Category: People

A generous giveaway is helping to restore the area’s tree canopy after Hurricane Helene.

It’s amazing what can happen when people put their heads together to do something for the greater good.

As the recovery process has dragged on since Hurricane Helene struck in September, Jordan Trotter Commercial Real Estate employees decided to brainstorm about ways to help the community bounce back from the devastation of the storm. They came up with the idea to give away two trees per family in an initiative called “Rooting for Augusta: Restoring Augusta’s Tree Canopy.”

“Our two partners, Troy Jordan and Dennis Trotter, really value the community and giving back to the community,” says Riley Morris, marketing associate. The company partnered with GoBuyPlants and Four Seasons Landscaping Inc. for the giveaway.

Initially planned as a two-hour event that was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. Saturday, January 11, all of the trees – 700 in total – were distributed in an hour and 15 minutes.

People started showing up for the drive-through event in front of the Family Y track on Wheeler Road at 7:15 a.m., Riley says, but they didn’t start giving out trees until 9 a.m. as scheduled.

They loaded trees into truck beds, back seats of cars or trunks.

“People came in everything from trailers to Honda Accords,” says Morris. “It didn’t matter what kind of vehicle they had. We made it work.”

The giveaway included native tree species such as magnolias, cedars, red and white oaks, sycamores and elms.

“Our employees went car-to-car and took everyone’s tree order,” says Morris. “The magnolia and cedar trees went really fast. The red oaks and white oaks went right after them. Even though two trees won’t replace the 20 trees that people might have lost, you have to start somewhere.”

The giveaway not only was designed to help restore Augusta’s tree canopy. The event also was a community-driven effort to replant, revitalize and regrow the landscape for future generations.

“Everyone lost a lot in the storm. Some people lost their homes or cars,” Morris says. “There was so much devastation, and everyone was looking for some glimmer of hope. We all want to see the CSRA restored to what it once was.”

The real estate company also is considering holding another tree giveaway in the future.

“I think it turned out better than we ever could have imagined,” says Morris. “We’ve had great feedback, but we would like to hear from the community to see if this is something they would like for us to do again.”

From fairies to potheads (literally), this yard art is an expression of personality and playfulness.

There’s no rest for makers like Michelle Scarborough Johnson, who has been creating yard art and garden sculptures for the past 10 years.

Her creative juices never stop flowing – even in her sleep.

“I’ll wake up in the morning with an idea and think, ‘I could do this,’” Michelle says.

The retired critical care nurse makes her pieces out of hypertufa, which is a lightweight, porous, manmade rock consisting of Portland cement and aggregates such as vermiculite, perlite, peat moss or sand. She mixes up the cement-based substance, which is a substitute for a porous type of limestone called tufa, herself using a recipe she found online.

“I honestly don’t remember where I saw it, but I taught myself,” Michelle says.

Recycled and Refurbished

Yard art is just the latest creative endeavor for this self-taught artist.

“I sew a lot. I paint. I quilt,” Michelle says. “I always wanted to make pottery, but you need a kiln. I love gardening.”

When Michelle was 10 years old, her grandmother taught her how to sew. Otherwise, however, she taught herself the other crafts.

“It’s very fulfilling for me to be making something all the time,” says Michelle, a mother of six who earned her nursing degree at age 42.

She makes hats out of refurbished materials, and for every hat she sells, she donates one to someone in need.

She also incorporates discarded and recyclable materials such as wine bottles, plastics, metal hardware, balloons, ice cream containers, milk jugs and strips of fabric into her hypertufa projects.

“I wrap the bottles in old clothes that can’t be donated,” says Michelle. “I dip the fabric in cement. As it dries, I build it on top of the mixture.”

Her tools include old screwdrivers, picks, a drill and paintbrushes. “I just make do with what I have,” she says.

Fairies and Potheads

Michelle hand-molds her pieces, and she works in her outdoor studio on her 2-acre property in Blythe. Some of her favorite things to make are fairies and “potheads,” which are head-shaped planters.

“I talk to them while I’m making them,” Michelle says. “Some of them are kind of flirtatious. They have smoochy lips. The snarky ones have sly smiles. They develop a personality as I’m making them. I feel like people want to buy them when they see something in them. I don’t make their personality. I just let it evolve.”

Although each fairy and pothead has its own personality, they have a lot of similarities in their faces because of the way Michelle molds them. In addition, they generally have one characteristic in common. Most of them have their eyes closed.

“They look peaceful to me,” Michelle says. “I’ve done them with their eyes open, but they don’t look as happy.”

She rarely names her creations, either. “I let everybody choose what they want to call their pothead,” she says.

One of her fairies, which has rosy cheeks and wings, a blue dress and hair made of bed springs, has been selected for inclusion in the Greater Augusta Arts Council’s WetPaint Party & Art Sale on Friday, March 8.

To make fairy wings, she casts elephant ears or various leaves that she finds in her garden. “I use old jewelry on the fairies,” Michelle says. “I used to make jewelry, so I have a lot of jewelry supplies.”

To make a pothead, she starts with a balloon that she wraps in strips of cement-dipped fabric. Once it dries, she turns it upside down to drill a hole in the bottom.

While Michelle can shape a piece in an hour or two, it can take a few days to finish the yard art because the work has to be done in stages. However, she says she can spend a month making a garden fairy.

Texture and Color

Michelle also paints her hypertufa pieces with acrylics, and after drying and curing them, she seals them with concrete so they can withstand the elements.

“I love texture and color,” she says. “They’re just so natural and pretty.”

She likes secondary colors such as purple, teal and orange, and she highlights textures with off-white paint. However, she tries to make her pieces look natural in their outdoor setting.

“I want them to look like they belong there, but I also want them to stand out,” Michelle says.

She paints the elephant ears, which she also uses to make yard art such as birdbaths, a different color from the grass to make them stand out. In addition, she makes totem poles by putting a piece of rebar in the ground and stacking it with hypertufa pieces that she makes one at a time.

Six years ago, she spent the entire summer building a pathway with pavers she made out of cement to connect the greenhouses in her garden.

Although she doesn’t use her nursing skills in her craft, she has found that it takes a combination of art and science to create a piece.

She needs to use the correct proportions of aggregates when she mixes the hypertufa so it doesn’t crumble. Anatomy also comes into play when she makes fairies and potheads because “the ears need to be equal with the eyes.”

In addition, she says, “My pieces are not anatomically correct, but that’s part of the fun of it.”

Creativity and Connection

Michelle started a Facebook page called Hypertufa Heffas, which is named after the heifers that graze in a field behind her property. She sells most of her work on various Facebook sites or by word-of-mouth.

“It’s fun when somebody really loves a face and they connect with it somehow,” Michelle says. “Sometimes the personality speaks to them. I love that somebody loves a piece.”

She teaches group and private classes and hosts parties at her outdoor studio when the weather is warm. She also loves the creative process and the ability to bring joy to others with her work.

“Being able to create something frees up your mind. You can get lost in it. When you’re gone, you have something to leave behind. Something you make by hand is more important than a piece of furniture,” says Michelle. “It’s good for my spirit to be creative. I think artists just have this need to always be making something.”

By Leigh Howard

Local PGA Tour player Luke List and his wife, Chloe, an Evans High School alum, recently presented a check for $250,000 to Children’s Hospital of Georgia to support the expansion of its Children’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The donation was made possible by the proceeds List earned when he won the RSM Birdies for Love charity competition during the 2022-23 PGA Tour season.

The Lists’ son, Harrison, was born prematurely June 5, 2021. After leaving the hospital, Harrison soon was readmitted due to RSV, a respiratory virus, and was intubated for two days. He ultimately spent two weeks in intensive care at Children’s Hospital.

“It means so much to me and my family to have this opportunity to give back,” List said. “We want to share our story just to have people know what they do here and how much they’re really giving and really change lives.”

Disney World meets the North Pole for the holidays at this Evans home

Some people celebrate Christmas by stringing hundreds of lights on their house every year. Others blanket their yard with a dozen holiday inflatables. Minimalists might hang a single wreath on the door.

Then there’s Evans resident Monty “Santa” Clark, who hand-crafts his own outdoor decorations for the holidays. For almost four decades, he has built life-size, Christmas-themed plywood cutouts of Disney characters to display on his front lawn in St. Andrews subdivision off of Evans to Locks Road.

“You have to create love this time of year,” says Clark, who also dresses as jolly old St. Nick. “I want people to come to my house to see what I’ve done – and bring a smile with them.”

Lawn Party
Clark, who works as an electrical construction supervisor, made his first cutout 37 years ago. His mother had made a Santa Claus and a Disney character to put in her yard two years earlier, and he was inspired.

“I loved them, and I wanted to do it, too,” Clark says.

His wife, Lynne, aka his “quality control officer,” was on board, and the tradition grew after their now-grown children, Rebekah, Peyton and Seth, were born. With the addition of four granddaughters and a grandson to the family, their efforts only intensified.

However, he not only made characters for his wife and children. He constructed Goofy in 1990 for his stepfather. After he passed away, however, his mother gave the cutout back to her son.

He also made the eight not-so-tiny reindeer pulling a sleigh for his late father-in-law. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, which Clark made 25 or 30 years ago, are longtime members of the cutout family as well.

Other characters at the lawn party include Donald Duck and Daisy Duck, along with Huey, Dewey and Louie; Scrooge McDuck; Pluto; Winnie the Pooh with Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore; and Pongo and Perdita, the lovestruck pups of 101 Dalmatians fame.

As Clark’s family has changed, so has the cast of characters.

“Every couple of years or so, I build a new one,” says Clark. “When I had granddaughters, I had to start making Disney princesses.”

In honor of the film, Frozen, he built a vignette of characters including Elsa; Anna; Olaf, the snowman; and Sven, the reindeer.

Another set includes the stars of Beauty and the Beast such as Belle; the Beast; Mrs. Potts, the enchanted teapot; and Lumiere, the charismatic candelabra.

“I like to make scenes and groupings of different characters,” Clark says.

Join the Crowd
Clark first picked up a paintbrush before he started making the cutouts. After he was electrocuted on the job in 1981, painting was part of his therapy when he was in and out of the hospital for 11 months as a burn patient.

He uses exterior house paint on the plywood characters so they can withstand the elements. He paints the side, back and bottom of every board. To fill in the details, he uses makeup brushes.

“I paint until the character comes alive and tells me that I’m done,” Clark says. “Once the character looks like it can talk to me, I know I’m finished. It says, ‘Thank you for making me. I’m ready to join the crowd.’”

When his daughters were young and invited friends to their house to play, the girls always wanted to help. Some of the characters that he made with them include Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

“I let the kids paint them, and I told them not to worry about any mistakes because I could paint over them,” says Clark.

It takes him about four days to make a character, but he doesn’t have a particular plan for deciding which one to create. “I just feel it,” he says.

The Clarks start putting the cutouts in their yard the day after Halloween, and it takes them about three weeks to have each one in place.

“It’s a family activity,” Clark says. “They help me paint the characters and set them up in the yard.”

Visiting children can touch the characters and have their pictures taken with them. Although people have tried to buy the cutouts from him, he never sells them.

When Clark retires a character, he gives it to one of hisaughters to put in her yard.

Ho, Ho, Ho
Clark has been dressing as “Santa Clark” for about 10 years, and he knew when the time was right to take on his alter ego.

“My hair and my beard turned snow white,” he says.

As “Santa Clark,” he spends time with special needs children and does a few private parties. He uses the income he earns from the parties to donate to charities or to buy gifts for others.

On a Saturday or Sunday each year, Clark dons his Santa suit and sits in his yard so people can take pictures with him. The day varies, according to his schedule or the weather, but he posts a sign at the entrance to the subdivision to let passersby know they can visit Santa Claus.

“I enjoy bringing a smile to people’s faces,” he says. “People might be having a bad day, but they’re going to smile when they see Santa.”

They can’t help but grin when they see his characters as well.

“I want people to enjoy them, relax and feel good when they leave,” Clark says.

Get ready “fore” some music and golf with the area’s favorite sons and their celebrity guests.

Take a swing at some fun with Columbia County natives John, Josh and Charles Kelley when they host their second annual Sticks & Strings charity concert and golf tournament this month.

The festivities will include songs and stories from the Kelley brothers as they share their family’s love of music and golf with their friends and community.

Thomas Rhett, Darius Rucker and Jake Owen will join the Kelleys at the Columbia County Performing Arts Center for their charity concert on Sunday, November 19. Doors open at 6 p.m.; the concert begins at 7 p.m.

The golf tournament will be held at Champions Retreat on Monday, November 20. Registration and check-in begin at 9 a.m.; the shotgun start is scheduled for 11 a.m.

Proceeds from the event will benefit First Tee – Augusta, 12 Bands of Christmas and The John W. Kelley, M.D., Cardiovascular Endowment at the Piedmont Augusta Foundation. In last year’s inaugural event, they raised $45,000 for these charities.

Tickets are $40 to $350. For more information, visit kelleybrosgolf.com.

Crystal McDowell of Greenbrier High School has been named the 2023-24 Columbia County School District Teacher of the Year. She teaches biology and anatomy to students in grades nine through 12.

Her winnings include the opportunity to drive a 2023 BMW X1 on a one-year lease that is donated by Taylor BMW at no cost to the teacher.

In addition, ACHS Insurance donates insurance coverage at no cost and Affordable Auto Insurance donates a $1,000 gas voucher.

The University of Georgia creates a buzz by developing the world’s first vaccine for honeybees.

Most people regard insects as a nuisance to be swatted away. Not honeybees, however.

These pollinators are instrumental in the global production of foods that rely on insects for pollination, and, with the development of the first vaccine for the world’s honeybees, beekeepers now can protect their colonies.

The vaccine resulted from a collaboration between the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) and Dalan Animal Health, a biotech company based at UGA’s Innovation Hub in Athens. According to Environment News Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved the vaccine for two years on a conditional basis.

The vaccine is intended to help honeybees resist American foulbrood, a destructive disease that can wipe out entire bee colonies.

“You don’t have to look far to know honeybees are having a lot of problems right now. Hives will die unless you intercede with herculean efforts,” says Keith Delaplane, professor in the CAES Department of Entomology and director of the UGA Bee Program.

“Queen Candy”

While traditional vaccines are injected with a syringe, the honeybee vaccine is mixed into the queen feed that is consumed by worker bees and then fed to the queen.

After she ingests it, the inoculated queen, for the remainder of her lifetime, will produce worker bees that are primed to be immune to foulbrood as they hatch.

“This work is so new,” says Annette Kleiser, co-founder and CEO of Dalan. “There are no guidelines, no handbook. We are developing, together with Keith, what will be the gold standard for these trials. It’s really exciting; it is the first of its kind.”

Pollinators such as bees are responsible for one of every three bites of food humans eat, according to the USDA, and U.S. crops that depend on honeybee pollination are valued at more than $15 billion.

However, pollinator numbers have been declining for years. According to a survey by the Bee Informed Partnership, U.S. beekeepers lost 39 percent of their honeybees from April 2021 through April 2022.

“People don’t understand how hard it is to keep bees alive,” says Delaplane. “I can’t imagine a more frightening branch of agriculture to be in. It takes ceaseless attention.”

The animal vaccine can be used in organic agriculture, and it will be available on a limited basis to commercial beekeepers this year.

Who You Gonna Call?

If a swarm of honeybees takes up residence in your house, it’s now safer to tell them to buzz off. A new Honeybee Control and Removal state certification program requires pest control companies and operators who provide the service in Georgia to be certified and licensed.

The new law prohibits the use of pesticides in honeybee removal, so it’s better for your home and the bees.

From kayaks to fly fishing rods, an Evans father and son create functional wood works of art.

About 10 years ago, Evans resident Bradley Bertram, aka one of the Eye Guys, was looking for something to do to fill the cold-weather months. Or, perhaps more specifically, his wife, Paige, was looking for something for him to do, so for Christmas she gave him the plans and materials to build a wooden kayak.

“Shortly after that, she described herself as a ‘kayak widow,’” Bradley says.

Especially since the 14-month project ended up spanning two winters. However, it wasn’t a solitary endeavor. Bradley’s then-adolescent son, Collin, who is now a 22-year-old college senior, got involved as well. He had built a couple of small model boats, but he was ready for a bigger, better challenge.

“I got interested in it right away. I like building things, boats, boating and fishing,” says Collin. “We jumped from building small model boats a foot long to building actual boats. I’m always in the garage helping with something, so it morphed into that.”

The Eyes Have It

The first kayak they built was an 80-pound tandem. However, during covid in 2020 and 2021, when many of us were binge-watching TV shows, they decided to build a 40-pound, one-person kayak. The newest vessel sports a pair of eyes on its deck, so naturally, Bradley dubbed it their “KeyeYAK.”

“I’m the king of dad humor,” he says. “My specialty is corneal surgery, so I’m the king of ‘corn’-ea.”

The Bertrams built the single KeyeYAK in six months. “It was easier to make than the first one, but adding the eyes made it harder,” says Bradley. “We turned a hatch into an eye, and every part of the eye is a different wood with a different color.”

The pupil is walnut; the iris is western red cedar; the sclera is Alaskan yellow cedar.

“Each kayak has a set of plans, but you can do what you want with them,” Bradley says.

In fact, their next kayak will be a racing-style model with an inlaid blue heron on the deck.

To construct the kayaks, the Bertrams use the stitch-and-glue method to stitch pre-cut plywood panels together with wire and then glue the seams with a mix of epoxy resin and wood flour. Once the kayak is assembled, they trim the exposed wire. Then, to waterproof and strengthen the wood, they cover it in protective layers of fiberglass.

“Most of the weight is in the epoxy,” says Bradley. “We put five pounds of epoxy in each end of the kayak. If we run into something, it’s protected.”

The hull is made of 8-inch mahogany plywood, and the deck consists of cedar and walnut strips.

“We’ll do 30 to 60 minutes of work, and then we have to wait while it dries,” Bradley says. “There’s a lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’”

Father and son also have developed an effective division of labor for their projects.

“Collin gets the jobs where a limber person is needed,” says Bradley. “He crawls in the hull to put in the filler and epoxy.”

He also is in charge of sanding the wood, a practice that dates back to his youth when he enjoyed dressing the part in surgical gown, goggles and ear protectors.

“At that age, using a power tool for hours is the best thing in the world,” Collin says. “Not so much now, though. It’s the most tedious part of the project.”

The younger Bertram doesn’t seem to mind, though. “We work well as a team,” he says. “We coordinate with each other all the time. My dad will work on the kayaks when I’m at school, and I work on them when he’s at work.”

Bradley says a lot of planning – and psychology – are involved in the construction process.

“Psychology comes into play in boat building. You get very obsessive-compulsive about it,” he says. “You question if it’s good enough, or if you should start over. We learned not to set a deadline because then it becomes work, and that takes the fun out of it.”

‘Good for the Soul’

Woodworking is as soothing as paddling on open water for the Bertrams, and Collin loves the creativity as well.

“You start with a tree, and you can manipulate it yourself into almost anything,” he says.

Bradley appreciates the yin and yang of their avocation.

“Part of it is very mindful. You really have to plan and think about what you’re doing so you don’t mess it up,” he says. “Then there’s part of it, like sanding, that’s mindless. Mindless work is good for the soul.”

While they love to take their kayaks out on the water, they’re always concerned that they might damage them by inadvertently paddling over a rock.

“In fact, both hulls have been repaired from doing just that,” says Bradley.

The risk to their handiwork doesn’t deter them from paddling, however.

“If you go through everything it takes to build it, you’re going to use it,” Collin says. “Open water is better for a wood kayak. You don’t want to take it around rocks or on rapids. If you scratch the hull or the top, it takes three days of work to bring it back to what it was.”

Besides beauty and durability, the Bertrams say wood kayaks have other benefits as well.

For instance, Bradley says, “The small one is lighter than a fiberglass counterpart.”

“You can cut through the water fast in a wood kayak. A lot of plastic kayaks have a fin or a rudder,” Collin says. “You don’t have to worry about a wood kayak going one direction or the other. It’s going to go straight.”

‘Then You Go Fishing’

The Bertrams have made other items, including custom fly fishing rods that they crafted three summers ago at a class they took together at Oyster Bamboo in Blue Ridge, Georgia.

While Bradley built a rod with a tortoiseshell finish and rattan grip, Collin crafted a solid wood rod with a cork grip.

“There’s constant anxiety that you’re going to do something wrong,” Bradley says. “You either love it or hate it.”

“If you’re off by one one-thousandth of an inch, it will take you another day to redo it,” adds Collin.

They worked on their rods all day from Monday through Saturday, and for the record, they didn’t mess up. “And then you go fishing on Sunday,” says Bradley.

Collin caught a 22-inch rainbow trout with his brand new rod. “You could still smell the varnish on the rod,” his father says.

They also have made cutting boards for gifts, but they don’t sell their work. They built a river table headboard for Collin’s bed out of maple wood, and currently, they’re working on a maple river table for the screened porch at their house.

“When I’m building something, it’s out of need. I want something functional,” says Collin.

Family Legacy

Bradley also likes the idea of creating family heirlooms to pass down to his children. In fact, when Collin’s twin sister, Carter, left home for college, she refinished her grandfather’s desk and took it to school with her.

“My dad built the desk in a woodshop class when he was in high school in 1930,” says Bradley.

The kayaks are destined to become part of the Bertram legacy as well.

“I’ve instructed that they are to never leave the family,” Bradley says.

By Betsy Gilliland