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Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com.
DawsonOpinion
WEDNESDAY, August 1, 2018
This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
"I put money into it, and never get
anything out of it. Pop calls it the Government."
The importance of educators
Kids are lamenting and
parents are celebrating. It
must mean that school is right
around the comer.
In honor of the new school
year, I’d like to express a sin
cere thank you to the educa
tors who will make a differ
ence in so many young lives
by honoring just a few of the
kind souls who made a last
ing impact on my life.
I consider myself blessed to
have had so many wonderful
teachers and professors to
mentor me and shape me into
the young woman I am today.
From my stem kindergar
ten teacher, Mrs. Valdez, who
helped pull our loose teeth
and didn’t ask for a cut of the
Tooth Fairy money to my
proud college professor, Dr.
Luthman, who came out to
support my presentations at
an academic conference, I’ve
had my fair share of inspiring
educators who always pushed
me to do better and to be bet
ter in all that I do.
In eighth grade, there was
my English and Georgia
Studies teacher Ms. Kara
Kopp. She loved animals and
even had a pet deer that
always came to visit her in
her small cottage. Her passion
for grammar and literacy has
always stayed with me.
On the first day of class she
pointed me out, sensing that I
was new to the school. She
was right. I had transferred
from a Christian school the
year prior and felt horribly
out of place with my peers.
She took me under her wing
and helped develop my pas
sion for writing, giving me a
sense of belonging that I des-
JESSICA BROWN
Columnist
perately looked for in my new
school.
Eighth grade was also a
very difficult year for me in
my personal life. My beloved
Boykin Spaniel, Morgan, had
suddenly fallen very ill. My
family and I were forced to
say goodbye to her one night
after school.
After crying all night, I
unfortunately had to return to
school the next day and do
my best to keep myself
together.
When I got to Ms. Kopp’s
class, I fell apart in my seat.
She was talking about her
dogs and I could only hang
my head down and conceal
my tears as best I could.
But I wasn’t fooling her.
She called me aside as we
walked into the lunchroom
and asked me what was going
on. I told her what had hap
pened and apologized for cry
ing. She hugged me and
showed me compassion when
I needed it most. Having Ms.
Kopp listening to me and to
be there to tell me everything
would be okay meant more to
me than she could possibly
know.
When I reached high
school, I met Mr. Derek Hon,
my journalism teacher who
pushed me throughout all
four years of high school to
be the best writer I could be. I
entered his class with a sense
of apathy - something I
believe all 14-year-olds are
equipped with by default, but
I left that class being the first
one in the school to letter in
journalism and served as
Editor-in-Chief for three
years.
Mr. Hon saw potential in
me, trusting me to design the
newspaper and control what
stories made the cut which
sometimes put me at odds
with my classmates. He was
always open to my sugges
tions and willing to put the
control of the paper into our
hands as students.
With a young, growing
family at home, he sacrificed
so many hours of his personal
time sitting in his classroom
after school as my editors and
I worked to get stories fin
ished and pages designed. He
could have easily told us that
our work needed to wait until
the next school day, but he
was patient and let us work
under deadlines we created.
Now 10 years later I am
still applying all of the valu
able knowledge he taught us
on a daily basis.
In college I crossed paths
with so many inspirational
professors that it’s difficult for
me to narrow down the top
three that had an influence on
my life. I had professors like
Gloria Bennett who encour
aged me to continue my cre
ative writing endeavors.
There was Dr. Vines who told
me that I had real potential to
be a screenwriter. My Civil
War professor Dr. Clay Ouzts
encouraged me to dig deeper
into history and said that my
research paper for his class
would be worth submitting
for publication.
But then there was ulti
mately one professor that I
met within my last stretch of
college that I will never for
get.
Professor Heather Murray
brought history to life. The
spark that I could see in her
eyes when she talked about
the Gilded Age ignited my
own passion for history dur
ing a time that I felt lost and
unhappy with my current
career path. Her classes gave
me the courage to change my
major to history and I have
never been happier.
Now that the school days
are behind me, I look back
fondly at all of the educators
who made a positive impact
in my life and I look at my
fiance, an educator himself,
and see how he impacts his
students every day.
Whether it’s by coming to
one of their high school
plays, hosting an afterschool
creative writing club or help
ing a troubled student that
needs someone to talk to,
every day he inspires me and
I can only imagine what his
students will say about him
years down the road.
Thank you to all of the edu
cators who strive to make a
difference in a child’s life. A
kind word, a hug or even
writing “great job” on a test
can mean the world to a child.
In an often thankless job,
thank you for the work that
you do and I hope that you all
have a wonderful school year.
Jessica Brown is a reporter for
the Dawson County News.
Cagle should’ve
winked more
and talked less
Dear Casey:
Well, so much for that coronation.
Jeepers Creepers. Give me $10.5 million in
campaign contributions and the endorse
ment of one of our most popular governors
in recent times and I could have gotten
Cameron Charles Yarbrough elected Pope.
Instead, with all that money, Gov.
Nathan Deal’s endorsement, very high
name recognition, two decades of collecting
politics IOUs and an early and sizable lead
in the polls, you barely got a third of the
vote in the
Republican pri
mary runoff in
Georgia and less
than 50 percent
in your home
county of Hall.
Unbelievable.
If you want to
know how you
lost the race, go look in the mirror. Your
opponent, Secretary of State Brian Kemp,
didn’t win the runoff as much as you lost it.
Much has been made of Kemp’s televi
sion ads where he intimidates a little dweeb
who wants to date his daughter by remind
ing him that he has a gun in his lap. I was
hoping the little dweeb would tell Kemp
that he, too, had a gun and was bad-prone
to kneecap trash-talking daddies that got on
his nerves.
In fact, Brian Kemp could have read reci
pes out a cookbook (“Y’ all cook up one of
these here taters and whup it to tarnations
and then go find you some pappy ricker and
throw it on the tater. Yum! Yum! Them’s
some good eatin’.”) and he still would have
waxed you.
Your undoing was your intemperate com
ments sprinkled with salacious locker room
language to former Republican gubernatori
al rival and fourth-place finisher Clay
Tippins (or rather to Tippins’ hidden cell
phone) which were absolutely stupefying.
You said you were trying to secure his
endorsement. So much for that good idea.
The guy is a Navy Seal, for Pete’s sakes.
You just don’t mess around with Navy
Seals. They are different hombres. You are
lucky he didn’t rip out your jugular vein
and feed it to you for lunch.
Yours was one of the worst political
gaffes I have witnessed in my long life
except for that dodo-head legislator in
Woodbine who got duped into yelling racial
epithets, pulling down his red underwear
(yuck!) and showing his ample behind on
national television. That one defies all
logic.
I am still trying to figure out what com
pelled you to say the things you didn’t need
to say to a guy you didn’t even know that
well. Did you consult with your crack staff
of political consultants prior to the meet
ing? If so, did you tell them you were going
to discuss having forced the passage of a
private school tax credit bill that you called
bad “in a thousand different ways” so that
special interest groups who have nothing
but disdain for public education wouldn’t
dump a few million on your rival, former
state Sen. Hunter Hill?
If you did consult with your political con
sultants about the fact you were going to
open your verbal kimono to this guy and
they said, “Brilliant idea, chief. And don’t
forget to mention that the whole campaign
has been about ‘who had the biggest gun,
who had the biggest truck and who could
be the craziest.’ Ha! Ha! Ha! You da man!”
you need to ask for a refund.
Obviously, they didn’t pass along my
advice that in politics you should never
write what you can say and never say what
you can nod and never nod what you can
wink. Had you chosen to wink-wink your
way through your meeting with Clay
Tippins, we might be talking about you
being our next governor and not our soon-
to-be former lieutenant governor and the
consultants might still be gainfully
employed instead of trying to explain to
potential clients why they let you blow an
almost unsurmountable lead.
OK, what’s done is done. The good news
is it looks like you are going to have lots of
free time on your hands. If you are looking
for some fun stuff to do, don’t hesitate to
give me a call. I owe you that much for not
telling you earlier that you were running the
wrong kind of campaign. Trying to out-mud
wrestle your right-wing opponents was a
big mistake. Talking too much instead of
wink-winking was a fatal mistake.
In the meantime, if you do decide to take
some much-needed R&R, I would strongly
suggest you avoid the Georgia Aquarium.
That place is full of seals and we know the
kind of damage they can do.
All the best,
Dick
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dickyar-
brough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139;
online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
How are we doing in Ga.?
U.S. House Rep. Doug Collins (R-
Gainesville) recently sent out an
e-mail proclaiming how well Georgia
is doing because of the tax cut he
voted for. He mentions that families
earning over $60,000 a year are seeing
a $1,232 cut in taxes. The problem
with his good news is that over 60 per
cent of Georgian families don’t make
over $60,000 a year, so that cut
doesn’t affect many middle income
people.
Then he mentions the cut for those
with incomes between $25,000 and
$50,000—a whopping $921 average
cut, $75 a month. The meager tax
cuts that those Georgians receive will
do nothing to help them afford health
insurance, increased higher education
costs, increased fuel costs and food
costs that are climbing because of
President Trump’s tariffs.
Trump last week raved about our
4.1 percent GDP growth, but he didn’t
mention that wages are stagnant and
instead of giving raises to workers,
corporations are buying back their
stock so their stockholders make more
money. In addition, the Republican
House of Representatives have pro
posed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid,
Social Security, food assistance, edu
cation, head start, funds for public
libraries and Meals on Wheels, there
by taking benefits away from those
who need it most. The upper 1 percent
of the population by the way gets mil
lions of dollars in tax cuts.
To add salt to the wound, several
weeks ago there was an article in the
Atlanta Journal that said according to
Washington D.C. based “WalletHub,”
Georgia is the ninth best economy in
the country. But the ranking doesn’t
tell the whole story. The details show
several areas where the news is not so
good (where high numbers are bad,
here are the areas where Georgia has
high numbers):
• 16.1 percent of the population
lives at the poverty level or below.
The national average is 12.7 percent.
That puts Georgia 44th in the nation.
• Georgia ranks 47th for the number
of uninsured in the country.
• In education, we rank 40th for the
number of adults who have a high
school diploma.
• We rank 39th in total income
earned per person.
So the very people who got the least
from the tax cuts and who will hurt
the most from the Republican inspired
budget cuts are the very ones that are
suffering the most in Georgia.
The Georgia Budget and Policy
Institute have written a report detail
ing a program they call “People
Powered Prosperity.” All it would
take is for our state legislators and
Governor to institute a few new laws
which help low and lower middle
income people have the opportunity to
succeed. The problem is we need
people in those capacities that care
about helping all Georgians succeed.
How are we going to enact laws so
all people in Georgia have the oppor
tunity to work hard and provide for
their families? Elect Democrats in
November. We will get it done!
Bette Holland
Dawsonville
School costs
Here are some numbers I calculated
from the web the other day. These num
bers have not been verified with the vari
ous county schools systems for accuracy.
Where I could find the information, I
tried to use general expenditures divided
by the number of students reported.
I would suggest to our school board in
Dawson County to have a ten year histo
ry done with accurate numbers of sur
rounding counties and to publish that
comparative history for the public so we
may see how our tax dollars are spent.
Bench marking is a tried and true
comparative system that just about
nobody likes because it forces you to
think about money on some other basis
than just raw dollars. As you can see
public education is not cheap.
My numbers suggest that smaller
school systems may need to watch their
administrative costs very carefully.
Approximate annual costs per student
for public education:
National Average
$11,800
Dawson
$11,800
Pickens
$10,400
Lumpkin
$9,000
Forsyth
$8,700
Hall
$9,700
Cherokee
$8,600
Fannin
$11,500
Gilmer
$9,300
Gary Pichon
Marble Hill
DICKYARBROUGH
Columnist