Henry headlines, school news, photos

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A grass fire along I-75 had all northbound lanes blocked south of Atlanta Saturday afternoon. A tractor-trailer hauling bales of cotton caught fire near the Locust Grove exit just before 1:30 p.m., and the flames spread to the grass along the interstate, according to Doug Turnbull in the AM750 and 95.

Georgia’s mild winter and spring gave state Department of Transportation crews and contractors a head start on the summer road construction season, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty of projects underway between now and the fall. David Spear, spokesman for the DOT, said there will be no fewer than 20 major projects underway this summer on Georgia’s interstate highways, many of them in metro Atlanta.

A Henry County schoolteacher accused of leaving her students unsupervised, when two of them allegedly engaged in sex acts in a classroom, agreed Tuesday to resign rather than face a termination hearing, Channel 2 Action News reported. April Lash, who teaches special needs math at Henry County High School, denied doing anything wrong and insisted that she had arranged for another teacher to cover an after-school tutorial.

A McDonough woman was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison for dealing in firearms without a license and for trying to have someone killed. Melissa Towana Wood, 50, pleaded guilty to the charges Feb. 2, according to U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

Henry County police have arrested two men for allegedly burglarizing a church near McDonough last week. Burglars broke into Salem Baptist Church on Ga. 155 around 2 a.m. on Thursday and stole three guitars, a laptop computer, money and assorted snack items from a church concession stand.

Henry County police are asking for the public's help in identifying two boys who broke into a McDonough church early Thursday and stole musical instruments, computer equipment and junk food. Security video showed the two boys, who appeared to be teenagers, crawling through a roll-up window at Salem Baptist Church on Ga.

The family of a 15-year-old who died from an allergic reaction to food is asking for help with medical and funeral costs, a family friend told the AJC Thursday. Diallo Robbins-Brinson, of Macon, collapsed at the Golden Corral restaurant in McDonough after eating dinner with his soccer team Saturday night, his mother has said.

When Diallo Robbins-Brinson's soccer teammates hit the field Saturday, they'll be without one of their players. But the 15-year-old's presence will still be there, his coach told the AJC late Wednesday. The front of the team's jerseys will say "In memory of Diallo" for the teenager, who died Monday after an apparent allergic reaction.

Cherokee County's River Ridge High School is one of 240 schools in the nation to receive the Yearbook of Excellence Award from Jostens Yearbooks. The award recognizes yearbook staffs for creating an inclusive yearbook, generating school engagement and successfully managing the yearbook creation process.

Emily Lam of SKA Academy in Duluth and Raquel Charles of Sequoyah High School in Cherokee County have received National PTA Reflections Outstanding Interpretation awards. Emily won for visual arts and Raquel won for dance choreography. Winners are chosen in six arts categories along with 188 awards of excellence and merit.

Foreclosure notices in metro Atlanta during May held steady, avoiding both the longed-for decline and a feared second wave of rising numbers. “Things are very consistent right now,” said Barry Bramlett, the CEO of Equity Depot, the Kennesaw-based real estate analysis firm that gathers the data.

Some Georgia public schools with persistently low graduation rates and poor test performance are sharing $51 million in federal grant money to adopt improvement strategies. Included are eight schools in metro Atlanta -- three in the Atlanta Public School system, three in DeKalb County and one each in Henry and Douglas counties -- who are receiving federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) worth a total of $9.

An 18-year-old McDonough motorist has been charged in a hit-and-run accident that seriously injured a woman jogging along a Henry County road earlier this month, authorities said Wednesday. An investigation led police to identify a suspect, and Kyle Andrew Harvey surrendered to authorities at the Henry County jail, according to a news release from the Henry County Police Department.

A McDonough woman has won $250,000 a year for 30 years -- a total of $7.5 million -- in a multistate lottery game. Borom Toek took home the big jackpot after buying a Decades of Dollars ticket at the Provisions BP on Ga. Highway 20 in McDonough. The drawing took place last week.

Usually, chambers of commerce note the positive milestones in their communities. But in a stark and unusual acknowledgment of hard economic times, the Henry County chamber recently gave an award to a failed bank. Four months after First State Bank became the last and largest of Henry's five homegrown banks to close, the chamber honored the Stockbridge institution with a framed proclamation at its April board meeting.

Henry County authorities are asking the public's help to find a vehicle involved in a hit-and-run accident Tuesday afternoon that left a pedestrian with serious injuries. The woman was struck around 1:47 p.m. as she walked along the side of Airline Road in North Henry County near the Rockdale County line, according to the Henry County Police Department.

Henry County authorities are awaiting the return from South Carolina of a man suspected of beating his mother-in-law with a frying pan and holding her, his wife and son at gunpoint. The incident began around 7 p.m. Tuesday when Michael S. Payne burglarized the home of his mother-in-law in McDonough, said Major Jason Bolton, Henry County police spokesman.

The parents of a 5-year-old girl who died after treatment for a broken arm at a Henry County clinic last year have reached a confidential settlement with the urgent care facility, Channel 2 Action News reported Monday. Kensley Kirby fell and broke her arm last June.

McDonough police are seeking the driver of an SUV who allegedly shot out the rear windshield of a family’s vehicle, endangering its occupants, including three young children, in an apparent road rage incident, Channel 2 Action News reported. The incident happened about 11 p.

Hundreds of people are expected to attend the funeral Monday of an 11-year-old Henry County boy struck and killed while heading to the school bus. Thomas Conor Burch, of Locust Grove, died Thursday morning after being airlifted to the hospital. Conor, the son of Capt.

Ricky Smith’s children spent Spring Break with him last week. In years past, that would have been unthinkable for the 42-year-old divorced dad who has spent time in the Hall County jail for delinquent child support payments. “I’ve been divorced for 10 years.

An 11-year-old boy died Thursday morning after being struck by a vehicle Thursday morning while crossing a Henry County road to board his school bus. The boy, Thomas Conner Burch, stepped into the roadway at Tanger Boulevard and Locust Grove Griffin Road and was hit by a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction from the approaching bus, Gordy Wright, Georgia State Patrol spokesman, said Thursday.

Members of a church youth group from McDonough had a close brush with disaster Friday morning when a Nashville church they were staying in caught fire. About three dozen people from Bethany Baptist Church were staying in the recreation center of First Baptist Church in Nashville.

The list of road construction projects expected this weekend is short, but motorists can expect congestion on I-75 as spring break travelers return home from the beach. Doug Turnbull in the AM750 and 95.5FM News/Talk WSB Traffic Center said traffic will likely be “very heavy” on I-75 south of Atlanta throughout the weekend.

A Henry County sheriff's deputy knocked down and handcuffed an 11-year-old special needs student, then charged her with simple assault on a police officer, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the girl's parents. Deputy Richard Gaouette, who works as a school resource officer for Henry County, was called to the school on May 4, 2010, after the girl, upset that her snow globe broke in art class, wandered outside Smith Barnes Elementary.