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April 2008
Parade sets the stage for ‘one-time’ events
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gwinnett County Public Schools / AJC
Donna Pendergast, band director for Snellville Middle School, helps Sylvester Mundenda -6th Grade. Pendergast is retiring at the end of this school year after being at the middle school for 29 years. This will be her 27th Snellville Days Parade.
When the Snellville Days parade winds down Wisteria and Oak Roads Saturday morning, the event will be more than just a showcase of faces, fun, floats and attractions.
It will be a parade of stories.
There are the Vietnam veterans, each with a moving personal tale, who will share the grand marshal’s role in the parade.
Dawn Robinson, a 1981 graduate of South Gwinnett High School who was working in one of the World Trade Center towers during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, will sing the National Anthem.
There will be elected officials, beauty queens and the ever-popular “Skate Man.” But there are other stories that might not be heralded on banners or marked in the program.
Here’s a couple:
When the Snellville Middle School band passes by, you might want to notice the woman walking beside them. This will be the 27th Snellville Days Parade for Donna Pendergast, Snellville Middle School band director. It also will be her last as director of the band.
Ms. Pendergast, who has been at the middle school for 29 years (She’s been teaching for 32!), is retiring at the end of this school year. She conducted her last middle school concert earlier this week.
I can’t begin to imagine how many students and family members she has influenced in all of those years. My family is among them, with two of my three children studying music under her.
Ms. Pendergast said she missed only two of the last 29 annual parades — those because she attended the Georgia Music Educators Association All-State Band event in Savannah. The rest, however, have been an annual staple in her and her band members’ lives.
“The most memorable moment was the year one of the motorcycle riders in the parade fell and was injured during the parade,” she said. The rider was not seriously hurt, but the incident required the band to move to one side of the road for a fire truck, then immediately move to the other side to make way for the ambulance.
“The students kept marching and playing and never missed a beat,” she said. “It did make things exciting for a while.”
Two young women who studied under Ms. Pendergast are the subjects of another story reflected in the parade. You’ll find Allison (Allie) Rikard leading the South Gwinnett High School Band of Stars. Her younger sister, Abbey, will be leading the Snellville Middle School band. (You might notice the resemblance!)
The two drum majors — Allie, 18, and Abbey, 14 — are the daughters of Wayne and Susan Rikard of Snellville. Wayne Rikard is police chief for Gwinnett County Public Schools.
Allie, who has been drum major for two years, before which she played flute, is graduating this year and auditioning for the University of Georgia Redcoat Band.
Abbey, a trombone player, will be performing as drum major for the first time. She just recently earned the position in tryouts at the middle school and says “it’s harder than it looks,” marching backwards and conducting the band.
(Allie admitted to giving her sister a few helpful hints.)
The day will be a special one for the Rikard family because — despite the sisters’ shared interest in music — it will be the only time they can actually march in the same event, said Susan Rikard. Their four-year age difference keeps them in separate schools and separate bands.
Fellow band members have been kidding Allie about the event, she said.
“I think it’s kind of funny actually,” she said. “Some are calling it the Rikard parade.”
The theme of this year’s Snellville Days parade and festival is “A one-time event that has lasted 35 years.”
The slogan refers to the original plan for a single fund-raising event and how that has grown into a major annual tradition. But the slogan also provides unintended meaning.
Each year’s parade and festival is indeed a one-time event for some of its participants — setting the stage for special meaning and milestones in their lives.
We just don’t always notice it from the sidelines.
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Do you brake for snapping turtles?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Our mission on Sunday was to travel to Columbus, pick up my 83-year-old mom and then drive her to north Alabama to spend time with her newest great-grandchild.
I was driving her green Mercury Grand Marquis, traveling north on U.S. 280, a four-lane highway. My husband was following in our car so we could return to Gwinnett County Sunday night.
Just over a rise in the road near Harpersville, Ala., I saw a turtle - a BIG turtle. He was plodding across the first of two northbound lanes.
“Oh no! Someone’s going to hit him,” I said as I passed and then checked out the rear-view mirror.
“Should I stop? Should I go back? Where could I pull off? Was it too dangerous? Should I keep going?”
My thoughts raced, unlike the turtle, which miraculously had just been missed by a large pickup.
With my mother’s encouragement, I turned back at the next median break and again saw the turtle, with its moss-covered shell. He had reversed directions and was back in the median but almost ready to cross the two southbound lanes.
There was nowhere to safely pull off the side of the road — the emergency lanes were quite stingy.
I turned the car around again at the next median break, steered it off the road into the median and got out. Immediately I knew I had a job ahead. This was no little turtle that could easily be picked up and deposited across the road. This was a snapping turtle, more than a foot long, almost that wide, and he was glaring at me.
I pulled off my jacket and tried to use it to grab the turtle from the rear. It lunged; its mouth snapped, I screamed and let it go.
Luckily, my husband, who had seen me turn back and is familiar with my antics, had circled back and parked behind where my mother sat watching with interest. He got out and, using a pillowcase, tried to grab the critter. The turtle liked my husband no better than me, lunging and snapping, even hissing.
Some cars slowed, and one stopped, the driver marveling at the size of the creature.
“He’s a monster,” he said. “Never seen anything like him.”
Other cars whizzed by.
Finally, my husband was able to get a grip from behind and carried the hefty, unhappy turtle across the southbound lanes. He had to contend with claws on the reptile’s spinning hind legs, but he maneuvered the creature way down a steep incline.
We choose to think that the turtle had had enough of the highway and being manhandled and didn’t repeat his stunt. We choose to think he’s back and happy in turtledom.
We know what we did was not smart. Our bodies or our cars (including the one in which my mom waited, thoroughly entertained) could have been hit - even though they were off the roadway. Other drivers could have been distracted.
On the other hand, none of that happened, and we (hopefully) were able to help.
What do you do when you see a creature in distress on the highway?
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Goodbye four-way stop
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The colorful little flags beside North Road in Snellville mark more than the location of utilities. They are signs of further change for the mostly residential corridor that has been overtaken by heavy, cut-through traffic.
Gwinnett County Department of Transportation is preparing to replace the legendary four-way stop at North Road and Pinehurst Road with a traffic light. (Is that cheering I hear?) Left turn lanes will be added to all approaches, and — depending on what research shows - right turn lanes may also be provided.
Right now, consultants are studying the area and collecting data. Construction will occur in 2009, probably in spring or summer, said Alan Chapman, deputy director of Gwinnett Department of Transportation.
Traffic counts taken in 2006 and 2007 show that 14,000 vehicles passed through the four-way stop daily, said Chapman, who manages the DOT’s capital program. He suspects the numbers are higher now.
“That’s a lot of cars for an intersection with a four-way stop,” Chapman said. He said a traffic signal may be needed whenever you get above 10,000 to 12,000 vehicles.
Motorists who travel North or Pinehurst know what he’s talking about. Backups are common at the intersection, particularly in afternoon rush hours when vehicles pour off of Ronald Reagan Parkway onto two-lane Pinehurst. Pinehurst not only connects with North Road in Snellville, but also serves as a route to the Grayson area.
Almost $1.5 million in Special Local Option Sales Tax funds has been set aside for the project, Chapman said.
North Road, which parallels U.S. 124 (Scenic Highway), has long been used by drivers trying to avoid the congestion of the main highway. That traffic and the continued commercialization of Scenic Highway caused some North Road homeowners to ask the city a year ago to change the corridor’s zoning from residential to commercial so they can sell their property for a reasonable price.
Snellville City Planner Jason Thompson said city officials are still considering what North Road’s future should be as they work out Snellville’s comprehensive plan and look at the possibility of special designations for the area.
Regardless of what is decided, that future will include at least one more traffic light. There are no funded plans to replace the remaining four-way stops on North Road with signals, Chapman said.
Just how much relief the new signal will provide is difficult to say until the traffic study is complete, Chapman said. But generally signals can bring service that is graded as a “D” or “C” up to an “A” or “B,” he said.
What do you think? Do you prefer traffic signals to four-way stops? What other intersections would you like to see changed?
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When love begins with lemons …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Becky Stein / Special
The recently reopened Chick-fil-A restaurant in Snellville hosted a 70th wedding anniversary party for Nelson and Flo McBride, two area residents and regulars at the restaurant. The McBrides were joined by their great grandaughter Macy Miller and 80 to 100 of their closest friends.
Ahhh Spring! The season of flowers, young romance, proms.
If you can get past the pollen you might find — as they say — “love is in the air. ”
So here’s a true love story— one that started with lemons. It has lasted more than 70 years.
Nelson McBride, 91, and his wife, Flo, 89, have lived in a brick ranch home in Snellville f or 21 years. (They spent 20 years before that in a home on U.S. 78 and 15 before that in DeKalb County.)
If you noticed a crowd Saturday at Snellville’s Chick-fil-A on U.S. 78, it was friends and family of the McBrides celebrating the couple’s 70th wedding anniversary - yes, 70th!
Nelson and Flo are regulars at the restaurant - so much so that everyone knows their designated booth, which was kept during a recent renovation of the restaurant. Restaurant operator Brad Spratte even hung a wall rack near the booth so Nelson would have a place to hang his hat. The party was Spratte’s idea and was given courtesy of the restaurant.
But back to the story.
It was September 1937. Nelson was a young man working at Curtiss Printing Co. in downtown Atlanta. Flo was young and single and hired as a proofreader — a job that required she read out loud. After a time, her voice got scratchy and her throat hurt.
She had heard that lemons would help and mentioned it to her supervisor. Nelson was asked to hop on his bicycle and pedal to the store for lemons.
Flo says she was always attracted by Nelson’s “happy disposition.”
“I worked on the second floor and I would see him. He was always laughing and carrying on a bunch of foolishness. And he sang all the time.”
Nelson, who is still quick to smile and laugh, said their first date was a double date, arranged because one of his friends wanted to go out with a friend of Flo’s. The friends didn’t hit it off, but Nelson and Flo did.
“The way he proposed was that if I could make us live on $15 a week, we’d get married,” Flo said. They married March 19, 1938, at the courthouse in Lawrenceville. But they kept their marriage a secret for more than three months, living separately until they could save money for a tiny apartment. The world had been through the Great Depression, after all.
The McBrides had five children — four sons and a daughter. Nelson continued at Curtiss Printing Co. as a purchasing agent until a heart attack in 1977 left him unable to work. Flo worked in the lunchroom at Indian Creek Elementary School in DeKalb County. Today they have 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
The best times were the births of their children, Flo said. And they’ve had great friends all along the way. The worst times were when they lost loved ones, particularly the 1981 death of their middle son due to a brain aneurysm.
“There’s nothing, nothing, nothing that compares to losing a child,” she said. “A part of you is gone.”
These days, the McBrides enjoy going out to eat, spending time with friends and going to their church, White Oak Baptist on Martin Nash Road. (They also spend a lot of time going to doctors, too, Flo said, laughing.)
So for the obvious question: What’s the secret to a long marriage?
“It’s no secret of mine,” she said. “ … If you put God first in your life, everything else falls into place.”
Flo says she and Nelson never argued over or kept secrets about money, though they always have had to live frugally and budget carefully.
But they have occasionally disagreed, as she thinks most couples do.
“Anybody who says ‘we never had a cross word,’ well, I think that’s a bunch of bull.” she said.
Those who meet the McBrides might add a couple of other observations: they laugh — a lot — and are interested in other people. They stay active. And Nelson was quick to remember the details of when they started dating and how they met!
“They are a very special couple,” Spratte said. “They are a very loving couple … and they are fun to be around.”
And it all started with lemons.
Are there secrets to long marriages? What’s yours?
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What drives you to honk?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I couldn’t believe it,” my daughter exclaimed. “This lady - she was about your age - cut me off and almost hit me. I honked the horn, and she flipped me off.”
Uh-oh, I thought. My daughter had honked the horn!
It was as if she told me she had tried out four-wheeling — without a helmet. (Oh, wait, she told me that, too.) Obviously I have failed to teach her some things in her 23 years.
Honking the horn doesn’t mesh with being polite and courteous, unless of course it is a friendly, goodbye honk as you wave to relatives standing on the porch.
Even the quick “excuse me” honk given to someone who sits through an entire traffic-light cycle can come off as rude.
More importantly, honking can be dangerous business — a lesson I learned decades ago when a woman almost drove into me in a shopping center parking lot on Pleasant Hill Road. I honked and slammed on brakes. She stopped in front of my car, got out, came back, shouted and beat on my window. I’ll never forget her eyes. When I drove away, she followed me through three parking lots. It was the Christmas season.
That was before “road rage” regularly made headlines.
Over the years, I have used my horn rarely (though I admit to straying maybe once or twice when the provocation was egregious). I’ve even cringed when nearby motorists emitted blasts that I feared could be mistakenly credited to me.
My daughter’s tale led me to wonder: what are the laws and etiquette for horn honking. When should you — and when should you not — honk?
Cpl. Rob Rude, public information officer for Gwinnett County Police, said the law only allows drivers to sound the horn when it is “reasonably necessary to ensure safe operation” of the vehicle. (OCGA 40-8-70).
“In other words, you can’t honk on the horn because you are mad at someone,” he said.
Rude acknowledged that police rarely issue citations for horn blowing, but they can.
Intense horn blowing also could fall under the “aggressive driving” law (OCGA 40-6-397), which says - among other things - that a driver cannot intentionally “annoy, harass … intimidate …” other drivers, said Detective Cpl. Tim Colgan of the Snellville Police Department. Colgan teaches driver’s education classes at New London School of Driving in Loganville.
Colgan, who was a patrol officer for 12 years and has been a detective for eight, said he’s never cited anyone for misuse of their horn. “I think an officer would have to witness it,” he said.
Alan Deighton, president of New London School of Driving, said his school teaches its students that horns can be dangerous because of the violent nature of drivers today.
“We tell them that you don’t ever know if the person may explode,” Deighton said. “We’ve seen it with our student driver cars - someone will come up and act outrageous behind them. We’ve even had soccer moms with all their stickers on the SUV and their kids in the car come up and honk the horn and give the finger. It’s unbelievable. So we tell our students to use the horn only when necessary. Otherwise, they should take a long breath and let it go.”
Do you honk? When?
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What’s the 411 on Snellville police news?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Snellville Police Department has been in the news lately — and the subject hasn’t been crime.
Snellville’s mayor announced that the city plans to buy land near city hall for a new police headquarters.
Then the department’s chief, Roy Whitehead, was named Public Safety Officer of the Year for the county. The honor was announced Friday at the Valor Awards, coordinated by the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce.
You might wonder “Why?” Why does Snellville need a new police headquarters, and why did the city’s police chief merit such an honor?
Here’s some background:
The police department has long operated out of buildings designed for other purposes. The previous police department on U.S. 78 had been a Walton Electric Membership Cooperative building. The current Snellville Police Department on Lenora Church Road was home to a private utilities business.
While the city demonstrated good stewardship in recycling the buildings for its purposes, there are reasons it is now looking to build a new headquarters.
• The department is outgrowing its 12,000-square-foot building. The current building does not provide the interview rooms, record and evidence storage and other specialized spaces the department needs.
• It has no elevator and extra measures are required to accommodate the disabled.
• The existing building is at the southern edge of the city, not centrally located. The new location would provide police better access to major roads.
• Money is available for the land purchase, building design and partial construction from the 2004 Special Local Option Sales Tax. If voters agree in November to continue the sales tax, money from that will be used to cover remaining construction costs.
• The city wants to consolidate its operations in a municipal campus near U.S. 78 and Oak Road, where the new city hall and senior center have been established.
Now, about the police chief:
Whitehead came to Snellville in 2004 from Summerville, S.C., where he served as police chief. He is from Athens (Ga.) and wanted to move closer to family.
After arriving, Whitehead asked his employees what was needed. He quickly added spotlights for patrol cars, allowed officers to be equipped with two sets of handcuffs and latex gloves and emphasized aggressive criminal patrol, in which officers making routine stops look for indicators of more serious criminal activity.
In the last four years, the department has established a canine unit that has helped in drug arrests and tracking offenders (it is adding its third dog soon). It provided a bicycle unit for better patrol of shopping areas and festivals. It added motorcycles that can get to the heart of traffic backups more easily than a patrol car and was the first city department in Gwinnett to institute a commercial vehicle enforcement unit that can address problems with truck traffic through the city.
Less than three months ago, the department became the first city police in Gwinnett to use “electronic warrant interface,” which allows officers to communicate with judges through a computer when a warrant is needed, rather than driving to Lawrenceville for a physical meeting. Since that operation began, 65 trips to Lawrenceville have been saved.
Snellville Police is moving ahead with other technological advances, including a record management system that allows officers to file reports remotely using a laptop. The system makes reports available more quickly and will provide citizens with Internet access to public records.
Under the direction of the city council, the department also established a quality of life unit that addresses code violations in neighborhoods, such as houses not up to standards. That unit - which was initially overwhelmed with complaints - now is averaging 66 cases a month.
During the past four years, the police department has grown from 38 to 50 sworn officers. The number of traffic accidents has dropped significantly. Serious crimes within Snellville city limits dropped from 2005 to 2006. Crime in 2007 was 3 percent higher than the previous year, but arrests kept pace, and Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer said the rise reflected the addition of units and police being more pro-active in addressing crime.
“Actually, we are even safer because we are making more cases,” Oberholtzer said.
The list of achievements continues, but you get the drift.
Whitehead regularly diverts credit to his employees and to Snellville’s city council and mayor.
There is truth in that. Ideas and support from above and below have directly and indirectly led to the improvements.
But the progress reflects departmental leadership.
““He came in and has been very innovative and greatly improved morale,” Oberholtzer said. Whitehead also found grants, community contributions and other alternative funding to pay for many of his improvements, the mayor said.
In a video shown at the awards ceremony, Lt. Tommy Taylor of the Snellville Police Department also mentioned Whitehead’s practice of personally assisting officers on the street.
Whitehead later explained that he answers police calls and provides backup to officers to stay in touch with what an officer encounters.
“I just like to know what our people are facing.”
Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld said two of Whitehead’s accomplishments — the high quality of the force and public trust in the department — are not easily measured but exist.
“This chief draws around him a group of men and women who are extremely talented and trained.” Auld said. “The caliber of people who want to come and work for this chief is very high. … The way he deals with citizens and the way he deals with police, the chief has created a trust in our police force that is unmatched in Gwinnett.”
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