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Each year, students at UGA countdown to Thanksgiving break, which has been Monday through Friday for many years now. But recently the University Council decided next year’s break will only be three days.
As reported in The Red & Black, according to a report from the University Council, the Educational Affairs Committee recommended the fall semester to begin later — on or after Aug. 15 — and for the fall commencement to begin no later than the second Friday in December. To be able to meet the University System of Georgia Board of Regents requirements and federal guidelines about what completes a semester, the 2019 Thanksgiving break can only be Wednesday through Friday. The changes are already in the 2019-2020 academic calendar, with classes beginning on Wednesday Aug. 14 and ending Wednesday Dec. 4. Thanksgiving break will be Nov. 27 to Nov. 29, followed by the weekend. Despite a full week off for Thanksgiving, this year’s fall semester is the same length — classes started on Monday Aug. 13 and will end Tuesday Dec. 4. The break shortening will affect out-of-state students who look to Thanksgiving break to spend enough time with the family they may not have seen since the beginning of the semester. Hailey Goldberg, a junior applied biotechnology major, thinks this change is stressful because she travels to her hometown of New York City. “Because of the difficulty of my classes, I cannot afford to skip a day of classes to go home for the weekend. I look forward to the week I get to spend at home with my family before finals week picks up,” Goldberg said. Charley Claudio, an out-of-state sophomore international affairs major, will get to see her family for the first time since August this upcoming Thanksgiving break. She said the change will be a financial burden as well an emotional one. “I always watch students from Georgia go home and spend relaxing time with family, and I am jealous of the luxury,” Claudio said. “With a shortened Thanksgiving break, it is not financially efficient to fly home for a four-day weekend. I won’t be able to see my family until winter break [next year],” Claudio said. Goldberg agreed with this sentiment about flying home to New York. “Making Thanksgiving break shorter not only gives me less time to decompress at home, but it also puts a larger financial burden on my family,” Goldberg said. “Buying expensive plane tickets to go home for that short of a time would not be economically possible for myself and for other students.” Claudio said this change demonstrates the disadvantages out-of-state students deal with. “Out-of-state students face many more challenges than in-state students already, and this change makes the campus less welcoming to the already disadvantaged out-of-state students,” Claudio said. Call Pachuta Insurance Today @ 706-769-2262
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It was quite a surprise for the mayor of Winterville and his family when they found out that the search for a new home would be filmed for a national audience.
Mayor Dodd Ferrelle, his wife Cameron Bliss Ferrelle and their three children, who moved out of a home they lived in for almost 13 years to a bigger house earlier this year, will be featured in a future episode of the popular HGTV reality show “House Hunters.” As reported in the Athens Banner-Herald, Ferrelle said the producers of the show – which made its debut nearly 20 years ago and has viewership of about 20 million per month – informed him that the program will air Nov. 8 at 10 p.m. on HGTV. “We may try to do something fun out here in Winterville and show it at the auditorium and maybe raise some money for a local charity or something,” said Ferrelle. “We’ll see it when everybody else does. From talking to the producers out there, they told me it was one of their favorite episodes. So, I’m looking forward to seeing it.” The family previously lived on North Georgia Avenue before moving to their house, which was built in 1861 by John Winter, who along with other family members gives the town its name. Ferrelle, who was elected mayor in 2015, had to find a home within the city limits to be able to remain in office. “We were starting to look because of our three kids,” he said. “We started looking for a house and found some that we liked.” The Ferrelles found a home on South Georgia Avenue, an 1836 house originally constructed for Henry Winter, the train depot keeper at what was then the Six-Mile Station. Winter later encouraged his cousin John to purchase property in the area that became known as Winterville, which was incorporated in 1904. “We’ll still be neighbors with our old house, even though we moved from one side of the train depot to the other side of the train depot,” said Ferrelle, who said it has been reported that Henry Winter’s home was the first built in the city and John Winter’s house was the first private home built there. With the history of both homes and the creative endeavors of the Ferrelles (Dodd is a musician and songwriter, leading the band the WinterVillians, and Cameron is an award-winning artist), Realtor Daniel Collins thought their story would be one “House Hunters” would be interested in and contacted the HGTV people he’d worked with before on a show about small houses. “Our Realtor sent our story in without us knowing it and the producers out in Los Angeles really liked the idea of the fact I couldn’t move outside the city limits, I’m a musician, Cameron is an artist, the Realtor is a musician, we’re moving from one historic home to another,” said Ferrelle. “They liked the history of the city and interviewed Cameron and I remotely and decided to do the project and sent their crew out here, and we did the show in February and March.” Ferrelle said his main purpose for participating in the production was to show off Winterville. “They came out and did the show and I agreed to do it because they were going to highlight the city,” he said. “They asked for locations to highlight and of course we had a bunch. I don’t know what they’ll pick to show but they got a lot of good footage for the city.” As for the stress of moving along with the stress of being in front of cameras, Ferrelle said a film crew helped the family including son Dodd Jr., 12, daughter Bliss, 11, and son Lucas, 7, sort the situation. “It was crazy because being mic’d up and having a camera on you while you’re doing all that is stressful, but it kind of took the stress away from moving and put it on to a creative stress, and we both are creative people and we liked that,” Ferrelle said of he and his wife. The Ferrelle family loves their new home since the kids all have their own rooms, Cameron has a space for her art studio and the mayor will soon be setting up his music room. “Now we’ve got plenty of room; it’s a good bit bigger,” said Ferrelle. “... It’s an awesome place and we love it. It’s 2 acres right off the main street in Winterville and we’re still right in the middle of town.” Call Pachuta Insurance Today @ 706-769-2262 The early voting turnout on Monday in Athens was quite impressive. As reported in The Athens Banner-Herald, over 50 people were lined up outside the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections office after 2 p.m., waiting to get their turn to cast ballots on the same Diebold touch-screen voting machines voters will see on election day November 6. Early voting will continue during business hours from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the board office on Washington Street in downtown Athens through Nov. 2. The office will even be open to voters on Oct. 27 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Voting was happening throughout Georgia’s other 158 counties, which will permit voters to vote on one Saturday before the election. Voters can also get absentee-by-mail ballots by calling their county’s elections office. Since Thursday, elections officials across Georgia mailed about 45,000 ballots, twice as many as at the same point in the 2014 midterm elections. Voters will also have access to voting machines the week before the election, Oct. 29 through Nov. 2, at the Athens-Clarke County Library on Baxter Street from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Voters can also go to the University of Georgia Tate Student Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Oct. 30 and 31, and to Athens City Hall from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Nov. 1 and 2. The major race for Governor between Democrat Stacy Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp tops the ballot in Georgia, but every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives will be on a ballot, and every seat in the state House and Senate. Locally, Democrat Dawn Johnson, a candidate for the District 47 seat in the state Senate, recently cited the state’s No. 1 U.S. maternal mortality rating as a result of the Republican legislature’s refusal to accept federal funds to expand Medicaid. Her opponent, incumbent Republican Frank Ginn, opposes Medicaid expansion as too costly, and is unsure whether making health care widely accessible is a proper role for government to play. In other races, Democratic challenger Marisue Hilliard hopes to unseat incumbent Republican District 46 state Sen. Bill Cowsert, while two first-term Democratic state representatives want to win the seats they took from the Republican party in special elections last year. Rep. Deborah Gonzalez, the Democratic incumbent in House District 117, faces Republican Houston Gaines, a former University of Georgia Student Government Association president. A strong showing in Clarke County helped Gonzalez defeat Gaines in last November’s special election. Democrat Jonathan Wallace in District 119 also hopes voters will vote him back in for a full term after winning out over three Republican would-be legislators a year ago to take the seat formerly held by Republican Chuck Williams, who left to direct the Georgia Forestry Commission. Call Pachuta Insurance Today @ 706-769-2262 A select group of students in each of the two Clarke County High Schools now have a chance to participate in a three-year program that will prepare them for the future. About 40 students will participate in classes which will enhance their leadership and academic skills through the Georgia Possible program. As reported in The Red & Black, the program was created through a partnership between the Clarke County School District, UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development and the Office of the President. Its goal is to prepare its students for the process of entering college. Those selected were nominated as eighth-grade students by their middle school teachers. “I think we were very deliberate in making sure there was not a narrow criteria of identifying what characteristics these young people had,” said CCSD Superintendent Demond Means. “We don’t want to pigeon hole and define what young people can do based on their current academic performance. We believe that all students are really capable and possible of doing anything that they want to do.” Last month the program launched on the UGA campus, Means said. At the kickoff, the students had a chance to work as a group on the UGA challenge course practicing “team building,” Means said. Means said CCSD faculty involved in organizing the program, UGA President Jere Morehead and those from the Fanning Institute have planned topics to be covered such as exposure to “cultural experiences,” communication, conflict and stress management and understanding the college application process. “You could see that they’ve already kind of became a little cohort of individuals from both schools that probably would have minimal interactions because they don’t go to the same schools,” Cedar Shoals High School Principal Derrick Maxwell said. Means said one thing teachers considered were students who are “looking forward to doing something with their lives in post-secondary situation.” He said that grades were not a main factor in determining nominees. Although UGA is a partner for Georgia Possible, Means said that students will not be persuaded to attend UGA specifically. He said the students will be advised no matter where they decide to go to college. Means also said that even though there is not a plan in place for students who decide to drop out, he understands the program may not be the best fit for all young people selected to participate. Call Pachuta Insurance Today @ 706-769-2262 Rodrigo Blankenship was impressive most of last season having completed 20 of 23 field goal attempts, including a career-long 55-yard field goal against Oklahoma in the Rose Bowl. The Marietta native did not miss an extra point, and 67 of his 94 kickoffs resulted in touchbacks, making for a Georgia record. Blankenship kicked off the 2018 season right, at least in the first three games. As reported in The Red & Black, Blankenship missed a 49-yard field goal attempt in the second quarter and had a 36-yard attempt blocked in the fourth quarter of the Missouri game. On the opening kickoff of the second half, for the first time this season, his kickoff did not result in a touchback. “It may have been highlighted in that game [against Missouri] for some individuals, or maybe as a team collectively, but I think just, as a whole, the whole team, every single player on this team has things they can do to get better,” Blankenship said. “It was just a little bit more so for myself in that game. I realized that what I've been doing so far isn't quite good enough, and I still need to get better.” Against Tennessee on Saturday, Blankenship showed as he completed his only field goal attempt, a 43-yard kick in the second quarter, and all seven of his kickoffs resulted in touchbacks. “The first thing [the kickers] do every practice, after we have our team flex and everything, we go up to our top field and we hit some no-steps,” Blankenship said. “That's what that kick was—you don't get to take any steps, you're just already planted next to the ball, and you just gotta kick it.” Blankenship is currently 116 of 116 in extra point tries. “Just trying to treat every kick with the respect and attention to detail that it deserves, and just trying to go out and take everything one step at a time,” Blankenship said. “I'm just trying to take it one rep at a time and worry about all the streaks and records at the end of the day, a little bit later on.” Call Pachuta Insurance Today @ 706-769-2262 |
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1031 Village Drive, Suite A
Watkinsville, Georgia 30677
johnny@pachutainsurance.com
(706) 769-2262 (Office)
(888) 769-2262 (Toll Free)
(706) 769-2282 (Fax)
(706) 201-1901 (Mobile)