Barnesville.com

By Walter Geiger
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Sports fishermen and fishing guides who concentrate on inshore or flats fishing don’t care much for celebrity chef/restaurateur Emeril Lagasse. He has done well enough at the celebrity chef business that he is just Emeril - no last name needed. That puts him right up there with Herschel and Elvis, at least in some circles.

With all due respect to the late Julia Child, the first of the genre, I’m not much into cooking shows but I am into eating. One of my favorite dishes is blackened redfish. Emeril introduced that delicacy to the masses and, in just a few short months, the masses fell in love with it. This simple creation put Emeril on the map and blackened redfish began to appear on every upscale - and many low scale - menus around the world.

Suddenly, the lowly redfish, whom many had viewed as a trash fish for generations, was - sorry, Charlie - King of the Sea. Demand for redfish went up.

Commercial fishermen with long lines and nets targeted them in order to cash in on the craze and, you guessed it, redfish populations which had thrived since creation rapidly declined. [Full Story »] 

Former UGA running backs Nick Chubb and Sony Michel were in Barnesville Sunday afternoon for a football camp that was moved here from Stratford Academy in Macon due to sloppy field conditions there. The camp was a sellout at 250 kids whose parents paid $190-$250 each for the experience. The money funded a four-year scholarship for a needy student. A throng of parents and grandparents was also in attendance. “This is great exposure for us and our facilities,” LC head coach Jeff Sloan said.

Chubb and Michel played in a national title game as UGA seniors. Chubb had 996 yards rushing as a rookie for the Cleveland Browns this past season. Michel had 931 yards for the New England Patriots and won the 2019 Super Bowl in which he scored the only touchdown.

As part of an attempt to gather input from citizens in its service area, Gordon State College has been hosting a series of listening sessions.

The local installment is set for Tuesday, March 5 at 4:30 p.m. in room 123 of the nursing building on campus. The public is invited to attend and offer insight and suggestions.

Those on hand to hear from citizens will be GSC president Dr. Kirk Nooks, Barnesville mayor Peter Banks and county commission chairman Charles Glass.

For more information, contact LaSha Sanders at 678-359-5015.

Barnesville’s Niki Sappington and Kathy Oxford have been invited to speak during a panel discussion March 2 at the South Georgia Film Festival on the campus of Valdosta State University.

Sappington, Barnesville’s director of community development, and Oxford, executive director of the IDA, will discuss the impact the production of HBO’s ‘Sharp Objects’ had on the community. [Full Story »]