Ticket to Oblivion

Law-and-order used to be a simple matter in Leadwood, Miss. (pop. 1,397). More for show than anything else, it seemed, the eight-man police force (seven part time) wrote about 100 traffic tickets a year. That was about it, until George Morgan was hired in June. In just three weeks on the job, Officer Morgan had handed out 53 tickets. Perhaps his worst mistake was giving one to Town Alderman Harvey Penberthy. With Penberthy leading the pack, the angry ticket holders besieged the board of aldermen to rid the town of this new menace. On July 11, Morgan was fired.

But what had seemed like common sense to the board looked like a travesty of justice to many other Leadwoodites. Soon Mayor Dick Hall, the city clerk, the city treasurer and most of the police department resigned in protest over the firing. Unfazed, the aldermen elected one of their own, Shelby Lawson, to replace Mayor Hall. With all the turmoil, however, she quit after two days. Thus it was that the Leadwood aldermen turned to the only man they could trust: Harvey Penberthy, who became the third mayor in less than a week. But Mayor Penberthy, who also runs the town garage, soon learned that holding high public office was no fun. Said he: "Every time I get under the hood of a car, I get a phone call from somebody complaining about something." After just two weeks in office, Penberthy demoted himself back to alderman, while the board prevailed upon Daniel Shunck, the director of the high school band, to take over. In the meantime, several vacancies remain in the police department. One eager applicant? A chastened George Morgan, who claims to have learned his lesson. Says he: "The other policemen told me to watch who I wrote up."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.