The Hoke County News - Established 1928 VOLUME LXXIV NUMBER 14 RAEFORD, HOKE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA In County Board, State House R unoffs journal 25 The Hoke County Journal - Established 1905 $8 PER YEAR THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1982 Bratcher, Hunt, DeVane Nominated Around Town BY SAM c. MORRIS ? The weather for the past week has been the same as it was last week, hot and humid. The after noon thundershowers don't cool things off like you would expect. 'The forecast is for the rains to 4)bp over the weekend, but as this is being written Saturday a.m., the clouds are still with us. Hope the eather is on the road to being fair as I am going on a trip for a few days, but will be back by the time you read this. * * ? tiWhile getting out the items for e "Browsing through the Files" column for 25 and 15 years ago, I came across a picture in the 25 years ago paper that made me stop and read the second time. Wednesday morning, July 21, I was reading the daily paper and noticed a death of a ninety-three year old lady in Greenville. What tfruck my eye was that the headline Vmed an "Ex-official in Demo cratic Party" had died. Then in obtaining the items for 25 years ago the caption under the picture had the same name as the one of the death in Greenville. The lady that died was Mrs. J.B. Spilman and she had spoken to the Raeford Kiwanis Club at their regular meeting 25 years ago. What a coincidence! ? How have your cantaloupes and watermelons tasted this year? Have they been sweet enough for you? Most of the ones I have eaten have been really good. It seems to me that there is more ; water in them than past years, so it '^ist be because of the fine season [ttc have had this year. Yes. about anyone can have a "Green Thumb" this year. jj Well, when you read this the primary election will be history and ,;we can look forward to the general Selection in November. 1 hope ^^ryone took time to vote. i The voting by precincts in the f first primary might be of interest to Some of you readers. The following figures give the number of regis tered votes cast in the precinct. Allendale 225-126 ? 56% Antioch 699-333 ? 48% ^.Blue Springs 782-424 ? 54% ^Buchan ?60-155 ? 43% | McCain 576-292 ? 51% ? Puppy Creek 619-326 ? 52% I Raeford 1 1238-821 - 66% B Raeford 2 687-457 - 67% Raeford 3 694-365 - 52% Raeford 4 870-483 ? 56% Raeford 5 916-533 - 58% Rockfish 475-265 - 56% Stonewall 592-360 ? 61% tiere were 79 absentee ballots t in the election. The overall vote iras 5,009 with ihe total registration the county being 8,733. This ^ave a percentage of 57% voting. There were 71 Republican votes ?this means that 4,938 Democrats lent to the polls and voted, emocrats have 8,260 registered, this means that 60% of them ted in the first primary. [This is not bad for an off-year :t?on. Let's hope it is this good in _ second primary, because only emocrats will be voting. you next week and will let know how the World's Fair to a trip to the Carib i! C. COMMISSIONER howell V (o 13 (0(0 SB AO ^ (a 309 JZ4l TIT 22. & f*>(* /3rt hunt 3(# ?Q 755 aTT 39 >1 73 33t> 2*1 /Oc ?0 JM? riley 10 N3 9?. ?*2 /frV 93 Zi? * I/A2 matcher /g ?V 73 /5" W dtvane gay if M Mi. 11 IQg 1A /V/ 111 22V 9g iisi V Did Church Work There 2 Years Beth Wood set up a display Monday afternoon in the Hoke County Public Library to help Hoke County people get to know something about the part of the world where she spent the last two years in church work. She returned to Raeford in the first week of June after serving since last August as music and youth director of First Baptist Church of George Town on Grand Cayman, the largest of the little Cayman Islands of the British West Indies. Miss Wood, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A.W. Wood, Jr., of Raeford, was music teacher at J.W. Turlington School when she WEr, BetKTWood Has Cayman Display took the assignment with the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention to work on Grand Cayman. Talking about her experience there while she was preparing her display in a library showcase Mon day, she had nothing but praise for the island and the people. In fact, she showed her feelings about it when she said that if she ever gets back, she won't be going as a tourist, she'll be "going home." To her it is a second home. Miss Wood said that though the islanders are thousands of miles from Britain, they are very loyal to England: they held a holiday when Prince Charles and Princess Diane were married, and huge crowds came out at 4 o'clock in the morn ing to see the wedding on televi sion; and they worried when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, though they were thousands of miles to the south, in April. For a wedding gift to Prince Charles, who had visited the Caymans, they gave a set of jewelry carved by local craftsmen from the beautiful black coral that lies on the ocean floor near the island. She guessed that the gift was worth about $50,000. Prince Charles sent the islanders a letter expressing his appreciation for the gift, and Miss Wood believes the letter must have been written by Beth Wood with her Cayman Islands display. From Mott Lake Bottom Charles personally, because of the references to his visit. The island people also con tributed the equivalent of about SI million American dollars to a cause, though it was those thousands of miles away in Great Britain. Miss Wood also had a taste and a bit more of a Cayman dish: turtle steak. She said it comes from the sea turtle which weighs about 500 pounds full grown. They are raised on a Grand Cayman turtle farm, as a Hoke County farmer raises beef cattle or turkeys. While in the Caribbean, she visited the Central American republic of Costa Rica, between Nicauragua and Panama, and Jamaica, which is about 185 miles east of Grand Cayman. And if the commercial airlines flew in a straight line from Raeford to Grand Cayman, her plane would have flown in a straight line due south to get there. The island is 480 miles south of Miami, Fla., a flight of only about 90 minutes. The trip to Grand Cayman was her first outside the United States, she said, and now she want* to travel more. Her getting to know the British people of Grand Cayman has gotten her interested in seeing Great Britain first. Since returning, Miss Wood has been showing her photo slides of Grand Cayman and her work there to audiences in churches throughout Hoke County. Meanwhile, she's also looking forward to returning to teaching. She said she just signed a contract to teach music in the Fayetteville city school system. She'll teach at the Margaret Willis and Ramsey Street elementary schools when the 1982 fall term opens. Hoke Rescue Squad Man Recovers Victim The body of a woman was recovered from Mott Lake at Ft. Bragg late Monday afternoon by Kemp Crumpler, a member of the Hoke County Rescue Squad after her car plunged into the lake following a traffic collision. Her identity was still being withheld Tuesday till next of kin could be notified, the Public Affairs Office of XVIIlth Airborne Corps and Ft. Bragg said. An investigation by the Ft. Bragg Criminal Investigation Command found that the woman was driving the car on Plank Road about 4 p.m. when it'collided with another vehicle, then ran into the lake. No charge has been filed. The Hoke County Rescue Squad and Hoke County Ambulance Ser vice went to the scene, and after soldiers of the Fifth and Seventh Special Forces Group located the car, they marked the spot by treading water above it. Crumpler, using Scuba diving equipment, found the car lying upside down on the bottom of the lake about 20 feet under the surface and removed the victim after wedging open a door. After bring ing the body to the surface, it was placed in a boat and brought to shore where ambulance service medical technicians tried to revive the victim before she was flown to Womack Army Hospital at Ft. Bragg by Army helicopter. The Public Affairs Office spokes man said she was dead on arrival at 6:03 p.m. Besides the Hoke County emer gency services, the Womack Hospi tal Ambulance Service and two Army helicopters went to the scene. The Public Affairs spokesman said the woman's body was taken to the Cumberland County medical examiner's office. Hoke County Commissioner James A. Hunt and Cleo Bratcher, Jr., won the Democratic nomina tions for the Board of County Commissioners, and Danny De Vane won the Democratic nomina tion to one of the three 16th District seats in the State House of Repre sentatives Tuesday in the party's runoff primary. County Commissioner Mabel Riley lost in her bid for a second term on the county board. Raeford pharmacist Thomas P. (Tom) Howell was the other candidate in the contest for the nominations for the two board seats. James A. Hunt The winners will join fellow Democratic County Commissioner John Balfour and Republican Evelyn Manning in the November general election to fill the three open positions on the board. Balfour, the chairman of the board, won a clear majority in the June 29 primary, consequently didn't have to participate in a runoff. He is running for his fifth term. In Tuesday's runoff, the unoffi cial returns from Hoke's 13 pre cincts show Bratcher leading the field with 1.625 votes, and Hunt following with 1,608. Howell re ceived 1.356. and Mrs. Riley 1.132. In the State House runoff in the three counies which compose the district ? Hoke. Scotland and Robeson -? DeVane finished second in a six-candidate field with an unofficial tally of 7.353 votes. Sidney A. Locks was first with 7.870. and John (Pete) Hasty was third with 6.600. Daniel H. (Danny] DeVanc They will join Republican Steven Strickland in the November 2 general election to decide which three will go to the General Assembly for the next two years. In the Hoke County voting, DeVane took the majority with (See RUN-OFFS, page 15)