Great Scot! Coweta Prepares to Welcome Students from Abroad

by Jenny Enderlin

This July, Scotland’s Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra (AFO) will return to the United States for the first time since the COVID pandemic. Their first tour stop is Newnan, and the five dozen young musicians will have the opportunity to stay in local homes, learn about American culture, and perform at the Wadsworth Auditorium. The trip is an extension of the international sister-city relationship between Newnan and the city of Ayr (and likewise, sister-county relationship between Coweta and South Ayrshire) forged in the 1990s.

Coweta’s heritage has long been linked to Scotland. Chief William McIntosh, Jr., an admittedly controversial figure in history whose father was Scottish and mother was Creek, played a huge role in the formation of Coweta. Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie built Carnegie libraries both in Newnan and Ayr, and throughout the 1700s and 1800s, a number of Scottish families settled in Georgia.