Hoover’s 2025 was marked by transition, championship banners and strategic development. A shift in city leadership reset priorities. Two basketball programs reached historic highs. And one westward annexation set the table for years of infrastructure and zoning decisions. These five stories reflect a city balancing tradition and transformation.
Photo by Jon Anderson
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Hoover Municipal Judge Brad Bishop swears in John Lyda for his third term on the Hoover City Council at Hoover City Hall in Hoover, Alabama, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2020.
Elections reset City Hall: The mayoral flip and competitive council races (with runoffs seating Ashley Lovell and returning Gene Smith) changed the center of gravity — and the calendar for big decisions. Derzis signaled a different style, a forensic look at the books and a coalition approach with a refurbished council.
Photo by Barry Stephenson, Time Capsule Images.
Hoover basketball
Austin Cherry shoots a free throw in a jam last season.
Hoover hoops, dynastic edition: The boys finished 35-0, the first 7A program to run the table, while the girls won a fifth straight state title. Scott Ware kept the “this year only” ethos; Krystle Johnson kept the #Drive2Five standard. The boys’ core (Brown, Salim London, Jarett Fairley & Co.) matured from freshman heartbreak to three-peat certainty; the girls won again despite injuries and departures.
Photo by Jon Anderson
SEC Baseball 2017 35
There were 13,128 people attending the championship game of the 2017 SEC Baseball Tournament at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, SEC officials said. That was the sixth largest attendance of any session in tournament history.
SEC Baseball x Hoover Met 2.0: A new 16-team, single-elimination format brought bigger stakes and fewer games; Vanderbilt claimed the trophy. Total attendance: 159,984 (with two fewer games), average per game 10,666 — a tick up year over year. The venue kept pace: phase-by-phase improvements now total $23.2 million in three years, including new chairbacks (more cupholders, fewer bleachers), a 4,250-square-foot Omaha Club, a concourse refresh and a right-field fan area.
Photos courtesy of Hoover City Schools
Dr. Kristi Sayers, left, is the new principal at Hoover HIgh School. Andrea Fordham, right is the new principal at Bumpus Middle School.
School leadership moves, steady hands: Kristi Sayers took the helm at Hoover High in July, returning to a district she knows after seven years leading Oak Mountain HS. Kari Tibbs stepped in as assistant principal at Deer Valley Elementary; Andrea Fordham became principal at R.F. Bumpus Middle.
Map courtesy of Nequette Architecture & Design
The 331 homes planned for Collier Valley are expected to include a mixture of single-family detached homes, townhomes and up to 40 multi-family units in a mixed-use area. On this map, the bypass road will go to the left toward South Shades Crest Road. The connector road to Stadium Trace Parkway and Blackridge North is at the top left, and a future connection to Blackridge South is at the top right.
Go west with Collier Valley: The city annexed 169 acres between Trace Crossings, Blackridge and South Shades Crest, to be combined with 162 acres from Blackridge for Collier Valley: 331 homes plus up to 150,000 square feet of commercial. The trade-offs were clear: pressure on services and schools vs. wins on traffic and land use. Signature Homes agreed to build most of a western bypass linking Morgan Road (Jefferson County 52) to South Shades Crest and to stub a connector toward Blackridge Parkway, all tying into the anticipated I-459 Exit 9. A state mine-reclamation grant would help pay for the roadwork; zoning must land within three years or the annexation unwinds.
