I Grew Up Here

Written By: Mary Jane McCall | Issue: April 2025

Terry Potts, owner of Country Club Properties, grew up in the shadow of downtown Highlands. His family’s farm encompassed 50 acres where the Shelby Place Subdivision is now. Their family home most recently served as the Shelby Place Clubhouse.

It was an idyllic childhood where Terry and his siblings, Stevie, Sherry and Robbie, could explore to their hearts’ content.

They had two burros, sheep, chickens, ducks, a German Shepherd who allowed his favorite duck friend to ride on his head, and cats.

There were fields and woods to roam, ride motorcycles in, drive their little King Midget car through, and trees to climb. They were free to explore at will but when his mother, Mae, rang the farm bell they had 10 minutes to get home.

From here they could walk through the woods to Harvey Talley’s store for candy or up Satulah Mountain to visit their friends, the Worleys. Favorite activities there were skeet shooting or in winter riding sleds from the top all the way down the mountain into town.

His family believed in hard work too. His father, Steve, owned Potts Market and when Terry was small his dad would pay him and his siblings five-cents a pint to pick wild strawberries that were sold in the store.

Terry helped in the grocery store from the age of 7 or 8, and often ran a cash register. Just a few years later, and long before he was old enough to have a driver’s license, he’d drive the family Wagoneer in the snow to deliver groceries. Soon his Uncle Tom Potts took him under his wing and taught him the intricacies of meat cutting, and Terry spent his next years as a butcher until he became a real estate agent.

The value of hard work was instilled from an early age. Terry also fondly remembers that his seventh grade teacher, Corbett Holand, taught him a valuable life lesson about fairness and the consequences of misbehavior. Corbett posted his classroom rules and kept a quiet tally when a student broke a rule. Five infractions earned five gigs (for those uninitiated that’s five strikes to the palm your hand with a ruler) or one swat with a paddle-student’s choice. Everyone was treated the same and all learned early on to behave.

Most importantly of all, Terry met the love of his life, Karin, in the 11th grade, they were married in 1979, have three children and 11 grandchildren.

Highlands, a home like no other.