SID SALTER: What kind of prayers in schools?
After Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill that could lead to public prayers by students at functions like graduation, sporting events, or even over the schoolís intercom, I couldn’t escape memories of my childhood.
My late father was a high school principal and vocational agriculture teacher in rural Mississippi from the late 1940s through the early 1970s, a Southern Baptist, and a U.S. Army veteran.
At school assembly programs or sporting events he led, two preliminary activities preceded the main event – first, a prayer, and second, either a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or the singing of the National Anthem, or both.
Those students who deviated from the rules of decorum saw the order of events altered to include prayer, patriotism and the addition of corporal punishment. He would alternately ask local Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian or Pentecostal ministers to deliver those prayers.
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
3/17/13
