Ink Spots Blog: 8/8/13

You can go home again. And on Sunday I get to. For the first time in 27 years, I return to my old high school.  And it’s for an amazing reason.

I’m one of 12 Sprayberry High School alumni who are being inducted into the inaugural class of Sprayberry High’s “Humanities Wall of Fame.” Honestly, I’m humbled. Why? When you see the major talent on the list, you know why.  My high school has had a knack of producing talented students in all fields.  So to be in the first class to be recognized like this is a huge honor.

I want to say thank you to Wanda Patterson (the teacher who you should thank if you like my editorial cartoons) for spearheading this event. She has given much of her life to making Sprayberry and its students’ lives better. I’m thankful that she, my parents, sisters, my wife and kids can be there.  They’re all the reasons I do what I do. So I get to say thank you to them all at the same time. I’m a blessed man.

Here’s the article about it from The Marietta Daily Journal (my hometown paper where I first worked after being a janitor). I hope my friend Joe Kirby doesn’t mind I copied it here.

FROM OPERA TO OPRY and in between, 12 of Sprayberry High’s most distinguished alumni will be honored Sunday with induction as the inaugural class of the school’s “Humanities Wall of Fame.” And a distinguished class it is, including stars from stage, screen and beyond. Alumni being honored include:

• Artist Robin Bolton, who recently was commissioned to do a painting for the 25th anniversary of The Carter Center,

• International opera/musical theater star Adam Cannedy, who made his Lincoln Center debut in “Where the Wild Things Are,”

• National Speech Teacher of the Year and Debate Coach of the Year Chester Gibson of West Georgia State University,

• Best-selling novelist Roy Johansen,

• Grammy-winning opera star Jennifer Larmore, the most-recorded mezzosoprano of all time with more than 100 CDs,

• Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal trumpeter Christopher Martin, whose playing was featured on the soundtrack of the recent movie “Lincoln,”

• Boston Symphony/Boston Pops trumpeter Michael Martin,

• Tony Award-winning Broadway/TV/film actor Stephanie Michels, winner of the Fred Astaire Award in 2000 as Best Dancer on Broadway and a former Miss Georgia (1992),

• Syndicated political cartoonist Marshall Ramsey, whose cartoons appear in more than 400 newspapers (including this one) and who is a two-time finalist for The Pulitzer Prize, and

• Country music star Travis Tritt, who’s had five No. 1 singles and is a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

The event will feature performances by Ms. Larmore and Cannedy and will take place at 2 p.m. in the Ralph Quarles Auditorium at Sprayberry, says retired Sprayberry English/journalism professor Wanda Patterson.

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Sinclair Bows Out Clears path for Walker to Marietta Council