Newspaper Page Text
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The Braselton News
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Opinion
“Difference of opinion leads
to enquiry, and enquiry to
truth ” -Thomas Jefferson
rase I too ns by John Sheppard
"Well Captain, X think we have a
winner with this new camo fabric."
letters
editor’s
memo
The News will be an
aggressive newspaper
BY MIKE BUFFINGTON
EDITOR & CO-PUBLISHER
THREE YEARS AGO, we began separating news
from Braselton and Hoschton and putting it on a spe
cial page inside The Jackson Herald. Over the coming
months, we expanded that until news from this area
was made into a special section within The Herald.
Last fall, that section was spun-off into a new news
paper — The Braselton News. The coverage area was
expanded and new beats were added.
This slow gestation of The Braselton News was
intentional. We wanted to grow the new newspaper in
stages, accruing resources along the way and tweak
ing how we covered news in the Braselton-Hoschton
area.
Now, three years after its start, The Braselton News
is the largest newspaper covering the Braselton-
Hoschton-Mill Creek-Chateau Elan-South Hall area
with a circulation of over 16,000. No other newspaper
comes close to this large distribution, or our depth of
local news coverage.
The birth of The Braselton News from The Jackson
Herald was a natural progression for us. The Herald has
been covering the Braselton-Hoschton area for over
100 years. A new publication gives us the opportunity
to offer much deeper and more focused news coverage
than is possible otherwise.
The Braselton News also carries the aggressive DNA
that has made The Herald one of the nation’s top weekly
newspapers. The Braselton News was not designed
to be a “fluff & puff” publication. If you want feel-good
spin, read another newspaper.
But if you want a newspaper that is tightly focused on
local events and that isn’t afraid to ask the difficult ques-
tions, then we offer you this publication. The Braselton
News is a real newspaper that covers the nitty-gritty
of local issues. We will not carry water for those who
might wish to spin the truth. And we will not shirk from
commentary about important local news that affects the
lives of area citizens. A newspaper should be a mirror
to the community, exposing both good and bad.
So The Braselton News will indeed be aggressive in
our coverage and commentary about issues important
to the lives of those living in the Hoschton and Braselton
area. Growing communities face a myriad of challenges
and we will not be shy about discussing and debating
those issues.
In the coming years, we will continue to expand and
grow this newspaper. We will add new features and
new beats. And we will continue to tweak our current
coverage, just as we’ve done in covering the area for
the last century.
Along the way, we welcome your comments and input
as well. Let us know what you think and send us your
letters about important community issues.
The Braselton News
A Publication of The Jackson Herald &
Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc.
Email: news@mainstreetnews.com
Web Site: braseltonnews.com
Classified Advertising
classifieds@mainstreetnews.com
PO Box 908, Jefferson, Ga. 30549
General Phone: 706-367-5233
Says education
is important
Dear Editor:
Today in society, the knowledge that education
brings us is the most important thing in each of our
lives to have. However, most individuals out there
are struggling during their high school years. That
leaves them to either fail the current grade they’re
in, or acquire the option to drop out.
Every child’s perspectives on education is dif
ferent and whatever decision that child makes
can create either a successful future, or an unsuc
cessful future.
I feel that every child out there who feels like
they cannot graduate on time and has to drop out
should attend a special academic class where we
council these individuals and explain the impor
tance of having an education. I agree that there
should also be night school sessions to raise your
current GPA up as well.
I definitely know there are many ways to prevent
kids from dropping out of high school and every
child deserves a bright future ahead. With a little
assistance, I think we can do it!
Sincerely,
Kamini R
Lawrenceville
School hours
should be changed
Dear Editor:
I would like to suggest that the Gwinnett County
Board of Education change the school hours. A
typical high school student has a job which they
work during the evenings and at night and on top
of that homework from every class, which in turn
adds us to about two hours of homework almost
every night.
This means that after working all day at school
and then going to work and working and then
coming home to two hours of home work that is
hardly enough time for sleep.
If only the board of education would change the
school hours for high school students to the time
that the middle school students get up. Even if we
get home later, that still gives us enough time to
sleep, work and do homework and still be awake
and fresh in the mornings for school.
Many teachers complain that we sleep in class
and that is why we have bad grades when techni
cally, if we had more time to sleep, we would not
be sleeping class. In turn, if we did not sleep in
class, our class grade would go up and so would
our SAT scores and other grades and scores.
I am sure that if you changed the school sched
ules, there would be plenty of happy students.
Sincerely,
Jakie O.
Free clinic needed
Dear Editor:
As a citizen, I believe we are right to go to a
hospital when we are sick. However, money that
we have to pay is too much so that most of people
cannot afford it.
Because of that, many people are living with
illnesses. Also, people get big disease from little
flu because they couldn’t get free medical care.
Thus, the community can build free clinic.
The community can give people permission to
be able to get medical care from a free clinic.
If there is a free clinic, not only poor people will
go, but rich people and people who can afford it
themselves will go too.
A free clinic will affect a lot of stuff for people
and many people will be saved.
Sincerely,
Jason Chang
Management of colleges and tech schools a state strength
CARL PATTON announced the other day that he will be retiring next year from
his state job.
Unless you are a college official or part of the academic community in Georgia,
the name probably won’t mean anything to you.
But Carl Patton performed a valuable and enduring public service to the tax
payers over the past 15 years that he has spent as president of Georgia State
University in Atlanta.
From its location near Five Points in downtown Atlanta,
Georgia State has long been an institution that provided
higher education opportunities to the non-traditional student:
the person who had to take a job or join the military right of
high school and decided years later that he or she wanted to
start work on a college degree. They could attain that degree
by taking the night courses that GSU offered for working
people.
Under Patton’s leadership, Georgia State grew to an enroll
ment of 50,000 as it continued its important role for non-tra
ditional students. The urban college also expanded its role
of providing classes for the more traditional students as well.
The addition of new buildings and the renovation of existing
structures on the “concrete campus” revitalized a shabby
area surrounding Atlanta’s central business district and made that part of the city
a little nicer place to be in.
Carl Patton played a big part in making all of that happen, so he deserves praise
for a job well-done during his time at Georgia State. His accomplishments as
president are also illustrative of the positive things that happen around the state
through our network of public universities and technical colleges.
It is a favorite pastime of newspaper editors and political commentators to gripe
about what government does poorly and to criticize our politicians for the things
they mess up and the mistakes they make. Heaven knows, there are a multitude
of mishaps that you could point out.
When it comes to post-secondary education, however, I would argue that the
administration of our public colleges and technical schools is one of the things
that Georgia’s state government actually does rather well.
We are fortunate enough to have two research institutions - Georgia Tech and
the University of Georgia - that consistently show up among the top 20 in aca
demic rankings. We have a top-flight medical school in Augusta, the Medical
College of Georgia, that could one day have a sister campus in Athens.
We also have more than 30 other four-year and two-year institutions that make
up the University System, along with 34 well-acclaimed technical colleges helping
train the state’s workforce for jobs that pay more than the minimum wage.
These institutions, big and small, provide a chance for a better life to the
hundreds of thousands of Georgians who attend classes there every year. The
campuses also are a leading source of employment and a magnet for business
development in the communities where they are located - whether you are talk
ing about Georgia Southwestern, or Gainesville State College, or Coastal Georgia
Community College, or Coosa Valley Technical College.
We also have made it possible for more students to attend these colleges,
thanks largely to the efforts of Gov. Zell Miller and a group of legislators who had
the foresight in the early 1990s to establish a Georgia Lottery and use the funds
it generated to provide HOPE scholarships. The number of students who have
been able to attend college or technical school through the benefit of this financial
assistance is nearing one million.
Miller is a cantankerous old man who has angered a lot of his former friends and
supporters with some of the political zig-zagging he’s done in recent years, but
there could be little argument that his tireless work to create the HOPE program
is a legacy that surpasses that of any other governor of the past half-century. It
opened up the doors of our colleges to a larger number of Georgians who are
better citizens as a result.
Our network of colleges and technical schools has its faults, as any large system
would, and you could always quibble with its leadership over the tuition it charges
and some of its spending practices. On the whole, though, I would consider the
system to be one of those things that state government does right. We should all
give thanks for that.
(Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s Georgia Report, an Internet news
site at www.gareport.com that covers government and politics in Georgia.)
Reasons to
be thankful
THERE IS an old fortune cookie
paper in my wallet that reads: “You
have so much to thankful for.” It
sits above a photo of my daughter
dressed in her Georgia Bulldog
cheerleader outfit and a “secret
angel” that an anonymous person
sent me.
The truth is, my daughter, Katie,
has had some
rough times in the
past year. She
had her first heart
surgery at a week
old, a second
heart surgery
when was three
months old, and a
stomach surgery
to control acid
reflux and install
a feeding tube at
10 months old.
Another heart surgery is on the
horizon for next year.
Along her journey, there have
been numerous major complica
tions. We have spent a total of
five months in the past year at
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at
Egleston — which was literally our
second home. The most recent,
unplanned visit was just yesterday
to the ER (but Katie is home today
as I write this).
It’s hard to turn to God some
times and say “thank you” for all
that we’ve been through in the past
year — but living an experience
like this, you know when thanks are
due.
I give thanks that God blessed
us with such a wonderfully happy
child. Katie is a child that lights
up a room when she enters — she
loves people and squeals in delight
when she gets the chance to see
others. Her joy, at times, has even
stumped some of the medical pro
fessionals.
I give thanks that so many doc
tors, nurses and therapists have
cared for Katie. They have also
worried during the low-points, but
rejoiced in the good moments and
steps forward. One of her nurses at
Egleston was crying when we were
heading home after a very long
and rough admission. She said
she worried about Katie during that
hospital stay, but was happy to see
us walking out the door with Katie
in her stroller.
I give thanks that we can hold
Katie everyday. We couldn’t hold
her for a month after her second
heart surgery. Even touching or
talking to her immediately after the
surgeries would cause her blood
pressure to soar.
I give thanks when Katie is home
— where she isn’t hooked to a ma
chine or monitor, and can play like
any other child.
I give thanks that things actually
seem “normal” for us right now.
Sure, Katie will always have to take
medicine, and for now, is she on
a feeding pump, but things are
looking better. When she is discon
nected from the pump, you’d never
know that this delightful, active little
girl has had some rough days. She
doesn’t “look sick” and she doesn’t
have to wear the “koalas in space
ships” hospital gown — we can
dress her in her own outfits.
I give thanks that our family has
pulled together to help Katie during
the past year. We would have had
an even harder time without them.
I give thanks that so many people
in the community have helped us.
Many of you continue to ask about
Katie when I’m out in the communi
ty, rather it be at city council meet
ings or in the grocery store.
I give thanks that God has given
us Katie — because we have so
many reasons to be thankful.
Kerri Testement is news editor
of The Braselton News. Her e-mail
address is kerri@mainstreetnews.
com.
Kerri
Testement
kerri@mainstreet-
news.com