The Town Square Podcast

A grocery bill. A long drive to medical care. A veteran still trying to get help. When Pamela DeLancy talks about the people she meets on the campaign trail, those are the kinds of concerns she brings to the table.

In Episode 105, our Candidate Conversation series continues with DeLancy, a retired Army colonel and registered nurse running for US Congress in Georgia’s 10th District. She joins us to discuss the experiences that shaped her, why she decided to run, and what she hears from residents across a district that takes serious windshield time to cover.

She is direct about her convictions. She also has stories to tell, beginning long before she ever thought about putting her name on a ballot.

As the oldest of six children, DeLancy describes taking on family responsibilities early. After her parents divorced, her mother worked nights as a licensed practical nurse. DeLancy helped get her siblings up, fed, and ready for school so that the morning could run smoothly when her mother came home.

She also recalls her younger brother’s serious medical needs and the family’s move from Louisiana to Houston to find care. Helping her family was part of daily life. Looking back, she sees those experiences as the beginning of her understanding of accountability and service.

At 17, she asked her mother to sign the paperwork allowing her to join the Army. She saw a way to continue her education, support herself, and send money home. The plan eventually led her into nursing and a military career that lasted much longer than she initially imagined.

Early in the interview, DeLancy corrects the hosts’ notes: her service totaled 39 years, including 31 on active duty and eight in the Army Reserve. She describes beginning as an enlisted soldier, taking college classes while stationed in Germany, and later returning to school full time.

Through ROTC and nursing school, she became an officer. She tells the story of discovering that the Army needed her back on active duty as a nurse, a development she now sees as one of the best turns her career took.

The conversation also addresses the challenges she experienced as a Black woman in leadership. DeLancy says she learned to stay focused on her work and goals even when others questioned her authority. Her advice to younger soldiers was practical: be dependable, meet the standard, and do not let someone else’s behavior determine the course of your career.

DeLancy says her decision grew out of concerns about constitutional rights and the direction of the country. She emphasizes the military oath to the Constitution and argues that public officials should serve the people rather than pledge loyalty to a particular administration.

Her experience surviving gallbladder cancer also changed how she thought about the time ahead of her. She describes surgery, chemotherapy, and the importance of advocating for herself as a patient. After a long career of service, she felt called to do more.

There is a candid campaign origin story, too: a YouTube class, advice about raising money, and a prospective campaign manager whose discounted fee was still beyond what she had available. DeLancy kept going. A friend’s phrase, “Pam speaks boldly,” becomes a recurring thread in the interview.

Asked what residents tell her, DeLancy returns to affordability. She describes concerns about groceries, housing, fuel, and wages, along with the practical difficulty of finding services in rural communities. Some of the conversations she recounts involve limited access to dental care, maternity care, or a nearby grocery store.

For DeLancy, those issues connect. A job needs to pay enough to support a household, and a community needs the services that allow people to keep living and working there. She argues for stronger wages and career training, including opportunities for people who do not pursue a four-year degree.

She also talks about farmers who want to preserve agricultural land as pressure for development grows. The needs of a rural community, she says, cannot be understood solely from a distance. That is part of why she puts so much emphasis on visiting people in person.

Veterans’ care is one of the most personal parts of the episode. DeLancy describes people she has met who spent years trying to secure benefits, and she recounts her uncle’s experience seeking disability compensation. She says his approval arrived the day before the family buried him.

Her central argument is that veterans should not have to struggle through an exhausting process to obtain support connected to their service. She calls for more consistent access to mental healthcare, with attention to continuing treatment and prevention as well as crisis response.

She also describes an idea for a public-service employment and training program inspired by earlier conservation efforts. In her proposal, veterans and workers who need additional skills could train for jobs that meet needs in their own communities. She connects that idea to rural employment and the care an aging population will require.

The hosts ask what Congress can realistically do about food and housing costs. DeLancy acknowledges that Congress cannot simply make prices fall overnight. She discusses supporting locally grown food, scrutinizing corporate pricing, and improving pay so that more families can cover basic expenses.

She also argues that debates about food assistance need to account for what people earn. In her view, it makes little sense to criticize families for needing help while accepting wages that leave them unable to pay for necessities.

Her answers place household stability at the center of her campaign. They also give listeners a useful starting point for follow-up questions about the federal policies, costs, and partnerships that would be needed to carry out her priorities.

When the conversation turns to data centers, DeLancy questions whether the promised economic benefits adequately account for the burdens on nearby residents. She raises concerns about water use, electricity demand, noise, and the protection of farmland.

She argues that developers should bear responsibility for addressing resource needs and community impacts. She also suggests that residents should share more directly in the benefits of projects built near them. These are her policy views and concerns; the interview is not a technical assessment of a particular facility.

The hosts acknowledge that they have heard different perspectives on data centers across the podcast. This conversation adds DeLancy’s priorities to that wider discussion: protect essential resources and ask who receives the benefit when a community accepts a major development.

DeLancy recounts receiving a voter-registration mailing that concerned her and contacting election officials about it. The experience becomes part of a larger conversation about access to voting and the importance she places on constitutional rights. For official registration and polling information, Georgia listeners can use the state’s My Voter Page: https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/

The hosts also ask her to identify both a difference and a point of agreement with her Republican opponent. DeLancy draws a sharp distinction between their approaches and says the shared pursuit of the office is the only common ground she can name. It is a revealing answer in a series built to let candidates explain where they stand.

She closes by asking voters to consider a candidate’s values and commitment to representation. Her case for running rests on the idea that serving people has been the consistent work of her life. Hear her make that case, weigh the ideas, and bring your own questions to the conversation.

Watch Episode 105: https://youtu.be/zHkwm1U8VKA

Pamela DeLancy campaign website https://www.votepamdelancy.com

Watch Episode 105 https://youtu.be/zHkwm1U8VKA

Georgia My Voter Page — official voter information resource https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/

Town Square Insiders. https://TheTownSquarePodcast.com/insiders

Bizzy Bee Exterminators

Thank you to Bizzy Bee Exterminators for supporting this episode. Bizzy Bee provides pest control for homes and businesses, including termite and mosquito services. Visit https://www.bizzybeeexterminators.com to explore their services and request help with unwanted pests.

Headbangers Taphouse

Welcome to our newest sponsor, Headbangers Taphouse! The episode’s sponsor spot introduces a Covington gathering place with food, beer on tap, sports, music bingo, and live music. Bring your friends and get to know the business helping support these local conversations. Visit https://headbangerstaphouse.com for more information.

What does “meeting in the middle” actually mean when the conversation turns to healthcare, immigration, abortion, and the cost of living? It is easy to say we need more cooperation. The harder question is where a candidate is willing to practice it.

In Episode 104, our Candidate Conversation series continues with Jonathan Chavez, a Republican running for US Congress in Georgia’s 13th District. The Conyers resident joins us to discuss the experiences behind his positions, the problems he wants Congress to address, and the places where his answers depart from familiar party talking points.

There is also a surprisingly detailed conversation about loading a dishwasher. Around here, getting to know a candidate includes the person who goes home after the campaign event.

Chavez describes a path from Albuquerque to Boston and eventually to Conyers, where his wife’s family helped draw them to Georgia. He talks about raising four children, his family’s decision to homeschool, and the work ethic his father passed down to him.

Those family stories help explain how he approaches opportunity and responsibility. He recalls working as a teenager and learning to keep a goal in view when setbacks came. Today, he says, his children are a central reason he keeps pushing himself.

His professional background brings another perspective. Drawing on his military medical service and work in healthcare administration, Chavez describes leadership as a responsibility to make decisions with the best information available, including information that challenges your first instinct.

One of the episode’s most revealing stories comes from a military training exercise. Faced with a simulated casualty lying on a grenade, Chavez had to decide how to protect his team while continuing to help other patients. He describes choosing to report the hazard and move the team forward.

The lesson he carried away was about making a decision under pressure, then learning from it. In his civilian work, he says that also means hiring people who will question his approach.

“I need to surround myself with not just yes people,” Chavez says. He wants respectful opposition because someone else may see the angle he missed. That idea becomes a recurring test throughout the conversation: how would it translate from a hospital team to Congress?

Healthcare produces some of the most detailed policy discussion. Chavez says he values the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with preexisting conditions and wants to improve the system rather than reject it wholesale.

He proposes expanding public coverage for certain expensive medical conditions while giving health insurers more ability to compete across state lines, with a minimum coverage standard. In his view, taking on some of the costliest care could create room to press insurers for lower premiums. Those are his proposed changes and expected benefits, not established outcomes.

Chavez connects his ideas to the patients he encounters through his work, including people who struggle to afford copayments. He also describes efforts to shorten inpatient MRI turnaround times and develop cardiac imaging services. For him, the policy question starts with whether people can actually get the care they need.

The discussion leaves room for the implementation questions: how coverage would be financed, how quality would be protected, and what would make the promised savings reach patients. It gives listeners a clearer picture of what he wants to pursue.

On affordability, Chavez discusses housing tax credits, business regulation, and support for small businesses. The hosts press him on the boundary between what Congress can change and what belongs to state or local government.

He also explains his interest in the FairTax proposal, a national consumption tax approach with a monthly household “prebate.” He sees potential in changing how federal taxes are collected, while saying the idea needs more research and questioning whether it would really eliminate the IRS.

For listeners, the useful question is what such a change would mean for a household’s full budget: take-home pay, purchases, and the monthly prebate together. Chavez’s expectations about prices and savings are part of his case for studying the proposal.

Asked what securing the border means to him, Chavez argues for enforcement alongside a more workable legal immigration system. He also says some longtime undocumented residents who have contributed to their communities should have a pathway toward citizenship.

His grandfather’s immigration story helps shape that view. Chavez says this is one area where he differs from some people in his own party, and he describes wanting a process that is faster and better able to vet applicants.

The exchange gets at an important part of Candidate Conversations: a broad campaign phrase can hold very different ideas. Asking the next question is how listeners find out what a candidate actually means.

Education brings the conversation back to the relationship between federal support and local decisions. Chavez favors expanding support for students facing poverty, educator development, and students from immigrant backgrounds while giving states and districts room to determine how resources are used.

He argues for measuring students’ progress from their starting points. When students struggle, he wants schools to receive help and resources to improve. He also supports assistance for homeschooling families, while acknowledging that homeschooling is not a workable option for everyone and that public schools will continue to serve families.

Chavez is direct about his Christian faith and opposition to abortion. He describes those convictions as central to his reasons for running, and he discusses wanting a larger place for prayer and Christian principles in public life.

The hosts also explore how voters weigh competing priorities. A person’s party affiliation does not necessarily tell you what they believe about every issue, or which concern will carry the most weight in their vote. That exchange adds context without resolving the disagreements.

Chavez says he once identified as a Democrat, and he credits conversations with his wife with challenging his views. His willingness to describe that change sits alongside firm positions that some listeners will share and others will question. Both are part of understanding the candidate.

Near the end, the conversation returns to accountability: what should voters expect from the person they send to Washington, and how should they judge the results? Chavez argues for a change in representation and says he does not want a lifelong career in Congress.

This episode offers listeners time to hear his reasoning across several issues, including where he draws a firm line and where he sees room to work with others. Watch the full conversation, consider the proposals, and bring your own questions. That is the work of the messy middle.

Watch Episode 104: https://youtu.be/4b3pWEq1Cv8

Jonathan Chavez campaign website - https://jonathanchavezforcongress.com/

FairTax proposal discussed in the episode - https://fairtax.org/about/how-fairtax-works

Watch Episode 104 - https://youtu.be/4b3pWEq1Cv8

Become a Town Square Insider. Don't miss a single episode or the weekly blog posts. Click the link and enter your email address to be a Town Square Insider - https://TheTownSquarePodcast.com/insiders

Thank you to United Bank Mortgage for supporting Town Square Podcast and our Candidate Conversation series. United Bank offers mortgage services with local lenders who can help you explore buying or refinancing a home. Visit https://www.accessunited.com to learn more and connect with their team. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/zaKh0YOmQYM

Ten dollars a month may not sound like the beginning of a community investment strategy. Zayvion Sheppard thinks it is a perfectly good place to start. Get 50 people to commit, and those small gifts add up to $500 a month, or $6,000 over a full year. For a grassroots organization helping students prepare for college or neighbors find work, that can mean something practical.

Zay returns to The Town Square Podcast with an invitation to participate in that kind of giving through For Atlanta. By Atlanta., known as FABA. He also brings a book announcement, an honest account of nearly giving up on the organization, and a reminder that the people who invest in a young person may never see the full reach of what they started.

Zay describes attending an Atlanta benefit and leaving energized by the generosity in the room. He appreciated what large donors and corporate partners could make possible. He also wondered how more people could experience the same connection to the work without a high price of admission.

That question helped shape what he calls “affordable impact.” The FABA 50 invites 50 people to give $10 a month. It is a way to make regular community giving accessible to people who want to help but may never write a large check.

In the conversation, Zay is candid about how hard it can be to ask. At 22, he has had to challenge his own doubts about whether people will trust him with their money. The response from his network has pushed him to take that trust seriously and to stop assuming the answer will be no.

FABA’s approach centers on raising money, investing in community organizations, and sharing the stories of what those investments make possible. Zay wants donors to see the people and work behind a contribution.

He points to the Taylor Made Foundation as an example. In his account, FABA’s support helped the organization send five graduating students off to college with dorm-room supplies. Refrigerators, microwaves, toiletries and school supplies may not sound glamorous. For a family getting a student ready to leave home, they are real needs.

Zay also discusses support for after-school learning and workforce development. When asked whether education, housing and employment define the organization’s limits, he clarifies that fighting poverty is the broader purpose. The team wants to find trusted organizations doing effective work, including those that may not fit neatly into a predetermined category.

The way Zay describes finding partners is refreshingly local. Talk to people. Ask who has helped their children, their families or their neighbors. Pay attention to the organization that keeps showing up, even if its leader is too busy doing the work to promote it.

He wants that community knowledge to matter in funding decisions. Many of the leaders he describes hold another job while running their nonprofits. FABA aims to support their work without adding a heavy administrative burden. Follow-up conversations still matter: What did the support accomplish? What need remains? What could additional funding make possible?

That approach also puts responsibility on FABA. Zay describes board oversight and regular conversations about the organization’s decisions. He tells a particularly personal story about a donor who preferred to hand over cash: a $20 contribution covering two months of support. He does not know what it took for her to spare that money. He knows he has a responsibility to use it well.

Zay admits that there was a point when he hoped FABA might quietly fade away. The ambition was big, and the team had overcommitted. Then someone at a professional program asked about the organization after Zay had deliberately left it out of his introduction.

That conversation helped him reconsider. Instead of trying to do everything, the team focused on work it knew it could carry out: raise funds, support organizations already serving their communities, and tell their stories. Starting with a small group of partners gave them room to learn how to manage an investment cycle responsibly.

It is a useful part of the story for anyone who has started something and then wondered whether they were qualified to keep going. Zay’s confidence has grown alongside that willingness to narrow the work, ask questions and accept help.

Zay also shares that he has completed a manuscript. Its working title is A Dollar’s Worth of Impact, a callback to a story he told during his earlier Town Square appearance. The title and publication plans are still developing.

He hopes the book will speak to young people trying to lead and to the adults mentoring them. Writing it has meant revisiting family support, the loss of his grandfather, and the people who made room for him in places he had never been before.

The central idea is personal. Zay does not describe his path as proof that he was smarter than everyone around him. He points to the time, attention and opportunities other people gave him. He wants readers to consider what a similar investment might mean for someone else.

The conversation keeps returning to home. Zay talks about his work in government and community affairs at Georgia State University and the relationships he has built in Atlanta. He also makes clear that success elsewhere does not erase his connection to Newton County.

“I like home,” he says.

He connects that attachment to a question he uses to think about community decisions: “And how are the children?” For Zay, the value of an investment may become clearest years later, when a student who received support has the chance to help someone else.

His invitation is practical. Give if you can. Share the work. Introduce FABA to an organization your community trusts. There are several ways to participate, and the first one may be as simple as starting a conversation.

Watch the full conversation with Zayvion Sheppard:

https://youtu.be/zaKh0YOmQYM

For Atlanta. By Atlanta. https://foratlbyatl.org/

The FABA 50. https://foratlbyatl.org/the-faba-50/

Taylor Made Foundation https://taylormadefoundation.org/

East Atlanta Kids Club https://eastatlantakids.org/

The Same House https://www.thesamehouse.org/

Newton Education Foundation https://newtoneducationfoundation.org/

United Bank

United Bank serves individuals, families and businesses with banking and lending services. Thank you to United Bank for supporting conversations that keep our community connected. Visit the Covington office or explore what the bank offers online.

https://www.accessunited.com

Town Square Podcast Episode 102 | Faith and Community

Watch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/73cI1WtGUGg

A church can hold a community’s history in ways that a courthouse file or a history book cannot. St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church has served Covington since 1878. Its congregation rebuilt after fires, lived through segregation and integration, helped people register to vote, and carried its ministry from Stone Mountain Street to a larger home on Brown Bridge Road.

In Episode 102 of the Town Square Podcast, Rev. Dr. Terrence Evans joins the Faith and Community series to talk about the life behind that history. His story moves from Opa-locka and Miami to Georgia State basketball, eighteen years serving people experiencing homelessness, a call to ministry, and his 2023 appointment as senior pastor of St. Paul AME Church in Covington.

The conversation also offers a plain-language introduction to the AME tradition: why the denomination was formed, how its structure works, and why worship, memory, social action, and grace remain connected.

Before Evans was a pastor, he was Sherry and Willie’s son, a six-foot-seven basketball player from Opa-locka, Florida, and a young man deciding where a scholarship might take him. He knew Miami. Atlanta was new.

Georgia State began to feel like home almost immediately. Evans arrived without having gotten a haircut, asked his coach for help, and was taken straight to a local barbershop. That ordinary act told him something important: he could find community here.

His years as a Panther also shaped his approach to leadership. Evans remembers one coach as quick and direct and another as deeply relational. The second model is especially visible in his ministry now. He believes leaders should offer clear direction, trust people to use their gifts, receive feedback, and pivot when a better path serves the church and the gospel.

After earning a criminal justice degree with a minor in sociology, Evans considered law enforcement. His mother, a Miami police officer, urged him to remain in Atlanta. A summer youth-employment job opened the door to Fulton County government, and an overnight position at Jefferson Place became an eighteen-year vocation.

Jefferson Place was a transitional housing program located in the former Fulton County jail. Evans began by checking residents in at night and later became a case manager. He watched men complete technical training, build businesses, restore family relationships, and move toward stability. He also witnessed relapse, disappointment, and the painful consequences of rules that could not simply be wished away.

That work changed his understanding of ministry before he had a pulpit. “It helped me to see grace in action,” Evans says. “It helped me to see how it is that there are consequences.” Holding those truths together became part of his pastoral formation: compassion does not erase accountability, and accountability does not cancel a person’s humanity.

Evans was raised Baptist and did not grow up expecting to enter ordained ministry. While serving at Jefferson Place, raising three children with his wife, and worshiping in an AME congregation, he began to recognize a persistent call. He entered the AME Board of Examiners process and studied at Turner Theological Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center.

The transition from preparation to pastoral responsibility came quickly. In 2010, almost immediately after his ordination as an itinerant deacon, a presiding elder told him about a small church that needed a pastor. His first appointment was St. Paul AME Church in Dallas, Georgia. He later served Greater Ward Chapel AME Church in Columbus before being appointed to St. Paul in Covington in June 2023.

There is a fitting symmetry in beginning and continuing his pastoral work at congregations named St. Paul. There is also a consistent thread: Evans’ ministry grew from service, relationships, and the belief that God was already present in places he had not expected to go.

For listeners who have seen the initials without knowing the distinctions, Evans breaks the name into three parts. African points to a church founded by people of African descent. Methodist identifies its Wesleyan theological roots and disciplined approach to Christian life. Episcopal describes a structure of governance led by bishops, with pastors appointed to congregations and layers of accountability that extend from the local church to the denomination’s General Conference.

Evans describes a connectional church rather than a collection of independent congregations. St. Paul belongs to the East District of the Atlanta North Georgia Annual Conference, within the Sixth Episcopal District. Local church conferences, quarterly conferences, district and annual conferences, and the denomination’s quadrennial General Conference each have a role.

The structure can sound complicated from the outside. Evans sees strength in its checks, relationships, shared doctrine, and wider mission. The local congregation is rooted in Covington, but it belongs to an international church.

The AME story begins with the Free African Society, organized in Philadelphia in 1787 by Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and others. After Black worshipers at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church faced racial discrimination, Allen and others pursued a place where people of African descent could worship freely and serve one another fully. Allen established Bethel in 1794, and in 1816 representatives of Black Methodist congregations formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Evans emphasizes that this history is not only denominational history. It is American history. The church grew from a refusal to accept dehumanization inside Christian worship and from a commitment to mutual aid, religious autonomy, and the full dignity of Black people.

That founding story still asks something of the church. Evans argues that remembering injustice is not an exercise in resentment. It is a way to understand the cost of progress, honor those who endured and resisted, and recover the church’s responsibility to serve people whose dignity is still challenged.

St. Paul’s own story reflects that resilience. Founded in Covington in 1878, the congregation rebuilt after multiple fires and continued serving across generations. Its history includes voter registration and civil rights work, and that legacy now lives through its Social Action Ministry.

The congregation hosts a polling place, organized a candidate forum, and works with community partners to help new voters understand the political process and identify the offices and people on their ballots. Evans is careful about the distinction: this is nonpartisan participation, not an instruction about whom to support.

The point is access and responsibility. Local elections can be decided by a handful of votes, while many residents do not know who represents them or how local offices affect daily life. For St. Paul, encouraging informed participation is connected to the sacrifices of people who fought for voting rights.

When the congregation moved from its historic site to Brown Bridge Road, some members worried about leaving physical history behind. Evans offers a line that captures the transition: “History is not in the walls. History is in the spirit.” A larger campus did not discard the story. It gave that story more room to continue.

Evans describes St. Paul as a congregation where a visitor should feel like family. The service follows a recognizable AME order that includes the doxology, prayer, Scripture, music, and preaching. First Sundays lean more traditional, with hymns that carry theology and memory across generations. Contemporary music has a place too.

Evans calls himself a teacher and storyteller more than a “whooper,” though he acknowledges that the energy can rise. He often works from the lectionary and has also begun preaching in series. Preparation matters, but so does listening. He describes preaching as a collective moment shaped not only by the person in the pulpit but by the congregation’s response, silence, faces, and later conversations.

Sunday school begins at 9:30 a.m., and worship begins at 11 a.m., as stated in the episode. St. Paul AME Church is located at 13108 Brown Bridge Road in Covington. Visitors can learn more at https://www.stpaulamecov.org.

Asked what he would say if all of Newton County and the surrounding community were listening, Evans returns to grace: “We have a God that is available.” He means available in success and disappointment, trauma and healing, clarity and uncertainty.

His own path gives the statement weight. The young athlete did not know he would become a pastor. The county employee did not know that overnight work in a transitional housing program would become ministry. The newly ordained deacon did not know a pastoral appointment was waiting before he left the building.

Faith, in Evans’ telling, is not an escape from community life. It is a reason to enter it with humility, memory, service, and hope. St. Paul’s history belongs to Covington, but its work is happening now, in worship, voter education, hospitality, and the ordinary relationships through which a community learns to see one another more fully.

Watch Episode 102 on YouTube: https://youtu.be/73cI1WtGUGg

St. Paul AME Church in Covington: https://www.stpaulamecov.org

St. Paul AME Church history and pastor biography: https://www.stpaulamecov.org/about-us

African Methodist Episcopal Church history: https://www.ame-church.com/our-church/our-history/

Luther Rice College and Seminary: https://www.lutherrice.edu

Bizzy Bee Exterminators: https://www.bizzybeeexterminators.com

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Bizzy Bee Exterminators is a full-service pest-control company serving homes and businesses in Covington and beyond. Request service at https://www.bizzybeeexterminators.com or call 770-787-3718.

Watch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XjBIapdxdqI

For many homeowners, affordability is no longer an abstract campaign issue. It is the tax bill on a house they have owned for decades, the price of a starter home their children cannot afford, and the argument over whether new development will ease the pressure or create new costs.

Representative Clint Crowe brings several perspectives to that conversation. He represents Georgia House District 118, chairs the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, serves on Ways and Means and four other committees, and has worked in law enforcement and real estate. In Episode 101 of the Town Square Podcast, he explains how those experiences shape his approach to taxes, housing, data centers, and the work of representing a district that includes parts of Newton, Butts, and Monroe counties.

This Candidate Conversations episode presents Crowe’s record and positions in his own words as voters prepare for the November election.

Crowe was first elected in 2020 and took office in 2021. Before entering the legislature, he volunteered with a fire department, worked as a 911 dispatcher, served in law enforcement, and built a real estate company with his family. He describes those jobs as different versions of the same work: dealing with people, solving problems, and trying to find an outcome that competing sides can accept.

His family story also informs the way he talks about public service. Crowe and his wife, Kristie, raised two sons and later adopted a great-niece and great-nephew who came to live with them as very young children. He says his decisions at the Capitol affect his own children and grandchildren along with the rest of the district.

Crowe offers a practical explanation of a process that often looks needlessly slow from the outside. A House bill may pass through subcommittee hearings, a full committee vote, the Rules Committee, and the House floor before beginning a similar path in the Senate. Tax referendums and some other measures require a two-thirds House vote rather than a simple majority.

He argues that the friction is intentional because state policy must work across communities that differ sharply in population, tax base, and public-service needs. Crowe says committee hearings are among his favorite parts of the job because local officials and residents can explain how a proposal would affect them before lawmakers vote.

The longest policy discussion begins with residents who fear being priced out of homes they already own. Crowe says he has heard from seniors on fixed incomes who cannot keep up with rising property-tax bills. His guiding view is that a primary residence should eventually become secure from that pressure. In his words, a homeowner should not have to “continuously rent that from the government for your entire life.”

Crowe discusses House Bills 581 and 92, including the effort to limit increases in taxable value through a floating homestead exemption. He also describes a proposal that did not pass in the most recent session: replacing property taxes on homesteaded homes with revenue from an additional one-cent sales tax and other funding sources.

He acknowledges the central tradeoff. Local governments and school systems depend on property-tax revenue, and a sales tax spreads costs to renters and consumers as well as homeowners. Crowe argues that visitors would pay part of the sales tax, while communities with weaker retail activity would need another way to replace lost revenue. The episode does not pretend that the arithmetic is simple.

Crowe also connects affordability to the shortage of homes within reach of first-time buyers and public-safety employees. Drawing on his real estate background, he says permitting delays, minimum square-footage rules, low-density requirements, infrastructure costs, and limited housing supply all raise the final price paid by a buyer.

He supports local planning and zoning, but questions rules that prevent smaller or less expensive homes even when they meet accepted safety standards. His concern is that every delay and development cost eventually appears in the home’s sale price. The policy tension is familiar: communities want control over growth, while the same restrictions can narrow the supply of attainable housing.

The conversation then moves into one of Newton County’s most contentious subjects. Crowe opposes broad moratoriums on data centers and believes local comprehensive plans should determine where major industrial uses belong. He points to Stanton Springs as an example of placing a data center inside an established technology and industrial area rather than near homes.

Crowe frames data centers as infrastructure tied to artificial intelligence, economic competition, and national security. He also recognizes the concerns that residents raise about electricity, water, noise, tax incentives, and the number of permanent jobs. He argues that large users should pay for the infrastructure their projects require and that local governments must use new revenue in ways that benefit their residents.

Several statements in this part of the interview, including Crowe’s claims about foreign misinformation and water-use patterns, are his assessments as presented in the episode. His broader position is clear: he favors case-by-case local decisions, careful siting, and financial safeguards rather than a statewide stop.

When asked why voters should return him to office, Crowe emphasizes responsiveness. He recounts a conversation with a Democrat who disagreed with him on several issues but voted for him because, as the voter put it, “I know you show up.” Crowe says he wants residents to judge him by his positions and his accessibility rather than by the party label alone.

That answer fits the larger conversation. Crowe does not claim that every policy problem has an easy fix. He argues instead that experience, access, and a willingness to explain a vote matter when the issues involve competing taxpayers, local governments, schools, businesses, and neighborhoods.

Episode 101 gives District 118 voters a sustained look at how Crowe reaches those judgments. The purpose of Candidate Conversations is to let voters hear that reasoning directly and decide how well it matches their own priorities.

Watch Episode 101 on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XjBIapdxdqI

Georgia General Assembly member directory: https://www.legis.ga.gov/members/house/5002

Crowe for Georgia: https://croweforgeorgia.com/

Georgia General Assembly legislation search: https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/all

United Bank Mortgage offers conventional, jumbo, government-backed, first-time homebuyer, and Community First mortgage options. Its local lenders help borrowers understand available programs and move from application through closing. Learn more at https://www.accessunited.com/mortgage/mortgage-services or visit a United Bank office.

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One hundred episodes ago, The Town Square Podcast began with a simple conviction: people who see the world differently should still be able to sit together, ask honest questions and search for understanding. We call it “unity, not uniformity.” For our 100th episode, we found a guest whose life’s work feels almost tailor-made for that mission.

Kamal Carter is the president and co-creator of A Long Talk About the Uncomfortable Truth, an organization that helps people interrupt ignorance and bigotry in real time. Its work reaches locker rooms, boardrooms, schools, churches and other places where people with different histories and perspectives must learn to function as a team.

That made Carter more than a fitting guest for this milestone. It made him the perfect one.

A Long Talk did not begin as a polished national initiative. It began during the pandemic with Carter and his business partner, Kyle Williams—two former educators and two fathers who wanted a safer, more humane world for their children.

Carter traces his instinct for service even further back. One of his grandfathers was a Tuskegee Airman who modeled excellence, discipline and responsibility while also carrying the pain of being treated as less than after serving his country. That family history taught Carter that achievement should be joined to service and that each of us can choose to leave the world better than we found it.

The immediate spark for A Long Talk came after one of Williams’ sons attended a protest in Washington, D.C. An accusatory exchange with a college basketball teammate escalated through text messages and FaceTime. Williams contacted the coach, expecting to talk the next day. Instead, the coach called that night—and listened.

That conversation changed the temperature. The coach asked for resources, began taking action on his campus and helped prove that a difficult exchange did not have to end in injury or estrangement. Within six weeks, Carter and Williams were helping convene a conversation with 107 college basketball coaches. What started with one father, one coach and one hurting student began spreading across athletics, education and corporate life.

Carter describes the A Long Talk formula plainly: “information plus empathy equals action.” The goal is not to drag everyone to the same opinion. It is to create an environment where people can speak honestly, listen carefully and respond to harmful statements without either freezing or exploding.

That distinction matters. A conversation leaves room for questions, reflection and boundaries. A confrontation becomes a contest to win. Carter argues that people retain the right to their beliefs, but organizations also have the right—and responsibility—to establish what conduct belongs in their locker room, workplace, church or civic space.

The work begins with grace and what Carter calls “progress over perfection.” If people fear that one awkward phrase will get them banished, honest conversation becomes nearly impossible. But grace is not passivity. A Long Talk trains people to step in when language is harmful and to replace an instinctive blast of anger with disciplined curiosity.

When an inflammatory statement lands, most people do one of two things: freeze or react at full force. Carter offers another option—go from furious to curious. That does not require pretending the statement was harmless. It means regulating the first reaction long enough to understand what was said, why it was said and whether the speaker has ever seriously examined it.

Curiosity can also change who carries the burden of responding. If a sexist comment is made in a room where only one woman holds leadership, why should everyone look to her to challenge it? A colleague can intervene. A teammate can ask the question. A bystander can become an active participant in protecting the culture.

Carter calls critical thinking “kryptonite to ignorance.” It forces a careless generalization into the light, where the person who made it must explain, reconsider or openly own it.

The practical tool A Long Talk teaches is CPR: clarify, probe and redirect.

Clarify begins with a deceptively simple question: “What do you mean when you say…?” The key is to repeat the person’s actual words and then remain quiet. Rather than supplying the accusation and the verdict, the listener gives the speaker room—and responsibility—to explain.

Probe moves deeper. A question such as “How do you think that would make your mother, sister or teammate feel?” invites the person to consider impact, not merely intent. Redirect then asks what language or action would support the people affected and the values the group claims to share.

Like any skill, CPR requires practice. Carter tells participants to expect mistakes, extend grace and build new conversational muscle memory through repetition.

This episode does more than describe the method. Carter coaches Trey and Gabriel through a hypothetical claim that “everybody in Newton County is racist.” By returning the exact words, asking questions and testing the sweeping logic against real relationships, the exercise demonstrates how curiosity can expose the weakness in a generalization without dismissing the pain that may sit underneath it.

It is uncomfortable work. That is the point. Carter reminds us that the aim is not perfection on the first try; it is becoming ready to respond well when the real moment arrives.

For 100 episodes, The Town Square Podcast has tried to make room for the messy middle: a place where disagreement does not require dehumanization and unity does not require uniformity. A Long Talk is pursuing that same hope through training, role-play and a growing community of people prepared to interrupt harm.

Carter says it may take only one or two brave people in a room to begin changing its culture. That is both a challenge and an encouragement. We do not have to wait for a president, a movement or a massive national campaign. We can begin at a dinner table, in a team meeting, at church, on a school board—or behind a podcast microphone.

One hundred episodes in, that still sounds like work worth doing.

Watch Episode 100 on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XjBIapdxdqI

A Long Talk: https://alongtalk.com

A Long Talk resources and CPR Protocol Study Guide: https://alongtalk.com/resources

A Long Talk on social media: https://www.instagram.com/alongtalk2020/ — @alongtalk2020

United Bank Wealth Management: https://www.accessunited.com/wealth-management

Meet Angel Pitts: https://www.accessunited.com/wealth-management/meet-your-team

Angel Pitts serves clients in the Covington and Madison markets, helping individuals and families develop wealth-management plans around short- and long-term financial goals. To learn more, call 770-412-4932 or visit https://www.accessunited.com/wealth-management.

United Bank Wealth Management Services: building relationships that go beyond investments.

Disclosure: Wealth Management Services are not FDIC insured, not bank guaranteed, may lose value, are not a bank deposit, and are not insured by any federal government agency.

A church can add square footage without building community. It can fill seats without helping people feel seen. And it can say “everyone’s welcome” without ever proving it at the door.

Pastor Justin Adams believes the proof comes in what happens after people arrive.

In Episode 99 of the Town Square Podcast, Trey Bailey and Gabriel Stovall welcome Adams back for a candid conversation about the growth of NEW LIFE Praise Center, his own recovery story, the church’s non-denominational identity and a ministry philosophy rooted in a simple promise: “Everyone’s welcome—and we mean it.”

When Adams sums up the past few years at NEW LIFE, he uses one word: growth. The church began the year with “expansion” as a theme, then watched it become something tangible. A new 3,200-square-foot, glass-walled foyer—built with help from local contractors who donated time and materials—gave the congregation a place to gather before and after services.

The addition matters to Adams because the life of a church is not confined to the service itself. He describes families lingering, conversations continuing and a room full of noise and laughter. In church language, it is fellowship. In everyday language, it is people who genuinely want to be together.

Adams has lived in Covington for nearly 30 years, but his path to ministry was not tidy. He speaks openly about addiction in his late teens and twenties, a marriage in danger of falling apart and attempts at jail, rehabilitation, therapy and counseling that did not produce lasting change. Then, nearly 20 years ago, he accepted an invitation to church.

He says one encounter with Jesus changed the direction of his life. He has remained sober since, and that experience shapes the way he talks to people who wonder whether their own story is too broken to be redeemed: “If he’d done it for me, he can do it for you.”

That transparency is not a side note to Adams’s ministry. It is central to it. His testimony gives him a common language with people facing addiction, anger, depression, family strain or shame. The point is not to compare wounds. It is to show that grace is not an abstract doctrine—it can meet a person in real life.

NEW LIFE Praise Center is non-denominational, which Adams explains plainly: the church is not affiliated with a larger denominational organization. Its teaching centers on Scripture, Jesus Christ, salvation by grace through faith and a strong belief in the work of the Holy Spirit.

That commitment shows up in the pace of the church’s teaching. The congregation spent two years studying the Gospel of John verse by verse. At the time of the conversation, Adams was nine weeks into the first chapter of Revelation—an intentionally careful approach to a book often reduced to confident timelines and conspiracy theories.

Adams is willing to tell people where he lands, but he also presents interpretations held by different scholars and theologians. His non-negotiable is the center of the book itself: the revelation of Jesus Christ, written to encourage believers facing persecution.

At NEW LIFE, the welcome is meant to be literal. Adams says people may walk through the doors whether they are atheists, longtime Christians or somewhere in between—regardless of culture, class, race, creed or sexuality. They can sit, listen, sing and expect someone to greet them with kindness.

That does not mean the church avoids convictions or difficult conversations. It means belonging in the room is not reserved for people who already have everything together. Adams connects that culture directly to his own story: he was once the person who arrived at church carrying the visible aftermath of addiction, and someone welcomed him anyway.

The church also does not use formal membership. Instead, it offers Next Steps classes for people who want to understand its history, beliefs and practices, along with Faith Grounded classes for newer believers. Small groups, age-based Life Teams and serving teams create paths for relationships and discipleship across generations.

For Adams, church is not the finish line. It is where people are prepared to serve beyond the building.

He says NEW LIFE partners with several public schools in a typical year. The church has helped stock clothing, hygiene supplies and food at Porterdale Elementary School; supported teacher-attendance incentives; and, by invitation, Adams has led voluntary Bible studies for teachers at Cousins Middle School before the school day begins. The congregation also supports recovery ministries, collects food for local pantries and sends groups to help with community outreach.

Its reach has expanded beyond Newton County as well. Adams describes a developing missions partnership in Honduras, with church-supported volunteers serving wherever the need may be—food distribution, dentistry, health care, teaching or construction.

Asked what comes next—another service, a larger building or multiple campuses—Adams gives an answer leaders do not always like to give: he does not know.

What he does know is that bigger is not the ultimate goal. Healthy is. He wants believers to mature from spiritual newborns into people who help form other disciples: “Parents reproduce.” In his telling, the next frontier is strengthening families, raising leaders, reaching the next generation and building beyond the current congregation.

The buildings and schedules may change. The mission does not: help people find hope, healing, community and Jesus.

That is also why this conversation matters beyond one congregation. In a community where faith traditions often overlap—and sometimes collide—it helps to hear a pastor explain not only what his church believes, but how those beliefs shape its welcome, teaching, service and vision for the future.

As the hosts put it near the end of the episode, you do not really know until you go. And Pastor Justin will probably wave when you walk in.

NEW LIFE Praise Center — https://newlifepraisecenter.net/

NEW LIFE Praise Center address: 8111 Brown Bridge Road, Covington, GA 30014

Luther Rice offers biblically grounded, accredited online education for ministry and the marketplace, including undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, dual-enrollment, and certificate options. Take the next step toward your calling at https://www.lutherrice.edu/

Bizzy Bee is a locally rooted pest-control company serving homes and businesses across the region. For help with common pests, mosquitoes, termites, rodents, and more, call 770-787-3718 or visit https://www.bizzybeeexterminators.com/

Chris Haymore has spent most of his life in Newton County. His father returned here to teach and coach when Chris was six months old, and Chris later built his own career in local education: teaching and coaching at Rutledge Academy and Eastside, serving as an administrator at Alcovy, and finishing as principal at Mansfield Elementary.

Now the longtime educator is taking on a different kind of leadership assignment. As pastor of Wesley Methodist Church of Covington, Haymore is helping plant a congregation, guide its worship and discipleship, and prepare for a permanent home of its own.

The transition is not as unrelated as it may look. Haymore says both roles begin with people: listening, treating others with respect, managing competing expectations, and accepting that leadership sometimes means disappointing someone. The schoolhouse and the sanctuary require different skills, but both call for patience, preparation, and genuine care.

Before the administrative offices and the pulpit, there was Sanford Stadium. Haymore walked on at the University of Georgia and practiced for two years under Vince Dooley. He is quick to downplay the resume line, but he still ran between the hedges in silver britches and shared the field with names such as Tim Worley, Keith Anderson, Rodney Hampton, and Bill Goldberg.

The lasting lesson came from scout-team work. Haymore watched how practices were organized, how drills were timed, and how coaches made limited time count. “It’s not about quantity. It’s about quality,” he says. That same instinct for preparation followed him into coaching, education, and now ministry.

Wesley Methodist is part of the Global Methodist Church, a newer denomination rooted in the historic Methodist tradition. Haymore describes it as holding a more conservative, traditional understanding of Scripture while retaining familiar Methodist doctrine and worship. The conversation is careful not to caricature the United Methodist Church or other Christian traditions; the goal is to explain what Wesley Methodist believes and how those convictions are practiced locally.

At the center is the Wesleyan understanding of grace. Haymore discusses prevenient grace - God at work before a person recognizes it - along with convincing, sanctifying, and glorifying grace. He also explains John Wesley’s emphasis on Christian perfection, not as flawless performance, but as a life being made perfect in love through the work of the Holy Spirit.

That emphasis moves faith beyond a single decision. Methodist discipleship historically involves formation, accountability, Scripture, prayer, and service. Haymore points to the small groups and “bands” associated with the Wesleyan tradition. At Wesley Methodist, that takes practical form through Disciple Bible Study, a Tuesday group that studied the Global Methodist catechism and planned to move into Acts, and a developing men’s Bible study centered simply on the Gospel of John.

Wesley Methodist recognizes two sacraments: baptism and Holy Communion. The congregation baptizes infants as well as older believers, connecting the practice to covenant, the household baptisms described in Scripture, and the belief that God’s grace is already at work. Communion is ordinarily celebrated monthly, even though Haymore notes that John Wesley encouraged Christians to receive it frequently.

Sunday worship follows a recognizable Methodist rhythm: a call to worship, prayer, hymns, the Apostles’ Creed, pastoral prayer, Scripture, preaching, offering, and a closing hymn. The music is blended, with traditional Methodist hymns joined by soloists, an ensemble, piano, and guitar. Haymore often begins with the lectionary, which places Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel readings before the church across a three-year cycle. He does not follow it mechanically, but appreciates that it “forces you to do the hard ones” instead of allowing a preacher to remain only with favorite passages.

For now, the congregation worships in the gym at Peachtree Academy. Sunday school begins at 9:45 a.m., and worship begins at 11. Visitors are met at the door, people gather and talk, chairs fill the gym floor, and a loyal “peanut gallery” claims the bleachers in back.

Haymore describes the atmosphere with a phrase the congregation uses often: “There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place.” That warmth is more important than a dress code. Some worshipers wear coats and ties; others come in shorts. Haymore’s priority is straightforward: “I just want to get them in there.”

Children’s and youth ministry are also part of the church’s developing life. In the episode, Haymore discusses bringing Champ Young - an Eastside High School assistant principal and athletic director - into youth leadership, joining two familiar Newton County worlds: church, school, and coaching.

Wesley Methodist is also constructing a permanent home on roughly 30 acres purchased from the Callaway family. Haymore describes a 10,000-square-foot building with a 300-seat sanctuary, a steeple, stone and exposed wood details, an altar, a raised pulpit, a communion rail, and a kneeling bench. The property also includes a pond and an old cabin that the congregation hopes to put to use.

Before the walls closed, members wrote Scripture passages and prayers on the building’s beams. Leaders even carried a smaller beam to members who could not attend, giving them the opportunity to add their own words. The symbolism is hard to miss: the new church is literally being built around Scripture and prayer.

At the time of recording, the congregation hoped to be in the building by Christmas, while acknowledging the uncertainty that accompanies any construction schedule. Until then, the church is already doing what Haymore believes a church should do: growing as a family, serving its neighbors, making disciples, and working to further God’s kingdom.

The Faith and Community series is not an exercise in ranking denominations. It is an invitation to understand the convictions, practices, and people behind the church signs scattered across Newton County. In this episode, Global Methodism becomes less of an institutional headline and more of a lived local expression: grace that transforms, discipleship with accountability, worship rooted in Scripture and sacrament, and a church family making room for newcomers - even if they arrive at 11:05 and head straight for the bleachers.

·    Watch Episode 98 on YouTube

·    Wesley Methodist Church of Covington

·    Global Methodist Church

·    Global Methodist Church beliefs and governance

·    Catechism for the Global Methodist Church

Luther Rice offers biblically grounded, accredited online education for ministry and the marketplace, including undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, dual-enrollment, and certificate options. Take the next step toward your calling at https://www.lutherrice.edu/

Bizzy Bee is a locally rooted pest-control company serving homes and businesses across the region. For help with common pests, mosquitoes, termites, rodents, and more, call 770-787-3718 or visit https://www.bizzybeeexterminators.com/

Marshall McCart returns to The Town Square Podcast for a candid trip through political burnout, public surveillance, permanent standard time, Covington music history, and the stubborn hope that keeps him from hanging up his boots for good.

Marshall McCart has spent roughly 25 years kicking at political anthills.

Sometimes the ants bite back.

On Episode 97 of The Town Square Podcast, the writer and local-history enthusiast behind The Piedmont Chronicles returns nearly a year after his first appearance. The self-described “semi-professional anthill kicker” arrives with fewer political sparks flying than usual—but not because he has stopped paying attention.

He is tired.

After years of party politics, grassroots advocacy, citizen journalism, and public argument, Marshall has pulled back to ask a difficult question: after all that banging against the proverbial brick wall, what is there to show for it?

That question opens a wide-ranging conversation about public trust, political identity, technology, music, family, local memory, and the possibility that the sensible center is larger than the loudest voices make it appear.

Marshall traces his civic involvement through the Libertarian Party, the GOP, independent efforts, grassroots groups, and his work with The Piedmont Chronicles. He has not stopped caring about local issues, but he has deliberately unplugged from some of the daily political combat.

Part of that fatigue, he says, comes from feeling politically homeless. He does not recognize himself in the loudest parts of the MAGA movement, and he has no interest in the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. If those are the only choices being offered, he argues, a great many people are being left without a political home.

That is where the Town Square idea of the “messy middle” comes in.

Marshall’s sharpest political observation may also be the episode’s most hopeful: the opposing fringes can dominate attention without representing most people. “The messy middle is the majority,” he says. The challenge is getting that majority to stop treating exhaustion as surrender—and to start building relationships broad enough to matter.

The conversation turns local when Trey and Marshall discuss automated license plate readers, including the Flock camera systems now familiar along roads, near schools, and across multiple jurisdictions.

Both acknowledge the strongest argument for the technology: it can help law enforcement locate wanted vehicles, develop leads, protect campuses, and solve serious crimes. Marshall does not wave those benefits away. His concern is what happens when a powerful tool built for a legitimate purpose becomes part of a much larger surveillance network.

The question is not whether the cameras can be useful. It is whether usefulness alone should settle the debate.

Marshall argues that privacy and Fourth Amendment concerns deserve more than a shrug—especially when ordinary people who are suspected of no crime have their vehicle movements captured and made searchable. Trey wrestles with the same tradeoff from the perspective of school safety: a little more warning can matter enormously, but that does not erase the civil-liberties question.

Their practical conclusion is refreshingly unglamorous. If residents object, the answer is not vandalism. It is coalition-building, public comment, and votes before city councils and county commissions when contracts come up for approval or renewal.

Marshall has another long-running civic cause: ending the twice-yearly time change.

But he is not campaigning for permanent daylight saving time. He wants permanent standard time—what he calls natural time.

His case begins with winter mornings. In the western portion of a time zone, permanent daylight saving time can push sunrise uncomfortably late. He also points to the disruption people experience when clocks spring forward and fall back. His preferred answer is not to keep rearranging the clock, but to return to standard time year-round.

Trey gives him room to make the full argument, and Marshall brings the enthusiasm of a man who has apparently been waiting 15 years for somebody to ask.

Then the episode changes key.

Marshall is a lifelong musician whose musical Mount Rushmore begins with Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan. He and Trey trade favorite records, marvel at John Bonham’s impossible-sounding right foot, and swap stories about the strange studio tricks producers use to capture the right tone.

The conversation becomes a piece of Covington and Newton County music history. Marshall remembers a spring 1996 show at the Wiley farm in North Oxford, where his band Southern Freight shared the bill with Trey’s Rocketboy. There was a homemade stage, a natural amphitheater, hundreds of people, and—if memory serves—a bass player in a dress. The statute of limitations has probably expired.

They name-check musicians, bands, old venues, and friendships that formed a local scene: Sweet Harmony, Fox Hill Road, Chris, Jon and Scott, Hannah Thomas, Thomas Tillman, Corey Crowder, Drew Parker, and others. Marshall also sends listeners toward King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Black Pumas, while Trey makes the case for the Appalachian rock of Cigarettes @ Sunset.

The thread running through it all is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It is the way music preserves a community’s memory. A farm show, a Christmas-light rivalry, a set at a local pub, or a band that lasted only a season can still become part of the story a town tells about itself.

Because Marshall also works in real estate and real estate education, the conversation eventually returns to economics. He describes the Covington, Newton County, and East Metro market as location-dependent and generally steady, while noting that values and sales activity can vary sharply by property and neighborhood.

The larger discussion is less about a market forecast than about ownership itself. Trey wonders what happens when younger adults are told to believe in the American dream but cannot see a realistic path to owning a home or building a stake in the system. Marshall connects that frustration to a political economy dominated less by open competition than by alliances among big government, big business, and other concentrated interests.

Whether listeners share every part of that diagnosis or not, the underlying concern is worth hearing: people invest in a system when they believe they can belong to it.

Near the end, Trey asks Marshall what gives him hope.

Marshall pauses, then comes back to faith and people.

“I believe in people,” he says. There are bad actors, certainly, but there are also a great many people who care about their neighbors and want life to be better for their children. The world will never be perfect, but that does not excuse us from trying to improve the piece of it within reach.

Marshall says he will get back into the fray at some point. For now, the anthill kicker is catching his breath, listening to a little Zeppelin, and waiting for the right moment to lace up the boots again.

That may be the messy middle in its most honest form: tired, skeptical, occasionally cranky—and not quite ready to give up.

1.   Watch Episode 97 on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NYvszSlLlKk

2.   The Piedmont Chronicles: https://www.thepiedmontchronicles.com/

3.   The Town Square Podcast: https://www.thetownsquarepodcast.com/

4.   Support The Town Square Podcast: https://www.thetownsquarepodcast.com/donate

5.   Flock Safety license plate readers: https://www.flocksafety.com/products/license-plate-readers

6.   Fox Hill Road: https://www.foxhillroad.com/

7.   Cigarettes @ Sunset: https://www.cigarettesatsunset.com/

8.   King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard: https://kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com/

9.   Black Pumas: https://www.blackpumas.com/

This episode is made possible in part by Angel Pitts, United Bank Wealth Management Advisor, serving Covington and Madison, Georgia. Angel helps clients think through long-term investing, diversification, and personalized financial planning while building relationships that go beyond investments.

Phone: 770-412-4932

Website: https://www.accessunited.com/wealth-management

When you contact Angel, please let her know The Town Square Podcast sent you.

Disclosure: Wealth Management Services are not FDIC insured, not bank guaranteed, may lose value, are not a bank deposit, and are not insured by any federal government agency.

Data Centers, School Budgets & Speaking Your Mind with Larry Cox

One of the greatest challenges facing local communities today isn't a lack of information—it's determining which information to trust.

That theme surfaced repeatedly during Episode 96 of The Town Square Podcast as Rockdale County Board of Education member Larry Cox joined Trey Bailey and guest co-host Dr. Gregory Brown for a wide-ranging discussion about public education, school funding, and one of Georgia's hottest local government topics: data centers.

Known throughout Rockdale County for his "Speak Your Mind" podcast, Cox has built a reputation for saying exactly what he thinks. Whether listeners agree with him or not, one thing is certain—he rarely leaves anyone wondering where he stands.

But this conversation wasn't simply about opinions.

It was about understanding how decisions are made and why good public policy requires more than headlines and social media posts.

From Construction to Community Leadership

Before entering public office, Larry Cox spent more than three decades in the construction industry, serving as Vice President of the highway division for one of the Southeast's leading concrete cutting companies.

His work has taken him across airports, military installations, and major interstate projects throughout the Southeast. That background shaped the way he approaches government.

Rather than viewing public service through an ideological lens, Cox says he tends to approach problems the same way he approaches construction projects: identify the issue, gather the facts, and solve the problem.

That practical mindset eventually led him to seek public office after years of community involvement.

A Different Kind of Campaign

When Larry Cox first ran for the Rockdale County Board of Education, he wasn't well known.

His second campaign was very different.

Rather than avoiding controversial issues, Cox openly campaigned on changing district leadership, reducing spending, restoring classroom discipline, increasing transparency, and pursuing additional tax relief for senior citizens.

According to Cox, voters weren't looking for vague promises.

They were looking for someone willing to explain exactly what he intended to do.

Now, roughly halfway through his first term, he believes much of that campaign agenda has already begun taking shape.

School Boards: What They Actually Do

One of the most helpful portions of the conversation focused on a question many citizens misunderstand:

What does a school board actually do?

Cox explained that while many residents expect school board members to solve day-to-day operational issues, Georgia law assigns boards three primary responsibilities:

• Hiring and evaluating the superintendent
• Fiscal oversight of the district
• Establishing board policy

Everything else is largely delegated to district administration.

That distinction matters because many of the complaints school board members receive are actually operational concerns rather than governance issues.

Understanding that difference helps citizens better direct their questions and expectations.

School Budgets Are More Than Numbers

The conversation then shifted toward one of Trey Bailey's favorite themes—viewing a school budget as a moral document.

Every budget reflects priorities.

Every dollar spent communicates what a district values.

But budgets also represent something else: the burden placed on taxpayers who fund those priorities.

Larry Cox argued that districts must consider not only what happens inside the classroom but also the financial realities families face outside school.

He challenged listeners to think about the "whole child" differently.

While educators often define the whole child through academic, emotional, and social support, Cox suggested another perspective.

Children spend far more time outside school than inside it.

If excessive taxes make it harder for grandparents to buy medicine or families to afford housing, those financial pressures ultimately affect students as well.

For Cox, stewardship means balancing educational investment with community affordability.

Why School Funding Is So Complicated

The discussion naturally moved into Georgia's school funding formula.

School districts receive much of their funding through the state's Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula, but local property taxes remain a critical piece of the equation.

That creates challenges.

Enrollment shifts.

Healthcare mandates increase costs.

Retirement obligations grow.

Meanwhile, districts often have little control over many of those expenses.

Cox described how Rockdale County reduced its operating budget while simultaneously absorbing state-mandated cost increases—a reminder that reducing spending on paper often requires significantly larger internal cuts.

The conversation also explored the long-term sustainability of relying so heavily on property taxes to fund public education.

Both hosts agreed that conversations at the Georgia Capitol will likely continue for years as lawmakers search for more sustainable funding models.

Finding the Next Superintendent

Another timely topic involved Rockdale County's search for its next superintendent.

Rather than discussing specific candidates, Cox shared the qualities he believes matter most.

He wanted someone with demonstrated success—not simply theories or promises.

He wanted a leader who understood fiscal responsibility.

And perhaps most importantly, he wanted someone prepared to make difficult decisions if enrollment declines eventually require districts to redraw attendance zones or repurpose school facilities.

Those aren't easy conversations.

But leadership often requires preparing for tomorrow's challenges rather than reacting to yesterday's problems.

(At the time of airing this episode, Dr. Stephanie Johnson has been named the new superintendent of Rockdale County Schools, click HERE for the press release.)

The Data Center Debate

The second half of the episode focused on one of the fastest-growing issues facing communities across Georgia.

Data centers.

As artificial intelligence continues expanding, demand for large-scale computing facilities has exploded.

With that growth has come concern.

Residents worry about water usage.

Electricity demand.

Noise.

Environmental impacts.

Tax incentives.

Infrastructure.

Rather than relying on internet searches or social media discussions, Larry Cox spent weeks interviewing mechanical engineers, acoustic engineers, and leaders from Georgia's Public Service Commission.

His goal wasn't to convince people.

His goal was to understand the facts.

Those interviews challenged several assumptions he previously held.

According to experts featured in his series, modern data centers increasingly rely on closed-loop or waterless cooling systems that dramatically reduce ongoing water consumption.

Infrastructure costs, Cox noted, are generally paid upfront by developers rather than existing ratepayers.

Georgia's electrical grid, according to Public Service Commission leadership, is being expanded alongside this growth rather than after it.

While public debate often centers on potential risks, Cox argues communities should also carefully evaluate economic opportunities—including expanded commercial tax bases that could eventually reduce the tax burden on homeowners.

He also acknowledged that earlier generations of data centers created many of the concerns still circulating today.

Technology, however, continues to evolve rapidly.

Separating Facts from Fear

Perhaps the most important takeaway from Episode 96 had nothing to do with school budgets or data centers.

It had to do with information.

Throughout the discussion, the hosts repeatedly encouraged listeners not to settle for headlines or viral posts.

Instead, they urged citizens to attend meetings.

Ask questions.

Read source documents.

Listen to experts.

Evaluate competing claims.

Only then can communities make informed decisions about issues that will shape their future.

In an era where information is abundant but trust is scarce, thoughtful civic engagement remains one of the most valuable tools citizens possess.

Final Thoughts

Episode 96 reminds us that healthy communities require more than strong opinions.

They require strong conversations.

Whether discussing public education, taxation, or emerging technologies, lasting solutions are usually found somewhere in the messy middle.

That has always been the mission of The Town Square Podcast.

Not uniformity.

But unity.

Built one conversation at a time.

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All Air Services

When your home deserves dependable comfort, call the local professionals at All Air Services.

Whether it's routine maintenance, emergency repairs, or a complete HVAC replacement, All Air Services has built its reputation on honest advice, exceptional workmanship, and customer-first service.

Mention The Town Square Podcast when scheduling your repair and receive $25 off your service call.

📞 770-761-9914

🌐 allairservices.com