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Charles Richards Charles Richards moved to Paris in 2004 after retiring from a 40-year career in journalism – the last 26 years as a news writer and sports writer with The Associated Press in Dallas and Washington, D.C. In mid-2004, The Paris News coaxed him out of retirement, and he began covering the police, court and regional beat for The Paris News. Then in early 2005, he was switched to coverage of a sharply divided Paris City Council. He was appointed by the City Council in 2006 to the 12-member City Charter Review Commission, which extensively rewrote the outmoded document. His writing awards include two first-place awards in statewide competition for feature writing. The most recent was his 2005 story on a Paris doctor’s startling use of leeches in a successful attempt to re-attach a man’s severed ear. Over his career, Richards’ interview subjects include Alabama Gov. George Wallace, President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, David Koresh, Arnold Palmer, Muhammad Ali and numerous other political and sports figures. He is an alumnus of Texas Tech, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He lives in Paris with his wife, Barbara, who is retired after 30 years as a teacher and high school counselor.
Following is Paris Junior College’s “Position Statement on Athletics” – adopted by the PJC board of regents on April 26, 2010. In deciding Friday to retain the Lady Dragons women basketball program after all, regents asked that extra steps be taken to make sure student athletes know what’s in the document and know that violation of the policy could affect their scholarship.
Position Statement on Athletics at Paris Junior College
The purpose of intercollegiate athletics at Paris Junior College is to give student-athletes the opportunity to continue participation in athletics at the collegiate level, to provide all PJC students the opportunity to experience intercollegiate athletics and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into the community college so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is the priority. Students involved in athletics at PJC participate as an avocation, balancing their academic, and social and athletics experiences. When the students can no longer play, the student can still succeed.
Thereford, the expectations and goals of athletics at Paris Junior College are as follows:
Upon graduation from Paris Junior College, the student-athlete will be better educated and prepared for increased and life-long achievement and success.
Only one week before a revised City of Paris burglar alarm ordinance goes into effect on June 1, about half of those with alarms have yet to register for the permit required, Chief of Police Bob Hundley said Friday.
“To date, we have received a little over 270 permit registrations out of the 519 notices that were sent out,” Hundley said.
“The department will continue response to any alarm site, regardless of the permit status. The responding officers will hand out the registration form when we meet with the representatives who come out on the alarm.”
But Hundley noted: “We can save some work for our officers if we could get these registrations back to the station. We’ve noticed that the alarm sites that are considered to be problematic are the ones we have not heard from yet.”
PJC regents president Curtis Fendley (left) presides over a special meeting Friday morning on whether to continue the women’s basketball program at PJC. (eParisExtra.com photo by Charles Richards)
With little discussion, the Paris Junior College board of regents voted Friday morning to retain the women’s basketball program at PJC.
The board passed two motions unanimously in a meeting that lasted 3 minutes and 21 seconds — one motion to rescind the board’s 6-3 vote four days earlier to abolish the Lady Dragons’ basketball program, and a follow-up motion to authorize PJC president Pam Anglin to hire a basketball coach.
Anglin said she would have a notice up on the National Junior College Athletic Association website before the end of the day advertising the opening, “and we’ll do our traditional mailing to other community colleges.”
Anglin was asked after the meeting about the board’s abrupt change of mind — from a 6-3 vote on Monday to abolish the program, to a 9-0 vote on Friday to retain women’s basketball.
“I don’t have any idea. I think the board have all received input. I think they feel like the community wants it.” she said. But clearly, she said, regents were concerned about some discipline issues that resulted in some players, both men and women, being suspended for one or more games during the season. She said there was concern about the low graduation rate of basketball players.
The meeting attracted a number of people from the community, including fans of PJC basketball. Men’s coach Chuck Taylor also was present.
Fendley opened the meeting at 11:05 a.m., and by 11:09 a.m. it was all over. He began by saying that in light of escalating costs and reduced state funding, “anytime there’s a change in the program, whether academic or sports, funding is always an issue. That’s why you have to look at it closely.”
Having said that, Fendley added:
“What I would like to pitch to the board, if I could, and see if we could get a consensus, is that we authorize Dr. Anglin to advertise for a coach for the women’s basketball team, and in doing that, in dealing with the coach – the position statement that PJC has on athletics, which you all have in front of you — to reiterate that to the coach, and to the players again, not only in basketball but in all sports, what we expect of our players, and what we expect of coaches and our students, too. I think that’s important, and for them to know that really we shouldn’t have any tolerance for variance from this position statement, adopted by the board back in 2010. So I would pitch that on the table for you to consider. I would consider a motion, if you’re so inclined, and then we can discuss it. That is a recommendation to go ahead and hire a coach and proceed forward.”
At that point, board member Frankie Norwood, one of three board members who had voted on Monday against abolishing basketball, interrupted to deal with the 6-3 vote still on the books to eliminate the program.
“Mr. president, I move that we rescind the motion…” Norwood began.
Fendley: “Right …”
Norwood: “that we voted on, on May 21 …”
Fendley: “Correct …”
Norwood: “… at approximately 7:20 p.m., that we rescind it and bring it back to the board for discussion.”
Fendley: “Right, and that’s what we’re going to do here. So you make that motion? Do we have a second? Second by Berdie (Gibson). Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed … . The motion carries 9-0. So now, the item that I just discussed with you, how do you feel about that? Or are there any other recommendations?”
Louise Taylor, the board’s vice president, said: “I so move.”
Fendley: “Motion by Louise, second by Berdie. Any discussion?”
A trustee asked, “Do the students sign this?”
Anglin said PJC athletes sign an NJCAA letter-of-intent and also a PJC scholarship agreement that talks about discipline and grade-point considerations.
“Now we can add this (position statement) with all of these expectations,” Anglin said.
“OK, any other questions?” Fendley asked. “All in favor signify by saying aye. All opposed. Motion carries (9-0). Thank you for being here. Enjoy your weekend, and we’re adjourned.”
PJC president Pam Anglin talks with the media after the meeting.
Anglin, talking with reporters after the meeting, elaborated on the regents’ concern about making sure players understand what is expected of them.
“There’s more to it than just being good athletes. They have to be students. You know, our funding for the academic side is based on student success (in the classroom), so we can’t afford to give people full rides and them not to graduate. It’s so tied to expectations,” she said.
Anglin said she’s glad the matter has been settled.
“I’m glad it’s over because it’s caused a lot of turmoil this week throughout the state for the kids not knowing. I needed to be able to tell them something. It’s hurt the college in what was stirred up by coaches around the region. It’ hurt the college in the ability to hire a coach,” she said.
Asked her timetable for hiring a women’s basketball head coach, she said: “As quickly as possible.”
She said she would expect applicants to have previous experience as a head basketball coach at a junior college or higher, or an assistant at an NCAA program.
Sean LeBeauf, the Lady Dragons head coach for the past four seasons, resigned several weeks ago to accept an assistant coach’s job at the University of Arizona. As with any other resignation, the college took that opportunity to decide whether to continue women’s basketball, in light of dwindling funds and higher expenses.
Asked what will be the fate of Shakira Nettles, the current women’s basketball assistant coach, Anglin said she has a job through the end of August.
Whoever is hired as the head coach, “I would typically ask them to consider the assistant here, to give continuity to the program,” Anglin said.
Asked what she wants in a head coach, Anglin said: “Someone who knows their basketball, that enforces the college’s policies, procedures and expectations, and becomes part of the PJC family. I would hope they have community college experience – someone that was a coach at a community college or was an assistant at a major college or community college — someone that’s had college experience.”
Eight players have signed NJCAA letters of intent with PJC. The spring semester ended May 10, so the players have been gone for a couple of weeks. Anglin said Nettles would be contacting the players to let them know the regents’ decision to continue the women’s basketball program.
Anglin said she wants a coach to field a competitive team, not necessarily a championship team.
“You don’t want to field a team that gets beaten 100-to-10 every game. We want to be competitive in anything that we do, but an expectation to beat Trinity Valley? No. I don’t have an expectation to win region (in women’s basketball). It’s really nice when it happens, but I just expect them to be good kids that play hard, that do what’s expected of them,” she said.
“We never have put a number of wins as part of the expectations on a coach. It’s not that way around here. We have other expectations that are more important to us. To win at any cost, that’s not PJC,” Anglin said.
By CHARLES RICHARDS
eParisExtra.com
A Paris High School multi-year letterman in football and basketball is being honored for 12 years of perfect attendance in the school system.
Citizens committee member Brad Archer studies a chart as city engineer Shawn Napier (left) looks at a screen onto which a map of the city’s proposed repair projects is projected. Standing is Tracy Hicks, one of KSA’s team leaders in the project to replace Paris’ bad water and sewer pipes, (eParisExtra.com photo by Charles Richards)
Paris’ citizens advisory committee met Wednesday for the fourth time with members of the KSA Engineering team under contract to study the city’s infrastructure deficiencies. KSA engineer
The committee now has a list of 48 water and sewer projects — many of them in west Paris — that would require about $45 million to complete. That’s roughly how much money will be available from a bond issue that citizens approved in a May 11 election.
During Wednesday’s 5:30 p.m. meeting, committee members indicated an interest in prioritizing the water and sewer projects that represent much of the heavy leaks and repairs that are costing the city about $500,000 a year, every year, in lost water and emergency repairs.
Not coincidentally, the streets with the heaviest repair bills for fixing water and sewer leaks also have streets that have been patched repeatedly, since the water and sewer pipes in Paris lie underneath the streets. Each repair means digging up the street again.
One of the most expensive of the 48 possible projects — along Pine Bluff Street from Main Street to NE 20th Street — has an estimated repair cost of $3.2 million — $908,000 to remove the old water lines and replace them with new pipe; $263,000 to do the same thing with old sewer pipe; and $2.1 million to replace the streets afterward.
A breakdown of the 48 projects estimates the water line replacements at $9.6 million, the sewer line replacement at $5.5 million and the street replacement above those projects at $30.3 million.
The complete list of 48 proposed projects will be published on eParisExtra.com over the next several days – after KSA breaks down the list further by supplying quadrants and the number of repairs over the past three years on the water and/or sewer lines in each of the projects.
It will be up to the committee to prioritize the projects for the city council’s consideration. A meeting between the citizens’ committee with the city council is expected to be set for mid-June, after which the council will make the decision on how and when to proceed with completing the infrastructure repair.
Members of the citizens’ committee hope residents of Paris will look over the list and report any sections of town not on the list that should be.
Because most of the city’s water and sewer lines inside the loop were laid over 50 years ago, virtually all of it needs to be replaced — several hundred million dollars worth of repair.
But the projects the committee is narrowing in on are the ones that not only -could- leak; they’re the ones that have already begun leaking, resulting in call after call after call on the same bad lines. They’re repaired — with kind of a “Band-aid” approach — only to break again in the same place or nearby.
Repairing these lines will not only fix them but will at the same time free up other money by drastically reducing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in city maintenance costs and dug-up streets, the citizens committ feels.
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