POWERGRAMS

owners make everything from scratch, buy from local farms, don't offer fried foods, "shop local and live local." "We believe in Greenville," says Bates, a former schoolteacher who bought a historic home and now walks to work. "We know Greenville believes in us by the outpouring of support." Sherling Lake Campground, opened by the city in 1975, is on the Alabama Black Belt Nature and Heritage Trail, and the Alabama Birding Trail. Its 43 campsites get a boost every March from the town's Medieval Festival, in April for the Calico Fort Arts Festival and in May during the Hank Williams Festival. The Philip Herring Walking Trail winds along the edge of the campground and 10-acre Lake Sherling, beginning at the new city lodge. Publisher Bruce Branum is busy at his computer typing the voters list the same day the newest issue of The Greenville Standard has hit the racks, which in this case is an open steel frame with an old-fashioned pay cylinder labeled "Coin here … Your conscience is my only protection." He lets a visitor inside the locked doors where Branum is the only person manning the four desks in a narrow building lined with plaques for statewide excellence in sports, education, features, photography and local reporting. The Greenville native is, for the most part, a one-man operation, with help from a part-time bookkeeper and several contract reporters. "We do all right for a little newspaper," he says, a U.S. Constitution Fact Book resting on a shelf over his shoulder alongside his paper's many Alabama Press Association awards. Next door, Ann Judah "shugah's" customers through the door of Camellia City Bakery and Deli that she and her late husband, Ozzie, opened 10 years ago. They left a successful catering business in Dothan, which often fed high-dollar-donor alumni at Troy University football games. Ozzie's Homemade Chicken Salad stills attracts a crowd, just like the bakery's Fried Pie Friday. "This was Ozzie's heart. He loved for people to be fed and happy," she says. "In Greenville, we feel like we're in a Hallmark movie." Indeed, the U.S. Post Office is unchanged from the day it opened in the 1930s, other than the second story being shut down last year. Post boxes in the front lobby have hand-painted numbers from 1 to 1,158, with customers frequently dropping by to check the tiny windows for new mail. Some await the latest copy of The Greenville Advocate, "Alabama's Best Small Weekly," which has recorded local news since 1865. At the adjacent city block corner, a huge four-faced clock hanging above Commerce Street is attached to the former First National Bank, which was restored five years ago and is occupied by Poole & Poole attorneys. The huge bank vaults are now unlocked document storage areas for the law firm that has served Greenville citizens for a century. Horizontal sliding ladders lead to lawbooks on shelves that reach the ceiling of the 1896 building's first-floor lobby. Next door, a later addition to the bank has become home to First Realty of Greenville. Downtown Greenville includes many of the law offices expected in a courthouse town. Williamson & Williamson is set up across the street in a restored two- story brick building boasting a Landmarks Foundation shield similar to those on business fronts all along Commerce Street. Powell & Hamilton law firm is one of those on an East Commerce city block that has been entirely restored to its original luster. Kitty-corner to the courthouse, the tiny Court Square Café does a steady business from early morning until it closes at 2 p.m. on weekdays. With 22 seats, it's standing room only sometimes for the politicians and attorneys who've frequented Patty Powell's place for years. At lunch this day, $7.75 will pay for fried pork chops, thickened potatoes, dry lima beans and cornbread. The coconut delight is extra. It's the "kinda cookin' ya grew up on," as the menu says. Farther west stands Greenville Hardware, looking a lot like it did when its doors opened in 1891. In between six iron Corinthian columns and just outside the big doors that are padlocked each night are wheelbarrows, lawnmowers and rocking chairs lining the sidewalk. Across Commerce Street is the revitalized 450-seat Ritz Theater, built in 1935 but out of business by the mid-1970s. After being abandoned for a decade, the art deco movie house where Hank Williams performed occasionally was bought by the city and painstakingly restored to include its metal marquee and central lighted Ritz tower. Each April, the Greenville Area Arts Council spotlights local singers, dancers and actors in the fundraiser "Putting on the Ritz." This is the 38th year of "See You at the Ritz," which this season brought to town the Tams, Bo Bice, Black Jacket Symphony and Holly Williams, daughter of Hank Jr. "A lot of people don't realize how big of an impact Greenville has on arts and entertainment in our region," Salter says. On the walls of Artitude on Main, "Mona Lisa" hangs among hundreds of art pieces of varying degrees of skill. Former Greenville High School teacher Stacey Edwards helps artists of all ages. Four of her students have won Congressional Art Awards and two took first place in Federal Junior Duck Stamp competitions. Soon, she will paint a mural on the side of the Safe Harbor building of the Butler County Children's Advocacy Center. The Greenville-Butler County Public Library has more than 30,000 books, DVDs and audiobooks, and loans guitars and ukuleles to patrons who hope to perhaps play like Hank Williams, who gave one of his final 14 14 GREENVILLE GREENVILLE The Greenville Standard Publisher Branum leads one of the two local newspapers. Hank Williams played at the Ritz Theatre, which was restored in the 1980s. Greenville Hardware opened 129 years ago.

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