For those interested this full album is available at RiverRegionOnline.

This is the best social media forum for businesses and business people in the River Region.

There is one image that appears in the collage that does not appear in the video montage above. We will be giving away something that is very unique and valuable to one of our readers who spots the difference

A signed copy of Henry Winkler’s book My Dog’s a Scaredy Cat. This is from his best selling Hank Zipzer series and was obtained at the 50th Anniversay Celebration of the Family Guidance Center.

It is signed “You are Great”, Henry Winkler 09.

Just comment below as to which picture on the collage does not appear in the video and also which picture in the video is not on the collage. A winner will be selected at random in about 2 weeks.

It is amazing how popular this blog about all that is Great about Montgomery has become in such a short time, despite the fact that we offer something that the general public doesnt buy in large doses.

Great News is much harder to sell than bad news.

Really?

Think about that for a second because it doesnt seem to make sense. If we asked most of you would you prefer  GREAT NEWS or bad news most people would answer GREAT NEWS. But the reality is that if Great News is what people really bought and supported then there would be so much more of it on the airwaves and on the internet.

Mayor and Carver Basketball non Brawlers

Instead we continue to be barraged with predominantly negative and mind numbing stories from the traditional media. Now realize that we dont knock them because they gotta get paid and they are going to sell what people buy.

The positive side of all this is that GREAT NEWS is worth more because it is harder to get. With that in mind we will continue to report as much positive news about this city as possible. We are also confident that if more and more of you will support Great News then more of it will be reported by the general media.

Carlos at Montgomery  Therapeutic Center gives kids at Sheridan Hts Community Center a ride

Scot Bruce as Elvis wows fan at ASF

Here is a list of   some of the Great people and organizations that have recognized and thanked us for documenting  their work .  We support your causes and efforts by contributing 100 percent complimentary images, videos, links, search engine presence, mentions, stories, and more across multiple media channels  because we think  you are doing Great things for the city and the people in it.

These channels include this site, Facebook, River Region Online, Youtube, AOL and Google Video, Think Big Revolution plus more  and we are adding additional media channels on a regular basis so that people citywide, nationwide and worldwide can know about the positive happenings going on in and around Montgomery, Alabama.

JT and Leanne of Mix 103
Mayor Todd Strange
Montgomery Performing Arts Centre-Allen Sanders/Casey Gunter
Meg Lewis and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival

RSVP Montgomery
River Region Online
Culture Shock
Regina Berry and Bonds
Emerge Montgomery
WAKA Kickball Staff
Nicole Means and Montgomery Spotlight
Kevin Spencer- 2009 International Magician of the Year

Amy Godsoe at the  Alabama Kidney Foundation

Susan Bruchis and The Cancer Wellness Foundation

Montgomery Therapeutic Center

Eric Lewis and Online Montgomery
Sunshine Rotary Club
The Montgomery Humane Society

Dr Walter White and the Family Guidance Center

Henry Winkler -The Fonz-AYYYYY
The Big Ballers Kickball Team

Green Acres Association
Taoist Tai-Chi Society
Michael Briddell

We hope to promote even more GREAT people and organizations in the coming months as our network of  Big Thinkers grows. If you or someone you know would be interested in contributing to this blog please email Editor@GreatNewsMontgomery.com.

Aspiring writers, photographers and viedographers who would like to be published are invited to contact us.

Here are our 19 favorite images for the month of September. For those that wonder what the criteria was, it is this.
“Eddie just likes these pictures alot”

For music to go with slideshow

Kim Traff , the  RSVP girls, members of the new LIST, and other fans of the magazine were there to socialize, network and check out a preview of  “The River Region Guide for All Things Social “before it hit the streets.

GreatNewsMontgomery.com is pleased to be able to contribute to the magazine and its new feature called “Appraise and Applause”. This feature will present reviews of the hottest shows and concerts in the area.

Since we love video so much, here is one of the the party.

The RSVP team also includes Crystal Luster,Mallory Anderson, and Janine Schoudel.

She hope you enjoyed the video and if we get enough response we will remix this video and even add more pictures to it. Its really up to you to tell us if you want it.

Documenting our first 60 days of catching up with technology, catching up with the community and getting in sync with Montgomery.

(Just upgraded video quality on 12 August so if you liked it the first time its even better now)

To enjoy maximum Montgomery LOVE watch this in full screen HQ view.
We call it GreatNewsVision and JJ shows you  how to activate it:

See bottom of video player and find 2nd box from right.

Click that box and make this video “full screen” and out-o-sight.

Play and click HQ and it becomes

DYN-O-MITE!

A group of student athletes from Carver High School in Montgomery were about to receive  some great news for not participating in this fight.

Rotarian  Eric Lewis invited GreatNewsMontgomery.com to eat breakfast with the club and cover the activities.

Here are the earliest arriving of the bunch

From left to right we got Craig Sword, Joe Rudolph, Dominique Oliver, Ron Smith, Mark Jackson and Derrick Martin.

The fistacuffs drew enough attention when it happened about 6 months ago but check out the  above media link if you need your memory refreshed of how sorry the whole thing turned out. This fight and powerful video footage got lots of media exposure.

We are not talking about just local news, we are talking national news networks and affiliates around the country who couldnt get enough of the action  and thanks to high speed internet and free video hosting sites like YouTube and GoogleVideos the  entire world had access to that footage.

Montrell Holley and coach Jackson

Who knows how many million times that brawl was viewed? Add in comments and reactions from a multitude of everyday people  on  blogs, community posting boards and on Myspace/Facebook pages across the internet and its impossible to calculate  how badly Montgomery’s image  suffered because of the fight.  As far along as Montgomery has come  in terms of economic and social progress,  a video like that makes the work  easier for naysayers  to perpetuate negative racial and southern based stereotypes , after all  “evidence”  and “proof” of those stereotypes are available 24/7 on demand.

Do a basic google search for “carver basketball fight” or “carver basketball brawl” and see how many different results come up.  Page after page of negative publicity.

Now do a search for any of the young men’s name above and compare the results.

So perhaps now some of you all  who get most or all  of your news from Tv  can get an idea of how powerful the internet really is and how bad news can spread on the web faster than wildfire in a west coast forest. Well if bad news can spread so can  Great News it just requires more effort to get started and generally spreads at a slower rate.That where you all come into the picture.

You see folks this is a whole lot bigger than just some knuckleheads displaying poor sportsmanship and exhibiting lack of  self discipline.

It is bigger than just “rewarding” the kids who didnt fight  for doing the right thing.

This is about letting people all over the world see what values Montgomery citizens really respect and promote.  It is a chance for the often misguided youth to view benefits of an alternate and superior  form of behavior.  It is a chance for current  and future community leaders to leverage this recognition in order to hasten positive change in said communities…And it is a chance for those wanting to share Great News about Montgomery with the  world a chance to do so.

We believe it is wise and beneficent to promote the positive side of this story to our readers.

Just as it was wise and beneficent for  Sunrise Rotary  to invite the team to the Capital City Club to receive recognition.

Just as it was wise and beneficent for  Congressman  Bobby Bright and Mayor Todd Strange to attend the meeting, to speak encouraging words to those gathered and to award some very nice looking and meaningful commendations  to the young men.

Just as it would be wise and benficent to share this article and those like it with your own group of readers and listeners.

Of all the pictures took this is the only snippet of  Travaris Williams that exists in our camera. That why he is Missing In Photos

This ballplayer did monster crossover move on the camera.

Cortavious Orum was not able to attend, send us a pic and we will give you some well deserved credit.

If  any of the guys has ONE good shot that he wants to use to impress the ladies send it to editor@greatnewsmontgomery.com and we will post it.

Look we understand you athlete types already got things under control but no matter how well you are doing a little more great publicity wont hurt!!

More pictures will be put up soon. Stayed tuned as this post should have some life.

EXTRA EXTRA

Laugh all about it.

After the meeting  rumors circulated that  Mr Bright, the Mayor and Coach Jackson  held a secret practice in preparation of a breakdancing showdown vs a team from Valley.

Alabama High School Athletic Association ( AHSAA) asst. director Joe Evans is  supposedly going to be one of the judges.

We dont know what the competition  has but judging from the practice footage.

Valley is about to get served

147 am on thursday morn jun 11

Gotta leave this in for documentary purposes. Great NWA event held in Atlanta. Will post more pictures if any old school wrestling fans are interested.