Thumbs Up! Oct. 9, 2017

Not since 2002 has Theatre Albany seen tickets fly out of the box office as they did for the opening of the 2017-18 season. Under the direction of Mark Costello, a large cast with elaborate costumes gave audiences plenty to talk about with the performance of “Beauty and the Beast.” The final production of last year’s season was “The Addams Family” and was a far greater draw than expected. With many of the same actors returning for Beauty, neither illness, injury nor Irma could stop the momentum. Next up will be the annual holiday show. Starting on Dec. 8, “Harry Connick Jr.’s The Happy Elf” is sure to delight the audience and, for a third time in a row, offer family entertainment unlike any other in Albany. If you are a regular at Theatre Albany, keep coming. If you went for the first time to one of the most recent shows, come back. And next time, bring a friend.

Meetings, workshops and conferences have a way of stoking the fires under attendees. Unfortunately, those hot spots are all to often quickly extinguished leaving only a commemorative ink pen or perhaps a key ring as a reminder of the event. Such was not the case when District 6 Dougherty County Commissioner Anthony Jones returned from a recent meeting of the Southwest Georgia Regional Commission. As a representative for the county, Jones gathered information pertinent to Albany/Dougherty County. By listening to the discussions around the room, Jones heard Melody Price of Work Force Georgia and Berneta Haynes of Georgia Watch discussing programs already available to assist low and moderate-income households. Jones came back to Albany with plans for a “Community Access and Empowerment Workshop.” The event was held Saturday and the number in attendance was not yet available when this editorial went to press. While that data is important, the fact that Jones made it happen for the people he represents is ample reason to say, thumbs up!

A look through the remaining time on the 2017 calendar reveals the fact that there are only 11 more weekends before Christmas. While this should come as no shock since it happens every year and always on the same date, there are a great number of families in Southwest Georgia who will not have the pleasure of shopping until they drop. For low-income, fixed-income and, in some cases, no-income families, the joy associated with Christmas may not come, down the chimney or by any other means. Were it not for Toys for Tots, many children would have no gifts to find under the tree, if there even is a tree. Toys for Tots is the largest outreach program of the Department of Defense and offers a tried and true way to help needy families with children from ages birth to 14. There is always a rush toward the end of the campaign’s collection, a time when people are busy with family, cooking, shopping, wrapping, decorating, as well as church and school programs. It is not too early to drop a new, unwrapped toy in one of the collection boxes already showing up in stores. And yes, some parents should (and could) do better for their youngsters but those are decisions over which the children have no control.

Dougherty County School System continues to see a rise in graduation rates, as does the state. Ideally, every student will receive a high school diploma with his or her classmates. A more realistic goal is to see the number reaching that milestone inch up every year. In 2017, all systems in the metro Albany area exceeded the graduation rate of the state as a whole, which is 80.6 percent. DCSS ‘s rate reached 83.3 percent while Baker County graduated 90 percent, Calhoun graduated 89.1 percent, Mitchell County graduated 93.7 percent, Lee County graduated 83.2 percent and Worth County graduated 82.1 percent. Considering the graduation rate for Dougherty County a few years back (2014) was hovering just under 60 percent, it is obvious that the system has found its forward gear. Keep up the good work.