POWERGRAMS

25 would be well worth the cost. She sells general merchandise, home décor, gis for all occasions and has baby and bridal registries. Oglesby employs one full-time assistant and three part-time workers who are local college students. "We have a lot of people who come in from Fairhope, Birmingham or Montgomery and say they don't have a place to shop that has everything like this," says Oglesby, who was born and raised in Monroeville. "You sort of have to offer a lile of everything in a lile town." Soon, her husband appears with child in tow. He is the newly elected mayor of Monroeville, 34-year-old Joseph Oglesby. As they say, he has his hands full with his public job, his 18-month-old Guthrie's restaurant, and working with his father at the business his grandfather started, Monroe Scrap Materials. Unlike his fellow Auburn University alumnus wife, the fih- generation scrap businessman is not a Monroeville native. "I've only been here about 27 years," he says with a laugh, noting that he moved to town in the first grade. "And, yes, we've got a few things going on in our lives." He served two terms on the City Council, being elected first at 26 aer earning a degree in International Business and Spanish. He was the youngest councilman in the town's history, supplanting Emilie's father, Jim Davis, for that distinction. Oglesby is the youngest mayor ever elected in Monroeville. "Things are really moving here right now," he says, noting that MillenniumBlok will soon open its first factory in the South, employing about 100 in the booming Monroeville Industrial Park. "We've seen more activity recently than we've seen in years." Meanwhile, times will only get tougher for the mayor: his wife has started working on a master's degree in art. The Spinning of a Potter's Wheel With a ponytail reaching the middle of his back and mustache curling up at each end, Sam Williams stands out in a crowd – not that most everyone in Monroeville wouldn't know him anyway. He "retired" 15 years ago to the full-time task of throwing pots inside a mustard-colored, un-air-conditioned, concrete block building just off of the main square. His works fly off the shelves wherever they are sold and he can hardly keep up with the online and phoned-in orders. Poery By Williams has no set business hours or days; customers just look for his pickup truck parked out front. He will make a customized bowl while siing at the poer's wheel, then deliver it about a month later aer drying, trimming and glazing it. Williams has been making poery for 43 of his 73 years. He produces everything from a $4 mockingbird refrigerator magnet to a $150 jug. More than 60 "folk pots" from Williams' collection of vintage clay works fill high shelves along the walls of the main room at his shop on North Mount Pleasant Road. He is inspired by the crasmen from long ago whose work was more than art. "Most of what I do is utilitarian, too," he says, picking up one of about 70 oyster cups resting on seven old school desks before geing a coat of paint. Williams lis a dog's water bowl he made for a relative who complained the same thing costs $150 on the internet. He picks up an unpainted frog that will hold toothpicks in its gaping mouth aer Williams aaches the clay amphibian to an hors d'oeuvres plate created for another customer. "But I do some just-decorative pieces," he says, pointing over to a wall where a fish, a female bust and "Madonna" hang. Face jugs are among Williams' most creative and popular efforts. He began with "devil" jugs that mimicked those first made by slaves in the Carolinas. His caricatures evolved into Finishing Touches owner Emilie Oglesby is the mayor's wife. Williams builds sides of clay bowl.

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