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The two-day outdoor event in Leeds, Ala., celebrating the roots, richness and variety of American culture will feature folk music, craft exhibits and demonstrations, children’s activities, food, storytelling and Leeds’ second annual celebration of John Henry Days.
The two-day outdoor event in Leeds, Ala., celebrating the roots, richness and variety of American culture will feature folk music, craft exhibits and demonstrations, children’s activities, food, storytelling and Leeds’ second annual celebration of John Henry Days.
Read on for a request that Kellie Johnston, Cawaco RC&D sent to the Health Action Partnership members and a suggested Letter of Support template. We need letters from your agencies as well as friends, relatives, etc.
Please, use agency or company letterhead if possible. Send them by August 25, 2008. An E-mail attachment is fine. You might also want to consider a program like this in your community!
On Thursday, Vandiver, and fourteen other participants learned how to monitor water quality by measuring pH, temperature, total alkalinity, total hardness, dissolved oxygen and turbidity. “I’ve been working with ph tests for years, especially when I was with NRCS. This one was a little more sophisticated than what I’ve been used to, and I enjoyed that. It was more updated,” Vandiver said. Katherine Patton, district administrative coordinator for the Walker County Soil and Water Conservation District, said she will use what she learned in the workshop in outdoor classroom activities sponsored by her office. “My goal is to be very active with the school system,” Patton said.
The six-hour workshop was held at Maddox Middle School and conducted by Patti Hurley of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. Participants spent some time in the classroom, but they also took at field trip to nearby Town Creek to evaluate water quality and study some of the animals in the creek. Town Creek underwent an extensive revitalization this summer. Paul Kennedy, executive director of the Walker Area Community Foundation, said the Town Creek project provided an ideal setting for environmental workshops and outdoor classrooms.
It also attracted outsiders who came in to work on the project and left praising the support they received from community members. “It’s bringing people in,” Kennedy said. “People have a preconception of what Walker County is. We can’t dispel that unless we get them in the county. Once they get in here once, like those contractors, they want to come back.”
If you would like more information about the Warrior Clean Water Partnership or Alabama Water Watch, check out the websites at www.warriorcwp.com or https://aww.auburn.edu/
Chilton County
July 17, 2008, Clanton City Hall, Clanton, Alabama, 9-11am
Blount County
July 22, 2008, Frank Green Building, Oneonta, Alabama, 9-11am
St. Clair County
July 22, 2008, Administration Building, Commission Chambers, Ashville, Alabama,
1-3pm
Walker County
July 24, 2008, Community Health Services Building, Jasper, Alabama, 9-11am
You are invited to spend the day with us at Black Belt Treasures on Saturday, June 28, 2008, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We will host this year’s Folk Life Festival which will feature potters Sam Williams of Monroe County and Robin Rogers of Dallas County; bird carver John Sheffey of Dallas County; vine basket maker Ronald “Buster” Scruggs of Butler County: white oak basket maker Walter Brooks of Monroe County; decorative birdhouse builder Sam Cheek of Macon County; That’s Sew Gee’s Bend quilters Tinnie and Minnie Pettway of Wilcox County; stained glass artist Tyree McCloud of Wilcox County; monogram seamstress Jan Autrey of Dallas County; painters Catherine Watson of Monroe County, Mary Croley of Butler County, and Lynda Ray of Marengo County; and the Martin-Hicks Bluegrass/Gospel Band.
Cowboy Bruce Brannen, an artist from Montgomery County, will entertain through stories, poems, and rope tricks. He will also exhibit his paintings of Wild West scenes. Enjoy delicious catfish and fixings’ prepared by Little Ezell's Catfish, of Choctaw County.
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management provided the grant that funded the project. The grant was awarded to the city and Cawaco Resource Conservation & Development Council, Inc. Improvements included more pools and swift-flowing areas in the urban stream, an enhanced floodplain and the addition of a stormwater wetland to be used as a learning environment for Maddox Middle School students.
Among those in attendance were Attorney Fred Gray of Tuskegee, who represented Rosa Parks and many others during the struggle for voting and civil rights in America, and some 11 original members of the group that became known as the Freedom Riders. "The exhibit is a great addition to the historical and cultural attractions that already so richly define Alabama's River Heritage region," says Alabama Tourism's Publications Manager Marilyn Jones Stamps.
The exhibit, a project of the Alabama Historical Commission, will remain on display at the site until a permanent Freedom Riders museum is established. Long-range plans, which organizers anticipate may take up to five years to complete, include the establishment of a permanent museum to be housed in the old Moore building, directly across from where the exhibit is now currently being displayed. To learn more, visit www.montgomerybusstation.org
The MOM Squad, an organization formed to benefit at-risk youth, was in Gadsden May 2nd & 3rd to further their mission and to celebrate the Year of Alabama Sports. While all of the M.O.M (Mothers on a Mission) Squad members are mothers of national celebrities, many of them are mothers of athletes. The Mary G. Hardin Center for Cultural Arts, directed by Bobby Welch, partnered with the Alabama Tourism Department, the City of Gadsden schools, the Mayor’s Office and local businesses, restaurants and organizations to promote the Year of Alabama Sports through the “Art of Competition” exhibit and to help further the mission of the MOM Squad. Year of Sports Coordinator Marilyn Jones Stamps attended the event and welcomed the group to Alabama.
While in Gadsden, the MOM Squad visited elementary and middle schools, as part of their literacy campaign, to read with children and to provide encouragement. On Saturday, the youth and parents who participate in Gadsden City School’s 21st Century after school program had a fun day at Imagination Place Children’s Museum and met Carnell “Cadillac” Williams, whose mother Sherry was the host MOM for the event. Williams, a native of Gadsden, is an NFL running back for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and former Auburn Tigers running back.
In addition to visiting the local schools, the MOM Squad was honored at Downtown Gadsden's First Friday events. On Saturday afternoon, Imagination Place offered special activities for visitors based the NCAA's "Stay In Bounds" character building program. Many of the activities were led by the MOM Squad. Also, in celebration of the Year of Alabama Sports, Cadillac Williams signed autographs. A total of 21 MOMs attended the event, including Carolyn Smith, mother of actor and Oscar nominee Will Smith. The Center for Cultural Arts will host the “Art of Competition-Year of Alabama Sports” exhibit through 2008. Find out more at www.culturalarts.org
The Thorsby Historical Preservation Committee is working with the Chilton County Soil & Water Conservation District and NRCS to begin the first steps in restoring the historic Thorsby Elementary School Building. Larry McRay of the NRCS will be providing technical expertise for the project. Committee members met with Butch Grimes of Grimes Architects on April 8, to discuss the process of restoring the historical structure. The school will be restored according to Alabama Historical Committee guidelines. A work day was held at the school on April 27, and donated yard sale items that were not sold were taken to a senior center for resale. Volunteers removed particle board from the detached lunchroom building, and secured the windows. The Thorsby Historical Preservation Committee meets on the third Monday of each month at 6:30pm at Thorsby United Methodist Church on Iowa Avenue. The public is invited to attend.
City of Pinson update
The City of Pinson kicked off their Community Planning Assistance Grant project on April 24, 2008, at its monthly Planning Commission meeting. Steve Ostaseski and Yvonne Murray of the RPC met with the Planning Commission and Mayor Hoyt Sanders to discuss the process of creating the City's Master Plan (also known as "comprehensive plan"), Zoning Ordinance, and Subdivision Regulations. A project website will be linked to the RPC and City of Pinson websites soon. RPC's community planning team expects to hold a public meeting in order to conduct a visual preference survey for the City at the end of May or beginning of June. For more information, please contact Yvonne Murray, YMurray@RPCGB.org or (205) 251-8139.
The guide will go beyond well-known Civil Rights museums to include many additional sites significant in the struggle for racial equality. Auburn University staff will work closely with the Alabama Department of Tourism to build on the Department’s current Civil Rights publication.
Hemmed in by the Chattahoochee River and Georgia on the west and bisected vertically across the middle by truck-heavy U.S. Highway 431, Eufaula is now revising its 20-year-old land-use policy as required under the Eufaula 2020 Plan. Mayor Jay Jaxon and city planner Tim Milner consider it "very fortunate" to have expert help from the Audubon Partnership for Sustainability in the process, especially since the toughest issues include development along the proposed seven-mile alternate route through the city's western outskirts.
www.smartgrowth.org/news/
from the Smart Growth Network. www.smartgrowth.org
From the article in USA TODAY by Gary Stoller:
"States are trying to boost revenue by upgrading and expanding their meeting facilities, and corporate meeting planners say they're savings thousands of dollars by booking them instead of hotels or conference centers. Facilities range from a one-room schoolhouse at Utah's Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park to mansions and full-service lodges like the one at Alabama's Lake Guntersville State Park.
Tim Wishum, the operations director for Alabama State Parks, says state parks are "not Las Vegas or the Miami beachfront." But "you can rent space for a fraction of the cost" of a big city, and their setting helps companies focus on the reason for the meeting — building business, learning more about their jobs and solving issues. A convention at Lake Guntersville costs about $15,000, compared with $40,000 at a big-city hotel or convention facility, he says.
Many meeting planners "probably haven't considered state parks as areas for conventions, because they still see them as isolated places where people only hike and fish," Wishum says. But that's changing, he says, now that state parks have amenities such as large meeting rooms, wireless Internet access and small rooms for breakout sessions.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-04-14-business-meetings-state-parks_N.htm
For video see: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=719096575. Previous stories on the Alabama economy focused on David Bronner and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail and Wellborn Cabinet makers in Ashland.
WhistleStop Festival & Rocket City BBQ
Huntsville; May 2-3
Come on down for a toe-tappin', barbecue-eatin' good time. The festival
is a KCBS-sanctioned event with a professional and amateur barbecue
competition, entertainment, children's activities and great music.
Sunny King Criterium
Anniston; May 3
Watch as hundreds of professional and amateur bicycle racers zoom
around the 0.6-mile downtown race course in NASCAR fashion at speeds
reaching 40 mph! Dine outdoors at the Red Diamond Restaurant Tour,
featuring more than 15 eateries. Also children's races, artists' market
and live music.
King Kat Invitational
Sheffield; May 3
Anglers converge on Pickwick and Wilson Lake, also known as the Catfish Capital of the World. Weigh-in, 3 p.m.
Alabama Coastal Triathlon
Gulf Shores; May 3
The triathlon consists of a 1,000-yard swim in the Gulf of Mexico, a
20-mile bike ride down the main beach road in Orange Beach and through
the Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores and finishes with a five-mile run.
Sherry Anderson, Architectural Historian
Transportation Compliance Review Program
Bureau of Historic Preservation, Division of Historical Resources
sanderson@dos.state.fl.us. (800) 847-7278 Toll Free. (850) 245-6437 Fax
Noting that many members hesitate to create websites because they feel it is too costly, complicated or time consuming, the Chamber hosts Member Spotlight pages to make the process easy (just five simple steps) and free to members.
From Downtown Idea Exchange
A National Heritage Area is a place designated by Congress where natural, cultural, historic, and recreational resources combine to form a cohesive and distinct area. National Heritage Areas tell important stories about our nation and represent key pieces of our history and identity. There are currently 37 National Heritage Areas in the United States and none designated so far in Alabama. We strongly believe that Alabama's Black Belt contains historical, natural and cultural resources that are nationally distinct and worthy of this designation.
As part of this project, we are undergoing a planning process to develop an area brand in order to market the Black Belt’s unique blend of history, culture, and traditions to visitors inside and outside of Alabama. To help us in developing this brand, we would like know what others think about the Black Belt.