During my tenure as executive editor of the former Northwest Arkansas Times in Fayetteville, I learned a lot about human nature using a simple poster board and a sack of stick-on gold stars.
In an effort to maintain morale and a competitive nature that helped newsroom employees feel appreciated and challenged, it seemed a good idea to alphabetically list each staffer's name on a day-by-day monthly poster in my office. At a brief staff meeting I announced my new Gold Star Appreciation program.
The terms were simple: Those who, in my opinion, had gone above and beyond each day would have a star placed beside their name. Staffers earning the largest number of stars each month would receive a pizza dinner.
While a couple looked at each other and rolled their eyes on that first day, within a week, the entire staff was stopping by daily to see where they stood in collecting stars compared with the others.
And I always maintained a notebook explaining why each was awarded. After all, the effort would have served no purpose had I not taken time to explain the reasoning behind each star.
"I thought your lead in the front page story was crisp, clear and well-written," I might tell one reporter while praising another for the enterprise displayed in theirs, or for an especially effective photograph or exceptional display of layout or editing.
By month's end, the program had captured the attention of virtually everyone in the newsroom, and I felt overall production had risen as a result, along with the quality of their work.
And all it took to accomplish this was an appeal to their best interests along with the willingness to buy into the idea, all for less than $20 a month.
That experiment in human nature was enough to make me believe the same thing can be achieved in many businesses. It shows the positive results something as simple as the smallest recognition and legitimate praise can produce.
Right to pray
I'd be worried about the rapidly deteriorating state of our nation had our U.S. Supreme Court last week not reaffirmed every American's First Amendment right to worship freely.
In fact, I question the motives of administrators in the Bremerton, Wash., school district for ever admonishing that high school's former football coach Joseph Kennedy for daring to kneel for a personal prayer at midfield following a football game.
Those Bremerton school administrators and their misguided attorney must have lost their minds. Could they not read our Constitution? Could they not reason beyond knee-jerk gut-level emotion?
Did these school officials truly really believe they had the legal ability to deny a citizen the right to pray on his own time and volition?
Under their reasoning, how long after a football game would it have to be for a Bremerton coach to be allowed to say a prayer on an empty field? Ten minutes? Until the stadium lights were turned off?
There are times nowadays when I believe radical segments of this nation have lost any modicum of common sense and their collective minds, judging by the nonsense they tirelessly try to pass off to our society as legitimate.
Biological males trying their best to spoil female athletics by competing against them is another piece of preposterous lunacy that comes to mind.
As you might imagine, why, I was downright shocked beyond belief to see the court's three liberal justices united in their reasoning that Kennedy did not have his constitutional right to prayer following a game since he was employed by the school district.
Had these associate justices even read the basics of our Constitution designed specifically to protect individual rights rather than the whims and dictates of school districts?
E. coli in lakes
Just when northwest Arkansans are feeling the need to escape the heat in the inviting waters of area lakes, that darned E. coli mess rears its head, along with high waters, to close swim beaches from Beaver to Table Rock.
E. coli is a potentially dangerous bacteria found in the intestines of humans and warm-blooded animals. Geese and failing septic symptoms are among the most-cited probable causes for the lake contamination.
This time the U.S. Corps of Engineers in mid-June closed beaches at Beaver Lake's Prairie Creek, Indian Creek and Lost Bridge North parks as well as the Dam Site Lake day-use swim beach and the Dam Site Lake campground swim beach. In addition, four other beaches--Hickory Creek, War Eagle, Lost Bridge South and Horseshoe Bend day use--were closed because of high water or debris.
Outdoor writer Flip Putthoff reported last week that it's the second time this swimming season high E. coli levels have caused closures in the area.
Lakes Nimrod and Blue Mountain also have faced swim beach closures, Putthoff reported.
Thankfully many among us still have community swimming pools, or at least a round plastic one for the backyard.
Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at [email protected].