Staff Report
Winterville’s Kaitlyn and Kaleb Marchant won the 2024 Georgia Farm Bureau Young Farmers & Ranchers Excellence in Agriculture Award at the Summer Leadership Conference held July 17-20 on Jekyll Island.
The award recognizes young agriculturalists who earn the majority of their income from something other than production agriculture. They are judged on their Farm Bureau involvement, agricultural advocacy work and other leadership activities.
The Marchants live in Winterville with their two children, Bodie and Maggie Blakke. Kaitlyn works for the Georgia Department of Education as the state’s North Region ag education coordinator. Kaleb is pursuing a PhD from the University of Georgia and works as farm manager at the UGA Double Bridges Farm beef and sheep unit in Winterville.
The Marchants represent the GFB 4th District on the organization’s Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee. On the OCFB board, Kaitlyn serves as the Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee chairwoman.
The Marchants received a John Deere Gator, sponsored in part by Lasseter Equipment Company, a cash prize from Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and Georgia Farm Bureau, and an expense-paid trip to the 2025 American Farm Bureau convention in San Antonio in January.
Spectrum adds service in the Maxeys area
Spectrum has added service to homes and businesses in Maxeys and Stephens and along Highway 77, the internet provider stated in a release last week.
In total, Spectrum added more than 1,500 homes and businesses in Athens-Clarke and Oglethorpe counties.
Spectrum has added approximately $5 billion investment in unserved rural communities, partly offset by $1.2 billion in the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction, the release stated.