Breakfast and a program were held at Citizens Bank on Friday, and Macon Bank and Trust hosted a breakfast at the Sally Wells Building on Saturday morning.

Fairlane Elementary and Lafayette Elementary also had programs Friday.

I was able to slip off for a little while to hear the fourth and fifth graders sing several patriotic songs from the floor of the Lafayette Elementary gym. Outstanding! Don't you know that those young voices have emotional power! Goosebumps popped down my arms as soon as I walked in the door. My favorite part about Christmas is to hear songs and carols from a group of youngsters. I am sure that the large crowd of veterans in the bleachers enjoyed the program very much.

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Congratulations to Bill Green who was re-elected as director of North Central Telephone Cooperative. 2005 will make his 54th year in holding this position.

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CBS's 20-20 did a feature on Dave Ramsey this past Sunday night. I was interested in this since Ramsey is from Nashville and I have listened to his afternoon broadcasts from time to time over the last few years.

If you are not familiar with the show, Ramsey's call-in format is directed to helping his 2 million-plus listeners get out of debt and make the most of their income chiefly by destroying their credit cards.

It was a decent piece, but after it was over, what struck me was that the biblical slant of Ramsey, who oftens quotes the Scriptures, and has never hesitated proclaiming that his philosophy of spending, saving and giving comes from the Holy Bible, was never mentioned in Ms. Stahl's interview. I wondered why.

Is this something "politically incorrect"? Was this set forth by the program directors as forbidden matter? Did they feel this had nothing to do with the value of this piece? It would be hard for me to believe that Dave Ramsey would omit this inspiration, if you will, on his own.

In the past few years, nationalsports announcers seem irritated if the hero of the game thanks God for his talent and health.

Offensive...they say...

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After The Tennesseean carried a story at the top of their Local Section on Macon County Monday, the Nashville radio stations jumped all over it. The slant they took didn't look too good for our county.

Volunteers at Macon schools are to have background checks, including fingerprinting. That's good.

These non-paid folks are asked to pay for for this -- $48, the price that TBI requires. That's bad.

Mike Prock, director of schools, was quoted in the article saying that there was no money in the budget for this. That's sharp bookkeeping.

Maybe there is a way. The fee will be discussed at this week's board meeting, including guidelines on which volunteers qualify.

Frankly, I think that there is more positive news here in our county that never makes the TV stations and the "50 thousand watters" out of Nashville.

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Larry Jones, Lafayette Postmaster, tells me that the new post office is coming in right on schedule and if the weather holds up they should be operating out of it by mid-December.

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