black belt Archives - Page 2 of 2

Enjoyed a late morning drive down Highway 5 to Marion, Alabama this past Wednesday. Met with the Cahaba Trace Commission to discuss scenic byways and their possible interest in having a section of their route designated as a byway. We met over lunch at a restaurant (Lottties, I think is the name) right off the courthouse square in Marion. What a beautiful courthouse, too. The food was actually good: fried okra, cole slaw and grilled pork chops. No bread, though. I think the large crowd had them a bit off their game.

Had an opportunity to meet with Nisa Miranda of the University of Alabama Economic Development Institute briefly. We discussed www.alabamasfrontporches.com for a few minutes before she headed off to Camden and then to Ezell’s in Lavaca (the cole slaw is much better at Ezells).

I’m just getting started working on a new site. I didn’t develop the look of the site, but they need help with updating it, examining the design and structure and determining what sort of direction they need to go in to improve the site for visitors. I’m particularly excited about this project because it is a part of the Black Belt in Alabama.

I’ve worked with many of these people on different projects (from Your Town Alabama and Scenic Byways, to Alabama Communities of Excellence and the Alabama Association of RC&D’s). But, I haven’t had the chance to do much work in the Black Belt where I grew up. I’ve made a trip to Thomasville, AL so far, and have several more trips to Clarke County scheduled. Should be fun. In the meantime, check out their site (prior to my working on it) at www.alabamasfrontporches.com. It has some driving tours, a listing of some restaurants and some activities to do while in the Black Belt. We’ll be working on many more. Right now, it isn’t that well developed and it has some issues related to how things have been updated (photos placed in at the wrong size and people not familiar with html making changes to code), but we’ll be working on that in the coming months as well as developing substantially more interesting and significant tours and descriptions of the many wonderful places in the Black Belt of Southwestern Alabama.

I just picked up an interesting new book on community tourism: Destination Branding for Small Cities: The Essentials for Successful Place Branding by Bill Baker. (if you buy it through this link, I’ll get a bit of money from Amazon.com) I’m looking forward to reading it in more depth and getting some fresh ideas. I’m hoping that this book and a few others I’ve ordered will help me better work with the Alabama’s Front Porches folks and do an even better job of coaching them into a stronger identity.