The New Yorker

Arriving with long hair and a Northern accent, Val Vann initially struggled with the challenges of small town Alabama. Now there’s no place she’d rather be

Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Images by Blakeney Clouse

 “Around here, if you tell someone that you’re from New York, they automatically assume you mean New York City. But New York isn’t just the big buildings and bright lights. There’s so much more to it,” says Val Vann, before taking a sip of her iced tea that she, like most Southerners would, ordered sweetened.

 Val isn’t a born-and-bred Southerner, however. Prior to moving to Jasper in 1970, she called the small town of Marcellus, New York, her home. 

“Marcellus was a community where everyone knew each other,” Val says. “You graduated high school with the same people you started kindergarten, and most who lived there worked in the neighboring city of Syracuse. Here, people worked in the mines or the hospital or somewhere locally. It still was close-knit like Jasper, but people came and went. People didn’t move away from here, they stayed and built their lives.”

 After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University, Val and her college roommate moved to Virginia, where they both taught school. Her roommate introduced her to a man in the military who was stationed at Fort Belvoir, Fairfax County, Virginia. They grew fond of each other and began a relationship. 

 Soon Val’s career took her to Florida. While there, she received a phone call from that same man, asking her to marry him. She was agreeable, but there was one condition—she would need to move to his hometown of Jasper, Alabama. 

 In many ways, Jasper was very similar to Marcellus, but also quite different. For one thing, it was larger. Val recalls Marcellus having three bars, one restaurant, a library, and a few churches— all on one square of land. In that small town, family, church, and school were at the top of most everyone’s priority lists, just like Jasper. 

 Despite the similarities, Val admits being a transplant in Jasper wasn’t easy. “It was a very difficult adjustment and I wasn’t generally accepted at first,” she says. “It’s not that the people were rude. They were very nice, they were just standoffish because they couldn’t place me in any kind of familiar box.”

 Not long after moving here, Val began searching for a place to live. A family member of her then-husband suggested a rental property owned by a local beautician. With her new baby strapped in a carrier on her back, Val set out to ask the landlord about renting the home.

 “I had long hair, a New York accent, and I was carrying something on my back, so she quickly made assumptions about me and told me that space was no longer available,” Val recalls. “But as I turned to walk out the door, she saw that I was actually carrying a baby on my back and not my life’s belongings. She stopped me and told me we could have it.”

Val cites three specific experiences, all of which occurred in 1980, that were turning points in her love and acceptance for Jasper and Walker County: becoming the first finance officer for the City of Jasper, becoming a member of the Pilot Club, and joining First United Methodist Church.

 “In the finance officer position, I worked with the mayor, the city commission, the city manager, and a wonderful team of city employees to turn a city from being almost bankrupt to flourishing,” Val says. “We even bought a ladder truck for the Jasper Fire Department. This was a big moment in so many lives. My experience in Pilot Club led me to a position as the Governor of the Alabama District of Pilot International, and I was welcomed with open arms at FUMC. It brought the transition full circle.”

 Val may be best known around Jasper for her time teaching at Bevill State Community College. She began as a part-time night instructor, teaching typing in 1997. When Walker College, as it was then known, became part of Bevill State, she became a full-time employee. “At first I taught keyboarding and transcription, and then we ramped up the Early Childhood program on the Jasper campus,” Val says. “In the beginning, I taught the courses for this program on the Jasper campus only. Within a few years, I became Director of the Early Childhood Program and began teaching the program via distance learning on all the BSCC campuses.”

She also helped develop a paralegal program and served as a resident manager for the Murphy Hall dorm. 

Today, Val works as a bookkeeper in Jasper and as an online professor for Athens State University. She enjoys spending time with her grandchildren and tending to her ten cats, seven dogs, three horses, and a duck.

 Val has seen Jasper go through many changes and developments. She’s proud of the growth and maturity the town has experienced, and she’s hopeful for the change that is still to come because she loves to see her home grow.

“My dad once told me, ‘Jasper’s more your home than any place you ever lived,’ and he was right,” Val says. “I love it here. I never left, and I don’t plan to.” 

“I take care of my animals, my students, and my clients,” Val says. “Some friends in my Bible study and I were discussing what we believe our purpose to be, and I believe that mine is helping others. I love doing it, it makes me feel happy and full, and I’m glad I’ve been able to do it here in Jasper.” 78