• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

MILLER COUNTY? Growing area?

Well I'll be.. I thought at leasts 4 counties had been carved out of Decatur. I was confident a about Seminole, but we weren't discussing that county. I do I know that the Indians kept killing the surveyors trying to establish the Florida/Georgia border way back when.
 
Georgia has 159 counties, more than any state except Texas. The youngest, Peach County, was established in 1924.
Yes, Miller was carved out of Early, and so was Decatur. Grady was carved out of eastern Decatur and western Thomas counties. The western part of Decatur County between the Alabama border and Spring Creek became Seminole County.
 
I don't know about the one-day's travel thing - that sounds reasonable, though - but I do know that, during the 40-day Legislative sessions, no law-enforcement officer in the state may place a Legislator under arrest and take him into custody. Politics has always been a contact sport in Georgia.
 
Witchlover said:
......... but I do know that, during the 40-day Legislative sessions, no law-enforcement officer in the state may place a Legislator under arrest and take him into custody. Politics has always been a contact sport in Georgia.
Click to expand...

That is not a law that is unique or peculiar to Georgia. You will find that other states have also found it appropriate to have such a policy/law.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Witchlover said:
......... but I do know that, during the 40-day Legislative sessions, no law-enforcement officer in the state may place a Legislator under arrest and take him into custody. Politics has always been a contact sport in Georgia.
Click to expand...

That is not a law that is unique or peculiar to Georgia. You will find that other states have also found it appropriate to have such a policy/law.
Click to expand...

It dates back to the days of horseback and riverboat travel, when political bosses might have a sheriff arrest a rival on trumped-up charges, particularly when an issue might be decided by only a few critical votes.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Witchlover said:
......... but I do know that, during the 40-day Legislative sessions, no law-enforcement officer in the state may place a Legislator under arrest and take him into custody. Politics has always been a contact sport in Georgia.
Click to expand...

That is not a law that is unique or peculiar to Georgia. You will find that other states have also found it appropriate to have such a policy/law.
Click to expand...

There is an exception to the "cannot arrest a lawmaker during the legislative session" law in some states: The folks in Wisconsin tried to implement it a couple of years ago and I think maybe Indiana also threatened to do it: If legislators refuse to show up at the capitol for a legislative session so a quorum cannot be met, then State Police will come to your home and haul you off to the state capitol in custody. That is why the Wisconsin legislators camped out in Illinois for a week or two... so they were out of reach of the State Police. I think some Indiana legislators did the same thing that year.
 
poledo said:
I'm just upset that they repealed the seat belt law exemption for pickup trucks a few years back!
Click to expand...

Yes, in farm country where a farmer is driving from one field and maybe using a public road for a couple of hundred yards and then entering his field on the other side of the public road, he feels put-upon to be buckling-up and unbuckling all day long. The rural/farm block has had the voting power in past years to hold off the seat belt law.

Here in the metro area where our expressways are bumper-to-bumper with pick-ups in the $40,000 to $70,000 range.... the contractors and other businessmen are driving "pickups" to seminars, to the court house, to city council meetings... in trucks that make the Lexus they left at home for their wife to drive look like a cheap, chintzy vehicle.

If freeway traffic suddenly goes haywire with chain-reaction collisions, I don't want that guy who is sliding toward me with his $70,000 pickup to lose control and his ability to steer the vehicle so his collision with me is minimized.... just because he had a free spirit attitude and says: "I have a pick-up so I don't have to buckle up!"

If seat belts are a good idea in cars, then seat belts are a good idea in trucks.
 
Some states have cool laws. I understand that it's perfectly legal to brew a few gallons of moonshine at a time for personal consumption in Florida. We still can't grow our own weed yet. :(
 
We aren't stupid. I think all of us buckle up while driving 90 MPH down GA 400. But when driving 2 miles down US 27 in SW GA we may forget to buckle up.

Also, can't compare all pickups to fancy Lexus cars that we put our wives and moms in. One of my pickups has a Lexus V8 under the hood... of course it's my favorite one to drive.
 
poledo said:
But when driving 2 miles down US 27 in SW GA we may forget to buckle up.
Click to expand...

Last year I was in Gainesville, Ga. Driving a couple of miles from a doctors office to a restaurant. We were on a street where the "posted" speed limit was 35 mph. I made a left turn to enter the restaurant parking lot. Out of nowhere this vehicle appears and after I had "cleared the roadway" the oncoming car slid into my car and the rear end of my car looked like a terrorist "pressure cooker" bomb had gone off in there. The other guy was driving a "battleship" built by General Motors in 1973. Our car was spun around somewhere between 90 to 180 degrees. We had out seat belts on. We got out unhurt. Were not even sore or bruised the next day. Oh, the dude in the battleship: don't know if he was wearing his seatbelt or not, but they strapped him onto a piece of plywood to protect his back and hauled him to the hospital in an ambulance.

The investigating officer wrote me up for improper left turn.

I went back over there on a Sunday afternoon with video camera, audio recorder and observed the traffic in the 35 m.p.h. zone for a couple of hours. I went to court with my caluclations. My dude apparently came over the top of the hill a block in front of me doing an estimated 92 MPH. (Over half the vehicles I "clocked" that Sunday afternoon were exceeding 75 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.)

I never assume that a local rural hiway is safe to go "beltless".

Oh, my ticket: When the prosecutor heard my story and saw the data I had with me, we made a deal. They would change the ticket to some offense which carried NO FINE and NO POINTS if I wanted to go home and forget about having a trial. It's called "Let's make a deal".

Maybe Miller County is different. ;D
 
He was driving a 1973 Tank, eh? I have a 1973 Dodge (the same car the Blues Brothers drove) and it only has lap belts and I doubt they've been used more than a couple dozen times in the last 40 years. It does have a very significant bumper, with 6 inch thick rubber blocks on it. It's been in several accidents... even totaled out a Honda rice burner back around 1990. My Dodge has no damage, never had to do any repairs after those dummies hit me.

I bet the driver of that 1973 Chevy didn't even have functioning seat belts much less one on.

I feel very safe driving my old Dodge, but I only use it for short local trips. It has a primitive version of power steering so it starts making me very nervous when I get on the Interstate and hit 80-120 MPH. The steering wheel is just way to sensitive at high speeds.. I'm far more comfortable driving 55 in it.
 
I suspect that some people reading this particular thread would like to jump in and say: "Have you folks forgotten that we are supposedly discussing RADIO here. What's up with seat-belts and battleships from 1973 and speed limits?"

And we should come back to some discussion more directly about broadcasting..... BUT: Josh, the original poster, was asking advice about the viability of Miller County, GA as a place where someone might want to be "doing radio". I think this thread, complete with it's strange side-trips is actually quite constructive.

When I was looking for a radio station all my own, I didn't look at Miller County, but a couple of communities in that direction. I knew that when I got there I was going to try to sell advertising and my prospects weren't going to agree to a schedule until I agreed to sign their petition to secede from the Union over the mandatory seat-belt law.... and a lot of other similar socio-political issues... I knew it was the wrong place for ME.

I like New Yorkers. That alone could get me thrown out of some churches in some Southern rural counties.

Josh... there is more to the question you asked... than what you asked. Population growth and economic growth are not the sole characteristics of this kind of market. Going back to church related issues.... there are communities where you have to give serious consideration to which translation of the Bible you are going to carry with you if you want to take one to your Sunday School class.

Big story in today's Atlanta newspaper. There is one county in Georgia where right now if you were operating a radio station, you might be "required" to declare whether you supported or opposed the first ever fully racially integrated Senior Prom for high school students. Either way you go on the subject could cost you some advertising business. Now in fairness to the community in today's story.... (and I've never been there) but it looks like this is not going to be a harsh event. The students themselves reportedly have organized a voluntary effort to have this OPEN prom. They want it.... whether Grandpa approves or not. And I suspect 3 or 4 years from now people will have a hard time remembering why there was any news story in the first place.

Local social issues and your compatibility with them ranks right there along side the economic issues.

And you will need to budget to buy your pick-up. And you will need a dog. And one of your first duties will be to teach the dog "to get in the truck". People will ask you: "How long did it take you to teach the dog to get in the truck?"

Am I making fun of these traditions? Absolutely not! But if you are not comfortable with some of these traditions, life in a small, small rural market can be a challenge.
 
Not just any dog. Businessmen need a very blue blooded and propery trained hunting dog. I suggest bird dogs.

I can't remember which South GA county it was, but up until a couple years ago they held two annual Proms. One for the white kids and another for the other than white kids. Someone complained and the school boards solution was to cancel the proms. The kids organized their own prom at a private facility and told the media that it was integrated and everyone was welcome. Well come Prom night and only White kids showed up. It turns out that the invitations sent to other than white kids had a misprint on them.
This was 2 or 3 years ago. Surprised? If you knew South Georgia you wouldn't be.

Groups of well-to-do men still get together and escort people that have wronged someone in the family to the county line with instructions never to come back. Don't get caught cheating on the wrong woman in South Georgia.
 
Never underestimate the "power' of local churches.

Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Big story in today's Atlanta newspaper. There is one county in Georgia where right now if you were operating a radio station, you might be "required" to declare whether you supported or opposed the first ever fully racially integrated Senior Prom for high school students.
Click to expand...

My high school (Springfield High TN now a suburb of Nashville) in the early 1970's did not have an "official" prom. Between the local Baptist and Church of Christ (which ran the town): NO DANCING.

We had "unofficial" prom. It worked out because we had a really good band, made up of some studio guys thanks to having a daughter of a VP of the old Columbia Record Company attend SHS.
 
secondchoice said:
My high school (Springfield High TN now a suburb of Nashville) in the early 1970's did not have an "official" prom. Between the local Baptist and Church of Christ (which ran the town): NO DANCING.
Click to expand...

My little high school in the Ozarks was a "no dancing" zone.

I don't get back very often but now and then I have wondered if that policy still exists. I still don't know the answer to that question, but a couple of weeks ago I received the annual notice of the "all school, all years" annual Home-coming. It's a Saturday event normally. Individual classes sometimes organize a Friday night get together for their 5 or 10 year reunion.

This year there is a school wide all-years Friday night DANCE at the Catholic Church in a nearby county seat. (I take note of the fact that it will NOT be the school.)

SIDE-NOTE: My class had one of those 5-year events in 2010. The invitation stated it would be "in the barn" of one of the class members. I wasn't sure whether to wear a suit.... or jeans and boots like I wore to the barn to milk cows when I went to school there. The barn turned out to be the "toy" that many men dream of. Something kin to a Butler building. It also was kin to some of the multi-purpose buildings you find next to or behind little churches in the South. A little kitchenette. A meeting room where the guys could watch a ball game on TV. And then there was the tool room. And in the back corner the full-time resident of the barn: A 34 Ford Coupe to die for!!!! Parked in the driveway to the barn were the other toys: The bass boat, the motor cycle, and some other things I can't remember. I got a bit of a scowl from our host as he greeted us at the door when I greeted him: "Nice toys! Where the hell do you keep the airplane?"
 
secondchoice said:
Never underestimate the "power' of local churches.
Click to expand...

... but be weary of relationships developed primarily through your local churches. Just because someone goes to church every Sunday (and some Wednesday nights) does not make them honerable. Many naive people get taken to the cleaners by trusting businesses that are run by folks they go to church with. You may expect to get a "good deal" by doing business with your new "friend" from church and wind up paying more than MSRP. Church can be a good start but your real friends will be the folks you also hang out with at the country club or sit with at the local high school football game.

The guys you get drunk with that get sloppy and spill their dirt will also be good folks to stay close with. They will trust you if you can keep your mouth shut and they will do business with you to keep your mouth shut.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom