The City will hold its annual Memorial Day service, Sat., May 26 at 9 a.m. at Veterans Memorial Park. Terry Powell is the speaker.
The City of Andalusia will be closed Mon., May 28, for Memorial Day. Garbage and recycling pick up will be on Tues., May 29, for both routes.
Andalusia area residents will find fliers in their utilities bills this month promoting the sales of memorial bricks at a new national apparel workers monument.
Bill Hamiter is organizing a fundraising effort for the tribute, which will be placed at the former corporate headquarters of Alatex, on River Falls Street.
The building currently is being renovated to become the new home of the Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce and a tourist center.
Plans include a monument to apparel workers, as well as tributes to those who made the apparel industry great in South Alabama.
Hamiter said there will be tributes to John G. Scherf, a history of Alatex, a textiles mural, and personal tributes to former textile employees in the form of memorial bricks.
The bricks are $100 each, Hamiter said, and can be engraved with the names, departments and dates of employment of former workers.
Corporate and civic contributions also are being sought, Hamiter said, adding that he is encouraging those organizations to allow their contributions to fund bricks in memory of former employees.
“Instead of having corporate cornerstones, we want as many employee names as possible,” he said. “We really want this to be about the workers.”
The pavers will be used in the walkway and patio areas of the renovated facility.
In the years between 1923 and 1992, Alatex and Andala employed up to 1,500 people in Andalusia, and more than 3,000 total employees. The company also had plants in Troy, Brantley, Enterprise, Evergreen, Elba, Montgomery, Crestview and Panama City.
Checks can be mailed to Alatex Memorial, P.O. Box 429, Andalusia, AL, or delivered to Andalusia City Hall.
Two local artists are joining talents for an art show like no other, Lower Alabama Arts Coalition officials said Tuesday.
Walt Moore and Jo Kelley were busy Tuesday setting up the LAAC’s gallery with their broad array of paintings, pottery and sculpture.
“Walter and I are very pleased the arts council has given us the opportunity to show our work in our home town,” Kelley said. “We hope that everyone interested in the visual arts or who have children interested will come to Friday’s reception.”
The reception will be held Friday from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.
Moore works primarily in abstract art using mixed media and describes himself as a “self-taught artist”
“I’ve had no lessons to my knowledge,” he said. “I’ve always been a doodler. I was always the one drawing sketches in my textbook, but my first real attempt was at acrylics, doing landscape scenes and old buildings.”
Moore said he put down his painting for more than a decade.
“When I started back, for some strange reason, I tried abstract,” he said. “This may sound crazy, but when I decide to paint, I have no clue what I’m going to do. I usually paint on wood, and then I’ll surround myself with paint and have at it. Sometimes it looks like a train wreck.”
Moore said his favorite pieces tend to always be the right combination of orange and red.
“For example, my ‘Two Ways’ and ‘Down at Green River,’ ” he said. “They all incorporate red and orange. I also mixed in brown and green in ‘Fire Dance.’ ”
Kelley, on the other hand, is a contemporary painter, known around the county for her ladies in flowers paintings.
“About five years ago, I decided to choose a subject and revisit it to see what I learned,” she said. “I was taking a figure drawing class, and decided to put my figures in my drawings, so I decided to do sunflowers again and again with a figure in it, and most have a woman in them.
“My favorite is ‘Flower Power’ because of the texture I was able to achieve,” she said. “I owe that to Walter because he gave me the surface. We’re neighbors.”
Kelley also started making pottery after Larry Manning encouraged her to learn to “throw pots.”
“Now I have the Hayfield Studio on the Conecuh,” she said. “That’s where I paint and make pottery.”
Kelley described herself as a “lifetime student.”
“I’ve always done art,” she said.
“I’ve had wonderful instructors who have given me good tools and helped show me the way.”
The exhibition is made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Andalusia Star News
LBW is one administrative approval away from opening a new culinary program when fall classes begin in August.
LBW president Dr. Herb Riedel is so confident the college’s accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), will agree to the plan, that the courses are listed in the fall schedule and the school is advertising for an instructor.
The hands-on classes would be taught at Springdale in Andalusia, through an agreement with the City of Andalusia, Riedel said.
“We are currently negotiating an agreement with the City of Andalusia – we have a letter of intent, but we are working on a more formal agreement – to use the carriage house at Springdale where the city is constructing a commercial cooking facility.
“We would use that facility for instruction,” Riedel said. “The time we would use for instruction is going to be complementary to the time it would be used for events; most events there are set for weekends and evenings. We are looking at classes Monday through Thursday in the day time.”
Students would earn a short certificate that includes 29 credit hours of classes in nine months for full-time students.
“The program starts in August, and students would graduate in May,” Riedel said.
Classes would include:
• Foundations of nutrition
• Sanitation, safety and food service
• Basic culinary lab
• Advanced food prep
• Fundamentals of quantity cooking
• Food prep
• Meat preparation and processing
• Stocks and sauces
• Foundations of baking
• Food purchasing and cost control
“There will probably be some minor changes in the course selection once we hire an instructor,” he said. “We have some ability to make changes, but we want to make sure we have the right number of hours so that students in this program can qualify for Pell grants.”
The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain postbaccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education. The funds do not have to be repaid.
Riedel said an advisory committee worked with the college in the planning stages of this program. Committee members included Brian Reynolds from Cambrian Ridge; Phyllis Murray from Blue Lake; Jason Goldman of Sugar Rush; John Newsome, director of food and nutrition at Andalusia Regional Hospital; Ann Patterson, dietary director at Andalusia Manor; Jimmy Faulkner of Dairy Queen; Sister Schubert, founder of the company by the same name; and Tom Gerlach, retired restaurant owner.
Before the college began working with the committee, it conducted a feasibility study for the program. Surveys were sent to 200 businesses and institutions in the area, and the results projected a continuous need for workers in this field.
State workforce development data for this region projects 165 new jobs in this area in the next year, including entry- and management-level jobs.
“People with a culinary background can work not just in restaurants, but also in institutional kitchens, nursing homes, hospitals, camps, schools, golf courses … any place that has a cafeteria,” Riedel said.
In many places, culinary schools also operate restaurants. While that will not initially be a part of LBW’s new program, Riedel said he hopes to develop that vision once a program instructor is hired.
At the college where Riedel worked in Texas, a culinary program he helped start received the donation of a completely-outfitted restaurant in the downtown area.
“We also worked with the economic development authority,” he said. “What they’ve been doing is opening once or twice a week, and also doing special events.
“You can see where with this program, as it grows, there are a lot of opportunities that would enhance the cultural life in Andalusia,” Riedel said. “This is in many ways a very progressive city, with high quality culinary instruction, this is something that can grow.”
Andy Wiggins, director of operations for the city, said the commercial kitchen at Springdale, designed to be used by caterers at events there, is under construction in the carriage house.
Recent rains should have area gardens brimming with vegetables and produce, and those and others wishing to sell their wares at the Andalusia Powerplant Marketplace are invited to an upcoming orientation meeting.
“We’re asking that anyone who wants to sell their produce and vendors come out Tues., May 29,” said Marketplace manager Neal Dansby. “It’s kind of an opportunity to acclimate them to this year’s market. We’re hoping to increase participation, so we thought this meeting would be a good idea. We’re also hoping to encourage everyone to buy fresh and support your local growers.”
Dansby said it will be held at 7 p.m. and supper will be provided.
Call Sonja Godwin at 334-428-2102 to register no later than May 25. There is no cost to sell produce or to be a vendor.
“Just like always, we plan to open the Marketplace on the Wednesday after Memorial Day, which falls on May 30, and we’ll go until Labor Day,” Dansby said.
It is open from 7 a.m. until noon on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The Powerplant Market Place gives area farmers an outlet to sell their homegrown healthy choices like fresh snap beans, red potatoes, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and other vegetables and fruits. There is no charge to vendors.
The market place is located at 256 Central Street, across from the Three Notch Museum. For additional information, contact Dansby at 334-804-7480.