For decades, Cullman’s Barbara Whitehead has played musical host to a weekly circle of area seniors, local folks who’d bring an instrument (or simply themselves) and join in for a pleasant afternoon of down-home singing, pickin’ and grinning.
It’s a role she relishes today as the organizing figure for “Jammin’ in the Gym,” the come-one, come-all informal musical session that now attracts as many as 100 area seniors each Monday afternoon to Cullman’s Donald E. Green Active Adult Center.
“I never did realize I was doing anything to get any kind of recognition,” said Whitehead, freshly returned from a Sunday trip to Montgomery, where she became one of the 12 newest statewide inductees into the 2024 class of the Alabama Senior Citizens Hall of Fame. “I never realized anybody would ever see or take special notice of anything I do.”
But over the years, people did notice, and this year, one of them — Cullman’s Peggy Harris, herself a 2023 hall of fame inductee — decided it was time for a little grateful community payback.
On the strength of Harris’ nomination, Whitehead found herself sitting last weekend among a distinguished list of Alabama inductees inside the Marriott Prattville Conference Center at Capitol Hill. As state Department of Senior Services commissioner Jean Brown honored the group for their “incredible ongoing commitment to serving our communities,” Whitehead and other notable Alabama seniors (including beloved TV weather personality James Spann) were feted as the newest members of the state senior hall of fame’s small and distinguished ring of honor.
“I’m in there with Hank Williams! I’m in there with James Spann!” joked Whitehead from her customary spot alongside other Cullman seniors, guitars at the ready, while enjoying lunch at the Donald E. Green Center the very next day.
Retired since 2004 from the local office of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, Whitehead has left music in her wake ever since she first learned to strum a guitar at the age of 19. “I was born [as Barbara Connell] and raised on Stout’s Mountain, out from Hanceville, in a log cabin,” she said, recalling her earliest years of education at the community’s long-defunct, but beloved, Center School.
“It sounds like a Loretta Lynn story,” says Whitehead’s daughter, Jamie Looney. For the past several years, the mother-daughter duo has teamed up to stage a series of popular (and genuinely funny) annual Hee-Haw-themed musical-comedy revues; senior-led hootenannies that put a whimsical spin on all the area’s hidden senior talent. Whitehead’s also the longtime guitarist for local country act The Junction Band, and, has done volunteer DJ duty for tons of area outreach events on behalf of the American Red Cross, Toys for Tots, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Margaret Jean Jones Center and more.
“I taught my own self how to play guitar. My life’s been music,” Whitehead said, gesturing toward her bright white six-string at the Donald Green Center, just moments before kicking up another senior jam session.
“I never did anything to be recognized. I do this because I love everybody — and, for a very selfish reason: I wanted love back. You give love to get love, you know.”