Broadband boost: Warren County in line to receive about $1 million in COVID relief

 A story by my AJC colleague Tia Mitchell: https://www.ajc.com/politics/rural-georgia-makes-plans-for-spending-covid-19-relief-dollars/7SD4NRCXNFFBFEL2H7LSIBN4FU/

Hancock County has become a COVID-19 hotspot

Story by my friend and AJC colleague Ariel Hart at this link.

Education leaders tour Warren County High's 'Farm-to-Table' program

Story and video from WJBF-Channel 6.

Georgia-Pacific plans major Warrenton expansion

The new facility will be capable of more than three times the plant's current output, according to a press statement from the company reported on by WRDW-Channel 12. (Update: More details from my AJC colleague Scott Trubey at this link.)

So, about those clowns over in Thomson ...

Just kidding, our neighbors in McDuffie County are fine folks. But two young men have been charged with disorderly conduct for driving outside the Thomson Walmart while wearing clown masks. More from Augusta's Fox 54 here.

End of an era: Fulghum-Carr, Warrenton's drug store, goes out of business

From Facebook: Linda Fulghum Bruggemann
 (with Molly Bloodworth) and Emile Carr
at the closing of Fulghum-Carr. 

Saw on the Facebook feed of dear family friend Linda Fulghum Bruggemann about the closing of the doors of Fulghum-Carr Drug Co., known to so many of us as just "the drug store," one of Warrenton's longest-surviving Main Street businesses, after 65 years.

There's so much that could be said here. I could tell you how I wish that despite all the conveniences of the modern world, that we could just stop time for small towns and let them, and the small businesses that drive them, just stay the way they are, like prehistoric insects frozen in amber.

Or I could tell you that the thing I always remembered and loved the most about Fulghum-Carr when I was a kid was, maybe strangely, the old wooden floor and the smell -- I don't know what it was, but it smelled like a drugstore on Main Street in a small town in the deep South should smell. It was comforting. You're not ever going to get that smell in a CVS.

And the toy aisle. Fulghum-Carr always had the best toys. Somewhere at my father's house is probably still the Little Builder tool set that were the first tools I ever owned and which I used to disassemble various objects in the house, to my mother's great annoyance.

And Theodore, my beloved childhood teddy bear. He was in the window at Fulghum-Carr when my mother took me in one day, and it was love at first sight. Santa put him under the Christmas tree for me. (He's still around and is sitting on a shelf in my bedroom here in Atlanta right now.)

But it's really hard to operate a small business in a small town, in a world dominated by Wal-Mart and Walgreens. And the most important thing to be said is to be glad that we had it around for so long.

Stay off I-20 tonight: The Mega-Load is coming through

Photo by flickr user Miguel Tejada-Flores, used under
a Creative Commons license.

A 600,000-pound machine press will be hauled up Interstate 20 through Warren County Wednesday night, taking up both lanes. The equipment, which is being hauled to Bartow County, will leave Columbia County at 7 p.m. Wednesday, headed toward Atlanta,  the Journal-Constitution reports.

Warrenton's Candice Warthen to play pro ball in Finland

Candice Warthen on the court. Photo:
Arizona Athletics via
ArizonaWildcats.com.

From ArizonaWildcats.com:

TUCSON, Ariz.--- Former Arizona guard Candice Warthen has signed a professional contract to play basketball with Finland’s Forssan Alku, the club announced on Monday ...
The Warrenton, Ga. native goes down as one of the top scorers in program history, as she ended her Arizona career with 1,128 points, which ranks 16th on the school’s all-time list. She also is responsible for one of the most iconic shots in recent UA history, as she knocked down the would-be game-winning jumper from the left side with three seconds remaining to give the Wildcats a 60-57 win over then-ranked No. 12 Stanford back on Feb. 8, 2015. The victory marked the Cats’ first win over the Cardinal since 2004.

Sandersville sixth-'worst' place to live in Georgia?

Washington County Courthouse. Photo by flickr
user Jimmy Emerson DVM. Used under a
Creative Commons license. 

A writer for the site RoadSnacks.net says he's worked up a formula to calculate the worst places to live in Georgia with populations greater than 5,000, and Sandersville comes in at No. 6 on the list. (Coming in at No. 1 is my father's hometown of Swainsboro.)

Thomson is tied for No. 19 on the list with Forest Park. Warrenton isn't on the list at all, as it doesn't fit the 5,000-resident threshold.

Writer Nick Johnson writes that his rankings are based on stats including unemployment rates, median income levels, education spending and home values -- all things that many Middle Georgia and East Georgia towns are struggling with.

But he also includes population density in that formula -- "the lower, the worse," his piece says. Taking a look at the numbers in his spreadsheet and how he did the math, it looks like he just averaged the rankings of the five criteria, so population density is a fifth of the final score. So, the ranking is pretty much built-in with the assumption that lower population density -- in other words, being rural -- is a bad thing.

Pieces like this tend to rile up people, such as the econ development director in Vidalia, who posted an impassioned defense of the Sweet Onion Capital of the World as a comment on RoadSnacks' piece. We should note that the piece bears a disclaimer that it's opinion and not fact. And RoadSnacks has published similar "worst places to live" posts on several other states, not just Georgia.

The data in the underlying spreadsheet show the same thing those metrics have shown for most of my lifetime: That there is a lot of poverty in little towns in Georgia -- unemployment is high, income levels are low, the schools aren't as fancy, often because there's not much tax base. Yes, a lot of people in rural Georgia have it tough. But a lot of people live in small towns because they like living there, because they feel the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. (Example: Sandersville may be No. 6 on RoadSnacks' list, but it had a better crime rate ranking in the spreadsheet than Smyrna, which RoadSnacks says is one of the 20 "best" places to live.)

If you really want to see how people did this kind of number-crunching for real and came out with something meaningful, check out the New York Times' "Hardest Places to Live" interactive from last year. The NYT analysis took into account "education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity." Nearly all of Middle, East and South Georgia are colored in orange there -- the "doing worse" category.

(Note: This piece has been edited since it was originally published.)

State Rep. Brooks pleads guilty to federal charge, resigns seat

Some sad news: Former state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, one of the most prominent political figures in the state originally from Warren County, has pleaded guilty to tax fraud and resigned his seat in the state legislature. As a young civil rights leader, Brooks played a major role in leading the push to desegregate the Warren County schools and businesses in Warrenton and Crawfordville. (Story at AJC.com)

Learn to be a storm spotter

Want to learn more about the weather and have the chance to help the community? Warrenton Watch just spotted a listing for National Weather Service storm spotter training March 3 at Warrenton's Community Services Building. Honest disclosure: Warrenton Watch's editor once did the storm spotter training through the Nashville NWS office. The listing says 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Gibson man lands 90-pound blue catfish

Jimmy Holbrook of Gibson reeled in the giant cat at South Carolina's Lake Moultrie on Jan. 2, reports southcarolinasportsman.com. It was just 19 pounds shy of the state's record for blue catfish. Read the story and see a full photo of Holbrook with his prize catch at this link.

Warrenton man gets nearly 20 years in robbery/chase case

A Warrenton man who used a shotgun to hold up a Thomson Dollar General store has gotten a federal prison sentence of nearly 20 years.

Jacky Ray Burley, 51, was given a 235-month sentence for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, according to a press statement posted online by WJBF-TV.

The Dollar General robbery, which occurred in November 2013, was followed by a high-speed car chase into Warren County.

Former coach Guillebeau passes

Former Warren County coach and teacher Tommy Guillebeau has died, the Thomaston Times reports. After working in Warren County, he later served as head of the Georgia High School Association. (Photo: GHSA)

GBI probes complaint against chief deputy

Warren County's chief sheriff's deputy is being probed by the GBI after someone alleged the officer pointed a firearm at him at a Christmas gathering, the McDuffie Progress reports.

(Editor's note: Warren County Sheriff Joe Peebles is my father. Ninety-nine percent of you reading this blog probably already know that, I know. It's just the principle of the thing.) 

Warrenton Hometown Christmas pictures

WarrenCountyGa.com has some good pictures of the 2014 Hometown Christmas event by Michael Huebener at this link.

Warren wages have risen over the past decade

Some good economic news for Warren County: Average annual pay has increased in Warren County over the past decade, according to federal data analyzed by the Wall Street Journal. 

Wages in Warren County have increased 5.6 percent from 2004 to last year, to slightly more than $34,000 per year, the Journal reports via this interactive map.  The figures were adjusted for inflation.

The statistics are even better in Hancock County, where wages have gone up 11 percent in the past decade, the data show -- though that brings the average annual pay of Hancock Countians to only $31,000 per year.

Taliaferro County average pay has gone up by 3.2 percent over the same time period, the data show.

If Warren, Hancock and Taliferro were winners, then some of their neighbors were losers. Annual wages in Glascock County shrank by a third over the past decade, while wages in Washington County dropped 17 percent, and wages in Jefferson County slipped nine percent.

The Journal says a wages have gone down in a third of all counties in the U.S. over the past decade.

Warren County: Men at work

A greater percentage of men in Warren County have chosen to work than in parts of many surrounding counties — that's according to Census data made public by the New York Times.

The Times has taken an in-depth look at the phenomena of more and more men choosing not to work and the reasons for it: They include both the iffy economy as well as larger societal changes. (Keep in mind, this is different from unemployment, in which a person is capable of working and wants to work but cannot find a job.)

The Times' story comes with an interactive map showing the Census Bureau's estimates of the percentage of men in each Census tract in America who have chosen not to work.

Twenty-eight percent of men in Warren County's smaller Census tract — which includes much of Warrenton and reaches southeast to the Panhandle — have chosen not to work, according to the Census Bureau, while 18 percent of men in the county's larger Census tract have chosen not to work. That works out to almost a third of the men in the smaller tract and nearly one out of every five in the larger tract.

(It bears pointing out that the margin for error of these very small, rural Census tracts is really substantial — plus or minus 12 percentage points for the larger tract, and plus or minus nine percentage points for the smaller tract.)

But the numbers are even more substantial for some of our neighboring counties:
• In McDuffie County, one Census tract has an estimated 47 percent of men who aren't working (margin of error, 11 points)
• In Wilkes County, one tract has an estimated 62 percent not working (margin of error, 11 points)
• In eastern Hancock County, 76 percent of men aren't working (margin of error, six points)
• In one tract in Washington County, 68 percent of men aren't working (margin of error, five points)
• In central Jefferson County, 55 percent of men aren't working (margin of error, nine points).

You can see the complete interactive map for yourself at this link. The data used in it came from the Census' American Community Survey estimates from 2009 to last year.

'I will never forget where I come from': Former Screaming Devil makes her name in Arizona

ArizonaWildcats.com has a profile of Arizona women's basketball star and Warrentonian Candice Warthen:

“I grew up in a small town with not many people,” Warthen says. “I am very family oriented so I think that has a huge impact on how I am today. When it comes to my dad, I didn’t get to know him all too well, but I hear stories about him all of the time. My city and family are things that follow me everywhere I go and I will never forget where I come from.”

Shoulda put a ring on it? Hancock County, Ga., among nation's most-single counties

The folks at FlowingData have mapped some Census data showing relationship status by county, and Hancock County makes the list of counties with the highest proportion of most-single/never married folks.