IFULL MOON
ALBEMARLE SENIOR HIGH NEWSPAPER
311 Palestine Road Albemarle, N.C. 28001 982-3711
February-March 1985
Principal Charles B. Whitley Retires
By ROB BYRUM
Charles B. Whitley, after 21 and a half
years of involvement in the Albemarle
City Schools, has announced his retire
ment. Mr. Whitley will no longer be the
principal of Albemarle Senior High School
after February 28,1985.
Mr. Whitley attended the Albemarle
Schools for twelve years and graduated
from Albemarle High School in 1951. He
was an active athlete, playing football,
basketball, and baseball. He received a
partial baseball scholarship from the Uni
versity of N; C. in Chapel Hill for his ef
forts.
Mr. Whitley continued his athletics at
Chapel Hill, participating in baseball, ju
nior varsity basketball, and soccer. Dur
ing his senior year, however, he passed up
sports to work as a student teacher and
coach at Lumberton. In 1955 Mr. Whitley
received his Bachelor of Arts degree. He
then returned to Albemarle to teach the
eighth grade at Central Elementary
School.
In December of 1955, Mr. Whitley mar
ried Miss Barbara Lowder, the varsity
girls basketball coach at Albemarle. The
two had been friends through high school
and dated In college. Fate brought them
both back to Albemarle and to each other.
1957 brought the draft, and Mr. Whitley
joined the U. S. Coast Guard. There he
served as an instructor at Cape May, New
Jersey, until he returned to U. N. C. to at
tend graduate school. After working for his
Masters Degree, Mr. Whitley returned to
Albemarle to be the principal of East Albe-
niarle School.
Following the birth of their first child,
Toni, the Whitleys moved to Durham.
Their two sons, Stan and Jeff, were born
there. During his stay in Durham, Mr.
Whitley held principal jobs at Edgemont
Elementary School, George Watts Ele
mentary School, Rogers-Herr Junior High,
and Durham Senior High School. To Whit
ley the job at Durham High was “. . . a
real experience. There were 1800 students
. . 92 teachers.”
The next year Mr. Whitley took the prin
cipal job at Union Pines Elementary
School in Carthage. Their stay was short
however, and in 1972 the Whitleys found
themselves in Brevard. Mr. Whitley says
he has many fond memories of his days
there as principal of Roseman Elementary
School and Brevard Middle School, and of
his time spent as assistant superintendent
of Transylvania County Schools.
In 1978 Mr. Whitley returned to Albe
marle and took over as the A.S.H.S. princi
pal. He had always wanted to someday re
turn home and to see his children go to
school here. He admits, “It was one of my
goals to see my children graduate from Al
bemarle Senior High School... It is really
a good school.”
The Whitleys’ oldest child, Toni, is mar
ried and lives in Brevard. Their older son,
Stan, lives at home. Jeff, a freshman at the
University of N. C. at Chapel Hill, is con
sidering a career in banking.
Mr. Whitley is unsure of his plans for the
future, but he does plan to get a job so he
can support Jeff at Chapel Hill. Mr. Whit
ley is interested in some type of college ad
missions field. The Whitleys would move
to the beach or wherever his new job leads
him. ^
Mr. Whitley has had many interesting
experiences at Albemarle, the most in
teresting taking place in the new stadium.
He enjoyed building the facilities and
watching the teams play here instead of
the old Junior High football field. Mr
Whitley also enjoyed bringing in Coacli
Bright and watching the program at Albe-
,marle steadily improve under his leader
ship. “I was pleased that we were 0-10 mv
first year at Albemarle and that we’re 7-3
now. It makes it a lot easier to run the
school.” Fc states that it will be school
functions such as athletic events, band
concerts, and choral concerts that he will
miss the most. “This was the part of school
I really enjoyed, not the discipline and be
havior problems.”
Mr. Whitley says that he will really miss
Senior High, but he wants to get out and do
something besides teach school before he
IS “too old and too tired.” He leaves us
with these last words: “I’ll always be a
Bulldog, and I’ll always wear my Bulldog
New Opportunities Available For Job Hunters
And College Students
By HANKMcSWAIN
On February 11, Ernie Phipps, a repre
sentative of DeVry, a Bell & Howell com
pany, gave a presentation to the Senior En
glish classes about electronics technology
and job markets.
Advances in electronics technology are
occurring almost daily according to Rona
Frankfort, Public Relations Manager of
the DeVry Institute of Technology. These
advances are resulting in systems and
products that were hardly imagined a
decade ago. Thousands of job op
portunities have evolved with this new
technology.
“Thousands of new technical jobs exist
thanks to new electronic products,” states
Philip A. Clement, President of DeVry,
Inc., one of the largest postsecondary
technical education institutes in North
America. The DeVry Institute offers
degrees in Electronics Technology and
Computer Information Systema. Mr. Cle
ment also feels that “new applications for
electronics in manufacturing, medicine,
scientific research, telecommunications,
aerospace and in a wide range of con
sumer products will generate new employ
ment opportunities for many years to
come.”
Based on figures by the United States
government, it is estimated that by the
year 1990 electronics and electrical techni
cians will occupy 107,000 new jobs. The In
stitute for the Future predicts that
information-based technologies will be the
main driving force of economic growth
during the next decade. Examples of these
information technologies include com
puters, factory automation systems and
communications systems for the home and
office.
The DeVry Institute stresses that a solid
educational grounding in electronics is the
key to a rewarding career in building,
maintaining, repairing, or designing
sophisticated electronic components. Mr.
Clement feels that those who study elec
tronics today will acquire skills that will
remain useful well into the 21st century.
In the years ahead, electronics techni
cians also will apply their skills to the
emerging field of telecommunications.
Our knowledge of technologies such as
fiber optics, cellular radio, and satellites
will be expanded. Industrial robots will
also play an increasingly important role in
industries and are expected to number
330,000 worldwide by the year 1990.
However, these industrial robots will re
main operational only through the efforts
of trained specialists. Computer
technology, which now includes highly
sophisticated applications such as
computer-aided design and manufacture
and speech synthesis, must also be sup
ported by a trained corps of technicians.
Although Mr. Phipps focused his presen
tation on the field of electronics, he also
gave the seniors some advice in deciding
on a career. He stressed the importance of
seniors exploring the career that interests
them and finding out how many jobs are
open for that occupation. Mr. Phipps
seemed to be worried that some of this
year’s seniors will graduate from college
with skills that will not be in demand
because of the lack of job openings in that
occupation. It is evident from Mr. Phipps’
presentation that there will be an increas
ing number of job opportunities in the field
of electronics and technology.