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Outdoor Cooking

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Latest entertaining trend
going strong in St. Clair County

Story by Mike Bolton
Photos by Jerry Martin

Turn on the DIY Network or HGTV, and you don’t have to watch very long before you’ll see another outdoor kitchen under construction. A number of homeowners are now skipping the patios and decks that have long been a staple of home ownership in favor of elaborate outdoor kitchens designed to entertain family and friends.

That trend hasn’t bypassed St. Clair County. All across the county, builders are adding outdoor kitchens to the backyards of homes. Backyard tailgating has become the rage with many outdoor kitchens, hosting dozens of guests as college football teams play on television on Saturdays.

When Kenny St. John told his wife Jamie a decade ago about his dreams of building an outdoor kitchen, the fad was fairly new. She said she couldn’t even picture what he was talking about.

Today she is a fan. Their beautiful cedar-clad, outdoor pavilion in Springville gets used for everything year-round, she says.

“Kenny has a vision for things that I don’t have,” she said. “I didn’t realize just how much we would get out of it.”

Their facility has anything anyone could ask for. It overlooks a beautiful pond where Canada geese swim as white-tailed deer frolic nearby. In the background is towering Straight Mountain.

Their outdoor living pavilion includes a 55-inch big screen television and a sitting area where visitors can take in football games on Saturdays, Sundays and Monday nights. The cooking area has a Big Green Egg, a smoker, a gas grill and a cook top stove.

There is also a meadow where their kids and visitor’s kids can play football, an enormous outdoors fireplace with its own television and a large hot tub. Visitors can also fish for catfish in the pond if they like.

“This is where I live,” Kenny St. John said as he lounged in the outdoor kitchen with an NFL pre-season game playing on the big screen television. “I stay out here all the time.

“I always wanted something like this growing up. We use it year-round. We have the fireplace and propane heaters that will keep you warm late in the football season when the weather gets cold.”

The St. Johns’ backyard kitchen has understandably become the spot to be on football Saturdays and for family gatherings.

“I have six brothers and sisters and my mother lives in a garden home so we have the only place really big enough to have everyone on Thanksgiving,” Jamie St. John said. “We had my nephew’s rehearsal dinner here. A few weeks ago we had 75 people out here for my daughter’s birthday party.”

The entertaining is nice, but what would an outdoor kitchen be without food? Kenny St. John is the master chef for all events with his wife handling all the non-meat items. He cooks turkeys and hams for Thanksgiving, but it’s his barbecue, steaks and fish fries that draw rave reviews throughout football season.

“We cook a lot of pork butts and ribs,” he said. “My wife makes potato salad, fried green tomatoes and a lot of Rotel dip and a lot of hors d’oeuvres.”

If it’s a sport it gets watched at the St. John outdoor kitchen. There’s NASCAR, drag racing and NFL football, but it all hinges around college football on Saturdays. The St. Johns are big Alabama fans and most parties revolve around watching Crimson Tide games.

“We watch everything, including Wheel of Fortune, out here, but college football is what we live for,” Jamie St. John said.

Living in such a rural area does have its advantages for really rabid football fans, the husband and wife team agreed.

“We have a cannon that we fire every time Alabama scores a touchdown,” Kenny St. John said. “One of our neighbors said he doesn’t even have to watch the game because he knows every time Alabama scores.”

If you’re wondering why in the world someone with a 7,000-square-foot home would need an outdoor kitchen, you obviously haven’t seen the view from Johnny Grimes’ Pell City backyard. And besides, who wants 100 people milling around inside their home no matter how big it is?

Grimes’ outdoor kitchen, which overlooks Lake Logan Martin and Stemley Bridge, is headquarters for many Pell City area Auburn fans on football Saturdays. A crowd of 75 people on game day is not that unusual, and the record stands at 105. Crowds are so big in fact that those who arrive by vehicle must park in a designated area away from his home, and they are brought to the party in a 15-passenger van. Some choose to arrive via the Coosa River and park their boats in Grimes’ covered slips on the water.

Once there, visitors can watch Auburn on one of two big screen televisions at the lavish cypress bar in the outdoor kitchen, or they can listen to the game as they lounge around the 52-foot saltwater pool, which has a walk-in beach. The pool is surrounded by immaculately manicured gardens and fed by a waterfall.

Grimes, who owns Johnny’s Electric in Pell City, is the chef and he prepares ribs, chickens, hamburgers, steaks and crawfish boils from his $6,500 Viking gas grill that is located just feet from the 10-seat bar. The outdoor kitchen also has a freezer, refrigerator and deep fryer.

An air-conditioned and heated bathroom is located just off the flagstone patio of the kitchen.

“This keeps all the mess outside,” Grimes said. “We cook the main dishes in the outdoor kitchen, and the breads and all the sides are cooked in the house.

“People just feel more comfortable and enjoy being outdoors on game day. They can whoop and holler and mingle, and it is a lot more pleasant for them to be out here. I built this kitchen five years ago, and everyone just loves it.”

Fourth of July celebrations were huge at Don Farmer’s home when he was a boy growing up in Springville. Literally hundreds of people would show up over a two-day period to eat barbecue and celebrate Independence Day.

“I was born on July 3 so for the longest time as a kid I thought everybody was coming to my birthday party,” Farmer said with a laugh. “With my dad now gone, I now have great memories of all those family members and friends coming to our house like that.”

Farmer says it is those memories that spurred the building of his outdoor kitchen. He says it was a project that started out small, but he admits that it kept growing until it turned into a monster.

Farmer’s outdoor facility atop Simmons Mountain is indeed monstrous. The L-shaped structure is 30 feet by 40 feet on one side and has the same dimensions on the other. It is complemented with a swimming pool and a hot tub that seats 10 people.

It features beautiful brickwork arches and stamped concrete floors and countertops. A big-screen television is the focal point every Saturday during football season. The double pavilion is designed to entertain a lot of people and it does that whenever Alabama is playing on television.

“For some of the bigger games like Tennessee, it’s nothing to have 80 people here,” Farmer said. “We’ve had people we don’t know just be driving by and stop. They just say they see all the cars on Saturdays and wonder what is going on.”

Farmer is an excavator by trade. He says no engineers were involved in the massive project, and no plans were ever put on paper. He said it was “just all in my head. It all began when my granddaughter Chassidy said she wanted a swimming pool,” Farmer said. “I told her Nana would run down to Wal-Mart and get her one. She came inside a little while later and said she didn’t want that kind of pool. She said she wanted one in the ground.

“I started digging the next week.”

Farmer first built the pool and then decided to add a pavilion on the side so his mother and mother-in-law could get out of the sun. It would also serve as an area under the cover so he could grill.

“That was okay but my wife decided she wanted to enclose it and make it part of the house,” he said. “I decided I was going to have me a place where I could cook.

“My wife said if I would build it that she would take care of it. I got it in my mind what I wanted but I didn’t realize how big it was going to be until we actually started building it. It has about become a full-time job for my wife to take care of it now.”

Farmer says he did some research and got some very good advice early. “Somebody said don’t put anything into the construction of an outdoor kitchen that didn’t come from the earth. It’s almost all stone, brick and concrete – even the walls. The only wood in it are the gable ends and the exposed beams.”

Farmer loves kids, and he didn’t want a place where kids weren’t welcome. He says he made everything “kid friendly.” There is a playhouse, and parents can watch their kids in the pool and the hot tub from the raised kitchen that looks down on both.

The rules to attend a get-together at the Farmer’s outdoor kitchen are simple. You can bring a dish if you like, but Farmer and his son Heath provide the meat and do the cooking. Boston butts, pork ribs, different sausages and steaks are their specialty. The kitchen has a smoker, a broiler, a griddle, a stovetop, a grill and a barbecue pit.

When the weather cools late in the season, a fireplace keeps the area warm. Blinds can be lowered to keep everything cozy.

“We’ve had 140 people here on July 3 and about 80 the next day,” Farmer’s wife, Deniase, said. “We just stay up all night and celebrate Don’s birthday and July 4th.”

Farmer says his goals in building an outdoor kitchen were simple even though the final outcome was not.

“I wanted a place that would keep the foot traffic out of the house,” he said. “I wanted a place where somebody could spill a drink or drop a meatball on the floor, and it wasn’t a big deal.”

Features

Go Build Alabama

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Garrison Steel owner hopes he and his workers can open career doors for others

Story by GiGi Hood
Photos by Jerry Martin

If you looked on a map for the road to success, the most prevalent highway would seem to be the one that leads to and goes through most institutions of higher learning. Attending college and earning a degree have long been touted as the “Main Street” to the world of success.

But there are other maps, with other routes, that can lead to the same destination point. John Garrison, owner and founder of Pell City’s Garrison Steel, will quickly tell you that he has a PhD, but not in the traditional sense. His came from “the School of Hard Knocks.”

“My grandfather lived through the depression, and the hardships he endured, along with the lessons he learned about living within your meager means, were passed along to my dad,” Garrison explained. “And as a result, they were passed on to me. When I got out of high school, my dad told me he had done all the raising of me he was going to do and that it was time for me to make my own way. So, when I graduated from Hewitt- Trussville High School in 1969, I entered the workforce.”

While other friends went on to college, Garrison began cutting his teeth in the steel erection business and traveling the Southeast to do it.

“I was just a kid, but I loved what I was doing,” he said. “I never stopped to think about this becoming my life’s work. I just showed up each day, was dependable, worked hard and thought it was great that daily, I was getting paid to exercise. When I started, I joined the union, and they taught and guided me as I worked my way up the ladder from an apprentice to a journeyman.”

Today, 43 years later, Garrison marvels at how his first job evolved into his life career. He owns his own highly successful steel erection and fabrication business in Pell City with job sites all over the country, and he is sharing his own success story through Go Build Alabama in hopes of raising awareness and understanding among young people that skilled labor can be their ticket to success.

At this point in his life and career, it would be easy to say it is complete. The fairy-tale version would say: “After Garrison attained such great success, he then retired and lived happily ever after.” But that is far from the truth. Today, Garrison is driven by a new initiative called Go Build Alabama. And it is his hope that this vision will produce results much greater than any other with which he has been involved.

Just as he had made is mark on the steel end of the construction business, now he hopes to leave his mark on today’s younger generation. He hopes to help educate them, make them aware that there are plenty of opportunities to earn a good living while obtaining a great on-the-job educational experience.

He wants them to know that skilled laborers like heavy equipment operators, carpenters and electricians start their earnings at an average of $18-$22 an hour. That’s up to $43,000 a year. In 2010, statistics showed that college graduates’ starting salary was in the same range and not significantly higher.

Other skilled positions like boilermaker starts at an average of $27 an hour or $56,000 a year. A certified welder? Starting salary is at $22 an hour with the ability to go into six figures in some arenas, according to statistics provided by Go Build Alabama.

“My interest in this was piqued as I looked back over the last 43 years and realized my employees were getting older just as I was, and there was no evidence of young, skilled workers applying for jobs. It dawned on me that while I had learned, grown and built a business by being a sweat of the brow tradesman, skilled worker positions were not being filled because skilled workers were no longer plentiful.”

Realizing that the lack of skilled workers in today’s industry cannot only cause a slow down, but a complete collapse, he began to think about what could be done. Reflecting on his past, he thought about how he and many others in his generation would not have made it in the workforce without a skilled trade.

He reflected on unemployment levels in our country — especially among the young — and what could be done on that front. Research shows today’s generation Y is 92 million strong.

So, just as he had built his own businesses by working, thinking, dreaming, he put his shoulder again to the wheel and is investing his energy into the Go Build Alabama program. He realized that he wanted to teach the Gen Y’ers that there is absolutely no harm or shame in going to work clean and coming home dirty. His dream is to help them see they can have a successful and bright future, just as he had as a Baby Boomer.

“The time right now is a tough time, in many ways similar to the years during the Great Depression,” Garrison said. “Unemployment is high, and everyone is very aware of that. But the truth of the matter is high unemployment can and does now co-exist with a shortage of skilled tradesman. Currently there are more than 200,000 skilled labor jobs that are not just available right now but are in desperate need of being filled.”

In his day, the job was considered to be hard and dangerous work. “Back then, blue-collar jobs were synonymous with dirty factories and back-breaking work. And while factory jobs are still considered blue-collar work, today’s modern and highly technical plants enable the worker to replace just plain, raw muscle with brain power added to just a little muscle.”

Garrison knows he has worked hard, been successful and been filled with blessings galore. He knows he has built buildings that will outlive him by a very long time. But now he wants to give back a portion of what his industry has given him. He knows he left his mark on changed landscapes with high-rise buildings, and now he wants to work on leaving a legacy for a new generation of workers.

His vision includes a public-awareness campaign that inspires and guides young adults to pick up a shovel and get busy — to seek a trade that is worthwhile and to build their futures as he did, one day at a time, one skill at a time, one dream at a time. He wants to get the word out and let Generation Y know that hope and prosperity are well within its grasp and that futures can be as bright as any past generation’s.

Garrison believes that instead of giving up on another generation, community leaders and past and present business and trades people need to come together, offer a hand, and shine the light into the darkness as mentors. They need to prepare these young people to carry on the industrial future. “They are not just employable, but sorely needed building blocks in our world,” Garrison said.

“My goal with Go Build Alabama is that the Gen Y’ers will come to the realization that their presence, their knowledge, their thoughts and their dreams are desperately needed in the today’s world.

“They need to be taught the fact that they can be successful. They can face the future with the certainty of knowing that they have the skills they need to carry the industry today and that they will also be needed to teach the generation of tomorrow.”

A Railroad Runs Through It

Tracks from a bygone era cross St. Clair

Story by Jerry Smith
Photos by Jerry Smith and Jerry Martin
Submitted timetables from the Stanley Burnett Collection

Folks in Odenville, Alabama, often use the train trestle which crosses US 411 as a landmark for giving directions, but few except the very old are aware of the history of these tracks and of the tunnel at Hardwick Station, just a few miles east of town.

Both were built as part of Seaboard Air Line Railroad’s new trackage running from Birmingham all the way to New York City. For some 20 years, this line hosted Seaboard’s elite streamliner passenger train, The Silver Comet. Pulled by sleek new diesel engines, the Comet had everything a cross-country rail passenger might desire, including day coaches, observation lounge cars, diners and Pullman sleepers.

According to a 1947 Seaboard timetable, passengers who boarded the Comet in Birmingham at 2:35 p.m. could depend on being in New York exactly 25 hours later. The train passed through Trussville, Odenville, Wattsville, Wellington, Anniston and Piedmont before leaving Alabama; next stops, Cedartown, Atlanta, D.C., and eventually the Big Apple. The Comet competed directly with Southern Railway’s prestigious Southerner streamliner service.

Odenville resident Jack Stepp, a retired Southern engineer, said that even though it took a more circuitous route, Seaboard often beat Southern’s trains to common destinations.

Like many civil engineering projects of the early 20th century, both Hardwick and its sister tunnel at Roper near Trussville were plagued by design errors from the beginning.

E.L. Voyles was a Seaboard road superintendent at the Sanie Division from 1916 until the mid 1920s, and his journals give a detailed look at how Hardwick and Roper Tunnels came about: “As Seaboard construction crews traversed their way west of Broken Arrow, through the mountainous terrain, it became evident that two tunnels would be necessary to reach Irondale.

“In early 1903, Hardwick and Roper Tunnels were bored. In an effort to save time and money, the big brass at Seaboard’s Richmond headquarters decided to build [both] tunnels to minimum standards. So the tunnels were supported by wooden frames cut from trees in the area. Keep in mind that in 1903, Seaboard had no tunnels anywhere on their entire system, so tunneling through mountains was not their forte. And they didn’t consider the consequences of using wooden frames positioned within feet of steam engine smokestacks blowing out fiery cinders when an engine was pulling at speed.”

Voyles continues, “Seaboard ran its first train into Birmingham on December 5, 1904. … In 1909, they realized their mistake concerning tunnel construction when an eastbound coal-burning freight highballing through Roper Tunnel … spewed an abnormal amount of fire and cinders. The huge wooden tunnel support system caught fire. Within minutes, the wooden supports were consumed by fire and collapsed onto the tracks.”

The disaster proved a blessing of sorts. Seaboard hired a team of professional tunnel people to rebuild both tunnels, reinforcing them with concrete instead of wood. Historian Joe Whitten of Odenville writes that the re-lining of Hardwick Tunnel alone consumed some 38,000 sacks of concrete over a period of nearly a year.

Because they had to excavate farther to clear the old structures, the rebuilt tunnels gained much-needed head and side clearance, which proved a godsend as trains eventually got taller and wider.

Trussville resident Hurley Godwin relates that adventuresome folks often entered a ventilation airshaft beside his home on Roper Tunnel Road using ropes to rappel down into the tunnel. The rail company finally fenced the area to protect these reckless climbers from themselves.

As for Hardwick Tunnel’s problems, Voyles relates, “The section of track between Odenville and Wattsville gave us fits. … They used a rail construction method known as “follow the contour”, rather than merge the track with the terrain. This was great when they operated short trains, but when a 100-plus-car freight pulled by four or five diesels snaked through the 180-degree turn and the back-to-back high angle curve tangents of Backbone Mountain, a tremendous amount of tension was placed upon the tracks in both directions.”

If one looks at this stretch of trackage on a satellite computer map such as Google Earth, it appears to be a long stretch of railway curled into two tight loops as it follows contour lines in the valley east of Hardwick Tunnel, a feature which train crews called the Rope.

One major derailment resulted in several engines and railcars plummeting into a ravine. Especially prone to damage and derailments during extremely hot or cold weather, the Rope eventually forced an end to Seaboard’s passenger service on that line in 1967, although at one time they had been running four passenger trains and six to eight freights per day.

The area was also prone to landslides, so elaborate cable networks were strung along rock cliffs to automatically trigger alert systems when rocks fell onto them.

But Hardwick Tunnel’s woes were not limited to the tracks beyond.

Approached on a curved track from the west, the tunnel itself is also curved inside. You cannot see light at the end of this tunnel (according to an anonymous observer). Voyles explains, “The track alignment through Hardwick was a tough section to maintain. … We constantly checked the rail for deterioration created by long periods of moisture that accumulated inside the tunnel. By the time an engineer could spot a broken rail inside the curved … tunnel, it was too late.”

Voyles says Odenville was a flag stop for local passenger trains, whereas Wattsville was a regular mail stop. He also relates that the conductor would drop off lunch orders while stopped for mail in Wattsville, and they would be ready at a trackside cafe when the train reached Piedmont.

In earlier days, a short line called the East & West Railroad connected Georgia Pacific’s line from Pell City to the Seaboard line at Coal City. Its wide roadbed, called Railroad Avenue on old maps, also hosted street traffic. Eventually this line was closed, the rails removed, and the street renamed Comer Avenue. It runs at an odd angle to every other street in town, passing by Pell City Steak House and the old Avondale Mills property before crossing I-20, and then toward Coal City.

As years passed and rail traffic dwindled, Seaboard went through various business mergers, eventually becoming part of CSX Transportation. The Roper-Hardwick portion is now leased by the Alabama & Tennessee River Railway (ATN) as part of a 120-mile freight short line from Birmingham to Guntersville.

Many segments of Seaboard’s old trackage have since been removed entirely, with some of their roadbeds eventually joining the Rails-To-Trails project. The well-known Chief Ladiga Trail is a fine example.

It runs on the old Seaboard roadbed from Anniston through Piedmont to the Georgia state line, where it continues as the Silver Comet Trail, with a combined length of some 100 miles. Legislation is afoot to make it part of the Appalachian Trail.

Those seeking physical fitness or outdoor recreation can get on the rail-trail at any crossing, and walk, run, jog, bike, rollerblade or whatever. It’s paved all the way, with no grades of more than 2 percent, so it’s also great for wheelchairs and baby strollers. Motorized vehicles are banned.

Want to visit Hardwick or Roper Tunnel? DON’T! All railroad tracks are the property of rail companies. Walking on any tracks is considered trespassing on private property.

Besides, it can be very dangerous.

Hardwick, for instance, is approached through a long, narrow, curved gap with steep sides that allow little room for escape if a train is coming. Also, as mentioned before, you cannot see through the tunnel, so an oncoming train might not be detected until it’s too late.

Best to explore railroad features on the printed page instead.

Forever Wild

Exploring the possibility of a Big Canoe Creek Preserve

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Michael McKenzie
Submitted photos

For Springville’s Laura McKenzie, Big Canoe Creek is more than just a picturesque stream that meanders lazily through St. Clair County. It’s her science classroom, her family’s recreation area and an environmental wonder all rolled into one.

When she and her husband, Michael, moved to the area, she said she joked with him, “Now we can commence with raising a biologist.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t much of a stretch. “Because of our creek, so far, we have two biologists and counting,” she said. Over the years, she has used the creek to teach groups of homeschoolers as well as her family about ecology and biology.

She shares an attraction to the creek with people like Doug Morrison. He began his love of the creek through recreation but soon found an inner passion to save it, preserve it and share it for generations. Today, he is president of Friends of Big Canoe Creek, an environmental group dedicated to preserving this natural resource.

All across the state, there are people just like McKenzie and Morrison, who recognize the value of preserving Alabama treasures. In 2009, Big Canoe Creek was nominated to be a part of the Forever Wild program, which buys land all across Alabama to preserve it for the public’s enjoyment.

Funding has been on hold while the program awaits its fate in the Nov. 6 election. On the ballot as Amendment 1, voters across Alabama will have an opportunity to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on continuing to fund Forever Wild through interest earned on natural gas royalties, capped at $15 million each year.

Those who question continuing it say they just aren’t sure how much longer or at what level the program should be funded.

Since its creation in 1992, the Forever Wild Land Trust has bought more than 227,000 acres of land for public use. But even so, Alabama ranks last with the smallest percentage of public conservation land in the Southeast, according to Forever Wild.

“I think Forever Wild is a great program because it provides land available to the public for recreation,” Morrison said. “Every community needs green space for an opportunity to explore, experience and absorb nature. Outdoor activities are important physically and mentally for all ages, and the Friends of Big Canoe Creek has nominated land in Springville which adjoins Big Canoe Creek, for consideration by Forever Wild.”

Morrison said the hope is for a Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve open to the public for hiking, biking, horseback riding and scouting. As part of the plan, they want public access to the creek for canoeing, kayaking and fishing. “It could be a recreational oasis, and is a great opportunity to preserve land adjacent to a state treasure that is Big Canoe Creek.”

He’s not alone in that belief. “Big Canoe Creek is a beautiful stream, rich with unique and rare species of plant and animal life,” according to Wendy Jackson, executive director of the Alabama Freshwater Land Trust. Jackson, who also lives in St. Clair County, has been a vocal proponent of the Forever Wild program and has worked alongside countless groups to keep it going.

“The property under consideration by Forever Wild will help preserve the integrity of the creek while providing outdoor recreation activities,” she said. But more than just recreation, she pointed out, “Forever Wild properties are proven economic engines for the communities where they are located because people from across Alabama and from out of state visit them, in turn generating tourism revenue for the local community.”

Barnett Lawley, former commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, has worked tirelessly across the state during his tenure as commissioner and in the days since for Forever Wild.

But his roots in the creation of Forever Wild go all the way back to the beginning. The St. Clair County native was vice president of the Wildlife Federation when the bill was passed. As commissioner, he automatically became chairman of the Forever Wild board.

He shares McKenzie’s belief that the lands acquired are indeed outdoor classrooms. “It’s pristine land, and it needs to be protected” for generations to come. He points to the wetlands that are part of Forever Wild acquisitions, noting that they can teach about the natural filtration of groundwater. There are so many good things besides hunting and fishing.”

Lawley, too, talked about the economic impact. At Paint Rock River, the parking lot for public access had to be expanded twice.

In Hale County, just south of Greensboro, the national grand championship for field trial dogs is being held in September at the old state cattle ranch, which now bears the name of the man who had the vision behind it, M. Barnett Lawley Forever Wild Field Trial Area.

That’s 750 dogs, their owners, their trainers and others associated with them staying in the area for two weeks. For the Black Belt, it is a much-needed injection of outside money, Lawley said.

And natural resources like those across Alabama are economic drivers used to lure industrial prospects to the state. At Gov. Riley’s annual Turkey Hunt, 100 prospects from around the world stayed at different farms and lodges across the state. You might recognize names like Airbus and Thyssen-Krupp among the guest list. Both now call Alabama home.

They see the quality of life found here. “It’s an economic development tool using natural resources. Forever Wild adds to that program,” Lawley said.

Recreation, education, economic development, tourism — it all sounds like a winning proposition for Alabama. Add to that, the use of money to fund it from a depleting resource — natural gas — and putting it into a permanent resource — land — and Lawley reasons that it is good for the people of Alabama. The land becomes a permanent asset of the state, it doesn’t use a dime of taxpayer money, and it is a resource that can be used and enjoyed by the people from now on.

While Forever Wild is a statewide political issue, McKenzie illustrates through the comments of a mother and a teacher how all politics are indeed local. “The creek has offered a place of sanctuary, peace, fun and renewal. I would love for other parents in our area to be able to share in these benefits. That is why I’m so excited about the possibility of Forever Wild buying the property along Big Canoe Creek. Kids are much more motivated to learn when they are actively engaged in their subject,” she said. “When they value the beauty of the creek, they begin to value the science behind it.”

And when they value something, they want to protect and preserve it.

As Lawley put it, “Forever Wild is a reinvestment into the state for the people.”

A Day at the Rodeo

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Project organizers hope to ultimately
create a major regional attraction

Story by Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Jerry Martin

The sun beats down on a stretch of gravel road and grass near Odenville as two men sit on some wooden bleachers next to a structure they hope will become the best unkept secret in St. Clair County.

Lude Mashburn, an agriculture teacher at Odenville High School, and Herschel Phillips, a retiree and Argo resident, are two of five members of the St. Clair Parks and Recreation Board, a body formed in 2011. They’re braving the early July heat to talk about the St. Clair Arena, originally built as a private horse arena that they are working to turn into an attraction for everything from rodeos to church revivals and everything in between.

For Mashburn, the acquisition was a long time coming. “I teach ag out here, and I’ve been trying to get one for 40 years and never could get one,” he says.

The 125,000-square-foot structure went on the market a couple of years ago, and Mashburn saw an opportunity and convinced county officials to purchase the facility and put it to public use. The purchase price was somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000, but early demand for outside groups looking to rent the facility gives them hope that the St. Clair Arena will pay for itself.

The arena already has hosted a semi-pro rodeo circuit as well as a junior rodeo, where close to 400 people came out to watch kids ages 2 to 16 ride sheep and goats for the crowd. A local church brought its horse ministry to the arena, attracting several hundred people as well. But before they can really begin marketing the arena, the Board needs to address the sparseness of the facility in order to meet the needs of groups interested in investing in rent.

“Our mission right now is to get this up and running because we know people are wanting to rent the place,” says Phillips.

“I really think this will provide. If we’re able to do our job the way we should, we will be able to provide a lot of activity for people to come from Birmingham or anywhere else around here,” Phillips adds. “I really believe that. People are starved for something to do.”

“(The County) is going to give us some money where we can fix it up where we can have some bleachers, a concession stand and bathrooms,” adds Mashburn. “We’re going to get it going, and we can have car shows, anything we want to have.”

Plans have already been drawn for these, and other expansions and are expected to be bid soon. “The arena’s pavilion, which includes concession, restroom and showers, is designed to be octagonal rather than the typical rectangular park building,” according to Kelley Keeton Taft, whose company, the Kelley Group, drew the plans. “This design was chosen to reflect the octagonal era of barn construction from 1850 to 1900,” she says. “The pavilion, crested with a cupola, will set a theme for the arena.”

Focusing on the Commission and the Board’s vision to attract a variety of events, Taft says the design “utilizes existing structures while incorporating the necessary improvements to take the venue to the next level of event capabilities. The design integrates connectivity and focuses on safety for spectators, trailered vehicles and animals.”

Other features include entrance and exit roads, designated parking and pedestrian pathways, lighting, covered sidewalks, covered extensions of the arena with bleachers to seat approximately 600 and an area for vendors or exhibitors to set up during events.

The county is committed to making the arena a success and will set the budget based on what the payments will be for the planned upgrades, says Commission Chairman Stan Batemon. “As those upgrades become an attraction to that facility, then we’ll know more about what kind of events that the Park and Rec board can have there that will generate some revenue and operate the facility.”

The goal is not necessarily for the arena to recoup the initial $500,000 spent to acquire the facility, the additional 18 acres and smaller buildings on the property. Nor is it expected to be a cash cow for the county. As long as the arena is being used, people are enjoying it and it’s paying its future expenses, that’s fine with him and the rest of the County Commission, Batemon says.

“We’re still a small county, and this is our first venture,” he says. “The goal is that it will be self-sustaining, but not necessarily drive revenue back to the county. If it is self-sustaining, the County Commission will be completely satisfied with that. The main goal is that it will eventually operate itself.”

Since the board’s inception, county leaders have been busy expanding outdoor recreational opportunities throughout unincorporated St. Clair County. And officials are investigating areas that might be accessed for multipurpose trails for horseback riding, hiking and mountain biking throughout the county. This could include areas along the 80 miles of river shoreline that may qualify for federal funds. However, the jewel, so far, in the county’s crown is the St. Clair Arena.

The end goal, say Phillips and Mashburn, is to bring people from Birmingham and beyond to St. Clair County to enjoy rural type entertainment and programs in one of the very few covered arenas in north Alabama. Mashburn’s additional hope is that the arena will help reignite interest and passion for farming and agriculture among the youths and future generations of St. Clair countians.

Mashburn says it is important to get as many kids as possible interested in rural lifestyles, which he fears are being lost. He and Phillips agree there aren’t enough activities available for area kids who aren’t involved in mainstream sports but are hungry for activities in which to participate and thrive.

“What do they have to do other than football games, baseball games and basketball games? What are their opportunities other than those three sports?” asks Mashburn. “I see kids that didn’t know anything about animals. Once you get them around a horse or a cow, they realize it’s not a bad animal, and they get excited about it.”

Mashburn’s main concern is the future of farming. The number of people choosing agriculture as a career gets smaller every year and the amount of land used for farming is dwindling, too. He thinks the arena can be used to help introduce a new generation of kids to agriculture through recreational activities, like rodeo and horsemanship.

“There’s not too many of them that are going to be everyday hog farmers or poultry farmers. You’ve got to have all that stuff, so you’ve got to bring new kids in. If we don’t, we’re going to be in trouble,” says Mashburn.

The arena just may be that first step in bridging the gap.

Features

Architectural Eye Candy

[Show as slideshow]

Living in a work of art

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

Jimmie Nell Miller is an artist and former interior decorator who likes to go to open houses and read Architectural Digest for the eye candy. But the Pell City home she shares with husband, Ray, is like eye candy to visitors, because its wide hallways, huge bathrooms and very modern kitchen are filled with Jimmie Nell’s colorful artwork. From tulips to Tuscany, cornices to credenzas, every inch of the Country French chateau reflects Jimmie Nell’s personality and her love for entertaining family and friends.

“It’s like an art gallery in here,” Jimmie Nell admits.

Atlanta architect Frank Jova designed this “art gallery,” which the Millers first spotted as a Southern Living Idea House in Chateau Elan outside of Atlanta in 1994. Jimmie Nell fell in love with its French influence, while Ray liked the way it flowed. Both appreciated the roominess of its 5,000 square feet, which may seem superfluous for two people. But Jimmie Nell says they use every square foot of it. “We entertain lots of functions, and have lots of family visits,” she says. “We live in the whole house.”

Built on a former dairy farm, the house is awash with European influences. Its wide hallways represent streets of old Europe, for example, and the extra depth of the tray ceiling in the entry hall is painted blue to keep the ghosts away. “It’s supposed to fool them into thinking it’s daytime,” Jimmie Nell explains.

The gallery tour begins in this entrance hall, where Jimmie Nell’s acrylic painting of Glen Coe, Scotland, one of seven inspired by her trip to that country earlier this year, rests on a stand. Her oil paintings of lemon trees flank the front door, along with sculptured fruits made of composite materials resembling stone, which she purchased.

Turning right, you come face-to-face with sunflowers and peppers in a red vase, done in oils, while the butler’s pantry features another oil painting of a rooster in bright plumage of blue, gold and red.

Kitchen cabinets are made of cherry, countertops are granite, and the appliances are Bosch and Kitchen Aid. The refrigerator is disguised as a tall cabinet, and an appliance garage hides the toaster, mixer and electric can opener. Bunnies nibble cabbage from a ceramic pot on the wall behind the gas range, thanks to Jimmie Nell’s ingenuity. She painted the tiles, then installed them herself because she didn’t trust the tile man to get the ears on the bunnies right.

“I designed my kitchen because I wanted the cabinets to look like little pieces of furniture,” Jimmie Nell says. “My cabinet maker said he’d build them that way, but he didn’t think I would like them. When he finished, he liked them, too.”

Pell City artist John Lonergan did the portrait of Ray, their son Adam when he was 12, and Adam’s dog that hangs over the fireplace in the den. That portrait and the 106-year-old watercolor duo by Ray’s great-grandmother that hang in the music room are among the handful of artwork in the house that weren’t done by Jimmie Nell.

She has a glass table with eight upholstered chairs in her formal dining room, which she uses a lot. Her china cabinet, housed behind mahogany doors, holds Noritake china, cut-glass and redneck wine glasses (small Mason jars on stems). Jimmie Nell’s favorite piece of furniture is in this dining room, and it, too, features some of her artwork. It’s a bar made of two separate pieces that probably weren’t originally meant to be together. The bottom portion is a mahogany cabinet, while the top is a pine hutch with stained-glass tulips and a center canvas on which Jimmie Nell painted more tulips before installing it between the glass panels. “We bought this from an antiques dealer who used to be in St. Clair Springs,” she says. “We had it in our house before we moved here.”

Another painting of tulips, this one in acrylics, hangs between the dining room and music room, because “tulips are easy to paint,” says Jimmie Nell. She has had the room’s baby grand piano more than 40 years and believes it was built in the 1930s. While neither she nor Ray play piano, their two daughters, one son-in-law and a granddaughter do. Nevertheless, the music room happens to be her favorite, the place where she loves to curl up with a good book or take a nap.

From the screened porch off the dining room, the sound of ceiling fans overhead and an Italian bronze garden fountain outside soothe the soul. The peaceful garden features knock-out roses, daylilies, limelight hydrangeas, magnolias and blue point juniper spirals. Both Ray and Jimmie Nell work in the garden, but Ray, a retired banker, trims the 10-year-old topiaries himself.

Back indoors, the art tour continues down the hall from the entryway into the powder room, where Jimmie Nell has an old credenza on which she depicted parrots, monkeys and a leopard “back when jungle themes were so popular.” Nearby is the media room, where a 72-inch wide-screen TV is set into a niche in one wall. Movie posters of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood adorn other walls and a bronze replica of Remington’s Mountain Man dominates the center. Two leather couches and four mission-style gliding rockers with fake-leather bottom cushions and Southwestern-print back cushions provide ample seating. Jimmie Nell made the glider’s back cushions and the room’s matching cornices herself. The media room happens to be Ray’s favorite in the house, a place where he keeps up with the news and email via television and computer.

The master bedroom is near the media room and features another tray ceiling, a portrait of Jimmie Nell done in 1986 by Pell City artist Evelyn Whatley, and a huge bathroom with his-and-hers sinks and vanities on opposite sides of the room. The vanities are separated by a glass-enclosed shower, and Ray and Jimmie Nell have separate closets, too. More of Jimmie Nell’s artwork is featured in a buffet from her old dining room suite that has panels she painted with shell designs.

Upstairs are two guest bedrooms, one with a 100-year-old washstand on which Jimmie Nell painted a Colonial couple at a fence, and a doll house made from a kit one of her daughters gave her 20 years ago. An open balcony connects the two bedrooms and overlooks the dining room on one side, with a glass-less window overlooking the entry hall on the other.

In the second upstairs bedroom Jimmie Nell used French toile for the bed’s coronet and a chair skirt, but a nautically-themed fabric on the bed pillows and valance.

After 12 years in the house, the Millers still find it very livable. “We like the way it flows,” says Ray. Jimmie Nell agrees. “I like the roominess of it, and the private areas where we can get away from each other,” she says, with a wink. “That has probably saved our marriage.”

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