Pickens County progress. (Jasper, Ga.) 1899-current, November 07, 2013, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextCOPYRIGHT-THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2013 • VOLUME 126 NUMBER 28 • Veteran’s Day parade and ceremony Monday, Nov. 11 Page 4A Have your November booked up? Check out our calendar Page 6B JASPER, GEORGIA • 750 Vidian Vrignvs E 5 Taste of Pickens fundraising event this Saturday Page 19A If you would like to subscribe call 706-253-2457 or fill out a form at pickensproqress.com Meth, marijuana, cash seized at Nelson home Eight arrested following undercover investigation By Christie Pool Staff writer Christie@pickensprogressonline.com In addition to methampheta- mine, marijuana and an assort ment of prescription pills, local drug task force agents seized thousands of dollars during a raid Thursday. With the help of a SWAT team from Cherokee County, drug task force agents arrested Michael Jones Thursday for dis tributing methamphetamine. Two of his suppliers were also arrested along with five others following an undercover inves tigation. After waiting for the suppli ers to arrive on the scene, drug agents executed a search war rant at Jones’ mother’s home at Kennesaw Avenue in Nelson. There they confiscated three grams of methamphetamine, five grams of marijuana, multi ple schedule IV pills, over $3,000 in cash, two guns and other items suspected stolen from the Canton and Ball Ground areas, according to Brandon Owens, director of the Zell Miller Drug Task Force. “The main target was Michael Jones who we had heard was back in town and dis tributing again,” Owens said. “We conducted an undercover investigation and following a hand to hand transaction ar rested him and identified two of his suppliers,” the commander said. Jerry Parker, 37 of Cherokee, and Michael Blake Davis, 29 of Cherokee and Pickens, were both charged with possession of methamphetamine and schedule IV pills. Owens said officers also confiscated Xanax, Methadone and Clonazepam at the resi dence. Also arrested were: Andrea Dianne Roper, 19, for posses sion of methamphetamine; Sarah Renee Jones, 48, posses sion of marijuana and party to a crime; Rene Alexandria Free man, 19, possession of metham phetamine; Johnathon Cole, 27, possession of methampheta mine; and Christopher Dante Mason, 26, possession of methamphetamine and posses sion of schedule II and IV drugs. See Drugs, Page 8A An undercover investigation by the Zell Miller Drug Task Force led to several arrests and the seizure of three grams of methamphetamine, five grams of marijuana and thousands of dollars from a Nelson home last week. 15 wild boars captured More still roaming Big Canoe Cain s Wildlife Removal / Photo A group of four wild boars captured Monday in Big Canoe; efforts continue to trap a second group in the gated community. By Dan Pool Editor dpool@pickensprogressonline.com Last Wednesday Cain’s Wildlife Removal, hauled the 11th wild boar out of Big Canoe after they were contracted by the community’s property owner association to begin trap ping in October. Then earlier this week they caught four more of the feral pigs including one reddish col ored pig. It is thought the cap ture of four removes one complete group of pigs from the gated community, but at least one more group and possibly two are still rooting in the up scale mountain community. Mike Cain of Cain’s Wildlife Removal thought there were up to 30 wild pigs there to start with, divided into at least two sounders (technical name for a group of pigs). The adult wild pigs were caught in one of the Cain’s Wildlife Removal (CWR) satel lite traps visible from Black Bear Ridge road. The pigs are tempted into the cage by a mal odorous mixture of com, cool- aid and other ingredients especially concocted for CWR’s wild hog recipe (they have dif ferent mixtures for bears). On Wednesday, the Progress went along to check out CWR’s work. Moving the pigs to a cage on a trailer for transport was not easy with a heavy-duty trap and the 150-pound ill-tempered ani Obituaries - Page 18A Barbara Anderson Billy Reeves, Jr. Douglas Burch Mike Turner Tamara Hunter Virginia Walker mal ramming the sides of the cage whenever someone got too close. But it was accomplished with little drama (a video of the transfer is available at www.pick- ensprogress.com). Once the CWR crew had the pig loaded and ready to transport, Cain and employee Tim Reddin gave each other a fist-pump, with Cain declaring, “That’s how you wrangle a wild boar.” See Boars, Page 8A Schools e-mail up and running after 10-day outage By Christie Pool Staff writer Christie@pickensprogressonIine.com Pickens teachers can again communicate by e-mail fol lowing 10 days of limited on line contact with other teachers and parents, after the school system let their @pick- enscountyschools.org domain expire. According to Sherry Mar tin, federal programs director, as of Tuesday all emails are operating following the re newal of the school system’s domain. The domain had been owned by the school system for 10 years but the latest re newal notice was not received, she said. All teachers also have an older @pickens.kl2.ga.us ad dress, that was not affected by the recent shut-down because it is managed separately but the older e-mail account had been largely replaced by the new pickenscountyschools ac counts. “They simply didn’t think about using [the older ac counts],” Martin said. “All email is always available on @pickens.kl2.ga.us but both are working now.” In July, the local school began changing to the @pick- enscountyschools.org ac counts based on a Google server from their older First Class server account. The move over to Google, Martin said, is for the benefit of students and to save money, as First Class was “becoming cost prohibitive”. “A lot of students in middle and high school can use Google apps for free and once they establish an account they can carry it with them the rest of their life,” Martin said. “If a student creates a Word docu ment or PowerPoint, all of these documents can carry back and forth and they can open them in a Google app and don’t have to buy a pro gram.” Martin said the software and applications on the Google server should benefit teachers and students. “It’s pretty universal and it fits all needs,” she said. 2013 Teacher of Year named Robyn Pitkins (center) with Dr. Carlton Wilson, principal of Jasper Elementary, and Superintendent Lula Mae Perry. By Eileen Steinhauer Progress Contributor Pickens County School Dis trict named Robyn Pitkins of Jasper Elementary School this year’s countywide Teacher of the Year at a banquet held at Chatta hoochee Technical College Mon day. Pitkins was selected the county winner from a group of seven Teacher of the Year hon- orees, one from each of the pub lic schools. “This is an amazing honor. I am so humbled by this award considering that teaching is re ally a team effort and, at the end of the day, it is the kids who make us great,” said Pitkins upon receiving her award. All of the Teacher of the Year recipients from each Pickens County School were recognized during the banquet. Those recog nized were Kr istine Elrod, Har mony Elementary; Deanna Edwards, Hill City Elementary; Mallory Childers, Tate Elemen tary; Jesse Scott, Jasper Middle; Dr. Rosemary Nelson, Pickens County Middle; and Todd Geren, See Pitkins, Page 8A County wraps up 2013 paving, 2014 planning underway Damon Howell / Photo County road crews paved Apple Orchard Road in south Pickens last week. Paving for the year is being wrapped up due to drop ping temperatures. Asphalt can not be spread when colder weather arrives. By Angela Reinhardt Staff writer areinhardt@pickensprogressonline.com At the most recent board of commis sioner meeting, Pickens House Rep. Rick Jasperse presented a $41,000 check to the county for road damage caused by early- August flash flooding. The money is part of reimbursement contingency funding that comes through Georgia DOTs Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant (LMIG). “The DOT has their regular LMIG funding, but there is also money there for emergency situations and the flooding qualified,” said Pickens County Road De partment Director Greg Collis. Collis said damage was mainly to pipes that run under Sutton Road, Price Creek Road, Fitts Road and Jones Road. “We had to replace pipes that washed completely out,” Collis said. “Some of them we replaced with bigger pipes, and some of them we had to replace twice [re ferring to the unprecedented two flash floods within a week of each other].” Collis said in addition to repairs to flood damaged roads, 2013 paving proj ects funded under the regular LMIG pro gram are nearly completed as well. This past week crews paved a portion of Apple Orchard Road from Canton Highway to the Nelson city limit sign, ap proximately 1.4 miles. Representatives from Nelson see County, Page 8A www.PickensProgress.com www.facebook.com/PickensProgress www.Twitter.com/PickensProgress o Part of this newspaper is made up of recycled newsprint and is recyclable.

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Pickens County progress. (Jasper, Ga.) 1899-current, November 07, 2013, Image 1