More than you ever wanted to know about Alabama native Joe Watts
by joewatts
by joewatts
Just finished a quick redesign for the Rural Heritage Center in Thomaston, Alabama. Redesigned using, as I pretty much do all websites now, in WordPress. Very flexible, very simple. Now, they can make their own updates!
by joewatts
My brother-in-law, Billy Milstead, retired several years ago. Since then, he’s developed a real passion for all things Southwest Alabama. He’s got a real interest in documenting all the historic places in the area–of which there are many, many, many. He worked on the Alabama’s Front Porches project for a year, traveling the roads and taking photos as a AmeriCorps Vista volunteer. After he finished that project, he wanted to do more. I’ve now built him a website (Rural Southwest Alabama) to hold all these photos, maps and descriptions in a way that lets people from the outside world explore what the rural Black Belt has to offer.
by joewatts
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.
by joewatts
This, the last week of January, looks like it will be a busy one. I’ve got a meeting to finalize my upcoming work on the West Alabama Regional Tourism website, www.alabamasfrontporches.com on Monday.
Then, Tuesday and Wednesday I’ll be heading to the Gulf to be part of our final presentations relating to the development of a Corridor Management Plan for the Coastal Connection Scenic Byway (one meeting on Tuesday in Bayou La Batre and the next meeting on Wednesday morning in Fairhope). This is part of the Alabama Scenic Byways project I’m working on with the Alabama Association of Regional Councils and we’ve been actively working on this for almost a year. (The kick-off meeting was held in February 2007. That’s when this photo was taken.) It will be good to be finished.
This really is the time of the year to go to the gulf, although I won’t have time to enjoy it.