Sic transit gloria The Clarksdale Blues-Star

The Sunday before the last Juke Joint Festival, the first issue of The Clarksdale Blues-Star hit about 4000 driveways in Coahoma, Quitman, Bolivar and Tallahatchie Counties. This Sunday, it will hit about 700, and that will be that.
   
I can’t express my gratitude to our subscribers adequately enough. Those of you who believed in this experiment and supported us by signing up are the best kind of people there are, the kind of people morally invested in your community and committed to the idea that Clarksdale can grow beyond its present status into something bigger and brighter.

Those of you who supported us with your ad dollars, I hope you feel that, regardless of the short-lived nature of our endeavor, your message was accurately disseminated to the audience you sought to reach, with the desired outcome. I’m not so naive to believe that was the case every time, but I did hear about enough positive impacts to know that many - if not most - of you did.
   
Many of you bought ads out of respect for personal relationships and a belief that a locally owned newspaper was an essential factor in the equation where Clarksdale winds up equaling Branson, Mo., circa 1996, but with Super Chikan instead of Roy Clark. And I know that many of you bought ads simply because you liked getting a Sunday paper and wanted to help, and I can’t thank you enough for that.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to the board of directors of New Vision Media. They put their money and reputations on the line to try to make this thing go, and any fault that anyone found with the paper was mine, not theirs. I still think more people got a kick out of the Michael Jackson impersonator than were offended, but I do have a skewed sense of humor.

The Blues-Star would not have been the product it was without the help of a staff that is far more talented in more arenas than I. Thank you, Hillari, Andy and Mikey for making our paper look so good and for dealing with all of the last minute changes and rearranges with professionalism and skill. You turned out a great looking paper every week.

I need to thank my staff writers, Sam, Jerry and Virginia for going anywhere at a moments notice and getting the stories that our readers wanted to read. The most often-repeated compliment I received was about the quality of the stories in our paper, and you made that happen. Thanks as well to Diane and Bubba, for handling your beats and giving depth to our coverage. Keith, gracias, sir, for making it to all those games and helping me keep a handle on the most problematic area of our coverage.

I must also say thank you to the freelancers, both writers and photographers, who were regular contributors. You were responsible for helping ensure that there was something in every issue for every reader. Thank you Desi, for taking on the thankless task of trying to make our office run smoothly. I know that was a monumental challenge, and you made it work. Thank you, Vicki and Caroline for keeping this rag going as long as it did. Sorry about the Michael Jackson thing.

The bottom line is that there are just not enough advertising dollars in the Clarksdale market to support two newspapers. It could one day, but the realities of today’s economy are confounding the best efforts of the country’s savviest financial thinkers, a group I make no claim to belong to.

There are so many more issues I had hoped to comment on in this column, and I’m going to resist the urge to weigh in on everything from the need for a traffic light on State Street at the intersection with South Choctaw to why you white folks need to try to get to know Buster Moton a little better. Instead, I’ll give you my two cents about the Coahoma County School Board’s vote this week to close Sherard.

Of course, I have a vested interest in that school. Most of you know that my mother was the principal out there for years, and she is still very attached, to put it mildly. What I have been surprised to find out is how many other people in the community have some sort of tie to the school sitting out there on the edge of the district.

Sherard is the highest performing school in the district and has long been an example of what is possible when teachers, parents and administrators are all on the same page. The fact of the matter is that the personal grudge held by Washington, Campbell and Harris against Superintendent Rhodes has manifested itself in a form that is about as damaging to the students of the district as possible.

Say they get away with it. It is far from a done deal, but let’s say they do. Where are they going to put the Sherard students? I got a call yesterday from a teacher at Friars Point expressing the shock and outrage that others are feeling, and they asked, “Where do they think we are going to put all those kids? We sure don’t have room for them here.”

Others, teachers and parents alike, are dumbfounded over the move.

Board member William Kinard was outraged at the meeting, and rightly so. Kinard has been the sole voice of reason on that board since the Three Stooges harassed and intimidated Alan Foster into leaving.

Since then, Washington, Campbell and Kinard have twisted Rhodes’ nose at every chance, jabbed her in the eyes whenever possible, and made “nyuk nyuk nyuk” noises at anyone who called in question their ability to do whatever they damn well pleased regardless of the consequences to the students of the district.

These men are appalling examples of elected officials, and it is the responsibility of the citizens of the county to unelect them as soon as possible. They have operated with impunity for far too long, and the results of their actions have led to the district being on the verge of being taken over by the state.

The fact is that Washington and his cronies have no justification or rational explanation for their vote. Washington made some vague noises about “tough economic times” when he made his motion to vote on the closing, and the lack of questions or debate and the speed at which the matter was put on the agenda and voted on certainly gave the appearance that the issue had been settled prior to the board meeting.

If that is indeed the case, that’s illegal.

Rhodes hopes to be able to talk the board into reconsidering. I wish her the best of luck. Otherwise, there are steps that the Mississippi Board of Education could take, and there are maneuvers that Representatives Espy and Mayo can make that would conceivably keep the school open. If not, the deed will have been done and the students of the district will have to bear the brunt of the ugliest kind of politics.

The problems that beset our community are rooted in the challenges that face the education system, and these three thugs that have hijacked the Coahoma County School District and turned it into their own personal fief are to blame for putting personal agendas ahead of the welfare of the students and the community.