Adelia Ladson
MOULTRIE — A former Moultrian slain in Texas will be memorialized Saturday at the Colquitt County Arts Center.
Jennifer Ann’s Group, a memorial group organized in the name of Jennifer Ann Crecente, will donate a bench in her memory to the Arts Center at 4:30 p.m.
The Rev. Hugh Ward, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, will give the benediction at the dedication ceremony and John Norman, a local musician, will perform a couple of songs during the event.
The bench was placed under a tree that is adjacent to the main entrance of the Arts Center facing the Wright Auditorium and will be unveiled during the ceremony.
“I wanted it facing the box office because that is where we spent a lot of our time,” said Drew Crecente, her father.
Crecente said that he wanted it to be a place where people could sit during the intermission of future shows and enjoy the grounds. He said he also thought that it would be aesthetically pleasing to the Arts Center’s main entrance.
Jennifer Crecente was a resident of Moultrie from 1997 to 1999, during holidays and summers, while her father lived here. The Crecentes performed together in “Oliver!” and “The Music Man” at the Arts Center, her father said. He said that she loved the community and had spent two summers enrolled in its Summer Arts Camp program. Crecente said that the Arts Center became the focal point of where her friends were and where they also spent time together as a family.
“It was really important to allow Jennifer to still have a presence at a place she loved so much,” said Crecente.
A bench was also donated to the high school she had attended in Austin, Texas, where she had lived with her mother.
On Feb. 15, 2006, the teen was shot to death in a suburb of Austin, Texas; her ex-boyfriend is charged in the case but has not gone to trial. Crecente, 18, was scheduled to graduate from high school in May and had planned to study psychology in Texas. Crecente said that she had expressed an interest to him to move to Moultrie after college.
After she died, her body was brought to Moultrie to be placed next to her great-grandfather in the Crecente family plot.
