The parents of Josh Cunningham have hired a local lawyer to help get the 11 year old fourth grader reinstated in Prater’s Creek Elementary School. Josh was expelled for wearing a Dale Earnhardt Jr. jacket to school. The jacket had a beer company’s name on it and there are rules against wearing anything that promotes alcohol. Josh said his uncle gave him the jacket as a gift for Christmas, and it has sentimental value since his uncle died in a New Year’s Eve homemade fireworks accident. "My Uncle Plumb-Bob liked Dale Jr." the fourth grader said, "And he loved Budweiser!" "My brother gave him that jacket" Josh’s mother Alta Cunningham told the Gazette, "Right before he blew hisself up. Josh was wearing that jacket when Plumb-Bob let him light the fuse on that homemade bomb."

Although best know of course for his portrayal of bumbling deputy Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith show, the late Don Knotts made many fine films during his career. Bijou Theater manager Lee Reed says, "People have been asking us to show some of his movies since we opened this place. And now the public is demanding it. So we’re going to show many of his great films." Mr. Reed says that the festival will be showing No Time For Sergeants, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut, The Shakiest Gun In The West, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and "even the one he played in with Reese Witherspoon in 1998, Pleasantville."

The Don Knotts Film Festival starts this Saturday and runs through April 28^th.

The Annual Prater’s Creek Ladies Spring Cotillion will be held again this year. The Cotillion has been held the first Tuesday in April since 1883. But after last year’s episode it’s future has been held in doubt. Pickens County Sheriff Roscoe B. Stone told the Gazette that “We are allowing the fair ladies of Prater’s Creek to hold their afternoon party again this year, but there will be three sheriff deputies assigned to the event in case anything breaks out”.

It seems the ladies had a little too much hooch last year during a hand of bridge and Dot Mercer threatened Eileen Mason with a baseball bat, yelling “Here’s your slam right here!” Then Mrs. Mason hit Mrs. Mercer upside the head with a demijohn. “When we showed up” Sheriff Stone remembered, “Them women was a cussin’ and fightin’ like pack of wildcats. And there was empty demijohns everywhere. We can’t let that stuff go on in this county.”

Pickens County Sheriff Roscoe B. Stone said after an extensive investigation that no charges would be filed against a Prater’s Creek Junior High School teacher. "We talked to the child," said Sheriff Stone, and we found out what the teacher was doing. He was trying to teach the kid to read. That’s all!" The seventh grader’s parents however are not happy with the decision. "Doggone it! The child’s mother said, as she dragged on a Marlboro, "We never learned to read and he don’t need to either!" The father added, "Soon’s it’s legal for him to quit, he’s gonna go to work for me on the farm all day That book learnin’ is a bunch of hooey!".