Newspaper Page Text
Page 4 — Wednesday, March 31,2021, The True Citizen
OPINIONS
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
The Pledge Of Allegiance
1 pledge, allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which
*it stands, one Nation under
God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice, for all.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
LOOKING BACK
{this week in Burke County history}
10 YEARS AGO-MARCH 30,20ll
The EBA Spartan golf team won its third straight match,
beating second place Brentwood by 19 strokes. Dawson
Atkinson was low scorer for the team with a 77. Other EBA
golfers were Auston Riggs, Will Mobley and Carter Mobley.
BCHS basketball star Jacquez Rozier was named MVP of
the North-South All Star game in Savannah. Rozier led the
team with 17 points.
Burke County farmer Chris Mallard was honored in the
Georgia Quality Cotton Awards program for producing the
highest quality cotton in this area.
25 YEARS AGO-APRIL 4,1996
In his first start for the BCHS Bears, sophomore Jason Sidel
threw a no-hitter against Jenkins County. Burke County won
the game 6-0.
International opera star Brenda Boozer was scheduled to
sing here, sponsored by the Burke County Community Con
cert Association. Boozer, an Atlanta native had degrees from
Florida State University and the Julliard School.
BCHS basketball coach Alan Richardson was named
All-Area Coach of the year by The Augusta Chronicle after
leading the team to a 16-10 season.
50 YEARS AGO -MARCH 31,1971
Alfred C. Mann of Waynesboro was named general man
ager of the chair division of Keller Aluminum Chair plants
in Waynesboro, Caldwell, Texas; Linton, Indiana and Miami,
Florida.
Waynesboro businessman and former mayor Ben Brooks
was elected chairman of the board of directors of the Georgia
Retail Association. He had served three terms as mayor and
was the Rotary Club Man of the Year.
The Burke County Historical Society voted to appeal to
the county to preserve the historic Burke County Courthouse.
70 YEARS AGO-APRIL 5,1951
Well known movie cowboy and stunt man Tex Ranger was
scheduled to appear at the Pawnee Brothers Circus on April
13. He had been a stunt double for Tom Mix, Ken Maynard,
Buck Jones and Johnny Mack Brown.
Former Alabama football star Pooley Hubert moved to
Waynesboro to join H. Russ Cohen in the cattle business. He
had played professional football with the Chicago Bears and
served as head coach at Virginia Military Institute.
Cpl. William H. Carter, son of Mrs. R.L. Carter of Waynes
boro, returned to the U.S. after serving two and one-half years
in Korea and Japan.
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Cte €mt Ciiisrn
9
P.O. Box 948 • 629 Shadrack Street
Waynesboro, Georgia 30830
Telephone: (706) 554-2111 • Fax: (706) 526-4779
Published every Wednesday by The True Citizen, Inc.
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Citizen, P.O. Box 948, Waynesboro, GA 30830.
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tising Manager/Printing Assistant; Diana Royal, Feature
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BEN ROBERTS
benroberts@bellsouth.net
Southern Company an
nounced earlier this month
that it would most likely miss
its deadline to have the first of
two new nuclear powered units
at Plant Vogtle operating by
November of this year.
As many of us in Burke
County are aware, the project
is years behind schedule and
billions of dollars over budget.
An Atlanta Journal Constitu
tion story about the Securities
and Exchange Commission
filing said the additional delay
“could add one month or more”
to the project. The story didn’t
provide any update for when
the second new unit might be
completed.
While this news is bad for
stockholders and it certainly
won’t help my Georgia Power
bill this summer, it does mean
Plant Vogtle’s overall tax value
will continue to rise, at least
for another year, generating
millions in tax dollars for the
Burke County Commission and
the board of education.
I harp a lot about Vogtle’s
effect on our tax digest and
what those dollars mean to this
community because we so often
take for granted what those
funds have allowed us to have.
Take away that money and our
county looks a lot like some
other rural Georgia counties
with high rates of poverty.
You can take away our nice
school campuses, our fleet of
well-maintained buses and
fully-funded pre-K for all Burke
County children. You can also
take away our football stadium
and the “Teacher Learning Cen
ter” behind the high school that
has one of the nicest weight-
rooms of any high school in
the state.
You can take away our coun
ty-employee-manned fire sta
tions throughout the county and
drastically cut back the number
of sheriff’s deputies patrolling
our roads and neighborhoods.
You could also take away our
new animal shelter and the ju
dicial center that takes up nearly
an entire city block.
Plant Vogtle has also provid
ed many a good job with good
benefits to someone we know.
It has allowed those individuals
to remain in or move to Burke
County, adding to the tax base
in those ways as well.
The current construction of
Units 3 and 4 has brought in
hundreds of workers who have
purchased homes or paid rent,
shopped in our stores, bought
fuel for their vehicles and eaten
meals in our restaurants.
This newest missed deadline
means our gravy-train will con
tinue for a while longer. This is
good because after a decade of
huge increases in tax revenue,
it’s going to take our local
officials some time to wean
themselves off of their current
spending habits.
While Plant Vogtle generates
millions in property tax for the
county, the City of Waynesboro
doesn’t share in that revenue
because Vogtle lies outside
the city limits. They do benefit
from the sales tax collected at
all the stores in town however,
so they’re not missing out com
pletely.
The key for the city is resi
dential and commercial growth.
That potential for residential
growth is somewhat limited
at this time but Waynesboro’s
commercial district on the north
end of town, anchored by the
Walmart shopping center, con
tinues to grow.
According to a Facebook post
by Greg Bennett of Emanuel
County, Walmart will soon be
getting a new neighbor. Bennett
is owner of MOJO’s Xpress
Wash, an automated car wash
located in Swainsboro. Ben
nett plans to begin construction
in a few months on a second
location on 1.1 acres next to
Walmart, just south of the Mur
phy’s Express gas station. Court
records indicate a corporation
owned by Bennett purchased
the property last week.
Amenities like this not only
add to the city’s tax base and
generate much needed revenue,
they also add to our quality of
life and allow us to shop for
goods and services locally,
creating what you might call a
“win-win.”
For more Burke County po
litical news, follow Bird Dog
Politics on Facebook,
Don Lively
(Reprinted from 2011)
The place was remote.
I was harrowing.
After a few unfortunate inci
dents of “eight row lightening
strikes 11 , when I let the tractor
slip out of the furrow causing
some damage to the plant roots,
Daddy didn’t often trust me to
plow.
You ruin a few measly acres
of cotton and you’re forever
more branded a crop murderer.
Daddy figured that I couldn’t
do much harm dragging a har
row.
That particular day I was
miles from the homeplace in
a held down on the river. The
place was called Sleepy Hol
low. I have no idea if that was
official or if Daddy called it that
because it reminded him of the
fictional glen where the Head
less Horseman roamed.
It was a mysterious place,
especially at night, but I liked
it there.
I was always happier working
far away from where Daddy
could constantly oversee my
labors.
He liked sending me to the
far reaches of our farming
ventures so he didn’t have to
keep pulling me out of bogs or
fixing farm implements that I
managed to break.
It was a mutually agreeable
solution.
That day found me atop the
big, blue Ford, busting dirt far
from civilization, the only hu
man for miles around.
Or so I thought.
It was summer in Georgia so
it was hotter than Satan’s stove
pipe and I’d already stripped
down to nothing but the blue
jean cutoffs and Brogans, but
I was still sweating like a Sat
urday night sinner on Sunday
morning.
There was a creek just
through the woods so I decided
to take a dip to cool off.
Since I was fifteen miles
from the outskirts of nowhere I
figured I was safe to go in unim
peded by garments. I stripped
down and eased into the cold
water and let the current mean
der me down to the next bend.
It felt divine but I didn’t want
IN THE STICKS
to get too far from the tractor
so I got out and headed up the
path to the clearing on the bank
where I’d left my clothes.
When I stepped out onto
the sandbar I realized I had
company.
While I was floating two
ladies had materialized out
of nowhere with a half dozen
small kids, each armed with a
cane fishing pole.
“Howdy do 11 , one of them
said most cheerily, making no
effort to conceal her amusement
or avert her eyes.
“Afternoon, Ma’am,” was
all I could muster as I grabbed
the closest vegetation to cover
myself.
It wasn’t a fig leaf and I was
far from Eden but it served its
purpose till I realized it was
poison oak.
(Later, when I was applying
Calamine lotion to the affected
private areas I wondered if it
was worth it to preserve what
was left of my dignity.)
I backed toward my clothes,
grabbed them and dashed into
the woods, tripped and fell into
a clump of sandspurs that im
mediately became embedded
in all manner of tender places.
All I could do was jump up
and keep running.
Last thing I heard was the
fishers hooting and laughing
about “that crazy white boy.”
After I’d recovered from the
humiliation of my inadvertent
exhibition and my wallow in the
sticker patch, I worked till just
before dark and headed home
thinking the day couldn’t get
any weirder.
I was wrong.
Along River Road I spotted
a huge, dead oak tree full of
buzzards sitting on every limb,
every beady, bloodshot eye star
ing directly at me.
I had my trusty twelve gauge
double-barrel and knew I could
get two of them but the rest
could render me a skeleton
if they so chose, so I shoved
the gas lever to the maximum
speed, seventeen miles an hour,
and started praying that a buz
zard’s top speed was sixteen.
The tractor roared to life,
lurched forward, then sputtered
and died in the middle of the
dirt road.
I’d run the fuel tank bone dry
fifty feet from the
buzzard tree. g^
Suddenly being MVF | Y
buck bare in front ’
of eight strangers ®