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SUNDAY June 21, 2009 Rock Hill ! South Carolina h e r a l d o n l i n e . c o m

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INSIDEAdvice/puzzles 3C Opinion 2EBusiness 4B Reader’s Page 7BClassifieds 4-8E Scrapbook 1-2CDeaths 3B Sports 1-7DMovies 3C Viewpoint 1-3E

WEATHERPartly cloudy

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Details, page 8A

DEATHSBetty Barker Olian McKinney Clarence TruesdaleCharles Brown James Patterson Danny TurnerFreddie Mae Champion Charlene Rhinehart Terry WilsonEtta Crank Carolyn Tiller Details, page 3B

Craigslist stings net 8 prostitutionarrests in Fort Mill LOCAL ! 1B

Today, it’s allabout fathers" Readers share photos ! 1C" President urges dads to step up ! SEE INSERT

By Shawn Cetronescetrone@heraldonline.comSeveral planned construction

projects should make walking toschool safer for students who fol-low dangerous routes to at least fiveRock Hill schools, but most areyears away and at least one elemen-tary school has no solution in sight.

More than two weeks after offi-cials vowed to install sidewalks andsigns for students walking to Salu-da Trail Middle, where a seventh-grade student was hit last month byan SUV after school, worries lingerabout the safety of students whowalk to and from other campuses.The injured student was airlifted toa Charlotte hospital.

The accident lent new weight toparents’ concerns about studentswalking along traffic-jammedstreets that lack sidewalks. Itpushed school and county officialsto act quickly.

At Saluda Trail, they found$20,000 for sidewalks, markedcrosswalks and signs warning driv-

ers to slow down. Seven hundredfeet of sidewalk will be on theground by the time school starts inAugust, officials said. The countyplans to use money from its share ofgas taxes to pay for it.

Other schools still are waitingfor the launch of construction proj-ects — which are funded by laggingsales tax revenue. In the meantime,students will continue to treadalong grassy shoulders and bravebusy roads on their way to class.

With few exceptions, South Car-olina students who live within 1.5 miles of their school are not eli-gible to ride a school bus.

The most urgent concern, RockHill schools Superintendent LynnMoody has said, is Sullivan Middle.More students walk to that schoolthan any other in the district,school officials said.

Principal Michael Waiksnis saidhe figures some 300 of the school’s800 students last school yearwalked or rode bicycles to the cam-pus located off Eden Terrace.

Parents seeksidewalks atfive campuses

See SAFETY ! 8A

ROCK HILL SCHOOLS

INSIDE

" Five school in question ! 8A

Improvingwalkers’safety willtake time

By Kevin HallMcClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON—Call it son ofsubprime. Experts warn that a newwave of mortgage foreclosuresmight be coming soon and could ri-val the default rates for subprimemortgages and slow efforts to findthe bottom in a prolonged nationalhousing slump.

The mortgages in question are$230 billion of option adjustable-rate mortgages, creative lendingproducts that flourished at theheight of the housing boom. In anoption ARM, a borrower can opt topay less than his or her monthlybalance due, and the difference istacked onto the outstanding loanbalance.

Many experts had expected anexplosion of defaults in the spring-time on these roughly 564,000 out-standing mortgages. However, in-terest rates dropped to historiclows, and that delayed the detona-tion of what many housing analystsstill see as a ticking time bomb.

“They’re probably going to de-fault at a rate that makes subprimelook like a walk in the park,”warned Rick Sharga, senior vicepresident for RealtyTrac, a foreclo-sure research firm in Irvine, Calif.

Option ARMs have triggers thatreset to a new interest rate based oneither a set time frame or when debtexceeds some cap above the loan’s

value. The spring drop in interestrates allowed many borrowers toescape a day of reckoning becausethe lower rates prevented a trigger-ing of that cap.

That postponed the problem be-

Worse than subprime?Other mortgagesimploding slowly

© 2009 MCTSource: Barclays CapitalGraphic: Judy Treible

*Not including the small share retained on bank balance sheets

Apr.’09

2004 3%2005 8%2006 11%2007 14%

Oct.’12

Thousands of option adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), which allow borrowers to pay less than is due for a set period of time, will recast (be recalculated) to higher rates, with a larger balance on a home now worth less. Many defaults are expected.

More mortgagedefaults?

When recasts will happenValue of option ARMs by month of recast, in billions

$12.5 billion

5

$10

0

Fuel for the housing bubbleOption ARMs as a percent of all mortgages*, by year

See MORTGAGES ! 7A

Experts: OptionARMs tickingtime bombs

Stand up straight. Do your best.Think bigger.

We may not have liked it, butwe certainly needed to hear it.

A father’s advice, sought or un-sought, often resonates withus for the rest of our lives. Inhonor of Father’s Day, TheHerald asked readers for thebest advice they’ve receivedfrom their fathers.

Here are some of their stories.

Words ofwisdom

from dad

Jim Stratakos/jstratakos@heraldonline.comBambi Shepherd shows one of her few remaining photos of her father, Robert Walker Jr.

Story by Jason Foster ! jfoster@heraldonline.com

‘Speak up for yourself’Mike Hill has always been somewhat of

an introvert — not necessarily shy,just reserved. Which is the oppositeof his father, who Hill said “neversees anybody he doesn’t talk to.”

So years ago, Hill’s father offered himsome advice that was passed downfrom his father: “He who tooteth nothis own horn heareth not the tootthereof.”

Got that? “This essentially means that no one will

know what you can do if you don’tshow them,” said Hill, 61, a recently

See HILL ! 7A

Never go to bed angryOf all the imitable qualities her father

had, Jane Puckett-Crisp seeks tofollow his heart.

It was a tender heart, she said, alwaysfull of forgiveness and joy. It was thesource of this advice: Never go to bedangry at anyone.

“He had the most forgiving heart ofanyone I have ever known,” saidPuckett-Crisp, 39, who lived in RockHill as a child and lives in Gastonia,N.C.

Whenever anger tried to get the best ofPuckett-Crisp, a talk with her dad was

See PUCKETT ! 7A

‘Wear out, don’t rust out’Rock Hill’s Beth Gault turned advice

from her father into a new kitchenfloor.

The long version of the advice: Don’t sitback and have other people do thingsyou can do for yourself. Learn thesatisfaction of hard work.

The short version: Wear out, don’t rustout.

In big things and small, do it yourself ifyou can.

“We’ve never had a yard man, and we’venever had a maid. … I think I wasabout 45 before I had my first

See GAULT ! 7A

An echoing voiceBambi Shepherd got lots of advice from her father through the years, but what he told her on a March day in 2004 sticks out most.Her father, Robert Walker Jr., had been having health problems and was in the hospital. He called her to talk about the day’s upcoming

activities. He wanted her to stop by. His voice was strong on this day. During their conversation, he unloaded a slew of unsolicited advice. Always be strong. Always stick to what you believe. Always go with your

instincts, no matter what. And, above all, always love your family and believe in your children.As their conversation drew to a close, her father, not one to show his emotions, told her he loved her. Shepherd hung up the phone.

See WALKER ! 7A

Melissa Cherrymcherry@heraldonline.com

Bob, left, and Mike Hill

Special to The HeraldFrom left, Jane Puckett-Crisp,William Perry Puckett and Ivy.

Special to The HeraldBeth Gault, left, and MacCunningham.

Sunday ! June 21, 2009 The Herald 7A

WalkerContinued from 1A

Her father died that afternoon, two days after his 63rd birthday.“That was the last time I ever talked to him,” said Shepherd, 40, who lives in

York.Shepherd believes her father’s outpouring of advice happened because he

knew he was about to die.She sensed something, too.“When I talked to him that day … I just kept having this gnawing, nagging

feeling for the rest of the day. … knowing how dad was, wasn’t reallyaffectionate,” she said.

But the advice will always be special, especially because it came in her lastconversation with her father.

Just days before his death, Shepherd’s father asked one of her daughters topromise him that she’d stay in school and do well. Shepherd reinforcesthat challenge to her two daughters, ages 10 and 13.

“Do what your grampa would want,” she tells them.The memory of her father’s last advice brings comfort to Shepherd when

times get rough, particularly on holidays. Like today.“I miss him so much,” she said. “I can still hear his voice echoing.”

HillContinued from 1A

retired teacher who lives in Fort Mill.It’s not about bragging, though. It’s about confidence and letting people get

to know you, Hill said.“If you look confident, people believe it,” he said. “It really helps me to be a

little more outgoing, a little less hesitant to talk to people.”Hill put the advice to use during his years as a teacher. For example, when

teaching vocabulary, he would give his students dictionaries andchallenge them to find a word he couldn’t define. They might find a few,but his point was well made.

“They don’t realize that people have that kind of vocabulary, that people canactually use those words,” he said. “It’s a brag in a way, but itdemonstrates to them that people do use that kind of vocabulary, thateverybody’s not locked into the vocabulary of a 14-year-old.”

Hill has passed down the advice to his three children, ages 30, 26 and 17. They’re pretty outgoing, Hill said. Perhaps from years of hearing that familiar

advice. “They don’t hide their light under a bushel,” he said.Hill’s father, Bob, 85 and also living in Fort Mill, said his intent in doling out

the advice so many years ago was not to promote arrogance or bragging.He just wanted to help his son come out of a shell.

“I guess in retrospect, the point to him was to be a little more outgoing,”said Bob Hill, a World War II Marine veteran and a retired businessman.“Don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself. If you don’t, certainly nobodyelse will.”

GaultContinued from 1A

pedicure,” said Gault, 48.Growing up, Gault and her brothers learned from their father how to rebuild

cars and houses. She put the experience to use in the house where shelives now by building a bathroom and putting in that new kitchen floor.

They couldn’t eat in kitchen for weeks during the work, but, “The floor looksphenomenal,” said Gault, who works at an interior design firm. “There’s atremendous amount of pride in that.”

Gault figures her father learned the benefits of self-suffiency growing upduring the Great Depression.

Whatever the source, Mac Cunningham, 82, of Hartsville continues topractice what he preached. He still participates in church mission work —he traveled to Mexico last year — and does his own yard and house work.

“That’s my motto, and it came to me from my father,” he said last week fromhis mountain house in Highlands, N.C., where he has been painting thehouse and redoing the porch.

His father lived to be 89 and worked until a couple months before he died. “I do not like to sit around and do nothing,” said Cunningham, a World War II

Navy veteran who worked for 41 years as a research chemist. “I hope thatI can last until I’m 89. I just love to get out and do.”

Cunningham said his family sometimes complains that he tries to do toomuch. But he enjoys the work, whether it’s working on the mountainhouse or using his woodworking skills to build furniture for all his children.

“I’ve done it all myself and had a good sense of satisfaction,” he said.Like father, like daughter. Especially when it came to that new kitchen floor.“It’s a lot easier to get someone else do it,” Gault said, “but the sense of

accomplishment is not there.”So goes life in the Gault family. It’s the message Gault imparts on her

21-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.“I just try to model my life after his as much as possible,” Gault said of her

father. “Don’t sit back and watch the world go by.”

PuckettContinued from 1A

all that was needed.His question: Is it really worth being angry and holding a grudge over this?“He always just had this way … of explaining things to us and getting us to

see it really wasn’t worth it and that you’d be a better and happier personto just let it go,” Puckett-Crisp said of her father, William Perry Puckett,who lived for many years in Rock Hill before moving to North Carolina.

Her father, by his actions, provided a model for Puckett-Crisp on dealing withanger. When he got angry, he would sit back and think about the situation.Usually, he got upset with himself for being angry in the first place. Thenhe would quickly make amends.

“Most of the time, he would be the one who would call and say he wassorry,” Puckett-Crisp said.

Puckett-Crisp’s father died in January 2007 at age 55. With his death, shelost not only her father and her counselor but also her best friend.

But his spirit lives on through his motto of forgiveness.“Whenever I get into situations when I would’ve called my dad,” she said, “I

just try to listen to the memories of his voice and allow his advice to sinkin to me so I’ll make the right choice.”

The right choice isn’t always the easiest one, she said. But it’s important tomake things right, regardless of whether the other person has doneanything wrong.

Doing that always brings relief, she said.“I feel like a hundred-pound weight’s been lifted off my shoulders,”

Puckett-Crisp said. “And I have a peace.”

http://careerbuilder.heraldonline.com

cause most option ARMs have five-year automatic trigger dates. Theseloans were most prevalent in statessuch as California, Florida and Ne-vada, where home prices havesunk so far that many homeownersare underwater: They owe morethan their homes are worth.

The bulk of outstanding optionARMs — a product no longer avail-able to homebuyers — were issuedbetween 2004 and 2007. Monthlypayments on these mortgages aredue to reset to a higher lending ratebetween 2009 and 2012.

“They’re going to have a loanthey cannot afford on a house that’sprobably way underwater and nothave a lot of good options on how toavoid foreclosure proceedings,”Sharga said.

While a smaller number thansubprime mortgages, option ARMsgrew from 3 percent of all mortgag-es bundled and sold to investors in2004 to 14 percent by 2007.

They pose risks for the broaderU.S. economy because they threat-en to add inventory to a depressedhousing market and could hastenthe blistering pace of foreclosurefilings — more than 1 million fromMarch to May alone.

“We can’t rebuild housing val-ues when there’s a serious risk thatanother set of mortgages is collaps-ing,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Har-vard University law professor whoheads a government panel oversee-ing the spending of Wall Streetbailout money.

The Mortgage Bankers Associa-tion takes a more optimistic view.

“Relative to what the industrywas looking at a year and a half ago… the recast is not going to be theproblem people thought it was go-ing to be,” said Michael Fratantoni,the vice president of research.

Mortgagesfrom 1A

Sunday ! June 21, 2009 The Herald 7A

WalkerContinued from 1A

Her father died that afternoon, two days after his 63rd birthday.“That was the last time I ever talked to him,” said Shepherd, 40, who lives in

York.Shepherd believes her father’s outpouring of advice happened because he

knew he was about to die.She sensed something, too.“When I talked to him that day … I just kept having this gnawing, nagging

feeling for the rest of the day. … knowing how dad was, wasn’t reallyaffectionate,” she said.

But the advice will always be special, especially because it came in her lastconversation with her father.

Just days before his death, Shepherd’s father asked one of her daughters topromise him that she’d stay in school and do well. Shepherd reinforcesthat challenge to her two daughters, ages 10 and 13.

“Do what your grampa would want,” she tells them.The memory of her father’s last advice brings comfort to Shepherd when

times get rough, particularly on holidays. Like today.“I miss him so much,” she said. “I can still hear his voice echoing.”

HillContinued from 1A

retired teacher who lives in Fort Mill.It’s not about bragging, though. It’s about confidence and letting people get

to know you, Hill said.“If you look confident, people believe it,” he said. “It really helps me to be a

little more outgoing, a little less hesitant to talk to people.”Hill put the advice to use during his years as a teacher. For example, when

teaching vocabulary, he would give his students dictionaries andchallenge them to find a word he couldn’t define. They might find a few,but his point was well made.

“They don’t realize that people have that kind of vocabulary, that people canactually use those words,” he said. “It’s a brag in a way, but itdemonstrates to them that people do use that kind of vocabulary, thateverybody’s not locked into the vocabulary of a 14-year-old.”

Hill has passed down the advice to his three children, ages 30, 26 and 17. They’re pretty outgoing, Hill said. Perhaps from years of hearing that familiar

advice. “They don’t hide their light under a bushel,” he said.Hill’s father, Bob, 85 and also living in Fort Mill, said his intent in doling out

the advice so many years ago was not to promote arrogance or bragging.He just wanted to help his son come out of a shell.

“I guess in retrospect, the point to him was to be a little more outgoing,”said Bob Hill, a World War II Marine veteran and a retired businessman.“Don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself. If you don’t, certainly nobodyelse will.”

GaultContinued from 1A

pedicure,” said Gault, 48.Growing up, Gault and her brothers learned from their father how to rebuild

cars and houses. She put the experience to use in the house where shelives now by building a bathroom and putting in that new kitchen floor.

They couldn’t eat in kitchen for weeks during the work, but, “The floor looksphenomenal,” said Gault, who works at an interior design firm. “There’s atremendous amount of pride in that.”

Gault figures her father learned the benefits of self-suffiency growing upduring the Great Depression.

Whatever the source, Mac Cunningham, 82, of Hartsville continues topractice what he preached. He still participates in church mission work —he traveled to Mexico last year — and does his own yard and house work.

“That’s my motto, and it came to me from my father,” he said last week fromhis mountain house in Highlands, N.C., where he has been painting thehouse and redoing the porch.

His father lived to be 89 and worked until a couple months before he died. “I do not like to sit around and do nothing,” said Cunningham, a World War II

Navy veteran who worked for 41 years as a research chemist. “I hope thatI can last until I’m 89. I just love to get out and do.”

Cunningham said his family sometimes complains that he tries to do toomuch. But he enjoys the work, whether it’s working on the mountainhouse or using his woodworking skills to build furniture for all his children.

“I’ve done it all myself and had a good sense of satisfaction,” he said.Like father, like daughter. Especially when it came to that new kitchen floor.“It’s a lot easier to get someone else do it,” Gault said, “but the sense of

accomplishment is not there.”So goes life in the Gault family. It’s the message Gault imparts on her

21-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.“I just try to model my life after his as much as possible,” Gault said of her

father. “Don’t sit back and watch the world go by.”

PuckettContinued from 1A

all that was needed.His question: Is it really worth being angry and holding a grudge over this?“He always just had this way … of explaining things to us and getting us to

see it really wasn’t worth it and that you’d be a better and happier personto just let it go,” Puckett-Crisp said of her father, William Perry Puckett,who lived for many years in Rock Hill before moving to North Carolina.

Her father, by his actions, provided a model for Puckett-Crisp on dealing withanger. When he got angry, he would sit back and think about the situation.Usually, he got upset with himself for being angry in the first place. Thenhe would quickly make amends.

“Most of the time, he would be the one who would call and say he wassorry,” Puckett-Crisp said.

Puckett-Crisp’s father died in January 2007 at age 55. With his death, shelost not only her father and her counselor but also her best friend.

But his spirit lives on through his motto of forgiveness.“Whenever I get into situations when I would’ve called my dad,” she said, “I

just try to listen to the memories of his voice and allow his advice to sinkin to me so I’ll make the right choice.”

The right choice isn’t always the easiest one, she said. But it’s important tomake things right, regardless of whether the other person has doneanything wrong.

Doing that always brings relief, she said.“I feel like a hundred-pound weight’s been lifted off my shoulders,”

Puckett-Crisp said. “And I have a peace.”

http://careerbuilder.heraldonline.com

cause most option ARMs have five-year automatic trigger dates. Theseloans were most prevalent in statessuch as California, Florida and Ne-vada, where home prices havesunk so far that many homeownersare underwater: They owe morethan their homes are worth.

The bulk of outstanding optionARMs — a product no longer avail-able to homebuyers — were issuedbetween 2004 and 2007. Monthlypayments on these mortgages aredue to reset to a higher lending ratebetween 2009 and 2012.

“They’re going to have a loanthey cannot afford on a house that’sprobably way underwater and nothave a lot of good options on how toavoid foreclosure proceedings,”Sharga said.

While a smaller number thansubprime mortgages, option ARMsgrew from 3 percent of all mortgag-es bundled and sold to investors in2004 to 14 percent by 2007.

They pose risks for the broaderU.S. economy because they threat-en to add inventory to a depressedhousing market and could hastenthe blistering pace of foreclosurefilings — more than 1 million fromMarch to May alone.

“We can’t rebuild housing val-ues when there’s a serious risk thatanother set of mortgages is collaps-ing,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Har-vard University law professor whoheads a government panel oversee-ing the spending of Wall Streetbailout money.

The Mortgage Bankers Associa-tion takes a more optimistic view.

“Relative to what the industrywas looking at a year and a half ago… the recast is not going to be theproblem people thought it was go-ing to be,” said Michael Fratantoni,the vice president of research.

Mortgagesfrom 1A