Red Gates

Quest for tractor barn leads to elegant event venue in Odenville

Story by Jackie Romine Walburn
Photos by Graham Hadley
and Sweet Life Photography – Stefanie Knight and Lauren Hudson Photography
Contributed photos

It may have been fate or divine guidance, or both, that brought Steve and Desa Osborn to St. Clair County and a life-changing land purchase.

Either way, when the Osborns found 26 acres in Odenville perfect for building a barn for Steve’s tractor, Matilda, and an eventual back-to-the-country home, they also discovered a dream avocation as proprietors of a rustically-elegant event venue called Red Gates at Kelly Creek.

“God paved the path,” Desa says, looking back at the whirlwind transformation of the once overgrown land in the shadow of Taylor Mountain, named for the St. Clair family that once farmed the land.

The adventure began with finding the land – when machetes were needed to hack through the overgrowth to find the remnants of an old barn, a leftover pecan orchard, an original hand-dug well and two ponds.

As the Mountain Brook couple began making plans for Matilda’s barn, another search altered those plans. Their son Stefan Osborn and fiancée Mary Vlasis were planning a May 26, 2017 wedding and looking for a unique venue to host an after-rehearsal dinner.

After visiting venues – including the iron and wood-filled Iron City Birmingham in Southside — and finding venue-only fees costing up to $10,000, the Osborn family decided to build their own rustic iron and wood venue.

Today, a two-story 65,000-square-foot timber frame barn rises proudly to center the landscaped grounds, a veteran now of weddings and parties – including the first event that started it all, Stefan and Mary Osborn’s after-rehearsal dinner. Already booked through May of 2019, Red Gates at Kelly Creek has 28 weddings on the 2018 calendar, plus a charity function for a nonprofit foundation dear to the Osborns.

With a full caterer’s kitchen with a separate entrance, the venue can host 50 to 300 people. Folks were visiting and signing up even before the sawdust was swept up, Steve says. And, Red Gates at Kelly Creek – named for the red gates Desa wanted instead of the ordinary silver ones plus its location at 2800 Kelly Creek Road – has been busy ever since.

The journey from beginning construction in February 2017 to the first event three months later combined Steve Osborn’s design and construction knowledge with Desa’s eye for decorating and quality wood building materials plus the artistry and knowhow of timber frame builder, Joe Dick.

An environmental consultant who grew up near Florence helping his father build and fix whatever the large family needed, Steve Osborn designed the two-story timber frame barn. “I knew what I wanted, but I also knew enough to know when to hand it off to an expert,” he says.

That expert, Joe Dick Framing of Helena, brought in a mini-mill to cut timbers that were joined with notches and bolts and to mill the pecan wood, which came straight from the Red Gates land and was used as treads on the two staircases. Poplar milled on site was used for the vanity tops in the bathrooms. The crew welded the iron railing pieces on site, too. 

Desa, who was Desa Lorant when she attended Berry High school in Birmingham, called on the building materials expertise she learned during her 28 years working at Birmingham International Forest Products.

 She and Steve knew exactly what posts and beams and lumber they wanted where. “We were always going to build a barn,” Desa says, “but not this big of a barn.”

From Joseph Lumber Company in Columbiana, they got the 10 sturdy 22-to-24-inch-caliper Southern Yellow Pine posts that hold up the towering barn, plus the beams and lumber. The exterior of Cypress board and batten siding came from a south Alabama mill, fully treated and stained using Q8 log oil.

Two staircases with the pecan wood treads and iron railings lead to a wraparound loft upstairs. A chandelier centers the barn’s open area, and another chandelier hangs on the covered porch area, just above where Maltilda, the Mahindra tractor, often occupies an honored place.

 Tied together with shiny concrete floors inside and handmade benches dotting the porch area that’s cooled with ceiling fans, the rustic barn has ladies’ and men’s restrooms. As a plus, it features comfortable getting-ready rooms for the bridesmaids and the bride, each filled with antique furniture handed down from Steve and Desa’s families.

So far, about half the couples opted to be married inside the giant barn and the other half outside, where an arbor, a handmade mantle, the stocked pond and the chandeliered porch area are available as backdrops. Highlights on the grounds include a fire pit surrounded by Adirondack chairs, a lighted horseshoe pit, a flower garlanded tree swing and the small garden shed built with materials salvaged from the old tumble-down barn which stood 200 years on the site where the new barn was built.

They are still adding on. Steve is building a small groom’s cabin with a porch so the fellows have a place to dress, too.

Nature provides other backdrops for vows and pictures, including the lighted pecan trees that are producing nuts again, resurrection ferns and wild garlic native to the place.

One event circled in red on the Red Gates calendar is a benefit for the Clayne Crawford Foundation, a nonprofit supporting children, women and veterans founded by the Clay, Ala. actor and director. It’s the second benefit hosted at Red Gates for the Foundation founded by Crawford, star of the Lethal Weapon television series and the 2002 movie, A Walk to Remember.

A Pig Out Picnic Barbecue and Benefit – complete with pig roasting in the ground – was held in May at Red Gates at Kelly Creek. Desa serves on a Foundation committee, and both strongly support the Foundation’s projects, particularly the community work of The Music Room in Leeds that offers music therapy classes for autistic children. The Music Room also partners with the Autism Society of Alabama on “Inclusion Through Music,” a June camp that serves autistic children.

Ever since the young married Osborns moved from a rural area near Wilsonville back to Desa’s hometown, settling in Mountain Brook, they were always going to move back to the country, where Steve is happiest, Desa says. The search for their country place intensified as their son Stefan and daughter Kristina, who now lives in Gadsden, finished school.

Now, they talk about where on the property to build their retirement home when the time comes. Perhaps by the pond that’s stocked with Florida hybrid bass and Copper Nose Bluegill? Or on the other side of the pond at the tree-shaded foot of Taylor Mountain? They will decide eventually.

They both still work full time while managing and building their new thriving business.

But, they know that after years of searching, they’ve finally found what they were looking for – a picture perfect place where they can do what they love doing, together.

 

Lakefront Palace

Sunset views, family, unique ideas anchor palatial home

Story by Jackie Romine Walburn
Photos by Susan Wall

Building their home on Logan Martin Lake was a long-planned labor of love for Lori and Dave Elmore, who combined construction expertise, years of planning and distinctive ideas to create a one-of-a-kind home.

With a Rustic French style that mixes wood, stone and black angle iron, the 14,000 square foot home sits on 1.5 acres on the shore of Logan Martin Lake – next door to Lori’s parents and on the water where they’d always wanted to live.

Dave, a builder and owner of Crossings General Contracting, and Lori, an accountant, say planning, documentation and communication helped them work on the project together with ease. Inspired doses of design and do-it-yourself artistry also create a home with distinctive touches in every room and innovations throughout.

“Compiling ideas was somewhat a labor of love,” says Dave, who was the contractor for the building process that stretched to three years, from planning to move-in in mid-October of 2017. The building of their first home after 11 years together brought to life long-saved ideas. “Yes, there was a wish list,” Dave smiles, “and she got all of it.”

Arched entrances, hand-fluted columns, white pine floors, black iron railings plus spruce ceilings and accent walls tie together the home’s four floors of living space. The home is highlighted by three rock fireplaces, casement windows and multiple outdoor living spaces, including a towering “witches hat” screened area with an outdoor kitchen.

“We were very hands-on with the finishes,” Dave said. With similar tastes, a long-considered wish list and determination to make each room unique, the couple worked together to craft homemade and handmade solutions and features throughout the home.

The home was purposely planned with nine bedrooms and 12 bathrooms to accommodate their five grown children and their eventual families, friends and extended family.

“We both grew up close to our families,” says Lori, “and we love the idea of having a central location for everyone to gather.”

 One of the first have-to-haves on the design list was the placement of the kitchen’s cooktop to face southwest for great sunset views through the dining area’s large windows. The views and other perks of lake life, plus living next to her parents, retired Alabama Power Company President Elmer Harris and his wife, Glenda, make the location ideal for the Elmores.

The exterior of rock and wood has seven gables and cedar shake roofing. The main floor entranceway leads to a great room with a tall rock fireplace and towering windows allowing for the first of many views of the lake and entrance to one of several outdoor living areas. A rock archway leads to a custom kitchen with a copper farmhouse sink, made-from scratch kitchen cabinets with antique and Flor de les accents.

The home’s handmade-by-Dave custom items also include the 13-inch curved Cove top molding in the kitchen, lighting fixtures in the great room and several bathrooms that were made from candle holders bought from Hobby Lobby, the candelabra light fixture over the kitchen’s island that is hand crafted with black iron trivets, the full-size bed swing in the middle of the Witches Hat screened area and a cut-stone floor air vent solution between the great room and kitchen.

Dave also came up with the idea for leather walls in the powder room half bath by the kitchen area entrance and found the leather on clearance for $50. He built the head board and bed frame in the in-laws suite, engineered the pool waterfall, and converted rolled tin candles holders into lighting fixtures in the master bath, where a swinging metal-and-wood door that leads to master bath began as a wall hanging from Hobby Lobby.

The home’s nine bedrooms each have a water view, a bathroom and a name, to help keep up with them during construction. In addition to a bunk bed area on the top floor and the master bedroom suite with its own views, stone fireplace, outdoor areas and dreamed-of master bath and closet area, the home’s bedrooms are named:

  • The Lakeside Room, where “you feel like you are standing on the water’s edge.”
  • The Fireside Room that sits next to the outdoor fireside pit.
  • The Poolside Room next to the pool and its waterfall.
  • The Hole, a bedroom tucked into the foundation of the house.
  • The In-Laws Suite, “self-explanatory” and ready when it’s needed.
  • The Picture Frame Room with a window that looks like a picture frame.
  • The Drivetime Room that sits above the driveway.
  • The Bulldog Room that overlooks the street, Bulldog Circle.

Unique features also highlight each of the 12 bathrooms, including vanities made of log sections, stone slabs and antique dressers.

A full house automation system controls lights, security, heating and cooling plus music from surround sound speakers throughout the house – allowing different music in different areas. Other safety and convenience features include an elevator, a storm shelter, a laundry room on every floor, self-activating safety lighting in every hallway and a huge pantry area with a Cheyenne door.

For pure fun, there is a home theater, large patio areas with a pool, a natural gas-powered fire pit and a basement game room with two tri-fold doors that allow an 18-foot opening to the back deck. The game room also boasts an Auburn gumball machine with orange and blue gumballs, a birthday present to Lori. The couple met at an Auburn-Alabama football game in 2005. They’d both attended Berry High School in the Birmingham area but didn’t know each other then.

Asked for their top five favorite things about their new home, Lori and Dave’s lists cover a gamut of its custom features.

Lori’s five favorite areas are:

  1. The rear screened porch with its view of water, pool and boathouse.
  2. The pool waterfall.
  3. The master bath tub, a huge jetted Roman tub backed by waterfall window and a large double shower area with rainfall and several other shower heads next to 6 x 9-foot mirror-tinted windows that you can see out of but others cannot see in.
  4. Her closet, off the master bath, which has custom pull out storage and columns hand fluted on site.
  5. Big fireplace in the great room.

Dave’s five favorite areas are:

  1. Witches Hat area and ceiling. This screened outdoor area has a stone fireplace topped by a mantle made from an oak tree that fell on the property, two entrances, an outdoor kitchen and the Dave-made full bed size swing. But it’s the ceiling and towering cone made of one-by six-inch spruce that tops his list and required two painstaking months of carpentry work on a 60-foot man lift to line up the gently curved vertical spruce boards.
  2. The Game room – which is only missing the pool table Dave plans to build.
  3. The pool waterfall.
  4. Views from the kitchen and master bedroom.
  5. The log and stone vanities.

As the seemingly unending punch list on their home shrinks, soon to disappear, the Elmores look forward to a summer of lake life when their empty nest refills with their blended family. Their grown sons and daughter, all away pursuing degrees and careers, include Lori’s sons, Harrison King, 26, and Conner King, 22, and daughter Sarah King, 24, and Dave’s two sons, Houston Elmore, 21, and Cade Elmore, 19.

Family and friends already gathered, filling those bedrooms, in late March when the Elmore hosted a wedding reception for her niece, Carlyn Harris and her groom, Brent Tyree.

Vendors and contractors of note on the home building project include Traylon Ward, whose crew did the framing on the house and who was hired on by Dave as a key person “who can do anything.”

All the stone used inside and out came from Lamb Stone in Oneonta, the firm’s largest single order ever, and Warren Family Garden Center and Nursery in Leeds that supplied landscaping items, including unique plants and planters. Other items Lori chose from online vendors with successful finds at Wayfair and Houzz, and for the candle holders, trivets and doors turned into homemade accents, credit goes to Hobby Lobby and Dave’s imagination. 

Local Color Redux

Keeping Springville’s ‘colorful’ music spot alive

Story by Paul South
Photos by
Michael Callahan, Susan Wall,
Jerry Martin and courtesy of Local Color

In the late fall of 2016, Merle Dollar and husband Garry Burttram announced that on New Year’s Eve, their iconic music venue, Local Color, would take its final bow.

But Bobby Horton, legendary fiddler of the equally iconic Alabama bluegrass trio, Three On A String, was skeptical. Three On A String would play that “final” performance.

“I wouldn’t be surprised a bit of Merle and Garry reopen,” he predicted. “They love it too much. I wish they wouldn’t close.”

It turns out, Horton, like a musical Jeremiah, was a prophet.

“Bobby got his wish – sort of,” Dollar says.

Local Color is back, but without Burttram’s delicious cornbread cooked in a hubcap-sized cast iron skillet and chicken and dumplings. The wildly popular stage opens a couple of times a month, not as a traditional business, charging only a cover to pay the bands.

Dollar reminisced about Local Color’s 2016 final curtain that wasn’t.

“The patrons were mourning and grieving and crying, and the musicians were so nostalgic already. Really gloom and doom.”

The building was up for sale, with a buyer on the horizon, but after two months, Erick Smith of the rockabilly band Cash Domino Killers approached Dollar with an idea – a house concert. No food or drink, save what patrons would bring themselves, sort of like a covered dish dinner, or an all-day singing and dinner on the grounds, but with furniture.

Dollar ran the idea by her sisters, who with her own the building.

The response: Why not?

The result? A packed house.

“Everybody came in and brought their own food and their own beverages and just paid a cover charge at the door for the musicians, and we had a grand night.”

Fast forward a few weeks after that grand night. The expected sale of the building fell through. And it looked as though Local Color had danced its last.

Dollar and her sisters decided that Local Color deserved one last send-off, a last waltz, if you will. They called on their old friends, The Martini Shakers, another rockabilly act that had played the place for years. The response from the joyous crowd ignited another idea. The girls decided to host house concerts once or twice a month, getting the word out to Local Color die-hard regulars.

“We’ve had some remarkable crowds,” Dollar says. “And we’re just doing it at our leisure.”

 Merle and Garry are retired now, traveling to Scotland and Disney World and keeping up with kids and grandkids.

And now, virtually every weekend, music again rings from Local Color. To be clear, it’s show business but no business.

“It’s strictly a house concert. I want to stress that it’s a non-business. The family is hosting different bands to come in. I get requests all the time from musicians to come in and play,” Dollar says. “We’re strictly a non-business.”

She added: “It’s just one of those magical things that just refuses to go away.”

Local Color looks and feels the same, except for the patrons who bring their own snacks, from popcorn and pop, to sacks of fast food, to gourmet munchies and bottles of Merlot.

But while the food brought from home varies with every patron, the reaction is universally the same to the Local Color house parties: “Why didn’t you do this sooner?”

“It’s been so heartwarming to know that people are so excited to come back again,” Dollar says. “It really was such a downer (when Local Color closed). Once it started buzzing through the musical community (about the house concerts) it was like, euphoria and ‘hallelujah’ and ‘Oh, boy!’ One person stopped me in the grocery store and said, ‘It’s about time.’”

 Along with the music dates, it’s also a gathering spot for Merle and Garry’s family get-togethers, holiday dinners, baby showers and the like. And the family – through Merle and her cousins, Sylvia Waid and Peggy Jones, who form the Andrews Sisters-style Something Else Trio – provides the musical heartbeat.

“There would be no Local Color without ‘Something Else,’ Burttram says.

Dates are booked through July, but the spot remains for sale. “Three months, who knows what can happen in three months.”

 

Encore performances

The acts, jubilant to return to  this intimate spot where the music seems all that matters, include The Cash Domino Killers – named for music legends Johnny Cash, “Fats” Domino and “The Killer” Jerry Lee Lewis, pay homage to the timeless tunes of the 1950’s. Through the, you’ll hear the sounds of The Million Dollar Quartet (Cash, Lewis, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins), The Drifters, The Tams and others. The band has played Local Color for years. Like Three On A String, it has helped define the venue as one of Alabama’s great small music spots.

Another fan favorite, The Dill Pickers, a musical comedy ensemble, also draws packed houses.

“They’re like a comet,” Dollar says. “They show up once in a blue moon.”

 

No place like ‘home’

Thanks to the bands, Merle and Garry and their families and fans, Local Color lives on.

“Even while it’s sitting there empty, it still has that aura, that mystical feel about it. There’s something about that. I don’t know what it is. People walk in and say, ‘I’m home.’”

The place still has flawless acoustics, so perfect that folks swear you can hear smiles from the audience, that sits in rapt attention, drinking in the music.

“You can hear them smile,” Dollar says. “You can hear them cry. You can feel it. It’s palpable. The emotional connection that you have with your audience, you feel it, they feel it.”

Local Color, it seems, has indeed taken on a life of its own, past what even its owners expected. Like The Little Engine That Could from children’s literature, it chugs on. 

Says Dollar, “It’s a light that refuses to go out.”

As for the fiddling prophet, Bobby Horton, he’s overjoyed at Local Color’s revival. He compares the place to “a musical community center. Most people are so comfortable there, both players and people sitting there. It’s got that magic. You can’t build it. It just sort of happened because of Merle and Garry setting that atmosphere.”

Horton adds: “People are thrilled to be coming to that little ol’ place over there. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.”

And as for his prophecy?

“The blind hog found the acorn on that prediction,” he says. “I’m so glad it did.”

PFC Prestridge

Tales of survival from Omaha Beach

Story and photos by Jerry C. Smith
Submitted photos

General Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke of Operation Overlord as “a crusade in which we will accept nothing less than full victory.”

To back up this solemn resolve, the Allies mounted the heaviest seaborne invasion in world history on June 6, 1944, a World War II event that would become known as D-Day. Hilman Prestridge, a 19-year-old draftee from Clay County, Alabama was there and lives on today to share his experiences.

The numbers are staggering, especially to moderns who haven’t lived during an era when literally the whole world was at war. For this operation alone, more than 160,000 Allied troops, 13,000 aircraft, and some 5,000 ships mounted a concerted invasion of Nazi-held Europe, including a 50-mile stretch of coastline in Normandy, France.

There were five distinct areas of beachhead assault, code-named Juno, Sword, Omaha, Gold and Utah. Of these, Omaha was the most difficult because of its hilly terrain and high concentration of concrete bunkers sheltering German cannons and machine guns.

PFC Prestridge of the First Infantry Division was in one of the first boats to land on Omaha, in the face of withering gunfire from fully-prepared, seasoned troops who had been expecting them for days.

Many drivers of the amphibious landing craft, called Higgins boats, refused to go into the shallowest water, fearing entrapment by grounding or by metal objects placed by the Nazis to snag boats and prevent heavy vehicles from coming ashore. As a result, many soldiers perished from drowning due to the heavy weight of their equipment and a malfunction of their flotation devices.

 

In the thick of the fight

“We had these life preserver things called a Mae West around our waist,” he recalls. “They were supposed to float up under our armpits when you filled them with air, but because we were loaded down with so much stuff, they couldn’t do that and just hung around our waists.

“Lots of men died with their feet sticking out of the water because all that ammo and grenades and backpacks kept them from floating upright.”

He gives high praise to his boat pilot, a brave Navy man who knew what was at stake and carried them into much shallower water that could be waded. But that’s when the real horrors began.

As soon as the front landing door was dropped, heavy machine gun fire began raking his buddies as they stepped off into the water. Many died right in front of the boat. Hilman says those stories about men jumping over the side instead are true, and that some owed their lives to that decision.

“Fact is,” he adds, “we missed the best landing spots because of heavy fog and wind but did the best we could anyway.”

It took several days to secure all five beachheads. “I found a low spot behind one of those tripod tank traps and slept with bullets whizzing just inches over my head.”

The casualties were appalling by any standard, with some 10,000 Allied wounded and more than 4,000 confirmed dead. But it could have been even worse.

“Because the weather was so bad that week,” Hilman explains, (German Field Marshal) Rommel had left the area to attend his wife’s birthday party, thinking we couldn’t land with that kind of weather. The Germans needed aggressive field leadership, and with Rommel gone, they were left without.”

As Hilman spoke of the horrors of that operation during our interview, he had to pause occasionally to gather himself emotionally. One of his most touching anecdotes concerned a tank that had finally managed to drag itself onto the shore, despite most of its unit having foundered in deep water, drowning their crews.

“I heard that tank behind me with those two big engines roaring,” he said. “It came right by me where I was pinned down by bullets over my head. When it passed me, I saw the word, ALABAMA, painted across the back end, and knew things were going to get better. He knocked a big hole in all that barbed wire, so we could get through.”

He also tells of the destruction of a particularly wicked German gun emplacement that had wrought heavy casualties and nearly brought the Omaha Beach assault to a standstill. “We saw the (battleship USS) Texas out there, not far from shore. He put it in reverse and backed way out for a clear shot, then blew that pillbox to pieces with one shell.”

After the beaches were finally secure, an officer informed Hilman that his brother-in-law, Fred Lett, had also landed on another beach, and told him where he could be found. The officer refused permission for Hilman to leave the area but added that his own Jeep was parked nearby with the keys in it, and Hilman was to be sure nobody bothered it. Hilman and Fred had a joyous reunion a short while later.

Hilman’s military career began upon receiving “a letter from Uncle Sam” right after graduating from Lineville High School. His basic training took place at Fort Bragg, NC, where he was selected for Field Artillery training in Maryland. “I was real happy with that idea,” he said. “Artillery gets to stay way behind the front lines, so I figured it was about the safest place to be in a war.”

He relates that his gun crew got into a bit of trouble when they accidentally put seven charges of gunpowder in a field piece designed to use four. The gun survived, but the projectile went all the way into town, destroying a huge tree but luckily doing little other damage.

Those in charge were not pleased, but this was during wartime, so allowances were made. Nonetheless, for no stated reason, they moved Private Prestridge into Amphibious Landing school, eventually thrusting him right into the teeth of the enemy.

“I was worried about it at first,” added Hilman, “but the transfer probably saved my life. The guys I trained with in Artillery were all later killed in battle.

“We loaded up onto the Queen Elizabeth (ocean liner) and wound up in Glasgow, Scotland,” he relates. “We finally were deployed to some place I can’t name in England. The people there were real good to us, and I even got to meet Princess Elizabeth while she was visiting troops in the fields around Dorchester. She was the same age as me, but not yet queen.”

Hilman said none of those in his outfit knew anything about the plans for D-Day; they were simply told they would ship out on June 5th, but their move was delayed until the 6th because of bad weather.

He said the English Channel crossing was pretty rough, and a lot of soldiers got sick, especially after boarding the landing craft. “They told us the waves were 12 feet, but the number I believed was more like 20, but it didn’t bother me. The rougher the water, the better I like it,” he explained.

“We were told to jump off the ship and into the boats when the waves went highest, but a lot of guys broke their legs when they timed it wrong because we were so loaded down with field gear and ammo.”

 Hilman’s outfit was stationed in France until all of Europe had been liberated, then they were transported by ship back to the United States for a 30-day leave before being reassigned to another duty. While America-bound on the destroyer SS John Hood, they were told that their next assignment would be an all-out attack on the mainland of Japan.

Fortunately, before this hellish invasion was launched, President Truman took more direct steps in 1945 to bring World War II to a close. Upon landing in New York, Hilman and his comrades participated in a ticker tape parade celebrating that victory and were soon mustered out of the service.

 

Upon returning to Alabama, Hilman married Vernie Cruise, his high school sweetheart, and settled down. He worked at various jobs that included 10 years at Dewberry Foundry in Talladega before settling down to a career as an electrician at Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind, where “I actually did more work for the school’s athletic department than electrical stuff.”

Now, a 94-year-old resident of Col. Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in Pell City, Hilman Prestridge is far from retired. He’s been involved in many veterans’ activities, including group visits with his old comrades to various D-Day memorials in America and overseas.

While attending a 70th anniversary gathering at the D-Day Memorial in Bedford, VA, Hilman was greeted by a lady whose two brothers were with Hilman at Omaha Beach. They didn’t survive the landing. She was holding a Bible that one of them carried while serving, which had somehow found its way home.

He’s also revisited the actual spot where he landed in Normandy more than 74 years ago and has an album full of photographs he uses to illustrate their horrendous experience.

Hilman Prestridge is one survivor of only about 5,000 D-Day veterans estimated remaining. He is indeed an honored member of the Greatest Generation.

Thank you for your service, PFC Prestridge.

Betty Cosper masters it all

From banana pudding to teaching and beyond

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Graham Hadley

Dr. Betty Cosper and her dog, Bama, ushered their visitor into their kitchen to give the person a large container of banana pudding.

Just that morning, Dr. Cosper had made the pudding from scratch.

Giving gifts of food is part of her daily routine, according to son-in-law Art Meadows of Pell City. “This woman … is non-stop cooking for everyone. … She shops five days a week because she makes food for everyone in the county and especially during the holidays. Did I say she makes a mean banana pudding?”

That banana pudding – made from a recipe Dr. Cosper developed herself – has quite the reputation.

“She makes the best banana pudding I’ve ever tasted!” said her pastor, Dr. John Thweatt of First Baptist Church in Pell City.

Dr. Cosper said she learned to cook by watching her mother and two other ladies who all had exceptional culinary abilities. “My mother could cook anything. … I cook old-timey. People don’t cook like that anymore. It’s just fun. … I spend a lot of time cooking and giving it away. … It makes people happy.”

Just ask Harry Charles McCoy of Pell City.

“She’s my real good friend!,” he said. “… Every Christmas, she always bakes me a strawberry cake. She really knows how to bake a cake.”

Theirs is a friendship that began many years ago when McCoy was making deliveries for an antique store that was run by the late Josephine Bukacek Kilgroe. The friendship grew as Dr. Cosper later taught McCoy’s children and grandchildren in school. “She’s a mighty sweet lady,” McCoy said.

Yet, the ability to produce scrumptious edibles is not the attribute for which Dr. Cosper wants to be known. Instead, she wants her legacy to be her contribution in the field of education.

“That’s where my love is,” she said.

For 40 years, she was an educator, instructing infants to college students and every age in between. She has taught early childhood, elementary, middle school and high school, and she has been an assistant principal, principal, college instructor and director of continuing education.

Her career has encompassed Avondale School, Pell City High, Walter M. Kennedy Intermediate, Coosa Valley Elementary, St. Clair County Child Care Program, Talladega County schools, Jacksonville State University, Gadsden State Community College and Jefferson State Community College. In addition, she worked in the junior college division of the Alabama Department of Education in Montgomery.

For her work, she was inducted into Delta Kappa Gamma, received a “Service to Education” award from Coosa Valley Elementary in 1997 and was included in Who’s Who among America’s Teachers in 2005-2006.

On April 12 is a reception for another recognition Dr. Cosper is receiving. Dr. Cosper is being given a Chair of Foundation in her honor to celebrate her contribution to students in the Pell City School System. Her son, Bill Cosper Jr. of Cropwell, and Dr. Cosper’s friend, Cindy Goodgame of Pell City, have spearheaded the Chair of Foundation donations effort. The donations from that effort benefit the work of Pell City Schools Education Foundation. The reception for Dr. Cosper is 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Center for Education and Performing Arts in Pell City.

 

Always a planner

Dr. Cosper, whose parents were Joe and Roberta Ingram, lived in Birmingham until second-grade, when her family moved to the Easonville area. She graduated from Pell City High School.

From the University of Montevallo, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She completed other graduate courses at Samford University. In the 1980s when Dr. Cosper was working on her doctorate at the University of Alabama, her mother traveled to Tuscaloosa with her for the night classes. Mrs. Ingram quickly became a class favorite because of the home-baked goodies she would take to share.

Dr. Cosper’s doctoral dissertation, titled An Analysis of Relationships between Teacher Effectiveness and Teacher Planning Practice, shows her penchant for planning, managing and administering. In presentations nationwide and at an international meeting in Washington, D.C., she revealed the findings of her research.

“I’m a planner. … I got that from my parents: No matter what you do, you’re supposed to be prepared,” she said. “… To accomplish anything, you have to set goals and then take steps to achieve these goals. I feel that a good place to begin is in God’s Word.”

She pointed specifically to Colossians 3:12-14, verses in the Holy Bible about showing kindness, mercy, humility, forgiveness and love.

Through her work with Cosper Management Consulting, Inc. she also conveyed to adults in business settings the importance of making preparations and setting goals.

“No matter what kind of business you’re in, you’ve got to plan,” she said.

Having a plan was essential in her busy life as a single parent raising four children, teaching school and engaging in several side ventures to supplement income. In fact, she earned her master’s degree while her children – Betty Ann Dennis (who died in 2017); Debbie Fletcher of Austin, Texas; Carol Meadows of Pell City, and Bill – were still at home.

For many, many years, she taught school all day and then gave piano lessons in the afternoons and evenings. She was teaching as many as 60 piano students a week.

Meadows noted that some of Dr. Cosper’s piano students have performed at Carnegie Hall and in concerts around the world.

Hunter Shell, a current student at Jacksonville State University, said the musical training he got from Dr. Cosper helped him to receive a full music scholarship.

When not teaching piano students the intricacies of music, Dr. Cosper might have been painting oil portraits for photography studios.

Or she might have been selling antiques. In her home, she operated Colonial House Antiques.

Meadows said the Cosper children might come home from school to find that the bed on which they slept the previous night had been sold.

“The whole house was a museum of beautiful furniture and cut glass with several different china patterns that were prized possessions, but not above being sold to clothe and feed the brood,” Meadows explained.

Despite having a full-time job and other business ventures, Dr. Cosper made clothes for her children and draperies for her home.

“I was busy. I was really busy,” Dr. Cosper said, remembering those days.

Her busy-ness has been a constant through the years.

In her home, she has done the interior painting, the decorating and flower arranging. She refinished boards from an old house that may have quartered soldiers during a war and used the planks to floor the dining area of her kitchen.

The large and intricate needlepoint pieces hanging in her formal dining room – well – those are her handiwork, too.

For a time, she also was a pianist and Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Pell City.

Even now as a retiree, she is still a dynamo.

She teaches piano lessons and exercises six days a week at Snap Fitness. When she is not cooking and baking and giving away food, she is working in her yard.

“At a stage of life when many choose to stop, Dr. Cosper continues to press on,” said Thweatt. “Every time I drive by her house, I see her pushing a wheelbarrow, swinging a pickaxe, or doing something else in her yard. I’d stop to help, but I’m not sure I could keep up with her.”

For Dr. Cosper, just to dust her Christmas Village collection would take quite a while because the pieces encompass four rooms of her house. Her Christmas tree stays up all year because “every day is Christmas. That’s what it’s all about,” she said.

Regardless of her seemingly endless flurry of activity, she always has time to talk about the joys of her life – her children and five grandchildren. “The Good Lord has been so good to me,” she said.

Dr. Cosper’s thirst for knowledge has not waned either. “We’re never too old to learn,” she said. “That is scientific.”

Why, she has been known to check out from the library as many as 30 books at a time. Recently, she started learning through traveling.

In 2017, Dr. Cosper made her first trip out of the country, said Deanna Lawley of Pell City, who coordinates the travel group Friends Bound for New Horizons. So far, Dr. Cosper has been to Italy and Germany and is preparing for her third trip abroad.

On the trips, Mrs. Lawley has watched how Dr. Cosper “absorbs the arts and music” in foreign lands and cultures. “Dr. Betty is amazing to me. … She is truly the definition of a life learner.”

Traveling with Mrs. Lawley’s group is a natural fit for Dr. Cosper because one purpose of the trips is to raise funds for the Pell City Schools Education Foundation. That foundation funds teacher grants for in-classroom needs.

 

A friend& mentor to many

Former students and coworkers, and many others, like to reminisce with Dr. Cosper or to seek her advice. That fact can sometimes turn a brief stop at Wal-mart into a three-hour visit for Dr. Cosper because so many individuals want to talk to her.

Keith White, a former coworker, very much appreciates Dr. Cosper’s friendship and guidance.

When White was a young art teacher at Coosa Valley Elementary, Dr. Cosper was one of his mentors. “She knew my Dad (the late Ernest White) well,” said White.

The fact that he and Dr. Cosper both shared artistic and musical talents strengthened their friendship even more.

Although White now lives in Alabaster, he comes to visit her to get “motherly advice. … Ever since my mother (Alice White) died, I think (Dr. Cosper and I) have an even closer bond. She’s almost my second mother. I really cherish it.”

John “Butch” Lonergan, who taught art at Pell City High from 1968-1991, said Dr. Cosper was his third- and fourth-grade teacher. As such, she was his first formal art instructor.

Lonergan said Dr. Cosper would put poster-board frames around the students’ art pieces, making the creations look professional.

“She influenced me a lot by talking about my work,” Lonergan said. “… She was one of my favorite teachers.”

Lonergan added that the boys in the class thought Dr. Cosper was pretty. “All the boys were crazy about her.”

Dr. Cosper’s influence extends well beyond piano lessons, art appreciation and culinary talents. As an elementary student, Shell said he struggled with pronouncing words, reading and writing. Dr. Cosper began to work with him and, within a year, Shell was a reading whiz.

Shortly thereafter, Shell’s parents let him start taking piano lessons from Dr. Cosper.

“She pushed me more than anyone else in my life,” Shell said of the years Dr. Cosper taught him music lessons. “On top of that, I learned how to be happy from Dr. Cosper. If I came into a lesson feeling anything but happy, she figured out a way to make me smile. I learned quickly that life is too short to be angry all the time.”

Dr. Cosper reminisces, too, about school days, which included getting to teach her children, Bill and Carol, when they were in sixth-grade. Often, the school stories Dr. Cosper tells end with her smiling or laughing.

“I had the privilege of teaching with Mrs. Iola Roberts the first year,” Dr. Cosper said, recalling her first teaching position. Roberts was an icon in education in Pell City, and one of the elementary schools bears her name. “I taught third-grade (at Avondale School), and she was my principal. Everyone should have taught under her. Wow!”

Dr. Cosper said she never even applied for the teaching job. She just went to Mrs. Roberts’ house for an interview.

“Every year, (Mrs. Roberts) wrote a play,” Dr. Cosper continued. “The Comers (who operated Avondale Mills) would come. The whole Mill Village would turn out; the governor, the mayor. … I had to do all the music,” paint the flats and draw plans for the backdrop.

When Dr. Cosper talks about her school and piano students – what they did then, what they are doing now – a glow inevitably appears on her face.

Each time a former student tells her the influence she had in that person’s life, “I just have to give the Good Lord credit,” she said. “I’m so glad He directed me to teaching. … I am so thankful and happy that I had and have the chance to teach many students – all sizes and ages. Once a teacher, always a teacher.”

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.”