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L2J OUR REGION
Shannon Casas | Editor in Chief
770-718-3417 | news@gainesvilletimes.com
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia
Friday, December 28, 2018
1-985 lanes will
close for repairs
One northbound lane will be closed on Interstate 985 near
its split with Interstate 85 as concrete slabs are replaced.
The closures will be continuous from 7 p.m. Dec. 28
through 5 a.m. Jan. 31.
Northbound traffic will be reduced on 1-85 about a half
mile before the 1-985 split.
The rapid response project, which will cost $186,000, will
replace 39 damaged portions of concrete roadway. Precision
2000 is contracted to do the project.
Compiled from a Department of Transportation news release.
Missing woman
located and safe
Gainesville Police say a missing woman
has been found safe.
Police were looking for Angela Marie
Ramsey, 34, who was last seen earlier this
month.
“She is believed to be homeless. She is
diabetic and dependent upon medication,”
Sgt. Kevin Holbrook wrote in an earlier
email.
Holbrook reported she had been “safely
located” Thursday afternoon in Hall
County. Police offered no other details on her condition or
where she might have been.
Nick Watson
Ramsey
AUSTIN STEELE I The Times
Brian Sloan, a pastor at Chestnut Mountain Church, is
leaving the Hall County School Board of Education.
SLOAN
■ Continued from 1A
Davis Middle campus; and the old South Hall Middle location
hosted the Academies of Discovery.
Then there were the spending cuts, the layoffs, the service
reductions.
Sloan called one day “Black Friday,” but not the holiday
kind, where retailers are trying to turn a profit before year’s
end. Rather, more like the stock market crash.
“I could tell that.. what’s coming doesn’t look very prom
ising,” Sloan said of the recession.
He recalls running into a principal at a local grocery store
around this time whose eyes were bloodshot from tears shed
for the teachers laid off at her school.
“It was a brutal day,” Sloan said. “That was probably the
hardest point that I can ever remember.”
But if there’s any indication of the rebound that Sloan and
school district officials have overseen as the economy recov
ered, it came this year.
The “South Hall shuffle,” which moved the aforemen
tioned schools back to their original campuses, was finally
complete when the school district opened the new Chero
kee Bluff middle and high schools off Spout Springs Road
in August.
That’s among the many “highlights” Sloan said he’ll take
with him.
Sloan said officials have worked to meet the varied needs
of the school district’s 28,000 students by adding school
choice and specific program areas of study, from STEM to
work-study to dual-enrollment courses,
“We have great educators from top to bottom in Hall
County,” he added. “It’s just a fact. Ican’t overstate that.”
And it’s the people he’ll miss the most, Sloan said.
“The character of my colleagues on the board,” both in
public and private, “they showed integrity,” he said. “At this
point, I don’t have any other reason to say that other than
that it’s just fact. I wish the entire county could see the char
acter they showed. ”
Sloan said there were many reasons that compelled him
to not seek re-election in 2018. (Republican Mark Pettitt beat
Democrat William Wallace for Sloan’s Post 2 seat).
For one, campaigning was expensive and time-consuming.
“That’s one of the things that came into play with my deci
sion,” Sloan said.
He lamented the days when campaigns were a matter of
getting out yard signs and meeting with local community
groups or neighborhood associations.
But the expense has grown each cycle, Sloan said.
Sloan plans to continue his work at Chestnut Mountain
Church, which has seen large growth in the last two years.
And that’s an even bigger reason for him to leave the
school board.
“That was a huge piece of it,” Sloan said.
Still, as he exits the school board on his own terms, Sloan is
left with nothing less than satisfaction.
“It’s been an honor to serve,” he said. “The people of Hall
County are awesome people.”
Phone store robbed two
days before Christmas
Photos by I AUSTIN STEELE I The Times
A burglary took place at Trust Cellular at 4 in the morning on Sunday, Dec. 23. The glass
on the door was broken to gain entry.
BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@
gainesvilletimes.com
With gloves and a crow
bar, a masked suspect
smashed two glass doors
and two display cases
Dec. 23 before taking off
with more than $13,000
in cellphones from Trust
Cellular.
Owner Saad Tahir said it
happened after 4 a.m. Dec.
23 at his Jesse Jewell Park
way store.
“It’s just sad that nobody
saw anything,” said Tahir,
considering the heavy traf
fic up and down Jesse Jew
ell Parkway.
Tahir accounted for 27
cellphones taken worth
more than $13,000. The
owner said he had put a
block on the phones by
reporting the devices’
identification numbers.
“They can’t put a SIM
card into it, because it will
stop them from using ser
vice on it anywhere in the
United States,” Tahir said.
On the surveillance foot
age, the suspect moves
quickly between the dis
play cases loading up what
appears to be a backpack.
The suspect is clad all in
black.
Tahir said he gave
police information about a
potential suspect.
The items taken were
mostly iPhone models 6-8,
as well as some Google
Pixel phones and Samsung
Galaxy models. Almost
all of them were listed as
unlocked phones.
(Q) Online
To watch surveillence
video of the alleged
burglary, visit
gainesvilletimes.com.
MQT0
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Saad Tahir, owner of Trust Cellular, talks through the
burglary that took place on Sunday, Dec. 23.
The inside of the store where the burglary took place at
Trust Cellular.
TRAIN
Photo courtesy Hall County Library System
The Gainesville Midland is shown May 25, 1915, en route to a barbecue at
Helen. Spring Street is in the background.
■ Continued from 1A
from accounting to secretarial work
to dispatching trains. She worked out
of the old depot, which is now the Arts
Council.
“We had some good employees.... It
was fun, and I enjoyed it,” Autry said.
The railroad was also what put the
town of Pendergrass on the map. The
village was known as Garden Valley
before the railroad came in and built
a depot, naming it for Frank Pender
grass, whose crews built the track.
The Seaboard Air Line purchased
the Gainesville Midland in 1959 for
$550,000.
The railroad was unique in 1959, as
it was still operating seven steam loco
motives, a technology that was seen
as outdated by that time compared to
more efficient diesels, French said. Six
of those locomotives were preserved
and are now in Jefferson, Duluth,
Winder and Charlotte and Spencer in
North Carolina. Engine 209 is now the
centerpiece of a city park in downtown
Gainesville.
French said that rate of preservation
is high for a railroad.
Autry said she loved watching the
trains arrive as she worked nearby.
“When the steam engines would
come in, I would always go to the win
dow and watch them,” she said.
She also has fond memories of riding
the trains.
“I was like a kid on that. I blew the
whistle and rang the bell.... I enjoyed
every minute of it,” Autry said.
Autry grew up in Hoschton and
always saw trains pass through but
never imagined she would end up at
the center of operations, she said.
“I’d always wave at the engineers
and the trainmen and never thought
when I was a little girl playing at the
railroad tracks that I would be working
for the railroad and retiring from it,
but I did, 36 years and 3 months,” said
Autry, who has now lived in Gainesville
for more than 50 years.
French said the Seaboard Air Line
then merged with the Atlantic Coast
Line Railroad in 1967, creating the
Seaboard Coast Line. In 1980, that com
pany merged with the Chessie System
to create the CSX corporation. CSX still
runs the line between Gainesville and
Athens.
Engine 209 has been in its cur
rent location since 1991, along with a
Southern Railway baggage car and a
caboose.
Before finding a home at Jesse
Jewell and West Academy Street, the
engine was on display at the grounds
of the old train depot and switching
yard. The baggage car used to house a
museum under the Georgia Mountains
Museum, which became the North
east Georgia History Center, but the
museum has since closed.
A $75,000 renovation project in 2004
and 2005 helped restore the engine,
repairing damaged parts, removing
asbestos and reinstalling removed
parts.
French said there is a popular rumor
that Engine 209 was built for Imperial
Russia but was never delivered due to
the Russian Revolution of 1917. Engine
209 was built in 1930, though, he said
— it is Engine 206, now on display in
North Carolina, that was built for the
Russian empire.
Engine 209 took its last trip in June
1959. Autry wrote the order for its last
ride. She said she would be sad to see it
move from its current prominent loca
tion downtown.
The 1.7-acre tract where Engine
209 is now displayed is owned by the
Gainesville Redevelopment Authority,
which hopes to sell the land so it can
be redeveloped and spur additional
growth in Gainesville’s downtown. The
historic train would be relocated to
another city-owned property, where
officials hope it could be better enjoyed
as part of a larger park that is easier to
access.
“That train really needs to be in a
place that is convenient and can be bet
ter utilized by the public.... Also, it can
be used with maybe a park around it
so it would be a nice amenity,” Mayor
Danny Dunagan said at a Dec. 20 rede
velopment authority meeting.
The exact spot where the train would
go has not yet been finalized.
Knight Commercial Realty has the
first option on the property, and devel
oper Tim Knight told The Times ear
lier in December that he still had plans
for a mixed-use development there.
The redevelopment authority has
also offered the land to the Northeast
Georgia Health System for $1.2 mil
lion as part of an agreement reached
when the city took over the health sys
tem’s contract for a 6.8-acre property
on Jesse Jewell Parkway, on the mid
town end of the pedestrian bridge near
downtown.
Negotiations will now be between
Knight and the health system, with an
agreement on who will purchase the
property expected in early 2019.
FIREWORKS
■ Continued from 1A
fireworks that come into the
business.
From quiet color bursts to pack
ages loaded with a 24-firework
display, the shop provides myriad
options.
When purchasing fireworks, Sil-
lay said many people don’t know
the cost behind the colors. While
red fireworks are the cheapest
and easiest to find, he said blue
fireworks can become expensive
and challenging to obtain.
Copper compounds are used to
emit the blue color in fireworks.
Sillay said this makes blue the
toughest color to create along
with purple, which comes in a
close second.
Like most fireworks businesses,
Xtreme Xplosives is dependant
upon the weather.
Sillay said two years ago a burn
ban was placed in Hall County,
‘Definitely bring
your kids because
they will have a
blast, literally.’
Jason Sillay
Xtreme Xplosives Fireworks
which made locals afraid to pur
chase fireworks.
When the burn ban was lifted,
he said the customer confi
dence in buying the product still
remained negatively impacted.
“It’s interesting how the holi
day changes every year,” Sillay
said. “This is a great year for us.
We’ve got four full days of people
lighting fuses, it’s the honey hole
of where the holiday falls.”
Over the next couple of days,
Sillay said he will expect to see
around 5,000 customers.
On Thursday, Dec. 27 12-year-
old Ever Jr. Castillo and his little
sister Brenda walked into the
store with their dad to fill their
arms with fireworks.
Ever said he was excited to
light a big box of fireworks and
watch it explode on New Year’s
Day.
Before the Castillo family left
the shop, Sillay handed them a
free Wailing Wheel and a couple
of other fireworks.
“It’s all about the kids,” Sillay
said. “One of my favorite things
as a kid was stopping by the fire
works shack with my dad. Defi
nitely bring your kids because
they will have a blast, literally.”
