Invictus Development on Thursday held an official groundbreaking for Appaloosa Run, a new 56-unit apartment complex  featuring two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments, a clubhouse and fitness center. Construction on Shreve Road just behind Ireland Trailer is expected to be completed in 11 months.

The housing is designed for working families like teachers or law enforcement officers.  

Olympia Construction of Albertville, Ala., is the general contractor. 

Shown from left are Summer Reaves and Vickie Wacaster, Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce board members; Steve Williams of McKean and Associates; Andalusia Councilwoman Hazel Griffin; Mike Marra of Wells Fargo; John Peck of Olympia Construction; Andalusia Mayor Earl Johnson; local developer Robert Bishop; Chamber Executive Director Chrissie Duffy; Rep. Mike Jones; Covington County Economic Development Commission Executive Director Rick Clifton; Paula Rhodes, president of Invictus; Rick Cavalieri, executive vice president of Invictus; Gene Gant of Alabama Housing Trust Fund; Stephen Lee, vice president of RBC Capital Markets; and Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce Assistant Director Maggie Jones. 

The Andalusia Police Department’s Sgt. Mike Hayden recently spent a month at National Computer Forensic Institute in Hoover to earn certification as a mobile device examiner. 

While Hayden has been extracting data from computers for years, he said defense attorneys now question cell phone and other mobile device evidence if it isn’t recovered by investigators with mobile certification. 

The class taught law enforcement officers not only the technical skills necessary for recovering data, but also how to draft court orders and search warrants for mobile devices, and legal issues applicable to digital evidence for mobile devices. 

Participants also received the equipment needed to extract data – including a microscope, soldering tool, laptop, and ramsey bag, which blocks signals to phones.

Between those tools and a tool kit he already had in house, he said, the APD can extract data from any cell phone made in the past 20 years. It doesn’t matter if the phone is locked, or even if it’s spent a few days at the bottom of the river.  

“Basically, you dry them out, clean them up, and go to work,” he said. “You can even recover data from phones that have been shot with bullets.”

Additional classes are available to qualify law enforcement officers to analyze the data that is recovered, he said.

Every digital file has a unique hash set, Hayden said. When retrieving data from cell phones and other mobile devices, the important thing is to retrieve it in a way that the results could be duplicated.

APD Chief Paul Hudson said having the equipment and training gives the APD the ability to analyze cell phones in house instead of having to send them to a lab, which can cause a delay in working cases.

“With the training, Sgt. Hayden can assist other departments in the county and surrounding counties,” Hudson said. “It is not often that we have an opportunity to receive this training and have an officer within the department that has the knowledge to learn and utilize what they have learned, we have that in Sgt. Hayden.”

Hayden said he started working with computers in the 1980s, when he’d buy old computers and reprogram them. 

After serving in the military, he moved from Chattanooga to Andalusia to work at The Charter House. He also had a karate studio. 

“When the Charter House sold, Sgt. (Bubba) Bailey came by the studio and said, ‘You’re good with kids. We need some officers, why don’t you come talk to the chief?’

“It’s one of those things I think God led me to,” Hayden said. “The door opened, and I got to step through it.”

Hayden was next in line for a sergeant’s job in 2007, when was deployed with the Navy Reserve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. When he returned, he got an opportunity to take over the department’s technical responsibilities previously handled by Matt Mancil, who left to take a state job. 

Note: This column first appeared in Impact, the Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce's monthly newsletter. 

By CHRISSIE DUFFY

A city, or county, and the businesses within that area, grows and prospers only by community-wide cooperation.  

What keeps our community growing and on the right track? It all has to do with people, making a difference. Visionary leaders, industry experts, non-profit organizers, church groups; all make up a culture and a civic infrastructure in Andalusia that you just don’t see in other small towns. Coupled with support for our public school systems and impressive healthcare systems, we have a great foundation!

To really cultivate prosperity in rural Alabama, we cannot wait for improvements to happen.  The world is more competitive than ever. We have to fight for our community. We have to invest in our community. We must be specific and intentional. If it means picking up trash on the side of the road to make Andalusia a nicer looking city, organizing groups to raise awareness for our specific needs, and even planning quality of place events like our Christmas in Candyland. These “small” things add up to make the biggest difference. And can be a catalyst a change. We never really know how far-reaching our conversations can go, and projecting positivity, using our resources with intention, and being specific with our efforts is what moves the needle.

I like to think of our Chamber as a window through which people can see what Andalusia has to offer. Some of our efforts go to generate interest, and generate content and also shed positive light on this town and the real bonuses of living in a rural community. What better way for people to see Andalusia than beautifully decorated for Christmas? Candyland started just six years ago as a little idea I had in the back of my mind to make it snow on the square.  Little did I know that it would literally snowball into something much larger, but think of all the change that has happened in that time.  Our downtown has seen a renaissance that has breathed new life into our community. 

Candyland by the numbers 

Let’s go through how many people we were able to reach through this one event.  Starting with our own organic marketing efforts of the event, our Candyland Facebook page has an engaged reach of more than 200,000 people, and our website got about 30,000 hits last December.  We tracked cell phone data using a geo fence around Springdale and the Square and collected 38,000 unique devices that attended the event.  That is 38,000 cell phone carrying adults (with location services on) and we can extrapolate from that information that we had more than 60,000 people actually attend the event.  They even took the data further to tell us that 17,114 individual families attended with an average family size of 2.96, average household income of $68,555 and the median age is 39.2.  

Last year, Andalusia was also featured on the MSN homepage on December 12^th for an article Reader’s Digest put out about the most Festive Town in each state. The cover photo of the article was of downtown Andalusia and we were in the top left corner of the welcome screen for MSN.com homepage for an entire day.  MSN is the 33^rdmost visited website in the world and 28^thmost visited in the US with about 850 MILLION visits last December alone. What does that mean for Andalusia? I don’t really have any idea, but that is a whole lot of people that saw a positive story about our town. We were also featured in the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and several other regional publications. 

We just received a message from a different national publisher that will be featuring our event this year. This has the potential to gain even more publicity than last year. We have to harness that energy and use it to its greatest potential. We did that together! The list of businesses, organizations, and individuals that bring this event to life is huge and I would like to encourage you all to help continue to spread joy this December.  In my opinion, what makes our event unique and so exciting is the shared investment in the event through the Candyland Cottages. Now is a great time to make your mark on this community by putting your company or organization or church’s culture into a playhouse for children to enjoy with their families this season. Not only does this reflect positively on your organization from the outside, your employee base will also swell with pride. 

If you would like to participate in Christmas in Candyland in any capacity, please contact the Chamber today. 

"Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." --Helen Keller

Chrissie Duffy is the executive director of the Andalusia Area Chamber of Commerce. She can be reached at .

The Covington Veterans Foundation in partnership with the City of Andalusia  Tuesday night announced the inaugural Celebration of Heroes: A Salute to Covington County Veterans. 

The two-week event will begin on Sunday, November 3, with a musical celebration of veterans and the opening of a veterans exhibit at City Hall. The Celebration has been designated an Alabama Bicentennial event. 

Foundation members John Vick and Robert Evers reviewed the plans with the Andalusia City Council Tuesday night. 

The celebration, which is being coordinated by Covington Veterans Foundation member Amy Dugger, is set for 2 p.m. in the newly-renovated Andalusia High School auditorium. Members of the Andalusia High School band, along with other groups, will present the musical tribute. Retired Lt. Col. Jim Lawrence will be the keynote speaker. 

Following the ceremony, a reception in Andalusia City Hall will mark the opening of a historical exhibit focusing on the contributions of local veterans.  

Vick said  Rodney J. Evans of Florala, the county’s only recipient of the Medal of Honor. will be among those veterans honored in the exhibit. Evans died in Vietnam in July 1969 shielding his fellow soldiers from an enemy mine. Also to be spotlighted are the late Brigadier General James U. Cross of Pleasant Home, an Air Force One pilot and personal confident of President Lyndon D, Johnson; Ben “Crum” Foshee, member of the famed Flying Tigers squadron that fought the Japanese in China before the U.S. entered the war; Eland Anthony of Andalusia, WWII Silver Star recipient who was present for the liberation of the Dachau death camp in Germany; and Charles Saunders of Opp, a military guard at the Nuremberg Trials of the surviving leaders of the defeated Nazi regime.

The Foundation also will produce tribute banners for individual veterans to be placed in the downtown area. Those who would like to sponsor a banner for a veteran who served may do so for $50. Forms are available in the CVF office located in the County Administration Building, 190 Hillcrest Drive, Room 170. Forms also can be downloaded from the Covington Veterans Foundation’s Facebook page, or www.andalusiaveterans.com/get-involved.

The new events will not replace the county’s traditional Veterans Day Parade and Service held each year. 

The Covington Veterans Foundation was formed to recognize and honor local veterans both past and present as well as active duty military members. It is also involved in renewing civic education and citizenship among our local students. Foundation board members, in addition to Vick and Evers, are Ben Bowden, Sammy Glover, Teresa Ward, Robert Evers, Roger Powell, Daniel Shakespeare, Sue Wilson, Barbara Peek, Michele Gerlach, Terry Powell and Amy Dugger.