Home Opinion Mine Creek Revelations by Louie Graves: Great blessing

Mine Creek Revelations by Louie Graves: Great blessing

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A REAL NICE article in the fall issue of “Arkansas Hospitals,” the official publication of the Arkansas Hospital Association, has a three-page spread on our town’s Debra Wright, CEO of Howard Memorial Hospital.

The article chronicles her career in medicine and in business, including two-plus decades in growth of her responsibilities at Wadley Regional Medical Center. She interviewed for the CEO job here and wowed the committee. She continues to wow.

HMH is able to deliver first class care and service to the community, and do it without operating at a loss — she points out that charity care is possible only if the hospital is operating in the black. As if operating a hospital wasn’t challenge enough these days.

I pointed out in this column just a few weeks ago, about the only specialty clinic the hospital doesn’t offer is a nose and ear hair clinic for seniors.

I was a member of industrial recruitment committees here, several years ago. We recruited some industries which are still providing jobs for our area; we missed out on some. But one thing was constant. The company representatives were ALWAYS interested in the hospital and medical care for their people who might move here.

In more ways than you can possibly count, Howard Memorial Hospital affects the quality of your life.

My thanks to Debra and everyone at HMH.

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I JUST THOUGHT that Arkansas Razorback fans were mad after the team blew another game to the Texas Aggies (I am qualified to comment upon this because I am the Hogs’ #1 Fair Weather Fan).

Then I looked at some of the internet sites where fans of the Tennessee Volunteers and the Louisiana State Tigers can post their feelings.

Whoa! I’m talking about some mad, mad people.

In case  you don’t know, Tennessee was shutout at home by a hated foe, Georgia. It was the worst Tennessee loss since 1904 and it had been a long, long time since anybody had whitewashed the Vols.

In the case of the LSU Tigers, they paid a cupcake team more than $900,000 to ‘visit’ Death Valley Stadium. And then they got beat 24-21 by the Troy Trojans. This is akin to Arkansas getting beat by Louisiana-Moron a few years ago.

LSU has got themselves a brand new high dollar coach, and whether or not they want, he’s theirs for a long time  to come.

Tennessee has a high dollar coach with a nice contract extension. They may be mad enough to buy him out anyway.

So, our Razorback situation doesn’t seem so dire now.

Now, if only someone can beat Alabamamama. And beat ‘em good! On national TV. In Tuscalooooooosa. (My weak apologies to friend Larry Dunaway who dearly loves the Tide).

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MY EMAIL. About 3-4 months ago I started getting mysterious emails at my work address. The sender’s name, the subject, and the entire message was in what appeared to be Chinese writing. Since I don’t really recognize any Chinese script, I can only guess. It LOOKS Chinese.

At first I only got one or two a day. Then the messages multiplied. When they got  up to a hundred a day I got our internet technician guy, Jon Chambers, to do something about it.

Our John Balch, who knows a lot about computers, said that it couldn’t be fixed and it was because of some of the internet sites I visited.

At this point I swear to you that I have NOT gone to any naughty sites. I wouldn’t care if my own mother saw the places I visited in search of news or column ideas. All legitimate places.

Well, the technician fixed my problem. For a few weeks. Then the Chinese stuff began coming in again.

Now those messages have just about squeezed out the mail which I WANT to get. Last weekend I came in to do a little work, and I had 900 messages waiting. Almost all in Chinese.

I’m hoping that there is something I can do about this. Maybe I’ll even have to get a new email address.

In the meantime, if you have something you really, really want me to see, send it to one of the other folks here at the News-Leader and they’ll show me.

I can hardly wait until this internet fad is over.

Then I’m going to devote myself to getting rid of stupid cell phones. After that I will turn my attention to the proliferation of J-Turns in downtown Nashville. Based upon what I can observe, we are not going to run out of J-Turn violations anytime soon.

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THINGS I LEARNED from opening email: Opportunity knocks, but temptation kicks in the door.

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WORD GAMES.

The Twins: Nuts and Bolts. They’re vital if you’ve got a big project.

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HE SAID: “The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.” Aesop, slave

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SHE SAID: “Men judge us by the success of our efforts. God looks at the efforts themselves.” Charlotte Bronte, novelist

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SWEET DREAMS, Baby