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About Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 28, 1977)
SHhhHHHI W9 II • rW®i ft ; * l|jS|";iw IBjbißMWSiMife 'W lifP‘ Mtll-' ' < 1 ?T -1 I j .XJ' Wj ' / W $E i ‘ ;. iK. r|MBl|&jHM < BfejK <s‘ - Husband and wife team as school bus drivers Each morning when the big yellow school buses begin their rounds to take children to school, only 2 are driven by a husband-wife team. Don Banks began driving a school bus as a spare driver, but his wife, Linda, was the first to get a regular route. That was 5 years ago. Three years ago, Don got a regular route. Both said they love children and it is a job that gives the family more time City voters turn down option tax The local option sales tax referendum was defeated by 321 votes Tuesday. Os the 2,463 votes cast, 1,392 Grif finites were against the one cent tax and 1,071 were in favor of it. Approximately 30 percent of the city’s 8,148 registered voters turned out. The measure was defeated in all precincts except Orrs East at the National Guard Armory where it passed 154 to 129. There were a total of 27 absentee ballots. Here’s the vote by precinct: Precinct Yes No W. Griffin 46 150 Fire Station 114 139 Courthouse 476 514 Fourth Ward 43 61 Stuckey Bld. 90 M7 Anne Street 104 175 Armory 154 129 Melrose 34 g 0 Absentee 10 17 Totals 1071 1392 People ...and things Duck in middle of South Hill street holding up traffic. Two minor traffic accidents hap pening within minutes of each other in 300 block of East Solomon street this morning. Woman in dress and heels pedaling bicycle up Sheridan drive hill with pot of chrysanthemums in basket. DAILY Daily Since 1872 They love children on their routes. together. The Banks’ arise each morning at 5:30 and have breakfast with their son, Glenn, who is a sixth grader at Beaver brook. They leave home on their routes at 6:55. Since neither of the buses is assigned to his school, Glenn visits with neigh bors in the morning and afternoon and rides another bus. “We leave the house at the same time and go in opposite directions. We usually get to the junior high school about the same time and see each other there,” Banks said. Mrs. Banks’ route begins at the Banks home in the Vaughn Community and goes north on Vaughn road and on Highway 92. Banks goes south on Vaughn road and into the city on the Ellis road. Their elementary routes also take them in different directions. His elementary route is for Crescent school and hers is in the Dobbins Mill road, East Mclntosh road area for students going to Atkinson elementary. Mrs. Banks is employed during the day at Reeves Cleaners. Banks is self employes and has a small-engine repair business at Cobb’s Lawn and Garden Center on the North Expressway. Banks says one advantage of being a school bus driver is that he and his wife have all of the holidays their son does. “Glenn and I love to fish and hunt and if we decide to go, we go,” Banks said. The Banks family loves to travel and this past summer traveled to Key West, Fla., and to the west coast and the western states. “You really become attached to those children and you hate to see the sixth graders move up because they will be riding another bus. It makes you feel good when they ask if they can continue to ride your bus when they move up to junior high school,” Mrs. Banks said. Mr. and Mrs. Banks said they have little trouble with the children who ride their buses. “Os course, there occasionally is one who will misbehave. Generally, you can tell the children who come from homes where there is discipline,” he said. Mrs. Banks, who had open heart surgery five years ago in Birmingham, Ala., says the children are as good as the driver’s are to them. Each year during the winter months, she has a wiener roast for the children who ride her bus. In the spring, she is host to an ice cream party. “We get together, wash the bus, play GRIFFIN Griffin, Ga., 30223, Wednesday Afternoon, September 28, 1977 ball and just have a good time,” she said. Each morning before Mr. and Mrs. Banks go to their buses, they have prayer. “We pray that God will direct us and give us a safe trip. We not only pray for ourselves, but also for the other drivers,” they said. In addition to driving the bus and his business, Banks keeps busy fishing, hunting and with other sports. He is treasurer and songleader for the Piedmont Baptist Church where the family has its membership. He also is a Bible study teacher for young people and a lay speaker. Mrs. Banks says that driving a bus, her regular job and being a housewife keeps her busy. Mr. and Mrs. Banks say that driving a school bus is not as easy as it may seem. “There is a lot of responsibility and a person must have the attitude and nerves to handle it,” they said. Banks said one of the biggest problems is not the students, but other drivers. “Everyone feels they ought to be in front of a school bus and often risk their own lives and the lives of the students and bus driver,” he said. He said the good safety record of the bus drivers in the Griffin-Spalding System can be attributed to the alert ness of the drivers. Mr. and Mrs. Banks enjoy their jobs as bus drivers and find a lot of satisfaction in it. They also have found there is much more to being a bus driver than handling a bus. “Often one of those little fellows will get on the bus crying and you have to show your love and give them a hug,” Banks said. The Country Parson by Frank Clark zj/ HT ,'w- “It will be interesting to see what today’s teen-agers tell their children they had to do without.” NEWS Recreation hike bothers leaders The city and county commissioners held a joint meeting Tuesday morning and approved a recreation department budget for the next 12 months totaling some $290,494. The budget shows an increase of $33,190 over the $257,304 amount for the present year. Costs are shared equally by the two governments which will pay $145,247 or $16,595 more each for recreation operations. According to Recreation Director Larry Neill, the increases are due mainly to the addition of 3 employes and the opening of the new Fairmont Recreation Center. Salaries are being raised an average of some 5.9 percent and capital ex penditures include outdoor restrooms at the ball fields on Airport road, resurfacing and lighting tennis courts and other improvements in the city parks. Henry Carr, an Olympic medal winner, has been employed to operate the Fairmont Center, Neill announced. County Commissioner Frank Thomas disagreed with Neill’s report that the Griffin Golf course is paying its own way. “The golf course is paying for itself and is not being subsidized with tax payers’ money,” Neill said. Thomas noted that the budget does not show full costs of maintaining the course. According to the National Golfing Foundation, the average maintenance costs are about $8,442 per hole. Even though the Griffin course shows a profit, maintenance costs are not shown in the budget, Thomas said. He said that he was concerned about the “magnitude of the increases” of the total recreation budget. Neill said that all golf expenses are included in the budget and that maintenance costs are placed under capital outlay costs. “Everything spent at the course is paid for by fees, cart rentals and sales and if the weather keeps up we will make money this year,” he said. The golf course was in the black more than $4,000 at the end of August, he explained. Neill also announced increases in greens fees. Beginning next year the fees will increase to $4 and to $5 the following year. Also girls’ ball fees will go up from $3 to $4 next year and to $5 the following year. Boys’ football fees will increase to $9 next year and to $lO the year after, he said. “There are 22 full time employes at City Park now and there were 22 people there 13 years ago when I joined the department,” Neill said. Bearden announces for post Thomas A. Bearden, local electronics equipment dealer, became the third person to announce his candidacy for county commissioner. Earlier David Elder and Frank Gunnels announced they would run. They’ll be seeking to fill the vacancy created with the resignation of Reid Childers. The election will be held Nov. 8. Qualifying will be between Oct. 4 and Oct. 21. Bearden moved to Spalding County 4 years ago after retiring from the U. S. Navy as a Chief Electronic Technician with 22 years of service. He was em ployed by Southern Bell and Robins Air Force Base until 1976 when he established his own business. Bearden, 43, is a native of Bir mingham and resides at Wildwood circle in Spalding County with his wife and 5 children. He said he would campaign on the platform that commissioners should be more responsive to the needs of citizens and inform them about the cost of county services and revenue raising. Vol. 105 No. 230 Moonlighting flHftL' oit the hill (■TI 1 B JiM ■ MiP WraIOBHW i ■ ? » i ' jililHKi w > Ww? KmWJ IIF J I wEw r W-- s **rßSiF f I ~ lu W. I "jBSKL. AAaLd I jhi '' ~ '■* •» )■*. * V-* Hr JyA s ***- '■ < Senators struggle with energy bill WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate struggled today to break a deadlock on natural gas pricing after holding its first allnight session since the battle over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Lawmakers worked past daybreak as Senate Democratic Leader Robert C. Byrd waged an around-the-clock battle to break a filibuster led by two senators who want to block a vote on an industry supported plan to lift price controls from natural gas. “We’ve had about enough of this foolishness,” Byrd declared at dawn. But the West Virginia Democrat did not appear to be making headway in steering the Senate toward a final vote. The Senate faced a decision on whether to vote to replace President Carter’s plan for continued price controls with a deregulation plan Hloney woman NEW YORK (AP) - Bette B. Anderson, the Savannah, Ga., housewife who doubles as the nation’s first female under secretary of treasury, says she didn’t get to where she is by being timid. But she warns other professional women not lose their femininity. “Those women who cannot distinguish between assertiveness and agressiveness are ultimately crippled” in their personal and professional lives, Mrs. Anderson told a gathering of business and professional women Tuesday. Although she supervises the U.S. Mint, Fort Knox, the Secret Service and 120,000 treasury department employes, Mrs. Anderson said she still finds time Weather FORECAST FOR GRIFFIN AREA — Fair and cool tonight with lows in upper 50s. Partly cloudy Thursday with chance of afternoon thundershowers arid highs in upper 70s. LOCAL WEATHER — Low this morning at the Spalding Forestry Unit 62, high Tuesday 84, rainfall .29 of an inch. Sen. Henry Jackson takes a break. She’s not timid favored by the industry. Unlike earlier talkathons, where senators could steal away for several hours of uninterrupted sleep, this filibuster was being waged with votes instead of words. Nearly all of the senators had been present, at least from time to time, during the night. Sens. James Abourezk, DS.D., and Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, leaders of ' the stalling action, called for repeated rollcall votes, forcing legislators to engage in the arduous task of taking up separately some 500 amendments to the bill. As the morning wore on, senators primed themselves with coffee and shuffled back and forth between the Senate floor and nearby rooms where cots were set up. But few caught much sleep. to fly home to Savannah each weekend to plan meals and do her own grocery shopping, “even though it drives the housekeeper up the wall.” Mrs. Anderson rose from a teller trainee to vice president of the Citizens and Southern National Bank in Savannah, but her rise was far from meteoric. It took her 27 years, and she said she had to earn every promotion. “I learned early in my career that a man in a leadership role is assumed to have authority until he proves himself unfit or unwilling to perform. A woman, on the other hand, usually has to .prove her competence and her right to authority,” she said.
