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The Official Legal Organ of Chattooga County Georgia
WINSTON E. ESPY DAVID T. ESPY, JR. TOMMY TOLES
PUBLISHER GENERAL MANAGER EDITOR
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Our Opinion
Use Local School Funds
The Chattooga County school system
this term is continuing two established
programs designed to stem its dropout
rate. The homework hotline is available to
students in grades five through 12 four
afternoons per week. And tutoring pro
grams are offered in each school to
students in those same grades.
Both offer academic help to students
to keep them from getting behind in their
school work, getting discouraged and quit
ting school. Both provide individual atten
tion to youngsters.
But many local educators are convinc
ed that the county system’s dropout rate
will continue to worsen during the next
several years because of more stringent
state academic requirements.
The system also lost out on two poten
tially significant federal grants to finance,
among other things, elementary school
counselors, a fulltime dropout coordinator
and a fulltime in-school suspension
coordinator.
But money may not be the final solu
tion. After all, the Chattooga system had
more than $4,000 left over from an Ap
palachian Regional Commission grant it
obtained during the 1987-88 school year.
So the ARC cut its grant in half for the
current school term. Thankfully, the
federal agency did agree to let the county
system use the left over monies this year.
It remains a disgrace for the Chattooga
County school system to have the worst
dropout rate in Georgia. That means it has
the worst rate out of 186 school systems.
Our state is also near the bottom of the
heap nationally in keeping students in
school until they graduate from the 12th
grade.
Do we want to remain known as the
school system that has one of the worst
dropout rates in the entire country?
If not, it’s time that the county school
superintendent propose — and the board
of education approve — a locally paid stay
in-school coordinator and an in-school
suspension cordinator. That should be the
No AIDS Statisties
The Georgia Department of Human
Resources won't reveal how many people
in Chattooga County have Acquired Im
mune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Statistics are available for this 16-county
region, but not by county.
The reluctance by the DHR to reveal
county statistics is another example of the
fact that AIDS is the first politically pro
tected plague in our nation’s history.
~ The so-called ‘“gay rights’’ homosexual
lobby has succeeded, for the most part, in
neutralizing effective measures that would
halt spread of the fatal disease.
Emphasis by most national and state
health organizations continues to be on
how to keep from getting AIDS while
engaging in the very behavior that
transmits AIDS — anal sex.
AIDS is a male homosexual disease.
“Bisexual” males are homosexuals. AIDS
is spread by drug users because homosex-
Look Hard At Reading
Chattooga County has a lot of adults
who can’t read or who have extreme dif
ficulty reading. It also has quite a few
students in its school system who don't
read well and who don’t enjoy the
pleasures of reading.
If a student never learns to read well,
he’ll never progress academically during
the remaimfier of his school years. He's a
prime candidate to drop out of classes
before graduation.
One of the keys to reducing the
dropout rate is to make absolutely sure
that everriy kindergarten, first grade, se
cond grade and third grade student learns
minimum.
Obviously, the high dropout rate is the
county system’s primary academic pro
blem. While grants sometimes make
things more convenient and apparently
less expensive for local taxpayers (but on
ly indirectly since they pay state and
federal tax, too), the system shouldn’t
throw up its hands when grant requests
are denied. Instead, the superintendent
and board should appropriate adequate
local monies to finance the personnel,
material and methods needed to make a
dent in the dropout rate during the com
ing years.
Our dropout rate, like that of Georgia
and other states, is something that won't
be solved on a short-term basis. Now is the
time for the local board and superinten
dent to make a commitment to spending
local funds for a stay-in-school coordinator
and in-school suspension director.
It is quite apparent that no one now in
the system has enough time to file attrac
tive or even adequate grant applications
to obtain what state and federal funds
may be available to fight the dropout pro
blem. An energetic, qualified stay-in
school director or suspension coordinator
should have that task as one of his duties.
Of course, the superintendent and
school board should have this past sum
mer placed enough local money in the
system'’s budget for the current fiscal year
to more adequately finance the dropout
prevention program. But it’s still not too
late, although it might be somewhat dif
ficult to hire the quality persons that the
positions demand.
We strongly encourage Superintendent
Don Hayes and the board — Joel Cook,
Leroy Massey, Joyce Johnson, Leon King
and William Mitchell — to immediately
consider the merit of allocating more local
funds to combat this growing crisis.
We're confident that the residents of
Chattooga County would support strong,
consistent and persistent action by the
board and superintendent.
uals share their contaminated needles with
heterosexual drug addicts, thereby ‘‘shar
ing"’ AIDS with non-homosexuals. AIDS
carriers also donate blood, transmitting
the disease to innocent heterosexuals.
Other plagues haven't had a vociferous
and powerful political lobby to divert at
tention from the cause of those diseases.
Homosexual organizations have succeed
ed, for example, in protecting the carriers
of AIDS from quarantine. They have suc
ceeded in replacing that time-tested effec
tive remedy with so-called ‘‘safe sex”
which does nothing but spread the disease
and encourage homosexuals to continue
the very act that transmits AIDS.
We should have compassion for the in
dividuals who have contracted AIDS. But
we should not demonstrate false compas
sion by protecting and accepting the very
behavior that spreads the disease.
to read well and that reading isn’t a chore
but something that's enjoyable, produc
tive and more entertaining than television.
Parents have a significant role in this
process but it is, after all, the public
schools that have willingly taken on the
often difficult task of teaching young
children the basic skills of reading, writing,
spelling and math.
In trying to solve the long-term
dropout problem, let’s take a long, hard
look at past and current methods used to
teach reading. We need results. Our coun
ty’s future depends on it.
G-
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Bat Wrote Sports
BUDDY ROBERTS, my esteemed col
league on these pages, is continuing his
highly entertaining series on Jack the Rip
per in his columns this fall.
In that tradition, I ran across an in
triguing piece the other day on Bat
Masterson, a deputy marshal and sheriff
in the “Wild West.”” The PM Editorial Ser
vices column noted that Masterson surviv
ed into the 20th century and became a
sports writer in New York. I commend it
to your attention:
* * *
NO PERIOD of American history has
been more celebrated in songs, stories and
movies than the “wild West'’ days of buf
falo hunters, wagon trains, cowboys and
Indians. Because so many legends spring
from that era, few realize that the “‘wild
West'’ era lasted for only about 25 years,
ending in early 1890 s.
Names like Wyatt Earp and Bat
Masterson naturally conjure up visions of
Dodge City, Kan., and Tombstone, Ariz.
What isn’t generally known is that Earp,
Masterson and many others survived the
gunfights and dangers of the trail and liv
ed well into the 20th century.
*4 * *
WHAT HAPPENED to gunfighters
when the West was tamed? One unusual
answer to that question is the case of Bat
Masterson. He eventually became a New
York City sportwriter.
Masterson had been a young man in his
20s when he was first deputy marshal and
then sheriff in Dodge City. After several
years of operating gambling halls, Master
son became a boxing promoter in partner
ship with another colorful character, Otto
Flotto.
* * *
THE PARTNERSHIP eventually
dissolved amid much ill feelings and there
began a feud that lasted for the rest of
their lives.
When both Flotto and Masterson
became sportswriters, the angry rivalry
was a regular subject of their columns.
Both were considered the foremost experts
on boxing of their day. Each of them prid-
vs {;'M‘
| 2 ™v 3 &
Lesser Is More
BY THIS TIME, most of the excite
ment and suspense around Seoul, South
Korea, will have long been over. Indeed,
until 1992 in Barcelona, Spain, the Sum
mer Olympic Games have ended.
This year’s games provided the viewer
with some of the most impressive and
memorable events of the modern Olym
pics. Greg Louganis’ performance,
however, will probably be the one I
remember more than any other.
LOUGANIS won two gold medals in
the three and ten meter men’s platform
diving competitions, becoming the first
man in Olympic history to win both con
tests in consecutive games. He had
previously won both events in Los Angeles
Viewpoint
By Tommy Toles, Editor
ed himself on demanding perfection from
pugilists and heaping scorn on any who
failed to meet their exacting standards.
52 B
ONE DAY they bumped into each
other on the streets of Denver and squared
off to do battle. A young boy named Gene
Fowler, later to become a top reporter and
biographer, witnessed the fight. Fowler
said any expectation that their battle
would be the ultimate in scientific preci
sion ended when both men began kicking
each other.
As was common for many celebrities,
both men had racehorses named after
them. Now based in New York City,
Masterson gloated every time “Otto Flot
to” lost and ignored his victories. Flotto
had the last laugh when the gelding ‘‘Bat
Masterson” dropped dead in the middle of
a race. Flotto headlined his Denver Post
cojumn. ““Poetic Justice.” He wrote that
not even an elephant could carry both a
jockey and a bad name.
* * *
FLOTTO EVENTUALLY became in
volved with the Sells-Flotto Circus, a ma
jor circus for many years. He even married
one of the circus stars, the queen of the
bareback riders.
As for the ex-gunfighter Bat Master
son, he died a newspaperman’s death on
Oct. 25, 1921, slumped over his desk at the
New York Morning Telegraph.
* * *
AFTER HE WAS carried out, co
workers discovered one last paragraph
that is often quoted but seldom attributed:
“There are many in this old World of ours
who hold that things break about even for
all of us. I have observed for example that
we get the same amount of ice. The rich
get it in the summertime and the poor get
it in the winter.”
Not a bad exit line for an old gunfighter
turned sportswriter.
By N
FOOTNOTE TO LAST WEEK'S
COLUMN: House Speaker Tom Murphy
has since withdrawn his support of
Michael Dukakis for president.
Commentary
By Buddy Roberts
in 1984.
He competed first in the three meter
diving, and, on one dive, did not leap far
enough away from the board. When the
dive straightened out, he lacerated his
scalp on the diving board, requiring four
stitches. But Louganis came back and
later won the gold medal.
* * *
AND, IN MY favorite moment of the
games, Louganis was in second place in
the 10-meter diving event, trailing a
14-year-old Chinese diver, who had just
completed a spectacular dive. Louganis
had one last dive, and one last chance to
win, and he made it, in what his coach call
ed “‘the best dive of his career.” It was in
see COMMENTARY, page o-A |
OFFICIAL SPONSOR o nx 1968 QLYMPICS
Potl)()llrrl i o
By Rich Jefferson / ‘
Standing In The Shadow
CYRIL STEINMANN was a successful minister of the
gospel, and long before that he was a successful
businessman. Because of the predictable decrease in salary
that accompanied his new vocation, he had to find smart
ways to accomplish cestly things, such as looking good.
** Always shine your shoes and buy a good hat,” he us
ed to say. He followed his own advice and always looked
sharp.
* * *
FELLOW PREACHERS sometimes told him it wasn’t
fair for a preacher to be as handsome as he was, with a
thick shock of black hair he had until he died, and those
piercing eyes. But it wasn't his physical appearance so
much as his spiritual presence that make his friends
remember him today.
I sometimes think that the advertisers who produced
the E. F. Hutton television commercials must have known
him. When E. F. Hutton spoke, everyone froze in their
steps and listened intently.
* * *
STEINMANN'’S presence often commanded that kind
of attention, and when he strode into the pulpit or the
church boardroom there was no question who was in
charge, or who was going to listen.
As a minister in the Christian and Missionary Alliance,
he pastored churches in Canada, Oregon, Atlanta and
Miami. He was for several years the overseer of the
denomination's churches in Southern California, Arizona
and New Mexico.
* * *
AS THE CAPSTONE to his life's work, Steinmann'
returned to Georgia in the early 1970 s to start a church
“from scratch.” He didn't go to Atlanta, where the peo
ple were. He went to Lilburn, Gwinnett County. That
sounded to us like a funny name for a town. Was Lilburn
close to Dogpatch? Was Lilburn short for Little Burn, and
was it next to Big Burn?
For a man who had gone so far in his profession, star
ting a church from a Bible study group, outside of the ma
jor population center, seemed a bit odd. As usual, Stein
mann knew exactly what he was doing. Such a man of vi
sion always knows things the rest of us don’t. As Gwin
nett County started busting at the seams, so did the
church.
* * *
BUT THE CHURCH'S success wasn't explained only
by increased population in Gwinnett County. People found
out their spiritual needs would be met in that church, and
they came mostly for that.
Joe Flow, the rehabilitation counselor for Chattooga
County under the Georgia Department of Human
Resources, was saved in Steinmann’s Lilburn church.
From my conversations with him, I know he can tell you
about getting needs met at the church.
At times the Rev. Steinmann made those around him
feel uncomfortable. I think that is best explained by his
personal standards of right living and integrity. He bap
tized me when I was 12, and the evening before he took
me aside and gave me the most serious talking to I'd ever
had. It still ranks in the top two or three most serious
talkings-to I've ever had.
* * *
IT WAS THE kind of sobering discourse only a grand
father could give his oldest grandson. Grandpa's dire war
nings penetrated even my bones.
Grandpa started that church in Lilburn 16 years ago,
and this past Sunday, the church dedicated a fellowship
hall in honor of him and his wife, Kathleen. The hall was
packed with moist-eyed people who had joined the church
because of the personal efforts of the Steinmanns to reach
tfiem. Grandma's namesake, my daughter Kathleen, was
there.
Emotional rock that I am, I fought back tears during
the whole service.
* ¥ *
WHEN THE current pastor made closing remarks, he
said the baton had been passed to another generation, just
as it had been passed in the relays of the Olympic Games.
He said he knew he was standing in the shadow of a great
man, but that it was a comfortable place to be. All I can
say is this pastor is wise and observant,
For such a long time, Grandpa's shadow seemed like
a dark, cold place to stand in. Now, only after he is gone,
do I fully realize that the shadow is neither dark nor cold,
but warm and bright. I wish I could tell him that, but I
think he knows.