Welding to Work

Jefferson State
creating new opportunities for
single mothers

Story and photos by Graham Hadley

Jefferson State Community College is stepping up its workforce-development efforts with new classes to help train single mothers to become welders.

Over the past few years, Jeff State in Pell City, working with organizations like the St. Clair Economic Development Council, Pell City and St. Clair school systems, and businesses like Garrison Steel, Ford Meterbox and Goodgame Company, has been focusing on workforce development.

Their efforts are helping to train people in skill sets like welding, plumbing and metal fabrication, giving students greater career and earning potential while meeting the critical needs for those skills by businesses.

These classes are not only helping meet the growing demand for those skills, but also dramatically increasing the job options for local residents of all ages.

Their latest classes are no exception.

Students who take the class are eligible to receive their entry-level certification in welding and combines both hands-on training with traditional instruction that cover everything from math to how to use the technical measuring equipment necessary for their new careers, said Danny Taylor, the welding instructor for the program.

For local industries and businesses considering locating in St. Clair, it means a better-trained workforce. For the single mothers, it means a whole new world of employment opportunities.

Several of the 10 students in the class said they first heard about the opportunity through their children’s daycare or school.

“My daughter goes to Head Start. They had a newsletter up for moms who are single to take these classes,” said Sherry Johnson during a break in welding training.

“I was in the Army, and loved it,” she said, but found her employment options limited when she got out. “I saw this as a reboot. I am one of those types, I think anything a man can do, I can do. I am loving this class — it is challenging and not without its issues, but I love it.”

She has two children and sees that the skill set she is receiving now will allow her to better provide for them.

“My own personal plan is to start at an entry-level position, then I want to go back to take more classes to get more certification.”

Amber Moten, who says she is the only left-handed welder in the class, also learned about it through St. Clair Head Start and saw the classes as a good opportunity and a good fit for her.

“My Dad is a welder, and you don’t hear about many girl welders. I wanted to show my girls we could do this. It’s a career as opposed to a job. I love it and look forward to class every day.

“It can be challenging and frustrating — and I love that. I like a challenge,” she said.

Moten, who is currently working as a waitress, said there is a big difference between her current job and what she is learning to do: “I wake up every morning and have to force myself to go to work. I wake up Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when we have class; I have my coffee and am ready to go.”

Looking out at the working world, Moten said she sees a career in welding as proving more opportunities for steady employment.

“As a waiter, you are living day-to-day. As a welder, you are not just living, it’s a career. … I want to go as high as I can go. I want to be able to obtain the best career I can.”

Balancing classes, work and family is a challenge, but the students said it is well worth it, and not just for them.

“It’s empowering. … It has helped me be a better mother, to teach my girls not to doubt themselves. It has made me feel better about myself in all ways,” Moten said.

Krystin Whidden said she learned about the class through her child’s preschool, and like the others, she sees this as a path to a long-term career and a better life for herself and her family.

She currently works part time baby-sitting, but has no full-time job, and is quick to point out that the income level for welders is significantly better than what most entry-level minimum-wage jobs pay.

And like the others, she says she is not the only one directly benefitting from the classes.

“It’s a big challenge keeping family time and class time — you have a lot of homework when you would normally spend time with your kids,” she said, but added that between the example she is setting for her family and the improvement in quality of life down the road, it is well worth the effort.

“My kids have seen me struggle with homework and still stick with it. It shows them you can make it happen if you truly try. Before this, I never thought they would see me as a role model. It was a shock to me to be able to do this,” she said.

“This is a dream come true for me.”

 

Lady Panthers Basketball 1988

Thirty years after remarkable state championship basketball run,
Lady Panthers still winning – at life

Story by Paul South
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.
and Melissa Purvis McClain

When Larry Slater arrived at Pell City High School from Lawrence County in 1987, the Lady Panthers were mired in a girls’ basketball backwater.

“They had a token program at best,” Slater said. “I think they had only played like 10 games the year before. They had a team just to meet the requirements of Title IX – barely.”

In a single season, all that changed. Slater and a group of young ladies with a blue-collar work ethic that mirrored their hometown transformed the Lady Panthers from patsy to powerhouse.

You could call it the “Mill Town Miracle.”

Thirty years later, the 1988 5A State Champions are still winning, as successful in life as they were on the court.

And looking back, some call it “amazing,” others compare it to a fairy tale. But Tonya Tice Peoples, who came to Pell City from Lawrence County when her Dad, Mike Tice, became Pell City’s head football coach and hired Slater as the girls’ hoops coach, puts it more simply:

“… There were no individuals. That’s why the bond is what it is. You can be on a team but not really experience team. If you are ever on a team, and you experience team, you’ll never forget it.”

“There’s a difference, being on a team and actually being able to experience experiencing team. That’s when you don’t have people who are so individual and want to make it about themselves. That’s what I’d want people to know about our team,” she said.

There is so much more to know. From the first day Slater came to Pell City, his new players learned quickly that there was a new sheriff in town. And Slater learned something about his players. He had coached Tice Peoples and Danielle Fields Frye in AAU summer leagues, but everything else was unknown.

“I knew going in that I had two really good ballplayers – Danielle and Tonya – and then the rest was just astonishing, as far as the girls and their hunger for basketball and willingness to work, and everything was amazing.”

And his girls from the blue-collar town were ready to work. Slater, who began as a teacher at the middle school, found that out right away.

 “The Pell City kids would come from the high school to the middle school where I was, and the kids would yell, ‘Hey Coach, are you going to open the gym tonight? ‘And I thought, “Man, I’ve died and gone to heaven. That’s how it started.”

The gates to Slater’s basketball heaven opened earlier. The preceding summer, he opened the gym daily, so the girls could shoot. The road to a state title began there. In those grueling practices, in summer and throughout the season, the light began to come on for the Lady Panthers, said Melissa Purvis McClain.

“To be honest, it was Coach Slater. We were all like sponges when it came to him and his instruction and his philosophy and his game plan. We began to see that if we execute his game plan we will do this. I think for a lot of the players who had already been there, they finally had someone who believed in them and who pushed them. I was not only learning his ways and his philosophy, I was learning the game of basketball at the same time,” Purvis McClain said.

The gym would be open, and players would stay late, working on their game. It was a demanding regimen, executing a run-and-gun Loyola-Marymount-style offense and a relentlessly-pressing Big 10-style defense. But from day one, the players – starving to win – embraced the new coach and his style.

“It was all about making us better people and better players. A lot of it was him. He was hard on us. He demanded excellence, and if you didn’t deliver it, we ran for it. It was just gradually building confidence that we could go out there and win games.”

And win games they did, a new sensation for the Lady Panthers, said Danielle Fields Frye. She had played in two of the lean seasons before Slater’s arrival

“Pell City Girls Basketball had never had a winning season, to the point where what our team did,” Frye said. “We had a few wins here or there, but no one ever considered us much of a threat. We came from nowhere.”

At that time, the universe of prep girls’ basketball in Alabama consisted of Hartselle, Sylacauga, Athens, schools in the big cities like Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery and Huntsville.

“For us, we literally came from out of nowhere,” Frye said. ‘It was like (the movie) Hoosiers.”

By the numbers, the Lady Panthers went 26-1 in 1987-88, including three wins over rival Sylacauga, the Aggies only losses of the year.

And the greatest win, the one grown folks still talk about in Pell City, came over a girls’ basketball machine, the nationally-ranked Hartselle Lady Tigers in the state title game. Hartselle had won 62 straight games from 1984-86. Compounding the drama: Slater’s daughter Jeanice was a starter for Hartselle.

“The publicity was unreal as far as Jeanice and I playing against each other in the championship game,” Slater said. “It was packed for the first time ever.”

Panther fans had an admonition for their coach, because of his family tie.

“Some of ‘em would say, ‘Now Coach, we know you love your little girl, but you have an obligation to these girls,’” Slater said with a laugh.

And as hard as the Lady Panthers worked, there was also a team chemistry that went beyond the gym – trips to KFC, movie nights, and so on. The team was a unit. And, they also possessed a twinkle of mischief.

A few days before the Final Four, an unhappy Slater bounced his starters from practice.

“We went and got some toilet paper and started rolling Coach’s car,” Tice Peoples remembered. “A police officer came up. We got scared, but she told us we weren’t doing it right. She helped us roll the car.”

That was just one example of a town’s embrace of a team. Townspeople raised money to support the team and bought team gear. Lady Panther Basketball sweatshirts were a hot item in shops where storefronts were painted black and gold. It was that way all the way to the finals.

 

The Championship Game

The Lady Panthers trailed by two and had the ball. As Tice Peoples moved up the floor, she looked to the sidelines to get Slater’s instruction. The arena at Calhoun Community College in Decatur was jammed with a standing-room-only crowd. Even 30 years on, Slater and his players recalled the breathtaking details of those closing seconds.

A Hartselle defender knocked the ball away from behind but was quickly fouled by Pell City’s April Hughes with 8.3 seconds left. The Tiger player had entered the game with 1:38 left, replacing Jeanice Slater, who had fouled out. Pell City’s coach called a time out to ice the shooter, who went to the line to shoot a one and one.

Slater then called a familiar play: “Sideline break, make or miss, with Tonya shooting the three.” It was a play the Lady Panthers practiced nearly every day.

The Hartselle shooter missed. And Danielle Fields Frye grabbed the rebound.

“I really didn’t have to fight for it,” Frye said of her big board. She passed the ball quickly to Tice Peoples. Hartselle crowded the lane, expecting the talented guard to drive to the basket. Instead, she stopped to the right of the key, outside the three-point line and drilled the shot, giving Pell City the lead with four seconds left.

A stunned Tiger team failed to call a time out. Precious seconds drained from the clock. And the Panthers’ astonishing run was complete. Final score: 77-76, Lady Panthers. Keep in mind, Pell City trailed by 15 in the third quarter.

Thirty years later, Tice Peoples’ only remembered emotion heading into the game-winning bucket was anger at giving up a turnover.

“He looks right at me and says, ‘You’re going to shoot the three. You’re going to take the shot,’” she said. “I wasn’t nervous, because I was still mad about what had happened.” So, I was ready to make a play mentally. I just was hoping she didn’t make the shot. Everybody just did their job. We had practiced it. Everybody was underneath in case I did miss it, and it goes in.”

History made. The Pell City High School Lady Panthers were champions, the school’s first state title team in the history of the AHSAA playoff format in any sport. But Slater believes the upset win meant more than a championship for one school. It was a landmark win in the history of girls’ prep sports in Alabama, a state that at one-time prohibited girls’ sports.

“Some people don’t like for me to say it, but I’m going to say it anyway,” Slater said. “It really helped launch girls’ basketball in the state of Alabama.”

 

Still Winners

The years have flown like a Lady Panther fast break. Some of the Lady Panthers went on to play college basketball at Auburn, Alabama, Troy, the University of Montevallo and Columbus College. Slater went on after two sparkling years at Pell City to become a successful junior college coach at Wallace-Hanceville, recruiting some of his former Pell City stars along the way.

Like Slater, Tonya Tice Peoples became a teacher and coach. After working in NASCAR, Danielle Fields Frye is director of community engagement for the United States Auto Club (USAC) and lives with her husband and two daughters outside Indianapolis. Melissa Purvis McClain is an engineer. Erica Collins Johnson, like McClain, is still in Pell City. Alicia Moss Ogletree and Kathy Vaughn – a distinguished military veteran — are still in the area as well. April Hughes is in the fashion industry in New York.

Sadly, one beloved teammate, Nikki Golden, passed away a few years after the fairy tale season. Collins-Johnson’s Mom Alice, one of the team’s most devoted fans, died a few months after the championship.

Slater has kept up with them all. And they with him. Many of his former players say he was “a second Dad.” He’s followed them through their lives and now keeps up with their children. If he had to sum up his team after 30 years, he said, it’s about more than basketball. And that’s the way he wanted it all along.

“They were not to be denied,” he said. “They wanted to play the game. And they wanted to be good at the game. I think that last ballgame just showed the sheer determination of that team. Not just one person. It was April Hughes committing the foul. It was Danielle getting the rebound on the missed free throw. Tonya making the shot. It’s unreal what the kids accomplished – then and now.”

Canoe Creek Park

New park haven for anglers, boaters, vacationers on Neely Henry

Story by Paul South
Photos by Carol Pappas

Though decades have sped by since Jeff Brown’s boyhood growing up near Neely Henry Lake, his memories are as fresh as a newly-baked biscuit, or freshly-caught crappie squirming on a line.

“It’s been a marina forever,” Brown said. “When I was a kid, I remember running home from school, jumping in the boat and trying to catch some fish,” Brown, now a St. Clair County commissioner, said. But fishing for crappie and striped bass were only part of what hooked Brown on Neely Henry.

His voice cracked with emotion as he recalled camping with family near the lake. “I still remember my Mama making gravy and biscuits when we would be in our camper out there,” Brown said. “I’ve got a lot of great memories there.”

After investing more than $1 million to build the new Canoe Creek Boat Launch on Neely Henry, St. Clair County hopes to create a new batch of precious memories for current and future generations.

For many years, the launch was owned by Tom Willard, who eventually sold the facility to the county. For years, the county maintained the facility, until it learned of some grant funding available from the Alabama Department of Fish and Wildlife. In 2008-09, the county was awarded a $750,000 grant. The county came up with the additional funds.

“That got the ball rolling,” Brown said. The refurbished launch was unveiled last year.

“It’s a great facility,” Brown said. “We’ve got about 80 parking places for truck and trailer, 85 boat slips, four handicapped accessible slips, a floating dock you can put boats under in inclement weather, two fantastic docks, three lanes wide, to launch a boat from… In 2019, they are going to lower the water some, and the state is going to come in and add another 30 feet to the existing ramps. You’ll be able to launch in any kind of water then, whether it’s up or down. It’s been a great project.

“There’s also room for fishing off the banks of the lake. You can carry the kids down there and sit on the rocks and fish. It’s a very productive place to fish,” Brown said.

That productivity – waters teeming with bass and crappie – won’t only lure beginning anglers, but the county hopes some of the best fishermen in the world will come to Neely Henry for competitive fishing tournaments. In fact, tournaments may be a part of life at the new launch as early as this summer.

“It’s one of the targets I’d like to see it reach,” Brown said. “I’ve had people contact me already about holding bass tournaments and crappie-thons. I think it’s coming together quickly.”

Public and private efforts on the waters of St. Clair County like the new launch, kayaking, camping and cycling areas, picnic areas and new lakefront residential development, are helping transform the county into a hotspot for environmental tourism, from Logan Martin to Neely Henry, from Canoe Creek to Chandler Mountain.

Gene Phifer, president of the Neely Henry Lake Association, said the new launch has created a positive buzz.

“We have been down there and kept track of the progress. As far as being a functional, nice boat launch, it’s fully functional. There is a lot of excitement about it. It’s a beautiful facility.”

Brown agrees. “It’s a tremendous draw. Pleasure boating is a big thing on our lake,” Brown said. “You can’t just put a pontoon in any water. You have to have a good ramp and good water.”

The Canoe Creek Boat Launch project is close to Brown’s heart. He hopes the place will become special to visitors and locals alike. His own family camped at Evans Marina, only three miles from the new launch.

“I’m teared-up now,” Brown said. “Good times are hard to beat. I have a lot of good memories. I remember waking up to my Mama’s breakfast cooking. And we had fried crappie for supper a lot of times.”

As for the future of the launch and Neely Henry Lake, Brown is optimistic.

“I just see it continuing to grow. Growth is great as long as it’s done right, and that’s been the case with the private sector and with the county commission and the store owners,” Brown said. “It’s got to help Etowah County and Ragland, too. That’s what I love about the launch. It’s reaching out to a lot of different areas.”

Kelley Taft, engineer on the project, couldn’t agree more. She noted that the design “highlights the quiet lake community as a fishing asset. The marina is ADA compliant and creates inclusive access for people with a range of abilities. County Engineer Dan Dahlke and his staff did an amazing job implementing the design with skilled county construction crews.”

Brown is as clear as the lake water when he talks about the growth on Neely Henry. It’s about being a good neighbor to locals and tourists alike.

 “I want to grow in a way that the neighbors are proud of it. I don’t want to be the new kid on the block that runs the neighbors off. I want the neighbors to say, ‘Wow, look at what we’ve got.’”

Gone Fishing

Expert anglers reveal their
favorite fishing spots

Story by Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted Photos

Few things in life are as secretive as people who fish often. Seriously, getting a fisherman – or fisherwoman – to give their closely-guarded secrets is like trying to track the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa.

However, in this issue of Discover St. Clair, a handful of local fishing experts are divulging their secret fishing holes on Logan Martin, Henry Neely and the Coosa River for the first time in recorded history (may be an exaggeration, if only slight one). Many of them will even tell you about the gear they use to catch fish after fish in our area. Take notes, people.

Zeke Gossett

A former standout for the Pell City High School fishing team and current star on the Jefferson State team, Zeke Gossett is familiar with many areas of Logan Martin but finds particular success fishing the back half of Rabbit Branch Creek in the spring and early summer months.

“There’s just a great population out there. It has a lot of good clay points, with shallower banks,” says Gossett.

The area is really successful for him in April and May due to the abundance of docks. “There are a lot of fish coming off the bank, and they like to hang out around those floating peers, so I really like fishing close to the docks in April, especially when it’s sunny outside.”

Gossett also says he really enjoys fishing in the Shoal Creek area on Neely Henry Lake during the spring, especially on the lower end near the dam. However, he says he adjusts his approach depending on Alabama Power’s generator schedule.

“When the water is running on that lake, and I’m going to fish up the lake around the City Dock area up around Gadsden, I would like current toward the bottom end of the lake,” he explains. “It helps, but I don’t need it as much as I do up the river.

“When you go up the river, it turns into a skinnier river about 100 yards across and not even that in some areas,” he adds. “So, current is a big must up the river, that time of year especially.”

Hayden Bartee

Gossett’s partner on the Jefferson State fishing team, Hayden Bartee, is another young and talented competitive angler with loads of experience fishing on area lakes.

Discussing his favorite locations during the first warm stretch of the year in mid-February, Bartee says Cropwell Creek near the city baseball fields has been a productive spot for him as of late.

“It’s been pretty good here the past couple of weeks,” says Bartee. “I caught a big fish out there a couple of weeks ago, and there’s always a good population of bait fish as well as bass.”

Bartee says that area of Logan Martin is great for sight fishing when the water is clear. In this situation, he uses a bait by Big Bite Baits called the Warmouth on a 7’4 Heavy Duce rod. Bartee also says the grassy areas around Riverside can be productive and has a certain technique that he uses when fishing that area. “You can catch them on a swimming jig,” he explains. “I’ll throw a Big Bite Baits swimming crawl as a trailer for my swim jig with Vicious 60-pound no-fade braid on my 7’4 heavy Duce. That’s another good way to catch them, especially this time of year.”

Joey Nania

A fixture on the BASSMASTER professional angler circuit since 2011, Pell City resident Joey Nania is well-acquainted with the ins and outs of Logan Martin and Neely Henry. Nania also operates his own fishing guide service and has fished in almost every nook and cranny in the area, and says spring is a great time find fish in shallow spots on Neely Henry.

“The key in the spring is the fish are going to be shallow, and so fishing in the grass is important,” Nania says.

“Canoe Creek has a lot of fish that live in it,” he adds. “You go to the back of Canoe Creek, and there’s a ton of grass and a lot of docks, and that can be really good fishing in the backs of the shallow pockets.”

Nania says he prefers to fish in areas on Neely Henry that aren’t disturbed by the currents caused by the generators near the dam. “The backs of the creeks and the shallow fishing areas aren’t really affected as much if the water level stays stable, and they don’t suck the water out and drop the water out of the grass,” Nania says.

While he doesn’t want to give up too much information, Nania will say the hard bottom areas of Logan Martin are good spots to find bass. “A lot of those main lake bluffs are really good,” he says. “Finding hard bottom is really important, like roadbeds, gravel humps, that kind of thing.”

When operating his guide service, Nania takes people all over both Neely Henry and Logan Martin and says his clients are more successful when paying attention to fish behaviors rather than focusing on locations. “People want to learn different patterns, and learning patterns is really more important than individual spots,” Nania says.

Robbey Stanford

A member of the Iron City Kayak Anglers, Robbey Stanford gets a different view of the lakes, creeks and streams in the area. A resident of the Liberty Park community in Vestavia Hills, Stanford’s mother-in-law lives in Riverside, which is where he likes to take his kayak into places the big boats can’t reach.

“I love to fish a lot of the creeks that run into the Coosa River,” Stanford says. “I like to take my kayak up there and paddle into some of those back waters.

“The great thing about fishing in a kayak is you get to go where the bass boats aren’t,” adds Stanford. “It’s just a whole different angle of fishing.”

While fishing from a kayak provides anglers with an unprecedented level of maneuverability, Stanford cautions that safety must be a concern, especially for a newcomer to kayak fishing. “The main thing is always wear your life jacket. It’s not like regular fishing because you’re in a boat that can easily tip over and you can easily hit your head and drown,” he says. “I’ve seen it happen.”

Bre Wyatt

Former state champion with the Pell City High School fishing team and now a member of the Faulkner University Bass Fishing Team, Bre Wyatt is one of the first female anglers to earn a scholarship to fish in college. Whether fishing for fun or competition, Wyatt spends a lot of time on Neely Henry and Logan Martin and goes to those tried and true spots any time she’s fishing in the area.

I “have a stretch on Neely Henry about 800 yards long that’s like a rock with docks on it,” Wyatt says, “and we go there every time we fish.”

Wyatt says she likes to fish in the grassy areas around Riverside, as well as near docks and old concrete bridges. She also likes brush piles and finds them to be a good source of bass depending on the current.

“On Logan Martin, if they’re running water, we’ll go upriver and fish the current with spinner baits,” she says. “Downriver, we fish mainly brush piles, but they’re scattered around, but right there in front of Lakeside (Landing) is always good, although that’s pretty much a community hole,” Wyatt says.

Curtis Gossett

Well-known in town as the head coach of the Pell City High School fishing team, Curtis Gossett has taught many young people not only how to fish, but to recognize where the fish are biting. One of his favorite spots to toss in a line is Cropwell Creek on Logan Martin. “We fish it from spring to summer,” Gossett says. “It’s an area that always holds fish.”

Gossett says he ventures over into the Talladega County side of Logan Martin regularly, particularly in the Stemley Bridge area, although good luck finding out exactly where, since he’s not even sure what many of these holes are called. “There are a lot of sloughs up through there that we fish that don’t really have a name,” he says.

 One spot that Gossett can point to with certainty is Poorhouse Creek, which he says can be very successful in the spring. “The fish move up into that shallow water to spawn and, on the other hand, it has good creek channels where, if we have a cool snap, they can drop back off to those channels,” Gossett says. “All that together equals some good fishing.”

As for Neely Henry, Gossett does have one spot near the dam. But ever the competitor, he’s not tipping his hand as to exactly where that spot is. “That’s one we don’t talk about much because we don’t want people flooding up there,” he says.

On a serious note, Gossett says some of those areas near the dam can be dangerous for even the most experienced anglers. “There are shoals all up in there, and we have seen people run up and just ruin boats and their motors,” he says. “It’s really bad in there. You have to know where to run or you’re going to be in trouble.”

Editor’s Note: Congratulations to the Pell City Panthers Fishing team for winning the first ASABFA Regional Qualifier at Lake Jordan for the 2018 season!

Local Joe’s

Eclectic business living up to its name

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

A man walked into Local Joe’s Trading Post near the Rainbow City/St. Clair County line one day and slammed his hand down on the countertop. “I just found out something about my wife,” he said, startling employees and customers alike. “For the past four years, she has not cooked turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving. She’s been buying it here. She even brings her own casserole dish for you to put the dressing in!”

While Jodie and Karen Stanfield, owners of Local Joe’s, don’t advocate trying to fool anyone, they are happy to supply smoked turkey breasts and all the accompanying fixings for Thanksgiving or Christmas. In fact, they serve smoked turkey, mouthwatering bakery goods, barbecue and four other meats, along with the traditional barbecue sides, all year ‘round. When you combine the food with all the locally-made items on their shelves, you come up with the smells and tastes of a barbecue joint and the feel of an old country store.

“We slow-smoke our turkey, chicken, ribs, pork butt, ham and sausage on site in cast iron smokers that were custom made by HBT Smokers in Guntersville,” says Jodie. “We do it Southern style, with no rotisserie, no fire beneath them and no additives.” He sells 500-600 four-pound turkey breasts every Thanksgiving to people like the anonymous wife above.

It will take all your willpower to pass by Local Joe’s without stopping for a bite when that pit smoke is floating on the breeze. If you could gain weight just by looking at sweets, you would be too big to waddle out after scanning the array of cookies, scones, cake balls and baked pies in the bakery case. While waiting on your order, you can browse through the general store section, with its wide-planked pine floors and walls covered in old-fashioned metal and wooden signs. That’s where you’ll find the local honey and produce, wine jellies and sauces, candles and kitchenware that gave Jodie the idea for the name of his store.

“We named it Local Joe’s because we buy from local-Joe farmers,” Jodie explains. “We buy their produce and homemade items. We also make some in-house products, like pimiento cheese from the hoop cheese we sell, and fried pork rinds.”

Karen rattles off a handful of local product examples, like the spiced peaches and hot crackers made by Smokehouse Crackers in Boaz, the Augustine Coffee that is ground in Etowah County, and the cheese straws made in Athens. They also buy seasonal plants such as poinsettias, mums and hanging baskets from the greenhouse of Rainbow Omega, a home for mentally and physically challenged adults in Talladega.

It becomes apparent that “locally” goes beyond the county line. Still, all except a few items are made in Alabama. Jodie likes to support small businesses, including Nancy’s Fudge Company in Meadows of Dan, Virginia.

Although the Stanfields opened Local Joe’s eight years ago, its history and general-store tradition date back to 1940. Henry Bowling built a two-bedroom house and operated a general merchandise store called H.D. Bowling’s Grocery out of it. He also had a barbershop there, charging 10 cents per haircut, and sold Shell gasoline at pumps in the front, according to his nephew, Henry Jester.

“My aunt told me that when they put the roof on the house, she had saved enough nickels in one year to pay for that roof,” Jester says. “My uncle also cut hair at Camp Siebert, a military base that was located down Pleasant Valley Road near Attalla during World War II. “His merchandise included barbed wire and nails.”

Jester says his uncle cut hair for many famous people at Camp Siebert, including boxer Joe Lewis and movie star Mickey Rooney. “Elvis stopped there at the store and drank a Coca-Cola when I was six or seven years old,” Jester recalls. “It was the year he got out of the army.”

Henry Bowling sold his business in the late 70s to Thomas Peterson, who renamed it Peterson’s. The Stanfields have their pecans cracked by Peterson’s widow. “We also buy from individual pecan orchards,” Jodie says.

Lead caterer Rebecca Killey and cashier Lori Shaw are responsible for the homey feel of Local Joe’s. Enamelware bowls and mugs, metal salt and pepper shakers, wire baskets and wooden signs with sayings such as “Sweet Home,” “Farm to Table” and “Farm Fresh Eggs” are displayed on shelves and hanging from the walls. Herbed soup and dip mixes are showcased in metal bins, and a photo of Lucile Ball as Lucy Ricardo rests on top of a Pepsi-Cola case. “We sell bottled soft drinks, and it’s cool watching a grandpa showing his grandchild how to open one,” says Jodie.

Two signs that bring on lots of giggles are, “Fanny’s Rest Stop, Eat Here and Get Gas,” along with a more modern proclamation, “What happens here will be posted on Facebook.” The large hoop cheese slicer is more than 100 years old and is still in use. Tshirts are sold bearing the outline of the state of Alabama, with the latitude and longitude of Rainbow City and Alexandria prominent, because there’s a Local Joe’s in each city.

The farmhouse decor includes a table lamp with an old-fashioned electric mixer and bowl at the base, and another one with a replica of a wringer washing machine. Everywhere you turn, there are iron pigs. A customer can buy anything off the walls or shelves, or Karen will refer them to its source. “All of our decor is for sale,” she says. “If it doesn’t sell, it remains as decor.”

The Stanfields employ 55 people at their two locations, including Executive Chef Damon Wynn, often found in the kitchen making Alabama Caviar (black-eyed peas and corn relish). Pit master and chef, Nathan Nolin, is Le Cordon Bleu Culinary-trained and is married to the baker, Hilary McMahon.

 McMahon bakes multiples of sweet treats almost every day, including Granny’s Baked Pies. Jodie’s Mom, aka Granny, used to bake the pies herself, and she helped Jodie establish the business. The recipes are a combination of Granny’s recipes and those of local customers. Flavors include apple, peach, blueberry, strawberry, coconut, pecan and s’mores. “They look and taste like the traditional Southern fried pies, but they are baked instead of fried,” Karen says. McMahon also makes a variety of scones, such as white chocolate, orange cranberry and chocolate chip, plus several types of cake balls.

“Damon prepares a Farm-to-Table Dinner using our facilities,” Jodie says. “He buys all his meat and produce locally, sells tickets, and holds them at different venues.” The next one will be at Local Joe’s on the new side porch that has just been built.

Along with adding the porch addition, the Stanfields have been knocking out walls for the past few months and making improvements to add to the customer experience. Most of the remodeling has been handled by Shane Elmore, aka Elmo, who owns S&K Home Improvement.

The tables where customers eat are made of barn wood by a friend, Steven Lang of Albertville, who also made the red planter boxes outside the store.

The former front bedroom of the old Bowling house is becoming a conference room with a six-foot diameter copper-topped table on a wrought-iron base that came from a former Greek restaurant in Homewood. Occasionally, you’ll find customers eating lunch in that room when a catering consultation is not in session.

As catering managers, Karen and JoAnna Duckett are responsible for the 60-plus weddings Local Joe’s caters each year. Because they have the use of the kitchens at both locations, it is not unusual for them to have three or four weddings or other large catering events per weekend.

“Our highly experienced catering staff love what they do, and it shows each and every time they serve anywhere,” Karen says. In the past few years, they have also catered four large community events: The Mayor’s Ball, which benefits the Boys and Girls Clubs of America; The Mardi Gras Magic Party, which benefits the Family Success Center; The Paws for St. Paddy’s, which benefits the local Humane Society Pet Rescue & Adoption Center; and The Girlfriend Gala, which benefits the Success by Six program in coordination with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. “We cater at various large manufacturing plants, which employ from 100 to 1,700 people,” states Jodie.

Often Jodie and Karen will have their staff make extra goodies when they cater an event, and serve those extras on Sample Saturday, a special, un-advertised event they hold periodically for loyal customers.

All of these services led to Jodie being named Alabama’s Small Business Person of the Year in 2017, which garnered the couple a free trip to D.C. and a meet-and-greet with the other 53 state winners from across the nation, along with President’s Trump’s SBA Director Linda McMahon, Vice President Mike Pence and First Daughter Ivanka Trump. Local Joe’s also was named the 2017 Retailer of the Year by the Retail Association of Alabama.

“We honestly and truly know where our blessings come from – and we are thankful that God has continued to bless Local Joe’s and allows us to pass on those blessings to our employees and the community,” Karen says. “We are in the people business, but food is what we do.”

 

A decoration for the nation

Pell City artist paints ornament for
national Christmas tree display

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.
Submitted photos

When the 95th annual National Christmas Tree Lighting display opened in Washington, D.C., in December, a little piece of Pell City was among the decorations.

That is because local artist Buddy Spradley had painted one of the ornaments.

Spradley’s work and that of 13 other artists from North and Central Alabama were selected to help decorate the state’s tree in President’s Park. According to the National Park Service, 56 Christmas trees – one for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories – showed their splendor in President’s Park from Dec. 1, 2017, through Jan. 1, 2018.

The effort to provide the dozen ornaments for the Alabama tree was coordinated by the Alabama State Council on the Arts and locally by Heritage Hall Museum in Talladega.

“It is our honor to decorate our home state tree and help the nation celebrate the holidays in one of our most recognizable parks,” said Valerie White, director of Heritage Hall Museum. “We are all excited to be part of the ‘America Celebrates’ display. It gives us an opportunity to show our pride in our state’s artistic talent, stunning natural wonders and vibrant cultural heritage.”

Spradley was excited too, in addition to “speechless, nervous, … thankful, honored.” He said he is “proud to represent Alabama to the U.S. in that way, through art.”

Spradley’s ornament depicts two waterfalls at Little River Canyon in Fort Payne. He chose Grace Falls as the main focus, with another Little River waterfall on the opposite side of the ornament.

Little River Canyon “has a special feeling to me,” he said. “(I’ve) always had a personal closeness to that area.”

Many times through the years, he has gone to Little River Canyon with his dad, nationally known watercolor artist Wayne Spradley of Pell City. The elder Spradley has painted Grace Falls in the past, a fact that influenced his son’s decision to feature it on the ornament.

“Now, he and I both have done Grace Falls,” said Buddy Spradley.

Although Spradley had not previously painted a spherical piece, he was able to complete the acrylic project in about two weeks during September 2017. He did confess, however, that holding the ornament and painting it at the same time presented quite a challenge. But duct tape saved the day. Spradley found that the center hole of a roll of duct tape made the perfect cradle for holding the ornament steady while he painted on it.

 

An artist’s early start

Spradley’s chance to help decorate a national Christmas tree through art really can be traced back 45 years when he won his first art competition at age 8. That piece was an abstract.

He grew up around art, watching his dad create wildlife scenes and landscapes that would gain national acclaim. In the early 1980s, his dad produced the artwork for the Alabama Waterfowl Stamp.

After Buddy Spradley graduated from Pell City High School, he put art aside and instead earned a mortuary science and forensics degree. For eight years, he worked at Kilgroe Funeral Home, with his uncle and aunt, Sonny (now deceased) and Jane Kilgroe. From the couple, Spradley learned much about respecting, serving and helping people. “That job did teach me compassion,” he said.

It was also during those years that he felt a calling to teach. To prepare for the career change, he studied graphic art and anthropology at Jacksonville State University, and then art education at the University of Alabama.

For two years in Anniston, followed by 18-plus years in Pell City Schools, Spradley taught art to “thousands of kids.”

During the years of teaching, his art mostly consisted of pieces he painted as classroom demonstrations for the students. His focus was on educating and encouraging his students, rather than producing his own pieces.

He called the job a “blessing,” saying he went to school each day with a smile and left with a smile. The time in between was spent trying to instill in every child a sense of success and accomplishment.

Dr. Micheal Barber, superintendent of Pell City Schools, described Spradley as a “wonderful artist and wonderful teacher. … He brings life into art.”

Barber said Spradley incorporated into art class what the students were learning in history, science and other subjects.

Spradley is retired from the classroom now and greatly misses teaching students. He still feels a deep sense of responsibility toward them.

“Teaching school was such an important, big part of my life. … You’ve got to behave yourself and be a good role model … in and out of school,” Spradley said. “Even though I’m retired, I feel like I’m still responsible for making a good impression.”

The Christmas tree in his living room at the time of Discover’s visit with Spradley gave evidence of the impact he has had upon many young lives. Decorations given by past students adorned the tree from top to bottom.

It is not uncommon for former students who are now adults to tell him, “I’ve still got the Christmas tree we did in art, and I put it up on the mantle every year.”

His own heritage of art has become one of his treasures. In fact, the art table he uses is the very first one that his father had … back in 1954. He also has, as a keepsake, a sizable stack of his dad’s art demonstration pieces.

Prior to retirement, Spradley’s life journey already had taken several significant turns. Among them were an emergency triple bypass at age 38 and the death of his mother, Pat, from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. Then, in September 2015, his journey took a path that made retiring necessary. Spradley was told he had gastric and esophageal cancer that was stage 3 – bordering on stage 4.

“I had less than a 9 percent chance of survival,” Spradley said. “… But I knew I was (going to make it). … Thank God, I had some of the most professional, caring doctors. They saved my life. My surgeon prayed with me before surgery. … They cared about my wellbeing and I am so thankful for that. I never would have survived without my family and my friends. Never.”

Spradley said his dad had always been “my rock,” but was even more so during that time. Also, aunts Jane Kilgroe and Jean Phillips were very caring and continue to be.

The chemotherapy treatment, which lasted a year, caused nausea, fatigue, neuropathy in his hands and loss of appetite. The neuropathy prevented Spradley from holding a paintbrush.

His determined dad devised a means for his son to return to painting. It involved inserting the brush handle into a small tube and taping the tube to his son’s finger. With such a setup, Buddy Spradley did not have to hold the brush, he only had to point his finger to paint.

It worked well and Buddy Spradley again was creating wildlife and landscape scenes and an occasional abstract. Painting, he discovered, helped to overcome the neuropathy.

On one particular day during the battle with cancer, Spradley stood at his kitchen window, looked out and prayed. He said he was about to start the next part of his life and asked God what He wanted Spradley to do.

Very soon, things started happening.

Almost overnight, Spradley felt a stronger commitment to art. He became “completely engulfed in my painting.”

Also, his skill reached a new level.

Wayne Spradley noticed a marked difference in his son’s artwork, especially in draftsmanship and execution. He saw his son’s abilities draw ever so close to perfection.

Then, came the invitation for Buddy Spradley to paint an ornament for a Christmas tree in the nation’s capitol.

“It was so unexpected,” Spradley said. “And it all goes back to when I was standing in that window and was asking for guidance for the second half of my life.” When God opens doors, Spradley said, “(you get) to do things you didn’t think you could do.”

Wayne Spradley was thrilled that his son was chosen for the honor. “I was proud of him,” he said. “I encouraged him as much as I could.”

Buddy Spradley could also imagine his mom’s voice telling him she is proud of him, too, just as she had done so often during his life.

In early 2018, Spradley embarked on another project – that of submitting an entry to the Alabama Waterfowl Stamp art contest. The painting he has in mind to do will be painstaking, considering that each feather of the ducks will have to be done individually. Yet, he looks to the challenge with the hope of being listed among the winners, just like his father is.

At times, Spradley still struggles with residual effects of cancer treatment. “It’s something you learn to live with and not let it stop you. (You) have faith that the Good Lord is with you, (and you) try to make a difference in every day.”

He said that experiencing cancer has changed life entirely. He has learned to see God’s miracles in everything. “ ‘Only the Good Lord can make beautiful things,’ ” Spradley remarked, recalling what he had heard his mother say so frequently. “I carry that quote with me daily.”

He cherishes family, enjoys friendships, studies with an insatiable hunger for knowledge, paints with conviction and appreciates the preciousness of life.

“I’m thankful for every day.”

Buddy Spradley’s artwork is available through his Facebook page and at Pell City Coffee Company. Visit www.heritagehallmuseum.org/community to see Buddy Spradley’s ornament, as well as those produced by the other 13 North and Central Alabama artists. (A note of interest: Three of the other 13 artists are current students of Wayne Spradley.)