07.21 Ledger 01 - The Cherokee Ledger-News

LEDGER-NEWS
CHEROKEELIFE
JULY 21, 2010 THE CHEROKEE LEDGER-NEWS 23
Local philanthropist serves worldwide
SPECIAL
Lamar Green, founder of Never Alone, poses with a group of children in Tanzania, Africa. According to Green,
for 33 days, a six-member mission team traveled to East Africa in order to complete the construction of a second
church, and provide Malaria shots and education the youth. Green was recently nominated into Energizer
Keep Going Hall of Fame. Green was a semifinalist out of 1,200.
Couple
celebrates
50 years of
wedded bliss
BY JANET PELLETIER
janetp@ledgernews.com
You’d think being married 50
years was fairly rare. Not in the
Swope family.
As Acworth residents Sandy
Swope and her husband, Robert,
recently celebrated their silver anniversary
before nearly 70 family
members and friends, they continued
the example each of their parents
had set for them. Both Sandy
and Robert’s parents also were
married for more than five
decades before losing their mates.
Sandy’s father and Robert’s
mother, both 89, were on hand to
see their children carry on the lineage
of everlasting matrimony.
Joining them were their two sons,
Robert and Richard, and their
spouses; the couple’s brothers and
sister; and five grandchildren.
Sandy was just 17 when she first
noticed Robert, but even at such a
young and impressionable age,
she said she knew it was meant to
be.
“You talk about love at first
sight? Honey, it was,” she said.
“When I first laid eyes on him, I
knew I wanted to marry him.”
‘You talk about love at first
sight? Honey, it was.’
Sandy Swope
Woodstock
Describing their first encounter,
Sandy said they were at a concert
put on by three county high
schools. Robert was seated up high
on the bleachers with his trumpet
while Sandy sat in front with her
SPECIAL
Robert and Sandy Swope, pictured
above, celebrated their silver anniversary
last month. The couple
met and fell in love in their late
teens.
baritone saxophone, getting ready
to practice. It was at that moment,
she said her heart flipped.
The pair, who were born at the
same hospital, lived 50 miles apart
in Pennsylvania. After “chasing
him mercifully” for three months
for a date, Robert agreed to get together.
“And once he did, a year and six
days later we were married,”
Sandy said.
The couple, now both 67 years
old, eloped in West Virginia and,
as Robert headed off to college,
Sandy finished her senior year of
high school back in Pennsylvania.
She later joined him in Indiana.
If there was any advice she
would pass on to other married
couples, Sandy said it would be
building a life together based on
friendship.
“Make your mate your very best
friend. Make your mate your other
half,” she said. “It’s being able to
tell them everything and all the
hurts, all the good things. He has
to be a part of you. I don’t know
what I would do without him. He’s
my soul.”
BY JANET PELLETIER
janetp@ledgernews.com
While most teenagers spend
their summers going to camp, the
lake, the mall or seeing the latest
“Twilight” movie, Andy Kite was
traveling along the backroads,
hearing the kinds of stories only
told in rural towns.
Through several interviews
BY JESSICA WAGNER
jessicaw@ledgernews.com
Because some have been hit hard
by the substantial decline in economic
activity that has plagued
this country since 2007, Woodstock
resident Lamar Green reminds
those in need of a helping hand
that they are “Never Alone,” a deed
that recently earned Green a nomination
into the Energizer Keep
Going Hall of Fame.
The hall of fame program, as an
overview, is dedicated to celebrating
everyday people who operate
their daily lives with the same motivation
and passion as the notorious
Energizer Bunny, and, to some
residents in Cherokee County,
Green fit the bill.
“It was a big surprise to me,”
Green said of having his nonprofit
nominated for the hall of fame
prize, which included a chance to
be honored at the induction ceremony
by National Baseball Hall of
Famer and Energizer Keep Going®
Hall of Fame member, Cal Ripken,
Jr.
While Green was one of 100 semifinalists,
which was dwindled from
1,200 submissions, he did not move
forward in the competition. Never-
and countless photographs, the
17-year-old Woodstock resident
compiled his journey last summer
into a self-published book,
“Vanishing Towns of Rural Georgia.”
Fourteen towns are featured,
including Auraria,
Boneville,
Buckhead (Morgan
County), Chauncey,
Cohutta, Culloden,
DeSoto, Elko, Kite,
Newton, Norris-
town, Omaha, Penfield
and Sharon.
Kite will sign
copies of his book from 11 a.m. to
2 p.m. on July 24, at Yawn’s Books
& More, 210 E. Main St. in Canton.
Photography has always been a
passion for the Etowah High
theless, his efforts to make a difference
day-by-day will continue onward,
he said.
Never Alone Outreach, which began
as a way to provide single
women and children in the county
utility, grocery and medical bill assistance,
has since escalated into
an international effort to provide
medication, food and faith in East
Africa, Green said.
“We are hoping to make a real difference
in the community and the
world,” Green said of the non-profit’s
efforts to lend a helping hand.
In the month of June alone, the
nonprofit sent a six-member mission
team to Africa, where they
spent 33 days feeding, clothing and
educating over 400 orphans.
Over the last three years Green’s
non-profit has supplied more than
100,000 doses of Malaria medication
to a free clinic in Tanzania,
which, he said, is predicted to save
50,000 children from an early death
of Malaria; has supported 350 children's’
orphanages financially;
and has recently opened the door to
the organization’s second church,
located within Massi warrior land
in the midst of the African bush, he
added.
SEE GREEN, PAGE 24
Protect rivers with a beautiful garden
BY CAROLYN MATHEWS
carolynmathews@ledgernews.com
The yard is in full bloom at the
Upper Etowah River Alliance
(UERA) offices, and it changes its
look daily as summer deepens and
the spring blossoms wither. Blackeyed
Susans bask in the summer
heat, and goldfinches swoop down
to eat their seeds.
The UERA grounds make up a
working stormwater garden, collecting
and filtering rainwater to
create a summertime wildflower
extravaganza, while protecting the
Etowah River, which runs directly
behind the building, below a steep
bank.
Anyone can create this kind of
garden, a salute to nature and ecology,
by following the steps that
UERA teaches. Its mission is to
protect the waters of the Etowah
by educating citizens, developers
and businesses how to manage
their landscape wisely.
“This garden is a working example
of how we can receive water
and slowly filter it down until it
soaks into the soil,” said Diane
Minick, UERA watershed director.
UERA is located in the old State
Poultry Disease Research Lab, a
building fronted with Tate marble
Young author
pens book on
Georgia cities
CAROLYN MATHEWS | LEDGER-NEWS
Diane Minick, of the Upper Etowah River Alliance, shows off the
stormwater garden at the alliance’s Canton office.
that Cherokee County fixed up and
let the organization use, because of
the educational programs UERA
could provide the community.
The working garden shows visitors,
scout groups, civic groups,
municipal planners and builders,
how changes to the landscape can
be managed in order to lessen impact
on the river.
Citizens of Northwest Georgia
Kite
have long relied on the Etowah,
since the Native Americans who
settled in the valley as early as 1000
AD.
The river provided gold in the
19th century, energy for the textile
mills in the 20th century, and is a
major source of drinking water for
a booming population in the 21st
century.
SEE GARDEN, PAGE 24
School rising senior. At age 5, he
won his school’s PTA Reflections
contest for a picture he took of
the family cat with a disposable
camera. Geography also called to
him, and, as a boy, he was known
to look through atlases for several
hours at a time.
“Vanishing Towns,” was a way
to combine both loves.
“With the towns and the book I
did, the application of it, being
able to record history through
art, through photography, was really
interesting,” Kite said.
It was a huge project to take on,
as he carried out all aspects of
the book, from conducting interviews
to writing to taking photos
to editing to layout and getting
the book published.
SEE AUTHOR, PAGE 24