
Just two week after a white Christmas, Blount County received another jolt of winter.
It might be based on how important to the public an event was, regardless of the number of articles devoted to it. Most people wouldn’t argue that the tornado outbreak of late April 2011 was one of the most momentous events of the year. The importance to the community of some events might be a little more subjective, and there are several examples of that in this year’s top stories – getting Blount County drug court up and running, for example. In those cases, you’ll just have to accept – or question – our judgement.

U.S. 278 near Brooksville; Tommy Murphy property was for sale and not occupied at time of storm.

Work continues on the new Southeastern High School.

Sen. Scott Beason (left) listens as citizens at County Line express their opposition to a proposed landfill.

Bids for repair work on Blount County’s three remaining covered bridges were opened in September.

During a stop in Hayden as part of his tour of storm damage in Blount County, Gov. Robert Bentley chats with (from left) Jerry and Jane Ferguson, Judge David Standridge and his wife Danna Standridge, and Sen. Scott Beason. Photo courtesy Max Armstrong, Blount County EMA Director


The objective of the extended, intensive effort is to rehabilitate drug offenders and return them to society in a condition – perhaps better then they’ve ever been before – to assume their roles as productive workers, solid citizens, and responsible family members.

The Oneonta Redskins reached the 4A title game.
3. Casey demands a refund. In the first commission meeting of the new year, District Attorney Pamela Casey requested that $30,000 from the District Attorney’s budget which had been donated to the Blount County Sheriff’s Department by former DA Tommy Roundtree in 2010 before she took office, be restored to the DA’s 2011 budget. Insisting the 2010 donation made by Rountree was improper, she told the commission that if the money was not returned, she would turn the matter over to the attorney general and the state auditor for investigation. Over Casey’s objections, the commission voted to transfer the money from the commission’ account to the sheriff’s department’s account. The tense episode and its aftermath set the tone for subsequent interactions in the courthouse for much of the remainder of year.
For example, in the Aug. 3 commission work session, commissioners criticized Casey for buying a new vehicle for her use with money she had requested the commission transfer to the DA’s operating fund to cover staff salaries. They also questioned whether she had bought the vehicle in accordance with state bid law. Casey said the money by law was hers to spend at her own discretion on needs of the district attorney’s office, and suggested state bid law does not apply to that office.
A truce appears to have fallen over the courthouse since those events came to an uneasy close in late September.
4. The killer storms of April. On April 27, a statewide series of tornadoes carved a path of destruction across north Alabama, killing 241 and injuring more than 2000. The storms staged a twopronged attack in Blount County, but spared the county any fatalities. No serious injuries were reported. Blount County was subsequently declared a part of the 36-county disaster area.
The first storm in the early morning hours damaged homes at Mountain Woods Lake and in the Nectar area before exiting the county in a welter of downed trees around Summit. The second and more damaging storm entered the county at the Walker County line in the late afternoon and churned a halfmile wide, 15-mile long trail of destruction paralleling Mulberry Fork all the way to Blountsville where it reached its climax along Maple Drive before moving on northward toward the Marshall County line.
Much of the story of the storm in Blount County had to do with the dedication and effort of volunteers and others – road crews, volunteer fire departments, the power company, and ordinary citizens –who mustered out to help victims and clean up the welter of limbs, downed trees, building materials, and destroyed homes the storm left behind.
5. 2011 Graduating Class. A total of 560 students graduated last May from the seven Blount County high schools. If percentages from recent years hold, about 400 of those kids have now entered their first semester of college, as many as