Festival schedule
In addition to the trail walk and a tour of the campus daffodils, times for festival events are as follows:
Wednesday, March 5
10 a.m.--Brian Barnard, Triple Horse Studios director of film post production, will talk about the film industry in Georgia and its impact in Newton County.
1 p.m.--Jeff Tarnowski, GPC vice president of Institutional Advancement, will lead the dedication of the new Pierce Cline Memorial Garden.
2:30 p.m.—Learn more about the new Baxter plant and what it means to our community from Baxter representative Erika Williams.
4 p.m.--Cafe Noir will feature students and faculty performing mostly original poetry, songs and music in a coffeehouse setting.
Thursday, March 6
10 a.m.—Dr. Kara Gardner, GPC director of scholarship and stewardship, will discuss scholarships available for GPC students and how they can apply. The new Daffodil Festival Scholarship also will be announced.
(During both days, the Daffodil Festival committee will be selling daffodil bulbs to support the scholarship. The bulbs will be planted on the Newton campus.)
11:30 a.m. — "Hub Junction II: Travel and Talks in 19th Century Newton County," will be presented by students from Professor Kathleen DeMarco’s English and Communication classes.
1 p.m.--Kay Lee, executive director of the Center for Community Preservation and Planning, will discuss the center’s role in building a strong future for Newton County.
The campus Trail Walk will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. during both days of the festival.
All talks and presentations for the GPC Daffodil Festival will be in building 2N 1100 and are free and open to the public.
The Pierce Cline garden dedication will be next to the new garden in front of building 1-N. The college is at 239 Cedar Lane, Covington.
For more details, contact Amanda Boone at mary.boone@gpc.edu.
The annual Daffodil Festival will focus on defining the community — from its physical surroundings and history, to those who contribute to its growth and success — March 5-6 at Georgia Perimeter College’s Newton Campus.
This year’s festival will honor the late Pierce Cline with a special garden dedication on March 5. Cline, who died in November 2012, championed the college’s site and its growth in Newton County.
"Newton Campus would not exist today without the help of Pierce Cline," said Jeff Tarnowski, GPC vice president of institutional advancement. "He knew the college would provide educational opportunities for the area’s young people and jobs for residents."
Those opportunities will be highlighted during the festival during talks by community representatives from Triple Horse Studios, a major Covington film studio, and Baxter International, which is currently building a plant near Covington. In addition, a new student scholarship will be announced during the festival.
The Daffodil Festival is an annual celebration held each spring on the GPC Newton Campus.
"This festival is unique to our campus, as it sits in a rural location on land that has a rich history," said GPC English instructor Amanda Boone, Daffodil Festival committee chair. "The daffodils that bloom on campus were planted in the late 19th century and are admired still today. Students and visitors have the opportunity to visit the original daffodil fields via the campus’ trail."
Dr. Sallie Paschal, GPC math instructor, will give a tour of the daffodil fields.
