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Biloxi-Gulfport, Miss. Thursday, September 25,1969
Nixon Replies To Letter Written By Gulfport Man
When Homer Everett Cuevas, 1609 42nd avenue, Gulfport, opened his mail Tuesday, he found a letter on embossed White House stationery from President Richard Nixon via his staff assistant, Hugh W. Sloan Jr.
It read: “Dear Mr. Cuevas, The President was very pleased to receive your kind letter of September 8 about his visit to Gulfport. He wants you to know he greatly appreciated your thoughtfulness in taking the time to write as you did.
“The President aiso thanks you for inviting him to visit Gulfport again after it has been rebuilt and to do some deep-sea fishing and have some seafood. You may be sure this will be remembered.
“With the President’s best wishes to you. Sincerely,
“Hugh W. Sloan Jr., staff assistant to the President.”
This was the President’s response to a gesture made by Mr. Cuevas the night of the Nixon visit to Gulfport. Unable to join the long lines and growing crowds of the Coastwide turnout at Municipal Airport, Mr. Cuevas, inspired, by the President’s message on television, sat down during the eourse of the visit and drafted a letter thanking Nixon for visiting Mississippi.
“I had it in the mail that night as the Air Force One was taking off,” the Gulfport man stated. “I felt strongly and I wanted him to know that the little people appreciated his stop-ovei“I felt this way because where else has Mr. Nixon traveled that anti-Vietnam war signs or hippie movements have not been a major factor in the newsreel accounts? There was none of this that I could see and I knew this visit for that reason would stand out in his inemory.”
So Mr. Cuevas took the clipping from The Daily Herald of Monday night, which announced the president’s impending arrival, attached it to his letter for mailing simultaneously with the
chief executive's departure, and here is what he wrote;
“Dear Mr. President,
“I am writing this letter as your plane leaves Gulfport, Mississippi. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for faking time out from your busy schedule to visit Gulfport and see the disaster left by Camille.
“I know you will receive letters from state, city and county officials from Mississippi and
all over, but this is coming from a plain citizen, retired from the city fire department, and now employed with the Public Works Department of Gulfport.
“I would like for this to be an invitation to you and Mrs. Nixon to visit Gulfport again when everything has been rebuilt for some deepsea fishing and some good seafood.
“Sincerely,
“Homer E. Cuevas.”
Texas Man Donates $1,200 To Churches
A Fort Worth, Tex., business . executive has made donations! totalling $1,200 to help six! churches in Gulfport and Pass! Christian with repairs and reconstruction due to damage in Hurricane Camille.
County Judge Gaston H. Hewes said checks in the i amount of $200 each have been! distributed to the churches j which represent four denomina-! tions. The churches were not; identified.	j
Hewes said the checks were j sent to him for disbursement by C.J. Davidson and the David-! son Family Charitable Founda-i tion on recommendation of a' mutual acquaintance.	j
The judge, among those whose; beachfront residences were de-: stroyed by the killer storm,; made the donations public be- ] cause, he said, they are repre-j sentative of the free-will assist- \ ance which has been given by | so many.	|