Oconee County, GA Politics

Norma Lee Sexton Matthews was born in Marshalltown, Iowa December 17, 1930 to Helen and Charles Sexton. She was the second of four children, but would not settle for second to anyone the rest of her life. Among other things, she was the State of Iowa spelling bee champion and the female editor of the Daily Iowan newspaper while attending the University of Iowa. She edited the newspaper in Cooperstown, New York but returned to her native Iowa to marry the Georgia Peach of Meredith Publishing in Dan J. Matthews, Sr. and started on a long road of political exploration and innovation. She started a business called Campaigns, Incorporated which took many of the principals she learned the hard way in her own failed races for the Board of Education and House of Representatives. Along the way Caucuses were held in our house at 518 44th street on the legendary Snake Drive just north of Grand, Presidential candidates came knocking on our door and many hands were grasped and acquaintances made....

These are pictures of campaign yard signs snapped around Butler's Crossing and Watkinsville areas in Oconee County. The Bolin sign is left over or reused from eight years ago and reflects a certain degree of lingering animosity toward two-term incumbent Board of Commissioners chairman G. Melvin Davis

First Friday fun in the sun in Watkinsville was the place to see and be seen, ride a rickshaw or pedicab or train, hear a rock band cover ZZ Top's "Just Got Paid Today," go see Delores Schofield at Circa before they close the doors, see some candidates campaigning including Ashley Hood, Johnny Pritchett, Chuck Horton and Sarah Bell were seen glad handing voters and listening to the concerns, or getting a blown up balloon artistry created, or bouncing in the moonwalk, or climbing the rock wall, or shopping at the stores, or eating at the restaurants, or buying the boiled peanuts, or listening to the people. Experience was on every one's mind, or so it seemed. The heat can make some people question other's motives. I can only write what I know, and I know Ashley Hood has her heart and mind in the right place for our kids. She is not beholden to the special interests, cliques, country clubs, Rotary, Moose Club, skate punks or developers. She has worked with a number...

Photos of candidates at the Eagle Tavern Welcome Center and Museum's Farmers Market Saturday morning, May 10th, 2008. Photos of Ashley Hood, Melvin Davis and Sarah Bell campaigning in Watkinsville, Georgia for the Republican nomination and subsequent election to the chair of the Board of Commissioners in the case of Bell and Davis, and the Board of Education in the case of Hood. Hood and Davis also campaigned at the Fourth Annual Movie in the Park at the Oconee County Community Complex which threatened to become the Who concert in Cincinnati when they announced free hot dogs from the Big Easy. Board of Commissioners' candidate and current Bishop mayor Johnny Pritchett was also campaigning at the outside movie.

I met a man named McGrath who pedaled up to my house the other day to ask for an Obama yard sign. The kids across the street had stolen my last sign (pulling it off the shelves of my carport while using my son's RipStick skateboard), but I gave him a bumper sticker instead. I thought about writing some kind of stinging indictment of the neighborhood scalawags or perhaps the local leadership in either the government or political parties, but instead I will pass on this plea from local activists Pat Priest and Oconee County Democratic Committee chair Becky Vaughn to recruit candidates on their side of the political docket. There are many people in Oconee County who fit the bill and may not be aware of the need to file their candidacy at the end of April. Ask yourself the following: 1. Are you tired of the way the government has been run in Oconee County? 2. Do you think you have time to commit to serving on a public governmental body such as the Board of Education, Board of Commissio...

Obviously I am not the most objective person to make this assessment, but I concur with Blake Aued's article here , but if the Oconee Democratic Committee is more concerned with bike rides and district member mapping matters, than say, ACTUAL CANDIDATES FOR OFFICE , then they have no hope to ever regain even a toehold on local political matters. The Republicans such as Jim Ivey and Melvin Davis are making things easier for Oconee County Democrats, but if no real candidates come forward soon, then the local Democrats can have all the book clubs and meetings without any real or tangible success. They need to have someone more active, serious and better organized than the last-minute and extremely poorly run campaign of their current chairperson against the current state legislator last time around.