Enterprise-Journal from McComb, Mississippi • 2

Friday, July 30, 1999 2 emember Pete Johnson? CHARLES M. DUNAGIN Editor-Publisher JACK RYAN Managing Editor FREDDIE DEER Circulation Manager DEBORAH V. BEST Advertising Manager DONALD CARLISLE Production Manager Steve Stewart jt Editor, Clarksdale vf Founded 1889 Oliver Emmerich, Editor-Publisher 1923-1978 John O. Emmerich, Publisher 1978-1995 Published daily, except Saturday, by J.O. Emmerich and Associates P.O.

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Box 910, McComb, MS 39649. Pike County's 'pull factor' increasing All you have to do to figure out Pike County, especially fi McComb, is pulling in a considerable amount of retail business is look around. Go to the mall and shopping centers and check out the out-of-county auto tags. Look at the new Retail businesses going up and the expansions of some of he old ones. Sales tax collections reflect the growth, most months running ahead of the same period the previous year by sdouble digit increases.

Last year it was same story. We recently came across some interesting statistics Lshowing that Pike County's pull factor increased from 1 .24 in 1996 to 1.26 in "I had always been a moderate, and I disagreed with the direction the party was heading." So he became a Republican, embraced initially by the GOP establishment for his "courage" only to be blasted later as a liberal in disguise. Fordice, gaining momentum early September, picked up endorsements from party heavyweights Franklin, Haley Barbour, Clarke Reed and Liles Williams. The tone got uglier, and Mississippians got their first glimpse of the now-renowned Fordice bluster. After one debate, Fordice called Johnson a "dirt ball" for having raised legitimate questions about some back business taxes Fordice had owed in Louisiana.

"He was just so bitter and meanspirited," Johnson said of the qualities that Fordice would continue to display over the next eight years. By the eve of the first primary in mid-September, Johnson's lead in the polls had dwindled to four percentage points, statistically insignificant. His strength sapped by hepatitis, the race was over. In the first primary, Fordice narrowly led Johnson, 45 percent to 43 percent, with Clan-ton's 12 percent enough to force a Fordice-Johnson runoff three weeks later. Of a record 62,000 votes cast in the first Republican primary, nearly 12,000 were cast in Rankin County, a conservative stronghold in which Fordice had made strong inroads.

In more moderate counties where Johnson would have run strong, voters opted for the Democratic primary and the chance to help choose their supervisors and sheriffs. In Johnson's home Coahoma County, for example, just 104 people voted in the Republican primary. By the early October runoff, Johnson's defeat was a formality, and Fordice prevailed with 61 percent of the vote. The runoff drew some 20,000 fewer voters. Fordice went on to upset Mabus in November, setting Republicans on 'an eight-year course of record economic growth but a conservative agenda largely unfulfilled, thanks to Fordice's stubborn unwillingness to work with the Legislature and Democratic state officials.

Recent revelations of Fordice's infidelity and hypocrisy as a family-values crusader are bringing an embarrassing end to Republicans' first reign in the state's executive branch. Johnson, back in Clarksdale as he continues his miraculous recovery from a 1996 liver transplant, is diplomatic in his assessment of Fordice's tenure. "I look back and see such a terrific opportunity that's been lost," he said. "Mississippi is in its greatest growth period since the war. Imagine if we had had a nor who could work with the Legislature; the CLARKSDALE Having stared death in the face three years ago and, with God's grace, survived, Pete Johnson long ago relegated his failed 1991 gubernatorial bid to the ash heap of political skirmishes a mere bump in an incredibly blessed life.

"It was not meant for me to be governor," the Clarksdale attorney said recently over lunch, not a hint of bitterness or regret in his voice, even when the subject turned to Kirk Fordice, the maverick Republican who bullied past Johnson eight years ago en route to two terms in the Governor's Mansion. Still, as the Fordice administration sputters to a close, moderate Republicans across Mississippi can't help but wonder even if Johnson refuses to what might have been had the former state auditor staved off Fordice's challenge and become, instead of Fordice, the state's first Republican governor since Reconstruction. In early May 1991, Johnson was riding high in the polls a sitting state auditor, recent Republican convert and heir to a family political legacy that had put his grandfather and uncle in the Governor's Mansion. Johnson was and is a centrist in the mold of Thad Cochran and Sonny Montgomery, guided by common-sense principles and the art of compromise rather than rigid ideology. In the second contested GOP gubernatorial primary in the state's history, Johnson was an overwhelming favorite over Fordice, a longtime party loyalist but relatively unknown Vicksburg contractor, and social conservative Bobby Clanton.

The early polls reflected Johnson's strength 41 percent of likely GOP voters compared to Fordice's 15 percent and Clanton's 6 in one sampling that spring. Johnson had finished speaking to a Republican women's group in Hancock County one night when he was crippled by a pain so severe that he didn't think he'd survive the flight back to Jackson. The kidney-stone attack left him hospitalized for a week. No one but Johnson and his family knew that Hepatitis diagnosed by doctors in 1987 but deemed unlikely to cause major problems had unleashed the first of a series of blows that would culminate with Johnson's near-death experience at a Mississippi River hunting camp in January 1996. Johnson's immune system was obliterated and, for the five-month balance of the 1991 campaign, he was, unbeknownst to even his closest supporters, seriously ill.

"I had a hard time getting out of bed," he recalled. "At our last debate on the Coast, I spent 30 minutes in makeup just to get myself presentable. It was Hepatitis and I couldn't tell anybody. If people had known I had hepatitis, they wouldn't even have cbme 'to a1, meeting." 1997, according to the latest figures re-i leased by the Center So he soldiered on, his lead in the polls slipping but his secret safe. "My campaign was losing direction," Johnson acknowledged, recalling his lack of energy when Fordice and Clanton and even the Democratic incumbent, Ray Mabus began turning up the heat on the GOP front-runner in midsummer.

Fordice and Clanton hammered away at Johnson's political loyalties, suggesting that his party switch was motivated by convenience, not ideology: Clanton at a Sept. 12 debate in Biloxi: "Pete Johnson is a Republican Ray Mabus. There's not a nickel's worth of difference between them. He's a liberal Republican and he has no place in this conservative party unless he has another conversion." Fordice a few weeks later: "There's a rusty weather vane that changes positions less often than Pete Johnson." The opportunist label began to stick with diehard Republicans, mostly hard-core conservatives who would comprise the bulk of the primary electorate. There were racial undertones, insinuations that Johnson had become too cozy with black voters during his earlier Democratic bids for the 2nd Congressional District seat.

In one debate, Fordice baited Johnson, "If you were such a good auditor, why didn't you audit Jackson State?" Indeed, Johnson's track record of biracial support was strong. For that, he didn't apologize and, in fact, he reciprocated, backing black state Rep. Robert Clark, much to the chagrin of some of Johnson's white friends, in a race against incumbent U.S. Rep. Webb Franklin.

Among Johnson's biggest allies was Aaron Henry, the longtime state NAACP chairman and state legislator from Clarksdale. Ironically, deterioration of Johnson's black support base in the wake of a bruising battle with Mike Espy in the 2nd Congressional District in 1986 had been a factor in the subsequent party switch. Even though Johnson won the state auditor's race as a Democrat in 1987, "essentially the Democratic Party abandoned 'the In' that for Policy Research i and Planning, Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning. An article in the July edition of "Mississippi published by the Center for Policy Research and Planning states pull factors are a measure of the market influence of a county's retail trade industry. "A pull factor is the ratio of a i county's retail sales to the county's total personal income i divided by the ratio of the state's retail sales to the state's "total personal income." A county is considered to be serving its residents ii when the pull factor is greater than one.

Brian Richard, au- i thor of the article, explains that a pull factor larger than one indicates the county is a regional retail center, bringing shoppers and dollars into the county. "Conversely," the au-i thor states, "a pull factor of less than one suggests that the county's residents are generally shopping outside the county." The article pointed out that it is possible for increased income levels to have a negative effect on a county's pull factor. For example, Smith County's pull factor decreased 1 17 percent over a three-year period, although its retail sales volume increased 2.6 percent. The reason was that income levels increased much more rapidly than retail sales. Statistics used by Richard to determine pull factors show that in 1997, Pike County reported total retail sales of $375,932,503 and had a per capita income of $16,177.

Remember, these are 1997 figures compared to 1996. We suspect that 1 998 and 1 999 will look even better. Interest picking up in Aug. 3 primaries We previously have noted what seemed to be a lack of interest in the upcoming primary elections, reporting that several candidates have said the same thing. Well, we're pleased to suggest today that interest has race, he said.

'I Mill III II Ill HUM IWWIIII1IHIIIWW llll I HI III HI II IIP II IP I' Ml vmi III MIIW I II III! III! III! WW president of the United States, no matterjwho they were. He alienated people who "could have helped us. "His greatest strength, which is his strong personality, turned out to be his greatest fault, and that's sad. He could have used that and channeled it to be a great leader." Johnson praised Fordice's savvy in choosing first-rate appointees for critical jobs and noted several accomplishments, particularly the success of the state's welfare-reform program: He harbors no grudges, having visited with Fordice in the Governor's Mansion in the wake of Johnson's liver transplant and the governor's near-fatal car accident a couple of years back. "He couldn't have been nicer and gentler," Johnson said of that meeting.

Even the most heated attacks of the 1991 campaign are long forgiven. "Life's too short. He never did anything wrong to me. We ran a straight-up race, and he won. I'm one of those who truly believes that all things work for good to them that love God and who are the called according to his purpose." increased, and Pike County Circuit Clerk Roger Graves is predicting a turnout of about 60 percent next Tuesday.

The one true "Buddha Natural wonder eho sight to Graves, by the way, thinks that one reason the average person hasn't been doing a lot of talking about the election is that there are so many good local candidates, and many people simply don't want to offend anyone by indicating for whom they will vote. There are about 25,000 registered voters in the county, and Graves, who has no opponent, thinks about 60 percent will vote. Actually, he's guessing 14,500 which is slightly less than 60 percent. Of those, he is predicting 15 percent will vote in the Republican primary which has more candidates this year than any time we can remember. Note: You can vote in either primary but only in one, not both.

And you must vote in the same one during the second primary as you did in the first. Voting is more than a right or a privilege, it is a duty Rheta Grimsley Johnson Syndicated Columnist thoughtless visitors who bring pets and leave them tied to a table all day. You pay her a dollar and wander on your own into the limestone cave, its entrance made with native stone and WPA labor to resemble a fairy tale castle. The cave's natural air conditioning keeps the temperature at 56 degrees. There are the usual cave attractions stalagmites and stalactites, dead ends, domed rooms and low ceilings and that crystal-clear trickle of water running across the floor to remind you how this natural wonder happened.

Dunagin's People (Ma? CAVE SPRING, Ga It is hot as Justin Wilson's kitchen. You can't tie your shoe without breaking a sweat. Yet in the blue-green shade of Rolater Park, life is cooler, slower, a page from a distant year when days had more hope and hours. This perfect park has its cave, a cave spring and an acre-and-a-half swimming pool in the shape of Georgia. But the people who populate the park are the best part.

Visitors Joe Ausborn and his German-born wife, Heidi, are feeding soup crackers to the trout in the cold waters of a spring-fed pond. They will come back later to fill their bottles for drinking, Joe says, because the 99-per-cent-pure water is good for them. "I've lived 28 years with dialysis three times a week," Joe says, raising his sleeve to offer a bare, knotted arm as proof. Regulars roll little red wagons to one of several springs for their water. Many swear it has medicinal qualities.

At any rate, it tastes great. Emmalee Highnote is a lifelong resident of Cave Spring and also park co-manager. As a child she came for water with her grandfather, and, through habit or sentiment, still fills her bottles at the same spring. For 35 years, like her mother before her, she taught the deaf at the state school in Cave Spring. In her unhurried, gracious manner, Emmalee sits beneath a park pavilion and tells me about the town's greatest benefactor, Dr.

Joseph Rolater. Rolater made his fortune in the Oklahoma Territory, but he never forgot his stay at Hearn Institute in Cave Spring. The Baptist school once was located in this same grove, but We are not honoring this privilege, right or duty. In the last election, in the city of McComb alone we had thousands of African-American registered voters who did not exercise this right for which so many have lost their Stop, think and remember what Dr. King and so many others died for.

On Aug. 3 make it not your privilege, make it not your right, make it your duty to vote. Akesha Monique Seals Editor, Enterprise-Journal: right or duty? With the election only a few days away I felt it necessary to write this letter. Voting is a process we use to elect people to represent us and make our way of life better. For some of us it has always been a privilege to vote and have exercised that right in a like matter.

Since the time this country was horn we have learned as we grew. We have learned that all Americans should have this same right bs others do. This principle is what birthed the civil rights movement and the desire to want the right to vote. This was met with all types of obstacles, threats, beatings, bombings, and death to the ones willing to give their all. This brings me to the African-American community in Pike County, it quickly faded when public schools were born.

In 1931 Rolater bought the grove and the school's abandoned buildings and deeded the property to the residents of Cave Spring for a park. The park should be managed by a self-perpetuating board of three residents, he stipulated. And it always has been. (One current board member, Martha Davis, will be 100 in two weeks.) All money made at the park should be plowed back into it, he said. There has been a swimming hole here since the 1800s, Emmalee says.

Everyone has always, proudly boasted the pool is the second largest in the state of Georgia, "but nobody seems to know which is bigger." At any rate, the pool is huge. The Works Progress Administration outlined it in stone in the shape of Georgia and put concrete on part of the sand bottom. Water is piped from the cave spring, of course, and there are other springs beneath it. If you get too hot poolside, it's a quick walk to the cave. Janice Snyder is cave hostess, a sweet woman who frets about the few The Enterprise-Journal in vites readers to submit their opinions for publication: Mail to: Editor, Enterprise-Journal, P.O.

Box 910, McComb, MS 39649. Letters must be signed with a return address. Abusive or libelous letters will not be published. I "The good news is, this appears to have been a normal storm, not one caused by La Nifta or El Nino.".