MLILY Mattresses in Augusta, GA

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - An Augusta State Medical Prison guard has been arrested on suspicion of trying to bring in contraband for an inmate.

Nicole Rosario was arrested Sunday while attempting to enter the facility with contraband, according to a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Rosario, now fired, had been employed by the agency since May 2021, according to the spokeswoman.

As of Thursday afternoon, she remained in Richmond County jail on charges of violation of oath by a public officer, giving convicts articles without the consent of the warden and trading with convicts without permission. Bond was listed at $5,700 for each charge.

TRAINING RECORD:

Smuggling items for inmates has been a growing problem in Georgia prison system and even at the county jail level.

At least 360 employees of Georgia’s state prison system have been arrested on accusations of smuggling contraband into prisons since 2018, with 25 more employees fired for smuggling allegations but not arrested.

Nearly 8 in 10 of the Georgia Department of Corrections employees arrested were women, and like Rosario, nearly half of them are 30 or younger.

Those figures reflect in part a prison system that struggles to recruit employees, often hiring young women with no law enforcement experience. Despite recent salary increases, correctional officers in Georgia are paid less than those in many other states.

Augusta State Medical Prison has had issues before.

Keturah Christel Dunbar, an officer there, was arrested in 2021 after trying to bring methamphetamine onto the property, according to authorities. And in June, a medical worker at the prison, Faatimah Kadija Maddox, was accused of having sex with an inmate in the operating room.

At the county level, 33 Richmond County jail officers have been arrested in three years, many of them for smuggling contraband.

Across the Savannah River in South Carolina, an investigation earlier this month found a widespread contraband smuggling operation among officers that included hundreds of cellphones, as well as narcotics and weapons.

In response to the scandal in South Carolina, prison workers across the state were subjected to surprise random searches when they came to work Wednesday.

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Brian Harman, reigning Champion Golfer of the Year, spent his time during the PGA Tour’s short offseason trapping beavers, farming, and taking a bro’s trip to Augusta National. Pretty standard stuff.

Other than the fact that he’s a major champion and has earned over $32 million playing golf, Harman is just a good ol’ boy from Georgia and when beavers wreak havoc on your property good ol’ boys from Georgia don’t call up asking for help, they take care of things themselves.

After firing an opening round 67 on Thursday at The Sentry, the 36-year-old got on the topic of beavers and thankfully shared some insight into what exactly went down this offseason.

“You want to talk about the beavers,” Harman asked the reporter, according to Golf Digest. “Let’s talk about the beaver,” the reporter rightfully asked.

“We got these very aggravating beavers building their cities and so we’re really mad at ’em,” Harman explained. “An MB-750 (trap) is what we did. For those that know will know,” he said after being asked what he did to get rid of the critters. He also said he did a lot of farming as a form of winding down during his time off.

That exchange alone makes it hard not to appreciate Harman, then you add in the fact that he took a boy’s trip to Augusta National with the Claret Jug alongside him and it becomes hard not to love the guy.

A few weeks after returning from Rome and competing for the U.S. in the Ryder Cup, Harman whipped up a not-so-subtle golf trip with his fellow Georgia Bulldog Kevin Kisner.

The trip included football, food, definitely col’ beer, and some “bro’ing out.”

“It was the Georgia/Florida weekend,” Harman told GOLF. “So a couple Georgia guys — some dear friends — we went up there, watched the game, played golf, and had some good food.

“Just bro’ing out up there.”

No human in history has ever said they’ve ‘bro’d out’ while playing Augusta National, but if there is one man who could pull it off, it’s Mr. Harman.

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As the Champion Golfer of the Year and with possession of the Claret Jug for one year, Brian Harman has been checking off some potential firsts with the famed silver trophy awarded annually to the winner of the British Open.

Harman took the Claret Jug to Augusta National Golf Club in late October during the weekend of the annual Florida/Georgia football game. Fellow Bulldog Kevin Kisner and a couple other friends joined him on the trip.

“Just bro-ing out up there,” Harman said.

Kisner told Golfweek that the Augusta National staff told them it is believed to be the first time that a winner has ever brought the Claret Jug to the home of the Masters.

“I can’t verify if it’s the only time it’s been there and so I feel bad saying that,” Harman tells Golfweek. “If they want to say that, that’s great.”

But he was more confident of another potential first with the Jug.

“It’s been inside my tractor,” Harman tells Golfweek. “I don’t know if it’s ever been inside a tractor. We took it down there and rode around for a minute just so we could say we did it.”

Harman may need to check with Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champ and avid farmer, about being first.

But the highlight of hanging with the Jug so far for Harman, he said, was being honored on the field during Georgia’s home game against Ole Miss in early November, a night game at Sanford Field.

“That was cool because my wife and kid were with me,” he said to Golfweek.

“That was probably the highlight of the partying with it so far,” he said Thursday after his opening round at The Sentry. “It’s quite the party trick. It’s been a lot of fun to possess for a year.”

And enjoy it, he has.

“It’s an antique, it’s a relic,” Harman said Thursday. “It’s like a golfing past.”

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It may be just the first round of a long PGA Tour season, but Thursday’s opening session at The Sentry taught us a lot. Really, we just found out what pros have been up to during this first real offseason, when players felt like they could take a break without losing ground on their colleagues.

Tiger Woods and Patrick Cantlay have been grinding in PGA Tour negotiation rooms. Viktor Hovland went home to Norway and found himself shoveling snow. Camilo Villegas went home with his family to a much-warmer Colombia, and found himself cycling. As for your Champion Golfer of the Year, Brian Harman? He’s been hunting beavers and attending Georgia football games. And also, parading around the Claret Jug wherever he pleases, including Augusta National.

To the victor go these spoils, Harman has learned. His six-shot win at Royal Liverpool grants him a full year of doing whatever he likes with one of the most cherished trophies in sports. “It’s an antique, it’s a relic,” he said Thursday in Maui. “It’s like a golfing past.”

Sure enough, one of Harman’s first stops after the Ryder Cup, in Rome, was a buddies’ trip down Magnolia Lane alongside fellow pro and Georgia Bulldog Kevin Kisner. “It was the Georgia/Florida weekend,” Harman said. “So a couple Georgia guys — some dear friends — we went up there, watched the game, played golf, and had some good food.

“Just bro’ing out up there.”

Just bro’ing out at Augusta National.

Harman didn’t detail his ANGC trip any further other than to say it was “pretty neat” to hold one of the game’s crown jewels in one hand while hanging out at “the next incredible golf landmark.” Sure, pretty neat.

That trip came during Halloween weekend, during an enjoyable break from PGA Tour events. A week later, Harman was on the sideline for Georgia’s home win against Missouri, and a week after that he was right back at Sanford Stadium for a night game against Ole Miss. Only that time he was honored on the field with his wife and children in front of 92,000 strong. Yep, jug in hand.

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“That was probably the highlight of the partying with it so far,” Harman said. “It’s quite the party trick. It’s been a lot of fun to possess for a year.”

It feels safe to declare Harman as one of the winners of the offseason, but there’s clearly another war he’s been waging throughout the fall. An avid farmer and hunter, Harman has engaged in quite a beaver battle.

“We’ve got these very aggravating beavers building their cities, so we’re really mad at them,” he said with a laugh after opening with a 67 at The Sentry.

How’d you take care of it? What club?

“An MB 750 [trap] is what we did. Those that know, will know.”

And if you don’t know, uh, now you do.

Sean Zak

Golf.com Editor

Zak is a writer at GOLF Magazine, currently working on a book about the summer he spent in St. Andrews. You can read about those travels here and catch his latest thoughts on the Drop Zone Podcast:

I just got back to the office from having a little over a week off. It was a lot of fun. My vacations usually mean I spend lots of time doing stuff that I should have done months ago and getting about one-third of it done.

During the 2022 Christmas holidays, I was walking around in one of those survival suites wearing everything I could put on because of the cold. That Christmas’ cold was a 30-year storm, and it was brutal.

Those sustained temperatures in the teens with driving winds beat up some plants that were not used to that kind of chill. Trees and shrubs like citrus, palms and bottle brush took a hit, but after all the damage was done, most everything ended up okay in relative terms.

Weird weather is the normal in Augusta. Much of that is about the area's topography.

It is sometimes hard to decipher what really happened statistically climate wise in our area because we have hills and valleys. For instance, we have two airports that are only 9 miles apart but are in hugely different climates. Daniel Field’s elevation above sea level is 420 feet and rests on a hill, while Augusta Regional Airport is 135 feet above sea level and is down in a valley on the edge of a swamp along a major river.

The rain in our area was abundant over the past year with 51 inches compared to last year which totaled 41 inches. The number of days it rained was up, too; from 115 days to 123 days.

Just for reference, Augusta’s average precipitation is usually around 45 inches a year and is usually the lowest rainfall in Georgia.

The reason we see the lake dropping so much is that the rain in the northern part of the state has not been there. In the very northeastern part of the state in Rabun County, they were down in precipitation. In 2021 that area had 84 inches of rain. In 2022 they had 79 inches and in 2023 they were down to 62 inches of rain. That is a drastic decrease in available water to flow downhill and back into our area.

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We were warmer on average this year by almost 1 degree over last year and up 1.5 degrees from 2021. Our average temperatures are up higher consistently than the average from 1990-2010, which is concerning for many reasons. One or two degrees does not make much difference in our personal well-being, but it makes a huge difference in nature. Warming trends lead to more severe storms, so it is something where we all need to stay prepared.

In fruit production, the key words are chill hours. That is the number of hours the temperature stays under 45 degrees but above freezing.

These accumulated hours help plants receive the level of dormancy they need to produce good blooms. It is a little more complicated than that, but for a 600-word column, let’s just go with it. The clock starts in the fall and runs through the bloom in the spring.

In Augusta, our chill hours are a little higher than normal. We are currently at 565 chill hours in the northern part of the CSRA and 470 chill hours a little south. But we have a long way to go before spring. When the chill season is over, peaches need to have 650 to 850 chill hours while rabbiteye blueberries need around 550. In other words, we need to have some cooler weather to make sure we have plenty of peaches for homemade ice cream next summer.