Air Force Airman Bret Kilgore has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.

The giving season is here, and the Fayette County Public Library has more gifts for you than will fit into a mere twelve days of Christmas. Look to your library for a bountiful supply of services and programs that help make your life better, easier, more fun, and more affordable all year long.

The Starr's Mill High School Department of Choral Music will present their annual Candlelight Processional Thursday, December 4 at 7 p.m.

Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, Senator Ronnie Chance, Senator Mitch Seabaugh as well as Fayette County's four State Representatives,  three Fayette County Mayors and other well known members of the community are joining together to support Christian City's ministry to abandoned and abused children this Christmas by hosting a "Char-ity" Event at the Hollingsworth House in Fayetteville. All proceeds will help the children who live in the cottages at Christian City to have a wonderful holiday season and will help buffer the many other operational costs The Children's Village faces this winter.

If there's anyone out there who stands to benefit from the daily barrage of bad economic news, it's the local Christmas Tree farm operators.

FAYETTE COUNTY CIVITAN CLUB will be raising funds by hosting their annual live Christmas Tree lot.  Create your family holiday memories by purchasing a live tree for Christmas and help others while doing so. Sales will begin the day after Thanksgiving, November 28th and will continue throughout December. The profits from the tree lot will be going to charities that the Fayette County Civitan Club supports.  The trees will come in a variety of sizes, come by and find the perfect one for your family.  The location of the Christmas Tree lot is at Melear’s BBQ Restaurant Parking Lot, 420 Glynn Street South or State Highway 85 in Fayetteville, GA.  Also offered by the Fayette County Civitan Club are one pound bags of fresh shelled Pecans, Christmas Fruit-Cakes, Paula Deen Spice Kits all of which make fabulous gifts for family and friends.  These items can be purchased by any member of the Fayette County Civitan Club, at the Christmas Tree Lot or inside the Melears BBQ Restaurant as well. 

The Joseph Sams School Parent Teacher Organization will host a Book Fair at Uptown Square Fayetteville Barnes and Noble Tuesday, December 2 from 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm.  A percentage of all purchases made at Barnes and Noble during the Book Fair will benefit the Joseph Sams School and the Parent Teacher Association.  Shoppers simply need to mention the school to the cashier when checking out. Book Fair activities include story time in the children’s department at 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm, a Chime Choir performance by Joseph Sams students at 6:00 pm in the Starbucks Café and background music by siblings of Joseph Sams students, as well as a display of artwork from the school. 

The annual Southern Crescent Alzheimer’s Memory Walk in Peachtree City raised some big money again this year for research into the disease.

Including in-kind donations, the grand total raised eclipsed $200,000, as about 1,200 participants from Fayette, Coweta, Clayton, Heard, Henry, south Fulton and Spalding counties took part.

The Kiwanis Club of Peachtree City, a service organization dedicated to improving the Peachtree City and Fayette County communities recently identified the Technical Career Students of the Year for September and October fro McIntosh High School. Awards were presented to Rachel Bourne, September, and Lindsey Mitchell, October. The awards, which recognize outstanding scholarship and participation, were presented at a recent Kiwanis meeting. The selectees have to be nominated by their teachers and pass a screening board.

Author Holly Moulder was the guest speaker at the Morrow Civic Woman's Club in November. Moulder, resident of Sharpsburg, Georgia, has published two books, A Cord of Three Strands and Eyes of the Calusa, which was recently recognized as a finalist for the President's Book Awards by the Florida Publishers Association, Inc. Both books are suitable for elementary and middle school students.

The Women’s Army Corps (WAC) started in 1942 as an auxiliary unit and entered its full status in 1943. It was the women’s branch of the Army and over 150,000 women served during World War II. The WAC was disbanded in 1978, but not before Sonia Gonzales found them, or rather they found her, in 1966.

A partnership between the Fayette County School System’s CARE (Children at Risk in Education) program and The Avenue Peachtree City has helped enrich the lives of students and their families who are in need.

Some of the best young singers in the state represented Fayette County at the 25th Annual Georgia Music Educators Association Statewide Elementary Honors Chorus.

Main Street Newnan has released the first Christmas ornament in their new series.

The three dimensional, pewter ornament will replace the Christmas balls that were produced in series I. The 2008 ornament features the Carnegie Library in observance of the city of Newnan’s ongoing renovation project scheduled to be completed in 2009. The back of the ornament features the history of the Carnegie Library.

Robert Dearman is named Newnan-Coweta Art Association’s Artist of the Month for the month of November at the City Hall of Newnan, Georgia. 

Author George C. Lukas used to consider self-publishing to be a black hole where books go and are never seen or heard from again. Artist Yvonne Ford has done work for publishing companies before but was recently asked to illustrate the fourth in a series of self-published children’s books. Both Lukas and Ford are just two examples of people who are getting their work out there.

This month, the Fayette County Public Library launches a digital audio book collection allowing cardholders to download audio books from the Internet, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, free of charge. Whether commuting to work or relaxing at home, users can listen to a wide range of fiction and nonfiction books on portable devices, CD players, or via their PCs and laptops.

Joseph Briggs was recently named 2008 YMCA volunteer of the year.

Briggs will be honored at the annual volunteer recognition dinner being held Monday, Nov. 17, at the Cobb Galleria Centre Ballroom.

Members of the area’s three veteran’s organizations and the Peachtree City government will memorialize the contributions of all U.S. military veterans during the Annual Veterans Day Remembrance Saturday, Nov. 8th, 9:30 to 10 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial in Peachtree City. The Memorial is located at the flagpoles in the City Hall/Library Plaza at 151 Willow Bend Road in Peachtree City.

He descends from Greene Livsey who was born in Culpeper, Virginia in 1774. Although of English descent, he fought in the War of 1812 from his native state. A year later he rode on down the road to Georgia, marrying a girl from White County.

They had settled in the Gwinnett area in the early 1820s and that is where our honoree, William J. Livsey, was born in Clarkston in 1931.

On November 6 and 7, the American Legion Auxiliary members of Fayetteville Unit 105 will offer the red paper poppies to the public. On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2008, the public is asked to pause for a moment, pin on a poppy and wear it with pride, remembering the civilian who took an oath to serve his or her country so that America would survive today.

As the holidays approach, people’s thoughts often turn to helping their fellow man. Participation in food drives and donating time or money to local charities all go up as people are filled with the Christmas spirit. This year, there is an opportunity to help children in Afghanistan with a project called Operation Backpack 2008.

Recently filmed on the backlot of Riverwood Studios, the short film Last Bullet emphasizes the courage and valor of soldiers who fought during the Vietnam War. The movie, a project of Tin Roof Films, will be shown in selected theatres and local venues. Proceeds from these events will benefit veterans groups around the South. Directed by Jason Winn and written by Michael Buchanan, Last Bullet is set on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border and tells the story of Matt (Matt Perello) and Shane (J Todd Smith), two soldiers caught in a life-or-death situation.

Air Force Airman Zachary S. Greer has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.

When you’re a young boy and you think of what you want to be when you grow up, the options seem to be superhero, cowboy, professional athlete or a combination of all three.

As you grow up and you start to realize that capes don’t make you fly and there are no cattle drives in your neighborhood, your options broaden to the jobs you see and, sometimes hear, every day.

Like last year, donations will be collected and used to make Christmas better for children in need. The participating children will shop with a Deputy Sheriff at a local store and receive both items they need and items they want for Christmas. Normally the children have to be reminded to buy items for themselves as they are busy filling shopping carts with gifts for their siblings and parents. This program is highly rewarding for both the children and Deputies involved.

The third president of the United States made a surprise visit to the James Waldrop Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution in Fayetteville, Georgia. President Thomas Jefferson, portrayed by Tom Robinson, took the ladies back in time to the writing of the Declaration of Independence and to the time of his Presidency.

Two members of the McIntosh High School band program, Sarah Manley and Drew Naber, have been invited to join this year’s Atlanta Youth Wind Symphony (AYWS), the premier honor wind ensemble for high school students in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

What's the earliest Peachtree City golf cart picture you have that's NOT on a golfcourse? Vintage pictures from the 1970s are needed! Whether it's an early golf cart procession or someone out for a trip to the store, Rebecca Watts, of the Peachtree City Library, would love to see it.

Boy Scout Troop No. 74 of Fayetteville held a food drive to benefit the Fayette Samaritans. Sam Leathers, Austin Frisby and Taylor Daly distributed flyers in the Horsemen’s Run, Charleston and Huntington South subdivisions announcing their service project and returned the following weekend to gather the donations of canned food. More than 1,184 canned goods and $150 in cash donations were collected.