Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

For the better part of three days, two advisors with America In Bloom toured the Brewton area to observe the beauty of the city.
Beth Hart and Laurie Lafferty, with AIB, arrived in Brewton on Sunday and left for a tour of Maryland communities on Tuesday. But the pair had plenty of time to see the beauty of Brewton — in blooms and in its people.
“This is my first year as an advisor and Brewton is my first stop,” Hart said. “I remember when we were at the symposium and Brewton received awards and we saw the pictures. I’ll say those pictures did not do (the city) justice.”
Lafferty said when she received her assignments for the season a saw that Brewton was included, she began to feel the excitement of the visit.
“I remember years ago learning about pitcher plants as a community volunteer,” Lafferty said. “I saw a piece on CBS about Brewton having an area of pitcher plants. When I got my assignment and knew I was coming to Brewton, I was thrilled. That’s just not something we are going to see where we’re from.”
Both advisors are from the Las Vegas, Nev., area and said Brewton was inviting from the very outskirts of the community.
“This community is beautiful,” Hart said. “Just driving in on Sunday I knew we were getting into Brewton. The flowers along the bridges and welcome sign were just beautiful and inviting as we arrived.”
Lafferty said Brewton has taken some previous suggestions from past advisors to heart and the results are breathtaking.
“One of the goals of AIB is to establish ‘Pride of Place,’ and Brewton has that,” Lafferty said. “When you enter the community you know you are in Brewton. With the flowering baskets along the bridges and the softening of highway intersections is welcoming. To see the advice of others before us taken and put into place is remarkable.”
The pair gave kudos to city residents and leaders for the visual beauty seen throughout the community. Some highlights from those comments include the hanging baskets and hanging lights through area of the city as well as the AIB monument at the entrance of Jennings Park.
One of the tour guides for the visit was Brewton’s Public Land’s Manager Steve Layton, who said this year’s advisors are seeing a whole new Brewton.
“We got into America in Bloom in 2014,” Layton said. “All of the changes you see now is because of the advisors comments and suggestions through those years. We are not the same Brewton we were in 2014.”
Lafferty said that the growth and improvements is certainly evident since she has been researching the Brewton community.
“As advisors we work to get to know you (the community) and what would work for you,” Lafferty said. “I have a lot of ideas, but they might not work here. It’s a community’s job to modify ideas to make things work.”
Layton said that was certainly the case in Brewton.
“We are married to a few things here that make some changes impossible,” Layton said. “We are bound by a railroad track and a flood zone. Those are things we can’t change so we try to figure out the best work-around to make things happen.”
The result of the visit this week won’t be known by Brewton’s AIB team until the annual symposium set for late September in Rochester, Maryland.