The Marietta school board is using $2 million from its Building Fund to jump-start construction on top of the bond money. The bonds, in turn, hopefully will be paid off with revenues from an extension of the 1 percent Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax next year.
The 750-seat auditorium would house visual arts, dancers, actors, vocalists, the band and orchestra. It also would serve the system as a setting for competitions and staff development events, according to Superintendent Dr. Emily Lembeck.
The project would remedy what many “True Blue” Mariettans see as a major shortcoming — the fact that MHS is the only high school in Cobb that lacks an auditorium.
So to the brass that will be lined up shovels in hand on Thursday, we say, “Dig in!”
MARIETTA WARD 4 City Council candidate Andy Morris will hold his inaugural fundraiser on Sunday at arguably the most notable location of any of this year’s fundraisers — “Tranquilla,” the columned antebellum mansion on Kennesaw Avenue now owned by Greg and Beth Griffin. Co-sponsors of the 5 to 7 p.m. event are JoAnna and Paul Conyngham, Kathy and Wyman Pilcher and Carrie and Jud Thompson.
Morris served on council from 2002-05 after defeating Van Pearlberg by six votes. Pearlberg is now running for Cobb Superior Court and his wife, Patti, is running for his old seat.
Morris’s father, Luke, served on council in the 1950s and his grandfather, Mace Morris, was Marietta’s first paid fire chief.
Morris says his top issues are supporting WellStar’s planned expansions; redevelopment; and preservation. The candidate and his wife, Donya, have three children each and 14 grandchildren. He’s a 1965 MHS grad and works as an independent subcontractor doing Section 8 Housing inspections. Bill Campbell of Marietta Mortgage is chairing his campaign and his sister, Nancy Morris Dorsey, is his treasurer.
THE COBB DEMOCRATIC WOMEN will host “An Evening in the Daylily Garden” from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday at Bill and Diana Waldrop’s Kennesaw Mountain Daylily Gardens, 310 McDaniel Road in Marietta.
POLITICS: Former state Sen. Chuck Clay (R-Marietta), who was the beneficiary of a trial balloon floated by a friend last month who told Around Town that the former west Cobb Commissioner was seriously thinking of running for chairman, tells AT he has no plans to do so due to the competing demands of his job and helping play dad to four young boys. … And Marietta Mayor Steve Tumlin, who last summer was weighing a run for chair, officially ruled out any such move.
“I just am not as enamored with the rest of the county as I am with Marietta,” he told Around Town. “Serving as mayor is a true labor of love.”
Meanwhile, you’ll recall that former east Cobb Commissioner Thea Powell, one of the early possibilities mentioned last year as a potential foe for incumbent Chair Tim Lee, took herself out of the running after accepting a new job as development director for St. Jude’s Recovery Center in downtown Atlanta. She resigned from that job in March, so now that she has time on her hands is she getting “political fever” again?
“Not at this juncture,” she told Around Town on Monday. “I’m supporting (chairman candidate) Mike Boyce.”
Added Powell, “I think a lot of people don’t realize that it will be a done deal by the end of the primary July 31st. They don’t have until fall to start paying attention. Maybe after qualifying is over and the field is set, they’ll start paying attention.” …
Meanwhile, there’ll be competing fundraisers Thursday for two candidates seeking to be the next Cobb Commission chairman. Bill Byrne will host a fundraiser from 5to 7 p.m. Thursday at Schillings on the Square. And candidate Larry Savage will host a fundraiser from 6-9 p.m. Thursday at the Paper Mill Grille, 305 Village Parkway in east Cobb. …
B.J. and Parri Abbott will host a fundraiser Saturday for Cobb Juvenile Court Judge Greg Poole, who’s running for Cobb Superior Court, reports spokesman Jon Hutson. The Backyard Caribbean Buffett will take place from 2-5 p.m. at 91 Hermitage Court in Powder Springs, with the food provided by Iron Horse Restaurant. … And Scott Smith of Cobb County KIA and state Sen. Judson Hill (R-east Cobb) will co-host a fundraiser for Poole from 5:30-7:30 p.m. May 22 at The Atlanta Country Club.
COBB RESIDENTS won’t just be voting on TSPLOST and a new commission chairman on July 31, but also on whether to authorize Sunday alcohol sales in unincorporated Cobb. A judge canceled the results of the March 6 referendum on those sales and ordered the July 31 revote, saying that all county voters should be allowed to vote, not just those who live in unincorporated Cobb. The judge acted in response to a suit filed by Marietta lawyer Justin O’Dell on behalf of plaintiff Roger Hines. That has meant an extra five months of “dry” Sundays in unincorporated Cobb, five months in which those who are thirsty likely had to find relief elsewhere.
Joked O’Dell to Around Town on Thursday, “I’m still waiting on that nice ‘Thank you basket’ from ‘the Fulton County Package Dealers Association.’”
NOTING that a recent MDJ story on the renovation of Hickory Hills Park included effusive quotes from Marietta Councilman Johnny Sinclair about the makeover, one wag noted to Around Town last week, “I wonder if Johnny still opposes the parks bond?” Sinclair was a leading opponent of the city’s $25 million parks bond passed by voters in 2009.
PEOPLE: United Community Bank and the Chattahoochee Tech Foundation will hold a reception for new Chattahoochee Technical College President Dr. Ron Newcomb from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Strand Theatre. … Apologies to Southern Polytechnic State University student Brandon Camadine, recipient of this year’s Fred and Drucilla Beck Scholarship from the Marietta Kiwanis Club, whose name was inadvertently left out of Sunday’s column that listed the names of the winners.
FORMER Gov. Roy Barnes will share memories of growing up in then-rural Mableton and stories of his early political career on Thursday evening, when he’ll be the special guest at the Marietta Museum of History’s “Evening with History.” Barnes’s talk will begin at 7 p.m. ...
Five Marietta and Cobb County organizations will host a reception Monday to showcase their strides in historic preservation. Sponsors are Landmarks & Historical Society, Cobb Preservation Foundation, Marietta Historic Preservation Commission, Cobb County Historic Preservation Commission and Marietta Historic Board of Review, reports Becky Paden. The event will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the historic Anderson House at 65 Whitlock Ave. The public is invited. ... Maj. Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the final surviving crewmember of the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, will be featured at a two-day book-signing event this weekend at the Aviation Wing of the Marietta Museum of History. Van Kirk will be on hand from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday signing copies of his book, “My True Course: Northumberland to Hiroshima.” There is no admission fee to the Wing site, but there will be a $5 parking fee on both days.
A LEMONADE STAND FUNDRAISER for cystic fibrosis will be held from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday at 180 Freyer Drive by the “Kids on Freyer Drive” in honor of their former neighbor, Gavin Bartlett. Gavin, his brother Sebastian and, parents Nikki and Toby Bartlett lived in Cherokee Heights on Seminole Drive and recently moved to Charlotte. The “Kids on Freyer” have held the fundraiser for the past six years raising approximately $5,000, reports neighbor Laing Heidt. Some 90 percent of the money raised nationally goes to research.
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