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Volume 150
CRAWFORDVILLE, GA 30631 TALIAFERRO COUNTY, MAY 17, 2024
NUMBER 20
Deese honored by
Delta Airlines
Felicia Deese was a flight
attendant for Delta Airlines for
40 years. She was a faithful
and loyal employee and was
a member of the Chairman’s
Club. Felicia was chosen by the
Chairman’s Club to fly to France
with Delta and pick up an Airbus
to bring back to Atlanta, Georgia.
The Airbus will be used to
transport American athletes to
and from the summer Olympics.
She is the wife of the
Reverend Mike Deese; they live
in Roswell, Georgia, and is the
daughter of Robert Harold and
Myrtle Kendrick of Crawfordville.
Taliaferro County
Crawfordville, (Jj\
September 2,2024
The Labor Day planning committee is busy planning for this
year’s event.
Contact Randy Stewart if you would like to support the planning
of or the
Labor Day event activities, randyhstewart@aol.com phone or
Text: 734-904-6010.
A H Stephens Historic
State Park Events
There is lots going on at the
park this month. Be sure and
mark your calendars for these
fun events.
May 17, 7:30PM until 9:30PM,
Movie Night on Lake Liberty
Join us for a movie for the
family. Bring spare change for
Crawfordville
Baptist pastor
retiring
Nelson and Laura Goddard
are retiring as pastor and wife
from Crawfordville Baptist
Church. They both have health
issues and have moved to their
mountain house in Hiawassee,
Georgia. A BBQ luncheon
to honor them will be May
26 immediately after worship
services at noon. Come and
wish them well in this new phase
in their lives.
popcorn, sno-cones and drinks.
$5 parking fee required.
May 18, 1PM, Craft a Bird
Feeder
Fashion a lovely birdhouse
with supplies provided for a $3
fee. Parking fee is $5.
Springfield
Baptist Church
Anniversary
The Springfield Baptist
Church invites everyone to
fellowship with them in their
Church Anniversary Service on
May 26, 2024, at 2:00 PM.
Their guest minister will be
Dr. Reginal Hunter, Pastor of the
New Springhill Baptist Church,
in Philomath, GA. Please join
them, they look forward to the
fellowship.
Choir from New Springhill
Baptist Church will render the
Iron Horse landmark to be removed for
restoration this summer
The Iron Horse is a popular location for tourists and students of
UGA to stop and take pictures, especially when the sunflower
field around the sculpture is in bloom.
The Iron Horse, a statue
currently located along Highway
15, in Greene County just a
short 15 minute drive from
Greensboro, will be removed
to undergo restoration by local
conservator Amy Abbe over
the summer, according to a
University of Georgia press
release. The statue will be
removed soon after spring
graduation ceremonies and is
likely to return in late summer.
The 12-foot, two-ton
sculpture made from welded
pieces of boilerplate steel was
created in 1954 by Abbott
Pattison, a visiting artist-in-
residence from Chicago who
was working at UGA as part
of a Rockefeller grant. The
sculpture was originally placed
in front of UGA’s Reed Hall.
After continuous vandalism by
students, the sculpture was
moved off campus to its current
plot of land, owned at the time by
L.C. Curtis of UGA’s Horticulture
Department, in 1959.
The land has since been sold
to UGA and is home to the Iron
Horse Plant Sciences Farm.
Mail service delays grand
jury proceedings
District Attorney now complaining to Georgia’s US senators about
problem in Greene and Wilkinson counties
BY BILLY W. HOBBS, Herald-Journal Correspondent
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit
District Attorney T. Wright
Barksdale III is extremely upset
about the delay of mail by the
U.S. Postal Service these days.
The latest situation prevented
grand jury proceedings from
going forward as planned this
week in Greene County.
Mail service delays are
continuing to be a major
problem for people in all walks
of life in Georgia.
And it doesn’t appear the
problem is getting any better.
In fact, those problems are
now beginning to trickle down
from residential and business
owner postal customers to local
and state court systems.
Earlier this week in Greene
County, Ocmulgee Judicial
Circuit District Attorney T. Wright
Barksdale III had planned
to present nearly 40 felony
criminal cases to members of
the Greene County grand jury.
But because jurors did not
receive their jury summons in
the mail.theydid not appear and
engage in those proceedings.
Barksdale was furious after
learning what caused such a
setback.
“It amazes me that with all of
the technology that we have and
all of the advances that we have
made in society that the Pony
Express was more effective
with the delivery of the mail
than our current United States
Postal Service,” Barksdale told
The Union-Recorder during a
telephone interview Thursday
morning.
He said he didn’t fully
Music.
Dinner will be served
Thanks,
James E. Wright, Sr., Pastor
Dea. Edward J. Sigman, Jr.,
Chairman of Deacons Board
understand what is going on
with the U.S. Postal Service as
far as the delays with the mail
service, but it is certainly a lack
of efficiency and competency.
“And it’s now become more
than an inconvenience for
the citizens of the Ocmulgee
Judicial Circuit and has actually
possibly put one community
at-risk and in danger because
there are going to be people in
Greene County that have been
locked up for more than 90 days
who will be entitled to a bond,”
Barksdale said. “And a judge
will have to give them a bond.”
He said should those
suspects be able to post a bond,
they would be back out on the
streets instead of the county jail.
Barksdale said in addition to
those individuals being entitled
to a bond that something else
to consider as a result of the
delayed mail service that his
office extended what he said
was an enormous amount
of man hours preparing the
indictments in Greene County.
“And there was a total of
about 40 such cases - all of
which were felony cases,” the
district attorney said.
In retrospect, he said his staff
could have been doing other
work.
“We could have used those
man hours and resources doing
something else, and because
this happened it took away
from this community, which we
already are handcuffed by a lack
of resources and manpower,”
Barksdale said. “So, we didn’t
just miss deadlines with the
grand jury proceedings in
Greene County because of the
Postal Service, their lackluster
performance in doing just the
basic took away man hours
from the sheriff’s office and the
police department, as well as
the district attorney’s office.”
He said what the Postal
Service did was inexcusable.
“I find it to be head
scratching; I’m frustrated and
Greene County Superior Court
Clerk Deborah Jackson is
also frustrated by all of this,”
Barksdale said. “And I just
got off the phone with Judge
(Brenda H.) Trammell.”
She is the chief judge of the
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit.
Jackson mailed out the jury
summons on April 12, but they
never reached the mailboxes of
those they were intended for.
“We may have to end up
asking the sheriff to hand-
deliver these summons to the
mailboxes of these individuals,”
Barksdale said. “And if the
sheriff does that, guess what?
Instead of being out patrolling
the county, they are strapped
with having to go out and serve
these summons when that’s the
job of the U.S. Postal Service.
And that further takes away
man hours and resources.”
The district attorney said
quite frankly, if the Postal
Service is this incapable of
doing its job then we might want
to consider just shutting it down.
Barksdale said he plans to talk
with Georgia U.S. Senators Jon
Ossoff and Raphael Warnock
about the mess regarding the
U.S. Postal Service.
“I’d mail them a letter, if I
thought they would get it,” he
added.
He plans to talk directly with
them or a close aide to see
if there is some way to make
things better within the Postal
Service and to ensure mail is
delivered in a better manner.
A similar thing happened
earlier this year in Wilkinson
County.
Again, prospective grand
jury members did not receive
their summons to appear in
Wilkinson County Superior
Court in Irwinton.
“But because Wilkinson
County is smaller than Greene
County, it resulted in only a
delay of about 2 14 hours from
us being able to convene the
grand jury for the 15 cases we
presented to them once they
arrived at the courthouse,”
Barksdale said.
The district attorney said
such was made possible by
Wilkinson County Superior
Court Clerk Kim Bentley
working closely with Sheriff
Richard Chatman and deputies
driving to the residences where
these jurors lived and delivering
the summons.
“We couldn’t have held grand
jury proceedings that day either
had it not been for the good
sheriff and his deputies putting
aside other things they could
have been doing to make sure
those grand jury proceedings
got carried out when they were
scheduled,” Barksdale said.
