SHORELINES

Atkins shares 'wonderful memories' Atkins says she was "stunned" with the present and teared up when employees gave it to her. But then, "I just died laughing. It was so priceless." Atkins is in the twilight of her career, but there's little Leah Rawls Atkins won a world championship and plenty of other tournaments as a water skier, but she doesn't list those achievements on her resume. Nor does Atkins talk about her water skiing days unless she is asked. evidence she has slowed down – mentally or physically. She still works on many historical projects for Alabama Power, and she still gets around like a much younger person. Even approaching 80, Atkins can dart across a room like a water bug, her short legs propelling her at a pace that threatens to leave much younger, taller companions behind. "She goes at high speed," McCrary says. That is how she has lived, and continues to live, her life from her early days as an elite water skier, through her busy years in academia, to her time documenting corporations' histories. Lloyd offers a fitting perspective on Atkins shaped by more than six decades of friendship: "Here's a young lady who was a world champion the year she graduated from high school and it really didn't go to her head. She goes on to college and marries a guy who is probably one of the all-time offensive guards at Auburn," he says. "She raises a family … while she teaches and gets her Ph.D. and becomes an icon, the person to go to on Alabama history. Oh, by the way, she's in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, the first woman to be inducted. "She's absolutely no slouch." — Bob Blalock Wayne Flynt, Auburn University professor emeritus of history, has known Atkins since the two taught at Samford in the 1970s. He didn't know about her water skiing accomplishments until after he began working at Auburn in 1977 and found out from someone in alumni affairs. "She never mentioned it," Flynt says. Atkins says her water skiing career wasn't that big a deal. She describes it as "wonderful memories for an old lady." When she warms to the subject, though, those memories spill out like stormwater through a sluice. A few of her better ones: — There was the time world-famous cowboy actor Roy Rogers visited Toronto. Atkins and three other young women were doing a ski show dressed in cowgirl outfits and shooting cap guns. Their routine would end when the four Above Left: Photo by Bernard Troncale — A coffee table built with the power pole that damaged the Atkins home in the April 27, 2011 tornadoes was a gift from Charles McCrary. Above Right: Photo by Bernard Troncale — The Alabama Sports Hall of Fame plaque, awarded to Atkins in 1976 and a third-place award for Women's Slalom in 1953. The third-place award was blown miles away in the April 27, 2011 tornado and returned to her. 18 S hor el i ne s | 2013 Vol:3

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