Marietta News

MARIETTA, Ga. -- The members of a Marietta family killed in a deadly multi-car crash in Florida will be laid to rest this week.

Weather A cloudy day is in, with a high near 51. Expect rain and snow tonight, with a low around 34, according to the National Weather Service.

The 45th Annual STAR program will honor 26 students and their chosen teachers from Cobb schools tonight at First United Methodist Church in Marietta.

CaribDiva of Marietta, Georgia, says Whitney Houston's first album will always have a special place in her heart.

Marietta rock band Almost Kings had a taste of the top of the music industry this weekend as the winners of the first Garage to Grammys Live contest .

Cobb voters can go to the polls to pick their choice as the next Republican presidential nominee starting Monday.

Students place flowers in front of a makeshift memorial outside of Sprayberry High School during a candlelight vigil for the Carmo family on Feb.

From left, Brooks Chadwick Capital's Roy Jones, partner; Steve Edison, partner; Todd Thrasher, managing partner; and Dave Clapper, partner, stand in front of purchased homesites in The Estates at Walden in east Cobb on Thursday.

NEW ORLEANS -- After months of urging from other Baptists around the country, the Rev. Fred Luter told his African-American congregation that he will seek to become the first black man to lead the predominantly white Southern Baptist Convention. Several Baptist leaders said Luter becomes the prohibitive favorite for the post, to be filled in a potentially historic election at the Southern Baptists' annual meeting here in June. SBC Today, a Baptist-focused news website, carried the announcement on Feb. 1. Youth pastor Fred 'Chip' Luter III separately confirmed Luter's announcement to his church on Feb. 5. Luter appears to be the first candidate to declare for the post, which will become vacant this summer when the Rev. Bryant Wright of Marietta, Ga., finishes his second one-year term. Many began openly promoting Luter for the top job last summer, moments after he was elected the convention's first African-American first vice president. 'If he runs, he'll get elected overwhelmingly. He may be unopposed,' said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. No other candidates have announced so far. Akin said other potential candidates were judging their chances on whether Luter decided to run. 'I'd be very surprised if there were any other substantial candidates,' said Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. The Southern Baptist president has no authority over the denomination's 51,000 autonomous churches and missions, but the president exerts influence by appointing the most important committees in Baptist organizational life. The denomination's turn toward theological conservatism in the 1980s was triggered by the election of a succession of conservative presidents. Akin, Moore and others say they are eager to elect Luter, both for his leadership gifts and to demonstrate Southern Baptist acceptance of the changing face of their work. Luter is widely known around the convention, having preached in hundreds of pulpits. Moreover, supporters said he is widely admired as a pastor in his own right. Luter built Franklin Avenue Baptist Church into a major success, then led his congregation in rebuilding after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Akin said several Baptist congregations around the country tried to recruit Luter as a pastor or co-pastor, believing he might be available after Katrina. 'He was like Peyton Manning as a free agent.' Akin said Luter's stature grew in his decision to remain in New Orleans. 'You have to have unbelievable respect for a man who made that kind of commitment,' Akin said. 'My God, look at what he did.' Growth in traditional white congregations in the 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention has plateaued. In recent years the denomination has actively sought to reach out to nonwhites, typically Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians. In 1990, 95 percent of Southern Baptist congregations were white; now the figure is 80 percent, said Scott McConnell of LifeWay Research, a church-related institute. 'Some critic said of us that the Southern Baptist Convention is as white as a tractor pull,' Moore said. 'If that remains the case, the Southern Baptist Convention has no future. I think Fred Luter's election will be pioneering; I pray it will not be an anomaly.' Meeting in Phoenix last summer, Baptists adopted a plan requiring its organizations to nourish minority leadership for the future. That's a turnabout for a convention that was formed in 1845 by Southern slaveholding Baptists who broke away from anti-slavery Baptists in the North. For much of the 20th century, Southern Baptist pastors and rank-and-file church members across the South supported white supremacy and resisted the civil rights movement. But in 1995, the convention formally apologized for its past and committed itself to racial reconciliation. 'We need to live up to what we said in 1995,' said David Dockery, president of Union University in Jackson, Tenn. 'This would be a positive step, but only a first one.' Luter's church was a once a predominantly white Southern Baptist congregation dying on the vine after its neighborhood became increasingly black in the 1970s. Luter, a black street-corner preacher with no previous pastoral experience, took over in 1986. The church kept its Southern Baptist affiliation while Luter built it into the predominantly black powerhouse it is today.

Can't wait to find out what's been happening in Marietta when you wake up in the morning? Anxious to get out and take advantage of special deals from local merchants? You won't have to wait or fish around at all if you subscribe to the Marietta Patch newsletter.

Donations Accepted for Yard Sale Cobb County Animal Control is participating in an upcoming fundraiser yard sale in Kennesaw with 11 other animal rescues and groups.

FSR, manufacturer of audio and video switching, control products, and connectivity boxes, has appointed Griffith Sales Associates of Marietta, GA as a manufacturer's representative in the southeastern US.

ROYAL THUNDER , the Atlanta four-piece Brooklyn Vegan described as " Johnette Napolitano of CONCRETE BLONDE fronting BLACK SABBATH ," has completed recording its debut album, "CVI" , for a May 22 release via Relapse Records .

Fred M. Rankin III, President and CEO of Mary Washington Health Care, was honored as the Germanna Community College Educational Foundation's 2012 Distinguished Person of the Year Friday night at the Fredericksburg Country Club before a crowd of about 200.

Fewer than 50 people have contacted the Cobb County school district about a redistricting map that proposes the closure of two south Cobb schools and relocation of a third, and no one spoke at the first of two public forums about the issue last month.

Every day, Lidiane Carmo heals a little more from her physical injuries. And nearly two weeks since the 15-year-old lost her immediate family in a massive interstate highway crash, her kind spirit remains, according to those who know her best.

Two siblings from Austell are accused of taking advantage of an elderly resident at Greenwood Gardens Assisted Living Home on Whitlock Avenue at the Polk Street Extension.

Georgians live closer to the financial edge than anyone else in the nation, and the danger extends beyond the poor to the middle class, according to a newly published in-depth analysis.

Nothing says "I love you" like a big, beautiful bouquet of roses for your Valentine.

The Downtown Marietta Development Authority made its displeasure known with the Marietta Museum of History on Thursday by declining a $10,000 museum request to support several museum events.