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WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2008 THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS PAGE 3A PICNIC ON THE LAWN The annual picnic for the Banks County Chamber of Commerce was held on the lawn of the historic courthouse in Homer Thursday evening. Entertainment, door prizes and a catered meal were among the festivities. Chamber holds annual picnic on the lawn SERVING UP DESSERT Helen Hewell and Tara Fulcher served up cake and ice cream at the Banks County Chamber of Commerce picnic Thursday night in Homer. LINED UP FOR MEAL Banks County Chamber of Commerce members lined up for the catered meal Thursday night at the picnic. PICNIC HELD IN HOMER Banks County Chamber of Commerce held its annual picnic on the lawn Thursday night in Homer. Quail ... mpage 1A BUILT AT LULA HOME Thurston Dodd builds quail processing equipment at a shop at his home. Pictured are (L-R) Dodd, Michael Dodd, Belinda Bryson, Clifford Bryson, Ronny Rowland and Brian Gerrin, all were involved in some process of the building of the machines. Photo by Justin Poole new equipment,” said Thurston. “I wound up with four patents on machines.” Then about 12 years ago, Dodd received a call, from a man in Greensboro, Ga., wanting him to come down and take a look at his process ing plant where everything was being done by hand. “I came back [after visiting the plant] and drew a blueprint out and started on his stuff and got him fully automated,” Dodd said. “Before I got through with that plant, people were beginning to find out about me from all over the country. They found out about me in South Carolina and a man came down to visit me and stayed about four hours watching videos I had of the machines running and then said he wanted me to visit his plant in Colombia, S.C.” After automating the plant in South Carolina, Dodd continued to work to develop better machines for process ing chicken and other poultry, which has taken him all over the United States, South America, Greece and Italy. “I still work on processing for chick ens, but the big thing now is quail equipment,” he said. “I was work ing on different things when this guy in Sydney, Australia, contacted me. He found out about me from the University of Georgia. How the uni versity found out about me I don’t know.” After talking for a month with the Australian, who Dodd didn’t want identify for business reasons, the Lula man traveled to Sydney to visit the plant where everything was still being done by hand. After seeing the operation, Dodd created a set of blueprints and returned home to start work building the equip ment including one that removes the crop (windpipe), another that vacuums out the lungs and the final machine washes the birds inside and out. It took two to three months to complete each of the three machines being sent to Australia. The machines are predominately stainless steel with some minor parts being aluminum. Dodd has designed every aspect of the machines without any electrical motors. The machines are operated by an overhead drive while the birds enter and exit on a conveyor system. Dodd also built the drive unit and gearbox that the plant can attach to their motor to operate his machines and existing machines. “The ideal thing is for [the Australian plant] to get fully automated,” said Dodd. “Instead of running two days a week, and killing 3,500 birds, they can run just one day and kill all their birds. They are increasing their bird size and will need to run more and more.” Once the machines are shipped and set up in Sydney, the processing plant can go fully automated, processing up to 5,000 quail per hour using Dodd’s machines. “The machines are easy to clean,” said Dodd. “The USDA requires that they be easy to clean and Australia has similar regulations. Another thing about these machines is that they will work exactly like I say they will.” The machines are made completely on location at Dodd’s shop. According to Dodd, he uses raw materials and does all the cutting, machine work and fabrication on site including building necessary parts and accessory parts like shackles. “It is a real good business,” Dodd said. “We have to stock parts, what works on one machine won’t work on another machine.” Shackles that hold the birds as they go through the machines will also be sent to Australia. The shackle is about a foot long and looks like an upside down Y. All the shackles are hand bent to shape from a rod of stainless steel. Dodd’s son, Michael, said that they had tried using a machine to bend the shackles but when you have to have them bent in such a shape, by hand is the only feasible way. The quail processing equipment is four times smaller than chicken pro cessing equipment. Some of Dodd’s chicken processing machines in opera tion in the states can operate over 7,000 birds an hour. The quail machines were wrapped in plastic to protect the parts during the trip, which will take over two months to reach the final destination. Once the machines go online, Dodd doesn’t think it will be long before he starts getting contacted for more of the machines from other companies. “The phone stays busy with people contacting me asking for this or that,” Dodd said. “We stay busy.” We Buy All Gold & Silver Nee, Including: Class Rings • Wedding Bands • Coins • Broken Jewelry • Dental Gold 770-532-2592 1020 Jesse Jewell Pkwy. • Gainesville, GA Mon. - Thurs. 10-6:30 • Fri. - Sat. 10-7 Voters encouraged to get absentee ballots for elections Registered voters may request an absentee ballot from their county reg istrar by completing an application available on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website. The website is: www.sos.ga.gov/ elections/ElectionCenter08.htm. Voters may then submit the form to their county registrar by mail or fax. Contact information for county regis trars is available at www.sos.ga.gov/ elections/ElectionCenter08.htm. Absentee ballots will also be avail- able at the registrar’s office begin ning June 2. Voters will be allowed to cast an absentee ballot without giving a reason for wanting to vote early. “We will likely see high turnout in this year’s general primary and general election. That could mean extended wait times at some pre cincts,” secretary of state Karen Handel said. “Absentee voting is a convenient way for voters to exercise their civic duty without having to visit a polling place on election day.” CRCT... continued from page 1A the state school superintendent’s office. State School Superintendent Kathy Cox indicated in various con ference calls regarding the recent scores that students who fail the retest may appeal for promotion. Additionally, she noted that par ents need to accept that the revised math standards were necessary. “We were lulled into the sense middle school students were doing good work before when they weren’t,” she said. Accounting for the success of the math scores locally, superinten dent Chris Erwin said: “I am not surprised at the results being so good for Banks County because of the quality of students, teachers and administrators. It’s a new test and a more rigorous curriculum. Our teachers were prepared for the challenges of the new curriculum and have done an outstanding job delivering instruction for student mastery.” BCMS had the highest passing rate among all area schools, local officials said. Preliminary data also indicates the school has a higher percentage of passing than the sur rounding counties on other areas of the test including reading, English/ language arts, science and social studies. Cox has said, however, the CRCT results for sixth and seventh grade social studies would be invalidated because they were “implausibly low.” “After intense scrutiny of the standards and assessment, we have come to the conclusion that these scores are not trustworthy measures of student achievement in social studies,” Cox said. “This decision is based primarily on the conviction that we need to revise the curricu lum and the assessments to better evaluate the knowledge and skills that represent student achievement in social studies.” Overall results for the CRCT must be certified by the Georgia Department of Education before being released to the public, Cox said. Lula ... continued from page 1A Also at the meeting last week, the Lula City Council: •approved a request to start accepting bids for solid waste pickup. •accepted bids on surplus items, including a Dodge Ram pickup truck, $250; Ford tractor, $1,501; Yanmar tractor, $1,130; genera tor, $410; and two air compres sors, $150 each. •denied a bid on surplus scrap metal of $100. •denied a request for Highland Lakes annexation and rezoning. •tabled discussion of a right of way usage ordinance until the next meeting. •approved the start of repairs on McLeod Pump Station and stated they are not to exceed $27,800. •revised a SPLOST 6 funds request from Hall County to now ask for $1.266 million for water and sewer, $300,000 for parks and $300,000 for roads. •heard an update on the proce dure for vandalism on signage. More action will be taken at next month’s meeting. •named May’s Yard of the Month recipients, District 1 - Tim Smith, District 2 - Johnny Brookshire, District 3 - Robert Grizzle, District 4 - Jennifer More, and District 5 - J.L. Kenimer. •thanked all who helped and participated in Railroad Days. The council discussed adding additional prizes to the parade, including best old car, best horse and best antique tractor. DFACS... continued from page 1A “I would like to purchase six flat-screen monitors for the office.” Jarvis said he recently purchased some for the Stephens County office at a cost of $210 each. “I will do everything to stay within the budget,” Jarvis said. The vote to approve the purchase of the monitors passed unanimously. In other business: •Jarvis presented the economic support services report for April. The report shows 53 applications for food stamps, nine applica tions for temporary assistant for needy families, 59 family Medicaid applications and three applications for childcare. •Jarvis presented the monthly social services report for April. The department had 23 child protective services referrals for the month, 21 of these were accepted and two were screened out. Banks County has 13 chil dren in legal custody, one child boarding the county and three supervision cases. Banks County has five foster homes available and two homes that are under study. One child was adopted during the month of April, Jarvis said. •Jarvis reported that the annu al foster parent appreciation banquet was held on Tuesday, May 20, at the Homer United Methodist Church, with five fos ter parent couples attending. •Jarvis announced the Field Staff Awards banquet to be held on Wednesday night, May 21, in Atlanta. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the DFACS board will be held at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, June 18, at the DFACS office. FORTSON Well Drilling & Environmental Services, Inc. Residential & Commercial Services • 6” Drilled Wells • Water Filtration and Purification • Water Conditioning Systems • Irrigation Systems • Monitoring Wells • Remediation Wells Customer Satisfaction Is Important To Us. We Invite You To Check Us Out. PHONE 795-2717 FAX 795-3713 Located 5 Miles North Of Danielsville On Hwy. 281 Danielsville, Georgia