Stories heat up the dog days of summer

ALBANY — As the post-Fourth of July dog days of summer settled in in southwest Georgia, The Albany Herald’s reporters brought the news — hot off the presses and long in the making — to its readers.

A moment of tragedy struck early in the week when a delivery man wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time on Mercedes Street in east Albany and was shot and killed. The victim, Chevalier Kenyatta Paul of Dothan, Ala., was to have been married Saturday. Instead, he lost his life, police say, at the hands of cousins Dontavious and Demond Wingfield.

TV would-be celebrity attorney Ken Nugent got one call, The Herald announced this week, that he really didn’t want: A notice from Dougherty Superior Court Judge Stephen Goss that a plethora of charges leveled against him — including theft and racketeering — could move forward. The charges were brought by attorney Chris Cohilas on behalf of Alexandra Myles, who hired Nugent as her attorney and, according to the suit, got far less than she bargained for.

Albany State University officials announced that enrollment, which had dropped precipitously since the HBCU’s merger with Darton State College, had started to stabilize. ASU officials said they expect enrollment numbers similar to last fall’s when classes start back in August.

The Herald brought its readers in the last few days stories of a family farm bought by a former slave and kept in the family for six generations, roots that indeed run 130 years deep; about how the renovated Flats @ 249 downtown had evolved from an iffy proposition to a no-vacancy establishment with a waiting list and a lively community feel among its residents; how the Albany Humane Society, as part of its efforts to become a no-kill shelter, sought homes for dogs at the shelter’s Dog Days of Summer adoption event; and the story of how young APD officer Travis Goodson and Dougherty High School teacher Twila McKever had spurred Dougherty student Patrick Williams and many of his classmates to action with a planned community event.

In the days ahead, The Herald will check in on the Dougherty students as they work to improve a neighborhood in the Fight Albany Blight target area of east Albany, will attend a statewide meeting at the Southwest Georgia Council on Aging’s facilities on advocacy plans for senior citizens, and will attend the groundbreaking of the agritourism business planned at the Stephens Farm in southeast Dougherty County.

All stories, past and future, are available online at albanyherald.com.