Update: Crime Stoppers reports that Baynard has been in custody in a Fulton County, Ga. jail since April 2010.
Archive for July 2011
Update: Two Wanted by Madison County Crime Stoppers
Sheriff’s Office To Move To FHP Building
Sheriff Ben Stewart stands in front of his soon-to-be office. The Sheriff was able to obtain a 56-year lease on the building that was dedicated to his friend Jimmy Fulford, who was killed by a bomb on Feb. 1, 1992.
By Jacob Bembry
Greene Publishing, Inc.
Sheriff Ben Stewart and Trooper Jimmy Fulford had many things in common. Like Stewart, Fulford was a devout Christian, a family man and a law officer. They both looked up to their neighbors and followed them into law enforcement. Stewart’s neighbor was former Madison County Sheriff Joe Peavy; Fulford’s neighbor was Trooper B.W. McDaniel.
Because of their common interests and upbringing, Stewart and Fulford became friends. That is one of the reasons that Stewart pursued obtaining a lease on the former Florida Highway Patrol station, which was named in honor of Fulford.
Both Fulford and Stewart worked for the FHP. Stewart, who had worked as a dispatcher for the Highway Patrol, left the year before Fulford began as a trooper. Fulford began with FHP right out of Florida State University, with a degree in criminology. Stewart left to return to work as a dispatcher for Madison County. On Feb. 1, 1992, Fulford’s leaving was far more sudden and unplanned. He was the victim of a bomb that had been planted in a microwave. The bomb was intended for someone else.
It was cold that day when Fulford arrived at work at 3 p.m. at the Madison FHP station. He went on a call to the rest area on Interstate 10 where he helped a woman who had locked the keys in her car. He then spotted a car headed west at 85 miles per hour and stopped the Mitsubishi Gallant in Jefferson County.
Fulford discovered that Lester Watson, the man driving the car, did not have a driver’s license. Fulford arrested Watson on charges of driving without a license and Watson was booked into the Jefferson County Jail. Watson’s passenger, Leroy Williams, asked if he could accompany Watson to the jail.
Fulford discovered that the car had been rented to Paul Howell, of Miami. He had the dispatcher call Howell, who said that he had given Watson permission to drive the car but had not told him to head north with it. During the phone call, Howell never told them that the package contained a bomb that he had intended to send to Marianna to silence a witness who could tie him to a murder.
At the Aucilla exit on Interstate 10, Fulford and Jefferson County deputies Wallace Blount and Robert Harrell searched the car.
Fulford looked through the trunk and saw an empty baby’s bottle and a gift-wrapped package. While waiting for the wrecker to come pick up the car, he searched the Mitsubishi again. He opened the package with his penknife and the bomb exploded, killing Jimmy Fulford.
Fulford’s lieutenant, B.J. Tinney noted that when officers were moving the car away from the blaze so that it would not catch fire, that Fulford’s radio was set to WAFT, a Christian music station in Valdosta, Ga. Officers also noted that Fulford’s watch had stopped at 4:34 p.m.
At Fulford’s funeral, a tape was played of him singing gospel music the First Baptist Church in Monticello, where he served as deacon.
Lester Watson was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Patrick Howell was sentenced to 40 years in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. Other members of the Jamaican drug posse involved in the murder coverup were sentenced to extensive prison terms. Paul Howell was sentenced to die for Fulford’s death.
The FHP building where Fulford was stationed was later named after the fallen trooper. Built in 1967, closed in 2011, Stewart feels that the building will be a perfect fit for the Sheriff’s Office.
Privacy and security concerns were two of the biggest factors motivating Stewart’s pursuit of getting the building. Added bonuses are that the office will be closer to the high school and to Greenville, if law enforcement is needed in those areas.
The Sheriff’s Office is located in the part of the Courthouse Annex that used to house Western Auto. Although they are losing some square footage, for Stewart, it’s quite a step up from the current location.
“The original plans had called for the office we’re using now to be a courtroom and boardroom,” Stewart said. “Plans were for the current boardroom to eventually become a driver’s license office.”
Stewart noted that the lease he had signed was for 57 years and the building is rent free.
“The only thing we will have to pay is the electric bill,” he said.
Somewhere in Heaven, Jimmy Fulford must be looking down with a smile because the building where he used to report for duty will still be used for law enforcement today.
Can You Explain How The Bidding Process Works For New Hospital Construction?
Hot Questions, Hot Topics
By David Abercrombie, MCMH CEO
By David Abercrombie, MCMH CEO
The process of selecting a general contractor to build the new hospital is somewhat long. First, the District board had to decide whether to use a Lump Sum bid process (the conventional method) or go with a Contractor at Risk (C@R) process. They chose the C@R process because it guarantees a maximum price (GMP). If the project goes over the GMP the contractor “eats” the difference. But really the C@R method of construction has several advantages.
With the conventional Lump Sum approach, the contractor is selected based on low price bid. There is no open book budget and if there is any savings it goes to the contractor, not the owner. In my way of thinking, this can encourage a company to cut corners with quality. Another disadvantage of the Lump Sum Approach is that the owner has no control over subcontractor qualifications; nor does the owner have the ability to fast track the project.
With the C@R process, the Hospital District board selects the contractor based on qualifications and a negotiated fee. There is also the advantage of open book accounting. There is the ability to pre-purchase building supplies and services so if there is a saving on the project it is returned to the owner. There is also much greater owner input into the construction schedule.
The USDA approved using the C@R construction method on March 3, 2011, pending their approval of a selection process based on free and open competition and agreement by the USDA in the actual selection of the contractor.
The District sent out a Request for Proposals (RFP) to find construction companies interested in building the new hospital. Seven major general contracting firms from around the state responded. They were from Tallahassee and surrounding area, Gainesville, Orlando and Jacksonville. The companies submitted very detailed proposals. There were nine key parts to each proposal. An example of a key part is: how the contractor intends to advertise for, qualify, and use subcontractors.
A meeting was then set up with the USDA at their Lake City office to discuss the qualification of the contracting firms who submitted proposals, and to go over the process that would be used to select the contractor. The USDA brought in the head of their architectural office from Gainesville, as well as their regional director, to go over the materials and participate in the discussion. The USDA approved all the companies who submitted proposals. The head USDA architect told hospital representatives that the process was proceeding exactly right.
The District board then spent about 10 days reading the seven proposals. A selection grid was developed to score each key part of each proposal. On May 17, a quorum of board members met in an open meeting and participated in the scoring. The key parts of each proposal were given a number from lowest to highest. Each Board member scored all nine key parts included in all seven different proposals. These scores were counted and the contractor with the highest number of points was put at the top of the list. The contractor with the second highest number was put at number two, and so on.
The Board decided to interview those companies with the four highest scores. The four companies were (in alphabetical order) Ajax, Batson-Cook, Childers/Culpepper and Robbins & Morton.
Representatives from each of these four companies were asked to attend a face-to-face interview to defend their proposals. Another scoring grid was developed. A quorum of district board members participated in the open interview on June 6th and once again gave numeric scores, this time based on the key parts of their proposal defense.
The two total scores (from the proposal and from the interview) were added together to get a total score for each company. The four companies were listed from the highest total score to the lowest total score. The interview questions and other materials and documents were then hand-carried (for the purpose of speed) to the USDA in Lake City for their review.
On July 6, the USDA sent the Hospital District a letter stating that “…the USDA/RD concurs that the selected CM [construction management] firm is qualified for the job and the hospital has gone through the appropriate process and proper due diligence for the selection as required by RD [Rural Development] instructions.” The District immediately began negotiations with the high scoring company, Culpepper/Childers of Tallahassee. Culpepper/Childress is a joint venture between two big and stable companies with 80 and 47 years’ building experience respectively. Their projects encompass nearly 80 healthcare projects, including work for Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare System, Capital Regional Medical Center, and Archbold Memorial Hospital.
The negotiations with Culpepper/Childress are not yet complete, but are expected to be completed this week. Should negotiations not be successful, then negotiations will begin with the contracting company with the second highest total points scored. As you see, the process is a highly weighted process performed at arms-length with the oversight of the USDA. It’s a good process and I think the Board has selected an excellent company to build your new hospital.
Emerald’s Gem Box: Today’s Youth Have It Too Easy
Emerald’s Gem Box
Emerald Greene – Publisher
Emerald Greene – Publisher
We’ve all heard the stories that our parents and grandparents would tell of how hard life was when they were young; having to walk to school, having to salt-pack food because there were no freezers, having to cover meat in lard in order to keep it from spoiling, having to milk the cow every morning for fresh milk to drink and/or having to travel by mule for days to get to “market” to buy something they needed. Those stories never meant much to me when I was a kid. In fact, it did nothing but make my parents seem even older than what I thought they already were.
But I watch today’s youth, and listen to the complaints of “how hard life is” and I just have to laugh. At my ripe old age of “40-something,” just comparing my childhood to theirs seems insanely incomparable.
First and foremost – The majority of today’s youth do not know what a hard day of work is. The majority of them come home from school and sit on the couch and watch TV or play their electronic games all night. The majority of them feel the world has come to an end if their parents make them get a job when they turn 16 or 18. In our day, when we got home from school, regardless of our age, we worked. When work was finished, THEN you went home and you did your homework. IF there was time left over before bedtime, then you got to sit and watch TV. In my household, we either worked at the office supply store, the newspaper, the farm or were planting pine trees till dark.
We didn’t have computers. We had to write everything longhand. We balanced our checkbooks via a paper statement, we paid our bills with a check and envelope, we did our business bookkeeping longhand on those 40-column pads, we had to handwrite school term papers or type them on a typewriter (without a delete key – we had to use correction tape and white-out).
We didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, or write a school paper, we had to go to the library and search through encyclopedias. Of course, we couldn’t just use one source, so we had to get several different encyclopedias AND look up several books on the subject, too by using the card catalog and searching through thousands of books to find that one book.
We didn’t have satellites and cable television. We had ONE channel – Channel 6. Some of the lucky people got channels 6 and 10; and if you were really lucky, you got Channel 27 on good days (but possibly by putting aluminum foil on the rabbit ears to get it – and then you still had to watch the station through the “snow.”) If the President was on that night – he was on all three stations; and the Jerry Lewis Telethon – that made television unwatchable for 24 hours. We didn’t have 100+ channels to switch between.
Which leads in to “Where is the remote?” As children, we didn’t have a remote. If you were one of the lucky households to have two or three channels and you wanted to see something different, you GOT UP and went and changed channels yourself.
Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon didn’t exist. We got cartoons on Saturday mornings ONLY. We waited all week just to watch Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner, the Smurfs, Scooby Doo and Speed Buggy.
We didn’t have email, texting, unlimited long distance or Facebook. If we wanted to talk to somebody, we had to write them a letter – with a pen and piece of paper. Then we had to put it in the envelope, go to the post office, buy a stamp and mail it. Then it would take a week to get to them, a few days for them to write back, and a week for them to mail it back to us. If we wanted to talk to someone on the telephone, long distance, our parents would time us so that the phone call wouldn’t cost them a fortune.
We didn’t have cell phones. If we left the house, we just didn’t get to talk to any of our friends, until we came back home (and that was after school, work and homework was finished.)
We didn’t have PlayStation, Xbox or Wii. We had Atari with about two games; Asteroids and Space Invaders. No high resolution graphics, no killing other people, no digital surround sound. We shot at rocks or aliens, in black and white, and it was the same game over and over and over and over.
We didn’t have PSP’s, iPhones, Gameboys, ipads, or iPods to play with in the car, on road trips; and we sure didn’t have portable or built-in DVD players in the car to watch movies on. We actually had to read a book, talk with the family or play games like: searching for every alphabet letter on billboards and signs, trying to find all 50 states on car tags, or playing the “I’m going on a trip” game. When things got really boring on a long road trip we could always revert to singing “100 bottles of beer on the wall.”
We didn’t have iPods to download thousands of songs onto. We had 45 and 33 1/3 RPM records, which we had to be very careful with as to not scratch them or we could never hear that song all the way through again. We had 8-track tapes and then cassette tapes. If we wanted to hear a particular song then we had to hit the fast forward button, click play, click fast forward, click play, click fast forward, click play…… oooppps too far…… click rewind, click play, click rewind, click play. But, the worst of it all was when your tape got “eaten” by the player. The tape would wrap around the player and we would spend 30 minutes very carefully unwinding the mess from the player and then keeping the tape straight as we would roll it back into the cassette with a pencil. If we didn’t have an 8-Track or cassette with a song we wanted then we had to call it in to the radio station and sit by the radio all day with our tape recorder, ready to mash “record” when the song finally came on; and then the DJ would usually talk during the first part of the song and ruin it.
We didn’t have the luxury of complaining about our household chores with sayings such as “I don’t want to load/unload the dishwasher.” “I don’t want to unload the dryer”…… we didn’t have dishwashers and dryers; we actually had to wash dishes by hand and hang clothes on a clothesline.
And there was no such thing as calling HRS if our parents spanked us. If we did wrong, we got beat for it. If we did wrong at school, then the principal beat us and when we got home we would get beat again. Discipline was actually accepted back then and was considered a good thing. The saying, “it takes a village to raise a child” was alive and well because all of our friends’ parents had permission to beat us if we did wrong at their house, also.
As I sit here, in my “mid-life” age, I might not have had to walk to school “uphill in the snow, both ways” but I think my life was pretty dang “hard” compared to what today’s youth is “suffering” through.
And if you think your kids don’t think you’re too old as it is, turn on some black and white re-runs of Andy Griffith or Lucile Ball and see what kind of looks they give you then.
Until then….see you around the town.
Kiwanis Club Presentations Go From Local To Global
By Lynette NorrisGreene Publishing, Inc.
After calling the July 21 meeting to order, Kiwanis Club President Willie Gamalero spoke words of praise and congratulations for Madison’s 12 and Under Babe Ruth Baseball Team, and urged everyone’s support for the young team members he had just seen gathered along the Base Street edge of Four Freedoms Park, soliciting donations. Having won the Babe Ruth Baseball State Tournament for their age group, the team will now travel to South Carolina to play regional, said Gamalero, and with a week’s worth of hotel stays and meals, “they do need funds to get up there, and it’s not a cheap trip. If you can, make it by there and drop a couple of bucks in their helmet.”
The team will leave for the trip July 28, at 7 a.m.
Next up was Doug Freer, who introduced one of the guest speakers for the day, Samantha Shivers of the Madison County Health Department.
Shivers will soon be taking up a new responsibility when school starts back, doing a teen outreach program with the ninth graders of Madison County High School. She will be teaching them healthy behaviors, life skills and community service.
It is a program that aims to help teenagers form stronger bonds with the community they live in by teaching them to help others, said Shivers.
Another goal is to reduce teen pregnancies by engaging them in other activities, showing them they can make a difference in the lives of others and empowering them with the skills they need to make their projects come to fruition.
Sometimes the teens will be planning their own projects and ideas, learning how to set goals and then come up with a budget, utilize resources, and develop a plan that will “make a difference.” Other times, they will be helping out with big community projects that are already planned and in place, like Relay 4 Life.
Once the school year starts, when the teens are not planning projects of their own, they will be seeking out other community events. Shivers encouraged everyone present to contact her during the school year if they had a community service event going on that could use a few helping hands.
Samantha Shivers of the Madison County Health Department addressed the Kiwanis Club about the new classes she will be teaching at Madison County High School this fall.
Following Shivers, Casey Flanagan, a graduate student from Florida State University, majoring in international affairs, took the audience halfway around the world, via a PowerPoint slide presentation, to Rwanda, a tiny East African country about the size of Rhode Island. A largely mountainous country, Rwanda has a mild climate despite being situated close to the equator, and is home to hundreds of tea and coffee plantations. In fact, tea and coffee are its two major exports.
Flanagan had just returned from two months in Rwanda, where he had been working with a group called Global Peace Exchange. GPE is a group that fosters sustainable development in poverty-stricken areas of the world, helping people help themselves.
“It’s a real ‘teach a man to catch a fish’ thing,” said Flanagan. While direct charity does have a place, he said, sometimes it makes more sense to create something that will have a lasting effect.
In 1994, Rwanda – the “Land of a Thousand Hills” with a lush green scenic beauty of mountains, valleys, rivers and waterfalls rarely equaled anywhere – erupted into massive bloodshed. A long-brewing rivalry between the Hutu and the Tutsi people exploded, resulting in unimaginable violence – the organized, mass killings of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people, or nearly 20% of Rwanda’s population, in about 100 days.
Today, 17 years later, the country is calmer, stabilized, and largely peaceful, but the after-effects of the Rwandan Genocide, as it came to be known, are still felt by the survivors.
There are families still dealing with losses. Genocide orphans, some as young as 17 or 18, are now heads of households that are on their own, with no extended-family support systems. Monuments erected around the town of Kigali record the heartbreaking statements of eyewitnesses who were young children at the time.
In Kigali itself, there is no industry and little means of making a living. With only about $10,000 to work with, the GPE group had decided upon starting a cleaning business in the town; it would require only a modest capital outlay for purchasing a few pieces of equipment (floor scrubbers, pressure washers, etc.) and training about 30 people how to use them.
Since the cleaning business start-up didn’t take nearly as long as the group had thought, they spent the rest of their time working in local schools teaching English, another vital skill needed for economic success in Rwanda; passing an entry exam in English is a requirement for admittance to universities there.
Teaching the English classes proved to be much, much harder than starting up a business from scratch, Flanagan found, because for many Rwandans, English is a third language, after Kinyarwanda, their native tongue, and French. Also, because of the country’s history of violence, many of the children’s education had been interrupted or spotty.
However, at the end of their time in Kigali, the dean of the school told the group he had seen a remarkable improvement in many students’ English skills. Flanagan’s group had even taught them the FSU War Chant.
But the most important thing to Flanagan, is that now 30 people have the opportunity and skills to feed themselves for the rest of their lives; perhaps they will be able to teach others to do the same, as the effect of that initial business project ripples outward and onward into the future. “I get chills just thinking about that sometimes,” he said.
After the presentation, there were a few questions about the country’s economic state (the U.S. dollar is strong there) and how GPE raises the money for its projects (grants, year-round fundraising by the students, and “just plain begging sometimes”).
Just before the meeting adjourned, there was one final question from the audience: “Any chance FSU will beat Florida this year?”
“I think it is almost certain,” Flanagan smiled.
Delta Kappa Gamma Holds Quarterly Meeting At Honey Lake
Photo submitted Delta Kappa Gamma members enjoyed visiting Honey Lake Plantation.
The local Gamma Theta chapter of the Delta Kappa Gamma International Society held its last quarterly meeting of the 2010-2011 school year on Tuesday, May 28. Thirty-five of the women educator members toured Honey Lake Plantation, a local resort and spa premier destination, in Greenville, Florida. Ted Ensminger, Honey Lake Director of Sales, showed the local educators the Honey Lake lodge, the Five Pines cottages, the salon, spa, fitness center and pool, the Lakeside Pavilion, the stables and the magnificent church, complete with antique stained glass windows, overlooking the beautiful 80-acre spring-fed Honey Lake.
Gamma Theta had an extremely successful year. In April, they initiated the following six new members: Missy Cherry (Pinetta Elementary School), Kim Gurley and Delores Mabardy (Lee Elementary School), Martha Register (retired educator), Leigh Ann Browning (Madison Academy), and Shannon Curtis (Madison County Central School). MCCS Teacher of the Year Celeste Fleming, a former member of the Beta Rho chapter in Louisiana, transferred her membership to join the Gamma Theta group, and Laverne Rutherford, another retired teacher, rejoined the chapter. The Gamma Theta Madison chapter now boasts over 50 members and continues to lead the entire state in chapter growth and membership status.
In February, Gamma Theta sponsored a table at the Golden Apple Awards Banquet, sponsored by the Madison County Foundation for Excellence in Education. The Gamma Theta members in attendance were proud to recognize two of their very own as outstanding Teachers of the Year for Madison County public schools. Gamma Theta member Susan Maultsby was recognized as Lee Elementary School’s Teacher of the Year, and Celeste Fleming was recognized as the Teacher of the Year for Madison County Central School (6-8).
At the Madison County High School Baccalaureate and Awards Ceremony held on Tuesday, May 31, Derita Pinkard, Gamma Theta chapter treasurer, awarded Summer Merritt, MCHS senior, with a $500 scholarship to attend the college of her choice. Every year, Gamma Theta awards monetary scholarships to outstanding females in Madison County who declare the field of education as their college major. Summer plans to attend North Florida Community College to begin her quest to obtain a degree in English education. Summer stated, “This scholarship will help me…make a difference in the lives of students. With this scholarship I can further my education to inspire students. With this scholarship, I can attain the correct training and truly make a difference in how students view English.” Mrs. Rhonda Moore, MCHS English teacher, said, “Summer is diligent and focused and finds joy in learning. She exhibits this through her work ethic and dedication to her responsibilities. I find her to be a most refreshing and inspirational student.” Robin Hill, assistant principal, added, “Summer has demonstrated that she can overcome anything that would prevent her from attaining her dreams. Summer wants to be a teacher because she has experienced support and encouragement from her teachers. Because of those truly caring teachers and counselors, Summer has found a positive direction for her life.”
In October, the Gamma Theta ladies donated over one hundred books to the MOMS clinic in Madison. Dr. Julie Schnindler, local physician, was delighted to accept the books to distribute to her clients and their children. Gamma Theta recognizes the importance of reading and wanted to place books in the hands of mothers and their babies in the hopes of instilling a love for reading at a very young age.
The chapter also recognized the need for education in older adults as well, and because of that, the Gamma Theta educators donated school supplies to the Adult Education department of the Madison County District School Board.
Sharon French, adult education teacher and Gamma Theta member, gratefully accepted the materials on behalf of all the instructors and students.
In April, two members attended the Delta Kappa Gamma state convention held at the Orlando Airport Marriott in Orlando, Florida. Frances Sanders, former Gamma Theta president (1974-1976), and Susanne Griffin, current Gamma Theta president (2008-2012), enjoyed two days of meetings, workshops, and banquets. Throughout the weekend, several Gamma Theta members were recognized for their achievements. Members Lucile Cherry, Mildred Bruner, and Glen Baker (deceased) were honored for fifty years of active membership in the society. Susanne Griffin and Carolyn Edwards were recognized for their entries in the Betty Thornton Arts and Crafts Exhibit, and Susanne Griffin was also recognized in the Celebration Banquet’s Presentation of Presidents and for receiving the Mu State Past President’s scholarship of $2,500 and an International Scholarship of $6,000. In addition, Griffin was also asked to serve on the statewide scholarship committee for the next biennium. The final activity of the weekend was the Ceremony of Remembrance memorial service. This touching candlelight service honored all the Delta Kappa Gamma members who passed away during the last biennium. Glen Baker was named as a Gamma Theta member in District II during this remembrance ceremony. “Sissy” passed away in October 2010 and had been an active member for fifty years.
At the close of the last meeting of the year, President Griffin recognized six Gamma Theta “sisters” who are retiring this year. Joyce Bosscher, Doris Murdoch, Carroll Ryals, and Joe Ann Wiggins, retired from Madison County Central School, Kathy McCollum retired from Lee Elementary School, and Monteze Walker retired from Madison County Central School. The rest of the Gamma Theta membership applauds their service to the “ministry” of education and wishes them many happy, relaxing days of well-deserved retirement.
The Gamma Theta officers who are leading the chapter for the 2010-2012 biennium are Susanne Griffin, president; Dianne Phillips, 1st vice president; Joyce Bosscher, 2nd vice president; Derita Pinkard, treasurer; Mariann Hutto, recording secretary; Debbie Christ, corresponding secretary; and Carroll Ryals, parliamentarian.
Bethea Couponing Class Being Held At Public Library
By Kristin Finney
Greene Publishing, Inc.
Greene Publishing, Inc.
A trend is beginning in Madison County. Couponing is slowly catching on. To meet this trend, Joyce Bethea will be hosting another couponing class on August 13 at 10 a.m. The class will be held at the Madison County Public Library. She has taught a similar class at the Lee City Hall.
“It’s sort of like Couponing 101. We just are getting people interested who don’t already coupon,” explained Bethea.
Those who attend will also get handouts. Several of which will be the coupon polices for the major stores in Madison. “I would love to see people shop more in Madison and keep money local.”She will also teach those who attend how to go to websites online and print out coupons, as well as explain which sites no to go to.
She will also explain how you can double coupons using both manufacterors and store coupons.
The Library also has a “Coupon Exchange Box” available in the library for people to find and drop off coupons. If a person cuts out all of the coupons that they will use, but there are still some left, they can drop off the unused coupons at the Library for others to use.
Everyone is welcome to join Bethea and the group at the Library to learn more about couponing during the class. Everyone is also asked to drop off some of their unused coupons or browse through those that have been dropped off. The Madison County Public Library is located at 378 NW College Loop in Madison, between the Van H. Priest Auditorium and Highway 90.
NFCC Allied Health American Red Cross Blood Drive Is July 27
North Florida Community College’s first-year Registered Nursing students are hosting a blood drive in collaboration with the American Red Cross on Wednesday, July 27 from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. on the NFCC campus in Madison, FL. To donate, sign up online at http://www.redcross blood.org/make-donation or contact Amy Ellison in NFCC’s Nursing and Allied Health Department at (850) 973-1626. Appointments are preferred, but not required. Stop by anytime between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on July 27 and “Join fellow Americans who are helping save lives by giving blood.” The specific donation site will be in NFCC’s Nursing and Allied Health Department, located downstairs in the NFCC Career and Technical Education Center (Bldg. 13). Directional signs will be posted. For more information, contact Amy Ellison at (850) 973-1626 or email ellisona@nfcc.edu.
Cathy Rogers Addresses Rotarians About Fitness
Mark Branham demonstrates the forward-step lunge while Cathy Rogers explains the technique and its benefits to the audience.
By Lynette Norris
Greene Publishing, Inc.
After a lunch of fried chicken, Rotary Club President Jada Williams called the meeting to order, and Mark Branham, “Corporal-at-Arms,” substituting for Joe Boyles, Sergeant-at-Arms (“And if anything happens to me, we’ll have the Private-at-Arms”), introduced the guest speaker, Cathy Rogers, who would be talking about her favorite topic, fitness.
“She’s a dynamite person,” said Branham, adding that Rogers had her degree in exercise and sports medicine from “THE” University of Florida, and described what one of her fitness classes was like. “She would work us for one solid hour and we could hardly walk to the car,” he said.
Then, she would casually mention that she had three more hour-long classes to teach.
Looking tanned and trim, Rogers took the floor, bringing two sets of weights for some exercise demonstrations later in her presentation: 12-pound weights for her, and two pound weights for Branham, who feigned nearly dropping the weights, and then “painfully” lugging them to his chair.
“It’s never too late to reap the benefits of eating healthy,” Rogers began, going through the changing numbers and percentages of vegetables, fruits and grains people require as they age. One of the most important requirements, fiber, increases as we age, “and most of us probably eat only about half of what we need,” she stated.
“Diets don’t work for weight loss,” she added, because when people go off their diets, their weight will bounce back to what it was before. Only a change in lifestyle and switching over to life-long healthy eating habits with the proper amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, fiber and “good fats” will work in the long run.
The other problem with weight loss is that many, many people consume far, far more calories per day than they actually need to live to begin with. That is why a person who requires only 2000 calories, but consumes 3500, will not lose any weight if he or she cuts 500 calories from the daily intake — there are still far too many surplus calories. That person would have to cut 1500 calories a day before seeing a weight loss of one pound a week.
Also, “a calorie is not a calorie,” she said, meaning that one type of calorie can’t be switched out for another. As an example, a person can’t make up for eating that 350-calorie chocolate chip cookie by skipping a 350-calorie plate of vegetables and fruits.
Rounding out her program on fitness, she listed the benefits of an active, fit lifestyle over a sedentary one, including lowered cholesterol levels and lowered risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even a significantly lowered risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
After a few humorous questions establishing that yard work such as digging post holes constituted vigorous activity, but riding a lawn mower did not count, Rogers had Branham come back up to the front to demonstrate a few simple exercises anyone could do in just a few minutes throughout the day. As Branham comically “lugged” the two-pound weights up front, several people chuckled, especially when he pretended to need both hands to lift one weight.
As they went through the brief, enjoyable demonstration, Rogers made it look easy, but as Branham said at one point, “If you don’t think this hurts, you should try it.”
Rogers agreed, because, as she also said, the benefits of being active far outweigh the non-benefits of remaining sedentary.
“If only they hadn’t had that presentation the same day we had fried chicken,” mused one Rotarian afterward after the meeting adjourned and everyone was heading toward their cars.
Local Youth Experience 4-H Olympic Boot-Camp
The Green and White teams battle to win the tug-o-war event.
By Becky Bennett
4-H Youth Development Agent
Boot-camp??!! Is that a bugle I hear in the background?? Before you get into too much of a panic, let me put your mind at ease about 4-H style boot-camp…it is nothing like the grueling task that our honored service men and women experience! 4-H boot-camp focuses on three important things food, fun and fitness (emphasis on fun!). Healthy lifestyles is a prime component in 4-H. We strive to teach our youth the importance of maintaining one’s nutrition and fitness levels. As with any 4-H program, teaching youth about healthy lifestyles involves methods where we “learn by doing.”
The week of July 11-14, youth of all ages gathered at the Madison County Extension Office to expand their knowledge on nutrition, fitness and teamwork through fun-filled, hands-on experiences. Each day youth made a nutritious snack or breakfast that could easily be made at home by themsleves, participated in fun activities that transformed boring exercise into “fun-tas-ter-cises” and gained powerful life skills in communication through teamwork.
On Thursday, the first annual Madison County 4-H Olympics were held to put the participants’ knowledge and skills to the test. Youth competed in both individual and team events to earn their very own 4-H Olympic medal. Teams also competed for the coveted Golden Clover Award; this award was given to the team (Green or White) who won the most team events during the 4-H Olympics. Events included foot races, tug-o-war, obstacle courses, team challenge games, water relays, jumping duct tape and much more!
Although anyone who participated in this weeks’ events can tell you it was fun, exciting, challenging…and yes even exhausting. You can ask any of those 4-H Olympians and they will be able to give you a recipe for a well balanced meal and tell you how long everyone should “fun-tas-ter-cise” each day. It is events and activities like these that we need to encourage among youth and adults to curb the unhealthy trends that are sweeping our nation.
Ask a 4-H’er and you’ll soon find out the meaning behind “60 minutes a day, fun-tas-ter-cise your blues away!” Youth aren’t the only ones who benefit from playing for 60 minutes a day; I challenge each adult reading this to grab a friend, or your child, and go outside and play for one hour everyday for one week. For just one week, be a kid again for an hour each day. Try to eat three balanced meals per day and watch your sugar intake; I bet you will feel so good you’ll want to keep it up! Life is here for our enjoyment and what better way to enjoy life than with the enthusiasm of a child.
Try this healthy snack to help kick off you challenge:
Clover-Olympian Chex Mix
- ½ c Oatmeal Squares cereal (or another high fiber cereal)
- ½ c Life cereal
- 2 T Peanut butter (or try almond butter for a healthier option)
- 2 T Craisins (or other dried fruit)
Combine all ingredients in a zip-lock bag or bowl. Grab a spoon and dig in!
Madison County Extension
The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) is an Equal Employment Opportunity—Affirmative Action Employer authorized to provide research, educational information and other services only to individuals and institutions that function with non-discrimination with respect to race, creed, color, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, political opinions or affiliations. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida, IFAS, Florida A.&M. University Cooperative Extension Program, and Boards of County Commissioners Cooperating.
Greenville Man Registers As Sex Offender
Antonio Davis
Greene Publishing, Inc.
A man has registered as a sex offender with a Greenville address.
Antonio Davis, a 22-year-old black male, who stands 5’10” tall and weighs 180 pounds, registered as a sex offender on Monday, July 25.
Davis’ current address is 567 SW Church Street in Greenville.
Davis’ qualifying offenses include two counts of lewd and lascivious sexual battery with the victim being from 12-15 years old. Both offenses took place on Feb. 26, 2010.
Dispatchers To Move From Jail To EMS Building
By Jacob Bembry
Greene Publishing, Inc.
The communications center and dispatchers for the Madison County Sheriff’s Office will soon be moved to the old Robinson Ford building. Madison County Emergency Management Services (EMS) is currently at that location.
Sheriff Ben Stewart said that Will Rutherford is working as the primary contractor to get the dispatchers put in at the EMS building. He has sub-contractors working under him.
Stewart said that construction could have begun as early as Monday, July 25.
Elaine Heinrich
Elaine Heinrich, age 91, died Monday, July 25, 2011, at Lake Park Nursing Home in Madison.
Graveside Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at Oak Ridge Cemetery with visitation one hour prior to the service at Beggs Funeral Home.
She moved to Madison 40 years ago, coming from Seaford, N.Y.
She was a chemist and worked at Bell Laboratory in New York and was the first woman hired in 1941. She was an animal advocate and loved to travel.
She is survived by her husband, Nickolas Heinrich of Madison; two sons: Nickolas Heinrich III and Bruce Heinrich; one daughter, Cheryl Nelson of N.Y.; seven grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.
Another Dunk the Winn-Dixie Manager Video
Down goes Winn-Dixie manager Roy Webb, courtesy of Aaron Brown as Winn-Dixie hosts a dunking booth to raise money for the American Cancer Society
Video: Dunk the Winn-Dixie Manager
A Winn-Dixie manager goes into the dunk tank, courtesy of another W-D manager. Winn-Dixie held the event to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
