Profile: Growing large and small spells success for Hanceville

Benjamin Bullard, The Cullman Times, Ala.
·2 min read

Mar. 25—Hanceville's always got a lot going on, but all anyone wants to talk about right right now is 8th grader Stephen Briscoe.

The Hanceville Middle School student just aced the Alabama Spelling Bee to advance to national competition, representing his school and his city among the best of the best when the Scripps National Spelling Bee takes place at the end of May in Washington, D.C.

"It's a pretty exciting thing," said Mayor Kenneth Nail, already among the proud locals after Briscoe won top honors at the Cullman County Spelling Bee in February. "Winning the state spelling bee — we've never had a student from Hanceville who's accomplished that. It speaks well for our city and our schools, but most of all, it speaks well of that young man."

Thanks to the presence of Wallace State Community College, education is never far from local leaders' minds in Cullman County's second-largest city. With no end in sight for the college's ever-progressing slate of programs and the new construction that accompanies them, the city has been working alongside the Hanceville Water and Sewer Board to shore up an aging sewer network — a key piece of municipal infrastructure on which the college, as well as residents and local businesses, all depend.

The Water and Sewer Board — a separate entity from city government — has recently borrowed against a $4.2 million bond issue to rehabilitate and upsize sewer lines throughout Hanceville, with special priority on lines that serve Wallace State. Local leaders are hopeful additional federal dollars could be forthcoming as the city and utility board eye an overall estimated $10 million in needed funds to fully carry out rehabilitative work all over town.

With assistance from economic development officials, Hanceville's leadership continually seeks recruiting opportunities to land new industries while supporting those that have already invested in the area. In April 2022, Tyson announced it would spend an estimated $208 million to construct a new 121,000-square-foot poultry processing facility just outside the city along Alabama Highway 91, recommitting to its longtime local operation after a major portion of its previous River Valley Ingredients plant burned in 2021.

This year, Hanceville also welcomed its most recent new small industry when Andalusia-based Covington Casket Company opened a distribution facility on the city's east side. Serving as its first north Alabama warehouse as the company expands its sale footprint beyond the state's lower half, the decision to locate in Hanceville already is paying off: "In their first month here, they sold 58 units," said Nail. "They're a terrific family-based business and we're really happy that they chose Hanceville."