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Byline: Celeste Smith
May 10--Principal Rosemary Sheppard chuckles now when she recalls those early days at Hawk Ridge Elementary School, when officials predicted just 543 students for its 1999 debut.
Make that 693 by the time the doors opened that fall. Then more than 900 students the following year. By 2001, enrollment hit Hawk Ridge: 1,066 in a school built for just 800.
Bigness -- and managing it well -- has been Sheppard's calling card at this landmark Ballantyne elementary school, which topped out at more than 1,500 in 2002-2003. Enrollment is nearly 1,400 this year, the largest among elementaries in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Hawk Ridge Elementary not only fielded much of this area's growth, but fueled it -- drawing relocating families from all over the country who moved into the school's attendance zone…