Georgia Today: Planned Parenthood leadership; Bulloch county asphalt plant, ICE protests

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Planned Parenthood Southeast gets some leadership help from the West Coast. Bullitt County considers allowing an asphalt plant near Statesboro. And some Georgians reflect on what it means to be part of protests against ICE last week. 

Jess Cook: It means using the privilege that I have to show my face in public, to stand up for people who are no longer safe to do the same. 

Peter Biello: Today is Monday, Feb. 2. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today. 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: Last week saw a wave of protests against immigration and customs enforcement activities in Minneapolis and here at home. GPB reporters were at some of the events and bring us this audio postcard. 

Grant Blankenship: I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon, where last Wednesday, Lauren Bone was one of hundreds of people who marched through downtown, no testing eyes. Friday she was at work at Macon Bakery, the bakery she owns with her husband, and thinking, "What next?" Could they and their employees afford to participate in the national small business strike she'd read about online? 

Lauren Bone Doesn't always work out where you can, you know, still pay everyone and do that. 

Grant Blankenship What she settled on was giving a chunk of Friday's revenue to groups that provide legal aid in immigration proceedings. She says she knows some people will scoff at that. 

Lauren Bone Yeah, we're in Middle Georgia. We're not a major city. And a lot of people are like, "who cares? 

Grant Blankenship But Lauren Bone says that apathy leaves us all stuck. 

Lauren Bone Yeah and it's not about having like a perfect solution that's — or, like, a magic pill that's gonna solve everything. It is just about just saying that we're here for each other. 

Chase McGhee I'm Chase McGee in Athens. On Friday at the University of Georgia, a campus walkout organized by left-leaning political groups brought together about 400 students outside the main student center. Jess Cook is a student at UGA. She showed up with her friends who had hand-drawn signs they made ahead of the protest. 

Jess Cook It means using the privilege that I have to show my face in public to stand up for people who are no longer safe to do the same. 

Chase McGhee Pariprita Malavarapu hadn't planned on attending a protest between classes, but she said she thought it was vital that UGA stays a place for free speech and political conversations, no matter what side. 

Pariprita Malavarapu: If they're able to get up there and talk about what's going on and what they feel is right, then I think anyone is able to do that. And I feel like UGA is very inclusive of trying to make people's voices be heard. 

Sarah Kallis: I'm Sarah Kallis in Cobb County. Later on Friday, six students walked out of Wheeler High School as part of a statewide protest by high school students. Junior Ariana Wilson says she feels like she needs to take a stand against what she calls injustice, even as her school district warned parents and students like her that there would be disciplinary action for walking out of the classroom. 

Ariana Wilson: I told my parents about this and my dad, he gave me this long speech telling me just do what you feel is right, do what your heart's telling you to do. 

Sarah Kallis: The students were joined by a group of mothers who supported their decision to walk out, like Jenny Peterson.

Jenny Peterson:  I wanna have a school district that teaches our students how to be engaged citizens, not just crushes them under their thumb when they decide that they don't like what they might say. 

Sarah Kallis: Students say they believe there would be more participation if students were not threatened with suspension. 

Sofi Gratas By 6 p.m. on Friday, almost 300 people had gathered in a shopping center parking lot along Buford Highway, a thoroughfare of international markets and restaurants. They condemned the immigration-related arrests that locals just across the street from the protest confirmed are happening frequently in their neighborhoods and workplaces. Aranza Saldana held her son Emiliano's hand as he waved a big Mexican flag. 

Aranza Saldana: This is a Hispanic-dominated area, everyone's —  everyone fears for their lives, yes. 

Sofi Gratas: Immigration enforcement here has been quiet compared to other parts of the country, but Saldana says that doesn't diminish the fear she feels for her own parents who do not have U.S. citizenship. 

Aranza Saldana Yeah, that's my parents' mentality. Like, "Oh, if my time comes, my time comes." I'm like, "No, you can't say that. We cannot normalize this."

Sofi Gratas She says she'll continue to protest against President Trump's ICE for the people in this community who don't feel safe enough to do so on their own. For GPB News, I'm Sofi Gratas in Atlanta. 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: The Georgia Senate passed a resolution today urging Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to turn over the state's voter rolls to the U.S. Department of Justice. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports. 

Sarah Kallis: Republicans like Sen. Ed Setzler say that complying with the resolution encourages transparency. 

Ed Setzler: We're making sure Georgia hides nothing from full public transparency. 

Sarah Kallis: But Democrats say the request has an agenda behind it. 

Josh McLaurin: Senate Republicans are willing to compromise every Georgian's privacy just to scratch Donald Trump's ego. 

Sarah Kallis: The resolution, which is not legally binding, passed along party lines. Raffensperger maintains that turning over sensitive voter information to the federal government violates state law. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol. 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: A California-based Planned Parenthood chapter will help manage Planned Parenthhood Southeast. This, after the resignation of the organization's interim CEO late last year. The move announced last week aims to provide interim leadership, which will support staff at Planned Planned Southeast, which serves residents in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. A petition launched last year alleged the previous CEO had terminated employees dedicated to public policy and organizing, and curtailed the organization's emphasis on abortion services and community outreach. An investigation found no merit to the allegations. Planned Parenthood Southeast did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: A Bulloch County automobile junkyard may soon be converted into an asphalt plant. Developer Concrete Enterprises has requested rezoning and variance for the 24-acre property located south of Statesboro. The property is adjacent to a mobile home park and another development of single-family homes, which may be impacted by any noise or smell coming from the proposed plant. Planning and development director of Bulloch County, James Pope, says nearby residents will be notified of two public hearings before the county board of commissioners votes on whether to approve the rezoning request. 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: Continental Tire says it's laying off 235 employees at its Aldora textile mill in Barnesville as it closes its facility there. The factory, about an hour south of Atlanta, produces tire reinforcement materials. In a statement, the company says the plant has not been competitive for years despite efforts to turn it around. The company also says, quote, "global market dynamics and supply chains" factored into this decision. 

Story 6:

Peter Biello: A new study from the University of Georgia shows that many things marked by deer glow under UV lights, and that could impact our understanding of how they communicate. GPB's Chase McGee has more. 

Chase McGee: If you've ever walked through the woods, you might have seen tree barks scraped away, or marks dug into the ground. That could be the sign of deer, and UGA doctoral student Daniel DeRose-Broeckert recently discovered these signs are photoluminescent, meaning they glow under UV light. 

Daniel DeRose-Broeckert: It's like a chat room, I guess, for deer or a community, just a phone booth of sorts. Everybody goes there, they sniff it. 

Chase McGee: Because deer deposit scent via urine or a few different scent glands, sometimes to communicate during breeding season. But DeRose-Broeckert says more research could show that the structure of deer eyes allow them to see that glow, and he says that could change things for conservation, hunting and deer management. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee. 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: This is All Things Considered on GPB. I'm Peter Biello. Football fans may remember Fran Tarkenton as the scrambler for his particular skill on the gridiron, but he's also an entrepreneur. He's one of two football players who have successful encore careers in tonight's episode of Georgia Legends, hosted by Jeff Hollinger, who's with me now. Hey, Jeff. 

Jeff Hullinger: Hey Peter, good to be here. Fran Tarkington, one of the most extraordinary American sporting lives of the 20th century. Nothing quite like it in terms of his degrees of success not only as an athlete but as a businessman and entrepreneur as well. 

Peter Biello: Well, tell us a little bit about his football prowess. Why was he such a legend on the football field? 

Jeff Hullinger: I think he is really a modern player in prehistoric times. Fran Tarkington was one of those who ushered in a totally new era where a quarterback wasn't a statue, wasn't a figure just standing about 7 or 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Instead, he was running. He was mobile. He looked like Patrick Mahomes. He was that kind of quarterback, and he ran into a lot of criticism, a lot of heat from not only coaches and owners, but fans as well, who didn't believe that a quarterback should be mobile and should be running. 

Peter Biello: And he spoke a bit about the lessons he learned in his Super Bowl appearances. Let's take a listen. 

Fran Tarkenton: We were not prepared, and we didn't have a chance at any one of the three Super Bowls. The teams that beat us, we beat them before and after, but we weren't prepared. It was a great lesson for me, understanding that if you're not prepared ... you're not going to perform like you should. 

Jeff Hullinger: Well the genesis of all of this really has come out in the last few years. And it is a — a criticism of Bud Grant who was a great hall of fame coach in the northlands for the Minnesota Vikings. But his decisions around Super Bowl Week and leading up to Super Bowls was a mistake. He was an old-school guy who believed that teams should not get together, they should not prepare, they should not work out. And they didn't. And those powerful Purple Eater — "Purple People Eaters," as they were called in that era of the 1970s, looked woeful in those Super Bowls and a lot of it was they weren't ready to go. 

Peter Biello: Football players go on to be TV analysts, but not as many go on to work in the financial services, but he went on to work in the insurance marketing industry.

Jeff Hullinger: Yeah, you don't see a lot of that — and in IT. I mean, you can see him now online, on X, on some other social media footprints talking about AI. I mean here's a guy who is certainly of another generation who gets the drill. He is always relevant and always looking to learn and always looking to be on the cutting edge. And as a businessman, you're right. When you look back at the history of the NFL or — or even the NBA or Major League Baseball, so many of these players once their careers ended, they became, really, ex-athletes and that's all. But Fran Tarkenton's a lot more than that: For a great, great football player became a great businessman. And here in Atlanta, there are the great stories of, you know, he made a billion dollars and he also lost a billion dollars. And he was able to always find his way back. 

Peter Biello: Well, let's talk about another great football player with a encore career. Malcolm Mitchell, former Patriots wide receiver from Valdosta. What makes him a Georgia legend? 

Jeff Hullinger: Mitchell is such a an amazing story. There's so many elements, so many, so many arrows in his quiver. I  mean here's a guy who was a great football player as a high school kid in South Georgia in Valdosta. Gets recruited to come to Athens in UGA and, you know, he's ready to play football but he's not ready to succeed in the classroom. He discovers that he is really unable to read and he wanted to get better. He knew that if he was going to succeed not only as a football player, but in life, he had to make sure that his reading skills were more than remedial. And it is a heroic, wonderful story about how he went to a bookstore, made friends with a woman there who was of a different generation and a different culture, and was able to bond with her. Finds himself included into their reading group, and he is a young man who's still a young man who found a way to succeed against every, every set of odds against him that he would not. 

Peter Biello: And now he's involved in advocating for children's literacy. How's he doing that? 

Jeff Hullinger: He is. He is doing a great job with his foundation, he writes books for children, he appears around the country, he has become such a positive force in encouraging kids that their success is via the classroom. 

Peter Biello: Both of those men are featured on Georgia Legends, which airs tonight at 9 on GPB TV. Host Jeff Hullinger, thank you so much for speaking with me about them. 

Jeff Hullinger: Thank you Peter. 

Story 8:

Peter Biello: And finally, Georgia's most accurate groundhog is calling for more winter. General Beauregard Lee saw his shadow today at Dossett Trails in Jackson, predicting six more weeks of cold weather. The forecast comes after a historic cold spell brought winter weather to parts of the state three weeks in a row. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Lee has an accuracy rate of about 80%, outperforming his better-known rival, Punxsutawney Phil. 

Outro:

Peter Biello: And that is a wrap on today's edition of Georgia Today. If you wanna learn more about any of these stories, visit gpb.org/news. And if you haven't subscribed to this podcast yet, we highly recommend it. Do it now and you won't miss a thing. And if have feedback on this podcast, or perhaps you've got a story idea that we should know about, send it to us by email. The address is georgiatoday@gpb.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We will see you tomorrow. 

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For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news