Author: Robert Preston

At Monday morning’s regular county commission meeting, the commission approved several amendments to the SPLOST V paving list. According to county administrator Wesley Vickers, the county is receiving an estimated $800,000 extra for paving projects in the new DOT transportation bill. Because of the extra funds, the county can afford to pave/resurface several more roads than commissioners initially thought. The roads added to the list include Willie Anderson Road, the railroad crossings at Chaney Road and Mitchell Road, Barrington Road, a small portion of Mallard Point Drive that is in disrepair, and John Moore Road. Regarding the railroad crossings, the…

Tuesday, the Albany City Commission chose a new city manager. It was not Douglas city manager Terrell Jacobs. About a month ago, the Albany commission announced five finalists for its vacant city manager job. Jacobs was one of the five. Tuesday, May 26, the commission named Sharon Subadan, former deputy county administrator in Hillsborough County, Florida, as the new Albany city manager. According walb.com, Subadan has a “shaky” past that includes a demotion after an audit revealed problems with a homeless recovery program she oversaw. Walb.com reported that the program spent millions of dollars placing homeless people in what turned…

Chris Adams, who will graduate from Coffee High School on Saturday morning, will spend Sunday, May 24, retracing the journey his great-great-great-great grandfather, Aaron Ricketson, took from Coffee County to Thomasville in order to regain his citizenship following the end of the Civil War. Adams is a living historian with the 12th Georgia Company C out of Irwinville and as such is recognized as a Confederate soldier with the Army of Tennessee. As a member of this group, Adams is one of the last living Confederate soldiers. Aaron Ricketson, who lived in Coffee County when the Civil War broke out,…

Malik Sparkman, the brave young Coffee High student who was diagnosed with kidney cancer in August of last year, has passed away. Malik, a talented football player for the Trojans who was going to play an integral role in the Coffee High defense during the 2014 season, received the devastating news of his diagnosis just prior to week one of football season. Instead of spending the fall playing football, he was in a hospital bed, undergoing treatments for his illness that were at times worse than the disease itself. Malik’s illness touched the entire Coffee County community, and citizens throughout…

The South Georgia State College Hawks are headed to the East Central District Championship tournament in Morristown, Tennessee, this week after finishing second in the Georgia Collegiate Athletic Conference (GCAA) tournament Saturday afternoon. The Hawks entered the tournament as a #2 seed, behind the regular season champion Darton State College Cavaliers. The top six teams in the GCAA played the tournament in Albany on the campus of Darton State. SGSC received a first-round bye and didn’t play its first game until Thursday afternoon. The Hawks beat Georgia Highlands 4-1 the fell to Darton State 4-2. SGSC dropped into the loser’s…

About 3:30 this afternoon, the heavens opened up and dumped water across the city of Douglas. In several notoriously low sections, water covered entire blocks of roadway. One such area, around the Harvey’s on the south side and in and around South Georgia State College, the water caused tremendous problems, not the least of which was the predicament the driver of this vehicle found herself in. Water saturated the Harvey’s parking lot, to the point of covering the grassy area between the parking lot and the sidewalk on Peterson Avenue. This vehicle, which was moving through the parking lot just…

A 22-year-old male has been killed in a tragic accident on 221 Highway North just above West Green. Very little information is known about the accident thus far. However, it appears as though a tractor-trailer and a van collided head-on early this afternoon. According to information published by WALB.com, Marcoantonio Desoto, 22, was driving the van. Apparently, Desoto drifted across the centerline, striking the truck. Desoto was ejected from the vehicle and died as a result of his injuries. The crash blocked both lanes of Highway 221 for several hours. However, authorities cleared the scene relatively quickly and had the…

According to a report published on the Coffee County Georgia Police Scanner Facebook page, officers rescued a woman from the Jet Foods on 441 South who said she had been kidnapped. The suspects in the alleged kidnapping fled the store’s property when law enforcement officers arrived. The Police Scanner reported that this afternoon, a woman came inside the Jet Foods and told a clerk at the counter that she had been kidnapped. Outside the store, the alleged kidnappers were putting gas in their vehicle. One male was outside pumping gas while another male and female were inside the vehicle. The…

At Monday afternoon’s monthly Chamber of Commerce power lunch, Chamber members heard from Mike Beatty, President and CEO of the Great Promise Partnership, Inc., a partnership between the Department of Community Affairs and businesses and industries throughout the state to assist at-risk high school students finish high school and either enter college or the workforce. Based on a program piloted at Carrollton’s Southwire plant, GPP has proven to be successful everywhere it has been implemented. Beatty is on a tour of the southern portion of the state to spread awareness about the program. “The greatest hurdle in Georgia is the…

Thursday afternoon, U.S. Rep. Rick Allen visited Douglas for an informal meet and greet with constituents. Rep. Allen and his staff set up shop at J&D Designs from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. During that 90-minute span, citizens were able to stop by and spend a few minutes with the representative. Here, Rep. Allen (right) is pictured with Douglas mayor James Dennis (left).