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SEE PAGE IB SEE PAGE 12A East Jackson Ending Season At Banks Co. County Schools Brace For Staff Cuts SEE PAGE 12A City Schools In A Funding Struggle Vol. 133 No. 52 20 Pages 2 Sections 50 Cents COVERING THE COMMERCE AREA SINCE 1875 Billy and Darthy Hix married when he was 20 and she was 16 and just starting her senior year at Commerce High School. Fifty-three Valentine’s Days, three children, seven grandchildren later, they wouldn’t change a thing. A Marriage Fit For A Valentine’s ©ay Wish Billy and Darthy Hix live in the Scott Street house they built in 1957, the year after they snuck off to Homer and got married. Council Passes New Electric Rate Schedule 1.9% Residential Hike Spares Lower-End Electric Customers For $1,100 Commerce Gets Nothing By Mark Beardsley They say you get what you pay for. The City of Commerce didn’t. The city spent $1,100 in conjunction with the Jackson County Area Chamber of Commerce, the Industrial Development Authority and other governments in the county to help pay for a two-page advertise ment in the February issue of “Georgia Trend Magazine.’’ In return, “Georgia Trend’’ was to write about Commerce and the rest of the coun ty While Braselton Mayor Pat Graham was fea tured on the cover, and she and officials from the IDA, the chamber, the county and Jefferson were interviewed, the story contained no men tion of Commerce — or Nicholson. “It was like the coun ty line stopped at the river,’’ observed City Councilman Bob Sosebee. Please Turn to Page 3A msnn THURSDAY, FEB. 12 Jr Partly cloudy: Low, 38; high, 67; 10% chance rain FRIDAY, FEB. 13 ■ - ■ ■ •"Vv Partly cloudy: Low, 46; high, 61; 10% chance rain SATURDAY, FEB. 14 Showers: Low, 38; high, 59; 40% chance rain SUNDAY, FEB. 15 0 Partly cloudy: Low, 44; high, 60; 10% chance rain Rainfall this month .1 inches Rainfall This Year 3.89 Inches INDEX Births 7A Church News 3B Classified Ads 6-8B Calendar 3A Crime News 7A News Roundup 2A Obituaries 9-1OA Opinions 4A School News 1 OA Sports 1-2B Social News 7-8A 4 8 7 9 1 4 1 4 1 " g By Mark Beardsley She was just 16 and about to begin her senior year at Commerce High School, and he was 20, working in the cafeteria at Harmony Grove Mills. They got married Aug. 29,1956, and she began her senior year of high school Aug. 30. She told the Banks County ordi nary, who officiated the then-secret wedding at the courthouse in Homer, that she was 17. “She’s a liar,’’ her hus band joked. It wasn’t the ideal sce nario for starting a mar riage but 53 Valentine’s Days later, Billy and Darthy Hix say they never looked back, never had any regrets. “I haven’t thrown any thing at him and broke it,’’ Darthy joked. “I wouldn’t do anything different as far as I can think of,’’ Billy offered. America celebrates Valentine’s Day Saturday, a holiday that roman ticizes (and oversimpli fies) love and relation ships, but for many couples meeting the expectations of the day is intimidating. Billy and Darthy (known as Dot by most of their friends) live the ideals expressed in countless Valentine’s cards, their love having survived — prospered — through the years, children, grandchil dren and other experienc es of more than a half cen tury together. If it didn’t begin in textbook fashion, their marriage certainly defied the odds. They’d planned to get married — Dot was wear ing an engagement ring — when the urge struck. “We had two couples that had gotten married a couple of months before we did. That sort of gave us the courage,’’ Dot remembered. They were Anne and Willard Epps and Bobbie and Fred Turpin. Anne was Billy’s sister. In addi tion, his other sister, Jean, had married Dan Ford a few months earlier. Billy and Darthy had dated about a year and a half. Dot was the only girl Billy ever dated. “When you find what you’re look ing for, why look any fur ther?’’ Billy explained. “We weren’t going to get married until I got out of school,’’ Dot remembered. “Anne and Williard and Bobbie and Fred gave us the guts to do it, and we did it.’’ The plan to keep the marriage secret didn’t last long. “Billy called me at Belk’s and said 'you’d better tell your folks, Momma knows it,”' Dot recalled. “Word had gotten out that Anne and Willard had got ten married. When Anne got home from school that day, her mother lit into her.’’ “And she says, 'Billy’s married too,”' Billy added. “To get Mrs. Hix off her back she said, 'Well, Billy and Darthy got married too,”' Dot continued. Their parents’ reaction? “My father cried,’’ said Dot. Billy’s mother and broth er predicted that the mar riage would last a year. His father’s reaction, which included the reaction to his sister Anne’s marriage, was: “Well, you’ve played hell now.’’ They — and Jean and Dan — moved in with Billy’s grandmother for a few months. Borrowing $3,000 from Commerce Building & Foan and $3,000 from Billy’s father, they built a house on Scott Street in 1957. They still live there, though they’ve built two additions over the years. Dot finished school, hike Anne, she was a CHS cheerleader (It was through Anne that she and Billy met). Their first child, Keith, was born in 1958 (Dot was pregnant at the time of her high school senior trip). Scott followed two years later and Fisa (now Fisa Maddox) was born in 1964. They had little money, but with the help of fam ily members who’d drop off a dozen eggs or some homemade sausage, they got by. They had a number of young couples with whom they socialized. They may have been poor, but they had fun. “We had a lot of good Please Turn to Page 3A By Mark Beardsley Almost half of Commerce’s residen tial electric customers shouldn’t see any increase from the new electric rate schedule approved Monday night by the city council. The rate schedule was almost revenue-neutral, and should increase overall revenue by about $21,000 a year, but high- end residential customers can expect to see slightly higher bills during the sum mer months. The council approved the new rates on a 3-1 vote, with Councilmen Bob Sosebee, Mark Fitzpatrick and Mayor Pro Tem Archie Chaney voting for the change, and Donald Wilson opposing it. Actually, for the six months of “non-summer’’ rates, the cost of electricity is down slightly. It’s dur ing the “summer’’ usage — when air conditioners are running — that the increas es occur, and they exempt the 45 percent of the city’s By Angela Gary A Jackson County church built in 1890 took center stage on Monday when actor Robert Duvall came to Jackson County to film a few scenes for his new movie, “Get how.’’ A location scout came across photos of the Miles Wilson Matthews Chapel in the History Village at Hurricane Shoals Park on the Tumbling Waters Society website and con tacted Helen Gunnels about the church. She han dles rental of the church for weddings but this was the first time a movie com pany contacted her about the site. Focation scouts visited Heritage Village and took customers, according to City Manager Clarence Bryant. “Forty-five percent of our residential customers use less than 500 kilowatt hours a month,’’ Bryant explained Monday night. For those, the rate stays the same under the new ordinances. But for those who use 750 kwh, their non-sum mer bills would drop by 50 cents, while their winter bills would go up $2.25 per month. At 1,000 kwh, the increase is $3.50 a month during the summer (and there is a $1 decrease in non-summer months), while at 2,000 kwh, there is a $1 savings half the year and a $7.50/ month increase during the summer schedule. Sixty-seven percent of the city’s electric custom ers used less than 1,000 kwh last month, according to Bryant. The rate schedule is the result of an analy- Please Turn to Page 3A photos of the church, which was used as Center Presbyterian Church until 1947 and was moved to Heritage Village in 1993. Just one week ago, Tumbling Waters Society leaders learned the church had been selected to be a part of the movie. TWS received $2,500 for use of the building. Early Monday morning, before 4 a.m., crew mem bers arrived at Heritage Village, located between Maysville and Jefferson, and began setting up the cameras and equipment needed for the all-day shoot. Filming began around 9 a.m. Monday and Duvall Please Turn to Page 5A "We had two couples that had gotten married a couple of months before we did. That sort of gave us the courage." - Darthy Hix, explain ing how she and Billy snuck off to Homer and got married. Film crews prepare to shoot a scene from “Get Low” at the Miles Wilson Matthews Chapel at Hurricane Shoals Park. Scene From Movie Filmed At Shoals Park