CORDELE- On Tuesday morning, the recently completed “Welcome to Cordele” mural painted on the side of the downtown Cordele Banking building was unveiled and dedicated to City Commissioner, Jeanie Bartee.

City Commissioner, Vesta Beal Shephard welcomed the crowd to start out the event.

“Today we are Cordele. In order to make Cordele great and better we must bond together as a community,” said Shephard. “On behalf of the Vibrant Community Grant, we have an unveiling today.”

Next, Cordele Main Street Director, Monica Mitchell, addressed the crowd and provided some information about the mural, and those that helped make it possible.

“The mural was funded through the Georgia Council for the Arts, as a Vibrant Community Grant, and the City of Cordele. Our artist was Lamar Miles from Fernandina Beach, Florida. He has painted murals in downtown Hawkinsville,” Mitchell explained. “We want to thank Alissa Wilkerson for allowing us to paint this mural on the side of her building. Emory Edwards housed our artist while he was here for two weeks. Miriam Edwards, the Director for the Crisp Area Arts Alliance was our Technical Advisor, and Carl Vinson Institute of Business at University of Georgia did the rendering for us. We actually took an old postcard from Crisp County Power and changed it for our needs. So once again we want to thank all of these people for their help with this and thank you all for coming.”

Cordele City Manager, Edward Beach, was on hand and briefly addressed the crowd before dedicating the mural to Jeanie Bartee.

“This is a great day in historic downtown Cordele. We are very pleased and honored that Georgia Council for the Arts has honored us yet another year with this Vibrant Communities Grant. This is our third year running for having this grant bestowed upon the city. This year we decided to do a mural on the side of Alissa’s building welcoming everyone that is southbound through the city into the city of Cordele,” Beach said. “As Monica alluded to, it is a replication of a postcard, once used by Crisp County Power. When we started talking about this we decided we wanted to dedicate the mural to someone. Someone who has been involved with downtown Cordele, and has been active in the community for many years. Once we put our heads together it was really a no brainer when we decided. This person we are dedicating the mural to today has been involved with the city for many years, not only with her own business but also active on the city commission. One of the founding members of the Southwest Georgia Train Authority, she has also served on the city commission for 24 years now, I present the Vice-Chairman of our city commission, Jeanie Bartee.”

Bartee was then presented with a framed picture rendering of the mural itself before briefly speaking to the crowd.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Alissa Wilkerson, who purchased and renovated this building, which is a historic icon. I want to mention Miriam Edwards and the Arts Alliance because they have been so supportive of our main street program. I also want to mention Main Street Director, Monica Mitchell, because without her supervision we would not have a lot of the things we have downtown. I feel like we are just on the cusp of really beginning to develop a lot of our downtown businesses,” said Bartee. “I hope that we will all continue to pull together as a team, and I thank you so much for this honor. You have absolutely floored me and I appreciate it greatly. Lets not forget to mention our other sponsors, Emory Edwards, Georgia Council for the Arts, and the city of Cordele.”