Report: Driver cited in Monday night wreck

Johnnie Mae Smith

Johnnie Mae Smith, 85, of Rome, died Sunday morning, December 10, 2017, in a local health care center.

A native of Farill, Alabama, Mrs. Smith was born May 7, 1932, daughter of the late William Lee Hardin and Maggie Sue Haggerty Hardin. She had been a resident of Rome most of her life and worked at the Koffee Kup on Broad Street and the North Rome Piggly Wiggly meat market for 25 years. She attended Rome Girls High School and was an active member of the Calhoun Avenue Baptist Church. She was renowned for her Thursday night suppers and peanut butter cake. She took everyone in and no one, friend, relative, or stranger, went hungry. She lived for her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mrs. Smith was preceded in death by her husband, Walter “Buddy” Eugene Smith, in 1989.

Survivors include her daughter, Annette Mitchell; sons, Harold (Donna) Smith and Vernon (Lisa) Smith; Eight grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren, and three great-greatgrandchildren also survive, along with sisters, Doris Wright and Azzie Weathers.

Funeral services will be conducted at 1 p.m. Thursday in the Chapel of Good Shepherd Funeral Home with Dr. Rodger Whorton officiating. Interment will follow in the Oakland Cemetery. The family will receive friends Wednesday evening from 5 until 7 p.m. Grandsons will serve as pallbearers. Please visit our website, www. goodshepherdfh.net, to post tributes.

Parnick Jennings Sr.’s Good Shepherd Funeral Home is serving the family of Johnnie Mae Smith.

A Shannon man told police he was attempting to avoid a dog when he veered his truck off North Broad Street, near its intersection with Euclid Avenue, and plowed

through two mailboxes, a brick wall and a utility pole Monday night.

According to Rome police reports:

William C. Shelton, 63, of 600 Ireland Drive, was not injured, despite hitting a utility pole hard enough to snap it in half. He had been heading northbound on North Broad in his 2006 Dodge Ram 1500 when he left the road. His vehicle sustained significant damage to its front end.

The wreck, which occurred around 6:09 p.m., knocked out power to at least five Georgia Power customers. Both directions of traffic had to be rerouted.

Shelton was issued a failure to maintain lane citation.

Spencer Lahr, staff writer