Demopolis native Alyce Manley Spruell was elected president-elect of the Alabama Bar Association. When that term ends next July, she will be come the first female president of the ABA.

Spruell’s father, city attorney Richard S. Manley, served on the Alabama Bar Association commission for 20 years.

A 1976 graduate of Demopolis High School, Spruell earned her bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt in political science and English and earned a law degree from Alabama in 1983, and she joins a long list of Demopolis and Marengo County high school graduates who have taken on the world and been appointed to leadership roles.

We’re less than a month away from the start of school.

Many of those students will begin their scholastic careers in one of our local kindergarten.

Others will enter the halls as seniors and leave nine months from now ready to tackle the world on their own terms.

We offer our heartiest congratulations to Ms. Spruell on her groundbreaking accomplishments and to the Manley family.

Great success awaits many of the children who leave the hallowed halls of this county and it’s good to see constant reminders of that.