The Statham City Council, during its Tuesday, Sept. 15 meeting, approved the hiring of Sandra Bennett as the new city clerk. The 3-2 council vote — with Betty Lyle and Hattie Thrasher opposed — came following a 35-minute closed session.

Absentee voting by mail for the Nov. 3 general election began Tuesday, Sept. 15, as election offices around Georgia began mailing out requested ballots.

The City of Winder will cancel the annual Halloween Spooktacular event this year and is planning to hold a “reverse” Christmas parade in December as the city continues to grapple with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

A Winder-Barrow High School teacher and coach who was placed on administrative leave last month following a comment he made about a shooting incident in Wisconsin is no longer employed by the school district, Barrow County schools superintendent Chris McMichael said Monday.

The Auburn City Council unanimously approved a Fiscal Year 2021 budget during a quick meeting Thursday, Sept. 3, with only slight increases over the FY2020 spending plan.

The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded a total $67,400 in grants during its August meeting, including $22,500 to organizations serving Barrow County.

The Barrow County Suicide Prevention Task Force is joining organizations around America in marking September as National Suicide Prevention Month.

The Barrow County School System in August saw its third straight record-breaking month for education local-option sales tax (ELOST) proceeds.

The Barrow County School System will resume in-person learning at its schools on a hybrid model beginning Sept. 8.

Voters in the Town of Bethlehem this fall will choose between three candidates for the town council seat that was vacated earlier this year by Tommy Parten.

The American Red Cross has the following upcoming blood drives in Barrow County:

Come Alive Ministries, a non-profit pregnancy care center in Winder, will holding its 29th annual “Celebrate Life” fundraising event at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12.

Two more coronavirus-related deaths among Barrow County residents were confirmed over the last week by the Georgia Department of Public Health — bringing the total to 36 as the officially-recorded statewide death toll passed 5,000 last weekend.

The Barrow County School System is moving closer to having students in all grades return to classrooms the day after Labor Day, superintendent Chris McMichael said Tuesday, citing encouraging recent trends with coronavirus case numbers in the community.

A Winder woman has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in a vehicle crash Sunday night in Barrow County that killed a Winder-Barrow High School student who was riding her bicycle home from work.

Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow, 316 North Broad St., Winder, will host a community blood drive from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3.

Barrow County Emergency Services is again joining with Barrow County AMVETS and the Barrow County Community Emergency Response Team for the fifth annual ABC golf tournament Monday, Sept. 14 at The Chimneys in Winder. 

A proposed single-family subdivision of nearly 300 homes south of Interstate 85 in the Braselton-Hoschton area of Barrow County cleared its latest hurdle Thursday, Aug. 20.

As of Wednesday, Aug. 19, three Barrow County School System employees had active confirmed cases of coronavirus, five more were quarantined with a suspected case and 13 were in quarantine for direct contact with someone with a positive or suspected case, according to numbers released Thursda…

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1187 in Winder has been honored by the national organization for 75 years of community service.

The City of Statham plans to quickly begin repairs on a damaged portion of Broad Street west of the downtown area that Mayor Joe Piper said presents an increasingly serious public safety risk.

The response deadline for the 2020 U.S. Census is Sept. 30, and the response rate for Barrow County as of Aug. 13 was 68.7 percent.

The Barrow County School System has installed four permanent Wi-Fi hotspots and 16 mobile hotspots around the county to assist families without internet access as the district begins the 2020-21 school year entirely online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Winder-Barrow High School alum Rachel McLocklin Santos has been named the new state executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency in Georgia.

After 15 years of doing business with Republic Services, the City of Auburn appears ready to move on.

The Barrow County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday voted down a rezoning request that would have allowed for the construction of a large, single-family residential subdivision at the intersection of Highway 53/Hog Mountain Road in Winder.

As coronavirus cases continued to mount in Barrow County and across all of Georgia on Tuesday, Aug. 11, local health officials urged residents and businesses to be diligent in helping stem the spread of COVID-19.

An Auburn man has been charged with vehicular homicide in connection with a fatal crash that killed the driver of a motorcycle Tuesday evening, Aug. 4, in Carl.

The Barrow County School System had another record-breaking month for educational local-option sales tax receipts in July, a district staff member told the county school board Tuesday night.

A proposed development of up to 300 apartment units and 99 townhomes next to the Barrow Crossing shopping center cleared another hurdle Tuesday.

Barrow County’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases continued to mount over the past week with an average of about 25 cases being reported each day.

Lanier Technical College will be resuming its GED high school equivalency classes in person Monday, Aug. 17, at the Wimberly Center for Community Development, 163 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., Winder.

The Georgia Municipal Association is urging people to participate in the 2020 Census.

The Barrow County Board of Education on Tuesday approved the Fiscal Year 2021 budget for the school district and also granted more spending authority for the information technology systems department amid supply shortages and increased demand stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

As the number of coronavirus cases in Barrow County closed in on 1,000 Tuesday, officials with Northeast Georgia Health System and Northeast Georgia Medical Center Barrow continued to stress the importance of mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and avoiding large gatherings.

Members of the Winder-Barrow and Apalachee high school classes of 2020 will get a chance to walk across the graduation stage after all — at least some of them.

The City of Auburn is currently hosting a virtual public workshop input session on the proposed future development plan for downtown.

The Winder City Council is set to consider next week a request to rezone roughly 67 acres east of the Barrow Crossing shopping center and south of Highway 316, which would allow for a large mixed-use, multi-family residential development to be built.

The Jackson EMC Foundation board of directors awarded a total $89,302 in grants during its July meeting, including $42,500 to organizations serving Barrow County.

The American Red Cross has the following two upcoming blood donation drives in Barrow County:

The Georgia Department of Public Health on Tuesday, July 21, confirmed the 30th coronavirus-related death among Barrow County residents as the cumulative case total in the county neared 800 and the number of cases continued to spike across the state.