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Echo staff photo by Bennie Shallbetter;../
(Above) Pearlington ,resl-;| dent Oscar Breland was the V principal at the ; Logtown , school •, when Senator John £ C. Stennis made his famous,*j speech there from the back if of a flatbed''trailer. People ^ were given two years'4'to J? leave their old lives behind -and begin again.
'
(Right) This map shows i Hancock County^ as it was, r; before Stennis Space Center' and its surrounding buffer^ zone came to the'area forc-j ing thousands'‘of residents to give up^thelr. homes. Napoleonvllle^was f between e Gainesville and Logtown and Westonia was in the south; v em part of the county near f old Hwy. 43. For some rea-. son they are . not on 'thlsj? map. ■ ••■l’
Il residents .of the small |{; communities dotting 1 what is now, the yi StennisSpace Center and Buffer Zone had no idea that f their lives were about to chnngp for»VPr, though I.Iip • decision had already been made 'for'them. Rumors of strange '.men
IS
Oscar had lived all thf lives.
In 1953, Oscar took over the school as principal, 7 and 8th grade teacher, hz ketball coach and mainl nance man.
“>ou name it, , he did i said Truman.
--------------- The fan
ly lived in house pi
owhp^ Fere,-:
Mscouting,
jrided by t
:■ engines were^'“j?. helped wi .dismissed 'as •irOT&T&dhcfeSi-of the'pcoplc who’ Oscar
absurd, even ! vcrcfcand those memories/ i, as- the Corps ■■	••	.■. /v. - .	.
tr of - Engineers ; .may. be as similoi Or as varied.«
. quietly ■ gath-??! :	tfe'pebple themselves,. ’•?.
- ered informa- i' c'^vrj '■	'	;	:
4ion . about *	of the.communmes
land values . that. Vere oncc in Honcock
•for use by County; Log "low. Santa Rosa.
^	. -Gainesville, Napoleon,:■	,
Stevenson, and Mxsionio, the :
c people who
are all we liave to \
memories o
were
In October, people . ' listened in shocked disbelief. as the announce-,; remind us of what once was a
• menU, came ?. , v^ta| port of JcX^l life. ^
;■ nonchalantly	,	s	:	-	"	1	.
over _ the	........	““	'	"
afternoon ' radio t’news that . their homes, land, businesses, their past and their future were to be seized by eminent . domain by the federal government. In	their place
would be a new Federal City ^ which would house NASA’s .■•'new rocket testing facility.
^v^'-Oscar-Breland -
and
had
Truman lived
in
Logtown close to ,ten years
duties of ru ning	t
school well as ra ing	th(
gi'owing fai ily of thr boys and ti girls Everyoi helped wi the runnii of the schc back the s a i Truman, ai the paren ““	'	““	were ' ve
involved.
At 86, Oscar has signs Alzheimer’s and so his mei ory is not what it once was “He thinks a lot, but ] doesn’t talk a lot any mor said Truman.
But there is one memo that is clear in Oscar’s mii and that is the day th
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