By Pamela Permar-Shierling
Congratulations to two outstanding Glynn Countians who both received awards last week.
In no particular order – Lisa Gurganus is the 2026 Georgia Recreation and Parks Department Association Hall of Fame inductee. I have known Lisa since she came to head up Glynn’s Recreation Department in 2017 and right off the bat she became a favorite of mine and Matthew’s.
She works very hard for Glynn County youth and adults at what is many times a thankless job because recreation doesn’t generate revenue. It costs money but then we want to play ball, pickle and tennis, football, baseball, soccer, basketball, on and on.
We want trails, sidewalks and parks. We want to swim safely on St. Simons’ beaches. Lisa makes sure all this happens.
Brunswick’s Mike Pharis received the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the Federal Aviation Administration. It recognizes 50 years of safe flying. Mike grew up flying out of the Brunswick Air Park which existed long before Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.
McKinnon Airport on St. Simons is where commercial flights including Eastern, Delta, and Southern Airways landed. Having lived through one or two, I am here to tell you it was sometimes a tricky landing.
Congratulations to Mike and Lisa for being outstanding in their field.
Kudos to the Sea Palms folks and others who didn’t lie down for an event venue that would have disrupted their peace and quiet such as it is on St. Simons Island.
The rezoning has been pulled but don’t rest on your laurels just yet. My spidey-sense tells me this isn’t going away.
Then there’s the 461 acres that the Mainland Planning Commission (MPC) approved for a rezoning from Forest Agricultural to Basic Industrial during their Oct. 6 meeting. This is considered a Development of Regional Impact and requires a report and a review process by Georgia’s Dept. of Community Affairs. I’m not sure how the rezoning request got passed by the MPC and on two Glynn County Board of Commissioners (BOC) agendas before someone realized it needed a Regional Impact Report. I don’t know who to throw under the bus.
Oh well, stuff happens.
