Category: St. Clair People

Emory Cox

Anatomy of a rising political star

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Mike Callahan
Submitted photos

Emory Cox sat on the lakeside patio of his Pell City home, laughing and talking with a stranger as if with a long-time friend.

He discussed politics, society, government and the state of domestic and foreign affairs. With the certainty that comes from first-hand knowledge, he assessed the work of sundry politicians.

This was a brief moment of respite after a summer in the company of newsmakers.

During his summer break from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., the 21-year-old junior served internships in the Capitol Hill office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL; with the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (the chairman of which is U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL), and in the office of Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange.

Once during Cox’s time in Washington, there was an “armed shooter” alert in his building. “That was wild,” Cox said. Thankfully, it was a false alarm.

At least twice during his internship in Alabama, Cox saw history unfold:

– He attended former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s first hearing before the Judicial Inquiry Commission.

– He went to a parole hearing for Thomas Blanton, who was convicted in the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham that claimed the lives of four African-American girls.

Cox has long been interested in law and politics. In college, he is studying economics and American history, intending to pursue a master’s degree in business administration and ultimately a law degree.

His choice for graduate school is likely to be the University of Alabama. His father, Ray, was a golfer there and his grandfather, long-time Pell City dentist and former mayor Dr. Bam Cox (deceased), played on the 1941 National Championship football team.

This past summer was actually Cox’s fourth for serving internships in government offices.

Before his senior year in high school, Cox was an intern in Congressman Mike Rogers’ office in Washington, D.C.

“That was definitely a good, growing-up experience,” Cox said. Living alone and taking care of finances, laundry, meals, and everything else “definitely gives you more respect for your parents. … You remember to say, ‘Thank you,’ (to them) more often.”

His mother, Annette, never doubted that he was ready for the venture. “I had every confidence that he was mature enough to behave responsibly away from home,” she said. “… I knew that living and interning in Washington would be a wonderful learning experience for Emory. From age 11 forward, he planned our family vacations and was always at ease when traveling. We have close friends in the D.C. area who I knew would be there for him if any issues arose.”

The summer between high school and college, Cox assisted Bill Armistead, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. Then, during summer break 2015, Cox worked in the office of Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and with Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill.

Preparing for politics

Cox’s interests are many. He enjoys kayaking, swimming, traveling, playing golf and tennis, and visiting family, friends and neighbors. Following politics is definitely one of his hobbies.

And yes, he does have political aspirations. He quickly added, however, that he does not want to be a career politician. Instead, he wants his public service to be in the truest sense — only for a short time and only with prior private sector experience.

“I’m a huge supporter of term limits,” said Cox, who participates in the St. Clair County Republican Party when he is home. “That’s the way the Founders wanted it.”

In the various internships, Cox believes he has observed the traits of effective leadership.

He admires what he saw in Armistead, whom Cox describes as a moral, ethical, spiritual person.

Through that internship, Cox met Dr. Ben Carson, who later would become a GOP contender in the 2016 Presidential race. “Dr. Carson is a brilliant man of sincere conviction whose life story proves that, with hard work, anyone can succeed in America,” Cox said. “I admire his thoughtful approach to complex problems and believe that he would be an excellent secretary of health or education in a Presidential cabinet.”

As for Sessions, Cox said, “He is attuned to the people of Alabama and deeply grounded in faith.” Even during a busy time of advising then-GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump, attending to Senate business, and meeting with constituents, Sessions still spent time with Cox. “(He) took time to talk to and mentor and encourage a young person.”

Cox found Strange to be a mountain of a man … literally. Though Cox stands six feet tall, he was dwarfed by Strange’s stature. Even so, Cox said Strange is “approachable” and “down to earth.”

Each of the internships left an impression on Cox, who left an impression as well.

“Emory brought an unwavering passion for hard work and an enthusiasm for tackling any assignment,” said Mike Lewis, communications director in Strange’s office. “We wish his internship had not ended so soon.”

College life

Cox’s busy summer is an extension of his busy college life.

In addition to his course load, he is chairman of the College Republican Club at Washington and Lee University and was appointed by the university’s president to serve on the student financial aid committee. Also, he was elected to a Student Government body that formulates a course of action in student disciplinary matters.

In the Lexington, Va., community, he is involved in the Rockbridge County Republican Party, as well as Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church. He said he and friends go to church together as a way to keep each other accountable.

More importantly, though, they attend church because faith has an all-encompassing importance in a person’s life.

At home, Cox is a member of Pell City First United Methodist Church.

Being with other followers of Christ Jesus is an essential ingredient in Cox’s recipe for success in college. The recipe reads like this: “go to class (of course); study hard and find a church home to stay grounded in faith.”

In church, “you meet people in the community. It keeps you grounded,” Cox said. “It keeps faith in the forefront. … I know how important faith is in my life.”

Faith, Cox explained, instills moral and ethical values. It leads a person to treat everyone with respect, and affirms the presence of the all-powerful God, who is far greater than we are and is in control of everything.

When individuals who make policies, laws and decisions are people of faith, they serve with integrity the voters they represent, Cox said. “We need more people like that in public office.”

Early life

Cox shares a common experience with so many of the historical figures who shaped our nation: he lived his early years in a cabin. Until age 2, his family lived in a 500-square-foot, A-frame cabin at Seddon Shores before moving to their current home.

Through eighth grade, Cox attended Pell City schools and then went to The Altamont School in Birmingham for high school.

Cox said his parents — both entrepreneurs — instilled in him values, perseverance and determination.

“No matter the task, no matter what you might be doing in life, do it 100 percent,” Cox said, recalling what his father taught him. “Find your passion and devote yourself to it.”

Before Cox was born, his father, Ray, founded Metro Bank by going door to door to sell stock in it. The first location opened in Pell City. Now, the bank operates nine sites in St. Clair, Etowah, Talladega and Cleburne counties.

Annette Cox ran her own Pell City business, called Potpourri Gifts & Antiques. Emory Cox said his mother passed to him the legacy of hard work she learned growing up on a farm in South Alabama.

Ray Cox was driven, passionate and diligent, Emory Cox continued. “He was very good at treating people with respect, no matter what walk of life. That’s a goal that I set for myself.”

Ray Cox was also adept at balancing responsibilities and, as a result, was a great father, his son said.

When Emory Cox was quite young, his dad was diagnosed with cancer and given only six months to live. For 18 months, Ray Cox continued to work and to create special family memories. After a two-year battle with the disease, Ray Cox succumbed to cancer in 2005.

Emory Cox was nine years old.

Cox said his mother “handled (Dad’s) passing with such strength and grace and determination. … She was determined to raise me in a way she thought he would be proud of. She was always strong, always supportive, always there for me. … I love her dearly.”

Losing a parent, Cox said, brings the realization that relationships are important and each day with those we love is to be cherished.

Annette Cox said her son “stepped up as an adult overnight. We had to learn to depend on each other and, as a result, have a great relationship. It has been amazing to watch Emory grow into a young man that I know his Dad would be so proud of. I feel honored to be his mother.”

Smiling on the inside

Loving the life of a rodeo clown

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

He is known as Huck Hano — Skylar’s Dad, … the neighbor, … the sheet metal mechanic, … the man who plays guitar at St. Clair County Cowboy Church.

Yet, when he walks into a rodeo arena, the Louisiana native becomes the Cajun Kid, a clown with oversized Wrangler jeans, a star-spangled shirt and a hat full of humor.

For 38 years, he has been a rodeo clown, appearing in more than 25 states.

He has worked at small rodeos, and he has worked at big ones that drew as many as 30,000 spectators. Performing before such a large crowd was scary, he said, but oh so fulfilling when the people laughed.

“I love entertaining people,” said 55-year-old Hano. “I love making people smile.”

In May, he got to be a clown locally during a horseless rodeo at St. Clair County Arena.

Interestingly, his love for clowning came from riding a bull.

In his early teens, Hano started riding bulls two days a week at an arena near his home in Albany, La. He became so proficient at the sport that he advanced to state finals his senior year in high school.

When he was at a rodeo, however, his competitors were not his focus; the clowns were.

He studied what they did and how they did it. He noted their timing, body language and jokes.

“That was my whole reason to be there,” he said about his five years of riding bulls.

His first time to be a clown was in 1978 at a high school rodeo in McComb, Miss.

“It was the greatest thing in the world,” Hano said. “I knew then that it was what I wanted to do.”

In the beginning …

His name is actually Elisha Henry Hano. He acquired the nickname “Huck” as a 5-year-old dressed in jean shorts and a straw hat.

His Dad, a Baptist preacher, remarked that his son looked like the character Huckleberry Finn. And the name stuck.

It was also his Dad who was glad when Hano become a clown.

“My dad was relieved because, when I started clowning, I started riding bulls less,” Hano said.

In a rodeo, Hano said, there are two kinds of clowns. The job of one kind is to protect. A bullfighter is a clown who distracts the bull to let the rider get to safety. There is also a “barrel man,” who wears a barrel and gets between the bull and the rider, or between the bull and a tired or imperiled bullfighter. The job of the other kind of clown is to entertain. That clown tells jokes and performs acts to amuse the audience.

Hano has been all of them. At first, he was a bullfighter before moving into a comedic role.

The purpose of the entertaining clown is to fill time gaps between activities to make the program flow smoothly. Generally, each of the clown’s appearances during the rodeo is just a few minutes long.

If glitches or interruptions occur during the program, in comes the clown. At a rodeo in New York, for instance, a transformer blew, putting the arena in darkness. For 25 minutes, Hano and the announcer told non-stop jokes to the crowd.

In all his years as a rodeo clown, Hano has never suffered a serious injury. But there have been some harrowing moments.

A particularly frightening one occurred in Lafayette, Ga., in 1985. A bull got his horn behind Hano’s leg and threw the clown into the air. While Hano was still in midair, the bull caught the man in his horns and tossed him up again. That would happen once more before the bull finally let Hano fall to the ground.

The entire time, a rider was sitting on the bull’s back.

That “hooking” happened on the first of a three-night rodeo series. Hano performed the other two nights with bruises and soreness.

“I’ve taken several hookings (through the years), but that was definitely the worst,” he said.

Dwayne Banks of Odenville, who is pastor of St. Clair County Cowboy Church, said Hano was a clown at the first rodeo in which Banks participated.

He described Hano as humble. “That’s who Huck is.”

Banks said Hano’s personality makes people feel comfortable. He has a quick wit and can connect with the audience. “He is a very down-to-earth type of individual. (He) has the ability to capture attention by what he says and how he acts.”

Behind the clown makeup is a man who “loves the Lord with all his heart,” Banks said. “… He’s got a heart for the people around him. … He wants to serve.”

Hano does indeed want to serve. Currently, he is music minister at St. Clair County Cowboy Church, and believes that clowning is a talent God gave for serving Him.

In a rodeo, “the clown’s job is actually to serve,” Hano said.

Being a clown has given Hano opportunities to speak in churches and schools all across the country and to tell people about Jesus Christ. “God used me as a rodeo clown and that’s what I want to do is be used,” Hano said.

For about 12 years, Hano was a clown fulltime, traveling from March through October. His living quarters were in the front third of a trailer he towed. In the middle section, he stored the props for his acts, such as a spaceship he built himself. The back third of the trailer was a stall for his four-legged comedy partner.

During the rodeo circuit’s “winter months” of November through February, Hano was at home with his family and worked at another job.

It was his career as a clown that led him to move to Odenville in 1993. Where he lived in Louisiana was flat and “a long way anywhere,” Hano said. St. Clair County, on the other hand, is near three interstate systems … and has mountains.

The five acres on which his home sits are nearly encircled by mountains. It is a quiet refuge where he reads his Bible, farms and works to train a colt named Dolly.

“I love the mountains. Where I came from, there were no mountains,” said Hano. “I walk out and say, ‘Thank you, God.’ I get to see this on a daily basis.”

When his daughter Skylar was a baby 18 years ago, Hano felt he was missing much of her life by being on the road. At that point, he took a full-time job locally and became a weekend clown.

He has continued to be a clown part-time and currently works full time as a sheet metal mechanic at Hardy Corp. in Birmingham.

Clowning is hard work

Being a clown is not all chuckles; it is work.

“Clown acts are not as easy to come up with as you would think,” Hano said.

It takes researching and planning. It takes building props. It takes rehearsing and refining. Perfecting an act could easily require two years of work, he said.

“You want as many different acts as you can. But you want quality acts,” he said.

For many years, Hano had a comedic sidekick named Esther. She was a white mule.

“She turned out to be one of the best acts I’ve had,” Hano said. “She opened a lot of doors for me across the country. People loved that mule.”

Esther would lie down, roll over, play dead and sit up, all on command.

“I think her greatest asset was she loved doing what she did. (Other clowns said) they had never seen a mule work as smoothly as she did,” Hano said. “She was one of a kind.”

Two years ago, at age 32, Esther died. She is buried underneath her favorite tree in the pasture.

It is Hano’s hope that Dolly will be Esther’s successor in comedy.

When Hano got Dolly a few months ago, she did not like him, he said.

But that has changed. Now, she runs to the fence to meet him when she sees him come out his front door. When he reaches the fence, she nuzzles him, indicating she would appreciate a back-scratching.

In some ways, she is like Esther was at first.

“When I got Esther, she was six months old,” and was so unruly that four people were needed to handle her, Hano said. Within a few months, he had won her trust. That was when the training began.

He is encouraged as he watches Dolly learn to trust, too.

“I like seeing them come from nothing to being disciplined,” Hano said.

Eighteen times in his career, Hano has been given the privilege of clowning in the finals of several rodeo associations across the county. The selection of clowns for the finals is done by a vote system, and only those ranked “best” are invited to perform.

Even so, Hano expresses humility about his work as a clown.

“I never considered myself the star of the show,” he said. “I considered myself a part of the team that made the show work.”

After nearly 40 years of making people laugh, Hano is now accepting fewer engagements and thinks he might, at some point, retire from being a clown.

He is seeking to serve in a different way in this season of his life.

“I’ve had a good career,” Hano said. “And if I had it to do all over again, I’d do it again. … God has given me a good life. Now that I’m slowing down, I’m going to give it back to Him.”

Features

Wrestler and more

Wrestler, sawmill operator, Dad – Answering the call

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t have to think twice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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