Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / Nov. 12, 1987, edition 1 / Page 4
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Opinion Page THE BRUNSWICKiBEACON Kdward M. Sueatl and Carolyn H. Sweatl I^ubfishi^rs Kdwnrd M. Sweat! Hditor SuHan llsher Editor Uiihii Aiain9 & Doug Rutter Stuff Writer.s Johnny i.rnig Sports EdiUtr (Ihrisline Ballou Office W/imiger Oreliti Gore & Susan Barefoot. .Advertisinf^ Heprvst>nt»tives Tnniinie Galloway & Dorothy Brennan Typesetters Robert Williams Pressmun lirenda Cleinmons Photo Technician Ltmnie Sprinkle Assistant Pressman Clych‘ and Mattie Stout, Phoebe Clemmons Circtdation We Want This 'Baby' To Do Well I*;iRe 4-A Thursday, November 12,1987 Time To Grow Up, Calabash One can’t blame the lame-duck town council in Calabash for trying to hurry along its efforU to bring water to the downtown business district. The new council members who will be seated in December have already made it known they think the town needs to fur ther “study” options for financing a water system, as well as questioning the current need for the system. How foolish. That’s mostly what the town council has done for the past four years, study water. Council members, the town eiprU, attorney and consulting onohnppp Hayp pvhs^nQfpH all funding possibilities. While a limited sum from local ontion sales tax revenues are designated for water and sewer, town officials have concluded that property owners must shoulder the greatest part of the cost of obtaining water—by assessments, without the benefit of even a long-term bond repayment schedule. Commission won’t issue bonds for the town because of its past financial history, the community’s reluctance to act like and accept the responsibility of being a town. If the commission were willing to issue the bonds, however, FmHA would buy them at a favorable interest rate. One of the main reasons the Local Government Commis sion won’t issue the bonds is the town’s poor tax collection rate. This year, for the first time in its 12-year history, collec tions exceeded 90 percent—but it still wasn’t good enough. The standard statewide is the mid- to upper-90s. The town will have to meet similar standards to qualify for participation in a revolving loan fund to be established bv W\e sUtte. In tax collections and other areas the current board has made great strides. For example, council has taken steps to obtain a town land use plan and to participate in the federal flood insurance program, two more firsts for Calabash, both prompted by efforts to obtain water. The incoming council members haven’t attended council meetings in the past and may not know the efforts made by the current board. And perhaps they think if they wait long enough, the coun ty will install the lines. If so, holding their breath could prove fatal. Some also resent the fact that a small portion of the town is served by a county water main and that those property owners weren l assessed for it. In turn those property owners aren’t interested in helping pay for their neighbors to get water. Over all, what Calabash seems to lack is a common sense of purpose, of community, with individuals pursuing their own directions regardless of their effect on others. When a council shows any sign of vision and leadership, its members are generally doomed at the polls. That’s unfortunate. It delays the day when Calabash takes its rigntful place airiong other Brunswick County municipalities. Grow up. Calabash. Write Us The Beacon welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must be signed and in clude the writer’s address. Under no circumstances will unsigned letters be printed. Letters should be legible. The Beacon reserves the right to edit libeloiLS comments. Address letters to The Brunswick Beacon P O Box 470 ShalloUe. N.C. 28459. Don and I are feeling like proud parcnts-to-bc these days: nerv’ous. curious, expectant, excited. Helping “parent” a baby Toastmasters Club is exhilirating as well as exhausUng. It’s fun being in on the creation of something wor thwhile. but in the back of your mind, there’s always the question, 'is this going to be for nothing? What if. . . ?” .As with many parenting efforts, our timing could have been much bet ter. Don’s pretty caught up in several projects sponsored through his church: I’m in the middle of a two- Saturday workshop. Our cohort in this enterprise. Stan Smith, is bet ween Emmaus walk projects involv ing two long weekends in South Carolina and two at the N.C. Baptist Susan Usher Assembly. But wc’Il make do; better now than just before or after Christmas, we keep telling ourselves. Stan and I had been commuting to Southport several years for the 7 a.m. Wednesday Brunswick Toastmasters metangs, but didn’t think the two of us could get a club going here on our own. But with Don’s added help, this summer we decided to tackle it. Somehow it’s all coming together; we’re getting more excited by the minute. By the time this issue of the paper is out, we’ll know if the late nights, breakfast meetings, luncheon meetings and screwed-up home schedules have paid off. Personally, I'd be willing to bet our club will tiave before Christmas the 20 to 30 members it needs to charter, though Toastmasters International gives us four months to meet our target. Why? For the same reason that Don and I are willing to work to establish a club here: it's got a lot to offer a variety of individuals. What other club offers fun and fellowship, business and personal contacts, com munity service and an opportunity to try to improve yourself with the help itiii' iTiitu'e ^uuftir.nti f/ Carolina Towns Spark Imagination I happened to lx» looking through my state map the other day and came acro.s.s the name T uxedo. Nortb Carolina. Tuxedo wasn't exactly in Ixild tvpe or highlighted like Kaleigh. but it somehow leapt off the page at me. •My mind started to wander, as it orien wiii on Kruiav atternoons when I’m wracking iny brains out for a col umn topic, and I got to thinking wl»at life might be like in Tuxedo. Mow do they dress in Tuxedo. I thought? No doubt, they mu.sl all dre.ss very dapper or they would lx* ostracized. A couple of countie.s to the west I noticed the town of ('ashiers. .My. I thought, they mu.si have a lot of Doug Rutter stores in a town called Cashiers. Everyone must work behind a cash register. Ju.st a glance away I couldn’t help notice that the towns of Locust and Red Cross are right next to one another. Locust. N.C., sounds like a buggy Autumn Is Beautiful On The Coast Tree alert! Red leaves at three o'clo.*k.” For the past couple of weeks, it lias been all I can do to keep my attention (»n the road while driving around Brunswick (’ounty, ever siticc my wife and I Ijegaii our .search for fall colors in earnest. Our first autumn on the coast has been a different and yet rew'arding experience, as we’ve begun to learn more about our new home and ap preciate what makes it special. When we lived in the foothills, we were so accustomed to seeing the leaves gradually turn from green to yellow or red in October that we almo.st took the l>eautiful fall colors for granted. Seeing the poplars and maples in mu old backyard change into their ■ autumn lx.*.st" .sometimes used to only reimiid me that I would .soon lx? gelling blisters on my hands from raking ifiose same once beautiful leaves to the curb to 1m* picked up by the l ily's leaf truck. Rahn Adams The hustle and bustle of ever>’day life sometimes blinded me to the brilliant colors that surrounded me. At least once each fall, my wife and I would pile into the car and join all the other frenzied leafers on the win ding section of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock and Grandfather Mountain. But I always found it hard to 'ooh and ahh” over the trees while trying to avoid a rearend collision in the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Since moving here to the coast almost three months ago. I’ve Ixeii keeping an adiniUedly uneducated eye out for signs of autumn even, where I go. Still, some of those sign.s have been obvious, even to me. When early morning temperatures here lH*gan dipping into the 4n.s and then the .'10s, I knew autumn wa.s here, and I gleefully raicsacked my closet to find my f;iviriie jacket to wear on chilly mornings one of fall s simple pleasures for me. Another sign of autumn I recognized was that traffic on U..S. 17 through ShalloUe began to thin with the end of the tourist .season a change from increa.scd fall traffic m the mountains. My wife and 1 found other obvious signs of fall during our frequent weekend jaunts to nearby Sunset Beach, where starling m mid- October we Ix'gan s*eing more [h*o- p)e on the fishing pier than on Uic en tire strand. Overhead, we could see migratory birds of all slia|M*s and sizes flying .south along the shoreline, the birds rising and falling in formation And one Friday night last month, we bundled up and sat on the beach near Uie dunes, to watch one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. It seems as though the word beautiful” is the only way to (le.scTibe fall, no matter where you live. But my autumn wasn't complete until two weekends ago, when we were traveling U.S. 17 near Bolivia. "Tree alert!” my wife said, poin ting to a liny, red-leafed tree hiding in a forest of towering pines well off the road. It look me a second to understand, and that single moment of hestitation caused me to catch only a glimpse of the tree’s color, even though I im- mediiitely hit the brakes and jerked the steering wheel and tried unsuc cessfully to pull off the roiid for another look. I he inotori.sts Ixhind me probably could have sworn they were on the Blue Ridge Parkway. place or a good place to film a creepy, crawly movie. it s a good thing iteu Cress is just down the road, or I doubt many peo ple would live in Locust. Then the town of Eureka caught my eye. That must be the place where gold was first discovered in North Carolina. Or else it’s tlic place named after the place where gold was discovered in California. Thermal City, N.C., must be a very warm place. Either that or a very cold place where the people manufacture and wear a lot of ther mal clothing. Just in case, it might be a good idea to sport a pair of ear- muffs when passing through. Ether, North Carolina, sounds like a sleepy little town. ICs probably the kind of place you could go for a nice, relaxing vacation. Then there are some towns about which I haven’t the slightest clue. Those are the ones that really make you think. i can’t even guess what life is like in Santeetlah. It’s near Lake Santeetlah and below Santeetlah Dam so I guess it can’t be too bad. There are probably some good fishing holes out there. Nebraska, North Carolina, really threw me off. That must be something like California, Penn sylvania, or Indiana, Pennsylvania. I could understand if it was an in land corn-farming community, but Nebraska is located along Pamlico Sound, and I doubt they do much corn-farming up there. Toast, N.C., sounds like an in teresting place. Something gives me tlie feeling they import a lot of butter and jam. While the names of all these towns spark a lot of imagination, it was perhaps the town of Whynot which fascinated me the most. Could you imagine being lost in the town of Whynot and tr>*ing to get directions to New Hope? of people with similar goals? TI is already meeting the needs of thousands of people, having already served two million people. And with an average membership of 21. clubs are mushrooming up all over the country as more and more businesses and individuals recognize the need for the training TI member ship offers. But like most worthwhile ventures, you get out of Toastmasters what you put into it. That's one reason we’re investing our time heavily in this new club: Like most parents, we want this baby to grow up to be a success. LEHERS TO THE EDITOR Yaupon Candidate Likes Coverage I want to compliment you on the coverage you provided during the re cent elections in Brunswick County. The use of a questionnaire kept the facts straight and the photo oppor tunity indicates the professional ap proach your newspaper takes in presenting tlie candidates to tlie public. You arc to be commended for your excellent attitude toward “public ser\’icc.“ During the cam paign I found that many people in Yaupon Beach had read the articles. I am enrincinu a cnKe/»-r\»:nx the Beacon and I encourage you to continue to present news items of in- tcix'st about our part of the county. Please extend my thanks to the writers of the articles and hope you will let them use their “credits” in the future. Joseph W. Broyles Commissioner-Elect Y.^u' -TV.nch Where Are We To Leave Our Trash? To the editor: Without any notice, the county removed garbage dumpsters from the GeorgetowTi Road-Highway 179 intersection. These dumpsters .ser\*- ed a large community of taxpayers. We heard the county placed them in an area off Highway 904. far off the road and so muddy and filled with rocks and debris you cannot get in and out safely. This is about four miles from the original location. Where are we supposed to leave our trash? I guess the only answer is to toss it along the highways. Brunswick County has let its tax payers down and we think something should be done about this horrible situation now, before we all dump along the road. 1 guess that’s what the county wants. Please help us. Douglas R. Wildey Bay Point Subdivision ShalloUe School Volunteers Were A Big Help To the editor: Tuesday, Nov. 10, we administered the N.C. Assessment of Writing to sixth and eighth graders at ShalloUe Middle School. Teachers and students both worked hard preparing for this test. We couidnT have given this a.ssess- ment without tlie help of test proc tors: Jon Amundson, Marianna Boyd, Jean Cheers, Pam Grainger, Sandra Hall, Pat Hampton. Ixjuvia Moses, Caroline O’Rourke, Linda Robinson, Connie Russ, Mary Sanderford, Sandra Thomas, Ixiuise Thorpe and Susan Williams. We really appreciate the efforts of these school volunteers. Dawn Ellen Nubel Jr. High Counselor Shallotte Middle School Core Could Not Have Been Better To the editor: We sometimes hear or read com ments about our hospital and the care of the patients. My husband was hospitalized several weeks ago and I have nothing but praise and gratitude for the care he was given. I have never seen a more dedicated group of nurses and technicians than in the ICU unit and the respiratory department. They not only show ex pertise in their field of work, but they display a glow of compassion and devoUon toward their patients. Their sincerity is an in.spiralion. I feel that my husband could not have gotten better care in any other hospital. He had the very best of doc tors and nurses. We bad many ques tions and they found lime to give us answers, and came by on their off lu- ty hours just to sit and offer comfort. Irene (!liflon& Family Shallotte
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
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Nov. 12, 1987, edition 1
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