Eight years ago Bo Thomas beat cancer. Today he still battles the effects caused by nine months of radiation treatment, which vanquished the disease but damaged his body, too.

“Chemo’s even worse,” said Mr. Thomas, a Macclenny native residing in Raiford.

“Even if you get over the cancer, the treatment causes a lot of other health problems. I’ve had stomach surgery twice ... You pretty much have to deal with it the rest of your life,” he said.

Mr. Thomas is a guitarist and singer with Whiskey Moon String Band, which performed 15 songs during an hour-long set at last weekend’s 2013 Relay For Life at the middle school’s track.

“I’ve been to a few relays before for personal support, but this was the first time for the band,” he said. “We would do it again in a heartbeat.”

The sharp drop in federal detainees at the county jail in recent months has made some county commissioners more concerned than others, but most of them say there’s little they can do about it anyway.

Between January and March, the average population of inmates housed there dropped by some 65 prisoners.

That means the Baker Correctional Development Corporation (BCDC) — which owes more than $40 million to the bondholders who funded the facility’s construction and startup — is out about half-a-million dollars it otherwise could’ve earned in housing fees.

The share of the jail’s population coming from Baker County grew by some 19 prisoners between January and March, or about 17 percent. That growth costs the Baker County Commission about $145,000.

But what’s been driving the loss in revenue for BCDC is the decline in detainees from Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons. During the three-month period, ICE’s average daily population shrunk by 26 percent to 183.16 in March, the Marshal’s by 29 percent to 38.78 and the Bureau of Prisons by 80 percent to 1.45.

BCDC collects nearly $85 per inmate per day from local and federal agencies for housing detainees.