Daphne’s William Wynne Named to Alabama Pardons and Paroles Board
Gov. Bob Riley appointed William Wynne Jr. of Daphne, chief U.S. probation officer for the Southern District of Alabama, as a special member of the state Board of Pardons and…
Baldwin County’s Longest-Serving Prosecutor Weighs His Options
Baldwin County District Attorney David Whetstone, three months into a new six-year term, acknowledged in April 2005 that retirement rumors were circulating and that some of them were true.
A Fairhope Lawyer’s Campaign to Give Dixey Bar Its Proper Name
In March 2005, Fairhope attorney David Bagwell asked federal geographers to make Dixey Bar official, tracing its name to a clipper ship lost in a hurricane at the mouth of…
Mother of Mystics: Why Mobile’s True Golden Age Ran From 1880 to 1914
A Point Clear lawyer and self-described jackleg historian argues Mobile's golden age belongs to its mystic societies, dating it precisely from the last great New Year's parade in 1881 to…
Stan the New Man: A 30-Year FBI Veteran Takes a Seat on the Fairhope City Council
Dan Stankoski spent three decades at the FBI supervising violent crime, domestic terrorism and civil rights cases. Now he's on the Fairhope City Council worrying about the next bottleneck on…
A Mother’s Notes to a Son: An Election, a Wedding, and a Mobile Household in 2004
A collection of e-mails from a Mobile mother to her grown son captures the 2004 election season as it was lived in one Alabama household: gloom, gallows humor, wedding logistics…
Small Talk in Daphne: The Quiet Newcomer Who Toppled a Political Regime
Daphne's new mayor runs a convenience store, quietly bankrolls a Catholic school, kept every city official he inherited and says his only agenda is controlling the growth barreling toward the…
Riley and Bronner Pressed Dow to Run Again, but Mobile’s Mayor Appeared Unmoved
Gov. Bob Riley and retirement systems chief David Bronner urged Mobile Mayor Mike Dow to seek re-election at a meeting shortly before Christmas 2004, but his backers conceded he was…
Interest-Only Mortgages and the Baldwin County Boom: A Quiet Argument Over Risk
In December 2004, a private exchange among South Alabama professionals turned into a pointed debate: were interest-only mortgages fueling Baldwin County's housing boom, and what happens if prices stop rising?
Hap-pening or Hap-less? A Senate Retirement Rumor Freezes the Field in District 34
State Sen. Hap Myers said in August 2004 he would likely seek a fourth term, a signal that scrambled the plans of would-be successors in Alabama Senate District 34 ahead…