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Before you go looking at houses, youll need to find a real estate agent. Hiring a real estate agent takes a little bit of time to do. Youre making one of the most important financial decisions in your life and you want to make sure you hire the right person.

You can get recommendations for agents from family members, friends and co-workers you trust who have used that agent themselves in buying a home. You can also check the internet, newspaper listings, and "Homes for Sale" publications.

The best type of agent to look for are the ones who work in real estate full-time. Sometimes, the part-time agents may not devote enough time towards finding a home for you. You want agents who do this for a living full-time and will make sure that your housing needs are met. Also, because there is such a high turnover among real estate agents, you want to find several that have been doing this for at least the past couple of years.

Try to find agents that are licensed and have the Graduate, REALTORS Institute series (GRI) accreditation from the National Association of REALTORS (NAR). Agents who have the GRI will usually have it printed on their letterhead or business cards. If not, just ask if they have this particular accreditation.

After selecting several agents, set up interviews with each one. The interviews dont have to be long, no more than an hour. During the interview, explain to the agent what kind of house youre looking for, what neighborhoods youre interested in, and the price range youre comfortable with.

Ask the agent if he or she is a buyers agent. A buyers agent represents the buyer only. Most agents say they represent the buyer and seller, which is called dual agency, but they really only represent the seller. These agents must legally negotiate on behalf of the seller and put the sellers interest first before yours.

Ask if the agent is an "exclusive buyers agent". This type of agent only works with buyers and does not sell homes. Ask to talk with past buyers who have bought homes in the neighborhoods youre interested in.

After conducting interviews with all the agents, choose the one who answered your questions well and made you feel that youre interests were important and theyre committed to finding that perfect home for you.

Michelle Roebuck provides mortgage and home buying advice for people with bad credit at http://www.find-bad-credit-mortgage-loans.com Sign up for her newsletter at http://www.find-bad-credit-mortgage-loans.com/newsletter.html

As it turned out, the FBI did investigate the murder of the Rev. George Lee of Belzoni, and records show the agency built a circumstantial murder case against two men.

But a local prosecutor refused to take the case to a grand jury.

Peck Ray and Joe David Watson Sr., the suspects, were members of the small town's white Citizens Council and both died in the 1970s.

Interviewed by Newsday years later in 2000, Ernest White, a close friend of Lee's, said that he always suspected that Ray, a local handyman, and Watson, a gravel hauler, were involved in Lee's murder. "We suspected them because of their reputation," White told reporter Stephanie Saul.

Before Lee's murder, Watson had been arrested, but not convicted, for randomly shooting into a black sharecropper's home.

Some of Lees friends believed the murder was part of a larger conspiracy involving influential members of the community who wanted to silence Lee, who was encouraging blacks to register to vote.

"The big wheels paid them off," said White, who became a city councilman years after Lee's death.

The FBI released their investigation records to Newsday under the Freedom of Information Act. Many names in the records were marked out but reveal the FBI had named Watson and Ray:

"Witnesses saw two men leave a downtown street corner where they had been standing, enter Ray's green two-toned Mercury convertible just before the shooting, drive away and return shortly afterward. Several witnesses saw a convertible fitting that description following Lee with only its parking lights on.

One witness said the fatal shots were fired from such a car. But no one could identify the shooters," Saul reported.

The Newsday reporter also indicated that Ray had his convertible painted red following the shooting and that Watsons pick-up had carried a sawed-off shotgun loaded with No. 3 buckshot the same bullets used to kill Lee.

Further, Watson and Ray gave conflicting accounts of their activities that night," Saul reported.

Ray's wife told investigators that he had picked her up from the movie at about 11 p.m. and had gone home. But she could not remember the name of the movie.

Ray's daughter, Doris Dalton, told Saul she did not believe her father could have committed such a crime and that it was her idea to paint the convertible because she was taking it to college.

Agents had turned over evidence to the local prosecutor, Stanny Sanders, but held Watson's shotgun and shells for possible use in a trial. Sanders, who died in 1972, declined to prosecute.

An FBI memo in 1956 states that Sanders believed that while the investigation "conclusively demonstrates that criminal action was responsible for Lee's death, he does not believe the identity of the subjects is sufficiently established by usable evidence to warrant presentation to the grand jury."

Sanders told agents that a Humphreys County grand jury "probably would not bring an indictment, even if given positive evidence."

Sanders suggested that Belzoni settled down after Lees murder, and he believed it would harm race relations to reopen the matter. The U. S. Justice Department did not file civil rights charges because it could not substantiate allegations that Lee was killed because of voting rights activities.

"The 20-gauge double-barrel shotgun was personally returned to Watson by an FBI agent, the file notes. Also delivered were the two No. 3 buckshot shells obtained with the gun."

That fall, political campaigns were negative, condemning voting initiatives and school desegregation efforts. The Citizens Council supported all five candidates for governor; and the state Democratic Party chair, Bidwell Adams, announced that blacks might be national Democrats, but they were not Mississippi Democrats.

"We dont intend to have Negroes voting in this primary," Adams said. Few blacks would have supported any of the gubernatorial candidates, anyway, black leader Aaron Henry of Clarksdale later observed.

Brown II follows Lee's death

Shortly after Rev. Lees murder the Supreme Court handed down Brown II on May 31, 1955, ordering the South to proceed with integration "with all deliberate speed." The wording seemed harsh to many, as Brown II spoke plainly in reaffirming the first decision.

This time anger was higher than before and chaos reigned in many communities throughout the South, including the Mississippi Delta.

Three weeks later, the NAACP in Vicksburg filed a petition signed by 140 parents calling for "immediate steps to reorganize the public schools on a non-segregated basis."

The following week in Natchez, seventy-five parents filed a similar petition. Parents followed suit in Jackson and then within weeks, Delta parents in Clarksdale and Yazoo City joined the growing movement. It was a real act of courage for any parent to sign a petition, and NAACP leader Medgar Evers insisted that people know what they were signing and all possible consequences.

Evers, too, was later murdered and his widow, Myrlie Evers later wrote that parents were also assured they could remove their names if pressures became too great.

Black teachers were holding back in their support, afraid they would lose their jobs if identified with the movement. Myrlie Evers wrote.

Further, a problem existed for most black teachers because of their own inferior training. Few had advanced degrees or schooling outside of Mississippi. Some had no degree at all, and many black teachers soon lost their jobs.

Most school boards simply closed the matter, saying the petitions failed to meet certain requirements and presented them with nothing to take action upon. This advice, at least in Vicksburg, came from the states attorney general.

But white Citizens Councils did not see the situation as closed. New chapters quickly formed and in Yazoo City, the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of petitioners were listed in a paid advertisement in the Yazoo Herald as a "public service" of the Citizens Council of Yazoo City.

Myrlie Evers told how the toll of petitioners in Yazoo City quickly overcame any possibilities of change:

"Jasper Mims, treasurer of the local NAACP, had been a carpenter for thirty years. He had earned up to $150 a week. Months later he reported he had not had a call for work since the now-famous ad had appeared.

"The income of Hoover Harvey, a plumber whose customers were mostly white, was soon down to twenty dollars a week. Both Mims and Harvey removed their names from the petition, but there was no letup in the pressure."

Fifty-one of the fifty-three signatures on the petition were removed; two people who left the county for good didnt stop to have their names taken from the list, and this was the story in most towns where the petitions were filed.

Medgar Evers drove from city to city, speaking at meetings and asking petitioners to hold firm.

But this was not to be, and the Jackson NAACP soon became a distribution point for food and clothing as petitioners around the state suffered. People told the NAACP they received threatening telephone calls or were put off their plantations; and they were having police, money, voting, and even marital problems.

Others killed as violence grows

The growing violence was not limited to the Delta. Lamar Smith was killed on a Saturday morning, August 13, 1955, in Brookhaven.

The sixty-year-old farmer and World War II veteran was handing out voting literature to blacks on the Lincoln County Courthouse lawn, in the home county of Judge Brady, author of Black Monday, when he was shot by a white man in broad daylight who was never officially identified although dozens of people watched the killing. No one would admit they saw a white man shoot a black man.

Smith, who had voted in the primary election eleven days earlier, was explaining to blacks how to vote by absentee ballot to avoid violence at the polls. He may have also been campaigning against a county supervisor.

The NAACP later blamed Citizens Councils for the murder in a pamphlet entitled M is for Murder and Mississippi.

Even though the murder occurred on Saturday morning when the courthouse square was normally filled with people, investigators said there were no witnesses to be found.

Historian John Dittmer observes that, "Although the sheriff saw a white man leaving the scene 'with blood all over him,' no one admitted to having witnessed the shooting," and "the killer went free."

Later, a white farmer, Noah Smith, was charged with murder in a warrant filed by J. J. Breland, a "courageous attorney."

Between the years of 1956 and 1959, Medgar Evers spent much of his time investigating racially motivated homicides. Officially, ten blacks were killed by whites in civil rights struggles in those years, and there were no convictions.

Evers job was to investigate, file complaints, issue angry statements, take reporters to crime scenes, issue press releases, and involve the federal government.

(Excerpt from Where Rebels Roost, Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited, by M. Susan Klopfer, copyright 2005 M. Susan Klopfer)

Susan Orr-Klopfer, journalist and author, writes on civil rights in Mississippi. Her newest books, "Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited" and "The Emmett Till Book" are now in print and are carried in most online bookstores including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. "Where Rebels Roost" focuses on the Delta, Emmett Till, Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, Amzie Moore and many other civil rights foot soldiers. Both books emphasize unsolved murders of Delta blacks from mid 1950s on. Orr-Klopfer is an award-winning journalist and former acquisitions and development editor for Prentice-Hall. Her computer book, "Abort, Retry, Fail!" was an alternate selection by the Book of-the-Month Club.

The sacred order is: Shelter first - then water, fire, food. In a survival situation, it is critical to conserve energy and resources. Panic and frustration get in the way of success in any situation they can be deadly in the outdoors. If it's late in the day or you are in a place with limited resources, what you do first matters.

The point of building a shelter first is that for the outlay of energy it takes to gather branches and leaves, you can build a debris shelter without tools and ensure a way to maximize your body heat. The worst thing that can happen in the woods is not starvation or animal attack its hypothermia.

Hypothermia occurs when your body temperature suddenly and profoundly cools to below 96 degrees F or 35.5 degrees C. This can happen on a warm sunny day, when perspiration drenches your clothing, drawing heat away from your body. You can also be at risk for hypothermia from exposure to wind, breathing in cold dry air, or simply being improperly dressed. Shivering is a sign that your body is cooling off. Your survival depends upon your ability to warm up.

While its tempting to build a fire, even if you have all the tools and dry wood available, you still need to keep feeding the fire. By contrast, building a debris shelter allows you to get a nights sleep and stay warm. When youre rested, you make better decisions.

Another advantage of building a debris shelter is that even if you need to use wet leaves, the air space between the leaves will collect your body heat and keep you warm. Ive slept in a wet leaf debris shelter. When I woke the next morning, my fingers were wrinkled like Id been in the tub too long, but I was warm. While it was no where near as comfortable as sleeping on dry leaves, cattail fluff or pine needles, I was able to relax and sleep, knowing I was safe.

Once you have shelter, water becomes your next concern. When in a survival situation, never eat unless you have enough water to keep you from becoming dehydrated. If youre in deciduous woods, the dew that collects on plants can be collected on absorbent cloth, like cotton. I make it a point to carry one or two bandanas. You can wipe them along the surface of the plants or you can tie them to your legs and walk through wet vegetation. Ring the cloth into your mouth, or suck on it.

I also carry pint and gallon size plastic bags. These can be placed around the green leaves on a tree branch with one corner of the bag hanging lower and tied off. The moisture that forms from condensation will collect in the plastic bag. This is potable water.

In winter, DO NOT EAT SNOW, unless you have water and a container to melt the snow. Eating snow will reduce your body temperature and lead to dehydration.

There are other ways to gather potable water, but these are the easiest.

Now that youve got your shelter and a way to get water, if you are still in a survival situation, fire is the next challenge. On a recent camping trip, two of my three lighters failed. It wasnt sunny, so my magnifying glass was not an option, and although Im told fine steel wool and a 6-Volt battery (or even two AA batteries) will also start a fire, I typically do not carry them.

The only other alternative when you have no fire-making tools is to build the apparatus to start a fire. Making a bow drill or hand drill apparatus for fire by friction takes skill and practice. Understanding how fire by friction works and knowing something about wood is essential.

Starting a fire is only part of the process. You need to keep the fire going, which means gathering some kind of fire starter dried grasses or leaves, lint from your clothing or small twigs. Once the fire is started, you need to keep it going with branches for kindling. When the fire is stronger, you can add large pieces of wood, like split logs.

It's necessary to have your tinder, kindling and fuel gathered before you start the fire.

Once you have access to fire, then you can turn your attention to food. All grasses in North America are edible. You chew the plants, extract the juices and spit out the pulp. Pine needles can be steeped in boiling water for an excellent source of Vitamin C.

Many wild edible plants have poisonous look-alikes. Never eat anything if you have even a shadow of a doubt, especially in a survival situation.

In the winter, you wont have access to plants or even insects. If you dont have the ability to trap animals, you will be at a serious disadvantage. Learning to make and set different kinds of traps is an extremely useful skill.

The best preparation for a survival situation is to practice skills before you get into that situation.

Even without mastery of these skills, if you respect and follow the sacred order: shelter first, then water, then fire, and food last your chances of survival are greatly improved.

For a half-century, writer and passionate naturalist JJ Murphy, has been providing nature programs, original curricula, articles, product reviews, books and open discussion to children and eco-aware adults across the USA. She lives in Harriman, NY. http://www.writerbynature.com/index.php Creative Content for Your Nature Endeavors

Nutrition is not just vital to your overall health, but is important to the health of your hair as well. While our bodies need a variety vitamins and minerals to support certain functions, there are specific ones that will promote healthy hair.

Check all nutritional labels before taking any supplements to determine your daily allowance. Believe it or not, it is possible to overdose on vitamins and minerals, and taking too much of these could possibly result in hair loss, or other health related issues.

Vitamin A- An antioxidant that helps maintain natural oils in the scalp. Can be found in milk, eggs, cheese, meats, spinach, broccoli, and cabbage.

Calcium Helps hair growth. Can be found in dairy, nuts, and beans.

Vitamin C One of natures most powerful antioxidants. Maintains healthy hair and skin. Can be found in fruits, potatoes, and green vegetables.

Chromium Helps regulate blood sugar levels, which affects hair loss. Can be found in beef and whole wheat bread.

Vitamin E- An antioxidant that benefits scalp circulation. Can be found in vegetable oils, nuts, beans, and green vegetables.

Copper Strengthens the hair and prevents hair loss. Can be found in shellfish, green vegetables, eggs, beans, and chicken.

Biotin Produces keratin, which makes up the hair, skin, and nails. Can be found in eggs, whole grains, rice, and milk.

Iodine Prevents dry hair and hair loss. Can be found in fish, seaweed, garlic, and iodized salt.

Inositol Promotes follicle health. Can be found in whole grains and citrus fruits.

Iron Prevents hair loss and anemia. Can be found in eggs, fish, chicken, whole grains, green vegetables, and dried fruits.

Vitamin B3 (Niacin) Improves scalp circulation. Can be found in fish, chicken, turkey, and other meats.

Magnesium Helps hair growth by working with calcium. Can be found in whole grains, green vegetables, nuts, and fish.

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid) Prevents hair loss. Can be found in whole grains, eggs, and certain meats.

Manganese Improves hair growth. Can be found in whole grains, eggs, nuts, beans, fish, and chicken.

Vitamin B6 Prevents hair loss. Can be found in whole grains, vegetables, eggs, and certain meats.

Potassium Promotes circulation and helps hair growth. Can be found in bananas, brown rise, garlic, nuts, dried fruits, raisins, and yogurt.

Vitamin B12 Prevents hair loss. Can be found in eggs, fish, chicken, and milk.

Selenium Promotes scalp health. Can be found in fish, whole grains, certain meats, and broccoli.

Silica Creates stronger hair. Can be found in seafood, rice, and green vegetables.

Sulfur Creates stronger hair. Can be found in garlic, eggs, onions, milk, cheese, and fish.

Zinc Prevents dry hair and oily skin by working with Vitamin A. Can be found in mushrooms, spinach, whole grains, and red meat.

By creating a natural diet that provides the above vitamins and minerals, you can help prevent hair loss and even stimulate hair growth. It is also beneficial to take a daily vitamin that provides the above ingredients.

For more Hair Loss Prevention tips and techniques, visit http://www.guide-to-hair-loss.com/