Every year about this time, the City of Childersburg is transformed into Christmasburg. It’s a product of volunteerism in action among citizens and organizations, led by First Lady Trish Wesson.
According to Wesson, a grand example of community cooperation is the new downtown Train Station, “The Termite Group and Jimmy Landers made the ticket booth. Donald Haynes made the Railroad crossing signs here and at Santa’s workshop. Krissy Morris made the train. Thank you so much Steve Yarnel for stabilizing our train and the fence down at the reindeer farm. Thank you to the Street Department (Eddie Strickland, Floyd and Stubblefield) for your help getting all the pole lights up.
Others pitching in have been Candy Mahaffey, Jennifer Riddle, Kathy Matthews, Diana Rutherford, Ma Jeannie, Donna Mayfield, Grace Baptist Church, Karen White Lori Reed, Misti Payne, along woth the Childersburg Fire and Police Departments, and so many other anonymous elves!
It all comes together on Our is Tuesday, December 3, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. for Childersburg’s annual Christmas tree Lighting at the Butler-Harris-Rainwater House, and spreading throughout the entire downtown.
Shuttle buses will be available to board at City Hall starting at 5:15 p.m. to take visitors to the Rainwater House and back downtown after the tree lighting. Families can visit Santa at Santa’s Workshop, catch the Grinch and Cindy Lou Who at Kiwanis Park after the tree lighting.
The kids can board the train to Santa’s workshop and Whoville after the tree lighting . Have fun in the snow at Kiwanis Park. Carriage rides are available for those who quickly filled out the reservation list. Hot chocolate and Apple Cider stations will be available at just about every block.
Visit Pam’s Hair Heaven Gift Shop and stop in for Hot Cocoa there. Our newest downtown business, Fair to Middlin’ Gifts & Boutique will be open for Christmas shopping.
Roads will be closing at 5:15 p.m., so get to town early for a convenient place to park. See you in downtown Christmasburg and Merry Christmas!
OPAC is in historic downtown Oxford at 100 Choccolocco Street.
The music begins December 3 with “Jingle All the Way” by Delores Hydcok and Bobby Horton.
“A Classical Christmas” with Julio Barreto and Timothy Miller follows on December 8.
“Comfort & Joy” with Jim Brickman is on December 13.
“Christmas with the Pops” is on December 15.
“A Rockin’ Christmas” with the Dallas String Quarter is on December 17.
“Nashville Noel” is on December 19.
The final Christmas concert is “An Olde English Christmas” with Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits on December 20.
The OPAC venue was created when Oxford repurposed an unused historic building. The classic building had been a city hall, fire station and jail. Millions of dollars later, it is now a 1,200-seat performing arts theater.
If you are interested in dining on your musical trips to Oxford, an upscale restaurant is in another restored and historic building almost next door to OPAC. “Hubbard’s Off Main” is operated by Oxford civic leader and city council member Charlotte Hubbard. It offers almost white glove service. Attire is mixed, mostly dressy casual. Reservations are always accepted, and on concert nights, reservations are needed.
“…[A]n intimate yet casual atmosphere with gracious hosts eager to make you feel right at home. Choose from a menu filled with classy Southern dishes and a few Oxford originals, too – we love representing our charming town. Try one of our award-winning steaks, or if you’re looking for a more casual night out, our selection of burgers is sure to hit the spot. The brick walls and the exposed wood beams gracing the ceiling create a quaint atmosphere nestled in a historic building, and our location right across from the Oxford Performing Arts Center makes us a perfect spot to dine for a night on the town.”
Hubbard’s Off Main occupies the classic building of the former Hubbard’s Piano Company. Its walls are decked with black-and-white photos of old Oxford and old Alabama. The restaurant has a small stage and upright pianos. Dining at Hubbard’s is like dining inside a museum of Alabama of yesteryear.
U.S. travelers often have Oxford, Mississippi, on their bucket lists because of its history of Southern writers. Now, they are adding Oxford, Alabama, because of its musical performances. And it calls out for more than one trip.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler writes about Alabama’s people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at ZeiglerElderCare@yahoo.com.
The annual Holiday Bazaar to benefit the historic Butler-Harris-Rainwater House was a big hit over the weekend, helping raise funds for 2025 projects from the Childersburg Historic Preservation Commission.
“We gathered the best-ever group of vendors,” said Dianne Lester Newman, “And we had a steady flow of shoppers all day. And, I want to emphasize that they were buying from our vendors like never before!”
Newman said that 2024 saw the Commission complete landscaping around the historic landmark, along with automatic irrigation, “It looks better than we even imagined it would. thanks to help from Gina Hudson of Gina’s Greenhouse. This coming year, we’re looking to re-do our brick sidewalk, make it look better and be a safer walkway.”
December means several other annual holiday season traditions for the B-H-R House in downtown Childersburg. On Tuesday, December 3rd, they will host the 6:00 p.m. start of the downtown Christmas Tree Lighting festivities. On Tuesday, December 10th at 8:30 a.m., it’s the December Coffee from the Greater Coosa Valley Chamber of Commerce.
“We get so much help throughout the year from the Childersburg Street Department to make our downtown area clean and attractively decorated,” explained Newman, “we’ll be serving the entire crew a holiday dinner as our way of showing our thanks for all they do. And, yes, we’ll literally be “serving’ them. They’ll just come in, sit down, and enjoy the meal. They make such a difference, it’s important for them to know how much we appreciate the many ways they volunteer to help!”
It has happened only once in the history of the world. A meteor hit a person, a woman asleep in her home in the Oak Grove community, just outside of Sylacauga.
November 30 will be the 70th anniversary of Sylacauga’s Ann Hodges’ unique experience that she lived to tell about. Amazingly, she was not seriously injured.
A real-life history lesson on the meteoric event will be presented on Saturday at Sylacauga’s Comer Museum and Arts Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (It will be over in time for folks to get home and watch the Iron Bowl at 2:30 p.m.)
The principal speaker for the meteor seminar will be famed astronomer Dr. Lawrence Krumenaker.
The Facebook post about the seminar reads as follows:
“Dr. Krumenaker started professional life as an astronomer after growing up steeped in New Jersey’s Revolutionary War historical sites. The two influences eventually merged into a career that included scientific research and popular science, education and historical journalism. His articles and books in historical tourism are based on the idea that history is best understood both by telling the story part of history, and doing that by standing where it happened. It is done best seeing what’s left of the past and the difference between then and today, and traveling along with the event.
As an astronomer, Dr. Krumenaker is best known in the science community as the discoverer of the first microquasar in the galaxy, as a stellar spectroscopist and a planetary cartographer of the planet Mercury. He has been a science journalist and President of the International Science Writers Association. In addition to doing talks on historical events, Dr. Krumenaker has often done workshops and courses in astronomy education for teachers, and writes astronomy-based newsletters on Substack, notably the internationally-read The Galactic Times.
Among his books is ‘From River to River’”’ (2024) on General Lafayette in Georgia and ‘Nine Days Traveling’ (Lafayette in Alabama, 2020), ‘The Colonia Tour Book’ (Roman sites in Cologne, Germany, 2017), and ‘Walking the Line’ (The Atlanta Civil War defenses that kept Sherman out, 2014). Copies of these books and other creations of Dr. Krumenaker will be available for sale at Comer Museum. He has a Star Trek astronomy book, ‘Federation Space,’ due out next year.
After over two dozen address changes, in multiple Northern and Southern States, and residencies and travel in numerous countries in Asia and Europe, the peripatetic Dr. Krumenaker currently resides in Alabama.
Please join us on November 30 from 10-2.”
The Comer Museum also maintains an updated exhibit about the Hodges meteor.
Ann Hodges had been asleep under blankets on the couch in her living room. A meteor plunged through the roof of her house, hit her upright console radio, bounced and then hit Ann Hodges in her lower left side. It was a rude awakening.
Naturally, Hodges and her mother, who was also home at the time, did not know what had happened and did not know what the object was. It was sitting on their living room floor close to where it had struck Ann. The air in the room was suddenly full of dust.
The two women called the local police and fire department. Ann was transported to Sylacauga Hospital (now Coosa Valley Medical Center). Word spread through the community that something strange had happened at the Hodges’ residence, and crowds gathered.
Rumors abounded. Maybe the object had fallen off an airplane. Maybe a plane had crashed. Maybe the Russians, who were in a Cold War with the United States, had shot off something. Or maybe it was a “shooting star,” the common name for a meteor. That last guess turned out to be correct.
After inquiring and legal wrangling with landlord Birdie Guy about who owned the meteor, it ended up at the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
The meteorite that struck the 34-year-old woman weighed 8.5 pounds.
Ann Hodges became a temporary celebrity when she appeared on the highly rated TV quiz show “I’ve Got a Secret” with Gary Moore. Celebrity contestant Bill Cullen guessed it immediately, as the meteor story had national coverage.
Her photo, exposed bruise and all, appeared in “Life Magazine.”
Another piece, believed to be from the same meteor, landed a couple of miles away. As Julius McKinney of Sylacauga was driving his mules home, they balked. They would go no further. He then saw a black object in the trail. He went around it, got the mules home, and came back to get the object. He had the sense to retain a lawyer, and they ended up selling it to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He received enough money to buy a house and a car.
If this tale weren’t strange enough already, there is yet another ironic chapter. There was a locally popular drive-in movie theater across the street from the Hodge’s home where the meteor struck. It was named “The Comet.” Its logo, on an upright tower, showed a meteor with trailing flame. The Comet Drive-In Theater.
Many people think the Comet Drive-In was named for the meteor incident across the street. No. The drive-in had already been named for several years when the meteor struck. What are the odds?
You may have noticed that this story uses the terms “meteor” and “meteorite.” As the object was in the solar system (outside the Earth’s atmosphere), it was a meteoroid, a small asteroid. When it entered the Earth’s atmosphere, it was called a meteor.
When it made it to Earth, it was called a meteorite.
As she slept, Ann Hodges, her mother, who was there, and her husband, who was not home and missed the whole thing, were completely unaware of all of this. They received a weeks-long course in meteor science that they were not expecting and did not want.
They thought they were learning “meteorology.” That is the incorrect term and means the science of the weather. We are familiar with weathermen on TV and radio — meteorologists. Has nothing to do with meteors and meteorites. The little-known name for the science of meteors and meteorites is “meteoritics.” Bet you did not know that.
The Hodges/Sylacauga meteorite and the conditions in the skies at the time it hit have been studied by scientists for decades. The case is cited in astronomy classes.
When you have a chance to visit the University of Alabama, go by Smith Hall, just off the Quadrangle. It houses the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Ask for the exhibit of the Sylacauga Meteorite. You will see a once-in-all-of-history display.
Read the accounts of the meeting &/or watch the meeting video:
In the pre-meeting work session Jessica Smith and Zach Lightsey of Legacy Insurance presented a new liability policy to the Childersburg Council.
Smith told the Council in summary, “You have new properties to insure – new vehicles and the new police building on Highway 280. Beyond that, there were no significant changes in either your coverage or premiums, which is trending in the right direction.”
Approval was then given to that proposal in the amount of $284,601.
The Council acted to reappoint Rita Stephens to the Library Board for a term ending October 1, 2028.
Approval was given to pay invoices in the amount of $369,705.12. This amount includes the demolition portion of the new Childersburg Police Department building on Highway 280. In a related matter, Mayor Ken Wesson announced that the target date for completion of that project is April, 2025.
The next regular Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, December 2nd, 2024 at 6:00 p.m., due to the annual Christmas Tree Lighting event for Childersburg on the regular Tuesday, December 3rd date.
It was a universal assessment – Rob Blanchard was a valuable asset to wherever he placed his attention. That was recognized on Monday, November 18th as a new Food Distribution Center was dedicated in his memory.
“What a man,” said SAFE Family Services Director Margaret Morton, “He had such humility to serve others. Today, we are here to thank his family for sharing him with us.”
Betsy Hosp described Blanchard as an idea guy, “Rob was a great resource, someone to bounce ideas off.” She went on to describe the process by which Blanchard helped design and write a grant to fund building the new Food Distribution Center.
“Rob was multi-talented,” said Sylacauga Housing Authority Executive Director Sam Royster, “It seemed he knew everything, and when he didn’t, he took steps to know the next time a subject came up.”
Royster told the crowd that Blanchard was the type of person to get involved, to help any way and every way he could contribute to the Housing Authority, and by extension to the Sam Wright Sylacauga Grows Community Garden. The Food Distribution Center that bears his name is open daily during the week, providing fresh, seasonal produce to those in the community who need the service.
After so many heart-warming words remembering Rob Blanchard and his contributions, his memory was further served as after-school program students gathered for another in a series of “Farm to Table” lessons, complete with a meal prepared with the bounty of the community garden. Many even commented that Rob was surely present, watching over the many aspects of the garden to which he lent his inspirational expertise.
South Talladega County Future Teachers of Alabama are preparing for their 3rd Annual “Rudolph’s Rockin’ Reindeer Bash,” and they could use your help in making it a success.
The event is a Christmas party for Talladega County Elementary Collaborative Education Special Needs and Pre K students. They have created an Amazon Wish List, and are asking for your help in filling in that wish list. Please follow the link:
The Oak Grove Town Council met at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12th at 6:00 p.m.
Councilman David Harris reported that the recent Oak Grove Fall Festival essentially broke even in terms of expenses and sponsorship revenues, “It was our smoothest and most successful festival, thanks to everyone joining in and working together.”
The Oak Grove Volunteer Fire Department made their monthly report to the Town Council for October 2024:
Total Calls – 54 Structure Fires – 6 General Fires – 5 EMS-Only Calls – 41 Non-Fire, Non-EMS Calls – 2 Aid Given Calls – 4 Aid Received – 6 No-Aid Required – 44 Calls Inside Town Limits – 14 Calls Outside Town Limits – 40
The following are action items from their agenda:
William L. Taylor was approved to joing the Oak Grove Volunteer Fire Department.
The Council approved the 2025 Town holiday schedule for Town Hall and employees. The only change in the traditional schedule is for the Christmas holiday, with Friday (12/26) added to the schedule , along with Wednesday (12/24) and Thursday (12/25).
Repairs to the bumper of the Street Department’s 2022 Ford F-250 were approved at a cost of $1,700 by Collier Motors.
The Town Council approved the purchase of 2024 Gooseneck Trailer ($9,500) and hitch ($699). The 8.5’ by 30’ trailer will allow the Street Department to transport all three lawn mowers to job sites.
Resolution 617 approved declaring the 15-passenger Transportation bus as surplus and authorized disposal of the 2017 E350 Cutaway Bus.
The Council discussed a proposed 2.5-percent Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for town employees. The proposal will be formalized with a Resolution during the December regular meeting.
The Town of Oak Grove voted to approve Resolution 616, which joins the State of Alabama in approving a Sales Tax Exemption for Agricultural Fencing, up to $25,000.
A revision of the National Flood Insurance Ordinance had its first reading and will be considered during the December regular meeting.
The required Oak Grove Annual Safety Meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, November 27th at 2:00 p.m.
A contingency budget of $500 was approved for the annual Oak Grove Christmas Tree Lighting event, which is scheduled for Monday, December 2nd at 6:00 p.m. in Oak Grove Park.
Bates Industrial & Safety Supply hosted the November Coffee from the Greater Coosa Valley Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, November 12th. Besides the spotlight on the Highway 280 business, details were provided on a lot of upcoming holiday events in the region.
Ragan Bates welcomed visitors on behalf of the host company, “We opened two years ago to provide for the needs of our industrial community, along with a lot of merchandise the general public loves and appreciates, too!”
Pete Storey spoke on behalf of Majestic Caverns, “Christmas at the Cave is always a special time for families to build lifetime memories.” This year, Adventus is coming this December 14, 21, & 28 and is the perfect Christmas event for families, friends, and churches looking to celebrate together with live music, festive entertainment, and holiday magic in the most unique setting.
Kara Eslinger was introduced as the owner of the brand new Fair to Middlin’ Gifts & Boutique on 1st Street in downtown Childersburg. “It truly provides something for everyone on your holiday shopping list,” said John Mark Freeman of the Chamber.
The City of Childersburg hosts their annual Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on Tuesday, December 3rd, starting at 6:00 p.m. with all sorts of family fun throughout the decorated downtown.
The Childersburg Parks & Recreation Department hosts Breakfast with Santa on Tuesday, December 10th, Find details at Childersburg.recdesk.com
The annual Rainwater House Christmas Bazaar is scheduled for Saturday, November 23rd, hosted at the Limbaugh Community Center from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
The 2024 Childersburg Christmas Parade is set for Thursday, December 12th, sponsored by Cadence Bank.
Holiday season shoppers are reminded to turn in sales receipts from businesses in the Greater Coosa Valley region at the Chamber Office at 805 3rd St SW in Childersburg. A drawing for ten $100 gift cards will be held and winners announced on Tuesday, December 10th, when the historic Butler-Harris-Rainwater House hosts the December Chamber Coffee.
Pre-sale orders are now available for Sylacauga Sings Christmas” from Sylacauga’s new state-of-the-art MusicWorks Audio – Video Productions. It’s a unique holiday album featuring professional Sylacauga area talents to benefit the Sylacauga Animal Shelter.
“I feel great about the quality of what we’ve put together for the holidays, featuring so many of our great talents of the music business,” said David Harris, who served as Producer/Chief Engineer for the project, “Whether you’re looking to support the Animal Shelter, love Christmas music, or want to hear local artists, you’re going to be quite pleased.”
Here is a list of “Sylacauga Sings Christmas” songs & artists:
“Please Come Home For Christmas” Aaron Smithey “Christmas in Dixie” Hunter Reynolds “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” Mike Shell “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” Patrick Barnett “Winter Wonderland” Mandy Harris “Silent Night” Cherry Avenue, featuring Jaxon & Sadie “Holly Jolly Christmas” Kanyon Ogle “O Holy Night” David Maxwell “Blue Christmas” Danny Reynolds “Silver Bells” Roy Strickland “Quickdraw The Cowboy” Don Horton
The beneficiary of the proceeds will be the Sylacauga Animal Shelter, and maybe you’re wondering what they’ll be doing with the money raised. That list starts with emergency food needs, especially when veterinarians call for special needs diets. The funds will also help cover emergency Vet needs, primarily for radiology and surgery, along with Vet medications, such as vaccines, antibiotics, preventatives, etc.
The CDs should be in just prior to Thanksgiving week, and can be pre-ordered by contacting MusicWorks Audio – Video Productions at (256) 245-7229. MusicWorks is arranging for some local merchants to carry the Christmas collection, and they’ll be publicizing where you can pick up copies.
