By By LYDIA GRIMES
features writer
Shannon Thompson has turned her appreciation for local football fans into two new books for children.
With the help of Terece Shehan, Thompson has written two children's books that will be available for sale.
By the time she began writing the books, Thompson was living in Foley and driving to Brewton to work as a pharmacist at Wal-Mart.
One of her major problems was finding a publisher, especially one who would publish in color. She finally found a company in Louisiana who agreed to do it. Her next step was to find someone to do the illustrations, and Terece Shehan came to mind.
Everyone is represented in the books; the band, football players and the spectators all have a role in the storyline.
The main shipment of books will be available by the end of September, but Thompson does have a few left out of 36 she has already received. If you are interested, they may be purchased from her for $14. She can be reached at 867-2858.
These two books are not the only ones that Thompson will be doing in the next few months. She is also very busy working on a series of children's books. The books will be about a cat and will be called &#8220Adventures of Happy Sappy.” They, like the books about Neal and Miller, will be made up of rhymes written by Thompson.
Thompson was born in Ozark while her father, Bernie Raines, was coaching at Newton. He later became a principal and every time he got a bigger school, the family moved. They moved to several places in Florida and Alabama. In 1969 they made their last move from Union Springs to East Brewton.
At that time Thompson was in the sixth grade. Her father was principal at W.S. Neal High School and her mother was teaching at W.S. Neal Elementary School.
During that time, her father returned to college and became a chemical engineer and by the time she entered the ninth grade, he was no longer principal.
Thompson came from a family of three girls and one boy, who all attended W.S. Neal except the youngest, Shea, who graduated from T.R. Miller.
Thompson was very active in school activities. She was a cheerleader, in the Junior Miss program and a member of every school club she could join.
She was a very good student and graduated in 1976 from W.S. Neal as valedictorian of her class. She entered the nursing program at Jefferson Davis Community College. After completion she took a job at the hospital as an R.N. and worked there from 1978 to 1981.
At that time she went to work in the Brewton Medical Center as Dr. Jimmy Adkisson's nurse until 1991.
She had wanted to become a pharmacist earlier but opted for marriage instead. After she was divorced, she began to think about pharmacy again.
This time she received a lot of support from Dr. Adkisson who had switched from being a pharmacist to getting his doctor's license.
She had two years of school at JDCC and applied to transfer to Auburn University. By this time she had met Allen Thompson while working at the hospital. They were married in 1989 and he brought two children to the marriage; Josh was 12 and Katie, who was 10. She found her life had become very busy going to school, raising two children and working at the Medical Center.
But her life got even busier when she entered Auburn. She got early admission to pharmacy school and rather than commute, the family moved to Phenix City. Allen transferred to Columbus, Ga. in his job with Service Master.
During her last year at college, Allen was transferred to Newnan, Ga. where the family moved once again. She commuted from Newnan for a few months and graduated from Auburn University in 1994.
She got a job right away at the local Wal-Mart in Newnan and worked there until the family moved to Gulf Shores in 1998 and she went to work at the Wal-Mart in Foley. The very first week they were hit by Hurricane George and Thompson joked that it was also her 40th birthday.
Beach living was very nice for a while but those who visited the beach were hard to deal with.
Both of the children have grown up and moved away, Josh to Bon Secour and Katie to Fairbanks, AK. There is a brand new grandchild in Alaska, which has prompted a couple of trips north for Allen and Shannon.