POWERGRAMS

8 ESTEEMED ALABAMA HISTORIAN MADE WAVES AS CHAMPION SKIER ESTEEMED ALABAMA HISTORIAN MADE WAVES AS CHAMPION SKIER WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH by Chuck Chandler L eah Rawls Atkins was born into a man's world and has never stopped outdoing the guys. At 5-foot-1, she figures to have lost an inch or two over her 85 years. Yet she's risen to great heights, often setting herself apart from males – and females – along a heralded journey across land and water. "I found out that if you prepare yourself, demand excellence of yourself every time you do something, it doesn't matter if you're a woman," she said. "When I was growing up, we were so used to the norm: it was that women stayed in the kitchen. There were certain things they were not supposed to do." A fourth-generation Jefferson Countian, Atkins' great- grandparents traveled down the 1818 Road and settled on a section known today as Jones Valley, which was named for them. She has been "surrounded by history" her entire life, which eventually led to Atkins writing books and lecturing about her city, county, state, country and companies she has admired. The only child of Jack Rawls, who owned Birmingham Heating Co., and his wife, Margaret Jones Rawls, Leah grew up in Edgewood, where the eastern corner of their 9-acre property would later become a section of Interstate Highway 65. In 1940, her parents bought a two-room, dogtrot, batten board cabin at Camp Oliver outside Birmingham. Margaret wouldn't abide an outhouse, so Jack installed pipes and a pump to bring water from the nearby Black Warrior River. Soon, 3-year-old Leah had learned to swim in the river. By the time she was 4, she was riding a motor-powered surfboard on the Warrior. "I just went all over the place riding that surfboard, totally Atkins xxx xxxx x xxxxxx PHOTO BY PHIL FREE Rawls with cousin, Marine Capt. Frank Austin Beavers, who died during World War II.

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