Of course, none of y'all would know that the Choctaw County Dispatch is like 3 steps up from a high school paper- though it is adorable, it hardly shines up like an editorial wonderland....HOWEVER, since I was so excited last week about the amazing article about my hometown in Penthouse...I thought I should share with y'all just how close-minded my hometown really is...it's so sad....my personal view (which I'm sure is TERRORIZING my parents about my trip home for the holidays....though they should be calm b/c I like 99% of the people in Weir) is that people need to lighten up...Not one person has said to me that they bet I'm sooo embarassed, etc...there are no nudes, there is a great article on Cincinnati Bengals player Chad Johnson in the same issue as well...This is similar to how my mom was TERRIFIED that the world was going to end if I lived in a house with 2 guys when I was in college...and surprisingly, I'm still a good, upstanding member of society....I think people from Weir have more strength of character than many big cities...So, it's a shame that my very proud hometown is showing just how uptight they are...and HOW little faith they have in their stars as PEOPLE...
keep checking my blog for updates, as I'm sure I may HAVE A BLOGORIFIC CORONARY OVER THIS!
Story about Weir school in sex mag upsets locals
By Skip Descant
Dispatch Starkville Bureau
sdescant@cdispatch.com
ACKERMAN - Most small towns would relish the idea of appearing in a national magazine, for an article touting the community's sporting stars.
Until the article comes out in Penthouse magazine, an adult magazine filled with sexually explicit centerfolds.
Tempers rose among residents Monday night in downtown Ackerman as the Choctaw County School Board addressed a December issue of Penthouse magazine. The issue includes an article titled "Weir, Mississippi - How did this town produce six NFL players and a baseball All-Star?"
School officials and residents said they were under the impression the story - which is about the relatively large number of top athletes coming out of Weir Attendance Center, a small 500-student K-12 school - would run in Sports Illustrated, since the writer Merrell Noden, a freelancer from New York, told the district at the time he was a sports reporter with plans to sell the story to Sports Illustrated.
In the end, Sports Illustrated didn't buy the piece - it had already done a story on Weir - so Noden sold it to Penthouse.
"Sports Illustrated didn't want a secondary on Weir, so I shopped it to Penthouse, mainly because I have a good friend who's the sports editor there," wrote Noden in a Nov. 9 memo to Joe Grant, the coach at WAS.
"The school board was as surprised and shocked as some of you, to learn that the article was printed in the Penthouse magazine," said Choctaw School Board President Pennie Brasher, speaking to a crowd of more than 100 people who had squeezed their way into the boardroom, while others waited in the hall.
School board unaware
"We had absolutely no knowledge of this and the visitation of the writer onto our campuses," she added. "While most of the article was complimentary of what Weir athletes had been able to accomplish, it certainly could have been published in many other publications that we as the Choctaw County School Board along with students, parents and teachers would be proud to display."
The school district, for its part assures that it was aware of Noden's visit to the campus as a sports writer and the district followed its usual procedures.
"No policy was broken," said CCD Superintendent Dr. Arlene Amos.
The board went on to note it has no legal recourse, since Noden was free to sell the story to any publication.
"Even though we feel it was unethical, it was not illegal," said Brasher, who added the board will soon explore setting stricter policies to better monitor media outlets and reporters interviewing students and teachers.
The board did not allow public comments from the some 100 members of the county in attendance.
But in Weir, a small town of about 600, the incident has sent shock waves through the community, with most people saying the story itself was well written, but they had problems with it being published in Penthouse.
'Accurate' but misplaced
"The story was accurate; it's just where it was placed," said resident Bill Taylor.
What has also got citizens upset are questions around how much school officials actually knew about the story and where it would eventually end up.
"Everyone at the Weir Cafe, everyone in the Ackerman High School office and many, many people throughout the county knew this summer that Penthouse magazine was in Weir doing a story," said Bob Mamrak, a teacher with the Choctaw County School District who teaches at the alternative school.
At least one parent in attendance at the meeting Monday night said she thought the bit about Penthouse was "all a joke."
"So y'all saying everybody knew back in August that this was going in Penthouse, but nobody says anything because this was all a joke," asked resident Larry Martin, clearly growing frustrated with the scene.
"Everyone knew that the photographer was from Penthouse," added Mamrak in a statement he circulated at the meeting. "People were making jokes this summer about the Penthouse photographer asking the coaches to pose nude."
Astros pitcher
Roy Oswalt, a former baseball player at Weir who's gone on to play for the Houston Astros said interviews often happen quickly, and whether they are conducted as the team is coming off the field or at practice, players simply do not pause to check reporter credentials.
"The reason they came to Weir is because of me," Oswalt told the growing crowd in the hallway of the Ackerman School District central office.
"They called me on the phone in Houston - I get called, and I do 100 interviews a year - and I come off the field and there may be 100 microphones in my face. That's just the way it is," said Oswalt, 30, a pitcher. "I don't ask them who they write for. I can't."
"This guy calls me on the phone and says, 'I work for Sports Illustrated. Can I do a story on Weir?' I said that's great, that's more exposure for Weir," recalled Oswalt.
"And do you question a man, when he says, 'I'm doing a sports article'?" said Oswalt.
'Weir will be Weir'
Residents say though this article - or more specially, its placement - has disrupted their town, Weir will see it through and not lose sight of continuing a tradition providing good academic and sports programs at Weir.
"Weir will be Weir," said Choctaw County resident Wayne Ingram, who graduated from Weir High and has grandchildren in the Choctaw County School District. "And without the leadership of those coaches that have given these boys at Weir, there's a lot of them that have gone on to finish high school and go to college, that likely would have not had it not been for those coaches."
In close-knit schools and communities like Weir, teachers often take a more parental role than they might in larger school districts, teaching students discipline, character and self-worth, said Ingram.
"They teach these kids how to grow up and be good people." he said.
