JaMichael Mills

THIS STORY COURTESY THE KINGSPORT TIMES-NEWS

Bill Lane is a Times-News sports writer.
E-mail him at blane@timesnews.net.

Born: Sept. 1, 1974 Where: Morristown Residence: Kingsport High Schools/Colleges: Dobyns-Bennett, Hargrave Military Academy/Providence University, Pensacola Junior College, Sullivan Junior College

THEN: The Mills family’s change of residence in the late 1980s steered the career of a remarkable athlete in a different direction. JaMichael Mills, a quarterback, had showed interest in football until moving to Kingsport.

Suddenly, it was another sport for him.

“Football was big in Jefferson County,” Mills said, “and it was my first love. Once we came to Kingsport, I became interested in basketball.” Mills contributed big to an aggregate 69-1 record in the eighth and ninth grades at John Sevier Middle School. He was already dunking the ball. At Dobyns-Bennett, he got promoted from the B-team to the varsity midway through his freshman year and the rebuilding Indians managed an 18-14 record. The next two seasons were among D-B’s all-time best. The Indians, ranked No. 1 in the Class AAA state poll both times, had records of 33-4 and 35-2.

He transferred to Hargrave Military Academy as a senior and played on a team that finished 35-5.

The 6-foot-3, 170-pound post/wing averaged 15 points and nine rebounds as a sophomore and 19.7 points and 11 rebounds as a junior playing in a platoon system.

“Our defensive pressure was everything,” Mills said. “It generated most of our points.

“Coach (Steve) Shipley had a good system. He could get the effort out of us every night. He kept us all tightly wound and on the same page. He was one of the best X’s and O’s men in the game and had us prepared for everything.”

D-B’s outlook was bright upon Contributed photo arrival at the 1992 state tournament in Murfreesboro. In the first round, the Indians defeated Haywood County by 11 points despite an 18-point first quarter by future NBA player Tony Delk.

The D-B lineup also included Fred Smith and Mike Piazza, who shared time at point guard; Ricky Hale at center, and Ryan Black and Shane Carnes at guards, with Demar Lewis subbing in.

Misfortune struck in the second round against Brainerd. Mills, while attempting to block a shot, was undercut and went crashing to the floor. He suffered a broken left wrist.

"It was all Coach Shipley could do to keep me out of the game,” Mills said. “We’d put it all on the line to get there. I felt that if I couldn’t score, I could still make my presence known by playing defense.

“We were counting on being there maybe even twice more but there was no guarantee. No team is ever the same but we expected to play in Murfreesboro again.”

It did turn out that way. Mills, who could make the transition from post to guard, and his teammates returned to the big show in 1993. Black, Carnes and Smith were joined in the interchangeable lineup by Todd Corum and super sub Corky Blye. Ryan Wagner also got key minutes spelling Smith at the point. With four starters returning, D-B was ranked No. 1 all season. Its five-guard set dominated the opposition. “It was three quarters and out for the starters in most of our games,” Mills said. “We won the Arby’s Classic that season.”

An upset loss to Science Hill in the Region 1 tournament at Rogersville didn’t halt D-B’s march on Murfreesboro. The Indians got back on track with a substate win over Lenoir City, whose star was Travis Cozart. “We got an ugly draw at state and had to face Memphis Fairley in the opening round,” Mills said. “We felt all along we were going to win it. Losing was not an option. We were going to come home as state champions. But Fairley had other ideas. “Sylvester Ford, a 6-7 point guard, was the featured player in a huge lineup. We got behind and had to foul to catch up.
Fairley won 75-60.”

The Tribe might have been able to make it to state again with this team but Mills went to Hargrave at Chatham, Va., and Carnes transferred to Oak Hill Academy. “I never took school seriously,” Mills said. “At Hargrave, I learned how to study and picked up my grades.” Mills and Carnes, after playing for different colleges, were eventually reunited at Sullivan Junior College in Louisville, Ky. At Pensacola Junior College, Mills had a stellar year, averaging 15 points at shooting guard on a team ranked No. 1 in the nation. Mills developed his game playing three summers for the AAU Tennessee Travelers. Two of his teammates were Ron Mercer (Boston Celtics) and Drew Maddux (Vanderbilt), who today is coaching Nashville CPS — the state’s top-ranked Class AA team. “I played against some of the best competition the country had to offer,” Mills said. “Delk, Ford, Allen Iverson, Jerry Stackhouse, Ray Allen and Vincent Rainey were among them.” Mills, a fireballing left-hander, enjoyed baseball but couldn’t find the time to play at D-B because of AAU events.

NOW: Mills has just returned to Kingsport from Atlanta, where he worked in the mortgage business until the housing market went south. He wants his son, 12-year-old JaSun, to grow up here.

Mills’ mother, Janet Russaw, teaches fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary. His late father Tony, who stood 6-6, was the first black student to receive an athletic scholarship at Carson-Newman College. He coached basketball at Morristown West.

JaMichael’s sister also was a star player. Jocelyn “Josh” Mills, who scored 44 points and got 22 rebounds in her first varsity game at Jefferson County, became a 2,000-point scorer in high school after transferring to D-B. The 5-11 Mills was a four-year starter and All-Southeastern Conference performer at the University of Kentucky. Two years ago, she was chosen Kentucky’s Female Player of the Decade. She is a vice principal in Louisville

Step Afrika! dances into Northeast State

Northeast State Community College will welcome Step Afrika! to campus Feb. 17 for a night of traditional African step dancing.

The free performance begins at 7 p.m. in the Wellmont Regional Center for the Performing Arts on the college’s main campus, 2425 Highway 75, adjacent to Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Blountville.

Step Afrika! is the only professional dance company in the world dedicated to the tradition of stepping. The company is critically acclaimed for its efforts to promote an understanding of and appreciation for stepping and the tradition’s use as an educational tool worldwide.

Founded in 1994 by current Executive Director C. Brian Williams, Step Afrika! began as a cross-cultural exchange program with the Soweto Dance Theatre of Johannesburg, South Africa. As a young graduate of Howard University in 1991, Williams traveled to southern Africa through the late Rev. Leon Sullivan’s International Foundation for Education and SelfHelp.

While in Africa, Williams came across the South African gumboot dance — an art form created by mineworkers which greatly resembled the stepping he had learned at Howard University. He later met three members of the Soweto Dance Theatre. Together, they created the Step Afrika! International Cultural Festival, the first known attempt to link the people who practice stepping in America with Gumboot dance performers in Africa.

The first festival was held in 1994, just six months after the election of Nelson Mandela as president of a free and Democratic Republic of South Africa. Two years later they launched Step Afrika!’s first program in the United States.

Stepping is a unique dance tradition created by African-American college students. In stepping, the body is used as an instrument to create intricate rhythms and sounds through a combination of footsteps, claps and spoken word. The tradition grew out of the song and dance rituals practiced by historically African-American fraternities and sororities in the early 1900s.

Stepping comes from a long and rich tradition in African-based communities using movement, words and sounds to communicate allegiance to a group.

Step Afrika! reaches tens of thousands of Americans each year and has performed on prestigious stages in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. January of 2000 saw the first production of Step Afrika! at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as a part of the Imagination Celebration Series. Step Afrika! conducts an annual 50-city tour of American colleges and universities from Maine to Mississippi.

The production is part of Northeast State’s commemoration of Black History Month throughout February.

For more information, call (423) 279-7669 or email jpkelly@NortheastState.edu.

Black Students Score Above the National Average in More than 3,000 Schools

(Chicago, IL, March 1 2012) - African American students are driving positive academic change in some public schools nationwide, says Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, national education consultant and author of the newly released There Is Nothing Wrong With Black Students. In fact, Black students in more than 3,000 schools are performing well above the national average.

There are eight million African American students nationwide: 7.5 million attend public schools, 400,000 attend private schools, and 100,000 are homeschooled. Of the 7.5 million public school students, 90 percent (6.75 million) attend regular schools, and ten percent attend accelerated magnet schools. Kunjufu spotlights the great strides being made in some regular public schools because he says, "This marginalized population has been the most neglected. I want all children to succeed, but I focus on the 6.75 million African American children in regular public schools because they lack both choice and a voice."

Kunjufu, who logs several days a week working with schools in some of the most underserved communities nationwide, says educators at the forefront of change are modeling innovative approaches, including:

Culturally relevant curriculum design and Africentric charter schools
Single gender classrooms and schools
Improved teacher quality
Pedagogy adapted to the learning styles of students
Strong academic leadership from principals
Block scheduling and attention to time on task.


Illustrating the goal of academic parity, Kunjufu says there is virtually no racial gap between Black and White homeschooled students. In grades K-12, both groups scored, on average, in the 87th percentile in reading. In math, Whites scored in the 82nd percentile while Blacks scored in the 77th percentile.

Two of the great turnaround stories in African American male education have occurred in single gender schools. Kunjufu says Eagles Academy (New York) and Urban Prep (Chicago) are outstanding schools that bring out the full potential of this population. Eagles students consistently outperform their peers in state-wide exams. Urban Prep has the distinction of all of their graduates being accepted into four-year colleges.

African American charter schools, notable for their use of Africentric curricula, have produced a 1.5 percent or greater annual increase in academic achievement. An 80 percent or higher graduation rate is the norm at these schools.

"When they have the same access to a quality education as their peers in private schools, home schools, and wealthy public schools, Black students are well able to overcome any challenge," says Kunjufu.

There Is Nothing Wrong offers educational models of excellence, resources, best practices, and hope for educators who are dedicated to improving academic outcomes for Black students.



For additional information, contact 1-800-552-1991, Fax# (708) 672-0466. P.O. Box 1799, Chicago Heights, IL 60412. Website: http://www.africanamericanimages.com, Email: customersvc@africanamericanimages.com.

Board Meeting Notification

Greetings alumni board members,

I hope this note finds all of you doing well. I have called a meeting for February 25, 2012 at the V.O. Dobbins center, Eastman Room. The usual time will be for 1:00 p.m. I hope everyone can make it because your input is important to this organization and greatly appreciated. Let's do a covered dish to start the new year. Mark your calendars.

I am looking forward to seeing you all there.

Thanks,
JennyH.

Thanks, Rev. Collins

I thank the Rev. Ron Collins and his organization for the great work on the MLK march. It’s always a success. I enjoy marching in it. I like the way he let everyone march no matter their color or religion. We marched to the police station for a fellowship talk, and Mr. Nathan Vaughn did a nice speech. The Rev. Collins is truly a man of equality and love. I do appreciate him and what he does in Kingsport. And many blessings to Ms. Johnnie Mae Swaggerty and the New Vision Youth. She is a shining star to the youth and the seniors and the community. I've watched over nine years the events she does in the community. I don't know how she does it. I've asked around and people say she's in their organizations in Kingsport and keeps going and doing good works. I've never seen a youth group stay together that long and how Ms. Swagerty takes time out with other people and support them. I hope the community and Kingsport gives her thanks and hugs. My name is Doretha Everhart of Elizabethton, Tenn. I just had to write. Keep up the good work.

Doretha Everhart
Elizabethton

Medical tests do reveal problems

TO THE EDITOR

In response to the article: “Too many Tests?

Routine medical exams get second look.I read this article twice and I am border line on this. Yes, everyone should question medical test being done if you are not “At Risk”. But there are times good Doctors are really concern and want to know what is going on with their patient.

My child was an active child played City Recreation basketball since 5 years old, Jr. and High School basket ball and softball, also was in Pizzazi Ladies and Impact Choir at DB. The fall of 2000 first semester of school, a healthy (Not At Risk) athletic 18 year old VI college student comes into her doctor’s office and says she has blacked out twice, the coach and trainer will not let her come back to practice until they figure out why.

She was not an at risk patient, only health history she had was asthma and severe allergies. With every test she ran came back normal. She referred her to the Heart Center and they ran test and it came back normal.

Both Dr. Susanne Toyne and Dr. Brian Armstrong were not satisfied.

With persistence they continued to find out what was going on. He ordered an Electrophysiology Study and a Right Heart Catheterization on my child. Finally they found she had an anomalous left main coronary artery coming off the right coronary cusp. I was told this was a birth defect! She was also told she would not be able to play sports any more. She was sent to Duke for surgery and they repaired her problem and to this date you cannot tell she had any problems at all except for the scar as a reminder.

I praise those doctors for saving my child's life. She had to redshirt her first year in college from playing both softball and basketball. But her second year she was back on the court and field. There have been a couple college and professional basketball and football players that had the same problem. For them it was too late and they did not discover their problem until an autopsy was done.

Athletic School physicals also don’t catch everything. So to the people in Washington, please be very careful in your decision when you go to vote and make these types of decisions. Weigh all the options, encourage people to ask and question doctors on test being ordered. There are some good doctors out there.

That article really concerns me and I hope that it concerns others as well.


Charlene Hodge, Kingsport

Belated Party: Happy Birthday, Jai-Jai!

"She touched a lot of people.. she loved being around people."

"Her spirit lives in the people whose lives she was in."

On a cool January day in 2012, Jaleisa Dulaney's friends and family got together to celebrate her 8th birthday. Wishing her "happy birthday" was a ritual every year, because the feisty Jackson School second grader loved parties and getting together with people in the Riverview community.

But this year was different.

This time, "Jai-Jai" as she was known, would not hear the "happy birthday" wishes from her friends.. she would not beam at the presents she received.. she would not taste the birthday cake with her name on it.

Jaleisa would not be here for her 8th birthday.

She celebrated this particular birthday with Jesus.

"Jai-Jai" was tragically taken from her friends and family, in a rollover automobile accident on I-26 on July 14, 2011 near the Meadowview complex south of Kingsport.

Because she was so active as a member of the New Vision Youth Kids, her passing sent waves of shock and grief through the Riverview Community.

"I can talk about it now," says her grandmother Mary Beatty. "I can talk about it now because I know where she is.. she's with the Lord. At times when I think about it, I feel sad, but because she had the ability to make you smile, I try to think about that more. Even when she did something bad and I was angry with her, I would think about something she did earlier and that would make me laugh. How could you scold her when you were laughing? She even had this funny way of laughing, that would make you laugh right along with her."

"Soon, I would forget what I was angry about."

Mary was one of many Riverview residents, who attended a special birthday party held in Jaleisa's honor at the Riverview Community Room of K.H.R.A. at the V.O. Dobbins, Sr. Complex on Saturday, January 21, 2012.

Click here to see a slide show of Jaleisa's 8th birthday party celebration. Thanks to Donna Morrisette for providing pictures of the party.

"It was hard singing 'happy birthday' and her not being there," Mary says, "but it was O.K. because I knew everybody there knew who she was and loved her."

"Everybody has their own memory of 'Jai-Jai.'"

One person considered a special friend was Michael Bell. Michael and Jaleisa were inseparable as friends in New Vision, and no where was that proven more, than at the New Vision proms that Johnnie Mae Swagerty holds every year for the children. Music, food, games, and other activities kept the kids busy.

And then, there was the dancing. For the past 3 years, Jaleisa's date has been Michael.. twirling, swinging, dipping.. they did it all.

We're told, he was devastated by her passing.

"She was the only one he ever wanted to take to the prom," remembers Mary. "He told his mama that he didn't know if he wanted to go to any more proms, because he and his brother miss her very much. They all used to play games together and it's been hard on him. She loved to dance with him, there's no secret about that, and she also loved 'Dancing with the Stars.' In fact, she always wanted to ballroom dance, and one year, I was going to sign her up for ballroom dancing. I actually went to sign her up for it, but I couldn't find the shoes that she needed, so we didn't get to sign up. We still planned to go for it, though."

At her birthday party, friends and family also lit candles in her honor.

"We had four candles," says New Vision Youth director Johnnie Mae Swagerty. "A birthday candle for Jaleisa, and a family candle for her loved ones. Then, we had a candle for her cousin Jalissa Ferguson (who died at the hands of a drug dealer and his stray bullet in the Riverview Apartments in 1995), and a fourth candle for the community."

Swagerty says the candlelight vigil was a moving service.

"No one spoke much during the lighting of the candles," she says, "because words just would not come. The service was very uplifting and afterwards at the party inside the Community Room, Reverend (Ricardo) Dorcean (of the Central Baptist Church) led a prayer, and everyone got to share stories, talking about the good times when she was here. In addition to the birthday cake, we had turkey and dressing, green beans, broccoli casserole, macaroni and cheese, and the local Bojangles Restaurants donated chicken and biscuits. The food was good and everybody had a good time remembering her."

The event ended with the releasing of big, purple balloons into the night air, emblazoned with the words "happy birthday," floating into the sky towards the heavens.

"It was a healing time for the community," Swagerty noted. "For the young people there, her friends, they were kinda happy about the event because it was her birthday and they knoew that if she would have been here, she would have enjoyed it. It took a load off the community's mind about the tragedy of how she left us. A lot of prayers went up and a whole lot of hugs went around that night."

"We'll never forget her, but for that night, closure came a little easier."

That thought is not lost on Grandma.

"I pray for strength every single day," Mary says. "It hits me that she's not here especially in the mornings.. that's when I would take her to the Boys & Girls Club. Then, in the late afternoons whenever I would come home from work, my TV would be on all the time. I knew she was O.K. because the TV would be home. Now when I come home, the TV is not on. It's hard because I look around for her.. I wait to hear her voice, but the air is still. I just ask God for strength, and he comes through with it every time."

"There's just so much about her that you cannot forget," says Mary. "Her smile, her trying to rap.. she enjoyed rapping.. her love of dancing, her curiosity.. she loved to ask questions. She always wanted to know about everything. When she found out what happened to her cousin Jalissa Ferguson, she had so many questions about her.. what happened, how did she get there.. would she ever get to see her? Jai-Jai was curious about everything and she asked about her cousin Jalissa even the week she passed away."

"She doesn't have to ask that question now. She finally got to see her, and Jesus Himself introduced them."

"Happy birthday, Jai-Jai. The two girls are finally together."