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Light Flight

Daring men and their flying machines

Story and photos by Jerry C. Smith

A stand-up comic once joked, “If God had meant for people to fly, He would have given them a lot more money.” He got pained laughs from several private pilots in his audience who knew what it costs to get a license, buy a plane, fly it, hangar it and keep it in safe condition.

Whether you’re rich or poor, the sky shamelessly seduces those who envy the freedom of birds. Prior to the late 1970s, aviation was well out of reach to most folks who did not fly for a living, but a few entrepreneurs found a way to bring powered flight to practically anyone with the courage to try it.

Imagine a huge kite made of ripstop Dacron sailcloth, a frame and pilot seat resembling an elaborate lawn chair, a couple of lawn-mower wheels and a tiny engine scrounged from a snowmobile. Lace it all together with a maze of steel cables and, voila, you have an ultralight airplane – a true bird of ‘pray.’

Ultralights quickly became a poor man’s magic flying carpet, a dream come true for those without the means or desire to own a “regular” airplane. If you could afford a decent fishing boat and were fairly adept with hand tools, you could build your own plane in a few dozen hours from a mail-order kit, then fly it from a nearby pasture.

Best of all, you didn’t need a license to fly one, and still don’t even to this day, as long as the plane meets certain federal guidelines of construction and operation. Flight training, if any, was given in two-seater variants by licensed local dealers, but many were flown entirely on guts alone.

Since a true ultralight has only one seat, that first test flight was also the pilot’s first solo in that type of plane, which can intimidate even a trained private pilot.

Odenville resident Hoke Graham was one of the first to fly and sell such machines in the area. He tells of trying to foot-launch his Easy Riser, one of the first ultralights, which originally had no wheels. It was actually an Icarus biplane hang glider which had been fitted with a tiny, 10 horsepower, two-cycle motor made by Chrysler.

Hoke relates, “When we test-ran the engine in my motorcycle shop, the propeller blast blew papers all over the place and slung oil everywhere before we could get it shut off. We like to have never got it all cleaned up.”

Ultralights became so popular so fast that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) created a whole new category for them, outlined in Part 103 of Federal Aviation Regulations. In essence, ultralights were designed for a single pilot, flown locally for daytime recreational use only, and according to some stringent rules.

The plane could weigh no more than 254 pounds empty, carry a maximum of 5 gallons of fuel, and fly no faster than 55 knots at full power. It is illegal to fly an ultralight over an assemblage of people or settled area, after dark, or within controlled airspace where the big boys fly.

Because of weight and performance restrictions, ultralights have few if any spare parts. They’re shy on horsepower, creature comforts and redundant safety features found on more conventional aircraft.

It’s as minimalist as powered flight can possibly be, but for many, including your writer, they were the fulfillment of a boyhood dream. The Wright brothers would have loved them; indeed, their first Flyer would have qualified had it been made of lighter materials.

While there are still a few single-seaters around, sport aviation has shifted in more recent years to a two-seated variety, many of which look and handle almost identically to the standard version but aren’t true ultralights. You need a private pilot or light sport pilot license to fly one.

Besides all the various quasi-ultralight designs, the relatively-new light sport category includes home-builts, most experimentals and other small aircraft, such as Taylorcraft, Piper Cub and Breezy, which fall within a fully-loaded weight limit of 1,320 pounds.

Many two-seated derivatives use engines of as much as 100 hp, more than triple the power of older single-seaters, and can easily fly 90 mph. Because of a higher weight allowance, they can be outfitted with all kinds of instruments, safety equipment, redundant controls, etc that a Part 103 machine could never carry.

Pell City’s Joe West owns such a plane. It’s a larger version of a Challenger ultralight, made in Moline, Ill., by Quad City Aircraft Ultralight Aircraft Corp. It has a much more powerful engine, two seats, larger fuel tank and is about double the weight of its ultralight sisters.

Joe spent more than two years building it and holds one of the first light sport licenses issued in the area. His superbly crafted plane sports a dazzling green and white paint job and mounts a 52-hp engine designed especially for light aircraft by an Austrian firm, Rotax, which also builds snow machine engines for Bombardier of Canada. It allows him to cruise smoothly at 60 to 70 mph.

Joe is a real craftsman who is not averse to improvisation. In fact, the sheet metal for his instrument panel was salvaged from an old octagonal city stop sign. Everything on his plane is neat, precise and by-the-book, including an emergency parachute that can be instantly activated from both seats.

The plane’s nose art reads TINKER TOY, a moniker inspired by a fellow firefighter in Birmingham who liked to tease him about all the small airplane parts he fiddled with while not on duty, saying the intricate components looked like Tinker Toys.

He’s a frequent flyer around Pell City and has flown his Challenger for about 15 years. But Joe doesn’t limit his range of operations to local “patch-flying.” He and several other Challenger owners once flew from Pell City to a sponsored aviation meet in the Great Lakes region, near the Quad City factory.

Another local light-flyer, Cropwell contractor Tommy Thompson, is also a highly skilled artisan, both on the job and as an experimental aircraft hobbyist. He has built and flown four kit planes over the years, each a finely crafted work of flying art.

His Loehle P5151 Mustang was a 3/4 scale replica of one of the world’s finest warplanes. Tommy painted it blue, white and orange; named it Miss War Eagle; and was granted a tail number ending in WE. It was always a hit at air shows and fly-in events held by the Experimental Aircraft Association, of which Tommy was president of local Chapter 1320 until its dissolution in recent years.

So what’s it like to fly an ultralight or experimental? Depends on the design. Back in the 1980’s, your writer owned an American Aerolights Eagle. It had a smaller wing, called a canard, mounted in front of the main airfoil. This made it nearly stall proof and very easy to fly, even for a novice pilot. The Eagle took off, flew, climbed, descended and landed at about the same speed, 25-30 mph. We joked that, like a Piper Cub, it flew just fast enough to kill you.

I flew mine while suspended in a child’s swing seat which hung by a slender strap from a main body tube. Below this seat was nothing but open sky, all the way to the ground. Needless to say, that strap was rigorously inspected before every flight, as were all other vital parts which, in reality, included EVERY part of the plane.

Other models look and handle more like conventional aircraft, with true three-axis controls and the familiar T-shaped fuselage. Most ultralight aircraft can virtually leap off a runway in 200 feet or less and land in almost any clearing. Indeed, on occasion, these pilots would take off across the old bomber runway at Talladega.

But there is a penalty for this feather-like agility. You should not fly unless the air is mostly calm. Flights are usually made in early morning or near sunset. Planes stayed in the hangar if treetops were spotted moving.

I’ve encountered sudden gusts in advance of unseen weather fronts that actually left me flying backwards, despite running full throttle. My only recourse was to drop behind a treeline at almost ground level and quickly land before the wind shifted.

An unwritten rule was observed by practically everyone: Never fly over anything you can’t land on. With no redundant parts and an engine that could fail at any time without notice, keeping a landing spot underneath was mandatory.

But all such hazards aside, the flight itself was exhilarating, possibly the most fun a dauntless bird-man could have in public. We usually flew lower than 500 feet, enjoying the sights, even the smells, as rural Alabama drifted leisurely beneath our dangling rumps.

Our flying grounds included the environs of Talladega Speedway in our earlier days and Washington Valley and Chandler Mountain after we moved to Cool Springs near Ashville. It’s one of the most scenic parts of St. Clair — even more so from the air.

The good people of Cool Springs and Caldwell gracefully tolerated our weekend noise, so we always invited them to our airfield cookouts and watermelon cuttings. Livestock in Washington Valley became so accustomed to our presence that they no longer stampeded or looked up in fear of a giant, raucous hawk passing overhead.

The group I flew with in the early 1980s was known as Four Seasons Aviation, a three-man corporation operated by Hoke Graham, Jack Porter and Mike Pair. They sold Eagle ultralights and provided flight training, first at Talladega Airport, later at the Cool Springs site.

Cool Springs Airdrome was laid out on an old horse farm on CR 31, between Ashville and Springville, near Canoe Creek at AL 23. A former stable was modified to serve as a hangar and business office. The airstrip was simply 1,500 feet of closely-mown pasture.

Because of the Eagle’s unique configuration, we were able to store all five resident planes in a hangar that would have barely contained one “regular” plane. We simply tilted them upright and stood them on their tail feathers.

Four Seasons was a beehive of activity on nice weekends, often hosting fly-in visitors and curious kibitzers. Because of the capricious nature of these aircraft, we had a map mounted on a steel panel, with little colored magnets for each pilot to indicate where he intended to fly. We often flew in pairs, for the same reason.

On one such junket, a friend and I were flying over Washington Valley when he spotted some lovely young women lounging beside their swimming pool. He landed in a nearby field, but I decided it was no place for a married man and flew back to the airport.

Apparently he had chosen wisely, as we didn’t see him again until a bit after sunset. In a scenario reminiscent of an old flying movie, we lit the runway with car headlights to allow our resident Romeo to land safely.

A couple of areas were off-limits. One of our flyers was a deputy sheriff who warned us to avoid flying anywhere near the new St. Clair Correctional Facility as well as a certain area called Sodom and Gomorrah because of various activities that the law preferred to contain in that one place rather than having to pursue them all over the county.

Were there accidents among our ultralight community? Yes, even a few fatalities. But like real flyers everywhere, we studied and discussed each case, resolving to never become an object lesson ourselves.

For many, the incident rate became too high for comfort, so they moved on to earn a private pilot license and bought “real” airplanes. No doubt some wives added input to these decisions. However, many have since admitted that they became much better pilots as a result of things they’d learned from light flight.

Joe and I recently flew his Challenger on a photo shoot around the Pell City locality. We flitted along at a leisurely 65 mph, snapping photos of Logan Martin, downtown Pell City and certain areas north of town.

While a pure ultralight must not fly over settled areas, a rated experimental like Joe’s can be operated under more lenient standards. The visibility is spectacular to say the least, making them an ideal photo platform equaled only by glass-pod styled helicopters, and they’re exponentially cheaper to own and operate.

Another endearing quality is its real feel for flight, like you are actually involved in a natural process rather than riding an armchair in a giant flying bus. You sense every rising thermal, every wind shift and “air bump,” and enjoy a fast-acting, sensitive control response that makes you feel like part of the plane itself – a true mechanical bird-man connection. There’s no autopilot. You fly them every second from takeoff through landing.

Joe quipped that his plane is so well-balanced and control-sensitive that he can actually make it turn by sticking his hand out one side, like giving a turn signal. To a true light flight enthusiast, a 20-minute ride is often more satisfying, and physically tiring, than a couple of hours in a “real” airplane.

Born in Haleyville and a long-time resident of Birmingham, Joe once advised folks to never allow a hobby to dictate where you live, but reneged on his own tenet while flying and hangaring his craft at Pell City Airport.

“After hanging out around the airport, I found out what a nice place Pell City was, and decided to live here,” he said. Indeed, his home is within easy walking distance of the main entrance at KPLR.

At age 67, Joe has seen a lot of light aircraft makers come and go. Dozens of companies jumped into the market when the category was first created, but most are long since expired, usually with good reason.

Those early years were fraught with accidents, mostly due to design faults and pilot error. He advises those interested in light sport aviation to research FAA files and thoroughly check out the accident records of any aircraft they plan to purchase or build from a kit.

“Look for companies like Quad City that have been in business the longest, preferably under original ownership,” he says. He also advises to seek skilled, licensed training before attempting any solo flight in any aircraft, whether ultralight or otherwise. Even though they fly relatively slowly, irreversible things can happen very quickly.

He remarked that the handling characteristics of his Challenger makes him feel connected to early pioneers such as the Wright brothers. Having flown several such machines myself, I heartily agree. It’s the real thing – a natural high.

Though he’s a quiet, unassuming man to casual acquaintances, Joe’s sincere enthusiasm for this genre of aviation becomes obvious once you get to know him, fly with him, and check out the workmanship and safety record of his plane. Retired from the Birmingham Fire Department, he now works part-time at a local hardware big-box to, in his words, “make some flying and eating-out money.”

Joe says, “Sport aviation is sort of winding down as a hobby because the ones who started it are getting old, and nobody is replacing them. We need for more kids to get involved with groups like Civil Air Patrol and the EAA.”

He adds a sentimental note: “If someone ever gets a chance to go flying, especially someone who has never gone up, I strongly urge them to go up and see the sights that are restricted to a fortunate few people and to be mesmerized by the wonders that they have missed all their life.”

The late Glenn Messer, world’s oldest living pilot, who passed away just days short of his 100th birthday in 1995, expressed to me that one of his biggest regrets was that he never flew an ultralight. He had been blinded by a failed eye surgery a few years before these aircraft became popular.

Mr. Messer used to sit in the lobby at Birmingham’s Southern Museum of Flight and chat with visitors about his long, colorful flying career, which included giving Charles Lindberg a check ride in his new Curtiss Jenny back in the 1920s.

He should know of what he spoke. The pilot license he proudly showed to visitors was signed by Orville Wright.

Hazelwood’s Greenhouses & Nursery

A quarter century
of growing nature’s
beauty in St. Clair

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Susan Wall

John Hazelwood squinted as a streak of sunlight parted cloudy skies above, accentuating the creases in his face – the unmistakable signature of a man whose earned them in a lifetime spent outdoors.

It is outside at Hazelwood’s Greenhouses and Nursery where he feels comfortable, fulfilled, surrounded by the flowers, plants, shrubs and trees he has grown. And all the while, he has nurtured a business others can enjoy, too.

For more than a quarter of a century, Hazelwood has been doing what came natural to him – digging in the dirt, planting a seed and watching his creations grow. He grew up on a nearby farm of his family’s, and his chores including gardening. Was he always interested in growing? Not necessarily. “My daddy took an interest in me growing things,” Hazelwood mused. “I had seven brothers and two sisters. He made sure we had plenty of work to do.”

The farm where he once labored as a boy has now become growing fields for the business he built a greenhouse at a time.

Atop a hillside in Pell City, almost hidden from view of passersby, is Hazelwood’s, the business that has become a tradition around these parts. His colorful handiwork at Mt. Zion Church is a hint you’re getting close. With a chuckle, he calls it his billboard, but it really is a ministry of his.

After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, intending to be an X-ray technician. But after four years, he figured he could pursue his future education on the GI Bill rather than re-enlist for another four years. “I figured out what I liked and what I didn’t like,” and as life has its usual twists and turns, he wound up at Auburn University, majoring in Agribusiness Education instead.

He taught in Lee County and in Odenville and eventually made his way to what is now John Pope Eden Career Technical School. He was principal his last 13 years before retiring in 2001.

Throughout his education career, he dabbled in growing. “I thought I would do a little on the side and raise some ferns,” he recalls. He bought an 80 x 25-foot, used tomato greenhouse and grew 400 ferns that year – 1985.

The manager at TG & Y, an old department store in Pell City, told him he would take them all at wholesale, but the deal fell through. He managed to sell them all, though, and people started asking if he could grow other plants. “It started snowballing,” he said.

In a couple of years, he bought another used tomato greenhouse, then another, and the business just kept coming…and growing.

In the early 1990s, he hired Harold Fairchilds, who was in the high school cooperative program. That was 25 years ago. He has been with Hazelwood ever since. So has Harold’s sister, Becky. Gayla, another sister, started a couple of years after that.

The Fairchilds siblings make up most of Hazelwood’s greenhouses and nursery ‘family,’ and he credits them significantly with the business’ success. “I can’t replace those three,” said Hazelwood. “I’d have to close up. I don’t know how I’d do it.”

The Fairchilds moved to Pell City from Missouri and a farming background, according to Becky. “At the time, it was a job. I didn’t know I would fall in love with it.”

The same holds true for Harold. “I guess I’m just comfortable here. I like being outside doing something I enjoy daily.”

And Gayla’s assessment isn’t far from her brother’s and sister’s. “Obviously, I love it, or I wouldn’t keep doing it,” she said. “I like the outdoors. I love flowers, and I love color.” It was a perfect match for her family and for Hazelwood’s. “It was the closest we could get to farming,” she said.

Harold clarified: “It’s farming in pots.”

Changing with times

Over the years, as the Hazelwood hillside landscape changed – more greenhouses and cold frame houses and rows and rows of plants, flowers and trees – the business has changed as well. Choices grew quickly. “There are so many new plants,” Hazelwood said. “There are hundreds of new varieties every year. There are new colors, new everything. There are a couple of thousand petunias.”

Where people used to prune hedges, they now want landscape that is low or no maintenance. They pick dwarf plants. “They just don’t have time like they used to.”

But fortunately, he added, “people still like to plant trees, shrubs and flowers.” And their one constant is Hazelwood’s.

As for competition from big box stores, “we just decided to do a better job, have more quality plants at a good price and try to keep customers happy and satisfied.”

You’ll get no argument there from John and Helen Golden. They’ve been shopping at Hazelwood’s from nearly the beginning. “We’ve been buying plants here for our garden for years and years,” Golden recalls. Their favorite? “Roses,” they say, almost in unison, much like the way they talk about their shared experience at Hazelwood’s.

It’s like family serving family. It’s a trust factor, an ever ready smile and a helping hand, and one would be hard-pressed to replicate the chemistry they have with each other and with their customers. “They have good plants, and they are good people,” Golden said. “Becky is really good.”

Becky is easy to spot. She is always moving, whether it’s on foot or in a golf cart. You’ll see her toting a bag of potting soil, a plant or a cartful of essentials for the garden, all the while greeting customers with a deep South charm that belies her Missouri roots. Her attentiveness to customer service is unmistakable.

Gayla is much the same way, chattering away to customers as she creates beautiful container gardens. “I’m happiest when I’m creating,” she says. Even a work in progress seems to be good enough to buy. Her work table sign warns customers: “Please do not take plants off the table.” They seem to snatch them up as if they were a finished product, and the perfectionist in Gayla isn’t about to let them go too early.

Down in the lower part of the property, you’ll find Harold watering and watching over plants, trees and shrubs as if they were his children. “We just had a handful of shrubs when I started,” he says. Now they stretch as far as the eye can see on the property. “If you don’t like the heat, this is not the job for you. If you don’t like to get dirty, this isn’t the job for you,” he says. As for him, it’s definitely the job he loves. “I guess I’m just comfortable.”

In addition to Hazelwood’s extended family, his daughters, Shelly Martin and Kelly Staples, grew up working at the nursery. Shelly even pursued a career in landscape design after graduation from Auburn and does design work in Birmingham communities like Liberty Park as well as Pell City and surrounding areas.

Hazelwood does some landscape design work himself and is quick to offer advice to customers when needed. “Fall is the time to do landscaping,” he says. Like the Goldens, he has his favorites, too: Podacarpus for shrub; any variety of begonias for bloom; and “the old Magnolia” for a tree.

As Hazelwood looks around at the bustle of activity on this spring afternoon, recounting the journey that led him to a thriving business, he notes, “It’s something that just kind of happened. I didn’t intend to do it at all. It just grew out of starting something. I’ve been blessed. The Lord had something to do with it.”

Features

Margaret, Alabama

Blossoming boomtown of Margaret won’t be ‘Alabama’s best-kept secret’ for long

Story by Paul South
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

When Pastor Chris Crain was searching for a place to start a church in St. Clair County, a Trussville friend had a simple suggestion:

“You need to go to Margaret.”

Crain’s response: “Who’s she?”

You’ve never heard of Margaret, Ala.?” his friend asked.

“I drove out here, and I was shocked at the number of homes and people,” Crain said. “I think if there is a problem, it’s that people don’t know about Margaret.”

That was a decade ago. Today, Crain, 41, who began North Valley Church in Margaret with 16 people, now draws 400 worshippers on Sunday mornings.

The church is a microcosm of the boomtown that Margaret has become in recent years.

“One in every 10 people in Margaret is in our church on Sundays,” Crain says.

The church is just one slice of the Margaret story. If economists, developers, community planners and visionaries could concoct a recipe for a boom, Margaret would be their masterpiece. New, affordable subdivisions, a state-of-the-art elementary school, virtually nonexistent crime and location, location, location have Margaret poised as one of the Birmingham metro area’s fastest growing municipalities in the first decade of this century, a perfect landing spot for young families and entrepreneurs.

The community grew by a whopping 278 percent from 2000-2010, from nearly 1,200 to more than 4,400. The city grew by nearly 8 percent between 2010 and 2015. Six percent growth is projected between now and 2020. More than 20,000 live within a five-mile radius of the city’s center. Margaret incorporated in 1960 and became a city in 2011.

Tucked between Interstates 20 and 59, Margaret is an easy hop for commuters who are moving to Margaret and St. Clair County. In the post-war period and into the 1980s, the Birmingham metro area grew southward over Red Mountain and into Shelby County. But in recent decades, all eyes seem to have turned eastward, putting Margaret in a prime spot to be a bedroom community for The Magic City.

Seventy-four-year-old real estate executive and developer Lyman Lovejoy, who’s sold and developed property in Margaret and throughout St. Clair County for more than four decades, is perhaps Margaret’s biggest cheerleader.

“Probably one of the best-kept secrets of what’s going on, even for the people who live here (in St. Clair County) is Margaret,” Lovejoy said. “You get off on the roads, and there’s 300 houses in one subdivision, 200 in another, 150 in another. Unless you get off the main road, you don’t know.”

At first blush, it would seem Margaret bucked historic trends. Charles DeBardeleben built the town around a coal mine at the turn of the 20th century. The Alabama Fuel and Iron mine – in the 1930s one of the most productive mines in Alabama – long ago played out. But unlike other towns built on coal, iron and steel that went as their industry did, Margaret not only survived, but now thrives. Location may have been Margaret’s saving grace when mining passed away.

“I think Margaret’s location as a coal mining community in a suburban growth region is the reason (growth) has taken place,” said Don Smith, executive director of the St. Clair County Economic Development Council. “Right now, as that growth around Birmingham’s urban core continues to intensify, it’s put Margaret right in that sweet spot. It has more to do with its location at this point in time than its history as a coal mining community.”

Visionaries apparently saw the sweet spot. Owners of huge tracts of land eventually sold acreage to ambitious developers. New subdivisions are being briskly built, bringing real estate bargains, and a desire for services and retail presence – a grocery store, restaurants, a doctor’s office, to name a few.

Telling the Margaret story to retailers and retail developers is an aim for the council, Smith said.

“One of the focuses that we have is to make sure that retail developers and retailers out there understand that Margaret is an underserved area as far as retail goes,” Smith said.

While many prime locations are now home to residential subdivisions, Smith believes there are other great locations available for commercial expansion.

Pharmacist Mark Ross and his wife Tracy took a leap of faith earlier this year to open Margaret Pharmacy. Lovejoy approached the couple last year about opening a drug store.

“I came out here, looked around, talked to people and just fell in love with the place,” Mark Ross said. “I fell in love with Margaret and the people here. My wife and I talked about it and prayed about it. It was just a matter of timing and Lyman Lovejoy’s foresight, I guess, that Margaret needed a pharmacy.”

Ross called his first four months in business, “phenomenal.”

“The people of Margaret have embraced us wholeheartedly. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been told, ‘A pharmacy was just what Margaret needed.’ ”

Ross has also heard something else in the voices of the townspeople that may say something about the future. Talk to people here long enough, and the vision for the city includes more eateries, a grocer, sports complexes and middle and high schools as Margaret’s kids grow up.

“They say, ‘Ahh, this is fantastic. This is the beginning of something great for Margaret.”

Margaret Mayor Isaac Howard III believes more great things are ahead for St. Clair’s boomtown. And the real ingredient that drives the little city’s success – its people.

“It’s really like a family network, the people who have lived here for years, and even the people who have moved in recently, they’ve formed a family network.”

People are really at the heart of Margaret’s success, a story that began more than a century ago. The Golden Rule that DeBardeleben based his business upon still thrives today in old-timers and newcomers alike.

“For a lot of people out there, they’re looking for a safe, affordable place with good schools to raise their family. Margaret is that exact place they’re looking for, they just haven’t heard of it,” Lovejoy said. “I don’t know what else you’d ask for in a community.”

Gene Barker, building inspector for the City of Margaret for eight years, doesn’t either. He has seen the housing boom up close. In mid-May, there were 22 permitted new homes in various stages of construction.

Barker inspects the homes from foundation to roof and everything in between. He’s done as many as nine inspections on nine different homes in one day. Each house also involves multiple inspections. “That’s pretty much all I can handle,” he said.

A variety of factors have fueled the housing boom Barker sees on a daily basis. Low interest rates, more house for the money and geography – all play a role, Barker said. Margaret is eight miles off Interstate 59, and is also convenient to Interstate 20. Thirteen new houses have been permitted so far in 2016, according to city records. That’s a good year, Barker said.

“People are getting out of Birmingham,” he said. “They’ve got access to the interstates. The houses are reasonable. A lot of our buyers are young people.”

It is an easy, convenient commute. “It’s close to 59, but if you come over here in the mornings or afternoons, you see them coming from 59 and 20,” Barker said. “We try to cut the rights of way after 9 (a.m.), and we have to be done by 2 (p.m.), or you’ll get run over. It’s like a funeral procession.”

In 2005-2007, before the economic downturn, 26 different builders were working in Margaret. After the crash, the number plummeted to from three to seven per year. “It started to come back last year. So far, this is a good year,” Barker said.

With all the new that’s coming – and will come to Margaret – there’s still an homage to the town that the Welsh coal baron founded and named for his beloved wife, Margaret. The bell from the company-built community building now hangs at North Valley Church and still beckons stranger and friend to Margaret.

Said Pastor Chris Crain, “We still ring the bell.”

For more on Margaret and it’s history, read the full digital edition of Discover St. Clair online or get the print edition for Free.

Features

A new generation

Cooperative effort key to training skilled labor force

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan and Graham Hadley

In this technological and professional age, it is easy for students — and parents and teachers — to focus heavily on high-profile skills involving computers, programming, electronics and web design or to place students on narrow education tracks with the ultimate goal of receiving at least a four-year college degree.

But as the baby-boomer generation retires, so will a large portion of the industrial- and construction-skilled workforce.

And that poses a huge problem, not just for Alabama, but for the rest of the United States as well.

It’s a problem business owners, working in conjunction with educators in Alabama at the high school and post-secondary levels, are hoping to reverse — and to do so in such a way that helps retain students in school and make sure they have a solid foundation to succeed after graduation.

Changing workforce needs

Pell City’s Garrison Steel owner John Garrison speculates his is the last generation of workers trained by previous masters in such essential skills as welding, fitting, plumbing, electrical work and similar fields.

A combination of factors has steered the country away from the kind of apprentice-style training that Garrison and other construction and industrial leaders say is so essential to key economic sectors of the workforce.

When he was first starting out in the business, training in industrial construction, unions were strong and Americans tended to buy American.

“By and large, the unions to a large degree as far as construction, trained the generation I represent,” Garrison said. That was in the late 1960s.

But soon the unions started to lose traction to non-union businesses.

Today, he estimates the unions — and their highly skilled multi-generational employees — only represent 10, maybe 11 percent of the industrial workforce in the United States.

And then there was the image of working in construction or factories. Before the government, through organizations like OSHA, started putting a premium on safe working conditions, construction and manufacturing jobs were dangerous. Those workers wanted something better and safer for their children and often pushed them to pursue a college education.

Garrison said that attitude, combined with a similar government view with initiatives like No Child Left Behind, have gutted the skilled labor force.

“We are going to run out of skilled workers — they predicted that in the 1990s,” Garrison said. “And we are seeing that now.”

The shortage actually caught something of a break during the recent spate of recessions because the demand for those employees was low.

But as the economy continues to turn the corner, the demand for welders, electricians, plumbers and their skilled coworkers is on the rise.

And companies are finding it increasingly difficult to fill those positions, Garrison said.

Multifaceted Problem;
Multifaceted Solution

At the same time the skilled labor gap was growing, so were dropout rates in public schools. The new one-size-fits-all approach to education was not working for many students — teens who were capable of succeeding but who had no interest in pursuing a four-year degree right out of high school.

The solution to both problems lies in working together, agreed Garrison and Pell City Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Barber.

“We are working to redefine what a successful student is,” Barber said. “What we have to be is very careful to look at all careers, all professions.

“College is important, but there are students who don’t want to go to a four-year college. That’s not where their talent and skills are and not where they want to go. But they can still go out into the workforce and make a great living.

“We want to bring comprehensiveness to their educational experiences. Pull back the curtain and let them see what is out there,” he said.

To do that, the high school, businesses like Garrison Steel and Goodgame Company, and community colleges like Jefferson State are working hand-in-hand to give exactly those students the job experience, the training and exposure to the real-world work environment to put them on the path to success.

What started with industry-backed programs, like the construction-focused Go Build Alabama, has expanded exponentially to include a wide variety of needed skill sets. Students can start earning certification and training toward jobs in everything from medicine — certified nursing assistants and pharmacy assistants — to police and firefighters through the Bridge School and other programs while still in high school.

Students on the construction side of things are able to dual enroll at Jefferson State and other colleges and work on-the-job at companies like Garrison Steel and Goodgame Company. They can begin receiving accreditation with the National Center for Construction Education and Research — the industry performance standard for workers in building-related fields.

“NCCER was developed in the mid 1990s for construction only. … Over 79 trades are covered — things like welding, crane operation, plumbing,” Garrison said. Students who graduate high school with some of that certification in place, proving they have taken the core curriculum needed for that skill, are much more likely to land a well-paying job right out of school.

“If I see a student has some NCCER and says they have been through the core curriculum, now we have the door cracked open. We have a student who knows about our industry. That gives them a big leg up,” he said.

That training certification is nationally, and in some cases internationally, recognized.

“They might work in Alabama, West Texas, Oklahoma — anywhere in the U.S. — or some place like Dubai,” Garrison said.

A Two-Way Street

Students who take part in the training, who go to the job sites, are not only gaining invaluable training and experience for themselves — the idea is contagious as they share what they have seen with other students, said PCHS Principal Dr. Tony Dowdy.

“I have seen our students go out to these work places and bring that work mentality back to their high school. Before this, we had students who might not have been able to finish with a diploma. Seeing the workplace requirements, they want that diploma so they can go back and get hired at those places they visited or trained at.

“I have heard conversations between students, students telling other students that poor performance won’t cut it at places like Goodgame and Garrison or the Fire Department,” he said.

Pell City High School has gradually been phasing in this new approach to education over the past few years, said Dr. Kim Williams, system curriculum coordinator.

“We wanted to have a consistency in message. We took students to the steam plant in Wilsonville two or three years ago. That was our first big move in workforce development. We make sure we have something every quarter for the students that won’t let go of that. We are staying with this message,” she said.

Reinforcing that, Williams has been appointed to the Pell City Industrial Development Board.

“Three years ago, the school system joined the EDC (St. Clair Economic Development Council). We needed to be sitting at that table. That has allowed us to be part of what is going on and to look at trends in hiring needs,” Barber said.

Everyone came back from that first trip excited, and the ball has never stopped rolling since.

“We have done an exceptional job of identifying students who want to be in construction or welding. Getting them together in a classroom and seeing them feed off each other’s enthusiasm in a positive way, that, as their teacher, has been very cool,” said Brittany Beasley, an agriscience teacher at PCHS.

As students gain valuable work experience and skills, so do their mentors. They can actually earn teaching certificates by training students in their respective specialties.

“Through the Alabama Department of Education, there is a mentoring program where the professionals can earn certification as teachers. … They have to complete a year-long program, then they can earn their certification,” Williams said.

Already, Pell City Fire Chief Mike Burdett and firefighter Jeff Parrish have completed their certifications. “And we have two more on track to earn theirs,” she said.

Two police officers have received training on their certification, something that Principal Dowdy pointed out is available to any skilled field, “electrician, HVAC, etc. It’s another way to get skilled trainers into the classroom.”

“The advantage is, they bring real-life experience to the table. They don’t have to come in and sell themselves. They capture the attention of the students,” Williams added.

For the employers, it means ready-made workers already familiar with their jobs and with the work ethic that is expected of them. Garrison pointed out he has two students, Matthew Gunter McCrory and Karl David Graves, who graduated in 2015, working for his company. And they are following in the footsteps of other PCHS grads at Garrison Steel.

“These young guys can turn out to be very desirable employees because of the work ethic they learned,” he said.

Win-win Situation
is Just the Beginning

The program is too new for there to be hard numbers, but Williams says the school system has definitely started to see positive results, from more students entering the workplace to a decrease in dropouts.

“There is a large number of students who are positively placed, employed in an industry or in construction in fields like welding. Because of what I teach, I tend to stay in touch with my old students — it is easier to do in these types of classes. We have a vested interest in our students after graduation,” Beasley said, adding that it helps them keep track of workforce demands and which businesses are needing specific skills filled.

Though she is an agriscience teacher, she saw these programs as a way for “us to stay relevant. I now teach welding, intro to metal fabrication, intro to MIG welding, inert gas and flux cored arc welding” in addition to more traditional agricultural classes. That means her students can not only work as farmers, they can also find jobs repairing farm and other heavy equipment.

And while many students are taking advantage of the new opportunities afforded them, just as many students are still on track for four-year degrees.

“We still have the same number of students receiving scholarships, the same number of students going on to four-year degrees, but we have a lot of students going into the workforce, too,” Barber said.

The school system has hired a workforce coordinator, Danielle Pope, whose job it is to communicate with local businesses and industries about their needs.

“Then, during the students’ senior year, she matches students with employers,” Williams said.

“It’s about making the school system relevant to the community beyond education. We are asking what are the needs of the community and how can we tailor our program to meet those needs,” Barber said.

Features

Wrestler and more

Wrestler, sawmill operator, Dad – Answering the call

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

Cliff Horsley waits behind the curtain while the ring announcer pumps up the audience. He thinks about the wrestling matches he watched on television and at Birmingham’s Boutwell Auditorium when he was growing up. He thinks about his Mohawk/Cherokee heritage, and starts slipping into character as Chief Thunderhorse, the Silent Giant with the Hands of Stone, who stands for what’s right and good.

Wearing a headdress, arm bands and coordinating black-and-yellow tights, he listens to the fans chanting, “Chief! Chief! Chief!” and hears their whoops and war cries. He holds his head up high, stiffens his back, and slips into the role he will play tonight. Once the introductory music starts, and Horsley walks into the spotlight and crawls under the ring ropes, the transformation is complete. He is no longer Cliff Horsley, Springville resident, sawmill operator, single father of four. He is Chief Thunderhorse, Oklahoma native, representative of the Cherokee Nation, the Real American.

“In the ring, you get to step out and be the character you dreamed of being as a kid,” says Horsley. “It’s the satisfaction of knowing you’ve accomplished what you’ve always dreamed about growing up and watching it, saying, ‘One day I’ll do that.’ It’s knowing you’ve accomplished that, with a lot of hard work and perseverance.”

Being a wrestler was all Cliff Horsley ever wanted. He wrestled at Pinson High School, where he also played football, then turned professional at the age of 22. For the first few years, he used his own name as he wrestled for various entities at the Pell City Civic Center and other Southeastern venues. One day, the head of Global Championship Wrestling told him he needed an Indian and dubbed him Chief Thunderhorse, a part ready-made for Horsley, who fashions arrowhead necklaces for friends. So for the next 10 years, he played the part, while living a gypsy life in a motorhome that he could move any time he wanted to.

He pushed through his injuries, like the wrist that was broken twice and never healed, the ribs he popped out of his sternum, and the hernia he developed in his lower belly. “The match has to go on,” he says. But it wasn’t the body slams, the scorpion leg locks, the bad-guy punches or the cross-body drops as his opponents fell on him that finally took their toll and pulled him away from the wrestling ring. It was the kids he had never really known.

“In 1996, when they were one-and-a-half years old and newborn, their mom left with them,” he says of his oldest son and daughter. “For 15 years, I did not know their whereabouts. I had no money for a private detective.” To add insult to injury, the man their mother married took on Cliff’s identity, with the aid of one of Cliff’s old driver’s licenses that she had kept.

Then one day, out of the blue, the Chilton County Department of Human Resources (DHR) called. “They said here’s your kids, now you need a stable income,” Horsley says. “They started demanding structure and order.”

He didn’t have to think twice.

“My kids were teenagers, they demanded my time,” he says.

He was already supplementing his income with a portable sawmill, but he had to sell it to keep his head above water for a while. “I had to make child support payments, which went to DHR because the kids had been in their custody for two years.”

His grandfather had been a sawyer and cabinet maker, so working with wood was in his blood. It was something he knew he could do without his children having “a broke-up daddy and no paycheck,” he explains.

He admits that it was tough making the transition from his bachelor lifestyle and the role of Chief Thunderhorse to the role of Daddy and the restrictions that came with it. “But I knew what it was gonna take, me walking away from that business to focus on them, that’d I’d have to give my children the 110% I was giving to wrestling.”

For the past five years, Cliff has spent his time cutting lumber and raising four children — he adopted his biological offsprings’ half-brother and later, a friend’s daughter. He started Cliff’s Mill, buying a 100-year-old sawmill from a retired teacher whose husband had built it, then died before using it. He moved it from Wattsville to its present site in Pell City one piece at a time. It took him about a year. The engine and other parts had rusted out, so he converted a 1968 Ford engine and gas tank to power the mill. “I hand-built everything down to the drive shaft,” he says. “I always was a jack-of-all-trades.”

It was a gasoline-powered mill, and as fuel costs rose, it became too expensive to operate. So he bought a more modern mill. “It got to the point that $20 would not have cut five logs, and the belts were expensive, too,” he says of the antique mill. “But $40 will last a week on the newer one.”

He still uses the old mill when someone wants a time-period cut, because it makes old-fashioned kerfs in the wood. People who are restoring an old house, for example, might prefer those circular grooves to the straight-line kerfs of modern saws. He turns pine and hardwood trees into 2x4s, 2x6s, framing lumber, siding, wood shingles, trailer blocks for mobile homes and occasionally flooring. In the winter, when business is normally slow, he sells firewood.

He will cut to any size, but believes in a true cut. “My 2x4s are 2x4s and not 1-5/8 x 3-1/2s,” he says. He charges by the board foot, averages 200,000 feet a year, and no job is too big or too small. “It’s a small, entry-level sawmill,” he says. “But it’s not a hobby mill. There’s lots of maintenance involved, too.” It’s a physically demanding job, wrestling 1,300-pound trees onto the mill’s conveyor belt. He has one helper, a man named Roy Odom.

Raising teenagers hasn’t been easy either, but Cliff doesn’t regret a minute of it. For the first few years after he got his kids back, he would take a match four or five times a year. That’s a far cry from the two or three per weekend he was accustomed to. His two oldest children grew up and moved out, but he still has a daughter and son at home. While he enjoys being a dad, he also looks forward to getting back into the ring on a regular basis.

“I miss the lifestyle, the physicality of it,” he says. “There’s more to it than just jumping out there and wrestling. You have to watch what you eat, work out between matches. I don’t watch what I eat as much and don’t get the cardio I used to, but I still work out.”

It has been two years since he last heard that intro music and the chanting of the crowds. He recently started eating right again, trying to lose some of the weight he gained during his time out of the ring, itching to get back to the business. But it’s tough.

Yet when asked what he finds tougher, wrestling 300-pound men, 1,300-pound logs or 100-pound teenagers, Cliff doesn’t miss a beat. “Wrestling children,” he shoots back.

The smile in his voice says they’re worth it.

Pell City’s Rachel Baribeau

A legendary, lasting legacy, making her mark on air, world

Story by Paul South
Photos by Eric Adkins
Submitted photos

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Not so long ago, Rachel Baribeau connected with a long-time friend from St. Clair County, the place Baribeau has called home since sixth grade.

“You’re a legend around here, you know,” the friend said.

“I was like, ‘Whaaat?,” Baribeau said. “It blew my mind.”

The 36-year-old broadcast journalist’s reaction may come as a bit of a surprise. After all, Baribeau hosts a sports talk show and has a regular gig on Sirius XM radio’s College Sports Nation and a weekly column on GridironNow.com, covering big-time college football for a national audience. She’s a Heisman voter. She was the first woman to fully participate in a professional football training camp, suiting up for the Columbus (Ga.) Lions of the American Indoor Football Association. She has a clothing line. She’s a life coach and a motivational speaker. In the temporal world, that’s heady stuff indeed.

But in the tapestry that is Baribeau’s life, the real currency, the anchors of her life, are grounded in timeless values – a devout faith, hard work, putting others first and serving them and measuring life by the hearts she’s touched. As she tells it, she’s just “a grain in the hourglass.

“As I’ve gotten older, it’s really come full circle for me that people are my currency, and people are my richness,” the Auburn University alumnus said. “In that sense, I’m a millionaire because I’ve come to know so many wonderful people.”

To understand why Rachel Baribeau sees people, not material fame and fortune, as her source of wealth, it helps to know her family, especially her grandmother, Ophelia Maria Sifuentes Snow. For 60 years, “Opie” Snow served up cocktails and cold beer to unknown enlisted men and women and the world famous, like John Wayne, Paul “Bear” Bryant and Truman Capote at a watering hole on Victory Drive in Columbus, Ga.

Ophelia was a mix of humanity – a wondrous cocktail of Spanish, Mexican, Jewish and Mayan blood flowed through her veins. Today, that diverse DNA is visible in Baribeau’s dark hair and eyes and olive complexion.

“She really loved people and loved all sorts of people. She loved the soldier in Columbus and the politician and the movie star and the prostitute all the same. She just taught me that people matter and that life is about people.”

In Baribeau’s professional life, she sees stories of people that the herd of journalists may miss.

“I had a writing instructor tell me, ‘Rachel, when other people are looking one way, you look the other,’ ” Baribeau recalled.

One of her earliest broadcast partners, Max Howell, knows well Baribeau’s knack at finding stories off the beaten path. Howell has been a fixture in sports talk in the South, working in Atlanta, Memphis, Birmingham and other major markets. He recalled Baribeau’s concern over football-related concussions long before the NFL and the rest of the world took notice.

Baribeau offers a “unique voice” in covering the college football landscape, Howell said.

“She’s very compassionate and has a lot of empathy for the kids,” he added. “She was more concerned about the long-range people problems that evolved. To me, that was her strength. That’s what sets her apart from the other co-hosts I had.”

Lyn Scarbrough, a columnist and marketing director for Lindy’s Sports Annuals, has been a guest on Baribeau’s show over the years. Versatility is one of Baribeau’s strengths, Scarbrough said, both in her professional life and in her faith and charitable work.

“She can do radio. She can do television. She can do print. She is knowledgeable. She’s made journalism a passion. She’s willing to take a risk. She cares that it be right, and that it be professional,” he said. “In today’s culture, it’s not an everyday thing to find someone who has that combination of traits and beliefs and experiences. Not everyone has that combination.”

Baribeau, who has a deep religious faith, believes sweat, preparation and divine intervention help her find the stories she reports.

“My penchant for people has made people open up to me and to tell me these stories. I think there is a measure of divine intervention in that. The dots had to connect in a supernatural way,” she said.

One of those supernatural connections occurred two football seasons back, when Baribeau convinced her editors at Bleacher Report that Mississippi State University and its quarterback, Dak Prescott, were forces to watch in the 2014 season.

She traveled to Starkville a week after losing her father to cancer. Dak Prescott’s mother was waging her own battle with the disease. Before the interview, as Prescott opened up about his Mom’s condition, Baribeau began to cry, sharing her own story of her Dad’s passing. The two bonded, and Baribeau crafted a story larger than sport.

In January, Prescott was the MVP of the Senior Bowl. And Baribeau works with Prescott’s family to promote a foundation that helps cancer-stricken family members of student athletes travel to see their loved ones play, covering travel and medical costs associated with the trips

“Other than with Tom Rinaldi (of ESPN), Dak had never opened up like that before,” Baribeau said. “God really worked to orchestrate this meeting.”

There are so many layers to the Rachel Baribeau story. She was adopted at 18 months old by David Baribeau, a veteran of the first Gulf War. With her platform as a sports journalist, she is an advocate for adoption. She works with numerous charities, raising $90,000 for ALS research in the wake of her story on former University of Alabama great Kevin Turner, who now battles the disease. She climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for ALS research. The climb is the subject of a documentary, narrated by NFL Hall of Fame player and coach Mike Ditka.

And along with her work as a journalist, she and her mother partnered in early 2016 to form a clothing business. The Joyful Fashionista is crafting fashions for women, ages pre-teen to 85 and of every body type, sizes two to 26. A bricks and mortar shop – Pine Mountain Loft and Gallery in Pine Mountain, Ga., — and websites on Facebook and Instagram, feature the fashion line.

“What better thing than to be a partner with your Mom — your best friend — and help women feel beautiful and do it at a very reasonable cost. We’re not trying to break the bank for women who want to feel good about themselves.”

What shines through in Baribeau’s life is a boundless energy. Spencer Tillman, an analyst for Fox Sports, said Baribeau is “hardwired” for journalism.

“She pursues ‘the story’ because of her raw passion to win,” Tillman wrote on Baribeau’s web page. “She gets it right because she cares. She’s like that proverbial drip that can wear a hole in a rock. I’d want her on my team.”

That water of life has been passed across the years, from her grandmother to her Mom and adopted Dad. Powered by faith, the water is constantly flowing, methodically wearing away at the challenges of work and life.

And in an industry often driven by massive egos and major money, Baribeau’s life is defined by a desire to help others, a fire stoked by those who shaped her life from its earliest days.

Female sportscasters like Phyllis George, Jayne Kennedy, Linda Cohn and Lesley Visser may have shattered the glass ceiling. A new generation, including Baribeau, have followed in their path. And while like a gifted architect on a Starbucks bender, Baribeau has crafted a diverse portfolio in journalism, fashion and life coaching. And it appears she’s just getting warmed up.

But mileposts of accomplishment are secondary. Baribeau’s faith-based priorities are different.

“To move to act, to love, to forgive and to give. That’s what it’s all about,” Baribeau said. “You can have all the money in the world, all the accomplishments in the world. But at the end of the day, my eulogy is not going to be about the things I accomplished, but about the people I touched.”