Pavers to help fund pocket project Holtville’s Futral Alabama principal of the year

By CLIFF WILLIAMS Staff Writer

schoolwide assembly at Holtville High School. Elmore County Superintendent Richard Dennis was in attendance for the presentation.

Main Street Wetumpka is creating a pocket park to help further tell the story of Wetumpka’s unique history.

“Kyle Futral is an exceptional principal and is very proactive and innovative in his thinking and approaches to managing his school,” Dennis said, As principal of Holtville High School, Futral has transformed

The idea is to create small stops around town providing information and a reason for people to spend more time in town. The Fall Line Pocket Park is already under construction in phases.

“It is between Coaches Corner and the new Kelly Building,” Main Street Wetumpka director Haley Greene said. the school culture from that of a school struggling with low morale, achievement and attendance to a school that strives for excellence. By collaborating with staff, many of the school’s issues were identified and addressed. Futral’s leadership style of listening, encouraging, supporting, organizing and challenging the staff and students, caused the school culture to

“The fence is already there. We have been doing it increments, because we have to have funding to do it.”

Greene said Main Street is not waiting for a brick paver fundraiser to be completed to do more work.

“We just cleaned up the view a little bit,” Greene said. “The plaques will be going up in December. Five educational plaques will be going in December.” shift in a positive direction. The school experienced a 62 percent decrease in discipline referrals, 50 percent decrease in chronic absenteeism, 7 percent increase in the graduation rate, 33 percent increase in CCR rate and a 20 percent increase in ACT proficiency in the last five years.

Pavers are currently on sale. They are similar to the ones in The Alleyway. Small pavers are currently $50 and larger ones are $100.

“They will go up in price at the start of the new year,” Greene said. “We hope to start on the construction drawings in January.”

The pavers will help pay for drawings and other needed construction at the small park.

See PRINCIPAL, Page A3

Celebration

Continued from A1 was really good. We are hoping this year is just as good, hopefully better.”

This year’s parade will start at 6 p.m. at the Wetumpka Farmers Market, cross the

Bibb Graves Bridge, go through downtown and then down South Main Street to the civic center.

After the parade Santa will ski the Coosa River at 7:30 p.m. with fireworks to follow.

But the day starts much earlier for Christmas on the Coosa with what Johnson calls one of the best events of the day — Character Breakfast at the Civic Center.

“It is so large we have it in two sessions,” Johnson said. “There are 300 kids and parents per session. That is 600 people that we feed. There will be Disney characters, superheroes and more. They interact with the children and color with them. There are also photos with Santa sponsored by Wetumpka Pharmacy.” Goldstar Park will be filled with arts and crafts and food vendors and entertainment from noon to 7:30 p.m.

“Normally we have between 85 and 100 art and food vendors,” Johnson said.

There will be a car show at The Wetumpka Depot from noon to 3 p.m. with cash prizes. Children’s activities such as inflatables and carnival games will be in

Goldstar Park from noon to 4 p.m.

“We have a full day of activities,” Johnson said. “There is something for everyone to do all day long. We encourage lawn chairs. We will have food and arts and crafts. Anything you want we will have it.”

Thrift Store

Continued from A1 insecure in Elmore County.

“There are more than 11,000 people in Elmore County that have insufficient food supply,” Dozier said. “We serve about 600 families on the rolls here.”

Dozier said, on average, about 400 of those families pick up a food box from the pantry monthly.

Dozier and the rest of the Elmore County Food Pantry board are hopeful everyone will follow the thrift store to its permanent location.

“We have anything from furniture to clothing to TVs, VCRs, DVDs, records, movies, CDs, Christmas items, just about anything you can imagine,” Dozier said.

The thrift store also takes donations to be sorted, sold or recycled.

“We go through it and sort it,” Dozier said. “The stuff we can not sell we sell to a third party by the pound and if they cannot use it, it may end up in a third world country somewhere. Any metal we cannot salvage, we sell it for scrap.”

According to Dozier, the food pantry got its start in Wetumpka about 14 years ago.

“It was a project of a local church,” Dozier said. “It grew so fast the Leadership Elmore County group that year took it on as a project, coordinating with the church, got them a building on South Main Street at the old feed store building. It stayed there until about six years ago.

We were able to purchase the building the food pantry is in on West Boundary Street, right off Coosa River Parkway.”

And Dozier has been volunteering with the food pantry almost as