Brennan named deputy director of Alabama Tourism Department
German journalists coming to Alabama
Fannie Flagg on the Alabama meat-and-three that inspired beloved ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’
Spend a weekend at this gorgeous boutique hotel in Anniston
World Heritage and U. S. Civil Rights Sites Symposium
Scenes from Wetumpka: Coosa River, meteor crater features of Main Street town
Brewery, taproom coming to downtown Montgomery
Alabama State Lands Division launches new canoe trails website
Judy Ryals appointed by Governor Bentley to Alabama Small Business Commission
NASA’s ‘modern figures’ are no longer ‘hidden’
Hospitality & Tourism Workforce Summit at University of South Alabama
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Brennan named deputy director of Alabama Tourism Department
Grey Brennan was named deputy director of the Alabama Tourism Department this week by state tourism director Lee Sentell.
“Grey is our first deputy director in many years. He has been a real leader since joining the marketing staff in 2001. He is well respected throughout our state and among the other tourism professionals across the Southeast. He has particularly increased the number of international tour groups visiting Alabama,” Sentell said.
Brennan will share responsibilities of managing the agency’s budget with Financial Services Director Scott Burbank. Graham Roderick, who joined the staff last year, will assist Brennan in recruiting additional international tour companies, the director said.
Brennan served as campaign director for The Year of Outdoor Alabama and The Year of Alabama Music. He also serves as regional director for the central Alabama area and coordinates all of the tourism department’s international marketing efforts.
Brennan holds both Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Alabama where he studied marketing and communications. He has also received a Travel Marketing Professional certificate from the Southeast Tourism Society.
The department’s Central Office staff in Montgomery has remained at about 25 people since Sentell became director in 2003. In the meantime, tourism expenditures have increased by 105 percent to $13 billion. The agency is funded by 1 percent of the state’s 4 percent state lodgings tax. The other 3 percent benefits the state General Fund. Some $50 million in lodging taxes is projected to benefit the state’s General Fund in FY 17.
In 2016, the 25 million travelers in the state paid more than $837 million in state and local taxes. Without those taxes, each household in Alabama would have had to pay an additional $428 in taxes to maintain current service levels, according to Montgomery economist Dr. Keivan Deravi.
German journalists coming to Alabama
By Grey Brennan
Two teams of German journalists will soon be in Alabama working on projects lined up by Janin Nachtweh of the Alabama Tourism Partnership’s German office.
Stephan Lina and Holger Bauer of German radio network Bayerischer Rundfunk will visit four Alabama cities in April. They will report on Airbus in Mobile, the Alabama Tourism Department’s World Heritage project in Montgomery, they will gather information on several stories in Birmingham including Civil Rights, and they will report on historic music studios in the Muscle Shoals area.
Rudi and Rita Schneider are scheduled to visit North Alabama for Germany’s only nationwide radio network, Deutschlandradio in May. On a trip last year, they reported on the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Helen Keller, Ave Maria Grotto and they Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. This year they plan reports on the Legend of Noccalula, The Alabama Fan Club and Museum, The Trail of Tears and Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q.
The Schneider’s radio reports from their trip last year are available on the following links (all reports are in German).
Ave Maria Grotto http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2017/02/05/ave_maria_grotto_in_cullman_alabama_dlf_20170205_1242_7c3211c7.mp3
Civil Rights Movement Birmingham http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2016/11/27/birminghamalabama_civil_rights_bewegung_dlf_20161127_1133_53fe1a42.mp3
U.S. Space & Rocket Center http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2016/11/27/birminghamalabama_civil_rights_bewegung_dlf_20161127_1133_53fe1a42.mp3
For more information on Alabama’s efforts in Germany, contact janin.nachtweh@textransfer.de
Fannie Flagg on the Alabama meat-and-three that inspired beloved ‘Fried Green Tomatoes’
From the article by Haley Laurence on AL.com:
Fannie Flagg may be one of Alabama’s greatest ambassadors.
The author, actress, comedian and Birmingham native loves to talk about her home state. She’s written about us plenty of times. She talks about us in interviews. She even seeks out people with Southern accents in airports.
And she also tells her friends in California that they must visit Alabama.
“Everyone here, when they go on vacation, they’ll go to Europe, they’ll go here, they’ll go there,” she says, speaking on the phone from her home in California. “And I’ll tell them, ‘Have you ever been to Alabama? Well, why don’t you try to take a vacation in your own country and go to the American South?'”
But perhaps her biggest contribution to Alabama’s legacy is her 1989 book, “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe,” and subsequent movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes.” Both the movie and book put Alabama food in the spotlight — and put meat-and-three Irondale Cafe on the worldwide culinary map.
The inspiration
Fannie Flagg (born Patricia Neal) knows Birmingham. Both her father and grandfather were motion picture projector operators, working in places such as the Alabama and Lyric theaters, and she grew up in various places around the city.
Her grandmother’s sister, Bess Fortenberry, ran the tiny Irondale Cafe in the small town of Irondale. The restaurant had seating for about 30 people at most. And across from the cafe was a two-story house where all the Fortenberry children were raised.
Fannie would often visit her aunt, even though it was a bit harder to make it to Irondale from the city in the ’40s than it is now. But she still has plenty of memories of making the trek to see her aunt — and eating her delicious home-cooking (including those fried green tomatoes).
But she also grew up hearing the good that her Aunt Bess was doing for the community.
“I’d heard so many good stories about that cafe growing up from my mother and my grandmother,” Fannie says, “And how wonderful it was for the little town and how everyone loved my aunt.”
Remembering Bess
Decades later, Aunt Bess passed away. (She had already sold Irondale Cafe to Billy and Mary Jo McMichael.) And Fannie got a call from a lawyer. Her aunt had left her something.
So she traveled back to Alabama to get the gift: A shoebox.
“It was so funny because in the shoebox was little memories of her life,” Fannie says.
There were photos of Bess and her friends and family. Menus from the Irondale Cafe. Notes from funerals she had officiated (She would preach at the funerals of people who had worked for her).
The items in the box showed her Aunt Bess’ sense of humor: There were photos of her sitting in Santa’s lap, and pictures of her in full regalia.
“Just crazy stuff to remind me of how much of a character she was,” Fannie says.
But Fannie began to wonder: Why was she picked to receive that gift?
“She had a lot of other nieces and nephews that she was much closer to,” she says. “And so I thought, ‘I wonder why she wanted me to have that?'”
But she has a theory about that: “I thought, ‘Maybe she wanted me to write about that and not forget her.’ “
So she wrote about her.
The success
“Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe” – loosely based on the Irondale Cafe – was released in August 1987 and was an immediate success. It was on the New York Times Bestsellers list for 36 weeks, and fellow Alabamian Harper Lee gushed about it.
But the title was a joke at first.
“(One of the things) I remember from my childhood is my grandmother and Bess made me fried green tomatoes,” she said. “So when I went to write the book, I called it ‘The Cross Stop Cafe’ or ‘The Railroad Cafe’ or something like that. I was just being silly one day and was like, ‘I’m gonna call it ‘Fried Green Tomatoes in the Whistle Stop Cafe” and I sent it to my editor in New York. And he said, ‘What is that?’ and I told him, and he got the biggest kick out of that. So that’s what we called it.”
After the book’s success, Fannie wrote a screenplay based on the book, simply titled “Fried Green Tomatoes,” and it, too, was a success. The 1991 film was nominated for two Academy Awards and sparked a worldwide interest in Irondale Cafe – and fried green tomatoes.
Luckily, the McMichaels had already expanded the Irondale Cafe so it could seat more people – and the tourists that flocked to see the place that inspired their favorite book and movie.
But the movie didn’t just cause an interest in the meat-and-three diner – it also caused a fried green tomatoes craze, which Fannie finds amusing.
“It’s so strange because after that, fried green tomatoes were on every menu even in gourmet restaurants,” she says. “When I went to Europe for the premiere of the movie, they were just so fascinated with it and had never heard such a thing.”
But still, despite this worldwide obsession with Southern food, she still can’t find some of her favorite country home-cooking near her home in California.
She complains about the grits and cornbread she gets in restaurants there.
“All the cornbread they have here is like cake. Sugar, fluffy – yuck. I like that plain ole crusty cornbread.”
Oh, and the biscuits, too:
“The biscuits are hard,” she says. “They don’t get it.”
For the complete article please see http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2017/02/fannie_flagg_on_the_alabama_me.html#incart_river_home
Spend a weekend at this gorgeous boutique hotel in Anniston
From the article by Julia Sayers on AL.com:
This story appears in Birmingham magazine’s February 2017 issue.
When Del and Ginger Marsh acquired the Victoria Hotel from the city of Anniston, they had one year and a required minimum budget of $1.5 million to revamp the hotel. Eight months and $2 million later, the completely-renovated Victorian home reopened as Hotel Finial in March 2016. Now a 61-room boutique hotel, the home didn’t always boast the modern vibe it does now.
Built in 1888, the home was originally a private residence for a prominent Anniston family. Its owner, John McKleroy, an attorney and counselor-at-law, chose the location because it was the highest hill on the city’s bustling Quintard Avenue. The McKleroy family owned it for 32 years until it was sold to the Wilson family, and later the Kirby family. In 1984, it was turned into an inn, full of antiques and Victorian charm. After multiple foreclosures, though, the property was eventually donated to Jacksonville State University before the Anniston City Council purchased it to preserve the historic site.
The city could afford only to maintain, not renovate the property, so they put out a request for proposal. Ginger and her husband Del, a state senator, were interested in purchasing the home, so they went to check it out.
“We had seen its former days of beauty and glory,” says Ginger, who is from Anniston. “But then we saw all the cracks and decay and decided we didn’t want to move forward.”
Things changed when the city decided to give the property to Del and Ginger–but with two stipulations: they had to put at least $1.5 million into the building’s renovations, and everything had to be completed in one year’s time.
The last-remaining Victorian-style mansion on Quintard, Ginger wanted to protect the home’s original character–including its stained glass windows, ornate fireplaces, and wooden floors–but also give it a fresh feel with a modern design. She likes to refer to it as a “past-forward” vibe.
As Ginger walks through the house, she points out some of its original features–glass panels with etchings of a cockatoo bird, portions of a drink bar purchased from England, and decorative metal dust catchers on the oak staircase–as well as modern pieces she brought in, including tufted chairs and beds, faux fur throws, large mirrors, and contemporary light fixtures.
The main home features breakfast rooms, a glassed-in wraparound porch, meeting rooms, a large side deck, and four suites–three of them named after the home’s original owners. With the suites’ sophisticated decor, you might forget you’re in a Victorian home and instead feel like you’re in a swanky hotel in New York or London. Each suite has a different feel to it–the McKleroy has a champagne color scheme, with notes of taupe and gold; cool vibes resonate in the Wilson, with seafoam walls, a white bed, and a mirrored chest; the Kirby mixes a palette of violet and silver. On the top floor, in the home’s turret, is the Grand Ballroom suite. Colors of grey and turquoise mix in this suite that features a king bed in one bedroom, separate Murphy bed, a living area, two-and-a-half baths, and an office.
Behind the hotel’s main room is a pool, a complex of standard king and two-queen rooms, and The Cottage–the last of the hotel’s five suites. The private cottage features a spacious living room with a small kitchen and wet bar, a master bedroom with a king bed, one-and-a-half baths, and a pullout couch. All of Hotel Finial’s standard rooms feature beds handcrafted by Del and his son-in-law, made of hard pine from the old Avondale Mills in Sylacauga, Alabama. Breakfast, including the signature Southern Grits Bar, is complimentary with room reservations.
Ginger and Del made the decision to offer breakfast as the only meal at the hotel (there used to be a full-service restaurant) because they want to encourage guests to explore the city and experience the restaurants and activities Anniston has to offer. When asked for restaurant recommendations, Ginger excitedly rattles off a long list: Classic on Noble for fine dining and brunch; a former brothel called Peerless Saloon for updated bar food; Mata’s for pizza; Brad’s for barbecue.
The Marshes also do their best to incorporate the city into the hotel and cater to those who come to Anniston for specific activities. A local brewery, Cheaha Brewing Company, brews two beers specifically for the hotel: Finial 8 (an amber) and Mighty Fine (a pilsner). You can try both in the hotel’s bar, Spencer’s, located in the carriage house. Since Anniston has become a hot spot for bikers, with the Coldwater Mountain Bike Trail and the Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga Trail (the longest paved trail in America), Hotel Finial offers a bike cleaning station, bike racks in select rooms, and tile entryways to keep rooms clean. Ginger also has a partnership with Wig’s Wheels and can set up any guest with a bike during their stay. A page on the hotel’s website features local events and a list of recommended attractions.
With her love for Anniston and dedication to preserving a local icon, Ginger’s renovation of Hotel Finial has allowed her to both give back to her hometown and help encourage the city’s resurgence.
“We invested in this to save it,” Ginger says. “This was our gift to Anniston, and hopefully after we’re gone, someone else will come and love it as much as we do.”
Fall in love with Finial
Just one hour from Birmingham, Hotel Finial is the perfect place for a romantic weekend or overnight escape. Rooms booked for Valentine’s Day are part of a romance package that includes a bottle of wine and a keepsake crystal candy dish. Make dinner reservations at Classic on Noble or Effina’s Tuscan Grill (Ginger can help arrange it) and then head back to the hotel to sip on the hotel’s signature February cocktail, The French Kiss, featuring cranberry, Chambord, and a Hershey’s Kiss.
Explore Anniston
Here are some activities to check out while you’re in town:
Anniston Museum of Natural History – explore Alabama’s natural wonders at this Smithsonian-affiliated museum.
Berman Museum of World History – view treasures from around the world at this museum set up by a former spy.
Cheaha Mountain – hike the highest point in Alabama for breathtaking views.
Coldwater Mountain Bike Trail – this 35-mile trail is perfect for mountain biking enthusiasts.
Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga – bike the longest paved trail in the nation, a combined 95 miles.
St. Michael and All Angels Church – admire this historic church built in 1888.
For the complete article please see http://www.al.com/bhammag/index.ssf/2017/02/spend_a_weekend_at_this_gorgeo.html#incart_river_home
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