championnewspaper championnewspaper champnews championnews thechampionnewspaper.com FRIDAY , ApRIl 3, 2015 • VOl. 18, NO. 1 • FREE • A PUBLICATION OF ACE III COMMUNICATIONS •Serving East Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, Lithonia, Pine Lake, Tuc ker and Stone Mountain. FR E EPRESS See Bike on page 15A Georgians ride to the Capitolby Ashley Oglesby[email protected]M ore than 1,000 bikers rode with met- ro Atlanta mayors and councilmem- bers, state legislators and other state officials on March 24 to the new Liberty plaza across the street from the state Capitol to high- light the need for funding for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure . Gov. Nathan Deal said, “Bicycling is cer- tainly one of those activities that have taken on a great significance in Georgia. As you know we passed legislation to give you better protec- tion when you’re riding on the roads, and you have formed organizations and clubs through- out our state that encourage bicycling-which is of course a great way of getting exercise and enjoying the beautiful outdoors of the state of Georgia.” Georgia Municipal Association and the Metro Atlanta Mayors Associa tion sponsored the 10th annual Georgia Rides to the Capitol event in an effort to secure support for region- al bike and pedestrian networks throughout metro Atlanta. Decatur commissioner and event coordina- tor Fred Boykinsaid the Georgia Ride to the Capitol event has been instrumental in helping to secure adoptions of a statewide complete streets policy, a law setting 3-feet as the mini- mum safe passing distance for motor vehicles overtaking cyclists and the rising profile of bicycle issues in Georgia. The event gained support from Bike-Walk Dunwoody an all-volunteer advocacy organi- zation and statewide bicycle advocacy group Georgia Bikes which aims to create cycling connections focused around major transit Business ........................17A Education .............. 18-19A Sports...................... 21-23A Opinion ...........................5A Classified.......................20A QUICK FINDER lOcAl, 8A eDucAtION, 23A lOcAl, 14A CARING BUNNY OPENS ARMS TO CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS STEPHENSON DEFEATS DUNWOODY IN REGION PLAYFERNBANK ROBOTICS TEAM GOING TO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Dunwoody bikers gather at the Village Burger prior to the bike/walk Dunwoody. Photos by Ashley Oglesby Clarkston city councilman Dean Moore chats with bikers. Gov. Nathan Deal recognizes Georgia bikers efforts at the 10th annual Georgia rides to the capitol. Bikers pose before riding to the capitol.
• A PUBLICATION OF ACE III COMMUNICATIONS • Serving East Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, Chamblee, Clarkston, Decatur, Doraville, Dunwoody, Lithonia, Pine Lake, Tucker and Stone Mountain.
More than 1,000 bikers rode with met-ro Atlanta mayors and councilmem-
bers, state legislators and other stateofficials on March 24 to the new Liberty plazaacross the street from the state Capitol to high-ight the need for funding for pedestrian and
bicycle infrastructure.Gov. Nathan Deal said, “Bicycling is cer-
ainly one of those activities that have taken ona great significance in Georgia. As you knowwe passed legislation to give you better protec-ion when you’re riding on the roads, and you
have formed organizations and clubs through-out our state that encourage bicycling-whichs of course a great way of getting exercise andnjoying the beautiful outdoors of the state of
Georgia.”Georgia Municipal Association and the
Metro Atlanta Mayors Association sponsored
he 10th annual Georgia Rides to the Capitolvent in an effort to secure support for region-
al bike and pedestrian networks throughoutmetro Atlanta.
Decatur commissioner and event coordina-or Fred Boykin said the Georgia Ride to the
Capitol event has been instrumental in helpingo secure adoptions of a statewide completetreets policy, a law setting 3-feet as the mini-
mum safe passing distance for motor vehiclesovertaking cyclists and the rising profile ofbicycle issues in Georgia.
The event gained support from Bike-WalkDunwoody an all-volunteer advocacy organi-zation and statewide bicycle advocacy groupGeorgia Bikes which aims to create cycling
onnections focused around major transit
Business ........................17A
Education .............. 18-19A
Sports...................... 21-23A
Opinion ...........................5A
Classified .......................20A
QUICK FINDER
lOcAl, 8A eDucAtION, 23AlOcAl, 14A
CARING BUNNY OPENS
ARMS TO CHILDREN
WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
STEPHENSON DEFEATS
DUNWOODY IN REGION
PLAY
FERNBANK ROBOTICS
TEAM GOING TO WORLD
CHAMPIONSHIP
Dunwoody bikers gather at the Village Burger prior to the bike/walk Dunwoody. Photos by Ashley Oglesby
Clarkston city councilman Dean Moore chats with bikers. Gov. Nathan Deal recognizes Georgia bikers effortsat the 10th annual Georgia rides to the capitol.
Page 2A The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015
LOCAL
Discover your passion.Attend a GPC Open House.
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#OpenGPC* Advance sign up and student attendance are required to receive
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NEWS BRIEFS
Clarifcation
An article in the March 19, 2015, issue o The Champion Newspaper and March 20, 2015, issue o Champion Free Press incorrectly stated that Pine Lake hadeliminated its executive sessions. No action has been taken. We apologize or the error.
Man robbed at gunpoint in Avondale Estates
Two suspects robbed a male pedestrian at gun-point March 25, around 10:40 p.m. on East CollegeAvenue at Sams Crossing.
The victim told Avondale Estates Police that
two suspects held him at gunpoint and took his wal-et as he made his way to the MARTA Station.According to police, the suspects were wearing
black clothing and black ski masks; the gun was notseen and could not be described.
The victim was not injured during the incidentand the suspects immediately fled on foot.
Investigator Tom Gillis said the department isfollowing leads and reviewing security video fromnearby businesses.
Anyone with information regarding this crimeshould call Gillis at (404) 391-4526.
DeKalb Community Service Board to addressschizophrenia
DeKalb Community Service Board (CSB) wasselected to participate in the National Council forBehavioral Health’s 2015 Early Onset Schizophre-nia Community of Practice (COP), which will takeplace from March through October 2015.
“We are excited to be recognized by the Na-tional Council for our excellence in the care of earlyepisode psychosis treatment,” said Joseph Bona,chief medical officer of DeKalb CSB. “We applaudthe national council’s approach to supporting localexcellence in the diagnosis and treatment of youthand young adults at risk for early onset schizophre-nia.”
DeKalb CSB was selected as one of 10 partici-pating organizations out of nearly 60 applicants.COP participants will develop a strategic planwhich will include community resources that can
be utilized as a point of screening and/or referralfor screening, clinical best practices for this targetpopulation, potential funding sources and recom-mended practices needed to best serve this popula-tion and their families.
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe and disablingmental disorder characterized by deficits in thought
processes, perceptions, and emotional respon-siveness. It affects nearly 1 percent of Americans.Emerging evidence strongly suggests that earlyrecognition and treatment of schizophrenia canpositively alter the natural course of the illness andpotentially provide full recovery. “We are especiallyexcited to bring this specialty care to the citizens ofDeKalb County,” Bona said.
The Early Onset Schizophrenia Community ofPractice will provide valuable insights to support and broaden DeKalb CSB’s Prevention and EarlyIntervention Program. This is a surveillance andmonitoring program that strives to reduce the dura-tion of untreated psychosis in youth by identifyingyouth at ultra-high risk of developing schizophreniabefore they experience their first psychotic break.
Decatur releases statement on public protests
The city of Decatur wants protestors to be re-spectful of city laws and private spaces.
In recent weeks, there have been several protestsin and around the Decatur Square on both publicand private property.
In a March 27 statement, the city touted its “at-tractive, accessible and safe environment for publiclife.”
“This combined with the city’s role as the coun-ty seat of DeKalb County means people gather hereall the time, whether for a festival, to enjoy the niceweather or to demonstrate about an issue they feelpassionately about,” according to the statement. “Weare viewed as the civic heart of the county and thiscreates the challenge of democracy in Decatur.”
Decatur Mayor Jim Baskett stated, “Our policeofficers have responded appropriately and profes-sionally by instructing participants that they can-not protest on private property without permissionfrom the owner.
“They can protest on public sidewalks as longas they do not obstruct others from using the side-walks and if they want to have a parade they wouldneed to secure a permit,” Baskett stated.
In the statement, Baskett asked that individuals“interested in making a statement to DeKalb Coun-ty…choose a venue more closely associated with the
county that would allow their voices to be heard bythose they are trying to reach.”
In the news release, Decatur Police Chief MikeBooker said, “The Decatur Police Department re-spects and acknowledges the individual right of ev-ery person in this country to assemble peaceably inpublic. Every Decatur officer is trained to respondto protests and protestors respectfully and profes-sionally. This department will continue to upholdthe highest standards when balancing protestors’constitutional rights with the rights of others whomay be impacted.”
County’s human development department tohost father, daughter workshop
DeKalb County’s interim CEO Lee May , inpartnership with Men Stopping Violence, Hearts ofHope Domestic Violence Ministry and the Men’sMinistry of Peace Baptist Church, is presenting“Because We Have Daughters,” an interactive work-shop that bridges common emotional gaps between
fathers and their daughters. Facilitated by DeKalb’sHuman Development Department, the workshopwill be hosted at the Porter Sanford III Perform-ing Arts Community Center, on Saturday, April 18,from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
“This initiative keenly focuses on tactical waysto strengthen families and to demonstrate work-able coparenting strategies. I hope as many fathersas possible will participate and see for themselves,”May said.
Men Stopping Violence created the BecauseWe Have Daughters initiative in 2005 to train faith-based organizations to sponsor and feature theseworkshops as an extension of their community out-reach. The initiative provides a unique opportunityfor fathers to break through communication barri-ers and learn more about their daughters.
The Porter Sanford III Performing Arts Com-munity Center is located at 3181 Rainbow Dr., De-catur.
The workshop is free and open to the generalpublic. Because seating is limited registration is re-quired. RSVP at [email protected], or(404) 370-7669.
As the Georgia Bureau of Inves-igations looks into a DeKalb County
Police officer’s recent shooting deathof an unarmed, naked, bipolar man,
he county already has resources tohelp law enforcement officers dealwith people in crisis.
DeKalb Crisis Center handlesa lot of different situations” includ-ng “situations where the person hasome voluntarily here,” said Marga-et Shelby the center director. “They
are aware that they need help andhey just come on their own or aamily member has brought them.
“We also handle situations wherehe person has been brought in-
voluntarily,” Shelby said. “In otherwords, there is a legal mechanism tobring them here for an evaluation.
Any law enforcement officer has theapacity to do that, to pick someoneup and, on the basis of their [belief ]hat the person looks like they might
need evaluation for a mental illness,hey can bring them here.
Shelby said a patient may be ata local hospital’s emergency roomand they are in need of further
psychiatric treatment or substanceabuse treatment for their crisis andhen we would accept the referralrom the hospital.”
The center has six temporary ob-ervation beds for people “we’re noture how long it’s going to take to gettabilized but ideally they might beomebody that stays with us a few
hours and then we feel like they’retable enough…[to] be discharged,”he said.
There are 36 other beds for lon-ger stays of up to 30 days. The aver-age stay at the center is seven days.n the past year, the crisis center per-ormed 3,200 evaluations and admit-
ted 1,700 people.“That’s a lot of people,” Shelby
said.Another resource in the county
is the mobile crisis unit which teamsa registered nurse with a police of-ficer to respond crises involvingmental health, substance abuse, sui-cides, domestic violence and events.The unit, initiated in 1994, handlesapproximately 200 calls per monthfrom E911, the DeKalb County crisisline, Georgia Crisis & Access Lineand referrals from various privateproviders and clinics.
According to Vicki Jacobs, a reg-istered nurse with the mobile crisisunit, the unit runs every day from 1to 9 p.m. covering the entire county.
“The majority of our calls comethrough the 911 system,” Jacobs said.“We are 911 responders. If it’s dan-gerous they will always give us backup.”
Other calls come from theDeKalb County crisis line, GeorgiaCrisis & Access Line and referralsfrom private providers and clinics.
The unit sees five to seven peo-ple a day, Jacobs said.
When the mobile crisis unit isnot on an active call, the unit followsup “with anybody who has a mentalhealth contact with a police officer,”Jacobs said, such as “somebody who’soff their medication, not sleeping,may be delusional or paranoid, fam-ily has become afraid of them—may-be they’re making threats, [or] carry-
ing a knife everywhere they go.“It’s probably not going to beenough to get them a mental healthappointment,” said Jacobs, who hasworked with the unit for 20 years.“So we go out and talk to them andtry to get them to go with us forsome mental health intervention.”
Without the center, “probably all
of the hospital emergency rooms inDeKalb County would be much full-er than they are,” Shelby said. “Theyare already full but if there were nocrisis center then there would belots and lots of folks that [go there].Were there no crisis center, folks
would end up going somewhere andmost often…they generally will goto a hospital.”
Police officers would be im-pacted because “they bring a lot offolks here,” Shelby said. “One of theimportant factors is…when theybring someone here, [we] can handlethat in a fairly expedited manner. Wedon’t ask them to stay a long time.That’s a benefit to the police.
”If we were not doing this cen-ter you would have that many morehours of police time that would gointo taking people to other emer-gency rooms,” Shelby said.
”The other resource that wouldfeel the pinch,” Shelby said, “wouldbe the state hospital. If you don’thave a means to pay for your care…that’s where you would end up.”
Without the crisis center andmobile crisis unit, most of the pa-tients seen by the center would go to jail, Jacobs said.
“Part of what we try to do is keepmentally ill people from going to jail…on minor offenses,” Jacobs said.
“Jail is very limited in what [itprovides],” Shelby said. “We see a lotof folks who have been to jail andwho were taking medication and fora variety of reasons that doesn’t getfollowed through very well. Jails arelimited in their budgets with whatthey can afford to do. That can bea real problem. Plus it’s a problemfor the jail to deal with [mental pa-tients]. They don’t fit in well with thenormal population.”
DeKalb Crisis Center handles thousands of cases each year. Photo by Andrew Cauthen
A three-car accident in-volving an old man, a Blackwoman and a Jewish coupleeasily could have turned
into a screaming, cussing,finger-pointing situation.Tree strangers from
different generations, eth-nicities and religious back-grounds—still in shock andstressed by a sudden violentcrash—could have reactedwith hostility, anger andselfish interests.
Instead this accident thattook place on LaVista Roadone night in March while Iwas driving home was any-thing but that.
Granted, no one was se-riously injured and vehicle
damage was minimal, but
the initial crash jettisonedat least one airbag and, nodoubt, the release of a ton ofadrenaline in each of us.
Te Jewish man, whosecar was the last one struck
and who was an EM,
checked on the drivers ofthe two other vehicles witha calming and concernedpresence. Te 82-year-oldman, who rear-ended mycar sending it into the car
ahead of me, apologizedrepeatedly. Te couple and Iaccepted his clearly sincereapology and replied that ac-cidents happen.
As we stood by the sideof the road awaiting police,we got to know each othera little. Te old man and Iwere both originally fromWestchester County in NewYork. Te couple had movedhere from New Jersey, andthe wife remarked that if theaccident had occurred therewe wouldn’t all be convers-ing so pleasantly.
I thought about that and
decided it wasn’t the geog-raphy that resulted in suchcalm interaction–althoughSouthern hospitality is realand I’m a big fan of it—butthe attitudes of the individu-
als involved.We choose how we re-act to situations—fromthe most minor to the bigstuff. Will we gather factsand information first? Dowe scream and holler theminute the unexpectedhappens? Are we only con-cerned with ourselves or arewe committed to showingothers compassion during acrisis? Are we angry and justwaiting for an opportunityto take it out on someone?Do we want our lives to bean example of truly loving
our neighbors?
While I wouldn’t wishinvolvement in a traffic ac-cident on anyone, if onehappens I hope you are asfortunate as I was to col-lide with individuals who
weren’t interested in turningan accident into a some-thing ugly.
Tere’s enough uglinessand mean-spiritedness inthe world—just pick up thenewspaper or turn on thenews any day. Kindness,understanding and compas-sion go a long way to makeour lives less tumultuousand stressful and restore thepeacefulness and dignitythat so many of us are seek-ing.
OPINIONThe Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 5A
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PUBLISHERW sinry aria hdisssion srronding his and anyiss of inrs o DKab cony.The Champion was fondd in 1991xrssy o rovid a form fordisors for a ommniy rsidnson a sids of an iss. W hav nodsir o mak h nws ony oror nws and oinions o ff
a mor dad iiznry ha wiimay mov or ommniyforward. W ar hay o rsnidas for disssion; howvr,w mak vry ffor o avoidrining informaion sbmid os ha is known o b fas and/orassmions nnd as fa.
ONE MAN’S OPINION
“The vast majority ofDeKalb employees are honest,decent, hardworking people...There are some bad apples;woe be unto you,” formerGeorgia Attorney General Mike Bowers, named as aSpecial Investigator by inter-m DeKalb CEO Lee May .
The cavalry is finally onhe way for our beleaguered
DeKalb County, and thoughnot a perfect white knight,he man leading this charges experienced, knowledge-
able and has a ‘take no pris-oners’ attitude to makingure that justice is done.
Michael J. Bowers, anative of Commerce, was
eared in Atlanta andpent the majority of hisadult and childhood yearswith his family in southDeKalb County off AllgoodRoad. Bowers served inhe Georgia Department of
Law, primarily as attorneygeneral for nearly a quar-er century. Bowers was
poised in 1997 to becomeGeorgia’s first Republicangovernor. But it was not tobe. Bowers personal life wasnot as clean and well-man-aged as his public persona,and against the backdropof Monica Lewinsky ’s dal-iance with then President
Bill Clinton, Bowers’ guber-natorial aspirations fell shortn the summer of 1998.
The role of Georgia’sirst GOP governor since
Reconstruction would beater played by former State
Senator Sonny Perdue. Gov.Perdue named Bowers andformer DeKalb DistrictAttorney Bob Wilson as
special investigators for thestate of Georgia, later work-ing alongside the GBI, toroot out what was going onwith meteoric rises in testscores with the City of At-lanta Public Schools. Bow-ers, Wilson and their chiefinvestigator, Richard Hyde,all believed the cheatingand corruption reachedall the way to the office ofthen APS SuperintendentBeverly Hall. Hall recentlylost a years’ long battle withbreast cancer, which pro-tected her from facing trial,but was unable to save herfrom reputational injury. Inaddition to being recognizednationally as superintendentof the year, Hall receivedmore than $250,000 in per-formance compensationbonuses tied to those fast-rising test scores.
The Atlanta investigationwas mirrored with another
very similar in DoughertyCounty, as well as priortest result “improvements”in DeKalb County. Theseinvestigations started anational dialogue, whichcontinues today, not only onthe prevalence of cheatingand test score jumps, buton broadening the pallet ofmeasurement instrumentsfor educators beyond solelystandardized test scores.
Hyde has his own reputa-tion for finding the truth,and is being credited withhelping a record numberof Georgia judges with
questionable rulings orcourtroom demeanor movetoward early retirement orto “pursue other opportuni-ties.” Hyde has a good nosefor simply what doesn’tsmell right, and an ami-able, charming and friendlydemeanor which often haswitnesses spilling their gutsbefore realizing just exactlywho they are talking to.
DeKalb’s troubles havedeep roots, but potentiallyan apex can be found in amassive purge and earlybuyout of senior govern-ment employees early in thesecond administration ofthen CEO Burrell Ellis.
Ellis announced aplanned reduction in forceto deal with county cashflow challenges, and thecounty borrowed $12 mil-lion from its pension fund
to provide the buyouts, oftenremoving department headsas well as their chief depu-ty. This cleared the decks forEllis to later hire and placeloyalists and patronage hiresat the top of the county em-ployment pyramid, whilesimultaneously wiping outdecades of institutionalmemory on the right way torun the ship.
We certainly aren’t inKansas anymore, and clear-ing away the stench of cor-ruption and mismanage-ment will take more thana hard-nosed investigativereport, or even an oil tank-er’s cargo hull fil led with Fe-
breeze, but you have to startsomewhere. Bowers’ days ofrunning for public office arebehind him, his homes arenow in Jackson (on a familyfarm near Commerce), andan Atlanta condo. Know-ing Mike and his wife Bette Rose as well as I do, this lastlegacy of trying to help turnaround his decades’ longadopted home may in partbe his way of saying “thankyou.”
When Georgia votersabandoned his quest forgovernor, DeKalb votersstuck with him, deliveringa healthy margin and rarebig county win, in both thenorth and south ends of thecounty and bringing Bowerswithin a quarter percentagepoint of a runoff.
Bowers, buy-outs and fears...Oh my!done very well in the privatesector as he glides towardsretirement, but I know ifanyone can chase a fewmore rats off this ship beforeit sinks, you’ve got the rightmen for the job.
Bill Crane also serves as a political analyst and commen-tator for Channel 2’s ActionNews, WSB-AM News/Talk750 and now 95.5 FM, as wellas a columnist for The Cham-pion, Champion Free Pressand Georgia Trend. Crane isa DeKalb native and businessowner, living in Scottdale. Youcan reach him or commenton a column at bill.csicrane@
Page 6A The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015
LOCAL
While volunteeringwith her church servinghe homeless, 18-year-oldordyn White noticed that
many homeless people carryheir items in small bags and
grocery carts.his inspired her toocus her senior project oncollecting and distribut-ng rolling suitcases to the
homeless.“I thought it would be
nice i they could just haveone suitcase so they couldput everything else in therehat they carry,” the Decatur
High School senior said.White set a goal to col-
lect and distribute 100 roll-
ing suitcases rom Feb. 8 toFeb. 28. She has collectednearly 70 suitcases so ar,and although the deadlineor her class project haspassed, she still plans to con-
tinue collecting suitcases.White is no stranger tohelping others. She volun-teers with the Atlanta FoodBank and with her church,where she assists in toydrives, vacation Bible schooland she eeds the home-less on Candler Road everyuesday.
She also has volunteeredwith a teen program at the
Atlanta Aquarium, at rulyLiving Well Center or Natu-ral Urban Agriculture Inc. inAtlanta and at Camp Diva—a camp or overweight girls.White said she volunteers
because she likes giving backto people.“he people that I help
impact my lie as well,” shesaid. “I learn rom them, andit makes me realize that I’mblessed.”
White, who plans to at-tend Florida Agriculturaland Mechanical University(FAMU), said one o the rea-son it is important or teens
to get involved in the com-munity is because it comesin handy when applying orcollege scholarships.
“When you’re lookingor colleges you won’t leave
your community servicesection blank,” she said. “Itwill also help you connectwith more people and it willlead to many more opportu-nities and it’ll change yourlie or the better.”
White has applied ormultiple scholarships andshe said her volunteeringhelped her get accepted intoFAMU.
If you would like to nominate someone to be considered as a future Champion of the Week, please contact Andrew Cauthenat [email protected] or at (404) 373-7779, ext. 117.
wo longtime DeKalb o-ficials announced their retire-ments March 24.
Morris Williams, theounty’s deputy chie operating
officer over the inrastructure
group, announced his immedi-te retirement in a three-sen-ence letter to interim DeKalb
County CEO Lee May . Williamsaid, “Please accept this as no-ice o my retirement effective
March 24, 2015. My last day owork will be today, March 24,2015.
“I would like to thank theitizens o DeKalb or the op-
portunity to serve them or thepast 17 years,” Williams said.
Williams started workingwith the county in 1997 and, inddition to working or May,erved during the administra-ions o ormer DeKalb CEOs
Liane Levetan and Vernonones and suspended CEO
Burrell Ellis.Williams was chie o staff
or the Board o Commissionerswhen May became interim CEOin 2013. In August 2013 May ap-pointed Williams to the deputychie operating officer positionto replace Ted Rhinehart, wholef in April 2013.
As deputy chie operatingofficer, Williams was respon-
sible or the county’s roads anddrainage division, watersheddepartment, parks and recre-ation, libraries, and acilitiesmanagement, extension service,fleet management, public works,sanitation and transportationdivisions.
Williams’ retirement comesour days afer the retiremento James Chansler, the county’sormer watershed managementdirector. Chansler will workpart-time until June as the de-partment transitions to a newleader.
Director o Human andCommuntiy Development, Chris Morris, in a March 24 let-ter to Luz Borrero, the county’sdeputy chie operating oiceror development, Morris wrote,
“Please accept this letter as anoicial notiication o my intentto retire rom my position as thedirector o the human and com-munity development depart-ment, eective April 30, 2015.“Iam grateul to have been part oa team that has served the citi-zens o DeKalb County, business
partners and stake holders orapproximately 38 years,” Mor-ris wrote. “Additionally, it hasbeen a privilege working withdedicated employees throughoutdepartments in the county andespecially employees o the hu-man and community develop-ment department.”
Since 1979 Morris has beenresponsible or the administra-tion o the Community Devel-opment Block Grant Program,the HOME Program, Neighbor-hood Stabilization Program, theEmergency Shelter Grants Pro-gram, and “other unds receivedby DeKalb County to improvethe housing and living condi-tions o low to moderate incomepersons,” according to the coun-ty’s website.
Rep. Hank John-son (GA-04) will hostthe 2015 Congres-sional Arts Competi-tion, an annual eventdisplaying the com-munity’s inest young
artists. Since 2007,Johnson has awarded$252,000 in arts schol-arships to more than30 Fourth District stu-dents at his art compe-tition events.
Eligible highschool studentsthroughout the dis-trict, which includeparts o DeKalb,Gwinnett, Rockdaleand Newton counties,are encouraged to ap-ply and display theirtalent in this year’s
contest. Entries mustbe designed accordingto the speciicationsin the competitionguidelines, which canbe ound at Johnson’swebsite: hankjohnson.house.gov/serving-you/art-competition.
Each district hon-ors its winning art-work by hanging it inthe tunnel leading tothe U.S. Capitol build-ing in Washington,D.C., or a year. he
2015 CongressionalArt Competition win-ner rom the FourthDistrict will also re-ceive transportation
or two to Washington,D.C., or the ribbon-cutting event to unveilall the 2015 winners.
In addition to hav-ing their artwork atthe Capitol, winnerso the competition willbe eligible or collegescholarships rom the
Art Institute o Atlanta($10,000, $5,000 and$2,500) or the Savan-nah College o Art andDesign ($1,500 peryear).
All art entriesmust be received inthe Congressman’s dis-trict oice, located at5700 Hillandale Drive,Lithonia, Ga. 30058,Suite 120, on April20-21. For additionalinormation email EricHubbard at [email protected] Xeron Pledger [email protected] or call (770)987-2291.
Congressman opens 2015student art contest
ongtime DeKalb ofcials Morris Williams and Chris Morris announced their retirements days apart. Photos by Andrewauthen
The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 7ALOCAL
Avondale EstatesAntique car parade details announced
Avondale Estates will hold its annual AntiqueCar Parade April 5. The parade will include morehan 40 cars from the Antique Automobile Club
of America, Model A Restorers Club, Early FordV-8 Club, Cadillac Club and more. Lineup begins
:30 p.m. at the Twin Oaks Shopping Plaza, 2853East College Ave. The parade begins at 2:30 p.m.on South Avondale Road and ends at Willis Park,where the cars stop for a temporary display, andefreshments will be provided by the Southeastern
Antique Automobile Club of America. To enter anautomobile, contact Lamar Hart at lamarhart@
outlook.com or (770) 496-9928.
Easter egg hunt and dog parade set
Avondale Estates will host its annual Easter EggHunt and Dog Parade April 4 at Lake Avondale,rom 10 a.m. to noon. Children up to 10 years
old can participate in the Easter egg hunt. Dogsan participate in the dog parade for free, andostumes are not required. Award categoriesnclude Best Costume, Best Owner/Dog Duo, Most
Spirited/Enthusiastic, and Best Behaved. For morenformation, visit www.avondaleestates.org.
BrookhavenEaster egg hunt first for city
Brookhaven will hold its first Easter egg huntApril 4 at Blackburn Park. The event will includeandy and prizes. The park is located at 3493
Ashford Dunwoody Road. For more information,visit www.brookhavenga.gov.
State of the City set for April 16
Mayor J. Max Davis will update the Brookhavenommunity on the city’s accomplishments in 2014
and discuss plans for 2015 at the second annualState of the City April 16 at the Hyatt AtlantaPerimeter Hotel at Villa Cristina, 4003 SummitBoulevard in Brookhaven. The event starts at 6:30p.m. and will include hors d’oeuvres. The addresstarts at 7 p.m. A question/answer period willollow the presentation. The event is hosted by the
Brookhaven Chamber of Commerce. For morenformation, visit www.brookhavenga.gov.
ClarkstonWalk to benefit refugee girls’ education
The third annual Connecting CommunitiesWalk, benefitting The Global Village Project, achool for refugee girls, will be held Saturday, April8, at 10 a.m.
Global Village Project is an accredited, tuition-ree, nonprofit private middle school for refugeeeenage girls. Many Global Village Project students
have had limited formal education before they arriven the United States.
Participants will walk the 4.5 miles from
Clarkston, where most Global Village Projectstudents live and where many refugees are resettledwhen they first arrive in the United States, to theschool in the city of Decatur, on the PATH Trail.The public is invited to participate.
The walk will begin at the ClarkstonCommunity Center, 3701 College Avenue Clarkston.
To register to walk, please visit www.connectingcommunitieswalk2015.zohosites.com.The registration fee for students is $15 and $25 foreveryone else. All participants will receive a T-shirt.All funds raised support The Global Village Project.
For more information, visit www.globalvillageproject.org or contact Erin Mills,operations manager, at (404) 371-0107 or [email protected].
Community festival scheduled
The Clarkston Festival Committee will hold itsApril 25 community festival from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.to educate, appreciate and celebrate Clarkston beingone of Georgia’s most diverse communities.
Festival activities will include pre-race activitiesand mini health fair at Milam Park prior to the racestart at 9 a.m.
The 5k road race from Milam Park to theAtlanta Area School for the Deaf begins at 10 a.m.
The event will conclude with activitiesfor the entire family that will include Zumba,performances, a children’s zone, food trucks, sportsactivities, art vendors and much more.
For a sponsorship or vendor information,
contact the Clarkston festival committeeat: [email protected] or (404) 717-2119.To sign up for the 5k or to volunteer to help with thefestival sign-up at www.clarkston5kfestival.org or(404) 717-2119.
Dunwoody Community bike event details released
here will be a community bike ride April5, 2:45 p.m. starting at Village Burger on Dun-woody Village Parkway. here will be a shortpre-ride saety speech and leave by 3. Helmetsare required and it is recommend a bicycle with
gears to handle the hills. he route is a 4.5 mileloop around Dunwoody - mostly right turns.he event will not take place in inclementweather or hazardous road conditions exisit. Ev-eryone is welcome. For more inormation, visitwww.bikewalkdunwoody.org/events/monthly-community-bike-ride.
LithoniaHealth board to sponsor wellness expo
The DeKalb County Board of Health STD/HIVPrevention Program will present the Real Talk aboutFibroid and AIDS Wellness Expo on April 11, from
noon to 4 p.m.The event will include a free seminar titled“Freedom From Fibroids” by John C. Lipman,MD, FSIR. Free confidential STD/HIV testing andeducation will be available, with test results in 15
minutes. Additionally, there will be fitness, massage
and nutrition vendors. Blood pressure and diabetesscreenings giveaways and refreshments will also beoffered.
The expo will be at the Coleman Event Center,5351 Rock Springs Road, Lithonia.
For more information contact Jil Swift at (404)270-2417 or email at [email protected].
Interim county CEO to host town hall meeting
Interim DeKalb County CEO Lee May will hosta town hall meetingApril 7 at Lithonia City Hall,6920 Main Street from 7 to 8:30 p.m. May plans todiscuss the county’s priorities for 2015 at the event.For more information, call (770) 482-8136.
Stone Mountain
Interest meeting set for possible Friends ofWade Walker Park group
DeKalb County Recreation, Parks and CulturalAffairs will host a Friends of the Park interestmeeting along with Park Pride on April 2, from 7 to8:30 p.m. at the Wade Walker Park Family YMCA,5605 Rockbridge Road SW, Stone Mountain.
The meeting will educate attendees on theimportance of community parks and how to partnerwith the county to keep them clean, safe and wellused. Attendees will also have the chance to meet
Park Pride staff and learn about various programs,funding, and leadership opportunities to engagelocal communities to improve their neighborhoodpark.
For more information, call Dave Butler at (404)371-2540.
CountywideParks and recreation department to hold springday camp
DeKalb County Recreation, Parks and CulturalAffairs will hold Spring Break Day Camp, April 6 to10, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The camp costs $30 for a full week of activitiesfor children ages 5 to 12 and participants mustprovide their own lunch and snack. All paymentsshould be made payable to DeKalb CountyRecreation, Parks & Cultural Affairs by cashier’scheck or money order to the recreation center ofyour choice or visit www.dekalbcountyga.gov/parks and click the “Register Online” button on thedepartment’s homepage to register.
For more information, call LaShanda Davis,public education specialist, at (404) 371-3643.
Page 8A The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015
LOCAL
by Kathy Mitchell
Among Easter’s joys or manyamilies with small children is tak-ng the little ones or a visit with the
mall Easter Bunny. Some childrenwith special needs, however, mayind such an outing more o a chal-enge than an adventure.
“Children with autism, or ex-ample, may ind the normal sightsand sounds at the mall unpleasantand upsetting,” explained BiancaGibson, director o marketing andbusiness development at NorthlakeMall.
he website o Autism Speaks, anonproit that supports persons withautism and their amily members,explained it this way: “Many personswith autism have unusual responseso sensory input. hey have diicul-y processing and integrating sen-ory inormation, or stimuli, such
as sights, sounds, smells, tastes and/or movement. hey may experience
eemingly ordinary stimuli as pain-ul, unpleasant or conusing.”
he solution at Northlake andome other malls is setting asideime when special needs children
can visit the holiday igure in hisbright Easter tie and oversizedglasses—called Caring Bunny in thiscontext—in a quiet, peaceul envi-ronment.
“We schedule the Caring Bunny visits at a time when the mall isclosed. We shut o all unnecessarylight and sounds. We even turn othe ountain,” Gibson explained.“Photos are taken without a lash, sothe amily still has cherished high-quality pictures o the child with theEaster Bunny without doing any-thing that might upset the child.”
Caring Bunny visits are by ap-pointment only to assure the childdoesn’t have to wait in line and isn’trushed because others are waiting,she added. his year’s Caring Bunnysessions were the morning o March29, a Sunday, beore the mall openedat noon. “We give each amily 15minutes. We have learned that that’sabout the right amount o time sothey aren’t hurried but don’t stay
beyond the time the child is com-ortable,” said Gibson, adding that“comortable” is the key word in set-ting up the visits.
Sessions with Caring Bunny
aren’t just or children with autism,she noted. Children with other de-
velopmental disabilities may needthe extra time and a subdued settingto enjoy their time with the bunny.“Also,” Gibson said, “children withphysical disabilities, such as chil-dren who use wheelchairs, may bemore comortable when there aren’tcrowds o other children.” She saidsome teens and adults with devel-opmental disabilities like to visit theEaster Bunny and they are welcomeas well.
Gibson said that those who donthe Easter Bunny suit are trainedin interacting with children andreceive additional training to pro-mote understanding o special needschildren. “he Easter Bunny doesn’tspeak when any o the children visit,so there’s no concern that somethinghe says will upset the child,” she ex-plained. “he children sit with him,touch him and talk to him in what-ever way eels right or them. Some
hesitate at irst, but he lets them getcomortable with him—hug him ithey want to—then settle in to havetheir picture taken.”
Northlake, which has been
scheduling Caring Bunny visits orthree years, is one o the Simon de-
velopment companies nationwide tooer the special service or childrenwith special physical, sensory anddevelopmental needs. “I don’t knowwhether other mall developers oeranything like this,” Gibson said, “butwe are really community-oriented,so we are continually looking orways to meet the community’sneeds.” Autism Speaks, based inAtlanta, works with malls providinginormation on appropriate ways tointeract with children with autism.
Gibson, who has been withNorthlake a short time, said this isher irst year working with the mall’sspecial holiday promotions. “At theend o the year, we will have CaringSanta available to special needs chil-dren. Santa, o course, is a huge dealwith children so we expect to haveabout twice as many amilies sched-uling visits.”
Caring Bunny opens his arms tochildren with special needs
The Northlake Mall Easter Bunny becomes Caring Bunny for a few hours as he hosts visits with children with special needs.
hree DeKalb cityhood billsassed the Georgia Senate last week.
he proposed city o Stonecrest,B 208, passed the senate on a 45-1
ote March 24. he bill is now in theHouse o Representatives as o pressime. he incorporation o Stone-rest would give it a population opproximately 50,000.
On March 25, the senate passedhe cityhood bills o LaVista Hillsnd ucker, along with alterationso the two proposed maps. LaVista
Sen. Fran Millar introduced theltered maps o ucker and LaVista
Hills during a March 19 hearing;hey were approved by the by theenate State and Local Govern-
mental Operations Committee. he
vote shited 2,000 residents romthe northern part o ucker’s mapto LaVista Hills, increasing LaVistaHills’ proposed population to 67,000rom 64,000.
Both bills were sent back to theHouse or review. he house could
reject the bills due to the changeso the maps. In December 2014, theDeKalb County Cityhood Subcom-mittee o the House GovernmentalAairs Committee changed theboundaries o the original proposedmaps ater the two cityhood groupscould not come to an agreement onboundaries.
“We are still hopeul the Houseo Representatives will enorce theagreed to boundary when the city-hood bills go back to them laterthis week,” ucker cityhood groupposted on its Facebook page.
Millar’s changes to the mapshave led to two DeKalb communi-
ties to call or a conerence commit-tee on HB520. In a press release dat-ed March 26, neighborhood leadersrom Mason Mill and Medlock saidthat although the neighborhoodsreached boundary agreements withLaVista Hills prior to the senate’s
adoption o HB520, Millar “reusedto delay action on the bill, thus split-ting two neighborhoods in two.”
“We acted in good aith, ollow-ing Sen. Millar’s instructions to Sen.[Elena] Parent on March 23, thathe would make any changes LaVistaHills representative Steve Schultz agreed to,” said Mary Hinkel, presi-dent o the Mason Mill Civic Associ-ation. “We met the ollowing morn-ing and essentially agreed to themap that had already been approvedin the House, with minor modiica-tions. he next step was to write thelegal description o the boundaryor inclusion in an amendment to be
proposed by Sen. Millar. As it turnsout, while we were meeting, Sen.Millar was moving orward on hisown.”
he release stated that when thecommercial areas o oco Hills andNorth DeKalb mall were drawn into
the LaVista Hills map, it also drewin residential properties near thecommercial properties, thus split-ting the neighborhoods.
“We want to keep our neighbor-hoods uniied. o be thwarted byan antiquated mapping techniqueis outrageous in a time when everysmart phone can create a highlydetailed map,” said Lynn Ganim,president o Medlock Area Neigh-borhood Association. “We ask thelegislature to convene a coner-ence committee to ix the southernborder using metes and bounds, asagreed.”
Postal workers romhe ucker oice gatheredo celebrate their new boss,
Cheryl Cleveland.Cleveland was promoted
o postmaster o ucker inDecember 2014, and wasnstalled March 27 at Dou-
bleree Hotel in ucker inront o amily, riends and
coworkers.“It eels great,” Cleveland
aid. “It’s a nice accomplish-ment o[my] hard work pay-ng o.”
he ceremony includedpeeches rom coworkers
and amily members, songand a proclamation, that waspresented to Cleveland romDeKalb County Commis-ioner Stan Watson.
A postmaster is thehead o an individual post
oice. Responsibilities o apostmaster typically includemanagement o a centralizedmail distribution acility, es-ablishment o letter carrieroutes, supervision o letter
carriers and clerks, and en-orcement o the organiza-ion’s rules and procedures.
Cleveland said manypeople helped her alonghe way, but she gave more
credit to one person.“I would say Ellen
Sims,” she said. “She was mymentor and she just reallychallenged me and gave me
opportunities that wouldn’thave come.”
Cleveland holds a bach-elor’s degree in business
administration rom LoyolaUniversity o Chicago. Shebegan her career as a com-puter orwarding systemclerk in Chicago in 1986.She held several positions inconsumer aairs, the PostalBusiness Center, and pro-cessing and distributions.
She became a certi-ied instructor in processmanagement and qualityimprovement. She was alsoa quality specialist associateand data analyst.
In 2001, Cleveland
transerred to Atlanta as asupervisor o distribution
and operations. She laterbecame a supervisor o cus-
tomer service. In 2008, shewas promoted to manager ocustomer service at the CivicCenter Post Oice. In 2012,she became manager o cus-tomer service at the Moun-tain Park Post Oice.
Cleveland said her irsttask as postmaster will be toget to know her community.
“I will be meeting mycommunity, my businesscustomers,” she said. “uck-er is a premiere oice, andwe gross over $1 million.hereore, I will be working
to introduce mysel to thecommunity.”
New postmaster of Tucker installed
Cheryl Cleveland recites the oath as her father, Paul Cleveland, looks on.Photo by Carla Parker
Dunwoody Parks andRecreation department helda ribbon-cutting ceremonyon March 25 for its newlynstalled obstacle course in
Brook Run Park.Atlanta-based company
Treetop Quest partneredwith the city to build a treecanopy obstacle courseand zip line adventure thatwould operate at no cost tohe city and share generatedevenue from admission fees
with the city.The obstacle course was
designed and installed basedon guidance and expertiseof certied arborists. Thecourse was installed withwedges and prefabricated
platforms that are afxedo the canopy without nails,crews or drilling into therees.
Parks and recreationmanager Brent Walker said,“It took a lot of discussion,a lot of meetings, a lot ofconversation with our citycouncil.”
“We saw an opportunitywhere we could offeromething more than our
neighbors were offering atno cost to the city residents.We want to continue tobrand Dunwoody withhings like this to not just
make it fun for the residentshat live here but also
nd ways to bring peoplefrom other communities to
Dunwoody,” Walker said.Tree canopy obstacle
courses are popularrecreational destinations formiddle- and high-schoolaged children, as well asadults and corporate event planners.
Gwinnett County also hasan operational Treetop Questthat has 80 to 100 teensand pre-teen participantsthroughout the year.
Dunwoody Mayor Mike
Davis said the addition ofTreetop Quest is exemplaryto the city’s business model.
“This is a public private partnership which is allabout the fact that the city provides the infrastructure–the forest, and a privatecompany comes in and provides the entertainment.
“Most of what we do in
this city is public-private partnerships,” Davis said.
He added, “Ouremployees are actuallycontracted to the city and arenot actually city employees,which gives us a lot ofexibility and gives up theopportunity to get the very best people. What we do asa city and what we’re doinghere with Treetop Quest isvery much in line with whatwe believe.”
The new course activates parkland previously unused.
For hours and admissionrates visit treetopquest.com.Dunwoody residents receivea 10 percent discount with proof of residency.
Dunwoody opens four courses in Brook Run Park containing 52 obstacles and 12 zip lines.
Parks and recreation manager Brent Walker
explains the vision behind the partnership.
Dunwoody Mayor Mike Davis shares his beliefs on how
the partnership with Treetop Quest will benet the city.
Mayor Mike Davis with Treetop Quest’s owner Luc Peyre celebrate the ribbon-cutting of the zip line.
The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 11ALOCAL
Thanks to the support ofreaders, employees, DeKalbSheriff’s Office, Junior Leagueof DeKalb and Sauers Com-
munications, The Champion placed second in overall dona-tions in Georgia Press Asso-ciation’s President’s ChallengeFood Drive.
With a total equivalent of3,261 pounds, The Champion,was beaten only by The Press-Sentinel in Jesup and is the onlynewspaper in metro Atlantaarea that participated in thecampaign.
“We are excited to dosomething that helps peoplewith the most basic of needshere as well as around Georgia,”said publisher Carolyn Glenn.
“Helping our communities iswhat brought so many of usinto the newspaper business,and this is just one more way
in which we can show we careabout life in DeKalb County.”The Champion has donated
the food to DeKalb-basedHosea Feed the Hungry andHomeless.
The challenge was the ideaof GPA President Eric Denty ,publisher of The Press-Sentinel in Jesup and The Telfair Enter-
prise in McRae. “I don’t have totell you that local newspapersare the lifeblood of their com-munities,” Denty said.
More than 11 tons of foodwere collected statewide.
he Brookhaven PoliceDepartment will receive$17,580 or equipment toprotect themselves romprotestors.
he unding came romhe city’s non-allocated 2014Homestead Option Salesax (HOS) unds. OnMarch 24, the Brookhavencity council approved vari-ous improvement projectshroughout the city to be
unded rom $3.4 million innon-allocated 2014 HOSunds.
HOS unds are gener-ated rom 1 percent o the 7percent sales tax collected byDeKalb County, and are di-vided among the county andhe cities within it. Eighty
percent o the HOS undsare distributed as propertyax credits to homeowners
and 20 percent may be usedor capital projects.
During a March 23 spe-cial called work session, CityManager Marie Garrett toldhe city council that the cityeceived $3.4 million in ad-
ditional unding rom thecounty.
“he reason why thereare additional unds—thatwe were not expecting—isbecause o the digest in-
crease and how that was
represented in the ormularom DeKalb County,” Gar-rett said. “We expectedsomething, and we did re-ceive what we were expect-ing, but we received more,which we weren’t [expect-ing].”
he purpose o the worksession was to ocus onthree departments—PublicSaety, Public Works, and
Parks and Recreation—to
take a look at the “pressing,instructional improvements”the departments needed.
he Public Saety de-partment received a total o$186,769 or equipment, au-tomatic deibrillators or pa-trol cars, call boxes in parks,patrol riles, crowd controlequipment and more.
“With the rise in pro-tests and the things that
we’ve seen in and around
our area, [we realized that]one o the things that we donot have is the necessaryequipment to protect our o-icer, should we have some-thing like that roll over intoour city,” Major BrandonGurley told the city council.
here have been protestsand rallies in Atlanta andDeKalb County due to thenumber o police shootings
involving unarmed Black
men. On March 9, 27-year-old Anthony Hill o Cham-blee was shot to death byDeKalb County Police O-icer Robert Olsen. Hill wasnaked and unarmed whenhe was shot.
Brookhaven police have
partnered with DeKalbCounty Police Departmentor assistance in the event aprotest breaks out in the city.he department requested15 shields and 30 sets o hel-mets with masks, batons andgas masks.
he department also re-quested 25 additional patrolriles or $35,800. he policeHOS budget also includesthree digital cameras or$555 and our digital voicerecorders worth $160.
Public Works received$2,047,900 in HOS undsor paving, sidewalks, mas-ter plans or individualparks, bike/pedestrian trailplan, North Fork PeachtreeGreenway Master Plan,
various corridor studies, andrapid beacon crosswalks.
Parks and Recreationsreceived $1.210 million orpool repairs, tennis courtresuracing, Ashord Parkplayground, Briarwood ParkBridge, Murphy CandlerPark stadium repairs andbatting pavilion, and Black-burn Park restrooms.
Statewide food drivenets more than 11 tons
Brookhaven’s police plans for HOST funds
The Champion’s John Hewitt and DeKalb County Sheriff JeffMann with food collected by Sheriff’s ofce staff. Photo byravis Hudgons
Jennifer Campbell with donationsfrom Sauers Communications
Brookhaven Public Safety department received a total of $186,769 from the city’s non-allocated 2014 Home-stead Option Sales Tax (HOST) funds.
Page 12A The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015
LOCAL
Avondale mayor: ‘we have so much potential’by Carla [email protected]
Jonathan Elmore was lookingor the perect opportunity to be-come involved in his community,and becoming mayor was it.
“I really love the community; Ithink this is a special place,” Elmoresaid. “[My amily and I] met a lot oamilies [and] made a lot o riends.We intend to stay here a very longtime, our kids love it and that’s parto the reason why we wanted to getnvolved.”
Elmore was elected mayor oAvondale Estates March 17 aterreceiving 45.56 percent o the votes.He was sworn in March 23.
“It’s a new thing,” he said aboutwinning the election. “he resultswere pretty exciting.”
Elmore, who grew up in Jeer-
sonville and Macon, is a graduateo Georgia ech and Clemson Uni-versity. He is a licensed architect inGeorgia and has had his own prac-tice since 2000. He and his amilymoved to Avondale Estates in 2007.
Although Elmore does not haveprevious experience as an electedoicial, Elmore said as an architect,he sees momentum in growth in thecity’s downtown area, and “I would
like to participate and try to con-tinue that.”
“Hopeully my skills and back-ground would help in that regard,”he said. “I’m used to dealing withpeople and talking to them aboutreal hard decisions. Over time, peo-ple have told me that I have goodpersonal skills. I’m a social person; Ibelieve in building relationships andI believe in collaboration.
“I’m on a board with our other
people and I have to work withthem,” Elmore added. “It’s just likeme being on a project with a buncho engineers. We’re working togetherto produce something, and to methat carries over [to government].”
Elmore’s ocus points in his cam-
paign were development, annexa-tion and education. He plans to getto work on those areas soon, specii-cally the Foreman Fenner Dunlopproperty. he site was annexed intothe city a ew years ago and the cityhad planned to turn it into a mixed-use development with three to ivestories o multiamily and retailwrapping a parking deck.
Euramex Management pur-chased the 13-acre Fenner Dunlopproperty in October.
“he Fenner Dunlop—that’s abig project and it’s going to require alot o attention,” Elmore said. “hat’s
very important to the city and me,and to the board. It’s a big develop-ment. It could make a big dierencein our city. Annexation will as well,”he added. “I want to make sure thatthose neighborhoods that we’re try-ing to annex are being heard, thattheir concerns are being addressed.”
Elmore is working to put to-gether an education committee thatcan help strengthen the relationship
between the city and its schools. “Ieel like the better we support theschools in our community, they’llsupport us,” he said.
He would like to see more busi-ness open in the city.
“I just want to make sure that
our city is seen by entrepreneurs andbusinesses as a good place to be,” hesaid, “that we’re business riendly,that we’re a good place to establish abusiness, because once you get thatmomentum going it kind o startsto build on itsel. I eel like we’ve gotit going or the irst time in a longtime, but we need to make sure wekeep nudging that along and doingeverything that we can to make sureit doesn’t stop. We have a great cityand I want us to have a great down-town area.”
Elmore said he wants to improvetransparency and communication in
the city by hosting a town hall meet-ing.“here are some concerns. I
want to address them,” he said. “Ithink most people in our commu-nity still believe in our commissionand our city government, but thereare some things that need to be ad-dressed. I think we are still a verystrong community, very positivecommunity.”
Jonathan Elmore was sworn in as AvondaleEstates Mayor March 23. Photo by CarlaParker
Page 14A The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015
LOCAL
Fernbank robotics team going to world championshipby Andrew [email protected]
A local robotics team will becompeting in a world championshipn April.
he Fernbank LINKS roboticseam is going to the FIRS (For thenspiration and Recognition o Sci-
ence and echnology) world robot-cs championship or the irst timen the team’s three-year history.
he team was the second-place inalist out o 66 teams in thePeachtree Regional, held March 26-28 at the Georgia World CongressCenter.
Fernbank LINKS won the NASAEngineering Inspiration Award andNicholas Weddington, a LINKSeam member and Druid Hills High
School junior, was a regional Dean’sList Finalist.
“he past our days might havebeen some o the best and most re-warding o my lie,” wrote AndrewMorris, the team’s chie technicaloicer, wrote in a Facebook post.
“Fernbank LINKS has made hugestrides over the past three yearsand were inally able to win theEngineering Inspiration award atPeachtree this year! It’s been a crazyrun so ar and tons o people havehelped to make it happen.”
“We are beyond excited,” saidDebi Huffman, the team’s sponsor.
Human said the students de-signed their robot—which picks upand stacks recycling bins—withoutthe aid o an adult technical mentor.
“hey worked out the wholething,” Human said. “hese kidshave come such a long way.”
Global Dynamics, a team romDecatur High School, won the com-petition’s “Innovation in ControlAward.”
For the team, Emma Jackson,a reshman at Decatur High, does“cutting and drilling and putting
things together.”“I decided to join the team
because I’ve always thought robot-ics…was interesting, and I heardthey had a really good program at
school,” she said. “I just brought meinto the world o robotics.”
Emma said her “avorite partabout it is seeing what you built onthe ield and doing all these incred-ible things and just saying ‘Hey, Ibuilt that.’”
Emma is one o ive girls on theapproximately 30-member team.
“[We’re] treated the same way, just like being a guy on the team,”she said about being on the male-dominated team. “[We] still do a loto things that a guy would do.”
Darien Craig , a junior at De-catur High School, has been on theteam or three years.
“I actually [have been] doinghobby robots or quite a while,”Darien said. “We moved to Decaturmy reshman year. One o the actualactors in why we moved here was to
join this robotics team.
“Besides a lot o un and techni-cal experience, FIRS is the greatestthing to put on a college resumebecause college recruiters know thatmeans you’re able to work on a team
and you have technical expertise atsome level,” Darien said. “It lookswonderul on a resume.”
Ben Ponder, a ninth-grader, hasbeen on eam Reboot, made mostlyo DeKalb County homeschoolers,or two years. In the Peachtree Re-gional competition, his team camein 58 out o 66 during the qualiica-tion round.
“I just love technology,” said the14-year-old who started roboticsive years ago in the FIRS LegoLeague.
“I love being able to get handson [experience], knowing wiringand just being able to interact withthe robot–knowing I’ve accom-plished building a robot,” Ben said.“Not a lot o kids can say that.”
Ben, who plans to enter theinormation technology ield, de-scribed his robotics experience as
“great.”“I wouldn’t stop it,” he said. “It’s
an awesome experience.”
The Fernbank LINKS robotics team (No. 4468) won a spot in the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship in April.
Photo provided
From left, members of Team Reboot, made of DeKalb County homeschoolers, and Fernbank LINKS get ready to com-pete. Photos by Andrew Cauthen, unless otherwise noted
Robots were designed to stack recycling bins during the comple-ion.
Decatur High School’s robot practices during a break from compe-ition.
ernbank’s robot stacks recycling bins during the competition.Photo provided
The Champion Free Press, Friday, March 27, 2015 Page 15ALOCAL
BikesContinued From Page 1A
acilities, activity centers andchools.
Bicycle advocate Joe Seconder aid, “We would like to make surehat elected officials are awarehat regular folks would like to
have the ability to go safely re-gardless of the mode of transpor-ation that they choose–all forms
of transit and bicycles are a legiti-mate means.”
The Dunwoody starting loca-ion for the bike ride was a policescorted route and departed from
Village Burger. Other startingocations included Decatur and
Roswell. There was also a three-block ceremonial ride from HurtPark in Atlanta to the Capitol andeveral auxiliary rides.
Participants included Fairburnmayor Mario Avery , Hapevillealderman Ann Ray , Palmettomayor J. Clark Boddie, andUnion City Mayor Vince Wil-iams and city council members
Angelette Mealing and Brian
ones.In a March 20 press releaseGeorgia Bikes Executive DirectorBrent Buice said since the firstRide to the Capitol, there havebeen tremendous gains for bicy-ling in Georgia.
He added, “We have eight of-icially designated Bike Friendly
Communities and daily ridershipn Atlanta, Athens, Savannah and
other cities, continues to skyrock-t; and rural counties and smallowns want to establish them-elves as welcoming, bicycle-riendly destinations. To capital-ze on this interest and demand,
we need leadership that will com-mit the modest funding neededor the family-friendly streets andrails that Georgians want.”
Gov. Nathan Deal addresses bikers at the new Liberty plaza park across from the capitol.
Cyclists gather in the lawn of Liberty plaza park.
Bicycle advocate Joe Secondergives directions to the bikers beforeheading to the capitol.
Bikers wait to meet with additional bikers from Roswell at Sandy Springs plaza. Photos byAshley Oglesby
General Membership Meeting featuring Chris Clark,president and CEO of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce
DEKALB CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Two Decatur Town Center, 125 Clairemont Ave. Suite 235, Decatur, GA, 30030 • 404.378.8000 • www.DeKalbchamber.org
Brought to you in partnership with: The Champion Newspaper
April - Upcoming Events
DeKalb Chamber Breakfast Club – FREE! April 9, 20158:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.Sam’s Club #6409 - Tucker
General Membership Meeting
April 21, 201511:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.Hyatt Villa Christina
Apex Business AwardsMay 21, 201511:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.Thalia N. Carlos Hellenic Center
April 2015
News and events of the
Every quarter the DeKalbChamber of Commerce hosts itsGeneral Membership Meetingluncheons. These meetings areopen to members and non-members so that businesses
and community partners have aplatform to connect. These serieswere created to educate ourmembership on pertinent businesstopics that impact how we dobusiness, and expose our membersto greater Atlanta’s top executives,in addition to local and stateleaders.
This year we are excited to kickoff 2015’s General MembershipMeetings with the highly reveredChris Clark , President and CEO ofthe Georgia Chamber of Commerce.Chris will share insights on thisyear’s legislative session to include
topics on transportation, education,economic development, proposedHouse and Senate Bills, and postsession decisions that will impactGeorgians.
Make sure you know what your
business and community should beexpecting in 2015-2016 from a stateand regional policy perspective.
As President and CEO of theGeorgia Chamber, Clark keepsthe organization focused on itsnumber one priority–ensuring thecompetitiveness of the businesses
and people of our state.Working hand-in-hand with the
Chamber’s volunteer leaders, whorepresent companies of all sizes andindustry from throughout the state,Clark has made the organization
an even stronger advocate forGeorgia both at the State Capitoland in Washington, DC, expandedinvestor services, and strengthenedpartnerships with local chambersof commerce and other keystakeholders.
A Georgia native, Clarkreceived his bachelor’s degreefrom Georgia Southern Universityand his master’s degree in publicadministration from GeorgiaCollege and State University. Priorto joining the Chamber, he servedas Commissioner of the GeorgiaDepartment of Natural Resources
and as Deputy Commissionerfor the Department of EconomicDevelopment.
Clark is currently Chair of theCouncil of State Chambers’ StateChamber Policy Center and sits
on the boards of the TechnicalCollege System of Georgia, theGeorgia Department of EconomicDevelopment, the Governor’s RuralDevelopment Council and theGeorgia Academy for Economic
Development.Chris is a Trustee of Georgia
Southern University and a memberof the Board of Visitors for theUniversity of Georgia. He is agraduate of Leadership Georgia andhas been consistently named one ofGeorgia Trend magazine’s 100 mostinfluential Georgians and by the
Atlanta Business Chronicle as one ofthe 100 most influential Atlantans.He was also honored to receivethe Georgia Economic Developers
Association Zell Miller Public PolicyLeadership Award in 2013.
Please contact Kim Childs,
Vice President of Operationsfor sponsorship and ticketopportunities.
Amanda Janaskie, DeKalbChamber Membership Development
Manager
Tuesday April 21 st 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Chris Clark
The DeKalb Chamber forthe last 77 years has been anadvocate for business in DeKalbCounty and greater Atlanta. Itis our mission to help create abusiness environment that is
conducive to promoting thrivingbusiness and economic growth.Research continually
shows that the small businesssector produces the lion’sshare of jobs in this country.In addition, the small businessand corporate communityare often at the forefront ofinnovation and advances inproduct development leadingto improvements in how weconduct business and liveour lives. A very significantpercentage of our Chambermembership base existsbecause of the great small
businesses in DeKalb. As aresult the Chamber along withits Small Business Committee
will again host the 5th Annual Apex Business Awards. We willhonor exemplary standardsin business development,employee programs, businessinnovation, and contributions toDeKalb County and the Metro
Atlanta Region.
Please join us to connect with a purpose at our ApexBusiness Awards as severalorganizations will be on siteto provide information onprocurement opportunities and
services with their businessand corporate organizations.This event is sponsored byGas South, Insperity, DeltaCommunity Credit Union, ESPElectrical. Sponsorships are stillavailable.
Nominations will open onTuesday March 31st with severalcategories representing large,small, and emerging businesses,non-profits, and socialenterprise organizations.
Ted Cummings, Chair of the 2015 Apex Business Awards DeKalb Chamber Board member
The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 17ABUSINESS
The Voice of Business in DeKalb CountyDeKalb Chamber of Commerce
404.378.8000 www.DeKalbChamber.org
Two Decatur Town Center, 125 Clairemont Ave., Suite 235, Decatur, GA 30030
Retail clothing sales spring upwardby Kathy Mitchell
Even those who have no planso join a holiday promenade such ashe New York 5th Avenue ashionpectacle celebrated in the 82-year-
old Irving Berlin tune Easter Parade are likely to ind in warm springdays inspiration to buy a new outit.
Approximately 80 percent oAmericans are preparing to cel-brate the coming o spring with
Easter retail purchases that aver-age $140.62, slightly more than lastyear’s $137.46, according to theNational Retail Federation’s Eas-
er Spending Survey conducted byProsper Insights & Analytics. hatamounts to a national total o ap-proximately$16.4 billion.
O that total, more than $2.9billion is expected to be spent on ap-parel, according to the survey, whichndicates that 45 percent o thoseelebrating will purchase clothing.
Among Easter spending categories,lothing is second to ood and ahead
o such categories as decorations,andy, gits and greeting cards.
“Easter will be the perect seguento spring or both consumers and
retailers who have longed or warm-er weather or quite some time,”NRF President and CEO MatthewShay said in a news release. “As oneo the busiest times o year or sever-al retail sectors and as shelves beginilling with both traditional springand holiday merchandise, retailersare looking orward to welcomingshoppers with attractive promotionson home goods, garden equipmentand traditional Easter items.”
While national and regionaldepartment store ads are illed withEaster clothing, the NRF survey in-dicates that nearly one-quarter (23.8
percent) o Easter consumers planto shop at a local or small business.hat’s good news or retail storessuch as Bleu Hanger, a recentlyopened women’s clothing boutiquein Decatur.
“We irst opened in Decem-ber—right in the heart o the holi-day shopping season—and that gotus o to a good start,” recalled BleuHanger Manager Joey Molina. “Ocourse there was a sales dip aterholidays, but we are seeing sales pickup again or spring.”
Bleu Hanger on East College Av-
enue near Agnes Scott College is anindependent, locally owned women’sshop that eatures clothing gearedto all ages with items suited to busi-ness, causal and evening occasions,according to Molina.
Molina describes the clothes,which are selected by owner MelMilon, as “bold, elegant and sassy,yet not overly trendy. You don’t haveto be a ashionista to be attracted tothese clothes; they are or everydaywomen.
“Still,” Molina added, “We haveunusual items. You’re unlikely torun into someone on the street
wearing the same thing.“I tell women, ‘Come in andlook around. You’ll ind some-thing you like,”’ said Molina, whosaid sta at Bleu Hanger like help-ing people chose a suitable outitwhether they are looking or a dressor a special occasion or just want toreshen their wardrobe. He said thestore seeks to oer items that mostcustomers will ind aordable and agood value.
he store’s signature blue hang-ers echo its name—chosen, accord-ing to the store’s website–because
“blue signiies tranquility and calm-ness which is the atmosphere you’llexperience.” he French spelling oblue, Molina explained, relects theshop’s international atmosphere,which also is suggested in the dé-cor. “We want everyone who visitsto have a pleasant experience asthough they’re exploring the closeto good riend with discriminatingtaste.”
In addition to dresses, skirts,pants and blouses, the store sellssuch accessories as handbags,scarves and jewelry, some o whichare the work o local designers and
manuacturers. “We like to supportother businesses in the area whenpossible,” Molina said, adding thatthe shop is considering oering lo-cally produced items such as candlesand toiletries.
“he business community herein Decatur has been really support-ive o us,” Molina said. “he neigh-boring businesses are so riendly.A nearby restaurant even named adrink or us as a way o helping toget the word out that we’re here. Itwould be hard to imagine a betterplace to open a business.”
Bleu Hanger Manager Joey Molina, upper left photo, arranges dresses in the shop’s spring line. Blue hangers for all the clothes echo the shop’s name. The French spelling in the store’same reects its international atmosphere.
County School District re-ceived the highest ratingrom the Georgia Accredit-ng Commission (GAC),
having met 100 percent ohe commission’s standards.
According to a March18 press release, the schools
received the title “accreditedwith quality.”
he school district sub-mitted an application orthe 23 schools in November.he GAC conducted site
visits in January, with a teamo consultants visiting eachschool. School were evaluat-ed based on our standards:organization, personnel,inances and programs ostudy, based on interviews
with principals and docu-mentation rom the schools.
“he GAC assessmentwas extensive and airmsthe great work that is beingdone in our high schools,”said DeKalb County SchoolDistrict Superintendent
Michael Thurmond. “hescholarship and academicachievements o our stu-dents have been validated.”
he DeKalb Board oEducation approved the ap-plication or GAC accredita-tion last spring as part o a
dual accreditation strategy.he district also is rated as“Accredited on Advisement”by AdvancED/Southern As-sociation o Colleges andSchools, which is just belowthe group’s top rating.
The following Traffic Calming Petition involving streets located within the City of Brookhaven is scheduled for
Public Hearings as stated above.
TRAFFIC CALMING PETITION: TC14-03
STREETS AFFECTED: GREEN MEADOWS DR FROM WILFORD DR TO CHESHIRE WAY
PROPOSED TRAFFIC CALMING SPEED HUMPS
Cross Keys High School seniorDiana Morales couldn’t have imag-ned becoming a businesswoman,
especially not while still a teen. Buthat’s exactly what happened, and
on March 25, she was recognizedas Youth Entrepreneurs Georgia’sGlobal Young Entrepreneur o 2015by the Network or eaching En-repreneurship (NFE) during the
global showcase in New York City.Michael Green, Cross keys youthentrepreneurs instructor, was alsohonored as a 2015 global enterpris-ng educator during the showcase.
Each year at its event, NFE rec-ognizes young people rom acrosshe globe who demonstrate excel-ence in learning and dedication toheir entrepreneurial pursuits. his
year’s honored students had thechance to present their businesseso some o the event’s 600 attendees
and hear rom keynote speaker SaraBlakely , the ounder o Spanx.
“I never thought that at the ageo 17 I would have the knowledgeto operate a business and to actu-ally have a business,” said Morales,whose entrepreneurial success hasalso come as the teen has acedphysical challenges. For the past 11years, she has undergone therapy ora vertebral anomaly that limits herability to do certain everyday activi-ties and participate in rigorous con-tact sports. “Despite the obstacles inmy lie, my business has progressed
beyond my expectations,” she said.As part o the YEGeorgia pro-
gram, students come up with anidea or a business or which theydevelop a business plan. For Mo-rales, it was a no-brainer. Ater shediscovered that her mother wasdealing with hair loss, she created
a homemade mixture o all-naturalingredients to alleviate it. Her prod-uct, Brillo Natural, or Natural Glow,is a natural alternative to chemical-and additive-based haircare prod-ucts and skin moisturizers. In 2014,she sold $1,200 worth o the productand expects to double those sales in2015.
Green, YEGeorgia’s other awardrecipient, has a reputation amonghis students at Cross Keys HighSchool or inding innovative waysto use everyday situations to teachbusiness concepts. For example,
when it became clear that they hadno rame o reerence about howmuch things cost, he designed anexercise using his paycheck andhousehold budget spreadsheet todemonstrate what it takes to live andrun a home.
“Ater going through each line,”
he said, “the students began to real-ize how ast a paycheck can disap-pear when expenses are actoredinto the equation. he lesson hadserved its purpose by opening theeyes o the kids to the relationshipbetween income and expenses.”
JaKathryn Ross, executivedirector o Youth EntrepreneursGeorgia, said Morales and Greenare excellent examples o the valueo introducing business conceptsand the idea o entrepreneurship atan early age, which can be a game-changer. “While coming rom the
same school is a coincidence, it isnot an accident. he administrationand student interest and passion orcultivating an entrepreneurial wayo thinking is very strong at CrossKeys, and they are paving the wayor our growth in DeKalb County,”said Ross.
DeKalb teacher, student recognized at gala
DeKalb high schools receive highest rating
Cross Keys High School senior and Youth Entrepre-eurs® Georgia alumna Diana Morales met Spanxounder Sara Blakely, who was the keynote speakeruring the 2015 NFTE Global Showcase on March 25 in
New York City.
Morales was recognized by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneur-ship (NFTE) as a Global Young Entrepreneur.
Michael Green, the Youth Entrepreneurs® Georgiainstructor at Cross Key’s High School, was recognizedby the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship as a 2015Global Enterprising Educator.
Nearly 200 Red RibbonWeek competitors were hon-ored at he Georgia Depart-ment o Behavioral Healthand Developmental Dis-abilities (DBHDD) awardsceremony March 30 at Fern-bank Museum.
he celebration honoredchools and community-
based organizations thatassisted in educating theircommunities about liv-ng drug-ree and making
healthy liestyle choices.Awards were presented
o Druid Hills MiddleSchool, Factory ShoalsElementary school, andGwinnett United in DrugEducation youth advisoryboard or their eorts to cre-ate drug-ree zones in theircommunity.
“We’re celebrating com-munities and young peopleat dierent high schools,elementary schools andmiddle schools who’ve doneevents, submitted postersand videos that celebratesbeing drug ree,” preven-ion services director Travis
Fretwell said.he nationwide event
was established in memoryo drug enorcement admin-stration agent Enrique S.
“Kiki” Camarena who wastortured and murdered bydrug traickers in Mexicoand is celebrated October23-30 each year
he event eatured guestDBHDD commissionerFrank Berry and AtlantaDream star DeLisha Mil-ton-Jones.
Berry said advocacy e-orts both rom the DBHDDand outside organizationshave begun to impact policymakers across the state.
“Impacting children ata young age is the most im-portant work we can do. Itcertainly helps us avoid the
long-term treatment situa-tions that would come up; iwe can provide preventionservices and getting to chil-dren at an early age will helpthem stay drug ree.”
Berry added, “I wouldlove or the kids to growup and continue to havean investment in being apublic servant and helpingothers live a drug -ree lie.I we can get to them earlyenough and they get the re-ward o seeing what it is liketo help others that may carrythem through their adoles-cent years and in early adultyears where they want toinvest a career into helpingothers.”
Georgia studentsawarded for red ribbonweek initiatives
Shaun Spence poses with a mascot at Fernbank Museum of NaturalHistory.
Martin Bong Jr. sings MichaelJackson’s Man in the Mirror.
Georgia Department of Behav-ioral Health and DevelopmentalDisabilities commissioner FrankBerry discusses the risk of try-ing drugs.
Atlanta Dream star player DeLishaMilton-Jones presents student with asigned basketball.
Hambrick Elementary School receives an honorable mention.
Factory Shoals Elementary School receives an award for its division as well as a trophy for its initiatives.
Druid Hills Middle School award recipients pose for a group photo. Photos by Ashley Oglesby
The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 20ACLASSIFIEDS
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The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 21ASPORTS
Girls Soccer: Lakeside dominates Tucker 9-0
The Lakeside Lady Vikings soccerteam remained undefeated witha 9-0 win over Tucker March 27at Silverback Stadium. Lakesideimproved to 12-0, and Tucker fell to6-5.
ucker’s Ashlyn Edwards looks to set up a score. Photos by Carla Parker
akeside’s Tyler Smith (No. 21) kicks the ball to a teammate. Lakeside’s Rachel Grimes runs up eld. Tucker’s Alliyah Hunt sets up a corner kick.
The Champion Free Press, Friday, April 4, 2015 Page 22ASPORTS
Stephenson, Miller Grove win JV county track championshipsby Mark Brock
he 2015 DeKalbCounty Junior Varsity rackand Field Championships,enewed or the irst time
n more than 15 years, puteveral underclassmen inhe spotlight March 25 at
Panthersville Stadium as theitles went to the Stephensonaguars and Miller Grove
Lady Wolverines.he Jaguars captured
even o the 15 event titleson the way to a 117-108victory over the LakesideVikings to capture the boys’championship.
Stephenson got o to agreat start by winning threeo the ive ield events led
by double gold medal win-ner Previs Seldon. Seldoncaptured gold in the shot put35-06.75) and discus (98-
04.50).Hassan Littles gave
Stephenson a third gold inield events with a leap o19-06.00 to win the longump as the Jaguars piled up
47 points.Lakeside picked up 40
points in the ield events, ledby Jonathan Roberts’ win inhe high jump (5-06.00) totay within striking distance
o the Jaguars heading into
he track events.Four more gold medals
would come Stephenson’sway in the track events,ed by two rom Terence
Moody with victories inhe 100-meter dash (11.40)
and 200-meter dash (23.08).ustin Birdsong capturedhe 300-meter hurdles title43.65) to wrap up the indi-
vidual gold medals or Ste-phenson.
Moody played a big roleunning the anchor in the
4x400 meter relay or the
aguars as he took the ba-on in second place, chaseddown the leader and pulledaway in the home stretcho give the Jaguars the relay
title with a time o 3:34.64.Arabia Mountain won
the 4x100 meter relay with atime o 44.51 on the way toa third-place inish with 69points.
Clarkston made a strongshowing in the middle andlong distance races, comingaway with our gold medals,two by Bereket Tewoldeme-heret in the 800 (2:12.87)and 1600 (4:52.40) meterruns. he two other winscame rom Savon Beard inthe 400 (50.65) and Biney-am Tumbo in the 3200-me-ter run (10:59.42).
Other gold medalists in-clude Deishawn Worrell oDruid Hills in the 110-meterhurdles (17.46) and Dun-
woody’s Bora Kayhan in thepole vault (7-06.00).
GirlsA sweep o the top two
spots in the 100-meterhurdles pushed the MillerGrove Lady Wolverines toclose the gap on the way to a113.5-102 win over the Ste-phenson Lady Jaguars in thegirls’ JV Championships.
Stephenson used 14points in the 100-meter dashto pull out to a 13.5-pointlead (74-59.5) over MillerGrove behind the second
place inish o Shayla Smith (13.13) and third-place in-ish o Jayla Neal (13.50).
he Lady Wolverinesanswered in the 100 hurdlesbehind the one-two inish oAlexcia Ayers (17.69) andJakeeyah Seymour (18.32)to pull Miller Grove within2.5 points (80-77.5) withour events let.
Miller Grove took thelead with a silver medal in-ish o Zariah Kitchens inthe 800-meter run (2:43.17)to go up 85.5 to 80, as Ste-
phenson did not score in the800.Stephenson got another
strong inish rom RenaClowers in the 200-meter
dash (26.82) to win her sec-ond gold ater capturing the400-meter dash (1:03.28)earlier.
he Lady Wolverineswere clinging to a 91.5-90advantage with three eventsremaining and again it was
the hurdles that put distancebetween the two teams asMiller Grove’s Alyssia Bagot took silver (51.16) and Ja-keeyah Seymour was third(51.49) to score 14 to seal
the victory with one eventto run.
Miller Grove had thelead ater the ield eventsin a tight score as the teamhad tallied 37 points to leadRedan (36), Stephenson(35) and Lakeside (31).Bryn Maduro’s win in thehigh jump (4-04.00) was thebig score or Miller Grove,which got 15.5 points in theevent.
Other ield event win-ners include Jayla Neal oStephenson in the long jump
(15-04.00), Cara McClain o Dunwoody in the pole vault (6-00.00), Majesty
Next LevelEach week he Champion spotlights former
high school players from the county who aresucceeding in athletics on the college level.
Tony Parker, UCLA (basketball): he junior orward rom Miller Grove led UCLAwith a career-high 28 points and grabbed 12rebounds as 11th-seeded UCLA beat 14th-seeded UAB 92-75 March 21 to advance to theSweet 16 o the NCAA men’s tournament.
Aaron Perry , Clalin (baseball): he resh-
man pitcher rom ucker pitched a no-hitter,leading his team to a 3-0 win over MorehouseMarch 22. Perry pitched six innings, strikingout ive batters.
The Champion chooses a male and femalehigh school Athlete of the Week each weekthroughout the school year. The choicesare based on performance and nominationsby coaches. Please email nominations [email protected] by Monday atnoon.
MALE ATHLETE OF THE WEEK Elliot Hammonds, Columbia (baseball):The senior outelder was perfect at the platewith a 1.000 batting average in the 13-0 winover Stone Mountain March 27. Hammondswas two for two at bat with two hits, onehome run and three runs.
FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE WEEK Rena Clowers, Stephenson (track): Thefreshman sprinter won two gold medalsin the DeKalb County JV Track and Field
Championships March 25. Clowers wongold in the 200-meter dash (26.82) and inthe 400-meter dash (1:03.28).
Athlete of
the Week
See Track on page 23A
The Miller Grove Lady Wolverines won the girls’ JV Championship. Photos by Mark Brock
Stephenson won the boys’ JV title. Miller Grove had a one-two nishin the 100-meter hurdles.
What started out as anemotional celebration oie, ended in a disappoint-ng loss or the Dunwoody
Wildcats.Te Stephenson Jaguars
came back rom a 0-2 deficito deeat the Wildcats 4-2 at
Dunwoody March 26.Beore the baseball game,
Dunwoody honored IanDavis, who was killed in acar crash June 29, 2014, inLaGrange.
Davis, a Dunwoodygraduate, was 22 years old.Te Dunwoody communityhonored him by wearing
-shirts that read “I. DavisForever” on the back, whichncluded his jersey number,5”, which he wore during
his playing days at Dun-woody.
Dunwoody also retiredhis jersey, and a replica o itwas hung on the back walln the outfield.
Te Wildcats jumpedout to a 2-0 lead early in thegame. In the second inning,enior Calvin Christopher
got things going with a basehit. He later stole third onan error at first base.
Tat set up a run scoreor Christopher, afer a base
hit by reshman Jack Har-din gave Dunwoody a 1-0ead. Te Wildcats extendedhe lead to 2-0 in the thirdnning afer a RBI double byophomore Troy Anders,
which sent senior ChaseHawkins to home plate.
Te Jaguars openedhings up in the fifh inning,tarting with a base hit byenior Terrell McCall. Dun-
woody pitcher Kevin Smithwalked Jordan Ballou,
and a bunt by junior RohnBlackston and an error byDunwoody at first base sentMcCall home, cutting theead to 2-1.
A sacrifice fly by seniorTekwaan White sent Ballouhome to tie the game 2-2.Te Jaguars took a 3-2 leadafer a RBI single by Kamer-on Armstrong . Stephensonclosed out the inning with
good deense and pitching,including a strikeout by Mc-Call.
Stephenson coach MarcoJackson said the slow offen-sive start was due to Smith’spitching.
“We haven’t seen a lefyall year like that,” Jacksonsaid. “He’s a little crafy, hemixed it up, and we haven’tseen that. We needed tomake some adjustmentsand do some things thatwere different, and we madethem. We got a little tighterto the plate….and made himhave to pitch to us. We didwhat we needed to do toscore some runs.”
Afer the opposition
rattled Smith in the fifhinning, Harrison Weath-erly replaced Smith on themound in the sixth inning,but he had a rough outingas well. Weatherly walkedDexter Neal, and Neal stolesecond and third base beoreWeatherly walked XavierHorton.
Davie Mayfield was hitby a pitch, which loadedthe bases or Stephenson.Weatherly was then replacedby Christopher, who walkedBallou, which sent Nealhome, giving the Jaguars a4-2 lead.
Dunwoody was able toget out o the inning withoutallowing another run, how-ever, the Wildcats couldn’tget their offense going. Mar-cus Young came in the bot-tom o the sixth inning topitch or the Jaguars.
Young struck out the firstbatter, and a double play bythe Jaguars ended the in-ning. Young struck out an-other batter in the seventhinning and solid deense byStephenson sealed the win.
Jackson said the win was “agood team win.”“We really haven’t had a
close game until yesterdayand today, and we neededthat because we were beat-ing everybody,” he said. “Buttoday was a good team win.We ought hard, we weredown, but we worked ourway back to get in the gameand it was a good thing.”
Ferguson o Lakeside in the shot put29-02.00) and Kaalynn Jackson o
Redan in the discus (76-06.00).
Arabia Mountain picked upa pair o gold medals in the track
events as Makayla Cannon won the100 (13.01) and Queen Dais wonthe 300 hurdles (51.10). Dunwoodyalso picked up a pair o gold med-als with a sweep o the long distance
races. Emma Sheehan won the1600 meter run (5:57.17) and Julie
Hensley took the 3200 meter run(13:44.84).
Redan’s India Antoine aided theLady Raiders’ third place inish witha gold medal perormance in the 800
meter run (2:41.56).Stone Mountain’s only gold
medal came in the 4x400 relay asthe oursome rallied at the end toget past Stephenson or the gold in atime o 4:26.26.
Track Continued From Page 22A
Dunwoody’s Troy Anders goes in the to bunt the ball.
Stephenson pitcher Terrell McCall throws out apitch.
Dunwoody honored former baseball player Ian Davis,who was killed in a car crash in June 2014.
Dunwoody pitcher Kevin SmithDunwoody retired Ian Davis’ jersey, and a replica of his jerseywas hung on the back wall in the outeld.
Stephenson defeated Dunwoody 4-2. Photos by Carla Parker
Fernbank Museum oNatural History IMAX the-ater on March 6 premiered
Mysteries of the UnseenWorld , a 40-minute, large or-mat production by NationalGeographic Entertainmentand Days End Pictures, writ-ten by Mose Richards andnarrated by Forest Whitaker.
In the ilm, audiencesare taken on an adventure ounseen worlds and hiddendimensions o things too ast,too slow, too small or simplyinvisible to normal vision.
he ilm uses high-speedand time-lapse photography,electron microscopy andnanotechnology to show au-diences aspects o nature andevents that are not visible tothe naked eye.
When the ilm was irst
released at the National Mu-seum o Natural History last
year, producer Jini Dürr said,“he premise o this new gi-ant screen ilm experience islooking at the world througha variety o imaging tech-nologies that allow audiencesto see beyond what they canwith the naked eye and gaina new vision o the worldaround them.”
“his ilm provides aunique look at the worldaround us, showing usbreathtaking events that areinvisible to our naked eye,”said Kaden Borseth, a physi-cal science educator at Fern-bank. “We’re excited to beable to provide guests an op-portunity to view the worldaround them in a whole newand exciting way.”
According to the originalrelease statement, ilmmakersworked with a 3-D medical
animation company to de-pict the atom-scale realm o
nano-science and potentialinnovations in nanotechnol-ogy.
hrough a zoom se-quence, the shot moves inon a spider, then a strando its silk, then into the silkitsel where audiences see abacterium. he camera thenzooms even deeper, in on a
virus on the bacterium, theninto the DNA o the virusand inally into the actual at-oms o the DNA.
Mysteries of the UnseenWorld will show daily atFernbank Museum o Natu-ral History’s IMAX theaterthrough July 17. IMAX tick-ets are $13 or adults, $12 orstudents and seniors, $11 orchildren 12 and younger and$8 or museum members.
Unseen mysteriesrevealed at Fernbank
A microscopic image of hidden cellular structures within thecales of a butterfly’s wings as featured in Mysteries of the
Unseen World. Photos provided
A close up of a caterpillar’s head as shown in the IMAX Film.
