Newspaper Page Text
TUESDAY
July 29,2003
Volume 134, Number 133
Award-Winning
Newspaper
2003
Better Newspaper
Contest
INSIDE TODAY
Those darling
Dionne Quintuplets
Local
antiques
columnist
Ji 11 in d a
Fal e n
writes
about the
Dionne
quintu
plets, and
the many
collectibles which bear their
likenesses.
See page 5A
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Nopthside Ironman
contest ends
Dartez Walker sprints in
the 40-yard dash during
Northside High School’s
Ironman competition
Thursday at the school.
Defensive lineman Clint
Jordan finished first in the
annual event designed to
enhance team-building and
morale.
Story and photos, page 1B
AREA DEATHS
Elma Lee Cherry
Mark Anthony Everding
Robert “Bob” Lawson
Obits, page 5A
INDEX
BUSINESS 6A
CLASSIFIED 5B
COMICS 4B
CROSSWORD 5B
OBITUARIES 5A
OPINION 4A
SCHOOL NEWS . . .7A
TV LISTINGS 4B
WEATHER 2A
PERIODICAL
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Georgia Newspaper Project
MAIN LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
ATHENS GA 30602
3-DiGiT 306
Serving Houston County Since 1870
Middle school
under ’siege'
Elite Houston Co. Sheriff’s
deputies train for a dark day
Story and photos
by Jon Suggs
BONAIRE - It’s a big build
ing, and we’ve been slowly mak
ing our way through it for sev
eral tense minutes.
Other members of the team
have split off, checked adjacent
rooms, come back.
Slowly, these brave deputies
of the Houston County Sheriffs
Response Team are making
their way forward, toward an
unknown number - but at least
two, an escaping teacher said -
of gunmen who have taken
hostages and are holed up
somewhere ahead, in the depths
of Bonaire Middle School.
We approach a junction with
another large hallway, and a
pair of deputies moves while
their companions provide cover.
They are checking the layout,
determining the next move,
when there’s sudden movement
down the hall.
A man darts across.
He is armed with a shotgun,
maybe - it’s hard to tell because
he moves so quickly - and in
that brief moment he passes, he
raises the weapon and ...
shouts, “Bang!" r - r ....
There are a couple of respond
ing shouts from the two
deputies watching that hallway,
but they don’t appear to have
“hit” the “gunman.”
This is, thankfully, just an
exercise.
If it were real, there would be
some differences.
For starters, the many
weapons of the team - M-16
rifles and such - would not have
little pieces of blue tape indicat
ing their ammunition had been
left outside.
And two observers wouldn’t
be tagging along behind.
Neither would this journalist,
for that matter.
But this is just an exercise,
and while the tension, the
sweat and the adrenaline are all
real, the situation is not.
Afterward, the “dead” and
“wounded” will get up, go
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Travis Parks in his home with his leader dog.
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LEGAL ORGAN FOR
Houston County, city of Perry, city of Warner Robins and city of Centerville
www.hhjnews.com
The cuffs will be taken off the
captured “gunmen.”
The tears from “hostages”
will turn to smiles and com
ments - “I was good, wasn’t I?”
But for as long as it lasts, the
members of the team work as
hard today as they would on the
dark day a Houston County
school might be taken over.
Under the command of Capt.
Alan Everidge, the 18-member
team holds about 20 training
days a year, in a variety of sce
narios they might one day be
called upon to respond to.
This is not the first such drill
this summer, either.
While the schools are out of
session, the team has used sev
eral of the buildings - each time
choosing a new, less familiar
layout - as practice grounds.
Things went well Saturday
See TEAM, page 7A
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SRT officers quickly file into the first hallway of Bonaire Middle School, knowing only that an
unknown number of “gunmen” hold “hostages” somewhere in the school.
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Two Houston County Sheriff’s Response Team deputies sweat
it out watching an unsecured hallway of Bonaire Middle School,
waiting while other members of the team clear adjacent rooms.
It may be a training exercise, but stress, tension and adrenaline
are still very much a part of the day.
Nothing holding him back
23-year-old local man earns college
degree despite visual impairment
By Luci Joullian
HHJ Staff Writer
WARNER ROBINS - Most college
freshman going to school outside their
hometown may feel a little trepidation
at the prospect of going to a new
school, getting around a new city and
trying to make friends.
Travis Parks, a native of Florida
whose family lives in Hinesville, may
have felt all these things when he first
began classes at Georgia Military
College (GMC) in Warner Robins.
There was just one difference between
Parks and his fellow students - he is
legally blind.
The 23-year-old was born with his
visual impairment - he has partial
vision in his left eye - but his sight has
worsened as he has grown. When he
was 18, he sustained a work injury,
which seemed to impair his vision and
led to his being diagnosed with
Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative
disease of the retina.
Although some might see Parks’
sight impairment as a handicap, he
hasn’t let it stop him from living a nor
mal life. He recently earned an associ-
ate’s degree from GMC and plans to
earn his bachelor’s degree at Macon
State College. In fact, Parks, who
attended the Georgia Academy for the
Blind in Macon, was the only person
out of the 20 people in his graduating
class who went on to college.
And although having impaired
vision certainly presents challenges
that someone with average eyesight
wouldn’t have to face, Parks insist
that, “the day-to-day stuff, I can do,”
he said.
“So many times I hear the comment,
‘I don’t see how you do it,”’ Parks said.
“I’m normal. What’s the big deal? So
my eyes don’t work like yours do, that
doesn’t mean my brain doesn’t.”
Testing and reading for class didn’t
pose a problem for Parks, who took
advantage of large-print books, books
on tape and also used a magnifier
which directs copy and text onto a TV
screen so that he can read it.
“I think he learned a lot about
accommodating his disability,” said
Susan Ferguson, the director of GMC’s
Elliott Hall campus.
See PARKS, page 7 A
TWO SECTIONS • 14 PAGES
Bob
Hope
dies
Entertainer
dies at 100
By Bob Thomas
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES - Bob Hope,
ski-nosed master of the one
liner and favorite comedian of
servicemen and presidents
alike, has died, less than two
months after turning 100.
Hope died late Sunday of
pneumonia at his home in
Toluca Lake,
with his fami
ly at his bed
side, longtime
publicist Ward
Grant said
Monday.
The nation’s
‘most-honored
comedian, a
millionaire
many times
over, was a
star in every category open to
him - vaudeville, radio, televi
sion and film, most notably a
string of “Road” movies with
longtime friend Bing Crosby.
For decades, he took his show
on the road to bases around the
world, boosting the morale of
servicemen from World War II
to the Gulf War.
He perfected the one-liner,
peppering audiences with a
fusillade of brief, topical gags.
“I bumped into Gerald Ford
the other day. I said, ‘Pardon
me.’ He said, ‘I don’t do that
anymore.’”
He poked fun gently, without
malice, and made himself the
butt of many jokes. His golf
scores and physical attributes,
including his celebrated ski
jump nose, were frequent sub
jects:
“I want to tell you, I was built
like an athlete once - big chest,
hard stomach. Of course, that’s
all behind me now.”
When Hope went into one of
his monologues, it was almost
as though the world was condi
tioned to respond. No matter
that the joke was old or flat; he
was Bob Hope and he got
laughs.
“Audiences are my best
friends,” he liked to say. “You
never tire of talking with your
best friends.”
He was admired by his peers,
and generations of younger
comedians. Woody Allen called
Hope “the most influential
comedian for me.”
Hope earned a fortune, gave
lavishly to charity and was
showered with awards, so many
that he had to rent a warehouse
to store them.
Through he said he was
afraid of flying, Hope traveled
countless miles to entertain
servicemen in field hospitals,
jungles and aircraft carriers
from France to Berlin to
Vietnam to the Persian Gulf.
His Christmas tours became
tradition.
He headlined in so many war
zones that he had a standard
joke for the times he was inter
rupted by gunfire: “I wonder
which one of my pictures they
saw?”
So often was’ Hope away
entertaining, and so little did
he see his wife, Dolores, and
See HOPE, page 7A
an Evans Family Newspaper
500
HOPE