POWERGRAMS

28 for breakfast, to Café Royale or Custom Pizza for lunch and to the Stampede Steakhouse or Matehuala Mexican for supper. Every day around noon, the parking lot of Fincher's Delite is packed at the long-time little roadside eatery. Guys go to Michael's Men's Wear for clothing and shoes, in big or small sizes. Visitors often opt to spend the night at the pristine Somerset Bed & Breakfast, which Bon Voyage magazine named "Best in the South." And there's nearly every fast-food place or national chain retail store and hotel outside the old business area and historic Silk Stocking District. Shocco Springs on the northwest edge of town has welcomed Baptists and others from around the world since 1910. The current 40-acre conference and recreation center has a lake and more than two dozen housing, service and presentation facilities. Alabama Power linemen often use Shocco Springs as a staging area during major storm restoration efforts. Talladega has standout medical facilities, including Talladega Health and Rehab and Citizens Baptist Medical Center, which employ nearly 700 combined. Years ago, Georgia-Pacific pulled up roots, dropping Talladega's economic and employment numbers. That changed early this year when the company opened a $100 million, 300,000-square-foot lumber production plant employing 130 people. That total is but a tenth of the local employment by the Alabama Institute of the Deaf and Blind (AIDB), but it marks the latest transformation in Talladega. The Presbyterian Home for Children next to AIDB is not a major employer but is a primary influence on youths coming there from difficult circumstances. "Talladega is probably one of the most diverse communities in the nation, because of its acceptance of people with sensory deprivation," says AIDB President John Mascia. "They're just regular people here. This city and county is very special and different." TALLADEGA COLLEGE Straight out of bondage, two freedmen sought to educate theirs and the children of other former slaves "as vital to the preservation of our liberties." The efforts of William Savery and Thomas Tarrant remain vital 150 years after they founded Talladega College. The two Talladega African-Americans started with a one-room schoolhouse built with scraps from an abandoned carpenter's shop. When that structure overflowed with students, Savery and Tarrant bought a recently bankrupt Baptist Academy headquarters and 20 adjoining acres, naming the building after a Freemen's Bureau official who helped negotiate the deal. "I could go on and on about our wonderful history," says Director of Public Relations Mary Sood, standing in front of slave-built, three-story brick Swayne Hall, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and noted for its four huge white columns and classic architecture. Classes still meet in the 1867 structure. Across scattered and soaring oaks on the main campus concourse stands Savery Library, with its 40-foot-tall marble chiming clock tower. Students have gathered in the 120-foot-wide first-floor reading room for 80 years but many failed to appreciate the national treasures hanging in the entrance lobby. A decade ago, college President Billy Hawkins learned that the Amistad Murals by Hale Woodruff were worth $40 million but in danger of disintegrating. With the help of the High Museum of Art, the six huge panels were restored and placed in climate-controlled storage in Atlanta. The William R. Harvey Museum of Art will open in October behind Savery Library as the permanent home of the murals, now valued at more than $50 million. Harvey, president of Old Talladega streets are lined with restored mansions. Harvey Museum of Art is set to open on Talladega College campus in October. Silk Stocking Historic District is a popular tourist destination.

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