ecember took action residents around these parts have anticipated for years.
The Council made it official – Longhorn Steakhouse and Olive Garden – are coming to Pell City. Leases are signed, and infrastructure work is expected to begin in February. Owned by the same company, Darden, the restaurants will be located next to each other on Veterans Parkway near Walgreen’s.
“It’s supremely located,” said City Manager Brian Muenger, noting that the sites are the last remaining quadrant along that section of interstate, which is prime property for developments like these.
To ensure that work moves at a good pace, the city invested $2.5 million in site preparation funding. The property had some challenges, requiring utilities to be relocated and other work to get it ready for construction.
The Council reasoned that the investment will yield dividends in tax revenue generation as well as being able to fulfill residents’ ‘wish list.’ “We are aggressively pursuing things people tell us they want,” Muenger said.
Outback is expected to open in February
City leaders are confident that the growth trend will continue based on the successes of other projects locating in the city. “These brands are thriving, and they will do exactly the same here,” Muenger predicted. With names like Longhorn and Olive Garden, “more brands will look to locate here,” he said. “We’ve demonstrated success, which gives green lights for other developments.”
He has good reason to be confident. The announcement comes on the heels of the opening of Outback Steakhouse, just across the interstate near Pell City Square shopping center. Outback is expected to open in February.
The new shopping center saw over 1 million visitors over the past year. Wingstop just opened in the strip center anchored by The St. Clair, Tavern, Starbuck’s and Jersey Mike’s.
Just across the way, Whataburger opened on John Haynes Drive.
Kami Thai Sushi & Fusion has just announced that it, too, plans to make Pell City home, giving greater diversity to the restaurant scene. Its sights are set on the former Papa Murphy Pizza location near Publix.
“We’re a growing area with growing demand,” Muenger said. “It speaks to the area’s needs. I’m glad to see business succeeding here.”
Planet Fitness opened in January, and Mariott’s TownSuites hotel may be open by summer.
“There has been a lot of investment in the (interstate) corridor,” Meunger added, “and we’re happy to be able to meet the demand. We’re excited to see people enjoying it.”
Housing market continues upward trend
He cited rising population and strong community support as factors in swinging the latest deals. Pell City is seeing sizable increases in the housing market year over year.
The newest residential development on Florida Road, Oak Village, has completed the preliminary phase of roads and infrastructure and permits for construction should follow quickly. There are over 200 lots in the development.
Sumter Landing and Dickey Drive are in the final phase of building out. Meadowbrook on Hardwick Road is nearing full build out, as has Horizons on Logan Martin Lake. The fourth phase within Morningside should be “going vertical” soon, said Muenger.
Pell City has averaged adding over 100 new residences per year, sometimes much higher, over the past five years. In 2024, Pell City saw the same level of new construction as it saw the previous year – even in a higher interest rate environment. “We’ve seen steady growth since 2018. We don’t think it will stop in the near future.”
There also are housing developments just outside the city limits that should have an impact on the area’s growth.
He noted, “There is a lot of demand for people wanting to get into the area,” and multifamily rental property is a need, too. The planning commission has just approved plans for a new set of apartments on 19th Street South. It has not gone to the council yet, but 60 units are planned in what is the first multifamily property planned since 2012.
Just when you thought Realtors Nicole and Amanda Anderson-St. John’s schedule couldn’t get any fuller, they open a retail gift shop … at Christmas.
It follows their purchase in the Fall of The Realty Pros building at the corner of U.S. 231 South and John Haynes Drive on 12th Avenue North to operate the The Anderson Group of Lake Homes Realty. Then, they bought the property management asset of Realty Pros, and Lake Homes Property Management now manages 40 rental properties and two homeowners associations.
One would think that was plenty for one year, but these two entrepreneurs weren’t quite finished. The realty building has two floors. On the top floor is the Nicole Anderson Group, and they expanded to include South Bend Land Solutions contractor, property management and Real Source Title and Closings. It gives them the ability to offer a range of real estate and property services all under one roof.
On the bottom floor, you’ll now find their newest venture, Martin Street Mercantile, a gift shop featuring specialty gifts and apparel for the whole family. It may seem like quite a leap from their real estate business, but the two had always wanted to open a retail store. They were out of town and saw a mercantile shop, and “we fell in love with it,” Nicole said. “Something hit us, and we said we should just do it.”
They already had the space, originally planned for office rentals, but the open floor plan lent itself well to the shop. They opened just as the Christmas shopping season began. “It has been so well received,” Nicole said. “It shows there was a need.”
The mercantile is filled with all sorts of products – from locally made to national brands, from cradle to special items for men and women. Men’s gifts were really popular this Christmas, she said.
Browse around the store, and you’ll find local vendors like Goodnight Moon Candle Co. and Yae’s Yae’s Soap Shop, coffee from Red Bike, a bamboo line of linens, pajamas and slippers from Face Plant Dreams.
Especially popular have been the Capt. Rodney’s soups, dips and glazes, Mud Pie, towels and pillows.
There’s plenty for babies, teens and tweens – a little something for everyone, Nicole said, and they continue to add more lines and products. It was one of those leaps of faith that might not have worked. But judging by the response so far, Nicole said, “we did right.”
TherapySouth has expanded its presence in St. Clair County, adding a clinic in Springville at 300 Springville Station Boulevard, Suite 600. Cade Mullins serves as clinic director, and Libby Watkins is office coordinator.
Mullins earned his Doctor of Physical Therapy from Samford University. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a passion for impacting his patients physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
“I am thankful for the opportunity that TherapySouth offered me coming out of school,” Mullins said. “When I was in school, we had to go to four different clinicals, and one of them was with TherapySouth, and I knew from the beginning that this was the company that I wanted to work for. They offer a unique model that is different from the rest of PT companies, that is where we are owned and managed by active PTs.”
The advantage, he added, is that “any discissions made by higher ups has been in my shoes of treating patients in that clinic. They also believe that that faith guides our service to patients, and as a Christian, I believe that we are called to serve wherever God takes us. It gives me confidence that I can openly talk about my faith with patients, and our company supports that.”
TherapySouth was founded in July 2006 by Steve Foster, PT, LAT, with a vision that it would be a therapist-owned practice, specializing in “hands-on care, close to a patient’s home or work”. Clinics are known for maintaining an informal atmosphere that helps patients feel comfortable in the surroundings and in their therapy.
“I am excited to serve the community of Springville with a great company whose core values align with mine,” Mullins said. “We treat a wide variety of injuries and impairments here. If anyone is interested in knowing more about us, they can call, or even drop by and talk in person.”
What if, instead of making lofty New Year’s resolutions, we all agreed to simply try a little harder to be a little better than we were the year before?
To be kinder – not just when it’s easy, but when it’s hard and inconvenient. To be more honest, even when it’s uncomfortable, and to forgive more readily, knowing we’ve all fallen short at some point.
What if we gave a little more – of our money, our time and our patience? What if we extended a little more grace to the people who need it most, including ourselves?
What if instead of looking too long at what’s behind us or constantly chasing what’s next, we took more time to appreciate what’s here now?
What if we loved a little better the people we often take for granted? The people who stand beside us and see us clearly – flaws and all – and choose to love and support us, not just for who we will be … but for who we already are today.
What if we try a little harder to find joy in the present moment – and keep our feet firmly planted in appreciation for the beautiful gift of life right now?
– Mackenzie Free –
Wife, mother, photographer & current resident of the unassumingly magical town of Steele, Alabama
Story by Joe Whitten Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr. and Submitted Photos
In the words of American Bandstand’s Dick Clark, “Music is the soundtrack of your life,” and that fits Pell City musician Floyd Waites like a well-tailored 5th Avenue tuxedo.
Born to Edmond and Beatrice Waites in the Glenn City area of Pell City, Floyd was the youngest of their five children – three boys and two girls. This was a loving family overseen by Mrs. Waites after Mr. Waites became an invalid from a stroke.
By his teenage years, Floyd’s siblings had left home, so his mother depended upon him with chores and cleaning. “I was always singing when I was helping around the house,” he recalled. He heard the music coming from the radio, and he knew in his heart that if he had a piano, he could play those songs.
“I went to my mother and said, ‘I want to get a piano.’” He smiled as he told her reply. “She said, ‘Floyd, I can’t get no piano!’ She wasn’t able to buy a piano. But a few months after that, I began to get a small check from Avondale Mills because my daddy had worked there before his stroke.”
Floyd and Marie Knight take a bow at a concert in Paris
With that income, another plan took shape. “I told my mom that I was gonna try to get a piano (with that money),” he reminisced. “There was a piano company in Anniston, Alabama, called Forbes Piano Company. So, someone carried me there, and I looked around and spoke to the man in charge, and he said, ‘I can let you have it for so much,’ – whatever it was priced at that time. And I said, ‘Well, how much will that be a month?’ He told me what it would be and said, ‘Could you pay ten dollars a month?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I can pay ten dollars a month!’ And, so, they brought the piano out to our house.”
Oh, happy day! Now, with the radio on, Floyd could sit at the treasured piano, with his fingertips eagerly searching out the notes and chords and runs of what he heard. He was a natural – born for the piano and music.
He must have played too much Fats Domino or Chubby Checker, because one day his mother said, “Floyd, I don’t want you playing just anything and everything. You’ve got to play for the Lord.” He chuckled at the memory. “I said, ‘Oh, yes, Mama, that’s what I plan to do.”
And he did just that, beginning at Rocky Zion Missionary Baptist Church under the guidance of Rev. Silas Woods, who encouraged him in his playing for the Lord.
Floyd enjoys recalling those early years with Rev. Woods. “We had a Sunday for the young group to sing, and I began playing for them – songs that I knew and could catch onto. Rev. Woods liked for the Junior Choir to go with him when he preached at other churches. And I would go with them and play piano. I was encouraged a lot by Rev. Woods.”
In the spring of 1965, Floyd graduated from St. Clair County Training School, began looking for work and found scant possibilities locally. The Waites’ across-the-road neighbors had moved to New York City, and they encouraged him to come live with them. “You could get a job up here in New York,” they told him. “We could take you to the state unemployment agency, and they will find you a job.” Therefore, with hope in his heart, Floyd boarded a Greyhound bus and headed to the Big Apple – without a clue as to the places God and his piano would take him in the years ahead.
His friends met him at the bus station, took him to their home, and gave him a room until he could find work and rent an apartment of his own.
At the New York Unemployment Office, the interviewer asked him what kind of work he was interested in. and he told them he was a church musician. “They went into the back,” Floyd laughed, “and came back with a uniform, a khaki uniform, and they said, ‘This will fit you very good.’ And I said, ‘What’s that for?’ And they said, ‘This is for you to become a New York City police officer.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no! My Lord, no! That won’t work! I don’t think I could handle anything like that! Don’t you think you could find me something else?’”
So, they sent him to another section where he had a more favorable offer. The lady interviewing him said, “Mr. Waites, we have an opening for a job in the Bronx at a school, and it’s dealing with food service.” This interested him, and the lady’s next question raised his spirits higher, “Can you cook?” Floyd, feeling almost back home in Pell City, replied, “Honey, that’s right down my alley!”
Then she told of a position at the Walton High School, and Floyd said, “I would love to do that because that’s what I studied in school.” He was referring to the St. Clair County Training School where he was more interested in cooking than in farming and had taken Home Economics rather than Vocational Agriculture.
Following the lady’s instructions, he went to Walton High School Monday morning, and after being interviewed there, he was hired. The school system sent him to various training sessions that prepared him for a career in New York City school food services – the job he worked until he retired.
Music opportunities in New York City’s Harlem seemed to find Floyd without his looking for them. The leader of the Jimmy Smith Singers came up to him and asked him if he could sing.
“Oh, yeah, I sing,” Floyd replied, adding, “I’ve got a friend who sings, too.”
“Bring him along,” the leader told him. The friend was one he grew up with in Pell City, and he and Floyd had connected again in New York. The two young men rehearsed and sang with the Jimmy Smith Singers for a while.
“But it was still like something was missing,” he said. His mama’s words, “You’re not gonna play just anything and everything” no doubt hummed in his mind along with sacred memories of Rocky Zion and Rev. Woods.
Floyd and Evelyn Waites
“The pianist for the Jimmy Smith Singers was playing for a church in my Harlem neighborhood, and he said to me, ‘Floyd, why don’t you come to my church? I play up here at The Gates of Prayer Church. There’s a lady that’s pastor of the church, and her name is Prophetess Dolly Lewis.’ I said, ‘I don’t live too far from there. Maybe I’ll come one Sunday.’”
Not too long after that invitation, Floyd attended The Gates of Prayer Church, and there, by God’s providence, he found his spiritual calling.
Living close to the church, he walked to the service, and as he got closer to the sanctuary, the organ’s chords and crescendos urged him onward. He opened the church door and looking up to the pulpit, he saw a woman dressed in gleaming white looking out over the assembling congregation – Prophetess Dolly Lewis.
Floyd remembers the day. “She looked directly at me and says, ‘Come on in. Go over there and sit down at the piano.’ I must have looked funny, because she said, ‘Yeah, you can play, and you can sing.’ Now, nobody in New York had heard me play, and I wondered, ‘How did this lady know this?’ But I never did ask her.”
From that Sunday, Floyd played piano and sang at The Gates of Prayer Church under the guidance of Prophetess Lewis.
When she went to other cities, he traveled with her to play piano at her preaching services. For one who had never flown, an added excitement was flying to and from these destinations. On these trips, she also held private sessions in her hotel room, and people would be lined up to get messages from her. “A word from the Lord” in today’s Pentecostal parlance.
Prophetess Lewis introduced Floyd to two famous gospel singers – Marie Knight and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. He enjoys recalling those singers. “One Sunday, this lady walked into the church, and everybody looked around. Prophetess Lewis looked at the newcomer and said, ‘Come on up, Marie Knight.’ She was a professional singer, and she would travel all around with this other lady, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Rosetta was an electric guitar player.” He paused, smiling, “Oh, she could lean back on that guitar and play.”
Godmother of Rock ‘N Roll
Rosetta Tharpe was born in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, in 1915 to Katie Bell and Willis Atkins. Katie Bell played the mandolin, sang, and preached as a Pentecostal evangelist, according to the online Encyclopedia Britanica. She began playing guitar at age four and at age six she traveled and sang with her mother.
After moving to Chicago, she developed her own guitar style under the influence of Chicago’s blues and jazz musicians. When she moved to New York City in the 1930s, “…She sang traditional gospel songs with contemporary jazz tempos that she played on her electric guitar. With these performances, she introduced gospel into nightclubs and concert venues. Her work influenced early rock and rollers such as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Elvis Presley.” She came to be called the “Godmother of Rock and Roll” and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
The ‘Voice’
Marie Knight, born in Florida in 1920 or 1925, depending on the source, grew up in Newark, New Jersey. According to the online African American Registry (AAREG), Marie started touring in 1939. Sometime in the 1940s, she performed at the Golden Gate Auditorium in Harlem along with Mahalia Jackson.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe attended that concert and “…recognized something special in Marie’s contralto voice.” Rosetta invited Marie to tour with her, and they performed as a team for several years. Sister Rosetta and Marie’s 1947 recording of Up above My Head There’s Music in the Air reached number 6 on the Billboard chart in 1948. Marie sang both Gospel and Rock and Roll, but in her later years sang only Gospel.
When Marie Knight moved back to New York City, she began attending Dolly Lewis’ Gates of Prayer Church, where she organized the choir. Floyd was the pianist and his friend from Pell city the organist. “So, we started playing for Marie,” Floyd smiled. “I’ve got albums that I’m playing for Marie.” He lowered his voice to a baritone before saying, “She had a voice!”
When Marie began planning another tour, she came to Floyd and said, “How would you like to travel to Europe with me?” Floyd laughs as he tells it. “I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that!’ ‘Well, you’re gonna get paid,’ she told me. So, I said, ‘We’ll have to ask Mama.’ That’s what we called Pastor Dolly Lewis.”
Floyd asked Lewis’ advice, and after consideration, she agreed for him to travel with Marie, and assured him, “I’m gonna make sure she pays you, cause she’s kind of close with money.”
Floyd flew with Marie Knight and her entourage to Paris. Landing at the Charles De Gaulle Airport, they were met with the concert tour officials who took them to their lodgings for the night. From Paris they traveled to a city in southern France, whose name Floyd could not recall. From that city, Marie, accompanied by Floyd at the piano, gave concerts in various locations.
Then, it was on to San Sebastian, Spain, for the concluding few weeks of Marie’s tour. Then back to New York City.
“From that day,” Floyd recalls with pleasure, “Marie was happy to have me with her. But she paid,” he laughed. “Those hundred-dollar bills smelled good! And I kept on playing for her.”
Floyd met his future wife, Evelyn Keith, at Gates of Prayer Church. Evelyn grew up in Childersburg, so they had mutual connections back home. She was a singer, so she and Floyd sang together at whichever church he played for. They had one son, Kenny.
Floyd continued playing piano for Prophetess Dolly Lewis at Gates of Prayer Church until she died. When Lewis died, Marie Knight – now singing only Gospel – became pastor of Gates of Prayer. Floyd played piano at the church until Marie died in 2009 from pneumonia complications.
The Waites were on vacation in Alabama when Marie passed, Floyd relates. “They got in contact with me while my wife and I were down here on vacation, and we rushed back to New York.” When asked if he played piano for her service, Floyd responded, “I didn’t do too much playing, but I did sing some of the songs that she had sung, and I had played for her down through the years.”
Floyd also directed the choir in singing one of Marie’s best known Gospel recordings, Didn’t It Rain.
Dual roles
Most of the years that Floyd played piano at Gates of Prayer, he also played for another nearby church, Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion Church. “I was playing at Hood Memorial all along, because it was on a different time schedule for that church … And it was just around the corner from Gates of Prayer. I played the piano for them for years. And I played organ for them, too, because I had gotten into playing the organ. I played for the choirs – they had a nice senior choir that sang anthems,” Floyd paused, then added, “It was a fairly big church.”
Greater Hood Memorial is historic in Black churches in America. Established in 1824 as Harlem AME Zion, this oldest Black church in Harlem has survived economic downturns (the Great Depression put them in dire financial circumstances), several relocations and a few name changes. But it has survived with Sunday services continuing for 200 years.
Having reached retirement age, Floyd supervised his last school lunch, played his last Sunday service in Harlem, packed his belongings and returned to the place called home, Pell City, Alabama.
Floyd relates how he and Evelyn came to Pell City every year for the month of August to visit relatives and churches in the area. They always visited Coosa Valley Baptist Church in Vincent where Rev. Willie Joe Posey was pastor.
Floyd in France at the Bosendorfer piano
“He would always tell me, when me and my wife would come down from New York, ‘Floyd, come on up here and sing, you and your wife,’ and we’d go up and sing for him. And he’d say, ‘Y’all see that man there? If he ever decides to come outta New York City, I want him right there,’ and he’d point to the piano.”
Today, Floyd is the full-time pianist at Coosa Valley Baptist where Rev. Posey still pastors. However, he ministers alone, for Evelyn died while they were living in New York. “I’ve been with Rev. Posey ever since I came back home to live,” Floyd muses quietly.
“I don’t charge them at the church, but Rev. Posey told me, ‘Oh no, you have to accept something, because people know how good you play and sing, they gonna take you away from us. The church will have to give you something. We don’t want you to leave us.’ So, I said, ‘Well, just sometime give me a love offering, but I don’t expect to be on salary. I don’t charge anything.’ So, every third Sunday, they give me a love offering, and I accept it.”
Rev. Posey has pastored the church for 48 years, and speaks highly of Floyd. “He has proven himself a believer in God and Christ. He’s a faithful man. He’s true to his word. … When he was in New York, I told him when he moved back here, he had a place (at our church), and he’s been with me.” Rev. Posey also noted the beautiful vocal harmony when Floyd and Evelyn sang together at the church.
In the community, Floyd is frequently asked to play for revivals, funerals and special events. At the 2024 Black History event at the Pell City Museum, he was one of the featured musicians of the day.
Many in the community call him “Uncle Floyd,” as did Amelia Beavers when she was asked for a comment. “There are so many things that I could say about Uncle Floyd, but the best thing is that he loves the Lord, and he loves people. He helps throughout his community any way that he can.
“If a loved one dies, he is willing to come to play and sing for the family. He has been a jewel of a friend coming back home to live. He is a beautiful asset to our community. I pray for him many years of serving the Lord and his community. All you have to do is ask and if he does not have another engagement, he is more than willing to accommodate.”
Floyd and Evelyn’s son, Kenny, lives in Childersburg, so Floyd is active in his life and the lives of his four grandchildren – two girls and two boys.
How would he like to be remembered? “I’d just like to be remembered as using the gifts that the Lord has given to me. If I was called to do something, it wasn’t for reimbursement. I thank God for the gift, and I thank Him that He allowed me to use it … It’s a gift that He has given, and I just want to give back.”
As a child and as an adolescent in Pell City, music captivated Floyd Waites and has held him fast all his years. One of the songs he played for Marie Knight was the traditional song Up Above My Head, and the lyrics are true for Floyd –
Up above my head, there’s music in the air Up above my head there’s music in the air, Up above my head there’s music in the air, And I really do know, Yes I really do know, There’s a heaven somewhere.
So, Floyd Waites, keep on playing and singing “for the Lord” and sharing your God-given gifts, for without a doubt, you enrich the music life of Pell City and St. Clair County. l
In an open field of tall grass, mud puddles and woods all around, three dedicated physical therapists meet on a Sunday afternoon miles away from the clinics where they work all week long.
Intertwined with the disciplined calls of hunting dogs, they discover solace in a shared passion. Well beyond their clinic walls, where muscles are mended and limbs rehabilitated, they embark on a journey into the wilderness.
It is here in the shadow of towering pines with five dogs among them, they train for the thrill of the hunt, forging an unspoken bond – not just with nature, but with each other. The scene is a powerful testament to their dual passions.
Tyler takes a shot
The sun peeks through a scattering of clouds, illuminating a scene in which they all have played a central role dozens of times before. They’re training for their next big bird hunt.
Their journey together has taken them far away from the St. Clair County clinics of Therapy South, where they work. Their hunts have taken them to Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan and Oklahoma so far.
“We train out here,” said Tyler McGrady, motioning toward the field and woods that are part of the 70 acres he and his family own just north of Pell City. Wild birds are not as plentiful in the South as in other parts of the country, which necessitates the travel. But they don’t seem to mind. It simply brings them closer together.
Tyler readily shares his land with fellow PTs, Cade Mullins and Luke Brasher. Tyler is a partner in Therapy South, and he oversees the clinics in Pell City and Springville, where Mullins and Brasher work.
Cade, Covey and Coosa
They joke that bird hunting isn’t a prerequisite for getting hired, it just happened that they all share the same after-hours sport.
On the job, you’ll find them bantering back and forth as they apply their healing touch to patients. The camaraderie is infectious. In an instant, patients join in the conversations about dogs, hunting and the great outdoors, perhaps helping them forget the pain and rise above their own physical limits, if only for a moment.
Tyler calls it “good-spirited ribbing.” A former baseball player at Jacksonville State University, he noted that all three of them are former college athletes and “too much time in the locker room” may be the catalyst for their approach in the clinic and on the hunt.
Luke, who played football at UAB, agreed. “We miss the time spent with teammates,” he said. Mullins played baseball at Delta State. “It gives us a deeper sense of teamwork,” added Tyler.
Once on the hunt, the teamwork becomes man and dog. The pride in each of their ‘best friends’ is evident. Tyler’s Maverick and Charlie are German Short Haired Pointers, whose grace and ability blend perfectly in pointing or hunting quail.
Cade’s Covey and Coosa are Wire Haired Pointing Griffons, whose loping gallop through a mud puddle or two, seems natural for a breed with an insular coat and webbed toes. Griffons love the water, and on this day, Covey’s penchant for puddles shows.
Luke and Duke
The pup of the bunch, an English Setter named Duke, belongs to Luke, who he is training himself. As he watches Duke circling through the tall grass – nose up to catch a whiff of a downed bird – Luke’s watchful eye has the noticeable glint of a proud Papa. After all, their dogs are family.
“My wife loves dogs,” Cade said. “They sleep in the bed with us.”
Tyler’s wife is “super understanding” about his past time, he said, and they’ve just added to their brood – a pup named Goose. His daughters, Brooke and Maggie, make it a family affair. They’ve developed a passion for assisting in training the dogs.
Luke’s wife didn’t really want a dog, he said. “Now she takes 20 pictures a day of him because she loves him that much.”
The three of them muse about the rewards reaped from their training and their hunts. “It’s your relationship with your dog. Your dog is your best friend,” said Tyler. “When you see what they were born and bred to do, when it all comes together in the field, it’s pretty cool to watch.” You’re able to turn off the outside world. “You’re in the prairie in the middle of nowhere with your dog.”
Cade loves “getting out and enjoying creation. Every time you go out, you pick something that stands out – a dog pointing – it points back to creation, this awesome place created for us.”
“It’s fun walking through the Lord’s creation,” said Luke. “It’s cool to see something that is innate in their nature – pointing and finding a bird.”
It allows you to become “disconnected from the world,” Tyler concluded.
They all have a healthy respect for Tyler’s dog, Maverick. Describing him as a stud with a championship bloodline, Luke noted, “If Maverick doesn’t point, there’s not a bird there. He’s pretty much a sure shot.”
How did they arrive at this place of solace and excitement entwined?
Duke standing behind grass
Tyler already had a dog when he got into bird hunting, encouraged by another physical therapist, Daniel Eck, who works in Therapy South’s Florence clinic. The two had played ball together in college. He’s been hunting ever since.
Cade grew up deer and turkey hunting on the family farm near Lake Martin. “I got tired of picking up birds and said, ‘Let’s get dogs and do this.’ ”
For Luke, the fascination began when he was 9. A neighbor had Brittany and Boykin Spaniels involved in field trials, and he would take him along. He strayed away from the sport for years, but Cade and Tyler “nagged that I needed a bird dog. It was the only way to be in the crew. So, I gave into peer pressure,” he joked, “but it was worth it.”
It’s all about the relationship with the dog and the excitement of anticipating what is to come, Tyler explained. In a world of otherwise instant information, “It’s the hope of what could be. You never know what the difference is going to be.”
