Who goes from a teenage janitor to a CPA for 30 years and then starts a residential cleaning company? Well, that’s just what Jerry Hicks did. He started The Maids Home Services franchise that provides services in Fayette and Coweta counties. Hicks located the office in Peachtree City to make it easier to get to customers in both counties.

The fall is upon us. Back to school, falling leaves and football are hallmarks of this time of year. This is also one is the busiest and most important times of the year in the world of landscaping.

By CAROL STROUD
Fayette County Master Gardener

When you get to thinking about fall and winter garden chores, the one chore that you can permanently leave out is whacking your crapemyrtles with a chain saw. Known as “crape murder” in the gardening world, it puzzles me as to how this practice got started. Pruning or topping your crapemyrtles straight across is a needless practice that takes too much time and energy that can be put into other more satisfying and beneficial gardening chores. Not only does this method of pruning ruin the beautiful natural shape of the tree, it also causes aphids, week stems, ugly knobby branches, and a shorter life span of the tree.

The Freedom Fund Banquet Committee is planning its 12th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet, Nov. 7, 6 p.m. at the Wyndham Peachtree Conference Center.  This year’s banquet theme is “Celebrating and Building on 100 Years of Achievement.”  The Centennial Achievement Awards for Civil Rights will be presented to deserving recipients. The Fayette County Community is invited to attend, ticket price is $75; however, there is a discount for purchasing a table of 10 for $700. This discount is available through Oct. 12. For tickets and more information, please email ffb@fcnaacp.org or call (770) 460-9934.

Three new employees of TSG-USA, Inc., Peachtree City, recently spent two afternoons volunteering at the Newnan Coweta Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
 
Kohei Fukuda, a mechanical design engineer; Kazuha Shoji, a software programmer; and Makoto Yamada, a design engineer, will work at TSG-USA’s facility in Japan, but came to the United States for two weeks of employee orientation. 

The Georgia Department of Education (DOE) Oct. 1 announced that all 27 Coweta County Schools met the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act by achieving 2008-2009 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements.

The Coweta County Health Dept. has received a limited number of doses of nasal spray vaccine for the H1N1 flu to be administered only to healthy young children ages 2-4. Walk-ins are welcome but parents are asked to call before they come to the office.

Roscoe Jenkins Funeral Home hosted the Baccalaureate Service for the 40 recent graduates of Gupton-Jones College of Funeral Service.

Coweta County commissioners Tuesday night voted to authorize a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for a needs assessment and space analysis for a future expansion of the county jail. The board also voted to appoint a five-person committee to review the submittals. The expansion would be funded by a future 1-cent sales tax initiative.

Fayetteville police today filed criminal charges against an Atlanta man in connection with the Aug. 15 robbery of the Bank of America off Ga. Highway 314 in north Fayetteville.

Michael Ray Baskerville Jr., 33, of Washington Street, Atlanta is currently being held in the Cobb County Jail. He was arrested by police in Cobb Monday during the robbery of a SunTrust bank in Cobb.

Low prices for residential and commercial natural gas customers will be featured at the Oct. 10 annual members meeting of Coweta-Fayette EMC.

Cookie, a national monthly lifestyle magazine for the modern mother published by Conde Nast, has included the Inn at Serenbe in its “3rd Annual Best of Travel” feature in the October 2009 edition. The feature heralds “eight dreamy escapes”: The Inn at Serenbe, The St. Regis in Bora Bora, Ardoor Art Camp in The Netherlands, The Greenbrier in West Virginia, Planet Baobab in Botswana, Mohonk Mountain House in New York, Natura Cabana in Dominican Republic, and The Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. Features editor Miranda Crowell dubs Serenbe the “best southern comfort” and says.

Coweta County, like the remainder of the United States, is in a recession. But three public hearings scheduled for Nov. 12 include rezoning requests that could to lead to commercial and residential proposals that look more like the good old days of a couple of years ago.