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Index
Obituaries 3
Opinion 4
News 5
Around the County 6
Sheriff's Report 8
Legals 8
Calendar 9
Sports 10-11
The
Inside
Oglethorpe County
basketball player
Javaun Pittard was
named MVP at the
summer league camp
the Patriots hosted at
OCHS last week.
... Page 10
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Oglethorpe Echo
Volume 149, Number 40
July 6, 2023 ■ Oglethorpe County, Georgia
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JULY 4 CELEBRATION
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TANYA EIDSON/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO
Folks packed Bryan Park to check out the vendors and watch fireworks at the Oglethorpe County
Recreation Department's fifth annual 4th of July Celebration on Tuesday. Vendors, including orga
nizations from around the county, and food trucks were part of the attraction before the fireworks
started at dark.
TANYA EIDSON/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO
Irfan Green, Carnesha Green, Nathan Green, Ken-
zie Jackson, Isaiah Green and Noah Green enjoy
the holiday celebration.
EDDIE SACKETT/FORTHE OGLETHORPE ECHO
Sue Robertson,Tanya Eidson, Donna Churchill,
Cheryl Sackett and Shaylynn Stevenson display
their patriotic colors at Bryan Park.
Property values
part of formula
to figure taxes
By Julianne Akers
The Oglethorpe Echo
The appraisal notices that ar
rived in mailboxes last week
showed a 22.5% av
erage increase in
property values in
Oglethorpe County.
The official tax bills,
adjusted for the new
millage rate, will be
sent out this fall.
“We’ve had to raise
values again, pret
ty considerably,”
said Kem Caldwell,
chief appraiser of the
Oglethorpe County Tax Asses
sor’s Office.
The property values listed in
the assessments sent last week
are decided by market values,
not the county. The county then
determines the millage rate af
ter the completion of the coun
ty budget process, which is un
derway.
That budget will soon be open
for public input, Oglethorpe
County District 5 Commission
er Tracy Norman said.
“We can actually have hear
ings on the budget that are open
and people can come and look at
those,” he said. “We
go over (it), and we’ll
answer questions for
them.”
Once the budget is
finalized, this year’s
millage rate can be de
cided “based on the
value of the digest,”
said Norman, who
said this usually oc
curs in late July or Au
gust, but could be as
late as September.
“Our county’s somewhat
unique,” he said. “We only
need about a third. It’s about
37-38% of our (county) budget
that comes from property tax.
The rest comes from sales tax,
other fees, and then we have
enterprise departments, such as
the landfill that actually make
See PROPERTY, Page 7
Tracy Norman
HOW TO FILE A PROPERTY TAX APPEAL
You must file a property tax appeal in writing no later than 45 days after
the date of the tax assessment notice. Appeal forms can be found at
http://dor.georgia.gov/documents/property-tax-appeal-assessment-form.
There are three appeal methods:
1. County Board of Equalization (value, uniformity, denial of exemption
or taxibility)
2. Arbitration (value)
3. County Hearing Officer (value or uniformity, on non-homestead real
property or wireless personal property valued, in excess of $500,000)
LILLY KERSH/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO
Winsett helps shine light on
shortage of Braille translators
MOLLY LINDER/THE OGLETHORPE ECHO
Fingers read Braille on a page. Debbie Winsett is a local translator
and teacher, but there's a shortage of people in the profession at
the national level.
Resident: Feral hogs
make way to Lexington
In high
demand
By Molly Linder
and Olivia Shapiro
The Oglethorpe Echo
At the bottom of every email
Crawford resident Debbie Winsett
sends, she includes a quote from
Helen Keller’s book “Light in My
Darkness”: “There is no better way
to thank God for your sight than
by giving a helping hand to some
one in the dark.”
By taking words on a page and
converting them to lifted cells,
Winsett works with schools in
the county and around the U.S. to
make textbooks accessible to stu
dents who are visually impaired.
These students have long relied
on Braille as an essential tool for
reading and writing, but the short
age of trained Braille teachers and
transcribers has raised concerns
about the future of this skill.
According to the National Fed
eration of the Blind, fewer than
10% of blind people in the U.S.
read Braille.
With the number of Braille
learners, readers and transcrib
ers dwindling, it begs the ques
tion: What other tools are avail
able and how important is
Braille?
Underlying issues
The shortage of Braille teachers
and transcribers is due, in part, to
the fact that these professions are
not well known. Many don’t con
sider it as a potential career path,
according to the NFB.
The only way to be certified is
through the Library of Congress.
“It took me two years to get my
transcriber certification through
the Library of Congress. Then,
I had to do another one in 2015,
they went to what’s called UEB
(Unified English Braille),” Winsett
said. “They changed a lot of it, and
I had to take another course and
another test.”
See BRAILLE, Page 2
By Garrett Kicklighter
The Oglethorpe Echo
Lexington resident Kathrine
Clark has noticed feral hog
activity in downtown Lexing
ton.
Clark and her husband live
on Dupree Street, about a block
from Highway 78, and a few
weeks ago, she said she noticed
digging in her flower beds and
droppings on her lawn.
“We’re like, ‘Huh? It must be
hogs,’ ” Clark said.
Clark said a week passed and
the hogs had dealt more damage.
“They knocked over a bunch
of fences that we put up to pro
tect the camellias from deer.
(They’ve) gotten smart enough
to flip those over and get into the
rich soil,” Clark said.
Clark said Lexington May
or Craig Snow is working on so
lutions. He was unavailable for
comment.
I See HOGS. Page 5 I
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Lexington resident Kathrine Clark began noticing her garden
being uprooted a few weeks ago. She concluded hogs were the
culprit.
:
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Home, Farm or Land?
Give us a call for a free
market analysis of what your
property could bring!
Call or text
706-424-2472
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