The world’s longest paddle race showcases the wonder of Alabama’s waterways
Story by Paul South Submitted photos from Max Jolley, Great Alabama 650
Max Jolley was 7 when he picked up a paddle for the first time. And from that first pull of wood through water – a centuries-old skill he says takes the whole body, head to toe, mind and muscle – he’s been a recreational kayaker on the Coosa River and its companion lakes, Logan Martin and Neely Henry.
Needless to say, in 2019 – when the Alabama Scenic River Trail launched the maiden Great Alabama 650 – the world’s longest paddle race – he was intrigued. Fifty miles of the race traverses St. Clair County.
“Last year, I was interested in it,” he says. “This year, I was really looking forward to it.”
Jolley isn’t a competitor, but he and others like him play a valuable role in the 10-day race, He’s a “trail angel,” one of a small army of good Samaritans who do everything from providing meals and places to sleep to portage, helping weary paddlers portage their craft over land and in and out of the water at all hours of day and night.
The racecourse passes Jolley’s home. He helped competitors portage their craft out of the water at Logan Martin Dam. But the paddlers, not the paddling, draws Jolley to the competition, one of the least known events in American sports. For paddlers, it’s a magical mystery tour of Alabama rivers and lakes, featuring changing currents, landscapes, flora and fauna.
And for the trail angels like Jolley, friendships are forged. Competitors came from as far away as Hawaii.
“There are a lot of different-walks-of-life people that you meet,” Jolley says. “It’s just interesting talking to the paddlers and their ground crews, to see what they do and how they do it and why they do it.”
Alabama tourism officials, like Clarke County resident Linda Vice, president of the Alabama Scenic River Trail, hope the 650 puts the spotlight on Alabama waterways, the reason behind the race. Alabama has 5,300 miles of accessible waterways, stretching from the mountain streams of north Alabama southward to the salt and sand of the Gulf Coast. State tourism officials bill the trail as the “most experience-diverse river trail in America.”
“We started the Scenic River Trail as an environmental and tourism project, as well as a recreational thing,” Vice says. “What we wanted to do was get people out on the waterways so they could see the natural beauty and so that they could find a low-cost sport that anybody could participate in if they had a kayak or a canoe.”
The trail was the brainchild of Fred Couch, a veteran Alabama kayaker. It was decided that the trail needed a premiere event to draw attention to the river trail. After fact-finding trips to paddle races in Alaska, Colorado and around the country, Alabama organizers learned something.
A calm day and smoothe water as kayakers cross the lake to the stopping point
“We realized through them that we had the best race in the nation, because of the types of situations they would find themselves in as they traveled the trail,” Vice says. “It’s also the longest, with 632 miles. So, what we did was put together the race.”
While the inaugural race was open to all comers, qualifying was required to compete in 2020. COVID-19 sank qualifying this year, but 20 participants – tandem and individual racers, male and female – competed, and most finished the race.
“We started this race to draw attention to Alabama’s rivers as recreational waterways,” Vice says.
In a sports-crazy state that lives and dies each autumn Saturday with roaring football crowds, the Great Alabama 650 is different, the slap of wood on water, the silence of shifting currents, the quack of ducks and the splash of jumping fish.
“The diversity of landscape is a really big deal,” Vice says. “There are all kinds of fossils and plants. There are so many things.”
And then there are trail angels like Jolley, who do anything and everything to help the paddlers, from helping schlep wet, heavy kayaks, to cookouts featuring sizzling Conecuh County sausage.
“A lot of our angels will take them to their houses and cook ‘em a meal,” she said. “We have chapters of supporters and paddlers around the state.”
In its short history, the Great Alabama 650 is generating attention in the paddling community and beyond.
“The 650 is the most challenging race in the world according to the participants,” Vice said.
And the race is having an impact on tourism in St. Clair County, even with its short span in the county. Ecotourism is a growing sector of the local economy.
“We’re delighted that they’re here,” St. Clair County Tourism Director Blair Goodgame says. “Any economic, or any ecotourism is going to promote quality of life for the area here. It’s going to promote a healthy lifestyle, our connection to nature and wildlife and really push our citizens to be guardians of the resources that we have.”
Ironically, COVID-19 has led to an increase in outdoor activity, as residents look for socially distant activities to combat coronavirus cabin fever.
“COVID-19 has amplified things. But even before the pandemic, people were beginning to re-invest in the outdoors in their local communities. And luckily for St. Clair County, we have the natural assets here to be able to play on that. So, we have become just an outdoor recreational paradise because we do have so much potential to grow,” Goodgame says.
Don Smith, executive director of the St. Clair County Economic Development Council, says the 650 fits in the ecotourism sector of the county’s economic vision. Interestingly, Smith saw something similar, thanks to the trail angels who serve hikers along the Appalachian Trail. For hikers, those angels spark a fondness and an everlasting memory of those communities, and perhaps a desire to return.
“I think if we can continue to encourage those racers as they’re going through our community, the word about how we support those communities will get out and hopefully will get folks to come back and visit with us,” Smith says.
The kayakers in the Great Alabama 650 share the waters with ski boats, bass boats, sailboats and pontoons. And sometimes, hospitality comes in colorful – yet illegal ways.
“A guy in a boat offered one of the paddlers a beer …,” Jolley says with a laugh.
Not unexpectedly, the paddler refused the offer.
The paddlers, you see, have am abiding reverence for their sport. And like many of the residents on the Coosa, on Logan Martin and on Neely Henry, they have a reverence for the land and water. The attention wrought by the Great Alabama 650 may deepen that respect.
“It certainly won’t hurt,” Jolley says. “Boaters in general – kayakers, canoers, outdoor sports people in general – they respect the environment. They understand the water, and they know what happens on the water. And they want to keep the water clean.”
Amazing handiwork tells a story in every delicate stitch
Story by Leigh Pritchett Photos by Graham Hadley
Carolyn Hall is surrounded by heritage.
In her parlor are shelves of medical books belonging to her grandfather, Dr. R.A. Martin, and a wicker baby scale from a nursery unit at Martin Hospital. A collection of apothecary jars recalls the three generations that her family ran the corner Rexall drug store in downtown Pell City.
In a sunny room down the hall are two exquisitely detailed quilts that her grandmother Ada Kincaid made prior to 1936. The stitching of one quilt forms an intricate feather design, while the stitching of the other quilt is an equally complex rose pattern.
Treasured heirlooms they are.
Such a setting seemed appropriate for discussing keepsakes – those Carolyn inherited, as well as those she is creating for her four children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The trove of cross-stitch artistry she has sewn for her family represents thousands of hours of work spanning decades.
“I have done a little bit of everything with cross-stitch,” Carolyn said.
She has made switch-plate covers, Christmas ornaments, a multi-dimensional Christmas train, tablecloth and napkins, pillows, pictures and cross-stitch designs on sweatshirts.
Several colors of thread were used to get the shading just right.
Cross-stitch afghans are the bulk of her work. She has completed many different afghans, featuring lighthouses, dogs, cats, stars and sailboats, ABCs, mallards and fruit.
Each piece has its own unique story and exhibits the special bond between the giver and receiver:
The afghan with an Aztec motif was the choice of daughter Cindy, who lives in Tennessee.
Daughter Stacy, who lives in Birmingham, wanted the afghan of “ice cream colors” that Carolyn made in the 1990s. “This is my favorite (afghan),” Carolyn said.
Daughter Mick, who lives in Colorado, displays one of her mother’s afghans as an art piece. Mick’s features wild birds perched on branches that stretch from square to square across the afghan.
For the afghan of son Rob, who works in construction in Florida, Carolyn chose storefront designs. She even altered the size, shape and lettering on the apothecary sign to make it read “Pell City Drug Co.”
Each grandchild and great-grandchild has one of Carolyn’s afghans, and a stash of afghans awaits future great-grandchildren.
Susan Mann, assistant director of Pell City Library, said Carolyn’s creations are priceless treasures the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can “cherish. … They will be special keepsakes forever. And each time they see them or use them, they will think of her, and remember those sweet moments shared.”
Friends and neighbors also have been beneficiaries of some of Carolyn’s handiwork.
Much care goes into each cross-stitch piece because Carolyn wants flawlessness.
“I don’t want to do anything that isn’t first class,” she said.
Joyce Thrower of Pell City, who has known the Hall family at least 50 years, has seen nearly every piece Carolyn has finished.
“She does beautiful work. Everything she does is perfect,” Joyce said.
Susan, likewise, described Carolyn’s work as “meticulous.” She pointed out that Carolyn’s cross-stitch is as pretty on the back as on the front.
When trying to decide which of Carolyn’s afghans she likes best, Susan confessed, “Every time she does a new one, it becomes my favorite.”
But Susan did say her top three would be the colorful birds on a pale mint afghan; a kitten whose spilled milk “drips” down an afghan, and the Victorian “painted ladies” homes of Chincoteague, Va.
The last one is in progress. Carolyn started the “painted ladies” afghan around Labor Day 2019. In August 2020, she reached the halfway point.
Carolyn may spend a year or two, working almost every day, on one afghan until it is completed.
Her longest project took more than two decades. She started the piece – a cross-stitch, bed-cover quilt – when pregnant with Rob, her fourth child. She finished it when he was 23. In between, the project got shelved while she reared her children, was a homemaker and helped her pharmacist husband, Robert “Bob” Hall, run Pell City Drug Co.
A Pell City legacy
Carolyn’s grandparents – Dr. R.A. and Mary Martin – arrived in Pell City in its infancy.
“My grandfather moved here in 1903. He was a surgeon at the Gertrude Comer Hospital” at Avondale Mills, Carolyn said.
After the hospital closed in the 1920s, Dr. Martin opened a six-bed clinic above Pell City Drug Co.
When the building next door became available in the 1930s, Dr. Martin moved the hospital there. For more than 30 years, Martin Hospital occupied that building, which is now the law offices of Hugh E. and Gibson Holladay.
Carolyn and all four of her children were born in Martin Hospital.
Carolyn shows off one of her favorite afghans depicting famous lighthouses.
As for Pell City Drug Co., Dr. Martin established it soon after arriving in Pell City. “That was one of the first Rexall franchises (in the nation),” Carolyn said.
Her mother, Mary Ruth Kincaid, later inherited Pell City Drug Co. and then Carolyn and Bob acquired it after Mary Ruth’s death. Carolyn and Bob, who had met while studying pharmacy at Auburn University, operated the drug store from 1961 to November 2001. In just two more months, the store would have been 99 years old.
The drug store, with its iconic soda fountain, was such a fixture and a necessity in Pell City that is was open every day except Christmas.
Until her last child was in high school, Carolyn worked at the store only when needed. But after long-time bookkeeper Annie Scott Stephens died, Carolyn assumed that job.
Bob passed away six years after retiring.
No idle hands here
When Carolyn was in junior high school, her grandmother Mary Martin taught her to embroider. Carolyn’s first pieces were pillowcases and dresser scarves, most of which she still has.
Though she gave up needlework for a time, she resumed after college, putting it down again during child-rearing.
What drew her back to it is the fascination of creating an art piece one stitch at a time.
“The creating is what I like,” Carolyn said. “This satisfies my creativity.”
Instead of using pre-stamped, cross-stitch patterns, Carolyn prefers the challenge of starting with a blank “canvas.” She must align the subject perfectly and count each stitch she sews in order to be precise.
“With cross-stitch, you’ve got to pay attention,” because one mistake affects the entire design, Carolyn said.
Some of her projects are so complex that they may require as many as 75 different thread colors.
Though dealing with macular degeneration and glaucoma, Carolyn sews for hours each morning. Often, she becomes so engaged that she does not want to put it down.
“It’s calming. It’s peaceful. It keeps your mind occupied. And you’re creating something. What’s not to like? … My grandmother would be proud,” she said. “… My grandmother didn’t believe in idle hands sitting around at night.”
Carolyn also walks four times a week, reads mysteries and is a volunteer hostess for library events. She might also be found on a travel adventure, such as Iceland in winter.
Just the same, she is always looking to the next cross-stitch challenge. Already, she has another afghan to begin after she finishes the “painted ladies” … in about a year.
Summer-ending concert may become yearly event on Logan Martin Lake
Jason Rogoff and Jeff Thompson found the cure for the quarantined summer blues: an outdoor rock concert … during Labor Day weekend.
But it cannot be your normal concert.
This one has to be arranged in less than eight weeks; it has to feature a sought-after performer who just happens to be available because of pandemic cancellations; it has to provide seating that socially distances audience members attending by land and huge video screens visible to those attending by boat; it has to raise funds for two entities, and it has to be full of energy.
That concert – which was on Sept. 4 at Pell City Sports Complex on the shores of Logan Martin Lake – fulfilled all the requirements and quite possibly began an annual event.
For the concert, the Black Jacket Symphony performed the songs from the Queen album, A Night at the Opera, and featured the vocal talent of Marc Martel.
The stage lights up the night
Martel provided some vocals for Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic about Queen’s late lead singer Freddie Mercury, said Rogoff, director and producer of the Black Jacket Symphony.
Thompson, who is director of the Center for Education and Performing Arts (CEPA) in Pell City, said Rogoff approached him about an outdoor concert patterned after others that the Black Jacket Symphony had held in Birmingham.
For the Black Jacket Symphony, this would be a return visit to Pell City.
In February 2020, the Black Jacket Symphony performed Fleetwood Mac’s album, Rumours, in concert at CEPA and had scheduled Led Zeppelin IV for May. But COVID containment measures canceled Led Zeppelin IV.
Springville-bred food artist finds home in Birmingham’s noted culinary scene
Story by Scottie Vickery
Photos by Graham Hadley
Submitted Photos
Cory Bolton had barely started walking when his grandmother plopped him on the kitchen counter with a spoon and a mixing bowl full of corn meal. It was an easy way to keep the toddler entertained while she cooked, so she told him he was helping.
It turns out those early days in the kitchen with his grandmother, Sandra Bolton, were much more than a diversion. They were the first cooking lessons Cory, who grew up in Springville and is now the executive chef at Fancy’s on 5th in Avondale, ever had.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” he said. “She made biscuits pretty much every day, and she’d put me on the counter with this big green glass bowl. By the time I was three or four, I was kneading the dough, and she would teach me as she went. That really set into motion for me a lifetime of enjoying food.”
These days, the 32-year-old Bolton is giving guests at Fancy’s on 5th plenty of food to enjoy themselves. The restaurant, which bills itself as an oyster dive and burger bar, offers everything from seared ahi tuna and oysters served with golden kiwi strawberry mignonette to a fried flounder BLT, grilled octopus tacos, and a burger featuring chipotle aioli, pico de gallo, fried jalapenos and pepper jack cheese.
“I cook a little bit of everything, but my specialty is definitely seafood – Southern-style food and seafood,” he said. “I’ve cut about every fish in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Home cooking
Cory has been at a number of restaurants in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa over the years, working his way up from dishwasher to cook to sous-chef to head chef to the co-star in an online cooking show. His start in the restaurant business, though, came close to home when his parents, Mike and Beth Bolton, opened Big Bolton’s BBQ in Argo in 2009. Cory, 21 at the time, helped them run the place.
Mike, Cory and Beth Bolton in the kitchen
Mike, who had just retired after 25 years as an outdoor writer and columnist for The Birmingham News, definitely knew his way around a grill and a smoker. “The men in my family like to cook meat, smoke meat,” Cory said. “Dad was always doing the hunting and fishing stuff – cooking Boston butts or brisket at the hunting camp.”
Mike, the author of several books, including Preparing and Cooking Alabama’s Wild Game, is quick to declare his son the expert. “He’s a much better cook than I am,” Mike said. “I was pretty simple, but he was always trying different things. He came up with a marinade for grilled chicken that was incredible. People just loved it.”
After moving Big Bolton’s to a new location in Springville, the family closed the restaurant in 2011 during the economic downturn. “I tell people that saying, ‘You can cook good, you ought to open a restaurant’ is a lot like saying, ‘You put your seatbelt on good, you ought to be a NASCAR driver,’” said Mike, now the editor of Alabama Outdoor News and the owner of Victory Lane Catering.
While the experience led Mike to say “never again” to the restaurant business, the disappointment inspired Cory to work even harder to achieve his dream. “I’m definitely a person who, if I get knocked down, I’m going to get back up,” he said. “If Big Bolton’s goes out of business, then I’m going to show everyone that I can be a chef.”
He’s drawn on his St. Clair County upbringing throughout his career. Cory was especially involved in extracurricular activities and sports at Springville High School, and the lessons he learned on the field have helped him in his career.
“All of the team-building stuff, I use it every day,” said Cory, who was captain of the football team and helped with coaching after high school. “Trying to get an 18-year-old kid to focus, and not text girls, is a lot like a chef trying to get guys to focus intently for six hours. Sports taught me to lead a team and be part of a team.”
Flat iron steak with manchego smashed potatoes, creamed spinach and crispy artichokes
Growing up, Cory traveled to barbecue competitions, Bassmaster Classics, and trade shows with his father, and he got early exposure to some of the more exotic foods. “I’m eating rattlesnake, fried crappie, squirrel soup and all this crazy food most kids don’t get to experience,” he said.
At church, he found more than a spiritual foundation. His parents were the kitchen managers at Clearbranch United Methodist Church for about 12 years, and Cory and his sister, Lauren, could often be found helping with spaghetti dinners and other events. “Even as a 12-year-old, I’m learning how to use industrial kitchen equipment at my church,” he said. “I never knew I was in training.”
The real foundation, though, was set at the nearby Trussville home of his grandparents, Sandra and Clyde Bolton. “I have four grandchildren, and Cory is the only boy,” Sandra said. “The girls didn’t care much about being in the kitchen, but Cory always was. I’ve always had a love for cooking, and Cory is like me on that. It’s not work for us, it’s fun.”
Pursuing his dreams
Despite his love of cooking, Cory is self-taught and never attended culinary school. As a student at Jacksonville State University and Jefferson State Community College, he envisioned a career in public relations, or as a journalist or sports information director. The kitchen, however, kept calling his name.
He worked in a number of places over the years, including food trucks and Primeaux Cheese & Vino in Birmingham, and he enjoyed a stint as head chef at a sushi restaurant. His years at the award-winning Ocean, in Birmingham’s Five Points district, shaped him the most, however.
“That was a real turning point for me because I had a real mentor,” Cory said of the restaurant’s owner, George Reis. “George is a real live chef – intense, not accepting less than perfection. He helped me develop my cooking for sure, but he taught me how to be a chef.”
Reis allowed Bolton to change the menu and add his own flair to dishes, and he also taught him to trust himself in the kitchen. “He let me come into my own as a chef, and I really understood what we were doing,” said Cory, who also worked for Ocean’s sister restaurant, 26. “I didn’t have to read the music, I could just play by ear.”
Cooking burgers
to go
That instinct is what makes him stand out from the crowd, Mike said. “Cory really gets that cooking is about 25 percent cooking and 75 percent science,” he said. “He’s really good at that.”
It’s something that came naturally, even as a child helping his father grill, Cory said. “Good barbecue is good but without great sauce, it’s just good barbecue,” he said. “The sauce has to have the right amount of sweet, spice and acidity. Good sauce isn’t just sweet or just spicy or just tangy, it’s a balance of all those things. At 10 years old, if you’re understanding the balance of flavors, you’re really understanding the science of cooking.”
He got to experiment a little in the three years he was executive chef at River in Tuscaloosa before moving back to Birmingham to be closer to home and family. Bolton’s friend and fellow chef Addison Porter followed him to River, and the duo got creative with steaks, seafood and dishes like pork rinds and queso cheese with black-eyed pea relish. “We were doing some really great stuff, complicated food,” Cory said. “It was crazy busy. After an Alabama-LSU game, you’re serving 500, 600 people.”
While at River, Cory and Addison started filming “Chunks,” a cooking show for Allrecipes.com, a food-focused social network featuring recipes, how-to videos and inspiration. They filmed four episodes before the pandemic, and Cory hopes to eventually do more. They made some over-the-top creations for the show, including a 10-pound egg roll stuffed with gameday foods, including burgers, buffalo chicken, chips and salsa.
“We are kind of flamboyant, crazy people, and we’ve had a lot of fun,” Cory said. “We’ve worked in the kitchen together for about seven years and everyone says we speak a different language. One of us will just point, and the other one knows exactly what he wants.”
That rapport comes in handy with Cory’s latest mission of doing the impossible and making his grandmother’s fried chicken recipe even better. “Fried chicken is my favorite food ever,” Cory said. “My ultimate goal is to open a fried chicken restaurant and let Addison run it.”
Green onion and a specially seasoned flour are the secret ingredients in Sandra’s recipe, and Cory and Addison have experimented with additional spices and seasonings. “We started with everything we loved about her recipe and have been adding different things and trying to perfect it,” Cory said. “We’ve worked on it, and I’m not kidding, for five years like mad scientists.”
So, what does Sandra think about his lofty goal? “I don’t know if I can even take it to her,” Cory said with a laugh. “If she knew I changed her recipe, I might not be able to go to Thanksgiving.”
He’s not really worried, though. While he loves being the “crazy, city boy chef,” Cory acknowledges his grandmother always welcomes him with open arms, and she’ll always be the best cook he knows. “You can take a recipe you loved as a child, add high level techniques and skill, but it’s still never going to be what your grandmother cooked,” he said.
The next generation of Smiths have taken over running the family farm.
Chandler Mountain comes alive in a sea of red at Smith Farm
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Graham Hadley
It’s tomato-picking time again on Chandler Mountain, the unofficial Tomato Capital of Alabama, where 800 acres of St. Clair County soil are devoted to this popular food every year. For several weeks now farmers have been pulling them from the plants, packing them up and selling them to distributors and the public alike.
Picking got off to a late start this year at Smith Tomato, a fixture on Chandler Mountain for more than 35 years. Cloudy days and excessive rain pushed back the picking, which usually begins the first of July, by a week. Coronavirus pandemic permitting, it will end with a big fall festival sometime in October.
“We’re only picking 1,500 to 2,000 boxesa day now, where we’re normally doing 4,000-6,000,” Smith Tomato co-owner Kista Smith-Lowe said in mid-July. “We pick every other day because it’s more productive. We get twice as many in less time because they don’t all ripen at once.”
Picking began on July 10, and they sold out of their Number One grade the first day. “The Number Ones have no imperfections, while our Number Twos have some flaws, but they taste the same,” Kista (pronounced Keesta) said. Distributors picked up 1,500 boxes, each weighing 25 pounds, that first day, but that’s far less than a normal day’s pickings.
The Smiths grow more than 100 of the 800 acres of tomatoes planted on Chandler Mountain each year. The exact amount varies because all fields aren’t the same size, and they rotate the fields. “We have about 200 acres all together,” Kista said. “We sell directly to the public and to distributors or middlemen, who then sell to grocery stores, etc., in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, even as far away as New York and Pennsylvania.”
Kista’s parents, Leroy and Kathy Smith, purchased the Smith farm 35 years ago from her uncle, who started growing tomatoes in the 1960s. The Smith kids have added to it and now have about 200 acres, plus some leased land. “We lost both of our parents in 2018,” Kista said. She and her two brothers run the place. Kista is in charge of bookkeeping and public sales, Phillip handles irrigation and fertilization and Chad handles spraying for pests. A crew leader answers to Chad. The Smiths were raised working with their parents in the fields, and Kista’s two daughters, ages 19 and 14, are already helping in sales, restocking and in the vegetable garden.
Their parents probably grew about half what the Smiths do now because it’s easier to grow tomatoes today than it used to be. “They had to do lots more field work by hand,” Kista said. “Daddy put quality before quantity, and that’s the way we were raised. I’m super proud of what he accomplished.”
Even though harvest time lasts only three or four months, tomato farming is a year-round affair, with only a couple of months off in late fall and early winter. The process begins in February when they work on the equipment. During March and April, they break ground. In April, they start planting, and from March to October, they’re staking, tying, setting fall plants out and picking. After each setting, all the tomato plants are staked and tied at least four times.
Buckets of hand-picked tomatoes are carried to trucks for sorting.
When October rolls around, the guys clean all the tractors and winterize the equipment. Their only down time is November through January, but even then, they might be placing orders. And that’s not counting the time they’re planting cover crops like hemp, wheat, turnips and other greens for winter, to put nutrients back into the soil. “Early in the year, we spend eight to 10 hours a day working this farm,” Kista says. “Four months of year, we have 14- to 16-hour days.”
The field process starts with plowing, using a machine that digs deep into the soil and brings it up in clods. Next comes fertilizing, using spreaders pulled by tractors. Then a chisel plow with gripper feet rips the ground and loosens it, and a tiller with rotating tines turns those clods into fine dirt. A plastic machine (that’s what they call it) pushes dirt into piles to form rows, puts down drip lines (plastic tubing, part of the irrigation system), fumigates, then covers the rows with plastic sheeting. “Our dad was the first farmer on Chandler Mountain to use a plastic machine,” Kista said. The fumigation chemicals go away in two weeks, before they put down the plants. A plant setter pokes holes in the plastic and drops water into those holes.
“Our migrant workers put the plants in by hand,” Kista said. “It’s much faster than machines can do it.”
The cost to grow tomatoes is about $10,000 per acre, and that’s before picking. It costs another $3.50 per box to pick, sort and grade them, so that’s about $7,000 in boxes and packing per acre. “We strive for 2,000 boxes of tomatoes per acre per season,” Chad said. “We have had as many as 3,000, but 2,000 is our feel-good mark.”
They wait until after April 15 to start planting to be sure they’ve seen the last frost. “We’ve had to pull up thousands of plants and re-plant due to a late frost,” Kista said. “Some companies put Styrofoam cups over them to protect them from unexpected frost, but that’s costly.” Even if the tomatoes live through the cold, it stunts them, and they won’t yield as much. “They’ll be fewer and smaller and more prone to disease,” Chad said.
Theyput about 400,000 plants into the ground each year, buying the seeds and having a plant grower raise them until they are about four weeks old. “We plant, stake, string and pick by hand, with a crew of about 50 people,” Kista said. “The tomatoes areprocessed in the field, meaning they are sized, graded and boxed there.”
“There’s so much technology now, andsome larger processors have machines that can detect size and grade the tomatoes,” Chad said. “Here, we used to have machines that graded them. We would put them on belts that had different sized holes in them. We went to grading in the field because it’s better production.”
Workers were picking about a third of their normal crop in mid-July, but sunshine and an upcoming full moon were sure to help. “A full moon when tomatoes are ripening is like 24 hours of sunlight,” said Chad. “It speeds up the process.”
“It’s very tiring but very exciting work,” said Kista. “Harvest is the most exciting time, especially when we pick more than ever for one day. Sore hands and backs, from picking, lifting, repairing tractors, planting are occupational hazards for us and the crew, too.”
Theyfight worms and insects that can kill the plants, like aphids and white flies, using insecticides and fungicides that are EPA-regulated. About a third of their chemicals are organic. Chad figures fertilizers and other chemicals and the plastic sheeting and tubing probably cost $400,000 per year. “Our profits may be four or five cents a pound after costs,” he said. “That would make us a good living.”
Your turn to pick
In August, when a field has only a couple of thousand tomatoes left, the Smiths turn it into a U-Pick farm, allowing the public to pick their own tomatoes at a cheaper cost than buying them by the box or basket. “It’s not productive enough for the migrants to pick at that stage, because they generally pick 5,000-6,000 tomatoes per day,” Kista said. “Their record is 8,000.”
They usually end the season with a big fall festival the first or second weekend of October, depending upon the Bama football schedule. “We grow pumpkins and sell those and cornstalks and other outdoor decorations like acorn squash and mums,” Kista said. “We have face painting and vendors who sell food and arts and crafts. Last year, we had close to 1,000 people show up. It’s hard to count because we don’t sell tickets. It’s free.” She said they aren’t sure whether they’re having the festival or not this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, but urged readers to check their Facebook page for updates.
Cucumbers, squash and other produce are also grown and sold on the farm.
Tomatoes aren’t the only vegetables (or fruit, depending on the definition you prefer) that the Smiths sell. They grow melons, cucumbers, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini and grape tomatoes, and they buy potatoes and onions, jams and jellies out ofthe Birmingham Farmer’s Market, to sell to the general public out of their warehouse. That warehouse is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days a week, during tomato season. They’re on Loop Road, just off Gallant Road, in Steele. (That’s 4575 Loop Road, Steele, for your GPS.)
They get anywhere from 25 to 100 customers a day, who buy for home canning and cooking. Customers can also pick up a T-shirt or baseball cap emblazoned with the Smith Tomato logo. It’s worth a trip to their warehouse just to see all the signs and symbols hanging on the walls and from the ceilings, like Farmall tractor advertisements, old license plates and kiddie pedal tractors, including one Chad drove as a youngster.
Looking ahead, the Smiths are contemplating opening a diner in two or three years. It will feature fresh, home-cooked vegetables and some sandwiches and lots of tomato dishes. Then folks can make a day trip out of shopping for fresh vegetables and eating them, too.
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.
