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Lighting the way for Alexander City & Lake Martin since 1892 May 4, 2016 Vol. 124, No. 89 www.alexcityoutlook.com
High school softball tournaments continue.
Ford named National Spirit Award winner By CLIFF WILLIAMS Staff Writer
Cliff Williams / The Outlook
Dana Ford poses for a photograph with her second grade class at Horseshoe Bend School Tuesday. Ford was selected as the LifeSaver Spirit Award winner Monday.
Now the nation knows that Horseshoe Bend School has a special teacher by the name of Dana Ford. Ford was named the National Life Group’s first ever LifeChanger of the Year National Spirit Award Winner Monday. Ford was surprised by the award. “I think I am still in shock,” Ford said. “I never thought I would get national recognition being from a small county like Tallapoosa County. I
think sometimes we are overlooked, but I was wrong. You always think these awards go to someone in the big cities or California.” Ford was selected for the prize out of more than 600 teachers, administrators and school district employees from 365 school districts across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. LifeChanger of the Year is an annual program, started in 2011, that recognizes and rewards outstanding K-12 educators and school district employees who have demonstrated a proven
Baker named Outlook publisher
Camp Hill cuts hours of city workers By CLIFF WILLIAMS Staff Writer
Tallapoosa Publishers, Inc. welcomes newest member STAFF REPORT TPI Staff
Cliff Williams / The Outlook
Steve Baker has been named publisher, president and C.E.O. of Tallapoosa Publishers, Inc. Baker, 59, has headed five newspapers in his career, including most recently working Baker as publisher of The York (Neb.) News-Times. He was formerly publisher of the Pierre, S.D., Capital Journal and served as president of the South Dakota Newspaper
Lights, camera, cure Above, Melinda Gilbert, left, and Jessica Sanford, right, talk about Friday’s Relay for Life event. Area cancer survivors and patients currently in treatment were the stars of the show when UAB Medicine-Cancer Center at Russell Medical Center hosted its “Lights. Camera. Cure. An Evening on the Red Carpet” cancer survivors dinner on Tuesday.
See PUBLISHER • Page 2
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Linda Shaffer, REALTOR® C: 256.794.4641 • W: 256.329.5253 shaffer@lakemartin.net 5295 Highway 280, Alexander City, AL
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ability to make a beneficial difference in the lives of students. This year, in addition to naming 15 LifeChanger prize winners, National Life Group added the National Spirit Award to recognize a nominee whose school community showed exceptional support for their nomination. “Recognition of every nominee is an important part of the LifeChanger program. So, it’s really fun for us to see the creative and enthusiastic ways in which schools celebrate their nominees and rally community-wide support,” said See FORD • Page 7
The Camp Hill Town Council voted to cut the hours of most full time employees as a cost saving measure at Monday’s council meeting. At the same the body is learning more about a potential income stream from internet service in the area. The council voted to reduce full time employees to a 32-hour workweek. “I hate to do this,” Councilmember Anthony Pogue said. “But it is better to have a job than to be laid off. We are facing between a $7-12,000 a month shortage on income.” The reduction is for all fulltime employees but the police department. The move will save the town about $3,000 a month. The council decided against a hour reduction for the police department. “You cannot do this to the police department,” Mayor Danny Evans said. “You would not be able to have 24-hour coverage.” In a move to help save some money and provide some morale to employees, Pogue is voluntarily reducing his council pay. See CAMP HILL • Page 6
Elliott has protected presidents, prisoners in 56-year law enforcement career By DAVID GRANGER Staff Writer
Law enforcement is in Wendell Elliott’s blood. Elliott’s father was a police officer in Childersburg and a deputy sheriff in Talladega County. So a few years after serving in the Korean Conflict as a petty officer in the U.S. Navy –where he aided four invasions aboard an LCVP (landing craft, vehicle personnel) and earned the National Defense, United Nations and Korean service ribbons – Elliott made his way into his own career in law enforcement. The Lineville High School graduate, who turned 86 on April 29, now works security for Russell Lands and has been in law enforcement for 56 of those
years. He says he plans to remain in law enforcement “until Radney Funeral Home gets me.” Elliott’s career has included time as an investigator, revenue enforcement officer, a uniformed policemen and a security officer. He’s been trained in criminal investigations, court security, personal security and court security. And he has worked with Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. “I was assigned to President Nixon’s protection detail while I was in Miami working for Customs in the Treasury Department,” Elliott said. “When he came down to Miami, I was part of that detail.” Elliott was a criminal investiSubmitted / The Outlook gator for customs in Miami for Russell Lands security officer Wendell Elliott celebrated his 86th birthday on See ELLIOTT • Page 6 Friday, April 29th. Elliott has almost a quarter century with Russell Lands.
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