Tragic events turned ‘labor of love’ for Muscle Shoals school

COLBERT CO., Ala. (WAFF) - Students at Muscle Shoals Career Academy are helping to rebuild a barn needed to store food for horses rescued from heartbreaking conditions.

Construction technology teacher James Miller said community members reached out to him about the disrepair of the barn and asked him if he could fix it. Miller said he knew right away that he had to help.

He said the barn will be better than it used to be. Miller and the students at Muscle Shoals Career Academy said they could not wait to start on rebuilding the barn.

“We said we’d take it on,” Miller said.

Miller said it could have been an easy fix, but he and his students want this barn to last forever.

“We could have put a roof on it in a couple three hours, but it was in some pretty bad shape so what we wound up thinking was we were just going to completely redo it,” Miller explained.

Miller said this project is a win-win. Students will get real-world experience while giving back to the community.

“So rebuilding our barn and making it suitable for storage will be amazing for us,” Miller said.

Whitney Hamby with the Colbert County Animal Shelter said they rescued dozens of horses from the home of Debra Catledge, who is facing several counts of animal cruelty among other charges. Once the shelter got the horses, they quickly realized they had limited space to store hay for them. She said this rebuild will be a big help for the future.

“It’s been very heartwarming,” Hamby said. “The outpouring of love and support that we’ve had to the animals here at the shelter has been amazing.”

Hamby said she is not surprised at the love that she has seen from the Shoals community.

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