On June 22, 2013 there will be a fundraiser for the Donnie Fritts Cancer Fund which has gotten low due to all of the surgeries and procedures of the past two and a half years. Kimberly Epps and Melinda Young are hosting a Dinner/Singing at the Newtown Baptist Church on June 22. Dinner starts at 5 p.m. and will be serving hamburgers, hot dogs, baked beans, slaw, dessert and drinks for a $5 donation. The singing starts at 6 p.m. and in addition to local singers the featured group will be Standing Strong. Sharon Fritts, Donnie’s wife, will be singing and Donnie will be giving a testimony of how to make it in spite of it all. There will be an offering received during the singing. To help serve at the event or in any other way, contact Kimberly or Melinda at 770-547-1565 or 770-548-4867. To donate directly to the Cancer fund, contact Eleanor Silvers at 770-547-9515. Donnie’s story: Donnie has had a rough winter and spring but is hoping for betters days. Donnie, in addition to not having his face reconstructed yet, has been having to deal with gallbladder trouble, A hiatus hernia and esophagitis. He has lost over 70 pounds in the past few months. He had a surgery for reconstruction in December of 2012 and the reconstruction team continues trying to find a way to fix Donnie’s face without the concern of it failing again. Donnie lost his forehead, upper palate, top lip, nose, part of his frontal lobe, and much of the bone and tissue from the middle of his face due to a rare cancer called Ameloblastic Carcinoma. Donnie lost all of this due to three stage four tumors that were literally eating his face off in August 2003. Because of losing so much tissue and bone, the reconstruction process has been difficult for the Maryland teams of doctors. Donnie was put together in 2009 and was very happy with the prosthetics only to have it all fail in 2010. Since then he has undergone several surgeries and procedures to repair the damage, kill the infections and come up with a new way to fix his face. “It used to be about having a face so that people won’t stare or feel uncomfortable around me - I have since found that people don’t care what I look like, they love me for me or if they don’t like what they see they look away,” said Donnie. “I want to be fixed to not have to suffer the horrible physical pain that goes with this. I am cancer free. I’d like to be pain free. He has had to “chew” with 2 fingers pressing down on his bottom teeth to eat. It takes him a long time to do this and causes arm and wrist pain due to the monotonous movements. Another reason he has lost so much weight over the past few months. “If they could just fix my upper palate so that I can eat...that would be great,” said Donnie. In spite of the pain and the stress, Donnie keeps on going. It is not unusual to see him out on a good day helping others mow their yard, planting, making birdhouses and witnessing. When he feels well, he is active and goes at it until he cannot go anymore. “Normal” has permanently changed for the Fritts household. Everything is different. One thing remains the same. Donnie and Sharon Fritts love the Lord, love each other, their families, friends and neighbors and love Calhoun. “Y’all are our family” says Donnie.

OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A search of a rural field in suburban Detroit has failed to turn up the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, an FBI agent announced Wednesday as authorities ended the dig. "We did not uncover any evidence relevant to the investigation on James Hoffa," said Robert Foley, head of the FBI in Detroit. "I am very confident of our result here after two-days-plus of diligent effort," he said. "As of this point, we'll be closing down the excavation operation." Authorities have pursued multiple leads as to Hoffa's whereabouts since his disappearance in 1975. He was last seen outside an Oakland County restaurant where he was to meet with a New Jersey Teamsters boss and a Detroit Mafia captain. The latest tip about Hoffa's remains came from reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli, who, through his lawyer, said Hoffa was buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in Oakland Township, north of Detroit. The barn is gone, but FBI agents on Monday starting poring over the field where it used to stand. On Tuesday, authorities used a backhoe to dig and move dirt around in the section of land. Authorities also called in forensic anthropologists from Michigan State University and cadaver dogs from the Michigan State Police. Hoffa's rise in the Teamsters, his 1964 conviction for jury tampering and his presumed murder are Detroit's link to a time when organized crime, public corruption and mob hits held the nation's attention. Over the years, authorities have received various tips, leading the FBI to possible burial sites near and far. In 2003, a backyard swimming pool was dug up 90 miles northwest of Detroit. Seven years ago, a tip from an ailing federal inmate led to a two-week search and excavation at a horse farm in the same region. Last year, soil samples were taken from under the concrete floor of a backyard shed north of the city. And detectives even pulled up floorboards at a Detroit house in 2004. No evidence of Hoffa was found. Other theories have suggested he was entombed in concrete at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, ground up and thrown in a Florida swamp or obliterated in a mob-owned fat-rendering plant. Zerilli, now 85, was in prison for organized crime when Hoffa disappeared. But he told New York TV station WNBC in January that he was informed about Hoffa's whereabouts after his release. His attorney, David Chasnick, said Zerilli is "intimately involved" with people who know where the body is buried. Details are in a manuscript Zerilli is selling online.

A small band of seven people are on one big mission; “to help bring about national reconciliation with America’s First People.” Traveling from places as far away as Virginia and Albany, N.Y., this small group came together Saturday, May 8 at New Echota, the first capital of the Cherokee people, along with other participants representing many cultures and ethnicities, with a plan to end their pilgrimage of peace in Tahlequah, Okla., the new capitol of the Cherokee Nation, Saturday, June 15. Known as the Peacemakers for Sacred Healing the group began the more than 1,000 mile journey, along one of the infamous Trail of Tears routes, with a ceremony in the council house at the historical site. The group listened to speakers such as Pastor Samuel Mosteller, President of the Georgia Southern Christian Leadership Conference and descendant of both Creek and Cherokee Native Americans; and Tom Bluewolf of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. The group delivered the message that in order to keep the atrocities of the past from occurring again, listening to the stories of the Native American’s journey of suffering, passed down from generation to generation, must be retold, and listened to. “This is really about coming together as a family,” said the groups spokesperson Rev. Claire Daugherty. “A big part of healing is listening to someone’s story. Anyone who has suffered trauma needs to talk about it. On this journey we are listening; listening and saying we are so sorry. We want to hear those stories and we want to repent and work together for a brighter future, we cannot undo the past, but the future is a blank slate. We can learn from the past.” Tom Bluewolf performed a “song of honor through the mouth of the Sassafrass Tree,” a flute created by a fellow Native American, from the bark of the Sassafrass Tree, inscribed with ancient Creek symbols of the wind and star clans. The group performed a symbolic “cleansing” ceremony by writing past transgressions on flash paper to be burned, leaving behind no ash, to the quiet notes of Bluewolf’s flute and the soft beat of the drum. The group then collectively signed a declaration of peace which reads: Peacemakers for Sacred Healing Trail of Tears Journey June 7 – 15, 2013: Georgia, Tennesee, Arkansas, Oklahoma We, the undersigned, are the Peacemakers for Sacred Healing between Native Americans and non-Native Americans. We free ourselves from the pain and anguish of our past. Our committed friendship is bound on earth and in heaven in the spirit of our ancestors. We continue to respect our sacred earth, especially our love for America and will together serve the world as one family under God, Great Spirit, Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, Heavenly Parent, Creator, True Parents. Amen, Aho, Aju! After the ceremony, the group convened for a picnic of a diverse spread of food and toured the rest of the grounds at New Echota before departing to their next location. According to Daugherty many different Native American descendants and tribes along their journey hosted the group allowing them to hear the stories of generations past. Many groups co-sponsored the pilgrimage including the United Native American Council; The American Clergy Leadership Conference; Family Federation for World Peace; Kingmaker Magazine; Women’s Federation for World Peace; and the Sufi Order of Villa Rica. Along their journey, the group prayed and asked for forgiveness for the wrong done to the Cherokee along the trail of tears, however this was not their first journey for peace. Though plans for the pilgrimage along the infamous Trail of Tears route began approximately six years go, according to Daugherty, since 2007, the group has been to Jamestown, Plymouth and others have also traveled overseas to the Middle East on missions of peace. “We are seed droppers and hopefully you will continue this type of reconciliation work. I hope that in your communities you will continue, and that as you are inspired you will do more and that the pains of this nation can be bound up and we really can live in peace,” said Daugherty. “The bible says the sins of the father are vested on the seventh generation. If you think of a generation as 25 years those seven generations have passed. 175 years, seven times 25. To me that is great news, that means now we can be freed from this painful burden. It’s not just the victim, but the perpetrator, the trauma comes back to them as well, so we must heal together.” The group’s journey ended Saturday in Tahlequah with a sacred “Wiping of the Tears” ceremony at the new Cherokee Capital. Daugherty says she hopes this will be an annual event to help continue to tell the story of what happened to the Nation’s First People, so that it will never happen again. Rev. Tom Cutts, National Executive Director American Clergy Leadership Conference, helped bring the group to Gordon County and New Echota to begin their pilgrimage.