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Pet of the Week in Elmore County
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Eclectic Observer Page 5
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The
WEDNESDAY • MAY 31, 2017
TheWetumpkaHerald.com
Vol. 28, No. 22
U.S. News ranks ECHS among its ‘Best High Schools’ By DAVID GRANGER Managing Editor
Eclectic’s Elmore County High School was recently ranked the 39th best high school in Alabama by a U.S. News & World Report study of the nation’s high schools and was named a nationally recognized school, earning a bronze medal, by the magazine, making it the highest ranked high school in Elmore County and the only one to earn a bronze medal or above. “This is truly an honor for us,” said Elmore County High School Principal Wes Rogers. “I think this is the third
consecutive year that we’ve been ranked a bronze-medal school and it speaks volumes to the support of our community, the efforts of our faculty and staff and the work of our kids. It is truly a team effort.” High school graduation rates were one part of the U.S. News Best High Schools methodology. With the help of North Carolina-based research firm RTI International, U.S. News used a fourstep process to calculate the rankings. First, U.S. News looked at student performance on state-required tests during the 2014-2015 school year. Schools had to perform better than sta-
tistically expected on these tests in their state, given their student poverty levels, to make it to the next step. Then, schools were evaluated on whether their least-advantaged students – those of black, Hispanic and low-income backgrounds – performed at or better than the state average. The third step required schools that passed the first two steps to have a graduation rate of at least 75 percent. Those that did made it to the final phase – which determined if their national ranking was a gold, silver or bronze medal. In this fourth step, U.S. News looked at how well schools prepared students
Daugherty remembers Army friend’s songs at Memorial Day ceremony
for college based on participation in and performance on Advanced Placement exams. Among non-magnet county schools in the state, ECHS ranked 14th. In 2017, Elmore County graduated a senior class of 106 students that pulled in from colleges and universities, charities and branches of the military more than $2 million in scholarship money. Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School in Montgomery and Homewood High School in Homewood were Alabama’s only two gold-medal schools. Twenty-nine schools in the state earned silver medals.
County School Board audit cites collections at Stanhope By COREY ARWOOD Staff Writer
David Granger / The Tribune
A National Guardsman stands at attention with the U.S. flag as Elmore County Commissioner Mack Daugherty addresses the crowd at Eclectic Memorial Day ceremony. By DAVID GRANGER Managing Editor
A crowd of just more than 50 people gathered Monday in The Warehouse in Eclectic to remember fallen American soldiers in the annual show of appreciation in the Elmore County town. The event was scheduled to take
place at the town’s Veterans Wall, as always, but was moved indoors to The Warehouse after showers blew through and additional bad weather looked to be possible. Elmore Couny Commissioner Mack Daugherty, a resident of Eclectic and a veteran of the U.S. Army, was the keynote speaker at the event.
Daugherty talked about the cost of war – he said more than a half million young Americans had died on battlefields since World War I – but also about the freedoms those lives taken so early sustained for us and how we should be more appreciative as a nation. See ARMY • Page 2
The Department of Examiners of Public Accounts recently released its audit report on the Elmore County Board of Education and among its findings was a reported noncompliance resulting from instances of funds collected by teachers and held for up to a month before being turned over to a bookkeeper. Elmore County Schools Superintendent Richard Dennis had spoke at length on the issue in a previous BOE meeting and at the latest meeting examiner Dixie Broadwater announced her offices findings. “We also noted no matters to indicate that the board has not complied with in material respects to applicable laws and regulations,” said Broadwater. “In addition we issued an unmodified opinion on the board’s major federal financial assistance program for fiscal year 2016. We tested the Child Nutrition Program and there were no problems noted with this program.” “We did however note the following finding … concerning 2016-001. It relates to inadequate internal controls over funds collected by teachers at Stanhope Elmore High School.” She said the report could be found online at www.examiners.alabama.gov. Dennis said the schools’ Chief Financial Officer Michael Mann had drafted a new financial policy handbook See AUDIT • Page 2
Tallapoosa landfill facing law suits Filings in Macon County say landfill runoff caused men’s cancer By CARMEN RODGERS and MITCH SNEED Staff Writers
Three Macon men have filed lawsuits that claim they suffer from colon cancer that was caused by drinking water tainted by dangerous chemicals that came from the Stone’s Throw Landfill in Tallassee, which is located in Tallapoosa County. Jerry Tarver, Andrew Chambliss and Andrew Tarver are the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, which were filed in Macon County Circuit Court by a team of attorneys. The suits seek a jury trial and damages from Advanced Disposal, which owns the landfill,
four other subsidiaries associated with Advanced Disposal and the Utilities Board of Tuskegee, as well as the Macon County Water Authority. The lawsuit claims the utilities are not sufficiently treating water collected from the Tallapoosa River downstream of the landfill. The lawsuits include language that alleges the liquid waste that seeps from the landfill, called leachate, enters Chewacla Creek from discharges at the landfill. From there the water flows into the Tallapoosa River after going through a treatment process at the Tallassee Sewer and Stabilization Pond for treatment. It is treated with chlorine and the suits claim
that process creates an advanced level of cancer-causing chemicals including haloacetic acids (HAAs) and trihalomethanes (TTHM). “To treat this, you would have to have a high-dollar reverse osmosis system or something compatible,” said Jay Freeman, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. He said those steps were not being taken for many years. The suits cite information from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which lists HAAs and TTHM among agents that may cause cancer in humans. The plaintiffs’ lawsuits cite See LAWSUIT • Page 2
Submitted / The Tribune
A recent lawsuit filed in Macon County alleges leachate from Stone’s Throw Landfill is not properly treated before it is released into the Tallapoosa River where two miles downstream the Tuskegee Utility Board’s water intake is located.
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