Category: St. Clair People

Fortunate Son

Duff Morrison’s life a story of blessings, hard work and “The Bear”

Story by Paul South

Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Three words course through Duff Morrison’s 80 years: “lucky, fortunate, blessed.”

Chat with him, and clearly, he has been. A member of legendary Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first Alabama team and first national championship team, Morrison excelled in engineering and business, working for some of American business’ best-known companies.

In his 50s, despite a body battered by his years as a multi-sport prep and college athlete, the Memphis native and St. Clair County resident was an internationally competitive racquetball player. Shoot, Duff Morrison was even a championship duck caller in Tennessee.

You name it, it seems, and Duff Morrison, the adopted son of Leonard Duff Morrison, one of the South’s most successful painting contractors, and a homemaker Mom, Bernice Turner Morrison, has done it – and done it well.

And no matter what he did, even today, the voices of his father, and of his “second Daddy” Bryant, echo in Morrison’s head and heart.

“My Daddy and Coach Bryant told me the same thing. ‘I don’t care what you do. But whatever you do, do it the best you can every time.’ That was the teaching that I grew up in.”

Three words course through Duff Morrison’s 80 years: “lucky, fortunate, blessed.”

And no matter what he did, even today, the voices of his father, and of his “second Daddy” Bryant, echo in Morrison’s head and heart.

“My Daddy and Coach Bryant told me the same thing. ‘I don’t care what you do. But whatever you do, do it the best you can every time.’ That was the teaching that I grew up in.”

Morrison followed the teaching to the letter, graduating from Treadwell High in Memphis at 16. He attracted the attention of college and pro scouts. The New York Yankees, New York baseball Giants and St. Louis Cardinals tried to hook Morrison with the lure of what then were considered big-money contracts. But Morrison – who neighbor kids called Duff Lujack after the Notre Dame great, Johnny Lujack – went to Alabama not only to play baseball and football, but to do more.

“I wanted to be an engineer,” Morrison says plainly.

A Drive to Excel

There’s a backstory here worth telling, a story Morrison didn’t hear until he was 38. His biological father was a Memphis police officer, and his birth mother was a Native American woman. The couple put the baby up for adoption.

Some folks may have been shaken by the news but not Morrison.

“There’s never been a luckier little boy than me,” he says.

Indeed, his father, who would employ more than 100 in a painting firm with clients from the Carolinas to Louisiana and his mother made sure their boy had a comfortable life. But he also learned the value of work and faith.

“On Saturdays, if I didn’t have a ball game, I was up and in the car by six in the morning going to work. I was baptized when I was 10, and my folks had me in church every Sunday.”

Things didn’t change at Alabama. Morrison was recruited to the Capstone by Coach J.B. “Ears” Whitworth, a good man, Morrison recalls, who never won at Alabama.

In 1958, a new coach with a new way of doing things, arrived in Tuscaloosa from Texas A&M. Alabama football would be forever transformed.

Marlin “Scooter” Dyess, an Alabama star who was also part of the same 1956 signing class as Morrison, recalls the impact of Bryant’s arrival. Dyess is now a Montgomery businessman.

“When he came in, it was like going from darkness into the light,” Dyess says. “When he came there, he pretty well established an attitude. As he told us one time, ‘I don’t want to ever hear about a past coaching regime. The problem with this program is sitting right here in this room. Those that stay will be part of rebuilding.’ He was absolutely right. He demanded respect and he got respect.”

Morrison recalls one of his first practices in the Bryant era. In the days before the NCAA restricted the number of players, some 300 were on the practice field for Alabama.

“Twenty-five boys quit that day,” Morrison recalls. “I went from 179 pounds to 163 that day. Coach Bryant tried to work you to death.”

“We thought he (Bryant) was crazy, trying to run everybody off,” Dyess said. “When we played LSU mine and Duff’s junior year, we only had 33 players because we had so many to quit. But he stuck to his plan, and it worked.”

Comparing Alabama’s fourth-quarter conditioning, Morrison described Alabama’s opponents by panting like a St. Bernard in a steam room.

“Every time that we played a ball game and got in the fourth quarter, the other team would be panting real hard. And we haven’t started to break a sweat. We were in better shape than anybody we ever played against. Coach Bryant worked your butt off.”

Like Dyess, Morrison never forgot that first meeting with Bryant, more than 60 years on.

“The very first meeting with Coach Bryant, he says, ‘Every time that ball moves on the football field, you do everything you can legally to help your team to win. Two, you go to every class and study as hard as you can because you’re not going to play football for the rest of your life. And number three, I don’t want any cheating in school, I don’t want any breaking rules or laws. If you can’t stand up to these things, get the hell out of here now.’

Keep in mind, the Crimson Tide’s previous three seasons were a collective nightmare, with a combined four wins from 1956-58, including a 40-0 loss to archrival Auburn in 1957.

But 1958 offered a glimpse of the glory to come for the Crimson Tide. Bryant’s first team beat 19^th-ranked Mississippi State, defeated Georgia Tech and tied a ranked Vanderbilt team. Alabama almost upset Heisman winner Billy Cannon and LSU at Ladd Stadium in Mobile. In that game, a bleacher collapsed, injuring several fans.

Morrison had a big defensive play against the Bayou Bengals. Some remember it as an interception, others as a fumble plucked out of the air.

“Billy Cannon went around the right end and cut back,” Morrison remembers. “I hit that son of a gun so hard, that the ball flew up in the air, and I caught it at the 45 and ran back to the LSU 4.”

Dyess remembered the play as an interception that Morrison plucked from the air after it bounced off his helmet.

“We kidded Duff, that’d we had never seen anyone intercept a ball with his helmet. But it was a big play in the game. Duff is a great guy.”

Alabama would lose to the eventual national champs. But Dyess saw a change in the Tide that day.

“It was amazing,” Dyess recalls. “That’s what Coach Bryant turned around. We didn’t know we were no good. He made you feel like you were just as good as the team you were up against. In your mind, you sincerely believed that.”

And in 1959, Alabama, thanks in part to a sterling defensive effort by Morrison, the Tide upset Georgia Tech, 9-7. The previous Saturday, the Ramblin’ Wreck had upset nationally ranked Notre Dame in South Bend. Alabama was on the rise. Bryant called the ’59 squad his “turnaround team” that ended the season nationally ranked. The Tech game was pivotal.

“I had nine tackles in the first quarter,” Morrison remembers. “Coach Bryant gave me the game ball. But somebody stole it from my dorm room after the game.”

Dyess says Morrison was an important part of the 1959 squad, playing both offense and defense.

“Duff was probably our best defensive back in the secondary. He was a guy who was a real leader. Nobody outworked him. Coach Bryant would take hard work over ability any day. Duff was an important cog in our ’58 and ’59 teams.

In an injury-plagued career, including a broken back in 1961, Morrison missed most of the national championship campaign in 1961. But Bryant never forgot the kid from Memphis.

“After we beat Georgia Tech in 1961, he gave me a game ball,” Morrison remembers. “He knew mine had been stolen. I still have the ball on my shelf.”

Bryant is never far away from Morrison. A treasured photo of the two, taken weeks before the legendary coach’s death in 1983, is prized. Morrison keeps extra copies of the photo to give to friends and fans who love to hear his stories.

But Bryant had an impact off the field as well. Morrison, juggling two sports as well as a demanding engineering course load, was having trouble in a course in the midst of baseball season. Worried, he called Bryant at home and explained his problem.

“He had a tutor in my room in 30 minutes,” Morrison recalls. “Hey, he cared about the ballplayers. He didn’t cheat. He wanted you to learn how to win and pay the price to win and do it the right way.”

He adds: “He felt like his job was to teach you to do the right thing in all aspects of life, not just on the football field.”

Morrison still holds the boys of Bryant’s first teams in his heart. Like Morrison, many went on to success in business, others in medicine and the law. While many have passed away, they are not forgotten.

“Those guys were about as good men as I’ve ever seen. It’s like you win World War II or something like that, and these were the members of your company. They went through all the battles and everything. I feel honored to have been with those boys.”

Dyess agrees. “There were some good people in that crowd, there really were.”

Of Morrison, one of his closest friends at Alabama, Dyess describes him as “one of those hard-working guys who was important to the team. He was a great teammate and friend.”

Off the Field

Morrison’s life after Alabama had its beginning in his last semester, when an advisor asked what he wanted to do after graduation.

“I want to be an engineer,” he says. “And I want to be the boss.”

The advisor directed him to Alabama’s School of Commerce. But engineering was always part of his professional life. In his first job, as a management trainee for American Brake Shoe, Co., he ascended to become a supervising engineer in less than a year.

He designed electronics plants for Emerson and poultry plants for Pillsbury. He was the top vacuum packaging salesman in the world for W.R. Grace for two years running and worked closely with companies like the Winn Dixie grocery chain and Bryan Foods.

“It was a grand life,” he says. “Two years in a row, that’s pretty good.”

He excelled in selling insurance, working for firms like Equitable Life. He also ran restaurants, like the Birmingham area mall locations of Sbarro’s Italian eateries.

While working full time during the day, he was a racquetball teaching pro at night. He helped design duck calls. And he supported and helped rear his family.

“I’ve had some real good jobs,” he says. “I got a good education and when you know the skills of engineering and management and you’re fair with people, and you do people right, they want to do good for you.”

If there is a dark cloud that lingers over Morrison’s blessed life, it’s the death of his son, Tim. Like his Dad, Tim Morrison played for Alabama, but was killed in a tragic auto accident in 2012. He was 44.

Duff Morrison calls his son’s passing, “the only bad thing” in his life. He holds fast to the belief that he will see his boy again.

“At least he didn’t suffer,” Morrison says.

Now at 80, Duff Morrison tries to stay busy, helping neighbors, building birdhouses, telling stories of Bryant and Alabama to anyone who will listen. He wrestles with aches and pains related to athletics and doesn’t go to games like he used to; stadium seats are too painful.

But he’s always quick to remind how fortunate his life has been. Many folks his age, he’s quick to remind, are in a wheelchair or shut in. As he looks back on life, gratitude flows. He looks forward to the day he will see his son again.

“God has played an important part in my life. I don’t take credit for any of this. I was blessed. Most people haven’t had the blessings I’ve had.”

As he would like to say, his years have been a grand time. He hopes he will be remembered for his dedication to doing a job well.

“I enjoyed it. I liked to work hard. My Daddy taught me a long time ago to do the job, do it right and work as hard as you can. If you’re going to go through life (halfway) doing stuff, why bother?”

Doris Munkus

Organizer extraordinaire puts skills,
compassion to work for good causes

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted Photos

Doris Munkus likes to organize. When she’s not organizing line dancers, senior citizens and fundraisers, she turns to her own household.

“I color-code everything,” she confesses, not the least bit sheepishly. “I have five grandchildren, and I color-code their towels, their bedding, their chairs, even their toothbrushes and drink cups. They can’t change them, either. I don’t have to buy name tags at Christmas, I just wrap their gifts in their colors.”

Freud might call her anal about organizing, but folks around Pell City call her genius. Over the past six years, her organizational skills have helped raise more than $150,000 for various charities and first responders in her community. Her main claim to fame is Dancing With Our Stars. This annual competition mimics television’s Dancing With The Stars, pairing experienced dancers with local bankers, professionals, business owners, elected and school officials, firefighters, police officers and others.

But Doris’ organizational skills go back much further than the 2014 debut of DWOS, however. “I organized a float to represent Dallas County for former Gov. Guy Hunt’s inauguration parade,” says Doris, who taught art in that county’s school system when she lived in Selma. “I staged an Invention Convention for the school children, too. I like to organize big things.”

In 2001 former Pell City Councilwoman and fellow church member Betty Turner picked up on Doris’ organizational abilities and asked her to start an exercise class at their church, Cropwell Baptist. “I couldn’t then because my mom lived with me and I was taking care of her,” Doris recounts. “She died in 2002, so in 2003 I started that class. It was free and open to anyone.”

After seven or eight years, the exercising hour got a little too long. Doris had taught line dancing as activities director at the Pell City Senior Citizen Center in the late 1990s, so she suggested adding that to the mix. Everyone involved agreed.

“We did a half hour of exercise, half hour of line dancing for several years, then we dropped the exercise portion and just did line dancing,” Doris explains. In 2009, the classmoved to Celebrations, and Doris added a$4 charge per class to cover the expenses of renting Celebrations, buying the music, the signage, the DVD player and other incidentals. The rolls show 50 people, but the average attendance is about 30.

While the class was still at Cropwell, the late Kathy Patterson was on the board of the St. Clair County Relay for Life and asked whether Doris’ line dancers might want to raise money for cancer research. “That first year we raised $2,000, and dancing wasn’t even involved,” Doris says. True to form, shestarted thinking bigger, and the class held sock hops the next year. People responded well, so Melinda Williams, the American Cancer Society representative for St. Clair and several other counties, suggested the dancers hold a Dancing With Our Stars as another fundraiser.

“Our first was February 14, 2014,” Doris says. “February seems to be best month, but we have done it in March and April. In February of this year, we raised $23,111 and those numbers are still climbing because we’re selling DVDs from the show.”

Deserved rave reviews

Tim Kurzejeski is a battalion chief and one of four members of the Pell City Fire Department who line-danced to the 1977 Bee Gees hit, Stayin’ Alive, at the first DWOS – in full protective gear. He has nothing but praise for Doris and the DWOS event.

“Thefire department here in Pell City has had a dance team at Dancing With Our Stars every year since that first year,” Kurzejeski says. “Doris is great. She’s very energetic, she just tries to do the best and most she can to give back to the community. She’s very easy to work with, and it’s actually fun.”

Dancing With Our Stars no longer raises funds for Relay for Life. Instead, the money goes to a different organization each year. In 2016 it benefitted Children’s Hospital of Alabama, in 2017, it was the Pell City Fire Department, in 2018 the Pell City Police Department, and this year, it was for the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department. Next year, DWOS will raise money for the St. Clair County Children’s Advocacy Center. “The dancers and people who buy tickets respond well to local charities,” Doris says. “People call us and ask us to raise money for their charity, and we put them on a list. We check them out, and the entire committee must agree on them. We’ll never do it for an individual, though.”

She has a committee of eight line dancers who do much of the planning for the event. “We already have the menu for next year,” she says. “Vickie Potter, who’s in charge of the food, already has next year’s food court and theme. It will be a hobo theme in 2020.”

Other committee members include Donna McAlister, photo and technical coordinator; Kathie Dunn; Kathy Hunter; Lavelle Willingham, treasurer; Martha Hill; Paulette Israel and Sue Nickens, Silent Auction coordinators. Jeremy Gossett has been emcee, and Jamison Taylor has been the disc jockey for the event since its inception. Griffin Harris is the tech guru who sets up the text line the audience uses to vote for favorites. “It’s all run by volunteers,” Doris says.

Recruiting dancers was hard the first year, but it’s much easier now. In fact, people often call Doris asking to participate. “It’s amazing how much talent we have in this area,” she says. This year, 600 people paid $25 each to eat dinner and watch the show at Celebrations, where all but one DWOS has been held. Next year, it will move to the CEPA building, on the gym side, which holds 2,000 people. “There’s more parking space there, too,” Doris says.

St. Clair County Sheriff Billy J.Murray readily admits that Doris is one of two people he just can’t say “no” to. (The other is his wife.) “Doris has a tremendous work ethic, and she’s very organized,” he says. “There’s always a lot of stuff that comes up that someone has to handle in preparing for the show, and she steps up to the role of managing the chaos.”

Although dancing is out of his comfort zone, he has already signed up for next year because Doris makes it so much fun. “I know how to be sheriff, but I don’t know how to dance,” Murray says. “We (the sheriff’s department) had nearly 30 people helping in some capacity this year, dancing, building props, helping with costumes and makeup. I wouldn’t hesitate to partner with Doris and her line dancers again.”

Joanna Murphree, the executive assistant to the administrator of St. Vincent’s St. Clair, has worked with Doris on DWOS for the past three years, and she, too, has high praise for this wonder woman. “The hospital has had a team in the group division, the Dance Fevers team,” she says. “Doris’s organizational skills are phenomenal. She’s pleasant to work with, too, and very thorough.”

Destination: Worthy cause

When she’s not working on DWOS, Dorisorganizes short, one day or overnight trips for the St. Clair County Baptist Association as a volunteer, as well as cruises and one- and two-week bus trips under the banner of her Pell City Cruisers. This sideline began in 1998, when she worked at the senior center. She charters the buses, plans the itineraries and the meals, books the hotels, the whole shebang. “I did one 14-day bus trip where we flew into Las Vegas and toured 12-14 national parks in nine states,” she says. She has done tours to Canada, Colorado, Montana, Utah, the Ark in Kentucky and the Panama Canal Zone. She makes photo books of each trip, just like she does with each DWOS event. “All of these trips and cruises are open to anyone of any age or denomination,” she says.

In addition, she and the Pell City Line Dancers perform at community events, such as the Halloween Festival at Old Baker’s Farm in Shelby County, Homestead Hollow in Springville and the Pell City Block Party. They dance monthly at the Colonel Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home in Pell City, at the Village at Cook Springs, and at Danbury in Inverness in Shelby County.

When she isn’t traveling or organizing something, she helps her husband, Victor, who is retired from National Cement in Ragland, with Munk’s Renovations. They remodel apartments, refurbish the cabinets they remove and resell them. The couple has been married for 22 years, and yes, she organizes his life, too. But he doesn’t mind at all.

“She’s a wonderful lady, she’s sweet, lovable, real thoughtful,” he gushes. Victor says she organizes his closet, too. “I have a section for work shirts, for dress shirts, for shoes, socks, pants and underwear,” he says. “She has tags, so I’ll know where everything’s supposed to go. She doesn’t like for me to leave my shoes or clothes lying around, and she’ll come behind me and pick them up. I’ve been living with her for almost 23 years, and I guess neither of us is going to change.”

Editor’s Note: For a video or DVD of still pictures of the 2019 Dancing With Our Stars, call Doris at 205-473-4063. They are $10 each.

You may also call her for more information about her trips.

Line dancing classes meet at 9 a.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, with beginner classes following at 10 a.m. on the same days. Payment is on the honor system, with a box set out to collect the $4 per person charge. l

Bobbye Weaver

A life filled with the stars

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Michael Callahan

Bobbye Williamson might never have imagined that a simple wink would determine the course of her life, but it definitely did.

That single, innocent, little action set off a series of events that sent her globetrotting, mingling with celebrities and experiencing her own brushes with fame.

She would visit five continents; meet Rock Hudson, Clint Eastwood, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball and a legion of other stars; be part of a “Ben Casey” rehearsal; and lunch with Dustin Hoffman’s parents. She would even have to use her acting skills and an exaggerated Southern accent to talk her way out of trouble with President Richard Nixon’s Secret Service detail.

That little wink happened back in 1949 while she was working at Roberson’s department store in Pell City during Christmas break from the University of Alabama.

Emmett Weaver, an Anniston native and young editor of Pell City’s newspaper, came into the store. Bobbye greeted him with a pleasant salutation and a wink (which was actually a facial tic).

Emmett thought Bobbye was flirting, so he invited her to Citizens Drug Store for a soda.

Those few minutes over refreshments made clear that “we just had a lot in common,” Bobbye said.

They married in June 1950.

Scarcely three months later, Emmett – who had been a medic during World War II – was reactivated because of the Korean War. He was stationed at a military hospital in New York.

“Every night, we were at a Broadway show, if he wasn’t on duty,” Bobbye said. “That was the heyday of Broadway – Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, … . That was a lot of fun.”

When Emmett completed his military service in 1953, he became entertainment editor at the Birmingham Post-Herald. Bobbye taught music at Saks Junior High School. The two also attended Birmingham-Southern College – Emmett to do his master’s coursework, and Bobbye to finish her degrees in English and Spanish.

Through Emmett’s 30-year, award-winning journalism career and Bobbye’s various endeavors, the two met one celebrity after another, ended up in humorous situations and earned a spot on many prominent Christmas card lists.

Until recently, the Weaver home in Vestavia held reminders of the eventful life Bobbye and Emmett shared.

There was the ashtray from Bob Hope, the miniature piano from Liberace, the stirrup from John Wayne, the original artwork from Jack Lord. The Weavers’ collection of memorabilia is extensive and diverse: original scripts, photographs, letters, costumes, playbills, posters, keepsakes from premiers and gifts from famous people.

The treasures go on exhibit in 2019 at Oxford Performing Arts Center in Oxford, Ala. John Longshore, the center’s executive director, said the collection will be a semi-permanent exhibit. He noted the magnitude of the collection, saying its variety will marry well with the array of entertainment that the center brings into Northeast Alabama.

Always the performer

According to cousin Beth Geno of Kingsport, Tenn., Bobbye was born to perform.

“She has been a performer ever since she could talk,” Beth said.

Bobbye, whose parents were Robert and Lillie Kate Williamson of Cropwell, was talking and singing by 8 months, doing impressions as a toddler, studying music at a conservatory by age 8 and teaching piano lessons at 13.

In high school, she helped to lead worship services for evangelist Billy Graham’s “Youth for Christ” program.

As an adult, Bobbye chaperoned Miss Universe, Miss International and Maid of Cotton contestants, even designing a costume for one woman that captured media attention. Bobbye broadcast live updates about the pageants to Birmingham radio stations WCRT and WSGN.

A popular musician, Bobbye played piano and organ for many secular and religious events and the ukulele in an ensemble at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church. For decades, she taught music at Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham and in the music suite of her home.

She sang with choruses, operas, and numerous church choirs and in the High Holy Days service for Temple Emanu-El. In addition, she was a backup vocalist for Tom Netherton during his concert in Birmingham.

On Alabama Public Television, she hosted the show, I Hear Music.

All-Star Attractions, the production company she operated with Marvin McDonald, brought to Birmingham such personalities as Judy Garland and Victor Borge.

“Judy Garland just packed the house,” Bobbye said.

Bobbye-Weaver-the-Actress could be found in dinner theaters and Town & Gown Theatre (now Virginia Samford Theatre) in Birmingham. She appeared in such productions as Fiddler on the Roof, Arsenic and Old Lace, Annie Get Your Gun and Carousel. For her role as “Bloody Mary” in South Pacific, she won the Obelisk Award.

Emmett – along with James Hatcher and former Birmingham Mayor David Vann – established a seasonal professional theatre called Summerfest. Through Summerfest, Bobbye appeared opposite such talents as Edie Adams (in Hello, Dolly!), Joe Namath and Phil Crosby (Bing Crosby’s son).

As guest artist at Birmingham-Southern in 1987, Bobbye played “Fraulein Schneider” in Cabaret, even wearing the same costume that Lotte Lenya used in the Broadway production.

Beth said Bobbye was never one to be timid in front of a crowd. “At the drop of the hat, she would stand up and sing with somebody.”

In fact, Bobbye did that at a party with famous soprano Eileen Farrell.

Afterward, “she invited me up to her house in Maine,” Bobbye said. “Emmett and I kept in touch with her.”

Because of Emmett’s work as entertainment editor, the Weavers were familiar faces at premiers. Rocky, Music Man, My Fair Lady, A Bridge Too Far, The Spy Who Loved Me and Smokey and the Bandit are among the 42 premiers the Weavers attended. Thirty were world premiers. At the New York premier of Norma Rae, Bobbye even interviewed actor Beau Bridges for WCRT.

Annually, CBS, NBC and ABC sent Emmett to California to talk with stars appearing in shows and movies that were to be released the following year.

During one of those trips, Lawrence Welk encouraged Bobbye to go in another musical direction.

As Emmett and Welk were dining at the Palladium, Bobbye was invited to join them. Enjoying the musical entertainment, Bobbye began drumming a sequence on the table. In his distinctive accent, Welk told her she was “a natural” and should learn to play drums.

For Christmas that year, Emmett gave her a set of Slingerland drums. She taught herself how to play and later took gigs in Birmingham at Parliament House, The Club, the Luau, Downtown Club and the Elegant.

When Welk came to Birmingham to do a show in 1973, he engaged Bobbye to play in the “Dixieland jazz” segment.

Subsequently, the famed band leader made Bobbye an offer: Bobbye would have a six-month training period, followed by a two-year road tour, after which she could become part of Welk’s “family” of entertainers.

Though she gave it some thought, 40-year-old Bobbye declined because she knew she would have to get her teeth straightened. Plus, she just, plain and simple, preferred to stay in Alabama.

For 10 years, she taught drums. She even wrote an instructional book, called Through the Back Door, to give her students shortcuts for learning technique.

She also wrote and performed two one-woman shows, called Four in One and Raccoon Ridge (a comedy about Minnie Pearl’s cousin). In Four in One, Bobbye appeared as Ethel Merman, Carol Channing, Marlene Dietrich and Sophie Tucker.

Bobbye toured with those shows eight years.

In 2008, Emmett was diagnosed with a chronic condition, and Bobbye left performing to care for him. He died in 2014.

“He was fun up to the end,” Bobbye said of her husband.

In September, Virginia Samford Theatre recognized the couple’s contribution to local theatre, particularly Bobbye’s sponsorship of the recent production of Hello, Dolly!.

Now at 87, Bobbye still heats up her Slingerland drums and is writing two books. One of the books is for children and is about dealing with bullies and challenges in life.

“She’s done so much in life,” Beth said of Bobbye, adding that Bobbye and Emmett were well matched as a couple. “They made the most of life and enjoyed everything they did. They were great partners.”

Editor’s Note: Margaret Vaughan, Jo Ann Winnette,
Beth Geno, Dr. Patrick and Sandy Bernardi assisted with this article.

Ryder Carpenetti

Moody’s rising rodeo star

Story by Paul South
Submitted photos

Truth be told, the closest most of us have come to mounting a bucking bull was as a kid on the 25-cent-powered horses at the local five and dime, watching John Travolta in “Urban Cowboy” in college, or worst-case, when liquid courage in a shot glass convinced usually sensible adults that they could tame the mechanical bull at the neighborhood cowboy bar.

But the miniature bulls that Moody’s Ryder Carpenetti takes on in rodeos from North Carolina to Las Vegas are the real deal – 1,200 pounds of thick muscle and foul mood that are as unpredictable as it gets. These animals can with a buck, or spin or dip send their riders into the air like a rag doll, leaving them with a face full of mud, bumps and bruises – or worse.

But Carpenetti has captured three world titles riding miniature bucking horses and half-ton bulls.

He’s 4-foot-6, weighs 71 pounds and still has some of his baby teeth. And he’s only turned 12 years old in September.

As John Wayne might put it: Pilgrim, this is one tough little hombre.

It all started with a bulletin board. Ryder’s Dad, Frankie Carpenetti, remembers.

“He was 3 years old. I saw a flier at a Tractor Supply down in Sterrett, and they had ‘mutton bustin,’ you know, where they ride the sheep. I said, ‘I’ll take him down there and let him ride in that. Maybe he’ll ride in that, and then he’ll be done with it.”

Ryder won. And he wasn’t done. Turns out, the sport had lassoed the toddler. From there it was riding his first calf at 5, then steers to junior bulls to mini-bulls. In 2013, he won his first world title in mutton busting. In 2015, he captured world titles in bucking horses and mini bulls.

Watch Ryder Carpenetti on YouTube and you see a kid as cool as the backside of a pillow. He has a quick grin that gleams from beneath the long shadow cast by his big, black cowboy hat. While waiting for his next ride, he waits quietly. His demeanor seems more school play backstage than bull rider.

Once his protective gear is on – a helmet and vest mandated by the MBR (Mini Bull Riders Association) – he’s unflappable.

“He really doesn’t have any fear,” Frankie Carpenetti says.

“We have dirt bikes at the house, and he does jumps and all that. When he gets on the back of the bucking chutes, a lot of the kids are nervous. You can tell. We always have people say, ‘How’s he so calm?’ He just sits on the back of the bucking chutes and waits his turn. Nothing bothers him. He’ll find my wife in the crowd, and he’ll wave to her. The other kids, they’re back there shaking and stuff.”

Carpenetti added, “There’s times when I’m a little more nervous than he is. We go to a lot of big deals. The PBRs (Professional Bull Riders), the Built Ford Toughs (rodeos), you know. I guess I get a lot more nervous than he does sometimes. I guess my nervousness would be him getting hurt. He’s pulled the tendons out in his elbow a couple of times, aside from the normal bumps and bruises.

“But nothing bothers him. He’s in his own world right there. He’s getting ready to ride,” Frankie Carpenetti said. “He’s in his own zone. He just gets in there and rides”

Like any mother, April Carpenetti had the jitters, too. But now, her worries aren’t as great as when he plays youth football in Moody, as a running back and defensive back. On a recent Saturday, Ryder played a half day of football, then was on the road for a rodeo in Bessemer City, N.C.

“Any mom would be terrified,” she says. “But it’s just like anything. The more they do it, the more I feel comfortable. He had to move up in (weight class) in football. Right now, I worry more about him playing against bigger kids in football than I do about him rodeoing. I guess it’s just something he’s been doing so long that I’m comfortable with him doing it.”

At only 12, Carpenetti has drawn comparisons to the late Lane Frost. Frost, who won the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) Bull Riding World Championship in 1987 when he was just 24, was killed in the arena in 1989. To this day, long after his death, Frost casts an almost mythic shadow over the sport.

Gary Leffew, a member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame and the 1970 National Finals Rodeo champion, is Carpenetti’s coach. He believes the comparison to Frost is on target.

“He’ll go wherever he wants to go,” Leffew said. “He’ll either be in the PBR or the PRCA. He’ll be in there somewhere where he’s a star. He’s like a young Lane Frost. He’s charismatic. People are going to know his name, wherever he decides to go.”

Leffew’s career offers a backstory to Ryder Carpenetti’s championship ride. Leffew is called “the rodeo guru” of positive thinking. Leffew finished 10^th in the world in 1966, then hit a slump. As a new husband, soon with a baby on the way, Leffew worried more about making a paycheck than setting goals and visualizing how life could be for him and his family if he won. Worry beat down on him like a July Texas sun.

Then he read Maxwell Maltz’s 1960 bestseller – “Psycho-Cybernetics.” His thinking – and his career – took a turn

“Once I read that book, I just sat up in bed and laughed,” Leffew says. “I was 22 years old, and it was the first time anyone had explained to me how the mind works and that it can work for you or against you. (The mind) doesn’t care, it’s a piece of machinery. Whatever you program in, it will take and give it back to you. I realized I was a victim of my own thinking.”

Leffew also studied the style and technique of George Paul, who Leffew calls “the greatest bull rider I ever saw.” Paul, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1970, rode 79 consecutive bulls without being thrown. Paul was considered “the strongest man ever to ride bulls in professional rodeo.”

Studying Paul and diving into the workings of the subconscious mind, transformed Leffew’s career.

“That next year, I was third in the world. I rode the Bull of the Year his last ride. I came out in 1970 and won the world title and the National Finals Rodeo. Once I got into positive thinking, it took me three years to reach my goal of the world championship,” Leffew said. “During that period, I was no lower than third.”

And those who were skeptical of his positive thinking approach started to come around.

“(Early on), there was a lot of laughing. The first rodeo I went to at Denver in 1968, I was one point from the all-time record – 89 points – on a bull that had never been rode. I rode him like Patton for a dance. I was runner up for the championship. I went three months without getting thrown off. They were like, ‘This kid’s on to something’ They’d come around and ask, ‘What page was that on?’”

Now, Carpenetti is part of a stable of star pupils who have embraced Leffew’s power-of-positive-thinking approach. Leffew has mentored 19 world champions.

“What we teach is hyper body, quiet mind. Your heart will be pounding, your adrenaline will be running, which is good, but you want a quiet mind. A quiet mind operates at the speed of light. It processes a billion pieces of information per second. A hyper mind works a second at a time. You’d think a hyper mind works faster. It just screws things up. There’s no continuity, no timing, no flow. So, you have to get in a quiet mind state. You just focus much better.”

Carpenetti has that laser focus. Like other St. Clair County athletes, like Springville’s Casey Mize, the first pick in last summer’s major league baseball draft, and Odenville’s Dee Ford of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, Ryder has a dream.

“He wants to do bigger things,” April Carpenetti says. “We don’t make him go to any rodeos. We’ll be in the car on Friday afternoon after school, drive 12 hours to Dallas for a Saturday rodeo and drive back on Sunday to keep his points up.”

Therein is another part of the story. No competitor in any sport reaches a high level without a support system. Last year, the Carpenettis rolled up 56,000 miles traveling the rodeo circuit. And Ryder’s sister, Harley, a student at Moody Junior High, is a competitive cheerleader on a Birmingham-based squad. It’s not unusual for Ryder and his Dad to be traveling in one direction, April and Harley, 13, off in another.

A quick note: Before taking her talent in another direction, Harley Carpenetti excelled as a barrel racer, another competitive rodeo sport.

“We’re all over the place,” Frankie Carpenetti says.

Both Leffew and Frankie Carpenetti praised the young rider’s work ethic.

“He’s got persistence. He’s got goals set. He’s got a great support system. He’s got everything he needs to be a superstar. He’s a very focused young man and he’s a talented young rider. But he’s a gentleman. That’s one of the things we try to teach our kids. You can’t be too polite,” Leffew says. “You want to think about other people. You don’t want them to just say he’s a good rider, but that he’s a good young man, a role model for everybody who comes behind you. People don’t just judge you on how good you ride, but what kind of human being you are. Integrity.”

Says Frankie Carpenetti: “He’s just a humble kid. He doesn’t boast about anything he wins. You know he can go out there and win the world championship. He’s not out there boasting. He’s just as happy for the other kid who beats him one day. He’s just as happy for the kid who won the rodeo as he would be for himself. His sportsmanship is what makes me the proudest,” he says. “A kid can be bucked off and get mad and throw their helmet or something, and he’ll go back to the back and try to figure out what he did wrong. Then a few minutes later, he’s back to himself, out playing or whatever. That’s what makes me proud. And he’s got a real good work ethic. He’s up in the morning wanting to go ride the bulls.”

That integrity, that gentlemanly spirit, has captured the attention of corporate sponsors. The Lane Frost brand, owned by the late champion’s family, backs Ryder, as does Rodeo King hats, 100X helmets, Capri Campers, Flying P Farms and of course, Carpenetti’s Pizza, owned by Ryder’s grandfather, Frank Sr., and the family.

And Ryder and his family have also won the respect of Cirildo “Junior” Leal and his wife Lilly, who along with two-time Professional Bull Riding (PBR) champion Chris Shivers, own the Mini Bull Riders.

Born in 2010, the MBR began with 120 kids in Ogden, Utah, and has grown to an international sport, attracting competitors from Brazil, Canada, Australia and the United States. Kids ages 8 to 14 compete in the events, which emphasize safety, respect, sportsmanship and building confidence. Venues have included AT&T Stadium in Dallas, the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas and elsewhere. In 2015, Professional Bull Riders became a presenting sponsor of the Miniature Bull Riders Association.

Junior Leal sports a bushy handlebar moustache and bears a striking resemblance to country singer Freddy Fender. He’s quick with a laugh. As the father of six daughters, he jokes “I’ve already got my ticket to heaven. I raised six girls.” And, it seems he and his wife Lilly have hundreds of sons – the bull riders like Ryder, who the website proclaims, are “the toughest little cowboys on the planet.”

Leffew calls MBR and its competitors “the future of the game.”

Cirildo Leal, whose day job is raising mini bulls and daily delivering feed for 200,000 head of cattle to ranchers from his home in Lockney, Texas, sees a world title or a National Finals Rodeo crown in Ryder’s future. For the Leals, Cirildo, Lilly and daughter Alysa – a family of faith – the MBR is a labor of love.

“He’ll be a PBR world champion or an NFR world champion … because he’s just got a lot of potential, and his parents really support him and take him, and the kid doesn’t give up. Sometimes he might get trampled on, but he just gets up, shakes it off and goes on. And he’s ready to ride again.”

Lilly Leal agrees. “Ryder is a super good kid. He’s always been super good. What you see with him is what you get. Ryder gets on a bull, and he’s businesslike, ‘Come on, I gotta do what I gotta do.’ ”

She adds, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ryder cry. Like I said, he’s tough, and he’s got super good parents and grandparents, all of his family.”

Ryder also has fans close to home, like Pell City steel executive John Garrison, a longtime fan of rodeo. He believes the sport is part of the “great Western experience” that helped make America great.

For Garrison, seeing young people like Ryder Carpenetti excel is an encouragement. Garrison studies different generations. Kids like Ryder give Garrison – a Baby Boomer – hope for the future. “Any time I see a young person that’s doing something special, I have a tendency to take particular notice of that young person because they’re doing something outside the norm. I think Ryder Carpenetti and Harley, his sister, are doing positive things. Ryder is making a mark in the rodeo world.”

Predictions of future greatness for Ryder are “spot on,” Garrison says.

“A young person who starts in that kind of sport, it’s remarkable that he comes from Alabama … a state not known for rodeo greats. That a young kid from Alabama can go out there and compete is just over-the-top amazing.”

He adds: “It’s a dangerous sport, and you get banged up now and then. He’s no doubt a tough kid and a hard competitor. As long as he stays healthy, I think he’s unstoppable.”

Talk to Ryder, and you hear the competitive fire of a cowboy who successfully rode all four bulls on the way to the 2015 world title at the Chris Shivers Bull Riding. But you also hear the heart of an 11-year-old kid, who likes to play Fortnite, ride dirt bikes, to play with the animals at the family home and who giggles at the names of some of the bulls he’s ridden, like “Butthead.”

The reason he rides?

“It’s fun,” Ryder says. “I have a lot of friends that ride. When you get a good score, you win.”

And as the adults in this story have said, he is fearless.

“It’s fun to me. When I’m doing something fun, I don’t get nervous or anything.”

It’s important to note, too, that Ryder is an A-student. His lowest grade at the end of the last school year was a 96.5.

And as most kids will, he makes the complex – like riding a half-ton bull – a simple thing.

“You gotta stay on the front end,” he says. “Don’t lose your feet and keep your hand shut. I ride with my left hand shut and my right hand up. You can’t tell what a bull’s going to do. But when they open the gate, you have to stay on for a full eight seconds.”

When asked, he’ll talk about his world titles and the 50 bright belt buckles he’s won in competitive rodeo. And he’ll say he wants to win a PBR world title one day He says his world titles “mean a lot.”

But while some talk about his boundless future. Ryder Carpenetti hangs his big, black hat on humility, like most kids his age would do.

“I don’t really care if I win. I’m happy if I ride for the full eight seconds.”

Somewhere, Lane Frost, the rodeo legend, is smiling. l

Features

Casey Mize

Springville’s $7.5 million man

Story by Paul South
Photos by Wade Rackley – Auburn Athletics
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.
Submitted photos

In more than 40 years of covering Auburn athletics, Mark Murphy has seen arguably the best pitchers in Tiger baseball history – former Los Angeles Dodger Joe Beckwith, former American League Rookie of the Year Gregg Olson, former Oakland and Atlanta star Tim Hudson.

And Springville’s Casey Mize may be the next on the list. The Detroit Tigers think he will be. As even those with a casual interest in baseball know, Mize was the first overall pick in the June baseball draft, signing a contract with the Tigers, which includes a $7.5-million signing bonus, the second-largest in the history of the game.

With apologies to Lionel Richie, Mize’s journey from Springville to Auburn to Detroit makes him once, twice, three times a Tiger.

Like Olson and Hudson, Mize is a fierce competitor with a wicked fastball and a command of pitches that makes great hitters swing, miss and return to the dugout with astonishing frequency.

Auburn’s Plainsman Park teemed with big league scouts the past two seasons, armed with hand-held radar to clock Mize’s pitches. It looked like the baseball version of troopers on the interstate on a holiday weekend

“There were more scouts than I’ve seen in a long time,” Murphy said. But as he put it, “Guys like Casey don’t come along very often.”

Baseball is a game steeped in numbers – miles per hour, earned run and batting averages, strikeout-to-walk ratios are a few. But to be the top draft pick – The Guy – how does that happen?

Talk to his parents, coaches, sportswriters and former major leaguers, three traits rise to the top when it comes to considering what makes Casey Mize tick.

Submitted for your approval, consider the three Cs of Casey: Commitment, Command. Character.

Commitment

The stories of Casey Mize’s passion for the game of baseball come from every direction – from his family, from coaches, from family friends. Here are a few:

When he was 7, Mize made an announcement to his Mom, Rhonda, that he was going to go to Auburn and play baseball when he grew up.

At 11, while most of his friends were engrossed in Xboxes and PlayStations, Mize offered another word for his mother.

“He actually told his mother, ‘Mom, I’m gonna want one, but whatever you do, don’t ever buy me a PlayStation or Xbox. That’s going to take up too much of my time.’”

And in high school summers, he and his parents often made the six-hour roundtrip for him to play travel ball for Chris McRaney and Team Georgia Baseball Academy in Alpharetta. When a Springville friend’s Mom asked why he didn’t want to play with his friends locally, Mize was respectful, but matter-of fact.

“Miss Melissa, I have to look after my future,” he said.

“We’re thinking the other parents probably think we’re crazy, that we were putting this stuff into him,” Dad Jason Mize said. “But we never did. We were just the facilitators for his dreams and his goals. That’s the way we’ve looked at it. Both of our kids, whatever their dreams were, if they put in the work toward it, we provided them whatever they needed, just to make it happen.”

In fact, like other parents who had to get their kids to power down the gaming system, the Mizes had to coax their son to take a break from ball.

“There was never that burnout or anything like that. Rhonda and I would discuss it, and we had to make him stop playing. We had to make sure he got that rest time that he needed,” Jason Mize said. “But he never wanted to stop. He was passionate about it. He was always playing it. He loved even the camaraderie of it. He loved being around those likeminded kids.”

The desire carried on to Springville High, where he played for Coach Jonathan Ford. Mize was 19-2 in his Springville Tiger career. He was the first SHS player drafted since Brandon Moore (also an Auburn alum) was drafted in the early 1990s.

Like all his coaches, Ford could not have foreseen all that would transpire for his ace. But he saw something special, including the unquenchable blue flame, a drive to be great.

“He had some of the intangibles you look for in all your players. First, he had a head for the game. He really understood how to play the game. Then, the second thing he had was a desire. I mean he had a desire to be great. Third was the ability he had. When you put the three together, understanding, desire and ability, I had that expectation wherever he went, he was going to be successful.”

Command

ESPN college baseball analyst Ben McDonald is in a unique spot in relation to Casey Mize. Like him, McDonald was the first overall pick in the draft (1989 from LSU). McDonald pitched with Olson in Baltimore and against Hudson. On a rainy day in May before Mize’s SEC Tournament start against Texas A&M, McDonald turned to some of Mize’s stats in strikeout to walk ratio.

“[F]or the last two years, he has a 13-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio. He’s walked 19 guys in two years and punched out 242. For me, that’s what separates him from most. He’s going to be a fast climber in the big leagues.”

McDonald added, “He has command of four pitches he can throw for a strike whenever he wants to throw them. That’s what separates the minor league pitchers from big league pitchers. Can you command the stuff you have? Not only can you throw a strike, but can you throw a quality strike? Casey . . . when you watch him pitch, and he’s on his game, he never throws anything in the center part of the plate. It’s a plus fastball up to 96 (mph). He’s got a good slider, a split finger fastball, and he’s got a cut fastball which is something new that he uses. That’s what I like about him, too. He keeps evolving. Last year, he was a three-pitch pitcher and didn’t have the cut fastball. This year, he’s added a cut fastball to go with the other three pitches he has. That’s what separates him from the rest. By far, he’s the best player in the country.”

Even a month before the draft, McDonald predicted Mize would be the top pick.

“He’s so advanced. What makes him advanced is that he commands his better than Olson did. I played with Olson in Baltimore and I played against Tim Hudson. This kid to me is even better. Olson had two pitches; Hudson had three. This kid has four quality pitches. And what I like about him, too, is that he calls his own game. He’s studying hitters already. He’s got a big-league approach already, and he has a big-league workout between starts, too.”

Scott Foxhall, now the pitching coach at North Carolina State, served in the same role at Auburn and recruited Mize to the Tigers. Mize’s strength as a pitcher – that earned him All-American honors and made him a finalist for college baseball’s highest individual award, the Golden Spike – is part God-given, part blue collar work ethic.

“I think its nature and nurture. You can tell he’s born with a lot of athleticism, and he’s gifted in that sense,” Foxhall said. “You can tell he’s spent an enormous amount of time paying attention to the right way to do things and just repeating them.”

The two reconnected when Auburn traveled to Raleigh for the NCAA Regionals.

“I watched him just for fun while he was here because they were here for four days. I watched him playing catch, even when it was a casual game of catch, you could tell that it was a sense of urgency with him that he was paying attention to every little thing that he was doing and paying attention to where the ball was going and going where he wanted it to go,” Foxhall said. “He was making adjustments with every throw, just when he was paying catch in the outfield. It’s all about attention to detail and God-given ability.”

Like every great ballplayer, Mize has also invested time in learning from others. Former Auburn teammate Keegan Thompson took the young hurler under his wing as workout partner and throwing partner. Baseball requires players to be human computers, processing a barrage of information and filtering what works for them. With every pitch, hurlers must process grasp of the ball, leg lift, arm motion, location, release point and on and on.

“Keegan helped him understand about pitching,” Foxhall said. “Every great pitcher is picking everyone’s brain and has to have the right filter to figure out what – of all that information – will help him. Casey’s got the right processor in his head to find out what will help him … That might be one of his strongest qualities.”

Auburn’s Butch Thompson has sent seven pitchers to the major leagues. From the first day he met Casey Mize, he saw something special.

“I knew he had talent. I knew he had a future. But I don’t think anybody would have expected this.”

As a freshman, Mize had a solid fastball and a good slider and worked out of the bullpen and as a spot starter for the Tigers. The next year, he added a split-finger changeup to his repertoire of pitches. There, the young hurler began to blossom.

“The biggest thing year two was his commitment to shove the ball into the strike zone. He was trying to end the at-bat on every pitch, so his command between his freshman and sophomore year grew like crazy, and he added a third pitch. The third thing that helped was Keegan Thompson (the Tigers Friday night starter).”

“(On Friday nights), Casey would sit, chart and watch the game that Keegan was pitching, and I think Keegan was such a professional, Casey watched, and they built an unbelievable relationship. I think Casey’s work ethic picked up, his command picked up, and he didn’t just pick up a split change, he picked up arguably the best pitch in college baseball,” Coach Thompson said. “Keegan was a huge piece.”

The sophomore season was a turning point.

“He had the opportunity to represent our country and pitched seven innings of shutout ball. I think heading into year three, he said to himself, ‘I know my body, I know how to work. I need to galvanize my own routine. I’m going to really figure out how to take care of my body and get my arm in the best shape of its life.’ He did that.”

And in January of 2018, Mize unveiled a fourth pitch, the cut fastball, that he could throw 90-plus mph.

“When he came with that fourth pitch, it scared me to death. I wondered, ‘Why does he need a fourth pitch?’, Coach Thompson said. “He just cares about his craft. He started thinking, ‘I’ve got a future at this’. . .He’s just a lifelong learner.”

Character

Mize’s first start of the 2018 SEC Tournament was tough, a 4-2 loss to Texas A&M on a sticky-humid night in Hoover. After the game, he was asked if there was anything good he could take from the game.

“Nothing,” he said, “I didn’t pitch well.”

When asked about the Tigers’ struggle to produce runs, Mize again shouldered the blame.

“They did the best they could against a great pitcher,” Mize said. “I didn’t do my job.”

Those quick quotes speak volumes. In an ESPN age that has created the “Me” athlete, Mize puts team, family and friends first.

“That’s what attracted me the most to him when I met him and during the short recruiting process – that I didn’t think I was missing on character,” Foxhall said. “I knew I couldn’t miss on character. When you have character, and you have talent, those are the guys who have a chance to be elite. That’s what he is.”

Coach Thompson agrees. He has seen that high character time and time again. And as Keegan Thompson mentored him, Mize mentored young Tiger Tanner Burns, who in early July was named to the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team, following in his mentor’s footsteps.

“You can’t be the first overall pick unless you have a certain level of skill,” Coach Thompson said. “But (Casey’s) really learned how to work. He learned how to focus on his craft. He’s a great teammate. He gives others credit. You know he told his Mom when he was seven years old he wanted to be an Auburn Tiger. And then he winds up doing everything he sought after. Casey, he’s only going to be part of our team for three years. But he’ll always be part of Auburn, he’s going to give back to Auburn, and Auburn is going to have its doors open to him for the rest of his life.”

When Coach Thompson assumed the reigns of Auburn baseball, the program was in shambles. By 2018, the Tigers were nationally ranked, within an eyelash of the College World Series

“You can have a good team when your best players have your best character, your best work ethic. That goes a long way,” he said. “You know, we have a rule: You’re not allowed to pass the buck, and when your best players have that kind of character and when your best player has an off night and doesn’t pass the buck, that resonates with the entire organization. When it comes from your best player, it means more.

“Whatever we were trying to teach, (Casey) put it into practice. That molded everybody else to be wired the same.”

Talk to those who know Casey Mize, and they talk about how he has friends from all walks of life, jocks and computer wizards, folks who eat, sleep and breathe baseball to those who don’t know how many innings are in a game. It’s been that way since Springville.

“Some people have the gift to be really likeable,” Coach Thompson said. “And when you value everybody, it doesn’t matter whether they’re at the top of the food chain or at the bottom or in the middle.

“When you respect everybody from every walk of life,” he explained, “that allows you to connect with many. Casey’s got that tool, where he values every single person he comes in contact with. That makes you pretty likeable, and that allows you to connect with a lot of people. And that means when you do something really special, that means that a lot of people are going to give you a lot of respect and are going to pull for you.”

Mark Murphy recounted a story that proves the coach’s point. In right field at Plainsman Park, there is a spot known as ‘the K-Corner.” For years, diehard Auburn baseball fans mark each Tiger pitcher’s strikeout with a bright, bold, orange “K,” scorebook language for a strikeout.

At the end of each senior pitcher’s Auburn career, he’s awarded one of the “K”s, a simple honor, but a powerful symbol of gratitude.

On a warm spring day when Casey Mize fanned school record 15 Vanderbilt hitters, the K-Corner broke with tradition.

“They gave Casey a “K”, even though he was only a junior,” Murphy said. “That was pretty cool.”

Mize’s caring for others runs deep, Coach Thompson said.

“He cares about others a ton. That’s his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. He’s going to be an unbelievable leader. He’s going to be an unbelievable teammate. I believe that’s going to make him an unbelievable husband and father, because he cares about others so much. But he takes so much on himself because he doesn’t want to disappoint his family, his coaches, teammates and friends.”

Jason Mize summed up his son’s approach to life.

“It’s simple. He’s not one of those kids who wants to be in the spotlight, or put himself out there. He loves baseball and wants to do his job. But he’s not one seeking attention. He’s a good guy, very, very humble. He’s unbelievably driven. I’ve never seen that kind of drive in a kid his age. I’ve never seen that kind of focus in a kid his age, and I know they’re out there who are right there with him at that level. It’s a rarity for me to see the kind of person he is. I don’t think we can take all credit for that as parents, a lot of that is in him.”

Murphy, the reporter who watched Tiger baseball superstars Olson, Hudson, Frank Thomas and Bo Jackson, called Mize “a superstar who doesn’t expect superstar treatment.”

At the heart of all this, beyond statistics and signing bonuses, people sometimes forget that Casey Mize is a kid, who still hangs out with his Springville pals like Nick Rayburn and likes to play “Fortnight” on the gaming system he finally got this year, as a birthday gift from his roommates. While top pro draftees in other sports may celebrate with black limousines and bottles of champagne, Mize celebrated with family, friends, teammates and coaches over burgers and pizza at Baumhower’s Victory Grille in Auburn.

Maybe a single piece of paper written in Springville years ago gives a clue to Casey Mize’s ultimate ambition.

Coach Jonathan Ford asked his players to write down their goals for the season. Some wrote they wanted to make it to the big leagues. Others wrote they wanted to hit .350.

Then, only a freshman, Mize wrote one sentence.

“I want to be a leader.”

Features

Betty Cosper masters it all

From banana pudding to teaching and beyond

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Graham Hadley

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just ask Harry Charles McCoy of Pell City.

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

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

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

“That’s where my love is,” she said.

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

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

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

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

Always a planner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A friend& mentor to many

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Features