with a lot of great people. I work in a conference that I grew up loving.

I’m very blessed that I’ve had a career that has followed the path that it’s had.”

It’s not the way his career was charted while he was growing up in Fayette.

“When I first became interested in sports, I was in junior high, and it was basketball that I fell in love with,” said

Campbell, whose family still lives in Fayette. “I really envisioned myself being a broadcaster. I’d watch NBA games and I’d hear Marv Albert, Dick Stockton and announcers like that, and that’s who I wanted to be.”

He worked at WLDX radio in Fayette, serving as a disc jockey, hosting weekend call-in shows, reporting on local news and “things like that.” Campbell began college at Bevill State in Fayette as a broadcast major, but that changed before he was ready to move on to Tuscaloosa.

“As I got into college, my writing skills started to improve,” Campbell said. “My English professor at Bevill State, there in Fayette, was named Cyrus Brock. Dr. Brock convinced me to shift my focus from broadcast to print journalism. That was the route I went.”

He served as an assistant sports editor at the University of Alabama’s student newspaper, the Crimson White, while in college. He was the paper’s baseball beat writer in 1997 when the Crimson Tide advanced to the NCAA College World Series championship game. After graduation in 1997, Campbell had an opportunity to work at a variety of jobs, both in the state of Alabama and outside.

That’s where his career path took

another turn.

“As I got out of college, I started to think about my future; I just couldn’t see myself being a newspaper writer,” Campbell said.

“I just didn’t feel like it fit my personality.

When you’re writing for the Crimson White at Alabama, you’re surrounded by some of the biggest media names in the Southeast.

You’re seeing these guys in action, and I just didn’t feel like I was cut from the same mold as those guys. So many of those writers, they specialized in tearing people down. I felt like I was better suited to build people up than tear people down.”

After spending a year as an English teacher in the Czech Republic, Campbell accepted an intern position in the University of Evansville sports media relations department. A year later, he moved on to Ole Miss.

Campbell has played a variety of roles at Ole Miss. He began as an intern in 1999, becoming the assistant AD for communications in 2011. He’s worked as the primary media contact for football, men’s basketball, soccer, softball, men’s and women’s golf and rifle.

He’s also witnessed a changed world in his profession.

“I would venture to say that communications has changed more over

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Name: Kyle Campbell Age: 43 Hometown: Fayette People who have influenced my life: My parents, Eddy and Martha Campbell; longtime Ole Miss Sports Information Director Langston Rogers; current Ole Miss Athletics Director Ross Bjork.

Something people don’t know about me: I play the saxophone.

My proudest achievement: I’m proud to have played a small role in so many student-athletes receiving the recognition they deserve.

Why I do what I do: It’s an honor to work with our teams in their quest for championships and support our student-athletes as they achieve great things, both in competition and in life.

the last 20 years than any other area of college athletics,” Campbell said. “The shift from print to digital has been remarkable over that period, and certainly the rise in social media has changed everything. You hear people talk a lot about the 24-hour news cycle. It’s so much faster now than it’s ever been. From our standpoint, so much of our resources shifted more toward social media and the digital front.”

However, one thing remains constant.

“To me, the core of communication is

relationships,” Campbell said. “You need all these skill sets but, at the same time, you’ve got to be able to build and maintain relationships.”

Ultimately, it’s those relationships that Campbell cherishes most about his job.

“There is no doubt the relationships are far greater than the games you’ve experienced,” Campbell said. “And, there’s been some great games; there’s been some great moments.

I think back to our Sugar Bowl win in 2016. I think back to our SEC Basketball

Championship run in 2013. Those were exciting moments, and they’ll always stick out.

But, the relationships I’ve been able to build here with our coaches, with our studentathletes, with our administration, those will last a lifetime. I’ve had the good fortune to work with a lot of great coaches, even the ones who have moved on to other places. Those relationships, the emotions and experiences you’ve had with them, those will last a lifetime.

It’s one of the great things about working in college athletics.”

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KID STUFF

Taking the plunge SwimKids introduces kids (and even some adults) to summer’s favorite activity ance Rose has played a key role in the greatest of spectrums when it comes to swimming.

As a former University of Alabama assistant coach, he helped produce national and Southeastern Conference champions, All-Americans and even Olympians. And, when he retired from that job 19 years ago, he started perhaps his greatest — and most rewarding — ven-

ture. He opened a swimming school, SwimKids.

“You meet so many people, adults, who confess that they’ve never gotten to enjoy jumping into a pool or going into the lake or whatever because they never learned to swim,” Rose said. “That’s so sad. They’re missing out on a great part of life by not being able to get into the water.”

Learning to swim at an early age can help kids, and adults, enjoy one of summer’s great pastimes for the rest of their lives.

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KID STUFF

“Our goal is to get every child safe and comfortable in the water because being comfortable in the water is important to being safe in the water. Every child deserves the right to learn to swim. It’s so important for their safety, but also it leads to a lifetime of being able to have fun and enjoy being in the water,” Rose said.

SwimKids teaches lessons to children as young as 12 months. In fact, its classes for babies are among the most popular.

It offers one-on-one lessons, group lessons (for no more than four in a group), private and semi-private lessons. It also offers competitive swimming lessons to students interested in joining a swim team, teaching them strokes they’ll need to know before joining a team. Most lessons are for 30 minutes.

“We do have some adults who come and take lessons for the first time. We don’t turn anyone away,” Rose said.

Session lengths differ, with summer offering two- and four-week sessions.

There’s a 12-week fall session, an eightweek winter session, a 10-week spring session and a combined winter/spring session that goes for 16 weeks.

“Learning to swim is so crucial,” Rose said. “And it’s special to be a part of that, to be teaching kids something so important that can lead to a lifetime of great memories spent at the beach or the pool or wherever.”

BY BECKY HOPF PHOTOS BY GARY COSBY JR.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Prices for lessons, class schedules and registration information can be found online at www.swimkids.info, on Facebook or by calling 205-752SWIM (7946). SwimKids is located in the Fitness One building at 1325 McFarland Blvd. in Northport.

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Caitlin Reid learns to swim in the SwimKids program. • Vance Rose poses for a portrait by the pool inside Fitness One where he holds his SwimKids program. • Swimming instructor Hannah Yeager works with a young swimmer.

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ON THE SCENE

TUSCALOOSA NEWS’ 40 UNDER 40

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PHOTOS | MICHELLE LEPIANKA CARTER

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Quinn Roe, Lizzy Cochrane, Jaime Conger and Ashley Waid Tanner Funk and Brittany Floyd Emma Sanders, Brittany Gentry and Brant Gentry Nicole Perez and Noah Pepper

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Terrance Dedrick, Jacquan Winters and Chanterryka Calhoun 9. Sarah SteinbockPratt and Eric Courchesne 10. Brooke Meissner and Matt Meissner

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ON THE SCENE

15TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION OF ARTS ’N AUTISM APRIL 5, 2019 BRYANT CONFERENCE CENTER

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Sarah Brazzell, Paula Battles and Sarah Elizabeth Battles Stanley Fowler, Marilyn Zemnes, Sharon English and Tom English Treonte Sanders and Kim Legrone Shaina Daquioag, and Ben Manush Gwen Kerr and Debbie Kerr Debbie Glass, Carolyn Weldon and Alan Weldon Earnest Harris and Martha Harris John Michael Hibbard, Susanne Hibbard, H.D. Hibbard, Warner Hibbard and Brianna Ajamian Connor Rose

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ON THE SCENE

WEST ALABAMA FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL APRIL 11, 2019 TUSCALOOSA RIVER MARKET PHOTOS | MICHELLE LEPIANKA CARTER

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TULIPS & JULEPS MAY 4, 2019 DRISH HOUSE

PHOTOS | MICHELLE LEPIANKA CARTER

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Rain Hill, Alicia Hill, Karen Jackson, Alisha Malloy and Monique Carry Crissy Harris and Whitney Morton David Pass and James Cochrane Joe Elmer, Jennifer Bond, Will Hawkins and Anna Hawkins Sarah Kate Neunzig, Kelly Nielson and Melissa Wilmarth Jenny Pass and Libby

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ON THE SCENE

NINE PEARL AFFAIR

MARCH 23, 2019 BRYANT CONFERENCE CENTER

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Tracey Sanders, Shavonda Drake and Robin Kennedy Jessica Constant, Carla Coleman Jones and Cheri Huff John Hobson and Lisa Harris Tasha McFarley and Gregelyn Robertson Amber Burrell, Shon Foster and Tasha McFarley Janice Palmer and Costroe Palmer The Delta Sigma Theta Financial Projects Committee Ann Fairley, Phillis Belcher and Kenya Goodson Maxine Neal and Stanley England

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ON THE SCENE

22ND ANNUAL BBQ AND BLUE JEANS MARCH 23, 2019 WATER OAKS FARM

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Amanda Fowler, Les Fowler and Rick Hanna 3.

Tammy Panayiotou and Deborah Crews 4.

Abby Jones and Olivia Hart 5.

Andrew Hudson and Stephanie Hudson 6.

Kirk Ingram and Calondra Ingram 7.

Allison Gunter and Chris Gunter 8.

Scott McClanahan and Gina McClanahan 9.

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ON THE SCENE

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE SOCIETY’S 2018 FAMILY OF THE YEAR

APRIL 16, 2019 HOME OF SHARON & LIN MOORE

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Buddy Moman, Anne Moman, Delores Cole and Weldon Cole Jay Wells, Beverly Wingard and Frank Wingard Alison Ferrer, Will Hewson, Matthew Fajack,

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ON THE SCENE

WINE, WOMEN & SHOES

TUSCALOOSA RIVER MARKET MARCH 28,2019 PHOTOS | JOE WILL FIELD

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and Jasmine Rainey 6. Joan Ashcraft and Nenita Brown 7. Anne Marie Ashley and Jamie Lambert 8. Heather Lanphere and Jenny Golding 9. Sydney Hickman and Presley Pate 10. Rindy Hodges and Cammie Brown

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ON THE SCENE

UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY OF WEST ALABAMA SHRIMP AND CRAWFISH BOIL APRIL 27, 2019 NUCOR UNITED COMMUNITY PARK

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EVENING OF THE ARTS AND THE CABARET MEETS THE BLUES

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Back row, from left, Debbie Bond, John Bull, Marcus Lee, and front row, Keith Ruff, Earl Williams, Carroline Shines Edwards, DieDra Ruff and Brenda “B.J.” Reed Toborsha Holley and Amber Holly Charles Martin and Felicia Martin Stephanie Mitchell, Holly Hatcher and Jeremy Lundy

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LAST LOOK

THE GIRLS OF SUMMER PHOTO BY GARY COSBY JR. The 2019 Southeastern Conference champion University of Alabama softball team celebrates a home win at the NCAA’s Tuscaloosa Regional. Alabama went on to win its way into the program’s 12th appearance in the Women’s College World Series.

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