Category Archives: Wiregrass Tech

Wiregrass Tech town hall on a soft skills/work ethics curriculum 8 August 2011

Found on the Lowndes County web pages:

Town Hall Meeting

with state and local leaders
Monday, August 8, 2011
6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.

Wiregrass Georgia Technical College
Brooks Hall Conference Center
4089 Val-Tech Road, Valdosta

Give your input on a
soft skills/work ethics curriculum
required by House Bill 186 to help
prepare our future workforce for success and
help our businesses and industries to prosper.

Meeting will be moderated by Melvin Everson,
Executive Director of the Governor’s Office
of Workforce Development.

For directions or information please call 229-333-2121.

Tinkering with number of schools doesn’t improve education —John S. Quarterman

While I agree with most of Karen Noll’s post, especially the part about CUEE should come clean about why it’s spending so much money on something about which it knows little, I don’t agree that consolidating high schools would help.

I remember when Lowndes County consolidated two high schools into one, and the rationale was cost saving and more resources for science classes. What it was really about was football. And it worked: Lowndes High School now often wins the state championship, and Valdosta hasn’t in a decade. While education lags behind.

I think the Lowndes County Board of Education is doing the right Continue reading →

Renewable Energy Network at Opportunity Central

Renewable energy for jobs: that’s something that would interest a Chamber of Commerce.

Partly due to MAGE SOLAR at Lowndes High School (thanks, Jerome Tucker!), the Valdosta – Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC) has taken an interest in renewable energy. ReKasa Deen, Business Development Director, already heads the Chamber’s Opportunity Central:

The Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber is positioning Metro Valdosta as Opportunity Central with opportunities for business to grow and thrive, career opportunities for well-educated young professionals and opportunities for cultural interests and active lifestyles.

The key phrase I keep hearing from VLCoC president Myrna Ballard is “knowledge-based businesses and jobs.” As it says on a recent Opportunity Central blog post:

New jobs follow bright and creative professionals…
Ms. Ballard and Ms. Deen have repeatedly said they see renewable energy as a source of jobs for graduates of our local high schools and colleges.

What do they mean by renewable energy? Continue reading →

Congressional redistricting meeting for Georgia in Valdosta

According to the Moultrie Observer, Redistricting meeting set for Valdosta:
A joint meeting of the House and Senate Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment committees will be held in Valdosta on Tuesday, May 24, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Brooks Hall Conference Center of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College. The meeting will a public hearing.

For more information or for directions, visit the Wiregrass Technical College Web site at www.wiregrass.edu. Parking is free for the meeting.

That’s at the Brooks Hall Conference Center at 4089 Val Tech Road.

Here’s some further information on redistricting from Ballotpedia. This is the only redistricting meeting in the current Georgia First Congressional District (GA-01) and I think the only one in the Second Congressional District (GA-02).

That’s the same evening as the next Lowndes County Commission meeting, so LAKE could use some owls to get video at both locations. We can loan cameras. Interested parties please contact information at l-a-k-e.org (yes, the hyphens are part of the address).

-jsq

Wiregrass Tech: fastest growing and award winning

According to Community College Week Magazine,
Valdosta Technical College (which is now Wiregrass Georgia Technical College) earned the honor as being the fastest-growing college in the nation among colleges with enrollments of equal size.
Its size range is enrollments 2,500 to 4,999 (see page 8.) Enrollment went up at Wiregrass Tech 45% between Fall 2008 and 2009.

Also, the Technical College System of Georgia named Wiregrass Tech Technical College of the Year for 2010.

-jsq

Wiregrass Technical College @ VLCIA 15 March 2011

Wiregrass Technical College wants to expand onto some land owned by the Industrial Authority, using SPLOST funds.

Chairman Jerry Jennett:

The point is they’re landlocked.

And so what you want to do is you want to take what your tract is now and have the ability to expand your building in the future. You want to move your training facility now and….

More transcription after the video:


Regular monthly meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, VLCIA,
Norman Bennett, Roy Copeland, Tom Call, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Brad Lofton Executive Director,
Allan Ricketts Program Manager, 15 March 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Roy Copeland: Continue reading →

Authority should listen to other sources –John S. Quarterman

This op-ed by me appeared in the VDT today, 24 Feb 2011. On 15 Feb 2011 I spoke directly to the VLCIA board about the main points and the next day I sent them the longer version, Why “jobs, jobs, jobs” isn’t good enough for the public good and the general welfare, which includes links to videos of the relevant speeches and to VLCIA’s charter. -jsq
Everyone wants jobs for those who need them and jobs for young people so they don’t have to go somewhere else to find one. But what good is that if those jobs suck up all the water those people need to drink?

At the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner Brad Lofton gave a speech which I liked, and I told him so afterwards, because it was mostly about real industry with real jobs that that the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) has brought into the area.

But it had a problem:

Continue reading →

Your local fire forest: Longleaf Workshop, Valdosta

This sums it up:
“Taking fire out of the longleaf forest is like taking rain out of the rain forest.”
But there’s a lot more to learn about the formerly largest-ranging forest in North America. The Longleaf Alliance is doing a series of Longleaf Workshops around Georgia, in conjunction with the Georgia Forestry Commission I went to the one at Wiregrass Technical College at Valdosta.

Here is EJ Williams giving an overview:


Longleaf Workshop, Valdosta, 10 February 2011.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Good crowd: more than 50 people. More later. We’re on break now.

-jsq

Ben Copeland on economy and education

Ben Copeland at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce talked about money in circulation, about opportunities for children and grandchildren, about Georgia technical colleges, about technical college students, about technical specialties and educational system.

Here’s a playlist, and here it is embedded.


Ben Copeland, Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Biomass water usage as a problem. –Ben Copeland

Ben Copeland, who is on the Suwannee-Satilla regional water council, has learned something about rivers:
“One of the things that keeps some of these rivers going is the treated effluent that goes into them.

Now Brad Lofton wants to use some of that up in a biomass plant. We have a problem there.”

It’s at the end of this video:


Video of Ben Copeland, Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner,
Lake Park, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2011.
by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Matthew Richard brought up a similar point in his LTE in the VDT of yesterday: Continue reading →