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Politicians of Note

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Story by Jane Newton Henry
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

When day is done for these
officials, the beat goes on
By day, he’s mayor of Pell City. But nights and weekends you’ll find him crooning to the crowds in his very own band. Same holds true for Alan Furr, a judge by day and quite the singer and guitarist for the Wingnuts away from court. And the superintendent of schools, put a mandolin in his hand and he’s just as at home as he is at the head of the class.

Pell City Mayor Joe Funderburg, Pell City School Superintendent Michael Barber and St. Clair County District Judge Alan Furr became interested in music when they were young. Although they now have “day jobs,” music remains their hobby, their pastime and their passion. Funderburg plays rock and roll while Barber plays bluegrass, and Furr plays both.

Rock-and-roll mayor
“I look at it like this,” said Funderburg. “Some people play golf; some people hunt and fish. Everybody has hobbies of some sort, and I am fortunate that I am able to play music.”

The mayor has played six- and 12-string guitars and sung in bands for more than 40 years. “I’ve always enjoyed music,” he said. “I liked to sing when I was small, and I wanted to play an instrument.

“I begged for a guitar and got a $20 Sears and Roebuck Silvertone,” he said. “It had a very thick neck and I’ve got kind of small hands, so that thing was a job to learn to play.”

In the 1960s, he formed the band Leaves of Autumn with high-school friends. After high school, Funderburg continued to play music and found that music paid his college expenses. When his father passed away, he dropped out of school and became a professional musician.

“That was about all I knew how to do, so I went to work playing, and I was fortunate to work with some top-notch musicians,” he said. “I don’t claim to be an accomplished musician. I learned music by picking it up and playing it with other people.”

Funderburg says his favorite part of his musical career was during the 1970s. “At that time, St. Clair County — as well as Calhoun, Etowah and Shelby counties — didn’t have many places where people could hear rock-and-roll music, and the Boondocks Lounge was the place to go,” he said. “That was probably the most exciting time for me because we were playing at a happening place, and the band was recording in Birmingham, too.”

A member of the band Straight Shift, he now performs about once a month. The band has recently played at the Pell City Block Party, entertained at a sock hop at Celebrations in Pell City and performed at a private Christmas party in Birmingham.

Barber’s bluegrass
“When I came up, we didn’t have a lot of things that are offered today,” said Michael Barber. “I remember when we got our first color television. We had rabbit ears, so the reception wasn’t that good. Music was a pastime for us.”

On Sundays at 5 p.m., you will find him playing bluegrass at Pell City’s Mt. Zion Primitive Baptist Church, where he is the pastor. Barber and other musicians play before the evening worship service.

“The women in the church provide refreshments and work on prayer shawls to take to the nursing home,” he said. “The music is a good transition to the service.”

The number of musicians playing on a given Sunday varies from a few to a dozen. Barber plays mandolin, guitar, bass and some banjo, and he sings. “There are three other mandolin players at the church, so we rotate around,” he said.

Members of the group play on a local radio station every third Sunday and at Golden Living, an assisted-living facility, every third Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. Barber says they have been playing at Golden Living for 15 or 20 years. They also play at the Veteran’s Home and in the schools, when invited, and do caroling for shut-ins at Christmas. “It’s a ministry,” he said.

Barber was first exposed to music in church, where he was a member of the youth choir. “I was raised in the church and sang hymns as a child,” he said. He also listened to country and gospel music, including Hank Williams and the Happy Goodman Family.

“I took piano lessons for several years; it was a struggle for me,” he said. After learning the guitar and mandolin, he found he enjoyed playing bluegrass and learned that music could help pay a good part of college expenses.

Barber is self-taught on mandolin and guitar. “You get better by learning from others,” he said. When he teaches other to play, he asks them to teach someone else and share their knowledge.

“It thrills me when I teach a child who wants to learn and that child turns into a better musician than I am and then I see that child share it with another generation,” he said. “It feels like you’ve done something.”

A good judge of music
Ten-year-old Alan Furr became interested in music after hearing his grandfather Owen Furr play old-time country music and bluegrass with neighbors on his front porch in Crenshaw County.

“When I was 12, my parents made me a deal: If I could figure out how to buy an electric guitar, then they would buy me an amplifier,” he said. He got a job paying 50 cents an hour at the Handy Andy grocery store in Montgomery. His mother went to Art’s Music in Montgomery and financed a purple Fender Mustang guitar that he paid for with the money he made at the grocery store. Within a year or two, Furr was playing rhythm guitar with the Vibrations.

In addition to guitar, Furr plays mandolin, keyboards, ukulele, dulcimer and drums, and sings. A vocal performance major in college, he added church music to his repertoire. He continues to perform church music and serves as minister of music at the First Baptist Church of Ashville.

After graduating from law school, he spent about a year playing in the band the Reflectors with some friends from Birmingham. He currently plays in two bands – Whitney Junction and the Wingnuts.

The bluegrass band Whitney Junction was formed at First Baptist Church of Ashville. The group plays for free.

The Wingnuts, originally composed of aviators, plays 1960s rock and roll. The group came together after the 2011 tornado, as Furr explained, “when Donnie Todd, a member of the Pell City City Council, and I worked up seven or eight songs to play at a benefit for the Civil Air Patrol.” The Wingnuts now play once or twice a month for corporate and charitable events, such the Fur Ball, a fundraiser for the Animal Shelter of Pell City.

Furr said he sold his purple Fender Mustang guitar to a “kid” for $75, the same amount he had paid for it almost 10 years earlier. “Then the kid called me when he was getting a new guitar,” Furr said, and offered to sell the Mustang back to Furr for $75. But Furr explained that the kid could get more for it if he traded it in, and the kid took his advice.

Years later, Furr saw the purple Mustang for sale in a music store in Enterprise. He says he told his mother about it, and, unknown to him, she called every music store in southeast Alabama until she found it. He was surprised when she returned the guitar to him the following Christmas.

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Wood Carver

Creator of many; master of all

Story by Carol Pappas
Photography by Mike Callahan

When lightning struck a tree in Bill Golden’s yard, the natural instinct was to grab a chainsaw. But as quickly as that bolt shot through the tree, an idea struck Golden.

So with chainsaw in hand and a makeshift scaffold surrounding the tree, he masterfully turned the 12 feet of its remnants into an Indian carving that now stands watch like a sentry over the shoreline that fronts his Logan Martin Lake property.

Take a look around outside and inside his home, and one can’t help but conclude that just as he carved an impressive sculpture out of nothing more than a tree stump, Golden makes a habit out of turning challenges into opportunities.

“I do a lot of different things,” Golden said. “God has given me the abilities, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

Fear is not a word — or an emotion — Golden knows well. Why else would he try to create a stained glass window without so much as a moment’s lesson? But step up on his front porch and come face to face with a stained glass work of art.

He had been encouraged to take a class, but he told the woman where he bought his equipment that he “read a book.” When he returned for more equipment, she again encouraged him to take a class. “I’m doing OK,” he told her.

In the third week of his project, the notion of a class was dangled in front of him once again. “No, I’m doing fine,” he assured her.

By the end of the fourth week, the window was finished. He took a picture to show her, and she was “flabbergasted. ‘You could enter this in a contest,’” he recalled her telling him. And adding the ultimate compliment, she said, “‘I’ve got a door I’d like you to do for me.’”

“That’s where I messed up,” he chuckled at the memory. “I could have made a little money at it.”

Dollars don’t drive him, though, challenge does. “He is very talented,” his wife, Beth, said. “I have never asked him to do anything he couldn’t do, and it’s always better than I describe it — and always bigger.”

A retired supervisor from Hayes Aircraft and once a senior designer at SMI Steel and a project engineer at Connor Steel, his resume also includes an animated film — not because it was in his job description. It was simply a need at the time, and he accepted the challenge.

Hayes was vying for a NASA contract. “My boss called me from Houston and said he told NASA that I was an animation expert. I told him I knew nothing about animation, that I had seen animations about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. He told me to go downtown and buy any books you need. I bought three books.”

Three months later and with an animation film to his credit, Golden said his boss called him into his office and said they won the NASA contract. Another hurdle; another challenge met by Golden.

Inside his Logan Martin Lake home today, you’ll find plenty of evidence of Golden’s handiwork. In the foyer is a framed, pen and ink drawing that looks as though it could be on display in an art gallery. The signature on it? Golden’s, of course.

Nearby hangs a three dimensional music sheet he created with actual piano keys from the family’s century-old piano forming the notes of doxology, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”

Then there is the 300-pound roll top desk he fashioned out of red oak, various paintings and carvings of toys, figures and dolls, the table he built from an oak tree and the room-sized Christmas village display complete with a mountain landscape overlooking it. The snow-capped peaks he painted stretch across two walls of the room, the natural light coming through a window behind it following the natural path of the sun setting. Oh, and it’s not a canvas, it’s an old sail he turned into one.

These and more are all Golden originals, but he takes particular pride in the 7-foot “Chief Coosaloosa,” dressed in leather, holding a hatchet in one hand with the other hand over his heart. The inspiration came from the trunk itself. A growth on it looked like an arm stretching across a chest, Golden said. “I felt obligated to carve that Indian.”

Its history didn’t begin with the lightning strike, though, it was one of three trees he bought 40 years ago from Sears and Roebuck and planted on the property that lies across the road from present day Pine Harbor golf course. When he bought the lakefront property, Pine Harbor was merely a cotton field, he said.

When lightning struck his prized tree, he decided to save at least a piece of it. He told the tree cutting company to leave him a 12-foot stump. Golden built a 12-by-12-foot platform around it about 3 feet off the ground and over the next four weeks, Chief Coosaloosa began to emerge. “I started at the top and came down with an electric chainsaw.” Feathers, leather jacket and pants, moccasins, the hatchet, the chiseled look of his face — all are lifelike. It took Golden a week to stain it, and it now stands as a landmark for anglers and boaters alike who have discovered it.

Another landmark stands — or turns — just a few feet away. It is a waterwheel he built that serves as the end of his heating and cooling system and also produces enough water for doves he raises in a former greenhouse, a pen and a pond. And, “It’s more efficient air conditioning than the unit outside,” he said.

Where does all that ability come from? Perhaps it’s in the genes. “My dad had a reputation for fixing anything,” he said. Or perhaps it’s simply drive. “I’ve still got a lot of things to do before I check out. Everything you see (even the house itself), I did. I’ve still got more to do. I haven’t gotten to the end of that list yet. I enjoy retirement as retirement is supposed to be enjoyed.”

So what’s next? Well, there is that cedar log that could be turned into a football player with a leather helmet. …

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Unusual Art

A great inspiration

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Matthew Pope
Past photos courtesy of Jamie Truitt

Perhaps it’s the honk of a car horn accompanied by a neighborly wave and a smiling face behind the wheel. Perhaps it’s a stranger’s knock at the door to say, “Thank you.” Or the note tucked inside the ear of a bunny rabbit fashioned from hay, spray paint and water noodles.

Whatever the motivation, the seasonal work of art using a hay bale as the canvas on U.S. 231 South in Cropwell has become a source of inspiration — not only for those passing by, but for the artist herself.

The tradition began three years ago, when Jamie Truitt’s mother moved into her Cropwell home with husband Don. The wide-open field out front, facing the heavily traveled U.S. 231, seemed the perfect spot for a decorated hay bale, traditionally a fall custom.

“I always wanted a hay bale decorated,” said Ann Arnett. She asked her artistic daughter if she could decorate it. “She took off with that.”

The first was at Halloween, and it was not planned beyond that. But the reaction from people was so great, it continued. Christmas, Easter, back to school, Jamie’s daughter Katie-Ann’s birthday and, of course, the holiday that started it all — Halloween — all find thousands of passersby turning their heads toward the open field. And their smiles aren’t far behind.

The creativity behind it starts with a simple pencil sketch. By the end, water noodles become ears for an Easter bunny or birthday candles on a cupcake. Landscaping fabric turns into the wings of a giant bat. Chicken wire and mesh become the tools of her work.

Pumpkins, a spider, a Christmas present, a clown and countless other ideas go from paper to straw courtesy of imagination, artistic ability and a generous gift of the hay bale itself from Jacob Mitchell.

“Tons of spray paint” transform her hay bale canvas into whimsical works of art and a gift to strangers and neighbors passing by each day.

“People have stopped,” Jamie said. “They get out of their car and walk over. They say it makes them smile. It brightens up their dreary ride going to work.”

Two little boys whose mother is a friend of Jamie’s were overheard betting on what the next hay bale would include. One predicted a smiley face. Imagine the excitement of those little boys on their ride to school when that smiley face actually appeared.

Stories of that hay bale and its impact abound. One passerby left a note saying they were very thankful for her doing it. “They were going through a rough situation, passed by (and spotted the Easter bunny), and it elevated their mood.”

People have left donations, had their photo made there or pulled up just to say thank you.

“I’ve seen parents and kids pictures with it on Facebook,” Jamie said. One person even offered her a job doing a portrait.

But when times grew tough for Jamie, who was hospitalized for eight weeks, the familiar source of inspiration faded, much to the disappointment of her growing community of followers. Suddenly, it appeared decorated one day as a rainbow with a sign and a simple message, “Praying for Ms. Jamie.”

It was the handiwork of neighbors Jeannette and Anthony Harmon.

“I just cried over that one,” Arnett said. They took a picture of it, made a copy and taped it up in Jamie’s hospital room.

It became a symbol of inspiration to her, brightening what had become an especially bad day for her. And the inspiration to get better continued. As she moved from hospital to hospital, the constant was that picture and the sentiment behind it.

After her recovery, when people met her and realized she was the source of the hay bale and the prayers, they would tell her, “You’re the Ms. Jamie we’ve been praying for!” Or, “Because of that hay bale, you’re on our prayer list.”

For Jamie, the hay bale is a reciprocal gift.

“It is good to have a reason to do the hay bale. It’s more our pleasure of doing it. Being sick, it gives me an area to focus on other than my health problems. In the way it brightens their day, their comments brighten my day back.”

And the smiles it inevitably evokes simply add to the magic of the gift.

Just ask Katie-Ann: “It’s all good.”

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Lofty Tales

Alabama’s ‘First Lady’ of flight

Story by Jerry Smith
Submitted photos

In 1929, a 9-year-old Birmingham girl named Nancy Batson had a special Christmas wish. She wanted a flight suit, pilot helmet and goggles. The eventual fulfillment of this young lady’s dream of becoming a pilot set a pattern for a lifetime of excitement and service to country, starting during an era when women were expected to have vastly different aspirations.

Born in 1920 to an affluent family in the old Norwood district of Birmingham, Nancy fell in love with aviation at an age when most little girls were still playing with dolls. As a 7-year-old, her parents took her to watch Charles Lindbergh as he walked from a car into Boutwell Auditorium. Nancy was enthralled.

According to Sarah Byrn Rickman in her book, Nancy Batson Crews—Alabama’s First Lady of Flight, Nancy loved to pretend her bicycle was a biplane, imagining it to have wings. Her favorite clothes were jodhpurs, jacket, boots, and a white silk scarf, as worn by all serious aviators of that day. Clearly, Nancy Batson was born to fly, and everyone knew it, including her parents.

She attended Norwood Elementary, spent her summers at St. Clair’s Camp Winnataska and graduated from Ramsay High School in 1937. Afterward, she attended the University of Alabama, where, in her own words, she “…majored in Southern Belle.” George C. Wallace was a classmate and dance partner. While at UA, she also met Paul Crews, the man whom she would marry several years later.

At the university, she became involved in the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Nancy soloed on March 20, 1940, got her private pilot’s license about three months later and began an aviation career that would earn her a place among the Greatest Generation.

Her father bought her a used Piper J-4 Cub Coupe for about $1,200, instead of another, cheaper J-3 they had looked at which was in really poor condition. In Nancy’s words, “I didn’t ask for that plane. … Daddy decided that that was the airplane he was going to buy me. … I’m 20 years old and a senior in college. Other girls had automobiles. I had an airplane.”

After graduation, Nancy spent a lot of time around Birmingham Airport and joined the newly-formed Civil Air Patrol in 1941. All the while she was flying at every opportunity, building up logbook hours for the future. She got her commercial license in 1942 and began charging people a dollar apiece for rides in her J-4.

After being refused an instructor’s job in a local flight school because she was a woman, Nancy went to Miami and took a job as an airport control tower operator, but quickly became bored with it. She then got an instructor job at Miami’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Institute, where she trained Army Air Corps flying cadets. But Nancy wanted to do bigger things with her life.

She heard that a new wartime ferrying operation was being formed that had a women’s squadron. They flew brand-new airplanes from factories all over the country to seaports to be loaded onto ships for the war overseas.

In true Nancy-Batson fashion, she didn’t even wait for a confirmation. She just boarded a train for the group’s headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and presented herself to Nancy Love, the squadron’s leader. In Rickman’s words, “Nancy Love watched as a tall, very attractive blonde — dressed in a stylish brown herringbone suit, small matching hat, and brown leather, high-heel pumps — entered her office.”

Within minutes, Love had gotten Nancy accepted and set her up for a physical and flight test the next morning. She easily aced both tests and became a member of WAFS, Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Since WAFS was not officially a part of the U.S. military, Love had her girls fitted for uniforms she’d designed herself, although each had to pay for her own.

At first, they ferried PT19 primary trainers and Piper Cubs to training bases. Eventually, the WAFS transitioned to more sophisticated combat aircraft, flying everything from bombers to the mighty P-51 Mustang, the most fearsome fighter plane ever built. There was a name change, too. WAFS became part of WASP, Women Air Force Service Pilots, complete with new blue uniforms.

Most warplanes were designed around male pilots, but the WASP ladies substituted determination for brute strength and made any adjustments necessary to complete their missions. One really petite WASP had a set of wooden blocks made so her feet could reach the rudder pedals.

Several WASPs were lost to training and ferrying accidents, and many more had close calls, including Nancy. She once spent a chilling two hours trying to force a balky nosewheel down on a Lockheed P-38 Lightning that also had engine trouble.

Most planes flown by WASPs were brand new from the factory, their first flight test being the ferry journey itself. These valiant ladies had to deal with really scary, sometimes life-threatening problems on a regular basis.

According to Rickman, there was no such thing as a schedule. They flew whatever needed flying to wherever it needed to go, often coast-to-coast. There was a war on, and thousands of planes were being built very quickly. Nancy learned and mastered more than 22 military aircraft types, many of them high-performance fighters with more than 2,000 horsepower. One of her advanced instructors was a future U.S. senator, Barry Goldwater.

In spite of all they had done for the war effort, the government still insisted WAFS/WASP was not military and refused any and all benefits, such as insurance, death benefits, hospitalization, pensions, etc. In fact, they were not even accorded an American flag for their casket if they died while serving. Many a bitter Congressional battle was fought over these issues, but WASP remained disenfranchised for the duration of the war. When all was said and done, they were simply told to go home, as if their valiant service had never existed.

Just after a farewell party on their final night on the base, the Officers Club caught fire. They had spent many off-duty hours there during their 27 months of service to WASP. Rickman tells what happened next: “Nancy Batson watched the building go down in flames. She wondered if she was watching her future burn with it. Her passion — her need to fly those hot airplanes — would have to be channeled elsewhere. … A modern-day Scarlett O’Hara, a heroine of a different war and a different time in history, Nancy would think about her future later — when she got home to Alabama.” “Let it burn,” she hollered, and added a rebel yell. “Let it burn!”

Once home, Nancy languished in relatively tame pursuits for a while, not even wanting to fly. She became particularly desolate when a close friend who was serving in China was killed in action while flying his four-engine transport over the “Hump” in Burma (now known as Myanmar).

In 1946, Nancy’s college friend, Paul Crews came home from the war, and they were quietly married in the Batson home. Paul and Nancy lived in several places over the next 15 years. When the Korean War started, Paul, a reservist, went back into service in Gen. Hap Arnold’s brand-new U.S. Air Force. They lived at Warner Robbins airbase in Georgia, then Washington D.C., and finally settled in Anaheim, California, near Disneyland. The Crews also started their family — two sons and a daughter.

Not long after arriving in California, Paul quit the Air Force and joined his former general at Northrop Aviation. Nancy, meanwhile, had not flown a plane in more than 10 years, but after attending a WASP reunion, she found a renewed interest in flying. Finally, after taking a joy ride at Palm Springs Airport, she was reborn as a pilot.

Quoting Rickman: “Though she was a typical 1950s stay-at-home mom when the boys were young, by 1960 that homemaker mantle no longer sat well on her shoulders. Inside, she was still a pursuit pilot. … Her temporarily dormant inner drive was returning. … Nancy knew she was cut out for something more than a domestic life and prowess on the golf course.”

Flying high … again

Once restarted, she pursued her new flying career with a passion. Nancy already had 1,224 hours in her logbook from ferrying military aircraft. She quickly re-earned her elapsed private pilot’s license at a local airport. While building airtime toward advanced ratings, she also flew as copilot in the Powder Puff Derby, a cross-country air race for female pilots. By the end of 1965, she had updated her commercial and certified-flight-instructor ratings. While working as an instructor at Hawthorne Airport, she gave her 14-year-old son Radford his first flying lessons. After returning home later from Vietnam, Rad went on to become a successful commercial pilot.

Paul’s health began to fail during these years, so he took a lesser job at Northrop and began helping Nancy further her own flying career. In 1969, Nancy and Paul bought a new Piper Super-Cub, and she began using it to tow gliders into the air, often as many as 60 a day. “It worked out great,” Nancy said. “I was back in a tail dragger (aircraft with tail wheel instead of nose wheel), and I was in hog heaven.” She flew this plane solo in the 1969 Powder Puff Derby, which ended in Washington D.C. The flyers were invited to the White House to meet the Nixons. While in California, she also mastered glider-flying in her new Schweizer sailplane, often being towed into the air by her own Super Cub.

In 1977, Paul succumbed to complications of diabetes. By 1981, due to a bewildering chain of events and heartaches much too complex to delineate here, Nancy found herself back home in Alabama. Rickman relates, “For Nancy, the move meant starting over. … She was sixty-one years old. … The Alabama she returned to was nothing like the Alabama she had left in 1950. Nancy began to rebuild her life.”

Rebuilding life in Odenville

The Batson family owned a huge tract of farmland near Odenville that had lain idle for many years. Nancy had driven her RV back home to Alabama, crammed with everything she wanted to keep from California. She lived in the RV next to the farmhouse where she and Paul had first lived as a couple, while trying to figure out the best usage of their land.

Nancy joined a real estate firm and got her license. A few of their land holdings were sold to local people so Nancy could concentrate on a huge 80-acre tract that was the main part of their estate left by the death of her parents. She sold her beloved Super Cub to raise enough money to buy out the other heirs, then bought a partly-finished garage structure in foreclosure, right at the edge of the estate property. She moved her RV there while this building was being finished.

After moving into her new home, Nancy sold the RV and began a period of hot-plate and microwave austerity as she worked on what would become her crowning achievement, Lake Country Estates. Using local laborers and craftsmen, she developed one lot at a time. By 1992, Lake Country Estates was thriving.

She dabbled a bit in aviation, hung out with pilot friends and the Birmingham Aero Club and served on the St. Clair Airport Authority. She loved to hangar-bum, and occasionally visited the Four Seasons ultralight flying field at Cool Springs, where this writer first met her. (To my shame, I was still a kid at age 40, and wasted too much valuable time flying my plane rather than chatting with this remarkable lady. And now, some 30 years later, I find myself trying hard to compose a fitting story that could have been mine for the asking back then).

Pilot Ed Stringfellow tells of the time Nancy visited his hangar at Pell City Airport. She had used building materials from Ed’s Mid-South Lumber Company for some of her Estate houses. Shortly after dark, he invited her to go flying with him in his AT-6 trainer, a big, beefy tandem-seater with a powerful radial engine. Ed said, “Here she was, in her late 60s, and hadn’t flown a T-6 since the 1940s, yet she flew loops and other precision maneuvers, in moonlight no less, like she had just done it the day before.” Stringfellow also related a story from the old days, when a future premier Alabama aviator named Joe Shannon was stationed with the Army Air Corps at Key Field in Meridian, Miss.

Nancy had landed there in a twin-engine A-20 bomber she was ferrying to Savannah that needed a few essential repairs. Both Shannon and a mechanic were dazzled when a beautiful, long-haired blonde climbed down from the cockpit. After checking out her plane, Shannon asked the mechanic how long repairs would take. “Depends,“ he replied, “how long do you want her to stay here?”
A lasting legacy

Jim Griffin, director of Southern Museum of Flight, first met Nancy at Pell City Airport.

He had noticed a landing light way off in the distance, heading straight for the airport. This was unusual because the weather was practically unflyable due to high, gusting winds that had grounded everyone else. As the plane got closer, he watched as treacherous gusts threw it all over the sky, its pilot struggling to maintain control.

Despite vicious crosswinds, the Super Cub touched down perfectly, first on one main wheel, then both, exactly as one should land a tail dragger in such conditions. He was amazed when a 60-something lady pilot climbed out of the cockpit. When he praised her great landing under such awful conditions, she replied, “Aw, it wasn’t all that bad.”

Former Pell City Mayor and Judge Bill Hereford remembers Nancy as highly intelligent, yet easy to talk with and full of determination in everything she did. “One of the first things you noticed about Nancy Crews was her steely-gray eyes. They looked right at you and understood everything they saw, and yet she was never intimidating — just an honest, dynamic lady who always knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish.”

Christine Beal-Kaplan, herself a veteran pilot and aircraft mechanic, was one of Nancy’s best friends in St. Clair County. She once drove through Lake Country Estates while telling of some of their adventures while she was helping Nancy put that project together. Although 79 years old, Nancy flew more than 80 hours as co-pilot with Chris on some of her charter runs in a Beechcraft King-Air.

Sadly, Chris passed away recently, taking with her a vast store of anecdotes and memories of Nancy.

On January 14, 2000, Nancy Batson Crews fell into a coma after months of battling cancer and slipped peacefully away at age 80. In Mrs. Rickman’s book, son Paul Crews Jr. said, “She wanted to die in her sleep, and be worth a million dollars. …By the time she died — in her own bed — she was worth more than a million when you figure the land value.” She had indeed fulfilled her own prophecy.

Stringfellow recalls that he and some other pilots were supposed to perform a low, missing-man fly-over pass in Piper Cubs as Nancy was being laid to rest at Elmwood Cemetery, but the fog was almost to ground level, making the flight impossible. However, a huge airliner passed overhead at precisely the right time, making her graveside service complete.

Nancy was inducted into the prestigious Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Birmingham’s Southern Museum of Flight has a display case full of her belongings and memorabilia. Museum director Jim Griffin is particularly proud of that memorial, having known her personally. Nancy had accumulated more than 4,000 hours of flight time in her logbook, which is on display at the museum.

But, perhaps most fitting, wherever vintage pilots or Odenville folks gather to reminisce, sooner or later Nancy Batson Crews’ name will be spoken.

For lots more photos of this amazing woman and her flying career, check out the Discover 2013-January 2014 print and digital edition of Discover St. Clair Magazine.

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Phoenix Energy

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Leading the Way in emerging industry

By Carol Pappas
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Give Matt Hyde a few minutes, and he’ll likely convert you to the positives of alternative energy as easily as his company converts cars and trucks into using natural gas.

It’s not just a job to him. It’s his passion. “It makes it easier when you love what you do,” he said, just days after Phoenix Energy cut the ribbon on its new home in Pell City. An Alabama leader in converting vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, the company moved its headquarters and 13 employees from Jefferson County to St. Clair with an eye toward the future.

St. Clair Economic Development Council officials “were there from step one. They really wanted us to come. They were a great liaison,” he said.

“Phoenix Energy, as a leader in the alternative fuel industry, is a company with great growth potential,” according to Jason Roberts, Project Manager for the EDC. “We are happy to have them as part of St. Clair County’s industrial community.”

Now settled into its 14,400-square-foot building on Lewis Lake Road, Phoenix Energy is moving toward that growth potential. As Hyde, the company’s operations director, points out, at $2 a gallon, “every time you fill up, it’s a return on your investment.”

Phoenix Energy was created in 2004, and it has come a long way in a short time. Hyde’s father, Ken, became majority owner of the company after he retired from Alabama Gas Co. It was a natural fit. He had been working with Alabama Gas’ fleet of natural gas vehicles since 1978.

Today, Phoenix has grown from two employees to 13 and works with customers throughout the Southeast, converting vehicles to compressed natural gas usage.

The up-front cost to convert a vehicle is between $6,000 and $12,000, depending on driving habits. Over a 10-year period, he estimated the savings in gasoline and oil changes alone can amount to $40,000. On top of savings, it is cleaner energy, so the vehicle lasts longer, and the resale value is better, he said.

The barriers to growth of this emerging industry are convenience — there are only seven natural gas fueling stations in Alabama, for instance — and getting companies comfortable with the idea. Frito Lay and Waste Management are two of the more recognizable names who are not only comfortable with the concept of using compressed natural gas as their fuel source, they have embraced it.

This past summer, Frito Lay opened its first compressed natural gas refueling station in Wisconsin and is expected to build seven others across the country. In a statement from the company about the fleet conversion, Frito Lay officials said its 208 compressed natural gas vehicles will translate into the elimination of 7,863 metric tons of carbon emissions, which is equal to 1,125 cars annually. It is a viable alternative for other fleets of large companies, municipalities and school districts. But refueling stations are needed along major corridors so that they can have access to natural gas, Hyde said.

Phoenix will have its own refueling station open to the public within the next year, Hyde said. “It’s a logical fuel source for America right now. It’s abundant, and it’s cheap.”

America imports $1.7 billion a day worth of petroleum. By his figures, America could have paid off the national debt in seven years by converting to natural gas as an alternative fuel.

The natural gas cylinder can be mounted in the bed of a pick-up truck, under its rear frame or in the trunk of a car. A “brain box” is located in the engine that tells which fuel is in the fuel tank — gas or natural gas — and it can switch between fuels without interruption.

Personal compressor units are available at an investment of $4,900 to $7,100, so the user can refuel at home as well.

When he sits in traffic, his own truck converted to natural gas, “I feel like I’m doing my part — doing something good for my country. I have the power to do something good for this country, and it’s natural gas,” he said.

“It functions like gas. It’s 85 percent cleaner for the environment, and you’re saving money. It’s a win-win.”

While it will take time for universal acceptance, Hyde likens it to another automobile visionary. “Henry Ford didn’t build the first car based on gas stations.”

Other Stories

Walters Farms

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A beautiful place for the Big Day

Walters-Farms-Wedding — Katie and Bryce Hunt/J. Messer Photography

Story by Tina Tidmore and Carol Pappas
Photos by Mike Callahan and Jessica Messer, J. Messer Photography

Weddings and farms may seem like an unlikely union, but Joe and Deloma Walters hope brides and grooms-to-be will find them their perfect match.

On their 400-acre, second-generation family farm just outside Ragland, couples are now saying, “I do” against the backdrop of a picturesque green hayfield and arbor overlooking the gently flowing waters of the Coosa River. And a huge, rustic barn — all built just for them — has become the ideal place for weddings large and small.

The drive from the main road meanders around the farm’s pastures. Black cows wander about in the openness, unfazed, as if they don’t mind sharing the scenery. Pass by the old barn, through the woods, and there it is — the wedding barn. “Guests say the drive in is like an adventure,” Deloma shared.

It has been quite a journey for Joe and Deloma, too. Walters Farms opened as a wedding venue in April, breathing new life into their family farm where cotton once reigned.

They needed a way to supplement the farm’s income to be able to maintain the sprawling acreage. Transforming it into a wedding-event venue was an idea inspired by a caterer friend of Deloma’s.

It was Deloma’s idea to build a wedding barn, and in time, her husband came to see how wedding bells, beautiful country scenery and mooing cows might make a successful combination.

“We hope that will be the drawing card — the novelty of it,” said Deloma.

So, with their savings, a loan and an entrepreneurial spirit, the Walters built a wedding and events barn that is drawing couples from near and far. “Our goal was to build a true barn,” said Deloma, explaining why she is allowing it to weather naturally. They started with 19th-century styles and emerged with exactly what she had imagined. With 2,880 square feet of floor space and 29-foot ceilings, festive celebrations past and future are easy to imagine.

“We can accommodate 1,000 people here, easy,” she said, pointing to a 10-acre field below situated along the Walters’ impressive one mile of Coosa River waterfront.

It seems fitting that the first wedding to be held at the family farm bought in 1945 by Joe’s parents, J.B. and Catherine Walters, and his uncle, Clyde Green, was family. The wedding of son Scotty and fiancé Nicole was the inaugural ceremony and celebration.

They chose April 27 as their wedding date, which stemmed from how the couple met. Scotty had bought a home in Pell City that was damaged by one of the deadly tornadoes that ripped through the historic district on April 27, 2011. And the restoration of it played a key role in bringing the couple together.

It was the prospect of that wedding that hastened the Walters’ timeline for their new venture. “It was coincidental that our son had recently gotten engaged and shared that he wanted to get married on the farm,” Deloma recalled. “Originally, they were considering a tent, but after we decided to go forward with building the barn, we did it with a vengeance when we realized that we would be able to have it finished or very close to finished in time for their wedding. Once we told them, then we really had to push.”

Since the first Walters Farms wedding, they have been marketing the business through a website, a Facebook page and a booth at the Southern Bridal Show. But Deloma said most of their bookings come from references from satisfied customers.

In October, UAB School of Medicine students Katie Marchiony and Bryce Hunt had their wedding at Walters Farms. Katie had two prerequisites for her wedding venue, according to her mother, Mazie Marchiony. She wanted a pretty, outdoor setting, and, she wanted to get married within four months.

Her criteria considerably narrowed the options in central Alabama. But someone at the hospital had attended a previous wedding at Walters Farms and told Hunt about it.

“She’s bent over backwards to assist and offer suggestions,” the busy mother-of-the bride said about Deloma, just days before the wedding. “It is so well done — spared no detail — and everything is landscaped.”

Marchiony said the contract was very thorough, so she knew exactly what she was getting.

Another advantage to Walters Farms, compared to another outdoor venue the Marchionys considered, is that the barn provides protection in case it rains on that all-important day.

For Katie and Bryce, the weather on Oct. 19 was as perfect as the venue they chose. Framed by an enormous arbor made of bent twigs and vines, they exchanged vows in the field atop the river bank overlooking the water. Guests filled white chairs lining each side of the natural, green-grass aisle and the hint of a seasonal change in color came from the towering trees all around them.

At dusk, the barn illuminated the nighttime sky with miniature lights strung inside and out. Round tables draped with white tablecloths and an eye-pleasing buffet welcomed guests to an experience they won’t soon forget.

Deloma said weddings at Walters Farms already have run the gamut of styles. From short pants to black tie, from cowboy boots to flip flops, the barn’s comfortable and relaxed atmosphere lends itself to any type of fashion and affair.

“We love the farm anyway, but we feel a special sense of joy each time the barn doors open to reveal a new bride as she walks down the rock steps toward the arbor overlooking the river,” Deloma said. “It is a special place for us, and to be able to share it with others on such an important day is extremely rewarding.”

It has become a new day for this farming relic. The older generation gradually passed away. Catherine Walters died in 1996, followed by Joe’s father in 2011. In the early 2000s, the farm had gone into disrepair with weeds and broken fences, but in 2003, Joe set his sights on bringing it back to a functioning farm.

It may not be what he envisioned back then, nor what Catherine and J.B. might have had in mind when they bought it just after World War II. But the new memories he and Deloma are helping couples create are as special as the place itself. “I think we have created the most unique wedding venue in all of central Alabama,” Deloma said, “and it is just going to get better as we add amenities.”

She calls Walters Farms a labor of love — “just as it was for Catherine and J.B.”

Special thanks to Jessica Messer and
J. Messer Photography, jessicamesser.com

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