Brief Scare for Wheeler's Renovations

1. Today will be close to a perfect spring day, according to the National Weather Service's forecast. It will be sunny with a high of 75 degrees and a breeze of 10 to 15 mph. The low tonight will be about 48. The whole weekend should be beautiful: sunny, warm and dry.

2. The recovery from Wednesday's tornadoes in Alabama and Georgia will take a long time and can use any help we can offer. One easy way is to text "GIVE" to 80888 to donate $10 to Salvation Army Tornado Relief. You also can donate to the United Way or Red Cross, or visit National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster for more options for donations. If you haven't given blood in the past eight weeks, your donation is needed now more than ever. Contact the Red Cross or Atlanta Blood Services. For a hands-on way to help, call the Bartow County Emergency Management Agency at 770-387-5089 to see what assistance that needs in its cleanup. If you have other suggestions, add them in the comment box below.

3. The had a bit of scare Thursday night when a $506,000 contract for preliminary work came before the Cobb County Board of Education for approval. First, the contract with Diversified Construction of Georgia was moved from the consent agenda to the discussion agenda. Then Chairwoman Alison Bartlett, back from her heart attack recovery, questioned the wisdom of committing more than $9.5 million of the undesignated classroom funds from SPLOST III to the Wheeler project so early in the SPLOST III period. What would happen, she asked, if something like the happened again? Post 6 member Scott Sweeney, who represents the Wheeler district, pointed out that the board already approved the project and its budget and that there's no other source for that money to fully fund the $20.3 million project. After giving the board food for thought, Bartlett joined the unanimous vote to approve the contract and keep the Wheeler renovations on schedule. We'll have more from the school board meeting on East Cobb Patch later today.

4. Today at 5 p.m. is the deadline for eighth- to 12th-graders interested in any of the national service academies to register for Military Academy Day on May 7 at Dobbins Air Reserve Base. Top admissions officials from the U.S. Naval, U.S. Military, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Merchant Marine academies will be there, and Sen. Johnny Isakson and Reps. Tom Price and Phil Gingrey also are scheduled to attend. You can reserve a spot at Isakson's website; you'll need to provide a phone number, birth date and driver's license number. Call Nancy Brooks, Isakson's academy director, at 770-661-0999 with any questions.

5. There's some kind of big wedding going on this morning across the pond in England. Just last week, we marked Patriots Day to commemorate the 236th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution. We were taught in school about taxation without representation and the many complaints listed in the Declaration of Independence, but I'm sure one of the primary goals of the patriots was the liberty to ignore royal weddings 3,000-plus miles away. Call me when the divorce is final. If, however, you yearn for a touch of missing royalty in America, you should be able to get your fill at royalwedding.aol.com. And you can turn that royalist side toward a good cause Saturday by attending the Cobb Library Foundation's at the East Cobb Library.