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August 2007
“A Salute in Wood”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First, let’s deal with his name.
It’s Reginald B. Highsmith. In promos for the Badie Tour, I’ve called the Snellville woodworker everything but. “Robert” in one. “Hightower” in another.
Highsmith, known as “Smitty,” never called to correct or upbraid me. He just chuckled about it yesterday when we finally met.
See, three weeks ago Wednesday we were scheduled to talk about his efforts to honor U.S. soldiers. He took ill, though, and wound up in the hospital for several days. He’s home now, spry enough on Wednesday to let me drop by the house he shares with Martha, his wife of nearly 40 years, for a chat.
Highsmith’s a scroller, a craftsman who uses a scroll saw to turn wood into most anything you can imagine: baskets, animals, flowers, landscapes, toys, games and gadgets. He’s part of a nationwide project that makes wooden portraits of U.S. soldiers who have died in the conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In December 2005, he joined an online network of several hundred woodworkers and hobbyists who volunteer money, material, skills and time to create the portraits. It’s called the Scroll Saw Portraits Group, and the project is called the Portrait Freedom Project. The portraits are free, available only to direct family members of fallen soldiers.
Relatives must make a request for the portraits and provide a photo that’s in focus. Scroll Saw volunteers design patterns that are passed on electronically to cutters like Highsmith. The artisans download the patterns, reproduce them to wood and ship the finished images - one framed and one unframed - to the relative of the soldier.
Highsmith says he has cut 58 portraits for family and individuals who hail from 32 states and Italy. So far, he has only done one portrait for a Georgia soldier. The sister of an Army soldier requested one for their mother. It’s the only time Highsmith, 70, was able to make a presentation in person.
“I met the mother,” said Highsmith, who uses Baltic birch and, depending on the patterns, spends one to three hours on each portrait. “She looked at it and said, ‘That’s my (son).’ “
According to the project Web site, more than 700 portraits have been completed. If the cutters charged, Highsmith said they might fetch $50 to $75 per portrait. This is not about money, though. It’s about honor. A salute in wood.
Highsmith, a former Marine, includes handwritten notes with his 8-by-10s that thank relatives for the opportunity. Sometimes he receives notes of gratitude. Barbara and Larry Saba of New Jersey sent this one:
“Dear Mr. Highsmith: We would like to thank you very much for the two portraits you did of our son, Cpl. Thomas E. Saba,” they wrote. “You really captured his eyes and his smile.”
Not every family sends a thank-you note. Highsmith, who does non-military portraits as well, doesn’t mind.
“But when I do get one, it brings tears to my eyes.”
For more information about the Portrait Freedom project or to view existing portraits of honored service members, visit http://groups.msn.com/SSPSoldierPortraits/homepage. 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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‘Rodeo’ still riding after TV stint ends
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The TV world knows her as “Rodeo,” thanks to a VH1 reality show in which 25 women have competed for the heart of Bret Michaels, lead vocalist for the metal band, Poison.
Years ago, when she trained at Gold’s Gym in Lilburn, most folks knew her as Cindy Steedle, a single-mom bent on fitness.
In March, Steedle was tapped to take part in “Rock of Love,” a celebrity reality dating show that wraps this fall. She returned home in episode No. 4, but it wasn’t Michaels’ doing. Eric, Steedle’s 7-year-old son took ill. He’d been living with his father while she filmed in L.A. Steedle, 39, decided to return home. He’s fine now, and attends a local school that Steedle declined to identify.
Some fans said she was crazy for leaving the show, but Steedle, a Newnan native, never had doubts.
“A lot of people said that I looked insane in that episode,” she told me. “But I promised God that I would take care of Eric.”
Even before “Rock of Love,” she was a fitness figure competitor and personal trainer who’d modeled for health and fitness magazines. In fact, it was a magazine photo that caught the attention of a scout for the show.
In the first episode of “Rock of Love,” Michaels stared into the camera and said he’d felt a connection between him and “Rodeo.” I asked Steedle if she really would have hooked up with the multi-platinum rocker if she’d been chosen.
“That was my focus,” she said. “We connected on a major level, especially when we talked about children, and I told him I’d had cancer. His mom had cancer. He’s a wonderful man.”
For now, she’s trying to capitalize on celebrity, make it profitable and sustainable. Her manager, David Spiggle, says she has shelf life.
“Nextel just bought her laugh for a ring tone,” he said. “I thought this would be 10 or 15 minutes of fame, but it’s taken a life it’s own.”
Several projects or events are in the works. One takes place Sept. 3 at Dominick’s Restaurant in downtown Norcross, when Steedle will be a guest celebrity at an after-party bash for Poison. The band plays the same night at the HiFi Buys Amphitheatre. C.C. DeVille, the band’s guitarist, is the party host.
Michaels, the frontman, won’t attend. Contracts prevent the rocker and Steedle from appearing together or talking. They haven’t spoken since she left the show.
She’s kept busy, though. Radio spots. Appearances. Ideas. There are plans to develop a line of hats and clothes. She may model shoes. She was already a partner with USWellness Meats, a Midwest company that sells grass-fed meats. That same company sells “Rodeo’s Rise n Shine BBQ Sauce” and “Rodeo’s Rise n Shine” sausage.
Now about the nickname. Steedle was celebrating a friend’s birthday at Wild Bill’s in Duluth one night. Someone told her she’d look great in a cowboy hat, like a rodeo girl. It stuck.
Now the world knows that name.
Cindy “Rodeo” Steedle and “Big John,” Bret Michael’s bodyguard, are to host a bartender’s contest at 7 p.m. Tuesday night, Aug. 28, at Frankie’s Sports Grill, 5600 Roswell Road, Atlanta. Details: 404-843-9444. For more information about the Sept. 3 End-of-Tour Bash, visit DominickslittleItaly.com or call 770-449-1611.
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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Development has no rhyme or reason
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you need a prescription filled, pharmacies along a short stretch of Lawrenceville Highway aim to please.
A Walgreens is under construction at the corner of Beaver Ruin Road and Lawrenceville Highway. Just three miles west sits another Walgreens at the juncture of Rockbridge Road and Lawrenceville Highway. And a little farther down the road a CVS Pharmacy operates.
If there’s a rhyme or reason to all this, I’m at wits’ end. Then again, this is Gwinnett, where, when it comes to land use and development, we pull up short on common sense and balance.
When it comes to building, practically anything goes.
Drive around.
It’s not unusual to see an existing strip mall with plenty of space to lease. Yet across the street, or right next door, another complex is going up. When it’s complete, it will offer more of the same: nail salons, wing joints and dry cleaners. On Duluth Highway at Boggs Road, a cleaners is opening up even though two more are within a block of it in either direction. Typical. Unimaginative. Maddening, yet oh-so-common.
Now we have a situation in Duluth where residents oppose a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter. The big-box store would be located on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, near the intersections of Sugarloaf Parkway and Chattahoochee Drive. Opponents say two Wal-Marts already exist within eight miles of the site in question. The company, though, says there’s a demand for a third store. That’s a lot of Wal-Marts.
Residents, understandably, are spitting mad.
They attended a meeting of Duluth’s Zoning Board of Appeals on Wednesday night to voice their dismay. Wal-Mart — which had withdrawn a request for variances from city designs — wasn’t even on the agenda.
But here’s the rub, and it partially explains why we now have these residents waging war against a retail giant.
The site that Wal-Mart wants to build its superstore on has been zoned commercial for several years. Somewhere down the line, though, city leaders saw fit to “down zone” that designation so that houses could be built in the area. In essence, their decision allowed residential construction to encroach upon an area that had originally been zoned for light industrial use, until its most recent designation as a commercial corridor.
And that’s classic Gwinnett, the spot zoning/rezoning capitol. Sense of balance is a misnomer. Development just happens with scant rhyme or reason. It’s why we are inundated with cookie-cutter strip malls and stand-alone stores that appear inconsistent with their surroundings.
And why we have so many pharmacies within a short stretch of Lawrenceville Highway.
— 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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Aurora Theatre production hits the bull’s eye
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m sick of High School Musical — Nos. 1 and 2.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m tired of the art form, though, so on Wednesday the Badie Tour took in a local production. “Annie Get Your Gun,” the Irving Berling classic, is running through Sept. 9 at the Aurora Theatre in downtown Lawrenceville. I saw part of the 10 a.m. matinee.
The time slot may sound odd, but it’s based on reason and research. An Aurora intern conducted a survey and found that a morning show would hold great appeal to home-school groups, civic and social organizations and senior citizens. More so than the typical 2:30 p.m. matinee.
“They avoid the traffic, and we offer it at a little lower price point,” said Al Stilo, the theatre’s director of sales and marketing. “They can get good seats as well.”
About 150 attended Wednesday’s show. The bulk of the patrons belonged to a Lawrenceville Red Hatters group and the Winder First United Methodist Church. I sat up front on the left side of the stage where the play begins.
Frank Butler, played by Rob Lawhon, steps onto stage, singing a tempered rendition of “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Soon he’s joined by the entire company, and before you know it you’re traveling the midwest with Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, Charlie Davenport and Butler.
It’s a familiar story line. Oakley is a hayseed rifle woman who beats Butler — the star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show — in a sharp-shooting contest. She falls in love with Butler, becomes a huge star and steals the show, becoming its headliner. Butler runs off, distraught. They meet up again, though, declare endless love for each other and in the end become a gun-shooting team.
I missed Act II, the part where they meet up again and rekindle their love because I had to leave for a mid-day interview. During intermission, though, I struck up conversation with several patrons. Without prompting, they said this production of the 1946 masterpiece hit all the clay pigeons and the bull’s eye, too. Especially Natasha Drena, who plays Annie.
Connie and Tim Seidel are a Roswell couple who sat next to me during Act 1. She’s a sharpshooter of sorts herself. Years ago Tim, her husband of 34 years, bought her a handgun for target practice. The play offered respite from day-to-day life. Tim has Parkinson’s Disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system.
“This is esoteric, but this helps cope with day-to-day life,” Connie Seidel told me. “I like it a lot. And the female lead is wonderful.”
So were the 1880-themed costumes, thanks to Amanda Sutt, the costumes designer. With a budget of $1,500, ingenuity and creativity, she had cast and ensemble looking like something from the Wild Wild West. She recently graduated from Appalachian State University with a bachelor of arts degree in theatrical design.
When I walked into the foyer, Sutt eyed me up and down. She was checking out my size, trying to figure out whether she had any Western-type get-up that would fit. Before Wednesday’s show, Sutt took measurements of my chest, arms and head (for my cowboy hat).
See, it’s time for me to cash in on my 15 minutes of fame. I’ve been asked to do a “walk-on role” in a performance of “Annie Get Your Gun.” Anthony Rodriquez, the producing artistic director who plays Buffalo Bill, will have me do something — at some point, somewhere, somehow — during the show.
Maybe I’ll say a line. Maybe I’ll sing, ala High School Musical. Preferably, I’ll just stand there, in full Western regalia, cowboy cool.
If you can spare the time on Sept. 1, a Saturday, check out the 2:30 p.m. show. Yours truly will be in it.
Trying to be a cowboy.
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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Questioning Obama’s racial qualifications
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Is he black enough?
I can’t remember Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton being asked this question during their presidential bids, but Sen. Barack Obama can’t escape it. He’s being interrogated on the campaign trail, in debates and town hall meetings on how deep his black roots grow.
When he was asked the question during the otherwise excellent CNN/YouTube debate, he responded — and I paraphrase — with a retort about being more than black enough whenever he tries to hail a cab in Manhattan. It drew chuckles from the audience in Charleston, S.C., and it was funny.
But this apparent issue — the question — isn’t. Au contraire. But it’s oh-so-typical America and how we handle issues of race.
Remember Mandisa Surpris?
In December 2005, I wrote about the Parkview High School student. Some black peers ridiculed her because she spoke properly, preferred certain clothes, played the violin and belonged to the Beta club and National Arts Honors Society. She earned high grades and kept her focus on the future. So Mandisa, then a sophomore, apparently didn’t pass the code.
She was un-black. Too white. Too spirited of an individual to be confined to a box, be it by blacks or whites.
Now, on a larger scale, we have Mr. Obama.
Obama isn’t black enough, but Bill Clinton is?
Obama wants to be president, a pursuit that has invigorated election-year politics and awakened the Hillary Clinton camp to a stark reality that securing the Democratic presidential party nomination won’t be a waltz in the park. Obama — he of mixed racial heritage and exceptional educational pedigree and social graces — is a serious contender.
But is he black enough?
Five months ago, Patricia Wilson-Smith founded the Gwinnett-based Black Women for Obama, a grass-roots organization that’s working with Obama’s national campaign in his quest for the nation’s highest office. The local chapter, one of three in the country, meets monthly to strategize, organize events and solicit members. Wilson-Smith says she’s always been interested in politics, but never this intrigued by one particular candidate enough to jump in.
“I’ve always been the sideline player,” said Wilson-Smith, 42, a Web technology consultant who lives in Lawrenceville.
Then came Obama.
“It was after lots of reading about Clinton, Obama, Richardson, Edwards and Biden that I settled on Sen. Obama,” she told me in an e-mail. “I truly believe that he has the best vision for turning the country in a better direction. What I heard from him resonated with me, specifically his desire to lead the ENTIRE country, in an inclusive way.”
But is he black enough?
Well, Wilson-Smith recently wrote an essay on the subject. It’s posted on the Black Women For Obama Web site (www.BlackWomenForObama.org). In it, she writes about being bused out of her black neighborhood school to attend all-white campuses. Before long, some neighborhood kids begin to shun her because she was gifted and willing to embrace new things and ideas. They questioned her blackness.
Like Mandisa, some said she acted “too white,” as if a correlation exists ‘twixt race and academic prowess. She eventually was accepted into an exclusive white private school, only to be denied enrollment because the school had reached its minority quota for that particular school year.
“Always, always, the struggle with too black, too white,” she wrote.
It is an age-old question, one that I suspect Obama’s handlers prepared him to expect on the road to the White House. It reeks of nonsense, too, and I agree with the way Wilson-Smith summed it up the her essay.
“To ask a man that has worked tirelessly in the inner-city neighborhoods of Chicago helping to rebuild communities, a man that has stood side by side with black religious leaders to solve problems in the worst neighborhoods in the city if he’s ‘black enough’ is nothing short of ridiculous,” she wrote.
“Like Sen. Obama, I think those who even dare ask that intensely stupid question seek to strip him of his blackness because they feel a certain discomfort over his biracial ethnicity and are unable to relate to his culturally diverse background. Me? I consider that both those aspects of him have done a great deal to shape who he is as a man, just as my experiences as a young child worked to shape the woman I have become, for better or worse.”
For more information , visit www.BlackWomenForObama.org, or call Patricia Wilson-Smith at 678-768-8527.
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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Something special will await tired Marine in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She kept her nephew stocked with snacks and sundries during his first tour of duty in Iraq.
That won’t be necessary this time around, but the prayers and wishes that he return home soon, in one piece, will be.
“He is on an air base and they have better amenities than before,” wrote Judy Wilkes of Lilburn in an e-mail. “So we don’t have to send food and all like before.”
I met Wilkes in December 2005, a few weeks before Christmas, at the post office off Britt Road.
She was in front of me, mailing a package to 1st. Lt. Matthew Reeves, her nephew. A Marine.
Wilkes, along with Reeves’ parents — Rhonda and Wayne Reeves of Scottsdale, Ariz. — kept the young man and his unit well stocked with supplies. Magazines, CDs, DVDs and Ramen noodles — anything that helped make time spent in the chaotic Middle East a little more palatable.
Here we are nearly two years later and we’re still entrenched in this invasion, occupation, democratization — whatever you prefer to call it — in Iraq. It’s been four years since this particular war on terror began. Long enough for facts behind the U.S.-led assault to change. Long enough for talk about Iraq policy, military troop surges and war progress reports to fuel a Beltway debate that basically pits pro-withdrawal politicians against colleagues who prefer to stay on task, finish the mission.
While the debate rages, though, the reality remains unchanged for enlisted service personnel.
Reeves, who is stationed at a military base in California, served seven months on his first tour. He returned to his wife, Danielle, in April 2006. This June, he was redeployed to the Anbar province.
He and his mother, Rhonda, spoke by phone last Sunday. They had great reception. It sounded as if he were right next door, not a cazillion miles away. The young man sounded tired, but cheerful, Rhonda Reeves told me in an e-mail.
“We talked about family,” she wrote. “He talked about his work and how hot it was in Iraq right now, about 120 degrees.”
She says her son has been unwavering in respect to the country’s mission in Iraq as well as the role he plays in trying to accomplish it.
“His take on the situation in Iraq is that the military is there to do a job, and that they will accomplish their mission,” Reeves said. “He thinks a lot of good has been done to help the Iraqi people.”
On the homefront, Danielle, his wife, copes.
“Matt’s wife is like many other military spouses,” Reeves said.
“Of course, she misses him, but she and so many other wives accept their husbands’ duties and support them. These spouses support each other and help out in any way they can. They are emotionally strong and handle their responsibilities with dignity as well as amazing grace.”
War supporters have been quick to label those who oppose the Iraq War as non-supportive of the U.S. troops deployed there. It’s as if the two can’t co-exist, like you can’t be against the war yet be for the armed forces. Like patriotism is, and should be, blind loyalty. Pure nonsense.
I, like a growing number of citizens on both sides of the political aisles, don’t have a problem with the soldiers. We have issues, though, with the American government that launched and is running this conflict.
Like Wilkes, l support and respect the troops, the job they’re doing. And I join her in wishing that they all come home, safely, soon.
“I wish that Matt had not had to go back again,” said Wilkes, an administrative assistant for Bradshaw, Pope & Franklin, an accounting firm in Norcross. “… My heart especially goes out to the families of the men and boys who never get home alive.”
Reeves, it is hoped, should be home by February or so.
When he returns, he’ll be welcomed by his wife and the family dogs — Riley and Ani. He’ll also be a first-time father.
Baby Girl Reeves is due sometime in January or December.
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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On the bus: Cool, clean and plenty of seats
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m sure you’ve seen Gwinnett Transit System buses on our roads with three, maybe four, passengers on board.
Well, on Wednesday, I was one of those riders. I hopped on Route No. 30 and took a round-trip ride from the transfer center, located behind the defunct Gwinnett Place Cinemas on Satellite Boulevard, to downtown Norcross and the Technology Parkway area.
The bus was clean, its plush seats comfy and it’s temperature cool. The only annoyance was the sound of the engine, or something mechanical, whenever the driver slowed or made a stop. The passengers were a solemn lot. They looked straight ahead, stared out the window, made little eye contact. More on that later.
First, a little history. The Gwinnett Transit System was formed to provide express, local and para transit services to county residents. The Gwinnett-to-Atlanta express service debuted in November 2001, and soon became popular with commuters who liked zooming downtown in HOV lanes. The local routes, like the one the Badie Tour experienced, began operating in November 2003 with two routes, amid mixed public reviews. It now has five routes.
The idea of county public transit has been a long time coming. Decades ago, public transit equaled MARTA in the eyes of many, something some leaders and residents couldn’t envision. In 1999, the city of Snellville sent a resolution to the County Commission opposing mass transit. It would “have a negative impact on the quality of life of Snellville citizens,” the resolution stated.
Other reasons were wrapped up in a lot of spoken and whispered hullabaloo about local control, city versus suburbs, and truth be told, race.
One thing about growth, traffic and congestion, though: It makes you think, or rethink things. Minds changed. Public transit wasn’t so evil after all. That image of black Atlantans hopping on a bus to rob and mob up here became less of an issue. After all, thieves drive cars and come in all shades of color.
Gwinnett didn’t let MARTA in, though. Like Cobb and other suburban havens, it simply created a transit system network that links its buses to key MARTA transit stations in DeKalb and downtown Atlanta.
Before I climbed on board Wednesday, I talked to Phil Boyd, the transit’s acting director, about the system and whether its local buses have dispelled its early image as empty, rolling red fortresses. He told me that fare revenue accounts for about 30 percent of the transit system’s $13 million budget. The express runs — a $3 one-way trip — have a daily average ridership of 2,700 passengers. The five local routes, which charge a $1.75 one-way fare, account for 4,600 riders everyday.
The bus on Route 30 left the transfer center with four passengers, but eventually a dozen or so passengers came aboard. It was a sedate group. Few riders wanted to be photographed or to talk about public transit. After I got off the bus, it occurred to me that maybe the riders were ashamed. It was as though there’s a stigma attached to riding a bus in a region where most people prefer to commute alone.
Jeff Whitten settled into a mid-row seat. The 20-year-old lives in Atlanta and works as a salesman for a furniture store off Pleasant Hill Road. His is a two-hour journey. He takes a MARTA train from the Ashby station to Five Points and, finally, to the Doraville station. There, he hops on the No. 10 local route and takes it to the transfer center off Satellite Boulevard. He catches the last bus there.
He praises Gwinnett transit, ‘cept for one thing.
“I wish the buses ran every 10 minutes rather than every 15,” said Whitten, a sophomore at Georgia State University.
Tiffany Thomas hopped on at a stop off Steve Reynolds Boulevard. She takes the bus to her job as a manager at an Arby’s off Peachtree Parkway. She’s originally from Madison, Wis., where buses run later hours on weeknights and more regularly on weekends. Gwinnett bus service doesn’t run on Sundays.
“I just use it to go to work,” Thomas said.
Neither Whitten nor Thomas have vehicles.
Me, I’ve got a car. Would I take the bus to work?
If I could, I would.
— 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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Parents to be informed on new discipline policy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Gwinnett branch of the NAACP has planned a Sunday get-together, and no — it’s not a gathering to honor embattled Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick.
It’s a “Back to School” event, being held to inform and educate parents, students and teachers on some timely topics.
The first one deals with the new disciplinary code for Gwinnett schools. The school system has made changes to its student conduct rules because records showed that a disproportionate percentage of minority students were the ones who faced expulsion.
Last year, about 68 percent of 2,218 Gwinnett students who appeared before district-level discipline panels were black or Hispanic, according to school district records. Yet black or Hispanic students made up about 44 percent of the district’s enrollment at the time.
Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks wisely put together a task force to look into the matter. That 49-member group included some local NAACP members. The net result of the panel’s work is a uniform disciplinary code that clarifies rules and procedures. It also lessens the chance that prejudices or racism will creep in when punishment is meted out.
“We believe that the work done by Dr. James Taylor [executive director of academic support for Gwinnett public schools] and the committee is really good and a step forward for students and teachers,” said Jennifer Falk of Duluth, who chairs the local NAACP’s education arm. “It’s early in the [school] year; we want to get the information out. Hopefully, there won’t be as much turmoil during the course of the school year. That doesn’t need to happen.”
The second forum topic deals with an issue I wrote about in July — the 2007 youth health survey conducted by the nonprofit Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services. More than 30,000 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders answered questions about sex, alcohol, drugs and violence. Results show high-risk behavior is on the rise among students of middle school and high school age.
Related link: Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services 2007 Youth Survey (PDF)
Ellen Gerstein, who oversees the coalition, told me that parents, generally, suffered from the “it’s not my child” syndrome. She expressed dismay that so few parents, as groups or individuals, had contacted her office to request a presentation or just to talk about the survey results. Gerstein’s concern compelled the NAACP to make her a forum panelist. “It’s a natural link to have her come,” Falk told me. “I thought the information was important.” So is the general idea for the forum.
See, this is an event that reaches deeper than Mr. Vick, who has been suspended from NFL play and lost lucrative endorsement contracts because he faces allegations of dog fighting. He’s a sports celebrity with bags of money to hire an ace legal team. He doesn’t need a human rights organization to rally people on his behalf, as about 200 fans did on July 29 at the Georgia Dome. He doesn’t need the NAACP Atlanta chapter to ask the media and public to withhold judgment and cease vilification. And he’s done nothing to be honored, as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had pledged to do last week at its 49th annual convention in Atlanta, before rightly nixing the idea. Vick definitely deserves due process.
Not a public defender, caretaker or watchdog.
Yet so many kids do. The Gwinnett NAACP and its leadership know this. It recognizes the need to teach our children, all children — to serve them and combat ills that conflict them — since its reactivation in 2004 by the late Rev. John Stewart Jr.
And from college tours to youth summits to blood drives and education forums, it has done so humbly, outside the glare of the spotlight.
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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Do’s and don’ts of homeownership should be taught
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Do you have time to be bothered by an old lady?”
An 81-year-old woman was on the phone. She’d called for help with some problems in her neighborhood, Beaver Bend Estates, a 41-house subdivision off Beaver Ruin Road.
This widow asked that I not disclose her name but said she was speaking on behalf of elderly women who live in the neighborhood. Their issues are familiar to many. There’s the house with anywhere from 10 to 14 cars parked in the driveway and yard. And one whose owners put French doors on the garage and may be using it as an apartment.
None of this may seem particularly egregious — unless you live next to it.
Related link: Gwinnett Coalition for Health and Human Services 2007 Youth Survey (PDF)
In the past, I’ve written about the need for us to stay put, to work with our homeowners groups or bond with other caring neighbors to fight decay. But there’s a vital piece to this puzzle that, as far as I can tell, is still missing, and even though it’s a dicey subject, it needs to be addressed.
People of all ethnicities violate laws related to overcrowding, junk vehicles, outdoor storage, commercial vehicle parking and other issues. When I went on a tour of Beaver Bend with the senior citizen who called me, she made a point to say that a white homeowner was one of the chief offenders.
Often, though — and if you’ve ever witnessed Recorder’s Court, you’d know — violators are recent arrivals. Immigrants. Generally, Hispanics.
In their defense, some may be first-time home buyers or urban dwellers, ignorant to the do’s and don’ts of homeownership. Perhaps they need to be taught.
Too bad Latino advocacy groups don’t make this a pillar of their community service. And if they did, Gwinnett would be ground zero for teaching and training. Maybe, in the big scheme of things, knowing that it’s illegal to park a dozen cars in a front yard isn’t a top priority. But in Gwinnett, a destination point for immigrants, it’s an important issue, because not knowing leads to dislike, anger and misunderstanding.
On its Web site, the Latin American Association lists several programs offered to help Latinos reach self-sufficiency. Programs that build families, lead to employment, even homeownership.
But I didn’t see any class or information about taking care of that home and assimilating into the community once the organization teaches participants how to get it financed and purchased.
On Friday, I called the LAA and left a detailed message on what I was doing for the person who handles media calls. Her voice mail said she was available, but I never got a return call.
When it comes to neighborhood cleanup, Paul Allen of Norcross looms large. He’s tried several times to get Latino advocacy groups on board, to help the cause. A few years back, the Mexican Consulate of Atlanta sent an interpreter to attend a homeowners meeting.
Besides that, “we’ve had zero response,” Allen told me in an e-mail.
“I just want them to realize that my neighborhood is not Tijuana, nor will it be allowed to become such.”
In a neighborhood where buyers of existing homes tend to be Hispanic, that’s what an 81-year-old woman is trying to prevent, too.
— 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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Long-timer feels Gwinnett has hit the skids
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This column was supposed to be about Smitty Highsmith, a Snellville retiree who handcrafts wooden portraits of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as appreciative tokens for their families.
Unfortunately, Mr. Highsmith took ill late Tuesday and called to cancel Wednesday’s visit by the Badie Tour. We’ll reschedule.
For today, I have Joe Nieves, an AJC Gwinnett News reader, to thank for a column topic that probably concerns many people with a local ZIP code.
Nieves of Duluth has lived in the county for nearly three decades. In the past 10 years or so, though, he barely notices the county he fell in love with.
Call it the “too much/too many syndrome.”
Too many people, too much crime, too much traffic, too much of a decline in quality of life, he wrote in an e-mail.
“My God, so soon a county goes down the drain. … That breaks my heart.”
Makes him mad, too.
“I blame the politicians for all that goes wrong,” he continued. ” … Property values drop due to the gangs, people not caring about their homes and people selling cheap.”
I moved here from Orlando in 1997. That year, Gwinnett and its unincorporated communities had 11 murders. Last year, there were 40 homicides, a figure that may well be broken given the current pace.
Lee, my brother, lives on the south side of Atlanta. Whenever we talk, the subject of Gwinnett’s crime usually comes up.
“There’s always something going on in Gwinnett,” he says. “Always in the news.”
When I speak to civic groups, I invariably get asked for my take on the county — where it’s going. I struggle. It’s hard to peer into the future and see roses when so much of the current news begets thorns.
“Gwinnett County is NOT GREAT,” wrote Nieves, who used capital letters. “The sign should come down from the water towers.”
You tell me: Is Mr. Nieves overreacting or on point?
• 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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Searching for something public schools lack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We sat in a booth, biding time as chaperones for a church youth trip, when the topic of education came up.
He’s the father of two boys. Neither one of them has ever attended a public school. For them, it’s either been private school or home schooling.
It’s not that the Tucker parents have anything against public school or parents whose kids attend them. They just want something different, something they sense public education generally lacks.
And finally, after six years of a satisfying experience in a local elementary school, my wife and I do, too.
This fall, Miles enters sixth grade. Middle school. It’s where youngsters navigate that netherworld be-tween middle school and high school, confronted by pre-teen issues along the way.
As a nation, we still haven’t figured out how best to teach this age group. Should sixth-graders stay on elementary school campuses an extra year? When’s the best time to introduce algebra?
When I talk to Gwinnett parents, one issue typically surfaces, even if they are satisfied with their son or daughter’s school. They wonder if their kids are being taught to think, if they’re challenged to do so. Good question.
The push is on to hold teachers accountable, but the means to that end have focused on what percentage of students do best on standardized tests. We rank “good” schools from “bad” ones and sort, suppress and permanently label young minds.
Some parents want a better way. We do. As Miles enters his transitional phase, we want him to be encouraged to dream big.
It’s something that Ron Clark, the 2000 Disney National Teacher of the Year, instills in kids — to be adventurous. To rise up.
He turned disadvantaged students at public schools in rural North Carolina and inner-city Harlem into high achievers. And yes, they tested well, too. His experiences are the subject of a movie, “The Ron Clark Story.”
My wife found out that Mr. Clark is opening The Ron Clark Academy, a school for fifth- through eighth-graders in south Atlanta. The curriculum, which follows the state’s standard course of study, will include, art, dance, music and business leadership classes.
Students will take educational trips around the world. If all goes as planned, students will have visited six of the seven continents by the time they are in eighth grade.
In addition to international travel, they’ll take local field trips. A trip to a bowling alley will likely become a math lesson back in the classroom. Parents must volunteer 40 hours a year at the campus, which is housed in a renovated warehouse near Turner Field.
The inaugural class is made up of of 60 students from various socioeconmic backgrounds. They were selected out of an applicants’ pool that totaled nearly 350.
The first day of school is Sept. 4.
Miles can’t wait.
For more information about the Ron Clark Academy, visit www.ronclarkacademy.com.
Searching for something public schools lack• 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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A life ends just as a fresh start is in the offing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He wasn’t always estranged from family. Back in the day, Craig A. Molnar baby-sat his two nieces. He took care of his sick mother till she died in 1998. And when he worked for a carnival in Dearborn, Mich., he treated relatives.
“He was a fun and cool uncle,” said niece Angela Sandau of Deerborn. Molnar collected and traded comic books as a kid. He loved rock ‘n’ roll. He enjoyed working with his hands, and dabbled in construction and other jobs after he quit school in the 11th grade. He and his mother suffered from asthma and other lung-related diseases. He lived with her in a Michigan apartment where he was the maintenance man. She suffered an agonizing death at the age of 73. Molnar, apparently, never got over it.
“When she passed away, he became distant and, I think, a little depressed,” Sandau wrote in an e-mail. “When someone that meaningful leaves you, sometimes you don’t know how to react.
For relief, relatives said Molnar abused drink and drugs.
“He was on a merry-go-round,” said Pam Gran, 48, the oldest of three Molnar siblings and a resident of Redondo Beach, Calif.
About 10 years ago, the 30-something Molnar joined the traveling carnival circuit. He stayed in touch with his sisters, though. Gran moved to California in the mid-1990s; Peggy Ktokiewicz, 42, still lives in Deerborn. Molnar would check in via telephone, make sure they had his address.
“He was doing a pretty good job in the circus,” Gran told me in a telephone interview. “But when you have a bad addiction, money can bring you down.”
About a year ago, the calls ceased. Relatives speculate that Molnar probably stopped communicating because he was ashamed of what he’d become —- a homeless addict. They also think he may not have wanted the family to see him suffer like his mother had.
The last time the sisters heard anything was in January via a local social worker. They learned that their brother was in the hospital, critically ill, and that he’d been living in woods in and around Lawrenceville. He was close to death.
Ktokiewicz made plans to pay a visit. Molnar, for whatever reasons, checked himself out of the hospital. It marked the last time they ever heard anything from or about him.
Until Monday.
For the past several months, Molnar had lived in the Villa Inn Lodge & Suites, an extended-stay hotel in Lawrenceville. Initially, the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry paid for his room, as well as a dozen or so medications to treat his lung illness. His became a regular face at the nonprofit ministry, and not to receive aid. He attended church and performed odd jobs. He was sober, too.
Linda Freund, the nonprofit’s director, helped Molnar get his Social Security card and file for disability pay. The first check arrived in June, with back pay. He opened a checking account and paid advance rent for his room. When we talked, he was cheerful.
Last week, though, Gran got the dreadful call. Molnar, 46, had been found dead in his hotel bed. Authorities have not released the cause of death.
His wallet contained a tattered piece of paper with a name and address. Pam Molnar. Freund, thanks to the Internet, tracked her down.
Today, a memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. in pavilion No. 3 of Rhodes Jordan Park in Lawrenceville. Relatives from Michigan —- Molnar’s sister Ktokiewicz and two nieces —- were to drive down Friday. They’re bringing photos of Molnar when he was a baby and young man.
Freund told me that a homeless man suggested the location for the memorial. The park abuts woods that Molnar used to sleep in.
And where many friends may still reside. 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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Used-car salesman with heart
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He’d been a fraud investigator for three years when his boss suggested he go into business for himself. It was a nice way to tell Ron Rigdon his services were no longer needed.
One day, Rigdon and his wife, Debbie, were driving down West Pike Street in Lawrenceville when traffic slowed. Rigdon spotted a defunct car lot to his right with a “For Rent” sign.
“I looked at Debbie and said, ‘Honey, let’s sell some cars.’ ” he said. “I knew nothing about the car business.”
But this country boy, whose grandfather was the late Mack McCollough, a Lawrenceville police chief, knew how to survive.
With a $20,000 equity line, he launched Ron’s Auto Sales Inc., in 2002. He couldn’t afford to buy any vehicles so he put his 1996 Ford F-150 in the lot. (It wasn’t on the lot long. About a week, selling for $8,200.) He arranged consignment deals with folk trying to sell privately owned vehicles. A family friend who ran a used-car dealership lent Rigdon 10 cars to beef up inventory.
Today, Ron’s Auto Sales is located at 366 W. Pike St., a mere two blocks from its original location. Only difference: The Rigdons own the business.
Last week, the boss of an East Point car dealership apparently snapped and killed two employees who had been hounding him about raises. He told police he had been under a lot of financial stress.
This story got me to thinking about family-run dealerships, how they don’t have the franchise budget to rely on when business goes south. Research led me to Ron’s Auto Sales Inc., where the Badie Tour stopped Wednesday.
Ron Rigdon attributes my visit to divine intervention. He does more than sell cars, but more on that later.
The Rigdons know what it’s like to weather the ups and downs of the used-car business, an industry not for the faint or fickle.
“If you aren’t prepared for the down times — and right now, the times are slow — you’re in trouble,” Debbie Rigdon told me. “[The East Point dealer] probably didn’t have the money to pay his bills.”
And there are many to pay, noted Ron, her husband of 30 years.
“Everybody wants a piece — the parts store, the tire store, the dent repair man, the advertisers, the detailers and the auction house” that you bought the cars from, regardless of whether they sell or not.
Their business expects to sell about 250 cars this year, for a gross revenue of nearly $3 million. July’s been brutal, though. Only 17 vehicles moved.
For the record, I’ve never bought a car from Ron’s. Before venturing out Wednesday, I checked with the Georgia Better Business Bureau and found no record of customer complaints on file.
Ron Rigdon, a Clark Howard fan, abhors the gimmicks, half-truths and hagglings that take place at some franchises, practices that Mark Solheim, automotive writer for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine, says sullies the car-buying experience for the consumer and the deal-makers.
Apparently, Ron Rigdon likes helping others. He’s established Circle Heart Racing, a race team in which proceeds benefit Speedway Children’s Charities, a NASCAR-sanctioned nonprofit that supports programs for special-needs kids. Rigdon drives the car on the circuit; sponsors and donors pledge money. His 2007 goal is $10,000 and he’s right at $7,800.
“I wanted my racing to be more than just pleasure for me,” he said. “I want it to mean something.”
For more information about Speedway Children’s Charities, visit www.speedway charities.org or contact Ron Rigdon at 404-925-7350.
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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