Contributors

EDITORIAL Alec Etheredge Madoline Markham Keith McCoy Scott Mims Emily Sparacino

CONTRIBUTORS Aliza Baker Lauren Dowdle James Culver Lindsey Drennan Laura Gossett Dawn Harrison Morgan Hunt Lauren Winter

DESIGN Jamie Dawkins Kate Sullivan Green Connor Martin-Lively

MARKETING Kristy Brown Darniqua Bowen Kari George Caroline Hairston Rachel Henderson Rhett McCreight Kim McCulla Viridiana Romero Lisa Shapiro Kerrie Thompson

ADMINISTRATION

Hailey Dolbare Mary Jo Eskridge Daniel Holmes Stacey Meadows Tim Prince James Culver, Photographer

James lives in the Birmingham area with his wife, Rachel, and their three children, Callie, James III and John Michael. He is a graduate of Auburn University and spent 17 years in Atlanta working as a graphic designer, creative director and photographer. He specializes in event, real estate and portrait photography, and he can be found on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at @jculvercreative, and via his website, jculver.com.

Lauren Dowdle, Writer

An award-winning writer, Lauren lives in Hoover with her husband, daughter and four fur-babies. She writes for a variety of local, national and international publications. A graduate from the University of Alabama, Lauren played the tuba in the Million Dollar Band, which is how she met her husband. When she isn’t writing or chasing around a toddler, she loves to bake for friends and family.

Morgan Hunt, Photographer

Morgan recently finished her BS in art from the University of Montevallo. With her business, Morgan Hunt Media, she works as a freelance commercial and wedding photographer in the Birmingham area while getting her MA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design. She believes that photographs have a very unique storytelling ability, and her work lives in a space between journalism and fine art.

Lauren Winter, Photographer

Southern to the core, Lauren Winter grew up in Birmingham and now lives in Bluff Park. She is mama to two little girls, and owner of Fresh Grace Photography, which specializes in lifestyle family photography and weddings. In addition to her girls, Lauren’s favorites include sweet tea, camping, football, bluebirds, thunderstorms and puppy breath.

Hoover’s Magazine is published bimonthly by Shelby County Newspapers Inc., P.O. Box 947, Columbiana, AL 35051. Hoover’s Magazine is a registered trademark. All contents herein are the sole property of Shelby County Newspapers Inc. [the Publisher]. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without written permission from the Publisher. Please address all correspondence (including but not limited to letters, story ideas and requests to reprint materials) to: Editor, Hoover’s Magazine, P.O. Box 947, Columbiana, AL 35051.

Hoover’s Magazine is mailed to select households throughout Hoover, and a limited number of free copies are available at local businesses. Please visit HooversMagazine.com for a list of those locations. Subscriptions are available at a rate of $16.30 for one year by visiting HooversMagazine.com or calling (205) 669-3131, ext. 532.

ON THE COVER

Farmhouse Flair Brendt Blanks posts about seasonal decor in her Ross Bridge home and more on @shegaveitago.

Photo by Lauren Winter Design by Jamie Dawkins

IIs it just me, or is Hoover a bit hard to define geographically? There’s Galleria-area Hoover, Greystone Hoover, Ross Bridge Hoover, Bluff Park Hoover, and somehow it all adds up to more than 85,000 people. And did you know that the only cities in the state larger than us are Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, Huntsville and Tuscaloosa? By the numbers and by map, it seems like it would be hard to feel connected in this lovely place we call home. But not so, I find. When I talk to most anyone here (or in Birmingham in general), we can find some degree of connection with mutual friends or acquaintances. That’s just the way our big city-small town works. And

I’m reminded of that each time we put together a new issue of this magazine, as story ideas flow from all sorts of places that remind me of all the ways we are tied to one another, even in this strange social distancing era we are living in.

Speaking of, one of the best ways I know to find story ideas on social media. I asked the What’s Happening in Hoover Facebook group a while back about bloggers from Hoover, and that led me to Brendt Blanks’ @shegaveitago’s Instagram page full of home décor tips and more. A few messages later, I confirmed she lived in Ross Bridge with her family, and we’d setup a photo shoot at her house.

Around that time, my summer intern from Samford University, Aliza

Baker, came across a baker of stunning teacake designs. Her Instagram images screamed magazine story, but was she a Hoover’s Magazine story? A quick message confirmed Cherri Jones in fact bakes her Ginger

Lily Sweets right here in Hoover, and boy did her pretty sweets pose well for the camera!

Other stories come at a recommendation of folks around us. Sara

Franklin, who is now the executive director of the Epilepsy Foundation of

Alabama, told us about how inspired she’d been by Hoover High School track athlete Lauren Harding-Smith after her epilepsy diagnosis, and

Dawn Harrison, a photographer we work with, suggested we do a story on a Yasmine Oliveira, a Spain Park wrestler who just so happens to be female. Artist Christi Bunn reached out to us about the Hoover Arts

Council, and her artwork ended up making a great story too.

As for the last feature in this issue, Corey Nolen and I connected this spring about something unrelated to the podcast he’d start this summer (and discovered we had some mutual friends), but because of that I ended up listening to his 2 Americas podcast with Jesse Suttle and quickly realized they both lived in Bluff Park…hello, story idea. Be sure to read their thoughts behind it starting on page 44.

No matter if you live in the Galleria area, Greystone, Ross Bridge, Bluff

Park or anywhere in between, I hope the stories in this issue make you feel more connected to this community and that you’ll share any ideas you have for stories for our magazine too! Feel free to email me any time.