About Pickens County progress. (Jasper, Ga.) 1899-current | View Entire Issue (March 17, 2005)
Front - March 17 3/15/05 5:16 PM Page 1 Diamond Dragons Open Season With Two Wins Pickens High Golf, Track and Tennis Teams Open Spring Season / Page 1C MARCH 17, 2005 VOLUME 117 NUMBER 45 JASPER, GEORGIA 30143 USPS 431-820 THREE SECTIONS 58 PAGES PLUS SUPPLEMENTS Former commissioner’s complaints dismissed by state election board But concerns expressed over voter purge process Briefly. . . Art & Antiques In the Garden (Don’tMiss It) The Pickens County Master Gardeners will be hosting the third annual Art & Antiques in the Garden Show this Saturday. To get your new gardening sea son underway, a record number of vendors will offer a variety of plants. And for those who want to add some extra interest to their gardens, an assortment of crafts and garden art will also be featured. Page 9B New Wheels For Animal Rescue (You Can’t Miss It) Pickens Animal Rescue isn’t driving around town unnoticed any longer. Thanks to World Signs in Jasper, Ani mal Rescue volunteers and foster pets are now riding in a piece of mobile art. Animal Rescue also has new members on their board of directors. They have a number of events planned for the coming year and all residents interested in assisting with the Animal Rescue projects are invited to get involved. Page 6A Exploring Genealogy Are you interested in doing family history but don’t know where to begin? A new group will be meeting at the Pickens County Library to help with genealogy research problems. The first meeting of Genealo gy Explorers is set for this Saturday. Page 6B Deaths M.W. Luckey, Sr Bess Gardner Carl Chumley Clara Barnes Myrtle Pilcher Millie Hogan Rocky Delay, Sr Gertrude Carringer OBITUARIES ... .See Page 8A Weather By WILLIAM DILBECK Tuesday HI 42 LOW 28 RAIN .00 Wednesday 41 29 .06 Thursday 50 32 .00 Friday 55 31 .00 Saturday 69 35 .00 Sunday 72 42 .52 Monday 58 34 .00 Visit Us On The Web www.pickensprogress .com The Progress is printed in part on recycled newsprint and is recyclable By Michael Moore The Georgia election board last Wednesday was satisfied with the way the Pickens County elections office “cleaned up” its voter regis tration lists in 2003. But one mem ber expressed concern that close to ten percent of voters could legally be purged from the rolls at one time. Other allegations filed with the state board were found to be either lacking evidence or outside the board’s jurisdiction, according to staff attorney Clifford Tatum. The board voted unanimously to close the case against Pickens County supervisor of elections Kim Kelley. A list of six complaints was filed in November 2004 by former com missioner Bill Newton, who lost his bid for a second term last year by By Michael Moore Students and faculty were praised with recognition at this month’s regular Pickens County board of education meeting Thurs day, before the final contract for a new baseball locker room was approved. The board first recognized Traci Buckingham as the winner of the 2005 Big Dragon Heart award. Each year the award is given to a faculty member who “goes above and beyond the call,” said Chair man Mark Mitton. Buckingham is a teacher of Eng lish as a second language (ESL). 19 votes in a runoff. Tatum said the state election office sent an investigator to Pick ens to look into the allegations. The chief complaint had to do with a list of about 1,400 Pickens County voters who were purged by Kelley at the instruction of the local board of elections in January 2003. At the meeting. State board members questioned Kelley exten sively about how she composed the list of electors to be challenged and then removed from the rolls. Kelley said the purge was part of an effort to reorganize the “mess” that voter registration lists were in when she joined the Pick ens County office in 2001. She said she compared the voter rolls to dif ferent databases to determine bad Continued on page 5A She received this year’s award for “quietly supporting all non-English speaking students in our school system,” Mitton said. “She has spent hours of her own time translating for Spanish-speak ing parents, to guide them through the red tape of living in an English- speaking world,” said Mitton. “She is a mentor to each and every one of her students.” Pickens High School (PHS) principal Lloyd Shaddix recognized this year’s four state qualifiers on the PHS wrestling team. This year’s qualifiers were: Continued on page 5A Jennifer Moorer / Photos Health Department Manager Lois Bryant standing beside the panda bear mural says the color paintings give children something to look at and talk about. The inset shows one of the painted ceiling tiles. Big Canoe Chapel PaintFest brightens Health Department By Jennifer Moorer, Public Information Officer, N. GA Health District Butterflies are elusive crea tures, but thanks to volunteers of the annual Big Canoe Chapel PaintFest, several have been art fully captured on the ceiling of the Pickens County Health Depart ment. For fifteen years, Big Canoe Chapel, in affiliation with the Foundation for Hospital Art, has sponsored the local PaintFest through which participating vol unteers produce artwork for local clinical facilities. This year, vol unteers painted beautiful butter flies on the ceiling tiles of the Continued on page 13A $90.000 locker room approved School board recognizes teacher, students Discussing the Pickens County case (l-r): State election board members Randy Evans, Jeff Israel and Secretary of State Cathy Cox. Planning commission hears plans for Amicalola Scenic Byway John Edwards, vice-chair of the Scenic Byway Committee, at the Burnt Mountain overlook which will be on the route. By Christie Pool Touting improvements in nature appreciation and historical educa tion, tourism and recreation, repre sentatives working on a project to bring a scenic byway through the county spoke to members of the Pickens County Planning Commis sion Monday night. John Edwards and Don Wells co-chair the byway project, spon sored by the chambers of commerce in Pickens and Dawson counties. Edwards and Wells told commis sion members the byway will start in downtown Jasper and go up Burnt Mountain Road to Hwy. 136. It will follow 136 westward to Talk ing Rock and extend to the county line. The byway will also go east along Hwy. 136 into Dawson Coun ty. At the junction with State Hwy. 183, the scenic route splits into two prongs. One runs southeast down Hwy 183 to terminate at Daw- sonville. The second fork follows 183 northward to connect with State Route 52 and continue past Amicalola Falls State Park. Beyond the park, the byway returns to Hwy. 136 via Bailey Waters Road. The scenic byway continues along 136 to the Etowah River Road where it jogs southwest on to Hwy 53 to ter minate finally at Georgia 400. According to Edwards the DOT has ruled the road does have “intrinsic qualities that should be protected and enhanced.” The proj ect seeks to “identify, preserve, pro mote and protect treasured corri dors throughout the state.” “The purpose is to preserve the treasures of the corridor - things that are important to the people and Continued on page 4A Marble Hill man dies in wreck A Marble Hill man died from injuries he sustained in a single car accident during early morning hours Tuesday. Benny Wofford, 53, of Marble Hill died after he was thrown from the pickup truck he was driving along Hwy. 53. According to Major Allen Wigington with the Pickens County Sheriff’s Department, Wof ford was driving on 53 near Foothills Community Church when the truck went off the road and overturned. Wofford was the sole occupant. The call to 911 came in around 1 a.m., Wigington said, and author ities were dispatched to the scene. Wofford was transported to Piedmont Mountainside Hospital where he was later pronounced dead, according to sheriff reports. Wigington said Wofford was apparently not wearing a seat belt. Local group leads effort to mark Old Federal Road By Jeff Warren The Old Federal Road across Pickens County could soon come out of hiding. Efforts of the Georgia Trail of Tears Association have paved the way for a marked trail route and highway driving tour. Doug Mabry heads the local Trail of Tears Association's research committee. Mabry has compiled extensive information about the Federal Road, its route and history, by meticulous digging at the state archives. Mabry shared his findings last Saturday morning at the Jasper Family Steakhouse during a regular meeting of the Georgia Trail of Tears Association. "The Federal Road into Indian lands was a high priority of Presi dent Thomas Jefferson," Mabry said. "More than just a transporta tion route, it was a catalyst for change, planned change." Mabry said, just after 1800, the road tracked northwest from the river port of Augusta on the Savan nah River. At the Chattahoochee River, the road crossed into lands of the Cherokee Nation. Continuing through Harnageville (Tate) and Pickens County, the road ran north to the area around Knoxville, Ten nessee. Damon Howell/Photo Maybe the first in a long line of markers. Neither forgotten nor quite gone, sections of the Old Fed eral Road soon will be marked by Georgia DOT in a preservation project. The old route, a military thoroughfare, postal road and trade route also served as the first leg of the Cherokee exodus. Mabry said the Treaty of Tellico, signed by the Cherokee in 1805, permitted a new extension of the road from Spring Place in Murray County. This new fork struck north west from Spring Place to Ross's Landing (Chattanooga) and onward to Nashville, Tennessee. For the Cherokee, Mabry said, the Federal Road runs "like a com mon thread through a Greek tragedy". Just 33 years after approval of the Federal Road exten sion, the Cherokee traipsed out along the same highway on their journey to Oklahoma. The home of Cherokee leader James Vann, near the route of the old Federal Road in Murray County, is preserved today as a state historic site. Mabry said Vann, a half-blood Cherokee, cooperated with Federal authorities in the building of the road. A period letter by a federal official, regarding Vann, said the Cherokee leader was influencing other Cherokees to favor road con struction while keeping his close cooperation with the federals a secret. For his help, the government let Vann award contracts for taverns and ferries along the route. Vann ran a ferry and tavern himself and prospered from the trade. Ironically, a murderer later shot Vann outside a tavern. Mabry said opening the Federal Road into Tennessee established a major trade route from that frontier section to Augusta on the Savannah Continued on page 13A
