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4A ♦ TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2006 Maix&tsm ißailjj djmmral OPINION Daniel F. Evans Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Don Moncrief Foy S. Evans Managing Editor Editor Emeritus It is just the beginning Centerville is moving ahead with plans for a real downtown. Architects now will have to come up with some idea of what it should look like and what areas it will encompass. The idea for a downtown originated with former Mayor Ronnie Brand. It sounded like pie in the sky, but enough people liked the idea that the Centerville city officials have forged forward steadi ly- One wise thing that city officials have done is keep the public involved every step of the way. Public hear ings have . been held and public input has , been taken seriously. I Once plan- I ners have < something to show, there will be more i public meet- i ings and the - public will be given opportunities to offer suggestions for changes. This is the way to do things and to get things done. Moving ahead without public input is a good way for second guessers to come forward and scuttle an otherwise good project. Of course, there will be many obstacles to overcome once a downtown plan is approved. First, there will be the need for money. A lot of it. Present plans call for private enterprise to step in and do the actual developing, which may or may not include both commercial and residential buildings. Developers must be convinced the proj ect is viable and, for them, profitable. There are advocates for stores on the street level and loft apartments on the second floors of buildings. The belief is that this would make downtown more attractive as a place to visit and could prevent, as one person has said, “rolling up of the sidewalks at 5 in the afternoon.” There are some who do not want down town to be a mixed use development. These conflicting ideas probably can be ironed out before the first spade of dirt is turned. An important - and expensive - ele ment of creating the downtown will be acquisition of the property that will be needed. Already some property has been promised as a donation, but there will be easements and even the necessity of tearing down some existing structures. This will cost money. Maybe big money. Once a design is approved, the real, hard work will begin. This is not something that will happen in a few weeks or months. Probably not in a few years. But, if all the stars are in alignment, it could become something very special in the future. HOW TO SUBMIT LETTERS We encourage readers to submit letters to the edi tor. Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. All letters printed in The Daily Journal will appear with the writer’s name and hometown - we do not publish anonymous letters. The newspaper reserves the right to edit or reject letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity. Letter writers are asked to submit no more than one letter per person per week. We cannot guarantee that a letter will be printed on a specific date. There are three ways to submit a letter to the edi tor: E-mail it to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to The Houston Daily Journal at P.O. Box 1910, Perry, GA 31069, or drop it off at 1210 Washington St. in Perry - between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Of course, there will be many obstacles to overcome once a downtown plan is approved. First, there will be the need for money. A lot of it. Plenty of opportunities of everyone Racist remarks about mom-and-pop store owners made by former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young continue to keep .editorial writers and columnists busy dissecting what he said. Some are casti gating him. Some are defending him. Here’s what he said, in a nutshell: Mom-and-pop stores - run by Jews, Koreans and Muslims - have been sell ing inferior, stale merchandise to black customers at outrageous prices. He said there were no black mom-and-pop stores to serve them. He made it sound like blacks are fro zen out and not given an opportunity to have their own stores. Not so. The business world is wide open for anyone with a spirit of entrepreneurship. The government did not set up the Jews, Koreans and Muslims in busi ness. Many of them are immigrants who took it upon themselves to ven ture into the business world. Blacks have the same opportunity and if there are not any of them serving blacks in his neighborhood, as Young implied, then it is because they prefer not to. For the record, there are successful black mom-and-pop businesses, but not enough to satisfy Young, or in the right places, which apparently was reason enough for his racist comments. He is supposed to be a diplomat, but on this occasion was quite undiplomatic. The first negro-owned neighborhood store that I knew of (back in 1933) was operated by Norman Cole. He was a Fireman for the Seaboard Railroad. He and his family owned a little grocery store in the section of Americus where W Vtt. MQIPZ! Irr KNOW WWY YOU'RE SORRY.KOfI TIME SUPREME 1 \ TOME 1/ HERE’'YOU WANT IB i, LEADER WE NEEDTHAT" I !U> J TO 6TOP ENRICHING* 'STUFF TO FUEL OUR’POWER W URANIUM? RW? jQ J * PLANT*.'WE CANT STOPW I ..»ir V»GM« CtRfWrtUY SfflW T PI*EW FOR I jS WiIUMSTOTMKAeoUTff.'J JT«I - BKK NM6ALOTOFMINARET 1 ?£ACEFUI | CONSTRUCTION GOINS -jfj i-j a => «a»6 CREATORS STCOICME INC Si Jackson one of my favorite singers Those who know me know that my kind of music is country. The love of country music began sixty plus years ago when our family entertainment on a Saturday night was sitting around a radio listening to the Grand Ole Opry out of Nashville, Tennessee. After 50 years of marriage Frances has become somewhat of a country music fan. She has been nice enough over the years to allow me to program our car radio into six or so country stations. This probably should not be told, but when a station begins to play a commercial one of the buttons are touched until country music is floating through the car again. One of my favorite country sing ers is Alan Jackson. Alan was raised in Newnan which is 45 miles from Manchester. He was an auto mechan ic by trade until he made it big in Nashville. A portion of Interstate 85, which runs close to his hometown, has been dedicated and named in his honor. One reason Jackson’s music has always appealed to me is that the vast majority of his songs are good songs that young people can listen to. They carry a good message. In contrast most of the music sung by singers such as Gretchin Wilson make me hit the next station button because the majority of her songs are trash. American Profile in one of its recent issues did a story on Jackson that was written by Alanna Nash. The magazine’s Cover Story was focused on Jackson’s most recent gospel CD “Precious Memories” that he recorded OPINION negroes lived. Norman Cole was respected by whites, as well as blacks, in Americus. I, personally, have a very good rea son for having liked, appreciated and respected him and someday I may write about it. Opportunities existed, even in the dark days of segregation, for someone with initiative and a willingness to work. Comments such as those made by Andrew Young distort reality and target people of different races and nationali ties for criticism and scorn and foment hate. As the song goes, what the world needs now is love, sweet love and there’s just too little of it. * * * If we are not all blown up some day, education will be the weapon that determines which countries dominate the world in future decades. And the outlook for our country to be the leader is not great. While we proudly point out the prog ress that our local schools are making on standardized tests in relation to the rest of the nation, we are overlooking as a gift for his mom. The CD is a col lection of 15 classic hymns that Alan and his wife, Denise, who sang togeth er in the First Baptist Church choir, selected from 30 of their favorites in the Baptist hymnal. The album has been a big success since it was recorded. It is the only gospel recording ever to debut at num ber one on Billboards’ Top Country Albums chart. Jackson also is the first country entertainer to produce an album of all spiritual music that went to number one on the Top Christian and Gospel Albums charts. He did this with no intention of selling the recording. Jackson says that his mother has been after him for years to produce a gospel CD but he just kept putting it off. The breakthrough came last year when his father-in-law died and he sang “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” at his funeral. Throughout the CD he delivers the old hymns in the heartfelt manner he remembers from church as a child. Alan has been to the top of the charts with his country music songs with more than 44 million albums sold and 31 number one hits. However, Foy Evans Columnist loyevansl9@cox.net m r Bob Tribble columnist HOUSTON DAILY JOURNAL the fact that our competition is over seas. We are in a global economy. In the future we will compete, as individuals and as a nation, with other countries. Education will be at the core of the weapons we use. Here’s something to think about: Only 16 percent of undergraduate students in the United States receive degrees in science, technology, engi neering and math. More than half get degrees in these subjects in China. In a few years the battlefield will be dominated by China and other Asian countries. According to a retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, U.S. stu dents finished in 27th place in a recent test involving understanding of math ematics. Foreign languages are important. There’s not much exposure to foreign languages in this country. In China, the European Union, Thailand and other countries it is compulsory for students to learn two or three foreign languages. Americans have been satisfied to stick to English and expect the world to talk the way we do. It is changing rapidly. The seriousness of this educational gap cannot be overemphasized. Many college students in this country are wasting their time with liberal arts and other more or less useless degrees, which leaves them at the starting gate in worldwide competition. Of course, students in our colleges probably take first place in drinking and partying. Give them credit for something. despite all the success, riches and awards he stays true to himself and keeps close to his common man roots. He is a private person who reveals more about himself in his songs than in his interviews and is a little embar rassed about all of the attention, Ms. Nash says in her article. He doesn’t feel comfortable talking about him self, he doesn’t grandstand or pound his chest and he makes his own state ments in his own soft spoken way. No matter how the new project turns out, “Precious Memories” will always be special to the Jackson family. Today they worship in a laid back kind of church, where you can wear shorts or a suit, not far from their home in Nashville. Jackson remembers that his wife and daughters, Mattie and Ali, were nervous about singing on the album, but now they are just tickled to death with it, he says. Jackson’s mother is the proudest of all however. “Every time I talk with her she can’t tell me enough how she loves it,” he says. “She never was a real heavy duty country music fan, so she loves it better than any music I ever made.” And he notes with a smile curling under his trademark blonde mustache, he has released an album his mom and all of her friends can lis ten to. It doesn’t have a drinking or a cheating song in it. Frankly, not many of Alan Jackson’s songs are filled with words that could be distasteful to anyone. In many of his recordings he will mention God or Jesus in some way. And that is why he is one of my favorite country singers.