About The wiregrass farmer. (Ashburn, Ga.) 1984-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 2008)
the Wiregrass Farmer Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008 ASHBURN, GA, 31714 VOL 106 - No. 47 • 500 /Around Town \ Subscribe to The Wiregrass Farmer Delivered in your mail every week. Call 567-3655 for information. Pix with Santa Treasure's Galore, Yard Sale, Turner County Elementary School Gym Saturday, Dec. 6, 8am-12 pm. Pictures with Santa. Family holiday traditions Sponsored by: Turner County Schools Parent Involvement Council Presented by Connie Brown and Javier Gonzalez Tuesday, Dec. 9 at 5:45 pm. Turner County Pr- K/Special Services Cafeteria Cookies and punch will be provided. Arts Council The Turner County Arts Council is proud to present Saturday with the Sarge. Saturday, Nov. 22, 7 PM First Baptist Church Social Hall. Pound cake & coffee will be served. Come hear little known Civil War facts as told by Charles Perry. Tickets $5, available from Arts Council Members. Chickenque T. C. High School will have a Chickenque, Thursday, Nov. 20. Tickets $7 each. Plates include: half grilled chicken, baked beans, chips, bread, dessert. Pick up at TCHS Cafeteria from 3:30-7 pm Nov. 20. Purchase tickets at the school or call 567-4377 for more info. We appreciate your support! Fruit sale Again this year Turner County 4-H will sponsor a Holiday Fruit Sale to raise money for the County pro gram. Fruit sale orders are being taken now and the fruit will be delivered in December. The fruit will be sold in whole boxes (4/5 bushel) or half boxes (2/5 bushel). The fruit selection will consist of Navel Oranges, Juice Oranges, Tangelos and Red Grapefruit. The cost for a whole box is $25.00 and half boxes will be $15. To place your order, call (229)567-3448. Christmas Parade Saturday, Dec. 13 6:00 Parade, line up at 5 at Civic Center Christmas Open House to follow downtown with merchants Theme - Home for the Holidays. Book signing Hugh Hardy will be signing his latest cookbook at Carroll’s Sausage on Thursday, Nov. 20, 1 lam-2 pm. (See BRIEFLY Page 6) Serving Turner County Since 1902 Property taxes due in January Delay in paying taxes until January may affect 2008 income tax deductions by Ben Baker Editor Property tax bills, which have generally come out well before now, are just hitting mail boxes. While the taxes are not due until 2009, if you plan to use your property taxes as a deduc tion on your income tax, you need to pay them by Dec. 31. For the great majority of expenses, only expenses paid before Dec. 31, 2008 may be deducted on income tax forms filed in 2009. Tax Commissioner Shirley Brock provided this written statement: To the taxpayers, although you may have already received your 2008 tax notice, please note that the tax is due by January 20, 2009. By law, you are allowed 60 days to pay your tax. Also, please know that as always we will continue to get your bills to your mortgage companies provided they have requested it or you have instructed us to do so. We will also inform them of the due date and include a reminder of payment if there is a need to pay by Dec. 31, 2008. You can check with us any time to see if your taxes have been paid by your mortgage company. Please call if you should need help in any way, 567-3636. DELAYED NOTICES The delay began back when Tax notices were mailed Monday. Taxes are due Jan. 20, 2009 the County Commission approved a county-wide prop erty re-evaluation. The evalua tion was necessary because property values here had slipped well below what actual values are, according to the state. Once the re-eval was done, the Tax Assessor’s office then began a long series of appeals from property owners who felt their property was value wrong. Until these appeals were mostly cleared up, the Tax Digest could not be generated. Once the Digest was known, this had to be sent to Atlanta for approval by state officials. Then, the Digest was sent back to Turner County and bills were prepared. A grateful community salutes veterans pH JROTC cadets laid a wreath at the Courthouse monument Tuesday at noon following the Veterans Day Ceremonies at the Civic Center. The wreath was also a centerpiece of the JROTC’s display at the Civic Center. Taps was played during the wreath-laying ceremony. by Ben Baker Editor Turner County gave grate ful thanks to the veterans and active servicemen and women at the annual JROTC Veterans Day ceremony at the Civic Center. The featured speaker for the event, Dr. Steven Greer, is a decorated combat veteran and FOX news consultant. “If you look in the eye of a veteran today, not just the vet eran, their spouse and children, there is something different. He has done all he can for his country. Now, he is asking you to help,” he said. Dr. Greer then had the assembled audience say “Thank You” to the veterans in the audience. “If you value what you have and I don’t care if you live in a trailer or the biggest house in Ashburn, you owe it to our vets,” he said. A CALL TO SERVICE He said the reasons for serving in the military vary, but his was personal. “I was serving so I could come back and hold my son, kiss my wife and hug my daughter,” he said. While that may sound like a selfish motive, the professors next words prove it was any thing but. “I guess we will be at war for the next several decades with terrorists,” he said. Dr. Greer said he went to Guantanamo and met with ter rorists there. What he told the audience he saw is “chilling.” “There are people the same age as you, 14, 15, 16, 17 who are training right now, waiting for the call to come to our country and kill us,” he said. “The only thing to stop those individuals are you on the left and you on the right.” Dr. Greer was urging stu dents to consider a career in the military, a career that would let them defend the United States against terrorists. “Some of you in this audi ence are going to have raise your right hand and pledge to defend our country,” he said. “We have got to fight. If we don’t fight, they are coming after us, right here in Ashburn. I saw it in their eyes.” Dr. Greer is a four-time competitor in the grueling Lieutenant General David E. Grange, Jr., Best Ranger Competition and the first Sergeant Major in the Army to compete. During his military career he served as a Ranger Squad Leader, Special Forces Weapons Sergeant, Special Forces Operations and Intelligence Sergeant, Special Forces A-Detachment Sergeant, Instructor at the Special Warfare Center, Commandant of the Light- fighters School, and Command Sergeant Major for two light infantry battalions and one infantry brigade. At 33 years of age he was selected as one of the youngest Sergeant Majors in Army history. THE CEREMONY JROTC cadets put on the annual event as a service pro ject. The morning program fea tured patriotic songs from the High School band and a slide presentation of veterans alive and dead and presently serving Turner County residents. (See VET Page 2) Looking for the origins of cosmic glass brings researcher to South Georgia LINDA SELLARS looks at the tektite in Hal Povenmire’s hand as he talks about it at the Wooten home in Turner County. by Ben Baker Editor They are rare. How rare? “For every one I find, I know I have walked over 50,” he said. “This is only the 10th tektite I have found in 38 years,” he said. He estimates he walked A TEKTITE next to a pen for size comparison. hundreds of miles for each one he’s found. In his books on the topic, he said when these tektites hit earth millions of years ago, it was probably one or two an acre. A tektite is a piece of glass formed by extreme heat and generally thought to be extra- earthly in origin. The two main schools of thought say tektites are either from meteors which hit earth or from a volcanic eruption on the moon. Best scientific evidence Tektites at a glance Georgiaite - tektites found in Georgia. Tektites appear black on the ground, but when held to a light, are actu ally green. Iron in the glass causes the green color. Aside from scientific study value, tektites don’t have a lot of mon etary value. says these tekities are around 35 million years old. Other tek tites from other places on the globe range in age from about the same to only a few thou sand years old. If the glass pieces are from the moon, there’s little telling which eruption sent them spewing to earth or why they landed where they did. If the tektites are meteoric, then most people point to a Chesapeake Bay impact as the likely cause of these small bits of glass. THE EXPERT Hal Povenmire has authored several books and numerous scholastic articles on the matter, detailing a stretch of Georgia where tektites have been found. His most recent visit to South Georgia saw him team up with Jerry Wooten and Jack Bodecker who took him to Wilcox County to search. It was there, walking through a wash, that he found a tektite, marking the first time one of the pieces of glass as ever been found in Wilcox County. “We had a ball,” Mr. Wooten said of the miles they walked looking for the glass fragments. Mr. Povenmire and his books present both sides of the scientific argument. For him self, he said he plans to contin ue researching this field until one theory is proven over another. It’s not a field a study which attracts a lot of people. (See TEKTITE Page 2) So if we are really concerned about generating more taxes, we ought to be investing in our people, not taking away the kinds of resources that con- tribute to their ability to become greater taxpayers in this country. Patrick J. Kennedy
