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Creston News Advertiser Tuesday, July 29, 2014
OPINION Bushels of love for peck
MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. — Imagine if your life were highlighted in a short, moving ceremony and condensed to its essence. What would they say about you? Edwin “Peck” Rowell of Loachapoka, Ala., recently found out. As Peck waited for the Alabama Music Hall of Fame to unveil an “Achiever’s Display” of his lifetime of work, curator George Lair summed it up nicely: “Anything involving music, seems like Peck’s been involved.” Peck, 91, sat in a wheelchair, a Pied Piper’s throng of family, friends and musicians around him. A gregarious and funny man not shy with his stories, Peck has been a singer, a songwriter, a band leader, radio disc jockey and, for more than two decades, owned and ran one of the most popular country
King Features commentary Rheta Johnson
dance clubs in the Southeast. “A friend phoned from California and told me he had put my name into something called Google on the computer and found 273 ‘Peck’ Rowells,” the guest of honor joked. Only one of those Pecks was being honored, however, by the prestigious Alabama Hall of Fame that includes in its membership no less than Hank Williams, Nat King Cole and Emmylou Harris. Peck Rowell played and brought good music to the masses.
Steamy Saturday nights on the edge of Lake Martin near the Alabama town of Dadeville, a skating rink with its pecan wood floors would morph into something else. The Blue Creek Dance Hall would light up, crank up and attract like ants to Loachapoka syrup those who loved to hear real country. Beginning in 1959, Peck and his dance band, the Covered Wagon Boys, introduced, each in his turn, Ray Price, Porter Wagoner, Ernest Tubb, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Connie Smith and Charlie Louvin, to name but a few visiting stars. Peck’s “ read like another hall of fame — the country music one. One of the first big names Peck hired to draw a crowd was bluegrass legend Bill Monroe, who agreed to show up for $350. Mon-
roe arrived at Blue Creek with laryngitis, willing to play but unable to sing. Instead, one of Monroe’s guitar players replaced him on lead vocals. The substitute: Del McCoury. As I listened to Peck’s rich ruminations, I remembered the old raspy Jimmy Durante line: “I’ve got a million of ‘em.” I knew him briefly as a good neighbor in the late 1970s, when I lived in Loachapoka. I once took a picture of Peck’s triplet kid goats for the local newspaper. I eagerly read his recent memoir, “A Place I Couldn’t Leave,” remembering my year of bucolic fun in peaceful little Loachapoka. I rented a house just across from the antebellum Rowell home place where Peck grew up as one of nine children.
“I love country music better than anything,” he admitted, an emotional catch in his voice. “It’s been my life.” He began playing “Redwing” on the harmonica at age 7, went on to know stars like Hank Williams and Kitty Wells, kept on entertaining at church functions after a heart attack forced him to give up the club at Blue Creek. Unlike Peck, I left Loachapoka. But I envy a man who knows his heart and his home. *** To find out more about Rheta Grimsley Johnson and her books, visit www.rhetagrimsleyjohnsonbooks.com. (c) 2014 Rheta Grimsley Johnson Distributed by King Features Syndicate
Michael Jackson will have a grade school named after him HOLLYWOOD—Happy Tuesday, everybody, and God Bless America. Michael Jackson will have a grade school named after him in Gary, Indiana, in September to honor the King of Pop’s regard for children. The day he died five years ago, dozens of kids showed up at the front gate of his mansion. A half hour later, the cops arrived and let them out. The Pole World News Awards will hold their international poledancing contest in Puerto Vallarta in November. Strippers from dozens of nations will be on hand to dance, strip and twirl on the pole before judges. It’s an annual contest to find out who is the world’s worst father. Roger Goodell suspended Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for only two games after a video caught him knocking his fiancee unconscious. Everyone’s appalled. It looks like best way for the NFL to reduce concussions is
Topical humor Argus Hamilton
to design better helmets for their wives and girlfriends. President Obama stood on the South Lawn to greet the leaders of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras Friday. They made it over the fence in six seconds. No one wants to say the situation is bad, but all three leaders came dressed up as children and asked for refugee status. President Obama told Central American leaders he’s considering a plan to grant refugee status to illegal kids from their countries. The leaders thanked him and left. They’ve been inside the United States for four days and already the INS says they have no way of finding them.
READER POLL RESULTS
Letters to the editor
Looking for yearbooks From Dennis Howard
What’s your favorite Union County Fair event?
Gardner, Kan., formerly of Creston
I have a collection called the “Faces and Yearbooks of CHS.” This collection deals with the history of Creston Senior High School and it stu-
dents, between 1912 and 2011. To fully complete this project, I need to scan the CHS yearbooks for 1914, 1919, 1924 and the Arrow Supplement for 1933. If anyone has access to any of these documents, please contact me at dhoward@densue.net.
I am currently in the process of uploading my collection to my website: densue.net. The 1910s and 1960s are now online. The best example of what I am trying to accomplish would be Faces for 1969, the year I graduated. 1969 was also the largest class in the history of CHS.
Research changed my mind Policies
From Connie Maxson Creston
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Last September I was invited to join the library board. At that time, I was not convinced that the move to Lincoln School was the right decision. I have been a school superintendent in a district with old school buildings, and they can be a challenge when considering them for a remodeling project. In order to be fair to the library board’s decision to move the library, I studied the history of the current building and the engineering reports of Lincoln building.
Creston
Richard Paulsen Publisher
Kyle Wilson
Managing editor
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The planned move will offer us the opportunity to expand our space and programming. Partnerships with businesses, community organizations and the school will allow us to support the activities that make Creston a good place to live and raise our families. Improving literacy is very important to the library board and with this planned move, we will have the space that will allow students and families to use the library as a support system to improve literacy. The Creston Area Library and Cultural Center is a place that supports our entire community.
Attacking the library board is wrong From Marcia Fulton
641-782-2141
The current library is not adequate for the needs of this community nor is adding an addition to that building. While the Lincoln building needs significant work to make it the type of facility we can be proud of, it is realistic and doable. We are working hard to raise the necessary funds through local donations and the support of grant programs outside of Creston. I respect the concerns about traffic and parking; however, those things can be addressed by working with the city and the school to be sure children and patrons of the library can all be safe.
You can want the current library to move to the Lincoln school site or desire it to stay at its current site. That is a preference, but to attack the volunteers who serve on the Library Board, the non-paid appointed board members who give countless hours to serve this community, is wrong. I don’t know all the board members, but I know some, and they are kind, caring citizens who give up family time and, at their own expense, visit libraries in the surrounding areas, seeking ideas and talking to those staff members to try to find what would best work in our community. Some of the editorial posts have been really nasty. Maybe that is why folks are reluctant to serve on community boards. The days of libraries being the “check out a book” site is probably minimal. Today’s libraries are wired to incorporate the newest technology, efficient heat and cool-
ing climate, spacious layout and use of space to allow both working noise and quiet zones. The layout is designed to be able to combine the needs and interests of several areas of the community including young children, teens, young adults, computer lab, research area and comfortable lounge areas with newspapers and current magazines for adults. Have you had an opportunity to visit a modern library? If not, check out one of the following: Red Oak, Stanton, Shenandoah or Winterset. When I first visited a Colorado library with my grandsons, I was amazed at what it had to offer. The class for the young child area was glassed off so their little voices were not disturbing as they did a projects class with the staff. My daughterin-law headed one direction to find a book, and I found a nice couch and caught up on current news in the Denver Post. What a lovely experience. As we were leaving, we noticed an art show being held in
one of the rooms with the local artist discussing his work. They had a room for the community to hold meetings and regularly scheduled events and speakers were posted. I am sure that when the new high, middle and elementary schools were being planned, there were many who thought “what is wrong with the old schools.” I have heard that same statement about the additions to the hospital and those involved tax money. I also remember the controversy over the skate park, and I heard that the lowana was impossible to restore. Today it is so nice to drive past any of these, and I am sure realtors talk about these amenities as they sell homes. Change is sometimes hard. But now that we have top of the line schools, hospital complex, the restored hotel and a skate park for the teens, I don’t hear as much “longing for the old buildings.” Let’s give our community a chance to raise the money to get the grants. They just might succeed.