A Place to Call Home
For this busy family, Southaven has all the right assets.
Marilyn Sadler It’s a frigid February afternoon, but inside the spacious home of Billy and Cathy Fields, a fire blazes in the den and friendly talk warms the room as the couple recalls what drew them to Southaven. “It’s a great place for families and we have always felt at home here,” says Cathy. Cathy had grown up in Tunica, lived for awhile in Walls, then moved to Southaven while working for a printing company in Memphis. Billy had grown up near Birmingham, and the couple met in 1996
while each was on vacation in Gulf Shores. After a year of long-distance romance, Billy moved to the Bartlett area because his dad lived there. His job, however, with Cougar Chemical was located on Getwell Road in Memphis. “You can’t get to Getwell from Bartlett!” he says with a boyish grin. “I had to figure out a better route. Southaven was the easy thing to do.” In 1998, within a year after Billy’s move to Southaven, the couple married and purchased their first house that May in the Southern Trace development. In 2004 they discovered a new subdivision, Lakes of Nicholas, which struck just the right chord. “I grew up in the country,” says Cathy, “and this felt like country,” especially the cove on which the Fields now live, which backs up to a pond full of frogs and fish. “That was free entertainment for the kids,” says Billy, speaking of their blended family of three children, now ages 25, 20, and 15. They bought the house, which is now about 3,200 square feet, with five 22
bedrooms, a weight room, a playroom, and swimming pool. Close proximity to Cougar Chemical — a 45-year-old company that manufactures and sells cleaning equipment and supplies to car dealerships in Memphis, Nashville, and Little Rock — certainly mattered to Billy, especially after he bought the business in 2011 after its owner died in 2008. But that’s not all that sold the couple on Southaven. “I looked at other areas including Olive Branch and Horn Lake,” says Billy. “But Southaven’s location and roads were more appealing.” Also important to Billy were the town’s demographics. “I didn’t want to live where I was the poorest guy in the neighborhood or the richest,” he says. “And I didn’t want to be the youngest or the oldest. Somewhere in the middle. This fit the bill.” Perhaps most important were the athletic opportunities — and the residents themselves. “I coached ball when I lived in Birmingham,” Billy explains. “And I’m in