Carol Whitworth Allen, age 67, of Clarkesville, passed away on Wednesday, July 28, 2021.
Born in Demorest, Georgia, on September 27, 1953, she was a daughter of the late Rev. Paris William Whitworth and Elizabeth Worley Whitworth. Ms. Allen was a retired Geriatric Care Nurse with Mountain View Health and Rehab. She had a compassionate love and interest in animals. Ms. Allen was a natural-born caregiver and loved the outdoors. She was a loving mother and Ammaw.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by 2 brothers, Leroy Whitworth and Kenneth Whitworth; sister, Mary Bronez Whitworth.
Surviving are her son, William Douglas Allen of Gainesville; daughter and son-in-law, Leigh & Neal Pollitt of Clarkesville; grandchildren, Dylan, Elizabeth, Madison, Haven, Chandler, Chaselin, and Coler; 2 great-grandchildren; brother and sister-in-law, Jerry & Ann Whitworth of Martin; sisters and brothers-in-law, Kathy & Jerald Palmer of Cornelia, Molly & Henry Nicholson of Clarkesville, Polly & Charles Wade of Cornelia and Nancy & Autry Gosnell of Clarkesville; several loving nieces, nephews and cousins; many other family and friends.
The family will receive friends from 4-6 pm on Friday, July 30, 2021, at the funeral home.
In lieu of flowers, please make a contribution to the Habersham County Animal Care and Control, 4231-B Toccoa Hwy., Clarkesville, GA 30523.
Those in attendance are asked to please adhere to the public health and social distancing guidelines regarding COVID-19.
Yesterday evening, the Center for Disease Control announced that all students enrolled in K-12 schools should continue to wear masks in the classroom, regardless of vaccination status. However, Habersham schools will not require masks.
“The virus will not be our focus this year.,” says Habersham County Superintendent Matthew Cooper. “Our focus will be on our mission of ‘Success for All Students.'”
The CDC has released new mask guidance, recommending masks be worn in public indoor spaces.
As the COVID-19 Delta variant spreads rapidly through the state, with COVID-19 hospitalizations up 170 percent from last month, the CDC’s recommendations sharply contrast their mask-free announcement from just months ago. The CDC still maintains that those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can participate in most activities they did before the pandemic, but recommends that people wear masks while indoors in public to protect against the Delta variant.
Anyone over the age of 12 is eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in the state of Georgia, but this still leaves many elementary and middle schoolers unprotected by the vaccine. “At this point, there are no concerns with an uptick in cases,” Cooper says. “All of our adult staff members have had the opportunity to receive a vaccine and we know that the virus poses minimal risk to healthy students.”
While there are some COVID-19 policies in place in Habersham’s school system, the district plans for a back-to-normal school year. Online learning options will still be available this year for students and parents who do not feel safe returning to in-person learning.
The school system will not require vaccinations for staff or students, and will not offer or require COVID-19 testing in schools.
“The back-to-school season is one of the things I like best about the education profession,” Cooper says. “The start of a new year brings the hope that things will be better this year than they were in years past. I believe that this school year will be better for our students than last year or any year before.”
The Demorest City Council is looking over amendments to their alcohol ordinance, as well as considering making the downtown Demorest area on Georgia Street an entertainment district. These amendments and districting changes could mean open-container carry for citizens attending Demorest’s events, new opportunities for local businesses and a less-dry Piedmont University.
The city has a history deeply rooted in the temperance and prohibition movements, founded in 1889 as a dry community and named after the prohibition leader William Jennings Demorest. But with updates coming to the Demorest Springs Park, the growth of Piedmont University and local businesses recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, changes could be coming to the city its founders wouldn’t have expected.
The amendments to the alcohol ordinance include allowing business owners who live outside of the City of Demorest, but within Habersham county, the opportunity to apply for an alcohol license. Currently, the city only allows Demorest citizens to apply for an alcohol license for their businesses, making the process much more restrictive than most cities.
Another amendment to the alcohol ordinance would allow businesses with alcohol licenses to serve alcohol off-premises with a permit. City Attorney Thomas Mitchell said at the city’s Tuesday work session that this amendment had been requested by the university. Piedmont has been a dry campus since its founding in 1897, with the exception of the Piedmont Village dorms that were built in 2015. The amendment would allow for alcohol to be served at special events on campus.
Making the downtown Demorest area on Georgia Street an entertainment district would encourage pedestrian traffic and patronage of local business, as well as allows for open-container alcoholic beverages within the area.
The council will meet again to discuss these amendments at their regular meeting on August 3.
Georgia State Troopers charged a Sautee man for following too closely after an accident on Highway 17 that injured him and two others.
According to the Georgia State Patrol, James Hadley Cox, 71, was airlifted to Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville following the crash. Troopers say Cox was driving a 2009 Land Rover south on GA 17 near the GA 105 intersection at Haye’s Corner around 5:40 p.m. on July 26. He told the investigating trooper that he “blacked out at the wheel” and did not see the vehicle in front of him.
The Land Rover rear-ended a 2018 Toyota Avalon driven by 80-year-old Larry Ray Dodd of Clarkesville. The impact forced the Avalon off the roadway, where it struck a road sign and fallen tree before traveling down an embankment. The Land Rover wound up in a ditch.
The collision injured Dodd and a passenger in his vehicle, Evelyn Williams, 85, also of Clarkesville. Habersham County EMS transported both of them to Northeast Georgia Medical Center for treatment.
This is the third serious accident on Highway 17 in the past few weeks and the second in the area of Haye’s Corner.
I shall begin this Dishing Up Memories with an admission of guilt, while I love potatoes, baked, mashed, sliced, diced, and in the form of french fries or hash browns, my all-time favorite is tater tots.
I’m not even sure why or where that comes from. I know we occasionally had them when I was growing up but whatever the reason they are like a tater treat to me. These little golden nuggets have a long history to boot.
(photo from www.oreida.com)
Tater tots were first created in 1953 when Ore-Ida founders Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg tried to figure out what to do with leftover slivers of cut-up potatoes. They came up with the basic idea of chopping up the potato slivers, adding flour and seasoning, then pushing the mash through holes, and slicing off pieces of what came out on the other side. They became available in grocery stores in 1956.
I am not alone in my love of tater tots, Americans consume approximately 70 million pounds of them a year. There’s even a National Tater Tot Day, February 2, which I suppose is overshadowed by those rodent weather predictors.
In Australia, tater tots are known as potato gems. I think that is very appropriate and, henceforth, I think I will refer to them as such.
Recently, I was perusing tater tot recipes on the Interweb, as some refer to it, and came across this gem. I thought, how bad can it be with ground beef, cheese, and tater tots. It was a hit! I will make it again.
Ingredients
1poundground beef
1onion, diced
1tablespoonWorcestershire sauce
1/2cupsour cream
1can cream of mushroom soup
32ouncespackage frozen tater tots
2cupscheddar or Colby jack cheese, shredded
6slicesthick-cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/4cupgreen onions, sliced
Instructions
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees and spray a 9×13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
Cook the ground beef and onion in a skillet over medium heat until completely browned, 5 to 7 minutes, then drain any additional fat.
Add in the Worcestershire sauce, sour cream, and cream of mushroom soup and whisk together.
Let the mixture cook for 5 minutes on low heat.
Put a layer of tater tots along the bottom of the pan then pour the meat mixture over the tater tots.
Cover with the cheese and half the bacon.
Cover with remaining tater tots and bake for 40 minutes until the top is browned and bubbly.
Garnish with remaining bacon and green onions.
My family loved this tater tot casserole, however, I have filed it in my recipe collection notebook as comfort food which means it will be a holdover for the cooler months of fall.
Make it now or save the recipe for later but give it a try. The recipe says it’s kid-friendly. Don’t tell the kids but adults will love it too!
Welcome to yet another week of watching the skies! We’ll have a few clouds to fight off towards the first of the week but by Wednesday and Thursday we will have a much better chance of some good star gazing weather.
The Planets This Week: Venus remains the highlight of the planets shining brightly in the evening twilight. It passed through the Beehive Cluster over the weekend and remains fairly close to it after sunset this week. It is drawing closer to Mars which can be found just above and to the left. They will be drawing closer to each other over the next week and appear closest next Monday evening. Jupiter and Saturn both appear high in the sky during the late-night and pre-dawn hours. The dimmer planets of Uranus and Neptune, both only visible in telescopes or binoculars, are both up during the pre-dawn hours as well.
Naked Eye Object-Venus: This week’s naked eye object is one of the brightest in the sky. Venus has been rising higher in the sky over the past couple months and now is impossible to miss amongst the evening twilight. Venus is the second planet from the sun and named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Surprisingly little is known about the inner workings of Venus, largely because of its incredibly thick atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus is equal to around 92 times that of the pressure here on Earth. The atmosphere consists of 96% carbon dioxide and temperatures at the surface run hotter than 800 degrees. As if all of these things didn’t make Venus inhospitable enough, the thick clouds that obscure the surface are comprised of sulfuric acid.
Venus’ rotation is extremely slow with a day lasting longer than a year. This results in one hemisphere being in full sunlight for a very long time and one sitting in the dark. Despite this, surface temperatures are fairly equal between the sides thanks to constant, albeit surprisingly weak, winds. The surface is dotted with active volcanoes which results in a constantly changing surface geology, though it does take considerable time to completely build a new crust. These volcanoes also cause lightning, which honestly just makes this planet even scarier. Impact craters are common, with around 1,000 detected using radar observations, but most are small due to most meteors burning up in the thick atmosphere.
One of the coolest things about Venus is that, like the moon, it has phases. Because it lies between the Earth and the Sun it goes through phases seen from our perspective. Below is a composite of the waning crescent Venus captured during 2004. When Venus is directly opposite the sun, and therefore extraordinarily difficult to observe, its atmosphere is visible reflected by sunlight.
The phases of Venus Source: NASA
Humans have only successfully landed four probes on Venus: the Vanera 9 and 10 missions launched by the USSR in 1975 and later Vanera 13 and 14 in 1978. Vanera 13 functioned for just over 2 hours and 14 lasted less than 1 hour. Due to the incredibly harsh conditions on the surface getting a probe to survive to landing, much less for time on the surface, is a feat in of itself.
Surface of Venus as seen from Vanera 13 Source: NASA
Venus bounces back and forth between the evening and morning sky and is even visible in daylight through a pair of binoculars (though I don’t suggest ever trying this due to its proximity to the sun). Right now it appears in the evening twilight and is impossible to miss, so get out and check it out this week!
Telescope object of the week-the Ring Nebula: One of the more fascinating objects visible with a even a relatively small telescope is known as M57, or the ring nebula. Discovered by French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779, it is one of the brighter planetary nebula in the sky. What’s a planetary nebula, you ask? It is the leftovers of a star that has gone supernova. They come in many shapes, with around 20% developing spherically and others in more of a dumbbell shaped nebula. The name “planetary nebula” comes from their appearance in early telescopes. Early astronomers weren’t entirely sure what they were, but they looked like faint gas giant planets, thus “planetary” nebula.
M57: Source- NASA
The Ring Nebula is a particularly brilliant example of these phenomena. It is roughly 2500 light years from Earth and located near the bright star Vega. It is fairly easy to find in amateur telescopes because it lies directly in line Lyrae beta and gamma (see star map below).
If you get some clear skies this week take a few minutes to reel this object in. It is fairly small and best seen with a telescope of at least 4″ diameter (the bigger the better). It is absolutely worth the effort to find, though.
Mark Anthony Hicks, age 50, of Alto, passed away Monday, July 26, 2021.
Born in Commerce on February 21, 1971, Mark was the son of Shirley Bonner Ransom of Pendergrass and the late Eugene W. Hicks. He was a former Town of Mt. Airy employee, and he had worked in ammonia refrigeration. Most recently, Mark had worked in construction and doing odd jobs. He was an avid outdoorsman; he loved to hunt, fish, and do all things outside. Mark had an extremely strong work ethic, something he instilled in his children from an early age and others that he loved and helped raise. He spent a great deal of time with younger generations teaching them valuable life lessons and investing in their lives. Mark loved people and could always tell a good joke. He never met a stranger in his entire life. Mark was a jack of all trades; he could fix anything, and he enjoyed working on cars. He loved collecting and trading on all things old that caught his eye. Mark was of the Holiness faith.
In addition to his mother, survivors include his wife Renee’ Moore Hicks of Anderson, SC, sons Andrew Hicks (Payton Patterson) of Cleveland and Michael John Gibbs (Brooke Nicole Gibbs) of Baldwin, daughters Amber Dawn Hicks Barrs (Andrey) of Alto, Jada Annette Hicks of Alto and Jamie Elizabeth Gibbs Cornell (Mikey) of Sautee, brothers William “Neechie” Hicks of Jefferson, Bo Hicks of Murrayville, Daniel Hicks (Misty) of Murrayville and Andy Hicks (Lea) of Jefferson, sisters Pam Hicks Sims (Stacy) of Mississippi and Marie Hicks Ferguson (Danny) of Gainesville, grandchildren Kenna Leigh Hicks, Wyatt Elliot Hunter, Dylan Shed, Bryson Shedd, Landon Shedd, Cameron Kimbrell, and Myles Jack Gibbs, as well as numerous nieces, nephews, extended family and many friends.
Funeral services will be held at 11:00, Saturday, July 31, 2021, at Hillside Memorial Chapel with Rev. Dennis Wade, Chaplain Rob Moore, and Rev. Billy Joe Jenkins, Jr., officiating. Interment will follow the service in East View Cemetery, Mt. Airy. The family will receive friends at the funeral home on Friday, July 30, 2021, from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM.
The City of Baldwin’s second reading of a zoning ordinance, which would rezone a property on Willingham Avenue to allow for the development of 23 townhomes, failed in a 3-2 vote at their Monday meeting.
The Baldwin City Council discussed the rezoning ordinance at length and ultimately failed to pass the motion. (Photo: City of Baldwin, Facebook)
During their discussion, Councilwoman Alice Venter noted that the property owner has owned and paid taxes on the piece of land for sixteen years, and has maintained the property during that time. She also voiced concerns for senior citizens in Habersham that can no longer care for their properties and are looking for lower maintenance places to live within the county.
“I don’t know at what point in history Americans started letting government tell us what to do with our property,” Councilwoman Venter said. “[…] I’m passionate about that [senior citizens], but I’m most passionate about [not] telling people what to do with their property.”
“We had citizens come forward who already pay taxes to us, who spoke out against this for a variety of reasons,” Almagno said. “[Such as] children’s safety, traffic, and I don’t think we should disregard the comments of the citizens that are already here.”
Almagno also brought up concerns that the area is zoned specifically for neighborhood commercial use, which she feels the city hasn’t tried to develop. She mentioned that small businesses run by Baldwin residents, like PattyKakes in Cornelia, have to leave the city due to the lack of storefronts.
Councilman Maarten Venter commented on the road safety and traffic concerns he felt that businesses on Willingham Avenue could bring to the nearby Baldwin Elementary School. He did not mention how a townhome development could impact road safety and traffic near the school.
After much discussion, Councilwoman Venter made the motion, which Councilman Venter seconded. Councilman Larry Lewallen, Councilman Theron Ayers and Councilwoman Almagno all voted in opposition, causing the motion to fail.
The area will remain zoned for neighborhood commercial use, and the council did not discuss reapproaching the matter following the motion’s failure.
A recording of the meeting is available on the city’s Facebook page.
Investigators are asking for the public’s help to identify two burglars they say stole drugs from a local pharmacy over the weekend. The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office says the suspects broke into Habersham Drug at 638 Historic Highway 441 near Habersham Medical Center in Demorest.
According to officials, the suspects forced entry into the building around 1:25 a.m. on Saturday, July 24. The sheriff’s office released three surveillance photos on a flyer Monday. Investigators describe the suspects as two black males. They say one of the suspects stayed outside the business and acted as a guard while the other went inside and took several narcotics from behind the counter.
“It also appears the male wearing gray shoes has a tattoo on his left arm,” the flyer states.
If you can help officials identify these suspects, please call HCSO Investigator R. Kushman at 706-839-0557 or the sheriff’s office directly at 706-839-0500.
1 of 3
Surveillance photos captured around 1:25 a.m. on Saturday, July 24, appear to show the suspects breaking into the building.
Investigators say one suspect stayed outside and acted as a guard.
The other suspect was captured by surveillance crawling on the floor. Investigators say he took several narcotics from behind the counter.
Vickie Bernice Savage Ansley, age 61, of Mt. Airy, Georgia, took her heavenly flight home to be with the Lord on Monday, July 26, 2021, at her residence surrounded by her loving family.
Born in Stephens County, Georgia, on December 15, 1959, she was a daughter of the late Jerry Savage & Bernice Broome Savage Dailey. Vickie was a Registered Nurse at Stephens County Hospital with over 38 years of dedicated service. In her spare time, she enjoyed traveling, especially trips to the ocean. Vickie also enjoyed reading. Most of all, she loved spending precious time with her family and friends. Vickie was a member of Glade Creek Baptist Church and attended B.C. Grant Baptist Church.
In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her grandparents, Otis & Lulah Jones Savage and Michael & Zadie Smith Broome.
Survivors include her loving husband of 30 years, Stanley M. Ansley of Mt. Airy, GA; daughters & sons-in-law, Christy & Chris Peck of Baldwin, GA; Megan & Trent Ivester of Toccoa, GA; grandchildren, Nora Peck of Baldwin, GA; Fayeth, Belle, & Cora Ivester of Toccoa, GA; sister, Cindy Savage Sapp; brother & husband, John Savage & Kenny Williams all of Mt. Airy, GA; aunt & uncle, Jennifer Savage Taylor & Jackie Taylor of Baldwin, GA; aunt, Bessie Brown, uncle, Jack Broome, uncle & aunt, J.B. & Cindi Jo Savage all of Mt. Airy, GA; niece & husband, Nicole & Chris Souther of Mt. Airy, GA; great-niece & great-nephew, Emma & Gavin Souther of Mt. Airy, GA; several other relatives & friends.
Funeral services are scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Thursday, July 29, 2021, at B.C. Grant Baptist Church with Rev. Daniel Parker officiating.
The family will receive friends at the funeral home from 2:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. & 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday and again from 2:00 p.m. until the service hour at the church on Thursday.
Flowers are accepted, or memorial donations may be made in memory of Vickie Bernice Savage Ansley to the American Cancer Society by visiting donate3.cancer.org.
Multiple local and state agencies assisted in the nearly three-day long search for a man whose boat capsized in the Cornelia Water Reservoir. (Red Bird Media)
After three days of exhaustive searching, officials Monday recovered the body of a fisherman who drowned in the Cornelia Water Reservoir.
“The man’s body surfaced at 11:20 this morning while game wardens and the GSP dive team were searching,” says Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division spokesperson Mark McKinnon. The dive team recovered the man’s body. Officials identified him as 50-year-old Mark Anthony Hicks of Baldwin.
The Habersham County Coroner’s Office transported Hicks’ body to the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. “The cause and manner of death are pending further investigation,” says Coroner Kasey McEntire.
Hicks was last heard from late Thursday, July 22, when he reportedly told a friend he was going fishing. Severe weather swept through the area that night. Early Saturday, July 24, the friend called Habersham County 911 to report him missing. He found a capsized boat near the dam at the reservoir and some of the missing fisherman’s personal belongings nearby.
Habersham County 911 dispatched emergency crews to the scene off Wilson Road. Hicks’ truck was still parked at the boat ramp when officials arrived. That led to an intense, two-and-a-half-day search involving multiple agencies from local and state jurisdictions.
Searchers spent three days looking for Hicks by ground, air, and water. His body surfaced in the reservoir late Monday morning, July 26. (Red Bird Media)A Georgia DNR game warden prepares to scan the reservoir using sonar, in search of the missing fisherman. (Red Bird Media)GSP Aviation conducted an aerial search of the area. (Red Bird Media)
After an initial sweep of the shoreline and surrounding woods came up empty on Saturday, the search moved to the water. Game wardens with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources deployed sector and side-scan sonar from their boat as a State Patrol helicopter searched overhead. The Georgia Emergency Management Agency and Homeland Security assisted in the aerial search with a drone. K9 units from Cornelia and Fannin County searched the reservoir and shore. On Sunday, the Stephens County Search and Rescue Dive Team conducted underwater searches.
The family of Mark Anthony Hicks shared this photo of him on a Go Fund Me page they set up to help with funeral expenses.
Some Cornelia firefighters and local residents volunteered their time and personal resources, including a boat, to support operations. Many others donated food and water for first responders who spent over 28 hours, much of it in scorching heat, to locate Hicks.
“Without the help of everyone involved, the recovery would not have been possible,” says Cornelia Fire Chief Billy Joe Jenkins, Jr. “While this is not the outcome, we ever hope for, we are glad to bring closure to friends and family of the victim.”
The coroner could not estimate how long it might take for results to be returned from the State Medical Examiner’s Office. “We will wait on the coroner’s report to determine if an investigation is warranted,” McKinnon says. According to Jenkins, the family has asked for privacy during this difficult time. They set up a Go Fund Me page to help with funeral expenses.
Pet owners waited in line in their cars for hours patiently waiting for the free vaccinations and vouchers. The drive-through clinic was set set up like the COVID-19 mass vaccination site that was held at the fairgrounds earlier this year. "It is exactly what we modeled ours after," says Habersham County Animal Care and Control Director Madi Nix. "From the parking situation to the lanes to how we're operating paperwork-wise and check-in, we actually modeled it directly after the covid vaccination site."
In a scene reminiscent of Habersham’s mass vaccination site, cars snaked up the hill to the county fairgrounds pavilion on Saturday. Some waited in line for hours, but it wasn’t COVID vaccines they were waiting on; instead, it was pet vaccinations and vouchers.
Habersham County Animal Care and Control organized the free drive-through clinic with Planned Pethood of Georgia based in Duluth. The vaccines were paid for by a generous donation from the Jim Parker Charitable Fund.
“A donor wanted to start a pilot program to provide vaccinations and, since we work with Planned Pethood quite a bit for our spay and neuters for the shelter, they selected Habersham to be the first recipient for the funding,” says Habersham County Animal Care and Control Director Madi Nix.
Tanya Weaver is the Transportation Coordinator for Planned Pethood’s Go Fix Georgia spay/neuter program.
“This is a very hard hit area as far as people in need,” says Planned Pethood’s Tanya Weaver explaining why they chose Habersham County for the pilot program. As transportation coordinator for the nonprofit’s Go Fix Georgia spay/neuter campaign, Weaver is all too familiar with Habersham’s low pet retention rate. Each week, she sees the number of shelter animals the county sends to Duluth to be fixed and says her organization felt they could make a difference.
“We knew that there was a high demand. We knew there was going to be a lot of people,” Weaver says of Saturday’s turnout, but even knowing that, “we were blown away.”
The pilot program started as a needs-based initiative targeted to specific areas of the county. When only seventy people signed up, HCAC expanded it countywide. The response was so overwhelming that within three hours of opening the clinic on July 24, organizers cut off the line to incoming cars. It took two hours to process those already waiting.
Encouraging responsible pet ownership
Three HCAC staff members and around a dozen staff and volunteers from Duluth operated the clinic. Veterinarians administered vaccines and microchipped each animal as assistants calmed the nervous pets and consulted with their thankful owners. They also distributed free flea and tick protection.
“I think it’s awesome you all come to a small town and help us out,” said one pet owner who asked to be identified only as Kayla from Cornelia. “My dog and cat needed some vaccines and microchips, so I was going to take advantage of it.”
Mara Hames with her new kittens, Lily and Poncho. She brought her dog, Tut, too.
Mara Hames of Clarkesville brought her three newest pets with her. Kittens Lilly and Poncho and her dog Tut got the full treatment. The clinic saved her hundreds of dollars and gave her young pets a good start in life.
“I’m thankful that I can get this for free,” Hames says. “I actually have more [pets] at home, so, yes, it does help out a lot.”
With her dogs, Lola and Lulu, in tow, Kathy Nicholson used the same word many others did to describe the event…”amazing!”
“It gives folks that have the heart for pets an opportunity to take care of them,” she says. “I appreciate Habersham [County Animal Care and Control] jumping in there and being a team player with all of our pets in Habersham.”
The free drive-through clinic, held Saturday, July 24, provided services for 211 animals.
Nix estimates the value of services each pet received, including the vouchers, was around $250. They treated 211 pets.
Organizers hope events like this will encourage responsible pet ownership.
“I just hope it helps keep the pet population down and makes people more aware of taking care of their animals,” says Planned Pethood volunteer Craig Benn. He encourages pet owners to spay and neuter their animals because “that is a critical part of the whole process.”
“We’re stopping the overpopulation and return to shelter rate,” says Weaver. “We don’t want any more babies brought in that could have been stopped.”
Cheaper to fix them than kill them
After a brief reprieve during last year’s lockdown when people were adopting pets for company, the Habersham County Animal Shelter is again full of kittens, cats, puppies, and dogs. Every one of them needs a loving home, but not all of them will find one.
Veterinarians and volunteers traveled to Habersham County from Duluth to help with the clinic. Here they check a dog’s new microchip.
Through the years, Nix has developed strong relationships with pet rescues and foster services. She and her staff dedicate much of their time and energy to finding suitable homes for animals in the shelter. Sadly, when they can’t, they have to euthanize them. Nix hopes clinics such as this will help educate the public about responsible pet ownership.
“It’s cheaper to fix them than kill them,” she says, cutting to the cold hard truth.
The vast majority of the animals the clinic crew saw Saturday, approximately 70%, were not altered. Now, with vouchers in hand and Planned Pethood’s assistance, they have the financial incentive and opportunity to avoid unwanted pet pregnancies.
“The need is there. The need is great. I hope in the future our department will be able to give back more to our citizens,” says Nix, encouraged by the good turnout Saturday. “With a new shelter coming, we’re so hoping that we can start providing services like this on a regular basis.”
Habersham County voters approved a new animal shelter in the current SPLOST. When that facility is built, it will include some surgical space.
“We hope that there’s going to be more funds in the future,” adds Weaver. “We’re very appreciative to the Jim Parker Foundation for doing this. It’s fantastic!”
