Friday, July 22, 2011

TOP STORY > >Coach gets 60 days, five years probation

By CHRISTY HENDRICKS
Leader staff writer

Tim Ballard, a former coach and principal at Abundant Life Schools in Sherwood, pleaded no contest to sexual- assault charges Thursday. A trial had been set for Aug. 8 in Pulaski County Circuit Court, but Ballard made a plea bargain, according to prosecuting attorney Terry Ball.

The plea sentences Ballard to five years probation, a $1,000 fine and 60 days in jail. He must also pay court costs. In addition to time served, he will be allowed to finish his jail sentence on weekends and pay off his fine with a monthly payment of $25.

Ballard was also ordered to have no contact with the two victims in his case and is required to register as a sex offender. Despite reports of multiple victims, several of them his students, Ballard was set to be tried on only two victims’ reports due to the statute of limitations.

Ballard was arrested in March 2010.

TOP STORY > >Islam is blamed for shooting

By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer

The trial of Abdulhakim Muhammad, who is accused of killing one Army recruiter and critically wounding another, recessed Friday afternoon for the weekend and will begin again at 10 a.m. Monday.

The prosecution finished presenting its case late Thursday, and the defense spent most of Friday presenting character witnesses not to show that Muhammad was a good person but that the accused was a good person until he converted to Islam and journeyed to Yemen.

One boyhood friend said he didn’t even recognize what Muhammad had become.

The prosecution spent two days having police officers and others who responded to the scene, those who interviewed Muhammad and investigated the incident, show that Muhammad was the shooter who on June 1, 2009 killed Pvt. William Long of Conway and seriously injured Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula of Jacksonville.

The prosecution also showed two videotapes where Muhammad confessed to the shootings.

The defense is acknowledging that Muhammad was the shooter, but is focusing on showing how he changed over the years and at the time of the incident was suffering from “mental defect or disease” which is why he committed the crime.

One of Friday’s defense witnesses was Dr. Shawn Agharkar, a forensic psychiatrist, who said that Muhammad suffers from a delusionary disorder. 
He added that the accused has delusions of grandeur and thinks that he’s being persecuted.

In opening statements Wednes-day, Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley showed a picture of Muhammad’s victim, Pvt. William Andrew “Andy” Long, saying, “This is why we’re here.”

He continued to describe the shooting outside a Little Rock recruiting station that killed Long and injured Ezeagwula of Jacksonville. Born Carlos Bledsoe, Muhammad is accused of shooting the soldiers outside a Little Rock recruiting station.

The soldiers were taking a smoke break in front of the building.

Jegley told the jurors that Muhammad watched a Dutch film about the rape and murder of Muslims the night before the shooting and claims his actions were retaliation to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Jegley pointed a finger at the defendant and, looking at the jurors, said, “They (the shots) were fired by this man. We’re here today because this man did it.”

He added that the victims of the attack had recently completed basic training and been allowed to go home before being deployed. The two were scheduled to be deployed — Long to South Korea and Ezeagwula to Hawaii — the week following the shooting.

Jegley said Long “was a son, a brother and a friend who died fighting for the United States Army.”

Jegley urged jurors to convict Muhammad on the basis that the defendant was sane on the day he committed the crimes he is accused of — capital murder, attempted capital murder and 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm from a vehicle.

“You are going to have the opportunity to hear and see him on the day he did what he did…This man was not suffering from a mental disorder and even if he was—and I’m not conceding that he was—it wasn’t a substantial amount. He wasn’t grossly impaired,”
Jegley insisted.

One of Muhammad’s defense attorneys, Patrick Benca, countered for the defense.

He gave the jurors a little background on the killer who used to be a “jokester” and “fun-loving” until his 18th birthday, when family, lifelong friends, and others began to notice him withdraw.

Muhammad studied several religions before converting to Islam and changing his name. He went to Yemen for 18 months, looking for “enlightenment.” He taught English there.

He was arrested in Yemen and held in custody for three months. Benca emphasized that his client’s isolation only increased and he couldn’t hold a job in Yemen or in the U.S.

He shared that when Muham-mad returned home, he was welcomed by his always-loving family and friends at a party, but chose to go out to his car and sleep there because he was uncomfortable because of his isolated state.

Benca acknowledged that his client killed Long and injured Ezeagwula in the attack. “It was horrible. It made me pray for the families, no question about that. But what it didn’t tell, it didn’t tell the whole story,” he said.

Wednesday’s witnesses in-cluded Long’s mother, Janet, and Ezeagwula.

She was sitting in her car in the parking lot at the center waiting to pick her son up from work. She said she saw him and another soldier come out of the building for a smoke break but, because he was talking to that soldier, she didn’t approach him and went back to reading. Then she heard “three bursts” of shots and ducked down in reaction.

Janet said she didn’t see her son at first because there were numerous people gathered around and she didn’t want to believe he had been hurt.

“I was looking for Andy’s face in the crowd of faces. I think you don’t want to know that’s your son.”

She found out later at the hospital that Andy had passed away from his injuries.

Ezeagwula testified that he and Long had been on a smoke break. He was hesitant to say he was smoking, and those in the courtroom laughed when he explained that his mother doesn’t like the habit.

He said he tried to run after being hit by bullet fragments in the head, back and buttocks, but fell down and played dead until he saw the truck pull away. When he got inside the recruiting center, Ezeagwula said he remembered seeing papers floating everywhere and people asking him if he was OK.

Ezeagwula said he touched his head, felt blood on his hands and “I was like ‘I think I got shot’ and then I fell on the ground.”

Jegley asked the soldier what he feels when he touches the back of his head now and Ezeagwula said there is still shrapnel there. He has undergone multiple surgeries to remove most of it and walks with a limp that he tries to hide to “play it cool.”

EDITORIAL >>Pray there’s no default

We are now three months into the gravest economic crisis to have faced the country since 1929 and only 10 days away from the cataclysm that will befall us if the United States defaults on its debts and its contracts with vendors and the American people. It is the first such crisis in memory brought about entirely for the singular purpose of defeating an American president in the next election.

Let us hope that wisdom and true patriotism—that is, putting the country ahead of party—prevail in the short time remaining.  Let us further hope that, however it is settled, all Americans will resolve that no group will ever again be permitted to hold the country hostage for political gain.

Everyone by now knows the dilemma. The U.S. government reached its debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion back on May 17 because Congress for the first time in history refused to raise it. Congress raised it regularly in the eight years of President George W. Bush to cover the government’s binge of tax-cutting and increased spending on defense, medicine and domestic security. The Treasury Department avoided default on May 17 by some creative bookkeeping so that the country could continue paying the bills. It will run out of leverage the morning of Tuesday, August 2. Starting that morning, the government will only be able to write checks on the amount of cash in the treasury that day or else have them bounce.


Most of the handwringing so far is over the prospect of not making timely payments to the holders of U. S. debt securities, both in this country and abroad. The first payment of $29 billion will be due Aug. 15 and it will need to roll over $500 billion in expiring short-term securities, but it is projected that the government that day will have accumulated no more than $22 billion in cash, and then only by reneging on billions of other obligations to American citizens. Failure to make the interest payments would upset the whole global financial system, dash international confidence in the United States and speed the end of the U.S. dollar as the global-reserve currency. Borrowing costs for individuals, businesses and the government would skyrocket.

That is only part of the scenario. The government would have to choose, insofar as the law permits it to choose, whom to pay and whom not to pay each day. Does it delay Social Security checks for a month? Stop payment to hundreds of thousands of contractors, from hospitals, doctors and nursing homes to the men of the military and defense contractors? Or would it not pay government employees, from food inspectors to veterans medical services?

State and local governments would feel the brunt of the fiscal distress. Even Arkansas, which almost alone among the states has kept its head above water since the economic calamity settled on the country in the winter of 2007–08, would see its little surplus disappear instantly and it would be unable to pay highway contractors, hospitals and other medical providers, nursing homes and thousands of vendors for state-federal programs. Unemployment would soar far into the double digits within weeks.

A band of ultra-conservative congressmen, many elected in the uprising in 2010 and including our Arkansas freshmen members, has held the Republican Party hostage. They have demanded that the party and its leadership reflect their demands, and so far the party has done so. The same party leaders had rallied the members to raise the debt ceiling repeatedly when Bush was president, but they all sensed a chance to sink the Democratic president, which both the Senate and House leaders had sworn to do.

The congressmen behind the charade—let’s name the Arkansas participants: Tim Griffin of the Second District and Rick Crawford of the First District—insist that it’s no big deal to keep the debt ceiling intact. They have maintained that if the elderly and disabled don’t get their Social Security checks, if the states can’t pay for nursing-home care, if the mail isn’t delivered, if the government defaults on its debt, or if anything sad happens it will be because President Obama made bad decisions about what bills to pay. Social Security checks would not have to be delayed unless the president chose to delay them, they said.

You see, if anything bad happens, people will blame it on the president. If there is a depression, the president and his party will be blamed. That is how the game has always been played, isn’t it?
But you figure it out. On Aug. 3, the first Wednesday of the month, $23 billion in checks must be mailed to Social Security recipients (actually, most are deposited directly into recipients’ bank accounts), but only a fraction of that sum will be in the treasury that day. But if people want to blame Barack Obama for the checks not arriving, they will.

We can see why Crawford would not think defaulting on the country’s obligations would be no big deal. Before being elected to Congress last year, he was famous for defaulting on his own debts by filing for bankruptcy and then lying about paying off his debts. If Crawford could welsh on his debts and escape the consequences, why couldn’t the United States?

Griffin and Crawford (our new Third District congressman, Steve Womack, seems to have backed away from this madness) were standing in front of the White House earlier this week toting signs and making little speeches blaming the president for that big $14.3 trillion debt and for not resolving the crisis.

But let’s backtrack a ways. During the past decade, Griffin was a low-level political aide in the Bush White House when he was not an operative of the Republican Party in Washington. How much of the $14.3 trillion debt did they run up? Exactly $6.1 trillion. Did Griffin go outside and wave a sign demanding that the boss stop his reckless spending?

And how much of the debt was accumulated under the previous Republican administrations, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush? Remember that when Reagan took office in 1981, the accumulated U.S. debt was only $997 billion. When they left office, they had grown the debt to $4.4 trillion, so they account for $3.4 trillion of the current debt. That adds up to $9.5 trillion of the $14.3 trillion of obligations. The eight years of Bill Clinton added $1.4 trillion.

That leaves roughly $3 trillion under Obama, a little over half of which is the result of collapsed government revenues in the recession and the rest due to extended unemployment insurance, anti-recession spending and a continuation of the heightened military spending of the Bush years.

Calamity has not yet befallen us because there is widespread confidence in this country and abroad that the U.S. Congress is not mad and that there are enough wise and patriotic representatives who will stay the hands of the fools, if only at the last minute. Let us pray that it is so.

TOP STORY > >AIR MOBILITY COMMAND’S RODEO 2011

By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer

Teams from Little Rock Air Force Base and community leaders took off Friday morning for the biennial Air Mobility Command rodeo competition at McChord Air Force Base, Wash., where U.S. and foreign teams will show off their skills.

Col. Mike Minihan, 19th Air-lift Wing commander, opened Friday’s rodeo breakfast by recognizing team leaders and members and guests, including the “Fab 4,” mayors Gary Fletcher, Virginia Hillman, Bill Cypert and former Mayor Tommy Swaim.

“This is not just our Air Force base,” Col. Mark Czelusta, 314th Airlift Wing commander, told the crowd gathered for the send-off. “It’s your Air Force base.”

“This is my first rodeo,” Cabot Mayor Bill Cypert said. “I’m looking forward to just the excitement, to see our military in action, their precision and competitiveness.”

“These guys and gals out here at the base do a great job every day, and this rodeo event gives them an opportunity to compete against other wings and crews across the country,” said Larry Wilson, First Arkansas Bank and Trust president and CEO. “I’m confident they will do well. I think it’s important for our military personnel to get support for what they do.”

Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said he was looking forward to the excitement about everything he’s been told.

“I look forward to the competition, seeing the best of the best,” the mayor said. “We come together as a family in a situation like this. For military, it’s always family.

“This gives us a chance to show that Little Rock Air Force Base has a bigger family, the community itself,” he added.

Team captains say they are ready for the “spirited competition.”

Rodeo 2011 will be held Sun-day through Friday at McChord Air Force Base, Wash. The international competition is comparable to the Olympics for air-mobility, combat- and flying-operations forces.

Team members were recommended and selected by three squadron leaders as the best LRAFB has to offer.

Maj. Jake Sheddan, 62nd Airlift Squadron assistant director of operations, is team chief for the 314th Airlift Wing. Lieut. Col. Roger Morin, 53rd Airlift Squadron operations officer, is the team chief for the 19th Airlift Wing.

The teams will be competing against each other, but both said they’d be winners as long as LRAFB is recognized for bringing home trophies.

Morin compared his attitude to being on a football team in college, saying that if his football team didn’t make it to the championship, he would cheer on a rival from his conference before rooting for a team from another conference.

Sheddan added, “When we come home, it’s still team Little Rock. When we leave Colorado Springs (which is where the teams will stop before completing the rest of the journey to McChord), it’s game on.”

With forces worldwide participating in the event, LRAFB airmen will have a chance to meet and build relationships with people from many other countries, he said.

Sheddan said the rodeo is about “building partnership capacity” with allied nations to work with them in the future, especially in relief efforts overseas.

One advantage Little Rock rodeo competitors have, Sheddan said, is that they are bringing four C-130s, while many countries are only able to bring one aircraft.

Two legacy C-130s and two J-model C-130s will go to Washington with the teams. Sheddan and Morin compared the legacy to a rotary telephone and the J-model to an iPhone. The main difference is that the J-models have so much more automation.

Teams will compete in numerous events. LRAFB will also compete in some events for the first time.

A finance team has never attended rodeo to compete, but one will go this year. The finance team will be placed in a simulated zone where they will have to aid a country with relief efforts. The event includes about 200 scenarios they will have to complete and earn points for.

For the first time, LRAFB security forces will be judged on their marksmanship skills in one rodeo event.

The events Morin said are usually the most anticipated include the assault landing, combat offload and engine running onload.

During the assault-landing event crews will be judged on how well they can land a plane on a 60-foot-wide strip based on how close the plane gets to an identified stopping point.

The distance between the landing wheels of a C-130 is 11 to 12 feet, Morin said. Assault landing strips are usually about 3,000 feet long.

He explained that this tests the crew’s ability to land on dirt airstrips like those in Afghanistan, even though the competition strip at McChord is paved.

Morin added that this is the event that requires some of the most intensive practice. The teams have been practicing since May.

During combat offload, teams will be judged on how accurately they can drop a pallet of supplies. A location will be identified and the team will gain or lose points based on how close to that point the packet it drops lands.

Teams will be allowed to use an electronic device that can be dropped and give readings back to the crew about wind speed and direction at different altitudes.

Without that device, a crew has to measure the wind speed and direction at the altitude the plane is flying. They then use percentage formulas to determine how to drop a package so it will land where it needs to land.

The engine-running onload competition judges teams based on how fast and how safely they can load a packet of supplies onto an aircraft.

SPORTS>>Youths in Junior Olympics

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

When the AAU National Junior Olympic Games Track and Field competition commences on Aug. 1, Jacksonville will be well represented.

The Christian Competition Track Club, headed up by Jacksonville’s Walter Harris, has qualified six athletes for the national event in New Orleans.

Kiarra and Diajah Harris, Taylor Person, Brandi Allen, Raeghan Weddle and Asia Jiles will all compete in different events, as well as on relay teams, thanks to performances in other meets this summer that were good enough to qualify for the Junior Olympic meet.

“These girls have worked hard out here in this heat and really improved this summer,” Walter Harris said.

Kiarra Harris, 12, is ranked in the Top 10 for her age group in the javelin and shot put. Person is also Olympic qualified for the same events as a 14-year old.

Diajah Harris, 11, has qualified in the 4x100 and 4x400 relay, as well as the long jump, which is her specialty.

She missed competitions and several weeks of practice, but came back in the final qualifying meet to jump 13 feet, nine inches to make it to New Orleans in the event.

Giles, is a sprinter, and despite the team qualifying in both sprint relays, she was the only one to qualify in the 100-meter dash. She will also run for the 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams.

Weddle will take her turn with the baton in the 4x100 while Allen, 12, will take a lap for the 4x400 team.

The Christian Competition Club athletes are coached by Harris, Jeaniae Lawton, Chet Allen and Janette Dixon.

The junior olympic games will last for six days from August 1 - 6.

SPORTS>>Ex-Lady Devil off to Grambling St.

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

Vanessa Brown didn’t start playing volleyball competitively until 2007, when she was a junior at Jacksonville High School. She was very athletic back then and packed with potential, but she knew very little about the game, was somewhat unfocused and was even a little chubby, she said.

Today, she’s the picture of health, focused on the right things and a 3.0 GPA carrying graduate of Kansas City Kansas junior college who is heading to Division I Grambling State University on a full-ride athletic scholarship.

The transformation took place in Kansas City, where Brown’s eyes were opened to a lot of different things. Among the most important were two things. First, that success means sacrifice. Second, that setbacks are temporary and can be overcome.

At the time, KCK was not Brown’s goal, but it was what was available. Now she believes it was the best thing for her.

“It just turned out to be so good for me going to that school,” Brown said. “I learned so much about hard work, and mostly the importance of education. And that’s what I want to pass along to kids when I graduate. I really want to stress to kids how important an education is.”

Brown, who will major in secondary education with a focus on special ed, for the most part, did what she wanted, ate what she wanted and took the classes she wanted in high school.

She, for the most part, didn’t expect much of that to change in college.

Then came the eye-openers.

Most junior colleges have minimal academic demands for athletes. KCK is not most junior colleges. The school demanded a 3.0 GPA for athletes to maintain scholarships. Brown soon realized that it was going to take a real dedication to books, something she’d not had in the past, to achieve that goal.

All students have that same epiphany, Brown was one of few who chose to face the life lesson and press forward.

But even in pressing forward, she tried to do it her own way, and turned away her coach’s advice on classes, and took the ones she wanted.

When her freshman year was over, she had maintained the required GPA, but did not have the right classes to progress towards her degree, which is a requirement at KCK.

That meant she would not be able to play volleyball her second year.

Again, a tough choice had to be made when she was completely discouraged. Again, Brown made the choice to do battle and persevere.

Without the reward of playing in games, she stuck with the regiment that a student-athlete endures, and redshirted for a year.

She came back as a third-year sophomore fitter, stronger and more mature, and became a standout.

She will report to Grambling St. in Ruston, La. in August and hopes to become an instant leader on the squad.

“I plan on taking on a leadership role because most of the girls we have coming in will be freshman,” Brown said. “I feel with my experience and having gone through some of the things I did, gives me that ability to be a leader on the team.”

Her physical attributes will also help her status. Playing right side, she has great court awareness, quickness, strength and leaping ability.

Being left handed also presents something different for her opponents to adjust to.

The discipline she learned at KCK, including self discipline, will help her lead by example.

For example, at KCK, she could not drink sodas or eat junk food. Even meat was limited.

“I hated it at first, but like most other things about being there, I see now that it was really best for me. That’s the kind of thing I think I bring to such a young team, someone to lead by example and do things the right way.”

SPORTS>>Persistence leads to scholarships

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

Second chances don’t come around for every athlete that missed out on, or even blew, their first opportunity. And when a second-chance door is opened, it takes unique courage sometimes just to walk through it. It’s unusual when a whole slew of young men find themselves with a sudden, unexpected, even lucky, opportunity to get a college education.

That’s what has happened with the Pulaski Tech Diamonds club basketball team. Nine members of the 14-man team made the most of such an opportunity, and parlayed an invitation to play for the club, which also required enrolling in college and maintaining a 2.5 GPA, into scholarship offers to schools with real athletics programs.

Six teammates, including Lonoke’s Tyrone Dobbins, Sylvan Hills’ Ulysses Robinson and Christian Wallace, Josh Warren and Michael Jackson of North Little Rock and Mark Robertson of Little Rock Central, signed with the University of Southwest in Hobbs, N.M. Lance Jackson, a football standout at Lonoke, signed a football scholarship with Dakota College in Bottineau, N.D. Cedrick Williams of Oak Grove signed with Central Baptist College in Conway. Drew Webb of Cabot signed a basketball scholarship to East Baptist University in Marshall, Texas.

The coach, Dalton Lemelle, a retired Air Force officer with 20 years service, led a grant program aimed at recruiting and increasing retention of African American males.

He chose basketball as a route to achieve that goal, but he didn’t limit it to inner-city urban players.

The group consisted of seven black men and seven white men, and they began playing as a team at the Cabot Recreation Center in Cabot’s rec league.

“One of the things I noticed was the guys were not culturally diverse,” Lemelle said. “A lot of

the teams around here were all white or all black. I felt the team should be diverse and they should play in an environment they weren’t all that accustomed to.

“I felt that if we caused any behavior problems in the Cabot league, then forming the basketball club and traveling to diverse areas to play wouldn’t work.”

Lemelle said Joe Ferguson, the sports director for Cabot Parks and Rec, was instrumental in helping get the program off the ground.

“He gave us the opportunity to play in a diverse environment, which proved crucial in starting up the club,” Lemelle said.

Ulysses Robinson, who Lamelle says is the “leader of this group,” helped Lemelle get the team going.

“He recruited a lot of these guys for me,” Lemelle said. “He brought ‘em to me, I gave ‘em a tryout and they just proved he had a good eye. He brought me guys that could play.”

Robinson, 23, has 55 hours of credits and has grown into a leader on and off the court. He dazzled spectators with his ball handling as far back as eighth grade at Jacksonville Junior High. He continued to dazzle on the court as a three-year starter at point guard for Sylvan Hills, but wasn’t always so impressive off the court.

“He got into some situations in high school, an incident here and there, he shouldn’t have been in, and that got a lot of the attention from colleges off him,” Lemelle said.

Now, Lemelle says Robinson has grown. As a young man given a second chance, he’s done the work and shown the maturity to be a major success.

“Since he’s been through the fire, I would not bet against this kid,” Lemelle said of Robinson. His ability, his leadership, is going to make Southwest very happy. As a matter of fact, I’d say in two years, he might be playing pro ball.”

Dobbins, the other leader, was a track field standout who was drawing attention for his school-record high jumping at Lonoke. He was also a captain and a defensive specialist on Lonoke’s 2008 state championship basketball team, but fell victim to a knee injury.

After that, the college attention went away, but he’s made the most of his second chance.

“He (Lemelle) gave me a tryout and I just tried to do my best,” Dobbins said. His high-school coach, Wes Swift who is now at Jonesboro High, said Dobbins had the best post moves of anyone he’s ever coached. Problem was, he was only 5-10. Great post moves are useful as a high-school guard, but not a lot of colleges are looking for 5-10 post players.

So Dobbins transformed his game, and became the leading scorer for Pulaski Tech, averaging 19 points per game, without going down low.

“I don’t think I posted up one time this year,” Dobbins said.

Dobbins will also be on the track team at Southwest. His LHS record jump of 6-8 is already good enough to place and score in Southwest’s conference, and he accomplished that feat on raw ability.

“He basically did that in high school without any real coaching,” Lemelle said. “There are things they’re going to be able to teach him in college that’s only going to make him better.

Drew Webb, a 2005 graduate of Cabot High School, made his way to the team by chance. Lemelle spotted him playing for another rec team at Cabot, and offered him a spot on his roster.

“I just talked to him about coming to play for us and he said he’d like to,” Lemelle said. “Then when we got him in there and started working on getting him set up in classes, we found out he was only about 12 hours away from an associate degree.”

“I took classes off and on at ASU-Beebe when I could,” Webb said. “But I also had to work and earn some money, so it was kinda tough making a lot of progress.”

Webb was noticed in a tournament in Shreveport. The Shreveport coach didn’t have a spot available, but he was so impressed with Webb, he told his friend at East Baptist about him. After taking a look, the school came through with an offer.

Webb, now 6-6, was only 6-2 in high school. He was a starter his senior year, but wasn’t a standout and got no scholarship offers, although he’s always felt he was pretty good.

“I knew I could play at the college level,” Webb said. “I’m just glad the chance came along for me to prove it.”

Christian Wallace, a point guard, played his high-school career at Sylvan Hills as a solid, but often unnoticed, player with Robinson drawing most of the attention.

He also missed his senior year with injuries, but was noticed by Lemelle playing pickup games on the Little Rock Air Force Base.

“(Ulysses) told me about him and I saw him out there,” Lemelle said. “He’s worked hard in the classroom and has gotten better and better on the court. It was obvious he had the ability on the court, and he’s stepped up in the other areas and really earned the opportunity he now has.”

Lance Jackson is making the biggest leap of all, all the way to North Dakota, where everything from the culture, to the weather, to the very sport he’ll be playing, is totally difference from what he experienced with the PTC Diamonds.

Jackson ran a 4.3 40-yard dash at a summer football camp, and got a scholarship out of high school to UA-Monticello. Several factors, some beyond his control, some not, played into the loss of that opportunity.

His offer from Dakota College came through connections with Lemelle, who spent time in that state during his Air Force career. The Dakota coach asked for film of Jackson, and didn’t take long to make an offer.

“I haven’t even been there yet,” Jackson said. “I just know I’m happy about the opportunity.”

Running the PTC program wasn’t a one-man job either. Lemelle expressed much gratitude to Ferguson, as well as Dr. Catherine Mitchell of Shorter College, and Pastor Eugene Udell. Mtichell opened up Shorter’s gymnasium to the team for practices and home games.
Udell was instrumental in helping Lemelle get the program off the ground.

“It’s been a real joy to be a part of this club and see these young men work hard and achieve,” Lemelle said. “It’s always going to be a wonderful memory.”

SPORTS>>Cabot drops two in final, gets second

By CHAD MATCHETT
Leader sports writer

The Cabot Centennial Senior American Legion team went into Wednesday night’s Zone 3 championship game with North Little Rock virtually on top of the world.

Cabot already had a spot locked up for state, and by coming through the winners’ bracket unscathed, would have to be defeated twice by the Colts for the Colts to win the title. And heading into the eighth inning of the first game leading 4-1, Cabot was still sitting pretty.

That’s when the house of cards came tumbling down, with the Colts coming back to win 5-4 and taking game two 14-5 to capture the zone crown and give Cabot the second seed in state.

“We’ve been on kind of a roll lately, but we made some bad mistakes in both games,” said Cabot coach Jay Darr. “And I have to take the blame for that. We have all the talent we need, but I guess I just didn’t get them ready for tonight.”

Both losses came in the most unlikely of fashions for a senior legion team. The winning run scored on a balk in the opening game, while the second game took less than 2 1\2 hours to complete despite the 19 combined runs as Cabot outhit North Little Rock despite being heavily outscored.

After a scoreless first three innings of the first game, Matt Evans put Cabot on the board first with a long homer to lead off the top of the fourth inning. Tyler Erickson reached on a walk and would later come around to score on an error.

Erickson was doing his job on the bump for Cabot as well, scattering four hits while shutting down North Little Rock over the first five innings. The Colts finally broke through for their first run in the bottom of the sixth inning thanks to a leadoff error and a follow-up double.

That was no problem, as Cabot came back in the top of the next inning with two more runs to take a 4-1 lead. Brandon Surdam and Casey Vaughn led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Back at the top of the order, the next three went downin order, but drove in Surdam and Vaughn in the process, giving Cabot extra insurance runs.

Erickson showed no signs of tiring in the bottom of the seventh, retiring the side in order, including a pair of strikeouts to end the inning.

Up 4-1, it didn’t seem so big at the time, but Cabot missed what turned out to be an important scoring opportunity in the top of the eighth inning. Andrew Reynolds, Jeff Brown and Dylan Wilson drew consecutive one-out walks to load the bases, but a 5-2-3 double-play ended the scoring threat.

The bottom of the eighth started out rocky and only got worse from there. John Chapman was hit by a pitch with two strikes, and was followed by a double by Tyson Tackett to put runners on second and third. Brittain Ibbottson singled both runners in to cut Cabot’s lead to 4-3, but was picked off for the first out.

Dillon Richardson doubled for the Colts, signaling the end of a very solid night of work by Erickson. Brown was brought in to try to put out the fire and earn a save.

He immediately got a ground out to second for the second out, but that moved the tying run to third base. With Wes Freeland at the plate, a passed ball allowed the runner to score from third, then Freeland was hit to put the go ahead run on base. A grounder by Alex Philbuck could have ended the inning, but another error let him reach first and pushed Freeland to third. A balk just a few seconds later forced the Colt home, making the score 5-4. A fly ball to second ended the inning.

Vaughn led off the ninth with a walk and was quickly sacrificed to second. Goff grounded to short, who had time to nail Vaughn trying to take third on the hit for the second out. A line drive to left field ended the game.

The second game of the night looked like it would be a slugfest after North Little Rock opened the first inning with five runs and was answered by Cabot’s four runs in the bottom half. Unfortunately for Cabot, they wouldn’t score again until Goff launched a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Cabot outhit North Little Rock 10-8, but too many walks, errors and mental miscues allowed the Colts to take advantage of every hit they had. After the first inning,

Goff was 2 for 4 with a homer and two runs, while Matt Evans was 3 of 4 with a double. Erickson, Surdan and Chip Morris each singled for Cabot.

Cabot will face the Texarkana Razorbacks in their opening game of the Arkansas American Legion senior State Tournament. This is the third consecutive season for Cabot to make the state tournament. They were knocked out by Texarkana last year after earning a pair of wins.

EDITORIAL >> Pray there’s no default

We are now three months into the gravest economic crisis to have faced the country since 1929 and only 10 days away from the cataclysm that will befall us if the United States defaults on its debts and its contracts with vendors and the American people. It is the first such crisis in memory brought about entirely for the singular purpose of defeating an American president in the next election.

Let us hope that wisdom and true patriotism—that is, putting the country ahead of party—prevail in the short time remaining.  Let us further hope that, however it is settled, all Americans will resolve that no group will ever again be permitted to hold the country hostage for political gain.

Everyone by now knows the dilemma. The U.S. government reached its debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion back on May 17 because Congress for the first time in history refused to raise it. Congress raised it regularly in the eight years of President George W. Bush to cover the government’s binge of tax-cutting and increased spending on defense, medicine and domestic security. The Treasury Department avoided default on May 17 by some creative bookkeeping so that the country could continue paying the bills. It will run out of leverage the morning of Tuesday, August 2. Starting that morning, the government will only be able to write checks on the amount of cash in the treasury that day or else have them bounce.

Most of the handwringing so far is over the prospect of not making timely payments to the holders of U. S. debt securities, both in this country and abroad. The first payment of $29 billion will be due Aug. 15 and it will need to roll over $500 billion in expiring short-term securities, but it is projected that the government that day will have accumulated no more than $22 billion in cash, and then only by reneging on billions of other obligations to American citizens. Failure to make the interest payments would upset the whole global financial system, dash international confidence in the United States and speed the end of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. Borrowing costs for individuals, businesses and the government would skyrocket.

That is only part of the scenario. The government would have to choose, insofar as the law permits it to choose, whom to pay and whom not to pay each day. Does it delay Social Security checks for a month? Stop payment to hundreds of thousands of contractors, from hospitals, doctors and nursing homes to the men of the military and defense contractors? Or would it not pay government employees, from food inspectors to veterans medical services?

State and local governments would feel the brunt of the fiscal distress. Even Arkansas, which almost alone among the states has kept its head above water since the economic calamity settled on the country in the winter of 2007–08, would see its little surplus disappear instantly and it would be unable to pay highway contractors, hospitals and other medical providers, nursing homes and thousands of vendors for state-federal programs. Unemployment would soar far into the double digits within weeks.

A band of ultra-conservative congressmen, many elected in the uprising in 2010 and including our Arkansas freshmen members, has held the Republican Party hostage. They have demanded that the party and its leadership reflect their demands, and so far the party has done so. The same party leaders had rallied the members to raise the debt ceiling repeatedly when Bush was president, but they all sensed a chance to sink the Democratic president, which both the Senate and House leaders had sworn to do.

The congressmen behind the charade—let’s name the Arkansas participants: Tim Griffin of the Second District and Rick Crawford of the First District—insist that it’s no big deal to keep the debt ceiling intact. They have maintained that if the elderly and disabled don’t get their Social Security checks, if the states can’t pay for nursing-home care, if the mail isn’t delivered, if the government defaults on its debt, or if anything sad happens it will be because President Obama made bad decisions about what bills to pay. Social Security checks would not have to be delayed unless the president chose to delay them, they said.

You see, if anything bad happens, people will blame it on the president. If there is a depression, the president and his party will be blamed. That is how the game has always been played, isn’t it?

But you figure it out. On Aug. 3, the first Wednesday of the month, $23 billion in checks must be mailed to Social Security recipients (actually, most are deposited directly into recipients’ bank accounts), but only a fraction of that sum will be in the treasury that day. But if people want to blame Barack Obama for the checks not arriving, they will.

We can see why Crawford would not think defaulting on the country’s obligations would be no big deal. Before being elected to Congress last year, he was famous for defaulting on his own debts by filing for bankruptcy and then lying about paying off his debts. If Crawford could welsh on his debts and escape the consequences, why couldn’t the United States?

Griffin and Crawford (our new Third District congressman, Steve Womack, seems to have backed away from this madness) were standing in front of the White House earlier this week toting signs and making little speeches blaming the president for that big $14.3 trillion debt and for not resolving the crisis.

But let’s backtrack a ways. During the past decade, Griffin was a low-level political aide in the Bush White House when he was not an operative of the Republican Party in Washington. How much of the $14.3 trillion debt did they run up? Exactly $6.1 trillion. Did Griffin go outside and wave a sign demanding that the boss stop his reckless spending?

And how much of the debt was accumulated under the previous Republican administrations, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush? Remember that when Reagan took office in 1981, the accumulated debt of the United States was only $997 billion. When they left office, they had grown the debt to $4.4 trillion, so they account for $3.4 trillion of the current debt. That adds up to $10.8 of the $14.3 trillion of obligations. The eight years of Bill Clinton added $1.4 trillion.

That leaves roughly $2 trillion under Obama, a little over half of which is the result of collapsed government revenues in the recession and the rest due to extended unemployment insurance, anti-recession spending and a continuation of the heightened military spending of the Bush years.

Calamity has not yet befallen us because there is widespread confidence in this country and abroad that the U.S. Congress is not mad and that there are enough wise and patriotic representatives who will stay the hands of the fools, if only at the last minute. Let us pray that it is so.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

TOP STORY >> Event enhances air-mobility skills

Base and community leaders will gather for a rousing send-off for Little Rock Air Force Base’s 2011 Air Mobility Rodeo Team with a ceremony at the base on Friday morning, according to Staff Sgt. Jim Araos.

Rodeo 2011, to be held Saturday through Sunday, July 23-29 at McChord Air Force Base in Washington, is the premier international air-mobility combat- and flying-operations competition, Araos said in a press release.

The event helps competitors develop and improve techniques to enhance air-mobility operations and promote esprit de corps, optimizing mobility partnerships.

For more than 50 years, rodeo has helped airmen to foster teamwork, hone their skills and develop discipline.

More than 50 teams and 2,500 people from the active-duty and Air Reserve forces, with representatives from allied nations, are expected to participate at Rodeo 2011.

Team Little Rock brought home a bevy of awards in 2009, the last time the rodeo was held.

The Air Mobility Command’s Rodeo is considered to be the Olympics of airlift abilities. Teams will come from all over AMC and some from overseas. They compete in events including aerial refueling, airdrop, aerial port, maintenance, military security and aeromedical evacuation.

To cheer the base contingent on as they put their best efforts forth, several local civic leaders will be accompanying the airmen from Little Rock Air Force Base, according to John Oldham, chief, 19th Airlift Wing Public Affairs.

Accompanying the 314th Airlift Wing will be Sen. Eddie Joe Williams, Rep. Jane English, John Burkhalter, president, Burkhalter Technolgies, Inc., and 314 AW honorary commander; Walter L. Biernacki Jr., president and chief executive officer, Arkansas Federal Credit Union; and Larry T. Wilson, president and chief executive officer, First Arkansas Bank and Trust.

Going with members of the 19th Airlift Wing are Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher, Cabot Mayor Bill Cypert, Sherwood Mayor Virginia Hillman; Phil Davis, owner, Your Extra Specialties and 19th Airlift Wing honorary commander, and former Jacksonville Mayor Tommy Swaim.

Leader reporter Sarah Campbell will also accompany the team.

About 110 airmen from Little Rock competed in the 2009 event.

The rodeo, which besides being a competitive event, gives participants a chance to network with peers and contacts, is held every two years.

Team Little Rock also travels with a group of civilians interested in cheering the team on. The contingent, which lends a good deal of moral support from the community, will travel with the team from the send-off breakfast to their return at week’s end.

In 2009 the team brought home nine trophies including the highly-coveted Best C-130 Wing honor, won by the 19th Airlift Wing.

EDITORIAL >> Gas drillers Disciplined

Government regulation is a term of contempt in these days of tea-party rebellion—a plot to undermine American business and install socialism. But there are daily reminders of the value of even timid regulation, which is what the Arkansas state government typically provides.

Take yesterday’s news. The state Oil and Gas Commission, which is normally solicitous of the exploration industry, is about to adopt a rule to limit the noise level at the compressor stations that are springing up in the central Arkansas counties where gas is being produced by hydraulic fracturing. Compressor stations are needed at intervals along gas pipelines to keep the gas moving. They run 24 hours a day, and if it is not regulated, the noise can drown out conversation in nearby homes, as some homeowners complained in letters to the commission. The commission’s proposed rule would limit the noise from a compressor station to 55 decibels at the outside of the nearest home, nursing home or business.

A bill that would have made pipeline companies hold the noise down was introduced in the legislature last winter, but a group of legislators calling themselves “the shale caucus” blocked all legislation that would tax the gas companies or hold them responsible in any way for the damage to land, water or roads from the drilling or the disposal of chemical wastes from the wells. So the Oil and Gas Commission stepped in to stem the popular rage. Back in the spring, the agency ordered exploration and disposal companies to stop drilling waste-disposal wells around fault zones after evidence accumulated that they were causing a rash of earthquakes.

On the same day that the commission was reviewing testimony on compressor noise, the state Department of Environmental Quality ordered Poseidon Energy Services of Little Rock to halt its operations and fined the company $14,400 for dumping chemical sludge from fracking wells on open land in White County and just generally violating the state’s weak laws on the handling and disposing of wastes. There had been complaints from residents around where the dumping occurred, but the company and its president, Marcus Devine, never even responded to the complaints when the state agency notified him of them.

Marcus Devine. Does that name ring a bell? It should. Devine was the director of the same Department of Environmental Quality until several years ago, when Gov. Mike Beebe replaced him. Devine had been Gov. Mike Huckabee’s man in charge of protecting Arkansas’ environment. It should come as no surprise that when he started running a business of his own that could despoil the land and water, he would ignore the law.

The department pretty much ignored the law while he was in charge of enforcing it. There was not much way that a poultry operation, an oil and gas exploration company, a mining company or a utility could get in trouble for poisoning the air, land or water. What was good for the industries’ bottom line was good for Arkansas. Devine got his cues from Huckabee, who declared that people who lobbied for environmental safeguards were “whackos.” It was a big failing in an otherwise progressive record on education and taxes.

We have not been exactly impressed with the department under Mike Beebe after Devine’s departure in 2007—it signed off on a poison-puffing coal plant without a whimper—but at least regulation does not seem to be regarded as an evil doctrine. We will take that.

TOP STORY >> A Murdoch News Corp. should hire

By GARRICK FELDMAN
Leader executive editor

Wendi Deng Murdoch, who jumped to her husband’s defense when a British comedian threw a shaving-cream pie at the mogul yesterday, is the one Murdoch who deserves to run the beleaguered media empire.

Her husband Rupert, 80, was dozing off when he and his son James were testifying before a British parliamentary committee about their company’s lawlessness. The prankster rushed up to Murdoch and managed to get shaving cream on the great man’s suit.

Wendi punched the dastardly man, who was soon escorted out of the hearing room. She’s half Rupert’s age, fast on her feet and obviously trained in self-defense. She also acts as a nurse to the often confused Murdoch, who appeared medicated and had trouble hearing the questions from the parliamentarians.

She tried to stop the elderly tycoon from banging on the table while he was talking. Even after the shaving-cream incident, a shaken Murdoch insisted he was the best man for the job to straighten out the mess at the teetering News Corp.

The late British journalist Auberon Waugh caught on to Rupert Murdoch’s shenanigans 30 years ago, calling him “a national menace.”

Back in the early 1980s, Waugh described a typical Sunday issue of the porn-filled News of the World, which Murdoch shuttered two weekends ago because of the hacking scandal.

Waugh found these headlines on an Easter weekend when it was edited by Bernard (Slimey) Shirmsley — Slimey indeed:

“My seven lovers in one week, my two debs in one bed,” “Night of terrors for a naked civil servant,” “Massage girl’s dog chewed up his underpants,” “The sleeping wife and stranger in her bed,” “The hot blood of an ice-cream salesman,” “His Highness the Aga Khan was my first real lover, but it was Edward VIII who made me pregnant,” “We expose the shocking truth about G.A.Y.M.C.A,” “Secrets of girls who don’t love men...Our own Olympic games orgies by model Della,” “Frantic antics of Juicy Jackie and Sexy Sue.”

Those were the good old days of celebrity trash for cash before cell phones and computers.

Few people in this country know that the thrice-married Murdoch, despite his Fox News family-values fakery, is a pornographer: He knows naked pictures still sell, and loves to print them on page 3 in the London Sun and in his other tabloids. But he has expanded beyond paying for celebrity gossip and let his staff go straight to the source through hacking into phones and computers.

No wonder they’ve called him the Dirty Digger all these years.

The scandal that’s bringing down the Murdoch empire and much of the British establishment—including two top Scotland Yard officers and probably Prime Minister David Cameron — is now spreading across the U.S. The Dirty Digger’s employees have hacked into competitors’ computers and possibly cell phones of 9/11 victims.

The Murdochs have subverted Britain’s institutions for decades, from the media to politics, from the monarchy to the police, so it’s not surprising they would also hack and bully on this side of the Atlantic.

Although Murdoch and his son, who heads the company’s European and Asian operations, had hoped to contain the damage, the catastrophe is bringing down all their key executives. News Corp. will probably go on without a Murdoch running the company, which was founded by the old man more than half a century ago.

News Corp., which includes the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Fox, should then set higher standards, renounce the thuggish and criminal behavior and give a large portion of their profits to charity.

Only when they head out to pasture will News Corp. reform itself and become a more responsible media company.

TOP STORY >> Agency starts giving help to cities, counties

By JOAN McCOY
Leader staff writer

Carol Crump-Westergren, Beebe’s clerk-treasurer, said FEMA reimbursed the city this week for the radio antenna for the police and fire department that was destroyed in the April wind storm.

The check, for $3,046.52, was the first the city has received, Crump-Westergren said, but she expects more to follow. The actual replacement cost was $4,062.03, she said. But FEMA only reimbursed 75 percent.

Beebe has already been approved for 75 percent reimbursement of the $18,570.21 it cost to replace the mangled lights at the ballpark, she said. And there is no reason to doubt the city won’t be reimbursed for 75 percent of the estimated $200,000 cleanup of the hundreds of trees that were broken or uprooted.

What she is learning, Crump-Westergren said, is that “It’s a process that takes a while. You have to go through several layers of FEMA.”

FEMA divides damages into categories and assigns projects to each one. Cleaning up the fallen trees and replacing the lights at the ballpark are Beebe’s two large projects but there are also several small projects, she said.

Mitigation is a top category but in Beebe the damage was caused by wind and no mitigation is possible.

Tamara Jenkins, director of White County’s emergency services, said FEMA has been all over the county surveying the damage and is currently working on the project worksheets.

Flood damage to the roads is the county’s biggest problem from the April storm but the project sheets FEMA is working on for the county also include, for example, the extra cost to the sheriff’s department of keeping deputies in Georgetown which was surrounded by water from the flooded White and Little Red rivers as it often is during heavy rains.

Some residents left before Hwy. 36 closed but many stayed and boated in and out.

Eddie Cook, director of operations for Cabot Mayor Bill Cypert, said the city’s costs from the flooding were limited to a small amount of road damage, some overtime for employees and sand to fill sandbags in Des Arc to keep water out of homes there.

The city spent less than $100,000. He meets with FEMA and the director of the Lonoke County Office of Emergency Services on Thursday to start filling out the forms for reimbursement, he said.

Lonoke County Judge Doug Erwin estimates damage to county roads at $1 million.

For FEMA purposes, the damage has been divided into about 500 projects.

Erwin said he is confident the county will be reimbursed 75 percent of the cost of much of the work that is ongoing now but not all. For example, the washed out Carson Bridge of South Kerr cost about $30,000 to repair and because it has received state aid in the past, it’s not eligible for federal money this time.

“All of that will come out of the county’s pocket,” Erwin said.

Asked if some other planned project would have to be put on hold, Erwin said no.

“The county saves $20,000 a month just in gas,” he said. “We had 14 employees driving vehicles home at night and we put a stop to that.”

TOP STORY >> FEMA is asked for aid

By SARAH CAMPBELL
Leader staff writer

Jacksonville officials sat down with FEMA representatives Tuesday morning to discuss what kind of damage the city endured between April 14 and June 3 from severe storms and tornadoes and what their departments need to do to receive federal assistance.

Jim Ammons, FEMA public-assistance coordinator, emphasized the importance of documentation and mitigation during the public-assistance kick-off meeting at city hall.

Mitigation is what happens when something is damaged several times during natural disasters and FEMA can step in to help pay for a long-term solution to the recurring problem in an effort to be more cost-effective.

“If we can spend $4 today and save $10 in the future, then that’s what we’re going to do,” Ammons said.

He also explained that assistance funding goes to the state for distribution.

“The question of when are we going to get our money doesn’t come to us,” Ammons explained.

Extensive documentation is required because of numerous regulations, Ammons said, as he stressed the legal impact of not having that information for audits, which can be conducted years later.

“The city can be sued and FEMA can be sued if we don’t follow these guidelines. Keep it (paperwork) until the 12th of never. Protect your community; protect yourself and those who follow you. Write it down.”

He said immediate actions taken, like debris removal and emergency services, need to be completed within six months. Permanent work is given an 18-month deadline the state can extend at the city’s request, as long as the state has reasonable notice that the city needs an extension.

FEMA collected ballpark figures for the damage the city had.

Parks and Recreation Director Kristen Griggs said her department had picked up a documented five tons of vegetative debris and her estimate for additional debris that hasn’t been counted yet was three to five tons. Ammons suggested the estimate for the total debris be written down as 10 tons. The department also had an estimated $14,000 in damaged equipment.

Public Works Director Jim Oakley said his department picked up about 1,000 cubic yards of debris directly related to the storms.

The city spent an estimated $1,000 to run a shelter at the community center and put three families at hotels for a three-day maximum stay. That estimate includes the cost of overtime city employees worked, food for the shelter and other items, such as cots. Cost to the city was greatly reduced because many churches and other entities donated food and items for the shelter.

Police Chief Gary Sipes estimated the cost to his department for evacuations, additional patrols, traffic control and accident response at $12,000. The department also had an estimated $1,000 in damage to the roof of the police station.

Fire Department Chief John Vanderhoof offered an estimate of about $5,000 for the overtime hours firefighters worked during the disaster.

Ammons added $10,000 for a total estimate of $15,000 because FEMA reimburses cities for the cost of using equipment during the disaster and that cost is usually double the estimated overtime wages.

FEMA does not reimburse for the wages employees would normally earn from working regular hours, but the agency does collect how many hours equipment is used during a disaster.

Thea Hughes, general manager of Jacksonville Wastewater, said $4,500 worth of damage was done to a pump station during the flood. The agency is building a retainer wall around the station because damage had occurred before when the area flooded in 2009. The retainer wall is a mitigation item. Hughes said that project is still in the design stages so she didn’t have the estimated cost of building the wall.

The meeting finished up with FEMA environmental specialist Robert Long telling officials how important it is to have permits and to adhere to environmental regulations.

TOP STORY >> Muhammad murder trial jury selected

By RICK KRON
Leader staff writer

Six men and six woman—three blacks and nine whites—a mix of young and old will decide, over the next two weeks, whether Abdulhakim Muhammad will get the death penalty, life in prison or be sent to a mental institution for his alleged involvement in the killing of a military recruiter and seriously wounding another.

The jury selection took two days, and the last of two alternates was selected at 6:05 p.m. Tuesday after both sides spent more than 14 hours questioning 84 potential jurors.

Circuit Judge Herbert Wright will oversee the trial in Little Rock.

Opening arguments and at least one prosecution witness are on tap for today. The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.

Prosecutors are expected to call up to three dozen witnesses, and the defense plans to counter with about a dozen.

Muhammad, also known as Carlos Bledsoe, is charged with one count of capital murder and one count of attempted capital murder in the June 1, 2009 shooting of two Army recruiters outside the Army-Navy Career Center in Little Rock.

Private William A. Long of Conway was killed in the shooting and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula of Jacksonville was seriously wounded. He fell to the ground and pretended he was dead.

Patrick Benca, one of Muhammad’s attorneys, conceded that his client did shoot the two soldiers, but told potential jurors that his job was to show that Muhammad suffered from mental disease or defect at the time of the incident.

Both prosecutor John Johnson and Benca addressed, explained, questioned and cajoled the potential jurors, who were brought into the courtroom Monday and Tuesday in groups of seven. As each group was dwindled down, rejected or accepted, then another group came in and the scene replayed itself again and again.

Benca told potential jurors that prosecutors had to prove Muhammad’s guilt to the high level of “beyond reasonable doubt,” and that they probably would. But the defense, when it came to the issue of mental defect or disease, had a much lower standard or bar to reach.

“All we have to show is that it more than likely was the root of the incident—50.001 percent is the standard. That’s all we have to show,” Benca said, referring to Muhammad’s state of mind.

So he asked the potential jurors that after they decided the guilt, could they wipe the slate clean to look at the issue of mental defect. He even laid out the defense for the potential jurors, saying there were basically two forms of mental defect. The first is not knowing what the person is doing.

“As an example,” he said, “say a man squeezes a baby’s head too hard and kills the baby, but at the time the man thought he was squeezing a grapefruit. That’s not the defect we will be talking about,” Benca said.

The defense attorney told potential jurors that in his client’s case, Muhammad knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong, but the force or power of the mental defect was so strong that he couldn’t prevent it.

Johnson was looking for jurors who could sign their names to Muhammad’s death sentence.He asked each potential juror and some more than once and in more than one way if they could see a set of circumstances where they could impose the death penalty.

He explained he wanted jurors who would be open to the entire spectrum of penalties, including the death penalty. Potential jurors who said they could not go for the death penalty under any circumstance were excused.

Both legal sides implored that the potential jurors not bring biases into the courtroom, but use only the evidence presented in the courtroom to determine Muhammad’s fate.

Once the final alternate was selected, all jurors were called back into the courtroom and given explicit instructions from Judge Wright not to read newspapers or news journals during the trial, not to watch any news on television and not to discuss the matter with each other or family members and friends.

“We’ve all worked hard on this trial to this point,” he told the jurors. “We don’t want to mess it up for either side now.”

SPORTS >> Slick track is handled by Kirby in Comp Cam

By JASON KING
Special to The Leader

A slippery, locked-down track was of little consequence to Jon Kirby on Friday.

The Russellville pilot led a 20-car pack around the bottom lane of Beebe Speedway’s dry-slick surface for all 35 laps of the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series feature to claim his first victory of an otherwise gloomy season full of parts failures and on-track mishaps.

Kirby, fifth in the Comp Cams season standings, won the second heat to earn top qualifier for CCSDS second appearance at Beebe in 2011, and set sail in the early portion of the A-main. He shook off an early challenge from Walnut Ridge driver Jeff Floyd, and finally overtook the stubborn lapped car of Jon “Catman” Mitchell in the late going to lead every lap.

“That’s the way we like to do it,” Kirby said. “It’s kind of a one-groove track, but hey, we’ll take it – it’s a win. We drew a good heat, and just thought we needed to be aggressive there at the front to get all we could get.

“We did all we could to get up there as fast as we could. Things went our way, and we were able to move to the front. That definitely set it up for us.”

Batesville’s Billy Moyer Jr. finished second when he took advantage of Floyd’s difficulty passing the lap-down car of Mitchell. Mitchell ignored several waves of the blue courtesy flag from series director Chris Ellis once Kirby and the other leaders got to him on lap 25.

Kirby eventually slipped by Mitchell five circuits later, but when Floyd tried to follow suit, Mitchell door slammed him coming out of turn two and got his F1 car sideways, which allowed Moyer Jr. by for the second spot.

“We got lucky with a lapped car,” Moyer Jr. said. “I’ve been lapped a lot, and I get out of the way. I just don’t know why these guys can’t comprehend it. But either way, we’ll take a second gladly. We should have run third, but that’s just part of it.”

The track began taking rubber early in the heat races, as high humidity and sweltering heat took its toll on the quarter-mile, mixed-clay oval. Cars were racing freight-train style around the bottom halfway through the heats, and conditions steadily deteriorated further throughout the night.

But the drivers handled it well, as the 35-lap feature ran caution free, the third time in series history to have no yellows at Beebe.

Floyd recovered from the incident with Mitchell to finish third while Floral’s Brandon Smith finished fourth in the 115 car. Smith, last year’s CCSDS rookie of the year, went on to win the following night at Northeast Arkansas Speedway in Harrisburg with a flag-to-flag run of his own.

Russellville driver and Kirby teammate Dewaine Hottinger completed the top five. Louisiana pilot Jay Brunson was sixth while home-track favorite and rookie points leader Curtis Cook of Vilonia finished seventh. Trumann’s Ian Samuel was eighth, Shane Harris of Sheridan took ninth and series points leader Kyle Beard rounded out the top ten.

For Kirby, it was his second victory at Beebe, and the third of his career.

“I have no idea; it just feels like I have a little bit of confidence here,” Kirby said. “Seems like we run well here. The car is the same as it always is, I don’t know if it’s me driving a little bit different here or what, but I like the slick. Stop-and-go slick racetracks, I really seem to do pretty decent at.”

The victory could not have come at a better time for Kirby, who has suffered more than his fair share of disappointing finishes during the first half of the season with crashed cars and blown engines, as well as transmission and suspension malfunctions in his Kirby Electrical 11K machine.

“We really needed this,” Kirby said. “We’ve struggled hard getting use to our new Rocket (chassis) car. It’s taken a little while to get it going our way. Hopefully this is a turning point for us.”

SPORTS >> Southern Oaks growing fast

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

In just three months, Southern Oaks Country Club, formerly Foxwood Country Club, has grown drastically, and club officials are in the middle of a two-month membership drive that’s focused on even more growth.

Southern Oaks managing partner Brian Hagewood is spearheading the drive, which includes reduced rates for full and junior memberships.

“We’re closing in on 200 full memberships and about 100 social members,” Hagewood said.

When Foxwood shut its doors, it had about 80 full members as a semi-private facility. Now as a fully private club, the member count is rising. Much of it is due, according to Hagewood, to the golf course.

“That’s why the investors got in because we had a great product already here,” Hagewood said of the course. “The course was in great shape and it has just maintained its condition. There’s no other course around in the shape ours is in. We get nothing but rave reviews, especially about our greens. The greens are immaculate.”

The course superintendent is Clark Carroll, former assistant superintendent at the ultra exclusive, Warren Stephens-owned Alotian Club.

“To say the least, we’ve got people here who know what they’re doing when it comes to maintaining a golf course,” Hagewood said.

Hagewood says Southern Oaks is also getting a boost from Cabot-area golfers who aren’t confident about the future of the financially troubled Greystone courses.

Several activities are planned during the membership drive that will be open to member guests. The most prominent being the four-ball, match play tournament scheduled for July 29-31.

“The four-ball, match-play format is just a great format, very exciting and fun,” Hagewood said. “This is our signature event and it’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s open to the public and it’s all-inclusive. We got Adidas sponsoring it; everyone in the tournament is going to get a $100 pair of shoes. If you’re there, you’re going to be set up nicely.”

Southern Oaks has already hosted a few golf tournaments, and they have been hugely successful. Its first four-ball tournament in May drew 60 teams.

This weekend the club is hosting Casino Night for members and guests. The club has hired a company to bring in tables and machines for the casino experience.

“We’re just trying to do a little something a couple times a month to spur activity and get people aware of what we have to offer here,” Hagewood said.

Through August, full memberships are available for a 12-month commitment of $175 per month. Junior memberships for anyone under the age of 33, are available for $135 per month with the one-year commitment.

“When you look at the course we have to offer, the amenities we have like the Southern Oaks restaurant that’s getting great response, and the fact that most memberships in this area are going for around $300 per month, there’s nothing out there that matches this deal,” Hagewood said.

SPORTS >> Cabot seniors advance to state

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

The Centennial Bank American Legion squad has secured its spot in the state tournament that begins tomorrow at Nettleton. It did it with wins on Thursday, Friday and Sunday in the Zone 3 tournament at Burns Park in North Little Rock.

It played in the tournament title game last night after Leader deadlines, but the slot in state was already assured.

Cabot got an easy opening win over Sylvan Hills Thursday night, then had to rally in the last inning to beat tournament host North Little Rock 7-6 Saturday evening.

The team followed the nail-biter with a shocking 22-4 shellacking of Russellville in the finals of the winners’ bracket to assure itself a top-two finish and a slot on the state-tournament bracket.

Russellville was the event’s top seed and had only played one game, a 13-1 run-rule shortened win over Jacksonville, while Cabot had to go through five total pitchers in its two outings.

The scoreboard stayed in perfect symmetry through five innings against North Little Rock. Cabot opened the scoring with three runs in the top of the third, and the Colts answered with three in the bottom of the third. When Cabot took a two-run lead in the top of the fifth, the Colts answered with two in the bottom of the same inning.

Things finally changed when North Little Rock added a run in the bottom of the seventh to take its first lead of the game.

After the two teams went scoreless in the eighth, Cabot added two in the top of the ninth to take its first lead since the fifth.

Casey Vaughan led off with a walk, and a bunt by leadoff hitter Bryson Morris moved him to second base. A groundout by Justin Goff got him to third with two outs. Matt Evans then singled to left field to score the runner and tie the game.

Tyler Erickson then stepped to the plate and instantly fell into a 0-2 hole in the count. After fouling off a couple of pitches, still facing 0-2, Erickson uncorked a double off the wall in straightaway centerfield to score Evans and put his squad ahead.

Evans then took the mound for Centennial in the bottom of the frame, and put the Colts down in order for the first time in the game to seal the victory.

Evans not only got the win on the mound in his one inning of work, he also went 3 for 5 at the plate, scoring two runs and driving in three.

Erickson went 2 for 4 with two doubles, two runs scored and an RBI.

Cole Nicholson started on the mound for Cabot and turned in a good performance. He went six innings, gave up five hits and four earned runs, while striking out six and walking three. Kyle Kaufman relieved him in the seventh. He threw two innings of two-hit ball, giving up one earned run while fanning and walking two apiece.

Centennial came back on Sunday and turned in a brilliant offensive performance in the win over Russellville’s Cogswell Motors team.

The team piled up 18 base hits, four each from Goff and Erickson. Erickson added three more doubles to his extra-base hit total, while two of Goff’s four went for extra bases. Bryson Morris picked up three hits, including two doubles. Evans, Andrew Reynolds and Jarred Wilson each got two base hits. One of Evans’ was a triple.

Evans also got his second win on the mound, this time going more than one inning. He started and went the distance, giving up five hits and two earned runs while striking out eight and walking seven.

The three wins lift Cabot’s overall record to 17-8.

SPORTS >> Bruins rally to pull off upset of rival Jacksonville

By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor

It wasn’t the greatest season the Sylvan Hills Bruins senior American Legion baseball team has ever enjoyed, but it did go out with a bit of a bang, upsetting Jacksonville 10-8 and ousting its rival from the Zone 3 tournament.

It was the fourth meeting of the year so far between the Gwatney Chevrolet squad and the Bruins, and the previous three were big Jacksonville wins.

The Bruins didn’t revel in victory for very long, as they had to play North Little Rock the next day, a game they lost 17-2 that ended the season, but Sylvan Hills coach Jim Fink was still pleased with how his team battled to the end, and picked up an unlikely win in postseason play.

“It really was a little bit of a surprise and I’m proud of the guys for sticking with it and battling,” Fink said. “We got a really good performance on the mound. We fell behind and then came back. I’m just proud of ‘em.”

Jacksonville indeed opened up hot. Leadoff hitter Jacob Abrahamson sent one out on the first at bat of the game.

A walk and two more singles put Gwatney up 2-0 in the top of the first. Sylvan Hills got one back in the bottom of the same frame. Greg Atchison walked and Connor Eller walked to lead off the inning, and Kory Arnold got an RBI base hit.

But the deficit grew worse in the second as Jacksonville plated three more runs to take a 5-1 lead. There were only two base hits in the inning, but combined with a walk and three Sylvan Hills errors, it turned into a disastrous inning for the Bruins. Not as disastrous, however, as the bottom of the third was for Jacksonville. Gwatney added a run to its lead in the third to make it 6-1, but that lead was gone by the end of the third.

That’s when Sylvan Hills scored six runs, thanks largely to wild pitching and timely hits.

Every run came with two outs. Nine-hole hitter Cory Jones got a one-out single, and Eller got another hit with two outs, and the wheels fell off for Jacksonville.

Arnold walked, Lance Hunter and Michael Lock singled, followed by two more walks from Aaron Sarna and Dalton Freeling. The six runs made it 7-6 Sylvan Hills.

The Bruins would add a run in the fourth to make it 8-6. Sarna, who reached on a fielder’s choice, scored on a two-out single by Ryan Brisco.

Jacksonville added a run in the sixth when Jesse Harbin scored on a triple by Xavier Brown, but the Bruins added two more in the seventh that Jacksonville couldn’t overcome.

Again with two outs, Jones walked and Atchison doubled to score the runner. Eller then singled to score Atchison and give the Bruins a 10-7 lead.

Gwatney tried to rally, adding a run in the last inning, but couldn’t complete the comeback, and bowed out of the postseason.

Lance Hunter started on the mound and got the win for the Bruins. He threw seven innings and kept his composure in the midst of Jacksonville’s big innings.

The ending was a disappointing one for Jacksonville, the team that entered the tournament with the best overall record (16-4).

Jacksonville, which was 16-3 two weeks ago, finished the season 17-6. losing three of its last four games to close what was overall a good season.

Monday, July 18, 2011

FELDMAN >> Soulful sounds still amaze

The Bo-Keys are keeping the Memphis sound alive with their brash, funky music and vocal backing from great soul singers like Otis Clay, William Bell and Percy Wiggins.

They appear on the Bo-Keys’ “Got to Get Back!” CD and LP, which we reviewed here last weekend with a special mention of trumpet player Marc Franklin, a Sylvan Hills High School graduate, who helps make the Bo-Keys’ horn section one of the best in the nation.

The veteran soul singers on “Got to Get Back!” have a long track record going back to the 1960s. Clay’s many fine records include his “Complete Otis Clay on Hi Records,” “Soul Man: Live in Japan,” “Respect Yourself,” “Gospel Truth” and several other gospel CDs.

Bell was a star at Stax, where his records included “The Soul of a Bell,” perhaps his best, and “Phase of Reality/Relating” and “Wow/Bound to Happen” (two LPs on one CD).

Percy Wiggins sent us his fine CD, “Soulful Sounds of the 60s and 70s,” which includes the singles “It Didn’t Take Much” and “That’s Loving You,” two big hits at discos around the world in the 1970s.
Percy’s brother, Spencer, also had a prolific career in the 1960s and 1970s. “The Goldwax Years” and “Feed the Flame: The Fame and XL Recordings” have been reissued on the British Kent label. His deep, soulful singles were classics of Memphis soul, but were hardly promoted when they were first released.

“Feed the Flame” was mostly recorded in Muscle Shoals, Ala., another important center for soul in the 1960s and 1970s. Both CDs are excellent and are  beautifully packaged with informative liner notes.
             
The Numero Group pays homage to Syl Johnson, the soul singer, with a lavishly produced “Complete Mythology” box set that includes all of his Chicago recordings. The stunningly de-signed set includes 81 tracks on six LPs, which are duplicated on four CDs, as well as a lavish catalogue with photos and a text by Bill Dahl.

It’s an astonishing retrospective of ’60s and ’70s Chicago soul music from tiny labels that, according to Dahl, lacked distribution and were largely ignored by critics and record buyers when the records first came out. Johnson’s later Hi recordings in Memphis may have sold better, but his Chicago stuff is superior.

The Mississippi-born Johnson, who is often suspicious of record companies, should be pleased with the result: Numero has put him in the pantheon with Al Green, Otis Clay, James Bell, James Brown, Otis Redding and a handful of others. Johnson is that good.

Johnson’s recordings for Hi in the 1970’s helped popularize the Memphis sound. His “Complete Hi Recordings” is a two-CD set that’s available on Amazon for about $12, like Otis Clay’s, which is a bargain.

The 74-year-old Johnson, who is still performing, is the brother of bluesmen Jimmy Johnson and the late Mack Thompson (the family’s real name).

Someone should bring Syl and Jimmy Johnson to Little Rock, along with Marc Franklin and the Bo-Keys.

The Bo-Keys perform next Saturday evening at Blues on the Bluff in Memphis.