SARALAND — For Creola residents worried about the education of their children, outgoing Saraland City Schools Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers made a bold promise Monday night.

CHICKASAW — Twelve Chickasaw graduates tossed their caps into the warm night air on Friday to mark the fledgling school system’s first graduating senior class independent from the county. “They said you wouldn't make it, but here you are,” Chickasaw school board president Robert McFall said. “Mobile County's eyes and the state of Alabama’s eyes are on us tonight as one of the state’s newest and brightest school systems.”

After spending thousands of dollars on two separate, fruitless searches and months of wrangling, the Mobile County Board of Education decided Friday to promote interim superintendent Martha Peek to the permanent job of overseeing the state’s largest public school system.