Tuesday, December 4, 2012
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Mount Vernon Baptist Church to present “Shadows of Love”
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50 Cents Volume 143
Volunteers give Children Christmas By Justin Waybright justin@theputnamstandard.com
Members of Mount Vernon Baptist Church, 2150 Mount Vernon Road, Hurricane, will present “Shadows of Love,” a story of Christmas, at three other churches during the holiday season. The Rev. Ron McClung, senior pastor at Mount Vernon, who wrote the script, said, ‘This is a dramatic, multi-sensory presentation of the Christmas story, from creation to the flight to Egypt. Attendees will hear, sense, and see the story in a unique way.” Continuing, he added, “We have worked on a silhouette drama that shows the incarnation of God into this world, using a variety of music, color, and narration.“ “This is a great opportunity to invite family and friends to share the joy of His love through the journey of “Shadows of Love,” he stated. Performances are scheduled at 7pm, Wednesday, December 19, at Judson Baptist Church on Bill’s Creek Road; at 7 pm, Saturday, December 22, and 11 am, Sunday, December 23 at Mount Vernon Baptist Church; and 6:30 pm, Sunday, December 23, at SEE CHURCH ON PAGE 5
HOW TO REACH US PHONE: (304) 743-6731 FAX: (304) 562-6214
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SCOTT DEPOT - Many parents in Putnam County are wearing their credit cards out, exhausting their checking accounts and packing their closets full of gifts for their children. These fortunate men and women will receive large Christmas bonuses, attend fancy dinners and live joyously this month. On Christmas morning, their lucky children will be wide-eyed as mounds of presents surround them. Parents will sit back and smile while their boys and girls eagerly open gift after gift. Meanwhile, other children will wake up Christmas morning to nothing. Instead of watching their children tear through slews of presents, these parents will search for
Volunteers from Bread of Life Ministries hold signs at a toy drive they hosted at the Scott Depot Kmart Nov. 24. Photo by Justin Waybright. food and warm clothing for their kids. They will not have a river of gifts surrounding their Christmas tree this year. One group in Putnam County sought to change this Nov. 24. Just days after Thanksgiving, volunteers stepped off a large red
bus, onto the Scott Depot Kmart parking lot. These men, women and children represented a nonprofit group called Bread of Life Ministries. They had one goal in mind: give children a Christmas. Bobbi Jo Williams was happy to
help. “I have two kids, and I enjoy seeing them open presents, but this is a whole other level to be able to provide something to bring these children joy…It’s indescribable,” Williams said, while helping other volunteers organize the mobile food pantry inside the Bread of Life bus. After workers finished inside the bus, they walked inside Kmart to recruit sponsors for children. One-by-one, local shoppers walked inside, and volunteers asked each one to adopt a child. Many shoppers happily agreed. Once they sponsored the boy or girl, the shopper was given a list of presents and necessities for the child. Moments later, the shopper would return to the front of the SEE VOLUNTEERS ON PAGE 5
Cecil Courts Sr. keeps breaking his own record! HURRICANE – Cecil Courts Sr. has a way with gardening. Well, at least when it comes to cherry tomatoes, that is. In the years 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, Mr. Courts picked more than 4,000 tomatoes (each year) from tomato plants that he had planted in his wife’s flowerbed (around five ‘cherry’ tomato plants). During each year’s ‘harvest’, Mr. Courts kept track of the yield, saying, “I have witnesses that I picked over 4,000 tomatoes – that’s an average of 800 tomatoes per plant!” They say records are made to be broken and in 2012, the old ‘tomato record’ was – this year’s cherry tomato yield was 5,400 plus! Most people, in and around this area, know Mr. Courts from “Courts Motors”. He started out in
the Jeep business in the 1940s and after all these years, is still in the automobile business. The automobile business started for Mr. Courts back in the 1940’s, at the end of World War II. Mr. Courts and his wife, Betty (now deceased) were married in
June of 1941. Then the US entered WWII that following December. The Courts’ lived in Milton at the time. It was also during this time that Mr. Courts was the first to start a taxi cab business in Milton. He was 20 years old.
In 1944 he sold the taxi cab business. He and his father, John William Courts, then sold Jeeps, Hudson and the Kaiser-Frazier automobiles until after the war. Mr. Courts went on to sell used cars and then eventually bought out a Milton insurance company. In 1975, Cecil Courts Jr. bought a Chrysler, Plymouth and GMC Trucks dealership while Cecil Sr. was still in the used car business in Milton. Since 1981, father and son have worked together as Courts Motors Inc doing business as a Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep dealership. Mr. Courts said that his grandchildren have ‘come up the ranks’ and his grandson Eric is now the business manager at the dealership. His granddaughter Lesa is SEE RECORD ON PAGE 4
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