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Tigers’ soccer teams move on in state playoffs SPORTS, IB DawsonCountyNews WEDNESDAY I MAY 2, 2018 Dawson News ► com dawsonville, GEORGIA $1.00 Fire chief resigns after probe Time cards audited for inconsistencies By Allie Dean adean@dawsonnews.com Longtime Dawson County Emergency Services employee and current Fire Chief Lanier Swafford will work his last day with the county on Friday. Swafford was demoted in January from his joint role of emergency services director and fire chief and his pay was reduced after a December 2017 investigation of county policy violations under his administra tion. Swafford put in his notice on April 20, and said last week that he decided to resign from his position “due to some recent changes in the leadership struc ture of Dawson County Emergency Services.” County Manager David Headley restructured the depart ment in January, placing Swafford second in command, and hired Danny Thompson as the new director. Thompson is a volunteer fire fighter with Dawson County and retired from the Sandy Springs Fire Department in 2016. He currently works for Parsons Corporation as a Traffic Incident Management Specialist. Thompson will start work as the director of emergency services on Monday. According to documents obtained through an open records request, See Chief 19A Swafford Photos by Jessica Brown Dawson County News Janice Blalock, a six-year breast cancer survivor, had fun throwing pies at all of the officials during the "Pie in the Face" fundraiser at Friday's Relay for Life. Alena Sewell, 2, prepares to throw a pie in the face of BOE member Roger Slaton during the first Pie in the Face fundraiser at Relay for Life April 27. A little boy lands his pie right on Jason Power's face during the fundraiser hosted by the Dawson County Tax Commissioner's Office. a huge success By Jessica Brown jbrown@dawsonnews.com The community came together at Veterans Memorial Park April 27 to support their loved ones who survived can cer, honor their loved ones lost to cancer and to raise money for a cure. Cameron Lopez, com munity development manager with the American Cancer Society, said that $14,178.10 was raised in the five hours that Relay for Life took place. So far this year, $65,044.07 has been raised for the American Cancer Society, exceed ing the $65,000 goal with more fundraisers planned in the spring and summer. “I am so thankful to Dawson County for sup porting the Relay for Life movement,” Lopez said. “Friday night was evi dence of this communi ty’s commitment to the fight against cancer.” It was a night of cele bration and remembrance for many as the survivors and teams walked their ceremonial laps. Team Susan came out in full force, as friends and family of Susan Williams, a longtime Dawson County resident who lost her battle to breast cancer in January, made T-shirts and were selling CDs of the song “Mess into a Message.” Williams’ sister, Nancy Carter, said she wrote the song for her sister after she was inspired by her message. Williams always wanted to turn the mess that is cancer into a message for the world. And thanks to her family, her message will live on. “This is what she believed in. This song is about how God turned a mess into a message,” Carter said. The song was recorded by Dawson County Junior High School chorus teacher Kevin Woody last December. He performed the song during the lumi nary walk this year. The biggest draw dur ing the evening’s festivi ties made people smile and laugh, and served as a reminder that Relay for Life is a celebration full of hope: The “Pie in the Face” fundraiser, which was a first for the Dawson County Relay for Life. See Relay 18A Relay for Life raises $14,000 Pie in the Face Dawson gov’t falls victim to cyberattack By Allie Dean adean@dawsonnews.com Officials with the United States Secret Service, local law enforcement and other professionals are still assessing the damage of a cyberattack on Dawson County government computer servers that reportedly occurred the afternoon of April 23. County IT analyst Will Shattuck updated county commissioners and audience members at the board’s work session Tuesday afternoon, April 24, on the potential damage and the status of the ongoing investigation. Shattuck said the IT department was first noti fied around 2:30 p.m. April 23 by the tax asses sor’s office, which reported it was unable to save work on some of its files. Soon calls flooded in from many other departments, and once the IT department began investigating, it discovered a ransomware attack. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts writable data, and only the attacker knows the decryption key. “We started shutting down servers and trying to minimize the amount of damage, as it spreads very quickly, through the networks and through the dif ferent servers,” Shattuck said. The county’s exchange server, as well as phone and internet services, were affected. “We did work through the night to get phones and internet back up,” Shattuck said. “Some of the other servers will take longer to repair and to work through.” On April 24 the county called in a cyber security company, Carvir Cyber Security, which is current ly still working in conjunction with the county IT department to resolve the situation. Email was restored to all of the county offices on Friday. See Cyber|8A Gold Creek Foods claims chicken parts were planted on Robinson playground By Allie Dean adean@dawsonnews.com Gold Creek Foods in Dawsonville is searching for an individual they say deposited chicken parts on the playground of Robinson Elementary School last month. Representatives of the poultry processing plant, which is located on Hwy. 9 North adjacent to the elementary school, are offering a $5,000 reward for “information leading to identification and arrest” of an individual they claim deposited poul try parts on the playground on or around April 11 or April 12 and again on or around April 14. An ad the plant took out in this week’s paper states that “the person(s) are believed to have been doing so to wrongfully implicate Gold Creek Foods as the source of these parts.” Gold Creek Foods also provided an image of a person of interest. The ad states that tipsters will remain anony mous and can call Matthew Johnson at (678) 928- 6970 ext. 4043 or send an email to tipline @gold- creekfoods.com. See Planted 19A 9 0 9 9 Inside Volume 3, Number 31 © 2018, Dawson County News Dawsonville, Georgia Church Events 3B Classifieds 8B Dear Abby 6B Deaths 2A Legals 8B Opinion 7A Sports 1B 4A Annual Ranger water jump set for May 9 5A Kids have big fun at Wee Books barn dance