Hometown Headlines Radio Edition: Local news without the static.

In just a few years, Jay Shell and Dr. Trent Prault have turned an idea into a growing regional brewery, serving not only in-house draughts and carry-out but also restaurants, bars and stores in parts of Georgia and Alabama. 

With demand growing, especially for delivery, the partners behind Rome City Brewing Co. have outgrown 331 and 333 Broad St. and continue to focus on a new site with needed indoor space as well as one offering room for outdoor events, from cornhole tournaments to concerts. 

Jay Shell joined us to talk about what's next, including growth plans even amid the challenges the pandemic has placed on the brewery, its tap and keg rooms, and food partner Hillery Sawyer who is "knocking it out of the park" with her SpeakCheesy dining and to-go business. 

First things first, they have to sell the current location in the heart of Broad Street. Here's the listing. 

Coronavirus updates:

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RANT OF THE DAY: All eyes and ears on Brian Kemp today.

Brian Kemp won Georgia’s governorship in 2018 a few days after his 55th birthday. Sixteen months later, he’s probably aged a decade in political years.

He inherited a state with a solid economy, one that continued to click under his watch. He enjoyed a brief honeymoon with the General Assembly.

He made a gut call when appointing the successor to Johnny Isakson, rejecting the Senate candidate supported by Donald Trump and triggering a war within the GOP.

Subsequently, Kemp saw the General Assembly attempt to deflect his recommended budget cuts and make moves on his promised $3,000-a-year raise for public school teachers.

But all that was politics and if anything, Kemp can play that game. Today, he's facing a killer on the loose -- a pandemic that continues to creep acros the state.  The time has come to maek some of the toughest calls of his life. And perhaps many Georgians as well. 

Coronavirus updates:

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RANT OF THE DAY: 24 hours, 75 lives.

We gave up on the “It’s Only The Flu” crowd a month ago. Even as state and local governments basically pushed the coronavirus threat aside as something that would never happen here, we knew the grim forecasts were coming true.

Among the most vocal were the flu theorists. It’s seasonal, they said. It will go away as soon as it gets warmer, they said.

We wrote them off, knowing any sort of debate wouldn’t change their minds. But we tried again last night when another one raised his or her hand on Facebook in response to the first coronavirus death in Chattooga County. Late Monday, the state confirmed an 82-year-old man with “underlying health issues” had died.

So we took exception. We wrote, yet again, that the flu had killed 83 people in the state of Georgia between Sept. 30 and March 14.  Combined with the our previous seasons, that's 294 flu deaths in all over five years.

Coronavirus has killed exactly that many Georgians in five weeks -- and counting. 

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RANT OF THE DAY:

There’s nothing to celebrate about a community’s daily newspaper shifting to publishing five days a week. Given the spiral of print in general since the start of the last recession, it is a miracle some newspapers continue to publish each day.

After today, the Monday edition of the Rome News-Tribune will vanish. The Sunday paper likewise is history, with an expanded weekend edition taking its place for Saturday delivery. The newspaper’s website will continue on a seven-day cycle.

Vanishing advertising revenue is the main culprit. And yet, more than ever, we need a daily newspaper.

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RANT OF THE DAY: Essentially, we’re essential.

For weeks now, we’ve been hearing about doing things “out of an abundance of caution.” We’ve been told to be socially distant, to wash our hands long and hard.

Dining out has become drive-by dining. You dial for dinner, pay by card or app, have people place food on a tray and deliver it to your window.

Those long Sunday afternoon catch-ups on the ketchup aisle at Publix or Kroger have been replaced by the 100-yard dash. That is, get in, get the vital vittles as fast as you can and get out of there. As a very wise young man always tells me: “Just don’t make eye contact.”

Other than that, most of us are supposed to be obeying, as of 6 tonight, a reluctant Brian Kemp’s shelter-in-place ordinance. It trumps any of the local mandates, two of which were to expire on April 7. Kemp’s edict stretchs through Monday, April 13 – for now.

What he's saying is basic: Shelter-in-place. Actor Samuel L. Jackson has an even cruder way of saying that -- and it is just as effective.  What both really mean to say: You are essential.

Coronavirus updates:

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RANT OF THE DAY: So now you know about the rest of the stories.

Amid another swirl of coronavirus headlines – from closing schools to the rising death count to business setbacks and layoffs to sheltering-in-place – there was too much other news on Wednesday. Usually, we'd brand this as one of the top news days of the year. It easily has been trumped by what likely will be the story of the century -- coronavirus.

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RANT OF THE DAY: It has been a month since that special Sunday service at The Church at Liberty Square in Cartersville.  No one saw what was coming next. 

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RANT OF THE DAY: Why some are succeeding in moving to Plan B.

Today's headlines:

An investigation continues as five people are found dead inside a Bartow County apartment — four females and one male. The Bartow County Sheriff’s Office is being assisted by the GBI in the investigation; the bodies have been sent to the state crime lab for autopises. We’ll have continuing updates later today.

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RANT OF THE DAY: Gimme shelter.

As we hit the half-way point of the local “shelter-in-place” mandates, where exactly are we? We’re not sure of the answers but we offer the following points that have been shared with us. None are scientific – but they’re on a lot of folks minds today. We're angy. We're suddenly hi-tech. We're bilingual. We're hiding. We're bingeing. We're praying. We're scared. But... are we determined? 

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RANT OF THE DAY: A grim day in Georgia.