By Rebekah Martin
Associate Editor
Mayor Gary Fuller recognized several Opelika City School students at Tuesday’s council meeting.
Adriane King, Abbey Rowe and Danielle Martin, who are all seniors at OHS, were recently named the Opelika Power Services AMEA scholarship winners. Each student was awarded a $2,500 scholarship to help with college tuition. Rowe and Martin were able to attend the council meeting and lead attendees in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The mayor also recognized five 7th graders from Opelika Middle School for recently being named Duke TIP scholars. Cameron “CJ” Rogers, Chris Willett, Marcus Tyson, Chelsea Davis and Ben Estes were invited to the state award ceremony in Tuscaloosa Monday. According to information found on the program’s website, awardees are “seventh grade students who have strong intellectual abilities and are invited to participate if they achieve a qualifying score at or above the 95th percentile on a recent grade-level test.” The program then offers valuable benefits to the students throughout their high school career, including “access to unique resources for gifted students developed by experts in the field of gifted education.”
Fuller said this success will put the spotlight on this group of middle school students because Opelika is expecting great things from them in the future. “This is just the beginning,” Fuller said. “We want you to continue to learn and become scholars, and then come back one day and build a factory in Opelika, or own a small business or be the mayor – whatever you want to be.”
In other business the council: -Declared the month of May to be Mental Health Awareness Month in Opelika. Miss Alabama International 2015 Kaitlyn Hudson was recognized for her efforts to promote mental health and end the stigma that is associated with mental disorders.
-Awarded a bid to Dale Marketing for a cloud based offsite DR Solution and Hybrid Cloud for the IT department.
-Approved a resolution to retain Samford & Denson, LLP to represent the city in all appeals involving the demolition of buildings and structures.
-Tabled action on Sirco, Inc. owned structures in Opelika that council is seeking to have demolished. The dilapidated properties are located at 303 Byrd Ave., 122 Plum Ave., 124 Plum Ave., 18 Easy St., 20 Easy St., 410 Raintree St. and 418 Raintree St. The council will take up this matter again at its May 19 meeting.