Electrician Contractor in Huntsville, AL

Huntsville has now reached “What’s behind door number three?” status.

The Rocket City was featured on the Feb. 13 episode of iconic gameshow “Let’s Make a Deal.”

The show debuted in the ’60s with legendary Monty Hall as the host. Comedian Wayne Brady is the current host of the show, which involves audience members dressed up in wacky costumes and some of those audience members getting the chance to make deals with the host for money and prizes. Sometimes they end up with “zonks” though, worthless joke prizes.

The show’s Feb. 13 episode included a trip to Huntsville as part of its “Big Deal” segment, which is the final segment in each show. The biggest winners that day get the choice of keeping the prizes or money they’ve already won or a chance at winning what’s behind their choice of three mysterious doors on the set.

First up during the “Big Deal” segment,” a married couple who’d won $10,000 and were dressed in Greek togas. The couple elected to keep that and not risk it, saying they’d spend the money on a second honeymoon.

Next up, a pirate-costumed audience member named Mubashir, who’d won golfing gear earlier in the episode. Mubashir decided to try his luck for “Big Deal.”

He selected door number three. Before revealing what was behind door three, as is the show’s custom, the contents behind the other two doors not chosen were shown. In this case, a home music-recording setup behind door one and a hot-tub behind door two.

After a wave of the show’s blonde model Tiffany Coyne’s left arm, door number three opened, revealing a large scale photo of individuals clad in blue jumpsuits, captioned “SPACE CAMP.” Announcer Jonathan Mangum boomed, “It’s a trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.” Brady echoed enthusiastically into his own mic, “Space Camp!”

Mubashir was stoked. The winning contestant raised his pirate arms in victory while standing up front on the show’s blue-hued set near Brady. Meanwhile in the audience, Mubashir’s brother, Ali raised his hands, the right one wearing a costume pirate-hook, to his head in a “mind blown” gesture.

In addition to enrollment in Space Camp, the package included four-nights at boutique downtown Huntsville hotel 106 Jefferson. The spiel also shouted-out the city’s U.S. Space & Rocket Center museum, “eclectic shopping, historic architecture and diverse culinary and craft beer scene.”

Then, Mangum added, “But that’s not all. You’ve also won a trip to Croatia.”

The package also included a “luxurious four-night European getaway” to a five-star hotel in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital city. According to Mangum, the entire package was worth more than $20,000.

“Let’s Make a Deal” airs locally 2 p.m. weekdays on CBS. In December, a contestant from Huntsville named Janet Blankenship appeared on the show. Announcer Jonathon Mangum was raised in Mobile.

Recently, Space Camp, a location site for ’80s Lea Thompson adventure comedy film “SpaceCamp,” was part of a gag on “That ’90s Show,” a spinoff of Fox’s semi-classic “That ’70s Show.”

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Imagine your ancestors purchasing land more than 150 years ago to ensure your family could possibly secure generational wealth for decades to come. Now imagine that nearly 100 years later that land was taken from you.

The Jones family says the 10 acres of property on Holmes Avenue has been in the family since 1870. The family was one of the few Black families to own property in Madison County after the end of slavery.

However, nearly 100 years later, they claim the land was stolen from them through lies and deceit.

“This was historical property and was a means to our family having wealth in our generation but because of this theft we don’t have it,” said Michael Jones, the youngest of the five living children of Willie and Lola Jones.

The land had a well that was the Jones family’s source of drinking water. The family freely shared the water source with others that lived along Athens Pike.

According to records obtained by the family attorney city officials in Madison County condemned the land in 1954 after Willie Jones turned down an offer of only $900 dollars for a small portion of that land that included the well, and the family was forced to move.

The barter opened the door for city officials to begin the condemnation.

Despite claiming the water was unfit for human consumption, the city built a pump house at the location. According to records, the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) now sits on the land that the family’s attorneys say was allegedly stolen.

“Having no access to their mail the condemnation for the other properties started in areas where the actual home was located,” explained Kamala Miller-Lester, a researcher with Where Is My Land, an organization dedicated to helping Black families recover historical land.

As part of the investigation by Lester, UAH handed the Jones family attorneys some documents to show that Willie and Lola Jones signed the deed to W.L. Sanderson, the chief of the Huntsville Land Acquisition Office in 1958. The Jones siblings say because of their dad’s lack of education, he couldn’t sign his name — and those documents were forged.

“Their father unfortunately was not literate,” Lester continued. “Before this transaction, he had signed his name with an ‘X’ and we also have evidence of that.”

According to the Jones family, the duck pond that sits in front of the campus of UAH on Sparkman Drive is less than one thousand feet from where the well was on their property.

Billy Jones, the eldest sibling, told News 19 the source of water from that well is now the water source for homes and businesses in the area and has contributed to major infrastructure in the City of Huntsville.

“The water comes up from up the well and runs under the bridge from the other side of Holmes Avenue and feeding the duck pond and all the building in the area,” said Jones.

The Jones siblings began researching the loss of their father’s property to recover what is owed to the family in 1995.

Alabama A&M Bulldogs (9-15) vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions (10-15)

The Line: Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions -3.5 / Alabama A&M Bulldogs +3.5; Over/Under: - (Get latest betting odds)

The Alabama A&M Bulldogs and the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions meet Monday in college basketball action from H.O. Clemmons Arena. Alabama A&M enters this one at 10-15 overall. The Bulldogs posted an overtime victory versus MS Valley State in their last game. As for AR-Pine Bluff, they’re 10-15 as well and coming off a loss to Alabama State. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.

Alabama A&M Bulldogs

Alabama A&M got off to a shaky start with a 6-12 record over their first 18 games. The Bulldogs are 4-3 in their last seven games, beating Prairie View A&M, Florida A&M, Southern U and MS Valley State.

In the MS Valley State game on Saturday, the Bulldogs scored 23 points in the first half, 29 in the second and 18 in the two overtime periods for a 70-68 win. Tops in scoring was Dailin Smith with 20 points and five rebounds.

AR-Pine Bluff Golden Lions

Over on the Arkansas-Pine Bluff side, they managed a sketchy start as well with a 7-11 run across their first 18 outings. The Lions are 3-4 in their last seven games, beating Southern U, Bethune-Cookman and MS Valley State.

Matched up against Alabama State on Saturday, the Lions were down 35-32 in the locker room. AR-Pine Bluff kept the pace from there and ended up losing 74-71. Kyle Milton was tops in scoring on 17 points and five rebounds.

ANDREW’S FREE PICK

I’ll probably stick with Alabama A&M. You could make a case either way, though; this should be a pretty good matchup. The Bulldogs are 2-1 in their last three games and they’re scoring pretty well lately with 70 or more points in three of their last four. As for AR-Pine Bluff, they took a 66-59 loss the last time these teams met back on January 2 at Elmore Gymnasium. Alabama A&M won thanks to a 38-30 second half in that matchup, so ARPB will need to keep up the offense in the second half. I like this one to be similarly close with the Bulldogs eventually pulling off the cover (and maybe the win).

In a survey by real estate news site MyEListing.com, Huntsville was named the 4th most prosperous city in America in 2023.

In 2022, Huntsville also dethroned Colorado Springs as the #1 Best Place to Live in the U.S., according to U.S. News & World Report.

So what makes the Rocket City so great? Keep reading for all the details on one of the South’s most rapidly growing cities.

Why Huntsville?

To find America’s most prosperous cities, MyEListing.com analysts reviewed six different metrics using data from 2017 to 2021. Here’s how Huntsville fared in their analysis:

Huntsville’s growing fast

If you live around Huntsville, it’s impossible to ignore its exponential growth within the past few years. Last year the city celebrated huge progress on new projects and developments including:

Not only are a ton of new businesses calling Huntsville home, but the Rocket City’s population is booming with a reported 450 new residents per month in 2022. That’s what we call prosperous!

“Our population growth is fueling unprecedented construction in commercial, residential and industrial sectors to the tune of $1.5 billion over last year and more than $7 billion over the last five years. From MidCity to downtown and up North Memorial Parkway, orange construction barrels are a regular sight.”

Other cities ranked

So what other cities were ranked the 2023’s most prosperous by MyEListing.com?

Here’s the top 10:

According to their rankings, the South dominates as the region with 10 out of 25 of the most prosperous metro areas.

However, the site also ranked America’s least prosperous cities, placing Mobile, AL at #8.

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BIRMINGHAM- A dozen wrestlers from the immediate area high schools have qualified for the AHSAA State Tournament scheduled for this weekend at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville. The top six finishers in each weight classes of the Class 7A North Super Regional held in Birmingham will make their way to the season-ending event.

Nine Bob Jones wrestlers punched their tickets to the State Tournament while James Clemens had two individual wrestlers and Sparkman one.

At the North Super Regional, Maddox Sunderman of Bob Jones was the lone local wrestler to advance to the Regional finals participating in the heavyweight 285-pound weight class. The 6-foot-3, 300-pound two-sport athlete, who recently signed a scholarship to play football at Jacksonville State, lost in the finals to Rayshod Burts (49-3) of Spain Park in a 2-0 decision. Sunderman (43-3), a senior, made his way through the competition with three wins before falling in the finals.

Additional State Tournament qualifiers featured:

220: Tafari Alcime, Jr., (51-7) of Bob Jones won third place 5-2 over Chris Hawkins, Sr., (44-11) of Hewitt Trussville; 195: Ben Crouse, Jr., (34-18) of Bob Jones won fifth place by DFF over Griffin McKinney, Jr., (40-14) of Huntsville; 182: Ronin Amsler, Sr., (34-8) of Bob Jones lost in fifth place match by fall 1:23 to Nathan Black, Jr., (35-12) of Thompson; 170: Sheldon Sharp, 8, (56-18) of Bob Jones won fifth place DFF over Vincent Bianca, Jr., (41-13) of Grissom; 160: Jaylin Bellamy, Sr., of Sparkman won fifth place DFF over Charlie Buttiker, So., (38-21) of Hewitt-Trussville; 138: Max Bell, So., (23-17) of James Clemens lost the fifth place match DFF to Landon Keith, Jr., (24-12) of Chelsea; 132: Ethan Johnson of James Clemens, Jr., (30-9) won fifth place DFF over Caiden Conolley, Jr., (19-10) of Chelsea; Jack Shaver, Jr., (42-15) of Bob Jones won fifth place DFF over Alec Nelson, So., (45-23) of Hewitt-Trussville; 120: Troy Hennigan of Bob Jones, Sr., (33-11) lost fifth place 5-0 to Jayden King, So., (20-6) of Tuscaloosa County; 113: Zander Samargia, Fr., (40-14) lost third place by fall 1:22 to Wallace Blue, Jr., (37-4) of Huntsville; 106: Kaden Clark, 7, (58-11) of Bob Jones won third place forfeit over Cale Tucker, Sr., (21-7) of Vestavia Hills.

The final team standings included 1. Vestavia Hills 239, 2. Thompson 226.5, 3. Huntsville 200, 4. Hewitt-Trussville 157.5, 5. Hoover 142.5, 6. Spain Park 140.5, 7. Bob Jones 136, 8. Chelsea 92.5, 9. Tuscaloosa County 61.5, 10. Grissom 57.5.

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