Completely Calhoun
County
by Kelsey Butler
“I
’ve always liked working
with my hands.” Born
and raised in Ohatchee,
Alabama Hurston Dodgen is a
skilled carpenter, a Navy veteran, and a retired sheriff’s
deputy.
Dodgen handcrafts beautiful, oneHurston Dodgen, 74 – Ohatchee, Alabama
of-a-kind writing pens. “About four
years ago I saw an article about pens
County by leading the Sheriff’s Departand I thought that would be something
ment Drug Task Force.
I could do. So I got a wood lathe and got
to work.”
Dodgen was forced to retire from the
Sheriff’s Department in 1989 when he
Dodgen recalls that his high school agwas injured on the job. He fell back onto
riculture teacher sparked his creativity,
his first love, carpentry.
“He got me started liking wood work”.
Dodgen has carried that passion his
“It’s something that I just really enjoy,”
entire life.
Dodgen told me as he showed me into
his workshop. He works on a bench top
He proudly served our country in the
wood lathe to turn his six-inch works of
United States Navy during The Vietnam
art.
War. When Dodgen returned from the
war in the 1960s he served Calhoun
Many of Dodgen’s pens mimic aspects
18
December 2016
INSIGHT