By By Kerry Whipple Bean – publisher
The seventh- and eighth-grade classes from Brewton Middle School took a stand Tuesday afternoon.
During a special presentation by parenting expert speaker Jim Williams, they pledged to stop bullying behavior.
Using personal stories as examples, Williams talked to the students Tuesday afternoon about the dangers not only of bullying but also of being bystanders.
Williams told the students about his son Curt, who endured bullying twice, when the family moved and he began to attend new schools. The bullying continued until a boy named Vance finally befriended Curt.
Curt later went to Birmingham-Southern on a tennis scholarship. He was killed in 1995 by a drunk driver, a tragedy that Williams said now drives his work with children and parents.
Who are you willing to reach out to? If you've been ignored, are you willing to forgive?”
Williams used his son's friend Vance as an example of how a life can be turned around by doing the right thing. When Vance was married, Williams said, he kept a place empty at the head table in memory of Curt; when he had a son, he and his wife named him after Curt.