Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, February 8,2023
dawsonnews.com I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I 5A
Amy Bums named Teacher of the Year at DCJHS
Photo courtesy of Amy Burns
Amy Burns, center left, has been named as the
2022-23 teacher of the year for Dawson County
Junior High School.
By Erica Jones
ejones@dawsonnews.com
Several years ago, Amy
Bums was working 70 or
more hours a week as an
industrial engineer, balanc
ing her time off with her
husband who was working
similar hours as the man
ager at a Ford dealership.
When the couple started
talking about having a
family, Bums realized that
something in their busy
work schedules would
have to change in order to
have kids. So she decided
to make a drastic career
change and go back to
school to become a teacher
in order to have more time
on weekends and summers
to spend with her children.
Now, Burns is in her
18th year teaching and has
recently been named the
2022-23 Teacher of the
Year for Dawson County
Junior High School.
Bums is a math teacher
and department head at the
junior high school, and she
has spent 17 and a half of
her 18 years teaching in
the Dawson County school
district. She said that math
has always been some
thing she’s loved, so mak
ing the transition into
teaching by becoming a
math teacher was a logical
path to follow.
“Math was always my
favorite; my kids always
ask me why did I pick
math and I tell them math
to me is like a puzzle or a
problem to be solved —
and I love to solve prob
lems so that’s the reason
why I picked it,” Burns
said. “I had my industrial
engineering degree so I
went ahead and got my
masters in math education
at UGA so that I could
teach — and I have taught
everything from sixth
grade to twelfth grade.”
Bums was announced as
the junior high school’s
2022-23 teacher of the
year by DCJHS Principal
Brody Hughes during a
faculty meeting at the end
of the 2021-22 school
year, and she said that the
announcement couldn’t
have come as more of a
surprise to her.
“I was sitting with other
teachers and I said to the
teacher next to me ‘who
do you think it’s going to
be this year; I voted for
this person’ and she said
‘well I voted for you’,”
Burns said. “So that got
me to thinking ‘what did I
do’ and ‘were you the only
person who noticed what
ever it was that made you
vote for me’, and right at
that moment Mr. Hughes
said the teacher of the year
and it was me.”
Burns’ husband was
there for the announce
ment to celebrate with her,
as were her in-laws —
something that she said
was extra special because
her mother-in-law used to
be a teacher and was the
person who encouraged
her to enter the field in the
first place.
Each teacher of the year
is selected by the other
teachers at their respective
school, and Bums said that
knowing that her fellow
teachers at DCJHS think
so highly of her is a huge
honor and encouragement.
“To know that my peers,
these great teachers, said
that they saw something in
me that made me stand
out... it meant a great deal
to me because there’s 10
other people I could have
named that I would have
thought would have gotten
this before me,” Burns
said. “I was totally sur
prised and very humbled.”
In her classroom, Bums
said that she teaches her
students by a philosophy
of perseverance, encourag
ing them to never give up
even when a problem
seems too big or too diffi
cult.
“One of the things that
is important to me is per
severance, so for me that’s
one of my main things that
I try to stress with my kids
because I’ll have a lot of
times where I’ll have a kid
get a problem wrong and
say ‘I’m done,”’ Burns
said, “so I try to give them
examples of we wouldn’t
have electricity, the light-
bulb, a phone if those peo
ple had failed one time and
given up.”
And one of her favorite
parts about teaching, she
said, is the reward of that
perseverance: when she
gets to “see that lightbulb
come on” and witness a
student finally understand
a problem or a concept.
Another thing she loves
about teaching, Burns
added, is getting to know
the different personalities
of each of her students.
“I like that even though
we’re a small community
here in Dawson, still with
in our community every
body is different and I
really enjoy working with
all the different personality
styles of the kids,” Burns
said. “I love helping peo
ple and being around dif
ferent people. My job is
never the same; it’s always
different.”
Dawson County moves forward with study for busy road
By Julia Hansen
jhansen@dawsonnews.com
Before casting a defini
tive vote, District 2
Commissioner Chris
Gaines pointed to one of
multiple elephants in the
room when discussing one
of Dawson County’s most
congested intersections.
“We’ve got a problem
with [Ga.] 53 and
Lumpkin Campground
Road that’s got to be
addressed,” Gaines said
during the Board of
Commissioners’ Feb. 2
voting session.
That intersection was
just one part of the conver
sation before board mem
bers unanimously
approved an expanded
traffic study of Lumpkin
Campground Road with a
$29,675 price tag.
The vote follows a post
ponement last month of
the decision.
Now, consulting firm
KCI will look at Lumpkin
Campground Road north
from the Forsyth County
line to the Dawson Forest
Road roundabout and from
the corridor’s intersection
with Ga. 53 to Ga. 400 in
Dawson County.
That cost is up from
consulting firm KCI’s ini
tial estimate of $17,300,
which would have only
covered the study of the
roadway’s southernmost
segment.
Initially, the study was
requested around when the
BOC approved a second
rezoning application for a
planned subdivision at Lee
Castleberry Road and
Stacie Lane, Planning and
Development Director
Sharon Farrell previously
told the board.
The developer will con
tribute $150,000 for road
improvements, according
to the rezoning approval’s
stipulations.
Dialogue around
Lumpkin Campground
Road began before that
particular rezoning,
though, when the now-
defunct Etowah Bluffs
project was being consid
ered, Farrell explained on
Jan. 19.
“Every time we issue a
permit or there’s a rezon-
ing-and we always have
one to two of those every
month-we just make it
worse, and we add to the
problem that we’re hav
ing,” Farrell said about
traffic congestion along
Lumpkin Campground
Road.
In response to Gaines’
concerns, District 3
Commissioner Alexa
Bruce mentioned her dis
cussions with GDOT
about the light signals at
the Lumpkin
Campground-Ga. 53 inter
section.
“The problem they’re
running into is they know
it needs to be fixed.
They’re going to do anoth
er traffic study to look at
traffic signals along
Lumpkin Campground
Road,” Bruce said.
Bruce explained that
GDOT can’t disburse fed
eral funds to fix the south
eastern comer of the inter
section because it’s con
sidered a historic area.
Then, there’s a hangup
with the comer diagonally
across from that one, too,
where the property owner
has voiced interest in put
ting in a gas station where
Edge Roofing used to be.
“[GDOT] is limited
there because they’re not
wanting to donate any
thing,” Bmce said. “Right
now, the two corners are
prohibiting GDOT from
doing anything, but they
are looking into it.”
District 4 Commissioner
Emory Dooley said it
would be helpful to have
ready details from the
study of Lumpkin
Campground Road’s
Dawson Forest Road-Ga.
53 segment during these
kinds of discussions.
“If we have some infor
mation when talking to
GDOT, it kind of helps
them say, ‘This is what we
think needs to be done’,”
Dooley said.
Hawke pointed out that
the county does have an
on-call traffic engineering
study of the intersection
from KCI.
Dooley also looked
Julia Hansen Dawson County News
District 2 Commissioner Chris Gaines, center,
comments on the intersection of Ga. 53 and
Lumpkin Campground Road during a larger con
versation about the latter roadway Feb. 2.
beyond Lumpkin at Walmart and Publix, it s this study have to stay on examples of where devel-
Campground Road, men- always jammed up, and Lumpkin Campground opers have put extra skin
tioning his interest in tak- I’m not sure if we can fig- Road, because of how the in the game when it comes
ing a look at Dawson ure out what to do there stipulation for the Lee to approvals of rezonings,
Forest Road East from the without including it in Castleberry Road subdivi- above and beyond the
current roundabout along this...it feeds into that traf- sion was written. impact fees that we have
the roadway until where fie area there,” Dooley “With the previous topic in place. They are willing
the new roundabout will added. and this topic,” Gaines to pay for a lot of the stuff
go. However, Thurmond said of funding for road that we couldn’t do out of
“I know that traffic light clarified that the funds for improvements, “both are our pocket.”
OUR SEAMLESS
APPROACH
THE FUTURE OF HEART CARE.
WE'RE LEADING GEORGIA THERE.
At Georgia Heart Institute, our world-renowned cardiologists, heart surgeons
and vascular surgeons bring breakthroughs to patients every day and coordinate
expert care more closely than ever. It's a seamless approach that means
healthier hearts for our family - for generations to come.
SCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH US AT
GEORGIAHEARTINSTITUTE.ORG/SEAMLESS OR 770-746-0073
GEORGIA HEART
INSTITUTE
