Tag: Features

Playing to a Full House

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Local Color is Springville’s ‘colorful’ music spot

Story by Mike Bolton
Photos by Jerry Martin

It’s barely dark thirty on a Friday evening, and a steady stream of vehicles with tags from Jefferson County, Shelby County, Blount County, Cullman County and other locales vie for a spot in the dimly lit parking lot of the indistinct brick building on Springville’s main thoroughfare. The occupants of the vehicles slip almost unnoticed through the side door and enter a world many Springville residents have no idea exists.

It is too obvious of a location to house something sinister, and its occupants are too nicely dressed and genteel for it to be a honky-tonk. Many a weekend passerby has seen the full parking lot across the street from Burton’s grocery store and with raised eyebrows pondered just what goes on in that place.

If the conspiracy-minded speculate something odd is going on within the building’s walls, at least give them credit for a lucky guess. Once inside, a visitor discovers a place that seems way out of place in Springville, Alabama. Step through the side door, and one might be immediately enveloped in the haunting sounds of a band from Ireland strumming Celtic music, or the toe-tapping music of a band cranking out Dixieland jazz. The next evening, a visitor might encounter the unmistakable sound of a banjo dominating a bluegrass set or watch incredulous that the twang of a bass fiddle from a folk group is shaking the liquid in their glass.

But for a few exceptions in major cities, music halls and supper clubs have pretty much gone the way of full-service gas stations. In Springville, however, Local Color is hanging in there like a rusty fish hook. For 10 years, the music hall has on weekends offered live music accompanied by a fanciful dinner. Despite the fact the business does no advertising, music lovers and a wide array of music groups find the path to the side door each weekend.

The business is operated by Springville residents Merle Dollar and Garry Burttram, who decided a decade ago to combine Burttram’s love of music and cooking and Dollar’s love of art into one of those dream ventures that for most people would stay just a dream. They both laughingly say their banks accounts attest to the fact that it is strictly a labor of love.

“We borrowed $10,000 to get started and have operated it on a shoestring budget every since,” said Dollar who served as an art teacher at Springville High School for 10 years and at Duran Junior High in Pell City for 16 years and now teaches art classes in the building. “Gary is a retired art teacher from Moody High School. He is truly an amazing person.”

Dollar says their idea was to incorporate music, art and good food in a quaint setting. The old building that once housed a boat-builder’s shop and feed store seemed like a natural. The building’s original windows have been replaced by stained glass, and memorabilia from everyone from the Beatles to Elvis adorn the walls along with Dollar’s artwork. Classic album covers and posters promoting coming attractions line the brick walls.

“We were looking for a name, and Local Color seemed like a logical choice,” she said.

Although he’s Local Color’s resident chef, and his food draws rave reviews from its patrons, Burttram insists it is all about the music for him.

“I had no choice but to love music because my parents loved music,” he said. “I can remember as a little boy hiding under the bed and watching people come to our house to listen to music. I can still remember seeing nothing but the bobby socks and penny loafers as they danced.”

Local Color has become a stopping off point for many diverse groups from Alabama, the South and even from around the world. Its reputation as a place that is a throwback in time makes musicians want to play there, band members say.

“Of all the places we have played it’s probably our favorite,” said Jerry Ryan of Three-on-a-String, the Alabama trio that has been playing across Alabama and the South for 40 years. “There’s no smoke and no TVs playing in the background like at most places today. They cater to musicians and make it a fun place to play. They know what it feels like to perform, and they enhance it.”

Ryan says music halls like Local Color have fallen by the wayside over the past several decades as television, cable and sports have become the primary entertainment. He says Local Color has survived because of attention to detail.

“It’s set up for music,” he said. “It’s one of the few places left that someone can sit right there close to the band and hear good, top-notch groups.”

There is a cover charge, and it varies according to what group performs. The entire cover charge goes to the group performing that night. Patrons may also eat dinner and can purchase wine and other alcoholic beverages.

“It is intimate, diverse, clean,” said Local Color regular Nancy Smith, a former Springville resident who now lives in Blount County. “It draws a lot of people from Birmingham. It’s just cozy and adorable.

“I bring a lot of people from Birmingham, and they are always surprised. It’s just not what you’d expect to find in little, old Springville. You can come here and listen to bluegrass, the blues, jazz and even rock and roll. I just love the diverse offerings.”

Local Color has no advertising budget and survives word of mouth and by the 1,900 e-mails it sends out each week, Dollar says. The music hall got a tremendous boost last year when the Alabama Department of Tourism and Travel, which declared 2011 “The Year of Alabama Music” promoted Local Color as a must-visit spot for live music in the state.

Local Color finds its musicians by word of mouth, too.

“I’d say about 99 percent of the groups contact us,” said Dollar on a night when a busload of patrons from Cullman had come to hear Three-on-a-String. “Four Shillings Short, a Celtic group from Ireland, was in the U.S. and heard about us and wanted to know if they could come perform.

“Another that surprises many people is Janet Hall of Fox 6 news in Birmingham. She performs twice a year. She is an incredible singer and songwriter.”

Singers and songwriters and groups, including Jeff Otwell, the Dill Pickers, Martini Shakers, Sweetwater Road, the Legendary Pineapple Skinners, Once in a Blue Moon, Steven Young (who wrote Seven Bridges Road for the Eagles) and Clair Lynch perform at Local Color annually.

Local Color’s house band is Something Else, a trio comprised of Dollar, Sylvia Waid and Peggy Jones, who have performed together for 26 years. The trio plays music from the 1920s to the 1960s and is primarily a swing and boogie group. The three ladies are, in addition to the opening group, ambassadors for Local Color and greet patrons. l

Local Color is open on Friday and Saturday nights for live music and on Sundays for lunch only. Reservations are recommended for the live performances. To make reservations, call 205-467-0334.

Features

Flying High Over St. Clair

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By Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Jerry Martin

The tall, chubby guy in overalls and white tee-shirt runs up to the airshow emcee and in a drawl as Southern as coon dogs and camouflage starts babbling about redeeming a flight instruction coupon. Trying to get rid of the man, who claims he’s Clem Cleaver from Alabama, the emcee motions him toward a little yellow airplane. He tells the man standing beside it to give the guy a demo. But when Clem climbs aboard, he “accidentally” takes off on a wibbly-wobbly solo flight that culminates with his landing atop a pickup truck that’s doing 55 miles per hour down the runway.

It takes skill to do that. Not just the skill of landing on a moving target, but the skill of making it appear that you don’t know what you’re doing. Make no mistake about it, Greg Koontz knows what he’s doing. An aerobatics pilot, Master Flight Instructor, aerobatic pilot evaluator and the 2011 recipient of the FAA’s Flight Instructor of the Year for the Southern Region, this St. Clair County resident got his student pilot’s certificate three days before getting his driver’s license. He’s been flying high ever since.

“I learned to fly in 1969, and soloed before I got my driver’s license,” says Koontz. “At 17, I got my pilot’s license. My first plane was a 1946 Piper Cub that I rebuilt in my mom’s basement.”

The Clem Cleaver role is part of a comedy routine Greg and his Alabama Boys perform at air shows throughout the country. He developed this act in 2005, but he has been performing aerobatic maneuvers since he was a teenager. His father was a corporate pilot and took 7-year-old Koontz to an air show. At the end of the show, he announced, “I want to be an air show pilot.”

At 18, Koontz went to work for Moser’s Aero Sport Inc., in St. Augustine, Fla. His main job was flight instructor, but at 19, he began performing in Colonel Moser’s Flying Circus, flying air shows all over the Southeast and parts of the Caribbean. That’s where he learned the truck-top landing. “Jim & Ernie Moser were inducted into the Air Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas in November (2011) by the International Council of Air Shows (ICAS),” he says. “It makes me proud that I was part of that operation.”

He spent 10 years running flight schools and charter businesses before taking a job as corporate pilot for McGriff, Seibels & Williams, Birmingham insurance agents. He held that position for 20 years, doing air shows on the side.

In 1995, he started coming to St. Clair County to do aerobatic maneuvers at a model airplane show the late Bud Caddell held every year on Slasham Road. When Caddell’s son stopped holding the shows about two years ago, Koontz held an open-house for some of his flying buddies. Strangers got wind of the event, mistook it for an air show and started showing up.

“I fed barbecue to 400 people this year,” Koontz says of his October lawn party. “With so many strangers and the cost of feeding folks, I may have to start charging and actually calling it an air show.”

The festivities take place on Koontz’s little piece of heaven on Slasham Road. When he and his wife, Cora, started coming out for the Caddell shows, they thought it was a beautiful area. In 1999, Bob Dugger sold them a corner of some land he had just purchased, along with rights to Dugger’s private grass runway. They built the hangar in 2002, and in 2004, after the last of their two children headed off to college, they built their house. They opened Sky Country Bed & Breakfast in 2005, using two spare bedrooms for their fly-in guests.

“I have the only aerobatic school with a B&B on a private grass air strip that I know about,” Koontz says. He teaches several types of aerobatic courses, specializing in beginners, and stays booked six to eight weeks in advance. “People who buy an aerobatic plane and want to expand their capabilities will take my complete course, but lots of people take aerobatics just to improve or enhance their flying abilities,” he says.

About 80 pilots a year train under Koontz at his headquarters. Hearing about him from air shows and the Internet, they come from all over the U.S. and around the world, including Spain, Portugal, Germany, South Africa, Argentina and the Philippines. The courses run from two to five days, with most pilots from outside the U.S. staying for five.

“The fun of doing this business is sitting around the dinner table talking with folks,” he says. He not only trains pilots, but does his own basic maintenance (he’s a licensed aircraft mechanic), all the cooking and grocery shopping, too. “My wife doesn’t cook,” he explains, not appearing the least bit bothered by this. After all, she works a full-time job in Birmingham. They were married in 1975, after he taught her to fly in 1974.

Koontz holds aerobatics clinics worldwide, in places like South Africa, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Canada and all over the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii. He did an air show a few years ago in the United Arab Emirates, and he’s helping establish Portugal’s first aerobatics school.

He’s also an aerobatics competency evaluator. Aerobatic pilots start performing at 800 feet above ground, and must be evaluated every time they want to certify to fly at a lower altitude. In addition, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires aerobatic pilots to be re-evaluated annually and gave that task to ICAS. Koontz is chairman of the national committee that does this, the ACE (aerobatic competency evaluators) committee, managing a nationwide group of evaluators from every state.

Three airplanes dock in his hangar today, including a red Super Decathlon built by American Champion Aircraft of Wisconsin and emblazoned with the names of 14 sponsors. He also has a 1941 Piper Cub and a 1939 clipped-wing Cub. He uses all of those planes when he trains pilots and sometimes uses the pilots’ own aircraft. He recently purchased a Cessna 182 that he calls his traveling plane. It has four seats — room for Greg, Cora and two guests. “I always promised we’d get a traveling plane, one to take trips in, rather than to do tricks in,” he says.

The difference between a “traveling plane” and an aerobatic plane is more than just its seating capacity, however. An aerobatic plane is aerodynamically designed to do maneuvers and structurally designed to handle the G-forces they encounter.

Koontz performs in 20 air shows a year, flying to them in his Super Decathlon with one of the Alabama Boys. The remainder of the troupe, which includes son, James, Steven Smith, Fred Masterson, Tommy Foster and Bob Dugger, travels in the pickup that Koontz lands on during their routine. Not all of the Boys go to every show. The truck pulls a trailer carrying another yellow Piper Cub, its wings separated from the body and stowed on the inside walls of the trailer, like a dismembered butterfly. Koontz uses it for his comedy act, but flies the Super Decathlon for his aerobatics.

“Aerobatics is a very old, traditional act that has been around for many, many years,” he says. “I traced it back to the 1930s to a man named Mike Murphy. All aerobatics today are pretty much the same as Murphy invented, but with individual twists.”

Fellow aerobatics performer Patty Flagstaff of St. Augustine, Fla., herself a six-time member of the U.S. Aerobatic Team and the first woman to win the title of U.S. National Aerobatics Champion, has known Koontz for 15 to 20 years. She has nothing but praise for his talents.

“He’s a real pro, and I’ve never met anybody who doesn’t think highly of him,” she says. “He’s very well liked and he’s a really, really entertaining showman. I don’t do a lot of training because I don’t have a training plane, and I’m very careful who I send people to for instruction. But I’ve sent a lot of people to Greg, including a relative and one of my best friends.”

Like Patty, Koontz flies for the adventure, the freedom and the challenge. “Obviously, it’s a big thrill, being way off the ground like that, but it’s also the accomplishment that I enjoy,” he says. “It takes years and years to get better at it, and there’s always a new challenge.”

The entertainment component fascinates him, too. It’s a niche in aviation only a few people fill. “I like entertaining people. It’s very gratifying to me to land and have hundreds of people wanting my autograph. It’s fun to have that attention because I did a good job of entertaining.”

Aerobatics is a dangerous sport, he’ll admit that. He has lost five friends from air show crashes this year.

“That’s the secret in this business,” he says, “Don’t hit the ground.”

Features

St. Vincent’s St. Clair Opening

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Stories by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

SPECIAL COVERAGE:

In just two days, on Dec. 10, the doors are expected to officially open on St. Clair County’s early Christmas gift — a state-of-the-art hospital that is expected to change the face of health care throughout the entire region.

Finishing touches have been applied to the impressive building rising from the ridge overlooking Interstate 20 on Pell City’s north side over the past two years. And officials are preparing for a move from the county’s health care past to its promising future.

The final vestiges of the old St. Vincent’s St. Clair on Dr. John Haynes Drive will close at 6 a.m. Dec. 10, and the new St. Vincent’s St. Clair will be official and, more importantly, open for business.

It has been a dream 20 or more years in the making, but the region’s red-letter day has arrived, and the community has watched its health care future going up with great anticipation.

St. Vincent’s has long been a trusted name in medicine in the Birmingham area, and its reach into St. Clair County has been a perfect fit for both entities, officials say.

“This new hospital has truly been a collaborative effort between the St. Clair County Health Care Authority, St. Clair County Commission, City of Pell City, St. Clair County Economic Development Council and St. Vincent’s Health System.” said John D. O‘Neil, president and CEO of St. Vincent’s Health System.

“For many years, leaders in St. Clair County have worked toward building a new hospital. St. Vincent’s Health System and our parent organization, Ascension Health, also are committed to improving accessibility to quality health care in the communities that we serve. Together, we’ve made the vision of a new hospital a reality,” O’Neil said.

“The opening of the new state-of-the-art St. Vincent’s St. Clair will have a tremendous impact on Pell City and the surrounding communities for years to come. We anticipate that additional physician specialists will join the medical staff and new services will be added. We are going to continue growing right along with St. Clair County.”

The 40-bed, 79,000-square-foot facility with an additional 40,000 square feet of adjoining professional office space features “the latest and greatest equipment,” according to St. Vincent’s St. Clair Chief Transition Officer Terrell Vick.

Three operating rooms, Gastrointestinal lab, pathology, pharmacy, larger intensive care unit, imaging, rehabilitation, digital mammography, bone density testing, nuclear medicine, dialysis and a 64-slice CT Scanner are but a handful of services and features of the new hospital. A patient can even have a test done in St. Clair and have it interpreted in real time in Birmingham if need be.

In addition to its regular patient rooms, the hospital has two additional ones with a family room adjoining for extended stay, which was made possible by a $1 million donor.

Six large patient rooms make up the Intensive Care Unit with surgery and recovery units adjacent to it.

Initially, the hospital’s offerings will focus on basic surgery. There are 10 same-day surgery suites, which are not included in the bed count of the hospital.

The Emergency Department boasts 12 rooms — 10 private exam rooms and two trauma rooms — a sizable step up from the eight cubicles in service in the old hospital. A separate entrance for ED and separate waiting areas for infectious and clean triage make the hospital more effective in dealing with emergencies and better serving patients.

A modern cafeteria with dining inside and a garden outside is serviced by Morrison’s and a Starbuck’s coffee shop are ready to meet food and drink needs of visitors, patients and staff. And the entire facility has wi-fi capabilities.

The design of the hospital puts patient and visitor convenience first. It is set up in service units with separate registration for one-day surgery, Emergency Department, Rehabilitation and Imaging. “It is easy for patients and visitors to navigate,” Vick said. It is possible for them to park and walk straight to the area they need.

In the adjacent professional office building, St. Vincent’s will lease 20,000 square feet of space for its medical groups, and there will be timeshare space provided for specialist services like cardiology, general surgery, pulmonology and orthopedics. Three cardiovascular groups along with two general-surgery groups already cover the area. “We hope eventually to have full-time services in those specialities,” Vick said.

The professional office building is expected to open in coming weeks, and a sleep disorder clinic should follow in March.

A round chapel with intricate stone work inside and out is a focal point of the hospital and offers a spiritual haven for patients and visitors as part of this faith-based health system.

Vick, who has been with the hospital for nearly 40 years, can’t seem to mask his excitement over the prospect of this new facility. It has been a long time in coming and would not have been possible without the team work of St. Vincent’s, St. Clair County Commission, St. Clair Health Care Authority, St. Clair Economic Development Council, Jefferson State Community College, City of Pell City and the State of Alabama.

Chuck Penuel, whose architectural firm, Birchfield Penuel & Associates, designed the new hospital, called it “an important part of the St. Vincent’s ministry as it reaches further into the community providing the same quality health care as it has provided in the Birmingham area for so many years.

“It is certainly one of the most challenging projects due to the nature of working with four clients instead of one — the county, city, health care authority and St. Vincent’s,” Penuel said. “It’s a diverse group, but it shows that a common interest results in a positive outcome for the community.”

“I’m happy for our associates and our medical staff,” Vick said. “And we wouldn’t be here without community support.”

Features

Paradise Found: Sweet Apple Farm

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Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Jerry Martin

Her inspiration came from the rolling pastures, an 1840s log cabin and a nondescript barn she turned into a crystal chandelier showplace.

It was paradise found the moment she saw it, but the “vision” took nearly a year to evolve. And now, on the outskirts of Pell City lies a majestic estate known as Sweet Apple Farm — a picturesque event venue “Miss Tina” wants to share with all who dream of celebrating a special day in a dream-come-true place.

The sprawling 80-acre estate didn’t always look as it does today. “A labor of love” over 12 months transformed it into a perfect place for weddings and other special events and parties.

The empty shell of an 1841 log cabin is fully restored and decorated with period antiques to be used as a honeymoon suite. The former owners, Bill and Barbara Alvis, bought it and had it moved to the property. But it remained a shell until Miss Tina, who got her abbreviated name from Alabamians who couldn’t pronounce the longer, Italian version, began her work there. “Now it is a real home for somebody. I tried to keep the integrity as much as I could but with modern conveniences.”

Just across the way is a garage turned into a guest cottage with courtyard and patio and all the amenities for a comfortable and memorable stay.

A nearby potting shed is now a dressing room and bathroom.

A gently rolling pasture of lush green features a simple, white archway to frame a wedding ceremony. Or move the nuptials inside to a small barn turned chapel.

A white picket fence fronts the property for three quarters of a mile, and two ponds are home to catfish, bream “and very large turtles,” she said.

But the focal point that draws like no other is the crystal chandelier barn with hardwood floors that evokes a magical feel as soon as she flips on the light switch. The kinship she feels with this part of the property is evident when she refers to it as a person rather than a structure.

“When I found her, I didn’t know what to do with her. I’ll know when I get there,” she said she would tell herself.

Her contracting crew, led by Pell City’s Randall Weaver, gutted and restored the home she lives in first. “But I was drawn to the barn over and over again.” Every day when the crew left, she would sit on a trash can and think and pray about what to do — “How can it best serve other people and make their dreams come true?”

Then she envisioned it — the whole place bathed in lights from dangling crystal chandeliers, reflecting in the rich and rustic texture of hardwood floors. “Then I knew the road I was on.”

It was then that she started her due diligence, she said, researching to see if it could become a viable business. Much to her own surprise, she found there was nothing like it in the area. “I followed my intuition, and it has been an honor and privilege to create this.”

The barn can play host to 150 people for a seated dinner or 200 for a buffet. A commercial prep kitchen services the barn, which boasts mammoth windows and glass doors all around to let the outside in — bringing the rolling hills into a perfectly framed view. From the ceiling beams hang rows and rows of imported chandeliers put together by hand by her electricians.

It is hard to imagine that it once served as a home to pigs and horses containing nothing more than stalls and a dirt floor. Today, it is has the feel of an elegant ballroom nestled cozily in the countryside.

When she moved to the region from Miami, “I thought I was retiring.” But the land and all that came with it beckoned her to see it as a “gift” to be shared others.

With a background in construction developments along with a radio talk show career, stints in newspaper writing and photography as well as wedding photography, Miss Tina is quite a story all on her own. Her distinctive voice set her on a path to radio when she was discovered by Roy Leonard and Paul Harvey, she said. “I did voiceovers for them.”

That led her to a talk show from a “feminine view” and various other careers and challenges over the years in Chicago and Miami.

She was never content to do just one thing, and her versatility shows in virtually every square inch of Sweet Apple Farm.

“It took Randall a month to quit rolling his eyes,” she said of her contractor’s reaction to the plans she had for the property. Custom benches are found all over the land. Solar lights at night shine “like diamonds,” she said. And an 1800 bell stands sentry over the chapel and her home.

A fire pit, a deer sanctuary, a screened pavilion, a walkway uncommonly made of manhole covers and stone and a “serenity pond” are but a few of the unusual touches she has given the place to make it a destination point like no other.

“I love helping people. That’s my bottom line. This has been the grandest challenge I have ever awarded myself, and I am humbly pleased to have met it. I created a very beautiful place to help make people’s dreams come true.”

Just like hers.

Features

Iola Robert’s Artistic Legacy

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John Lonergan & Wayne Spradley

By GiGi Hood
Photos by Jerry Martin

Each beginning life might be compared to the first brush stroke on a simple piece of canvas. Both new, both existing for awhile amidst the unknown. Only time will reveal just what will develop; but time will not work alone. As life’s desires are born and flourish, they will become integrated with talent, patience, determination, imagination and a strong drive to achieve. And the ultimate result will be an evolution of art that will last far beyond any one individual’s lifetime.

Such was the case of two St. Clair County boys. Both grew up as friends, products of the Avondale Mills mill village. One daddy was a fixer (a welder) at the village, the other, a weaver. Both boys shared a love of sports. They played together, skipped rocks over ponds, explored the woods and attended school at Avondale Mills Elementary. They shared tales and created lifetime memories that exist to this day.

Having shared much in their young lives, the analogy of life being compared to brushstrokes on a canvas has an enormously significant meaning, as well as an almost unbelievable parallel for Wayne Spradley and John Lonergan. Both mill village boys (who still are in their hearts) grew up to become hugely successful artists.

Each man credits the teachers and administrators in Pell City schools for the multi-faceted educations they received. They agreed that their educational experiences were enhanced by the direction and encouragement they received as their talents emerged.

John Lonergan fondly remembers Miss Iola Roberts, principal of Avondale Mills Elementrary School. “She loved what she did and she believed education was not just about books. She was a great lover of the arts — dance, theater, sculpting, painting — all of it,” he said. “Any chance she had to promote the students’ interest in such avenues, she would take.

“She was a great presence,” he explained. “Whenever she really wanted to get your attention, she would grab you by the chin to make sure what she was saying was hitting home. There was no doubt about her level of caring for the students.”

A prodigious young man, Lonergan’s interest in art was apparent at an early age. “I was drawing by the time I was 3 or 4 years old,” he remembered. “I don’t think anybody thought that much about it because I was just a kid occupying myself and having fun.”

Born to a family where hard work was the primary focus to meet the family needs, education seemingly took the back seat. But that was not the case in Lonergan’s life. It was placed in the forefront of his mind by his loving mother who aspired for him to have opportunities outside the boundaries of a mill village.

“From the time I was old enough to remember, my mother told me I was going to college. It was so deeply ingrained in me that I don’t think I ever considered not going,” he said.

And, true to his mother’s wishes, he not only went to college, he graduated twice — once with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of Alabama and the second time with a master’s degree in education and administration from UAB.

Not long after he had begun to read, Lonergan was given a set of Child Craft books that were devoted to painting. “I was young, but I devoured those books,” he said. During his third- and fourth-grade years, his teacher, Betty Cosper, was so taken with his work that she would cut out mats to go around the drawings and put them on the bulletin board.

Upon entering Pell City High School, Mrs. Dorothy Roper Mays (affectionately called “Droper” by her students) picked up where the elementary teachers had left off. She, too, greatly encouraged the development of his burgeoning talents. “One day we were talking, and I told her I wanted to be an artist one day. She quickly responded by telling me I already was,” he said. “That was a very proud day of my life. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, or where to begin, but I was determined to figure it out.”

Before graduating from high school, Lonergan managed to sell a few of his paintings. His English teacher became his first customer when she purchased a snow scene that he had painted. “To this day, that painting still hangs in her home, and I still believe I painted the moss on the wrong side of the tree.”

His science teacher also bought three of his paintings, as well as his aunt, who later he found out did so just to provide continuous encouragement for the young man’s talent.

After graduating with his first degree, Lonergan was more determined than ever to make a living as an artist, even though as he put it, “artists made no money.” While still pursuing his dream, Lonergan supported his family by working in an area very near and dear to his heart. “I returned to Pell City High School as art teacher,” he said proudly. “With the profound mark teachers had made on my life, it was only natural that I had a desire to work with young people and sew seeds that might make a difference in their lives, just as teachers had done for me.”

During the years he was busily sewing seeds at the school, his professional career took root, blossomed and bore the fruit of his dreams. After retiring from teaching, he was finally able to spend his days as the full time professional artist he had always wanted to be. Today he is considered to be one of Alabama’s finest artists. His ability to paint in different styles sets him apart from many of his colleagues.

Many of his beautiful paintings, like one of his favorites, Purple Morning, are scenes from his own stomping grounds in St. Clair County. Others are from places like Pompeii, Italy. His art is known, appreciated, enjoyed and sold at well known top-shelf art exhibits throughout the country, in places like Charleston, S.C., and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He also does commissioned pieces and displays and sells his art at The Little House on Linden Gallery in Homewood, Ala.

With all his fame and success, Lonergan is living proof that the acorn doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Today he is still teaching classes at Alabama Art Supply in Birmingham. Many, like Mrs. Gene Stallings, have had and still have the opportunity to be taught by the boy from the mill village of Pell City who grew to become a nationally renowned artist.

Career blossoms for Spradley

Coincidentally, while Lonergan was beginning to arrive at his desired professional destination, Wayne Spradley, his childhood friend from the mill village, was traveling a very similar track. At that time, Spradley, who was a few years older than John, had already begun to make his first marks, as well as his first dollars, as a professional artist.

Like Lonergan, he also was a product of both the hard working, close-knit people of the mill village and the influence of Avondale Mills Elementary School and then Pell City High School. He, too, had been privy to the school system that not only afforded a great educational opportunity, but one that nurtured and encouraged a strong interest in the arts.

He was the first from his family to receive a high school diploma. “Looking back to my first school experience, I’m not sure how I made it,” he said. “When it was time to start kindergarten, I didn’t want to go. My mother literally had to drag me into school and even resort to sometimes whipping me up the steps of the school. I don’t know why I was like that. I just had no interest in being there,” he remembered.

Apparently a precocious child, Spradley said that because he was always into something, his mother wasn’t surprised when she was called and told to come to the school. “She wondered what I had done this time,” he said. “And, when she got there, the real surprise was that I had not caused trouble, but that I had sculpted a bird’s nest from clay that caused everyone to marvel at my supposed talent. I do have to admit I enjoyed the attention my creativity had stirred.“

During his fifth-grade year, Wayne was called to the blackboard by his teacher, Mrs. Bryant. His instructions were to draw a president. To his and everyone else’s astonishment, he drew the perfect likeness of George Washington.

“Until that point I knew I liked to color, to sketch and mess around with art, but I never thought about whether or not I had any talent or desire in that direction,” he said. “But that’s where the teachers and my principal, Miss Iola Roberts, came in. They recognized my talent, and they did everything they could do to bring it to the forefront.”

From the sixth- through the eighth-grades, Miss Roberts would allow Spradley and some of his other talented friends to forego class so they could prepare stage sets for the Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween extravaganzas that would be presented to the whole mill village. “In February, we would begin work on Miss Roberts’ famous Inspection Plays that would be held for the community prior to the end of the school year,” he said. “Even though I was excused from class, I still had to keep up with my school lessons. But the lessons I learned about artistic creativity were invaluable to my life’s work.”

Spradley met his first real art teacher, Mrs. Armstrong, in the sixth-grade. She had just graduated from Auburn University, was really into art and could see the talent he possessed. “She would take me during study period, tell me to go outside and sketch, and then we’d talk about my work,” he said. “That was really helpful in my artistic growth. I loved helpful criticism then and I always have.”

During his seventh-grade year, a teacher asked Spradley what he was going to do when he grew up. He answered that he was going to play football, be a sailor and an artist. “She got mad at me because all she wanted me to do was be an artist,” he laughingly remembered.

True to his word, Spradley did all three. He was captain of the Pell City High School football team, he traveled the world in the Navy, and then he returned to Pell City, where he said he couldn’t buy a job. But the mill that always had been the mainstay of his family’s existence, didn’t let him down and once again provided a way for him to make ends meet.

While he was in the Navy, Spradley said, he achieved three things that were life-changing events. “I got an education in life, met and married Pat, my wonderful wife, and had time to paint and develop my artistic desires. I painted, sketched and continued to draw. I knew it was in my heart and soul, and that’s what I wanted to do for a living,” he stated.

Finally at age 28, Spradley got really serious about his artwork, and thanks to the advice and direction of Mrs. Dorothy Mays, who had graduated from the Pratt Institute of Art, he used his GI bill to study three years at the Drawing Board School of Art. It was during his first year of art school that he discovered he could make money doing what he loved. He entered five pieces of art in the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Art Show, sold them all very quickly and made $25. Spradley said he was so thrilled by his success he told his wife that they were going to take the opportunity of selling his art as far as it would go. That day was the truly the beginning of his professional art career. No longer did he just hope that one day he could do it. The journey had begun, and he was resolute in his decision to make it a life time career.

And make it he did. Invited to the country’s biggest art shows, Spradley has sold hundreds of pieces of his art, received awards too numerous to mention, and gotten to know people like Katie Couric, who commissioned him to paint her ancestral home in Eufaula, Ala. Presidents Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan have all been recipients of his work.

His loving and supporting wife not long ago passed away. During her sickness, he was not able to paint as much or travel to the shows he loved. “I miss her terribly,” he said. “She was with me every step of my way and she always will be. The best thing I can do to honor her and all of her support is to get busy doing what we loved, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ve already started, and hopefully, I won’t quit till my last breath. She may not be beside me, but now I have an angel on my shoulder.”

Both men are amazing; both true to the gifts they have been given; both still teaching and encouraging others as they were taught and encouraged.

Neither have ever forgotten their St. Clair county roots, steeped in the mill village, the friendships they forged and the teachers who put them on their paths. Both know that the teachers who recognized their talents, gave them their first accolades and always said “yes you can” were the ones who started them on the paths to the successful highways they still travel.

• Both men are still St. Clair County residents

where they are active in their hometown.

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Wadsworth Farm

[Show as slideshow]

A family tradition
100 years in the making

By Carol Pappas
Photo by Jerry Martin

Born and raised near a town now under the waters of Logan Martin Lake, Mike Wadsworth went out to make his way in the world as a commercial artist. But the family farm eventually drew him back, continuing a legacy that has been 100 years in the making.

Wadsworth Farm, in the same family for 100 years, reached a milestone in 2011, earning both Heritage Farm and Century Farm designations from the State of Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.

Located just off US 231, south of Pell City, Wadsworth Farm is a remnant of an era gone by in an area known as Easonville before the Coosa River was dammed to create Logan Martin Lake in 1965. Most of what remains of the town now lies underneath Logan Martin, including part of the old highway.

As a boy growing up there, Wadsworth said, the family farm was surrounded by other farms — low-lying pasture land that enabled him to see all the way to present-day Voncile Lane, a road off Alabama 34 several miles away.

The farm started as a peach orchard in 1911 by his grandfather, William Lee Wadsworth. He and Wadsworth’s grandmother, Ella Ritch Wadsworth, had all their children in the house, and as the years passed, the family clan thrived.

It was more than a half century earlier that the original Wadsworth family first settled the area around Treasure Island on the Coosa River. Some were tanners and trappers, and they traveled the Coosa all the way to Wetumpka, trapping along the way and selling their pelts.

The story goes, said the modern day Wadsworth, that on one trip, the dealer would not pay what the group thought the pelts were worth. They pooled their money and could only buy one train ticket. One man returned home on the train with the pelts while the rest of the group walked back to Easonville from Wetumpka.

Another story handed down is the purchase of the first “store bought” match, when his grandfather sent for the children to witness a match struck for the first time.

It was a time when his grandfather and a great uncle operated two syrup mills, and 630 gallons of syrup could buy his great uncle, George Ritch, a brand-new, 1930 Chevrolet.

Wadsworth also recounted hard times, where families knew they could “always go see Mr. Lee” for the basics, like corn, syrup and eggs. “It’s hard to believe people lived on that,” his wife, Jeanette, said. But they were able to get their iron and protein in those basics from ‘Mr. Lee.’

Excess milk from their cows was sold to local stores and to the Southside Birmingham landmark, Waites Bakery.

Today, the Wadsworth place earns a different kind of fame near and far as a blueberry farm, where thousands of gallons of blueberries are picked each year. Originally an 80-acre piece of property, it has grown to more than 330 acres under his and his father’s time as owners.

The Wadsworths have been operating the farm as a ‘U Pick, We Pick’ farm since their first planting in 1987, and it goes by an honor system, where people from all over come to pick this seasonal favorite and take it with them. The only thing they leave behind is the payment — in an “honor box.”

The farm has done quite well under the Wadsworths’ careful nurturing and continues to grow in numbers of plants and types of blueberries.

Wadsworth didn’t set out to be a successful farmer. In early adulthood, he pursued a career in art — a gift for drawing and painting he shared with his mother.

Wadsworth graduated from art school in Birmingham and did architectural illustrations for more than 10 years. “I thought there must be a better way to make a living,” Wadsworth said. So when the Wadsworths visited a blueberry picking farm in Golden Springs, an idea that was new and expensive in the South, “I thought it was pretty neat.” The Wadsworths decided to turn part of the acreage into a blueberry farm, and they became involved with a group in Clay County. They learned the intricacies of what to do through Auburn University’s small fruits program. “I learned real quick they need a lot of water,” Wadsworth said. But as his crop grew, so did his knowledge, and he and his wife became active well beyond their Easonville farm. Wadsworth served as president of the Alabama Blueberry Association, and Mrs. Wadsworth served on the Gulf South Blueberry Board as the U Pick representative.

Back home at the farm this season, they raised a bumper crop of almost 6,500 pounds of blueberries and more than 1,000 gallons picked from their 3,200 bushes.

People have come from all over the country to pick Wadsworth blueberries. “We have met a lot of interesting people,” he said, noting one friendship he struck with “an author, geologist and archeologist all rolled into one. He has been all over the world working with oil companies.”

And as another season came to a close this summer, the Wadsworths looked back on 100 years as a family farm while looking ahead to a fourth generation continuing the legacy begun a century ago.

The way Wadsworth looks at it, “I only have the land for a short time, and I want to leave it in better condition than when I received it — better with my timber, better conservation practices.”

When he hands the land to his children he hopes they will heed their parents’ teachings about the land. “We have tried to instill good conservation and heritage values in them. Hopefully, the land will go down through generations and not into subdivisions.

“People move out in the country, and then the subdivisions come, and there’s no more country.”

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