Here is the latest arrest report from the Chattooga County Sheriff’s Office for Wednesday, March 6, 2024:
The Chattooga County Registrars Office says 985 voters have cast their ballots in person in early voting for the March 12th Presidential Preference Primary. Seventy-five mail-in absentee ballots have been issued. The last day to request an absentee ballot was last Friday. As of yesterday, forty-one mail-in ballots had been accepted and one absentee ballot was rejected. Advance voting continues until Friday of this week. All early voting in Chattooga County takes place at the Registrars Office, located at 10017 Commerce Street in Summerville. Voting hours today, tomorrow and Friday are from 8:30 AM until 5 PM.
On Tuesday, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Judge Don Thompson issued and emergency ruling saying that candidates who were rejected by the Catoosa County Republican Party’s vetting committee can qualify as Republicans in the GOP Primary.
On Wednesday February 21, 2024, Chattooga County jurors convicted Vincent Ray Hix, 35, of Aggravated Battery after less than twenty minutes of deliberation. Over the course of the two-day trial, the evidence showed that Hix started an argument with his girlfriend and then struck her with an object. The victim was able to escape the home and make it to a neighbor’s house where 911 was called.
State School Superintendent Richard Woods announced the success of the Georgia Department of Education’s statewide service initiative, Georgia Schools Care, held from November 8 through December 15, 2023. This annual initiative brought together the entire educational family, including students and staff, fostering a sense of community and support for a shared cause.
Dr. P.J. Lynn, medical director of emergency and hospital medicine at Atrium Health Floyd Cherokee Medical Center, has received the 2023 Family Physician Community and Volunteer Services Award from the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians. The award recognizes physicians’ outstanding support of their local communities and outstanding contributions in philanthropy.
Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC) has named Jennifer Reynolds, career transition specialist at GNTC’s Floyd County Campus in Rome, as its 2024 Staff Member of the Year Award winner.
Chattooga County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a call about a fire that started near a group of tents that were pitched in the woods behind the Carousel Inn in Trion on February 27th. When deputies arrived on the scene, they spoke with a man who was standing in his underwear. Deputies asked if he knew how the fire started and the man accused one of the deputies of starting the fire. The fire had spread through the wooded area and to a vehicle near the wood line. Deputies believe that the fire was started by the man who accused the deputy of starting the fire. He was identified as sixty-three-year-old Jeffery Baxter Hines. Hines was arrested and taken to the Chattooga County Jail and charged with reckless conduct.
Chattooga County Sheriff Mark Schrader identified the teenager who drowned while fishing at Sloppy Floyd State Park in Summerville this past Saturday. Sheriff Schrader said on Tuesday that the drowning victim was sixteen-year-old Corbin Thornton of Springville, Alabama. According to the sheriff, Thornton was camping with his family when he decided to go fishing. He was fishing in an area that had a steep bank. It appears that he may have had a medical episode and fell into the water. A family that was walking a trail above him located him in the water.
Chattooga County Deputies responded to a call about a man passed out in a truck in a field off Oakhill-Alpine Road last week. When deputies arrived and spoke with the man, he told deputies that he had been arguing with his girlfriend and had driven to the field “to get away” from her. The man was advised that he was parked on private property. Deputies noticed the man appeared to have been drinking. The man told deputies that he had five beers before driving to the field. There were two containers of beer open, inside the truck. Sixty-five-year-old Ricky Dean Strahan was arrested and charged with DUI and open container of alcohol and was taken to the Chattooga County Jail.