Willie Edwards was introduced to the Andalusia City Council on Tuesday as the City of Andalusia’s new Director of Leisure Services.

Edwards most recently served as director of parks and recreation for the City of Opp, a job which he had held since 2011. In addition, he has been head basketball coach for both boys and girls basketball at Opp High School since 2015.

Edwards grew up playing Little League baseball in Opp.

“I have great memories of the coaches who coached me in youth sports,” he said. “They’ been an integral part of my life up until today. One, Mr.  Preston Boutwell, just passed away.” 

He said Boutwell taught players about being positive and making every day a good day. 

“He taught us that, and I’ve never had a bad one,” he said. “I’ve had some days that were better than others, but I’ve never had a bad one.”

Later, he volunteered as a coach in Opp and in Elba.

It was while working as a paraprofessional in Opp City Schools that he decided to move into parks and rec full time. 

“I was working at the school, and I was managing the pool for the city,” he recalled. “I was also refereeing basketball and umpiring baseball. A job opened on the grounds crew, and I decided to make a change. From there, I continued to move up.”

Edwards said the best part of his job is working with kids. 

“That’s my joy,” he said. “I want to make a difference in kids lives. Hopefully, we can turn the light on and help them see they are somebody and they are important.”

Edwards said his goal in his new role is to enhance the city’s Leisure Services Department in all areas.

“We want to work on finding more things for adults to do,” he said, adding that pickleball is a possibility. “We do a lot of things for youth sports, but there may be a few areas like volleyball we could add.

“We want to make the park an exciting place to be for parents and kids,” he said. 

Edwards also is executive pastor of Star of Hope Baptist Church in Luverne, where he has been a minister since 2002. 

He and his wife, Shekeitha, are the parents of two daughters, Praise, a student at Auburn University; and Victori, a student at LBW Community College. 

Just before Lee Greenwood took the stage at July JAMZ in Andalusia Thursday night, he met with a man who was instrumental in his appearance here.

John Vick is the founder of the Covington Veterans Foundation and the board chairman and CEO of Southern National Corp., parent company of CCB Community Bank.

Vick founded the Covington Veterans Foundation, which partnered with the City of Andalusia to bring the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall to Andalusia, and convinced CCB Community Bank to sponsor Greenwood’s appearance as part of that four-day event.

A Navy veteran, Vick always says that his interest in veterans has its genesis in his childhood, when he and his family lived in Red Level, just across the tracks from the railroad depot. He can remember seeing the coffins of World War II soldiers on the train.

Shortly after he began the veterans foundation, he commissioned local artist RogerPowell to paint that memory for him. The resulting painting hangs in Andalusia City Hall. Last week, he presented a framed print of that image to Greenwood.

Vick, who writes a weekly column about veterans for The Andalusia Star-News, wrote about that early memory, and had Circuit Judge Ben Bowden, who is president of the Covington Veterans Foundation, read “A Hero Comes Home.”

The text follows:

“After WW II, my family moved to Red Level, Alabama, in 1946. We lived in a large frame house on a service road, just across the tracks from the Louisville and Nashville [L & N] Railroad depot. I had not started school yet and enjoyed sitting on the front porch watching the trains go by. Sometimes, the passenger train would stop at the depot to load or unload passengers. Occasionally, the train carried an extra car that was marked “Railway Express” and it carried a special cargo. That railway car had its doors wide open on both sides, allowing you to see all the way through. In the middle of the open area rested a casket, draped with an American flag and guarded by a soldier in full dress uniform. 

“That image of that railroad car with its precious cargo has remained burned into my mind these many years later. My parents told me that beneath that flag, rested the body of an American soldier, killed overseas during the war which was being returned home for burial. The Louisville and Nashville railroad line ran through Andalusia, Opp, Geneva all the way to Graceville, in northwest Florida. They told me that somewhere along that line, the soldier would be returned to his family for burial. Each one of those soldiers had a family awaiting his return home.

“In 2019, I asked a friend, Roger Powell, who is a gifted watercolor artist, to paint that scene that I could still see in my mind’s eye. I searched the internet for photos of a similar scene but was unable to find any, so using my rough sketch, Roger was able to produce the wonderful picture that I titled, “A Hero Comes Home.” That same year, a group of friends joined with me to form the Covington Veterans Foundation, a non-profit, 501 [c] 3 foundation, whose purpose is to honor veterans from our area. “Roger Powell donated his beautiful work of art to our foundation and we paid for the rights to reproduce it.”

Powell also was on hand for the presentation. 

“Whenever I create a painting, usually one of an architectural subject, my thoughts are not only focused on the drawing and painting processes, but also on my connection to the subject,” he saidl “If it’s someone’s home, I am almost always thinking of my relationship to the family or the house, or imagining who might have lived there. And so it was when I painted ‘A Hero Comes Home’ for John Vick and the Covington Veterans Foundation; reconstructing a memory of loss and sacrifice and freedom all the while thinking on what that means to you and me, to stand on the shoulders of the fallen.

”It is such an honor to have the original hanging in the Andalusia City Hall, to have been included in the presentation of a print to Lee Greenwood, and to reflect this weekend on what freedom means for us all,” Powell said this week.  

Greenwood was most gracious in his acceptance of the framed print and said he would cherish it.

Also on hand were Mayor Earl Johnson and CCB Community Bank CEO Michael Andrews.

The inscription on the print reads: "Presented to a great American patriot, Lee Greenwood, on the occasion of his visit to Andalusia, Alabama, this 28th of July, 2022 by the Covington Veterans Foundation."

The City of Andalusia is petitioning the National Register of Historic Places and the Alabama Historical Commission to change the bounderies of the Alabama Commercial Historic District. 

The matter is expected to be considered by the Alabama National Review Board on Sept. 22, 2022. 

The following public notice has been published locally and on state websites as required by law:

PUBLIC NOTICE

A boundary change and update to the Andalusia Commercial Historic District, in Andalusia, Alabama, will be considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places at the next meeting of the Alabama National Register Review Board, on September 22, 2022.  The updated Historic District is roughly bounded on the north by East College Street, on the east by Central Street, on the south by Baker Street, and on the west by River Falls Street.

Street numbers within the updated Andalusia Commercial Historic District include the following:

119-125 Central Street

100-239 Church Street

100 Block Coffee Street

102-124 Coffee Street

136-141 N Cotton Street

101-300 S Cotton Street

1-7A E Court Square

101-101½ N Court Square

4-14 W Court Square

25-29A S Court Square

110-122 Crescent Street

119 Dunson Street

256-260 Historic Central Street

105-113 O’Neal Court

100-115 Opp Avenue

000 Pear Street

109-111 Pear Street

112-209 E Three Notch Street

114 E Three Notch Street

115-121 E Three Notch Street

200-402 S Three Notch Street

A copy of the nomination and of the map detailing the precise boundaries proposed is on file with the Alabama Historical Commission. Information on whether your property is located in the proposed district can be obtained by calling (at 334/230-2696) or writing Evelyn D. Causey at the Alabama Historical Commission, 468 S. Perry Street, Montgomery, AL, 36130-0900 or .

The National Register of Historic Places is the federal government's official list of historic properties worthy of preservation. Listing in the National Register encourages the preservation of historically significant buildings, structures, sites, objects, and districts by identifying and documenting their significance, by lending support to local preservation activities, and by pointing out historic properties so that federal, state, and local agencies can include these historic resources in their planning projects. Designation results in the following for historic properties:

        1.  Consideration in planning for federal, federally licensed, and federally assisted projects.  The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation must be given an opportunity to comment on all federally related projects affecting listed properties.  For further information see 36 CFR 800 (Code of Federal Regulations).

        2.  Eligibility for federal tax provisions.  The Federal Internal Revenue Code encourages the preservation of depreciable historic structures by allowing favorable tax treatments for rehabilitation and also provides for charitable contributions for conservation purposes of partial interests in historically important land areas or structures.  For further information see 36 CFR 67.

        3.  Consideration of historic values in the decision by the state or federal government to issue a surface coal mining permit where coal is located.  For further information see 30 CFR 700 et seq. 

        4.  Eligibility for federal grants-in-aid, whenever funds are appropriated by Congress.  For further information, contact the Alabama Historical Commission.

The National Register DOES NOT:

Restrict the rights of private property owners in the use, development, or sale of private historic property; lead automatically to historic district zoning; force federal, state, local, or private projects to be stopped; guarantee that grant funds will be available for all significant historic properties; provide tax benefits to owners of residential historic properties, unless those properties are rental and treated as income-producing by the IRS.

Owners of private property nominated to the National Register may concur with or object to the nomination, in accord with 36 CFR 60.  Any owner or partial owner who objects to listing should submit a notarized or sworn and signed statement (certifying ownership and objection to listing) to the Alabama Historical Commission, ATTENTION: Evelyn D. Causey, 468 South Perry St., Montgomery, AL 36130-0900, by September 21, 2022.  Each owner or partial owner has one vote, regardless of how many whole or partial properties in the district are owned by that party.  If a majority of private property owners object to the nomination, it will not be listed; however, the State Historic Preservation Officer shall submit the nomination to the Keeper of the National Register for a determination of eligibility for inclusion in the National Register.  If the property is determined eligible but not formally listed, the Advisory Council must still be given an opportunity to comment on federal projects that may affect the district.

A copy of the nomination, the criteria used for evaluation, and more information on the results of listing are available from the Alabama Historical Commission.  Comments on the nomination should be received by the Alabama Historical Commission before the September 22, 2022 State Review Board meeting.

Officers in the Andalusia Police Department spent a long day Tuesday participating in ALERRT training at Andalusia High School.

ALERRT, or Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, was developed by Texas State University in 2002 as a partnership between Texas State University, the San Marcos, Texas, Police Department and the Hays County, Texas, Sheriff’s Office to address the need for active shooter response training for first responders.  In 2013, the FBI named ALERRT at Texas State the national standard for active shooter response training. Utilizing the train-the-trainer model, the ALERRT curriculum has been adopted by numerous states and agencies as their standard active shooter training. 

Andalusia Police Chief Paul Hudson said two of his officers, Tyler Patterson and Al McGraw, participated in a week-long train-the-trainer workshop earlier this summer. Other APD officers, including Chief Hudson and Capt. Paul Dean, previously have completed the training. 

“With the situations we’ve seen of active shooters and mass shooters, we want to make sure we get our officers trained, “ Hudson said. “Everybody is trained in this when they go to the Police Academy. This serves as a refresher. We hope we never deal with this kind of situation, but we know that the more we practice, the better chance we have of handling a bad situation as efficiently as possible.”

Hudson explained that with ALERRT, officers train with simulated weapons that only shoot soap bullets.

“The (simulated weapons) feel like the weapons officers carry,” Hudson said. “The soap ammunition leaves a mark that washes out.”

Opp Police Chief Kevin Chance and Lt. Josh Hudson assisted with Tuesday’s training in Andalusia. Chief Paul Hudson said the APD has offered to work with the Opp Police Department and the Covington County Sherriff’s Office on the training, and also is available to work with other departments.  Chief Hudson expressed his appreciation to Chief Chance for allowing Lt. Hudson to assist with the training.

It’s important, he said, for all area departments to participate in the training so that in the event of a large emergency, all responding officers would be similarly trained. 

Earlier this summer, the APD’s two school resource officers, Jackie Woods and Tessa Crowell, along with several administrators in the Andalusia School System, participated in TAASRO active shooter training (The Alabama Association of School Resource Officers). 

Officers participating in Tuesday’s training included Lt. Roger Cender, Sgt. Don Jordan, Officer John Stoneback, School Resource Officer Jackie Woods, Sgt. Greg Wetzel, and Officer Ludger Boswell.