MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- State Sen. Vivian Davis Figures will make history for Alabama women in 2013.

The Mobile senator's fellow Democrats have chosen her to begin a two-year term as minority leader in February. Legislative leaders say she is the first woman they can recall as a minority or majority leader in either the Senate or House.

Figures says it's an honor not just for her, but for all women in Alabama.

She says it's a long way from when she arrived in the Senate in 1997 -- back then, people still addressed the Senate by saying, "Gentlemen of the Senate." Figures would stand up to remind her colleagues the Senate included two women.