Every parent cherishes those moments when their children make them proud.

Such a moment came to me and my wife, Rosalind, this past week, and we wanted to share it with you.

Our son, Maury, graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1993 and soon thereafter went to work for the Office of the Alabama Attorney General.

The Office of Attorney General was held at that time by Jimmy Evans and he was followed in office by Jeff Sessions, now one of our United States Senators, and Bill Pryor, who is serving his second term in that post.

Maury has worked in the Attorney General's office for the past ten years, serving each of these three officeholders.

His title in that office has been Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs & Special Projects Director for the Executive Division.

In the Attorney General's Office, he has been responsible for all technology, publications and automation of files and records.

He developed courtroom technology which is being used in the trials conducted by the Attorney General and his legal staff.

This past month, Maury was selected to head a very important office, the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC).

The ACJIC is not a household word in our state but it is an important agency that was established by the Alabama Legislature in 1975 to collect, store, retrieve, analyze, and disseminate vital information relating to crimes, criminals and criminal activity.

The principle mission of the ACJIC has been to assist all officials and agencies in the criminal justice community in the fulfillment of their varied responsibilities by providing around the clock access to needed information through the ACJIC telecommunications network.

The ACJIC network processes more than 3.4 million transactions per month in support of Alabama's criminal justice agencies.

In addition, the ACJIC utilizes data collected from law enforcement agencies to provide a comprehensive picture of crime in the state of Alabama.

So you can see, it is an important arm of law enforcement and requires a lot of technical know how to keep in step with the constantly changing technology related to our criminal justice system.

Maury has both a technology degree from undergraduate school and a law degree, so the Commission, which governs the ACJIC, felt him to be uniquely qualified to be executive director of this agency.

Although I have served for a long time as a state official, I did not realize the comprehensive nature of the work of this agency until Maury took the job and shared some of the operations of the office with me.

I want to publicly commend him for receiving this assignment and wish him well as he seeks to meet the challenges offered by this agency.

I don't usually write about something so personal in my weekly column, but I just had to let our son know that he has made his Mom and Dad proud.

Senator Wendell Mitchell can

be reached at 334-242-7883, or by writing

to P.O. Box 225, Luverne, AL 36049.