ONE YEAR AGO, MAY 11, 2023 The Putnam County Board of Commissioners may not have made any final decisions on a short-term-rental (STR) ordinance during a Monday morning work session, but enough general consensus emerged to direct the staff to draft a new version. The new ordinance will be up for a fine-tuning at another work session following the commission’s normal first-Friday morning meeting.

Georgia College & State University’s (GCSU) Music Department and Allied Arts partnered to host the 35th annual JazzFest April 27 on GCSU’s front campus. JazzFest provides an educational opportunity for school bands to perform and learn from a professional and for GCSU to expose high schoolers to the campus.

Authors often get stuck in the revision process. They recognize their manuscript needs work but are unsure of what’s wrong. So, they fiddle with comma placement, delete a few words here, add different ones there, and still don’t feel like they’ve made any significant improvement to their literary product.

On April 29, Larry Dunn presented Bryant Ruff Jr. with the 2024 Larry Dunn Scholarship at the Uncle Remus Golf Course (URGC) in Eatonton. Ruff said he will use the funds to help further his education in pursuing a sports medicine degree.

The Oconee Performing Arts Society (OPAS) is once more presenting its Memorial Day Weekend Patriotic Celebration, and this year is expanding its reach by including more activities for families, complete with complimentary tickets for children aged 10 and under, allowing them to witness the magic of live performances firsthand.

The Classic Center Cultural Foundation (CCCF) recently announced recipients of its 2024 performing arts and visual arts scholarships. Performing arts scholarship recipients include Abel Clark, Oconee County High School; Amy Shan, North Oconee High School; Kimberly Bateman, Home School; Madison Streeter, Apalachee High School; and Yehyun Hong, North Oconee High School.

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Greensboro’s Lake Country Chorus (LCC) presented “On Broadway” last Thursday at Festival Hall, which was packed to capacity. Tony award-winning songs dating from the 1940s to the present were the order of the evening under the baton of vocal director Cathy (Cat) Williamson.

The Artisans Village Guild hosted its eighth annual Eatonton One Day Paint Out on Saturday. Two award-winning plein air artists, Shane McDonald and Celeste McCollough, opened the day by teaching two sold-out workshops, one in a beautiful garden of the historic Hancock home in Eatonton and the other in an interesting historic alleyway in town.

In Queen of Exiles, Vanessa Riley presents her readers with the full and dramatic life of Marie-Louise Christophe, Haiti’s first and only queen. With historical depth and great respect for her subject and the time period, Riley offers a story with both historical accuracy and emotional resonance.