Newspaper Page Text
Sept. 18 - 24, 2003
- VOL 22 No. 114
FIFTY CENTS
www.augustafocus.com
MISSING
April Dixon
The family and friends of
14-year-old April Dixon are
asking the public to be on
the lookout for her. She was
last seen on September 13.
April is 5°3”, 160 lbs. has
brown eyes, short brown
hair and a scar on her right
arm. Anyone with informa
tion is asked to call Ms. Fair
ley at 706-774-6502 or 803-
594-9578.
Good News
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Aiken High’s
Tyson Williams
is the Player of
the Week
DETAILS on page 5A
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Encore production
of “From Mozart to
Motown” promises to bring
out the paparazzis, red car
pet, limousines and throngs
of theatre lovers. Photo by Lil
lian Wan
STORY on 1B
Don’t Miss
Lt. Gov. among
celebs to roast
Lee Beard Sept. 25
Georgia’s Lt. Gov. Mark
Taylor will be one of the
celebrities roasting Commis
sioner Lee Beard at the
roast/banquet to be held on
Thursday, September 25,
2003, at The Radisson River
front Hotel at 7 p.m.
For ticket purchases or
more information, call (706)
724-6788.
Sister of Serena and Venus slain on Compton streets ~ see 24
St a F l GANEWSPAPER/ CHIPS DEPI
Serving Metropolitan Augusta, South Carolina /% [/PKARE.I ¢
Sales tax funds caught in red tape
By Haley A. Dunbar
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
It was billed as a way for local
residents to “chip in” small
amounts each in an effort to
improve Richmond County. The
one cent sales tax, SPLOST, which
began in 1986, was supposed to
improve everything from street
lighting and water fixtures to
entertainment venues much like
in other consolidated governments
around Georgia. Now, trillions of
pennies later and as taxpayers are
EDUCATION
Richmond County students
hit the books on Saturday
By Theresa Minor
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
The Richmond County
school system is taking the
first steps toward improv
ing dismal test scores that
resulted in nearly two
thirds of local schools fail
ing to make the grade in a
recent state report.
School officials have
instituted the “Saturday
Scholars” program for stu
dents who are failing in
the subjects of math and
reading. There are 156
schools taking part, 25 stu
dents per school, with a
teacher for every five stu
dents.
“We are hoping that this
program will enable them
to focus more on the skills
of reading and math. The
bottom line is that they
must have these skills
down for the next time
they take the Criterion
Reference Test,” said
Mechelle Jordan, public
information director for
the school system.
The program is being
funded through the federal
Title I program. This
means in addition to test
ing in the bottom 25 per
cent, students also meet
the same income eligibility
requirement for receiving
free or reducedlunch. The
students were selected by
the Title I office to partici
pate. Transportation is
being provided by the
Young activist leaders struggle to be heard
By Artelia C.Covington
NNPA National Correspondent
WASHINGTON
When Markel Hutchins
approached the microphone last
month on the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial to speak at the March on
Washington, the 26-year-old
speaker reminded many in the
audience of another young orator
who had appeared there 40 years
earlier. In fact, he even sounded a
gttle like Dr. Martin Luther King
L.
"l remember walking up to the
podium feeling very excited and
also feeling like I had this heavy
burden to bear," Hutchins says. "I
prayed with Bernice King just
before I got up to give my speech
and I just felt that God would use
me to speak to the nation."
He was used, delivering what
asked to consider extending
SPLOST into a fifth phase, some
Augustans are beginning to won
der if the benefits of the tax are
being lost in governmental
bureaucracy and red tape.
Richmond County residents gen
erated $321,420,516 in revenue
during the first three phases of the
one cent tax levy and are expected
to pay in another $157,206,954.66
by the time phase four is complete
in 2005. And according to county
officials, taxpayers can see the
largest piece of “fruit” from their
labor in public works projects
B 7 11T ETR T TIE T ™
. attempts to reverse L
\ failing schools report
(S
Nearly 400 students are enrolled in a weekend program
intended to reduce the number of failing schools in Rich
mond County.
school system to enable
students to attend who
might not otherwise have
the means.
“Again, it’s just an effort
to make sure that children
who ar¢ in need won’t have
anything to hold them
back. No child left behind
means just that. No child
will be left behind and that
is our focus,” Jordan said.
The program, which
began on September 12,
will run every Saturday
through April from 9 a.m.
tol p.m. The schools
involved are Bayvale,
Lamar, Wilkinson Garden,
Copeland, Craig-Houghton,
Hornsby, Jenkins-White,
Southside, Hains, Milledge
and Wheeless Road ¢lemen
tary schools, Glenn Hills,
Tubman, East Augusta and
Murphy middle schools.
While most of these schools
have been categorized by
"Historically, when we talk about this torch being
passed, it is up to the younger generation to snatch
it and say it’s time for another voice to be heard ..."
Rev. Otis Moss, 111 — Tabernacle Baptist Church
was arguably the most inspira
tional speech of the day. However,
instead of being applauded by his
movement mentors, he was casti
gated.
"A very prominent national
leader cursed me with everything
he could think of the day before I
got up to give my speech
Hutchins recalls. "He basically
asked me who I thought I was and
that I didn’t have any right and
had no foundation to speak from."
It was a cruel lesson in move
ment politics for anyone who
believes the torch of leadership
should be passed to the next gen
eration.
around the county.
“Residents all over Augusta-
Richmond County should see
drainage and roadway and other
infrastructure improvements. Vir
tually every area of the county has
or will benefit from SPLOST,”
Errick Thompson, assistant direc
tor of the public works depart
ment, said recently.
Of the total revenue collected,
taxpayers voted to allot more than
one third or $108,464,885.49 for
the county’s public works depart
ment. Both completed and ongo
ing projects such as the widening
the state as “needs
improvement” schools,
some are schools that have
recently dropped off the
failing schools list and offi
cials are hoping to keep it
that way for two consecu
tive years. This is the
benchmark set by the state
for schools that are out of
the woods academically.
Schools that stay on the
“needs improvement” list
for five years or more run
the risk of being taken over
by the state and wholesale
reorganization, among
other things.
Meanwhile, the school
system’s “After School
Academy” is slated to begin
in October. This program
has no eligibility require
ments and will be open to
all students.
Hutchins explains: "Our elders
have fought us tooth and nail and,
frankly, it hurts," he acknowledges.
"We get knocked down and told
that it isn’t our time and they tell
us to wait, but I'm not waiting
because I know that God raises up
leaders, not these men," he says.
Jamal Bryant, pastor of the
Empowerment Temple in Balti
more, says youth should borrow a
page from today’s movement lead
ers.
"I think it is up to us as youth to
rub our own sticks together and
start our own flame," says Bryant.
"No one passed the torch to King
or to Jesse [Jackson], and we can’t
of Wheeler Road, the addition of
radio control railroad switches,
work on the Pepperidge Drive and
Peach Orchard Road intersection
and the Laney-Walker Boulevard
reconstruction have been made
possible by SPLOST funding.
Other organizations such as Lucy
Craft Laney Museum, the Augusta
Golf Hall of Fame and the Augusta
Mini Theatre also received
SPLOST funding under the quali
ty of life aspect of the levy. Con
cerns have arisen, however, about
See SPLOST, page 3A
A.R. Johnson
honored with
‘Blue Ribbon’
“No Child Left Behind
Blue Ribbon Schools”
Award recognizes nation’s
outstanding schools.
AUGUSTA
Augustus R. Johnson Health Science
and Engineering High School was
awarded the 2003 No Child Left
Behind Blue Ribbon Schools award,
given to America’s most successful
schools, on September 15, 2003 by U.S
Secretary of Education Rod Paige
Anne Hancock, the Secretary’s
Regional Representative for the U.S
Department of Education, made the
announcement at Augustus R. John
son Health Science and Engineering
High School this week with Congress
man Max Burns and Principal Dr
Dorothy Gandy.
Augustus R. Johnson Health Science
and Engineering High School is among
the 219 outstanding schools to receive
national recognition for their efforts to
raise student achievement. State and
local school officials will be honored
during an awards ceremony with Sec
retary Paige in Washington at the end
of October.
“I am delighted to congratulate the
principal, teachers, parents and stu
dents at Augustus R. Johnson Health
Science and Engineering High
School,” Secretary Paige said. “These
schools are national models of excel
lence that others can learn from.
These schools are meeting President
Bush’s mission to ensure that every
child learns, and no child is left
behind.”
As part of President Bush’s No Child
Left Behind education reform, Secre
tary Paige established the No Child
Left Behind - Blue Ribbon Schools
Program. The new program recognizes
See AUGUSTA SCHOOL, page 3A
- expect someone to pass it to us
either."
Hutchins, president and chief
executive officer of the Atlanta
based National Youth Connection
Inc., knows that from his study of
history.
"It was really the youth who ran
the Civil Rights Movement, and |
plan to do the same thing," he says.
Judging by the poor attendance
at the last March on Washington,
perhaps someone else should have
been placed in charge of organiz
ing it. "I was embarrassed to see
the March on Washington’s
anniversary," Bryant says. "To me
it was a class reunion — it was
nothing to really make a deposit to
where we are. It was just a rehash
ing of where things have been."
Prior to forming his own church,
See NEXT GENERATION, 9A
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