Unusual Art

A great inspiration

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Matthew Pope
Past photos courtesy of Jamie Truitt

Perhaps it’s the honk of a car horn accompanied by a neighborly wave and a smiling face behind the wheel. Perhaps it’s a stranger’s knock at the door to say, “Thank you.” Or the note tucked inside the ear of a bunny rabbit fashioned from hay, spray paint and water noodles.

Whatever the motivation, the seasonal work of art using a hay bale as the canvas on U.S. 231 South in Cropwell has become a source of inspiration — not only for those passing by, but for the artist herself.

The tradition began three years ago, when Jamie Truitt’s mother moved into her Cropwell home with husband Don. The wide-open field out front, facing the heavily traveled U.S. 231, seemed the perfect spot for a decorated hay bale, traditionally a fall custom.

“I always wanted a hay bale decorated,” said Ann Arnett. She asked her artistic daughter if she could decorate it. “She took off with that.”

The first was at Halloween, and it was not planned beyond that. But the reaction from people was so great, it continued. Christmas, Easter, back to school, Jamie’s daughter Katie-Ann’s birthday and, of course, the holiday that started it all — Halloween — all find thousands of passersby turning their heads toward the open field. And their smiles aren’t far behind.

The creativity behind it starts with a simple pencil sketch. By the end, water noodles become ears for an Easter bunny or birthday candles on a cupcake. Landscaping fabric turns into the wings of a giant bat. Chicken wire and mesh become the tools of her work.

Pumpkins, a spider, a Christmas present, a clown and countless other ideas go from paper to straw courtesy of imagination, artistic ability and a generous gift of the hay bale itself from Jacob Mitchell.

“Tons of spray paint” transform her hay bale canvas into whimsical works of art and a gift to strangers and neighbors passing by each day.

“People have stopped,” Jamie said. “They get out of their car and walk over. They say it makes them smile. It brightens up their dreary ride going to work.”

Two little boys whose mother is a friend of Jamie’s were overheard betting on what the next hay bale would include. One predicted a smiley face. Imagine the excitement of those little boys on their ride to school when that smiley face actually appeared.

Stories of that hay bale and its impact abound. One passerby left a note saying they were very thankful for her doing it. “They were going through a rough situation, passed by (and spotted the Easter bunny), and it elevated their mood.”

People have left donations, had their photo made there or pulled up just to say thank you.

“I’ve seen parents and kids pictures with it on Facebook,” Jamie said. One person even offered her a job doing a portrait.

But when times grew tough for Jamie, who was hospitalized for eight weeks, the familiar source of inspiration faded, much to the disappointment of her growing community of followers. Suddenly, it appeared decorated one day as a rainbow with a sign and a simple message, “Praying for Ms. Jamie.”

It was the handiwork of neighbors Jeannette and Anthony Harmon.

“I just cried over that one,” Arnett said. They took a picture of it, made a copy and taped it up in Jamie’s hospital room.

It became a symbol of inspiration to her, brightening what had become an especially bad day for her. And the inspiration to get better continued. As she moved from hospital to hospital, the constant was that picture and the sentiment behind it.

After her recovery, when people met her and realized she was the source of the hay bale and the prayers, they would tell her, “You’re the Ms. Jamie we’ve been praying for!” Or, “Because of that hay bale, you’re on our prayer list.”

For Jamie, the hay bale is a reciprocal gift.

“It is good to have a reason to do the hay bale. It’s more our pleasure of doing it. Being sick, it gives me an area to focus on other than my health problems. In the way it brightens their day, their comments brighten my day back.”

And the smiles it inevitably evokes simply add to the magic of the gift.

Just ask Katie-Ann: “It’s all good.”

Lofty Tales

Alabama’s ‘First Lady’ of flight

Story by Jerry Smith
Submitted photos

In 1929, a 9-year-old Birmingham girl named Nancy Batson had a special Christmas wish. She wanted a flight suit, pilot helmet and goggles. The eventual fulfillment of this young lady’s dream of becoming a pilot set a pattern for a lifetime of excitement and service to country, starting during an era when women were expected to have vastly different aspirations.

Born in 1920 to an affluent family in the old Norwood district of Birmingham, Nancy fell in love with aviation at an age when most little girls were still playing with dolls. As a 7-year-old, her parents took her to watch Charles Lindbergh as he walked from a car into Boutwell Auditorium. Nancy was enthralled.

According to Sarah Byrn Rickman in her book, Nancy Batson Crews—Alabama’s First Lady of Flight, Nancy loved to pretend her bicycle was a biplane, imagining it to have wings. Her favorite clothes were jodhpurs, jacket, boots, and a white silk scarf, as worn by all serious aviators of that day. Clearly, Nancy Batson was born to fly, and everyone knew it, including her parents.

She attended Norwood Elementary, spent her summers at St. Clair’s Camp Winnataska and graduated from Ramsay High School in 1937. Afterward, she attended the University of Alabama, where, in her own words, she “…majored in Southern Belle.” George C. Wallace was a classmate and dance partner. While at UA, she also met Paul Crews, the man whom she would marry several years later.

At the university, she became involved in the Civilian Pilot Training Program. Nancy soloed on March 20, 1940, got her private pilot’s license about three months later and began an aviation career that would earn her a place among the Greatest Generation.

Her father bought her a used Piper J-4 Cub Coupe for about $1,200, instead of another, cheaper J-3 they had looked at which was in really poor condition. In Nancy’s words, “I didn’t ask for that plane. … Daddy decided that that was the airplane he was going to buy me. … I’m 20 years old and a senior in college. Other girls had automobiles. I had an airplane.”

After graduation, Nancy spent a lot of time around Birmingham Airport and joined the newly-formed Civil Air Patrol in 1941. All the while she was flying at every opportunity, building up logbook hours for the future. She got her commercial license in 1942 and began charging people a dollar apiece for rides in her J-4.

After being refused an instructor’s job in a local flight school because she was a woman, Nancy went to Miami and took a job as an airport control tower operator, but quickly became bored with it. She then got an instructor job at Miami’s Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Institute, where she trained Army Air Corps flying cadets. But Nancy wanted to do bigger things with her life.

She heard that a new wartime ferrying operation was being formed that had a women’s squadron. They flew brand-new airplanes from factories all over the country to seaports to be loaded onto ships for the war overseas.

In true Nancy-Batson fashion, she didn’t even wait for a confirmation. She just boarded a train for the group’s headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and presented herself to Nancy Love, the squadron’s leader. In Rickman’s words, “Nancy Love watched as a tall, very attractive blonde — dressed in a stylish brown herringbone suit, small matching hat, and brown leather, high-heel pumps — entered her office.”

Within minutes, Love had gotten Nancy accepted and set her up for a physical and flight test the next morning. She easily aced both tests and became a member of WAFS, Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. Since WAFS was not officially a part of the U.S. military, Love had her girls fitted for uniforms she’d designed herself, although each had to pay for her own.

At first, they ferried PT19 primary trainers and Piper Cubs to training bases. Eventually, the WAFS transitioned to more sophisticated combat aircraft, flying everything from bombers to the mighty P-51 Mustang, the most fearsome fighter plane ever built. There was a name change, too. WAFS became part of WASP, Women Air Force Service Pilots, complete with new blue uniforms.

Most warplanes were designed around male pilots, but the WASP ladies substituted determination for brute strength and made any adjustments necessary to complete their missions. One really petite WASP had a set of wooden blocks made so her feet could reach the rudder pedals.

Several WASPs were lost to training and ferrying accidents, and many more had close calls, including Nancy. She once spent a chilling two hours trying to force a balky nosewheel down on a Lockheed P-38 Lightning that also had engine trouble.

Most planes flown by WASPs were brand new from the factory, their first flight test being the ferry journey itself. These valiant ladies had to deal with really scary, sometimes life-threatening problems on a regular basis.

According to Rickman, there was no such thing as a schedule. They flew whatever needed flying to wherever it needed to go, often coast-to-coast. There was a war on, and thousands of planes were being built very quickly. Nancy learned and mastered more than 22 military aircraft types, many of them high-performance fighters with more than 2,000 horsepower. One of her advanced instructors was a future U.S. senator, Barry Goldwater.

In spite of all they had done for the war effort, the government still insisted WAFS/WASP was not military and refused any and all benefits, such as insurance, death benefits, hospitalization, pensions, etc. In fact, they were not even accorded an American flag for their casket if they died while serving. Many a bitter Congressional battle was fought over these issues, but WASP remained disenfranchised for the duration of the war. When all was said and done, they were simply told to go home, as if their valiant service had never existed.

Just after a farewell party on their final night on the base, the Officers Club caught fire. They had spent many off-duty hours there during their 27 months of service to WASP. Rickman tells what happened next: “Nancy Batson watched the building go down in flames. She wondered if she was watching her future burn with it. Her passion — her need to fly those hot airplanes — would have to be channeled elsewhere. … A modern-day Scarlett O’Hara, a heroine of a different war and a different time in history, Nancy would think about her future later — when she got home to Alabama.” “Let it burn,” she hollered, and added a rebel yell. “Let it burn!”

Once home, Nancy languished in relatively tame pursuits for a while, not even wanting to fly. She became particularly desolate when a close friend who was serving in China was killed in action while flying his four-engine transport over the “Hump” in Burma (now known as Myanmar).

In 1946, Nancy’s college friend, Paul Crews came home from the war, and they were quietly married in the Batson home. Paul and Nancy lived in several places over the next 15 years. When the Korean War started, Paul, a reservist, went back into service in Gen. Hap Arnold’s brand-new U.S. Air Force. They lived at Warner Robbins airbase in Georgia, then Washington D.C., and finally settled in Anaheim, California, near Disneyland. The Crews also started their family — two sons and a daughter.

Not long after arriving in California, Paul quit the Air Force and joined his former general at Northrop Aviation. Nancy, meanwhile, had not flown a plane in more than 10 years, but after attending a WASP reunion, she found a renewed interest in flying. Finally, after taking a joy ride at Palm Springs Airport, she was reborn as a pilot.

Quoting Rickman: “Though she was a typical 1950s stay-at-home mom when the boys were young, by 1960 that homemaker mantle no longer sat well on her shoulders. Inside, she was still a pursuit pilot. … Her temporarily dormant inner drive was returning. … Nancy knew she was cut out for something more than a domestic life and prowess on the golf course.”

Flying high … again

Once restarted, she pursued her new flying career with a passion. Nancy already had 1,224 hours in her logbook from ferrying military aircraft. She quickly re-earned her elapsed private pilot’s license at a local airport. While building airtime toward advanced ratings, she also flew as copilot in the Powder Puff Derby, a cross-country air race for female pilots. By the end of 1965, she had updated her commercial and certified-flight-instructor ratings. While working as an instructor at Hawthorne Airport, she gave her 14-year-old son Radford his first flying lessons. After returning home later from Vietnam, Rad went on to become a successful commercial pilot.

Paul’s health began to fail during these years, so he took a lesser job at Northrop and began helping Nancy further her own flying career. In 1969, Nancy and Paul bought a new Piper Super-Cub, and she began using it to tow gliders into the air, often as many as 60 a day. “It worked out great,” Nancy said. “I was back in a tail dragger (aircraft with tail wheel instead of nose wheel), and I was in hog heaven.” She flew this plane solo in the 1969 Powder Puff Derby, which ended in Washington D.C. The flyers were invited to the White House to meet the Nixons. While in California, she also mastered glider-flying in her new Schweizer sailplane, often being towed into the air by her own Super Cub.

In 1977, Paul succumbed to complications of diabetes. By 1981, due to a bewildering chain of events and heartaches much too complex to delineate here, Nancy found herself back home in Alabama. Rickman relates, “For Nancy, the move meant starting over. … She was sixty-one years old. … The Alabama she returned to was nothing like the Alabama she had left in 1950. Nancy began to rebuild her life.”

Rebuilding life in Odenville

The Batson family owned a huge tract of farmland near Odenville that had lain idle for many years. Nancy had driven her RV back home to Alabama, crammed with everything she wanted to keep from California. She lived in the RV next to the farmhouse where she and Paul had first lived as a couple, while trying to figure out the best usage of their land.

Nancy joined a real estate firm and got her license. A few of their land holdings were sold to local people so Nancy could concentrate on a huge 80-acre tract that was the main part of their estate left by the death of her parents. She sold her beloved Super Cub to raise enough money to buy out the other heirs, then bought a partly-finished garage structure in foreclosure, right at the edge of the estate property. She moved her RV there while this building was being finished.

After moving into her new home, Nancy sold the RV and began a period of hot-plate and microwave austerity as she worked on what would become her crowning achievement, Lake Country Estates. Using local laborers and craftsmen, she developed one lot at a time. By 1992, Lake Country Estates was thriving.

She dabbled a bit in aviation, hung out with pilot friends and the Birmingham Aero Club and served on the St. Clair Airport Authority. She loved to hangar-bum, and occasionally visited the Four Seasons ultralight flying field at Cool Springs, where this writer first met her. (To my shame, I was still a kid at age 40, and wasted too much valuable time flying my plane rather than chatting with this remarkable lady. And now, some 30 years later, I find myself trying hard to compose a fitting story that could have been mine for the asking back then).

Pilot Ed Stringfellow tells of the time Nancy visited his hangar at Pell City Airport. She had used building materials from Ed’s Mid-South Lumber Company for some of her Estate houses. Shortly after dark, he invited her to go flying with him in his AT-6 trainer, a big, beefy tandem-seater with a powerful radial engine. Ed said, “Here she was, in her late 60s, and hadn’t flown a T-6 since the 1940s, yet she flew loops and other precision maneuvers, in moonlight no less, like she had just done it the day before.” Stringfellow also related a story from the old days, when a future premier Alabama aviator named Joe Shannon was stationed with the Army Air Corps at Key Field in Meridian, Miss.

Nancy had landed there in a twin-engine A-20 bomber she was ferrying to Savannah that needed a few essential repairs. Both Shannon and a mechanic were dazzled when a beautiful, long-haired blonde climbed down from the cockpit. After checking out her plane, Shannon asked the mechanic how long repairs would take. “Depends,“ he replied, “how long do you want her to stay here?”
A lasting legacy

Jim Griffin, director of Southern Museum of Flight, first met Nancy at Pell City Airport.

He had noticed a landing light way off in the distance, heading straight for the airport. This was unusual because the weather was practically unflyable due to high, gusting winds that had grounded everyone else. As the plane got closer, he watched as treacherous gusts threw it all over the sky, its pilot struggling to maintain control.

Despite vicious crosswinds, the Super Cub touched down perfectly, first on one main wheel, then both, exactly as one should land a tail dragger in such conditions. He was amazed when a 60-something lady pilot climbed out of the cockpit. When he praised her great landing under such awful conditions, she replied, “Aw, it wasn’t all that bad.”

Former Pell City Mayor and Judge Bill Hereford remembers Nancy as highly intelligent, yet easy to talk with and full of determination in everything she did. “One of the first things you noticed about Nancy Crews was her steely-gray eyes. They looked right at you and understood everything they saw, and yet she was never intimidating — just an honest, dynamic lady who always knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish.”

Christine Beal-Kaplan, herself a veteran pilot and aircraft mechanic, was one of Nancy’s best friends in St. Clair County. She once drove through Lake Country Estates while telling of some of their adventures while she was helping Nancy put that project together. Although 79 years old, Nancy flew more than 80 hours as co-pilot with Chris on some of her charter runs in a Beechcraft King-Air.

Sadly, Chris passed away recently, taking with her a vast store of anecdotes and memories of Nancy.

On January 14, 2000, Nancy Batson Crews fell into a coma after months of battling cancer and slipped peacefully away at age 80. In Mrs. Rickman’s book, son Paul Crews Jr. said, “She wanted to die in her sleep, and be worth a million dollars. …By the time she died — in her own bed — she was worth more than a million when you figure the land value.” She had indeed fulfilled her own prophecy.

Stringfellow recalls that he and some other pilots were supposed to perform a low, missing-man fly-over pass in Piper Cubs as Nancy was being laid to rest at Elmwood Cemetery, but the fog was almost to ground level, making the flight impossible. However, a huge airliner passed overhead at precisely the right time, making her graveside service complete.

Nancy was inducted into the prestigious Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Birmingham’s Southern Museum of Flight has a display case full of her belongings and memorabilia. Museum director Jim Griffin is particularly proud of that memorial, having known her personally. Nancy had accumulated more than 4,000 hours of flight time in her logbook, which is on display at the museum.

But, perhaps most fitting, wherever vintage pilots or Odenville folks gather to reminisce, sooner or later Nancy Batson Crews’ name will be spoken.

For lots more photos of this amazing woman and her flying career, check out the Discover 2013-January 2014 print and digital edition of Discover St. Clair Magazine.

Phoenix Energy

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Leading the Way in emerging industry

By Carol Pappas
Photos by Wallace Bromberg Jr.

Give Matt Hyde a few minutes, and he’ll likely convert you to the positives of alternative energy as easily as his company converts cars and trucks into using natural gas.

It’s not just a job to him. It’s his passion. “It makes it easier when you love what you do,” he said, just days after Phoenix Energy cut the ribbon on its new home in Pell City. An Alabama leader in converting vehicles to run on compressed natural gas, the company moved its headquarters and 13 employees from Jefferson County to St. Clair with an eye toward the future.

St. Clair Economic Development Council officials “were there from step one. They really wanted us to come. They were a great liaison,” he said.

“Phoenix Energy, as a leader in the alternative fuel industry, is a company with great growth potential,” according to Jason Roberts, Project Manager for the EDC. “We are happy to have them as part of St. Clair County’s industrial community.”

Now settled into its 14,400-square-foot building on Lewis Lake Road, Phoenix Energy is moving toward that growth potential. As Hyde, the company’s operations director, points out, at $2 a gallon, “every time you fill up, it’s a return on your investment.”

Phoenix Energy was created in 2004, and it has come a long way in a short time. Hyde’s father, Ken, became majority owner of the company after he retired from Alabama Gas Co. It was a natural fit. He had been working with Alabama Gas’ fleet of natural gas vehicles since 1978.

Today, Phoenix has grown from two employees to 13 and works with customers throughout the Southeast, converting vehicles to compressed natural gas usage.

The up-front cost to convert a vehicle is between $6,000 and $12,000, depending on driving habits. Over a 10-year period, he estimated the savings in gasoline and oil changes alone can amount to $40,000. On top of savings, it is cleaner energy, so the vehicle lasts longer, and the resale value is better, he said.

The barriers to growth of this emerging industry are convenience — there are only seven natural gas fueling stations in Alabama, for instance — and getting companies comfortable with the idea. Frito Lay and Waste Management are two of the more recognizable names who are not only comfortable with the concept of using compressed natural gas as their fuel source, they have embraced it.

This past summer, Frito Lay opened its first compressed natural gas refueling station in Wisconsin and is expected to build seven others across the country. In a statement from the company about the fleet conversion, Frito Lay officials said its 208 compressed natural gas vehicles will translate into the elimination of 7,863 metric tons of carbon emissions, which is equal to 1,125 cars annually. It is a viable alternative for other fleets of large companies, municipalities and school districts. But refueling stations are needed along major corridors so that they can have access to natural gas, Hyde said.

Phoenix will have its own refueling station open to the public within the next year, Hyde said. “It’s a logical fuel source for America right now. It’s abundant, and it’s cheap.”

America imports $1.7 billion a day worth of petroleum. By his figures, America could have paid off the national debt in seven years by converting to natural gas as an alternative fuel.

The natural gas cylinder can be mounted in the bed of a pick-up truck, under its rear frame or in the trunk of a car. A “brain box” is located in the engine that tells which fuel is in the fuel tank — gas or natural gas — and it can switch between fuels without interruption.

Personal compressor units are available at an investment of $4,900 to $7,100, so the user can refuel at home as well.

When he sits in traffic, his own truck converted to natural gas, “I feel like I’m doing my part — doing something good for my country. I have the power to do something good for this country, and it’s natural gas,” he said.

“It functions like gas. It’s 85 percent cleaner for the environment, and you’re saving money. It’s a win-win.”

While it will take time for universal acceptance, Hyde likens it to another automobile visionary. “Henry Ford didn’t build the first car based on gas stations.”

Leverton Brothers

Band topping the charts

Story by Carolyn Stern
Photos by Michael Callahan

The Leverton Brothers Band hardly had time to pack up their instruments between shows in the past few months. This local group is gaining recognition all over the county and beyond, and Benny (Benjammin) and Randy Leverton are realizing a lifetime dream.

More proof of “breaking out,” comes from the popularity of their single, “Polecat Holler.” It recently hit Number 1 on the Indie World Country Chart. The “holler” is an actual spot located between Gadsden and Guntersville. Bill Moon, who knows a lot about that area, wrote the lyrics, and band members came up with the music.

This recognition builds on the popularity of last year’s hit, “Take Me Back to Alabam’” written by Randy and Letha Leverton.

Brothers Benny and Randy are the founders of the band. Both have been musicians most of their lives. “I started playing guitar when I was 10 years old,” Benny says, “and I’ve been playing and writing songs for more than 30 years.”

Randy, who mans the drums and sings, has taken very much the same course. “Each of us played with different groups for a while,” he says, “then we got together and picked up other members along the way.”

Managing to keep their day jobs, the brothers grew their audience by performing as much as possible. Randy has owned RTL Printing and Signs in Pell City for 20 years, coincidentally, the band’s direct source for its t-shirts and CD covers. Benny is retired from CenturyLink Telecommunications. They split the band’s business between Randy’s Studio 1 in Cropwell, where the recording is done on Benny’s Benjammin’ label.

The band’s song list covers blues, country, rock and soul. Much of the music they play is written by one or more of the band members.

Talent binds the present crew. Benny’s wife, Paula, says, “Sometimes we sit in the studio and toss stuff back and forth. Somebody comes up with a tune, somebody else throws in some words.” She joined the band in 1990, plays percussion, sings and writes songs. She also has a day job as Executive Assistant-Nursing Administration at St. Vincent’s St. Clair.

Barry McNair, a classically-trained pianist is on keyboard. He began playing piano when he was five. His day job is teaching electronics for the Etowah County Board of Education. Barry moves between electronics and music with the ease of a man who enjoys both.

J.J. Jackson says he “hit the road in his teen years and has been wandering ever since.” He’s played bass guitar in a number of bands. “My favorite was the Crimson Tide band in the ‘70s.” It had nothing to do with the University of Alabama, he adds.

Phil Harris, acoustic rhythm guitar, is a seasoned songwriter who’s been performing for 20 years. Recently, he recorded “11 o’clock” and “Where Have All the Heroes Gone” at Studio 1.

Whether performing in front of a crowd or jammin’ together, there’s no stopping the music from flowing. As Benny puts it, “We just write about life, and we just love music.”

On a Mission

Christy Minor follows in her grandparents’ footsteps

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Michael Callahan
Submitted photos by Christy Minor

It’s a legacy of mission work that has taken Christy Church Minor halfway around the world and back again — six times. But it’s a calling to a continent she seems to have been destined to fulfill.

Her grandparents Clyde and Anneli Dotson were missionaries in Africa for 40 years. Her mother, Margaret, grew up as the daughter of those missionary parents in Rhodesia. And although Minor is a judge’s wife, a mother of two and an elementary school librarian in Pell City, Alabama, Africa has become a place that beckons her every summer.

Fresh from a mission trip to Swaziland, a tiny country in South Africa, Minor shares her experience from the comfort of Coosa Valley Elementary’s library, surrounded by Pell City children eager to hear her story about this faraway land.

A month earlier, she was wrapped nearly head to toe with the warmest clothes she could find. It’s winter there while Alabama children swelter in the heat of the summer sun. As a member of the Pell City First Baptist Church mission team, her work at an orphanage in Bulembu was getting its library in order in a building with no heat.

By the end of the week, neat shelves packed with books in orderly fashion replaced the titanic piles of books strewn about the floor that Minor had encountered upon arrival. She went through them all, discarding what wasn’t needed or was out of date and then transformed it into a real, usable library. “They were very happy to have a librarian,” she notes.

And just like she does on a regular basis at Coosa Valley, she would read to the children of Bulembu. Their favorite, just like back home, was “No, David!” And as Minor recounts to the Coosa Valley children about sharing the children’s book with their counterparts a world away, the look of familiarity is evident in their faces.

While where she was in Bulembu was an orphanage, careful attention is given to avoid the stigma of children with no family. They live in individual homes with “aunties” caring for them. She lived in one of the nearby homes, visiting the children each afternoon after school and working with them. She , too, became known as “Auntie Christy,” she tells her students in the best South African accent she can muster.

But by the end of the week, when the Bulembu children would see her on the playground, they reminded her of the joy they found in what they learned from the book she had shared. If imitation is the best form of flattery, they certainly discovered it. They would smile, hold up a single finger and say, “No, David!” to her as she passed.

Bulembu is actually a real-life lesson to be learned in and of itself. It was a deserted mining town bought by the not-for-profit Bulembu Ministries Swaziland just seven years ago. Swaziland fell victim to the AIDS pandemic and has the highest incidence in the world of this deadly disease. As a result, thousands of children have been left orphaned.

Bulembu, in which Global Teen Challenge plays a major role, was created with a vision to make it self-sustaining to give those children a chance to rise above the abject poverty that has controlled their region for generations. And it’s working. It is now 30 percent self-sustainable through a dairy operation, bottling honey, a bakery, a water bottling plant and timber sales.

“It is very encouraging,” Minor says. Teachers come from all over the world. “They said, ‘We just came here for a few months’ ” and seven years later, they’re still there.” She is convinced in seeing firsthand what goes on there — a challenging curriculum, medical care, love and guidance — “they will be the future leaders of the country.”

Because of this ministry, the benefits and accommodations were not what she had come to expect from previous trips. “I am used to going to remote, really destitute areas” — places where Malaria reigns and swollen bellies from malnutrition are the norm. But in Bulembu, “It was truly a trip of hope to see what can happen when God’s people come together to help children.”

It also made her see that she is needed elsewhere, in places where the visitors aren’t as numerous nor the opportunities as plentiful.

She wants to go back to those remote areas “where they need medical attention and where they have never heard the word of Jesus Christ.” That is her calling, she says, just like her grandparents before her.

Just after Minor returned to Alabama, her grandmother was to give a talk about missionary work at her Oxford church and asked her granddaughter to share her experience as well. “She was able to share about what was happening 50 years ago, and I shared what was happening five days ago.”

To them, it is a legacy of love and compassion that lives on. “I have always felt called to the continent of Africa,” Minor says, her eyes reflecting an unmistakable longing to return.

For her, it is an obvious conclusion. “My heart is intertwined.”

The Cane Makers

A stick and a knife are tools of their trade

Story by Tina Tidmore
Photos by Michael Callahan

Walking stick, cane, hiking pole and pilgrim’s staff: just a few of the terms that refer to the humble weight-supporter often associated with disability, the elderly and ancient Biblical characters walking through a desert. At least two St. Clair County woodworkers add creativity to the sticks they find in the woods, giving them eye-appeal in addition to a practical use.

Marvin Little, a retired insurance adjuster, takes a simple approach in his creations. His focus is on using a variety of woods and a variety of handles. He retains the bark and enhances the natural beauty of the stick.

Little’s interest in making canes started when he moved into a new home 15 years ago. While walking through the woods, he noticed some small trees and branches that would make good walking sticks. He has learned many of his techniques through online cane-making clubs where ideas are shared.

His own sharing sparked interest from another would-be cane maker. Cook Springs resident Jackie Stevens, who retired from the banking industry, remembers her interest starting when Little regularly brought his canes to the old St. Clair Federal Savings and Loan in Pell City to show the employees.

Little tried to get her involved in the Logan Martin Woodcarvers group, but she regularly declined. Finally in 2006, “I went to a meeting and became hooked,” Stevens said. Then, with a few unprepared, seasoned sticks Little gave her, she started creating her own canes.

Using a knife, Stevens actually carves shapes and figures into the sticks, including one she worked on of two snakes this summer.

Both Little and Stevens said a love for working with wood was passed down to them in their families. “I enjoy making something with my hands,” Little said. “It’s always a challenge to make something pretty and useful out of wood.”

“I even love the smell of wood,” Stevens said.

Little’s approach is not only to provide something attractive and unique, he likes knowing he is making something with practical use that is helpful to people.

But Stevens’ focus is on adding to her personal wood-carving collection or creating artistic pieces for decoration or display. She has given some as gifts or done commissioned pieces. They are strong enough to be useful, but that’s not her main focus.

Because their canes have different primary purposes, they have different price ranges. He sells his canes at local festivals and is careful not to invest too much time or supplies into them. “You have to make something that will sell at the venue where you want to sell it,” Little said. So his price points are $18 to $28, which generally amounts to enough to cover his expenses. He’s not making any profit or even paying for his time.

Similarly, Stevens isn’t in it for the money, even though she’s sold one at $60 and others up to $400. She started her cane-carving while seeking a stress-reliever. “My shop is the only place that I can completely lose myself with no worries or fears and lose all track of time,” said Stevens. “To me, the entire process from harvesting the wood to applying the final finish is rewarding.”

But she avoids turning it into a job. “I want it to be my idea, my style, no demands,” Stevens said. “I bowed out of the real world and come into my fantasy world.”

In 2006, when Stevens first attended the Logan Martin Woodcarvers, she was the only woman. But now others are involved, and they have taken up carving dolls. “The biggest thing is the friends I’ve gained in the group,” Stevens said.

Cane-making Process

Making a walking cane starts, obviously, with the stick. Marvin Little, who lives just north of Pell City, has used sassafras, hickory, oak, bamboo, sourwood, cedar and many other species. “A lot of it I don’t know what it is because I cut it in the winter when there aren’t any leaves,” Little said.

Some are branches, but most of the walking canes started as trunks of young trees. Little often turns the root ball into the cane handle. Broken limbs lying on the ground cannot be used because they are weakened by bugs. “It has to be something that feels good in your hand,” Little said.

Both Little and Jackie Stevens say “twisties” are highly favored. They are trees that have been twisted into a cork-screw form by vines. “If I find a good twisty in the woods, I’ve got to have it,” Stevens said.

Both Little and Stevens have friends offering them sticks and other wood. “I hate to see wood discarded,” Little said.

The harvested stick must be allowed to season for a year. Then, Little cleans off loose bark. It’s at that point that he decides what he will make with that stick. Some need to be straightened using water and a clamp. Sanding and painting are next. Then he puts on the handles and adds the protective clear coat.

In addition to the joy of creating something attractive, there is the challenge of doing so within the limitations and features each piece of wood has. “The wood has to talk to me,” Stevens said in reference to what she decides to do with it.

Much of the character of a walking cane is in the handle. Little has used a variety of items to create decorative handles, including doorknobs, deer hoofs and elk horns. Even a golf ball has been turned into a cane handle.

The most unusual request Little received was to create a wood-carved human skull as a cane handle. He has been asked to do canes shaped like snakes. But he has refused. Why? Simple. “I don’t like snakes,” he said.

To be functional and stable, the top of the cane must be in the same plane as the bottom, even if the middle is twisted. Also, the height of the cane needs to come up to the person’s wrist. Shorter or longer and it will not provide the stable support needed.

A cane Stevens is most proud of is one that used material from the former Avondale Mills in St. Clair County. “I made this cane in the memory of my Big Daddy McCullough, who worked in the mill all his life,” Stevens said. As the Mill was being dismantled, she asked for some of the remnant material.

She got some wooden thread spools and a 1902 sprinkler head that she made into a cane that she treasures. “I took several of these old spools of various colors, stacked them on each other and ran a quarter–inch thread rod the length of the cane and then put the sprinkler head on top,” Stevens said.

She has agreed to have her canes included in an exhibit at Heritage Hall Museum. Little plans to be selling his canes at this fall’s Homestead Hollow.

But beyond that, they do it just for the joy found in creating a work of art with a knife and a stick.