Death of longtime mayor from COVID-19 stuns Alabama town

CLANTON, Ala. (AP) — It seemed like Billy Joe Driver, 84, was always around in this Alabama city after 36 years as mayor.

Most weekdays you'd find Driver working at a first-floor conference table at Clanton City Hall, and many nights he'd eat at Green’s Small Town Diner with friends. On Fridays it was lunch at the local senior center, and Wednesday night and Sunday meant worship at his church, Temple Assembly of God.

All that visibility meant people noticed when Driver disappeared from public in June, and friends bowed in prayer when word got out he was sick with what many had assumed was a big-city disease, COVID-19. Driver died of the illness in July, forcing a reckoning that’s still rippling through the community.

The new coronavirus is just as dangerous in central Alabama as in New York City, people now know, and older folks who were close to Driver look askance these days at others who flout Alabama’s mandatory mask rule in stores or at high school football games. Many are staying home more than they did early in the pandemic.

Losing the best-known person in town to a disease that had seemed so distant was a wake-up call for Clanton, friend Sammy Wyatt said.

“People had gotten lax on trying to protect everyone else. They weren’t wearing their masks like they ought to,” she said. “I think with Mayor Driver’s death, it opened people's eyes and they realized, ‘I could be next with this.”’

Vanessa McKinney said Driver's death “devastated our community.”

"We were taking it serious before, but after that, it really shook us to the core,” said McKinney, who runs Chilton Senior Connections, the senior center that Driver helped create in an old store and visited regularly.

Located halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery, Clanton is a city...