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'^OLUME LVI, Number 2
Serving the Mars Hill College Community
Thursday, OCTOBER 28, 1982
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. 30
Exclusive Interview
Gibson Calls Appeals Process ‘Whitewash'
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eon, StudentS^^j^^^Claude “Hoot” Gibson
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Office staff'
H '*‘p chapter of the Fellow-
^The officeAthletes is growing
,or of BlackJ^e "^^ers.
nuinber is 6 Nent ^
rdav October’Cep Danny Gilbert
^^O^nt Stuart Jones
Cindy Cash
The pp ^ ’"insurer Robin Cole
Ps A has several projects planned
which is sending repre-
%. try;^^ °bt to area high schools who
g J'Vtt. ® start FCA chapters of their
P /'8hts at °n Wednesday
^ pfege ij rn the Blue Lounge of the
p|retid^j^^bion. Everyone is welcome to
o» !"®te rtieetings, whether they are an
i/ rp, sijj'^P°t. Just come out for fellow-
^ "K guest speakers.
^he Q,
^'ZatiQ *^°°r Club has undergone or-
^ rihanges and is now back in
On Thursday, October 21, THE
HILLTOP conducted a personal inter
view with former Mars Hill Athletic
Director Claude Gibson. This exclusive
interview was before the appeals board
had met and decided to uphold Gibson’s
termination. Our primary objective in
this conversation was to hear the entire
story from Gibson’s point of view.
HILLTOP editors Steve Ferguson and
Gina Worley conducted the question
and answer session, which lasted for
almost an hour.
HILLTOP: Tell us about your meeting
with Dr. Fred Bentley after the meeting
with the administrative team in which
Dr. Bentley announced your dismissal.
GIBSON: My only purpose in going to
see him was to get the football players
back. When I got through, I said I want
you to understand one thing: I didn’t
come here to blackmail you, nor am I
begging you for anything. He said I
think this should be contingent on you
getting the players back. I said I don’t
want there to be any linkage between
getting the players back and what you
feel like you said was right.
When I came back, and read the
agreement over, he had stuck in there
that, as a result of these negotiations,
that I would not appeal. I did at one
point say to him that my feeling at this
time is that I would not appeal, and
without this, chances are I wouldn’t
have anyway. That was very offensive to
me when he put that in there.
HILLTOP: You notified us in regards to
the story that was run in the October 15
issue of the HILLTOP. You said there
were some items factually you’d like to
clarify.
GIBSON: I think where you were in er
ror, it’s true that my daughter, no mat
ter what happened, she would have been
given free tuition for the rest of this
year. But what he has put in here, she
would have free tuition benefits ’till her
baccalaureate degree, and my younger
daughter would too.
HILLTOP: Do you expect to win the ap
peal?
GIBSON: No. It’s a “whitewash” all
the way.
HILLTOP: Your lawyer can be there,
but he can’t speak. Is that true?
GIBSON: That’s what they say. I don’t
know who’s advising our president, but
all he’s doing is hurting the college posi
tion if there ever was any litigation. One
of the board members contacted the
chairman of the board Ben Knott, and
he said I’m really not interested in talk
ing about it, I certainly wouldn’t want to
The club engages in camping and hik
ing, and is hoping to do some service
projects this year.
Contact David A. Williams, presi
dent, at 689-1157 for more details.
Jeff Coppage, Journeyman to Togo,
will be on campus for Missionary
Awareness Day today, October 28th to
speak at Campus Worship at 6:45 p.m.
He will also be available to talk with
students about foreign mission service.
Also for Missionary Awareness Day,
a slide show will be shown in the
Timberline Coffeehouse from 1-5 p.m.
Reservations from the Baptist State
Convention will also be available to talk
to.
Halloween and Halloween II will be
shown in the Timberline on Friday, Oc
tober 29th at 8:00 p.m. The movies are
sponsored by Wren College Union Cof
feehouse Committee.
First place in the Lion Growl skits
went to Lamdi Chi Omega. Second place
was the Freshman Class, while Iota
Alpha Omega took third place.
iu.
talk to Coach Gibson, because I want to
be fair and I don’t want to prejudice the
case.
But the board member at that point
said this is kind of ironic that you want
to be fair and impartial, you don’t want
to meet with Coach Gibson, yet you’re
meeting with school attorneys and Fred
Bentley around the clock.
Fred Bentley, last Thursday night,
drove to Charlotte. I, very frankly, had
somebody that staked the thing out. He
spent the night, with Ben Knott and
drove back; he arrived in Mars Hill at
10:30 Friday morning. So it doesn’t
make sense if he’s going to be fair and
impartial if he meets with one side and
not with the other.
What’s going to happen is this: they’ll
use college policy when it benefits their
position. When you start looking at that
handbook, they violated numerous pro
visions in there, and when you read the
constitution, it says the appeal will be
before the entire board, it doesn’t say
anything about a select executive com
mittee. The other thing, whether you
have a closed or open hearing is some
thing that’s supposed to be mutually
agreed on between the two parties.
I think President Bentley’s credibility
continued on page 3
Si
■jiW:
1982 Homecoming Queen Susan Freeman and John Sprinkle
PHOTO BY JOHN CAMPBELL