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TODAY'S ISSUE
Remembering the gifted Ferris Hutchins of Lawrenceville
By Jim Hood
Special to GwinnettForum.com

LAWRENCEVILLE, March 16, 2004 -- Ferris Hutchins was one of the most gifted men I have known.

I happened to be visiting one afternoon when he arrived with an old wreck of an airplane. The plane had crashed and was really torn up. He proceeded to rebuild the plane with friends. He called in FAA approved-experts for those repairs that required such. Many months later the plane was ready, taxied down a public road to a recently cut field and was flown to The Gwinnett County Airport. l flew with him many times in that Ferris-rebuilt J-3 Piper Cub. Barbara, my wife, only flew once.

I don't know how many A Model Fords he owned, but I do know that the last one he rebuilt is in the workshop looking good and ready to go. He also had a passion for those small Nash Metropolitans. He had a bunch of them over the years. One is now also looking good and ready to roll.

Joe Parks tells stories about the times Ferris was called to show his cars at a parade in Snellville or Dacula. Joe was there as a driver and friend, sometimes under adverse conditions. The cars won several awards.

Another hobby Ferris enjoyed was fishing, about anywhere, whether at Oak Hill, Fla. with Robert Cain, Robert Norton and other locations. Or It might be at Sosebee's Lake, or the pier at St. Simons Island fishing with friends or just people he met there…but he enjoyed fishing..

He was a master at flea market shopping and giving things to both family and friends that he thought were needed and would be used. He also had a great talent for woodworking. Most of his friends had a hooey stick or spinning tops that he made by the dozens.

He made church bird boxes for local ministers. There are several bird boxes in the workshop that are ready to be assembled and given away.

If l ever had a problem with most anything, he was ready with helpful advice and personal assistance if he thought I might not have the ability to complete the project. He knew a lot about a lot of things.

Many of the things that he loved to do would not make much money, and were pastimes. But he was also good at making money. He owned and operated Hutchins TV for 30-plus years, and helped me run a real estate business. He bought and sold almost anything usually at a profit. The A Model sold for about $500 new and is probably worth $20,000 today.

He worked for the Gwinnett County Board of Education in their audio visual department as his last employment. He served as an elected member of the Gwinnett County Board of Education about 30 years ago, working with two superintendents-- B.B. Harris and J. W. Benefield.

He was a good friend and husband, raised two sons, Lee and Mike, and they both graduated from Georgia Tech. He loved his daughters-in-law, Karen and Amy, grandchildren, Kelly and Garrett, and they loved him. He and my sister Martha Frances were married for 55 years, which in this day and time is a pretty solid relationship. He passed away February 22, 2004 at age 81.

ELLIOTT BRACK
Redrawn Georgia legislative map could benefit Gwinnett
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com

We think so. After all, we have been championing a two-party system in Georgia all these years. Years ago, when in South Georgia, where one-party Democratic politics was the rule, one of our "Continuing Objectives" editorially was "Republican candidates for local offices."

Ironically, today in Gwinnett, where a great majority of elected officers are Republican, that might be translated: "Democratic candidates for local offices." Our location has changed, but not our objective.

This week came a maneuver that probably is the result of two-party politics. Hours before a U.S. Court was ready to prescribe a political map for the Georgia House and Senate based on the 2000 census, the Georgia House delivered its own map of a re-apportioned Georgia.

Why hours before? No doubt the Democrats were trying to sneak their best possible plan past the courts, gaining an advantage, ever so slight, over the Republicans. The Democrats figured that they would rather have a plan that they re-drew of the district of the Georgia legislature, rather than have a Republican, or even a court-ordered, plan.

However, the Senate, where Republicans dominate, still has to pass this plan. So what the Democrats propose probably will not be the final plan. And if the two Houses are at real loggerheads over the plan, Georgians may get a court-ordered plan, yet.

No matter which plan is the eventual one, no doubt that Gwinnett will fare better under a newly-redrawn legislature. The old plan put many Gwinnett residents in districts that jumped a county line, reducing the impact that each voter would have on selecting a legislator from Gwinnett. Some Gwinnett legislators come from other counties. This legislative plan that the Democrats drew two years ago benefits……surprise!…..the Democratic Party! Wonder of wonders!

The current map for both the House and Senate is way out of line. For instance, in one Gwinnett Senate district, which averages having 147,000 constituents, only 3,006 are Gwinnett residents. Gwinnett House districts represent from 8.8 to 23.9 per cent of the people. And one district, 100 per cent in Gwinnett, represents only 7.8 per cent of the district. Gerrymandered? Sure, it is!

Whatever the new plan proposes, it's got to be more fair than the current plan. And Gwinnett, with 7.1 per cent of the state's 2000 population of 8.2 million people, should fare better. It will have more impact throughout the state, and more legislators will come, more likely, from Gwinnett, instead of being from an adjoining county.

That translates, eventually, into more power, that is, if the voters are smart enough to select the individuals running for office who are political savvy.

Whether the new 2004 legislative map of Georgia will benefit a two party system is debatable. But it could shift power away from the Democrats as never before, even giving Republicans complete control of Georgia government.

It would be ironic. Georgians could still have two-party politics to champion……

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Remember the commercial that parodied the fast food industry's focus on the "fluff" versus the size of the hamburger patty? Enter the Georgia Legislature with its equivalent "Where's the beef?" bill that focuses on licensing massage therapists versus enforcement!

Senator Renee Unterman's logic in supporting this bill is comparing "fluff" i.e., is that if we license beauticians who touch your hair, we should license massage therapists who touch your body. Interestingly, she says absolutely zilch about the "meat," which is meaningful enforcement for consumer protection purposes.

Although consumer protection supposedly is the primary rationale for government's licensing of businesses, the more obvious purpose seems to be revenue. Gwinnett cities, for example, impose a license tax on businesses domiciled within their boundaries. By and large, and particularly in the case of small businesses, most cities rely on voluntary compliance, don't bother to identify or pursue violators (unless a citizen makes it an issue) and even then don't prosecute serial violators to the fullest extent of the laws already on the books.

A civil action soon will be filed in Gwinnett County Small Claims Court documenting how a small business publicly misrepresented it was licensed and insured when it wasn't; used this false advertising along with "bait and switch" tactics to sell its services; and subsequently filed a false claim against its customer.

The Judge's decisions in these matters will go a long way in determining if the primary purpose of government licensing of businesses is the "meat"
(consumer protection) or the "fluff" ( tax revenues).

3/16: Terrorists in Spain make one realize world is far less safe

Editor, the Forum:

One thing has been made abundantly clear by the terrorist attacks in Spain that killed over 200 people: the world is much less safe than before we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. Isn't this what was predicted by those who were not paralyzed by fear or kicking out blindly in retaliation?

The logical result of our military actions is the rage, grief and anger of the victims, directed at those who are perceived to be the cause of the destruction, loss of life and misery. Even though almost 90 percent of Spaniards opposed the invasion, their government became part of the "Coalition" of the bribed and bullied. Terrorism cannot be overcome by making war on innocent people and occupying and pillaging their countries; our actions only turn people who have no hope for the future into terrorists. If our government would only practice a policy of kindness and tolerance instead of full spectrum dominance, it is probable that we would cease to create new terrorists.

-- Gordon Hawthorne, Atwater Village, CA

NEWS
Live broadcast from Gwinnett to Ireland set on St. Pat's Day

St. Patrick's Day, March 17, will be marked by the first 'live' broadcast from Atlanta to Ireland by the BBC.

'Just Jones' is BBC Radio Ulster's popular daily afternoon radio show. Presented by entertainer George Jones, the show broadcasts for two hours daily from Belfast, Northern Ireland, across Ireland and worldwide via the internet.

To celebrate the patron saint's special day and to highlight the forthcoming Scots-Irish musical 'On Eagle's Wing', which has its World Premier at the Gwinnett Arena on May 7, the BBC has decided to fly Jones and his production team to Atlanta in time to cover the city's parade on May 13 and then to broadcast live back to Ireland on the day itself.

The radio show will be broadcast 'live' from the Hudgens Center for the Arts (6400 Sugarloaf Parkway in Duluth) before an invited audience starting at 10 a.m. on St. Patrick's Day. To receive a ticket to be in the audience for this live broadcast, contact Holley Calmes at calmes@artsgwinnett.org.

The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Academy, a cooperative program with UGA's Small Business Development Center, will bring leading professionals and emerging business owners together during a six-week course designed to prepare entrepreneurs with information resources and techniques to operate a business successfully.

The two-hour sessions will be held beginning April 23 and continue once a week through June 4 a the Gwinnett Chamber Education Room. Cost is $250 for the series for Chamber members and 4300 for non-members.

The curriculum incorporates marketing, finance, personnel and time management, accounting, taxes, procurement and international trade, and concludes with a graduation and reception. Classes are offered separately and participants completing the series will be awarded a certificate.

Seven Duluth High students, Jin Choi, Rhapsodi Douglas, Harrison Fuchs, Anna Mach, James McGehee, Chelsea Raflo and Arthur Tripp, are among 500 students leaders scheduled to attend the Leadership Experience and Development (LEAD) conference to be held March 12-14, 2004, in Williamsburg, Va.

The LEAD conference is hosted by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, which sponsors the National Honor Society, the National Junior Honor Society, and the National Association of Student Councils.

ENCYCLOPEDIA TIDBIT
3/16: Oglethorpe University time capsule to be opened in 8113

Time capsules, sealed containers storing artifacts of the contemporary culture for retrieval in future decades or even millennia, first captured the imagination of the American public in 1936, when Thornwell Jacobs, president of Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, suggested the idea in a Scientific American magazine article. The best known of Georgia's time capsules is Jacob's"Crypt of Civilization" at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta.

The crypt, a converted indoor swimming pool, represents the "first successful attempt to bury a record of this culture for any future inhabitants or visitors to the planet Earth" (Guinness Book of World Records, 1990). Sealed in 1940, the crypt's stainless-steel door is scheduled to open in the year 8113. Among the capsule burials that borrow from funeral imagery is the Oglethorpe County Time Capsule (1993-2093) in Lexington, honoring local veterans, which is marked with a tombstone. Another civic project, the City of Winder Time Capsule (1993-2093), featured the burial of a sealed plastic water pipe in front of the town's Public Safety Building. The Mount Nebo Baptist Church Time Capsule (2000-2100) in Atlanta is a buried child's coffin.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Consideration of what is trendy and what is not

"Values are not trendy items that are casually traded in."

-- Columnist Ellen Goodman.

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