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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

Dr. Lucy Sanders is known by many in Maplesville as their former family physician, but she has some tricks up her sleeve when she is on stage. Sanders, formally Lucy Collins, is a doctor, teacher, horse trainer, ballet dancer, artist and magician, all with a philosophy degree from UCLA. She is an excellent example of living life to the fullest, and she is still pulling rabbits out of her hat while keeping her late husband’s legacy alive.

Sanders was born and raised in upstate New York, and her grandmother was an avid watercolor artist. She took to art quickly, and would sit with her grandmother on Sundays and paint at their kitchen table. As she grew older, Sanders moved on to oil paints and then acrylic paint, adding more mediums and getting immersed in the arts.

Sanders lived in New York until she was 24 years old, then she moved to southern California. While there, she earned her degree in philosophy at UCLA, and she met Bob Sanders. The two wed in 2000, and soon after the wedding, decided they wanted to become physicians.

“I always wanted to be a veterinarian, and when I was in seventh grade my math teacher told me if I could not do this particular form of long division I would never be a veterinarian,” Lucy Sanders said. “Well, she was right, and I became a doctor.”

Lucy and Bob went to the Dominican Republic and studied medicine there in Spanish. They returned to California following their studies, and Lucy needed a residency somewhere to complete her schooling. She found one in Selma, and after the hustle and bustle of the big city living in California, she was back in the two-lane road, livestock filled land that brought back memories of how she grew up in upstate New York.

“I came into Selma at night and stayed with friends,” Sanders said. “I stepped outside the door in the morning, I looked around, and I said to myself ‘I am home.’”

Sanders eventually opened, owned and operated her own practice in Maplesville helping local residents back to full health. She repaired patient’s wounds following machinery accidents or deep cuts, and she enjoyed that most because to her it was a form of art.

Throughout her journey to Chilton County, Sanders was still involved with many forms of art and never pushed that away. She learned ballet and was a dancer, she was a belly dancer and she did theater arts, all while still painting pictures as well. She has always had a passion for the arts, and she never let any intrigue when it came to different forms of the arts go to waste.

Sanders said her paintings are not an expression of herself, but an expression of God through her. She believes her painting abilities are a gift from God, and she does not want to waste them or forget about them.

“I never stopped painting,” Sanders said. “I have left a string of paintings across New York state and across Los Angeles, California.”

Sanders loves painting horses, and she always wanted her own horse since she was a young girl in New York. While in California, she made that dream come true by getting her own horse that she learned to train and tend to. She brought the horse to Alabama when she came to Selma, and she has horses on her property now that she trains and enjoys.

“I am no good at all with paperwork,” Sanders said. “This kind of thing, I love.”

When Lucy and Bob married she quickly learned that he was a magician, and she thought it was the coolest thing. Lucy jumped into magic alongside Bob, and she started making magic props, tools, tables, costumes and more to use in her own acts on stage.

“I did not like to be the bimbo coming out of the sword basket,” Lucy said. “Bob liked for me to be a decoration on stage, but that did not satisfy me at all.”

Lucy and Bob established themselves as respected magicians, and then met Janice Wilson at Senior Connection in Clanton. Wilson is from Montgomery originally but spent time in Florida, and she has a background in nursing, a somewhat similar life path as Lucy Sanders. Wilson was never interested in magic until she met the Sanders, and she helped the two at their annual Magic Valley Convention held at the couple’s Magic Valley Ranch in Clanton each year. She loved it, and magic became a passion for her that blossomed into appearing on stage with Bob and Lucy often.

“She is born for it,” Lucy Sanders said. “When I first saw (Janice) do a magic trick, she had this rinky-dink little trick where you take a wand and a flower appears, and she did it and goes ‘Tada!’”

Bob Sanders provided Lucy and Wilson with magic stuff every time he got back from magic conventions to help them be successful.

“He wanted you to be the best, and he wanted you to have the things to make you the best,” Wilson said.

Wilson recalled a time the three were performing for children at the YMCA of Chilton County, and before the show, she overheard a kid say ‘Oh magic, it is just sleight of hand.’ She alerted Lucy and Bob that they had a tough crowd already. However, Bob did a coloring trick and showed all of the children a coloring book full of colorful pages. When the kids came up to look closer, the pages were blank, leaving the kids flipping through the book frantically.

“He was so talented too, and he was very good at what he did,” Lucy Sanders said.

Lucy Sanders said she loved taking Bob’s breath away by doing something on stage that he did not expect. She added that watching him perform was interesting in the way he moved on stage, and she enjoyed every moment the two spent together performing.

Bob Sanders passed away earlier this year on April 4 after a full life. Lucy Sanders and Wilson said they feel obligated to keep his legacy alive through his side business of providing magicians with quality silks, and spreading smiles through magic.

The two will also keep the Magic Valley Convention going, and the 14th installment of the event will be Oct. 3-5. Sanders and Wilson will be the closing acts on Oct. 5 at the convention.

“Magic Valley is really a special time because the magicians come from all over, it is free and invitation only,” Sanders said.

The 14th annual Magic Valley Magic Convention in October will also include tributes to Bob Sanders.