Melissa Warnke can be found in one city or town across Alabama at any given time, meeting with small business owners and telling their stories for a wider audience.

Now a resident of Montgomery and the communications manager of the Alabama Retail Association, Warnke is also quietly an ambassador for Cullman, her cherished home town.

“I now live in Montgomery, but when people ask me where’s home I always say Cullman,” Warnke said. “Cullman was a wonderful place to grow up, with great churches and schools. I’m glad my husband, Adam, is from Cullman, too. We get to come home a lot to see our parents and friends.”

But what made Cullman so valuable growing up?

“It’s a place where people take a special interest in your needs,” said Warnke, a former news reporter for WSFA in Montgomery. “I was very shy when I was younger, but one of my teachers, Mona Hopper, taught speech and English at Cullman. She worked closely with me and by the time I had to make my first public speech in class I was actually looking forward to it.”

That was a pivotal moment for Warnke. With growing confidence, she was off to Auburn University and then landed a job in reporting.

“I found that I enjoyed meeting people, doing stories,” she said. “Now I speak to large groups when I travel and meet retailers across the state and get to tell their stores. I never intended to leave news, but in many ways I’m still doing that with the retail association.”

Her journeys across the state have been rewarding as she discovers the success stories of business owners, some who have operated in Alabama for generations and others who are finding new success in the state.

“It’s great to tell their stories because a lot of them just don’t get a lot of recognition for all they’ve accomplished. The stories I get to tell help us all to realize how much our communities and state have to offer, for each other and those who visit here,” Warnke said.

Perhaps nothing else makes her as proud as Cullman’s success stories in business.

“I’m so proud to see where Cullman is going. The new businesses coming in alongside the established ones that I grew up with,” Warnke said. “I think a lot of people began to see that Cullman has so much to offer and that a lot of the success is because people really support the businesses. There’s a lot of pride and sense of community across the area.”