ews
J ournal
Hoke County’s newspaper since 1905
75zi
N0.16V0L107
Raeford & Hoke County n.c.
Wednesday, June 27,2012
Wood-burning power plant eyes land
Public hearing set, plant wants to buy county land at industrial site
By Catharin Shepard
Staff writer
A private company is interested in buy
ing 129 acres of county-owned property in
the Hoke County Industrial Park to build a
wood-burning plant for generating electricity,
county officials said.
The Hoke County Board of Commission
ers will hold a public hearing next month
regarding the economic development project,
according to a legal notice released Tuesday.
Members of the public are invited to share their
views at the hearing set for 9 a.m. Tuesday,
July 10 in the commissioners’ room at the
county building on Main Street in Raeford.
The project would involve selling the property
at 841 Golf Course Road in the Hoke County
Industrial Park for $6,000 an acre, a total of
$774,000.
The company wants an option to buy the
land and has not asked the county for any
incentives. County Attorney William Fields
said. The commissioners have discussed
the project in closed session before. County
Manager Tim Johnson said. Raeford/Hoke
Economic Development Director Don Porter
said the project is not connected with the
ethanol plant.
“This project has not been announced,
we’re just in the preliminary stages,” Porter
said. County officials did not reveal the com
pany’s name.
“The purchaser of the tract intends to
pay the county for the full value of the tract
(See POWER PLANT, page 6A)
Fireworks
here on July 7
Other options nearby on 4th
Hoke residents looking for
fireworks can travel a short
distance to see displays on
July 4 and will be able to stay
in the county for a special
celebration and fireworks
display at the high school set
for Saturday, July 7.
Hale Artificers, one of
the biggest fireworks com
panies in the state, is com
ing to Raeford to put on a
fireworks show courtesy of
the Raeford/Hoke Chamber
of Commerce. The gates
open at 7 p.m. July 7 at Raz
Autry Stadium at Hoke
County High School and
the fireworks will begin at 9
p.m. The Chamber will offer
snacks and drinks for sale
with proceeds benefiting the
Turkey Festival.
For displays on July 4,
residents can travel to shows
in Aberdeen and Fayetteville.
The Aberdeen celebration
begins at 5:30 p.m. and the
annual celebration at the
Main Post Parade Field on
Fort Bragg begins at 3 p.m.
The town of Hope Mills will
also hold a celebration begin
ning at 10 a.m.
Safety tips
The Hoke County Sher
iff s Office suggests a number
of safety tips to keep the July
4 holiday a fun and enjoyable
experience while avoiding
accidents that could send
someone to the emergency
(See SAFETY, page 3A)
Lemonade Aid
Brittany Holland helps out and buys a glass of
lemonade from entrepreneur brothers Alex,
Peter and Paul, who last week set up a mobile
lemonade stand in the back of father Hubert
Wooten’s truck. The effort generated some
cash (above).
You don’t want this house, neither do the owners
By Catharin Shepard
Staff writer
Todd Sheeley shows problems with house. (Shepard photo)
Shortly after Todd and Tammy Shee
ley bought their home on Arabia Road,
the septic system backed up.
Soon after that the porch light caught
on fire. The couple started finding pieces
of wood chips in their water filter. They
had to replace the toilets because some
thing was wrong with the plumbing
fixtures.
Over the nextthree years, even stranger
things started happening. Inside the
house, parts of the floor buckled and
swelled as if something buried in the
concrete slab was trying to force its way
through the carpet. Outside in the yard,
pieces of cut-up tires, metal and other
trash slowly worked up from the ground.
‘ ‘My dog was chewing on a cell phone,’ ’
Tammy Sheeley said. While digging a
hole to plant a tree, she uncovered what
looked like a scorched showerhead and
burnt house siding. Now she and her
husband wonder just what’s buried on
their property and worry about the pos
sible effects of chemicals leaching into
their well water.
Inspection by private companies re
vealed parts of the house were not up to
code, even though in2009 aHoke County
inspector signed off on the property. A
re-inspection by a different Hoke of
ficial turned up problems too. Then the
Sheeleys found paperwork showing that
although the real estate company mar
keted the house as new construction built
in 2009, the structure actually started out
as a detached garage originally built in
2002 that was converted to a house by
(See HOUSE, page 4A)
This Week
Whooping cough
breakout
targeted
page3A
The News-Journal
will be published
Tuesday next week
because of the holiday
Deadlines are one
day earlier
Calendar 2B
Classifieds 5B
Deaths 3 A
Editorials 2 A
Legals 3-4B
Sports 5 A
Worship 2B
Paranormal team shares ghost stories at library
Ghost in the dark: do you
see it?
By Catharin Shepard
Staff writer
The shadowy outline of
a soldier appears in a photo
of a living room. A strange
formation behind a group of
children looks almost like a
face in an old black and white
snapshot. The two photos
were taken in different places,
years apart, but both made
people wonder whether they
showed evidence of some
thing otherworldly.
The two photos had some
thing else in common: they
were both fakes.
“You have just been
punked,” paranormal in
vestigator Richard Caminiti
announced. The teens at the
Hoke County Public Library
laughed. “None of that was
real.”
“I knew it!” one young
man said.
‘ ‘This is the type of stuff—
that’s why we’re here. This is
the type of stuff that’s going
on with paranormal groups,
and they’re claiming it as evi
dence,” Caminiti explained.
The presentation at the
library was part of the ongo
ing summer reading program
designed for teens with a
camp-out theme in mind. The
topic for the week was ghost
stories, and the Fayetteville
Area Paranormal Research
Association - FAYPRA -
brought plenty of spooky
tales.
Caminiti, partner Me
lissa “Missy” Williamson
and son Rich Caminiti III
are founding members of
both FAYPRA and the Long
Island Paranormal Research
Association in New York, and
they’ve seen and debunked
a lot of so-called proof that
ghosts are real. The first
photo they shared with the
audience was created with a
smartphone app called Ghost
Cam that lets a prankster put
a ghostly image in a picture.
The second photo was a good
example of something known
as “matrixing,” a theory sug
gesting that when a person
sees an image, their brain
automatically starts seeking
out patterns and faces. The
technical term for matrixing
is visual pareidolia, Caminiti
(See GHOSTS, page 5A)
'lilestone
Burlington Industries in Raeford marked a special milestone
last week as the textile plant celebrated 8 million safe work
hours with a party and gifts for employees.
Woman sentenced in fraud case
A Hoke County woman
was sentenced last week to
spend three years in prison for
accepting Medicaid payments
in exchange for psychological
services she was not licensed
to offer.
Teresa Marible, 44, of Ra
eford pleaded guilty to one
count of conspiring to commit
healthcare fraud.
Marible was arrested last
year along with two others
indicted separately for health
care fraud and other charges.
Prom March 2009 to April
2011, investigators said, she
represented herself as a pro
visionally licensed provider
of behavioral and mental
health services. However,
court records showed she
was not licensed to provide
those services and was not
approved by Medicaid to seek
reimbursement.
According to courtrecords,
Marible claimed during a
hearing that she bought a
fake degree and transcript
online and failed the licens
ing test multiple times. She
was sentenced to 36 months
in prison and was ordered to
pay back the more than $1.1
(See FRAUD, page 5A)