By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
July 7, 2023 | Gwinnett has a new celebrity. The new Miss Georgia, Tara Lynne Schiphof, lives in downtown Sugar Hill. She competed in the contest as Miss Capital City.
The new Miss Georgia is a native of King, N.C. Tara earned a bachelor’s degree in classical ballet from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and a master’s degree in management from Wake Forest University. She danced professionally with the Boston Ballet.
She competed eight times before winning a pageant. This was her second time in the Miss Georgia Pageant. She was Miss Macon last year, and was the first runner up. “I made a promise to myself to push through it and compete again. Being in the contest that year helped prepare me for the contest this year.”
Schiphof
She moved to Georgia four years ago as a marketing specialist with Stanley Black and Decker, and handled the Home Depot account. She works from home, though visits with Home Depot often. Her parents are Melanie and Chris Schiphof, and she has a brother, Cole Schiphof, all of King, N.C.
Back in 1776, there were 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Now a trivia question: how many female names are on the printed copy of the Declaration of Independence?
You might be surprised, as I was. There is one.
Mary Katharine Goddard’s name appears on the printed Declaration of Independence. She was not a signer or a man, but she was a printer to the Continental Congress and you can read her name on printed copies made for the states. If you’ve never noticed it or heard of her, you aren’t alone. She’s a Founding Mother, of sorts, yet few folks know about her.
Thanks to Cathy Jacobson of Atlanta, for this new fact for our memory.
Way back in 1865, Frederick Law Olmsted wrote a treatise on national parks at the request of the Board of Yosemite Commissioners. In it, the landscape architect — whose most famous work is New York’s Central Park — wrote:
“It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness.” We agree with the great man. Get out and enjoy the outdoors, if nothing more than sitting on the river bank.
Duluth residents, pay attention, for it was on July 2 in 1679, that Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, first reached Lake Superior, about the area where Duluth, Minn. now lies, and the Minnesota city that the Georgia city’s name comes from. The Sieur du Lhut was a French soldier and explorer, and had visited Montreal on several occasions. In 1675, he bought a house there, and started thinking about making a trip to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. He negotiated the peace treaty with Indian tribes, arranged some inter-tribal marriages, and encouraged the tribes to hunt together, before moving west to explore the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers.
How many Duluth, Ga. residents knew this?
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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