Plotting roots: The Plott family

PROGRESS 2018— The Plott family is deeply rooted in Franklin County and continuing through Sheryl and Hugh Plott and their daughters Kylee and Chloe.

Sheryl, Hugh and their daughters live on the Plott family home place. In 2002 they built their house on the site where Hugh’s great-grandparents once lived, and their 80-acre farm adjoins the farm belonging to Hugh’s parents, Larry and Pam.

Sheryl and Hugh’s story begins in 1996, when they first met at McFarland Park for the Fourth of July fireworks. Their first date was at Applebee’s in Decatur – at a table Hugh strategically selected near a “Wizard of Oz” poster, one of her favorite movies. “The next morning when I woke up, he had put the original soundtrack under my windshield wipers, and at that point I was sold,” Sheryl said. They dated five months before he proposed, and they married the following May.

Hugh, a Phil Campbell graduate, was in the Army National Guard and was serving in one-weekend-per-month rotations. When oldest daughter Chloe turned 1, he took a full-time position at the Russellville Armory. “Since then he has always been full time,” Sheryl said.

A Russellville High School graduate, Sheryl is assistant director of community corrections in the Franklin County Courthouse, supervising state inmates. She started 16 years ago as office manager before advancing to case manager and then assistant director. Before that, she was a senior lending assistant for Colonial BancGroup.

The Plott family isn’t always together on the family cattle farm east of Russellville. Sgt. 1st Class Larry Hugh Plott Jr. began his third deployment in July 2017 and is slated to remain stationed overseas until June 2018.

“Most days we do OK. I think we just stay busy so we don’t have to think about it too much,” Sheryl said. “He does get to call quite a bit, so hearing his voice helps. Usually we don’t go more than a couple of days without hearing from him, so that’s a reassurance.”

Sheryl said Kylee and Chloe, who are in ninth and 12th grades respectively at Russellville High School, deal with their father’s absences with bravery and resilience.

“Parenting alone, especially two teenage girls who don’t always get along nicely – those days are hard,” Sheryl said. “For the most part, I feel like we’ve done this so much that we just know how things go. They know Dad is gone but he is coming back, and Mom’s got this.”

Both Plott girls are active in artistic pursuits. Kylee sings in the church choir and is an avid vocalist in the school system. In her free time, Chloe most enjoys working on a sketch or painting – Van Gogh is her favorite artist, and she even created her own mural of “Starry Night” – or else learning new songs on the piano. “She amazes me. She can hear a song on the radio and go and starting picking at the piano, and in just a few minutes she can play it,” Sheryl said.

Both girls have also been involved as cheerleaders for Russellville. Chloe cheered her freshman and sophomore years and inspired school spirit as Champ her junior year, but she has taken her senior year off from cheerleading to allow more time for studying and preparing for college. Kylee is part of the JV squad, which this year is entirely made up freshmen girls she has been friends with all her life.

Craft nights are a popular family activity, especially when the girls are getting through on their own while Hugh is deployed. “When Hugh’s gone, we have to get a little more creative, or we wind up isolating because we’re all so sad,” Sheryl said. “We make messes in the kitchen, we cook, we sing, we do crafts. We’re a Type B family: we don’t have a typical anything. This week we might be crafty; next week we might be quiet.”

When Hugh is home and the four of them are together, “we do a lot of traveling,” Sheryl said. The family has been all over the nation. “We only lack the New England states, and Hugh said when he gets back, we’re going to hit those, and we should have all 50.” Sheryl said she loved Colorado and Santa Fe, N.M., while Hugh’s favorites were Yosemite and Alaska.

They also enjoy hiking and camping together.

Togetherness is a quality that is prioritized in their family. “I don’t feel like there are many people who put as much value on the family unit as they probably used to, so to me it’s really important,” Sheryl said. “Hugh’s family – they are close. They’re all here. They are all so loving and so helpful. I’m not saying my family is not, but I didn’t grow up in quite that same way, so marrying into the family, I have found out how important that closeness is.”

She said she tries to instill closeness in her daughters, and it’s a lesson that is taking hold.

“They are always there, no matter what,” said Kylee. “Sometimes you forget, and you put your family aside for friends or relationships, but when they are gone, you still have your family. You remember they are always there, and they always were.”

Family traditions have included annual Labor Day camping trips and post-Christmas trips to Gatlinburg, Tenn. The day after Thanksgiving is dedicated to a Christmas pajama party, complete with Christmas music and hot cocoa, to break out all the holiday decorations. The Plotts are also united by their involvement with Russellville First Baptist Church, where the girls are active in the youth group and Hugh and Sheryl lead the Sunday morning college class. Sheryl also leads the Wednesday night women’s ministry. “Our faith is really what carries us through,” she said.

With Hugh and Sheryl both born and raised in Franklin, they love and value their community.

“I like the small-town feel. I love that it’s not big and bustling,” said Sheryl. But she also appreciates that the county is growing, especially in greater diversity. “When you have grown up here forever and it’s always been the same, it’s kind of neat to see that we’re going to get that change, but it’s still not going to take the heart of it away.”

The family loves Monchis and 43 Grill in Russellville, and their latest project is to figure out how to get Rancho Viejo chips and salsa overseas to Hugh. But although the Plott women will visit local attractions like Russellville restaurants, Red Bay Water Park or Dismals Canyon, for the most part they like to stay close to home when Hugh is gone.

“It’s so peaceful and quiet,” said Sheryl in describing their home – a place where they can sit on the porch and watch the sun go down as the cows graze in the pasture. “It’s really a pretty place. I know we’re in a rural area, but there’s not many counties that to me are as pretty as Franklin County.”