A State and Federal partnership plans to spend three hundred thousand dollars in Alabama’s Black Belt region to help generate jobs. The Delta Regional Authority will target Choctaw, Clarke, Conecuh, Escambia, Monroe, and Washington counties where unemployment is typically high. Half of the grant will be spend on a system to help employers identify and train new workers. The other half is for a study on how to better train groups like young people and native Americans. The Delta Regional Authority was created by Congress to address unemployment. It’s helped to create seventeen thousand jobs.
FreightCar America Inc. will host a job fair as it seeks to fill nearly 200 jobs. A-P-R's Stan Ingold reports, it is for a planned expansion of its operations in northwest Alabama.
The job fair is planned for Jan. 6 at the Marriott Shoals Conference Center in Florence. FreightCar executives have said they intend to add a rail car production line as part of a $10 million investment at Barton Riverfront Industrial Park in Colbert County. Joe McNeely, president and chief executive officer for Chicago-based FreightCar, tells WHNT-TV the plant will have capacity to build 6,000 to 8,000 rail cars per year when fully operational by the second quarter of 2015. FreightCar already has about 500 employees at the plant. Navistar General Manager Ray Koopman said about 300 Navistar employees also occupy the plant.
You can make that two candidates for Alabama Republican Party chair. Mobile County’s GOP chair Terry Lathan is throwing her hat in the ring. She served four years as Mobile’s GOP chief and as vice chair for four years before that. Lathan joins former state house member Mary Sue McClurkin to replace outgoing chair Bill Armistead. He’s leaving office after two years. McClurkin served sixteen years in the state house and led Mike Huckabee’s 2008 primary campaign in Alabama.
The Downtown Rescue Mission in Huntsville is looking for a few good toys. The relief agency will be hosting its annual Christmas party this Saturday and the main event are the gift bags for local needy children. The mission is looking for donations for youngsters in age ranges that are hard to shop for. Corey Buckner is Director of Development at the mission. He says there are two groups of kids who are particularly in need…
“zero to two and nine to twelve are the ones we always run short on every year. Stuff like footballs, basketballs, making jewelry sets or crafts type stuff.”
Each child gets a gift bag with one large item and around four stocking stuffers. Today is the deadline to drop off donations at the Downtown Rescue Mission in Huntsville.
