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Bright future for King Day speaker; pal of Jerry Rice
© St. Petersburg Times Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state, said he was somewhat surprised the Tampa Organization of Black Affairs tapped him to be the keynote speaker for Monday's 23rd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Breakfast. Blackwell hails from Cincinnati and was glad TOBA officials overlooked the opinion of Mark Twain in choosing him. According to Blackwell, Twain once said, "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always 20 years behind the times." The comment drew laughter, but another story about his native city elicited a more somber reaction from the sold-out ballroom crowd of nearly 1,000 at the Hyatt in downtown Tampa. Blackwell explained that when he was a child, his father worked as a meat packer in Cincinnati. Next to the packing plant was a slaughterhouse, from which the occasional steer would escape. Blackwell and other kids in the Laurel Homes housing project would get their mothers' red table cloths and pretend to be matadors. What he remembers most is how the police would surround the steer and spend as much as two hours trying to get it back to the slaughterhouse -- alive. It is, Blackwell noted, a troubling contrast to the treatment Lorenzo Collins received in 1997. Collins, a petty thief who had escaped from the University of Cincinnati psych ward, was cornered by police, much like the steer. But in less than 10 minutes, he was shot and killed. "The police's predecessors gave a steer, destined to die, 90 minutes or two hours," Blackwell said. "And here, a petty thief, mentally unbalanced and in hospital garb with a half-brick in his hand, was not given 10 minutes." Blackwell said the comparison illustrates the country's need for greater humanity, and that King's civil rights battle, among other things, was an effort to transform the hearts of men and women. The well-spoken Blackwell, a Republican, may emerge as a national player. His name is one to remember. So are his words. Look for James Harper to be the new editor of the Weekly Planet. Harper spent 24 years working for the Times -- including a few years sitting next to me -- before leaving in May of 2000. Since then, he has worked with the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and the Center of Tampa Bay. Good pick. Monday was a little more difficult than usual for Dennis Cavanaugh. The owner of Java & Cream on Davis Islands is a diehard Eagles fan, so he knew he would be in for some ribbing after the Bucs beat Philadelphia to earn a ticket to the Super Bowl. What Cavanaugh didn't know was that his friends would do a little painting on his storefront window. "Go Bucs" and a team logo were painted on the window in red paint, and in green paint was the sentence "Losing Is For The Birds." But Cavanaugh appeared to be holding up well Monday morning. "I doubled up on my Prozac," he quipped. Last May, 11-year-old Peyton Keiffer welcomed a dream visitor to Dale Mabry Elementary. She won a math contest sponsored by Playmakers Gummi snacks and the prize was a visit from legendary Oakland Raiders receiver Jerry Rice. Flash forward eight months and you wonder if Rice's new Tampa friend has been swayed into cheering against the Bucs. "She's wearing a Bucs jersey as we speak," said Peter Keiffer, Peyton's father. "She still has a picture of him on the wall, but she's cheering for the Bucs." I took my 9- and 10-year-old sons to the 6:45 a.m. King breakfast Monday, amid some whining about wanting to sleep in or watch cartoons. When they asked why we had to get up so early, I said, "How many times do you think Dr. King got up early for us?" Matthew guessed it was at least 1,700. That's all I'm saying. -- Ernest Hooper can be reached at 226-3406 or hooper@sptimes.com .
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