Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, May 19, 2022 | Volume 135 Number 5 | Jasper, Georgia | 26 pages, 2 sections | Published Weekly | $1.00
Ballot issue surfaces over order of names
Inside this Edition:
Voters go to the poll in commissioner and school board races Tuesday
By Dan Pool
Editor
dpool@pickensprogress.com
Ten days into early voting, candidate for west
end commission David Shouse noticed and
brought to the attention of the county board of
elections that the names in his race were not in the
proper alphabetical order. Voting will continue
with the ballot but it could create issues down the
road should someone choose to challenge the re
sults at the state level.
For the post 1 commission seat, names should
be listed as Brian Cleghom, David Shouse, Josh
Tippens, Rick Tucker and Robert Watson. The
names appear on the ballot as: Josh Tippens, Rick
Tucker, David Shouse, Robert Watson and Brian
Cleghom.
The elections office and board have since pre
pared a statement acknowledging the mistake.
The candidates in all three local races were listed
on the ballot in the order they qualified. The elec
tions board was scheduled to meet Tuesday night,
after Progress press time, and they released a res
olution expected to be ratified at that meeting. The
statement below will be in all polling locations.
The longer resolution is in this week’s B section
legals ads.
Official Statement from the Pickens County
Board of Elections & Registration:
“The ballot names for the local candidates in
the 2022 Primary are listed in the order that each
candidate qualified for said office. These names
should have been listed in alphabetical order. With
the exception of the candidates for the office of
District 1 Board of Commissioners Post (the post
that is elected from the Western portion of Pickens
County), all candidates qualified in alphabetical
order. Therefore, the District 1 Board of Commis
sioners Post is not alphabetical order, and we draw
your attention to the issue to ensure that each
voter reviews the entire ballot and does not place
any significance or importance in the manner and
order in which each candidate is listed.
If you have any questions or concerns about
this issue, please contact our Election Supervisor,
Stacey Godfrey, at 706-692-8781.”
Shouse said he was initially suspicious that
Tippens, the former chair of the elections board,
was first. He said online research shows being
first on a ballot is clearly an advantage to some
degree, possibly as much as 10 percent in races
where the candidates are not well known.
Shouse said he wasn’t going so far as to call
this “nefarious” but it is another case of Pickens
County not doing things correctly and that it will
impact someone, likely Mr. Cleghorn. He added
that with all the emphasis on “electoral integrity”
this is particularly bad.
“The very fundamentals are to get the elections
right and [now] the numbers will be skewed,” he
said.
County attorney Phil Landrum III said they
have found that the ballot is “not in compliance.”
He explained the phrase “illegal ballot” being
used by some critics is not a technical term; it’s a
case of non-compliance with state law. The reso
lution expected to be approved by the elections
board states that the mistake “was inadvertent and
unintentional.” See Ballot on 11A
Progress
Owner
Will Pool
dies at 72
William Edge Pool,
72, of Jasper, Georgia
passed away Thurs
day, May 12, 2022 at
Northside Atlanta
Hospital.
Pool attended West
Georgia College and
in 1976 was awarded a
bachelor’s degree in
geology. After work
ing in that field for a
year, he joined the
Pickens County
Progress, which was
owned by his family.
He handled dark
room work and print
ing for the business.
He was managing edi
tor of the Pickens
County Progress for
many years and was
still an owner at the
time of his death.
See his full obituary
on page 4B.
Piedmont
Mountainside
CEO wins
AJC Nursing
Leadership
Award
Denise Ray was se
lected from among 59
nurse leaders nomi
nated statewide for the
award.
Denise Ray, Pied
mont System Chief Nurs
ing Officer, and CEO,
Piedmont Mountainside
Hospital, has won the
2022 Atlanta Journal-
Constitution Nursing
Leadership Award.
She was selected
among 59 nurse leaders
who were nominated
from across Georgia and
attended the awards pro
gram on May 10. The
award recognizes a nurse
leader serving in an ad
ministrative capacity
See Ray on 11A
Happy hogs blazing trail in Pickens
By Jennifer Paire
Progress Contributor
Less than a year after Lee
and Reyna Riddle traded sub
urban lives in Cobb County
for hog farming on Highway
108, the couple celebrated
their first harvest and a list of
customers waiting for the next
round.
“We are blown away with
our early success, and are so
excited about being the path
way to meet Pickens County’s
desire to become more inti
mate with their food,” said
Lee Riddle of Riddle Family
Farms. “We want to educate
others on how simple it is to
use a regenerative organic ap
proach like we have.”
In addition to their new
farm, the Riddles established
nonprofit NexGen Farming
Institute to teach others about
the approach.
“It’s a low-capital invest
ment where you don’t have to
build fences or have large
equipment to get started.”
The Riddles moved to Pickens in
2021 hoping to give their four young
children more time and fresh air on a
farm and used the principles of regen
erative farming to establish the farm.
Regenerative refers to practices that re
habilitate soil and surrounding ecology
and create an environment for healthy,
pasture-raised food.
Unlike pig factory farming, Riddle
hogs live their “best free range forage
life” as they eat, root, wallow and fer-
Jennifer Paire / Photos
Newly-minted hog farmer Lee Riddle of Jasper wrangles hogs as needed, above.
Below, these month-old pigs are trained on electric fencing in a pen before they go into
a paddock.
tilize their way through half-acre pad-
docks bounded by two strands of elec
tric fencing. With the hogs tilling the
soil the Riddles save money on expen
sive farm equipment and infrastructure.
“Ninety percent of our land is
wooded, and our goal is to take these
hogs through 45 acres and regenerate
the soil, clear out brush and create a
pasture to run cattle through,” said Lee,
referring to the farm’s silvopasture sys
tem in which grazing animals share
pasture
See Happy Hogs on 11A
Economic Development not as expensive as
comments during commission forum indicated
By Dan Pool
Editor
dpool@pickensprogress.com
During the April com
mission candidate forum,
west end candidate David
Shouse stated that eco
nomic development had
cost the county $700,000
over the past three years.
That figure was also
picked up in some social
media discussion. No spe
cific total was given in the
original documents from an
open records request filed
by Shouse that showed all
the dining charges made by
current Pickens
County/Jasper Economic
Developer Green Suttles
and also included some
funds sent directly to the
chamber of commerce.
On May 4, the county
sent Shouse a followup re
sponse to their original re
lease of documents. In it
they stated the total for the
28 months that Suttles has
been in office was
$337,701.
The cost of the economic
development position is
split 50/50 by the city and
the county, so each govern
ment was responsible for
half the $337,701 over the
past 28 months. The figure
does appear as a total on the
county budget and the city
reimburses the county for
half the amount of the salary
and other expenses. Suttles
is paid $99,750 a year for his
position and that is included
in that budget, and divided
with same 50/50 split.
In a follow-up e-mail re
garding the open records re
quests, county development
authority chair Don Boggus
wrote, “Please find attached
four files for our meeting
Friday. The first two we put
together following the open
records requests and then re
lated inaccurate comments
made by some of the com
mission candidates around
Green’s [Suttles] budgets
and accomplishments. The
See Ec. dev. on 11A
First Second Saturday a hit
Photo/Angela Reinhardt
A large, enthusiastic crowd filled much of Main Street during the inaugural Second
Saturday event, which was held Saturday, May 14.
By Angela Reinhardt Street in Jasper was a resounding hit, with
Staff Writer organizers and vendors saying it exceeded
areinhardt@pickensprogress.com their expectations.
The first Second Saturday event on Main “It was very, See 2nd. Sat on 11A
Students are
bringing home
honors,
scholarships
and more.
Stories throughout this
Look in the B section
To accommodate
election ads,
please find the
editorial, letters,
and obituaries in
the B section this
week.
Principal
Rodney Martin
named principal
at Pickens High
Page 10A
Crime/Health
Fentanyl overdoses
spike in Georgia
Page 10A
Obituaries - 4B
•Betty Lawrence
•Clint Vaughan
•Fred Johnson
•Timothy May
•Titus Jones
•William Pool
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