Friday, Nov. 3, 2023
Tifton, Georgia
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TYPO ON SPLOST BALLOT DOES NOT AFFECT REFERENDUM,
OFFICIALS SAY
ERROR IS IN TITLE, NOT REFERENDUM'S QUESTION
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By FRANK SAYLES JR.
Tifton Grapevine
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A typographical error on the ballot for Tift County's Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) does not affect Tuesday's referendum, county officials say.
The heading above the referendum question lists it as "SPLOST VI" when it is actually "SPLOST VII."
"It was a scrivener's error just in the header," County Manager Jim Carter told the Tifton Grapevine. "The question itself is what matters."
He said the question on the ballot is accurate and the heading is merely something a local government places on it as "an identifier."
Carter said Thursday that "we just became aware of that this afternoon. There's not a lot of time to fix a typo at this point."
Today (Friday) is the last day of early voting for Tuesday's municipal elections and countywide SPLOST vote.
The referendum is for continuing the county's one-cent SPLOST for capital outlay projects, including construction and renovations of public facilities, road and bridge improvements, and water-sewer operations and drainage issues.
Tift County Commission Chairman Tony McBrayer echoed the county manager's comments and said attorneys have reviewed the matter and the typo in the title does not effect the referendum.
"It was just a scrivener's error in the heading," McBrayer said. "We feel like we're OK."
The polls will be open from 8 a.m.-5 pm. today at the Tift County Board of Elections headquarters at 222 Chesnutt Ave., Building B, at the corner of Fourth Street and Chesnutt Avenue. On Tuesday (Election Day), polls will be open 7 a.m.-7 p.m., and voters will cast ballots at their home precincts.
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The vacant AMC Theatre at the Tifton Mall is now for sale. | AMC THEATERS CLOSE IN TIFTON AS MOVIE CHAIN STRUGGLES | |
By FRANK SAYLES JR.
Tifton Grapevine
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Tifton's AMC movie theater permanently closed last week, one of many that the U.S.'s largest movie theater chain has shut down in recent months as it struggles to fight bankruptcy.
AMC Theatres began the year with more than 7,000 theaters but has been systematically closing some poor-performing ones, including the one at the Tifton Mall. As other nearby towns such as Moultrie and Valdosta have offered newer and renovated theaters with stadium seating, the Tifton theater has had few upgrades in recent years.
The results of the pandemic have been the death knell for many businesses, and movie theaters have especially struggled as TV streaming services increasingly offer more and improved content. In the past year, AMC nationwide has lost more than $700 million, according to Investor Place.
The Tifton theater with its six individual screens was previously owned by Carmike Cinemas. In 2016, AMC Theatres acquired Carmike Cinemas for $1.1 billion. AMC later discontinued the Carmike name and rebranded all of its theaters as AMC in 2017.
The vacant Tifton theater building is now listed for sale.
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A TOOL THAT CAN AID MEDICINE, ABAC PROF SAYS | |
By BONNIE SAYLES
Tifton Grapevine
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Dr. Adrian Israel Martinez Franco, head of the rural studies department at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, led a discussion of artificial intelligence, Chat GPT, and "E-Health in the Heartland" at Wednesday's Tifton Rotary Club meeting.
His area of specialty is biomedical infomatics. Through this field, Martinez Franco said his main goal is improving health.
Martinez Franco once worked as a medical doctor in a private hospital in Mexico City, which he said is a sophisticated city. Solar panels are common there as a source of energy, and Tesla cars are embraced. He aims to bring different perspectives to his ABAC students.
Biomedical Informatics is about using technology, not to replace but to boost human abilities and improve human capacity, he said.
“Instead of replacing people, it will help us be better and make better decisions.” He used the example of employees at Blockbuster losing their jobs when the video rental chain closed, but the resulting technology of providers such as Netflix and Hulu provide higher paying jobs and improved options.
Chat GPT is already changing the world, Martinez Franco said. Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence program, was launched last November and within two months reached 100 million users, he said.
“Right now it has about 280 million users today,” Martinez Franco said. “We are 8 billion people in the world, so many people don’t have access. Everyone needs to have access to these amazing tools.”
Chat GPT stands for chat-based generative pre-trained transformer. Generative means it can generate responses to questions. Pre-trained means it was trained in advance on a large amount of the written material available on the Internet. Transformer means it can process sentences differently than other types of models.
Among biomedical incentives for using such computer models is the fact that most us will likely experience at least one medical diagnostic error in our lifetimes, “sometimes with devastating consequences,” Martinez Franco said. “We need to change this culture. I belong to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine.”
The Society wants to reduce mistakes because it’s an epidemic, he said. The book “To Err is Human” addresses the fact that medical doctors are human, not with supernatural abilities. He quoted an article in the Wall Street Journal saying that “every week, medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets a week.
“Imagine in aviation this situation. As soon as there is one airplane crash, everyone knows about it. We study what happened, and we make sure everyone knows this situation will never happen again.”
In medicine, mistakes were not talked about, he said. It was something that no one was researching.
“Changing this culture is a challenge. The British Medical Journal says in the United States, medical errors are the third cause of death. We need to be able to address this openly,” he said.
Medical schools are now talking more about the issue, and knowledge is increasing, but it is impossible for the human brain to know everything. “We need to use these tools, like biomedical informatics, to open the eyes,” he said.
Using Chat GPT, one can ask about anything. However, he said, “it can create content that is fake but sounds plausible. It lies with all the assurance that it is correct, so we need to be careful. There are flaws in it. But if it is used correctly by experts, it can improve the outcomes in ways we never imagined.”
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ABAC's Georgia Museum of Agriculture | |
'FIRST TUESDAY' CONCERT FEATURES MUSIC EDUCATORS | |
Tifton Grapevine Staff Reports | |
The First Tuesday Concert Series at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College continues Tuesday with a performance by current and retired music educators from around South Georgia.
“From bagpipes to bass drum, from soprano to baritone, the evening will feature songs from Broadway, Disney and classic band repertoire, as well as new selections written by South Georgia band directors that have just been released for publication,” said Sheri Wyles, ABAC adjunct woodwind professor and concert coordinator.
The evening performances will consist of soloists and small ensembles, and will end with a large group performance.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m. in ABAC’s Howard Auditorium. All First Tuesday concerts are free and open to the public.
The First Tuesday performance lineup will continue in 2024 with an organ recital by Andrew Atkinson on Feb. 6, the ABAC Community Choir on March 5, and the Songs of Broadway on April 2.
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NOVEMBER'S 'BEAUTY SPOTS' | |
Tifton Grapevine Staff Reports | |
The Miller family home at 320 Findley Chase Lane in Tifton, pictured at right, is Keep Tift Beautiful's residential Beauty Spot for November.
The Plough Gallery at 216 W. Eighth St., pictured at left, has been named the commercial Beauty Spot of the month.
Keep Tift Beautiful is a city-county advisory board promoting recycling, community gardening, litter abatement, and outdoor beautification.
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TIFTON-TIFT TOURISM RECEIVES UGA-TIFTON 'FRIEND OF CAMPUS' AWARD | |
Tifton Grapevine Staff Reports | |
The Tifton-Tift County Tourism Association has received the “2023 Friend of the Campus Award” from the University of Georgia Tifton campus.
The award was presented Oct. 26 during UGA Tifton's annual campus awards ceremony.
"Tifton-Tift County Tourism has been a steadfast partner and true collaborator in our mission to deliver outstanding programming and drive business to Tifton," said Dr. Michael Toews, the campus' assistant dean.
The Tourism Association has partnered with the UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center since its inception to bring groups and events to Tifton.
In the photo, from left to right, is Toews; Frank Sayles Jr., chairman of the Tifton-Tift County Tourism Association; and Tyron Spearman, Tifton-Tift County tourism executive director.
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AREA ROTARIANS COME TOGETHER TO RAISE FUNDS FOR POLIO ERADICATION | |
By BONNIE SAYLES
Tifton Grapevine
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Four local Rotary Clubs combined forces to host a first-ever fundraiser, "Pints & Pinot to End Polio," at Horse Creek Winery last week and raised nearly $5,000 toward the eradication of polio globally.
Members and friends of Nashville-Berrien, Tifton, Valdosta, and Valdosta North Rotary clubs purchased 120 tickets and mingled and socialized while Stan Smith of Tifton performed background music Oct. 26.
Valdosta Rotary Club President Deanna Smith welcomed attendees and explained that she had heard about a similar event conducted by the Rotary clubs in the Brunswick area.
“I asked Alonso (Gomez-Martinez of Nashville-Berrien) and Bonnie (Sayles of Tifton) if they’d like to join me and do this as a joint project, not just to raise money for PolioPlus, but also to give us an opportunity to network and fellowship with our fellow Rotarians in our neighboring counties,” Smith said. Adam Smith of the Valdosta North club also came aboard and brought his father, Stan Smith, to provide music.
Rotary International (RI) began its fight against polio in 1979, Deanna Smith said, with a multi-year project to immunize 6 million children in the Philippines. Six years later in 1985, RI officially launched PolioPlus.
“It was the first and largest internationally coordinated private sector support of a public health initiative,” with an initial fundraising target of $120 million, she said. “At that time there were 350,000 cases of polio in around 125 countries across the world.”
This year, only seven cases of polio have been recorded – five in Afghanistan and two in Pakistan.
“If we continue to fight this good fight, it really looks like we’ll be able to wipe polio off the face of this earth in just three years by 2026,” Smith said.
In 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged $350 million to eradicate polio and issued Rotary a challenge grant of $200 million. “To this day, to every dollar that we raise, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donates two dollars," Smith said.
The $4,866 raised at the fundraiser will be matched twice by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a total of $14,598 toward efforts to vaccinate children worldwide against polio.
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TIFTON-TIFT COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE RIBBON CUTTING | |
Simmons Family Chiropractic
215 Fourth St. E., Tifton
Oct. 24
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PROVIDENCE SCHOOL PARTNERS WITH 'FEED THE NEED' TO PROVIDE MEALS | |
Tifton Grapevine Staff Reports | |
Providence School of Tifton has announced a partnership with Feed the Need, a non-profit organization combating hunger locally and globally for 13 years.
"We are thrilled to join forces with Feed the Need to address hunger in our community. This partnership aligns with our school's values of empathy, community, and service," said Headmaster Victoria Harris.
"We believe that by working together, we can make a real difference in the lives of our neighbors and instill in our students a sense of missional responsibility to give back."
Together with Feed the Need, Providence will launch a series of initiatives. The school's goal is to raise $45,000 to feed 10,000 people, distributing meals both locally and abroad through Feed the Need's network. This year, meals will support communities in Bangladesh.
Students, teachers, staff members, and families will have an opportunity to volunteer by physically packing the 10,000 meals. Feed The Need will set up a food distribution center on the school's campus where the community can participate in the program.
In addition to supporting Feed the Need's mission, the food drive will raise funds to meet the need for future development of the Tifton school.
Providence School of Tifton is a "Classical Christian School." For information about its partnership with Feed the Need, contact Kimberly Royal at kroyal@providencetift.com, 229-445-8180.
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TIFTON-TIFT COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE RIBBON CUTTING | |
587 Bistro
1005 Eighth St. W., Tifton
Oct. 25
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COVID-19 data released from the
Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) as of NOV. 1:
TOTAL TIFT COUNTY CASES: 7,125 ....................................... TOTAL TIFT DEATHS: 181
CONFIRMED TIFT CASES - 2 weeks: 5 ....................................... DEATHS - Past week: 0
CONFIRMED & SUSPECTED CASES: 24
TIFT CONFIRMED & SUSPECTED CASES - 2 weeks, per 100K population: 59
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GEORGIA TOTAL CASES: 2,405,638
GEORGIA CONFIRMED & SUSPECTED CASES - Past week: 3,115
TOTAL GA DEATHS: 35,814 ..................................................... GA DEATHS - Past week: 16
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YOUR GUIDE
TO ACTIVITIES
THIS WEEKEND
IN THE TIFTAREA
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Sunday, Nov. 5, is the end of Daylight Saving Time (DST), which began March 12. This means that not only do you get an extra hour of sleep, but it will also become darker earlier in the afternoon. There are proposals afoot to keep DST year round. Two years ago, the Georgia Legislature approved and Gov. Brian P. Kemp signed a law keeping Georgia in Daylight Saving Time. But that doesn’t mean anything unless Congress OKs the change, which has not occurred.
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FRIDAY, NOV. 3
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First Friday Concert, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Tifton Gardens, Downtown Tifton
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Arts Affair Concert: "Relapse" band, 7 p.m., outside the Syd Blackmarr Arts Center, Tifton
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Tiftarea Academy Panthers football vs. Terrell Academy Eagles, 7:30 p.m., Panther Pit, Chula
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Tift County High Blue Devils football @ Lee County High Trojans, 7:30 p.m., Leesburg
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Ashley McBryde in concert, 8 p.m., UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center, Tifton
SATURDAY, NOV. 4
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Wiregrass Farmers Market, 9 a.m.-noon, Georgia Museum of Agriculture, Tifton
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Arts Affair Festival, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Syd Blackmarr Arts Center, Love Avenue, Tifton
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Dominic Gaudious, guitarist, in concert, 7 p.m., Tift Theatre for the Performing Arts, Downtown Tifton
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Big Daddy Weave: Heaven Changes Everything Tour, 7 p.m., Tift County High Performing Arts Center, TCHS, Tifton
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THIS WEEKEND'S
YARD SALES
Yard Sale
611 W. 20th Street
7-11
11/4/23
Tifton
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Family Yard Sale
This Saturday, 11/4/2023, from 7-11.
6005 Lake Shore Drive,
Tifton, Ga.
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TO ADVERTISE YOUR RESIDENTIAL YARD SALE,
CONTACT US at
IHeardIt@tiftongrapevine.com
or 478-227-7126
Fees are $1 per word, paid in advance
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TIFTON GRAPEVINE'S DOG OF THE WEEK | |
"Apple" is awaiting her forever home. Come see Apple and other pets available for adoption at the Tift County Animal Shelter on Highway 125 South, open between 1-6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. For additional information, call 229-382-PETS (7387). | |
OCT. 24
Pamela Regina Williams, 57,
Worth County
Mae Shelton McCrackin Cheshire, 99, Tifton
Norma Jean Worley Boggs Nicholson, 95, Tifton
Hank Giddens, 61, Adel
Ronald Leon Miller, 83, Ocilla
John Wayne Battle Jr., 59, Tifton
Pamela Regina Williams, 57, Ashburn
OCT. 25
Jean Carolyn Stroud Lott, 88, Fitzgerald
Tyler Kilpatrick Stevens, Tifton
OCT. 26
Gabriel AidanMiguel Molina, 3, Warwick
Dorothy “Dot” Herrington Malloy, 97, Ocilla
Winifred A. Christner, 87, Lakeland
Barry Thomas Nugent, 61, Nashville
Diane Raciti, 79, Nashville
Michael Abbott, 65, Adel
OCT. 27
Mary F. Demange, 88, Tifton
Dale Shurtleff II, 46, Ray City
OCT. 28
Derek Andrew Ball, 38, Sandy Springs, formerly of Tifton
Don Williams, 64, Lenox
Sarah Louise Watson Rigdon, 95, Chapel Hill, N.C., formerly of Ashburn
OCT. 29
Devin Anderson Estes, 5, Tifton
Lila Patricia “Patsy” Purvis, 69, Alapaha
Shawn Michelle White, 45, Tifton
OCT. 30
Elizabeth Claire Catrabone, 85, Marietta, formerly of Ocilla & Fitzgerald
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OCT. 31
Gail Weaver Kirkland, 72, Tifton
Janie Ruth Green Rizer, 88, Barney,
James Preston “Jim” Seward Jr., 80 Nashville
Janna J. Maricle, 68, Fitzgerald
Homer Barnett, 84, Adel
NOV. 1
Catherine Ann Driggers O'Quinn, 88, Tifton
Anne Elizabeth Harnage, 77, Nashville
Donald Gary “Don” McGee, 66, Nashville,
NOV. 2
Frances Ray, 88, Nashville,
Libby Marie Connell, 90, Asheville, N.C., formerly of Adel
Roger Lee Bowling, 71, Nashville
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Tifton Grapevine
e-published every Tuesday and Friday
Frank Sayles Jr.
Editor & Publisher
Bonnie Sayles
Managing Editor
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