By By Matthew Nascone
Dr. Ben Maxwell made many contributions to the Atmore community in his lifetime and he is inspiring more ideas even after his passing, at least according to Lou Vickery.
Yesterday, at the first organizational meeting for the Atmore Hall of Achievement held at Annie's Community Cup, Vickery said the idea for the Atmore Hall of Achievement came to be because of a conversation a few years back.
"I was having a talk with Dr. Ben probably four to five years ago about how many productive people Atmore has produced through the years," Vickery said. "We talked about building a place to recognized those people. This conversation was rekindled in my head a few months ago when he passed on."
Vickery said he went online and researched people from Atmore in important positions around the country. This vision has culminated into a plan.
The Hall has been broken into four categories of people, Business/Medical, Government/Military, Education/Ministry and Athletes/Coaches. The tentative plan Vickery and the people in attendance at the meeting have set up will have an 11-person selection committee.
This committee will select five people from each of the four categories and those 20 people will be up for induction into the hall. The estimated number of inductees for the first class is 10, but Vickery said that is up for discussion at the next meeting, which will be Feb. 28 at 10:30 a.m. at Annie's Community Cup.
The people in attendance had much to say about the idea of having a Hall of Achievement.
Eldred Pritchett, a retired school teacher, said this would be a great idea.
"Atmore has produced excellent individuals and it would be a benefit to the young people to study the good people in their own community," Pritchett said.
Atmore city councilman John Garrard agrees with the idea.
"It is good to recognize the people who have done something productive," Garrard said. "You can never go wrong by recognizing people."
Vickery said he would like to get nominations from people in the next 30 days so the selection committee can have some people to be talking about at their next meeting. Vickery said he would like to have the first induction class by October.
The physical spot for the Hall has not been decided, but many ideas were thrown out there, including the Atmore Public Library and a local bank.
Nominations can be sent to his home at 1879 Old Bratt Rd. Atmore, AL 36502. They can also be sent via email to uplinklou@yahoo.com.