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Gainesville residents tackle river on annual paddle trip
Families and individuals went on the 95-mile, seven-day excursion
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Individuals and families alike paddled down the Chattahoochee River last summer during the annual Paddle Georgia trip. This year, more than 400 participants ranging in age from 4 to 85 years old paddled down the Ogeechee River in South Georgia including Gainesville retiree Joe Kidd and South Hall Middle School teacher Sarah Brookshire. - photo by For The Times
As a child, Joe Kidd’s grandfather took him and his siblings out on the Chattahoochee River in a flat-bottomed boat his father made. “We lived close to the river in Newnan, and my grandpa would hook up his buggy and take the kids to the waterfalls, and that’s where I learned to swim and paddle a boat,” said the man who has been paddling in some form of boat for 70-plus years. But it was during those trips when Kidd’s passion for the water blossomed.