The Huntsville City’s School system has a new superintendent. The School Board elected Christie Finley to the post at their meeting last week. Finley is the district’s Deputy Superintendent of Strategy and Innovation and has been serving as Interim Superintendent since Matt Akin’s departure. She is also the former principal of Blossomwood Elementary and former Assistant Principal of Bob Jones High School in Madison. She’s bright, enthusiastic and dedicated to students. Our congratulations to Ms. Finley and we look forward to working with her for a bright future for all of our students.
Jemison High threw a back to school party and about 200 young people attended eager to see their friends and classmates. It was a terrific group of students and they were ready to get back in learning mode for the fall. To all the teachers, and the principals, and the administrators, we hope you have a great year. To our community, let’s support student learning by ensuring our kids attend school every day.
The annual Space & Missile Defense Conference is a highlight for the City of Huntsville. Always an enlightening event – over 3,500 people attend from all over the world – talking about how we are going to address policies on space and defense. General John Hyten, a Grissom High alumni and Air Force four-star general, was here to keynote the kickoff. Two new buzz words to take away – hypersonic and directed energy. To everybody who is a Star Trek fan, we’re talking photon lasers. It was really interesting to talk about future technologies in space and on Earth. After listen to bright group, all I could do is the mayoral nod.
On Wednesday night of the SMD Conference, we honored Mike Griffin, former NASA administrator and Huntsville resident and now Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Mike gave a great speech on how American needs to move forward and not be scared of taking risks.
It’s the time of year when we also host legislative visits in preparation for the upcoming session in Montgomery. This week, we invited our State Senators to visit with us on the 8th floor, and five out of six were able to attend. It’s a great group with lots of fresh ideas. We discussed what will be affecting cities that might be on the State’s agenda. Some are leftover items from the past couple of years, but now that State elections are almost here, everyone seems ready to move forward.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments at contact@huntsvilleal.gov or by calling 256-427-5000.
