FOR SUBSCRIBERS: LAKE MARTIN LIVING INSIDE
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Lighting the way for Alexander City & Lake Martin since 1892
February 15, 2019 Vol. 127, No. 33 www.alexcityoutlook.com 75¢
City sets streets for repair 11 streets to undergo paving and repair starting in August By JIMMY WIGFIELD Managing Editor
The City of Alexander City has approved 11 streets for various levels of paving and repair this year, most of which haven’t been significantly improved in two to three decades, according to public works director Gerard Brewer. “With the exception of what I call stopgap patching, which would be the tar and gravel patching, these roads for sure (haven’t been touched in) 20 years, some of them probably more like 30 years minimum,” Brewer said. The 11 streets with the length of scheduled upgrades are: • Halliana Road, 1.63 miles. • Sanders Road, 0.92 miles. • Airport Drive, 0.83 miles. • Maple Street, 0.58 miles. • 6th Street, 0.54 miles. • Calhoun Street, 0.45 miles. • Beach Street, 0.24 miles. • Adamson Street, 0.22 miles. • Eastwood Drive, 0.32 miles. • Rebecca Avenue, 0.30 miles. • Roads inside the city cemetery. If the budget allows, the following may be added to the list: • Hydrangea Circle, 0.31 miles. • Brookside Drive, 0.26 miles. In all, that’s 6.6 centerline miles of resurfacing and patching. “I’ve been here 22 years and 6th Street we’ve done some work on but that’s the only one of the group,” Brewer said. “All the rest of them we’ve not done anything to since I’ve been here.” Brewer said the major project could include milling, patching, striping, traffic control, bonding, applying binder and sealing chips among other treatments.
Dream takes flight McKelvey says flying homemade plane ‘the best feeling you could imagine’ By RON COLQUITT For The Outlook
W
hen Rush McKelvey was building and flying radio-controlled model airplanes as a boy, he dreamed of building and flying a real one. At 33, McKelvey earned his private pilot’s license and set out making his dream come true. In 2011, he finished building his real aircraft, a Vans RV-8 aerobatic plane. He began work on the full-sized plane, constructed of aircraft aluminum and See PLANE • Page 9
Today’s
Weather
64 56 High
Low
Lake Martin
Lake Levels
483.76 Reported on 02/14/19 @ 3 p.m.
LACEY HOWELL 256.307.2443
laceyshowell@gmail.com 5295 Highway 280, Alex City, AL
6
Ron Colquitt / For The Outlook
Top: Rush McKelvey, who has his private pilot’s license, built a Vans RV-8 aerobatic plane beginning in 2008 and said it took him 900 hours to complete. Above: McKelvey built his RV-8 plane from a kit containing more than 10,000 parts trucked in from Oregon.
See STREETS • Page 3
Respect for Cooper helped with integration Longtime educator displayed ‘wisdom, guidance’ on school board By RON COLQUITT For The Outlook
Rev. Alfred Cooper considers himself more fortunate than many black people in the South during the Civil Rights era and when schools were being desegregated. The former Laurel assistant principal and football coach was involved in that effort while serving as a member of the Alexander City Board of Education and recalled there were no riots, unrest or bloodshed. “When that time came, we just A. Cooper integrated and went on with the regular work that we normally did,” Cooper, 90,
54708 90050
8 USPS Permit # 013-080
See COOPER • Page 3
Ron Colquitt / For The Outlook
The Cooper Community Center is named in honor of Rev. Alfred Cooper.
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