By Jasmine Burnett

After three planned executions, numerous appeals and a last-minute request for

clemency, prisoner Troy Davis was executed in a Georgia state prison in Jackson on Sept. 21. On the day of Davis’s execution, protesters assembled on the lawn and steps of Georgia’s capitol and outside the prison to show their opposition.

Literature teacher Scott Stephens was among the crowd at the Capitol that night. Stephens said he was motivated to participate by both his stance against the death penalty and the specifics of Davis’s case in general.

“I had read about Troy Davis’s trial and some of the problems associated with the trial and the fact that there was some doubt as to his guilt or innocence,” Stephens said. “But the main reason I went was because of the death penalty and my opposition to [it].”

Davis was convicted in 1991 for the murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail. Since his conviction, however, multiple witnesses have recanted their stories, some claiming they were forced to implicate Davis and others naming someone else as the murderer. Despite the change in testimonies, Davis was repeatedly denied requests for clemency.

Stephens said Davis’s execution reinforced his stance against the death penalty.

“My reaction when I found out that he had been executed was sadness and just a renewed commitment to doing something about having the death penalty in Georgia still,” Stephens said.

Senior Eloisa Cleveland, who also attended

the rally at the Capitol, said that throughout the night of Sept. 21 she remained hopeful that Davis would not be executed.

“In the back of my mind I just had this feeling that it wouldn’t happen,” Cleveland said. “I remember when we went home I was talking to my mom, and I was like, ‘I feel hopeful.’ Everything was playing towards it not happening.”

Cleveland said one demonstration in particular stood out to her.

“It was really moving,” Cleveland said. “At one point they had a list of all the names of

people who had been executed in Georgia, and they passed around the list and read the names out loud.”

Stephens described the crowd outside the capitol as having mixed emotions.

“There were some people there that were there to be provocative,” Stephens said. “There were some young men, who had signs about ‘The only good cop is a dead cop,’ [who] seemed to be totally against what most of the people were there for, which was not killing people. [But] I think overall the crowd was pretty subdued.”

Kathryn Hamoudah, the chair of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a group that works with Amnesty International and other organizations and individuals who oppose the death penalty, said Davis’s case was different than the other death penalty cases the organization has worked on in the past. She said Davis’s case helped shine a spotlight on the death penalty in Georgia because people were able to see Davis as an individual.

“The difference with this case is just the amount of support that he had from all over

see DAVIS, page 7

news 6

Two months into the school year, many teachers are missing textbooks in their classrooms. AP teachers have resorted to online materials.

Science teacher David Olorunfemi is next in line to be king of the Adorkite tribe in Nigeria. His royal roots surprised his students.

Community members and competing theater companies are working to save Georgia Shakespeare. They need to raise more than $500,000.

14 thesoutherneronline.com16peoplea&e

During the “It’s the Journey” walk, supporters raised $660,362. “It’s a kinder, gentler walk than the Susan G. Komen walk,” Kimberly Goff said.

Through andTrials Tribulation

TEACHERS MISSING FROM EQUATION IN CLASSROOMSBy Konadu amoaKuh

Eight weeks into the school year, juniors Jori Shorts and Laura Sommerville were on their seventh substitute in their Math III class.

With midsemester quickly approaching, three Math III classes, three Math III support classes and three special-edu-cation classes still did not have permanent or even long-term teachers. The students in some of these classes have already had multiple substitutes.

Shorts said that out of the seven substitutes her math class has

had, only one had a math background. “The one thing that’s different for APS is that all of our sub-

stitutes are certified teachers, but you may have a substitute who doesn’t have math credentials subbing for a math class,” said Keith Bromery, director of APS media relations.

The Math III classes were without textbooks before October. Their only resources were math worksheets. Without textbooks and without a long-term teacher, Shorts said the students in her class are not learning the math concepts that her friends in other Math III classes with permanent teachers are learning.

Shorts said her class has not taken any quizzes or tests or had any homework, and she said that, on several occasions, the work they have been assigned has had nothing to do with math.

“Right before the GGT writing test, we had a substitute that used to be a language-arts teacher, so she helped us prepare for that [subject],” Sommerville said.

While the students in this math class do worksheets or work for other subjects, other Math III classes are preparing for midterms and the Georgia High School Graduation Test,

see TEACHERS, page 8

RALLY FOR CHANGE: Troy Davis’s execution brought protesters outside of the Capitol on Sept. 21. “No gun. No DNA. No fingerprints equals no execution,” they shouted.

LuC

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Amid controversy, Georgia executes Davis for murder

SouthernerS I N C E 1 9 4 7

theHENRy W. GRADy HIGH SCHOOL, ATLANTA OCT. 24, 2011

thesoutherneronline.comVOLuME LXVI, NuMBER 2

The Mac because it has changed the way everybody experiences computers and technology.

Zachary Garrett,junior

Editorial Board

Taylor allen

Jasmine BurneTT

shaun KleBer

leJoi lane

lucy leonard

GaBrielle sieGel

Managing Editors: Jasmine Burnett, Shaun KleberAssociate Managing Editors: LeJoi Lane, Lucy LeonardA&E Editors: Lindsey Leonard, Alix YoungbloodComment Editors: Taylor Allen, Gabrielle SiegelDesign Editor: Elizabeth McGlamryDoubletruck Editors: Molly Daniel, Lauren HarperNews Editors: Kenny Cochran, Nile KendallPeople Editors: Steve Terry, Lauren ScottSports Editors: Nally Kinnane, Phillip SuittsPhoto Editor: Audrey Vaughn

The Southerner, a member of GSPA, SIPA, CSPA and NSPA, is a monthly student publication of: Henry W. Grady High School 929 Charles Allen Drive NEAtlanta, GA 30309

To our readers,

The Southerner welcomes submissions, which may be edited for grammar, inappropriate language and length. Please place submissions in Mr. Winter or Ms. Carter's box in the main office. Subscriptions are also available. For more information, please contact Mr. Winter, Ms. Carter or a member of the staff.

Staff: Emma Aberle-Grasse, Ollie Aberle-Grasse, Konadu Amoakuh, Mac Barrineau, Rachel Citrin, Miles Clark, Thomas Cox, Sammi Dean, Kate de Give, Anna Fuller, Jolie Jones, Tatiana Johnson, Olivia Kleinman, Troy Kleber, Joe Lavine, Ciena Leshley, Simon McLane, Lauren Ogg, Grace Power, Diana Powers, Megan Prendergast, Jordan Ross, Hunter Rust, Carson Shadwell, Will Staples, Alex Stearns, Isabelle Taft, Olivia Veira, Gracie WhiteAdvisers: Kate Carter, Dave Winter

An upbeat paper for a downtown schoolSoutherner Staff 2011-2012

Southernerthe

c o m m e n t2

Every year, students, parents and administrators know and recognize the Friday of Spirit Week as Senior Toga Day. For countless years, it’s been a tradition for Grady seniors to wrap themselves in red bed sheets and wear crowns to celebrate our last homecoming week. Administrators made an-nouncements and handed out schedules to teachers that encouraged stu-dents to wear togas. The event was even in the Grady student handbook. Why is it, then, that when seniors donned their red togas in revered Grady tradition, they were threatened with Saturday detentions and the possibility of not being allowed to participate in Friday’s homecoming events?

Although no one we know of was punished for wearing their togas, the threat stemmed from a gross miscommunication somewhere between the disciplinarians. For all of Spirit Week, there was no question that seniors would wear their togas on the last day, and no teachers or administrators gave us any guidelines on how we could and could not fashion them. It wasn’t until we arrived at school that vice principal Rodney Howard began pulling students aside and threatening them with various consequences. Throughout the day, he created a specialized—and contradictory—toga dress code. He told some people that they had to wear shirts and jackets with their togas and told others that males were only allowed to show one nipple. He made announcements about the toga dress code and told teach-ers to send students who broke those rules to the discipline office. What Howard failed to address was that it was impossible for us to adhere to rules that were introduced to students in the middle of the school day. There was no way for us to get jackets or shirts to wear with our togas, unless we’d already brought them to school.

On a broader scale, we understand the need for a basic dress code. But while it is our responsibility to adhere to those rules, it is the administrators’ responsibility to make those rules clearly known well in advance. After all, we are taught to read books, not minds. p

When news of Steve Jobs’ death surfaced, we were all in room E106, working on this issue of The Southerner—on Mac computers. We were calling and texting interview sources—on iPhones. We were drowning out the hectic din by listening to music—on iPods. If anyone can appreciate the influence Apple has had on this school and our generation, it’s us, the students.

So when we realized that Steve Jobs’ death was not just a rumor, the room went silent for a few seconds. Then we got over it and went about our business as usual, which is probably what most people did. It’s easy to ignore the mastermind behind the gadgets we use daily, but will we start to notice when the co-founder of Apple is no longer pulling strings backstage?

Everyone is wondering how, or if, such a prominent company will survive and continue inventing the cutting-edge technology it has been producing since the corporation’s start in 1976. Coincidently, the release date for the latest version of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S, was announced on Oct. 4, the day before Jobs died. So it seems the empire is capable of continuing its rule if it can keep putting out popular, useful devices.

There are so many more skilled inventors, marketers and leaders behind Apple than a lot of people probably realize, and for a while now, Jobs hasn’t even had much of a role with the company due to his sickness. Yes, in a way Jobs’ death is the end of an era, but the apple isn’t chewed to its core just yet.

The death of Jobs was tragic—he was 55 years of age. His passing, however, should not hinder the progression of this multibillion dollar company but should instead encourage Apple to represent Jobs through more advancement in technology. p

uestionf the month

Toga rules not clear

In your opinion, what was Steve Jobs’ most significant contribution?

“ He brought music accessibility. We all speak and communicate with music, and he’s made it so much easier.

Aja Blair,senior

“ I think it was the iPod because now, most people go everywhere with their iPods, and it’s become a habit for people to do it, whether its going to school or going running.

Emma Kasper,sophomore

“ From a global view, he changed the world of technology. He helped society be better connected toeach other.

Jobs’ death inspires

Oct. 24, 2011

“

As I leafed through the pages of the last Southerner examining a cool chart made in reference to the APS scandal, I was trying to figure out what program was used to make it, and then I real-ized the Southerner students don’t have computers! I am in the de-sign emphasis here at Grady, so the absence of the Macs has hit us hard as well. As I read further, there was text stating that you basically made the whole South-erner with Mac laptops, extremely limited Mac desktops and strong will. That’s pretty impressive, and, quite frankly, hard to believe. I al-ways grab for a new Southerner but rarely find myself reading through it completely, and then I throw it away. So when I finally got to the last page of this Southerner, I decided to keep it. Thanks for a newspaper I’m glad to look back

Student marvels at newspaper’s progress

Team’s improvement deserves recognition

I really enjoyed the freshman hazing article (“Piedmont Park ha-ven for hazing tradition,” Sept. 23, page 6). It’s nice to know that pretty much everyone got something out of it. For the last few years, fresh-men have come to the school with a little too much pride. Finally, we were able to show who is the top dog. I’m also happy to know that the freshmen were willing to go through a form of hazing. Hope-fully, they get just as big a thrill as the seniors did this year hazing their freshmen.

Personally, I think Mr. Howard is being a spoil sport. He’s think-ing of the worst-case scenarios. If he’s worried about foam blind-ness and bruised backs, maybe instead of saying “cease fire,” he should help seniors find a safe way to show freshmen where they be-long. Grady lacks so many forms of demonstrating school spirit. Other schools have hazing, student lock-ins and constant celebrations of the school’s achievements. We’ve hon-ored a football player for being on a great team and took no time to honor someone who met the first African-American president. In-

You guys did it again. The South-erner has excluded the softball team from the sports section. The Southerner puts every other sports team in the paper. We worked hard, and we deserve to be high-lighted in the paper like everyone else. Being one of the captains of the softball team, I would like the school to know the success of the softball team this season. Every-one on the team has improved, become better softball players and learned the game.

Abrahana Jamesjunior

We want to know what you think! Love an article? Hate one? Find an error? Tell us about it! The Southerner welcomes letters from any and all of our readers.Contact us at winterworks@aol.com.

Hazing story creates thoughts on Howard

In a page-6 story about hazing, “the freshman were...covered in flour,” not flower (“Piedmont Park haven for hazing tradition,” Sept. 23).

Junior Ellen Erickson’s last name was misspelled (“Studios swarm city, set up movie scenes,” Sept. 23, page 7).

Junior Jordan Holiman’s last name was misspelled “Holliman” (“New band teacher tunes up class, reforms teaching,” Sept. 23, page 17).

The article “Knights dream big despite loss of seniors” (Sept. 23, page 20) listed junior football player Darren Dowdell as a receiver. His position is tight end.

C O R R E C T I O N S

stead of making threats and giving mean looks at the students, Howard should take the time to get involved in the Grady Knights’ spirit.

Daniel Gilstrapsenior

Soren Olson,freshman

on as a starting document for the rest of my senior year. It was pretty awesome.

Marius Jacksonsenior

c o m m e n tOct. 24, 2011 3

EXCLUSIVELY @ theSoutherneronline.com

If you peek through the door of the suite that sits to the left of the main office, you may see students waiting in chairs, paperwork on tables and forms stuffed in wall units

hanging to the right of each office. This suite, the counselors’ home, may be

stationed in this somewhat-unvisited corner of the building, but the counselors’ responsi-bilities affect the entire school. Unfortunately, the counselors are sometimes overlooked and even taken advantage of.

We may see the five counselors walking the halls, running to meetings or sitting in their offices, but Shaketha Blankenship, Shannon Cone, Sheila

Oliver, Lamar Young and Charmaine Gray have countless roles unknown to many students. Students primarily know the counselors for changing class schedules, and the beginning of the year seems like the counselors’ busiest time. In reality, the counselors remain active throughout the year. For example, all of the counselors are on the attendance, graduation and advisory committees and are also in charge of work permits.

As a senior, I am often meeting with my counselor, Blankenship, about transcripts, college recommendations and forms I need to send. Some of her other duties include writing the school profile, arranging the nominations for the Governor’s Honors Program and organizing events such as Junior Parent Night Meetings.

Although students do occasionally con-

sult their counselors, most often it is to request something from them. The counselors provide many things that we need when it comes to our academic life, and they deserve recognition. When do we ever step back and admire all of their hard work and commitment?

The list of specific duties and responsibilities coordinated by each counselor goes on and on. If it seems as though field trips are just automatically organized and personalized letters to students are just easily typed up and put together, think again. All of these thankless tasks and more are completed thoughtfully and thoroughly by the five counselors.

So cheers to the counselors and to everything they have done for Grady, its student body and its faculty. p

By Alex SteArnS

Harrison Brock, an avid whitewater paddler, pulled up to the parking lot at the put-in for the upper section of the Chattahoochee River. As he got out of the car, he reminisced about the last time he ran—or paddled—this portion of the river. He unloaded his kayak and quickly carried it down to the river. What he saw was a truly horrifying sight: a field of rocks.

The upper portion of the Chattahoochee Riv-er, the “Upper Hooch,” is usually a great section of river for paddlers looking for varying levels of difficulty. The Upper Hooch is usually classified as a class II-III rapid when the water is flowing at 980 cubic feet per second. CFS is a measure-ment that paddlers often use when measuring water levels because it indicates how much wa-ter is flowing at that time.

The water levels of the Upper Hooch are par-ticularly low right now. According to the Amer-ican Whitewater Association, the water level is currently 160 CFS and is continually dropping. To put things in perspective, the Upper Hooch is not considered runnable until the water level is at 480 CFS.

According to the Upper Chattahoochee River Keeper, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the upper section of the Chatta-hoochee River, the diminishing water levels are due to the lack of rainfall. There is not much that can be done about this, unless you know a way to make it rain.

The water levels really determine the fun factor of the trip. The more water there is, the more fun you have as long as you are ready for that difficulty level. If your skill level lags behind, high water levels can make the fun fac-tor sink.

The only people who would want to run this section now would be people who are not really looking to paddle a river but wanting to go for a walk in a dry river bed.

That’s cool if it’s what you like doing. I would be a liar if I said I’ve never done that before, but nothing beats a day of paddling a raging, rapid-filled river in your favorite whitewater boat.

Although the Upper Hooch is running dry, there are plenty of other rivers that are still run-ning at sufficient levels.

A good option is section two of the Chattoo-ga River. It is running at 1.24 feet. According to the American Whitewater Association, it can be run anytime the water level is between 1 foot and 5 feet. It won’t be easy to find sections of good surf, but it is still runnable. This section is class II and similar to the Upper Hooch. It does not have as many rapids as the Upper Hooch, but its rapids have some exceptional drops. They also require some technical paddling.

Another option that is closer to Atlanta is The Wave. This is a rapid on the Chattahoochee River just north of Atlanta Road. It is a fun little “play area” to paddle around in. Before choosing to go roll around in this water, remember that it is in Atlanta. The water is far from clean there, perhaps even filled with diseases.

Wherever you choose to go, I’m sure it will be fun and I wish all of you happy paddling. But for those of you who end up paddling places like the Upper Hooch, I wish all of you happy wading. p

Chattahoochee: from rapids to shallow puddles

Generation lacks chivalrous behaviorHigh school is a jungle filled with

teenagers struggling to fight for scraps of popularity and dominance. It is dis-concerting to see how meanly people can treat one another. I cringe at the ways students abandon their morals and in-tegrity to fend for themselves without any concern for those around them.

For example, hallways in Grady are filled with students on a mad dash to classes all around the school. In their hurry, they nudge elbows, step on feet and bump shoulders. On occasion, I am delighted to see a young man open the door for someone whose hands are full or, better yet, help someone with his or her bags. Chivalry at Grady is a precious yet rarely seen quality. When it happens, however, it equates to the bright dab of paint on an otherwise dreary background.

You might automatically get on the defensive and assume I am some aggressive, man-hating feminist. It’s a funny notion but untrue. To give teenage boys some credit, I don’t believe their lack of etiquette is entirely their fault. High school can be a sink or swim ordeal. For boys, it is harder to stay afloat. They can either be polite and mocked or be rude, nonchalant and get “dap” from their friends. It is considered weak and un-cool to be a genuinely nice guy. This perception is reinforced all the time in movies in which the girl chooses the cool jerk over the nice guy, and it turns out the nice guy was the right one for her all along. When faced with the daunting decision to either be polite and humiliated or rude and accepted, many young men choose the latter—thus begins chivalry’s gradual extinction.

But young men aren’t the only ones who are guilty when it

comes to chivalry’s untimely demise. People have argued that the reason young men have been lacking in the politeness de-partment is because females are too independent. And by inde-pendent I don’t mean owning your own car and having a job, but the I-can-get-my-own-door independent. And that’s true. I am guilty of giving the death stare to someone who holds the door open for me because surely they must have ulterior mo-tives. Is this assumption wrong? Yes, but men are creatures of persistency. Countless times, I have witnessed a guy becoming more attracted to a girl who has rejected him. Why can’t this same fearless determination be applied when it comes to being courteous?

Maybe it’s not simply males or females but rather a generational issue. Has the excessive vulgar rump-gyrating music finally taken a toll on our young, impressionable souls? Have our young men been brainwashed to believe that chivalry is a dead language? Do we, as young ladies, think it is okay to accept something less than what we deserve? Decades ago, in our parents’ generation, it was taboo to even mention sex. In today’s music, that type of foul, degrading language is the norm. Is our generation so hypnotized that we have no manners? What makes our boys not pull out chairs and our women not expect to be treated like queens?

Chivalry is what makes girls dream of a “prince charming.” It is what puts the “gentle” in gentlemen. What used to be a vi-brant feature in men of all ages has slowly faded into a dull scar-city. Who is to blame for this vanishing act? Is it the females, males or this generation as a whole?

Throughout all of the depressing signs of disrespect, there are times I catch a glimpse of politeness and cherish the moment. It is instances like those that give me hope. So when people tell me chivalry is dead, I simply explain that chivalry is not dead, merely sleeping. p

JordAn roSS

Counselors accept all with open arms

WILL ST

APLe

StAylor Allen

Nature with

ALEX

The Troy Davis execution seems to be a pretty controversial topic lately, but I can’t exactly figure out why. Why does Troy Davis deserve to live? He was found guilty by a court of law for killing an innocent police officer with a wife and kids. Several witnesses testified against him, so there should be no reason for anyone to believe he’s innocent. Unfortunately, we don’t live in “Should-Land.” Several witnesses recanted their testimonies. There are only two realistic possibilities of why an individual would recant testimony: because the person against whom they were testifying was actually innocent and they had some sort of epiphany of his innocence, or, more likely, the witnesses were paid or offered some incentive to alter their testimonies.

I suppose it’s understandable why people have backed Davis up. The pope claimed to support him, after all. I assume that anyone who asks the pope, “Should this man die?” will get the same response though. The pope isn’t exactly supposed to be in favor of killing people, justified or otherwise.

No combination of events should convince someone that this man is innocent because he’s just not. Imagine the kids whose daddy didn’t come home one evening, the kids who had to grow up differently than all their friends, without a father figure to love and care for them. Freeing this man would, without a doubt, be the greatest injustice ever to have been done to mankind.

Maybe Davis’s case would seem less suspicious if he hadn’t been previously convicted of a crime, but he was convicted of another murder in which he used bullets in the same ballistic category as in the murder for which he was executed. He also admitted to being at the scene of the crime. With this mountain of evidence piled against him, there is no possible way that Davis was wrongly convicted. Besides, what could possibly be worse than his unforgivable crime?

Maybe I haven’t stressed quite thoroughly enough that his victim had a 2-year-old daughter and an infant son. Officer Mark MacPhail was only 27 years old, and had served in the military as an Army ranger for six years before becoming a cop. Why should the assailant of this model human being be set free? What kind of world wouldn’t seek justice for this man’s brutal murder? Sure, it’s the teenage thing to rebel against the government, society and “the system,” but there comes a time to grow up and accept facts.

MacPhail’s murderer certainly deserved the death sentence and anything less would have been a huge injustice. In the end, I guess it comes down to whether or not you trust the judgment of the United States court system. While corruption may very well exist within our government, I believe the court systems are relatively fair and unbiased. Just imagine a world in which our courts allowed Davis to walk free. Who knows how many more people he would have had to kill before he was finally executed? He’d already killed one person before MacPhail and had already been convicted for it, so where would he have stopped? The only answer is death, a harsh yet justified verdict. p

For the MacPhail family, Sept. 21 was a day of relief. For a million others, it was the day all faith in the American judicial system was lost.

When I heard about the Troy Davis case, I was confused. My dad convinced me to write a letter begging for this man’s life to be spared a few years ago. I hadn’t followed the case and assumed he had been

executed. But then I thought about it a little more. Of course this man is still alive. I wrote a letter, after all, about how he is not

guilty. And if there’s any doubt about a prisoner’s guilt, our legal system protects them from death, right? Wrong. Davis’s execution is proof our legal system can’t be trusted.

On Aug. 19, 1989, Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail was shot and killed in a parking lot. Knowing police wanted

him for the murder, Davis surrendered to the police four days later. Davis’s trial in 1991 was primarily based on witness testimony since there was little physical and no DNA evidence. Judicial officials failed to see any signs of innocence, even after Davis and his attorneys strug-gled for years with the federal court system and Supreme Court. His

struggles included being scheduled for execution, then granted clem-ency and being granted a new trial. This year, however, proved to be his last year. To the disappointment of many protestors in Georgia and around the world, Davis was executed by lethal injection at 11:08 p.m. on Sept.21.

I’m not completely against the death penalty, but if there’s even a hint of doubt regarding the accused’s guilt, I think the prisoner should live. This is

the problem in Davis’s case—there was plenty of reasonable doubt. Seven of the nine witnesses who testified in the original trial recanted their testimony, saying at the time they were coerced by the police and another witness, who was also a suspect. These questionable witness statements, even if the wit-nesses were telling the truth the first time, cast shadows of doubt and destroy the legitimacy of the case.

Those asking the Georgia parole board to offer clemency included former president Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bob Barr, 51 members of Congress and even celebrities like the Indigo Girls and Cee Lo Green. Why would these high-profile people risk their reputation supporting Davis if there

wasn’t such obvious doubt? There are many examples of prisoners who were put on death row

and were later found to be either innocent or not guilty beyond a rea-sonable doubt. In Florida, two police officers were murdered in 1976. Three people were imprisoned, and one testified against the other two

for a lighter sentence. After one of the “murder-ers” was executed, the one who had testified ad-mitted he was the one who committed the crime. The man executed was innocent. In some ways I hope Davis is never proven innocent, like in the Florida case, because knowing that would make his death that much more horrifying.

Innocent until proven guilty? Or guilty until proven innocent? I can only hope for the sake of future convicts and death-row inmates that the courts return to their original ideals of finding and punishing the bad guys, not sentencing pos-sible innocent people in order to give victims or their families closure. p

c o m m e n t Oct. 24, 20114

By sam Lowe By GaBrieLLe sieGeL

In colleges’ eyes, passion trumps overcommitmentI walked up to the

doors of One Atlan-tic Center on a rather warm fall evening dur-ing my sophomore year. I looked up at the 50 floors of solid marble and glass and sighed. Inside of that

building was what I expected to be room after room full of attorneys waiting to show me the ropes of law. The only problem was that the excitement that probably should have welled within me just wouldn’t surface. Actually, I al-most dreaded walking inside.

Despite my reservations, I stepped onto the elevator and punched the glowing number 14. The elevator jerked upwards. As I passed the first floor, I thought about how my mom had told me that mock trial would look amazing on my college applications and that I really should give it a try. Floor 2. So is that why I am here? No, I reassured myself, I am here because I want

to be here. Floor 3. So many of my best friends are in this club—it will definitely be fun. Floor 4. Or am I just trying to keep pace with their extracurricular achievements? Floor 5. I don’t have any interest in law. Floor 6. I don’t care that I don’t have any interest in law. I will suffer through it since it will give me an advantage in college admissions. Floor 7. I listened as my friends excitedly spoke of their previous mock trial experiences and found that I wasn’t excited about any of them. Floor 8. Maybe this isn’t right for me. Floor 9. I contemplated what else I could do to keep myself busy. I be-came conscious that I would so much rather be in the theater rehearsing than on that eleva-tor. As I rode past Floor 10, Floor 11, Floor 12, I thought about my motivations for joining mock trial.

The pressure on students to pad their col-lege applications is great when they are in high school, and I was feeding into that pressure and subjecting myself to an unbelievable amount of extra work solely for that reason. Though

I’m sure working in a law firm until 2 a.m., seven days a week is absolutely peachy for some students, I just could not imagine when I was

going to catch up on Survivor.

Or do my homework. Or, heck, even

sleep. Floor 14 (technically 13).

If you know me at all, you know that I never let any-one tell me what to do. Yet here I was, mentally prepar-ing myself to suffer through a meeting about something for which I had no passion just because I wanted to be the perfect col-

lege applicant. I sat through the first few meetings just to

test the waters, but I walked out of that expe-rience with new resolve and one less commit-ment. If a school doesn’t accept me just because I didn’t participate in every available activity, then that school isn’t right for me anyway. Stu-dents should participate in activities they are truly interested in. Otherwise, they bring noth-ing to the table (and you better bring a lot to the table because colleges are hungry).

Colleges are looking for involved stu-dents, but they are also looking for students who immerse themselves in the subjects, sports and around to doing every activity. I know that I’m not perfect, and apparently, I am not going to be a lawyer any time soon. I wasn’t the star debater and haven’t cured cancer (yet), but despite all odds, I have dis-covered delight and, in some cases, talent in the activities to which I really dedicate myself. Passion is just as evident as spread-ing yourself too thinly. p

Lucy Leonard

Davis case confirms faulty legal system

Davis execution fair, state courts agree

STUDENTWas Troy Davis’s execution moral?

stance

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By IsaBelle TafT

If Scott Stephens, ninth grade and AP literature teacher, were put in charge of America’s public education, what would likely be his first action?

“I would eliminate No Child Left Behind and I would give the responsibility of oversight of schools back to states,” Stephens said.

The No Child Left Behind Act is a controver-sial law passed by Congress in 2001 that increased federal oversight of schools and emphasized ac-countability based on standardized test scores. While the law hasn’t yet been overturned, Ste-phens just might get his wish.

On Sept. 20, Sen. Johnny Isakson and State Superintendent of Schools John Barge formally petitioned U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for a waiver to release Georgia from cer-tain requirements of NCLB, and replace it with an alternative method of measuring school per-formance: the College and Career Ready Perfor-mance Index.

Grady parent Anne McGlamry had three chil-dren in APS when No Child Left Behind was first implemented in 2002. When her oldest daughter was in middle school, Georgia began administering the Criterion Referenced Compe-tency Test, after many students performed poorly on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, a nationwide standardized test.

“What a lot of states started doing, and what No Child Left Behind didn’t prevent them from do-ing, is lowering what it means to pass,” McGlam-ry said. “The whole thing just got dumbed down. It’s all kind of a smoke-and-mirrors law.”

No Child Left Behind requires every school to demonstrate Adequate Yearly Progress by reach-ing their targets for achievement on annual stan-dardized tests.

Each subgroup within the school, such as spe-cial education, female, lower-income or Hispanic students, must also reach a specific target for the school to meet AYP.

“It forced everyone to look at individual sub-groups,” Georgia Department of Education spokesperson Matt Cardoza said. “You could no longer look at only a school’s overall average and leave some students performing very poorly.”

No Child Left Behind requires districts to pro-vide supplemental resources to schools that are designated as not meeting AYP for multiple years in a row. Keith Bromery, APS director of media relations, believes this aspect of the law explains Georgia’s decision to seek a waiver.

“Lots of requirements of No Child Left Behind imposed a cost on districts without substantially increasing student achievement,” Bromery said.

President Obama vowed to overhaul the law, but Congress has not yet introduced legislation to replace or eliminate NCLB. By granting waivers,

the executive branch can allow states to opt out of the law before legislative action is taken.

“The administration is offering flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 23.

Cardoza believes Georgia’s College and Career Performance Ready Index represents the kind of “real commitment to undertake change” that will be rewarded with a waiver.

“Superintendent Barge had a face-to-face meeting with Secretary Duncan,” Cardoza said. “[Duncan] was very impressed.”

The CCRPI will replace AYP as a measure of school performance. It will give each school an overall CCRPI Score, derived from three separate scores: an achievement score based on current-year test results; a progress score based on changes in test scores from one year to the next; and a closing the achievement gap score, based on the difference between a school’s high- and low-per-forming subgroups.

Middle and elementary school students will still be evaluated with the CRCT, and high school students will be evaluated using End of Course Tests. During the 2014-2015 school year the na-tional Common Core Assessments will replace Georgia’s tests.

In 2010 Georgia adopted the Common Core State Standards, which are to ensure all states have rigorous standards, as part of a bid to receive fed-eral money from the Race to the Top program.

Schools will be able to receive additional

points on the index by demonstrating that students have attained “post-high school readi-ness,” based on a number of factors, including the percent of tested graduates scoring 1550 on the SAT, percent of tested graduates scor-ing 22 or higher on the ACT, and percent of AP exams receiving scores of three or higher, among other measures.

Secretary Duncan said he hopes to begin is-suing waivers by the end of 2011. If approved, Georgia will implement the CCRPI beginning with the 2011-2012 school year.

As for APS, Bromery said the district was still “reviewing the proposal” and was not yet ready to comment on the matter.

As other states begin sending in their requests for No Child Left Behind waivers, parents, stu-dents and teachers in Georgia are taking their first look at the CCRPI.

Stephens believes showing school progress is necessary but isn’t sure all of the measure-ments the CCRPI will use are fair. He’s par-ticularly concerned about the increased use of SAT, ACT and AP scores to derive a school’s performance rating.

“The main thing that national exams reflect is the socioeconomic status of the student popula-tion,” Stephens said.

After spending most of their lives in a system dominated by NCLB, some students believe the change will not make much difference.

“I don’t really care,” sophomore Samuel Heller said. “Even if the state doesn’t think so, they won’t be able to implement it before I leave.” p

Fulton County rally kicks off Peace Week

Saturday, Sept. 17 was the kick- off for Fulton County’s Peace Week. It began with a peace rally which featured dance and musical perfor-mances, BMX bikers, free food from caterers and restaurants around At-lanta, education and employment information and booths represent-ing organizations that promote peace. Peace Week was sponsored by the Fulton County Board of Comis-sioners and chairman John Eaves.

11 APS educators lose teaching license

Georgia petitions to ‘opt out’ of NCLB Act

Benchmark testing required by APS, then cancelled By OlIvIa veIra

Grady freshman and junior teachers have been expecting the arrival of this year’s benchmark tests. Many teachers like world ge-ography and civics teachers Mary Van Atta and Susan Salvesen, have been given an entirely new curricu-lum to follow. Although the teach-ers have been instructed by APS to prepare for the benchmarks, the tests may not come.

Apart from one representative from the school system’s Research Planning and Accountability Com-mittee, which oversees testing around the district, APS officials have de-clined to speak about the benchmark testing this year.

Senior research associate and com-mittee member of RPA Cari Ryan discussed the testing.

“It is to my understanding that we don’t have any benchmarks this year,” Ryan said. “The district is not doing benchmarks.”

While APS has evidently aban-doned benchmark tests, Grady teachers have been given informa-tion about prospective dates for ad-ministering them.

“I hadn’t heard [that benchmarks were cancelled], and [Cari Ryan] would know,” said Carrie MacBrien, communications academy leader.

Both Salvesen and literature teacher Scott Stephens said that if the benchmark testing schedule were being implemented as anticipated, they would be long overdue for a first benchmark test.

Other teachers, however, foresaw the addition of benchmarks.

“I’m just not surprised, really,” Sal-

vesen said. “I think the benchmark test eventually would be really help-ful. They want teachers to teach in the same order for kids who transfer within the school and transfer from school to school, so I think that would make sense but I just wish it was going to start this year.”

Most teachers have yet to be for-mally notified of the change in test-ing by APS. In a meeting held on Oct. 11, a few Grady teachers were notified of the change. They were not told specific details about the testing, only that Grady would not be testing this year.

Teachers were told that testing will begin officially during the 2012-2013 school year. Other schools within the district, such as South Atlanta High School, will be taking the tests. APS has not given an explanation for the

inconsistency in the testing.The benchmark tests were meant

to gauge student performance for the Common Core Assessment, a test that will eventually replace the Georgia Graduation Test.

Some, like American literature teacher Lisa Willoughby, are skepti-cal of the benefit that benchmarks would provide, since scores are not returned to teachers.

Salvesen said that Grady should not be at a disadvantage because of benchmark cancellations this year because Grady students are typically high performing.

Although they are frustrated by the lack of communication between the district and Grady, many teachers are relieved that they do not have to deal with benchmark tests this year. Stephens is not disappointed that

testing may not happen this year.Salvesen said that she will switch

back to the curriculum that she used during the past few years.

“I was excited to see how my stu-dents would do,” she said. “Origi-nally I was nervous about it but then I was like, ‘It would be great to see what they know and what they need to learn and have it be an of-ficial assessment of how I’m doing in the classroom.’”

“I’ve been teaching for 25 years without benchmarks, and I think it’s been okay,” Stephens said. “How-ever, if they want to assess me and judge my teaching based on what my students have learned, then yes, they need to give a benchmark. But, they can’t give it in the middle of October, they have to give it on the first day or the first week of school.” p

Eleven Atlanta educators had their teaching certifications revoked on Oct. 13. The Georgia Profession-al Standards Commission, which li-censes educators, took this action to punish administrators and teachers involved in the APS cheating scandal uncovered last year. The commis-sion hopes to investigate and resolve the remaining 200 cases of unethical behavior by January. Accused teach-ers are currently on probation.

Occupy Wall Street spreads to Atlanta

Hundreds of people have set up tents in Woodruff Park in an Atlanta version of the protest movement Occupy Wall Street. Mayor Kasim Reed, after origi-nally ordering the protesters to leave, granted them permission to stay after Oct. 17.

MLK Jr. monument draws large crowd

On Oct. 16, the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Wash-ington D.C. was dedicated on the National Mall. Thousands of people, including many civil rights leaders, showed up to honor King. The memorial, situated between the Lincoln and Jefferson memori-als, is the first memorial on the Na-tional Mall to honor a black man.

Percent of schools that made ayP in 2011

Key10-19% 20-29%30-39%40-49%50-59%60-69%70-79%80-89%

STATISTICS FROM STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION WEBSITES ISA

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the Southerner Oct. 24, 2011 5n e w s

newS BriefS

By Ciena LeshLey and Carson shadweLL

With each new school year comes new stu-dents, new classes and new textbooks.

For some teachers, including AP World History teacher George Darden, the issuing of textbooks was not an easy process.

Darden has 90 AP World History stu-dents, yet two months into the school year, Darden has only received 45 of the 90 text-books he requested.

“There was some miscommunication,” Darden said. “[The textbook company] thought Grady was on a four-by-four sched-ule, and the amount of textbooks they gave us would have worked, except we’re on a four-by-eight schedule.”

Under the four-by-four schedule, students take four one-credit courses that last one se-mester. If Grady were on that schedule, only half of the students would be taking that course each semester.

Since AP World History lasts all year at Grady, Darden needs one book per student.

Students in Darden’s classes must share textbooks for the time being. Darden said the lack of textbooks has affected the way that he teaches his classes.

“I have to approach things differently be-cause people can’t read outside of class,” Darden said. “It’s slowed down overall progress.”

More textbooks have been ordered for Darden’s class, but he is unsure when they will arrive. The students are irritated by the shortage.

“It’s kind of annoying to have to transfer

the textbook between you and your partner to study before tests,” sophomore AP World History student JD Capelouto said. “It’s really heavy, and we have to bring it to school every day to share with our partner.”

Darden isn’t alone. The beginning of the year had many AP teachers dealing with a shortage in textbooks.

AP Latin teacher Scott Allen and AP French teacher Theresa Monye had a differ-ent experience with issuing their textbooks. At the beginning of the school year, the dis-trict denied both teachers new textbooks for their classes.

The school couldn’t afford to purchase the books until mid-September, and they didn’t

receive them until Oct. 3. Because Allen wasn’t able to get the text-

books at the beginning of the year, he had to change many of his planned lessons.

“It was frustrating, especially at the AP level,” Allen said. “We have to hit the ground running. We were able to get by, sort of, but it made running an AP class very hard.”

Allen usually starts out the year with his students reading an epic poem out of the textbook. Without the textbook, Allen had to find copies of the poem that were less than great.

“It wasn’t very good, but at least it was something,” Allen said. The copies he pulled were off the web and didn’t have the same ref-

erences and resources that the textbooks had. He said it was harder for the students to un-derstand without the textbook.

In response to the lack of textbooks, Allen wrote the author of the book asking him to spare a few copies. The author of the book sent Allen copies of the textbook but shortly after, so did APS.

APS is also using a new system to issue textbooks to teachers called Destiny. Destiny is a program that tracks the textbooks being checked out as well as checked in.

Spanish teacher Demetria Kendrick and math teacher Jeremy Green are in charge of ordering, processing and issuing textbooks to the teachers and students.

“It’s a great system,” Kendrick said. “I think it’s a lot for two people, though.”

Kendrick said that even if she had to only work on one teacher’s set of classes, she would still be dealing with 1,500 books.

Principal Vincent Murray describes the book-ordering problems as unavoidable.

Murray said the population increased and new books had to be ordered. Murray also chalks up the delay in issuing textbooks to the fact that some teachers want to use online re-sources, or only have a class set of textbooks.

“Books are ordered based on our projected enrollment and on number of books lost,” Murray said. “If the population goes up, we would not have enough resources to account for the increase in the student population. We would have to order additional books and wait on their arrival.” q

6 Oct. 24, 2011

Textbook shortage causes problem for AP teachersn e w s

By Troy KLeBer

The APS board of education had until Sept. 30 to im-prove its ability to function in a unified manner after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools placed the school system on accreditation probation. Now that the deadline has passed, the APS board, stakeholders, com-munity members, parents and students are anticipating the decision by SACS. The board expects to be notified by the end of October as to whether or not APS will lose its accreditation.

On Jan. 18, SACS placed APS on probation, citing the “dysfunctional governance” of the APS board as the reason for the punishment. From that point, the board had nine months to make progress toward improving the board’s ef-fectiveness and leadership.

If SACS decides to rescind the board’s accreditation, the consequences would include APS graduates being consid-ered ineligible for certain scholarships and families deciding to withdraw students from the district and transfer to other school systems.

SACS gave the board six re-quired actions to complete in order to retain accreditation. The first required action was that the board must regain the stakeholders’ trust and confi-dence in APS leadership. The second required action was that the board must employ the ser-vices of a trained, impartial mediator in order to resolve all personal and internal issues. The third, fourth and sixth required actions specified that the board review and refine board policies. The fifth required action was that the board must develop and implement a process for selecting a new superintendent.

“The main thing [SACS] wanted us to do is demonstrate effective governance,” board member Cecily Harsch-Kin-nane said. “But they also really wanted to see that it was gen-uine and that we weren’t just going through a checklist.”

Harsch-Kinnane said the board has worked almost exclu-sively to complete the six required actions since Jan 18. They feel they have made substantial progress in their leadership and effectiveness, and they feel optimistic that SACS will remove APS from probation, Harsch-Kinnane said.

Harsch-Kinnane believes the board is now more unified and organized and has better policies in place.

“We’re a well-functioning board again. I think [SACS] will see that, and I think they’ll appreciate that,” Harsch-

Kinnane said. “We’ve demonstrated that we’ve been able to do the work they’ve asked us to do and that we are once again committed to the focus on students.”

After the sentencing, the board committed to meeting every Monday to discuss the progress of the six required ac-tions and plans for the future. Harsch-Kinnane said during the first two months after probation began, the board was meeting three to four days a week.

“I think the SACS report and SACS review helped shake us to focus, and also we had to work together so much,” she said. “We were meeting a few times a week.”

Harsch-Kinnane said the fact that the board members were working together often gave them opportunities to work out their differences. She also said, however, that there were tense and difficult times that the board had to overcome.

On Feb. 7, the board created a timeline, which charted the progress of the six required actions. The progress of each required action was indicated by four sequential steps: plan, do, check and act.

“We were very methodi-cal about everything that was done,” board member Yolanda Johnson said.

Harsch-Kinnane said the board was slow to begin the second part of the framework, the “do” portion.

“It took a long time at the beginning. I think for the

people watching and for the people involved, it was a pain-ful process because it took time to get it up and running,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “We were all feeling a strong sense of urge to get [the work] done, so we kept pushing through it, although it did seem slow at the beginning.”

By April, the board had hired Fanning Institute, a profes-sional mediator from the University of Georgia, two gov-ernance experts, The Center for Reform of School Systems and Brock, Clay, Calhoun and Rogers LLC, to help the board review and place new policies. By Aug. 8, 19 board policies had been revised.

In June, the board elected Erroll Davis as the interim su-perintendent. Harsch-Kinnane said that Davis provided the board with leadership, trust and stability and helped them remain focused.

In order to maintain the community’s involvement throughout the entire process of improving their leadership abilities, the board also created a Community Engagement Committee consisting of APS students, parents, teachers,

principals, city and state officials. The function of the com-mittee is to review the progress and plans of the board and to give feedback to board members.

“I think the whole process made us a better board and a better community,” said vice board chair Reuben McDaniel in an APS community meeting on Sept. 22.

The board also developed surveys to solicit community input. APS conducted one community survey in July and followed it with a second in August. The surveys revealed a high percentage of respondents believe the board is commu-nicating effectively, demonstrating commitment and unity and focusing on teaching and learning.

The data, however, also indicates that the opinions of the community are far from ideal. In August, only 27 percent of respondents stated they were satisfied with the board’s focus on teaching and learning while 43 percent said they were dissatisfied. Respondents answered similarly concerning the board’s ability to operate transparently, to communicate clearly and to demonstrate commitment.

The board recognizes that it made mistakes in the past, but they believe that in order to restore their full accredita-tion, they must look to the future.

“We can only look forward. We can’t continue to look back,” board member Emmett Johnson said during the Sept. 22 community meeting.

According to a progress report that the board sent to SACS on Sept. 12, the Georgia Criterion Reference Competency Test investigation tested the board’s strength, organization and unification. Harsch-Kinnane said the board’s prompt and decisive response to the governor’s investigation dem-onstrated active and effective governance.

Overall, the board feels it has worked hard and has taken the proper course of action since being placed on accredita-tion probation.

“As we have been from the beginning of this effort, the board is committed to remaining focused on the work re-quired by SACS, and we remain committed to providing the best possible education for all students in Atlanta Pub-lic Schools,” said board chair Brenda Muhammad during a board meeting on July 25.

While the board believes that they have made substantial progress on every one of the required actions, it is still up to SACS to decide whether this progress is sufficient to allow APS to retain its accreditation.

“We’ve completed the required actions,” Johnson said. “I think we’ve done a thorough job in doing so. I think we’ve done so timely, and I think we’ve worked together to do that. Honestly, I would expect that we keep the accreditation.” o

APS awaits SACS’ decision after accreditation review

“ We’re a well-functioning board again. I think [SACS] will see that, and I think they’ll appreciate that.

Cecily Harsch- Kinnane APS board member

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STUDENTS WHO HAVEN’T RECEIVED TEXTBOOKS

AP World History—Darden:45 STUDENTS

AP Latin—Allen:15 STUDENTS

AP French—Monye:21 STUDENTS

AP Environmental Science—Ellis:52 STUDENTS

KAREN’S WHIMSEY, PSDGRAPHICS, GREAT JOURNEYS, ELIPART ETC

Oct. 24, 2011 7

DAVIS execution gives life to death penalty protestscontinued from front page

the world, whereas not every person makes it onto the radar in that way,” Hamou-dah said. She added that her organization worked closely with Davis’s family, mainly his sister Martina Correia, who helped drive the campaign to save him.

Hamoudah and others from GFADP participated in the protests outside of the prison in Jackson. She said the organization holds vigils for every execution in Georgia and that Davis’s execution was the fourth for Georgia this year.

“We were there from 1 p.m. until 11:30 p.m.,” Hamoudah said. “We were not al-lowed to bring any food or bags or cameras onto the prison grounds. We had to ask per-mission to go to the bathrooms outside of the ropes where opposition was.”

She said there were close to 250 people on the prison grounds and 1,000 people outside of the prison.

“We had been here three times before. I think people, myself included, just had so much hope that the state would do to the right thing,” Hamoudah said. “I think emotions went from being very hopeful and very prayerful to being really mournful.”

Hamoudah said as the night wore on the ambience outside the prison changed.

“There was just a lot of energy,” she said. “Each time we got word that one of the courts denied an appeal the energy went up, and then when we got the final word that the U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeal, people were crying.”

Senior Quameeha Grandoit also at-tended the protests in Jackson. She said she

was motivated to participate by the doubt in Davis’s case, not her stance on the death penalty.

“My opinion of the death penalty is not really set in stone,” Grandoit said. “For me it was mostly seeing the amount of doubt. There was no way I wasn’t going to.”

Grandoit remembered feeling a sense of guilt after learning that the state had de-cided to execute Davis.

“I was actually in tears because I felt…maybe if I had shouted louder, maybe if I had rioted more, maybe they would have stopped,” Grandoit said.

Despite the outcome Grandoit was glad that she participated in the protest.

“It was a great experience,” Grandoit said. “I learned a lot. It opened my mind up to a lot of things that are happening around the country. My little brothers were there, too.

It was great to see them there too.”Hamoudah hopes that the pulic’s nega-

tive reaction to this case will change the fate of the death penalty.

“I think we need people to keep the mo-mentum,” Hamoudah said. “We want peo-ple to stay engaged and to get involved with Georgians for Alternatives for the Death Penalty and other anti-death penalty groups and work to end this once and for all.” p

n e w s

Francis, Jefferson bravely faced integration strugglesBy Shaun KleBer

Mary McMullen Francis had no intention of failing. People told her she could not do things and would not do things, but she was determined to prove them wrong. And she knew she would have to do it by herself.

After Francis and Lawrence Jefferson, the first two black students to attend Grady, finished their first day of school in August 1961, police escorted the pair to and from school and each of their classes for “a day or two,” Jefferson said. After that, they were on their own.

Both Francis and Jefferson said the year unfolded the same way the first day did. Despite making efforts to assimilate into the Grady population by going to pep rallies, sports games and prom, they continued to feel isolated.

“I just went from class to class, and I was basically alone that whole year,” Francis said.

Later in the year, however, a few girls approached Francis during her lunch period to keep her company, and they got along well, Francis said.

Jefferson had a similar experience. There were a few people he talked to once, but he mostly stayed to himself. He said he did not make any “lifelong friends” at Grady.

Dan Terry, who was a Grady senior with Jefferson and Fran-cis, said he thinks they were left alone to prevent trouble.

“As time went on, they made friends with a lot of students, but they were purposely sort of isolated because nobody wanted anything bad to happen,” Terry said. “And nothing bad did happen.”

Despite their perceived isolation, Terry thought he and his friends welcomed them in.

“Maybe not openly, but there wasn’t any hate or anything in any of the groups I was around during the time I was in there,” he said.

Jefferson said he and Francis were fairly popular at their for-mer high school, Howard High School, but at Grady he felt like he was “just a number.”

“Mary was pretty popular [at Howard]. She was a cheerlead-er,” Jefferson said. “I had been elected to be president of the student body. I was president of the honors society. I was pretty popular myself. [At Grady] we didn’t have the popularity that we had at the school that we came from.”

Francis remembers only one overtly negative experience. She was on the staircase at school one day when she noticed that someone was bumping her. She said she did not think much of

it at first but finally realized what was going on when she saw a boy cross over to bump into her.

The next day, she stepped back when he crossed over, and the boy ran into the wall. She never saw him again after that.

Although the incident was not violent, Francis was still hurt.

Francis and Jefferson were also not allowed to participate in any sports or extracurricular activities, which made school feel like a job to Francis.

“I had no expectations of inclusion or anything. I had been a cheerleader when I was at Howard, but I knew those days were over,” Francis said. “My expectations were that I would go to school and not have any problems. That was it. It was as if it were a job.”

Jefferson remembers applying for a club, but he does not re-member which club it was. He was denied acceptance because the club did not allow “non-white” students to participate.

Francis had a similar experience with a different club. She was invited to join, but after she paid her dues and attended a few meetings, the principal at the time, Roger Derthick, called her into his office.

“I was called into Mr. Derthick’s office and told the spon-soring organization did not admit any black people,” Francis said. “Therefore, they were uninviting me, so they gave me my money back.”

That was not the last time Francis had that same conver-sation with her principal. The senior class that year planned to take a trip to Callaway Gardens, and Francis paid and was planning on going. Before the trip, however, Derthick called her into his office and told her that Callaway Gardens had con-tacted him and informed him that they did not allow black people. He told her that she had a choice: she could either take her money back or insist on going, which would cause the trip to be cancelled.

“It was up to me, I was told,” Francis said. “Of course I said, ‘Well that’s alright. I’ll just take my money back.’ So again, he

gave me my money back.”Despite these problems, Francis is grateful for Derthick’s ef-

forts to make her year go as smoothly as possible. She regrets that she never had the opportunity to thank him.

“I believe that because of his efforts and what he wanted and the way he ran that school, everything went I suppose as planned,” Francis said. “I have to be thankful to him as the leader of the school.”

Francis said she had an eye-opening experience when she re-alized that the average student at Grady was no smarter than she was.

“When I actually got to class, I said, ‘I took tests to go to school with him? Or them?’” Francis said. “To have to do this to go to school with people whose grades were not as good as mine, ‘what’s that all about?’”

Inside the classroom, both Francis and Jefferson mostly en-joyed their academic environments. Francis said she had good classes but particularly liked the students in her final class of the day, Latin.

“There were very good classes [like] my Latin class,” Francis said. “[The students] were very nice to me, and I will always remember and appreciate them.”

Francis said her teachers treated her fairly and called on her to participate in class like the other students. The only excep-tion was her Latin teacher. The Latin class was nice to her, but her teacher was not.

For the first two weeks of school, Francis and Jefferson left school early to avoid the chaos of the end of school. During that time, Francis consistently failed her Latin quizzes, but when she began to leave school at the regular time, she discovered that her teacher told the class what to study at the end of class.

“She knew I didn’t know [what to study], so why not tell me before I left?” Francis said. “Once I found out what was going on, I made an A. She passed [a quiz] out to me…and it was at that point that she knew that I knew what she was doing. She was not setting me up for success. She was setting me up for failure.” p

In the next issue, The Southerner will explore the impacts of Grady High School’s desegregation through the eyes of Francis and Jefferson. In the third installment, Francis discusses how her actions and decisions impacted future black students, and Jefferson explains how the school’s population has changed since he graduated in 1962.

TOO MUCH DOUBT: “Stand up. Testify. We won’t let Troy Davis die,” a crowd chants in opposition to the exectuion. The crowd adopted the rally slogan “I am Troy Davis.”

GradyINTEGRATED

Second in a series

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8 Oct. 24, 2011

‘Snatch-and-grab’ thieves harass Virginia-HighlandBy Lucy Leonard

Inman Perk Coffee was filled with cus-tomers. Emory nursing student Rosie Brown said she sat in the middle of the room pouring over the notes on her laptop for a test that she had the next day. There were people all around her, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Until, that is, a teenaged-looking boy stopped in front of her and snatched her laptop computer from right under her fingers.

“There was this moment when our eyes were locked, and everyone was just frozen,” Brown said. “Then he yanked the cord and I’m like, ‘Okay, yeah, he’s stealing my computer.’”

Brown said the boy ran out of the shop with her computer, and she and several oth-ers chased after him across the street, where he hopped into a car with three other people.

“They pulled out, and the two guys [help-ing me] got there right as the car was leaving, and they were punching into the car kind of,” Brown said. “People from across the street were trying to block the car. It was pretty crazy.”

This was not the first “snatch-and-grab” that has occurred at Inman Perk Coffee, and it was not the last to happen in Atlanta.

According to the Atlanta Police Department website, larceny— the wrongful acquisition of personal property of another person—has in-creased by 3.55 percent since 2010.

Jamie Saye, one of the owners of Inman Perk, said the shop is taking measures to stop this type of crime, but people have to be aware and willing to take responsibility for their be-

longings. “This is the city of Atlanta,” Saye said.

“This isn’t the safest district, and if you’re in here, you have to be on watch.”

Since the thefts, Inman Perk Coffee has become a member of the Inman Park Patrol, hired security guards, installed $600 security cameras and asked customers and baristas to look out for any suspicious behavior.

“We’re also going to take measures to make it harder to get in and out of Inman Perk and strategically locate the tables so that ... it’s not an easy, quick grab through here,” Saye said.

Saye takes it personally whenever a theft oc-curs at his shop.

“Crime happens,” Saye said. “I’m emotional about it because every time it’s like they stole from me. When they steal from me, I’m al-most relieved because at least I’m the only one that’s affected by it. It really affects me when a customer gets hit, and those are the ones that we all try to look out for.”

Inman Perk Coffee, however, is not the only place where these crimes are occurring.

Virginia-Highland resident Benjamin Mor-rissey witnessed a similar “snatch-and-grab” on Virginia Circle in late August.

Morrissey was on his way home from the gym when a woman backed straight into his truck. The woman apologized but started to yell at Morrissey, demanding he help a woman who was chasing two boys down the street.

The woman had been walking down Vir-ginia Avenue with her laptop when two boys had approached her and snatched it from her arms, Morrissey said.

“I’m in my workout stuff and my Crocs and I just chased after [the boys], and one guy goes one direction and the other guy goes the other way,” Morrissey said. “When [one guy] sees me coming, he instantly throws this laptop that he’s been carrying onto the ground.”

Morrissey continued pursuing the boy until he finally caught him on Ponce de Leon Place.

“I didn’t know if I could tackle him or what,” Morrissey said. “He kept going and cut around a corner, and I grabbed and threw him, and he bounced off a bush and landed tangled in the bush then kind of looked at me and I just said, ‘That’s enough, man. The cops are coming.’”

Morrissey said the boy jumped up and con-tinued running, leaping over fences in order to

escape Morrissey. The suspect escaped. According to an APD press release, on Oct.

5, four suspects were apprehended after at-tempting evasive maneuvers. APD said that the suspects are possibly connected with the string of robberies in Little Five Points.

John Wolfinger, public safety chair for Vir-ginia-Highland and coordinator of the Virgin-ia-Highland Safety Team, said this is no reason for the public to become careless.

These thefts have hit the Grady campus, said Susan Muntzing, volunteer at the College and Career Connections Center. One parent volunteer had her phone taken off a table.

District 6 city council member Alex Wan has noticed these crimes around Atlanta and has a good friend whose iPhone was taken from his table at a Starbucks over the summer.

Wan said crimes could be deterred if people increase awareness of their surroundings.

“I know it’s easy to get very focused on texting, reading emails or using various [ap-plications] on your phone,” Wan said. “But that is exactly that distraction that creates the opportunity that criminals are looking for, and they only need one chance to commit that crime.” p

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continued from front page

Principal Vincent Murray said. The fact that several classes still

don’t have permanent teachers could greatly affect the students in these classes in the long run. These stu-dents are not learning essential con-cepts in the core curriculum, which could affect their standardized test scores, Murray said.

Shorts said when she attempted to switch out of the math class, she was told that the other classes were over-crowded and that there was nothing that could be done.

“Substitutes have been just coming in and giving us stuff to review for the GGT, but we don’t know what they’re talking about,” Shorts said.

Murray said many students have complained about the lack of a permanent teacher in the class-room, and parents and students have expressed concerns about how the students will be graded for midsemester and about how they will catch up to the other classes. He said the main concern is whether the students will be able to master the curriculum and the content for midterm tests and the GGT. He has recommended multiple teachers as candidates to be hired as math and special-education teachers.

“Typically what I do is when I find eligible candidates I interview the candidates first with the depart-ment head, and I let them see if that person is capable and see if that per-son would be ‘a good fit for Grady,’” Murray said. “After I interview them I send that candidate’s name in to human resources.”

Math chair Ebony Anderson-Johnson said that as the department chair, she serves as the liaison be-

tween the principal, the central office and the math department.

“We’ve recommended several teachers for hire,” Anderson-John-son said. “For some reason their paperwork wasn’t processed or the teachers took another job because of the delay.”

Murray said human resources needs to secure all of the applicants’ documents as soon as they apply.

“Human resources should be able to process a person as soon as a rec-ommendation is made,” he said. “It shouldn’t take two to four to eight weeks for it to happen.”

Grady parent Wiley Sommerville, is a parent-business representative on the local school council, and has ex-pressed concerns about the situation to the administration. Sommerville said the school council discussed the overcrowding at Grady and the lack of teachers on campus at their last meeting in September. As a result, the council sent letters to the down-town APS office, and Sommerville said if the officials who received the letters do not respond, they will esca-late their requests to higher-ranking

authorities within APS. “It doesn’t seem fair to kids

that are stuck in those classes to not have permanent teachers,” Sommerville said.

The council appreciated that the school is trying to hire teachers, Som-merville said. Their primary concern, however, is that the school isn’t get-ting enough support from APS.

“HR has to do its due diligence to make sure that when they hire a person that everything they have on that person is true and correct,” APS director of media relations Keith Bromery said.

Murray said the reason some classes still do not have teachers is be-cause of the hiring process. Human resources has to verify an applicant’s credentials and qualifications before the applicant can become an APS teacher, but the process often takes too long, Murray said.

“The only thing I can tell you is that I’ve made recommendation after recommendation,” Murray said.

Some of these recommended ap-plicants have gotten so frustrated by delays in the APS hiring process that

they have decided to go to other dis-tricts instead, Murray said. He said he has lost about four or five teachers because it took so long for them to be considered for a position.

Bromery said the process ranges from one week to a month, but Mur-ray said it has taken longer.

“In fact, we started hiring them way back in June,” Murray said. “In June, I had two great teachers who went to other districts because of the fact that Atlanta [Public Schools] was not being expeditious enough in get-ting them cleared for employment, but that tells you something: if they were cleared with another district, they should’ve been cleared with At-lanta [Public Schools], too.”

Bromery said the APS hiring pro-cess is effective.

“You don’t want to end up hiring somebody and then essentially fir-ing them because their information wasn’t correct,” he said.

Anderson-Johnson said the rea-son for the delay may be because math teachers are currently in high demand. Bromery confirmed that math and science positions are get-

ting harder to fill, and Murray said the delay could also be because of the leadership transition that the district is undergoing.

Murray said when the new math teacher is eventually hired, the teach-er will have three Math III classes and three math support classes. When the new Program for Exceptional Children teachers join the staff, they will be assigned to core classes where they are needed.

The school is missing a social science, a science and a math PEC teacher. Murray said Grady uses an inclusion model, so those students are assigned to a content teacher, but they are not getting the one-on-one attention that they would receive if they had a PEC teacher.

Murray said he is looking for an experienced candidate to fill the math position because the students are so far behind. He said when the math classes do get a teacher, he is go-ing to ask that person to do tutorials with the classes three times a week so they can cover the entire curriculum in the shortened time frame.

Murray is on his fifth recommen-dation to fill the math position. He said the candidate hasn’t completed the process, but she was previously a teacher with APS, so he hopes that she will be cleared by mid-October.

Bromery said the process for hiring a teacher who previously worked for APS would in fact be shorter because the teacher would already be vetted.

“It [the APS hiring process] has been consistent throughout,” Bro-mery said. “We haven’t changed the process.”

But Murray said it hasn’t always taken this long to hire candidates.

“I don’t care for the process APS is using right now,” Murray said. p

TEACHERS absent: classes still missing instructors

TEACHER WANTED: A Math III class watches an educational video after going weeks without organized instruction (left). Substitute teacher Malika Franklin passes out supplies to one of her students (above). Six classes remain without permanent instructors.PH

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BY THE nUMBERS: Recent Crime in Virginia-Highland Robbery Theft Assault

3 4 45 1Burglary

Crimes recorded from Aug. 26 to Oct. 15

By Nile KeNdall aNd leJoi laNe

Grady feeder school Mary Lin Elemen-tary School stands to gain $12.1 million for classroom additions and renovations if a spe-cial-purpose, local-options sales tax is passed this November. In addition, the SPLOST would fund the construction of brand new schools like Midtown Middle School, which would receive $30 million, and North At-lanta Elementary School, which would re-ceive $16 million.

On Nov. 8, local voters will vote on this SPLOST for the Atlanta, Fulton, Deca-tur and DeKalb Public Schools systems. If passed, this would be the fourth SPLOST granted to these districts since 1997. The cur-rent SPLOST expires on Jan. 1, and with the primary election approaching, some voters find themselves questioning whether another SPLOST is absolutely necessary.

A SPLOST puts a one percent sales tax on all merchandise purchased in Georgia for no longer than five years. The money collected during the tax is given to each school system to fund capital projects such as facility enhancements and technological advancements.

SPLOST revenue is responsible for many recent Grady projects, like the new Grady Stadium which was listed in SPLOST III, and the 2003 Grady renovation which was included in SPLOST II.

In order to seek out the SPLOST, all four school districts had to agree that they needed funding. Each district’s board of education then compiled a list of things for which the potential funds from the tax would be used. They then submitted the list to the state, which added the referendum to the next elec-tion ballot. If passed, the state will allocate the money to each district based on student population size.

APS Board of Education member Cecily Harsch-Kinnane believes the new SPLOST is definitely needed and is optimistic for voter support.

“I hope voters will feel confident in voting for SPLOST IV because I think the system has used our SPLOST money very well,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “Our facilities are in really great shape across the system, and we always got really good feedback on how well the money had been spent. I think it’s been a great program.”

Nicole Barry, chairwoman of the Atlanta Young Republicans, questions whether the school systems will be using the new SPLOST for pressing issues.

“From what I can see, they have already renovated schools across the district,” Barry said. “I know there’s always more to be done, I’m just not sure more taxes are needed to ac-complish what needs to get done.”

Atlanta, Decatur, Fulton and DeKalb have used SPLOST to build and renovate dozens of new and existing schools, buy thousands of computers and replace or repair roofs and heating and air conditioning systems. Kin-nane still ensures that, if granted, the SPLOST money would be put to good use.

“Yes, we have renovated our schools and they’re in really good shape, but the ongo-ing upkeep of these schools is a necessity,” Harsch-Kinnane said.

When deciding whether or not to renew the SPLOST, the boards were faced with four options. Option one was to decide not to fund any further projects. Option two was to use the limited, remaining money from SPLOST III to pay for pressing needs. Op-tion three was to raise millage rates—prop-erty taxes placed on homeowners—back to pre-SPLOST rates. Lastly, option four was to apply for a new SPLOST.

Many capital projects that were supposed to be funded in SPLOST III were not be-cause the anticipated tax revenue simply was not there. Kinnane said that not only did the recession play a role in this underfunding, but

there was also an accounting mistake on the part of the Fulton County Schools system.

Before the money from each SPLOST is allocated, each school system is supposed to file a full-time equivalency count. The FTE tells the state exactly how many students are enrolled in each school system so they can distribute the money appropriately. Fulton County did not file their new FTE, howev-er, and was given a lot less money than they should have received because their student population increased. After the Fulton num-bers were recalculated, the APS board had to return $50 million back to the state for Ful-ton County’s use.

Because of this major loss in funds, the APS board decided to use the majority of SPLOST III to renovate Maynard Jackson High School, which Kinnane said was long overdue since they had never had a renovation.

There are three other referendums that will also be on the Nov. 8 ballot. One of those will be the Atlanta regional transpor-tation SPLOST. If passed, money from this SPLOST will be used for new MARTA sta-tions, funding for the Atlanta BeltLine and other transportation projects.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Consti-tution, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed did not want the school board to seek to renew the education SPLOST at the same time as the

transportation tax. If both were to pass, the city would have the state’s highest sales tax at 9 percent, and according to the mayor, would be at a competitive disadvantage.

Reed suggested that APS instead pursue a fractional tax, that when combined with a pre-sumed one percent transportation tax, would keep the city’s overall sales tax at a competitive 8.4 percent. Kinnane said that the board con-sidered this plan, but after further researching the idea, they realized that a fractional tax was actually in violation of Georgia law.

If the bill does not pass, the Atlanta board will have to either work with the limited funds left over from SPLOST III or vouch to have millage rates increased for homeowners.

APS board member Yolanda Johnson is optimistic about the bill passing but says she cannot really say for sure.

“I don’t know if the bill will pass,” Johnson said. “I can’t really speculate. Other people want to use the money for other things.”

Harsch-Kinnane wants to make clear that funding is a necessity, and that the decision to ask for another tax was taken seriously.

“We’re not doing this [SPLOST] just be-cause we can do it,” Harsch-Kinnane said. “We didn’t go out and ask for this lightly. We truly have a drastic need. We cannot provide a world-class education experience in Atlanta Public Schools without funding.” p

REVENUE RAISED FROM SPLOSTS I-IV

SPLOST I

SPLOST II

SPLOST III

SPLOST IV

1997-2002

2002-2007

2012-2017

2007-2012

$461 million

$460 million

$421 million

$520 million(ANTICIPATED)

9Oct. 24, 2011 n e w sSPLOST collects tax dollars, controversy over funding

Students, faculty fabricate community-service hours

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(IF VOTERS PASSIT ON NOV. 8)

By olivia KleiNmaN

Junior Reilly Lerner has spent countless Saturdays giving back to her community: re-roofing homes for the impoverished elderly, helping feed the hungry with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, packaging medical supplies to developing countries through MedShare and helping women seeking refuge at the Atlanta Women’s Day Shelter. Though she expects nothing in return, she does receive community-service hours for her work. These hours, she believes, are a reflection of true dedication and hard work. Lerner feels that not all students put this much effort into earning their community-service hours.

In recent years, Grady teachers have offered increased op-portunities to earn community-service hours, leaving some questioning the validity of the community-service policy. The current APS policy requires all students to perform 75 hours of community service in order to graduate. Both teachers and students, however, believe the broad definition of community service allows too much leeway.

Grady communications teacher Mario Herrera believes this policy is flawed, describing it as a “free-for-all.”

“I don’t know if it has any teeth,” Herrera said. “Everyone knows that if they talk to the right people they can get their forms filled out.”

Lerner shared a similar sentiment. “I find it unfair that students get far more community-service

hours than people who truly try simply because their teacher gave them more hours than they actually worked,” Lerner said.

She criticized signs around Grady that say, “Get ‘X’ amount of community service hours for signing up,” because that is not the actual amount of time spent.

Herrera distributed 20 community-service hours to senior Quameeha Grandoit for stacking books in his classroom, al-though she only spent 15 hours of her time. He said he is guilty for giving double hours to students in the past.

“Not anymore,” Herrera said. “I don’t think it’s right because it demeans the purpose of community service. Helping out oth-ers shouldn’t be opportunistic.”

Literature teacher Susan Mercer called the situation a “conundrum.”

“If kids need 75 hours to graduate, but the nature of commu-nity service is selfless, how does that work?” Mercer said.

Mercer has granted community-service hours to students on her ultimate Frisbee team for raking and plowing Grady’s prac-tice field after they use it for a parking lot fundraiser. She debates whether or not this service deserved community-service hours because people paid to park their cars on the field, damaging it in the process. She concludes: probably not.

Senior Monica Prioleau said she received 75 hours of com-munity service from former math teacher Alvie Thompkins for attending Georgia High School Graduation Test tutorials. Prio-

leau attended these tutorials for five weeks and earned two and a half times the number of hours she spent.

“It doesn’t fulfill the purpose of community service because you’re not doing anything for the community. It’s more for yourself,” Prioleau said.

She explained that opportunities such as this one are advanta-geous for people who do not have the time to perform com-munity service.

Spanish teacher Liliana Ortegón is among several faculty members who offer community-service hours to students who help her organize. Despite this, Ortegón believes that students would benefit more from working outside of school so that they acquire a better sense of the needs of the community.

Communications and Journalism Academy leader Carrie MacBrien believes volunteering for teachers can be valuable to students by building sensitivity to what teachers have to endure. She pointed out that by assisting the teachers, students are al-lowing them to spend more time on grading and planning.

Lerner, however, remains apprehensive as to whether these hours are fairly earned. She is also concerned because commu-nity service gives students an edge when applying to college.

“I honestly have worked every hour that I have recorded, and I am proud of that, not only because I’m being truthful, but because I have given that much time back to my community,” Lerner said. p

u ic COMESBACK TO

By Lindsey Leonard

Fresh out of the University of Georgia, Peter Conlon was working as an intern for President Jimmy Carter’s campaign manager, Hamilton Jordan. Only a few years after the start of his career, however, Conlon changed gears, moving back to Atlanta to work on more campaigns and organize benefit concerts. Little did Conlon know that this career choice would be the first step to where he is now: promoter and president of event company Live Nation’s southeast division.

Conlon and his partner, music industry veteran Alex Cooley, organized multiple concerts throughout Atlanta during the 1980s, and their reputation grew so strong that in 1994 they were able to put together a music festival in the center of the city.

Conlon said that first two-day concert was organized as an experiment “to gauge the public’s interest in such an event.” A few years later, however, Music Midtown was an annual weekend festival with six stages and as many as 300,000 concertgoers.

Conlon said he saw a lot of change during the 11-year run of the festival, especially in the bands that perform.

“Bands come and go —some don’t exist anymore—but most [bands] continue to grow,” he said. “That’s why we have always had multiple stages and a diverse line-up.”

The festival has changed location multiple times. Conlon said the first festival was in a lot at the corner of Peachtree and 10th streets. The concert moved to where the Federal Reserve is located and then onto the plot of land where the Georgia Aquarium is now. The fourth and last location of the annual festival was behind the Civic Center in downtown.

Rumors about why Music Midtown suddenly came to an end after the 2005 event abounded, but Conlon said rising costs was the culprit.

“People started disrespecting what we were doing. [They] stopped having coop-eration with the amount of work that is put into this festival,” Conlon said.

Art teacher John Brandhorst attended three of the Music Midtown festivals with a circle of friends from a previous job.

“It was definitely a great scene for a while. It was awesome to see a bunch of stages put together with great bands in an area that has changed so much throughout the years,” he said.

Brandhorst said he witnessed the festival’s slow decline. “We all stopped going when it became too crowded and became a

scene that wasn’t as enjoyable,” he said. After a five-year break, Conlon said this year would be a good

time to start back up with the same name and same vibe but a different location. He chose Piedmont Park because he felt the town needed a festival.

“I think [Piedmont Park workers] looked at Music Mid-town as a good event,” Conlon said. “The mayor was very vocal when I told him it would be a green concert, just like the past three festivals and that it will bring togeth-er a certain amount of tourists in the United States.”

Conlon said the preparations for this festival usu-ally take a year, but he was on a short timeframe this year because the idea germinated in April.

For Music Midtown’s 10th anniversary, there were 120 artists performing on 11 stages. The festival spanned over three days for a fee of $45. This year, the fes-tival lasted one day with two stages and 10 bands.

Conlon hopes to continue hav-ing Piedmont Park as the location of the festival and hopes to add more stages and a longer line-up in the future. p

Conlon revives fest 6 years later

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Blasts of glittering fireworks erupted into the night sky, and the resulting illumination revealed a great mass of people, a solid blanket of humanity sweeping across the park, swaying in unison to the sounds of Music Midtown. As Coldplay, the event’s finale,

brought their performance to a head, the fireworks continued intermittently, timed perfectly to the music, but even the sound of their eruptions could not dim the great hum of thousands upon thousands of people singing along together.

Atlanta’s own music festival, Music Midtown, took over the Midtown area on Sept. 24, lasting from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. Two stages loomed over opposite ends of the Piedmont Park meadow, upstaged only by the enormous sea of

people migrating back and forth between them to catch the musical acts as they appeared. The lineup included The Postelles, The Constellations, Walk the Moon, The Joy Formidable, Band of Skulls, Manchester Orchestra, Young the

Giant, Cage the Elephant, The Black Keys and Coldplay. The event, resurrected by Live Nation and local Live Nation president Peter Conlon, was back for the first time since 2005. Before 2005, the music festival ran continuously for 11 years. Conlon, who cofounded Music

Midtown in 1994, thought the event was very successful this year. “We’re trying to reinvent it,” Conlon said.

Due to rising costs, the resurrected festival was a scaled-down version of the one Atlanta had seen in the past. The festival was shorter—just one day this year—and more compact. Because Piedmont Park was a

much smaller site than Music Midtown’s previous venue, Conlon and his productions team decided to have two stages on either side of the lawn that festival-goers could walk back and forth between.

“We didn’t want the stages to bleed onto one another soundwise, so we just came up with how we could position them and also make it work well for the festival,” Conlon said. “We’re just

trying to make a festival of this nature fit within a city.” Head of the Administrative Support Office, David Propst worked with Music Midtown organizers to ensure the event did not disrupt Grady’s day-to-day operations.

“You know I had to do a little something-something,” said Propst. Propst worked alongside Live Nation to ensure that Grady students received parking passes and that nothing went awry.

Propst and Live Nation officials began meeting in January and continued through February, March and June with a finalization meeting in July.

“But it went smoothly, right?” Propst said. “Y’all can appreciate me.” Propst hopes that the level of student involvement increases in future years.

“I’d like the musicians to take an interest in the students,” Propst said. “I want The Southerner to be interviewing Coldplay.”

Past and present Grady students had plenty of fun at the event. Alumna Eva Dines enjoyed seeing some of her favorite bands playing

in such an unconventional venue and stayed at the event for more than nine hours, she said.

“It was awesome music,” said Dines, who added that she loved “being outside all day and having the freedom

to enjoy the music anywhere in the park. “You’re not stuck in your seat.”

Senior Jack Douglas was equally enthusiastic.“Music Midtown was the most jam-packed day

of rock’n’roll I have ever attended. ‘Twas fantastic,” Douglas said. “Migrating from stage to stage to

hear great band after great band was a surreal ex-perience [and] tons of fun.”

Douglas did have a few complaints.“Some of the early bands weren’t given enough playing time, and far too much

production value was spent on Cold-play compared to the other bands,”

he said. “But [overall] I would say it was totally worth it. It

was uber-fun and it reignited a music tradition.” p

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Thousands flock to revamped festival

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Yearly convention shows students’ passion for anime

As sun sets on childhood, Lion King brings closure

By Emma aBErlE-GrassE

With twitching thumbs and darting eyes, senior Sam Lowe dominated the Super Smash Bros Melee tournament.

“I was confident I would be leaving undefeated until this little kid walked up and challenged me,” Lowe said.

It quickly became clear he was no longer the melee master.

“I had been defeated by a tween,” Lowe said.

Lowe’s smashing defeat occurred at the 15th annual Anime Weekend Atlanta, which was held at the Cobb Galleria Centre and Renaissance Waverly Hotel from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2. Anime fans from around Atlanta swarmed the anime convention, dressed in costumes ranging from made-up characters to Naruto and Pokemon.

This was Lowe’s third year at AWA, and his loss won’t keep him from attending in the future, he said. He first became interested in anime in 2003 through the trading card game Yugioh. He continues to play Yugioh, making money from selling cards at conventions such as AWA.

Starting Friday afternoon, the AWA was packed full of ceremonies, movies, dances, tours and contests regarding anything and everything anime.

Senior Lamar Benefield is a long-time fan of anime. He got hooked on Dragon Ball Z as a child and became more interested in the anime world as the years went on. Benefield said he is most fascinated with the art style “manga” used in anime cartoons. In the majority of anime series, he says the art is what intrigues him the most, but occasionally

the plot will surprise him. Lowe disagrees. What keeps

him interested in anime is the way the stories are written: some follow a predictable plot, while others don’t seem to add up until the end, if at all.

This year was Benefield’s second time attending AWA. He especially enjoyed a session by Vic Mignogna, an American voice actor for anime cartoons who has also created music for

anime films.“Mignogna’s presentation was

inspirational and sparked my interest in following a career in anime,” Benefield said.

Senior Nick McFarlin has attended AWA for six years and last year worked as a staff member.

He said he enjoys seeing the range of ages of volunteers and participants.

“It is comforting to be surrounded by people who all share this interest

with you,” McFarlin said. “Even if you wouldn’t ordinarily

feel connected to somebody if you met them outside of AWA, while you’re there, everyone seems really comfortable around each other,” he said.“It’s like a brand new world created in every different series you see.”.

He loves the anticipation of anime shows every week, wondering what could happen in the next episode. He compares it to the

reality show American Idol.“Just how those fans wait to

see who will get kicked off the show, anime fans wait around to see what’s going to happen to Spike from Cowboy Bebop, or Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin,” McFarlin said.

McFarlin appreciated seeing fans of all ages. “Grandparents were not there to babysit the kids,” he said. “They went because they really love anime.” p

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SOUL FOOD: Anime Weekend Atlanta attendees pose as Soul Eater Evans preparing to devour some evil human souls. Hundreds attended the convention in various fantasy costumes.

There are al-ways things we encounter in life that trigger nos-talgia for our ch i l dhood s—a favorite toy, a special book. But nothing conjures the sweet, play-

ful images of old like a favorite childhood movie. You remember all of the characters you thought you knew personally, the cra-zy antics of underestimated heroes and the hidden jokes you were too young to under-stand at the time but laughed at anyway.

As I sat in a nearly empty theater to watch the re-release of one of my all-time favorite movies, The Lion King, digitally remastered in 3D, I felt those exact emo-tions again.

For those of you who lived under Pride Rock in the 1990s, The Lion King was a ripe, exciting tale of a young lion n a m e d S imba

learning his role in the world, all set in some unnamed African savannah where prey animals bow to lions instead of running in absolute terror of being eaten. The movie later inspired a two sequels and a musical production.

Originally released in 1994, the Disney flick entranced youngsters with hyenas, elephant graveyards and two lovable sidekicks, Timon the meerkat and Pumba the warthog. Disney re-released the film on Sept. 16 for only two weeks, with an added bonus—it would also be shown in 3D.

Now I don’t know about you, but given the opportunity to have my childhood pop out of a screen at my face, I was definitely going to have to take it. Even if it did cost me a whopping $14.

With 3D glasses in hand, I eagerly yet nervously picked my seat for the movie. I was wary. The Lion King in 3D? Will the 3D ruin it? Will I even remember the movie at all?

But all of my fears subsided once I heard the

calling cry

of the opening song and saw the sunrise that kicks off the movie in the sharp clarity that 3D remastering provides.

I soon learned that not only did I remember the movie, I remembered all of the lyrics to every song. I was mouthing the words and rocking out with my killer dance moves at every musical opportunity. I wasn’t just tapping into old memories. I was making new ones. It was an exhilirating experience. To quote the person behind me, “Please stop moving so much.”

Watching the lions saunter across rocks and tree bridges reminded me of the days when I would spend hours watching the movie atop my couch on all fours, positive I was destined to be a lion later in life.

I remembered the days spent perfecting my lion’s roar, and I remembered the vivid dreams I had of living in an African oasis with two of my best buddies thinking Hakuna Matata, no worries.

The Lion King also evoked another thought—how much I needed to get back

in touch with my child-hood. In these days of tests and

college applications, it is so easy to set aside the Disney VHS tapes and forget they exist. But the truth is I owe a lot to The Lion King.

Alongside the entertainment of talking animals and catchy tunes, the movies se-cretly taught me morals and life lessons. The creativity I use to craft essays and produce projects was motivated at a very young age by these animated movies and characters. I really owe a lot to Walt Dis-ney and his expertly made films.

As far as 3D movies go, there were no sharp objects flying dangerously close to my face or paws reaching out to grab me. It was no different from the original be-sides the added image depth and clarity of the picture.

To be honest, it was more of a remaster-ing of the old film than a new movie. But the re-release put much more into focus than just movie frames; it brought me back to the carefree days of my youth, and that

was well worth the ticket price. p

ElizaBEth mcGlamry

ILLuSTRATION BY ELIZABETH MGGLAMRY

By Lauren Ogg

Before burgers, frozen yogurt and cupcakes were the latest must have. Now, from Buckhead to Decatur, there is a restaurant for every burger lover.

Boardwalk Fresh Burgers and Fries in Ansley, 5 Napkin Burger on Tenth Street, Farm Burger in Decatur, Grindhouse Killer Burg-ers on Piedmont Avenue, and multiple Flip Burger and Yeah! Burger locations have swamped the Atlanta area.

Some restaurants, such as Board-walk Fresh Burgers and Fries and Grindhouse Killer Burgers, aim to the classic and traditional side of a burger restaurant, while others such as Yeah! Burger and Farm Burger target more environmentally con-scious consumers.

First introduced on Howell Mill Road in June 2010, Yeah! Burger was brought to the heart of Virginia-Highland in November of last year.

Managing partner and co-founder Erik Maier said Yeah! Burger appeals to the consumer seeking organic and environmen-tally conscious burger options.

The restaurant’s vibrant colors, modern designs and ecofriendly goals provide an alternative to the “Average Joe” burger joint.

“People want classic, American

food,” Maier said. “Yeah! Burger is simple and convenient.”

Yeah! Burger tries to appeal to the All-American customer but in an ecofriendly way. Maier said the restaurant targets families and young professionals. He hopes that his customers appreciate the use their of the triple bottom line theory: people, planet, profit.

Maier also said that aside from their competitor, Farm Burger, they are one of the only organic burger places in Atlanta.

Yeah! Burger imports its certified, humanely-raised beef from White Oak Pastures, which guarantees no hormones will affect the meat.

Yeah! Burger is certified carbon neutral, meaning it doesn’t have a carbon footprint and doesn’t emit any carbon emissions into the air. It also serves a wide range of gluten-free products, such as buns, French fries and even gluten-free beer. Farm Burger indulges in gluten-free options as well.

“Some [restaurants] off set [their carbon footprint] with wind power, but we wanted to do more that is locally impacted,” Maier said.

Yeah! Burger achieves a neutral carbon footprint by recycling and giving back to a sustainable and lo-cal forest in Georgia.

Farm Burger lists its goals on

its website as: “to connect soil, animal, plant, rancher, butcher, chef & you…all in a simple wire basket.” Both restaurants list the environment as one of the most important goals of their business.

Yeah! Burger and Farm Burger distinguish themselves from other burger joints across Atlanta with unique takes on the original American burger.

They’re not the only burger joints popular among Grady stu-dents, though.

Junior Austen Denenny, Board-walk Fresh Burgers and Fries em-ployee, said Boardwalk Burgers attracts customers from around Ansley Mall, located at the corner of Monroe Drive and Piedmont Avenue. Like the organic-leaning restaurants, he said the restaurant uses grass-fed beef.

“There is always music and a cool atmosphere in the way that we always are interacting and talking to the customers,” Denenny said.

The atmosphere, like Yeah! Burger, encourages interaction between the servers and employ-ees with the customers.

These similarities bring each restaurant together, but the differ-ent types and styles open the mar-ket up for every demographic. p

13Oct. 24, 2011 a & e

13 Stories created from Glover’s old Horror Hill

Too many tickets, too little space: Avett fans shut out

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For concert enthusiasts like junior Luke Webster there is a sort of glee in holding out a concert ticket to be scanned at the door of a venue.

But Webster and his friends never got the satisfaction of having their ticket scanned on Sept. 9 when they attempted to get into the Avett Brothers concert.

The concert, held at the Tabernacle, was part of a Samsung AT&T promotional series called Summer Krush. The promotion gives away free tickets that are good for the holder and one guest, so a large crowd was expected. After waiting in line for 2 hours, Webster and his friends were turned away after The Tabernacle reached capacity.

“It’s not like [the tabernacle] gave out 100-200 tickets,” Webster said. “When they told us that they were at capacity and couldn’t let us in, there were about 500 people behind us who also had to leave.”

The Summer Krush promotional concerts will be held throughout the year in Chicago,

Orlando, New York, Nashville, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle. Each concert has a big name band like Coldplay, Cee Lo Green, Lenny Kravitz, Bush and Pitbull.

“It was a poorly organized event,” Webster said. “When I was waiting in line I saw about 50 people get in line in front of me.”

Line “cutters” were not the only fiasco about which concertgoers complained. The band’s timing became a controversial issue as well, adding to the fans’ negative feelings.

“The whole thing stared late,” Webster said. “People got there at 12 p.m. to wait in line. The doors were supposed to open at 8 p.m., but they didn’t open until 9 p.m. and apparently The Avett Brothers didn’t go on until 10 p.m.”

For those who got into the concert, the waiting wasn’t over.

“We had to wait about an hour for [The Avett Brothers to play],” junior Sophie Maschinot said. “There was a ton of Samsung promotional stuff. It was so boring.”

Maschinot said she managed to get into

the concert because she went to the front of the line to ask Tabernacle workers how long it would take.

When she got there, she ran into a friend who told her to come in with her.

Maschinot said that once The Avett Brothers came on she finally began to enjoy herself.

“It was fun on the inside, but they definitely could have fit more people,” she said.

Webster said his experience on the outside was not enjoyable.

“People were lined up around the barricades at the door,” Webster said. “I thought there was going to be a riot. People were so mad.”

Sophomore Mallory Hazell was extremely upset to the point of tears.

“The Avett Brothers is my favorite band,” Hazell said. “We were so close when [The Tabernacle] reached maximum capacity and that’s mainly why I was so upset.”

For die-hard fans like Webster, this concert experience changed their mind

about The Tabernacle.“There is no excuse,” he said. “It’s sad

because I like The Avett Brothers so much.”Webster said he would have gladly paid

up to $60 to see The Avett Brothers, but not in this context.

“It was all about the promoters,” Webster said. “They didn’t care about the spectators at all.”

The Avett Brothers wrote an apology and gave away free tickets to their show in Tennessee to anyone who could prove they were waiting outside the venue.

“I blame Samsung for giving out too many tickets, not The Avett Brothers. They apologized,” Hazell said.

For Webster, however, the evening ended in a satisfying way.

“I had been waiting at the barricade for a while and we finally decided to leave,” Webster said. “When I turned to go, I looked down and someone had thrown their Samsung AT&T phone on the ground and smashed it to bits. It was perfect.” p

Burgers no longer medium rare in AtlantaYEAH! NOT YES: Yeah! Burger serves up orgainic, green and healthy foods to hungry customers at the Virginia-Highland area.

By JOLie JOnes

The Atlanta Falcons allegedly only made it to the seventh floor before they asked to leave.

The live snakes and trap doors reportedly make visitors wish they had never signed the waiver that grants them access inside. It’s ru-mored those visitors who make it to the top get a full refund but also that the floors get progressively scarier. These stories reach higher than the buildings themselves. The spooky venue, 13 Stories, is nestled in the parking lot of Town Center Mall in Kennesaw.

With all of 13 Stories’s success, the haunted house has an interest-ing history. Allyn Glover, founder of 13 Stories and various other haunted houses in Georgia, is the man behind the spooks.

In 1984, Glover’s family moved from metro Atlanta to Newnan, where his friends found no attrac-tions to keep them entertained. One day Glover and his friend Mike Smith were talking in the woods behind his house about how much they both loved Halloween. They compared stories about Halloween and Glover reminisced about his family’s annual Halloween parties.

These traditions involved mazes formed by sheets, “eyeballs” made from peeled grapes and other various deceptions designed to celebrate.

“Hey, let’s cut a trail

through the woods and invite friends over,” Glover recalls say-ing to Smith. “When they walk through the trail we can jump out and scare them!”

They called it “Horror Hill” be-cause the woods were located on a hill, and when they attracted their first visitors, Glover had launched his career in the realm of Hallow-een entertainment.

Hosting Horror Hill was a fami-ly effort, involving Glover’s parents Judy and Gene Glover, who ran a concession stand. His sister, Dawn Bartholf, joined her husband, Sean Bartholf, and various other friends to help keep Horror Hill running year after year.

People heard about Horror Hill through word of mouth. More than 50 people visited the first year, which Glover and Smith con-sidered to be a huge success. As his creation grew in popularity, Horror Hill also grew in scope and size.

“Over the years the scenes and sets got more intricate,” Glover said. They included trap doors, and the trail grew longer and lon-ger. Today Glover has made a busi-ness out of doing what he loves; spreading Halloween spirits to the thousands of people that walk through his six various haunted houses every year.

Glover blames social media for the rumors about his haunted house being 13 stories tall when

it’s actually only one floor. Human nature also drives people to “one up” the oth-

er, he said.Though there are

many exaggerations about what goes on at the haunted house,

these shouldn’t scare visitors away. There aren’t 13 floors and em-ployees are not allowed to touch you. The ob-jective is to bring visi-tors to the brink of

fear without actu-ally pushing them over the edge. p

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By Hunter rust

Transmutation is the act or pro-cess of transforming in appearance, nature or form. Better known to-day as evolution, transmutation is the term Charles Darwin used to describe the relationship between every living organism around us. And it was with those words that Darwin changed the scientific world forever.

In the new exhibit at Fernbank Museum of Natural History, the public can witness the evolution of Darwin’s theory.

Darwin, which opened on Sept. 24 and runs until Jan. 1, 2012, offers insight into the voyage, discoveries and life of Charles Darwin. When a student enters a biology class, the discoveries of Darwin are often one of the first thing’s mentioned.Students often hear about the dis-covery of the legendary finches that had different beaks, which led to the

discovery of the century: evolution. But what about the details of the

voyages of Darwin himself? Or who he married and how that affected his work? Or even what other species he studied besides birds? The exhibit covers these often overlooked facts about his life and more.

Before you even walk in, you are greeted by a life-sized cut-out of Darwin. I have to admit, it’s quite inviting. Once you enter the exhibit, you are surrounded by countless prints of species that Darwin studied, ranging from butterflies to beetles and lizards. When you keep walking, you’ll re-alize a live iguana is glaring at you in an obviou attempt to challenge you to a staring contest.

One downside to this exhibit is that it is particularly text heavy. The amount of visuals on display, how-ever, make up for the copious text. Not only are there live animals, but

there are numerous journal pages and letters written by Darwin.

The amount of information within this exhibit is extensive, yet not overwhelming. Every panel of writing holds at least one interest-ing fact. Did you know, for example that Darwin suggested the idea that

humans and animals can not only feel the same emotions, but show them in similar ways? For instance, when children ask their mother for a cookie and the mother says no, of-ten they will pout their lips and fur-row their eyebrows. Well, according to Darwin’s discoveries, a chimpan-

zee does that exact same thing when its requests are rejected.

This exhibit showed me that however extensive their research, scientists still had time for other activities in life. Whenever I think of well-known scientists, however, I never really think of them as having a social life. At the exhibit, I found that Darwin had a very fortunate one. The exhibit opened my eyes to the world in which Darwin lived and the life that the acclaimed sci-entist led.

After visiting the exhibit I feel as though Darwin and I are now ac-quaintances. I have learned more about him in the hour I spent stroll-ing through the halls of Fernbank than I ever have in a classroom. Al-though knowing what time of day Darwin took his daily walk is not necessarily textbook material, this fun fact and the exhibit in general was enlightening. p

Fernbank exhibit sheds light on Darwin discoveries

Community responds to Georgia Shakespeare outcry

I-GUANA GO TO FERNBANK: Iguanas greet guests as part of the Charles Darwin exhibit.

By Diana Powers

William Shakespeare once wrote “absence doth sharpen love.” These words resonate with supporters of Georgia Shakespeare con-fronting a possible future without the theatri-cal company.

Georgia Shakespeare is facing a severe fi-nancial crisis threatening the close of the company after 26 years unless end-of-the-year financial deadlines are met.

Founded in 1985, Georgia Shakespeare works toward creating “thoughtful, bold and passionate interpretations of a diverse body of work rooted in Shakespeare and branching out to embrace the best writers and ideas of all eras,” according to the company’s website.

More than 40,000 people attend at least one Georgia Shakespeare performance each year, and the education programs have reached more than 750,000 students in 60 different Georgia counties as well as many nearby states.

Until Sept. 23, the home page of the company’s website shouted in bold lettering “SAVE GEORGIA SHAKESPEARE” above a letter from co-founder and producing artis-tic director Richard Garner that detailed the company’s financial crisis.

Garner said Georgia Shakespeare has al-ways operated “right on the edge,” in terms of finances, just as most art companies do, but the struggle of the recession, particu-larly within the last three years, hit the com-pany hard.

This past summer, during the most active time of the year for productions, the company was forced to function on a week-to-week ba-sis. The financial crisis went public on Sept. 9. The company was required to raise $150,000 by Sept. 23 if it wanted to stay open. If Geor-gia Shakespeare met this deadline, its major fall production The Glass Menagerie would be released and the company would launch phase two of the campaign.

Phase two consists of raising another $350,000 by Dec. 31 to meet total financial needs, including debt payments and support for a new business model, and to operate through the end of 2011 season.

Garner said these were “very real numbers with a daunting deadline,” but after the com-pany’s outcry for help, enough money was raised to not only fulfill the first deadline but to also cover more than half of the payment for the second deadline.

“After launching the online campaign, there was a viral outpouring of support,” Gar-ner said. “People sent it on to others, linking everyone back to these productions. We can’t

even tell how gratified we are with the incred-ible help.”

Literature teacher Scott Stephens has been involved with Georgia Shakespeare for more than a decade and plans to bring 100 Grady students to see The Glass Menagerie this year. He said that once he received a letter from the company about the financial situation, he was unsure if the show would go on and mentioned to parents during Grady’s open house the need for contributions or any form of support.

Garner said nearly 1,000 individuals made contributions, but the most memorable were from 4-year-old Erinn Lucas who brought in her plastic pumpkin with $3.67 she raised by selling her artwork, and former acting intern Sid Solomon, who Garner said exhorted “all of his friends around the country to buy him an ‘imaginary birthday beer’ by sending a do-nation to Georgia Shakespeare.”

“Everyone was blown away by the response of patrons but even more moving was the strong response of other theaters nearby, such as the Alliance Theater and Théâtre du Rêve,” veteran actor and Grady parent Robert Cleve-land said.

Garner described the first reaction to the campaign as being “fiercely emotional,” but said his approavh to fundraising has now become more methodical. The board of trustees at the company are changing op-erations in order to stabilize the company’s long-term future.

If Georgia Shakespeare is forced to shut its doors because it does not satisfy the Dec. 31 deadline, Garner said it would undoubtedly take a toll on the community.

“The community would take a huge hit artistically,” said Allen O’Reilly, education di-rector at Georgia Shakespeare. “So many tal-ented individuals have joined together to cre-ate a family that calls this company home.”

Georgia Shakespeare hires 120 seasonal actors and a dozen year-round that devote extensive amounts of time to preparation and participation in shows. Those actors would be forced to look or even move else-where for work.

Georgia Shakespeare’s current major fall production, made possible by the contribu-tions towards the Sept. 23 deadline, is Ten-nesee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, directed by Garner. Georgia Shakespeare traditionally

stages fall plays for adults and students who are bussed in to see matinee performances.

“It’s important to us to have a piece of work onstage to show the people investing that their efforts are well-spent,” Garner said.

Grady parents Cleveland and Mary Lin Owen, a first-time actor starring as the moth-er in Glass Menagerie, have sponsored fund-raisers and worked around the clock.

Owen related Georgia Shakespeare’s situa-tion to a Winston Churchill quote.

“Churchill asked his men, ‘What do you think we’re fighting for?’” Owen said. “People today still want to be a community allowed to experience the arts of life, which brings ul-timate joy and makes us people. The loss of Georgia Shakespeare would mean the begin-ning of losing the heart and soul of the city.”

Owen and Cleveland’s children, seniors Andrew and Eloisa Cleveland, have been in-volved in theater since they were children.

“People seem to underestimate the power of the arts,”Eloisa Cleveland said It always seems like it’s the first to go in budget cuts.” “There is so much theater does to bring the community together; there will be a major cultural gap if the company has to close.” p

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TO BE OR NOT TO BE: Georgia Shakespeare presents its major fall production, The Glass Menagerie, at Oglethorpe University. Grady parent Mary Lin Owen (top left), who plays the mother, chastises a fellow actor playing her son for coming home drunk and late at night. The daughter Laura, played by Bethany Anne Lind (top right), is a crippled young adult who is withdrawn from the world and devotes herself to a collection of glass figurines. The cast (from left to right), Joe Knezevich playing the role of Tom Wingfield and Travis Smith playing Jim in addition to Lind and Owen, takes its final bow at the dress rehersal. The production was made possible by donations.

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UrbanCouture trims down, focus turns to one showBy Grace Power

Senior designers in the UrbanCouture fash-ion program entered this school year know-ing that, just like every senior designer in the past nine years, they will complete an original clothing line for the final show in May. This year, however, is different be cause the design-ers will only work on that one show.

In previous years, senior designers par-ticipated in three shows, a fall show, Doggies on the Catwalk, and their final show in the spring. Now that the two earlier shows have been taken out of their schedule, they have more time to work on their final collection.

Fashion teacher Vincent Martinez said he decided to take some media attention away from Atlanta Public Schools in response to a pay reduction APS made to Martinez’ salary last spring.

“I [originally] made the change because I was so upset with APS [over a salary dispute],” Martinez said.

With the help of Martinez, UrbanCou-ture had been featured in The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Atlanta INtown Paper, Atlanta Magazine, The Atlantan and Comcast on De-mand. After the salary cut, Martinez decided to begin cutting senior design programs, in-cluding the fall show and Doggies on the Cat-walk, a fashion show using dogs, along with local Atlanta celebrities as models.

Martinez originally thought of the idea for Doggies on the Catwalk in 2008.

“I was inspired by a dog fashion show,” Mar-tinez said. “I thought, we can do this, too.”

After that, Martinez set out to make it happen. Martinez along with the senior designers, partnered with Pets Are Loving Support, a nonprofit organization based in Atlanta. The benefits of the show will go to PALS and fund their mission to provide pet care to elderly, crtitically ill or disabled citi-zens of Atlanta.

Martinez will continue to work on Doggies on the Catwalk, but senior designers will not be designing the outfits; instead, Martinez has enlisted the help of some students from Sa-

vannah College of Art and Design and will no longer associate the show with APS. Doggies on the Catwalk will now take place in April instead of February when it had been held. The fall show is now cancelled.

Senior designers are relieved after being granted this extended time for designing and producing the collection.

“I was really paranoid about not being able to finish,” said senior designer Ayoluwa Hill,

who began her collection over the summer in order to get ahead of the game. “It’s a change to let our designs evolve so in the end we will have a collection that speaks to us.”

Not only is this a relief to students, but Martinez also welcomes this change.

“It will really affect [the senior design pro-gram] in a pretty spectacular way for them,” Martinez said, “It was a blessing in disguise. My students now have a full year to work on

their collections, which is where their passion really lies.”

Both Martinez and his students are wel-coming this change.

“I personally like having all year to work on the collection because I can work with some-one else,” senior designer Ninti Eddington said. “Everything is so much more perfect, and there is way more time to experiment with the collection.” p

Ready, set, draw: teacher organizes art competitionBy Gracie white

The atmosphere is filled with pressure and suspense. Spec-tators follow the action and as the clock ticks down, each competitor’s level of intensity increases. The win is up for grabs. Victory will be awarded to whoever wants it most. A new sport has emerged at Grady: Art.

Grady art teacher John Brandhorst teamed up with local art coach Jeff Mather in order to create formal art competi-tions in which Grady students of all grade levels can compete against artists from other schools in November 2012.

“I am secretly a very competitive person, and I don’t see why art gets off the hook in terms of interscholastic competi-tion,” Brandhorst said. “You should be able to go, do it [art], and pick a winner. Like a football game, the making of art or making of plays, is what’s interesting, not just the final product or result.”

In each competition, a variety of different art forms and techniques will be showcased.

“There will likely be a range of events including live pro-duction and an exhibition of works that have already been completed,” Brandhorst said.

Like Brandhorst and Mather, Beth Malone has exten-sive experience helping students realize their passion for art. Malone has organized several teen programs. Includ-ing art classes, teen nights, art film screenings and music shows at the High Museum, Malone hopes that turning art into a competition will make non-art-lovers appreciate the subject more.

“I think [art] in this kind of competitive format speaks to our serious love of competition and sport,” said Ma-lone, who is interested in hosting an art competition at the High Museum.

Although Brandhorst, Mather and Malone have discussed the concept of “multi-arts teams” for the past few years, Gra-dy alumnus Perrin Turner helped turn the idea into a real event just last year.

Turner, a senior at the time, sought to create an environ-

ment in which high school students could express themselves through art competitions, and an where the talent and art-istry of high school students would be valued.

“I want to make art an accessible and understandable part of life,” Turner said. “For most high school artists, a live art competition would be a really different experience. The cre-ative energy at each competition would produce a breeding ground for new ideas and collaboration between artists.”

This “art throw-down” was mainly student-driven. “At the high school level, I couldn’t find many people

who wanted to talk about art. So I thought a live art com-petition would be a fun way to get everything out in the open and make a different kind of creative experience,” Turner said.

The foundation for the upcoming formal art competitions originated from this idea of a “throw-down” or informal art show. The art compe-titions this year are mostly teacher and coach driven, and Brandhorst would like them to be more formal events this year. Brandhorst is plan-ning on having regular “meets” (art competitions) and practice times for his art team students.

Brandhorst hopes the new art competitions will be in full operation by the end of November. Brandhorst envi-sions an art competition similar to a track meet, in which many different events, such as still life, drawing and ges-ture drawing, will be held.

Based on the level of skill a student demonstrates in a given area of artistry, they will be selected to compete in a certain event held at the art competitions, and will receive a spot on the team. Both Brandhorst and Mather will strive to find a team composed of diverse talents and students who, when given a prompt, have the ability to find a creative approach and come up with a product.

The first competition of 2012 will be held at the High Museum, but Brandhorst said the location of regular meets may change throughout the season, and depending on which events are held, the competitions could last up to a few hours.

“Generally, art is judged in a gallery setting or by individ-ual entries by a reputable individual or a jury, usually three art-world people,” Brandhorst said. At the end of end of each competition, an overall score for a school will be determined by totalling the student’s individual score.

Initially, the art team will be sponsored by donations, and eventually the team hopes to obtain product endorsements as a means to provide supplies and materials. Like other sports, each

student will have to pay a fee when admitted to the team.

Brandhorst said expecta-tions for the students’ per-formance level and sports-manship are high, and the atmosphere is predicted to be a fun but competitive environment. Mather has similar views about upcom-ing competitions.

“I hope as the coach of stu-dent artists that they will run with their strengths, but also take risks and allow themselves to get nudged out of their comfort zones,” Mather said. “The atmosphere [of an art competition] is playful; everyone’s energy is elevated, and the quality of art that happens is surprising.”

The establishment of this art competition is a step toward several things that Brandhorst hopes to accomplish.

“I want to spread public awareness of the amount of skill that exists at the high school level regarding art and the mak-ing of it,” Brandhorst said. “Additionally, I would love to raise the scale of support in the community for the arts to some-thing similar to the support demonstrated for football.” p

“ I want to spread public awareness of the skill that exists at the high school level regarding art and the making of it.”

John BrandhorstArt teacher

ONE DAY YOU’RE IN, THE NEXT DAY YOU’RE OUT: Senior Designers Ayoluwa Hill and Ninti Eddington recieve advice from Martinz to perfect their designs for the spring show.

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Alum’s road from GNN to NBC leads to twin Emmies

African oracle: Olorunfemi next in line for throne

By Kenny CoChran

When Bryan Dumas arrived at Grady as a freshman in 1999, he had his heart set on journalism. Like many students in the Com-munications Magnet Program, he wanted to be involved with broadcast journalism. He aspired to be on the staff of the Grady News Network (GNN) and excel in high school like everyone around him. Upon graduation, he planned on pursuing a career in media. Du-mas, however, did not expect to become a two-time Emmy Award winning journalist by the time he was 26.

On April 27, 2009, Dumas earned an Emmy as part of the broadcast team that produced NBC Sunday Night Football, which was named “Outstanding Live Sports Series.” The follow-ing year, Dumas earned a second Emmy as an associate producer working on NBC’s cover-age of Super Bowl XLIII, which was named “Outstanding Sports Special.”

Dumas described winning an Emmy as humbling. For him, it is a representation and reminder of his hard work and the tiresome hours he spent working.

“Winning felt so surreal,” Dumas said. “It never seemed like something I could attain. [My Emmy] makes bad days good and good days even better.”

Dumas matriculated from working as a GNN technician to attending Syracuse Uni-versity, later producing videos as an associ-ate producer for MSNBC Marketing. Now he works with notable names such as Jerome Bettis and Bob Costas.

“It all started at Grady,” Dumas said. “Without Grady I wouldn’t have made it to Syracuse. Without Syracuse I wouldn’t have MSNBC. Without MSNBC I would not have an Emmy.”

Dumas attributed his start as a journalist to Grady. He remembers it as diverse and close-knit. Dumas said that Grady prepared him in ways that he could not imagine.

“It was broadcast from day one really,” Du-mas said. “GNN was the coolest [emphasis]. I got involved and I loved it.” Dumas explained that GNN attracted his attention because it seemed to be the most hands-on emphasis. He added that he was interested in public speak-

ing and the visual side of things, which made GNN the best fit for him.

“Once I got involved, I loved it, and I knew it was something I wanted to do,” Dumas said.

As a freshman and sophomore, Dumas had the privilege of working in a paid posi-tion with the Turner Broadcasting Station show Mindbusters where he worked behind the scenes with the cameras. Dumas said that GNN gave him the opportunity to work as technician for the show.

After his experi-ence with TBS, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in broad-casting. Dumas credits GNN for giving him the experience and skill necessary to enter the competitive world of journalism.

“[Dumas] was self-driven and self-directed,” GNN adviser Thaddeus Roberts said. “I never had to tell him what to do because he was al-ready doing it.”

Roberts taught Dumas in his junior and se-nior years and still recalls the “finished touch”

to his final work product.Former U.S. history teacher Dave Winter

specifically remembers Dumas being a charis-matic person who was considerate of others.

“He was the kind of person that if you were working with or for him, you would want to do great things,” Winter said. “He was really good at dealing with people.”

In his senior year he sent Syracuse a promo-tional tape of his work from GNN, which he felt helped him get accepted into Syracuse’s competitive communications program.

“GNN put me a world ahead,” Dumas said. “[It] helped me get a leg up.”

Dumas was a host on Syracuse’s radio and television stations, and said the communica-tions program gave him the exposure he need-ed to make it to the next level.

“Syracuse was Grady on steroids,” Dumas said. “It has the

largest student-run TV station, and I was

all over the place.”Roberts added that

Dumas stood out be-cause he was professional

with his peers and adults and understands why Du-

mas won two Emmys. “Sports always has been his

area of specialty,” Roberts said. “He did all the sports stuff.”

Dumas said that his work used to consume his life. He

would often spend 13 hours at a time at work and would work while others slept. His average

workday included him arriving at work at 11 a.m. to prepare for a 1

p.m. game then an 8 p.m. game. He would then send out game tapes and

highlights and often would not leave MSNBC until 1 a.m.

When he is having a bad day at work, he said he comes home to his couch and looks at his Emmy and it keeps him going.

“I try to get the most out of each day,” Du-mas said. “Each day I am motivated by doing better. I want to go to sleep each night knowing I did my best.” p

By Lauren SCott

David Olorunfemi could very well be a king.It began the moment the Grady science and peer leadership

teacher was born. He explains the “things” or qualifications that indicate your ability to serve a Nigerian leadership position, and Olorunfemi’s ancestors just happened to have those “things.” The Adorkite tribe of Nigeria has four families who alternate between serving on the throne, and Olorunfemis are one of the four predestined families to do so.

In an odd paradox, inheriting the position doesn’t mean there’s not an election. There’s still work involved. Despite his royal roots, Olorunfemi said the mantra that the road to success is paved with hard work was a widespread theme throughout the teacher’s childhood in Africa.

“My ancestors, who migrated from West Africa, were some of the first settlers— [which means] they have access to being the OBA [or king] of the town,” he said.

After his father declined the position, the kingship was given to another reigning family. With his father’s refusal, Olorunfemi became the head of his family and therefore entered the line of succession to be king.

He described the office as being democratic, where every fam-ily is well-supported. His obligations as king require attending monthly meetings, being attentive to the needs of families and handling business matters within his village.

He said he has been attending meetings since he was a child, and is ready to serve his term should he get that call one day soon.

He stressed the fact that his humble beginnings and extensive education have only prepared him to serve his village as best as he possibly can.

“I know the culture there,” he said. “I love the people. If I govern people in the future, I can govern them effectively.”

Olorunfemi spent five years in high school and two years in a Nigerian junior college. He then attended the University of Nigeria, and upon graduating, worked for nearly six years with pharmaceutical companies Welcome LaPetit and Pfizer, where he manufactured drugs.

In the states, he attended Atlanta University in 1979, and in 1981, he earned his doctorate degree in Pharmacology and Pharmakinetics from Emory University. He then worked at the Atlanta Medical Center for five years.

His broad knowledge and awareness of the sciences and fa-miliarity with the education system led him to teach for the At-lanta Public School system, first, at Harper Archer High School for several years, and now at Grady.

He said students make stark generalizations about his background and education simply because of his cultural differences and accent.

“You know, sometimes I walk down the hallway and hear kids making fun of my accent, and that doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’ve learned to ignore it. I don’t take it personally because I know that I am affecting the lives of my students.”

Senior Lance Bennett, who took Mr. Olorunfemi’s peer lead-ership class as a junior, agrees.

“I feel like some students take him as a joke,” Bennett said. “They don’t give him the respect he deserves as a teacher, con-sidering all the years of experience and the knowledge he has.”

Senior Shayla Prescott also said she felt as if students poking fun showed that the country was digressing as a whole.

“We are all different, and have something different to offer,” Prescott said. “How can [Mr. Olorunfemi] move forward if people focus on the way he talks?”

At the end of the day, Olorunfemi could not be happier with the opportunity he is given through teaching— to impact the lives of students. This, he says, is a job that us far outweighs his

potential title back in Nigeria.“I love teaching because it means you have to develop peo-

ple,” Olorunfemi said. “That’s the aftermath of teaching— that we are excited to see kids grow. The kids you try to help will often try to offend you. They’ll call you rude.”

“I’ve had kids come up to me years after taking my class and say, “Olo, if you hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t have been able to make it to college. Things like that give you joy.” p

CAN’T WAIT TO BE KING: Science teacher David Olorunfemi leans on lockers in the C200 hallway, wearing his custom Adorkite garment.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE GRIND: Bryan Dumas (above) poses with one of the two Emmies he earned as an NBC Sports associate producer. Dumas (left), with Grady peers at a 2001 national journalism conference in Boston.

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By Simon mclane

Coach Douglas Slade, Grady athletic di-rector and a physical fitness teacher of 29 years, yells to his third period gym class to come out onto the floor. Upon hearing his request, about two-thirds of the class re-sponds by reluctantly trudging down from the bleachers. His wiry, grey moustache and pencil thin eyebrows are the only hair on his head, and his 6’8’’ frame towers over his students.

In the past five years, major change has come to Grady. Its size has ballooned, the magnet program is phasing out and there are now trailers on the practice field. Long time Grady teachers such as Slade, Eliza-beth Willoughby and Scott Stephens feel that the school has completely changed.

“I’m what you call a Grady baby,” Slade said. Slade was born at Grady Hospital and attended David T. Howard High School, which was located in Old Fourth Ward.

Slade went to Clark College, now Clark-Atlanta University, with a major in business administration and a minor in physical education. In 1982, after selling insurance for three years, Slade realized where his life was headed, so he became a substitute teacher at Grady.

After only a year and a half, Slade be-gan his near decade-long run as a full-time Physical Education teaher.

“I began teaching at Grady because my high school basketball coach, Thomas Ager was the principal at the time,” Slade said. “Because of him I was able to get on the substitute list.”

Over the years, Slade has seen many transformations at Grady.

“The biggest change is the physical building and the students,” Slade said. “The kids are just more mature and inno-vative, but they are still very respectful as well. And the building, I just can’t begin to tell you in your wildest dreams how it used to be.”

Slade is not the only one to see change come to Grady. Mary Willoughby, who has taught literature here since she began her

teaching career at 26 years old, has seen shifts as well.

“You use to be able to get a contact high walking down the hallways,” Willoughby said. “But it has become much more structured since then.”

There have been many other alterations besides in the strictness of the school.

“The biggest single change is that the school has doubled in size since I started teaching here,” said Scott Stephens, a lit-erature teacher in his 14th year at Grady. “Based on what’s been happening I can’t see how we can get much bigger, there is no place to fit anybody.”

As the schools size has continued to grow, teaching styles have had to adapt to the change.

“I used to be more laid back, but it didn’t serve my students well,” Willoughby said. “I’ve had to become more structured, but I have always believed students learn better when they are doing things.”

Slade’s teaching style, however, has stayed relatively the same over the years.

“I’m a motivator, I’m very demanding and I expect a lot out of my students,” Slade said.

Despite the transformations at Grady, certain aspects of the school have stayed the same. Willoughby said Grady has al-ways been a place of diversity.

“It’s not a cookie cutter high school.” Willoughby said. “All different kinds of people can belong here.” She said that the school administration has always allowed

teachers to experiment and find what works for them.

Slade said the community of involved and supportive parents has always been important to the character of Grady.

“Grady has also always been a place that has stressed academics.” Slade said. “I’m not saying that schools in general don’t stress academics, but Grady is a place that will get you ready for college and life in general. It has great teachers that work hard at refining their craft.”

Slade hopes that the students and school will continue to exceed his expectations.

“I would do anything for the kids here at Grady,” Slade said “I just enjoy being around young folks and helping them de-velop life skills. p

Veteran teachers tell tales of their experienced past

SOME THINGS NEVER GET OLD: Stevens, Slade and Willoughby (from left) instruct their respective classes. The three long standing teachers combine for 69 years of teaching experience at Grady. Slade, who began teaching at Grady in 1982 as a substitute, says he has seen the school grow and change in his 29 years of experience.

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Teachers, students dish about past and present jobsBy Sammi Dean

During his senior year of high school, forensics teacher Mario Herrera spent his free time wash-ing dishes at the Village Inn Res-taurant in Albuquerque, new Mexico. The following summer, he was offered the opportunity to spend his Sundays dressing up as the restaurant’s bear mascot in ex-change for getting his Fridays off. He promptly quit the job.

Although that was more than a decade years ago, the youth job market is still hot. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last July 48.8 percent of people be-tween the ages of 16 and 24 were employed. This trend is reflected in the lives of Grady students.

Junior Jenny Moody got a job at American Roadhouse over the summer. Moody considers one of the most interesting parts of work-ing at a restaurant to be meeting the regulars.

“Some [customers] stay for hours,” Moody said. “One of them always sits at the bar so he can be next to the podium where I am. He talks to me about his son go-ing to college, getting a new job, his girlfriend cheating on him and how debate is going [for me].”

Moody sought out employment in order to pay for a debate na-tional tournament last year, but she soon recognized the trade-off that employment requires.

“Having a job makes it difficult to do homework on the weekend,” Moody said. “I can kind of make up for it by sleeping less.”

This view is seconded by senior Zak Fields who works at Erbert and Gerbert’s, a sandwich shop on East Ponce De Leon Avenue.

“Getting home late on work-days certainly makes me less in-clined to work on school-related things,” Fields said.

Lisa Taft, the head librarian at Grady, remembers her high school jobs quite differently.

“I think it was more expected and school was a little different when I was a kid,” Taft said. “I think it was more usual for kids to have jobs then.”

She had several jobs throughout her childhood, the worst of which was helping to operate an auto-matic car wash at a gas station.

“Old, little ladies would come in their huge Oldsmobiles, and I would put their change in the au-tomatic machines, and I would sit back in my lawn chair and read,”

Taft said. “That’s the summer I read all of Flannery O’Conner and J.D. Salinger.”

Other jobs that Taft endured include waiting tables at a diner, hostessing at a Shoney’s and cook-ing and waiting tables while work-ing at a Tunisian restaurant.

“The owner of the Tunisian res-taurant was a little bit confused about paying people,” Taft said. “[When] I finally demanded he pay me, he said, ‘no, you’re my apprentice.’ I had to explain to him that that’s not really the way we do things here.”

Although she eventually got paid, that job ended when the res-taurant’s owner left town because of a beer smuggling scandal.

Sophmore Sam Heller spent the previous summer working at the Orlegian Snowballs snowcone stand at the corner of Moreland Avenue and Ponce de Leon Avenue so that he could get money to help pay for a camp over the summer.

“It was [interesting] because it was a lot of work, and when I wasn’t working I was eating free snowballs,” Heller said. Like American Roadhouse, the Orle-gian Snowball cart has regulars. One girl would go every day and

buy two to four cups of ice with no flavor. Heller said he made mini-mum wage plus tips, and he plans to do the same next year.

“Having a job sucks because you don’t get paid much and the hours are bad, but it is still better than nothing,” Fields said. p

ROLLING IN THE DOUGH : Junior Jenny Moody sacrifices her weekends to seat patrons at the American Roadhouse, a breakfast and lunch restaurant in Virginia Highlands.

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By Kate de Give

As school ended one Friday, some students walked outside their classrooms and found a familiar face. Damian Swann, Grady’s former star corner back, strolled down the hallway, a large, enthusiastic smile on his face, and a bright, red University of Georgia cap perched on the top of his head.

“What’s he doing here?” some stu-dents asked.

“I should ask him for his autograph,” another student jokingly whis-pered.

Although it may be a little soon for the college freshman to sign autographs, Swann is accustomed to be-ing the target of the sports spotlight and the expectations of future greatness that come with it.

In 2010, he was named an Army All-American and captained the Grady football team. Now, Swann plays for the University of Georgia, but was injured during the week of Sept. 19, which gave him time to come to Grady for a short visit.

Injuries are just one of the many obstacles that might hinder players from taking their game to the next level and require them to find a career path outside of sports. Swann may be the next Grady alumnus to play football on

NFL Sundays, but then again he might never get there.

His former head football coach Ronnie Mil-len has stressed this truth to him, but he’s not the only one.

Swann’s former defensive coach, Earthwind Moreland, also gave him the same advice.

“The sad reality is that they all won’t go to the NFL,” Moreland said. “And it is important that you get a major that is going to help you and benefit you.”

Moreland knows a lot about this reality. He, along with Jerry Green and Jack Rudolph, both former Grady football players, are the only Grady players to go all the way to the NFL.

After traveling the long path from Grady varsity football to the AFC championship game, More-land knows what it takes to make it to

the NFL but also how delicate it is to maintain a long-lasting football career.

A three-year football letter-man at Grady, Moreland walked on to tryouts at Georgia South-ern University as a wide receiver. Paul Johnson, the current head coach at Georgia Tech, was coach-ing with Georgia Southern at the time, and switched Moreland to a position as a defensive back.

After three strong years of col-legiate football, Moreland set his sights on Sunday.

“If you’re thinking about going to the NFL, you start looking for agents in your junior year of col-lege,” Moreland said. Moreland also said that scouts will start evaluating you, and then they ask you to come to their team’s training camp.

Moreland’s first training camp was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, after which, he played with the New York Jets, the Cleveland Browns, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New England Patriots.

After trying out and not making the Houston Texans in 2005, Moreland played

a few years of arena football, which is a version of football on a smaller field with fewer players on the field. Moreland even-tually made his way to coaching.

“I wanted to coach in a way that wasn’t on the college level, but at the same time, wasn’t little league,” Moreland said.

Moreland said that Grady was the perfect balance be-tween those two.

Now Moreland teaches his players about the im-portance their education.

Xavier Short-house, a 2008

graduate and run-ning back, knows firsthand about how important Mo-reland’s advice is.

Shorthouse had a football scholarship to Benedict College in South Carolina, but when he transferred to Georgia Southern

University; he had to sit out an entire season.

“I then had to walk on during junior year, which is super hard to do, and I didn’t make it,” Shorthouse said.

“I wasn’t expecting the NFL or anything,” Shorthouse said. “You have to be really lucky to make it there.”

Shorthouse did, however, have academics to fall back on. Shorthouse is majoring in business and marketing at Georgia Perimeter College, and is currently working on pro-ducing music.

Both Shorthouse and Moreland said they-have found meaningful work and content-ment off the playing field. The lessons of his elders are not lost on Swann.

“If you don’t go big, you always need something to rely on,” Swann said. “I’m ma-joring in education. I wouldn’t mind teach-ing at Grady." p

Players realize NFL Sundays may be far from reach

By Steve terry

Whether it is a brisk jog through a cool, crisp rain, or a brutal struggle through a hot humid day, phys-ics teacher Jeff Cramer has always found joy in running. As the Grady girls cross-country coach, Cramer has been enjoying his passion for the sport for more than three decades.

Cramer began running competi-tively when he was in the seventh grade after he joined his school’s cross-country team. As competitive as it was, Cramer said he still found the sport fun.

“We did it because we loved it,” Cramer said. “Our idea of fun was to take off and see how far away we could get, see what new horse pas-tures we could find.”

Cramer also ran for his team in high school but did not run com-petitively in college. He did, how-ever, continue to run on his own. He eventually found a way to use his high school cross-country experience in coaching high school teams.

Cramer began coaching cross country in 1976 at Smith High School. Although he came to Grady in 1993, he did not begin coaching the team until 1998, after returning from a three-year leave of absence.

Cramer said he left because of emotional trauma and built-up frus-tration at how he was being treated as a teacher. At the time he was teaching two honors physical-science classes, a regular physical-science class, and a biology class, when the class he pre-ferred to teach was physics.

“When I came back, coaching cross country actually made a lot of things easier,” Cramer said. “Had I been coaching it my first two years at Grady, I may have been able to

deal with everything a lot better. Of course it helped to be teaching phys-ics again.”

Although cross country is Cram-er’s main sport, it is not the only one he has played. He made the football team in high school, but he quit after only about a month.

“I typed the coach a letter on my typewriter as to why I was quitting,” Cramer said. “I would have had a good deal of playing time, but the whole thing really just wasn’t for me. I couldn’t understand the point of the sport.”

Even though Cramer is the coach of the girls cross country team, most of the runners across both the boys and girls teams look up to him.

“He is more than just a coach,” senior cross-country runner Zane Coburn said. “If you ask about anything, he’ll help out. As a run-ner himself, he is very focused on the individuals.”

Through their shared passion for running, Coburn and Cramer have grown close.

“We get together from time to

time for dinner,” Coburn said. “I practically consider him family.”

Although many people think cross country is an individual sport, part of Cramer’s love for it is how team-oriented it can be.

“It is impossible for the team to do well without at least five good run-ners,” Cramer said. “The time of the fifth-place runner is just as important as the first-place [runner].”

Even though cross-country run-ners are often competitive with their times, they are ultimately all out there together trying to help each other out, Cramer said.

“The atmosphere is just so nice,” Cramer said. “The underlying atti-tude seems to be, ‘I’m going to com-pete with you, but I’ll also be your friend.’ How many other sports are like that?”

Cramer recognizes that some people aren’t always enthused about running after school every day, but he does his best to spread his passion for the sport to the many runners he coaches.

“I’m not going to force you to run cross country,” Cramer said. “I un-derstand that not everyone is going to love it, but it is always fun to pass on my passion.” p

Cramer runs through decades as cross-country coach

LEADER OF THE PACK: Cross-country coach Jeff Cramer leads four members of his girls team in a practice at Piedmont Park. His team training includes intervals on the park’s Active Oval, hill repeats around Oak Hill, and long runs through the Ansley neighborhood.

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SECOnd in A SEriES

Earthwind Moreland

Position: Cornerback/defensiveback

Games Played: 12

Tackles: 17

Team: New York

Jets, Jacksonville

Jaguars, Cleveland

Browns, New England

Patriots

Years: 2000, 2001,

2002, 2004

Jack Rudolph

Position: Linebacker

Games Played: 75

Interceptions: 3

Team: Boston

Patriots, Miami

Dolphins

Years: 1960-

1965, 1966

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Jerry Green

Position:HalfbackGames Played: 2Receptions: 3Receiving Yards: 52

Team: Boston Patriots

Year:1960

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s p o r t sOct. 24, 2011 19

Students enroll in fall league, face ultimate age gapBy Lauren Harper

An Ultimate Frisbee player guzzled a beer before showing up to play. When he arrived, he discussed the beverage’s merits with a teammate. Two more teammates stood on the sideline amusing themselves with the age of their opponents: high school students.

This is the first year Grady’s ultimate team has competed as one team against adult teams in the fall league. Before this fall, students participated individually. The team competes against people between the ages of 20 and 50. Senior Lily Zintak said that their opponents view them as an easy win because of the difference in age.

Senior Alex Glick, one of the captains of the team, said he enjoys playing people that are older than him.

“I like that we get to play with older, more experienced players,” Glick said. “At first, they don’t take us as seriously as people their own age, but once we play, they start to understand that we are the real deal.”

The league also differs in the way the teams are formed. In the regular spring season, the teams are split by gender, but in the fall, the teams are coed. The teams decide how many girls from each team will play at a time.

Because there are only three girls on Grady’s team, the girls are given an ample amount of playing time.

“I am consistently playing, so I am getting better,” Zintak said. “I like being able to play with friends because there is less pressure.”

Zintak added that at times, having fewer substitutes can be tiring, even if it gets her in better shape.

Some of the players feel that fall league is relaxed and less intense than the more structured spring season when Grady plays other schools.

Zintak acknowledged that the fall league has its pros and cons.

“I don’t take fall league as seriously as [the school’s] spring season,” Zintak said. “I am mostly there to improve my skill and have a good time.”

Grady Gauntlet coach and 11th-grade

literature teacher Susan Mercer, is pleased that her players are participating in the fall league and attending captians’ practices.

“I encourage them to [play] because it boosts

the program as a whole,” Mercer said. “I want to build on this wave of enthusiasm.”

Mercer’s motivation helps the team prepare for games.

“It is refreshing to play ultimate before the season starts up,” Glick said. “It helps us start off energized, focused and ready to win.” p

THE ULTIMATE EFFORT: On Oct. 8, Grady students competed in a fall league game against Something Awesome and lost 13-5. Senior Caleb Shorthouse (top) lays out for a disc. Senior Traver Batson (left) bends low in order to make an accurate throw. Junior Chris Carson (above) attempts to throw the disc while being closely guarded by his opponent. The Grady Gaunlet has struggled so far this season; they have not won a game in eight tries. The team plays its games at Georgia Soccer Park in Gwinnett.

Swanier swings for peachier tennis future in AtlantaBy Joe Lavine

Early this school year, Grady gained a potential sports super-star. He practices the sport that he loves every day, dreaming of reaching the next level. He doesn’t practice in Eddie S. Hender-son Sr. Athletic Field, however, because he is not dreaming of the NFL. He practices on the tennis court.

On Aug. 16, junior Ryan Swanier moved from Jackson, Miss., to Atlanta to pursue his tennis career. Swanier hopes to get a tennis scholarship and even pursue a professional tennis career, and he believes that Atlanta gives him the best chance at accomplishing those goals.

Swanier was born and raised in Jackson and started playing tennis when he was 8 years old. He was ranked No. 1 in Mississippi each year, starting with the 10s and under group and lasting until the 14s and under group.

Swanier said the sport is in his genes and both of his par-ents still play. His mom was the first woman to play tennis at Jackson State University. She played on the men’s team because there was no womens’ team at the university.

Swanier moved to live with his uncle in Atlanta without his parents, though, so they will have to follow his tennis dreams from two states away. Swanier said that he and his parents thought a lot about his move to Atlanta.

“Both say they miss me, but we all had to make sacrifices if this is what I want to do,” Swanier said.

Swanier decided to move to Atlanta after he participated in an American Tennis Association tournament at Piedmont Park over the summer. Jude Poux, the manager of tennis at The Piedmont Park Tennis Center, saw Swanier playing in the tournament and wanted him to move to Atlanta to train with him and his fellow coaches. Poux said Swanier’s gentlemanly behavior stood out.

Tory Martin, another coach at Piedmont, was also im-pressed by Swanier.

“I could see that he is a hard worker and that he wants to play,” Martin said.

Swanier returned to Jackson and discussed the possible move with his parents. He said that the opportunities for tourna-ments in Atlanta far outnumber those in Mississippi, which was the deciding factor for his move.

Now that Swanier lives in Atlanta, he practices at Piedmont Park six days a week for five hours each day. As his coaches have gotten to know his game, they have been impressed, they said.

“He has a lot of natural talent, and he has the ability to make different shots at different times,” Martin said.

“His strength is his forehand, and [that] he never quits,” Poux said. “He always wants to learn and get better.”

Swanier’s coaches spend hours helping him enhance his strengths and improve upon his weaknesses. Poux is more of a mental coach to Swanier, so he tries to improve his emotional control during matches.

“[Swanier] practices hard, but when the matches come, that [practice] gets thrown out the window,” Poux said.

Martin tries to improve Swanier’s physical weaknesses. He said Swanier needs to work on his backhand and his footwork. As a result, he makes Swanier do a lot of sprints and squat jacks, which are a combination of squats and jumping jacks. He also hits countless backhands.

Despite his intense practice regimen now, Swanier was not always solely focused on tennis. He started playing bas-ketball seriously as a freshman at his high school in Jackson after the coach saw him playing in gym and encouraged him to try out. His brother, who played on the high school team, also pushed him.

During that time, Swanier said he lost sight of his dream to become a professional tennis player. He said his mom wanted him to stick to tennis, but he was focused on mak-

ing the NBA. Swanier played varsity basketball during his freshman

and sophomore years. He averaged seven points and four rebounds as a sophomore and was ranked 11th in Missis-sippi in his class as a shooting guard. During the basketball season, Swanier only had time to play tennis on Sundays. Two years off from tennis, however, made Swanier realize how much he cared for the game.

“I was lazy before, but then there was something in my heart urging me [to go back to playing tennis],” Swanier said.

He had that realization in the middle of his sophomore basketball season, so after basketball practice, he would leave to go train for tennis.

Swanier’s coaches explained how taking two years off has made his training more difficult.

“In tennis, you have to peak [in skill] around [age] 12 or 14, so he has a lot of work ahead of him,” Poux said.

Despite Swanier’s two-year handicap, both his coaches are optimistic about his future.

“Ryan can accomplish anything he wants to accomplish as long as he stays focused, works hard and is willing to do what it takes to become the player he wants to be,” Martin said.

Swanier and his coaches are hopeful he will receive an opportunity to play tennis in college.

“He’s a hard worker, and the possibility of him playing in college is likely, because he gives 100 percent,” Poux said.

Swanier is currently being scouted by Xavier University and Prairie View A & M University, but he is hoping to get a scholarship to go to Georgia Tech and then play profes-sionally. Swanier said it would mean a lot for him to make it to the professional level.

“It would be like a dream come true,” Swanier said. “That’s what I work hard for every day.” p

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thesoutherneronline.comVOLUME LXV, NUMBER 2

sectionSports

By PhilliP SuittS

It’s the job of the Grady announcers to make sure everybody knows the names of

the players on the field, but nobody does the same for them. It’s no surprise, then, that the Grady Stadium announcers are hardly big names on campus.

That doesn’t mean that parents don’t no-tice them. Ronald Smith, one of two an-nouncers working at Grady this year, said after a game during his first year a grand-mother of one of the players came up to him and let him know she didn’t appreci-ate the mispronunciation of her grandson’s name. Smith said the incident taught him to slow down when announcing, a lesson that the other Grady announcer, Johnny Thompson, also finds important.

“Not only am I announcing for the play-ers, but also [for] the fans,” Thompson said.

Smith saw the opportunity to announce as a way to make the game special.

“[Having an announcer] makes [a player] feel like a pro,” Smith said. “This might be the closest to the pros that these kids get.”

Being able to pronounce players’ names

correctly every time takes effort and is one reason both Thompson and Smith arrive at Eddie S. Henderson Sr. Athletic Field an hour before kickoff. That’s not the only thing they review though. Both get a list of special announcements, like birthdays, that they must announce at some point during the game. The announcements aren’t limited to that list. If someone needs people to move their cars, Thompson or Smith must make an announcement about that as well. Because of the variety of an-nouncements they have to make over the course of the game, Smith has another title for himself: “Information Guy.”

APS athletic director, Jeff Beggs, said one of the jobs of an announcer is “trying to get the crowd into the game.”

Thompson believes he can achieve this goal through enthusiasm. Thompson be-lieves he can transfer his enthusiasm for the game to the audience.

If anyone doubts Thompson and Smith’s love for their craft, then one only needs to ex-amine the work hours they put in. On Fridays, they arrive around 4:30 p.m. and usually don’t

leave until around 10:30 p.m. Whoever works Saturdays arrives around 3 p.m. and leaves the stadium around 6:30 p.m. Thompson and Smith are compensated for their efforts. Bar-bara Williams, an administrative assistant in the APS athletic department, said that the an-nouncers get paid by the hour.

Smith is the Lakewood Stadium an-nouncer and he announces all of the Lake-wood scheduled games that have been moved to Grady Stadium. Smith started announcing games for APS last three years ago, in 2008.

Thompson, who has been working at Grady since 1999, is Grady’s official sta-dium announcer for all football games.

Both were recommended by the an-nouncers they eventually replaced, but each had a different audition. Thompson said he wasn’t competing against anyone else and was given a microphone and asked to read a page. Smith, however, recalled that he was competing against two or three other people who all called a preseason game.

Although Thompson loves announcing, that wasn’t the only reason he decided to

audition for the job. Thompson, who was the play-by-play

announcer for Morris Brown basketball games in 1999, thought that being a sta-dium announcer would benefit him.

“I thought [announcing] would be a good way to keep me polished in terms of my craft,” Thompson said.

Thompson believes he is better at spot-ting and identifying players than he was when he started, and thus is able to relay information to the crowd more quickly.

Smith said he has learned to be more pa-tient and deliberate when announcing.

Unless they make a mistake, the an-nouncers don’t call attention to themselves. That doesn’t mean they don’t get noticed.

Smith said he has gotten numerous com-pliments on the sound of his voice.

Thompson recalled a St. Pius coach com-ing up to him after a game to tell him he is one of the best high school announcers in the state.

“You might have someone who is blind,” Smith said. “You want to be the voice for them.” p

Stadium announcers add vivacity, volume to games

By Nally KiNNaNe

Even in a completely landlocked city like Atlanta, juniors Patrick Scollard and Amelia Christopher find a will and a way to get out on the water.

Both Scollard and Christopher, who have been sailing for most of their lives, got their start in competitive sail-ing while visiting their families in the New England region. Now both of them spend the entirety of their summer in the region training.

“I go to Cape Cod every summer, and we would go out on my parents’ boat,” Christopher said. “I always loved be-ing out on the water and sailing, so my parents put me in sailing lessons when I was 5. And I have been taking them ever since.”

While Christopher spends her summers sailing in Cape Cod, Mass., Scollard is only a few miles away in Newport, R.I. also training for his sailing competitions.

Since he was 9 years old, Scollard has spent his summers at sailing camps, sailing from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Christopher, who has a similar training schedule to Scol-lard, said practices can consume her summer. From June 20 until the start of school Christopher trains Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon. She is then al-lowed to break for lunch for one hour, but then she sails again from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

“It’s basically like I am in school,” Christopher said. “We do practice races against our teammates, drills and practice our starts over and over again. Sometimes if we have just done well in a competition we just get to sail around for fun.”

During the summer, Christopher races in regattas—or boat races —with students from all over the New England area. International sailors also come in for

these competitions.Scollard continues to train during the year but said it’s hard to keep up the rigorous training schedule

once the school year begins. Scollard said the amount of time it takes to get to a body of

water appropriate for sailing also creates an obstacle. Because of the travel and time crunch, his practice schedule can be very sporadic during the school year.

Even then though, his sailing expe-riences don’t compare to the ones he has in Newport.

“Lakes, I believe, are harder because they are normally more constricted with boat traffic, es-pecially here in Georgia,” Scol-lard said. “The wake from these boats also slows you down a lot, especially because there isn’t a lot of wind in Georgia.”

Scollard said it can be diffi-cult to coordinate when and where to meet for a two-person sailing practice.

“My partner usually ro-tates depending on who is available at the time,”

Scollard said. Christopher is only able to train during the summer while

she is up in Cape Cod. Because a lot of the other kids that she races against are practicing all year, Christopher can feel at a disadvantage.

“I have to put in some extra time in the summer to stay caught up,” she said. “But once you get to a certain level of sailing it’s kind of like riding a bike, it’s hard to get any better or any worse.” Most sailing competitions that Scol-lard and Christopher participate in are events that involve two people.

Scollard said the competitions are very different from any other kind of sport.

“At the start of the race, you head out in your boats into the racing area which is usually a blocked-off open area where there are no boats that are anchored or anything like that,” Scollard said. “The course will be set up which usually consists of buoys that you have to navigate around, and the course normally coincides with the wind.”

Both Scollard and Christopher agree that the most diffi-cult part about the sailing competitions is having to correctly predict the winds.

“The first mark is normally facing the wind,” Scollard said. “The wind can force you to change your angle or cause you to have to turn back and forth. You can’t just keep sailing straight forward.”

At the end of each sailing season there is a culmination event, which Scollard described as a series of qualifying rounds in the region. Scollard competes in the Southeast re-gion qualifier competition.

“I have placed third and fourth in the last two years,” Scol-lard said. “This year, I think I have the chance to place in the top two and move on to the national competition.” p

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GOInG WITH THE WInD: Junior Amelia Christopher (right) and her sailing partner train for their competition in Cape Cod.