CARROLLTON — Stephanie Clanton is a self-professed small-town girl.
“I like small towns. Everybody knows you. You know your neighbors,” she said.
Clanton grew up in Carrollton and lives with her husband, Robert, and five daughters in one of Carrollton’s historic homes, Stanhope, the first one visitors see when they enter the town.
The Clantons bought Stanhope about four years ago, and they have enjoyed living in it. “It has so much character. You can’t get this now. I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she said.
All sports fans, the Clantons support two schools — Carroll Academy and Ole Miss — and they’re often on the road to a game somewhere.
Oldest daughter Peyton, now 20, was a star pitcher at Carroll and played one year at Northwest Mississippi Community College. She is now in a radiology program at Holmes Community College. Her younger sister Hope, 16, is a junior and outstanding pitcher at Carroll, where their mother also played softball.
“I love it. I’m competitive,” she said.
The girls may have inherited talent from Stephanie’s great-grandfather, “Handsome” Ray Roberts, who was from Tchula. He spent many years in the minor leagues as a pitcher and was called up to the Philadelphia A’s, a major league team. She knew nothing anything about him until she found his photo with other memorabilia in an old chest when her grandmother died.
Emma Grace is 11 and attends North New Summit School in Greenwood, and Caroline is 8, and goes to Carroll. Maci is 19 months old. When they’re not going to a game, the girls enjoy shopping together with their mom.
Their father works at Resolute Forestry Products in Grenada and has his own electrical company, Electrical Solutions.
When she was younger, Clanton worked in customer service for Viking Range, serving West Coast customers, for seven years. “I loved it,” she said. “I did a lot of traveling.”
Now Stephanie has her own photography business, Stephanie Clanton Photography. She said she always loved to shoot pictures, and in high school, she bought a good-quality camera. After Emma Grace was born 16 weeks early and stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at University of Mississippi Medical Center for 147 days, she decided to purchase an even better camera.
“I wanted to document her journey through the NICU,” she said.
She later began taking sports pictures, and now she shoots all types of photos.
“A photo holds an emotion and a memory. Even when the moment is gone, you can look at a photograph and remember it,” she said.
The Clantons are members of Carrollton Baptist Church. Her favorite book is “The Shack,” and her favorite movie is “Steel Magnolias.” She is a Republican, she said, and her presidential candidate of choice so far is Dr. Ben Carson.
Because of the experience with Emma Grace in the NICU, Clanton said she developed a sort of life motto that became her favorite quote: “A gift from God is a gift to give, not a gift to keep.”
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