Jan 4, 2017 — Gwinnett Daily Post

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RYAN RE-ELECTED, 5A

House Speaker to see another term

RECORD-BREAKER

Brookwood’s Jones shows great skill on the court • Sports, 1B

Gwinnett Daily Post WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2017

www.gwinnettdailypost.com

75 cents ©2017 SCNI

Vol. 47, No. 65

Local woman shot in head

Victim in critical condition after apparent domestic dispute at apartment complex BY CAILIN O’BRIEN

cailin.obrien @gwinnettdailypost.com

A woman is in critical condition after she was shot in the head during an apparent domestic dispute at

a Lawrenceville apartment complex Tuesday morning. Gwinnett County Police Department Cpl. Deon Washington said police arrived at Madison at River Sound Apartments on Walther Boulevard at about 8

A woman is in critical condition after she was shot in the head during an apparent domestic dispute at a Lawrenceville apartment complex Tuesday morning. (Staff Photo: Cailin O’Brien)

a.m. after a neighbor called to complain about some noise. The neighbor reportedly suspected there was a fight going on. Officers found a man See WOMAN, Page 8A

Gwinnett BOC adopts 2017 budget BY CURT YEOMANS curt.yeomans@gwinnettdailypost.com

Gwinnett County commissioners approved the county’s $1.564 billion 2017 budget on Tuesday afternoon, with funding added for library system employees’ benefits, Wi-Fi on Gwinnett County Transit buses and marketing for Briscoe Field. Earlier in the day, Commission Chairwoman Charlotte Nash outlined a couple of the additions to the budget. One addition is about $500,000 to the Library Fund. Nash said the money would be used to cover extra benefits costs for library system employees. “I think that will put them in a good See BOC, Page 8A

Annie and Kevin Bunch look over their daughter, Josie, in their hospital room at Gwinnett Medical Center on Sunday. Josie was born at 12:21 a.m. Sunday, making her Gwinnett’s first baby of 2017. (Staff Photos: Curt Yeomans)

Gwinnett County commissioners listen to a presentation on the county’s $1.564 billion 2017 budget at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center on Tuesday. The commissioners unanimously voted to adopt the budget after the presentation. (Staff Photo: Curt Yeomans)

GCPS initiative digs into early learning issues BY KEITH FARNER keith.farner@gwinnettdailypost.com

More than a year after Gwinnett County Public Schools officials introduced a program to better equip kindergarteners and their families for school, the district continues to look for ways to identify and share resources around the community. School Board members received an update on the initiative last month from Kim Holland, the school district’s director of early learning and school readiness. The issue came to light in the fall of 2015 and was re-introduced last spring by CEO/Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks at area board meetings about the need to help students who were not academically ready when school began. “As we’re trying to determine that trajectory for student success,” said Nikki Mouton, executive director of curriculum and instruction, “what do our students need to know and be able to do upon entering into our kindergarten classrooms?” Wilbanks originally outlined an initiative to reach out to daycare centers, hospitals, doctors’ offices and other See GCPS, Page 8A

BABY NEW YEAR

First 2017 birth falls on parents engagement anniversary BY CURT YEOMANS

curt.yeomans @gwinnettdailypost.com

Snellville residents Kevin and Annie Bunch are settling this week into a new world where New Year’s Day has two reasons to be special for their growing family. At 12:21 a.m. on Sunday, they celebrated another new year by welcoming their second daughter, Josie, into the world at Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville. It was a milestone for the family, the hospital and the county because Josie was the first baby born in Gwinnett this year. The birth, however, came three years and about 20 minutes after another milestone in the lives of Josie’s parents. At stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2014, Kevin dropped to one knee on a rooftop overlooking New York’s Times Square and asked Annie to marry him. “I didn’t think that moment in Times Square, when that ball dropped and he went down on his knee, could ever be topped, and then we have a baby at pretty much the same time (three years later),” Annie said. “It’s just crazy. What are the odds?” The Bunch name may sound familiar to some

Annie and Kevin Bunch talk about the birth of their daughter, Josie, in their hospital room at Gwinnett Medical Center on Sunday. Josie was born at 12:21 a.m., making her Gwinnett’s first baby of 2017.

Gwinnett residents. That’s because they have both been involved in Central Gwinnett High School’s Magic Wheelchair program, creating Halloween costumes for wheelchair-bound children in recent years. Kevin, who taught in Central Gwinnett’s theater department, left the school after the fall semester to become the technical director for the Alliance Theater’s education department. Annie

is still Central Gwinnett’s MORE INSIDE dance teacher. See Eastside, Northeast Because of Josie’s birth, Georgia-Braselton welcome however, Annie won’t be first births of 2017............3A returning to her teaching job just yet. She’ll spend the next several weeks on maternity leave, spending time with the MORE ONLINE new addition to the family. Visit gwinnettdailypost.com Giving birth on the anfor a photo gallery. niversary of their wedding proposal may sound like an comes to child birth. incredible coincidence, but “I went into labor on our it’s not the only coincidence See BABY, Page 3A the couple has had when it

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