Area briefs: Oconee GOP meets, Gainesville bank robber surrenders

Attorney Kevin Epps, vocal critic of Clarke and Oconee County District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, is among the speakers at tonight’s meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party. Ja-Quon Stembridge, Chairman of the 10th District Teen Republicans, will also speak in the 6:30 session on the Oconee campus of Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center.

There is an evening meeting of the Oglethorpe County Zoning Board, a 6 o’clock session at the courthouse in Lexington.

Police in Commerce were, at last report, trying to track down a suspect in a case of financial card fraud: he allegedly committed the crime at a Dollar General store in Commerce.

The wife and two children of Hall County Sheriff’s Deputy Neal Holtzclaw were laid to rest after a weekend funeral in Gainesville: 29 year-old Avonlea Holtzclaw and her 5 and 6 year-old son and daughter were killed in a July 16 crash on Highway 365 in Habersham County, a wreck that claimed two other lives. It’s an accident that remains under investigation.

44 year-old Michelle Johnston is in jail in Hall County: she’s accused in last week’s robbery of a Truist bank branch in Gainesville. She surrendered to police the day after the robbery on Shallowford Road in Gainesville.

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