Hats off to the 2026 grads

The 2025-2026 school year officially comes to an end for Rabun County students on Friday, May 22, as graduates will walk across the stage, turn their tassels and throw their hats in the air. They will then run across Frank Snyder Memorial Stadium with fellow classmates and ring the historic bell.

President Reagan’s cards

President Ronald Reagan had a habit. He kept notes on 4x6” cards. He almost always had them with him. He often wrote on both sides of a card. Small words and lots of them. He was always looking for humorous, serious, quotable phrases, names and, of course, dates.

Nobody loves the weather lady when she gets it wrong

If they didn’t look so prosperous in their expensive suits and dresses, I would feel sorry for TV weather predictors. They can’t win. When they get the forecast right, nobody says anything. When they get it wrong, everybody says something.

Many people don’t know what a charter school is.

Every year, thousands of Georgia parents fill out lottery applications for schools their children may never get to attend. Not because they can’t afford it, but because thousands of other Georgia families want the same thing and there simply aren’t enough seats.

What would life be without a junk drawer?

I’m not sure how anyone could exist without a junk drawer. No household that calls itself a household is without one. It may be in the kitchen or the living room or the den or perhaps the garage. Maybe even the bedroom. But it is there. And it is essential to life as we know it.

Celebrate Appalachia at Foxfire’s Heritage Days

The 18th annual Foxfire Heritage Days is back again with two days of demonstrators and education about Appalachian Heritage on Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6.

Looking into where’s the joy?

Wendy’s launched an advertising campaign in 1984 featuring 81-year-old Clara Peller. Upon being served a small hamburger patty on a large bun, this elderly manicurist/beautician asks, “Where’s the beef?

The sounds and comforts of home

Mother’s Day comes every year but it always feels different based on what season of life you are in. The day for me felt very different this year. Sunday, May 10 was an incredible day filled with love and laughter from my husband Conner and our 8-month-old daughter Rosie Mae.

I am not too sure about this

I never hear or reread one of Steve Hall’s sermons at the St. James Episcopal Church in Clayton, Ga., but that I am inspired, uplifted, or prodded to do something I had not been thinking of doing. One year on Easter he said several phrases three or four times. He said “Peggy, can you hear His words?

We don’t need a law to keep on talking Southern, y’all

I’m a little late getting around to this but there is a survey out by a group called Writing Tips Institute, a website that teaches people how to write correctly.