13A - Northeast Georgia History Center

13A
Journalism and the First Amendment of Northeast Georgia
Cornelia
Employees of The Northeast Georgian and Georgia Mountain Press gather in front of the paper’s
Goss press. The Northeast Georgian and Georgia Mountain Press moved to their new office
in Cornleia in the fall of 2000. Pictured are Publisher Alan NeSmith and employees Mark Van
Tassel, Sandra McEntire, Dayton Sosebee, Carrie Elrod, Lee Dunlap, Mark Turner, Treva Bennett,
Judy Dyer, Alice Davis, Ramona Dooley, Phyllis Terrell, Regina Fried, Gabby Parham, Linda Carder,
Adam Bushey, Roy O’Barr, Tyler Vinson, Vicki Vinson, Bernadette Mastracchio, Betty Collins, Pat
Shook, Christina Santee, Gaynell Gunn, Bridget Foster, Clarence Gunn, Lane Gresham, Donald
Fraser, April Compton and Jonathan Arena.
The Northeast Georgian is 120 years old
Founded in Demorest in
1892, The Northeast Georgian,
Cornelia’s local newspaper, has
through the years become a central printing plant for a number
of newspapers in the region.
During the early years of Cornelia, several papers appeared
in publication, including the Yonah Land Enterprise in Cornelia, which was started by Roscoe
C. Burch and W.B. Ellard Sr.;
The Cornelia News in Cornelia,
which was started by J.A. Henderson; and The Northeast Georgian, which was printed by Seth
Vining in Demorest.
The Yonah Land Enterprise
went through a number of managers and owners and finally was
combined with the Cornelia News
by J.A. Henderson. The name
of the paper changed to the The
Cornelia News and Enterprise.
During the 1920s, Seth Vining
purchased The Cornelia News
and Enterprise and combined it
with his, The Northeast Georgian, and moved the paper to
Cornelia.
The Northeast Georgian then
was sold to Sidney Heindel Sr.
According to Sidney Heindel
Jr., his father bought the paper
in 1926 or ’27. During his ownership, Mrs. Jennie Heindel wrote
news for the paper, and Sidney
Heindel Jr. was employed by his
father.
The Northeast Georgian was
owned by Sidney Heindel until
1948 or ’49, when he sold the paper
to the now-defunct The Gainesville News, owned by Charles B.
Hardy Sr. (no relation to Inez
Hardy Yates, wife of later owner
and publisher Robert A. Yates).
During the ownership of the
Hardy family, The Northeast
Georgian became the first Georgia weekly to be set in cold type
and printed on an offset press.
(See story elsewhere about the first
offset press in Georgia.)
When The Gainesville News
folded in 1956, The Northeast
Georgian continued to be printed
in a commercial shop for several
months, then ceased publication
for six months.
Ownership then was purchased by Dr. William Ariail
and Robert A. Yates in 1957.
Ariail was a local doctor who
purchased the subscription list
and office equipment. Robert
A. “Bob” Yates had been an employee of Sidney Heindel Sr. from
1938-1947.
Yates purchased the printing
equipment needed to publish the
newspaper in Cornelia. In the
spring of 1957, Ariail sold his interest in the newspaper to Bob
and Inez Yates. Mrs. Yates, the
former Inez Hardy, is a Cornelia
native.
Yates, who had worked for the
Joplin Globe in Joplin, Mo., and
the Wichita Eagle in Wichita,
Kan., used his experience to begin to make the newspaper grow.
The
Northeast
Georgian
moved its location from downtown to Level Grove Road in 1968
and became printer for several
weekly newspapers in the area.
In 1974, Yates sold The Northeast
Georgian to Community Newspapers Inc. However, he and his
wife continued to locally manage
the paper until he retired in 1981.
Yates worked 50 years in the
newspaper field.
Mrs. Yates continued to work
for the paper until 1983.
The Northeast Georgian then
was under the management of
Yates’ son-in-law, Bobby E. Williams, and daughter, Mary Ellyn Williams, who took over the
management in 1981, along with
management of other papers purchased in the area by the parent
company.
During the 1970s and 1980s,
The Northeast Georgian and
Community Newspapers purchased the White County News in
Cleveland, The Dahlonega Nugget in Dahlonega, the Tri-County
Advertiser in Clarkesville and
began publication of The Chieftain in Toccoa, along with printing the Franklin County Citizen
in Lavonia. Other commercial
print jobs also were handled in
Cornelia.
Community Newspapers Inc.
purchased The Toccoa Record,
combining it with The Chieftain
as the Chieftain & Toccoa Record
in October 1995. The offices were
consolidated into The Toccoa
Record’s headquarters on the
downtown mall. After undergoing a redesign in 2000, that paper
again became known as The Toccoa Record.
On April 1, 1998, The Northeast Georgian began twice-weekly publication.
The newspaper purchased
property at 2440 Old Athens
Highway and moved into its new
location October 2, 2000.
The Georgia Mountain Press,
a press plant headquartered at
The Northeast Georgian, each
week prints The Dahlonega
Nugget, the Dawson News & Advertiser, the White County News
and The Clayton Tribune, as
well as the two editions of The
Northeast Georgian; The Raider’s
Log (Habersham Central High
School’s student newspaper); The
Navigator (Piedmont College’s
student newspaper) and other
contract printing jobs.
Johnny Solesbee became publisher on Oct. 2, 1988. He was regional publisher from that point
on, but the “regional publisher”
title was created by CNI in 1991.
He remained publisher of The
Northeast Georgia Region and
published The Northeast Georgian until March of 2010.
In March 2010, Alan NeSmith
became publisher of The Northeast Georgian. NeSmith was publisher of the Tribune & Georgian
in St. Marys for five years before
relocating.
In June 2010, the newspaper
launched its online e-edition.
This historical sketch, written by Mary Ellyn Williams, has
been updated.
Attempt to move courthouse outside city
prompted recall effort, citizens’ anger
By E. Lane Gresham
and Don Fraser
With a coverage area spanning
more than 250 miles and seven municipalities, The Northeast Georgian’s responsibility is extraordinary. Add in a county commission,
a school board and the industrial
development authority. Add to that
a vibrant sports scene, including
recreation department, middle and
high school and college-level athletics, and an overflowing slate of special events.
Since 1892, The Northeast Georgian has been present, distilling
and sharing stories important to
more than 8,000 subscribers.
One issue affecting all taxpayers has been the long-standing controversy over where to locate the
county’s judicial center. Residents
engaged early in 2011 when tempers boiled over.
Spending of tax dollars and voter concern about arrogance of political power fueled a bonfire of public
outrage regarding a proposed judicial center in Habersham County.
The story ignited in 2008, when
county commissioners decided to
purchase a 30-plus acre site for the
judicial center. The $1.2 million
land cost, purchased with Special
Purpose Local Option Sales tax
revenue, and the fact the property
was not in Clarkesville, the county
seat, significantly angered a portion of the population, especially
since a 12-acre site in the city, purchased by the county years before,
had been the oft-talked-about building site.
There followed recall campaigns
against three county commissioners and threatened lawsuits.
Tri-chairs for the recall were the
chairs of the Habersham County
Democratic Party, Republican Party and Habersham Patriot Party.
The three were also co-chairs for
a self-termed ad hoc Bi-Partisan
Committee seeking to stop judicial
center construction spending.
Also at play was barely contained
dislike between the Habersham
County Commission and members
of Clarkesville City Council, which
would have to approve annexing
the proposed judicial center site
into the city limits.
As is often the case, the recall
campaigns fell. So, too, fell annexation pleas by the county.
The 2010 elections saw two of
three commissioners wrapped up
in the recall campaigns opt not to
seek re-election.
The two new commissioners
both campaigned against the outof-city judicial center site, but after
election, postponed final judgment
until after public hearings sched-
uled for February 2011, shortly after they attained office.
The year 2011 saw the situation
culminate. The Northeast Georgian
had more than 16 stories examining the issue, public sentiment and
the cost to taxpayers, as well as a
number of editorials weighing in
on the disastrous handling of the
matter by the commission. After
commissioners decided to go back
to square one and build on the previously approved site, the paper did
a three-part retrospective wrap-up
of the matter.
The Northeast Georgian also
tracked subsequent judicial center
design plans and the commission’s
decision to re-account the $1.2 million land purchase from its judicial
center SPLOST account to an economic development account.
In June of 2012, the site was being graded for construction. The
Northeast Georgian has been documenting the construction progress
on a weekly basis and providing updates via our print product, website
and Facebook pages.
The latest stories, published
June 1 and June 22, 2012, bring to
the public information on the need
to blast rock from the site to make
way for stormwater piping.
E. Lane Gresham and Don Fraser
are members of The Northeast Georgian’s news staff.
The above image is thought to be the first Habersham County
courthouse located in Clarkesville. Habersham County was
formed by the Georgia Legislature on December 15, 1818. The
original courthouse, located about four miles north of what
is today Clarkesville on the Soque River, was probably a log
structure. This structure was the first in the new county seat of
Clarkesville. Clarkesville was chartered in 1824 five years after
the establishment of Habersham County and named after Revolutionary War hero General Elijah Clarke. His son, John C. Clarke
(who served in the Georgia Militia during the Revolutionary War)
was governor of Georgia, serving two terms from 1820-1824.
Some accounts have the county seat named after Governor
Clarke; however, since he was governor at the time Clarkesville
was formed, the town was probably named after his father.