Tag Archives: announcement

Knowledge abundant in The Magic City

Birmingham was recently included in a Forbes Magazine list of the nation’s biggest brain magnets – it’s on the list at number six.

While that result shocked some (maybe some of the same folks still in shock about UAB’s NCAA tournament selection) visitors to BhamWiki really weren’t. The volunteer-built virtual archive of the city’s history (whose creator John Morse is still an occasional contributor to this site) is celebrating its fifth anniversary today.

mental floss logoAnother reason to not necessarily doubt the ranking is the success of mental_floss magazine. Yesterday’s announcement of its sale to magazine publisher Felix Dennis was the first time many learned (or realized) that the magazine is based in The Magic City (their offices are on Southside) or that one of the founders, Will Pearson, is from Hoover.

Neither one of these fine establishments are going anywhere anytime soon, but that’s no reason to not go ahead and check them out.

UAB is going dancing on Tuesday

Congrats to the UAB Blazers mens basketball team for making it into this year’s NCAA Tournament! As you can tell from this video shared on CBS 42’s website last night, they were pretty excited about it themselves.

Last night UAB learned they’d be playing fellow No. 12 seed Clemson on Tuesday evening as one of the First Four games. Tip-off will be at 8 p.m. CT; the game will be played in Dayton, OH and aired on TruTV. They are one of two Conference USA teams in this year’s tournament, down from four last yearUAB brought home conference hardware last week, with Coach Mike Davis being named Conference USA coach of the year and guard Aaron Johnson garnering player of the year honors.

It will be the Blazers’ first trip to “The Dance” since the departure of former head coach Mike Anderson in 2006 and their 14th appearance overall.

Last night’s selection didn’t come without some folks questioning the choice (cue ESPN).

Video: CBS 42.

Community Foundation launches Prize2TheFuture

If you’ve been online at all today, you’ve probably seen a great deal of buzz about last night’s Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham announcement – the one that introduced Prize2TheFuture to the metro region. It was also the basis of yesterday’s editorial piece on The Terminal.

We figured we’d share some highlights from remarks made during the announcement.

The idea competition is open to everybody (as in international) and is focused on the city block directly to the east of the current phase of Railroad Park and south of the Alabama Power steam plant scheduled to close in 2012.

The website has specific information about the competition and its prize, $50,000; Prize2TheFuture also has digital outposts on Twitter and Facebook.

BTW – if you’re on Twitter, the official hashtag for the competition is #p2tf.

StoryCorps comes to Birmingham in 2011

Story Corps. Omar Omar/Flickr.Yesterday the Birmingham Business Alliance announced via their newsletter that StoryCorps was setting up shop in Birmingham, AL in the near future. The organization’s website currently says that their mobile tour stop will take place from January 6 – 29, though specific details about the location are currently not available.

People interested in participating in the long-running project will be able to make reservations on December 23 at 10 a.m. CT with additional slots becoming available on January 7.

The non-profit organization has been around since 2003 and according to their website, they’ll be partnering with WBHM during their stay in the Magic City. This will be their second stop in the coming weeks in Alabama; they will be in Montgomery starting this Thursday through December 11 as part of their StoryCorps Griot Initiative.

If neither of those dates work for you, this would be a good time to remember that this year’s National Day of Listening is November 26.

Photo: Story Corps. Omar Omar/Flickr.

Barons announce 2011 promo schedule

New Barons primary logo - Courtesy of Birmingham BaronsNo, normally this probably wouldn’t be much of a story to share. The reason it’s even getting mentioned here today is because when their new promotional schedule was released last week, it was based on the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox playing their home games at Regions Park in 2011.

The schedule does state clearly though that dates and time are subject to change. A tentative agreement was announced recently between the city of Birmingham and the Barons to eventually play their games at an as of yet to be built ballpark in greater downtown Birmingham, leading to a less than enthusiastic response from Hoover mayor Tony Petelos.

The Birmingham Business Journal reported in October that former Barons owner Art Clarkson has offered to bring an independent league team to Regions Park if the Barons do indeed eventually move. Incidentally it was Clarkson who delivered greetings from the Chicago White Sox as part of Rickwood Field’s 100th anniversary this summer.

Bare Hands to go out with a BANG!

Bare Hands Gallery logo Bare Hands Gallery announced Monday morning via its website, emails and its Facebook fan page that it will cease operations effective Thursday, December 30, 2010. The gallery has operated on Richard Arrington, Jr. Blvd. for the last 14 ½ years.

The gallery’s final exhibition will be SHINE 2010 – Going Out with a BANG!, taking place from Friday, December 3 until the 30th.

It had been enjoying a busy year, including its 14th anniversary celebration in June and continued support from the community.  The gallery’s board however that the non-profit organization was not sustainable given the present economic climate.

The annual Day of the Dead event will continue as its own separate non-profit organization, Day of the Dead Alabama, according to the posted statement. The Birmingham News has already posted a story about this morning’s announcement.