DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708300349

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER 

SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:  103 lines

A LITTLE GIRL'S HOPES INSPIRE FEDERAL HELP $25 MILLION GRANT WILL HELP REVIVE IDA BARBOUR AREA.

Nine-year-old Jacquail Mayes has a vision of her neighborhood in the future.

``There would be a lot of pretty houses with picket fences and beautiful flowers,'' she wrote. ``It would be a place where children can play outside and old people can sit on their porches and not fear for their safety.''

That's quite a contrast to the reality of life in Ida Barbour Homes, a public housing neighborhood where Jacquail has lived all her life.

``Some people here are not nice,'' she said this week. ``Sometimes I'm afraid to go out and play.''

It's not unusual for her to see a drug deal going down or to find a needle on the ground. Young friends come and go, some with families that are evicted for not paying the rent or for dealing drugs.

``The kids cry and cry, and I cry with them,'' she said.

Jacquail encompassed her thoughts and feelings in the drawings that won her a $100 savings bond in a contest sponsored by the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority. The drawings and the girl's writing became part of the authority's application for a Hope VI grant from the federal government to revitalize Ida Barbour.

PRHA and the city have designed a plan to create just the sort of community Jacquail envisioned. The $25 million Hope VI grant is one of many resources PRHA will tap for the revitalization over the next five years.

``I always win contests,'' said the reigning ``Miss Ida Barbour,'' who has a shelf full of trophies she has won for all sorts of activities, including baseball.

Showing off her long finger nails, she added, ``I take them off when I play ball.''

Jacquail lives with her grandmother, Gertie Wallace, who serves on the PRHA advisory board; her mother, Joyce Mayes, who is a secretary in the Churchland Junior High guidance department; and her brother, Jernard Mayes, an eighth-grader at Churchland Junior High.

The family is involved with the community, and Jacquail's grandmother encourages her to become involved in many activities.

``I like to play teacher,'' she said of her interests, with her thoughts turning to school.

She talked about Brian Wright, her teacher last year at Westhaven Elementary:

``He's a very nice person, and I'm going to have him again this year. He's moving with us to the fifth grade.''

As a fourth-grader, she went with classmates to Washington. This school year she's hoping to see New York City.

``Mr. Wright took us on the Spirit of Norfolk, and we went to the Marriott,'' Jacquail said. ``I like to do things.''

This year she's going to start piano lessons.

``Mr. Wright plays the piano, too,'' she added. ``I used to play drums, but I'd rather play piano.''

Her grandmother said she also ``reads all the time, and she loves to sing.''

Jacquail said she really likes music, especially gospel, rap and jazz, even some opera.

Asked what she did this summer, she never mentioned television.

``I rode bikes with my cousins and friends, and I jumped rope and took care of my doll babies,'' she said. ``And I like to go to the store on the corner and get sunflower seeds to eat. I like them with hot sauce.''

She also likes to cook and can reel off a list of things she can produce in the kitchen, such as bacon and eggs with ``real grits'' and hot dogs and cheese sticks, and chocolate chip cookies. Also, she says she wants to cook the Christmas turkey this year, and her grandmother has promised her that she can.

When she tires of playing teacher, she switches to playing church.

``I like to pray,'' she said. ``I go through the neighborhood praying for people. Most of them don't know I pray for them.''

Jacquail said she prayed for one woman ``who's not very nice.''

``But I think she's changing,'' she added seriously.

A baptized member of Twine Memorial Holy Temple, Jacquail takes in a lot of events at the nearby church and said without prompting, ``I love Bible study.''

Two trips highlighted this summer for her: one to a family reunion in Florida and the other to visit her father, Robert Horn, in Alabama.

Horn was in the military, Joyce Mayes said, when the couple separated.

``Then a few years ago he just showed up to see the children,'' Mayes said. ``And they went to see him in Alabama this summer.''

Her father is important in Jacquail's life.

``I call my doll baby Jaqueesie because that's what Daddy called me the first time I met him,'' she explained.

What does the future hold for a young girl in Ida Barbour?

This one says she's aiming to attend Hampton University, then go to medical school to become a pediatrician.

``And I think I'd like to come back and work with the children here,'' Jacquail said.

As for the immediate future?

Jacquail will celebrate her 10th birthday on Sept. 9, and she has big plans for the weekend before.

``We'll have a sleepover here on Sept. 5, and on Sept. 6, I am going to have an old-time tea party with the children dressing up,'' she said. ``Then I'm going to have a limousine ride and then a cookout.'' MEMO: Related story on page B5. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Jacquail Mayes, 9, has a vision of how she would like to see the Ida

Barbour neighborhood look when it's transformed.

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