A collection of animal stories

Random animal stories have lit up newspapers for centuries.

We read them for for a few reasons. We’re inspired by the loyalty of a pet, a constant companion, beacon of love. Even the old Unsolved Mysteries program aired a story of a heroic pig that squeezed through a dog door and laid down in the street to call attention to an ill master. We love animals whose intelligence is more akin to ours. Dogs capable of intricate tricks. Gorillas using sign language. And we have a love/repulsion about  – though usually at more of a distance – tales of animals getting one over on humans, be it grizzly attacks, hungry Florida wildlife or an abused animal finally having enough.

James Herriot captured the world with animal stories, starting with All Creatures Great and Small, which was later turned into a television series.

With other story work underway, the summer hiatus of the Georgia High School Basketball Project blog is ending gently here, with a few unrelated, utterly tossed together vintage animal stories out of newspapers.

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How the Minimum Foundation Program transformed the state, Part IV

“A few years ago we had a dream that one day Brooks County would have the best school system in the state of Georgia. You boys and girls are witnessing an epoch-making event this morning.”

– Brooks County Schools Superintendent, Burney Humphreys, opening the new Brooks County High at an assembly in 1959.

How the Minimum Foundation Program transformed the state, Part I

Note: This is the start of a series about the biggest change to ever hit Georgia public school education, the Minimum Foundation Program.

With most of the action happening in the 1950s, the Minimum Foundation Program completely reshaped school systems throughout the states, building new or adding to thousands of schools. It caused widespread consolidation of white high schools and eliminated more than 75 percent of black schools over a 10-year span, from 1949-50 to 1959-60.

How did it happen and why was it so huge?

Wartime message from Quitman

We bring you this special wartime bulletin from the January 14, 1943 Quitman Free Press and the Ilex Theatre:

The Ilex, whose listed history on Cinema Treasures says it was named for a brand of cattle, has since been demolished.

Possibly the biggest reflection upon changes, though, is the claim that everyone in Quitman is located within a mile of the building. Or the suggestion that some Quitman ladies need to trim down, with a scale located right in the lobby for their convenience.