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February 2007
Camp family helps neglected children
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shannon Hines knows she can depend on family.
After all, they taught her how to drive. They attended her 2004 graduation from Avondale High in Decatur. They helped furnish her first apartment.
It’s the kind of things kinfolk do for each other. In her case, it’s the Camp Horizon family.
Camp Horizon Inc. is a Dacula-based nonprofit that serves abused and neglected kids in metro Atlanta. The children, recommended by Department of Family and Children Services caseworkers, are in state custody when they enter the free program.
“We provide them opportunities to leave their chaotic, turbulent lives behind and enjoy things that other kids enjoy,” said Kelli Boudreaux, the executive director. “Our goal has been to teach them, through unconditional love and respect, that they can choose to break the cycle of abuse.”
The program’s signature event is summer camp, the first activity the kids attend. The camp for 8- to 11-year-olds is held at Camp Twin Lakes, a facility for special-needs kids in Rutledge, east of Atlanta. Camp Horizon, which relies on donations and sponsorships, is a partner with Camp Twin Lakes.
When participants get too old for camp, they can enroll in a leadership development program for 12- to 18-year-olds. In addition, get-togethers are held throughout the year, things like a family reunion in May, and a holiday party in December.
“Our children change placements frequently,” Boudreaux said. “Prior to the outings, we ‘lost’ a lot of them. It was difficult to keep track of them year to year.”
On Saturday, the family came together. Nearly 40 kids from Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties attended the Big Apple Circus at Stone Mountain. I joined them.
It was clear to me that the volunteers, campers and counselors are a close-knit group. Lots of hugs and affection. Family.
“If something happens with a camper and that camper needs help, they all come together,” said Hines, 20, who attended the circus. “They send e-mails to everybody to see what anybody can do.”
She was placed in foster care when she was 6. A year later, she went to live with her grandmother. When her grandmother died, she moved in with an aunt.
“It was a family,” said Hines, who works in customer service for a Norcross Publix. “But it wasn’t a pleasant experience. My family is a real broken family.”
So Camp Horizon became her family. For her, it was an eye-opener, too, a snapshot into the endless role relatives play as nurturers, providers and confidence-builders.
“A lot of times, I’d blame myself for a lot of stuff that happened,” she told me. “The self-esteem classes and the constant support lets you know you’re OK. It turned me around a lot.”
Today, Hines contributes. She’s been a camp counselor since 2004. She eventually wants to attend college and pursue a career in nonprofit work.
“I want to touch a kid like someone touched me,” she said.
Volunteers are needed for Camp Horizon’s 2007 summer camp, set for July 21-28, as well as other activities. For more information, please contact Kelli Boudreaux at 770-390-4469; or visit the Web site: www.camphorizon.net.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Does Gwinnett really have a homeless problem?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A homeless woman was picked up off the streets, taken to a stadium, and set afire.
The sickening murder — cops say it was retribution for a drug debt incurred by her boyfriend — made headlines in San Francisco. Leslie “Jill May”, 49, a prostitute/drug addict, was well-known among homeless advocates, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times.
In Gwinnett, we don’t have a homeless problem as pervasive as San Francisco’s, where more than 6,000 transients live. Our head count may not be as big, but we still have them.
Last week, Craig Molnar, a Lawrenceville man who skirts on the edge of homelessness, took me to places in the woods where transients congregate. We saw their belongings, but only ran across one homeless person. That led some readers to wonder if homelessness is a legit issue, whether the county needs to invest in a shelter.
Well, let’s look at the facts.
We apparently have enough transients to keep the county’s five cooperative ministries hopping.
“Almost every day we are open, a homeless person comes for help,” said Linda Freund, director of the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry. “I know that each Cooperative Ministry in Gwinnett County sees the homeless.”
We apparently have enough to help fill extended-stay hotels.
“Obviously, we see them in the cars and sleeping in parks, said Shirley Cabe, who oversees the Norcross Cooperative Ministry. “But it’s the families in the hotels that get missed. There are so many families in hotels. We have homeless people in most of them around here.”
According to homeless service providers, here’s how the law defines a homeless person:
An individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence. This includes shelters, motels, campgrounds, cars, abandoned buildings or other inadequate shelter. It also includes situations where an individual shares housing with relatives or others because they lost housing or cannot afford housing.
Under that definition, here’s what homelessness looks like in Gwinnett, according to surveys and research done by a task force overseen by the Gwinnett Coalition for Health & Human Services.
Our schools serve more than 3,000 homeless students. It’s estimated that 60 percent of the county’s homeless population are children; 50 percent of those children fall under the age of 6.
Last year, the county had 20,845 evictions and 6,130 foreclosures. There’s no count on how many of those people wound up on the streets, but advocates believe that many of them still lack a “fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence.”
No one has an exact figure on how big the problem is. There’s never been a true study of the issue, and it’s hard to count the homeless anywhere, not just Gwinnett. It’s especially hard here, though, with no shelter.
Still, when it comes to head counts, every homeless advocate I talk to says the same thing. “We’re only scraping the surface,” said Brent S. Bohanan, network director for Family Promise of Gwinnett County, Inc., a non-profit network of churches that provides shelter, meals and assistance.
“Think about your child, or any child who has to sleep in a car or stay in an extended-stay hotel. There is a need.”
When it comes to the homeless, we’re no San Francisco. But even if we don’t see them or recognize them on our runs to Publix, the soccer field or to the video store, they’re here.
Somewhere.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Success may live here, but so do the homeless
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They call it Three Oaks.
And I must admit, it would be a trendy name for a subdivision in a county that touts itself as a place where success lives.
This isn’t a subdivision, though.
It’s a patch of thick woods near downtown Lawrenceville, close enough to hear the rush of traffic. The three oak trees serve as markers for a well-worn path that leads to a spot where homeless people occassionally bunk down.
“It sounds like a real home,” Craig Molnar said. “That’s why we call it that.”
On Wednesday night, the Badie Tour ventured into the county’s shadows for a brief look into the world of the homeless. Molnar, the guide, knows it well. Three Oaks used to be his home. He would have slept there last night, too, if it weren’t for the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry. Thanks to them, he’s been at the Villa Lodge Inn and Suites for three weeks.
When I interviewed him for a column on homelessness that ran Sunday, he agreed to show me some places where transients commune. Where he once lived.
“Hey guys! It’s Craig! Anybody out there?”
Molnar announces himself at each stop. He doesn’t want to startle anybody.
“It changes,” he told me. “People may not know who I am.”
In Three Oaks, we don’t come across anybody, just remnants of someone’s existence. Mattresses, chairs, old blankets, a liquor bottle.
Molnar acts like a tour guide showing prime real estate. He points out where the “living room” used to be when he lived in Three Oaks. The men would string tarps, plastic bags and other materials together to make a canopy that they tied to trees.
Underneath, they’d sit, make a fire, cook and if someone had a battery-powered TV, maybe watch a show. Just like family.
Druggies and drunks kept to themselves - unless it rained.
“Then, we’d make room for them,” Molnar told me. “We’d try to help them.”
After we leave Three Oaks, we drive by a downtown temp agency. Molnar spots a friend. Kenny Cummisky, 42. Homeless. He and another man are waiting for a ride to a night job, and their ride is late.
Cummisky tells us he plans to work all night. If not, he has a backup plan, something he’s done numerous times before - sleep under a bridge near the railroad tracks.
“It’s amazing,” the 42-year-old Charlotte native tells me. “You get to where you don’t even hear the trains.”
Cummisky works in construction, but projects slowed. He stopped making money. He lost his apartment.
“You think you’re safe and secure, but situations arise,” he says. “It can happen just like that, but whether you stay in that situation is up to you.”
After Cummisky leaves, Molnar and I take a look down by the bridge. We spot several bundles of clothes and other items hidden behind a concrete slab.
Apparently the homeless, at least some of them, live by a code.
“Nobody takes your stuff,” said Molnar, who says he has items stashed away in another stretch of woods, another popular homeless hangout.
“If it sits and nobody claims it for a while, they’ll make use of it, though.”
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One homeless man got out of woods
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He doesn’t look homeless.
He doesn’t stink. He doesn’t talk to himself or invisible friends. And from what I’ve been told, he’s no druggie or alcoholic, either.
But until recently, home for Craig Molnar was wherever he lay his head. In the woods, with other homeless. Near a garage. Anywhere.
He used to be a “carny,” a job that brought him to metro Atlanta several years ago. Tired of traveling and being on call 24/7, the Michigan native decided to make this his last carnival stop. He landed a construction job, and got a room at the Clermont Hotel in Atlanta.
When he was laid off two years later, Molnar, 46, simply got other jobs, mostly in construction.
All his life, he’s suffered from ashtma and bronchitis. It made working difficult, but in 2003, repeat flare-ups required hospital stays, weeks on end.
Eventually, he was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a terminal lung illness. When he breathes, it’s like sucking through a straw. He uses a nebulizer several times a day, and takes several medications.
Even the most understanding employers can’t tolerate chronic absenteeism. And because of that, every time Molnar got sick, he lost his job.
By late 2003, Molnar, single with no kids, found himself homeless. By day, he hung around day labor agencies to find work. At night, he bedded down wherever he could. His became a familiar face at the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry, an agency that helps the needy. Mostly, he came for food and for help to purchase medicines, his life support.
“He’s been basically homeless since we’ve known him,” said Linda Freund, the ministry’s director. “(His) file reflects that.”
Word of his terminal illness spread among the ministry’s volunteers and staff. They shared his story with others. Individuals donated money. The ministry used it to stock up on his medications, and to rent him a room. He’s been at the Villa Lodge Inn and Suites in Lawrenceville nearly three weeks.
Molnar gets up early to be the first in line at a nearby labor agency. If he doesn’t get picked for a job, he spends the mornings following up on leads and interviews.
And, though it might be a deal-breaker, he’s honest about his health.
“God has allowed me to get away with lying on applications in the past,” he told me.
On the morning we met at the hotel, someone had told Molnar that a discount store had a “help wanted” sign. He wanted to check it out. I gave him a ride.
En route, we pass grand churches, stoic civic buildings and a dizzying array of businesses and strip malls. We’ve got it all, baby, and then some. But in a county this size, this prosperous, we lack a homeless shelter.
“If we started building one today, and everybody could get into it, we wouldn’t even scratch the surface,” said Ellen Gerstein, executive director of the Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services.
When I last wrote about this issue, Gwinnett appeared on the cusp of getting one. Bobigene Pack, a minister, had acquired a house in Norcross that she wanted to convert. It hasn’t materialized. Attempts to reach Pack last week were unsuccessful.
Gerstein said the county has formed a partnership with the Salvation Army to study the need for some type of shelter. No decision has been made, though.
For now, the woods will have to suffice.
Badie Tour travels the shadows
“Success Lives Here.” That’s what the water tower says near I-85 and the Jimmy Carter Boulevard exit. Homeless folk reside here, too. They sleep in woods, and cars and parking lots. On Wednesday, the Badie Tour will be on the night beat. Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist will be given a tour of some places the homeless congregate. You can read about what he experiences on line and in print in Thursday’s AJC.
Did someone remember you yesterday?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sharon, Tracy, Willa, Melodee and Melissa ought to be happy today. And if they aren’t, maybe they should be.
See, someone in their life remembered them yesterday. They plunked down money for roses, either a half-dozen or dozen. Red ones and pink ones, accented with baby’s breath and greenery.
Someone ordered them from Huff’s Flowers, a decades-old boutique near downtown Lawrenceville. Owners Ray and Penny Cogdill graciously allowed the Badie Tour to see behind the scenes on one of the industry’s busiest days of the year.
Valentine’s Day.
And at Huff’s, located at 232 W. Pike St., tradition sold to the tune of nearly 200 dozen of roses.
“Red wins,” said Penny Cogdill as she arranged a vase in back of the shop just west of the old Historic Courthouse.
What a scene. Roses everywhere. Six delivery drivers coming and going. Three designers. Extra clerks to take calls, check on orders and attend to the walk-in customers who either placed or picked up orders.
Paul Brown, an electrician, happened to be working a job in the area. He stopped by to buy a dozen confetti roses — for “a friend.” Brown handed the clerk $100. She gave him $15.20 in change.
What a friend.
“It’s what I usually do,” Brown of Madison told me. “That’s what we’re supposed to do. I guess that’s the typical man-answer. But it is the Hallmark Holiday.”
This was a day that, according to the National Retail Federation, a retail trade group, the average consumer was expected to spend $119.67. That’s up a bit from last year’s average of $100.89. And men generally spend $156.22 compared to a woman’s $85.08, the retail group said.
Maybe guys spend more because, sometimes, they’re clueless about Cupid. About her.
The other day, a guy called Huff’s in search of a way to say, “I love you.”
“He was like, ‘What do you think I ought to get?,’ “ said Carolyn Stewart, an employee. ‘What do you like?’ ”
Stewart suggested “the works” — red roses, filler flowers and greenery in a gourmet basket with a bear, mylar balloon, and rose petals. It was a $200 or so purchase. The recipient, it is hoped, was grateful.
And if Steve Mosley of Huff’s arranged the flowers, she probably was.
“People pay for the roses,” said Mosley, a designer for 25 years. “So that’s what is supposed to stand out. Sometimes, displays get overwhelmed with the greenery. But you want the rose) to be your focal point. That’s the key.”
Before I left Huff’s, I tagged along with Ray Cogdill on a delivery. He talked about a love for a business that they bought eight years ago, and that his wife, Penny, knows up, down and backwards. She serves as a state vice-president for Teleflora, the online flowery delivery business.
He’s a graphic artist by trade, but helps out at the store by making sure the books are in order. And on days like Valentine’s Day, he makes deliveries.
“The good thing about deliveries is everybody is pretty glad to see you,” said Codgill, 49. “It’s not like you’re bringing bad news or anything. Somebody in their life remembered.”
“And that’s the thing.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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He got them to roll up their sleeves to donate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He helped save 678 lives.
If you add up the pints of blood collected at drives organized by the late Rev. John Clarence Stewart Jr., that would be the number of lives he touched. That he helped recover.
Back in January 2005, I wrote a column about the local NAACP’s annual blood drive at the Centerville Community Center. Stewart, the branch president, told me about his college days. When he was poor. When he would donate blood for $10 or $20.
Obviously, those college donations provided something besides money. He became educated on the need for blood donors, especially minorities.
And in later years, he chose to spread that message by volunteering for the American Red Cross. It became a passion for the Biloxi, Miss., native.
When he worked for Hyatt Hotels in downtown Atlanta, Stewart helped collect 90 pints. One pint of blood can serve up to three patients.
Four blood drives in Gwinnett resulted in 136 pints. Work on the job and in this community yielded a total of 226 pints, “which have saved 678 lives,” said Cynthia A. Smith, a manager in the minority recruitment division of the American Red Cross’ southeast division.
“What was so unique about John was that he tried to recruit all donors and worked with the Red Cross to increase blood participation in the schools,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Since 2004, Stewart hadserved on the minority recruitment board of the southeastern division of the American Red Cross. Its goal was simple: Reach minorities. Educate them. Tell them that, in this state, less than 1 percent of eligible donors even donate, and that minorities need to contribute more. Then, get them to roll their sleeves and donate.
The six-year-old initiative has collected nearly 22,000 units of blood; nearly half were first-time donors.
Stewart had always stepped up whenever the recruitment board needed something. They’d wanted him to chair the recruiting board, but he died on Nov. 12. An apparent asthma attack. He was 49.
Now, his legacy continues. Plans are to continue the annual NAACP blood drive in Centerville. In fact, one was held this weekend.
The American Red Cross has come up with an award in his honor. The “John Stewart Award.” It will be given to the board member who goes beyond the call of duty when it comes to minority donor recruitment.
An inaugural award will be handed out Feb. 28, during the sixth annual minority recruitment luncheon at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Atlanta.
The Red Cross has invited JeJuan Stewart, the NAACP chief’s wife of 24 years, and the couple’s four kids to attend. They won’t just be guests, though.
“To introduce the award and its purpose, we would like to present the first ‘John Stewart Award’ to you,” Smith told Stewart in an e-mail.
Stewart told me she hasn’t given much thought to what she’ll say when she takes the podium. But whatever she imparts will be a reflection of her husband’s life. A call to arms.
Don’t wait to make a difference. Do something today. Now.
“Raising the awareness of minority donors in the state of Georgia was something John was passionate about,” Stewart said. “He did it with commitment and excellence.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875. Or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Losing but winning at the same time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It might be 9, maybe 10 o’clock at night. On any given night.
It really doesn’t matter what time or weeknight.
More than likely, a white Chevy Tahoe will be parked by the field house at Meadowcreek High. It belongs to Reggie Perry, football coach at the Norcross school.
And more than likely, he’ll be in the coach’s office. Working. He might be reviewing game film. He could be writing letters, sending out e-mails, or compiling highlight discs for one of his players.
Whatever it takes, say those in the know, Perry does it.
And on Wednesday, college signing day, his dedication and work ethic shone in a grand way.
On national signing day, seven of the 57 local high school seniors who signed college letters of intent were Mustangs. Jackie Monroe (Truman State); Lamar Person (Fort Valley State); Justin Thomas (Georgetown); Lloyd Collins (West Virginia Tech); Cyhl Quarles (Wake Forest); Anthony Kitson (Brevard College); and Jamell Clarke (Johnson C. Smith).
“Wasn’t that beautiful?” asked Johnny Barrett, a Meadowcreek booster.
Beautiful. Amazing. Insert your adjective here. Most would also apply to this struggling program and its skipper.
See, despite their gridiron grit, the Mustangs went winless last season. 0-10. It marked the second consecutive year the Perry-led Mustangs have played without a victory. The 2005-2006 squad went 0-10, too.
No one wants to be on a losing team. I want victories. We all do. But you can’t win at every endeavor. And it’s not always wise or prudent to quit, give up and go elsewhere.
Last spring, Mustangs players, worried about their college prospects, huddled in a team meeting. They decided not to pitch their blue-white-and-navy jerseys. No one gave up on the team, the coach. No one thought self first, team second.
Quarles, the linebacker who’ll join the Demon Deacons, summed up their 0-10 season in a story that appeared in Thursday’s AJC Gwinnett News:
“I don’t think any team was as close as we were,” he told reporter Larry Hartstein. “We were losing but winning at the same time.”
Those in the know say the coach is the rock of the Mustangs. He’s a disciplinarian, a guiding light, a mentor. He gets players to understand the X’s and O’s, and to see beyond them, too.
“He really takes pride in the fact that he gets a lot of his kids in school, that he can help further their education,” Jason Dopson, the first-year athletics director, told me. “He e-mails, calls, and takes the players on [college] visits in his truck. West Virginia. Kentucky. The proof is in the pudding.”
Scouts aren’t necessarily clamoring to attend games of a losing team. There’s got to be at least one must-see, blue-chipper on the field. It’s been hard, Dopson said, to attract recruiters to Meadowcreek Community Stadium.
Somehow, though, the folk who matter got to see what seven Mustangs players might offer in college.
Someone deserves a hearty thanks. And he drives a white Chevy Tahoe.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Gwinnett Place CID looks to the future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It used to be pasture and a trailer park. A truck stop sat nearby.
Then, in 1984, Gwinnett Place Mall opened, and the Pleasant Hill Road area in Duluth became the county’s retail hub.
Today of course, this commercial core has fierce competitors. Discover Mills. The Mall of Georgia. The Avenue Webb Gin. The Forum.
And in these parts, bigger, newer and flashier often translates to better in the eyes of consumers and retailers.
The Gwinnett Place mall area hasn’t hit rock bottom, though. An old Service Merchandise is now Wild Bill’s, an entertainment venue. A shuttered Borders has turned into an Asian health salon. Cho Won, a Korean diner, occupies an old Folks restaurant building.
So by no means has the commercial core vanished.
“It’s just different,” said Joe Allen, executive director of the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District, a special district funded by a tax on area properties.
It’s the CID’s goal to keep this central business corridor from going to pot, from becoming another Memorial Drive in DeKalb County. Nearly 200 commercial properties valued at $560 million comprise the district, which stretches from Pleasant Hill Road at Crestwood Parkway to Satellite Boulevard. It’s an area that’s four times the size of downtown Decatur.
On Wednesday, the Badie Tour stopped by Allen’s office to see what’s cooking and what’s planned. He drove me around the district to point out cosmetic improvements, and to explain projects years from reality. If they ever happen.
In the Gwinnett Place mall area, traffic has a choke-hold. About 65,000 cars travel Pleasant Hill Road every day. The CID has made transportation a priority. It’s trying to devise projects that improve mobility and redirect cars to side streets like Old Norcross Road and Breckinridge Boulevard.
A CID transportation study found that, to improve traffic, it would take about $65.5 million. Reconstruction of the Pleasant Hill Road/I-85 interchange is a must. The study recommends a “single-point interchange” that would provide three thru-lanes in each direction across the bridge as well as dual left-turns.
Another idea is to build an overpass north of Pleasant Hill Road that connects Venture Parkway and Breckinridge Boulevard.
Of course, road projects these days are like pipe dreams. The state Department of Transportation faces a $7.7 billion shortfall. Just to balance the books, road projects are being put on a long-range wish list.
Allen acknowledges what many call a transportation funding crisis. But that doesn’t negate the CID’s wish to ease traffic woes on Pleasant Hill Road.
“Traffic is our No. 1 issue,” Allen told me. “We can’t fund improvements, but the CID can do feasibility studies, bring key people to the table and say, ‘What do you think?’ ”
Allen, though, isn’t discouraged. The way he sees it, time is on the CID’s side.
Traffic upgrades are long-term goals. There’s plenty to do in the interim. Add sidewalks. Install signage. He took me to the intersection of Commerce Avenue and Satellite Boulevard, where one of a dozen or so “Gwinnett Place” markers has been erected. He stressed the necessity for high-rise residential projects.
“Someday,” Allen said, “this will be the new Buckhead.”
For more information about the Gwinnett Place CID, visit www.GwinnettPlaceCID.com.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Black History Month: Remembering Hooper-Renwick School
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To this day, he still remembers the principal.
Robert Hightower was his name. He was a strict disciplinarian, role model, mentor. He didn’t demand perfection, just encouraged kids to achieve it.
“He had a pretty good influence on all of us,” said Eron Moore of Lawrenceville. “He believed that you should be in school, do what you are supposed to do when you were supposed to do it, and take pride in doing it.”
Hightower was a principal at the Hooper-Renwick School in Lawrenceville. It was the only public school in the county that blacks could attend. This was when segregation was par for course, back in the 1950’s and most of the 1960’s. Back then, black kids were picked up by bus from towns all over the county to Hooper-Renwick. Often, they were bussed past all-white campuses.
“Drove right by them,” said Nathaniel Brown of Norcross, a 76-year-old civil rights activist who drove a “relay” bus that took Norcross-area students to Duluth, where they continued to school on another bus.
“We didn’t know any better,” Brown told me. “What I mean by that is, that’s just the way it was back then.”
Back then, Ruby Neal lived in Dacula. She’s a proud Hooper-Renwick graduate, class of 1956.
“It was wonderful,” said Neal, 71, of Lawrenceville. “Just wonderful.”
The Hooper-Renwick campus closed its doors to students in 1968. Public schools had integrated. The campus still exists today. It carries the same name, but has a different purpose. The renovated campus, on Neal Boulevard in the mostly black section of downtown Lawrenceville, reopened in 1995 as a separate middle and high school for autistic students and those with severe emotional issues.
Memories of the segregated school — the good and bad of what it represented — are etched in the minds of old-timers. Folk like Moore, Neal and Brown. This time of year, history can strike a sensitive emotional chord. After all, it’s Black History Month.
“We need to know where we’re coming from to know where we’re going,” said Robbie Moore, Eron’s wife and president of the United Ebony Society of Gwinnett County, a civil rights group.
“We had a great, strong black community in Gwinnett, even before integration. We need to remember that.”
And because of that, a Hooper-Renwick reunion is in the works.
Graduates and former students are to gather for brunch and a tour of the school on July 21. A banquet will be held later that night at the Gwinnett Place Marriott. Festivities will continue the next day at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which hosted Hooper-Renwick’s graduation ceremonies back in the day.
“We’re prepared for 250 and we hope that it’s going to be more in attendance,” Neal told me. “We keep losing people, so we want to get together and have a good time. We want to keep in touch with each other. I’m so excited I can hardly contain myself.”
For more information about the Hooper-Renwick reunion, contact Ruby Neal at 770-277-5123.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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Parkview High friends are ‘family’ to waitress who suffered tragedy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They met at the Waffle House every Tuesday after school.
Just to hang out. Sip Cokes. Wolf down some burgers and fries.
The three Parkview High friends even came up with a name — the “Tuesday Afternoon Waffle House Posse.” Soon, other kids started dropping by, too. The Waffle House, at the intersection of Indian Trail Road and Lawrenceville Highway, became the “in” spot.
Over the course of two years, the students became friends with Connie Belcher , a waitress.
“We’re like her kids,” said Brittany Regan, a Parkview junior.
“She’s really swell. She welcomes us with open arms.”
In 2006, Jay Love , Dylan Nurse and Matt Luongo — the posse’s founding members — graduated from high school. They headed to college, locally and out-of-state. One fall Tuesday, the young men decided to hook up at the restaurant for old times sake.
Love arrived first. He slid into a booth, and looked for Belcher. He heard the bad news first.
On Oct. 14, a fire destroyed the Atlanta trailer she shared with her husband, Bobby, a retired truck driver. He died a few hours after the morning blaze; Belcher suffered severe burns. They were asleep when the fire broke out. Authorities suspect a kerosene heater started it.
“We were all pretty sad,” Love, 19, a Georgia Perimeter College freshman, told me. “It was heart-wrenching.”
Love plays guitar for Special Guest, a garage band. The group had wanted to play a live show for some time. They’d even thought about doing it in Love’s basement. When some of the Waffle House crew heard what had happened to Belcher, they decided to host a benefit concert. Three other bands signed on.
“Conniefest” was born.
Nearly 250 people attended the gig, held Dec. 30 at Mountain Park United Methodist Church. The students charged a $2 cover, but attendees contributed more to help the cause. Nearly $700 was raised.
“We had people writing checks and stuff,” Love told me. “I was surprised, actually.”
We hear often that young people are shallow and self-absorbed. Adam Hilderbrandt , youth minister at Mountain Park United Methodist Church, says it’s not altogether true. His youth group plans to host benefits to raise money for Compassion International, a Christian child advocacy organization.
“The idea that young people are self-absorbed — I’m not sure where that comes from,” he said. “They care about people, and are socially involved. You’re seeing more and more of it in this generation.”
Nowadays, Belcher lives with her daughter, Katryna Kosarek , in Rydal, Ga. The 20-year Waffle House employee got out of the hospital on Nov. 7. She returned to work just before Thanksgiving. Co-workers and customers threw her a party.
“She’s awesome,” said Waffle House manager Angela Perry . Completely dependable. Everybody adores Connie.”
Belcher returns the love.
“I’ve got some super-fine customers,” she told me. “I love those kids. They are like family to me. This tragedy has turned out to be a good thing, in one way.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
JOIN THE BADIE TOUR Some call it the heartbeat of business in Gwinnett. It’s also been called the county’s front yard. It’s the Gwinnett Place Community Improvement District. Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, takes a tour of the revitalization zone with Joe Allen, the CID’s executive director. Rick will find out what improvements have been made, and what we can expect to take shape. And you can read all about it online and in print in Thursday’s AJC.
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A refuge, a melting pot, a fresh cut
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Uncle Doug loves to talk.
When he stresses a pertinent point, he pauses. The clippers rest. And if you happen to be in his chair, getting a trim, you sit.
Then again, why be in a hurry?
After all, this is a barbershop, a man’s refuge, a place to relax, trade barbs and settle most — OK, all — of the world’s problems.
Douglas DuBose, namesake of Uncle Doug’s Fresh Cuts, calls discussions that occur in his shop town-hall meetings. Many carry a spiritual context, but most center on current events of the day.
No subject’s sacred. Topics must be offered up with old-school decorum. No profanity. No disrespect.
But plenty of thought-provoking insight.
“If it’s in the news, we’re on it,” said DuBose, a 59-year-old Vietnam vet. “A lot of times, I can’t explain how we get from ‘A’ to ‘G.’ But it works.”
He’s worked in or owned this shop on Buford Highway in Norcross for 16 years. The clientele has changed from mostly black to Hispanic. The latter consists of Spanish-speaking people from across the globe.
The shop’s barbers reflect the diversity. The staff consists of two blacks, a Honduran, an El Salvadoran and a Puerto Rican. A female partner whom DuBose recently brought on hails from the Dominican Republic.
It’s all by design, moves that display the New York native’s business sense and open-mindedness. He started as a barber in New York 30-plus years ago. To him, hair is hair. And Uncle Doug’s is an international barbershop. The Badie Tour stopped by on Wednesday.
“We just don’t cut black hair because the shop is African-American owned,” he told me. “We cut all kinds of hair. I don’t want that stereotype. My license says I can cut any culture’s hair. I want this place to look like a melting pot, where people of all cultures can come, have a seat and feel at home.”
At Uncle Doug’s, conversation often turns to Scripture — at least the spirituality of right and wrong. It became such a hot topic that, three years ago, patrons started holding Tuesday night Bible study.
Some good things have arisen out of the ability to get a cut and get into the Book. Holiday food giveaways. A food pantry. Youth outreach.
And the birth of a congregation — St. John Apostolic Holiness Church West in Norcross. DuBose, an ordained minister, oversees the 6-month-old start-up. It’s affiliated with St. John Apostolic Holiness Church in Tucker.
The new church meets in a conference room at the La Quinta Inn, off Oakbrook Parkway. DuBose wants to minister to folk he says megachurches neglect: laborers, those who live day-to-day, who call home an extended-stay hotel.
“I want to be a doer of the Word,” he told me. “Not just a hearer.”
As he talks, DuBose brings his clippers to a rest. I’m in the chair, getting a bald head, something my daughter, Olivia, loves to rub.
And I’m in no rush whatsoever.
St. John Apostolic Holiness Church West is at 5945 Oakbrook Parkway, Norcross. Services are 11 a.m. every Sunday. Details: Doug DuBose, 678-754-5085.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875.
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