Tour de Georgia rolls through Suwanee

Click on the image to enlarge a photo.

Stage 5 of the 2008 Tour de Georgia presented by AT&T took off from Suwanee Town Center Park Friday, April 25. About 120 muscular, colorfully-attired athletes, representing 15 teams and 26 countries, departed Town Center Park and passed by Level Creek Elementary School on their 133.4-mile journey to Dahlonega. The seven-stage route across Georgia totaled nearly 600 miles.

The 2008 Tour de Georgia lived up to its reputation as North America’s premier professional cycling event and rolling festival. Activities in Suwanee included the week-long Tour de Suwanee Creek Greenway; a free concert and “the world’s largest outdoor spin class” the evening before; and a stunt bike demonstration and an opportunity for fans to meet riders in Autograph Alley the morning of the Stage 5 start.

Tour de Georgia photos taken by Lynne Bohlman DeWilde, Mac Hackney, Jack Harrington, Karen Lide, Suzee Northrup, Julie Perdue, Bill Thee, and Robin Walker.

Santa arrives in Suwanee

S’mores and hot chocolate. Holiday tunes performed by elementary school choruses. Carriage rides and reindeer. And Santa arriving on a tractor-pulled sleigh to magically light the red caboose. It can only be Suwanee’s annual Old Town Holiday Festival & Caboose Lighting! The 2007 event was held December 1.

Suwanee Day in review

Suwanee Day 2007 was indeed a funky…messy…fun affair! Approximately 40,000 people came to Town Center Park on September 15 to “celebrate community.”

Here are a few comments and photos from the 24^th annual Suwanee Day festival:

“You wouldn’t think that the festival could get any better, but each year it does. There’s always something we haven’t seen before.”
—Kay and Wayne Davis, Suwanee

“We came because there were things for the kids to do. We picked this over going to the county fair…. This is definitely one of the best things we’ve done in a long time.”
—Katherine & Bill Blevins, Lawrenceville

“The sense of community in the air is comforting. I recognize a lot of people from Kroger or school.”
—Jen Shivers, Suwanee

Photo by Mac Hackney

Photo by Mac Hackney

Photo by Bill Thee

Photo by Bill Thee

Paws up for Petapalooza 2007

Some were dressed up. Some were come as you are. Some were well-groomed while others were a bit shaggy. Some came from a pedigree line and others, well, they were mutts. But all of the dogs and their humans who came to Town Center Park May 19 for Petapalooza seemed to have a tail-wagging good time.

Ringing in the holidays

The 2006 Old Town Holiday Festival and Caboose Lighting included expanded festivities as well as favorite traditional activities. In addition to visits with Santa and performances by schoolchildren from Level Creek, Riverside, and Suwanee elementary schools, the holiday festival featured carriage rides and a performance by the Georgia Brass Band.

How do we love Suwanee Day?
Let us count the ways!

The Dayton family of Suwanee came to support the community.  “We always see friends here.”

“I enjoy the music,” says Suwanee resident Kyle Pregler. “There’s a lot of variety of styles.”

Patricia McCrary of Sugar Hill came to browse and shop. “The prices are reasonable.”

“The kids love that they can run around and jump on the slides,” says Wendy Phillips of Suwanee.

“Of course,” says the Woo family, Suwanee Day is  “one day we don’t want to miss.”

The 23rd celebration of Suwanee Day, held Saturday, September 16, 2006 at Town Center Park was Mary Phillips’ first. “I was impressed,” she says.

The impressive festivities began with the annual parade, with folks along Main Street and Buford Highway cheering on school clubs, local organizations, and area pageant princesses. The crowd at the park was steady all day long, peaking around lunchtime and again in the evening for the Atlanta Rhythm Section (ARS) concert. A crowd of about 8,000 gathered to hear ARS; throughout the day a total of about 30,000 came and went, many via the convenient shuttle transportation to off-site parking.

Some photos by Robin Walker

Fountain opens with a splash

The Suwanee community made a splash—and a difference—at the Town Center Park interactive fountain grand opening on June 17. In addition to celebrating the opening of the fountain, Suwanee’s Big Splash served as a fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina-stricken Long Beach, MS, Suwanee’s adopted sister city. About $25,000 was raised through the sale of wristbands for inflatable rides, a community art project, and silent and live auction.

In addition, Richport Properties presented Long Beach Mayor Billy Skellie with a check for $30,560 from anticipated proceeds from the sale of the Hurricane Relief House it built in the new Stonecypher neighborhood.

Photo by Gregg Logan

Suwanee all jazzed up for 2006 event season

The 2006 event season had a busy start with the Suwanee Smooth Jazz 107.5 Concert Series; a Memorial Day weekend  performance by the U.S. Air Force Reserve Concert Band and a “drop in” from Silver Wings, the Fort Benning Command Exhibition Parachute Demonstration Team; and a celebration of Arts in the Park June 2.

Here are some of our favorite photos from those events.

Arts in the Park

U.S. Air Force Reserve Concert Band

Suwanee Smooth Jazz 107.5 Concert Series – April, May, and June concerts

Light up the holidays

It was a damp, cold evening but still holiday warmth permeated the atmosphere at Suwanee’s 2005 annual Caboose Lighting. Several hundred people came to historic Old Town December 3 to enjoy performances of holiday favorites by local elementary school choruses, yummy treats, and a visit with Santa as well as, of course, the magical lighting of the caboose.

Photos by M. Michael Farr

Photo by M. Michael Farr

Trek or Treat

Superheroes and villains, cats and dalmatians, hideous monsters and lovely princesses as well as about 600 others, many of them in costumes, showed up at Suwanee Creek Park on October 29 for the City's annual Trek or Treat event. In addition to trek or treating along the Suwanee Creek Greenway, participants enjoyed bobbing for apples, chomping on dangling donuts, and hunting for mini pumpkins.

A Suwanee-style celebration of community

Some bounced like crazy. Some shopped ’til they dropped. Others applauded the variety of performances. Almost all of them enjoyed the food. Suwanee Day 2005 offered up something for almost everyone. About 30,000 people came out to Town Center Park Saturday, September 17, to celebrate community…and shop…play…watch and listen…eat…greet friends….

Photo by M. Michael Farr Photo by M. Michael Farr Photo by M. Michael Farr Photo by M. Michael Farr Photo by M. Michael Farr Photo by M. Michael Farr

Cowboy Mouth rocks Suwanee

Cowboy Mouth came, played, and enthralled Suwanee. In an energetic August 27 performance at Town Center Park, Cowboy Mouth lead singer and drummer Fred LeBlanc dared the crowd of about 5,000 loyal followers and new fans to sit down.

Atlanta power pop band Nillah and Florida music-maker Aric Michael Berquist also delivered solid performances.

Large crowd welcomes America to Suwanee

Approximately 13,000 people from throughout the metro area came to Town Center Park May 21 to hear America perform its biggest hits. Grammy’s Best New Artist of 1972, America performed in Suwanee as part of 94.9 Lite FM’s 2005 Legends Concert series.

When Andy and Karen Galt were the first to claim their spots for the concert at 8:30 that morning, America’s performance was nearly 12 hours off. “We were going to be busy all day and wanted to be sure we got a good spot,” said Andy Galt. Added Karen Galt: “I wanted to be able to see the color of their eyes.”

David and Lisa Fish of Lawrenceville were the second to arrive at 9 a.m., and they spent the entire day at Town Center Park. They left Suwanee that evening with smiles and sunburns on their faces.

Other folks at the concert, which opened with a performance by The Mustangs, came from a variety of metro communities, including Cumming, Snellville, and Newnan. Janice Faircloth of Newnan is a fan of Lite 94.9 morning deejays Randy and Spiff and tries to make it to all the Legends concerts. “This is really a nice place to have a concert,” she said of Town Center Park. “The kids have a big area to play in, too.”

Happy ho-ho-holidays

Suwanee welcomed the holiday season with its annual Caboose Lighting event on Saturday, December 4. More than 1,000 people came to Old Town to enjoy holiday songs performed by elementary schoolchildren, listen to Mayor Nick Masino read The Polar Express, munch on yummy treats, and share their wish list with Santa.

Suwanee Creek Park opening a definite ‘treat’

The City of Suwanee hosted a “Trek or Treat” event October 23 in celebration of the grand opening of Suwanee Creek Park. About 300 folks came out to enjoy the park, a community cookout, and fun activities such as bobbing for apples, a mini-pumpkin hunt, dangling doughnuts challenge, Frisbee toss, and “trek or treating” along the Suwanee Creek Greenway.

Suwanee Creek Park is an 85-acre passive recreation area located at 1170 Buford Highway, just south of Swiftwater Park Drive. The park serves as the trailhead for the four-mile Suwanee Creek Greenway and features pavilions, grills, and meadow areas. Thanks to the City’s award-winning open space initiative, Suwanee Creek Park is the third park to be opened by Suwanee since December 2003.

Suwanee Day 2004 awash with sunshine, fun

As promised, Suwanee Day 2004 turned out to be the best ever! Consider some of the adjectives visitors and vendors used to describe their Suwanee Day experience: outstanding, wonderful, awesome, great, fantastic, best. Their praise for Town Center Park, Suwanee Day’s new venue, was no less effusive: beautiful, impressive, amazing, tremendous.

Following two days of truly nasty weather ushered in by Hurricane Ivan, Suwanee Day (September 18) turned out to be off the scale in the beautiful weather category. Brilliant blue skies, a high temperature around 80, and a healthy breeze set the back drop and the tone for Suwanee’s annual “celebration of community.” (Some folks noted that this year’s Suwanee Day logo, which represents the elliptical walkways in Town Center Park, appropriately resembled a hurricane as well!)

Tim Simpson, of Suwanee, spent several hours at Suwanee Day with his 5-year-old daughter Alex. They enjoyed the rides, ran into friends, and watched the dancers.

“Alex has bounced like crazy; we’ve definitely gotten our money’s worth,” he said. “She has had a ball. And, you know what, I have too.”

Alicia Ackerman, also 5, shared her perspective on Suwanee Day, which drew an estimated 30,000 people to Town Center Park, while enjoying an ice cream cone: She enjoyed going by the vendor booths, listening to music, and getting food with her parents and two sisters from Dacula, but her favorite part of the day was seeing “some people doing tricks on bicycles.”

“It’s been a great day, that’s for sure,” noted her father, Stephen.

“Won-derful,” is how Tanya Adams of Crecy Books & Gifts, describes her Suwanee Day experience. From Powder Springs, Adams sold jewelry, pens, bottle stoppers, and accessories at the festival. “I’ve done much better than I do at most shows,” she said. “There are more people here, and more people are actually shopping.” Her most popular item? Bulldog jewelry, of course.

Sharon Dimino, of Alpharetta, did so well at her Imagine That booth that she’s going to be hard-pressed to make enough product for the other shows she has coming up. “Business has been fantastic, absolutely fantastic,” she said.

Yes, Suwanee Day was filled with great vendor items, fun entertainment, and yummy treats. So what did Alex Simpson enjoy most? “Staying with my daddy.”

	Photo by M. Michael Farr
	Photo by Bill Rubin/Vision Quest
Photo by M. Michael Farr	Photo by M. Michael Farr
Photo by M. Michael Farr
	Photo by Bill Rubin/Vision Quest

Park opening hits high note

Shawn Mullins

Drivin’ N’ Cryin’

Shawn Mullins’ lyrics aside, everything was better than alright at Suwanee’s Town Center Park Grand Opening on August 14. About 7,000 people came out on a gorgeous August evening to dedicate the park, which opened late last year, and to enjoy the powerful rhythm of Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ and the story-songs of Shawn Mullins. Suwanee was able to book such well-known, talented acts thanks to the generous support of Bowen Family Homes.

Designed as Suwanee’s new primary community gathering place, Town Center Park showed off its grandeur, expanse, and flexibility. With about 7,000 people on hand for the grand opening, there still was room for youngsters to enjoy games of football or dodge ball on the back lawn while their parents socialized with friends and listened to the music. Despite the largest crowd ever at a Suwanee concert, limited space and sight lines were never a concern.

The amphitheater stage, which was completed just a week or so before the grand opening, aced its first performance test. The granite wall behind the performers provided a classic backdrop that reflected well the various moods of the stage lighting.

Several of the musicians and their road crews commented on the attractiveness and functionality of Suwanee’s new venue.

Shawn Mullins was impressed with the proximity of the audience to the stage. “I’ve never performed before with kids on the stage steps,” he said. “It’s pretty cool.”

Coming performances at Town Center Park:

• Rory Lowe Band: Wild Wing’s A Party in the Park
  5:30-9:30 p.m. September 9

The playground that Suwanee built

You did it, Suwanee! Thanks to the hundreds of volunteers who came out June 9-13, our community now has a wonderful playground.

“Why is it so big?” one little boy asked his mother as they previewed the playground the day before it opened. “Because,” she replied, “Suwanee is a great city.”

Suwanee-area volunteers as well as several from outside the Atlanta region filled some 2,100 volunteer slots (many who came out were serial volunteers) putting in a total of nearly 10,000 person hours to complete the playground within the scheduled five-day construction period. Volunteers represented community organizations, high school teams and clubs, moms’ groups, churches, neighborhoods, and businesses. Many thanks to our hard-working volunteers!

Thanks also to the PlayTown Suwanee corporate supporters, who provided financial support and in-kind services. Many area restaurants and other businesses generously provided meals, drinks, and snacks for volunteers. Please be sure to support our sponsors!

PlayTown Suwanee, which is open from sunup to sundown, features a magical bus, castle, log cabin, boat, elephant, rocket, climbing wall, bridges, slides, and swing sets. The tiles and fence pickets that have been purchased for the playground will be installed by sometime this fall. Due to ongoing construction of the roadway and a public restroom facility, PlayTown Suwanee visitors are asked to park in the Evergreen Presbyterian parking lot for now.