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SELECTED TO SERVE ON STATE COMMITTEE - Victoria Smith, Eufaula Elementary School Art Teacher, shown seated, has been selected to serve on the Alabama State Department of Education State Textbook Committee for Arts Education. She played a major role in selecting curriculum and supplemental materials to be adopted by the Alabama State Board of Education for all schools across the state. Shown with Ms. Smith looking over materials they helped select for the upcoming year, left to right are Julie Harrison from Chilton County, Kim Armstrong from Albertville and Gabby Turner from Montgomery.

Ruby Munoz-Vela’s poem, “Whispers in the Wild Garden,” has been accepted to be published in the hardcover book, 'A Celebration of Poets.” The anthology will be printed later this year by Creative Communication. The poem paints a haunting, dreamlike scene of an overgrown, abandoned garden that is filled with both beauty and sorrow. Within the forgotten space, a single rose blooms in the fading twilight, symbolizing the fragile continuum of life amid decay and death. The imagery of falling petals as “forgotten names” and trees bending to listen to cries suggests that the garden holds the memories and voices of lost souls.