The Starr’s Mill High School Drama Department recently awarded over $7,000 in scholarships at the Miss Starr’s Mill High School Scholarship Pageant. Katie Iampietro, a senior, was crowned Miss Starr’s Mill after two nights of preliminaries and a final night of competition. The Starr’s Mill High School Drama Department recently awarded over $7,000 in scholarships at the...
Local Boy Scouts are carrying on the tradition that started 25 years ago as a Scout service project. Scouting for Food is considered America ’s largest One-Day Food Drive. In the United States, an estimated 13 million people go to bed hungry each night. With the current state unemployment rates reaching over 10 percent, the local community...
The last obstacle that stood between the dream of a school for gifted students and its realization was a special-use permit. The Griffin Board of Commissioners approved this permit at its last meeting, which made it official for The Dinoff School for Gifted Students.
The private school, in a former sewing mill on Broad Street, will open its doors in...
Fulton High School will have their 11th annual Multi Class Reunion on March 13. The event will mark the 95th anniversary of the Fulton High Red Birds. If you attended or graduated you are welcome to come. We would appreciate you letting us know so that the food prepared will be enough.
The cost is $10 per person and...
The Welcome Center of the Fayette County Public School System is extending hours for kindergarten registration on the third Thursdays and first Saturdays of February and March.
Extended hours for Thursdays, February 18 and March 18, will be 8 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Extended hours for Saturdays, February 6 and March 6, will be 9 a.m.-noon.
These extended hours are for kindergarten registration...
Fayette County officials are preparing for the bleak economy to catch up to home values this year.
County financial staff said last week they are preparing for a “worst case” scenario of a 7 percent decline in the tax digest thanks to home foreclosures and a new Georgia law.
Such a decline would reduce the county’s portion of property tax revenue...
More than three dozen residents attended a budget meeting hosted by newly-elected Councilman Eric Imker Saturday afternoon at City Hall in Peachtree City.
Imker, citing a $3.3 million shortfall for the approaching 2010-2011 budget year, insists council needs to adopt mid-year budget cuts this year, and soon.
Outlining his budget review Saturday, Imker said the city can easily trim that shortfall...
The Fayette County Board of Education heard last week its funding next fiscal year could be more than $10.3 million less than what it currently gets, bad news for a system already reeling from $12.65 million in cuts so far this year.
Comptroller Laura Brock at the Jan. 26 meeting gave the board a look at several factors that could...
So far, so good, for the Fayette County School System, at least in terms of the projected fund balance for the year ending June 30. Barring any funding changes the school system might show a balance of $7.88 million in the general fund by the middle of this calendar year, about 4 percent of the total budget.
While the $7.88...
Bye-bye, Barnes & Noble; hello, Goodwill store.
It will have been nearly 10 years to the day from the time that Barnes & Noble opened its doors across from the Fayette Pavilion until the time it closes those doors. The bookseller will discontinue operations at its Fayetteville store on Ga. Highway 85 at the end of May.
Barnes & Noble Vice...
Fayette sheriff’s detectives have arrested five Clayton County youths for burglarizing a home in the Hampstead Heath subdivision off Ga. Highway 314 North early Monday afternoon.
A witness alerted 911 to suspicious activity in the area and the first responding deputy was able to arrest one of the suspects in a turquoise Camaro at the subdivision’s entrance off Hwy. 314,...
The United States Postal Service is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of two men who robbed a postal service contract truck driver at the Fayetteville Post Office Friday night.
U.S. Postal Inspectors are asking anyone who was at the post office between 6:30 and 7:30 to contact them at 1-877-876-2455. Witnesses may have...
Sheriff’s Capt. Deborah Hannah was responding to a burglar alarm at her own home the afternoon of Jan. 2 when her sport utility vehicle collided with another car, sheriff’s officials said.
The crash injured both Capt. Hannah, the driver of the car and the driver’s 4-year-old daughter, though their injuries were reportedly not life-threatening. Meanwhile the burglar alarm was later...
Fayette County State Court Solicitor’s employee Sabrina Ann Miller has been charged with felony theft by taking of more than $3,800 in funds from her office at the Fayette County Justice Center. Additional charges could be forthcoming.
Miller between the dates of Jan. 1, 2007 and Dec. 31, 2009 is accused of stealing $3,836.48 in funds that were the property...
The U.S. gross domestic product grew by 5.7 percent in the last quarter of 2009, but you could not see any improvement locally by the look of Fayette County’s jobless rate. That rate rose again last month and now sits at 8.3 percent.
Figures supplied by the Ga. Department of Labor showed a jump in Fayette County’s rate from 7.9...
A retired Fayette County teacher has won a $110,000 jury verdict against the Hewlett-Packard Corporation for a fire at a downtown Fayetteville building that was tied to a computer scanner used by a tenant.
The fire happened Feb. 16, 2006 at Once in a Lifetime Events on south Glynn Street across from the historic Fayette County Courthouse. The building is...
The Fayetteville City Council will take up a change to the purchasing ordinance and consider an improvement to the Lee Street sidewalk project at the Feb. 6 council meeting.
The council will hear the first reading of proposed changes to provide a consistent set of guidelines for administering purchasing procedures.
The only essential change to the ordinance would be changing “city...
The oldest school building in Fayette County still has some life in it, despite having lost all its students.
School Board members last week seemed to be amenable to the idea of having the school system’s Facilities Services department relocated to the former East Fayette Elementary School. The board is expected to make a decision on the move at the...
A Better Way Ministries co-director Tony Ingram passed away unexpectedly Sunday night.
A Better Way founder John Barrow said Monday that cofounder and musician Tony Ingram died Sunday night of what is believed to have been a heart attack. Ingram is survived by a wife and two small children.
Barrow said Ingram was a director and one of three charter members...
An Atlanta woman was arrested Saturday morning when a Fayette County patrol deputy caught her in the act of stealing an air conditioning unit at Covenant Presbyterian Church on Ga. Highway 314.
Aggie Catherine Miller, 37, was charged with criminal damage to property and possession of tools for the commission of a crime, said sheriffs spokesperson Brent Rowan.
Rowan said the...
Peachtree City’s budget dilemma isn’t new, nor is it unique, but we could be unique if we decide to actually do something about it.
Previous administrations may well have seen this coming, but they elected to roll the dice in hopes of better economic times. Those who “buried their heads in the sand” may even have known that these good...
I have read and enjoyed Claude Paquin articles in the past, but his last article (”Some bold tax suggestions for legislators”) disappoints.
He begins by giving three choices to balance the state budget: reduce expenses, increase revenues or a little of both, but he focuses entirely on increasing revenues.
This tells me that he believes that government should always have the...
I believe that Rep. Lynn Westmoreland’s trashing of the President was totally uncalled for. It is Westmoreland who doesn’t “get it.”
President Obama inherited all the mess from Bush, now the Republicans are trying to pass the blame to Obama.
I don’t agree with all in the healthcare bill, either. However, something must be done to control the healthcare costs. Instead...
Ever found a place in nature that made you just drink in the beauty of the natural world? Ever stopped to wonder how many of these special places exist in our rapidly industrializing surroundings? Ever thought of the water, mucky and contaminated, that used to be crystal clear?
According to the Utah State Recycling Center, recycling one ton of paper...
In last week’s edition, you included a letter from a driver who had experienced a crash due to another driver using a cellphone while driving.
The following day there was news on the radio that “There was no evidence that cellphone use while driving increased the risk of a traffic accident.”
That was patently rubbish. I stood at an traffic light...
In a recent editorial, Professor Walter E. Williams states that the reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in this country is because we have greater wealth and that Haiti is suffering from self-inflicted poverty. Please allow this 55-year-old educated black American to share with your many readers some little-known history about Haiti and France that the professor somehow...
Education and transportation are high priorities with the public and Governor Sonny Perdue should be disappointed in Georgia’s accomplishments in these two critical areas during his seven years in office.
There are two simple principles which apply to any meaningful remedy of these shortcomings.
First, improved student performance depends on attracting better teachers. Second, metro area traffic problems can best be...
I am the chairman of the school council for J.C. Booth Middle School in Peachtree City. So what is a school council?
Every public school in the state is required by state law to have a school council consisting of the school principal, parents of students enrolled in the school, members of the business community, certified teachers and students.
School councils...
This past week the Georgia Department of Education approved new regulations that will change the way students transition from high school to college. The process is now easier than ever for motivated high school students to take one or more college courses that count towards their high school graduation requirements.
The changes were made to bring Georgia’s school policies in...
This week the Georgia General Assembly convened for days 5-8 of the 40-day session. The majority of the work this week was done in committee rooms around the Capitol as bills begin moving through the committee process so that they may be considered by the full House and Senate later in the session.
This week several district attorneys from around...
When our friendship was new and still most interesting, Poet sought to impress me. But when the new wore off, Poet cast me into the ring with his other friends who are familiar and comfortable so there is no longer a need to impress.
This was evident when he arrived at my hotel in Jackson, Miss., to pick me up...
Robert D. McGregor Jr., Newnan, died Jan. 22, 2010. Services were at the Parrott Funeral Home chapel with the Rev. Dr. Steve Batts officiating. Interment was at Holly Hill Memorial Park, Fairburn.
Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Joann McGregor, Newnan; daughters, Cindy and Gordon LaCoste, Palmetto, Jamie and David Jascom, Newnan, and Sarah and Marc Gordon, Tyrone;...
Wynn Hopper Cupertino, 86, Fayetteville, died Jan. 23, 2010. She was born Oct. 12, 1923 in Ridewood, N.J. She was preceded in death by a son, Jay Whitten, and a daughter, Sandra Elizabeth Whitten. She had worked as a sales woman for a pharmaceutical company for many years. She was also a hospice volunteer. Private services were held with...
Janiece Leher McCully, 83, Fayetteville, died Jan. 24, 2010. She was born July 22, 1926 in Oshkosh, Wisc. She was preceded in death by her parents, John M. and Leafy Dorne Leher, and a brother, Jack Leher. Graveside services were at Westminster Memorial Gardens, Peachtree City, with the Rev. Jeffrey Halenza officiating.
Survivors include her husband of 55 years,...
