Gary Lloyd's Blog, page 4

Trussville History Museum open Dec. 17

The Trussville History Museum inside Heritage Hall in Trussville will be open Saturday, Dec. 17.

The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. With Christmas right around the corner, there will be Christmas cookies, hot chocolate and a Christmas-themed photo stand-in.

Heritage Hall is located at 225 Parkway Drive in Trussville.

Stop by!

Check out this short video promoting the museum!

Trussville History Museum open Nov. 12

The Trussville History Museum inside Heritage Hall in Trussville will be open Saturday, Nov. 12.

The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., plenty of time to learn about the city’s past before Alabama takes on Ole Miss.

Heritage Hall is located at 225 Parkway Drive in Trussville.

Stop by!

Check out this promo I shot for the museum:

Trussville City Schools hires acting superintendent

By Gary Lloyd

TRUSSVILLE – Trussville City Schools has its acting superintendent.

The Trussville City Schools Board of Education on Oct. 13 hired Frank Costanzo to lead the school system on an interim basis. Costanzo retired as the superintendent of Tuscaloosa County Schools in 2021. He has more than 40 years of experience in education as a teacher, bus driver, assistant principal, principal, central office director, assistant superintendent and superintendent. He has spent 10 years in educational consulting.

“This school district has earned a reputation for academic excellence, and the boundless opportunities offered beyond the classroom setting provide enriching learning experience for students at all levels,” Costanzo said.

[Related: Trussville leaders address school threats]

Since retiring, Costanzo has served as interim superintendent in Demopolis, Talladega, Sylacauga and Pell City. He currently is employed with Criterion K12 Consultants in Birmingham as an educational consultant as well as working part time with the Alabama State Department of Education.

“I think he’ll be a nice fit in an acting role for us in the days and weeks to come,” said Board of Education member Mark Sims.

Board Vice President Kim DeShazo said Costanzo meets all the characteristics a person can to meet the needs of this position. He brings a level of experience, she said, that helps with crisis management.

“He just has a good demeanor about him,” she said.

Board member Steve Ward, who did not vote on the hire because he joined the meeting remotely via Zoom, said he was impressed with Costanzo’s experience and called him an “ideal candidate.” The most impressive thing about him, Ward said, was his focus on students and teachers and not about himself.

“That, to me, probably hit home as much as anything else,” Ward said.

The Board of Education next meets Monday, Oct. 17 at 4 p.m.

The Trussville City Schools Board of Education discusses the hiring of Frank Costanzo.Frank Costanzo speaks for the first time after Board of Education approval.Frank Costanzo takes questions from the media.

Trussville History Museum open Oct. 15

The Trussville History Museum inside Heritage Hall in Trussville will be open Saturday, Oct. 15.

The museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., plenty of time to learn about the city’s past before Alabama takes on Tennessee on CBS at 2:30 p.m.

Heritage Hall is located at 225 Parkway Drive in Trussville.

Stop by!

Check out this promo I shot for the museum:

A nosedive into the archives

By Gary Lloyd

As many in this world stare through a social media windshield without so much as a blink, my eyes fixate on the rearview mirror.

So many folks take blue-check Tweets as gospel and offer acrimonious opinions based on inaccuracies, while I slide a new library card into my wallet. I had no idea that this new library card was a universal key to unlocking factual information, stories of the past and relics of journalism. I keep it in front of my Target RedCard. What a treasure.

If I had to swipe this library card like I do a Visa, it would fall short of its expiration date by three years. That little magnetic stripe would simply catch fire and probably burn my Levi’s. It has been magnificent to read past articles that predated Twitter, Buffer, Facebook, Bitly, Instagram, WordPress, TweetDeck, LinkedIn and probably a hundred more apps I don’t have space to rattle off here. To read these articles when they were timely, you had to have this thing called a newspaper subscription, or venture out, with a few quarters in your cup holder, to find a newspaper box.

I recently read a March 1994 article about Trussville foster parents; an August 1996 story about the Jacksons, 715 words about the Trussville couple’s qualification for the Guys and Dolls national fishing championship; and, of course, thousands of words under various headlines about the sinkholes that have long threatened to swallow Trussville, one street at a time.

There was a distinct difference in those stories that yellowed in newsprint decades ago and the ones that live forever on the Web today. They were hyperlocal. Detailed. Unique. Just in reading them, I could tell the reporters had to dig for the story ideas, dig deeper for meaningful questions, and type out a story worth reading. These days, the focus is often generating a three-paragraph Web story, sometimes via an iPhone, to drive clicks to a webpage covered in ads for Vrbo homes in North Carolina and $2,000 exercise bikes.

I’d like to say I miss those golden days of journalism, before apps transcribed interviews for you and backpacking to city council meetings with a tripod was part of the job, but the truth is that I began my journalism career at the ascent of social media. I took fuzzy photos of Julio Jones from the Bryant-Denny Stadium press box and posted them on Twitter. I post almost all my stories on Facebook and Twitter, because it’s where potential readers now live.

I have Tweeted more than 53,000 times since I joined in 2009. The math works out to more than 320 Tweets per month on average, or about 10 per day. That pace has slowed considerably, because the older I get, the more I want to dive deep into stories and books. I have a bookshelf overflowing with forgetfulness and procrastination.

The online archives I discovered have sent me down a journalistic sinkhole of sorts, and I’m grateful for the merging of 30-year-old journalism with current technology. It has inspired me to go deeper in my reporting and writing.

After all, as one of the March 1994 articles was headlined, “Sinkholes are fact of life in Trussville.”

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

Author of book about Birmingham Terminal Station coming to Trussville

By Gary Lloyd

TRUSSVILLE – Author Marvin Clemons is scheduled to give a presentation and sign copies of his book, “A Journey to the Great Temple of Travel: The Story of Birmingham Terminal Station,” on Sunday, Nov. 13 at the Trussville Public Library.

The event is scheduled for 2 p.m. The presentation, titled “Journey to the Great Temple of Travel,” is co-hosted by the library and Trussville Historical Society.

In 1905, at the peak of railroad expansion into Birmingham, five railroads collaborated on the construction of a new passenger station for the fast-growing “Magic City.” Stretching three city blocks and encompassing 10 acres, the new Terminal Station, with its 100-foot dome and twin towers, was hailed at its opening as “the great temple of travel,” and the finest railway station in the New South.

The book (submitted photo)

At its peak during World War II, the station handled 52 scheduled passenger trains, including some of the finest in the country. But following the war, as travelers abandoned trains for planes and automobiles, the once majestic station began to decline. Outdated and with most of its trains gone, in 1969 the station’s owners made the decision to demolish the fading structure for a proposed urban development project. Ironically, following the station’s removal the proposed project fell through, leaving nothing but vacant lot.

More than a half century later, the station’s destruction is still lamented as the greatest single loss to Birmingham’s architectural heritage. Clemons, during his junior year in high school, landed his first railroad job working weekends as a tower operator controlling train movements through the station.

Following graduation from Banks High School, Clemons transferred to Atlanta and worked as a towerman for Atlanta Terminal Station before being called to active military duty, serving as an Army officer during the Vietnam Conflict. Following discharge, he returned to Birmingham and earned his journalism degree at UAB. He then wrote for the Birmingham Post-Herald as the paper’s transportation editor, later returning to UAB to earn a master’s degree in counseling and entering private practice.

While pursuing his profession, Clemons continued to explore his interest in railroads as a writer, photographer, and historian. In 2007 he co-authored and self-published “Birmingham Rails—The Last Golden Era” with Lyle Key, a fellow rail fan and railroad executive. The limited edition was awarded the George Hilton Book Award by the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society.

As part of his research, Marvin collected hundreds of photographs and historical documents for the book’s chapter on Terminal Station, documenting the station’s 60-year history and its demolition in 1969, still considered by many as the single most significant loss to Birmingham’s architectural heritage.

Thinking outside the press box

By Gary Lloyd

The Pentagon was always the goal.

The one in Arlington, Va.? Lord, no. The one in Trussville.

Ask any man my age: If he was a boy growing up here in Trussville, and he played Little League baseball, his hope was to spend any free time, before or after his weekend game, in a folding chair on the top floor of the Trussville Baseball Association press box, fingertips a mess with concession stand nacho cheese.

Me in the press box versus me on the sidelines

It was the best view in the park, and it made a kid feel like he was on top of the world. My goal, long after my Little League career ended, was to spend a lifetime in press boxes, traveling with my laptop and tape recorder to press boxes across this country, from Turner Field in Atlanta to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

I started covering high school sports in college. The first football game I ever covered in Tuscaloosa, I do not remember there being a press box. The next week, I found a seat in the press box, which became a safe haven for dozens of folks from the monsoon outside. I ruined my shoes interviewing the coach on the field after the game. At another high school game, I sat on a flipped-over five-gallon bucket.

You pay your dues as a sports reporter, but every so often it pays off. I watched the Crimson Tide from the Bryant-Denny Stadium press box two seasons, and drank enough free Dr. Pepper to embarrass Forrest Gump. It’s another world up there. An athletics department staffer hands you game stats while you eat your third ice cream sandwich.

High school press setups, however, humble you often. I tripped on a dip in the floor – was it a hole covered by the carpet? – at a baseball park in Montgomery. In an unnamed closer-to-home town’s press box, I was hit with a hat a mad dad threw in frustration. His son wasn’t even on the team. I lost three pounds in sweat in a tiny, stuffy press box at another local field, a wooden structure that at the time seemed more like a makeshift deer blind than a press box. Heck, it may have been a deer blind, after all.

I looked forward to football games at the Hoover Met, because I could charge my phone in the press box, and maybe even eat a slice or two of pizza. Covering Clay-Chalkville’s 2014 state championship from the Jordan-Hare Stadium press box was memorable, sans the recent tragedy that was the K*ck S*x in 2013.

I’m rarely in a press box these days. I can say with some certainty I’ve never been in the press boxes at the home stadiums of Hewitt-Trussville, Clay-Chalkville and Pinson Valley, the programs I’ve covered most. I suppose growing up can change your perspective.

The games aren’t really about my view from a stadium’s highest point. They’re about covering them from the front lines, where I see Sharpie-inscribed wrist tape honoring a teammate who died, where I watch coaches wrap their arms around their players, where I’m within earshot of the postgame prayer.

It may not be a press box seat, but those are the best views in the stadium.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.

OPINION: Is Trussville finally talking?

This is an opinion column.

By Gary Lloyd

TRUSSVILLE – All that was needed to avoid this citywide black eye was communication.

Just some good old-fashioned, transparent, direct, honest, decisive and timely talk. No sugarcoating. No assumptions. No spin. Just honesty.

If you live in Trussville and somehow haven’t seen it on the news or up and down your Facebook timelines, here’s the gist: A Hewitt-Trussville High School student was suspended in September after making terroristic threats Sept. 16, almost a year after he created a “death notebook” that contained the names of 37 classmates, a notebook that did not come to light to authorities until this September. Almost a year later, most parents found out that their children’s names were in this book.

[RELATED: Fear, lack of communication take center stage in Trussville]

Trussville City Schools Superintendent Pattie Neill released a statement Sept. 26 but did not speak publicly Sept. 27 at a morning press conference held by Mayor Buddy Choat or at the city council meeting that night.

“The student was brought to the counselor’s office and met with the principal and counselor,” Neill said in the statement. “The notebook was based on the Netflix series ‘Death Note’ where a person can imagine someone’s death and supernaturally make it happen – for example the person in the notebook might be eaten by ants, hit by a bus, hit by a ladder, drowning, etc. It was determined at that time by the principal and counselor and based on the information available that the notebook was fantasy and no further action was necessary other than confiscate the book and monitor the behavior of the student. The student completed the 2021-22 school year with no further disciplinary problems.”

The Trussville City Schools Central Office (photo by Gary Lloyd)

That quote is part of a long explanation of the incident and subsequent response, but it widely misses the point. Why did it focus so much on the premise of a television show? Why did two people, without the input from proper authorities, deem it “fantasy”? If a notebook exists detailing the killing – fantasy or not – of real-life classmates, how in this day in age can that be passed off as “fantasy”? It can’t.

“In light of the events surrounding Uvalde and as part of our ongoing safety plans, [Hewitt-Trussville High School Principal Tim] Mr. Salem and our SRO team implemented numerous safety protocols for the 22-23 school year,” Neill said in the statement. “As such, when the events of last week came to light, the potential threat was acted upon immediately and the threat assessment protocol was fully implemented.”

The statement goes on to outline the subsequent meeting with Salem, where he “acknowledged this mistake and recognizes the error in not involving the SRO for threat assessment protocol in 2021.” It also states that, “in hindsight,” proper authorities should have been notified. Hindsight. That’s a tough word to see in a statement about a year-old “death notebook.”

Salem was placed on administrative leave Sept. 27. Neill was placed on a 60-day leave three days later at a special-called Trussville City Schools Board of Education meeting.

Choat, speaking the morning of Sept. 27 at a press conference in the interim city council chambers – formerly the Trussville City Schools Board of Education boardroom, which was somewhat ironic – discussed recent safety concerns within Trussville City Schools. To the credit of those who fielded questions – Choat, Police Chief Eric Rush, and City Council members Lisa Bright and Ben Short – it was encouraging to hear some tough questions answered. Encouraging, but embarrassing.

If it wasn’t clear before, it certainly is now that there are communication issues in Trussville. Board of Education Vice President Kim DeShazo used the word “communication” six times in a letter to parents Sept. 29.

“As to the complaints about communication: Parents, we hear you,” DeShazo wrote. “I have three kids in the Trussville school system, including one at the high school. I understand your frustration, disappointment, and fear. I am so grateful that we are discussing these issues today instead of after some tragic event. There is nothing we can do to change the events of October 2021 or since. What we can do is learn from the mistakes and prevent them from ever happening again. I am committed to that and will do everything I can to ensure that our kids remain safe in Trussville City Schools and our families are treated with honesty and respect.”

Fewer than 24 hours after that letter was sent, the Board heard from parents and students for more than two hours. A chief complaint not just now, but for years, has been that Board members do not have individual school system email addresses. There was long just a tcsboe@trussvillecityschools.com email address. All five Board members now have individual email addresses.

At the Sept. 30 Board meeting, Board President Kathy Brown said a “complete overhaul” of the system’s communications plan was needed. Jason Gaston, who started as the system’s public relations supervisor Jan. 18, 2021, resigned to take a similar role at Alabaster City Schools in September, just days before the “death notebook” story broke. Before Gaston came to Trussville, the school system went several years without a defined public relations position.

Late Sept. 30, a school system update from Board of Education President Kathy Brown was sent to parents and the community advising of the creation of individual Board of Education email addresses. Just three days prior during Choat’s press conference, the mayor said Trussville will continue to support public safety and school safety as top priorities.

“We cannot do that without communication, and that’s where this occurred,” he said.

Later that night at the city council meeting, Councilwoman Jaime Melton Anderson said communication was “paramount” to her.

“The communication has got to be direct, has got to be immediate,” she said. “You do deserve to feel safe in this community.”

In August 2020, the Trussville City Council and Board of Education approved a memorandum of understanding outlining what should happen when any threatening incident happens on school property or at a school-sponsored event. In part, the MOU states that SROs “shall be responsible for carrying out all duties and responsibilities of a law enforcement officer and shall remain at all times under the control, through the chain of command, of TPD.” Rush said that MOU was supposed to be adhered to and was not. There are no repercussions for violating it.

“I think the violation in itself was bad enough,” he said. “It was there and it was known.”

The Board of Education will review the MOU and work to strengthen it with the police department.

Short, in my opinion the best communicator in terms of meeting people where they are – scrolling Facebook – answered one question at the Sept. 27 press conference.

“Improving our communication, I think, is key here,” Short said.

Since most every other Trussville resident has expressed their opinions this week, I guess this is where I express mine. I’ve covered this city and school system for more than a decade, both as a full-time journalist and part-time freelancer.

I’ll give the city this – it recently created an app to check the city calendar, submit tips to the police department, pay for car tags and more. It’s a step in the right direction, but like the improvement of infrastructure before the next big construction project, it’s a bit late. City council members and the mayor have Facebook pages, but they are underutilized, at least in my opinion. It’s a city of 26,123 people, and it warrants a lot of information. Of course, I post more about Trussville online than most anyone. The city, to inform its citizens and promote itself better, needs a more accessible online presence. Meet the people where they are.

The city website is another issue. I’ve seen numerous municipalities that post their public notices, meeting agendas and other upcoming events on their websites, and share it in a timely fashion across social media channels. Trussville still emails theirs out to folks who ask to be added to the email list. Just look back at the Great Trussville Pickleball Debate of 2022. The public agenda was emailed out to a longstanding email list prior to the council workshop June 9. At that time, the pickleball courts construction approval was not listed on the agenda. It was added after Milam and Company’s presentation to the council at workshop, but that agenda was apparently not emailed out to the longstanding email list prior to the June 14 council meeting, but it was listed on the consent agenda at the council meeting. Get all that? Printed agendas are readily available prior to meetings at Trussville City Hall. This could have contributed to residents feeling out of the loop on the project.

Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat, center, speaks at a press conference Sept. 27 (photo by Gary Lloyd)

Simple updates such as those, I believe, go a long way in improving communication citywide. Little things make big things happen. In Trussville City Schools’ case, it’s going to take much bigger changes. Trust has been lost. Tough conversations have been needed and had.

This outcry from the public has been a long time coming, a slow boil, and that process unfortunately got kicked off this way, with one of the scariest possibilities imaginable leaving folks feeling as if it could have happened here. Poor communication from a principal or positive spin from a superintendent every now and then is one thing, but 11 months passing before all parents of Hewitt-Trussville High School students knew about a “death notebook”? That’s appalling.

It didn’t have to be this way, and the dam finally broke. The difficult stories and hurt feelings poured across Trussville last week, some constructive and some just old wounds being reopened. The rebuilding process has already started, and that immediacy, despite it being reactive, is ultimately a good sign.

“Listen to us,” one parent pleaded to the Board of Education on Sept. 30. “Take us seriously.”

Now, I believe they are.

Fear, lack of communication take center stage in Trussville

‘At some point, we have to stand up’

By Gary Lloyd

TRUSSVILLE – Jodie Real has been leaving the lights on at night.

Since news emerged that a Hewitt-Trussville High School student was suspended this month after making terroristic threats Sept. 16, almost a year after he created a “death notebook” that contained the names of 37 classmates, a notebook that did not come to light to authorities until this month, Real and her family’s lives have been turned upside down.

“We are in terror at our house,” said Real, one of dozens who spoke in front of a packed Trussville City Council meeting Sept. 27.

Real’s child’s name was in that notebook. No one in her house has slept.

“Everybody should be able to go to sleep, and we can’t sleep,” she said, before the emotions became too much and she walked away from the microphone.

Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat, speaking the morning of Sept. 27 at a press conference in the interim city council chambers – formerly the Trussville City Schools Board of Education boardroom – discussed recent safety concerns within Trussville City Schools. During the Trussville Police Department investigation of the recent terroristic threats, it was learned that the same student in October 2021 had created a “death notebook” that contained the names of 37 classmates.

Related: Read my initial story on the school threats in the Cahaba Sun

“The police department was never notified by [the school] administration last year when the death notebook was found,” said Police Chief Eric Rush. “The death notebook contained the names of 37 fellow students with five of them having specific ways to die. There were multiple verbal threats about shooting up the school by this same student this year. These threats are what brought the notebook to our attention by the school.”

Trussville Mayor Buddy Choat, center, takes questions during the Sept. 27 press conference.

Trussville City Schools Superintendent Pattie Neill released a statement Sept. 26 but did not speak publicly Sept. 27 at the morning press conference or at the evening city council meeting.

“The student was brought to the counselor’s office and met with the principal and counselor,” Neill said. “The notebook was based on the Netflix series ‘Death Note’ where a person can imagine someone’s death and supernaturally make it happen – for example the person in the notebook might be eaten by ants, hit by a bus, hit by a ladder, drowning, etc. It was determined at that time by the principal and counselor and based on the information available that the notebook was fantasy and no further action was necessary other than confiscate the book and monitor the behavior of the student. The student completed the 2021-22 school year with no further disciplinary problems.”

Late in the afternoon Sept. 27, Hewitt-Trussville High School Principal Tim Salem was placed on administrative leave. Assistant Principal Joy Young was named acting principal.

“Safety remains a first priority, and your students have been and will continue to be safe at HTHS,” Neill said in an email message to parents.

Salem, in a message to HTHS staff, said he wants everyone to continue to “stay the course with teaching and learning.”

“It is an honor and privilege to work with all of you and I know that our students and parents are in good hands,” Salem wrote.

In her statement, Neill said Salem and the school resource officer, in light of the events in Uvalde, Texas, implemented “numerous safety protocols for the 22-23 school year.”

“As such, when the events of last week came to light, the potential threat was acted upon immediately and the threat assessment protocol was fully implemented,” Neill said.

Neill, Rush, Salem, city council members and Board of Education members met Sept. 26 to discuss the situation.

“Mr. Salem acknowledged this mistake and recognizes the error in not involving the SRO for threat assessment protocol in 2021,” Neill said. “In hindsight, the SRO and central office administration should have been made aware of this book and TV series so the threat assessment protocol could be fully implemented.”

City Councilman Ben Short was at that meeting. He wrote an open letter to the Board of Education, more than 700 words, on his Facebook page. He wrote that it had “become clear that the Trussville City Schools System didn’t notify law enforcement last year when they became aware of death notebook that contained threatened physical harm to other students.”

“Our city provides sworn law enforcement officers in each of our schools to keep our students safe and they are unable to provide the level of security that is required of them when school administration fails to notify or work with the police when situations concerning threatened bodily harm arise,” Short wrote. “Our officers are not there simply for the perception of safety and I feel the school administration and law enforcement need to have constructive dialogue to ensure that everyone is on the same page in handling scenarios involving threats.”

Trussville Police Chief Eric Rush, center, talks during the press conference.

The word “communication” filled Trussville on Sept. 27 more than U.S. Highway 11 traffic. Choat, in his morning press conference, said Trussville supports and will continue to support public safety and school safety as top priorities.

“We cannot do that without communication, and that’s where this occurred,” he said.

Choat said city officials and Trussville City Schools “have to have an understanding of we’re in this together.”

“It is not us against them,” he said. “They’re part of us and we’re part of them, and we’re in this together.”

When asked why Neill and Board of Education members were not part of the morning press conference, Choat said Neill had offered to do a joint press conference, but he decided to go in a different direction.

“She offered yesterday to do a joint conference,” he said. “I felt that it was better they have their conference, they take responsibility for what they’re going to do and how they want to do it. I wanted to be separate in case there’s a question of where the city stands in this issue. So, it was really my suggestion yesterday that we do separate interviews.”

As of late Sept. 27, no Trussville City Schools press conference was apparently scheduled. A meeting of a couple city council members, Choat, Neill and the Board of Education was scheduled for 8 a.m. Sept. 28.

“Improving our communication, I think, is key here,” Short said at the press conference.

WATCH: The full press conference

In August 2020, the Trussville City Council and Board of Education approved a memorandum of understanding outlining what should happen when any threatening incident happens on school property or at a school-sponsored event. In part, the MOU states that SROs “shall be responsible for carrying out all duties and responsibilities of a law enforcement officer and shall remain at all times under the control, through the chain of command, of TPD.” Rush said that MOU was supposed to be adhered to and was not. There are no repercussions for violating it.

“I think the violation in itself was bad enough,” he said. “It was there and it was known.”

The city council meeting at 6 p.m. was essentially an encore to the 10:30 a.m. press conference. Russell Moore, a Trussville bus driver and youth pastor, was one of the first to address the mayor and city council. He said his son and four members of his youth group were named in the “death notebook.”

“We were spared what parents in Uvalde and Parkland and other places experienced,” he said. “I thank the Lord we found out ahead of time so that proper action could be taken. A legacy is going to be built, in my opinion, based on what happens in the coming weeks and months.”

Karen Johns, a Trussville resident who previously served as the school system’s athletics director and softball coach, approached the microphone to pre-speech applause. She spoke about servant leadership and the need for it in Trussville.

“[The kids] deserve leadership that lifts them to be bigger and brighter because that’s who we are,” she said before someone in the crowd yelled “Karen Johns for superintendent!”

The call for Neill to resign or be removed from her position as superintendent was a theme throughout the meeting. One woman with a daughter at HTHS, said there is an obligation for Neill to be removed.

“Where is she?” she asked. “We’re here because of her leadership, or lack thereof. Where is she?”

Laura Maddox, a Trussville resident who teaches at Homewood City Schools, said her statement would be simple and clear: “Please remove Pattie Neill from office. I’m going to say it again. Please remove Pattie Neill from office. Today.”

City Council President Perry Cook said the council was trying to be as transparent as possible, something he said he couldn’t say about Neill.

“And I think that’s where it starts,” he said.

Even a Hewitt-Trussville High School employee, Amanda Dobbins, spoke out.

“I don’t care if I get fired tomorrow,” she said. “I don’t care. At some point, we have to stand up.”

Dobbins said she was disappointed no Board of Education members attended the council meeting, and that she understood why many of her coworkers weren’t in attendance. They feared retaliation for speaking out, she said. Dobbins, ensuring she gave proper credit, quoted John Maxwell.

“Communication is the art of leadership,” she said.

Councilwoman Jaime Melton Anderson communication was “paramount” to her.

“The communication has got to be direct, has got to be immediate,” she said. “You do deserve to feel safe in this community.”

The stories that caused audible gasps continued throughout the night. One woman said her daughter was allegedly assaulted at the high school last year under a stairwell, an incident she said HTHS did not properly address. A police report was filed. The family’s pediatrician recommended removing the daughter from the school. The woman has three other children in Trussville City Schools.

“I’m not going to let it happen to my other three kids,” she said.

A scene from the press conference

One woman said her daughter’s boyfriend was listed in the “death notebook.” She has been terrified for her life, and said she called the Board of Education for next steps. She said she was told that there was nothing to report right now. Another woman said that her daughter, a sophomore, has been “less than impressed” in her first two years of high school. She said an anti-bullying initiative brought to Salem was “shot down” last year.

“Bullying is the name of the game at this school,” she said.

One parent said her 14-year-old texted her about the “death notebook.” She didn’t wait to find out if it was rumor, fantasy or a confirmed threat.

“The fear was real,” she said. “I’m going to get my child. I’m not going to find out too late.”

That same woman said she had a decision to make the next day, whether to send her son back to school or not. Ultimately, she said she trusted in God that he’d be safe.

“But I can’t tell you that I didn’t cry in the driveway when I got home, praying to the Lord that he’d be OK at the end of the day,” she said.

One man told the city council that there is a moral obligation to do what should be done and what can be done. One of his final statements was piercing.

“The next time you gather with parents and students, you don’t want it to be at a funeral.”

280 miles northeast of here

By Gary Lloyd

Almost 300 miles northeast of here, a drive that lasts nearly five hours, time stands still.

The T-shirt shops still amount to roughly half of the businesses along Gatlinburg Parkway, where you can fill an entire master closet with airbrushed clothing. Before you can park in the deck behind the Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies and stroll those streets, though, drooling at the window of the Ole Smoky Candy Kitchen at the Mountain Mall, you must make your way to the Food City on East Parkway for sensible nutrition, like strawberry Pop Tarts and buttery popcorn.

You unpack your suitcase at the same wood cabin or motel you have called home for five days since you were a pre-teen. Your first desire, as if you were still a child, is to head to the Skee-Ball lanes at Fannie Farkle’s, where you can blow through twenty bucks in half an hour, all to win a $2.99 mountain-themed shot glass. You question that childhood innocence when you look up at the yellow sky lift, which ascends you 1,800 feet into the air with nothing but a rusted bar keeping you from certain death.

You hike the Great Smoky Mountain Trail until your feet throb and climb what seems like miles of pavement to the Clingmans Dome Observation Tower, the lone motivation in doing so knowing that the next morning, you’ll be first in line for Pancake Pantry’s 7 a.m. opening. If you’re reading this column as some sort of advice for your Gatlinburg excursion, please remember to take cash to Pancake Pantry.

You drive the winding roads through bursts of yellow and orange, often stopping off to stand on the rocky banks of the Little River, and you refamiliarize yourself with the history, structures and wildlife at Cades Cove.

It’s now been three years since my wife and I have been to Gatlinburg, a trip both our families made in our childhoods and has become sort of our own married tradition now. We went for our honeymoon in 2013 and for our last vacation in 2019 before our son was born, and several times in between. We have not been back since November 2019.

We have told our toddler son about Gatlinburg, shown him photos in our camera rolls and in Facebook albums. He has seen iPhone shots of Gatlinburg Parkway at sunset, our dogs on a wooden porch overlooking the mountains, a massive turtle at the Ripley’s Aquarium, those neon yellow leaves in early November, and a plate of chocolate chip pancakes. It all pales in comparison to seeing it all in person, to feeling the adrenaline when a buck bounds across the Cades Cove valley.

In our home, our son plays with a stuffed black bear we won at Fannie Farkle’s. Plastic blocks he builds towers with came from the Big Top Arcade in Pigeon Forge. The last thing I remember buying in Gatlinburg in November 2019 was a mini street sign, a cheap souvenir I found in a T-shirt shop on the Parkway. It has his name on it. It sits on the door header entering his bedroom.

One day, hopefully soon, he will see the place it came from. Maybe he will bring back some airbrushed T-shirts.

Gary Lloyd is the author of six books and is a contributing writer to the Cahaba Sun.