By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Alabaster’s mayor recently got a chance to tout his city in a large Northern media market, as a Detroit television station selected the city at random to feature on its morning show Jan. 13.

Through a segment on its morning show, the Fox 2 TV station recently began throwing a dart at a map of the United States and profiling the city the dart lands on.

During the first week of January, the station featured a city in Wisconsin, but the dart landed on Alabaster the next week. As a result, employees at the television station called Alabaster officials, learned about the city’s offerings and gave Alabaster Mayor David Frings airtime to promote his city.

“It was only about three minutes, but that’s good in TV time,” Frings said with a laugh. “They asked me to tell them the best thing about Alabaster.”

The day before the on-air interview, Alabaster officials sent the TV station several photos of the city, which were displayed on-air during Frings’ interview.

Frings said he talked about the city’s “beautiful parks, friendly residents and family values.” He said the interview may help the city in the long run.

“You can just never tell. Some people in Detroit may pass through Alabaster on their way to the beach one day,” Frings said.