Henry pupils learn about public service, local history

• By Johnny Jackson
  jjackson@henryherald.com
• Dec 4, 2015  
• 
  McDONOUGH — Excel Academy students toured the busy downtown square and heard ghostly stories about local history as part of an effort to inspire them.
  
  “The idea behind the whole thing is to have a culminating activity for our eighth-grade Georgia Studies students who have just completed the course standards on transportation,” said Don Dunlap, an Excel Academy instructor who helped organize Wednesday’s field trip.
  
  Dunlap said he invited state Rep. Brian Strickland to present a discussion on past transportation decisions in Henry County and within the Atlanta metro region.
  
  Strickland spoke about the impact of those decisions, helping students make connections between such decisions and their consequences, said Dunlap, adding that his teen students sooner than later will become adult participants in the decision-making process.
  
  
  
  
  Students also met up with some of McDonough’s decision-makers Wednesday during a visit to City Hall.
  
  McDonough Mayor Billy Copeland and council members Sandra Vincent and Kamali Varner spoke to the class about their roles in municipal government and encouraged the youth to get involved and serve their community.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The visit featured train enthusiast John Quinn, who has advocated for the telling of the history of transportation — the railways in particular. He regales locals with the story of the Camp Creek Train Wreck of 1900 and retells the story for students.
  Near a subdivision north of the McDonough Square along Ga. Highway 42 stands several roadside crosses, planted in remembrance of those who lost their lives during the train wreck from more than a century ago.
  
  
  
  Quinn tells about the heroes that saved lives that day and the more than three dozen victims who were not as fortunate.
  Excel Academy students later paid site visits to the historical marker and learned about the 1934 locomotive on display nearby at Heritage Park. It is a similar model to the Engine No. 7 that crashed into the banks of Camp Creek on June 23, 1900.
  Dunlap said the class also toured the McDonough Square, stopping inside trendy shops and restaurants and heard haunted stories of the city’s long history.
  
  
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