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Shaw chapel hosts 1st Holocaust memorial
JADE REYNOLDS / THE SUMTER ITEM
Ken Bevel, right, known for his roles in the movies “Fireproof” and “Courageous,” signs autographs Thursday after serving as the keynote speaker for the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast. A retired Marine, he is currently an associate pastor at Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia.
Annual breakfast focuses on daily time with God BY JADE REYNOLDS jade@theitem.com (803) 774-1250
ing the victims of the Holocaust, and the remembrance this year falls from April 27 to May 4. The military’s involvement is appropriate, Filler said, because “U.S. military personnel were the first to witness the evidence as they liberated the camps.” Thursday’s service, which included the screening of a short educational video on the extermination of six million European Jews, was the first official remembrance event held at Shaw. Retired Lt. Col. Gary Rudman helped organize the event. He’s served as the base’s lay Jewish leader since he became deputy safety director for the Ninth
While the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast was held in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer, the message was that communicating with God is important every day. Keynote speaker Ken Bevel, a retired Marine and actor known for his roles in the movies “Fireproof” and “Courageous,” illustrated the point with a story about a beautiful Victorian mansion that a man was invited to stay at with the one condition that he visit with the house’s owner. Time and time again, the man kept planning to stop and talk to the owner after he had finished something else. “We sneak by the door hoping He won’t see us,” Bevel said. “God is waiting on us. We have an open invitation. He wants to be involved in our lives.” Bevel is now an associate pastor at Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia, and even as a minister, he has to remember to make time to spend with the Lord, he said. “Don’t trade ministry for intimacy with Christ,” Bevel said. “There can be no community revival without personal prayer time. When we feel so busy like, ‘I’ve got to do this, take my son here, take my daughter to do that,’ God is saying, ‘Just spend time with me.’” ... Ask, ‘Lord, what do you want to tell me today?’ When we have personal revival, I believe our children will get right when they see what Mommy and Daddy are doing.” He opened and ended his part with prayer. Many bowed their heads and led the group of about 550 people in prayer. • Government — Chaplain Kevin Mateer with U.S. Army Central prayed that the nation would be blessed “through godly leaders that would act and lead according to Your word,” and if any leaders didn’t know
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Lilly Filler, co-chair of the Columbia Holocaust Education Commission, speaks in front of a slide from a traveling Holocaust exhibit currently on display at the S.C. Statehouse. Filler, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, spoke about her parents’ wartime experiences and the importance of keeping those memories alive at a Holocaust remembrance event Thursday at Shaw Air Force Base’s Palmetto Chapel.
Armed forces event honors millions lost BY BRISTOW MARCHANT bmarchant@theitem.com (803) 774-1272 Almost 70 years after the end of World War II, the number of people who remember the full horror of the Holocaust from first-hand experience gets fewer and fewer every year. Once, survivors of the death camps, such as Lilly Filler’s parents, could testify to one of the worst events of the 20th century by their very presence, even if they often found it difficult to talk about. “Growing up, I knew we were different ... I knew they had suffered, but it was too painful for them to remember it,” Filler said at a Holocaust remembrance event Thursday in Palmetto Chapel at Shaw Air Force Base. “I knew they spoke with accents, had tattoos on their arms and my mother would wake up screaming at night.” Eventually, Ben and Jadzia Stern did begin to speak out publicly about their experiences in the Columbia community that welcomed them after the war, until they passed away in the 1990s. Today their memories and those of other Holocaust survivors are carried forward by their descendants and, during the annual Days of Remembrance, by the U.S. military. Since 1984, the armed forces have observed an eight-day period set aside by Congress for remember-
An airman flips through a commemorative publication on victims of the Holocaust during the presentation.
House hopeful featured in article on cross-dressing students BY BRISTOW MARCHANT bmarchant@theitem.com (803) 774-1272 Democratic primary voters are faced with what could be an unusually high-profile race for a rural seat. A low-key race for a Lee County state House seat is about to get a lot more attention because of one candidate’s outspoken student days. Brian Alston, a 25-year-old Rembert resident and Democratic candidate for House District 50, was featured in a
2010 Vibe magazine article on a group of “gender-bending” students at Morehouse College who challenged the school’s dress code prohibiting men from dressing in women’s clothing. The four-year-old story has come out in the midst of a primary campaign waged by Alston against the district’s longtime incumbent Rep. Grady Brown, D-Bishopville. Alston is described in the story as a member of “the Plastics,” a group of students who clashed with the admin-
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istration about their choice of dress. In an interview, the reporters say the Plastics were “rocking foundation, tweezed eyebrows, flawless manicures and glossy lips.” Alston uses the term “androgynous” to describe himself. “When I first got here, the androgynous kids were called the Glams. And then one day we were all sitting together on Brown Street, and some straight guys walked by and called us the Plastics,” the Vibe article quotes
Nathaniel V. Evans Sylvester Dawson Mary Singleton Hurbert Alston Pisano H. Barno Willie D. Cooper Jr.
Absolum McFadden Jr. Betty J. Williams Janice G. Coleman Eva D. Clark Katherine P. Holloway Naomi L. Burress
Rebecca T. Davis Joseph Riley Winnie Faye Brown Thomas L. Wright
‘I was standing up for what’s right ... It’d be like running against Tyler Perry with a photo of Madea.’ BRIAN ALSTON Candidate for House District 50 seat
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