100 To Lose Jobs At Middle Georgia Plant

The closing of a middle Georgia plant will leave 100 people without jobs. Rockwell Automation will close the doors of its 30-year-old plant in Dublin next year. Officials with the Milwaukee-based company say operations will be phased-out beginning in October, and ending next July. Rockwell Automation provides industrial automation power, control and information systems to other manufacturers. The company is moving work from the Dublin plant to plants in Ohio and Mexico.

Middle Georgia 'green' cemetery gets local approval

A controversial green cemetery in middle Georgia now has the stamp of approval from local officials.

The Macon-Bibb County Zoning and Planning Commission voted 3-2 Monday to approve the natural burial project.

The cemetery has drawn some opposition from residents living nearby the proposed site. They worry body decomposition from simple burials--those without caskets or embalming--would contaminate ground water.

One neighborhood group says it has over 800 signatures on a petition against the project, and has threatened to sue the county. Jim Wood, president of the firm Summerland Group Incorporated which is developing the cemetery, doesn’t think the suit would get far.

"If that’s what they want to do, but I really don’t think they have a case. It’s their money, if that’s what they want to do...I really think it’s going to be a waste of time".

Wood says he expects the cemetery project to be completed and open in six months to a year, following certification from the state.

Retired General to oppose Marshall

A retired Robins Air Force base commander says he will seek the GOP nomination to run against Middle Georgia Democratic Congressman Jim Marshall.

After weeks of speculation, Retired Major General Richard Goddard announced Tuesday he will try to unseat Jim Marshall to represent Georgia’s 8th Congressional District.

Goddard says watching the Democratic-controlled congress in action this year helped him make his decision. He says the vision the liberal left has for this country is not what most men fought and died for. The retired general spent 37 years in the military. He served as a fighter pilot in Vietnam, flying 227 missions. He says he supports the war in Iraq.

Goddard says he was heavily recruited by Republican Party leaders. Congressional documents identify the 8th district as one of the GOP’s top 20 targets for the 2008 election.

Goddard currently works as a Vice-President at Mercer University in Macon.

Big peach losses in middle Georgia

Losses to Middle Georgia's peach crop are much worse than expected. Growers in Peach County expected to lose about 50-percent of their crop after an Easter eve freeze. But now that harvesting has begun, it's looking closer to an 80-percent loss.

Trees that are normally loaded with peaches are producing just a small amount of fruit. Lane Packing has been in the peach business for almost 100 years. They say the freeze is one of the worst in the company's history.

However, according to company official Wendy Brown, the peaches they are harvesting taste good.

"the early varieties that we started picking on Saturday, they're small but tremendously sweet. The sun is what makes the peach sweet, but the size is not there because we have not had much rain".

The freeze is also impacting migrant workers. Normally Lane Packing employs close to 300 during the peach picking season, but this year they expect to have under 100.