Local Marines will celebrate the U.S. Marine Corps’ 239th birthday during a dinner at North Georgia Technical College in Clarkesville tonight. The celebration will be held in the Ramsey-Hunter Dining Hall on campus beginning at 6:30 pm.

All active duty and retired Marines and their guests are encouraged to attend. Members of the public are also invited. Meals will be available; door prizes awarded. Dress is informal.

So, the Raiders’ football season didn’t end as we’d hoped. The excitement of the team’s first win in two years on Oct. 31 fueled the team’s dreams, and ours, that they could pull it off again this past Friday. That didn’t happen. They lost to Chattahoochee 35-28. But what did happen, despite another losing season, is that the Habersham community rallied around its boys in orange and blue.

More than 9,800 votes were cast for the Raiders in the High 5 Sports Team of the Week online poll following their Halloween win against North Forsyth. Those votes earned the team a coveted trophy and the school a pep rally on steroids. It was all carried live on Fox 5’s Good Day Atlanta morning news show on Thursday.

Now Habersham was at the pep rally and it was nothing short of electrifying. The pall that has fallen over our high school football program these past two seasons was lifted…if only for a day. Just watch the video and you’ll see. The pep rally pumped up the athletes, coaches, students, staff, faculty, parents and community. It was one of those rare big city moments in our small town existence – Atlanta TV station comes to Mt. Airy – but it was precisely our small town existence that made it so special.

Fox 5 reporter Paul Milliken said coming to Habersham was different from his visits to Atlanta area schools. There, teams and the public are much more accustomed to being on TV. “It was wild and crazy which is exactly how I would want it to be,” he said in reference to Thursday’s HCHS pep rally. “Certainly the audience was more spirited than I even imagined. We do these every week so we always get a spirited crowd, but I think this school had a real genuine spirit to it. You could tell people were excited to be here. The football team was excited. It was amazing to see the MOB MOMs around, so, it was a blast!”

Milliken had just finished washing off orange and blue paint from his arms when I approached him, “As soon as I saw the body paint I thought, ‘well I’ve got to do that, I have to do that,'” he said, “not knowing that they bought that paint at Lowe’s,” he added with a light-hearted laugh. “I don’t think it was meant for a body.” Milliken said he scrubbed off several layers of skin trying to remove the paint but insisted the paint and the pep rally were worth it. “It’s important to us because, as everybody knows, there’s a lot of negativity on the news, it’s inescapable, and a lot of times that negativity is around schools…so, to be able each week to go into a school and show students who are hard workers, who are excited to be there, to show faculty who have so much heart for what they do and to show that the community still can rally around something like they do here for Habersham Central…it’s completely worth all the effort, there’s no doubt about it.”

Milliken said there were more moms and community members at the HCHS pep rally than he’d ever seen at one of Fox 5’s pep rallies. And while he may have been the one viewers at home saw, Milliken didn’t do it alone. A three-person crew worked behind the scenes setting up, producing, photographing and beaming up the signal that hit Georgia’s airwaves.

Michelle Sanders is a Fox 5 satellite truck operator. It was her job to drive the expensive gear from Atlanta to Habersham for the live shot. Despite the early morning wake up call she said it was fun. “It makes me feel good to actually see the kids enjoying themselves and to put a smile on their face.” Photographer Blaze Meier called it one of the best pep rallies they’ve done, “Huge  turnout, great school, great gym.” Producer Laura Headlee was even more emphatic. She said the HCHS rally was, “Awesome, awesome! It’s so great to see the families turn out, to see the whole school up on their feet and cheering for these guys. What a great story, I mean, finally, victory, so sweet after two years. It’s an amazing story and we were so lucky we got to come out this time.”

The Fox 5 crew members weren’t the only ones happy with how the pep rally turned out. Students and parents walked away with big smiles on their faces. Heather Welborn is a MOB MOM (Mothers of Boys becoming Mothers of Men). Her son Ty Loggins is a junior this year. He has one more season to rack up some wins. Wellborn said the pep rally was a nice shot of encouragement. “Love it, love the spirit that was in there.”

Students called the pep rally exciting, awesome and fun. Andrew Burpee is a sophomore wrestler at HCHS. He knows how much time and energy goes into training for high school athletics, win or lose. Of the football team’s High 5 Sports recognition he said, “They put a lot into it, they deserve it.”

HCHS softball coach Stephanie Thomas summed it up best when she said Thursday’s pep rally wasn’t just about football, it was about “One Raider Nation.” What’s One Raider Nation? It’s the Raiders’ rallying cry for teamwork…community…family.

And so another fall tradition ends – football season is over. There will be no region playoffs this year. No more shivering in the cold under the Friday night lights yelling our lungs out for our boys on the field. No, more pacing, projecting and pontificating about the upcoming game. No more Monday morning quarterbacking. What there will be are the memories of a team of young athletes who played their hearts out against all odds and a community that rallied around them in good times and bad. Those are the memories of One Raider Nation.

Photos by Johnny Bailey

“Not sure why, just feeling a little blue today.” ~ South State Bank ice cream truck (formerly CB&T)

It was a benefit ride with a backstory. A moving one at that. When firetrucks, cars, and motorcycles recently lined up to travel the roads between Homer, Toccoa and Clarkesville they rode to help others and to honor the memory of a local son, firefighter and friend.

Clayton Martin was just 20-years old when he died. His mother Juli Tomlin describes him as a young man full of dreams and a keen desire to make a positive difference in the world.

He was her only child.

A basketball player who began playing at the age of three, Martin graduated from Banks County High School with a partial sports scholarship to Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, GA. At the end of his freshman season he was sidelined by an injury but worked hard to overcome it and eventually received another scholarship to play basketball at Toccoa Falls College. At 6’8″ he was built for the court but basketball wasn’t his only passion. His mom says Martin also was passionate about helping others. When he turned 18 he became a volunteer firefighter.

She says her son’s decision to become a firefighter was in keeping with his character and a family tradition. Clayton’s stepfather is Clarkesville Fire Captain Johnny Irvin. “Johnny could not have been happier,” Tomlin says. “As Clayton began to train and learn about being a firefighter he loved it! I have been told by other firefighters that he was ‘a natural.'” Martin and Irvin were among the firefighters who responded to the Clarkesville Square fire on March 5 of this year. Tomlin says they went into a burning building together to search for possible victims.

Tomlin says her son planned to become a teacher and high school basketball coach. Shortly before he died he announced he also wanted to attend seminary. She says his decision made sense. “His desire was to help kids on and off the court and bring others to know Christ.”

But then the unthinkable happened.

On May 26 of this year Clayton left work early. It was Memorial Day and he and his girlfriend had decided to go fishing. They went to a pond at Grace Point Ministries in Baldwin, a pond Tomlin says her son knew very well: He had fished there countless times. He rarely went into the water but on this day…Tomlin picks up the story, “We will never know the reason Clayton decided to get in the water that day, as this was very out of character for him, but he went under and never surfaced. The Grace Point Ministries pond is where my baby met Jesus.”

The Bible says in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” By all accounts Clayton Martin was called. He certainly loved God. But to lose your only child to such a senseless tragedy, where’s the ‘good’ in that? Juli Tomlin found it. Soon after her son’s death she established the Clayton Martin Foundation.

“Clayton was on fire for God and was working hard to be a Godly man,” Tomlin says. “He loved basketball and teaching others about basketball and he loved working in the fire services. He had dedicated his life to helping others and we feel that we should carry that forward with the Foundation in his memory.”

Tomlin says the foundation’s mission is to provide financial help for young people so they can participate in and enjoy many of the things Clayton embraced in his life. “Our desire is to help kids with scholarships for sports camps, sports and academic scholarships, survival swim training and Christian camps. We hope to grow and expand our outreach as time goes on. We are so grateful to everyone that has supported The Clayton Martin Foundation.”

And support it they did. On October 25 a stream of vehicles snaked its way through Clayton Martin’s old stomping grounds in northeast Georgia. The benefit ride raised money for the foundation and those in it displayed their love for a man whose life was cut short far too soon.

Tomlin says she is grateful to all who took part. She calls it a “true labor of love.”

The love flowed heavenward that day as riders released balloons into the sky outside Banks County High School. Tomlin says the balloon release was in memory of all eight of the BCHS students and graduates, including Clayton, who have lost their lives this year. It was a simple gesture with profound significance and just one more way Juli Tomlin is keeping her son’s memory alive.

To learn more about the Clayton Martin Foundation visit the organization’s Facebook page.