Page 2—MIRROR-HERALX)—Tuesday, January 10, 1978
GDITORII^L
opiniori
Back board on this one
No matter how angry, upset or disenchanted for whatever reason citizens may have
been with the city government officials — you’ll have to give them credit for at least one
bold stroke against oppression.
That stroke is the idea of mounting an attack against this ridiculous fuel cost ad
justment tacked onto every power bill every citizen receives.
Duke Power, Bless them, bust their bunyons to provide electrical power to all of us.
Let’s face it. Where would we be without it? Right back iii the candle and oil lamp days.
For this service Duke Power earns tremendous sums of money. Duke stockholders reap'
dividend rewards in largd amounts. That’s only right. It’s the American way.
But!
.... getting back to this fuel cost adjustment. We have been asked to explain in simple
terms, just what this cost is. The logistics involved cannot be explained simply. It has to
do with coal being used to generate the ginkuses that create the power and coal being hard
to get because the coal-miners are always on strike because they claim they aren’t paid
enough because the always rising price of coal to the industry that uses it should bring in
enough money to give the striking coal miners a raise.
Now here’s a simple term fcr the coal or fuel cost adjustment. R-i-p-o-f-f! How’s that f cm*
simplicity? It is a ripoff of the consumer because the N. C. Utilities Department allowed
the cost to be passed on to us by the power companies. It was supposed to be a temporary
expense.
So, if the KM elected officials can find the right nerve and pinch it for all its worth to get
the consumer some relief, more power to them. We should all get behind the city council
on this matter because we all have a stake in it.
P S. The Mirror-Herald doesn’t care to hear any 2,500 word discourses from any power
cwnpanies attempting to justify the fud cost adjustment. The profit increases spelled out
in annual reports make these discourse s sound awfully shallow. Rate increases to take
care of inflation are accq)table, but not rate increases plus fuel cost adjustments. People
who do not happen to have the good fortune of being able to afford a chunk of power
company stock also deserve to breath.
Airport not jesting matter
Check out this program
Rotary International has a program you might
be interested in hearing about. It’s called The
Rotary Foundation.
What the organization calls it is a trust volun
tarily supported by Rotary clubs, Rotarians and
others throughout the world. The objective of
Rotary Foundation is the further international
understanding and friendly relations among
peoples of different nations through projects of an
educational or charitable nature.
Under the program there is at least one
educational award (graduate fellowship), un
dergraduate scholarship or technical training
award offered to every Rotary district each year.
In addition each disbdct may submit an ap
plication for an award to a teacher of the han
dicapped and a journalist Extra educational
awards are granted districts with outstanding per
Rotarian contributions. And in addition each
district is eligible to apply annually for a group
study exchange award.
Graduate fellowships are awarded highly
qualified 4<>ung men and women, married or
single, 20-28years of age,and holding a Bachelor’s
degreeor equivalent. The award covers all travel,
living and educational expenses for one academic
year in a foreign country.
Undergraduate scholarships are available to
single men and women, lS-24. This program
parallels the graduate fdlowship, except the
candidate must have completed two years or more
of university level work, but not yet holding
bachelor’s degrees or equivalent.
Technical training awards provide all travel,
living and educational expenses for young artisans
and technicians to train in a foreign country for up
toone year. Awards are made to men and women,
married or single, ages 21-25.
Awards to teachers of the handicapped provide
an travel, living and educational expenses for
those who have been employed as fulltime
teachers of the physically, mentally or
educationaUy handicapped for at least two years.
Candidates may be married or single, ages 25-59
and having at least a secondary school education.
Journalist awards are open to men and women,
ages 21-28, married or single with at least two
years experience as a professional journalist
having at least a secondary school education. Or,
if a student, have at least two years of post
secondary study in journalism.
The study periods run from four to six weeks to a
TOM
MciriTYRe
district o>jtside th%‘ country where participants
will visit communities, homes, schools, busi
nesses, governmental offfcee and other in
stitutions. The object, to learn as much about the
country visited.
Chairman of the Rotary Foundation program in
the Kings Mountain club is Wilsan Griffin, who
said this week that no fellowships, awards or
grants have been made to anyone locally through
the club.
“I think people in the community might be in
terested in discovering this program,” Griffin
said, “because it holds nuiny benefits for in
dividuals.”
Griffin, a local drug store owner, said there are
many ways Rotarians can become involved In the
program, "but there are other ways others in the
conununity can become involved. People who do
not belong to the Rotary dub.”
This route is through individual recognition.
For instancean individual in the community can
become a Paul Harris Fellow (Harris founded the
Rotary Club) by contributing 81,000 during any 12-
month-period. A Paul Harris Sustaining Member
is individual contributing a minimum first gift of
8100 toward 81,000 total.
Griffin said, “The sustaining member may
contribute the money in his own name or in honor
or memory of someone else. There is no time limit
on contributing the full 81,000.”
There is also a memorial contributor plan, the
donation of 8100 in memory of a deceased person.
And, of course, the contributions are tax
deductible.
"Such contributions not only honor the name or
memory of special people in the community,”
Griffin said, “but the programs also give people
from the community an opportunity to fulfill their
own potential. An opportunity to broaden their
education and understanding of people In other
countries. And the new knowledge these sdected
people bring home can’t help but benefit the rest of
us.”
Not only individuals, but groups and companies
can also participate in creating fellowships,
scholarships, awards and pants through Rotary
International.
“Rotary might have started out way back when
as a once a week luncheon meeting between people
with common interests,” Griffin said, “but since
that time RoUry has grown to mean something
eke entirely. Oh, we still meet once a week for
liaich and to catch an interesting program, but
through the members and the community at large
Rotary, through such propams as Rotary
Foundation, means opportunities people only
dreamed about before.”
Griffin said he dick’t expect all of this in
formation to cause a mad rush to take part in
Rotary Foundation, “but it could give someone in
the community an idea for action that might be
appealing.”
Wholes your opinion?
As qdUor. of the l(x:gl newspaper, |,have been here for four and a half years and have
liear^ an airport for Kin9 Mouatatementioaed only in jast.
That is until last week when a logical plan of attack and an even more logical plan for
attacking were spelled out.
It all goes back to diversification.
In small towns and cities all over the country, those places defined as one-horse towns
and cities or one-industry conununities, there has been trouble. Economic troidile. But in
the areas where diversified business and industry is found, there is found also a thriving
economy.
Kings Mountain is slowly becoming an area of diversified industry. There is room for
even more growth. The more we have to offer to those industries looking for new sites to
base operations the better chance we have of landing them here.
The proposed airport, then appears to be right on the button as far as appeal to some
large industries simply because more and more corporations own and operate their own
aircraft.
Kings Mountain has people for employment. It has water. It has major highways
lor transporting manufactured goods. So why not an airport?
Hie idea of KM having its own airport has never been a jesting matter to the citizens
interested in and participated in the growing world of aviation. So now maybe the jesters
might be persuaded to take the idea a bit more seriously.
TOM McINTTRE
R€hD€R. EHhLOGUe
Ilf« .190 lO
Here is the question
Question: Do you think grown children should
feel responsible for their elderly parents?
In a recent survey, 37 percent said yes; 34
percent no; and 30 percent had no opinion
People always feel a deep sense of responsibility
for those they love.
I find the 34 percent no and the 30 percent with
no opinion quite shocking.
Do these people remain indifferent to the
physical and spiritual fate of mother and father?
‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’
There is a story of an old grandfather whose
hands were not steady and who spilled his food at
table. His son anddaughter-in-law, therefore, built
a little table in the comer and, putting a special
bib on the old man, served him his separate and
lonely meals.
One day the son and daughter-in-law discovered
their small boy sawing and hammering in
dustriously at a work bench.
When they aasked him what he was doing, he
replied: “I’m building a table in the comer for you
when you are old.”
What we decide about others can return in
principle to bless or curse us.
“Honor thy father and thy mother.”
EVERETTE PEARSON
Kings Mtn., N. C.
A footnote in Tar Heel history
On January 8, 1815, former Tar Heel Andrew
Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans. A few
weeks later news of the victory reached North
Carolina and a Surry County footnote was added to
the history of the event.
Jackson had owed a hotel bill in Rockford for
some years, dating back to his days as a
struggling young lawyer on the Carolina frontier.
The innkeeper had stubbornly kept the entry on his
books, telling anyone who’d listen how the
celebrated General Jackson owed him money.
Upon hearing about Jackson’s one-sided triumph
over the hated Redcoats, however, he wrote
across the face of the ledger “Settled In Full by the
Battle of New Orleans.”
€D
9MITH
famed Orton Plantation and was considered one of
UNC’s greatest early benefactors. He donated
some 20,000 acres of land for sale to hdp establish
the university.
Ironically Smith died (also in January, 1826) In
debtor’s prison! ^ ' v w
-oOo-
-oOo-
On January 15,1865, Fort Fisher fell to the Union
forces after two days of the heaviest naval bom
bardment ever seen in the Western hemisphere.
Situated near the south of the Cape Fear
River, the fort had been called “The Glbralter of
America.” Its capture sealed off Wilmington, the
last Important seaport available to the Con
federacy for supply by blockade runners.
A huge Federal fleet had steamed into position
off the fort on Dec. 24, but their attack — like
earlier ones — had been repulsed by the Con
federate defenders under Col. William Lamb. On
January 12 an even stronger fleet returned. After
an intense bombardment Union troops landed,
stormed the walls and took the fort after some of
the fierceet hand-to-hand combat of the war.
Fort Fisher’s fall, and the sifosequent loss of
Wilmington, are regarded by historians as having
sealed the doom of an already badly-weakened
Confederacy
-oOo-
On Jan. 12, 1896, the first X-ray photographs in
medical history were taken on the campus at
Davidson College.
Only a week earlier, the German physicist. Dr.
Wilheim Roentgen, had announced his “accidental
discovery” of what he called “X” rays while
experimenting with cathode tubes.
Dr. Henry Louis Smith, a Davidson physics and
astronomy professor (he was later president of tha
college), fired a pistol bullet into the hand of a
cadaver, then took a IS minute exposure to find its
exact locatioa
Later it wu discovered that three of his
sbJdents, asa midnight prank, had slipped into the
lab and taken several exposures at an even earlier
date!
-oOo-
Benjamln Smith of Brunswick County, governor
of the state in 1810-11 was born onJan. 10,1756.
A hot-tempered man. Smith fought a number of
duels and was twice wounded. During the
American Revolution he served as an aide to
General George Washington.
A wealthy planter. Smith was owner of the
7/> Ip—.
^ ..
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I -■
The Mirror-Herald welcomes
letters from readers eiqiresslng
your opinions on any subject you
choose, or rebutting any
editorial opinion we express.
Address all correspondence
for this page to Reader
Dialogue, Mirror-Herald, P. O.
Drawer 762, Kings Mcxintaln, N.
C., 28086.
All letters must be signed by
writer with address Included.*
Unsigned letters will not be
published.
Poet’s
Corner
THE PORTHOLE WITHAN OPTIMISTIC VIEW
(C) 1978
SailsarechristeningtheNewYesr with hope
To sail forward on unknown seas.
With brightat sails hoisted Mgh
on the ship of great expectancy.
With the master of the sea at the tiller
No storm can arise to fear.
Though dark clouds may gather
And the ungodly jeer.
All aboard ye faithful
Totravd the waters of an inknown sea.
To reach the shore with fulfilled dreams
Harvested from great expectancy.
Died Jan. 9, 1852, Congressman Lemuel
Sawyer, author of “Blackbeard,” which was the
first play written by a native North Carolinian
with a North Carolina setting and characters.
The play, wljit^was published In 1824, was not
about the pirate of that name but was Instead a
four-act comedy about politics of the period.
VIVIAN STEWART BILTCLIFFE
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