Tony petelos biography

A Republican, Petelos served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 1986 to 1997.
Tony Petelos is an Alabama politician, having served as a state legislator, the mayor of Hoover, Alabama, and the county manager for Jefferson County.
Petelos has been a state legislator, two-term mayor of Hoover, head of DHR as well as county manager.

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He kept Greek tradition alive, singing and building (Life Stories: Angelos Petelos)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - For more than 40 years, nearly every Greek wedding, funeral and baptism in Birmingham included music chanted by Angelos Petelos.

"He was there at every funeral," said Toni Nordan, who learned to be a Greek chanter from Petelos. "If there was no one else there, Angelo was there."

During that same time, nearly every Greek restaurant built in Birmingham was built by Petelos - from Niki's West to Bright Star and the Fish Market - and he also oversaw the construction of the Colonial Chapel at American Village in Montevallo.

"He was a worker, a doer, more than a talker," said the Rev. Paul Costopoulos, dean of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross.

"He would work hard at our Greek festival. You could always see him sweating over the barbecue pit, cooking the lamb with his brother Tony."

Petelos, born on the island of Samos, Greece in 1935, died on Dec. 4. He was 78.

On construction sites, Petelos was known to turn

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Branching out into alternative fuels

The City of Hoover, Alabama, has made some big strides in switching to alternative fuels for its vehicles. It's using E85 fuel made from tree branches and manufacturing its own biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

By Tony Kryzanowski


Alternative energy gets the thumbs up from U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (above, right) and Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos as Sen. Sessions pumps ethanol fuel into a Hoover police vehicle. The ethanol fuel is made from Hoover's own wood waste.

Sometimes, getting involved with alternative energy is all about being a pioneer and making history.

That was the case last April when the City of Hoover, Alabama, filled the gas tanks of its police cars with wood-based E85 fuel that contains ethanol produced from gasification of limbs and branches discarded by city residents. That was the first time this had ever occurred in the United States.

Hoover has been burning E85 fuel derived from corn ethanol in its police cars for some time, which has attracted a lot of national attention

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Tony Petelos

American politician

Tony Petelos is an Alabama politician, having served as a state legislator, the mayor of Hoover, Alabama, and the county manager for Jefferson County.

Political career

A Republican, Petelos served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 1986 to 1997. After his career in the legislature, he served as the state's Commissioner of the Department of Human Resources after his appointment by Governor Fob James in 1997.

Petelos was mayor of Hoover, Alabama. He was elected to the office in September 2004.

Petelos was selected by the county commission to serve as commissioner of Jefferson County in September 2011.^[1]

He sat on the human resources state board, having been appointed by Governor Bob Riley.^[2]

Personal life

Petelos grew up in Birmingham's Ensley neighborhood.^{[citation needed]}