About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 2019)
Dawson County Tigers fall to Spartans SPORTS, IB See how cancer affects the community page, 6B ^DawsonCountyNews WEDNESDAY I OCTOBER 16, 2019 DaWSOflNeWS ^com DAWSONVULE, GEORGIA $1.00 Thurmond gives state of county address By Jessica Taylor jtaylor@dawsonnews.com Dawson County Commission Chairman Billy Thurmond provided an update on the state of Dawson County during Thursday’s Chamber of Commerce Luncheon, which included an update on the much anticipated Etowah Village project. The application for rezoning of Etowah Village, which was slated to be brought before the Board of Commissioners on Oct. 17, has been withdrawn for the second time. Thurmond, however, expects that it will be put before the board in the future. “It’ll come back up at some point in time. I don’t know when, but it will come back up. That is something we will have to deal with when that time comes,” Thurmond said. “The board will look at that whenever it comes back up, see what is the best option for the citizens or listen to the citizens to see what they have to say, but there’s a lot of things that could happen there today.” Thurmond stressed that whatever hap pens on the property where the mixed-use community was proposed should be in line with what the commission is trying to accomplish in the county. “A lot of times citizens don’t understand the fact that a lot of this stuff’s already zoned. It’s been zoned for years and years and years, so all they’ve got to do is go to planning,” Thurmond said. “When a rezon ing comes, our job is to look at that and see how that blends with what the future needs to look like for the citizens so that’s what we try to do with each and every one of those and stay within the law. A lot of peo ple forget that Georgia’s a property rights state. If you own land you do have some rights so it’s not just up to the government to tell you what you can and can’t do.” Thurmond also announced the current commercial projects in the works in Dawson County which include Olive Garden, Holiday Inn, Dawsonville Self Storage, Fairfield Inn, Schroeder Industries, Hellman-Chang, Atlanta Bread, Yogli Mogli and Chipotle. Plans for the future of Dawson County includes diversifying its businesses from See County 13A &mt*3 •* I, [ J MufhP i/i Wpbt&ihtkielk •prC-fcDtdirf)! /f/Y/r l 'm Jpr m i HKL. i"W JUSt KiS 1 Bob Christian Dawson County News Bud and Laquita Lunsford behind the counter of the Funtastik Bowling Center of Gainesville, Georgia. Lunsford named Grand Marshall of 52nd annual Mountain Moonshine Festival By Bob Christian bchristian@dawsonnews.com The Grand Marshall for the 52nd Annual Mountain Moonshine Festival, taking place Oct. 26 and 27, will be short-track racing legend Bud Lunsford. Lunsford started his career in the early 1950s after running a few laps on the Looper Speedway in a friend’s car. “I had a friend, before the lake come in, which is Lake Lanier, he wanted to go out to the old Looper Speedway and he asked me ‘would you like to go out there with me,’ and I said sure,” Lunsford said. “He went out and made a few laps. He said, ‘would you like to make a lap or two,’ and I said sure and that gave me the bug. That’s where it started.” From that starting point, Lunsford went on to become the winningest driver in short-track history. Running five nights a week, between 65 and 75 events a year, Bud won 1,139 races over his 25-year career in venues across the southeastern United States. He was inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in 2005. “I used to race five nights a week. Start in Greenwood, South Carolina, on Thursday; Anderson, South Carolina on Friday; Banks County or Toccoa on Saturday; two races in Cumming on Sunday — one Sunday afternoon and one Sunday night.” Lunsford said. “Then I’d start all over again the next week.” “Our racing is not anything com pared to what you see on the weekend on the TV,” Lunsford explained. “Ours would be 50 laps or 100 laps, some thing like that, that’s all we’d run. Anywhere between three-eighths or a quarter mile.” With almost 1,600 races under his wheels, Lunsford had to think for a moment to define a singular moment as the high point of his career, but he settled on “the race I won at Dixie Speedway on a Sunday afternoon.” “I wasn’t running very good that day, and all the big boys from up North and everything were there. It’s a big dirt race, paying $15,000 a win,” Lunsford said. “The Hoosier (Tire) representative said, “well, you didn’t do any good, let’s put some asphalt slicks on that car.” So, we put some asphalt slicks on that car, and it was like going to a Sunday meeting. That was a thrill.” By comparison, Lunsford needed no time at all to recall his low-point on a track — the only major accident of his career — when he went over the wall at Canton International. “It hurt pretty bad ... When I went over the wall over there it landed on it’s top, upside down, it broke the roll cage out,” Lunsford said. “I stayed in See Lunsford 13A Gibson waives arraignment Joshua Demarest jdemarest@dawsonnews.com Jeremy Gibson, who was arrested in July for shooting his wife multiple times in front of their children in the parking lot of Fire Station 7, waived his arraignment on Thursday, Oct. 10. An arraignment is a criminal court hearing where the defendant is formally read the charges against him and official ly enters his plea. With the waiver, Gibson acknowledged in writing that he understood the charges he was facing and entered the plea of not guilty. A waived arraignment is fairly common in criminal proceedings, and it does not necessarily mean that the case will go to trial. At any point in the process, Supervising Assistant District Attorney Conley Greer could offer a plea deal to settle the case out of court. The District Attorney’s office could not comment on whether or not a plea deal was on the table at the time of writing. Gibson’s trial is set for a calendar call on Dec. 16, where the prosecutor and defense attorney will tell the court wheth er or not they are ready for trial. At that point, a tentative court date will be set. Firefighters battle multiple blazes over weekend Joshua Demarest jdemarest@dawsonnews.com Dawson County’s recent spate of fires extended over the weekend as dry weath er and low relative humidity continue to cause problems for emergency services personnel. According to a press release issued by Dawson County Fire and Emergency Services Chief Danny Thompson, “there were no injuries to firefighters or civilians at the three fires over the weekend. We would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone to check the batteries in their smoke detectors and if you need one to please call Dawson County Fire & Emergency Services, (706) 344-3666.” See Fires 16A 0 9 0 9 9 Inside Volume 4, Number 56 © 2019, Dawson County News Dawsonville, Georgia Church Events 3B Classifieds 10B Dear Abby 7B Deaths 2A Legals 11B Opinion 11A Sports 1B Ukrainian leaders to examine gov ernance in north Georgia Dawson County receives wellbeing grant LUNG BREAST COLORECTAL GYN PROSTATE BLADDER KIDNEY LEUKEMIA LYMPHOMA MULTIPLE MYELOMA PANCREAS MELANOMA By providing access to more cancer treatment centers, we're bringing expert care to more Georgians. That care is made possible by having the most board-certified medical oncologists of any community hospital network in the state—and it's helped establish us as top 2 in the nation among community cancer programs. Learn more at builttobeatcancer.com m NORTHSIDE HOSPITAL CANCER INSTITUTE
