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PAGE 10A PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 29. 2022
Sassafras Youth Writing
Contest underway
Submitted by Sassafras
Literary Exchange
The Creative Writing
Contest for Youth put on by
the Sassafras Literary Ex
change is set to begin on
Thursday, Sept. 29. The
deadline for entries will be
Friday, Oct. 28. The contest
is for the students who live in
and are educated in Pickens
County in grades 6 through 8
and 9 through 12.
Those who are home
schooled or in other alternate
education programs are eligi
ble along with the public
school students.
There are three categories:
fiction, non-fiction and po
etry. No topic or theme is re
quired. This gives students
the option to write about any
thing they might choose.
There is a 1,500 word limit
on fiction and non-fiction en
tries. Poetry should not be
more than 50 lines.
Cash prizes will be
awarded. For 1st place in
each of the tree categories for
grades 9 through 12 is $75.
There will also be money for
2nd and 3rd place. A slightly
smaller amount will be
awarded to winners from the
lower grades.
This will be the 41st an
nual Sassafras Youth Writing
Contest. We at Sassafras are
grateful for help from the
Community Bank of Pickens
County enabling us to award
monetary prizes.
With the increased usage
of electronic devices today,
writing skills are just as im
portant, maybe more so, than
ever before. We urge parents
and teachers alike to help
promote this contest. It is
also hoped that students will
accept the challenge with en
thusiasm.
Amicalola Garden Club starts
back after summer break
Farmers Market announces fall schedule
photo/Jasper Farmers Market
Fall Market opens October 8, every Saturday thru December 10; hours 9 a.m. until 1
p.m. October 8th is Customer Appreciation Day.
Come out and enjoy free refreshments and apple cider as our way of saying “Thank
You for another fantastic season, our 23rd. ”
The market is located at 502 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Jasper.
photos/Amicalola Garden Club
Angela Nolle explaining propagation of roses.
Pictured below are one of the beautiful heirloom roses
propagated by Angela Nolle.
Submitted by
Amicalola Garden Club
After a few month off, the
Garden Club gears up for fall
activities and projects. A
meeting was held on Septem
ber 20, 2022 at the Tate Com
munity Room under the
direction of President Linda
Allred. After a barbecue
luncheon was served by host
esses Susan Armstrong, Mary
Bryant, and Doris Porterfield,
an interesting horticulture tip
on the propagation of heir
loom roses was given by An
gela Nolte. Ms. Nolte
demonstrated how to take
cuttings from strong plants,
trim, place in rooting hor
mone, place in soil, cover
with clear plastic bottle, and
watch them him into wonder
ful cuttings for transplanting.
Barbara Walters presented
a delightful program on mak
ing beautiful seasonal table
arrangements. These lovely
creations were used by the
hostesses to decorate the
luncheon tables. Mrs. Walters
demonstrated how to take
simple items from your home
and turn into beautiful
arrangements for each holi
day table.
A business meeting got
underway detailing old and
new projects. One of the
biggest items on the agenda
was the devastation of the
Old Tate Cemetery. Our con
tinued thanks to our Com
missioner Chris Stancil and
the quick response from the
county workers that cleaned
and removed the debris in
short order. Now the ceme
tery remains in tack with very
little damage to monuments.
Discussion was given to
money making efforts and
donations that are needed to
continue the many worth
while projects for the county.
An annual donation was ap
proved to the Cares Program
in addition to our other ef
forts.
Plans for the October
meeting was discussed and
the meeting was adjourned.
Ninth Annual March of the Toys parade
for Toys for Tots to be held in Ball Ground
The 9th Annual March of
the Toys Parade for Toys for
Tots will be held on Friday
evening, December 2nd, be
ginning at 7 p.m., in Ball
Ground, Georgia. Attendees
to the parade are asked to
bring a new, unwrapped toy
for the Toys for Tots cam
paign. Collection boxes for
the toys will be available at
City Park and along the pa
rade route on Main Street.
Grand Marshal for the pa
rade this year will be Lula
Roman. Roman is an Ameri
can comedian, singer, and au
thor. She is known as a
regular on the comedy-music
show Flee Flaw, which de
buted in 1969.
The parade will also fea
ture the Creekview High
School Marching Band,
Shriners, the Peachtree
Clown Alley, princesses, su
perheroes, dancers, floats,
tractors, antique cars and
much, much more!
The parade committee is
currently looking for parade
participants and vendors to
be a part of this year’s huge
event in downtown Ball
Ground. If you would like to
be a participant or a vendor,
please go to our website at
www.marchofthetoyspa-
rade.com and click on “Par
ticipants” if you would like to
be in the parade or click
“Vendors” if you would like
to be a Vendor at this year’s
Christmas event.
Join us for this awesome
event in the heart of down
town Ball Ground!
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Congressional oversight committee finds Justice Department
failed to count nearly 1,000 deaths in jails and prisons
By Rebecca Grapevine
Staff Reporter
Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA - A new report
a U.S. Senate subcommittee
released Tuesday found that
the Justice Department
(DOJ) failed to properly
count the deaths of close to
1,000 people in state and
local prisons and jails last
year.
The oversight committee,
chaired by Sen. Jon Ossoff,
D-Ga., asked the Govern
ment Accountability Office
(GAO) to conduct a separate
analysis of jail and prison
deaths.
The GAO found that the
DOJ had neglected to prop
erly count 990 deaths in
2021.
Data on those deaths was
available in public records,
yet the information was miss
ing from the DOJ data, the
GAO’s Gretta Goodwin told
the committee.
Many of the death records
that DOJ did collect were
missing key elements such as
demographic data or infor
mation about the manner of
the person’s death. And in
2019, the DOJ stopped re
leasing the data publicly.
Congress has required
DOJ to collect and analyze
data on the deaths of people
in custody since it enacted
the Death in Custody Report
ing Act (DCRA) in 2000.
“Despite a clear charge
from Congress to determine
who is dying in prisons and
jails across the country,
where they are dying, and
why they are dying, the De
partment of Justice is failing
to do so,” Ossoff said. “This
failure undermines efforts to
address the urgent humanitar
ian crisis ongoing behind
bars across the country.”
Belinda Maley shared the
story of the death of her son,
Matthew Loflin, when he
was detained in the Chatham
County Detention Center in
Savannah for a non-violent
drug offense.
The committee listened to
the painful recording of the
last, brief phone call between
the mother and her son.
“The pure horror of
Matthew’s voice made me
feel as though I was dying as
well,” Maley said, noting she
was only able to visit her son
once. “Matthew died a slow,
painful death over the course
of weeks.”
Maley said the jail failed
to give her son proper care
for a heart condition. She at
tributed the lack of care to the
private medical provider’s
profit motive.
“Enforcement of the
Death in Custody Reporting
Act is so important and could
be a tool to hold the for-
profit, jail and prison medical
providers accountable for un
necessary deaths like
Matthew’s and others,”
Maley told the committee.
Vanessa Fano also shared
the story of the death of her
brother, Jonathan Fano, when
he was detained in the East
Baton Rouge Parish Prison in
Louisiana. Despite having di
agnosed mental illnesses,
Jonathan received no mental
evaluation while imprisoned,
she said.
He was even placed in
isolation after slitting his
wrists and eventually com
mitted suicide by hanging
himself.
Prior to this incident, Fano
said, she and her family
trusted government institu
tions.
“When we finally saw his
lifeless body ... it was only
then we realized how wrong
we were to place our trust in
this system,” Fano said.
Both Ossoff and Sen. Ron
Johnson, R-Wis., the com
mittee’s ranking Republican,
criticized the DOJ.
“Over the course of 22
years, I would have thought
this information-gathering
process would have been
pretty well-honed,” Johnson
said.
“There’s no doubt this has
been poorly managed,” Os
soff said.
Maureen Henneberg,
deputy assistant attorney gen
eral for operations and man
agement at the DOJ, said her
agency faced obstacles in
collecting the data because of
changes Congress made to
the law requiring the report
ing in 2013.
The DOJ recommends
that Congress amend the leg
islation to fix those problems.
Henneberg said the move
from one sub-agency to an
other within the DOJ in 2019
caused problems and that the
agency has difficulty getting
accurate data from states.
DOJ is committed to improv
ing the data collection, she
said.
“Two Americans who
were sitting in jail, pretrial
detainees convicted of no
crime, died in the custody of
their own government, and
there are thousands more,”
Ossoff said as he concluded
the hearing. “We have got to
get this right.”
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