Newspaper Page Text
Proposed industry options
land in new utility park
GNB gets go-ahead for engineering on $40 million facility here
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Wednesday, February 6
The Library Auxiliary will meet
with Mrs. Don Kinnett at 3 p.m. at
601 Westview Drive.
Peach County Clean Commun¬
ity Commission will meet at 7:30
p.m. in the Chamber of Com¬
merce.
Wednesday, February 6
Adult Children of Alcoholics will
meet at Peach County Hospital at
7 p.m.
Thursday, February 7
Angel Street will be presented by
the PCHS drama club at 7:30 p.m.
in the auditorium of the high
school tonite and tomorrow night.
Tickets are $4 for adults and $2 for
students; $3 for senior citizens.
Diabetic Support Group will meet
at Peach County Hospital confer¬
ence room at 7 p.m.
Friday, February 8
Fort Valley Toastmasters will
meet at 7 p.m. at Thomas Public
Library. All persons interested in
improving their communications
skills are invited to attend. 825-
8153; J.R. Skelton.
Saturday, February 9
Camellia Festival
at Massee Lane Gardens
9 a.m. until noon: Camellias for
the Beginner, a workshop.
1 - 4 p.m. Novice Camellia Show
1 - 5 p.m. Home and Garden Tour
For information and reservations
call 967-2722 or 967-2358.
Monday, February 11
Camellia Appreciation Day -
Look for beautiful blooms in local
businesses.
Chamber "After Hours" will be
held at the Fetterman Museum on
the grounds of Massee Lane
Gardens in Marshallville, 5-7 p.m.
Tuesday, February 12
Peach County Board of Tax
Assessors will meet at 9 a.m. in
their offices in the courthouse.
Camellia Festival Fashion Show
and Luncheon in the Fetterman
Museum. Call 967-2358 for
reservation and ticket information.
Peach County Commission will
meet in the courthouse at 6:30
p.m.
Wednesday, February 13
Camellia Festival Botanical Art
Show and Sale in the Fetterman
Museum at Massee Lane Gardens
from 4 - 7 p.m. Free.
Peach County Clean Community
Commission will meet at 7:30
p.m. in the Byron Public Library.
Thursday, February 14
Valentine's Day! Tell someone
you love them today.
Peach County Industrial and
Development Authority will meet
at 8 a.m. at the Chamber of
Commerce.
Byron-Fort Valley-Peach County
Recreation Commis-sion meets
at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall in Fort
Valley.
Friday, February 15
Candlelight and Camellias dinner
and dance in the Fetterman
Museum on the grounds of
Massee Lane Gar-dens. Get your
tickets early, space is limited! Call
967-2358 for information.
Evangelistic House of Prayer will
present Naomi and The Segos in
concert at 7 p.m. (Walton Road
between Fort Valley and Hwy. 42
Call 825-5818. Free.
Tuesday, February 19
Peach County Chamber of
Commerce Board of Directors
will meet at 8 a.m.
Fort Valley Study Club will meet
at 3 o'clock with hostess Mrs.
Evelyn Mathews.
Wednesday, February 20
Peach Public Libraries Board will
meet at 5:15 p.m. in Thomas
Public Library.
Thursday, February 21
Fort Valley City Council will meet
at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall.
Thursday, February 28
Peach County Hospital Auth¬
ority will meet at 11 a.m. in the
Camellia Festival
Commemorative
Edition...
Coming Feb. 20
Hospital deeds land to county for ambulance center
By Hallie Rigdon
The Peach County Hospital Authority
voted last Thursday to deed 1.15 acres of land
to the county for the construction of a new
ambulance facility. The county has been
operating the ambulance service and has
plans for a new facility which will include
bays to get the ambulances out of the weather
and provide a place for maintenance. The
facility will also be larger for more office
space.
The resolution was adopted by the
Authority with the stipulation, that the plans
for the ambulance facility meet the covenants
for a building built on the hospital “campus.”
Final approval for the land will be made when
the Authority has seen the drawings and plans
for the proposed building.
Dr. Walid Khuri asked the Authority to
consider utilizing the vacated building in
Investigation of
4-H director still in
progress, says sheriff
Peach County Sheriff Johnnie
Becham said Monday that
authorities are conducting an
intensive investigation into the
affairs of 4-H and Extension
Director Joe Chapman.
The sheriff would not reveal
details of the investigation, but
Assistant District Attorney Biff
Tillis confirmed that "materials of a
sexually-explicit nature" were
removed from the Chapman
residence when authorities served a
search warrant on Friday, January
25.
Tillis refused to comment
further, but promised to reveal
details of the investigation upon its
conclusion.
Becham said that his office and
the District Attorney's office is
cooperating in the probe and that it
is continuing "around the clock."
The sheriff said that he would
welcome the opportunity to talk
with anyone who has any
information regarding Chapman's
activities, and that such
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Peach County's best news and advertising source... since 1888
Volume 103, Issue 6
A battery recycling firm
wanting to locate a plant in Peach
County has taken its second major
step toward adding a $5 million
annual payroll to the local
economy.
On Thursday of last week, Ed
Puckett, general manager of the
Resource Recycling division of
GNB, Incorporated, signed,.an
option with the Development
Authority of Peach County for 200
acres in the county's proposed new
utility park off Lilly Creek Road.
Price of the option contract was
$10,000.
Earlier in the week, the
Development Authority put the
wheels in motion for the option by
agreeing to purchase the
approximately 550-acre site from
FVM-FVO Shareholders at a price
of $1300 per acre.
The option contract, coupled
with the announcement that GNB
has received home office approval
to begin engineering work on the
proposed facility, put local leaders
in an optimistic frame of mind.
"This is an important next step
in the process of bringing this
industry to our area," said Chamber
and Development Authority CEO
Ray Hollifield. "Though final
board approval for the project is
still pending, the company has
complete confidence that such
approval will be forthcoming.“■ “ ~
Pacifie-Dunlop of Melbourne,
Australia, the parent company
GNB, Inc., will have a directors'
meeting on March 8. Instructions
to proceed with the
work came from Phillip Bass,
managing director of the firm.
Wednesday, February 6,1991
Regarding the set of
circumstances that led to the option
signing, Hollifield said, "This is the
kind of teamwork- from the
Chamber, Development Authority,
County Commission, and Utilities
Commission- that it takes to bring
about such a world-class project.
We have now demonstrated and
committed ourselves to a real unity
of direction."
Assuming approval by the
Board of Directors of Pacific
Dunlop, GNB will construct a state-
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GNB options land...
Local officials welcomed representatives of GNB, Incorporated last week as the firm optioned land for
their proposed facility here. Pictured left to right are: Mike Zagrzebski, Group Controller with GNB; Bob
Puckett, Regional Director; Ed Puckett’, General Manager of Resource Recycling; Development
Authority Chairman Tim DuPree; County Commission Chairman Glenwood Hill; and Development
Authority Treasurer Freddy Qreer. Special Photo.
Byron as an out-patient facility for the
residents in Byron. He suggested that x-ray
and laboratory facilities be made available as
an extension of the services of the hospital.
“The simplest test a physician may order,”
said Khuri, “means a patient in Byron must
go to Warner Robins or Macon, even for a
chest x-ray. I feel that this hospital could
really benefit the people in the north end of
the county by providing a basic lab and x-ray
facilities.”
Khuri had discussed his idea with the
medical staff of the hospital and the other
doctors were in concurrence and even offered
to spend some time in Byron in order to assist
the people in the north end of the county.
“Let’s face it,” said Khuri, “these citizens are
paying for the hospital in taxes anyway, they
should see some benefit from those dollars.
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Homes here... U.: * 1
Tour of stops
One of the stops on the Camellia Festival Tour of Homes is the
lovely home of Marilyn Windham on College Street. Photo by Eric
Zellars.
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conversations would be held in the
strictest of confidence.
A small quantity of marijuana,
as well as some drug-related
objects were found at the Everette
Square residence during the search.
Currently, Chapman is charged
with possession of marijuana and
possession of drug-related objects.
He is free on S2500 bond.
Rumors abound in the
community about the reasons for
this investigation, which the sheriff
says has been in progress officially
for about four months but
unofficially for much longer. Thus
far, authorities won't confirm nor
deny allegations against the man.
Chapman has been unavailable
for comment since his arrest.
According to Melvin Davis, Central
District Director for the
Cooperative Extension Service, he
has been placed on "administrative
leave with pay."
Chapman has been county
extension director since 1984.
of-the-art battery recycling facility
that will initially employ about 125
people with an estimated S5 million
annual payroll. GNB, one of the
world's three major battery
manufacturers, currently operates
six automotive battery
manufacturing plants, four
industrial battery plants, and three
battery recycling facilities.
The process by which the firm
recycles old batteries into raw
materials for the manufacture of
new ones employs the latest
They’d be more encouraged to use the
hospital, I think, if services were available
locally firsL”
Authority Chairman Bill McGehee
expressed his encouragement for the idea and
turned it over to the finance committee for
study and a recommendation.
In his medical staff report, Dr. Larry
Anthony told the Authority that the year of
‘91 would be spent updating the services of
the physicians and nurses so that when 1992
came around and the Joint Commission
Survey was done that Peach County Hospital
would not merely be accredited but would
also receive commendation for excellence.
Head of Nursing, Jackie Barnes, concurred
and said that she and her nurses were already
taking courses in Atlanta to learn of the vast
changes that had to be implemented in her
18 pages, 2 inserts
technology and environmental
safeguards. When the
announcement was made in
December that the firm planned to
locate here, environmental
engineers said the process has
received very favorable reviews
from the Environmental Protection
Agency.
The site for the proposed plant
is part of a third industrial park for
the county. Hollifield and volunteer
leaders of the Chamber and
Development Authority have
staff for the commission.
Hospital Administrator Joe Greene gave the
report that the month of December saw fewer
admissions than anticipated but said that the
January statistics were up. There were 987
cases in the emergency room in December
and 488 out-patient procedures.
Greene passed on some “good news-bad
news” to the Authority by saying that Gov.
Miller intends to increase Medicaid benefits
to hospitals for services; however, the federal
government is mandating a slow down on
Medicare reimbursements. Return of money
on billed services is already running over 14
days and the slow down is expected to extend
that period. Greene said, “We will see a
difference in our immediate cash flow, but it
won’t affect the overall picture.”
35 cents
developed a marketing plan for
industrial recruitment based on a
three-park concept, utilizing the two
existing parks and a new site,
Under the plan, North Peach
Industrial Park, located adjacent to
Interstate 75 in Byron is marketed
as a "distribution park." It will
target warehouse distribution
industries, firms needing the easy
access to the interstate,
The other existing park, South
Peach Industrial Park, is seen as a
"support park," targeting smaller
firms locating as a result of
providing support parts or materials
for major manufacturers. It is
located on US 341 just south of Fort
Valley.
North Peach Park currently
contains a 50,000 square-foot
masonry speculative building that is
being actively marketed.
South Peach Park will also
have a building available with the
closing of the Olivetti plant. Two
other small industries are currently
located in the park.
Plans for the new park, the
’’utility park" include developing
the site complete with water,
sewerage, gas and electrical service.
It will target major manufacturers
who require large amounts of
utilities. In the case of the GNB
plant, they are said to require
electricity in an amount equal to
nearly half th" entire current load of
the Fort Valley Utilities
Commission.
It is estimated that engineering
work on the site will take
approximately one year and actual
plant construction another 12-18
months.
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Massee Lane
ready for
Festival
Everything is coming up
camellias at Massee Lane Gardens
and we are celebrating. The first an¬
nual Camellia Festival has been
planned for February 9-15, the
height of the camellia season here
in middle Georgia. A wide host of
activities has been planned to entice
the visitor to Massee Lane Gardens
to enjoy the activities and admire
the beautiful camellias.
The Festival will begin on
Saturday, February 9 with a full day
of planned events. A breath-taking
Tour of Homes in the Fort Valley
area has been designed to interest
everyone. Seven homes have been
carefully selected and will be on
display for your enjoymenL Each of
these homes will feature unique ar¬
chitectural ingredients while reflect¬
ing the personal tastes of the fami
lies who reside there. Each home is
tastuully decorated while remaining
extremely liveable. Three of these
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