By Staff
Local newspaper a great resource in education
To the editor:
I am a fifth grade teacher of Language Arts at Northeast Middle School. My students and I would like to thank you and the staff for providing such a great resource, our local newspaper. We receive newspapers at our school from the Newspapers in Education program. We've been doing some great things with our newspapers.
My awesome students have been learning all about the different sections of the newspaper and the wonderful information that it can provide, even for young people. We have summarized our favorite articles, written ads for the classifieds and calculated how much it would cost to put our ads in our local newspaper.
Right now, we've been working on the ever-present issue of the Cooper Development project that has been in the news. We've used the articles and the "Letters to the Editor" concerning this issue, and from this we have debated it as a class. We listed the pros and cons, the students learned fact from opinion, and they wrote a persuasive paragraph on the topic. We will put our paragraphs together for our own "newspaper."
The Meridian Star and its Website have been a tremendously helpful resource for my classroom. I just wanted to let you know how the paper has touched my students' lives in such a positive way and to brag on all of their hard work. Thank you again.
Shanna McDonald
Meridian
Business means jobs
To the editor:
It is interesting to note that (Gov. Ronnie) Musgrove took Sen. Trent Lott and Congressmen Chip Pickering and Roger Wicker with him to help secure the Hyundai deal. He took his best shot by wisely choosing these three members of Mississippi's congressional delegation to help get it done. They are decidedly pro-business, highly influential and conservative Republicans. These gentlemen know that much of the state's prosperity is connected to business, and business means jobs. If Musgrove and certain other elected state officials would just remember this fact 24/7, our state would be far better off.
The people of Mississippi need to wake up and get the trial lawyers out from behind closed-door meetings with legislative leadership and committee chairmen. If not, the state will never reach its full opportunity through new business job creation. The people of Mississippi can't continue to elect representatives who dance with the trial lawyers and continue to expect business to give them a ride home. Business creates jobs, taxes and growth. Know any trial lawyers that have created any jobs lately?
Others states have done a great job of running trial lawyers out of their respective state capitals. Unfortunately, like fire ants, too many of these trial lawyers have come across state lines and are digging new mounds here in Mississippi. Citizens, business, insurance and the medical profession will all continue to get stung if we don't make many new choices at the polls. Please play close attention to which committee chairman and their leadership would not allow tort reform bills to be voted on this session. You can and should make much needed and obvious adjustments the next time you vote for your state senator and representative.
Mike Marsh
Brandon