By By MaryClaire Foster
The Atmore Hall of Fame Committee held its first meeting of the year on Thursday.
Starting off the meeting, Chairman Lou Vickery, asked for a moment in silence in honor of recently deceased member Eldred Pritchett and then welcomed new member Dr. Ulysses McBride.
The floor was then opened for new nominations for inductees for the 2009 year and asked members to make an extra effort in the selection of nominees.
New member McBride then brought up the idea of having separate categories to award both the living and deceased. Currently, the committee pays no heed to whether the nominee is living and has inducted most of its members posthumously.
Committee member Floyd Adams reminded committee members that the topic had been discussed before.
Committee member Charlotte Boyle agreed that enshrining living members would be beneficial, but wanted to make sure those who met the qualifications and are deceased would still have the ability to be recognized.
McBride said he did not want to discount those who could be awarded posthumously, but wanted to see people still living awarded for their achievements.
Following discussions of the pros and cons of having two categories, Vickery tabled the item for discussion at the next meeting.
The committee then went over how many nominees are remaining from previous years. Each time a person is nominated they can stay on the list for five years. Vickery said there are four categories, business and medical, government and military, education and theatre and athletes and coaches, and the committee has five nominees in each category. When it is time to vote on new inductees, a potential inductee must have 2/3 of the committee’s vote to be chosen.
Vickery asked members to bring in information regarding their new nominations to the next meeting, which will be held at noon on Feb. 26.