THUMBS UP to Habersham Central baseball coach Chris Akridge, who has helped lead the Raiders to a hot start on the brand new field in Demorest.
But it’s more than that when it comes to Akridge, who has always led his team with integrity and class. It does not matter how many wins the Raiders have in a given season. Akridge will never change his principles or compromise character for on-field success, as many Georgia high school coaches have.
Akridge got hit hard with COVID-19 in 2021, and the community rallied around him. It is said that the measure of a man is to simply count his friends. During that adversity, there were many friends who came to the side of his family to help, and that says more than what you can find on a scoreboard.
Since making it back from that, Akridge and his wife April have given back to the community, including participating in last year’s Dancing with the Stars competition for Circle of Hope. At the ballpark, Akridge has continued to be a mentor for young men, in addition to putting together a fine ball club.
THUMBS DOWN to the trend of renaming anything and everything to erase history.
The Department of Defense has been on a mission in the South, trying to rename everything that had any ties to the Confederacy. But not everything in Southern history is controversial.
Rep. Andrew Clyde recently convinced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to delay efforts to rename Lake Lanier and Buford Dam.
“The USACE’s decision to pause its efforts is a tremendous victory for Northeast Georgians, as these renamings would have attempted to rewrite history, impose massive burdensome costs on our community, and create unnecessary mass confusion,” Clyde said.
The Congressman makes the point when asking, where does this stop? Do we rename all the high schools and all the towns and more or less everything we have?
We have bigger problems in this country right now, like preserving our economic system.
History is history. Let’s embrace our great successes, let’s learn from the failures.
THUMBS UP to all our police officers, firefighters and emergency first responders.
Thanks for staying up all night to keep us safe. Thanks for keeping our children safe.
Thanks for taking all the hits and continuing to serve, even if everything inside you tells you it is not worth it.
Thanks for putting your lives on the line for ours.