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TFS swimmers take the plunge

By
E. Lane Gresham
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TFS swim team members plunge into the freezing waters of Tallulah Falls Lake on Dec. 15, 2021. (E. Lane Gresham/Tallulah Falls School)

An annual tradition 10 years and counting took place on December 15 as members of the Tallulah Falls School swim team took the “Polar Plunge” in Tallulah Falls Lake.

According to coach Rachel Nichols, the event was again a success.

“This is a great occasion that we use to celebrate the halfway point of the season by spending time and sharing laughs together,” Nichols said. “This is also a unique event that we take pride in having every year. This makes for great memories for all involved.”

Some of the swimmers lingered in the water just off the beach, while others made a quick trip to the floating boundary before racing back to gather around the fire pit.

The Polar Plunge is special to Nichols, also, because she was part of the swim team that started it a decade ago.

They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Well, judging by these photos, it’s safe to say that water was COLD!

 

 

Cindy Savage Sapp

By
Now Habersham
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Cindy Savage Sapp, age 58 of Mount Airy, Georgia took her Heavenly flight home to be with her Lord & Savior on Wednesday, December 15, 2021.

Born in Habersham County, Georgia on October 20, 1963, she was a daughter of the late Jerry C. Savage & the late Bernice Broome Savage Dailey. Cindy was a medical assistant for over 16 years with Pediatrics at Toccoa Clinic. In her spare time, she enjoyed reading, fishing, painting, history, studying her family’s genealogy, & trips to the beach. She was a member of the Glade Creek Baptist Church.

In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her sister, Vickie Bernice Savage Ansley; grandparents, Otis & Lulah Jones Savage as well as Michael & Zadie Smith Broome.

Survivors include her daughter & son-in-law, Nicole & Chris Souther; grandchildren, Emma Souther & Gavin Souther; brother & spouse, John Savage & Kenny Williams; brother-in-law, Stanley M. Ansley all of Mt. Airy, GA; niece & spouse, Christy & Chris Peck; great-niece, Nora Peck; aunts & uncle, Jennifer & Jackie Taylor all of Baldwin, GA; Bessie Brown of Mt. Airy, GA; uncles & aunt, Jack Broome; J.B. & Cindi Jo Savage all of Mt. Airy, GA; extended family, Michelle & Daniel Watson & their children, Colton, Kandyn, & Bentley Watson all of Toccoa, GA; Shari Roth of Indiana & her son, Noah Swain of New York; many other relatives, & a host of friends.

Funeral services are scheduled for 4:00 p.m. Monday, December 20, 2021, at Hillside Memorial Chapel with Rev. Kenneth McEntire officiating. Cindy’s wishes were to be cremated following the service.

The family will receive friends at the funeral home from 2:00 p.m. until the service hour on Monday.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that all donations be made in memory of Cindy Savage Sapp to Hillside Memorial Chapel, P.O. Box 305 Clarkesville, Georgia. 30523 to help with funeral expenses.

An online guest registry is available for the family at www.HillsideMemorialChapel.com

Arrangements by Hillside Memorial Chapel, Clarkesville, Georgia. (706) 754-6256

Six Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School student-athletes sign at the Division 1 Level

By
Now Habersham
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From left to right: Linus Zunk, Coleman Bryson, Tucker Holloway, Buddy Howard, Marlin Klein, and Darren Agu.

The future is bright for student-athletes at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School. Six players from Rabun Gap inked their National Letters of Intent on Wednesday, marking the largest group of Division 1 signees in school history.

Signees included football players Darren Agu of London, England; Coleman Bryson of Waynesville, NC; Tucker Holloway of Andrews, NC; Marlin Klein of Köln, Germany; and Linus Zunk of Berlin, Germany; and baseball player Buddy Howard of Lancaster, SC. These six student-athletes have a combined GPA of 3.9 and received a total of 99 Division 1 offers.

Agu and Zunk signed with Vanderbilt University. Holloway will be heading to Virginia Tech. Bryson and Klein will continue their football careers in the Big 10, attending the University of Minnesota and University of Michigan, respectively. All five of these players were key members of the back-to-back NCISAA state runner-up Eagles football team.

Howard will head to Western Carolina University to play baseball for the Catamounts. He is a member of the Eagles baseball team, which finished in the state semifinals last season and looks to make a championship run this spring.

“This is a historic day for Rabun Gap athletics,” said Head of School Jeff Miles. “I am so proud of each of these student-athletes as they continue to pursue their dreams at the Division 1 level. These young men have worked hard on and off the field, and I look forward to following their success in the future.”

Athletic Director Dale Earnhardt spoke about the importance of these signings, and others, to the athletic program.

“These Division 1 signings highlight the success of our athletics program and the commitment of our coaches to college recruitment,” said Earnhardt. “I am incredibly proud of all of our student-athletes.”

Wednesday’s signing day was the first for this academic year at Rabun Gap. The school will host another signing day this spring, with more signees in football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse and soccer.

Top recruit from Georgia spurns Florida State to play for Jackson State

By
Associated Press
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Collins Hill High School wide receiver Travis Hunter (12) watches warm-ups before the Class 7A title high school football game against Milton at Georgia State Center Parc Stadium, on Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, in Atlanta. Hunter, the No. 1 high school football recruit in the country, pulled a signing day shocker Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021, deciding to attend Jackson State and play for coach Deion Sanders after being verbally committed to Florida State for months. (Jason Getz/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

The No. 1 high school football recruit in the country pulled a signing day shocker Wednesday, deciding to attend Jackson State and play for coach Deion Sanders after being verbally committed to Florida State for months.

Travis Hunter, a cornerback from Suwanee, Georgia, made the unprecedented announcement during a ceremony at Collins Hill High School. Hunter was the top prospect in the country in 247 Sports’ composite rankings, which take into account its own ratings plus those of other major recruiting websites.

WATCH: Hunter and his Collins Hill team win the GHSA 7A Football Championship On GPB

Sanders is a former Florida State star and Pro Football Hall of Famer who is in his second year coaching Jackson State, a historically black college in Jackson, Mississippi.

At his signing ceremony, Hunter had three baseball caps on the table in front of him as he prepared to make his announcement: Florida State, Auburn and Georgia.

He tossed them off the stage one-by-one and unzipped his sweatshirt to reveal a T-shirt that read Believe. He then caught a Jackson State cap — with a dark blue J on a white background — that was tossed to him from the crowd and put that on.

“I got a one in lifetime chance to play for one of the greats,” Hunter told WXIA-TV in Atlanta after making his announcement. “I got a chance to make a change in history.”

On Nov. 27, 2021, GPB’s Hannah Goodin talked with Collins Hill cornerback Travis Hunter about coming back from injury and his commitment to Florida State on Recruiting 2021. (Credit: GPB Sports)

Since the evaluation and rating of high school recruits started to take off in the late 1990s and early 2000s, no player as highly regarded as Hunter has ever signed a scholarship out of high school with an HBCU such as Jackson State.

Top 100 players rarely sign outside the traditional college football power programs that play in the strongest conferences such as the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten.

Jackson State competes at a level several rungs below those conferences in the second tier of NCAA Division I football, the Championship Subdivision.

Schools like Jackson State rarely if ever sign three-star players. Hunter is one of several dozen five-star prospects in the 2022 recruiting class.

A longtime member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Jackson State won its first SWAC title since 2007 last month.

‘We’re going to shock the country,” Sanders said Tuesday, the eve of the opening of the early signing period, on Barstool Sports’ “Unnecessary Roughness” podcast. Sanders has his own podcast on Barstool, “21st and Prime,” and is a regular contributor to the company’s most popular show, “Pardon My Take.”

Hunter had been expected to sign with Florida State as college football’s early signing period opened on Wednesday. He had given a non-binding verbal commitment to FSU in March and was considered the centerpiece of what the Seminoles hoped to be a recruiting class that would turn around the fortunes of a struggling superpower.

Florida State has won three national championships, most recently in 2013, but the program has fallen on hard times recently, with four straight losing seasons under two coaches.

“We’ve had 14 great young men that have joined our program today,” Florida State coach Mike Norvell told reporters at his signing day news conference. “That’s going to be our focus.”

This article appears on Now Habersham through a news partnership with GPB News.

More Georgia Secretary of State’s office officials interviewed by Jan. 6 committee

By
Stephen Fowler
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Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020, in Atlanta. Georgia election officials have announced an audit of presidential election results that will trigger a full hand recount. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Representatives of the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection interviewed current and former employees of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office Wednesday about former President Donald Trump’s extensive attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.

According to an official briefed on the conversations but not authorized to speak publicly, at least two current or former officials from the office sat for hours with representatives of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Trump faces a criminal investigation into his attempts to overturn Georgia’s election results, with reports that the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is likely to impanel a special grand jury to review potential election interference, including an infamous call with Trump asking Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”

Gabriel Sterling, the state’s voting system implementation manager and vocal critic of Trump’s attacks on election integrity, discussed Georgia’s election infrastructure and disinformation that plagued the state, according to the official. The conversation included discussions about conspiracies surrounding vote counting in State Farm Arena, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani making false claims to state lawmakers in several hearings and persistent attacks on election results in Fulton County, the state’s most populous.

Frances Watson, the former top investigator for the secretary of state’s office, who now serves in a different law enforcement role, discussed her own call with former president Trump in late December.

“Whatever you can do Frances, it would be — it’s a great thing,” Trump said in a six-minute conversation first reported by The Washington Post and released in full by The Wall Street Journal. “The people of Georgia are so angry at what happened to me.”

“They know I won by hundreds of thousands of votes,” Trump falsely claimed.

The meeting with more figures in Georgia’s election orbit comes after Raffensperger sat for four hours with investigators two weeks ago to discuss his Jan. 2 phone call with the former president just days before a dual U.S. Senate runoff that would decide control of the chamber.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Raffensperger also discussed misinformation surrounding the state’s thrice-counted election results.

Raffensperger’s efforts to “defend the integrity of the state’s election system” are central to the committee’s work, according to chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

“In spite of the pressure from President Trump, Mark Meadows and others, he has steadfastly held to that position,” Thompson told the AJC.

The Georgia meeting comes hours after the House voted Tuesday to hold Meadows, a former North Carolina U.S. representative and White House chief of staff, in criminal contempt of Congress after Meadows stopped cooperating with the committee — but not before Meadows turned over thousands of emails and text messages to investigators.

The Justice Department will decide whether criminal charges will be brought against Meadows for defying a subpoena and refusing to testify, while Meadows’ lawyer maintains he cannot be compelled to appear for questioning due to executive privilege.

During Tuesday’s floor debate on the contempt vote, committee members read several texts sent to Meadows, including from an unnamed Georgia official present on the call between Raffensperger and Trump.

“Need to end this call,” one message read. “I don’t think this will be productive much longer.”

The call, first reported by The Washington Post and obtained by GPB News, is one of many Georgia-related incidents involving Meadows being reviewed by lawmakers seeking to understand the events leading up to thousands of Trump supporters breaching the U.S. Capitol during the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6.

Meadows made an unannounced trip to Cobb County on Dec. 22 while the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was conducting an analysis of signatures on absentee ballot envelopes. The day after Meadows’ visit, Trump called Watson, the secretary of state’s chief investigator, and asked whether the review would run through Christmas, noting the “very important date” of Jan. 6 was fast approaching.

On Dec. 29, a final report on the signature review ultimately found “no fraudulent absentee ballots.”

He also coordinated the Jan. 2 call with Raffensperger and made false claims of fraud during the hourlong conversation, arguing there were more votes illegally cast in the names of dead people than the state was able to identify.

At a Jan.4 rally for then-Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Dalton, the night before runoff elections that saw depressed conservative turnout and less than 48 hours before the insurrection, Trump railed against Georgia’s election results, Raffensperger and Gov. Brian Kemp, vowing to “[campaign] against your governor and your crazy secretary of state” in the midterm elections for failing to overturn the 2020 results.

It is a promise that Trump has kept in the 13 months since the presidential election, endorsing Rep. Jody Hice (R-Greensboro) to primary Raffensperger for secretary of state and announcing his support last week for Perdue to challenge Kemp in the governor’s race.

This article appears on Now Habersham through a news partnership with GPB News.

Linda Lou Kline

By
Now Habersham
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On December 10, 2021, Mrs. Linda Lou Kline of Demorest passed away peacefully. Mom beat the fight with Alzheimer’s. She is free from Alzheimer’s and is no longer bound.

Our family will miss her every day but we miss the mom before Alzheimer’s took her away. For me, I chose to remember the mom who loved to sing, taught me how to do the Charleston dance, let us make forts out of the dining room chairs, made us quilts and sock puppets out of fabric scraps, made Christmas candies, the best pumpkin pie ever, fed my toddler peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwiches when she thought we wouldn’t know, loved her grandkids with all her heart, and the list is endless.

Everyone who knew mom knew her sense of humor and how deeply she loved ALL her family.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for our family, her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and all those that loved her at Magnolia Hills Retirement Home.

Preceded by husband David Larry Kline.

Survived by children: Rhonda Veit, Eric Kline (Elisa), Stephanie Bogart (Jeff), Paul Kline, Chris Kline. Grandchildren: Jonathan Bogart and Anna Bogart Taliesin Veit, Sonia Kline, and Anna Kline

Donations can be made in her honor to the Alzheimer’s Association.

What do the recent Midwest tornadoes mean for Georgia’s climate future?

By
Sarah Rose
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An Atmos Energy employee checks gas meters after the gas mains were shut off, in the aftermath of tornadoes that tore through the region, in Mayfield, Ky., Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

 

Georgia’s state climatologist Bill Murphey knows firsthand what it’s like to live through extreme weather. When an E4 tornado swept through Newnan in March — the most powerful tornado to hit the state in over a decade — his house was directly in the line of fire.

“I had significant roof damage, and to all my windows,” he said. “I’m in a real old house and that kind of helped me. But I’ve got humongous large windows. Every one of my windows were blown out from the pressure drop when the tornado went over.”

The devastating tornadoes that shook the Midwest last weekend have turned a new eye to extreme weather in America — and here in Georgia. One question is what the future could hold as the climate shifts.

Murphey said, despite the shock of the massive damage that last weekend brought, tornadoes are in December are not a freak phenomenon.

“It’s not necessarily uncommon, though, to get tornadoes in December, you know, early winter,” he said. “There are two peaks in the Southeast, this one in spring, there’s another one in early winter. And so, time-wise, that really is not that surprising.”

He said that he believed Georgia stood prepared to handle storms going into 2022.

“As far as my area and the warning we got, I felt like it was very quick and good,” he said.

But that doesn’t mean the future is certain. Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist at the University of Georgia, said last weekend’s tornadoes are part of a larger, long-term question about the impact of rising temperatures here in Georgia.

“The jury’s out on whether or not climate change is going to make these storms more active or less active over time,” she said. “What we do know is that with warmer temperatures more of the year, the seasons for severe weather are likely to increase.”

Murphey echoed similar thoughts.

“Man-made impacts, global warming, climate change — that’s feeding into it as well, as far as giving us a lot of elevated relative humidity periods and high dew point days around these severe weather outbreaks in a lot of different parts of the country,” he said.

Georgia ranked fifth in the nation for tornadoes in 2021 with a total of 43 storms.

 

This article appears on Now Habersham through a news partnership with GPB News.

Life in Motion: Nativity

By
Staff Report
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(photo by Sherri Purcell)

Members of the Torch Worship Center in Demorest breathed life into the Christmas story this week outside Chick-Fil-A in Cornelia. The live Nativity provided some serenity for those rushing to grab dinner and finish their last-minute shopping.

If you’ve been caught up in the busyness of the holidays, we encourage you to stop, take a breath, and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas:

Luke 2: 1-20

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register.

4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Cornelia woman returns to Habersham to face meth trafficking charge

By
Joy Purcell
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A Cornelia woman has been moved from the Hall County jail to Habersham to face a drug trafficking charge.

The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office took Brandi Lee Hurt into custody at the Hall County Detention Center on December 14. She was moved to the Habersham County jail on charges stemming from a search last month at her residence.

Drug agents say they seized a half-kilo of meth from a home on Pea Ridge Road. They charged Brandi Hurt of Cornelia with trafficking methamphetamine. (ARDEO)

Authorities initially picked up Hurt on November 22 during a traffic stop while investigating meth trafficking in Hall and Lumpkin counties. During the stop, officials say they found an ounce of methamphetamine in her car. That led to a search warrant for her residence at 3510 Pea Ridge Road.

The arrest warrant states that Hurt admitted to having drugs in her house during the search and told the officers where to find them. Agents say they seized approximately a half kilogram of meth from her bedroom. Under Georgia law, the trafficking charge for that amount of meth carries with it a mandatory 25-year prison sentence and up to a $1 million fine.

Officers charged Hurt with trafficking methamphetamine in both Habersham and Hall counties. She was returned to Habersham on Tuesday and booked into the county jail. A judge denied her bond.

Baldwin joins low-income water assistance program

By
Joy Purcell
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Baldwin is the latest city in Habersham to offer assistance to low-income residents struggling to pay their water bills.

The city council on Monday voted to partner with Ninth District Opportunity to provide financial assistance to those at risk of getting their water turned off for non-payment. Clarkesville, Cornelia, and Demorest previously signed onto the program which is being funded through the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan. The program is administered locally by Ninth District Opportunity.

The Baldwin Council unanimously voted to join the program for a year after which time they will have the option to renew for another year. The city will be required to return any unused funds back to the state and will be required to submit data showing the funds were properly used.

“The obligation of the city is very limited when you’re considering it to the benefit to citizens,” Woodmaster told the council.

“I think it’s fantastic,” said councilmember Alice Venter. She spoke of Baldwin residents who took a financial hit from the pandemic, particularly the elderly, and said, “I think this is a good opportunity to relieve some burden, especially off of those folks.”

The first year of the program runs through September 30, 2022.

Baldwin residents and those in other cities that have joined the program may apply for financial assistance to pay their water bills through the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services and Ninth District Opportunity Services.

The form for requesting utility assistance through NDO, as well as all other services, is located here.

Georgia health proposals hang in the balance as Biden official visits

By
Ariel Hart and Andy Miller
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A top federal official in charge of negotiating with Gov. Brian Kemp on Georgia’s high-stakes health care proposals visited Atlanta on Tuesday to talk about maternal health and other topics.

But Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, had no answers for when any of the half-million adults uninsured under current Georgia Medicaid rules might have a pathway to coverage.

Kemp and Brooks-LaSure didn’t even meet. A Kemp spokeswoman said the governor’s office got no invitation for a meeting.

Brooks-LaSure

It’s been more than a year since the Trump administration stamped a last-minute approval on two of Kemp’s health care “waiver” plans as Donald Trump’s presidential term drew to a close. And it’s been several months since President Joe Biden’s administration raised concerns and paused the plans.

Meanwhile, half a million Georgians remain uninsured in the “coverage gap”: too poor for subsidized ACA exchange insurance under federal law, and ineligible for Medicaid under current Georgia rules.

Both sides say they’re still in talks.

“We’re having conversations with Georgia,” Brooks-LaSure said, when pressed on the waivers. A bill that Democrats support in Congress, the Build Back Better Act, as currently written would provide a work-around for the federal government to provide coverage in the health insurance exchange to all poor adults in the states that have not expanded Medicaid. That bill has not yet passed the Senate.

The latest version of the roughly $2 trillion social spending bill eliminated nearly $8 billion in “disproportionate share” hospital cuts to facilities in states that don’t expand Medicaid.

Hospital groups have lobbied hard to block those cuts, which would have affected only Georgia and 11 other states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

A spokeswoman for Kemp, Katie Byrd, said “the discussions are continuing” with the administration on the Georgia waiver plans.

Kemp discussing waiver plans last year.

 

In Kemp’s waiver proposal for increasing Medicaid enrollment, an estimated 50,000 people would end up being covered. The Biden administration would prefer that Georgia expand Medicaid to all its poor adults.

Instead, Georgia proposes to expand Medicaid only to those who meet certain activity requirements, including working at a regular job, for 80 hours per month.

Kemp’s office estimated that more than 400,000 people would not meet the Medicaid requirements and would be left uninsured. Kemp and the Trump administration argued that the proposal would improve people’s lives by valuing work. The Biden administration argues that it adds unnecessary barriers to coverage.

“I think we’ve made very clear our concern, particularly during this COVID-19 pandemic, one that we haven’t seen in generations, how concerned we are around work requirements,” Brooks-LaSure said.

The Biden administration has not approved any of the state’s proposed work requirements.

In the other waiver proposal, for the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace exchange, Kemp would block Georgians’ access to shopping on the main federal website, healthcare.gov. That’s where the majority of the state’s more than 500,000 ACA policyholders currently buy their plans.

Instead, Georgia’s proposal would direct those consumers to deal with insurance companies directly or with private insurance agents to find plans. The waiver proposal would also make other changes.

The Biden administration is pushing back on that proposal, and has requested comments from the public in Georgia. People can submit them until Jan. 9.

Brooks-LaSure spent Tuesday morning with patients and health care providers concerned with maternal mortality and African-American maternal health at the Center for Black Women’s Wellness in Atlanta. Georgia has one of the developed world’s worst rates of women dying for reasons related to pregnancy, and those rates are about three times higher for Black women.

CMS said Tuesday that it is encouraging hospitals to implement patient safety practices for managing obstetrical emergencies along with interventions to address other major contributors to maternal health disparities.

Maternal health “is a huge priority for the administration,’’ Brooks-LaSure told reporters Tuesday. “This is a crisis.”

CMS also intends to propose a “Birthing-Friendly” designation to drive improvements in perinatal health outcomes and maternal health equity.

Ariel Hart is a health care reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Hatchett again named Senate Floor Leader by Gov. Kemp

By
Staff Report
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District 50 State Senator Bo Hatchett has again been tapped by Gov. Brian Kemp to serve as one of his Senate Floor Leaders.

Hatchett, who served as floor leader during last year’s legislative session, will help steer the governor’s agenda through the legislative process. The senator from Cornelia is entering the second year of his two-year term. He recently announced plans to seek re-election.

Hatchett will serve as floor leader alongside Dist. 45 State Sen. Clint Dixon (R-Buford) and Dist. 8 State Sen. Russ Goodman (R-Homerville), both of whom Kemp also reappointed.

“I am proud to announce these great public servants as my floor leaders for the 2022 legislative session of the Georgia General Assembly,” said Kemp in making his announcement Wednesday. “Throughout my first term, we have made great strides to put hardworking Georgians first, keep the Peach State the number one state for business, expand opportunity for rural Georgia, eradicate criminal street gangs in our communities, and fight human trafficking. I am confident these outstanding legislators will help carry that important work forward, and I appreciate their commitment to the people of Georgia.”

The governor also released the names of his 2022 Georgia House of Representatives Floor Leaders. They are Dist. 72 Rep. Josh Bonner (R-Fayetteville); Dist. 122 Rep. Jodi Lott (R-Evans); Dist. 26 Rep. Lauren W. McDonald III (R-Cumming); and Dist. 178 Rep. Steven Meeks (R-Screven).

The 2022 legislative session is scheduled to convene on January 10.

SEE ALSO

Sen. Bo Hatchett announces bid for re-election

 

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