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THE WETUMPKA HERALD Elmore County’s Oldest Newspaper - Established 1898
Wetumpka, AL 36092
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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 17, 2016
Get to know your candidates
THEWETUMPKAHERALD.COM
Editor’s note: We contacted each of the candidates in the upcoming citywide elections in Wetumpka to have them answer a series of five questions. Each candidate was given a total of 20 minutes to answer the five questions. By COREY ARWOOD and WILLIAM CARROLL Staff Writer
MAYOR In the Wetumpka Mayor’s race incumbent Jerry
VOL. 118, NO.30
Willis is facing off against challenger Emmitt Johnson. 1. Tell me about your background, what should the voters know about you and your candidacy? Candidate Emmitt Johnson said he grew up in a small town he likened to Elmore. He said he went into the military at 17 where he remained for 27 years eventually retiring as E9 Sgt. Major. He and his wife have been together 37 years and Johnson said he had 4 adult children, and 7 grandchildren.
“When I got out of the military I felt so blessed and fortunate that I had made it to the top of the pinnacle, I wanted to give back,” said Johnson. While stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base, he said he went back to school to obtain teaching credentials. His first teaching job was in Shelby County Johnson said he taught JROTC at school in the town of Vincent. From there he said he took a position in Stanhope where he moved for the next six years, as education director of Safety Net Behavior Treatment Facility. In that capacity Johnson said he oversaw three See CANDIDATES • Page 3
Enrollment up at Elmore County Schools
OTS becomes first participant in business innovation center
By WILLIAM CARROLL Managing Editor
Elmore County schools have added in excess of 200 new students according to the most recent statistics provided by the district. Elmore County Schools Superintendent Dr. Andre Harrison told the Elmore County Board of Education that enrollment numbers were up in all schools countywide as of the sixth day in school with the exception of Eclectic Elementary and Eclectic Middle School. Harrison said that the numbers the district has run show over 200 more students attending school in Elmore County district wide. Harrison said that the district is currently looking at the number of teachers it has for students and analyzing capacity numbers for a number of schools. One of the examples of a school showing tremendous growth was Holtville
By WILLIAM CARROLL Managing Editor
William Carroll / The Herald
Goods are are being collected at Adullam House Thrift Store for flood victims in Louisiana, where they are scheduled to be taken on Thursday. In the picture from left to right are Coe Sawyer, Colton Spackman and Josh Hamby.
CALLED TO ACTION Local efforts made to gather emergency supplies for flood victims By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer
A Wetumpka children’s home and ministry is working to collect goods for flood victims in Louisiana, and has even cancelled Wednesday church services to fill a box truck with last minute items to take on their run the following morning. One of the co-founders of Adullam House, Angela Spackman, said volunteers would be at their organization’s thrift store until 10 p.m. Wednesday collecting “items of immediate need.” See ADULLAM • Page 11
See SCHOOL • Page 7
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The Wetumpka Area Chamber of Commerce will be getting its first business in its incubator program known as the Business Innovation Center in the form of Optimized Technical Solutions starting Sept. 1. OTS President Granita Griffin and Vice President Travis Griffin bring over 15 years of experience in the field of information technology as a welcome addition to the Chamber and downtown Wetumpka. Granita Griffin, from Birmingham, is an Auburn graduate with a B.S. in computer science. She has been working in the field for 15 years, the last five of which were spent as a systems engineer at Gunter Air Force Base. Travis Griffin is from the small town of McIntosh, Alabama and holds a B.S. in information technology from Herzing University in Birmingham. Mr. Griffin has also been in the industry for over 15 years, the last six of which were as an Oracle apps DBA at Gunter. According to Travis, OTS was founded in January this year and is headquartered in Wetumpka. “We provide information technology management consulting to public and private sector organizations,” he See CHAMBER • Page 7
Area students to participate in leadership program By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer
A leadership program for high school students of Elmore County is set to start next month and will include tours of local governments along with area industries and businesses. The director of “Youth Leadership Elmore County,” Katrina Mitchell, said her program was all about learning what it takes to run cities and discovering, as she said, “what leadership looks like in those venues.” Mitchell said she started YLEC course roughly 15 years ago and had been working recently to “revamp” the program. The program this year is set to run from September through May. Unlike previous years, Mitchell said the
class would be held for one full day per month, from 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., and during that time students would take a number of field trips and also learn lessons from a course curriculum. According to a Elmore County Extension Office press release, the focus of the series was to enhance the “leadership, communication, personal, and group skills,” of the roughly 20 students who get accepted. There is a selection process for the program and according to the document the applicants are chosen through referrals, interviews and minimum grade standard requirements. Public, private and home school students can apply, she said, with the last date to submit an application listed as Aug. 30.
Mitchell said they would learn about both county and state government, as well as that of the town and cities they travelled to throughout the county. She mentioned a few municipalities that were already on her list including Millbrook, Tallassee and Wetumpka. While there she said they would tour area industries focusing on workforce development efforts and to learn “what it takes to be a leader in various industries” as well as local governments. The students will also have to complete a “community service leadership project” as part of the course. She said in the past a variety of projects had been completed, from park cleanups to fundraisers for local charities.
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