Discover St. Clair December 2020 & January 2021

Shop Local • Polly Warren • Macedonia Baptist Church Big Game Hunting • Best of St. Clair • Cooking for the Holidays

December 2020 & January 2021

GATEWAY

Community Garden

Growing a bounty to serve others

Special Holiday Section Inside

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Features and Articles Discover

The Essence of St. Clair

Gateway Community Garden

Pell City comes together for those in need Page 34 Big Game Hunters Page 8

Traveling the Backroads

Macedonia Baptist Church Page 20

Polly Warren Page 28 From her kitchen Page 32

Christmas in St. Clair Best Of recipes

Great Alabama 650 Page 42

Shop local this season Children’s wish list

Page 48 Page 58

Page 64 Shopping for Him and Her Page 68

Best Of St. Clair Awards Page 72

Small Business St. Clair Page 86

St. Clair Business New economic resource

Page 86 Best Practices achievement Page 94

December 2020 & January 2021

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Carol Pappas

Writers AND Photographers Graham Hadley

Carol Pappas is editor and publisher of Discover St. Clair Magazine. A retired newspaper executive, she served as editor and publisher of several newspapers and magazines during her career. She won dozens of writing awards in features, news and commentary and was named Distinguished Alabama Community Journalist at Auburn University. She serves as president/CEO of Partners by Design, the multimedia group that publishes Discover.

Graham Hadley is the managing editor and designer for Discover The Essence of St. Clair Magazine and also manages the magazine website. Along with Carol Pappas, he left The Daily Home as managing editor to become vice president of the Creative Division of Partners by Design multimedia company. An Auburn journalism graduate, Hadley also served as the news editor for The Rome News Tribune in Rome,Ga.

Jackie Romine Walburn

Elaine Hobson Miller

Jackie Romine Walburn, a Birmingham native and freelance writer, is an Auburn journalism graduate who has worked as a reporter, editor and corporate communications manager. She’s had recent writing published in the Birmingham Arts Journal and Alalit.com. Jackie is currently seeking an agent and publisher for her first novel, Mojo Jones and the Black Cat Bone.

Elaine Hobson Miller is a freelance writer with a B.A. in Journalism from Samford University.

She was the first female to cover Birmingham City Hall for the Birmingham Post-Herald, where she worked as reporter, food editor and features writer. A former editor of Birmingham Home & Garden magazine and staff writer for Birmingham magazine, she has written for a variety of local, regional and national publications.

She is a member of Alabama Media Professionals and NFPW (the National Federation of Press Women). Follow her weekly blog about life with a dozen four-legged critters, life in the country and life in general at www.countrylife-elaine.blogspot.com.

Joe Whitten Joe Whitten was born in Bryant on Sand Mountain. When he arrived in Odenville in 1961 to teach at St. Clair County High School, he found a place to call home. He and his wife, Gail, taught across the hall from each other. He continues to live in Odenville in a 1904 house they called home for 36 years. Joe was active in the Alabama Writers’ Conclave and the Alabama State Poetry Society. The society named him Poet of the Year in 2000. Joe has also published a number of St. Clair County local history books.

Paul South Paul South, a native of Fairfield, is an Au¬burn graduate with a degree in journalism and a double minor in history. He also has a Juris Doctorate degree from the Birmingham School of Law. Although sports writing was always his first love, he had a versa¬tile career as reporter, columnist and first full-time sports information director at Samford University.

About the Cover

Leigh Pritchett

Leigh Pritchett is a wife and mother. She earned the Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Montevallo. In the late 1990s, she left a career with a New York Times Regional Newspaper to be a stay-athome mom and freelance writer. She was blessed with the opportunity to spend 22 years homeschooling her three children.

Scottie Vickery Scottie Vickery is a writer with a degree in journalism from the University of Alabama and was a reporter for The Birmingham News.

Her first assignment was covering St. Clair and Blount counties. She has more than 30 years of writing and editing experience and her work has appeared in a variety of publications. She also has worked in the nonprofit industry.

Pell City Gateway Community Garden’s little helper, 5-year-old Emma Wilson, is a familiar face around the garden, always ready to help. On a recent Fall afternoon, she gathered the largest sweet potatoes she could find to give away to those in need. She is the daughter of Laura and Glenn Wilson of Pell City. Photo by Carol Pappas

From the Editor

Local, local, local – Read all about it!

I used to have a personalized Auburn University license plate that said n2nuz. It was my way of showing my spirit for two of my greatest passions – local news and Auburn University.

While Discover Magazine may not show outward signs of that second passion, other than the journalism degree I earned from there, it is dedicated to the mantra I used to live by when I was in the newspaper business – local, local, local.

It was a lesson I tried to hammer into the heads of young reporters in my stead over the years. We had one product to offer that consumers couldn’t find anywhere else, I would teach them – local news. And that’s why this magazine is dedicated to it.

You won’t find us venturing much beyond the borders of the county unless our local subject takes us there.

For instance, we don’t just go beyond the county limits for our story on Polly Warren, the local business woman, restaurateur and caterer. We go all the way to Greece and over to Georgia to find the roots of her cooking skills.

Born in Greece, she learned her way around the kitchen from her mother in Athens (Greece, not Alabama). She learned her Southern cooking prowess from her late mother-in-law, a Southern cook from Georgia. And all those ingredients have blended into one terrific cook she dubs as “American Greek.”

She shares her recipes in this edition of Discover, just in time for holiday cooking. But those aren’t the only culinary samples we have in this issue. Recognizing our “Best of St. Clair County” award winners in food categories, we asked them to share their personal holiday recipes, and they have given us a heaping helping to tantalize the tastebuds with a section of recipes you won’t want to miss.

That’s not all in this edition of Discover. As usual, we’ll take you back in time with Joe Whitten’s historic piece on Macedonia Baptist Church. Said to be the oldest church in St. Clair County, it is believed to have been founded in 1812.

Records go as far back as 1840. That’s about as deep-rooted, local as you can get.

We’ll take you to real roots as well – far beyond the rows of crops they’ve planted to give you an inside look at Gateway Community Garden, where dedicated volunteers have toiled all year long to provide food for those who need it most.

If it’s adventure you’re looking for, we’ll get a behind-thescenes look at Alabama 650, a race of 650 miles of paddling the state’s rivers and lakes – from Weiss Lake to Mobile Bay – and we’ll find out just how they fared on our own local waterways – Neely Henry and Logan Martin.

Taking care of business, we will get a glimpse of what the St. Clair County Economic Development Council has in store for our county next.

On the heels of a highly successful decade of industrial growth for our county, the EDC launched Small Business St. Clair, an initiative that is destined be a valuable online resource center for local, small business issues that matter most. It’s all designed to hand over the keys to success to small business throughout the county.

You’ll find those stories and more in the pages that follow.

Turn this one and discover it all with us!

Carol Pappas Editor and Publisher

Discover The Essence of St. Clair

December 2020 & January 2021 • Vol. 57 • www.discoverstclair.com

Carol Pappas • Editor and Publisher Graham Hadley • Managing Editor and Designer Dale Halpin • Advertising Toni Franklin • Graphic Designer

A product of Partners by Design www.partnersmultimedia.com 1911 Cogswell Avenue Pell City, AL 35125 205-335-0281

Printed at Russell Printing, Alexander City, AL 7

BIG GAME Three St. Clair men share their love of the hunt

Gordon Palmgren with two lions, the female of which was stalking him 8

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller Photos by Graham Hadley Some folks get their kicks riding race cars at top speed around an oval track.

Others get a rush from parachuting out of airplanes, paragliding off high mountain peaks, or surviving an eight-second ride on a bull so mean he’d just as soon kill you as look at you.

Several St. Clair County men know another type of thrill, one that’s difficult for them to describe. It comes from taking down an elephant that he has tracked for miles across a South African plain, a lion that just roared from a brush-pile 12 feet away or an Alaskan brown bear that was about to invite him to dinner … as the entrée.

Between them, Rob Smith, Gordon Palmgren and Joe Wheeler have shot hundreds of birds and animals, large and small, from grouse to sheep and elephants.

Each will tell you that it’s not the kill that provides the thrill. It’s the sighting and tracking of these animals that give these guys that rush of adrenalin, a rush so powerful they’re willing to spend thousands of dollars to experience it over and over again. For them, pulling the trigger is actually anti-climactic.

“After you shoot, it’s all over,” says Smith. “There’s a tinge of sadness because you’ve taken this magnificent animal’s life.”

All three men have been hunting most of their lives. Two of them were taught by a female member of their family. Smith, for example, went on his first hunt with his grandmother when he was 10 years old.

“She was one of the last of the old pioneer women,” he says. “She could do anything.”

They hunted rabbits and squirrels together around Tallahassee, Fla., where he grew up. They usually took their prey home and ate it. “Man has always hunted,” he says.

“It’s part of our basic instinct. As you get older, you start hunting deer here in the South. I progressed.”

Smith, who started Advance Machinery in 1985 and retired 20 years ago, has been hunting big game for more than 30 years. His first international hunt was in Mongolia in 1990, and netted him an ibex, a type of wild mountain goat distinguished by the male’s large, recurved horns, and a six-point elk. Their cape mounts (head and shoulders) hang on one side of his den fireplace, while a 22-point red stag from New Zealand hangs on the other side. “You only count one side of the head for the points on an elk,” he says. “You count both sides for a red stag.”

A kudu in Rob Smith’s foyer

A cape buffalo and impala are other animals in Rob Smith’s home entryway.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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BIG GAME Mongolian ibex, Alaskan mountain goats, pronghorn and tahr from New Zealand hang on the walls alongside trophies and awards for shooting sports at Rob Smith’s game room.

Throughout the house are mounts of many of the animals Smith has taken. Above the fireplace is the skull of a moose, an animal whose size is measured by the distance between the widest points of its “palms,” the two wide, flat antlers. This one measures 55 inches. Mule deer from Wyoming and Montana flank the doorway into his kitchen. But the dominant animal in the den is the nine-foot-tall brown bear from Alaska in the corner. “He was standing like that when I shot him, looking at a herd of caribou,” Smith recalls. “He didn’t know what hit him.” He has the creature’s skull, with worn teeth indicating he was about 28 years old. “His teeth were deteriorating, so he would not have lived through another winter,” Smith says.

Hunting has taken him all over the North American continent and around the world. He has shot Arctic caribou on Victoria Island, which is above the 60th parallel and as far north as people actually live. “It was 20 below zero there, dangerously cold,” he says of that trip. He has taken white-tailed deer in Alabama, Dall sheep, bears and mountain goats in Alaska, Russian wild boar in South Carolina, tahr (related to goats and sheep), sika deer and chamois (a species of goat-antelope) in New Zealand.

“You’ve got to be physically fit to track the mountain animals,” says Smith, who is 69. “I was much younger, and my knees were in better shape when I killed those. You might climb 5,000-6,000 feet up a mountain. You’re carrying a backpack and a rifle. I have weights and an exercise machine in my basement, and I work out almost every day. But I don’t climb mountains anymore.”

He considers the elephant one of the most physically demanding beasts to hunt. “You have to walk 10-12 miles a day for two to three weeks, sometimes longer,” he says. “You may track a herd for two or three days, catch up and find no bulls big enough to take. Then you start all over again.”

His trophy room contains several photos of game that were

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Rob Smith holds a bracelet made from nylon-like elephant tail hair in front of an African elephant tusk from one of his hunts.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Rob Smith shows off a photo of a brown bear hunt in front of the animal.

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DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

too big to mount, like the Indian buffalo from Argentina and the water buffalo he took in Australia. In 1993, the state of Montana sent him a plaque for shooting the second largest antelope killed there at that time. There’s a musk ox fur stretched over the pool table, and 12 mounts hang on the walls.

“You mount them to honor the animal, to remember them,” he says. Smith uses Stone Taxidermy of Leeds for most of his mounts.

He has hunted Africa and Australia for the last 12 years, because he likes the challenge of tracking dangerous game (buffalo, elephant, lion, hippopotamus, crocodile and leopard).

“The animal has as good a chance to take you out as you have to get him,” he says. His primary prey now are the elephant and the cape buffalo. He has a mount of the latter over the doorway from his foyer to his trophy room. “The rhinoceros is now on the endangered species list due to poaching, so we can’t hunt them,” he says. “Poachers kill them for the horns, sell them to the Asians, who grind them up and use them as an aphrodisiac.”

Poachers hunt in secret and leave the carcasses, but legitimate hunters donate the meat to local villagers, usually through the outfitters who organize the hunts. “When dogooders start hollering, ‘Why would you shoot a magnificent animal like the elephant,’ I say it’s no different than shooting a cow,” Smith explains. “That elephant will feed a whole village for weeks or months.” He says it’s against the law for villagers to shoot the elephants because the government makes money off the trophy fees. “There’s not an animal in this house that wasn’t eaten, except for the bear. Brown bears are inedible.”

Even in Alaska, you can’t just leave the meat where you drop the animal. In some cases, Smith has had it processed and shipped home from Alaska, but usually he packs it out. “It took me four days to backpack all the meat out (of camp) when I took that big moose that’s hanging over the fireplace,” he says.

“You can’t drive a truck up to get it. The outfitter donated it to the indigenous people and to charities.”

Normally Smith does two or three international hunts a year.

Much of the money spent on hunts in the U.S. and abroad goes into animal conservation. “Even in this country, the biggest part of conservation money comes from hunters’ fees,” he says. “Besides, nature has to have checks and balances. Most animals get diseases from interbreeding. If they have no natural predators, they starve.”

Unlike Smith, Gordon Palmgren won’t shoot an elephant, unless it’s a rogue that’s running amuck through villages and fields. “I don’t want to disrupt their family unit,” he says.

“They are special.” His wife, Sharla, does not want him to shoot a giraffe. Those are about the only two big-game animals not on display at his office.

In fact, the conference room at Gordon Palmgren Inc., which lays fiber-optic cables, looks like a natural-history museum.

Murals on the back and front walls depict an African plain and the face of a rugged mountain, respectively. Painted by Springville’s Joy Varnell (see the October/November 2019 issue of Discover), they form backdrops that make the fullbody animals appear to be in their natural habitats. Elephants and a giraffe are painted into the African mural, along with Palmgren’s two sons, depicted as youngsters peeking from behind a tree.

“I took Dane, who is now 30, to Africa when he was younger,” says Palmgren. “He shot a (large species of antelope) when he was 10. Travis, 35, is an artist who has never hunted, but he’ll come up here and draw pictures of the animals.”

Other animals in front of that mural include several types

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BIG GAME of antelopes, such as a sable, along with two steenboks, two duikers and a musk ox. There’s also a zebra, a lion and lioness, an impala, wart hogs and forest hogs, a bush buck (another type of antelope), a pair of monkeys, some baboons and a 14-foot-long crocodile. An Arizona javelina (type of wild boar) is placed incongruously amid all those African animals, but he doesn’t seem to object. The straw-grass at the base of many mounts has been chewed short by Sylvester, the office’s live feline mascot.

On another African wall are more full-body monkeys and the cape mounts of a rhinoceros, cape buffalo and another sable antelope. “The Safari Club International has a system of scoring your kills by length of their horns,” Palmgren says.

“There are three levels: bronze, silver, gold. That sable is the only animal I’ve shot that’s in a (record) book. For a year it was No. 7 in the world.”

A lot of hunters won’t shoot an animal if it’s not a huge, gold-medal trophy, but Palmgren doesn’t hunt to get into record books. “I do it for the fun, the challenge, to see different places,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of the world.”

On the other two walls hang dozens of cape mounts, such as spiral-horned kudu, a red hartebeest (African antelope), a gemsbok (another type of South African antelope), a moose from British Columbia, several elk out of Colorado, a bison from New Mexico, a water buffalo from Venezuela, a caribou from Greenland, a mountain goat from British Columbia, a tahr and a chamois from New Zealand. Still another wall has full-mounted mountain goats, a tahr and a chamois standing on ledges that jut out from the wall.

His mounts spill over into his office and lobby, too, including a full-body mount of an aoudad (Barbary sheep) shot in Texas and a nyala (spiral-horned antelope of southern Africa). The latter stands in a corner under a pencil drawing of a tiger done

by Travis. A zebra skin is displayed on another wall. In his office stands an eight-foot-tall blonde brown bear. Who knew that brown bears are a species that come in various colors? Or that the grizzly is a subspecies of the brown bear? “Grizzlies are inland, whereas brown bears are coastal,” Palmgren points out.

He uses Capps Taxidermy in Demopolis to preserve his trophies. “Mounting them in foreign countries, you don’t know the quality, he says. “It’s not as good as here. Shipping home life-size animals is especially high, so the hide and horns are all you take home to the taxidermist. Generally, you only mount the cape, which is from front shoulder forward. To me, though, with certain animals, you miss so much with just the cape.”

Like Rob Smith, Palmgren, 69, started hunting as a child. His mother gave him a .410 shotgun when he was 12. “We used to hunt squirrel and other small game together,” he says. A biggame hunter for 25 years, he bought his first trip to Africa at a Safari Club International convention in Las Vegas in 1996. He has been to Africa five more times since then. “It’s like potato chips, you can’t do just one,” he says. “It’s such a thrill. It’s the chase and the challenge. You will go back.” He hasn’t been there this year but has spent his spare time developing a piece of hunting property he bought in St. Clair County.

In African countries, governments there require that you have a local guide, called a professional hunter there. Hunters go out in groups that include trackers and skinners. “The 10-

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An antelope in Gordon Palmgren’s collection

Gordon Palmgren’s meeting room resembles a nature museum.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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day rate varies according to exclusivity of the animal and his dangerousness,” Palmgren says. “It can be $1,500 per day to $3,000-$4,000 for more dangerous animals, such as lions and elephants. Every animal has a trophy fee attached, too. Supply and demand determine those. There are also government fees.”

Although hippopotamuses kill more people than lions in African countries, tracking a lion still is a dangerous proposition. Palmgren found that out the hard way on the trail of a lioness in South Africa. “I had spotted her, then she got away, and I was using binoculars to spot her again,” he recalls.

“I walked by a room-sized brush pile, heard growling, then a roar from 12 feet away. She was in that brush pile. I shot her, but I also found out how I would react to a dangerous situation.

I didn’t think I would ever quit shaking.”

Joe Wheeler had a similar experience with a blonde brown bear, but it was much more personal than Palmgren’s. The bear was trying to snare him for her lunch and managed to sink one of her powerful claws into his hand.

“I was watching some wolverines and got a funny feeling that something was watching me,” he says. “I turned around and she was in attack mode. I shot her in the mouth, which knocked her down. She got up, and I got off a second shot into her neck, and she went down again.”

As he was reloading his rifle, her left claw dug into his right hand. Working from instinct, he turned around in the opposite direction to avoid that claw dragging through a ligament. As he did, she slapped him across the back with her other paw.

He got off a shot to her heart. She ran 60 yards, forcing him to track her. She was dead when he got to her. “That’s the only female bear I’ve ever shot,” he says. “She’s mounted in the same position as when I first saw her.” She’s crouched in a corner at the top of the stairs in his Gun South Inc. (GSI) office in Trussville.

In a hallway of the first floor, he has another brown bear, a wolf snarling on a tabletop, bobcats fighting over a pheasant and a pair of Alaskan wolverines. “Pound-for-pound, wolverines are the most vicious animal alive,” Wheeler says.

(Wolverines resemble small bears but are actually the largest member of the weasel family.) He has a wolf-skin rug stretched out on a wall in the office at GSI. On another wall is a pair of ptarmigan (type of grouse) he shot in Sonora, Mexico.

Wheeler, 77, started hunting rabbits, quail and squirrels with his uncle as a kid. He killed his first deer when he was 14. It had eight-points. “I went to Bud Jones’ house (in Tallapoosa, Ga.) and skinned it there in his back yard, and he mounted it,” Wheeler says. “I still have that mount. It’s probably my favorite.”

He made his first trip to Alaska in 1972, killing a caribou and a moose. He has gone twice a year ever since, sometimes to hunt, sometimes to fish. In addition to bears, wolves and wolverines, he has killed siska deer, pocka squirrels (similar to prairie dogs) and Arctic hare. Due to the pandemic, he probably won’t return this year. He has taken his two brothers, his two stepsons, and several other St. Clair County men with him on several trips. In fact, he took Gordon Palmgren on his first hunt to Alaska and got him his first bear.

“I was a registered guide in Alaska from 1984 to 1998 or 1999,” he says. “Licenses were for five years when I started, but they changed that to three years, and I didn’t get the notice in time, so I accidentally let my license expire. I would have

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Not a polar bear: this blonde brown bear graces Gordon Palmgren’s office.

Joe Wheeler’s Alaskan wolverines

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Several caribou hang off the ends of gun racks at GSI.

This wolf is part of an award-winning display Wheeler put together.

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DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

BIG GAME had to re-test, and I didn’t want to do that.”

An Alaskan hunt usually lasts 17 days and involves a lot of walking. “If it’s a bear hunt, you’ve got to find the bear with a spotting scope,” Wheeler says. “You can see for eight miles through the scope, and if you spot one within five miles, you go after it.”

He has hunted big game in Canada, Montana, Colorado, British Columbia, Alaska, Texas, Mexico and parts of New England. He has been wing-shooting (bird hunting) 15-16 years in a row in Argentina, Nicaragua and Honduras. He has shot spur-wing and Magellan geese in the Yucatán Peninsula, and jack rabbits in Argentina so big that if laid across a horse they would drag the ground. “I tracked one running at 64 mph one night,” he says. “I could not bring it back to mount because of some disease.”

He used to have a lot of mounts in his Pell City Steakhouse, but the women employees there prefer seeing historic photos of the Pell City area, so he obliges them.

In the gunsmithing room at GSI, a wholesale gun dealership, Wheeler has the capes of a mouflon sheep from Austria, an elk from Saskatchewan taken with a bow, and a caribou his stepson, Danny Spann, shot in Alaska.

“The tips of the mouflon’s horns were worn off from where he rubbed them on rocks so they wouldn’t poke him in the eyes,” Wheeler says. “It’s called ‘grooming.’”

The elk is called a 7x7 because it has seven points on each side of its head.

“Only one caribou in 10,000 has a double shovel (flat, front points), and he’s shot three,” Danny says of Wheeler. “We were fortunate to see tens of thousands of the Mulchatna herd of caribou in Alaska.”

Hunters in Alaska are required by the state’s Fish and Game Commission to pack out the meat or face a fine and the possible loss of a guide’s licenses. “One time we had all the meat in elk bags and a bear got some of it in camp overnight,” he says.

“Fish and Game did not want to accept that we hadn’t hauled it all out, but I had made photos before and after.” Like Rob Smith and Gordon Palmgren, he always gives away the meat.

“We killed 125 geese in one day in Nicaragua,” he recalls. “We put them on a wall in the town square, and they were gone by the next day. The natives got all of them.”

Asked what he likes about hunting, he cites being “out in nature, seeing things, making a lot of friends.” Take the bird boys who pick up the fowl that hunters shoot. “We (he and his friends) have gotten to see them grow up in Nicaragua,” Wheeler says. “We do a lot of personal things for them. We’ve sent them money for school supplies, candy, bought them shoes.”

He also likes teaching young boys to shoot, the way his uncle taught him, and he taught his stepsons. He’ll even take friends’ grandsons and nephews hunting, showing them how to track, read the signs, keep quiet and still, be patient and to enjoy the outdoors the way he does.

Wheeler probably will miss his 2020 trips to Alaska, thanks to COVID-19. He will still be able to hunt birds and small game on his own property in St. Clair, where he has a hunting club. After all, as he, Smith and Palmgren keep emphasizing, it’s not about the kill or the size of the trophy. It’s all about the hunt. l For more big game images, check out DiscoverStClair.com.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Traveling the

BACKROADS

Macedonia Baptist One of St. Clair’s oldest churches is still home to many

Vintage photo of members at Macedonia Baptist Church 20

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Story by Joe Whitten Submitted photos On Aug. 16, 2020, Macedonia Baptist Church, No. 2, Ragland, celebrated 180 years of faithful spiritual service in St. Clair County. The anniversary celebration occurred on a modest scale because of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The congregation went for regular worship and afterward enjoyed a lunch in the fellowship hall.

The county is home to several churches organized in the early years of both St. Clair County and Alabama.

Some churches have surviving records documenting the church’s beginnings, while others have scant information. Over the years, many original minute books met destruction through a house fire where the minutes were stored.

Researchers come face to face with this in researching Macedonia Baptist, No. 2. The official organization date of 1840 is recorded in St. Clair County Baptist Associational meetings, but the year that families began to meet to worship together in the area of Macedonia Mountain lies in the long shadows of two centuries. Furthermore, undocumented published accounts deepen the shadows of the past rather than giving light to them.

In the Daughters of the American Revolution book, Some Early Alabama Churches (Established before 1870) Commemorating the Bicentennial of the United States of America, published in 1973, authors wrote this about Macedonia Baptist: “This church is said to be the oldest church in St. Clair County, and it is thought that it was organized in 1812. It is located in the mountains near Ragland. Records go back to 1840.” However, the authors, Mable Ponder Wilson, Dorothy Youngblood Woodyerd and Rosa Lee Busby, give no documentation for stating this. This is a great frustration to the church and any historian, for someone gave them that information. One can hope that in some old trunk or chest, a forgotten diary or family Bible will come to light to prove the 1812 date.

The Minutes of the St. Clair County Baptist Association for 1932, 1936 and 1942 record 1840 as the official organizational date. The fact is that, as settlers formed communities, families met in homes to worship together. At some point, a circuit-riding minister would come to preach once a month. A desire for a church name and building would burn in the hearts of the group who would petition ministers in the county to help them organize a church. Probably believers worshipped together long before organizing and naming the church Macedonia. The Grizzell and Johnson families are known early members of the church.

The person who gave the 1812 date to DAR also gave a description of the first Macedonia church building.

The log structure had no widows. “On the interior of the structure was cube of rocks about three feet long, three feet high, and three feet wide, with a rock shaft going out the side of the building. This was for light when it was necessary to meet a night. Pine knots were burned, giving light, and the smoke went out the shaft.

A lean-to that joined onto the building accommodated

Sunday morning services

The church as it looks today

The old wood church building

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

21

Traveling the

BACKROADS

A Bible school quilt project hangs on the wall.

Dinner under the pavilion where the log church stood

Men who finished fellowship hall: Front, Hollis Phillips, Daniel Day; back, Luther Reaves, Herbert Grizzell, Jabo Trammell, Edwin Talley, Roy Sterling.

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the slaves.” According to oral history, the first church sat where today stands the pavilion protecting the long “dinner on the ground” tables.

Lela Alverson Grizzell told great-granddaughter Sheila McKinney that a storm destroyed the log structure, but she didn’t give a date for the storm. In a St. Clair News-Aegis article of Oct. 15, 1992, Elise Argo wrote, “The log building was replaced in the early 1900s.” The article indicates Ms. Argo got that date from Brother Archie Maddox, pastor at that time. An up-to-date, wood-frame church replaced the log building, which served the congregation until the present brick structure replaced it in 1948.

In 1956, the church started a building fund to add classrooms. This came to fulfillment in 1965 when the men of the church added two restrooms, a pastor’s study and eight classrooms. In 1985, the men added the fellowship hall with kitchen and dining areas.

The lovely painting gracing the baptistry was done in 1998 by Ken Maddox in loving memory of his mother, Mary Maddox, wife of Brother Archie Maddox.

The original log building served as both church and school according to local family accounts. Shelia McKinney recounted what her great-grandmother, Lela Alverson Grizzell, told of attending the log school.

“The Alverson family settled these hills and valleys, and Lela’s brothers and sisters attended school here,” Shelia recalled. “Lela and her older brothers and sisters walked to school from Macedonia Mountain where they lived. A pond ran over the road, and she told of ice skating on the pond.

“The school had a potbelly stove, and when it rained, they took off their boots and lined them around the stove to dry.

They’d wrap their feet in their coats until their feet got warm.

Lela said the log church-school blew away in a storm.”

Surviving church minutes of Aug. 20, 1922, show Macedonia as a member of the Coosa Valley Baptist Association, and Rev. Joe Mitchell, pastor, appointing Russell Arnold, Calvin Wood, Henry Johnson, William G. Wilder and J. H. Trammell as messengers to the 1922 meeting. Baptist churches’ messengers represent local congregations and have voting privileges in associational business meetings.

The St. Clair County Baptist Association minutes of the 1929 annual meeting at Broken Arrow Baptist Church, Sept.

14-15, records that “Macedonia No. 2 was received, and the Moderator gave the messengers the right hand of fellowship.”

The messengers were M.C. Sagers, H. Johnson, J.S. Bunt and Rosa Jane Bice. Brother Clifford Streety of Pell City was Macedonia’s pastor in 1929.

Macedonia, Ragland, was designated No. 2, and Macedonia, Margaret, No. 1, because the Margaret church had been a member of the association since 1915.

Shelia McKinney, church clerk, has collected church memorabilia and history, some of which is tattered fragments of minutes from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As with many old records on paper, deterioration has taken its toll, but those tattered remains are treasures.

Fragments of old minutes record the Church Covenant and Order of Decorum. As with most early Baptist churches, Macedonia practiced church discipline. The purpose was to help members and restore them to fellowship. Common

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Traveling the

BACKROADS infractions found in most old church minutes show that drinking, swearing and dancing were causes of “being brought before the church” for discipline and restoration.

The cemetery adjacent to the church is one of the older ones in St. Clair County, and as with all old graveyards, some of the oldest graves are marked by large rocks or crosses. The oldest known grave is that of John Chambliss, May 23, 1826 - Jan. 23, 1881. The oldest person buried there is Chesley Phillips, 117 years old, Aug 7, 1810 - Oct. 25, 1927. According to 1890 church minutes, Macedonia began observing Memorial Day at the cemetery “… on Saturday before the 3rd Sunday in May.” This continues today.

Macedonia’s records show that the Singing Convention often met at the church. Open doors and windows of the church allowed those outside to enjoy the singing going on inside.

Newspapers usually announced these events, as shown in this Aug. 12, 1954, St. Clair News-Aegis invitation.

“All-Day Singing, Food Galore, To Be At Macedonia Aug. 15. The Annual all-day singing with dinner on the grounds at noon will be held at Macedonia Baptist Church No. 2 Sunday, August 15. Special singers for the annual event will be Mack Wright and the Victory Quartet, in addition to several others.

You are cordially invited to this great day of fellowship,” it reads.

Vacation Bible School week has been another annual event for the church. During the week, children are taught Bible stories and work on crafts or art that correspond with the theme of the week. Several years ago, one of the teachers started the Bible School Quilt, with good results, as shown in the photographs.

Rev. Edwin Talley, pastor of Ragland First Baptist and a former member of Macedonia, said, “I was a member of Macedonia in the early 1980s. It was there that I accepted my calling into the ministry, and there I preached my first sermon.

I remained an active member there until I was called to pastor Oak Grove No. 2 in 1986. Macedonia ordained me at the request of Oak Grove. I will always consider Macedonia my home.”

McKinney echoes Talley’s sentiments. When asked for a comment and memory, she replied, “All I can say is, ‘It’s home.’ This was the first church I ever attended. I accepted Jesus in the alter to the right of the pulpit, and I was baptized here. My daughters were saved and baptized here.

“My great-great-grandfather helped organize this church and pastored it. My great-grandparents met and married here. My aunt, Louise Grizzell Sterling, was the song leader for many years, my uncle was a deacon, and my granny taught Sunday school. Following in her footsteps, I also teach Sunday school.

Seven generations of my family have attended this church and worked for God here.

“This church – not just the building – the people are my family, and I wouldn’t want to be in any other church – unless God told me to go. I pray that as long as God tarries Jesus’ coming again that my family and I will be here serving God and community to the best of our ability.

“My favorite childhood memory of Macedonia Baptist is learning to recite all 66 books of the Bible in order as they are in the Bible. I was 12 years old, and my granny, Marcene Grizzell, was my Sunday school teacher. Our class had to recite

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Louise Sterling, Macedonia’s Song Leader

The entrance to the church

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Traveling the

BACKROADS

Baptistry painting

by Ken Maddox in memory of Mary Maddox, his mother

the 66 books in front of the church on a Sunday morning. When we accomplished this, the church gave us our own Bible. I still have mine. My most cherished memory now is that I saw my grandbaby, Katelyn Serenity Byers, dedicated in this church.

She is the seventh generation Grizzell descendant attending here.

“I will be buried in the graveyard beside the church with my beloved family members that have gone on before me.”

Brother Bryan Robinson has pastored Macedonia Baptist since 2016. He said, “Macedonia, Ragland, is truly a church that God has ordained to be the church today where we see people saved and baptized even during a COVID-19. This church has seen many wars, the Great Depression and many United States presidents. Over the years, Macedonia’s members have endured many trials and have been victorious through it all. It makes me humble, thankful and truly blessed that God would allow me to help His church go a little further till He comes again. Macedonia members are the salt of the earth. They are a loving, caring and praying people who still use the altar every time the church doors open. I thank God for this church, my church.

My wife Sandy and I call it home.”

Each of these referred to Macedonia as Home.

What they express connects perfectly with modern Christian author Philip Yancey’s words, “I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God’s family.” Such is Macedonia Baptist Church, Ragland, a family of believers who feel at Home in church. l

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Macedonia Cemetery

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Polly Warren A Greek bearing delicious gifts, a star-studded past

Story by Scottie Vickery Submitted photos When it comes to cooking, Polly Warren has trained with the best. As a young girl growing up in Greece, she learned the intricacies of meals and pastries from her mother and grandmother. After marrying an American and moving to Georgia as a young bride, she mastered Southern dishes in her mother-in-law’s kitchen.

The result is something she calls American Greek cooking – a delicious blend of both countries born from two families full of tradition and love. “I love the cooking,” she said, her Greek accent still heavy. “I love to learn and do new things. If I see something I like, I make it, add to it, and make the recipe my own.”

As a result, she’s bridged the divide between two cultures by introducing her favorite Greek dishes to her American family and friends and taking some Southern favorites home to her family. “I made them chili,” she said, laughing at the memory of the first American dish she shared with her loved ones in Greece. “They loved it. They thought it was great.”

A popular caterer in St. Clair County, Polly works out of the kitchen of the Pell City KFC, which her family has owned for nearly five decades. In addition to weekly meetings of the Rotary Club of Pell City, she caters everything from tailgate parties and luncheons to teas, rehearsal dinners and weddings.

“Whatever anybody wants, I can cook it,” she said.

Polly playing a secretary in a film

Growing up Greek

Born Polyltime Stavridis, the daughter of Dimitri and Kostantina, Polly grew up in Athens, Greece, with her brother, Costas, and her sister, Vaso. Whenever she thinks of her childhood, the first thing that comes to mind is the family kitchen. “I can still close my eyes and see myself there,” said Polly, now 72. “We’d always be in the kitchen. Always the girls served the men.” The main meal was served at 2 p.m., and after an afternoon siesta, the men would return to work. “Then they would come back, and we would eat leftovers,” she said.

Even as young girls, Polly and Vaso worked alongside their mother and grandmother, who lived with them. “We started when we were young, 5 or 6,” she said. ‘“They always gave us a little dough so we could participate. We would clean the potatoes, help with the dough, make cookies. When we were 10, 11 or 12, we would start participating completely.”

Family favorites included stifado, a Greek beef stew; spanakopita, a spinach pie; bifteki, which Polly describes as a stuffed hamburger; and keftedes, or Greek meatballs. “My mother used to make a big pan and leave it on the stove, and we’d eat it like popcorn,” she said.

There were plenty of pastries, too. Melomakarona, or honey cookies, were a staple, as well as tea cakes and baklava.

Polly remembers her grandmother rolling out big sheets of

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homemade phyllo dough that was used for pastries and pie crusts. “Back in those days we made it homemade,” she said.

“It took two people.”

Cooking for a crowd proved to be a challenge. “Back then, we had a little bitty oven, and our oven couldn’t bake all those cookies and big dishes like stuffed peppers and tomatoes,” Warren said. They took their dishes and pastries to a nearby baker, who cooked it for them in his industrial oven. “You tell him you want it ready for the family at 2, you give him $1 or $2, you pick your food up and carry it home,” she said.

A good student, Warren skipped the sixth-grade and graduated from high school at 16. “I started modeling and playing parts in movies,” she said, adding that her uncle was a producer. “Somebody didn’t show up one day, and he calls me and said, ‘Polly, do you want to do this?’ It was a commercial for shoes.”

After that, she had a “little part in a movie here, a little part there,” including a role as a party guest in the 1965 Italian movie, The Three Faces of a Woman. The movie starred Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari, the ex-wife of an Iranian shah, and Richard Harris, who later played Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Studio shot during her acting career

Polly Warren

and the Chamber of Secrets.

Young Polly’s acting and modeling career didn’t last long because she soon met her future husband – Wayne Warren, an American serviceman from Georgia who was stationed in Greece. “I have good memories of it, and I did it until I met Mr. Warren,” she said. “Mr. Warren, he says ‘no.’ He didn’t like all those guys hanging around.”

The two met when Polly’s friend, who was engaged to an American buddy of Wayne’s, invited her to a party. She was hesitant to go because she didn’t know what to tell her family.

“Back in those days, you didn’t go off to a party,” she said. “I did a little white lying and said we were going to the movies.”

The two really did go to the movies a few weeks later, after Wayne had gotten permission from Polly’s father. “A commercial came on the big screen, and there I am big as life,” she said with a laugh. “I’m hiding under the seat, and he couldn’t believe it. It was a commercial for glassware for a wedding.”

After the two married, Polly left her beloved Greece in 1967 to move to the U.S. with Wayne. After a quick stint in Texas, they headed to Columbus, Ga., Wayne’s hometown. He was still in the Air Force, so Polly lived with his mother, Irene Warren, in her beautiful old house with a big wraparound porch. “It was very, very nice,” Polly said. “My mother-in-law, she loved me to death.”

Movie scene from one of her films

Southern influences

Although she missed her family, cooking with Irene helped cure some of the homesickness. “We cooked together in this big kitchen, and you felt like it was home,” Polly said. “I learned how to do squash casserole, make creamed corn and snap peas.”

The dishes were different from anything she’d had before, but Polly appreciated good food when she tasted it. “Mac and cheese, I never ate it in my life, but once I tasted it, it was good.

I learned to eat pork chops, and I learned to eat ribs and turnip greens. I loved it.”

As a new bride, she learned to fix some of her husband’s favorites, which quickly became hers as well. “I love a good steak and baked potato,” she said. “And vegetables with cornbread. I could sit and eat the whole skillet.”

Another Southern staple, fried chicken, soon became a big part of her life. After Wayne retired from the Air Force in 1970, they moved to Selma, where he worked with a dear friend who owned KFC franchises. He decided he wanted to open one himself. Although “we only had baked chicken in Greece, we never fried it,” Polly was on board.

Wayne started scouting locations, and while driving through central Alabama one day, he happened to stop at a gas station in St. Clair County. “An 18-wheeler driver told him to look at Pell City,” she said. “That’s what he did, and that’s where we are.”

While raising their three sons – Michael, Jimmy and David – the Warrens spent lots of time at various ballfields and soon became fixtures in the community. Polly got her catering start while working in the concession stands, where she cooked plenty of hot dogs and hamburgers. That led to dishes for athletic banquets and other events, and things took off from there.

“Before you know it, they asked, ‘Do you mind doing a tea,’ so you do a tea. Then they said do, ‘Do you mind doing a wedding,’ so you do a wedding. I started with 100 people, and I

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Star Richard Harris and cast, including Polly (second from right) in movie, Three Faces, directed by Oscar De Laurentiis. have been up to 600. That’s how it all got started,” she said.

Although Wayne passed away 10 years ago, Polly still loves cooking for her family and especially enjoys time in the kitchen with her four grandchildren. She’s happy to share recipes, although at times that proves a little difficult. “I never measure anything,” she said. “I put a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

So, when they ask, I have to figure it out and write it.”

Alabama has been home for most of Polly’s life, but she still gets homesick for Greece on occasion. Yearly trips to Athens help, and she loves to get back in the kitchen with her mother, now 90, and her sister while she’s there. She makes sure to bring back her favorite fresh spices. “It grows wild over there,” she said. “You see rosemary, you see basil. I bring all that back.

The American spices, they do not taste the same.”

Whether it’s the spices or the love she puts in each dish, Polly’s cooking is always a hit. “It’s good therapy,” she said.

“I get in the kitchen and get busy cooking, and I never leave.

I make a lot, and I give it away to neighbors and family and friends. I love it when people eat it and say how good it is. No one has complained yet.”

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Polly Warren

A collection from her kitchen

Irene Warren’s Macaroni and Cheese Ingredients 2 cups elbow macaroni cooked 3 Tbs. Butter 3 Tbs. All Purpose Flour ½ lb. Veveeta, cut into ½-inch cubes 1 cup whole milk or evaporated milk ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt 3 Tbs. butter in saucepan on medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Gradually stir in milk. Bring to boil, cook 3 minutes until thickened.

Add Velveeta and cook 3 minutes until melted, stirring frequently. Stir in macaroni.

Pour into 2-quart casserole sprayed with cooking spray.

Sprinkle with cheddar cheese.

Bake 20 minutes or until heated through.

Sprinkle with bacon if desired.

“Very good.”

Baklava Ingredients 1 pkg. Italian toast, ground (4 squares) 3 cups Pecans, chopped and ground 2 cups almonds, chopped and ground ½ cup sugar ½ tsp. cloves 3 tsps. Cinnamon 1 lb. pkg. Filo (Greek pastry dough) 1 lb. butter, unsalted, melted Directions Combine pecans, almonds, cinnamon, cloves, sugar and ground toast. Mix well.

Grease 18 x 13 x 2-inch pan with butter.

Layer 8 sheets of filo in pan, brushing each sheet with butter. Sprinkle the top filo with layer of nut mixture.

Cover with 3 more sheets of filo, brushing melted butter between each.

Repeat a layer of nut mixture and three more sheets of filo brushed with butter.

Finish layering with 6 sheets of filo on top, brushing each with butter.

With a sharp knife, cut into small squares or diamond shapes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until golden 32

Polly Warren plating her famous baklava. color and pour hot syrup over Baklava.

Syrup 2 cups sugar 2 cups water Juice of half lemon, lemon and peel 1 stick cinnamon Mix together. Bring to a boil, reduce to medium for 1015 minutes.

Add 1 cup honey, 1 jigger of brandy and mix well.

Pour over Baklava.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Polly’s Stuffed Peppers and Tomatoes (6 peppers and 6 tomatoes) Ingredients 1 ½ lbs. ground beef 2 medium onions, chopped 2-3 cloves garlic, minced 2 tsps. Parsley 1 small zucchini, grated ½ eggplant, grated 1 tomato grated 1 ½ cups rice 1-2 cups water 1 tsp. dried mint 1 bouillon, chicken or beef ½ tsp. sugar Salt and pepper Directions Cut off top of tomatoes and peppers. Remove seeds and inner membrane. Add pinch sugar to each vegetable and drizzle with oil.

Brown ground beef. Mix in onions, garlic, parsley, zucchini, eggplant and rice. Add bouillon with one cup of water and one tomato filling grated. Salt and pepper. Add 1 tsp. dried mint and mix all together.

Fill each vegetable with meat mixture. Cut 2-3 potatoes in quarters and put between the vegetables. Salt and pepper.Mix small can tomato sauce and one cup of water and pour over top. Replace tops of vegetables. Pour ½ cup oil over top.

Cover and bake 2 hours on 350 degrees. Turn off the oven and take the cover off.

You may stuff peppers only or tomatoes or both.

Spanakopita Ingredients 1-2 bags (2-3 pounds fresh spinach), blanched 2 leeks, chopped 2-3 bunches of green onions, peeled and cut 1 tsp. dill 1 Tbs. parsley 3 eggs ½ cup rice 2 Tbs. vegetable oil Salt Pepper 12 sheets filo (Greek pastry dough) Directions Saute leeks, onions, dill and parsley. Add spinach. Add feta, eggs pepper and pinch of nutmeg.

Drizzle oil over each of 6 filo sheets and layer casserole. Add filling. Layer the top of the filling with 6 sheets of filo, each drizzled with oil. Bake at 350 degrees 30-40 minutes or until golden. l DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Gateway Community Garden PELL CITY

The sign by the walkway entrance

Story by Carol Pappas Photos by Carol Pappas and Graham Hadley and Glenn Wilson Much like the single seed planted years earlier that grows into the towering oak tree offering shade and comfort to next generations, today’s Pell City Gateway Community Garden thrives as an example of what dogged determination, a patch of dirt and a smattering of seeds can become.

In 2013, a handful of Pell City citizens envisioned a garden for their community. In that group were Merry and Dave Bise, Renee Lilly, Lisa Phillips, Kelly and Sheree Wilkerson, and other community volunteers. Taking root on the old Avondale Mills property, the garden on a quarter-acre plot was small, but productive – just like their dream. Early help came from Pell City Civitans, which provided the nonprofit status they needed for grants, and the City of Pell City, which provided the patch of earth they needed to grow their bounty,

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A scarecrow guards the corn

Lisa Phillips logging hours

Scouts take part in the educational projects at the garden.

Laura Wilson teaches Scouts about growing sweet potatoes.

Gateway Community Garden and it began to sprout.

Seven years later – in a new location thanks to St. Simon Peter Episcopal Church – and a growing army of volunteers, Gateway Community Garden is reaping the benefits of what it sowed by helping others.

Early mornings and late afternoons nearly all year long, you’ll find a group of “do-gooders,” city dwellers on a mission, toiling in the dirt, nurturing their crops to feed the hungry.

Row upon row tells the story of their bounty – potatoes, okra, squash, bell peppers, corn, tomatoes, butter peas and pinkeye purple hull peas in summer.

Collard greens, cabbage, turnip greens, broccoli, sweet potatoes and more okra emerge in the fall.

Fruit trees and bushes abound – apples, blueberries, blackberries – a future dream now in its fledgling stage. An irrigation system is in place.

A greenhouse, courtesy of Master Gardeners, has been erected. And on any given day when the sun is out, chances are these gardeners are, too, watching over their harvest like protective parents tending to their young.

Debbie Smith, a longtime gardener and board member, calls it “God’s blessing. It is always amazing to me that you plant a seed in the ground and get this beautiful plant that feeds others.”

Her experience as a gardener is rewarding in the way she is able to use

Aerial view of the garden

The shed and greenhouse in front of some of the fields

David Wadsworth clears fields for growing.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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A bench with library and journal await moments of refection in garden.

Gateway Community Garden WANT TO HELP? Become a volunteer for Gateway Community Garden. No experience necessary, just a willingness to learn and become a part of one of Pell City’s greatest assets.

To volunteer, simply contact a board member, and you’ll be put on an email list regularly detailing events and workdays at the garden. Meet friends – old and new – and help make the community a better place.

Annette Cox and Renee Lilly in the garden

Shaded winding path at the garden

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her education background to teach others how to plant, grow and harvest. She describes the end result – whether it’s someone enjoying the garden’s solitude and beauty or actually laboring in the soil as a “healing and restorative garden.

It works on both ends.”

Worth Barham, project manager who fellow volunteers have labeled ‘CEO,’ agrees. “It’s a wonderful experience,” he said, noting that the whopping two tons of food grown there so far have made their way to good homes in the Pell City Christian Love Pantry, Pell City Senior Citizens Center and Lincoln Food Pantry.

“Everything is based on the wonderful volunteers we have,” Barham said. Bringing different skillsets to the organization, they have been able to write grants, develop an educational component, bring community organizations into the fold, design the garden’s physical future and of course, grow food for the needy. St. Clair Co-op has provided many of the plants. David Wadsworth brings his tractor to clear the ground for planting, and Master Gardener Tom Terry tills the soil.

“Without the grants we have received, we would not be where we are today,” Barham said.

“Without our volunteers, we would have no organization at all.”

Lisa Phillips became involved early on – first as a Pell City Civitan, then as a gardener. In addition to the Civitans lending their 501(c) (3) nonprofit status to the fundraising effort, the club has provided access for the handicapped and special needs, like accessible paths for wheelchairs and lower tables for produce.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Gateway Community Garden To be a part of it has been “a great feeling,” said Phillips. “And I think it has been great for the community.”

“I am awestruck at what we have been able to accomplish with a small group of folks,” said Linda Tutwiler, another board member.

Volunteers only number a dozen or so on a regular basis. “I don’t think any of us envisioned what we could accomplish in such a short time.”

In 2017, it moved from Avondale to a 5-to-6acre plot given to them to use by the Episcopal church across the street. And that is when the garden grew to its next level and beyond. First helped by a Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham grant and then a Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama contribution as part of its Sacred Places grant program, the garden began to really take shape.

Three years ago, Barham said, the garden grew 820 pounds of fresh produce to give to those in need in Pell City and St. Clair County. Last year, it was 3,600 pounds. Today, their harvest tips the scales at 4,000 pounds.

Nearby is a newly constructed nature trail. A handcrafted, oversized sitting bench underneath the trees welcomes one and all as a place for quiet reflection. A journal to record thoughts is there, as is a miniature reading library. Peace, tranquility and reflection are key to this sacred space.

A greenhouse is home to trees that grow Meyer lemons and will soon grow plants from seed. A shed painted with brightly colored sunflowers holds tools of the trade and a work log, where volunteers record their hours for grants.

On a Saturday morning in November, a group of Scouts marveled at gardener Laura Wilson’s lessons of how sweet potatoes are grown, how to pick a turnip or cabbage leaf. They ran through garden patches with prize in hand – a freshly picked turnip – with smiles almost as wide as they were tall.

They earned a badge that day. But more important, gardeners will quickly tell you, is they learned the value of growing a garden with your own hands and what it can provide in life – not just for you, but for others.

Renee Lilly, one of the founders, talked of the personal rewards reaped in those lessons for her and her husband. “It’s a wonderful experience for me. My husband is involved, too.

It’s a great thing for the community, and I’m excited the word is finally getting out,” she said, encouraging others to join them in the effort. “It really does take a village.” l

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The new sign was installed in the garden in July.

Worth Barham working the tiller.

Fred Smith with the Community Foundation of Northeast Alabama at the sign installation in July.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Mind, muscle and ‘angels’ power the Great Alabama 650 The world’s longest paddle race showcases the wonder of Alabama’s waterways

Story by Paul South Submitted photos from Max Jolley, Great Alabama 650 Max Jolley was 7 when he picked up a paddle for the first time. And from that first pull of wood through water – a centuriesold skill he says takes the whole body, head to toe, mind and muscle – he’s been a recreational kayaker on the Coosa River and its companion lakes, Logan Martin and Neely Henry.

Needless to say, in 2019 – when the Alabama Scenic River Trail launched the maiden Great Alabama 650 – the world’s longest paddle race – he was intrigued. Fifty miles of the race traverses St. Clair County.

“Last year, I was interested in it,” he says.

“This year, I was really looking forward to it.”

Jolley isn’t a competitor, but he and others like him play a valuable role in the 10-day race, He’s a “trail angel,” one of a small army of good Samaritans who do everything from providing meals and places to sleep to portage, helping weary paddlers portage their craft over land and in and out of the water at all hours of day and night.

The racecourse passes Jolley’s home. He helped competitors portage their craft out of the water at Logan Martin Dam. But the paddlers, not the paddling, draws Jolley to the competition, one of the least known events in American sports. For paddlers, it’s a magical mystery tour of Alabama rivers and lakes, featuring changing currents, landscapes, flora and fauna.

And for the trail angels like Jolley, friendships are forged. Competitors came from as far away as Hawaii.

“There are a lot of different-walks-of-life people that you meet,” Jolley says. “It’s just interesting talking to the paddlers and their ground crews, to see what they do and how they do it and why they do it.”

Alabama tourism officials, like Clarke County resident Linda Vice, president of the Alabama Scenic River Trail, hope the 650 puts the spotlight on Alabama waterways, the reason behind the race.

Alabama has 5,300 miles of accessible waterways, stretching from the mountain streams of north Alabama southward to the salt and sand of the Gulf Coast. State tourism officials bill the trail as the “most experience-diverse river trail in America.”

“We started the Scenic River Trail as an environmental and tourism project, as well as a recreational thing,” Vice says. “What we wanted to do was get people out on the waterways so they could see the natural beauty and so that they could find a lowcost sport that anybody could participate in

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Great Alabama 650

This Beanie Baby narwhal graces the brace on an outrigger kayak, right. if they had a kayak or a canoe.”

The trail was the brainchild of Fred Couch, a veteran Alabama kayaker. It was decided that the trail needed a premiere event to draw attention to the river trail. After fact-finding trips to paddle races in Alaska, Colorado and around the country, Alabama organizers learned something.

“We realized through them that we had the best race in the nation, because of the types of situations they would find themselves in as they traveled the trail,” Vice says. “It’s also the longest, with 632 miles. So, what we did was put together the race.”

While the inaugural race was open to all comers, qualifying was required to compete in 2020. COVID-19 sank qualifying this year, but 20 participants – tandem and individual racers, male and female – competed, and most finished the race.

“We started this race to draw attention to Alabama’s rivers as recreational waterways,” Vice says.

In a sports-crazy state that lives and dies each autumn Saturday with roaring football crowds, the Great Alabama 650 is different, the slap of wood on water, the silence of shifting currents, the quack of ducks and the splash of jumping fish.

“The diversity of landscape is a really big deal,” Vice says. “There are all kinds of fossils and plants.

There are so many things.”

And then there are trail angels like Jolley, who do anything and everything to help the paddlers, from helping schlep wet, heavy kayaks, to cookouts featuring sizzling Conecuh County sausage.

“A lot of our angels will take them to their houses and cook ‘em a meal,” she said. “We have chapters of supporters and paddlers around the state.”

In its short history, the Great Alabama 650 is generating attention in the paddling community and beyond.

“The 650 is the most challenging race in the world

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A calm day and smoothe water as kayakers cross the lake to the stopping point

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Great Alabama 650 according to the participants,” Vice said.

And the race is having an impact on tourism in St. Clair County, even with its short span in the county. Ecotourism is a growing sector of the local economy.

“We’re delighted that they’re here,” St. Clair County Tourism Director Blair Goodgame says.

“Any economic, or any ecotourism is going to promote quality of life for the area here.

It’s going to promote a healthy lifestyle, our connection to nature and wildlife and really push our citizens to be guardians of the resources that we have.”

Ironically, COVID-19 has led to an increase in outdoor activity, as residents look for socially distant activities to combat coronavirus cabin fever.

“COVID-19 has amplified things. But even before the pandemic, people were beginning to re-invest in the outdoors in their local communities. And luckily for St. Clair County, we have the natural assets here to be able to play on that. So, we have become just an outdoor recreational paradise because we do have so much potential to grow,” Goodgame says.

Don Smith, executive director of the St. Clair County Economic Development Council, says the 650 fits in the ecotourism sector of the county’s economic vision. Interestingly, Smith saw something similar, thanks to the trail angels who serve hikers along the Appalachian Trail.

For hikers, those angels spark a fondness and an everlasting memory of those communities, and perhaps a desire to return.

“I think if we can continue to encourage those racers as they’re going through our community, the word about how we support those communities will get out and hopefully will get folks to come back and visit with us,” Smith says.

The kayakers in the Great Alabama 650 share the waters with ski boats, bass boats, sailboats and pontoons. And sometimes, hospitality comes in colorful – yet illegal ways.

“A guy in a boat offered one of the paddlers a beer ...,” Jolley says with a laugh.

Not unexpectedly, the paddler refused the offer.

The paddlers, you see, have am abiding reverence for their sport. And like many of the residents on the Coosa, on Logan Martin and on Neely Henry, they have a reverence for the land and water. The attention wrought by the Great Alabama 650 may deepen that respect.

“It certainly won’t hurt,” Jolley says. “Boaters in general – kayakers, canoers, outdoor sports people in general – they respect the environment.

They understand the water, and they know what happens on the water. And they want to keep the water clean.” l

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The dams, wind surfers, paddle boarders and power boats are all some of the sights competitors take in on their journey.

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

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DISCOVER TheDISCOVER Essence of St. Clair • December Christmas Special • 2020 & January 2021

Cooking for the holidays

Some of the very “Best” recipes for your tables this year Story by Leigh Pritchett Photos by Graham Hadley and Leigh Pritchett When looking for tasty recipes to make for special family gatherings, the place to start is with people who are known for their culinary abilities.

Discover magazine asked cooks whose establishments have been selected by readers as “the best” to share their favorite Christmas recipes. Their recipes run the gamut from soup to Christmas breakfast to dinner side dishes and yummy desserts.

Pell City Coffee Company

Pecan pie muffins are a Christmas must-have for Tommy Barrows’ family. While they are a year-round customer favorite at Pell City Coffee Company, they are particularly in demand around the holidays. “(We) sell a ton around Christmas,” said Barrows.

They “always turn out soft and gooey” and are simple to make, Barrows said. “Only five ingredients. ... It’s easy to put together, and it tastes delicious.” And oh ... “the way it makes the house smell!”

Barrows is owner and baker at Pell City Coffee Company, which serves four blends of coffee and 30 flavors of latte, in addition to muffins, scones, cookies and cupcakes. Its coffee and (cup)cakes are deemed best in the county.

PECAN PIE MUFFINS 1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar 1 1/2 stick salted butter, softened 3 eggs at room temperature 3/4 cup all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1) Cream together butter and brown sugar.

2) Scrape down sides of bowl.

3) Beat eggs into butter-and-sugar mixture.

4) Add flour and pecans; mix on medium speed until well combined.

5) Spoon into muffin papers or well-greased, non-stick muffin pan. (Do not use a loaf pan.) Bake at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes, until tops are dark golden brown.

Tommy Barrows at Pell City Coffee Co.

DISCOVER TheDISCOVER Essence of St. Clair • December Christmas Special • 2020 & January 2021

49

Christmas

Charlie’s BBQ

Scott Holmes and wife Melissa accidentally started a Christmas tradition about 20 years ago. It began the year they prepared monkey bread for the big feast Melissa’s family enjoyed on Christmas mornings.

Since then, “it has been our job to bring monkey bread for breakfast,” said Holmes.

The cinnamon, pecans, topping and Bundt design turn each nugget into a mini-cinnamon roll. “It’s super sweet,” Holmes said. “What better way to start off Christmas festivities than a sweet breakfast dessert?”

Holmes is owner of Charlie’s BBQ in Odenville, which voters chose as St. Clair’s best restaurant and lunch spot, in addition to best hamburgers, onion rings, French fries, ribs and salads.

IN ST. CLAIR

Jose Roman’s soup and tamales.

El Cazador

When Jose Roman thinks about preparing a dish for Christmas, family comes to mind. He thinks of being together on Christmas Eve, waiting up for Santa to arrive. He thinks of the chill in the air, which naturally needs to be countered with some nice, warm soup.

Pozole, to be exact – a soup featuring hominy, pork, avocados and lime.

“That’s what we do all the time for Christmas ... and tamales, too. ... Hot tamales and pozole make you warmer,” said Roman.

The ease of preparation makes pozole and tamales popular dishes in Mexico, he said.

Roman is manager of El Cazador in Pell City, which has the distinction of serving “the best Mexican food” in St. Clair County in 2020 as chosen by the readers of the magazine.

POZOLE BLANCO (for the pozole) 1/2 white onion 8 cloves garlic 1 1/2 chicken bouillon 7 cups hominy 3 lbs. pork shoulder cut into 2-inch cubes 2 lbs. pigs feet cut into quarters 7 cups water

MONKEY BREAD 3 cans buttermilk biscuits 1/2 cup cane sugar 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup pecans, chopped 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 cup butter, melted 1) Sprinkle pecans in greased Bundt pan; set aside.

2) Cut biscuits into quarters.

3) Mix together cane sugar and cinnamon.

4) Roll biscuit quarters in sugar-cinnamon mixture; layer in Bundt pan.

5) Combine brown sugar and butter and heat until butter melts. Pour over dough.

6) Bake at 350 degrees 30-40 minutes.

7) Cool 10 minutes in pan; invert onto a plate.

Scott Holmes at Charlies BBQ

(for the garnish) 1/2 white onion, diced Radish, sliced Avocado, sliced Mexican oregano Lime wedges 1) In a blender, combine onion, garlic, bouillon and 2 cups of water. Blend until smooth.

2) In a large pot or Dutch oven, add hominy, pork, garlicand-onion mixture and 7 cups of water. Bring to a boil; reduce to simmer; cover and cook 3 hours, until pork is thoroughly cooked and can easily shred.

3) Taste for salt and add more if needed.

4) Serve in a bowl and top with radish, avocado, diced onion, oregano and lime wedges. Accompany with tostadas.

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DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas

Buffalo Wild Wings

Jonathan Gray really likes cooking ... and Brussels sprouts.

“I really like Brussels sprouts,” said Gray, a general manager at Buffalo Wild Wings in Pell City.

He doesn’t have to think about what veggie side dish to prepare for Thanksgiving or Christmas meals.

It will be Brussels sprouts with his own special twist. “I cook them with maple bacon and shallots.”

His employer – Buffalo Wild Wings – puts different twists on wings (salty, spicy, savory, sweet, dry rubs), which accounts for why its wings were voted best in St. Clair.

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BRUSSELS SPROUTS WITH MAPLE BACON AND SHALLOTS 1 lb. maple bacon 2 lbs. Brussels sprouts 2 shallots, chopped 1/4 stick butter 1) Cut bacon into small pieces and cook thoroughly.

2) Cut sprouts in half and cook in bacon grease until brown on each side.

3) Remove from skillet.

4) Sautee shallots in butter.

5) Return everything else to the skillet and cook until shallots are opaque (3-5 minutes).

6) Salt and pepper to taste.

Joe Wheeler at Pell City Steahouse

Pell City Steakhouse

To Joe Wheeler, who has operated Pell City Steakhouse since 1962, baked ham and sweet potato soufflé are the taste of Christmas dinner.

“Everybody loves it,” Wheeler said. “... This is something we do a lot of at Christmas.”

Not only are the two menu items at the Steakhouse, but the restaurant also prepares lots of baked hams and sweet potato soufflé for customers wanting them for their family gatherings.

The Steakhouse receives quite a number of holiday special orders, as well, for its chicken dressing and cobbler.

The Steakhouse’s pies have been recognized as the best in the county.

Jonathan Gray at Buffalo Wild Wings

SWEET POTATO SOUFFLÉ 3 medium sweet potatoes 2 cups sugar 1 cup evaporated milk 3 eggs 1/2 cup butter 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1/4 tsp vanilla flavoring 1/4 tsp lemon extract 1) Mix well and put in pan.

2) Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

3) Remove from oven.

4) Add marshmallows and nuts to the top.

5) Return to oven for 5 minutes.

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DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

Little Bit of R&R BBQ

Little Bit of R&R BBQ in Odenville gets the distinction of being named the best place for barbecue and sandwiches.

It is also considered “the best” dinner spot.

“We try to make it a good atmosphere for any family to come in,” said Colt Reese, owner.

The restaurant offers live entertainment, a video lounge for children, and “fusion” foods, such as chicken philly, tacos and ... soon ... Asian. They are all made with smoked meats cooked fresh daily.

“I like creating different items with our smoked meats,” Reese said.

When it comes to baking for special days, Reese has a favorite go-to recipe that combines caramel, apples and lots of crust.

“It’s unique the way it’s made, how thick it is,” Reese said.

CARAMEL APPLE PIE (crust) 16.5 oz. refrigerated sugar cookie dough 1/2 cup flour (filling) 2 1/2 lbs. Granny Smith apples 1/2 cup sugar 1/8 cup flour 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 1/4 cup caramel topping (topping) 1 cup flour 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup cane sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 cup butter 1) Peel and core apples and slice thinly.

2) Heat oven to 350 degrees.

3) Lightly spray 10-inch springform pan.

4) Mix cookie dough and flour in a bowl until well combined.

5) Press into the bottom of the pan and go up the side of the pan about 3/4 inch. Make certain it is completely covered with no holes.

6) In a mixing bowl, toss apples with sugar, flour and cinnamon, then spread evenly into pie crust.

7) Drizzle 3/4 cup caramel over apple mixture.

8) Cover with aluminum foil and bake 45 minutes.

9) While pie is baking, combine flour, brown sugar, cane sugar, vanilla and cinnamon.

10) Cut in butter mixture and mix until it forms a wet crumb.

11) Remove pie from oven and take off foil. Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the pie.

12) Bake, uncovered, in oven 15-20 minutes until lightly brown.

13) Allow the pie to cool before removing it from springform pan.

14) When ready to serve, slice the pie and drizzle with additional caramel topping.

Colt Reese at Little Bit of R&R

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

Louie’s Grill at Countryside Farm

Louie’s Grill at Countryside Farm offers a diverse menu selection – wings, chicken, burgers and sandwiches, seafood and fresh fish, Mexican dishes, salads and much more.

Its steaks – certified Angus beef – have been voted the best in the county. Whole prime rib and whole tenderloin are two centerpieces of the catered Christmas meals that Louie’s Grill offers.

The various dining rooms at the restaurant provide different experiences, such as elegant, private, veranda and casual dining, plus an oyster and sports bar.

Coming soon is Jay Scott Catering.

The desserts baked at Louie’s grill are popular items.

The caramel-coconut-pecan pie is definitely the top seller at Christmas.

“We have the most delicious desserts on our menu,” said Brenda Hamby, who shares co-ownership of Louie’s Grill with Lewis Weber. In addition to that are many specialty desserts.

All are made from scratch with fresh ingredients, said Hamby and Chef Jay Scott.

Louie’s Grill gave Discover readers the gift of two dessert recipes – Neiman Marcus Cake and Pumpkin Bars.

Hamby described the Neiman Marcus Cake as a “nice combination of cookie and cheese cake.”

As for Pumpkin Bars, “it’s just an easy, family holiday recipe,” Scott said.

Jay Scott at Louie’s Grill with pumpkin bars on the plate and Neiman Marcus cake, below

NEIMAN MARCUS CAKE FROM LOUIE’S GRILL (crust) 1 box butter cake mix 1/4 cup pecans, chopped 2 eggs 1 stick butter (topping) 8 oz. cream cheese 1 lb. confectioners’ sugar 1) Mix crust ingredients together and pat into a 9x13-inch, greased cake pan.

2) Cream together topping ingredients, then spread on cake crust.

3) Bake at 350 degrees 40-45 minutes.

PUMPKIN BARS FROM LOUIE’S GRILL (bars) 1 cup vegetable oil 2 cups pure pumpkin 2 cups sugar 4 eggs 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp cinnamon

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(frosting) 3 oz. cream cheese 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 stick (4 oz.) butter 1) Mix together ingredients for bars.

2) Place in 9x11-inch cake pan.

3) Bake at 350 degrees 20-25 minutes.

4) Cream together frosting ingredients.

5) Add enough confectioners’ sugar to stiffen topping.

6) Spread on bars and top with nuts (optional).

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas

SHOP LOCAL IN ST. CLAIR

Stores here have everything you need this holiday season

Story by Jackie Walburn Submitted photos When it comes to unique gifts and personal service, holiday shoppers win every time by shopping locally, say St. Clair merchants who offer suggestions for most-wanted gifts for 2020.

From clothes and statement jewelry to pets and guitars to gift cards and locally made candles and soaps, around-the-corner and down-thestreet merchants recommend distinctive gifts and exceptional service available at local shops.

At Mum & Me Mercantile on Parkway Drive in downtown Leeds, owner Neva Reardon recommends shopping locally and buying locally and points to products made by local artists, including pottery, candles and jewelry.

A store specializing in handmade items and artworks from Alabama and across the South, Mum & Me carries pottery from local potter Susan Moore, handmade candles from Red Beard Redolence of Leeds, soaps and candles from Community Natural in Shelby County, candles and melts from Cahaba Handmade in Leeds.

Other regionally made items at Mum & Me include Zkano organic cotton socks from Little River Sock Company in Fort Payne; Bronnie’s Brittle, a peanut brittle made in Birmingham; lotions, bath and body items from K and C Bath Co. in Birmingham; and hand-stenciled kitchen towels made by Becky Denny of Digs Design in Homewood.

Gift ideas abound at Monkey Bizness in downtown Pell City, but owner Michelle Tumlin recommends that shoppers look at the shop’s new reading glasses with blue-light filters, perfect for all ages and less than $25, plus the store’s exclusive hand-poured candles. With fragrances, flavors and names developed in partnership with a candle maker in Franklin, Tenn., the handmade candles are popular and unique to the store.

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Mum & Me Mercantile

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

Ron Partain’s World of Music

Griffins Jewelers DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

Monkey Bizness candles’ bestselling fragrances are Pell City Christmas and Panther Pride, named for the Pell City Panthers.

Specializing in women’s and children’s clothing, Monkey Bizness has added newborn clothes to its line of clothes for children, with boy sizes from newborn to 5, and, for girls, from newborn to toddler to children, tweens, misses and plus sizes, Tumlin says. “If you’re a girl, I can dress you.”

At Ron Partain’s World of Music in downtown Pell City, long-time owner and musician Ron Partain sees music as a holiday gift that keeps giving. Open for 42 years, Ron Partain’s World of Music specializes in musical instruments, including guitars, mandolins, banjos, violins and pianos and all essentials to go with them.

“Our featured items would be guitars for all ages, acoustic and electric, and gift certificates for lessons to go with a guitar,” Partain says, noting his favorite part of his job is “watching people’s eyes dance because they made music.”

Pointing to the popularity of online buying, even for musical instruments, Partain says folks looking for music instruments or accessories should check this local store first. “Truth is, we sell at internet prices, but our joy is helping people to love music.” And if you can find it online, they can get it for you in the store.

Jewelry is always a go-to gift at Griffins Jewelers, and Stephanie Smith, manager at the Pell City shop, points to Le Vian jewelry as tops for 2020 holidays. Known for original designs using their trademarked Chocolate Diamonds and colored gem stones, Le Vian’s styles in earrings, necklaces and rings are trendy and stylish with a high-quality standard. “These are truly statement pieces,” Smith says.

Griffins is a local distributor of Le Vian, an internationally renowned family-owned jeweler with a history dating back centuries. They offer a wide variety of Le Vian pieces priced from about $800 up.

Another Griffins gift recommendation revolves around solar-powered globes that rotate inside a clear sphere, a gift that’s calming and scientific at the same time, priced at $170 and up. Gift

59

Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

wrapping is free with purchase at Griffins Jewelers, which is celebrating its 70th year in business in 2020.

Known for its residential and commercial mailboxes marketed statewide and nationally, Alabama Mailbox Company in Ashville is also growing as St. Clair County’s headquarters for exotic animals and pets, says Kaitlyn Martin of Alabama Mailbox.

They have bearded dragons, hedgehogs, geckos, skinks and tortoises and all the items needed to care for and feed the unusual pets. “These are very unique gifts, and we have all the supplies, food, cages and bedding,” Martin says. The company’s pet offerings are expanding to include house pets, dogs and cats, organic pet food and treats. They also carry top line food and water dishes, leashes and diet supplements.

Visiting the store on Turkey Hollow Lane in Ashville, shoppers can see the pets and buy in-stock mailboxes, or they can custom order the best in mailboxes, light posts, signs and garden accessories, which come with experienced customer service.

Warren Family Garden Center and Nursery on Old Cedar Grove Road in Leeds gets ready for Christmas season early with fresh poinsettias and other Christmas plants, including lemon cypress, Christmas cactus and bulbs, says manager Michelle Warren, one of the family owners of the full-service garden center.

Gift items she recommends include wind chimes, pottery, house plants, floral decorations and garden art. Distinctive Christmas decorations are available too, along with fresh evergreen wreaths and garland and Christmas trees which begin arriving before Thanksgiving.

At Merle Norman in downtown Pell City, expect skin-care products and splashes of color as top gifts, says Joanna Darden, salesperson at the shop on Cogswell Avenue.

All the skin care lines at the nationallyknown cosmetics shop are great gifts, she says, recommending a holiday makeup item called Starry Eyes Liquid Foil, one of Merle Norman’s holiday gift items.

“It’s eye shadow and mascara in copper and silvery colors that are glittery but not too much. The look is eye-popping and

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Warren Family Garden Center and Nursery

Green iguanas at Alabama Mailbox Company

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

perfect for the holidays,” Darden says.

Merle Norman originally introduced the Liquid Foil set for spring, and it was such a hit that it’s been modified for winter and Christmas and New Year’s season.

At Hattie Lee’s Boutique on Martin Street in Pell City, owner Jo Ann Bain recommends casual clothing and loungewear as top gift choices.

“Anything casual is great. Folks are staying home, working from home and doing virtual everything,” she says.

“Loungewear is really big,” she says, noting they are not basic sweatsuits, but comfortable, cute clothing, with fashion themes that include animal prints and creative camo prints.

Shoppers and gift buyers are looking for “something they can get up and put on to work at home and still look good when you need to get out.”

Hattie Lee’s is also selling fashionforward masks – in colors and designs to match outfits or mood. “Everyone has to have them,” Bain says about mask face coverings needed during the ongoing pandemic, “so they might as well be cute.”

At Uptown Girl, also known as UG Clothing, in downtown Pell City, the variety is such that owner Virginia Seales says a UG Gift Card makes the perfect gift.

“It’s loadable and reloadable,” and with new items coming in daily, a gift card takes the guessing out of gift buying. UG’s Facebook Live Shows, held on Mondays and Thursdays via the store’s Facebook page, are another way the shop reaches customers and makes shopping easier, Seales says.

Held at 7 p.m. two nights a week, the live shows feature the latest fashions and gift ideas.

Begun during the initial pandemic shutdown in the Spring of 2020 as outreach to customers, the Live Show videos continue as holiday purchasing begins. Participants can purchase via the Live Shows and pick up the items or have them shipped. The first five Facebook users who respond to the Live Show announcement with a “Shop UG” comment win $10 gift cards.

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Monkey Bizness candles

Uptown Girl

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

Hattie Lee’s Botique

Grandparents are priceless.

#mask4others

Solar-powered globe at Griffins

. m e h t t c Prote

Wear a mask in public.

Sponsored by your pediatricians and the Jefferson County Pediatric Society

Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

Children’s Wish List What’s going under the tree?

Meet animatronic The Child (better known as Baby Yoda) from Star Wars The Mandolorian

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DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

Story by Jackie Romine Walburn Submitted photos Home together may be the most telling trend for Christmas 2020 gift lists for children.

Board games, puzzles, classic toys reimagined and electronic and traditional learning and building toys top this holiday season’s trends and demand. No doubt, it reflects the reality of many families at home all together, self-isolating, working and playing together, amid a global pandemic that’s changed much about daily life and celebrations.

Already in 2020 since the pandemic sent children and parents back home, U.S. toy industry dollar sales increased by more than 19 percent, year-to-date through September, according to the NPD Group that tracks consumer market trends worldwide.

The boosts in toy sales were strongest for outdoor sports and toys, games and puzzles and building sets. Santa consumers are expected to continue the toys sales trends in gift buying for children for 2020.

BOARD GAMES AND PUZZLES

Classic board games and old-fashioned puzzles spiked in sales so far in 2020, up 42 percent, a trend expected to continue for Christmas 2020. Toymakers’ most popular board game offerings include: • Classic Hasbro Clue Game: Inexpensive at about $10, the classic board game remains a top seller.

• Monopoly: The classic (long-playing) family board game lists for about $16 to $20 dollars and still comes in the original version that experts say can hold the attention of young players better than electronic games. New Monopoly versions include Cheater’s Edition, a Luxury Edition (about $230), and versions featuring Disney, Pokeman, Star Wars and Fortnite characters. The newest, an Ultimate Banker edition, $25, uses credit cards, instead of paper money, that are swiped on a battery-operated Ultimate Banker unit.

• Melissa and Doug Suspend Family Game: Testing motor skills and balance, a modern take on pick up sticks, priced at about $17.

• Spot It: A portable matching game for ages 6 and up, for around $16.

• Spontuneous, the Song Game: Musical board game for families, $30.

• Richard Scarry’s Busytown, Eye Found It: A find-it game based on the world of the popular children’s book author, $28.

• Still fun: Vintage children board games that are still fun and simple include Chutes and Ladders, $15; Sorry, $10; Connect 4, $12; Scrabble Junior, $13; and Mouse Trap, $17.

The jigsaw puzzle revival of 2020 brings amazing varieties of challenging, fun and nostalgic subjects to puzzle together.

A listing of top puzzles at Today.com, the website of the morning news show, begins with the Impossible Clear Jigsaw Puzzle, starting at $17 from Etsy. Other prize puzzles for 2020 are the Space Puzzle, a galaxy in 1000 pieces for about $15; Mud Puppy Hot Dog A to Z puzzle that celebrates dogs, about $17 at Amazon; a Meta Puzzle, a puzzle picture of someone doing a puzzle, $36 at Anthropology; and nostalgic puzzles from Urban Outfitters, including classic movies, Peanuts and the Golden Girls, $18 to $22.

Toy Story Legos BUILDING IT

Building toys, from toddlers to teens, make goodhousekeeping.com’s children’s gift list for 2020. Top new offerings include: • Lego Duplo My First Alphabet, $25, with all the letters of the alphabet for building and learning.

• K’Nex 35 Model Building Set, 480 pieces and moving parts, voted No. 1 by bestforkids.com, $30.

• Tinkertoy 30 model 200 Super Building set, $50.

• Marble Genius Marble Run superset with 150 pieces, $50.

• Magna Tiles 100-piece set, the original 3D magnetic building sets that fuse math, science and creativity, $120.

• Crazy Fort building set, $50, with 25 geometrically precise balls and 44 sticks that connect to create a multitude of possible play structures. Just add bedsheets to complete the fort.

CLASSIC TOYS REVISITED Leading this year’s rethinking of classic toys is Flipside, $18, a modern take on Rubic’s Cube, Flipside is a light-up, hand-held game with four game modes to challenge mind and reflexes.

Mr. Potato Head gets another upgrade, this time in the form of Mr. Potato Chips, a set of curly, potato-fries-shaped characters with interchangeable parts. A set of five Mr. Potato Chips sell for $25.

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

Play-Doh has new textures and looks, with Play-Doh Compounds Corner, $15, a collection of new, oozy Play-Doh textures including Crackle, Super Cloud, Slime, Super Stretch and Foam in fun colors.

Care Bears Interactive Collectible Figures talk, sing, tell jokes and interact with each other and you. Retailing at $15 each, the interactive collection offers more than 50 reactions and surprises and a special coin with each.

Interactive Care Bears

FROZEN, STAR WARS, TOY STORY STILL THE ONES

Movie characters from popular movies and entertainment traditionally play a huge role in the success of toys. For 2020, last year’s favorites, Disney’s Frozen, Star Wars and Toy Story, stay at the top, market experts say, since few new movies are being released Expected favorites from these franchises include Disney Frozen 2 Shape Shifting Olaf Plush toy that talks and has body parts that mix and match. For toddlers, momjunction,com recommends Lego’s Duplo Toy Story Train with Buzz Lightyear and Woody, $20, and, for kids 3 and up, the Disney Pixar True Talking Forky Figure that plays 15+ movie phrases. Other Toy Story favorite characters are available, too, Toys and games featuring the continuously popular Star Wars characters ready for 2020 include: Lego Star Wars mini figures, 24 for about $49, collectables; LED Star Wars light sabers, two pack of motion-sensitive lighted swords, about $30; and a variety of Star Wars-themed pajamas and graphic T-shirts, $20 and up. Look also for Star Wars Lego building sets, action figures, $17 Kylo Ren and First Order Stormtrooper walkie talkies and an app-enabled R2-D2 Sphero Droid with sound, movements and holographic simulation, $110. And, of course, the animatronic Mandolorian The Child (Baby Yoda) is another must-have.

Shape Shifting Olaf from Frozen 2 66

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

Him & Her Something for

Combination air fryer and toaster 68

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

Story by Jackie Romine Walburn Submitted photos Comfort and home headline gift buying for men and women for the 2020 holiday season. Tangible, practical gifts for themselves and their home top gift wish lists for adults, experts say, as the country continues to deal with an ongoing pandemic.

From cozy, casual apparel to technology that can ease working and schooling at home, Christmas 2020 appears to be about home, family, safety, convenience and comfort.

Already, sales in general merchandise – a category that includes consumer technology, clothes, shoes, office supplies and housewares – have topped 2019 sales and will keep rising with holiday sales, say experts at The NPD Group that tracks consumer market trends in the U.S. and globally.

SAFE AT HOME From gifts to help do it yourself (DIY) projects to small kitchen and household appliances to make life at home easier, more comfortable and delicious, expect home and the changes brought by the pandemic to be the center of gift giving in 2020.

KEEPING SHOPPING DOLLARS AT HOME While online shopping surged in spring 2020 with early shutdowns to mitigate spread of the coronavirus, St. Clair merchants are open and ready for customers to buy locally.

“Our local merchants are placing a high emphasis on the safety of their employees and customers,” says Don Smith, executive director of the St. Clair Economic Development Council. “Ultimately, we are all in this together. We know each other, see each other often and want to keep each other safe.”

Plus, shopping locally allows shoppers to choose what they want and know what they are going to get. “Sometimes, online, what’s being marketed or advertised is not what you expected, and it arrives much later than expected,” Smith said, noting that local shops have unique items not available anywhere else.

In addition to avoiding issues with online shopping and ordering, shopping locally saves time, money and aggravation and avoids crowds and parking hassles of big-city malls, shopping centers and big box stores.

“Shopping locally supports families in your community who, in turn, support your community’s activities, schools and churches,” Smith says. Also, compared to spending online for gifts or with big city merchants, shopping locally keeps more tax money in the community.

Of the 10 percent sales tax in most of St. Clair County, money spent with local merchants goes directly to the city and county for schools and services, Smith points out. With online spending, the state of Alabama collects the tax money from online vendors, and “our cities and St. Clair County get about half the tax revenue from online sales compared to purchases made directly from local merchants.”

So, Smith advises, shop locally and choose what you want, know what you’re getting and help the local economy all at the same time.

Of course, you can shop local online, too. Many of St. Clair’s merchants offer their products on the internet as well as in their brick-and-mortar shops.

Single Serve coffee makers are in.

Find popular sweat shirts at lakelife247.com

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

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Christmas IN ST. CLAIR

COFFEE BY THE CUP AND BREADMAKING Expect items popular during stay-at-home orders to remain popular as gifts or self-gifting. For the kitchen, single-serve coffee and espresso appliances top the list for 2020, along with hand and standing mixers (for that bread-making) and the newest in cooking combination small appliances, including toaster oven-air fryer combos.

KEEP DOING IT YOURSELF DIY home projects surged in 2020 as families in need of more room, fresh paint or an outdoor gathering place decided to work on home improvements. Gift ideas for him or her to help with home projects include tools, toolboxes, power tools or gift certificates to home improvement stores and local hardware stores. Home gifts also include plants and trees – house plants and even sought-after hardwood and fruit-tree seedlings, ready to plant in winter.

TECHNOLOGY GETS PERSONAL As more men and women work from home and children learn from home, at least part of the time, technology can make the ideal holiday gift. Some great ideas include a new smart television that connects to the internet and cable, allowing more options for virtual learning and Zoom video conferencing.

Personal and wearable technology that make perfect holiday gifts include noise-cancelling headphones and smartwatches that double as phone or computer.

Smartwatches and fitness tracker watches continue to improve, with new versions getting high marks. Techradar rates fitness trackers, with the Fitbit Charge 4 retailing for about $150 and the new Fitbit Sense, considered one of the most advanced with easy-to-use readings, listed at $329.

The smartwatch market is also seeing improvements and affordability. Top picks for gifts, according to tomsguide.com, are the new Apple Watch 6, $349, best for iPhone users, and the Samsung Galaxy Watch, $399, considered the best option for users with Samsung phones.

Other options include offerings from Fossil, with their Gen 5, stylish Android smart watches that retail from $180 and up.

Headphones or ear plug private listening options, which are valuable in multi-remote job and school homes, keep improving and becoming more affordable. Tops on the list for working remotely at home, according to PC Magazine, are Plantronic’s Voyager 5200 headset, about $120; Blue Parrott B550-XT, called best for the noisiest environments, for $170; Bose Noise Cancelling Headphone 700, $379; Marshall Mid ANC, $190; and Jabra Elite 45h, the most affordable on the best of list, without active noise cancelling but still judged helpful for work or play.

GAME ON Already setting records in 2020, consumer spending on video gaming in the U.S. is expected to surge more via holiday gift buying. So far this year, spending on video gaming topped $13.46 billion, led mostly by grown-ups.

New digital consoles expected to be tough to find include PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and the more affordable

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Apple Watch Series S. Game controllers and headsets remain on mostwanted lists, along with subscriptions and accessories. Popular games include Animal Crossing: New Horizons; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Black Ops; DOOM Eternal; Dragon Ball Z Kakarot; Grand Theft Auto; Minecraft; MLB The Show 20; and NBA 2K20, all best-performing titles in the first quarter of 2020, according to the NPD Group.

MAKE IT COMFORTABLE When it comes to apparel for the men and women on your list, think comfort. Sweatshirts, sweatpants, active bottoms, sleepwear and socks are forecast to make up 31 percent of total U.S. apparel spending this holiday season, compared to 26 percent in 2019’s holiday buying season. Sherpa jackets and coats remain popular, along with blue jeans, continuing the casual trend.

And, non-medical masks, face coverings required or at least encouraged during the COVID-19 pandemic, are turning into fashion statements, but the comfort standard still remains.

Handmade colorful masks that reflect the wearer’s personality are available.

Footwear for men and women are seeing the same trends, dressy shoes out and comfy shoes in. Slippers, a staple of holiday giving, are expected to increase in sales this holiday.

Sneakers and hiking shoes are selling big this year, too, as more people take to the outdoors.

BOOK IT Book sales were up in 2020 so far, and holiday spending is expected to maintain the trend. Cookbooks, personal finance books and audio books are among the bestselling. Puzzle books, from word finds to Sudoku to crosswords, are also thoughtful gifts.

DISCOVER Christmas Special • 2020

OUR PATIENTS COME FIRST We are open and ready to serve the Pell City-St. Clair County region

ear

nose

As we face these difficult times together, it is critical you still have access to treatment. We take every precaution to ensure that your visit is the safest possible.

The health and safety of our staff, patients and their families will always be our top priority.

Call our office at Northside Medical Home or visit our website for specific hours.

70 Plaza Drive, Pell City

www.entalabama.com

205-591-8260

throat

doctors

THE BEST OF ST. CLAIR

2020

In August, Discover asked readers to choose their favorites in a wide variety of categories. In October, they picked the winners in our Discover the Best of St. Clair Awards. We’ll be back next year in August, asking who will get the most votes in 2021! Stay tuned.

For now, meet the faces and places behind the Best of St. Clair Awards for 2020:

Hamburger Fat Mans Bar B Que

Hamburger Charlie’s BBQ

Catfish The Ark

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Barbecue R&R BBQ

Cake Pell City Coffee Company

Pie Pell City Steakhouse

Coffee Pell City Coffee Company

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Restaurant Charlie’s BBQ

French Fries Charlie’s BBQ

Ribs Charlie’ BBQs

Fast Food Chick Fil A Pell City

Wings Buffalo Wild Wings

Pizza Carpenetti’s

Lunch Spot Charlie’s BBQ

Dinner Spot R&R BBQ

Steak Louie’s Grill

Onion Rings Charlie’s BBQ

Seafood The Ark

Asian Food Oishi

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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74 74

Country Cooking Triple T’s

Salads Charlie’s BBQ

Historic site Looney House

Buffet City Market

Meat N’ Three Triple T’s

Kayak/Canoeing Yak the Creek

Sandwiches J&S

Breakfast Spot Cracker Barrel Moody

Scenic Spot Pell City Lakeside Park

Sandwiches R&R BBQ

Mexican Food El Cazador

Gift Shop Magnolias

DISCOVER The The Essence Essence of of St. Clair Clair •• December December 2019 2020 & & January January 2020 2021 DISCOVER

We’re your hometown doctors and so much more …

Serving the Community from Our New Home!

• Primary & Specialist Care • Jotani Aesthetics • Family Wellness Care • Women’s Health • Sports Medicine

• • • • •

Outpatient Care Onsite Diagnostics Multi-Specialty Massage Therapy Onsite Physical Therapy from ATI

“Thank you Discover Readers for this Honor!”

EXTENDED HOURS

Saturday & Sunday clinics now open

- Dr. Barry Collins

205-884-9000

www.pcifm.com

Park Pell City Lakeside Park

Splash Pad Pell City Lakeside Park

Church Group New Hope

Library Pell City

Church Group Seddon Baptist

Chamber of Commerce Pell City

Church Group St. Simon Peter Episcopal

Artist Cayce Johnson

Nonprofit Gateway Community Garden

Civic Club Pell City Rotary

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Church Group Gathering Place

Photographer Red Magnolia Photography

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Woodworking Cayce Johnson

Potter Janet Entler

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Dentist Aultman

Pediatrician Springville Pediatrics

Doctor Dr. Barry Collins

Orthodontist PT Ortho Pell City

Doctor Dr. Rock Helms

Orthodontist Rape and Brooks

Orthodontist Smiles by Benton

Orthodontist Vlachos Pell City

Chiropractor Hancock Chiropractic

Pharmacist Curt Eddy

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Pharmacy Northside Apothecary

Jeweler Griffins Jewelers Pell City

Nail Salon LeNails

Pharmacy Odenville Drugs

Florist Flower Art by Vanessa

Manicurist John at Elegant nails

Hair Salon The Style Bar

Massage Therapist Patience Bradford

Antique Store David Tims’ Antiques

Lawyer John Rea

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Hair Stylist Christy Harmon

Physical Therapist Tyler McGrady Therapy South

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

THANK YOU, VOTERS!

DISCOVER Essence Clair • December 2020 & January 2021 DISCOVER TheThe Essence of of St.St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Insurance Company JP Dailey State Farm

Realty Company Fields & Gossett

Realtor Caran Wilbanks

Mortgage Company Coosa Valley Mortgage

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Bank Metro Bank

Boat Dealership Woods Surfside

Boat Sales Exec Rodney Humphries

Boat Mechanic Rodney Humphries

Auto Dealership Town & Country

Auto Sales Exec Norman Wilder

Auto Repair MPS Automotive Pell City

Homebuilder Cline Construction

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

74 Plaza Drive Pell City, AL

• We match local pricing • Open to the public • Free Consulations • Most insurance plans accepted

We a r e h e r e w h e n y o u n e e d u s !

Monday - Saturday 8:30-8:00, SUNDAYS 1-6 EXTENDED HOURS of operationt to better serve you!

KNOWLEDGEABLE, DEDICATED STAFF • 4/$10 generic medication list • Durable medical equipment • Convenient drive-thru • Diabetic supplies & internet refills

Phone: 205.814.7272

NorthsideApothecary.com

Named Best Pharmacy in St. Clair County by the readers of Discover Magazine

IT’S PERSONAL

Every patient is special at Aultman Dental

“THANK YOU FOR VOTING AULTMAN DENTAL YOUR BEST DENTAL OFFICE”

The minute you walk through the door.

Our team is dedicated to building relationships and delivering comprehensive, advanced dentistry tailored especially for each patient.

It’s the centerpiece of our practice – We make every trip to the dentist as pleasant as possible.

2503 Stemley Bridge Road Pell City, AL 35128

Phone: (205) 812-2005 | AultmanDental.com

Interior Designer Gerald Ensley

Grocery Store Publix Pell City

The Best of St. Clair Winner Photos • Caroline’s Mill • Eissmann Goats for Rent • Bobbye Weaver • Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Upholstery Incredible Touch German Upholstery

Clothes Boutique U.G. - Urban Girl

December 2018 & January 2019

DRY CREEK FARM Christmas

in the country

Special Holiday Gift Guide Inside Caterer Complete/Bowling

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Everyone at Discover The Essence of St. Clair, Partners

by Design and LakeLife products thanks everyone who participated in this year’s competition!

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

VOTED 2020 BEST INSURANCE COMPANY

“Thank you Discover St. Clair readers.

I am humbled to have been chosen Best Automobile Executive for two consecutive years”.

Norman Wilder, Town & Country Ford

Left to Right: JP Dailey, Janet Poe, Jayme Nickens, Timothy Wright, Heather Myers and Bre Northington

VOTED 2020 BEST Breakfast

St. Clair Alabama

Business Review Louis

Small businesses are key to the economic success of historic Downtown Pell City.

A new era begins at Northside

86 DISCOVER Essence St. Clair •••August & September 2013 of St. ClairThe •The Business Review DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair October && November 2017 86• DISCOVER The Essence DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair •August February &July March 2016 2016 86 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair & September 2017 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair June & July 2017 DISCOVER DISCOVER Essence The Essence of St. Clair of St. ••Clair Clair December June 2016 & 2015 2017 St. Clair 2017 2018 DISCOVER The Essence of St. •••April May DISCOVER The Essence ofof December 2020 & January January 2021 St. Clair 2019 2020

Story by Paul South Photo by Graham Hadley

A new resource

St. Clair EDC launches small business initiative A few years back, when the St. Clair County business community offered input into the Economic Development Council’s most recent five-year strategic plan, neither a crystal ball, nor an Old-Testament-style prophet or Warren Buffet were anywhere in sight.

No visions of a global pandemic or widespread working from home danced in anyone’s head as they mapped out the EDC’s five-year blueprint.

But in a moment of economic serendipity, someone proposed a virtual business resource center called Small Business St. Clair, a new tool that would utilize the insights and experience of the county’s large corporations and its relationships with economic development experts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Jacksonville State University and Jefferson State Community College to help boost small business across the county.

In the onslaught of COVID-19, the initiative – scheduled to launch in 2021 – comes at just the right time, a ray of sunlight piercing the dark cloud of the coronavirus.

Small Business St. Clair was created in conjunction with the county’s six chambers of commerce, located in Pell City, Moody, Greater Odenville, Springville Area, Leeds and in Ashville, said Candice Hill, retail and marketing specialist for the St. Clair County Economic Development Council.

“Most of their strategy goes with the networking aspect, which they do a really fabulous job with,” Hill said. “But one thing that we noticed, as far as small business goes, there’s not really a component outside of encouraging them to speak with business counselors at Jacksonville State University.

But there’s really an outcry in the county for some help for small businesses to find the resources that they need to be successful.”

The EDC felt it could strengthen local chambers of commerce by being that helping hand. Thus, the idea, Small Business St. Clair, was born.

In September, small businesses provided feedback to the EDC – fittingly through a Zoom call – in part on the challenges small businesses face in the county, and discussion topics for a Small Business Week summit set for next spring.

County leaders sought to tailor those topics to fit the differing needs of small business, Hill said.

“There are a lot of things that we pulled out of it. Like, it would be great if we could collaborate with businesses in the communities that we’re in – because retailers have different needs than service industries, of course – to put together enough retailers in our smaller communities, or enough service businesses in our communities. Countywide, we can provide a more quality resource.”

The initiative is also expected to be a resource for the growing online business sector in the county, a front-andcenter segment of the local, regional, national and global

economy during the pandemic.

“One thing that we discussed is that (online businesses) have really had a very different experience during the COVID-19 pandemic than some of our others who were not able to have an online presence, or not able to provide curbside service,” Hill said.

The virus forced some small county businesses to be creative in driving business. Many flourished. One of the goals of the initiative is to foster that creativity.

“There are some small businesses that we’ve gotten some feedback from that said, ‘I’ve gotten more business during COVID because we were forced to learn how to reach our customers more than usual, even when they couldn’t come in the store,” Hill said. “So, their creativity has definitely given them some different options than they had before COVID hit.”

Another aspect of the effort is a website redesign. Teaming with the Pell City firm, Partners By Design (the parent company of this magazine), the new website will contain a resource center devoted to small business and the local resources available to help them – answers to COVID questions, tax questions, etc.

“The simple things are sometimes the most helpful,” Hill said. “For instance, there’s a calendar on ThriveHive, (a

DISCOVER The Essence St. Clair •••August & September 2013 Business Review •July DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • 87 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair October && November 2017 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair •August February &July March 2016 87 2016 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair & September 2017 DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair June & 2017 87 DISCOVER DISCOVER The Essence The Essence of St. Clair of St. ••Clair Clair December June 2016 & 2015 2017 St. Clair 2017 2018 DISCOVER The Essence of St. •••April May DISCOVER The Essence ofof December 2020 & January January 2021 St. Clair 2019 2020

Business Review

Small Business St. Clair

Helping small businesses in communities like Springville is part of the mission of Small Business St. Clair.

site that provides marketing and advertising solutions for business).” The calendar helps firms tailor their marketing to events on the calendar like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, or ways to get a greater social media presence.

“The EDC has about 80 partners that are professional businesses, services and industries throughout the county.

That’s along with all the municipalities and the chambers of commerce and the school systems. So, it is not that difficult for us between that group and the Leadership St. Clair County group to come up with an answer for those who have questions,” Hill said.

Virtual business resource initiatives like the one on the horizon in St. Clair County, is the wave of the future, a trend fueled by the pandemic. The geography of the county also makes a stand-alone, brick-and-mortar location impractical.

“We even had a study done about where to put an incubator within the county,” Hill said. “And it just seems like more and more, a stand-alone place where people can have a middle area to have a receptionist and make copies is not the way that the incubating industry should be going. And we really want to be innovating in figuring out how we help the small businesses in St. Clair County, whether they are online, services or retail.”

She added, “A lot of times (small business owners) can’t leave for lunch … If they can do something virtually, if they can get on a chat or on a Listserv and have other small business people and professionals in that area answer their questions, then it’s a simple way to provide help to small businesses

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where they are.”

Don Smith, executive director of the EDC, agreed that timing was everything for Small Business St. Clair, providence in the time of pandemic.

“Typically, if it’s good times or bad times, or if it’s a pandemic or not, (resources for small business) are still in high demand,” Smith said. “Really having things more virtual is allowing us to overcome some of the challenges we’ve had in the past in trying to provide a small business resource center, but not have to replicate it in different physical locations.”

To be clear, the initiative isn’t an effort to compete with city chambers of commerce, but to strengthen their position and their ability to help members.

“We have tremendous chambers and folks that volunteer their time with the chambers, Smith said. “If it takes the same amount of effort to provide those (business) resources to one chamber, why not share it with all of them?”

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

Dana Hits The Mark!

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Business Directory

Business Cards

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DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Business Directory

Business Cards

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DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

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Business Review Springville insurance agency repeats top Best Practices achievement

Crawford Skinner Agency of Springville retains its Best Practices status, once again becoming a part of an elite group of independent insurance agencies around the United States.

This status comes by participating in the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA or the Big “I”) Best Practices Study group.

The annual survey and Study of leading independent insurance agencies documents the business practices of the “best” agencies and urges others to adopt similar practices.

Since 1993, the Big “I” and Reagan Consulting, an Atlanta-based management consulting firm, have joined forces to study the country’s leading agencies in six revenue categories. The agencies comprising the study groups are selected every third year through a comprehensive nomination and qualifying process and awarded a “Best Practices Agency” designation. The agency was nominated by either an IIABAaffiliated state association or an insurance company and qualified based on its operational excellence.

The selected Best Practices agencies retain their status during the three-year cycle by submitting extensive financial and operational data for review each year. This is the second year of the current three-year study cycle, where over 1,000 independent agencies throughout the U.S. were nominated to take part in the annual study in 2019, but only 262 agencies qualified for the honor. To be chosen, the agency had to be among the 35-45 top-performing agencies in one of six revenue categories.

The Crawford Skinner Agency was founded in 1944 and can offer insurance products from a number of different companies including Auto Owners, Travelers, Progressive and Penn National.

For more information, contact Ashley Green or Alyssa Skinner at 205467-6777.

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Pictured left to right: Brian Skinner, Alyssa Skinner, Ashley Green, Michelle Eddings and Sid Nelson

DISCOVER The Essence of St. Clair • December 2020 & January 2021

From All of Us to all of You

and a healthy new Year, too!

Pell City

70-74 Plaza Drive 205-814-9284

Moody

2834 Moody Parkway 205-640-2808

Trussville

7201 Happy Hollow Rd (205) 655-3721

Congratulations Dr. Rock Helms Voted 2020 best doctor

BY THE READERS OF DISCOVER MAGAZINE

Springville

480 Walker Drive, Springville 205-467-7654