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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2007 4A Daniel F. Evans President Editor and Publisher Julie B. Evans Vice President Building for a better future If you can remember back when the Internet was in its fledgling infancy, you’ll recall it was pretty common to reach a website only to find an “Under Construction” sign on it. The web master wanted you to know they were there, but he or she also wanted you to know they were tweaking, changing - building a better product for the future. And in the end ... well, it isn’t hard to figure out what the World Wide Web has done. We’re taking that same approach here at the Houston Home Journal. We’ve hung out the “Under Construction” sign (although we haven’t gone anywhere, so please don’t go away) while we tweak, change - build a better product for the future. And we’re not just saying that. We’ve taken a long, hard look at how we conduct business and how we can begin to tailor things to meet the needs and wants of you the reader. For instance, in the world of sports. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if football is on Friday night, by the time results hit our paper on Wednesday, it’s old news. Unless. Unless we change our approach. Unless we can find a unique and refreshing way to pack age that information. And that is our goal and our challenge. Along with that, it is our hope - as our publisher has already said - to bring you information only found here. Don’t get us wrong, we’ll continue to dot our “i”s and cross our “t”s in some aspects because there are still things that need/require that sort of treatment. But at the same time, we have the end result in sight: A product you can pick up and enjoy reading. Give us a bit. We promise to get there, just pardon the “Unde» Construction” sign in the meantime. Letter to the editor Last week we held our first official School Council parent election at the new Lake Joy Elementary. I was looking forward to finally having a*forum in which parents/guard ians, grandparents and other stakeholders could actively participate in the education process of our children. I was surprised to see the overwhelming representation of school board employees and their spouses file into the cafeteria to be spectators and/or participants. A Mr. Shipp and Mr Parsons will represent parents on the Lake Joy school council this year. The” one-year term race between Mr. Shipp and I was no contest, he received 33 votes to my 8. I wonder if he will consult his wife, a teacher at Lake Joy, to get the real low down as to how parents can be most affective in their child’s learning process, and then share it with the rest of us. The second parent race was very close, and two of the three candidates took their allotted 60 seconds to share something about themselves. This two-year term race resulted in another teacher’s husband being elected to the school council. Am I disappointed? You bet I am, but in the end I will stand up, brush it off, and continue to be my son’s best advocate. In the meantime, I hope every parent who decides to take up space on any school council is ready to respond to issues that arp sure to surface. Issues that may include, but not limited to, a statewide sales tax and how it is going to affect our children’s education, bus shortages, the school calendar, and the 15-minute extended day for elementary students. Some council representatives may be asked what action is being taken in our schools in response to the recently published National Assessment of Educational Progress study, which stated, “The NAEP scale compares where states set minimum scores for determining whether stu dents are proficient, under the mandates of NCLB Act. The study found that state tests varied greatly in See LETTER, page HOW TO SUBMIT: Letters should not exceed 350 words and must include the writer’s name, address and telephone number (the last two not printed). The newspaper reserves the right to edit or reject letters for reasons of grammar, punctuation, taste and brevity. We cannot guarantee that a letter will be printed on a specific date. There are three ways to submit a letter to the editor: E-mail it to hhj@evansnewspapers.com, mail it to The Houston Home Journal at 1210 Washington St., Perry, GA 31069, or drop it off at the same location between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Foy S. Evans Editor Emeritus Don Moncrief Managing Editor Brantley deserves recognition Houston County inaugurated a Teachers Hall of Fame last year and, probably, will add some names to the list this year. Every person selected for the Hall of Fame was a worthy recipi ent. Unfortunately, overlooked in the first class was a teacher from Warner Robins who is deserving of the honor. It is possible that the committee mak ing the selections were unaware of her accomplishments. She was the principal of Thomar Elementary School when I arrived in Warner Robins. Miss Nola Brantley was something special. Her influence and imprint on the young people and the young city of Warner Robins was tremendous. She has been nominated to the Teachers Hall of Fame by four retired teachers who are worthy of the honor themselves. They prefer for me not to mention their names here, because they want the focus to be on a teach er one of them wrote this about, “I have known many great teachers and principals, but Miss Brantley was the BEST in everything in which she was involved.” From personal experience, I can say that the teacher who wrote those words was one of the best I ever have known and should be in that Hall of Fame, too. Miss Nola’s influence extended from the classroom throughout the entire Warner Robins community from 1942, when Thomas Elementary School opened until she retired in 1969. Her students loved her when I came here and it didn’t take long for me to under stand why. She was principal from \ ' ' i" - u. And one time, at pollen skating camp... When my sister and I were young, our mother routinely signed us up for all kinds of summer camps and activi ties, whether we liked it or not. Mostly not. I’m not sure if it was an effort to broaden our horizons or simply get us out of the house. Probably a little bit of both. We had soccer camps, swimming lessons, basketball camps, ceramics classes, an ill-fated attempt to enlist me in the chorus for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and one summer, roller skating camp. I’m guessing I was about eight years old - all skin and bones and joints, prob ably weighing in at about 50 pounds after a hearty trip to Burger Chef. From my recollection, roller skating camp consisted of: 1. Parents dropping off kids at 8 a.m. at roller skating rink; 2. kids putting on skates and skating around; and 3. Parents picking up kids that afternoon. There were adults around to super vise - sure - but I don’t remember any actual roller skating instruction. We were basically left to ourselves to learn or practice or try to play pinball with wheels attached to our feet. I had never roller skated at the Foy KEjLjir Evans Jj ' ■; f? Columnist life*-' hjp foyevansl9@cox.net "Miss Nola Brantley was something special. Her influence and imprint on the young people and the young city of Warner Robins was tremendous." 1943 until she retired. The library in Warner Robins bears the name “Nola Brantley Memorial Library.” When the city opened its first library it was logical to name it for her. When the county took over the library the name followed th# library to the fine facility on Watson Blvd„ located, incidentally, next door to the school where she was principal for 26 years. The four retired teachers who rec ommended Miss Nola to the Houston County Teachers Hall of Fame enu merated in detail her life and her many accomplishments. It will be logical for her to be inducted into the Houston County Teachers Hall of Fame. She deserves it. ■■■ President Bush says he wants to bail g. p Len * % Robbins # Columnist k ~ ’M}' airpub@planttel.net P point of my involuntary registration for roller skating camp. My younger sister had never roller skated before either. She put on her skates and just started rolling around like she had been doing it all her life. I reasoned she was too young to realize how pain ful pain was. Having already broken a couple of bones by that age, I was much more cautious. I put on my skates and starting flail ing around, trying to make my way to the rink. Once there, I would hug the rail, inching around the oval while the other kids, including my sister, whizzed by. I did that for about two weeks. One day,. I was clutching the rail, moving about an inch a minute, my skates, which weighed more than me, dangling below - my usual routine - when I noticed this man standing on the side, next to the snack bar, watch Y)ne tot re ca/i ///(// e a c/i//r/ <'//( e out hundreds of thousands of hom eowners who overbought and now face foreclosures. Is it a good idea? Does it send the wrong message? Does it tell the American people to spend beyond their means without suffering he con sequences because the government will come to their rescue? Does it send a message that there is nothing wrong with fiscal irresponsibility? Is this a dangerous road to go down? Tell me. ■■■ Isn’t it interesting that keypads at bank drive-ins are in Braille? You have to wonder about blind people driving. I remember being in Nashville one time when they were bragging that Ronnie Millsap drove an automobile. He’s blind and this sounded like the ultimate in irresponsibility. ■■■ Here’ s something interesting that was pointed out in the Atlanta Journal- Constitution. One in five Americans cannot find the United States on a map, but 20 million Mexicans can. ■■■ The federal government has spent sll2 billion on rebuilding New Orleans so far and the results are deplorable: Critics of President Bush say this is “too little, too late.” Rep. Tom Tancredo, a candidate for president, has the right idea. “Enough is enough,” he says. New Orleans is below sea level. It would make a good lake. They should have bulldozed the place down after Hurricane Katrina and turned it into a great big lake. Now it is a cesspool of corruption and crime and a black hole that gobbles up taxpayer dollars with little to show for it. ing me. He was smoking a cigarette, wearing a yellow Doobie Brothers con cert shirt, probably about 25 years old or so. In front of where he was standing was an opening where the rail stopped. That was the entrance for skaters into the rink. It was about three feet wide. As I came to this opening, I stopped, held on to the rail, then lunged for the rail on the other side of the entrance, my roller skates slipping and sliding beneath me. I somehow managed to gather my balance and was slowly on my way when the mail next to the snack bar yelled to me. “Hey, kid, wait a second,” he said. I hung on to the bar, thinking, okay, I’m about to be kidnapped. And I can’t even run away. “Hey, kid, why aren’t you skating like the rest of ‘em?” “Uh, ah, well, mister, see, I can’t skate,” I said. He took a drag, then pointed across the three-foot rink entrance I had just barely transversed. “Listen, kid, if you can cross that, you can cross that,” he said as he directed his cigarette in the direction of the opposite side of the rink. See ROBBINS, page $A HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL