Category: St. Clair Sports

In the beginning

Fats and the flag man: Two pioneers with St. Clair ties helped plant the seeds for modern stock car racing

Story by Paul South
Submitted Photos

Before Bill France Sr. saw his dream of big-time, big money stock car racing take root in little towns like Daytona Beach, Darlington and Talladega and big cities like Atlanta and Charlotte, seeds were being planted.

Two men – Perry Edgar “Fats” Layfield and Johnny Garrison Sr., both hard working, blue-collar husbands and fathers who made a living with their hands, were two of those planters.

Layfield, the patriarch of a racing clan that drove dirt and asphalt tracks for three generations, and Garrison, who became a respected official as a flagman, didn’t know it then. But they, like the more famous Allisons, Pettys, Earnhardts and Waltrips, helped build the glitz and glamor of modern stock car racing.

“Fats” Layfield’s son, James, himself a short track driver, said it best. “All the little tracks are what made NASCAR.”

A brief history

In the beginning, bootleggers and their sons ran booze through the mountains, hills and hollows of Appalachia, from West Virginia to Alabama. Trying to outrun Prohibition and feed their families, the daring drivers tried to satisfy thirsty customers.

Then, after World War II, a booming American middle class – freed from the shackles of gas and tire rationing – pulled their old jalopies from barns and sheds and off blocks and souped them up.

The vets who returned home from war were hungry for excitement. Automakers transitioned from a war footing to a consumer culture. America became a car culture that spilled over into movies like Rebel Without A Cause and songs that went like this:

“Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’

if you don’t stop driving that hot rod Lincoln.”

To satisfy the public’s need for speed, dirt and asphalt tracks sprung up – Iron Bowl between Roebuck and Tarrant City, east of Birmingham, Birmingham International Raceway at the State Fairgrounds, Sayre Speedway and Dixie Speedway in Midfield.

At Sayre, James Layfield remembered, “Go up there and fight and hope a car race would break out.”

In black and white photos, the multitudes surrounded the tracks despite the blistering sun. There were farmers in overalls and straw hats, men in heat-wilted white shirts and sweaty felt fedoras, wives and children and seemingly enough picnic baskets to feed the 5,000.

Layfield and Garrison were there in the center of it.

James Layfield never saw his Dad race. He was a big man who looked like “Hoss” Cartwright from the TV series, Bonanza. After his son came into the world, “Fats” raffled off his race car, the Number 13 “Black Cat” Ford. When he tried to give the proceeds to a local church for a new floor, he was turned away.

“They said it was like gambling. He gave it to the preacher and told him to buy himself a new suit,” James recalled.

Tears come quickly when he talks about his Dad. He still remembers that once he took up the sport, his Dad never missed a race, even after work-related back injuries confined “Fats” to a wheelchair.

“He worked hard all his life, and age just caught up with him,” the younger Layfield remembered.

The elder Layfield could tell if an engine was right just by the sound. “I’d be out there working, and he’d yell from the house, ‘You better go back to where you was at. It sounded better before.’ He was my pit crew and my crew chief.”

“Fats” was a big man with a big heart, his son recalled. He checked on his neighbors, giving rides when needed.

“If there was somebody broke down on the side of the road, he’d stop to help them,” James said. “He’d either help ‘em fix it or tell them how to fix it. Or, if they could get it pulled to the house, he’d have the car waiting on me, so I could fix it for the folks.”

His voice quivered as he talked about his Dad. “He could be kind, and he could be rough,” James said. “He was at the race track every time I went. He was crippled up, but every time I’d go to the track, he was there. He’d say, ‘Boy, you need to quit this. But he was always there.

“After he passed away, and my son started racing, I’d look up to see (Dad’s) truck, and it wasn’t there. It just wasn’t the same.”

Racing was in the family’s blood. Before Fats’ grandson, Eric, was old enough for a driver’s license, he started working on his Dad’s race car. Soon, Eric Layfield was behind the wheel. Eric and James Layfield worked on each other’s cars.

“He was 15 on a Saturday night and turned 16 on a Sunday and ran his first race,” James said of his son. Needless to say, the Layfields were nervous.

“He had a little trouble getting his mother (Peggy) to sign the release form for him. But he had a level head on him and knew what he was doing. I think he finished third in his first race. The next year, he won the (season) championship.”

Peggy Layfield was a racing veteran of a sort. For years, as many as four race cars were worked on in the family shop at one time.

“We’d have the engines going, and the windows and dishes would rattle,” James said. “Peggy put up with that for 45 years, and we’ve been married 52.”

And when she was 15 or 16, James Layfield recalls, even his daughter Keri got into the driver’s seat – sort of.

At the Talladega short track, she joined her Dad in a specially created, two-driver cruiser class. James steered and handled the brakes and Keri, the gas pedal.

“We were three or four laps in, and she got the stiff leg and had the gas on the floor,” James says. “We spun out between turns one and two and blew the engine. I was done.”

As for what drew him to racing, James, who also built his own engines, wanted to show the other drivers what he could do. He raced dirt and asphalt. And he had a favorite: “Asphalt is for getting there; dirt is for racing.”

He always remembered his Dad’s advice. “I’d get out in front, and he’d tell me to slow down,” James recalled. “He wanted me to let them pass, then me pass ‘em back to put on a show. But I worked hard to get in front, and I wanted to stay in front.”

James had stretches when he was out in front often. “You get out in front, and you win every weekend there for six or eight weekends, it makes you feel good to know that you’re the one they hate the most or get cussed the most. But you just keep on going.”

The flagman

John Garrison Sr. kept racers going – safely – through hundreds of races. A veteran of World War II who served on Okinawa as part of the Army Air Corps, Garrison flagged his first race after volunteering on a dare at a California short track after the war. He had flagged informal drag races on Okinawa after the allies took the island from the Japanese.

He was a master of the flags – every color was racing’s code. But Garrison brought a color all his own to the track, waving each flag with a flourish, like a ballet against the roar of an eight-cylinder symphony. One photo shows him dressed all in white, smiling and clutching a checkered flag and wearing a tam that matched the flag.

And the fans loved it.

“It was a big thing back then,” John Garrison Jr., said. “Dad saw life as an adventure. My Dad and that generation of people were just unique in the way that they were raised. My Dad was the 13^th and youngest kid in his family … In the early days, they didn’t have much. Dad was a colorful character all of his life. He didn’t take life very seriously. He always found a reason to laugh.”

Many like Garrison, had never left their hometowns before they went off to war. Survivors returned home “full of vim and vigor” and looking for excitement.

“By and large, that was the fuel for the sport of racing,” Garrison said. “Those guys were daredevils. They were adventurers. Some were pilots, many were infantry. You had a generation that didn’t want to sit on the front porch in abject safety. They lived by risk, and they wanted adventure.”

The elder Garrison, a mechanic, taught his son to work hard and risk as well. Lessons were learned not by talking, but by doing. And though he loved to laugh, flagging was serious business for his father. It could be the difference between life and death on the track.

“As a boy, I remember walking the track with my Dad at BIR (Birmingham International Raceway). Two hours before the race, he would walk the entire track, looking for pieces of metal that had come off the cars or were lying on the track. His concern was a piece of metal flying up. A lot of these cars didn’t have windshields. He didn’t want the drivers to be injured.”

Garrison Jr., who started his own structural steel firm at 40, remembered when at 16, his Dad gave him a crash course in flagging at Dixie Speedway. “Dad said, ‘Get up here. You’re going to flag this race.’

When his son pleaded that he didn’t know how. His Dad responded, “You’ll learn how. That’s the thing that he did that gave me confidence in myself. He didn’t spend a lot of time instructing me. But when he was involved, it was like that time at Dixie Speedway. Without knowing it, he was teaching me independence.”

Garrison Sr. is a member the Alabama Auto Racing Pioneers (aarpinc.org) Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Bobby, Donnie, Davey and Clifford Allison, Neil Bonnett, “Red” Farmer, Hut Stricklin, Don Naman and legendary racing writer, Clyde Bolton. In the future, “Fats” Layfield should join them.

Life’s lessons learned

The lessons learned from their fathers was like a gift handed down from generation to generation. While walking the track with his Dad looking for shards of metal may have quietly taught John Garrison Jr. independence and attention to detail so important in his future business efforts, “Fats” Layfield taught his son the power of possibility.

James Layfield was stricken with polio as a toddler. While a patient at the old Crippled Children’s Clinic in Birmingham, he would clutch his Dad’s finger and walk with him up and down the long tables where young patients were eating.

“The nurse would say, ‘You can’t do that,’” James remembered. My Dad would say, “My boy’s gonna walk out of here.”

And he did. No checkered flag win was as sweet.

Features

Iron Bowl Tradition

Bell family love of game becomes national story of Auburn-Alabama rivalry

Story and photos by Carol Pappas
Photos courtesy of Bell family

Alabamians know there’s only two answers to this question: “Who’re you for?” As one old sports editor once wrote, “It needs no further explanation.”

“Auburn,” says one. “Alabama,” says the other. The replies come quickly and easily. Which answer depends on which way you lean. But make no mistake, you lean one way or the other. Have to. After all, this is Alabama.

From left, Mack and Brenda Bell, Yvonne and Jimmy Bell sport their colors

No one knows that much better than the Bell family of Pell City. Around here, they would call it a mixed marriage of allegiances. Part of the family roots for the orange and blue of Auburn. Other parts pull for the red and white of the Crimson Tide.

Their passion for their teams runs as deeply as their roots in the family. So, it’s no small wonder that when CBS was looking for the perfect story to illustrate the intense rivalry known as the Iron Bowl, they uncovered a treasured tradition – just like the Bells did nearly four decades ago.

“In the late summer of 1982, my dad was a contractor, and he was digging footing for a home in Skyline,” a Logan Martin Lake subdivision, recalled Mack Bell. At the time, it was one of the first homes being built there. When his father’s backhoe dug its first scoop, they heard a loud metallic clank. “It was an old iron pot full of dirt,” he said. “It had been there for years,” estimated at 140 to 150 years old.

“Mom cleaned it up,” Bell said, and it eventually led to a decades-old tradition for this family split by alliances. What better way to commemorate the Iron Bowl than with, well, an iron bowl?

Every year, the Bell family has a Christmas party, and talk naturally leads to ‘the game.’ Mack’s side of the family is Alabama. Cousin Jimmy’s side is Auburn. That year, 1982, Bo (Jackson) went over the top and Auburn won the title of Iron Bowl champion for the first time in 10 years.

Mack told his father, Bill, “This Christmas, let’s give the iron bowl to Jimmy.” Bill did indeed present the bowl to his nephew but with a playful nod to their opposite allegiance, he told him, “Here’s your bowl, and you know where to put it.”

And thus began the tradition.

CBS enters the picture

The national network, CBS, aired the game in 2021. Producers wanted to put together a five-minute story as part of its pregame coverage to show viewers across the nation just how divided the rivalry is in Alabama.

Through research, they found an old newspaper story about the Bells’ iron bowl trophy, and they started trying to contact Jimmy. When he saw the New Jersey number coming up, he thought it was a scam. Voicemails to the contrary still didn’t convince him so he didn’t return the call.

Finally, CBS staff contacted the local newspaper that ran the original story and got in touch with Jimmy, saying, “Call this guy. He’s for real.”

Jimmy obliged but warned CBS not to come if they were going to portray the family as a bunch of rednecks from Alabama. Assurances satisfied the Bells, and a CBS crew arrived a couple of weeks before the game.

They spent hours filming, interviewing and re-enacting the awarding of the trophy and condensed it into a five-minute segment viewed across the nation. They even provided a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings to recreate the meal. Bright lights, moving furniture and placing everything just so turned Bell’s house in Pell City’s Hunting Ridge into a real set for a television show.

“Three big cameras, lighting, monitors” – and the stage was set, but not before they changed all the light bulbs and took out the TVs to cut reflection. A drone flew over the house, capturing even more footage. “Obviously, it’s an experience we won’t ever have again,” Jimmy said.

Tradition continues

The experience they will have – over and over again, they hope, is the passing of the trophy from family member to family member.

In the beginning, they passed it around for three years with just the score noted. “Uncle Dick,” Mack’s uncle and Jimmy’s father, Dick Bell, presented a new version when it was his turn – a base with plaques commemorating the member of the family who received it along with year and score. The deceased have their plaques inside the base, which is open to the back to read in remembrance. The trophy tradition is now on its second base, ready for a third.

Dick Bell had saved wood from an old barn on the Scott farm, which had been built of heart pine, pegs and square nails. He had the first base made and saved the wood to continue the tradition after he was gone. Small brass plaques affixed to the base were for the names.

As for the potential for towering bases underneath that old iron bowl, Jimmy said, “I hope it looks like the Indy 500 trophy,” which is over five feet tall.

Whoever receives it each year has the honor of choosing the next recipient. “It’s a reason for us to get together,” said Mack. “It’s a secret until they get it.”

More family are coming to the party because of the interest in the trophy, Jimmy said. As for the recipient, “They’re happy until they realize they have to give the next party.” The family gets together a week or two after the ballgame for a gathering full of family, fellowship, fun … and football.

“It was a tradition we thought would last a year or two, but Dad and Uncle Dick spurred it on,” said Mack.

And, of course, talk naturally turns to the game. “Obviously, the subject of the ballgame comes up,” Jimmy said, calling the 2021 version “a heartbreaker,” when Auburn lost in quadruple overtime. “It works both ways,” he added, noting the Bell version of the series is even. He counted the plaques this year – 18 on each side.

They can rattle off memorable moments in those 36 games, just like ‘Who’re you for,’ they need no further explanation to fans around these parts. “Bo over the top,” Kick Six, 1989 – the first time it was played in Auburn and Tiffin’s kick.

Mack and Jimmy talk of their earliest memories, going to Legion Field without a ticket but getting in anyway. Jimmy remembers his grandfather stopping at the old Golden Rule in Irondale on the way to pick up a bagful of barbecue and Cokes. “As a young kid, that was a highlight.”

His wife, Yvonne, adds a biblical reference for the lifetime of traditions. “Train up a child, and he won’t depart from it.”

Mack’s wife, Mary, agreed. “We’ve got to keep the younger generation involved and continuing the tradition. “It’s third generation now, and the fourth is coming.”

Mack, now retired and many years removed from his days at the University of Alabama, has a simple analogy for whether it means more to beat Auburn or win the national championship. To him, you can’t have one without the other. “The road to the national championship – you’ve got to go through Auburn and the Iron Bowl. It’s the first round of the playoffs.”

Looking back on years and generations that have gone into this family tradition, Mack said, “It’s been a helluva ride. I never thought it would grow to this.”

He and Jimmy and the entire Bell family hope it never ends.

Toomer’s tree finds home, tradition in Pell City

Story by Carol Pappas

There’s another tradition surrounding Auburn and part of the Bell family. This time it involves a tree, but not just any tree. It’s a direct descendant of the famed oak trees at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn.

Following an Auburn victory, thousands of fans converge on the corner of College Street and Magnolia Avenue at what is known as Toomer’s Corner, across from the iconic Toomer’s Drugs, and they roll the trees with toilet paper to celebrate. The decades-old tradition becomes a sea of white waves dangling from the treetops – jubilant fans down below taking part in their creation.

In 2005, acorns from the stately trees were planted and nurtured by Forestry and Wildlife Sciences students, and a limited number of their seedlings were sold to raise funds for student scholarships. Jimmy bought three – one for his sister, Vicki Bell Merrymon, one for a friend and one for himself.

Jimmy’s tree died after being planted to close to his house and had to be moved. But Vicki’s tree thrived, now standing 30 feet tall in a field in front of her Hardwick Road home. The Merrymons may not be in Auburn for the traditional rolling, but when Auburn wins a big game, their tree gets rolled just the same.

“If we beat Alabama, we go out and roll it,” said Vicki. “We’ve rolled it some for basketball. You know, it’s Auburn.”

Grandson Owen has helped roll the tree when he was visiting. When he can’t be there, he and his family keep the tradition alive by rolling a tree in Chattanooga, Tenn., where they live.

Vicki and husband Dana’s most memorable rolling of the tree? When Auburn won the national championship in 2010. Playing in the Rose Bowl out west, it was late at night back in Alabama when Auburn was crowned champion. That night, Vicki said, “We rolled it in the dark with flashlights.”

Also check out our story Eric Bell: Auburn’s No. 1 Fan here!

Features

Step into the ring

Professional boxing finds new arena in Pell City

Story by Loyd McIntosh
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

On a sweltering hot Friday afternoon in late July, the parking lot of Total Body Fitness is so full, many cars have parked in the grass and mud in the vacant lot next door. Inside, the gym is just as packed as dozens of athletes, trainers and others mill about.

There is excitement and even a little tension in the air. All of this activity isn’t for a hot, new exercise class. No, excitement builds for the weigh-in for a boxing event taking place in a little over 24 hours at, of all places, the CEPA Building in Pell City.

Organized by the Alabama-based boxing promotion company, One One Six Boxing, Saturday’s event, Logan Martin Rumble 2, is the second boxing “show” One One Six has held in Pell City, the first coming in December 2020. One One Six is also notable for being the state’s first and only boxing promotion owned and operated by a woman and St. Clair County native Brandi McClain.

Anthony Stewart (right) stares down Jayvone Dafney (left) as referee Keith Hughes goes over the rules.

Since launching, One One Six has held close to 10 boxing events showcasing fighters from all over the country but with a concentration on boxers from the Southeast. Operating out of Gadsden, One One Six has hosted Money Powell IV, James De La Rosa and Michael Williams Jr., the undefeated prospect of Roy Jones Jr. This weekend, her focus is on a boxer named Anthony Stewart, who at age 40 is competing for the Alabama State Cruiserweight Title.

“Anthony has a lot riding on him this weekend, but he’s a very talented fighter. He’s ready for this moment,” McCain says. “I think he has an opportunity to fight on TV, and I’m doing everything I can to make that happen for him. It’s my job to make my fighters’ dreams come true.”

At the weigh-in, Stewart is sitting at a table with his trainer, Dave Godber, a boxing lifer with extensive experience as a fighter and trainer. Currently, Gober owns Round 1 Boxing For Health, a gym in Vestavia where Stewart trains while he’s not busy with his full-time job as a welder for Ox Bodies in Tuscaloosa.

Since his last sparring session a little over a week ago, Stewart has geared down his activity to give his body the rest it needs for his title fight on Saturday. “My last week, really what I’m doing is I’m trying to focus my mind on rest, relaxation, how I can make my body 100 percent when I step in the ring,” says Stewart.

His opponent is a little-known boxer named Jayvone Dafney, a 34-year-old cruiserweight fighting out of Los Angeles with a record of 2-3. Anthony and Godber have spent much of their preparation watching film and studying Gafney’s strengths and, more importantly, weaknesses. “Everybody has habits, and that’s what we want him to do. We want him to fight in his bad habits,” Godber says. “That’s what I’m really good at. In the first 30 seconds, I can tell you exactly how this man’s fighting.”

Godber is of the mindset that boxing is a 50-50 sport – 50 percent physical, 50 percent psychological. He’s been working tirelessly on Stewart’s mental approach to boxing, helping his protégé to think on his feet and react to whatever his opponent does in the ring. “Everybody’s got skill,” Godber says. “You can be the best fighter in the world, but you have to have the mental attitude to know how to survive and how to make good decisions.

“Everybody looks like a champion on the heavy bag,” he adds, “but when you get in that ring and the pressure’s on you, you have to overwhelm yourself with the mental aspect.”

“When I’m in there, I don’t just react,” adds Stewart. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘when I do this, what does he do? When I throw this punch, where does he move? When I throw this punch, where does he drop his hand? If he drops that hand, we’ll I’m going to come here.’”

Like many of today’s professional boxers, Stewart honed his fighting skills in the crazy world of ultimate fighting in what he calls “loosely organized” underground events in bars and joints in places like Jasper and Cullman. Stewart turned pro in June 2018, defeating a boxer named Andre Brewer. Leading into his title bout in Pell City, Stewart’s record stands at a healthy 5-1-2, four wins by knockout. Fit, mentally acute, and rested, Stewart is brimming with confidence just 24 hours before the bell rings in the biggest fight of his career in the heart of Pell City, the Main Event for Logan Martin Rumble 2.

“I don’t like to say anything derogatory about anybody that I’m about to fight but …” he stops himself before finishing the statement and collects his thoughts before continuing. “It’s like this right here. I’m coming to handle business. Anybody that’s in my way of that title is going to get broken down. I want to see what kind of man he is. This is mano a mano. I want to see how he faces adversity because I’m going to touch him.”

Still, at the age of 40, one question Stewart is asked often is how much longer can he continue boxing? How will he know when it’s time to hang up the gloves? “Through all my amateur fights and most of my pro fights, I didn’t take many punches. There will be a time when I got to hang it up, but right now I’ve got a five-year plan, which takes me to 45,” explains Stewart. “We’re going to stay in shape and keep this going.”

Fight Night

It’s now Saturday evening and the gymnasium at the CEPA Building has been transformed for professional boxing. The ring sits at the center of the court with professional lights placed in opposite corners. There are 11 fights on the card with the Stewart-Dafney fight bringing the night to a close.

Most of the bouts are scheduled for four rounds, with three scheduled for six rounds, including the main event. The first three fights of the night ended in knockouts – two in the first round, one in the second round. However, one of the best fights of the night was the fourth on the card, the stunning debut of a young fighter named Nicholas Adams.

A native of Pell City, Adams initially attended Pell City High School, transferred to Ashville High School, before eventually earning his GED. He worked as a corrections officer before recently devoting himself to boxing full time after deciding against pursuing mixed martial arts.

He signed on with One One Six Boxing but found himself in need of a new trainer and coach less than a week before his professional debut. He hooked up with Martin Juarez, owner and operator of Juarez Boxing in Irondale, who has been impressed with Nick in the short time he’s worked with him.

“I met Nick four days ago. He called me over the weekend and said he was without a trainer and needed some help,” Juarez explains. “Just the time we’ve spent in the gym, we’ve been able to build a rapport with one another, and I’ve taught him some stuff that he’s never known, this being his first professional fight.

“Nick shows a lot of great attitude and great effort and has come a long way in four days,” he adds. “I’m expecting only great things from him.”

Adams has a lot riding on this fight as well. He and his wife, Morganne, have a preschool-age daughter, Sophie. Not only is this Nick’s pro debut, but his primary source of income for his young family. At the weigh-in on Friday, Morganne was both excited and apprehensive about her husband’s bout. “I keep thinking I am ready for this, and we keep getting closer, and I don’t know. My stomach’s in a knot,” Morganne says. “I’m very nervous, but I know he’s going to win.”

Adams’ opponent Saturday evening is 32-year-old Keith Criddell, boxing out of Atlanta in a Super Middleweight bout scheduled for four rounds. Despite his record of 0-3, Criddell has almost a year of experience as a pro boxer, having made his debut in August 2020. Adams’ path to victory is clearly uphill.

From the opening bell brought through the end of the third round, the action was exciting and, to the general boxing fan, evenly matched. In reality, Adams was winded, having come out too hot in the first round throwing a flurry of punches and expending a lot of energy. By the end of the third round, Adams was in danger of losing the fight should it go the distance. Adams’ new trainer and cornerman, Juarez, was there to encourage his fighter, but also to give him the unvarnished truth.

“I was tired. He got in my face and told me ‘you can’t forget everything that we’ve done these last four days. You’ve been amazing. Don’t forget everything you’ve learned, and, oh, by the way, you’re losing this fight,’” Adams says. “That wasn’t something he didn’t have to tell me, I could tell. I was falling behind. But when he got up in my face, all the numbness that I had in my legs went away. I don’t know what that man said to me, but it was the way he said it. I knew I was going to lose the fight if I didn’t put him out in the fourth round.”

Adams regained his stamina and focus in the fourth round, connecting on a vicious right hook that sent Criddell to the canvas once and for all. “I took everything (Juarez) gave me and applied it as best I could. It took me four rounds, but I did it,” Adams says. “I put him down and pulled out the win for my debut.”

Back to the Main Event

After 10 fights, all but one ending in a knockouts or technical knockout, the crowd is ready for the main event. Dafney makes his entrance into the ring first to little more than polite applause.

It’s clear this crowd is here to see Stewart. He doesn’t disappoint. Following a light show and a short but loud pump-up performance by a Tuscaloosa-based hip-hop artist, Stewart makes his way into the arena. Wearing red and black trunks with his last name emblazoned across the front, Stewart enters the ring, his tattooed chest and arms already glistening with sweat, his jaw clenched, eyes staring straight at his opponent. Referee Keith Hughes goes over the rules and sends each man back to his corner to wait for the opening bell.

One day prior at the weigh-in the question was posed to Godber, where does Stewart have the advantage over Dafney? “Anthony throws more punches,” says Godber.

“We’ve been working weight on six and seven punch combinations. I don’t think that young man’s ready for Anthony because he doesn’t throw much more than three,” Godber continues. “You won’t see Anthony on the ropes. You’ll see him in the center of the ring. It’s hard to fight going backward, and if (Dafney) goes to the ropes, he’s going down.”

The bell rings and the fight plays out exactly as Godber described. Stewart began the bout measured, even taking a couple of shots from the taller Dafney, before exploding into a fury of punches.

As Round 1 progressed, Stewart continued his onslaught of punches, pushing Dafney back on his heels and into the ropes. Finally, Stewart broke down his opponent’s defenses before connecting with a fierce right hook and sending Dafney to the canvas. No 10-count. Hughes jumps in and immediately stops the fight at 2:55 in the first round. It’s over. Hughes lifts Stewart’s arm in the air. McCain enters the ring to place the belt around the victor’s waist.

Anthony Stewart is the new Alabama State Cruiserweight Champion.

Jim Nunnally

Beloved cheerleader for
Ashville, hometown hero

Story by Joe Whitten

Submitted photos

A quote on Facebook, “Hometown is the place where I was born, where I was raised, where I keep all my yesterdays,” express well Jim Nunnally’s affection for Ashville, Ala., his own hometown.

And although he lived and worked in Texas for many years, he returned to Ashville for his “golden years” and left an enduring influence. Shortly before his death in 1968, Ashville High School dedicated its yearbook to him and established the Jim Nunnally Award to an outstanding athlete.

Born Aug. 5, 1888, James Renfroe Nunnally was the seventh of the 10 children born to Robert Thomas and Emma Mary Montgomery Nunnally. He grew up in Ashville, and when World War I engulfed the globe, he joined the Army and served in the 167 Infantry, the Rainbow Division, which earned renown in France and Germany.

Garrett Spears, a young distant cousin of Jim’s, researched Jim Nunnally for his fourth-grade history project, sponsored and judged by the St. Clair Historical Society. He noted that after the war ended, “the Alabama troops were honored by parades in Gadsden, Anniston, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile before being discharged at Camp Shelby.”

Surviving both the war and the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, Jim lived and worked in Birmingham. According to research by Jerri Jenkins of Springville, Jim married Fannie Archer of Birmingham in 1921, but the 1930 U.S. Census shows them as married but living apart: Fannie living with her parents in Birmingham and Jim boarding with Albert and Pauline Teague back in Ashville. By the 1940 census, Jim was divorced and living in Houston, where in 1940 he married Effie Violette Torrance, a naturalized Canadian. Effie died Feb. 4, 1953 and was buried in Forest Cemetery in Gadsden.

Around the time of Effie’s death, Jim returned to his hometown of Ashville and lived in the Teague Hotel, owned by his cousin, Annie Teague McClendon. In July 1958, Jim married Louise Heath of Gadsden, and they continued to live in the hotel until it was sold.

The salient memories of those who knew Jim personally deal with his love of all things Ashville and especially the Ashville High School teams – baseball, football and basketball – that he faithfully supported. Dr. John McClendon, Temple University, recalled recently, “He was there for every sporting event, every practice. I remember when I was in the fifth-grade – I was manager, water boy with the team – and we played somewhere on Sand Mountain, and we got up there about an hour early to warm up, and there were he and Louise already in the stands. I remember the coaches saying, ‘You can’t play far enough away for Jim Nunnally not to be the first person there.’”

Jim’s enthusiasm for all Ashville Bulldogs sports earned him the reciprocating respect and love of the players and students. Dr. McClendon recalled, “Just a few days before Jim died in 1968, the senior class decided to dedicate the annual yearbook to him. The class visited with him shortly before he died to tell him about the dedication. He’d been in the hospital several days and was back home and he died at home.”

The yearbook dedication reads, “Sixteen years ago Jim came back to Ashville after many years away. During these years he endeared himself to all of us because we knew that he was our friend. He had a keen and enthusiastic interest in us and our many activities. He had the ability to be any age he chose to be. Toddlers met him on equal ground. He easily became a pre-teen when one of them sought his company, and he was one of us – the high school gang. He was ageless!

“His three loves were the Rainbow Division of World War I, the town of Ashville and ALL young people.

“To show that we returned his feeling for us, we the Seniors of 1968, lovingly dedicate the annual to his memory.”

Jim died May 7, 1968. To further show their love and respect to this man who had won their hearts, Ashville High School established The Jim Nunnally Memorial Award with these words in the annual: “In honor of a great man who was loved and respected by all at Ashville High School, a memorial award has been established. This athletic award will be presented each year at graduation to a senior girl or boy who has been selected as the ‘Best Athlete.’ We hope this award will promote athletic desire, sportsmanship, scholarship and determination.”

Harlan Sanders, 1969 Ashville High School yearbook photos

The first Jim Nunnally Memorial Award was presented at the 1969 graduation to Harlan Sanders, son of Mr. and Mrs. Austin Sanders. The 1969 yearbook recorded of Harlan that he lettered four years in football, playing center on offense and linebacker on defense and was voted to the All-County Team. Harlan became the first Ashville player to be voted to the Birmingham Post Herald’s All State Team. He lettered four years in basketball and was team captain of the 1968-1969 team which went to the state tournament and placed on the All-County and All-Area teams his senior year. Harlan also lettered two years in baseball. John McClendon recalled that “the football team Harlan was on was one of the best in Ashville history – 8-2 record.”

The Jim Nunnally Memorial Award is still presented at Ashville High School with one change. Today, awards are presented to both male and female outstanding sportspersons. Winners for school year 2018-2019 were Chris Sanders (Harlan Sander’s nephew) and Erika Williams, and the recently named 2019-2020 winners are J-Brelin Cook and Chloe Wills. Recipients of the award are chosen by Ashville High School coaches of all sports.

Life at the Teague Hotel

The Teague Hotel, where Jim took up residence around 1953 was located on the town square where today stands the Union State Bank. The hotel was owned and operated by Jim’s cousin, Annie Teague McClendon. Annie was a sister to Mattie Lou Teague Crow. The genealogical connection with Jim Nunnally and the Teagues came through Annie and Mattie Lou’s mother, Tullulah “Lula” Nunnelley who married John Teague in 1886. (Jim spelled his name differently from his relatives.)

Lula and John’s marriage ended in 1905 with John’s sudden death, leaving Lula with two daughters and four sons to raise and provide for. Mattie Lou in her memories wrote, “My mother purchased it when I was 3. … My father was a farmer and a schoolteacher. When he died in 1905, my mother sold our farm in Beaver Valley and came to Ashville.” She recorded that not only did her mother have children ranging in age from 19 to 3 years in age, but she also had “our grandmother Nunnelley, who was then 80.”

Caroline Ballard, great-great-great-granddaughter of Lula Teague, researched the Teague Hotel for a school project and found it was built as a stagecoach inn by a Mr. Cranford in the early 1800s. Later, Curtis Grubb Beason ran it as an inn and trading post. Caroline wrote, “Mrs. Lula Nunnelley Teague purchased the Inn and ran it until her death in 1942. Annie Teague McClendon, my great-great-grandmother, ran the hotel after her mother’s death.” Annie lived in the hotel until it was sold.

Lula Teague’s granddaughter, Nancy Willison, recently described the hotel as “… an L shape with two stories on the side parallel to the courthouse and there may have been two stories on the entire building. There was a porch at least on the long side. There were two large rooms on the side next to the courthouse.

“Miss Anna Smith, longtime fourth-grade teacher, lived in one of the rooms during the school year. The hall in front of these rooms led to a few steps down to a landing in front of the bathroom, and there was a door to the dining room from this landing. The table was usually full for one family-style meal, and, when necessary, a second seating was served. My mother, dad and I ate lunch there often during the week. My grandmother did most of the cooking with help. She made wonderful tea cakes that I have worked for years, unsuccessfully, to duplicate. She pulled those cookie sheets out of that woodburning stove using her apron or bare hands.”

Nancy married in 1969 and remembered Jim’s wife as a “delightful lady who enjoyed attending my bridal showers.” However, Jim had moved back about the time Nancy left for college. So, growing up she saw Jim infrequently and remembered him as “… a mysterious person. He would randomly appear in Ashville, stay for some period of time and then disappear. He was my grandmother’s nephew. I remember when he would come to Ashville that he would spend time in my dad’s store, Teague Mercantile Co., visiting with everyone who came in.”

Annie Teague McClendon, who married Perkins McClendon, wrote of her mother’s buying the hotel. “After she had made a small down payment on the place, we had no money, so we all worked helping as best as we could. The boys helped, not only with the chores, but at any job they could find in order to buy their clothes and shoes and to help with the expenses. I stopped school to help with the housework. Our baby sister, Mattie Lou, did her part, too.” Of her mother she wrote that she “arose long before daylight and worked long after dark.”

Mattie Lou Teague Crow remembered that the boarders at her mother’s establishment were “… school teachers, a music teacher, a judge, superintendent of education, clerks, young men who were high school students, a sprinkling of laborers – road builders and sawmillers – and a young doctor and his wife.” She spoke of the meals served and that when the dinner bell rang, there was rarely an empty chair at “our banquet-size dining table.

Exciting times at the hotel for Annie were court weeks. She remembered the “… judges, lawyers and farmers at the same table and had such a good time. I remember the old jury room where thirteen men stayed for many days and nights and had at our table three square meals a day.”

Poignant moments

Annie’s memories flowed from her heart to the written page as the Teague Hotel, her old home, was being taken down, beam by pegged beam. So many years ebbed and flowed that one hears both sorrow and happiness in her words. “I remember when our baby brother left home to find a job and never came back. I remember he was identified by his registration card which was in his pocket. I shall never forget that our mother never stopped grieving and she never stopped working, nor did she fail to keep faith in the One that is over us and hears our prayers.”

An open hall ran through the hotel providing a cool “summer living room,” Annie recalled. The hot days would find the women of the house sewing or mending garments while other townsfolk and guest congregated to visit. “Often, there were as many as 12 or 14 regular boarders at our house. Many were cultured, educated people who brought us treasures unnumbered – books, conversation, music and, best of all, friendship.”

Annie wrote that the rooms were named for people who stayed in them – Mama’s Room, just off the living room; Drummer’s Room, the front bedroom; Jury Room, the big bedroom upstairs; and her brothers’ room called the “Bull Pen, because it was so often full of boys, their friends and cousins who came whenever they wished.”

Lastly, Annie spoke of her cousin’s return to Ashville and his living in the hotel after his second wife died. “I remember when Jim Nunnally came home to live. He was all alone, and he took a room across the hall from the living room. It was so good to have someone whom I loved to share the old house with me again. That room will always be Jim’s Room in my memory.”

Being a never-meet-a-stranger man, Jim soon renewed friendship from former days and made new ones throughout Ashville, and everybody knew he lived at the hotel in “Jim’s Room.”

Annie and Perkins McClendon’s grandchildren have wonderful memories of Jim and the hotel, which was almost a second home. As Jim’s younger cousins, he quickly became friends with them.

Susan McClendon Kell, recalls, “Jim’s room had very high ceilings and was across the breezeway that was off the wraparound porch. All the cousins loved visiting him there and were always welcomed. We loved Jim. He loved us and all of Ashville’s youths.”

The cousins loved playing in the hotel, Susan recalled. “There was a large upstairs ‘plunder’ room filled with treasures my brothers, cousins and I loved to play with. Old trunks, soldier uniforms, etc. Fond memories of that fun-filled room. I would love to see all those items again now that I could appreciate them.”

Martha McClendon Richey, Annie’s granddaughter, vividly recalls her grandmother, “Big Mama” Annie McClendon, and Eddy McClendon, a cousin, crying as they watched the Teague Hotel being torn down. Being too young to understand their sorrow, their tears disturbed her and linger in her memory.

Mattie Lou knew the sorrow and wrote of the hotel where she grew up, “For all of us there was something about our house. … I believe that very old houses hold memories of all the lives that have been spent there.” Annie, Eddy, and no doubt, Mattie Lou, wept because they saw the dismantling of the past.

John McClendon, Susan Kell’s brother, loved Jim like a grandfather and cherishes wonderful memories of him. “I never knew either of my grandfathers, but I had Jim. And, boy, was he the best grandfather a boy could have. Fishing, tossing the baseball, roasting marshmallows, long conversations and all the stuff one could expect from the best grandfather ever.

“We had this daily ritual of going to Whitney Junction to watch the train go by at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And it would deliver the mail. Haley Nelson would pick up the mail; that was his job. And he would be there at Miss Sheffield’s store – and he’d get the mail and take it back to Bunt Jones at the post office in Ashville. We would eat sardines and crackers and watch the train go by. That was the big event, watching the train go by!

“And my older brother and sister, Eddy and Susan, did the same thing when they were kids. He’d been taking kids to watch the train go by for years.” John paused, reflecting, then said, “Eating sardines as a kid – which is lovely. He was always there.”

John’s memories kept flowing. “Jim had a classic car. I don’t know what it was, but it was clean. This was in the mid-60s and it was a car out of the ‘30s. I wonder if anyone would know the make?” John’s young nephew Garrett Spears had it recorded in his history report: “Jim drove a black Chrysler c1930.”

Not only did John and Jim meet the train and eat sardines, but they also fished. “We’d go over to Red Wood’s lake and to Canoe Creek and to Lake Camac to fish. We went to the creek all the time – down Double Bridge Road at the creek there.”

A 911 forerunner and more

Of Jim’s Ashville activities, John recalled that “Jim took a job at the Sheriff’s Office. He was a radio dispatcher in the courthouse. He was a friendly, social guy, and this job and its location placed him smack in the middle of the ‘goings and comings’ of day-to-day activity in the middle of town. He did that maybe three or four years before he died.

“I was a kid, and I would go up to the courthouse and spend the day at the Sheriff’s Office right there on the first floor. Jim would be manning the radio. They had four or five cars at the most in the county, and he would be the dispatcher for that. The original 911, I guess. Way before 911. But I think he wanted to have a reason to hang out at the center of all action – the drugstore, the post office and the courthouse. Always friendly and up for good conversation, this fit Jim perfectly as it meant Jim was central to the daily lives of the town as ‘best friend’ to everyone.”

Helen Sweatt, daughter of a deputy, recalled Jim as clerk in the Sheriff’s Office as well as dispatcher. “My daddy, Lee Allen Thompson, was one of three deputies at that time. When Daddy would come home for lunch, he would park the patrol car in front of the house. Although the car wouldn’t be running, the police radio would stay on. My younger brother, Timmy, loved to play cops and robbers, and often he would get in the car and pretend to be our dad, whose call number was SC3. Timmy would key up the mic and say ‘SC3’ to whomever he thought he was calling.

“Mr. Nunnally would call our house phone and say, ‘Lee, your boy is on the radio again.’ Daddy would run out on the porch and say, ‘Boy, get out of the car and stop playing with the radio!’ Timmy never got a spanking for playing on the radio,” Helen laughed.

“Daddy had to furnish his own car,” Helen added. “He had a 1955 black Ford that he had a siren installed in it that worked from a button in the floor, just like the old-style light dimmer. Timmy would set off the siren and upset the neighbors because during that time, unlike today, a siren meant that something terrible had happened.”

After the hotel closed, Susan Kell recalled, “Jim and Louise lived in a house right down from the church. My grandmother, Stella Moorer, lived in one half and Jim and Louise in the other. Grandmother Annie McClendon lived directly across the street from Stella and Jim.”

Lasting legacy

2020 winners J-Brelin Cook and Chloe Wills

As the interview with Dr. John McClendon drew to a close, he spoke of Jim Nunnally’s influence. “Jim didn’t just belong to me or the local kids, he belonged to all of Ashville. Think about this: He was not a principal, teacher or a coach. He was not a famous or rich alumnus. He was never an elected official. He never held any official position in the town that would suggest a role with the school. But the Jim Nunnally Award is presented still today. He was ‘Jim: supporter and friend.’ A great person loved by all who knew him.

“In short, Jim loved Ashville and Ashville loved Jim – and it was an unconditional love, the best kind of love there is. So, I guess, an even better word to describe Jim is ‘love.’ He cared deeply for the town and its people.”

There could be no better affirmation of a man’s life than to be remembered as a man who loved. Such was James “Jim” Renfroe Nunnally.

Features

Namaste

Goat Yoga more than just a craze for Springville couple and their farm

Story by Carol Pappas

Photos by Kelsey Bain

Make the turn off Springville’s Shanghai Road into CareDan Farm and it’s as if you have entered a magical world where animals rule, and the rest of us are lucky enough to be part if it – if only for a day.

The gang’s all there: Nigerian Dwarf goats Charlotte, Rose, Rosebud, twins Spur and Kid Rock and two new babies, Peanut and Cashew. There’s Rooster and Daisy, the horses, of course, and a lovable pig named Pancake. Talk about free range, the chickens meander around these parts to their hearts’ content while ducks splash playfully in a nearby puddle.

It’s just another day at the farm for them, but for those arriving by the carload, it’s an experience they won’t soon forget.

And that’s precisely the point, say Danny and Caren Davidson, who open up their Springville farm to young and old, friends, family and strangers from near and far, curious about a thing called goat yoga.

“It’s fun when people come out and do things they don’t typically do,” says Caren, who calls their fledgling business, My Farm Day, the perfect moniker, adds Danny. “Whether it’s fishing, riding horses, playing with the goats, we wanted people to have a ‘my farm day’ for them.”

Their first venture in providing that personalized farm experience is a craze sweeping the country, goat yoga. And on a summer Saturday morning, the rain didn’t seem to dampen the spirit of the day. Quite the opposite. Guests headed to the barn for shelter, where yoga mats and a menagerie of four-legged hosts awaited.

Certified yoga instructor Nancy Hunter of Springville explains her foray into today’s goat variety of this ancient practice. Caren had seen a post on Facebook about Nancy’s Yoga classes in Springville and at her studio in Oneonta.

Caren called and asked if she would be interested in teaching Yoga with goats, and Nancy said ‘Yes, I’m game. I’ll try it.’

“Caren is so amazing,” Nancy says. “These are her children,” she adds, motioning to the goats – old and new – the horses nearby, the baby chicks just introduced into the class (much to the delight of its students) and a host of other animals making up the zoo-like atmosphere.

In the beginning …

It wasn’t always like this – a farm couple just working and sharing the land. They were from the big city.

But her grandparents had a farm in Tennessee when she was growing up. “I fell in love with the farm and the animals.” Charlotte, one of the goats, is named for her grandmother.

Danny and Caren grew up in Vestavia Hills and graduated from Vestavia High, dated at Ole Miss and married.

He served in the Army in San Antonio for a few years, and they moved back to Alabama when he finished service.

They bought property across from Matthews Manor and lived there for nine years in Argo. “I love to be outdoors,” Caren says. “He loves to build stuff. We moved in with some dogs and within a year, we added horses and a couple of more dogs. Our dream was more land and more animals.”

They found what they were looking for – the house with 69 acres bordering Little Canoe Creek – in Springville. “When we pulled in the driveway, four chicks came running out to meet us,” Caren recalls. “I thought, ‘I’m sold. This is awesome.’”

“We bought a tractor and few other things, and that’s how we got here.”

By day, Danny is about to begin a new job teaching Algebra at Moody High School. Caren is director of human resources at a Birmingham law firm.

“Because we grew up in the city, we didn’t know much about farm life. Fortunately, we’ve had some great neighbors and friends who have taught us a lot about barn and fence building, drainage, pond maintenance, etc.,” Caren explains.

“What we didn’t learn from them, we learned from books or YouTube. Our master shower is frequently turned into an infirmary for injured chickens and ducks. We continue to learn most everything the hard way, but because it’s just the two of us, we have a lot of fun living the ‘farm life,’ which is a big departure from our ‘regular life.’”

The Davidsons don’t have children, but they have a very close family with lots of cousins, nieces, nephews who enjoy ‘Farm Days’ at Uncle Danny and Aunt Caren’s farm, hence the name, CareDan Farm. “Farm Days,” she says, “consist of riding horses, playing in the creek, fishing, gathering eggs from the coop, riding 4-wheelers, Gator rides, canoeing, hitting floating golf balls into the pond and whatever other activities Danny dreams up. Evenings on the farm generally involve more fishing, campfires, watching football and listening to music on the back porch.”

On the farm, Danny’s job at first was that of goat wrangler. He is self-proclaimed “head goat wrangler,” and has a name tag to prove it.

He’s the one always bringing home the goats. She’s more practical. The night before this class, he brought home two more without telling her. But she couldn’t resist, it was easy to see, as she held them like babies, bottle fed them and sported a never-ending smile as they frolicked among the yoga guests in the barn.

The driving force

The genesis of this day, where smiles, laughter and squeals of excitement are quickly becoming tradition, came from an unlikely source – a tragedy involving Caren’s father, Dr. Cary Petry. He had suffered from depression and anxiety for years and sadly took his own life in 2017.

“The couple of years leading up to that event were quite stressful, as I tried to provide my dad with encouragement, support and different treatment options. After his death, I found myself just going through the motions most weeks. I’d spend all my energy during the week trying to do my job, and I’d use the weekends on our farm for quiet time in hopes of recharging for the next week. Being outdoors, surrounded by all of God’s amazing creations, was the medicine I needed, but it was still just a repetitious cycle week after week.”

On a Sunday morning a year ago, her mother called as Danny and Caren were walking out the door to church. “She told me to turn on the news because there was a story coming on about a lady in Oregon who held goat yoga classes on her farm. I watched the story and couldn’t stop thinking about the satisfaction she had gained by sharing her farm and love for goats with others. I wondered if I could regain some happiness, and perhaps help others, by sharing my farm and animals with others.”

When she took the next step and called Nancy, “Surprisingly, Nancy had actually participated in a goat yoga class and was eager to try teaching one. So, for my 46th birthday, I invited a few close friends and family to attend a goat yoga birthday party at the farm. I figured they wouldn’t turn me down since it was my birthday. I had never done yoga before, but I was excited to combine so many things I love into one activity – friends, family, animals, outdoors and some much-needed exercise.

“The goats kept escaping the temporary fence we had hastily put up and didn’t seem too interested in the yoga, but it was fun nonetheless.”

They experimented with two more classes that fall before deciding to get serious about it. “Well, as serious as you can get about goat yoga,” Caren adds. “I felt like goat yoga was the perfect way for me to share our farm with other people who may be in need of some laughter and a break from their stressful lives.”

Where there’s a will …

“In January 2019, our two goat mommas, Charlotte and Rose, had three kids: Spur, Kid Rock and Rosebud. And in March, My Farm Day hosted its first official goat yoga class with our five goats. Since then, we’ve had classes nearly every Saturday morning.” Classes are limited to 12 people because the goat to human ratio is critical to participant’s enjoyment of the activity.

With the emotions of her father’s passing still fresh, “I got excited about it. It was something we could focus on and find a way to let other people enjoy the farm. It’s a different concept. It’s silly. It lets you forget about all your troubles for a while. Life is tough. If you can take a few minutes to do something you don’t always do, that’s fun.”

She talks of mental health issues as an epidemic facing the country and sees the farm as a means of coping. “It’s hard to get the help you need. I want to help people laugh. That makes me happy.”

The years leading up to her father’s death “were really rough for us. Every weekend, I would be here and recharge. It made me feel better to be with the animals.”

Her father was an animal lover and when he was at the farm with his dog, Rowdy, his rare smile would appear and is a memory she savors. It is also a memory that sparked the adventure Caren and Danny are now on. And Rowdy now acts as greeter, escorting guests up and down the drive.

What’s in a name

They decided to name the business “My Farm Day” with the idea that “everyone needed ‘their’ day on the farm, just like when we had family out for impromptu farm days. We figured we’d start My Farm Day with a little goat yoga, and maybe later, expand it to include other activities like fly-fishing lessons, barnyard parties, etc.,” she explains.

Goat yoga is the first real leg of that journey. And so far, the reviews have visitors coming back for more.

As the class gets under way on this particular Saturday, Caren and Danny place the newest baby goats on the backs of the participants who could hardly stifle non-stop giggles with the little ones prancing around, eventually leaping off as if the back were a high dive.

The newest goat crew will make their debut in yoga class in a few months. They are partial to crawling atop a human back or two or across their stomach as they lie motionless except for the full body stretch they are attempting.

“The older goats now are like teenagers. They have a mind of their own,” Danny said as the older goats wandered around the yoga class, going underneath, over and around outstretched bodies, occasionally pausing for a snack of hedges and vines nearby. Most did manage a snuggle or two with their human guests, enticing more than a few pets, hugs and rubs behind the ear from them.

One family arrived as part of a surprise for Jimmy Waldrop for Father’s Day. “He loves goats, but we live in the city limits (of Hueytown), and we can’t have them,” said Waldrop’s wife, Dana. He had mentioned he wanted to start yoga, and when she saw My Farm Day’s goat yoga, “it was perfect.”

Waldrop, a nurse at UAB, enjoyed his Father’s Day surprise outing. “I like getting out in a farm atmosphere, and I like goats. I don’t know why, I just do.”

Lana Clayton of Ashville is a return guest. “I fell in love with it, and I came back again and again.”

Farm living is the life for them

“Danny and I have had so much fun and met so many wonderful people during goat yoga classes. We love it because it allows us to spend time outdoors together, with our animals, while sharing our love of nature with others,” Caren concludes.

“People who don’t typically interact with farm animals, get a small dose of farm life, while getting in some terrific stretching and exercise. Nancy loves teaching the class because it introduces yoga to people who may not otherwise try a yoga class in a traditional setting.”

Participants are encouraged to laugh and take pictures throughout class. “As we say, ‘It’s a little bit of yoga and a whole lot of goat.’”

After class Caren and Danny help people pose for pictures with the goats. “Sometimes we have chickens join the class, and our pig, Pancake, has been known to shove her way in to the ‘yoga studio’ for a little attention. Every class is different, so it’s fun ‘work’ for us.”

Underneath a sign that appropriately says, Attitude is everything. Pick a good one, a table of wares displays Caren-designed goat yoga t-shirts and hats. Even the fresh eggs they sell have their own stamp on it – Laid With Love – a creation by Danny.

“But it’s not about making money,” Caren says, “it’s about giving people an experience that’s a break from ‘normal’ life.” As one participant told her, “I found today that baby goats are the cure for nearly anything.”

So, what’s next for this farm-loving, farm-sharing couple? “It is our goal to later, when we retire, use our farm in ways to help people who are hurting,” Caren said. “Goat yoga is just our first baby step.”

Editor’s note: More information about the farm and goat yoga is at myfarmday.com.

Features

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

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