Newspaper Page Text
Peete cheered
after playing
worst round
Page 1
Augusta Jietus-ffieutetu
Volume 13 Number 11
Felicia Wiggins
Shriners’ queen
Felicia Wiggins, an Augusta
College senior, was recently
crowned Queen at the Prince Hall
Shriners annual Talent And
Scholarship pageant.
The pageant was sponsored by
Stolkin Temple number 22 and
Stolkin Court number 173.
Monica Milledge, a student at
Paine College, was Ist runner-up,
Katonya Stokes, also a student at
Paine, was 2nd runner-up.
Miss Wiggins will represent the
Augusta area at the Shriners state
pageant to be held in Columbus,
Ga.
The Georgia winner will
represent the state at the national
convention in August in St. Louis,
Mo.
Peete is cheered
after worst round
When Calvin Peete approached the
18th hole at the Masters Golf
Tournament on Sunday, the
gallery broke into sustained ap
plause. It was spontaneous ap
preciation for one of the game’s
best golfers who was playing the
worst round of golf in his
professional career.
Peete had begun the day five
strokes off the lead. He finished
with a 15-over-par 87 and out of
contention. But he was undaunted
and so were his fans.
As he left the 18th hole, he was
surrounded by autograph seekers.
He patiently signed each piece of
paper thrust in front of him and
walked to the Club House, leading
a throng of reporters.
He made no excuses for his
game. He had said before the
cournament that the course at the
Masters was too long for his game.
Dr. Harris parade marshal
Dr. William H. Harris, Paine
College president will be the grand
narshal for the 1983 Augusta
Slack Festival Parade, which will
>e held on the 700 to 1300 blocks
>f Telfair Street April 16th at 2
>.m.
Other Black Festival events
Montgomery is calm but uneasy in wake of shooting
MONTGOMERY, Ala—ln a
scene from the past, more than 200
protesters crowded into a local
jhurch here Monday night to decry
he police shooting of an unarmed
Black man last weekend—the
second incident in six weeks to
.park racial unrest in Alabama’s
:aptial city.
At the meeting, nearly every
ocal Black political leader invoked
he memory of the late Rev. Mar
in Luther King Jr. and pleaded for
he nonviolent protest he ch
impioned in this city a quarter cen
ury ago.
So far, Montgomery residents
save heeded such pleas, despite
apidly worsening relations bet
ween the Black community and the
Montgomery police department.
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Felicia Wiggins
“I haven’t shot an 87 since I’ve
been playing golf,” he said.
Peete was seven over par on the
front nine, and after that he said,
“I wasn’t thinking about getting it
back together; I was just thinking
about getting off without hurting
myself.”
His caddy, Bobby Jones,
agreed. “Personally, I just think
he gave up,” Jones told The News-
Review. It was all over after the
sixth or seventh hole. He got
discouraged after that. He lost his
desire. He got another attitude....
“I think he gave up; a lot of
golfers do that when you get out of
contention. He likes to be in con
tention. When he got out of con
tention, it was just another week,
another tournament.”
Even so he picked up almost
$2,000 for his efforts. And was a
symbol of pride for every Black
following the tournament.
scheduled for this week-end are the
Oratorical Contest, April 17, at 6
p.m. in the Odeum of the Paine
College Chapel and the Tennis
Tournament Invitational Matches
at the Newman Tennis Center
beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday
and Sunday April 16 and 17.
Bobby Joe Sales, a 22-year-old
Black man, was wounded near a
housing project Saturday night.
Police Chief Charles Swindall said
Monday that the police officer
who shot him apparently thought
he was shooting at an escaped con
vict who was wanted on robbery
charges.
Racial tensions here have been
heightened since Feb. 27 when 11
Blacks from Ohio and Michigan
were arrested and charged with at
tempted murder in the beating of
two white plainclothes officers and
the shooting of one of the officers.
Charges later were dropped against
all but four of the defendants.
But that incident was not
Montgomery
calm after
shooting by police
Pagel
Two Black businessmen have
bought Augusta’s 58-year-old
Walker Ford Motor Company and
wifl operate under the name of Gar
den City Ford.
The purchase was completed
March 26 at a cost of $700,000.
However, Walker will continue to
sell the Porshe, Audi and Fiat
across the street from Garden City
Ford.
The new owners, William J. Bat
tle and Fredrick D. Hall, serve as
president and vice president of
Battle and Hall Enterprises, respectively.
Battle, 45, is from Birmingham,
Ala. He met Hall in Atlanta
about a year ago. Both were looking
to purchase and automobile
dealership and they decided to
pool their resources. There 35
Black-owned Ford-Lincoln-Mer
cury dealerships in the country,
out of a total of 5,800.
How were they able to come up
with $700,000? Battle said,“Put it
this way. It took all of my savings.
Ail of my family’s savings. All of
his (Hall) savings and all of his
family’s savings.”
Battle has operated dealerships
for company-owned stores for
American Motors and has served
as field manager for the Ford
Motor Company and Atlantic
Richfield Oil Co.
He minored in business at
California State College at Los
Angeles.
He has five children, William
111, Alicia, Dorothy, Belinda, and
Kimberly.
Gale Sayers
in Augusta
Gale Sayers, former All-Pro
running back for the Chicago
Bears of the National Football
League was in Augusta Wednesday
to “offer people the opportunity
to join me in business.”
Sayers, who still holds NFL
records for most touchdowns in
one game (six), most touchdowns
in a season (22) and lifetime
kickoff return average (30.5),
retired in 1971 at the age of 27.
A 1965 graduate of the Univer
sity of Kansas, he was NFL rookie
of the year, and an All-Pro five
times dining his seven years in the
NFL.
His sensational career was
prematurely ended because of knee
injuries. “I had three knee
ignored at Monday night’s rally at
the People’s Baptist Church.
“We said a month ago, if it hit
the Taylors (the family here for the
funeral) it would hit somebody
else,” said Montgomery City
Councilman Mark Gilmore, the
first speaker before the 250 or so
people crowding near you.”
“We said a month ago, if it hit
the Taylors (the family here for the
funeral) it would hit somebody
else,” said Montgomery City
Councilman Mark Gilmore, the
first speaker before the 250 or so
people crowding the church.
City Councilman Donald
April 16,1983
Blacks buy Walker Ford
Ex-football gi
Gale Sayer o
in Augusta
Page 1
Mik / MM
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NEW FORD OWNERS— Fredrick D. Hall deft) and William J. Battle 11.
Hall, 35, is from Houston,
Texas and worked in retail auto sales
management. A graduate of Texas
Southern University, he worked as
a marketing representative for
Mobil Oil Company and served as
field manager for the Ford Motor
Company.
He also attended the General
Motors Dealer Development
Academy in Flint, Mich., and was
looking for a dealership to pur
chase and landed in Augusta.
He is married to the former Ed
na Hodge. They have one
daughter, Felisha.
Battle and Hall say they are
J|
M■■ ■m f /
GALE SAYERS (center) is flanked by business associates Winston Butler (left) and Wayne Poole.
operations and I just couldn’t run
anymore,” he told The News-
Review.
Ho served as athletic director at
Southern Illinois University for
Watkins also spoke, telling the
protestors that, from now on,
whenever a police car pulls up to
them, they should not run. “Stand
still,” he warned, “hold your han
ds above your head and shout ‘I
am not armed’ so that everybody
can hear you.”
He called Police Chief Charles
Swindell’s decision to move to a
desk job the poljce officer who
shot Sales, “more form over sub
stance. I don’t think it will appease
the Black community and it cer
tainly won’t appease Black
political leadership.”
Several speakers had called for
the suspension—with pay—of that
police officer, investigator R.A.
Less than 75 percent Advertising
aware of the economic realities of
their undertaking. “If things were
fantastic we wouldn’t be here.
Nobody would sell us a fran
chise,” Battle said, adding that it’s
a good time to go into the auto in
dustry because the market is on the
upswing. “Ford is the only com
pany coming out with new models
this summer, and there is a lot of
pent up demand waiting for the in
terest rates to come down,” he
said, noting that Ford is offering a
9.9 interest rate.
The entrepreneurs said they in
tend to push Garden City Ford,
not Bill Battle and Fred Hall. “We
five years and for the past eight
months he has been employed as
an independent representative for
American Professional Marketing
Company, which he described as a
Coner, until the investigation of
the shooting is complete.
Earlier in the day, Swindall had
announced that, for the first time
in such a situation, he would place
Conner in a desk job off the street
until an independent investigation
by the district attorney’s office is
finished.
The Rev. Nimrod Reynolds,
national secretary of the Southern
Leadership Conference, was
featured at the rally. He shouted to
audience, “I want to know what
you are doing here at the Baptist
Church. You ought to be out in the
streets and around City Hall.”
He demanded to know, “Why is
it that we got situations where a
T °rry Butler,
our
want to be as good or better than
Stuart P. Walker Sr.,” who foun
ded the company in 1928. “Our
goal is to return that image to the
. community, improving the image
and the product.”
The company will sell and used .
cars as well as rentals, and will ser
vice all makes of vehicles, not just
Fords.
“We’re looking forward to a
longterm investment,” Hall said,
We’re here to live and to operate in
this community and to keep the
money in this community.”
They plan to have a Grand
Opening in June.
multiple level direct sales company
handling petroleum products,
health foods, weight loss and
nutrition products.
policeman shoots down (Blacks)
like rabbits?”
The old-style rally, like hun
dreds before in the civil rights
movement, was held only blocks
away from the Tulane Court
housing project where Sales was
shot in the back Saturday night.
Sales remained in intensive care at
a local hospital Monday night.
Swindall said Sales ignored a
warning to halt and appeared to
have been reaching for a weapon
when the officer fired. No weapon
was found, however.
“If the man had stopped, if he’d
been John Dillinger (and) hadn’t
made a threat toward the police of
ficer, he wouldn’t have gotten
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