Page 4 - Fannin Sentinel

GOVERNMENT / COMMUNITY NEWS
Page 4A FANNIN SENTINEL • Thursday, October 25, 2012
Georgia’s unemployment rate
declines to 9.0 percent in September
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Sold out performance at BRCT
The Live Music is Better series
had a sold out house for the Roxie
Watson concert on Saturday, Oct. 20
at the Blue Ridge Community Theater.
Beth Wheeler, Lenny Lasater,
Linda Bolley, Sonia Tetlow and
Becky Shaw make up the remarkable 5-piece string band from the
Atlanta area.
Roxie Watson started out in 2007
with Wheeler and Lasater playing
bluegrass covers. They were inspired by the music that Dolly Parton was producing at the time and
the more authentic feel of the genre,
one that was not caught up in the
glitz and glamour of Nashville and
mainstream country music. As the
group slowly started adding members, Lasater described, “The songwriting started flowing,” and now
they have performed throughout
the southeast and have brought their
music to Blue Ridge five times.
Lasater enjoys playing venues
like the Blue Ridge Community
By Jessica Draper, Sentinel Staff Writer
Theater. “You can feel the energy. It
is like the audience is in the living
room with you, and it is like that in
this theater especially. We are storytellers too. In a small venue people
will listen to you and interact with
you. They will often come up to us
and tell their true stories.”
Tetlow agreed with this, “There
is an immediate connection to the
music. The folks in Blue Ridge have
been so kind to us and they love the
music.”
It is clear that Blue Ridge does
love Roxie Watson’s music. Audience members were smiling, clapping, dancing, and singing along to
the songs throughout the entire performance. At one point Lasater told
the audience, “We love this venue.
Nothing feels as good as having a
bunch of people smiling at you!”
Songs like “Blue Creek Number Three” come from an authentic
place. Lasater worked as a coal miner in the late 1970s and transformed
that experience into a unique song
that pays tribute to the theme of hard
work, coming of age, and the hardships of coal mining that often come
up in bluegrass and country music.
“Oh Magnolia” and “Milestones”
speak to themes of childhood and
becoming a grandparent, and it
seems that these down-to-earth
themes and amazing musical ability
are what draw people in and make
them forever fans of Roxie Watson.
If you would like to purchase a
Roxie Watson CD they are on sale
at Out of the Blue Gourmet Living, located at 647 E. Main Street in
Blue Ridge. You can also go to the
group’s website: www.roxiewatson.
com or to iTunes or amazon.com.
The Georgia Department of Labor
announced that Georgia’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate declined to 9.0 percent in September,
down two-tenths of a percentage
point from 9.2 percent in August.
The jobless rate was 9.8 percent in
September a year ago.
“The unemployment rate dropped
in September because Georgia had
the fewest new claims for unemployment insurance benefits in five
years, since before the start of the
Great Recession,” said State Labor
Commissioner Mark Butler.
The number of initial claims
in September declined to 39,564,
down by 6,161 from 45,725 in August—the fewest since 32,139 were
filed in September 2007. Most of the
decline came in administrative and
support services, retail trade, health
care and social assistance, educational services, and accommodations and food services.
While the state lost 400 jobs
from August to September, it actually gained 61,800 jobs since the
3,877,600 in September of 2011,
climbing to 3,939,400. The growth
sectors were professional and business services, up 23,500; trade,
transportation, and warehousing, up
23,100; education and health care,
up 13,000; leisure and hospitality,
up 9,100; manufacturing, up 8,700;
and technology, up 1,100.
Commissioner Butler is especially pleased with the improvement in
the state’s manufacturing industry.
“We’re continuing to see gains
in manufacturing and a lot of the
credit for that goes to the great job
the state’s Department of Economic
Development and Governor Deal
have been doing, not only in attracting new manufacturers, but helping
to hold on to the ones that we have,”
Butler said. “Last month’s gain in
manufacturing jobs was the largest
over-the-month gain that we’ve seen
for this time period since 1994.” The
number of manufacturing jobs from
August to September grew 1,900.
The August to September growth in
1994 was 2,000.
Another positive sign is the
growth in Georgia’s labor force,
which climbed to 4,777,977 in
September, up by 18,126, or fourtenths of a percentage point, from
4,759,851 in August. The state’s
workforce totaled 4,731,276 in September 2011.
The number of long-term unemployed workers declined for the fifth
consecutive month, dropping 8,400
from August to 208,800 in September, the fewest since 204,700 were
recorded in March 2010. The longterm unemployed, those out of work
for more than 26 weeks, make up
48.6 percent of those unemployed in
Georgia, the lowest percent in two
years.
First Responders Report
For the period of Oct. 15 to Oct.
21, 2012 EMA Director Robert Graham reported a total of 1,576 calls
answered by 911. The total includes
non-emergency calls.
Emergency calls dispatched for
city and county are as follows:
Law Enforcement: 325
Rescue:
23
Fire:
20
EMS:
70 Total
McCaysville Ambulance 22
Blue Ridge Ambulance 32
Morganton Ambulance 16
The above EMS numbers do not
include non-emergency calls or
transfers to other (out of town) hospitals.
In fire-related hazards, Oct. 12
Fannin County Fire Dept. responded
to reports of smoke coming from the
interior of 1556 Tipton Springs Rd.
The call came in at 5:50 p.m., two
minutes later Engine 11, Engine 7,
Med 4, Air & Light and 12 firefighters arrived at 6:06 p.m.
The smoke was filling the house
from a fire built in the fireplace.
The bottom of the fireplace fell into
the basement, causing fire to begin
climbing the basement walls. As the
fire moved upward, the fire traveled
into the inside of the wall and towards the attic.
When the firefighters arrived, the
occupants were already putting water on the fire; however, a chainsaw
was used to open the wall and extinguish the remaining fire. All clear
was called at 7:39 p.m.
Fire Chief Larry Thomas advises
having heating units and fireplac-
es checked out by a professional.
“Heat pumps gather dust in the summer months and will put off a little
smoke the first time they are used in
cooler weather. It always pays to be
safe,” he said. Thomas said the Fire
Dept. has already responded to two
false alarms of this nature.
The Fire Department also responded to several brush fires last
week, Oct. 15-21, that turned out to
be controlled burns. Chief Thomas
would like to remind everyone to
obtain a burn permit from Georgia
Forestry Commission before burning, and to make sure they have the
surrounding area cleared and have a
water hose and rake available.
Georgia Forestry Commission’s
Burn Permit phone number is:
877-OK2BURN or 877-652-2876.
Price of
postage
stamps to
increase
It will cost another penny to mail
a letter next year.
The U.S. Postal Service said it
will raise postage rates Jan. 27,
2013. This will include a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail
to 46 cents.
It will also introduce a new global
forever stamp, allowing customers
to mail letters anywhere in the world
for one set price of $1.10.
Under the law, the post office cannot raise prices more than the rate of
inflation, or 2.6 percent. The mail
agency, which expects to lose a record $15 billion this year, has asked
Congress to give it new authority to
raise stamp prices by 5 cents, but the
House has yet to act.
The Postal Service also will increase rates on priority mail shipping, by 4 percent.
Restaurant Scoreboard
GA Dept. of Public Health
Aug. - Sept. 2012
80
85
90 95 100
Joe’s BBQ: 100
Blue Ridge
L&L Beanery: 99
Blue Ridge
Pat’s Kountry Kitchen: 96
McCaysville
Pizza Hut: 100
Blue Ridge
Taco Bell: 99
Blue Ridge
Yellow Jacket Restaurant: 99
McCaysville
Blue Ridge Brewery: 100
Blue Ridge
Starbucks (Ingles Markets): 100
Blue Ridge
Roxie Watson performing at the Blue Ridge Community Theater
Courage is not the absence of fear, but
rather the judgement that something
else is more important than fear.
—Ambrose Redmoon
The Trailer Drive-In: 96
Blue Ridge
Shake Healthy: 100
Blue Ridge
A sampling of Food Service Establishments in Fannin County.
To view the most current inspection score of a restaurant, visit
www.nghd.org/Fannin-County-Health-Inspection-Search-Tool.html
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