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PAGE 4A 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 Letters to the Editor policy given Phones (all 706 area code): Angela Gary Phone 367-2490 Angela Gary Fax 367-9355 Homer Office Phone 677-3491 Homer Office Fax 677-3263 Advertising Phone 367-5233 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. We must have an original copy of all letters that are submitted to us for publication. Members of our staff will not type out or hand-write letters for people who stop by the office and ask them to do so. Letters to the Editor must also be signed with the address and phone number of the person who wrote them. The address and phone number will be for our verification purposes only and will not be printed unless the writer requests it. Mail to, The Banks County News, P.O. Box 920, Homer, Ga. 30547. E-mailed letters will be accepted, but we must have a contact phone number and address. Letters that are libelous will not be printed. Letters may also be edited to meet space requirements. Anyone with 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., Subscription in county $19.75 Subscription in state $38.85 Subscription out of state $44.20 Military with APO address $42.20 Senior citizens get a $2 discount Periodicals postage paid at Homer, Ga. Postmaster, send address changes to: Subscriptions, The Banks County News, P.O. Box 920, Homer, Ga. 30547 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. Let us know what’s on your mind... Write a Letter to the Editor