A quick history lesson

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One of our high schools this past spring was asked to create two collage boards depicting scenes from our county.

The students promptly fell to work completing the task, but unfortunately there did not seem to be anyone with any historical Fayette County knowledge to assist them — not their fault.

One depiction shows an Indian with a full-dress hat/cap on, full of many feathers. I don’t know where this fellow was from, but it wasn’t Georgia. The Creek Indians who inhabited Georgia from the Chattahoochee River south wore a simple band around their head, with only one feather in it

The other board shows an American flag that is depicted as backwards. If it was deliberately shown as backwards, fine. Otherwise, however, the union should always be at the upper left, whether it’s shown horizontal or vertical.

The students should be proud of their work, they fell-to and completed their task. I just hope that the next time students are given a task by an elected official, they are also given guidance by someone knowledgeable concerning the task they are given.

And that leads me to this official’s latest blunder, commenting in a photo and article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, he stated that “the fountain is a tricky situation because it’s very old, very tired.” I stood at this very site in 1996 with an Olympic Torch in my hand and the fountain was new at that time.

Long before you ever got here, Mr. Elected Official, we had an art association and an annual art festival that go back decades. Fayette County may have been a farming community for most of its life, but we don’t take to newcomers trying to distort our true history.

(I have lived in Fayette County for 50 years.)

Carolyn Cary
Fayetteville, Ga.