Jim Landrum, chief of the New London Fire Department, glanced at
the pancake order handed to him on a small piece of paper. He smiled, poured
some batter onto the hot griddle, and plopped some plump blueberries on top of
the mix. “Coming right up,” he said. “Have a seat, and we’ll get it right to
you.”
Made-to-order pancakes and omelets are just a few of the offerings
at the community-wide breakfasts hosted twice a month by Landrum and his crew
of volunteer firefighters. There’s also applewood bacon, sausage links and
patties, eggs cooked to order, grits, hash browns, biscuits and gravy. For a
donation of $8 a head for all you can eat, it’s a deal that makes you look
forward to getting out of bed.
At least twice a month, the firefighters put down their gear and
pick up their spatulas. The tools may change on Saturday mornings, but the
dedicated volunteers are still doing what they’ve always done best: serving
their community. The 22-member department, however, serves up much more than a
great meal at a good price. They also provide their neighbors with security,
protection and peace of mind.
“They’re good people,” Candi Childers said after enjoying a recent
breakfast. “They do a lot of nice things for the community, and we try to
support them whenever we can. They take good care of us.”
Percy and Sharon Jennings can attest to that. A few weeks before
Christmas, a shed at their lake house went up in flames, and the responders
managed to put it out just before it consumed their nearby home. “We had hired
someone to burn leaves, and they’d put them out that afternoon, but about five
hours later, the fire started up again,” Percy Jennings said. “Next thing we
knew, the world was on fire.”
The Jennings’ daughter and son-in-law were at the house at the
time and tried to battle the flames with fire extinguishers, but that proved
impossible once the gas in the lawnmower ignited. “They were there within three
minutes,” Sharon Jennings said. “That’s what saved our house. How do you thank
them for something like?”
Pancakes with a purpose
Enjoying a plate (or two) of breakfast is a good way to start. The
department receives $3 a month per household from the New London Water
Authority, but the money raised at the breakfasts goes right back into the
community. The firefighters have paid funeral expenses for struggling
neighbors, helped provide Christmas gifts and given gift cards to help fire
victims meet their immediate needs.
Mostly, though, the income allows them to purchase equipment to
help them do their job more effectively. “It’s expensive to run a fire
department,” Landrum said. “A nozzle to fight a fire is $600, and radios run
about $700. We’re looking at buying our own air fill machine for air packs, and
that’s $40,000. Turnout gear is $2,000 a firefighter, and we have to replace
hoses and other equipment. We try to be as modern as we can on voluntary
donations.”
They’ve come a long way in recent years, Landrum said. The
department, which has three stations, boasts four full-size pumpers. The Water
Authority is providing a fifth pumper truck in February, at which time one of
the older pumpers will only be used to carry extra water and air packs. The
department also has a brush truck for wood fires, as well as a fire and rescue
boat. “We’ve got a first-class fire department now,” Landrum said, adding that
each house in the district is within five miles of a station.
Like the residents of the New London community in Cropwell, most
folks in Alabama rely on their neighbors in emergency situations. According to
the U.S. Fire Administration, an entity of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), Alabama has 806 registered fire departments. Of those, 89
percent are completely or mostly volunteer, while the rest are totally or
primarily staffed by career firefighters.
The New London crew, which provides fire protection, safety
education and rescue services, participates in training twice a week. On
Tuesday evenings, they focus on firefighting techniques and safety. Weekends
are devoted to rescue skills, such as cutting people out of cars and lifting
patients properly. “I’m so proud of this fire department,” Landrum said. “These
guys put a lot of time and effort into this, and they don’t get a nickel.”
Neighbors helping neighbors
Landrum, who grew up in Birmingham and had a demanding career in
Atlanta, came to Logan Martin Lake most weekends before he and his wife, Ilene,
moved to the lake full-time about 11 years ago. He joined the fire department
the same way most of the volunteers do – after being recruited by a friend –
and has served as chief for three years.
Brad Hicks came on board about two years ago after calling the
fire department himself. “About a month after I moved into my house, I smelled
what I thought was an electrical fire. They showed up on a snowy day less than
five minutes after I called,” he said. It turns out his electrical box shorted
out, which they discovered with a thermal imaging camera. Before leaving, the
firefighters asked him if he wanted to be part of the team.
“I had a hard time saying no,” Hicks said. “How could you not want
to be a part of a group of good people who do so much for the community? These
folks are a family.”
Much like other families, they enjoy eating together so the
breakfasts are a perfect fit. Landrum, who fondly remembers enjoying the
community-wide breakfasts held in the 1980s and 1990s, proposed the idea of
bringing them back several years ago. They have been a tremendous hit, often
drawing diners from Birmingham, Anniston and other communities. The breakfasts
are typically held the first and third Saturdays of each month from 7-10 a.m.,
although the firefighters took some time off for the holidays and often host
more breakfasts during the spring and summer months.
“One year, we did it every Saturday during the summer – that was
brutal,” Landrum said with a laugh. “It’s turned into quite an event, though.
It has grown and grown and grown. The community loves it, and we love doing
it.”
Short order cooks
The breakfasts draw crowds of about 120-150 people. The crew
arrives about 5 a.m. to begin preparing since diners arrive with big appetites.
Each event requires 45-60 pounds of bacon, 6-8 pounds of sausage patties that
are donated by Royal Foods, 4-5 pounds of link sausage and 12-14 dozen eggs.
Landrum, who typically mans the griddle, estimates he makes about 150
plate-sized pancakes, which can be ordered plain or with blueberries,
strawberries, raspberries, bananas or any combination of the toppings. About
60-80 omelets are made each time with any combination of bacon, sausage, ham,
cheese, tomatoes, onions, peppers, jalapeño, salsa and sour cream.
“We look forward to breakfast here,” said Glenn Barton, of
Lincoln. He and his wife, Debra, meet Barton’s sister and brother-in-law, Sarah
and Doug Robinson, at the events most weeks. The Robinsons, who live in Moody,
have a weekend place at the lake and love to catch up with family and friends
while enjoying a good meal.
That’s a draw for many of the diners. One recent Saturday, the
seats were full, and a line of about 20 people had formed about 8:30.
Conversation was in full swing and hugs were in abundance as folks greeted
neighbors and family members they hadn’t seen in a while. “We meet somebody new
every time we come,” Childers said. “The people are what makes this nice. You
get to socialize, and the money goes to what is needed.”
If
that’s not reason enough to get out bed, there’s always Barton’s philosophy.
“It’s a special occasion,” he said with a grin. “It’s Saturday, and there’s
bacon.”
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Mike Callahan Contributed Photos
As horse farms
go, Wester Farms in Odenville doesn’t look out of the ordinary.
A 21-stall barn
houses the horses and their tack. Several horse trailers are parked nearby.
Huge round hay bales and several square bales are stacked in a slightly smaller
barn next door, along with bales of pine shavings to line the stall floors.
The usual farm
equipment is scattered about, such as tractors, horse trailers, a backhoe, a
telehandler with 40-foot telescoping lift, a skid steer with a fork and a
walk-behind loader that is used to clean stalls.
It’s not a
glamorous place, but it is home to two very glamorous horses who have set
records in the racking horse industry. When High Sword won the World Grand
Champion title in October, Cadillac by Jazz won the Reserve World Champion
title at the same show in Decatur. Roy Wester owns both horses, marking the
first time in the history of the racking horse industry that horses owned by
the same person took the two top spots at the championship show.
High Sword,
ridden by trainer Jamie Lawrence of Vinemont, was World Grand Champion in 2014
and 2015, too, making him the only horse in racking horse history to win that
title three times. Roy rode Cadillac by Jazz in the championship competition.
Both horses
competed in qualifying classes to get to the championship level. “These two
horses won separate qualifying classes prior to competing for the World Grand
Championship that crowned the world’s best racking horse at the 48th annual
Racking Horse World Celebration in Decatur,” he says.
Racking horses
are derived from the Tennessee Walking Horse, and most are registered as both
walking and racking. About 80,000 racking horses are in the industry’s national
registry, Racking Horse Breeders’ Association of America (RHBAA), which began
in 1971 and is located in Decatur.
During show
season, which is April through November, Wester works with the
horses four or five days a week. He participates in about 20 shows per season.
During the rest of the year, colts and unfinished horses are made ready for the
next season. He raises about 20 of his own colts and buys 10-20 more starts
that he trains and re-sells.
“It’s a lot of
tough work for trainers and all involved, a lot of late nights, and you don’t
get many days off,” he says of the racking horse business. “But I just love
it.”
At 70 years
old, Wester still mounts a horse from the ground, as opposed to using a
mounting block, because he has been doing it all his life. He confesses,
however, that he lowers the stirrups to mount, then raises them to their proper
length.
His two sons
show along with him, and his wife, Joan, goes to shows and cheers them on,
helps with advertising and is the wardrobe mistress. “She dresses me,” Wester
says. But she does not ride any more. Wester has a couple of employees that
help train and show, and some of the horses are trained by Jamie Lawrence.
As many as
24-30 horses occupy the farm at foaling time, which occurs in the fall and in
the spring. Only 30 percent of his foals are born in the fall, because it’s too
expensive to winter them. Wester’s horses go through 200 round bales and 2,500
square bales per year, along with 80 pounds of pellets and corn per week, as it
is.
“That does not
include 100 round bales for the cows and 22 horses we keep in Cherokee County,”
says Wester, who owns his and his wife’s family farms there.
Retired from
Arlington Construction Co. in Birmingham, for which he built 50,000 apartment
units, until last year, Wester showed as an amateur because he
does not train horses he does not own. “An amateur can show in any class, but a professional, who trains horses for
other people, can only show in the open classes,” he explains. “I get a lot of
people every month who call wanting me to train their show horses, but I don’t
do that.”
He has won amateur Grand Champion on Cadillac by Jazz three times and
the men’s amateur four times. “Jazz has won
more blues (first-place ribbons) in his career than any horse I have ever
shown,” Wester says. “He was also a world champion Tennessee Walking Horse in
Shelbyville prior to starting his career as a racking horse in 2014. He has
been showing since he was four, and he will be 14 next spring.”
Another one of
Wester’s horses, 16-year-old Tears, was the 2016 World Grand Champion racking
horse. “I rode him myself, and I won three amateur world championships on him
and three amateur world grand championships,” he says. “I have shown Cadillac
myself since 2015 and now train him here. Both Tears and Cadillac have been
winning all their lives.”
Wester got the
horse bug from his father, who raised Tennessee Walkers with S.W. Beech Stables
in Tennessee. “We didn’t show, we just got them ready, and they (the stables)
sold them for show work,” he says. “I deal mainly with racking horses on pads
with no action device, which is a requirement for the RHBAA World Grand
Championship.”
Some of his
stallions, including the two latest champions, go to Campbell Stables in
Cullman during breeding seasons (fall and spring). “They do our shipping and
breeding,” Wester says. “We don’t
live-cover any mares at the breeding barn. It’s all through artificial insemination,
except for the stallions who stay at my barn (Spinzone, Tears and Gen’s Rocky
Road).”
Another winner
is now enjoying life as a pet for his granddaughter and a companion for mares
and their foals. The 15-year-old sorrel gelding is José On Call, and Roy won
the 2012 men’s show pleasure championship on him. That horse’s show career
ended when Wester’s 9-year-old granddaughter claimed José as her own. She’s 16
now, and José is still her horse.
“She just pets him and rides him, she
doesn’t show him,” Wester says. “I made a lot of money on that deal, didn’t I?”
Story by Joe Whitten Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr. Submitted Photos
This month’s travels along St Clair County backroads brings us to
the Bethel community to stop at the home of retired Moody businessmen and local
historian, Carl Coupland.
Born into a hardworking family on Jan. 16, 1932, Carl grew up with
a work ethic that helped him succeed in his endeavors. He comprehended
economics early-on. “I tried raising beef cattle on a small scale,” he said,
“but it didn’t take long for me to get out of that, because you could go to
your local supermarket and buy a bag of dried cow manure for your flower bed or
garden plants for $0.20 per pound, but live cattle was selling for $0.18 per
pound. The economy was all out of balance when the manure was worth more than
the cow!”
Coupland family roots in St. Clair County go back prior to 1828,
the year Carl’s great grandfather, Columbus Constantine “C.C.” Coupland, was
born near Cook Springs. C.C. married Elizabeth Emaline Godwin in 1848, and they
set up housekeeping in a home he had built in the Bethel community. Around
1856, on today’s Coupland Road, he built another home which served Couplands
for generations. Carl’s granddad, Ira, was born in the house.
Carl enjoys telling how his parents met. “My mother, Mary
Elizabeth Sheets, was born where Oak Mountain Park is located. Then she moved
with her parents to land they owned where Greystone subdivision is today.
“Daddy, Lester Coupland, was down there doing rock work on Bold
Springs Church and boarding with the Standifer family. He went to a Pie Supper
at the church, where folk would bid on pies the girls brought. He saw that
pretty girl there, and he bid on her pie – up to $5!”
They were married March of 1929 at Rev. Hurst’s home in
Taylorsberg, Alabama, near today’s Kerr Road.
Lester and Mary Elizabeth set up housekeeping in a house on
Coupland land where today’s Lazy V lakes are, but there were no lakes then. Two
sons were born into the family, Joe (1930) and Carl (1932).
Lester plowed with a mule
farmland which was terraced to prevent erosion. Carl’s earliest memory there
occurred shortly before he turned four. “I was in the yard, and my Dad said,
‘We’re gonna move way over there across that mountain.’ We could see Bald Rock
Mountain. …I was three years and eight months old when we moved to Camp
Winnataska.”
Lester worked as stone mason and caretaker at Camp Winnataska,
owned by the Birmingham Sunday School Council. The Council provided the
Couplands a rent-free home. It had a fireplace and a kitchen sink, and it made
no difference to them that the house had no electricity, no running water,
bathroom facilities or telephone, for they were accustomed to that. Lester’s
salary of $35 per month had increased to $70 a month in 1940 when he moved the
family back to the farm.
Carl and Joe explored every acre of the camp while living there.
They attended school one year at Stewart’s Crossroads near Prescott and then
rode the bus to Moody School two years.
Carl’s memories of Camp Winnataska and Lester’s stone masonry are
in Discover, June-July 2012, and can be read at this link: bit.ly/2ryrTXu
On the farm, Joe and Carl plowed with mules, helping their Dad
with the farming. In 1942, Lester took a job with the Coca-Cola Co. in Leeds,
driving a delivery truck in Jefferson and St. Clair counties. After that, he
drove a gasoline truck for J.W. McCraney Co. in Leeds.
In 1945, Lester bought the old C.C. Coupland home on Coupland
Road. Carl’s mom and her friend Mable Moore wallpapered the house and got it
move-in ready. This was their first home to have a bathroom.
Carl recalls moving day. “Daddy went off to work one morning, and
Mother said, ‘Let’s move.’ I was 13 years old and Joe was 15. We hooked up the
two mules, Old Jane and Old Kate, and drove that wagon and started moving our
stuff. We moved all the furniture that day.”
There were two girls in the community, Carolyn Moore and Nelda
June Taylor, who helped them move, and were a great help to Mrs. Coupland. She
was used to boys’ help and enjoyed having girl-help that day.
Driving home from work, Lester saw smoke curling from the chimney,
stopped and discovered a tidy home and supper simmering on the wood cook-stove.
Carl finishes the story. “The man Daddy drove the truck for also
had a tobacco and confectionery company, and Daddy had brought home a box of
Hershey’s candy. Now, chocolates were hard to come by during WWII. I don’t
remember whether it was 12 or 24 bars, but those girls ate up our box of candy
the day we moved.”
Carl chuckled and said, “The little 13-year-old Nelda June Taylor
became my wife nine years later on 3 December 1954. As of now, I have been lucky
enough to live with the best woman on earth for more than 65 years.”
Joe and Carl attended Branchville School through the sixth grade
and then attended Odenville school. Joe graduated from St. Clair County High
School in 1948, attended college and eventually earned a PhD from Ohio State.
Dr. Coupland served as principal of Phillips High School in Birmingham and of
Morgan County High School in Hartselle. He was director of Adult Education with
the Birmingham City Board of Education when he retired. Shortly after
retirement, he died of pancreatic cancer in June 1985. He was the first PhD
elected to the St. Clair County Board of Education, of which he was chairman
when he died.
A desire to serve
Carl’s interests took him in a different but productive direction.
Six months’ shy of graduating high school, he joined the Air Force. Signing up
before his eighteenth birthday, he couldn’t leave then because his parents
wouldn’t sign for him. But, on his birthday, Jan. 17, 1950, he boarded
Odenville’s Mize Bus to Birmingham and took the train for Lackland Air Force
Base, San Antonio, Texas, for basic training.
As he tells it, “I was young and knew everything at 18 years old.
My parents didn’t know anything, and I had the world by the tail with a
down-hill pull!”
After Lackland, Carl went to Radio Operator School at Keesler Air
Force Base, Biloxi, Miss. The Korean War broke out in June 1950, so after
finishing at Keesler in October, Carl and others were sent to Mitchell Air
Force Base, Long Island, New York, for reassignment.
Carl’s family feared he was destined for Korea, but instead he
landed at Ft. Meade, Md., in Aircraft Control and Warning. One day the
commanding officer asked for three volunteers to go to work in Flight Safety at
Air Defense Command Headquarters in Colorado Springs. Carl volunteered.
Given a week’s furlough and having heard his buddies tell about
hitchhiking, he decided to hitchhike home. He took a bus from Ft. Meade to
Winchester, Va., then got on U.S. 11, put out his thumb, and the first car, a
new 1950 Chevrolet, stopped.
Carl thought he recognized the driver’s voice but couldn’t place
it. When they introduced themselves, it was Bert Parks, who had the famous New
York radio program, Stop the Music. He was going to Rome, Ga., for a
show and had to side-track to Columbia, S.C., to get two showgirls, and Carl
went with him.
Parks thanked Carl for his service and paid for all the meals on
the trip. “Wouldn’t let me spend anything on the way down,” Carl recalled.
Arriving in Rome at 2 o’clock on a cold, pitch-black December
morning, Carl got back on the highway to catch a ride. No headlights lit the
blackness all night. “Just after daybreak,” Carl said, “I saw a Greyhound bus
coming that had ‘Birmingham’ written on it. I flagged him down and rode the bus
to Springville.”
Carl paid $2 to a Springville taxi driver to take him to his
parents’ home. He visited five or six days, then caught a bus back to Fort
Meade, and from there, the volunteers took a train to Colorado Springs.
The train trip took two days with a four-hour lay-over in Chicago
where the USO Club fed the volunteers and gave each one a Bible. The men left
the train in Denver and took a bus 70 miles further to Colorado Springs.
The Air Defense Command had just been started, and to be in the
center of the country had moved to a Colorado Springs Army Base and was redoing
it. Headquarters were completed and in use, but the barracks weren’t finished.
So, for about four months, the men lived in a hotel in Manitou Springs.
Carl bought a 1936 Chevrolet for $35. He and two of his buddies drove it to and
from the base until they completed the barracks.
Because Carl was a clerk and a radio operator, he was assigned to
work with officer pilots who had to fly four hours a month in order to keep
their flying status – their wings.
The United States had Aircraft Control and Warning squadrons as
well as Fighter Squadrons stationed around the country.
Carl, promoted to the flight safety crew, tracked the locations on
a large map above his desk. On it, blue pins showed the location of every
Fighter Interceptor Squadron, and red ones of every Aircraft Control and
Warning Squadron.
For this work, Carl knew secret information and had to have top
secret clearance. The FBI investigated him, sending agents to Odenville and
Branchville to talk with neighbors, friends, preachers and teachers.
“My parents thought this boy was in trouble,” Carl laughs, “but I
wasn’t. After that, whenever we had an accident involving one of our
interceptor planes, we flew to investigate the scene.”
Carl’s crew collected wreckage. If fatalities had occurred,
casualty remains had been cleared by an earlier crew. However, as he worked one
site, the sun glinted off something. “I think that was roughest scene I ever
went to,” Carl said. “Two F-86 Sabres flew out of the fog and right into the
side of a mountain. There wasn’t much left.
“We collected wreckage parts and pieces and got ‘em piled up. I
saw something shining on the ground. It was a man’s hand with a gold ring on
it. I picked up the hand and gave it to
the commanding officer. He was to get the ring to the widow. I trusted him to
do that.”
Such memories linger, and Carl reflects, “You know, I have
sometimes thought about that hand at 12 o’clock at night.”
Carl and his buddies used free weekends exploring Colorado –
Pike’s Peak, Will Rogers Shrine, Garden of the Gods, Seven Falls and parks.
They made one Juarez, Mexico, excursion with Carl protesting it might not be a
wise trip. Carl drove his car, and one buddy rode his motorcycle. At the
border, Carl parked his car at a gas station and paid the attendant to watch
it. His buddy chained the front wheel of his motorcycle to a telephone pole
away from the station.
It didn’t take a long to realize Juarez wasn’t where they should
be, and they returned to where they’d parked. “My car was fine,” Carl laughed,
“but all that was left of the motorcycle was the front wheel chained to the
pole.”
An interesting follow-up to Carl’s Air Force years is that his
cousin, Adm. James A. Winnefeld, Jr., who had been an instructor in the Navy
Top Gun School and had done the flying in the movie Top Gun, became the
officer in charge of Carl’s old outfit in Colorado Springs. Adm. James A.
Winnefeld’s mother, Fredda Coupland, was born in St Clair County. She married
career Navy man, James A.Winnefeld Sr., later an admiral himself.
In President Obama’s administration, Adm. James Winnefeld Jr.,
became vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the second highest
ranking military person in the United States at that time, serving under Gen.
Martin Dempsey, chairman.
While Carl served in the Air Force, Nelda June Taylor earned her
nursing degree. She had worked her way through three years training at the
Jefferson Hillman Hospital in Birmingham, when the University of Alabama bought
Hillman Hospital, and it became UAB Hospital. June’s graduation ceremonies were
at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
Carl and June married Dec. 3, 1954. As a registered nurse, June
worked at ACIPCO Medical Group and at Dr. Davis’ Clinic in Leeds.
Before settling full-time as a realtor, Carl worked at different
jobs. Gulf Oil Co. put him at a station on Highland Ave and 20th
Street, with gas islands all the way around the corner.
He had the 11-to-7 shift and was by himself from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.
“I had a money changer on my belt, a roll of money in my pocket, and was there
by myself pumping gas at night. I felt safe back then,” he recalls.
Then he opened a service station in Branchville, at the location
of the car lot today on the corner of Hurst Road and U.S. 411. He and June
bought a house and nine acres across the road from the station.
Their son, Mike, was born there in 1957, and they lived there
until 1968 when they moved to the property where their home is today.
Eventually, he divided the Branchville acreage into lots for a subdivision
there.
For a while, he had an insurance debit route from Cahaba Heights
to Sylacauga. Realizing that wasn’t for him, he took a job with Leeds
businessman, Judge McCraney, who owned McCraney Tobacco and Confectionary Co.
Asked about his real estate work, Carl said, “I started buying
land and farms in 1955, while I was working other jobs. I did this until 1968
when I got my real estate broker’s license and opened an office in Leeds across
from the Pants Store.”
While Carl was building his real estate business, Mike graduated
from high school and married Jeanie Kerr. They became parents to twin
daughters. Carl said of his daughter-in-law, “She is the nicest person you
could have ever imagined in your life.”
Mike became a union carpenter and had worked his way to a
superintendent’s position. Advancement sometimes brings relocation, and in
1985, the company wanted Mike to move to Florida. However, he told his father,
“I really don’t want to go.” Carl said, “Come into the real estate business
with me, and we’ll see how you do.” Mike runs the business today.
Carl stayed in Leeds until 1985, then moved to Moody and opened
Moody Realty. He and Mike together ran Moody Realty Co. until Carl retired at
age 84 in 2016.
Recalling his work, Carl said, “My business was great. People were
coming out of Birmingham and moving to Leeds, Moody and Odenville. I remember
selling five houses in one day.”
Catherine Lovejoy worked in the gas company in Leeds next door to
Carl’s office, and the Lovejoys and Carl became friends. “Lyman (Lovejoy) was
selling real estate part time and holding down a full-time job,” Carl said.
“He came in my office one day and asked me, ‘Do you think if I got
into the real estate business full time that I could make it?’ I said, ‘Lyman,
the time is right. People are moving out of Birmingham. Get you six months’
grocery money ahead and jump into it.’
“He didn’t take my advice. He got a year’s grocery money ahead and
jumped in. Well, it wasn’t long until he had enough business that Catherine had
to quit work and help him. … Lyman was always honest with me. We trusted each
other. He just had more nerve than I did. I made a living, and he made a
fortune.”
Some land sales Carl remembers with pride, and rightly so. Leeds
Memorial Park is enjoyed today on land he sold to the city through Mayor Jack
Courson. Carl worked with the St. Clair County Board of Education to obtain
land for the Moody High School, Junior High School and Middle School – and land
for a second road into the school property. Shortly before he retired, he
worked with Moody’s Mayor Joe Lee for the Jack’s Family Restaurant site to be
located on Moody Parkway. And we all know that the problems of the world have
been solved over breakfast at a Jack’s round table, Anywhere, USA.
Of his son and Moody
Realty, Carl says with pride, “Mike has done well with the business. Paula
Krafft is his right arm, and Allie, her daughter-in-law, works in the office.
Paula and Allie are the most knowledgeable real estate people I have ever
known. Mike could go off fishing three days, and they could run the place.”
On occasion, a real estate person has not been above-board and
honest with Carl, but he never retaliated. He quietly wrote the person’s name
on a piece of paper, dropped it in his bottom desk drawer, and never did
business with them again.
Today, June and Carl are doting grandparents and
great-grandparents to Beverly and husband Alex Armstrong with their daughters,
Allee June and Caroline, and to Ginger and husband, Jeremy Gilbert, with their
children, Jackson Cade, Kinslee Morgan and Ellison Kate.
This younger generation is growing up hearing Carl’s memories of
the past. But in case he doesn’t share this Halloween tale, we record it here.
One fateful Oct. 31, many years ago, Carl and three friends had
the prankish idea to put a cow in their ball coach’s house while he and his
wife were at a party. This they did and skedaddled – home free, they thought.
However, when Mrs. Coach found a cow in her living room, she exclaimed, “Carl
Coupland and (name withheld to respect the dead) did this!’ She guessed two
correctly, but Mrs. Coach never told the pranksters’ parents. She had boys of
her own.
Should you have an hour or two to visit him, Carl can tell you St.
Clair County history that he learned from listening to his father and
grandfather tell of their lives and from reading anything he can get his hands
on.
Carl
Coupland: father, grandfather, businessman, historian and conversationalist.
Listen to him. He’s a St. Clair County icon worth knowing and hearing.
St. Clair lakes play prominent role in epic paddle race
Story by Scottie Vickery Submitted Photos
Seven days, 8 hours, 1 minute and 55 seconds after launching his
kayak at Weiss Lake in northeast Alabama, Bobby Johnson paddled his way to the
finish line at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay.
He’d spent a little more than a week traversing 650 miles of
Alabama waterways, battling the heat, alligators, exhaustion and hunger to win
the inaugural Great Alabama 650, a world-class paddle race held in September.
He and his 17 competitors raced along the core section of the Alabama Scenic
River Trail, the longest river trail in a single state.
“It was incredible,” said Johnson, who lives in Dunedin, Fla., and
first started kayaking about four years ago. “The people of Alabama are
awesome, and the scenery was amazing. Every day you saw something beautiful –
sunrises, sunsets, the hills, the very dense woods. The wildlife was
unbelievable. Everybody I talk to; I recommend that race all day long.”
That’s exactly what organizers of the Alabama 650 like to hear.
They know the state has the most “experience-diverse” river trail in the
country, and they want to share it with as many people as possible. “In
Alabama, we’ve got more navigable waterways than any other state except
Alaska,” said Jay Grantland, executive director of the Alabama Scenic River
Trail. “There’s everything from whitewater to flat water, big lakes and small
streams. There’s just about every type of water you’d want to paddle on
throughout that river system.”
Trail Angels
The success of the race, which boasted a $22,500 prize split among
winners in three divisions, relied heavily on volunteers known as “Trail
Angels,” including Max Jolley, who lives at Powell’s Campground on Logan Martin
Lake. Competitors were required to stop at nine portage locations along the
Coosa and Alabama Rivers – Weiss, Neely Henry, Logan Martin, Lay, Mitchell and
Jordan dams, and Robert F. Henry, Millers Ferry and Claiborne lock and dams –
as well as two checkpoints.
“The volunteers were one of the most important factors of making
this race successful all along the 650 miles,” Grantland said. “As the days
roll on, the racers get further and further apart so we had to rely on the
volunteers to man those different portages to make sure everyone was safe and
performing fairly.”
While some racers had professional crews to help carry their boats
and gear around the dam, others had one person or relied on volunteers. To keep
it fair, the racers had mandatory rest breaks of 30 or 45 minutes, so race
officials or volunteers had to track the time they arrived and left each
portage.
“Apparently this long-distance paddling is a thing out in the
world,” Jolley, who volunteered at Logan Martin Dam, said with a laugh. “It was
exciting, and it was a fun learning experience for me. I got to talk to each of
the kayakers and the crews and learn some of their strategies, and we helped
get the kayaks out and made sure everyone had some food and water. I can’t wait
to do it again next year.”
Jolley especially enjoyed the digital spectator experience. Thanks
to GPS transponders, race officials and anyone who was interested could track
the racers on the Alabama Scenic River Trail’s website and Facebook pages. “We knew where everyone was at every minute,”
Grantland said.
Competitor Salli O’Donnell was in the lead for most of the race,
and Jolley was keeping tabs on his computer to see when she was heading his
way. “When I saw she was getting close, I went out and took a picture of her,
and then I jumped in my truck and headed down to the dam,” he said. Because
Logan Martin was one of the first portages, the racers were still fairly close
together. Jolley said he stayed at the dam about seven hours and saw most of
the kayakers come through during that time.
Jolley and others also posted about the race on social media,
which helped stir up excitement among lake and river enthusiasts who offered
encouragement from docks and boats. “Every one of the kayakers, almost to the
person, were talking about how great it was seeing people on the lake cheering
them on,” Jolley said. “They didn’t expect that.”
Johnson, 41, said it was a game-changer for him. “The people were
awesome,” he said. “When you have people on the banks screaming your name and
cheering you on, it’s an instant boost. It always seemed to happen just when
you needed it most. If you’re just paddling for 650 miles, and you’re not
talking to anyone or seeing anyone, you’re just paddling. This made me feel
like a racer.”
Jolley said he was thrilled with the racers’ reaction to the
hospitality on the lake. “That made me feel better than anything,” he said. “I
wanted Logan Martin to be remembered for the people and the beauty of the
lake.”
He was also impressed with the attention to detail the organizers
put into the race. “A lot of planning and strategy went into it, I’ll tell you
that,” Jolley said.
Behind the Scenes
Grantland said the idea for the race came about in early 2018
after he and some of the nonprofit’s board members had been to an outdoor
adventure show in Ontario to promote Alabama’s recreational offerings and the
river trail.
The Alabama Scenic River Trail got its start about 12 years ago
when Fred Couch, an avid paddler from Anniston, spearheaded the efforts to
divide the 650-mile stretch of water into four sections and provide guides for
each one with information on parking, camping, launch sites and emergency phone
numbers.
“It was great for families because it gave everyone peace of
mind,” Grantland said, adding that the guides are available on the website.
“They could take the kids camping without having to do all the homework and
figuring it all out on their own. It started bringing in tourists.”
That core 650-mile section got so popular that officials from
other areas wanted to add information about their waterways, too. “Here we are
almost 12 years later, and we’ve gone from 650 to right at 5,600 miles” of
navigable waterways, he said.
The impact has been a big one. “It’s definitely a quality of life
benefit,” said Grantland, who started paddling when he was 10. “You can get the
children outdoors and away from the TV.” There’s an economic benefit, as well.
If you’re trying to attract businesses or corporations, they’re looking for
areas with a good quality of life for their employees.”
Returning from the adventure show, the group brainstormed ideas
for promoting the river trail out. “We wanted to put it out there to the
world,” Grantland said. “That got the ball rolling, and then I started
Googling. I have a master’s degree from Google in paddle racing.”
Serious planning began about this time last year, and Greg Wingo,
who has a background in adventure racing, was hired as race director. “Between
my experience in paddling and his experience in adventure racing, we were able
to put together a pretty good race,” Grantland said. “It took a massive amount
of coordination.”
Pushing limits
Racers could enter in three categories: male solo, female solo and
two-person teams. Eighteen racers registered (some individually, some in
teams), but only four finished the race: Johnson, O’Donnell and teammates Ryan
Gillikin and Susan Jordan.
“This year, we really
didn’t know what to expect, and we took anyone who wanted to register,”
Grantland said. “Obviously, some didn’t have the ability, but it was fine
because it brought a lot of attention to the race.”
Word is spreading about the event, one of a handful of
long-distance paddle races, and Grantland says he expects they’ll have to put a
cap on the number of competitors next year. In addition, racers will have to
qualify by completing one of several pre-requisite races prior to registration,
which opens in January.
Next year, organizers also hope to host a 65-mile race in
conjunction with the Alabama 650. Paddlers who can finish it in 24 hours will
qualify for the 2020 Alabama 650.
Johnson said he’ll be back and is doing his part to spread the
word. “We’ve got some world-class paddlers who are going to race next year,” he
said. “I personally thought it was the best thought out, well-planned race I’ve
ever been in.”
It was one of the hottest, as well. Alabama recorded record-high
heats for many of the race days, and Johnson felt the effects. “The first eight
miles of that race to the first portage, I overheated and got heat exhaustion
and couldn’t paddle,” he said. “At five or six miles in, my mouth was dry, and
my arms were like lead. Everybody went past me, and it took me 500 miles to
catch Salli.”
Along the way, he had plenty of time to enjoy the solitude, the
views and the wildlife. “I felt like I was in a saltwater aquarium there were
so many fish jumping in front of my boat,” he said. As he got closer to the
Delta area, the fish gave way to alligators. “I saw them one after another
after another after another,” he said.
Despite the mental and physical exhaustion, Johnson said he never
thought about giving up. “I have an 8-year-old daughter, and I would never come
back to her and say that I quit,” he said. “You’ll never know anything about
yourself if you quit. If you don’t push through that wall of misery or pain,
you’ll never know what you can actually achieve. Our human bodies are only
stopped by our minds, that’s it.”
Rock & Rolling, high flying, surfer judge hits the waves
Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Graham Hadley
Most weekdays, you’ll find him donning a black robe, gavel in
hand, poised to rule in a court case. In those somber surroundings, it’s
difficult to imagine what the judge might do for a little R&R.
But after the day’s work is complete, it’s as if Superman has
just stepped into that iconic phone booth. He transforms into one rockin’ and
rollin,’ high flyin,’ lake surfin,’ incredibly cool dude.
Pick your passion. St. Clair County District Judge Alan Furr
does, although you’re never quite sure which one it will be.
Electric guitar in hand, that’s him on a Saturday night, a
natural at leading the band, The Wingnuts. The band got its start in an
airplane hangar in 2010, its members mostly pilots, including Furr. Since then,
they’ve built quite a following, playing oldies and Rock & Roll for
audiences across the region.
That might be enough to keep most busy, but not Furr. He’s
made the cockpit selfie with wife Sandra locally famous on Facebook. It’s not
uncommon to see the Furr’s take to the skies for short hops and long treks.
His
newest past-time adventure puts him and Sandra out on their beloved Logan
Martin Lake, a stone’s throw from their home on Cropwell Creek. They’re not
quite hanging 10, they admit, but to them, it’s close. At 60-something, they’re
nothing short of inspiring with their wake surfing prowess.
“Sandra
and I bought our first board and started learning to wake surf around 2010, but
we didn’t have a good surf boat, so the learning was difficult,” Furr said.
“Consequently, we both primarily stayed with slalom skiing, and I also rode a
wakeboard. Now that we are in our mid-60s, we figured we needed to concentrate
on a ‘milder’ form of water sport.”
In
2015, they bought a MasterCraft NXT20, which is designed for wake surfing. “So, for the past couple of years we’ve been
surfing on Logan Martin,” he said. It requires a boat that is set up with a
“surf system” and ballast, a wake-surf board, and “the willingness to give it a
try.”
How it works
So
what does it take to wake surf? When a boat moves through the water, it creates
a wake. When the hull of the boat displaces the water, it goes back to where it
previously was.
That
constant flow of water creates a constant wave, and the surfer trails behind
the boat on its wake without actually being pulled by the boat.
You
get up on the wake with a special board and tow rope, similar to skiing, but
that’s where the similarity stops. When the rope gives some slack, it’s time to
drop the rope and go wake surfin’ with the Furrs.
Let’s go surFin’ now…
Sandra
goes first. With the board parallel, and her heels atop the side, she waits for
the start. He throttles the boat, and up she pops, giving a twist and allowing
the board to get perpendicular with the back of the boat.
Once
the driver tightens the rope and gives it a little bit of throttle, the water
behind the board pushes the board up, and you just stand up.
Only
a few feet behind the boat, she concentrates on the wake, her balance and
finding the “sweet spot.”
“You’re
trying to get a speed on the board that matches the speed of the boat,” Furr
explains. “You find that sweet spot that matches the speed with the boat.”
“And
when you can feel it,” Sandra adds, “you can actually feel the wave pushing
you. It’s the coolest feeling, and when you feel it, you know it.”
She
hits the sweet spot, and she drops the rope. Then, it’s like watching the old
Beach Boys tune, Surfin’ Safari, in motion.
Everybody’s learning how…
Before
getting a special boat, “we fooled around for a year or two,” learning what to
do, Furr said. “We could get up and hold the rope, but we couldn’t get slack.
This boat is what really made the difference, and also that board.”
They
transitioned to the new boat, and that’s when it all started coming together
for them. “I always thought I’d like to surf, but this is as close as I’ll ever
get to it,” he said.
He
went a step further, pointing out the benefits of his brand of surfing. “First,
there are no sharks.” In ocean surfing, you must swim out on your board. “With
this one, you just start the motor.”
The
Furrs haven’t tried those fancy moves yet, like the Fire Hydrant and 360s, but
there are plenty on Logan Martin who do, he said.
To
which, Sandra quickly retorted, “Yeah, but they’re not 63 and 64.” For the time being the Furr’s will stick to
“carving” the wake, although conquering the 360 is on their bucket list.
“A
lot of people are getting into it. We just chose it because we’re getting older
and wanted something to do – a little more low impact,” Furr said.
“There are several wake surfers here in Cropwell Creek,” he
added, “and I’m sure there are many all over the lake. We are by no means the
best…but we’re probably the oldest.”
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Mike Callahan Submitted photos
One night, artist
Joy Varnell was up late watching television when she stumbled upon a show about
beach weddings. As the camera panned the California venue, she spotted an
artist among the guests, paint brush in hand and canvas on easel. Intrigued,
she recorded the show, then played it several more times. Realizing he was
painting the wedding scene, she said to herself, “I think I can do that.”
The problem was,
she didn’t know how to get started.
That issue was
soon resolved when she walked into the home of a friend/client and spotted a
wedding invitation on her kitchen counter. “The client mentioned that she
wanted to give the wedding couple something unique, and I suggested that I go
to the wedding and paint a picture,” Joy said. “She agreed, and when I got back
to my car, I thought, ‘What have I done?’ ”
What she did was
create a new twist in her artistic career, one that eventually caused her to
dump her day job and paint 40 hours a week. She attends weddings and
receptions, capturing special moments on canvas. After eight years, that twist
has resulted in more than 300 paintings, taken her and her husband all over the
United States, and made a lot of brides happy.
Joy started
drawing as a child and painting as a teenager. She studied interior designat
Southern Institute (which later became Phillips College) and worked as a
kitchen designer for 16 years before striking out on her own to do interior
design and faux finishes — a lot of faux finishes.
During all those
years, she was painting in her spare time and selling her work. Her husband,
Tim, kept encouraging her to spend more hours at her easel. Then came that
first wedding, a huge event at the Birmingham Museum of Art. She painted the
bridal couple descending the stairs for the reception, and in a newspaper
article about the wedding, the bridegroom mentioned that her painting was his
favorite gift. From there, her new venture took wings.
“This got bigger and bigger and just took over, and I quit
doing interior design,” she said. The transition from landscapes, pet portraits
and still life to painting people was a struggle at first, but Joy has a knack
for looking at something and being able to paint it. Soon, she was painting
weekdays and attending one or two weddings on the weekends. Now, it’s a full-time
business. “I did 48 paintings in 2018,” said Joy, who calls herself a
“live-event artist.”
Her modus operandi is to show up about three hours before the
event, usually wearing a black dress or pants, to start painting the
background. “The vendors usually dress in black, so I do, too,” she explained.
The most popular request is to capture the bride and groom’s first dance, so
she usually sets up at the reception. When the guests come in, she’s ready to
paint them into the scene. When the wedding couple appears, she adds them to
the painting.
She tries to get a good likeness of the bride and groom, but
not the people in the background. Most of them can be recognized by what
they’re wearing. She uses the term, “most,” but brides and their mothers are
much more specific than that. “The details of the people in the painting
are amazing,” said Pamela Rhodes, mother of a bride who married in Addis,
Louisiana. “Joy painted my daughter and son-in-law’s first dance as husband and
wife (Peyton and Sean Forestier). We are able to identify every person painted,
even the guy singing on the stage (my brother-in-law).”
“The Creator of the Universe certainly shines through Joy’s
hand,” gushed Jurrita Williams Louie of Dallas, Texas, who got
married in Tuscaloosa, her and her husband’s hometown. “She captured our first
dance as Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Louie as if God came down from heaven to earth to
do it. I can’t quite get over the detail and thoughtfulness with each stroke.”
Joy’s medium is acrylicsbecause they have no odor and
dry quickly. “I have to work very fast, so at least the couple can see
themselves before they leave,” she said. “People come up and say, ‘It looks
just like them,’ as if they are surprised. Well, that’s the point.” As for
mistakes, she just paints over them.
At the time she started, she found only four artists doing
what she does. Three were in California, one in New York. There are many more
now, but she believes the examples on her website, joyvarnellart.com, and her willingness to travel make her stand out. Her new business
has taken her to California, New York, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana and along
the Gulf Coast, Georgia and up and down the East Coast as well.
“I average about 12-15 weddings around the New Orleans area
and south Louisiana each year,” she said. One such event took place at the
restored art deco Lakefront Airport terminal in New Orleans. “It was my
daughter, Celeste’s, wedding to Don Jude,” said Claudine Hope’Perret. “It was
their first dance, and the painting shows amazing work and detail, even down to
their lit-up tennis shoes.”
No one has ever expressed a dislike of her paintings, though
she did have a girl ask her to re-do the groom’s hair once. “I strive very hard
to get what they want,” she said.
Tim, who is retired from the Norfolk Southern Railroad, goes
to the weddings with Joy and does most of the driving. Anything over 500 miles,
they fly. He packs up her paints and tools at home, unpacks and sets up at the
venue, then repacks. “He calls himself my roadie,” she said. “He’s my public
relations man, too. He mingles.”
Some of the brides are nervous, and others just very excited
and enjoying their day. The grooms are always nervous, and usually say, “Where
do you want me?” Kids just stand and stare.
The most common request she gets while painting is, “Will you
take 10 (or 20) pounds off me?” That often comes from the mother of the bride.
“Sometimes a woman will come up and talk to me because she’s afraid to talk to
Joy,” Tim said. “One woman asked if Joy would take off her stomach and give her
some boobs.” A man might ask her to cover a bald spot.
Sometimes Joy adds details that represent something
meaningful to the couple. Once, she painted a map rolled out to represent a
treasure hunt, because that’s how the groom led the bride to her ring and his
proposal. She has painted favorite dogs, relatives who couldn’t attend, even
dead relatives into the paintings. She has put cats in, too. “Very often the
venue will have one, and I’ll paint it peeping through a window,” she said.
Occasionally she’ll give the bride a brush and let her paint a few strokes of
her own.
She has painted outdoors in all types of weather, from
35-degree temperatures on New Year’s Eve to 95-degrees in the sun. She prefers
the reception to the ceremony because it’s less structured, and she gets to
interact with the people. “That’s part of what makes it fun,” she said.
One of her most memorable events was a Hindu wedding in
Indiana. The bride wanted her to paint the Seven Vows, but she didn’t know what
they were or where they occurred in the ceremony, which was four hours long.
She kept asking people, and no one seemed to know. Parts of the ceremony were
in English, parts in Hindi, and it turned out that the Seven Vows were at the
end. Tim found out and clued her in.
An outdoor wedding in Biloxi,Mississippi, was notable
because a storm came up and sent many guests inside. The bridal party remained
outside, and at the end of ceremony, the couple was framed by a rainbow.
There was one in Fort Deposit they’ll never forget, either,
but for a very different reason. “When we got out of the car there, we realized
we had left my paints at home,” Joy recalled. They carry an emergency set,
which has been upgraded as a result of that trip.
She hates having to tell people she is already booked for
their special date, and has painted two events in one day, as much as 90 miles
apart. One time, she got two separate bookings for the same wedding, at
Aldridge Gardens in Hoover. “The bride’s mother had contacted me and asked for
a painting of the couple’s first dance,” she said. “Then I got another request
for the same wedding. The bride wanted one of the father-daughter dance to give
to her parents. Neither knew about the other’s request.” She had two canvases
on her easel throughout the reception and kept swapping them back and forth so
neither party would know about the other. The backgrounds were the same. “The
bride’s mother began to catch on, but the dad never did,” Joy said. “I presented
both paintings at the end.”
Sometimes she finishes a painting on site but brings home
most of them so she can apply an art varnish as a protective sealer. Her studio
is a sunny 11’ x1 2’ room of her house, with a huge front-facing window. She
and Tim have lived in that house on a mountain top in Springville for 12 years,
surrounded by rock formations, trees and lots of wildlife. Deer and turkey
wander around the property, along with a family of foxes that they feed daily.
The house is filled with Joy’s still-life paintings, such as wine bottles so
real you want to grab one and pour a drink.
Jessica Silvers Posey of Maryland, who married Aaron Posey in
Laurel, Delaware, said Joy painted the most beautiful picture of the couple’s
first dance. “The details are phenomenal,” she said. “I relive that moment
every time I look at the painting. Everyone who walks past this painting in our
house can’t help but stop and stare.”
While mothers, parents, bridesmaids, co-workers and grooms
hire her to paint as a gift, most of the time it’s the brides who engage her
services.
She offers three standard sizes, 18” x 24”, 24” x 30” and 30”
x 36”. Clients may choose something larger but cannot choose whether the
finished product will be vertical or horizontal. “I decide that, depending upon
the venue and what I want to get in the painting,” Joy said. The largest one
she has done was 42” x 48”. Her prices start at $1,000, plus travel expenses if
she goes outside the Birmingham Metro area.
Although 99 percent of her business comes from weddings, she
has painted at Christmas parties, company anniversaries and fundraisers. One of
her corporate events was the opening of Nick Saban’s Mercedes-Benz dealership
on I-459. And yes, the coach was there.
Even though she doesn’t normally turn down an event unless
she is already booked, she did refuse to paint at one recent wedding. Her own
daughter was the bride, the wedding took place at Joy and Tim’s house, and Joy
wanted to relax as much as possible and enjoy it.
“I
will paint it later from photographs,” she said.
“This got bigger and bigger and just took
over, and I quit doing interior design,” she said. The transition from landscapes,
pet portraits and still life to painting people was a struggle at first, but
Joy has a knack for looking at something and being able to paint it. Soon, she
was painting weekdays and attending one or two weddings on the weekends. Now,
it’s a full-time
business. “I did 48
paintings in 2018,” said Joy, who
calls herself a “live-event
artist.”
Her modus operandi is to show up
about three hours before the event, usually wearing a black dress or pants, to
start painting the background. “The vendors usually dress in black, so I do, too,” she explained. The most popular
request is to capture the bride and groom’s first dance, so she usually
sets up at the reception. When the guests come in, she’s ready to paint them into the
scene. When the wedding couple appears, she adds them to the painting.
She tries to get a good likeness
of the bride and groom, but not the people in the background. Most of them can
be recognized by what they’re wearing. She uses the term, “most,” but brides and their mothers
are much more specific than that. “The details of the people in the
painting are amazing,” said Pamela Rhodes, mother of a bride who married in
Addis, Louisiana. “Joy painted my daughter and son-in-law’s first dance as husband and
wife (Peyton and Sean Forestier). We are able to identify every person painted,
even the guy singing on the stage (my brother-in-law).”
“The Creator of the Universe
certainly shines through Joy’s hand,” gushed Jurrita Williams Louie of Dallas, Texas, who got
married in Tuscaloosa, her and her husband’s hometown. “She captured our first dance as
Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Louie as if God came down from heaven to earth to do it. I
can’t
quite get over the detail and thoughtfulness with each stroke.”
Joy’s medium is acrylicsbecause
they have no odor and dry quickly. “I have to work very fast, so at
least the couple can see themselves before they leave,” she said. “People come up and say, ‘It looks just like them,’ as if they are surprised. Well,
that’s
the point.”
As for mistakes, she just paints over them.
At the time she started, she
found only four artists doing what she does. Three were in California, one in
New York. There are many more now, but she believes the examples on her
website, joyvarnellart.com, and her willingness to travel make her stand out. Her new business
has taken her to California, New York, Indiana, Florida, Louisiana and along
the Gulf Coast, Georgia and up and down the East Coast as well.
“I average about 12-15 weddings
around the New Orleans area and south Louisiana each year,” she said. One such event took place at the restored
art deco Lakefront Airport terminal in New Orleans. “It was my daughter, Celeste’s, wedding to Don Jude,” said Claudine Hope’Perret. “It was their first dance, and
the painting shows amazing work and detail, even down to their lit-up tennis
shoes.”
No one has ever expressed a
dislike of her paintings, though she did have a girl ask her to re-do the groom’s hair once. “I strive very hard to get what
they want,” she said.
Tim, who is retired from the
Norfolk Southern Railroad, goes to the weddings with Joy and does most of the
driving. Anything over 500 miles, they fly. He packs up her paints and tools at
home, unpacks and sets up at the venue, then repacks. “He calls himself my roadie,” she said. “He’s my public relations man, too. He mingles.”
Some of the brides are nervous,
and others just very excited and enjoying their day. The grooms are always
nervous, and usually say, “Where do you want me?” Kids just stand and stare.
The most common request she gets
while painting is, “Will you take 10 (or 20) pounds
off me?” That often comes from the
mother of the bride. “Sometimes a woman will come up
and talk to me because she’s afraid to talk to Joy,” Tim said. “One woman asked if Joy would
take off her stomach and give her some boobs.” A man might ask her to cover a
bald spot.
Sometimes Joy adds details that
represent something meaningful to the couple. Once, she painted a map rolled
out to represent a treasure hunt, because that’s how the groom led the bride to
her ring and his proposal. She has painted favorite dogs, relatives who couldn’t attend, even dead relatives into the paintings. She
has put cats in, too. “Very often the venue will have
one, and I’ll paint it peeping through a
window,” she said. Occasionally she’ll give the bride a brush and let her paint a few
strokes of her own.
She has painted outdoors in all
types of weather, from 35-degree temperatures on New Year’s Eve to 95-degrees in the sun. She prefers the
reception to the ceremony because it’s less structured, and she gets
to interact with the people. “That’s part of what makes it fun,” she said.
One of her most memorable events
was a Hindu wedding in Indiana. The bride wanted her to paint the Seven Vows,
but she didn’t know what they were or where
they occurred in the ceremony, which was four hours long. She kept asking
people, and no one seemed to know. Parts of the ceremony were in English, parts
in Hindi, and it turned out that the Seven Vows were at the end. Tim found out
and clued her in.
An outdoor wedding in Biloxi,Mississippi, was notable because a storm came up and sent many guests
inside. The bridal party remained outside, and at the end of ceremony, the
couple was framed by a rainbow.
There was one in Fort Deposit
they’ll never forget, either, but for
a very different reason. “When we got out of the car
there, we realized we had left my paints at home,” Joy recalled. They carry an emergency set, which has
been upgraded as a result of that trip.
She hates having to tell people
she is already booked for their special date, and has painted two events in one
day, as much as 90 miles apart. One time, she got two separate bookings for the
same wedding, at Aldridge Gardens in Hoover. “The bride’s mother had contacted me and asked for a painting of
the couple’s first dance,” she said. “Then I got another request for
the same wedding. The bride wanted one of the father-daughter dance to give to
her parents. Neither knew about the other’s request.” She had two canvases on her easel throughout the
reception and kept swapping them back and forth so neither party would know
about the other. The backgrounds were the same. “The bride’s mother began to catch on, but the dad never did,” Joy said. “I presented both paintings at
the end.”
Sometimes she finishes a
painting on site but brings home most of them so she can apply an art varnish
as a protective sealer. Her studio is a sunny 11’ x1 2’ room of her house, with a huge front-facing window.
She and Tim have lived in that house on a mountain top in Springville for 12
years, surrounded by rock formations, trees and lots of wildlife. Deer and
turkey wander around the property, along with a family of foxes that they feed
daily. The house is filled with Joy’s still-life paintings, such as
wine bottles so real you want to grab one and pour a drink.
Jessica Silvers Posey of Maryland,
who married Aaron Posey in Laurel, Delaware, said Joy painted the most
beautiful picture of the couple’s first dance. “The details are phenomenal,” she said. “I relive that moment every time
I look at the painting. Everyone who walks past this painting in our house can’t help but stop and stare.”
While mothers, parents,
bridesmaids, co-workers and grooms hire her to paint as a gift, most of the
time it’s the brides who engage her
services.
She offers three standard sizes,
18” x 24”, 24” x 30” and 30” x 36”. Clients may choose something larger but cannot
choose whether the finished product will be vertical or horizontal. “I decide that, depending upon the venue and what I
want to get in the painting,” Joy said. The largest one she
has done was 42” x 48”. Her prices start at $1,000, plus travel expenses if
she goes outside the Birmingham Metro area.
Although 99 percent of her
business comes from weddings, she has painted at Christmas parties, company
anniversaries and fundraisers. One of her corporate events was the opening of
Nick Saban’s Mercedes-Benz dealership on
I-459. And yes, the coach was there.
Even though she doesn’t normally turn down an event unless she is already
booked, she did refuse to paint at one recent wedding. Her own daughter was the
bride, the wedding took place at Joy and Tim’s house, and Joy wanted to relax
as much as possible and enjoy it.
“I will paint it later from photographs,” she said.
