Publisher Notes...

A Christmas Present -- and Past

2011-12-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

For Christmas 1961, I received my very first record, a 45 rpm – “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t be Late),” which I still own. And if you know the song, yes, my brothers and I did get a Hula Hoop too.
That song has a line that expressed how we felt as kids: “We've been good, but we can't last; hurry Christmas, hurry fast!”
When we were children, the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was the longest of the year. Now, as adults, that month has become the shortest.
I can recall, at ages five, six and seven, how Christmas was the most exciting time of all. I became so excited every Christmas Eve that my temperature would shoot up, and my mom had to cool me down.
I had a vivid imagination and would lie in bed Christmas Eve absolutely sure I heard something on the roof – perhaps a sleigh, a hoof?
The decades have now passed, but still, on this special and magical night, that wonder and excitement can be recaptured. It may be found in the warm glow of a flickering candle, in the familiar sound of a Christmas carol, in the comfort of family gathered around us, in the wide eyes of an innocent child.
At Christmas, we need to pause and celebrate and remember those who help make our daily travels through this world a little better. If you will indulge me a moment, I want to publicly thank our hard-working team at The Tifton Gazette. Many of them work quietly behind the scenes to serve our community, to bring you a daily snapshot of our world.
The Gazette has a long and proud tradition serving our community since 1888. The newspaper is more than a business; it is a public trust. We have evolved into more than a printed newspaper, of course – our digital offerings continue to grow, and we are always online at your fingertips.
But some things do not change: We still tell you what’s happening down the street; what local folks are up to; what items are for sale in town. We strive to offer information that will make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, and make you care.
And, help you through your day.
We have a good, committed team at your newspaper; please join me in thanking them for their service.
Every year at our annual office Christmas lunch, I recite my own Tifton Gazette version of the “The Night Before Christmas.” Some of our team members have suggested that I share it with you.
In it, you may recognize some of the names of our staffers:

“The Night Before…”

T’was the night before Christmas when all through the Gazette,
No one was stirring except the newsroom, which hadn’t left yet.
The pages were sent to the pressroom with care
In hopes they would find everything they needed there.

Our front desk was empty, the next edition was nearly ready;
And Angie was gone, as was Iris, Mendy and even Jetty.
Rachel was waiting patiently by the phone
In hopes there would be no delivery issues to make her groan.

We had finally completed all the late ads, including
Hundreds of Christmas photos submitted by proud moms and dads.
The ad team was home recovering from a sales blitz
While visions of dollar signs gave them all fits.

The weather was cold but there was no chance of snow;
But if it did we surely would call Latasha, Bren, Steve and Flo.

Our delivery contractors were completing their appointed rounds;
They went all over the county, all over the towns;
But we heard them exclaim as they drove out of sight:
“Merry Christmas to all and to the Gazette a good night!”

And to you all, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Frank Sayles Jr. is publisher and advertising director of The Tifton Gazette.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns

2011-07-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

My third-floor apartment during college had no air-conditioning. I spent little time there during the oppressively hot, summer days and not much more time there during the sweltering, summer nights.
Instead, I would find refuge along the nearby river, seeking a breeze in the thick, heavy air, or my buddies and I late at night would slip surreptitiously into the local yacht club’s blue, shimmering swimming pool, trying not to disturb the private club’s snoozing guard.
We weren’t always successful.
A friend in those days used to lend me some of her record albums, and I was reminded of one recently while moving deliberately through the scorching South Georgia heat – Joni Mitchell’s “The Hissing of Summer Lawns.” That jazz-infused album takes me right back to the summer of ’76, America’s bicentennial summer.
That red-white-and-blue summer of fireworks, picnics, ships in the harbor, trips to the beach and days in the sand is now 35 years gone. I was working part-time at a movie theater as an usher: taking up tickets and tearing them in half, walking up and down the darkened aisles with my flashlight and shushing rowdy kids.
The old theater smelled of old popcorn but was dark and cool, and was a welcome retreat from the hot, bright intensity of the day outside. Often, I’d climb up to the projection room to visit Al, the projectionist, who was about my age and didn’t go to college. He worked six days a week at several jobs, including one at a local restaurant. Al had a wry sense of humor. He was a small, wiry guy and no stranger to hard work. I once ran into him on the street, and it seemed odd not seeing him working. He looked out of place.
There are several scenes from that summer that stand out. One involves an engagement party. A friend had become engaged to another student, a beautiful, dark-haired girl from Puerto Rico, whose parents were visiting. My friends’ parents hosted a small, backyard party for the future in-laws. Several of our crowd were invited, and I brought along my guitar, which I often did in those days.
After dinner, we sat under the darkened summer sky. Candles flickered on tables as I strummed some old Beatles and Paul Simon tunes, and we all sang along. The Puerto Rican father, who sported a big smile and an even bigger mustache, told us about a similar setting from his own youth: He had once attended a party with a guitar and a singalong, and he said that the moment had been so perfect that, after a particular song, the guitarist stood up and smashed his instrument because he realized that that one perfect moment could never be repeated.
I grasped my $99 guitar close to my body lest anyone got any ideas.
Later that same night, as if we didn’t want the evening to end, some of us wound up outside the home of another friend. Under the canopy of summer stars, we talked until nearly dawn, heady with youth and life and libations. The rest of the world was asleep, and a stillness enveloped us, broken only by the hissing blue lawn under the moonlit sky.
In that perfect moment, we are always young, it is always just before dawn, and the world is always summer.

Thoughts for the Class of 2011

2011-05-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

Twenty-three years ago, when I was managing editor of a newspaper in West Virginia, I was asked to be the commencement speaker for Montcalm High School’s graduation ceremony in Mercer County – the middle of coal-mining country. I can’t recall everything I said to that class but I do remember that I recited a quotation by George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say ‘why;’ I dream things that never were and say ‘why not.’ ”
I exhorted them to dream big and told them that anything is possible.
Last Saturday was Tift County High School’s graduation, and my son was among the graduates. I would offer today’s graduates the same message I imparted more than two decades ago. Yes, the world is much different today. Information comes at us with lightning speed from a variety of electronic sources.
Today, we can send instantaneous text messages to each other in real time. When I was in high school in the early 1970s, I used to go down to the corner phone booth to call my girlfriend in order to have some privacy away from my pesky brothers at home.
In those days, gasoline was only 39 cents a gallon, and I was able to get a decent used car for $100. Computers were behemoths that took up a whole room, and nobody had one at home.
The world has changed greatly and will continue to do so. Change is constant, and change is both a challenge and an opportunity.
But I would remind today’s graduates that the most important things in life do not change throughout the years. They remain as important and as true as ever. They include love, faith, honesty, ethics, friendship, selflessness and perseverance.
Love is something that comes only when we open our hearts. We cannot go looking for it; instead it comes to us when we are ready to accept it.
Faith is belief in that which we cannot physically see but that we know exists. God works through our lives, oftentimes behind the scenes, but He is there nevertheless. Accept it.
Honesty is being true to one’s self. Do not try to deceive yourself or others for it will not work in the long term. Be truthful and fair in all you do, and you will live a happier life.
Having ethics is more than being honest; it is striving to do the right thing, even if no one is looking. It is a code of living.
Friendship is part of the fabric of life. Everyone may not be your friend or wish to be your friend, but that doesn’t mean you should not be friendly toward them. We ultimately get back what we give.
Selflessness is putting others before you. By helping others, we help ourselves. We can have a positive impact on another’s life.
Perseverance is one of the most important qualities one can have. Never give up. As President Calvin Coolidge once said, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
So as the Class of 2011 leaves the shelter of high school and advances into the world at large, I would exhort its members to dream big and to act upon those dreams, seeing all obstacles as opportunities. And I also would humbly remind them, as President John Kennedy said, that God’s work on Earth is truly our own.

Reagan’s enduring legacy

2011-02-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Feb. 6, would have been Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday. There are celebrations and commemorations scheduled throughout the year in observance of the late president.
As I’ve written before, as a young political journalist I had the opportunity to interview and cover Reagan as a candidate and then as president. I found him engaging and authentic, that is, compared to most other politicians; with Reagan, what you saw was who he was.
But only to an extent. The first time I met Reagan was in 1979 just before he announced his candidacy. Earlier that year, I had already met President Carter at a press briefing in the White House’s Cabinet Room. Comparing the two men, I had found Carter more intelligent and knowledgeable about the world.
It was only later that I realized Reagan was deceptively much smarter than he sometimes appeared. His folksy manner could disarm people and cause them to underestimate him, a trait found among some Southern politicians.
Nowadays, Reagan is revered and is considered among our first tier of U.S. presidents. But that was not always so, especially during his first term in office.
I covered a speech President Reagan gave on Sept. 20, 1983, at a fundraiser for U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond in Columbia, S.C. I recently pulled out my notes from that night to see what Reagan was saying during his first term. Here is an excerpt:
“Now, it's true, some people don't seem to like anything we do. Our opponents resist our budget savings. They oppose our tax cuts. And they complain that all their special interests have been hurt,” Reagan said.
“Well, common sense is about as common in Washington, D.C., as a Fourth of July blizzard in Columbia, South Carolina. There's a great sympathy in Washington for practically any scheme to spend money.”
He added: “We didn't go to Washington to raise taxes. We went there with a radical idea: To put this economy and the destiny of this great nation back in the hands of you, the people. And that's exactly what I think we've begun to do.”
Reagan asked the audience to “take a look around us. America is getting well, and she's getting strong. We've got a recovery train going. And rather than whine and carp and complain, the misery merchants should get on board and help us keep America moving forward. And if they can't do that, then let them get out of the way.”
He also noted how important it was for Republicans and Democrats to work together for the common good: “I'm a firm believer in the need for bipartisan cooperation, especially in foreign policy where politics should stop at the water's edge.”
Reading my notes from that long ago speech, I am struck by its overall positive and uplifting tone. And that is one of the secrets to Reagan’s success and to his enduring legacy.

His predecessor, Jimmy Carter, meant well and was absolutely correct when he said the nation’s energy crisis in the late 1970s was the “moral equivalent of war.” But Carter appeared to be telling the nation to sacrifice and lecturing Americans on their “crisis of confidence.”
Americans do not want a president to lecture them and to tell them how bad things are; Americans want their president to exude confidence and to appeal to the better angels of their nature.
Here is how Reagan ended that speech in South Carolina:
“I believe one word sums up the difference between today and 1980: Hope – hope is being reborn in America. A better future awaits us, and together, we can make America a nation of winners again.
“So let us have faith; let us go forward, remaining true to our vision of progress. It begins with your families, churches, schools and neighborhoods. We don't ask the people to trust us; we say trust yourselves, trust your own values, and working together, we'll make America great again,” Reagan said.
“I assure you, the future is very bright indeed.”
Without a doubt, Ronald Wilson Reagan sincerely believed that, and so did the nation.

A Magical Season Begins

2010-12-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

The late autumn and early winter is a special time. The skies are never more blue; the air, never more clear. The evenings are brisk and we toss a few logs onto the hearth and illuminate our room with the flickering light from the crackling wood, the colorful flames dancing before us.

This is a season of reflection and of celebration. Family members and friends gather as we are thankful for the bounty in our lives, for all that we have and have ever had. We reflect upon those seasons past and look ahead to those yet to come. We remember the holidays of our youth and the smiling faces and comforting embraces of those no longer among us. We say a prayer of thanks for today because these are indeed the good old days of tomorrow.

All of us, no doubt, recall a special Christmas from our lives. Mine is the Christmas of 1967, the only White Christmas of my youth. I grew up in Virginia and, although we received some snow each winter, we never seemed to get any snow around the holidays.

That changed on the Saturday morning of December 23 that year. At midmorning on that cold day, sleet began falling. My grandfather came by and picked up my dad and they went out to get firewood. My mom was in the kitchen doing her Christmas baking, making cookies, pies and bread.

By early afternoon, the sleet had become real snow -- and it was sticking to the ground! My brothers and I bundled up and went outside to throw snowballs. The mailman, who made his rounds on foot around town and whom we kids got to know, delivered some last-minute Christmas packages to us in the mail.

That evening, all of my grandparents were at our house for dinner. Following the meal, as snow flew outside the windows, my dad put on some music and my grandparents got up and danced with one another in the living room before the warmth of the fireplace. It was the first time I had ever seen my grandparents dance.

The next day, Sunday, Dec. 24, was cold and overcast. The snow had stopped falling but it was too cold for any of it to melt. We built a snowman, getting a long carrot from the refrigerator for a nose.

That evening, Christmas Eve, my little brothers and sister were beside themselves with excitement. My family had a tradition that allowed each child to open one gift on Christmas Eve just before bedtime ... and that gift was always, and I mean always, a new pair of pajamas.

I recall all of us sitting around our flickering fireplace that night in our cozy new pajamas listening to "Silent Night" while the lights on our Christmas tree reflected upon the snow, in an array of colors, outside our windows.

Already, it was a magical Christmas and it became even more magical when we awoke on Christmas morning. Outside a second-floor window, on the snow-covered roof over our front porch, was a pair of what looked like sleigh tracks cut through the virgin snow.

How did they get there? There was no valid explanation for them. My siblings were absolutely sure they were from Santa's sleigh -- case closed, as far as they were concerned. Many years later, my mom admitted that she had gotten my dad to hold her by the ankles while she stretched out an open window and carved the tracks in the snow on the roof late that frigid Christmas Eve as the rest of us slept.

Those moments in time are special to me: My grandparents are now long gone as is one of my brothers. But those memories of Christmas 1967 still make me smile. And even though there is little chance of us having a White Christmas below the “gnat line,” the magic of the season remains the same no matter the weather, or the year, or even the time of man.

Gnats are small price to pay for living in God’s Country

2010-08-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

"LIFE BELOW THE GNAT LINE"

A friend from Virginia has asked me about the name of this column and it got me to thinking.

The Gnat Line is strictly a Georgia phenomenon. I have lived in Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, and no one else has a real “gnat line.”

Now, don't get me wrong; South Carolina has more than its share of gnats and “no-see-ums,” but there really isn’t a gnat line. I’ve lived in Columbia as well as in Charleston and gnats are as bad in the capital city as they are along the coast there.

By the way, there’s a lot of hot air in Columbia, especially around the Statehouse, which may have something to do with it.

In South Carolina, which is a small state geographically, there are three distinct regions: the Lowcountry, the Midlands and the Upcountry.

In Georgia, a much larger state, we have only North Georgia and South Georgia, divided by the Gnat Line.

(Of course, we also have Metro Atlanta but that is increasingly becoming a synonym for North Georgia as the metro boundaries keep expanding like Oprah’s waistline.)

But look at a map of Georgia; you won’t see the Gnat Line demarcated although we all know it runs east to west roughly through Macon.

And it’s not an imaginary line, either. It truly exists. Go too far north in Bibb County and you’re above the Gnat Line. For some reason, the gnats don’t wish to associate with folks up there; perhaps the air is too thin.

For the better part of the past 20 years, I have lived in Georgia – from the top of the state in Dalton to the bottom of the state in Valdosta. And yes, I have seen the Gnat Line first hand and know that the gnats of the southern swamps and ponds and wiregrass do not exist in the northern foothills and mountains and red clay trenches.

The ironic thing is that most of us who live here in South Georgia just don’t really pay much attention to the gnats. Sure, they get a little thick sometimes just before dusk when the air hangs heavily in the humid late-afternoon sunlight but they don’t cause us to go shrieking and running indoors as our Yankee visitors often do.

We have learned to cope, primarily by blowing a quick blast of air from the corner of our mouths upward toward to our eyes, while the uninitiated try hopelessly swatting at the tiny insects and lathering themselves with a thick layer of deep woods bug repellent, that odiferous summer cologne.

Complaining about gnats does no good so we have learned to live with them. It’s a small price to pay for residing in God’s Country where fruit and vegetables grow plentifully, where the weather is temperate for much of the year and where folks are neighborly.

Yes, life below the Gnat Line is good … now, if only we could do something about those mosquitoes….

Entering the No Negativity Zone

2010-07-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

All right, let’s agree on some topics and get them out of the way right now: The local economy is soft; unemployment in Tifton and Tift County is at 11.6 percent and even higher in neighboring counties within our market. We have lost thousands of jobs here in the past few years. Consumer spending is not what it used to be.

OK, these are facts that we all can agree upon so let’s accept them. Now, what can we do about them?

We could groan and moan about how terrible things are, thereby perpetuating that state of mind and of inertia while infecting the outlook of others, or we could be positive and build upon our circumstances, finding ways to improve the situation and seeking all opportunities while raising others’ spirits.

Losers see obstacles while winners see hurdles. As Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” In other words, we create our own realities and we operate based upon those “realities.” Auto pioneer Henry Ford knew this. He famously said, “Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.”

I, for one, am tired of hearing negativity around town. I am tired of hearing how things just aren’t what they used to be. OK, so let’s get over it. What can we do to make things better? How can we be proactive, not reactive?

I know there are others who feel this way, too.

We have put up some “No Negativity Zone” signs around our office reminding our team to stay focused on the positive. When they enter our building, they are in the “No Negativity Zone.” Yes, it’s a little thing and some may view it as silly. But think about this: When one looks up and sees the red circle with a slash across the word “negativity,” one cannot help but absorb the message. I’ve even had a colleague tell me that she recently got upset about something and was about to grumble aloud when she saw our sign and was reminded to remain positive.

Change starts within each one of us. Don’t under-estimate your own power to help change the world around you. Just think about what could happen if we made all of Tifton and Tift County a “No Negativity Zone.” Check your negativity at the border; no place here for self-pity or wallowing in misery. When we’re in the “zone,” only constructive thoughts and positive approaches to challenges are acceptable.

If everyone moved forward together, then Tifton and Tift County would move forward – together. We are in a great community. Let us not look at what we’ve lost but at what we have and what we can build upon. What we do today helps determine the type of future we have tomorrow.

Come on and join us in the “zone.” Our future depends on it.

Robert C. Byrd left West Virginia better than he found it

2010-06-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

Some folks have disparagingly referred to the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd as the “king of pork” because the West Virginia Democrat funneled billions of federal dollars to his home state during his record 51 years in the U.S. Senate and record 57 total years in Congress.
But if one has ever lived in West Virginia, especially in southern West Virginia, then he would understand that Byrd was merely helping his neglected state catch up to the rest of the country in education, transportation and opportunity.
Byrd did not build “bridges to nowhere” in the Mountain State; he built bridges and roads that were desperately needed to help people get out of the hollows and around the mountains. When he went to Congress, West Virginia had a grand total of only four miles of divided highway.
And if the federal government was going to build an FBI fingerprint repository anyway, why not construct it in West Virginia? The same goes for a training center and firing range for U.S. customs and border protection officers.
Byrd died the other day at age 92 but his legacy will live on forever in West Virginia. Numerous roads, schools and other public buildings carry his name. His statue is the only one inside West Virginia’s Capitol rotunda.
I first met him during the autumn of 1978. Byrd was the Senate Majority Leader at the time and I was a young weekly newspaper editor in the Virginia mountains, just across the border from West Virginia. Byrd, sporting a bright red vest and carrying his fiddle, came to a National Guard Armory for a political rally for Andy Miller, a former Virginia attorney general who was seeking a vacant U.S. Senate seat against Republican John Warner.
Warner had previously visited and brought along his wife at the time – actress Elizabeth Taylor. (Now, that was an incongruous scene: the elegant Elizabeth Taylor smiling and shaking hands in a dusty, old National Guard Armory in the middle of coal country!)
Byrd reminded me of a bird – an eagle came to mind – with his slicked-back silver hair, his beak of a nose and his quick movements. I conducted a brief interview with him and can now remember only one thing he said: That if Andy Miller was elected to the Senate from Virginia, then Byrd himself “would become the third senator from Virginia,” noting that he would serve the state as if he were one of its elected representatives.
I interviewed Byrd again more than a decade later as a member of the newspaper‘s editorial board in Bluefield, W.Va. The last time I spoke with him was in August 2000, in his hometown of Sophia, W.Va. I was the editor of the local paper there in the county seat of Beckley. Byrd had come home for the groundbreaking of the Coalfields Expressway, a four-lane highway running through the heart of the coalfields between Virginia and West Virginia.
He was in fine form that hot, sunny day and he knew virtually everyone in the audience, greeting them by name. By then, his hair was a shock of white and he was in his 80’s. He had slowed a bit but still moved without use of a cane or wheelchair, which he relied upon in later years.
He was home and he was happy and relaxed. Although his ambition and his oratory had taken him far from the Appalachian “hollers” to the halls of the nation’s Capitol, Byrd was always, first and foremost, a son of the southern West Virginia coalfields. He had never forgotten his hardscrabble existence in those isolated hills and had never forgotten its people and the hard life they had endured. So he did all he could to move West Virginia forward into the modern age.
For those of us who know and love today’s West Virginia, it would likely be a much different place if not for Robert C. Byrd, a self-made man who grew up in poverty and left his world a little better than he had found it.

You're Never Really Far From Home

2010-04-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one must travel to appreciate home even more. It’s true that we often see things more clearly when we are at a greater distance from them.
Recently, I made an extended trip to New England where life is quite different from here in the South. The first difference I noticed was the beds. Now, I’m not saying that all beds in the New England states are rock hard, but, if the place where I was staying is any indication, the beds are harder than any found below the Mason-Dixon Line.
I interpreted this as an example of so-called Yankee efficiency: Beds are made to sleep in, not loll about in on a lazy Saturday morning. When you awake in a hard bed, you want to jump up and get on with your day. When you wake up in a soft bed, the tendency is to roll over and let the bed and bedcovers envelop you in a warm, comforting embrace.
Another obvious difference in the regions involves the food. As everyone knows, once you get north of Virginia and request ice tea, there is no choice – it’s going to be unsweetened. And don’t even try to ask for grits or biscuits with gravy; you’ll be eyed suspiciously as if you’re from another planet.
And, indeed, you are. While traveling through Vermont, I met several people who have never been to Georgia –have never even been close – but their view of the Peach State is obviously colored by books and movies such as “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” We Georgians, and perhaps all Southerners, are seen as residing in a strange and mysterious land of magnolias, Spanish moss and swamp-gothic voodoo.
While visiting a history museum, I found it interesting to see the War Between the States depicted from a strictly Northern view. The attitude was an assumption that the North was obviously right and prevailed as it should.
Those of us who grew up in the South learned that the Civil War was much more complicated than that. Yes, we can acknowledge that it was best that the union was preserved, but we also understand that the world of 1860 was much different; duty, honor and protecting the home fires resonated strongly in the South. Gen. Robert E. Lee, the great Southern general, was offered command of the Northern forces by President Lincoln, but Lee felt he could not turn his back on his beloved state of Virginia and it was his duty to protect her.
Today, our society is much more mobile and regional pride means less. However, we Georgians can learn a few things from modern-day Vermonters. While Vermont is a tiny state, it takes much pride in itself. Everywhere one turns, one sees “Made in Vermont” signs, from doughnuts in the grocery to park benches along a stream. There are shops which promote only Vermont artists and Vermont-made pottery and glassware.
And everyone is familiar with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream with its “Vermont’s Finest” stamp on its label.
It’s also the little things one notices when traveling far from home. While hiking along a recreational path one afternoon in Stowe, Vt., we passed some folks and exchanged greetings.
“How’re y’all doin’? ” one fellow asked.
For an instant, we felt at home again.

Life in a (virtual) "small" town

2010-03-03T07:33:00.000-08:00

Last autumn I finally succumbed to the allure of joining Facebook.com, that online social networking service where you can share thoughts and information with folks you wish to connect with – as long as they wish to connect with you.
It is a great way to share and to get to know more about people. I’ve since discovered things about folks whom I had known for years – and maybe a few things I would rather not know.
Facebook also is a way for one’s worlds to collide. Those of you on Facebook know what I mean.
Let’s say you post something about your day and someone living down the street comments on it, followed by a comment from someone now living in Ashtabula whom you haven’t seen since the sixth grade. Then, an old college buddy residing on the West Coast also adds a comment.
None of these folks may know each other, but you know them (or knew them, anyway) and they know you, and you all are having an online conversation of sorts. It brings together people from different phases of your life.
I am also connected with, or, in Facebook parlance, “friends” with, a few people with whom I’ve never interacted on Facebook. Some of them are folks I knew when I was a kid and we went our separate ways after high school. We were friends 40 years ago and we reconnected on Facebook but we never speak online.
Perhaps we don’t have much in common anymore but we do follow one another’s lives through our Facebook postings and that can be interesting, just to see what someone we once knew is doing these days and how their life has turned out.
One of my Facebook friends is a former colleague in Charleston, S.C., and she recently commented how she enjoys reading about our lives in a small town. Yes, I guess we are in a small town, but I don’t think of Tifton like that. I see us all as being interconnected with the world at large. We are only as small as we think.
And how is life different in a “small” town? Well, we know our neighbors. It’s difficult to go anywhere in Tifton without running into someone you know and stopping to talk. That just doesn’t happen in a bigger place where one can go all over the city without once seeing a familiar face.
I suppose Facebook creates an online “small town” community where everybody knows your name and they’re glad you came. You can bump into folks already conversing and join the conversation, or you can just share your thoughts, your activities and your life.
No matter where we may live, “life in a small town” seems to be something that many of us are seeking.

A beard by any other name…

2010-01-18T07:02:00.000-08:00

It is winter and time to slip on a sweater, so it is also an opportune time for a man to cover his face with a beard.
Well, for some of us, it is not that simple. The men in my family have always had a light beard; there must be some American Indian blood in us somewhere. I have never seen my father with a beard. I recall he had a moustache for awhile in the 1960s (a very short while) and grew his sideburns long in the 1970s, but no beard.
I have read that genetics are responsible for heavy or light beards. There are some guys who can shave in the morning and by noon, they already have a “5 o’clock shadow,” or maybe that should be a “mid-day shadow.” By dinnertime, that “shadow” is a full-fledged midnight mask.
Others of us, however, can get by without shaving on Saturday and not looking too scruffy. But for us, growing a beard takes a real commitment, sort of like tending a garden and hoping something besides weeds will eventually sprout.
One recent Monday morning, I got up, looked in the bathroom mirror and decided not to shave. There wasn’t a lot of forethought to it; I just thought, what the heck, it’s cold outside and the day-old-beard look is popular right now, at least among all the brooding young actors in Hollywood. That I’m not exactly brooding, or all that young, or even an actor is beside the point.
After a couple of days, I did get a few comments such as, “You lose your razor?” and “Are you growing a beard?”
Well, if you have to ask….
During the first few days, or perhaps first few weeks, of beard-growing, there definitely is the “wino phase” in which one looks like the scruffy guy on the street corner with the opened bottle wrapped in a paper bag. That I wasn’t carrying a bottle in a brown paper bag was one of the few things in my favor.
I have read that one needs to give a new beard four to six weeks to really begin coming in. The longest I’ve ever gone is about four weeks, and that was during one summer after returning from a week’s vacation. Summertime, especially in steamy South Georgia, is not the best time to grow facial hair.
Once I had a clean-shaven boss who believed there never is a good time to grow a beard. He was suspicious of anyone with a full beard, probably thinking they were a closet hippie or some fire-bombing radical at heart.
Beards have sometimes gotten some bad press.
For me, the most disconcerting result of not shaving is that some of the hair on my face and neck is growing white, not gray, mind you, but white. How can this be? Yes, I have some gray hair atop my head but it’s not white! Is the bottom of my head older than the top?
As we moved into January, I had not decided whether or not I was committed to continue letting my beard grow. First, I just kept the goatee and mustache. Then, the goatee disappeared. And finally, the mustache ended up in the bathroom sink.
So, for the time being, I am clean-shaven again. But you never know: The winter is not over yet. Don't be surprised if one day you glance my way and see a wino-looking fellow with budding “salt-and-pepper” facial growth; just be sure I'll be the guy carrying a rolled-up newspaper ... and not a brown paper bag.

A tradition continues

2009-11-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

There is a new picture on my office wall. It is an aerial photo taken this past Sept. 5 of a football stadium in Norfolk, Va.
That stadium, Foreman Field, is filled to capacity with fans in the photo as Old Dominion University kicks off its first football season in 69 years. But besides the significance of that moment, the photograph has a deeper, more personal meaning for me; it shows the place that was the center of my life for more than a decade during my formative years.
I saw first my football game there: I saw my first college game there; I saw my first NFL game there; I played there as a high school athlete; I attended outdoor concerts there in college; and, during my college years, the stadium was a spot on campus to sit in the bleachers and talk.
In 1965, my dad took me to my first football game in that stadium to see a semi-pro team, the Norfolk Neptunes. Somewhere, packed away, I still have the football program from that night.
For the next six years, I hardly missed a Neptunes home game. When I was 14, some buddies and I made a banner out of a torn sheet and spray-painted “Go Neptunes!” on it. During a halftime, just before the teams returned, we took the banner to the edge of the field and asked a cop if we could run across the field with the banner.
He nodded and waved us on. A buddy and I took off running, each of us holding up one end of the sheet, to the cheers of the crowd. At midfield, we decided to pivot so that the banner could be read by fans on the other side. As we did our running pivot, my friend lost a shoe and tripped – and we both went stumbling to the ground.
I can still hear the roar of laughter in the stadium from that night.
In the 1960s, the Washington Redskins used to play a preseason game there each year, and I watched quarterback Sonny Jurgenson and the Redskins play the Pittsburgh Steelers and the St. Louis Cardinals. In those days, a kid could walk right up near the locker room door as the players came out for the game and I got a few auto graphs.
A few years later, I played my high school football home games there. My inner city high school, built in 1911, didn’t have its own stadium so Foreman Field was our home. There were a lot of exciting nights there as we went undefeated during our regular seasons, only to lose each year in postseason play.
The stadium, built in 1936 as part of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration, is located on the campus of Old Dominion University, where I attended college. In 1974, I saw the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young perform in the stadium.
Some friends and I had camped all night outside the gate to get a good seat on the field near the stage. I remember Neil Young coming out with a full black beard and none of us recognizing him until he began singing in his distinctive voice.
Besides concerts and other community sporting events, our college stadium was the venue for the school’s soccer team but we, of course, didn’t have a college football team during my school years. The football program had stopped in 1940 and there was frequent talk throughout the decades about resurrecting it.
Finally, this past September, the ODU Monarchs took the field. It has been a great inaugural season for the team: The refurbished stadium has been sold out for every home game and the team has had the best inaugural season of any college football team in history; going into yesterday’s final regular season game of the year – against VMI (Virginia Military Institute) – the Monarchs had an 8-2 record.
Next year’s football schedule includes games against Georgia State and Savannah State. My alma mater’s team obviously doesn’t yet have the storied gridiron traditions of many Georgia schools, but it is busy writing history.
And now, each time I glance at the picture on my office wall, I think back to that boy who first sat in that stadium next to his dad 44 years ago and clutched a program and fell in love with football. I am sure there have been kids sitting in those stands next to their parents this season who have experienced similar emotions.
Thankfully, some traditions continue.

South Georgia is "Zombieland"!

2009-10-20T06:55:00.001-07:00

I saw the film "Zombieland" over the weekend. No, it's not a great movie, just mindless entertainment. The most interesting aspect of the movie is that it was mostly filmed in and around Valdosta and at Wild Adventures theme park.
Folks familiar with Wild Adventures will recognize the park immediately, including the rides Pharoah's Fury, the Doubleshot and the Bug roller coaster, although in the movie the amusement park is supposed to be in California.
Actor Woody Harrelson spends a lot of time shooting at zombies around the park while searching for a Twinkie (you'll have to see the film to understand).
There are some other scenes shot around locales in Lowndes County and about 150 South Georgians were hired as extras -- as zombies -- for the movie.
Reportedly, there was so much secrecy around the filming that some of the extras wondered if they were really part of a reality show about people who merely thought they were portraying zombies in a movie.
Go figure.
This isn't the first time the Valdosta area has been the site of a Hollywood movie. Back in the late '70s/early '80s a low-budget film loosely modeled on the original "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was filmed partially at Banks Lake in Lowndes County, and the late Jimmy Rainwater, a Tifton native and former Valdosta mayor, had a bit role as a man fishing in a boat.
Jimmy once told me that, for years afterward, he annually received a residual check from that movie -- a check for about $1.69!
And that won't even buy a Coca-Cola in the theater these days....

Walking takes us places we never knew

2009-09-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

You never really know a place until you walk it.
That’s my philosophy rooted in my childhood when I used to walk everywhere. I walked to school (kids, can you imagine that?!), walked to the grocery, to drug stores, to the movie theater. All were within a few blocks.
Besides, there were no such things as shopping malls then; everyone went downtown for major purchases.
My walking habits continued through the years. As a teenager and on through college, I walked everywhere.
Nowadays, of course, virtually everyone has to drive to get somewhere. Most walkers now are folks out to get some exercise around the neighborhood, not people actually trying to get somewhere. In many places, there aren’t even any sidewalks to tread anyway. If people walk in these areas, they are forced out into the street.
And in Tifton, if you are walking around town in the middle of the day, more often or not a friend or acquaintance will stop and ask if you need a ride.
During a recent afternoon, as I was driving along Highway 82 in Tifton, I saw an older fellow walking purposefully toward town, facing traffic, shuffling his feet in the gutter beside the curb, keeping a tired eye on the too-close-for-comfort oncoming traffic.
This fellow obviously wasn’t taking a stroll for his health; he was trying to get somewhere under the late afternoon sun.
Perhaps he had just left work; his white T-shirt was freshly dirty and his worn jeans were dusty. He didn’t smile. He didn’t make eye contact with passing drivers. He merely stared ahead as cars whizzed by.
I have a feeling he knows this town better than most of us who drive through in our air-conditioned vehicles. This fellow probably knows the back streets, knows the alleyways, knows the small backyards where children play and dogs bark.
When one travels in a car, he is insulated and isolated from his surroundings. The world can be an antiseptic blur outside the glass window. But walk along a street and feel the sun upon your back, smell someone’s dinner cooking in the distance, hear the rumble and roar of traffic, of people, of life around you.
As the day dawns in downtown Tifton, there are few cars out. The sidewalks are empty except for a lone walker. He strolls past the county courthouse and down Main Street, stopping to gaze at displays in the shop windows.
Soon, the city will come alive once more. Lawyers and secretaries will bustle to their offices. Shopkeepers will unlock their doors and throw on the lights. Clerks will enter banks and prepare for customers. Children will step outdoors to await their school buses.
A few cars gather at a stoplight. Then a few more, and a few more as folks head to work. Voices now fill the air. A new day of possibilities has begun in the Friendly City.
You never really know a place until you walk it.

High School Football is More Than a Game

2009-08-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

High School football is special – it is the purest form of the sport. Many of the students who play do it simply for the love of the game, without thinking about college football scholarships or professional football careers.
There is the excitement of Friday nights under the stadium lights, of the marching band rousing the cheering crowd, of well-executed plays on the long field of dreams. There is the camaraderie of teammates on the bus, in the locker room, on the practice field.
And there are life lessons learned: I know because I was fortunate to play high school football. I was on a team that went undefeated through three regular seasons, won two region championships and reached the state finals. This was at a large, inner city high school.
I wasn’t that talented an athlete but I was able to beat out scores of other guys for a coveted spot on one of the state’s top teams because I wanted it more they did. I was prepared and I was persistent. The experience taught me that talent isn’t enough; preparation and persistence are just as important, if not more important, for success.
High school football also taught me the value of teamwork and how one’s actions affect those around him. It taught me about honor and about pride. It taught me that winning can be a habit and a mindset – and that winning feels a whole lot better than losing, although I learned just as much from our losses, maybe even more.
Another high school football season is about to begin with teams of young men who are playing with passion and with purpose.
They represent our schools and our communities. They play for the love of the game and, we’re hopeful, are also learning lessons that will help them later in life.
Yes, high school football is more than a sport.
We salute these young student athletes and we offer our thanks to the many coaches who spend countless hours working with the youths to help them become better players and, ultimately, better citizens.

40 years later, it's the music that still matters

2009-08-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

The Woodstock Nation.
We have heard this term for decades following the Woodstock music festival held 40 years ago this weekend. But what does it mean?
For those of us who were teenagers then, “Woodstock Nation” represents a moment in time when the world seemed young and full of possibilities – the possibility of peace, the possibility of change and, yes, merely the possibilities of youth and youthful exuberance.
There was a lot of naiveté; just a year later in 1970 when reality began settling in and the ‘60s were finally over, Joni Mitchell sang: “Reading the news and it sure looks bad/They won’t give peace a chance/That was just a dream some of us had.”
To me, what Woodstock really means is the importance of music in our lives and its ability to uplift us and transcend our surroundings. For much of my generation, music was, is and forever will be part of our fabric.
When I think of my youth, I think of music. Perhaps the first popular song I recall hearing on the radio is “Charlie Brown” by The Coasters in 1959 and 1960: “Why is everybody always pickin’ on me?!”
In 1963 and ’64, I had a cheap black-and-white transistor radio with an earpiece (for only one ear; no dual earbuds back then) so I could listen to music at night under the covers in bed. I recall the Searchers singing “Love Potion No. 9” as I lay in the dark.
I saw the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 and have been hooked by their music ever since. During the mid and late ‘60s, I frequently took my Beatles and Monkees albums to my pal Billy’s basement where his family had a large pool table. We hit the balls and sang along with the records for hours .
When Woodstock came along in 1969, I found out about it by reading the daily newspaper (yes, as a teen I did read the newspaper) and by seeing the photos in Life magazine. For me as a young teenager in the South, the Woodstock festival in New York state may as well have been on the moon. My friends and I were not “hippies,” did not smoke cigarettes or anything else, for that matter. But we did share the generational love of music and the transcendental feelings it aroused.
So I understood what Joni Mitchell meant in her song “Woodstock” when she sang:
“ I feel to be a cog in something turning/
Well maybe it is just the time of year/
Or maybe it’s the time of man/
I don’t know who l am/
But you know life is for learning/
We are stardust/
We are golden/
And we’ve got to get ourselves/
Back to the garden”
Forty years later, that “garden” still may be elusive but its path continues to be filled with music.

School furloughs, fall football and tasty recipes!

2009-07-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

The slumping economy has hit most businesses and organizations hard. There have been downsizings, positions left unfilled, even employees forced to take off days without pay.
Teachers and school district employees are now feeling the pinch as well.
As a result of Gov. Sonny Perdue's recent cost-cutting plan, school systems across the state must wrestle with more budget cuts.
Here in Tift County, school employees -- including teachers -- will have to take off three days of work without pay. The Tift County Board of Education says the furloughs will save more than $962,000.

The BOE scheduled the furlough days for this Friday, July 31, either on Aug. 3 or Aug. 4 (up to the discretion of principals and originally scheduled as pre-planning/professional learning days) and Oct. 16 (originally scheduled as a parent conference day).
Superintendent Patrick Atwater says the days won't affect classroom instruction. He told me that the governor's budget cuts translate into a loss of about $1.1 million in state funding for the school system.
Fortunately, the Tift school system ended the fiscal year with enough of a budget surplus to absorb the funding loss but Atwater cautions that more reductions from the state could be on the horizon.
We appreciate the tough job facing our school officials and local educators; educating our youth is one of the most important tasks in our community and we're proud of our educational system.
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Speaking of school, it's difficult to believe that summer is essentially over soon for local students. Tift County classes resume on Aug. 6. Families with children are trying to squeeze in some last few days of summer vacation.
The Tift County High School Blue Devil Brigade marching band is already on the field prearing for the season and Blue Devil football players are gearing up for another year under head coach Jay Walls.
Ah, fall is the best time of year!
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If you are looking for something to do this Saturday, Aug. 1, come on by the Georgia Agrirama for the Great Tifton Taste-Off! Sponsored by our crack team here at The Tifton Gazette, the cooking contest features local folks and their top foods created from favorite recipes vying for prizes.
Plus, the audience gets to taste the dishes once the judges are finished.
The Taste-Off is from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. in the Agrirama conference room.
Y'all come!

Leave No Customer Behind with Good Customer Service!

2009-06-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Businesses must serve a want or a need of their customers, for without customers all of us would have to shutter the doors and go home.
Unfortunately, we encounter situations in which an employee at some business treats a customer as an inconvenience. Even though that business may have a product or service the customer wants, how he is treated may drive him elsewhere.
I once was at a good-sized supermarket – a real supermarket and not a big box store – buying a cart full of grocery items. In the checkout-line, as I fumbled through my wallet looking for my debit card while keeping an eye on the cash register display to ensure the sale items were scanning at the correct price, the young check-out girl was scanning and bagging the items. As the bags began accumulating on the counter, she frowned and said rudely and loudly, “Would you help me please?!” – her voice full of irritation and indignation.
What she was really asking was for me to get the grocery bags out of her way since she wasn’t about to do it. As a customer spending more than $100, was I also expected to pick up every grocery bag on the counter and quickly load them into my cart before they accumulated? Could the checkout clerk have asked for help more politely?
Following that unpleasant experience, I decided to shop elsewhere.
I recall an article in The Wall Street Journal a few years ago about a grocery clerk somewhere in the Midwest who was renowned for her customer service. Customers would drive across town to shop at the store in which she worked, even though there were other stores closer, and would wait in line to check out at her aisle even if other lines were much shorter.
The clerk had a bright, cheery disposition, always remembered each customer and asked about their families and was adept at packing the grocery bags well.
Customers said it was like visiting an old friend and they felt good about shopping at the store.
How front-line employees treat customers can both increase and drive away business. At many businesses, their primary point of customer contact is someone in a clerk position. It is imperative that these workers are well trained, have good people skills and are schooled in customer service.
You can have a great product or service but still lose customers because of missteps by a front-line employee who is your crucial link to your customer base. We need to spend as much time training our workers in customer service as we spend on improving our products.
Without the first, the latter won’t matter.

It's More Than What You Say!

2009-06-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

In nearly every business, there comes a time when one is called upon to make a public report. The circumstances could be informal, such as at an in-house meeting, or it could involve a more formal presentation to a large group. But no matter what the circumstances, preparation is paramount.
Most folks have a real fear of public speaking. Even though 80 percent of our communications are verbal, public speaking is ranked above death and divorce as a human fear, according to Terri Sjodin, a public-speaking professional who trains people how to make effective and persuasive presentations.
“Nothing is more important to your career than public speaking skills,” Sjodin said at a seminar I once attended. She said your audience “will decide to trust you based on you and your personality. You have about 37 seconds to make an impression.”
And it’s not simply what you say, but how you say it and how you appear.

Sjodin has enumerated what she calls the “Nine Biggest Presentation Mistakes” people make.

They are:

1. “Winging” it
2. Being too informative versus persuasive
3. Misusing the allotted time
4. Providing inadequate support
5. Failing to close the sale
6. Being boring
7. Relying too much on visual aids
8. Using distracting gestures and body language
9. Wearing inappropriate dress

While Sjodin was primarily talking about sales presentations, her processes apply to any type of presentation. No matter what information we are presenting, we are attempting to sell something, be it a product, an idea, an action or an attempt to sell ourselves.
Too often, presentations “fail to close the sale,” to ask for the business, to ask for an action.
Before you speak, you must have clearly in mind what action you want the listener to take as a result of your presentation – and you must state it aloud.
Even if your presentation involves selling yourself during a job interview, close the sale and ask for the job. Far too many people don’t do it.
Closing is important in persuasive presentations. Sjodin said that people remember only about 50 percent of the information given to them. Within the first 10 minutes after a presentation, people will lose 10 percent of what they have heard. They will lose another 10 percent in the next three to four hours and will lose another 10 percent overnight. A few days later, they have lost nearly half of the information. If you make a follow-up call a week or more later, you’ll discover that little information is recalled.
That is why it’s important to get people to commit to an action immediately when they receive the information.
By the way, Sjodin repeated the often-recited statistic that women generally are more verbal than men, using 20,000 to 25,000 words daily, while men use only 12,000 to 13,000. Of course, some women say they use more words because they have to repeat everything since men don’t listen the first time….

Don't leave home without it!

2009-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

Advertising slogans, when they are effective, become part of the culture. Years later, they can be readily recalled. For example, remember these from yesteryear?: “A little dab’ll do ya.” (Brylcream); “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking!” (Timex); “It’s the real thing.” (Coca-Cola); “Betcha can’t eat just one!” (Lay’s Potato Chips); “Where’s the beef?” (Wendy’s).
Among the first advertising slogans in the United States was the one in 1840 for William Henry Harrison’s successful presidential campaign: “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!” referring to Harrison’s nickname and his vice presidential running mate, John Tyler.
While most presidential campaign slogans have been mercifully forgettable, a few survive: “Keep Cool with Coolidge!” Herbert Hoover’s “A Chicken in Every Pot.” “All the Way with LBJ!” and Ronald Reagan’s “It’s Morning Again in America.”
In 1964, GOP candidate Barry Goldwater had used, “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right.” Which prompted Democrats to rejoin with, “In Your Guts, You Know He’s Nuts!”
In 1968, Richard Nixon’s campaign slogan was “Nixon’s the One!” – which some headline writers reprised in 1974, noting that “Watergate: Nixon’s the One!”
Perhaps the best presidential campaign slogan belonged to Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 with “I Like Ike.” In fact, most Americans did.
Some notable folks have written advertising slogans. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of “The Great Gatsby,” began his career with a short-lived stint as an ad copy writer in New York, where he penned this slogan for a Muscatine, Iowa, laundry: “We keep you clean in Muscatine.” That earned him a raise.
The pop singer Barry Manilow, early in his career, wrote the ditty “Like a Good Neighbor…” for State Farm Insurance, as well as “I am stuck on Band-Aids, and Band-Aids’ stuck on me!” … not exactly Grammy-winning material but catchy nonetheless.
Slogans can help brand a product and are sometimes an extension of the existing brand. In the 1960s, the coffee industry promoted its beverage as “the Think Drink,” showing people having serious conversations over a cup of java. Years later, that led to “Got Milk?” which can be “Good to the last drop” and “Taste great, less filling.”
And, of course, we all know about the “Breakfast of Champions!” which isn’t “the milk chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” If it was, then it might be “finger-lickin’ good,” but perhaps you wouldn’t be able to say, “Look Ma, no cavities!”
If you find yourself grunting, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” then you may soon be asking, “How do you spell relief?”
Of course, “You deserve a break today!” so, “Just do it!” Go ahead, “Be a Pepper” – “Put a tiger in your tank” and “Fly the Friendly Skies,” but watch out: “When it rains, it pours.”
Yes, “You’ve come a long way, baby,” and “I’d rather fight than switch,” so “Have it your way!”
Listen, “Can you hear me now?” I guess that “Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.”
Anyway, “Don’t leave home without it.” But if you do, “We’ll leave a light on for you….”

Opportunity Knocks!

2009-05-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Opportunity!
Yes, that’s right; opportunity is what we all face in the current economic climate.
Now, I can hear some of you saying, “Wait just a minute. Times are tough. Business is down. Gasoline prices as well as the stock market are all on a rollercoaster. What do you mean we face opportunity?”
Let me explain: Step back for a moment and let’s look at the big picture. There is no denying that some businesses and some workers are facing difficult times. Sales are down in many areas of business. Yet, folks are still spending money; they are merely thinking a little more about how they spend it and what they buy.
For all of us, there are real opportunities to get great deals on many purchases right now. If you have good credit, it’s an exceptional time to get a deal on an automobile and on real estate, for example. There are also many other items, materials and services that have reduced prices. It’s a buyer’s market.
The current economy also should be a catalyst for every type of business to take a long, hard look at what they do and how they do it. Are you selling products and services that fill a real need today? Are your organization and your processes as efficient as they could be? Take this opportunity to get your business positioned correctly and running as well as it should.
But don’t hurt yourself. Don’t cut back on customer service, thereby forcing your customers to go elsewhere. Don’t reduce your marketing efforts so that customers and potential customers will forget about you – out of sight, out of mind. Don’t reduce the quality of your product and services in order to save a buck; your customers will notice.
The businesses that will successfully weather this economic storm – and it is a storm, and no storm lasts forever – will be in a better position to grow and to succeed in the future. As in any storm, it is best to stay calm right now, to take advantage of any opportunities that the storm presents and to adequately prepare for the day when the storm breaks and the sun shines again.
It will, you know, and you don’t want to be the one who’s all wet when everyone else is high and dry under the warm South Georgia sun.

Catching Up

2009-05-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

A lot has been happening lately and I need to catch up on recent events.
Here goes....

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The Gazette once again sponsored the annual Administrative Professionals' Day luncheon and fashion show in late April and we had a good crowd of more than 100 professional women at the Georgia Agrirama's conference center.
As always, B.J. Smith did a great job catering the lunch and our speaker, Mike Chason (aka "The Voice of ABAC"), as he always does, gave a powerful, humorous and inspirational talk.
Beth Lewis handled our master of ceremonies role and kept folks laughing and smiling.
We appreciate the many local merchants who donated door prizes to make the day special for our community's administrative professionals.
And I want to thank sales executive Jody Benson and the rest of the Gazette advertising team for coordinating this worthwhile event. It's a lot of fun.

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The 29th annual Love Affair fine arts festival was held recently and had another successful year. Wayne Jones, Polly Huff and the rest of the crew at the ABAC Arts Connection work hard along with many, many local volunteers to bring this premier arts festival to our region.
I'm proud of the role the Gazette plays in sponsoring the Art in the Heart of Downtown Tifton in which local businesses display local artists' work in shop windows.
As I've often said, there's a lot of talent here in Tifton and it's great to showcase it.
The winners of the Art in the Heart displays won advertising in The Tifton Gazette.
The "Art in the Heart Excellence Award" went to Classic Art and Frames with its window designed by Jose Jimenez and oil paintings by artists Jean Eaton-Gay and Aliyah Jones.
The "Theme and Creativity Award" went to The Big Store window designed by Kara Rentz with watercolors by artist Faith Germishuizen.
The "Downtown Merchandising Award" was a tie: Jenny’s on Main Street, with its window designed by Jenny Shivel and using art by Teresa Carpenter and Dottie Bassett; and Cindy’s Florist on First, with its window designed by Tyrone Barber and decorated with art by Myra Hurst.
Mayor Jamie Cater also gave out awards for the Childrens' Art Exhibit. It was a great kickoff to the Love Affair weekend.

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Our weekly "Concerts in the Gardens" have been attracting large crowds.
Every Friday at noon during the spring and fall, the Gazette partners with Main Street Tifton to bring local performers to the stage at Tifton Gardens along the railroad tracks downtown. Folks bring their lawn chairs, blankets and their lunch and have a good time socializing and listening to a variety of music.
We started these concerts to showcase our local singers and musicians, to bring folks downtown and to help promote that sense of community one only finds in small towns.
This past Friday, the local Southern gospel group "Three for One" performed, which included our own sports editor, Kyle Dean.
On May 15, Tift County High senior Kirsten Underwood will sing. We've watched her grow up on stage during the years as she has appeared at every Concert in the Gardens we've held. She has also sung with Jennifer Nettles of the Grammy Award-winning duo "Sugerland" and Kirsten has performed in venues all over the South.
On May 22, teenager Carmen Savelli takes the stage. A daughter of local physician Dr. Brent Savelli, last summer Carmen worked on Broadway in New York City with producers and choreographers from the productions of "Wicked," "Hairspray" and "A Chorus Line," and played Ariel in Atlanta's Kudzu Theatre's production of "The Little Mermaid."
After Carmen's performance, the Concerts in the Gardens will take a summer hiatus and will resume in the fall when the weather gets a little more temperate.
Hope to see you there!

"Stop the press?" I don't think so

2009-05-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

Nearly every day, discouraging news appears about some company or industry about to gasp its last breath before sinking to oblivion. Those of us in the news media must take responsibility for often reporting the negative aspects of a situation without balancing it with the positive ones as well.
Of course, we must report business closings and stock market declines but everything is not gloom and doom. Forgive me for being parochial, but I get tired of hearing about the so-called impending “death” of newspapers. Even some newspapers masochistically hit themselves over the head by relating nothing but bad news about the industry.
Sure, newspapers are facing some tougher times economically, but so are many businesses. Most people understand that it is advertising revenue that primarily supports the functions of newspapering and revenue is down because of the economy. Those newspapers and newspaper companies that are hurting the most are those, primarily in large cities, that have huge staffs, have huge expenses and have been carrying huge debt.
Most newspapers are still making money and still have a large, solid readership. All daily papers have web sites and, when Internet readers are combined with the readership of the printed product, total readership is especially robust.
For example, just the web sites of our own company’s South Georgia newspapers had a total of 340,459 unique visitors during the month of March. Our South Georgia newspaper web sites also recorded a total of more than 3 million page views during the month. And our daily newspaper print readership totaled more than 110,375 so, obviously, many people are still turning to newspapers for news and information about their communities.
Newspapers are as important to readers and consumers today as they have ever been, perhaps even more so. With the proliferation of dubious content on the World Wide Web, consumers need the experienced, trusted reporting and editing of newspaper professionals. Plus, no one else is going to follow local news as fairly and as thoroughly as your local paper. And there is no better way for businesses to get their marketing messages welcomed into a customer’s home than through their newspaper.
During the early 20th century, there was speculation that radio would eventually kill newspapers; why read when one could merely listen to news and events? Then, a half-century ago, there was talk that television would mean the end of newspapers. Then, in the 1990s, the Internet exploded and again some folks resuscitated the newspaper death watch.
And with today’s tight economy, the doomsayers have gotten louder. Well, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of newspapers’ death have been greatly exaggerated. Some newspapers will close – and that is nothing new in our history.
The Atlantic Monthly in January 1918 noted that daily newspapers in Boston, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans and Portland had either closed or been consolidated within a few years. The main reasons, the magazine noted, was because of "the enormously increased costs of maintaining great dailies" along with declining ad revenues.
There are cycles in every business; through every one of its cycles, newspapering has always survived. I am certain that a century from now, folks will look back on today’s obituaries for the newspaper industry with a bemused smile … and they will be reading about it in their local paper.

Oh well....

2009-04-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, we know about the error in Tuesday's edition.
When I opened the paper yesterday morning, the first thing I spotted was the wrong governmental "contacts" box on the opinion page.
As some of you know (and were kind enough to tell us), there was an old federal contacts box on that page listing President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and their White House contact information.
What happened was this: One of our editors used an old page template with outdated info and no one caught the error until after it was published.
We received some good-natured ribbing from our readers. One fellow called to give us the late-breaking news that George Bush was no longer president.
Stop the presses!
Another called to tell me that he had voted for Bush but didn't want to look at his face anymore.
Still another mused that we were making a political statement and just didn't accept Barack Obama as the new president.
I can assure you it was an honest mistake that should not have happened, but as we all know, mistakes will occur from time to time.
Unfortunately, when a newspaper makes one, it is there in black and white for thousands of people to see.
Thanks to all of our many readers for their eagle eyes and for keeping us on our toes. We appreciate your calls.
Keep reading!

Behind the News

2009-04-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

The recent traffic death of Tifton Police Officer Terry Adams was a sad shock to our community. Our heart goes out to his family and to his colleagues in law enforcement. Adams was involved in driver's training programs at ABAC and at Tift County High School and so a lot of local teenagers got to know him and said he was "a good guy."
We want to remind everyone to drive carefully on our roads and highways and to please be cognizant of flashing lights and sirens on emergency vehicles.

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A recent poll shows the Georgia governor's race is wide open since Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle dropped out.
The poll was taken just before Savannah Republican state Sen. Eric Johnson announced Monday that he was entering the race. Johnson had been seeking the lieutenant governor's office before Cagle unexpectedly withdrew from the governor's race because of health issues.
Our own Rep. Austin Scott of Tifton didn't fare well in the poll, coming in with 2% support among likely voters.
Besides Scott, the GOP nomination race already has attracted Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, leading in the poll with 33% support; and Secretary of State Karen Handel at 14%. The poll shows Savannah Republican Jack Kingston third in the GOP race, even though Kingston has not yet announced.
Among Democrats, former Gov. Roy Barnes, if he enters the race, would have the support of 56% of Democrats. The only other Democratic candidate polling above single digits is Attorney General Thurbert Baker.
You can find the poll results at:

http://www.strategicvision.biz/political/georgia_poll_042209.htm