GwinnettForum | Number 21.14 | Feb. 25, 2022
WINNERS OF THE 7TH ANNUAL ‘Stand in Ansel Adams’ Footsteps’ Competition and Exhibition hosted by the Gwinnett Chapter, Georgia Nature Photographers Association, have been announced. The Best in Show winner is Ruth McCully in the Advanced Division. She is a member of the Coastal Chapter of the association in Savannah. Her winning photo, shown here, is entitled “The Sentinel at Sunrise.” Ms. McCully also won first place in Macro/Up Close with an entry entitled “Water Lily Splendor.” To see a list of all the winners, click here.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Georgia State’s diverse model is what other universities can become
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Public broadcasting is welcome voice in our democracy
SPOTLIGHT: Walton Gas
FEEDBACK: Sees a benefit in having cameras in each classroom
UPCOMING: Here are commission and school board maps for fall election
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Lee Roy Abernathy was big name in southern gospel music
MYSTERY PHOTO: Clues may be staring you in the face with this photo
LAGNIAPPE: Red-shouldered hawk roving the grounds at Lawrenceville park
CALENDAR: Walk-in vaccine clinic is Saturday, February 26, at Lenora Park in Snellville
Ga. State’s diverse model is what universities can become
“Georgia State is showing, contrary to what experts have said for decades, that demographics are not destiny. Students from all backgrounds can succeed at comparable rates.”- Tim Renick, executive director at the National Institute for Student Success at Georgia State University.
By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | Georgia State University has become synonymous with the rise of Atlanta as a progressive city. The Social Action Alliance (SAA) is a new program at GSU that furthers its commitment to social justice.
Many Georgians don’t realize the impact that Georgia State University (GSU) has on both the metro region and Georgia. GSU has a $2.5 billion annual economic impact on the state. It is the largest university in Georgia, with 54,000 students and campuses downtown as well as in Alpharetta, Decatur, Clarkston, Dunwoody and Newton County. GSU enrolls 6,340 students from Gwinnett.
It began in 1913 as the Evening School of Commerce of Georgia Tech. In 1947 it came under the umbrella of the University of Georgia, before becoming independent as a college in 1955. GSU has been a progressive force in Georgia, providing access to working class students who otherwise might not pursue higher education. In fact, its student body is 60 percent minority. Which gets us back to the Social Action Alliance (SAA) program.
The SAA was initiated on GSU’s campus by Sally Wallace, dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. It is part of a larger national program, the NextGen Service Corps movement, which is designed to help college students get directly involved in local civic affairs.
With the fragmented nature of our nation, programs like the SAA are vital. According to younger voters, our democracy is not doing well at all. The majority of citizens 18-29 years of age that were polled believe that our democracy is unhealthy, troubled, functioning poorly and failing. In light of these distressing opinions, GSU’s students are hungry for direction regarding how to make a difference and be effective community advocates.
Program Director Tammie Green is an alumna of the Andrew Young School, where the SAA initiative is housed. She says she is excited to “offer a counter to the apathetic energy that has resulted from a global pandemic and challenging political times.”
The Social Action Alliance’s mission is “To inspire and prepare socially empathetic collaborators to identify and activate their strengths for the good of all” with the overarching vision of “embedding collective social action in the university culture to promote public service beyond.”
I have two degrees from GSU obtained over a period of 10 years from 1967-1976. Like many, I attended at night, working to support my wife and children. I would never have been able to become a successful business executive without GSU.
Frankly, when I have gone to games at other universities, that feeling of brotherhood/sisterhood is not the feeling I have had, both here and in various Southern states where I have lived. But it should be. With a younger generation of ever more tolerant and accepting people, it someday will be. And I believe students who participate in the SAA program will lead the way. In that way, GSU is a model for what America can become, rather than what it is at present with its tribalism.
More information about the SAA program, which begins in the spring of 2022, can be found at https://socialaction.gsu.edu/.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Public broadcasting is welcome voice in our democracy
U.S. Navy photo via Wikipedia.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 25, 2022 | Tomorrow, Saturday, February 26, will mark the 52nd anniversary of the incorporation of National Public Radio (NPR), one of our nation’s most distinguished media. With its founding, it replaced the former National Educational Radio Network. This came after President Lyndon Johnson signed the “Public Broadcasting Act” in 1967, with its goal to expand non-commercial radio and television broadcasting for educational purposes.
An early favorite of public broadcasting on television was the series, Sesame Street, which children quickly loved. It was popular with parents, for it slowed down the children from prancing around the room and settled them down a bit in the afternoon for this distinctive learning in an entertaining environment.
We first learned of NPR locally as we dialed around the radio in our car when we moved to Metro Atlanta in 1974. What first attracted us to 90.1 FM (the only public station in Atlanta then) was its playing of classical music throughout most of the day. (We miss that today, but have Sirius Radio, which has slots for all kinds of music and news now.)
Eventually we realized that NPR had more than just music. We heard the afternoon news show, All Things Considered, which debuted in 1971. Before NPR came along, radio stations were mostly for entertainment, with lots of music and also featured soap operas, the various on-going drama series, named for their sponsors, Ivory Snow, Palmolive or other products aimed at the housewife. Women usually identified with the characters in the radio dramas.
The Federal Communications Commission adopted the lower end of the FM band for non-commercial educational stations, where you find most public stations today. Georgia and Atlanta got their first statewide public radio and television in 1960. Today Georgia Public Broadcasting has nine television stations around the state, while Georgia Public Radio has 17 stations, operating from 20 towers, to cover the state.
Some NPR program we remember fondly. One was Fridays with Red, which we heard at 7:35 a.m. most Fridays, as NPR Host Bob Edwards spent five minutes with retired sports broadcaster Red Barber from his home in Tallahassee. Let Wikipedia explain it: “His weekly call-in chats with retired sportscaster Red Barber were…supposedly about sports, but often digressed into topics like the Gulf War, what kind of flowers were blooming at Barber’s home, or other non-sport subjects. Barber would call Edwards ‘Colonel Bob,’ referring to Edwards’ Kentucky Colonel honor from his native state. Barber died in 1992; the following year Edwards based his first book, Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship on the weekly interviews.”
Another high point for NPR is when the nation addresses a particular event with gavel-to-gavel coverage of important hearings, such as the Watergate investigation, or Supreme Court nominees being questioned by Senate members, and similar programs. You don’t get that on commercial stations. These uninterrupted broadcasts are a tremendous service for our nation, and are hosted by experts giving you more insight.
We like another element of public broadcasting: working with diverse audiences. Its coverage of weekly high school football games, and playoffs, introduces another group of people to public broadcasting.
We’re happy that from that beginning in 1970, public broadcasting has become a welcome voice for our country, providing new insights for our democracy.
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Walton Gas
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Sees a benefit in having cameras in each classroom
Editor, the Forum:
What is the difference between children taking instruction from home via Zoom and having permanent cameras and microphones with recording capability in the classroom? With the latter, a sick child could audit instruction in real-time or visit the recording online when awake or feeling up to it. Parents could also feel confident about what is being taught and how it is being taught. They would have a sense of confidence that seems to be missing.
The parents could also see their children perform both good and bad. The kids might not want this. I know facing the music at home was always worse than the words from the school. Hearing “We’re disappointed in you” was the worst thing my sisters and I could hear. Even in our 70’s we remember that.
If there’s nothing to hide, this might be a problem solver. It could close the void that seems to have grown between the teachers and the parents.
– Byron Gilbert, Duluth
Dear Byron: One problem with your idea of having parents able to look into classrooms. Don’t you know some uninformed parents would object with the way the teachers were going about their job. This is a big drawback. Leave the teachers alone and let ‘em teach without cameras looking over their shoulder. –eeb
Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words, and include your hometown. The views of letters are the opinion of the contributor. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net.
Commission, school board maps OKed for fall election
Here are the final maps that Gwinnett County will use in the 2022 election for the county commission and school board. These maps were signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp after passing the General Assembly recently. There is one new element. The Legislature changed the requirement for school board members. The new element is that the School Board candidates will run in a nonpartisan election in the future. (You can click the headline to see larger versions of the maps)
Payne-Simpkins will be new Lilburn city manager
Payne-Simpkins
The city of Lilburn will have a new city manager, effective May 26. Assistant City Manager Jenny Payne-Simpkins will replace Bill Johnsa, who is retiring. In Dec. 2019, Simpkins joined the city of Lilburn in the newly-created position as assistant city manager following a 12-year stint as city manager for the city of Fort Oglethorpe, in north Georgia. She’s also worked for Gwinnett County government and the city of Savannah in various roles. Simpkins received her Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and her Master of Public Administration degree from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She was born in Columbus, Ga., and grew up in North Carolina. She and her husband live in unincorporated Lilburn.
Coolray Field site of college, high school games this spring
The Gwinnett Stripers will host college and high school baseball games in 2022 at Coolray Field. The Stripers will host five college baseball games in all, including:
- Atlanta Braves Ralph Garr-Bill Lucas HBCU Baseball Classic on February 25-27. This will be the second annual HBCU Baseball Classic in a three-game weekend series between Grambling State University and Florida A&M University.
- Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta 2022 Spring Classic for Kids on March 6.Georgia Tech will play the University of Georgia for the 19th Annual Spring Classic on Sunday, March 6.
- Georgia State University vs. the University of Georgia on Tuesday, March 22. This is the first time the Panthers and Bulldogs have faced off at Coolray Field.
Here is the schedule where the Stripers will also host the following high school games:
- Athens Christian School vs. Stony Brook (NY) School on March 2.
- Lanier High School vs. Landmark Christian School on March 19.
- 2022 Georgia High School Association Baseball State Championships on May 24-26. For the second year in a row, the state titles will be on the line as Coolray Field hosts best-of-three championship series in two different classifications.
The Gwinnett Stripers’ 2022 season is not affected by the current lockout of Major League Baseball and will go on as scheduled. Gwinnett begins the year on Tuesday, April 5 at Memphis before returning to Coolray Field for opening night on Tuesday, April 12 vs. Nashville.
GGC to offer degree online for special education teachers
Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) students who want to pursue a special education degree can now do so wherever they have an internet connection. GGC has introduced an online option for the Bachelor of Science in Education degree for special education majors.
Dr. Matthew Boggan, chair of GGC’s special education curriculum, offered insight into why there’s such a high demand for people within this program.
“There’s a huge shortage of teachers in general right now, and that’s compounded by the COVID crisis,” he said. “Special education is the number one shortage in the field of teaching.”
Boggan explained that GGC’s online program seeks to rectify that shortage by offering more accessible coursework. The online format lets students learn from home, which allows people who would ordinarily have to factor in jobs or long commutes to work around those obstacles.
The curriculum requires 123 hours of coursework to fulfill degree requirements. Students can achieve that through online courses at GGC or a combination of GGC and eCore courses. eCore is an initiative within the University System of Georgia that provides an online campus for students who need a more generalized and expansive approach.
Although the curriculum is online, Boggan said special education teacher candidates will gain practical experience with students in the classroom through a required field component in Gwinnett County Public Schools during their junior and senior years.
GGC’s new online option is attractive to paraprofessionals, who provide support to special education teachers and provide one-on-one help to students. The special education program offers a program track for traditional daytime college students and a paraprofessional program track for working paraprofessionals featuring evening and weekend courses.
“Special education is a very rewarding field,” Boggan said. “Students have a lot of life challenges, so it’s very rewarding to watch them grow personally and intellectually and become productive citizens.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
No recommendation today, since our readers recently have not sent new reviews. See if you can write 150 words about what you have enjoyed recently, from trips to the mountains, to cultural events, or what gave you pleasure. Help! We need new ones!
An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Abernathy was big name in Southern gospel music
One of the most colorful personalities in Southern gospel music history, Georgia native Lee Roy Abernathy was a songwriter, pianist, entertainer, publisher, author, teacher, and political candidate. Always innovative, Abernathy invented a music typesetting system, pioneered the use of public address systems in gospel concerts, and wrote the first singing commercials.
Abernathy was born on August 13, 1913, near the small textile mill village of Atco in Bartow County. His musically gifted parents instilled a love for quartet music and the tradition of gospel singing conventions in their children. At the age of five, he was performing regularly with the Atco Quartet, for which his father sang bass. Awing audiences with his ability to harmonize, he sang while standing on a Coca-Cola crate. During the 1920s the family relocated numerous times before settling in Canton, where Abernathy’s father, a former sharecropper, found employment in the textile industry, at the Canton Cotton Mill.
By age 14, Abernathy had become so adept at playing the piano that he replaced his older sister when she left the Atco Quartet to marry. Studying shape notes under such important gospel music figures as J. M. Henson, he was eager to learn and gain experience, even enrolling in the Atlanta Conservatory of Music.
In the early 1930s he married Louise Ammons, and they had three children, Hugh, Linda, and Susan.
The Great Depression did not hamper Abernathy’s musical pursuits. He founded the Modern Mountaineers, a country band that performed live on Atlanta’s WSB radio and recorded for Bluebird Records. In 1936 he wrote Good Times Are Coming Soon a re-election campaign song for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In the early 1940s Abernathy made a noticeable impact on gospel music. Although he was ridiculed by publishers of gospel singing convention books, he offered the first gospel sheet music in 1943 with his song, I Thank My Savior for It All, establishing a new income stream for writers and publishers of sacred music. In 1945 he also finished creating his mail-order piano course, which was eventually marketed to thousands of aspiring pianists.
(To be continued)
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Clues may be staring you in the face with this photo
What kind of tower is today’s Mystery Photo? Look carefully, for you may see an almost hidden clue. Send your identification to elliott@brack.net and include the town where you live.
The most recent Mystery Photo was a difficult one, as only two readers recognized it. John Titus of Peachtree Corners wrote: “This is the Veteran’s Memorial Fountain at Newtown Park in Johns Creek. This Fulton County park is also the home of a recently-installed replica of the Vietnam Wall, which had traveled around the US and now has a permanent home there. The overall park has several playing fields, playgrounds, picnic areas, tennis and pickleball courts, an amphitheater and asphalt walking trails. It is one of our favorites.” The photograph came from Cindy Evans of Duluth.
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. also recognized the photo, writing that it was “…another tough one. I almost gave up! This is of the fountain in the northern part of the Veteran’s Memorial Walk at Newtown Park in Johns Creek, Ga. The Veterans Memorial Walk is sponsored by the Johns Creek Veterans Association and was created to honor and memorialize all the men and women who have served in the United States Armed Services. The four-acre memorial features a hardscaped trail, circling a peaceful fountain (the one in the mystery photo), sponsored granite benches, a grand entrance plaza, and wooden gazebo. Along the trail, black granite monuments pay homage to each conflict, beginning with World War I and include special monuments for Purple Heart recipients, POW/MIAs, and women in service.”
Red-shouldered hawk roving grounds at Lawrenceville park
Almost regal in his pose, this red-shouldered hawk was seen by Roving Photographer Frank Sharp at the Rhodes Jordan Park in Lawrenceville. The hawk has an almost stately pose as if knowing a photographer was around. But most likely, the hawk is just seeking out some creature to snatch for his next meal.
Walk-in vaccine clinic is Saturday
Vaccine Clinic is scheduled on Saturday, February 26 at Lenora Park, near Snellville. This is a walk in clinic. No appointments will be taken. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visitors will have an opportunity to get their COVID-19 vaccine and earn a $100 gift card while supplies last. Vaccines will be available to eligible people ages 5 and up. All three authorized vaccine types — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — will be available. The vaccine clinic, operated by the Gwinnett County Health Department, will take place inside Lenora Park Gym. Community partners will be set up outside the gym providing additional information and resources. Lenora Park Gym is located at 4515 Lenora Church Road in Snellville.
Sundays in Suwanee series: What Lies Beneath: “Exploring African American burial grounds” will be Sunday, February 27 at 3 p.m. at the Suwanee Library Branch, 361 Main Street, Suwanee. Join as Dr. D. L. Henderson discusses the history of Atlanta’s segregated Oakland Cemetery.
Seeking input: Braselton Mayor Kurt Ward is inviting residents to a meeting on February 28 at 7 p.m. to get comments on the town’s 2020 Comprehensive Plan. The meeting will be the courtroom of the Braselton Municipal Building. The goal is to help Braselton ensure its Comprehensive Plan provides accurate guidance and aspirations for Braselton.
The Snellville Commerce Club will meet Tuesday, March 1, at noon at the City Hall. Speaker will be Gaye Johnson, director of public works for the city. Non-members cost for the luncheon is $15. Mrs. Johnson has been in this position since 2001 and this department includes the maintenance department plus sanitation and recycling.
Sundays in Suwanee Series with author Julius Thompson will be Sunday, March 6 at 3 p.m. at the Suwanee Library Branch,361 Main St, Suwanee. Join this national award-winning author as he discusses his newest book, Killer Kudzu, a pre-apocalyptic, semi-horror novel where science has gone terribly wrong. Books will be available for sale and signing.
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