RVing With a Purpose

The Star on Pine Mountain – Shining for Five Generations

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

If you have followed our blog for several years you might remember a few posts about “The Star.”

With lots of help from family, friends and the community we have worked and helped maintain the large lighted star on the side of Pine Mountain in Remlap, Alabama since the 1980’s. The Star was built in 1950 by Max’s uncles and others as a project of a Sunday School class of Lee’s Chapel Church. When we went to Max’s Uncle JW in 1982 to get married, he insisted we promise to go to church together before he would marry us. We chose Lee’s Chapel as our church and that got us involved with The Star. Eventually we ended up in charge of it. Still with lots of help we continued in that role until we started traveling almost full-time in 2014. Each year involved trimming trees, brush and vines and replacing bulbs and sockets. Some years required repairing wires and resetting anchors. We still helped with it some years after 2014, but turned it mostly over to our cousin’s and best friends, Barry and Donna. We know that we could not have kept it going without them.

This is the original write up about The Star we found in a local history book:

Christmas always finds the Young Adult Class busy sharing its members’ blessings with others, and Christmas 1950 will be remembered as a special one. Sibyl Hallman [Max’s aunt] suggested to the class that they erect a “Star of Bethlehem” on the side of Pine Mountain facing Murphree’s Valley. Having read about a similar star in Colorado, she thought it would be something that they could share with many people. The class agreed, and Troy Lee Ingram, an Alabama Power Co. engineer, was contacted, and he agreed to lay out the star. It was formed on an area belonging to Lee McGriff. The star is 75 feet long from point to point and is 282 feet in circumference. Eighty-five 60 watt bulbs set about one foot apart shine into the nights of the Christmas season. Many regular travelers on Highway 75 look forward to the light of the Star during the holiday season. People from other parts of our nation have also enjoyed it. May there always be a “Star of Bethlehem”!

The star continued as two wires with screw-on sockets and incandescent bulbs until 2021 when we helped Donna and Barry and other friends rebuild it with LED rope lights.

The wire and socket construction that was used from 1950 to 2021.

This is how some of the bulbs had to be changed.

We did the rope work for many years before we turned it over to younger folks.

Looking down from the top. When we used sockets and bulbs, someone sat at the top to turn the switch on and off as wires were repaired and socket and bulbs were replaced.

The Star in 2017. Over time as anchors had to be moved the Star got a little unsymetrical.

Setting new anchors to straighten The Star

Donna rappelling down to hang rope lights

We actually got to help a little on it this year back in November when we were in Alabama for a few days.

We let younger folks do the rope work now.

Donna and Anne trimming trees on the side of the bluff

Five generations? We are the second generation; Donna and Barry are the third and their children and grandchildren have helped. That’s five generations – right? We are so thankful for the people too numerous to name who built and helped maintain it for the last 75 years. Hopefully it will continue for many more.

Each year when The Star is lit, there are many comments about what it means to the community. Hopefully, somewhere in the nostalgia people see the true meaning of “The Star of Bethlehem” and remember the Savior God sent to us to provide the one way to eternal salvation.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and remember.

Catching Up Again

Saturday, December 13, 2025

Hello everyone. Seems it’s been over a month since we last gave you an update. We have been here, there and everywhere and kept thinking we would get a post uploaded but it just hasn’t happened. Sorry. What follows is a synopsis of what’s been going on with us.

We left our work in Ashville and spent five days in Lexington, KY with some Impact Maker friends at the Kentucky Horse Park. We met some new friends, human and animal (beautiful horses) in a beautiful setting.

The horse drawn trolley ride at the park

From Kentucky, we went to a Switch Crew Founders Club (SCFC) event at Talona Ridge RV Resort in Elijay, Georgia. We love Talona Ridge and enjoyed more time with friends. It was more than just fun as we spent a good deal of time planning the next 12-18 months for the organization.

Sunday moring worship is always a highlight of the Switch It Up events.

Some of our friends dressed up for Halloween

One night we were treated to a 1920’s style mystery play.

Sunset at Talona Ridge with some of the Christmas lights.

From there we returned to Alabama for a little time at our home church and Camp Sumatanga and doctor and dental appointments. We finally got to meet our new pastor, Mark Puckett, in person. So thankful for him and always thankful for time with our Lester Memorial family.

In between our two events at Talona Ridge, we made a quick trip back to Alabama for medical appointments. While there we took time to hike to the top of the mountain at Sumatanga with Donna and Barry.

After a brief week in Alabama we were back at Talona for a gathering of other friends and YouTube influencers, Cindy and Harold Strange and family. It was another fun time of renewing friendships packed in three days.

This was our second year to attend the 1 Strange Adventure Gathering.

Then it was time to return to Randy and Debra’s home in Johnston, SC. We went to Gaffney, SC for two days for Fred’s annual checkup. Thankfully, no problems were found and we spent the remainder of our time enjoying catching up with our family. Debra and Anne enjoy preparing lots of good food for the family Thanksgiving and Max and Randy always have projects to complete. It was nice to have some time to just relax.

Of course, we had another great Thanksgiving week with family in South Carolina.

We spent a few days clearing out a few more trees around the house.

Randy’s new grapple sure makes cleaning up trees easier.

We are so very thankful for the time we have had with friends and family over the last several months. We still have more of you to see and we will be working on that in 2026. We are currently in Gulf Shores, AL and will try to keep things more up to date. May God Bless You All and keep you safe!

Asheville, NC Disaster Rebuild – Week 3

November 3, 2025

Week Three of the NOMADS Asheville Disaster Rebuild had us welcoming Les to the team after we said goodbye to Anne, Dale, Cliff and Ann, leaving us with 5 hard working NOMADS for this week. Angela and Jake continued to be big assets to our team but we will miss Anne and Ann and Cliff and Dale.

We returned to Kim and Nick’s home Monday and worked the entire week there. They have been a joy to work with. They are both hard working. It’s always so nice to have the homeowners working alongside. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Jake and Angela completed the installation of all the flooring and most of the baseboard while the rest of the team worked on drywall and other tasks.

Jake and Angela were our Fantastic Flooring Team this week.

Les getting the last corner ready for drywall

Anne spent most of the week finishing drywall, yet still had time to help everyone else with their tasks and visit with the homeowners.

On Thursday, we began the installation of the new windows, completing two of them. Since there was very little window casing on site, Jake and Les used what was available to make one example trim setup for the other windows. Les spent some time preparing to lead the team for the next few weeks. We made sure he met Jordan, UMC construction coordinator, and Danielle, the construction coordinator for Rebuild Haywood, the county where we are working, and our contacts at the church. We and Angela and Jake completed our services in Asheville and departed Friday. We pray that Wes and the incoming team members have a wonderful time of service and most importantly that they stay safe.

Kitchen window removed (The homeowner took this picture and sent it to us.)

The opening for the living room window had to be enlarged to fit the new window.

Jake and Les installing new kitchen window

Inside of the new living room window. We didn’t have the window casing trim, so Jake and Les installed sample trim for next week’s crew.

Asheville, NC Disaster Rebuild – Week 2

October 25, 2025

Saturday had us welcoming one more couple, Cliff and Ann, to our team and no one departed. Great team, all experienced in DR work. We all attended church at Covenant Community Church and again we were warmly welcomed. We use one of the upstairs rooms of the church for our Sunday afternoon meetings and with eight of us we also had our morning meetings in that room. Monday we all headed back to Sandy’s house to continue work. By Wednesday afternoon, we had completed the walls, ceiling, baseboards, and flooring in both the living room and office. We had also installed baseboards in two other bedrooms. Now with the addition of Ann and Cliff, we had two Anne’s, one Ann and one Angela. Sandy named us the “A” team. She liked it because she just needed to remember the guys names. Anyone who called out for Anne got a lot of responses, or maybe no answer at all. We completed our work for Sandy Wednesday afternoon and had her Bible presentation.

Dale and Anne A painting the living room

Jake and Angela had to do a lot of custom detail work installing the flooring

Ann W and Max painting the living room ceiling

Anne A painting and Angela caulking the living room

Thursday, we split into two teams with Cliff and Ann and Dale and Anne going to Jessica’s home that is close to completion. It needed DryLock painted in the basement, basement steps replaced, trim installed in one bathroom. They got the steps and most of the painting completed Thursday.

Ann W painting waterproofing on the basement wall

MIldred the emu lives at Jessica’s house.

Max and Anne and Jake and Angela went to Kim’s home. We will be taking care of all the drywall, and flooring in the front of the house and demolition and rebuild in the back portion of the house. We will probably be working there for another week.

Jake and Angela did a great job on the bedroom floor.

Angela and Jake installing bathroom flooring

The weather was beautiful with near perfect temperatures for working and we are hoping that continues. It’s peak leaf peeping season and driving the Blue Ridge Parkway is a great way to leaf peep.