EdVenture's students storm Atlanta
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Shadae Perry, Jose Fina Smith, Countess Robinson, and Amya Mountain stand in front of the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

EdVenture Children's Museum, the South's largest, manages afternoon classes and school programs. One is partially funded by the Knight Foundation, as in the former Knight- Ridder newspaper company. Known as the Future Leaders Knight Program, a group of 32 students from two middle schools in Richland School District One, Gibbes and Sanders, rode a coach to Atlanta and back last Thursday, April 4. They were accompanied by 10 adult supervisors and their driver, Mr. Winston.

The trip began pre- dawn as the students boarded at Sanders and at EdVenture. Their fund raiser, John Temple Ligon, was picked up a few minutes later along the Charleston Highway, SC 321, next to the Granby Building, home of WISRADIO, 1320 AM. Ligon was on the radio that morning, still raising funds for the trip.

The trip's itinerary allowed for four main events: (1) Tour the High Museum of Art, especially the art on loan from the Louvre in Paris, the world's largest art museum. (2) Have lunch at the Sun Dial, the revolving restaurant on top of the 73- story Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, the tallest hotel in the world when it opened. (3) See the Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest. (4) Experience Centennial Park, the epicenter of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Standing in front of Billy Payne, 1996 Atlanta Olympics, are Cindy Detuelo, director of education for EdVenture; and Chuck LaMark, director of development for the Cultural Council.

The students' Atlanta ambassadors, who sat with them for lunch, were Joe Morris and Marian Hill. Morris is Atlanta Mayor Susan Franklin's deputy chief of staff, her political point man and in- house guru. Hill is vice president of the Garden Club of America, and she is an authority on urban landscapes. She is recognized and named on the entry wall at the High Museum of Art, where she arranged for the High's Director of Education Marshall Adams to welcome the EdVenture students and brief them on what they were about to see. Hill left a South Texas ranch the afternoon before to have lunch with her EdVenture visitors in Atlanta.

Contributions for the trip came from Atlanta, Greenville, and greater Columbia. The luxury coach, a Champion 56- seater, came down from Greenville thanks to developer Bo Aughtry, the Greenville- based team leader building the Hilton Hotel next to the convention center. Admission to the High Museum was covered for all of the students and their supervisors by Columbia attorney Brian Payne of Small Business Law Firm. The lunch tab, a considerable sum for 12- year- olds, was picked up by John Holder of Atlanta- based Holder Properties Inc., developer of Columbia's Meridian office building and Adesso condominiums, and by Steve Smith of Wilbur Smith Associates, as in the eponymous building at the corner of Sumter and Gervais.

Entrance to the Georgia Aquarium proved impossible for the students' schedule. An unanticipated delay of almost an hour just to enter the aquarium building was deemed unacceptable - incompatible with the unrelenting requirement to get back to Columbia on time. The week was spring break for Georgia, and every school kid who could talk the parents into it showed up at the Georgia Aquarium just before EdVenture's Future Leaders.

The Georgia Aquarium management profusely apologized to the students for earlier letting out the word that a Thursday afternoon visit was no problem. It was a problem, a big problem.

In stride, the 32 students took the follow- up option to fully experience Centennial Park, its stunning landscape architecture, its sculptures of historical icons, and its fountains of all kinds. Everyone had a camera funded by generous contributors who responded to the week's radio appeals. With 27 film exposures each, the students took pictures of each other and of downtown Atlanta.

It was a great trip, great enough to inspire a return next year with a similar group from EdVenture's Future Leaders Knight Program. Atlanta's Joe Morris and Marian Hill are already on board.