April 2026 | Volume 13 | Issue 12
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A calling to lead Accountant-turned-pastor now leads a growing congregation at The Church at Liberty Park By EMILY REED Being a pastor or in ministry was not always something on the radar for Buck Poole, who in August was called to be the senior pastor at The Church at Liberty Park. “I had a moment in my life where the Lord was really convicting my heart, but at the time, I had no idea what that meant,” the 42-year-old Poole said.
See POOLE | page A16 Buck Poole sits in the sanctuary at The Church at Liberty Park, which has grown from about 250 members to about 450 members in the past four years. Photo by David Leong.
Crime in Vestavia Hills drops 8% in 2025
Vestavia Hills police Cpl. Ryan Shealy, the daytime patrol supervisor for the department, keeps watch over traffic on U.S. 31 in Vestavia Hills on March 12. Photo by Jon Anderson.
By JON ANDERSON Crime in Vestavia Hills continued to drop in 2025, with the city continuing to experience an extremely low rate of violent crime, Police Chief Shane Ware said. There were no murders (for the third year in a row), no kidnappings, no arson incidents and only one robbery in a city with a population of nearly 38,000, statistics from the Police Department show. Assaults were down 20% from 132 in 2024 to 106
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in 2025, and the number of weapons offenses fell 38% from 24 to 15. “Our crime is so relatively low that it would take very little to skew these numbers and inflate them and make them look different,” Ware said. Drug offenses are by far the largest major crime category in Vestavia Hills, with 617 incidents in 2025, down 2% from 629 in 2024.
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Home & Garden
Hallway Hero
Discover local businesses that specialize in keeping your home and garden at their best.
Pizitz Middle School custodian Orenzo “Mr. O” Hardy turns small moments into lasting impact.
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