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PAGE 2 April 2024
Lynn's Ledger Devotional Column By Denise Lynn Pruning is Painful
can be related to people, situations, etc. The first one says that the farmer scatters the seed and a bird quickly snatches them up. It goes on to relate that to a person who has accepted Jesus, but has absolutely no growth yet, no roots, and if they don’t make a conscious effort to grow it will end up being an event in their life with no growth or progression towards a relationship with God. The second example says “Some seeds fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.” So basically the seeds grew some, and they changed from a seed to a plant. But with no real solid foundation, and with no constant watering of the word on Your heart, it will wither away. The third example is the one I want to focus on. It says “Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.” This is not exactly the same as my planter of weeds, but similar. The farmer planted something good and the weeds were unwanted but came and lived for a season with the plant. But, eventually it choked out the good plant. The plant made it past being just a seed, did the
work to grow, to have a relationship with the creator and it grew real roots. This is similar to how we grow. But life circumstances, the love of wrong things, or wrong people, choke out everything. This could all be avoided with a little pruning. In other words, deciding what’s good and bad in your life is a decision. Pruning can be painful, but pain has a purpose. That purpose is always to glorify the Creator when we turn our trial or testing into a testimony to help others make it to example four in the parable. It says “other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Who doesn’t want to take their life, with all its trials and troubles, and use it for good to impact a lot of other peoples lives. It becomes a domino effect where the people you impact in turn impact those around them. When we get to Heaven we may find out we have a garden of people waiting to thank us for the impact we had on them. I’m sure we will be hugging some necks of people that impacted us. God created you and you are a beautiful creation, let’s make sure we do something awesome with this life. Do the hard work, do the pruning, water with the word and keep cultivating your faith. Let’s go grow!
I have a pretty cement planter on my back deck that in early February was full of pretty lavender flowers. I assumed they were perennials returning from last year, but I honestly didn’t remember planting any like that. It was full and thick, so I left it. I recently added just one white pansy in the middle. The thought did cross my mind that somehow a pretty flowering weed made its way to my planter, but I’m all for different, so I left it, even pruned it some. When a friend was over I asked, and she confirmed, that it was indeed a pretty weed. Life is like my planter. I didn’t choose the weed, it choose to live there. It’s pretty, God made the weed but the weed is still a weed. They don’t sell weeds in the store, they have no value. That goes against my thinking because everything has value. But, something can be shiny and new and not good for you. Recently, the weeds choked out my pretty white flower and now it’s struggling to survive. If I don’t get rid of the weeds, it will die. This reminds me of my favorite parable in the Bible found in Matthew 13. It tells about the farmer who scatters his seeds. Then it has four examples of what can happen. Those examples
Albertville school board sees fiscal success Submitted Photo Albertville Intermediate School Principal Steven Hudgins, Albertville Middle School Principal Lance Kitchens, Cindy Pullen and Superintendent Dr. Bart Reeves are shown at the March 2024 Albertville Board of Education meeting. Mr. Hudgins and Mr. Kitchens both received three-year extensions on their principal contracts. Mrs. Pullen will be teaching at Albertville Elementary School.
Applications for students who want to apply to attend AIA are now available. Students will be able to submit applications through April 30. During the meeting, the board made the following approvals. ● The February financial report. The beginning fund balance was $54,472,269.49. The ending fund balance is $56,385,012.09. The general fund balance is $24,649,681.64. February revenue totaled $7,654,783.49. Expenditures totaled $6,954,259.28. ● The revised 2023-2024 salary schedule to include a principal’s position at the Albertville Innovation Academy. ● Several fundraisers. ● ACS to join the Houston- Galveston Area Council (H-GCA), a national governmental cooperative purchasing program. ● Four buses to surplus. Three will be scrapped and one will be sold on GovDeals. ● The negotiated price of $133,980 submitted by Flow for a water jet for CTE. ● Out of state field trips. The FCCLA to travel to Seattle, WA on June 28 - July 4, 2024; The FFA to travel to El Reno, OK from April 29 to May 3, 2024; the ProStart Culinary Team will travel to Baltimore, MD on April 25-20, 2024. All three groups will be competing in national competitions. Several personnel actions were a approved: ● Retirements/Resignations 1. Melissa Lindley is retiring as head band director at AMS, effective May 31, 2024. 2. Sherri Hill updated her effective retirement date as HR/Payroll Supervisor at CO from Nov. 20, 2024, to June 30, 2024. 3. Suzannah Yoder is resigning as CNP director at CO, effective April 15, 2024. 4. Lesley Reavis is resigning from an a systemwide aide, effective March 29, 2024. 5. Stacie Wright is retiring from a general elective teacher at AMS, effective May 31, 2024.
● Supplement Resignations 1. Jon Cotten has resigned as varsity girls basketball head coach at AHS, effective March 13, 2024, His extended duties will end April 30, 2024. 2. Madison Badners, has resigned as JV cheer coach at AHS, effective March 14, 2024. ● Employments 1. Cynthia Pullen was approved as an elementary teacher at AES, replacing Kristina Eason, effective March 27, 2024. 2. Leigh Forsythe, was approved as a speech and language pathologist at AKPK, replacing Andrea Minton, effective Aug. 1, 2024. 3. Donald Metz II, was approved as a physical education teacher at AHS, replacing Anthony Harper. This is pending certification and effective as of March 27, 2024. ● Supplement Assignments 1. Derek Martin was named as the Aggie football defensive coordinator. He is replacing Anthony Harper, effective Aug. 1, 2024, with monthly extended duties effective April 1, 2024. ● Principal Contracts 1. Lance Kitchens, effective July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2027. 2. Steven Hudgins, effective July 1, 2024 - June 30, 2027. ● Independent Contracts 1. Karen Fancher, performance accompanist at AMS for state choral performance assessment, to be paid and not to exceed $150 by AMS choir funds, effective April 1, 2024 - May 20, 2024. 2. Brian Domalik, AHS girls basketball training, to be paid and not to exceed $750 from the Tip-Off Club, effective March 27, 2024 - May 31, 2024. 3. Noelle Stovall, Suzanna Mock and Chloe Roy, danceline audition judges at AHS, to be paid and not to exceed $100 each by AHS band funds, effective on March 29, 2024. 4. Mary Bates, Alex Stephenson and Lori Hart, danceline audition judges at AHS, to be paid each and not to exceed $100 by AHS band funds, effective April 12, 2024.
The Albertville Board of Education received a glowing financial report during the March 2024 meeting. Katie Condit from MDA reviewed the 2023 financial audit with the board and reported no findings. The financial status increased for the 2023 fiscal year by $24.3 million. This change in net position is from continuing to control expenditures and growth in capital assets. Highlights from the audit included: ● The total cost of the board’s programs for the year was $66.85 million. After taking away a portion of these costs paid for with fees, intergovernmental aid, interest earnings and other miscellaneous sources, the net benefit for the Albertville City taxpayers was $24.3 million. The state’s program revenues provided $46.18 million. ● The general fund revenues during the fiscal year exceeded expenditures by $2.69 million. ● At the end of the fiscal year, the fund balance for the general fund was $15.30 million. The board is in compliance with the one month operating reserve recommended by the state. Also during the meeting the board approved the grant application process to request funding for seven First- Class Pre-K classrooms administered by the Office of School Readiness and the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education for the 2024-2025 school year. The total cost for each Pre-K classroom is $116,610, which includes $93,288 of OSR funding plus the supplemental funding amount paid by the school system, which must be at least 25-percent of the award. Superintendent Dr. Bart Reeves provided the board with an update on the Albertville Innovation Academy (AIA). He said that the facility is still on schedule and should be completed by the end of April. A principal for the school is expected to be announced at the April board meeting.
Website, Ledger Leaders, and Graduation Oh My!
By Brandon K. Pierce Publisher Spring is a busy time of the year for most folks. The weather has improved, lawns are growing, and it seems like there is an event or ballgame of some type almost everyday. The Alabama Ledger and The Sports Ledger attends as many events as possible, although we can't get to everything. With that said, if you have a particular event you want the newspaper to attend please let us know ahead time, or at least be sure to send us pictures and maybe we can include something about in an upcoming print edition. Some of the events we cover never make it in the print edition, but we do our best to include them on one
of our web sites, which are the Alabama Ledger (www.alabamaledger.com) and The Sports Ledger (www.thesportsledger.com). However, during late March and early April, both sites were unaccessible due to issues with our hosting company's servers. We apologize if we failed to post something, or was not able to keep you up to date as usual. We hope to be back up and going soon. Also, it's time for The Sports Ledger's annual Ledger Leader award. This award is given to current high school juniors and it's based on numerous factors such as athletics and GPA. All schools in the newspaper's five county coverage area have already been contacted. We count
on our educational leaders to help with these awards because of the academic and other requirements. Last year there were several local schools that did not help with this project and therefore the eligible students at those schools were not recognized. We hope that all schools will participate this year. Questions about the award can be submitted at alabamaledger@gmail.com. Another project that the newspaper is currently working on is graduation, which will be in next months edition. We hope to share as many senior group Cap and Gown pictures as possible and list of graduates from each area school. Good luck and best wishes to all graduates this coming May!
The Ray Hones Music Hall dedication will take place at the Albertville Museum on May 4 from 7-9 p.m. Highway 75 will be closed and the museum garage door open. The WARM band members that are still Additionally, Wendy from Busted Oak (BOBS) will be selling drinks at the museum and Percy and Face podcast are the emcees for the night. Please bring a lawn chair (Bagged chair) for seating. Music Hall Dedication around will be there to play, including Albertville Mayor Tracy Honea. The band is going to play for about 30-45 min and then there will be showing a slide show of some memories of the band and fans interviewed.
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