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Rebecca Day helps Darian Suggs with his reading skills during a Strengthening the Basics class at Warner Temple Church in Wilmington last week.

Buy Photo Photo by Paul Stephen

Darian Suggs jumped up and down in his seat as he examined each multiplication flashcard, trying to answer the problems as quickly as possible.

Two minutes and 5 seconds was the time, deemed his questioner, Rebecca Day of Bluefield, W.Va.

0I’m going to beat it, he proclaimed.

After a few tries, the -year-old had correctly responded to all 55 flashcards in 5 seconds.

Out of breath, he laid his head down on the table before asking to go again.

Darian was participating in Warner Temple AME Zion Church’s 0Strengthening the Basics summer camp last week. Campers worked on their reading and writing in hopes of giving them a leg up once school resumes.

The program is one of many in the Wilmington area that try to steer youth in a positive direction. Officials and activists say it’s important to intervene before youth crimes occur or while they are still minor to prevent a lifelong habit.

It’s often the little things such as camp that can prevent juvenile crime or other problems later on, said the Rev. Clifford Barnett of Warner Temple.

0You do long-range things not with one grand-slam hit but by little trips to the bat, Barnett said.

Criminal patterns often start at school with fighting or other disruptive behavior.

In New Hanover County, there were complaints against juveniles in 00, according to records from the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

About 3 percent of those were categorized as minor crimes such as misdemeanor simple assault.

When a juvenile someone 5 or younger in North Carolina admits to a crime there are a number of resources officials use to try to lower their chances of reoffending.

They will be given a court counselor and referred to treatment options for themselves and their families.

For Wilmington teen Jeremy, his run-ins with the law began five years ago. He was being disruptive in school and his behavior escalated to fighting when he couldn’t control his temper.

It took the right juvenile court counselor to help him get on track, said Jeremy, 6, whose last name is being withheld to protect the confidentiality of his juvenile record.

After several years in and out of youth detention centers, he 0clicked with counselor Dave Kuehner at a state Youth Development Center the most serious detention option in the juvenile system.

Jeremy credits Kuehner with helping him reprogram his thinking and put things into perspective before acting on his anger.

0I can come to the point now and analyze what I’m mad about, he said. 0Even when I was getting in trouble, I did not like fighting.

County employees with Youth Empowerment Services also have worked with his mother to help her find better ways of communicating with her son.

Jeremy made his high school’s A/B honor roll this year and said he doesn’t plan on getting in trouble again. He was released from the Youth Development Center on Nov. , 00 his 6th birthday and would now be considered an adult in the court system if he reoffended in North Carolina.

0I don’t want to get locked up, he said. 0I just want to be a regular person, just living my life.

Juvenile Crime Prevention Councils in each county are one of the main resources North Carolina uses to help juveniles escape a criminal pattern.

The majority of New Hanover’s funds go toward juvenile psychological services, which provide evaluations and treatment recommendations.

One of Brunswick County’s biggest Juvenile Crime Prevention Council expenses is Teen Court.

Teenagers listen each month to cases involving their peers and determine an appropriate sentence, which usually includes an apology to a parent, community service and other educational punishments.

Cases at a recent session included drug and gun possession.

0This is their opportunity to make sure one mistake doesn’t haunt them for the rest of their lives, said Brunswick County Assistant District Attorney Gina Essey, who volunteers with Teen Court.

The experience often helps adolescents change their behavior, she said. That’s the ultimate goal to prevent additional run-ins with the criminal justice system.

Of about 40 Teen Court referrals during the 009-0 fiscal year, 94 percent of first-time offenders hadn’t re-entered the court system a year later, according to a report.

Community service can be a key component of rehabilitation, said Kathy Stoute, director of Youth Empowerment Services in New Hanover County.

Only percent of the youth assigned to YES’s community service and restitution division in the 00- fiscal year had new criminal charges by late June, Stoute said.

0Ultimately, we want them to be good citizens, she said. 0And unfortunately a lot of them aren’t connected to their community, and we expose them to that.

Erin Zureick: 343-00

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Tracking the words, actions and travels of Gov. Rick Perry as he ponders seeking the Republican presidential nomination. An announcement is expected within a few weeks from Perry, who said he wouldn’t make a decision until after the session is over.

Is he or isn’t he?

The regular and special legislative sessions are now over, and while Perry still hasn’t announced a decision, he’s traveling the country and acting very much like a candidate. His staff, for the record, insists there’s been no announcement because there’s been no decision. Stay tuned.

On the trail

Perry’s noncampaign campaign slowed late last week when the governor had minor back surgery. Before that in the past week, Perry made speaking engagements and held political meetings in Vail, Colo., and in a two-day California swing visited San Diego, Sacramento, Newport Beach and Beverly Hills.

His themes, as they have been at home in Texas, are consistently anti-Washington and staunchly conservative on spending, security and social issues. Expect it to continue, strategist Dave Carney told The Associated Press in an e-mail: “Most primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere are small-government, freedom-seeking, spending-weary voters who care about jobs, the economy and border security.”

What people are saying

“This candidate has the best chance of being the next Ronald Reagan of any candidate,” said California Assemblyman Dan Logue, a booster of the “Draft Rick Perry 2012″ effort.

What the polls show

National polls of registered voters from McClatchy-Marist and Fox News both showed Perry near the top of the pack for Republican primary candidates. In both polls, Perry drew 13 percent support among GOP primary voters, trailing only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The McClatchy-Marist poll also had Perry as the top choice among Tea Party supporters.

A poll of Texas voters from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found Perry losing to President Barack Obama 47-45 in a head-to-head matchup, with 8 percent of voters undecided.

– John Gravois and Aman Batheja

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White has filed a complaint against a special prosecutor from Whitley County.

He claims Dan Sigler, who’s one of the prosecutors pursuing vote fraud charges against White, committed the same offense.

But Sigler says White is just trying to take the focus off himself.

According to The Star, White filed an eightpage complaint with Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards.

It accuses Sigler, his exwife and current wife of voting at incorrect polling sites over the past sixyears.

Sigler says there’s no basis for the claims, and believes White is trying to deflect attention from his own case.

“I’m not sure what he’s complaining of because you can’t quite understand what his reasoning is,” said Sigler.  ”It’s bogus and hopefully it’ll be viewed accordingly for the authorities making a decision on it.”

White is accused of fraudulently voting in an incorrect precinct and is scheduled to go on trial August 8th. He could be removed from office if convicted.

Dan Sigler is a partner with Bloom, Gates, Sigler and Whiteleather in Columbia City.

He was also the special prosecutor in Matt Kelty’s campaign fraud case, which ended with a guilty plea.

The former superintendent of the New Holstein School District was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for setting up a sexual encounter with a person whom he thought was a 15-year-old boy.

But the person on the other end of the Internet conversations last year was a Milwaukee police officer who had posed as the youth responding to a personal ad posted by Christopher J. Nelson on Craigslist.

“Rarely do I get a defendant like you Mr. Nelson, a dedicated public servant,” said Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Dennis Cimpl.

Cimpl noted that Nelson’s accomplishments, lack of criminal record, cooperation and remorse weren’t enough to avoid the five-year term the law presumes as a minimum for his crime, followed by five years of extended supervision.

“The Legislature has spoken,” Cimpl said. “They set a high barrier. They want punishment.”

According to the criminal complaint, the online chats began in May 2010 and culminated in January, when Nelson, 59, set up a meeting with the supposed boy at a specific location while Nelson was in Milwaukee for a state school board conference. Police staked out the spot, saw Nelson arrive and later stopped him. He then admitted he had been the person communicating online.

Right before the planned meeting, the posing officer had asked what the encounter would be like, and Nelson responded, “Well, we will meet and talk, and I suppose size one another up in each of our minds . . . probably thinking to ourselves if we are who we thought we would be meeting . . . am I what u thought you’d meet and are you the person I was thinking I’d meet. Then if we say ‘yes’ in our minds we’ll leave go to hotel,” according to the complaint. Then it detailed specific sex acts.

At his hotel room, police found a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, the room dimly lighted by scented candles, body massage oils and condoms.

Nelson was charged in February and pleaded guilty in May to one count of using a computer to facilitate a sex crime. He was fired in March by the New Holstein School Board.

On Thursday, he appeared in a gray suit, white shirt and tie. He told Cimpl he’s been embarrassed, ashamed and disgusted with what he said online. But he had told a doctor he had never had such conversations or any sexual contact with a minor.

Nelson said his 79 days in jail before release on bail have already changed his life, and he begged Cimpl not to send him to prison.

But Cimpl, reading from a psychological evaluation, said he was convinced that if a real 15-year-old had shown up on Jan. 19, Nelson would have committed a sex crime, and that the community suffers when someone like Nelson is nabbed in a sting operation.

“We’re all victims when someone wants to prey on children,” Cimpl said.

At the time of his arrest, Nelson had a computer flash drive with child pornography. A couple of days later, more were found in his New Holstein office. He faces five counts of possessing child pornography in Calumet County. That case is pending.

Next years bar exam may be more crowded.

In a decision Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court significantly changed who can practice law in Minnesota. The court changed the admission rules and allowed licensed attorneys from other states to sit for the Minnesota bar exam. The ruling also covers attorneys who graduated from non-American Bar Association accredited law schools.

The Institute for Justice’s Minnesota Chapter fought for several years for the rule change and said the American Bar Association, the state Board of Law Examiners fought the changed in order to protect a “monopoly.”

In a release Lee McGrath, the executive director for the institute, celebrated the decision.

“[B]ecause of the court’s decision, Minnesota consumers will have a wider range of qualified attorneys, including those willing to compete by offering more affordable rates. A competitive marketplace is the best regulator and serves consumers far better than a handful of overseers appointed by the industry itself,” he said.

Minnesota’s new rule is similar to a rule that the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted in 1998. Approximately 30 attorneys who graduated from non-ABA-accredited laws schools have become licensed to practice law in Wisconsin to date.