Gwinnett Forum.com -- Gwinnett County's community forum and idea exchange

Recalls old Hog Mountain church; upset over name change
By Betty L. Warbington
Special to GwinnettForum.com

HOG MOUNTAIN, Ga. Dec. 8, 2006 -- The recent item in GwinnettForum about Hog Mountain Baptist Church got me to remembering the church from days of old. My husband's family history is especially deeply rooted in the Hog Mountain community as well as the church.

Charles's father, Alfred Warbington, and his mother, Lucile Mosley Warbington, both attended Hog Mountain School which was located exactly where the newer church cemetery is now.

After we married in 1966, I became the Hog Mountain Church pianist and held that position as well as various other positions in the church for over 25 years. We raised our three children in the Hog Mountain community and its Baptist Church. All three have a deep love of the community and of the history of the church.

Even though many families with ties to the church have stayed in the Hog Mountain community over the years, many others have moved to different parts of Georgia and some, of course, to other states. Because genealogy is so important to so many people, we feel changing the name of the church (especially for all of the wrong reasons) will destroy the roots of our ancestors. In the future, if someone returns to the area looking for Hog Mountain Church cemetery, they will have difficulty in finding the name, since Hog Mountain Baptist will no longer exist, thanks to a few folks who have no respect or love of history and its importance in the future.

For many years, Charles' grandfather, Henry Mosley, before the church had electricity, was in charge of lighting candles on the walls of the sanctuary and starting a fire in the pot belly stove for Sunday services. Mr. Mosley would drive his horse and buggy to the church to get it ready for service and then return home to bring his family back to worship. Charles' mother was the "housekeeper" for the church and his father was the "groundskeeper" for approximately 20 years during the latter part of the 1900's. Whenever there was a funeral at the church, his parents always made a special trip to the church to make sure everything looked its best. His mother always said, "Well, my daddy got the graves ready for the dead, so the least we could do was make sure the church and the grounds look its best for the funeral service. We did it because we love the church and the Lord."

I gave you this synopsis of our connections to the community and to Hog Mountain Church to show you how deeply upset we are about the name change.

Changing the name, in our minds, is wrong, but it also appears to be happening for all of the wrong reasons. Just as history can not be changed because of injustices, history certainly should not be changed at the whim of individuals who do not represent the whole body of believers and certainly not the community as a whole.

Gwinnett history has shown that the Hog Mountain community played a very important part in the history of the county. The community name, and especially the historical church name, should be preserved as an important part of our county and community history. One person plus a few followers should not be allowed to change history by removing a very historical name and throwing it to the wind of modernism.

Thoughts concerning Tuesday's statewide and local run-offs
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com

Consider the statewide run-off election on Tuesday. There was only one race which the run-off election had to decide: who was to be seated on the Public Service Commission, challenger Chuck Eaton or incumbent David Burgess.

In the first voting on November 7, the two had run neck-and-neck, with Burgess claimed 48.8 per cent of the vote, thereby not getting elected by 1.3 per cent. Eaton had scored 46.3 per cent, and a third candidate in the race, Paul McGregor, scored 4.9 per cent.

There were 2.03 million votes cast in this race, with Burgess getting 994,619, and Eaton 941,748. The spoiler, McGregor, had 99,747.

So, under Georgia law, a runoff was required, for the candidate must score a majority, and neither made the magic 50.1 per cent of the vote.

So what happened on Tuesday? This time Eaton won the seat, with 57.4 per cent of the vote. Eaton had 111,893 votes to Burgess' 101,751. Eaton won by 10,142 votes. In the first race, Burgess was ahead by 52,871 votes.

Now throw in another element: it cost the state considerably more than $1 million to pay for the run-off primary. Though there were scattered other races on local ballots, only four Superior Court judgeships also had runoff in circuits of the state.

So, for your consideration: is it worth it to spend more than $1 million for this run-off, when another system might have eliminated this expense?

Georgia at one time allowed statewide races to be decided if the person had least 45 per cent of vote. The thinking goes this way: this way you are getting the sentiment of the most voters (some 2,036,114 million in the general election for public service commissioner) versus the small number voting (213,644) in the runoff.

In effect, 10.49 per cent of the people who voted in the first race…..were the ones who voted this week. And you might note only 5.4 per cent of those voting the first time really picked the winner. Far from having 50.1 per cent of the vote….the winner garnered 5.4 per cent of those who voted the first time.

Look at another runoff. In Norcross on November 7, two races were sent to runoffs. Both candidates who lead the first time actually won their races.

One race was tight in the first balloting, with Jeff Allen polling 374 votes, and Michael Lovelady polling 372. Barry Payne got 116.

In the other race, Keith Shewbert had 322 the first round, and Judy Barks had 296. Josh Bare polled 237.

In the runoff, Allen won with 383 votes, and Lovelady had 295. Shewbert won with 354 and Barks polled 322 (the number Shewbert had the first time) and lost

Somehow, runoffs in towns like Norcross, where paper ballots were used, seem more reasonable than the costly statewide runoff. Especially when there were only two votes separating candidates in one race, the runoff makes more sense. Norcross voters did a good job in returning to the polls, as approximately 80 per cent of the number who voted the first round returned to the polls.

Runoff: bad or not? I'll admit to that the public service commission race makes me wonder if the necessity for a majority is always the best way. Yet the Norcross first vote certainly points to the necessity of a runoff being positive.

The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Georgia's newest and Gwinnett County's only medical college, Georgia Campus-Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (GA-PCOM), began its second year by adding an evening master's degree program in biomedical sciences to its degree options. The College, in its medical degree program, combines the course load of medical school with added emphasis on the relationship between the body's structure and its function. More than 220 students are enrolled in the osteopathic physician and bio-med programs. GA-PCOM, which opened in August 2005 at 625 Old Peachtree Road, Suwanee, seeks to recruit and educate medical students from Georgia and the surrounding states and encourage them to remain in the region thereby helping improve access to healthcare in medically underserved areas. Call 678-225-7532 for additional information. More: http://www.pcom.edu/General_Information/georgia/georgia.html

While reading the article about Hog Mountain Baptist Church perhaps being denied due process (Forum, December 5), I noted your short synopsis of the origin of the name of the area (where pig farmers used to stay overnight on their way to market).

I don't disagree with that origin, but I do want to make you aware of another possible source of the name: It was perhaps a mis-translation of the Indian name for the area: Opossum Hill. It sort of makes sense as there is no mountain in the area, but there are hills and certainly an abundance of opossums!

Unfortunately, I don't recall where I came across that little tidbit of trivia. Perhaps it was in one of the newsletters that was being published for the area when I first moved here in 1990 (when it was still country).

For what it is worth: I take pride in telling people that I live in Hog Mountain. Perhaps it was since I grew up in Lawrenceville and my mother's family was from Dacula. I'm so used to the name it has no negative connotations for me.

Those in attendance at the December 16 Atlanta Vision home game will witness something they're not likely to ever see again: Suwanee Mayor Nick Masino playing professional basketball. The game will also be a fund raiser to help Suwanee's sister city of Long Beach, Miss.

Masino will be the "Celebrity 11th man" as the Vision celebrates Suwanee Night and takes on the Palm Beach Imperials at 7:30 p.m. at Suwanee Sports Academy, 3640 Burnette Road.

Fans can score a free ticket to the game with the purchase of an adult ticket and a donated item for Long Beach, Suwanee's adopted sister city that continues to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Atlanta Vision ticket prices are $10 for general admission; $15 courtside seating; and $5 for students.

Donated items for Long Beach will be accepted at the door. Items should be new and may include: sporting equipment, including baseballs, softballs, footballs, and Nerf balls; arts and craft supplies and projects, including ceramics, paints, canvas, brushes, etc, for senior citizens; gift certificates for stores at which the following items may be purchased: office supplies; paper goods such as paper towels, toilet paper, and tissues; cleaning supplies; and bottled water.

(Please note that the donation should be the gift certificates only and not the items themselves as the City of Suwanee will ship collected items to Long Beach.)

The City of Suwanee donated more than $25,000 to Long Beach this summer. The money was raised at Suwanee's Big Splash fountain grand opening event.

Defending division champions, the Atlanta Vision, part of the American Basketball Association, moved to its new venue at Suwanee Sports Academy for the 2006-07 season.

Gwinnett Technical College is hosting an open house for students and potential students interested in the college's CISCO CCNA Specialist Certificate program. Individuals are invited to attend the open house Wednesday, December 13, at 6:30pm in Building 700, Room 2.308.

The CISCO CCNA Specialist certificate program prepares students to design, build and maintain small to medium-size local area networks and wide area networks capable of supporting national and global organizations. The program also prepares students for the Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification exam(s).

Attend the open house and register for Winter Quarter, beginning January 3. The CISCO CCNA specialist program takes a year to complete and begins only during winter quarters, so get started now!

To learn more, contact Lorenzo Clarke, CISCO Networking program director, at 770-962-7580, ext. 6335 or at lclarke@gwinnetttech.edu.

Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful announces a scholarship designed to provide assistance to a graduating senior that is focused on achieving environmental career goals through higher education. The scholarship will provide a $1,000 one-year, non-renewable scholarship to a graduating senior from an accredited Gwinnett County High School.

A second $1,000 scholarship, sponsored by the Georgia Soil and Water Conservation District, will also be awarded.

Applicants must plan to be enrolled in a full-time accredited college or university in a field of study related to the environment. In evaluating each application, the scholarship committee will also consider environmental service participation in school and community activities.

Scholarship application forms can be found at www.gwinnettcb.org. Scholarship applications must be postmarked by March 31, 2007.

In an effort to increase awareness for the importance of regional commuter rail in the Atlanta to Athens corridor, advocates have announced the formation of the Georgians for the Brain Train Political Action Committee and the formation of the Bulldogs for the Brain Train. The political action committee (PAC) can engage in legislative lobbying activities that the 501(c)(3) Georgia Brain Train Group cannot. The organization's first order of business includes the official transportation sponsorship for the 25th Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators in Athens.

On December 10-11, Georgians for the Brain Train will provide transportation services for the participating legislators between several key venues in Athens, including Athens‚ new Multimodal Transportation Center: a venue ready to receive commuter rail, though no service currently exists between Atlanta and Athens.

The recently formed "Bulldogs for the Brain Train," the University of Georgia's student advocacy group, will provide tours of the new facility and presentations on the benefits of commuter rail to University of Georgia students in particular, and to Georgians in general, for legislators participating in the "Biennial." Those presentations are scheduled for Monday, December 11 at 5:30 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Empire Room of the Georgia Classic Center Foundry Street Facility.

This anticipated commuter rail service will make 12 stops in the northeast Atlanta corridor including connections to nine state colleges and universities and the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. While promoting a safe, economical and environmentally conscious means of transportation, the Brain Train initiative will also reduce traffic in congested northeast Atlanta corridor including Interstate-85, Georgia Highway 316 and U.S. Highway 78.

The longleaf pine-grassland forest of the southern Coastal Plain is among the most endangered ecosystems in North America. Its native range once stretched from southern Virginia to east Texas, covering almost 90 million acres. In Georgia its range was roughly below the fall line in the Upper Coastal Plain, though longleaf sometimes flourished across the lower Piedmont as well. Today only three million acres across the South contain some longleaf forests, and of that only about 12,000 scattered acres retain an old-growth component with a biologically diverse understory. One study estimates that Georgia maintained more than four million acres of longleaf forest in 1936, while just 376,400 acres remained in 1997.

This longleaf pine-grassland system is what ecologists call a fire-climax community; the species in this ecosystem are not only resistant to fire but also dependent upon it. Historically the resinous longleaf needles, along with an understory that usually contained highly flammable wiregrass, carried lightening-set and anthropogenic ground fires throughout the entire range of the forest.

Longleaf pines require bare mineral soil for their seeds to germinate, and they have adaptive strategies for surviving fires during the early stages of their development. After the seeds germinate, the longleaf establishes a long tap root below ground and spends three to 15 years in a grass stage, with long needles that protect the terminal bud from fire. Without frequent fire, the understory grows up in a thick rough, allowing successional hardwoods or the less fire-resistant slash and loblolly pines to encroach upon the uplands.

The longleaf pine is the dominant tree species in this system and is essential to its integrity, but the floral and faunal diversity of the system lies in its understory. The understory throughout the longleaf range contains from 150 to 300 species of groundcover plants per acre, more breeding birds than any other southeastern forest type, and about 60 percent of the amphibian and reptile species found in the Southeast

Over time, several factors led to the forest's decline. One of the most damaging came from the movement of the large-scale timber industry into the South from 1880 to 1920, as well as the subsequent exclusion of fire from the system by foresters who were well intended but deeply misinformed about longleaf-forest ecology. Foresters now recognize fire as a valuable forest-management tool.

In Georgia, in particular, there is now a strong effort toward restoration. Janisse Ray, in her elegant book of essays Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, exposed many Georgians to the beauty and importance of the longleaf-grassland ecosystem. Several good examples of longleaf-grassland forest remain in the state. The military bases Fort Stewart and Fort Benning have the largest remaining blocks, while the Nature Conservancy controls several thousand acres, the Moody Tract in Appling County being its best holding of old-growth longleaf.

Send your thoughts, 55-word short stories, pet peeves or comments on any issue to Gwinnett Forum for future publication.

===========================================