MDJ Progress Edition 2015 by Otis Brumby III

Progress Marietta Daily Journal

2 015 Growth and Revitalization // AA

BRAVES NEW WORLD

As stadium rises, Cobbâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy reaps the benefits

Staff/Kelly J. Huff

INSIDE

From entertainment to technology to transportation , COBB IS GROWING

10AA

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

SIX CITIES

PROGRESS GOVERNMENT PROFILE

ON THE DOCKET

District Attorney Vic Reynolds looks over documents in his office at the Cobb County Superior Courthouse. Reynolds, who begins his third year as DA after voters elected him to replace retiring DA Pat Head, said he’s had a good two years in office and plans to run for re-election. ‘Barring some unforeseen circumstance, my intention is to run for this office again in 2016,’ Reynolds said. / Staff-Justin Larson

DA Reynolds eyes busy 2015 BY PHILIP CLEMENTS /pclements@mdjonline.com

Cobb District Attorney Vic Reynolds said 2015 will see some high-profile trials in the county, most notably that of Justin Ross Harris, who is accused of killing his baby son by leaving him in a parked car.

eynolds, who begins his third year as Reynolds said while he can’t predict the future, DA after voters elected him to replace he believes the case will move as fast as possible. retiring DA Pat Head, said he’s had a “I don’t have a crystal ball and it’s hard to see in good two years in office and plans to run the future what people’s schedules will be or what for re-election. “Barring some unforeseen other cases may come up in front of Her Honor, but circumstance, my intention is to run for Judge Staley runs a pretty tight ship,” he said. “She’s this office again in 2016,” Reynolds said. very diligent about her cases, and I’m hoping that Lance LoRusso, general counsel for the Georgia Harris’ case will in fact be resolved sometime in Fraternal Order of Police, said he is impressed with 2015.” Reynolds’ performance as DA so far. Reynolds said other high-profile cases “I think he’s doing a fantastic job,” expected to see movement will be LoRusso said. “He clearly is doing that of Marietta Councilman his best to be out in front of Anthony Coleman, who the public just as much was indicted last as an elected official year on charges of “I think he’s doas he was when he racketeering and was running for making false ing a fantastic job. He office and that is statements, clearly is doing his best to be commendable.” and This year will Kennesaw out in front of the public just as see some big trials, Councilman much as an elected official as he Reynolds said, Leonard including that of Church, was when he was running for ofJustin Ross Harris who was and Dwight Brown, indicted fice and that is commendable.” the former CEO on multiple — Lance LoRusso, of Cobb EMC who counts of child general counsel for the Georgia was indicted in 2011 molestation in Fraternal Order of Police for allegedly running January. the nonprofit, which During Reynolds’ provides electricity in first two years in office, Cobb, as a for-profit he oversaw the creation of company benefiting its the mental health court in 2013 and executives. veterans court in spring 2014. Reynolds said the Brown “What you’re trying to do with an accountability case gained a lot of press when it first court is you’re taking an individual … and teaching happened and has dragged on ever since. them life skills so they don’t come back to the “That case has taken a long route to get where system,” he said. it is today,” he said. “It was in front of the Georgia Reynolds said he is proud of all the courts, but Supreme Court on a couple of issues. The defense particularly the veterans court. requested the United States Supreme Court to take “It’s something that I think not only we in Cobb the case, but they refused.” needed but the state and the country needs more of His goal is to have the case resolved by the end those to give something back to those folks who of the year. have given us so much,” he said. “When they mess Reynolds said he also hopes to have the Harris up, if we can — sometimes we can’t — but if we case tried this year. can, we need to give them an opportunity to get the “There are a lot of intangibles that affect when a case behind them in some fashion and give them trial happens,” he said, noting his office just recently the treatment they need for post-traumatic stress turned over the discovery in the case, which is disorder or whatever it may be that they picked up in everything the DA’s office has on that case. their military service.” “In the interest of fairness to the defense lawyers The veterans court, run by former Marine and and in the interest of fairness to the defendant and Superior Court Judge Reuben Green, has about 15 protecting his constitutional rights, they have to have people in the program right now, Reynolds said, but the opportunity and the time to review all of the it is still a new court. documents that we’ve already seen,” he said. He said the mental health court, under Superior “They’re good defense lawyers; they’ll do Mr. Court Judge Mary Staley, has about 20 people Harris a good job. Once that happens, I would because it’s a little bit older than the veterans court, anticipate them going back to the court and saying, while Cobb’s drug court has about 100. ‘We need to hear certain motions. We need to argue “Obviously, we hear a lot about repeat offenders, certain legal motions.’ That may be, if everything and it is an issue, it always has been.” he said. works out the way we’d like them to in a perfect “Sometimes people who get in trouble continue to situation, I’d like to see those motions done in get in trouble and the system has to learn to deal March, April.” with those folks.”

C O B B C O U N T Y G O V E R N M E N T

AT A GLANCE ♦ Chairman: Tim Lee First elected: 2010 Term expires: 2016 Phone: (770) 528-3305 Email: tlee@cobbcounty.org

♦ District 1 Name: Bob Weatherford First elected: 2014 Term expires: 2018 Phone: (770) 528-3313 Email: bob.weatherford@cobbcounty.org ♦ District 2 Name: Bob Ott First elected: 2008 Term expires: 2016 Phone: (770) 528-3316 Email: bob.ott@cobbcounty.org ♦ District 3 Name: JoAnn Birrell First elected: 2011 Term expires: 2018 Phone: (770) 528-3317 Email: joann.birrell@cobbcounty.org ♦ District 4 Name: Lisa Cupid First elected: 2012 Term expires: 2016 Phone: (770) 528-3312 Email: lisa.cupid@cobbcounty.org

Tim Lee

Bob Weatherford

Bob Ott

♦ Cobb Government Building: 100 Cherokee Street Marietta, GA 30090 cobbcounty.org ♦ Cobb County Police Department: 140 North Marietta Parkway Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 499-3900 cobbcounty.org ♦ Cobb County Fire Department: 1595 County Services Parkway Marietta, GA 30008 (770) 528-8000 (770) 499-3900 cobbcounty.org

JoAnn Birrell

Lisa Cupid

SIX CITIES

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

Home sweet home

11AA

♦ Mayor: Steve

Tumlin Phone: (770) 7945502 Email: stumlin@ mariettaga.gov City Council: ♦ Ward 1 Name: Stuart Fleming Phone: (770) 7945527 Email: sfleming@ mariettaga.gov

♦ Ward 2

Name: Grif Chalfant Phone: (770) 3517035 Email: gchalfant@ mariettaga.gov

♦ Ward 3

Name: Johnny Walker Phone: (770) 7945526 Email: johnny. walker@ mariettaga.gov

♦ Ward 4 Emily and Mark Hulbert of Marietta put a Marietta High School letterman’s jacket on their daughter, Blair, 3. The family moved to Marietta in October 2014. Emily graduated from MHS in 2001 and attended the University of Georgia in 2002, where the couple met. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

Family finds way back to Marietta BRITTINI RAY

couple met. Emily works as a speech therapist at West Side Elementary and Mark is a commerMARIETTA — Despite Mark cial banking representative at Hulbert’s initial opposition, Highland Commercial Bank on moving to Marietta was a Barrett Parkway. much-needed homecoming for As a product of the Marietta him and his wife, Emily. City Schools, Emily is familiar The couple moved to Mariwith the educational opportunietta in October 2014 with their ties the city has to offer. three-year-old daughter, Blair. Prior to the disEmily was covery of Blair’s no stranger to language delay, Cobb County’s which is where the largest city. I went to development of a “I went to high school child’s language high school skills occurs at a here, so it here, so it slower rate, she was definitely coming home was definite- attended Fi, but now she attends for me,” she ly coming Atlanta Speech said. “For me, School, First moving back home for Baptist Church had a lot to do Preschool, an with family. I me. institution that spegrew up here. — Emily Hulbert, cializes in helping My family resident students with lanand friends are guage and hearing here.” delays. Before Emily said she enjoys the moving to Marietta, the family quaintness of the town, citing lived in Wilmore, Kentucky, the sense of familiarity from about an hour outside Lexingher childhood and the consiston. tency her daughter will have as “We had family while we she grows up. lived out in Kentucky but not “I love it here because like here,” Mark said. “In Kenalthough Marietta is a big city, tucky, we had a sister-in-law, it’s still a small town,” Emily here we grandparents. Here, said. “It’s a community. Blair Grandma lives just down the plays with kids down the street. street.” These will be the same chilMark was initially hesitant dren that she will go to about moving to Marietta. school with and graduate “I was anti-Marietta at with.” first,” he said. “I thought it Emily also enjoys the was too big. But I call it God accessibility to popular changing my heart. He said attractions. that this is where I needed to “It’s also great because be so, here we are. Now that we are here, I can see that it’s a the city has so much to offer.” community and not just what I Kennesaw Mountain initially thought.” is less than a mile away, Emily graduated from Marietta Square is also Marietta High School in 2001 close. Everything is withand attended the University in reach,” Emily said. of Georgia in 2002, where the bray@mdjonline.com

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Tumlin says new homes indicator of Marietta boom RICKY LEROUX

Tumlin also cited a new development at the site of the abandoned Wynhaven Marietta Mayor Steve Tumlin Apartments on Powder Springs Street as a sign of the city’s said four large developments in various stages of construction that growth. San Diego-based Black Orchid Equity plans to build will add hundreds of homes in single-family homes, the city is a sign the city is townhomes and growing. condominium units on Tumlin said the city the 19-acre property, has been working to add and Tumlin said the more housing in the city to project is doubly good improve the ratio between for the city. rentals and owner-occupied “We’re excited housing in the city. about that because “We’re finally catching that’s a two-run up to what is a good balance homer,” he said. for a strong community, and Steve Tumlin “They’re going to these four should do it,” he tear down the old, said. abandoned apartment buildings One development on the way is a $15 million residential project and then have a quality project that will run into the back of at the former site of the Fort Hill the (City Club of Marietta) golf public housing complex on Cole course.” Street near downtown Marietta. Finally, there is a longJohn Wieland Homes has stalled 10-acre project called the 6.4-acre property owned by Marietta Walk — located off the Marietta Housing Authority Powder Springs Street between under contract for $2.8 million the Square and the Marietta and expects to build a mix of 55 Conference Center — on to 65 single-family homes and which Atlanta-based developer townhomes. Minerva is getting ready to start Construction is expected to construction, Tumlin said. begin this year and finish within “They’ve gone through all three and a half years, according their preliminaries and should start to John Wieland Homes. The city building soon,” he said. council is expected to consider The project is expected rezoning the property in March. to consist of 30 single-family The Meeting Park homes and 54 townhomes, with development, a 12-acre project phase 1 of the development -- the also by John Wieland Homes, is townhomes and 18 of the singleanother sign of Marietta’s growth, family homes -- expected to take Tumlin said. The project will be about 18 months to two years to a mix of single-family homes and complete. townhomes. rleroux@mdjonline.com

Small town charm with abundant parks, green space, & amenities; a variety of housing options; quality education choices; a rich heritage Kennesaw. In northwest Cobb County, easily accessible to I-75 and Cobb Parkway, Kennesaw is fast becoming the premier place to live, work, and play. If you’re looking for a community where families and businesses can grow and thrive, welcome home!

START PLANNING •••

IT’S eASy To PuT A PLAN ToGeTheR.

www.LifeWellCelebrated.com WINkeNhofeR PINe RIdGe fuNeRAL home & CemeTeRy

770.422.7299 | Kennesaw www.winkenhoferpineridgefuneralhome.com

www.kennesaw-ga.gov

Name: Andy Morris Phone: (770) 5272785 Email: amorris@ mariettaga.gov

♦ Ward 5

Name: Anthony Coleman Phone: (770) 7945526 Email: acoleman@ mariettaga.gov

♦ Ward 6

Name: Michelle Cooper Kelly Phone: (770) 7945526 Email: mkelly@ mariettaga.gov ♦ Ward 7

Name: Philip Goldstein Phone: (770) 4285322 Email: pgoldstein @mariettaga.gov ♦ City Hall:

205 Lawrence St. Marietta, GA 30060 mariettaga.gov ♦ Marietta

Police Department: 240 Lemon St. Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 794-5300 ♦ Marietta Fire

Department: 112 Haynes St. Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 794-5491

M A R I E T T A

12AA

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

SIX CITIES

PROGRESS

♦ Mayor: Tommy

Allegood Occupation: Executive director Phone: (770) 402-6294 Email: tallegood@ acworth.org

Board of Aldermen: ♦ Post 1: Albert “Butch” Price Phone: (770) 974-3112 Email: bprice@acworth. org

♦ Post 2: Eugene Pugliese Phone: (678) 575-0596 Email: gpugliese@ acworth.org ♦ Post 3: L. Brett North Phone: (770) 974-3112 Email: bnorth@acworth. org

Daniel and Mallory Tidwell and their dog, Bella, recently moved to Acworth to be closer to work and to enjoy the quaintness of the community. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

Couple moves to Acworth to grow, find community BRITTINI RAY bray@mdjonline.com

ACWORTH — Acworth is the perfect city for a mixture of suburbs and countryside, according to new residents Mallory and Daniel Tidwell. “It definitely feels quainter here, and it’s kind of like being in the country — as much as you can be in the suburbs,” Mallory said. The Tidwells moved to Acworth in November from Marietta, hoping to get away from the fast-paced lifestyle of Cobb County’s largest city.

“We moved so that we can be closer to work and also to be in a slower-paced environment.” Mallory said. “Marietta is really congested.” The couple believes the smaller community will afford Mallory, a piano teacher, more opportunities to gain new clients to tutor. “We thought Acworth would be a good area to get higher quality opportunities for work. Mallory sometimes teaches from our home, so we wanted a smaller community feel in order to make those connections,” Daniel said.

Allegood: ’15 is a year of ‘hope’ RICKY LEROUX

rleroux@mdjonline.com

Acworth Mayor Tommy Allegood said 2015 will be “a year of hope and adventure and economic development” in his city. For instance, Allegood said the city is working with the property owners of two empty shopping centers to try to redevelop those properties. The mayor didn’t want to name the shopping centers because negotiations are ongoing, but said city residents will likely know the properties he’s referring to. “We’ve got to find somebody to buy them first,” Allegood said. “We’ve got sellers that want to sell them, and we have to find buyers. Another sign of growth Allegood pointed to is Tommy a new, 125-room Marriott hotel planned to start Allegood construction this year off Highway 92 near the newly-built 100,000-square-foot Cabela’s store. Construction is expected to take about a year, Allegood said.

♦ Post 4: Tim Richardson Phone: (678) 629-9465 Email: trichardson@ acworth.org ♦ Post 5: Lawrence

Houston Phone: (678) 508-2801 Email: thouston@ acworth.org

♦ City Hall:

4415 Senator Russell Avenue Acworth, GA 30101 cityofacworth.org

♦ Acworth Police Department:

4440 Acworth Industrial Drive Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 974-1232

♦ Fire Stations:

Cobb County Fire Station #11 4550 Cowan Road Acworth, GA 30101 Cobb County Fire Station #28 3858 Kemp Ridge Road Acworth, GA 30101

A C W O R T H

SIX CITIES

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

13AA

♦ Mayor: Max Bacon

Phone: (770) 319-5302 Email: mbacon@ smyrnaga.gov City Council:

♦ Ward 1

Name: Melleny Pritchett Phone: (770) 319-5306 Email: mpritchett@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ Ward 2

Name: Andrea Blustein Phone: (770) 319-5307 Email: ablustein@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ Ward 3

Name: Teri Anulewicz Phone: (770) 319-5308 Email: tanulewicz@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ Ward 4

Doug and Erin Justice play with their sons, 4-year-old Kevin and 2-year-old Eliott, at their home in Smyrna. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Community, education draw family to Smyrna BRITTINI RAY bray@mdjonline.com

When considering moving to the state’s fourth most populated county, Doug and Erin Justice gave the city of Smyrna’s educational opportunities special consideration. “One of the factors we considered when we moved to Smyrna were the good elementary schools in the area,” Erin said. The Justices moved to Smyrna with their two sons, Kevin, 4, and Eliott, 2, from Boone, North Carolina, in December 2014. Although their sons have not begun school yet, the couple wanted a variety of opportunities for their children. “When we moved to the area, we found a townhouse just south of Smyrna and started to explore the area,” Doug said. “We started examining the schools in Smyrna and all of the opportunities and felt it was

the right fit for us.” Erin is a stay-at-home mom and Doug is the senior associate athletic director at Georgia State University. Doug said another perk of living in Smyrna is a reduction in his travel time to the office. “For my commute, we wanted to be just close enough to downtown so that I would not spend two hours in the car each day trying to travel to and from work,” Doug said. Additionally, Erin said the city’s accessible and affordable community center has been a beneficial resource for her children. Smyrna Community Center, located on Village Green Circle, is a multi-use facility with a variety of spaces for meetings, athletics and activities. “I’ve got to give a big shout out to the Smyrna Community Center,” she said. “It’s been great. I’ve plugged our kids into there. ... The boys are now doing gymnastics at the center.”

Bacon says Internet, rising developments signals of expansion RICKY LEROUX

rleroux@mdjonline.com

In January, Google announced it would bring its high-speed broadband network to nine cities in Georgia, one of them being Smyrna. Mayor Max Bacon said Google Fiber coming to the city, bringing Internet speeds about 100 times faster than the average broadband speed. “I think for us from a perspective of technology and being able to provide our citizens with this really high quality of connectivity ... is just going to be amazing,” Bacon said. Max Bacon “This is going to put Smyrna on the map,” Bacon said. “It’s going to be the beginning for future good things to happen to our community.” Bacon said other signs Smyrna is on the rise include some new large-scale developments coming to the city. One of those is Smyrna Grove, a neighborhood of about 250 single-family homes spread across 50 acres at Windy Hill and Old Concord roads.

Name: Charles Welch Phone: (770) 319-5309 Email: cwelch@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ Ward 5

Name: Susan Wilkinson Phone: (770) 319-5310 Email: swilkinson@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ Ward 6

Name: Wade Lnenicka Phone: (770) 319-5311 Email: wlnenicka@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ Ward 7

Name: Ron Fennel Phone: (770) 319-5312 Email: rfennel@ smyrnaga.gov

♦ City Hall:

2800 King St. Smyrna, GA 30080 smyrnacity.com

♦ Smyrna Police

Department: 2646 Atlanta Road Smyrna, GA 30080 (770) 434-9481

♦ Smyrna Police

Department: 2646 Atlanta Road Smyrna, GA 30080 (770) 434-9481

S M Y R N A

14AA

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

SIX CITIES

PROGRESS

Hope and providence Vaughn: New museum, park renovations in ’15 RICKY LEROUX

rleroux@mdjonline.com

Powder Springs Mayor Pat Vaughn said big changes are coming to the city in 2015, not the least of which will be the relocation of the museum that commemorates the springs that give the city its name. The new Pat Vaughn Seven Springs Museum will be opening this summer at the Bodiford House, the childhood home of former Superior Court Judge Jim Bodiford. “The city has been fortunate enough to be able to purchase this historic home. We purchased it last year to save and preserve

a piece of our history,” Vaughn said. Renovations are underway now, Vaughn said, and the contractor expects it to be ready in June. The museum is moving from its current location in Powder Springs Park, which experienced flooding in 2009, so the museum needed to find a new home, she added. “This new location will also serve as a focal element of the city’s planned tourism enhancement,” Vaughn said, adding Powder Springs is working with Cobb Travel & Tourism to help promote the city. A new walking tour of the seven natural springs that give the city its name will begin at the Bodiford House. There is only one spring -- located in Powder Springs Park -- remaining; the others are commemorated with markers, Vaughn said.

Meanwhile, improvements to Powder Springs Park are nearly complete. Vaughn said the pool is being relocated to Wild Horse Creek Park on Macedonia Road in Powder Springs and replaced with a new aquatic feature. The city is also building a new concession and restroom facility in the park; additional parking is also being added at Powder Springs Park, and the baseball fields there are being expanded, Vaughn said. Vaughn said she is also looking forward to a 29-home development called Garden Gate expected to start construction in the spring and a senior living development called Abbington Trail that will have about 60 apartments. Both developments are being built near the intersection of Powder Springs Road and U.S. 278 in Powder Springs.

Powder Springs bicycle police Sgt. Michael Arrowood, left, and officer Joshua Chastain use pedal power to patrol the Silver Comet Trail near Richard D. Sailors Parkway. Staff-Jeff Stanton

Powder Springs bike unit back on patrol RICKY LEROUX

rleroux@mdjonline.com

Stealthy. Healthy. Approachable. These are just some of the words officials used to describe the Powder Springs Police Department’s bike unit, which is back on patrol after a short hiatus. Powder Springs Mayor Pat Vaughn said she’s glad the bike unit is returned. The unit went back on patrol in August 2014. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, and I think it makes people feel a great deal safer to know that an officer could be riding by at any time,” Vaughn said. Police Chief Charlie Sewell said the bike unit was first established around 2004, but was discontinued three or four years ago due to a lack of manpower. “We actually started this unit back up in 2013, and then again, because of manpower shortages, it kind of became stagnant. Now that we’re approaching … our maximum manpower, we feel like we have the opportunity from time to time to put people on the bicycle,” he said. Sewell said when two new hires come on board, the department will be fully staffed at 33 officers. Sewell said the officers in the bike unit interact with the public about twice as often as their counterparts in patrol cars, resulting in better rapport between the police and residents of Powder Springs. “Officers are more approachable (on the bikes). And we truly enjoy having a relationship with our citizens,” he said. “We understand that a lot of times the citizens are a little standoffish toward police officers. But when you can have a conversation … they get to know the officer and realize that he’s just like them — he just has a different job. Then, they tend to open up and will tell the officer things.” “Bikes are less threatening than patrol vehi-

cles,” he added. “Sometimes the novelty of a police officer on a bike is enough … for people to overcome their negative perceptions of the police.” Sewell described how the bike unit, made up of four bikes, operates. “It’s a voluntary thing. The officers volunteer for it, and they are assigned by their supervisor when there’s manpower. This is not a full-time unit. The officers still have to do regular patrol. When there’s adequate manpower, the supervisor will assign them to the bicycle, let them change into the bike uniform and patrol.” Sewell said benefits of the bikes are that they are good for the environment and improve the health of the officers. He also cited another benefit: stealth. “Lawbreakers don’t really like the bicycles because they’re not looking for bicycles; they’re concerned about the marked vehicles, the patrol cars,” he said. Vaughn concurred. “It’s a very stealthy thing,” she said. “Sometimes you’re in an area that a patrol car can’t get in and won’t be pulling up. So an officer can be there observing, and you’re not … aware he’s there observing.” Sewell said the bike unit is especially useful when they need to patrol an area where space is tight, such as downtown Powder Springs during July 4th, or on the city’s hiking trails. “We have several miles of trails — city trails — that connect with the Silver Comet Trail, and the easiest way for us to patrol those trails is by bicycle,” he said. A Dallas woman was found badly beaten on the Silver Comet Trail in Paulding County on Tuesday, but Mayor Vaughn said the return of the bike unit is unrelated. “Bringing back the bike unit has been in the works for quite a while,” she said. Still, in light of the attack, Vaughn said she is glad the unit is back patrolling the trails, as residents were typically glad to see them, as the police’s presence there gave citizens peace of mind.

Phone: (770) 439-7205 Email: mayor@cityofpowdersprings.org City Council:

♦ Post 1 (at-large)

♦ Ward 1

Name: Cheryl Sarvis Phone: (770) 222-7700 Email: csarvis@cityofpowdersprings.org

♦ Ward 2

Name: Rosalyn G. Neal Phone: (770) 943-1666 Email: rneal@cityofpowdersprings.org

Name: Albert Thurman Phone: (770) 943-1969 Email: athurman@cityofpowdersprings.org

♦ Post 2 (at-large)

♦ Ward 3

Name: Chris Wizner Phone: (770) 943-1666 Email: post2@cityofpowdersprings.org

RICKY LEROUX

as two street-front buildings totaling about 10,000 square feet for retail and commercial Big changes are coming to businesses. Kennesaw in 2015, and Mayor “This is a great addition to Mark Mathews said downtown Kennesaw “private investment and will add muchcontinues to be a high needed residents as well priority” for the city, as additional commercial citing two multi-million (space),” Mathews said. dollar developments Another development, coming to its downtown called Revival on area. Main, is already The first is a $20 under construction at million residential the corner of Watts and commercial Drive and South Main Mark Mathews development expected Street in Kennesaw’s to begin construction central business in the next few months. The district. According to the Darryl development is set to include Simmons, the city’s zoning 167 apartments spread across director, the project will include 24 buildings designed to match 252 apartments and between the historic environment of 10,000 and 12,000 square feet of downtown Kennesaw as well commercial space. rleroux@mdjonline.com

Kennesaw family says city ‘chose us’ BRITTINI RAY bray@mdjonline.com

For his family, moving to Kennesaw was an answer to God’s call, Brett Self said. Brett and Kristi Self came to the city with their three sons — Jordan, 15, Brady, 13, and Korey, 12 — in December from Alexander City, Ala. “Kennesaw actually chose us,” he said. “I’m on staff at Kennesaw First Baptist Church, and we basically feel like the Lord called us here to Kennesaw First Baptist and subsequently Kennesaw.” Brett is an equipping pastor of discipleship and family life at the church, while Kristi is a self-employed medical transcriptionist. Jordan attends Allatoona High School, and Brady and Korey attend McClure Middle School. Diversity in the city’s population allows for the family to meet interesting people, Brett said. “It’s very multicultural here,” he said. “There are so many different types of people here, which allows us to reach a wider audience at our church. They’re all incredibly friendly here.” Kristi said her sons enjoy the variety of restaurants in Kennesaw. “The boys’ favorite things are the restaurants. They love the food.” she said. Kennesaw provides the family a community-oriented town with the accessibility of a large metropolitan, Brett said. “I like the fact Kennesaw is close to Atlanta, close to the big city, but it’s not itself the big city. To me, it has a small town feel but there are so many things that are accessible because we live so close to Atlanta.” The couple says the family enjoys utilizing the city’s outdoor recreational areas.

The Self family, from left, Brady, 13, Brett, Jordan, 15, Kristi and Korey, 12, poses at Kennesaw First Baptist Church in Kennesaw . / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

KENNESAW ♦ Mayor: Mark Mathews Phone: (770) 424-8274 Email: mmathews@kennesaw-ga.gov

POWDER SPRINGS ♦ Mayor: Patricia Vaughn

Two multi-million dollar projects are set for downtown Kennesaw in 2015

Name: Nancy Hudson Phone: (770) 439-1012 Email: nhudson@cityofpowdersprings.org

City Council: ♦ Post 1 Name: Cris Eaton-Welsh Phone: (678) 266-0885 Email: cwelsh@kennesaw-ga.gov

♦ Post 2

Name: Tim Killingsworth Phone: (678) 873-7146 Email: tkillingsworth@ kennesaw-ga.gov

♦ Post 3

Name: Leonard Church Phone: (404) 441-4985 Email: lchurch@kennesawga.gov

♦ Post 4

Name: Debra Williams Phone: (404) 849-0948 Email: dwilliams@ kennesaw-ga.gov

♦ Post 5

Name: Jim Sebastian Phone: (404) 822-5407 Email: jsebastian@ kennesaw-ga.gov

SIX CITIES

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

15AA

♦ Mayor: Joe Jerkins

Age: 72 Phone: (770) 944-4328 Email: mayor@austell. org City Council: ♦ Ward 1 Name: Kirsten Anderson Age: 57 Phone: (678) 447-2506 Email: akaustell@aol. com

♦ Ward 2

Name: Scott S. Thomas Age: 77 Phone: (404) 787-0321 Email: sst627@aol.com

♦ Ward 3

Name: Randy Green Age: 56 Phone: (678) 300-5322 Email: rgreen@austell. org

♦ Ward 4

Clothing to Fit People owner Ann Turner works at her home in Austell. The city’s small population and smaller community draws residents. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Small-town feel keeps couple in Austell BRITTINI RAY

bray@mdjonline.com

The city’s small population and even smaller community of residents is what makes the city of Austell a desirable place to live, according to longtime resident Ann Turner. “I enjoy the fact that I can walk into the fire station and they can greet me by name. I can go into the police department and it’s pretty much the same,” she said. Ann has lived in Austell for more than 20 years with her husband, Randy. The couple moved to Austell in 1995 from Dover, New Hampshire. Ann operates a tailoring business called Clothing to Fit People from her home, and Randy works for a New Image Towing and Recovery, a local wrecker company. Austell’s consistent leadership — Mayor Joe Jerkins has been in office since

1989 — and low cost of living also has kept her family at the same location, Ann said. “Considering most people move every five years, 20 years is a long time,” she said. “What’s kept me here is the fact that taxes are affordable (and) the house is comfortable and suits our needs. The city is run in a stable manner. It’s a small and friendly city.” Ann ran for Ward 3 of Austell’s City Council in 2013 but tied for second place with incumbent Martin Standard. She appreciates the traditional aspect and accessibility of the city to Atlanta. “I like that it’s close enough to the train if we want to go into Atlanta and far enough that I don’t have to go into the city if I don’t want to.”

Jerkins: Projects set to drive city expansion in ’15 RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

Austell Mayor Joe Jerkins said many of the projects the city will see completed this year are signs of recovery and growth. For instance, Jerkins said the city is close to completing its plan to buy homes damaged by a 2005 flood. The city has already acquired 61 homes around the city and has nine more it plans to buy this year. The homes are purchased using 75 percent federal funds, 10 percent state funds and 15 percent city funds, Jerkins said. Owners are given 85 percent of the value of the homes’ 2005 value, he added.

“We get the property after we tear it down, and we have to maintain it after that, but there can’t be anything else built on it,” Jerkins said. The city has built walking trails on some of the properties it has acquired and plans Joe Jerkins to add playground equipment on a Pine Grove Drive property. One of the projects the city is taking on is adding sidewalks on Veterans Memorial Parkway under the Maxham Road Bridge, Jerkins said.

Name: Virginia A. Reagan Age: 79 Phone: (770) 948-7303 Email: vreagan@austell. org

♦ At-Large Post 1

Name: Ollie Clemons Age: 59 Phone: (404) 964-2268 Email: oclemons@ austell.org

♦ At-Large Post 2

Name: Suzanne Thomason Age: 53 Phone: (678) 665-4964 Email: sthomason@ austell.org

♦ City Hall:

2716 Broad St. Austell, GA 30106 austellga.gov

♦ Austell Police

Department: 2721 Joe Jerkins Blvd. Austell, GA 30106 (770) 944-4331

♦ Austell Fire

Department: 5300 Austell-Powder Springs Road, Austell, GA 30106 (770) 944-4333

A U S T E L L

16AA ♦ SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2015 ♦ MDJ ♦ GROWTH/CITIES & COUNTIES

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

From the publisher Welcome to the 2015 Progress Edition published by the Marietta Daily Journal.

his is one of our favorite special section we produce each year. The biggest challenge we face is finding space to print all the positive events taking place in our community. From economic development, the arts, health and education, Cobb County has continued to make significant progress throughout our diverse and dynamic community. In our growth and revitalization sections, you can find articles on the construction and job boost brought on by the Atlanta Braves move to Cobb, the redevelopment on Franklin Road and other significant points of growth. In business, the section highlights a climate has never been stronger in Cobb and our business community continues to receive admiration and recognition across the state and throughout the southeast. Our real estate section reflects the rebounding housing market, the health and fitness section not only focuses Cobb’s growing healthcare industry, but also profiles great success stories of residents looking to Otis Brumby III get healthier. If you want the latest on test scores, school rankings and an opportunity to know Cobb’s universities and public schools better, look no further than our education section. Also in the education arena, you can re-discover Kennesaw State University. Once Kennesaw Junior

College, KSU has significantly grown in size and stature and is now not only the second-largest university in Georgia, but also launches a football program this fall. And, who can forget the arts? This emerging arena in Cobb is well-documented in our arts and entertainment section. In addition to these exciting events, the Marietta Daily Journal also experienced significant growth in recent weeks. At the beginning February, the Marietta Daily Journal parent company, Times-Journal, completed the acquisition of the Rome News Tribune, Calhoun Times, Walker County Messenger, Catoosa County News, Cedartown Standard and Cherokee Herald (AL). Our newspaper footprint now covers 12 northwest Georgia counties with three daily newspapers and 28 weekly newspapers reaching over 450,000 homes each week and nearly 3 million online viewers each month. We believe strongly in local niche community news like you will find in these pages. Our recent acquisition will give us greater resources across all publications to enhance our local news coverage in Cobb and throughout northwest Georgia. We thank you for reading our 2015 Progress edition and for being part of what makes Cobb a special place to play, work and stay. As always, please take note of the advertisers in this section. They are our friends and neighbors and play a critical role in the success of our community.

A PREVIEW OF WHAT’S INSIDE

PROGRESS

PROGRESS EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER Otis Brumby IIl

GENERAL MANAGER Lee B. Garrett

V.P. ADVERTISING Wade Stephens

V.P. PRODUCTION Joe Fernandez

EDITORIAL STAFF DIRECTOR Mark Wallace Maguire NEWS EDITOR Jon Gillooly

ASST. NEWS EDITOR Ricky Leroux

PHOTO CHIEF Kelly Huff

GRAPHICS EDITOR Kayla Allen

SPORTS EDITOR John Bednarowski LIFE & STYLE EDITOR Kathy Goldsberry WRITERS Hilary Butschek, Brittany Ray, Philip Clements, Ellie Harding, Stacey L. Evans, Carlton White, Adam Carrington PHOTOGRAPHY C.B. Schmelter

What’s the business

COPY DESK Emily Boorstein, Margaret Chwat, Jon Moore, Madison Lee, Lauren Walker, Tom Spigolon

with the Braves?

ADVERTISING STAFF ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Tara Guest

COBB ADVERTISING MANAGER Becky Opitz

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Stephanie deJarnette, Dawne Edge, Paula Milton, Charlene Kay, Jordan Emerson, Amber Harris, Katy Ruth Camp, Jill Abboytt, Kim Fowler, Renee Addison

Teacher feature // 13DD

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More Big tourneys await Cobb golfers in 2015 Page 6FF

Novelis continues dominance as world’s top aluminum manufacturer Page 4BB

Atlanta Lyric Theatre keeps the hits coming at the Cobb Civic Center Page 5EE

PRODUCTION CREATIVE DIRECTOR Leigh Hall

See where Cobb’s wealthiest live

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Beth Poirier, Jennifer Hall, Carlos Navarrete

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Dave Gossett

INFORMATION Progress is published once a year by the Marietta Daily Journal and distributed to more than 30,000 homes and businesses. To advertise, contact Wade Stephens at (770) 795-4001 To subscribe to The Marietta Daily Journal (770) 795-5000, ext. 499

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GROWTH & REVITALIZATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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KEY POINTS OF GROWTH

Diverging diamond to aid Windy Hill traffic RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — A more than $20 million project to alleviate traffic on Windy Hill Road by installing a “diverging diamond interchange” is expected to begin later this year and will take about 14 months to complete, according to the Cobb Department of Transportation. The diverging diamond will be built on the Windy Hill Road bridge over Interstate 75 and is designed to ease congestion caused by drivers getting on and off the freeway. Vehicles entering or exiting the interstate will cross

over to the opposite side of Windy Hill, eliminating the need for those drivers to make left turns. Drivers passing through the area on Windy Hill will move to the left-hand side of the road when on the bridge and switch back to the right side after crossing. The $20.4 million price tag for the project is being paid for through a variety of revenue sources: $7 million comes from the county’s 2011 special purpose local option sales tax, $6 million from the federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, $5 million will come from the Cumberland Community Improvement District and

$2.4 million will come from a Georgia Transportation Infrastructure Bank grant. Cobb Chairman Tim Lee touted the funding arrangement at the groundbreaking for the project in October, saying the state, county and CID can all accomplish more if they work together. According to the Cobb DOT, the county will put out a request for bids on the project this summer and construction is expected to start in the fall. At the groundbreaking, Cumberland CID chair Tad Leithead said the Windy Hill interchange has been in the works since the CID was founded in 1988.

A rendering of Windy Hill Road over Interstate 75 shows what the bridge could look like after a $20.4 million project to improve traffic flow is complete. The project is expected to take about two and a half years and would add a ‘diverging diamond interchange’ on the bridge. / Special to the MDJ

McCollum changes to open soon RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

KENNESAW — Cobb is taking off, and its airport is growing to meet new demand. A new $2.9 million air traffic control tower at Cobb County Airport-McCollum Field is expected to open by the end of February and an $800,000 customs facility is slated to accept its first international flight in late spring. The 78-foot tower was built by Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Moss & Associates and is about 20 feet taller than the airport’s old tower. Construction of the new tower is complete, according to county spokesman Robert Quigley, and crews are now working to outfit the tower to get it up and running. Karl Von Hagel, airport manager, said the old tower will be demolished in the coming months, and the base building attached to it will be renovated and used by

airport administration. Construction of the tower was funded by a $1.25 million federal grant and a $125,000 grant from the state. The county paid the remainder — about $1.53 million — from its general fund. Von Hagel said the new customs facility, being built by Atlanta-based YLH Construction Company Incorporated, is progressing on schedule. According to county officials, the county-owned airport has an economic impact of about $112 million annually and supports more than 800 jobs in hospitality and restaurant industries. Von Hagel said the airport saw more than 70,000 flights in 2014. There are about 250 employees based at the airport, Von Hagel said, including two county employees: himself and an airfield maintenance worker. About 17 companies operating out of the airport employ the other 248, he added.

For more key points, see Page 6AA

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2/18/2015 5:08:50 PM

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

GROWTH & REVITALIZATION

Braves stadium

‘going vertical’

BY RICKY LEROUX Photography by KELLY HUFF

Now that the grading work for SunTrust Park, the new $672 million Atlanta Braves stadium, is mostly complete, the stadium itself will begin taking shape, according to County Manager David Hankerson. “Every week or so, you will see noticeable changes on this particular site,” Hankerson said.

ankerson said the project is moving forward as planned. “We’re on track and on schedule for the April 2017 opening,” he said. Mike Plant, Braves executive vice president of business operations, said about 90 to 100 people are working daily on the site, not including the engineers, architects and supervisors working out of the trailers set up there. Plant said a lot of the work on the site lately has been focused on getting ready to build the foundation of SunTrust Park. Because of the weight of the stadium, it can’t simply be built on the dirt because the earth beneath it would eventually shift or settle. Instead, construction crews will use four drilling rigs on the site to drill between 600 and 800 holes, ranging from 60 to 100 feet deep depending on the depth required to hit solid rock, Plant said. These holes will be filled with steel and concrete to form pylons. “That’s how you build your load foundation: drilling those in the ground and then filling them up with tons of rebar and tons of concrete so it creates your stability,” Plant said. Concrete for the pylons is being poured every day, Plant said, and work will continue for the next few months with each of the four rigs drilling about two holes per day. “We might consider even bringing in a fifth and a sixth rig,” Plant said. The stadium went “vertical” when crews began construction of the first aboveground portions of pylons in early February, according to a news release from American Builders 2017, the stadium project’s general manager. Although the pylons won’t all be complete for some time, Plant said work on SunTrust Park’s horizontal foundation will begin soon. “It’s a progression,” he said. “You don’t wait until you get all the columns in to start going horizontal with your steel structure. Once the outfield is done, we’ll start building out that steel structure and that concrete. Home plate is always the last area that you focus on. All these things are going along at the same time.” Crews are also working on building retaining walls, which will be below the stadium to keep the “bowl” of the stadium in place, Plant said.

MDJ 02_22_15 (AA4) 4

Officials say crews will begin building the vertical structure of the new Suntrust stadium in late summer. Mike Plant, Braves executive vice president of business operations, said about 90 to 100 people are working daily on the site. “Essentially, if you drove out there now, you’d pretty much see from right field all the way behind home plate to left field the outer circumference or area of the entire ballpark,” he said. “Those soil nail walls — you won’t see them once the stadium is built, they’re below surface — but they’re holding up all that dirt so it would never compress into the stadium bowl.” To build the stadium bowl, crews excavated 40 feet of earth from the site’s original grade, Plant said. “When you walk into the ballpark, you’re going to walk in not at field level,” he said. “You’re going to walk in 50, 60 feet up, so the field will be below you. … So you have to shore all those walls up to make sure that they never

compress inward.” By the end of the year, Plant said the basic shape of the stadium will be apparent. “By December, you’ll be able to drive out there and you’ll see not only the entire ballpark from the circumference of it, but we’ll be well into the vertical parts of the entire ballpark configuration. You’ll see seating bowls that have gone in (and) steel structure that’s up,” Plant said. Additionally, Plant said crews will begin building the vertical structure for the office building, expected to contain between 150,000 and 250,000 square feet of space, and the indoor entertainment venue in the mixed-use development by late summer.

2/18/2015 6:22:22 PM

GROWTH & REVITALIZATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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MARIETTA

Franklin Road redevelopment making strides RICKY LEROUX

deal with people and move people out of their apartments, so we’ve made those hard calls to do that,” he said. Two apartment buildings on Franklin Tumlin said developers can see more Road in Marietta will be demolished in the potential in an empty lot than they can on a coming months, according to Mayor lot with an existing structure, so the Steve Tumlin, marking the end of the city will have more flexibility as to first phase of the city’s plan to rehawhat kind of development could get bilitate the corridor. built there after the apartments are The city has already demolished demolished. one of the apartment complexes “Then we’ll start looking for the it bought using funds from bonds big developers to come in to seek worth $68 million, Preston Chase, 50 free acres unencumbered by any and Tumlin said two others — The kind of project on it, and that’s going Woodlands and Flagstone Village — to help,” Tumlin said. “Then we own will be razed as soon as the city gets 15 acres across the street. So even Steve Tumlin the go ahead from an environmental though there’s really no real prospect agency. out there now, the fact that it’s availAfter The Woodlands and Flagstone able is going to make quite a difference on Village are demolished, the city will have 50 this landscape.” acres on open land to offer developers. Tumlin said the decision by the Atlanta “Developers don’t want to come in and Braves to move to Cobb County has had rleroux@mdjonline.com

Reversible lanes project underway BY RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

Construction of the $834 million managed lanes project is well underway since its groundbreaking in September. The project, the most expensive transportation project in the history of the state transportation department, will add about 30 miles of “reversible” toll lanes along Interstate 75 from Akers Mill Road to Hickory Grove Road and along Interstate 575 from I-75 to Sixes Road. At the groundbreaking for the project in September, Gov. Nathan Deal said the new lanes will have a big impact on traffic in the county. “It certainly will fill a need, and that is to relieve congestion on the northwest corridor,” Deal said. “And I know the people who drive that corridor every day are looking forward to having the project completed.” The lanes will run along with west side of I-75 and will be separated from the existing lanes on the highways. The lanes will run southbound in the morning and northbound in the evening to help reduce traffic during high-congestion periods. Construction began in October 2014 at four sites: the intersection of I-75 and I-285, the Canton Road exit off I-75, the interchange where I-75 and I-575 split and at the northern endpoint

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MDJ 02_22_15 (AA5) 5

on I-75 at Hickory Grove Road. John Hancock, the project’s program manager for the Georgia Department of Transportation, said 18 concrete pedestals that will hold up the lanes have been completed. Hancock said this equates to about 12 percent of the pedestals the project requires. Ten of the 40 bridges to be constructed for the project are under construction now, he said. Northwest Express Roadbuilders, a joint venture between Atlanta-based Archer Western Contractors LLC and the Winter Park, Fla.-based Hubbard Construction Company is building the lanes and Hancock said the company updates its schedule each month with the project’s progress. “To date, (Northwest Express Roadbuilders) is showing on schedule or ahead of schedule for most activities,” Hancock said. While the project has seen some minor setbacks, Hancock said construction of the managed lanes is on track. The managed lanes are expected to open in the first half of 2018. According to officials with the State Road and Tollway Authority, the cost to use the lanes will range from 10 to 90 cents per mile depending on demand with a minimum charge of 50 cents.

mixed effects on the city’s plans for Franklin Road. Two years ago, before the Braves announced plans to build a new $672 million stadium in Cumberland, the city could have used the bond revenue to purchase two or three other properties in the corridor, Tumlin said. Now, rising property values in Cobb may make it more difficult for the city to purchase more properties. “The flip side of that is, with the Braves coming in and more and more investment dollars going in the Galleria area and Smyrna area, it’s probably going to raise the bar for (the Franklin Road) area,” Tumlin said. “What I envisioned before that whole area got hot is probably one or two steps below what we will end up getting there.” Tumlin said another property in the Franklin Road corridor — the site of a closed, multi-story Holiday Inn — has been bought and will be redeveloped.

“They’re working on some good plans to bring that site back to life,” Tumlin said. Brian Binzer, director of development services for Marietta, said the property was sold Dec. 30 for a little more than $2 million to Ganpati LLC. Binzer said the new owner also operates the Holiday Inn Express on Franklin Road and is working to find a hotel company to move in. Once an agreement is reached, the building will be renovated, Binzer added. The city’s efforts to revitalize the corridor seem to already be paying off. In January, Home Depot announced its intentions to move its IT center to a vacant building off Franklin Road and bring 1,200 jobs with them. The company will add 525 new jobs and 675 existing jobs will be relocated to the Newmarket Parkway site, according to Jim McCarthy, Home Depot’s senior real estate director.

AT A GLANCE ♦ Cost: $834 million ♦ Groundbreaking: September 2014

♦ Expected comple-

tion date: Summer 2018 ♦ Length: 29.7 miles in Cobb, Cherokee ♦ Tolls: Variable, ranging from 10 to 90 cents per mile depending on demand with a minimum usage fee of 50 cents Builder: Northwest Express Roadbuilders, a joint venture between Atlanta-based Archer Western Contractors LLC and the Winter Park, Florida-based Hubbard Construction Company

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2/18/2015 4:54:38 PM

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

GROWTH & REVITALIZATION

PROGRESS

KEY POINTS OF GROWTH

KSU to host major music festival RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

KENNESAW — There’s a twang in the air in Kennesaw: Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts are coming to the city in May to headline the first Shaky Boots Music Festival. Tickets for the two-day event are on sale now: $95 will get you a oneday pass, two-day tickets cost $169. The festival is set to take place May 16 and 17 at the Kennesaw

State University Sports and Entertainment Park at 3200 George Busbee Parkway in Kennesaw. Shaky Boots co-founder Tim Sweetwood, who also puts on the Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, said he was surprised Georgia didn’t already have a firstclass country music festival yet. Sweetwood said he thinks as many as 30,000 could attend each of the festival’s two days of concerts. Shelton and Bentley will headline on Saturday, May 16, with The Band

Perry, Dwight Yoakam and Jason Isbell also slated to perform. Paisley and Rascal Flatts will play Sunday, May 17, as will Justin Moore, Old Crow Medicine Show and Sara Evans. Sweetwood said the Kennesaw was chosen to host the festival because the city is close to Atlanta and Interstate 75, making it accessible from many parts of Georgia. For more information or to buy Country superstar Blake Shelton is just musician slated to pertickets, visit shakyboots.com. form at the event / Associated Press

Google Fiber to bring high-speed broadband to Smyrna RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

SMYRNA — Smyrna will soon be the fastest city in Cobb. On Jan. 26, Google announced it would be bringing its high-speed broadband Internet network to Smyrna and eight other cities in Georgia, which will offer residents connections 100 times faster than the nationwide average.

Mayor Max Bacon said he expects it will take about 18 months for Google to install its fiber optic cables in Smyrna. The average American broadband speed is 9.8 megabits per second, according to the latest Akamai State of the Internet Report.

Google Fiber will have speeds of up to 1,000 megabits per second. According to Google, Fiber comes to a city through a five-step process. First it works with city leaders to review infrastructure

and determine the feasibility of bringing the network there. Bacon said this process began for Smyrna about a year ago. “They’ve been working with our staff and reviewing things they had to have in order for us to be selected,” Bacon said. Next, Google will design the network for the city, which is the phase Smyrna is in now. After the announcement, Smyrna City Engineer Eric Randall said

Google will be taking the lead in designing the network. After the network has been designed, Google will construct the network, sign up customers and finally, begin home installations. Google is also planning to install Fiber in Atlanta, Avondale Estates, Brookhaven, College Park, Decatur, East Point, Hapeville and Sandy Springs.

Crews expected to begin work on Mableton square this month RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

Crews are expected to begin working on rerouting a road in front of Mableton Elementary this month to give the community a new, football field-sized town square. The $3.1-million project, which would shift Church Street around an open green space and extend Walker Drive about 1,000 feet, is being paid from the county’s 2011 special purpose sales tax. The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted unani-

mously in November to give a $1.9 million contract to Cumming-based Vertical Earth Inc. for the roadwork required by the project, which is expected to be complete in early 2016. The concept design provided by the county shows the green space will have one-way roads forming its borders. The roads that make up the square will be two-lanes wide with street parking, according to Jim Wilgus, the county’s deputy transportation director. Wilgus said the county has already spent about $700,000 on purchasing land for the project. After the road

HONORABLE MENTIONS RICKY LEROUX rleroux@mdjonline.com

STADIUM WALK A development in the works near the site of the new Atlanta Braves stadium is expected to contain 392 apartments, two hotels and 80,000 square feet of retail space. The proposed mixed-use development to be built on a 12.6-acre tract on Circle 75 Parkway in Cumberland is called Stadium Walk and is less than a mile from the future site of SunTrust Park. The Cobb Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the property’s rezoning at its Oct. 21 meeting. Stadium Walk would consist of a five story apartment building, two retail buildings and two eight-story hotels with a maximum of 290 guest rooms combined, according to zoning attorney John Moore.

SPLOST RENEWAL Cobb voters elected to continue the county’s special 1 percent sales tax until the end of 2021 in November, which is expected to provide $750 million for transportation, parks and recreation and public safety projects. The six-year extension of the special purpose local option sales tax was approved by 53 percent of voters, or 110,903 people, while 47 percent, or 99,012 voters, cast their ballots against the renewal. About $287 million of the revenue the tax is expected to generate will be spent on transportation projects in Cobb, including a $20 million project to build a new, four-lane road connecting Windy Hill and Terrell Mill roads on the east side of Interstate 75 and a $12 million project to widen Bells Ferry Road between Cobb Parkway and I-575. Additionally, about $64

million will used to resurface county roads and about $35 million will go toward building new sidewalks around Cobb. About $78 million will be spent on improvements to the county’s parks and community centers. For instance, about $18 million will be spent to improve Jim Miller Park on Callaway Road near Windy Hill Road.

JIM MILLER PARK Jim Miller Park, the county park that plays home to the North Georgia State Fair and the Shrine Circus, is getting a makeover. Cobb County is spending more than $3.5 million to improve the park near the intersection of Windy Hill and Austell Roads. In February, Atlanta-based Universal Construction Company of Georgia Inc. began upgrades to the park’s water and sewer infrastructure; the $2 million project is expected to be complete by the end of next summer, according to county officials. Additionally, the county is spending about $514,000 to replace the restroom on the park’s midway. Integrate Construction and Nobility Inc. has demolished the old restroom and the new facility is expected to open in May, according to Tom Bills, senior project manager for the Cobb parks and recreation department. AllStar Lighting and Electrical Service is working to upgrade the park’s electrical system and is expected to be complete at the end of the summer.

ACWORTH DEVELOPMENT The Board of Commissioners unanimously signed off on a 175-home development off Paul Samuel Road in northwest Cobb despite 84 people opposing the rezoning during an October meeting. The project’s developer,

JW Homes LLC, originally requested the 137-acre property be rezoned to allow for 195 homes when the request was first heard by the Cobb Planning Commission in August, but since then the number of homes was reduced to 178. Commissioner Helen Goreham, who represented the area at the time but has since been replaced by Commissioner Bob Weatherford, told zoning attorney Kevin Moore, who represented the developer at the October meeting, to reduce the number of homes further to a maximum of 175. The homes will cost between $500,000 and $700,000 and be ready for sale by early 2016.

KSU-SPSU MERGER It’s official: Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic State University have been consolidated into one institution, making KSU the third-largest university in Georgia and one of the 50 largest in the country. KSU President Dan Papp said a lot of work has gone into the consolidation since it began in November 2013 but there is still more to do. SPSU will now be known as the Marietta campus of KSU, Papp said, and there are no plans to close any of the buildings on either campus. The types of classes offered at each campus will mostly remain the same, he added, with math, science and engineering classes offered at the Marietta campus and liberal arts classes offered at the Kennesaw campus. The name Southern Polytechnic will not be eliminated, however, as Papp said it will be used as the name of KSU’s new College of Engineering and Engineering Technology, one of 13 colleges the newly consolidated university will have.

construction is close to completion, Wilgus said the county will seek a landscaping firm to finish the project, likely during summer 2015. The county was able to move forward with its plans for the square after approving the condemnation of two parcels of land on Walker Drive in July. Joel Cope, president of the Mableton Improvement Coalition, said he hopes the town square could function similarly to Glover Park in downtown Marietta. Cope also said the town square could be a “shot in the arm” and create renewed interest in the area.

GROWTH & REVITALIZATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

L EGISLATURE 2015 G E O RG I A

COBB SENATE PROFILES

District 6 Hunter Hill

District 37 Lindsey Tippins

(R-Smyrna) Age: 37 Occupation: President of Tommy Newberry Coaching Family: Wife, Shannan; children, Hunter Jr., 4, and Annie, 3 First Elected: 2012 Phone: (404) 463-2518 Email: hunter.hill@senate.ga.gov

(R-west Cobb) Age: 65 Occupation: Pipeline contractor at Tippins Contracting Company Family: Wife, Ann; children, Nathan, 40, Rebecca, 36; six grandchildren Chairman: Senate Education and Youth First Elected: 2010 Phone: (404) 657-0406 Email: lindsey.tippins@senate. ga.gov

District 14 Bruce Thompson

(R-White) Represents north Cobb Age: 49 Occupation: Business owner Family: Wife, Rebecca; children, Faith, 14, Max, 9 First Elected: 2013 Phone: (404) 660-1165 Email: brucethompsonforsenate @gmail.com

District 32 Judson Hill

(R-east Cobb) Age: 54 Occupation: Attorney Family: Wife, Shelly; 3 children First Elected: 2004 Chairman: Senate Finance Phone: (404) 656-0150 Email: judson.hill@senate.ga.gov

Cobbâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s State Senate Districts District 33 Michael Rhett

(D-Marietta) Age: 58 Occupation: Personnel manager in the Air Force Reserves First Elected: 2014 Phone: 404.670.1684 Email: senatordr.rhett@gmail. com

District 38 Horacena Tate

(D-Atlanta) Represents south Cobb Age: 58 Occupation: Business owner First Elected: 1999 Phone: (404) 463-8053 Email: horacena.tate@senate. ga.gov

COBB HOUSE PROFILES District 34 Bert Reeves

District 44 Don Parsons

(R-Marietta) Age: 38 Occupation: Attorney at Garrett McNatt Hennessey & Carpenter 360 Family: Wife, Amy; stepson Charlie First Elected: 2014 Phone: (678) 464-4995 Email: bert@bertreeves.com

(R-north Cobb) Age: 67 Occupation: Telecommunications consultant Family: Wife, Jo Lynn; children, Jennifer and Meredith Chairman: House Committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications First Elected: 1994 Phone: (770) 977-4426 Email: repdon@donparsons.org

District 35 Ed Setzler

(R-Acworth) Age: 44 Occupation: Program manager with Croft & Associates Family: Wife, Tracie; children David, 16, Caleb, 12, Sarah, 10, Susannah, 8 Chairman: House Committee on Science and Technology First Elected: 2004 Phone: (770) 420-0520 Email: ed.setzler@house.ga.gov

District 36 Earl Ehrhart

Cobbâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s State House Districts District 40 Rich Golick

District 45 Matt Dollar

(R-Powder Springs) Age: 55 Occupation: CEO of Lakepoint Sports Family: Sons, Earl, 23, John, 18 Chairman: House Subcommittee on Higher Education Appropriations First Elected: 1988 Phone: (404) 656-0325 Email: earl.ehrhart@house.ga.gov

(R-Smyrna) Age: 48 Occupation: Attorney for Allstate Family: Wife, Maria; children, Marshall, 13, Davis, 11 Chairman: House Judiciary NonCivil Committee First Elected: 1998 Phone: (404) 656-5943 Email: rich.golick@house.ga.gov

(R-east Cobb) Age: 37 Occupation: Commercial real estate with Cherokee Properties First Elected: 2002 Chairman: House Interstate Cooperation Phone: (404) 643-7853 Email: matt.dollar@house.ga.gov

District 37 Sam Teasley

District 41 Michael Smith

District 46 John Carson

(R-Marietta) Age: 38 Occupation: Realtor with Atlanta Communities Family: Wife, Michelle; three children First Elected: 2010 Phone: (678) 453-8683 Email: sam.teasley@house.ga.gov

(D-Marietta) Age: 31 Occupation: Educator, middle school Family: Wife, Ryisha; children Aniyah, 12, Christian, 7, Ryan, 2 First Elected: 2012 Phone: (404) 656-0265 Email: michael.smith@house.ga.gov

(R-northeast Cobb) Age: 43 Occupation: CPA at SunTrust Bank Family: Wife, Beverly; children, Elizabeth and Jack First Elected: 2011 Phone: (404) 656-0287 Email: john.carson@house.ga.gov

District 38 David Wilkerson

District 42 Stacey Evans

District 53 Sheila Jones

(D-Austell) Age: 46 Occupation: Self-employed CPA Family: Wife, Penny; son, 13, daughter, 11 First Elected: 2010 Phone: (770) 891-9736 Email: david.wilkerson@house. ga.gov

District 39 Erica Thomas

(D-Austell) Age: 27 Occupation: Executive director of nonprofit Speak Out Loud Inc. First Elected: 2014 Phone: (770) 866-4342 Email: info@electericathomas. com

(D-Smyrna) Occupation: Attorney at S.G. Evans Law LLC Family: Husband, Andrew; daughter, Ashley, 2 First Elected: 2010 Phone: (770) 710-4087 Email: stacey@staceyevans.org

District 43 Sharon Cooper

(R-east Cobb) Occupation: Registered nurse, medical office administrator First Elected: 1997 Chairwoman: Health & Human Services Committee Phone: (404) 656-5069 Email: sharon.cooper@house. ga.gov

(D-Atlanta) Represents south Cobb Age: 58 First Elected: 2004 Phone: (404) 656-0126 Email: sheila.jones@house. ga.gov

District 61 Roger Bruce

(D-Atlanta) Represents south Cobb Family: Wife, Angela; 3 children First Elected: 2002 Phone: (404) 656-0314 Email: rbruce5347@aol.com

Progress

Acworth Austell Kennesaw Marietta Powder Springs Smyrna

Marietta Daily Journal

2 015 Six Cities

MDJ 02_22_15 (AA9) 9

2/18/2015 4:27:42 PM

Progress Marietta Daily Journal

2 015

Stay-cationing in Cobb?

Holly Bass breaks down the 17% increase in tourism in 2014 Q & A // 12BB

Novelis is

CRUSHING the

competition 4BB

MOST EXPENSIVE

homes in Cobb 14BB

Staff/C.B. Schmelter

‘Cornerstone’ Noonday Creek Trail is key for the Town Center CID SPOT LIGHT

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

REAL ESTATE

PROGRESS COBB LIVING

The inside of an apartment at Walton Riverwood in Vinings. Apartments at Riverwood are available with one-, two- or three-bedroom options. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Apartments make Cobb cozy Walton Riverwood, a newly built apartment complex on the corner of Cumberland Boulevard and Cobb Parkway, offers residents all the amenities of a hotel but is a place to call home. HILARY BUTSCHEK / hbutschek@mdjonline.com Apartments at Riverwood are available The apartment building includes a twowith one-, two- or three-bedroom options. story gym residents can use for free. The Rent prices range between $1,345 and fitness center has free weights, elliptical $2,045 a month, said John Ibsen, leasing machines, treadmills and other workout consultant at Walton Riverwood. machines. “We’re a little over a year old. We’re “We have a trainer who comes two at the corner of Cumberland Boulevard. times a month to do free training sessions We have easy access to with the residents,” Ibsen I-75 and I-285. There’s a said. renovated movie theater For residents who are in across the street (Parkway a rush out the door on the We have Pointe) and a Taco Mac. way to work in the morning, So we have a really good Riverwood offers incredible Walton location,” Ibsen said. free breakfast, including amenities. cereal, fruit, muffins and Each apartment comes with a kitchen equipped coffee, as well as free Wi-Fi The value with granite countertops inside the Riverwood Lodge and electric, stainless from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. that residents room steel appliances, a living Walton Riverwood is get here is about 94 percent occupied, room and certain models have dining rooms, Ibsen so there is room for new just great. said. The value of each residents, Ibsen said. apartment really comes “We create a strong sense — John Ibsen, with the amenities, Ibsen leasing consultant at of community at all of our said. apartments. We really try to Walton Riverwood The five-story Walton get to know our residents Riverwood building by name,” Ibsen said. “It features a pool area, a gym, doesn’t feel like a cold, a rooftop terrace and a sterile apartment, but a breakfast room in the morning. strong community where you strive.” “We have incredible amenities. The Walton Riverwood hosts community value that residents get here is just great,” events — a pancake breakfast for the Ibsen said. community is set for Feb. 28, for example On top of the building, which holds — and sponsors a cultural enrichment 315 apartments, residents can lounge on program, which allows residents to visit the terrace and look out over the rooftops local attractions, such as the World of and skyscrapers of Atlanta, Ibsen said. Coke, the High Museum and Zoo Atlanta “It overlooks the entire city of Atlanta. during months they are sponsored by the It’s great for residents to have dinner or apartment complex. Then, the complex just a glass of iced tea,” Ibsen said. will reimburse the ticket cost of visiting The rooftop terrace includes an indoor the sponsored location, Ibsen said. and outdoor area, big screen TVs and free “We really like to set ourselves apart by Wi-Fi. creating a community,” Ibsen said.

“

Property Manager Kate Skinner gives a tour of a Walton Riverwood apartment.

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REAL ESTATE

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

11BB

MARIETTA

REAL ESTATE REBOUND HILARY BUTSCHEK

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

he real estate market came back strong in 2014, and real estate agents said it will continue to be a buyer’s market this year. Rhonda Duffy, who has been ranked the No. 1 agent in the nation for recent sales by Zillow and the No. 1 agent in Georgia for the past 10 years, said the residential real estate market is at a record high since the Great Recession. “I think (the market) will grow even more because I think people are starting to realize, ‘Hey, people in our neighborhood have sold.’ They’re seeing the activity, and they’re seeing that it’s happening quickly. So, they’re finally getting out and investigating whether things can actually be sold,” Duffy said. Duffy said the 2014 market brought good news to many residents selling their homes. “In 2014, a lot of sellers became very happy because they not only received multiple offers in some 1,200 Home building permits issued situations and very quickly, but they were able to go out and buy at a variable interest rate somewhere else,” Duffy said. 1,000 Dane Ellison, CEO of Atlantabased RE/MAX Regional Services, agreed with Duffy that 2014 was a booming year for real estate. 800 “Overall, 2014 was a strong year for metro Atlanta’s housing market and for RE/MAX of Georgia,” Ellison 597 said. “None of us have a crystal ball, 600 however, based on current market 491 trends and conditions, we remain very optimistic about 2015 and expect this trend to continue.” The market grew so much that 400 there aren’t enough houses for sale to go around, Ellison said. “While many homeowners have recouped some equity in their homes, 200 255 they still may not be ready to sell in 2015,” Ellison said. 176 Duffy said the 35,000 homes on the market in the metro Atlanta area are 0 not enough for the number of people looking to move near Atlanta. “(Since the recession), we have never gotten back up to what exactly has been the right amount of inventory for this amount of people,” Duffy said. Duffy said anyone thinking about selling their home should put it on the market as soon as possible because people are desperate to buy. “People need to stop focusing on making their house perfect before they put it on the market. Just put it on the market and then make it better,” Duffy said. “In this market, you don’t have to be perfect to get your house sold. Buyers are looking for

houses, and the inventory is still really low.” Duffy said homeowners should make sure their houses are clean and presentable to guests before placing them on the market, but renovations or remodeling aren’t necessary in today’s real estate environment. “Get it on the market right now. Don’t piddle around with the things that aren’t necessary, that you think somebody is going to tell you that you have to do: ‘Well, I’ve got to remodel my bathroom. 1,175 Well, I’ve got to update my kitchen,’ 1,119 No. You’ve got to show flexibility in what you’re offering people, and it’s not about the sales price. It’s really about decorating allowance available,” Duffy said. However, cleanliness is necessary for 837 a quick sale, Duffy said. 919 “I think what buyers really want is a sense of clean, safe, fresh. So, that’s why 803 797 it’s been proven that a clean home sells 3 percent higher than a dirty home,” Duffy said. Making sure the home doesn’t have Single Family Homes any obvious personal items sitting around also makes it more attractive, Duffy said. Multi Family Homes “If you can clean up your house that’s great: de-personalize, de-clutter. That’s great, but buyers are very forgiving right now because they need something to buy,” Duffy said. Duffy said an interesting spot to watch for 2015 is the residential area around the new Atlanta Braves stadium — SunTrust Park — being built in Cumberland and set to open in 2017. The stadium construction and opening could cause a shift in the people living in that area, Duffy said. “Only time will tell. We’ve already seen some houses appreciate, and we’ve seen other pockets where people are like, ‘I’ve got to ditch this.’ You know what I mean? It’s like, ‘I don’t want to be over here when all that happens. I’m not interested in the Braves. I’m going to hear the stadium from where I live,’ and so they freak out. Other people are like, ‘I’d love to hear the stadium. Instead of listening to it on TV or on the radio, I’ll just sit out on my back deck and hear the crowd,’” Duffy said.

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

REAL ESTATE

PROGRESS

CEO Bass: Tourism is growing With attractions like Six Flags Over Georgia, the Strand Theatre in Marietta and the Cobb Galleria Centre in Cumberland, tourism is one of the biggest industries in the county, and Cobb Travel & Tourism CEO Holly Bass says its growing. Here are Bass’ thoughts on the industry, its biggest attractions and the impact of transportation projects. Q: What is the economic impact of the tourism industry in the county? A: Today, the travel and tourism industry is the largest economic driver in Cobb at $2.5 billion and supports more than 30,000 jobs. Q: Is tourism’s economic impact increasing? A: Yes. A 17 percent increase from the previous year. The upturn in the economy is one factor, but the growth of the assets available in Cobb is another contributor. Q: What are some of the biggest economic engines in Cobb’s tourism industry? A: The sports market is a big economic driver in Cobb and is strong even during times of economic distress. During 2014, more than $252 million in economic activity was driven by sports in Cobb. To continue to bring the benefits of this market to Cobb, we started the Cobb Sports Alliance in 2013.

Cobb Travel & Tourism CEO Holly Bass stands overlooking the Kennedy Interchange in Atlanta on Feb. 4. She says tourism is growing. Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Cobb County has a long list of attractions that fuels tourism spending throughout our community. For example, visitors enjoy Six Flags, White Water and historical sites, such as the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History and Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. and the Marietta Museum of History. They also enjoy our entertainment venues like the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and The Strand as well as our cities’ quaint downtowns. Q: What impact do you think Kennesaw State University’s new football program will have on the county’s tourism industry?

A: We are really excited about KSU’s football program. We believe it will drive a new type of tourist to our community – the college football enthusiast. Q: Conventions at the Cobb Galleria Centre are a significant draw for the industry. How many conventions were held there in 2014? A: Last year the Cobb Galleria Centre hosted 179 multi-day conventions and 614 overall events with attendance of 363,400. This creates an overall economic impact of $123 million. The synergy between our organizations and area-wide collaboration allows us to execute world-class events.

Q: What is the impact of Six Flags Over Georgia? They plan to add two new rides this year. Do new attractions traditionally result in an increase in visits? A: The latest economic impact report that we have for Six Flags Over Georgia and White Water is $175 million. Tourists love new experiences, therefore, the addition of new rides would drive new as well as repeat visitors. A study, commissioned by Cobb Travel & Tourism in 2011, showed that Six Flags and White Water were rated as the most familiar attractions and the number one reason respondents had visited Cobb County. Q: Do non-tourism projects, such as the managed lanes project under construction, impact the tourism industry? A: The ability to move around easily is important to a tourist. Transportation projects such as managed lanes makes our community more accessible and easy to navigate, therefore making their travel experience a pleasant one. Q: What effect do attractions outside of Cobb have on the county? A: Even though it is just outside of Cobb County, LakePoint Sports in Emerson drives a tremendous amount

of hotel room nights and tourist spending to Cobb. For example, when LakePoint opened last summer with a six-week youth baseball tournament, it filled 55,000 hotel room nights in Cobb. All of those

teams and families stayed, played and dined in our community, impacting restaurants, attractions, hotels, shops and everything in between, even down to the gas stations.

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MDJ 02_22_15 (BB12) 12

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REAL ESTATE

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

REAL ESTATE

MOST EXPENSIVE HOMES IN COBB $2,690,000

$2,699,000 • 1.1 acres • 5 bedrooms • 6 full, 3 half baths • 3 floors • Elevator • Pool, cabana • Outdoor kitchen • $28,357 in taxes • No association fee

• 11.1 acres • 7 bedrooms • 6 full, 2 half baths • 2 floors • Equestrian land • Outdoor living area with pool • $3,478 in taxes • No association fee

4306 Woodland Brook Drive SE, Atlanta, 30339; Listed by Wesley Vawter, (404) 683-0910, wes@vawtervision.com

2585 Gelding Court, Marietta, 30062; Listed by Alex H. McGraw, McGraw & Associates of Harry Norman, Realtors, (678) 642-8227

$2,750,000 • 0.056 acres • 6 bedrooms • 6 full, 3 half baths • 3 floors • Pool with waterfall and jacuzzi • Outdoor fireplace • $14,322 in taxes • $1,000 a year in association fees

$2,700,000 683 Tarpley Road, Kennesaw, 30152; Listed by Diane Tatum, (678) 640-4758

• 21 acres • 6 bedrooms • 5 full, 2 half baths • 3 floors • Artesian well • Large organic garden • Fruit trees and

pecan trees • European style saline heated pool and spa with fountain • Limestone pool deck • $15,860 in taxes

5115 Greythorne Lane, Marietta, 30068; Listed by Marsha Sell, (404) 830-2000, marsha@sellteam.com

$2,975,000

$2,790,000

• 2.7 acres 1925 Pine Mountain Road Kennesaw, 30152; • 6 bedrooms Listed by Tina Fountain, Realtors (404) 842-1555 • 6 full, 4 half baths • 2 floors • Pool house with bathroom, outdoor fireplace, fire pit, Viking gas heated grill, oasis style pool with retractable cover and water slide, koi pond with cascading waterfall and a pirate ship with fort play area atop 50 tons of sand

5111 Greythorne Lane; Listed by Dana Banister Coleman, Harry Norman, Realtors (404) 518-7523 (Cell), (678) 461-8700 (Office)

• .93 acres • 5 bedrooms • 6 full, 5 half baths • 3 floors • Au pair suite • Elevator

• Salt water pool with spa and waterfall, outdoor living area with stone fireplace & grill • $8,326 in taxes • $1,000 yearly association fee

$2,995,000 • 1.4 acres • 6 bedrooms • 7 full, 2 half baths • 2 floors • Screened porch, multi-level deck, pool house including fireplace, sauna and meditation/massage room with soothing waterfall stone wall • $754 association fee 574 Gramercy Drive, Marietta, 30068; Listed by Julie Altenbach, (678) 5765372, Julie.altenbach@harrynorman.com

$4,000,000

$3,400,000 • 6.45 acres • 6 bedrooms • 5 full, 1 half baths • 4 floors

• Pool, hot tub, garden, fenced yard, walking trails, gated • $11,601 in taxes

2948 Summitop Road NE, Marietta, 30066; Listed by Marsha Sell, (404) 830-2000, marsha@sellteam.com

AND THE MOST EXPENSIVE HOME .... 291 Thunderbird Trace SE, Marietta, 30067; • 4.9 acres Listed by Marsha Sell, 404-830-2000, marsha@sellteam.com • 7 bedrooms • 7 full, 2 half baths • 3 floors • Pool, gazebo with fireplace, 4 car garage, expansive stone patio

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

15BB

THE

MOST EXPENSIVE HOME IN COBB

$4,450,000

he most expensive home on the market in Cobb, located in the Atlanta Country Club in Marietta, looks like a luxury hotel tucked away in a subdivision. Marsha Sell, of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, said the home at 410 Oakmont Circle Southeast is for sale at $4.45 million. The seven-bedroom home includes a four-car garage, a pool, a pool house, a guest house and is decorated in an “old world” style. “It’s the most unique home I’ve had listed — probably ever,” Sell said. The owner of the house, home designer Frank Betz, created the HILARY BUTSCHEK layout of the house himself. It hbutschek@mdjonline.com was built in 2004. Once inside the tall wooden doors of the home, a grand stone staircase with wroughtiron rails leads to a second floor, and straight ahead, double doors lead outside to a pool with waterfalls and a Jacuzzi. The stucco beige walls and hanging tapestries inside make the entryway feel like taking a step back in time. The home is filled with maroons, dark greens and natural browns, something Betz said he asked for intentionally. “I just like color. It might not appeal to everyone, but I like color,” Betz said. The front of the house on the first floor contains a library and a dining room. The home’s kitchen opens to a living room looking onto the pool in the backyard. Betz said he hosted many parties in the home, using the glass-walled wine cellar and full bar off the living

• 0.741 acres • 7 bedrooms • 8 full, 3 half baths • 3 floors • Guest house • Cabana and grill with fireplace • Pool with rock mountain, waterfalls, grotto, hot tub, swim-up bar & slide • $21,262 in taxes room to serve his guests. He said the layout of the kitchen and living room is perfect for large gatherings. “When you go to a party, everyone stands in the kitchen. So, having this open design lets people stand in the kitchen and not be separated from people in the living room,” Betz said. The party can continue outside, Sell said, where there’s a swim-up bar in the pool along with a fireplace, grill and outdoor

410 Oakmont Circle SE, Marietta, 30067

Listed by Marsha Sell, (404)830-2000, marsha@sellteam.com

eating area. There is also a one-bedroom, one-bathroom pool house next to the main house. “I think this would rival any luxury hotel,” Sell said about the outdoor area. Back inside, the master bedroom on the main floor features separate his and hers bathrooms and walk-in closets. Upstairs, there are three bedrooms, each with their own bathroom and walk-in closet.

An unfinished basement sits below the home, and above the garage is a two-bedroom, twobathroom apartment with its own entrance. The home is also equipped with a video security system, Sell said. Sell said the home would be perfect for a big family to settle into. “The people we’ve shown it to all say it’s comfortable. It feels like a home you can live in,” Sell said.

REAL ESTATE

MDJ 02_22_15 (BB16) 16

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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2/18/2015 5:04:03 PM

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

BUSINESS

PROGRESS

Chamber continues climb Officials upbeat about 2015 helped launch three years ago. The program is designed to attract new businesses to Cobb and help existing Cobb businesses expand, Officials with the Cobb Chamber of Com- Menefee said. “We’ve had tremendous success thus far merce say the outlook for businesses in the since we launched EDGE three years ago, county is strong for 2015. and we want to continue to fund it so that we David Connell, president and CEO of the can continue to recruit and help companies chamber, said Cobb’s business community expand here,” said Menefee, who is one of helps attract other businesses to the area. He said low property taxes on residents are made the co-chairs of the program. According to Menefee, the program has possible because the businesses in the county pay for Cobb’s services, which in turn attracts created more than 13,000 jobs in the county and brought in more than $2 billion in private more businesses. sector investment in its “Funding allows for three years. good schools. Funding Another of the allows for quality serchamber’s goals for vices, including safety,” Funding allows for is to get the Connell said. “We’ve good schools. Funding 2015 chamber’s business got a great public safety incubator, now called system here. Vibrant allows for quality the Business Success business generates the services, including Center, up and running ability for a county to be by the end of the year. successful. Transit will safety. The incubator is be necessary for us to meant to be a one-stop grow business. So it’s an — David Connell, shop for those looking equation: you have the president, CEO of Chamber to start a new business right infrastructure, you by providing resources get the right business, such as legal expertise, you get the right tax base help with marketing strategies and assistance (and) everybody benefits from it.” in forming a business plan to succeed, ConKim Menefee, the new chair of the chamnell said. ber and WellStar’s senior vice president for “Everything you need to start a business strategic community development, said she would be under one roof, and if you have a hopes to continue growing Cobb’s business successful business and you want to grow it community through Cobb’s Competitive and you want to figure out how to get capital EDGE initiative. dollars to grow your business, you have one “Overall, what stands out to me is that Cobb has a very strong business environment, place to go,” Connell said. “And that doesn’t exist today, you’d have to search it out.” and we’ve been fortunate to have so many In January, Cobb Chairman Tim Lee said leaders who have had a vision for what they he planned to revise a proposal for a bus rapid wanted Cobb to be in the future,” she said. “I’m excited to play a role, to be able to work transit line and put the plan on the ballot in with this chamber not only for today, but also 2016. Along with the previously proposed route along Cobb Parkway from Cobb Counto position this community and help it grow ty to Atlanta, Lee said the BRT would have and be prepared for our children as we consmaller lines feeding into east and west Cobb. tinue to invest in this community.” Lee estimated the additional routes would Among Menefee’s top priorities this year is to continue supporting Cobb’s Competitive bring the total cost to about $700 million. EDGE program, an initiative the chamber Connell said because there is not a final RICKY LEROUX

rleroux@mdjonline.com

“

Kim Menefee, new chair of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, stands with David Connell, president and CEO of the chamber. The pair spoke with the Marietta Daily Journal about the economic progress on Cobb. Both have a positive outlook for Cobb’s future. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff version of the BRT proposal, the chamber doesn’t have an official position on the issue. “Whatever Chairman Lee plans to do is not in any kind of final form, so we don’t really have anything to look at and say we feel one way or the other about it,” Connell said. “When it’s available for us to look at (and) put in front of the voters, we will look at it and we will weigh in. We always have and we will.” A transportation plan is expected to be brought before the Board of Commissioners in April, and Lee has said if approved, a task force will study the expanded BRT and pres-

ent the results by the end of the year. Still, Connell said Cobb will need some kind of transit option to remain competitive in attracting new business. “If we want to continue to be a viable alternative for companies, we have to have some transit option in the mix,” he said. “Our chamber’s ready to support a good answer, and we’re waiting to see what that answer will be.” Menefee said developing public transit is a top priority for the chamber, so it will continue to work with county and city officials to find the solution.

DEVELOPMENT

TCID work to create identity in emerging area HILARY BUTSCHEK

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

Business leaders in the Town Center area have a few projects slated for 2015 they hope will give the area its own identity. Mason Zimmerman, chairman of the Town Center Area Community Improvement District, said the CID will work to improve existing amenities and continue work on two key transportation improvements. “I think 2015 is going to be a very exciting year for us,” Zimmerman said. The Noonday Creek Trail, which is seven miles long and stretches from the Kennesaw Mountain Welcome Center along Noonday Creek to Bells Ferry Road, was completed in September 2013, said Tracy Rathbone, executive director of the CID. Zimmerman said the CID will continue to improve it. “Getting it completed was the first goal, and now making it more user-friendly is the next phase. You will see more signage, park benches and gathering areas and parking. We’re looking into doing rental bikes like you would see in other cities,” Zimmerman said. Rathbone said parking for the trail is a key project for the CID. “We have parking at the head of the Bells Ferry Trail. There’s about 50 spaces there, but we’re looking at collaborating potentially with the county to do another parking and restroom facility,” Rathbone said. Additionally, Zimmerman said the CID board is in the early stages of drawing up a plan to build a park on 40 acres of land near Town Center Mall between Interstate 575 and Interstate 75. Rathbone said the plan should be complete by the end of the year. “It is going to be, I think, one of the cornerstone projects of the CID because it Acworth Business Association: P.O. Box 448, Acworth, GA 30101 www.acworthbusiness.org President: Jay White Meetings: Fourth Thursday, 11:30 a.m. Location: North Metro Technical College, Building 400 Membership: $75 per year Austell Business Association: 5000 Austell Powder Springs Road, Austell, GA 30106 (770) 948-3628 www.facebook.com/AustellBusinessAssociation East Cobb Business Association: Suite 108, Box 162, 1050 E. Piedmont Road, Marietta, GA 30062 www.EastCobbBA.com

is a centralized gathering place that will be able to be utilized by the entire community,” Rathbone said. “It’s going to connect (Kennesaw State University) and the Town Center Mall area in a way that it hasn’t been connected before, so students will be able to ride their bike or run or walk. It’s going to be utilized year-round, but I think it will be used a lot during game days and activities at the stadium.” Zimmerman said the CID intends to form a nonprofit to help spur the idea for a Town Center Park into reality. “Our role is really a facilitator, so in a sense here we’re really similar to the Friends of East Cobb. We are going to facilitate the formation of an entity to work for the park. Our role has been that of a catalyst, and we intend in 2015 to move from catalyst to facilitator,” Zimmerman said. “We’re forming a board and we’re forming an advisory board. This is the early stages of that. In 2015 we intend to advance that structure to create a park.” Rathbone said work will continue in the Town Center area on two transportation projects. The first, a $4.4 million project called the South Barrett Reliever, will be open in 2016, Rathbone said. “The South Barrett Reliever is meant to take traffic off of Barrett Parkway, so the part that’s already open — Cobb Parkway to Greers Chapel Road — has been open for a couple of years and it has seen tremendous development and usage on that thoroughfare and taking cars off of Barrett Parkway. So, the roundabout in this next piece (of construction) will be a continuation of that that will provide multi-modal options with sidewalks and car access that helps relieve traffic on Barrett,” Rathbone said. In addition, the $17.3 million Skip Spann Connector will open in 2016, which the CID hopes will reduce traffic on Chastain Road

President: Mary-Kathryn Boler Meetings: Third Tuesday, 11:30 a.m. Location: Indian Hills Country Club, 4001 Clubland Drive, Marietta, GA 30068 Membership: $85 per year Kennesaw Business Association: PO Box 777, Kennesaw, GA, 30156 (770) 423-1330 www.thekba.org President: Mark Barre Meetings: Luncheon every fifth Tuesday Membership: $85 per year Marietta Business Association: PO Box 2152 Marietta, GA 30061 http://www.mariettabusiness.biz/ President: Julie Michaels Meetings: second Thursday of each month from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m

Location: Mansour Center, 995 Roswell St Ne, Marietta, GA 30060 Membership: $175 per year Northeast Cobb Business Association: http://www.cobbcountybusiness.org/ en/associations/northeast-cobb-business-association.html Meetings: third Wednesday of every month from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m Location: Piedmont Church, 570 Piedmont Road, Marietta Membership: $85 per year Smyrna Business Association: Meetings: First or second Thursday each month South Cobb Business Association: PO Box 1383, Mableton, GA 30126

Town Center Area CID Executive Director Tracy Rathbone and Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the quality of life committee, Kelly Keappler, stand near an entry point at the pedestrian bridge on the Noon Day Creek Trail Monday after looking at possible improvements to the feature with was opened last year./ Staff-Kelly J. Huff by 19 percent, Rathbone said. “I think the Skip Spann Connector is going to be transformational for Chastain Road as well as KSU,” Rathbone said. “It literally comes out on Frye Road right at the convocation center at KSU and then connects over on the other side to Busbee Parkway, and there’s a roundabout being installed there, so it’s really going to help that overall traffic flow there. The cool thing is it’s going to also have trails too. It’s a multi-modal connector, so it’ll have car access, but there’s also going to be bike and pedestrian access.” Zimmerman said visitors will see monument signs marking the entrances to the www.sc-ba.org Membership: $80 per year Vinings Business Association: 4355 Cobb Pkwy, Suite J530, Atlanta, GA 30339 678-725-0099 www.viningsbusiness.com Meetings: First Tuesday of every month from 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Location: Social Vinings Restaurant, 3621 Vinings Slope Southeast, Atlanta, GA 30339 West Cobb Business Association: www.westcobbbusinessassociation.com Meetings: 4th Tuesday of the month Location: Lost Mountain Baptist Church, 5400 Old Dallas Rd, Powder Springs Membership: $80 per year

Town Center area going up in 2015 that will give residents and visitors a better sense of the area’s identity. “I think there’s going to be a greater sense of identity not for the CID but for Town Center as a regional activity center. … It’s important to have a sense of identity that goes with the community and connectivity that we’re talking about,” Zimmerman said.

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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Braves officials put together ALL-STAR TEAM Ricky Leroux / rleroux@mdjonline.com

raves officials have spent their careers honing skills in business, player management and contract negotiations, but when they decided to build a new $672 million stadium, they knew they needed help to get the ballpark open in time for Opening Day 2017. “The Braves have assembled a team of incredible global experts, and that’s why we’re staying on schedule. That’s why we’re going to be successful,” said Mike Plant, executive vice president of business operations for the Braves. Over several months, the Braves assembled their team, which includes American Builders 2017, a joint venture of four firms working as the general contractor of the SunTrust Park project; Populous, the stadium’s architect; JLL, which is managing the project for the Braves; and Kimley-Horn & Associates, the project engineer. Plant had high praise for the engineers and architects on the project for being able to handle a project of this scale. “When you look at blueprints of an operation this big — I mean you’re talking thousands and thousands of pages of blueprints — it’s pretty impressive the individuals that are in charge of running those operations,” Plant said. “I think people, when you drive by the site and you’re like, ‘Wow, how do these guys know on a piece of dirt that that column has to go exactly there?’ It’s all through engineering and architectural drawings and blueprints.” The Braves also hired Wakefield Beasley & Associates to be the architect for the $400 million mixed-use development the team is building adjacent to the ballpark. It has three development partners for the mixed-use development: Pope & Land is working on the 150,000 to 250,000 square foot office building, Fuqua is working on the retail component and Pollack Shores is consulting on the residential component. “We knew what our vision was, and we know and have certainly put together the team that can help us execute it,” Plant said. “We knew what we were good at, we knew that

American Builders Operations Director Mark Granger and Senior Superintendent John Owen pored over the list of details being tackled on the job site of the new Atlanta Braves stadium, SunTrust Park. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff we wanted to quarterback this. We knew that we wanted to control our own vision and destiny because, let’s face it, when the keys get turned over to us, we’re there for 30 years.” In addition to the big partners in the project, American Builders 2017 has awarded contracts for individual portions of the stadium’s construction. “There’s in excess of 50 different bid packages,” Plant said. “Steel is a bid package, concrete is a bid package and glass is a bid package. They are very significant. We are now in the process of starting to get all those bid packages in from the (subcontractor) market community and you make choices. You make choices based on time, scope, budget, who we think can do the job. Then we’ll go back and, if we have to, negotiate with them even further.” Early bid packages included a contract site work and mass grading, which was awarded to Austell-based Plateau Excavation. Other Cobb firms working on the project include Smyrna-based Art Plumbing Company, which was awarded the contract for underground plumbing, and Mableton-based Inglett & Stubbs, which is working on the underground electrical work for the stadium. Plant said this is part of the commitment the Braves have made to Cobb. “We’re not working off quotas. We’re working off accountability and responsibility and doing the right thing.” At a business outreach seminar in December, American Builders 2017 Operations Director Mark Granger said Cobb County businesses have received about 78 percent of the more than $130 million in contracts awarded at that time, totaling about $103 million going to Cobb firms.

American Builders 2017 has received bids for the third group of bid packages and is in the process of selecting companies to receive the contracts. The third bid package includes structural steel, masonry, glass, drywall, roofing and the playing field. Although proposals have already been received for these contracts, Plant said local companies could still get involved in this work. “There will be splinter groups, there will be a subcontractor that will also then bring in some splinter groups because when you look at the amount of labor, you’re talking thousands and thousands of workers. The way the construction business works you build a big project and a contractor has to go out and get a whole bunch of sub laborers, and some of those subs might have to say, ‘Hey, I need to call on 10 or 15 or 20 guys that haven’t worked for me for six months, but they’re in my labor pool.’” The final group of bid packages is expected to be released mid-March and will include work on fireproofing, painting, signage and graphics, seating and landscaping. At a Board of Commissioners meeting in January, Commissioner Lisa Cupid encouraged local firms looking to work on SunTrust Park to visit American Builders 2017’s website, especially considering the final opportunity to bid on the work will come in early March. “If you do have interest in working on the stadium, you need to get involved in this process,” she said.

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PROGRESS

BUSINESS

Novelis continues dominance as world’s top aluminum manufacturer PHILIP CLEMENTS

pcliments@mdjonline.com

KENNESAW — Aluminum is a hot commodity and Novelis Inc. is taking advantage of it. With products used in architecture, automobiles, beverage cans and consumer electronics, the Atlanta-based global aluminum manufacturer has positioned itself as the world’s largest aluminum recycler, operating manufacturing facilities in nine countries on four continents. The company opened its 160,000-square-foot Global Research and Technology Center in Kennesaw in 2012 and has 150 employees and 20 open positions. The Global Research and Technology Center is where the bulk of the company’s research and development is conducted, according to Stefan Erdmann, vice president of global research and development for Novelis. Erdmann heads the Kennesaw facility and said the company looked at different opportunities in metro Atlanta before selecting Cobb. Erdmann said when the headquarters were established in Atlanta, the research and development facility was still in Canada. He said it was difficult to coordinate between the two locations, so Novelis decided to move the facility from Canada to the Atlanta area to be closer to the global headquarters. “In the end, the best fit was here in Cobb County and in Kennesaw,” Erdmann said. The Kennesaw facility is partly office space, but the majority is for pilot production, which comprises smaller production lines to test new products, Erdmann said. The site is also capable of developing and testing materials and has a small-scale aluminum rolling mill, he added. The company works with Georgia Tech and the Kennesaw State University on research opportunities and internships for engineering students, Erdmann said, in addition the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics and the Kennesaw Charter Science and Math Academy. In 2014, Novelis signed its first commercial customer of the evercan with a rollout in May by Red Hare Brewing Company, a Marietta-based craft beer brewery. The evercan is made of a guaranteed minimum 90 percent recycled content. Roger Davis, founder and CEO of Red Hare Brewing Company, previously told the Marietta Daily Journal that Novelis’ evercan was a perfect fit for the brewery. “(It) strengthens our commitment to employing the best in sustainable business practices, making evercan a natural extension of the Red Hare brand,” Davis said. Phil Martens, president and CEO of Novelis, said working with Red Hare is a benefit to Novelis.

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Above: Novelis Vice President of Global Research and Development Stefan Erdmann and Lead Surface Scientist Aditya Birla conduct stress tests on aluminum samples in the lab at the Global Research and Technology Center located in Kennesaw. Top left: Novelis Communications Lead Katherine Ellison and Cris Scelsi and Paul Nolan, both senior technologists at the Global Research and Technology Center located in Kennesaw, discuss business as they walk past Fred, the all-aluminum mascot of the company in the lobby. / Staff -Kelly J. Huff “Working with Red Hare, we have developed a proven supply chain to deliver this industry-first offering to consumers, setting an example that other beverage companies are sure to follow,” Martens said. According to the Environmental

Protection Agency, recycling aluminum cans saves 95 percent of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from virgin sources and noted that is enough energy to run a television or computer for three hours.

2/18/2015 5:03:09 PM

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COBB COUNTY

EDGE of tomorrow

Cobb Chamber Senior Vice President of Economic Development Brooks Mathis stands at the site of the Encore Apartment Community in Atlanta on Feb. 5. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Economic development strategy forges forward

PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

our years after its 2011 inception, Cobb’s Competitive Economic Development for a Growing Economy initiative is moving full-steam ahead. Cobb Chamber of Commerce Chairwoman Kim Menefee said EDGE is Cobb’s first comprehensive community economic development strategy.

“It’s sort of one point of contact within the county,” investors in the program who help us go out and recruit other Menefee said. “When businesses are considering relocating businesses to contribute to the program,” Mathis said about here, they go through our contact — who happens to be how the money is raised. Brooks Mathis — and (Mathis) works with the cities and the Mathis said there are a lot of companies growing and county to help companies identify what’s going to be their pointed to the Nov. 20 announcement by Genuine Auto best location.” Parts. Mathis is the vice president of economic development Genuine Parts, a Fortune 500 company, had two for the Cobb Chamber and the executive director of Cobb’s locations: one on Circle 75 by the new Braves ballpark Competitive EDGE. and one in the Wildwood Office Park off Windy Hill Mathis said the initiative is either on track or ahead of each Road. In November, Genuine Parts announced it would of the goals it set in 2011. be moving its headquarters to the “We are doing a lot thanks to folks who Wildwood location and consolidate continue to invest,” Mathis said. “They see its operations there. The Braves the return in the investment — if you didn’t purchased the 9.5-acre piece of We are doing see bulldozers, dirt moving and jobs coming property next door to SunTrust Park here, then we wouldn’t be doing our job. used as the corporate headquarters of a lot thanks to folks It means good things are happening when Genuine Parts Company. people are spending money.” “That’s a huge win for Cobb who continue to EDGE Co-Chairman Dan Styf of — especially how competitive the invest. They see the market has been — for them to Piedmont WellStar HealthPlans previously explained the goals of EDGE to the Marietta to reinvest (and) build a return in investment choose Daily Journal. world-class campus in Wildwood,” By the end of the five-year term, EDGE Mathis said. “For us to have one of — if you didn’t will have created 7,500 new jobs, increased Fortune 500 companies recommit see bulldozers, dirt our payroll earnings and income by $420 million after being in the county for a long and $7,000 per capita in Cobb County, of time is a huge deal.” moving and jobs period reduced unemployment to 5.5 percent, Mathis also said the coming here, then communications provider Vonage increased the public school graduation rate by 4 percent and increased the number of Business Solutions recently relocated we wouldn’t be college-bound students in Cobb by 7 percent, to Cumberland from Midtown. Styf said. “That’s a great company, very doing our job. Menefee said the job creation goal has vibrant, very well-known, lots of — Brooks Mathis, already been met and exceeded. young professionals that work there,” vice president of Cobb “Our goal was to create 7,500 jobs when he said. economic development and we started within a five-year period,” she said. Greenway Health, a Carrolltonexecutive director of “We’ve already recruited and created over based health information solutions Competitive EDGE 13,000.” company, will be moving to the As for the other numbers, Mathis said the Galleria with a new technology EDGE board is currently working on a study development center, creating about related to earnings and has reduced unemployment 150 new jobs. to 6 percent, noting there is still work to be done. “A lot of those are on the very, very high-scale, highAnother benchmark for EDGE is it has raised $2 million paying jobs,” Mathis said. “So we’re excited about that.” out of a $4 million fundraising goal. As for 2015, Mathis said EDGE is making a bigger push “We have our EDGE board of directors and a group of 17 for the international market.

“

“We want to be able to go and tell our story in other countries to get foreign, direct investment,” he said. He said EDGE is also going to be focusing on redevelopment this year, honing in on areas such as Canton Road, Franklin Road and south Cobb. “(Those areas) have a lot of wonderful capacity for redevelopment and growth,” Mathis said. “We really want to make sure we are a partner in that and do what we can to get jobs to folks living in those areas.” Mathis pointed to the fact The Home Depot is working to finalize its deal to put an IT center on Franklin Road, something EDGE has been working with the company on. “To have those jobs and that name recognition take over 200,000 square feet on Franklin Road is huge for us,” he said. “It can really help be a catalyst for job growth over there.”

AT A GLANCE E M P L O Y E R S

T O P 1 0

♦ Home Depot: 20,000 employees ♦ Cobb County Schools: 14,100 employees ♦ WellStar: 13,498 employees ♦ Lockheed Martin: 6,000 employees ♦ Kennesaw State University: 5,146 employees ♦ Cobb County Government: 5,068 employees ♦ Publix Supermarkets: 3,574 employees ♦ Six Flags: 2,464 employees ♦ The Kroger Company: 2,226 employees ♦ Marietta City Schools: 1,151 employees

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Cobb continues to build on housing rebound

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OW(L)! Call the

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nurse

Staff/Kelly J. Huff

INSIDE Helping hands, healing hearts Page 13CC

S taying fit at ...

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

HEALTH & FITNESS

‘PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION’ is his key to weight loss

Hilary Butschek / hbutschek@mdjonline.com Chris Oglesby, 46, of Marietta, experienced a breaking point this year when he realized he couldn’t walk anymore without needing to sit down and rest. Oglesby weighed 326 pounds, had Type 2 diabetes, asthma, emphysema, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and said he was taking so many pills that he had to take medication to counteract the side effects of the other prescriptions. “That’s when I said, ‘Nope. That’s it. I’m not doing this,’” Oglesby said. After changing his lifestyle to have a healthier diet and get more exercise, Oglesby said he’s lost more than 100 pounds. Oglesby, who weighed 190 pounds as a medic in the U.S. Army, gained the weight because of his sedentary lifestyle, he said. The weight gain started in 1994 when Oglesby left the Army after being injured in a crash landing due to a malfunctioning parachute. “I never stopped eating the amount of food I needed when I was in the Army,” Oglesby said. “It was just so hard to push away from the table.” Oglesby would order two entrees at restaurants and didn’t exercise while he was recovering from his injuries. After leaving the Army, he went to college and received a bachelor’s in computer science from Austin Peay State University. Then he worked a few successive jobs as a computer programmer in Nashville, Tennessee; Toledo, Ohio and Orlando, Florida. Now he works for WellStar Health System as a computer programmer. Because of his job, Oglesby sat in a chair all day and was never active, he said. “My son would ask me to go outside and do something with him, but I was content just to sit there and watch TV all day,” Oglesby said. In September of 2014, Oglesby vowed to change not only his diet, but his lifestyle in order to lose weight. “I got sick and tired of feeling sick all the time,” Oglesby said. He began by getting a surgery to make his stomach smaller, called a sleeve gastrectomy. Fritz Jean-Pierre, a bariatric surgeon with WellStar, said the surgery reduces the size of the patient’s stomach to one-quarter of its original size. “This leads to greatly reduced volume and capacity for food that a person can eat at one time,” Jean-Pierre said. “Additionally, it changes your metabolism of foods and alters your feelings of hunger. These eating changes with lifestyle and behavior modification can lead to excellent weight loss and health improvement while reducing the severity of diseases associated with obesity such as diabetes, hypertension and sleep apnea.” The surgery is meant for people who are 80 to 100 pounds heavier than their ideal body weight, Jean-Pierre said.

Staff-Kelly J. Huff

Above: Wellstar computer programmer Chris Oglesby has changed the way he eats completely and enjoys healthy snacks at his desk during the day, helping keep his appetite down in the evenings. Far left: Oglesby during his time as a medic in the U.S. army. Left: At his most, Oglseby weighed 326 lbs. / Special to MDJw After the surgery, Oglesby changed his habits to make his diet and lifestyle healthier. “I saw a nutritionist and all the other specialists, and they helped me with lifestyle changes,” Oglesby said. Now, Oglesby eats a diet high in protein so he loses weight but not muscle mass, and he does weight training exercises with his son three to four times a week. Oglesby said his wife, Laura, helps him maintain the healthier diet by modifying foods he likes to make them healthier and high in protein. For example, his favorite

dinner his wife makes is a pizza, which is made with a ground turkey crust, a little bit of tomato sauce, low-fat cheese and turkey bacon bits on top. “I’m not going to be Mr. Juice Machine. It’s definitely progress not perfection,” Oglesby said. “I don’t live to eat anymore. I eat to live.” Five months after the surgery, Oglesby said he weighs 219 pounds. “I did not know how horrible I felt until I lost the weight,” Oglesby said. “The more weight I lose, the better

BEFORE

A day in the life of Chris Oglesby: One man’s journey through weight gain, loss

“

I’m not going to be Mr. Juice Machine. It’s definitely progress, not perfection.

AFTER

”

5:30 a.m – Drinks about half of a storebought protein shake 6 a.m. – Goes to the gym for weight training or bikes or walks for 30 minutes 8 a.m. – Gets to work, eats a snack of a piece of lean meat, a piece of cheese or almonds about the size of the palm of his hand without stacking the food 10 a.m. – Eats a snack of the other half of the protein shake Noon – Eats lunch, for example cubed steak and vegetables 2 p.m. – Eats another portion, about size of his palm, of steak and vegetables 4 p.m. - Eats another portion, about size of his palm, of steak and vegetables 6:30 p.m. – Eats dinner, for example pizza with a crust of ground turkey, a little tomato sauce, low-fat cheese and turkey bacon bits – he eats a portion of about the size of a deck of cards 8:30 p.m. – Snack of deer or beef jerky 10 p.m. - Goes to bed

HEALTH & FITNESS

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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Mayor halts Diet Coke intake, sheds 60 pounds

Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews shows off his new trimmer form in downtown Kennesaw, after losing 60 pounds since April. Cutting out his Diet Cokes helped lose the weight and he was so motivated, he made plans to participate in last October’s American Heart Association’s 5K Heart Walk. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff SARAH WESTWOOD mdjnews@mdjonline.com

KENNESAW — Mayor Mark Mathews committed to a healthier lifestyle in 2013 by cutting just one thing from his diet: Diet Coke. The mayor’s weight loss of 60 pounds began in December of 2013 to get ready for the Heart Walk fundraiser, which took place at Kennesaw State University last October. Mathews led one of several teams associated with the city during the

American Heart Association’s 5K Heart Walk last fall after losing the weight. “It’s just been the craziest thing, because I’ve got more energy. I feel better. I’m sleeping better. I’m eating better. I’m thinking better. There’s not enough time in the day to get everything done for me now,” Mathews said. After putting off the “proverbial New Year’s resolution to lose weight,” Mathews said he decided to make a serious effort in February 2014. He said he began to increase his physical activity and monitor his diet

until his birthday in April 2014, when he received his annual physical. Although Mathews had lost about 10 pounds, he said his blood pressure remained high and he “still felt horrible.” “The only thing (the doctor) would do is refer me to a dietician and suggest that I cut back on Diet Coke. That’s right, Diet Coke,” Mathews said. Mathews said he went from drinking 10 to 12 Diet Cokes a day to just two at the end of April. On May 1, the mayor drank his last sip of the drink.

The mayor credits the soda’s elimination from his refrigerator for his slim-down. “That’s the only thing I can attribute it to,” he said. “I’m more active. I’m not as hungry, so I’m not eating as much. I no longer have sleep apnea.” Mathews said he experienced no symptoms of withdrawal from a soft drink many say can be addicting. “I’ve had no headaches, nothing people talk about for giving up Diet Coke,” he said. “It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

One-stop shop Health park features doctors, emergency care HILARY BUTSCHEK

hutschek@mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — Officials say WellStar Health System’s new $73 million health park in east Cobb that opened in September 2014 aims to be a one-stop shop for health care. Reynold Jennings, CEO of WellStar, said the new health park off Roswell Road is the second to open in Cobb, and he said it will be convenient for locals. “WellStar saw the growing need seven years ago — with the growing population — that we needed to provide services as close to home as possible,” Jennings said. The first Health Park WellStar opened is in Acworth, but it is half the size of the east Cobb center. The facility opened in July 2012 and has served more than 100,000 patients in both its first and second years of operation, said Joe Brywczynski, senior vice president of the health parks department. The new east Cobb center opened to patients Sept. 15 and is marketed as the “onestop shop” for health care needs. The new 162,000-squarefoot health park includes every step of treatment on its three stories, including a doctor’s visit, imaging machines and a pharmacy. Patients can visit the center for routine checkups as well as urgent health needs, but they will not stay overnight at the health park,

Brywczynski said. For instance, someone who suspects they have a broken arm can come to the urgent care portion of the center, see a doctor, get an x-ray to confirm the bone is broken, get a cast fitted to the arm by a surgeon and pick up a prescription for medication all in one building, Brywczynski said. Brywczynski said the convenience the health park offers will make it popular among the audience of 200,000 people it will target in portions of east Cobb, including Marietta and Roswell. The urgent care center has seven exam rooms and two larger observation rooms that will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day of the year. The regular business hours for the doctors’ offices and pharmacy is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. “All these urgent care patients are those where the injury does not warrant an emergency room visit,” Brywczynski said. The urgent care portion of the health park is for people who have injuries that aren’t life-threatening, such as an ankle sprain or a knee injury. Additionally, the health park can perform certain minor surgeries, Brywczynski said. “This gives us the opportunity to only treat lower injury surgeries,” Brywczynski said. “They’ve got priority here.” The imaging center inside the health park includes an MRI machine, a CT scan, two x-ray machines and

two ultrasound machines. WellStar also offers physical therapy and exercise rooms for those who are recovering from surgery with treadmills, stationary bikes and weights. The East Cobb Health Park has 25 doctors who are permanently stationed there as well as 75 doctors working there part time. The doctors at the center include general physicians and specialists.

Joe Brywczynski, with scissors, senior vice president of health parks for WellStar, cuts the ribbon to officially open the new WellStar health facility in east Cobb on Roswell Road. To his left is Reynold Jennings, WellStar CEO. / Staff-Jeff Stanton

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS

TAG TEAM

MARIETTA

WellStar Kennestone Hospital’s Taghechian sisters know how to operate together naturally — HILARY BUTSCHEK —

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

he Taghechian sisters, nicknamed the “Tag Team,” can finish each other’s sentences and each other’s surgeries. However, Elizabeth Taghechian, 41, the older sister, does more of the talking. She and her sister, Shaya Taghechian, 34, are doctors at WellStar Kennestone Hospital who can operate on one patient together.

Above: Dr. Elizabeth Taghechian and her sister, Dr. Shaya Taghechian, are providing excellent care for their patients at WellStar’s Kennestone Hospital in Marietta in the field of gynecology and urology. Below left: The Taghechian sisters exit the Kennestone Outpatient Pavilion surgery unit after working together on a case. They recently performed a surgery together using the DaVinci robot surgical tool. Bottom left: The Taghechian sisters discuss their childhood and the journey that brought them together practicing medicine at WellStar’s Kennestone Hospital in Marietta. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff Elizabeth Taghechian, an OB-GYN, equates the work they do in the operating room to the way she and her sister collaborate in the kitchen. “We love to cook. … At home, I don’t like anybody else being in my kitchen. … But, with Shaya, she’s the only person — she gets me in the kitchen. We’re cooking it up. I don’t have to tell her anything. We work great together. She knows my weaknesses. So, take that to surgery and it’s the same thing,” Elizabeth Taghechian said. Shaya Taghechian, a urologist, said she and her sister have a natural bond that can’t be matched. “I think our brains work the same in very many ways, so when I see her do something, it’s something that I would be doing as well,” Shaya Taghechian said. “You understand the other person. They don’t have to explain anything. You understand their hand movements. You know what they’re reaching for. It just works. It’s much easier to operate with her I think than it would be with someone else.”

A FAMILY OF ‘GIVERS’ The sisters live one backyard away from each other. Each is married, and Elizabeth Taghechian has two children, a daughter, Zoya, 3, and a son, Harrison, 1. “The closest people to us really are our family,” Shaya Taghechian said. The Taghechian family, originally from Iran, has stuck together. The sisters’ parents, Ali Taghechian and Zarrin Derhami, live within five miles of the sisters’ houses in Marietta. Both Shaya and Elizabeth Taghechian were born in Tehran, Iran, but the family moved to the United States in 1983 so the daughters could achieve their dreams. “(My mom) thought I would have a better shot here of reaching my dreams,” Elizabeth Taghechian said. The elder sister said she has her mother to thank both for allowing her to have the opportunity to become a doctor and for inspiring her to practice medicine. “We used to live in high rises in Iran. My mom wasn’t a pediatrician, by any stretch of the imagination … but she used to treat all the kids in the neighborhood. Moms would come and they’d ask my mom, ‘What would you do? He’s got this.

She’s got this,’ and my mom would tell them what to do,” Elizabeth Taghechian said. Both Shaya and Elizabeth said they take after their mother, who is “a giver.” “Mom is a caring person for anything that’s living — plants, animal, people. Especially if you’re in need, my mom is always there for you. You know, whether you have cancer or you’re in a bad situation. When everyone is running away, my mom is the one that’s coming to you to help you. So, of course, when you see that as a little kid, it’s imprinted upon you that you should be there for people, especially people in need,” Elizabeth Taghechian said. Shaya Taghechian and her sister said they try to have fun at work and treat their patients like family. “I think Elizabeth and I would have tried to serve humanity or do good for the public no matter what we did. This just happens to be what we like and what we’re good at. I think that’s our ultimate goal, to help people the way we know best,” Shaya Taghechian said.

OPERATING TOGETHER Elizabeth Taghechian said she knew she wanted to be an OB-GYN after seeing her mother go through a difficult pregnancy before her sister was born. “After I was born, my mom was pregnant, and she lost a baby. It was a horrendous kind of delivery and she was told not to ever get pregnant again because the same thing would happen. Of course, I was so lonely. I wanted a sibling to play with, and I just prayed for that,” Elizabeth Taghechian said. When her mother became pregnant again, Elizabeth Taghechian said doctors advised her to get an abortion but her mother refused. After a closely monitored pregnancy, Shaya Taghechian was born. “I wanted to do for somebody what they did for me and my mom,” Elizabeth Taghechian said. Shaya Taghechian was inspired to go into urology after watching her sister train to become a doctor, and they’ve reached a height in their careers working together at the same hospital. “That was my dream. It was always my dream to be here where we’re working together in the same place, and we’re working on the same patients. It’s always been a dream, so we feel like we’re living our dream,” Elizabeth Taghechian said.

KENNESAW

New WellStar Pediatric Center designed with children in mind HILARY BUTSCHEK hbutschek@mdjonline.com

WellStar Health System opened its new Pediatric Center in Cobb in July to give children a place where they can feel at ease. The 20,000-square-foot pediatric doctor’s office, which cost about $13 million, is on Barrett Parkway near the intersection of Cobb Parkway. The walls are painted light blue and green and the hallways, decorated with bubbles, seaweed and fish, curve through the building like waves. The one-floor building provides an environment that’s fun and inviting for children, said Dr. Avril Beckford, the chief pediatric officer for WellStar Health System and a member of its board. “Our vision for this center was that a parent could walk in and feel like they were completely at home, and that it’s fun and it’s welcoming,” Beckford said. The center offers patients from birth to age 21 a place to visit a doctor and have physical therapy or get an x-ray, a CT scan, an MRI or lab tests. The physicians at the center do not perform surgeries there. The center also features a pharmacy where parents can pick up medications right after a doctor’s appointment. A total of 15 physicians rotate through the center, each with their own set of patients, and one is on duty at all times, Beckford said. She said the community was in need of

WellStar Chief Pediatric Officer Avril Beckford, M.D. and Pediatric Operations Assistant Vice President Varma Rameswar sport hard hats for a walkthrough of the new WellStar Pediatric Center, which opened on Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw last July. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff a dedicated place parents could take their children for diagnoses and preventative health care. In fiscal 2013, all 16 of the WellStar locations combined saw 198,382 children come in for office visits, and 80,924 children went to the emergency room, said Tyler Pearson, WellStar spokesman. Beckford said the center was made with

parents in mind, too, so it makes going to the doctor convenient and quick. “We did invest in space and time and energy, so it’s not looking at the dollars, it’s about the patient care and patient experience,” said Varma Rameswar, who oversees practice operations. The medical equipment was also designed and arranged with children in mind. For

instance, before going in for an MRI or CT scan, children can watch a stuffed animal get an MRI with an imitation of a CT scanner, called the kitten scan. Beckford said the process of learning how the scan works will calm most children down, often enough that they don’t have to be sedated when they go through the procedure. There are multiple interactive areas children can use to distract themselves from the seriousness of being in a doctor’s office. When a child goes into a room to get their own CT scan, at the flip of a switch, the walls around the machine become an underwater scene, a jungle or a beach. “The machine can be noisy, so they can look out and it’s like they’re looking through a submarine window,” Beckford said. She said these small details are what make the center a wonderful environment for children. “That smiling face at the front desk, that nurse who holds your hand, that tech who knows you and/or your mom is really scared, that radiologist who knows he’s got to be super skilled to make this noninvasive and then all surrounding environment — it makes them feel comfortable,” Beckford said. After working in pediatrics for 30 years, Beckford said she enjoys her job so much it feels as if she has never worked a day in her life. To contact the center, call (678) 594-7337.

HEALTH & FITNESS

HEART

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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of the matter

WellStar cardiac center aims for treatment over transplants HILARY BUTSCHEK / hbutschek@mdjonline.com

ellStar Health System’s cardiac center is the only facility in Georgia that performs a heart procedure to treat permanent irregular heart rhythms. Barry Mangel, WellStar’s chief cardiology officer, said the only procedure WellStar surgeons can’t do is a heart transplant, but many hospitals are moving away from treating heart problems with transplants. “We, on the horizon, are looking at offering … a left ventricular assist device, and we’re hoping for our first implant sometime around the May or June time period, and that’s for patients that have advanced heart failure, so it’s in lieu of transplantation, really,” Mangel said. WellStar surgeons performed 788 cardiac surgeries in 2014, said Christy Rosell, a spokeswoman for WellStar. Mangel said WellStar is looking to use technology to treat patients with chronic irregular heart rhythms instead of performing a heart transplant. “There’s a limited number of hearts for heart transplantation in the country, so the technology to really allow patients with advanced congestive heart failure to continue to have quality and quantity of life is advancing with technology because now we’ve got left ventricular assist devices, which improve quality and quantity,” Mangel said. “But, more importantly, technology is getting better and better all the time. It’s an external device right now, but eventually it’s going to become a fully implantable device. It’s the same device that Vice President Dick Cheney had prior to his transplant.” The procedure is complicated, though, because it involves surgeons and cardiologists working together on the same

WellStar Chief Cardiology Officer Dr. Barry Mangel stands in his office in the Kennestone Physicians Center in Marietta. WellStar is looking to use technology to treat patients with chronic irregular heart rhythms instead of performing a heart transplant. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter “From the standpoint of age, we’re seeing heart patient at the same time, Mangel said. disease develop at an earlier age because of some of “The reason we’re one of the only places in the these risks, because of obesity, because of the Southeast that offers it, but also here locally, increasing number of people who have is it really requires close coordination of developed diabetes, because of smoking care between our cardiac surgeons and “The and our poor diets, especially here in our cardiologists, and we have really whole goal the South, and so I don’t think you can worked hard to develop what we call today is to get start too young with this,” Mangel the heart team approach where our that right care at said. surgeons and our cardiologists are Preventing heart problems has to working closely together on different the right time at the be a lifelong effort, Mangel said. treatments. And sometimes that means right place.” “I think that paying attention to doing procedures together or doing — Candice Saunders, your diet and exercising really begins procedures simultaneously, which isn’t WellStar president and when you’re much younger because always easy to do,” Mangel said. COO we’re seeing obesity become a real Candice Saunders, WellStar president major health problem in our country, and and COO, said the organization is that begins early, so I think educating young constantly investing in new technology people is extremely important in preventing cardiac to best serve the community. disease in the future,” Mangel said. “Diabetes goes “The whole goal today is to get that along with that, so eating right and trying to exercise right care at the right time at the right are incredibly important.” place,” Saunders said. WellStar also offers various screenings and tests to Mangel said irregular heart rhythms are common in people over the age of 70, but various heart problems are help patients know if they are at a high risk for heart problems, Mangel said. common in all people.

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HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS SENIORS

SENIOR MOMENTUM

People attend a Tabata class at the WellStar Health Place in Marietta on Feb. 6. Tabata training is a high intensity interval workout that lasts four minutes. Amy Woodell, evidence-based coordinator for Cobb Senior Services, said the Centers for Disease Control recommends people over the age of 55 get about 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day. The Cobb County Senior Services Department can offer county residents the opportunity to get that exercise, Woodell said. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Cobb County Senior Services Department offers ways for older adults to exercise HILARY BUTSCHEK

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

lthough exercise is important for everyone, Cobb County officials say it’s extremely important for older adults. Amy Woodell, evidencebased coordinator for Cobb Senior Services, said the Centers for Disease Control recommends people over the age of 55 get about 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day.

F or seniors, depending on any pre-existing health problems they might have, that could be anything from walking to running a race, Woodell said. “We say it’s never too late to get physically active, and we try to offer a variety of things all across the physical scale,” Woodell said. The Cobb County Senior Services Department can offer county residents the opportunity to get that exercise, Woodell said. “We have eight sites around the county, and that includes four multi-purpose rooms, and they offer a variety of classes and programs. In addition to that, we also have a Wellness Center here on Powder Springs Street, which includes a workout center facility that is free for people 55 and older. We also have three centers — they’re called neighborhood centers — but those centers offer group activities, a meal for folks to come together. And that’s for folks who are 60 and older,” Woodell said. Woodell said the key to exercising for seniors is finding something enjoyable but not too intense. “Find something that you love. It doesn’t necessarily have to be working out in a gym. We want to promote any kind of physical activity, whether that be dancing or doing yoga or joining a walking group. Even if you’re not at one of our facilities, we want to encourage physical activity in your everyday life, (like) taking the stairs (or) raking your yard instead of using a leaf blower,” Woodell said. Melissa Kohring, activities director at Winnwood Retirement Community, said she teaches an exercise class for seniors every day that includes a mix of cardio work, weight training and working on flexibility. The class gets tough when the cardio routine comes up, Kohring said. “They just don’t like it. Cardio is the hard stuff. It’s running or walking and that’s what gets the heart going and that’s the part they hate,” Kohring said. Kohring said what motivates many of the seniors in her classes to keep going are the health benefits and the social nature of the classes. The people who regularly attend her class are the residents who stay the healthiest, Kohring said. “They’re the ones that don’t have health problems. They’re the ones that bounce back quicker from a cold,” Kohring said. “For example, one lady, she got this upper respiratory infection, and it did not go well for her. She wound up in the hospital for two weeks. But, when she returned, I think it was the next day, she was back in the class.” Woodell said she has seen exercise benefit seniors even if they already have health problems.

G U I D E L I N E S F O R A G E S 6 5 +

C D C

AT A GLANCE The CDC says if you’re 65 years of age or older, are generally fit, and have no limiting health conditions you can follow the guidelines listed below: ♦ 2 hours and 30 minutes (150 minutes) of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., brisk walking) every week and weight training muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms).

OR ♦ 1 hour and 15 minutes (75 minutes) of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity (i.e., jogging or running) every week and weight trainingmuscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms). OR ♦ An equivalent mix of moderate- and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity and weight training muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms). ♦ Aerobic activity or “cardio” gets you breathing harder and your heart beating faster. From pushing a lawn mower, to taking a dance class, to biking to the store – all types of activities count. As long as you’re doing them at a moderate or vigorous intensity for at least 10 minutes at a time. ♦ Intensity is how hard your body is working during aerobic activity. On a 10-point scale, where sitting is 0 and working as hard as you can is 10, moderate-intensity aerobic activity is a 5 or 6. ♦ To gain health benefits, muscle-strengthening activities need to be done to the point where it’s hard for you to do another repetition without help. A repetition is one complete movement of an activity, like lifting a weight or doing one sit-up. Try to do 8 to 12 repetitions per activity that count as 1 set. Try to do at least 1 set of muscle-strengthening activities, but to gain even more benefits, do 2 or 3 sets. *According to the CDC website

“There are so many benefits to being physically active, and a huge one is preventing those chronic diseases, whether that be heart disease or diabetes, but the research shows that even if you already have one of these chronic conditions, exercise can be hugely beneficial to you

in terms of treating or managing those health conditions. Whether you have heart disease or diabetes or arthritis, exercise is still important, if not more important, for you to help prevent it from getting worse,” Woodell said.

HEALTH & FITNESS

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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SENIORS

Clara Howell, 86, of Marietta stands at the WellStar Health Place in Marietta. Howell said she’s never been an athlete, but she’s always been active. She exercises every day, taking two hours of exercise classes six days a week and hiking up Kennesaw Mountain on the weekend. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

86-year-old Mariettan makes commitment to stay active HILARY BUTSCHEK

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

Clara Howell of Marietta said she’s never been an athlete, but she’s always been active. She exercises every day, taking two hours of exercise classes six days a week and hiking up Kennesaw Mountain on the weekend. The 86-year-old said she’s been committed to staying fit and exercising her whole life. “I don’t think about it. I just do it,” Howell said. Howell, a retired Georgia State University administrator, takes 10 classes a week at the WellStar Health Place fitness center. The classes include power box, which is similar to kickboxing, a class focused on strengthening abs and glutes, a step and tone class and Zumba, and she attends them alternately on Mondays through Saturdays. “(The classes) are all fun, and that’s a good mix. I don’t think it’s good to do the same type of exercise every day,” Howell said. Then, on Saturdays and Sundays she adds in an extra workout, a climb up Kennesaw Mountain. “I like to get out on my own,” Howell said. Howell has been carrying out her exercise routine since 2006. Amy Woodell, evidence-based coordinator for Cobb Senior Services, said exercising regularly is extremely important for seniors. “The recommendation from the CDC is having some kind of moderately

intense activity plus having some sort of muscle strengthening exercise activity, which is really important for older adults just in terms of injury prevention and doing those everyday tasks that they need to be able to do,” Woodell said. The physical activity, regardless of intensity, can help seniors keep up their strength. “It’ll help them maintain their independence. It’ll help them do everyday tasks that they want to do, whether that’s pushing their grandkids on the swing or whether it’s being strong enough to carry laundry around or whether it’s running in a race,” Woodell said. Howell said she’s been active her whole life, but the types of workouts she has done over the years have changed. “The gym has not always been for women,” Howell said. When she was growing up, Howell said she played outside, grew up dancing and was a cheerleader in high school. She worked out regularly in college then continued her physical fitness by running long distances when she began her career. In her 40s and 50s, she would swim regularly and run about six miles every day on weekdays and nine to 10 miles on weekends. “I just enjoyed the open air,” Howell said. “I’m competitive but competitive with my own scores.” Howell managed to keep up her workouts while raising a child.

Her husband, Ralph, died when he was 36. Her efforts to work out regularly were passed down to her son, Leonard, who is a runner, Howell said. As for how she does it, Howell said it’s not hard to motivate herself every day. “It’s really just a commitment. It’s part of living,” Howell said. “It just makes me happy, and makes you feel good. I’m very blessed to have good health.” Howell said she also keeps up with her health by paying attention to what she eats. “I guess I’m kind of a health nut. I just like fresh fruit and vegetables and salmon, berries, nuts. I don’t care for processed or prepared foods, or sauces. I don’t add anything to anything. I just like what they call clean food,” Howell said. “Of course I’ll indulge in a chocolate chip cookie every day or so. I’m only human.”

C L A R A H O W E L L

♦ Age: 86 ♦ Residence: Marietta ♦ Job: Retired college administrator ♦ Education: Doctorates in biochemistry and education from the University of Georgia ♦ Family: son, Ralph Howell

It’s not just the exercise, but also the companionship and community feel of the classes that keep Howell

going to Health Place, she said. “The classes are very uplifting. Everybody’s happy. They smile and

you smile and they push you a little farther than you thought you could go,” Howell said.

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Dr. Alicia Crusse’, DC

770-993-6010 We are in Network with most Insurance Companies Please check out our website:

www.bodycoreneuro.com Dr. Alicia Crusse’, DC Cathi Huff, CHHC, AADP

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS

ROBUST

and

READY TO GROW

WellStar works on investing in its employees as Cobb-based health provider looks to expand

HILARY BUTSCHEK

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

Candice Saunders, the president and chief operating officer of WellStar Health Systems, said the success of the organization starts with the people who care for others at its hospitals and offices every day of the year. “If I had to tell you what our key to success is, it’s built on our people and then striving for continuous improvement to get better on the safety and quality front,” Saunders said. The WellStar team of 35,000 employees leads the health care organization to excellence, Saunders said. “It’s really about people taking care of people, and we know that our patients or families come into our health system for care — whether it’s health care, helping them stay healthy or to prevent illness — but then also to have their needs identified from a diagnostic standpoint or treatment modalities. Then it all gets back to that quality of caring and keeping that human kindness as part of our health care system. We feel that people taking care of people becomes important, but we also need to make sure that we provide that competent care also,” Saunders said. Saunders said WellStar also focuses on giving back to the people of the community by helping them when they’re in need. “We make sure that there’s access for all of our community, and last year we had more than $300 million of unreimbursed care that was part of our overall contribution to the community. We think it’s important that we provide access for all members of our community,” Saunders said. WellStar offers unreimbursed care to people who don’t have insurance or the means to pay for their health care, Saunders said. “As we look at the role that WellStar health system plays in our community, it really all goes back to our notfor-profit status and an integrated health system serving the region and especially Cobb County, and so, as we look at it, our mission is to care for the individuals in the community and to continue to meet our community’s needs for health care services and to work also with the community to improve the health of the members of our community,” Saunders said. Saunders said she and the other members of the WellStar Board of Directors keep the community in mind in making every decision, including how to spend its funds. “We believe that every dollar that we invest and every dollar that we spend, you need to be able to tie that back to the community need,” Saunders said. One of those efforts, Saunders said, is WellStar’s investment in a new record-keeping system called MyChart. MyChart stores a complete medical history of a patient so that every WellStar doctor can see it and coordinate the best care for that patient, said Tyler Pearson, spokesman for WellStar. The patient can also use the record-keeping service to request prescription refills or check test results, Pearson said. Saunders said she focuses on supporting the WellStar staff so that they focus on helping patients. “We need to make sure that we’re investing in our people so that they can make sure that our patients, our families and our community get the care that they need from us. We have a dedicated team that’s constantly striving for excellence, so that means that we have a continued culture of excellence,” Saunders said. In the coming year, WellStar will continue to work on expanding. Two health parks, one in east Cobb and one in Acworth, are already open. “Those are outpatient destinations that provide the opportunity for a patient to come in, see their physician, get their diagnostic, urgent care and wellness services,” Saunders said. WellStar will break ground on another health park being built in Vinings this year, and it will open in 2016, Saunders said.

Above: Wellstar Health Systems President and COO Candice Saunders. Left: from left, Jason Taylor, internal communications strategist; Saunders; and Sharon Brown, benefits analyst. Staff-Kelly J. Huff

WellStar recognized for positive environment for working mothers HILARY BUTSCHEK /

Working Mother Media President Carol Evans presents the Working Mother Award to WellStar Board of Trustees Chair Gary Miller at its 2014 Work Life Congress. / Special photo

MARIETTA — Working Mother magazine presented the Working Mother Award to WellStar Health System at its 2014 Work Life Congress at the New York Marriott Marquis in October 2014. WellStar Health System was one of the Top 10 Companies on the 2014 Working Mother 100 Best Companies list. WellStar was recognized for outstanding leadership in establishing policies, programs and corporate culture that supports working moms, including child care, flexible work arrangements, paid parental leave and advancement of women. This is the fifth year WellStar has been in the Top 10 and the seventh year in the Top 100. “At WellStar Health System, we have made creating work-life balance a priority and our team members have noticed,” said David Anderson, executive vice president of human resources, organizational learning & chief compliance officer for WellStar Health System. “WellStar has become an employer of choice for working mothers through our numerous initiatives geared toward providing an improved quality of life.”

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

WellStar has created a goal of “right people, right place, right time” to ensure the best outcomes for patients, team members, the community and the organization. WellStar offers benefits to all employees, including two on-site day cares for children of employees and back-up care assistance for children and family members of employees who need last minute, in-home temporary care. Additionally, concierge service is offered to all WellStar employees to help with such tasks as dry-cleaning pick-up, car maintenance and grocery shopping. “The Working Mother 100 Best Companies are the leaders in the advancement of women by supporting their need to integrate family and work successfully,” said Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media. “We are thrilled to honor the U.S. companies that put words into action and build family-friendly cultures on the foundation of thoughtful policies and effective programs. Women now make up 50 percent of our workforce. We need to make sure they have the support to be outstanding moms as well as great employees.”

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HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS MARIETTA

Cancer Care Center committed to offering state-of-the-art technology to its patients HILARY BUTSCHEK

HBUTSCHEK@MDJONLINE.COM

ellStar Health System’s Cancer Care Center is one of the most unique places in the United States to receive diagnosis and treatment care for any type of cancer because of its technology. Candice Saunders, president and COO of WellStar Health System, said the company works to invest in state-of-the-art technology so patients can receive the best care possible. “Access to high quality health services is a daily focus for us here within WellStar,” Saunders said. “We have to stay very much aware of what is the new technology, new types of health services.” WellStar’s commitment to investing in new technology shows in two new types of treatments it offers to cancer patients. Dr. Mark McLaughlin, a WellStar radiation oncology specialist, said WellStar will unveil tomotherapy this year, which is a more specific way to offer radiation for people with tumors. “It’s a special type of radiation treatment we use where we’re treating a tumor plus other areas beside the tumor, like the lymph nodes or a larger area,” McLaughlin said. When patients receive radiation treatments, they have to stretch out on a table for each treatment. Sometimes it’s difficult to get the machine to administer the radiation in exactly the same spot it was for the previous treatment and right over the cancerous tumor, McLaughlin said. “We know that patients can move during radiation, and they may not be able to lay on the table the exact same way every day. What the tomotherapy does is take into account for any motion the patient may exhibit, so it guides the radiation related to the motion of the tumor that may occur,” McLaughlin said. Tomotherapy is a new practice, and the WellStar cancer center is one of only two locations to offer it in the Atlanta area. The other location is Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

Mark McLaughlin

“With the tomotherapy our hope is to get a higher rate of cures with lower complications,” McLaughlin said. Joel Helmke, WellStar’s corporate vice president of oncology services, said the center also offers another new treatment option: a CyberKnife. Helmke said the CyberKnife is an alternative treatment to

surgery. CyberKnife is a robotic machine that administers radiation to a clearly defined area where a cancerous tumor is shown on a CT scan to be located, according to a description from Accuray, the radiation oncology company that developed the technology. McLaughlin said CyberKnife is a very precise tool used for patients who can’t or should not go through surgery. “We use it when tumors are near critical structures or for patients who normally would need surgery but can’t because they’re medically unable to have surgery. They might be too old or have too many medical issues,”

“

We have to stay very much aware of what is the new technology, new types of health services. — Candice Saunders, president and COO of WellStar Health System

McLaughlin said. “We were the first cyberknife location in state,” Helmke said. McLaughlin said the cancer center is unique for having both these pieces of technology. “WellStar has one of three cyberknives in Georgia, and it’s one of the busiest cyberknives in the United States in terms of quantity of patients that are being treated,” McLaughlin said. McLaughlin said WellStar doctors will be ahead of many other doctors in the country because they’ll be learning this technology before many others. “There are only three sites in the United States that have both the cyberknife and tomotherapy, us being one, and we’ve been

asked to be a teaching center. We’ll be training doctors from the United States and probably others from around the world, coming here to learn the uses of tomotherapy and cyberknife,” McLaughlin said. Helmke said WellStar makes a conscious effort to have a premier site for treating cancer in the state. “That means having strength in every phase of the cancer continuum — whether it be prevention and early detection, diagnosis, treatment — and all the different forms that takes whether it be surgery or chemotherapy and then having strong programs and survivorship to help patients adjust to life after cancer,” Helmke said.

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C H O O B S B P ♦ I T ♦ A L ♦ S

HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS

HEALTH CARE CENTERS ♦ WellStar Cobb

Hospital 3950 Austell Road SW Austell, GA 30106 (470) 732-4000

♦ WellStar Kennestone Hospital 677 Church Street Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 793-5000

WellStar Pediatric Center 1180 Ernest Barrett Parkway Kennesaw, GA 30144 (678) 354-22730

WellStar Windy Hill Hospital 2540 Windy Hill Road Marietta, GA 30067 (770) 644-1000 WellStar Windy Hill Hospital 2540 Windy Hill Road Marietta, GA 30067 (770) 644-1000

♦ Acworth Health Park

♦ Acworth Health Park Urgent

Care Center 4550 Cobb Parkway NW Suite 101 Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 917-8140 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 7:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

♦

Cooper Lake Urgent Care Center 4480 North Cooper Lake Road SE Suite 100 Smyrna, GA 30082 (770) 333-1300 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 8:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.

♦

Delk Road Urgent Care Center 2890 Delk Road Marietta, GA 30067 (770) 955-8620 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 8:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.

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♦ East Cobb Health Park 3747 Roswell Road NE Marietta, GA 30062 (470) 956-0150

East Cobb Urgent Care Center 3747 Roswell Road NE Suite 107 Marietta, GA 30062 (470) 956-0150 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

♦ Tranquility at Cobb Hospital

♦

4550 Cobb Parkway NW Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 917-8140

3950 Austell Rd. SW Austell, GA 30106 (770) 732-6710

♦ Tranquility at Kennesaw Mountain 475 Dickson Avenue, NW Marietta, GA 30064 (470) 245-9930

Kennesaw Urgent Care 3805 Cherokee Street Kennesaw, GA 30144 (770) 426-5665 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 8:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.

♦ Marietta Urgent Care Center

818 Church Street Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 590-4190 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 9:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

♦

Kaiser Permanente Cumberland Medical Center 2525 Cumberland Parkway SE Atlanta, GA 30339 (404) 365-0966

Shallowford Urgent Care Center 3600 Sandy Plains Road Marietta, GA 30066 (770) 977-4547 Hours of Operation Sunday - Saturday: 8:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m.

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Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Town Center Location 625 Big Shanty Road NW Kennesaw, GA 30144 (404) 785-8010

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Northside Hospital Acworth Imaging Center 4791 South Main Street Suite 140 Acworth, GA 30101 (678) 701-6868

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Marietta Imaging Center 780 Canton Road NE Suite 230 Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 792-1234

Northside Urgent Care – Marietta Office 1121 Johnson Ferry Road Marietta, GA 30068 (770) 509-1025

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East Cobb Medical Office 1205 Johnson Ferry Road Suite 107 Marietta, GA 30068 (404) 365-0966

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TownPark Comprehensive Medical Center 750 TownPark Lane NW Kennesaw, GA 30144 (404) 365-0966

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West Cobb Medical Center 3640 Tramore Pointe Parkway Austell, GA 30106 (404) 365-0966

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West Marietta Medical Office 2505 Dallas Highway Marietta, GA 30064 (404) 365-0966

HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

EAST COBB

Northside Hospital expands facilities to offer wider variety of medical services

A rendering of the Northside Hospital expansion. The hospital organization announced plans in 2014 to build a new medical office building in east Cobb. Construction of the new location will begin this year and is set to open in 2016. / Special to the MDJ HILARY BUTSCHEK

hbutschek@mdjonline.com

t won’t be long before Northside Hospital expands its facilities in Cobb. The hospital organization announced plans in 2014 to build a new medical office building in east Cobb. Construction of the new location will begin this year and is set to open in 2016.

“A large segment of east Cobb County The organization is under contract to residents already seek medical care from purchase a 12.8-acre tract at the intersection Northside. This area is just over the of Johnson Ferry Road and Olde Towne river on Johnson Ferry Road in Cobb Parkway, where it plans to build a fourCounty from Northside Hospital, so it is a story, 80,000-square-foot medical office strategically important area for us and is part building, according to Russ Davis, director of of our primary service area. The distance marketing and public relations for Northside. “A lot of Cobb County residents, especially from Northside Hospital and this site is approximately 7 miles,” east Cobb residents, utilize Davis said. Northside Hospital for their Commissioner Bob Ott, health care already. And They ’re taking who represents the area, said the trend continues to be the property has been on the providing services closer to something that market for “quite a while.” people’s homes and where Northside consulted they reside, eat, work (and) already exists and with the community on the play,” he said. repurposing it to project, and the organization The property, which be more useful will continue to listen to currently houses the public’s ideas and share Fountains of Olde Towne ... as opposed to the “project updates with them shopping center, will hold on a regular basis,” Davis two buildings, according creating excess said. to plans approved by the inventory of Indeed, Lee O’Neal, Board of Commissioners in August. commercial space. president of the East Cobb Civic Association, said “The future campus — Lee O’Neal, his group is in favor of will offer a wide array president of the East the development because of medical services and Cobb Civic Association it repurposes existing specialties,” Davis said. commercial space. Both buildings will be “It’s already commercial, have 80,000 square feet of as opposed to going to a green field space and space, and the first one could open as soon as just creating more commercial development fall 2016, Davis said. “We do not have a time frame yet for when in east Cobb,” he said. “They’re taking something that already exists and repurposing the second building might be built. Up to it to be more useful. That’s a good idea, as 400 jobs could be created when the project is opposed to creating excess inventory of completely finished,” Davis said. commercial space. They’re trying to invest in Davis said it’s important for Northside to the community.” offer health care to residents in east Cobb.

“

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS

Kennesaw State University nursing student Ashley Sandoval knows where her future in the school’s Wellstar College of Health and Human Services is taking her and that she is getting a degree that will prepare her for the workforce when she graduates. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

KSU’s WellStar school of nursing is one of the fastest growing in the state, graduating classes of health care’s

VITAL IDOLS BY BRITTINI RAY

bray@mdjonline.com

KENNESAW — After earning a spot on U.S. News & World Report’s ranking as one of the nation’s best nursing programs, Kennesaw State University’s WellStar School of Nursing has seen the number of applicants to the program grow sixfold per semester. The school receives between 600 and 800 applications per semester for its 110 open seats in the program, according to Tommie Nelms, Director of WellStar Health System’s School of Nursing. “We always have lots of interest in the (Bachelor of Science in) nursing program,” she said. “We have more applicants than we can take because we are limited by faculty and clinical placements. We have a phenomenal interest in application and we expect that to continue to grow year after year.” The school averages 200 nursing graduate each year, with starting salaries ranging between $55,000 and $65,000. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the average salary of a registered nurse as $65,470, and states the number of nursing jobs is expected to grow by 19 percent in the next five years. Senior Ashton Gokey, an undergraduate Kennesaw resident, echoed Nelms’ sentiments of the program’s competitiveness, citing the five-month buildup of anticipation for acceptance notifications. “It’s incredibly competitive here,” she said. “This is my first semester in the program. I applied twice to the program, and they don’t let you know for five months whether you’ve been accepted or not. It’s really hard to get into the program. My favorite part of the program are the labs. They’re very hands-on and realistic. It really prepares you for working in a hospital.”

The school is the largest nursing program in north Georgia and offers four different program types, including an accelerated and traditional Bachelors of Science in Nursing program, a Master of Science in Nursing, a Doctorate in Nursing and a Foreign Born Physician Program, which allows graduates from international medical schools to earn their degrees. Undergraduate students study general clinical sciences and choose a specialization at the graduate level. The most popular areas of specialization are nurse practitioner and family nurse practitioner, Nelms said. Senior Ashley Sandoval, an Acworth resident, said the program eased her worries about job preparation and finding employment. “During my time in the nursing program, I have come to realize that most students have jobs lined up before graduation and are satisfied with their job offers,” she said. “The nursing program tries to provide a lot of room for growth and to get involved in the health care facilities outside of Kennesaw. For instance, there is the student nurse (externship) through Kennestone, and multiple technician jobs at other facilities such as Northside, Emory and Grady. I work for WellStar Kennestone through the student nurse extern program, and it’s been amazing.” Graduates of the program have a high rate of securing employment before or shortly after graduation, Nelms said. “The job outlook here is phenomenal,” she said. “It’s rare that we have a graduate that does not have a job secured by the time of graduation. If it does happen, they usually secure jobs shortly after they graduate. There are jobs out there for our students that want one.”

SCHOOL OF NURSING W E L L S T A R

AT A GLANCE Available seats per semester: 110-120 Number of applicants per semester: 600-800 Number of graduates: 200 per year Starting salary: $55,000-$65,000

Kennesaw State University Nursing student Ashley Sandoval outside the Wellstar College of Health and Human Services, one of the fastest growing nursing schools in the nation. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

HEALTH & FITNESS

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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FAD, MAD AND HUNGRY? Doctors agree trendy diets do more harm than good By Ellie Harding / eharding@mdjonline.com

Nutritionists often don’t approve of the fad diets some people rave about. In fact, many nutritionists would not recommend fad diets, such as low-carb or grapefruit diets, at all. Bethany Wheeler, a dietitian at Kennesaw State University, said fad diets are unrealistic and do not last for long periods of time. Wheeler said foods are separated into food groups for a reason: people need a certain amount of nutrients from each group. Dieters shouldn’t just ignore certain food groups because it could increase the risk of having deficiencies of certain nutrients, she said. Although fad diets may show quick results, they are non-sustainable, Wheeler said. Wheeler follows a rule of thumb when it comes to fad diets: “If the diet promotes the loss of more than two pounds per week, it’s a fad diet.” Angelina Cain, director of bariatric medicine at WellStar Health System, has a similar outlook on fad diets, saying these diets are extreme and “gain popularity because of rapid weight loss.” The immediate weight loss is usually attributed to losing water weight and lean muscle, Cain said. Temporary and fad diets can often cause harm, especially for people with existing health issues. Some popular fad diets include the grapefruit diet, liquid diet and cabbage diet. The grapefruit diet consists of eating grapefruit with every meal because dieters

think it burns fat, however this is not true. The water in grapefruit may make one feel full, but grapefruit does not burn fat, according to an article on WebMD. Liquid diets and cabbage diets are popular because they help people lose weight at the beginning, however people tend to regain the weight they lost once they go off the diet and begin eating different foods again, according to WebMD. Fad dieters often end up regaining the weight they initially lost. Wheeler said a good, beneficial diet includes a variety of foods, not the same things every day. Incorporating at least three different food groups each day is important for a balanced diet. Wheeler also said exercise and staying active are key to losing weight in a healthy way. “Little things such as walking, biking and

using the stairs instead of the elevator can make a difference,” Wheeler said. Wheeler said the “plate method,” which is a method promoting appropriate portions of food, is a good way to have balanced and nutritious meals. Cain agreed a good diet is healthy and balanced. She reminds patients to “use your common sense: Is this healthy for me?” Cain strongly encourages exercise, at all ages, for at least one hour each day. Cain said exercise “helps with blood sugar, blood pressure, cardiovascular health, and sleep, which has a direct effect on weight.” Even if joining a gym isn’t possible or orthopedic restrictions keep people from certain exercises, there are always alternatives such as water aerobics, seated exercises or even YouTube tutorials, Cain said.

Grapefruit Diet Eating a grapefruit with every meal is beneficial because the fruit is low in calories, full of vitamin C, and contains beta-carotene. The fruit contains pectin and bioflavonoids that can protect against infection and cancer. Enzymes in grapefruit help to reduce insulin levels and encourage weight loss, according to grapefruit-diet.org. DAILY DIET PLAN: • Eat grapefruit or grapefruit juice before or with every meal • Drink 8 glasses of water and 1 cup of coffee daily • Cut back on sugar and carbs (including rice, potatoes and pasta) • Avoid certain foods, such as celery and white onion • Eat more of foods that are high in protein, fat and cholesterol (such as eggs, pork and red meat) Calorie goal: Some variations of the diet cut calories as low as 800 calories per day.

Nutrisystem The Nutrisystem diet maintains that dieters should buy Nutrisystem meals and eat about six of them per day. Each meal is made to be low in calories and high in other nutrients needed daily, according to the program. Users of the diet are expected to lose weight by eating less calories, according to the program. DAILY DIET PLAN: Breakfast: Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal, 130 calories Protein Shake: Refreshing Coffee Protein Shake, 120 calories Lunch: Beans and Ham Soup, 160 calories Snack: Caramel-Flavored Pretzels, 130 calories Dinner: BBQ Season Chicken sandwich, 150 calories Dessert: Chocolate Cake, 140 calories Calorie Goal: Eat six meals a day, each in small portions, to get about 900 to 1,200 calories each day.

Fast Food Diet Fast food is often high in calories, fat and sodium. Eating fast food frequently can lead to eating more than the daily recommended dose of calories and can lead to gaining weight. DAILY PLAN: Breakfast: Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit, 440 calories Lunch: Subway 6-inch Meatball Marinara sandwich, 299 calories Dinner: Wendy’s Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger with medium-size fries, 1,090 calories Calorie goal: Eating fast food meals three times a day can result in eating about 2,000 calories a day.

Weight Watchers On the Weight Watchers diet, users don’t have to keep track of calories. Instead, they can follow prepared recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner options that rank the nutrient-value of the foods with “Weight Watcher Points” that let the user know how healthy the food they’re eating is. DAILY DIET PLAN: Breakfast: Strawberry yogurt, 2 points Lunch: Pear and gorgonzola thin crust pizza, 15 points Dinner: Slow-roasted chicken, 3 points Calorie Goal: Users plan meals, based on recipes from Weight Watchers, to amount to less than 20 points each day.

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Progress Marietta Daily Journal

2 015 Health & Fitness

Slimminâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; it down a notch 10CC

Progress Marietta Daily Journal

2 015 Education // DD

THE NEW

TEACHER FEATURE 12DD

Leon Grant, MHS

Staff/Kelly J. Huff

10DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

Merging minds

EDUCATION

PROGRESS COBB UNIVERSITIES

Southern Poly celebrates group of final graduates

PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

amilies and friends gathered Dec. 13 for the final commencement ceremony for Southern Polytechnic State University before the school’s merger with Kennesaw State University. The Board of Regents formally approved the merger of the two schools Jan. 6. However, students who graduate in the spring and summer of 2015 will be able to choose whether they have SPSU or KSU on their diploma, according to Tim Cooper, SPSU Assistant Vice President of University Communications. President Emerita Lisa Rossbacher said the Southern Polytechnic name will continue in a new college at KSU. “At Kennesaw State, (they) will have the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology,” she said. “So there will still diplomas with the name on it to reflect the origin of the institution.” Still, she said, the ceremony had historical value. “The one in the afternoon (was) actually the last ceremony under the current name,” she said. “When that last student walks off the stage, that’ll be the last one.” Rossbacher returned to Marietta to give the commencement address and send off the last batch of Southern Poly students. However, she did not want to stir up any animosity that might still linger from the controversial consolidation announcement in November 2013. “Graduation ceremonies always have to be about the students,” she said before the ceremony. “No matter what the name of the institution is, the important thing is how it serves the students. How they get educated, how they become successful and how they go out and use their education to change the world. So I think it’s really important to keep the focus on the students.” Her speech, titled “Forever Green,” focused on students being the importance of being the “special ingredient” to their home, work and their community.

Above: Melissa Dupree, left, and Wainwright Jeffers share a laugh during the commencement ceremony in the gymnasium on the campus of Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta on Dec. 13. Jeffers, who received his degree in construction management and is employed by New South Construction, wore a hardhat instead of a traditional mortarboard to go out with bang during the last SPSU graduation. Below: David Dewald, left, makes his way to his seat during the commencement ceremony. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

She pulled out an avocado and told the students about how the avocado is the key ingredient when making guacamole. “This is my message to the graduating class today: Be the avocado,” she said. “I could belabor the analogy,” she said. “I could point out that avocados are really Hornet green in color. For those of you who may not know, that’s the school color. I would note that the part of an avocado, the seed, is full of life and that’s how new avocados are

“

I feel like I’m part of history. — Delwyn Andrews, SPSU graduate

grown. I would probably say avocados are considered healthy. They’re versatile. And did I mention they’re Hornet green? So are all of you. You will always have your SPSU degree.” Delwyn Andrews of Macon, 26, who earned a degree in English and professional communication, said he feels special to be a part of the last graduating class. “I feel like I’m part of history,” he said, but noted he probably would feel different if

he was graduating this year. Will Usher of Johns Creek, 23, who received a degree in construction management, said although it feels great to be a part of a historical SPSU class, he was shocked when the merger was announced. “To us down here, it just doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Southern Poly is such a good school and there’s such a niche to it. Hopefully it doesn’t get lost.”

Now Enrolling for 2015-2016

GRACEPOINT is a Christian School specializing in serving students with dyslexia in grades 1-8.

Open House

Wednesday, March 4th 8:30 am

2005 Stilesboro Road • Kennesaw, GA 30152

RSVP: 678-709-6634

www.gracepointschool.org

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

11DD

MARIETTA SCHOOLS

‘I’ve had a bunch of them call me mama’ Cynthia Cheek visits three schools twice a day — Sanders Elementary, Floyd Middle and South Cobb High. As a crossing guard, she is responsible for children for a short but dangerous period of time. “Over the years, as the traffic built, people do not pay (any) attention to the flashing lights. They do not pay any attention to us. They tell us real quick, if “I stand between the traffic and the kids,” the we say anything to them, that we are not police and 72-year-old said. “I never let a child cross until I’m we do not have the authority to give them a ticket,” in the road, I know all the traffic is stopped and I she said. “We get sign languages and we get verbal am in the middle of the road between them and the languages and no respect whatsoever out there.” oncoming traffic.” When asked what her favorite part of the job was, Cheek said she has never had a student Cheek didn’t hesitate before answering. hit by a car in her 30 years as a crossing “My kids,” she said. “I love my kids.” guard, but there have been some close calls She said when she left her previous post at due to drivers not paying attention. LaBelle Elementary, Smitha Middle and Osborne For instance, she said a couple of years High last year, it was an emotional time. ago, a woman was making a left-hand “On the last day of school, I cried, “If turn onto Windy Hill Road “and she the kids cried, the parents cried — you was determined she was not going we just had a big ol’ boo-hoo want to talk to stop.” party, but I gave them a pizza Cheek said she had about 35 about something party the last day of school. students under her watch at the One little boy gave me a that is rewarding, just time and the woman threatened card when I left and he said, listen to the children her. ‘You’ll always be my angel.’ and how they feel.” “Of course, I ignored her and And he was a second-grader. got the kids across and I wouldn’t If you want to talk about — Cynthia Cheek, let her go ahead and make that turn something that is rewarding, just crossing guard because the light had changed and listen to the children and how they she started up again,” she said. feel.” There are 48 crossing guards covering She said elementary school children 94 crossing locations in the Cobb school are always respectful and if one happens to district, according to Chief Ron Storey of the Cobb get out of line, she will take that child aside and talk School Police Department. There are also three to them. campus police officers who cover a crossing location “I don’t say nothing to them in front of the other on a daily basis, he said, noting the police officers children, I don’t embarrass them,” she said. “I build also fill in on an as-needed basis. them up instead of putting them down.” Storey said crossing guards are paid $22 an hour She said high school students are usually reluctant and generally work 30 minutes per shift per school. to listen to her but eventually warm up. In 30 years, she said she’s never been the crossing She said one major difference between when she guard for her own children. first started in 1985 and now is the large increase in “But I’ve had a bunch of them call me ‘mama,’” traffic. She said at some schools there are two or three she noted. crossing guards where there used to only be one. PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

Thirty-year Cobb County Schools crossing guard Cynthia Cheek, stands her post on Floyd Road as she hugs one of her regular students. Cheek’s service schedule starts on weekdays at Sanders Elementary before moving to Floyd and onto South Cobb High School. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

12DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

EDUCATION

TEACHER PROFILE

BRAIN BUILDER Marietta High pre-engineering, architecture teacher uses real-world experience Marietta High School pre-engineering and pre-architecture teacher Leon R. Grant III has challenged his students to develop and integrate a STEM learning project, where students are developing a test site for a container-building project in partnership with the Haiti Reclamation and Restoration Project in Plaine de I’Abre. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

PHILIP CLEMENTS

clements@mdjonline.com

eon Grant didn’t always plan on being a teacher. Now in his second year at Marietta High School, the 56-year-old said he first began teaching when he needed some extra income while he was a pastor at a small local church. His wife, also a teacher, suggested he look into the field and the rest just fell into place. Grant earned his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering technology from the former Southern Polytechnic State University and is currently in the doctoral program for workforce education at the University of Georgia. He has also worked for Lockheed as a manufacturing research engineer. He teaches all of the pre-engi-

neering and pre-architecture classes at Marietta High, which are two career pathway programs and include students from each grade level at the high school. “The entry course is intro, and that enters them into either of the pathways,” Grant said. “That’s where they get the basic understanding of mechanical drawing, understand how to use the tools and also introduce them to the design process. After that, one goes more mechanical, one goes more architectural.” He said the school will be adding another course, research design and project management, to the career pathway program. Grant said Marietta City Schools — with one sixth-grade academy, one middle school and one high school — is the perfect environment for establishing an “engineering pipeline” where kids are exposed to

the field at a younger age. He said the shortage of people for science, technology, engineering and math-related jobs could be solved by getting children interested and ready earlier than high school and college. “We’ve got a strong STEM in elementary and a strong STEM program in the middle school,” Grant said. “So, by connecting all of these together so that the kids come up through that and understand that in high school, we’ve got stuff that’ll take you to the next level. You’ve got this pipeline and to me, that’s what is missing right now.” He said if students can know early on whether or not they like engineering or architecture, they’re way ahead of the curve. His favorite thing about teaching, he said, is seeing kids come alive. “I think our students can do

a whole lot more than they think they can,” Grant said. “So, one of the things we try to do is get them to see themselves as engineers and architects because if they can see themselves that way, then they can actually become that. And they start looking at things differently.” He pointed to one of his students, Amulya Bajracharya, as an example of the kind of drive and passion he hopes to instill in his students. Bajracharya, an 18-year-old senior, is the project manager of a three-year project Grant’s classes are working on that involves creating a self-sustaining home out of a shipping container and then moving it to Haiti. “(Bajracharya) really has put together a system that is comparable to what you would do in an engineering firm,” Grant said. “Everybody communicates online.

He’s built a full schedule with (planning software) Open Project that has predecessors and resources. They report to him and he keeps up with it.” Bajracharya said he has been taking Grant’s class for two years. “It’s always been sort of my childhood dream to be an engineer. But I didn’t know about the preengineering classes until Mr. Grant came in,” Bajracharya said. “He brought a lot of life into the program with him.” He said he was drawn to engineering because he loves building creations and solving problems. “It’s a very active class where we have to learn a lot of technical skills,” he said. “We’ve learned a lot of real-world applications to how to create things, how to go through the process of becoming an engineer.”

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

13DD

TEACHER PROFILE

WORDS WORTH

North Cobb literature, journalism teacher joins staff at her alma mater North Cobb High School AP English language and composition, honors American literature and journalism-newspaper teacher Lindsay Kovel’s classroom is full of motivational and inspirational messages. Kovel, 25, of Marietta is in her fourth year as a teacher at her alma mater after graduating from the University of Georgia with double major in English and English education. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

PHILIP CLEMENTS

clements@mdjonline.com

ot many people go back to high school after they graduate, but Lindsay Kovel did. “It’s actually a dream,” Kovel said. “(There are) people that I had taken their classes and now I literally teach next door to them. It’s an amazing experience because everyone treated me so wonderfully and it felt like coming home.” Kovel, 25, of Marietta is in her fourth year as a teacher at her alma mater after graduating from the University of Georgia with double major in English and English education. She just graduated this past summer with a master’s degree in

secondary education. She teaches AP English language and composition, honors American literature and journalism-newspaper and said she loves every minute of it. “I’ve always loved English. Really, what drew me was the opportunity to help kids with writing,” she said. “That was something I always gravitated toward in high school. I was the editor-in-chief of their newspaper that I now help produce and advise.” She said she didn’t go to college with the intention of being a teacher, though. Instead, she had her heart set on majoring in journalism at the highly-rated Grady School of Journalism. “I wanted to be the next Diane Sawyer, so I went to UGA with the total confidence that I was go-

ing to do broadcast journalism,” Kovel said. “Six weeks into the semester, I hated my intro to journalism classes. I love journalism, but I had a bad experience with a professor.” She said she started tutoring students at nearby Athens-Clarke Central High School — and fell in love with it. “Here were these kids that were struggling and it was a wonderful opportunity to work with kids,” she said. “I switched my major and I never looked back. Now I get the best of both worlds — advising (the) newspaper and teaching English. It’s a dream.” Senior Alicia Bush of Kennesaw has taken Kovel’s newspaper class for three years and said it helped her discover her passion for writing. “For a long time, I didn’t know

what I was supposed to do,” Bush said. “And when I finally found out that writing was what I was best at, it just made me want to continue writing. It made me want to produce my best work.” Kovel said her passion for writing is what fuels her. She loves helping her students learn to love writing. “I love helping kids become more confident writers, and I think that’s a really difficult thing to teach,” she said. “We do a lot of writers’ workshops, really focusing on honing in on certain skills and then letting them be more creative with how to begin and end.” Bush is now the editor-in-chief of the school paper, The Chant, which moved to a digital newsmagazine format in 2012 and can be visited at www.nchschant.com.

She said she enjoys Kovel’s class because of the diversity of people who take it. “I guess it’s the same way with other classes, but in this one, there are so many different aspects of creativity, so many different interests, and we can all just put it together in one collaborative effort and it just creates one big masterpiece,” she said. Bush said Kovel’s teaching style plays a large role in making the class productive and enjoyable. “She’s creative. She’s so passionate. I don’t think I’ve met another teacher as passionate as Ms. Kovel,” Bush said. “She dedicates so much personal interest in each student. If she had to write a letter of recommendation specialized for each student, she could do it because she gets to know us so well.”

14DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

EDUCATION

PROGRESS MARIETTA

South Cobb High School 2011 graduate and Dartmouth College student Ridwan Hassen is surprised by his elementary school social worker Valerie Toliver during a reception at the school honoring Hassen for being named a 2015 Rhodes Scholar. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

On the Rhode to success

PHILIP CLEMENTS / pclements@mdjonline.com

outh Cobb High School alumnus Ridwan Hassen said he doesn’t feel special, even after being named a Rhodes scholar. The Rhodes scholarship is among the oldest and most well-known academic awards available to American college students and pays for two to three years of study at the University of

Hassen emphasized he doesn’t feel necessarily smarter or more special than his peers. He said his message to South Cobb students is they can do it, too. “I want everyone at South Cobb to know they can do anything. If I can do it, they can do it,” he said. “I honestly and truly believe that. People at South Cobb always motivated me. The students there are brilliant and they Oxford. have so much potential.” “The main reason why I applied to The principal of South Cobb, I want everyone at South this scholarship was to show other Ashley Hosey, said he couldn’t people that anyone can be a Rhodes be more proud of Hassen and his Cobb to know they can do scholar,” he said. “It feels amazing. It accomplishment. anything. If I can do it, they still doesn’t feel real; it hasn’t hit me “It’s like he won an Olympic can do it. I honestly and yet.” medal or just got an Oscar. It’s the truly believe that. One of only 32 recipients of the Heisman Trophy of academics. We’re — Ridwan Hassen, honor nationwide for the 2015-16 year, proud to have been a part of his life Hassen, a Dartmouth College senior at any point,” Hosey said. “We’ve all Rhodes scholar had nothing but good things to say about been very excited, sending emails and his three years at South Cobb High, where texts back and forth.” he graduated a year early. In particular, he The administrator did not want to take thanked his statistics teacher and mentor, Victor credit for Hassen’s success, however, because Burrell. Hosey believes the school was doing its job. Hassen said Burrell even wrote him a letter of “His family gets full credit for this because of the high recommendation for the Rhodes application. priority they placed on academics,” Hosey said. “You can’t “Throughout this whole process, he’s helped me a lot,” beat that. You can’t replicate that. It comes from home.” Hassen said. Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale echoed Hosey’s

excitement and praised the county’s teachers for bringing out the best in their students. “The accolades we receive and having students named a Rhodes Scholar and go on to do great things in our community, it’s a true testimony to the work our teachers are doing,” Ragsdale said. “We are very proud of our students, and we are also very proud of our teachers for producing the greatness that all of our students have.” Hassen is a senior at Dartmouth studying computer science and neuroscience. He said he plans to spend the first year of the scholarship pursuing a master’s in public policy and is leaning toward using the second for a master’s in neuroscience, although he hasn’t decided. Despite being a relatively new field, Hassen said neuroscience is something he has wanted to do for a long time, which made college a little bit easier because he already had his plan. “Neuroscience, for me, was kind of intuitive because my father has epilepsy,” he said. “That’s what drew me to neuroscience at a young age.” Hassen is the child of refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia, which has provided some of the direction of his activist and charity work. He was a volunteer coordinator for the NAACP and founded an AIDS activist organization. He is now working on the Global Development Project, a charity focused on the Horn of Africa.

Mentoring Matters to Marietta fifth-grader PHILIP CLEMENTS / pclements@mdjonline.com MARIETTA — Kincaid Elementary fifth-grader Tyrick Johnson is always excited when school lets out Friday afternoons because that’s when he gets to spend time with his mentor, Jared Minga. The 30-year-old Minga is a works with Tyrick through Cobb Mentoring Matters, the district’s schoolbased mentoring program. Minga lives in Atlanta and works at Aaron’s Inc. in Marietta. As soon as he leaves work on Fridays, he goes to see Tyrick. At the start of each mentoring session, the duo will talk about what each of them have been up to that week. “Then we go outside and play football,” Tyrick said, noting he is better than Minga at the sport. As for other things they both enjoy, Tyrick turned to Minga and asked him if he likes onion rings. “I do like onion rings,” Minga said, with a laugh. “We share onion rings in common.” Minga said this kind of playful back-and-forth is typical of their afternoons together. He said he first discovered the program after seeing a poster in the break room at work a few months ago. Minga said he is glad he volunteered because it’s fulfilling to be a mentor. “For me, every time I come in here and I see him, I smile,” Minga said. “Just knowing that you’re able to be some kind of influence. He’s got good energy, he’s a positive guy. He’s got a passion to prove himself as a person, so just being able to be a part of his world, it’s great.” Tyrick said his favorite thing about having a mentor is having someone to share with and get advice. “You can talk about what’s bothering you,” he said. “If a kid needs a mentor, they should get one.” Maryellen Gomes is the mentor coordinator for the Cobb County School District and oversees Cobb Mentoring Matters. When she started the program in 2011, she said there weren’t any similar programs like it. “The whole premise was to be able to have an

Fifth-grader Tyrick Johnson, left, and mentor Jared Minga joke around at Kincaid Elementary School in Marietta. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter organically-grown, school-based mentoring program from within the district,” Gomes said. “Mentoring programs have been involved with school districts

forever. Third-party mentoring programs, churches, civic groups, individuals who want to come into schools and mentor.”

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

15DD

MARIETTA

School nurses at heart of student body BY PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

he school nurse at the Marietta Sixth Grade Academy said she has to be prepared for anything on any given day. “I come in here fully aware that I am medically responsible for anybody in the building, whether that be the pregnant teacher down the hallway or the teacher with high blood pressure or any of the students and their issues,” said Kelly Krivsky. “So I have to come in here prepared to handle any situation.”

School nurse Kelly Krivsky talks with a student at the Marietta Sixth Grade Academy. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Krivsky said helping children who otherwise might not be Marietta school board and said about 10 percent of U.S. children have asthma, which causes about 13 million missed able to see a doctor is one of the main reasons why she does school days each year. it. Marietta City Schools has 11 school nurses, one at each “First and foremost, sometimes I’m the only medical school. There are also three hourly nurses that fill in when personnel that some of these kids will see, unfortunately, and needed. that’s what drives me,” Krivsky said. Crossman said Cobb & Douglas Public Health provides She said in the past there have been students who might the nursing and clinical management and come into her office every day for a Bandcoordinates with the district’s central office Aid and the one she’s replacing is the same and school principals. one she gave them the day before. Marietta schools contracts Cobb & Lisa Crossman, deputy director of Cobb I only have Douglas Public Health every year to provide & Douglas Public Health, said addressing them for one the program at a cost of about $450,000. the medical needs of children who do can’t afford medical care is the primary challenge year, but they’re a About 40 percent of the contractual cost for the services are paid for by the state for school nurses. A registered nurse since 1998, Krivsky great age ... I can government, she said, adding Gov. Nathan Deal’s recommended fiscal 2016 budget is in her fourth year at the Sixth Grade be real honest proposes an increase in that funding. Academy, where she is responsible for about Crossman said the nurses generally 700 students. with them and work about 30 hours per week and their “I only have them for one year, but they’re a great age group and I can still straightforward compensation is consistent with Cobb & Douglas Public Health’s salary and benefit mama them a bit when they’re sick. But I can structure for nurses, which averages to about be real honest with them and straightforward with them. I treat per hour. with them,” she said. “I treat them just like them just like my $20Every school nurse in the Marietta my own.” system is licensed by the state and the She has had two children go through the own. Board of Nursing. Crossman said Cobb & school since she has been working there and — Kelly Krivsky, Douglas Public Health or its local medical her third is a fifth-grader who will attend next Marietta Sixth Grade partners also provide additional professional year. Academy nurse education each year in special areas such as Crossman said another issue school nurses diabetes or injury prevention. are coping with is the growing number of Mazloom noted in her report for the children with chronic medical conditions. 2013-14 school year, school nurses in “This year, I have many kids with daily Marietta City Schools saw 41,586 individual clinic visits medications at lunch,” Krivsky said. “I have two students for services such as first aid, medication distribution, health with diabetes.” education, assessments and screenings. That equals out to Elin Mazloom, the school health manager for Marietta about 3,780 services per nurse or about 315 per school each City Schools, recently gave a school nurse report to the

“

month. The number of individual treatments is up by about 3,000 over the previous year. In Cobb schools, there are 117 school nurses for regular education students and 26 special education nurses, according to Jennifer Gates, district spokeswoman. This equals out to at least one school nurse per school. Cobb nurses are paid $21.56 per hour and the district’s budget for nurse services is about $4 million a year. Gates said the nurse program is managed by a nursing supervisor and five consulting nurses in addition to a special education supervisor who oversees the special education nurses. Mazloom noted in her report in the 2013-14 school year, school nurses in Marietta City Schools saw 41,586 individual clinic visits for services such as first aid, medication distribution, health education, assessments and screenings. That equals out to about 3,780 services per nurse or about 315 per school each month. The number of individual treatments is up by about 3,000 over the previous year.

M A R I E T T A

S AT A GLANCE C ♦ 41,586 individual clinic visits for H services such as first aid, medication health medication disO distribution, tribution, health education, assessO ments and screens. L ♦ 3,780 per nurse S ♦ 315 per school each month

16DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

EDUCATION

PROGRESS TECHNOLOGY

NURTURING NEW MEDIA McEachern High keeps journalism stimulating with online newspaper BY PHILIP CLEMENTS

PCLEMENTS@MDJONLINE.COM

POWDER SPRINGS — McEachern High School teacher Lynlee Doar believes young people are keeping journalism alive. That is why the school’s paper, the Tribal Times, recently took the leap into cyberspace and converted to a fully digital format. To see the handiwork of McEachern’s journalism class, visit their website at www.mhstribaltimes.org. Before, Doar said, the students were only putting out four or five issues a year and there wasn’t much awareness about it in the student body. She said it was hard to get students to read the paper because they didn’t all know it existed. But with the website, students can see it all the time from school or at home, and it is growing in popularity. When Doar began teaching at the school in 2000, she knew she wanted to start a student newspaper. “We started with the history of journalism,” she said. “We went through all the different kinds of writing, editing, ethics, the rights and responsibility, the law, invasion of privacy (and) we had a photography unit.” The students also sell and design advertisements to help fund the program and newspaper, which has a budget of about $4,000 a year. Above: McEachern High School seniors Chrystal Nwadgu, Cheyenne Brown, Bianca Theodore and Jazmon Ross work Doar said the purpose of the class is not to create lifelong on the school’s digital newspaper to update stories and photos of life on campus and the community. Below: Brown, journalists — although some have gone on to pursue a career the senior editor of the digital newspaper, looks for pictures on campus. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff in the field — but to teach the students how to conduct themselves in a professional manner and to learn how to think journalistically sound,” Doar said. critically and look at subjects from a different perspective. “They’re gaining a new power,” Doar said. “They’re Brown, who plans to pursue a degree in journalism and gaining a new voice and a new way to express become a broadcast sports journalist, said photography was themselves. To me, it’s about expressing her favorite aspect of the class and the newspaper. themselves in a way that gets them respect. They’re “You have to have a purpose,” Brown said. “You can embracing professionalism. I make them practice always just take pictures, but what’s the purpose? What’s an introduction, a handshake and how to conduct the story behind the picture? You should take a an interview.” picture that tells a story. … You should be able to Principal Regina Montgomery does not “They’re tell what’s going on through that picture.” want prior review of the newspaper, which “It doesn’t just help us in this class, it gaining a “was like a dream,” Doar said. helps us in all our other classes,” she said. new voice and a “She believed that it’s a student paper, Brown is not the only senior considering it’s the student voice, they need to take new way to express a degree in the field. ownership of the paper,” Doar said. themselves.” Jazmon Ross, 17, said she wants to major “And she trusted me to make sure they — Lynlee Doar in public relations and Bianca Theodore said learned what they needed to know in order she was interested in broadcast media as a to put out a legitimate piece of scholastic career path. journalism.” Theodore said a lot of students might consider Doar said senior editor Cheyenne Brown, journalism to be a little “left field,” but it has really 17, came to her once wanting to do an article or helped her grow personally and professionally. editorial on the topic of injustice and they had an hour-long “It’s just a lot of fun,” she said. “If you have any kind discussion about it. “My goal is not to tell them ‘no’ unless it’s overdone and of leaning toward design and photography, it’s definitely they can find another way to approach the topic or it’s just not something you should look into.”

2DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

A look back at 2014 test scores PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

The Georgia Department of Education announced June 4 a new testing system called the Georgia Milestones Assessment System, or Georgia Milestones for short, will be put in place for the 2014-15 school year. The test will replace both the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test and the End of Course Tests previously given to Georgia students. The new test system aligns with the Common Core education standards, and according to the state, it will be tougher than the tests it replaces. The state also says the test provides a consistent program across grades 3 through 12, whereas before, the CRCT was given to grades 3 through 8 and the EOCT was taken by high school students.

A A

D ACT

Cobb and Marietta City high school students averaged a better score on the ACT than the state and national averages. However, only Cobb improved scores compared to last year, according to test results released by the school systems Aug. 20. Both Cobb and Marietta’s average scores were higher than the Georgia average of 20.8. Cobb’s average composite score rose one-tenth of a point to 22.2 in 2014, while Marietta’s average score went down one-tenth of a point to 21.2. The ACT is a curriculum-based test designed to measure college readiness and preparation. Scores are based on a scale of zero to 36. The ACT is made up of four separate exams in English, reading, math and science and an optional writing portion.

EOCT

B Y T H E

N U M B E R S

COBB graduation rate 111,751 total students K = 23 1st – 3rd = 24:1 4th – 5th = 30:1 6th – 8th = 31:1 9th-12th = 32:1

MARIETTA 74.4%

graduation rate 8,800 total students

20:1

AVERAGE CLASS SIZE

SAT

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION WRITING TEST

The Georgia High School Graduation Writing Test results released Dec. 4 show that more Cobb County students passed the test, but more Marietta City students failed it in 2014 compared to 2013. At Marietta High School, 4.8 percent of the 375 students who took the test did not meet the standards to pass the test. By comparison, 2.1 percent of the 379 Marietta students who took the test in 2013 did not meet standards. Juniors take the High School Graduation Writing Test and are required to pass the test to receive a diploma. Students are marked as “does not meet,” “meets” or “exceeds” the passing standard. In Cobb high schools, only 1.7 percent of the 6,733 students who took the test did not meet the standards to pass, down from the 2.6 percent of the 6,724 students who did not meet the standards in 2013. The percentage of Cobb students who failed the test was lower than the percentage of Georgia students who failed, but the percentage of Marietta students who failed as higher than the statewide percentage. In 2014, 95.2 percent of Marietta High School students passed the exam.

S 2013-14 Cobb and Marietta SAT Scores C Percentage Percentage students of students 2013 2014 O Schools oftested in scores tested in scores R 2013 2014 50% 1498 50% 1497 E U.S. 79% 1515 80% 1515 S Cobb

78.2%

AVERAGE CLASS SIZE

The Cobb School District’s average score on the SAT remained the same as the previous year while Marietta’s average score dipped by one point. High school seniors at Cobb’s 16 high schools scored an average of 1515 on the college prep exam out of a possible 2400. Marietta seniors scored 1455 on average in 2014, which is one point less than they did in 2013. Seniors in neighboring Gwinnett County Schools averaged a 1505 on the exam, down by eight points from its average of 1513 in 2013. The Georgia average was 1,445 in 2014, and the national average on the exam was 1497. Both scores are down from last year’s averages, which were 1452 for the state and 1498 for the nation. Cobb seniors did better in writing, where scores increased by one point from 493 in 2013 to 494 in 2014, but worse in math, where scores decreased by one point from 510 in 2013 to 509 in 2014. The average score on the reading portion of the test for Cobb remained the same from 2013 to 2014 at 512. Marietta seniors did better in reading, where scores increased by three points from 494 in 2013 to 497 in 2014, but they did worse in math, where scores decreased by four points from 486 in 2013 to 482 in 2014. Writing scores stayed the same at 476.

In the final year of the statewide EOCTs, students in the Cobb School District scored higher than the state average in all eight subjects tested. Students in the Marietta City School System, however, bested the state average in only two subjects, though their scores were within two percentage points of the state average in seven of the eight. When compared to the previous year’s scores, Cobb students scored better in 2014 than their 2013 counterparts in six of seven subjects; Marietta students scored higher in four of seven compared to last year. Cobb students posted better scores than last year in all subjects except Physical Science, but the 2014 scores for that subject were within half a percent of 2013’s scores: 94.2 percent of students met or exceeded standards in 2014, compared to 94.4 percent in 2013. In the three subjects in which Marietta students did not improve — American Literature, Economics and U.S. History — the scores for 2014 were within two percentage points of exceeding the scores for 2013. The same is true when Marietta students’ scores are compared to statewide results. In five of the six subjects in which Marietta students scored below the state average — Analytic Geometry, Biology, Coordinate Algebra, Economics, Physical Science and U.S. History — students scored within two percent points of the state average, with the exception of the new test, Analytic Geometry. Only 28.1 percent of Marietta students met or exceeded standards in the subject, compared to 34.6 percent for the entire state.

S C H O O L S

C O B B & M A R I E T T A

Georgia Allatoona Campbell Harrison Hillgrove Kell Kennesaw Mtn. Lassiter Marietta McEachern North Cobb Osborne Pebblebrook Pope South Cobb

83% 82% 71% 94% 85% 78% 84% 94% ** 78% 78% 49% 68% 94% 63%

1452 1485 1405 1570 1479 1507 1571 1636 1456 1338 1439 1232 1238 1680 1307

85% 84% 74% 91% 81% 83% 83% 96% ** 73% 82% 50% 73% 100% 61%

1445 1473 1425 1588 1496 1486 1602 1643 1455 1332 1441 1248 1281 1666 1331

Sprayberry Walton Wheeler

73% 100% 78%

1452 1741 1651

79% 99% 78%

1448 1724 1586

Source: College Board

** not available

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

3DD

KENNESAW

‘A very big operation’

President Papp takes pride in Southern Polytechnic merger BY PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

ennesaw State University President Dan Papp said it’s no secret what the big news was for his school both last year and this year. “In 2015, the largest thing on the table is very similar to what the largest thing on the table in 2014 was, and that is the consolidation with Southern Poly,” said Papp. The consolidation of Kennesaw State University and Southern Polytechnic University was officially approved by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia at its Jan. 6 meeting. “The combined economic impact of KSU — The New U, we’re calling it — is about $1.2 billion. This was a very big operation,” Papp said. According to John Anderson, KSU’s assistant vice president for facilities, prior to the consolidation, Kennesaw State had about 383 acres. The former SPSU campus has added about 196 acres, bringing the consolidated university to about 579 acres. According to Papp, the university now has about 3,000 faculty and staff, up from about 2,200 before the consolidation. The student body totals to about 32,000 with the addition of 7,000 from the former SPSU, Papp previously told the Marietta Daily Journal. “We are one of the 50 largest public universities in the United States,” Papp said, noting KSU is the third largest in Georgia behind the University of Georgia and Georgia State University. He said the staff and administration are making progress on working out the finer details of the consolidation. “We have to make sure that there are no glitches as we integrate all of the academic programs, the IT systems, the budgetary system, the student activity programs, etc., etc., etc.,” Papp said. “We’re moving forward very nicely. There are the occasional bumps in the road, but nothing of any great significance.” He said the university is in the phase of making sure the integration of academic programs and IT programs goes smoothly. “We have put the academic administration together,” he said. “We have 13 colleges in place now. Before the consolidation, we had 10 colleges.”

He said Southern Poly was organized in a way that it did not have colleges but rather five different schools. SPSU President Emerita Lisa Rossbacher said the Southern Polytechnic name will continue in a new college at KSU. “At Kennesaw State, (the university) will have the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology,” she said. “So there will still diplomas with the name on it to reflect the origin of the institution.” Furthermore, students who graduate in the spring and summer will be able to choose whether they have SPSU or KSU on their diploma, according to Tim Cooper, an assistant vice president. Two of the schools — architecture and construction management, and computing and software engineering — were turned into their respective colleges at KSU. Their fifth school was their school of arts and sciences and Papp said the various parts of their school of arts and sciences have been added to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science and Math, and the College of Arts. “So this entire integration and consolidation process just on the academic side of things was a very complex organization,” he said.

Above: KSU President Dr. Dan Papp opens the floor for discussion at the school’s KSU Center as the implementation team begins to iron out the details of the merger of KSU and Southern Polytechnic State University. Left: SPSU President Emerita Lisa Rossbacher addresses the implementation team. / StaffKelly J. Huff

4DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUPERINTENDENT’S CORNER

S C H O O L

♦ Randy Scamihorn: Post 1, Chair EMAIL: rscamihorn.boardmember@cobbk12.org PHONE: (770) 337-8553 FIRST ELECTED: 2012, first term OCCUPATION: Retired Cobb educator and administrator, retired military officer EDUCATION: M.A. in science, Central Michigan University, B.A. of science, electronics engineering, Indiana State University RESIDENCE: Kennesaw FAMILY: Wife, Debbie; children, Allen and Amy; two grandsons

B O A R D

Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said one of the achievements he is most proud of is the passing an ‘employee-centric’ budget. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Tech-minded super salutes IE2 system, student success PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

The Cobb School District saw major changes in the past year, with new leadership and a new system of flexibility by becoming an Investing in Educational Excellence system. Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said one of the achievements he is most proud of is the school board passing an “employeecentric” budget. He said with the new budget, the district was finally able to restore a 2 percent pay cut initiated when the district faced a budget crisis during the Great Recession, starting in 2008. “Initially, we had a 1 percent partial restoration and then the board came back at the end of the calendar year and did the second 1 percent,” he said. “So that made the employees whole, so to speak.” He also said the district was able to have zero furlough days for 2014-15, meaning it will have a full, 180-day school year. Then

the district added teachers to reduce class sizes and bring back teachers who were cut during the budget crisis. “I think that certainly speaks well of the board … and shows the ‘One Team, One Goal: Student Success,’” Ragsdale, said, citing the new slogan he rolled out after his appointment as interim superintendent. “We are focused on being one team and the board values its employees and has shown that through the budget.” Ragsdale was hired to fill the space left empty by Michael Hinojosa when he resigned May 31 to move back to Dallas, Texas. The Cobb school board voted to approve a contract to make him the permanent superintendent Feb. 11. Ragsdale said he almost immediately began working to turn Cobb schools into an Investing in Educational Excellence system, also known as IE2. “That’s one of the first initiatives that the new executive cabinet undertook after I had been appointed and we got them in place,”

COBB COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

M E M B E R S

♦ Susan Thayer: Post 2 EMAIL: sthayer.boardmember@ cobbk12.org PHONE: (678) 773-1877 FIRST ELECTED: 2014, first term OCCUPATION: Retired educator and educational consultant EDUCATION: B.S. in social studies and education, University of Mississippi; M.ED in guidance and counseling, S.ED in Leadership/ administration, University of West Georgia RESIDENCE: Smyrna

he said. The state requires every school system in the state to declare itself a “status quo” system, a charter system or an IE2 system. The school board voted in October to become an IE2 system, which Mary Elizabeth Davis, the district’s chief academic officer, said was the best option because it will give the Cobb School

FAMILY: Husband, Ed; two adult stepchildren, Matt and Kim ♦ David Morgan: Post 3 EMAIL: dmorgan.boardmember@ cobbk12.org PHONE: (404) 702-1857, (404) 803-9975 FIRST ELECTED: 2008, second term OCCUPATION: Lobbyist with American Federation for Children EDUCATION: B.A. in political science, Grambling State University RESIDENCE: Austell FAMILY: Two children, Lailah and Rashaan ♦ David Chastain: Post 4 EMAIL: dchastain.boardmember@ cobbk12.org PHONE: (678) 896-6399 FIRST ELECTED: 2014, first term OCCUPATION: Logistics Management Analyst in the aeronautics industry EDUCATION: BBA, Real Estate, University of Georgia RESIDENCE: Acworth FAMILY: Wife, Lori; three adult children, David IV, Jason, Kate ♦ David Banks: Post 5 EMAIL: dbanks.boardmember@ cobbk12.org

District — the second largest in the state — more flexibility. Charter systems have a one-size-fits-all approach, Davis explained, which does not fit a system such as Cobb because, for example, it could set a goal to raise test scores by a certain amount across the board. High-performing schools may have difficulty since they’re already near the top of the spectrum.

PHONE: (404) 725-3394 FIRST ELECTED: 2008, second term OCCUPATION: Former IT consultant and computer company worker EDUCATION: B.B.A., Georgia State College; M.B.A., Georgia State University RESIDENCE: East Cobb FAMILY: Wife, Kay; four children; five grandchildren ♦ Scott Sweeney: Post 6 EMAIL: ssweeney.boardmember@ cobbk12.org PHONE: (678) 646-2470 FIRST ELECTED: 2010, second term OCCUPATION: Consultant EDUCATION: B.A., economics, UCLA RESIDENCE: Marietta FAMILY: Wife, Sandy; two children, Gabe and Jake ♦ Brad Wheeler: Post 7, Vice Chair EMAIL: bwheeler.boardmember@ cobbk12.org PHONE: (770) 335-5982 FIRST ELECTED: 2012, first term OCCUPATION: Retired school administrator/teacher/ coach, aquatics director for USA Pools in Roswell EDUCATION: B.S., Berry College, health/PE; Master’s, Jacksonville State in school administration RESIDENCE: Powder Springs

Davis said the IE2 system will allow the district to do things such as offer both PE and music credit for marching band students, or hire an engineer who does not have a teaching credential to lead a science, technology, engineering and math class. Becoming an IE2 system will not affect federal designations, such as Title 1

schools, Davis said. Ragsdale said one of his primary goals is to make data utilization a key part of district operations. “You’re going to hear me talk a lot about data,” he said. “And that’s going to be a big focus. Making sure we have appropriate data but also making sure we use that data to make the appropriate decisions moving forward.”

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

5DD

SUPERINTENDENT’S CORNER

‘Continuous progress’

Marietta City Schools Superintendent Emily Lembeck said the district’s philosophy is one of ‘continuous progress.’ / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Marietta superintendent recounts district’s accomplishments PHILIP CLEMENTS pclements@mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — Marietta City Schools has a lot to be proud of. Superintendent Emily Lembeck said the district’s philosophy is one of “continuous progress.” “That progress needs to be based on what we identify as challenges as well as what we identify as successes and then making corrections in what we’re doing or building on what we’re doing,” she said. She credits the teachers and central office staff with the achievements of the district and for being adaptable to the changing nature and environment of education. “I will say that in our central office, we have a lot of ‘change the world’ people at all levels of their experience,” Lembeck noted. “I think that’s really important

to know that we embrace the changes that are out there and we continue to look for ways to support the practices and educators in our schools, because they need that.” She pointed to the $11.3 million renovation of Northcutt Stadium at Marietta Middle School that started in November as an example of the ongoing projects the district undertook in 2014. She also said the district has learned to do more with less because budget cuts have resulted in fewer teachers for the growing student enrollment. She said she and the school board are aiming to increase compensation for the teachers she said are “working very, very hard.” Lembeck said a big priority for the district is working on making sure students have a strong foundational education. “For many, many years, the systematic phonics

S C H O O L B O A R D M E M B E R S

MARIETTA CITY SCHOOLS ♦ Alan Levine: Ward One EMAIL: alevine@lylelevine. com PHONE: (770) 870-4994 FIRST ELECTED: 2014, first term OCCUPATION: Trust and estate lawyer EDUCATION: Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory Law School FAMILY: Wife, Dawn; son, Andrew

♦ Jason Waters: Ward Two, Vice Chair EMAIL: jasonawaters@gmail. com PHONE: (404) 403-8787 FIRST ELECTED: 2013, first term OCCUPATION: Vice President, Commercial Banker with Fidelity Bank EDUCATION: Bachelor of Business Administration, The University of Georgia FAMILY: Wife, Katie; three children, Virginia, Hank and 2-month-old Dorothy

instruction was just not done in schools,” Lembeck said. “I believe we must focus on foundational knowledge such as phonics instruction, making sure students know the basic facts. We’re providing more of an emphasis on that in our early years in elementary schools.” One way the district is emphasizing the foundations is by promoting literacy through the Marietta READS! program, a literacy and community engagement program that was reenergized this year.

♦ Randy Weiner: Ward Three EMAIL: whatapane@bellsouth.net PHONE: (770) 427-4956 FIRST ELECTED: 2005, third term OCCUPATION: Small-business owner, What A Pane! EDUCATION: Bachelor of Finance, Kennesaw State University FAMILY: Wife, Kelley; two children, Grace and Libbie ♦ Jill Mutimer: Ward Four EMAIL: jcmutimer@comcast.net PHONE: (770) 422-4316 FIRST ELECTED: 2005, third term OCCUPATION: Business owner, Strategic Consulting Group EDUCATION: Bachelor of Business Administration, University of Georgia FAMILY: Husband, Jim; two children, Grace and Kate ♦ Jeriene Bonner-Grimes: Ward Five EMAIL: jerienebgrimes@gmail.com PHONE: (678) 886-1766 FIRST ELECTED: 2013, first term OCCUPATION: Event planner EDUCATION: Albany State University

“Literacy is the foundation of it all,” she said. One of the ways she said this could come about is the strengthening of the International Baccalaureate Programme, which is a product of the International Baccalaureate Organization, a worldwide, nonprofit educational foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland. Students with an IB diploma can apply to colleges and universities almost anywhere in the world because the IBO is an internationally accredited organization. “It was developed initially

FAMILY: Husband, Charles; Three adult children, Brittney, Jazz and Sebastian, and 15-year-old Sydnee ♦ Tom Cheater: Ward Six EMAIL: tom@tomcheater.com PHONE: (404) 952-3635 FIRST ELECTED: 2009, second term OCCUPATION: Global business solutions manager for British Telecom EDUCATION: B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, the University of Pittsburgh; master’s degree in financial studies, Widener University FAMILY: Wife, Lisa; two children ♦ Irene Berens: Ward Seven, Chair EMAIL: Rberens140@aol.com PHONE: (770) 428-2710 FIRST ELECTED: 2001, third term OCCUPATION: Ballet teacher at Georgia Dance Conservatory, operations support for construction company EDUCATION: Georgia Institute of Technology FAMILY: Husband, Bob; three adult children, Lauren, Ryan and David

in foreign countries to support ambassadors and their children who were stationed (there) so they could come back to the United States with a high degree of education,” Lembeck said. She said Marietta City Schools offers the “full International Baccalaureate continuum,” meaning a student can participate in IB from kindergarten through 12th grade. The Sixth Grade Academy, Marietta Middle School and Marietta High School are all IB schools. At the elementary level,

Sawyer Road Elementary has an IB program and Burruss Elementary has been approved for and entered the first year of its candidate phase, which could take between two and a half and five years. “During this period of time, what they do is they begin to have teacher professional development, they begin to develop all the plans on how they integrate the IB program and philosophy with the Georgia Performance Standards and the other programs that we have,” Lembeck said.

6DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

LIST OF COBB COUNTY SCHOOLS

COBB ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 1. Acworth 2. Addison 3. Argyle 4. Austell 5. Baker 6. Bells Ferry 7. Belmont Hills 8. Big Shanty 9. Birney 10. Blackwell 11. Brumby 12. Bryant 13. Bullard 14. Chalker 15. Cheatham Hill 16. Clarkdale 17. Clay 18. Compton 19. Davis 20. Dowell 21. Due West 22. East Side 23. Eastvalley 24. Fair Oaks

25. Ford 26. Frey 27. Garrison Mill 28. Green Acres 29. Harmony Leland 30. Hayes 31. Hendricks 32. Hollydale 33. Keheley 34. Kemp 35. Kennesaw 36. Kincaid 37. King Springs 38. LaBelle 39. Lewis 40. Mableton 41. McCall 42. Milford 43. Mount Bethel 44. Mountain View 45. Murdock 46. Nicholson 47. Nickajack 48. Norton Park 49. Pickettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mill 50. Pitner 51. Powder Springs

52. Powers Ferry 53. Riverside Intermediate 54. Riverside Primary 55. Rocky Mount 56. Russell 57. Sanders 58. Sedalia Park 59. Shallowford Falls 60. Smyrna 61. Sope Creek 62. Still 63. Teasley 64. Teasley Primary 65. Timber Ridge 66. Tritt 67. Varner 68. Vaughan

COBB MIDDLE SCHOOLS 1. Awtrey 2. Barber 3. Campbell 4. Cooper 5. Daniell 6. Dickerson

7. Dodgen 8. Durham 9. East Cobb 10. Floyd 11. Garrett 12. Griffin 13. Hightower Trail 14. Lindley 15. Lindley 6th Grade Academy 16. Lost Mountain 17. Lovinggood 18. Mabry 19. McCleskey 20. McClure 21. Palmer 22. Pine Mountain 23. Simpson 24. Smitha 25. Tapp

COBB HIGH SCHOOLS 1. Allatoona 2. Campbell 3. Harrison

4. Hillgrove 5. Kell 6. Kennesaw Mountain 7. Lassiter 8. McEachern 9. North Cobb 10. Osbourne 11. Pebblebrook 12. Pope 13. South Cobb 14. Sprayberry 15. Walton 16. Wheeler

COBB CHARTER SCHOOLS 1. International Academy of Smyrna 2. Kennesaw Charter 3. Sedalia Park 4. Walton

EDUCATION

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

7DD

1. A.L. Burruss Elementary 325 Manning Road Marietta, GA 30064 770-429-3144 2. Dunleith Elementary 120 Saine Drive Marietta, GA 30008 770-429-3190 3. Hickory Hills Elementary 500 Redwood Drive Marietta, GA 30064 770-429-3125 4. Lockheed Elementary 1205 Merritt Road Marietta, GA 30060 770-429-3196 5. Park Street Elementary 105 Park Street Marietta, GA 30060 770-429-3180 6. Marietta Center for Advanced Academics 311 Aviation Road Marietta, GA 30060 770-420-0822 7. Sawyer Road Elementary 840 Sawyer Road Marietta, GA 30062

770-429-9923

8. West Side Elementary 344 Polk Street Marietta, GA 30064 770-429-3172 9. Marietta Sixth Grade Academy 340 Aviation Road Marietta, GA 30060 770-429-3115 10.Marietta Middle School 121 Winn Street Marietta, GA 30064 440-422-0311

11. Marietta High School* 12. Marietta Performance 1171 Whitlock Avenue Learning Center Marietta, GA 30064 353-B Lemon Street 770-428-2631 Marietta, GA 30060 770-429-3188 *Marietta Community School 770-429-3170 *Marietta Performing Arts Center 770-428-2631 ext. 2131

13. Central Administrative Office/ Department of Special Services 250 Howard Street Marietta, GA 30060 770-422-3500

14. Marietta Head Start/ PreK 461 Allgood Road Marietta, GA 30060 770-429-3123

15. Transportation/Food Service 145 Dodd Street Marietta, GA 30060 770-429-3110

Prepared by Office of Communication/Information

8DD

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

HIGH

EDUCATION

PROGRESS MARIETTA

ACHIEVERS

International Baccalaureate program at Marietta City Schools working to ‘create lifelong learners’ BY PHILIP CLEMENTS

1497. Their average ACT score was 27.8, compared to Georgia and national averages of 20.8 and 21, respectively. The graduates were accepted into such Ivan Sanchez has nothing but praise for Marietta High School’s International schools as Brown University, Massachusetts Baccalaureate Programme. Institute of Technology, Vanderbilt, Johns AP/IB Calculus senior Maddie O’Neil gets excited about correctly doing a math problem as her teacher Sanchez is in his first semester in Hopkins, Columbia, University of Chicago, the Wharton School of Cornell and Emory. Julie Pinto applauds her efforts during class. The class is part of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Business at the University of The International Program at Marietta High School. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff Pennsylvania and was one of Baccalaureate program is a only 1,000 students nationally product of the International The way to win the Gates Millennium Baccalaureate Organization, Scholarship. The scholarship, the program a worldwide, nonprofit which pays for all college foundation based is structured, educational costs for 10 years, enables out of Geneva, Switzerland. students to earn a master’s or Students with an International it really doctorate degree for free. Baccalaureate diploma He said being an encourages can apply to colleges and International Baccalaureate almost anywhere you to be universities student played a major role in in the world because the IBO his success. well-rounded is an internationally accredited “In the IB program, organization. you’re taking six to eight and to do According to Sommer Vega, classes at a time and you’re spokesperson for Marietta different also encouraged to do other City Schools, the International things outside the class,” he things Baccalaureate program has said. “The way the program is budget of $132,000, which structured, it really encourages outside of adoes not include salary or you to be well-rounded and benefits for International class. to do different things outside Baccalaureate personnel or the of class. Coming into college, — Ivan Sanchez amount of professional learning you’re used to being involved student costs supported by the general and doing a lot of things and fund from other functions. managing your time.” MHS first began operating Sanchez graduated in May with 53 an authorized International Baccalaureate other International Baccalaureate diploma program in 1997, which is when Woolard program graduates, the largest MHS class came to the school as an International to date. According to Debbie Woolard, Baccalaureate math teacher. She became the the school’s International Baccalaureate International Baccalaureate coordinator in coordinator, 2014 International Baccalaureate 2003. graduates were offered a total of about $8 All International Baccalaureate students are million in scholarships, excluding the HOPE required to take a foreign language, and since scholarship. That class had an average SAT some students start as early as primary school, score of 1829, compared to the Georgia Woolard said they will be fluent by the time average of 1445 and the national average of they graduate. pclements@mdjonline.com

“

Progress Marietta Daily Journal

2 015 Education

Guarding Cobbâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future

11DD

Progress Marietta Daily Journal

2 015

Arts

Section EE

Entertainment

Staff: C.B. Schmelter; Kelly J. Huff

2EE

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

EARL SMITH STRAND THEATRE

New leadership, new growth at Strand “We’re trying to create a kind of sampler platter of entertainment that you could find around Atlanta and find around the region and let the Strand be a home base.” — Cassi Costoulas, general manager at Strand Theatre

Cassi Costoulas, the new executive director of the Earl Smith Strand Theatre, raises her fist in triumph as she is fitted with a Wonder Woman outfit by outgoing executive director Earl Reece during her promotion ceremony last year. / File

Theater adds piano bar, looks to diversify programming BRITTINI RAY

bray@mdjonline.com

MARIETTA — Under new leadership, the Earl Smith Strand Theatre on the Marietta Square is striving to diversify its entertainment programming and build on its 2014 success, said Cassi Costoulas, the theater’s new general manager. “We’re trying to create a kind of sampler platter of entertainment that you could find around Atlanta and find around the region and let the Strand be a home base,” she said. “We are always going to try to continue new things.” Costoulas was promoted to the theater’s general manager in 2014. New additions to the Strand’s management family also include Andy Gaines, the theater’s facilities and events director, and Faye DiMassimo, who chairs the Strand’s board of trustees in addition to her day job as director of Cobb’s transportation department. “We have three new brains that are working to help continue the Strand on its path and to grow,” Costoulas said. The Strand Theatre, a staple in the Marietta Square since 1935, is a multi-use STRAND, 3EE

From left, Sterling McClary, 9-year-old Charlotte Bullington, General Manager Cassi Costoulas, 7-yearold Mae Bullington and Joe Arnotti pose with atop the marquee at the Earl Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

3EE

COBB GALLERIA AND COBB PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE

Michele Swann, general manager and CEO of the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit all Authority, and Authority Chairman Jerry Nix show off the grandeur of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, which features ballets, musicals and live concerts. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Galleria continue entertainment excellence PHILIP CLEMENTS

pclements@mdjonline.com

t has been a banner year for the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit Hall Authority as the Cobb Galleria Centre celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2014. Michele Swann, the general manager and CEO of the authority, credits the Galleria Centre’s staff of 200 full-time, part-time and on-call employees for reaching that mark. The authority owns the Galleria. “They all are committed to exceeding expectations,” Swann said. Jerry Nix, the authority’s chairman, said the Galleria Centre has become an economic engine for Cobb and Georgia. “The convention center has outperformed the most optimistic projections and has been a catalyst for economic development in the Cumberland district,” Nix said. The Exhibit Hall Authority also owns the Galleria and Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Coupled with the performing arts center, the overall economic impact was more than $147 million, Swann said. According to Karen Caro, marketing manager for the Galleria, there were 614 events in the Galleria’s convention center in 2014 with more than 360,000 visitors, while the Performing Arts Centre hosted 250 events with a total attendance of about 273,800 throughout the year. “It’s safe to say that we continue to accomplish our mission and we

S H O W S

STRAND From 2EE performing arts and events facility. Major highlights of the theater’s 2014 programming included the introduction of the Strand’s Lumiere Lounge & Piano Bar, a cocktail and music bar inspired by the era of silent films. Costoulas said she hopes to expand the theater’s reach in the community with the growth and diversification in its programs. “A change that we are focusing on this year, we are really trying to offer more programming that goes beyond going into the auditorium to see a show,” she said. “We’ve started offering master classes, such as soap opera 101, and we also offer a parents’ night out,” a monthly program where parents can drop off their children for a brief workshop. The program

differs from other care programs or getting a babysitter because it is an educational experience with a theatrical twist, Costoulas said. “People can drop of their kids around 6 p.m. while they enjoy a nice night out either here or somewhere else on the Square,” Costoulas said. “The difference is that they’re learning while they’re here. They will watch a movie or musical and then they will learn a song or dance from that musical. So they’re actually getting a little bit of an education, too.” Other entertainment programs includes stage combat and improv classes, an recurring open mic night and auditions for Strand Academy, a children’s theater program. “People want their hometown theater to be local, but they want to get the exposure of the region in a local place and that’s what we hoped to do here,” she said.

continue to remain one of the leading convention and meeting facilities in the Southeast,” Swann said. She said the Galleria hosts about 179 multi-day conventions every year, which generates more than 60,000 hotel room nights. The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre opened in 2007and has become one of the most talked-about venues in the region. “It has become the place to be,” she said. “We have heard this from some of our patrons who have been with us since day one that they continue to come here for events whether it’s ballet, opera, Broadway, comedy (or) jazz. They prefer to come here.”

A R T S B R I D G E

She said surveys have shown people prefer the arts center because it’s an accessible location — just off of Interstate 75, yet inside the Perimeter — features easy parking and the design is state-ofthe-art. She also said people have commented on the quality of the volunteer staff. “They always send us follow-up letters about the knowledgeable, professional staff,” she added. “Certainly, they like our diversity of programming, the different kinds of shows we have, but they do always say something about the staff and the venue itself: how clean it is, how well-maintained it is. I think that’s why it’s become the place to be, CENTRE, 6EE

AT THE COBB ENERGY PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE ♦ TRIPLE THREAT TECHNIQUE IN THE

STYLE OF WICKED WITH THE BROADWAY NATIONAL TOURING CAST Feb. 28 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

♦ PEKING ACROBATS FIELD TRIP

March 12 10:15 to 11:15 a.m. and 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

♦ “I LOVE LUCY” ARTSBRIDGE RECEPTION

♦ LIGHTING DESIGN MASTER CLASS

WITH ATLANTA BALLET’S BEN TILLEY March 21 9 to 10:30 a.m.

♦ KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY’S COLLEGE OF THE ARTS PRESENTS SYNERGY March 25 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

♦ 2015 GEORGIA HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL THEATER

March 13 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

AWARDS: THE SHULER AWARDS April 23 6 to 10 p.m.

♦ COMEDIC TIMING IN THE STYLE OF I LOVE

♦ BROADWAY AUDITION TECHNIQUE IN THE STYLE

LUCY WITH THE NATIONAL TOURING CAST March 14 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Right: Earl Reece, left, retiring executive director of the Earl Smith Strand Theatre, is feted by Smith himself at Reece’s retirement party last year. Below: The Strand Theatre’s seating and balcony. / File

OF PIPPIN WITH THE BROADWAY NATIONAL TOURING CAST May 9 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

u Movie Theaters Picture Show Merchants 440Roswell Road Marietta, 30062 (770) 321-7818 Park 12 Cobb 2925 Gordy Pkwy Marietta, 30066 (770) 971-1200 Earl Smith Strand Theatre 117 North Park Square Marietta, 30060 (770) 293-0080 AMC Barrett Commons 24 2600 Cobb Place Lane NW Kennesaw, 30144 (770) 419-5848 NCG Acworth Cinemas 4421 Cinema Drive Acworth, 30101

(678) 384-5710 NCG Marietta Cinemas 1050 Powder Springs Street Marietta, 30064 (678) 303-4844 Regal Stadium 22 2480 East-West Connector Road Austell, 30106 (770) 439-9336 GTC Merchant’s Walk Stadium Cinemas 14 1301 Johnson Ferry Road Marietta, 30068 (678) 560-1111 AMC Cobb Place 8 800 Barrett Parkway Kennesaw, 30144 (404) 816-4262

4EE

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PROIA DANCE PROJECT

A new era

in ART, DANCE KATHY GOLDSBERRY

kgoldsberry@mdjonline.com

Dance company looks to blossom into modern, dynamic laboratory of the arts

ancing, singing, acting, music, filmmaking, arts classes, multimedia performances. It’s all part of the vision of Alexandre Proia, former artistic director at Georgia Ballet, for the new Proia Dance Project. The small dance company was founded in summer 2014 and Proia is seeking funding and collaborators to grow his talented group of dancers and establish a permanent location. Originally from France, Proia was trained at Paris Opera Ballet and spent 12 years with New York City Ballet, where he performed in roles by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins. Proia also taught and choreographed at Julliard, Teatro Colon, Capetown City Ballet, New York University, Adelphi University, Joffrey School NY and Line School in San Francisco, according to proiadanceproject.com. He has also been featured on Broadway. Proia says he sees potential in Marietta to become a breeding “If ground for a new, you were more modern to have different dynamic screens and panels company on stage, you could be inclusive having a discussion ... with of not just somebody live from New dance, but other forms York or Chicago or Paris or of art, while anywhere.” incorporating — Alexandre Proia, founder of interactive Proia Dance Project on his intechnology. teractive multimedia vision “Instead of for the performances doing just a dance group, what I’m trying to build is a place where people could come, have a glass of wine and watch performing artists do their thing. (It would be) in a multimedia aspect inclusive of dance and ballet as well as aerial dancers, as well as acting, singing, musicians and a lot of different new art via the Internet and having discussions of the art and the artists via the Internet on set,” Proia said. “If you were to have different screens and panels on stage, you could be having a discussion — and by discussion I don’t mean people sitting down talking to each other ... with somebody live from New York or Chicago or Paris or anywhere.” Daley Kappenman, a dancer with Proia Dance Project, praises the company as a group “who are experimenting with not only contemporary ballet movement but other styles of movement while incorporating other artists, musicians, teachers and multimedia to reach a broader audience and to become more relevant.” Proia describes the growing collective of six dancers as not just dancers, but artists with “beautiful brains,” he said. Dancer Jillian Mitchell of Marietta worked with Proia at Georgia Ballet and is now a member of Proia Dance Project. She said Proia’s refreshing approach to dance inspired her to join his latest endeavor. “I feel like his class is extremely stimulating mentally,” said Mitchell, who has studied dance at Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, Florida and Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Canada. “It tends to be really choreographic and you’re completely immersed in his methodology from the very beginning of class so it’s almost meditative in the sort of way. … I feel like the classroom sometimes merges seamlessly with the work that we’re doing and the artistry that we’re doing, so it’s less of a class and more of a full dancing experience.” Often times, artists and dancers must leave their hometowns to pursue a career in the arts in a big city such as New York or Houston, Proia said. He hopes Proia Dance Project can be an avenue to help keep homegrown talent in DANCE, 8EE

Kappenman and Kayser rehearse a routine for their upcoming performance at Synchonicity Theatre on April 3 and 4.

Dancers Miriam Golomb, Daley Kappenman, Noelle Kayser, Alexandre Proia, Jillian Mitchell, Nathan Gonzales and Rebekah Diaddigo at a recent rehearsal for Proia Dance Project at Gotta Dance studio in Atlanta. The group is practicing for a performance on April 3 and 4 at Synchonicity Theatre in Atlanta. They will also be performing with Emily Cargill and Dancers and Fly On a Wall. / Staff-Kathy Goldsberry Proia demonstrates a move to his dancers during a rehearsal for their upcoming performance. The small dance company was founded in summer 2014 and Proia is seeking funding and collaborators to grow his group of dancers and establish a permanent location.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PROGRESS

ATLANTA LYRIC THEATRE

Lyric keeps hits coming Theater company shows mix of revival and favorite musicals STACEY EVANS

sevans@mdjonline.com

The Atlanta Lyric Theatre, which performs at the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre at the Cobb Civic Center, is currently in the middle of another successful season. The 32-year-old company has been calling Cobb County home since 2008, when it relocated from Atlanta to the Earl Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta. In 2013, Lyric made the move to the county-owned, 606-seat Anderson Theatre, where it performs about five shows per season. The company also performs a few special shows throughout the year at various locations. In addition, the company opened The Lyric Studio Theatre in 2014, which has cabaret shows, original musical productions and performances by members of the Junior Lyric program. The Atlanta Lyric Theatre is the metro area’s only professional musical theater company, and

shows include a mix of favorites such as “CATS” and “Chicago” to revivals of long-lost classics like “Barnum,” which will run June 12 to 28 and feature jugglers, trapeze artists and other circus acts. Currently on stage is the regional premiere of “Catch Me If You Can,” based on the hit DreamWorks film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. Next on tap

is “Damn Yankees!” from April 10 to 26. The Lyric Studio Theatre will showcase an original cabaret March 6 and 7. The “Craigslist Chronicles” will star husband and wife comedy team Emily and Candler Budd with outrageous characters from actual Craigslist ads. The repertoire features popular songs from the ’60s to today, inspired by the characters.

Above: Pablina Lopez stretches onstage before a performance of Atlanta Lyric Theatre’s ‘CATS’ at the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre. Above right: Ansley Van Epps applies makeup backstage before a performance of Atlanta Lyric Theatre’s ‘CATS.’ Right: Jennifer Arnold adjusts her wig. /

Staff-Jennifer Carter

u FESTIVALS & EVENTS Spring u BIG SHANTY FESTIVAL, KENNESAW — One of the largest arts and crafts fairs in the Southeast, held over a weekend in late April. u SPRING ART FESTIVAL, ACWORTH — More than 120 colorful artisans line downtown Acworth with artwork and displays, usually held over a weekend in April. u TASTE OF MARIETTA, MARIETTA SQUARE — An annual food festival that showcases Cobb County restaurants and caterers, held the last Sunday in April. u ART WALK, MARIETTA — A free, self-guided tour of the Marietta Square’s galleries, museums, cultural venues, restau-

rants and boutiques, held the first Friday of the month, April through October. u SPRING JONQUIL FESTIVAL, SMYRNA — Arts and crafts festival featuring more than 150 artists/crafters, held on a weekend in late April. u SHAKY BOOTS FESTIVAL, KENNESAW — Country music festival featuring artists and bands such as Blake Shelton, Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, Rascal Flatts, The Band Perry, Dwight Yoakam, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show, Sara Evans, Justin Moore, Packway Handle and more. Will be at Kennesaw State University Sports and Entertainment Park in Kennesaw on May 16 and 17. FESTIVALS, 6EE

APRIL

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

5EE

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

6EE

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PROGRESS

MABLE HOUSE ARTS CENTER AND AMPHITHEATRE

Mable House grows reach Despite losing county funding, art complex making a comeback BRITTINI RAY

bray@mdjonline.com

Looking for a free and entertaining activity this summer? Check out the Mable House Arts Complex. The complex includes the Mable House Arts Center and Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre. Despite losing its county funding due to budget cuts, the complex is making a comeback in 2015 after garnering financial support from local partners and sponsors. Located on Floyd Road in Mableton, the complex offers a variety of free and low-priced arts and entertainment programs including art classes, movie viewings and theater productions, summer camps, concerts and tours.

Marietta resident Tineka Conley and her son Matthew, 6, take in some of the artwork in the art gallery at the Mable House Complex. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

The complex partners with the South Cobb Arts Alliance, a nonprofit organization that focuses on art appreciation in the community. The partnership between the complex and nonprofit organization has helped the Mable Complex expand its reach into the community, said Vanita Dauphinais, Mable House Arts center coordinator. “We added a lot of programs this year. Robby Edwards, who is the Mable House Amphitheatre coordinator and technical director, and I work together to partner with the South Cobb Arts Alliance, and

we bring a lot of different programs to the community through that capacity,” Dauphinais said. In 2014, the complex increased the number of art classes it offers for children and adults, added new art classes targeted toward homeschool programs in the area and introduced a recurring food truck festival. “This summer we added a food truck event, which was new to the complex. South Arts Alliance, Robby

and I worked on bringing food trucks to the complex, which included a festival with food and music, and it was very well received by the community. We hope to add on more dates throughout this summer,” Dauphinais said. Edwards said the growth in partnerships with local businesses in 2014 can help the center bring back programs that it has held in the past.

Above: The Mable House historic property. Right: Youth in Mable House’s Theatre Project program rehearse for an upcoming production. The program is an educational community theater for 9- to 18-year-olds in partnership with Cobb Parks and the South Cobb Arts Alliance. This spring, they will be presenting ‘Seussical’ at the Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre stage on April 17 to 19.

Special to the MDJ

FESTIVALS From 5EE u INTERNATIONAL PRO-WAKEBOARD TOUR, ACWORTH — The world’s top professional wakeboarders compete on Lake Allatoona, held annually in late May.

Summer u SUMMER CONCERT SERIES, ACWORTH — Acworth Business Association sponsors concerts in June and July at Cauble Park.

CENTRE From 3EE because it’s nothing but a positive experience when they come to the venue.” She said artists often comment about how intimate the configuration of the theater is. “The seats are very close to the performer, close to the stage,” Swann said. “They feel they can connect to their audience — particularly the comedians.” Comedians such as Billy Crystal, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, Wanda Sykes, Lewis Black, Craig Ferguson, Amy Schumer, Jeff Dunham, Bill Maher and Whoopi Goldberg are just a few of the national acts who have performed there over the years. Swann said one of the

largest shows to visit the venue was the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” featuring the Rockettes, who drew about 58,000 attendees to the venue over the course of 27 performances in December 2014. Musical artists who have played at the Performing Arts Centre include India Arie, Wilco, Brian Setzer, The Shins, The Beach Boys and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The Performing Arts Centre’s arts education and community outreach arm, ArtsBridge, has also made strides. ArtsBridge, a nonprofit foundation, calls the center home, and is funded through ticket sales, other foundations and individual donors, Swann said. “Since its inception,

“The seats are very close to the performer, close to the stage. They feel they can connect to their audience — particularly the comedians.”

MARIETTA — A free, self-guided tour of the Marietta Square’s galleries, museums, cultural venues, restaurants and boutiques, held the first Friday of the month, April through October.

— Michele Swann,

general manager of the Cobb-Marietta Coliseum and Exhibit Hall Authority

MABLE, 7EE

u JULY 4TH FIREWORKS, ACWORTH — This is part of the summer concert ArtsBridge series and ends with a has served over firework display, in Cauble 240,000 students Park. and educators from 30 different counties,” Swann said. “That u JULY 4TH PARADE, includes us organizing and MARIETTA — A parade providing entertainment that spans from Roswell programming for field Street Baptist Church and trips, workshops, ends at North Marietta sometimes we send Parkway. performers into schools — we call it our artist-inschool opportunity — and u JULY 4TH we also provide master CELEBRATION, classes.” POWDER SPRINGS —

Features music, activities and fireworks. u PIGS & PEACHES BBQ FESTIVAL, KENNESAW — The Georgia State Championship BBQ cook-off the last week of August. u BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION, SMYRNA — City marks its birthday with bands, a giant birthday cake and fireworks the first week of August.

Fall u NORTH GEORGIA STATE FAIR, MARIETTA — Cobb’s largest annual event, provides family fun, at Jim R. Miller Park in late September. u TASTE OF SMYRNA — Food, fun and music all day on Smyrna’s Village Green, in mid-September. u POWDER SPRINGS DAY — Parade and entertainment throughout the day, downtown, the first week of October.

u FALL JONQUIL FESTIVAL, SMYRNA — Arts and crafts festival featuring more than 175 artists/crafters and family events, last week of October. u GREAT LAKE ALLATOONA CLEANUP, ACWORTH — The City of Acworth partners with the Lake Allatoona Preservation Authority to organize volunteers who will help clean up the shores of Lake Allatoona and Lake Acworth in late September.

Winter u MUST MINISTRIES GOBBLE JOG, MARIETTA — Features a 10K run/walk, 5K, a 1K, and the Tot Trot for kids 5 and under, Marietta Square, Thanksgiving morning.

u A TASTE OF ACWORTH — All the restaurants on the Main Street, downtown, sell samples of their food in mid-October.

u LIGHTING OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE, AUSTELL — School choirs provide musical entertainment and there are free hot dogs, hot chocolate and pastries while Santa arrives on his sleigh at Collar Park next to the City Hall in early December.

u ART WALK, MARIETTA — A free, selfguided tour of the Marietta Square’s galleries, museums, cultural venues, restaurants and boutiques, held the first Friday of the month, April through October.

u POWDER SPRINGS CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION — A lighting of the Christmas tree, with carriage rides, and Santa Claus, downtown, the first week of December.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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SIX FLAGS OVER GEORGIA

Six Flags throws riders for a loop

Amusement park to add new rides, give classics a twist BRITTINI RAY

ride kind of person.” Six Flags officials hope to build on the momentum from opening AUSTELL — After a successful its second water park, Hurricane 2014 season, Six Harbor, in 2014. Flags over Georgia The company also plans to open two new owns Six Flags New Rides rides this summer White Water off and reintroduce some Cobb Parkway in This Year: of its classics with a Marietta. twist. “(It) was a The Joker Chaos In January, the very successful Coaster outdoor theme season for 2014 Seats: 20 facing seats park announced its for both Six Flags Height: 7 Stories Batman: The Ride over Georgia and Direction: Forward and roller coaster will Six Flags White backwards run backwards for Water,” Petriello Location: Gotham City a limited time from said. “Everyone we March 14 to May 17. talked to thanked us Since the ride Harley Quinn for putting in such a opened in 1997, Spinsanity great product, which Batman has given Seats: 7 cars is the park, and for more than 16 million the opportunity to Location: Gotham City rides, reaching speeds cool off.” of 50 mph on a 2,700Hurricane foot track. Harbor, a seven“Riders won’t acre waterpark that features an see what’s coming,” said Gene 800,000-gallon wave pool, shaded Petriello, spokesman for Six Flags. cabanas and other amenities, “They won’t see any of the opened in May 2014. Entry to loops, the hairpin turn, or anything the Hurricane Harbor is free else coming.” with admission at Six Flags over In addition to the reinvention Georgia. of the Batman roller coaster, the Six Flags Over Georgia Director Gotham City section of the park of Operations Jason Coleman will be debuting two new rides: echoed Petriello’s sentiments, Joker Chaos Coaster and Harley citing the park’s popular seasonal Quinn’s Spinsanity. attractions. The Joker Chaos Coaster is “I’m looking forward to seven-story roller coaster that delivering world-class ride features 20 facing seats and a experiences to all of our guests in variety of loops and turns, and 2015, plus the scariest Fright Fest Harley Quinn’s Spinsanity is a ever and a magical experience for seven-car ride that rotates on a the second season of Holiday in the circular track. Both attractions are Park,” he said. expected to open in May. The park will operate on weekends beginning on March 14 through May 17, when it will be open daily for the summer season. State Rep. David Wilkerson (D-Austell) said he’s excited for the reopening of the park for both recreational and economic reasons. “I’m a big fan of Six Flags,” he said. “I’m looking to see what it has in store for 2015. My family and I purchase tickets every year. The park is a great place for fun and it also brings jobs to south Cobb and the surrounding area. I’m pretty excited for the new season. My family loves the roller coasters. I’m more of a spinning bray@mdjonline.com

S I X F L A G S

Richard Rock and his daughter, Melody, 18, ride in the lead car on the Mindbender roller coaster at Six Flags over Georgia last year. / File

Above: Tiffini Gatlin and her 9-month-old son, Malikai, enjoy the cool water of the 38,000 square foot wave pool last year at the Hurricane Harbor at Six Flags over Georgia Park in Austell. Left: Visitors flock into the cool water of the pool last year at Hurricane Harbor. / File

MABLE From 6EE “Many years ago, we would hold 15 concerts a summer with funding from the county,” he said. “Because the county has not reinstated funding for programming here, we have been working primarily as rental-only facility for the past couple of years. But we are working hard so that we can reinstate some of our regular programs. The programs will not be funded by the county but they would be supported by the individuals that we are partnering with.” Last year, the amphitheater conducted a free six-part movie screening program titled “Movies at the Mable” last summer, which attracted a large number of viewers, Edwards said. He hopes to increase the number of

viewers in summer 2015. “We had approximately 600 people attend each movie that we showed, with the exception of ‘Frozen,’ which had been the most popular,” Edwards said. “That had almost 900 people come to see the movie. The shows were completely free to taxpayers thanks to the sponsorships of our local partners. The calendar here is looking pretty busy for the upcoming summer and we are hoping to have an open house for residents so that they can experience the new changes at the amphitheater,” Edwards said. Dauphinais echoed Edwards’ desire to invite citizens for an open house, citing the complex’s positive outlook for summer 2015. “As we are seeing our successes, we want to make them even more accessible to the public for 2015,” Dauphinais said.

Mableton resident Sean Towery spends part of his weekend looking at the painting, sculptures and photographs on display in the art gallery at the Mable House Complex. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

8EE

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

DANCE From 4EE

Ashwin Muthiah, left, and partner Harris Gani stand with a piece of artwork to be offered as part of a new venture the friends started called Easely. / File

Easely come, Easely go

East Cobb entrepreneurs start art buying, trading venture, dubbed ‘Netflix for art’ SALLY LITCHFIELD sallylit@bellsouth.net

Buying art can be an intimidating process. Easely, an online marketplace for art founded by two east Cobb residents, simplifies the process. Easely makes great artwork accessible by allowing customers to rent original works and gallery-quality prints “easely” before purchasing. Easely allows its customers to buy what they like and swap what they don’t. “Easely makes buying art seamless and easy,” said Ashwin Muthiah, who co-founded the venture with Harris Gani. Easely customers can either browse artwork on their own or connect with an art curator who will help find the right piece based on preferences. Shipping is free to customers or back to Easely for a return or swap. Use of the art is free for the first month, but every rental dollar afterward goes toward its purchase. “You can try a piece out for a couple of months and if it works out for you, then you’ve already paid for some of it. If not, then you can swap pieces at any time,” Muthiah said. A team of artists and curators curate all the art. There are hundreds of pieces from which to choose. Each piece arrives on a ready-to-hang canvas complete with hammer and nail. “We take out the difficulty in the art buying process. It makes the entire process easier,” said Muthiah, who

u Cobb’s

largest music venues Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre 5239 Floyd Road SW Mableton, 30126 (770) 819-7765 Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway Atlanta, 30339 (770) 916-2800 Jennie T. Anderson Theatre at the Cobb Civic Center 548 South Marietta Parkway Marietta, 30060 (770) 528-8490 Murray Arts Center 2250 Stilesboro Road NW Kennesaw, 30152 (770) 428-2787 Brawner Hall 3180 Atlanta Road SE Smyrna, 30080 (678) 631-5545 The 120 Tavern and Music Hall 1440 Roswell Road Marietta, 30062 (770) 509-3320 Earl Smith Strand Theatre 117 North Park Square Marietta, 30060 (770) 293-0080

dates an artist and came up with the idea for Easely after realizing many artists struggle to make their living doing what they love. Easely takes the guesswork out of buying. “The biggest barrier to buying art online is not knowing what it is until you’ve seen it. You don’t understand what kind of size it is until you see it. The art on the screen is so tiny you miss a lot of details, and you don’t get the same experience. Now there is really no barrier to get a piece of art in your home,” he said. “(Our concept) makes sense because you get to see (the artwork) before you jump into buying it. You can see if it fits with your furniture and other art. You can give it a test run and make sure it fits,” he said. For more information, visit www.easely.io.

the metro Atlanta area. “(The company) is definitely incorporation with different artists. And I’d like it to be mostly artists from here,” Proia said. “(The arts are) not just an escape but a stretch of imaginations. It really not just embellishes but empowers humanity and that is something that I see is very much needed here. For me, art is my church in a way. ... It’s a wonderful place for the heart, the mind and the soul to gather.” Proia is looking at various sites such as the Marietta Square for a permanent location. “There’s a lot of newness happening in the Square,” Proia said. Once a site is settled, he plans to call the theater TranscenDANCE. “That would be the theater which would transform itself to studio space for workshop during the day and then

“(Dance) is an exciting bouquet of tension and release of emotions – it’s extraordinary really.” — Alexandre Proia, founder of Proia Dance Project

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT performance for the evening,” Proia said. “And that’s when the educational programs would come in for all ages and I’m also discussing that with different schools around and different teachers I have met and not just for dance, but for filmmaking which might relate to dance. Anything have to do with movement, dance and music. So that’s what that space would be offering is a workshop for different ages and interests.” Also in the works is a collaboration with the Savannah College of Art and Design on a workshop or program studying the relationship between choreography and architecture. In the future, Proia hopes to offer classes on filmmaking, acting, singing, photography and various other arts at TranscenDANCE. He is currently looking for a few more for Proia Dance Project, especially male dancers with classical backgrounds. The company will have a performance on April 3 at 8 p.m. and April 4 at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. at Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta. Synchronicity Theatre is at 1545 Peachtree St. Northeast, No. 102, Atlanta. On April 3 and 4, the group will also be performing with Emily Cargill and Dancers and Fly On a Wall. Find out more at proiadanceproject.com. Proia and company dancers say they hope to have an impact and involve the community in dance and the arts.

“It is a collaborative and a collective artistic vision from different directors, choreographers and dancers,” Proia said. “And that’s what I would want to offer an audience, with a glass of wine a little food and a little fun and a lightness to it. ... (Dance) is an exciting bouquet of tension and release of emotions — it’s extraordinary, really.” Proia said he is optimistic that Proia Dance Project can blossom and be a part of the Cobb community. “I believe that it can happen,” he said.

WANT TO GO? WHAT: Proia Dance Project show WHEN: April 3 at 8 p.m. and April 4 at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. WHERE: Synchronicity Theatre is at 1545 Peachtree Street Northeast, No. 102, Atlanta INFO: proia danceproject.com.

P R O I A D A N C E

Alexandre Proia demonstrates a move to Proia Dance Project members during a rehearsal for their upcoming performance. The small dance company was founded over summer 2014 and Proia is seeking funding and collaborators to grow his talented group of dancers and establish a permanent location. / Staff-Kathy

Goldsberry

Progress Marietta Daily Journal

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Sports

Section FF

Unearth the new

Kenworth

I N S I D E

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Staff/Kelly J. Huff

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SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

SPORTS

PROGRESS

Kennworth Park Recreation Vice President Evio ‘Ed’ Deoliveira, left and President Michael Dycus, right, join Cobb County Parks and Recreation Coordinator Kim Commons as they tour the improvements at Kennworth Park. Kennworth along with many of the other county parks are completing a combined $11 million worth of improvements and renovations that were approved following the 2011 SPLOST. / Staff - Kelly J. Huff

C O B B P A R K S

R IMPROVEMENTS E N O V A T I O N S ♦ Fullers Park Approved Budget: $2,967,000 Crosstie Wall Replacement, including additional parking (pervious concrete pavement) New scoreboards Replace three concession/restroom buildings Recreation Center – New HVAC Units, interior improvements New lighting at tennis courts New field lighting fixtures and wiring at baseball fields New maintenance building

♦ Kennworth Park Approved Budget: $3,045,000 New tennis center building Tennis court lighting — replaced wooden poles, fixtures and underground wiring New scoreboards Replace two concession/restroom Buildings Athletic field renovations — re-orient Field #3, laser grading of fields to improve drainage and playability, new sod and infield mix, new backstops, dugouts and fencing New irrigation using reclaimed water New field lighting fixtures and underground wiring Improved ADA access to all fields New parking lot — 89 new spaces — (Joint project with City of Acworth) ♦ Mountain View Aquatic Center Approved Budget: $1,353,000 New state-of-the-art air handling system for substantial improvement in indoor air quality Replaced dehumidification units Painted interior of natatorium Improvements to flooring, entrance lobby, locker rooms New marcite on pool surfaces Refurbished movable bulkhead New interior lighting Parking lot improvements ♦ Shaw Park Approved Budget: $1,785,000 New scoreboards Crosstie wall replacement Replace a concession/restroom building Improvements at existing concession/restroom and other existing buildings Paving parking lot Athletic field renovation — new infield mix on baseball fields, new backstops, dugouts and fencing, new irrigation, new field lighting fixtures and underground wiring and improved ADA access ♦ Wallace Park Budget: $2,224,000 New scoreboards Crosstie wall replacement Replace two concession/restroom buildings New maintenance building Athletic field renovations — convert Field 4 to football, laser grading to improve drainage and playability, new sod, infield mix on baseball fields, new backstops, dugouts and fencing, new irrigation, new field lighting fixtures and underground wiring and improved ADA access to fields Tennis court lighting — replaced wooden poles, fixtures, underground wiring New restroom building to serve tennis and multi-purpose courts (Funded by Community Development Block Grant) Resurface tennis and multipurpose courts (Funded by cell tower receipts) New playground (Funded by cell tower receipts)

PARK PLACE After multi-million dollar renovations, Cobb nearing completion of 2011 SPLOST projects, grand re-openings JOHN BEDNAROWSKI sportseditor@mdjonline.com

ACWORTH — Kennworth Park was built more than 30 years ago and it showed. Softball fields in the facilities were usable, but beginning to look run down, and weather was always a challenge. Heavy rain would often cause tournament and game delays or cancellations. “All the water would flow into Fields 1 and 2,” said Michael Dycus, president of the Kennworth Recreation Association. “It really wouldn’t take much rain. We would either have to figure out how to reschedule games or we would have to use a lot of (infield) drying agents, which is expensive.” All that may change this year as Kennworth is nearing completion of more than $3 million worth of renovations that was paid for through the 2011 special purpose local options sales tax (SPLOST). There are 77 parks in Cobb County that have benefitted, or will benefit, from the 172 projects funded by the 2011 SPLOST, and Kennworth is one of the biggest beneficiaries. The park has seen all five of its softball infields resurfaced, and now that French drains have been installed, the Kennworth Recreation Association, and Kennworth Bandits softball organization, will not have to worry about lost games because of the weather. Other portions of the project included construction of new dugouts, new concession stands with an outdoor grill area, stainless steel prep tables and shelving and new restrooms. New sidewalks have been poured, backstops have been raised and new scoreboards have been installed — and that’s just for softball. Kennworth’s tennis center is now in a brand new building and all the lighting has new posts, fixtures and underground wiring. For the Kennworth Recreation Association, there are hopes the improvements will lead to additional players and teams calling the park their home. For Cobb County, that is a goal, but the safety of all those using Kennworth and all the parks was a main reason for the construction projects. “One of our first priorities was the replacement of failing wooden cross tie retaining walls. The old crosstie walls had become a safety problem in several parks, and we completed their replacement with concrete block walls in advance of other projects in those same parks,” said Tom Bills, Cobb County’s senior project manager of construction. “In a couple of cases, the new walls yielded parallel benefits such as additional parking and additional level ground for athletic practice areas.” The largest project that is being completed with 2011

* A sample of improvements from the 77 county parks

PARK, 3FF

Top: Players can relax and still watch all the action on the courts in the new tennnis center building at Kennworth Park. Middle: Tommy Murray with Integrated Construction and Nobility Inc. places anchors in the new dugout benches as part of Kennworth’s $3 million renovation project. Above: As part of the Kennworth Park project, all five fields got new scoreboards. Cover photo: Kennworth Park Recreation Association Vice President Evio ‘Ed’ Deoliveira and President Michael Dycus look over the resurfaced softball fields. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

SPORTS Right: Former Atlanta Braves pitcher, and Walker School standout, David Hale, center, current Braves outfielder Mallex Smith and hitting coach Kevin Seitzer celebrate the dedication of improvements made to Fullers Park’s baseball field in honor of Hall of Famer Chipper Jones last month. Below: The Fullers Park baseball field also received new lighting and underground wiring as part of the 2011 SPLOST improvements. / Staff-Kathryn Ingall

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

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PARK From 2FF SPLOST funds is to Wild Horse Creek Park in Powder Springs. A new family aquatic center, which will include a lazy river and water slides is expected to be open by Memorial Day. The two football field will also be refurbished, and the BMX bike racing track will be relocated. New concession stands will also be built. Expected cost of the project is $6.9 million. Overall, Bills said the Cobb County Parks system has more than 7,000,000 visits per year, and the organization is expecting that number to go up once all the projects are completed. “The renovations and upgrades have been overwhelmingly embraced by our users and visitors,” Bill said. “For example, we have received hundreds of positive comments and appreciation for the air and water quality improvements that the SPLOST funded projects delivered in our four indoor aquatic centers. “We have seen a marked increase in requests for tournament slots for adult softball at the soon to be completed Al Bishop Softball Complex, as well as for soccer tournaments at Noonday Creek Park. “We strongly believe that the improvements we have made, and continue to make, will result over time in the increased user numbers.” While the 2011 SPLOST funds have been an initial boon to park renovations in the county, improvements and larger projects will be tackled in the future thanks to the passing of the 2016 SPLOST. The recent passing new SPLOST will bring in an expected addition of $77.6 million to the parks system. One of the large projects that the new funds will be used for includes the completion of upgrades to the electrical, water, sewer and communication systems at Jim Miller Park. The master plan comes at a cost of $18.2 million and was begun with funds from the 2011 SPLOST. There will also be three new community recreation centers that will be built — one in Acworth, Kennesaw and one near Osborne High School — that will house gyms, areas for arts and crafts, game rooms and rentable areas for meetings. “Several of the projects will be joint projects with the cities, which will address currently underserved areas for recreation and community centers,” Bills said. “We will begin development of a handful of passive parks (undeveloped land designated for park construction) on land purchased under the 2006 Parks Bond Program. We will design and install a number of synthetic turf athletic fields that will support enhanced programming capabilities, and will pay for themselves over time in maintenance savings. We will also be able to continue the general park improvements and paving upgrades that we have started in the 2011 SPLOST.”

4FF

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

RUNNING

Above: Runners line up before the start of the 10K race of the 12th Annual Gobble Jog in downtown Marietta on Thanksgiving. The Gobble Jog will be back for its 13th installment in 2015. Below: Ryan Burruss won the Gobble Jog 10K last year. / Staff-C.B. Schmelter

Running enthusiasts have plenty of race options for 2015 CHRIS RAIMONDI MDJ Sports Writer

The crown jewel of the road races in Cobb County is the Gobble Jog held every Thanksgiving in Marietta. The race drew 8,600 runners despite bitter cold temperatures last year and raised approximately $600,000 for Must Ministries. But, if you are a fan of the 5K and 10K runs, you FOR A won’t have to wait until LIST OF Thanksgiving to get in RACES your miles. FOR Runners in the Cobb 2015, SEE area have a long list of PAGE 6FF races to compete in this year including a pair of summer triathlons in Acworth. There are 47 confirmed races in the County for 2015, and the list is still growing. Kennesaw State University’s athletic complex is set to host three events: two 5K’s and a kids run sponsored by the Atlanta Track Club and its youth program, Kilometer Kids. Those who have been training for that one big challenge can look no further than Lake Allatoona. The PT Solutions Allatoona Triathlon, June 28, will launch from Dallas Landing Park in Acworth, and comprise a 500-meter swim, 16-mile bike ride and then finish with a 5K. The event is suitable for beginners and veterans of the triathlon community. All runners will receive rewards for completing the event while the top three finishers for men and women of different age groups will be honored with awards. The Acworth Women Sprint Triathlon, Aug. 2, is a USA Triathlon sanctioned event sponsored by Ovarian Cycle, Inc. Participants will enjoy a 400-yard swim, 13-mile bike ride and a 5K. The triathlon will also launch from Dallas Landing and will award the top three finishers from different age groups. All registration information and event rules for both triathlons can be found at www.ptssports.com and gamultisports.com. The Kilometer Kids Fun Run-Kennesaw is the first time the program has scheduled and event in Cobb County. The race will include a one mile fun run for children ages 7-14 and a 50 meter dash for kids 6 and under. The April 28 event is free and open to the public.

Parents interested in having their kids join the Kilometer Kids program must have their child registered before March 4. The program has four races in the spring season, and, according to Todd Liscomb from the Atlanta Track Club, Kilometer Kids could schedule another race in Cobb for the fall season based on the Kennesaw race’s success. The Bacon Run is coming to Marietta Oct. 10 and is a 5K for pork lovers. Free bacon will be on hand and participants receive a free T-shirt. This is the second year the event will be held in Marietta’s Jim Miller Park. Other notable road races happening in Cobb in 2015 include the XTERRA Georgia Allatoona Creek 15K/5K and Trail Running Race. Cobb will also host five races all occurring on April 18 including Austell’s Run with the Mayor 5K, the Battle of Allatoona Creek Trail Run, Acworth, the Fallen Officer 5K, Powder Springs, the Hunter’s Helping Hands 5K, Marietta, and the I Am That Hero 5K in Kennesaw.

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SPORTS

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

5FF

KENNESAW STATE FOOTBALL

S P O R T S

K SCHEDULE E ♦ September 3 N Time: 7:30 p.m. N at East Tennessee State E ♦ September 12 TBD S Time: vs Edward Waters A September 19 W ♦Time: TBD vs Shorter

S T A T E F O O T B A L L

♦ September 26 Time: TBD at Dayton ♦ October 10 Time: TBD vs Point ♦ October 17 Time: TBD vs Gardner Webb ♦ October 24 TBD at Liberty ♦ October 31 Time: TBD vs Monmouth ♦ November 7 Time: TBD vs Charleston Southern ♦ November 14 Time: TBD at Coastal Carolina ♦ November 21 Time: TBD at Presbyterian

Raymone Jennings, left, tries to track down former Sprayberry standout Prentice Stone during Kennesaw State’s fall scrimmage. The Owls will be back on the field for spring practice next month, which will conclude with the ‘Black and Gold’ spring game March 28. / Staff - Jeff Stanton

FLY, OWLS, FLY

KSU football is nearing final countdown to kickoff, but still plenty of work to be done JOHN BEDNAROWSKI sportseditor@mdjonline.com

KENNESAW — With just over 190 days left until kickoff, the Kennesaw State football team is rounding into shape. The Owls had fall practice. They just signed their second class of recruits and spring football is getting ready to start. But just because the players are on the field, doesn’t mean the program can cruise into the fall. There is still a lot of work to do. The first big test will be the March 28 “Black and Gold” spring game, not just for the players, but for all the behind the scenes activities that make a game day possible. “We want everyone to come to the game,” Kennesaw State athletic director Vaughn Williams said. “We want them to sit in their seats, we want them to eat the food and we want them to tailgate. We get a chance to roll everything out.” Following the spring game, Williams said a survey will be sent to fans to gauge their

initial Kennesaw State football experience. “We want to hear from fans,” he said. “What happened? We want them to give us feedback.” Williams said he also wants to figure out how the football program can continue to reach out to potential future fans and players. “We want to get additional groups involved,” he said. “Youth football is important, but with the limited amount of seating, we may need to figure out how we can go to them instead of them coming to us.” In addition to game day experience, there are still some infrastructure items that need to be completed, including new signage within the stadium and the construction of a temporary press box. On the field, spring football begins March 2 and coach Brian Bohannon is still in new program mode.

“We are still in a position where everything we do is still the first time it’s been done,” he said. “We’re still trying to get (players’) school schedules and figuring out the best time to have practice. There are a lot of logistics. We still have to plan fall camp, plan how we will travel and just figure out a day-today schedule. Both Williams and Bohannon agree that getting to this stage has been a long wait, but as the days count down, Kennesaw State football is more of a reality than only the idea it used to be. “As it gets closer, we want to get it going, but now that it’s coming fast I wish we could put a few more days back on the calendar,” Williams said, wanting to make sure everything is as good as it can get. “It’s something you can almost touch now,” Bohannon said.

6FF

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

SPORTS

PROGRESS GOLF

ROUNDS AND ROUNDS WE GO

Canton club pro Bill Murchison and the best professional players in the state will be back at Pinetree Country Club in Kennesaw again in August for the Tilted Kilt Georgia Open. /Staff-Kelly J.

Big tournaments, big deals await Cobb players for golf season CARLTON WHITE

cwhite@mdjonline.com

Twice a year, fans flock to Georgia to see some of the best players in the world take on the golf courses at The Masters in Augusta and the Tour Championship of the PGA at East Lake in Atlanta. Often, other national events take place at various courses throughout the state, and the United States Golf Association and the Georgia State Golf Association hold important tournaments in Georgia throughout the year to not only determine state champions, but also to send players to compete for national titles. Locally, three important tournaments will take place in Cobb County this season, including the Georgia Mid-Amateur Championship at Marietta County Club, a U.S. Mid-Amateur Qualifier at Cobblestone Golf Course and the Tilted Kilt Georgia Open at Pinetree Country Club. The Georgia Mid-Amateur is scheduled for May 15-17, while the U.S. Mid-Amateur Qualifier is set for Sept. 9. The Tilted Kilt Georgia Open is Aug. 6-9. “We beg for these types of events,” Cobblestone head pro Steve Wagner

S P O R T S

G O L F

said. “We expect the course to be in great shape when everyone arrives. Anytime we can get events like this to come to our club, it’s great for us and the community and it’s great PR for our brand.” While fans await to gather and spectate and players look forward to participating, local public courses like Cobblestone as well as City Club Marietta, Legacy/Fox Creek and Dogwood are gearing up with specials and promotions to entice area golfers throughout the year to come out and enjoy themselves. All of the clubs offer variations on camps and classes for junior and adult golfers who want to learn how to play the sport or improve their knowledge of golf. Most classes or clinics are offered once a week — fees vary by course — and camps give junior golfers opportunities to make friends like one would at other camps and to learn along side other promising golfers. Cobblestone recently instituted a lesson series for new golfers that focuses on families. “We put it together so families can learn together as a group and get a lesson package,” said Steve Wagner, the head golf professional at Cobblestone. “We

♦ Atlanta Country Club (private) 500 Atlanta Country Club Drive Marietta, GA 30067 (770) 953-2100 www.atlantacountryclub.org Head Pro: Scott Schroeder Greens Fees: N/A

♦ Brookstone Golf and Country Club (private) 5705 Brookstone Drive Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 425-8500 www.brookstonecc.com Head Pro: Mark Avery Greens Fees: N/A ♦ City Club Marietta (public) 510 Powder Springs Street Marietta, GA 30064 (770) 528-4653 www.cityclubmarietta.com Head Teaching Instructor: Dan Mullins Head Pro: Justin Osborne

S P O R T S

have clubs they can use and introduce the whole family to the game. We’ll launch the marketing for it soon by early spring.” Cobblestone wants to be ready to go once golf season begins. The club overseeded its fairways and tee boxes in January so the grass will be green on time. “It helps during the growing season,” Wagner said. “The grass comes back faster.” The club has also started selling more equipment such as clubs and shoes out of its pro shop. “Retail stores really dominate in this area,” Wagner said. “But, what we’re offering are shoes and bags and clubs on a more custom level. Buying from us also allows our members to collect points and get rewards towards other purchases. We’re

bringing back every facet of the game so our members don’t have to go anywhere else.” According to its website, City Club Marietta offers a free round of golf on your birthday if you register to participate in their “eClub.” Registration is available online. The club regularly offers specials and golf promotions to registered members, and all of the information collected in the eClub is used only to provide members’ golf specials and promotions. City Club also offers a loyalty program for golfers who frequent the course as well as a newsletter that provides information on events, news and tournaments at the facility. There are food and beverage specials, too. City Club also offers range plans similar to a pre-

paid card that allows cheaper rates for golfers. The courses at Legacy and Fox Creek are executive courses, however, they aren’t regulation length, and they are shorter than normal. Legacy is actually shorter than Fox Creek, which is the only difference between the two. The two courses are managed equally as far as the specials and promotions offered. Two different staffs, however, help to manage them. Each golf course offers promotions and specials for members and non-members, and scheduling tee times can often be done on the golf clubs’ website. Legacy and Fox Creek junior summer camps and clinics and adult beginner golf classes will also help golfers improve their play on the links. The adult beginner courses offer four weeks of

one and a half lessons that teach beginning golfers the basics on how to play. Dogwood is a unique hybrid club that allows public use Monday through Thursday and private members only are allowed on the weekends. The club recently renovated its greens and offers online tee-time reservations. Dogwood’s amenities include a driving range and a practice green. Gift cards are also available. The Marietta Golf Center, which is a driving range, provides Spring, summer and fall five-week clinics for ages 5-7, 8-12, 13-17 and 18-and-over, according to its website. Clinics teach the basic skills of traditional golf using modified equipment that allows a child to transfer proper mechanics to regular clubs.

COBB COUNTY GOLF COURSES AND DRIVING RANGES

♦ Bentwater Golf Club (Private) 100 Golf Links Drive Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 529-9554 www.canongategolf.com Head Pro: Colby Lunsford Director of Instruction: Justin Tackett Greens Fees: N/A

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Huff

Greens Fees: $48 (Monday through Friday), $58 (weekends/ holidays) Twilight rate plans and times vary by season. Please check website for details ♦ Cobblestone Golf Course (public) 4200 Nance Road Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 917-5152 www.cobblestonegolf.com Head Pro: Steve Wagner Greens Fees: $56.50 (Monday through Friday), $65 (weekends/holidays) Twilight rate plans and times vary by season. Please check website for details ♦ Dogwood Golf Club (semi-private) 4207 Flint Hill Road Austell, GA 30106 (770) 941-2202 www.dogwoodgolf.org Head Pro: Chris Brown Golf Teaching Pro: Dave Moffett Greens Fees: $48 (Monday through Thursday), private on weekends Twilight rate plans and times vary by season. Please check for website for details ♦ Fox Creek Golf Club & Driving Range (public) 1501 Windy Hill Road Smyrna, GA 30080 (770) 435-1000

www.legacyfoxcreek.com General Manager: Al Morrison Greens Fees: $26 (weekdays), $29 (weekends) Senior, Lady, Student and Junior rates area also offered. Twilight rate plans and times vary by season. Please check website for details ♦ Governor’s Towne Club (private) 4200 Governors Towne Drive Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 966-5353 www.governorstowneclub.com Head Pro: TBD Greens Fees: N/A ♦ Indian Hills Country Club (private) 4001 Clubland Drive Marietta, GA 30068 (770) 971-2605 www.indianhillscc.com Dir. of Golf: Lance Cantrell Greens Fees: N/A ♦ Legacy Golf Links & Driving Range (public) 1825 Windy Hill Road Smyrna, GA 30080 (770) 434-6331 www.legacyfoxcreek.com General Manager: Al Morrison Greens Fees: $20 (everyday) Junior rates area also offered. Twilight rate plans and times vary by season. Please check website for details

♦ Marietta Country Club (private) 1400 Marietta Country Club Drive Kennesaw, GA 30152 (770) 426-1808 www.mariettacountryclub.org Head Pro: Stephen Keppler Greens Fees: N/A ♦ Pinetree Country Club (private) 3400 McCollum Parkway NW Kennesaw, GA 30144 (770) 422-5902 www.pinetreecc.org Head Pro: Rob Williams Greens Fees: N/A Driving Ranges ♦ Marietta Golf Center 1701 Gresham Road, NE Marietta, GA (770) 977-1997 www.mariettagolfcenter.com Bucket of balls - 35 for $5, 55 for $7, 80 for $9, 110 for $11, 135 for $13. Senior pricing also available. Check website for details. ♦ Legacy Golf Links 1825 Windy Hill Road, SE Smyrna, GA 30080 (770) 434-6331 www.legacyfoxcreek.com Call for prices

2015 COBB ROAD RACES ♦ Cobb road races 2015: Dates finalized Jan. 31 Polar Bear 5K, Marietta Feb. 7 PTS Sports Cupid Chase 5K, Acworth Run for the Son 5K/10K, Powder Springs Feb. 8 Locomotive Thunder Half Marathon and 5K, Kennesaw Feb. 14 Amazing Grace Race, Marietta Marietta 5K Mardi Gras Run, Marietta Feb. 21 REI Run Series Atlanta Frigid 5K, Acworth Walton Raider Chase, Marietta Feb. 28 Lost Mountain 5K, Powder Springs Peak On The Creek 5K Run/Walk, Powder Springs March 1 Marietta Run for Mercy 5K & Family Walk, Marietta March 7 Cobb Superhero 5K, Marietta Founder’s Day 5K, Kennesaw State University Spring into Education 5K, Kennesaw March 8 Chasing Moonlight- 5K in Paradise, Kennesaw March 14 Shamrock Run 5K, Kennesaw State University Silver Comet 10K, Mableton March 22 Super Hero 5K, Kennesaw March 28 Gator Gallop 5K, Marietta Spring Chicken Run, Powder Springs April 5 Legs & Eggs 5K, Marietta April 11 Maria’s Spring Fling Run for Epilepsy, Kennesaw April 18 Austell’s Run With The Mayor 5K, Austell Battle of Allatoona Creek Trail Run, Acworth Fallen Officer 5K, Powder Springs Hunter’s Helping Hands 5K/1K, Marietta I Am That Hero 5K, Kennesaw April 25 Barber Band on the Run, Acworth Cumberland Christian Academy Community Cupcake Run, Powder Springs LGE Foundation 5K, Kennesaw Sope Creek 5K, Marietta April 28 Kilometer Kids Run & Dash, Kennesaw State Univeristy

May 2 Run the Sounds of Life 5K/1K, Marietta May 9 Durham Derby 5K, Acworth May 16 Mableton Day 5K, Mableton May 17 Loco Glo 5K, Kennesaw May 30 Sweet Tea 5K, Powder Springs June 13 The Summer Steamer 10K/5K, Kennesaw June 28 PT Solutions Allatoona Triathlon, Acworth Aug. 2 Acworth Women Sprint Triathlon, Acworth Aug. 15 XTERRA Georgia Allatoona Creek 15K/5K Trail Running Race Aug. 22 Di Dash 5K, Marietta Sept. 26 Calvary 5K, Powder Springs Oct. 3 Habitat Road Race, Marietta Oct. 10 Muddy Brute Challenge, Smyrna The Bacon Run, Marietta Nov. 7 Flavor Run, Marietta ♦ Races without finalized dates as of Feb. 15 Listed with their 2014 dates March 8, 2014 Owls 5K, Kennesaw April 26, 2014 Cumberland Christian Academy Community Cupcake Run, Powder Springs Hightower 5K Husky Hustle, Marietta Jonquil City Jog 5K, Smyrna Run for the Ages, Powder Springs Sope Creek 5K, Marietta May 3, 2014 Durham Derby 5K Run/Walk, Acworth McCleskey Middle School Dragon Dash 5K Trail Run, Marietta Run To The Summit 5K, Acworth Running with the Bulldogs, Kennesaw White Out Run for A Voice 5K, Marietta May 4, 2014 Cinco Loco 5K, Acworth

May 10, 2014 Operation: Soldier At Ease 5K, Marietta Run for Hope 5K, Marietta Swift Cantrell Classic, Kennesaw May 17, 2014 Healthy Moves 5K, Marietta May 26, 2014 Memorial Day 5K/10K, Marietta June 14, 2014 Dream Dash 5K, Kennesaw Single Parents 5K, Kennesaw June 21, 2014 Step Up for M.E. 5K, Marietta June 28, 2014 Summer Solstice 5K Trail Run, Acworth July 11, 2014 Chick-fila-A Race Series, Vinings July 12, 2014 Faith Cline Elf Trot and Merry Mile, Kennesaw July 19, 2014 5K On The Farm, Powder Springs July 26, 2014 Georgia Games Run For Life, Kennesaw Aug. 2, 2014 Run for Equality 5K, Marietta Run for Wounded Warriors, Kennesaw Aug. 9, 2014 Dog Days Run 5K, Marietta East Cobb Kids Triathlon, Marietta East Cobb Super Spring Triathlon, Marietta Miles-4-Major 5K Race, Marietta Aug. 23, 2014 Di Dash 5K, Marietta Aug. 30, 2014 Celebrate Freedom 5K/10K, Marietta Sept. 1, 2014 Holy Smoke 5K, Marietta Labor Day Be Your Own Hero 5K/10K, Kennesaw Sept. 6, 2014 Great Locomotive Chase 5K, Kennesaw Sept. 13, 2014 Assault on Kennesaw Mountain, Kennesaw Miles 4 Missions 5K, Marietta World of Champs 5K Champion Challenge, Marietta Sept. 14, 2014 Iron Horse 15K and the 5K Express, Kennesaw Sept. 20, 2014 GSO 5K Noteworthy Race, Kennesaw Hot Lips Hustle 5K, Marietta Sept. 21, 2014 Lakeview Back to Health 5K, Powder Springs

Lakeview’s Race Back to Health Fun Run, Powder Springs Sept. 27, 2014 Red Hare Chase, Marietta Run for Recovery 5K, Kennesaw Warrior Way 5K, Kennesaw Oct. 4, 2014 Athletes Helping Athletes 5K Run, Kennesaw Cobb County 5K, Marietta Glow the Mall Pink Midnight Madness 5K, Kennesaw Tutus for Tatas KSU 5K, Kennesaw Oct. 11, 2014 Hillgrove High School Navy JROTC 5K Fundraiser, Powder Springs Tim Crunk Memorial 5K, Acworth Oct. 18, 2014 Spooktacular Chase, Smyrna Superheroes vs. Villains 5K, Marietta Oct. 25, 2014 Irish Dash, Marietta Silver Comet Races, Mableton The Due West Dash, Marietta Nov. 1, 2014 Garden Gallop, Kennesaw Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Cobb County 5K, Marietta Mission Run 5K, Marietta Pickett’s Mill Elementary School Foundation Fun Run, Acworth Nov. 2, 2014 Anything Is Possible 5K, Kennesaw Nov. 8, 2014 Extreme Family Field Day, Powder Springs Tritt Trot, Marietta Nov. 15, 2014 Greyhound Gallop, Marietta Miles for Maria Epic 6/12/24 hour Run for Epilepsy, Kennesaw Nov. 23, 2014 Mustache Dache, Marietta Nov. 27, 2014 Gobble Jog 10K/5K, Marietta Nov. 30, 2014 Santa Run 5K, Kennesaw Dec. 6, 2014 Ford Elementary Foundation Jingle Jog 5K, Acworth Run the Lights of Life 5K, Marietta Dec. 13, 2014 Sleigh bells on the Square 5K, Marietta Dec. 20, 2014 Powder Springs Polar Run, Powder Springs Dates subject to change

SPORTS

PROGRESS

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

7FF

TENNIS

S P O R T S

T E N N I S

TENNIS CENTERS ♦ Baskin McGill Academy East Cobb Swim and Tennis Center 2111 Old Canton Road Marietta, GA (770) 424-1576 ♦ Fair Oaks Tennis Center 1460 West Booth Road Ext. SW Marietta, GA 30008 (770) 528-8480 ♦ Harrison Park Tennis Center 2653 Shallowford Rd Marietta, GA 30066 (770) 591-3151 ♦ Indian Hills Country Club 4001 Clubland Dr. Marietta, GA 30068 770-971-2605. ♦ Kennworth Tennis Center 3900 South Main Street NW Acworth, GA 30101 (770) 917-5160 ♦ Laurel Park 151 Manning Rd SW Marietta, GA 30064 (770) 919-8602 ♦ Lost Mountain Tennis Center 4845 Dallas Highway Powder Springs , GA 30127 (770) 528-8525 ♦ Olde Towne Athletic Club 4950 Olde Towne Pkwy Marietta, GA 30068 ♦ Sweetwater Tennis Center 2447 Clay Road Austell, GA 30106 (770) 819-3221 ♦ Terrell Mill Tennis Center 480 Terrell Mill Road Marietta, GA 30067 (770) 644-2771

Jerry Baskin, left, offers swing instruction to Chase Smith during practice at the East Cobb Swim and Tennis Center. Baskin and his children opened the Baskin McGill Academy two years ago and they are teaching some of the best young players in Georgia. / Staff-Kelly J. Huff

BASKIN CASE

Well-known instructor helping build next class of American tennis ADAM CARRINGTON

acarrington@mdjonline.com

Well-known local tennis coach Jerry Baskin is not retiring any time soon. He’s got a nice gig going in east Cobb. After serving as a partial owner with tennis professional Robby Ginepri at Olde Towne Athletic Club, he launched the Baskin McGill Academy at the East Cobb Swim and Tennis Center nearly two years ago with his son, Craig, and daughter, Kelly Baskin McGill. Baskin has 45 juniors and 30 youngsters in the academy, a number that Baskin is content with. Although he had to turn away players in the past, he will have to replace more than 10 seniors either this summer or fall. One of his strengths as a coach is getting to know his players personally, and a total of 75 players makes it much easier for him to keep track. He had a more difficult time keeping up with students at his academy at Olde

Towne with well over 100 players participating. “I feel that tennis is a game of relationships,” Baskin said. “I try to guide players on and off the court as well. Another great thing happening here is that the kids never complain who they hit with.” Baskin, who was named to the inaugural class of Team USA Coaching Legends last year along with coaching legend Nick Bolletieri and Robert Lansdorf and well-known junior coach Jack Sharpe, is also a great listener and imitator. He often gets ideas when listening to other pros teach and puts his own slant on it. He coached Robby Ginepri, who made the semifinals in the U.S. Open in 2005. He also helped develop former Harrison High School standout Bobby Reynolds and Brian Vahaly. He was also a 2004 Georgia Tennis Hall of Fame inductee and the 2002 United States Committee Coach of the Year.

A big portion of the group currently plays on both the Walton boys and girls tennis teams. The Walton girls are favored to win state for the third straight year and the boys have the potential to win one as well. Baskin also has a large group of home-school players and his staff will drill players every day, starting at 1 p.m. Much of Baskin’s time on court is used to helping junior players develope a stroke that can be used as a weapon, and honing their weaker shots. He will also individualize drills based on a player’s strengths and weaknesses. When a tournament draws near, Baskin shifts his focus to helping players with their midcourt games, where routine put-away shots and overheads are often missed. “You have to hit the ball without fear,” Baskin said. “You have to execute from that area of the court because matches are often won and lost on the midcourt.”

8FF

SUNDAY, FEB. 22, 2015

PROGRESS

SPORTS