By Karen Middleton
ATHENS — The News Courier’s new Circulation Manager Tracy Fulks said living in a small community offers limitless public service.
Fulks, who came to The News Courier in early December to replace former circulation manager Connie Witt, served as a juvenile probation officer for four years and has worked in some capacity with the elderly for 11 years.
Fulks and her husband of 21 years, Jeff, and their two children, Justin, 21, and Christian, 18, returned from Gulf Breeze, Fla., five years ago after six years there.
Limestone County native Jeff and Tuscaloosa native Tracy and their children lived in Gulf Breeze for six years while Jeff worked for Solutia. Once Solutia closed in Florida, Jeff worked for a plant that manufactured nitrous oxide.
The family had planned to return to Alabama at least two years before Justin was ready to begin college because of requirements of the PACT program, through which the Fulks thought they had both children’s college tuitions paid since the time they were 5.
But Hurricane Ivan was also a motivating factor in heading back to Limestone County. When Ivan hit, the Fulks family evacuated to Tuscaloosa, but when they wanted to return to Gulf Breeze, it took 11 hours to drive back home.
“That was the only hurricane we evacuated for,” said Fulks. “We had some friends who stayed and their kids are still traumatized.”
Fulks said “everything was destroyed” in Gulf Breeze by Ivan, but their home sustained remarkably little damage.
“We lived a mile from the beach, but we were up high so we had no water damage,” she said.
Fulks said it appeared as though “a bomb went off in the front yard and back” but the home only required a new roof. She said friends and neighbors didn’t fare as well.
“We really saw people come together,” she said. “Some of them lost their homes, vehicles, businesses, and one even lost the lot where their house had been. It was on the peninsula and was swept away.”
Fulks said the young people in the Gulf Breeze community helped National Guardsmen get food, water and supplies into those stranded and left homeless.
“It was so good to see the kids helping the elderly,” she said. “Everywhere you went all you could see was blue plastic tarps for roofs. The kids were out of school for three months before they could go back.”
But the time in Florida wasn’t all about destructive winds, said Fulks. She worked as a self-taught artist and as the art and set director for Beta Children’s Community Theater in which her daughter, Christian, also acted in nine plays. Son Justin played “in every sport he could.”
When Jeff got a job at Hexcel in Decatur, she said there was no question they would choose a home in Athens where Jeff grew up.
Since leaving her job in the Juvenile Probation Office, Fulks has become active with the Greater Limestone Chamber of Commerce as an ambassador. She said her father, who is serving his 40th year as a commissioner in Tuscaloosa County, taught her the value of community service.
“My father always raised us to help others when we can because we never know when we may need help ourselves,” she said.
“When I was a JPO, I didn’t get to do any of that and I really missed it,” she said.
The family attends First United Methodist Church. Justin is a junior at the University of North Alabama and Christian is a senior at Athens High School, where she is also head cheerleader.
“I look forward to retiring here,” she said.
