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PAGE 2A . FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Friday, March 19. 2004 Shot histories soon more accurate ATLANTA Doctors will be able to know the immunization history of more Georgia children with more accuracy following the unprecedented upload of more than 370,000 children's immunization records from UnitedHealtheare into a state Department of Human Resources (DHR) database. Atlanta-based United Heal thcare-Georgia provides health insurance coverage to more than 600,000 Georgians Kathleen E. Toomey, M.D., M.P.H., director of the DHR's Division of Public Health, said the UnitedHealtheare upload is the single largest input of immunization records into the Georgia Registry of Screven Co. teacher is tops ATLANTA When an eighth-grade teacher told him to keep his chin up, take own ership of his future, and bring others with him on the way "to the top." she probably didn't realize that her advice would help him to soar to the top of Georgia's teaching pack. Chase Puckett, an eighth grade English teacher at Screven County Middle School, has been named the 2005 Georgia Teacher of the Year. The announcement was made tonight by State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox at the annual Georgia Teacher of the Year Banquet held at the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center. A middle school teacher since 1998. Puckett lists as his greatest accomplishments those students who have walked across the stage to receive their diplomas. He is a teacher who feels he has accomplished something very important when his students Deaths Myra Joe Bagwell Combs Mrs. Myra Joe Bagwell Combs, 78. of Alpharetta, for merly of Forsyth County, died Monday. March 15. 2004. She was born to James Franklin and Susie Owens Bagwell on Sept. 10. 1925. Mrs. Combs retired from Georgia Tech where she worked as Admissions Administrator. Survivors include her hus band. Wilbur M. Combs; daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Edward Yeargers of Palm City. Fla; son and daughter-in-law, Tommy Franklin and Faye Cash of Alpharetta; grandchildren, Lisa and Kevin Maxwell of Buford, Monica and Todd Erskine of Augusta. Jeremy Estes of Newnan; great-grand children. Kelley. Rachael and Michele Maxwell; sisters and brother-in-law, Elise and Charles Webb of Alto. Edna Sue Bearden of Alpharetta, Edith and John Cathcart; brother. James F. and Nellie Bagwell, all of Cumming; Several nieces and nephews also survive. Funeral services are Friday, March 19, at 2 p.m. at the Alpharetta First Baptist Church with the Revs. Jeff Witcher and A.B. Hatfield officiating. Interment will fol low at Green Lawn Cemetery. Those who wish may make donations in her memory to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, P.O. Box 530109, Dept. G-00125, Atlanta, GA 30353-0109. Northside Chapel Funeral Directors is in charge of the arrangements. Forsyth County News March 19, 2004 A community service of Forsyth County News Immunization Transactions and Services (GRITS) since the program became fully operational 10 months ago. The secure high-tech statewide system of informa tion gathering, analysis and storage has been in develop ment and testing since being authorized by Georgia's General Assembly in 1996. The GRITS database of immunization records is a powerful tool for pediatricians and other physicians who need to get a high-quality, dependable and detailed snap shot of a child s shot history. Dr. Toomey explained. The initiative by UnitedHealtheare brings the total number of children s immunization records now available to doctors through "develop a life-long love for reading, for learning, and for living." Puckett says he was set on the right track by his parents who continually pushed him to read, study, and appreciate the rewards a solid education could bring. He also points to the influence a special teacher had on his life. "I can still trace my desire and motivation to teach back to the indelible mark her support and eternal belief made upon my life, the mark that 1 was destined to be something special, a teacher," he says. Speaking at the event. Superintendent Cox said, "If we re going to achieve our vision of leading the nation in improving student achieve ment, it's not going to be so much because of what we re doing up here at the state department, but because of what excellent teachers throughout the state are doing in their classrooms with their students. Teachers are the Lula Gretell Evans Mrs. Lula Gretell Evans. 94, of Dawsonville died Wednesday. March 17. 2004. Mrs. Evans was the oldest member of Lebanon Church. She was preceded in death by her husband, Rev. Rufus Evans; daughter, Melba Cain; sons. Hank Evans and Eugene Evans; son-in-law. Troy Cain. Survivors include children. J.L. and Jama Evans, Jesse and Mildred Evans, Dessie and Lee Westbrook, all of Dawsonville. Elmer Evans of Cumming. Marvin Evans of Dawsonville. Flonnie and Don Westbrook of Marietta, Annelle and Jerry Self of Woodstock; daughters-in-law, Doris Evans, Alice Evans, both of Cumming; 25 grand children; several great-grand children and great -great grandchildren; half brother and sister-in-law, Larry and Martha Cranford of Dahlonega; half sister. Ruby Dean Gee of Dahlonega; step mother, Lillie Bessie Cranford of Dahlonega; many cousins and other relatives also sur vive. Funeral services are Friday. March 19, at 2 p.m. at Lebanon Baptist Church with Rev. Harold Evans officiating. Interment will follow at the Lebanon Baptist Church Cemetery. Ingram Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements. Forsyth County News March 19, 2004 F—— —1 ! ! j EXPRESS* | ■ Present this coupon . for a full 125% off I I our rack rates I ■ on all rooms. ■ Exit 14 at GA 400 | 835 Buford Rd. Cumming, GA 30041 | | 770'889-4600 | IxHm HUrtti Hat. KM GRITS to 1.5 million. Those records contain valuable information on about 12 mil lion immunizations, Dr. Toomey said. UnitedHealthcare's Georgia medical director. Dr. Catherine Palmier, a pediatri cian, explained, "As a com pany, we felt it was our responsibility to provide the state with the valuable immu nization data which we have so that it is used to the maxi mum benefit for Georgia's children. As a pediatrician and a mother of three, I know very well the extra workload that doctors' offices endure, especially in the summer, try ing to verify a child's immu nization history before school starts in the fall. Parents don't have all of the records, doc- unsung heroes who make it all work, and they are the ones who make me confident that we will achieve our goal." Screven Middle School Assistant Principal Patty Hill said Puckett has been an inno vator. He was one of the main contributors to the nationally known "Walk Through Time" living history project in which students pick a topic that is a part of their Indian or Frontier heritage, research it, write on it, construct a project on school grounds, and make oral presentations to over 3,000 visitors each year. He also finds entertaining ways io get students interested in learning. Through his por trayal of character Will E. Read he visits classrooms throughout the school every week to congratulate students who have performed well and met their reading goals. He also takes his alter ego to the airwaves during weekly broadcasts over the school's intercom, inviting all students Robert Henry Johns Robert Henry Johns, 83. of Savannah died Tuesday, March 16, 2004. He was bom in Hicksville, Long Island, VETERAX N.Y. on Nov., 16. 1920. He graduated from Georgia Tech in 1943 with a degree in chemical engineer ing. After graduation he served in the Army Signal Corps during World War 11. He moved to Savannah in 1955 when he went to work with American Cynamid’s Pigments Division. He retired from Cyanamid’s Pigments Division in 1982 after 38 years of service. Survivors include wife, Launa Quattlebaum Johns of Savannah; son. Robert Henry Johns Jr. of Cumming; grand daughter. Joy Johns Heaberlin of Cumming; great-grand daughter. Chloe Heaberlin; brother, Henry Johns Jr. of Dunn, N.C.; sister. Lillian Johns of Dunn, N.C.; Grave side services are Friday at 1 I a m. in the Greenwich section of Bonaventure Cemetery. Hubert C. Baker Funeral Home in Savannah is in charge of the arrangements. Forsyth Counts News March 19, 2004 LOOK FOR OBITUARIES ON 2A E-> v . M T <. e (] | JA & L Antiques i nJ and ’ I T" ** We Offer Real Antiques, At Realistic Prices W // j Full Service Interior Decorating & Antique F Home Accessories, Wedgewood, I ■ Lenox & Vintage Glassware V J Purchase One Hour of Decorating W ] Ml Services and Receive an Hour Free |/I 770-887-5320 V Wendy Keenan Cell: 770-317-7479 1 < Circa Style Larry Kohn -JA * L 1575 Dahlonega Hwy • Highway 9 North ' ~ X> Cumming 30040 Hours: Monday by Appt Tues-Sat 10:00 - 6:30 yk tors end up calling other doc tors, and bringing people in to input the flew records; it's all a very and time consuming process that can be very confusing and costly. Now, UnitedHealtheare is having an impact on that. With the success of this effort, we will be encouraging other insurers in the state to provide similar information to GRITS, Dr. Palmier said that UnitedHealtheare spent months sorting hundreds of thousands of records of immunization data on chil dren it insures and formatting it properly for the upload to GRITS. The upload took two days to complete. Future uploads will move much more swiftly, she said, now that an operational system is in place. recognized as high achievers to report to the office for a reward. Screven County Middle School Principal Kevin Judy calls Puckett "a truly caring person w ho wants the best for all students. His commitment to his field of teaching, his devoted work to improving the educational process of his stu dents, and his drive to have all students succeed is evident in his day-to-day work." The others vying for the top honor were Ashley Burke, Holsenbeck Elem-entary in Barrow County; Patricia Gordon. Fitzgerald High in Ben Hili'County; Judson B. Bridges 11. Collins Hill High in Gwinnett County; Sharon Dickert, Lowndes Middle in Lowndes County; Kelly Flanders, Thomson High in McDuffie County; Doug Haydel. Bishop Hall Charter in Thomas County; Cheryl Rice, S.L. Mason Elementary in Valdosta City; Betty Ellis, Arthur Williams Middle in Wayne County; and Greg Bailey, Southeast High School in Whitfield County. The Georgia Teacher of the Year is an educational ambas sador for all of Georgia's pub lic schools. PLANTS som a to an isolated area in Pike stores. Customers who recent ly purchased camellias from Pike Nurseries can return the plants to the nursery, he said. The situation is basically a waiting game and customers that have already planted material should not dig it up, he said. Pike's obtains less than 25 percent of its plant inventory from California and the nursery only carries one variety in which the disease has been detected. The disease has not yet been found to be in Georgia, he said. The first symptom of the fungus in oaks is bleeding or oozing of a dark reddish brown thick sap, according to the University of California Extension Serivce. The sypm tom typically occurs on the FIRST CALL FORTHELP 770-781-HELP (4357) Emergency help line for Forsyth County, o 7“ Michael Chaney, the Division of Public Health Immunization Program Manager, explained that the mission of the GRITS pro gram is to streamline the process of providing immu nization records to physicians for Georgia children enrolling in schools, reduce the inci dence of over-immunization, support effective emergency treatment, and to help deter mine which children may need certain shots if there is a school-wide disease outbreak. Tom Moss, GRITS pro gram manager, said he believes the database now includes only about 20 per cent of Georgia children, and urged other health insurers operating in Georgia to fol low United Healthcare s Sawnee introduces new way to access info on accounts "....In the old days, it was next to impossible to get infor mation about how much you owed a company. You either had to find your bill and remember all the payments you had made or you had to call the company, wait on hold for who knows how long and hope you got someone on the other end that cared enough to give you a straight answer. You might have even used some other unique approach that a neighbor told you worked once for them when they were in a pinch..." In today’s busy work environment, this story gets repeated too many times. That's not the case for Sawnee EMC’s members! Sawnee provides quality cus tomer service via trained pro fessionals in its state of the art Call Center. By constantly seeking ways to improve the level of service it provides to its members, Sawnee sets itself apart when it comes to meeting the needs of its mem bers. On- March 12. Sawnee lower portion of the tree trunks but has been found as high as 60 feet. Irvin said he thought the results of the testing samples from the other California nurs eries would be revealed by next week. Forsyth CountvNews J Your "Hometown Paper " Since 1908 J I SPS 205-540 Veterans Memorial BlviL, Cumming. (Georgia 30040 Phone:77o-887-3126 Fax:77o-889-6017 Internet Address: www.forsythnews.com Publisher DENNIS STOCKTON /F/neuvA General Manager NORMAN BAGGS nuiwul/-) Edi,w TOM SPIGOLON XJnSJK/ Advertising Director MARTI BARNES Circulation Director PHIL JONES MEMBFJt Published Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday by the Forsyth County News Company. Veterans Memorial Blvd.. Cumming. Ga. Second Class Postage paid at Cumming. Ga. and additional offices. Subscription rate for Forsyth County. $52 per year; $35 for six months; other Georgia and out of state subscriptions are SBS per year. Any unused portion of a subscription balance will be gladly refunded However, all refunds due the subscriber are subject to a processing fee. which will be automatically deducted from the subscription balance refund. Advertising rates and deadlines available upon request Postmaster: Send address change to Forsyth County News/P.O Box 210. Cumming. Ga. 30028 A Swartz-Morris Media Inc. publication Miss your paper? Call 887-3126 We deliver replacement papers within Forsyth County. If your newspaper is not delivered by 6:30 a.m.. please call the circulation department at 770-887-3126. Service calls will be taken from 8:00 a m until 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and on Sunday from 9:00 am. until 1:00 p.m. If your call is receiveddunngthe.se times, a replacement copy will be delivered to your home. Calls received after busi ness hours will be checked the following business day. and credit will be extended to your account. Any changes in publication will be announced in preceding issues. Advertising Deadlines For Sunday's paper retail and classified display ads are due by noon Thursday For Wednesday's paper retail and classified display ads are due by 5 p.m. Friday. For Thursday's paper retail and classified display ads are due by noon Monday. For Friday’s paper retail and classified display ads are due by noon Tuesday. Classified Line Advertising Deadlines (Help wanted, garage sales, rentals, etc.) For Sunday's paper classified line ads are due by noon Friday. For Wednesday’s paper classified line ads are due by noon Monday. For Thursday's paper classified line ads are due by noon Tuesday. For Friday's paper classified line ads are due by noon Wednesday. Legal advertising is due by Friday noon and tuns only in Wednesday's paper. example. The system can load 370,000 records at one time, so the size of the files aren t an issue, said Moss. UnitedHealthcare's input is exactly the type of public private partnership that Georgians expect and deserve. Dr. Toomey added, "The Division of Public Health will continue to work closely with UnitedHealtheare and other providers to enhance the state s public health system to protect and improve the health of all Georgians." Administrators of HMOs, PPOs, individual physi cians and others may go to www. ph. dhr. state, ga.us/pro grams/grits/ to find out more about GRITS. EMC introduced a new and exciting feature to its Web site options called "Quick View". "Quick View" allows a Sawnee member to access the key fea tures of their account safely and securely over the internet. "The key was to keep it simple and not ask the member to have to enroll in some pro gram but just be able to see their data." stated Carl Badgett, Vice President of Information Services at Sawnee. "Quick View" pro vides the user with their cur rent account balance, the total account balance including any arrears, information about col lection activities that may apply and other important data. Sawnee recognizes that the web is becoming an increas ingly important tool in every one's daily life and wants to be a leader in bringing effi cient and effective web based tools to its members. "Quick View" can be found in the "My Account" section of Sawnee's web site. “This is an extremely seri ous disease,” said Irvin. “This has the potential to be more devastating than Chestnut Blight, which wiped out virtu ally all stands of native American chestnut in the 19305," he said.