Alabama
Ella Langley, Alexis Herman, southern accents: Down in Alabama
Rising star
Hope Hull’s Ella Langley is the Academy of Country Music’s New Female Artist of the Year, reports AL.com’s Mary Colurso.
The awards ceremony comes later, but Langley found out she was a winner while she was on stage at a festival in Knoxville. Miranda Lambert came on a big video screen to tell her the news. Langley managed to choke out a “God Bless America.”
She’s also up for ACM Female Artist of the Year and six more awards related to the song and video for “You Look Like You Love Me,” her duet with fellow Alabamian Riley Green of Jacksonville.
Incoming ‘Jeopardy!’ money
Some education-related projects in Mobile are getting a boost thanks to W. Kamau Bell’s big win in “Celebrity Jeopardy!” reports AL.com’s Lawrence Specker.
Bell is a comedian and the host of the CNN show “United Shades of America.”
On “Celebrity Jeopardy!” he won a million dollars for the charity of his choice. His was DonorsChoose, which fulfills online classroom wish lists made by teachers.
Among the locations Bell chose was Mobile, where he spent time during his childhood and where his dad still lives.
Projects funded by Bell’s winnings include special-needs playground equipment for Orchard Elementary and novels for small-group study at Dodge Elementary. According to DonorsChoose, the money going to the Mobile schools totals about $53,000 and will fund 72 projects across 22 schools.
RIP Alexis Herman
Alexis Herman, a member of President Clinton’s cabinet and a native of Mobile, passed away Friday, reports AL.com’s Patrick Darrington.
Herman was the first Black U.S. Secretary of Labor, a position she held from 1997 to 2001.
She was director of the Women’s Bureau at age 29, in 1977, later served as CEO of the 1992 Democrat National Convention, and then joined Clinton’s transition team when he won the White House. Along the way she did work promoting diversity hiring in the private sector.
Congressman Shomari Figures, a Mobile Democrat, called Herman a “true hometown hero.”
Said Figures: “She was a fighter for civil rights and women’s rights, a giant in DC political circles, especially amongst Black women, and an all-around dynamic woman.”
Alexis Herman was 77 years old.
Friendly talk
We have a new survey to report on.
We like surveys because we know they are almost always accurate. At least in the moment they’re conducted. Involving the exact respondents who responded. Who were prompted with questions that were worded exactly so.
With at least that much confidence, a study Censuswide conducted for the call-answering service Answering Service Care found that Americans consider the Southern accent to be the friendliest accent in the U.S., reports AL.com’s Margaret Kates.
And why not? You can’t say “Y’all come” in just any dialect.
Note that only 38% of people found the southern accent friendly, but that was higher than any other. The Hawaiian accent came in second at 34%. Texas was tied for third, but we all know where most of that accent migrated from.
Alabama News Quiz answers/results
Overall results:
- Five out of five: 27.8%
- Four out of five: 28.4%
- Three out of five: 25.4%
- Two out of five: 13.7%
- One out of five: 4.5%
- None out of five: 0.3%
This sports figure with ties to our state was recently selected by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
- Jalen Hurts (CORRECT) 60.9%
- Charles Barkley 31.0%
- Bruce Pearl 4.2%
- Rece Davis 3.9%
What are we most likely to see come out of the Alabama State Legislature this session?
- An expansion of the new school-choice law (CORRECT) 84.2%
- Teacher salary raises 10.4%
- A new charter school in Barbour County 4.8%
- A new graduation requirement to take three hours of College Football History 0.6%
Early next month, President Trump is expected to visit a college in this Alabama city.
- Tuscaloosa (CORRECT) 98.8%
- Auburn 0.6%
- Troy 0.6%
- Andalusia 0.0%
Alabama’s oldest hotel, the St. James Hotel, which originally opened in 1837 as the Brantley Hotel, is expected to reopen next month under new management in this city.
- Selma (CORRECT) 62.1%
- Mobile 23.0%
- Montgomery 14.3%
- Childersburg 0.6%
A new music festival is being planned for Birmingham in honor of …
- Sun Ra (CORRECT) 54.3%
- Hank Williams 27.5%
- Big Mama Thornton 16.4%
- The Beastie Boys 1.8%
More Alabama News
Born on This Date
In 1926, To Kill a Mockingbird author Nelle Harper Lee of Monroeville.
In 1952, keyboardist Chuck Leavell of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. He’s played with The Allman Brothers Band, The Rolling Stones and many others.
In 1954, former Congressman and state lawmaker Mo Brooks.
The podcast
Alabama
Husband, 19, fatally shot wife, 24, himself at Alabama hospital moments after welcoming their first child
A husband fatally shot his wife before turning the gun on himself at an Alabama hospital just moments after they welcomed their first child on Sunday.
Kynath Terry Jr., 19, gunned down 24-year-old Precious Johnson before fatally shooting himself inside the Baptist Health Brookwood Hospital around 9:30 p.m. Sunday night, WTVM 13 reported.
Johnson delivered a healthy baby just before she was murdered. It’s not immediately clear if the baby was present during the shooting, but police said that Terry and Johnson were the only ones injured.
Terry’s mother told the outlet that the couple were having some marital issues leading up to Johnson’s due date, but nothing that made her fear her son would become violent.
She told the outlet that Terry completed Army National Guard training before tying the knot with Johnson.
She noted that Johnson didn’t want Terry’s side of the family at the hospital for her child’s birth, but it’s unclear if anyone from the mother-to-be’s own family was there.
The hospital was plunged into a lockdown “out of an abundance of caution” while police investigated reports of a shooting. It wasn’t lifted until hours later when they determined there was “no active threat to patients, team members or the public,” the outlet reported.
The Homewood Police Department described the tragedy as “an apparent murder-suicide and is domestic in nature.”
Danne Howard, the president of the Alabama Hospital Association, told the outlet that the chilling attack “was an isolated incident” unlike anything she’d encountered during her three decades working in the state.
Howard said, in the wake of the tragedy, the Baptist Health Brookwood Hospital would undergo a security overhaul implementing “lessons learned” from a mandated after-action report.
Just three months ago, in a town six miles outside of Homewood, a beloved sports reporter was fatally shot by her husband before taking his own life. Their 3-year-old son, who was unharmed, led his grandfather to his parents’ bodies.
Hegseth on Iran: ‘This is not Iraq. This is not endless.’
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said operations on Iran won’t be “endless” like Iraq.
The United States and Israel-led attacks on Iran are having an impact in Central Alabama.
The military actions that began Saturday targets the military forces of Iran and the nation’s ability to build nuclear weapons.
In Montgomery, Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex have stepped up security so that all entry points will have a 100 percent ID check, the bases said on social media. The Trusted Traveler Program is suspended, which allowed Department of Defense identification holders to vouch for passengers.
Visitors without base access will have to go through the visitor center to get a pass.
Central Alabama residents react to the Iran attacks
For Travis Jackson of Montgomery, the attacks bring back memories, bad memories. He served one tour in Iraq from 2007-2008 with the U.S. Army. He attained the rank of sergeant before leaving the service and has worked the last 10 years as a community activist and diversity, equality and inclusion coordinator.
“I had a flashback of being overseas again,” he said when he first heard news of the attack. “The first thing I thought of was corporate greed. Of yet again seeing what has transpired throughout the years of any war overseas.”
He feels the attacks are a mistake.
“It’s going to be detrimental to the economy, notably with the increase in oil prices,” he said.
Removing the current regime in Iran and establishing a more western friendly country could improve hopes for a more stable Middle East, said Amy Stephens of Elmore County.
“I don’t know if there will ever be peace there,” Stephens said. “But Iran has been the causing trouble over there for almost 50 years.”
Ray Roberts of Prattville served in Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990 and 1991 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. He served in an ordinance company with the Alabama Army National Guard. He was a sergeant when he left the service and now works as a draftsman at a Montgomery manufacturing plant.
“It wasn’t a surprise,” Roberts said of the attacks. “President Trump had said they were coming. When he says something like that, he means it. I am glad we are working with Israel so it’s not just the United States. I wonder if Europe and some of the other Gulf nations will join the attacks.”
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com. To support his work, please subscribe to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey was honored for her lifelong dedication to youth and community service during the 12th annual Black Warrior Council Boy Scouts of America Circle of Honor awards luncheon.
The ceremony, which was held Feb. 27 at the Embassy Suites hotel in downtown Tuscaloosa, serves as a fundraiser for the council’s scouting program.
The Circle of Honor award is presented to people in west central Alabama whose livelihood and actions reflect the same values of the Black Warrior Boy Scouts. Recipients have also shown advocacy for youth and leadership in the community.
Past recipients of the award include Terry Saban, Nick Saban, former U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, scientist and philanthropist Thomas Joiner, pharmacist and retailer James I. Harrison Jr., civic leader Mary Ann Phelps and more.
Cathy Randall, a Tuscaloosa businesswoman, educator and philanthropist, presented Ivey with the award. Randall was inducted into the Circle of Honor in 2025 along with her late husband, Pettus.
Ivey said she was grateful to receive the honor by the Black Warrior Council and highlighted the importance of public service.
“I’m proud to have dedicated my life to public service, there’s no more noble calling than to uplift and empower lives,” said Ivey during the Feb. 27 ceremony.
Ivey thanked the scouting organizations, including the Black Warrior Council for its contributions to educational opportunities, economic development, and public safety.
“In particular, I’m proud of the work done by our Scouting organizations like the Black Warrior Council, who lay a foundation for successful future in both our young people and our state, thank you for all you do to build a stronger Alabama by changing lives and preparing our future leaders,” said Ivey, a native of Camden in Wilcox County.
Ivey is wrapping up her second term as governor after a long career spent primarily in government.
After graduating from Auburn University in 1967, Ivey worked as a high school teacher and a bank officer. She served as reading clerk for the Alabama House of Representatives under then-Speaker Joseph C. McCorquodale and she served as assistant director at the Alabama Development Office.
In 2002, Ivey was elected to the first of two terms as Alabama’s treasurer and in 2010, she was elected to the first of two terms as lieutenant governor. On April 10, 2017, Ivey was sworn in as Alabama’s 54th governor after the resignation of Robert Bentley. She filled out the rest of Bentley’s term before winning the gubernatorial election in 2018 and she was re-elected in 2022.
She will leave office at the end of this year.
She is the first Republican woman to serve as Alabama’s governor but she’s the second woman to hold the state’s top executive office. Tuscaloosa County native Lurleen B. Wallace, a Democrat, became Alabama’s first female governor in 1966.
Circle of Honor luncheon raises nearly $200,000
Also during the ceremony, retired DCH Health System administrator Sammy Watson, who served as the event’s emcee, announced that the council had raised $197,000 through the luncheon that day.
Proceeds from the lunch will be used to expand Boy Scouts programs, making them available to over 3,000 young people in west central Alabama.
The Boy Scouts of America is the nation’s leading outdoor education and character development program. The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.
Reach Jasmine Hollie at JHollie@usatodayco.com. To support her work, please subscribe to The Tuscaloosa News.
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