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: orsy th County News
VOLI cdZ<- —NUMBER 77
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Commissioners
agree to pay the way
for DFACS drivers
By Kathey Pruitt
Staff writer
The last minute approval of $3,000 in additional funds
by Forsyth County commissioners Monday night kept
officials at the Department of Family and Children
Services from scraping the bottom of the financial barrel
to cover costs for the rest of the year for a program that
transports patients to the hospital.
“They’ve only got SB4, that’s why they’re making the
request,” said commission chairman Leroy Hubbard.
“They’re out of funds and they need $3,000 to carry them
through the end of 1987.”
The program, which commissioners said is used pri
marily to transport patients to chemotherapy and other
cancer related treatments, pays 40 cents per mile to
drivers who volunteer to transport the patients when
other family members cannot. The drivers receive no
other form of compensation, commissioners added.
“Some of the people have to go (to therapy) two times
a week, and it’s difficult for a child or a relative to take
off work to carry them every time,” said commissioner
James Harrington. “The drivers take them to the hospi
tal, wait while they take therapy, then drive them home.
That’s a lot to do for 40 cents a mile.”
A trip to Northside Hospital in Atlanta would earn the
driver about $24, Hubbard said.
For 1987, the program was budgeted $15,600, but close
Please see COMMISSION, page 2A
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COLOR ME FALL
By Charles Davidson
Special to the Forsyth County News
After being fooled by Mother Nature the past
two years, forestry experts are hesitant to play
doomsayer for this fall's foliage, despite a dry
August.
North Georgia received just 1.22 inches of August
rainfall, 2.19 inches below normal. But summer
1986’s century-worst drought brought dire predic
tions for fall color, as did a dry 1985 summer, and
the north Georgia mountains were aglow come
autumn.
“I think it’ll be all right,” said Harriett DiGioia, a
forest technician for the U. S. Forest Service in
Cohutta Wilderness Area near Chatsworth. “I think
the color’s going to be just about normal. I told
campers a couple of years ago it wouldn’t be very
good because of dryness and it turned out good.”
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1987—CUMMING, GA. 30130 32 PAGES 4 SECTIONS
“It all defends on nature,” said Buford Benefield,
■»‘U.S. Fdrwt Service worker in Clayton. “We’ve got
a heavy foliage on everything and we’re getting
some good, heavy rains up here now. You know,
your dry weather is more of a factor as far as your
early coloration.”
In New England, pockets of areas have turned
early because of summer dryness, said Bill Braun,
information officer for the Vermont Travel Divi
sion. However, he said the changing of colors “is
basically on schedule.”
About half the leaves in northeast Vermont,
northern New Hampshire and Maine have changed,
Braun said; and color will sweep south and west as
the New England season runs from about now to
mid-October.
The timetable gets later farther south.
Please see FALL, page 2A
Mobile mechanic makes his repairs on the road
“Have garage, will travel” is job
description for Ed Robertson and his dogs.
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TRUCKER'S FRIEND Robertson rides to the rescue of stranded
truckers traveling the interstates near Cumming, taking his garage and
equipment with him.
By Tom McLaughlin
Staff Writer
Like the lone ranger, he comes to the aid
of the traveler in need. He doesn’t have a
white horse, but he does have two little
white dogs.
Ed Robertson wears no mask, and nei
ther for that matter do his two pint-sized
watchdogs, Dixie and Scooter. Even so,
there are probably more than a few truck
ers who are thankful that Ed Robertson
was around when they needed him.
Ed Robertson owns a garage on wheels.
“Nobody else in the metropolitan area
has a set-up like this,” he said. “I will go
where you are, on your job, at your home
or on the road.”
Robertson has been a Cumming resident
for 15 years and a truck mechanic for 21.
He bought the Garage on Wheels truck in
West Virginia in October 1986, and is
working hard to establish himself with
truckers.
“I hang around truck stops, rest areas
and weigh stations,” he said. “I talk to the
waitresses, drink coffee and make myself
known. I’m not really established yet.”
Truck drivers don’t keep anything close
to regular hours, and therefore neither
does Robertson.
“My busiest times are between 4 and 6
Sheriff succeeds
in moving Potts
To state prison in Jackson
By Lindsey Kelly
Staff Writer
Local law enforcement officials were
successful Monday in their efforts to get
convicted killer Jack Potts out of Forsyth
County Jail.
Superior Court Judge Stan Gault issued a
ruling granting Forsyth County Sheriff Wes
ley Walraven the authority to move Potts
from the county jail to “wherever security
might require, pending trial of this matter.”
Potts, handcuffed and chained, was moved
to the state prison facility in Jackson within
an hour after the hearing concluded at 9 a.m.
Overseeing the transport was the sheriff,
Chief Investigator Russell Mathews, at least
three sheriff’s deputies and Potts’ attorney
Martin Findley.
District Attorney Rafe Banks had filed a
motion Friday asking for a hearing on the
“appropriate site of detention” for Potts. The
Jackson facility was apparently the closest
facility that would agree to undertake cus
tody, according to remarks made by Walra
ven during Monday’s hearing. He said his
Please see POTTS, page 3A
Fund-raiser policy
pleases principals
By Laura McCullough
and Kathey Pruitt
Staff writers
Sixth graders won’t be peddling
scented candles, fourth grade stu
dents will no longer push dollar
candy bars on dieting relatives, and
moms and dads won’t have to buy up
packages of Christmas trinkets so
their 19-year-old can meet the class
quota.
Fund raising is passe in Forsyth
County elementary schools, and par
ents, teachers and principals
couldn’t be happier.
“My teachers are tickled to death
because they won’t have to fool with
the money or the hassle anymore,”
said Peggy Walker, principal at
Mashburn Elementary.
Dennis Whittle, principal at Mid
way, also expressed approval of the
new fund-raising policy which elimi
nates money-making projects in the
elementary schools.
“It’s one of the best rules they
(board of education members) have
ever made. I’ve talked to other peo
ple in the state, and they were really
surprised and wished their school
systems would do it, too.
“It’s not something the schools
should be doing,” continued Whittle
about fund-raising. “Children going
door-to-door selling things that’s
not the way to raise money for public
education.”
Steve Benson, principal at Coal
Mountain, now has a legitimate ex
cuse for booting salesmen out of his
office. “I’ve already had some
salesmen to hit me about having the
PTA handle fund-raisers.”
Parent/teacher groups are
exempt from the new policy, but
cannot use students in fund-raising
efforts at the school. This may cut
back on the amount of money they
can raise, say principals.
PTAs have traditionally helped
the school’s budget by raising
money for computers, playground
equipment, copy machine expenses,
audio/visual equipment, and tne list
goes on. Schoolwide fund-raisers can
net anywhere from $5,000 to SIO,OOO
or more for the operating budget and
curriculum “wish lists.”
To compensate for this loss the
board has allocated $25 per child
up from $lO per child last year in
all the elementary schools. Each
elementary and junior high school
will get $6,000 for copy machine
expenses, and the high school will
get $12,000. Principals say that oper
ating these machines is expensive
and required money from the gen
eral fund last year.
Don Williams, principal at Big
Creek, said he would rather have the
extra allotment than to worry about
fund-raising.
“We may not have quite as much
(money) as we would have with the
fund-raisers, but I feel like the pro
grams aren’t going to be hurt. We
may have to make a few cutbacks
here and there, some equipment that
we would buy may be delayed one
more year, but in the long rim,
cutting out schoolwide fund-raisers
is a program I’m very much in
support of. A school wide fund-raiser
takes a lot of time and effort and
takes away from the educational
Please see FUNDRAISERS, page 3A
a.m. when the truckers do their rolling,”
he said. “I stay up so I’m available. Who
else are they going to call at that hour.”
The crazy hours that Robertson keeps
are one of the reasons for his watch dogs.
“I sleep whenever I can when I’m wait
ing to get a call,” he said. “I’ll guarantee
you that if you rattle that door they (the
dogs) will wake me up.”
Robertson said that many of those who
call him on their CB radios are running
materials such as produce that has to be
delivered to meet a deadline.
Robertson operates in a 50-mile radius
around Cumming. The major highways he
services include 1-75, 1-85, Ga. 400 and I
-285.
“I try to stay within that 50- to 55-mile
radius, he said. “If you get over that much
mileage you’re not going to be able to turn
a profit.”
Robertson works out of a Ford Stepvan
loaded to the brim with the equipment to
repair any minor problem. He doesn’t
work cheap, however. It costs S4O for a
service call within 20 miles plus the cost of
the part and S2O-an-hour labor.
Robertson can be reached in two ways,
either over the CB radio on monitor 21 or
by calling Samples service station in For
syth County.
35 CENTS
B * r ~T~ Jm
“We're got 30 inmates
and sometimes not
even two people
working. An escape
happened once; it
could very easily
happen again.
Wesley Walraven