Dear Editor:
Great photo, by Suzanne Stewart, of the PCHS Carpentry Class on the front page of the January 25 edition of The Pocahontas Times.
Mr. Gibson, the teacher of the class, has a foresight that reminds me of Mr. Gilmer Callison, my VoAg and FFA teacher at Hillsboro High School.
Mr. Callison taught me a lot of crafts that I have used throughout my life. I salute Mr. Gibson for his willingness to teach hands-on skills.
I have so much on my mind:
I would like to give some flowers to Mr. Dick Evans, who now resides on the farm that I was born on. He has changed it to suit himself, but he has been very cooperative to my many relatives that like to visit their origins, and always their home place.
Next: Calvin Wells Price, born November 22, 1880, died June 14, 1957.
James Omer Kellison, born October 28, 1888, died May 5, 1966.
There was nine years difference in their ages, and they still live on in 2018 in The Pocahontas Times.
Mr. Price was always looking for J. O. Kellison, to learn what was happening in the mountains and woods, as Grandpa was in the woods most of the time, as The Times recorded from the 40s until Mr. Prices’ death.
In June or July 1957, there was a panther story that was never told. I wrote some sketches about the three times I encountered these animals. But J. O. Kellison never saw one in all the time he spent in the woods, and he would not believe me until he saw, with his own eyes, the panther lying on the ground.
Next: The article about Eugene Walker in the March 1, 2018 edition.
Eugene might want to run his ancestors back to a Sturgess Holmes. If he goes any further he might find the Kellison bloodline in him.
He talked about the old-timers, (Homer) Omer Kellison, Argile Arbogast and Lee Dean. I spent a lot of days with them, and also with Howard and Warren Tharp.
That was just after 1957 – and there are some great stories there.
William Ralph Kellison
Tuskegee, Alabama