MLILY Mattresses in Columbus, GA

“I’m sorry that that happened to you, but next time pay attention to your surroundings," says Edward Murray, owner of the pit bull that attacked Kim Golden.

By Gabriela Johnson

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WTVM) - New details about the dog attack that forced a Columbus woman to have her leg partially amputated earlier this week. The attacked happened in the Waverly Terrance neighborhood.

The owner claims to be heartbroken, he says he’s sorry all of this happened and also says it was not his dogs fault.

Columbus homeowner Edward Murray stood outside of his home explaining to News Leader 9′s Gabriela Johnson how Columbus resident Kim Golden was attacked by his pit bull, Cowboy.

You may recall Golden’s interview from her hospital bed in Atlanta’s Grady Hospital, the story shared Friday.

She’s the chief operating officer of NeighborWorks Columbus, a non profit organization that finds housing for people in need.

“One of the things we do sometimes is acquire homes in that condition and fix them up and get them in the hands of someone that needs it,” says Golden.

She was inspecting a house on Curtis Street Wednesday when the pit bull attacked her. That attack caused her to have to undergo several surgeries ending with her leg being amputated at the knee.

“I feel sorry for that lady believe me, I am so sorry that that happened ma’am, but you came onto my property,” says Murray.

Golden and her co-worker walked between the two properties during that inspection.

“I’m walking around to the front while I check the side of the house, and then next thing I remember is the dog was kind of coming up. I actually thought he was being friendly. Next thing, I know he is on my leg,” says Golden.

“Why would she walk that way there and y’all knew the dog was there,” says Murray.

WTVM has obtained video of the entire nearly 3 minute attack, but we will not show the actual attack out of respect to Golden and the brutality of the video.

Murray says that cowboy was doing his job to protect.

“After all these robberies and break-ins and stuff, my wife is elderly and myself, after all this time we need protection,” says Murray.

During the attack 5 different people can be seen trying to get the dog off of Golden. One person used a brick, two people tried pepper spray, another using what seemed to be a garden tool, and someone else uses a steel pipe. All trying to get the pit bull to loosen its grip.

After the attack Golden could be seen crawling away and attempting to rest her body near the curb. That is around the time when Sergeant Earl Osbin with the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office was flagged down by a witness, he treated the wound until paramedics arrived.

“That’s the worst bite I’ve ever seen, I’ve been in service for 35 years, with the Sheriff’s Office for 35 years and I’ve never seen a bite like that,” says Orbin.

At this time, Golden does not have any comments towards Murray’s claims. Cowboy is still in quarantine at the animal control center.

“She did not provoke the dog, they forgot the dog was out there and the dog was on the porch,” says Murray, “I’m sorry that that happened to you, but next time pay attention to your surroundings.”

Copyright 2023 WTVM. All rights reserved.

A Columbus veteran intends to shake up the moving industry with the use of music, food, surprises and a pink zebra mascot named Zeke.

Richard Ralph is the owner and operator of Pink Zebra Moving’s new Columbus location. Ralph served in the military for 22 years and explained how he incorporated some techniques he has from his military background along with Pink Zebra’s mission to make moving fun to create a new type of customer experience.

Employees have been trained to track maintenance, perform inspections that are based on the military’s pre-combat checks, and complete walk-throughs ensuring customers have everything they need. But Pink Zebra’s primary goal is to make moving stress-free for their customers.

“We feel like moving, in a word, sucks,” Pink Zebra founder Ron Holt told the Ledger-Enquirer. “We will just try to make that experience as fun as possible.”

One of the ways the company hopes to set itself apart from other moving companies is by providing customers with a free meal the night before their move. This is often a welcome surprise to customers, Holt said.

“Nobody thinks about what they’re going to eat the night before a move,” he said. “And then all of a sudden they look around the kitchen and everything’s boxed up or packed. All the dishes are gone.”

When customers book the moving company, they should expect to have communication with Pink Zebra employees every day whether it’s by the phone, text or email, Holt said. This helps people on both sides know what to expect during the move.

The communication and the walk-throughs are also a chance for employees to get to know customers and what their interests are. They use this information to put together a surprise box that is left behind for customers to find after employees leave.

For example, if employees help a household where one person is an Auburn fan and the other is a Georgia fan, they might get some house-divided items to put in the box with a personal note.

“The reality is after the moving company leaves, you look around and all you see is a lot of work still left to do,” Holt said. “We’re trying to make somebody have a little bit of fun with that.”

Customers should also not be surprised if Pink Zebra employees have fun interactions with them during the move itself. The employees have keywords where they’ll do a particular task or funny gestures, Ralph said.

“If (a customer) says ‘I’m so glad you’re here’ or ‘I’m happy for you to be here’, employees will surround them and start clapping,” he said.

Customers might also say certain phrases that could result in the team doing jumping jacks or something else energetic, Ralph said.

“We dance,” he said. “We sing. We have a boombox and a mascot.”

Pink Zebra’s mascot Zeke, will be making himself known throughout the community now that the location has opened, Holt said. Zeke could show up at community events like Easter egg hunts or a football game watch party.

“Zeke, the pink zebra, usually finds his way all over the place.” Holt said.

The Pink Zebra franchise began when Holt decided to sell his cleaning business, Two Maids and a Mop, for $40M in late 2021. Two Maids and a Mop had almost 100 locations when Holt sold it.

“I was trying to decide whether I wanted to continue to be the CEO of this huge brand,” Holt said. “Or do I want to return to my start-up roots.”

Around the same time Holt was considering a change, his mother-in-law in Birmingham had a negative experience with a moving company. He felt that it was likely that others had gone through something similar, so he began looking through Yelp in other cities to see if people in other markets also had bad reviews.

“There was just one negative experience after the other,” Holt said.

Everything seemed to align since he wanted to run a startup again, he said, and the moving industry seemed untapped.

“We just went all in on moving and trying to learn as much as we could about the industry,” Holt said. “We started experimenting with all sorts of really fun, customer experience ideas.”

The brand began in Alabama, he said, and they decided to start franchising last year after seeing strong success. Columbus will be home to Pink Zebra’s seventh location.

Rates for the company are comparable to competitors, Holt and Ralph said, but customers would need a quote to see what to expect for their move.

Ralph said it was important to him to open the Pink Zebra Moving company here in Columbus because of the presence of Fort Benning. The soldier can benefit from the company’s style of customer service, he said, because he knows what moving from duty station to duty station was like from his own background.

“You’re hoping that your introduction to that city would be a pleasant one,” Ralph said. “And it all starts with the company that moves you there.”

“It’s a chance to get some lunch after church and support a good cause,” says Frank Sheppard, President and CEO of Feeding the Valley Food Bank.

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WTVM) - Sunday afternoon, hundreds of locals not only had the chance to support Columbus Parks and Recreation’s annual Empty Bowl Fundraiser benefitting Feeding the Valley Food Bank, but they also left the event with full stomachs.

“It was absolutely delicious I had the minestrone soup and the beef vegetable soup and all the desert I could fit on this plate,” says Columbus resident Sarah Basch. “I got this cute little lavender bowl.”

“Goodness gracious, we have so many of the bowls and sculptures that they make for this event that we have to build a new house,” says Columbus resident, Neil Block.

Basch and Block are just two of hundreds of people who left Psalmond Road Recreation Center in Columbus full of soup and with a new hand-crafted bowl Sunday.

It was for the 28th annual Empty Bowl fundraiser where hundreds of volunteers from Columbus Parks and Recreation provide 4 hours of endless soup.

“It’s an opportunity for folks to come in, they purchase a bowl, a nice hand crafted bowl and fill it with soup and deserts and other good items, says Frank Sheppard, President and CEO of Feeding the Valley Food Bank. “It’s a chance to get some lunch after church and support a good cause.”

The good cause is supporting Feeding the Valley’s Kids Cafe which provides more than half a million meals a year for children across Muscogee and Russell counties.

“In the Columbus area, there 35,000 chronically hungry kids day in and day out, and that number’s actually gone up during the pandemic, so we have a lot of work to do here,” says Sheppard. “There’s 115,000 chronically hungry people in our coverage area all together, so we’re thankful for events like this to help support our programs to help feed children.”

There were tons of bowls to chose from. They were painted and created all year through Columbus Parks and Recreation cultural art programs. Volunteer Makail Albritton was back for his fifth year as a volunteer for the fundraiser and sculptor of the bowls.

“It went to me going from I couldn’t do it all, I sucked at it to being really good at it; to then seeing not only my work is good but people want it and not only do people want it, I can help the community with it,” says Albritton.

One bowl priced at $15 is equivalent to 90 meals for a child. The bowl is more than a bowl, it’s a promise to strive to end hunger.

“To know that by doing this one event, which we work on all year, but the one day event goes to provide so many meals for children that otherwise might go hungry or might not have food is just a really great feeling to know we’re able to support the community in that way,” says Holli Browder, Director of Columbus Parks and Recreation.

This is the first Empty Bowl fundraiser since the beginning of the pandemic and volunteers, sponsors, community partners, and soup lovers were excited to be back.

Copyright 2023 WTVM. All rights reserved.

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WTVM) - A man is behind bars after ‘fake scanning’ lottery tickets at a gas station in Columbus.

On February 24, the Talbot County Sheriff Office deputies responded to the 8100 block Manchester Highway in Woodland, Ga.

Deputies spoke with gas station owner, George Joseph. Joseph stated that his employee had been stealing from the store.

Officials say Joseph stated that he had marked money that was in the cash register - which he witnessed on camera the employee, Harish Bhatia, putting in his front pocket. Joseph also sent someone in with winning lottery tickets which Bhatia had paid out from cash register money but did not scan the tickets through the Georgia Lottery machine which would have counted the tickets.

Bhatia had also stuffed those winning tickets in his pants. At this point, Bhatia was arrested for theft by taking and theft by conversion - both felonies.

When searched by deputies, Bhatia was found in possession of $1,400 in marked $100 bills that Joseph had placed in the register along with $830 worth of winning lottery tickets that he had paid out but did not scan for cash out.

Investigators determined through video surveillance that Bhatia had done this 24 different times for the month of February. It was determined that Bhatia was fake scanning the lottery tickets by scanning the tickets by hitting ticket inquiry instead of the cash out button on the Georgia Lottery machine.

Then he’d take the winning tickets with him to an unknown store in Columbus and cash them in for personal gain. Investigators validated that Bhatia had stolen and ran this scam on Feb. 24 - for a total of $2,230 and for the entire month of February for $22,910.

Joseph stated that Bhatia has worked for him for five years at this location and believes that he has been running this scam the entire time for a total loss of $127,954 over this time.

Officials say Joseph says he became aware of this when a concerned person left an anonymous letter at Joseph’s store in Cataula stating that Bhatia was cashing in large amounts of winning lottery tickets into a certain store in Columbus.

Harish Bhatia is charged with 24 counts of theft by taking and 24 counts of theft by conversion - all felonies - with possibly more counts and charges coming.

Bhatia is currently being held at the Talbot County Jail.

Copyright 2023 WTVM. All rights reserved.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 2023 NFCA Division II Leadoff Classic makes its return Feb. 24-26 in Columbus, Ga. The three-day showcase of collegiate softball features 20 programs from 11 conferences that will collide at the South Commons Complex this weekend.

The field features nine programs that earned berths to the 2022 NCAA Tournament, including Super Regional participants Wilmington and Lincoln Memorial. Along with those programs, Georgian Court and the University of Alabama in Huntsville were Regional finalists. Rounding out the 2022 postseason teams are Bridgeport, Carson-Newman, Wingate University, Embry-Riddle and Ohio Dominican.

While some teams are making their 2023 debuts - Bridgeport, California (Pa.), Charleston and Gannon at the Classic, several programs have hit the ground running in the 2023 season. Three programs - No. 17 UAH (9-3), No. 18 Lincoln Memorial (14-4) and No. 25 Wilmington (2-0) - are nationally ranked, while Wingate (12-4) is receiving votes in the NFCA Division II Top 25 Coaches Poll.

Additionally, Carson-Newman (10-1), Columbus State (5-2), Embry-Riddle (6-3), Georgia Southwestern (9-2), Georgian Court (3-2), Hillsdale (1-3), Le Moyne (1-1), Missouri Western (5-3), Northern State (4-0), Ohio Dominican (2-7), Shaw (0-4) and West Chester (1-1) have kicked off their seasons.

You can follow of the action on the Tournament Central page and enjoy a free video stream of all contests through https://watch.yourgamecam.com/.

"After missing 2021 due to COVID, we are thrilled to have our NFCA Division II Leadoff Classic Tournament back in 2023!” NFCA Executive Director Carol Bruggeman said. “Our partners from the City of Columbus, Ga., are experts at running first-class events, so there is no doubt student-athletes and coaches will have a wonderful experience. Special thanks to NFCA Division II Board representative Les Stuedeman and NFCA Division II liaison Brian Stanley for putting together a talented field. We look forward to a highly-competitive tournament in February.”

In all, 17 of the 20 participants posted above .500 winning percentages in 2022 with two, Georgian Court and UAH, reaching the 40-win threshold and 10 more posting 30 or more victories.

Celebrating 40 years in 2023, the NFCA (National Fastpitch Coaches Association) is the professional organization for fastpitch softball coaches. Known for its highly-regarded Leadoff Classics, the NFCA also educates and supports softball coaches on a variety of different levels: from podcasts to awards, to in-person events and the National Convention.

Learn more about the NFCA and consider joining our lineup of over 6,700 coaches today!