Veteran healthcare professional opens doors on new Pell City medical practice
Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Bob Crisp
The grand opening celebration of Helms Healthcare in Pell City was more like a hero’s welcome with an overflow crowd to greet him. After all, Dr. Rock Helms was returning to his hometown where he grew up and began his practice of medicine.
Now, he’s come full circle.
“We are so thankful to be back. We’re thankful for this community,” Helms said, just before he officially cut the ribbon on the second location of Helms Healthcare in May. “This is where I grew up, where I met my childhood sweetheart,” he said, referring to his wife, Jennifer, by his side.
“What a crowd,” observed Councilman Jay Jenkins, speaking on behalf of the city. He said he didn’t think that there was that large of a turnout for a trio of much anticipated grand openings of the shopping center, Longhorn or Olive Garden. “This is a great time for Pell City, welcoming Dr. Rock back to Pell City where he belongs,” he said.
Cutting the ribbon on the new Pell City location
“We are blessed to have him back in this town. Welcome back, Dr. Rock.”
“God has blessed our practice,” Helms told the crowd of well-wishers, noting that once the ribbon was cut, “We’ll get back to the basics of taking care of people.”
Getting back to basics is a common refrain for Helms, who founded Helms Healthcare a year and a half ago and opened the first location in Vincent. In little more than a year, he built it to well over 2,000 patients.
His familiar philosophy centers on building trusting relationships with his patients, listening to their needs and treating them with kindness and compassion. He stresses personal interactions every step of the way – beginning with the phone call, where patients talk to “a real person,” not press a number.
Helms will divide his time between the two clinics. In addition to Helms, providers for the Pell City location will be Nancy McClain, CRNP, Holly Nichols, CRNP, and Kim Buckalew, CRNP and DaKota Nichols, CRNP.
Pell City will have extended hours, and urgent care headed by Dakota Nichols, F-NPC. The Vincent clinic will be led by Jonathan Windham, CRNP.
Great turnout for the grand opening of Helms Healthcare Pell City location
The Pell City clinic, located at 1310 WA Goodgame Parkway, formerly known as Comer Avenue near the Pell City Industrial Park.
The former Precision building was thoroughly renovated by Goodgame Company and features more than a dozen examination rooms, a spacious waiting room, full lab, ultrasound, Xray and other advanced diagnostics. Cutting-edge technology is found throughout the clinic. And more is on the way.
A separate entrance and waiting area are designated for lab work and imaging studies for ease of access for patients.
Reasoning that quality healthcare should be available when needed, Helms welcomes walk-ins daily with no appointments needed. In addition, he has expanded the Pell City location to include urgent care, which is open seven days a week, to serve the community. Anyone is welcome regardless of whether they are an established patient or not.
Extended hours for the treatment of illness and injuries for pediatric and adult care are Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
The Pell City location has all the high-tech equipment needed for a modern medical practice
With patients’ best interest at the forefront of any planning, Helms has a record of building thriving practices. He founded a major medical practice in Pell City 25 years ago, growing it from a few providers and staff to over 200 employees and a sprawling campus of medical facilities, a pharmacy, urgent care and multiple specialties. There were locations in other communities, too.
He sold the practice, fulfilled contractual obligations and decided to go out on his own again. That led him to Vincent and a return to his roots in family medicine. Opening in March 2025, that clinic has grown to well over 2,000 patients.
“This is not just the opening of a new doctor’s office,” said St. Clair Economic Development Council Executive Director Don Smith. “Dr. Helms is creating the foundation of Pell City’s future as a regional leader in quality healthcare with the partnerships he has formed.”
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Mackenzie Free
In January of 1969, a freight train derailed in Springville, hitting propane tanks and triggering massive explosions that created a fire that scared the heebie-jeebies out of local residents and destroyed the train depot.
In 2023, that explosion triggered the imagination of a local non-fiction author who loves to read mysteries and wondered whether he could write one. “What if that train wreck covered up a murder no one knew about,” Joel Dison’s thought process began. “And what if that murder was connected to a current murder and the investigator had to solve the old one to solve new one?”
That’s how the “conflict series” was born, and how Dison, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, went from daily technical writing and inspirational writing to the world of fiction. The series began in July 2024 with Conflict of Interest, followed by Moral Conflict (November 2024), Final Conflict (March 2025) and The Bookkeeper (July 2025). The latter was supposed to be the finale, but Dison says a fifth book is rolling around in his brain.
“When I finished the first book, I realized there was more to the story,” he says. “It stuck in my head and I had to get it out. I probably have one more to do only because I don’t like leaving certain things in the books unresolved.”
Raised in Chalkville, Dison is a 2011 graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Although he actually wrote his first novella in a long-lost notebook while in junior high, he started writing books a little after seminary graduation. “I did a lot of technical writing for work before that,” says Dison, a bivocational minister until 2023 when he moved to Springville to help take care of his ailing parents. By day, he’s an electrical engineer for PowerGem, LLC., having worked for Southern Company for 34 years before taking an early severance. He says hewas always good at tech writing. “There was a lot of writing in the seminary, too, and that re-ignited the spark that began in junior high,” he says.
All of his books are self-published. The first three were non-fiction, inspirational books. “The first was a study on the Book of James, and it was published on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles,” Dison says. “I didn’t get many bites on B&N, although I did sell some in the United Kingdom.”
Of the four murder mysteries, he has sold somewhere in the 600 range. “Not great but not bad,” he says. “The nonfiction books did okay, almost 2000 in the 2010-2014 time frame, but some of those may have been free giveaways. I was actually surprised to see the number that high when I checked it. I don’t do a lot of marketing.”
Dison holds up the book that started it all
Dison never thought he had the imagination for an entire book of fiction, much less four, but he surprised himself. “I really wanted to do fiction,” he says. “I love mysteries, and writing one became a personal challenge.”
At one point while writing that series, he asked himself why a pastor would write a murder mystery and whether he should.He came to a conclusion that satisfied him and enabled him to moved forward with the mysteries. “Evil is a reality in this world, and as believers (in Christ), how do we deal with that evil?,” he asked himself. “And how as believers do we approach it? I wanted this to be clean, without cursing or gratuitous sex and not too much grotesque violence.”
Book One ends and Book Two begins with a moral dilemma. The first dealt with a lot of internal doubts and overcoming one’s own failures. The second opens with the main character still dealing with some of those failures. The third deals with how all of those things create internal conflicts, although the story is about external ones.
Dison says he could have ended the murder mystery series at three books, but Book Four re-opens that over-arching theme of conflict between the main character and his nemesis. “It deals with concepts of justice, which does not always look like what you think it does,” Dison says. “There’s a possible fifth one in progress.”
His “conflict” books were written in the third-person. Then a prompt from his Springville writing group made him ask himself whether he could write sci-fi, and write it in the first person present. The latter proved to be more difficult than Dison thought it would be. “I kept switching to the past tense in the sci-fi book, the Cymbrian Protocol,” he says. “But some people think first-person is more engaging to the reader because it makes them feel they are present.”
His writing group, which has no name, often comes up with a topic, and each member writes 2,000 words in three weeks or more on that same topic. “Then we read, compare and critique,” he says. “In January, for example, the topic was a fairy tale.” The group is several years old, and Dison has been a member for about a year.
Dison self-publishes all of his books, a process that no longer carries the stigma it used to. “Self-publishing is becoming as viable and credible as traditional publishing,” he says. “But I would love to have an agent who could find me a publisher to edit and distribute my works. I’m not writing to be a best seller, but for the personal enjoyment and the hope that someone will read my books and enjoy them.”
Electronic publishing costs nothing, except for whatever an author decides to spend for editing and marketing. “So even with paperback it’s just my own printing costs,” Dison says. “It’s a low threshold, which is why so many people do it.”
He makes a couple of dollars on each book he sells, but says he’s not writing for money or fame. “I enjoy writing. It’s cathartic and calming, and exercises my brain. It’ a way of dealing with all the stress I’m going through, a coping mechanism. You lose yourself in your writing.”
Dison designed each of his covers himself, using a graphics editing tool called Canva, with a little help from ChatGPT. “Some images are AI generated,” he says, but he doesn’t use AI in writing his books. “That would be deplorable.” Readers can find his books by searching his name on Amazon, or by checking with Nichols Nook in Springville.
He hasn’t decided whether his sci-fi novel needs a follow-up. The first one came directly from one of his writing group’s prompts, which called for writing a short sci-fi scene. That led to the full book. “I want to find a good way to wrap up the Springville murders, then I’ll decide what’s next,” he says. He has thoroughly enjoyed the locally-set writing and would seriously consider that again in a different format, perhaps a historical fiction or maybe a ghost story.
Readers always wonder where a writer gets his inspiration. For Joel, who has always loved reading mysteries and sci-fi, it’s more about the challenge than the inspiration. “For the first book, the challenge was, ‘Can I write a murder mystery,’” he says. “For the sci-fi, it was, ‘Can I write a sci-fi and write it in the first person?’ I like to challenge myself.”
He has no aspirations of getting rich from his writing, but hopes people will read his books and enjoy them. “I want to provide the option of clean, enjoyable reading for those who like to read, but are bothered by the foul language, sex and violence in lot of popular literature,” he says.
Johnnie Mae Beavers Green may be 95 years old, but her dignified demeanor and perfect posture would make the biblical Queen Esther proud were she still around.
Having lived in the Pell City area for most of her life, Johnnie Mae’s memory is an encyclopedia of local Black history. Tonya Forman expresses loving gratitude for her help in assimilating local history for the Breaking Barriers section of the Museum of Pell City. “Mrs. Johnnie Mae is a treasured source of wisdom and history in our community,” Tonya said.
Johnnie Mae Green reading her Bible at Mt. Hillary Church
“Her memories and stories preserve the legacy of our families, churches and neighborhoods, helping to connect past generations with the present. She’s my personal historian. I can sit and listen to her talk and sing all day.”
Guided by faith
Known for her faith in God, Johnnie Mae’s life has been guided by the Holy Bible and her faith in the God of the Bible. She has a godly heritage reaching back 200 years in St. Clair County’s African American church history. In the 1895, A History of Colored Baptist in Alabama and North Carolina, Charles Octavius Boothe records a brief biography of her great-great grandfather, Rev. Jasper Beavers.
Born a slave in 1825 in Easonville, Beavers learned to read and to write and became a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. According to family history, Rev. Beavers preached the inaugural sermon at Blooming Light Missionary Baptist Church when it was organized on the first Sunday of July 1884.
Born July 18, 1930, to Herbert and Elizabeth Gibson Beavers, Johnnie Mae grew up in Tuscaloosa County until she was 13 years old. Her mother was native to Tuscaloosa County while her dad was native to St. Clair County. On Dec. 29, 1942, the family moved to the Crossroads community, south of Pell City.
‘Life was good’
“There were two boys and two girls in our family. I was the third child,” Johnnie Mae recounted recently. “We were share-croppers. We farmed. We raised pigs. We had a good milk cow. And life was good.”
A summer garden produced fresh vegetables as well as produce for canning for the winter months. “You know what we grew it with — fertilized it with? The manure from when they cleaned out the mule stables every year. And that’s how we fertilized the garden.” When a listening friend commented, “You had the best fertilizer in the world,” Johnnie Mae replied, “It grew a lot of grass! The animals ate the grass,” she laughed, “and we had to get it up.”
Charlie and Johnnie Mae Green
When asked about the best dish her mother cooked, she quickly replied, “apple cobbler. She could just naturally cook. No recipes.” Then she laughed and confessed, “And I’m gonna tell you the best thing she ever cooked, and that was opossum,” and she told how they prepared it.
“My dad would go hunting at night, and he would catch croaker sacks full. And he had a great big barrel he would put them in and keep them there about a week and feed them until they were fat enough. Then he would kill one. They burnt the hair off and then scraped it down so the skin was clean and pretty.”
After her mother had dressed all the innards out, she boiled it for a while before baking it in the oven with sweet potatoes.
Johnnie Mae declared her mother’s baked possum to be “Good eating,” then laughed and said, “One day me and my sister came home from school, and we ate the whole possum!”
She learned from her mom how to cook them, but by the time she had a home of her own, eating possum was out of style. “I don’t think any of my children ever tasted possum,” she said.
Continuing to reminisce about her mom’s cooking, she said, “Mom could cook almost anything because we had to make do with whatever they had.” One make-do vegetable growing wild in Alabama is the pokeweed that when cooked is called poke sallet. The Beavers family enjoyed it. “Poke sallet was a basic food,” Johnnie Mae recalled. “You could just go and gather that. Mom would clean it. Boil it good. Squeeze it out and rinse it, and then she put it in a skillet with onions. My daddy liked it with onions. Or you could mix it with turnips or other greens. That was a good dish.”
Quilting legacy
Mrs. Beavers also made quilts for winter warmth. And there was some make-do with that as well. When a garment was no longer wearable, Mrs. Beavers would use the garment areas that were still good. Nothing went to waste.
Mrs. Beavers made the girls’ clothes. Many dresses were sewn from colorful feed sack fabric. The girls would go with their dad when he bought feed and choose the sack they wanted for a dress. When enough feed sacks of the same pattern were accumulated, they would have a new dress.
Those vintage feed sacks from the 1940s today sell for between $20 and $45 per sack, depending on the design.
“Mom was a quilter,” Johnnie Mae reflected. “And she used every little scrap she could find. You know we had to find little strings of cloth about an inch or two wide. She would cut a newspaper square and sew the little strips. And when you made a block, you tore the paper off.” Those were called String Quilts and were quite colorful with a kaleidoscope of different fabrics.
Johnnie Mae quilted all her life until she was 90. Then other things took up her time, and “I filled my little quilting room up with junk,” she said. “And I just got it cleaned out so I’m quilting again, and I’m not stopping anymore until the Lord stops me. I can do one a week.”
Growing up
She still lives in the same community and has good memories of growing up there. “It’s a funny thing, but it’s true. All the Blacks were on the Mt. Hillary Church side of Blue Spring Road. And the white families were across over here in their neighborhood. And it was just like one big family. We borrowed, and we visited, and we played together. We didn’t have any problems. So, we named it the Black Crossroads and the White Crossroads,” she laughed, then added, “And the funny thing, we thought we had a little more than they did. And they thought they had more.”
The Crossroads children played games that are now memories to folk of Johnnie Mae’s generation. “We played Auntie Over—throw the ball over a building. We played hopscotch. And jump rope, but I never could jump rope. We played Dropping the Handkerchief. And the number one game was Hide and Go Seek.”
Crossroads was a peaceful community, but when feelings got hurt or a misunderstanding arose, there was a solution. “If you had a falling-out with your neighbor,” Johnnie Mae reflected, “before you went to bed, you had to go and beg pardon of that person. And I thank God for that.” This principle is based on the Bible verse Ephesians 4:26, “Do not let the sun go down upon your anger.”
Such a rule kept harmony among the members of the communities, and Johnnie Mae was oblivious of color differences until one day in Pell City. “Back in the day,” she reminisced, “my daddy would carry us up to town [Pell City] in the wagon. It was summertime, and I got thirsty. I said, ‘I want a drink of water.’ So, we went to where the fountains were, and it said White and Black. Daddy said, ‘Get over there and get you a drink,’ and pointed to the Black fountain. I said, ‘I don’t want no black water, I want clear water. I will never forget that,” she laughed. “I didn’t know anything about segregation until that day.”
After a pause, Johnnie Mae recalled a friend’s deprecating comment about another person’s ethnic background. Then she made a singular observation that deserves contemplation.
“I said, wait. Let’s talk for one minute. Do you think that when God spoke the earth into existence, and then he decided on making man, do you think He went and found brown dirt, red dirt and yellow dirt and made everybody?” Her speech tone was pulpit worthy. “No. He made every single one out of the same dirt. So, how can we put a separation between each other.”
There is silence as she ponders a few seconds and then she laughs, “I’m not gonna lie. There are some good people that are hard to deal with, but I love them … and love is what God teaches.” Again, she reasons from her knowledge of Scripture.
Education
When the Beavers family settled at Crossroads, the children attended The St. Clair County Training School in Pell City, and Johnnie Mae was in the 1947 graduating class. “It was the biggest class that had ever graduated from there,” she recalled. “There were 27 that graduated. What made our class big was that we had kids from Margaret and Acmar in our class.”
She was athletic and played on the Training School’s girls’ basketball team. “We had a great basketball team,” she recounted. “We won all of the little districts’ games. Maxine Jones was our coach. She was the principal’s wife.”
She remembered two of her principals. One was of short stature and without a strong personality. He could not control the students — especially the male students. If a student needed paddling, he would send for his wife who taught at Cropwell at the Greenfield school, and she would hitch up her one-horse wagon, come to the Training School, paddle the student and return to Cropwell.
To solve that problem, the Board of Education sent Professor Ruben Yancey to be principal of the Training School. “When Mr. Ruben Yancey came,” Johnnie Mae recounted, “he grabbed those boys by the collar, and it made a brand-new school. He taught them respect.”
Professor Ruben Yancey ended his career as principal of Ashville Colored High School. Professor Lloyd Newton and the Black community petitioned the St. Clair County Board of Education to rename the school Ruben Yancey High School, which they did in 1965. Sadly, Professor Yancey died shortly before the name change, but he lived and died well-respected by both races.
Life after high school
After graduating high school, Johnnie Mae attended Stillman College in Tuscaloosa for a year-and-a-half. However, she reflected, “The only reason I didn’t stay in college, I knew my parents were not able to send me. There were no student loans. I knew they didn’t have the money, and I came out.”
Determined and courageous young woman that she was, however, she enrolled at Ruth’s Poro School of Beauty in Birmingham and took the six-months course to become a licensed cosmetologist. “It was hard, but God knows I enjoyed it. Cutting and pressing and curling hair.” When she started, that process earned her about $3 per person.
When asked about the location of her shop, Johnnie Mae replied, “I went. I travelled. I did a lot of invalid people — the ones that couldn’t get around.” She paused a moment, then laughing, said, “A friend came to the house yesterday and said, ‘Well, you’re 95 years old, and you’ll soon be up there in heaven fixing mother’s hair.’ And I said, ‘I’m not gonna work when I get up there. I’m gonna sit down and praise the King.” Among the laughter, somebody said, “Amen!”
Kimberly Moore said of Johnnie Mae’s skillful work, “She was excellent with hairdressing. Just about everybody I knew growing up, she pressed and curled their hair!”
In addition to hairdressing, Johnnie Mae worked the looms in two cotton mills. She worked for two months at Avondale Mill in Pell City, then took a job in Talladega at Crown’s Textile. “I had about five less looms to run than I had at Avondale, and I made $5 more an hour. I retired from there.”
Then she explained why she retired. “I drove by myself for seven years. Just me. There wasn’t very much traffic on Highway 34 then. But one night I had a flat tire, and over here at what we call the Twin Bridges, there was an invalid white man lived right on the road. And he heard me out there with my flat tire. He was feeble and on a stick, and he had a big dog and came to where I was.
“Finally some Black folks stopped, and he said, ‘If you all will change the tire, I’m going back to the house.’ But he left his dog there, and he told the dog to lay by my door. Bless his heart! I’m telling you,” she said, with thanksgiving in her voice, “every time I went to work, I stopped and hollered at him. He was dynamic. And that’s why I quit work, cause I thought next time it might be worse.”
She retired from the cotton mill, but she didn’t retire from working. She worked in the kitchen at the Black and White Nursing Home for a while and then at the Rosewood Manor for about four years. She left Rosewood Manor and worked briefly at an assisted living facility on Dry Creek Road; however, that facility had a short life. “They closed down,” she said, “and after tha,t I came home. I stopped working.”
But not really, for she continued to go to women who were confined to their home and dress their hair beautifully. And in that ministry, she spread sunshine and the love of God to the women.
Marriage, family and faith
In 1950, Johnnie Mae married Charlie Darnelle Green from Perry County. They were parents to four children — three boys and one girl. The Greens also took sisters Linda and Wandra Beavers into their home when their mother went to New York to work. Jobs were scarce back in that day.
At home, Johnnie Mae taught her children about God and his love, and they grew up in Mt. Hillary being nurtured by godly ministers there. “I’m so thankful,” she testifies, “that I had good children. They may have fallen out, but they made up and got along.”
Celebrating 90th birthday with family
About rearing children, she commented, “I tell you, it don’t cost but just a little to train a child the way you should train ’em. And when they’re old, they won’t depart from it,” quoting from the Bible. Then, reflecting of current troublesome times, she added, “I don’t know about that now. But I don’t think they depart, they just were never trained. Maybe God will fix it one day.”
It is worth noting that the Perry County Green family knew Coretta Scott King, and Johnnie Mae knew her as well. Furthermore, Rev. T. D. Jakes has genealogical connections to the Green family.
Charlie Green was a miner. When he stopped working in the mines, he took a job at Anniston Army Depot, where he worked until he retired. “It’s been a good life,” Johnnie Mae reflected, “and I don’t regret any of it.”
Mt. Hillary Missionary Baptist Church became her home church about the same time the family moved to Crossroads. Having already been baptized in Tuscaloosa County, Johnnie Mae joined Mt. Hillary in 1944. She told of her baptism as a 7-year-old. “I was baptized in a creek. I was scared of the turtles, and there was a terrapin coming towards me. They had to catch me and put me back in the water!”
When asked if she had sung in the church choir, she replied, “Yes, I did. And we had a little quartet. A little group, The Rose of Sharron Gospel Singers. There were six of us — Mertis Truss — O’Neal was her maiden name — was our musician. Her sister Josie sang with us. I was one of them. Then we had Livi Threatt, Flora Threatt and Nellie Mae Threatt.”
The Rose of Sharron Singers would pray before they went somewhere to sing, for they felt like they were worshiping the Lord through singing.
As she approaches year 96, Johnnie Mae’s faith in God is strong. How has her faith sustained her all these years? “It’s the song I sing all the time, Amazing Grace.” Then she quotes in a strong voice, “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come, God’s grace has brought me safe this far, and grace will lead me home.”
A quietness settles over the room as she comments on her faith. “I told my church the other Sunday, ‘I have one thing to work on.’ They say, ‘What?’ And I say,’ My faith.’ I said, ‘The Scripture says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell the mountain, ‘Be ye removed,’ well, I can’t move a stick. But I’m working on I,t and I trust Him. When I get up or when I go to the store, I say, ‘Lord carry me and bring me back.’ He is the only One I have.”
Although she may think her faith is small, her unwavering faith in God inspires many of her family members and friends. And the words of Andrae Crouch‘s hymn “Through It All,” fits her perfectly.
Through it all Through it all I’ve learned to trust in Jesus I’ve learned to trust in God Through it all Through it all I’ve learned to depend upon His word Oh, I’ve learned to depend upon His word.
Many lives have been blessed by Johnnie Mae’s life and faith and would say, “Amen!” to Kimberly Moore’s loving comments. “For as long as I can remember, my Aunt Johnnie Mae has always been a woman of faith and highly involved in the church. She is the rock of our extended family, and her strong belief in God is what I use as a model for my own life. She has taught me that no matter what happens God is in control … she often says that we have to lean and depend on Him and His word … her unwavering FAITH is a true testament of his AMAZING GRACE.”
Johnnie Mae Beavers Green. Keep on keeping on in your journey of faith. You are an inspiration to your family, your church and your hometown, for through it all you have learned to depend upon God’s Word.
It’s a tradition whose roots run deep in history, culture and the church. Some might think it’s simply fashion, but for generations of Black women, donning beautiful, often elaborate hats, it’s an expression of identity, dignity and faith.
Ernestine O’Neal and her niece, Sherrell O’Neal, posing with the hat and photo of Ernestine’s mother and Sherrell’s grandmother, Annie O’Neal
The hats they wore to church on Sundays were a reflection of who they were – their personality – and each was distinctive, just like the women who wore them.
At First Baptist Church South in Pell City, members of the church wanted to capture the essence of that tradition in their own church and planned to have some of the women wear their ‘crowns’ on Mother’s Day. It was an idea church member Paula Jackson had, and the Women’s Ministry followed through with an impressive exhibit.
Illness caused the church’s original plan to change, and Women’s Ministry Leader Jennifer Gover decided to expand the reach, contacting women throughout the community to recruit for its “Women Who Wear Hats” exhibit. With the help of her niece, Chrissa Posey, the momentum grew into an exhibit on May 2, May 3 and Mother’s Day, May 10, to pay tribute to these women and their hats with 91 hats displayed from the women of 14 different churches.
“My lifesaver is my niece, Chrissa Posey, who has artistic inclinations and decided placement of the hats and suits,” Gover said. “She even prepared and set up refreshments for the exhibit.” Her behind the scenes work contributed greatly to the success of the event.
Elic Smith with the stunning suit and hat of his mother, Blossie Smith
From feathers to jewels to embroidery and lace, the hats ranged from simple, but elegant to elaborate and billowy. “We thought it was impressive,” said Gover. “It shows how the personalities are different. It wasn’t just something they wear on their head, but something from the heart.”
Nearby, a table of framed photos of the featured women – most in their signature hats – seemed to watch over the room as if surveying the handiwork that brought the event to fruition.
Elic Smith displayed the hat and stunning, matching suit worn by his 86-year-old mother, Blossie Smith. He couldn’t disguise the smile as he recounted his mother’s Sunday attire. “Miss B – You would have thought she would have been first lady.”
It’s a tradition that spans generations from slavery to present day, explained Charlotte Crawford. It was an outward expression of who they were within – “a classy, dignified lady. Each hat represents how they carried themselves. Ruby Sawyer Fomby always wore hats,” she said of her own mother.
Janice Carter echoed the recollections of others as she talked about her mother, Elnora Carter. “Mama wasn’t going to church without a hat or a suit.” Her grandmother, Mary Singleton, would buy two suits just alike and take a cuff or a piece from one and fix the other “just the way she wanted it.”
Elnora was a singer with B.J. and the Countryettes. “When she was singing, she had her hat, too.” It was like her personal signature for every performance.
“I grew up in a church where older women wore hats,” recalled Ernestine O’Neal. “You never wore pants to church.” The hats of Ernestine’s mother, Annie O’Neal, were a part of the exhibit. Annie was Sherrell O’Neal’s grandmother, and she noted that hats only came in one size, so women would sew or fasten material inside to make it fit tight.
Charlotte Crawford, daughter of Ruby Sawyer Fomby
To demonstrate, Sherrell tried on one such hat – a dainty, circular piece covered in blue feathers with a piece of felt placed inside – a perfect fit!
Bobbie Jo Swain of First Baptist Cropwell had the largest collection in the exhibit. Some in the overall display were vintage – 50 to 60 years old. Estelle Forman pointed to the hats of her mother, Bernice Joiner, and mother-in-law, Lizzie Forman, whose hats were featured in the display. Like the others, they were perfect fits for the way they carried themselves, she said.
An opening reception attended by 50 ladies – some of whom donated hats along with family, friends and others – shared precious memories the exhibit evoked.
One of the women asked if she could peek inside a straw hat with pink flowers. The label said Jack McConnell, a well-known milliner active in the mid to late 20th century. The hat’s owner was Caroline Gover’s mother, Della Jordan Gover. Caroline recalled it was bought 25 to 30 years ago at a small hat shop in Birmingham.
These women were serious about their hats, and they invested to get just the right one. They often shopped at a store in Ensley called Cotton’s. Later, they bought their hats locally from Kenwin’s or Mays and Jones with prices ranging from $50 to well over $200.
“They were willing to spend money on these hats,” Jennifer Gover said, and with good reason. It was as much a part of their personality as their smile, a laugh or a word of advice remembered long after they are gone.
“Today, women do not wear hats to church services as they did in the past,” Gover said. “We dress more casual, except for special occasions. But there are still a few who hold on to the tradition of bold and beautiful hats to complement exquisite suits or dresses.”
Remember, she said, “a hat is an expression of a black woman’s soul. It is something she wears on her head but belongs to her heart. It is the keynote of her personality – the finishing touch.”
Decades after helping launch the original National Wild Turkey Federation chapter in the Pell City area, Barnett Lawley was honored by a new generation of conservationists during the Logan Martin Longbeards’ sold-out Hunting Heritage Banquet at the Pell City Civic Center.
“Barnett has done so much for the state and the county to promote conservation efforts here,” said chapter President Jim Tollison.
“He started the first chapter here. When I was helping organize the chapter again, I did not know he organized the original chapter or what he called it. I ended up picking the exact same name he used – Logan Martin Longbeards.
Board members and organizers Tracy Marcus, Rodney Bunt, Jim Tollison, Brooke Tollison, Tim Smith, Brittany Smith, Karlee Tucker, Logan Tucker, Hanna Grogan and Cameron Edge
“When I found all that out, I said we need to thank him for that” and everything else he has done. “There is no telling how many kids from around here he has taken turkey hunting over the years. Some of them are the same people who are donors and sponsors for this event now. His efforts back then are still helping conservation and the NWTF today.”
Tollison was quick to point out it is not just Barnett, but everyone in his family who deserves thanks for supporting the community.
“He was teaching about conservation, and his wife, Deanna, was teaching students in the classroom. She probably is one of the main reasons I went to college. She kept encouraging me to go. This organization and event, it’s been a great situation having the Lawleys involved,” Tollison said.
The sold-out event moved to a larger venue this year at the Pell City Civic Center, raising more than $40,000 for the program, which covers everything from promoting conservation and hunting to education efforts, including local scholarships, Tollison said.
Participants entering in drawings to win everything from coolers to custom firearms
“We now have money in hand for scholarships, we just need people here to apply. And these scholarships can be used not just for four-year colleges, but for two-year degrees and trade schools, whatever path the students choose.”
Tollison and his wife, Brooke, thanked everyone who supported the Logan Martin Longbeards and the banquet.
“The Pell City Civic Center turned out to be a great venue. We will probably be holding it here again next year. They did a great job working with Hanna Grogan on our board to coordinate set up,” he said. “Complete Catering Company and Mandy Camp also did an amazing job with the food. It’s the only banquet I have ever been to that served turkey. It wasn’t wild, but it was good.
“Everything was well received. Thanks to our sponsors, we were able to give out 24 guns this year. Brian at BG Customs and Engraving put together several guns for us. GNX Gun Exchange and Coosa Guns also contributed,” he said.
The audience applauds all the sponsors
“Thanks to the support of GNX, BG Customs and Coosa Guns we are able to have some very high-quality firearms with some finishes only available at this event.”
Because the banquet is family friendly, every child who came got to take part in a raffle, Brooke, who runs an Alfa agency in Pell City, said. “We gave out $500 worth of stuff to all the kids. They had a great time.”
And that’s the point, Jim said.
“It’s not just about raising money. We wanted to have a fun and successful event that also promotes the National Wild Turkey Federation and conservation efforts,” he said.
“We have a great team putting this event on, and it continues to grow. If you see one of the board members and are interested in being involved let them know.”
Follow the Logan Martin Longbeards on Facebook and the National Wild Turkey Federation online at nwtf.org.
Story by Cherith Glover Fluker Submitted and staff photos
Just off Highway 78 in Moody, a company is quietly doing something remarkable – and not just the millions of pounds of food ingredients it moves across the Southeast every month. Processor’s Choice has earned a spot on USA Today’s Top Workplaces list three consecutive years running, and the recognition isn’t coming from the top down. It’s coming straight from the people who show up there every day to work.
Founded in 1984 by Don Allinder, Processor’s Choice started as a straightforward warehouse operation. Today, under the leadership of President Mark Bales, it has evolved into something far more sophisticated: a leading solution provider for food and beverage manufacturers across the country.
Think of it as a bulk grocery distributor on a much larger scale. Rather than selling finished products to consumers, Processor’s Choice distributes bulk food and beverage ingredients, servicing everything from large Fortune 100 companies to local mom-and-pop businesses. By consolidating orders and maintaining a robust inventory, they can get ingredients to customers quickly, even when demand is urgent.
“We help customers develop and reformulate products to meet regulatory requirements while maintaining performance,” Bales explained. It’s a niche that requires both technical knowledge and a genuine problem-solving mindset. These qualities are baked into the company’s four core values: customer-focused, collaborative, dependable and problem-solving.
The company’s footprint is impressive for a team of 30. With seven sales representatives, Processor’s Choice serves customers from North Carolina to Texas, with reach extending as far as Los Angeles and Jamaica. In 2011, Allinder sold the company to Doug Skidmore, making it part of the Skidmore Enterprise group. This acquisition expanded supplier relationships and broadened the company’s network of facilities, making it an even more reliable partner for its customers.
Winning USA Today’s Top Workplaces award once is an achievement. Winning it three years in a row is a statement. What makes it even more meaningful is how the honor is earned. Rather than through a company-nominated application, the award is driven entirely through anonymous employee surveys. The people doing the work are the ones casting the votes.
So what are they voting for?
Bales points to a culture built on transparency, trust and genuine investment in people. Profit sharing ensures that when the company wins, everyone wins. A hybrid work model offers flexibility that employees value. And regular check-ins keep communication open between leadership and staff, so no one feels like a number.
But it’s the smaller, more personal touches that seem to define the culture at Processor’s Choice. Every Thursday, the team gathers for lunch. This simple ritual fosters a camaraderie that can’t be manufactured. Quarterly family nights extend that sense of community beyond the office walls, welcoming the people who matter most to employees into the fold.
“We focus on empowering employees and fostering a family-like environment,” Bales said. For a company of 30 people, that’s not just a talking point – it’s a daily practice.
Growth and development are also central to the company’s culture. Processor’s Choice offers tuition reimbursement and a Learning Library to help employees advance their careers, and the company prioritizes local hiring, keeping its investment rooted in the community it calls home.
That community commitment extends beyond the workplace. Processor’s Choice actively supports the Backpack Buddies program, which provides meals to more than 700 children in St. Clair County each week. It’s a cause that aligns naturally with a company in the business of food and one that reflects the values Bales has worked to instill throughout the organization.
“We have a waiting list every month for employees who want to help pack backpacks,” Bales said. “People are always eager to support this project. It’s something we’re all so proud to be a part of.”
In an era when workplace culture has become a buzzword, Processor’s Choice offers an example of what it looks like when a company invests in its people. Three consecutive Top Workplace awards are the result of intentional leadership, a commitment to transparency and a belief that a thriving team and a thriving business are one and the same.
For St. Clair County, it’s a quiet source of pride worth celebrating.
Editor’s Note: Processor’s Choice is located in Moody. For more information, visit processorschoice.com.
