East Alabama Living Spring 2022 Issue

Lee Sentell, center, celebrates with friends in London in 2019 after winning the International Travel and Tourism Award for creating the U.S. Civil Rights Trail.
From left: Graham Roderick, Joe Taff, Sentell, Ed Hall and Grey Brennan.
year while maintaining a staff of fewer than
30 employees.
Sentell’s biggest success thus far may be
the Year Of campaigns. He drew on what he
learned from his journalism background to
appeal to localities that had restaurants, outdoor
recreation, and other activities to offer
the broader public and highlighted them
in an accessible way that mirrored the sections
of a newspaper. The ambitious project
paid off almost immediately, with newspapers
in Alabama calling attention to their
own local sites and garnering the attention
of major publications such as the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
“We didn’t spend money that we didn’t
have. I watched some of our competitor states
spending money, and I really don’t worry
about what our neighbors do in terms of budget.
Alabama has a very strong product, but
no one really paid attention to us until we
did the year of food,” Sentell said. “The reason
that people don’t do campaigns like we
did is it takes a lot of work every year and it’s
expensive. But being from the newspaper, I
knew we had to change the subject to make
us interesting and relevant to the media. It’s
been just a big hit. In the early days, we would
have tourists stop at our welcome centers
with the brochure and they’d ask what next
year’s campaign was about.”
As both an alumnus of Auburn and as the
state’s tourism director, Sentell looks forward
to students graduating from the College of
Human Sciences’ internationally certified
Hospitality Management program and the
grand opening of the Tony and Libba Rane
Culinary Science Center.
The Rane Culinary Science Center, supported
by a gift from founder and CEO of Great
Southern Wood Preserving Jimmy Rane and
named for his parents, is a one-of-a-kind educational
facility that will feature rooftop gardens,
culinary labs, boutique teaching hotel, microbrewery
and spirits lab, and restaurant with a
view of Samford Hall—all designed to elevate
the student, guest, and alumni experience.
“Alabama is so blessed to have a world class
culinary option that is going to attract some
of the best and brightest students from across
the country. Hopefully, some of the people who
move to Alabama to study will decide to stay,”
Sentell said. “Alabama’s hospitality industry
is going to benefit in so many ways from the
world-class facilities and the world-class staff at
Auburn. Within a few years, the Rane Culinary
Science Center is going to be one of the highlights
of what people around the country are
going to learn about our state, along with the
golf trail, the civil rights trail, and the beaches.”
The Auburn University Hospitality
Management program will present the Horst
Schulze Excellence in Hospitality award to
Sentell at its signature annual event, the
student-planned Hospitality Gala, on April 21
at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon
Conference Center.
Save the Date
April 21, 2022
The Hospitality Gala
22 EAST ALABAMA LIVING