When Cullman Today was founded in 2015 by the late Tim Collins, he wrote, “Cullman Today believes that the populace is best served when (it is) fully informed of the facts, details and nuances of all meaningful events and occurrences in and around Cullman County, Alabama.”
Cullman Today remains an active, engaged and proactive organization sharing information about and engaging with the community
which Tim loved. Following Tim’s untimely passing in September 2018, his widow Tiffany Abbott-Collins and many friends kept Cullman Today going in his memory. Abbott-Collins explained the history of Cullman Today, sharing, “My late husband, Tim Collins, launched Cullman Today in early 2015, much to my surprise. I came home from a family trip and he announced to me that he just started an online paper. Tim was a naturopath at one point in his life, a holistic health merchant, a mortgage broker, a website builder, but newspaper owner was not in the arsenal of jobs I was familiar with. I had no idea he was interested in that, but he was great at it. He could write in a way that brought a situation to life. Sometimes it made you laugh and other times it made you go, ‘Did he just say that?’ But it was always colorful and in authentic one-of-a-kind Tim Collins fashion.”
She continued, “Tim spent all of his time writing about the people in this community, highlighting our heroes in blue, the heroes who fight the fires each and every day (most of them for free) and our EMS heroes. He was a pioneer in many ways and changed the way that a lot of our news is reported today. Cullman Today was his life and it allowed him to connect with others in a deeply profound way. Cullman Today was basically a love letter to the one and only place that ever felt like home to Tim.”
In January 2021, Abbott-Collins sold Cullman Today to Humble Roots, LLC, the parent company of The Cullman Tribune. Carrying on the name and work of Tim Collins and Cullman Today is an aspect of the acquisition Tribune Publishers Noah Galilee and Dustin Isom intend to honor. While Abbott-Collins’ decision was not an easy one, allowing Humble Roots, LLC to acquire Cullman Today is something she is happy with.
“I feel great about it. I know that it will allow Cullman Today to grow in ways I would not have been able to make happen,” she said. “… I needed more time with my family and friends, time to rest, and my time was very limited. At one point, I was operating two businesses and involved with three nonprofits. This purchase will allow Cullman Today to expand on multiple platforms. It means that just because I don’t have the time and energy to make it go, it will not die or disappear.
