I mentioned a few weeks back the TBF/FLW High School Fishing Southeastern Conference Championship tournament scheduled for Lake Lanier. It has come and gone. Fifty-one teams from eight states competed. Fittingly enough, the event was won by two youngsters from East Hall High School — Tristan Thomas and Dakota Crumley. The win earned their team the title of Southeastern Conference champions. They will now compete in the 2016 High School Fishing National championship to be held next spring at a location to be announced. Several of you mentioned wanting to see a fishing club started at your high school. I would suggest that you contact highschoolfishing.org. I suspect they would be delighted to help you. . . .
I love the state flaggers better than buttered bread and almost as much as liberal weenies. Back in their heyday when they were posturing and threatening anybody who suggested changing the old state flag, flaggers were a great source for columns because they aren’t exactly known for their sense of humor (wink, wink.) Last week they issued a news release objecting to putting a statue on the top of Stone Mountain in honor of Michael King. Huh? Said the release, “Monuments to either Michael King or soldiers of any color who fought against the Confederacy would be a violation of the purpose for which the park was created and exists.” I don’t howdy with flaggers much these days but I think they meant Martin Luther King, Jr. and not the late Michael King, OBE, author of “The Penguin History of New Zealand.” With flaggers, you never know. . . .
On the other side of the racial chasm, the history revisionists are hell-bent on erasing all vestiges of the Old South. I wonder if anyone has told them that we have 17 counties in Georgia named for Confederate military and political figures, including Bacon, Bartow, Ben Hill, Bleckley, Calhoun, Cook, Crisp, Evans, Jeff Davis, Johnson, Lamar, Lanier, Stephens, Tift, Toombs, Turner and Wheeler. The revisionists may want to concentrate their efforts on eradicating Dixie Cups and Rebel Yell sipping whiskey from our society. They might have better luck. . . .
Next week, thousands of college kids will swarm the beaches of St. Simons in anticipation of the Georgia-Florida football game in Jacksonville in what has become known in less than complimentary terms as “Frat Beach.” The event has pretty much gotten out of hand and local officials and law enforcement have let it be known that this year the laws on underage drinking and driving, littering and over-the-top bad behavior will be strictly enforced. I suspect many youngsters think the locals are just talking jive. Trust me. They are not. This action is long overdue. . . .
As a member of the Governor’s Education Reform Commission, I have had the opportunity to work alongside longtime State Sen. Jack Hill (R-Reidsville), chairman of the powerful Senate appropriations committee. He doesn’t talk a lot but when he does have something to say, everybody stops and listens because it is generally worth hearing. He is a man with much influence and with surprisingly little ego. . . .
The United States Department of Agriculture has issued an edict removing the word “midget” from the Standards for Grades of Processed Raisins. Up until now, the smallest raisins were referred to as – well, you know. The Little People of America, an advocacy group for — well, you know — petitioned the USDA to eliminate the “M” word. Of course, being the federal government, the request had to be passed along to the Raisin Administration Committee for consideration before caving in to political correctness. Thank You-Know-Who that our government is providing our veterans the very best care possible, we have terrorism under control, our Social Security coffers are full and we have confined the hacking of sensitive information off government computers to just a few hundred countries and most pre-kindergarten kids. Now we have resolved the raisin name crisis. Is this a great country or what? . . .
And finally, I don’t know UGA running back Nick Chubb personally but I know some people in Cedartown who do. I am told that Chubb, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the Tennessee game, is as much a quality person off the field as he is on it. Frankly, there are some athletes that represent my alma mater that I would just as soon not. Nick Chubb is an exception. I wish him a successful recovery.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb2400@bellsouth.net; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb
