Cornelia Police are searching for the driver who fled on foot after a brief chase in the city late Wednesday night.
Around 11:33 p.m. on December 22, an officer tried to stop a Chevrolet truck for improper registration on North Main Street.
“As the officer tried to catch up to the vehicle, it turned onto Stonecypher Street at a high rate of speed and then turned into Sierra Vista almost striking a female pedestrian,” says CPD Patrol Commander Lt. Wayne Green.
The officer pursued the vehicle onto Lee Street, then onto Lee Street Court, where the driver abandoned the vehicle.
Demorest Police along with the Lee Arrendale Prison K-9 Unit assisted Cornelia Police in their search for the driver.
“This incident is still under investigation and we are currently looking at suspects but no charges have been filed at this time,” Green says.
The state of Georgia’s unemployment rate continues to drop, with the unemployment rate surpassing pre-pandemic levels of employment this past month.
The Department of Labor reported on Dec. 23 that the Georgia Mountains Region has reached a record low level of unemployment, with only 1.7 percent of the region’s workforce reportedly unemployed.
“We have fully recovered from this pandemic when it comes to employed Georgians, employing more people today than before the pandemic struck,” Department of Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said in a Dec. 16 press release. “The hard work is still in front of us as job creation is outpacing new workers in the labor force.”
(Source: GA Department of Labor)
This time last year, the state and Northeast Georgia region were at their highest unemployment rates in years as the COVID-19 pandemic surged before vaccines became available to the general public. November of 2021, the state recorded an all-time low unemployment rate of 2.8 percent.
According to the state, the number of unemployed Georgians is down to its lowest figure since December 2000. But even with those record-high numbers, there’s still a workforce shortage.
“We are seeing the highest number of employed Georgians in our state’s history,” Butler says. “Looking towards the new year, our focus is on attracting more people to join the workforce in 2022.”
With an estimated 300,000 open positions across the state and the number of job-seekers lower than pre-pandemic levels, those empty positions are hard to fill. But Butler says that in terms of economic recovery, this is a good problem to have.
“We have regained almost all of the jobs we lost during the pandemic; however, the number of job seekers is still below pre-pandemic numbers,” Butler says. “Creating more jobs becomes very difficult if we can’t fill vacancies in the 300,000 jobs that are currently open. It’s a good problem to have and shows how strong Georgia’s recovery has been especially compared to other states our size.”
Liberty Baptist in Toccoa created a drive-thru experience to share the story of Jesus Christ from the cradle to the cross. (nowhabersham.com)
Liberty Baptist Church in Toccoa welcomed hundreds of visitors to its recent live outdoor Nativity, but the church didn’t stop there. Church members dressed as biblical characters portrayed a series of scenes from the Bible telling the story of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection.
The outdoor drive-thru event “From the Cradle to the Cross” was held at the church in Toccoa on Sunday, Dec. 19. Pastor Stacy Penland says close to 400 vehicles passed through the display during the two-hour event.
Visitors were greeted with fresh homemade bread and hot chocolate as they drove through the ‘marketplace’ on their way to the Nativity. From the manger scene depicting Christ’s birth in Bethlehem to the final scene showing his ascension into heaven, each setting had signs with scripture explaining to visitors what was being portrayed. The church also set up a transmitter so that visitors could tune into their car radios and hear Penland share the story of Jesus’ life.
Cradle to the Cross • Liberty Baptist Church, Toccoa • Dec. 19, 2021
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Cars backed up on Fairground Road in Toccoa waiting for their chance to drive through the live, outdoor enactment.
From the cradle...
to the cross,
church members shared the story of their Savior.
The final scene depicted Christ's ascension into heaven after his resurrection as told in the Book of Acts.
This was the second year in a row Liberty Baptist has held this event. Penland says he was pleased with the turnout. For those who attended it was a good reminder that for all of its secular fun and excitement, Christmas still remains one of the most sacred events on the Christan calendar.
The 33-year-old woman with multiple health conditions was in respiratory distress and awaiting an ambulance. About 20 minutes after the emergency call, it arrived.
The Cuthbert home where Gipson lived was less than a mile from Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center, but the ambulance couldn’t take her to the one-story brick hospital because it had closed three months earlier, in October 2020.
Instead, the EMTs loaded Gipson into the ambulance and drove her more than 25 miles to the hospital in Eufaula, Alabama, where she was pronounced dead.
“They said it was a heart attack,” said Keila Davis, who, along with her husband, lived with Gipson. “If the hospital was still open, it could have saved her.”
The Cuthbert hospital was one of 19 rural hospitals in the U.S. that closed in 2020. That’s the largest number of such facilities to shut down in a single year since 2005, when the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina began tracking the data.
In the past 10 years, eight rural hospitals have shut down in Georgia; only Texas and Tennessee have had more closures. The center’s data shows that 86 of the 129 hospitals that closed in that time were in Texas and the Southeast.
Health care experts and recent studies say Medicaid expansion helps keep hospitals afloat because it increases the number of adults with low incomes who have health insurance. None of the eight states with the most rural hospital closures since 2014, when Medicaid expansion was first implemented through the Affordable Care Act, had chosen to expand the insurance program by the start of 2021. In several of those states, including Georgia, Republican-led governments have said such a step would be too costly.
Georgia’s inaction on Medicaid expansion “hurt us probably more than anybody else,” said Cuthbert Mayor Steve Whatley, a Republican who lost his reelection bid in the city of about 3,400 people in November.
A hospital closure may be felt more in some communities than others. The one in Cuthbert, Whatley said, “is unbelievably impactful.” Not having an emergency room nearby means that each response by an ambulance takes it offline for two to three hours, said Whatley, who is also the chairman of the Randolph County Hospital Authority.
Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center closed in October 2020.
Clifford Hanks, 78, of Cuthbert had to drive to Eufaula’s ER recently when he was experiencing sharp back pain. “The ambulance is too slow and not available,” Hanks said while sitting in a store on the Cuthbert square. The drive, he said, was rough.
Several factors have contributed to the hospital closures nationally, according to the Sheps Center. Struggling rural hospitals treat high numbers of uninsured patients and people with chronic disease, said George Pink, a senior research fellow at the center. “They have a high level of uncompensated care,” Pink said, and not enough patients with private insurance, which reimburses hospitals at higher rates than Medicaid and Medicare do.
The population in rural areas tends to be older as well, which would lead to increased costs of care.
Lower Oconee Hospital in Glenwood closed in 2014.
Pink also said that recruiting physicians to rural counties, many of which have shrinking populations, is difficult. And many of the hospitals that have closed were experiencing infrastructure problems as funds for maintaining buildings and equipment declined.
“These hospitals have been losing money for years,” Pink said.
University of Washington researchers have found that rural hospital closures led to increased mortality for inpatient stays in that region, while urban closures had no measurable effect. Among the reasons they cited were the increase in the time people had to travel to get hospital care and that some medical providers leave communities when hospitals close.
Federal Covid relief funding has tempered the rate of hospital closures this year, according to Brock Slabach, chief operations officer at the National Rural Health Association. Still, the group estimates that 453 rural hospitals, or about a quarter of the total, are at risk of closure.
“We could see eight to 10 rural hospitals close in Georgia in the coming years,” said Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, a rural hospital association in Georgia. “They’re going to run out of cash.”
Nationwide, rural hospitals that serve communities with large Black populations are more likely than rural hospitals overall to be financially distressed, according to the Sheps Center’s North Carolina Rural Health Research Program. And among financially distressed rural hospitals, the program’s research shows, those serving areas with greater Black and/or Hispanic populations are more likely to close.
The Cuthbert hospital’s closing has severely affected the region’s Black population.
More than 60% of Randolph County residents are Black, and the surrounding counties, whose residents used to travel to Cuthbert for hospital care, have Black populations of 47% or above.
In the region, Black Americans, especially older people with diabetes and high blood pressure, are very concerned about the hospital closing, said Charisse Jackson, an employee at the CareConnect health center across the street from the hospital.
The community hopes to get some medical care back, if not a total revival of the hospital. The hospital authority, locally based Andrew College and a Mississippi management firm are working together on a bid for U.S. Department of Agriculture grants of $1 million and $10 million. The vision is to have a stand-alone emergency room with a handful of beds. The hospital authority, Whatley said, still has “a couple million dollars” to support the funding if it is approved. “Fifteen million dollars would do it,” Whatley said.
Ossoff
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has taken an interest in the health care vacuum in Randolph County and is helping identify private- and public-sector opportunities to restore more medical services in the area. “The challenges the folks in Randolph County have are similar to challenges across rural health care,” Ossoff said.
In downtown Cuthbert, the history of Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center unfurls in a mural on the walls of Randolph County’s old courthouse, which now houses the Randolph County Chamber of Commerce.
Local pharmacist Carl Patterson’s family founded the hospital in 1916 as Patterson Hospital. After the facility’s closure, Patterson said, Randolph County does not have a physician in full-time practice.
Supporting the hospital financially was always tough. It needed $10 million in upgrades, and surgery, a profitable service at some facilities, was not done there.
“Our hospital wasn’t the greatest, but it was a means to get you stable. It helped a lot of people,” said Brenda Clark, who was born at the hospital and now works in a Cuthbert wellness center across the street from the shuttered facility. Older people who need care “can’t get into their cars and drive to Eufaula or Albany,” she said.
Randolph County
The hospital closure has been “devastating” for businesses, said Rebecca White, executive director of the county chamber of commerce. About 25% of Randolph County residents already lived below the poverty line.
“No doubt in my mind, that hospital was a lifesaver,” said Dr. A.S. Ghiathi, a family physician who worked at Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center for more than 20 years. Ghiathi, 64, still lives in Randolph County but works mainly at a Mercer Medicine clinic in nearby Clay County’s Fort Gaines. That county also has no hospital.
The closure of the Randolph County hospital “was like a death,” he said. “People grieved over this loss. We wanted to pass this hospital on to the next generation.”
Ghiathi
Some residents of Randolph County say the loss of the hospital has been a factor in medical tragedies, such as the death of Lacandie Gipson, and could cause others.
Jeanette Love, 67, who lived in the Randolph County town of Shellman, died while waiting for an ambulance, her sister Susie Jackson said. It had been called because Love was having a hard time breathing.
The Randolph County ambulance was tied up, Jackson said, so one from another county had to be dispatched to pick up Love, who had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes. The delay grew longer when that ambulance went to the wrong address.
“It took an hour and a half or longer,” Jackson said.
“It’s about 15 to 20 minutes to Cuthbert,” said Jackson, who drove from her home in Shellman to Love’s house that July day to help her. “I had a car. I could have taken her to the hospital. She may have been saved.”
Jeanette Love Photo: Susie Jackson
Instead, while the sisters waited, Jackson said, Love “sat by me, laid her head on my shoulder and died.”
On the medical situation in Randolph County, Jackson said, “We are better than this.”
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation contributed funding for the reporting of this article.
Stephens County Hospital has lost $2 million a year for the past six years, says CEO Van Loskoski.
Part 2 of a Special Report
The medical predicament that many rural communities want to avoid lies 35 miles south of Columbus, Georgia.
Eight years ago, Stewart Webster Hospital, in a financial tailspin, closed its doors for the last time. Now weeds and trash litter the grounds around the facility.
In the years since then, Adolph McLendon, mayor of the town of Richland in Stewart County, has talked with major Georgia health care systems about setting up medical care there – such as a standalone emergency department — but without any takers so far. He’s still hopeful for a new facility “to be able to save a few people,’’ he said.
“If there is an emergency, an ambulance has to take them to Americus or Albany or Columbus, which is 45 minutes to an hour,’’ said Dr. Alluri Raju, Stewart County’s longtime doctor. “We do see some bad medical outcomes.’’
Patients have to travel out of Stewart County even for such routine medical services as CT scans and X-rays.
The former Stewart Webster Hospital
Over the past 10 years, eight rural hospitals have closed in Georgia. Those won’t be the last, experts predict. More than a dozen Georgia rural hospitals, scattered across the state, are finding it difficult to break even financially, said Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, an association of rural hospitals in the state.
Stephens County
And in Toccoa, in northeast Georgia, Stephens County Hospital has lost at least $2 million a year for the past six years, said CEO Van Loskoski.
The hospital has closed its labor and delivery services to stanchthe financial bleeding.The move is meant to be temporary. Local residents, though, are worried about the overall future of their hospital, which has been front-page news in the Toccoa paper.
Federal Covid funds have curbed the hospital closures this year, the National Rural Health Association said. Still, the organization said, 453 rural hospitals, or about one-quarter of the total, are at risk of closure. Overall, the pandemic has exacerbated the challenges of rural health care, including health care workforce challenges.
Still, a recent Georgia hospital closure hasn’t made big ripples in its community. Northeast of Atlanta, Northridge Medical Center closed last year in Commerce, along the I-85 corridor.
“The impact is definitely there,’’ said James Wascher, the city manager of Commerce, citing particularly the loss of the hospital’s emergency department. “But no one has packed up and left.”
Hospitals are available nearby in Athens, Braselton and Gainesville, he said. “It’s a little more difficult to travel,’’ Wascher said.
Loskoski, the CEO of Stephens County Hospital, said recently that “we’re struggling about as much as any rural hospital. The population isn’t growing much.’’ (The most recent census records showed the county had gained just 609 residents in a decade’s time.)
Loskoski
“It’s extremely expensive for us to provide health care in the middle of a pandemic,’’ Loskoski said. “The patients we’re seeing are more medically complex.’’ And finding enough staff is a constant challenge.
“Rural health care has limped along for a long time,’’ he said. “We need the community to support us. Every hospital is in danger of closing in a rural market.”
Loskoski, though, is trying different strategies for Stephens County Hospital, including expanding behavioral health services and considering more such ventures in a bid to reach more customers.
Stephens County Hospital
Mark Wilkinson, who has lived in Stephens County all his life, serves as chairman of the Hospital Authority. He runs a lumber company but is also familiar, through his hospital position, with health care terminology, especially involving reimbursement.
“We don’t have a lot of patients who have private insurance,’’ Wilkinson said. “It’s a hard business when you have a lot of indigent care, Medicare and Medicaid.’’ The hospital provided $11 million in indigent care last year, he said.
The county has helped the hospital with a $5 million bridge loan, which has been repaid, and a $15 million bond.
“The community is very concerned and very divided about the future of the hospital,’’ said Tom Law, editor of the Toccoa Record. Most, though, say some sort of medical facility is needed, at least one providing emergency care, Law said. “There are some people who think we’re paying good money after bad.’’
Closure of the hospital would be disastrous, Wilkinson said. It provides 400 jobs and has a $100 million financial effect annually on the Stephens County economy, he noted. “It means everything to us.’’
Stephens County Hospital is one of 40 rural Georgia hospitals that have cut labor and delivery services in recent years. (nowhabersham.com)
Part 3 of a Special Report
Madelaine Austin is having her first baby and had planned to give birth at Stephens County Hospital in northeast Georgia, just five minutes from her home.
But in the middle of her pregnancy, she was forced to change OB/GYNs and the facility where she would deliver her child.
The Toccoa resident, 19, was recently told that Stephens County Hospital, dealing with financial deficits, was suspending its labor and delivery service due to costs.
“I never expected this,’’ Austin said. Her former OB/GYN, she said, “made me feel very confident and comfortable.’’ She’ll now have her baby at a hospital 25 to 30 minutes away.
The Toccoa hospital emphasizes that its closure of labor and delivery services is not necessarily permanent. Still, there have been 40 Georgia hospitals that have shut down their labor and delivery units in recent years.
Such a move leads to the departure of OB/GYNs from the area where a hospital is located – all of which creates challenges for many women still living there. They have to travel farther for prenatal care, and if they are in labor, they have to travel farther to deliver.
“If a woman has to travel more than 40 miles, her chances of preterm labor, preterm birth and obstetrical complications are three times higher,’’ said Dr. Hugh Smith, a retired Thomaston OB/GYN.
The erosion of obstetrical services is occurring nationally as well. The percentage of rural counties with available hospital-based obstetrical services dropped from 55% to 46% between 2004 and 2014, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Austin
The loss of hospital-based services is associated with increases in out-of-hospital and preterm births, and births in hospitals without obstetric units, said the research program.
In Georgia, 93 of the 159 counties in the state have no hospital with a labor and delivery unit.
Last year, with financial losses piling up, Taylor Regional Hospital in central Georgia shut down its labor and delivery unit because “we weren’t delivering enough babies to make it viable,’’ said Richard Stokes, its chief financial officer.
The rural Hawkinsville hospital did roughly 230 births a year. But it takes about 350 to break even on the service, said Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, an association of rural hospitals in the state.
The nearest birthing hospital is now about 25 minutes away from Hawkinsville.
Taylor Regional Hospital
Hospitals that are barely surviving financially can lose up to $1 million on labor and delivery, Lewis said. But they are reluctant to give up obstetrics, he said, because “there’s so much emotion involved.’’
“It rips the heart out of the community’’ to give up births, Lewis said. And for women who are pregnant or contemplating having a baby, “it creates fear and anxiety.’’
Warren
Transportation thus becomes crucial. But many low-income women in rural areas don’t have a car. And others who have low incomes tend to skip appointments, Smith said. They’re going to be sure they can feed their families before they think about taking off work to go to prenatal appointments, he said.
So with the OB unit closures, “we have a general access-to-care issue,’’ said Jacob Warren, director of the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities at Mercer University School of Medicine. “Two-thirds of rural births come outside the family’s home county.’’
A report by Surgo Ventures, citing a 2019 study, said that rural residents have a 9 percent greater probability of severe maternal morbidity and mortality than those in urban areas. Georgia has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality, defined as deaths due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth.
Rural women in Georgia have a significantly higher maternal mortality rate than those in urban Georgia, Warren said. And rural African-American women have double the maternal mortality rate of rural white women.
Warren said no rural county in Georgia has a maternal-fetal medicine specialist — a doctor who helps take care of women having complicated or high-risk pregnancies. And a long ambulance ride to a distant hospital can lead to bad medical outcomes.
The state created a review panel in 2014 to identify maternal deaths and their causes. Approximately 26 Georgia women die from pregnancy complications for every 100,000 live births, compared to the national average of about 17 women. And about 60% of the state’s maternal deaths between 2012 and 2016 were found to be preventable.
Key factors in many of these cases are high levels of chronic diseases, such as hypertension and diabetes, along with high levels of poverty and low levels of people with health insurance. Georgia has the third-highest uninsured rate in the country.
Some of the same factors lead to the state’s high infant mortality rate. “The counties with the highest infant mortality rates in Georgia are all rural,’’ Warren said. A lack of prenatal care raises the risk of preterm birth and infant mortality.
Peterson
Many pregnant women in rural areas don’t get this care. “If they have to drive an hour, they don’t have the ability to leave work,’’ said Dr. Justin Peterson, an OB/GYN in Douglas in Coffee County. “I have a lot of patients who are very high-risk. I have to spend more time with these patients.’’
The lack of prenatal care also can raise the risk of maternal death, Warren said.
Georgia has recently been focusing on these issues. For one thing, it has increased Medicaid coverage for new moms to six months, up from two months.
“That’s a hugely impactful decision,’’ Warren said.
That Medicaid coverage would be extended to 12 months post-partum for all states, under the social spending bill being debated in Congress.
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation contributed funding for the reporting of this article.
Georgia’s Echols County, which borders Florida, could be called a health care desert.
It has no hospital, no local ambulances. A medical provider comes to treat patients at a migrant farmworker clinic but, other than a small public health department with two full-time employees, that’s about the extent of the medical care in the rural county of 4,000 people.
In an emergency, a patient must wait for an ambulance from Valdosta and be driven to a hospital there, or rely on a medical helicopter. Ambulances coming from Valdosta can take up to 20 minutes to arrive, said Bobby Walker, county commission chairman. “That’s a pretty good wait for an ambulance,” he added.
Walker tried to establish an ambulance service based in Statenville, the one-stoplight county seat in Echols, but the cost of providing one was projected at $280,000 a year. Without industry to prop up the tax base, the county couldn’t come up with that kind of money.
In many ways, Echols reflects the health care challenges faced in rural areas nationwide, such as limited insurance coverage among residents, gaps in medical services and shortages of providers.
Dr. Jacqueline Fincher, an internal medicine physician who practices in rural Thomson, in eastern Georgia, said such communities have a higher share of people 65 and older, who need extensive medical services, and a much higher incidence of poverty, including extreme poverty, than the rest of the country.
About 1 in 4 Echols residents has no health insurance, for example, and almost one-third of the children live in poverty, according to the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps program from the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute.
Echols County
Like Echols, several Georgia counties have no physician at all.
It’s difficult to recruit doctors to a rural area if they haven’t lived in such an environment before, said Dr. Tom Fausett, a family physician who grew up and still lives in Adel, a southern Georgia town.
About 20% of the nation lives in rural America, but only about 10% of U.S. physicians practice in such areas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And 77% of the country’s rural counties are designated as health professional shortage areas. About 4,000 additional primary care practitioners are needed to meet current rural health care needs, the Health Resources and Services Administration has estimated.
“Many physicians haven’t experienced life in a rural area,” said Dr. Samuel Church, a family medicine physician who helps train medical students and residents in the northern Georgia mountain town of Hiawassee. “Some of them thought we were Alaska or something. I assure them that Amazon delivers here.”
Rural hospitals also have trouble recruiting nurses and other medical personnel to fill job vacancies. “We’re all competing for the same nurses,” said Jay Carmichael, chief operating officer of Southwell Medical, which operates the hospital in Adel.
Even in rural areas that have physicians and hospitals, connecting a patient to a specialist can be difficult.
“When you have a trauma or cardiac patient, you don’t have a trauma or cardiac team to take care of that patient,” said Rose Keller, chief nursing officer at Appling Healthcare in Baxley, in southeastern Georgia.
Magloire
Access to mental health care is also a major problem, said Dr. Zita Magloire, a family physician in Cairo, a city in southern Georgia with about 10,000 residents. “It’s almost nonexistent here.”
One factor behind this lack of health care providers is what rural hospital officials call the “payer mix.”
Many patients can’t pay their medical bills. The CEO of Emanuel Medical Center in Swainsboro, Damien Scott, said 37% of the hospital’s emergency room patients have no insurance.
And a large share of rural hospitals’ patients are enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare. Medicaid typically pays less than the cost of providing care, and although Medicare reimbursements are somewhat higher, they’re lower than those from private insurance.
“The problem with rural hospitals is the reimbursement mechanisms,” said Kirk Olsen, managing partner of ERH Healthcare, a company that manages four hospitals in rural Georgia.
Georgia is one of 12 states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act. Doing so would make additional low-income people eligible for the public insurance program. Would that help? “Absolutely,” said Olsen, echoing the comments of almost everyone interviewed during a monthslong investigation by Georgia Health News.
“If Medicaid was expanded, hospitals may become more viable,” said Dr. Joe Stubbs, an internist in Albany, Georgia. “So many people go into a hospital who can’t pay.”
Echols County isn’t the only place where ambulance service is spotty.
Ambulance crews in some rural areas have stopped operating, leaving the remaining providers to cover greater distances with limited resources, said Brock Slabach, chief operations officer of the National Rural Health Association. It’s difficult for a local government to afford the cost of the service when patient volumes in sparsely populated rural areas are very low, he said.
“If people aren’t careful, they’re going to wake up and there’s not going to be rural health care,” said Richard Stokes, chief financial officer of Taylor Regional Hospital in Hawkinsville, Georgia. “That’s my big worry.”
If you haven’t made plans for attending a Christmas Eve service and are wondering where to go, area churches are holding services that community members are welcome to attend as they reflect on the reason for the season.
Family service: 4 p.m.
Traditional service: 6 p.m., 11 p.m.
The “Light of the World” service will include a teaching, candlelight service, music and carols, communion and community. All are welcome to attend.
In addition, the church is collecting new and gently used coats for the “Share the Warmth” coat drive. All offerings collected at the service will be donated to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) to help those affected by the tornados in Kentucky and surrounding states earlier this month.
The public is invited to attend a family-friendly Christmas worship service in the beautifully decorated church sanctuary at the First Baptist Church of Cornelia.
Join the Torch for Christmas as they celebrate the birth of the hope and light of the world, Jesus. They will offer two Christmas Eve Experiences at both the Dahlonega and Demorest campuses on Christmas Eve and will incorporate traditional and modern elements to create a memorable Christmas Eve experience.
Are you weary? In the busyness of the Christmas season, it’s sometimes hard to catch your breath. Christmas eve, Concord Baptist Church invites you to gather with them to take a deep breath and celebrate the One who offers us true rest
Cleveland First Baptist Church invites you to join them each Sunday during the Advent season as they celebrate the reason for the season, and will hold a Christmas Eve service on Friday in the sanctuary. All are invited to attend.
If you’d like your church’s Christmas Eve service added to the list, email [email protected].
Daisy Elizabeth Tallent Sanders, age 86 of Mount Airy, Georgia went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, December 23, 2021.
Born in Franklin, North Carolina on December 02, 1935, she was a daughter of the late Henry Tallent & the late Dora Jones Keener Tallent. Daisy retired from Piedmont Automotive with over 20 years of dedicated service. In her spare time, she enjoyed vegetable gardening & canning as well as spending winters in Florida.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Clifton Sanders; daughter-in-law, Connie Sanders; half-brother, Jimmy Keener & sister, Betty Jo Tallent Nelms.
Survivors include her son, Gary Sanders of Mt. Airy, GA; daughter, Linda Sue Sanders of Alto, GA; sisters, Cora Lee Tallent Scott of Franklin, NC; & Barbara Tallent Mashburn of Asheville, NC; grandchildren, Travis A. & Cassie Sanders; Tracey & Chad Giles; great-grandchildren, Tori Giles, Tyler Giles, & Austin Giles; great-great-grandchildren, Emma Ayers & Alex Ayers; numerous nieces, nephews, other relatives, & friends.
Funeral services are scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Sunday, December 26, 2021, at Hillside Memorial Chapel with Rev. Billy Burrell & Rev. Scott Collett officiating.
The family will receive friends at the funeral home from 2:00 p.m. until the service hour on Sunday.
Athens-Clarke County Police are asking for the public’s help to locate a suspected hit-and-run driver who left a man dead on the sidewalk.
Police were called to the scene on North Avenue, just south of Strickland Avenue, around 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday, December 22.
“Upon arrival, officers discovered the subject was deceased and the victim of a hit and run,” says Athens-Clarke Police Lt. Shaun Barnett. He says the initial investigation indicates that the man was walking north on the sidewalk when a northbound vehicle exited the roadway and struck him.
“The vehicle continued driving, leaving the scene,” Barnett says.
As a result of their investigation, police identified the driver as 31-year-old Amanda Gerrett of Athens. They took out arrest warrants on her for first-degree vehicular homicide, felony hit and run, and failure to maintain lane.
Police are now searching for her. They ask anyone with information regarding Gerrett’s whereabouts to call 911. Anyone with information about the crash is asked to contact ACCPD Senior Police Officer Lewis at 762-400-7169 or [email protected].
The victim’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The investigation continues.
This is the second fatal hit-and-run in Athens in three months.
20-year-old UGA marketing student Ariana Zarse of Austin, Texas, was fatally injured as she and a friend walked across Broad Street downtown just after midnight on October 9.
The alleged driver in that case, 29-year-old Donterris Gresham of Athens, turned himself into police four days after the fatal crash. As of December 23, he remained in the Clarke County jail.
Ronnie Edwin Jones age 64, entered rest Thursday, December 23, 2021, at his residence surrounded by family.
Ronnie was born May 31, 1957, in Gainesville to the late Lewis Sr. & Nora Hay Jones. Ronnie worked with the Budd Group for several years and attended West Hall Baptist Church. He was an avid outdoorsman. He loved to fish but most of all he was a proud Atlanta Braves Fan. He was preceded in death by an infant brother, Lewis Jones, Jr.
Left to cherish his memory, sister, Olene Little; niece, Kristie Upton; nephew, Travis Little; a number of great-nieces & nephews also survive.
Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, December 28, 2021, at the West Hall Baptist Church with Dr. Mike Reynolds & Rev. Bobby Jones officiating. Burial will follow in Alta Vista Cemetery. The family will receive friends Monday, December 27, 2021, from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. and again from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. at the funeral home. They will also receive friends from 1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. Tuesday at the church.
In lieu of flowers contributions may be made to West Hall Baptist Church, P.O. Box 567 Oakwood, GA 30566, or to the Good News Clinic, 810 Pine Street, Gainesville, GA 30501.
Please share online condolences to the family at www.wardsfh.com.
Ward’s Funeral Home is honored to serve the family of Ronnie Edwin Jones.
A 28-year-old Clayton man faces numerous charges following a high-speed chase in Habersham and Stephens counties. A state trooper wrecked during the chase late Wednesday night, officials say.
According to the Georgia State Patrol, the trooper tried to stop a black Chevrolet 2500 for speeding on US 441/GA 15 at the Habersham/Rabun County Line.
“The truck failed to stop and immediately accelerated to speeds above 100 mph,” says GSP Post 7 Commander Donnie Sadler. “The trooper pursued the vehicle south on GA 15 and attempted to perform a PIT Maneuver Technique. The trooper tried three more (PITs) which were all unsuccessful.”
On the last PIT attempt, Sadler says the trooper struck a concrete and stone mailbox with the front corner of his patrol car, disabling the officer’s vehicle.
The fleeing driver recovered from the maneuver and fled for approximately another ten miles into Stephens County before the truck became disabled. Habersham County Sheriff’s deputies, who had joined in the pursuit, arrested him without incident in the area of Yonah Dam Road near Toccoa and transported him to jail.
GSP identifies the driver as David Henry Diggs. Officers charged him with DUI, possession of meth, possession of a weapon during the commission of a crime, and numerous traffic violations.
As of early Wednesday, Dec. 23, Diggs remained in the Habersham County jail pending a bond hearing.
“Neither the suspect nor the trooper was injured,” says Sadler. The patrol car sustained only light damage.
Sadler extends his gratitude to the Habersham, Stephens, and Oconee County, South Carolina, sheriff’s departments for aiding in Diggs’ arrest.
The 33-year-old woman with multiple health conditions was in respiratory distress and awaiting an ambulance. About 20 minutes after the emergency call, it arrived.
