Melanie Bridgeforth said her leadership journey has led her to the chance of a lifetime. As a newly selected Aspen Institute Ascend Fellow, she is joining hands with other change-makers across the nation who are focused on taking action to improve the lives of families and communities in the United States. Bridgeforth, president and CEO of […]

Vicki Ford Jackson was recently named Shelby County Schools High School Teacher of the Year, adding that to her honor this year as Oak Mountain High School’s Teacher of the Year and her 2016-17 Oak Mountain Middle School Teacher of the Year award. But the current algebra and geometry teacher almost had her career ended before it ever began. An […]

Alabama’s state seal is the only one among 50 that touts its waterways on a map of the state. A handful of other states feature bodies of water in their artwork, but no other state showcases its river systems in its seal.

Thanks to members of the Magic City Chapter of the APSO, many patients at Birmingham VA Medical Center will have happier holidays.

The Alabama Black Belt Adventures Association is urging hunters to donate to Hunters Helping the Hungry during the current deer season. A program coordinated by the Alabama Conservation and Natural Resources Foundation, the Hunters Helping the Hungry program began in 1999 and has donated about half a million pounds of venison to food banks across […]

Last week’s Shop with a Cop events at three Academy Sports + Outdoors locations in Alabama got off to a somewhat tentative start, but it wasn’t because of a lack of funds or availability of products.

Many people struggle with faith because they see the perversion of God’s word. They get let down by man, and they think God must be a myth. What does the historical evidence show? What do historians say? Can we prove the things of the Bible took place? Are we living in the end times? The […]

Individuals and entities across the Yellowhammer State have committed time and efforts to assist those impacted by the recent tornado outbreak that devastated communities throughout the South and Midwest last week.

Roasted ham is a holiday crowd-pleaser. Coated with a glaze of sticky dark-brown sugar and studded with whole cloves that perfume the pink meat, ham dresses up Christmas feasts or provides a delicious morsel for Yuletide parties. We’re not talking in this case about old-school country ham, the salt-cured cousin to Italian prosciutto and Spanish jamon […]

Officials with the Hangout Music Festival have unveiled the lineup for the 2022 event, which will hit the beaches of Gulf Shores the weekend of May 20-22. Pre-sale registration is now open for the popular festival, which is back after being canceled in 2020 and 2021. The musical feast, which had grown to become an unofficial kickoff […]

In the summer of 1882, a man on horseback rode into Jones Valley, bound for the new city of Birmingham, which had been founded just more than a decade before. He entered the valley from the northeast, through Red Gap, a natural break in the Red Mountain Formation that contained the vast stores of iron […]

In September 2020, Steve Young noticed a weird feeling in his stomach over the course of a few days. He wasn’t alarmed because he had been healthy all his life, never missing a day of work in 17 of his 20 years at the Honda plant in Lincoln. But the stomach pain worsened. Young attributed it to […]

Condé Nast Traveler has released its annual list of best places to travel in the upcoming year, and Birmingham tops the list of 22 destinations. Included in the food travel category, Birmingham sits alongside Serbia and Trøndelag County, Norway. Some of the other destinations on the list—broken into categories of Arts & Culture, History, Transportation, […]

Buying local has taken on a new urgency this holiday season, and Alabama’s artisans, manufacturers and other homegrown businesses offer plenty of options to help check off your shopping list. Whether your loved one is a fashionista, budding gardener, avid sportsman or someone with a serious sweet tooth, there’s something for everyone in the 2021 […]

Three winners of the “Design an Alexander Shunnarah Billboard” contest have been announced, beating out 275 creative designs that were submitted to Birmingham-based Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys.

The Bashinsky family's philanthropic legacy is sure to leave a positive impact on the Yellowhammer State for generations.

On the warm afternoon of Dec. 1, 1955, as recalled by famed civil rights attorney Fred D. Gray as “very similar to the weather today,” Rosa Parks finished her shift as a seamstress at the Montgomery Fair Department Store and waited for the Cleveland Avenue bus to take her home. Parks took an open seat in a section reserved […]

The Alabama Power Foundation has awarded nearly $60,000 in Gateway grants to support communities across the state – part of its longstanding commitment to elevating Alabama. The Gateway program supports economic development and tourism in Alabama communities by providing grants of up to $2,500 to fund welcome signs, marketing materials and website development. In south Alabama, the […]

The stage is set at the new Center for the Arts at the University of Montevallo (UM) – a stage dedicated to one of the university’s most famous alumni and performers. University officials, along with representatives from Shelby County and Alabama Power, dedicated the center in November. The new building includes a 350-seat theater, 100-seat black box […]

Ronni and Lennox Vinson, 6-year-old twin sisters from Highland Home, were honorary coin-toss team captains for the Class 3A championship football game Thursday at 11 a.m. at Birmingham’s Protective Stadium. It’s the 25th consecutive year that kids and families from Children’s of Alabama have been honored before each of the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s […]

Former Auburn University student Kelsey Barnard Clark always knew she wanted a career as a chef, but if she had not begun her education at Auburn, she would not have accumulated the impressive accomplishments she boasts today, including her newly published cookbook, “Southern Grit.” “The cool thing about Auburn is that if you went there, you have these […]

Erica Robbins has always had a heart for people, but it wasn’t until 2013 when she moved to downtown Birmingham that her passion for helping others hit a fever pitch.

For years, James Thrash has put his mind toward helping students at Wetumpka High School compete in the annual Boosting Engineering Science and Technology (BEST) Robotics Competition. But this year he added more muscle to the effort. For a decade, Thrash, who recently retired from Alabama Power, has been a devoted supporter of the BEST Robotics Competition, assisting […]

Auburn University students Logan Parks and Tucker Smith have a million extra reasons to be thankful this week. The Tigers, who are members of the Auburn Bass Fishing Team, hauled in the $1 million first-place prize for winning the Bass Pro Shops U.S. Open National Bass Fishing Amateur Team Championships on Sunday. Parks, a senior, and Smith, a sophomore, […]