Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, January 6, 2022 | Volume 134 Number 38 | Jasper, Georgia | 24 pages, 2 sections | Published Weekly | $1.00
Bogus
911 call
causes
scrambled
scene at
Jasper
restaurant
By Angela Reinhardt
Staff Writer
areinhardt@pickensprogress.com
What would you like
with your eggs and toast?
Probably not a side of po
lice officers who, unbe
knownst to them at the
time, were responding to a
falsified report of an
armed man at a Jasper
restaurant.
Around 8:20 a.m. on
New Year’s Eve, Friday,
Dec. 31, officers were dis
patched to a suspicious
persons call at The Car
riage House on Main
Street. According to
Jasper’s Interim Police
Chief Matt Dawkins, an
anonymous third party
contacted 911 to report
that a man dining inside
was armed and that he
was threatening to shoot
up the restaurant.
Upon arriving the re
sponding officer asked an
employee if she knew the
person, a 21-year-old
Jasper man. She pointed
him out, seated at a table
with two other people.
The employee also stated
that it appeared the man
might have a gun in his
lap, which later turned out
to be a black bag that was
mistaken for a firearm.
Backup was requested and
officers approached the
subject and asked him to
stand up, which resulted
in some verbal pushback.
The man asked why he
was being asked to stand
up, and an officer told him
because he asked him to.
“[He] then asked if it
was a lawful order and I
told him “Yes, it was law
ful order,”’ the responding
officer states in the report.
“[He] stood up and I
grabbed the black bag in
his lap and then [he] was
placed in handcuffs for
our safety.”
The man asked officers
if they were concerned
about the public seeing
what they were doing to
him, and told people in the
restaurant to get their
phones out and record the
incident. Officers then es-
See Bogus call on 10A
Retired federal agent sets
sights on senior scammers
Joe Gavalis of the North Georgia
Elder Abuse Task Force Foundation.
By Mark Millican
Contributing Writer
Joe Gavalis was speaking at a sem
inar in a north Georgia town on scams
targeting seniors when he noticed one
attendee was becoming tearful.
“She came up afterwards and was
crying,” said Gavalis, a retired federal
agent who spent a career fighting or
ganized crime and labor racketeering.
“I said, 'Are you OK?' and she said,
'You really hit home with me.' Her sis
ter had called her and said she'd won
the Publishers Clearinghouse (sweep-
stakes) and they were going to be com
ing with the TV cameras and balloons
and everything.”
The woman related to Gavalis that
she'd asked her sister how she knew
she'd won.
“(The sister) said they'd called and
told her how to pay the taxes on the
money up front, so she paid $20,000,”
Gavalis shared. “That was a month be
fore the meeting where she came up to
me.”
The woman tried to tell her sister
she hadn't won because she never en
tered the sweepstakes, he continued,
but the sister called back just two days
before the seminar and said, “I want to
make sure you plan next Tuesday to be
the first one to ride in my new Mer
cedes.” The sister “knew it was for
real” since the Mercedes was included
in the prizes.
“They gave me a description of the
car and everything, and they're coming
right here and I want you to be here
when they come,” the woman said her
sister told her. When the woman told
her sister, “Please don't tell me you had
to pay more,” her sister responded, “Of
course I did! How else do you think
you get the car transported from Eu
rope to here?”
When the woman asked her sister
how much she paid on the second call,
it was an additional $20,000.
“So there's $40,000 lost, and it hap
pened just right here in our area,” said
Gavalis, who now works through the
North Georgia Elder Abuse Task Force
Justin Fellenbaum hired as
County Extension Agent
By Alex Goble
Staff Writer
agoble@pickensprogress.com
ering both agriculture, natural re
sources and the 4-H Club.
The position has sat empty for
nearly two years owing to a combina-
Justin Fellenbaum, a native of Pick- tion of Covid complications and budget
ens County, stepped into the county’s cuts . This has caused a large amount of
extension agent role on Tuesday, cov- shrink in the program across all areas
Pickens native Justin Fellenbaum plans to restore the 4-H program here
to the higher standards he saw as a student in the program.
Downtown grazing with Edible Jasper
Foundation he helped found.
The nonprofit agency can be
found on Facebook, and its
purpose is “to help tackle the
rising challenge of elder abuse
in our state by helping to foster
collaboration amongst and be
tween public and private agen
cies that deal with elder abuse.”
Gavalis has spoken to more
than 6,000 seniors in the last 10
years on physical, institutional
and financial exploitation of
seniors, and coordinates with
law enforcement jurisdictions
See Scammers on 10A
and the gaps left behind could not be
filled fully by volunteers. It’s inside
those gaps that Justin plans on rebuild
ing. His main focus now is to grow the
4-H program back to what it used to be
and to be available for whatever agri
cultural needs that people would like
met across the county.
“I started with 4-H in 5th grade and
stayed with it all the way thought high
school graduation,” said Fellenbaum.
“Ever since I joined 4-H this is what I
wanted to do. I loved the friends, the
activities, and I’ve always been an out
door person, so I love the agricultural
side as well.”
He looks to Rick Jasperse, our cur
rent member of the Georgia House of
Representatives and former Pickens
County Extension Agent, as an exam
ple of something to work towards and
hopes to lift the program up to the lev
els he remembers from his time in 4-H.
Justin attended Abraham Baldwin
College, where he received a Bache
lor’s of Science in Agriculture, then
earned a Master’s of Science from the
University of Tennessee in Agricultural
Leadership, Education, and Communi
cations. He will be working at the Ex
tension Office located on Veterans
Memorial Boulevard (in the building
shared with the chamber of commerce)
on weekdays if you have 4-H or agri
cultural questions.
Welcome
The Progress
welcomes new
reporter/staff
member Alex
Goble Page11A
Public Safety
Restaurant
Reports from
Nov. 5 to Dec. 21
Page 2A
Crime
By Dan Pool
Editor
dpool@piekensprogress.com
Anyone walking around
Jasper looking for a healthy
snack might peek behind the
Kirby-Quinton Cabin, next
to the Old Jail, on North
Main.
With all the rain and
mostly warm winter thus far,
a luxuriously green stand of
lettuce was growing last
week.
Planted by Edible Jasper,
an offshoot of Keep Pickens
Beautiful (KPB), the lettuce
ranch dressing. The adjacent
cabbage/kale hybrid is a
bright purple but probably
not ready for grazing just
yet. The radishes and beets
are running way behind.
Herbs, some that were
planted years ago at the his
toric site, are also present
with small signs identifying
them.
So, bon appetit, a free
lunch.
KPB President and long
time leader of Edible Jasper
Vered Kleinberger said they
were excited to get the gar
den spot behind the jail
growing this year, so they
rushed to get plants in the
ground. The edible plants
group partnered with the
Pickens Historical Society to
create the garden spot with
the idea to make it more pe
riod correct in future seasons
- kale wasn’t a ubiquitous
superfood until recently.
The plant and history
folks will research what
would have been growing
See Edible Jasper on 10A
See the latest
crime news from
Pickens
Sheriff’s Beat
Page 5B
Obituaries - 8A
• Alton Beck Sr.
• Hobbie Kirk
• James Delay
• Jim Quinton
• Marion Harris
• Mary Pendley
• Nancy Young
• Wayne Brown
Contact Us
94 North Main Street
Jasper, Ga. 30143
706-253-2457
www.pickensprogress.com
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Vered Kleinberger and Jenna Prince-Farmer of Edible Jasper get their hands dirty
planting a variety of edible plants at the Kirby-Quinton Cabin.
Bright purple cabbage and lush lettuce are among the
plants at the historic cabin, free for picking when ripe.
