Plans underway for Arbor Day celebration

North GA — Location changes are underway for some of the public healthCOVID-19 vaccination clinics in the North Georgia Health District, each of which are operating indoors.

   These changes will allow more people to be vaccinated, so that as additional vaccine becomes available, health department staff will be in position to vaccinate larger numbers of people.

    As of Monday, February 1, public health COVID-19 vaccination operations will be as follows in these North Georgia counties:

    Pickens County:  Pickens County Recreation Department, 1329 Camp Road, Jasper, GA 30143. Mon.–Thurs., 8 AM–12 PM & 1 PM–3 PM, and Fri., 8 AM–12 PM

Cherokee County:  Canton First Baptist Church, 1 Mission Point, Canton, GA 30114. Mon.–Thurs., 8 AM–3 PM, and Fri., 8 AM–3 PM.

More attention to staffing, less to student numbers should keep kids on campus longer

STAFF ATTENDANCE STATUS FOR Jan. 26 - The above chart outlines key information that will be used to determine if any school needs to close. This information will be updated by 8:30 a.m. each school day. Parents are encouraged to check the chart, on the school’s website, on a regular basis. Follow this link to be redirected to the chart.

When Tony Young reported for his first day of work as the interim-superintendent of Pickens schools Jan. 19th, he was greeted with sorely-needed good news after a raucous meeting where the board voted to make the change in leadership.

COVID numbers with Pickens students and staff had dropped significantly and the system’s director of health services was giving a green light if they wanted to re-open schools after 40 days of all students being at home for distance learning.

The number of positive COVID cases among Pickens students and staff had dropped from 46 down to 14 on the Jan. 19th report. The district health department also showed Pickens was one of two counties in the region with the lowest number of cases overall.

In an interview this week, Young said that he did make the call to re-open on his first day as interim because of the improvement of numbers – not as any type of change from his predecessor. He said he used the same procedures that had been used all year and under them opening was permissible.

See this week's print or online edition for full story.

Submitted By Be-Paws We Care

As an all-volunteer non-profit in Pickens County, volunteers are the heartbeat of Be-Paws We Care, Inc. - and we are thankful for each one of them. However, we currently need more volunteers to foster through the Pickens County Animal Shelter (PCAS).

Fosters bring the animal shelter’s homeless pets into their home to decompress and settle into a routine, then the fosters help train and socialize them before sending them off to a rescue group or to their forever family. Many rescue groups require a two-week period of in-home foster care prior to accepting a pet into their rescue program.

        Reagan Harwood shoots the 17th three-point shot in the Nettes’ game against Ridgeland. The team set a single game record of 17 three-pointers in a game.

        The Nettes kept rolling last week as they secured two more wins over Ridgeland and Dawson County.

On Tuesday, January 19th the Nettes rolled into Ridgeland for a region contest.  They left with a 92-23 win and set a new single game record of 17 made threes in a game. 

The record was previously broken last year vs Chattooga when the Nettes made 16 threes. Seven Nettes would contribute to the total and 11 Nettes would score in the game. Ninety-two points in regulation was also the highest scoring mark since 96 points were scored against Forsyth Central in 1999.