Top Georgia Stories For 2021: Cityhood push for Buckhead, Jimmy Carter, Trump And Election

GEORGIA — The year 2021 has been exceptional in many ways across the globe, and Georgia has found its way into the center of national news more times than a few.

Patch has been there to chronicle other news across the country, and that means also cataloging the highs and lows of happenings in the Peach State. Here are some of the highlights from the year that was 2021.

COVID-19: The dominant news, of course, has been the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. And with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based in Atlanta, Georgia’s name was never far from mention with ever-changing updates and recommendations. Vaccines came into view early in the year, and by summer were available to anyone ages 12 and older. While Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms persisted in maintaining a city-wide mask mandate, Gov. Brian Kemp pushed back with an executive order banning such mandates. The delta variant of the coronavirus created a spike in cases through the late spring and summer that waned as more Georgians were vaccinated ... despite the protests of anti-vaxxers. Then in early December, the omicron variant appeared, driving positive COVID-19 cases, and subsequently, hospitalizations up again.

Atlanta Braves are World Champs after 26 years: Who could forget? Nearly one year after an unprecedented collapse (if you don’t count the Atlanta Falcons 28-3 meltdown) to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, a Braves team rocked with injuries rallies to beat their rivals and face the Houston Astros in the World Series. And despite losing ace pitcher Charlie Morton to a broken fibula in the early innings of Game 1, Atlanta goes on to defeat the Astros in six games.

Paulding County teens save bus driver: Paulding County seventh-graders Kane Daugherty and Conner Doss took control of a bad situation when their bus driver Julie Sargent-Williamson suffered a mini-stroke while driving dozens of children to East Paulding Middle School. The two remained composed and were able to get help for Williamson while keeping their fellow students safe and calm.

Donald Trump tries to influence GA election count: In the waning days of his presidency, Donald Trump is recorded on an hour-long phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking the then-state-election-head to “find 11,780 votes to reverse Georgia results that gave President Joe Biden the state, claiming unproven election cheating. In addition to Trump’s meddling in the state’s election, the White House allegedly forced out the former U.S. Attorney for Georgia’s Northern District, Byung J. “Bjay” Pak for refusing to open a federal election fraud investigation, Trump attorney Lin Wood was sanctioned by the Georgia Bar for promoting the false election fraud narrative in court, and Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was sued by Fulton County election workers he falsely claimed were tampering with ballots.

President Jimmy Carter turns 97: The nation’s oldest living president and possibly one of the most beloved Georgians, former President Jimmy Carter celebrated his 97th birthday in October. In July, Carter celebrated 75 years of marriage to former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Both still live in the tiny town of Plains and continue to work with the Carter Foundation to help make the world a better place.

Warnock and Ossoff flip U.S. Senate in Georgia runoff: In spite of – or possibly because of – Trump-fueled lies about widespread election fraud in swing states that he lost to Joe Biden, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock were able to unseat their Republican incumbent opponents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, giving Democrats the seats they needed with Vice President Kamala Harris as the deciding vote to control the Senate.

Georgians boycott Publix: Upon news that Julie Jenkins Fancelli, the heiress of Florida-based grocery giant Publix, donated $300,000 to fund the Jan. 6 Washington, D.C. rally that devolved into rioters attacking the U.S. Capitol, Floridians called for a boycott of the company’s many stores. Many Georgians soon followed suit, while others hotly debated whether it was right to abandon stores, thus impacting its employees.

Governor passes law restricting voting access, Secretary of State powers: Kemp and partisan supporters in the Georgia General assembly passed legislation overhauling election laws in what they considered an effort to make voting more secure. The law was borne of the unfounded claims about widespread fraud during the 2020 presidential election resulting from changes made to voter access to accommodate safe COVID-19 protocols. Many local and national businesses decried the new rules that cut back access to absentee ballot dropboxes, and time for absentee voters to request and return ballots, and gutted the election oversight of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. In the most significant result of the new law, Major League Baseball relocated the All-Star Game to Denver at the behest of the player’s union.

3 white men convicted in Ahmaud Arbery shooting death: More than a year after Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., set off after an unarmed Ahmaud Arbery in their pickup trucks as Bryan filmed them chasing the 25-year-old Black man, cornering him and Travis McMichael shooting him, a Glynn County jury convicted all three men. The guilty verdicts for murder and other charges came the day before Thanksgiving, after more than two weeks of testimony and nearly 11 hours of jury deliberation. The incident nearly didn’t make it to trial as the sitting District Attorney at the time, Jackie Johnson, failed to arrest or prosecute the men and was later indicted on misconduct charges. Because the McMichaels invoked the state’s citizens arrest law when going after Arbery, Gov. Brian Kemp and a bipartisan coalition of state legislators rewrote the law, outlawing the kind of vigilante justice that led to the deadly shooting.

Atlanta, Acworth County spa shootings kill 8: Robert Aaron Long walked into a Cherokee County massage parlor one March afternoon and opened fire, killing four women inside. The 21-year-old Woodstock man then drove into Atlanta to Buckhead where shot and killed four more women in two neighboring spas. Police were able to track and arrest Long nearly 200 miles away from where his shooting spree started, and he confessed to investigators Cherokee County and took a plea deal. A trial still awaits him in Fulton County where Long faces the death penalty, as conversations about mental health and hate crimes against Asian Americans ensued because six of his victims were of Asian descent.

Buckhead wants to secede from Atlanta: What started as a grassroots movement to explore the possibility of forming a new city evolved over the year into a full-fledged campaign led by some Buckhead residents and business owners to sever the well-to-do community from the City of Atlanta, citing a rise in violent crime in the area. Along the way, the movement garnered political support from state lawmakers from outside of Atlanta willing to back cityhood legislation. In the meantime, opposers pointed to the toll that a Buckhead separation would take on Atlanta Public Schools, the city, and the region. Also, Atlanta Mayor Bottoms announced she would not seek a second term, leaving the office up for grabs in a heated contest that eventually went to Mayor-elect Andre Dickens.

What were your stop stories for 2021?