Wrestling sectionals recap!
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INSIDE TODAY
SPORTS, PAGE A7
Kudos aplenty and an important note
OPINION, PAGE A4
THE WETUMPKA HERALD Elmore County’s Oldest Newspaper - Established 1898
Wetumpka, AL 36092
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By DAVID GRANGER Managing Editor
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VOL. 119, NO. 7
ENSLEN: Vote kills probate judge change
Wetumpka crater lecture and tours approach Wetumpka is a town steeped in history. In fact, one of the city’s formative events – in the most literal sense of the phrase – dates back approximately 85 million years. “About 84 million years ago, central Alabama was situated at the shoreline of the northern Gulf of Mexico,” writes David King Jr., a professor of geology at Auburn University. “A warm, equitable climate prevailed and the age of the dinosaurs was in full swing. (That’s when) a small asteroid – perhaps 300 to 350 meters in diameter – penetrated the atmosphere and (the) shallow ocean waters of central Alabama and detonated nearly a kilometer in the crust.” It was the greatest natural disaster in the history of Alabama, created a crater some four miles wide and, because the location was covered by shallow sea at the time of impact, scientists have declared it to be one of the “best preserved marine impact craters in the world.” King’s years of research and testing at the crater site resulted in a 2002 paper published in Earth and See CRATER TOURS • Page 3
50¢
WEDNESDAY • FEBRUARY 15, 2017
By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer
Submitted / The Herald
KBF fishermen show off catch, above, and meaure fish in a ‘hog trough,’ left.
BEST OF Fishing pros go head-to-head to THE BEST: determine kayak bass fishing king By DAVID GRANGER Managing Editor
What better way to introduce the Wetumpka area to the sport of kayak bass fishing than to bring the best in the sport to town for head-to-head competition? And that’s exactly what Kayak Bass Fishing’s Chad Hoover is doing. For three days, 2016 Kayak Bass Fishing national champion Matt Ball and 2016’s KBF Angler of the Year Jay Wallen
will do battle on the Coosa River and in Lake Jordan to decide, once and for all, who is the best of the best. So what’s this showdown between fishermen called? You guessed it. The Best of the Best. Hoover, a Navy veteran who became familiar with fishing the Coosa with a fellow rescue swimmer whose father lived in Wetumpka, sees the one-on-one battle taking place in the “perfect fishery” for See FISHING • Page 2
Elmore County Probate Judge John Enslen appealed to the commissioners a second time for a future requirement that a probate judge be a practicing attorney and the commission approved $10,000 for Lake Martin economic impact study. At Monday’s commission meeting, Elmore County Commissioners decided roughly 14 items of new business in a two-and-a-half hour meeting full of debate between commissioners, Enslen and the public. Ultimately Enslen’s proposed amendment to the 1901 Constitution of Alabama, relating to the Elmore County Probate Judge was approved in a 3-2 vote, with Commissioners Kenny Holt and Earl Reeves voting no. However, in Enslen’s lengthy discussions with the commission he said the amendment would likely not pass the state legislature if it received a less than unanimous approval. He said a 4-1 vote would likely the extent of the division the legislative delegation would allow and two no votes would almost guarantee it would be killed by legislators. Holt was staunchly opposed to the amendment and aggressively questioned Enslen on the amendment’s intent and effect. He went toe-to-toe with Enslen on Elmore County history and demographics, his argument largely focused on the limiting factor the amendment would have on the majority of the population in the county if the requirement be enforced that a probate judge practice the law. Diplomatic barbs flew from the podium to the bench, with Holt at one time stating, “Don’t give the attorney answer.” And Enslen earlier stating dryly, “If you want See COMMISSION • Page 3
Blues world is buzzing about Montgomery’s King Bee By DAVID GRANGER Managing Editor
The crowd that gathered at Memphis’ The Tin Roof on Beale Street for the semifinals of the International Blues Challenge on Feb. 4 had no idea, but Montgomery’s King Bee was about to take them to church. “We did a song called ‘You Gotta Move’ and the words to that song, one of the verses is ‘You may be high, you may be low. You may be rich, you may be poor. But when the Lord gets ready, you got to move.’” The blues-gospel song was written by Mississippi Fred McDowell, a blues guitarist
who used a pocket knife and a rib bone as a slide and died in 1972 in the city where King Bee performed his classic. It was covered by The Rolling Stones on their 1971 “Sticky Fingers” album. “In the quarterfinals you play 25-minute sets and in the semifinals you play 30-minute sets.” Cummings said of the challenge’s format. “We could have added another original, but what we decided to do is play an old gospel-blues song that we had rearranged to try to pay some homage File / The Herald to the fact that without the Montgomery’s King Bee Band, which performed its fi rst show at the 2011 River and Blues old gospel songs back in the day, we really wouldn’t have Festival in Wetumpka and also performed at the festival in 2012 and 2013, recently made blues the way that it is. That’s the top eight in the International Blues Challenge, held along world-famous Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. King Bee played Memphis’ Orpheum Theatre in the competition’s See BAND • Page 3 finals.
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