Sworn in Jan. 7 to serve as the 70th mayor of Columbus, Georgia, Mayor B.H. “Skip” Henderson III shares his thoughts on the best path forward for the Government Center, crime in the community as a problem of perception and reality, and how to stem the brain drain’s outgoing flow. What is the biggest challenge facing Columbus, Georgia right now? “It starts with jobs. We have to bring in jobs that...
Big Daddy’s plantation comes to Paul Pierce’s farm “I can really relate to Big Daddy,” Paul Pierce says of the first leading role to lure him back on the Springer Opera House in decades. Sitting in the Springer’s lobby Tuesday afternoon, he then explains the parallel he discovered between Big Daddy, the central character in Tennessee Williams’ superb Southern Gothic dark comedy Cat on a Hot Tin...
Sunday Q & A with Stefan Bloodworth Executive Director, Columbus Botanical Garden What led you to a life working in gardens?“It really started for me with being fixated on ecology, natural history and conservation in high school. I took a detour: Got an English degree—writing is another passion. To pay the bills I started a landscaping and design contracting business. That grew into the...
Now entering its second weekend at the Springer Opera House, Kudzu the Musical celebrates in story and song this place we call home—the quintessential eccentric Southern community that is Columbus, Georgia. In this Q&A with Electric City Life Editor Frank Etheridge, local music luminary Allen Levi shares his insights into the original musical theater production he created in collaboration...
“St. EOM made up his own words, like Pasaquan and viberations,” Charles Fowler says. “We decided we wanted to bring back Artists for Pasaquan weekend but to put our own spin on it. So in the spirit of St. EOM, we renamed it a word we came up with: Pasafest.” An artist and musician, Fowler is also caretaker of Pasaquan: the surreal vision of inter-planetary utopia on 7 acres erected by mystic...
“I’ve written one song off Reflections of a Golden Eye from the passage where the main guy takes his wife’s horse out riding,” Aimee Bobruk says of a songwriting process that led the Austin, Texas musician to where she sat Tuesday night, sipping wine on the front porch of Carson McCullers’ childhood home. “He’s riding, loses control and finds his bliss,” she continues, talking during a quick...
Though established by an act of the state legislature in 1931, the Poet Laureate of Alabama has no specified official duties. “People have done different things with it,” Jennifer Horne, honored with the four-year designation last November, says of the position. “In general, it’s been developed to be the public face of literature for the state, one that strives to show how important the literary...
Columbus entrepreneur Lou Childs discusses the launch of SlumberPod—“a patent-pending, portable privacy pod to help babies/toddlers to get a good night’s sleep”—at StartUp Columbus, a sleek office space in the 1000 block of Broadway that recently opened to serve as an incubator for local start-ups. ECL: You obviously crushed it on the digital launch platform with Kickstarter. [SlumperPod raised...
Swinging open the doors from the fourth-floor conference room at Troy University-Phenix City Campus onto its expansive adjacent balcony, Vice Chancellor Dr. David White presents what is perhaps the best view of the Columbus riverfront. Instead of the bird’s-eye perspective on gleaming whitewater and impressive edifices for both home and office, however, White points toward an undeveloped lot that...
Supreme Court decision “a step in the right direction” for Columbus and the Chattahoochee River By Frank Etheridge | Photo of henry jackson Asked for response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week in the decades-long “water wars” between Georgia and Florida, Henry Jackson tried to keep it short. However, the Chattahoochee River Conservancy Executive Director writes in an email, “It’s...