By Rubin E. GrantWhen Sarah Gordon was a freshman, Vestavia Hills High School girls basketball coach John David Smelser had to beg her to shoot.Obviously, Gordon heeded his request.On Jan. 3, Gordon, now a 5-foot-11-inch senior forward, scored 17 points in a 41-26 victory against Hartselle to surpass 2,000 points for her high school career.She became just the … [Read more...]
Homewood’s Levering Joins Select Company with Gatorade Cross Country Awar
By Rubin E. GrantHomewood senior Emma Brooke Levering was aware that she had a chance to be in select company. So, when word came that she had become the third Homewood distance runner to earn multiple Gatorade Alabama Cross Country Player of the Year honors, she reveled in the accomplishment.Gatorade announced in January that Levering had been chosen the 2024-25 … [Read more...]
Spotlight: Adam Barksdale
Adam Barksdale is a six-foot-five senior guard for Vestavia Hills High School and is signed to play college basketball at the University of Montevallo. An excellent outside shooter, Barksdale had five three-pointers in Vestavia’s victory over Oak Mountain on January 24, and he finished the game with 23 points. His junior year stats of 12.3 PPG, 3.6 RPG, and 1.4 APG, earned him … [Read more...]
Discernment: Jim and Jayne Pool’s joyful journey
When Kirby Pool was very young, she asked her mother, Saint Mark’s Episcopal priest Jayne Pool, what God was like. Jayne answered, “God is like everything.” And so began Kirby’s upbringing as a child of spiritual, intellectual and musical parents. Jim and Jayne Pool met in high school, he being older by two years. Jayne saw Jim getting out of his Opal with a guitar case in his … [Read more...]
From the Heart: Audrey Atkins uses her heart attack to help educate others
By Barry Wise SmithOn October 10, 2023, less than a month after her 54th birthday, Audrey Atkins was enjoying her morning coffee with her husband Ricky while visiting her brother Father John McDonald at his home in Anniston. “I started having heartburn-like pain, and I was thinking ‘what kind of cheap coffee did my brother buy that gave me heartburn that fast,’” Atkins … [Read more...]