By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 19, 2019 | There was excitement in the air Tuesday afternoon, as a small group gathered mostly under a shade tree in front of the Norcross First United Methodist Church, though there were chairs empty in the sun. They might not have been there for the dedication of a new crosswalk on busy Beaver Ruin Road if it hadn’t been for a chance conversation between a mother and an employee of the Gateway85 Community Improvement District.
When Mrs. Ray (Nancy) Jones in Norcross learned that the Gateway85 Community Improvement District was installing a traffic crossing near her home on Light Circle, she asked if the crosswalk would be audible. It was not scheduled to be, but Robert Michener of the CID found an additional $15,000 to make it a HAWK crossing (High Intensity Activated Crosswalk), audible for Nancy’s blind son, Timothy, 26. This change adding the audible signal took place in a short, three week time frame.
So people gathering at the crosswalk on Tuesday saw Timothy officially dedicate the crosswalk with the first walk across. Those present cheered, as newsmen took frames of his historic walk, with cars stopped on both sides of the roadway.
Timothy will be using the crosswalk often, as he travels to Georgia State University this fall working on a degree in organ music. He’s a person gifted with perfect pitch, his mother learned early on. When Tim was about two years old, his mother was in the kitchen when she heard a piano playing single notes of the melody line of a gospel song, “Lamb of God,” which they played often on a CD. She found “Timothy was holding onto the piano with his left hand, eyes level with the keyboard, and playing the notes with his right hand. I told our church organist about it, and she said, ‘Get him a teacher.’”
He started taking music from Patti Bennett, now of Flowery Branch, when he was five years old, and continued for 14 years. He earned many superiors in state and national competition. He won the Irl Allison Award from the National Piano Guild, and was on its magazine cover.
At age 12, he began to play a family organ that was once owned by his grandfather. Now he wants to concentrate on the organ. Nancy says: “It took forever to find an organ teacher, who became Karen Bunn of Johns Creek, one of the organists at St. Philips Cathedral.” Once he entered Mercer, his main organ professor was Dr. Jack Mitchener. He graduated from Mercer in Macon earlier this year.
Another important step in Timothy’s music education was learning Braille, and especially Braille music. He had to know Braille music to function in college. He got loads of help from Vocational Rehabilitation Services in this area, and at age 21, took a gap year to learn the computer equipment provided by the state for him.
Timothy has two brothers, Stephen, 24, who finished in computer sciences at Liberty University this year; and Joseph, 21, who is studying business at Gwinnett Technical College.
Sunny Tuesday was a heartwarming day, not just with the heat, but with the realization that a semi-governmental agency, the Gateway85 Community Improvement District, was nimble enough to change a project quickly, and improve the life of the area.
Now, good luck, Timothy, on your work at Georgia State.
As Rep. Pedro Marin said at the gathering, “History was made on Beaver Ruin Road today.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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