Georgia Trend Daily – Sept. 11, 2025
Sept. 11, 2025 Marietta Daily Journal
Step by step: Braves host 9/11 memorial climb
Abby Cope reports, the home of the Braves became the home of honoring the brave this weekend. On Saturday, Truist Park hosted the Patriot Day Stair Climb. More than 500 individuals began the 2,200 step climb, symbolizing the 110 flights of stairs first responders climbed during the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
Sept. 11, 2025 Georgia Trend – Exclusive!
Soaring into a new century
Lee Ann Dance reports, in March 1925, Atlanta’s leaders visited a rugged, abandoned racetrack just south of the city and saw the future. “Atlanta should do now in the matter of aviation what it did many years ago in the matter of the railroads,” declared William B. Hartsfield, who was then a city councilman and later became mayor. At around the same time, Delta Air Lines’ predecessor, Huff Daland Dusters, became the world’s first aerial crop-dusting company and began delivering mail.
Sept. 11, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s RaceTrac to buy Potbelly sandwich chain in $566M deal
Amy Wenk reports that RaceTrac said Wednesday it will scoop up a popular Midwest chain of sandwich shops. The Atlanta-based convenience retailer plans to buy Potbelly Corp. in an all-cash deal valued at $566 million, according to a news release.
Sept. 11, 2025 Savannah Morning News
This Georgia college inherited a record-breaking $100 million gift. How will it be spent?
Miguel Legoas reports that last week, Georgia Tech announced that alumnus John W. Durstine left a $100 million bequest, the largest single gift in its history.Durstine was originally from Birmingham and enrolled in Georgia Tech in the 1950’s to study mechanical engineering.
Sept. 11, 2025 Valdosta Daily Times
Carvajal leaving VSU for California
Staff reports that Valdosta State University (VSU) President Richard Carvajal has been named the next president of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. Carvajal will step down from his current role at the conclusion of the fall semester, according to a press release from Valdosta State.
Sept. 11, 2025 Saporta Report
Leadership transition at Atlanta-based Concessions International
Maria Saporta reports that Concessions International (CI), an airport concessions firm founded in 1979, will have new leadership beginning on Oct. 6. The company was founded 45 years ago by the late H.J. Russell and two business partners – Felker W. Ward Jr. and Jesse Hill Jr. In 1999, Russell bought out his two partners, and CI became totally family-owned.
Sept. 11, 2025 Macon Telegraph
Forest Service plan will open Georgia’s wild forests to logging, mining, roads
Margaret Walker reports that roughly 63,000 acres of Georgia forest are federally protected from roadbuilding and commercial logging, but the U.S. Forest Service is moving to roll back those safeguards, it announced late last month. The 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule protects some of forests’ most wild areas from new road construction and prohibits the commercial logging in those areas.
Sept. 11, 2025 The Brunswick News
Proposed red fish rules addendum could mean future regulation changes
Michael Hall reports that the Georgia Department of Natural Resources wants to hear from anglers about a draft addendum to how the red drum fishery is managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission that could lead to changes in bag, trip and size regulations. The addendum includes several proposed changes in response to the 2024 stock assessment that found that the fishery is overfished and is experiencing overfishing.
Sept. 11, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Georgia lawmakers coming to grips with mill closings
Dave Williams reports that the impact of International Paper’s decision to close two pulp and paper mills in Coastal Georgia at the end of this month will spread far beyond those workers directly affected, state Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper said Wednesday. “This is more than 1,100 jobs,” Harper told members of the Georgia House Rural Development Committee meeting on the campus of South Georgia State College in Douglas. “This is tire shops, truck dealerships, mom-and-pop restaurants.”
Sept. 11, 2025 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Columbus mayoral candidate drops out of that race to run for Georgia governor
Brittany McGee reports that a Columbus resident, who planned to run for Columbus mayor in 2026, now is aiming for a higher political office. Kia Marie Legette declared Tuesday her intent to run for Georgia governor as a nonpartisan candidate.
Sept. 11, 2025 Georgia Recorder
Georgia transgender sheriff’s deputy seeking coverage for care dealt a setback after earlier win
Ross Williams reports that a transgender sheriff’s deputy seeking gender-affirming medical care through a county-operated health plan in central Georgia was handed a loss by a federal court Tuesday. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a trial court’s decision in favor of Houston County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Anna Lange and sent the case back to the lower court.
Sept. 11, 2025 Capitol Beat News
Democratic candidate for governor leaving state Senate post
Ty Tagami reports, Georgia Democrats are losing a member of the state Senate as he gears up his campaign for next year’s Democratic primary for governor. Sen. Jason Esteves, D-Atlanta, said Wednesday that he is resigning from the Senate “because the best way I can serve the people of Georgia is by putting my whole heart into this campaign.”
Sept. 11, 2025 Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia leaders react to Charlie Kirk’s killing with anguish and alarm
Greg Bluestein, Tia Mitchell, Patricia Murphy and Adam Beam report, conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination at an event at Utah Valley University sent shockwaves through Georgia politics, becoming the latest tragic example in a pattern of escalating political violence nationwide. Party leaders from both sides of the aisle issued heartfelt statements of sympathy, anguish and alarm over deepening national polarization.
