Tech Center gets down to business
Published 12:00 am Friday, July 30, 2004
UNIONTOWN – The positives just keep on coming for the City of Uniontown. Only a day after announcing the expansion of the city’s only national chain department store and a possible two more stores coming to the city, and now the city officially opened a technology center in the public library.
Mary Ann Flowers, a retired educator of 31 years at R.C. Hatch High School, is the Technology Center’s coordinator and one of the major reasons why the center is even in Uniontown. She went to Greensboro to visit the Owens Technology Center and she thought to herself if Greensboro can have one, why can’t Uniontown.
“I went and discussed the idea with Phillip White, Mayor of Uniontown and he agreed that it would be a wonderful idea and a need in the city,” Flowers said.
He started working with businesses trying to find some computers and he also worked on finding a home for the center. The Uniontown Public Library had a storage room that would work perfectly for the size of our center.
“Now that we had a place to put the center, we needed to work on getting some good computers because the ones we had were beat up and slow as Christmas,” Flowers said.
Selma gave the center three refurbished computers and she talked to her husband about getting funds for new computers and he told her about the Alabama Power Foundation. They give grants for things that can benefit the community like this, she said.
“I wrote a grant and sent it in and we were award $5,000 by the foundation to purchase new computers for the center,” Flowers said, “We currently have 10 computers, but we are working to get at least 12.”
This center will be used to help students with instruction and teaching them keyboarding skills and typing. The center will also work with adults and help them understand the workings and benefits of a computer.
“We are going to offer classes for adults including keyboarding applications, word processing, computer applications, and introduction to the Internet and the World Wide Web,” Flowers said.