POWERGRAMS

26 Legislature honored workers June 1 with Alabama Lineman Appreciation Day. An old burial place in Talladega County has a new story to tell: It is one of resurrection, after the grounds fell into disrepair. It began with Carrie Martin's "galvanizing" moment last year. Martin and her sister made a weekend visit to Knoxville Cemetery in Talladega, intending to clean the graves of their father, brother and great-grandmother, and to pay their respects. Martin stopped in her tracks when she saw a small white cross and balloon on a tiny, unmarked grave. The memorial was barely visible through heavy undergrowth. She looked on, dismayed, as the woman who had placed the items walked away. "Someone needs to get this place cleaned up," Martin told her sister. "You don't even know the graves are there." She was hard-hit by the tokens of remembrance obscured by knee- high weeds. "It just moved my heart so – it could have been my baby or my grandbaby. For all the weeds and underbrush, it didn't even look like a grave," said Martin, treasurer and board member for Eastern Division Energizers, one of 11 chapters of Alabama Power's retiree service organization. Knoxville Cemetery is a historic African-American burial place dating to the 1800s. About every third grave in belongs to a World War I, World War II or Korean War veteran. "It used to be that if an African- American died in Talladega or Knoxville, they were buried in that cemetery," said Curtis Morrow, a longtime resident whose family has ties to the nearly 6-acre resting place. The grounds bear testament to Knoxville's founding families, said Knoxville Cemetery, which dates to the 1800s, received much-needed work from APC retirees and volunteers. EASTERN DIVISION RETIREES BRING DIGNITY BACK TO HISTORIC CEMETERY BY DONNA COPE Paying Their Respects 15 Carrie and Raymond Martin spearheaded restoration. Photography by Ted Tucker

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