Fayetteville is getting into

the amphitheater game.

The soon to be completed Villages

Amphitheater and the first concert for the venue were announced at a press

conference at Fayetteville City Hall on Monday. The Villages, located

next to Fayette County High School, is a subdivision currently in development.

Plans for an amphitheater started eight years ago as an idea being tossed

around by Main Street Board Chairman Robert Sprayberry and Ron Simpson

of RCS Productions, which produces the concerts for Main Street Fayetteville.

"When we first looked

at that spot of land it was just a cow pasture but we thought about how

great it would be to put on concerts there," said Sprayberry. "A

lot of people have helped make this project come about."

The concert that will mark

the grand opening of the Villages Amphitheater will feature Dennis Edwards

and the Temptation Review Sept. 28. There will be a concert series at

the amphitheater next year but Fayetteville Downtown Development Authority

Chairman Al Hovey-King said that it will not be as extensive as the summer

concert series at the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater in Peachtree City.

The Villages Amphitheater will

be used more for community events including theatrical productions and

school functions for Fayette County High School and several middle schools.

The amphitheater will give

concert-goers the choice of tiered seating, which will seat around 1,100

people, or lawn seating as well as a small section of tables near the

stage. Tickets in the tiered section are $25 in advance or $30 at the

gate, while tickets in the lawn area are $20 in advance or $25 at the

gate. The limited number of reserved tables of eight will be available

for $250.

Tickets for Dennis Edwards

and The Temptation Review will go on sale at July Jam this weekend. They

will be available at any Heritage Bank location as well as City Hall beginning

the following weekend. Tickets can only be paid for using cash or check,

though credit cards will be accepted starting next year.

Though the concessionaire has

yet to be determined a full concession area will be available. Concertgoers

will also be able to bring in their own picnic baskets and coolers. Beer

and wine will be permitted to be brought in and will also be available

for purchase. No open containers or smoking will be allowed in the parking

lot, which will be the parking lot of Fayette County High School. This

will be strictly enforced.

The Villages Amphitheater will

be an entertainment facility with the feel of Main Street. It will be

a place where the community can come together and enjoy a variety of events

throughout the year.

"I am particularly proud

that the city has invested in a cultural and musical venue that will be

multifunctional, and used by our community as well as for our own concerts

and productions," remarked Mayor Ken Steele.

Hawkins an undeservedly obscure

historical figure

When Eddie Lanham placed a

marble headstone on the gravesite of Col. Benjamin Hawkins, he was honoring

possibly one of the most historically ignored personalities in the history

of the southeast region.

Hawkins spent most of a 20-year

tenure on the Flint River in Georgia's Indian Territory in an impossible

situation, trying to balance the rights of the Creek Indians with the

Manifest Destiny attitudes espoused by Andrew Jackson, American frontiersmen

and settlers who believed it their right to push west and acquire the

Indian land.

A native of North Carolina,

Hawkins served as George Washington's French interpreter during the American

Revolution and in 1796 was appointed by Washington as "Principal

Agent for Indian Affairs South of the Ohio River."

Hawkins selected an 8,000-acre

site on the Flint River, just below the Fall Line, for his Indian Agency,

a 25-structure compound where he attempted to teach the Indians the ways

of the white man's culture in order for them to integrate and survive

in the white man's world. He taught them to use modern tools, technologies

and agriculture. Hawkins knew the writing was on the wall for the American

Indian and he hoped to convince the Creeks to shift from an economy of

commercial hunting to one that required less land because they would no

longer be able to roam the vast region that had been the Creek Nation.

1816, what he had feared the total eradication of the Creek Indians from

the Flint River Corridor was fast becoming reality. Twenty years later,

Andrew Jackson, Hawkins's main antagonist, became president and ordered

the removal of all Indians from the southeast region in what would come

to be known as the Trail of Tears.

Hawkins's grave, where Lanham

placed the marble headstone, is located on the site of the Indian Agency

on the east side of the Flint River.

A historical marker sits about

.25 miles east of the Ga. Highway 128 bridge at Benjamin Hawkins Road,

which leads to the gravesite. A monument to Hawkins is located six miles

east on the square in Roberta.

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