Board makes tough call

Every time school board elections are coming up, I see all the signs for people wanting to serve on the school board.

I wonder if these people are crazy. I served on the school board at Heavener a few years ago. I even served as president of the school board for one year. While the first year of being on the board was okay, during my term as president it seemed like there was constant controversy.

No, it was not because of anything I did. I hope that it was just poor timing. We had to replace a superintendent and make other decisions that make the position a difficult one. I had phone calls and visits to work and home from people (many of them friends and people I had known my whole life) telling me why I should do this or not do that.

It isn’t fun, that’s for sure. Every decision you make upsets some people and makes others happy.

I always tried to do what was best for the students and the school. And sometimes I voted against what my friends wanted me to do, or against the majority.

In case you didn't know, school board members don’t get paid to administer the school and there are no fringe benefits.

Poteau’s school board made one of those difficult decisions during a school board meeting on Tuesday.

By a 3-2 vote, the board voted to rescind the offer it made earlier to Hank Harris to serve as the next superintendent of Poteau schools.

Board president Chris Fenton and members Beth Buchanan and Crystal Walker voted to rescind the offer to Harris. Board vice president Jay Sommers and clerk Adrian Sconyers voted no.

The reason why the board took this action was not disclosed and don’t expect any statement as to why this happened. That would violate every privacy law out there and bring a flock of lawsuits.

There are plenty of rumors and hearsay floating around. No, I won’t get into it because it is rumors and hearsay. 

I did attempt to get some information from one board member as to why the board addressed the issue, but got the “no comment” reaction.

I can understand that. If I was in the board member’s position, that is what I would have done.

Harris has served Poteau schools for a long time and has a lot of support. He was the logical person to replace current superintendent Dr. Alice Smith, who is retiring on June 30. Naturally, there are a lot of people upset with the decision.

I can certainly understand that. But again, this was not an easy thing for the board to do. Hopefully, this was not done because of some axe to grind or because it was personal.

Instead, I hope it was because the three people who voted yes were doing so because they thought it was in the best interests of the students and the school.

Was this the right decision? Only time will tell.

Time to act

Like areas all over the country, LeFlore County has its problems.

Unemployment is high and thanks to the recession, the economy is not all that good.

One of the leading employers in our county, Bremner, has announced plans to lay off 135 people and there is speculation the plant will soon close its doors.

Most employers are trying to ride out the bad times and are not adding employees. When the workers do find jobs, they frequently require travel and do not pay what the person made in previous occupations.

Many people who would like to live and work in LeFlore County, have to relocate elsewhere to find a job, especially our college graduates.

Now, just like areas everywhere, the county tries to bring in new employers with a bunch of workers.

It would be great if we could bring in some company that hires several hundred people.

Those companies are few and far between.

So what is the solution? That would need to come from somebody far smarter than this publisher of a small web site.

But I do have some ideas.

The first one is to do everything possible to help our small employers, those with 10 or so workers to stay in business and hopefully grow.

I believe these types of companies are the key to our future. While still trying to bring in new companies, we can’t forget about these companies or businesses and must support them.

Also, I believe we need to support any start-up businesses. This includes one-person businesses and others who have a skill and dream about starting a business.

Every company has started off small and the successful ones grow and provide jobs and services to our residents.

I remember while growing up in Heavener that we had pretty much everything we needed. There were hardware stores, several grocery stores, lumber yard, toy stores and much more.

These were old family businesses that were successful, had employees and contributed to the sales tax for the town and county.

Now, those businesses are gone. Much of the blame goes to the Walmarts of the world, which can sell products for less than your local business. That has led to so many empty, boarded-up buildings in communities everywhere.

We can’t look for help from Oklahoma City. That is obvious. Just look at the recent Runestone fiasco. Everybody likes to point fingers, but this is not a Republican, Democrat, Tea Party or independent problem.

Toss the partisan politic crud aside. To move forward, we must work together and not worry about who votes for who or who supported who.

Everybody running for office always talks about bringing new jobs, lower taxes and paints a rosy picture for the future if he or she is elected. That doesn’t happen, of course.

We can’t sit on our tush and wait for somebody else to solve our problems. LeFlore County needs to capitalize on our resources and people. That means getting people to visit our county.

Desperate times require desperate actions. If you have suggestions on how to improve our county, please leave your comments below.

Facebook friends!

Just threw Molly’s ball and watched her chase it and bring it back for me to throw it again…and again!

Or…Dadgum, what is that smell? Molly must have…oops, forgot that was me. Need to get some air working in here!

If I was the type to update my Facebook status, those would have been my latest status updates.

Pretty exciting stuff, eh?

As you probably didn't know...or care, I use Facebook mainly for LeFlore County Journal stuff and rarely look at my personal page.

But I dropped by and noticed my friend list has grown to 517. At first, this brought incredible feelings of joy. Happiness, I say! I had 517 friends! Wow. I felt like Sally Fields accepting an Oscar.

Then I actually wasted time thinking about it and realized while I probably know and can name 517 people on a good day, I don’t think I actually have that many friends.

After browsing through the list, I soon figured out my Facebook friends could be broken into the following categories: 1. People who are actually friends; 2. People I know; 3. People I vaguely remember; 4. People I know but wish I didn’t (just kidding!); and 5. Who the #@%$ are these people.

Many of the people in the final category probably are friends of a friend, or requested to be friends for some reason that would probably confuse the heck out of sociologists or FBI profilers.

I wondered if these people requested my friendship out of some hope we would grow to be buddies and spend many fun-filled hours bonding over their latest updates on where they ate supper or discussing the latest Dancing With The Stars Many of Us have never heard of!

Maybe having a bunch of friends on Facebook brings up a person’s self esteem. Or perhaps, they like to brag that “I have more Facebook friends than you do!” or “I have never really been that popular until I got on Facebook and because of constantly asking people I don’t know to be friends, now I have nine zillion trillion friends!”

Do the others care? Is there some kind of prize for having the most friends?

My version of a true friend is somebody you can count on for help if you need it, not somebody who requested to be a friend when you don’t even know them on a social networking site.

Perhaps I should start requesting all my friends on Facebook do something to prove their friendship, such as mowing my yard when it gets hot or wash the Genemobile, since it is currently filthy.

Or to really test their friendship, I should make silly remarks to their status updates or pictures and see if they unfriend me.

But I’ll pass.

Weather woes

The first headline I saw today when I got on the internet was not the way a person should start his morning.

It was on Yahoo and said: Democrats shun Weiner.

Do I really need to know that?

In case you have missed out, over the last month or so the Journal has had the weather forecast.

Each morning I get an email from Intellicast.com with the local weather forecast.

In case you were not aware, I am not a professional meteorologist. No, really (and I did look up the spelling. The first word I typed was for a person who studies meteors). I am not even as good as the old dudes who can tell what the weather will be six months from now because of the amount of fur on some bug's back.

Basically, I post what comes in the email with only slight rewording. Lately, every forecast has been HOT, or near record highs.

I don’t particularly care for the heat, but these are much better than the ones we had just a couple of weeks ago.

Most of those warned of severe storms coming our way.

I have never been good with storms. I hide it well because I am by nature a cool and collected person. Rather suave, too, if you can get past the image of looking like a mole rat which was referred to in my last blog.

In the past, anytime the sirens went off or Fred Baker or Garrett Lewis told us to get to the cellar, I moved at a speed which made Adrian Peterson look like a grandmother recovering from a broken hip.

Fortunately, now I live with this big hill behind the homestead and in a brick house. If a tornado did bear down on me like I was a mobile home park, I believe it would hit the hill behind me and take off like a biker hitting a ramp and wind up somewhere else.

This is probably not wise, but for some reasons when the bad stuff hits, it seems to follow a path to the south of Long Lake Hill, down around Hodgen or to the north part of the county.

I guess that is because of the mountains or rivers, I don’t know and Garrett has never explained it. Because of the choice of his music, I never can listen to Fred or KISR long enough to find out if it has been discussed.

When the first storm hit this year, it had my full attention. The wife went to bed. I asked her if she was worried about the weather. She answered by turning off the bedroom lights and was soon snoozing.

If you recall, that was the one with the softball-sized hail. I had never seen softball-sized hail, nor do I care to see it. After it started in with small hail, Molly was wondering what was going on and went to scratch at the door, which to the uninformed means “Get up off your rear and let me out!”

She lasted approximately two seconds outside before scampering back in.

We had so many storms this year that toward the end, I adopted the “Cry Wolf” attitude. I went to sleep, just like my wife.

This has not been a good year for the weather. We went from ice, to bad storms and now hot. Where was the nice weather, dangit? And how bad is it going to be in July or August.

Let’s find some bug-forecasting old men and find out, shall we?

I write a letter!

Dear Reader(s),

I haven’t actually done the whole letter thing in a long time.

Now, it is all emails, instant messages and text messages. But this morning, while trying to avoid the latest news on Weiner-gate, I wondered if it was possible to actually write a letter.

I decided to give it a whirl, but hang on a second and let me change the channel as another story about Rep. Anthony Weiner sending an image of his last namesake to women is on the news again.

There, much better.

Okay, where were we? Oh yes, I was writing a letter to my reader(s).

So, it is hot here in LeFlore County.

Duh.

Dang, this letter writing can be tough at times. Better turn off the television as I really don’t want to hear anything else about the subject mentioned above or how Tiger Woods won’t play in the U.S. Open because his knee is hurting.

Well, Tiger, my knees are hurting but I am going to work today, so there. I will tell you why my knees hurt later in the letter!

Let’s see, what is going on in the county. Well, the Runestone will now be operated by the city of Heavener and the Friends of the Runestone. At first, I was worried about the Runestone staying open. At least now it will be operated by somebody who cares.

Hmm, what else is going on?

I draw a blank, which is starting to be a habit.

Let’s see, The Trish decided I should go with her to a wedding on Saturday. Generally, I try to avoid weddings as I have been through enough of my own. This one was unique, at least. It was held at Lake Eufaula, on an island, which required a boat ride to and from the island.

As weddings go, it was okay. Short and sweet and most of us wore shorts, which should be a requirement for all weddings and funerals, except I guess when it is cold. But they should still be fast and should have a timer requiring them to be finished in at least 15 minutes.

Our dog Molly needs her hair cut in a bad way. She once again resembles a black mop and it is hard to see her eyes.

Speaking of haircuts, last night, I mentioned to Trish that I thought she was getting her hair cut. She DID get a hair cut yesterday. Good one, Craigman.

Since it is so hot, over the weekend I decided to shave the old head and remove the goatee for the first time in a couple of years. “Ugh!” said my supportive wife about my new look. A co-worker, Sarah, said I look like a mole rat. Perhaps I am ignorant, but I never heard of a mole rat so I did the whole Google thing. After seeing a picture of one, it was not a flattering description and the hair will be coming back ASAP.

After watching the movie Sanctum last night, I decided it would be a good idea if the local movie stores offered a money-back guarantee if the movie you rented stunk. I wasted two hours of my precious time watching this movie and was so bored that I even talked about my wife’s hair.

The movie also made me wonder how it felt to sink so much time and money into making a movie and then discover it was a stinker, which is probably how most of you feel after reading this letter. But hey, I do offer to refund all the money you spent on reading this if you find it that bad.

Last month, I decided it was time to get back into shape. So I started running again. I quickly got so I could run (or jog, actually) and made it to three miles without stopping. I planned on actually running a 5K later in the summer.

That was about the time my knees sent a message to my brain that 48-year old guys with bad knees should probably reconsider the whole running thing. But I won’t miss the U.S. Open, by gosh. Or work, either. Take that Tiger.

Of course, it might be different if I had Tiger’s cash.

So I truly hope you have a good day.

Craig

My little girl

My daughter turned 18 on Saturday.

Less than two weeks ago, Michaela stepped up on the stage and accepted her diploma as a graduate of Southside High School in Fort Smith.

I have always been proud of her as she is really a good kid, er, person. When she was announced at the graduation, it was “With Honors, Michaela Hall” and she got a big ovation from our little section of three.

Her name was listed several times in the graduation program and she will attend the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith (that’s UAFS for those of you scoring at home) in the fall with a full ride (THANK GOODNESS!) because of her grades.

She also has a part-time job and gasp, a boyfriend. We got to meet him for the first time about a month ago.

I expected to be disappointed. Like most fathers, I planned on trying to scare him and let him know that if he hurt or disappointed my little girl, the Wrath of Craig would fall on him in a way which would make the Egyptian plagues from the Bible seem like a more favorable choice.

But he was pleasant, dressed nice and acted like a civilized person. No visible tattoos, snarls or eyeball rolls when I tried to be funny. I didn’t even try to stare him down with my Don’t Mess with Craig look, which fails to scare anybody (especially my dog, Molly) and makes Trish laugh.

He did not belch, pass gas at the dinner table or say something like “Woman, get me some grub!”

Actually, that was me.

He even has a job and is going to college. I actually liked him.

Then she graduates and turns 18.

Whoa, this is a little too much. How is this possible?

There is no way she can now be considered a young adult. I expected her to be a little girl forever and come see me every other weekend and complain about my wanting to watch something educational like a football game instead of Lifetime.

But instead, Michaela grew to be a smart and mature person, despite having me as a father.

All the speakers at her graduation talked about how they are going to change the world for the better and the amazing opportunities ahead of them. Well, Michaela has already changed the world for the better, at least my little slice of it.

And yes, she has all these opportunities ahead of her. Unlike her father, who was limited in his academic fields because of laziness and Craig Attention Disorder Syndrome, Michaela can now do whatever she wants in life. I just hope whatever she does brings her joy.

I know that I haven’t been Ward Cleaver or won any Best Father contests. But if there was a Best Daughter contest, Michaela would win hands down.

With Honors.

Gilstrap overcame obstacles to succeed

Like most people, I am glad to see others succeed.

Especially when those people are young adults. That is especially true when those young adults overcome obstacles to succeed.

Connor Gilstrap is one of those young adults who has overcome a lot to succeed.

Connor Gilstrap slides into third base during a game this past season.

Gilstrap, who just graduated from Poteau High School, signed Wednesday to play baseball and continue his athletic and academic pursuit at Carl Albert State College.

He is not your typical standout athlete, at least in size. Gilstrap is short and stout, to tell the truth. No, he does not stand 6-foot-2 and weigh 200 pounds.

Gilstrap is in the mid five-foot tall territory, give or take an inch or two. But what he lacks in height, Gilstrap makes up for it in heart.

Prior to his junior season, he injured both knees and had to sit out both football and wrestling. This came after he was one of the Pirates’ leading tacklers as a sophomore and qualified for the state tournament in wrestling that year.

He came back and played baseball his junior year, even though his knees were not 100 percent and was a pain inn the rear for most opponents both from his leadoff spot in the batting order and in the outfield, where he roamed far and wide to track down batted balls.

Gilstrap could have used the knee injuries as an excuse to coast or even sit out football this past season, where he was in danger of even more damage to his knees on every play.

But he didn’t. Despite missing his junior year, Gilstrap was once again one of the top tacklers for the Pirates and an inspiration to many.

In wrestling, he was one of the top wrestlers in his class and again made the state tournament.

When he finished wrestling, it was time for baseball. Like the other sports, Gilstrap was a standout. He helped a young Poteau team, which frequently started three or four freshmen, to win a district tournament and advance to the regionals.

For his success on the baseball field and in the classroom, Gilstrap is getting the opportunity to continue playing baseball when he goes to CASC in the fall.

Again, he won’t be the biggest player or even the most talented. But it is doubtful anybody will play harder or show more heart.