A servant’s heart guides leader’s legacy
Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos by Graham Hadley
Submitted Photos
When Lawrence Fields soon steps down from his role as chair of the St. Clair County Health Authority, he’ll be closing the door on more than three decades of community service.
A former two-term mayor of Pell City, his impact has been significant. Fields opened the door to economic development in a most creative way, and he was instrumental in bringing St. Vincent’s St. Clair to the area. These days, however, after a lifetime of looking out for others, he’s having to shift the focus to himself.
“I’m being treated for lung cancer,” the 80-year-old Fields said. “I’m trying to whup that, so it’s time to step aside and let someone else ride the horse for a while.”
He’s leaving a big saddle to fill. “I really believe that Lawrence’s impact on Pell City and beyond is immeasurable,” said Guin Robinson, who became mayor a few years after Fields’ last term and is now associate dean of economic development for Jefferson State Community College. “He truly has a servant’s heart. Not everyone who gets into politics has a servant’s heart, but Lawrence does.”
Finding home
Fields, the first self-described “outsider” to be elected mayor, served from 1988-1996. Born in Birmingham, he moved to Pell City in 1974 after he and his wife, Brenda, fell in love with Logan Martin Lake. “We started camping out here on the lake and on Sunday afternoon, we’d always hate to go home,” Fields said. “Finally, Brenda asked why we didn’t just move here.”
They built a home on the lake, he got a job with an insurance company, and she started substitute teaching. In 1978, Brenda got her real estate license and has been selling homes ever since. She and her partner, Bill Gossett, own Fields Gossett Realty in Pell City.
“A lot of people start out here with a weekend home, a summer home,” said Fields, who earned his real estate license and joined the company following his last term as mayor and was recently the first to be inducted into St. Clair County Association of Realtors’ Prestigious Hall of Fame. “The more they end up staying here, the more they like it, and they make it permanent. It’s convenient to Birmingham and Atlanta, but you don’t have the hustle and bustle.”
From the moment he made the move, Fields got busy making an impact. He decided to run for mayor because “I’ve always been the kind of person who likes to help people,” he said. “When I became the mayor, I didn’t want to be highfalutin. I just wanted to be a regular guy and have the mayor’s door open so people could just come in and talk to the mayor. I think I did a good job of that.”
State Rep. Randy Wood recently sponsored a resolution passed by the House of Representatives praising Fields for his contributions to the community. It credits Fields as “a man of steadfast selflessness and unwavering diligence who is passionate about serving others.” It also cites other accomplishments – annexing Mays Bend, Eagle Point and Stemley Bridge into Pell City and recruiting ConTel (now CenturyLink), Kmart and other businesses.
Pell City Lakeside Park opened during his administration, a sprawling destination point on Logan Martin Lake’s shoreline that now attracts thousands of visitors each year.
The resolution praises Fields for being a charter member of Lakeside Hospice, a member of the Pell City Rotary Club and for the contributions he made serving more than 20 years as president of the Athletic Booster Club. The resolution noted that Fields spearheaded the efforts to build a new field house and install a sprinkler system on the high school’s football field.
That’s all well and good, but what Fields really wants to talk about is Katie Couric.
National news
The journalist and former news anchor, who was co-host of NBC’s Today Show at the time, came to Pell City in 1996 to interview Fields when the city hosted the Bosnian Olympic team for the Olympics in Atlanta. According to The Washington Post, Pell City was one of more than 70 towns in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Florida that hosted foreign athletes.
The late Sam Meason approached Fields with the idea, and Fields said they formed a committee, and “we put in an offer to house them and take care of them. They were here about a month,” he said. “We rolled out the red carpet for them.”
The city won high praises for its efforts. “Few communities have done more to prepare for their guests than Pell City,” the Washington Post story read. “During the past four, war-torn years, most Bosnian athletes have had to train outside of their country. The Bosnian Olympic Committee has no funds and has had to rely on the International Olympic Committee for help in qualifying athletes and paying their way. Hosting the Bosnians will cost Pell City about $150,000; all but $30,000 of that has been donated by local businesses. The rest will come from community fundraisers.”
It was enough to bring Couric calling. “Sam came to me and said, ‘Hey Mayor, we got a call from NBC, and Katie Couric wants to interview you,” Fields said and grinned. “I said, ‘Lord have mercy, here’s my chance for fame.’”
Couric had told Fields he could only tell a few people about the interview, but when “the big old black limo rolled up at the old Rexall drugstore,” a crowd of hundreds of people had gathered. “She said, ‘I thought I told you a few,’ and I said, ‘Well, this is a small town. I told a few, and they told another few,’” Fields said and laughed.
Couric was the one laughing a few minutes later after she asked Fields to identify the most exciting thing that had happened in Pell City before hosting the athletes. “I told her it probably was when Kmart came, and everybody cracked up,” Fields remembered. “Then Katie asked if we could start over so she could ask me the same question without her laughing this time.”
Recruiting practices
The fact is, when Kmart opened in Pell City, it was big news. It was the early 1990s, long before St. Clair was growing as fast as it is now, and no big-box stores had been willing to gamble. “We didn’t have anywhere people could shop,” Fields said.
When he read in the paper that Kmart CEO Joseph Antonini would be attending a ribbon cutting at a new store in Birmingham, Fields made plans to attend. “I gave him one of my cards and said, ‘I’m the mayor of Pell City, and we want a Kmart in town.’ He said to write him a letter, so I did.”
The letter wasn’t the only thing Fields sent. He and Joe Wheeler, owner of Pell City Steakhouse, wanted to give Antonini a real taste of what the city had to offer, so they started shipping him packages of some of Pell City’s finest each week.
“We shipped big old shrimp, we shipped steak, we shipped honey, we shipped all kinds of things,” Fields said. “Finally, Mr. Antonini’s secretary said we didn’t have to ship anything else. He knew where Pell City was.”
Not long after, they received official word that Kmart was coming, Winn-Dixie and other businesses soon followed. “Kmart was a turning point,” Fields said.
Robinson agreed. “It really was a big deal,” he said, adding that he believes it marked the beginning of Pell City’s economic development and ability to recruit industry. “It sent a message that we were open for business. One hallmark of a leader is finding a way, when the odds are stacked against you, of bringing a project to fruition.”
Advancing healthcare
Despite his accomplishments, Fields decided not to run for a third term because of the time it took away from Brenda and their three children. “It takes a lot of dedication and time, and your family has to make a lot of sacrifices,” Fields said of the job. “Your phone rings constantly, and normally at night. My kids asked me not to run again, so I didn’t.”
That didn’t mean he was giving up on public service, however. Fields has been a member of the St. Clair County Health Authority for more than 20 years and has served as chair for much of that time. He, along with members of the authority, the St. Clair County Commission, the City of Pell City, the St. Clair County Economic Development Council and Ascension Health, the parent company of St. Vincent’s St. Clair, worked tirelessly to bring the hospital to the area.
The state-of-the-art hospital opened in 2011 and changed the face of healthcare throughout the entire region. It also made Pell City and St. Clair County more attractive to industries, manufacturers and corporations and proved to be a major recruiting tool for economic development.
At the time, Fields called it “one of the best economic engines to come to St. Clair in a long time” because quality healthcare is something employers want for their employees. “It was my last big accomplishment,” he said recently.
Team effort
Although Fields’ impact is evident throughout Pell City, he is quick to credit others, as well. “I didn’t do anything by myself,” he said. “I had a lot of help and a lot of people who were behind me 100 percent. These days it’s always ‘I, I, I,’ but that’s not necessary. It should be ‘we, we, we.’”
Fields has recently learned that he still has a big team that will always have his back. “A lot of people have called since they found out I had cancer, and they want to know what they can do to help me,” he said. “It’s just so good to have friends. I’d rather have friends than money.”
