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Blythewood’s own ‘triple threat,’ 12-year-old Emma Imholz, is moving up and out this year as a professional stage actress. She’s just landed her biggest part yet – two lead roles in the glossy Dollywood production of “A Christmas Carol,” which opens in November at the Tennessee theme park. She’ll portray the characters of Fan Scrooge (Ebenezer’s flashback little sister) and Linda Cratchit.

Emma will receive a salary, relocation package and housing stipend. She and her mother Julie are moving to Pigeon Forge in October, and will move back to Blythewood in January. Emma’s dad Mark and older sister Jessica plan to visit during the holidays.

Up against nearly 100 kids at the audition, Emma learned and performed a dance routine for the first round of cuts. For the next round, she sang the aptly chosen “Born to Entertain” from the Broadway musical “Ruthless.” And for the final round, she had to show some acting chops.

“She read from the script of ‘A Christmas Carol’ and rocked her best British accent,” Julie recalled with a laugh. “It was a great audition and I felt confident for her. The only thing that worried me a little was that many of the girls sang country and wore cowboy boots. I didn’t know if that’s what they would want.”

It wasn’t.

Julie said that after the audition, the producer, Justin Bradley, told her that Emma’s singing voice had just blown him away.

“He said the production folks offered her the biggest child role they had,” Julie said. “Our heads are spinning! We’re so proud of her.”

Daily rehearsals begin in mid-October, and the show runs from Nov. 7 to Jan. 4.

“Thank goodness we’d already decided to homeschool this year,” Julie said. “It’s working out great. There are no carpool lines, buses or early mornings. We start school in our jams. It’s such a blessing with her hectic schedule.”

“A Christmas Carol” is the park’s most popular holiday show and draws large crowds, so Dolly Parton herself often works closely with the actors. She’s also written some new songs for this year’s show.

“Emma is thrilled by the scale of everything,” Julie said. “But honestly, her favorite part is that she can visit the park any time and ride all the rides she wants – for free. That really excited her. And of course,” she added, “meeting Dolly is an awesome perk!”

RIDGEWAY — A casual dining restaurant once again anchors Ridgeway’s downtown shopping area. Vesha Sanders opened The Old Town Hall Restaurant on Friday. Sanders, a hands-on restaurateur who loves to cook, will be serving up a selection of traditional southern dishes to include shrimp and grits, steak, burgers, chicken, pasta and salads as well as a variety of desserts. Sanders has operated restaurants in New Orleans, Arizona and Orangeburg. At her new location, Sanders said the menu would also include some Cajun entrees such as shrimp etufe, and beignets. “I think everyone these days is a little bit into New Orleans cuisine – it’s very popular right now.”

A special feature in the restaurant, and new to Ridgeway, will be an old fashioned soda fountain with ice cream and soda treats that were available in small town drug store soda fountains in the 1950s. “We’ll offer banana splits, real old fashioned sodas, malts, coke floats – all of it,” Sanders said.

Later in the fall, the restaurant will house a separate carryout station located beneath the rear of the restaurant. The space used to be occupied by the town jail. The entrance is located just a few feet from the entrance to Just Around the Corner consignment shop.

The carry out station will offer pizza, hot dogs and other take-out meals as well as bottled soft drinks from a self-service cooler. “It will be a quick lunch or snack to take home or back to the shop on busy days,” Sanders said.

The restaurant is located at 140 S. Palmer St., across from Ruff Hardware store. It’s open for lunch Tuesdays through Fridays from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. and for dinner Fridays from 5 – 10 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. For information, call 803-337-0241.

WINNSBORO — Open for business for just over a month, D’s Butcher Block meat market in Winnsboro hosted a barbecue cookoff on Saturday in front of the market at 324 S. Congress St., or, as owner and Winnsboro native D. Melton likes to call it, Main Street Winnsboro.

Five Winnsboro cooking teams fired up their cookers in the early hours of Saturday morning. About 11 a.m., a Fairfield County Sheriff’s deputy drove into the parking lot and hit his siren to signify the barbecue was ready – ribs, chicken, wings and more.

The judging, organized by Ridgeway’s J.W. Joy, began at 1 p.m. There’s not much Joy doesn’t know about barbecue. A local cooking legend, he earned his way to the world barbecue cookoff’s five times.

The six judges, too, had many years of experience cooking at major barbecue events. While D’s Butcher Block’s cookoff didn’t rival Pig on the Ridge in number of entries, the judging was no less intense.

“How’d you cook the ribs?” judge Marion Robinson asked Otis Johnson of Big O’s Grill.

“Gas, charcoal and wood. All three,” Johnson responded.

“All three,” Robinson said, smiling. “That’s good. The wood puts the flavor in.”

“Did you use a rub?”

“Is there a little honey in the sauce?”

“How long did you cook it?”

“Where are you from?”

The big question that separates the cooks from the wannabe’s was asked at each cooking station – “Have you cooked at Pig on the Ridge?”

A ‘no’ answer was followed by serious silence as cook teams and spectators watched for the judge’s reaction. A ‘yes’ was followed with, ‘How many times?”

The more, the better.

Then there was the two-part taste test. First, at the booth with the team watching the judges’ every bite, trying to read the silent nods and serious facial expressions as they munched the meaty ribs or tore the meat from the bone to check for tenderness.

Then there was the blind taste test inside the market. One judge commented that he was looking for a lot of smoke in the meat indicated by “a beautiful red smoke ring around the edge.”

Robinson commented on Big Boy’s BBQ chickens. “That’s about the best golden color I’ve ever seen on a beer can chicken,” Robinson said.

After 30 minutes of tallying scores, Melton announced the winners: First place winner of $150 and a trophy was Otis Johnson’s Big O’s Grill. Second place was Keith Green’s Big Boy’s BBQ. Also cooking were Willie Mickle of Devine Grilling, Tony Parnell of TBA Barbecue and Alvin Richmond Jr. of A&J Barbecue.

At 74, Adolf Weitzel of Ridgeway is living the dream – he’s building a log cabin on 3 acres of coastal wilderness in Alaska. And he’s building it off the land, by himself. Nine years retired from a career as a custom builder, the native German has just finished his second summer of work on the cabin. This week, he’s packing up and preparing to head home to Ridgeway for the winter. He and his wife, Annarose, immigrated to Ridgeway in 1965 for much the same reason he is building a cabin in Alaska – his love of hunting, fishing and the great outdoors.

Hunting in Germany was very expensive and not within Weitzel’s means to do so. During a visit to his sister’s home in America, Weitzel learned that in America public lands are available where anyone could hunt, regardless of their wealth. He called Annarose who was back in Germany with their 4-year-old daughter and told her to pack their things and come over. He was staying in America.

“When I retired, my wife and I got a motorhome and travelled all over America. We visited Alaska several times, and sometimes our kids and grandkids came along with us. The boys and I love to fish – I’ve fished in Valdez, Fairbanks, you name it and I’ve fished there,” he said in a heavy German accent via cell phone from his Alaskan outpost.

“A few years ago we found a campground in Anchor Point, on the Kenai Pennisula, that we kept coming back to,” Weitzel recalled. “The peninsula has a  beautiful view of glaciers, the ocean and mountains – and the fishing is fantastic. There are three great salmon rivers here – the Anchor River, the Ninilchik and Deep Creek.  People from all over Alaska come here to fish for Halibut. I mean, if you want to be in a place where the fishing is great, this is where you want to be!”

It was in 2011, after he was diagnosed and treated in nearby Homer, Alaska for colon cancer, which is now in remission, that Weitzel decided to take the plunge and buy acreage in the area. But with serious knee problems, for which he’s had surgery, Weitzel knew that building a cabin would be hard work.

Still, he clearly relished the challenge.

He spent last summer cutting in a road and lining it with gravel, clearing the home site and felling and curing more than 40 logs off the land. It often took over seven hours to get a tree down, de-limb it and then move it to the site.

This summer, he started building the cabin and has completed five rungs, over half the wall height he’ll need before putting on a roof.

“I’m very particular about fitting the logs together,” he said, “and that’s one heck of a job. Some of these logs are 18 inches in diameter and 29 feet long. The easy part is lifting them. I have an electric hoist that can lift 2,000 pounds. I just put a strap around the log and hit a button. But before that, I have to set up two sets of scaffolding so that when I have the log up in the air, it will set down correctly onto the wall. Every time I move a log up, I have to move two sets of scaffolding. I climb the ladder, boost it up, lower it down, unhook it. I must be making two hundred trips a day up and down that ladder. It takes hours.”

Because he can only work during the summer months while the weather is good, he stays from mid-May to mid-September. Weitzel said he loves for family and friends to visit and especially enjoys working with his grandsons on the cabin. But he isn’t interested in help from other builders or workers.

“I’d rather work by myself,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not easy to work with – I don’t like to explain how to do things. I’ve had some offers to help, but I just say, ‘Nope – I’m building this log cabin by myself.’ That’s it.”

During construction, Weitzel lives in a tarp-wrapped frame shelter with a wood floor. The 10×20 structure has a large freezer, a Coleman stove, wood stove,  TV and a 10,000-gallon freshwater tank that is filled by a truck delivery service at 5 cents per gallon, a common Alaskan utility. He uses a generator and doesn’t plan on hooking up to electricity when the cabin is finished.

“Most people living out here in the woods have an outhouse, but my wife wouldn’t put up with that!” he laughed. “As soon as I get the bathroom finished she’ll come up here and spend the summer with me. She won’t come up until I get the shower hooked up.”

A permit and inspection are necessary for the septic system, but no permits are required for the building. The finished cabin will measure 27×22 feet, with a combined kitchen and living room, a bedroom, closet and loft.

“Next year, I should by all means get the roof done,” he said, “but right now I have to go home. My oldest granddaughter is getting married in September.”

As he plans the last busy days of securing the site against a quickly approaching winter, he looks forward to returning next summer.

“I love it up here,” he said. “I’m a happy person up here. Sometimes it gets frustrating with my work, and I don’t get as much done as I want to, but that’s life – it can’t be everyday a happy day. But I like the people, the environment, the fishing – just the whole thing. It’s fantastic. If I’m alive next summer,” he said, “then I’ll be in Alaska!”

To follow Adolf’s cabin-building adventures on facebook, go to Adolfsalaska.