Newspaper Page Text
Elliott has tough
weekend at Pocono
Raceway.
SPORTS, IB
r.ilin
Here’s where you
can catch fireworks
this July Fourth.
INSIDE, 7A
DawsonCountyNews
WEDNESDAY I JUNE 30, 2021
Dawson News ► com dawsonville, GEORGIA $1.00
Pirkle to lead 54th Moonshine Fest
Jacob Smith
jsmith@dawsonnews.com
A familiar face will be leading
the parade in the 54th annual
Mountain Moonshine Festival in
Dawsonville.
K.A.R.E. for Kids has named
Dawsonville legend Gordon
Pirkle Grand Marshal of the
three day festival.
“Well it’s usually one of those
big NASCAR drivers so I’m not
sure why they called me,” Pirkle
said. “But I will gladly do it.”
Though he has never driven in
the NASCAR Cup Series, Pirkle
is known in the national
NASCAR community for his
devotion to Dawsonville’s effect
on the history of racing. Pirkle
helped bring the Georgia Racing
Hall of Fame to Dawsonville and
sounds a siren after every Elliott
family racing victory.
Pirkle was a major part of plan
ning the first ever Moonshine
Festival and said that he would
have never imagined now being
asked to lead the Friday parade to
kick off the festivities, calling the
recognition “a honor.”
Rhonda Goodwin, president of
K.A.R.E. for Kids was there with
Pirkle at the beginning of
K.A.R.E. for Kids and was the
one who let Pirkle know he would
be Grand Marshal at this year’s
festival.
“I think people respected him
and his heart so much that they
wanted to spread it out as well,”
Goodwin said of Pirkle earlier this
year. “He called someone and
they called their friends who
called their friends and it’s still
going on. He still talks with at
least 90 percent of the people that
participate because they respect
his heart so much.”
Pirkle recently received recog
nition at the 2021 Best of Dawson
Awards Gala with the Best
Volunteer award and the renaming
of the Heart of Dawson
Leadership Award to the Gordon
Pirkle Heart of Dawson Award.
Despite rainy weather and the
COVID-19 pandemic, last
year’s Moonshine Festival was
called one of the most success
ful events ever by K.A.R.E. for
Kids leaders. Retired NASCAR
driver David Ragan was hon
ored as Grand Marshal
last year.
Pirkle will kick off the 54th
Moonshine Festival on Friday,
Oct. 22. The festival runs
through Sunday, Oct. 24.
c What a ride 5
Alexander Popp Dawson County News
From left,Ted Bearden, Wesley Bearden and James Bearden pose for a photo near the Bearden Funeral Home
sign on the funeral home's 30th-anniversary, June 24.
Bearden Funeral Home celebrates 30 years of service to Dawson County
By Alexander Popp
apopp@dawsonnews.com
When asked to sum it up, Ted
Bearden of Bearden Funeral Home in
Dawsonville said that everything he
and his family have done over the last
30 years all comes down to service.
Service to grieving families, service
to the departed and service to the
Dawson County community — that’s
what it’s all been about, Bearden said
on Bearden Funeral Home’s 30th-anni-
versary, June 24, 2021.
"The service to people, that’s why
we’re here. That’s why we do what we
do. To serve this community," he said.
Leaning back in his chair in the
funeral home’s front office on Hwy. 53
in Dawsonville, Bearden reflected that
even though those three decades, filled
with countless funerals and thousands
of families served, seem like a long
time, he isn’t sure how the years
slipped by so fast.
"30 years, what a ride," he said. "30
years in one sense is a long time, but
then I wonder where the time went
because it sure doesn't seem like it's
been 30 years."
But Bearden’s journey to becoming
a community servant began years
before he purchased his business.
According to Bearden, he found his
true calling as a teen when he took a
part-time job cutting grass and wash
ing cars for Ford Banister, owner of
Banister Funeral Home — the business
that he would one day buy.
"I took the job and it wasn't very
long until he bought me a suit,"
Bearden said. "He was taking me
along on funerals and I was getting to
help roll the casket down the aisle and
even though I didn't have a driver's
license, I would take the flowers to the
churches."
Before long, Bearden said that he
began to feel drawn to the work, espe
cially to the comfort that he and his
co-workers could give to grieving fam
ilies in their time of need.
"We're probably the only business
in the community that nobody wants
to do business with,” He said, laugh
ing. “They come here because they
have a need and it's an honor when
that phone rings and there's a family
on the other end that's asking us to
help them, that's an honor, to be asked
to help."
That calling to serve continued when
Bearden graduated from Dawson
County High School in 1974, taking
Dawsonville
approves
development
annexation
By Erica Schmidt
eschmidt@dawsonnews.com
The Dawsonville City Council has
approved a request to annex 44.82 acres
of land off Duck Thurmond Road into the
city to be rezoned for a future subdivi
sion, Aero Heights.
With the city council’s approval at their
June 21 meeting, land for the Aero
Heights development, proposed to be
built near the Atlanta Motorsports Park,
will be annexed into the city and rezoned
from Dawson County’s residential sub-
rural manufactured/moved (RSRMM)
zoning classification to the city’s single
family residential (Rl) zoning.
See Annex 18A
Sweet Charlie’s
rolled ice cream
sets up shop in
Dawson County
By Erica Schmidt
eschmidt@dawsonnews.com
A brand new dessert shop, Sweet
Charlie’s, has opened in Dawson County,
offering rolled ice cream creations, cook
ies, milkshakes and more to the commu
nity.
Rolled ice cream, according to Sweet
Charlie’s Dawsonville owner Pinkesh
Patel, is a product originally from
Thailand and involves dessert ingredients
being frozen into ice cream on a -20
degree slab, before being scraped into
thick rolls.
Patel said that throughout the process
of making rolled ice cream, customers are
treated to visual experience, as they
watch the ingredients mixed, frozen and
rolled right in front of them.
“Rolled ice cream tastes like any other
See Sweet 15A
See Bearden 18A
0
9 0 9 9 4
Inside
Volume 7, Number 24
© 2021, Dawson County News
Dawsonville, Georgia
Church Events
3B
Classifieds
8B
Dear Abby
7B
Deaths
2A
Legals
9B
Opinion
9A
Sports
1B
BOC approves
rezoning for
townhomes,
denies Hwy. 9
subdivision
6A
3B Rotary dedicates
Peace Pole at
Veterans
Memorial Park
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