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turphy, N.C., 28906
Monday Morning Firemen
In the early morning light Monday, Murphy's
volunteer firemen rolled out to battle the blaze at
Barney Hensley's building supply place. The fire
was too far gone to put out when they arrived but
they kept it from spreading to nearby homes and
businesses and also saved two other buildings
Builders Supply
Destroyed By Fire
A roaring fire which
blackened the early-morning
sky with heavy smoke
destroyed Nelson I .umber and
Supply Co. here Monday.
Nelson (Barney) Hensley,
who owned the building supply
and hardware business, said his
losses of stock, plus the checks
and accounts burned up inside
his safe, would amount to about
$75,000. He said only about a
fourth of the loss was covered
by insurance.
The building,
constructed of metal siding over
a wooden framework, was
owned by Dr. Helen Wells, who
Sheriff Pledges
'We'll Get Radios'
Cherokee County Sheriff
Blain Stalcup pledged this week
that "We'll get the radios, one
way or another."
The sheriff said although
Cherokee County
commissioners have voted to
pull out of a planned seven
county radio system, financed
65 percent with federal money,
he intends for his department to
get the radios built especially
for it by Motorola.
, "If I have to, 111 put up the
fnoney myself," Sheriff Stalcup
said. "I want to give this county
the best possible law
enforcement and we can't do it
without the radios. I was elected
to serve the people and I'm
going to do the best job I can."
Earlier this year the
commissioners approved
joining the seven-county radio
system, which would give new
radios to the Cherokee sheriff's
department. The cost to the
county would be about |1,000 a
-year for the next five years.
Then last month the
commissioners voted to
withdraw from the system and
fiie controversy in shaping up
Sfong familiar political lines.
-Rebublican Commissioners
Jack Simonds and Jack
longingood voted for pulling
hut of the radio system;
Commissioner W.T. Moore,
Democrat, abstained on the
vote.
"I've already called the
Motorola man and told him
we'd take the radios," Stalcup
said. He said he expected them
to be installed here in about two
or three weeks.
The radio payments would
be made in the name of the
Town of Murphy and assigned
to the county sheriff's office for
use , according to the officer's
plan.
Sheriff Stalcup and the
Town Council members of
Murphy are all Democrats.
leaded it to Hensley. He had
operated the business here
since 1966.
Edwin Cook, chief of the
Murphy Volunteer Fire
Department, said a passer-by
discovered the fire about
6:30 Monday morning. On
arriving at the Tennessee
Street firm, firemen found the
fire already breaking out the
top of the building.
The volunteers could not
save the building supply house,
which was too far gone, but by
hard work kept the blaze
confined to that one building as
it threatened nearby homes and
businesses. The thick dark
snoke rising from the blaze
could be seen for miles
No cause has yet been
determined for the fire. The
Murphy Police Department
poked around in the burned
debris but Police Chief Pete
Stalcup said they found no
evidence of arson. The fire had
so completely consumed the
building that detection of arson
would be difficult. Chief Stalcup
added, even if there were reason
to suspect arson.
Indiana
Man Dies
In Wreck
An out-of-state motorist
was killed and two others were
injured Tuesday in a head-on
collision on US-64 at the western
Mirphy town limits.
Ralph Darnell, 51, of Gary,
Ind., was found dead in the
wreckage of his car, according
to the investigating officers,
Trooper Don Reavis and
Murphy Policeman C. C.
Howard.
The officers said Darnell's
car, coming into Murphy,
crossed the centerline of the
fcturlane road and smashed
headon into a car driven by
Willie H. Westedt, 54, of
Arlington Heights, III.
Westedt and his wife Ruth,
49, both seriously injured, were
admitted to Providence
Hospital for treatment.
Both cars were completely
demolished in the wreck, which
happened about 12:50 p.m.
The officers were puzzled
by Darnell's car crossing the
highway into the path of the
other auto. They said it left no
skid marks at all and there was
some speculation that the
driver may have suffered a
heart attack, causing him to
lose control.
It's Back
To School
Time Again
This week was back to
school for the 1,200 pupils in the
Clay County system and the
3,810 in the Cherokee schools.
Pupils in Clay registered on
Tuesday and Cherokee students
registered on Wednesday.
Thursday was scheduled as the
first full day of school for both
systems, according to
Superintendents Scott Beal
iCiayi and John Jordan
(Cherokee).
First regular football
games of the Fall season begin
on Friday night at 8 o'clock ,
Murphy's Bulldogs taking on
the Andrews Wildcats at
Andrews and the Hayesville
Yellow Jackets journeying to
the reservation to do battle with
the Cherokee Braves.
rina mivdi an aold Dins
The Cherokee Scout
1 4 Pages-2 Sections Clay County Progress 15'Per c?py
Voiumn 80- Number 2 -Murphy, N. C. 28906-Second Class Postage Paid at Murphy, N. C.- Thursday, August 26, 1971
Consolidation Aired Again
By waiiy a veil
Staff Writer
Consolidation of Cherokee
County high schools cropped up
again for lengthy discussion last
week in a meeting of the county
Board of Education.
The discussion was sparked
by the appearance of a group of
parents and patrons of
Hiwassee . Dam school, who
presented a petition with 1S3
names, asking that their
children be transferred to
Murphy High.
Randall Shields was
spokesman for the group, which
he said represented generally
the area along US-64 west to the
Tennessee line.
Shields and other speakers
in the group asked that the
children be bussed into Murphy
High for two main reasons.
First they hit Hiwassee Dam as
being the bare minimum of a
high school, with a small
faculty, offering only the state
required basic courses. They
also bore down on the safety
factory, critical of the narrow
winding NC-294 that runs from
the four-laned US-64 down to the
school.
"It's eight miles down 294 to
the school," one woman said.
"And it's only about nine miles
from the intersection on into
Murphy and that nine miles is
four-lane."
"It would be to the
advantage of the students to
come into Murphy," Shields
said, "Due to the education that
is available at Hiwassee Dam.
It would be especially helpful to
the students going onto college
as Hiwassee Dam is very
limited in science and math and
has no foreign languages."
Doctors VanGorder and
Hoover were the only absent
school board members. The
rest of the county school board
seemed very surprised by the
petitioning group's request.
The consolidation issue came up
several months ago and was
crushed by heavy opposition,
including a very vocal Hiwassee
Dam delegation.
After bogrd members
recovered from their initial
confusion, they asked how
many students were involved in
the petitioned move. The
answer was "about a
"busload."
The high school at Hiwassee
Dam numbers about 200
students, Superintendent John
Jordan said, and has eight
regular teachers plus two
vocational teachers. "If you let
50 or 60 come into Murphy, that
will mean we'd have to pull two
teachers away from Hiwassee
Dam," Jordan said. "And I
don't know whether it could
operate as a high school with
only six regular teachers."
The chairman, the Rev.
Robert Barker, pointed out that
school starts this week and
teachers are already assigned.
Jordan said a change in
schoolbus routes would have to
be approved by state education
Mrs. Pearson
Goes Free
Mrs. Lee Ellen Pearson of
Murphy went free on Monday of
this week after a preliminary
hearing in Cherokee District
Court on charges of fatally
stabbing her husband.
Pearson was found dead in
a pool of blood near his Ramsey
Hollow home here early in July.
Mrs. Pearson, 49, was charged
with his death.
The state could not produce
a witness to the stabbing nor
could it produce the murder
weapon and Judge Robert
Ieatherwood in ruled there
was insufficient evidence to
warrant a full trial in Superiror
Court.
officials in Raleigh.
Members of the board, with
the exception of Robert Stiles
who lives across the road from
the Hiwassee Dam school, said
they were not opposed to
consolidating at Murphy but
added that they would do only
what the people wanted done.
They advised the petitioning
group to work hard within the
Hiwassee Dam section to
change present sentiments
against consolidation.
"If it's impossible to make
a decision for this year, we'd
like a decision for next year as
soon as possible," Shields said
as the petitioning group left. It
was explained to them that any
of the children in question can
be brought into Murphy to
school without paying any
special tuition, but that it was
too late this year to reassign bus
routes and teachers.
On a motion by board
member Fred West of Andrews,
the county school board voted to
postpone action on the petition
until a later date.
One of the board members
predicted that when, and if, the
decision is made to transfer a
number of Hiwassee Dam
students to Murphy, "it will
mean the beginning of the end
for Hiwassee Dam as a high
school."
The idea of consolidating all
three county high schools into
one unit at Murphy came up last
January as school board
members discussed rebuilding
the burned elementary school at
Andrews, a $300,000 project.
Consolidation was
considered momentarily as an
alternative, letting the Andrews
elementary unit move into the
high school plant there and
using the money to build a
Cherokee County High at
Murphy.
Those for the consolidation
plan say it would offer all
county high school students a
better education. Opponents
put great local pride in their
schools and cite the distances
involved for students living in
the extreme eastern and
western ends of the county.
Skilled hands of Brasstown carvers will be featured at Cherokee County Fair.
Fair Starts Monday
Hayesville
Low On Water
The Town of Hayesville is running low on
water and laundromats there were closed last
week to preserve water.
"We're talking to people on the telephone
and telling them not to wash cars," Mayor
Conrad Carroll said this week. "With school
starting right away, we'll have to preserve
water more than ever.
The trouble is that we're using up what
we're able to pump out of the town's two
wells," Carroll continued. "One was drilled
several years back, the other was drilled
about two years ago.
"But since then, there have been two
housing projects put up, several trailers have
been hooked up to the town water lines and
we've gon e outside the town limits with water
service."
The number of water customers has
increased so much, Mayor Carroll said, that
the town is preparing to begin drilling a third
town well this week. State health officials will
have to approve the well before it can be used,
he said.
Hayesville has a population of about 460 ,
the mayor noted, and sends bills to 420 water
customers. He estimated that at least a fourth
of the water users are outside the present town
limits.
The 53rd annual Cherokee
County Fair begins its six-day
run next Monday, with a new
emphasis on mountain crafts.
Doug Carlson, chairman of
the Fair Committee for the
sponsoring Murphy Lions Club,
says the Fair this year will be
both an agricultural and crafts
fair, with more time and space
being devoted to crafts as
interest dwindles in some of the
agricultural sections of the fair.
Craftsmen from Brasstown
will be exhibiting and selling
their crafts at the Rock Gym,
Carlson said, and will present
demonstrations of their skill
there Monday through
Wednesday night and again on
Bad 20's
Good Copies
The bad 20's are floating
around again.
A Wachovia Bank officer
reported the Murphy bank got
a counterfeit 20-dollar bill on
Monday of this week and
another on Tuesday, both bills
brought in for deposit by
merchants who had
accepted them.
"These are extra good, just
about perfect," the banker said.
"There's just a slight variance
in the feel of the paper because
thev don't have the little silk
threads the real bills do".
Both bills carried the same
serial number, he said, which is
GF31481733B. He warned
merchants to watch out for
them. "They're the best I've
ever seen," he added.
Thursday afternoon, Thursday
to be School Day with all school
students admitted free.
Scheduled to exhibit their
crafts skills are the Brasstown
Woodcarvers, potter Lynn
Gault, woodworker Fred Smith,
Tournaments
Slated For
Labor Day
Golf tournaments are
scheduled for the courses in
Gay and Gierokee counties for
labor Day, Sept. 6.
At Gierokee Hills, an 18
hold Scotch foursome
tournament for men and women
is scheduled. Deadline for
registering is noon on Sept. 4
and tee-off time is 12:30 p.m. on
Sept 6. Registration fee is SI.50
per player.
Winners of the club
championship rounds and also
the Scotch foursome event will
be announced at the potluck
supper to follow the
tournament. Members and
families are invited to attend.
At Chatuge Shores, the
second annual labor Day golf
tournament is planned, with
qualifying rounds to be played
the week before labor Day or
the morning of the tournament.
The entry fee is $10 , which
also provides each player with
three free balls. All amateur
players are invited to compete.
Trophies will be awarded to
first, second and third place
uinners in each of five flights.
a group from the lapidary
Hobby Shop and others, who
will display quilt-making and
weaving.
The Fat Stock Show and
Sale for prize beef cattle will not
be held this year because the
lions said there is not enough
interest among young people in
the county to raise and show
cattle. "We even offered to buy
the cattle for them, let them sell
the animals and keep
everything above the purchase
price as their profit," a member
of the club said. "But they
weren't interested."
As qsual at the Fair, the
community development clubs
of the county will be in
competition for the best exhibit
and a top prize of $75. Cherokee
County industries have a
spirited ribbon competition
among themselves, which can
be expected to produce a
number of skillfully-done
exhibits.
Home Demonstration clubs,
4-H clubs and youth clubs are'
also scheduled to compete with
their respective exhibits, with
top prize money of $50.
The fair will include a
section of judging arts and
crafts, including baskets, rugs
wood carving, metal work, corn
shuck dolls, etc.
Also there will be the
familiar blue ribbon contests
for the best garden and field
crops, canned goods, flowers
and home-baked goodies
New Local
Tax Brings
$15,613
The new one percent local
sales tax brought in more than
$15,000 for Cherokee County last
month.
July figures for all the
counties having the extra
penny-on-the-dollar tax wen
released last week by the North
Carolina Department of
Revenue.
The Cherokee County
figure, which mwt be stand
with Andrews and Monfay,
came to $11,613,13. The
gets the lien's share of I
money. A<
Newcomers Own Pharoah's R ing
A Florida couple, now In the
process of moving to Andrews,
don't carry their most prised
possesion with them.
And no wonder - it's a
authenic ring which once
belonged to one of the moot
famous pharoahs of Egypt. It's
real and they have turned down
an "astronomical" bid for it.
"These things have a way of
increasing in value as time goes
on," says Bob Roberts, "fth
been in the family a long time
and well just bold on to it"
Mrs. Roberts is the fsrnM
Jo Uda of Abbeville, Ga. Bar
late uncle, Fred Lida, was a
wealthy Georgian whs
to
At that time the Egyptian
government had no law againat
the removal of historic
artifacts by private explorers
and Uda returned to Georgia
with the ring.
"I played with it as a
child," Mrs. Roberts
remembers. "Wo Jut
considered it u a piece of
costume Jewelry and I often
wore it on a chain around my
neck. The people at the
Metropolitan Muse am were
very Miochod when they beard
that. The alone Is wry
? hilt"
"We dhtat tour
seal ring of King Thutmose m
and the museum then offered
Roberts an enormous sum of
money for it, which he refused.
The ring itself is kept in a
bank's safety deposit box
fn Palm Beach, Fla. but
Roberts said he has shown it on
occasion and would arrange for
a showing in Cherokee County,
if enough people wanted to see
It
The color photographs be
provided show the stone in the
shape of the scarab beetle, held
as sacred by the ancient
The battle has
an the
reading
nT" ?mI the words
Hn Good CM Lord of tfco Ttoo
reversed and used as a seal.
Thutmose III reigned in
Egypt from 1901 until 1447 BC,
which gives the ring an age of
nearly 3,900 years. He was
pharoah when the children of
Israel were in Egypt and it was
Ms sister who foistd the bsby
Moses hidden in the buBrashes
in the familiar Blbical story
The Roberts family first
purchased a place on Shooting
Oeek in Clay County, only
recently buying in Andrews.
They are very pie said with
Cherokee County, calling it "the
last frontier in the CaroUnas."
Both of than said FrankMa
and the Highlands-Cashiers
areas "are too
commercialised"
#MWfS I -ft.