'Firestone
MAY • 1977
Textiles Company Bennettmlk BonlingGrem
North Carohtia South Carolina Kentucky
Scholarship; Merit Winners
Three high school students—daughters of Firestone Tex
tiles Company employees—are winners in The Firestone Tire
& Rubber Company College Scholarship Awards program
for 1977.
• Jacquelins Beth Wyatt won
a full scholarship
• Sharon Wrenna Corbett and
Linda Cheryl Owens received
Jacqueline
Wyatt
Scholarship
Below:
Merit
Winners
Linda Owens
Sharon Corbett
Certificates of Merit and Fire
stone stock.
Miss Wyatt, of Route 4,
Smiths Grove, Ky., is a senior at
Warren East High School, Bowl
ing Green. Her father, Travis C.
Wyatt, works in the fabric-treat
ing department at the Firestone
Bowling Green plant.
Sharon Corbett, daughter of
Mrs. Gail H. Corbett, is a senior
at Hunter Huss High School,
Gastonia. Her mother is a secre
tary in Scheduling at Firestone,
Gastonia.
Linda Owens, daughter of Mr.
and Mrs. John Owens, is a senior
at Ashbrook High School, Gas
tonia. Her father is assistant
purchasing agent for Firestone
Textiles Company.
IN THIS YEAR'S Scholarship
program, the company awarded
46 scholarships to outstanding
high school students—sons and
daughters of Firestone employ
ees and retirees.
more, page 3
QsnteMIAI
SAFETY Contest At Bowling Green
Clock-card employees at Fire
stone Bowling Green are partici
pating in a SAFTY contest, with
a $50 cash prize awarded to each
of three winners during the
month.
To be eligible to win the
money prizes, the person with
the winning card must fulfill
certain requirements such as no
injuries during the contest
month and no absences during
the month.
The contest, played similar to
Bingo, continues until there are
three winners, the month ends,
or to the point in the month
there is a lost-time injury. A
lost-time injury automatically
stops the contest and a new one
would begin the following
month until the contest period
is over.
G. T. Shields, Bowling Green
safety engineer, reminds all em
ployees at the Gastonia, Ben-
nettsville and Bowling Green
plants:
Work Safely, Think Safety
and “Take the Extra Step” for
accident prevention. The “Take
the Extra Step” for accident pre
vention. The “Take the Extra
Step” slogan is the National
Safety Council’s theme during
1977.
• • This early-1900s scene of old Loray “Big Mill” at
Gastonia is featured on a ceramic platter commemorative of
the May 100th anniversary of Gastonia as a chartered mu
nicipality. Firestone Textiles ‘archives’ supplied the photo.
Old Loray, later Manville-Jenckes, has been owned and op
erated as a Firestone fabric manufacturer since 1935.
Textile Hall
Construction is underway on a
68,900-sq. ft. addition to Textile
Hall, Greenville, S.C. The new
unit will bring the total area of
exhibit complex to 512,000 sq. ft.
Completion of the addition is
set for February, 1978, in time
to receive machinery displays in
the American Textile Machinery
Exhibition—International—1978,
April 28-May 5.
Textile Hall Corporation is a
non-profit, self-supporting or
ganization founded in 1915 to
serve the community and the
textile industry.
Bowling Green • Nine persons
completed five-year service
records with Firestone Textiles
Company in April: Carlos Bal
lard, Roger Burch, Jerry Dyer,
David Jaggers, Roger Harper,
Bennie Kidwell, Frank Minton,
Norris Qualls and Jerry Wright.
Part Of
Centennial
Plate
• Paul Neal, section supervisor in TC Weaving; and Maude
Peeler, cloth burler in Preparation, with the latest award plaque
showing years of safety performance at Gastonia.
Another
Award
jFor Safety
Firestone Textiles, Gastonia, has been recognized for
achievement in industrial safety over a period of three dec
ades. Latest of the awards series from Gaston County Cham
ber of Commerce and North Carolina Department of Labor
came April 19.
STUDENTS VISITED
• Do you make tires here? No—just the
cord fabric for tires and a few other prod
ucts. What kinds of materials do you work
with? Nylon, rayon, polyester, fiberglass,
steelcord. What’s this process? Twisting . . .
weaving . . . rewinding . . . splicing. Why
are the corners in the factory painted white?
To help us keep them clean. What’s the
average wage per hour for production peo
ple? A little more than $4.
These were some of the questions from
visiting students and the answers by em
ployee tour guides, as 32 students of Cram-
erton Junior High School toured Firestone
(Gastonia) in April. The visit was an ac
tivities trip in their occupations class at
school, introducing them to work-career op
portunities.
NC Labor Commissioner John
C. Brooks presented the award
plaque to E. H. Passmore, Fire
stone safety engineer, at ih« an
nual C of C industrial awards
dinner meeting.
This record is the longest-
running among those presented
in Gaston County. Firestone and
one other firm are the only two
"30-year"' companies in North
Carolina.
The Gastonia plant is among
the 139 industrial and service
firms in the county recognized
for safely records in I97G. This
year's Firestone award comem-
orates the Gastonia plant's 1976
record of operating 50 per cent
or better below the injury fre
quency rate in the whole North
Carolina textile industry.
The plant's rate for last year
was 95 per cent below the
State's average in textiles.
Other ways a firm is eligible
for the NC Labor award is to
have no loss of time resulting
from on-job injuries, and for a
company to improve its own es
tablished safety record.
First of the series of Depart
ment of Labor awards was made
to Firestone in 1947, presented
in Raleigh. The following year,
the presentations started as a
local event with the Chamber of
Commerce.
Tennis League
A “ladder” tennis league, or
ganized for Firestone Textiles
Gastonia employees in April, be
gan May 1 and will continue
through September. Earl Cun
ningham, junior development
engineer in Process & Product
Development, is contact person
for the league.