Newspaper Page Text
FRIDAY
February 20,2004
Volume 135, Number 36
Award-Winning
Better Newspaper
Inside TODAY
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New columnist
begins today
Former Perry High
teacher’s column to focus
on education:
“Teenagers are fre
quently moody, goofy,
stubborn little beasts, but
they are also bright and
funny and completely lov
able. I taught for three
years, and I loved a lot of
kids.”
Opinion, page 4A
OnfJNE
Our next president
Are you a Kerry sup
porter, an Edwards sup
porter, a Republican who
doesn’t want either one,
or of a different opinion
entirely? Log on to our
Web site and take part in
the HHJ opinion poll now.
www.hhjnews.com
Happy BIRTHDAY!
Patti Lawson (Feb. 21)
(Surprise your friends! Let
us know when their birthday
is, and we’ll put their name
in the paper that day. Just
send the name and date at
least a week in advance, and
we’ll do the rest. E-mail to
hhj@evansnewspapers.com, or
mail them to us at the
address inside. No phone
calls, please. Many happy
returns!)
Area DEATHS
Annie Dykes Hamilton
Robert F. Sampson
Julia G. Wright
Obits, page SA
INDEX
CLASSIFIED 5B
COMICS 4B
CROSSWORD ... .4B
LIFESTYLE 8A
NASCAR 3B
OBITUARIES 5A
OPINION 4A
SCHOOL NEWS 5A,7A
TV LISTINGS 4B
WEATHER 2A
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LEGAL ORGAN FOR HOUSTON COUNTY,
city of Perry, city of Warner Robins and city of Centerville
Houston - one county, one senator?
It’s all 18th for Houston under proposed map
By Jon Suggs
HHJ Staff Writer
ATLANTA - When the
state Senate convenes today,
it will consider a new voting
map - one that could put
Houston County back
together for the next elec
tion.
The map cleared the
Senate Redistricting
Committee Wednesday, set
ting up today’s vote before
the full body.
“I look for it to pass,” said
Sen. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry,
a member of the committee.
Tolleson pointed to bipar
tisan support in the commit
tee vote and a sense of
urgency to get the new maps
- ordered last week by a
three-judge federal panel -
done and get back to the rest
of a full agenda this session.
She leg ant/ 0/ Stephens
Houston County teacher fought and sacrificed for the children she loved
Hog show slated for Saturday in Perry
Last year’s Supreme Grand Champion looks forward to event
By Luci Joullian
HHJ Staff Writer
PERRY - The Houston
County Young Farmers and
Agribusiness Association
will hold its 28th annual
Market Hog Show this
Saturday at the Georgia
National Fairgrounds and
Agricenter. Over 40 FFA and
4-H members will show hogs
that they purchased last fall
and have since raised.
Perry High senior and
FFA member Leslie Duke
has high hopes for possible
medals and scholarships at
this year’s show, when she
shows her three hogs - Red,
Pork Chop and Hambone.
The 18-year-old, who lives
in Elko, certainly has
enough showing experience
to make her extremely com
petitive.
Duke started showing
hogs when she was 8 years
old, then progressed to dairy
cows and then beef cows.
She and her family breed
heifers - her father is a vet
eran competitor and her two
brothers also show live
stock. Over the years, Duke
has won the competition’s
grand champion title
numerous times and, last
year, Duke achieved the
show’s highest honor -
Supreme Grand Champion.
www.hhjnews.com
See for yourself
Copies of proposed and current maps are available online from
the state Legislative Reapportionment Services Office:
www.georgiareapportionment.uga.edu/maps.html
The most recent maps are at the top of the list. Compare them
to the 2002 maps lower on the page.
Tolleson’s 18th District -
formerly held by Gov. Sonny
Perdue - was, as Perdue put
it, “sliced and diced” under
the 2001 map a Democrat
controlled Senate put forth.
That map was rejected,
but an interim map, which
was used in 2002, still left
many districts stretched
across several counties.
Now that the federal
panel has once and for all
put both those maps to bed -
By Charlotte Perkins
HHJ Staff Writer
WARNER ROBINS - Ada Lee
remembers her first teacher well.
Her name was Pearl Stephens.
She was, by all accounts, a tall, slim
woman with a bit of an Indian look,
a “strong, strong woman” according
to her grandchildren, a hard worker,
and every inch a lady when she was
ready to make a stand.
She had ten children, and when
she retired (not that she ever
stopped working) she was up early
making breakfast for her grandchil
dren.
Pearl Stephens loved children.
She loved to teach them. She loved
to encourage them. She just loved
them.
During the competition,
hogs and heifers are judged
on factors like length, bal
ance and physical sound
ness, and Duke must pre
pare her animals for compe
tition by walking them on a
regular basis, feeding them
and washing them - no
small feat for a high school
er who also holds down an
after-school job. Beyond just
learning how to care for an
animal, Duke and other
show participants, learn
about swine breeds, swine
nutrition, showmanship and
record-keeping.
With pigs weighing more
than 260 pounds each and
cows that weigh much more
than that, Duke has had to
learn how to control large
animals in the show ring.
One cow, named Jim,
“knocked the wind out of
me” at a competition, she
said. But Duke didn’t give
up because of her fear.
“You just get back up,” she
said.
Another difficult aspect of
raising show animals is
overcoming emotional
attachment to animals head
ed, many times, to the
slaughterhouse. Duke’B
family slaughters and eats
their pigs after the show
season.
She still remembers the
barring a successful appeal
by Attorney General
Thurbert Baker - the
Senate has another chance
to make its own, and the
map under consideration
puts a lot of scattered pieces
back together.
The proposed 18th
includes all of Houston,
Pulaski and Bleckley coun
ties, and a portion of south
ern Bibb County.
See MAP, page 34
That’s not to say that she would
n’t get out her switch if somebody
misbehaved. Ada Lee remembers
that there were “switches all over
the school.”
But the children all kneft tKSt she"
loved them. They even sought her
out when they weren’t in school.
“She was so kind,” Lee remem
bers. “She cared about us. On
Sundays after church, we’d all go
over to her house and play games.”
That was back in late 19205, in
the days of segregation, when
African-American children in
Houston County didn’t have any
thing approximating equal opportu
nity in education or any real encour
agement to achieve more than the
basics. Black children were routine-
heartbreak she felt when
her first pigs, Sebastian and
Ariel, named for characters
in the Disney movie “The
Little Mermaid," were head
ed for slaughter. Duke said
the process has gotten easier
over the years and she now
accepts it as part of the farm
animal life cycle.
This Saturday’s may be
Duke’s last high school
show, but she plans to con
tinue to her involvement in
animal raising and judging
after she graduates. She
wants to become a livestock
judge while, at the same
time, pursuing her dream of
becoming a dental hygienist.
“Some people laugh when
I tell them that,” she said.
“But this is all I’ve ever
known and I’d like to learn
something different, too."
Duke said that while she
is in college, she’d like to
return to Perry High period
ically to act as a mentor for
younger FFA participants.
Duke said being in FFA
has taught her quite a bit
about responsibility
although she noted, “the
animals themselves have
taught me the most. They’re
almost like my children -
I’ve raised them.”
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Perry High senior Leslie Duke with one of her show hogs,
Red.
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TWO SECTIONS • 18 PAGES
If you go
On Saturday, at 3 p.m., a tribute to
Pearl Jackson Stephens will be held
in the Pearl Stephens Elementary
School cafeteria, 215 Scott Blvd. The
program will include testimonies and
music, with remarks by Dr. Marion
Ford, principal of the school, Mayor
Donald Walker of Warner
Robins,and the Rev. David A. Clarke
of Union Grove Missionary Baptist
Church.
ly let out of school when there was
fieldwork to be done, and there was
only one high school for black stu
dents - in Perry.
Most of the children in Pearl
See STEPHENS, page 3A