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r _ ***’t:*»:*********lllXED CITY 30601 . ■Ml I 'ERSTTV OF GA LIBRARIES 115* ATTN: BOe HENNEBERGER .• T HEWS. Aft 30602 t r«iyc 3b Houston Times-Journo! Volume 124 No. 24 3 Sections, 22 Pages | Inside Today 1 Legal Ads Announcements 2B Classifieds 6B Editorials 4A Calendar 5A Obituaries 2A Sports 6A Around Town Briefly... •Family Fest Will Be Held At Momingside School Morningside Elementary will hold its first "family fest" school carnival on Sat., March 26, 1994 on Momingside Drive in Perry from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Snack bar will include hot dogs, chips, cokes and popcorn. Live entertainment will be scheduled all day featuring Miss Warner Robins, doggers, dancers, singers, M/M Bill Hathcock, church choirs and many more. Games include face painting, moon walk, hay ride, dunk tank, fish pond, duck pond, palm reader, bottle stand, ringtoss, balloon bust, bean bag, basketball throw, football throw, golf, sock it to the teacher. Along with a country store, sweetshop and silent auction that will have a lot of new or used items to bid on donated by local merchants and parents. We would appreciate the City of Perry's support to make this a huge success. All proceeds will go towards a school sign and equal amounts of money distributed for classrooms. AARP Yard Sale Tc Be Held During Dogwood Perry AAPP Chapter 1744 will be holding a yard sale/flea market during Dogwood Festival days. The sale will be held at the park ing lot next to Stanley Furniture store. The chapter is also looking for donations. Arrangements for pick up can be made by calling Don Norris (987-2901) or Walt Rembisz (987-1908). Group To Hold Bake Sale ForPMS Chorus The PMS Choral Support Group is having a bake sale at Kroger on Saturday, March 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. There is something good for everyone. A car wash is planned for SaL, April 16 at Bank South from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the bake sale. Please come support the Chorus Team. Plans For Power Plant May Generate 250 New Jobs By VETO F. ROLEY Staff Writer Mid-Georgia Cogen (MGC) L.P. announced plans Monday, March 21, to construct an $175 million gas-fired combined cycle cogenera tion facility in Kathleen. The facility, which will be lo cated at the Frito-Lay plant, will produce approximately 222 Megawatts of electricity. The out put will be used to power the Frito- Lay facility, with the excess pro duction sold to Georgia Power. Steve Frankel, spokesman for MGC, said the project will produce approximately 200 construction jobs. He said company officials have indicated that 40-to-50 perma For News And Subscriptions Call 912-987-1823 | Parkway Opens! After Two Years, New Road Opens To Travellers Tues. BY BRENDA THOMPSON Staff Writer After more than two years of construction, the new Perry Park way, also referred to as the North Perry Bypass, is now open for business, according to local Georgia Department of Transportation offi cials. “We completed some last minute striping on Monday and opened the new road to travelers on Tuesday,” Kenneth Robinson, Jr., Perry’s DOT resident engineer, said this week. Construction on the road, which runs from Interstate 75’s Thompson Road Exit across Perry to U.S. 341 and which was named Perry Parkway by a legislative resolution last month, was started by Georgia DOT workers on Jan. 29,1992. State costs for the project was estimated at $4 million, with an additional $1 million currently being funded by the City of Perry for the extension of city utilities, according to Perry Mayor Jim Worrall. All of the areas along the new roadway are either already in the Deadline To Enter Parade Extended BY BRENDA THOMPSON Staff Writer With a verbal commitment from Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Chorus to be the grand marshals, this year’s Sixth Annual Dogwood Festival Parade is really shaping up, according to Phyllis Thompson of the Perry Area Chamber of Commerce. Scheduled to kick off at noon Saturday, April 2, this year’s parade will follow the same parade route as in previous years, from Kellwood Drive down Gen. Courtney Hodges Boulevard, through downtown Perry via Carroll Street and down Main Street to Perry Elementary School. Somewhere between SO and 60 units are expected to participate, although many people had not re sponded by the Friday, March 18, entry deadline. The deadline has since been extended to this Friday, March 2S. “We’re hoping for one of the biggest and best parades ever,” Thompson said this week. “We’ve got some really good entries thus far, a number of them from out of town. We sent out literally hundreds of invitations and, hopefully, with this deadline exten sion, we’ll get in even more.” Among those already scheduled to participate are Georgia guberna torial candidate John Knox; the fa mous Shoney’s Bear; the Wildlife nent workers will staff the cogener ation facility. However, before the plant can be built, approval must be given by the Georgia Public Service Com mission, which is currently holding a series of hearings on die project in Atlanta. "The Public Service Commis sion (PSC) will decide if MGC can produce power below Georgia Power Company's avoided cost," said Frankel. The avoided cost is the difference between what it would cost Georgia Power to produce the electricity and what it costs MGC to produce the electricity. If MGC can produce | Sports | Page 6A 1 Official Organ For Houston County, City of Perry & State of Georgia v. "***"■ Jm **»*§ iS*.^ jjP™ With the new Perry Parkway opening for business on Tuesday, local DOT officials remind motorists to be wary of the new traffic signals at the roadway’s Intersections with Highway 41 and State Route 127. Caution should also be taken at stop signs placed at the Perry Parkway/Kings Chapel Road crosslng.-Photo by Brenda Thompson city limits of Perry or are expected to be incorporated in the coming months. Eventually, the road will connect with a similar bypass on the west side of town which is Bunch Kitchen Band; Macon’s Showbiz Twirlers; and Mrs. Senior Georgia, Jane Sanders of Warner Robins. Others include floats by the Ge orgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter and Perry Elementary School as well as plenty of local and area beauty queens-past and present Miss Dogwood Pageant winners and Miss Houston County 4-H, just to name a few. The 82nd Airborne Chorus of Fort Bragg, N.C., the same group which gave an impressive and pop ular performance at this year’s Perry Area Chamber of Commerce An- Please see PARADE, page 10A Keeping Georgia's Children Safe, Healthy The Rainbow House Children's Resource Center announces that "Promises to Keep" is the theme for April, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time for all Georgians to focus on keeping children safe and healthy. "Promises To Keep" says that all Georgians must commit to support child abuse prevention efforts in their community," explained Kathy Garnett, Executive Director of the Rainbow House. "During April, we want to make people in Houston County aware power below the cost to Georgia Power than federal law mandates that Georgia Power purchase the excess power from MGC. Frankel said company officials were waiting for the PSC ruling be fore moving forward on construc tion. "We fell very confident about the potential outcome (of the hear ings)," he said. MGC presented its case to the PSC last Monday and Tuesday, March 14 and 15. Georgia Power will present its response to the PSC April 18-20. On Monday, May 16, MGC will present its re buttal to Georgia Power's response. The PSC is expected to rule on Wednesday, March 23, 1994 scheduled to be completed and opened this August Of the areas of the new Perry Parkway already incorporated by the city. Mayor Worrall added that Ssiw ©naif S(Slfa<D<Dlls ' Concerned Citizens Meeting Thursday, March 24th 7:30 p.m. Perry Middle School Gym Bring A Friend that child abuse is a deadly cycle that continues through generations. People who were abused as children are more than six times likely to abuse their own kids. Last year in Houston County, over 1200 reports of child abuse or neglect were made to the Department of Family and Children Services. The Rainbow House wants people to know that we can break the cycle and keep our promises to Georgia's children for a safe, happy childhood.” Activities to benefit child abuse prevention and Rainbow House for the Kathleen project around June 21. Frankel said a key to the MGC case to the PSC was the testimony of key witness Kenneth Slater, who designed many of the computer models Georgia Power uses to cal culate avoided costs. If the PSC approves the project, company officials, in a news release announcing plans for the facility, expect the cogeneration plant to be operational by mid-1997. "It (the cogeneration plant) will help us reduce our operating ex penses," said Dean Maly, manager of Frito-Lay's Kathleen facility. The cogeneration plant was the I Classified ~L I Page 6B I some are zoned commercial and some residential. He also added that the city’s utility extension work is being tied into another project to alleviate April include Mike Houston's Golf Tournament at the Landings Golf Club, April 9-10; Zeb’s Zip-In Golf Tournament at Houston Lake, April 23-24; Kroger Golf Tournament at the Landings, April 13; a tennis tournament at Houston Lake, April 30-May 1; and a drawing for 4 Radio Flyer wagons loaded with stuffed animals, books, candy and toys ( a SIOO value each) to be held April 9. In addition, the cities of Warner Robins, Perry and the Houston Please see SAFE, page 10A second announcement of expansion made at the Frito-Lay plant in the past six months. On Oct 12, Frito- Lay officials announced the addition of a new $25 million chip line to the plant, which was expected to create 100 new jobs. The new chip line is to be con structed using bonds issued by the county to the company. However, Tim Martin, executive director of the Houston County Development Authority, which is handling the bonds for the county, said that Frito-Lay had not signed the bond agreement as of Tuesday, March 22. Martin added that the signing of the bonds was not being held up Perry, Georgia * 25 Cents potential problems with some high pressure gas lines which were laid many years ago and have since had residential areas built up around them. Holly Hartley Hartley Crowned Miss Westfield Friday, March 18 BY BRENDA THOMPSON Staff Writer Holly Hartley of Fort Valley put the crowning touch on her sophomore year Friday night when she earned the title of Miss Westfield 1994 during the school’s annual pageant She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Hartley, also of Fort Valley. As the new Miss Westfield, Hartley will, upon her high school graduation, receive a $1,500 schol arship to the college of her choice. Named first runner-up in the pageant was Westfield junior An drea Kirk, the daughter of Clav Kirk Please see pageant, page iua while a decision was being made on the cogeneration plant "Officially, we don't know of any linkage (between signing the bond agree ment and the cogeneration plant)," he said. Even though Frito-Lay has not signed the bond agreement Martin said the expansion plans were still on track. "I have no knowledge of where we are at with the bonds," said Maly, who directed questions about the bonds to Frito-Lay's public af fairs department in Texas. Attempts to reach the public affairs depart ment by press time were unsuccess ful.