Heads and tales: Shake and bake
By Wade Kwon
Helping hands: As parents shop this tax-free weekend for back-to-school items, area companies are doing their part to fund city schools’ athletic programs, including band and cheerleading. The 10 companies will contribute $1 million total, collected during the next four years, to the Birmingham Athletic Partnership. Participants are ACIPCO, Alabama Power, First American Bank, Ligon Industries, Maynard, Cooper and Gale, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Protective Life, Regions Bank, Starnes & Atchison, LLP, and Viva Health. Also, World of Opportunity gives dropouts a second (or third) chance at education.
• Companies aid city schools [Birmingham News]
Crunch time: Meanwhile, several school systems are in their annual scramble to find teachers before doors open. Mobile and Montgomery Counties are short by 230 vacancies total with only a couple of weeks to go. Wonder how Birmingham-area systems are doing …
- Retired Samford prez will try to fix state’s nepotism-riddled two-year college system
- Hoover may have ousted her unfairly, but its super ex-superintendent will be helping Birmingham’s new school chief
- Former state assistant school superintendent, Robert Morton, died Tuesday. His legacy: helping systems dig out of debt
• Some Ala. school systems still trying to fill teaching vacancies [Associated Press]
To-do list: 1. If you can stand the heat, the Southern Heritage Festival is back, this time at the Railroad Reservation Park in the heart of Birmingham. On tap: Patti LaBelle, Kem, Koko Taylor and Little Memphis Blues Orchestra. Tickets are $25 for today, $30 for Saturday and $40 for both. [schedule | tickets] (Yep, no Web site, and in 2006. Sigh.) 2. If you can’t stand the heat, the first Magic City Chamber Music Festival takes place in the Reynolds-Kirschbaum Recital Hall at Alys Stephens Center on Southside. Take in classical music, wine, cheese and desserts. Vancouver-based Borealis String Quartet canceled at the last minute because of work visa problems; performers include Pacifica Quartet and UAB’s Denise Gainey and Yakov Kasman.Tickets are $35 for today or Saturday, $40 for Sunday and $100 for all three days. [schedule | audio interview | program notes] 3. See “Talladega Nights,” if only for the deconstruction of Faulkner’s role in modern American literature.
Also:
- Interstate congestion caused by gawkers reading traffic updates on electronic signs
- Growth spurt in Hispanic population linked to steroid abuse
- On Monday, it all begins again
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