About The Baldwin bulletin. (Milledgeville, GA) ????-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2017)
Page A4 The Baldwin Bulletin I www.BBnews.today Thursday, September 21,2017 Opinions All letters to the editor must be signed and include a phone number for verification purposes. Send letters to wil@BBnews.today by 1 p.m. Monday. To the schools: Thank you Last week, our community went through some adversity with the tropical storm. For many, schools being open are lifelines for a lot of things. For instance, it allows both parents to have jobs and not have to spend money on babysitters. Schools help your child gain an education, so he or she can be a productive member of society. It’s also a key place in any community where you feel guaranteed that your child is safe. So, when schools close, it can cause many problems. However, safety is always going to be the key concern regarding that, no matter what. We want to applaud Baldwin County Schools, Georgia Military College’s prep school and John Milledge Academy for making the correct decisions regarding school openings. In a community where so many work retail and factory jobs, the goal of those places are to open as soon as possible, and in many cases, that decision counteracts with the decisions schools make. There are a lot of factors that determine when schools can open. Those factors go well beyond whether or not the buildings are intact and have working power and water. A high number of children, especially in the pubic schools, use buses to attend the schools. If a bus can’t navigate through a road, and the distance is too far for the student to walk, well it will be a hard time having attendance. Then there is the question of whether or not all of the food is safe to eat, especially if there was a power outage. If not, it has to be disposed and additional food has to come by freight to be dropped off. Now, if a bus can’t navigate some of the main roads, we already know 18-wheelers won’t be able to either. Finally, even if the storm wasn’t bad and didn’t cause damage in one part of the county, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen elsewhere. You’re seeing that in larger counties such as Newton and DeKalb, where the schools are remaining shut down for the rest of the week. We want to say we appreciate the decisions made by the three schools on when they determined to reopen. We believe all of the districts made their decisions based on the safety of the student, the intact learning environment for the students, as well as under standing that some parents had to return to their jobs and couldn’t afford additional days off. To the students reading this, we’ve been there before. We understand the desire and longings to have a little more time off. However, the more time students are off, well, those days have to be made up somehow. Those are called Fall Break, Winter Break, Spring Break and summer. There has been no word on whether or not make up days will be in affect for any our districts in this area. However, 180 days are required, and some of these other districts will have to make their days up somehow. Believe us, the schools are looking out for you as well. ^Baldwin Bulletin Established 2000 President & Publisher A. Mark Smith Sr. Vice President, General Manager Matt Smith Vice President, Advertising Mark Smith Jr. Vice President Michael Smith Vice President Jo Ann Smith Associate Editor Wil Petty Putnam County Associate Editor Lynn Hobbs Reporter Alaina Minshew Reporter Carrie Moon Sports Reporter Brandon Bush Lakelife Editor Beverly Harvey Lakelife Associate Editor Hank Segars Display Advertising Manager Vicki Parker Advertising Representative Brandi Harrison Advertising Representative Michael Payne Advertising Representative Shannon Thompson Advertising Representative Anjie Brown Advertising Representative Tom Gorman Advertising Representative Daniel Harwell National Advertising Manager Amy Hood Legal Advertising/Circulation Becky Meyer Production and Technology Manager Josh Lurie Graphic Artist Lindsay Pilcher Graphic Artist Mark Brill Business Manager Cassandra Fowler One-Year Subscription Rates In Baldwin County $30 Other Georgia counties $36 Out of State $39 Advertising, news and information: 136 S. Wayne St. • Milledgeville, GA 31061 478-452-1777 Advertising email: vicki@bbnews.today News email: wil@bbnews.today The Baldwin Bulletin (USPS 830-400 is published every Thursday by Smith Communications Inc., 100 N. Jefferson Ave., Eatonton, GA 31024. All rights reserved. Reprints by permission of The Baldwin Bulletin and individual writers only. Send address changes to The Baldwin Bulletin, P.O. Box 4027, Eatonton, GA 31024 Periodicals Postage Paid at Milledgeville, GA, 31061 "Wow! I'd forgotten how amazing that is!" When James Brown came to Lake Country With all the commotion from Hurricane Irma hitting Florida and then invading Lake Country as a tropical storm, my mind wandered back to Hurricane Katrina and the evacuation of New Orleans in 2005. During this time, folks here in the Lake Country tried to help the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. This leads to today’s story that might be hard to believe; nevertheless, like all these hurricanes, it happened. Hank Segars Lakelife Associate Editor Two weeks after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the Rock Eagle 4-H Center near Eatonton began shel tering nearly 700 evacuees, many from the poorest and lowest-elevation neigh borhoods of New Orleans. Some of these displaced people were scheduled to arrive on Southeastern Stages motor coaches at the Chevron station near Interstate 20 in Madison to be temporarily housed at Rock Eagle. (OK, how many of you knew Madison’s Chevron is also a station for a national bus line?) Volunteers were assigned to transport evacuees to Rock Eagle; my assignment was to provide a ride for a middle-aged male arriving in Madison in the afternoon. This sounded easy enough and I certainly know my way around Rock Eagle. Arriving early at the Chevron station to meet the passenger, I figured that the bus would arrive late. Arriving at the Chevron, I didn’t see any sign of a Southeastern Stages motor SE SEGARS »A6 Dressing up in the South A couple of years ago, a national book tour dropped me in Oxford, Miss., on a Friday afternoon before an Ole Miss home football game against Texas A&M. After my signing at Square Books, I took advantage of the pretty October day by taking a bench and watching the stream of people around the town square. I liked what I saw. Folks were dressed up. Men were in casual slacks, nice buttoned-up shirts, and leather loafers. They were clean cut and handsome looking. It was the women and college girls, though, who did my heart a world of good. Not on one person did I see a pair of jeans. They wore fun skirts and flowing dresses, many with cowboy or sassy boots. All were accessorized with pearls, baubles, earrings, pretty hair and make-up. There’s something so appealing about femininity. And when you see a whole parade of femininity, when women of all ages take time to “pretty up” as Mama liked to say, it is both lovely and inspiring. Having attended home games at Ole Miss, I always say that the fashion was better than the Ronda Rich Dixie Divas games. The other highlight was hearing the audience singing the soulful “From Dixie With Love” which has now been dumped by someone or some persons in command. When Tink moved to the South from Los Angeles, he brought his Southern California style with him. In the television and movie industry, the executives mostly dress in jeans. The women often don’t wear make-up. Interesting, isn’t it? They’re the ones who create all the stars with glamour and raise the bar for the college girls in Athens, Tuscaloosa, Knoxville, Oxford, and all those other Southern college towns. Let me promise you that what you see on camera is not what you see behind it. To the Deep South came John Tinker with a load of jeans and shirts - most of them in varying shades of ugly - that he wore with the tail hanging out and no belt. It wasn’t that he was dressing wrong. He just wasn’t dressing right by Southern standards. Even those of the rural South and the mountains of my people. When I was a child, I remember how everyone wore the best clothes they had to church. “Sunday Best” was what we called those clothes and they were only for church or special occasions. Sometimes that meant that an old farmer would wear clean, often starched overalls with a crisp white shirt, a tie and special handkerchief in his pocket, either white or a red bandana. Without excep tion, they wore the best they had. Gently, I began to nudge Tink in that direction. Here’s one thing about my husband: he is tall and lean and wears clothes well. He eats mostly junk food, desserts always, and never exercises. He can eat a bag of potato chips then one filled with chocolate chip cookies right before bed and never gain an ounce. On the other hand, I struggle despite being conscious about eating, counting most calories, and running three miles, five times a week. But I know how to dress up. A minor spat came up between Tink and me when I asked where his best suit was. “The cleaners. Both suits.” Tink thinks that one wearing of a suit and a tie should send them for dry cleaning. “What if someone dies between now and when they’re ready? What are you going to wear?” He rolled his eyes comically. That’s when we had a good “talking to” about both his suits being cleaned at once. A bit later, he decided to drive the tractor to the store and fill it up. “If I get in an accident and don’t make it back, know that I love you.” “If you don’t make it back, I’m going to have a real problem. I won’t have a suit to bury you in.” Seriously. It could be a problem. Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of What Southern Women Know. Visit www.rondarich.com to sign upfor her free weekly newsletter. State and Federal Elected Officials Gov. Nathan Deal (R) 203 State Capitol Atlanta. GA 30334 (404) 656-1776 Web/e-mail: gagovernor.org Sen. David Perdue (R) B40D Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-3521 Rep. Jody Hice (R) 1516 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone: (202) 225-4101 Fax: (202) 226-0776 Sen. Burt Jones (R) 407 East Second St., Jackson, GA 30233 Phone: (770) 775-4880 Fax: (770) 234-6752 Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 (202) 224-3643 Rep. Rick Williams (R) Room 607, Coverdell Legislative Office Building, Atlanta, GA 30334 404-656-0887 Rick.williams@house.ga.gov
