Tag: Features

St. Clair teen finds life in rodeo

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Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Graham Hadley
and Dr. Shawn Stubbs

For one St. Clair teen, the rodeo is worth giving up football and baseball for.

It’s worth giving up weekends, afternoons and most free time in between.

In fact, John-Cody Dale Stubbs’ Xbox has been broken for several years now … and he doesn’t miss it a bit.

Instead, the 15-year-old freshman at Briarwood Christian has a whole host of things he would rather be doing — bull riding, chute dogging (steer wrestling), goat tying and, his absolute favorite, team calf roping, among other rodeo events.

Cody looks like a natural on the back of his horse as he practices in the ring his father built on their property by their house in St. Clair County, and that innate talent and hard work are already paying off. He has been bringing in awards at competitions at both the state and national levels in calf roping and other events and sees no end in sight.

Row after row of winning buckles lined the dining-room table in front of Cody as he pointed to his favorite — a sportsmanship award — one of the few buckles he does not wear to keep it pristine.

His father, Dale, who is a retired firefighter and contractor, is quick to clarify that the sportsmanship award is not a “participation” award, but one of the top recognitions that is carefully considered by the judges.

“When he first won it, I thought it was a consolation prize, but they told me it was a big deal — that the vote for Cody had been unanimous,” he said.

Dale said he was not surprised that Cody had won it, but the behavior necessary to acquire the much-prized award is a common thread in the rodeo community.

“That’s the way rodeo kids are. They are really good kids who have spent a lot of time with their family and are well raised,” he said.

Cody has also won several saddles and some money from his competitions. Though he is very competitive and doing well now, he hopes to one day get a bigger piece of the winnings, which he says can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dedication to the sport

Dale was not exaggerating when he said rodeo kids spend a lot of time with their families. In addition to normal family time, they spend most weekends and parts of the week traveling to various competitions, some just down the road, some in places like New Mexico and Oklahoma.

In fact, Cody and his Dad were gearing up to leave for another trip the day after his interview for Discover — they had been in Oklahoma the weekend before.

And where many traveling competitive athletes can fly to their destinations, Cody usually rides his own horses at each event, so those trips, both near and far, are on the road with the horses and all their support gear along for the ride.

In addition to competition road trips, Cody’s school is almost an hour from where he practices. A normal weekday afternoon sees Dale picking up Cody from Briarwood, driving to get something to eat, then he practices roping until around 9 p.m. every day. When he gets home, he has to take care of his horses and gear and many days, help get the RV packed and ready to hit the road to another show.

If he has any free time from all of that, Cody also has to train a new colt for riding.

“He ropes almost all weekends, so it is a six-day-a-week job,” said his mother, Dr. Shawn Stubbs.

And though he has missed some school for competitions, Cody also has his sights set on being a veterinarian one day, so his education is very important, too. He gets his homework done sitting in the truck on the way to practice. They plan on returning from an upcoming trip early in the morning and heading straight from the airport to get the aspiring animal doctor to school on time.

“You have to love it to do it,” Cody said.

From bull-riding to team roping

For all his dedication and the growing stack of awards — 18 buckles and several saddles — Cody has only been competing for a relatively short time.

“I have been doing this two and a half to three years,” he said. “I grew up around horses and animals. One day we went to Tractor Supply in Moody. There was a flier for a youth rodeo. I wanted to try bull riding. I also signed up for chute dogging.”

The first event was a win for Cody, just not the way he expected.

“I did pretty good at steer wrestling, but got bucked off bull riding.

“That was at Dusty Bottoms Rodeo in Sterrett. I noticed they gave away saddles for the most points. I realized I would have to do roping and horse events to win and started training in roping,” he said.

His mother was in the process of purchasing a horse from Wil and Rodney Sanders in Ardmore, and Dale said he was impressed by their operation.

“They were so nice. We asked about roping lessons for Cody.”

Then Cody “stole” his mother’s new horse to use for roping and riding, Dale joked.

Cody was working hard and competing and doing well, but he was not winning the events like he wanted to, so the Stubbs turned to Kenny Ellison from Calera.

“He has been helping me lately with my roping and riding,” Cody said.

Dale said he cold-called Ellison. “He is a very good guy. He took Cody in. Cody was roping really well but not winning. I called Kenny out of the blue. He did not know us.”

He has made a big difference for Cody in the arena.

“That’s just the way people in this sport are. The will help a kid out,” Dale said.

Gaining ground

Cody has been doing so well at a variety of events that he is starting to find sponsors — one of which is flying him out to Las Vegas and paying all his expenses there so he can do some product promotion and exhibition riding and roping.

RopeSmart has not only given Cody some much-needed equipment like practice steers and special wraps for the saddle horn, Cody got to rope with the owner at the national finals.

Standard Process does not do direct sponsorships for Cody, but they do help by providing some of the feed and other supplies for the horses.

Locally, he gets a lot of support from Jodie’s Harness & Tack. Dale said he could not say enough about the help and advice they get from the local business, located in the famous stacked-rock building on the outskirts of Odenville.

But the winning and everything that goes with it did not happen all at once. Many of the events Cody attends just focus on team calf roping, where he is usually the header, or steer wrestling. There are many levels and many different events to master for rodeo competition.

It was a lot to learn.

In team calf roping, as header “I catch the head of the steer (with a rope from horseback) and turn it for my heeler, who catches the back two feet,” Cody said.

“I also heel, where I catch the back two feet and get a dally and stretch the steer out.”

Aside from just liking roping, Cody said it is also his favorite sport because you can do it all your life — he sees ropers in their 80s at some events.

Other rodeo events — particularly bull riding — are more physical and more dangerous.

For bull riding “you draw your bull. They load him into a bucking chute. You have a bull rope. I wear a helmet, vest, chaps, a special leather glove to hold the rope and big spurs to get a better grip with,” he said.

The goal is to stay on for eight seconds

“I have gotten a lot better. I cover the ride — eight seconds — most of the time now,” he said.

Chute dogging — also called steer wrestling — is another sport Cody excels at but also takes its physical toll. Cody once had a gate not open right and ended up with a knee injury that day.

“Rodeo officials load the steer into a bucking chute. I get in there with it, get my arm around the steer’s neck and give a nod — the gate opens. You can’t touch the steer’s horns until you cross a line 8 feet from the chute. Then you grab the horns and use a certain technique to get the steer on the ground as fast as you can,” Cody said.

That event is the one that drew Cody to the state championship and is part of a national organization.

“That is what I went to New Mexico for,” Cody said.

His broad talent has opened many doors for him competitively. And once he started winning, Cody turned all his attention to roping and other rodeo events.

“He used to play baseball and football. He gave them up for this. He said, ‘Dad, I want to rope,’” Dale said.

For Cody, he sees two things in his future — “I would really like to get better. Go professional after (his parents emphatically agreed with this), after I graduate from vet school.”

Features

Fifteen and Fast

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Pell City’s ‘Coyote’ Cole Daffron
a force to contend with on the race track

Story by Graham Hadley
Photos by Michael Callahan
Track photos courtesy of
Kelly’s Racing Photography

Though Pell City’s William Cole Daffron can’t legally drive on the road without an adult in the car with him, he already has one national championship under his belt on the track and has his sights set on ARCA and eventually NASCAR.

With help from his family, friends, supporters and sponsors, “Coyote” Cole has been working his way up the racing ladder, starting out on the go-kart circuit and moving up to Pro Challenge 3/4-size trucks in the past year. They have a dirt track car ready and are putting together a pro late-model racecar — possibly the last step before moving on to ARCA and similar competitions.

“Cole has his eyes locked in to the ARCA series as the next step to NASCAR. He is currently running a dirt crate late-model on a limited basis to get that much-needed experience,” his father, Scott Daffron, said.

The Pell City High School student is only 15 years old — he has his learner’s permit thanks to his mother Tracy Partain mailing him the paperwork when he was at the beach. While he is learning to drive responsibly on public streets, Cole has hit speeds of well over 100 mph on the track.

Cole started racing go-karts in 2007 when he was 9 years old. His father had been racing cars off and on for years and helping other racers, with Cole often following Scott to the track to watch.

Cole said he tried out baseball, but did not like it much — he knew he wanted to get behind the wheel. The decision to start racing was mutual. Cole wanted to race and Scott wanted him to do it too, but did not want to push him.

“It was his decision. He had to want to do it. I wanted to be sure he was living his dream and not mine,” Scott said.

For Cole, the choice was simple — he wanted to race. In fact, that is his core goal, to make a career on the track.

So Scott bought a racing go-kart. These are not your run-through-the-yard domestic karts many children have. They are miniature racecars and are almost as complicated as the larger vehicles, costing in the thousands of dollars. Scott started out with a used one in case Cole decided he did not want to keep racing.

But he took to the sport like a natural — and has a room full of trophies and winner’s checks, not to mention a national-championship ring, to prove it.

Cole started racing at the Talladega Short Track in 2007, pulling a respectable third place track championship that year. The following year, he earned a track championship, and by 2009, he won both the Alabama-Mississippi Series championship, champ kart, and the Maxxis Tire national championship, flat kart.

“That first race, it was exciting, different from anything I had ever done. It was the best time I ever had,” Cole said, though he did note the national championship race was the most exciting time he has ever had.

Scott said it was during those early racing days Cole earned the nickname “Coyote” — based on the coyote character from the Roadrunner cartoons. He was racing more experienced drivers who had already made names for themselves, “and I told him if he beats those guys, he would be the Coyote. … and then he started beating them.”

As the wins kept coming, with success across the Southeast in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia and other states, Cole stepped up to the next level with the 3/4-scale Pro Challenge trucks, graduating at the same time from dirt to asphalt, once again proving himself a natural behind the wheel.

To date, Scott said Cole has not had a Pro Challenge finish lower than fifth. Just this September, he set a new track record during qualifying at Sunny South Raceway in Grand Bay, Alabama, and went on to win the race there for the sixth time in a row.

Even before that race, the PCHS teen had already been tapped as the 2013 rookie of the year for that series and is in a “three-way battle” for second place in the national championship, he said.

Scott and Cole say they fully expect him to be in an ARCA race by 2015.

Dedication, hard work
and more than a little help

Though Cole is the one driving the car, there is a whole network of support behind him making his racing career possible.

“A lot of people don’t understand this is a full-fledged racing program,” Scott said. The go-karts cost thousands of dollars, the Pro Challenge car costs thousands more, and the dirt-track car and the pro late model cars cost in the tens of thousands — and that is just to purchase the vehicle and get it race ready. That does not include maintenance and parts — especially tires, and the transportation to and from the tracks and other expenses.

Luckily for Cole, help is in no short supply.

His grandparents, Bill and Patricia Daffron, “are probably Cole’s biggest sponsors and his biggest fans. They make sure we have what we need to race. They are very supportive,” Scott said.

In fact, it is partially because of Bill that the family got into the racing business. He left the car dealership he had been working at to start a salvage yard and body shop. It was that car-filled environment that Scott grew up in that he credits with getting him hooked on racing (and restoring vintage vehicles, but that’s another story). Though his father still runs the salvage yard, Scott handles the body shop.

It is this family-run business and its resources that form the backbone of Cole’s racing operation.

Because of his quick success at the track, Cole has already landed one sponsor — Amsoil D&S Lubrication through Dennis Crowe, which has brought in some much-needed financial support.

Then there is Carl Dieas, who helps out around the shop and can always be counted on to track down parts — sometimes from very far away and on very short notice.

“I just help out a little here and there,” Carl said, but Scott was quick to clarify exactly how important a role Carl really plays.

“He has done a round trip in 13 hours for parts that had been ordered but did not come in time. If he had not done that, we would not have been racing that weekend. It’s hard to do this without Carl,” Scott said.

Cole and his Dad also throw credit to Scott Honeycutt — Cole’s spotter during races and his “right-hand man.”

“He is the best spotter I have seen. He can talk Cole through any thing, a wreck, whatever, on the track. … But he does not try to tell Cole how to drive,” Scott said.

For all the help he receives, Cole does his part, too — aside from just driving.

Between training and maintaining his vehicles, Cole says he does not have much free time. “I come in from school and start working in the garage. We take a break around 5 and eat dinner, then come back out and work some more,” he said, adding that the races take up “just about all my weekends.”

And though he is only 15 and can’t legally drive on public streets without an adult, he is preparing for the day he gets his driver’s license, too, by building his own truck in one of the family’s garages. He has already made solid progress on putting his 2009 Chevrolet together.

The thrill of racing

For Cole, all the hard work is more than worth it when he gets out on the track and it’s all about the racing.

“The first time I won a truck race, we had been working so hard. It was the last few laps and I was in front. The spotter was telling me where the other guy was behind me on the last lap. You pray you don’t mess up, and then you win,” Cole said, emphasizing that the excitement of those moments is almost beyond description.

Scott shares the thrill from afar, but gets equally excited. He remembers the national championship race in fine detail. “It was my most exciting moment. Watching him come around the corners in front. Cole was breathing so hard, his mask would fog up and he would fall back. The kids kept trading the lead, then we came out ahead.”

Along with the excitement of the race, Scott admits that, as a parent, there is also concern that something could go wrong.

“My heart feels like it is going to beat out of my chest every time somebody gets close to Cole on the track or something happens,” he said.

Luckily, Cole has not had any serious accidents to date, though he did flip a go-kart off a berm one time.

“We were coming out of a turn three wide,” Cole said. The karts got tangled up, and “I hit a berm and flipped in the air, landed on all four tires. It was pretty intense.”

“Thank God he landed on all four — there is no roll cage on those,” Scott said.

“And no seat belts,” Cole added.

Given his track record and continued winning streak, Cole said he thinks he has a solid chance of one day racing NASCAR.

His Dad agrees, but says they still have a ways to go, both as a team and Cole as a driver.

“I want to make sure he is mature enough. So far, everything has worked because we have been taking it in steps,” Scott said, pointing out that time behind the wheel is really the key to being a good driver. Right now, he wants Cole to race cars on the dirt track because, even though they can top 100 mph, the slick dirt will help prepare him for the day he races stock cars on asphalt and the tires heat up and become slick.

And, as Cole builds up his driving skills, Scott hopes to attract more attention to what they are doing, possibly even finding more sponsors and supporters.

“We are still in development. We are learning as we go along,” he said.

You can Follow “Coyote” Cole on Facebook here.

Features

Around the Next Bend

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Sugarbush Farm: Antiques
and so much more

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted Photos: Sugarbush Farm

If you weren’t looking for it, you just might miss the small sign out front that says, Sugarbush Farm. But if you passed by what lies just beyond it, rest assured, you missed out on something mighty special.

Tucked snugly behind the home that is barely distinguishable from others along Pell City’s Wolf Creek Road South is an 1850 cabin restored on the property and connected to the existing house. A few feet away stands another relic, a motel room from the old Rose Hill Motel in Irondale, which thrived in the 1930s and 40s.

But just around a dirt bend above the home of Jo and Paul Harris are the stables that once boarded more than 20 horses at a time. The covered arena across the way was once alive with the sound of children, horse hooves, riding lessons, shows and the nationally sanctioned Wolf Creek Pony Club.

As she turns the pages of photo albums and books, the familiar look of remembrance is unmistakable. So is the smile that accompanies it.

Jo and Paul moved to Pell City in 1973. He was a familiar face around St. Clair County, having graded cattle herds for the Extension Service. He judged 4-H and Future Farmers of America steer shows as well.

Paul had been a partner in a cattle corporation, sold his partnership and bought his own herd of Polled Herefords for breeding, leasing land around the county to raise his cattle. But during the Nixon administration, interest rates stood at 21 percent, and the president put a freeze on cattle prices. “It put us out of business,” Jo said.

But the couple was not to be deterred by the setback. Jo remembers telling Paul at the time, “You had your turn, let’s try horses.” Horses had been a passion of hers from an early age growing up in Oklahoma.

They secured their first boarder and “built from there,” she said. They developed a riding school with summer camps. She became certified as an instructor in the American Riding Instruction Certification Program. “I was working with an accounting firm and spent summer vacations with riding camps.”

Paul built the covered arena, and they would hold adult riders dressage clinics with a United States Dressage Federation instructor.

In the late 1980s, the Pony Club was chartered by the U.S. Pony Clubs – no small feat for a tiny town 40 miles outside the big city. It drew members from Moody, Talladega, Anniston, Birmingham and of course, its home in Pell City. “On Sunday afternoon, I gave lessons, and we held weekend competitions. We had a lot of fun,” she said as she thumbed through dozens of old photographs.

Sugarbush Farm was on the map as a pony club. “I’d like to think I made a difference with the kids,” she said. “I can’t say how many kids over the years, but my first student, Carrie Henderson, is now giving riding lessons in California.”

When health took its toll and she was unable to ride any longer, she acquired a Meadowbrook cart. In 2004, she traveled to Beaver Dam Farm in Nova Scotia to take a driving course. “That was the only time I got to ride on the beach.” She drives it now on a trail behind her home.

The cabin that Paul built

Jo and Paul’s homeplace is far from typical. They bought the 1850 cabin near the Shiloh battlefield in Tennessee. It was dismantled and moved to Pell City, where it took Paul two years to reassemble it. “You can still see the numbers on the logs,” she said.

There seems something familiar about the interior, perhaps because it was the setting for a handful of Southern Living Magazine photo shoots for various publications and occasions over the years. The coziness and the warmth envelops you as you enter, and the antiques Jo has collected over the years are the picture-perfect complement. Century-old quilts, shaker boxes and a cavernous fireplace as the focal point cannot help but send any visitor back in time.

Not your typical antique store

Step out back just across the gardens, and you’ll discover another remnant of days gone by – Jo’s antique shop. Sugarbush Farm Country Antiques and Folk Art is more than a sight to behold. It’s a treasure to savor.

Jo had passed by the vacant Rose Hill Motel many a time, seeing the motel cabins and wishing she had one. Her son discovered later they were for sale, and they bought two — one for her antique shop and the other serves as a guest house on her son’s land just across the way.

Its 192-square-foot frame encases rare collectibles Jo has just displayed for sale. She has reopened the antique shop and is hoping to pique the interest of antique and collectibles enthusiasts. She figures, she said, “If I get rid of it, the kids won’t have to.”

The collection is far from anything to be ‘gotten rid of.’ Hand-woven coverlets from York, Pennsylvania, and a 19th century coverlet hang from a quilt rack. Rows of shelves display her prized Blue Willow china with the buffalo mark on the back, signifying its century of age.

A butter churn reminds her of the days growing up on a dairy farm. “We made our own butter” and cooked from the garden. “I don’t think we went to the store except to buy flour and sugar,” she says.

French flatware, a William Britain Soldiers collection from England and Blue and White enamelware are but a few of the “finds” in her shop. There are delftware made in Holland, Blue Onion kitchen utensils and vintage Spring Bok puzzles, similar to jigsaw. There is even a collection of harness brasses used to decorate tradesman horses in England, the harness brass branded with the trade just as a logo would be used today.

“I have been a collector all of my adult life,” she says. She bought “things my mama used to have. I like to think back to the days when she did her canning.” And she quickly adds, “I don’t want to do it, I just want to remember it.”

Throughout the shop, the cabin and the 30 acres Jo and Paul call home these days, those memories of the past abound.

Jo sums it up in a simple, yet poignant thought that could be applied to antiques and memories alike: “I guess I’m just a collector at heart.”

Features

Wonder in Wood

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Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

When Lisa Phelps tells you she loves wood, you sense a gross understatement. She used four different hardwoods and a lot of pine in the new home she shares with husband, Kenny, in Odenville’s Aradon Farms. That doesn’t include the oak, cherry and maple in some of her antiques. Close your eyes, and you can almost smell the forest.

“I like woods of all kinds,” she says, reciting a materials list that includes cedar, alder, hickory and sweet gum.

Much of the wood in her house has a story behind it, from the cedar tree that provided a stair rail, towel racks, shelves and candleholders, to the heart-pine flooring that retained its natural knot holes.

The use of natural wood accents and textures in home decor is one of the hottest trends in home design. Lisa had no idea she was being trendy, however. She just knew what she liked. “I wanted a rustic look,” she says.

She got it, both inside and out.

Muted brown brick with weeping mortar, i.e., mortar that appears to be ever-so-slightly oozing, dominates the face of the house. Cedar posts top stacked-stone pillars to brace the roof of the porch, repeating the stone in the walkway and steps. On the concrete porch, a piece of driftwood picked up at a local flea market and a willow chair add to the rustic look.

Lisa spent a lot of time prowling antique shops and salvage stores while Benchmark Construction was building the house. She found the antique panels that divide the small study from the great room and entryway at Hannah Antiques in Birmingham. She complemented their wrought-iron insets with wrought-iron handles from HGH Hardware, also of Birmingham. “The handles are one of a kind, because HGH orders them from a company that throws away the wax mold after each casting,” she says. The stained-glass window in the study, which has a starburst pattern, is more than 100 years old. It, too, came from Hannah Antiques.

From floor to ceiling, the great room blends Lisa’s love of wood with Kenny’s love of the outdoors. The floor is unusual because Lisa wouldn’t let the installer fill in its knot holes, the normal practice after laying heart-pine. She wanted them open to make the floor appear older and more rustic. An antler chandelier, made from white-tail deer and purchased from a sporting goods store in Florence, Alabama, hangs from the cathedral-style, tongue-in-groove pine ceiling. Most of the other antlers scattered about the room are from deer that Kenny, his four brothers and their dad shot. Posts and corbels are made of cedar, while baseboards and door frames are made of pine. David and Scott Roy, of Roy Lumber, Bessemer, made the corbels.

Lisa designed several centerpieces based on the antler theme. One, on the credenza behind her sofa, features antlers grouped around a small cedar candleholder that Kenny made. The centerpiece on the glass-topped breakfast table consists of a large hurricane glass filled with antlers, with a candle in the center, on a white charger plate. A floral arrangement in the entryway uses antlers, and the dining room table shows off her grandmother’s wooden dough bowl as a container for pebbles, peacock feathers, an old-fashioned milk jug and a piece of driftwood.

The rifle on the sweet gum mantel is a reproduction of a cap-and-ball musket and belonged to Kenny’s dad. An Ansel Adams print, a deer statue and more antlers round out the mantel’s adornments.

A maple deer-leg table adds a touch of whimsy. Picked up for $40 at Hoover Antiques, it is topped with a new lamp featuring, you guessed it, antlers. The lamp came from Inline Lighting in Pelham. Lisa commissioned Stray Cats Home Decor of Childersburg to make the small oak sofa table next to the glass doors leading to the screened porch. The table displays a little brown jug, a clock and a lamp on top, along with Lisa’s jar and bottle collection on the bottom shelf.

The 2,700-square-foot house has three bedrooms and 4.5 baths, plus a bonus room upstairs that’s as large as an efficiency apartment. It’s actually a scaled-down version of a 4,700-square-foot home the Phelps saw but couldn’t afford. “We tracked down the architect, Mark Tidwell of Trussville, and got him to draw it smaller for us,” Lisa explains.

All of the countertops in the house are made of granite except for the one in the master bath, which is made of marble. In the kitchen, a hammered-copper farm sink rests in an island. “I chose copper because it doesn’t grow bacteria,” Lisa says. Kitchen cabinets are made of alder, which Lisa deems, “a poor man’s cherry.” Although pot-fillers normally are centered over range tops, Lisa had hers off-set to the left, because she had an accent tile she wanted in the center.

“I had never seen this done before until I built the Phelps house, but it’s becoming more popular,” says Dennis Smothers, owner of Benchmark Construction.

Her only regret in building the house is her choice of refrigerators. She bought a huge Thermador because of a sale. “I bought the fridge, and got a microwave and dishwasher free,” she says. “The fridge was too much money, which Kenny and Dennis tried to tell me, and it just isn’t worth it. I do love my Thermador gas range, though.”

Bathroom vanities are made of hickory, except for the one in the powder room off the kitchen. That one is an antique dresser from Denmark that a friend from church, Jack Collins, turned into a vanity by removing the drawers. The rock sink on top came from Southeastern Salvage in Irondale.

The stairs to the bonus room are located between the kitchen and the guest bedroom. Lisa knew she wanted a cedar hand rail for those stairs, but couldn’t find one the length she needed. So Scott Roy cut down a cedar tree from his own property, Lisa’s son-in-law scraped off the bark, and Kenny fashioned a hand rail out of it. Not one to waste any leftovers, he made several coat and towel racks for hallways and bathrooms, a picture-frame shelf for the guest room, plus various candleholders and bookends.

The master bathroom measures 15 feet by 18 feet and features a fiberglass tub for Lisa and a 4-foot-by-10-foot, multi-colored slate shower for Kenny. Lisa found a bamboo kiva-style ladder that she placed at the entrance-end of the shower for decoration, but with its vast distance from the shower head, it could easily keep Kenny’s towels dry.

Most of the furnishings in the house came from the couple’s former home in St. Clair Springs. They did, however, purchase a few new items, such as the dining room table and its stuffed chairs, which came from Pier I imports in Hoover. Lisa wanted a blue wall in the dining room to pull out the blue in the chair-cover pattern. Kenny and Dennis tried to discourage this decision because they said it made the room look “beachy.” But Lisa prevailed, and the men now agree that it looks great.

Lisa praises Smothers as an artisan as well as a builder.

“He came up with many ideas to enhance the rustic look we wanted,” she says. “For example, instead of crown molding in the dining area, he used cedar planks. He fashioned a triangular-shaped cut-out at the top of the divider between the entryway and the great room, to give the entryway a little depth.”

Smothers can’t say enough about Lisa’s innate decorating abilities.

“I’d hire her as a decorator if she’d do it,” he says.

Features

Return of a classic

Argo Drive-In introducing a new
generation to an American movie tradition

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Michael Callahan

As a child growing up in north Alabama, Faye Riggs, 65, often went to the drive-in with her parents and sisters. They paid by the carload, with some money left over for snacks and drinks.

“We’d drive around until we found a speaker that worked, then Mom and Dad would sit on the hood of the car, while we girls played on the swings in front of the screen,” recalls Riggs, who now lives in Tallahassee, Florida. “They watched the movie and kept an eye on us at the same time. We kids loved being outdoors where we could run around and not get bored.”

Those were simpler times, before shopping malls and multiplex screens, before you had to sign away your birthright to pay for a night at the movies.

It was this affordability factor that motivated Brian Skinner to build the Argo Drive-In. At a church meeting, he and friends talked about the expense of going to the movies, and how much cheaper it had been to go to a drive-in. “That’s when the idea was born,” says Skinner, 51, owner of the Crawford and Skinner Insurance agency in Springville.

He tracked down a newspaper article he had read about a new drive-in on the West Coast, contacted the owner, and asked a lot of questions. He found 3 acres of undeveloped land on Angus Street, just off U.S. 11 in Argo. He got help from an elderly gentleman in Trussville who used to build billboards. “The screen is nothing but a giant billboard anyway,” Skinner says.

His first feature, “Titanic,” drew 171 cars opening night, May 22, 1998. Back then, he showed movies seven nights a week, all year round, charging $10 per carload, except on Wednesdays, when the price dropped to $5. He was very successful. “We’d have mini-vans with five or six people in them,” Skinner recalls. “The public loved it.” The distributors didn’t. They said the carload pricing cheapened their product. So three years ago, Skinner was forced to transition to individual pricing to get the first-run movies he shows. Now open Fridays and Saturdays only, “the nights we can make some money,” he charges $5 per adult, $2 for children under 12, and nothing for children in car seats. He operates from early May through September, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, weather permitting. Sometimes, on a Thursday or Sunday night, someone will rent the theater for a church group, office party, birthday party or customer appreciation night.

Drive-ins were born 80 years ago in Camden, N.J., invented by Richard Hollingshead Jr., who capitalized on the success of drive-in restaurants. They became immensely popular because parents could take children in their pajamas and moms could leave their hair in curlers. Later, they became a hangout for teenagers, who could make out in cars without parental interference. Their popularity peaked in 1958 with almost 5,000 across the United States. Then televisions began popping up in every household, and shopping malls became teenage hangouts, throwing drive-ins into a slow, steady decline. As of March 13, 2013, there were 357 drive-ins with 604 screens (many are twinplexes) in the U.S., according to the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association (UDITOA). The industry has seen several signs of growth over the past decade as families rediscover their affordable concessions and double-feature admissions.

Alabama has 10 drive-in sites with 16 screens, according to the UDITOA, including the three that Skinner owns — Argo, the Starlite in Anniston and a twinplex in Harpersville. The Starlite closed indefinitely when a storm flattened the screen last spring. That same storm twisted Argo’s marquee, but didn’t damage the 26-foot-by-60-foot screen. Made up of some 66 sheets of corrugated tin covered in a flat-enamel paint, it’s built tough, Skinner says.

Looking like a giant, gravel parking lot dotted with orange cones, Argo’s capacity is 175 cars if all are parked correctly, i.e., two between each set of cones. More can be accommodated if parked fender-to-fender, as they were for the theater’s 208-car viewing of “Dr. Doolittle,” starring Eddie Murphy. “That was a record-breaking night,” says Alex Bosworth, the 19-year-old Jefferson State Community College freshman who works the gate at Argo. “People were parked all along Angus Drive, up Highway 11, in the fields, everywhere. They were walking in carrying lawn chairs.”

Noticeably absent are the stands mounted with speakers that movie-goers used to pull into their cars — and often pulled off with. Gone, too, are their scratchy sounds, now that car radios and boom boxes pick up the movie’s audio from the small FM transmitter in the projection booth. “Today’s sound is as good as your radio,” says Skinner, who uses 89.1 on the FM dial.

A small, two-story cinderblock building at the back of the parking lot houses the concession stand on the first level, the projection booth on the second. Popcorn sells for $3 and $4 a bag, hot dogs for $2, soft drinks for $2 and $3. “A family of four can come in and have a good time on $20,” Skinner says.

In the projection booth, the 35 mm film whirs through the Cinemascope projector, which sends its beam through a tiny, stationary window pane toward the giant screen 275 feet away. The whirring sound comes from the fans that blow antifreeze over the 4,000-watt bulb to keep it cool. Three giant metal platters hold up to three hours of film, which comes in via UPS in 20-minute reels that must be spliced together, then taken apart before shipping out again. “One of the funniest things was when we spliced a movie out of sequence,” says Skinner. “Very few people knew it. My biggest worry was whether the credits were at the end!”

Argo caters to families, which make up 75 percent of its patrons. Looking through movie choices on his order form, perusing trade papers for ticket grosses, Skinner knows not to select anything intense. “Cartoons, comedies and action-adventure do best at a drive-in,” he says. Saturday nights draw the most cars, he adds, but people buy more food on Friday nights, when they come straight from work without dinner.

Showtime starts at dusk, usually around 8 p.m. One warm Friday night last summer, cars were backed up to Highway 11 when the gate opened at 7:30. More than 50 vehicles spread out across the lot, most parked with their rear-ends facing the screen, their tailgates down or their rear hatches propped up. Dressed in shorts and flip-flops, jeans and hospital scrubs, patrons set up lawn chairs in truck beds and on the ground, then tossed Frisbees and softballs before the movie started. These “ozoners,” as drive-in patrons were once called, came from St. Clair, Etowah, Jefferson and Shelby counties for the al-fresco viewing experience.

Nine-year-old Ashton Hutcherson, son of Cynthia and Robert Hutcherson of Argo and a student at Springville Elementary, loves propping up on pillows in the back of his family’s SUV, where he doesn’t have to peer over people’s heads to see the screen.

Karla Lowery and Kathy Arrington, sisters from Gadsden, have been to the Argo several times. They park close to the concession building to be near the bathrooms and so their smoking doesn’t bother anyone. This night, they brought along Karla’s kids,11-year-old Austin and 7-year-old Heather.

“We love it,” says Kathy. “You can have a conversation about the movie without disturbing the person next to you.” She doesn’t mind the trains that rumble through several times each night, passing so close behind the concession stand you can almost touch the box cars and tankers.

Amy Roy of Argo brought her son, Axel, 3, and daughter Chloe, 10, plus some friends from Hoover. “I had never been to a drive-in until we moved to Argo from Atlanta nine years ago,” she says. “My mom has been with us, and she went many times as a child and teen.”

After his 60-40 gate split with distributors, Skinner barely keeps his head above water at Argo. The industry is moving toward a digital format, and he prays that 35 mm film will be available for a few more years because the switch is expensive. He makes money at Harpersville, though, and reasons that Argo gives teenagers jobs and families a good time.

“It’s fun, and it gives me pleasure to see families here,” he says. “It’s very entertaining.”

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Renovations by the water

[Show as slideshow]

Wow factor comes to life in Junkins’ lakeside home

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Michael Callahan

Step inside the lakeside home of Lori and John Junkins, and you immediately come face to face with the ‘Wow!’ factor. Actually, there is plenty more than one of those factors.

The three-story A-frame towers above the shoreline of Logan Martin Lake, angled toward its main channel with a wall of windows and glass doors that frame a breathtaking view.

But take a look around inside, and that same awe seems to envelop friends, family and visitors alike.

It wasn’t always this way. One thing led to another, they say. It began with the enclosure of the loft to enable a more private master suite. But no worries. The view is still there with a large picture window overlooking the main level below and a bird’s-eye vantage point of the lake just beyond. Satin curtains, warm colors and a mix of antique and contemporary furniture are the perfect complement.

For most, that would have been a major renovation. Little did the Junkins know then, that would be their ‘small’ project.

At Thanksgiving, 20 people made their way through the narrow, galley kitchen, which served as a main entrance to the house. And John said they knew it was time to re-imagine their home.

Originally, they had an architect come up with a plan to give them more usable space and design an entrance. But bedrooms for children Jake and Amelia on the main level would have been lost.

Time for Plan B, they said. Their appraiser, Jeff Jones, suggested an eat-in island for the kitchen, and Lori took the idea to the next level from there with the skill and craftsmanship of Dennis Smothers and Pell City-based Benchmark Construction.

Open space replaced a galley kitchen that was separated by a single bar with dining area on the other side. Wide-plank hardwood floors enlarged the look of the room and gave it a richer feel. Custom cabinets designed by Lee Kerr in Anniston, running along the interior wall as well as built into a sloping exterior wall of the A-frame, are a rich, dark wood.

Granite countertops, brushed-nickel fixtures, a gas range and a pendant with three lights that took Smother’s crew with a 36-foot ladder to hang from the house’s tallest point are just a few of the amenities that make this space so special. The 6-foot, 8-inch-by-5-foot island with granite top features a rounded edge that makes seating more suitable to dinnertime conversation. Leather and wood stools fit perfectly with the décor.

The main-level guest bathroom and a master bathroom underwent a major makeover as well. The original, small master bath was a formidable challenge, but Lori knew what she wanted and designed it by doing away with an original wall that separated the bath from closets. It now has a much more open space. Renee Lily of Lily Designs of Pell City consulted on the renovation of the main level bath.

The master bath is greige — a warm and inviting color cross between grey and beige. Lori designed the vanity herself with arched doors and varying counter heights to give more flat space between two basins made of green, crystalline bowls with brushed nickel fixtures.

Three 1879 lithographs of birds nests and an egg — “my favorite,” said Lori — hang above a soaking tub surrounded by greige marble backsplash cut in small rectangles, giving it a stacked stone look. The backsplash runs from the bath to the vanity to the shower, bringing the room all together.

Across is a large, glass walk-in “rain shower” with oversized shower head to give a rain effect. And the tile floor is a wide-plank, weathered wood look. It is hard to imagine it is made of tile.

The guest bath below uses the same color scheme and amenities, enhancing the natural flow from room to room.

The Junkins’ dream makeover is now a reality, and the months of work are well behind them. They have enjoyed entertaining friends and family and just hosted a post-wedding party for Lori’s nephew and bride, Clay and Rachel Craft. More than 70 attended, and space to accommodate was never a problem with the new design.

With an older home, “you have to be creative,” said Smothers. “I just followed Lori’s lead. She was great to work with.”

Lori returned the compliment. “He is a great builder and designer.”

All you have to do is take a look around at the finished product, and you know they both are right.

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