SATURDAY November 30, 2019 BARTOW COUNTY’S ONLY DAILY NEWSPAPER 75 cents WHEELIN’ & DEALIN’ SPECIAL Winners of the Cartersville Schools Technology Com- petition will be heading to the Northwest Regional Tech Competition Jan. 24 at Georgia Highlands College’s Floyd campus in Rome. Cartersville students heading to regional tech competition BY DONNA HARRIS [email protected] A group of young Cartersville students will get a chance to show off their tech savviness in front of a regional audience. Nineteen third- through sixth-graders from Cartersville El- ementary and Middle schools won fi rst-place awards in the Fourth Annual Cartersville Schools Technology Competition held Nov. 18 in the CES media center and will move on to the Northwest Regional Tech Competition Jan. 24 at Georgia Highlands College’s Floyd campus in Rome. “I think our students will represent the Cartersville City School System very well,” CES instructional technology specialist Joe Craw- ford said. “We have some very talented students who created very impressive projects. We are excited to see how we match up against other schools at the Northwest Regional [Tech] Competition.” Either individually or in pairs, students in grades 3-6 creat- ed a project in one of 15 technology-related categories of their choice to enter in the contest, according to Crawford. “[CES] students then used time during the technology club to learn about their category, ask questions and design prototypes for the competition,” he said, noting the club meets every other Monday from 3 to 4 p.m. “During the fi rst semester of school, the technology competition is a major focus of this club.” RANDY PARKER/THE DAILY TRIBUNE NEWS Sharon Hicks of Cartersville took advantage of a Black Friday sale price on a big-screen TV at the Cartersville Walmart. Her son Brian Southern was on hand to help load the TV into his truck. SEE TECH, PAGE 6A 42-year-old fi ghts back against meth addiction THE HALFWAY POINT BY JAMES SWIFT That resulting sense of unwor- [email protected] thiness, Jones said, is often enough to push people into drug use. At 42, Cartersville resident “You tend to feel like you don’t Seenna Banks Jones fi nds herself mean anything to anybody, so you starting life all over again. start getting this attitude that I Yet even before she developed just don’t care anymore,” she said. a substance use disorder, hers was “And when you go down that rab- one fraught with pain, trauma and bit hole, it’s hard to fi nd your way challenges. Her father died when back out.” she was only 12; after his death, Therein, Jones said, may lay the she said she was molested and root cause of substance dependen- raped throughout her teens. By cy itself. the time she was 17, she was preg- this year, in April, and came out “You wouldn’t risk going to nant with her fi rst child. in May 24-26,” she said. jail, you wouldn’t risk losing your Jones said she used metham- That was when she was placed kids, you wouldn’t risk all these phetamine for the fi rst time in in Cherokee Judicial Circuit things if you thought this was a 2017, after she and her spouse Judge D. Scott Smith’s local drug problem,” she said. “Right now, in separated. court program, an incarcera- your mind, it’s a solution, because “I didn’t want to go to sleep at tion-alternative implemented in it’s covering all of the pain, and night, I didn’t want to think about Bartow and Gordon counties 11 it’s helping you cope with all of everything that’s happened thus years ago. the pain.” far in my life,” she recounted. “I “I’m in Phase III now,” she said. didn’t know that when you started “It has helped me to value myself, An Unspoken Epidemic doing it, that it was going to take and to learn to value who I am as Not only is getting illicit sub- away your soul.” a woman again. It’s helped me to stances in Bartow County far A domestic incident led to go back into things that I thought from diffi cult, Jones said some Jones’ arrest in early 2018. wasn’t an issue until I got into this may be shocked as to where those “Me and my mother had got- program, the things that led up to drugs are being sold. ten into an argument, and when my drug use.” JAMES SWIFT/THE DAILY TRIBUNE NEWS “It’s very easy, and from peo- the police came I had been up The drug court represents the “You wouldn’t risk going to jail, you wouldn’t risk losing your kids, you wouldn’t risk all these ple that you wouldn’t even expect, for about three or four days,” she fi rst time Jones received any sort things if you thought this was a problem,” said Seenna Banks Jones, 42. “Right now, in your the neighborhoods you wouldn’t mind, it’s a solution, because it’s covering all of the pain, and it’s helping you cope with all of said. “I have been arrested before of substance abuse treatment or the pain.” even expect,” she said. “I wasn’t in my past, but I never went to the rehabilitation. Outside of the sys- going to Parkway North or The back. The cases were always dis- tem-involved service, she said she for you, and wants you to make stance abuse as an adult. things that people in our fami- Guest House or even the Effi cien- missed, prior to that — this time, I wouldn’t “even know where to be- it, that believes in you, that’s try- “Back in those days, you just ly are doing to one another,” she cy Lodge on 20. I wasn’t going had to stay for 30 days and hashed gin to even ask about that” in terms ing to give you another chance to didn’t see a therapist, unless said. “We tend to put it on the there and getting high, I was get- out my fi rst charge on my record.” of mental health care resources in come back out here to do right,” something was really major, ma- back-burner, a lot of people try to ting high in neighborhoods where It wasn’t long before she the community at-large. she said. “Not sort of to erase your jor wrong with you,” she said. “I tell you ‘That everything’s in the the [people], you might work be- chalked up her fi rst felony — this The aspect of the drug court past, but helping you to forget covered it by pretending to the past, you know, suck it up, butter- side them every day. I was going one a probation violation, accom- program that has most impacted your past and move forward.” world that I was OK, when really, cup,’ that type of deal … but when to neighborhoods in middle class panied by methamphetamine pos- her, Jones said, is the sense of Jones said she fully believes deep inside, I wasn’t.” you’re going through mental is- subdivisions or upper-middle session charges. encouragement exuded by Judge that if she had access to mental Yet that stigma around mental sues and you don’t have anybody class subdivisions, that’s where I “I stayed in there until, like, De- Smith. health services in her youth, she health treatment, Jones said, per- to turn to or talk to about that, it was going to get high.” cember and then went back four “It’s knowing that you have a almost certainly would not have sists to this day. tends to make you feel as if ‘What months later on my birth date of superior court judge that’s rooting fallen into the clutches of sub- “We don’t want to talk about else are you supposed to do?’” SEE ADDICTION, PAGE 5A INSIDE TODAY Partly VOLUME 73, NO. 178 State ...................................... 2A Weather ................................ 6A sunny Family Living ........................3A Sports ................................... 1B High 69 www.daily-tribune.com Entertainment ...................... 4A U.S. & World .........................3B Blotter ................................... 5A Classifieds............................ 4B Low 54 2A Saturday, November 30, 2019 • www.daily-tribune.com State The Daily Tribune News ContactUs Kemp pushes back on criticism The Daily Tribune News Address: over Senate appointment 251 S. Tennessee St. Cartersville, GA 30120 BY BEN NADLER President Donald Trump. White At the center of the dispute is Mailing Address: 251 S. Tennessee St. Associated Press House spokeswoman Stephanie a debate over who can best help Cartersville, GA 30120 Grisham confi rmed that the two the GOP position itself for suc- Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp met Sunday. cess in the November 2020 elec- Phone: 770-382-4545 pushed back on Wednesday Kemp’s appointee will serve tions in Georgia. Loeffl er’s sup- After 5 p.m.: 770-382-4548 against speculation over whom for less than a year before the porters believe she can widen Fax: 770-382-2711 he’ll appoint to replace retiring seat goes up for grabs in an the Republican tent and appeal Alan Davis, Republican Sen. Johnny Isak- open-to-all special election. to women and suburban Atlanta Publisher son. That will put both of Georgia’s voters, who have trended more The Republican governor Republican-held U.S. Senate Democratic since Trump’s elec- Jason Greenberg, Managing Editor took to Twitter to slam what he seats on the ballot alongside tion.