UPDATE: $7K in bogus loans; Baptist group recognizes area legislator; Hall Clerk of Courts candidate; Traffic accident leads to power outage

*A 33-year-old Gainesville man says he’s the victim of a school loan scam. City police say he reported that someone in recent days took out two student loans in his name. The loans totaled $7,000.

*State Rep. Will Wade (R-Dawsonville) was recently named a 2023 Legislator of the Year by the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.

*Hall County Board of Education member Mark Pettit has announced plans (in a Facebook posting) to run for Hall County Clerk of Courts this year. Incumbent Charles Baker is not seeking re-election.

*Power was out for some time and part of Memorial Park Road near Browns Bridge Road was closed Wednesday night after a car struck a utility pole on Memorial Park. The state patrol investigated the accident and had not released any details on the crash as of 10:00 Thursday morning.

About the Author

Ken Stanford is Online News Editor for GLORY 97.5, a position he has held since August 2022.

Ken was born in Moultrie, Georgia, and says he knew from the time he was 5 or 6 he wanted to be a “radio announcer.” That dream was realized when he was hired by Moultrie radio station WMTM in 1960 at the age of 15 as a weekend disc jockey. A 1963 graduate of Moultrie (now Colquitt County) High School, he has spent his whole career in Georgia working for stations in Atlanta, Marietta, and Gainesville – most recently as News Director for 40 years at WDUN in Gainesville. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force Reserves.

Ken retired in 2011 but came out of retirement last year to help GLORY, on a part-time basis, beef-up its online news presence.

He is the recipient of many Associated Press awards and is a former judge of state and national Associated Press broadcast news contests. In 2005, he was presented with the Georgia Associated Press Broadcasters Association’s President’s Award for Excellence in Journalism and in 2019 was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame.

He lives in Gainesville with his wife of 52 years, the former Sandra McKnight of Clio, Alabama, and they have one child, a daughter, Lisa, who lives in Cumming with her family.