THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504090049
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Who says opinions aren't worth anything these days?
For a group of children from rural Bertie County, their two-cents' worth on using replacement players in baseball has meant, well, more than words can say.
``It ain't often people get to have their picture put in a national magazine,'' Joshua White, 11, said of his and other youngsters' appearance in the April issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids.
And what did young Joshua, who hopes one day to play baseball in the big leagues, think when the New York-based magazine was first distributed at a Colerain YMCA basketball practice a couple of weeks ago?
``I was surprised at the way the picture of me looked,'' he said in his second-ever interview. ``They had the light on me, and I looked as white as a ghost.''
``Most of the people asked if it was me. They couldn't believe it,'' said 12-year-old Donnell Sumner, who has aspirations of gracing the pages of the grownup Sports Illustrated as a baseball player.
Seems a lot of people in this sparsely populated part of northeastern North Carolina are having trouble believing that the entire nation - at least 950,000 of its young sports enthusiasts - has now heard of Bertie County.
They can thank the commitment of County Commissioner Patricia Ferguson for shining the spotlight in their direction.
``My objective was not just to highlight Bertie County. I believe it's no good for Bertie County to swim and the rest of the counties to sink,'' she said.
``It's more like shooting up a flare. Bertie County shot up the flare, but the magazine exposure is helping to highlight everything in this area.''
A vocal advocate for children, Ferguson first approached the editors of the 6-year-old Sports Illustrated for Kids in late 1993 after thumbing through her two sons' copies.
``I saw the `Pro & Con' section, and my idea always has been that when opportunities present themselves, take advantage of them,'' she said.
The staff at the magazine also believed, as Ferguson noted in a letter, that Bertie County kids had something to say.
``Yes, they do not represent the bourgeoisie. They are just common kids with big hearts . . . big dreams,'' she wrote to Senior Editor Amy Lennard Goehner.
Soon after that missive, Ferguson was given her topic: Should there be replacement players in baseball?
The project proved a bit difficult. In a county where most folks labor at processing poultry or pulling up produce from fields, commonplace items like telephones can be hard to come by.
So Ferguson turned to one of her favorite groups, the Colerain YMCA, whose staff quickly mobilized dozens of kids for a debate.
A photographer was found to snap pictures, and everything was faxed to New York two days later.
Ferguson moved back to her home county, with a population of about 20,000, in 1993 with her husband, physician Stephen Ferguson, and sons Daniel, 12, and Joshua, 11.
She wouldn't call Bertie County poor, even though the 1990 U.S. census ranked it among North Carolina's lowest in per capita income.
``I don't like the word `poor' because it relates only to finances, but there's a richness of spirit here,'' she said.
Still, she admits that many of the children and their families are low-income, and desperately need role models.
The magazine write-up, she said, has allowed the children to believe anything is possible.
``But it takes adults willing to venture outside their regular lifestyle to commit the time and energy to empower the children within their community,'' she said.
And while Ferguson may be hoping vacationers and business leaders might now consider visiting Bertie and its surrounding counties, the kids had other hopes.
``Maybe Michael Jordan may have seen us in the magazine, and decide to come for a visit to encourage us,'' the children wrote in a thank you letter to the magazine's editors.
Oh, by the way, how'd the kids vote? A majority said that Major League Baseball would be hurt by replacement players, and they are against substitutes. ILLUSTRATION: Photo of magazine cover
by CNB