*The recent death of a Gainesville man while hiking at Tallulah Gorge State Park was one of four such deaths recorded nationwide since April 28, according to a group that tracks such things. gearjunkie.com says the others occurred in Utah, Tennessee, and New Jersey and urges would-be hikers to check its guides to safer trail running, thru-hiking and how to save someone from drowning. In the Gainesville-related case, Exauce Kabeya drowned May 3 when he fell into a river at the bottom of Tallulah Gorge.
*A Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) nurse, Tina Jordan, is this year’s winner of the AJC Nurse Excellence Award. About 800 nurses from around the state were nominated, with 10 being honored at a recent ceremony. A graduate of Brenau University, Jordan, 47, has spent her whole career with the Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) and is now a charge nurse and assistant nurse manager at NGMC Gainesville. The other ten honorees include another nurse with NGHS, Allie Ellington of NGMC Braselton.
*While they didn’t finish first, high school fishing teams from Cumming and Sugar Hill did place in the top five at this year’s Georgia high school fishing tournament. A total of 61 schools made the finals from four qualifying tournaments. A team from West Laurens in Dublin finished first; Bryson Dover and Angel Cornejo of Lanier in Sugar Hill came in second after winning the tournament last year; and a team from South Forsyth finished fourth.
(Georgia News Network contributed to this story.)