Sonny Lofton Archive

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Not all circus acts are at Civic Center

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil’s foot,
Teach me to hear mermaid’s singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

Song John Donne 1633 AD

This week the world famous Barnum and Bailey Circus is in town. The circus is appearing at the Albany Civic Center. Two blocks north of the Barnum and Bailey Circus is the P.T. Barnum “There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute” circus at the Dougherty County School Board building.

The latest case of nefarious behavior and mendacity involved the selection of the individual to become the schools superintendent. Secrecy — self-serving and ludicrous –was the appointment process of Dr. Joshua Murfree. I am sure many citizens feel the flawed and wasted selection process leaves a lot to be desired. One of the tragedies of selecting Dr. Murfree is his apparent talent, honesty, experience and integrity. It’s tragic that such a good man was involved with such an odious selection process.

Many local citizens have reached the point where they do not trust the city commission, county commission or school board to make any intelligent and thoughtful decision on any subject brought before those elected boards.

If you are awash with a feeling of déjà vu, then perhaps you remember the selection of city manager, chief of police and ADICA director. Are these elected boards this comical and dunce-like or are they trying their best to drive every person with common sense and business acumen out of this community.

If you think these elected boards are doing a great job, then look at the city, county and school system and tell me we are getting the highest quality of education and government. I find it akin to the inmates running the asylum.

It’s no wonder the annual medium income in Lee County is over $20,000 a year more than the medium income in Dougherty County.

I sometime regret being one of the first Caucasians to attend Albany State University back in 1969. I was naïve enough to believe it was about equality and freedom. It’s apparently all about power, petty politics, low standards of living and declining education.

Now ask me what I really think?

JUDGE NOT LEST YOU BE JUDGED

I am my worst enemy when it comes to being honest. There have been times when I was less than honest with other people. There have been times when I have been deceitful and only admitted the lie to God.

It would be noble to always be truthful, but I haven’t reached that stage of humility. At 62 years of age my love for Albany has almost disappeared. There was a time when Albany was one of my greatest loves, but those days have long since departed.

Unlike the school board selection process, my process for finding a new city in which to dwell has narrowed to four. Three of the four cities are out of state with only one being in Georgia.

WHAT’S YOUR A FAVORITE AVENUE INTO ALBANY?

Traveling out of the city recently I returned on Sylvester Road. Driving into Albany on Sylvester Road is not pleasant. Passing the vacant Cooper Tire building is bad enough, but the empty and deserted businesses near the empty tire manufacturing facility are nothing to be proud of in terms of beauty.

Dawson Road is one of the best avenues into the city. The buildings, homes and lakes present a very positive side to the city. Gillionville Road is another beautiful entrance to Albany; from Eight Mile Road to Darton College, it is very pleasant.

Philema Road is another favorite entrance; while Newton Road is one of the least favored venues into downtown. There have been improvements along that street, but still it is mostly old and rundown. Albany Technical College has improved their campus and the medical complex improves an old portion of Newton Road near Six Points. The renovation of Monroe High is also a plus and the area from the school to the highway.

IS HOGENCAMP THE FIRST  APOCOLYPSE HORSEMAN?

Kevin Hogencamp and I have been crossing each others path for years. Kevin and I met when he reported to work with the city manager’s office. Hogencamp actually replaced me as he took over an in-house job I was doing for the city on a consultant basis. He later worked in local radio and took over the Journal after I had spent a short time there.

Is this guy following me around? Actually, NO! Albany is a small and tight mechanism, where crossing paths with other local media is fairly common.

Last week’s Journal story on the proposed transfer facility downtown must have hit a big, sore, festering nerve. The story will not be rehashed here. I suggest you buy last week’s edition of the Journal and read it.

The point of this section is to make it abundantly clear how worried I am over the local media response to Kevin’s story. The media has been reporting the story and it may be signal the final days as predicted in the Bible.

The media accounts of Hogencamp’s fearless journalism are unheard of in my 62 years in Albany. Forty of those years were spent working in radio, print, television and cable. In the past, media pretty well operated in a vacuum and there were no formal acknowledgement of other media.

The meek and mild newspaper publisher and excellent writer (yes I envy him) has set city hall ablaze with his latest accusations of nefarious behavior at Ellsinore Castle (city hall).

Revelation 6:2 says: “And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.”

I’ll admit it’s a little melodramatic, but that was thought that entered my brain as I read the story. My advice to you Kevin; watch your back, buddy!

Sonny-Lofton-002By: Sonny Lofton. Albany natve Sonny Lofton is a veteran broadcaster and writer. He co-hosts the “Frank and Sonny” show from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thurday on WWVO The Voice FM-90.7.

Tags: city hall
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Will 2010 census show Albany growth?

The Heart is the Capital of the Mind -

The Mind is a single State –

The Heart and the Mind together make

A single Continent –

One is the Population –

Numerous enough –

This ecstatic Nation

Seek – it is Yourself

The Heart Is the Capital of the Mind

Emily Dickinson 1876

Will Albany break its string of losing population since the 1980 census? I frankly don’t think Dougherty County will show any population growth since the 2000 count, but I would love to be surprised.

Dougherty County topped 100,000 citizens in the 1980 census, but both the 1990 and 2000 census figures had the county with less than 100,000. Lee County, on the other hand, has shown growth that ranked it as one of the fastest-growing counties in the state and a designation as one of the Top 100 fastest-growing counties in the United States.

The 2008 estimated population for Lee County is 33,000 with Dougherty County just over 96,000. The two counties should top 130,000 by the next census. Together, the two counties have had healthy and steady population increases since 1960 when the Albany Metropolitan Area was created by the Department of Commerce.

After the 2000 census, the Department of Commerce added Baker, Terrell and Worth to the official Albany Metropolitan Area. Metro population in 2010 is estimated to be 166,000.

Here is a chart showing Dougherty and Lee County census numbers since 1950.

1950  Dougherty 43,617 Lee 6,674 Total 50,291

1960 Dougherty 75,680 Lee 6,204 Total 81,884

1970 Dougherty 89,639 Lee 7,044 Total 96,683

1980 Dougherty 100,718 Lee 11,684 Total 112,402

1990  Dougherty 96,319 Lee 16,250 Total 112,569

2000  Dougherty 96,065 Lee 24,757 Total 120,822

2010. Estimate

Dougherty 96,000 Lee 35,000 Total 131,000

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An open letter to Roy Rogers

By Sonny Lofton

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black

And set a match to candles sheathed in glass

Against a keyhole draught, the insistent whine

Of weather through the unseen aperture.

This is our sole defense against the season;

There are the things that we have learned to do

Who live in troubled regions.

– Adrienne Rich, Storm Warnings,1951

Dear Roy:

I watched an old movie the other night. You starred in an old Western motion picture. Also in the movie was Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers. Gabby Hayes was not in this one. Your sidekick was Andy Devine. Andy had such a gravely voice and played a great clown to your hero persona. During the movie a feeling of loss and sadness overcame me. Where are you and Gene Autry now that we need you?

We need heroes so badly. In those old days as I grew up here in Albany I got to see you and your friends every Saturday afternoon at the old Liberty Theater in downtown Albany.

It’s now only an empty lot at Broad and North Jackson Street. It’s hard to believe a theater once stood there. The lot seems too small for a theater, but there it stood for well over 50 years.

It only cost 15 cents to get into the Liberty and popcorn was only a nickel as was the soft drinks. Hundreds of young urchins hung out there on Saturdays watching Dale and Gabby at your side battle the bad guys.

We knew the difference in good and bad in those days and we loved you so much. I really wish you were back again riding the range and defeating evil. The bad guys are all around us today, but you, Gene, Cisco, Tom, Bob, Lone Ranger and all the others are gone. You still live in my heart and prayers and I hope one day to see you and Trigger in person. I will spend hours with you, thanking you for what you gave me as I grew up. Sleep peacefully, Roy.

WERNICK AMONG

MOST INFLUENTIAL

The latest selection of the 100 Most Influential Georgians included Phoebe’s Joel Wernick, U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss and U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop. As an unrepentant Republican, I am proud of Senator Chambliss. I can’t argue with Congressman Bishop’s

selection, as he is our Congressman, albeit Democrat.

The selection of Joel Warnock was particularly satisfying. I met Joel as he arrived in Albany back in the 1980’s and took over the helm at Phoebe Putney Hospital. I was impressed with him then and continue to be today. Joel led the hospital through its amazing growth from about 1,800 employees to well over 3,500 today. The growth and expansion of the south Georgia hospital is unmatched by any other large facility in our area. New buildings, treatment systems and new physicians have been nothing short of breathtaking.

There has been criticism of his salary and bonuses, but as President Lincoln replied when told of Gen. Ulysses Grant’s cigar smoking and whiskey consumption: “Find out the brand of liquor and cigars he consumes and send him a case from me”.

Keep up the good work Mr. Wernick. Some of us appreciate what you are doing!

HOLY COW, BATMAN

There has been an application filed by a group of local Hindu worshippers to construct a local place of religious assembly. Albany has a growing Hindu population and they want to construct their own temple. It will be the only one in the Albany area and should serve several hundred followers of that faith.

One of the reasons for the new temple is to raise the spiritual and moral life of our area. I am a Christian and I have no problem with a Hindu place of worship in Albany. There are more people of that faith in our community than you would imagine.

The upside is that they are dedicated to making life better here in Albany. I’m all for that since there are well over 250 Christian churches in the Albany area and they have been trying to accomplish the same goal. More power to the Hindus if they are more successful at it.

MULTI-COUNTY

CHARTER SCHOOL

I did not know until recently that if Dougherty and Lee County decided to open a new charter school between the two counties they would avoid a lot of red tape and headaches.

They would be able to go to the state for their charter and avoid the local school system.

Baconton Charter School has more than 700 students in north Mitchell County and has been a great success, but not without annoying the Mitchell County Board of Education. The school pulls students from the Mitchell County School system as well as Pelham and Westwood private school.

I have talked with folks down there and they are really proud of their school and know the education and social environment are better by far than at other nearby schools.

NEW LEE COUNTY CITY

Four weeks ago, I wrote of forming a new Lee County city in the southern portion of Lee County near Albany. I got several interesting comments about the idea. The Winn-Dixie Shopping center on North U.S. 19 would be the center of the new city. It is located within a stone’s throw of a location that was named Forrester.

What a great idea even if it was mine. Forrester, Georgia with a population of 7,000 to 10,000 would be a new Georgia city.

Stretching five miles east to west and two miles north to south this new municipality would be larger than cities such as Camilla and Pelham. It could be larger than Blakely, Ashburn and Nashville.

It could have a town hall, commissioners, police and fire department.

Could be about time for this idea to grow!

THE WHITE FOLKS

ARE AT IT AGAIN!

Seems Albany City Commissioner Tommie Postell has figured out what those rascals, the white folks, are trying to do. The white folks who number less than 30 percent in Albany are pushing consolidation because they want to usurp the African American vote with a flooded ballot box just slap full of Caucasian voters. County voters are only 33.5 percent white with 63.5 percent African American. Not since Reconstruction has there been such a blatant attempt to seize power by white people.

Mr. Postell can’t seem to understand that county white folks can’t really change that much at the ballot box where black and white votes are concerned. Blacks have a 30-percent majority voter bloc in the county so what does Mr. Postell really fear? Is it the right of white folks to vote their preference just as black folks have a right to exercise the same privilege at the ballot box?

CONSOLIDATION: MORE

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH?

Are you sure there is still something out there about consolidation that you haven’t heard, yet? Does it solve male impotence? Will it grow hair on bald heads? Will all the pin head politicians get 30 IQ points once the issue passes the voter test? Would Albany still be a Chocolate City after consolidation? The answers are as follows … No, No, No, No and Yes.

Here are some local news reports that maybe escaped your eyes and ears. Consolidation goes all the way back to 1923 when a grand jury said consolidation would work better. There would be some confusion over animal control with a combined government as some county control officers might lose their jobs as the city takes it over. One city council member was quoted as saying, “Too many cooks in the kitchen ruin the soufflé”.

With all the city and county commissioners involved, there seems to be a good reason for consolidation and yet one of the reasons it would be so difficult. One city council member has gone so far as to draft a 10-year plan to slowly consolidate both city and county. That same council person was quoted as saying, “Everything has to be done in a sincere way or it all falls apart”.

Bibb County and Macon have tried several times to consolidate in the past, but … Bibb County? What the heck is this stuff? Oh. Hell … All the aforementioned problems and quotes come from a recent Macon Telegraph story on consolidation in that city and county. None of that stuff comes from Albany.

Or maybe it does! The arguments, plans, schemes and everything else are alike. The only thing that changes is the particular city and county trying to consolidate.

NEVER MIND!

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Albany Georgia Not what I thought it would be

A 2010 wish list

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuffed with the stuff that is course and stuffed with the stuff that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,

– Walt Whitman from Songs of Myself (16)

As we approach 2010, I can honestly say that Albany is not where I thought it would be.

Growing up just blocks from downtown Albany, I was into everything Albany from a very young age.

Its businesses, industry, media, theaters, schools and military were old friends of mine. I followed their trials and tribulations and watched as most of what made Albany great left downtown or left the city altogether.

The downtown area was once home to hundreds of businesses. Our manufacturing base has shrunk to a shadow of what once provided good jobs for our citizens.

The local media seems to be a smaller version of what it was in its heyday. I do think the media is more modern and interesting than years ago, but it seems to have lost some of its influence.

SCHOOL CHANGES NEEDED

Achievement seems to suffer in the school system while the four high schools need more than improvements in their facilities. I know they are getting millions of dollars in rebuild, but that isn’t enough. The four schools are inn bad locations and are landlocked in many cases or surrounded by bad and deteriorating neighborhoods.

Albany and Dougherty are the worst. Declining enrollments and old facilities are holding them back and no amount of modernization will substitute for inherent problems.

BAD MOVIE ATMOSPHERE

The theater situation needs improvement. With only one complex and 17 screens you would think that the movie business was in pretty good shape, but there is a need for another theater complex. There was a time when east and west Albany had multiscreen complexes, plus a twin screen at the mall. Many people enjoyed that theater configuration but the decision to close all the old theaters and open one mega-theater location seems to have been a bad decision on the part of Carmike Theaters.

We need an eight- or 10-screen theater complex somewhere in southern Lee County on U.S. 19 near the Albany city limit. That might ease the pressure at Wynsong.

MILITARY CHANGES

God bless the U.S. Marine Corps. They are still here and operate a superb logistics facility here in Albany. Opening in the 1950s, it has grown and expanded the role it plays and hopefully will continue to expand and become even more vital to this country and it’s military.

Albany once had a healthy Air Force base and later Naval Air Station. It also was the home of an Army Nike missile base on both the east and west sides of town. The missiles protected the B-52 bombers stationed at Turner Air Force Base.

I really hated to see the former military bases close and it hasn’t been a good thing for Albany as think our quality of life has suffered.

HIGH RISE NEEDED DOWNTOWN

I long for a high rise or two downtown. Several soaring edifices would add to the image of our city. Over the past 50 years as downtown Albany evolved, there were several attempts at high rise structures, but nothing ever came of it.

There has got to be a viable plan somewhere for offices, banks, education or health to construct at least one 10- to 12-floor building as the centerpiece of downtown Albany.

We need to make a statement to those who enter downtown and a large high rise would be the kind of statement I was looking for these many years.

TRANSPORTATION NEEDS

Albany needs among other things an interstate highway connector. The next ten years may be a critical time for that need to be made and made not just by Albany, but Lee, Worth, Terrell, Colquitt, Mitchell and other counties that would benefit from the highway through our poor and underserved area.

We need another carrier at the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport. ASA Atlantic Southeast Airlines is a bad joke. Their outrageous prices and spotty service needs some sort of competitor. I know it won’t be easy to get one, but charging Albanians more for a ticket to Atlanta than Valdosta ticket buyers is an insult. They are sixty miles further away than we are and a smaller facility. We need to hold ASA to the fire over this situation.

POLITICAL DEFICIENCIES

I hate to even bring this one up, but I really thought in the last 30 years there would be some great leaders stepping up to help lead the city. The situation has been worse than worse. Petty leaders, myopic visions, greed, power grabbing and just plain dullness have taken over on the city and county level.

There is no vision for our community. There are no grand plans or avenues to greatness. There is only dullness, stupidity, higher tax4es, crime, unemployment and despair.

I did not see it as this bad 40 years ago and it has become worse than I ever expected.

No more needs to be said … blah, blah. blah ….

LEE COUNTY IS UNAWARE OF ITSELF

Like a slumbering giant, Lee County sits north of Albany and presents itself as a quiet suburban community. Thousands of Lee Countians drive into Albany everyday for their employment. As the county grows, the 2010 census could compile 32,000 citizens or more. In 1970, barely 7,000 individuals lived in Lee County. Times have changed and Lee County doesn’t need Albany as badly as before.

There are so many things that Lee County people could do to showcase their community and cause more jobs and people to move to their county.

Other counties had their version of Lee County, but those roles have changed quite a bit. Bibb County (Macon) and Houston County were as Albany and Lee County in the 1960s and 70s. The population of Houston County was nearly 50,000 in 1970 and Bibb counted 160,000.

Today Bibb counts 155,000 people and Houston 120,000.

Richmond County (Augusta) had Columbia County to its northwest. Columbia was a mostly rural retreat for Augusta folks escaping the sprawl on Augusta. With 90,000 suburbanites residing in Columbia County, it isn’t little anymore.

I suspect the future of Lee County will be its citizens finally discovering their many and varied benefits and showcasing them. Lee County may finally decide to stand on its on and sell the county without leaning heavily on the City of Albany and its attributes.

Lee County needs another municipality in its southern area. Several new cities have sprung up in metro Atlanta and a new city in southern Lee County would be refreshing.

A new city with 7,000 to 10,000 folks might create quite a stir in south Georgia and may be the catalyst to a new Lee County awakening.

BRIDGES, BRIDGES AND MORE BRIDGES

Albany was founded on the Flint River and that slow moving body of water has always been a part of this community. DOT announced the old Broad Street Bridge must be torn down and replaced. Sad to see the old girl have to go, but I remember back in the 1970s there was talk of replacing that bridge.

Several years ago, DOT announced the Oglethorpe Bridge was to be widened and updated to accommodate increased traffic flow and changing patterns downtown. Oglethorpe Bridge opened in 1954 and has never been updated or improved.

Finally, a new bridge to connect Clark Avenue with West Albany near Flint Avenue should be built. This project along with the others has been talked about and planned for years and should be built as soon as possible. We need good bridges and at least one should be a beautiful outstanding addition to downtown rather than running straight across the river. Hopefully one will rise near the center to give a good view of downtown.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Nothing negative here. The local colleges are a bright spot for Albany. Albany State University, Darton College and Albany Technical College all experienced record enrollment this fall. Combine that with Troy University and LaGrange College at Albany and that totals over 15,000 college students enrolled in Albany. That’s right; 15,000 college students.

Who would have thought in 1966 as the first class to enter Albany Junior College (Darton) with 660 students, that same college would have 5,800 students in 2009?

Albany State counted 1,500 students when I enrolled in 1969, but today has over 4,500.

If the rest of Albany operated as the colleges we would be more efficient, a much larger city, expanding and prosperous. I think Darton College’s and Albany State University’s presidents should be appointed joint managers of the City of Albany.

Sonny-Lofton-002By: Sonny Lofton. Albany natve Sonny Lofton is a veteran broadcaster and writer. He co-hosts the “Frank and Sonny” show from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thurday on WWVO The Voice FM-90.7.

Tags: Albany, ga, georgia
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What I owe Jews: A Christmas story

Much Madness is divinest Sense-

To a discerning Eye-

Much Sense-the starkest Madness-

‘Tis the Majority

In this, as All prevail-
Assent – and you are sane-

Demur-you’re straightway dangerous-

And handled with a Chain-

Emily Dickenson/Poem 435

The holiday for Christians is fast upon us. The celebration of our Savior’s birth comes December 25.

Of course, as a renegade Christian, I don’t accept the Dec. 25 date as truth. There are far too many hints in the Scriptures concerning the birth that tells me Christ was born in the spring and was to die on the cross on the same date some 32 years later.

Shepherds do not watch their flocks in the winter. They watch them in the spring when the newborn lambs are born and have to be protected from predators. In December the flocks are down in the towns and farming areas where they are sheltered from the weather and fed until released back into the fields in the springtime for the new birth.

Christ was born a Jew. He was from the lineage of King David and had a right to rule on the throne in Jerusalem. One day he will return and take the throne that is rightfully his and the Temple of God will be rebuilt on the same spot where Herod’s Temple fell to the Legions of Titus in the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans.

Christ had to be Jewish. Scriptures foretold the King of the Jews would be born and one day occupy his throne in Jerusalem.

Christ came to earth for the Jews first and the Gentiles. Gentiles such as me and millions of others accept this Jew as our savior. We owe to him our eternal salvation and life and one day will live in the City of God with him.

MEANWHILE, BACK ON EARTH

As a Christian and gentile, my mind becomes very Jewish at times. I owe the Jews so much from many parts of the personality that inhabits my small brain. Influences from the very beginning of my life wallow in so many things Jewish. Humor, entertainment, music, science, arts and even spiritual things come from the Jewish tsunami that swept over me at a young age.

Growing up as a 4- and 5-year-old kid in a Baptist Sunday School, I was thrilled and frightened by the exploits of Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon and Samson. These heroes touched by God to deliver his people and his word were my first Jewish indoctrinations. In the secular world my early television heroes were Sid Caesar, Carl Riner and later the three stooges. Moe Horowitz, Shemp Horowitz, Curly Horowitz and Larry Fienberg were icons worshipped by a young Christian kid who was not aware of the icons’ Jewish-ness till much later. By then I didn’t care if they were Buddhists because I loved them no matter their background.

Later, the Marx Brothers joined the pantheon of humor gods on the high mount of comedy and wit. Oh how I wished to be Groucho. Zeppo, Harpo and Chico were good, but Groucho was king.

Jerry Lewis and the Catholic sidekick Dean Martin were suddenly initiated into my Jewish gang. Jerry was madness and Dean was suave. Even later Woody Allen, Dr. Spock, Capt. Kirk and even Sammy Davis Junior became my favorites.

My science interests included Albert Einstein. Flawed as a person he was still the most brilliant mind of the century. He laid out Genesis for us with the big bang (God’s version is called “Let there be light” and is found in the opening chapters of Genesis.)

SO, WHAT DO I OWE THE JEWS?

More than I can ever repay them, of course. My thoughts, loves and dislikes are so Jewish and I carry them with pride. Even here in Albany there are Jews that I owe much and will never be able to repay.

They know who they are and I will not embarrass them because I love them too much. Besides, the thought of being idolized by a right wing Christian fanatic might be a real burden for them. I wish them well and hope God blesses them all. May we all meet next year in Jerusalem!

Sonny-Lofton-002By: Sonny Lofton. Albany native Sonny Lofton is a veteran broadcaster and writer. He co-hosts the “Frank and Sonny” show from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday on WWVO The Voice FM-90.7.

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Sports broadcasting: A career unintended

Beside my bed the bright moonbeams bound

Almost as if there were frost on the ground

Rising up, I gaze at the Mountain moon;

Lying back, I think of my old home town.

Li Bo, Quiet Night Thoughts

Poet   Tang Dynasty 700 A.D.

It was Friday afternoon and I was headed down U.S. 19 for Pelham. The Pelham Hornets were facing the Randolph Clay Red Devils for the last playoff spot in Region 1-A. I was completing my first season of broadcasting Mitchell County, Pelham and Westwood Wildcat games for WQLI radio. Longtime friend Jerry White had allowed me to join his broadcast crew for the first time. I had accumulated 41 years broadcasting radio sports here in Albany and needed a change of scenery.

I felt my relationship with the local schools needed to come to an end. “Familiarity Breeds Contempt”, was one of my mother’s favorite sayings. She hit me over the head with that old bit of wisdom a number of times as I grew up in Albany. It was time to break with over four decades of sports broadcasting and ply my trade somewhere else.

I really don’t know how many games I had broadcast over the last four decades, but it was probably several hundred or more. From the late 1960s until the middle 80s, each football season had 18 to 20 games on our schedule. Since 2000, the schedule has slowed to about a 10-game-a-year football slate.

There was also the frustration of watching local schools produce weak and mostly mediocre football teams. There were exceptions and I was lucky enough to have been there for some of them.

They can’t take that away from me

It was 1968 and I was enrolled at Albany Junior College (Darton) and working full-time in local radio to pay for the college, books, food, cars, etc. The sports department at WALG had been broadcasting local high school football since the 1950s and needed a color analyst for games. My schedule included 1-local games from Mills Stadium as well as out of town games in Douglas, Jesup, Valdosta, Tifton and Moultrie.

In the 1970s, I broadcast some of the first Deerfield-Windsor football games and was part of the first broadcast crews to include Lee County High football. Lee County football was pretty bad in those days. The old stadium was awful and each August wasps and spiders battled with our crew to keep us out of the old press box on Starkville Road.

In 1968 I became the first Caucasian announcer to announce Monroe High football as the Tornadoes joined the Georgia High School Association. The late Doc Settles and I began a friendship that season. Our close friendship lasted until he died. Doc had begun his broadcast career one year earlier than I.

In 1976, I announced the first Dougherty High Region 1-AAA football championship as they beat Thomasville Central for the title. The next week the infamous “Flood Bowl” game at Mills Stadium was on WALG. Dougherty lost 7-6 to Wayne County during the largest downpour of rain I have ever seen before a football game. The north end zone was covered with one foot of water and the officials would hold the ball till snapped to keep it from floating away. If you remember the name Lindsey Scott, Lindsey Scott, Lindsey Scott then you know the guy that helped beat Dougherty that night and also helped build the legend of University of Georgia broadcaster Larry Munson.

It was the only football game I ever attended that could have led to a player drowning during big pileups near the north end zone.

This was no joke! Players were sometime submerged under water after tackles concluded and held their breath until officials yanked them off the ground.

State finals were coming

I had not been involved with Georgia state football final broadcasts until the 1980s. I was lucky enough to broadcast State finals in GHSA (Worth County-Marist) and GISA (Deerfield Windsor-Savannah Christian) during that period.

I even went to Camilla to broadcast a Westwood-Savannah Christian final in GISA during that period. I was working for a Savannah radio group that carried Savannah Christian games, but the crew could not make it to Camilla. I contracted with them to broadcast a game and did my best to sound interesting for a team I had never known, a city I had visited only once and a radio station I had never heard of either.

During the 1990s, I worked several seasons as Dougherty made it into the first and second round of state play. In 1998. I followed Dougherty all the way to their state championship in Peach County which included my first broadcast of a game from the Georgia Dome. (You haven’t reached the big leagues until you broadcast from the Dome).

Four state championships in football; seven state championships in basketball and one baseball state final are on my resume. Not bad for a guy that never intended to spend forty years in sports broadcasting. My real desire in life was to have been a lumberjack! We will save that story for another day.

Sonny-Lofton-002By: Sonny Lofton.   Albany natve Sonny Lofton is a veteran broadcaster and writer. He co-hosts the “Frank and Sonny” show from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thurday on WWVO The Voice FM-90.7.

Tags: Sports
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On the greatest generation

I would like to be the air

That inhabits you for a moment

only. I would like to be that unnoticed

& that necessary.

Margaret Atwood “Variation on the word sleep”; 1981

My writing skills are not what they used to be. Some nights the words flow like spring raindrops and other nights they fall hard like an ice storm on a winter day. They are words as water and ice are the same, yet different in state and intensity.

I find myself irritated and dull at the same time. That accursed movie is playing again on television. “Field of Dreams”. What a piece of goop from Hollywood.

Just because I played pitch with my father once I should blubber about lost days, weeks years, etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. My father was a decent baseball player in high school. He might have played minor league ball, but his aspiring baseball career ran into a roadblock.

He graduated in May 1941 and joined the U.S. Navy to see the world.

He got to see quite a bit of it after finishing basic training. He was assigned to San Francisco and was sent into the Pacific arriving just two weeks after Pearl Harbor was attacked. I never asked him what it was like arriving in Pearl Harbor with wreckage strewn about and the smell of death and destruction still in the air. He wanted to see the world and boy did he see it. Half the men on his aircraft carrier, USS Bunker Hill, were killed or missing when they were struck by two Japanese “Divine Wind” kamikaze aircraft in 1945.

Like millions of other obscure young men who fought for their country in WWII, Dad wanted to leave his small hometown and start an adventure. An adventure to build his future upon, but the way he planned it and the way it played out was very different. Several hundred thousand never made it back and countless thousands made it back with memories you will never see in any travel or tourist brochure.

Come to the beautiful forests and mountains of Germany. See the prison and extermination camps where six million Jews and others were exterminated from the earth for no other reason than they happened to be Jews in the wrong place at the wrong time. Talk about being born under a bad sign.

See beautiful Hawaii with the shattered remains of the once great U.S. Pacific Fleet. See where more than 2,000 Americans died one beautiful December morning in 1941. Aloha boys; all this courtesy of the Emperor of Japan.

Welcome to the sunny Philippines. See where 50,000 allied prisoners were starved and marched to death for the glory of the Japanese empire. Next time you buy a Nissan or Toyota think of us … Sayonara.

What Price the War?

I saw the years eat away at my father like a cancer. His drinking became worse and he turned more in on himself. There was little I could do except provide some support here and there without becoming an enabler.

Ten years of counseling in the prisons of the state had me somewhat prepared for dealing with him. Being objective was the hardest part. He was in no way objective towards me. He knew most good and bad things I had ever done and was prepared to rip me to shreds with his acerbic and slashing comments.

I sat and listened to him with blank expressions and gave him slow measured answers.

My attempts at limited emotion only fueled his frustration with me. He was looking for sympathy, but there was little I could give.

There is an old joke about where you can find sympathy in the dictionary, but I doubt Kevin and his staff would let this get by so I will leave it in the dictionary.

The war had taken its toll. He was putting a gun to his head and pulling it one shot (drink) at a time. There is a country music song that goes something like that.

My father’s several friends and acquaintances were much the same way. They had all been part of the Great Depression and had mastered it only to be thrust into a great war against the Nazi’s and the Japanese. The Americans whipped both of them and came home to family and nation.

God knows they deserved every accolade that could be laid at their feet and most took it with humility. Remembering the men and women that had not come back was a sobering reminder of how life seems so unfair at times.

Dad’s buddies all had drinking problems, marital problems or other conflicts that followed them all to their graves.

These millions of common ordinary men who served in extraordinary ways defeated the world’s evil dictators in war, but could not defeat their inner demons in peace.

As Veteran’s Day approaches I want to say, “Good job, Dad. You and your buddies saved the world back in WWII. I just wish we could have saved you from yourselves.”

I look forward to seeing you again one day. Maybe we will toss that old baseball back and forth just one more time.

Sonny-Lofton-002By: Sonny Lofton. Albany natve Sonny Lofton is a veteran broadcaster and writer. He co-hosts the “Frank and Sonny” show from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Thurday on WWVO The Voice FM-90.7.

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Education: Lack of motivation endures in Albany

Through being considered clever I have suffered much…..

If you put new ideas before the eyes of fools

They’ll think you foolish and worthless into the bargain;

And if you are thought superior to those who have

Some reputation for learning, you will become hated

Euripides Medea  (Greek); 480-406 B.C.

Motivation, or the lack of motivation, has always fascinated me. Pick a job or a movement and you will soon see the motivated and the unmotivated. Car salesmen, realtors, insurance agents, teachers, lawyers and every other profession has its motivated and unmotivated.

Two teachers in the same school with the same students produce different results. One teacher motivates her students while another teacher in the same school has unmotivated students.

For every great car salesman there are nine others who just can’t seem to sell the same cars. Two preachers graduate from the same seminary, but ten years later one of them has a church with five thousand members and the other pastors a small rural church with seventy members.

Many are called, but few are chosen” is an old bible verse that warns the individual of the dangers of being unmotivated. Sports teams, businesses, cities, churches and organizations live and die by the degree of motivation possessed by the individuals in that endeavor.

People choose their professions based on expected income, interest in a certain livelihood or motivation. The product a person chooses to sell may be the best of its kind, but the product may not be a success because the person selling the product is unmotivated or indifferent.

Writing sports for over forty years has taught me truths not always evident on the surface of the sport, but manifesting itself later in ways that seem unrelated.

The indirect result of athletic success

Schools that experience success in their athletic programs discover a relationship between good academics and good sports programs. The catalyst for high achievement in classroom or athletic field is always motivation. Attention to detail, rigorous study and training lead to achievement in classrooms and athletic fields.

Schools and colleges that emphasize academics, usually find sports programs operating at a higher level of excellence. Institutions suffering academically usually mirror themselves athletically. Several decades ago I approached the Dougherty County School System with suggestions for improving overall sports programs. I was ignored and marginalized.

The members of the Board of Education reminded me that academics was their concern and not sports programs. Duh!!! The esteemed members of the BOE were quick to point out that they hired the best coaches and the high schools were doing just fine.

Their argument was framed in a way to suggest that any idea for athletic improvement was not possible until academic problems were corrected. This circular argument insured nothing in academics or athletics would be improved.

Much younger and naïve at the time, I left the meeting with a shred of dignity and the utter humiliation of bringing up an athletic question to a board of education burdened with great academic and philosophical problems.

In reality, Dougherty County was not academically superior at the time and the sports programs were nothing to hang your hat on either. The board had no solutions to improve academics or athletics. The will to seek improvements just wasn’t there. Today we find an almost identical lack of the same ingredient.

It was and still is MOTIVATION!

I always received the same counter argument to the question: Can’t we improve athletics?

There can be no athletic improvement because we are overburdened with academic problems, When we sort out the academic problems then we can sort out the athletic problem.

In the meantime I should go away and feel shamed desiring to destroy academics by emphasizing athletics. I could never make it clear to board members that academics and athletics are not exclusive entities! You could have improvements in both areas at the same time. I really believe their thinking involved only one solution, “You have to choose one or the other”. A marriage between the two disciplines was not possible. Balderdash! Every endeavor can be refined and improved. The missing ingredient was MOTIVATION!

My evil plan is revealed

I really wanted to use the athletic question as an entrée to a second question, “Why can’t we be motivated to formulate a plan for better academics while also preparing our athletic programs for an upgrade?” The entire question was built on more than football, basketball, etc.

The second part of the presentation included adding more academic support personnel, additional Asst. Principals and more support for band and music. It never even reached the floor for debate and died of neglect.

Years later I can finally reveal a hidden and evil agenda. I always hoped in my heart to see Dougherty County schools reach high levels of both academics and athletics! That’s right! My evil plan for world domination based on giving Dougherty County students the best of everything we had to offer. To expect nothing less than the best. How could we as adults expect students to push harder in classrooms and on athletic fields if we were not doing likewise?

What I would like to happen is a serious look at the future of all sports in the school system. If the solution requires a unique and out of the box approach to the future, then so be it. One obvious suggestion would be to eliminate sports at Albany High.

I hear the howls of administrators, etc and the hardening of neck muscles. “We are OK and don’t need your help, Mr. Lofton”. My question then becomes, “What is your motivation for keeping a sports team that doesn’t win, place or show on the football field?”

What does an under-manned, under-funded patch work quilt of a football team do in any positive way for your school, your students or the city of Albany? School board members should be interested in any idea which asks for the best possible academic and athletic programs for the school system.

If you watch Prep Sports Plus on Georgia Public Broadcasting you see an example of the best of both worlds. Large and small schools all over Georgia are producing superior athletics and achieving academic success.

Let’s not wait years and years and discover nothing has changed and we are still mired in mediocrity.

I’m MOTIVATED … are you?

Written by Sonny Lofton.

Tags: education
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It’s time to purge Albany High sports

More than half a century ago, the Albany High Indians won their third state football title. They had won several south Georgia titles back in the 1920s and 1930s, and that was the highest honor since state titles weren’t widespread in those days.

How Dreary — to be — Somebody!

How public — like a Frog —

To tell one’s name — the livelong June —

To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson (Poem 288, 1896)

One city, one team, one people. That was the usual state of things back in those days. Albany, Valdosta, Thomasville, Americus, Tifton and many other cities had one high school. Smaller places like Jakin, Climax, Attapulgus, Leslie and Desoto were likewise blessed.

Progress came to larger cities such as Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Augusta and Albany in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Columbus, with two high schools, now supports nine high schools, and that doesn’t count the private institutions. Macon with Lanier High for boys and Miller High for girls now supports five public and six large private schools. Savannah and Augusta have about 15 public and private high schools each compared to only three or four just 50 years ago.

Albany, with only Albany High (white) and Monroe High (black), supported only two high schools until Dougherty High opened in 1963.Football-playing schools in Albany now number six with three other private schools that do not field football teams, but that have nearly 500 students attending their three campuses. Calculate the effect of Lee County High (1,800) students into the metro mix, and you see we are oversaturated with football teams.

Lee County in a different county stands alone while Dougherty County public schools are the only ones who could change their programs drastically and more positively. Declining enrollments in three of the four public high schools will affect both teacher positions and funding, facility usage and sports programs and region alignments in the future.

Eliminate AHS sports programs

There is no chance that any of the four public high schools in Dougherty County will ever be consolidated with any of the others. That doesn’t seem to be in the mindset of anyone I have talked with in the last 20 years. The next step would be to eliminate the sports program at AHS while keeping the high school open as a magnet school. Allow every incoming ninth grader at Albany High to pick Dougherty, Monroe or Westover as their school of choice for sports while allowing no transfers during those four years except under extreme circumstances.

Those students would be transported after school to their chosen site for athletic practice and back to Albany High afterwards. Each school could pick up 10 to 20 athletes each for football and less for other sports.

The main reason for eliminating Albany High sports is simple. AHS enrollment continues to fall and rezoning students will not help the other three high school sports teams, but could ultimately hurt them.

Current AHS enrollment is about 750 students in grades 9-12. Compare that to 1980 enrollment, which was 964 but did not include the ninth grade. If AHS had included the ninth grade on their campus as other schools do, they would have had well over 1,300 students.

Monroe with the ninth grade would have been about 1300 while Westover would have numbered over 1450 and Dougherty nearly 2000.

Current construction at AHS will spend roughly $10 million on upgrades and rebuilds on a school built in 1954. The bad neighborhood and small campus area will not meet standards mandated by the Georgia Department of Education.

Albany High was built for a student body of roughly 1,600 students and topped 1,900 before Westover High was opened in 1968. All four county high schools are older structures built on smaller campuses than schools in other counties.

Lee County’s high school has two new buildings since the early 1970s. Each school was in a larger, newer building with more adjoining open space. Bainbridge High at roughly $50 million opened this year and has a 150-acre campus surrounding it with 50 acres available for the future expansion of that school.

New high schools built since the middle 1970s include Valdosta, Colquitt County, Tift County, Thomasville Central, Thomasville, Crisp County, Worth County, Mitchell County, Pelham (2009), Bainbridge (2009), Schley County and Miller County (2009).

Expansion in metro Atlanta

Growth in the Atlanta metro area has produced a new high school or two every year for the last 10 years. Gwinnett County has 14 high schools with enrollments from 1,500 to 3,500 per school. It’s hard to keep up with the all the new facilities there.

Valdosta and Lowndes County are planning a new high school in the next year or two in the north end of the county near Hahira. A planned enrollment of about 800 students will take some of the pressure off Lowndes’ 2,700 students and Valdosta’s 2,000 students. Warner Robins and Houston County have four large public high schools and a fifth will open next year in south Houston County near the community of Kathleen. The new high school (Veterans High) has a beautiful new two -story building with all new facilities and large adjoining acreage for sports and outdoor events.

Dougherty County schools are aging rapidly and improvements and new makeovers will not solve the problem of aging locations and undersized surrounding outdoor space. Consider this: Albany High was built in 1953-54, Monroe in 1959-60, Dougherty in 1962-63 and Westover in 1966-67. The ages of these schools range from 41 to 55 years. You would have to look high and low to find any other larger schools in the south Georgia area with facilities this old and still in use. Albany and its children deserve better!

By Sonny Lofton

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Valdosta loses by 42; Civilization collapsing?

The annual “Winnersville Classic” in Valdosta was won by Lowndes 57-15 this past weekend.

More than four decades of sports coverage in south Georgia had not prepared me for this final score. This just doesn’t happen to a Valdosta High School team. But, there it was staring at me from the WALB High School Locker Room Report. A handful of national high school championship titles, 20-something state titles and more than 1,000 wins could not have prepared fans and followers of the Wildcats for this humiliation.

Add insult to injury by having this defeat handed to them by cross-town rival Lowndes and the weekend must have been as depressing as last election night was to us rich, compassionless, close-the-border conservatives. Elvis has left the building! London Bridge is falling down! General Sherman is on the outskirts of Valdosta! Stickman finally produces a positive and uplifting political cartoon? (Not a splinter of a chance of that happening!)

My high school football repertoire book contains no eventuality for a Valdosta loss of that magnitude. Few local citizens remember the long and heated rivalry between Albany High and Valdosta High that ended 1970s. As a purist, my date of ending the series was after the 1967 football game. The Indians defeated the Wildcats, 27-7.

A year later, Westover High opened — taking about 800 students from Albany High. AHS never recovered its football greatness after losing those students. Albany and Valdosta started their rivalry back in the 1920s and competed fiercely until 1967. The Indians had one of the better records against the Wildcats during those five decades.

As I entered Albany High in 1963, a five-year stretch of games would occur between AHS-VHS resulting in four victories for Albany and one for Valdosta. A 35-2 Wildcat win at Hugh Mills Stadium my senior year (1965) was the lone victory for Valdosta during that stretch.

The annual AHS-VHS game produced a week of noise, boasts, bragging, threats and general mayhem at both schools. Albany High celebrated “Hate Week” in preparation for the game as Valdosta High reciprocated with their own “Hate Week” against Albany High.

Georgia and Georgia Tech weren’t the only ones to celebrate “Good Old Fashioned Hate”!

1964 was memorable. The Indians traveled to Valdosta sporting a mediocre 2-3 record while Valdosta was 6-0 and sporting an Associated Press No. 1 ranking.

As we arrived on a beautiful fall Friday afternoon, some of us noticed the smell of undeniable arrogance in the air. The Valdosta Times picked Wright Bazemore’s bunch to win by a score of 35-7 or something like that.

Bazemore was almost a curse word with us but, we respected, admired and even secretly wished somehow he was our coach. Years later, as Bazemore retired, his record at Valdosta was 290-43-7.

Carl Williams, who played and coached at Albany High, was one of the reasons that night became legend in AHS football lore.

Tied at the half 14-14, Valdosta fans were getting restless and wanted a quick kill in the third quarter. Instead, they got a street fight and scoreless third quarter. The final 12 minutes were much the same as a possible tie loomed large for the Numero Uno Gatos.

A tie would tarnish their perfect 6-0 mark, but a tie would actually be an Albany High victory.

With 26 seconds in the game, AHS lineman Carl Williams crashed through the Valdosta offense and hammered the VHS quarterback. Cecil Strickland and Bob Harden also were putting on pressure and had a grip on the QB.

Williams’ blow rendered the QB unconscious and delayed the game several minutes as he was attended by trainers and medical staff before being taken off the field for the night.

Williams told me that the Valdosta offensive tackle came to the line of scrimmage and spat on him. Williams also claimed the same lineman called him a “Fat pig”.

I’ve known Carl since high school and his story has never changed. I believe every word he says about the incident.

Valdosta sent in a reserve quarterback for the last play of the game and the poor unfortunate young man tossed a pass into the arms of Albany High’s Doug Gurr, who raced 45 yards down the sideline for a score as time expired. AHS left Cleveland Field with a 21-14 victory.

1964 ended with AHS winning four games, losing five, and tying one.

Valdosta went on to finish as region champs with a 9-1 record. They also won the state football title with an 11-1 record. The lone blemish on that otherwise perfect season was a 21-14 loss to the lowly Albany High Indians.

All these years later the greatness of that game may be forgotten, but the glory produced that night will never die!

Valdosta High in 2009 still has a huge student enrollment (about 2,000). Albany High doesn’t have the 2000 students it had in 1964. AHS numbers about 750 students today and that includes a ninth-grade class. We had only tenth through twelfth grades in those days. The 650 students in the ninth grade at AHS were not on our campus, but on Jefferson Street at Albany Junior High.

Albany High still bears the name of the school which opened in 1885. The status of the school has greatly diminished over the last several decades as it has become just one more high school in a city with four public and four private high schools.

Albany High has gone the way of other high schools that carried the name of their city when they were the lone white (Caucasian) secondary school in that community. Many of them still exist, but in a more subtle manner than decades ago. Georgia football powerhouses from 1935 to 1970, in no particular order, were: Columbus High; Lanier High, Macon; Boys High, Atlanta; Tech High, Atlanta; Savannah High; Richmond Academy, Augusta; Albany High; Valdosta High; Moultrie High (Colquitt County); LaGrange High; Avondale, Atlanta; Marietta.

Closing out this personal history of AHS football I want to thank Mike Flynn, Walter Johnson and Kevin Hogencamp for producing the latest incarnation of the Albany Journal. What a delight it is to see the paper evolve from its former condition years ago.

A Journal reader and writer since 1965, I can honestly say it has never been better, brighter, more professional and a joy to read than ever. As I tell Kevin Hogencamp at the conclusion of our weekly radio show on 90.7 WWVO ,” If you haven’t read the Journal lately, then you haven’t read the Journal.”

Column by Sonny Lofton

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