The 72nd Annual Fairhope Arts & Crafts Festival took place this past weekend, and the exclusive broadcast partner was the news and weather team from WKRG News 5. On Friday, I was invited to tag along to watch a full day of festival reporting. By all measures, it was a fun-filled experience!

Since Casi Callaway stepped away in 2021 from her position as Executive Director to become the first Chief Resilience Officer in the State of Alabama, Mobile Baykeeper has had new leadership. Taking her place as Executive Director at Mobile Baykeeper is William Strickland. I first met William several months ago, when he made a presentation to the Point Clear Property Owners. 

What is an Agronomist? - an expert in the science of soil management and crop production. Carmen Flamini is an agronomist working for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System as an agent specializing in home grounds, gardens, and pests. She serves Baldwin, Butler, Conecuh, and Escambia Counties. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System provides educational outreach to the citizens of Alabama on behalf of the state's two land grant Universities: Alabama A&M University and Auburn University.

Picture this: a beautiful spring afternoon, a lovely breeze sweeping through the pines, friends gathering, ice chests and picnic baskets full of goodies, and one of your favorite bands playing their best tunes at an outdoor amphitheater.

I am in the middle of 6 acres of beautiful woods, with Red Gully Creek meandering through the property. There are lots of little children here, climbing, digging, building, and playing while teachers ask questions to foster creativity.

Joel Hamilton was destined to become a zoo director from the very beginning of his life. Born and raised on a defunct 125-acre farm in Connecticut, surrounded by an additional 800 acres of former farmland, he spent his youth stomping around outdoors. “If it was daylight, I was outside playing, fishing streams, and generally absorbing the environment.”

When my sister-in-law was visiting from Maryland, we decided to go on a field trip to the Africatown Heritage House, a museum that houses "Clotilda: The Exhibition" about the survivors and descendants of slaves transported on the Clotilda, the United States last known slave ship, many of whom established Africatown. The exhibit lets visitors share the experience of the journey to and from Africa, bringing stories of the 110 captives, showing artifacts of the burned and sunken shipwreck, and exhibiting how strength, optimism, and resilience created the community of Africatown.

As an author of 23+ books and contributor to 17 anthologies, I have garnered enjoyment from learning about all kinds of places and people and sharing stories about them with the reading public.