The statue's dedication on Friday attracted an estimated 200 onlookers, and not surprisingly included a veritable "Who's Who" of Marietta and Cobb leaders - the bulk of them, incidentally, members of the Marietta Kiwanis Club, which erected the statue at the behest of club President Victoria Turney of Prime Power.
Major sponsors of the $60,000 project included the Cobb Superior Court judges, and spotted at the ceremony were Jim Bodiford, Rob Flournoy, Adele Grubbs, Tain Kell, George Kreeger, Ken Nix, Mary Staley and Mike Stoddard.
Representing the county government were acting Chairman Woody Thompson, Commissioner Helen Goreham and county manager David Hankerson. On hand for the city were Mayor Steve Tumlin, Councilmen Philip Goldstein and Johnny Sinclair, city school superintendent Dr. Emily Lembeck, City Manager Bill Bruton and the Marietta Housing Authority's Ed Hammock, Liz Cole and Ray Buday, the latter just out of WellStar Kennestone Hospital after suffering a heart attack a week ago.
"What I'm telling everybody is to go get checked out," he told bystanders. "We've got that great facility in town. Go use it! Don't wait until it's too late!"
Others on hand for the event in the new Joe Mack Wilson Park at the intersection of Roswell and Anderson streets included the club's Ellen Springer, Clark Hungerford, Beth Eckford, Jack Wilson, Branyan Sauls, Carol and Army Col. Ed Sonnenfeld, Lamar Cheatham, Devan Seabaugh, Johnny Walker, Terri Bunton, Phil Owens, Don Massaro, Lynn Rainey, Larry Ceminsky, Oliver Halle, former state Sen. Chuck Clay and former county manager Mack Henderson, Allen Bishop of WellStar and Al Martin of Georgia Power.
Representing the Marietta Rotary Club, which also supported the project, were President Mark Barber, former KSU VP Jim Fleming and Will Goodman.
Plans are for the color guard in today's parade to pause and pay their respects to the new statue as they pass, Turney said.
TODAY'S PARADE kicks off at 10 from Roswell Street Baptist Church, with downtown events capped tonight by fireworks at dark, around 9 p.m. The parade will feature more than 115 entries, including a heavy slate of candidates for state and local offices. If you miss it, it will be rebroadcast on Cobb TV 23 several times in coming days.
The City of Marietta will provide a free bus shuttle service to downtown today courtesy of the Historic Marietta Trolley Co. between 3 and 10 p.m. The shuttle will run from the Center for Family Resources and Roswell Street Baptist Church parking lots to the Square and back.
At the conclusion of the parade, you'll find all the Republican candidates and most of their supporters heading to the annual Cobb GOP Independence Day Bar-B-Q at Jim R. Miller Park from noon to 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 each.
THE TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION: Callers trying to reach Bill Borden by telephone on Friday heard this message from Bill: “Today is Friday, July 2. It’s also my wedding anniversary, and I will be out of the office all day. I will not be checking e-mail or voicemail messages. Happy Fourth of July.”
Borden is one of two Republicans running to represent north-central Cobb on the school board, a seat that will be determined in the July 20 primary. Oddly enough, his opponent, Kathleen Angelucci, was also celebrating her wedding anniversary on Friday. Kathleen said she has been married to Jay Angelucci for 27 years.
Happy anniversary to Bill and Brenda, and to Kathleen and Jay.
CANDIDATE BORDEN was profiled in last July’s issue of local tax-subsidized Cobb In Focus magazine published by the Cobb Chamber of Commerce. Detailing his love of travel and adventurer the former Iditarod racer mentions that “We’ve been to the Amazon to swim with the piranhas, and we’ve been to Jamaica to swim with the crocodiles.”
Sounds like good preparation for swimming with the sharks at the Glover Street school headquarters, should he win his race.
DR. DOUGLAS MORRIS of Marietta last week was named interim director of the Emory Clinic. He will supervise some 1,400 physicians and other health care providers in 40 locations, including Emory University Hospital and Crawford-Long Emory Hospital. Morris is a graduate of Duke University and got his M.D. degree at the University of Texas.
TEN NEW MEMBERS have been named to the Board of Visitors at Berry College in Rome, including Casey Smith of Marietta (2000), president of Wider Wealth Management Inc., and political consultant Brad Alexander of Decatur (1995), former spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bob Barr and aide to Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle.
SMYRNA’S DR. ED BUCKNER, president of American Atheists, has announced that he will be retiring from that position this fall, following two years in office. But if history is any indicator, you can be sure he will continue firing off letters to the editor of the MDJ.
LISA CLAY STYLES of suburban Pittsburgh, Pa., age 36, formerly of Cobb, was killed this week while training for an upcoming half-marathon when she was run over by an SUV that ran a stop sign. The double jogging stroller she was pushing that contained her autistic son, age 4, and daughter, 1, was overturned but the children were uninjured. Styles was the daughter of Ellen and Carl Clay of Marietta and, according to her obit, was the first baby born in Cobb County in 1974. Our condolences to her family.
MEMBERS OF THE LEADERSHIP COBB classes of 2008 and 2010 have been invited to a Meet and Greet for architect Stephen Moon, candidate for Northeast Cobb commissioner and LC’ 08 alumnus, at the home of Jennifer Farmer and Dan Hydrick in east Cobb. The public also is invited to the 5-7p.m. July 11 event organized by Erica Parker.
THERE WAS NO after-council dinner meeting at the Marietta Diner when the council last met on June 9.
True, Councilman Goldstein, who orchestrates the legal but under-the-radar meetings, was absent that night, but Goldstein’s colleagues on the council have stopped going to the Marietta Diner as well.
The Journal spotlighted the dinner meetings, which have been going on for decades, earlier this year when Mayor Tumlin took office and elected not to attend them. Although they are “Dutch treat,” City Hall observers consider the dinners to be Goldstein’s post-council meeting party.
Councilmen Jim King and Anthony Coleman had already adopted a pattern of boycotting the dinners, which left Goldstein with his alter ego, Annette Lewis; along with members Van Pearlberg, Grif Chalfant and Sinclair, plus city manager Bill Bruton and city attorney Doug Haynie occasionally joining. But Sinclair, Chalfant and Pearlberg have all backed out from going to them now.
It’s unclear if Goldstein will continue to go to the Diner with Lewis after future meetings. But if they do, they will break bread without the company of their colleagues.
STATE REP. SHARON COOPER (R-east Cobb) has released an updated second edition of her 1994 tome “Taxpayers’ Tea Party,” a how-to book that encourages the average citizen to become politically active.
“It’s a step-by-step guide in cartoon and written form on how to carry out your own American Revolution against the liberal Washington establishment,” she told AT.
The 224-page paperback with a new introduction by former Speaker Newt Gingrich was published June 15 by Baen Books and is available at local bookstores and online.
The reissue has a lower-key event than the original launch, which featured a Cooper and Gingrich at a rally on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, after which they flew to Boston for a Tea Party reenactment in Boston Harbor.
AS COBB AND MARIETTA join with the rest of the country to celebrate the nation’s 234th birthday, we close with this still-apt observation from French observer Alexis de Tocqueville from 1834: “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
We think America is still great, and still good, and we hope our readers will join us this weekend in honoring the legacy of freedom bestowed upon us by our Founding Fathers.
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My kids kept asking who these people were and wanting to see more floats and bands. Not this year!
Look around,... they sure won't attend the 4th parade because they DON'T respect this country. Most of the 'illegal'men will just continue working as usual ( no special day to them). They'll be out on constuction jobs, landscaping, resturant work, painting , etc. etc. They might show up for the fireworks,... but their reason will be ,... just to party! WHEN, WHEN will America wake up & realize we have been INVADED!!!