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November 20, 2009 Cartersville, Georgia
LOCAL NEWS
Locals bring home three Keep Georgia Beautiful awards
A Bartow County employee and two local groups were recognized Thursday for their earth-friendly efforts.
The locals were honored at the 31st annual Keep Georgia Beautiful Awards Luncheon at the Emory Conference Center Hotel in Atlanta. Earning one of the organization's top awards was Dale Henderson, who was named Code Enforcement Official of the Year.
Henderson, who works out of Bartow County's engineering department, has been serving the county for 25 years. His primary duties focus on ordinances dealing with erosion and sediment control, stormwater and illicit discharges.
"I'm very honored and humbled by this because I know there were a lot of folks looking at the applications, probably people, in my opinion, who were more qualified for the award than I was, so I'm honored and humbled at this," Henderson said.
In 2008, Henderson was elected first vice president of the Georgia Association of Code Enforcement and was re-elected to a second term this year. Through GACE, he wrote the Kathy Cox Memorial Scholarship to aid members' families and has worked with members of the Georgia Legislature in efforts to pass Senate Bill 188, which would require all code enforcement officers to be certified by the state.
"We've nominated some of our other code enforcement officers in the past," said Sheri Henshaw, coordinator of Keep Bartow Beautiful, which submitted local contest entries to the KGB. "It worked out well this year, as Dale is also an officer in GACE -- I think all the things came together at the right time for him."
Also receiving an award was Pine Log Elementary, which earned second place in the Waste Reduction and Recycling category for the efforts of the school's Conservation Club. The Allatoona Community Association earned a Certificate of Distinguished Service in recognition of its annual Junk Dump, which in June of this year had volunteers cleaning up the community and bringing 27.5 tons of material to the landfill.
The Conservation Club last school year led Pine Log Elementary's recycling efforts through sponsoring classroom contests and recycling campaigns. The school collected an estimated 44,000 aluminum cans, which allowed the school to win the KBB Recycle Challenge, earning a visit from the Wildlife Wonders traveling zoo out of Cleveland, Ga., in May.
The school community also collected 16,234 pounds of paper, cardboard, plastic, tin cans and other recyclables to the school -- 35.84 pounds per student. That per-student weight put the school atop KBB's School Recycling Contest, which earned the school $500. In addition to the recycling, the club has also adopted sea turtles through the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island.
Fifth-grade teacher Julie Umbarger, who sponsors Pine Log's Conservation Club, attended Thursday's award ceremony. Though she could only bring one student, she told her students about the award several days ago.
"The kids were extremely excited -- when I took them out in the hallway and told them, they were just thrilled, they were screaming and smiling," Umbarger said. "Because it was one thing to win the county awards, but when they found out they won an award among the other schools in the state, they really see how their hard work paid off."
Joining Umbarger to receive the school's honor was fifth-grader and Conservation Club member Taylor Clark. She says she has enjoyed being a part of the club's recycling efforts.
"Everything we do helps the world -- we recycle cans, we recycle plastic bottles, everything like that," she said, adding that she encourages her classmates and peers to take part in recycling.
"I'd encourage them to help the world, the environment and everything that we live in," she added.
Peggy Martin, president of the Allatoona Community Association, could not make it to Thursday's event. She said the annual junk dump is the product of strong community effort and assistance from Bartow County in the form of collection bins and the operation of trucks to transport collected materials.
"While most of the county, when they have clean-ups, such as Keep Bartow Beautiful, Keep America Beautiful, people go out and pick up trash along the roads and it's a clean-up. What we've done is to kind of reverse that process and say, 'Alright, let's clean up our community, and we'll give you a place to bring it, and let's clean up yards, clean up a lot of rental properties,'" Martin said.
"It's a way of giving them a way to bring things to a designated location, out of yards things that the environmental code officers and the zoning code officers have to go out to address at a particular residence," Martin added. "We say to those folks, 'C'mon, bring us your stuff and stay ahead of the code people.' I've run into people in other counties who have asked me about the Junk Dump here -- I don't know how the word gets out, but it has."
Martin said she hopes the award will benefit the organization.
"I hope this means several things -- I hope it sends a message to the community that this is a good thing we're doing, and that we're not just working in the dark, that people are acknowledging that this is worth recognizing," Martin said. "Hopefully it will provide incentive to continue the Junk Dump, because we do have to have that county support."
The locals were honored at the 31st annual Keep Georgia Beautiful Awards Luncheon at the Emory Conference Center Hotel in Atlanta. Earning one of the organization's top awards was Dale Henderson, who was named Code Enforcement Official of the Year.
Henderson, who works out of Bartow County's engineering department, has been serving the county for 25 years. His primary duties focus on ordinances dealing with erosion and sediment control, stormwater and illicit discharges.
"I'm very honored and humbled by this because I know there were a lot of folks looking at the applications, probably people, in my opinion, who were more qualified for the award than I was, so I'm honored and humbled at this," Henderson said.
In 2008, Henderson was elected first vice president of the Georgia Association of Code Enforcement and was re-elected to a second term this year. Through GACE, he wrote the Kathy Cox Memorial Scholarship to aid members' families and has worked with members of the Georgia Legislature in efforts to pass Senate Bill 188, which would require all code enforcement officers to be certified by the state.
"We've nominated some of our other code enforcement officers in the past," said Sheri Henshaw, coordinator of Keep Bartow Beautiful, which submitted local contest entries to the KGB. "It worked out well this year, as Dale is also an officer in GACE -- I think all the things came together at the right time for him."
Also receiving an award was Pine Log Elementary, which earned second place in the Waste Reduction and Recycling category for the efforts of the school's Conservation Club. The Allatoona Community Association earned a Certificate of Distinguished Service in recognition of its annual Junk Dump, which in June of this year had volunteers cleaning up the community and bringing 27.5 tons of material to the landfill.
The Conservation Club last school year led Pine Log Elementary's recycling efforts through sponsoring classroom contests and recycling campaigns. The school collected an estimated 44,000 aluminum cans, which allowed the school to win the KBB Recycle Challenge, earning a visit from the Wildlife Wonders traveling zoo out of Cleveland, Ga., in May.
The school community also collected 16,234 pounds of paper, cardboard, plastic, tin cans and other recyclables to the school -- 35.84 pounds per student. That per-student weight put the school atop KBB's School Recycling Contest, which earned the school $500. In addition to the recycling, the club has also adopted sea turtles through the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island.
Fifth-grade teacher Julie Umbarger, who sponsors Pine Log's Conservation Club, attended Thursday's award ceremony. Though she could only bring one student, she told her students about the award several days ago.
"The kids were extremely excited -- when I took them out in the hallway and told them, they were just thrilled, they were screaming and smiling," Umbarger said. "Because it was one thing to win the county awards, but when they found out they won an award among the other schools in the state, they really see how their hard work paid off."
Joining Umbarger to receive the school's honor was fifth-grader and Conservation Club member Taylor Clark. She says she has enjoyed being a part of the club's recycling efforts.
"Everything we do helps the world -- we recycle cans, we recycle plastic bottles, everything like that," she said, adding that she encourages her classmates and peers to take part in recycling.
"I'd encourage them to help the world, the environment and everything that we live in," she added.
Peggy Martin, president of the Allatoona Community Association, could not make it to Thursday's event. She said the annual junk dump is the product of strong community effort and assistance from Bartow County in the form of collection bins and the operation of trucks to transport collected materials.
"While most of the county, when they have clean-ups, such as Keep Bartow Beautiful, Keep America Beautiful, people go out and pick up trash along the roads and it's a clean-up. What we've done is to kind of reverse that process and say, 'Alright, let's clean up our community, and we'll give you a place to bring it, and let's clean up yards, clean up a lot of rental properties,'" Martin said.
"It's a way of giving them a way to bring things to a designated location, out of yards things that the environmental code officers and the zoning code officers have to go out to address at a particular residence," Martin added. "We say to those folks, 'C'mon, bring us your stuff and stay ahead of the code people.' I've run into people in other counties who have asked me about the Junk Dump here -- I don't know how the word gets out, but it has."
Martin said she hopes the award will benefit the organization.
"I hope this means several things -- I hope it sends a message to the community that this is a good thing we're doing, and that we're not just working in the dark, that people are acknowledging that this is worth recognizing," Martin said. "Hopefully it will provide incentive to continue the Junk Dump, because we do have to have that county support."
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