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Permit No. 15 - Adless Correction Requested
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Earl Scruggs Makes A Visit Home
Earl Scruggs celebrated his
60th birthday last Friday at his
latteriay home in Madison,
Tennessee, near Nashville, the
seat of his fame as an all-time
great in bluegrass music.
The day turned out to be a
bigger deal than he had ex
pected, he said. Ronald Reagan
and Nancy sent him a telegram
from the White House.
Friends, fans and fellow
celebrities came and went all
day, and the phone was abuzz
with good wishes. Over home
in Carolina, Gov. Jim Hunt
proclaimed the birthday as
“Earl Scruggs Day,” honoring
“a man of taste, dignity and
modesty, — a credit to his
native state.”
‘The press was there,” said
Scruggs of his Tennesse party,
in typically modest surprise at
all the to-do. “We took a little
time to eat some ice cream and
cake.”
After the party, he got into
his car with a friend. Dr. Cher-
rill Heaton, a professor at the
University of North Florida,
and headed for Boiling Springs.
So Saturday marked another
celebration, perhaps a quieter
one, at the ancestral family seat
in lower Cleveland. Kin people
and some friends gathered at
the home of Horace and Maida
Scruggs^ Earl’s brother and
sister-in-law, on Rockford
Road. The day was given to
catching up on old stories and
new ones, and doubtless it end
ed with music; even the Scruggs
brothers who don’t make it to
the spotlight of the Opry are
well-known banjo pickers
around home.
If banjo picking was not the
first sound the Scruggses heard
at birth, it was the first of most
ever day of their young lives, “1
remember Horace and Earl say
ing they woke up to their daddy
picking the banjo most every
morning,” said Maida.
They lived then in the Flint
Hill Community, in one of
1.
J'
Friend Alfred Blanton, left, catches up on the news with Earl Scruggs during the banjo
picker's recent visit with homefolks in Boiling Springs.
several houses on family land at
the junction of Riverside and
Maple Springs Roads. Their
grandfather, remembers the
oldest of the boys, J.E. (Junie)
Scruggs, had bought 196 acres
of land many years before for
20 cents an acre. “Not a foot in
cultivation, still the original
forest. They had log rollings
and log burnings — think
about what that timber they
burned up would be worth to
day.”
Their father, George Elam
Scruggs, was married at 33 to
Lula Ruppe, who was 13. The
couple’s first little girl died in in
fancy; the next five children —
Junie, Eula Mae, Ruby, Horace
and Earl — grew up and are liv
ing today, all but Earl still near
by.
Junie remembers their father
as a sort of mathematical
genius, besides an early-
morning musician. “He went to
a business school and studied
mathematics. 1 saw, him add
long rows of figures in the
thousands — he’s just run his
A Winter Homestead
finger down the rows, add ’em
in his head and come up with a
number in the millions.
“He wore a little pair of
glasses down on his nose — like
this — he paid about 20 cents
for ’em, and he’d read. He got
the weekly paper and the
Atlanta Constitution and read
’em both from front to back.
He’d help us with our
homework, but I’ll tell you,
you’d better listen and get what
he said the first time...”
George Scruggs died of
cancer in 1928. By that time
Junie was already an establish
ed musician in the community,
and Horace and Earl, though
very small, were learning.
“Earl used to sit on my knee
and I’d note the banjo and he’d
pick. Then he’d note and I’d
pick,” Junie said. ‘There was a
blind banjo picker named Mack
Woolbright — he was bom
without any eyes, and he
played sittin’ in, like, a straight
chair, with rockers on it. He’d
sit and rock and play. 1
remember him playing at a
show at Flint Hill School the
year Earl was born. Played
livelihood, he says.
“1 told Earl, when he was
about to get serious about it, 1
said. Do me one favor. 1 said,
don’t ever play for a square
dance. And he didn’t. Only, one
time, he told me, “Well, 1
played for a square dance up in
Gatlinburg the other night.”
What for? I said. ‘“For $3,000,”
Earl said.”
But he never played for
many, before nor since. “I
didn’t see much future in it,”
Earl says now. Nor did that
rare occurrence seem to blot his
character, any more than a long
life as a celebrity has lessened
his graciousness and humility.
Those traits, like music, seem to
be a family gift.
Patillo Coming
To College
Sleeping cotton fields surround the home of the John Poston
family, ori Beaver Dam Church Road, as cold winds blow
across the countryside. Only a few weeks ago the dead stalks
were snowy with unpicked cotton balls, A few weeks ahead lie
greening fields, as the cycle of the centuries on this farm con
tinues.
‘Home Sweet Home.’ When
Earl plays ‘Home Sweet Home’
it sounds exactly like him..”
Music was much in demand,
though not necessarily greatly
rewarded, in that time. ‘There
was an old house, it was an old
Bridges homeplace, I believe,
over here close to Flint Hill
Road (near Patrick Avenue).
That house had one room that
would hold thirty couples
square dancing. Had a big old
fireplace you could just pile the
cordwood in and it’d burn
about all night,” Junie said.
‘They’d come after me to
come play for dances. I’d com
mence to plow about seven
o’clock in the morning and then
I’d put up the mules in the
evening and take me a washpan
bath and walk over there, get
there about 8 o’clock and play
till midnight, and walk home
with a few matches and some
marbles and blowgum and
maybe 15 cents in my pocket.”
That might be a little exag
geration, from the memory of a
great story-teller, one of the
family noted. But the scant
rewards, along with the ease
with which one could fall ilito
sin in the music business (as in
many others), steered Junie
Scruggs away from music as a
Leon Patillo, a contemporary
Christian musician, will per
form at Gardner-Webb College
on Thursday, January 19.
The 8 p.m. performance will
be held in the college’s Lutz-
Yelton Convocation Center
and is open to the public.
Tickets are $3 in advance or S4
at the door and may be pur
chased in advance at the col
lege’s Charles I. Dover Campus
Center, room 109.
A former lead vocalist and
keyboard player with the band
Santana, Patillo will bring to
Gardner-Webb his own blend
of pop, gospel and rock music.
Performing such contem
porary Christian songs as
‘Temple to the Sky,’’ “Dance
Children Dance,” “Star of the
Morning,” and ‘Gdrnerstone,”
Patillo’s music and concerts
provide audiences with both
entertainment and a spiritual
message.
In addition to his five solo
album releases, Patillo has
traveled throughout the United
States taking his concert
ministry to the Seattle
Mariner’s Kingdome and the
RFK Stadium in Washington,
D.C., appearing with such ar
tists as Marilyn McCoo, Billy
Davis and Earth Wind and
Fire’s Phillip Bailey.
Performances in Canada,
Germany, Great Britain and
Australia have also become a
part of his annual concert tour.
Withrow May
Try Senate Race
A locally-familiar hat may
soon hit the ring in the U.S.
Senate race.
“It’s going to be interesting,”
for U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms
(R-NC) during the May 8
primary, says Commander Bill
Withrow (US Navy-Ret).
Withrow confirmed Wednes
day that he is considering op
posing Helms for the GOP
nomination in the Republican
primary.
Withrow, a native of Ruther
ford County and a retired
Gardner-Webb adjunct pro
fessor, expects to debate Helms
on the nuclear weapons freeze
issue. Withrow has advocated
such a freeze.
Withrow saw combat during
World War 11, and continued
his Navy service during the
Korean and Viet Nam wars.
Since his retirement from the
Navy in 1966, Withrow, 66,
has spoken to anti-nuclear
groups such as SANE, and,
should he choose to oppose
Helms, Withrow says he ex
pects his candidacy to be a test
of antimuclear sentiment in
North Carolina.
Withrow has until Feb. 6,
the deadline for filing in the
Republican' primary, to make
up his mind. North Carolina
has a “closed” primary system,
meaning that only those voters
registered in a party may vote
in that party’s primary.
Tech Will Host
“Great Decisions
f f
Cleveland Technical
College’s continuing education
department, in cooperation
with the Shelby Community
Schools program, will present
two discussion groups of the
Great Decisions ‘84 series
beginning February 8.
The eight-week series
moderated by Tom Rightmyer,
rector of the Episcopal Church
Of The Redeemer, will be of
fered each Wednesday morning
from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the
parish hall of the Episcopal
Church, 502 West Sumter
Street and each Wednesday
afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30
p.m. in Room 205 at Cleveland
Tech. The series will run
through March 28.
This marks the 30th year the
Foreign Policy Association, a
national nonpartisan,
nongovernmental organization,
has sponsored the Great Deci
sions series discussion of cur
rent foreign policy issues facing
the United States.
The topics for the ’84 Great
Decisions include: U.S.S.R.
Under Andropov: Hard
Choices for Moscow &
Washington; Mexico and the
U.S.: Discord Over Immigra
tion & Central America; U.S.
Security & World Peace: Allies,
Arms & Diplomacy; South
Africa: Can U.S. Policies In
fluence Change?; International
Debt Crisis; Borrowers, Banks
& the IMF; Saudi Arabia &
Jordon; Kingdoms at the
Crossroads?; China & The U.S.:
Five Years After Normaliza
tion; International Drug Traf
fic; Can It Be Stopped?
A Great Decisions study
guide, available in Cleveland
Tech’s bookstore for $6, pro
vides background and current
data on the study topics. Par
ticipants are urged to secure the
study guide prior to February 8
to prepare for the first topic.
Great Decisions ’84 is open
to all adults at least 18. A fee of
$10 will be charged although
anyone 65 and over may
register free. Teachers desiring
certification renewal credit
must receive prior approval
from their school officials.
Registration will be held at the
first meeting on February 8.
For further information call
4844015.
Couple Will Wed
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At a recent festive, six-course Chinese dinner prepared by her
mother. Miss Margaret Chang and Dave Henkel announced
their plans to marry. Margaret and Dave met at IBM, where
they are co-workers. The daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Jeffrey
Chang, of Boiling Springs, Margaret is a Gardner-Webb
graduate. The place of the wedding is still to be undecided,
but the date will be sometime in lune.