The Otter Place

  • Scott Sankey's shop Hillbilly Wind Chimes, located between Andrews and Marble, makes the world sound a litter nicer. Photo by Sam Jokich
    Scott Sankey's shop Hillbilly Wind Chimes, located between Andrews and Marble, makes the world sound a litter nicer. Photo by Sam Jokich
  • Scott Sankey puts a lot of his retired engineering skills into otherwise simple-looking designs on aluminum bottles, like the kinds of wood, where to put the hole for the hanging lines and the hanging weight of each bottle on the chime, which he adjusts with fishing weights to get just the right swing. Here, Sankey starts a new project. Photo by Sam Jokich
    Scott Sankey puts a lot of his retired engineering skills into otherwise simple-looking designs on aluminum bottles, like the kinds of wood, where to put the hole for the hanging lines and the hanging weight of each bottle on the chime, which he adjusts with fishing weights to get just the right swing. Here, Sankey starts a new project. Photo by Sam Jokich

    Recycled art with a nice ring

        Cherokee County is filled with interesting people with compelling stories to share, and one of them lives in “The Otter Place” between Andrews and Marble making Hillbilly Wind Chimes. Scott Sankey is the artist’s name, and how he got here from there is a neat story.
        Sankey grew up in Terre Haute, Ind., where his dad worked at the Terre Haute Tribune, making him my kind of guy. After dad retired, the family loaded up the Ford Country Squire – “with wood grain paneling on the side, mind you” – and headed south to Port Charlotte, Fla.
        “My dad claimed it was federal law that when a person retires, they must move to Florida,” Sankey said. His quirky sense of humor – and great taste in classic rock – ran through our conversation in his workshop, which rang lightly from the hanging chimes around us.
        Sankey started out as an artist, albeit a performing one. He was the mascot for the Texas Rangers in Major League Baseball, dancing on dugouts from 1992-97. He moved indoors for a few years after that stint as a mascot with the Tampa Bay Storm in the Arena Football League.
        “Being inside with A/C extended my mascoting (editor’s note: not a real word), but it is a young man’s profession and my age was catching up with me,” he said. “I was probably 10 years too early from pulling in the kind of money that the Philly Phanatic and San Diego Chicken were making.”
        Sankey changed careers to become an engineer, which later helped with his wind chime-making skills. He married his wife, Pam, in 1999, and 10 years later on Thanksgiving Eve purchased their home in Cherokee County.
        “It only took a couple of years to realize this was the place we wanted to retire,” he said. “We had lived in the wheat fields of the Midwest, near the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. As the old saying goes, ‘The mountains are calling,’ and we stayed.”
        Until then, Sankey had never really thought about recycled works of art. Then he got on Facebook, where he saw photos of aluminum beer bottles hanging from a wire clothes hanger on a tree.
        “I made a few, and then had some old spray paint hanging around, and the rest is history,” he said. “I definitely believe I would have became a couch potato if I didn’t start this endeavor.”
        Just a few years in and Hillbilly Wind Chimes has become a third career, with about 99 percent of his works shipped across the country. He recently received a note from actor Henry Winkler telling him the wind chimes he sent him a few weeks prior were beautiful and hung right outside his kitchen.
        Sankey also makes custom designs. If you’re interested, check out the Hillbilly Wind Chimes page on Facebook or email him at otterplace73@gmail.com.
        “I like it best when someone purchases one to decorate their home,” Sankey said. “I feels like I have added a little more beauty to their place.”
        David Brown is publisher & editor of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 837-5122; fax, 837-5832; email, dbrown@cherokeescout.com; or message him on Twitter @daviddBstroh.