Pancakes, politics in Brewton

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Forty years ago, in 1977, the Brewton Lions Club was getting ready to hold its annual pancake supper. If I am not mistaken, they don’t have the suppers anymore. Too bad because it was certainly good.

Former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Howell Heflin, was to be the speaker at the Brewton Chamber of Commerce banquet.

Southern Normal School was celebrating Founder’s Day on the grounds of the school.

A taster’s luncheon was planned by the Brewton Civic League. There was a story in the newspaper with photographs of Cynthia Lawson, who was preparing her recipe of Red Bean Creole.

Leon’s and IGA were adding on to their buildings while Sonic Hamburger was set to open around the first of March where Donut Delight was most recently.

Larry Manning had a page in The Brewton Standard with photos devoted to his pottery that he was making at the college.

T.R. Miller High School students were pictured with the younger ones as part of the Students for Action for Education program.

The City of Brewon was working to get rid of unsightly and run-down houses. In general, they were trying to clean up the city to make it more presentable. They succeeded in demolishing 33 out of 40 houses. The city was also working to have abandoned houses torn down and remodels on some.

When the old school on Belleville Avenue was torn down in 1976, a heavy plaster bust of George Washington was found in the attic of the school. On the back of the bust was these words, “1816 – Wilson MacDonald’s bust of George Washington molded from an original Houdon cast in 1785 and the Stuart painting  of 1795.

The bust was given to the old Brewton Collegiate Institute in the early 1900s by an Italian family who didn’t stay in Brewton.

Now this article said that the bust would be cleaned up and put in a place of honor near the front part of the school. I have never seen it, or if I did, I didn’t know what it was. I will follow up on this. I have found that the original sculptor was Jean-Antonio Houdan of France who came to America at the request of President Thomas Jefferson. Among other things, he carved the statue that stands in the rotunda of the capitol.