Andalusia will again mark the Fourth of July holiday with a parade and a fireworks show on Thursday, July 4.

The Old Three Notch Chapter of the DAR will hold its annual Fourth of July Parade Thursday morning.

Everyone is welcome to don their red, white and blue and join the fun. There will be floats, golf carts, bicycles and walkers.

There is no fee to enter, and no pre-registration is required. Line-up is in the parking lot of First Baptist Church beginning at 9 a.m.

The parade will roll at 10 a.m., and will travel from First Baptist down East Three Notch and turn at Pirate Graphics to circle back to the church.

That evening, FiftyFive South will return to the stage at the Kiwanis Fairgrounds for the City of Andalusia’s Fourth of July celebration.

There will be bouncy houses and a water slide for the kids, as well as free watermelon. There also will be concessions on site.

The gates open at 5:30 p.m. and live music begins at 6 p.m. The fireworks show begins at dusk.

Grit + Grind owners Eric and Destiny Rowell plan to build a flagship in Andalusia for their growing coffee company, and also will develop housing here.

The Andalusia City Council on Tuesday took several steps to finalize a public-private partnership between the City, the city’s Capital Improvement Cooperative District, and the Rowells.

Rowell said the couple now has 10 locations for Grit + Grind, including the ones they own outright and their franchises. They started the coffee business with a coffee truck in Opp while they reworked a brick-and-mortar building for their first permanent Grit + Grind home.

Eric Rowell said it was when the couple heard Mayor Earl Johnson speak to the Opp Rotary Club three years ago about the city’s ongoing projects and long-term plans that they started looking to expand here.

“We left the meeting, and literally did a U-turn to go back and start the conversation with Mayor Johnson,” he said. “We wanted to be a part of something as progressive as you all have going on in Andalusia.”

Since then, the Rowells have acquired property at the intersection of Church Street and River Falls Street where they vend coffee from one of their food trucks and lease space to other food truck operations. They also opened a kiosk location on campus at LBW.

Soon, they’ll break ground on a new facility at the intersection of Coleman Avenue and Henderson Street near the bypass entrance to Andalusia High School.

The new facility will serve both as a coffee shop and as Grit + Grind’s headquarters, where new franchisees will be required to spend time training. The design includes a drive-through window, as well as small private rooms for work-from-home locals or travelers who need a change of scene or a quiet space. One of the rooms is designed to serve as a podcast studio. There also will be some outdoor green space where children can play while their moms enjoy a cup of coffee.

The couple also plan to move to Andalusia, and to develop workforce housing here.

“We are super excited about what you’re doing here,” Eric Rowell said. “We have 13 other rental properties, so we are not new to real estate.

The houses will be approximately 1,200 square feet, but Destiny Rowell said they are designed with outdoor living spaces that make them feel more spacious. The couple will sell or rent the houses, they said.

The first house, which will be the Rowells’ personal home, will be located at the corner of Church Street and Railroad Avenue. It will serve as a “show house” for the next three to be constructed.

The next three, currently planned to be two bedroom and two bath homes, will be at the intersection of Walker Avenue and Madison Avenue, or the back side of the Church Street Cultural Arts Centre/Robinson Park properties.

“Housing is one of our biggest challenges as we grow our city,” Mayor Johnson said. “With the Rowells’ development, and the others we have worked on, this will mean a total of eight new homes in the Church Street area. We hope other developers will be inspired by this work and also invest in local housing.”

City Administrator John Thompson said the projects are “much more private than public.”

Amendment 725 of the Constitution of Alabama allows municipalities in Covington County to participate in economic development partnerships. The City of Andalusia has successfully used the provisions of the Amendment to spur economic development, primarily in the downtown area.  

At the recommendation of the mayor, the council took several steps to bring the projects to fruition.

First, it declared property it has owned for decades, commonly known as the “Snead-Kennedy Property,” surplus. Secondly, it traded that property to local developer Robert Bishop for property at Henderson and Coleman. The property at Henderson and Coleman was then declared surplus.

The City of Andalusia will sell the Henderson/Coleman property to Grit + Grind for $250,000, and will hold a mortgage on the property. The City will donate the properties for the new housing. In the event the houses are not built in a specified amount of time, ownership of the property will revert back to the City.

The city’s Capital Improvement Cooperative District is loaning the Rowells $50,000 for site prep and parking on the Walker/Madison projects. The loan is to be amortized over 15 years at 5 percent interest.

The terms of the agreement also call for the Rowells to join its Development District, which has special taxing authority.

Eric Rowell said construction should begin on the first two houses in four to six weeks, and construction on the new coffee facility should follow in approximately six months. That facility should open in 12 to 14 months, the Rowells said.

There will be 22 participating teams when Andalusia hosts the Cal Ripken 10U State Baseball Tournament this weekend, June 28-30.

“This is one of the biggest tournaments I’ve seen since I started working with Babe Ruth,” Willie Edwards, director of parks and recreation for the City of Andalusia, said. “We’re excited to have this turnout, and look forward to a great weekend of baseball.”

There will be two tournaments within the tournament, Edwards explained. Teams from small parks will participate in one division, and teams from large parks in a separate division.

Andalusia, Covington County, Saraland, Westside, Spanish Fort and Florence Navy will participate in the large park division.

Participating teams in the small park division include Opp, Evergreen, Brewton, East Brewton, Flomaton, Northwest Escambia, Decatur American, Decatur Nationals, Florence Red, Monrovia, Sweetwater, Millry, Roanoke, Grand Bay, Robertsdale and Bay Minette.

Opening ceremonies begin at 9 a.m. Friday, June 28, in Johnson Park. There is no admission charge for this tournament.

The large park division will play pool play Friday and enter bracket play Saturday morning with the finals slated for 10 a.m. on Sunday, June 30.

The small park division will play pool play Friday and Saturday, and being bracket play at 10 a.m. Sunday. Finals are set for 12:15 a.m. Sunday.

This marks the second consecutive year Andalusia has hosted a Cal Ripken state tournament. Last year, Andalusia played host to the state 8U baseball tournament.

“We work hard year-round to make Andalusia a destination location,” Mayor Earl Johnson said. “We know that events like Candyland, JulyJamz, and ball tournaments bring people to our city. While they’re here, they eat in local restaurants, and many sleep in local hotels.

“Early reports are that the hotels are all booked this weekend,” Johnson said. “We look forward to welcoming our guests to Andalusia.”

For brackets and updates, please visit the Andalusia Department of Leisure Services' Facebook Page.

Andalusia native Sam Johnson said he is living the Principle of Unintended Consequences, in a good way.

The principle states that actions, events and decisions sometimes lead to outcomes that were never expected or intended.

An avid fly fisherman and outdoorsman, Johnson published his first book, Fly Fishing the Blue Ridge Parkway – NC Section, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Folks were bored, needed an escape, and it filled that need for lots of folks,” Johnson said. “Consequently, it took off like a rocket and was into its second, third and fourth printing before anyone could blink.”

 To help market the book, as well as other unique products like bamboo fly rods, fishing flies, cigars, high end apparel, etc., Sam launched Wild Bearings, LLC with his best friend Chris Sloan.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Johnson and Sloan are now into their second television series of Wild Bearings Outdoors. Recently, they had the opportunity to shoot at the 8,000-acre Biltmore Estate in North Carolina at some of the most secret and scenic places on the estate. Past episodes are curated on Wild Bearings Outdoors YouTube Channel and the Waypoint TV Channel.

And his second book, Blue Ridge Parkway – Virginia Section, has just been released.

Johnson will sign copies of both books beginning at 2 p.m. this Friday, June 7, at Blue Bird Coffee Company. He plans to donate profits from local book sales to the Covington Veterans Foundation in memory of his father, Roland Johnson, who went ashore at Normandy 80 years ago this week on D-Day.

Johnson said the BRP is very different in North Carolina and Virginia.

“The NC section is infinitely more rugged, because the mountains are more steep and higher,” he said. “It’s 252 miles long in North Carolina. There are 27 tunnels on the BRP, and 26 of them are in North Carolina.

“The Virginia section has more fishable trout water than North Carolina,” he said.  “There’s more limestone and more bugs. The more bugs, the  more fish you’re going to have.”

Both are equally beautiful, he said, adding, “Trout don’t live in ugly places.”

He documented the whole 469 miles of the Parkway, he said, because he wants fishermen to understand there are areas where you have to repel in to fish, and there are areas he calls “assisted living water” where one can step out of a vehicle and into the creek.

After graduating from high school, Johnson attended the University of Southern Mississippi on a 4-year football scholarship where his tight end position coach was Mack Brown. Following graduation, he moved to Atlanta, and for the past 30 years has lived in the historic mountain town of Dahlonega, GA, with his wife, Betty, a fiber artist, and their pack of Siberian Huskies.  He serves as chairman of the board of an RV manufacturer passed in Indiana, and is a partner in the transaction advisory firm of Nautilus Strategy Group.