Headlines

A groundbreaking celebration is scheduled for 9 a.m. July 12 for the new GSC student services center at the corner of College Drive and Spencer Street. The property was the site of the old Haygood Keadle home for many years.

The celebration is open to the public.

Construction is expected to begin in late July with an anticipated completion date of early summer 2019.
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By Walter Geiger

The battle over the City of Barnesville’s quest to relocate at least 103 graves from historic Wadsworth-Clayton Cemetery moves to Lamar superior court Friday. A hearing on the matter before Judge Tommy Wilson is set for 1 p.m.

The city wants to remove the remains from the cemetery on Old Milner Road to Greenwood Cemetery in town to make room for industrial expansion. The old cemetery, which dates back to the early 1800s, is located on city-owned property. [Full Story »] 

Just exactly how much work Carolyn Parker does as city clerk is best summed up by the fact that it will take four people to divide up her current duties. Her spacious office is filled with boxes of paperwork involving 25 accounts she maintains manually. In another corner is a still-operable IBM Selectric typewriter that she used to write checks when she first went to work for the city in 1980.

“That’s not my original typewriter but a refurbished one Jason Shirey found for me,” Parker said referring to the late assistant city manager Jason Shirey.

Parker is retiring at the end of the month after 38 years with the city. Prior to that she spent 11 years at Carter’s in the data processing department. ‘J.U Little hired me out there,” she recalled.

She started out at city hall as a bookkeeper and billing clerk and moved steadily up the ladder, becoming city clerk in 1993.

Tammy Folson will follow her as clerk, handling council meetings, records and business licenses and serving as the qualifying officer for elections. Niki Sappington will take over credit card processing and council member training.

Tammy York will take over accounting. “She has an accounting degree and that’s good. A lot of what I have done has involved accounting,” Parker said. [Full Story »] 

By Walter Geiger

A local man who terrorized the community by calling in multiple bomb threats to local businesses on May 15, 2016 has been released on parole after serving just over a year of a three-year prison sentence.

Lagarrious Quintae World, 28, was paroled June 12. While on parole, he will live with a family member, Sammy World, at 101 Grove Street in Barnesville.
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By Walter Geiger

Billy Bankston Sr. opened Bankston’s Barber Shop in downtown Barnesville in 1938 at the age of 20. He had been aged beyond his years in the Army where he survived in the harsh conditions at the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.

“Daddy always said he made it through because he had grown up in the woods, hunting day and night. He knew to keep his head down,” Billy Jr. said. Billy Jr. went to barber school and went to work in his dad’s shop as an apprentice at age 16. He had good reason. Gordon Military had 900 cadets and they all had to have haircuts once a week.
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The Marathon store at the corner of College Drive and Veterans Parkway recently sold a lottery scratch-off ticket worth $200,000.

The ticket was for the Ga. Lottery’s 15X The Money game. The winner claimed the top prize offered for that particular game.

A Spalding County deputy was injured in a motorcycle crash on Howard Road here Wednesday night.

Dep. Colt Taylor suffered a severe concussion and other injuries and was taken to the trauma unit at the Medical Center in Macon where he is heavily sedated. The crash occurred near his home. Taylor was off duty at the time.

He is expected to recover.

A superior court hearing set for June 12 on the request by the City of Barnesville to relocate at least 103 graves from the historic Wadsworth-Clayton Cemetery to Greenwood Cemetery to make room for industrial expansion has been postponed again.

A new date is expected to be set by the end of the day today (Wednesday).

Public notice of the new date will have to be published.

Tryouts get underway June 5 for the first select soccer teams ever fielded under the auspices of the Lamar County recreation department. Players on select teams face better competition and do more traveling.

“Better competition for our younger players will help us get over the top and finally win a state title at the high school level. When we get to the playoffs, we have to get past those last two or three teams,” coach Jeff Mason said.

Mason, who serves as chief of the Gordon police department, will coach a 14U girls team. Girls hoping to make the team have to have been born in the 2005 calendar year. Younger girls can try out but older ones cannot.


Nathan Suddeth will coach a 15U boys select team. Boys must have been born in the 2004 calendar year or later.

Tryouts will be held Tuesday-Thursday, June 5-7 at 5:30 p.m. at the county soccer fields located at 118 Academy Dr. behind the John Deere dealership. Players trying out must wear shin guards, cleats and athletic shorts and shirts. Players must also bring plenty of water and a soccer ball and are encouraged to attend all three days of tryouts.

For more information, call the recreation department at 770-358-5800.