Time capsule

As reported 48 years ago in The Columbia News, Sept. 14, 1961:

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Martinez school groundbreaking

The first phase of Columbia County's half-million-dollar school building program will get under way Sept. 18, 1961, with groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Martinez Elementary School.

Dr. Claude Purcell, Georgia superintendent of education, will participate in the ceremony, which will be held at the new school site on Flowing Wells Road in Edgewood Subdivision.

The 14-room Martinez Elementary School is the first step in a $532,000 school building program approved by Columbia County voters in a bond issue vote last February.

Other projects in the county building program include five new classrooms and a lunchroom at Harlem, four new classrooms at Grovetown, eight classrooms for Blanchard Consolidated School near Appling and two classrooms each for Gibbs and George T. White elementary schools.

Evans School has record enrollment

Evans School is bursting at the seams, according to Principal C.R. Davis.

All available buildings, including a new one built by the Touchdown Club, are filled to capacity. Davis said school officials tried to anticipate, as far back as last spring, the projected enrollment for 1961-62. New houses have been built by the score during the summer, and few are to be found vacant as school opens.

When it became apparent during registration last week that enrollment had skyrocketed, additional desks and textbooks were ordered. The largest number on roll at any one time last year was 1,136. Enrollment is above 1,208.

"This is a phenomenal increase when you consider Evans is a rural community," Davis said.

Welfare recipients to pick cotton

"All able-bodied recipients of Aid to Dependent Children must accept seasonal work that is available to them," according to Rubye Beasley, director of the Columbia County Department of Public Welfare.

At present, Beasley said farmers in the area need labor for picking cotton.

Horse-show winner

Claudia Tucker of Harlem was among top winners at the horse show held in Waynesboro last weekend.

Tucker entered her Palomino mare, Banners's Golden Nugget, in nine classes in the show, winning seven ribbons, a halter and a leather plaque.