A business in Jeffersonville is picking up national attention, and that has allowed them to hire on more people in a town where folks can struggle to find a job.
Dennis Lewis always loved hunting, but an accident in 2011 left him temporarily in a wheelchair and homebound. That's when he honed his craft of bowmaking.
"I picked Jeffersonville because it was close to my hunting property. Before I started my bow business, I wanted to live out in the country close to where I deer hunt, so we found the house over in Jeffersonville," he said.
Lewis is back on his feet and is now one of Twiggs County's top private employers with twenty folks getting a paycheck every week.
Twenty may not sound like a lot, but keep in mind the census data shows the county has a 23 percent poverty rate and only about $8,000 folks that call it home.
Machines crank out most of the work, but human hands layer on the camo, tighten torque on the strings, and test every bow before it goes out the door.
"With winning number one bow in the world, which was a big deal for us for 2014 and 2016, and we've won those awards and it's got us into a lot of merchants such as the Bass Pro Cabela's, Dick's, and Gander Mountain that we recently picked up," Dennis said.
The targeted exposure means that Dennis is on track to hire more folks down the road.
"Our plan is to add more machines and more people," he surmised. "Twiggs has a lot of people in the area that need jobs without driving to Macon."
It's a driving force that keeps Dennis Lewis in business -- that and his love of picking up one of his bows and trekking out in the woods.
The bows range anywhere from $500-$1,500.
Dennis' wife also plans to start a deer scent business soon in Jeffersonville.
She plans to open her own facility and will be hiring about five people.