The Press-Dispatch

The Press-Dispatch D-3 Wednesday, December 14, 2022 HISTORY Submit history photos: Call: 812-354-8500 Email: news@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Friday. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO The Petersburg Press Friday and Tuesday, Dec. 12 and 16, 1947 Philip Kiefer Gets Bronze Star: The Bronze Star Medal was award- ed to Second Lieut. Philip F. Kief- er, Signal Corps, present postmas- ter of the Petersburg Post Office, at a meeting of the American Legion Conrad Post No. 179 in Petersburg Wednesday evening. The award was made by direction of the President for meritorious service from April, 1944 to June, 1945. The citation read, "...while serving with the Northern Combat Area Command Headquar- ter during the Central Burma cam- paign from April, '44 to June, '45, pre- formed meritorious service as Sig- nal Chief of this Chinese—American Headquarters. His ability to dissemi- nate and speed vital traffic to proper channels contributed greatly to the success of the campaign." Making the award was Maj. Army and Air Force Recruiting Charles E. Arnold of the U.S. Station at Vincennes, Ind. W.D. Crow ILL: W.D. Crow, former owner and publisher of The Press is critically ill at the home of his daughter, Mrs. N. H. Von der Lehr, on South Eighth street. Mrs. Robert Gray of Indianapolis came Monday to help care for her father. Marriages: Gyneth Mayfield and Roy James Byers, Jr., Dec. 7; Mar- cella Charles and Carl Gray, Dec. 6. Deaths: Henry W. Nuhring, son of Fred Nuhring, 87, he passed away at his son, Roy's home in Stendal, he was born in Germany and came to this country as a boy, his moth- er passed away on the ship and was buried at sea; James A. Hill, 80, bar- ber in Petersburg for nearly half a century, died suddenly of a heart at- tack Thursday morning. SIXTY YEARS AGO The Pike County Dispatch Thursday, Dec. 19, 1962 Andrea Benjamin was crowned 1973 Winslow basketball queen by Eskimo team captain Mike Brewster at the Winslow-Shoals game on Dec. 16 in the Winslow gym. First run- ner-up was Debbie Phillips escorted by co-captain Doug Burns and sec- ond runner-up Margaret Head es- corted by co-captain Steve English. Births: To Mr. and Mrs. Everett Jones, of Winslow, a son, Dec. 13; To Mrs. William Joe Trees, of Hartford City, formerly of Oakland City, a son, William Joseph, Jr., Dec. 11, the wid- ow of the late William Joseph Trees, Indiana State Trooper, who was killed in an automobile accident in June of this year; To Mr. and Mrs. Herschel Jones, of Winslow, a son, Mark Al- an, Wednesday, Dec. 13; To Mr. and Mrs. Danny Brenton, of Petersburg, a daughter, Saturday, Dec. 16; To Mr. and Mrs. Charles Crowley, of Smith Town, Ky., a daughter, Sherry Lynn, Monday, Dec. 11; To Mr. and Mrs. Charles Barr, of Winslow, a daughter, Tracy Lynn, Friday, Dec. 15. Marriages: Patricia Anne Thom- as and Michael Alan Swift were married on Saturday, Nov. 25; Lar- ry Allen Goodrid and Michelle June Dedrick were married; Dale Jeffery Wools and Joyce Ellen Thornbrough were married. Deaths: Molly B. Nolan, 88, of Winslow, died Sunday, Dec. 17; Beth- any Ann Kammerer, infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Kammerer, died Saturday; Albert "Bud" Wil- liams, 51, of Boonville, died Tues- day, Dec. 12; Myrtle Deal, 84, of Ow- ensville, died Wednesday, Dec, 13; James "Jack" Withers, 70, of Oakland City, died Tuesday, Dec. 12; Mattie McRoberts, of St. John, Kan., died Tuesday, Dec. 19, former resident of Petersburg; Anna F. Everly, 54, of Petersburg, died Saturday, Dec. 16; Clarence E. Miller, 82, of India- napolis, native of Pike County, died Wednesday, Dec. 13, was employed as a teacher in a Deaf Mute School in Indianapolis for 50 years; Judy Ann Bare, 22, of Bicknell, died Saturday, Dec. 16; George G. Hamm, 70, of Pe- tersburg, died Sunday, Dec. 17; Lola Bakeis, 70, of Pekin, Ill., mother of Donnell Bakeis of Petersburg, died Sunday, Dec. 10. FIFTY YEARS AGO The Press-Dispatch Thursday, Dec. 14, 1972 Colonial Beauty Shop Adds New Operator: Former Pike County Beau- ty Queen Norma Boyd Shafer is now in the beauty business as an associ- ate of Mrs Reva Head in the Colonial Beauty Salon, 801 White River Ave- nue in Petersburg. Mrs. Shafer is a graduate of Petersburg high school and the DeVry School of Beauty Cul- ture at Evansville. Mrs. Head stated The Respect for Marriage Act, codifying same-sex marriage as federal law, already de- cided as such by the Supreme Court in the Obergefell decision in 2015, has now passed the Senate. If it passes in the House, President Joe Biden will sign it in- to law. Let's take a moment and consider what is go- ing on. Some view accep- tance of same sex mar- riage as a bold new step to a freer and more just society. But, despite Gallup now showing 71% in favor of same-sex marriage, 58 % of those who attend church weekly are op- posed. Only 17% , per Gallup, now say that they are satisfied with the direction of the country. According to the Gen- eral Social Survey, the percentage of Americans, since 2000, saying they are "not too happy" has increased from 10 % to 24% , and those saying they are "very happy" has decreased from 34% to 19 % . Clearly, many Americans sense there is something very wrong go- ing on in our country. May I propose that the eternal truths we receive through religion, now so widely rejected, are there be- cause we need them? Is freedom really about ideologues having license to rewrite our lan- guage and redefine our sacred in- stitutions? Some have found it politically ex- pedient to use the once prohibition on interracial marriage as a rationale for showing the alleged unfairness of a prohibition on same-sex marriage. But the bans on interracial mar- riage had nothing to do with our un- derstanding of marriage. The ban on interracial marriage, which the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in 1967, stemmed from the ban on interracial marriage in Virginia going back to 1924. That legislation was called The Racial In- tegrity Act. It was about racial puri- ty. It had nothing to do with the defi- nition of marriage. In 1924, few did not accept that marriage was the sacred bond be- tween a man and woman. The rac- ists were concerned about a man and woman of different races entering in- to that sacred bond. But somehow race gets dragged into every perverse ideological bat- tle that happens in our country. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that A frican Americans were not human beings. In the Dred Scott deci- sion, the court ruled that people of A frican descent "are not includ- ed, and were not intend- ed to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileg- es" accorded to citizens. The meaning of "citi- zen" was reinvented to serve a polit- ical and ideological agenda. With the passage of the 14th Amendment, the American people restored the truth and integrity of the word "citizen" — "All persons born and naturalized in the Unit- ed States and subject to the juris- diction thereof" — and obliterated a corrupt, ideological ruling of the Supreme Court. The Obergefell decision did to the word "marriage" what the Dred Scott decision did to the word "cit- izen." It took a civil war to bring forth the 14th Amendment. What will it take to restore how, as a society, we un- derstand what it means to be mar- ried? Per recent data from the Census Bureau, in 2022, 34% of those over age 15 had never been married, com- pared to 23% in 1950. In a 2020 Pew survey, 16 % said it was "essential" for a man to marry and 17% said it was essential for a woman. French nobleman Alexis de Toc- queville wrote in his classic study, "Democracy in America, "One can- not say that in the United States reli- gion exerts an influence on the laws ... but it directs mores, and it is in regulating the family that it works to regulate the state. ... Of the world's countries, America is surely the one where the bond of marriage is most respected." That was in 1835. In 2022, know that those who love our country and understand what made and makes it great are in for the long haul. An America without truth is an Ameri- ca without a future. Star Parker is president of the Cen- ter for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Heritage Viewpoint By EJ Antoni Race for the Cure By Star Parker Never-ending story of Student Loan Moratorium Marriage is a truth that cannot be redefined No matter how many times Lu- cy pulled the football away, Char- lie Brown kept thinking the cha- rade was over, but fans of the "Pea- nuts" cartoon knew better. It's like President Biden's latest extension of the student loan moratorium— which came after he had promised, yet again, that he wouldn't do so. Despite a lack of justification for the program, it has now been extended eight times and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Since the moratorium began in March 2020, federal student loans have been put on pause. No pay- ments are required, no interest is ac- cruing, and all accounts have been placed in good standing, includ- ing those that were in default. Now, the moratorium has been extended through August 2023, 42 months af- ter it began. With Mr. Biden's student loan bail- out on ice after being ruled unconsti- tutional, this is the administration's way of doing an end run around the judicial system. Perpetually extend- ing the pause provides de facto for- giveness, at least for a time. This extension comes after Mr. Biden declared the pandemic over, yet he continues the pause in the name of a COVID-19 emergency. FDR did the same thing with his New Deal programs—the Great Depres- sion was merely an excuse to enact the very policies that he'd been pro- posing since the 1920s. The far left has been agitating for a student-debt handout for years, and COVID-19 has been a convenient excuse. But it's hard to imagine a group less in need of a bailout or a loan mor- atorium than a college graduate. By almost any measure, they are faring better than nearly every other demo- graphic, according to the latest data from the Biden administration's own Department of Labor. The unemployment rate among people with at least a bachelor's de- gree is a mere 1.9 % , exactly where it was before the pandemic and about half of today's national unem- ployment rate. In addition, 3.4 mil- lion more college graduates are em- ployed today than before the pandem- ic, and those with a bachelor's degree or higher are the only demograph- ic whose wages have been keeping up with inflation over the last two years. If there's any group that does not need a handout right now—at the expense of everyone else—this is it. Despite having weathered the fi- nancial fallout from the pandemic far better than many others, college graduates will receive another mas- sive subsidy through most of next year at taxpayer expense. Mr. Biden has effectively shifted the burden of student loan financ- ing to those who have either paid off their student loans, never took out loans or never went to college. These interest charges are not trivial, coming in at over $5 billion per month. By the end of August 2023, the lost interest alone will be over $210 billion since the start of the moratorium. But the deal is much more costly than missed interest payments; tax- payers also lose principal payments on many loans. For graduates working at busi- nesses with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, the moratorium also counts toward the borrowers' required 10 years of "public service" before their remaining student loans are forgiv- en, which is a euphemism for "tax- payer-funded." This will cost the taxpayer billions more in lost prin- cipal payments from these borrow- ers. Of the 120 months required to be spent working at a nonprofit, 42 of them—more than one-third of the requirement—will have been effec- tively eliminated. People should be furious with the Biden administration for effectively taking from the middle and working classes to provide a handout for col- lege graduates, a group with much higher-than-average income that dis- proportionately votes Democrat. But lest anyone think that this is ultimately about politics and not pol- icy, recall that this misbegotten stu- dent loan-payment moratorium was begun under a Republican adminis- tration. It was just as injudicious then as it is now. Policies must be judged by their results, not their authors. EJ Antoni is a research fellow for Regional Economics in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foun- dation. SUBMIT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR EDITOR@PRESSDISPATCH.NET Sam McKean singers at WHS 1956 Sam McKean singers at Winslow High School in 1956 includes in the front row, Cyntia Bee, Linda Sue Parker, Janice Morton, Judy Robling, Diana Doris, and Tanya Jones. In row two, Pat Rothrock, Tom Craig, Lowell Soderling, and Donald Woods. See HISTORY on page 4

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