Page FOURTEEN
THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina
THURSDAY, 5ECEMBER 26, 1963
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With gratefulthank* to our friends
for the pleasure and privilege of serving you.
Couger &Veno Electric Shop
Pinehurst
Cmiracle
of that
Our Southern Pines Office
has been consolidated with our
Charlotte Office.
Harold E. Hassenfelt
will serve the Southern Pines area from Qiarlotte.
The address is 110 South Tryon Street and the
telephone number is 333-5492. Mr. Hassenfelt will
also be available for consultation in Southern Pines
on the weekend. He may be reached at Oxford
2-3261.
We invite you to make use of our services.
Established 1925
Investment Bankers
Members New York Stock Exchange and Other National Exchanges
110 South Tryon Street Charlotte, N. C. Tel. 333-5492
Cup Award: Milestone In Blue Career <■ «>“«•■ c,me .io„g,
Pause ...
/ t *•''* and Take Time
to recall the
(Continued from Page 1)
today form the backbone of the
Sandhills.
“Representative” is a real word
for him. The adjective most used
in connection with him is “sin
cere.” The fact that, with honors
heaped upon him, he remains a
simple citizen of the Sandhills,
working for a living as hard as
he ever did, and understanding
the problems of all levels, is a big
secret of his success. One way to
get your name in his paper is
'just to drop in on him at the
Sandhill Citizen office at Aber
deen. You forthwith become “a
pleasant caller” in his “Musings”
column, and he means it, for in
such visits he keeps in touch
with the people’s thoughts and
feelings.
He has been pictured on front
pages with four Governors under
whom he has served—Scott, Um-
stead, Hodges and Sanford—and
on his office wall hangs a photo
of Cliff with the late President
John F. Kennedy, taken on the
occasion of a White House dinner
with newspaper publishers as
guests.
In Printing Shop
At The Citizen office, you are
likely to find him in the compos
ing room shoulder to shoulder
with his brother, Malcolm Blue,
manager of the mechanical de
partment, helping to put the pa
per together.
There was a time, up to less
than a year ago, you could find
him in printer’s apron, fingers
black with printer’s ink from
handling the type. The Citizen
went to “oiflset” printing last
spring and it’s a cleaner opera
tion, but he’s been learning just
^irsi (^lirislmas
and let it bring
Joy into your
hearts throughout
the
New Year!
Margaret’s Hair Styling
Margaret Evans and Alicia White
Southern Pines
and Malcolm who live near their
mother; Marshall of Winston-
Salem; Clarence H. (Pat), of Man
ly, surveyor with office in South-
’ern Pines, and Kathryn, now
Mrs. Bill Roberson, of the Rose-
land section near Aberdeen.
After high school graduation
the boys worked with their fath
er on the farm, but Cliff who
had become interested in history
and other social studies, decided
there would be more future in j
printing or newspaper work.
$1 Per Week
He wrote letters to both Jo
sephus Daniels, the late publish
er and editor of the Raleigh News
and Observer, and W. F.. Morris,
editor of the Sandhills Citizen,
then published at Southern Pines.
Morris asked him to come by for
an interview and offered to take
him on at $5 a week, the job not
to start till several months later.
Cliff accepted, but during the
waiting period, Morris died. The
yoimg farm boy went to see the
iate Hiram Westbrook of South
ern Pines, Morris’s brother-in-
law, who was then running the
paper, and the upshot was he
went to work as a printer’s devil
December 1, 1930, at just $1 per
week. Depression times' had
really set in by then.
His pay worked up to $10 a
week but the paper changed
hands and he lost his job, couldn’t
find another, and had to go back
to farming at home.
In the summer of 1932, R. P.
Beasley, who was associated with
Murphy Brewer in a job print
ing shop at Vass, offered to sell
Cliff the equipment—a job press,
some type and little else—for
$150. He arranged to pay $50
n,..., — down and then $5 a month—
like everybody else at The Citi- drum up the $50.
six years- ago.
Two Grandchildren
The family of four children has
been augmented by two grand
children, Patsy, 24, is married to
David Bailey, son of the late
Judge D. E. Bailey of Southern
Pines, and they live at Kensing
ton, Md., where David works as
a nuclear scientist in a govern
ment position. They have a young
son, David, Jr., and daughter,
Allison.
The Blues’ other children are
Clifton, Jr., 22, who entered the
Army this fall and is stationed at
Fort Gordon, Ga.; John Lee, 18,
who graduated from Aberdeen
High school in June and is now
studying ht the Lee County In
dustrial Education Center at San
ford; andj Elizabeth Anne who
started school this year.
Always'active in his communi
ty, Cliff helped found the Aber
deen Liops club and held num
erous oMqes, all the way up to
zone chairman, until his political
(Continued on Page 15)
zen and working hard at it.
Coming home on weekends
from his chores at the General
Assembly, he’d see the people
with problems to discuss, work
some in every department, write
his editorials and get out his col
umn, “People and Issues,” com
ments on doings over the State
with emphasis on politics, pub
lished in about 20 weekly papers.
The column doesn’t really pay
enough to justify the time but
Cliff enjoys it and, he says, “Some
day I won’t have so much outside
career and I’ll have this to fall
Also he freely admits.
back on.
“When I’m not in politics myself
I can get out a better column.”
Though he frequently makes the Everylhing
Those were hard times, and
$5 represented a pretty big sum
to most people. Some citizens he
asked said they wished him well
but had no money to help, and to
these he was almost as grateful
as to the ones who could and did.
Those who came through with a
few dollars each as evidence of
their faith—which most of them
later took out in advertising—
were W. D. Matthews, later
Southern Pines 'town aittorney
and mayor; W. H. McNeill, Henry
Graves, Duncan McCrimmon, T.
Frank Cameron, W. H. Richard
son of Lakeview and Cliff’s uncle,
D. K. Blue, then Hoke County
register of deeds.
biggest news in the county and
State, he will very seldom allow
his name to go on his own front
page, and when he was elected
Speaker of the House it wasn’t
mentioned in “People and Issues.”
Education Leader
The Sandhill Citizen, however,
like the other papers in the coun
ty, gave enormous space to
Moore County’s campaign for the
college, and the accompanying
movement to improve the sec
ondary schools. Cliff has in both
county and State made his name
as a leader in behalf of education.
His own formal education end
ed with graduation from Vass-
Lakeview High School in 1929,
which he attended after early
years at a one-room, one-teacher
schoolhouse in his Lobelia com
munity.
He was bom August 29, 1910,
on a farm in Little River town
ship then a part of Cumberland
County, later Hoke, and since
January 1, 1958—through his own
legislative action with support of
both counties—a part of Moore.
He was one of eight children
bom with support of both coun
ties—a part of Moore.
He was one of eight children
born to John Patrick Blue, who
died in 1934, and Christian Stew
art Blue, who still lives in Little
River Township. Every Sunday
he and his family still gather
with others of the family at his
mother’s pleasant, white-frame
farmhouse home, where they eat
a country dinner she has pre
pared.
A brother and sister died in
infancy. The others are Barney
Cliff started printing “The
Captain” at Vass, with type set
at Southern Pines. Everything
else he did himself—getting the
news and ads, setting the ads and
doing job printing, then selling
and delivering the paper. With
the help of an $18-a-month school
bus driving job he scraped by,
though Secretary of State Thad
Eure in a speech in his honor
recently accused him of driving
the school bus so he could deliver
papers on the way and thus avoid
paying postage.
In 1934 George Ross of Jack-
son Springs, now retired and
back home there after a long, dis
tinguished career in various State
offices, bought the assets of the
Sandhill Citizen at Southern
Pines, combined them with The
Pilot, then published at Aber
deen, and sold them, all but the
name and one linotype. The old
Citizen resumed as ’The Southern
Pines Pilot, with Nelson Hyde as
editor and publisher, while
George helped Cliff in re-estab
lishing The Citizen. The Cap
tain was combined with it in 1936,
with offices at Aberdeen.
Cliff was by then keeping com
pany with Miss Gala Nunnery of
Roseboro, who, visiting her sis
ter at Vass, had met the town’s
young newspaper publisher. Mar
ried in 1937, they began house
keeping at Aberdeen.
The Sandhill Citizen thrived,
and in 1940 moved into a new
building, its present home. The
Blues also have a handsome new
home, built several years ago on
North Poplar Street Extension.
They raised three children to teen
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GREETINGS
Ai Chrisimastimet we iraiee our voieee
wUh 90a all everg happiueee, ut
tprese our aiueere gratitude ior
pour Mud patronage and good wilt.
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Austin Business Machine Co.
Southern Pines
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The lovely lights of Christmastime--
They make the world a gladsome place!
Starlight sofdy drifting down.
The same that shone on Mary’s face;
Tall altar-candles’ golden gleam,
And firelight flickering cozily;.
Dancing lights in children’s eyes
When first they see the glistening tree;
Bright lamplight streaming cheerily
From doors fiung wide and welcoming;
Lantern beams that bob and glow
As neighbors come a-carolling.
The lovely lights of Christmastime—
They make the world a wondrous place,
And light cur way until at last
We see the glory of His face
Maureen Murdoch
( CAROLINA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY )
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