Response to Peralta on Charis Prep Article

A recent letter to the editor from Mr. Carlos Peralta, the minister associated with Heart of David Ministries in Eureka, leveled several accusations at me personally, and at others, regarding our story in the Wayne-Wilson edition two weeks ago.
One of our reporters showed the story in its entirety to Mr. Peralta two days before it was published, and asked for his comments. Mr. Peralta told the reporter he was not going to comment to him any further, because the reporter is associated with me.
Mr. Peralta apparently believes I have some sort of vendetta against him and his school. That is not the case. I do have a history with Mr. Peralta that began when I was sports editor of the Goldsboro News-Argus and he was coaching basketball at Wayne Country Day School.
Mr. Peralta attempted to open Charis Prep two years ago, when he was the minister at Abundant Life Church in Goldsboro. I wrote two investigative pieces and one column on the school, all of which can be viewed on the Internet by searching the name Charis Prep.
I have not seen or heard from Mr. Peralta between that time and two months ago, when our reporter told me a minister named Carlos Peralta was going to open a private school in the old Eureka School building.
I still have not seen or spoken to Mr. Peralta, but our reporter has had a few conversations with him and the folks at Heart of David Ministries.
In checking background information on the Charis Prep story, we uncovered information on the school from its former location at Summit Christian Academy, and we ran that story. Again, we offered Mr. Peralta the opportunity to comment on it before it printed, and he declined.
Mr. Peralta wrote in his letter to the editor that I was terminated from the News-Argus. I have no idea how Mr. Peralta managed to read my confidential personnel file from the News-Argus, but if he did, he did not read it well. I left the News-Argus of my own volition in order to pursue a journalism career outside sports writing. The News-Argus will attest to that fact.
Mr. Peralta also said that the state of North Carolina recognizes Charis Prep as an organization owned and operated by Carlos Peralta. If that is the case, could Mr. Peralta please explain why no state organization that we can find can attest to that fact? Would Mr. Peralta please identify the state organization that has recognized Charis Prep as belonging to him?
The only state department that even knows the name “Charis Prep” is the Department of Administration, who oversees non-public instruction. That organization recognizes “Summit Christian Academy/Charis Prep” as the legal name of the school operated by First Assembly of God in Goldsboro.
Rev. Ralph Painter, the senior pastor of First Assembly, has documentation that shows Mr. Peralta’s school was merged into Summit Christian Academy and remains there to this day, operating under First Assembly’s non-profit ID number.
And to repeat the question I asked two years ago — would Mr. Peralta please show us the school’s accreditation by a sanctioned educational accreditation group? Every school in the country must be accredited for a college to accept a student’s transcript from that school, By our countm there are 11 basketball players that were on collegiate rosters as of last season that claim to have attended Charis Prep. Yet Mr. Peralta has never shown documentation that his school was approved by an accrediting authority — to anyone.
Mr. Peralta claims he never said he was the pastor of Heart of David Ministries. In doing an interview with Mr. Peralta for our story of July 27, News Leader reporter Reggie Ponder heard Mr. Peralta identify himself as the minister of Heart of David Ministries. Mr. Ponder, incidentally, is a Methodist minister.
If Mr. Peralta has another take on this story, we would love to hear it, and would be glad to publish it, just as we did his letter to the editor.
In the meantime, this may not the last investigative piece we run on Charis Prep. We would welcome Mr. Peralta’s input and cooperation as we prepare these stories

Beacon to the Community

I was working on a story a short time ago. After pulling up a new document on the computer to write on, I did what I usually do to begin — typed in my name and title. You have seen it a hundred times. It usually starts almost every article in a newspaper — the author’s name and title.
So I typed in, “By David Williams.”
Then I typed in, “NL Staff Writer.” Up to now, that was just fine. But this occasion I found myself backspacing and typing in, “NL Editor.”
I had to smile a little bit.
I am deeply honored and humbled that Barry has entrusted the responsibility of editor to me. These papers have been his extended children for many, many years, and handing off a piece of their growth and development to a guy off the street — admittedly, one who ha been around journalism for a few years — is both a sobering and frightening proposition.
I am now the News Leader’s only editor in 24 years that does not have the last name of Merrill.
I have come to know Barry as a man who deeply cares for the communities he lives in and the people who live there. He believes firmly in the responsibility he has as the owner of the Princeton and Fremont papers.
And he has placed a lot of faith in me that not only will I maintain the relationship he has worked to build with the communities he serves, but I will also expand and strengthen that relationship.
That’s an awesome responsibility. And I do not take it lightly.
I have been fortunate to have as many years in this field as I do without ever having to change addresses. So as I accept the role of editor, I do not have to relearn the area or its people. I know the issues that drive the politics of the area. I understand what traditions this area has held, and what challenges in the future will try and coexist with those traditions.
It is my wish that the paper continue its role as the beacon of the communities it serves. That will happen only as our relationship deepens and grows. Good journalism comes through a mutual trust and reliance on each other — for you to give me good leads on stories and me to earn your trust by reporting on stories with fairness, accuracy and an eye on how it impacts the community.
We are not always going to agree. You did not always agree with Barry 100 percent of the time, and I do not possess any supernatural powers that will change that. Individual perception is as unique as a fingerprint, so what you think will not ever be a carbon copy of what I think.
But the communication lines work best when a free exchange of ideas is completed. I would like to see more letters to the editor in the paper, which will reflect the thoughts and feelings of all of you. And there is no rule that says you can’t call me up and take me to task on any particular issue, although I would prefer you do that on paper.
Our paper is a reflection of you, and we strive to ensure that with every edition.
There are some challenges in personnel to address, and like every small paper in America, the editor will never stop writing stories, covering news, taking photos — or making the coffee and taking out the trash. But these papers have grown exponentially while I have been here, and hopefully that growth can continue and blossom even more.
I have been performing editorial tasks in the last few months, and little about what I am doing will change with the adoption of the formal title. But the responsibility I accept with this position should give me a daily reminder of what I need to be doing and who I answer to, in addition to Barry.

See the humor in living

I told Barry that I needed to start writing columns with more social relevance. He grunted, and I assume that meant he agreed.
So look for that kind of column soon.
But don’t look for it today.
I can remember some of my more philosophical friends from college having a heated discussion one afternoon as they were sitting around the student union. Usually, when four friends in our group were sitting at the student union, there was a game of Spades going on, but apparently no one had thought to bring a deck. In the absence of what we considered true entertainment, they unleashed their brains and put a spin on their collective moral compasses, and locked mental horns on the subject of God.
Specifically, the question was - Does God have a sense of humor?
Understand, we were a bunch of know-it-all kids just out of our teens. We figured the best way to gain respect was to show off our ability to grapple with complex issues involving deeply held beliefs.
If any of us had the slightest chance at hooking up with a cheerleader, we would have decidedly taken a different track to climb the social ladder.
Anyway, the schools of thought on the subject were, naturally, pro and con.
The antagonists in the issue felt that God was such a serious entity and dealt with such decidedly sobering issues of life, he had no time to entertain such mundane distractions as a sense of humor.
The pro-humorists believed that since we were all God’s creatures, and a sense of humor is all such an important part of what we are as human beings, God must surely possess such an entity.
This went on for about an hour, and worked its way through several pots of coffee. For that day, the issue was decided by a disinterested young rebel who was sitting in the student union, thoroughly enjoying watch this group of pseudo-intellectuals waste their afternoon.
He walked over to the tables we were sitting at, leaned in, and said, “You know, guys, God does have a sense of humor. Just look around you.”
It made sense. Why would the Almighty provide us with a sense of humor and not enjoy one himself? And since His world is so full of humorous things, surely he would get at least a little chuckle out of the many entities he puts before us.
Another person later in my life amplified on the issue. He said, “God has a sense of humor … and some days, he’s rolling around heaven, holding his sides.”
It’s really critical in this day and time to be able to use all of your gifts, including the sense of humor given to you by God. One of the things that keeps me grounded in my trevails of daily life is that I can see so much humor in my life, and usually in very mundane and ordinary things.
If you can spot these things, you can provide yourself a little chuckle. Tell yourself a little joke and be the only one to get it. That can be very satisfying. Or share it with a few people who you know will get it.
For example …
I was having dinner with my family at one of those Mom-and-Pop restaurants that frequent the small town my mother lives in. When we got our menus, I noticed that an inserted card held the daily specials. But the card had so many glaring spelling errors, I started to chuckle at the pure ridiculousness of it.
I pointed it out - quietly - to my sister, and soon she was giggling and pointing to the menu for the benefit of another sister. Mom was about to send us away from the table.
Now mom and the sisters have spent plenty of time eating at that particular restaurant. They never noticed that little card, or its predecessors. But seeing it from a different perspective - mine - allowed them to appreciate the little laugh it provided.
There are several of those little things around. Just look and see what you see. Things like:
- Someone walking around wearing a jacket with shorts.
- People eating two double cheese burgers, a super-sized order of fries, and a small diet coke.
- Someone sweeping the sidewalk in front of their house on a windy day.
- A small boy riding his older brother’s bicycle.
- The face a person makes when they are drinking a milkshake with those bits of real fruit in it, and a piece of fruit blocks the straw off.
- A shopper walking around with a garment from a bargain bin, and person following them around, hoping the person abandons it so they can scoop it up.
- People sitting in church trying to stay awake. (That doesn’t happen at my church, in case my ministers are reading this.) Better yet, watch the spouses or parents of the nodders, trying to subtly awaken their companions.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what’s funny out there, and there are a lot bigger belly laughs in the universe. But these are but a sample of the little laugh that sustains us all.
Those little laughs can really pick a person up when life is dealing out tough times. Things like that can make you laugh when the day has been making you try and cry. That’s the pressure valve working, easing the stress of your day. If you can’t see one of these moments, think of the last one you did see.
When you are ready to pop, think about the last time you saw a woman coming out of the restroom, wearing a dress with the hem caught in the top of her pantyhose or dragging a bit of toilet paper from her shoe.
Those are the real precious memories. And they are not all that hard to find … if you just look for them.

Goodbye Susie

One of my favorite writers of all time is the Georgia Bard, Lewis Grizzard. The humorist and storyteller was a unique writer, precise in his use of language and mythical in his ability to touch all kinds of people on many different levels.
One of Grizzard’s most touching passages was his grief-laden pining after his beloved black lab, Catfish, died. He was never more painfully beautiful and soul-searing in his ability to make you remember pain that approached the level he was going through.
I will never be the writer he was. But I can share one of his emotions. My faithful Shih-Tzu dog, Susie, had to be put down recently.
Cancer had been ravaging her 13-year old body to a point that neither of us could bear.
Lately, the cancer was overcoming her good nature. She would lie around, and not jump up and go to the door when someone came. I would come in the room, and she would lie on her bed, thumping her tired tail as the rest of her lay so still.
I heard her crying in her sleep a few weeks ago, and I knew. I called the vet that Monday morning. We were trying to treat her with medicine, and by Wednesday afternoon she was starting to respond, getting a little of her spunk back.
But I came home Thursday evening to find her laying on the kitchen floor, limp and unresponsive to my touch or my calls to her. Yet she would try and get up, and bark and yelp. I drove her to the emergency vet in Wilson, who told me she had likely had a brain aneurism, and the other things she was doing were just neuro-reactions, like impulses that were not getting through.
I gave my friend up to God Thursday night.
I had made that fateful trip to the vet’s office before — every pet owner has made the trip, or will have made it before too long. Pets just do not outlive their owners. But the trips never get easier.
Susie has been in the family for most of the family’s existence. We had always had pets, and we had a dog when we got Susie. But I had fallen in love with the breed years ago, and when I saw an ad for free Shih-Tzu pups in the paper, we had to go check it out.
Susie came home with us that day. She was rambunctious, cuddly and cute, and was an instant hit with both the kids. We spent many a night in our living room, with Susie on the couch next to us or curled up on the floor. We spent many a night with Susie curled up at my wife’s feet, under the covers of our bed.
Susie was patient with small children. My granddaughter loved to cuddle her, long after the dog was too mature for that kind of thing, Susie never got upset, but would look back at me as if to silently plea for help. It was more her way to find a quiet hiding place, away from her adoring fans, and quietly observe the scene.
She gave love, and we took her love and gave it back. It was a simple relationship.
Over the years, the kids grew up and moved on, and in the last few months it has just been the two of us. We’d run on the road, or wrestle in the house, with me pulling at her paws until she would grudgingly give in and nip at my hands as I’d try and sneak up on her.
Now I am rattling around in what has become a truly empty house.
A lot of you will say, hey, it’s just a dog. You can get another one.
Well, yes, I can. But there is no such thing as just a dog — ask anyone who owns one.
I am not the kind of guy to keep her ashen remains in a jar, or hold onto clippings of her hair in an envelope. I do much better to remember her running by my side on a breezy spring day.
I can’t put her memories away. Like the faithful friend that all dogs are, she never left my side, even to the end.
Memories like that stay in a much more meaningful place than an old yellowing envelope, of a jar of dust.
Lewis Grizzard understood the loss of a friend, no matter how many legs they walk on. I understand it as well, now on three occasions. The pain is enormous, as if you had lost a loved one — because you did.
Now I am walking through the house and wishing I could be awakened at 5:30 in the morning by her sharp bark to be let out. I want to hear her toenails click on the linoleum as she walked into the kitchen to see if dinner was in the bowl yet. I want to drive into the yard and look at the window of the living room to see her nose poke through the blinds in welcome.
Susie was never the kind of dog to steal the show, and was never one that enjoyed being the center of attention, at least for very long. She just wanted acknowledgement — her place in the family. We were glad to give it.
I can only hope that I served you well, girl. You certainly served me well, with love enough for ten dogs and twenty masters. I love you.