the News
Jan. 3, 2015
Volume 6, Issue 40
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YOUR GUIDE TO
ROCKDALE’S SPECIALTY ACADEMIES/PROGRAMS
rockdalenews.com
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Serving Rockdale County and Conyers
Welcome to the
world! From Silas
Proud parents Neri and Pablo Reyes-Sanchez of Covington welcomed their son Imanol a little past 9:30 a.m. on January 1, 2015 at Rockdale Medical Center’s The Birth Place. Imanol’s due date was actually Sunday, Jan. 5, but baby Imanol had other plans and made a New Year’s day grand entrance into the world, weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces, and measuring 17 inches long. The birth occurred quickly with no complications; his mother Neri checked into the hospital around 8:30 a.m. and about an hour later, the baby was delivered under the guidance of Dr. Naomi Harris. Pablo, 26, a recycling center employee, and Neri, 24, a homemaker, named the baby after Pablo’s father; Imanol is the fourth child for the couple who have an 8-year-old son Leonardo, 6-year-old daughter Melanie, and 2-yearold son Giancarlos, who was also born at Rockdale Medical Center.
Child with split palate to donate to hospital
Page 6
How healthy is Rockdale? Page 3 Crime Briefs RMC expands Social Circle, South Rockdale
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Michelle Kim /The News
RESCUING RECORDS Clerk of Courts plans to preserve county records digitally By Martin Rand, III
mrand@rockdalenews.com
One of Rockdale County’s most precious historical treasures is in danger of being lost forever. The county’s records for its first 100 years of existence are deteriorating rapidly with age and Rockdale County Clerk of Courts Ruth Wilson is attempting to preserve them. Her plan is to preserve the old records through a preservation process and then store the restored books in a climate controlled building. She also wants to make digital copies of the records so the public can access them online. “You can really understand a lot about a community by looking at these records,” said Wilson. “This is irreplaceable.” Right now, the majority of the county’s records are housed in the Real Estate room of the Rockdale County Courthouse, 922 Court Street, Conyers, but Wilson claims this room and the building in general is no place to keep the county records. “The books are vulnerable just because they are sitting here. Anybody can walk out with it, tear it, write on it, whatever,” she said. “So we’re trying to protect these records. There will still be some paper records in here, but for the most part we’re going to go digital.” The majority of the county’s property and criminal and civil court records have a digitized version. In total there are 4,200 county record books, with only 145 still awaiting digitization and 230 currently in the process.
See RECORDS, Page 15