Troy King, Alabama’s attorney general, will be the featured speaker at the monthly Blount County-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce breakfast scheduled for Wednesday, July 22, beginning at 7:30 a.m. at Twin Oaks. The program will be sponsored by Tyson Foods, an excellent corporate citizen that is involved in a number of worthy local causes. More...

The latest announced candidate for governor in the Republican Primary is the current governor's longtime buddy and campaign coordinator, Bill Johnson, the head of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA), the state spigot through which a lot of federal money flows. He has an interesting past. More...

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the recent column “Wallace’s Ponderings,” which brought back many good memories. We are sure that a weekly column such as this would be a tremendous asset to The Blount Countian. Edward R. Herd Oneonta More...

The high school football season doesn’t kick off for another couple of months and fall practice will not start till next month. However, summer workouts are well underway and teams are also participating in summer camps and other competitions. The Oneonta Redskins are hosting the second annual 7-on-7 Invitational Tournament next week at Gilbreath Stadium. More...

The government has calculated the cost for a middle-income family to raise a child to age 18 is approximately $200,000, or about $30.45 per day. So, if we ever want to be rich, should we forget about having children? The answer lies in our definition of the word “rich.” From a monetary standpoint, one in possession of an over-abundance of money or goods is said to be rich. Therefore, if material abundance is necessary for your happiness, by all means, don’t have children. More...

Background Scripture: Luke 4:31-37; 20:1-8 Devotional Reading: Isaiah 11:1-3 If you have visited the Holy Land, you almost certainly have been to Kapher-Nahum, which in our Bibles is rendered as Capernaum. This was the city that served as the headquarters of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Although born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, more than any other place, he considered this his true home. Today it is an archaeological site much visited by pilgrims. More...

If there appears to be a disagreement among family members about information to appear in an obituary, The Blount Countian reserves the right to decline to publish any of it. The newspaper takes pride in not charging for publishing obituaries except for those of persons without direct connection to this county, in which case persons requesting them will pay for them when they are submitted. More...