the news record
00039 People Of Our Communities Since 1901
U MADISON
77T~r~~ COUNTY LIBRARY , ? tQ<y7 ^
GENERAL DELIVER y 28753
This section of the French Broad River was where Saturday's
fatal accident occurred. The raft should have gone right of a
large rock (solid Hue), but veered into the boulder, overturning
(dotted line).
State To Probe
DSS's Handling
Of Chandler Case
By BILL 8TUDENC
Editor
State Social Services officials will
investigate the way the Madison
County Department of Social Ser
vices handled allegations of child sex
ual abuse that resulted in the convic
tion of Andrew "Junior" Chandler
Madison County Social Services
board mentbersjtfve weed, to ask
David Flaherty, secretary of the N.C.
Department of Human Resources, to
determine if the county Social Ser
vices agency properly investigated
the controversial child abuse case.
That decision came after board
members met last month with a
group of Chandler's relatives, friends
and supporters from the Revere com
munity who have continued to main
tain that an innocent man was sent to
prison.
Chandler, 29, was sentenced two
consecutive life sentences plus 21
years after being convicted two mon
ths ago by a Buncombe County Jury of
sexually molesting several Marshall
Day Care students from January to
May 1906.
Charges against Chandler were fil
ed after Social Services workers in
vestigated complaints from parents
of those children, than ranging in age
from 2 to 5 years old. ProsoCUiqrs
said Chandler, a vaa driver for the
Madison County transportation
Authority, molested the children
while driving them to and from the
day care center.
Since that verdict, Chandler's sup
porters have organized and have ob
tained approximately 1,350
signatures on petitions calling for a
re-investigation of the child sexual
abuse case, said group spokesman
Jerry Gunter. > /
-Continued on back page
?Z> .. '/ ' ?- ?&?>
? .i; ? ?
French Broad River Claims
1 Life In Rafting Accident
By BILL STUDENC
and ANNE KITCHELL
News Record Staff
A white water rafting trip on the
French Broad River turned tragic
Saturday when a woman drowned
after her raft smashed into a large
boulder and overturned, spilling its
passengers into the river.
Frankie Long, 52, of Cary was kill
ed when she became trapped in rocks
about 7 feet below the surface of the
river at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, accor
ding to rescue workers.
Long's life jacket, which apparent
ly slipped over her head, was found a
mile downriver about 20-30 minutes
after the accident.
The fast-moving current apparent
ly pushed Long under the water and
beneath the boulder, where she got
caught in a large hole in the rock, said
'Boats have had problems with that rapid before, but we've
never had a problem with a person in that area,'
Michael Tousey
Carolina Wilderness Adventures
Jimmy Ramsey, chief of the Mar
shall Fire Department and head of
the rescue operation.
"Her boat got off course and miss
ed where they should have gone,"
Ramsey said. "It broadsided a rock
and when it did, it threw everybody
out. The water pulled her under, she
got hung on a rock and that was it."
Five other passengers in the raft -
including the victim's husband, John
F. Long -- also fell into the water, but
were able to reach safety.
Rescuers, approaching 100 in
number, were unable to locate the
body until about 6:15 p.m. Saturday,
nearly six hours after the accident
They could not remove the body from
the river until late Sunday morning.
"Where she was at, there was a
hole that was just unreal," Ramsey
said. "You could stick the front end of
a car in it, easy."
Rescue crews had to wait for the
water level in the river to drop before
they could retrieve the body. Carolina
Power & Light Co., with two dams
located upriver, closed gates on the
dams about 8 a.m. Sunday, allowing
the river level to drop nearly 3 feet.
The river was closed to boaters dur
ing the operation.
Eddie Fox, director of Madison
County Emergency Medical Ser
vices, estimated the river current at
between 25 to 30 mph.
"They lowered the water level
about three feet," Fox said. "Without
that, we might still be down there."
Rescue crews, working in coopera
tion with several of the white water
rafting guides who regularly run the
French Broad, used a series of ropes
to position a boat in the river during
the recovery of the body.
Fox commended the rafting com
panies for their assistance in the
rescue effort. "They were a super
help," he said
Long was a passenger in a raft on a
commercial white water trip with
-Continued on back page
I IX *
BILL STUDENC PHOTO
Madison County Sheriff Dedrick Brown tosses confiscated
marijuana plants onto a bonfire behind the jail.
j Drug Investigation
Continues; More
Marijuana Found
From Staff Reports
The Madison Couhty Sheriff's
Department has arrested four more
people on drug-related charges and
i confiscated another (350,000 worth of
marijuana as its on-going "war on
drugs" continued this week.
The arrests bring the total number
fotaf Animated "street value" ei con
fiscated marijuana to $445,000.
"That wasn't a bad week," said
Madison County Chief Deputy Dal
Peek.
Authorities last Wednesday charg
ed a Hot Springs husband and wife
with possession and 'manufacture of
marijuana after finding 64 plants
around their home. The plants, knee
to waist-high, were identified as
marijuana and have an estimated
street value of $102,000, Peek said.
Another $176,000 in marijuana was
discovered by accident Friday at the
Madison Industrial Park near Mar
shall when a federal Drug Enforce
ment Agency airplane flew over
several patches containing a total of
110 plants, according to authorities.
Officers in the DEA plane, in Bun
combe County to assist authorities
with the location of marijuana fields,
spotted th* Madison crop as they
passed over the industrial park on ?
sweep across North Buncombe Comi
ty. Peek said
No arrests have been made in con
nection with the discovery, but the in
vestigation is continuing, Peek said.
Madison authorities charged two
brothers with manufacturing mari
juana after discovering 40 plants in
the Petersburg area of the county.
The plants would be worth *48,000 on
the street. Peek said.
Fifteen more plants, worth approx
imately $24,000, were found Monday
afternoon in Hot Springs
*Big Bad Wolf Remembers Fighting Rum-Runners
By ELIZABETH D. SQUIRE
Feature Writer
At age 88, Dewey Foster of Sleepy
Valley still sometimes wears the
black hat that went with his
nickname in his law enforcement
days - "The Big Bad Wolf."
Foster was one of those enforcing
the law in Madison County - and at
times in nearby Haywood County and
in Cocke County, Tenn. - back when a
main rum-running route was from
Cocke County into North Carolina and
up Round Mountain by Max Patch, to
Asheville by way of Junaluska, and
on to Morganton, he says.
The blockaders or rum-runners, as
those who dealt in illegal whiskey
were called, could carry as many as
20 cases of liquor in a car. Bach case
was filled with fruit jars of moon
shine. Hie rum-runners, who tried to
slip through at night, were mostly
men, but once Foster arrested two
women.
Although Foster says he sometimes
forgets the year an event happened,
some details impressed him so that
he can't forget.
A biockader from Hot Springs
heldped to start his "sheriffing"
career in about 1917 when he was 19
years old, and then tried to end it in
1931, Foster said. Before 1917, Foster
had been working in the mines in
West Virginia. *
On the day til 1917 before he was
due to go down to Marshall to take a
service exam "for the war,'' he and a
friend decided to buy some whiskey.
He had never done that before, he
recalls.
The blockader who sold him the
whiskey met him in Hot Springs that
same afternoon and accused Foster
of exposing him. The man threatened
to kill him, he says, adding that the
man was known for having already
killed three men.
So Foster and his friend went and
got the friend's gun. Then Foster says
he went on to the depot to get the train
to Marshall
Just as it was getting dark, the
blockader, possibly not knowing that
Foster was now armed, arrived at the
station, threatened Foster again and
pretended to have a gun and to be
about to shoot, Foster says.
Foster shot the man twice, he
recalls. A traia came through just in
time for the doctor to put the man on
board for the trip to the hospital in
Asheville. That was the best way to
get from Hot Springs to a hospital in
those days, he said.
There was a rule, he recalls, that if
you shot a man they kept you in Jail
until they knew if he would live or die.
But Foster had trouble turning
himself in. First he had to find the Hot
Springs policemean. When he finally
tracked downthe policeman, the of
ficer had no car to take him right
down to jail in Marshall. He spent the
night at the policeman's house.
After 16 days in the Marshall jail,
with the blockader on the mend,
Foster knew the sheriff and his staff
so well that they hired Foster to run
the Jail, he said.
That was under either Sheriff R.R.
Ramsey or Jim Bailey Foster says
he has worked under so many sheriffs
that he finds it hard to remember ex
actly what events happened during
whose term.
His daughter, Marie Osteen, also of
Sleepy Valley, recalls that he was
first deputy under R.R. Ramsey, Jim
Bailey, Jeter P. Ramsey, Caney
Ramsey, Guy English and Hubert
Davis in Madison County.
-Cofttinaed on back page
Countywide Chamber
To Become Reality
. "
mittees - bylaws, membership and
pobJicity and promotion The in
dividual committees will meet
separatley to discuss ideas and
reconvene on June 30 to establish a
charter ,fv* chamber bylaws
"There are two areas we need ie
consider for development tourism
?nd retirement . Hoffman said We
need to raise our tax base As of now
h< f is i irtth."
'We sisi tete
jorU ce of shopping in t ly."
Mid Jerry Plemmons of the French
? ?
Splash !
Marshall Board Agrees
To Open Swimming Pool
that the pool oouh||lp^piK?>e operated
as long aa aalflcfant amounts of
chlorine or other chemical agent* are 1
used to keep bacteria levels low
A major com v with Ilk swimm
ing pool has been an underground
spring - Puwiag beneath the recrea
tion area - that laafca Into the pool
told M. thai fit als that the leak