Holiday brings early deadlines

Barbara and Donald Wheatley are members of the CSRA Shag Club of Augusta and Aiken, S.C. Last week Barbara and Donald organized a dance hosted by Guillaume Slama at the Fitzpatrick Hotel. About 65 people attended, mostly from Columbia and Richmond counties. They had dinner first at the Down Under restaurant in the hotel and then moved to the Fitzpatrick ballroom where they "shagged" from 7 to 9 p.m. For many of these people it was the first time they had been in Washington-Wilkes. Good food, good fun, good time! They want to come back and there probably will be an encore in August. . . . Meanwhile, there has been a lot of interest in shagging created by this event so classes are going to be available to anyone interested. The classes will begin about the second week in June so new shaggers will be ready to dance in August. Barbara says members of the CSRA Shag Club really enjoyed the dinner, the dancing, and especially the ballroom. Maybe they will invite us all to come watch. Donald says the shag is the officialdance of South Carolina.

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Some folks think that we don't work here at The News-Reporter on Thursdays and Fridays. NOT so! Thursday is the day we catch up after the whirlwind and hectic pace of getting the paper out on Wednesday. It's the day that we almost fight over who is NOT going to answer the phone that day because people read the paper and "pick it to pieces" and call us. Friday is the day we get organized and try to get a good start on next week's paper. We still do a lot of printing jobs and they all have to get done on Thursdays and Fridays.

Teri Eno from our Lincoln Journal officecomes part-time on Thursday and Friday to help with the printing ... So, don't hesitate to call or come to see us on Thursday and Friday. We're glad to see you. We're open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

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We WILL be closed Monday, May 26, in observance of Memorial Day. We have found out that if we are open on a holiday, people still think we are closed and don't bring their news and advertisements until Tuesday. So we just lock the doors and do our usual work so that we will be ready for Tuesday morning. . . . For this Memorial Day holiday, deadline for all social items, classified, and legal advertisements is 5 p.m. Friday, May 23. Community correspondents, please slide your news under the door at the usual time (before 11 a.m.) on Monday morning. All retail advertisements and news are due in by 12 noon on Tuesday.

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Another new business is open in Downtown Washington. There was a ribbon cutting for GiGi's Pizza Sunday afternoon. The business is located in the former little building occupied by Rockin' Rooster in the Miss Fancy Plants parking lot. Guillaume Slama is the owner. They deliver.

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Rev. Glen Kohlhagen is the new pastor of the Washington Presbyterian Church. Rev. Kohlhagen is a retired U.S. Navy Supply Corps officerand his wife Glenda is a retired research biologist with the National Institutes of Health.

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Edith Beckum of Lincolnton, a longtime subscriber and cover-tocover reader of The News-Reporter visited us Monday morning. She was looking for a picture of herself which recently appeared in the paper and asked if I knew where all the hummingbirds are. Of course, I don't know but wish I did. Several people have remarked to me that they began having hummers in early spring but when we had that very cold snap early, they apparently left and haven't come back. Does anybody have any? (Of course, we don't have them. They have us.)

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Norris says that our little showers during the past week have produced about .9 of an inch of rain. The weatherman said we could expect an inch or more on a couple of occasions, but it rained out before it got to us.

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Whitney James Richards, a new bride and student at Augusta State University, is working with us here at The News-Reporter and Radio Shack. She and Jacob Richards were married in March. Whitney is the daughter of Patti and Addison James.

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Sonya Roth, the facility administrator at DaVita Washington Dialysis, has been awarded DaVita's national Core Value Award for Service Excellence for her exemplary service to her patients, physicians, and teammates at DaVita. You can read all about it elsewhere in this paper. Sonya is the wife of Darrell, and mother of Jeffrey, Bonnie, and Betsy.

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I think the First Annual Classic South Horse Fair held at Callaway Plantation Saturday must have been a big success. I went and looked around the whole area and I've never seen so many beautiful horses in one place. I listened to the lecture on equine lameness by Dr. Stanley Brown who was assisted by Dr. Elizabeth Newsome. I'm sure the other lectures were equally informative and interesting. Dr. Brown's was just the one I heard. . . . There were food vendors of all kinds, and the prettiest little miniature horses that attracted everybody's attention.

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Gayle Drinkard Oliver is retiring after 31 years in the public school teaching profession. She was honored and "written up" in the LaGrange newspaper last week. She taught 23 of those 31 years in Troup County and is retiring from Hillcrest Elementary Schools where she has taught every grade from kindergarten to the fifth grade. Using a song, she teaches the names of all 50 states in alphabetical order to third graders. But she is not going to stop teaching. On June 1 she will become Director of St. Mark's Episcopal Church Preschool program. . . . Gayle is the daughter of Belle Story and the late Murray Drinkard of Washington-Wilkes, and a graduate of Washington-Wilkes High School. She was a piano student of the late

Troupe Harris and sang in his youth choir at First Baptist Church. She continues to use her musical talents in her teaching profession.

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It's a little early yet, but some high school graduates have already made plans for "after graduation." Parents, call me or have your graduate call me at 706-678-2636 and tell me your plans. The ones that I know about are: Abby Bailey, Middle Georgia College; Josh Cosby, Georgia Tech; Hailey James, Georgia Southern University; John Lovvorn, United States Air Force Academy; Leon Thomas Denard, Georgia Southern University; Abby McAvoy, University of Georgia; Brittany Ray, Augusta State University; and Macey Smith, Gainesville College at Watkinsville. Josh Goldman, a recent employee of The News-Reporter, graduated from Faith Academy and is working with his dad.

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