Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6A
,—THE FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS—WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, I*ll
spy -a P ,m II
LEONARD SMALLWOOD, LEFT AND EMMETT COUCH
...check the furnace
He Looks For
Best In Folks
BY SCOTT VAUGHAN
Staff Writer
Jim Harbin, unit coordina
tor for the Blue Ridge Judi
cial Circuit’s department of
offender rehabilitation, said
the first time he met the
man, he was leaning against
the walls of a jail cell.
“He was cocky, sarcastic
and really apathetic,” Har
bin said. “His life was drug
related and he was one of
this area’s biggest drug
pushers.”
When the man’s case came
up in court, the judge was
ready to send the man away
to prison, but Harbin saw
some hope in this man.
“I asked the judge to turn
him over to my depart
ment,” Harbin said. “I told
them that the first time he
did anything out of line, I’d
bring him in personally.”
The man received a long
term probation under Har
bin’s department. He has
come a long way, Harbin
said. "We sent him to get his
high school equivalency, his
parole is just about half over
and he has been okay. He
hasn’t broken any kind of
law since that time.”
Harbin admits that the
success stories in his busi
ness are few and far be
tween. In his nine year
career he can only think of
three change of character
success stories. “We can’t
judge success by whether a
person makes a complete
turn-around,” Harbin said.
“If a person improves we
consider that a moderate
success.”
“This is a very frustrating
job,” he said. “We see a lot
and we have to work for
success.”
In the Blue Ridge circuit,
which includes the counties
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112 Pilgrim M#l Rd.
Cumming, Ga. 30130
889-1921
of Forsyth, Cherokee, Pick
ens, Gilmer and Fannin,
Harbin’s department has a
caseload of 1,500 and about
600 felons. In Forsyth
County, the caseload of pro
bationers is 480 active cases.
“Our biggest felon case
load deals with burglaries,”
Harbin said. “We are seeing
an increasing number of bur
laries. We handle a lot of
D.U.l’s (driving under the
influence) under the misde
meanor section.”
“We only revoke probation
of about three percent each
year,” he said. “That means
we are about 97 percent suc
cessful each year.”
“Our caseload grows all
the time and our department
has had to grow with it,”
Harbin said. “In 1972, we
had five staff members and
now we have 18 across the
district.”
Harbin said about 90 per
cent of the probationers are
male and the average age is
the middle 20’s. “About 70
percent of our offenses are
alcohol or drug related,” he
added.
“You take a couple of guys
out riding around,” Harbin
said. “They decide to go rob
someone’s house. They have
been drinking and probably
wouldn’t do it if they were
sober.”
Harbin sees the problem
with most probationers as
the enviroment they were
brought up in. “Most proba
tioners know the difference
between right and wrong,
but don’t care,” he said.
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1 :
“They were brought up in a
rough enviroment, with too
little or too much discipline.
They end up here or in
prison.”
Harbin also said that his
motto is to believe there is
potential in everyone. “We
have to believe that every
one can make it. We have to
convince the probationers
that there is something bet
ter in life than what they
have seen. Once they can
accept that on their own,
they can make it in society.”
Harbin said it costs society
between $13,000 and $14,000
per year, per criminal in
prison and it costs about 50-
cents per day for a man to be
on probation. “We try to get
people on probation if there
is any way. We prepare pre
sentence investigations on a
person’s background for the
judge to read and consider
when he makes a sentence.
We’re lucky,” Harbin said.
“Our judges here are good
judges and take the time to
study these investigations.”
Harbin said there is one
thing special about his of
fice. It is one of the few
government offices which
makes more money than it
spends. In terms of tax dol
lars, the department collects
more than it spends by about
$60,000.
Harbin is always looking
for that special success story
from one of his probationers.
“Our department always
tries to find the best in peo
ple and hope they can see it,
too.”
* AUQUST 15
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AUGUST 29
CONWAY TWITTY
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SEPTEMBER 12
LORETTA LYNN
SHOW
887-6666
New Furnace Saves Cash
By JAY JORDAN
News Editor
When most people look at a
house for sale, they think
how much cash they have to
come up with to move in and
how much their monthly
payments will be.
What they don’t see, ex
plained home builder Em
mett Couch, is the monthly
utility bill payment. “They
really get into a bind when
they have to pay S4OO or SSOO
a month on fuel bills,” he
said.
As he spoke, he was stand
ing in the living room of his
solution to utility bills. It was
a 2,948-square-foot house on
Lake Lanier. What he had
done was to thoroughly seal
and insulate the house and
put a special furnace in the
basement that runs on both
wood and gas.
Insulationisvery imortant,
Couch said. And so is a thor
ough, careful caulking job.
“You defeat your whole pur
pose by leaving cracks.”
Heating and air condition
ing contractor Leonard
Smallwood worked with
Couch in choosing and instal
ling the furnace. He was in
the living room, too. “The
whole solution is that you put
the heat in, or the cooling in,
and it stays in.”
Well, not quite the whole
solution. Down in the base
ment sits a large sheet-metal
box. It looks like an ordinary
furnace. There are dials and
doors on the front and a
tangle of ductwork sprouting
from the top.
It is a special furnace that
is fired about twice a day
with wood. When the wood
runs out, gas is automat
ically cut in. The furnace can
also be set to run on heating
oil, coal, natural gas, or liq
uid petroleum gas.
On a typical winter day,
Smallwood explained, a
homeowner could fill up the
furnace firebox at 7 a.m. The
furnace would bum on wood
all day, and after work, say
4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m., he would
need to add perhaps three or
four pieces of wood.
Derby Set
For July 5
The chance to be the last
car moving has been suffi
cient inspiration to men
from six states to enter the
Southeastern United States
Championship Demolition
Derby to be held at Dixie
Speedway in Woodstock, be
ginning at 1 p.m. on Sunday,
July 5.
Although no woman has
yet entered, the field will
come from Alabama, Flor
ida, Georgia, North Caro
lina, Ohio and Tennessee.
The winner of this event will
receive $5,000 of the $7,100
purse and a five-foot trophy.
Entry will remain open
until the green flag drops to
start the derby. Any licensed
driver age 18 or more, who
has a vehicle conforming to
derby rules, is eligible. A SSO
entry fee is required.
Inspection of entered vehi
cles will begin the afternoon
of July 4, and will continue
until the derby’s 1 p.m. start
ing time on July 5.
Dixie Speedway is north of
Atlanta on Ga. 92, just off I
-75. For general information
plus rules and entry forms,
call the track at 926-5318 or
Dorsey Turner at 887-7482.
SEPTEMBER 26
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But if for some reason, the
homeowner could not throw
more wood on the fire, he
would not freeze, Couch
added. Once the house drops
below a pre-set temperature,
the furnace automatically
turns on the gas.
The only outside power the
furnace needs is electricity
for a small fan. But the fur
nace will operate satisfacto
rily if the electricity is off,
Smallwood said.
When the house was de
signed, Smallwood and
Couch priced a conventional
electric heat pump at about
$4,300. A conventional gas
furnace was about $3,800.
The furnace they used was
around $4,600.
But the extra cost is worth
while, Couch claims.
Smallwood estimates a
payback of only a few years
and potentially great sav
ings on the heating bill.
A similarly-sized house
heated by an electric heat
pump might cost S3OO to SSOO
a month to heat in the coldest
partof the winter, Couch said.
His own house, an older one
with only 1,400 square feet, is
all-electric. Last winter, his
heating bill was around $350
a month.
Compared to this, the com
bination gas and wood fur
nace appears to offer great
savings. Smallwood in
stalled one on a farm near
Douglasville which used only
S9O worth of heating oil in one
winter.
He and Couch had no esti
mate of the amount of wood
used, but there was a large
wood pile by it.
That is one of the limita
tions on the furnace. It would
not be economical to buy
wood out of the back of some
one’s pickup truck, Small
wood said. Anyone who uses
this furnace must have his
own source of wood.
Another potential disad
vantage is that the furnace
might be hard to fit into an
existing house. It needs a
large flue and there might
not be space for it.
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Body Shop
REBATES
Billy Howell Ford-Mercury has initiated a
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cash rebate on all repairs performed in
our shop.
The amount of rebate will be given in
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ing us your best estimate to match or
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Still, Couch is enthusiastic
about a good caulking and
insulation job and a combi
nation wood and gas fur
nace.
Cherokee Suzuki At Canton, Ga
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Active solar power would
be ideal for heating, but not
everyone can afford it or has
a suitable site for it, Couch
said. “Solar heat is better,
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