Photos courtesy of Jacob Boland

A fast-working local artist loves to create quirky characters that show up anywhere from volumes of sketchbooks to public places.

Local cartoonist and illustrator Jacob Boland, who creates original characters with ink and paint, often encourages fellow artists to make their work public or share it with other people.

“A lot of people are nervous about showing their stuff,” he says.

Once upon a time, Boland, who has been drawing since childhood, was one of those people. “For years, I would keep everything in a sketchbook,” he says. “A couple of local artists saw my work online and told me to share it.”

That was about five years ago, and now there’s no telling where his characters might pop up. They rotate in and out of local bars and restaurants, and his artwork is available at Art on Broad.

“I’m always downtown taking photos. I draw my characters into real life backgrounds,” he says. “I draw characters over the photos, almost like Roger Rabbit.”

His drawings can be found in a variety of places ranging from a picket fence outside of New Moon Café in Aiken to a T-shirt for Mema Had One, a vintage shop that often is a source of inspiration for him. “I like antiques, and I get inspiration from ’40s and ’50s maps and cartoons,” says Boland.

His characters also appear in the form of plywood cutouts that he likes to put up in downtown Augusta, Athens and Savannah. Boland will attach them to walls or situate his cutouts so that they’re reacting to the environment.

For instance, he might place a character so that it’s peeking or climbing over a fence. If a cutout character looks disgusted, he will position it by a dumpster.

He sells or gives away the cutouts, but he also doesn’t mind if appreciative observers take home a cutout that they find in a public place. “I’ve met a lot of local artists that way,” Boland says.

Go with the Flow

Boland, who grew up reading Archie comic books and Mad Magazine, was an Army brat who moved often as a child. However, he discovered that drawing was a good way for him to connect with his peers.

“It was a great way to make friends,” says Boland, who also served as a medic in the U.S. Army for four years. “I was very shy, but people would come up to me in the classroom and say, ‘What are you doing?’”

While his work may be unconventional, there is a method to the madness. Boland, who draws quickly, never goes anywhere without pen and paper, and he draws every day.

He starts with a draft using regular pen and notepad, but he uses a calligraphy pen for most of his work. He also makes clay models of his characters, but he’s not afraid to deviate from the forms in the final piece.

“I usually carry a sketchbook with me everywhere I go. At the end of the day, I see what I’ve done. The next morning I put it on watercolor or Bristol paper,” says Boland. “I just like creating characters. It’s really fun to have them occupy a space on paper and not just scribbled in a notebook.”

Boland doesn’t have a set thought in his mind when he starts drawing in his loose, flowing style. “It’s just fun to draw that way,” he says. “I don’t like drawing traditional human shapes. They have human traits in a way, but they’re really cartoony.”

He always starts with a face when he draws, and his characters typically have long snouts or dolphin-like beaks. If the beak is facing upward, the character is happy. If it’s facing downward, the character is brooding.

“Once I draw the face and shape of the character, it tells me what they’re going to be doing,” says Boland.

He gives a back story to his characters, and he frequently incorporates his own personality into his cartoon figures. Boland describes himself as “nervous,” and some of his characters are jittery as well.

“For each drawing, I come up with a character, narrative or personality,” he says. “I like to try to stay positive. A lot of my characters are happy.”

Sometimes, but not often, he cleans up his work digitally.

“People are afraid to show their mistakes,” says Boland. “If I scratch or smear something, I keep it. With digital, you’re constantly cleaning it up.”

Boland, who works primarily in black and white, also prefers original artwork to prints. “I try to do stuff where it’s one and done,” he says. “We live in a world where everything can be archived or replicated.”

Always Teaching, Always Learning

He also shares his knowledge and talent with students at Jessye Norman School of the Arts, where he has taught photography and film since 2019. He teaches 10- to 17-year-olds, but mostly students ages 13-15.

Each semester the subject matter changes, expanding beyond filming and editing. For instance, his students have made set designs out of cardboard and wood, and a lot of his characters have been featured in the sets.

At a summer camp, his students made racecars out of blocks of wood and had to figure out how to make them work.

Last year he curated a window display project for the school in which four young artists – two college-age people and two in their early 20s – were invited to participate, and he is overseeing the project again this year.

“We’re always on the lookout for emerging artists,” says Boland.

Four artists are participating, and each one will have their work showcased during a season of the year. In November, the school will have an onsite public gallery showing of the artists’ work.

Boland pushes his students to be themselves and to be open to new concepts, and he has continued to evolve as an artist himself.

“I love to try new things in terms of art,” he says. “I have tried charcoal and different types of paint. I’m learning to mix my own ink together, which is a kind of unpredictability. Figuring out materials to draw on is always fun.”

Although he paints primarily with acrylics (“Since I draw really fast, I like my paint to dry really fast,” says Boland.), he started using watercolors a couple of years ago. “I like the unpredictability of it,” he says. “It’s kind of like a snowflake.”

He also has self-published several sketchbooks, including a medical illustration book called “Grotesqueries” that he released in April.

In addition, Boland is working on a dark humor portrait series for older teens and adults. He expects to finish this book, which will include 125 portraits, by August or September.

His books generally are available at the Book Tavern downtown as well as other independent booksellers in Athens, Atlanta and Savannah. “Mostly, I sell them out of my car or my house or through social media,” he says.

Two years ago, he started self-publishing his own comic books. He creates cartoon characters such as macho cowboys, Clint Eastwood-types and spies.

“I’m just gradually testing out what works and what doesn’t,” Boland says.

Dream Journal

He has graduated from drawing on kitchen or restaurant tables to using a drafting table that a friend bought him four years ago.

“It has changed the entire way I work. It’s kind of like having a dream journal right next to my bed,” says Boland. “It has made me more consistent. Having it in the same room, I can wake up in the morning and knock out stuff then and there.”

He believes that art is meant to be shared, particularly in public settings.

“Art is for everyone. I love to see murals downtown or the work of local artists when I go out of town,” says Boland. “I get more joy out of seeing something everyone can see that’s not exclusive. Hopefully, it inspires other people to do the same thing.”

For more information about Boland and his work, visit Instagram.com/wholebolafun or patreon.com/wholebolafun.

By Leigh Howard

Illustration of Wilkes by Abigail Burke

To some people, teen suicide is a collection of statistics. To the family and friends of Wilkes Cooper, along with other Columbia County adolescents, it’s much more personal.

For Greenbrier High School senior Mabry Cooper, her favorite memory of her cousin, Wilkes Cooper, occurred on a family Fourth of July trip when they were about 10 years old. The grownups wouldn’t let him light fireworks, which she says, was “probably in his top five all-time favorite things ever.”

“So he went inside, packed his bags and walked out to the road,” Mabry recalls. “His sister took off after him, and he only agreed to come home if ice cream was involved.”

Lakeside High School senior Sydney Wilson says her favorite memory of her boyfriend happened on February 14, 2021, when he picked her up at 5 a.m. for a road trip to Cleveland, South Carolina to do another one of his favorite things – watch the sun rise over the mountains.

Photos courtesy of High Cotton Photography, Jacob Reeves and Sydney Wilson

“I was able to experience the most surreal moment with the person who meant the world to me,” Sydney says. “This memory will forever live in my heart.”

Less than a month after sharing that early morning sunrise with Sydney, Wilkes took his life on March 5 at age 17 after battling adolescent depression. He would have been a senior at Harlem High School this year.

To mark the first anniversary of one of the most painful days of their lives and to celebrate and honor Wilkes’ life, Sydney and Mabry have put together a walk and a concert to raise funds for the Win It For Wilkes Foundation, which they created for their joint senior project.

“His mother wanted to do it on that day, and we also wanted the chance to make a bad day, a good one,” Sydney says.

The event will feature live music, food vendors and the sale of merchandise. Wilkes’ brother, country music artist Pat Cooper, will perform as well.

“We decided to do a concert as the main event because music was a very big part of Wilkes’ life, and attending his brother’s concerts was one of his favorite things,” says Sydney.

Pat, who grew up in Thomson and now lives in Nashville, will perform a song that he wrote to honor Wilkes.

“Initially, I had no intentions of releasing it. I just wanted to write something that my family could cherish. Upon showing it to them, we felt it was important to make it public,” he says. “Music is something everyone can turn to for any feeling they are having or mood that they’re in. It touches all of our lives in a variety of different ways. Few things make us feel and touch our hearts in the way music can.”

He wrote the song with Ray Fulcher, originally from Harlem, and Aiken native James McNair, singers/songwriters who knew Wilkes well and also live in Nashville now. “I cannot stress enough how important their contributions were to bringing the song to life,” says Pat.

His friends weren’t the only ones who helped him through the process. “The room was very heavy and emotional, but I felt God’s presence,” he says. “There was an overwhelming peace about it that He provided.”

All proceeds from the concert will go to Win It For Wilkes to help young people find mental health resources, and the foundation will continue to hold fundraisers throughout the year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, national suicide rates increased 33% between 1999 and 2019, with a small decline in 2019. Youth and young adults ages 10–24 accounted for 14% of all suicides with 10.2 per 100,000 people. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, but it is the second leading cause of death for young people.

“Everyone struggles with their mental health at one point in their life. Just because you don’t struggle with your mental health now, doesn’t mean in 10 years you won’t either. But by becoming aware of the signs of mental health issues, you’ll have a more likely chance of being able to tell why you feel and act the way you do,” Sydney says.

Through the foundation, the girls also hope to dispel any stereotypes about depression and, Sydney says, “to spread awareness that nothing is wrong with not being OK.”

Wilkes’ friends and family remember him as someone with a giving heart who lit up a room and cared deeply about other people.

“Wilkes was the outgoing, fun-hearted, life-of-the-party friend that everyone needed in their life,” Sydney says. “You could always count on him no matter the circumstance. He was a true friend.”

To cope with the loss of Wilkes, Mabry says, “Talk therapy allowed me to learn a lot of different coping mechanisms.”

His friends also leaned on each other for support.

“The first couple months were really hard. There was about a group of eight of us who couldn’t go a day without each other,” Sydney says. “But as the months went on and life went on as well, we chose to strive for our dreams with all we had and be the best people we could to make Wilkes proud.”

Pat hopes people come away from the concert with a greater understanding of the significance of mental health.

“It is just as important as any other aspect of our lives,” he says. “Love one another because we all have our struggles. Being kind has no downside.”

If You Go:

What: Win It For Wilkes Foundation walk and concert

When: Walk begins at 5 p.m.; concert 7 p.m. – 10 p.m. Saturday, March 5

Where: Lady A Amphitheater, Evans Towne Center Park

How Much: $12 general admission; $40 VIP

More Info: (706) 414-0134 or mabrycooper47@gmail.com; (706) 550-3887, sydwil03@gmail.com; Win It For Wilkes Foundation Facebook page

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

If you are thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one or need emotional support, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or use its online crisis chat at suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

The Lifeline network is available 24/7 across the United States. Beginning July 16, callers also can reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 9-8-8.

By Leigh Howard

The Lauren Cowart Memorial Scholarship committee is seeking applicants for its third annual scholarship award. The $1,000 scholarship is awarded to a student majoring in advertising, marketing, graphic design or public relations in the local area. Entrants must have a GPA of at least 3.0 and write an essay of 300 words or more that explains how they honor Cowart’s legacy in their life. Cowart, a designer at Wier / Stewart, lost her life in a 2019 boating accident that also took the life of her 5-year-old daughter, Blakely.

The deadline to apply is Saturday, February 12. For more information, visit aafaugusta.com/scholarship/.

Columbia County Convention & Visitors Bureau recently was awarded first place from the U.S. Travel Association for the best integrated marketing and messaging campaign in the nation among destination marketing organizations for its Serene18 Paddle Trail campaign. More than 400 nominations were received.

The CVB worked with Kruhu and Cineloco to develop the humorous promotional videos starring Redford and Benny as two scouts that showcase the fun that kayakers and canoers can have on area waterways.

The videos have been viewed nearly a quarter of a million times, reaching more than 4 million people. As a result, hundreds of people have visited Columbia County to paddle the trails.

A local avian sanctuary is spreading its wings

Feathered Friends Forever Rescue and Refuge in Harlem, which provides permanent and temporary housing for tropical birds, is expanding to add new attractions to its 14-acre property.

The expansion of the refuge, which acquired 3.86 adjacent acres last year, will cover about 6 acres. New amenities will include a veterinary center, six horseshoe pits, a petting zoo, a 286-foot zipline, six tiny houses and a wildlife campground.

“For years, we had only parrots. Once people had seen the parrots, there was no reason for them to come back,” says Ronald Johnson, chief executive officer.

Work is underway on the horseshoe pits and a new house with a pond for Mr. T, the 100-pound resident tortoise. “It will look like Fort Apache and be called Fort Tortouga,” Johnson says.

The refuge also is developing blueprints for the vet center and applying for grants. In the meantime, a temporary building has been brought in to serve as a veterinary center until the permanent facility is up and running.

Plans for the tiny houses include using them to provide accommodations for volunteers from across the country and veterinary technician trainees.

Keeping a Promise

Of course, the most important residents at Feathered Friends Forever, a state-licensed animal shelter and nonprofit organization, are the birds.

The refuge currently has about 200 birds from 46 states, but it has found permanent homes for more than 1,000 birds through the years.

“We do a lot of small bird adoptions. Now, 95% are big birds,” says Johnson.

The facility has housed parakeets, lovebirds, cockatiels and finches. Its big birds include Indian ringnecks, African greys, cockatoos, amazons and macaws.

Johnson has had a love of birds since he was a teenager.

“When I was in high school, I worked in a pet store. I got two birds in the 1960s, and I’ve loved them ever since,” he says. “They all have individual personalities. People don’t give them credit for being as smart as they actually are.”

When he entered the U.S. Marine Corps in 1967, Johnson had to find a new home for his green-wing macaw and Moluccan cockatoo. Although he successfully rehomed the birds, the experience left a lasting impression on him.

“I made a promise that somehow, someday, I would make it up to every bird that needed a home,” he says.

Johnson and his wife, Tammy, founded Feathered Friends Forever in 1997, and the number of birds at the small operation quickly soared from five to 85 rescues.

Services include adoption, relinquish capabilities, temporary boarding, permanent placement and wellness checks for birds. The refuge also cares for all deployed active duty/activated national guard military personnel’s parrots free of charge with proper documentation.

In addition, Feathered Friends Forever recently became affiliated with Parrots for Patriots, a nonprofit organization in Vancouver, Washington. The program connects parrots that need a forever home with veterans who need a friend for life.

The facility also has started to work with military personnel who are dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Animal companions like parrots can be a source of joy and wellness for people with PTSD.

Around the Refuge

In the sanctuary portion of the refuge, 12 outdoor aviaries let birds “fly and be free birds” and live as they would in the wild – in a flock. Each of newly designed aviaries features automatic feeders, an in-flight pond, a misting system and infrared heaters.

Measuring 18 feet in width, 42 feet in length and 22 feet in height, the new macaw flight contains a full rain system, including thunder, lightning and rain; clay chew walls and individual ponds for bathing and drinking.

“Each particular bird has its own little quirks,” says Johnson. “A parrot is a 3-year-old for the next 50 years. A parrot can change its mind with the bat of an eyelash.”

However, parrots and other birds are highly intelligent, and they can learn to understand and mirror basic language skills. They also display “human-like” behaviors and have specific needs that a human companion can fulfill.

Because birds can be so unpredictable, Johnson says it takes years to understand their behavior.

“You can tell if something is wrong by their body or eye movement,” he says.

Other telltale signs of a problem include feather plucking, changes in attitude or appetite, flaring their tails and screeching or screaming.

The companion birds are not the only living beings at the facility, however. They are joined by other creatures on the endangered or threatened lists.

The 8-foot-by-10-foot, climate- and humidity-controlled honeybee house has the capacity to hold 16 individual hives. Developed by the University of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Agriculture, it was created to study the effects of climate on honeybees in a controlled environment. Honeybees are vital for stable, healthy food supplies, and Johnson says this is the only climate-controlled honeybee house in the world.

Feathered Friends Forever also features a butterfly garden and a certified monarch habitat as well as a reptile house that is home to spiders, snakes and lizards.

Nonstop Activity

Other activities at the facility include cornhole, a gold and rock mining area, birthday parties, educational classes, weekday tours for groups by appointment, adoption fairs twice a year and open house fundraising events.

The facility also has a cantina, a newly remodeled welcome center and an educational center called Birds on the Brink.

“It’s a full science lab. We offer it for school tours during the week, and if we have the personnel, it’s open on weekends,” says Johnson.

Birds on the Brink offers an accredited science class as well as an augmented reality and virtual reality classroom, where rainforest animals and minerals come to life, and hologram technology. The educational programs, which support the Georgia Standards of Excellence and offer an immersive, multi-sensory experience, can be tailored to students in grades K through 12.

Feathered Friends Forever, which has an all-volunteer staff, is open 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Johnson says the facility has averaged 60 – 70 visitors a day since recently putting up a new billboard.

For more information, visit featheredfriendsforever.org.

Outdoor recreation, job growth, affordable housing and quality of life — according to Money magazine, Martinez means all of these things. The magazine has ranked Martinez as one of its 50 Best Places to Live in 2021-22.

Ranked 21st on the list, Martinez is in the top five for economic growth opportunity among the 1,200-plus places the magazine considered for its list this year.

Of the 50 places that made the cut, it’s number six for job growth over the last five years. Martinez also tied for the third-lowest unemployment rate of any city on the list at just 3% in June, far below the 5.9% the country saw as a whole.

In addition, the magazine recognized the community’s abundance of outdoor amenities such as Savannah Rapids Park, hiking and biking trails and Reed Creek Nature Park & Interpretive Center.

Photos courtesy of the Columbia County Board of Education

Meet Columbia County’s new school superintendent.
Eagle Scout. Outdoorsman. College athlete. Educator. High school coach. Administrator. Farmer. Yes, farmer.

Dr. Steven Flynt, the Columbia County School District’s new superintendent, says the best thing he ever learned in life is to be open to trying new things – even if he doesn’t know much about them.

“It’s probably uncomfortable for anybody to try something new,” says Flynt. “As you continue to get older, you need to look for areas where you can grow and learn.”

He has been growing, learning and making the most of opportunities his entire life. Flynt, who previously served as associate superintendent for the Gwinnett County Public Schools, began his latest venture in the spring when he assumed his new position in Columbia County. Building on the encouragement and guidance he has received from his mentors in education, he’s ready to pay forward the experience he has gained throughout his career.

However, he says, “You have to be your own person. You have to be yourself.”

Real-World Connections
From the time the DeKalb County native entered a neighborhood kindergarten to the day he earned a doctorate of education in educational leadership from the University of Georgia, he has been surrounded by strong leaders.

Yet, when Flynt was a high school student, he began to notice a disconnect between the material he was learning in the classroom and its application in the real world.

“The connection of how it would help me in life was difficult to see at the time,” he says.

As a result, he gravitated toward hands-on science classes such as biology, chemistry and physics as well as industrial arts programs.

“These classes have a natural connection with the real world experience,” he says. “They were more exciting because I got to do labs and participate in activities to connect what I was learning to how I would use it later.”

And that realization motivated him to pursue a career in education. “I struggled to connect between the curriculum and the material, and I thought I could do a better job with that,” he says.

He earned an associate of arts degree from Young Harris College, where he played soccer for two years. Continuing his college soccer career at Lees-McRae College, he was awarded a B.S. in biology from the Banner Elk, North Carolina school.

While he was enrolled at Young Harris, he was a student teacher at a high school – an experience that presented a couple of challenges. His students were practically his own age, and at that time, many schools were built with an open concept with no walls between classrooms. Not one of the best innovations in education, he says, but it didn’t derail his career plans.

After graduating from college, he earned a master’s degree in science education from Piedmont College. He and his wife, Kristin, whom he met when they were working at Stone Mountain Park one summer, went through the program together. An elementary school teacher, she also played college soccer at Emory University and coached high school soccer.

Flynt began his career as an educator when he took a job teaching biology and physical science at Miller Grove Junior High School in DeKalb County in 1993.

“My first year of teaching, I had a very good experience in DeKalb County. I never looked back,” he says.

A year later Flynt, who also coached soccer and swimming when he was a teacher, started teaching high school science before being promoted to assistant principal and principal positions.

“I had taught for close to 10 years. The high school had grown a good bit, and we were on the verge of expanding and growing extremely larger,” says Flynt. “I was asked to take a leadership role, and the principals encouraged me to do that. I moved into administration at my school, and I had a good first experience. I was able to do different jobs. When you have that kind of growth, you get to do a lot of things.”

He moved into his first administrative post for the Gwinnett County schools in 2008, climbing up the ranks to the position of associate superintendent in 2016. During his 13-year tenure as a Gwinnett County school administrator, he helped open 35 schools in a system that gained 8,000 to 9,000 students a year.

Perfect Timing
Although he had multiple opportunities for career growth within the Gwinnett County school system, Flynt started thinking about pursuing a superintendent’s position a couple of years ago.

“This was the only superintendent’s position I applied for. I applied for it because I knew of the work that had gone on in Columbia County, and I knew about the region itself,” he says. “The timing of the opening fit very well.”

Between his coaching duties and the high school lacrosse careers of the two oldest of his three daughters, Jessica and Emily, he was familiar with Columbia County through athletics. He and his family had traveled here to compete against the school district’s sports teams.

While this is his first full academic year in the position, he officially started his new job on April 1. He eased into the post by coming to the district three days each in February and March to attend budget meetings and to meet school principals and administrators.

“You learn a lot about an organization when you see where the money is spent,” says Flynt. “The first couple of weeks were devoted to relationships, and I will keep focusing on building relationships both internally in the district and externally in the community.”

His immediate focus includes studying data, identifying areas to work with individuals, learning about what has happened in the past and looking at growth and facility needs.

“Facility needs are something that every school system needs whether they’re growing or not,” he says.

Getting back on track after the coronavirus pandemic is a priority as well.

“During the global pandemic and learning from home, and then coming back to in-person school, we’ve seen the importance of our teachers and that in-person connection. Students achieve more when they have that close relationship with individual teachers,” says Flynt. “It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t perfect in any district, but we were able to adjust pretty quickly. We saw how dynamic we could be.”

However, there still is work to do to recover from the last 17 months by striking the right balance between students’ needs.

“I think it’s incumbent on us to continue to find the things we need to learn from this,” says Flynt. “Some students were OK, and it was more challenging for others. Sometimes you have to provide remedial education, but you also have to provide some acceleration.”

He believes the similarities between the Columbia County and Gwinnett County school systems will serve him well.

“Any time you’re coming from the outside, you have a different perspective. I was in Gwinnett County when we grew extremely fast, and there has been a lot of growth in Columbia County and the region. All of the opportunities here remind me of Gwinnett,” Flynt says. “We always need to look for what we can improve on. I think we’re poised to make the changes necessary, but not move too quickly.”

Change of Scenery
When he’s not on the job, he enjoys the outdoors. In fact, the Flynt family lived on a Gwinnett County farm from 1995 until about two years ago.

“We’ve always lived on acreage,” says Flynt. “We enjoyed the animals and the land. You learn a lot when you work around animals. We had goats, donkeys and horses. We built fences and barns. All of us learned how to drive a tractor.”

They gave up farm life after their two older daughters went to college, where they still play lacrosse. “We didn’t have as much help then,” he says.

The Flynts and their youngest daughter, Sarah, a freshman at Lakeside High School, have settled in Evans, and the superintendent is enjoying getting to know his new community.

“I knew this was a great place, but it has been reinforced time and time again. I feel fortunate to be here,” he says. “I’m looking forward to being part of the community, not just an employee of the school district. I have an open-door policy, and I hope people will reach out to me.”

By Betsy Gilliland