Pope Runs Past Wheeler; Fire Risk

1. While the Northeast is and dealing with one of the wettest months on record, Cobb and other counties in North Georgia face a high risk of wildfires this afternoon and evening because it’s so dry and the humidity will be so low, the National Weather Service says. We’re also under a Code Orange smog alert. It will be a sunny day with little wind and a high around 93. Overnight, the low will be about 64, and the wind will gust up to 15 mph.

2. If you missed East Cobb Patch’s coverage of the 31-7 season-opening football win over , here’s the photo gallery, and here’s a of the new field. But the football field wasn’t the only place where the two East Cobb rivals competed. Both schools competed in the Bob Blastow Early Bird cross-country meet at Alexander High School in Douglas County. Pope’s boys, ranked 10th to start the season in AAAA, finished sixth out of 20 teams; Wheeler, with a preseason ranking of 10th in AAAAA, finished seventh, just five points back. On the girls’ side, Pope was 11th of 22 teams, and Wheeler was 19th. The best local finisher was Pope junior Patrick Fleming, who finished the 5K third in a time of 15:43.73, according to GATFXC.com. Meanwhile, at the Walton/Peachtree Ridge Stage Races in Duluth, Walton's boys finished second to Brookwood, and the Raider girls finished fourth.

3. will hold an informational meeting at 6:30 p.m. for the parents of seniors to go over a variety of issues related to choosing and applying to colleges. The school’s Habitat for Humanity club will hold its first meeting of the school year at 3:30 to begin raising money for the 15th Habitat home built by the Walton community.

4. The Cobb County Planning Commission is holding a in downtown Marietta at 1:30 p.m. today.

5. A 6-year-old survivor of brain cancer turned her Little Mermaid birthday party into a community service project Friday at the Weatherstone pool complex, the Marietta Daily Journal reported Saturday. The family of pupil Catherine Rowan held a blood drive and got donations of more than 35 pints, the MDJ said. The bloodmobile was in the pool parking lot along Holt Road well into the evening Friday.