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Thursday, June 23,2022 | Volume 135 Number 10 | Jasper, Georgia | 20 pages, 2 sections | Published Weekly | $1.00
Lions’ July 4th parade rolls at 1 p.m.
Will the crowd be “sane, sober and orderly in every respect”
as reported at 1939 inaugural event Independence Day celebration?
By Angela Reinhardt
Staff Writer
areinhardt@pickensprogress.com
Planning is in full swing for the Jasper Lion’s
Club’s Fourth of July celebration, with festivities
on July 4 kick-off with the popular parade down
Main Street.
The parade start time has been moved to 1 p.m.
to streamline the day’s events. This is the second
year the parade will roll out in the afternoon in
stead of in the morning.
“We’re doing it at 1 again this year because the
rides for the fair don’t start until somewhere
around 2:30 or 3, so we don’t want there to be a
big lag time for people,” said Jasper Lion’s mem
ber and event organizer Leslie Miller. “We’re get
ting a lot of parade applications so we think it’s
going to go very well.”
After the parade, festivities shift to Lee New
ton Park. Fair rides will be in the parking lot area,
with live entertainment throughout the day and a
headlining act in the evening. More details about
the entertainment schedule will be in next week’s
JA&KK U0WS CLUE
INDEPENDENCE HAY
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edition. Bingo will be held at the Pickens Cham
ber of Commerce building from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Fireworks will be at 10:05 p.m., directly after the
raffle drawing at 10 p.m. This year’s raffle is for
two gas gift cards, one for $1,000 and one for
$500.
“Everything is going to be held in one day this
year,” Miller said. “Last year we split our events
up because the Fourth was on a Sunday, but it’s
all one day this year.”
Peachtree Rides will have amusement rides,
games and food at Lee Newton Park leading up
to the Jasper Lion’s sponsored event. Rides will
be from Wednesday, June 29 through Monday,
July 4.
Talk about consistency - Lion s
Fourth going strong since 1939
The Jasper Lions Club has sponsored the
Fourth of July Celebration for 84 years, since
1939, with only a few years the civics group was
unable to hold the event for reasons out of their
control.
“There were maybe a couple of years during
WWII that they weren’t able to have it, and 2020
of course [because of COVID],” Miller of the
Jasper Lions said, “but basically it’s the 84th an
nual.”
Over the last eight-and-a-half decades Fourth
festivities have changed as the cultural landscape
changed. The See July 4th on 11A
Second incident at
Pickens airport
in less than a month
By Angela Reinhardt
Staff Writer
areinhardt@pickensprogress.com
On Saturday, June 18 a twin-engine
plane was forced to land on its belly at the
Pickens County Airport after an equipment
malfunction. According to Pickens Fire &
Rescue, the Cessna 414 was coming in for
final approach when the landing gear on the
left side of the aircraft collapsed.
Emergency crews were dispatched at ap
proximately 6 p.m. that evening. Upon ar
rival a small fuel leak from the left main
tank was discovered, then contained by
draining the fuel into buckets.
AT&T Towing assisted emergency
crews by providing air bags to lift the plane
so the landing gear could be locked into po
sition to be moved from the site.
“The teamwork between the two agen
cies worked well and the plane was re
moved with no further damage,” according
to a statement from Pickens Fire & Rescue,
which thanked See Plane on 11A
Photo/Pickens Fire & Rescue
A malfunction forced the pilot of this aircraft to land
without its landing gear.
Old videos bring
county’s past alive
By Greg Moore
Treasurer
Pickens Historical Society
As part of my family
resided in Whitestone during
the 1940s, I have been trying
to find pictures and videos
that represent Pickens
County in that era.
Also with my work with
the Pickens Historical Soci
ety, which manages the Old
Jail on Main Street, and with
Bethany-Salem Fire Depart
ment, I keep an eye out for
public safety history as well.
While this is ongoing and
frankly a difficult task, I
have found a handful of in
teresting videos on YouTube
that are accessible to every
one.
Probably the most dra
matic are the fires at the
Edge Building (Main Street
location of the Pickens
Progress) and the Archer
Hotel (where Walgreens
now sits on E. Church
Street).
Another interesting video
is the program of the Burnt
Mountain Hill Climb in
1952 that was put on an At
lanta sports car racing club
and the local Jasper Lions
Club. It unfortunately
doesn’t contain any live ac
tion, only scans of the pages,
posted by Jim VanSant. It is
an interesting trove of local
businesses and names as
well as information on the
cars used. From what they
handed out, I can only imag
ine it was a quite a sight.
Perhaps our Lions Club or
some other group could res
urrect this car race up the
mountain?
The WSB-TV December
1967 6 p.m. news broadcast
has a snippet of local news
during the hour-long pro
gram. But in general it
shows the news as it was be
fore ESPN and even had two
sportscasters including Milo
Hamilton, the Braves play-
by-play person before Ernie,
Skip and Pete. Even the ads
give a certain luster with ads
from Rich's and banks from
the past. I have to give cau
tion as it may be sensitive to
some individuals, but it is
true history as it was in a tu-
See Videos on 11A
4-H at the forefront of
school board meeting
Sex education
curriculum approved
By Larry Cavender
Progress Contributor
It has been a long-stand
ing tradition for the board of
education to recognize the
achievements of Pickens
County students and athletes
at the beginning of their
meetings, and the June 14th
meeting was no exception as
4-H members were honored
for outstanding performance
at the recent District Project
Achievement competition.
Traci Buckingham, a for
mer Pickens educator and a
certified Georgia 4-H volun
teer, introduced 4-H mem
bers who had achieved
prominence at the competi
tion. Buckingham, noting
that there are 42 counties in
the district, many of which
are larger and more popu
lous than Pickens, detailed a
phenomenal performance by
the Pickens 4-Hers. Pickens
had the highest percentage
of first place winners, an in
credible 88%, and will also
send two members to the
state level. Pickens, it was
noted, also had the most di
verse group that competed at
district.
During the business por
tion of the meeting, in addi
tion to the usual financial
and operations reports to the
superintendent, a number of
other agenda items were ad
dressed.
One of the more interest
ing business items was the
adoption of the sex educa
tion curriculum. The previ
ous curriculum for the high
school level has been dis
continued, so the board
adopted a new one. One as
pect of the new curriculum
is for a health care profes
sional to speak to the stu
dents and to answer their
questions. However, parents
will be required to complete
an "opt-in" form giving per
mission for their children to
participate.
Concerning sex educa
tion for younger children,
those in the K-4 level, the
board decided to continue
See School Board on 11A
Good Vibes Series
This summer the Progress is doing a
series, Good Vibes. Our reporters seek
people with interesting hobbies to find
out why they love what they do. From
golfing and painting to thrift store
junkies, homebrewers, BBQers and
readers, if you have a hobby you love,
let us know about it. Email us at arti-
cles@pickensprogress. com.
By Christie Pool
Staff Writer
christie@pickensprogress.com
When Maggie Shaw turned 50 she
pledged to herself that she would begin liv
ing life out of her comfort zone. To that end,
she took up painting and now spends time
each day working on one art project or an
other.
“It makes me feel like I’m a kid again,”
Maggie said. “If you remember being a 5-
year-old and having the oversized shirt on
turned backwards and the smell of the tem
pera paint and the newsprint in front of you
and you were going to create a masterpiece?
It gives me that feeling. It gives me that free
dom of play and getting my inner thoughts
out on paper or Amazon boxes or whatever
the [material] may be, and a huge sense of
relaxation and peace.”
Maggie, a mother of five, new grand
mother, wife, and former special education
See Good Vibes on 11A
“It makes me feel like a kid again, ” says Maggie Shaw
of painting. She is shown here in her west Pickens studio.
See more of Shaw’s works with this story
at pickensprogress.com
Election
Results
VOTE
Results
of Tuesday’s
primary runoff
online at
pickensprogress.com
Community Sport
Scenes from
the Optimist Flap
Jack Run
Page 6A
Public Safety
Brushfire in Sharp
Mountain area
contained but not
easily.
Page 3A
Obituaries - 7 A
• Brandy Price
• Donnie Kirk
• Lillian Grizzle
• Richard Free
• Ruby Townsend
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