Family is everything: The Duncan family
PROGRESS 2018— For the Duncans, it’s easy to define what family means. Anna Duncan summed it up: “Family is everything.”
“Family is the most important thing in the world to me,” Anna said. “We have an extremely close family. That’s the way our family has always worked.”
Anna and husband Jaylon started as friends at Phil Campbell High School in 1996. “We had a group of friends that were all together all the time, and conveniently one Friday night, we just didn’t invite anyone else to go with us,” Anna said. They hit the Kentucky Fried Chicken and “rode the strip” in downtown Russellville, listening to the radio. “We have been together ever since.”
Jaylon proposed at senior prom, in the midst of all their classmates. “‘Wonderful Tonight’ was playing. It was very dramatic,” Anna said. She was prom queen; he was prom king.
Following graduation, Anna attended Northwest-Shoals Community College, and Jaylon went to Bevill State Community College. They married during their first year of college, March 20, 1999, at New Bethlehem church – her grandparents’ church, located just down the road from the Duncans’ home on “Oliver Hill” in East Franklin. “It was important to us to get married somewhere that meant something to the family,” Anna explained.
The Duncans have two daughters: Emma, 14, is a freshman at Phil Campbell High School, and March, 9, is a third-grader at Phil Campbell Elementary.
Emma is active in FBLA and Junior National Honors Society, and science is her favorite subject. She also enjoys drawing – especially birds. March plays basketball and piano.
For Jaylon, a 15-year career in the poultry industry led him to Mar-Jac Poultry. In his role as a shift manager, he oversees all plant operations, including managing 12 supervisors and two superintendents.
Anna is a community development manager with the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. She began with ACS in 2014 after raising her daughters and helping work the family farm for several years.
“We decided to close the dairy, and both the kids were in school. Since I had been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, I decided to go back to work,” Anna said. She coordinates Relay for Life and related activities for Franklin County, as well as Colbert, Lauderdale, Marion and Fayette counties.
Anna described the concept of family as “the very foundation of our life.” It’s a deeply-instilled value for her and one she and Jaylon are passing on to their daughters.
“I just like doing everything together, whether it’s me, Mom and March; or me, Dad and March; or all four of us together,” Emma said. “It’s the people who love you the most.”
The Duncans enjoy trips to Chattanooga to go rock climbing and visit Cupcake Kitchen. Closer to home, they love fishing at Mon Dye and deer hunting. The family also works together on Anna’s parents farm, which is just down the road on Oliver Hill.
Much of their family togetherness includes Anna’s sister, Emily Mays, and her daughter Lola, as well as Anna and Emily’s parents, Joyce and Gary Oliver.
“We do everything together. We eat supper together basically every night of the week; we have Sunday lunch at my parents’ house every Sunday; and we go to church together. If we’re going out to eat, if we’re going on a trip, we’re together,” Anna said. “One of the best days of my life was when Emily moved back to Russellville, and when she and Lola moved back home on the hill, it was just like she had never been away. Now instead of having to drive four hours to see her, she’s just right down the road.
“We spend a lot of time together. We’re not very exciting people, but our most favorite thing to do is just to be together.”
Gary and Joyce met in Haleyville and married in 1977. Anna said she and Jaylon strive to carry on their example of love, grace and kindness and keep family as a priority.
Christmas provides plenty of opportunity for family traditions, from making reindeer food and cookies for Santa, to watching holiday classic movies, to choosing a tree from a nearby Christmas tree farm, to reading the story of Christ’s birth from the Bible. New Year’s Eve at home is another tradition, with party hats, card games and plenty of good food.
“They aren’t exciting things, our traditions,” Anna said, “but they are important because we’re together.”
