Hope steps up

Freedom’s Finds uses thrifting to help survivors of human trafficking

Story by Roxann Edsall
Photos by Richard Rybka

Gabby Martin knows human trafficking is not just a big city problem, a fact she has heard repeated in a number of training events aimed at helping victims. It can happen anywhere at any time.

A recent report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation defines the potential area of vulnerability to human trafficking as “any U.S. community – cities, suburbs, and rural areas.” 

Martin and two close friends, having been stirred by viewing the movie, Sound of Freedom, started a not-for-profit mission in Pell City that hopes to help victims of human trafficking.  Named Freedom’s Harbor, the mission gives a nod to the movie’s name and its mission in helping women who have escaped from or been rescued from traffickers.  They are raising money to build a home for those who have survived this unspeakably painful horror. 

One of the avenues they are using to reach that goal is through the opening of a new resale store called Freedom’s Finds.  Located in downtown Pell City, the 2,900-square-foot store features a variety of previously owned, but well-maintained merchandise at thrift store prices. 

A21’s Kimberly Thompson (left) visits with Ann and Gabby to offer advice on the mission’s direction

“We started the store to build revenue for the house itself and to pay the bills for running the home,” said Martin.  “The plan further down the road is for the ladies who will be living in the home to work in the store if they want to. We want the store to support the mission of giving these ladies a safe harbor to begin the healing process.”

Seven years ago, The WellHouse opened in St. Clair County for women who have been victims of human trafficking. Carolyn Potter, The WellHouse’s chief executive officer, has met with Martin and welcomes any help for these victims.  “There are times when we are full and we could always use help with a place for a lady to stay until we have a place for her,” says Potter. 

Martin plans to position Freedom’s Harbor as a stabilization home for short-term living while waiting for a placement in a facility like The WellHouse, which offers long-term transitional care and counseling. 

Why St. Clair? The very busy Interstate 20, the thoroughfare that bisects the southern part of the county and connects Atlanta to Birmingham, is commonly referred to as the superhighway of human trafficking, because it connects Atlanta to Dallas and is close to Interstate 65 for northbound and southbound travel. 

Adding to the county’s vulnerability is the proximity to Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, which has been identified as the second busiest airport for human trafficking in the country by the Polaris Project, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, in the 17 years since its inception, it has received over 10,000 cases, with more than 16,000 victims, and those numbers are rising. 

In 2021, they issued a report by state, and Alabama’s hotline received 80 cases with 216 victims involved.  It is difficult to quantify the exact number of victims of human trafficking because of the complex nature of the crime and mental health impacts it leaves on its victims. 

Countless victims never come forward due to the physical and psychological abuse from their traffickers. 

In a move to bolster resources and to better focus on ways to help, Martin has reached out to several agencies who have firsthand knowledge of the human trafficking crisis. 

She has gone through training from a number of those resources, including from A21, an anti-human trafficking group whose name stands for Abolishing Injustice in the 21st Century.    A21 operates on six continents and in 21 countries with their mission to “abolish slavery everywhere forever,” a daunting task, considering the International Labor Organization’s estimate of 49.6 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. 

They consider education to be an important part of their focus, including providing information for those, like Martin, wanting to offer services to victims, and offering programs to educate first responders on how to help victims. 

“We also have a school curriculum that is available, designed for ages from kindergarten through high school,” said Kim Thompson, A21’s chief development officer.   “Educating children and youth on what to look out for is an important step in the prevention of human trafficking.”

Thompson tells about launching the pilot program for education in a junior high school and having several students come forward as potential victims of grooming, trafficking and exploitation. 

“One of these students was planning to meet with someone she had connected with online, and because of what the student learned through A21’s curriculum, she shared with her teacher what was happening.  Her teacher alerted law enforcement officers, who were able to identify the individual and keep the student from a potentially dangerous situation.”

Thompson has had a heart for victims all her life.  Her first exposure to human trafficking was early in her career when she was working as a summer camp director and had one of her campers become inconsolable. 

“We were not able to get her to tell what the problem was at first,” said Thompson.  “But eventually she told us her father was raping her and letting others in their apartment complex do the same.  She desperately didn’t want to go home with him.  I was heartbroken.  I didn’t even know what trafficking was at the time.” 

The camp staff contacted the sheriff’s department, who got the FBI involved.  “In the end, the father was arrested, and the girl was removed from the home,” Thompson added.  “Oh, and she was just 12 years old.”

Even the term, “human trafficking,” is often misunderstood.  People tend to focus on the perceived “movement” part of the words.  “Movement is not what makes a situation human trafficking,” explains Thompson.  “People who are smuggled are not necessarily being trafficked.  They’re vulnerable to human trafficking, though, because of their loss of control.  Force, fraud or coercion is what defines human trafficking.” 

Human trafficking includes both sex trafficking and labor trafficking.  Victims of both are lured by the prospects of a better job, better future, other fraudulent promises or are forced into trafficking by a family member. 

They never receive the job, promised future or compensation but, often, stay with their trafficker in response to threats by their captor, which often include threats against the victim’s family. 

“The vast majority of people know their trafficker,” says Thompson.  “They are recruited or groomed by people they know or think they know.  Our children are especially vulnerable because of their online activity.” 

While the number of cases of trafficking in Alabama remains lower than surrounding states, neighboring states Georgia and Florida are among the list of top 10 states for human trafficking cases, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. 

Gabby Martin knows trafficking knows no community size.  “Anywhere people feel trapped or stuck, desperate or abused,” says Martin, “that’s where people are vulnerable.”

Having been in an abusive relationship over a decade ago, she knows what desperation feels like.  She feels lucky to have escaped that situation and to have found a room at a YWCA domestic violence shelter in Eden, a home which has since closed.  “We want to be that beacon of light for women who have escaped a trafficking situation, to help them with a place to shelter, to receive life skills, counseling and to help them become self-sufficient.”

Editor’s Note: For more information or to donate – www.freedomsharbor.com. Freedom’s Finds is open Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Coming in August – A deeper look into the hope and help provided by another organization that supports and provides help to survivors of human trafficking in St. Clair County.

Expanding horizons

BJ’s Diner and McWatering Hole add flavor to Ashville’s food and beverage mix

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Graham Hadley and submitted

Two women returning to their rural roots now run businesses in Ashville, one serving coffee and sweet treats, the other full Southern meals. Bonita Johnson and Ashley McWaters are part of the growing list of female-owned businesses now thriving in the city.

Johnson opened BJ’s Diner in Ashville Plaza on U.S. 231 in January. It was the brainchild of her husband, Darrin, who saw it as a way to repay her for all she did for him during a lengthy illness a few years ago.

“My husband has been a chef for 30 years,” Johnson says. “He was at Flemming’s, Perry’s and other upscale places around Birmingham. Chef Dee is his professional name, and I met him when he worked at Whole Foods on Highway 280. At Whole Foods, you picked your own foods from the grocery section, and he prepared it for you. I would not eat there when he wasn’t cooking. He stopped working there in 2017.”

When they met, she told him she would be rich one day and would hire him to cook for her. “He said he would cook for me for free,” she points out. They married in 2017, and within three or four days of their wedding, Darrin went into kidney failure. Bonita nursed him back to health.

The couple lived in Birmingham during the first few years they were married but wanted to get back to their rural roots. “I’m from Boligee, and he’s from Greenville,” she says. “We live in Oneonta now.”

Their hallmark is Southern foods made from scratch using as many locally sourced ingredients as possible. “Our recipes are from watching our grandmothers cook and tweaking their recipes,” Johnson says. “We buy fresh foods as much as possible, and our goal is to serve no canned foods at all. Our salmon croquettes are from canned salmon, but the croquettes are made by hand. We are connected with local growers on Sand Mountain, in Blount County, and at area farmers’ markets.”

Their entrees and veggies change daily, except for one particular dish. “The only thing that does not change is the ‘liquid gold,’ which is our mac-and-cheese,” Johnson says. “We always have some kind of greens and some kind of beans, too.”

Other dishes include meatloaf, beef stew, fried or blackened catfish filets, fried or blackened Gulf shrimp, catfish nuggets, grilled or fried pork chops and D’s Crack Fried Chicken. They serve traditional sides such as potato salad, corn or onion hushpuppies, garlic mashed potatoes and several types of greens, plus their own Hawaiian coleslaw, which has pineapples in it. Desserts include peach cobbler and banana pudding. They’ll soon be adding homemade ice cream to that mix.

They start prepping as early as 8 a.m. “This isn’t fast food,” Johnson says. “It takes time to hand-cut fries. It takes four hours to make our chicken and dumplings because we roll out our own dough. We also make chicken and dressing. Our veggie menu changes depending on which fresh ones we can get that day. We do have to import some due to seasonality.”

She says Darrin does not season vegetables with meat but has his own special seasonings. He prepares purple potatoes when they can get them out of Pennsylvania.

BJ’s is decorated like an old-timey diner, too, from vintage tin signs advertising RC Cola, Dr. Pepper, Shoney’s Big Boy and various old service stations. She has a juke box on order. The diner seats 75 people and has truck parking available. A big sign is slated to go up next to the road soon.

The printing on BJ’s door says, “Open 7 days a week,” but in truth, it isn’t open every Sunday. “We’re here one Sunday per month,” Johnson says. “We put a sign on the door and post on our Facebook page which Sunday.”

Employees are part-timers who the Johnsons consider family. They also like to bring their customers into the family fold. “It’s not about the dollar, it’s about family,” Johnson says. “We want to know not just how they like our burgers, but did they get that job or raise and, ‘How are your babies?’”

Sometimes customers will give them money to pay for other peoples’ meals when those folks cannot afford to eat. “Sometimes people come in to use the restroom or get a glass of water, for example, and we feed them.” She has dubbed this the Mathew 25:35 Initiative because that passage of Scripture reads, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

The Johnsons don’t want anyone to leave their diner hungry or thirsty.

BJ’s is open Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. until 8:30 p.m.; Wednesdays from 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. The one-Sunday-per-month hours will be posted on their Facebook page and on their front door.

The McWatering Hole a local favorite

More than a coffee shop

Ashley McWaters worked as a dispatcher in the St. Clair County Sheriff’s office in Pell City for 13 years. Born, raised and residing in Ashville, every time she passed by the old Canoe Creek Coffee location on U.S. 231 South in Ashville, she would mutter to herself, “That place really needs to re-open.” One day, she decided she would make that happen. And that’s how the McWatering Hole was born.

“I love this town, and I wanted to be back (working) in Ashville,” she says. “I love to cook, and I like to love people with food. Coming home, seeing people I know and went to school with, keeps me smiling all the time.”

Although not a barista, Ashley has learned through experimentation over the two years she has been open. Her Hot Mama, for example, is an espresso named in honor of her mom, Misty Pruitt, because the latter never drank coffee until a few years ago and would not drink espresso at all because it sounded too bitter. “This one contains Americano coffee with caramel sauce and cheesecake syrup, and a dash of heavy cream,” Ashley explains. She uses only Red Diamond Coffee because it’s local. (The plant is in Moody.)

She offers a Red Bull Refresher for people who don’t like coffee. It contains coconut water and Red Bull in flavors such as Dessert Pear and Blue Raspberry. “It’s a caffeine kick, but you are hydrating as well,” she says.

Blueberry muffins, sweet and savory scones, sausage balls and mini-quiches top her list of edibles to go along with the 20-40 cups of coffee she sells per day. She uses local blueberries for her muffins and features seasonal flavors such as pumpkin scones in the fall. Right now, her seasonal feature is lemonade poppyseed muffins.

 “Our sausage balls sell out every day,” she says. “They are about the size of a meatball, and one serving is seven or eight balls, depending on their size that day.” The size varies because she and her mom eyeball everything during preparation. “We don’t use a scoop,” she says. “We stop when our ancestors tell us to stop.”

She developed her menu through trial and error, not knowing what would sell until she tried it. Most of her recipes came from her own home, and many had been in her family for two or three generations. “Momma cried the first time she remembered making some of these recipes with her grandmother,” Ashley says of her primary employee. “I remember making some with my own grandmother, too.”

Her best-selling sweets are the banana pudding cookies, which require an early-rising customer to sample because they’re gone by 9:30. “Mom and I had been saying if we ever opened a shop, we would sell these,” she says.

She used to serve sandwiches, making the chicken salad filling from her mom’s recipe. But they didn’t sell as well as the sweets, and she frequently had too many left over at the end of the day. “We sold sandwiches for the first six months, then went back to the basics,” she says. “That has worked.”

The newest additions to the menu are the mini-quiches. She makes them in a muffin tin on alternate days than her sausage balls, so she always has something savory on the menu.

As for decor, several tables made by the owner of Canoe Creek Coffee remain, because Ashley didn’t want to erase their imprint from the shop. She has added a vintage record player that is awaiting a new needle and felt pad before it can play those vinyls again. “It’s a 1948 model,” she says. “That’s the year my Maw-Maw was born.”

Weekday clientele consists of locals, while on weekends she gets more interstate traffic. That was boosted when she got the shop listed on Yelp!, Google Maps and I-Exit. “People look up ‘coffee shop near me,’ and we pop up,” she says.Employees besides Ashley and her mom are Meghan Frondorf and on some weekends when Ashley needs a day off, her niece, 16-year-old Kiki Walker. “We’re a family-run business,” Ashley says.

In addition to drinks and treats, she sells logo tees, crystal jewelry by local resident Cody Syler, who owns Unicorn Man Crystals; hair bows by Ashley Mills of Beauty from Ashes; and potted cacti from Terri Goolsby. “Terri is doing a project to catch, spay and neuter stray cats,” Ashley says of Goolsby, another local vendor. “Her proceeds go to her Shoal Creek Community Cat Project.”

She keeps crayons and games to occupy children who come in with their parents or grandparents. During the school year, her own two kids can be seen coloring or studying, because she home schools them and takes them to work with her. “My kids get to see me doing something I love and to see my dream become a reality,” she says. “It lets them know they can do whatever they want in life.”

The McWatering Hole, 36245 U.S. 231, is open Tuesday – Saturday, 7 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Whataburger, Outback Steakhouse coming to Pell City

Story by Carol Pappas
Submitted photos

It has not even been a year yet since Pell City Square opened and already, predictions and promises are right on target.

Two new eating places are about to call Pell City home – one a national brand sit-down restaurant and the other a national fast-food chain.

Whataburger is already under construction on an outparcel near the south end of Pell City Square and is expected to open in a few months. Outback Steakhouse is clearing ground to make way for its arrival in late 2024 or early 2025 on an outparcel next to it.

Whataburger was founded in 1950 in Corpus Christi, Texas. As its history of its name goes, the aim was to serve a hamburger so big it would take two hands to hold it and after a single bite, the customer would say, “What a burger!”  

From that single stand the chain grew to more than 890 locations across the country.

Construction on Pell City’s newest addition to the dining scene began about three months ago, according to Pell City Manager Brian Muenger. “They’re moving at a pretty good pace,” he said, noting that the storefront is already in. Company officials projected opening would be in the third or fourth quarter of 2024. “They’re definitely on pace to hit that.”

Meanwhile, excavation work has begun on Outback in preparation for the company’s general contractor to begin the build. Projections call for opening in the fourth quarter of 2024 or first quarter of 2025.

The Outback project has been much anticipated. The city, in its agreement to lease the property, required location of a national sit-down family restaurant, preferably a steakhouse. “Outback is a very established brand,” said Muenger. “This is a new type of restaurant for the city. We don’t have a name brand out there.”

Outback’s location of a 187-seat restaurant in Pell City should serve as a signal to other corporate restaurants to follow suit.

The Australian-themed restaurant began in 1988 in Tampa and is owned by Bloomin Brands, which operates Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and Flemings Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar.

It is the latest economic boost in what officials had envisioned for the city when it assumed ownership of the old St. Clair County Hospital property.

But while the focus has been on the Pell City Square and surrounding property of late, retail and restaurant development in other areas has not stopped in areas like Vaughn Drive and Hazelwood Drive, Muenger said.  Interest is growing, and “feedback from prospects has been very strong. Looking forward, people will see a lot more of sit down dining. We’re a viable location. We’re actually working through the development process.”

It’s all part of an ongoing quest by the city, Muenger said, to grow its retail and restaurant community and “provide shopping closer to home so we can keep dollars closer to home in Pell City.”

St. Clair Economic Development Executive Director Don Smith agreed. “The city and county officials have done a great job working with everyone to bring retailers into the Pell City Square that draw from the region, and not just locally. This has opened up more potential customers coming into the city, which then grows the market so more retailers are attracted to invest in the community.”

Healing Vine

New chiropractic center opens in Ashville

Story and photos
by Carol Pappas

When Dr. Steven McKinney and his wife, Janella, decided to open his chiropractic practice in Ashville, it was a homecoming of sorts.

Originally from Boaz, the couple bought a farm just outside Ashville a few years ago. They established their church home there, too. While he was practicing elsewhere, church members asked him to participate in the Ashville Health Fair that was being held there. He agreed and soon came to realize that there was a need to be filled.

A suite became available in the shopping center just across U.S. 231 from their church, and Healing Vine Family Chiropractic Center was a step away from becoming reality. He closed his Boaz practice and opened April 1 in Ashville.

McKinney shouldered much of the cosmetic work himself. The end result is an impressive chiropractic center with exam rooms, office and reception area, offering services from pediatric to geriatric. A former football player, Dr. McKinney also specializes in sports injury and prevention.

Why Healing Vine? The name comes from a piece of artwork displaying the Chiropractic Prayer given to McKinney by his daughter. It featured a vine as the art with the prayer. McKinney put the two ideas together – the healing hands of chiropractic medicine and the vine as a Christian symbol of sustenance.

By combining the two, he said, it expanded the meaning and mission as a Christian-based chiropractic center. Serving families, it is built around his own family with his wife and daughter both working there.

Since the opening, “Ashville has been really great,” said Janella McKinney. “It brings health care to Ashville it was in need of.”

Saving Chandler Mountain

Once historic enemies join forces to keep a proposed dam project off the mountain

Story by Paul South
Photos by Mackenzie Free and Leo Galleo

When Seth C. Penn ponders Chandler Mountain, he thinks of the Indigenous peoples who walked the mountaintop 6,000 years before Christ trod the earth.

Darrell Hyatt thinks of generations of his family, who yanked a living from the mountain’s rich soil. The Hyatts came to the area when the only way to navigate the mountain was by wagon, horseback or on foot.

And Joe Whitten, an amateur historian and retired educator who came to St. Clair County in 1961, hiked from the base to the top of the mountain at age 80 and plans to do so again, even at 85.

Their backgrounds are different, but the three men share a love for the mountain and an understanding of the importance of the successful battle to fend off an Alabama Power proposal to build dams there. It was a plan that would have flooded the valley, displaced families and damaged sacred sites and archaeological treasures.

Community comes together for common cause

While bluegrass music at Horse Pens 40 and tomatoes – the area’s iconic signature crop – sprout in the minds of most Alabamians when the name, Chandler Mountain, is mentioned, make no mistake, it is holy ground.

According to Penn, Southeastern Region coordinator for the Indian Nations Conservation Alliance and a citizen of the Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama, all land is sacred for Indigenous peoples, regardless of location. But the mountain is unique.

“Chandler Mountain is an area where tribal territories met,” Penn said. “This was a place inhabited by several different tribes, Cherokee people and Muskogean people as well. This is an area where you could see different looking people, different looking tribes, different languages. That makes the mountain unique unto itself.”

There are archaeological and ecological features on the mountain sacred to the tribes.

“How the water flows, the hydrologic buildup, makeup and processes are important ecologically and also sacred, considering the values of water, plant life and animals,” he said.

Prayers and other ceremonies were conducted on the mountain. And while the story may be apocryphal, it is said that Chandler Mountain is the only place where a peace treaty was signed between the Cherokee and Creek tribes.

“I have never seen that document,” Penn said. “So as far as the credibility of that, it’s very debatable and very questionable. So, my response to that would be, I’d like to see that happen in present time, so that an actual treaty exists.”

One piece of ancient history that does exist are the rock formations, stone structures and Cherokee pictographs, rock art that native peoples may have painted with their fingertips, according to a report by Dr. Harry Holstein, a professor of Chemistry and Geosciences at Jacksonville State University.

These drawings and structures, as well as the stars, all play into the ceremonial and governmental history of the mountain and its ancient inhabitants, Penn said.

“This is a place where we might go to higher ground in search of a spiritual connection. It’s a place where territories met. So, at times we might meet in council-like setting, where topics might be discussed among our tribe or with other tribes even. Trades could also take place,” Penn said.

From a spiritual perspective, he added, “The whole sacred, ceremonial prayer aspect of events that took place – with certain rock features facing certain directions, certain astrological features in line with certain features, that all plays into the ceremonial aspect of it.”

A Family’s Story

With all their earthly belongings, John Hyatt and his wife arrived on horseback from Hurt County, Ga., and settled near the Horse Pens area in 1875, where they homesteaded 120 acres.

“There have been Hyatts on that end of Chandler Mountain ever since,” said John Hyatt’s great-grandson, Darrell.

He lives near the base of the mountain. He can recite his family’s history like a precocious schoolboy. John Hyatt’s brother, Otis, was the first person to farm the tasty Chandler Mountain tomatoes.

But the mountain is about more than tomatoes. Darrell has lived in the Chandler Mountain Valley since 1969, and at his current homestead since 1981. There, he reared his children.

At one time, he pondered moving his family out west. But the tug of home was too strong, the ties too deep. In his family, Darrell has always been known as “the man who came back to the mountain.”

Artifacts found tell story of Native-Americans living on land

“I always knew this mountain was different,” he said. “We could never pull ourselves away. It’s not just the family history. It goes back thousands of years.”

He found paleo-points on the mountain, and he and his wife found the pictographs. In turn, they brought Holstein as well as a rock expert from the University of Tennessee.

“Dr. Holstein said this was the most significant archaeological find on the upper Coosa River drainage area,” Hyatt said.

That archaeological find played a significant role in the defeat of the Alabama Power project.

What would have been the impact of the project if it had moved forward? Often, before Alabama Power shelved the plan, Darrell imagined his last day in his beloved valley, where his kids grew up and where he walked the mountain, climbed its rocks and contemplated the world in solitude.

One of the dams would have been built within 1,000 feet of his home. Rocky Hollow, the Mount Lebanon Cemetery, a number of archeological treasures and dozens of families would have been washed away.

The Hiker

Darrell remembers the first time he and Joe Whitten hiked the mountain, following Steele Gap Road. Whitten was 80.

“Joe, are you ready to stop?,” he would ask.

“Where’s the top?,” Whitten replied. Hyatt pointed upward.

“Let’s go,” Whitten said. And they did. “I think I can do it again,” he added.

Whitten talks of the importance of Chandler Mountain to the quality of life of St. Clair County and to its economy.

“It was in a remote section of the county that the pioneers made a beautiful place of,” Whitten said. “As time progressed, they tried various fruits. They grew peaches there for a time, but the tomatoes made the mountain famous.”

The Alliance

Two groups that history saw often at odds, the Indigenous tribes and new settlers of the 19th century, joined with the City of Steele and Montgomery politicians to fight the utility. The fight continues because the utility still owns significant acreage there.

In the face of opposition from locals, as well as Public Service Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh, Alabama Power Company scrapped its plans to build a hydroelectric storage project and remove homeowners from Chandler Mountain in August 2023. The utility withdrew its efforts to seek a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In these politically fractured times, is there a lesson to be learned from the alliance that fought it?

Flat top of mountain a distinctive characteristic

“Absolutely,” Darrell said. “This community in my eyes was starting to lose itself. (The dam project) pulled everybody together.”

In local folklore, it’s told that John Hyatt built the market road down the backside of the mountain near what’s now U.S. 231, in an area known as Hyatt’s Gap. And the mountain can be seen from Alabama’s highest peak, Mount Cheaha.

“It’s very distinct,” he said. “And I think the Native Americans saw that, too. It’s sacred. Very sacred to them.”

Whitten said that even in these difficult days, the successful effort to block the project, “shows there can be unity. Peoples can come together and work together on projects that are needful to the community and the county and the state.”

He added, “What is there is important to the state as well, because it’s part of our Indigenous history.”

Penn agreed. “Obviously, it’s an ancestral holy place for an Indigenous person,” he said. “But because of those thousands of years of prayers building a foundation for a sacred setting, it’s just as much a sacred place for that farmer who says a prayer while he’s out there planting or harvesting. It’s a sacred place to that family who comes together and prays before a meal every time they eat dinner. It’s a sacred place and a significant place to many people.

“While our significance to the mountain and the sacredness of the mountain predates the settlers, I don’t want to discredit that it’s important to many of them as well in present time.”

Of the alliance, Penn said, “We’re a whole lot better when we can put differences aside and find common ground and work together regardless of backgrounds, faiths or political affiliations.

“Chandler Mountain is a unique situation in that we can come together. We have done that, and I’d like to see this initiative grow. I’d like to see Alabama Power realize, ‘Look, we had wrong intentions here. This isn’t where we need to do this. We just need to pull out and let go and give this mountain back to the people who truly care about it. And that is the Indigenous people and that is the local Chandler Mountain Community. That is our mountain and should be our mountain. That’s how I feel about it.”

 “Alabama Power does not have any plans for the Chandler Mountain property,” said Alabama Power spokesperson Joey Blackwell in an email response in April.

When Alabama Power announced it had scuttled its proposal, there were celebrations on Chandler Mountain. Hyatt and his family celebrated with dinner at an area Mexican restaurant.

There was joy. “And there were tears,” he said. “More than a few tears.”

Lakeside wedding

A celebration of love, family and fun

Story by Paul South
Submitted photos

In the movies, love stories begin in glitzy spots, like the top of the Empire State Building, or with blind date jitters or online mysteries.

But Hunter and Hallie Hannah Craton’s road to romance began – as it is with many folks – over dinner. In their case, steaming plates of Mexican food – her go-to chicken enchilada with sour cream and fajita quesadilla for him – spiced up the first date.

Seven years later, on Oct. 14, 2023, the two were married at a spot more beautiful than any Manhattan skyscraper, on the banks of Logan Martin Lake and in sight of the iconic Pirate Island. The wedding was celebrated at a family friend’s lakeside home, the rehearsal dinner and reception next door at Hallie’s grandfather’s home.

Trees adorned with lights and the lake teamed with an altar crafted from a gold ring of flowers.

“It was so beautiful, we didn’t have to do too much,” Hallie recalls.

The couple had become engaged almost a year to the day before, on the banks of the lake, a fitting spot for two Pell City kids. From their first date fiesta to the wedding, seven years passed. Their relationship endured being separated by college. Hunter majored in building science at Auburn, Hallie in marketing at Jacksonville State.

Hallie works in sales, while Hunter works for Goodgame Company, both in Pell City.

Again, with a touch of serendipity, they were engaged on the anniversary of their first date.  But Hunter Craton knew that she was his forever love long before the diamond ring.

“Within about a month of the first date, I pretty much knew,” Hunter says. “She’s got a great personality, and that’s pretty much what stood out to me. She was a lot of fun to be around.”

College has extinguished more than one high school flame, but not for these two. For them, love never failed. They weathered separation and a year of wedding prep. “It actually made us stronger,” Hallie says.

And there were differences in personality, Hunter is an admitted introvert, but Hallie “brought me out of my shell,” he says.

Hallie was smitten sooner. She put it this way: “When you know, you know. I fell in love with Hunter almost immediately,” she says. “Hunter is kind to all, funny, dependable and has felt like home from the moment I met him.”

She adds, “I never knew I needed someone like Hunter in my life,” she says. “He calms me.”

And while other couples fall for the trends of the day, Hallie and Hunter were traditional. Hunter, gentleman to the core, asked her parents for her hand.

“He absolutely did,” Hallie’s mother, Jennifer Hannah, says. “He texted us and wanted us to meet him for dinner and said we don’t need Hallie to know about it. We kind of knew what it was.

“They were already making life decisions and financial decisions based on what the other was doing.”

It begs a question: What took them so long?

After high school, Hunter joined the union, then toiled as an ironworker for several months before commuting for a few classes at Auburn, then transferring to campus to complete his degree.

“There was a lot of prep needed financially before we went through all this from the engagement to the wedding,” Hunter says. “We wanted to make sure we were ready for all that.”

They were ready. And while many in this part of the world choose church weddings, others courthouse nuptials, even elopement, the lake was always the place for the future Mr. and Mrs. Craton. It was a family place, a place of memories for generations of Hallie’s family.

“It was the only special place in my heart to me,” she says. “What makes it even more special was not only does my grandfather live there, my cousin lives nearby as well. My aunt lives just across the street. We’ve always been big lake people. I’ve always wanted to get married at the lake.”

Lake at sunset makes ideal backdrop for ceremony

While the actual wedding party was “very formal” – black tie and black formal dresses, the guests were allowed to be casual.

“We didn’t really care what people wore,” Hallie says. “We’re very casual people. When it came to what (guests) wore, we were more semi-formal.”

It was the wedding of Hallie’s dreams.

“I always pictured the black and white theme. We had a square black and white dance floor.

While wedding planning can sometimes deteriorate into a Jerry Springer-style throwdown, Hallie and her Mom had only one “knock down drag out in the days right before the blessed event.

Chairs.

“Back in the day, when I got married, I was not working like Hallie and Hunter. I’d just graduated from college, and I was about to start my first teaching job. So (for Hallie and Hunter’s day), I was ‘Whatever you want. Whatever you want,” except when it came to those chairs. We got in a fight about chairs.”

But the blowout eased pre-wedding nerves.

“It was a small thing. But we were stressed out,” Hallie says. “We needed to have a cry. Planning a wedding is stressful, especially when it’s just you, your Mom and the coordinator for a 300-plus person wedding on the lake.”

The couple, their parents and friends did a lot of the pre-wedding decorating themselves late into several evenings, stringing up white lights in the surrounding trees and other tasks for the wedding. Elegance carried the day.

And it seems with every wedding, something funny happens.

Hallie’s first drop at the reception did the trick.

“I tore my dress,” she says. “It ripped right below my butt, and it was a big hole in my brand new, beautiful dress.”

Humor also came from a little 1980s rock n’ roll.

Dan, Hunter’s  brother-in-law, closed the ceremony reading the lyrics from The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News.

“At first we had no idea where he was going,” Jennifer says. “It was sweet. It was funny. It was perfect. (Dan) was there for all of their love story, so it was perfect.”

And of course, there was the father-daughter dance, a month in the making.

“Hallie is a great dancer,” Jennifer says.

And her Dad, Jason Hannah?

“He’s a Dad.”

It was a magical night.

But what advice would they give to others planning their weddings?

The mother of the bride was brief:

“Destination wedding.”

Hunter wasn’t much involved in the planning, save the two weeks prior to the big night. Then he was hard at it, stringing lights that hung like low stars on the lakeside.

“That was my time to shine.”

What advice would he give to friends and perhaps a future son?

“Get ready to work.”

As for Hallie, she says, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.

“There’s no need to worry about the small stuff, because the small stuff that I worried so much about for my wedding, I barely even recognized the day of. There’s a balance when you’re having a wedding,” Hallie says. “As long as you maintain that everything will be OK.”