Twitter @ValerieRowell

To beat the heat, Columbia County offers the lake, private and neighborhood pools and a few splash pads at county parks.

Wayne Canty hopes to add a water park.

“We don’t have (anything like that) here,” the Augusta resident said.

Columbia County hasn’t housed a water park since 2003, when Krystal River Water Park closed after 15 years on Industrial Park Drive in Evans. The owner cited drastically increasing insurance costs as the reason for closing.

Twitter @ValerieRowell

An Evans teen charged with raping a 12-year-old girl will remain in jail.

Superior Court Senior Judge Albert M. Pickett refused to grant a bond for Blake Davis Weems, 17, at a hearing Friday in Evans.

Weems, of Quinn Drive, is charged with rape and aggravated child molestation.

He was arrested June 12 after a 13-year-old girl told her parents that he molested her beginning last summer, when she was 12.

Twitter @ValerieRowell

Charges are pending against the owner of Pumpkin Center Store after authorities found what they believe to be synthetic marijuana at the store and her home.

At about 10 p.m. Thursday, Columbia County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics investigators executed a search warrant at the Harlem-area store at 1313 Appling-Harlem Highway, according to sheriff’s Capt. Steve Morris. The owner and two employees were detained inside during the search.

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An Evans man was arrested late Wednesday after his wife said he beat her with an ax handle.

Charles Carol Eatman, 79, of the 4600 block of La Pointe, was charged with aggravated assault.

Just before midnight Wednesday, Eatman’s 52-year-old son called authorities claiming Eatman and his mother were physically fighting. Eatman said he was sleeping and had no idea what deputies were talking about.

Eatman’s 77-year-old wife told deputies that they argued and her husband hit her with a wooden ax handle several times.