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LOCAL
Savannah News-
Section C
Top Snake 1^
Honors Go To Carter
Team Wins For 2nd Straight Year
By MARCUS HOLLAND
Staff Wrtttf
When it comes to catching rattlesnakes,
Jesse "Sonny" Carter knows his stuff.
For the second consecutive year, Carter's six-man team took home top money in
Claxton's 26th Rattlesnake Roundup Saturday, catching in of the critters. Actually,
Carter had 114 snakes, but three were dead.
Last year he and his team caught 110
snakes.
Second place went to Ricky Michael and
Larry Hooks with 85 snakes, followed by
John McDilda and Norman Rogers with 42,
James F. Bunch with 27 and Homer Patterson and Robert Goff with 25.
Carter said his snakes were caught in
Bacon, Coffee, Pierce and Appling counties.
"Including the one I stepped on," he said
witha-smile.
He was hunting outside a gopher hole
when he felt the snake slide from under his
foot.
•"Ididri't.get a chance to get scared," he
said. "He made a dive for the gopher hole
and I made a dive for him."
The heaviest snake caught, an 8.92
pounder, was brought in by Richard Goff.
James Bunch (8.69), Homer Patterson
(8,55), John McDilda and Norman Rogers
(8.53) and James Bunch (8.24) rounded out
the top five.
The Miss Rattlesnake Roundup title went
to Christie Rogers, the daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Mike Rogers of Claxton and a senior at
Pinewood Christian Academy,
Gusty winds, snow flurries and bonechilling cold inside the metal Farmers tobacco Warehouse kept the crowd to less
than 5,000, and the hunters turned in only
386 musky •smelling snakes.
"If we get good weather tomorrow (Sunday) we may draw 10,000 people for this
year's event," said Danny Strickland, who
serves on the roundup committee. 'This is
the worst weather we've ever had. In 1968,1
believe, we had snow the day before the
event, but the day of the event the weather
was good."
The crowd inside the warehouse building
seemed to ignore the chilly weather once
Ken Darnell of Arlington, Va., began milking the greenish-yellow venom from the
Gusty winds, snow flurries
and bone-chilling cold inside
the metal Farmers Tobacco
Warehouse kept the crowd to
less than 5,000, and the hunters turned in only 386 muskysmellinefsnakes.
snakes,
Darnell fend his brother, Charlie,
centrffliged the venom and froze it. The process separates the solids and liquids from
the venom, the men will transport it back
to Darnell's Bio-Active Inc. of Arlington.
"We take the venom and sell it for research (cancer and arthritis)," Charlie
Darnell said. "Antivenom is also made from
the venom."
The snakes were placed in wire cages for
crowd to see, with Darnell showing off the
snakes and answering questions.
Cold, damp weather this year kept the
number of captured snakes down, but overall the rattlers appeared to be a bit heftier.
"We've been buying bigger snakes this
year," said Handy Campbell, who owns
Southeastern Skins in Waldo, Fla., and who
is pay ing Claxton snake hunters $8 a foot for
their catches this year. "They seem to be
healthier snakes."
The hunters, paid $7 a foot last year,
were happy to get the extra bounty.
"We can afford to pay more at a roundup
like this," said Campbell. "We get a large
amount of snakes at one location, which
cuts down on expenses."
Campbell said the extra money helps pay
expenses for the hunters'hobby;
"These hunters darn sure don't do it for
the money," he said. "They do it for the fun
ofit."
Campbell has been in the snake business
six years. The Claxton snakes will be taken
to Waldo, he said.
"We should be able to milk them again in
about two weeks," he said. "Then we'll process them , . . sell some for meat, tan the
skin for belts and boots and even use the
rattlers and heads for hats. Nothing goes to
waste."
Educators:
By LEE R. HAVEN
Staff Writer
A n n A. S\\;nin
ow wait just one minute.
What the heck is going on
here!
City Beat flees from the
cold, windiness of Bangor, Maine only
to end up in Savannah where snow
flakes were flying furiously on Saturday.
It's as if some higher power was at
work to make sure Savannah did have
a toned down St. Paddy's Day. Between Friday night's rain and wind
and Saturday's tsunami of Spanish
moss and oak limbs, most folks were
hibernating.
Except of course for all of you
who's home was powerless and probably just a wee bit chilly .
On the bright side, seems like Savannah will have the distinction of
having the largest St. Patrick's Day
parade in the country again this year.
Inches and inches of snow have
nixed New York's parade scheduled
for Sunday.
Savannah earned the distinction of
having the largest parade in 1967
when inclement weather hit Boston
and New York.
Sorry Big Apple, looks like us folks
down here in the Peach Belt are once
again the reigning "Kings of the
Green."
• ••
AND SPEAKING OF: City Beat
godfather, Archie Whitfleld, passed
along this item.
Of all things, the Irish-inclined
Sinn Fein (rhymes with insane) Society of Savannah will nave a distinguished Englishman as guest historian for its annual St. Patrick's Day
breakfast Wednesday morning at the
Savannah Gotf Club.
A child's upbringing could determine
whether that child later joins a cult like the
one holed up in Waco, Texas, led by David
Koresh, according to a local educator.
"People who came up under authoritarian parents, where they weren't allowed to
make decisions for1 themselves, are prone to
this sort of thing/ Savannah State College
psychology professor Modibo Kadalie said.
"Research indicates these people suffer
from low self-esteem. These are the same
people who would likely be battered women."
Cultists feel alienated, and the charismatic leader plays that authoritarian figure
who provides followers with pat answers to
life-baffling questions, KadaHe said.
"Alienation" and "vulnerability" are
two words that pop up when Kadalie and
other local mental heath scholars look at
why people join cults.
"Most of the people have personal needs
and are vulnerable to individuals who promise security in religion and from a personal
standpoint," Savannah State College psychology professor Daniel Washington said.
Individuals who profess to be messiahs
or God's personal messengers can easily
manipulate those vulnerable feelings to gain
power over the unsuspecting believers,
Washington said.
Cult leaders have little problem knowing
By RICHARD FOQALEY
An invigorated Chatham County Republican Party, coining off a year of election sue*
cess on the local level, elected stockbroker
Harry Moore II as chairman Saturday.
With 11 winners - including U.S. Rep.
Jack Kingston - the "results show clearly
that Democratic dominance locally and
statewide has been broken," outgoing chairman ten Pshiander said at Saturday's
county convention.
dates can win," F
rates who gathered
"We bad scheduled him several
times to the pa* but last-minute com-
Moore, active in party pottles tor at
lent 31 yean, was dieted without epposk
tion tote two-year term,
ance. ifcts year, with the cooperation
of the SUte Department and the Brttlab ambassador, hi appearance is assured."
Sir Sidney will be a house gueit of
• See MAT, Pa0e 4C
""""
. . ? - - ' • . '•
'.
the homework of* boy who was
volunteers
at the Blitch Street Center .
"The public school system does not
hlye the time or willpower or manpower
that a Wack male or female has to help
in school and
mging
'People who came up under
authoritarian parents, where
they weren't allowed to make
decisions for themselves, are
prone to this sort of thing.'
-Psychology Professor
Modibo Kadalie
who these people are, according to Armstrong State College psychology professor
Grace Martin.
"They see who's standing out in the
crowd, alone, and invite them to a couple of
meetings where there is a friendly atmosphere," said Martin, who heads the Armstrong psychology department and wrote
her graduate thesis on cults more than a
decade ago
That benign ambiance, she added, gradually transforms into something more
overt, with cultists and leaders teaming up
to monitor the new recruit's every step.
Isolating the new recruit from family
and friends is the final step of the indoctrination, all three local scholars agreed.
"It's not unlike brainwashing," Martin
said/
The alienation that overcomes a student
away from home for the first time at a large
university can make him easy pickings for
charismatic cult leaders, Martin said. Such
a scenario strongly suggests that cult joining is more "situations!" than having to do
with the personalities of potential cultists.
According to a recent Newsweek article,
officials estimate that between 700 to 5,000
cults are based in the country today, with
the actual number depending on a cult's
definition.
"A cult is a belief system at odds with
mainstream religion and focuses on personalities," Martin says.
That definition is not to be confused with
the definition of a sect, which Martin said is
"a break away from mainstream religion to
purify" that religion. He pointed to the
Amish as an example of a sect.
Kadalie called cults "a rigid, authoritarian religious hierarchy that demands complete obedience to the leaders, although
they themselves have no accountability."
He said the phenomenon driving people to
cults "is an extreme form of why people
join churches. The preacher comes in and
you're supposed to accept the word.'
Of the denominations, Baptist services
are usually more democratic, said Kadalie,
a Georgia native who grew up in a Baptist
church but now attends several churches.
Washington said even congregations generally thought to be on the cusp of cultism such as evangelical groups - are not as
close as they appear because "they don't
isolate their membership " to the degree
• See CULTS, Page 5C
Moore Elected Chairman of Local GOP
thor, historian and sheet metal worker," according to a society spokes-
man.
ptece .when
*SfeS;.
Heptofced to meet with the 17 can**
wbhjft9^M
^W«^ay <|i wttjt
- "In time, talent and mwey" - to have
helped them bettvr,
"WedoBttteedtobetatheroierfettack
GOP'sBaker
Concerned
About PSC
Restrictions
By RICHARD FOGALEY
Staff Writer
The newest member of the Public
Service Commission has serious concerns about proposed legislation that
he says could strip commissioners of
some control and make it less accountable to the voters.
Bobby Baker, the first Republican
elected to a statewide constitutional
office in Georgia since Reconstruction, said the legislation sponsored by
state Sen. Mary Margaret Oliver
would limit commissioners' ability to
get information necessary to making
informed decisions on rate cases.
"I am concerned that we have access to an expert staff,1' he said.
The legislation proposed by Oliver,
a Decatur Democrat, would :
• Take away the PSC's utility finance staff and set it up as a separate
agency under the control of a gubernatorial appointee.
• Make the elected commissioners
obey judge-like guidelines about their
-conduct, including a ban on private
meetings or conversations with any
parties in a regulatory dispute.
• Require all cases to go through a
state-hired hearing officer before they
get to the PSC. The hearing officer
would make recommendations to the
commissioners, who could accept or
reject them, but a PSC deviation from
the hearing officer's findings could
lead to a court challenge.
Baker, in Savannah Saturday to
ipeak to local Republicans at thencounty convention, said the provisions
would not allow commissioners to talk
to average energy consumers about
the affect of rate changes.
_ . The^PSC oveneei services of
rates charged by major utilities like
Georgia Power, Savannah Electric
and Power Company, Southern Befl
and Atlanta Oat Light
It aiao regulates fatrastate trucking, tospecti natural gas piptltotc* and
controls intrastateraittMt
Other legislation under consider*
tfton would tot the governor appohH
members of the PSC, rather than to*.
ing them elected statewide, at || BOW