POWERGRAMS

30 when the Coosa River is 55-60 degrees in early spring, it is as warm as many of the nation's most popular rapids will be all year. The Coosa can reach 75-80 degrees in the summer. During their prime season, the Carters run kayaking shuttles at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. daily. A one-person kayak is $29, two-person kayak $49 and two-person canoe $59 per trip, life jacket and paddles included. If a customer brings his own kayak, the shuttle charge is $12. Each person is provided a trash bag and transported to the base of Jordan Dam, which is about 6 river miles from the Adventures building, where they'll end up three or four hours later. There is a limit of about 150 kayakers each day, age 6 and over, so "scheduling is a must," as the business card says. "During peak season, we'll book up for a week or two in advance," she says in mid-March. "My books are already filling up, so it's never too early to call." Down by the River In a 200-year-old one-time trading post near the banks of the Coosa River, Carole Jean Boyd carefully carves cypress knees into gnomes, old men and Santa Clauses. Her skill with sharp steel hand tools and power chisels has brought widespread acclaim the past three decades as Boyd's artwork has earned countless accolades. Customers pay $65 to $1,700 for her originals. Students spend $150 or more to study a couple of days under Boyd in classes across the country. "You can look back at your life and see where God was trying to guide you," she says. "I knew very shortly after starting wood carving that this is what I was supposed to be doing." Growing up "a country girl" on a farm in Elmore County didn't dampen Boyd's uptown dreams. Sixty years ago, all the students in her high school were given an aptitude test: hers said she should stick to ag and art. "Our school didn't have art and girls didn't take agriculture," she says. "They wanted me to take ag with the boys. I would have been the first girl but I didn't do it because I knew they would all make fun of me." Instead, divine intervention delivered her to Leon Loard, one of the premier portrait photographers in the South. She began training with him after school in his Montgomery studios, which would establish her career as a portrait artist for the next quarter-century. In the late 1960s, Gov. Lurleen Wallace chose Boyd to produce 16 identical oil paintings. It took two years to complete the portraits, one of which still hangs in the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse. Alabama's first female governor died of cancer in office before the paintings were shown to her husband, former Gov. George Wallace. "I'd never seen him so sad," Boyd says. "He walked over and just wanted to touch her portrait." Upon their request, she later painted portraits of Gov. Albert Brewer and George Wallace, during the widower's subsequent terms as governor. Business was booming until Boyd's husband, David, died in 1986 and she lost the desire to paint. Out of the blue, someone suggested woodworking, and within three years she was being asked to share her carving secrets, so often that she quit her painting job. In 2005 Boyd wrote "Carving Cypress Knees; Creating Whimsical Characters from one of Nature's Most Unique Woods." The book remains a top-reviewed paperback, selling for $17.95 on Amazon and other sites. Boyd began volunteering at Old Alabama Town in Montgomery, selling her statues as she showed schoolchildren and tourists how to carve wood. A huge black walnut tree stump she fashioned into a man's face and hair caught the attention of one visitor, who mentioned it to Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis. He enticed Boyd to move to the trading post that had been empty for 13 years but was primed for renovation as an art school and gallery. Boyd has teamed since 2013 with local artists Mary Beck, Allen Carmichael and Christine Drost in the Rumbling Water Studios and Gallery on Wharf Street, open from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Boyd has gotten beyond the days when she thought a high price would keep admirers from purchasing her favorite carvings. "A man in overalls asked the price of an Indian carving and I said $1,000 because I didn't think he could afford it," she says. "He pulled a big roll of $100s out of the bib and peeled off 10 of them. When he walked out with it, I cried like a baby. Then I told myself, 'If you're going to do this for a living, you just have to get used to it that they're not really yours.'" Up On Ivy Creek Chef Gary Garner is accustomed to preparing haute cuisine in popular restaurants, having created delicious delicacies for diners at Garrett's, Vintage Year, Young House, Magnolia Cafe and the Montgomery Country Club in central Alabama during the past 30 years. He feels at home catering lobster for a fashion show or prime rib for a chamber of commerce banquet. Until a year ago, Garner's experience with "hospital food" stemmed almost solely from infrequent visits to friends and relatives who were ailing. But he couldn't turn down a challenge that one of his former servers had cooked up: open a high-quality restaurant in a hospital. Today, Ivy Boyd's skill is nationally recognized. One of Boyd's award-winning wood carvings.

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