About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 2023)
City, school system work to recover from winter storm. INSIDE, 6A DawsonCountyNews WEDNESDAY I JANUARY 4-5, 2023 DaWSOflNeWS ^COITI DAWSONVILLE, GEORGIA $1.00 Growth, elections, schools top 2022 list By Julia Hansen and Erica Jones Dawson County News staff With 2022 officially in the rearview window, we’re reflecting on some of the biggest things that hap pened in Dawson County in the past year. Here are some of the top highlights that happened in 2022. Dawson County business community continues to grow The business community continued to grow and thrive in Dawson County in 2022, with new restaurants and businesses of every type opening or expanding throughout the year. In food and drink news, the year kicked off with the grand opening of fast-casu al restaurant chain Chicken Salad Chick in February, followed closely by the opening of specialty cookie shop Crumbl Cookies in March. The Human Bean coffee shop officially opened in August, and Jersey Mike’s Subs opened in December. Several existing restau rants also celebrated wins in 2022. Local Italian deli and restaurant Ruby’s Recipes officially opened at its new location in down town Dawsonville in September and community staple Chick-fil-A celebrat ed its 20th anniversary of opening in the community in the same month. The Dawson County Chamber of Commerce held ribbon cuttings for dozens of new businesses in the community in 2022, and the community cele brated the opening of new medical, insurance, enter tainment and manufactur ing companies in the coun ty. The chamber was hon ored as a GACCE Georgia Certified Chamber for 2022, an honor given to only eight of the over 150 cham- bers of commerce in the state. The chamber also celebrated the promotion of Jessica Grigsby to the posi tion of membership direc tor and the hiring of Anna Graefen as its new director of marketing and events. Several businesses in the county celebrated exciting anniversaries in 2022. See Recap 14A Graefen Photo courtesy of Lance Jeffreys Crumbl Cookies co-owners Lance Jeffreys and James Griffin opened their third location this March in Dawson. ‘Dawson Feed the Hungry’ Photo courtesy of Scotty Seay This year on Christmas Day, volunteers served and delivered over 1,500 meals during the eighth annual "Dawson Feed the Hungry" event. Over 1,500 meals served on Christmas during eighth annual event By Erica Jones ejones@dawsonnews.com Despite a few unexpected hurdles due to the cold weather, over 1,500 people were able to enjoy a hot meal on Christmas Day thanks to the volunteers and donors with the eighth annual “Dawson Feed the Hungry” event. The event takes place each year on Christmas Day, and event organizer Scotty Seay said that when he and his mother arrived at the Dawsonville Pool Room at 2 a.m. on Christmas this year they were met with an unexpected challenge when they learned that the week end’s cold snap had frozen the restaurant’s water pipes. “My mother started laughing because I had to use bottled water to put in the big pots to start cooking mashed potatoes; I told her the show must go on even if the pipes are frozen so we have to improvise here,” Seay said. “By 11, some of the men who came in to volunteer got out there and they got the water unfrozen to the Pool Room.” Due to the trouble at the restaurant, Seay said that he was unable to cook the chicken for the hot meals when he needed to. Because of this, his friend who is the restaurant manager at Rooster’s restaurant in Cumming took the chicken to cook there and brought it back. “We were struggling there at 2 a.m. with no water, but God always comes through — you think you’re down and out and have to move on to Plan B but we didn’t miss a beat,” Seay said. “I’m so thankful for Rooster’s, the Pool Room, Gordon Pirkle and his fami ly and all the businesses that helped out this year.” Once the pipes were repaired and the food was ready to eat, Seay and his army of volunteers hailing from all over North Georgia spent the rest of Christmas Day serving the hot meals to those who came to the restaurant and delivering them to the homes of those who had called ahead of time asking for one. When all of their hard work was completed, the total number of those fed during the event was over 1,500. “This is the largest num ber of volunteers that I’ve See Feed 14A 150K gourds, other picks to cap off2022 By Julia Hansen, Erica Jones and Rio White Dawson County News staff As we look back on 2022 in Dawson County, we had each of our reporters and editor pick a couple of their favorite stories that they wrote this year. Whether exciting, tragic or impactful, we love telling the sto ries of the people and organizations in Dawson County and can’t wait to continue doing so in the new year. Here are some of our personal favorites from 2022. See Favorites 15A Find us online Are you using the digital access includ ed with your subscription? Go to daw- sonnews.com to read all our favorite stories of the year. Man charged with 50-plus counts of child sex exploitation By Julia Hansen jhansen@dawsonnews.com A White County man remains behind bars in Dawson County after being charged with more than 50 counts of sexual exploi tation of children, accord ing to warrants DCN obtained Dec. 23. Matthew Scott Roberts, 40, of Cleveland, was arrested by the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 20, 2022. Roberts was initially charged with one count each of child molestation and sexual exploitation of children in the larger case, according to DCSO’s weekly arrest report. See Roberts 12A 0 9 0 9 9 4 Inside Volume 9, Number 1 © 2023, Dawson County News Dawsonville, Georgia Events 2B Classifieds 7B Dear Abby 5B Deaths 2A Legals 7B Opinion 7A Sports 1B 3A UGA Extension Service to offer Master Gardener course. 8A Committee named to find next UNG president. We Are a Digital Impression Practice. Proud Owners of an iTero Element " Scanner. | element ■jji invisalign "We all try and go above and beyond and give that five start treatment, so it's rewarding to know that what we do matters." Q)amonville (^Distinctive ^Dentistry B. MANZUR, D.M.D. 754 HWY. 53 WEST, DAWSONVILLE, GA 706-265-2505
