About Pickens County progress. (Jasper, Ga.) 1899-current | View Entire Issue (May 26, 2022)
Thursday, May 26, 2022 | Volume 135 Number 6 | Jasper, Georgia | 30 pages, 3 sections | Published Weekly | $1.00 Memorial Day ceremony Monday Keynote speaker nominated for Pulitzer Prize as war correspondent By Angela Reinhardt Staff Writer areinhardt@picken- sprogress.com Memorial Day cere monies will be held Mon day, May 30. The event will be held at Sunrise Me morial Gardens at 10 a.m. The public is invited to at tend. “Everyone is welcome to come honor our heroes who have died serving our country,” said Marine Corps League Det. #1280 Commandant Bill Craig. The keynote speaker will be Jedwin Smith who served with the marines and is also a Pulitzer Prize nominee for his work as a war correspondent. The event is being hosted by the Marine Corps League Det. #1280. Jedwin Smith bio The recipient of 57 Photo/Marine Corps League Det. #1280 Jedwin Smith is a ma rine and print journalist for 36 years, during which time he worked as a war correspondent. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice for his war coverage. major writing awards dur ing his 36 years as a print journalist, Jedwin Smith twice was nominated for See Memorial Day on 10A A Band of Brothers Local Marine veteran reunites with Vietnam brothers-in-arms By Larry Cavender Progress Contributor It had been 56 years since they had seen one an other, yet recently, three Vietnam veterans, includ ing Jerry Blackwell of Jasper, reunited in Yuma, Arizona. In addition to Corporal Blackwell, the others were Sergeant Doug Walker of Oregon and Colonel F. M. Luckie of Yuma, who were all members of the USMC's C Battery, 2nd Light Anti-Aircraft Missile Battalion. The last time they were together was in March of 1966 in Viet nam's Chu Lai Province. They became close friends when they began training for deployment at See Blackwell on 10A Pickens resident and Vietnam veteran Jerry Blackwell proudly wear ing his Marine Corps T- shirt. After joining the Marines in April of1965, Blackwell, served as a radar technician. Pickens native Willis Padgett recalls lessons, losses in Vietnam Willis Padgett, deployed in Vietnam from 1967-68, saw heavy action on numerous occasions. By Mark Millican Contributing Writer Fresh out of high school in 1960, Willis Pad gett landed a job at the Pickens County Progress in Jasper. His employment initially forestalled him being drafted for Vietnam when Uncle Sam came calling. “Ermie Edge kept me out of the Army for several years,” he said of the woman whose family owned the newspaper. “She had some say. They drafted me, so she called the colonel she knew and said, 'I don't want him drafted, he's the only one that knows how to run my linotype machine. So we don't need to let him go.'” When a second lino type machine was eventu ally purchased by the Progress and another man was trained on it, however, Padgett was drafted at age 25. After boot camp at Fort See Padgett on 10A Sleeping bag, junk dumped into manholes damages sewage station By Alex Goble Staff Writer agoble@pickensprogress.com A city of Jasper sanitary lift station that serves the area around the hospital malfunc tioned and shut down on Monday, May 16 after debris lodged in the pump station. The debris consisted of items such as lumber, sleeping bags and clothing in what might be called a dump labeled as vandal ism. “We got everything taken care of, got the debris completely removed, and we’ve got a rental pump out there that is doing basi cally the work of the station and taking care of that for the time being until we can get in there and get the pumps pulled and figure out all of the piping configuration,” said As sistant City Manager, Kim Goldener. “That station is extremely deep. This one, unfortu nately, is going to take a while to fix.” The city believes that the materials were dumped by removing the lids on a couple of different manholes that are in the collection system upstream of the station - meaning that they flow to the station to be pumped further along and eventually to the plant for treatment. The pump stations are designed to handle liquid and very specific things: water, grey water, restroom water, and toilet paper. The pumps are not designed to take on big, heavy, fibrous materials. “When you get rags, or you get towels, See Sewage Woes on 11A As school year ends, Tate students go all out 1JfcLO<- HtuMjLun. ‘ TTdfjL bcbaol George Washington by Maverick Hall Jackie Robinson 4 by Brady Woodward Theodore Roosevelt by Parker Styles Christopher Columbus by Sully Ketterer Amelia Earhart TZDs jSfcr by Emma Ostrom Orville Wright by Caleb Hux Queen Elizabeth, II by Maddie Trent Paul Revere by Lucy Wright By Angie Wright Tate Elementary During the month of May, 4th grade stu dents at Tate Elementary put forth many hours of hard work and effort to complete their Wax Museum project. This project allowed students to choose a historical figure that they have studied dur ing their elementary school career. Students researched, wrote about the life of that per son, prepared a speech, and a display board graphic by Katie Cagle/photos from school showcasing what their figure is famous for. On Thursday, May 19th, all their hard work came to life as our Tate families visited our living Wax Museum. Students dressed the part and recited their speeches from memory to all our visitors. Many of them even answered questions off script that they were asked because they had actually become experts and taken on the persona of their chosen figure. 249 to graduate Friday from Pickens High School The 249 members of the PHS Class of 2022 will grad uate Friday, May 27 at Dragon Stadium. The ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. as graduates take their seats to Pomp and Cir cumstance. Senior Class Secretary Katherine Perez will deliver the invocation followed by the PHS Chorus Ensemble leading the class in singing the national an them and the alma mater. Principal Chris Wallace will welcome everyone be fore Senior Class Vice Pres ident Griffin Cantrell intro duces the graduation speaker, Cana Lutz. William Jent will deliver the saluta tory address followed by class Valedictorian Piper Duncan delivering her speech to the class. Ishan Iqbal, Senior Class President, will join Superin tendent Tony Young and Principal Wallace in award ing diplomas before giving the president’s speech. Following the speech and closing remarks the class will leave the stadium as graduates to their song, “I Lived by One Republic.” For those attending grad uation, shuttle service will be offered from Pickens Junior High school, Chattahoochee Tech, and Royston LLC. Buses will depart from each location between 5:15 p.m. and 6 p.m. for the PHS Sta dium. If you are planning to ride a shuttle back to any of these locations, please load within 30 minutes of the cere mony’s conclusion. See ad on shuttles on Page Bl. Education Graduation special section in this week’s edition. See Section C Talking Rock convenience store broken into Page 8A Election Results See results vote and wrap up of Tuesday’s vote pickensprogress.com Obituaries - 6A • Carla Holt • Donnie Copher III • Gale Archer • Gladys Jones • John Bauer • Leon Bridges • Mahria Smith • Martha Pruitt Bike trail plans discussed for Doris Wigington Park Homeowners say crime, creepy ac tivities remain a concern at park on Lumber Com pany Road and Gennett Drive By Dan Pool Editor dpool@pickensprogress.com A solid roomful of inter ested parties turned out to hear the latest plans and offer input May 18th on the 50-acre Doris Wigington park with entrances off Lumber Company Road and Gennett Drive. The meeting was opened by Jasper’s recently named Assistant City Manager Kim Goldener who said she had been charged with getting some projects, including this one, moving. She said later in the meeting that the city had dedicated sales tax rev enue (SPLOST) to fund a good deal, maybe all, of this project, so the key challenge is making sure they have the right plan and the right con tractors in place. “We’re going to be patient and do it right,” Goldener told the crowd. When asked by followup e-mail on the next steps, Goldener replied, “For next steps, [the trail designer] will be finishing up the de tails on his trail plan and get ting us a final copy to use with our bid package. Terry Palmeri with SORBA (Southern Off-Road Bicy cling Association) is assist ing the city with the preparation of the bid docu ments. Ultimately, it will need to go before full coun- See Trails on 11A • Marianne Woltman • Mazie Melton • Miki Roth • Robert Countryman • Russell Palmer Contact Us 94 North Main Street Jasper, Ga. 30143 706-253-2457 www.pickensproaress.com Open for business during these hours: Mon-Thurs, 9-5, and Fri, 9-4:30 $1.00 per copy 8 IB 0 4 8 7 9 08163" 0
