Meet Robert Griffin, Renaissance man and self-proclaimed “wonderful, kind and loving individual. That’s me,” he laughed.
Most know him as the T-shirt Guy, but he could easily add a few more titles to his moniker – artist, musician, songwriter, band leader, white water canoeist, environmentalist, hardware salesman, construction worker and let’s not forget screen printer, a talent he’s been at for more than 30 years.
As owner and art director of Wolf Creek Creations, Griffin prints 800 to 1,000 T-shirts a week or about 50,000 a year and creates four or five original designs a day at his operation. “The customers usually have an idea of what they want. I create the designs from their descriptions,” he explained.
The largest single order he has ever fulfilled was for 5,000 T-shirts for Caritas, a Catholic charity; and the smallest number was 12, a minimum order. The farthest distance he’s ever shipped was to an address in Hawaii.
“We’re based in Pell City,” said Griffin. “Actually, exactly two miles down Wolf Creek, on the right, just outside the city limits, but we ship all over.”
Griffin began perfecting his artistic talents, while still in college at Jacksonville State University. “I studied art in college and worked in T-shirt shops when I needed a job. My first printing job was on paper for a graphic artist and that eventually led to T-shirts.”
Right out of college, Griffin’s artistic career seemed to be taking a left turn when he went into business with his father, who owned a construction company, but the younger Griffin’s creative flair wouldn’t take a back seat for long.
“I had already gotten involved with white water canoeing at this time. They had events all the time, but nobody was doing shirts for them. I convinced my dad that we needed to pick up that space – that there was money to be had. So, he agreed to open a very rudimentary area in the construction office. As things sometimes go,” added Griffin, “my dad ended up shutting the construction business and partnering with me in the T-shirt business.”
Group sales are the life blood of Wolf Creek Creations, from high school senior shirts to environmental alliance events to chili cook-offs. But events surrounding the 2020 pandemic have affected the sale of T-shirts as they have just about everything else.
“We literally had no business for three weeks. There’s no school, so there went the school business. Festivals usually held in the spring were canceled, like the Alabama Bluegrass Association concert. That’s an every-year event for us, and it was canceled. We’ve had about $10,000 worth of business either postponed or just outright canceled.”
Bob and Leah
Griffin, ever the optimist, says he thinks “things are beginning to turn around. We’ve got a strong customer base and a strong repeat business. People know about us strictly by word of mouth. Some of these people, I’ve been doing business with for over 20 years. They’re no longer customers. They’re friends I do shirts for. That’s what I love about what I do, the friends I make and people I meet along the way.”
Another of his passions is music. “That’s what I really enjoy,” he says. “I’ve had a band for about 20 years. My wife is also in the band. We do a lot of classic rock and some blues.”
Explaining that his wife, Leah, who auditioned for American Idol, is the real singer in the group, he said. “She has a beautiful voice. She lets me try it every once in a while. I am a marginally adequate singer.”
He is more than marginally adequate as a songwriter. You might say he’s prolific. “I’ve written about 50 or 60 songs. We do a lot of original material.”
The band, named One Eyed Mary, plays a lot of festivals and local clubs.
The name originates from one of Griffin’s dogs, now deceased. “She was a rescued Lhasa Apso,” he said, “and she had only one eye. So, of course, it seemed appropriate to call the band One Eyed Mary.”
Of all the hats Griffin has worn throughout his career, his very favorite has nothing to do with work. “My favorite hat is being a dad to my three kids and husband to my wife.”
It’s often said that timing is everything. A Pell City-based company’s owners believe that now more than ever.
Carol Pappas, president and CEO of Partners by Design Inc., announced that the company’s LakeLife Division has moved its growing apparel and lake-related products business online to a significant e-commerce platform under its national registered trademark, LakeLife 24/7®, at lakelife247.com.
That brand includes 14 Alabama lakes plus the LakeLife 24/7 line of products. “We’ve gone from a storage room in the back of our marketing firm to a small retail shop in the front for our home lake, Logan Martin, to a significant national presence online that’s growing,” Pappas said.
The timing could not have been more perfect, she noted. The launch happened within two weeks of closings, lockdowns and quarantines due to COVID-19, so it lessened the impact of having to close its retail shop in Pell City, which had generated a significant portion of its sales.
“We had been planning the move for months, recognizing that lake life isn’t restricted to a single body of water, it has universal appeal,” Pappas said. “Our original business plan moved in the direction of individual e-commerce sites for each lake in the state, but we soon realized it made more sense in a one-stop, online setting.”
Under the guidance of a friend whose professional background includes work in scalability, Lori Junkins, the site launched April 5, with sales coming in from nearly every Alabama lake plus multiple states at the onset.
“Lori’s leadership and wise counsel made all the difference,” Pappas said. “In the first month, our sales already have come in from seven states and 13 of our 14 lakes in Alabama. The appeal of our 24/7 line is growing, and we’re optimistic about our future prospects.
“Like we say in the ‘About’ section of our site, ‘Our Home’s in Alabama. Our Dreams are Global.’ Of course, we’re not there yet. But who knows?”
Founded in 2009, Partners by Design is a multimedia marketing firm specializing in communication, marketing, graphic design and web services for companies, governmental organizations and nonprofits. It also publishes a lifestyle magazine, Discover, The Essence of St. Clair, six times per year.
The Mustang Museum of America is celebrating the one-year anniversary of
its opening in Odenville and cementing its place as a regional go-to attraction
for automotive enthusiasts from around the country.
It joins the likes of the Barber Motorsports Park and
museum in Leeds and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega
County.
For many automotive
enthusiasts, two car lines have dominated the highways in America.
One of them, the
Chevrolet Corvette, has had a museum all its own in Bowling Green, Ky., for
years.
Now, thanks to the
efforts of one family and backed by local businesses and the City of Odenville,
that other car, the Ford Mustang, has a museum right here in St. Clair County.
Housed in a huge steel
climate and humidity controlled building, the Mustang Museum of America opened
March 17, 2019, on Forman Farm Road in Odenville, and since then, the expansive
attraction had been drawing hundreds of fans of Lee Iacocca’s famous Pony Car
from across the country.
The museum is the
brainchild of Robert Powell, who says, “I had been thinking about a car museum
for 15 years” and finally decided to make it a reality.
Powell, who had been
working for Progress Rail, was nearing retirement — which he officially took
Feb. 1 — and started putting the pieces in place about five years ago.
“With the collection of
Mustangs I had put together, and the help of my two sons and their cars, we
started to figure out what we were going to do,” Powell said.
It was a natural move for
Powell — he had been the president of a local chapter of the Mustang Club of
America in Tampa, Fla. Even back then, they were thinking about the possibility
of a museum.
Powell grew up in
Alabama. In fact, he saw his first Mustang at a gas station in Odenville as a
teen. “I thought it was the most beautiful car ever put on the road. I was in
high school, so of course I could not afford one. But I started following the
line. Back then, I would get together on weekends with my friends in high school,
and we would drive around looking at car dealerships to see what they had on
the lots.”
When work brought him
back home from Florida, he and his wife and sons only thought it would be
natural to open the museum here.
“We think this could be
an anchor attraction for North St. Clair County,” he said. “I moved here when I
was 6. I grew up here, went to school here. St. Clair has been good to us. We
feel a loyalty to this area.”
With the support of local
civic leaders and business owners like Lyman Lovejoy, Powell unveiled his plans
for the Mustang Museum of America during a special community meeting in
mid-2016. They had already procured the necessary property, were starting on
plans for the building, and between Powell, his wife, Carolyn, and sons
Jonathon and Gary, already had upwards of 70 Mustangs in their personal
collection.
Plans called for the
museum to house between 100 and 120 Mustangs — a number they are already close
to reaching with 102 cars on hand. “We want to have one of every model year
through 2015, plus a police car version from every state that used them,”
Powell said.
Thanks to the generosity
of collectors and organizations dedicated to preserving Mustangs, who have
either loaned the Mustang Museum cars or donated them outright, there are only
a few gaps in the long rows of cars on display where they are still missing
models.
And alongside the
standard models are a number of specialty cars of historic note, including the
Mustang test bed used to benchmark the SVO Mustangs. It is one of the compact,
slant-fronted Fox bodies that marked the return of the Mustang as a dominant
force in American automotive manufacturing in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
That car looks rough, but
Powell says that is part of the history of the test vehicle. “I wanted it left
this way. It is part of what makes the car unique. This is the standard Mustang
that they ran against the SVOs in tests to see how they performed.”
They also have the
Fox-body Mustang Ford sent to California to be used to test the viability of
Mustangs as police — and much more commonly, state trooper — cars. That test
eventually opened the door for states across the country to adopt the Mustang
as a go-to law-enforcement interceptor vehicle.
Other cars that were
limited runs to promote brands, pace cars and race cars are also part of the
collection.
And though there was a
time when many die-hard Mustang fans would not admit that Ford’s smaller
Mustang IIs were part of the Mustang family, the museum boasts a large
collection of those, too. And that includes some of the sporty models that were
seen on TV shows, Charlie’s Angels in particular.
Times have changed,
Powell said, and most Mustang enthusiasts now consider the Mustang IIs as part
of the Pony Car family, with a number of people who specifically seek out and
restore them, helping with the museum’s collection.
In addition to the cars,
the walls of the museum are adorned with advertising, magazine articles and
other art – even an original, full-size billboard – that tell the story of the
Mustang.
“Lee Iacocca had to
really fight to get the Mustang built,” Powell said. Ford had just taken a big
hit with the failure of the Edsel, and when Iacocca said, “We need a new car
line,” he was told he must be crazy. But Iacocca, who passed away in 2019, was
known for his dogged determination, and the first Mustang was built — the 1964
1/2 model. The official launch of the 1965 Mustang would be Ford’s most
successful roll-out since the Model A.
The museum is a
non-profit effort overseen by a seven-member board of directors. Powell serves
as the managing director. His son, Gary, is the manager, and his other son,
Jonathon is the assistant manager.
Powell admits it has been
a learning curve for him, his family and everyone else involved in the project,
but their hard work is paying off.
Visitors from around the
country are making their way to Odenville, some just go a little out of their
way while passing through the area, others as parts of organized car clubs and
similar events. They even had a Honda Goldwing motorcycle enthusiast club make
it a point to put the museum on one of their routes.
That is exactly how
Powell had originally envisioned the project – not just as a museum, but as a
venue with large outdoor spaces and plenty of parking to host crowds and bring
events to St. Clair County.
He also readily admits
the business they are seeing now is just a small part of what the museum can
mean to the community. They did a soft opening and have gradually been seeing
business ramp up as word gets out about the museum, something Powell says will
be key to its success.
And he was quick to point
out that they are part of a much bigger picture – drawing motorsports
enthusiasts to the region. Races at the Talladega Superspeedway and events at
Barber Motorsports Park are part of that draw, especially since both of those
tracks also have museums on site, with more on the way at Barber.
Powell said the people at
Barber have been especially helpful.
“When I first started
thinking seriously about doing this, I talked to the people at Barber, and they
were very supportive,” he said. They have even talked about creating a regional
motorsports museum pass to cover several of the museums on one ticket.
His sons have been
bringing some of their cars to events at Barber and reached out to the venue
for guidance and the possibility of cross promoting their attractions. The
response and support have been more than Powell ever could have expected, he
said, lauding them for taking the big-picture approach to making the museums
and tracks regional and national attractions.
Other local businesses,
like BEI Electronics and Graphics and SVP are also important parts of the
community effort that have made the museum possible, helping with paint or
custom decals to return even the most worn-out Mustang to original condition.
Powell tries to keep cars in as close to original condition without restoration
as possible, but some vehicles need a full bumper-to-bumper rebuild before they
are suitable for display.
The Mustang Museum of
America is open Thursday through Monday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but Powell said they
will open pretty much any time to accommodate visitors; they just need to call
ahead and let them know they are coming. l
Andrea and Bubba Reeves grew tired of the rat race, so they
decided to build their future on the past. The couple, who live in the Greasy
Cove community of Gallant, recently reopened the store that her grandfather,
Jesse “Junior” Smith, ran for decades.
In the six months it’s been open, Greasy Cove General Store has
once again become the place where neighbors can catch up on news, buy milk or
eggs and find a sense of belonging.
“This doesn’t feel like a job to me, it just feels like home,”
Andrea said. “We’re bringing family and community back together. We have a lot
of people who come in and get teary-eyed and emotional because they have so
many memories from when they were young and used to come in.”
Andrea knows how they feel. Her grandfather, who always gave her a
cold drink in a glass bottle and a Zero candy bar, closed up shop in 2015,
about a year before he died. Bringing his store back to life has been even more
meaningful than she expected. “I can imagine him sitting here and me and my
brother running around when we were kids. Everyone comes in and says, ‘Your
granddaddy would be so proud of you,’” Andrea said and grinned. “I think he’d
be mad I messed with his store.”
While there are many nods to the past – the original pine floors
have been restored, the old checkout conveyor belt serves as the lunch counter,
and old cash registers and oil cans are part of the décor – there have been
many changes, as well. For starters, the Reeves changed the name from B&B
Grocery, which it had been long before Andrea’s grandfather took it over, to
better capture the eclectic mix of merchandise they’ve offered since opening
last September.
A little bit of everything
“We try to carry something for everyone,” Bubba said. There’s
produce, including oranges, apples, tomatoes, cabbage, rutabagas and 3-pound
bags of peanuts. They’ve got the basics covered, as well, stocking items like
Amish butter, hoop cheese, bread, corn meal, sugar and coffee. There’s also a
line of jams, jellies, syrups, salad dressings and pickled foods that carry the
Greasy Cove General Store label.
You’ll find gift items – many handmade – including jewelry, soaps,
paintings, leather goods and wooden trays, puzzles and crosses. They carry
typical convenience store items, like chips and candy bars, as well as a mix of
the old, including Circus peanuts, wax bottle candies and old-fashioned stick
candy. Antique coolers are filled with glass-bottle drinks, including
Coca-Cola, Sprite, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and Grapico, and there are canned drinks,
orange juice, buttermilk and bottled water.
Merchandise in the parking lot changes with the seasons. Fall
mums, hay bales and pumpkins gave way to fresh-cut Christmas trees, wreaths and
garland that Bubba brought back from the “World’s Largest Christmas Tree
Auction” in Pennsylvania. Spring bedding plants, hanging baskets and herb and
vegetable plants are making an appearance, and furniture such as Adirondack
chairs, rocking chairs, porch swings and Bubba’s handmade cedar tables have
been a huge hit with customers.
“If we can save someone a trip into town, we want to do it,”
Andrea said. “This has been a tremendous leap of faith. We just jumped in with
both feet and haven’t looked back.”
The Reeves aren’t exactly sure how long the store, which changed
hands several times before Junior took over, has been a fixture in the
community. Some say the original store opened in 1939; others say it dates back
later than that. It’s been part of Andrea’s family history, however, since 1980
when her father, Carl Smith, started working there part-time as a high
schooler, pumping gas, changing oil and fixing brakes.
A year later, the owners
put it up for sale. “I talked to Mom and Dad about buying it, and they
co-signed with me on the loan,” Carl said. He planned to run the place himself,
but his parents wanted him to finish school. He continued to work there after
school and during summers until college beckoned, and his dreams began to
change. “I’m kind of a wanderer, and I like to go and do,” he said. “If you’ve
got a store, that’s not going to happen. Dad was content being out there at the
store, so I kind of left it with them.”
The store soon became Junior’s baby. After retiring from the Navy,
he did some “truck farming,” growing produce and selling it in Birmingham-area
farmer’s markets, so it was a natural fit for him. “My dad was the kind of
person who didn’t meet a stranger,” Carl said. “You’d stop in the store and by
the time you got ready to leave, you were one of his best friends.”
Under Junior’s care, the grocery quickly became a gathering place
for the “old-timers,” who swapped stories and tall tales, Andrea said with a
smile. “If Granddaddy didn’t know the whole story, he made up the rest of it.
Before there was Facebook (and pages like) What’s Happening in Gallant and
What’s Happening in Ashville, it was ‘What’s Junior got to say?’”
Chances are, he’d be proud that Andrea and Bubba chose a
family-centered lifestyle for themselves and their three boys, Eli, 14; Casey,
12; and Colton, 8. They weren’t thinking
about the store until Carl broached the subject. “It had been sitting empty,
and it needed to be torn down or fixed up before it fell down,” said Carl. “I
asked them if they wanted it.”
Bubba, who grew up on a farm on Straight Mountain, was working
full-time for Carl, who now owns a machining and fabricating company. He was
also farming on the side, running his produce stand in Ashville and longing for
a simpler routine. “My whole life was flying away, and I wasn’t getting to enjoy
it,” he said. “People are in too big of a hurry nowadays, and sometimes you
just need to slow down.”
Andrea, a registered nurse, had worked for a hospital and
rehabilitation facility and felt like she was missing her sons’ childhoods. “By
the time we’d get home, they’d already told someone else about their day and
didn’t want to tell it again,” she said. While they’d planned for Bubba to run
the store while she continued working, she quit her job two days before it
reopened.
“We’re happiest when we’re here,” she explained. “My kids get off
the school bus here just like my brother and I did. It’s one of those things
you just hope God will make a way for you, and He did.”
Labor of love
The community shared their excitement. “We started cleaning it out
by the truckloads and people were stopping by and saying, ‘What are you doing
to Junior’s store?’” They also shared their memories with the family, recounting
the store’s many lives. “It’s been here since my Dad was a kid,” Carl said. “It
used to be right up the hill, but when they built Gallant Road, they rolled
that building down on logs and turned it to face the new road.”
Although he eventually quit selling gas, Junior didn’t make many
changes to the store. “It was in bad shape,” Andrea said. “We pretty much
gutted it and took it to the studs.”
Bubba, who also has a background in cabinetry and custom
woodworking, rebuilt the walls with wood from fallen trees and added the front
porch that houses produce, furniture and sleds. He built the front counter and
the bathroom vanity and covered the ceiling in old tin that came from the roof
of Junior’s mother’s house.
Antique wagons are used to display merchandise both inside and
out. The original bottle opener is attached to the new counter, and an old door
featuring handwritten party line phone numbers of neighbors, the Post Office
and the Sheriff’s Department is propped nearby. An old corn-husk hat made by
Andrea’s great-grandmother is framed and hangs in a prominent spot. “There’s a
lot of history in this place,” Bubba said.
While Andrea and Bubba are happy to honor the past, they want to
create new memories, as well. After paintings by Andrea’s mother, Cindy Smith,
flew off the shelves, she began offering painting classes a few times a month.
“When the ladies leave here with their artwork, they feel so accomplished,” she
said. “It gives them a good two hours to come and visit and forget their
troubles.”
Andrea, who is also a licensed cosmetologist, has been known to
give a haircut or two in the front yard, and now they plan to update Junior’s
fishing shack to make it a regular offering. They’ve hosted community events
like Christmas in the Cove, complete with Santa, bluegrass music, arts and
crafts, cookies and hot apple cider. They also have plans to open the kitchen
and start serving soups, deli sandwiches and burgers soon.
Although she and Bubba have been fighting over who gets to do the
cooking, Andrea isn’t sweating the details.
“We’re just going to wing it like we’ve done since this whole thing started,” she said. “This has been such a blessing, and the community has been so supportive. We’re loving every minute of it.”
St. Clair women blaze trails in male-dominated fields
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Kelsey Bain
The year 2020 marks the
100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the one guaranteeing
women’s right to vote. It could also be the year that the Equal Rights
Amendment, which guarantees equal legal rights for all Americans regardless of
sex, becomes the 28th amendment.
While legal experts
debate the uncertainty of the consequences of Virginia’s ERA ratification years after the original
deadlines, along with the recisions of five other states, a couple of
trailblazing women here in St. Clair County continue doing their jobs in
male-dominated fields without concern for equal treatment.
In fact, Stephanie
Foster, St. Clair’s first certified female school bus mechanic, and Belinda
Crapet, the City of Springville’s first female police chief, say they got where
they are with the help and encouragement of their male counterparts. For them,
equal rights have never been an issue.
“The mechanics here (at
the Pell City Schools bus shop) encouraged me to take the certification test,
and they keep telling me I can do this,” Foster says. “Other mechanics
sometimes make derogatory remarks at conferences and mechanic classes, but no
one at the shop does.”
Foster, the second woman
in the state to earn a school bus mechanic certification, is shop assistant for
the Pell City Schools Transportation Department. Her primary job is behind a
desk, where she handles morning dispatches and deals with parents calling about
kids missing buses and drivers calling about fights among students.
She checks images that
are captured from security cameras and sends digital copies to the Police
Department when a video shows a driver not stopping while a school bus is
loading or unloading. Occasionally, she fills in as a bus driver. A big part of
her job is ordering parts, and being a certified mechanic comes in handy for
that.
“Before,
when a driverreported a problem, I had to get a work order to a
mechanic, he would look at the bus, then a lot of times, I had to call a parts
manufacturer for a diagram of the area where the problem was. Then the mechanic
would identify which part was needed from the diagrams, and I would place the
order,” she says. Now, she looks at the bus and diagrams, which she keeps on
file, and determines herself which part to order. “It’s much more efficient
this way,” she says. “The quicker we can get that bus back on the road, the
better.”
She has been with the
department since 2013 and was certified in January of last year. “You have to
work in a shop five years before you can take the certification test,” she
says. The three-part exam included an on-site, hands-on portion that involved a
state instructor “bugging” a school bus. Foster found nine of the 10 changes
the instructor made to the vehicle. “I missed the easiest one — the oil
dipstick was missing,” she says.
Although she knows a
piston ring from a push rod, shecan’t rebuild an engine. But she is
familiar with all its parts. She helps with the state-required monthly bus
inspections, hooking her laptop to the bus to find what’s causing engine lights
to come on. She replaces fluids, light assemblies and switches. She is
qualified to replace brake chambers, hazard and turn signal switches, and one
of the most common problems in school buses — door switches. “They tend to
break a lot on our new buses,” she says.
Drivers have to do safety
pre-checks before each trip, mornings and after school. If they hear air
escaping, or the air pressure gauge
shows it isn’t building enough pressure, they know there is a leak. “I got
certified because I wanted to be able to walk out to the bus and know what it
is that’s leaking, not just say we have an air leak, but to tell them it’s the
right rear brake chamber of a door that’s leaking air, for example,” says the
2010 graduate of Pell City High School. “Safety is important to me, and I
wanted to make sure when I talk to our mechanics that I know what I’m talking
about. I wanted to speak their language.”
The 27-year-old has
always liked taking things apart to see what was inside and to learn how they
worked. Her interest in mechanics developed as a teenager, when she hung out
with her best friend, Patrick Ferguson, who worked on race cars, four-wheel
drives and rock crawlers. “I was his sidekick, and he taught me a lot,” she
says. She worked at Advance Auto Parts in Pell City and Leeds for two years,
then as a painter’s prepper in a body shop.
Her
husband, Joshua, paints vehicles for a living. The couple has two children.
Their son, 7-year-old Tristan, thinks it’s cool to hang out at the shop with Mom
each morning while awaiting his bus ride to school. Five-year-old Emma has
shown no signs of following in Foster’s footsteps.
Kristy Lemley, shop
secretary, was impressed when Foster did a road-side repair on a recent trip.
“We were taking two buses to Transportation
South,
a bus dealer and repair shop, and the air line going to her seat busted,”
Lemley said. “It made a loud noise, and Stephanie jumped. Then she hopped out
of the bus, looked around and found the problem and fixed it. We went on with
our trip.”
“They were air-ride
seats, and mine dropped to the floor,” Foster recalls. “I couldn’t have driven
the bus like that.”
“She doesn’t give herself enough credit,” says
Lemley. “She can do my job, her job, the supervisor’s job and most of the jobs
of our mechanics.”
Justin Turner and Greg
Davis, the other two shop mechanics, spent a lot of time helping her prepare
for the state exams.
“Without those two, I
would not have made it through the test,” Foster says.
Davis says he and Turner
“think the world of her” and that she has been a definite asset to the shop.
“If just any woman had come up to me and wanted to be trained, I would have had
reservations, but I knew Stephanie’s character,” Davis says. “She has always
been wise beyond her years and driven to be successful at things she does, so I
had no qualms about showing her how to become a mechanic. She’s a bulldog, and
when she gets something into her head, she does it. Those qualities are hard to
find in any gender these days.”
This woman answers to ‘Chief’
Belinda Crapet Johnson
has those same “git-‘er-done” qualities. She didn’t grow up wanting to be a
police officer. She stumbled into law enforcement for lack of something to do
and discovered her true calling. “My youngest child was in kindergarten, and we
lived across the street from Moody City Hall,” says Crapet, who uses her middle
name professionally. “I walked over to see whether the city was hiring. I got a
job as part-time dispatcher. I was trained on the job.”
As a dispatcher, she
would take a call, then send an officer to investigate. “I often wondered what
happened on those calls,” she says. That curiosity led her to attend the
Reserve (Weekend) Police Academy in 1992. “They don’t change anything in the
academy because you are female,” she says. “Physical agility, firearms, all of
the requirements and tests are standardized.” She prepared herself for the
physical demands of the academy by running to get into shape.
Sometime during the early 1990s, central
dispatch came into the county, eliminating her job with Moody. She went to work
in the county probate office. She had already finished the academy by then, so
when Moody had an opening for a police officer, she joined the force.
“I was was there six or
eight years and was one of the first school resource officers in that city,”
she says. “This was around the time of the Columbine (Colorado) school
shooting.” She was a police officer in Odenville from 2001-2008, served briefly
on the Ragland police force, then went to Springville in 2010. “I started as a
patrol officer, was promoted to investigator, then I was appointed chief in
2018,” she says. “I had the rank of sergeant
in Odenville but was hired as a patrol officer here.”
Although she’s the first
female police chief for Springville,
Crapet
is quick to point out that she isn’t the first woman police chief in St. Clair County. “Branchville has had two
women police chiefs, Wendy Long and the late Joann Lowe, and Argo has had one,
Rebecca Downing,” she says.
According to a recent
article by the Associated Press, only five of the nation’s 50 largest police
departments are led by women. A 2013 survey by the National Association of
Women Law Enforcement Executives showed only 169 women leading the more than
1,500 law enforcement agencies across the United States that responded to the
survey. A 2018 survey reported by Statista, an online business data platform,
said only 26.7% of law enforcement
officers are female. Springville has two females out of 11 officers, including
Chief Crapet.
Even though she’s the
chief, Crapet doesn’t wear a full or Class A uniform all the time. “That’s for
dress-up,” she says. She usually works in a Class B uniform, which consists of
a Polo-type shirt and black or khaki pants. Her five children grew up seeing
their mom in a police uniform, but her eight grandchildren and two great-grands
are still getting used to the idea.
“The grandkids don’t
usually see me with gun and badge,” she says. “One day I walked into the house
of my 3-year-old grandson in full uniform and he said, ‘Nana, what are you
doing?’ I said, ‘I’m a police officer.’ He just looked at me.’ Another
grandchild had to do a history project and chose female law enforcement
officers in Alabama as her topic.”
As for how she would feel
about one of her grandchildren going into law enforcement, she says she would
support her — or him. So far not
one has
expressed an interest in it. “I was school resource officer at Moody High
School when my kids were there,” she says. “That was awkward for them.”
Her job requires a lot of administrative work
in her office at City Hall. That office could best be described as “executive
unisex.” A four-month dry-erase calendar hangs on a wall behind her large desk.
“A Policeman’s Prayer” banner hangs on another
wall, alongside a painting of rocking chairs and an American flag on a country front porch. Facing the desk is a
flat-screen television hanging next to a Back-the-Blue wreath. A vacuum cleaner
sits next to a coffee pot.
Theoretically, Crapet
only has to spend 40 hours per week in her office or in her unmarked patrol
car. Realistically, she is on call 24 hours a day. She doesn’t get called out
much in the middle of the night, though. “I had to go out more when I was an
investigator,” she says. “My husband hardly knew when I was gone.”
She likes getting out of
the office, talking with business owners, their employees and people on the
street. She wants them to know she cares. “I go to school events, too,” she
says. “I’m best at community relations. I love that and working with children.”
Frank Mathews, a police
investigator for Springville, has known Crapet for 17 years. “She’s a great
chief, she’s doing an excellent job,” he says. “It’s the experience she has
behind her that makes her so good. She’s been there, done that. She has come up
through the ranks. Blue is blue — male or female.”
Springville Mayor William
Isley says he recommended Crapet to the City Council upon the recommendation of
former Chief Bill Lyle when Lyle retired. “She wears the hat well,” he says.
“She works hard to retain the officers we have and makes sure they stay
up-to-date on all their certifications. I’m impressed with her. She’s in a
male-dominated profession, but this lady has walked into it and stood tall. She
demands the respect of all who work for her. I fully support her in all she
does.”
Crapet says she and
Cathy Goodwin, a lieutenant with the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department,
have been around longer than any other female law enforcement officers in the
county. “I’ve got 29 years of service, 25 of them on the street,” she says. In
all that time, she has caught no flack about being female, neither from fellow
officers nor from people in the communities in which she has served. “I’ve had
a lot of good mentoring from male officers through the years,” she says. “I’ve
seen a lot of women come and go. I’m still here because I’m just stubborn. When
you come into this field, as long as you realize you are held to the same
standard as male officers, you will be fine.”
Blair
Goodgame has been to 15 countries spanning four continents.
Though
she relishes traveling, she tends to share Dorothy’s sentiments in “The Wizard
of Oz”: “There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!”
Enjoying
the place she calls home … and encouraging others to do so … is what
Goodgame does on a daily basis.
In
September 2019, she became tourism coordinator with St. Clair County Economic
Development Council (EDC). “It is a brand-new position and program, part of the
EDC’s five-year plan, Partnership for Tomorrow,” Goodgame said. “We are in year
one of that.” Hiring a tourism coordinator was one of the first-year goals.
As
tourism coordinator, Goodgame spends her days exploring and discovering
different aspects of St. Clair County and promoting them to potential visitors,
businesses and industries.
Tourism
“goes hand-in-hand with economic development,” Goodgame said. She called
tourism a “clean” industry that is indicative of a vibrant life within a
community. Such vitality is what business prospects want to see in a locale
they are considering.
In quick
succession, Goodgame enumerates one asset of the county after another, starting
with the resort areas Neely Henry Lake in northern St. Clair and Logan Martin
Lake in southern St. Clair. She adds to that Horse Pens 40 near Steele, Mustang
Museum in Odenville and the Forever Wild park near Springville. She points out
that the county has outfitters, outlets for kayaking, extreme sports parks,
bouldering destinations, competitive events, motorcycle racing, off-road
trails, aerobatics flight instruction, summer camps, national tournaments,
nature preserves and Moody’s Miracle League, a baseball league for people with
special needs.
As for
the arts, St. Clair has a prolific visual, musical and theatrical community,
Goodgame continues. A few examples would be galleries, concerts, entertainment,
songwriters and music festivals and stage productions. She also mentioned
learning opportunities, such as music schools and dance studios.
Plus,
there are wedding chapels and venues for parties, reunions, receptions,
conventions and conferences.
“We’re
learning more every day. … (There are) so many more things I didn’t realize
we have here … (and) other people in the county were not aware of also,” said
Goodgame.
In
addition to all that, Talladega Superspeedway to the east of St. Clair and
Barber Motorsports Park to the west bring visitors through the county, visitors
who may stop to eat, shop or refuel, Goodgame said.
“It is
also hoped that the more people who visit on a regular basis, some of them will
want to actually live and work in our community,” said Jason Roberts, EDC’s
director of industry and workforce development.
When
that happens, Roberts said, the county’s population increases, as does its
workforce, which naturally appeals to prospective businesses and industries.
Among
Goodgame’s responsibilities as tourism coordinator are compiling an
encompassing list of sites, venues, parks, events and opportunities countywide;
creating a calendar of events in the county; getting input from communities on
promoting what they have to offer; establishing a multimedia means for
disseminating information about St. Clair’s tourism aspects and using regional
and state resources to spread the information beyond the county’s borders.
Soon,
she will engage a branding company to create a slogan that captures the essence
of St. Clair in a few words.
“Blair
has really hit the ground running and has already begun cataloging and
identifying assets throughout the county, while also building relationships
statewide with other tourism organizations,” said Don Smith, EDC’s executive director. “She is preparing to begin a branding campaign the beginning
of 2020, as well as meeting with event organizers for a variety of events in
the spring. We had very high expectations for Blair after the extensive search
(for a tourism coordinator), and she continues to impress us all daily. She is
the perfect embodiment of our county’s tourism opportunities.”
Goodgame
grew up on marinas and in campgrounds in the Pell City area, enjoying St.
Clair’s warm climate and beautiful scenery. Logan Martin Lake and the great
outdoors were her playground.
“I’ve
always had a love of the outdoors, and the water still resonates with me,”
Goodgame said.
She
credits her mother, Cindy Goodgame, with nurturing that desire to be in nature.
“She is always supportive. She shares a love of the outdoors,” said Blair
Goodgame, who kayaks, camps, gardens and participates in community theater and
yoga classes. “… (She) made me the woman I am today.”
After
graduating from The Donoho School in Anniston, Goodgame majored in English at
Auburn University and minored in art history. Her plan was to become an attorney.
To prepare, she served as a congressional intern in the office of U.S. Rep.
Mike Rogers, R-AL.
Yet, at
law school orientation in 2009, she decided this was not the path her life
should take. She returned to Pell City and became operations assistant for
Goodley Corp., the family business.
“I love
Pell City. I love St. Clair County. It’s home,” said Goodgame, who lives in a
1902 farmhouse.
In 2011,
she became owner of Lakeside Package and Fine Spirits, which she operated
almost five years at her family’s Lakeside Landing RV Park & Marina.
Determined that Lakeside Package should be an “experience” rather than just a
store, Goodgame offered party supplies and events, such as wine tastings and an
appearance by Tim Smith from the television show, “Moonshiners.”
That
marketing strategy translated into a sales increase of at least 35 percent each
year. Pell City Chamber of Commerce selected hers as “emerging business of the
year” in 2013.
The
business venture, Alexandra Blair Calligraphy and Celebrations, has operated
concurrently with her other work endeavors. As an artist and event specialist,
Goodgame plans weddings, showers, birthdays and other memorable occasions and
produces the artistic elements and hand-lettered envelopes needed.
In the
community, Goodgame was president of Pell City Rotary Club and district Rotary
governor, a board member of Pell City Chamber of Commerce, a graduate of
Alabama Leadership Initiative, and a graduate and board member of Leadership
St. Clair (which is an EDC program). In 2014, the Rotary Club deemed her
“Rotarian of the Year” and a “Paul Harris Fellow.” She would receive the latter
award again in 2015 and 2018.
Recently,
Goodgame was selected to serve on the PARCA Roundtable of the Public Affairs
Research Council of Alabama.
To help
those in need, Goodgame serves as board of trustees secretary for Community
Foundation of Northeast Alabama and was chairwoman of the YWCA Purse and
Passion fundraising luncheon in St. Clair. During her four years as Purse and
Passion chairwoman, corporate and community support for the St. Clair luncheon
increased manifold, reaching $105,000 in 2017. In 2014, the Alabama Chapter of
Fundraising Professionals chose Goodgame “volunteer of the year.”
Candice Hill, EDC’s
retail/marketing specialist, sees Goodgame as the ideal fit for the tourism
coordinator position.
“Blair
has a vast knowledge of tourism assets in St. Clair County, as she has a
history here and has always been an explorer of things around her,” Hill said.
“In both her educational background and her personal experience, she has a host
of abilities to bring to the table for tourism in St. Clair County. I believe
that her spirit and energy, along with her love for St. Clair County, will make
her very successful in this position.”
Goodgame
finds that the more she discovers and learns about the county, the more
enthusiastic she is to call attention to those assets.
She
excitedly talks about one of her ideas, which is to establish “trails” through
St. Clair for things like barbecue tasting, birding, history, outlaws and
moonshiners, locally made items, you-pick farms. …
“Our options,” she said, “are endless right now.”
Editor’s Note: St. Clair County Economic Development
Council is funded through the St. Clair County Commission and private partners.
The EDC is housed on the campus of Jefferson State Community College in Pell
City.
