Special Homecoming
Edition
Homecoming Court Photos
Schedule of Events
Homecoming
Saturday October 19,1985
October 15. 1985
^ STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF CHOWAN COLLEGE
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Hurricane Gloria's high winds caused this tree to fall, blocking the drive around the connpus.
World’s Largest Paper Mill
is in Franklin, Virginia
Franklin, in western Tidewater and
only eight miles from the North
Carolina line, is the home of the largest
printing paper mill in the world—Union
Camp Corporation’s Fine Paper Divi
sion. Six paper machines at the plant
turn out a daily average of 1,900 tons of
paper and paperboard.
Paper is made by a method
developed in China before the time of
Chirst. Simply suspend fibers of some
sort in water and drain off the water to
leave a flat mat with the fibers felted or
interlocked for strength. Modern paper
machines do the same thing, but
thousands of times faster than the early
Chinese papermaker could com
prehend. Union Camp’s Number 6
machine turns out as much as 30 tons of
paper in rolls 25 feet wide in an hour.
Franklin is typical of southern paper
mills in that wood is cooked in giant
pressure cookers until it comes apart.
The fibers are washed, blanched if
white paper is the goal, and, in a water
suspension, flowed onto an endless
moving, screen belt. The water drains
through leaving the fibers matted just
as in the ancient Chinese method. Mov
ing from 1,500 to more than 2,000 feet
per minute (depending on the type)
through the four hundred foot long
machine, the paper is quickly dried,
ironed smooth and rolled.
The Franklin plant concentrates on
what are called “communication”
papers. Their Jamestown and
Williamsburg lines list offset printing
paper, book papers, typing bond, tablet
papers, and papers for the growing of
fice copying machine markets. Com
puter print-out papers and business
forms papers are also expanding in the
sales picture.
The home owner often sees Union
Camp products in the direct mail
advertising left in his mailbox. A var
ied line of envelope papers roll off
the machines, from brown, business
type to white grades with printing
characteristics allowing eye-catching
graphic styles. Envelope papers vary
from other grades such as typing paper
because of increased strength re
quirements.
The products from the east bank of
the Blackwater go to customers
throughout the nation from Miami to
Maine as far west as Denver. While
most papers and boards are sold as raw
material directly to end users, printers
or envelope makers, for example, a
share goes to paper merchants who
distribute to printers, offices, and sta
tionary stores. Union Camp sales of
fices are located in most major cities in
the eastern half of the United States.
In addition to the paper operation, the
Hurricane Gloria
Rain began falling shortly after noon
Thursday, Sept.26, giving the first visi
ble signs Hurricane Gloria was fast ap
proaching the eastern portion of the
state.
As Gloria came closer to the N.C.
mainland, residents to the Roanoke-
Chowan area began taking the hur
ricane more seriously and started last
minute preparations.
Hours before the rain began to fall,
emergency personnel had started
preparations for what has been describ
ed as one of the most severe hurricanes
of the century.
Ahoskie and Murfreesboro High
Schools were opened Thursday after
noon as shelter areas, with both sites
expected to handle any influx of coastal
residents, creating increased traffic on
area highways. Area gas stations
reported heavy sales of gas, as
motorists elected to fill their gas tanks
in anticipation of the storm.
National Weather Service personnel
at the Cape Hatteras station issued a
hurricane watch Wednesday afternoon,
upgrading the watch to a hurricane
warning early Thursday morning.
Gloria was expected to reach landfall
early Friday morning at Cape Lookout,
just east of Morehead City. The hur
ricane’s winds dropped slightly, putting
it into a Category Two hurricane.
Wednesday the hurricane had reached
Category Four and Five status, dropp
ing to a Category Three status late
Wednesday night.
Officials at Roanoke-Chowan
Hospital met throughout the day Thurs
day to make plans for the expected ef
fects of Gloria.
Students at Chowan College an
ticipated the storm. While many of
them left campus, the majority stayed
in their dorms and awaited the hur
ricane. Showers began falling that
afternoon and the wind started to pick
up. When everyone awoke the next mor
ning there was a sigh of relief. The only
repercussion of Gloria was a brief
power outage on parts of the campus.
Chowan College escaped what had been
expected to be the worst hurricane of
the century with only a lot of standing
water and broken limbs covering the
campus.
Heavy rains left most of Chowan's parking lots flooded.
Reading Causes Difficulties
lumber mill claims another offspring, a
particle plant, which started up in 1972
and utilizes a lumber-making by pro
duct, planing mill shavings.
Union Camp forests are the homes for
wildlife of many types. People visit
Union Camp forests for hiking, birdwat-
ching, fishing, nature study, and hun
ting.
Some Union Camp land that has a
special ecological or historical
significance has been preserved
through the company’s Land Legacy
program. A colonial plantation home in
Virginia; The Great Dismal Swamp,
now a National Wildlife Refuge;
Chowan Swamp, slated to become a
center for environmental study; and
other donations represent Union
Camp’s acknowledgement that certain
lands should be protected for the public
benefit and made available to this and
future generations.
The company was founded in 1887 by
the three Camp brothers and now has
corporate offices in Wayne, N.J.
Overall there are 18,000 employees
worldwide and 2,600 in the Franklin
plant and area.
Each year, the company provides a
scholarship for deserving college
students in its local area.
Reading is “perhaps the greatest
single effort the human undertakes.”
Jane Houser quoted John Steinbeck as
she addressed the Wilson County Coun
cil of the International Reading
Association Tuesday.
Ms. Houser, a consultant with the
Scott Foresman Publishing Co. and a
former reading coordinator with
Winston-Salem schools, used the quote
to remind the 30 assembled teachers
and parents that adults sometimes
forget how difficult it is to learn to read.
“Sometimes we forget what it is like
for a child to take a set of squiggles and
comprehend them,” said Ms. Houser.
The organizational meeting, held in
the library of Vinson-Bynum Elemen
tary School, was conducted in order to
bring people together with the conunon
goal of promoting reading in the com
munity.
Those who attended were presented a
copy of the organization’s proposed
by-laws, to be adopted at the next
meeting, and a slate of proposed of
ficers. The officers were installed by
N.C. Council of the International
Reading Association President Emily
McCleary.
The group will meet the fourth Tues
day in February, April, September and
November, at 4 p.m. at Vinson-Bynum.
Ms. Houser said she believed tjiere
was a strong relationship between good
writing and good reading.
“Our largest vocabulary is our listen
ing vocabulary,” she said. “Followed
by our reading vocabulary and thirdly,
by our writing vocabulary.”
Because good readers are often good
writers and good writers are often good
readers, she said the emphasis needed
to be placed on improving the child’s
ability to write. “If the child learns to
write well, his reading skills will im
prove as well,” she said.
Just as a teacher, in teaching a child
to read, will use the formula “teach,
practice, apply and assess,” there must
also be a method of how to teach a child
to write.
“Writing involves four phases: pre-
writing, writing, re-writing and presen
tation,” she said.
“Pre-writing is like a sponge,” she
said. “Reading and forming ideas is the
soaking up, and writing is the
wringing out. The difference is that we
have a brain that can organize those
ideas and sort out what we can use.”
Pre-writing is also personal.
“Students usually write best about
things that strike home with them.”
The writing phase means actually
getting those thoughts down on paper,
in an organized manner, she said.
“Writing is the making of reading,”
she said. “When a child learns to write,
he gets a better understanding of what
he reads because he understands how
the writing process works.”
In re-writing, the child should try to
edit and improve someone else’s
writing, then work oh his own.
“A child can usually find the
mistakes of others easier than he can
find his own,” she said.
In the final writing step, presenta
tion, Ms. Houser said, a child learns to
“write to communicate,” rather than
“writing just to write.”
As the child improves in his writing
skills, he takes greater care in his punc
tuation, so the reader “will read it the
way I meant for it to be read.”
Ms. Houser told the teachers, “You
should be careful with students because
you never know where your influence
will stop. You might have another
Steinbeck in your class.”
Don’t forget to
BUCKLE UP
The North Carolina
Seatbelt Law
became effective
October 1,1985