Newspaper Page Text
FRIDAY
April 9, 2004
Volume 135, Number 71
Award-Winning
Better Newspaper
Contest
In BRIEF
Parade, egg hunt
set lor Saturday
The first annual Easter
Parade will begin at 10
a.m. in the parking lot of
Save-A-Lot on North
Houston Road and end at
Peavy Park on Johnson
Road. The parade will
bring the Easter Bunny
to the seventh annual
Easter In The Park - a
celebration of “Child
Safety Month in Houston
County” from 10 a.m.
until 1:30 p.m. Children
can enjoy games, prizes,
face painting, moonwalk
and more! There will be a
Diaper Derby for crawl
ing babies and age
grouped egg hunts for
toddlers through 10-year
olds. Information will be
available on community
resources for assisting
and maintaining the safe
ty and well-being of chil
dren and their families.
Inside TODAY
WR church food
bank stocking up
The Church of the
Nazarene just started its
food bank, called the Food
Pantry, about a year ago.
Family&Faith, page 6A
Happy BIRTHDAY!
April 9
Jean Hubbard
April 10
Jason Borden
Michele Sutton
(Surprise your fnends! Let us
know when their birthday or
anniversary is, and we'll put their
names in the paper that day. Just
send the name and date at least
a week in advance, and we ll do
the rest. E-mail to
hhjffevansnewspapers com, or
mail them to us at the address
inside. No phone calls, please
Many happy returns’)
Area DEATHS
Alethia Rogers Bates
Malcolm Guerry
Erma Julia Home
Obits, page 9A
INDEX
CLASSIFIED 5B
COMICS 4B
CROSSWORD 4B
LIFESTYLE 6A
OBITUARIES 9A
OPINION 4A
SCHOOL NEWS. . 9A
STATE 5A
TV LISTINGS 4B
WEATHER 2A
PERIODICAL
8
Georgia Newspaper Project
Photographic Services
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The finish line at the first Georgia Cup event last month
in Macon.
Veteran
educator
to run
for board
By Luci Joullian
HHJ Staff Writer
Charles M. “Toby" Hill is
running for the Houston
County Board of Education
and says he has the experi
ence to hack up his candida
cy.
The North Carolina
native began his career in
education by being Fecruited
to teach in the DeKalb
County School System
Hill, who will be running
for the at-large Post 7 seat
currently held by Karen
Mertens, spent four years as
superintendent of Crawford
County Schools before com
ing to Houston County in
1980 to serve as principal of
Warner Robins' Watson
Center and also as Houston
County’s vocational and
strategic planning director.
Hill, 58, retired from edu
cation in 1998 and went to
work as the director of
See HILL, page 3A
Jk
CHARLES M. “TOBY” HILL
Perdue to call special session over budget
General Assembly adjourns after approving state budget with $52-57 million deficit
By Dick Pettys
Associated Press Writer
ATLANTA - Moments after the
Georgia Legislature adjourned
Wednesday, Gov. Sonny Perdue sent
word that he will call them buck into
a special session because the budget
they approved is not balanced.
Moments before he planned to
meet with reporters, his spokesman,
Dan McLagan, said, “there is a $52
million to $57 million hole in the
budget. We can’t have that."
The Legislature adjourned at mid
night Wednesday after passing the
$16.4 billion budget, but without
approving a key bill that provides a
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Brick by
brick
ABOVE: Perry
Convention and Visitors
Bureau Director Jenny
Andrew and William
Dean of Dean ’s Masonry
sort bricks to go into the
base of the Perry
Welcome Center’s new
lighted informational
sign. One hundred and
twenty-one sponsors
paid for bricks, and the
proceeds covered the
costs of erecting the
sign.
II 11.1 .lon Suggn
small portion of the money neces
sary to make it balanced.
Perdue shunned the usual closing
night appearance in the legislature
and instead planned to meet
reporters shortly after the
ment.
The legislature beat the adjourn
ment deadline by just half an hour
when it approved a spending plan
for next year that resolved their dif
ferences over funding Medicaid and
education.
But the compromise budget bill
relied in part on new funds from a
bill that still needed final passage.
That measure adds new fines to
Biking through Perry
Cyclists to compete here in second Georgia Cup event
By Jon Suggs
HHJ Staff Writer
PERRY - Next weekend,
Perry will become host to a
horde of cyclists as the sec
ond stop on the seven-city,
17-race Georgia Cup race
series.
Three races, collectively
called the Perry Omnium,
will be held here over the
April 17-18 weekend, and
are expected to draw over
300 participants, according
to event organizer Gentry
“Trey” Arnette 111.
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criminal penalties to help under
write indigent defense. The gover
nor wanted more executive over
sight over the spending. The House
and some of the state’s top jurists
insisted he was encroaching on the
independence of the judiciary.
The spending plan was approved
43-10 in the Senate just before 11
p.m. and 155-15 in the House about
a half hour later.
The compromise concluded a testy
battle that had divided budget nego
tiators for more than a week.
“We all have bright hopes for the
state’s future,” said Sen. Jack Hill,
R-Rcidsville, the lead Senate budget
For Arnette, putting
together the Georgia Cup
was more than just a busi
ness venture. Himself a
competitive cyclist, he hopes
to bring a great competition
to the more than 600
licensed, racing cyclists in
Georgia.
Although that’s about
twice as many racers as
neighboring states like
Tennessee and the
Carolinas, most of the big
cycling events have always
been in those states, Arnette
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said.
“That was just, to me, bad
math,” he said.
So he began looking to put
together something chal
lenging here - and not just a
race or weekend event, but a
big, sweeping, multi-city
series.
The resulting Georgia Cup
will play out over six months
and seven cities, awarding
over $40,000 in cash and
prizes along the way.
Each stop on the series
involves two or three races.
See RACE, page 34
Inside
■ HOPE scaled back,
page 5A
■ Tort reform fizzles,
page 5A
■ Legislation
roundup, page 5A
&
negotiator. “I think this budget will
make it happen sooner.”
Rep. Butch Parrish, D-
Swainsboro, the lead House negotia
tor, said the measure “stalls at some
level” the local property tax hikes
Sm BUDGET, page SA