Coalition aims to strengthen dads
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Churches honor fathers, father-figures 2nd annual event proves successful; organizers hope to expand next year BY ADRIENNE SARVIS adrienne@theitem.com Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church and Quntwarica Church celebrated local fathers and mentors on Saturday during a fathers’ appreciation event to thank the men who have been and are still instrumental to the well being of their families and the community. This is the second year the two churches have come together to honor fathers. The event, themed “A Stroll in the Park,” featured many things that could be found in an actual park including live performances from various church members, a sketch artist, chess, jump roping, mimes and a picnic. Raymond Logan said a good father is a man who follows the word of God. If a man gets all of his instructions from scripture, he cannot go wrong, he said. Logan added that Saturday’s event was a great display of the fellowship between the men and women of the church. Ernest Butler was also impressed with the atmosphere
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Simone James, 9, looks at the picture her father, Saymon James Jr., snapped of her during Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church’s Father’s Day celebration Saturday in the family life building. Jehovah and Quntwarica Church worked together to put on the event that showed appreciaSEE FATHERS, PAGE A11 tion for fathers and father-figures.
Locals share their thoughts on Trump’s proposed Muslim ban
On Wednesday, Andrea Drayton looks over family photos that show her daughter, Deonka Drayton, a victim of the recent mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Drayton and family rushed from South Carolina to Orlando after learning of the shooting.
BY ANDY WILSON intern@theitem.com
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
S.C. family’s excruciating journey ends in forgiveness LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Andrea Drayton woke up Sunday to a mother’s worst nightmare when her phone buzzed with a text message: Her daughter Deonka was at a club in Orlando, there was gunfire and Drayton needed to come to Florida fast. Drayton, her husband, Shepherd, son Shepherd III and daughter Alexia piled into the family car and began an excruciating early morning journey from South Carolina to Orlando, where a gunman had opened fire at a gay nightclub in an attack that left 49 victims and the killer dead. Drayton called the friend of her daughter who had sent the text. The friend said “a bomb went off.”
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“I couldn’t understand what she meant with that,” Drayton recalled, realizing later it was a police explosive used to distract the shooter. The family found only DEONKA chaos when they arrived DRAYTON in Orlando on Sunday afternoon. They called hospitals. They asked police and others if they had seen 32-year-old Deonka Drayton. They held up pictures of her. Nothing. They found their way to a senior center set up a few blocks from the
SEE FORGIVENESS, PAGE A11
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After the Orlando massacre, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump repeated his proposal to ban Muslims from immigrating and traveling to the United States until “as a nation we’re in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country,” Time Magazine reported Monday. The five-year long Syrian Civil War has claimed 250,000 lives and driven 11 million from their homes in a country with a pre-war population of 23 million, according to a March 11 BBC News article. Floods of refugees have poured into neighboring countries to escape the fighting. The Los Angeles Times reported on Sept. 8, 2015, that Turkey had taken in 1.9 million refugees and tiny Lebanon 1.1 million. While many European countries have closed their doors to migrants, Germany had taken in 98,783 Syrians as of last September and Sweden 64,685. According to a Nov. 30 Time magazine article, the United States has taken in 2,290 Syrians since the conflict began. A random group of people in downtown Sumter were asked this question Friday: “What are your feelings about Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from traveling or immigrating to the U.S.?”
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Stephanie Reyes said: “It’s not fair because not all of them are the same, just like everybody in the United States is not the same. We can’t blame the REYES whole nation for the actions of evil people.” Wayne Rogers said: “If they’re coming out of that region, whether they’re Muslim or Christian or anything else, if you can’t vet them, and how are you going to vet someone if you’ve got no records, you don’t ROGERS have a clue as to who they are. We’re better off setting up safe zones there, protecting them there, than bringing them over here. Because the law of averages tells you that if you let a hundred refugees in, chances are you’re going to have at least one that’s a radical.” Mitch Ellerby, a veteran of the Vietnam War, said, “I’m very, very concerned about those comments that he made and believe me, I went to one war, and if this man is keeping the direction he’s going, we’re going ELLERBY to wind up in another war. It’s important that the United
SEE REACTION, PAGE A11
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