■r
T.B. Creech Receives
'The Porcine," trade journal
for pork producers, in iU
February issue, bad kind words
to say about a former Warrenton
resident.
T. B. Creech of South Hill,
Vs., was the subject of a
feature page of the pork
producers magazine. Creech
came to Warrenton from
Smithfield and engaged in the
grocery business for a number
of years before entering the
livestock business at the old
Warrenton Livestock Market.
When this was burned, he
bought the Norlina Livestock
Market and is still operating
this market. While at Warrenton
Creech became a charter
member of the Warrenton
Lions Club, which recently
celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Creech also started a
livestock market in South Hill,
Va., several years ago. He sold
the interest in this market
recently to South Hill Stockyards,
Inc., but retained his
ownership of the Norlina
Market.
The article, which was
Peoples Bank
Issues Report
Peoples Bank and Trust
Company's annual shareholders'
meeting will be held
February 25 at 3 p. m. in the
staff room of the bank's main
office in Rocky Mount.
Board Chairman W. H.
Stanley reported that the
bank's 1975 annual report was
mailed to shareholders on Feb.
13. In the report, income before
securities transactions for 1975
was $2,470,141, and 8.3 percent
increase over the 1974 figure of
$2,280,784. Per share results
are $3.74 compared to $3.45
reported last year. Net income
after securities transactions
rose to $2,485,938 or $3.76 per
share in 1975, compared to the
1974 figure of $2,235,704 or
$3.38 per share, an increase of
11.2 percent.
Deposits as of December 31,
1975 reached $223,374,308,
compared to last year's total ol
$205,314,723. Loans increased
from $123,163,198 in 1974 t<
$137,058,353 in 1975. Tota
resources increased from $236,
127,747 last year to $254,245,
039 in 1975.
Peoples Bank currently
serves 23 North Carolini
Communities, including Nor
lina, with 39 branch offices.
illustrated in The Porcine"
with a head and shoulder*
picture of Creech and a picture
of Mr. and Mrs. Creech
standing before their home in
South Hill, Va.. reads as
follows:
"Last August first Thomas B.
Creech of South Hill began
partial retirement from a
career of service in swine
marketing. He has owned
livestock markets in four
towns—Warrenton and Norlina
in North Carolina and Victoria
and South Hill in Virginia—and
he has also served as auctioneer
in Blackstone and Phenix.
"Perhaps his greatest contribution
to the pork industry,
however, is his vital role in
establishing the South Hill
Feeder Pig Sale in 1971.
Recently, that Sale topped one
million dollars in total volume.
"When Creech saw that a
particular area needed a
stockyard to serve local
producers, he acted to establish
one. When he saw that small
producers in the South Hill
area did not have a market for
their pigs, he called Lewis R.
Copley, Mecklenburg County
extension agent and said,
"Something's got to be done."
As a result the feeder pig sale
was organized, and, with
Copley's assistance, the Southside
Feeder Pig Marketing
Ass6ciation was formed about a
year later, in 1972.
"Although Creech probably
had to aaaume some losses in
the formative year*, the sale
now markets 000 to 700 pigs a
month. There are many ways to
serve the pork industry; with
T. B. Creech it has been
providing local marketa.
"Creech sees the opening of
special feeder pig sales as the
biggest chance in the industry.
Before the South Hill Sale
opened the nearest markets
were Richmond (about 80
miles) and Courtland (about 60
miles.) In the future he sees
less farmer to packer sales and
more competitive market sales.
"A native of Smithfield,
North Carolina. Creech was
raised by his grandmother, and
still likes cooking that tastes
like Grandma's. His wife is
Effie Crews, formerly of
Halifax County and he has one
son, Henry.
"In the early years. Creech
was a pioneer in shipping
trailer loads of market hogs to
the ttiminal market and
packing plants in Baltimore.
Md. He established his first
livestock market in Warrenton,
N. C. in 1942 after he
discovered the low prices that
local people were getting for
cattle at distant sales.
"When his Warrenton stockyard
burned in 1968 he bought
the Norlina, N. C. market which
Epidemic Of Mysterious
Disease Occurring In Halifax
An epidemic of one' of
mankind's most mysterious
diseases is now occurring in
Halifax County.
Blastomycosis is a fungal
disease that attacks mostly the
lungs and skin, according to Dr.
Peter D. Rogers, field epidemiologist
with the Division of
Health Services.
Regers said the mystery of
the disease is how it is
contracted by man and how he
becomes infected with the
organism.
"We are fairly certain that
infection com es from the soil,"
Rogers stated, "but we don't
have absolute proof. The
organism is most likely
inhaled." _ _ J '
The\ public health disease
sleuth said blastomycosis is
often missed by physicians
because some of the symptoms
mimic flu. Symptoms may
range from severe chest pan,
fever, cough and bloody
sputum, to a symptom-free
infection foun d on routine chest
X-ray. He said lesions usually
show up abou t four weeks after
exposure.
"If a diagnosis is made at the
time symptoms appear and
treatment started, the patient
will almost always recover,"
Rogers explained. "It can be
fatal when diagnoses is delayed
for a long per iod. The disease is
sufficiently rare that a high
degree of suspicion by the
physician is needed for prompt
diagnosis. Four to six weeks of
treatment in the hospital with
antifungal agents usually result
in recovery."
Rogers pointed out that
because the m anner of infection
has yet to be firmly established,
there is no kn own prevention of
the disease. The present
epidemie began in November of
1975, when three children were
diagnosed. There have since
been two more cases, both
adult women. Two more women
and one child have recently
been hospitalized with suspicion
of the disease.
"We are not sure if we are
just beginning, in the middle, or
at the end of the epidemic,"
Rogers cautioned. "These
patients may represent the tip
of the iceberg. There could be
others who are infected, but are
not now (or will never be)
clinically ill."
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Tastefully Done
Table Adds Class
There's something special
about sitting down to a dining
table with beautiful china,
sparkling glassware, and shining
silver.
And, an arrangement of fresh
flowers, greenery, fruit, berries
or other interesting materials
can make the table setting
complete, observes Charlotte
Womble, extension house
furnishings specialist, North
Carolina State University.
Colors, design and materials
in a centerpiece should be in
keeping with other table
appointments, she adds.
The arrangement should fit
the space without crowding and
be low enough to permit easy
conversation by those seated at
the table, Miss Womble continues.
Candles are often added for
evening meals and for late
afternoon and evening entertaining.
Fresh flowers and candles
add a festive feeling and a
pleasant touch of hospitality,
she concludes.
Cowboys in the American
West liked tbeir coffee black,
strong, and hot, and the
grounds, eggs, and water often
simmered for days over the
campfire, with new grounds
dumped over the old. To
preserve the accumulated
aroma, the large coffee pots
never were waahed, the
National Geographic Society
says.
Praise For Livestock
Market
Work
he still owns. For about seven
years he also owned the
Victoria, Va. market. When he
said the need for a stockyard in
South Hill he built the Creech
Livestock Market in 1948 and
opened it on February 19, 1949.
It is now South Hill Stockyards,
Inc., following the sale last
August
"Auctioneering became a
second career for him when
he filled in after the death of his
regular auctioneer. Creech's
success at getting $2.00 more
per animal was enough to make
him an auctioneer.
For ten years, his wife.
Effie, assisted in the office at
his South Hill Stockyard. His
son, Henry, also helped out, and
did some auctioneering while in
high school.
"It is reported that Henry
went off to auctioneering school
when he was 15 and came back
smoking a cigar. Creech took it
away front him. Anyway*
Henry went on to become a
doctor instead of an auctioneer,
and he is now chief audiologist
at McGuire Veterans HospiUl
in Richmond.
"Too often the valuable
service provided by local
stockyards is ta'-n for granted.
Ignored we the risks and Ion*
the owners must take to
establish those markets tad
keep them going. That is wky
we are paying tribute to
Thomas B. Creech who built tbt
South Hill stockyard tod
served the area as its owner fa
26 years. He did a good jobP