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HIGH POINT TOWER WITH WINDMILL
Generated Electricity For Radio
High Point Fire
Tower Program
Set Saturday
SEVERAL STATE and regional speakers will par
ticipate in the 40th anniversary observance of the High
Point fire tower at 1 p.m. Saturday at the tower. The public
is invited.
Ranger Fred Hall of the Chattooga unit of the Georgia
Forestry Commission, said the speakers will include Hen
dry Swindell, Macon, Region I field supervisor for the Com
mission; Carl Melear, Rome, District I forester; Spencer
McGraw, Rome, district ranger; Chattooga Rep. John
Crawford, and 53rd Dist. Sen. Waymond ‘‘Sonny"
Huggins. o
THE CEREMONIES will also honor longtime ranger
and firefighter J. B. White, who helped build the tower in
1949.
Boy Scout troops from throughout the county will par
ticipate in the program, along with Company H, Georgia
Army National Guard, said forester Butch Overstreet. It
willAl);st approximately one hour.
Overstreet researched the history of the fire tower, us
ing the Woodrow Espy Memorial Microfilm Library
established by The Summerville News. Woodrow Espy is
a late veteran editor of the newspaper.
AT THE TIME land was acquired for the fire tower,
George Bishop was the local ranger and White was assis
tant ranger. The property on High Point was bought on
Aug. 12, 1948 from Tennie Mclntosh and Nick Vann,
Overstreet and Hall said.
To provide telephone service to the tower — which was
still in the planning stage — White and Bishop dismantl
ed a phone line at the Hermitage tower located at Shan
non in Floyd County and relocated it to Chattooga Coun
ty. They personally installed the line from the Lyerly city
limits to High Point, three miles distant. Bishop and White
weren’t able to set poles in the solid rock on Taylors Ridge
at that time, so they placed the line on trees growing along
the steep half-mile slope. Installation of the line was com
pleted on Nov. 18, 194;?, O\;erstrget said.
WILLIS STEWART of the Georgia Department of
Forestry (as the Georgia Forestry Commission was known
then), Macon, obtained a bulldozer to cut a road to the
tower site from Jenkins Gap. Ed Ash, a road grader
operator with Chattooga County, graded the road. That
ortion of the project was completed in mid-November,
,11948, Hall said.
The next step involved building concrete pillars for the
tower's four legs. Each had to be poured six feet deep with
a four-foot base, tapering to two feet at the top. Those four
holes had to be hand-drilled and dynamited through solid
rock, Overstreet said. :
* * *
THE FIVE COUNTY commissioners at that time —
George Kling, R. C. Floyd, F. A. Justice, H. C. Gordon and
Dr. W. B. Hair — provided eight inmates from the Chat
tooga Public Works Camp to help drill the holes, Hall con
tinued. The concrete was poured in the middle of December,
1948.
Steel for construction of the tower arrived at the base
of Taylors Ridge on Dec. 30, 1948. But the truck carrying
the steel couldn’t negotiate the steep grade up Jenkins Gap
Road. The steel had to be unloaded and a four-wheel wagon
borrowed from S. I. Storey Lumber Co., Crystal Spring, to
haul the steel up the mountain. A Jeep pulled the wagon
up the road a half-dozen times before all the steel was at
the building site, Overstreet said.
ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION of the tower began in
January, 1949. Bishop, White and Pennley Holmes actually
built the tower. The work was made more difficult by the
high winds on High Point that increased at each level of
construction, Hall added. Although there were no injuries
reported during construction, White came within a belt's
width of his death. He recalled working on the next to last
see HIGH POINT, page 10-A
Get Carded Now
--See Page 5-B
Che ¢ mmeruille News
NUMBER XIII
SUMMERVILLE, CHATTOOGA COUNTY, GEORGIA — THURSDAY, APRIL 13, 1989
Mitchell Admits
Support Of Hayes
In Catrett Flap
By RICH JEFFERSON
Staff Writer
Chattooga Countians
unhappy with the release of
Chattooga High principal Jack
Catrett discovered I]\J/londay
night that at least one member
of the county’s board of educa
tion favoredy not renewing the
contract of the untenured
principal.
Martha Tucker, Alpine,
challenged the board to res
pond to her claim that the
board could have voted to
disapprove a list of principals
that did not include Catrett’s
name.
MITCHELL BACKING
“You didn't have to vote on
the vacancy,” she said. ‘*So
what you need to do is stand up
and say ‘that’'s the way I
wanted it and I didn’t want
him back.” "’
At that point Gore board
member Bill Mitchell shot up
from his seat, shook his fist in
the air and said, ‘‘that’s the
way I wanted it."”
Mrs. Tucker said Mitchell
was the first board member to
say that to her. *‘The rest said
there was nothing they could
do about it. In effect, you voted
yes on not re-hiring Mr.
Catrett.”
Asked after the meeting,
Mitchell said he approved
School Superintendent Don
Hayes recommendations.
When asked if he approved
leaving Catrett's name off the
list, Mitchell said, “'I didn’t say
that. But what he (Hayes) did
was a good decision.”
APPRECIATION
When The News asked
Hayes about Mitchell's back
ing in the decision not to offer
Catrett another contract,
Hayes said, ‘I appreciate his
support.” When asked why he
received such backing from
Mitchell, Hayes replied, ‘I ap
preciate his support.”
Mrs. Tucker asked Hayes if
he was having trouble finding
another candidate for principal
at CHS. Hayes said he had in
terviewed several, but Mrs.
Tucker said she thought it
would be difficult to attract a
principal to Chattooga to take
Catrett's position. o
“If I was a principal, this
would be the last pYace d
want to be,” she said. *'l'd say
look what happened to that
man.”’
Al .
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GAE PRESIDENT LUVENIA JACKSON PRESENTS SCHOOL BELLS
Given To Tommy Toles (L), Rich Jefferson Of The News
Furniture ‘Pinned’
--See Page 1-B
© Copyright 1989 By Espy Publishing Co., Inc. — All Rights Reserved
KNOWS RISKS
Carl Shealy, a teacher at
CHS, said at the meeting that
each candidate for the job
knows the risks involved when
an administrator takes a new
job such as Catrett did this
past summer. 0
- ““He knows that what hap
pened with Catrett can happen
with him. He doesn’'t have to
move if he doesn't want to. But
he knows if he comes here, he
can be confronted with this
situation because he's not
tenured here. They don’t have
to move if he doesn’'t want to,
but when they come, they take
that risk. Mr. Catrett took that
risk,”” Shealy said. @
Catrett came to CHS this
past August. Because he had
previously been a tenured ad
ministrator in another Georgia
school system, Catrett nee£d
only to be offered his second
contract before he became
tenured here.
To receive his second con
tract, Catrett had to be recom
mended to the school board by
Hayes, but Hayes refused te
make the recommendation. All
six other principals in the coun
ty system were approved at the
board’s March 12 meeting.
HEARING
Tenured administrators
and teachers cannot be sum
marily dismissed without being
given a hearing. Those who are
Landfill Recommendation Due Soon
The Georgia Geologic
Survey is expected to present
its recommendation on the
suitability of a 155-acre tract at
Chattoogaville for a new Chat
tooga County landfill to the
state’'s Environmental Protec
tion Division (EPD) by the end
of this month.
David Simonson, a geologic
survey official, told The News
this week that he planned to
personally visit the site next
week with representatives of
Hill-Fister Engineers Inc., the
Clarkston firm that conducted
test borings on the property in
late February. Simonson said
he planned to walk over the
property before conducting a
thorough examination of Hill-
Fister's report on the tract.
BY APRIL 28
Barring unforeseen pro
blems, Simonson said he ex
pects to submit a recommenda
tion on whether the site should
not tenured do not have to be
given a reason for their
dismissal. Other residents of
the county have protested that
Catrett has not geen told why
he was not offered another
contract.
Lewis Strange, a Gore and
Atlanta resident, said that he
thinks Catrett deserves to be
told why he was not asked to
continue being principal at
Chattooga High, ™ = =
“I'd like to call on the board
not to approve anybody until
Mr. Hayes tells us why
Ca\%rett’s not rehired,” Strange
said.
“*Mr. Catrett's done a good
job. We had the number one
dropout rate and that was
brought down. The man’s done
a good job. I think he deserves
to know why. How can we ex
pect to get somebody capable
and competent when they come
in to do a good job, and they
step on a few big shots’ kids'’
toes and they're kicked out?”
Strange acknowledged that
he had no children in tfie coun
tv.system. The latest dropout
figures available for Chattooga
High are from the 1987-88
school year, which ended last
June. Catrett became principal
in August.
NAMES FIELD
The board approved a
resolution to name the gridiron
see MITCHELL, page 9-A
be accepted or rejected, or ac
cepted with engineering
modifications, to James Dun
bar, EPD program manager,
by Friday, April 28. The pro
ject is a top priority with the
state, he continued.
Simonson also said that the
EPD had received a number of
contacts in opposition to the
site. If a sufficient amount of
interest is noted during a
public comment time on the
site, the state would probably
hold a a}l)ublic hearing on the
proposal, the geologic survey
official said.
At least 119 residents of the
Chattoogaville area have ex-
E)ressed opsosition to the land
ill site and Cherokee County,
Ala., officials have said they
were taking a 'wait and see”
attitude toward the project.
They have said they are con
cerned that the langfill might
pollute the Chattooga River
and then Weiss Lake.
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TERA COMPTON EXPRESSES DISPLEASURE MONDAY AFTERNOON
See Page 13-B For Trion Elementary Student’s Complaint
Chattooga Commissioner
Jim Parker in late January an
nounced that he had taken a
preliminary option on the 155
acres, which are located east of
Highway 114 and south of the
Holland-Chattoogaville Road.
He paid SIOO to the Busbin
estate, which owns the proper-
Teachers Cite Newspaper
Jason Beck Also Gets School Bell Award
The Summerville News has
been honored with three School
Bell awards from the Georgia
Association of Educators for
the second year in a row. They
were presented to the
newspaper during the annual
‘5 \.'
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B
JASON BECK OF WGTA GETS AWARD
Ms. Jackson Presents School Bell
Mental Health Protest
--See Page 3-A
ty. to hold it until March 15. At
that time, he paid $5,000 for an
option on the tract, holding it
until May 15, when the full
amount comes due.
A decision by the EPD on
whether to issue a permit for
the site won't come until after
Simonson submits his recom
awards banquet of the GAE
last Thursday evening at the
Atlanta Airport Marriott
Hotel.
Tommy Toles, editor of the
newspaper, received two
School Bell awards. One was
PRICE 25¢
mendation to Dunbar’s depart
ment at the EPD late this
month. Whether the EPD will
make a decision on the tract
prior to that May 15 option
deadline remains unknown,
especially if the state requires
an advertised public hearing on
see LANDFILL, page 16-A
for the newspaper's editorial
series on the (E,hattooga Coun
ty school system's dropout
problem. The other was for the
newspaper's straight news
series on the dropout issue.
Rich Jefferson, a staff
writer who covers education
news for the paper, received a
School Bell award for features
on his story about paperwork
generated by the Quality Basic
Education (QBE) program.
The awards were presented
to both newspaper represen
tatives by Luvenia Jackson,
president of the GAE. Ms.
Jackson will serve a second
year as president of the
teachers’ organization.
WGTA WINS
Jason Beck, a student at
Chattooga Hi%h School and a
part-time staffer at WGTA
radio, was presented a School
Bell for public service. He was
nominated for the award by the
Chattooga Education
Association.
No other single media
outlet in the state — daily or
weekly newspapers, television
or radio — won three awards
this year or in 1988. The News
was told last year that 1988
was the first year that a week
ly newspaper had ever won
three top School Bell awards in
one 12-month period.
The News has won
numerous School Bell awards
for its coverage of education
issues in the local schools.
COMMITMENT
“We feel that these awards
see TEACHERS, page 9-A