May 24, 2000

mainstreetnews Home
Search Site
Area Sports
Classifieds
Place A Classified Ad
Raiders Weekly
Madison Opinion Page
Madison Obituary Page
Archives
Subscribe
Send A Letter
List Your Business
Madison County Stats

Go to Jackson County
Go to Banks County

OPINIONS
Frank Gillispie
Why I'm a Constitutional conservative
The Bible describes two houses, one built on sand, the other on rock. In the parable, the winds and rain...

SPORTS
Non-region football
schedule set at MCHS
Months back, Tom Hybl had a non-region schedule set for Madison County. Then House Speaker Tom Murphy stepped in...

Neighborhood News...
BANKS COUNTY
Two teens charged in carjacking at Banks Crossing
A Florida couple who stopped at a Banks Crossing motel last week during their vacation were the victims of an armed robbery and car jacking.

Courthouse plan approved by BOC calls
for 300 ground-level parking spaces
It looks like there won't be any underground parking spaces at the new courthouse annex in Jefferson.

mainstreetnews.com The Madison County Journal Danielsville, Georgia Telephone: (706) 367-5233 Fax: (706) 367-8056 NEWS / ADVERTISING / PRINTING ® Copyright 2000 MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright / Terms / Privacy

LOCAL NEWS

ADAMS

MCHS mourns the loss of student
The senior class of Madison County High School has suffered the loss of a class member little more than a week before graduation.
Jamie Adams, 18, died Monday afternoon after collapsing from cardiac arrest in a business education class at the high school.
Paramedics were called to the school around 1:30 p.m. and Adams was given CPR on the scene, according to EMS officials. He was then transported to Athens Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later. School officials were notified later that day after many students had already gone home.
According to Madison County coroner Donna Perry, an autopsy revealed that Adams had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or an enlarged heart, a condition that had gone undetected.
Adams was the son of James and Julie Adams of Hull. He had one sister, Summer, a freshman.
"We're just numb with shock," Principal Allen McCannon said Tuesday morning. "He was a super kid with so much potential who made good decisions and was well-liked by both teachers and students."
Flags flew at half staff and counselors were on hand Tuesday, offering what comfort they could to an unusually quiet and somber student body. Several flowers decorated the flagpole.
This is the second death of a student this school year. Junior Randy Carroll drowned while swimming in Lake Hartwell last September.
Senior class president Ashley Burford introduced the morning's moment of silence saying, "For those of you who may be unaware of yesterday's tragedy, the Class of 2000 lost a fellow classmate and friend, Jamie Joshua Adams. This morning we would like to make the moment of silence in memory of him. Think of his family and friends who will miss him greatly. Jamie, darlin', this is for you."
McCannon said Adams, who drove a red Hummer to school, was known as an avid bicyclist who had participated in various events in the sport, including the Bike Race Across Georgia (BRAG).
According to this year's annual, the Hilltopper, Adams won the Georgia Games, commonly referred to as the "State Olympics," in Augusta last July.

'A PERFECT GENTLEMAN'
"Jamie was a perfect gentleman... Everybody that knew him loved him. He was his own person and never caved in to peer pressure - he could see the 'bigger picture of life.' He was so much fun and loved to laugh," senior English teacher Renee McCannon said of Adams.
She said that although last Friday was the traditional "senior skip day," a day when most seniors opt to play hooky from school, Adams came to school as usual.
"He was in my classroom that day from 11 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. and we talked and talked," she remembers. "He had such a warm smile... He was the kind of kid I'd want to know my whole life and I considered him a friend."
Mrs. McCannon said that he loved to play practical jokes. "He loved to cut up," she said, adding that he admitted to her last Friday that he was the one who had placed a monkey face sticker on her I.D. badge where it lay on her desk each morning before she came into class.
Math teacher Renee Simmons agrees. "He loved to cut up. He'd go around the room and decorate my posters with extra things," she said.
"He was a friend to everybody; we were really hit hard by this," she said. "It was tense this morning in first period. I had to tell two of the kids what happened - that was a hard thing."
Fellow senior, neighbor and friend Chris Clark said Adams had become an Eagle Scout earlier this year.
"He just loved the 'roast' they gave for him," Clark said. "He's one of the nicest people I've ever known," he added.
Chris's mother, middle school teacher Sandy Clark, said Adams was a familiar sight biking around the neighborhood every evening. "Every day he would come by our house and I'd call out to him," Mrs. Clark remembers.
Another senior, Brian Deaton, said Adams was one of the first friends he made when he came to MCHS in the ninth grade.
"He was the kind of person you could talk about anything with," he said. "He was a great guy and a good friend - it just doesn't make sense."

GRADUATION

MCHS graduation set for June 2
It's a time for joy, but graduation ceremonies can also carry a dose of stress when things don't go as planned.
So Madison County school leaders are urging graduating seniors and their families to develop "game plans" for the 8 p.m. June 2 graduation ceremony at the Athens Classic Center.
Over 200 seniors will be graduating from Madison County High School next Friday and each senior is getting nine tickets for family and friends to attend the ceremony, which is expected to last approximately an hour.
Five of the tickets will be for the lower area and the remaining four tickets will be for balcony seating. This arrangement is intended to give every family an opportunity to have a graduate's closest relatives seated in the lower level, nearer the action.
This year's graduation is the first in the Classic Center for Madison County. The school planned the event in the Athens facility after last year's graduation marked the third out of the past five ceremonies moved into the high school gym due to inclement weather. The gym is not big enough to accommodate graduation crowds.
"We had to look for an alternative," said Madison County principal Allen McCannon. "And this (the Classic Center) is a good one."

 
Go to Madison
Community Pages

Madison County
Business Listing
Appliances/Electronics
Automotive
Churches
Education/Child Care
Financial Institutions
Food & Convenience Stores
Garden & Agriculture
Homes & Supplies
Industry & Manufacturing
Insurance
Medical
Personal Care
Pharmacies
Real Estate
Recreation/Entertainment
Restaurants & Eateries
Retail Stores/Outlets
Service Businesses
Veterinarians/Pets

Money approved for animal shelter
A Madison-Oglethorpe County animal shelter will soon be in the works, thanks to a Monday vote of local leaders to put $3 for every person in Madison County toward annual operating expenses for the facility.
The Madison County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously for the spending measure, saying a shelter is long overdue in handling the county's stray animal problem.
"We need it (an animal shelter) desperately," said commissioner Bill Taylor. "We have too many stray dogs."
Leaders aim to open a shelter next to the Madison County transfer station sometime in early 2001.
According to Susan Fisher, president of the Madison-Oglethorpe Animal Shelter committee, the $3 per capita figure will bring in between $85,000 and $90,000 per year from Madison County and $36,000 to $44,000 from Oglethorpe County, which recently agreed to help fund the project. The final dollar figures will be determined by the final counts of the 2000 census.
Fisher estimates that 4,140 animals would be brought to the shelter each year. This is based on the generally recognized standard that stray dog populations are seven percent and stray cat populations 3.5 percent of an area's human population, rural or urban.
But Fisher cautioned that the numbers are not set in stone.
"This number (4,140) may actually be much higher," she said.
Fisher told the board Monday that the International City/Council Management Association reports that animal shelters should receive between $3 and $5 per capita to function efficiently, adding that one area shelter that receives less than $3 per capita is struggling to stay open.
Fisher said many of the animals brought to the shelter will be adopted, noting that adoption rates at shelters are generally 20 to 25 percent. She said animals in poor health will be euthanized and that all spay-neuters will be done in-house. A goal of the shelter will also be for employees to be trained as animal control officers to handle dangerous dog calls.
"I feel we'll be able to run a nice facility," said Fisher.