POWERGRAMS

29 and out; they might be here 20-30 minutes at most," says Jones, whose father-in-law, Rick Jackson, is an APC retiree, and brother-in-law, Travis Burne, is a Transmission lineman. "It's not unusual to have 200 cars stop through our parking lot in one hour." The Joneses grew up on farms in north Alabama where the family had a pumpkin patch open to the public in the fall. Today they offer more than 75 varieties of fruit, selling fresh apples, blueberries, nectarines, plums, strawberries and more than 30 kinds of peaches, starting around mid-May and going through mid-September. Durbin Farms is a major supplier for Sysco, as well as to wholesalers across the Southeast. James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Hastings had Durbin ship peaches to him when he was in a televised cooking competition. "A couple from New York came in last year and bought more than 10 of our 25-pound boxes of peaches," Jones says. "They just turned around and went back home, said it was cheaper and higher- quality to buy them down here." It's not unusual to see celebrities like Bart Starr or Tommy Tuberville searching through the slanted counters of Durbin Farms' open market. They join the crowds curious about peach cider, pickled peaches, peach preserves and other peach products in glass jars lining the back walls beside buer and cheese from Amish Country. "We've had families coming here for generations; great-grandparents bring in their great-grandkids," says Jones. "College students come in to show their out-of-state friends what they grew up with. We put our heart and soul into giving people the best, freshest peaches and produce. That's what we're known for and makes us happy." LONGTIME GUARDSMAN, LIFETIME TEACHER Ivan Smith spent five years as brigadier general of the Alabama National Guard, followed by five years as adjutant general of the state's 26,000 Army and Air Force troops, which at the time was the nation's largest guard force. He was honored to be selected for those leadership roles but it's the introduction to his adopted home in 1946 that still really moves the 85-year-old. "When I got off the train from Nebraska, I fell in love with Alabama," he says. "They had to use snowplows to get out of the station in Lincoln, so my mother and I were very overdressed when we arrived in Clanton. There's nothing wrong with Nebraska, I've just never had the urge to go back there to live." The Smiths had ventured 1,000 miles aer the death of his father. She'd met a soldier from Alabama and Smith had to refer to a U.S. map to find the state where his mother would be married. The 12-year-old soon moved into his new home on a farm outside Clanton. He still lives on the land willed to him by his stepfather; he still goes to the same country church he joined 73 years ago. "Moving to Chilton County was one of the best things that ever happened to me," says Smith. "I felt like I'd stepped into paradise." Idolizing a cousin who was a World War II paratrooper, Smith's "goal in life" was to fill those Army sergeant boots upon graduation from Chilton County High in 1951. But another man stepped up and again altered Smith's path. Vocational agriculture teacher W.A. "Bing" LeCroy gave him a $250 scholarship to Jacksonville State University, bought Smith clothing, a suitcase and drove him to the campus. "That one thing redefined my life," Smith says of the kind gesture by the man who influenced so many people that he became the namesake of the LeCroy Career & Technology Center in Clanton. Smith joined the Army ROTC at Jax State and began taking classes but was soon broke. He was planning to leave college when a financial officer encouraged Smith to join the local Guard unit he Fern baskets line entrance to fruit and vegetable market. Clanton's National Guard headquarters is named for Smith. Staff Sgt. Johnny Collier and Smith inspect light medium tactical vehicles.

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