Apr. 20—MOULTRIE, Ga. — Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce officials were pleased with turnout at Wednesday's Eggs and Issues conversation.

Dozens of local residents attended the breakfast meeting at Southern Regional Technical College.

The 2 1/2-hour event included five panel discussions related to government, agriculture, recreation, education and health care. Interspersed between them were presentations from each of the municipalities in the county.

Members of the community submitted questions for the panels.

Government

Panel members included Jody Redding, director of Gov. Brian Kemp's office; state Rep. Chas Cannon, who is also the Colquitt County administrator; state Sen. Sam Watson; and Charles White, a representative of U.S. Rep. Austin Scott's office.

The first question presented to them involved plans to bring good-paying jobs to Colquitt County. Redding pointed out that Georgia has been ranked the top state for business for several years, and he said 75 to 80% of jobs created were outside of Metro Atlanta. He credited conservative, common-sense leadership, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cannon said the state has received a lot of money from the federal government as a result of the pandemic. He said local leadership has been involved in deciding what projects to fund. He said some communities are seeing success in subsidizing companies to move to their towns, while others are using low property taxes to lure industrial prospects. He also described the collaboration among the city, county and Development Authority that brought PCOM South Georgia to Moultrie.

During follow-up conversation, Cannon also pointed to other things communities can do to make themselves more attractive: good schools, parks and recreation, safe neighborhoods, good roads and a pace of life that people want.

Watson said government is often the problem, not the solution, to economic issues. "Sometimes I think government should just stay out of the way," he said.

White said agriculture is critical to rural economies, and Congress is currently negotiating the next five-year farm bill. He said Rep. Scott is vice chairman of the House Ag Committee, so he's heavily involved in the talks, but only 12% of the money allocated in the farm bill will be to support agriculture; the same bill also funds food assistance programs, such as food stamps.

"We've got to fight for the dollars to make sure our farmers are protected," White said.

When asked about progress on broadband infrastructure, all four on the panel spoke of how important it is for rural areas to have access to the internet because so many things that people do are now done online, from school classes to business meetings.

Cannon said each county has different permitting requirements, but by making its requirements the same as the state's minimum rules, Colquitt County makes it easier than many for the infrastructure to be put in place. The county was awarded a $24.5 million grant more than a year ago to grow the broadband system to reach nearly every household in the county.

Agriculture

Panel members included Dominic LaRiccia, director of field services for Georgia Ag Commissioner Tyler Harper; Jeremy Kichler, UGA Extension supervisor for Colquitt County; Bart Davis, a Doerun farmer who chairs the Georgia Cotton Commission and was recently named Georgia's nominee for the Southeastern Farmer of the Year; and Chip Blalock, executive director of the Sunbelt Ag Expo.

Agriculture is the economic backbone not only of Colquitt County but of the state overall. LaRiccia said nationally agriculture touches 1 in every 14 jobs; in Georgia, it's 1 in 7, and in Colquitt County it's about 1 in 3.

Kichler said agricultural production in Colquitt County has a farm gate value of $550 million. That's the value of the crop, livestock, etc., as they leave the farm, before any further processing that might add even more value.

But the biggest challenge facing ag producers is a workforce, panelists said.

Kichler said many businesses are facing a "labor bottleneck."

"There's just a lack of labor out there," he said.

Farmers have come to rely on the federal H2A program, which brings in foreign labor to work on American farms. The program currently can't meet farmers' needs in a timely manner, panelists said.

"We've got blueberry growers right now in Bacon, Ware and Clinch counties been waiting on H2A workers for seven days," LaRiccia said. "One blueberry producer said that those seven days of missing those first, fresh picked berries cost him $1.2 million. That's one grower."

He said Congress will have to do something to fix that program.

Davis said farm labor issues are nothing new.

"This is a hard question to answer," he said. "I've been trying to figure it out for 42 years."

"Farming is still hard work," Davis said, "but it's not like it used to be."

With technology, "farming is safer and more sustainable in this country than it's ever been," he said, and farm employees are starting to get benefits comparable to those in other jobs because the farmers have to compete with other businesses to get good workers.

"You can make good money working on a farm," he said.

Recreation

Panel members included Maggie Davidson, executive director of the Moultrie-Colquitt County Parks and Recreation Authority; John Fox, head coach of the Moss Farms Diving Tigers; Wayne "Bud" Fuller, manager of Reed Bingham State Park; and Bella Summerlin, development director of the Moultrie YMCA.

The first question asked about recreation opportunities for the whole family.

Davidson said participation at the Rec Authority increased during the Covid pandemic especially in pickleball and T-ball.

"We didn't see a decrease in anything during Covid, I don't think," she said. "Our pools were packed."

But overall, she said, the trend has been away from traditional ball sports — baseball, football, etc. — toward other activities. Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America, she said, and it's growing fast here too.

Fox said the diving team is primarily for youth, but the whole family supports them as they practice and travel to meets.

Fuller said many activities at Reed Bingham are available for the whole family, both camping sites and the day programs.

Summerlin said the Y has activities for youth as well as similar activities for adults. She talked of parents dropping their children at the Crossfit for Kids class then going to an adult class there too, and she said the new E-gym is popular with all ages.

Education

Panel members included Jim Glass, president of Southern Regional Technical College; Kelly Coyle, head of school at Colquitt Christian Academy; Dr. Jennifer Mitchell, assistant director of diversity and community relations at PCOM; Richard Rentz, superintendent of Coastal Plains Charter High School; and Ben Wiggins, superintendent of the Colquitt County School District.

The education panel faced no more questions than any other, but those questions ranged over a wider variety of subjects, beginning with changes panelists have seen in incoming students.

Glass and Rentz both pointed to technological changes forced upon students by the Covid pandemic.

"If they're not technologically advanced, they're behind when they get here," Glass said.

Mitchell said PCOM is seeing mental health challenges due to both academic and life stressors. She said the medical college is working to address those concerns.

Wiggins said students need to develop grit "where they're not afraid of adversity."

Following a question about school counselors, Wiggins talked about how they've transitioned from purely academic counseling to a mental health role.

Rentz agreed and said student services, including counselors, are probably the most important part of Coastal Plains' program.

Mitchell said PCOM students are actually becoming counselors themselves — or at least mentors — for students at C.A. Gray Junior High School. They meet the junior high students weekly for career exploration and life skills lessons.

Glass and Coyle addressed the question within the traditional definition of a school counselor. Coyle talked about the counselors helping prepare students for the next stage of their academic career. Glass discussed how Colquitt County High School counselors support SRTC's work.

The next question said the Colquitt County School System has an 88.4% graduation rate and asked what the system is doing to bring that up — which meant Wiggins was the only panelist able to respond.

He said the graduation rate is a focus of the system at all levels — kindergarten through 12th grade — and the rate is rising. "There's no reason in the world our graduation rate shouldn't be 92%," he said.

A recent change that Wiggins believes will make a big impact is requiring all high schoolers to complete a pathway to graduate. A pathway is a combination of classes that leads toward a career field or higher education, and the high school offers a wide variety of such pathways. Wiggins said completing a pathway was previously optional, but statistics showed that students who completed a pathway were much more likely to graduate than those who didn't.

In the final question for the group, panelists were asked about school violence.

Glass said SRTC has its own police force, a legacy from its merger with Bainbridge College, but school safety issues keep educators up nights. SRTC has never had a serious incident, he said, and officials are working to ensure it doesn't have one in the future. But the school encompasses almost 1 million square feet of building space on four major campuses.

Coyle said CCA's smaller facility is split between two campuses, but they had a lockdown the day before the panel discussion as police searched the woods between the campuses for a suspect. Coyle said the school holds weekly training sessions with a security company, the Remnant Security Group. "While we are small, we have the same duty to protect our students, our faculty and staff," she said.

Mitchell said she was at Florida State University during an active shooter situation in 2014, so it's a subject she pays close attention to. Security is among the top five stressors for students, she said. PCOM South Georgia employs an on-campus safety officer and holds quarterly active shooter training. An active shooter drill in November included city and county law enforcement.

Coastal Plains Charter High School uses the Colquitt County High building, so Rentz said their security protocols are set by the Colquitt County School System.

Wiggins praised the system's director of school safety, a former GBI agent, who searches for weaknesses in safety systems at the schools. In addition, the Colquitt County Board of Education has invested in a variety of technology, including cameras in every classroom, that will enable fast and accurate response from law enforcement when needed.

Health care

Panel members included Jim Matney, president and CEO of Colquitt Regional Medical Center; R.J. Hurn, CEO of Georgia Pines; and Dr. Marla Golden, associate dean of clinical education at both PCOM Georgia and PCOM South Georgia.

Panelists were asked the community's top health issue. Matney responded with a laundry list: "It's clearly high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke — those are the same things that've been around for years," he said.

But, he added, there have been a lot of improvements to medicines, other treatments and prevention techniques.

"We saw a lot of people delay their colonoscopy or delay their mammogram during Covid, and now we're seeing a rise in those cases," he said.

Hurn, whose agency provides mental health services across the area, said the problem is a lack of services. He said health care agencies need a larger workforce.

Golden said the problem is an access to care. Some people have economic challenges or lack of transportation that prevents them from getting to the doctor, but as Covid showed there's also a mistrust of medical opinion. She said a more diverse health care team could help alleviate some of that.

"People are more likely to look for a physician who is like them or of like mind to them," she said.

In a follow-up to that, Matney said about one-third of Colquitt Regional's physicians are minorities. He said the hospital tries to match the demographics of the community, which includes African American doctors as well as those who speak Spanish.

The final question for the panel involved the affordability of health care for the uninsured.

Matney said he wasn't concerned about the people with no money: The hospital would provide the service and Medicaid would pay what it pays. His concern was for the people with high-deductible insurance plans, which are becoming more common.

"We'll work with you," he promised and said he believed other health care providers would take the same approach.

Golden told consumers to "call around" because different facilities charge different prices for the same service.