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THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2008
Editor: Angela Gary
Phone: 706-367-2490
E-mail: AngieEditor@aol.com
Website: www.mainstreetnews.com
Opinions
“Where the press is free and every man
able to read, all is safe.”
— Thomas Jefferson
In memory of
Uncle Ford
angela
gary
A s a little girl toddling around Rogers Baptist
Church, nothing was more fun than follow
ing my Uncle Ford. He was a deacon and
often served as an usher. He would walk down the
aisles with the collection plate, and I would be just
behind him.
Another early memory is of a camping trip I went
on with Uncle Ford and Aunt Sybil. I slept in the back
of their truck which had a camper cover over it. It was
my first and last camping trip and I still laugh when I
remember the three of us in the
back of that truck.
I stayed at Uncle Ford and
Aunt Sybil’s house during the day
when I was a child. I have many
wonderful memories of my time
with them in their home. Not too
long ago, my family attended
a wedding reception for Uncle
Ford and Aunt Sybil. They had
been married 60 years. It was so
wonderful to attend this tribute of
a strong marriage that lasted so
many years.
Uncle Ford was smiling and laughing at the recep
tion. I don’t ever remember seeing him without a
smile and a twinkle in his eye. Although he was in
his 80s, he seemed as energetic as some of the much
younger men in the crowd.
It wasn’t long after that celebration that he was
diagnosed with a lung disease. He wouldn’t live much
longer but he made the most of those last months.
Spending time with family, eating out with his loved
ones, celebrating another birthday and even journeying
to Pigeon Forge, Tenn., for one last trip. It couldn’t
have been easy. He was confined to a wheelchair and
had an oxygen tank. He still had that smile that lit up
his face.
Uncle Ford worked until his sickness. Not many
men of his age are still out with a public job but he
loved his work for the Commerce City School System.
They obviously loved him too as he was recognized
at a football game this past fall for his 31 years of ser
vice to the school. His friends from work continued to
send cards and call to check on him and even brought
by a cake for his birthday in December.
At his funeral, I spotted many of his former co
workers at the funeral home. One man shared how
Uncle Ford always had the coffee going when the
others arrived each day. He said the coffee just tasted
better when Uncle Ford made it. He treated all of the
students at the school as if they were his own.
Uncle Ford served for 38 years as a deacon at
Rogers Baptist Church and loved the Fifth Sunday
Night Singings.
He always asked that they close with the singing of
“Amazing Grace.” He extended a hand of welcome to
all who visited the church.
Uncle Ford served his country during World War
II. He served his community and church with his love
and compassion. He will be remembered by so many
people. Friendly, optimistic, real and dedicated — One
of the pastors summed his life up perfectly with this
description.
Angela Gary is editor of The Banks County News
and associate editor of The Jackson Herald. She can
be reached at AngieEditor@aol.com.
The Banks County News
Founded 1968
The official legal organ of Banks County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher /Ad. Manager
Angela Gary Editor
Chris Bridges Sports Editor
Sharon Hogan Reporter
Anelia Chambers Receptionist
April Reese Sorrow Church News
The suckers are still biting
F irst, it was the all-out rush to
enact legislation to stop gay
marriages. But gay marriages
were already illegal.
Then it was the mad dash to require
voter IDs to stop fraud at the polls.
But there was no fraud at the polls.
Absentee voting was fraught with
crookedness and might have needed
reining in. No one was interested.
Destroying such a fine Georgia tradi
tion was plainly out of order. The mass
es who stood in line were the fiends
who needed to be watched.
Next came Gov. Sonny Perdue’s
grand scheme to spend millions in pub
lic funds to promote fishing. His cam
paign began in the midst of Georgia’s
worst drought. The fish must still be
laughing.
The list of mindless proposals
wrought by Perdue and House Speaker
Romeo Richardson is endless: An
outrageous sales tax is pending that
would turn Georgia’s economy on
its ear. A new water board has been
proposed to give metro Atlanta more
authority to swipe water from the Other
Georgia and to slake Georgia Power’s
unquenchable thirst. Environmental
protection proposals that look as if they
were written by strip miners are all but
certain to win passage.
Have we been conned? Yes, indeed
— and by the biggest bunch of char
latans ever to take possession of state
government. No one seems to care. We
put them there, and now we’re stuck
with them.
They keep us in the national head
lines, though — voter ID, gay wed
dings, pray-for-rain day, record foreclo
sures, a bankrupt legal system, Sonny
for vice president, etc.
Just look at this mess. Will we ever
get it cleaned up after these bums
leave? Last year, the major accomplish
ment of Sonny’s entire tenure, Go Fish
Georgia, was the buzz of every pool
hall and biker shack.
However: The
centerpiece of
the Perdue years
turned out to be a
$22 million boon
doggle earmarked
for the governor’s
home county,
Houston County.
The apparent
behind-the-scenes
thinking of the
Go Fish crowd:
Oaky Woods, a
would-be state nature preserve next
to Perdue’s private land, was sold to
developers, thus increasing consider
ably the governor’s net worth. The state
is making up for the loss by sinking
$22 million in public funds into fish
ing in Houston County.
While Sonny and the Legislature
have been fishing for suckers, parts of
Georgia have been left to starve. Take
our schools. This year alone, Sonny
aims to reduce by more than $140 mil
lion the basic level of school funding
that is mandated by Georgia law. Over
the past six years, our state’s commit
ment to our children’s education has
been shortchanged by more than $1.5
billion.
You would think that, with this level
of neglect, our state’s leaders must
believe our public schools are improv
ing and don’t need the cash to which
they are legally entitled. Wrong. Most
of the schools still wallow on the
bottom of educational achievement.
Meanwhile, the student population
soars.
Not so along ago, our state’s chief
executives, most notably Carl Sanders,
Zell Miller and Roy Barnes, called
themselves “education governors.”
They would say that while the K-12
system was poor, the state’s universities
were a great diamond in the rough that
they were determined to make greater.
The diamond has been replaced with
zirconium. Right now, only firmly ded
icated HOPE lottery funds are saving
the University System of Georgia from
becoming the bottom-feeder of the
Southeast, which is already the bottom-
feeder of the nation.
Sonny is continuing his fiscal assault
on the state’s colleges, holding back
$274 million again this year. Under
Sonny, the University System has been
drained of more than $1.6 billion from
its budget.
For those of you counting, Sonny has
withheld a total of more than $3 billion
in funds from education over the last
six years. Those numbers are mind-
numbing. Now Perdue has the temerity
to propose a tiny cut in state-levied
property taxes to compensate for local
tax increases — which were raised to
replace state funds whacked by Perdue
in the first place. Give me a break.
Leading Georgians still are so clue
less that they believe Peach State
universities can become centers for
specialized biological research. Are
they kidding? Get rid of Perdue first.
Send him back to school to learn a bit
of state history and finally produce an
accurate quote about Georgia from our
founder Lord Oglethrope. (Perdue’s
quotation from Oglethorpe in the guv’s
State of the State speech was never
uttered by Oglethorpe.)
Historians will certainly remember
this incident involving our leading
founder. Looking over the shipload
of English deadbeats chosen to settle
Georgia, Oglethorpe turned to a friend
and said: “Doesn’t that grinning,
bald-headed fellow — yeah, the one
with the shifty eyes, the cutpurse —
remind you of someone? I wonder how
he’ll wind up, and what will become of
his progeny.”
You can reach award-winning politi
cal columnist Bill Shipp at P O. Box
2520, Kennesaw, GA 30156, or e-mail:
shipp1@bellsouth.net.
bill
shipp
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Homer Office Fax 677-3263
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Sports News 367-2745
Sports Fax: 367-9355
(SCED 547160)
The Banks County News has estab
lished a policy on printing Letters to
the Editor.
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Members of our staff will not type
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The Banks County News, P.O. Box
920, Homer, Ga. 30547.
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Letters may also be edited to meet
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questions on the policy is asked to
contact editor Angela Gary at
AngieEditor@aol.com or by calling
706-367-2490.
Published weekly by MainStreet Newspapers, Inc.,
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News department contact numbers
Anyone with general story ideas,
complaints or comments about the
news department is asked to call edi
tor Angela Gary at 706-367-2490.
She can also be reached by e-mail
at AngieEditor@aol.com.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to the
county board of commissioners,
county government, county board of
education, Maysville City Council
and crime and courts is asked to
contact staff member Chris Bridges
at 706-367-2745 or by e-mail at
chris@mainstreetnews.com.
Bridges also is sports edi
tor of the paper and covers local
high school, middle school and
recreation sports.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to
Alto, Lula, Baldwin and Gillsville,
should contact Sharon Hogan at
706-367-5233 or by e-mail at
sharon@mainstreetnews.com.
Calls for information about the
church page should go to April
Reese Sorrow at 706-677-3491.
Church news may also be e-mailed to
asorrow@mainstreetnews.com.
The Banks County News
website can be accessed at
www.mainstreet.news.com.
kerri
testement
Who will you
pick in race for
president?
T he presidential primary in
Georgia is less than two
weeks away — and I have
no stinkin’ idea who I’m going to
vote for.
This election year proves to be one
of many choices — both Republican
and Democrat. And maybe that’s
part of my problem: Do I pick the
Republican or Democratic ballot for
the primary?
Looking at the factual information
about myself, you could say I could
sway either direction.
As a high school
senior, I voted for
Bill Clinton for my
first general elec
tion in 1996. As a
college student, I
voted for Al Gore
in 2000. Four years
later, I voted for
John Kerry.
My wallet con
tains proof that I
am a card-carrying
member of the state’s press associa
tion. I’m a liberal, right?
Then, why am I actually looking at
voting Republican this election year?
Gasp!
The truth is, a few things have
changed in my life. I’m now married.
I have a daughter. I live in a very
Republican-friendly area. And let’s
not forget the mid-sized SUV in my
driveway. The Pew Research Center
says when most of those things
happen, I’m more likely to sway
Republican.
But I’m cautious to affiliate myself
with one party over the other. Voting
should be about the candidates and
not party preference, right? Well,
if you wanna vote on Feb. 5 in this
state, you gotta pick one.
And as of right now, I don’t know
which candidate to pick, either. There
are so many choices. I still haven’t
figured out the candidates’ positions
on issues of importance to me, rather
than just their pretty faces for the
national media cameras.
At least some people know who
they don’t want in the White House
— and that’s why they’re voting for
their top opponent for the primary.
Someone who I never would have
guessed would vote for Hillary
Clinton plans to cast a vote for her
in two weeks — just to deter Barack
Obama’s presidential quest. At least
that person knows who they don’t
want becoming the nation’s leader. I
can’t even say that at this point.
My husband has blamed indecisive
ness for his reason for not heading to
the polls.
Last week, he said he may actually
cast a vote this election year. I briefly
hear trumpets sounding until he says,
“But it has to be for someone I really
believe in.”
Oh, well. My excitement is quickly
deflated.
Kerri Testement is news editor of
The Braselton News, a sister publi
cation of The Banks County News.
E-mail comments about this column
to kerri@mainstreetnews.com.
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