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Alabama Decade of History
Topic Started: Jan 1 2010, 06:45 AM (105 Views)
mouser
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http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-stories/2009/12/post_68.html



Alabama's decade of highs and lows
By The Birmingham News
December 31, 2009, 10:12AM


Posted Image


Here is a look at some of the people, places and events that made their marks on metro Birmingham and Alabama from 2000 through 2009:

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

• Jefferson County collapses fi­nancially, driven by sewer bond deals that plunged the county bil­lions of dollars in debt and by the demise of an occupational tax.

• Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is removed from office in 2003 after he re­fuses to remove a 5,200-pound granite Ten Commandments mo­nument from state judicial build­ing.

• Jefferson County Commission passes a 1 cent sales tax in 2004 to pay for $1 billion worth of new school construction that is still un­der way across the county.

• Republican Gov. Bob Riley proposes biggest tax increase in state history, but voters reject it in 2003 by more than 2-to-1.

• Birmingham native Condo­leezza Rice in 2005 becomes U.S. secretary of state.

CORRUPTION

• Former Gov. Don Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy are convicted and sent to prison in a bribery case involving a Scrushy donation to Siegelman's lottery fund and Sie­gelman's appointment of Scrushy to a state health board.

• Five Jefferson County com­missioners (Jeff Germany, Chris McNair, Gary White, Mary Bucke­lew, Larry Langford) and a host of county officials and contractors are convicted or plead guilty in corruption cases.

• Two- year college investiga­tion produces more than a dozen guilty pleas, convictions and in­dictments from people with two­year college ties, including former Chancellor Roy Johnson, several college presidents and legislators.

CRIMES AND COURTS

• Former Ku Klux Klansmen Tommy Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry are indicted and convicted on murder charges in Birming­ham's most notorious crime-- the 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

• Three Birmingham police offi­cers -- Carlos Owen, Robert Ben­nett and Harley Chisholm -- are killed and Officer Michael Collins is wounded in a June 17, 2004, shooting at an Ensley drug house.

• Birmingham abortion clinic bomber and Olympic Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, who eluded a national manhunt, is cap­tured in 2003 and pleads guilty in Birmingham's federal court in 2005; he is sentenced to life in prison.

• Gunman kills 10 people in a March 2009 shooting spree in two rural south Alabama counties, making it the state's worst mass slaying.

• Three Birmingham college stu­dents set fire to nine churches in west Alabama in 2006.

BUSINESS AND THE ECONOMY

• Alabama becomes a major U.S. center of auto production as Honda, Hyundai and scores of suppliers join Mercedes-Benz, cre­ating thousands of jobs and at­tracting billions in investment.

• Massive accounting fraud is exposed at HealthSouth, bringing down its flamboyant leader, Rich­ard Scrushy, who is acquitted of fraud charges but is later ordered to repay the company $2.8 billion in a civil judgment.

• Birmingham's days as a re­gional banking center come to an end through a series of buyout deals that see SouthTrust disap­pear, AmSouth merge with Re­gions, and Compass snapped up by a Spanish bank, moves costing hundreds of jobs. The deepest na­tional recession since the Great Depression helps bring about the seizure of Colonial Bank, New South Federal and CapitalSouth.

• Birmingham's status as a headquarters hub for Fortune 500 companies fades as depar­tures and buyouts whittle the list of large hometown companies; landmark names such as Parisian disappear.

• Alabama's unemployment rate spikes to 10.9 percent in Oc­tober 2009, the highest rate in a quarter century, as the brutal re­cession ends an unprecedented era of prosperity.

• A prolonged housing boom re­shapes metro Birmingham, racking up years of record sales and sub­urban growth until the recession takes hold.

• Alabama beats out other states to land a massive indus­trial prize -- a $4.5 billion Thyssen-Krupp steel mill that will create 2,700 jobs near Mobile; it costs the state a record $811 mil­lion in incentives.

EDUCATION

• UAB builds the new UAB Hos­pital, Shelby Biomedical Research building, the new campus green, the new recreation center, a new dining hall and dorm and a new classroom building.

• The University of Alabama ex­pands from 19,000 to 28,000 stu­dents and undergoes a massive building campaign, adding several dorms, classroom buildings, parking decks and improvements to athletic facilities.

• Auburn University struggles, with former President William Walker forced out in 2004 and the university going on accredita­tion probation for meddling by the board of trustees in 2003. Trustee board is reshaped and new president is hired.

• Samford University, Miles College and Birmingham-South­ern College each say goodbye to longtime presidents (Thomas Corts, Albert Sloan and Neal Berte).

• State expands and improves numerous programs: Alabama Reading Initiative is praised as a national model and expands to all K-3 schools; 45 percent of state schools now have the Alabama Math, Science and Technology Ini­tiative; Access distance learning is now in every public high school; pre-kindergarten program is ranked the best in the nation for its standards.

SPORTS

• Alabama hires Nick Saban, who in three years leads Crimson Tide to national title game.

• Tommy Tuberville survives 2003 effort to oust him and leads Auburn to six straight Iron Bowl wins before resigning in 2008; Au­burn goes undefeated in 2004 but doesn't get to play for the na­tional title.

• Mark Ingram wins the Univer­sity of Alabama's first Heisman in 2009.

• Legion Field loses the Alabama football team and its upper deck but gains Papajohns.com Bowl game.

• Hoover High School becomes a state football powerhouse, winning six state titles in the dec­ade, and a sensation on MTV with two seasons of "Two-A-Days," fol­lowing Buccaneer football players and their coach, Rush Propst, on and off the field.

• Barber Motorsports Park and Museum opens in 2003 and brings a host of international motors­ports events to Birmingham.

• UAB track athlete Vonetta Flowers wins Olympic gold in bobsledding in 2002.

PEOPLE WHO MADE A MARK

Ruben Studdard from Birmingham and Taylor Hicks from Hoover win "American Idol" in 2003 and 2006; Bo Bice from Helena is runner-up in 2005.
• Mountain Brook teenager Natalee Holloway captures in­ternational attention when she disappears on a graduation trip to Aruba in 2005. She re­mains missing.

• Miss Alabama De­idre Downs is crowned 2005 Miss America.

• Chris and Diamond Harris of Center Point in 2002 become pa­rents to the first sur­viving set of black sex­tuplets on record and receive a new 5,000-square-foot house from the "Extreme Make­over: Home Edition" TV show.

OTHER NOTABLES

• The aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks hits hard in Alabama. The state contributes substantial number of National Guard and Re­serve units for the war on terror; numerous service members from the state serve multiple tours in and around Iraq and Afghanistan.

• More than 100 with Alabama ties die in those conflicts; more than 600 have been wounded.

• Vulcan returns to his perch in 2004 after a $14 million repair and renovation; new museum opens.

• Carraway Methodist Medical Center struggles and finally closes in 2008, ending a century of serv­ice to central Alabama.

• Heat wave and drought hit Bir­mingham and most of the rest of the state in 2007, making it the driest year on record with rainfall 47 percent below average; cities restrict outdoor water use.

• City Stages music festival struggles with crippling debt all decade and finally calls it quits af­ter 21 years; files for bankruptcy in 2009.
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Gr8fulheart
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I'm lovin 'People Who Made a Mark'! ;wh
I actually remember a few of these & I'm no where close to Alabama.
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san
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Taylor Hicks has left his mark on the decade in more ways than one, just as he has left his mark on our lives in this decade.

It is interesting to look back over this decade personally. It is BT and AT...before Taylor and after Taylor. A lot has happened!

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mouser
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While many of these noteworthy , famous or infamous, people or events put Alabama in the news, it seems to me that the following Birmingham notables made huge "splashes" nationally and internationally. #1 , # 4 , # 5 and # 6 certainly were responsible for making the city of Birmingham a household name.

1. Condo­leezza Rice in 2005 becomes U.S. secretary of state.

2. Hoover High School becomes a state football powerhouse, winning six state titles in the dec­ade, and a sensation on MTV with two seasons of "Two-A-Days," fol­lowing Buccaneer football players and their coach, Rush Propst, on and off the field.


3. UAB track athlete Vonetta Flowers wins Olympic gold in bobsledding in 2002.


4. Alabama hires Nick Saban, who in three years leads Crimson Tide to national title game.and a potential second national title.

5. Birmingham abortion clinic bomber and Olympic Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, who eluded a national manhunt, is cap­tured in 2003 and pleads guilty in Birmingham's federal court in 2005; he is sentenced to life in prison.


6. Ruben Studdard from Birmingham and Taylor Hicks from Hoover win "American Idol" in 2003 and 2006.


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