Eagle Tavern deserves more support
Aside from encasing the place in lucite, polyuerethane or some other anti-aging encasement, I do not know what can be done to preserve this former stagecoach stop for future generations.
I think some good steps have been taken including relocating next door for Oconee County Tourism Director Anita Rikli Ford and her associate Peggy Holcomb. I butted heads with Anita over the Watkinsville Bicentennial celebration last year which pretty much cost me my freelance writing with the Athens Banner-Herald's Oconee Living section that her husband Wayne edits. But some things are more important than petty personal squabbles. I am glad the Tavern still stands and donors have not reclaimed their donations, as was threatened at some meetings in the recent past.
Tourism has never been fully embraced by the government here. Successive Board of Commission chairs have done plenty to make sure the necessary upgrades and bandages have been placed around the foundation of the Eagle Tavern, but never has any proper publicity campaign been mounted outside of a few feeble attempts at brochures and websites. Compared to the budgets and outputs of various similarly sized counties, we are light years behind many places in Mississippi and Virginia, to name a few.
We can do more to promote Oconee County and its many attractive qualities. We can start with the proposed park around Elder Mill Covered Bridge. Next would be a river walk, with a beach property somewhere between Paradiso Falls and Scull Shoals. We need the support of the government to make sure these are done in a responsible and economic manner. We need the infrastructure to support such plans (which we are sorely lacking). We need to connect our communities with more bike paths and sidewalks to keep our children safe coming home from the many schools.
How difficult would it be to create a path from Athens Academy to Prince Avenue with stops at all the public schools in between (and Westminster Christian Academy as well as Gainesville State College)? We face many transportation, recreation and tourism challenges in the next year. Time to elect some people who might actually get something done to have a cognitive approach to planning for the county, and not just cater to every ill placed development. We need public swimming pools and more nursing homes. We need to pay our police and sheriff's department better and have a hired fire department sometime in the next decade.
I think some good steps have been taken including relocating next door for Oconee County Tourism Director Anita Rikli Ford and her associate Peggy Holcomb. I butted heads with Anita over the Watkinsville Bicentennial celebration last year which pretty much cost me my freelance writing with the Athens Banner-Herald's Oconee Living section that her husband Wayne edits. But some things are more important than petty personal squabbles. I am glad the Tavern still stands and donors have not reclaimed their donations, as was threatened at some meetings in the recent past.
Tourism has never been fully embraced by the government here. Successive Board of Commission chairs have done plenty to make sure the necessary upgrades and bandages have been placed around the foundation of the Eagle Tavern, but never has any proper publicity campaign been mounted outside of a few feeble attempts at brochures and websites. Compared to the budgets and outputs of various similarly sized counties, we are light years behind many places in Mississippi and Virginia, to name a few.
We can do more to promote Oconee County and its many attractive qualities. We can start with the proposed park around Elder Mill Covered Bridge. Next would be a river walk, with a beach property somewhere between Paradiso Falls and Scull Shoals. We need the support of the government to make sure these are done in a responsible and economic manner. We need the infrastructure to support such plans (which we are sorely lacking). We need to connect our communities with more bike paths and sidewalks to keep our children safe coming home from the many schools.
How difficult would it be to create a path from Athens Academy to Prince Avenue with stops at all the public schools in between (and Westminster Christian Academy as well as Gainesville State College)? We face many transportation, recreation and tourism challenges in the next year. Time to elect some people who might actually get something done to have a cognitive approach to planning for the county, and not just cater to every ill placed development. We need public swimming pools and more nursing homes. We need to pay our police and sheriff's department better and have a hired fire department sometime in the next decade.
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