LWVAL Covention 2021

State Political Columnist for the Alabama Media Group (al.com)

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group, where his work appears in the Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register, Huntsville Times and AL.com.

After joining the Alabama Media Group in 2012, he first worked as a government and politics reporter, leading multiple investigations. He moved to his current position of columnist in 2014. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN.com.

In 2020 he was the recipient of the Scripps Howard Foundation’s Walker Stone Award for opinion writing. In 2021 he received the Sigma Delta Chi award for best opinion writing from the Society of Professional Journalists and the first-ever Molly Ivins prize for political commentary from the Texas Democracy Foundation. In 2019, he received the Transparency in Government Award from the League of Women Voters of Alabama.

He lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with his wife Elizabeth, his son Ward, and daughter Margaret.

Executive Director, Association of County Commissions of Alabama,

Sonny Brasfield serves as Executive Director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, which represents and provides services for Alabama’s 67 county governments, its elected officials and more than 7,000 employees.

The Association speaks with ONE Voice for county government in Alabama and is a consistent advocate for the programs and people who manage and deliver services to Alabama's citizens. Sonny has been employed with the Association since 1988; has been an active and influential part of Alabama government for more than three decades; and remains one of a select few association directors to be recognized in a listing of the 50 Most Powerful and Influential People in Alabama.

He is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Alabama and holds a Master’s Degree in communication management.

Today, Sonny works with elected officials and employees at the local level, as well as with state and federal officials, to promote counties. He oversees the Association staff, its boards, committees and affiliates and is President of the Association’s two very successful self-funded insurance programs.

He is also a frequent speaker on advocacy, leadership, management, motivation, public relations, productive media relations and other related topics. He is married to the former Kathy Perry, who retired as chief legal counsel for a state agency. They have two children – Perry Robert and Sydney Kay.

Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama

Tish Gotell Faulks is a 1999 graduate of the “People's Electric Law School," Rutgers University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey. As an associate with Lowenstein Sandler in Roseland, New Jersey, Faulks quickly discovered her love for the law as a tool to fight for and protect people. At Lowenstein, Faulks joined a team of attorneys who sought to vindicate the civil rights of abused and neglected children in Charlie and Nadine H. v. Whitman, a case that exposed the rampant failures of New Jersey’s child protective services agency. From there, Faulks served as an elbow law clerk to the Hon. Joseph A. Greenaway, Jr., then USDJ, before his elevation to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Faulks states that her tutelage under Judge Greenaway remains the most educational period of her career. 
  
Faulks FIGHTS for the people at every turn. She has fought for protections for people pursuant to the Rehabilitation and Americans with Disabilities Acts, equal rights and access to public accommodations for people from the LGBTQIA community, due process for people navigating the criminal just system -- including human rights for those sentenced to death, medical privacy for all people -- irrespective of sex or gender, and human rights -- irrespective of race, age, sex, gender presentation, religion, medical condition, alienage, national origin, or immigration status. When she is not fighting for the people, Faulks seeks to educate those who will join this fight as attorneys, policymakers, and community leaders. To that end, she has served as a law professor in Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia, teaching constitutional law, criminal appellate procedure, and special problems in constitutional law such as innocence litigation and death penalty jurisprudence. 
  
In her downtime, Faulks loves to join her partner, a professional cook, in the kitchen. She claims to bake the best chocolate chip cookie on the planet. 

Executive Director, Alabama Press Association

Felicia Mason was named executive director of the Alabama Press Association in June of 2000. She is the 11th executive director and the first woman to hold the position in its 150-year history. The Alabama Press Association is the state trade association of 23 daily and 98 weekly or non-daily newspapers in Alabama.

Mason first came to the APA in 1987 as a sales/marketing representative. She was promoted to advertising manager in 1991 and to associate executive director in 1998.

A native of Pine Hill, Alabama, she received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Alabama in 1987 and an MBA degree from Samford University.

While in school in Tuscaloosa, Mason worked first as a sales representative and later as retail sales manager for The Crimson White, the University of Alabama student newspaper. She was awarded the James E. Jacobson Management Award by the Media Planning Board in her senior year. In 2003, she was awarded the Sarah Healy award by the University of Alabama Media Planning Board for outstanding dedication and service to the field of publications.

Mason serves on the University of Alabama College of Communication Board of Visitors and the Auburn University Journalism Advisory Council. She is a member of Canterbury United Methodist Church in Birmingham.

Alabama Senate District 3

Since his election to the Alabama Senate in 2006, Sen. Arthur Orr has sponsored and passed legislation to address the high school student drop-out rate, put the State’s checkbook online, improve campaign finance reporting, remove racist language from the state constitution, and support volunteer firefighters and free medical clinics.

He was instrumental in the formation and development of the Robotics Technology Park, The Alabama Center for the Arts and the Alabama School for Cyber Technology and Engineering.

Sen. Orr had a distinguished academic record at both Wake Forest University and University of Alabama School of Law.

After graduation, while his classmates pursued legal careers, Arthur joined the Peace Corps. He was assigned to a remote Himalayan village in Nepal, where he lived primitively with no indoor plumbing and dirt floors, teaching in the village school and conducting teacher training.

After completing his Peace Corps commitment, he returned to Decatur and practiced law. As a consequence of his community service, Arthur was selected “Citizen of the Year” by the Decatur Rotary Club, and was honored as a "Community Hero" to carry the 1996 Olympic Torch in Morgan County.

Although Arthur was a partner in a law firm and active in his community, he felt led to return overseas to do what he could to help the poor in the developing world. He was hired by Habitat for Humanity International and was assigned to establish a new Habitat program in Bangladesh. That program has constructed more than 1000 houses.

A long-time adult Sunday school teacher and men's Bible study member, Arthur and his wife Amy and their two children are members of First Bible Church in Decatur.

Bandleader, arranger, concert pianist, composer, and instrumentalist at Dr Jazz Normand New orleans Style Dance Orchestra

Jeanine “Dr. Jazz” Normand was born a musician, composer, and artist in New Orleans, whose spice and the Mississippi River run through [her] veins; she lived in Europe (“another kind of heaven”) twice. She is a concert pianist and has performed in international jazz festivals, jammed with some of the world's greatest musicians*. She is currently working on a CD.

Jeanine ‘Dr. Jazz’ Normand, born in New Orleans, debuted at the age of 12 in her father’s legendary Jack Normand Orchestra at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, AL. With a classical concert pianist background, she plays many genres and became a bandleader, performing at the best venues across Europe and the USA.

Dr. Jazz, also a composer and an aficionada of Brazilian music, infuses her arrangements with sentimental romance and spicy New Orleans rhythms.

She writes, “I WISH I lived in Paris, or Nice (on the Côte d'azur, the Riviera) France, … or Rio de Janeiro, or even in Minneapolis, MN, or maybe Iceland, Corsica, or Greece - esp Crete - or New Zealand. I love to travel, wish I could do more of it, but work keeps me stuck here [in the USA]."

Dr. Jazz lives in Fairhope, Alabama and is a long-time member of the League of Women Voters. She has served on the Board of Directors of LWV of Alabama and currently serves as First Vice President of the LWV of Baldwin County and on the Nominating Committee of the LWV of Alabama.

* Jonathan Harding, reporting for the University of Mobile on Feb. 5, 2019, wrote, "[Jeanine 'Dr. Jazz' Normand] has performed with Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald at the Nice Jazz Festival. Her specialties include the Great American Songbook, Twinkling Glamour Piano, Le Hot Jazz & Cool Brazilian, and also Gershwin, Jobim and modern French composers."

Singer and Songwriter

Biography by Marcy Donelson

“Drawing from styles spanning roots rock and power pop, and citing Sheryl Crow as a primary influence, singer and songwriter Leslie Nuss emerged with an eclectic, often confrontational brand of alternative rock in the late '90s. She presented her first album, Heliotrope, in 1998 before launching her own label, Little Leaf Records. Her 2004 eponymous full-length was among like-minded releases to appear over the next decade. Following some time off from recording to, among other life events, start a family, her dreamier fifth album, Sh*t Happens, arrived on the label in 2020.

“A Chicago native, Nuss caught the music bug at age four, spending hours singing into the handle of a jump rope. Little did she know then that it would be well over 20 years and several career detours later before she would finally embrace music as her true vocation. Arriving in New York City fresh out of college, Nuss held various jobs -- working as a nanny, a recycling coordinator, a concert promoter, and a lifeguard. She honed her designer skills by studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology and caught the eye of retailers Abercrombie & Fitch, Timberland, and Bag Bazaar. In 1995, while moonlighting in post-grunge band Dogwater, she was chosen to create headpieces for designer Betsey Johnson's fall line. Nuss' signature pink glass beaded tiara designs were showcased on the cover of YM magazine's spring 1998 prom supplement, setting off a mini teen fashion craze.

“However, the desire to create her own music was so strong that Nuss used proceeds from her accessories business to finance the making of her 1998 debut, Heliotrope. Featuring performances by Wilco's Jay Bennett, the album was produced by singer/songwriter Adam Schmitt. Inspired by the success of independent female singer/songwriters such as Ani DiFranco, Nuss started her own label, Little Leaf Records, and released her sophomore recording, Action Hero Superstar, in 2000. Informed by a knife attack by a stranger the previous year that caused wounds to Nuss' face and head, that album was recorded with producer Kyle Kelso and featured Jon Skibic of the Afghan Whigs. Song placements on prime-time TV series like Dawson's Creek and All About Us soon followed, as did tours with Jill Sobule and Antigone Rising, among others.

“Nuss next worked with producer Mike Shimshack on 2004's Leslie Nuss, which saw her backed by indie rock band Lola Ray. She then produced 2006's Round 3 herself, with assistance from co-producer Mark Berlin. Drummer Mike Zelenko (Material Issue, Shoes) played on the album.

“An extended hiatus from recording followed for Nuss, involving marriage, births, loss, and a relocation back to Chicago. She eventually started playing local shows, both solo and with a newly formed band, Specx. When she returned to the studio, it was with a more reflective set of songs. The resulting 2018 EP V was produced by Ainjel Emme and Kyle Paas and featured Pete Remm (Ringo Starr, Norah Jones), Peter Levin (the Blind Boys of Alabama), and Jon Titterington (Father John Misty). Drawn partly from the same sessions, the full-length Sh*t Happens followed on Little Leaf in 2020."

Leslie Nuss on Spotify
Visit Leslie’s website