I
GASTONIA • NORTH CAROLINA
AN ALL-AMERICA CITY
VOLUME XIV - NUMBER 6
MAY • 1965
Tilr«$ton«
T ■
Your Symbol
of Quality
and Service
lOOKINC
around
from Camp Firestone
Camp Firestone on Lake
James opened its 30th season
^arly this month, offering
I'ecreation for employee fam
ilies. It is an ideal mountain
^'etreat with variety recrea
tion including fishing, boat
ing and other aquatic sports.
Besides this, the camp is a
good beginning place for al
most unlimited tours of a
^ast highland revion, famed
as a tourist playground and
^ich in scenic and historic
bonder,
Cherokee on the Oconaluf-
tee, center of life in the Qual-
At Cherokee On
The Oconaluftee
la Boundary Indian Reserva
tion, is a popular attraction
for Firestone people who
leave from the Lake James
camp to tour the mountains.
This Firestone News photo
of a totem pole is a familiar
scene at the entrance to
Cherokee artcraft shops.
Well-known visitor attrac
tions at Cherokee are the
Museum of the Cherokee In
dian, Oconaluftee Indian Vil
lage, a chair-lift and amuse
ment park, and the outdoor
drama “Unto These Hills,”
beginning in early June.
Two College
Scholarships
And Five
Merit
Honors
To Area
Students
Brenda Louise
Erna Jane
Brenda Louise High plans
^0 major in education at
Wake Forest College begin
ning this fall, and Erna Jane
^agwell plans to enter the
University of North Carolina
study toward a career in
chemistry and medicine.
The two Gastonia-area Fire
stone Scholarship winners are
^^nong the 32 outstanding high
School students throughout the
^stion who last month won col-
scholarships in the com-
^^ny’s 1965 Scholarship Awards
^J'ogram.
May Is Off-Job Safety Month
“Safe away as well as on the job” is the basic idea of a
year-after-year program which Firestone has at its U.S. and
Canadian plants in May. The second of the off-job safety
months each year is December,
Because there are added safety practices this month and
risks during these two months,
the company’s safety depart
ment has good reason to believe
that precautions on the part of
individuals will save physical
injury and lives.
Since many activities of the
outdoor season are “full-blast”
in May, it is a fitting time to
stress safety consciousness and
War Vets: NSLI
Be For You
May
Congress has passed legisla
tion to reopen National Service
Life Insurance for one year be
ginning May 1, 1965, for eligible
World War II and Korean vet
erans. The Veterans Adminis
tration estimates that thousands
of veterans in Piedmont North
Carolina alone may be eligible
to either obtain insurance, in
crease their present GI insur
ance up to the $10,000 ceiling
amount or exchange present
term insurance for a new modi
fied life plan.
Veterans receiving disability
compensation checks have been
notified of provisions in the new
law. Yet there are many thou
sands in this area who have
been determined by the VA to
have service-connected disabili
ties, but not to the degree that
they are entitled to compensa
tion.
This group, rated by the VA
as 0 per cent, has not been in
dividually notified because the
VA keeps no mailing lists where
monthly checks are not in
volved. The VA wants to ac
quaint this group with the new
law.
Any veteran who wants infor
mation on the new insurance
law may get a general-infor-
mation sheet from the VA. Tele
phone, write, or call in person at
the Division VA Regional Of
fice, 310 West Fourth St., Win
ston-Salem, N. C. Telephone:
724-7431.
Miss High is the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. George High, Her
father is in twisting (synthet
ics). Miss Bagwell is the daugh
ter of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest D.
Bagwell.
WINNERS, all sons and
daughters of Firestone employ
ees, will receive awards which,
for all of them, could total as
much as $192,000 in their four
years of college.
Besides scholarship winners,
209 applicants were selected to
receive Certificates of Merit.
The Certificate, with a U. S.
Savings Bond, will be presented
to each of these students in rec
ognition of outstanding high-
school scholastic achievement.
Gastonia Merit winners: Eliz
abeth Ann Champion, daughter
of Mrs. Edna D. Champion, cloth
room; Roger Gary Gaddis, son
of Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Gaddis
(he in quality control); Sandra
Faye Huffstetler, daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Huffstetler
(she in synthetics, weaving);
Randall Ray Lovingood, son of
Mr. and Mrs. Ray Lovingood (he
in twisting); and Joyce Alania
Stiles, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
Buster Stiles (he in synthetics,
weaving).
For the Gastonia-area win
ners in the Scholarship Awards
program, a survey of each one’s
outstanding high-school record
throughout the ensuing days of
outdoor recreation, home living
and other off-job activity.
Safety Check
Of Vehicles
Of the many phases of the in-
jury-control program, most out
standing again this year is the
free plant-community motor ve
hicle safety inspection offered at
Firestone plants in states where
local laws do not provide for
auto safety checkup.
Operation dales of Ihe Gas
tonia check-lanes are May 17-21,
9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.
This is the eighth year the
company will have sponsored
the plant safety checks. In this
service to employees and all
others of the several plant com
munities, the company works
with the Auto Industries High
way Safety Committee, the As
sociation of State and Provincial
Safety Coordinators and Look
magazine.
This year’s Gastonia program
of auto inspection is timely—
making vehicles road-worthy for
travel on the long Memorial Day
week end.
The free inspection for em
ployees and all others of the
community is not only operated
to correct mechanical faults that
threaten travel safety, but is in
tended to urge motorists to re
view their driving habits for
greater safety performance on
streets and highways.
Last year 1,150 vehicles were
checked in the program at Gas
tonia.
The service is provided by the
industrial relations and mechan
ical departments, cooperating
with the local Firestone Stores.
Division president R. M. Sawyer (second from left) presented
the award which was accepted by plant safety manager R. E. Mack.
With them were Alvin Riley (left), industrial relations manager;
and general manager Harold Mercer.
Interplant Safety Trophy
Returned To Gastonia
All of us at Firestone are working for a very progressive
company, R. M. Sawyer, president of the textile division,
told Gastonia Firestone people who attended an awards
luncheon last month at the Recreation Center.
The president outlined some
major advances and progress
programs in which the company
is involved, and projected some
radical changes in products of
the future, especially in tire con
struction and manufacture.
To keep up with these ad
vances, he pointed to ever-im
proving quality and great strides
in the company's safety perfor
mance.
Mr. Sawyer had come from
Akron to present the North
American Textile Interplant
Safety Plaque for the plant’s
injury-control performance last
year. The plaque represents the
lowest number of disabling in
juries per million manhours
worked in a calendar year
will be included in the plant
newspaper after formal p r e -
sentation of the awards here.
among the company’s textile
plants at Bennettsville, S. C.,
Gastonia, and Woodstock, Can
ada.
The interplant safety rivalry,
begun in 1959, is set up to run a
maximum 12 years, each year
being a separate contest. Rules
provide that the plant which
wins the plaque three years in a
row—or the most times in the
12-year period—will earn per
manent possession of it.
This is the third time the Gas
tonia plant has won the plaque,
although not in successive years.
Bestowing the award, Mr.
Sawyer noted, “It takes every
body working to make a safe
operation — everybody striving
to be conscious of safety until it
becomes an automatic guard
against that ‘moment of careless
ness’ which is so often the cause
of injury on the job.”
L