The Rockdale News Digital Edition March 25, 2015 | Page 12

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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A look at the two men Elbert County created

BY SHAKEEM HOLLOWAY
In the far northeast corner of Georgia, bordering the South
Carolina line and more than 80 miles away from Newton/
Rockdale County lies a small place called Elbert County with
a of population 20,500 people as of 2012, according to elbertco.net. Elbert is significant to Newton and Rockdale because
of the two coaches it birthed - Jonathan Brewer (Rockdale
County High School head baseball coach) and Bruce Evans
(Eastside High School head baseball coach) - and the men
that it made them.
Elbert County is a small place, so small that it has just one
high school. Similar to that of Newton and Rockdale decades
ago. It’s the type of place that forces you to drive 45 minutes
just to go to Outback.
Evans, who was the head baseball coach at Elbery County
High School, says it was so small that he knew all five board

members and they would call him after games. He jokingly
added that he only knows one in Newton. If Elbert hadn’t
been so small, maybe Evans would have never coached Brewer
while he was in high school. Maybe they would’ve never met
and developed the close friendship they have now. But Elbert
is small and because of it Brewer and Evans developed a close
friendship that resembles a big/little brother bond. A bond
that gave them both the courage to leave the place they’d
called home for so long.
Listening to Evans and Brewer tell their story of coming
from a small town over an early dinner Thursday evening at Jim
Stalvey’s in Covington and you can see the brotherly love the
two share for each other now, but it didn’t start out that way.

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