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TODAY'S ISSUE
Gwinnett Medical Center honors volunteer Dick Berry
By Kyle Brogdon
Special to GwinnettForum

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga., May 9, 2006 -- Dick Berry, longtime volunteer at Gwinnett Medical Center, was honored recently at the hospital's annual Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon at the Atlanta Marriott Gwinnett Place in Duluth. Berry was recognized for volunteering 687 hours in 2005, more then any other volunteer at GMC. He has donated 4,000 hours since 1997.

Berry resides in Cumming with his wife Janice, who has also served as a volunteer at GMC. He has been volunteering at Gwinnett Medical Center for nine years and currently volunteers three days a week. Berry can be found at the front desk at 7:30 a.m., as he is usually the first volunteer to arrive. He begins his day by preparing and setting out materials that are needed for guests and volunteers.

Berry says: "Being part of a team is my favorite thing about being a volunteer. It is not about an award or ego but about being dedicated to a cause that you feel strongly about. The volunteers at GMC have a goal of making the hospital as great as it can be. GMC is already in the top five percent of hospitals nationwide for clinical quality, and it's my job to be a part of that support staff that makes us really great."

Cynthia Chandler, director of volunteer services at GMC, says: "Dick is such a wonderful volunteer. He truly brings the spirit of volunteerism with him each day as he volunteers at the front desk and in our on-call office. He's always there to lend a hand, often going above and beyond the call - and always with a smile."

More than 250 volunteers from all around the Hospital System also received recognition for their lifetime years of service.

Five volunteers were recognized for their total number of hours they have volunteered: Gladys Mickles, 14,200 hours; Marty Henck, 8,950 hours; Betty Walls, 8,250 hours; Bernice Johnson, 7,700 hours; and Hazel Young, 6,950 hours. GHS board members, Hospital Authority members and GHS staff attended the luncheon honoring the volunteers.

GHS has several locations throughout Gwinnett County in need of volunteers. Gwinnett Medical Center - Duluth will open in October, 2006. For more information about volunteering or to become a volunteer please call 678-442-4318 or go to www.gwinnettmedicalcenter.org.

Gwinnett Hospital System, anchored by flagship Gwinnett Medical Center, is a not-for-profit healthcare network providing high quality facilities and services to Gwinnett and the surrounding community. With over 4,000 employees and 750 physicians, the System provided care in 2005 to almost 400,000 patients. In 2006, Gwinnett Hospital System received the HealthGrades® Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence, ranking among the top 5% of all hospitals in the nation for overall clinical performance. To learn more, visit www.gwinnettmedicalcenter.org.

ELLIOTT BRACK
Aurora Theatre's "Guys and Dolls" is stunning performance
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com

MAY 9, 2006 -- A stunning performance! That's the best way to describe the Aurora Theatre's current staging in Duluth. Its production of Guys and Dolls captivates the audience. The theater is moving to facilities in Lawrenceville in August, with Guys and Dolls continuing in Duluth through the end of May., and to be the final performances in Duluth.

If you like live stage presentations, the sheer exuberance and talent will impress you. And if a fan of Damon Runyon's New York, you'll see characters like Harry the Horse, Benny Southstreet, and Big Louie from Chicago you think were coming direct off Broadway, what with their authentic accents, their period zoot suits and fancy dress.

And once the musical is over, you leave humming the familiar tunes. If like me, you'll wind up for the next two or three mornings with one of those lyrics continually running through your mind.

Ah, local theater is wonderful and close to home, providing a cultural bonanza to the community, and often enjoyed with folks you know in the audience, friends and neighbors. Any community is lucky to have good, local theater available.

Most responsible for theater at the Aurora is the husband-wife team of Anthony Rodriquez and Carol Ann Pence. They've put in 10 years diligence, produced ever-more-professional offerings, and gained credibility with the local community. And it all took place in space that was once a department store in downtown Duluth, retro-fitted into an intimate theater, though with a small staging area.

Now after considerable community discussion and offers, the theater is moving to Lawrenceville, to find much more spacious facilities in a converted church. But these new facilities will not be available until early next year.

Lawrenceville city officials, who have been eager to lure the Aurora to their town, had hoped that the new facilities would be completed in time for the 2006-7 season. When it became apparent they would not be on time, the city made the fourth floor of the new city hall---up until then unfinished expansion space---available to the theater troupe. That's where the Aurora will open its first performance on August 14, to be the musical, Lucky Stiff. .And happily, there will be plenty of parking space around the new site.

But back to the present run in Duluth: a strong performance by the cast gave Guys and Dolls an authentic atmosphere of downtown New York.

The character that we think gave the best performance was Bethany Irby as Miss Adelaide, the leading female, who is Nathan Detroit's fiancée of 14 years. She belts out songs of the musical with depth and range. And her authentic thick New York accent makes the role even more enjoyable. She was perfect. And Detroit's role by none other than Rodriquez was also solid, as his deep voice penetrates the audience. In case you don't remember, the role of Adelaide was played performed in the movie by Vivian Blaine.

In the co-starring roles of Miss Sarah Brown and Sky Masterson, Stacey Stone and Robert Egizio, play the roles skillfully, though in less bombastic terms than the Adelaide-Nathan roles.

It's not an easy play to stage, what with lots of dancing, movement, and continual set changes. Yet the skillful interpretation and adaptation came off smoothly.

Do yourself a favor: get tickets now before the May 28 closing (the theater was virtually full when we attended)…. to see the Aurora's final, and excellent, performance in Duluth.

The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today's featured sponsor is Mingledorff's, an air conditioning distributor of the Carrier Air Conditioning Company. Mingledorff's corporate office is located at 6675 Jones Mill Court in Norcross Ga. and is proud to be a sponsor of the Gwinnett Forum. With 18 locations in Georgia and South Carolina, Mingledorff's is the convenient local source with a complete line for the quality heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration parts and supplies you need to service and install HVAC/R equipment. Product lines include Carrier, Bryant, Payne, Totaline and Aeroseal. For all of your HVAC needs, and information on the products Mingledorff's sells, visit www.mingledorffs.com and www.carrier.com.

I agree with the recent commentary on Democrats in that they will need more than Bush bashing as a campaign platform. However Republicans would be wise for once to hold the man accountable for his blatant disregard for our Constitution. I am attaching this link to a Boston website which lists over 750 signing statements from the President in which he both signs a law into the record while claiming to have the authority to disregard it if his interpretation differs than the actual law.

We have had at least one other president who made the assumption that his opinions were both above the law as well as superseding the law. His name was Richard Millhouse Nixon. I would like to remind everyone that even Republicans at the time had voted to impeach him prior to his resignation, because of his actions, not because of his party. Republicans need to stop this almost cultish support of anything Republican just as much as Democrats need to offer some solutions rather than Bush bashing as campaign strategy.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court provides for wiretapping to be allowed right now on any suspected threat to our nation, while also granting the authorities 72 hours to get judicial approval from FISA judges. Only four of over thousands of these requests since the law was created have been denied. This evidence is enough for me to warrant impeachment of any sitting president, Democrat or Republican. It is duplicitous at best to demand impeachment for sexual indiscretions of a personal nature while tolerating blatant violations of the Constitution.

University of Georgia undergraduates will have the opportunity to explore civil rights history through a summer rhetoric course offered by UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the Gwinnett campus in Lawrenceville.

The course, Speech Communication 3330: Rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement, includes a four-day "rolling classroom" tour of museums, grave sites and historic locations of important civil rights events in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia.

The speech communication course is open to undergraduate students enrolled in UGA degree programs in Gwinnett or the main campus in Athens. It meets the university‚s cultural diversity requirement and the Franklin College's multicultural requirement. Students must participate in the tour to receive class credit.

The class will meet at UGA's Gwinnett campus, off Highway 316 at Collins Hill Road, Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., June 8-July 5. The 1,500-mile bus tour is scheduled for June 30-July 3 with stops in Anniston, Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, Ala.; Meridian, Jackson and Greenwood, Miss., including the Delta region; Memphis, Tenn.; and Atlanta.

During the trip, "foot soldiers' of the civil rights movement will speak to the students about their personal experiences, and students will present parts of speeches that were given at each location during a critical moment in civil rights history. According to Rita Van Zant, speech communication instructor with UGA's Gwinnett campus, interacting with historical figures and seeing the civil rights sites firsthand gives students a better understanding of the events and how rhetoric was used.

Van Zant first taught the summer course in May 2004: |"I created this course because I teach rhetoric and there are very few times in our nation's history where rhetoric was so important. It isn't just the speeches, it is the media framing of the coverage and how that affected the movement, the legal efforts of each side, the various methods used by forces to persuade others that their side was correct."

Students pay tuition and fees for the class, which is offered in the first summer session, and an additional $100 for the "rolling classroom" tour. Eligible students can have their tuition and fees covered by the HOPE scholarship. Students are responsible for lunch and dinner and any personal expenses incurred during the bus trip.

Application or enrollment questions should be directed to Reginald Moss, academic advisor in the Franklin College for Gwinnett, at 678/407-5230 or at rlmoss@franklin.uga.edu.

Any non-student interested in participating in the tour should contact Van Zant at 828/699-6997 or at ugarvz@aol.com.

With help from sports personality and former Atlanta Falcons running back Jamal Anderson, Bowen Family Homes broke ground last week on the hometown builder's Healing House. The event kicked off The Bowen Family Homes Healing House Raffle, through which the builder hopes to raise $1 million for two of the area's top healthcare organizations - Shepherd Center and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Once David Bowen toured the Shepherd Center, he immediately wanted to take action. "I was overwhelmed by the patients at the facility, their many needs and the dedication shown by the staff there," says Bowen. "And Children's Healthcare is the same; both are serving Atlanta-area families in irreplaceable ways. It is the custom in our family and our company to support the community and charities involving children, and this is another way we can help."

The Bowen Family Homes Healing House Raffle extends a long tradition of giving back to the communities where Bowen builds. "Our Texas Division was successful in raising $1 million in 2004 and 2005 for similar organizations, so we wanted to do this in the Atlanta market as well," said Bowen. "We want to help Shepherd and Children's meet their fiscal needs, but we also hope to bring community awareness in regards to these organizations and the needs of the families they serve."

Bowen Family Homes is building the Healing House in part through donations of time, materials and labor from participating vendors, including E&E Electrical Contractors, Inc., Ideal Development Concepts, Robert Bowden, Inc., Pioneer Lighting, Zimmerman Painting, Village Construction, Inc., RCS, Inc., Garner Plumbing, Case Lumber, Level Creek Grading, Voyles Overhead Doors, Stock Supply, Georgia Stone, Georgia Floors, Green Enterprises, Stuart Mechanical Services, Mill Creek Concrete and Total Comfort Insulation.

The Lockheed-Georgia C-5 Galaxy can carry 135 tons of cargo, making it the largest production aircraft built in the United States. It is a vital part of any military action in which large amounts of material need to be airlifted around the world. It has a wingspan of just under 223 feet (compared with over 225 feet for the Boeing 747-400XQLR) and is 247 feet long and 65 feet high. It has four engines. Until the release of the Soviet Antonov An-124 Condor in 1982, the C-5 was the largest and heaviest plane in operation.

The first C-5, built at Lockheed-Georgia (now Lockheed Martin) in Marietta, first flew in 1968. The first Galaxy C-5A model rolled off the assembly line on March 2 of that year. Delivery to the U.S. Air Force started in 1970 with the C-5A model and ended in March 1989 with the C-5B model. In 1998 dollars, each C-5A cost about $152.8 million, and each C-5B cost about $179 million.

In 2000, the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command had 126 C-5s in operation. The plane was designed for carrying large amounts of cargo and personnel. Its upper deck can carry 96 passengers and crew members. At both ends of the aircraft large doors can swing open to the cargo deck, and two rows of vehicles can drive on and off at the same time. This lower cargo deck can carry a wide range of cargoes, such as a 74-ton folding mobile scissors bridge; or two M1-A1 Abrams main battle tanks; or seven UH-1 Huey helicopters; or 270 personnel (reserved for emergencies and special operations); or 135 tons of cargo.

In January 1999, the $454 million C-5 avionics modernization program was awarded to Lockheed Martin at Marietta. This includes creating new cockpit displays navigation systems, and autopilots. In December 2001, Lockheed Martin was also awarded a $1.1 billion contract for the system development and demonstration phase of the C-5 reliability enhancement and re-engining program which will develop the changes needed to retrofit C-5s with a more reliable and efficient engine that can provide more than 50,000 pounds of thrust.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Here's another reason to participate in your government

"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men."

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