Bruce McLellan

2 months ago | decaturdaily.com | Bruce McLellan

During a 44-year newspaper career, David Elwell interviewed legendary sports figures like Paul “Bear” Bryant, Charles Barkley and Decatur’s H.L. “Shorty” Ogle. He covered Austin when it advanced to the state championship football game in 1983, and more than 30 years later he wrote about Black Bears teams that made deep playoff runs three straight years from 2015-17. Along the way, he played a pivotal role in founding and sustaining the Morgan County Sports Hall of Fame.

2 months ago | decaturdaily.com | Bruce McLellan

Decatur’s Katherine Botto and the Hartselle doubles team of Marc Cera and Sam Stone found ways to win when their teams needed them most Monday in the Class 6A, Section 7 tennis tournament. A seventh-grader, Botto won a marathon super tiebreaker in the No. 6 singles semifinals to keep alive the Decatur girls’ hopes of finishing second and earning a team berth in the state tournament. “She kept us afloat,” Decatur coach Amanda Whitmire said. “Every day she’s better.

2 months ago | living50plusdm.com | Bruce McLellan

By Bruce McLellan | Living 50 PlusRick Henry reached a crossroad in 2004. “My kids were gone. They went off to college and then went off and got married. I had some free time,” the Southwest Decatur resident said. In his early 50s at the time, he began thinking about what he’d do to stay busy, especially with retirement from a management job at ITW Sexton about a decade away.

2 months ago | living50plusdm.com | Bruce McLellan

By Bruce McLellan | Living 50 PlusEdith Garner sat beside 4-year-old Adam Vargas and told him they would read a book together. “Talk to me,” said Garner, a volunteer at Maxine Ellison Decatur Youth Enrichment Learning Center. “What’s your name?”Adam looked at her silently. Garner, who spent a quarter century with Decatur City Schools and has been a regular volunteer with the center for the past 10 years, wasn’t discouraged. She oinked like a pig. Vargas laughed.

2 months ago | living50plusdm.com | Bruce McLellan

By Bruce McLellan | Living 50 PlusFlying north from Hartselle toward Decatur in his hot-air balloon decorated with strips of bright colors, Brian Dial found himself in a jam. A relatively new balloon pilot at the time, he wanted to land before his flight got too long. But as he hovered over woods near Flint, there were no large openings for a landing. “We had been flying for a while, and this was our second landing attempt,” Dial said.