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Special educators help special-needs student
Parent praises efforts in improving daughters eating
school board
Alea Cox, 9, a student at Richmond Hill Elementary School, is flanked by her educational team of school Principal Walt Barnes and teachers Shelena Bentley, Delven Mearis and Judy Lindsay. - photo by Steve Scholar
Steve Scholar
Bryan County News
Updated: Dec 21, 2015, 7:34 PM
Published: Dec 21, 2015, 7:43 PM

Pureed broccoli may not be everyone’s idea of an ingredient for a gourmet meal, but for one Bryan County student, it is a culinary delight.

Kristi Cox told the Bryan County School Board at its meeting Dec. 17 that the phenomenal progress her 9-year old daughter, Alea, has made recently would never show up on a written report.

Alea is a special-needs student in Delven Mearis's class at Richmond Hill Elementary School. She was born with Down syndrome and, up until recently, exclusively used a feeding tube for nourishment.

That changed when her educational team came up with a plan to expand her food offerings.

"Thanks to her educational team at RHES, Alea is eating regular food for the first time in her life. Up until the end of November, she had been eating (seven to nine) cans of PediaSure daily through her feeding tube. Now she is eating the same food the other kids do," Cox said after the meeting.

RHES Principal Walt Barnes said the school uses a collaborative effort when addressing the needs of its students.

"We really try to cultivate an atmosphere where kids are loved and nurtured," he said. "I noticed her lunch box, and it had PediaSure in it. I asked Alea about eating in the cafeteria, and she was excited. I got a note from home about pureeing her food. I told Alea the first day she was going to eat chicken. Now all her meals are pureed.”

“Her favorite is broccoli and corn," Mearis said with a smile.

Mearis and Cox both credit the lunch staff with going the extra mile to make a special lunch for Alea.

"She eats her lunch now in bowls," she said.

"She feeds herself now. She is proud of herself," said Judy Lindsay, another member of the educational team.

"Each child learns differently. Alea is a visual learner and moves at her own pace. This helps her become more independent," said Shelena Bentley, another of Alea's teachers.

Cox told the school board that her daughter is lucky to have dedicated professionals tending to her educational, social and emotional needs.

"You need to know that you have good people working for the school system. My daughter is so much more than a spreadsheet. The progress Alea is making is really huge. It could mean that one day, she might be able to have the feeding tube removed," Cox said.

Board Chairman Eddie Warren acknowledged that the school system and parents in Bryan County were fortunate to have professionals on staff and teaching their children.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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