Gwinnett’s oldest locally owned newspaper - established 1988 Covering Buford, Sugar Hill, Dacula, Lawrenceville, Braselton
Vol. 29, No. 11
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www.gwinnettcitizen.com
Strong voice for sneaky illness
SEPTEMBER 2017
By Carole Townsend Staff Correspondent
3 reasons to schedule checkup page 5
Karen Thieken is a busy, 40-something wife and mom. She’s an entrepreneur, crazy about her family and excited about her business. Pushing her glasses up on top of her head and crossing her arms, she shakes her head as she ponders a miracle, the one that allows her to get up every morning and keep being a wife, mom and business owner. “I don’t want to freak people out, but I do want people to be aware of this illness that is so sneaky, and so fast. It nearly had me,” she states, matter-of-factly. About five years ago, Thieken fell ill with first one sickness, then another. She’d have laryngitis, then a sinus infection, then some other similar illness, for almost an entire year. “I kept getting sicker and sicker. And of course, like everybody else, I’d go to the doctor when I felt I had no choice.
See SEPSIS on Page 4
Dr ‘A’ changed the horticultural world page 10
Duluth Historical Society Gwinnett man reinvents and strengthens career, Unveils Murals of Old helps others do the same Duluth
Elder financial abuse page 13
INSIDE Gwinnett Pulse 2 Health & Wellness 12 Classifieds 16
PRESORT STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID LILBURN,GA PERMIT NO. 99 ECR-WSS POSTAL CUSTOMER
Special Photo
State Rep. Chuck Efstration, right, and Gov. Nathan Deal, center, pose for a photo with sepsis survivor Karen Thieken, center right, along with her family and colleagues at the state Capitol in March.
Photo by Katie Hart Smith
Ann Parsons Odum signs the mural of the Duluth Depot, located in the Southeastern Railway Museum, and painted during Duluth’s “Great Days of Service” a few years ago.
By Katie Hart Smith Staff Correspondent
Duluth, Georgia, 30096. “I was honored when asked to do these large paintings of Old Duluth for the Southeastern Railway Museum. I have always, even as a child, been fascinated with the train passing through Duluth - loved to hear the whistle and roar of the engine in the middle of the night. Our family had a general store, Parsons (which is featured in one of the paint-
On Tuesday, August 29, 2017, the Duluth Historical Society unveiled Duluth artist, Ann Parsons Odum’s, two, 4x5 foot murals depicting Duluth streetscapes from the 1930’s and late 1940’s. Duluth is home to Odum and home is where her heart and art is. The artwork, painted with acrylics, is on perma- ings). The train stopped often at the nent display at the Southeastern Duluth Depot and a fellow would bring Railway Museum’s Duluth Depot, See DULUTH on Page 18 located at 3595 Buford Highway,
Special Photo
Burkhalter in the early years of his career, as disc jockey “Captain Craig”
By Carole Townsend Staff Correspondent Gregg Burkhalter is a man on fire. That much is evident when he talks about his career and the rich blessing it is to him, as well as to those he helps along the way. A radio disc jockey and music marketer for about three decades, Burkhalter suddenly found himself without a job several years ago – as did many long-time career professionals who were casualties of a rapidly chang-
ing economy and corporate climate. Today, he can see that event turned out to be one of the best things that could have happened to him, dire as the situation may have looked at the time. Starting his music career at age 16, Burkhalter remembers announcing on the radio when Elvis Presley died. As a disc jockey, he worked in the Savannah, Jacksonville, Charleston, and Atlanta markets; his last stint
See LINKEDIN GUY on page 10