The
Hogansville
ome News
Thursday, April 18, 2002
Claims
by 12 Percent
Georgia Department of Labor announced
that initial claims for unemployment insur-
benefits declined by 12 percent in March. Initial
dropped to 37,659 in March, down from 42,764
a of last year, initial claims totaled
"Initial claims register newly unemployed work-
said State Labor Commissioner Michael
"and it's a positive sign for our economy
these numbers are down. But, we continue to serv-
for thousands of the unemployed.
"For example, about 36,000 laid-off workers have
for federal extended benefits, so that tells us we
have a lot of workers who have been out of work
than six months."
Atlanta was down 2,528 or 12.8 percent, from 19,759
!7R31.
Columbus was down 397, or 35.8 percent, from 1,110
Recogn/zed/n Pat/Oinder Report
and Mrs. Harvey Lemmon of Woodbury have
nationally by the American Angus
for having three registered Angus cows
in the Association's 2002 Pathfinder Report.
Only 2,014 of the more than 35,000 American Angus
members are represented in this year's
to John Crouch, executive vice pres-
Set to Autograph New Book Here
Taylor-Foster was set to host local author Smart
who will be signing copies of his new book. He
become a world famous author, but he always pre-
his latest work locally. The books are always
Editions. First Editions often become collector's
First Editions can become quite valuable
SOught after. It is usually easy to recognize these
the words First Edition are printed on the fly
Weods' current publisher is G.P. Putnam & Sons.
has First Editions of the latest work
tdd to your collection or to begin one.
appear from 10 a.m. until noon
April 17.
Drive to Help Mini-Grants
Last fall the Meriwether County Chamber of
sponsored the first annual "Million of
fund drive. The purpose of this drive was
funds which could be used to fund or supple-
and activities for which money is not
through regular channels. Over $5,500 was
and the non-profit Meriwether Educational
Part . Improvement Foundation, Inc. was
of the money will be awarded in mira-grants
remain as "seed money" for the
Seventeen applications were received from
activities, and civic clubs. The
will review the applications and
the recipients April 22.
Booth Vounteer for Fair
Pickin' Fair has extended an invitation
MeHjher County Chamber of Commerce for
booth. This is an excellent opportu-
to showcase our county. The Chamber will be sell-
cards with pen and ink drawings
Little White House, the Meriwether County
Authority and Chamber of Commerce
Georgia Hall, Hotel Warm Springs and
(now Ivy on Broad) and the coy-
The packages will consist of one of each
drawings. The draw!rags were all done by
people to man the booth
r or Sunday. If you would be willing to
promoting Meriwether County,
call the Chamber office at 655-2558.
to Draw Crowd
Hundreds of Georgia firefighters from statewide
scheduled to attend the Georgia Forestry
(GFC) 14th Biennial Georgia Fire
held Wednesday, April 24, at the
1 Fairgrounds in Perry from 8:00 a.m. to
p.n]
are available at Georgia Forestry
or by calling (478) 751-
olle
Gordon Cite00for Re#sterea Angus
Gordon of Greenville has been
r the American Angus Association for hav-
registered Angus cow included in the
Pathffmder Relmrt
35,000 American Angus
members are represented in this year's
Business News A/ways We/come00
businesses in Meriwether,
and West Central Georgi Items may be
to Business News Desk, Star-Mercury, Grimes
P.O. Box 426, Manchester, Ga. 31816.
Ma00nchester Business Group
Sets Membership hmcheon
The Manchester Business
Association, in a continhing reorganiza-
tion effort, will have a spring member-
ship luncheon on Thursday, April 18 at
12 noon.
The Bray Room at Meriwether Bank
and Trust Company will be the site of
the luncheon.
The Association wants to complete
a 2002 Performance Survey with mer-
chants providing valuable information
as to how the Association may serve
their needs.
A discussion of the survey and mer-
chant needs and wants will be part of
Thursday's program.
All merchants and prospective mem-
bers are encouraged to attend the lunch-
con. A representative should be sent if
a conflict prevents the owner from
attending.
Membership forms have been
mailed out to past members with five
levels of participation being offered.
What's in a Name?
Area's Railroads Have Gone Through Variety of Identities
By Rob Richardson
The historic AB&C
caboose that arrived in
Manchester this week rep-
resents just one of the many
railroad names that has
graced the area.
The vintage wood-sided
caboose was brought in by
truck from Florida and lift-
ed by crane onto special dis-
play tracks at the
Manchester Mill.
Railroads remain one of
the major industries of the
West Central Georgia region
as well as one of the area's
biggest employers.
The area is served by the
two biggest railroads in the
south, CSX and Norfolk
Southern.
And even though the
tracks ate pretty much in
the'same Slt they were a
century ago, the railroads
themselves have gone
through a lot of name
changes.
Historian/railfans such
as Larry Goolsby have no
trouble keeping them
straight, but here's a run-
down of the name changes
the area has seen on the side
of the locomotives.
Reporting marks are let-
ter and number combina-
tions on the side of rolling
stock that enable railroads
and shippers to keep the cars
straight.
The reporting marks
usually are initials of the
railroad's full name.
• Manchester was first
home to the AB&A - the
Atlanta, Birmingham and
Atlantic.
• Later the road became
the AB&C, with 'Coast'
replacing 'Atlantic."
• The reporting marks
changed again when the
Atlantic Coast Line
absorbed the railroad. Even
Hie Ptmm
SHORT-LIVED - The Seaboard System grew as an out-
growth of the Family Lines but soon evolved into CSX.
Rle Ptmt
FALLEN FlAG CABOOSE - The Norfolk Southem line
through Greenville once hosted the Central of Georgia's
freight trains 89 and 90 as well as the Atlanta to Columbus
Man O-War streamliner.
By Mike
CSX PREDECESSOR - The vintage caboose brought
into Manchester last weekend was once used by AB&C.
today, 'ACL' is still painted
on the bridge near Meadows
Motors in Manchester.
*In 1967 the ACL merged
with arch-rival Seaboard,
forming the Seaboard Coast
Line. 'SCL' began showing
up on cars and engines,
although repainting took a
long time.
*In the mid 1970s, the
SCL and L&N began using
the 'Family Lines' identity,
with a common locomotive
paint scheme that was also
applied to several other
jointly - held railroads: the
Clinchfield, the Atlanta &
West Point, the Western
Railway of Alabama and the
Georgia Railroad.
• In the 1980s, the rail-
road changed its identity to
Seaboard System. But
because the Sand Springs
short line railroad had
already claimed the 'SS'
reporting marks, the
Seaboard System used SBD
on the sides of freight cars.
• But the name and paint
scheme was short-lived,as
the consolidation with the
Chessie System resulted in
the emergence of CSX
Transportation.
Today, large CSX logos
dominate the sides of the
: *Although CSX domi-
nates the area, Norfolk
Southern operates a train
from Columbus up through
Pine Mountain, Durand and
Greenville to the Mead plant
north of town.
The line, which once
extended up to other con-
necting tracks to Atlanta,
was best known as the
Central of Georgia route of
the Man O'War passenger
tram.
*But the CofG was pur-
chased by the Southern
Railway in 1963, and SOU
reporting marks changed
gain with the 1982 merger
with Norfolk & Western to
form the NS used for
Norfolk Southern.
• Meriwether's heavy
rail traffic attracts so many
rail buffs that the city of
Manchester built a train-
watching deck- right along-
side the AB&A / AB&C / ACI,
/ SCL/FL / SBD/CSX tracks.
AgSouth Distributes $846,000 Locally
Bill Spigener, President
of AgSouth Farm Credit,
recently announced that the
cooperative recently distrib-
uted more than $10 million in
patronage dividends to its
member borrowers for the
year-end December 31, 2001.
Members in the
Greenville area received
more than $846,000 of the
total $10 million distribution.
Spigener said, "We're
very proud of our patronage
program_
In the past 14 years, the
association has distributed
more than $88 million to our
patrons, a record unmatched
by ally other area lender."
Spigener credited the dis-
tribution to the financial
strength of the association
and the commitment of the
association's directors and
staff.
The Association Board of
Directors has also approved
the distribution of $5.2 mil-
lion in allocated surplus from
1996.
These checks will be
mailed to it's borrowers later
in April.
'We are especially proud
of our continuing five-year
revolvement of allocated sur-
plus, especially with the fluc-
tuations in market price and
harsh weather our farmers
have had to cope with in the
past few years. AgSouth is a
strong cooperative, and we're
very pleased to be a financial
pillar for the ag community,"
said Spigener.
AgSouth Farm Credit is
an agricultural and rural
lending cooperative owned
by more than 3800 members
in 59 counties in the south-
eastern and western portions
of Georgia.
AgSouth provides loans
for real estate, agriculture
and rural homes and also has
a leasing program for auto-
mobiles, equipment and
buildings.
The association has more
than $550 million in assets
and branch offices in
Statesboro, Sylvania, Rincon,
Vidalia, Douglas, Blackshear,
Baxley, Jesup, Covington,
Griffir Madison, Carrollton,
Greenville and Thomaston.
Shorewood Packaging Plant to Close
International Paper announced
recently it plans to permanently close
its LaGrange Shorewood Packaging
facility.
In'a meeting with employees,
Shorewood Executive Vice President
Howard Liebman said this was a very
difficult decision to announce.
"LaGrange is one of the original
Shorewood Packaging fflities and has
prodimed cutting-edge commercial
packaging. They have a hAstory to be
proud of. I just wish things could have
turned out differently," Liebman said.
Several bus'mess factors influenced this facility profitably," said Chris Turk,
the final closure decision. The tectmol, LaGrange facility manager.
ogy in LaGrange can no longer support ' "This is a great team and we are
a viable, stand-alone facility in the face encouraging employees to sign up for
of a poor economic environment and
mounting competitive pressures,
"Current economic conditions make
it unrealistic to continue operations at
the facility, and unfortunately the
Business has decided that the only alter-
native is to pernumently close,"Liebman
added.
"I am proud of this workforce and
the efforts they have made to operate
opportuaities available at other
Shorewood and International Paper
locatns."
This announcement will impact
approximately 147 commercial packag-
ing employees.
A number of corporate employees
located at LaGrange, including the cus-
tomer service department, will not be
impacted.
