Up & Down Commerce St. – July 3

Published 8:30 pm Monday, July 5, 2010

While scrolling through email the other day we came across an old one from Troy University listing the names of honor students from Butler County. We’d included the students from the Provost’s List in the paper previously, but now scrolled down to find the Chancellor’s List was also there and we’d missed it.

So without further ado: students who made the Chancellor’s List from Troy were Michele Hulick of Georgiana, Demetrius Scott and Morgan Till of Greenville, and Charles “Chas” Windham of McKenzie.

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The softball Darlings put on quite an effort on Monday at the complex. The team of 7-8 year old girls could have very easily mailed it in after losing to Opp the Friday before 15-0, but they fought back to make the championship game, again against Opp. Greenville’s team played much better this time but, unfortunately, the outcome was the same, a 7-4 loss.

Still, the “little Darlings” earned themselves a runner-up trophy. Good job to the girls and the coaches.

This city and the rest of the country have been in an uproar over Twilight, the movie that has turned teenaged vampires and werewolves into sex symbols. It opened at The Edge on Wednesday. We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again: we liked Twilight better when it was called Dracula.

But, to each his (or her) own.

Movies we would recommend, however, would be Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges as down-on-his-luck and thoroughly disheveled country singer “Bad” Blake. At one point in the film we had to look twice because Bridges looked so much like real singer and songwriter Kris Kristofferson it was disarming.

The city council took time Monday to recognize Lt. Justin Lovvorn for the work he does with the Honor Guard, police across the state who are called to attend a fallen officer’s funeral. It was a well-deserved recognition for a difficult assignment. The last time an Honor Guard stood watch over a Greenville officer’s funeral was Gary Wayne Heath’s in 1994. We hope it never comes to that again.

On a lighter note, we knew Lt. “Columbo” Lovvorn when he was a martial artist many years ago at Beeland Park.

On a serious note, it’s good to have people like Lt. Lovvorn on the job.

We ran across the story of Debbie Stringfellow, mother of Sherry Marler, and her new restaurant in the pages of the Enterprise Ledger on Monday. The fine folks at the newspaper there were gracious enough to let us reprint it in The Advocate, which we did on Wednesday. This is a story that still captivates many in Greenville, because it remains unsolved. To us, Sherry is forever the girl we see in her grade school photo. She will remain that way until she either shows up alive or someone who knows something talks.

Either way, it’s a mystery.

Sunday lunch was at Priester’s Pecans this week. They had a good one. Tender roast beef (or fried chicken), sweet carrots, rice, black-eyed peas and apple cobbler. Afterwards, we walked around the pecan “buffet” and helped ourselves to a sampling or two. The only negative was the bowl where the pecan divinity was supposed to be held only scraps and we would have loved a taste.

The Butler County Civic League will host a fish fry fundraiser on July 10 on the Hilltop. The fish fry will start at 9 a.m. Five or more orders can be delivered and pre-orders are certainly welcome, said organizers. Call ahead to 303-3076.

Greenville Middle School hosted its own passing camp last week, which shows again how important middle school football has become to the success of the high school’s football program.

What the players learn in the seventh and eighth grades, they’re already prepared for come varsity. We saw several top-notch young athletes that are going to help head coach Ben Blackmon’s team in the future.

Keep an eye on Marlon Davison. He’s the little brother of former all-state defensive lineman Kenneth “Big C” Carter, who’s now plying his trade at Auburn.

And the way time moves now, Marlon won’t be little to no one for much longer.

The Monroe County Heritage Museum has scheduled a host of activities for the weekend of July 8-11 to honor the 50th Anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird. The weekend will conclude with a special birthday party on the courthouse lawn in Monroeville on Sunday afternoon. If there’s one thing Alabama is known for it’s Harper Lee’s brilliant novel about childhood in the old south. The book has been required reading in schools and colleges across the nation and the outstanding motion picture with the late Gregory Peck only served to enhance its reputation. Atticus Finch, Scout, Jim, Bob Ewell, Dill, Boo Radley and all the rest have become entrenched in American literature, and deservedly so. For the book lovers out there, celebrate the novel’s anniversary by re-reading your old copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Or go to Monroeville that weekend. They’re having a marathon reading of the book in the courtroom.