Special Feature
Be a part of the National Day of Prayer Breakfast at The American Village in Montevallo on Thursday May 10 from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. The event will include a special message of encouragement from ABC 33/40 Chief Meteorologist James Spann. “Many of us are fans and followers of our speaker James Spann and his public service as a meteorologist. What many do not realize is that he has a powerful testimony of God’s love and grace,” said Tom Walker, Founder and President of the American Village. “This is a special time to break bread, enjoy fellowship and offer both prayers of thanksgiving and entreaty for God’s blessings,” Walker said.
Over his 32 year career as a television weather anchor, Spann has received numerous awards, including an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Thirteen times he has been named Best Weather Anchor in Alabama by the Associated Press, but when he was a 7-year-old boy in Greenville, Ala., his future looked bleak. “My father abandoned me and my mom when I was in second grade,” Spann said. The father he worshipped and looked up to left without saying goodbye or telling his son he loved him. “My father never told me he loved me,” Spann said. “I know what it’s like to be broke. I became a man at 7. “Two years after his father left them, Spann and his mother moved to Tuscaloosa, where later, as a 17-year-old senior at Tuscaloosa High School, he got his start in broadcasting working the weekend shift at WTBC-AM 1230. Spann shares how he also found his true father in heaven at an early age. “I learned the God of the universe loves me,” Spann said. “I accepted that message at 12.”
The National Day of Prayer Breakfast is sponsored by the Lucille Ryals Thompson Colonial Chapel Foundation and cosponsored by the American Village Citizenship Trust. Tickets are $20 per person. To make a reservation, email [email protected] or call 205-665-3535 ext.1045. †
