Author: Robert Preston

The National Weather Service in Jacksonville has issued a winter storm warning for Coffee County Wednesday and Thursday. Non-essential departments with the City of Douglas will be closed Wednesday as will all campuses of Wiregrass Technical College. A press release from Wiregrass stated that the college will make a determination regarding Thursday and Friday on Wednesday afternoon but administrators are expecting the college to be open those days. Conditions for Coffee County will begin to worsen after midnight and into the early morning hours of Wednesday. There is a possibility of ice accumulation in excess of a…

In a year riddled with accidents, shootings, high profile convictions and acquittals, deaths, and other assorted items of bad news, the top story of 2017 was resoundingly positive. Tennis is apparently a lot bigger in Coffee County than most people – this writer included – ever would have imagined. The top story of 2017 was the Coffee Middle School tennis team’s undefeated championship season. Back in March, the CMS boys’ team rolled through the season without losing a match and won its second consecutive region title. At the region tournament, which took place in Valdosta at McKey Park, the girls…

One of the hallmarks of the Christmas season is music. Christmas songs and advent-specific hymns usher in the spirit of the season like nothing else. At Thursday’s Rotary Club meeting, the mother-daughter duo of Teri Bailey and Blair Brawner entertained the club with a short Christmas concert. The talented pair sang several season standards as well as a few contemporary Christmas songs. It was far from a typical civic club program; however, with Christmas Day just five days away at the time, nothing could have been more appropriate. Included below are Teri and Blair singing “O Holy Night” with Blair…

While most of the football fans in the community were paying attention to the Georgia Bulldogs and the historic recruiting class head coach Kirby Smart landed during the early signing period on Thursday, Dec. 21, a Coffee High Trojan was quietly inking a scholarship of his own. It may not have been in Athens but it’s still the veritable opportunity of a lifetime. Derick Newton, the Trojans’ 6’2”, 270-pound battering ram of a defensive end, signed with the Division I Kansas State Wildcats of the Big 12 Conference at K-State’s Manhattan, Kansas campus. Schools all over the…

Premium Peanut hasn’t been open for business very long. But it has made a quite am impact in a short period of time. At the Dec. 14 meeting of the Douglas Rotary Club, Gary Evans, a Rotarian and Premium Peanut employee, shared some of the progress the shelling plant has made over the last year. The growers that send peanuts to Premium Peanut are also the facility’s shareholders. Currently, there are 357 shareholders in 30 counties. Premium Peanut handled 260,000 tons of peanuts this year and expects about 210,000 tons in 2018. It also added three new…

A long-time mortgage lender is about to call it a career. On Dec. 31, Ameris Bank’s Linda Rish, who has over 40 years in banking in Coffee County, will retire. Linda has spent the last 16 years at Ameris. Prior to that, she worked at SunTrust Bank for 25 years. During her time as a mortgage lender, she has had the pleasure of sharing in the excitement of helping people find their dream homes. In particular, she has enjoyed assisting first-time home buyers make what for many of them is their first major purchase. “It’s been a…

In a guest editorial that appeared in The Denver Post over a year and a half ago, Douglas Groothuis described football in the following terms: “For Americans, ‘football’ involves men in elaborate and expensive exoskeletons who try to run or kick an oblong object into their opponents’ end zone. This requires no little mayhem. It is all about taking down opponents, which demands collisions, concussions, contusions, and more.” In short, it’s a brutal, violent game reserved for the biggest of the big, the fastest of the fast, and the toughest of the tough. But you couldn’t tell…

Last week’s race for the fifth and final Ambrose City Council seat between Blaine Paulk and Andy Jowers was almost as close as the Nov. 7. But not quite. After tying 24-24 last month, Jowers and Paulk, a former school board member, faced each other in a run-off. This time a few more people voted but the result came remarkably close to the first election. This time, however Paulk narrowly defeated Jowers by just two votes, 30-28. The election wraps the political season in Coffee County. On Nov. 7, elections were held in…

For two days, Dr. Morris Leis, superintendent of the Coffee County School System, pled the system’s case to the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) regarding the location Friday’s state championship football game. After filing a protest and multiple appeals, the GHSA refused to change the decision it made in the wake of last Friday’s snow storm in Atlanta that caused the cancellation of several state title games, which were scheduled to be played over two days at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The game between the Coffee Trojans and the Lee County Trojans, which will decide the 6A state championship,…

Now that the Georgia High School Association has postponed the state championship football game between the Coffee Trojans and the Lee County Trojans (along with several other games), what comes next? At the moment, the game is scheduled for next Friday at 8 p.m. in Lee County – a venue at which we have already played. There are reports with varying degrees of credibility stating that our school officials are appealing the decision in order to get the game played at another location. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen. My sneaking suspicion is that the…