PARKER: The community service of Carol Ballew

Published 8:27 am Tuesday, May 14, 2024

I was very disappointed and dismayed when I read Gil Osmer’s Letter to the Editor in the May 7 Union-Recorder. It is clear that Mr. Osmer did absolutely no research prior to writing his editorial, which was utterly and factually inaccurate in its depiction of Carol Ballew. Had Mr. Osmer bothered to research Ms. Ballew’s history of volunteerism to her community, he would have found an abundance of examples of the significant time and energy Ms. Ballew has devoted to helping others.

As a friend of Ms. Ballew, I have personal knowledge of her volunteer work with the elderly and the disabled, as well as her volunteer work with schools. Ms. Ballew has worked in homeless shelters; she has organized many fundraisers for the American Heart Association; she has organized many free community CPR classes; and she has done volunteer work for Meals on Wheels. She has advocated for the prevention of the abuse of disabled people through book sales on the subject and by donating the proceeds from the sales of her book to assist in the prevention of such abuse. She has served as a volunteer counselor to a family facing abuse of one of their family members when asked to do so by an agency that handled abuse cases. Through her church, she has been a communion helper; spent untold hours assisting in the clean-up and painting of Murphy-Harpst Children’s Home in Cedartown, Georgia; and taught painting to the elderly. Ms. Ballew was a volunteer worker at her son’s school library and a football “Mom” for her son’s high school football team. Most recently, Ms. Ballew spent an incredible amount of time saving Baldwin County taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars by assisting in the community opposition to an unneeded walking path near our county airport. Further, Ms. Ballew comes from a military family. Her father served in the United States Air Force. Her husband also served in the United States Air Force. Her step-son served in the United States Marine Corps.

In short, Carol Ballew has spent a lifetime in service to others. I find it highly offensive and quite purposefully ignorant of Mr. Osmer to refer to Ms. Ballew as lacking in service and being akin to Hydrilla Weed. A modicum of research would have shown him otherwise. Instead, he chose to attempt to assassinate her character with a complete falsehood just as the early voting period nbegan. But to carry out Mr. Osmer’s analogy, no one has discovered how to stop hydrilla!

C. Joe Parker

Milledgeville