Enterprise-Journal from McComb, Mississippi • 15

Eutcrprisc-tl oiuroial Wednesday, June 16, 1999 1-B Around Town 'Hi Technology is making it easier for adopted children to find their birth parents when they finally decide to go v1; I 4 -'(( fa lyYh.i It ft' 'i Knodcing on doors I -j'llfe" A I 1 1 1 il Bike-A-Thon is Saturday in Liberty St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has announced plans for the Liberty "Wheels for Life" Bike-A-Thon to be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 19 at Amite County High School. Coordinators for this year's event are Madeleine Floyd and Pearl Dunlap. They encourage all residents and businesses to support this community effort.

Participants in the Bike-a-thon will collect money from sponsors. This money will go to St.Jude's, which was founded in 1962 by the late Danny Thomas and is the largest childhood cancer research center in America in term of the number of patients treated and treatment success. Treatment iat the hospital is provided at no cost to the family and all findings are shared with doctors and hospitals all over the world. Thanks to St. Jude Hospital, children who have leukemia, Pediatric AIDS, sickle-cell anemia, and other life-threatening diseases now have a better chance to live.

i- Everyone who participates in the bike-a-thon jwill receive a certificate of participation. Those who praise over $35 will receive a t-shirt. For more information contact Dunlap at 1-601-657-4838 or loyd at 1-601-645-5841. Library System plans fun events The Pike-Amite-Walthall Library System's sum-mer "Reading For Fun" program began June 7 and continues until July 30. Storyhour programs are Conducted weekly at the headquarters library in McComb and at all branches throughout the system.

The theme for this summer is "Mississippi Magic" and bookmarks and reading records relating to Mississippi will be given to summer readers, i Activities for school-age children during June include a "Celebrate Sunflowers" craft program June 21 and a "Barefoot Day" at the library June 28 i "Tiny Tales," "Lap Chaps" and "Tuesday's Tot" storyhours for June are "Warm Fuzzy Day" June 21 and "Barefoot Day" June 28 for foot painting and butterfly printing. "Lap Chaps" is at Walthall at 11 a.m. Mondays. "Tuesday's Tots" is in Gloster at 11:15 a.m. Tuesdays.

"Special Friends" is at McComb at 10 a.m. Wednesday and "Tiny Tales" is in McComb at 10:10 a.m. Thursdays. Hog Wild Day June 25 in Jackson The Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum on Lakeland Drive in Jackson will hold their 10th Annual Hog Wild Bar-B-Que Festival June 25 and 26. This event offers activities for the entire family and admission includes a tour of the museum complex.

Friday night is "Barbecue, Brews and Blues Night" featuring blue's artists Mel Walters and Willie Clayton. Gates open at 5 p.m. Saturday a Memphis in May sanctioned barbecue cook-off will be held with gates opening at 10 a.m. Musical entertainment begins at 1 p.m. Saturday's lineup includes a Mississippi AIM Production of Mississippi's Music in Review, a performance by 52 young people from across Mississippi recapping Mississippi's most famous entertainers through their music.

At 5 p.m. the Sunshine Revival Band will play, followed by Elijah Blue. Headlining activities Saturday night will be the Electric Light Orchestra, Part II, direct from England on their World Tour 1999. There will also be carousel, pony and train rides for the children and food by Red, Hot and Blue. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children 6-12, and children under six are admitted free.

Photo by Aaron Rhoads Kate Groover holds a photo album with pictures of herself and her three sisters. From left, are Kate, and her sisters Vickie, Gia and Robyn. By Janice Fortenberry Staff writer Knowing you're adopted often leads to a lifetime of wondering: Who were your parents? Where did they live? Why were you put up for adoption? Do you have brothers and sisters? Some adopted children and the biologic parents leave well enough alone, but others (roughly half, one source said) are determined to unravel their past. For those who opt to search, technology is revolutionizing the process. Just ask Kate Groover of McComb.

To prove her point, Groover describes her own hunt for the woman who gave her birth in 1951. Groover said her parents the late Joe and Katherine Fernandez had always been open about her being adopted, the name of her biologic mother and the fact that she was born at St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis. But she remained simply curious about her past until 1994 when she decided to begin her search in earnest. Technology, she said, played a big role in putting the pieces of her past together.

"I wanted my medical history, so I called Nashville (the Bureau of Vital Statistics) and found out that my records were sealed," Groover explained. Groover said she was living in Atlanta at the time but grew up in Bolivar County. A judge who was a family friend issued a court order to back up her requests to the hospital. Unfortunately, her birth records didn't shed any light on finding her biologic mother. She turned next to Reunion Registries in Atlanta, an adoption search service run by the state of Georgia.

She talked to a man named Bill Jones. "I didn't think he could find her, but 30 minutes later he had her Social Security number, the names of two of her husbands and the name of the business she owned," Groover said. (The birth mother's name is not being used to protect her confidentiali-ty.) She also had something far more important to Groover's search: She had a phone number. "I called her, and there was dead silence," Groover explained. "All she said was, 'How did you find Groover said the woman, who lived in Long Island, New York, said all the things adoptees want to hear: "I've wondered where you are and how you are," and "I've always loved you." But her birth mother also uttered the words every adoptee fears.

"She told me she didn't want contact with me," Groover said. Groover said she was disappointed, but she wasn't devastated. "People need to understand, I was never looking for a mother. I had wonderful parents who gave me anything I ever wanted. I was looking for information," Groover said.

Groover's search lay dormant for the next four years until her adoptive mother died in 1998. It was then, she said, that she picked up the search for her past with the help of the Internet. "In her last months, Mother repeatedly said I needed to contact my birth mother, so it was something she obviously wanted me to do," Groover said. However, letters she mailed to Long Island came back unopened, and the phone number she had used four years before was now disconnected. "I had shared my frustration with several people on the Internet and eventually I had tons of people helping me search," Groover said.

And that means a lot for someone who was raised as an only child." Bittersweet endings are typical of many adoption search efforts, Groover added. "When you set out to look for family, you have to follow your heart and expect the best, but be prepared for the worst. You could be the product of any situation rape, incest, etc. And you can't be judgmental about what you find," she said. Groover said she was so impressed with the web pages she visited during her own search that she has helped set up one for Mississippi.

"We call it the Mississippi Adoption Newslink. It's an E-mail list for people searching in Mississippi," she explained. The link has been on line for two months and already has 24 members. Groover is the moderator for the page. Groover said there will be a registration initiative Oct.

2 at Bookland in Edgewood Mall. "Everyone will be invited to fill out a registration form for our search registry. Hopefully, we can help them get a match," Groover said. She also said the push for open records legislation will help adoptees find their birth parents and vice versa. Groover said the Council for Equal Rights in Adoption, made up of over 359 adoption agencies and search and support organizations, is pushing for laws nationwide which would open adoption records.

Only a few states Kansas, Alaska and Hawaii have open record laws now. But Groover stressed that regardless of how the search is done, one rule of thumb should be followed: "You have a right to knock on a door, but you don't have a right to intrude," she said. She finally got lucky one day by calling numbers she got from a telephone listing in the New York area. "The 27th name I called was my birth mother's stepson, and he told me her new phone number," Groover said. The woman, however, was not happy to have been found the second time.

"She was as mad as she could be, and she told me again that she didn't want contact with me," Groover said. The search, Groover said, was disappointing but not fruitless. Through the Internet, she discovered that her birth mother had also had other children Gia, Robin, Vicky and Rick. Groover has also been able to contact her birth mother's two sisters Irene and Emily. Groover said her investigation into her birth mother's life paints a picture of a terribly dysfunctional family.

She was born when the woman was 17 years old. The other siblings, she said, came from a number of different husbands. As adults, they had no contact with each other and very little with their mother. But through Groover's efforts to find out about her past, the other children have come to know each other. Two of them have already visited Groover in McComb.

The group, she said, is planning a reunion at Groover's house Thanksgiving. "They're all coming here, and they haven't seen each other in 20 years," she said. The girls, she explained further, even thought Rick was dead. Will her birth mother ever consent for a meeting? "I don't know," Groover said. "But, in spite of her rejection, I've found a family I didn't know I had.

McComb students head for South Pacific countries USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Sydney Harbour and Sydney Tower in Australia; the Agrodome and the Maori Cultural Centre in New Zealand, among many other sites. "They learn about the history of the area, the government, the economic system, as well as just doing fun stuff," said Simmons. "They get a better understanding of other cultures and ways of life, and maybe an appreciation of home, and it just kind of broadens their horizons." She said some of the students have wound up studying abroad later. Simmons started going as a participant when fellow teacher Janellyn Boyd used to lead the trips, When Boyd quit going, Simmons took over. She's had no problems more serious than lost travelers checks or lost passports'.

The latter is remedied by much paperwork at the nearest American embassy. Group sizes have ranged from six to 19, she said. The trips are open to the public. Call Simmons at 684-5678 or 249-3227 for information. By Ernest Herndon Staff Writer For years, McComb High School teacher Barbara Simmons has combined her love of teaching and love of travel by taking students to Europe.

This summer her group will go even farther to Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. Simmons, along with six McComb High students, one Southwest Mississippi Community College student and four other adults, will leave June 22 and return July 3 on the trip guided by Educational Tours of Boston. "I've been doing this for about the last 12 years," said Simmons, who teaches 10th and 11th grade English and speech. "We've always gone to Europe, so I decided I'd offer something different this year." She'd long wanted to go to Australia, and several students had expressed an interest in Australia, so Australia it was. The cost of about $2,500 each includes transportation, lodging and two meals a day.

"They pay their own way. We don't do any fundraisers or anything like that," Simmons said. The group will visit such places as the I tZ -A 1 )i 1 I. i LJ i Photo by Aaron Rhoads Students and sponsors traveling to the South Pacific, from sor Diane Turnage, Miriam Griffin and Nettie Watklns. Not left front are: Ashley Nichols, Lindsay Smith, sponsor Bar- pictured are Kyle Touchstone, Harrold Burnett, Amelia bara Simmons, Katie Seago; and back: Amy Shelton, spon- Yawn and Larry Yawn..