School Board to Vote on Name for Austell Intermediate

The school-naming committee for Austell Intermediate has concluded its evaluation of name submissions for the school and narrowed the selections to three.

Area 1 Assistant Superintendent Robert Benson will prepare an agenda item for the Board of Education, incorporating the committee's three top choices; the committee's first choice will be presented as the Superintendent's recommendation. The Board may accept one of the committee’s three names, or it may vote on and approve another name.

• First Choice - Hendricks Elementary School (George Hendricks)

• Second Choice - Seven Springs Elementary School

• Third Choice - Cole Elementary School (Sollie C. Cole)

Other names considered by the committee:

• Meadows Elementary School 

• Meadow Springs Elementary School

• Salt Springs Elementary School

• Springville Elementary School

• Sweetwater Elementary School

• Sweetwater Creek Elementary School

Behind the Names:

Sollie Cole, who died at age 90, served as Chairman of the Cobb County Board of Education in the mid-1960s. He and his wife, Floy “Jackie,” lived in Austell for 40 years and sent their children to South Cobb schools.

After he graduated from University of Georgia, he went to work for the family business, Cole Brothers Dairy, which sold milk to Cobb schools and was located at the present site of Six Flags Over Georgia.

Cole also cast one of the deciding votes to allow children, regardless of race, to attend their neighborhood schools, essentially integrating them amid threats of burning the schools if they were no longer segregated by race.

He was a director and vice president at South Cobb Bank, a trustee at Riverside School and president of the South Cobb High school board. He was known for his 30 years as the volunteer musical director at Austell’s Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church, where they even held a Sollie Cole Appreciation Day. He lived to be 90.

George Hendricks was educated in public schools of Bulloch and Candler counties. He earned a bachelor’s from the University of Georgia and a doctorate in history from Columbia University.

After earning a Purple Heart during World War II, he returned to teach at Georgia Tech.

He married Elizabeth, whose maiden name is not known, in 1945. She taught at Powder Springs Elementary and Milford Elementary after earning degrees from London University and Columbia University.

In the early 1980s, she was named as a Cobb County Teacher of the Year. The couple and their family bought and maintained a farm on Meadows Road for 50 years until 1999.

George wrote the Georgia article for the Encyclopedia Britannica. He participated in the Civil Rights Movement, marching in the funeral procession for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other protests with his young son.

The school-naming committee adhered to the Cobb County School District’s Administrative Rule FF while considering name submissions.

Which name do you prefer? Vote in the poll below and then tell us about your choice in the comments below.