[SOLVED] apostrophes in banner and footer

I am having a problem in the header and footer xml files. I need to place an apostrophe in the text string in the xml file. This is interpreted as &apos and
that is what shows up in the brower. I have tried all the stuff I can find on google. &apos, \, CDATA nothing is working. Does anyone know the proper escape sequence so that I can get the possessive apostrophe in the text string?
Thanks in advance.