Community Spotlight: Four Businesses Making a Difference Close to Home
You don’t have to look very far to find good businesses doing good work.
Some have been around long enough that multiple generations grew up with them. Others are newer, but they’ve already found a way to make themselves useful to the communities they serve.
That’s really the point of our Community Spotlight.
We spend a lot of time talking with business owners across South Georgia and North Florida, and one thing becomes pretty clear: some of the best stories are sitting right in our own backyard.
So we wanted to recognize a few of them.
This month, we’re highlighting four businesses across Columbia, Suwannee, Baker, and Lowndes counties.
Columbia County Nettles Sausage
Columbia County: Nettles Sausage
If you grew up around Columbia County, there’s a pretty good chance Nettles Sausage has made its way onto your family’s table.
The Nettles family has been making Southern smoked sausage in Lake City since 1945. Three generations later, they’re still at it.
What started as a local operation now supplies stores across Florida and beyond, but the business is still family-run and still calls Columbia County home.
And if you’ve never stopped by their retail market on SW County Road 240, it’s worth a visit. They carry a full line of meats, including plenty of the sausage that made the Nettles name familiar to families throughout the area.
Eighty years is a long time to keep a family business going.
Congratulations to the Nettles family, and thank you for continuing to call Columbia County home.
Suwannee County Rob Cathcart – State Farm
Suwannee County: Rob Cathcart – State Farm
Insurance is one of those things you hope you don’t need very often.
But when you do, it matters who picks up the phone.
At Rob Cathcart’s State Farm office on Grand Street in Live Oak, the people answering are part of the same community they serve.
Office manager ReBecca is a Suwannee High graduate who has spent her entire 10-year insurance career with the team. Team leader Faith grew up nearby in Madison County and now spends plenty of her free time on the Suwannee River.
That local connection shows up in the way customers talk about the office, too. Reviews regularly mention a team that is patient, responsive, and willing to explain the process. Some of those reviews are even written in Spanish by customers thanking the team for helping them understand their coverage.
The office helps customers with auto, home, renters, life, and business coverage.
But the part we like most is simpler than that.
These are local people helping other local people navigate something that can get complicated pretty quickly.
Thank you to Rob and the entire team for taking care of your neighbors in Suwannee County.
Baker County The Baker County Press
Baker County: The Baker County Press
For nearly a century, if something happened in Baker County, there’s a pretty good chance The Baker County Press was there to tell people about it.
The Press traces its name back to 1929, when Tate Powell purchased the local newspaper and renamed it. His son and grandson later joined him, giving Baker County three generations of the Powell family working together to keep their neighbors informed.
Today, that work continues under publisher Jessica Prevatt.
And her story with the newspaper is a pretty good Baker County story of its own.
Jessica is a Baker County High graduate who started at The Press in 1998 as a part-time graphic designer. Over the years, she’s worked in advertising, photography, circulation, and even delivered papers herself before eventually becoming publisher.
Community newspapers have changed a lot over the years. Plenty of communities have lost theirs altogether.
Baker County still has one telling its stories every week.
Thank you to Jessica and everyone at The Baker County Press for continuing a tradition that has been part of Baker County for nearly a century.
Lowndes County Blossom Bee Removal
Lowndes County: Blossom Bee Removal
Finding a colony of honey bees living inside your wall probably isn’t how you planned to spend your afternoon.
The first instinct might be to call an exterminator.
Stephanie Peterson built Blossom Bee Removal around another option.
She started the business in 2020 to safely remove and relocate honey bees rather than destroy them. When Georgia began licensing honey bee removal operators in 2023, Stephanie became the state’s first licensed female honey bee removal operator.
Five years later, Blossom Bee Removal serves homes and businesses across South Georgia and North Florida and has opened its own facility on Clyattville Nankin Road.
There’s an educational side to the work, too. Customers regularly mention Stephanie taking the time to explain what she’s doing, what’s happening with the bees, and why the removal process works the way it does.
It’s a pretty unusual business.
But it solves a very real problem while protecting something that matters to agriculture and the environment around us.
That’s worth recognizing.
Thank you, Stephanie, for keeping homes safe and giving the bees somewhere else to go.
Who Should We Spotlight Next?
These four businesses don’t have much in common on paper.
One makes sausage. One helps families and businesses with insurance. One reports the news. And one gets thousands of bees out of places they aren’t supposed to be.
They’ve also been around for very different lengths of time.
But that’s part of the point.
Being a good local business isn’t about how old you are, how big you are, or how many locations you have.
It’s about being useful to the people around you.
It’s about showing up, doing good work, and becoming part of the community you serve.
There are a lot of businesses and organizations doing exactly that across South Georgia and North Florida, and we want to hear about them.
Harvest Advisory Group will open nominations for our next Community Spotlight soon. When we do, tell us about the business or organization in your community that deserves a little recognition.
We have a feeling there are plenty more stories worth telling.