12 FEB 09: 18 Wheels and a Dozen Credit Hours

The expansion plans of Columbus Technical College took another step forward Wednesday. CTC now is certifying truck drivers. So instead of being the B.M.O.C., you can be B.W.O.C. - Biggest Wheels on Campus.

West Georgia Technical College in LaGrange has merged its truck driving program with Columbus Tech. This follows the LaGrange school's merger with a Carrollton technical college to save money. So why are the schools for future laborers merging, when the college programs offering M.B.A. degrees aren't?

The truck driver certification program at Columbus Tech is more than simply "shut up and drive." You have to take seven weeks of classes, before driving an 18-wheeler. The class work is probably very challenging - such as the pop quiz on CB radio slang.

Promoters of the truck driving program claim there's plenty of demand for drivers. They say the average age of a trucker is about 58 years old. But isn't that a bit misleading? By age 58, many wives finally don't mind if their husbands leave town for four to six-day hauls.

The Columbus Tech certification promoters also point to the average starting salary for a truck driver, which is about $35,000 a year. They probably didn't bother mentioning how high the price of diesel fuel climbed last summer - and that big rigs don't exactly have the fuel economy of a Kia.

Now this is a topic I know something about. Trucking was the family business for my dad, and my older brother still does it for a living. Yet I've never driven an 18-wheeler in my life. The "biggest rig" I've ever had was the 1966 Impala I drove during college.

My late father and brother aren't really long-distance truckers. Dad moved freight shipments around the Kansas City area for decades, and I rode with him for a few summers. I don't recall any of his trucks having air conditioning - which may explain why he occasionally lost his cool with me.

From my years watching Dad ship freight, I have to wonder if Columbus Technical College teaches students more than simply how to drive a truck. For one thing, there's the fine art of loading trucks. Slicing a pallet in two with a forklift is no fun....

My older brother started his own freight business, doing something similar to Dad. But he gave it up several years ago, and now makes steady runs for a trucking company between Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri. Yet Mike remains a bit of a "counterculture" trucker. He has sports-talk shows on his radio, instead of country music.

I attend church with a long-haul (as in out-of-state) truck driver. He tells me his number of weekly runs has dropped due to the tight economy. Either there's a lower demand for goods, or many business owners are buying used pickup trucks and hauling products around themselves.

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BLOG UPDATE: More details emerged Wednesday about Columbus's new baseball team. The unnamed team in the college-level Great South League is registered as a nonprofit organization. Wow - does that mean every hot dog you buy at Golden Park will be tax-deductible?

The Columbus Baseball Foundation was set up in part by Bo Callaway, of Callaway Gardens fame. The new team has no nickname yet - but this news makes the Columbus Rhododendrons a possibility.

Bo Callaway told reporters he's "not trying to bring baseball here.... I'm trying to give the community something to do...." Apparently efforts to organize a skateboarding league next door to Golden Park were unsuccessful.

The Columbus Baseball Foundation notes a college-level club costs far less money than a minor-league team like the Catfish. It will cost about $40,000 to field a team in the Great South League. A professional franchise might cost $7 million. So once again, Columbus rewards cheap labor....

Now for other notes from a wet Wednesday:

+ Former Columbus State University President Frank Brown was named interim headmaster of Brookstone School. At long last, the man one blog reader dubbed "Spanky Frankie" years ago actually can live up to that nickname.

+ Chattahoochee Valley Community College held its annual mathematics tournament. I assume the teams were split into several categories - you know, a long division and a short division.

+ Verizon Wireless admitted problems with a cell phone tower caused cell phone and text message interruptions for Columbus customers. To borrow from a blogger in that OTHER Columbus, where is that army of geeky technicians when you need them most?

+ WBOJ-FM "103.7 The Truth" ran several announcements promoting the annual Alzheimer's "Memory Walk." Trouble is, they mentioned the walk was 8 November - as in three months ago. It leaves you wondering if people made pledges last fall, then forgot to pay up.

+ The Georgia Senate approved a bill which will give Georgia Power a slight rate increase in 2011. Opponents of the bill wondered why the state Public Service Commission wasn't handling the matter. Uhhhh -- maybe the P.S.C. members are trying to conserve energy?!

+ The President of Peanut Corp. of America refused to answer Congressional questions about salmonella problems at a Blakely plant. It was almost like he had peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, and didn't dare swallow it.

(An e-mail fragment shown at the Congressional hearing indicates the Peanut Corp. President made an appeal to the Food and Drug Administration, saying he needed to"turn raw peanuts on the floor into money." I fear the staff in Blakely was "working for peanuts" in the first place.)

+ Roundball Night in Dixieland (tm) found Tennessee tearing up Georgia's men 79-48. Maybe the Bulldogs should consider trying to lure away Tennessee's head coach. Not Bruce Pearl, but Pat Summitt....

(Auburn came from behind to beat Arkansas 75-62. But the attendance at Beard-Eaves Coliseum was less than 4,500 - and when the Auburn sports home page is emphasizing baseball, the NCAA selection committee may be more likely to take an extra team from the Atlantic Sun Conference.)

+ Instant Message to Kia Autosport: Let me get this straight. This is the "final week" of your 40-percent discount offer -- yet the fine print at the end of the radio ad says it expires "3/2"? Either your commercial has a misleading date, or you must mean it ends when there are three new cars and two used cars left on the lot.

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