Sandy Springs Reporter
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www.ReporterNewspapers.net
Perimeter Business
MAY 29 — JUNE 11, 2015 • VOL. 9 — NO. 11
Retiring
All abuzz
Mayor installs bee hives COMMUNITY 2
PAGES 7-11
Onward and upward!
PAGE 4
New PATH to be included in Ga. 400/I-285 project BY JOE EARLE
joeearle@reporternewspapers.net
State and local government officials say they have worked out a way to pay for an extension of PATH400 through the Ga. 400/I285 interchange. Sandy Springs City Council is including $1 million in the city’s 2016 budget to pay part of the cost of including a segment of the multi-use trail in the redesign and reconstruction of the Ga. 400/I-285 intersection. Other money for the $4 to $5 million project will come from the PATH Foundation and the Georgia Department of Transportation, representatives of those groups said. Eventually, officials said, the trail could connect to PATH400 in Buckhead and to other trails extending north of I-285. That would tie Sandy Springs into a network SEE NEW PATH, PAGE 20
PHIL MOSIER
Riverwood International Charter School’s Salutatorian, Caroline Albright, shows excitement during her speech at the school’s 42nd commencement held at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on May 21. See additional graduation photos from area public and private high schools on pages 18-19.
‘Operation Vittles’ lifted Berlin residents after war It was his job. That’s how Vernon Whitman describes his ber 1948, he and his squadron were ordered to Germany to part in the Berlin Airlift. join the airlift supplying Berlin. Others may recall the 14-month airlift as one of the great After World War II, the allied victors had divided Germainternational showdowns of the Cold War or as a signal huny and its former capital, Berlin, into zones. In Berlin, the manitarian effort, but Whitman remembers it a Soviets controlled the eastern zone and the U.S., different way. It was simply his assignment as a British and French each controlled a section in young Navy pilot. the west. But Berlin stood 100 miles inside the AROUND “It was a job they were doing and they had portion of Germany set aside for Soviet control, TOWN to have people to do it,” the 90-year-old retired and the Soviets felt the entire city should all be Delta Air Lines pilot said as he sat in the den of under their sway. JOE EARLE his Sandy Springs home one recent day. To try to force a change, the Soviets closed “You really didn’t feel like you were fighting rail and road access to Berlin, cutting it off from the Russians. It was a humanitarian thing. You outside supplies. The western allies responded just felt sorry for the people who were being starved out.” with the airlift. A nonstop line of supply planes flew loads In 1947, Whitman was part of a Navy transport unit staof food, coal and other necessities from Frankfort to Berlin. tioned in Guam. He flew a plane the Navy called a R5D, a The Americans nicknamed the mission “Operation Vittles.” military plane similar to the commercial DC-4. In NovemSEE ‘OPERATION VITTLES’, PAGE 5
PHIL MOSIER
Hammond Park was the site of the fifth annual “National Kids to Parks Day” on May 16. Above, Matthew Demps, 9, navigates the obstacle course while Marguerite Rippy, back, coaches participants.