Continued school

system growth and accolades for individual students and schools were a

way of life in Fayette County during 2002.

Among the highlights:

Robert Huefner,

a student at McIntosh High, was named in December the national winner

of the Wendy's High School Heisman, beating out more than 13,000 other

students nominated in October.

Huefner is

class president and editor of the school newspaper as well as co-captain

of the varsity soccer team. He has earned varsity letters in football

and cross-country as well as soccer. Off campus, he was an officer on

the Youth Advisory Board and has volunteered in a local nursing home and

soup kitchen.

Each year,

principals, athletic directors, teachers and counselors can nominate a

male and female student from their school for the award. Nominated students

are required to be seniors with a "B" average or better and

must take part in one of 32 sports sanctioned by the National Federation

of State High Schools.

Huefner got

to take home a crystal trophy and McIntosh High School received $2,500.

While in New York City, he also attended the college-level Heisman award

ceremony.

Huefner is

the first winner from the Southeast in the nine-year history of the award.

Fayette County

opened two new elementary schools in the fall of 2002.

Cleveland Elementary

is on the western edge of Fayetteville, just south of Ga. Highway 54 on

Lester Road. Sara Harp Minter Elementary is south of Fayetteville on Ga.

Highway 85.

Next to Sara

Harp Minter Elementary is the future home of the county's fifth high school.

Whitewater High School's campus will open in the fall of 2004, but the

school board decided a few months ago to open the school a year earlier

at the LaFayette Educational Center, to relieve overcrowding at Fayette

County High and allow rising ninth-graders the option of starting their

high school years at Whitewater. Construction of the Whitewater campus

is budgeted at just over $23 million.

The school

board also recently named McIntosh High principal Greg Stillions the new

principal at Whitewater, a post he assumed Jan. 1.

Dates and

times for 2003 graduation ceremonies were officially approved in November

All four of

the county's high school will observe graduation Friday, May 23. Ceremonies

for Sandy Creek and Starr's Mill will begin at 6 p.m., while those for

Fayette County and McIntosh will start at 8 p.m.

Fayette students

posted impressive numbers as a group in recent results from the state's

2002 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.

More than 90

percent of Fayette's students are meeting or exceeding the standard in

all curriculum areas tested under the CRCT, according to numbers released

in November by the school system.

The CRCT tests

students on their knowledge of Georgia's Quality Core Curriculum. Student

scores are placed in one of three categories for each content area: does

not meet the standard, meets the standard, exceeds the standard.

The school

millage was lowered, from 21.783 to 21.694, but public hearings were required

because of the possibility that reassessments could still cause some homeowners'

tax bills to go up.

School system

comptroller Jim Stephens pointed out that the millage has dropped significantly

in recent years, as it was as high as 23.99 a few years ago. The millage

decrease has meant a drop in about $7 million in revenue to the school

system over a few years ago, he said.

Two changes

on the school board loom in 2003, with a new member coming in and a new

chairman to be chosen. Mickey Littlefield, who has served as chairman

the past two years, decided not to run for a second term in Post 5, and

Lee Wright, a former member of the Tyrone Planning Commission, was unopposed

in the race to succeed him. Greg Powers, the incumbent in Post 4, ran

again and was also unopposed.

The school

board voted in April for a "balanced" calendar of sorts for

the 2003-04 school year, after considering a number of different proposals.

A five-day break for Thanksgiving and another in February are among the

changes, with Christmas and spring break taking place as they do now.

School starts Aug. 11 and ends May 28, 2004.

The school

system's budget for 2002-03, approved last June, came in at just under

$141 million, a 4-percent increase from the previous year. An interesting

item in the new budget was the fact that no money was earmarked for new

trailers.

Teachers got

a 3.25 percent raise in the new budget, while classified staff people

received raises of 2.25 percent. The system added about 60 new positions

in 2003, including a "crisis counselor" and a psychologist.

Art teacher

Lucy Wicker of Peeples Elementary took home the coveted title of Fayette

County Teacher of the Year for 2001-02 and will be Fayette's contender

for this year's Georgia Teacher of the Year award. She received the county

award in April.