SHORELINES

7 a p c s hor e l i n e s.c om | 2015 Vol :2 Louis Hanks isn't one to pass up an opportunity. When he knew the love of his life was his junior-high and high-school sweetheart, Hanks married her right after graduation. They celebrate their 72nd anniversary this year. When the town of Winfield wooed his company from Birmingham with lower taxes, free land and a low-interest loan, Hanks made the move and the company prospered until and after his retirement. When he got a chance to buy a lot with 175 feet of lakefront at Smith Lake before there was a Smith Lake decades ago, Hanks seized the opportunity, and the cottage and dock there still provide his family with the perfect getaway. And when he tracked down a former World War II Army buddy he hadn't seen in decades, only to discover he was in a hospital a few miles away in Gadsden, Hanks drove up the next day and spent several hours catching up with Henry Phifer. That last opportunity may have been the most improbable. It started when Hanks was flipping through an early copy of Shorelines that was then more of a pamphlet than the magazine Alabama Power now publishes for residents of the lakes the company manages. In reality, it started when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, bringing the U.S. into World War II. That led to a young Hanks enlisting in the Army and heading to Fort Jackson, S.C., to train for war. At Fort Jackson, Hanks was tapped for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because he showed a propensity for working with machinery. Hanks believes that's due to his father dying when Opposite: Photo by k ariM shaMsi-Basha — Louis Hanks and Henry Phifer, both Alabama natives, served together in World War II. Inset: Photo by k ariM shaMsi-Basha — Louis Hanks holds a photo with his friend Henry Phifer 60 years later.

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