News from March 20, 2008 issue

Local News
The Crittenden Press (PDF)
(Selected pages from Sections A & B)
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Saturdays on tap for Crittenden students
Saturday cartoons will have to do without Crittenden County youth for a couple of weekends this spring.
On Tuesday, the board of education approved an amended school calendar that uses two Saturdays to help make up the 12 days of class time missed this winter due to bad weather. Spring break, which begins March 31, was left untouched.
By utilizing those two Saturdays – April 12 and May 17 – for instruction, in addition to a faculty planning day initially slated for May 5, only four classroom days were tacked on to the end of the school year.
School will now let out for students on May 30. Graduation ceremonies for seniors will be conducted that same night, a Friday.
That last day of school was originally scheduled for May 23.
Earlier this month, a survey was sent home with students seeking input from parents regarding an amended calender. By a narrow margin, parents favored running school buses on Saturdays before taking spring break.
Staff polled with the same options differed in opinion, however. By a two-to-one margin, district employees preferred working during spring break rather than Saturdays.
Both groups were in agreement, though, about their summers.
“One thing is clear,” Superintendent John Belt said during Tuesday’s discussion of the calendar, “School needs to be out before June.”
Belt said he had reservations about taking days from spring break less than two weeks before the week-long vacation for students, faculty and staff. Some families, he suggested, had already made plans and reservations for motels and airline flights. For many, refunds would have been unlikely.
“It would be unfair to a segment of parents and faculty,” Belt said.
An initial proposal to included classroom instruction on Memorial Day in addition to Saturday, April 12 failed to garner any support from the board of education.
“We already don’t observe Veterans Day and I feel like we should (be off Memorial Day),” said board member Bill Asbridge, who moved to add a second Saturday to the make-up calendar rather than taking the holiday.
The subsequent vote by the board was unanimous to preserve Memorial Day.
The board was able to shave off three of the dozen snow days to be made up from time “banked” out of the original 171-day school calendar. State law requires only 168 six-hour days, so an additional three were salvageable to meet minimum standards. By adding five allowable emergency hours to one partial day shortened by weather and extending a scheduled half-day Wednesday to a full day, the board was left with only seven days on which to make a decision. Those, of course, will be made up with the combination of the planning day, two Saturdays and the four days added to the end of the calendar.


Dismissal of Hargis suit asked by lawyer
STAFF REPORT
An attorney for the Crittenden County School Board has entered a motion in circuit court here requesting dismissal of a lawsuit filed more than three years ago by former school superintendent Fredericka Hargis.
In a two-page motion filed March 11, Robert Chenoweth of Frankfort, attorney for the school board, is asking the court to dismiss the case based on a lack of activity in the lawsuit over the past two years. The petition says that since Hargis originally filed the suit on Jan. 19, 2005, that there has been very little activity, and "absolutely no activity" since the court ordered attorneys to expedite the matter in September of 2006.
Hargis was fired by the school board on Dec. 22, 2004 following a 10-month suspension that was issued just days after she was charged with felony wanton endangerment in February 2004 for running over a woman's foot during an altercation in the parking lot of a local beauty shop. Hargis later entered an Alford plea in Crittenden District Court to a lesser misdemeanor charge of wanton endangerment for running over Tracy Rozwalka of Marion.
The confrontation at the beauty shop had purportedly started because of an anonymous six-page letter critical of Hargis and others in the school system.
Hargis also filed a defamation lawsuit in circuit court against 13 individuals and businesses who she said were responsible for disseminating the letter. Most of the defendants in that case have been released by the court. A handful of them are left, but there has been no recent activity in regard to that suit either.
In her charges against the school board, Hargis asserted that the local board breached its contract with her when it quit paying the suspended superintendent on April 22, 2004. She had originally been suspended with pay.
Hargis claims the school board fired her for grounds not originally in the "Charges for Removal" set forth by the board in February of 2004. The lawsuit also says the board did not properly investigate the charges against her or consider the educational performance of students in the school system when it fired her.
The lawsuit lists 18 points of contention regarding her removal as superintendent and justification for financial relief in the matter. She is asking for a settlement in an amount to compensate her for the breach of contract and wrongful termination, but the suit does not list an exact amount. It also asks for punitive damages and a trial by jury.
Judge Rene Williams has recused herself from the case and wants a special judge hear the school board's request for dismissal. Judge Williams said Tuesday that her reason for requesting a special judge to preside over the remaining portion of the case is because Ginger Orr Boone is now her law clerk. Boone's mother, Phyillis Orr, is on the school board, and thus a defendant in the case.
"I disclosed this to the attorneys and everyone agreed it might give the appearance of impropriety for me to continue," Judge Williams said.
A special judge has not been named as of yet to hear the motion filed last week by the school board.


Church offers glimpse into Jesus’ last day
Grasping for words, Michelle Kinnis finds it difficult to describe her experience inside the Forgiveness House.
“Whoa!” she said after stepping out of Fredonia First Baptist Church’s tour through Christ’s Passion. “Words can’t describe... It really leaves me speechless.”
On a recent evening, Kinnis joined about 20 others who filed through the church’s second annual passion play inside an old Fredonia schoolhouse. It was Palm Sunday, the final Sunday before Easter when recognition to the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem before his crucifixion is given.
“It really gives you a perspective before Easter,” said Kinnis’ friend, Paula Brown.
Kinnis and Brown, both of Marion, are regular churchgoers in other counties. Neither had visited Forgiveness House in the past, but were urged to the experience this year by Kinnis’ teenage daughter, Whitney, and a former classmate at Crittenden County High School, Andrea Butts. Both Kinnis’ daughter and old schoolmate attend First Baptist Church, and Butts portrays Mary, Jesus’ mother, throughout the play.
“My daughter is the reason I’m here,” Kinnis said.
Church volunteers were busy Sunday evening prepping for the next group to tour Forgiveness House. It was the third night of the 2008 production, and a new group is ushered into the old school about every 30 minutes for the next showing.
As of Sunday, more than 700 people from across the region had already registered for this year. Churches from Marion, Fredonia, Paducah, Madisonville and beyond have signed up to bring their congregations. The production began its second week on Wednesday and continues tonight (Thursday) and Friday.
“Thursday is kind of a slow night, so there is room for more groups,” said Pam Faughn, one of the church’s 100-plus volunteers who range from the oldest to the youngest of the congregation.
Last year, 858 visitors filed through the first year of the drama. This Friday evening is the last night for this year’s performance.
Forgiveness House utilizes five rooms of the school for separate skits depicting Christ’s Passion. The tour begins at a realistic Last Supper and moves on to a dark, foggy scene where Jesus is praying in the Garden of Gathsemane. As guards rush in to take Jesus away, the performance moves to the hallway, where a crowd of Jews yell and scream for Pilate to release Barabbas and crucify Jesus.
The self-professed King of the Jews is led away by guards once more to a cloaked room where his screams can be heard over the crack of a whip and raucous crowd berating Jesus. Visitors are left for the first few moments to witness the disturbing scene with their ears only.
When guided into the room where the crucifixion is to take place, a bloody and battered Jesus struggles to carry a heavy cross to the spot where he will take his last breath. The sound of metal clanging against metal as the hammer hits the spikes intended to bind Jesus body to the cross are muted by his screams of pain. Guards then erect Jesus’ cross as he hangs in agony, flanked by the two thieves mentioned in the Gospels.
“Often times, there’s not a dry eye left in the room,” Bonnie Riley, another of the church volunteers, said of those who witness the biblically-based depiction.
Though neither graphic nor extreme, the disturbing scene has prompted the church to not allow anyone under eight years old into the Forgiveness House. In fact, it is so intense that two actors are used to portray Jesus, so that one will be allowed to wash away the false blood while the other begins the next performance.
One of the actors portraying Christ is the church’s pastor, Kyle Noffsinger.
The final skit before a final counseling session is shows Jesus resurrection from the tomb.
“This is really a unique and different way to tell the Easter story,” said church youth director Cindy Long, who credits God for her inspiration and concept for the passion play.
Remaining performances are from 6 to 9 p.m, and are free.