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Gardner-Webb College Libra
ry
The Foothills V iiw
28017
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We See It Your Way
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THURS., JUNE 3,1982
BOILING SPRINGS, NC
"ear Single Copy 15 Cents
^Tbei
A Man, The Mind,
And A Monument
u
Bare Bones''
B"S Budget
Cash Marker
Russell “Rusty” Davis
never met W. J. Cash. Cash,
a Boiling Springs resident
and noted author, had been
dead 11 years when Davis
was born in 1952.
But, like Cash, Rusty
Davis grew up in Cleveland
County with a liking for
history and literature, and
last month Davis succeed
ed in memorializing the
author he never met: at
Davis’ prompting, the state
erected a marker May 12
near Cash’s grave - in
Shelby honoring him as a
newspaper editor and
author of The Mind of the
South.
“I had read Cash’s book
and come to appreciate
him through the history
and American literature
courses I had taken in col-
ege,” said Davis, now 30
and livine in Charinifp
Davis wrote the Division of
Archives and History in
ilaleigh in 1979 suggesting
the marker, and he provid
ed the documentation
necessary for its authoriza
tion in 1980. Low funds had
delayed the marker’s being
set until last month.
Cash’s marker at 400
West Marion Street directs
the reader to his grave 1600
eet away in Sunset
Cemetery. Nearby is
another sign honoring a se
cond Cleveland County
writer, the Rev. Thomas
Dixon, Jr.
‘There’s some irony in
;hat,” said a state archivist
in Raleigh.
The Mind of the South
was sharply critical of the
South, and Cash was never
a popular writer. Dixon’s
novels, notably The
Clansman, glorified the
raditional South, and the
Reverend was lionized in
his lifetime.
The reader who follows
directions to Cash’s grave
will find a stone marker
recalling; “A great mind,
and a sweet nature, a
scholar, author, and editor.
He loved the South with in
tensity, and was to all a
friend.”
Cash’s body was
cremated following his
suicide in Mexico City on
July 1, 1941. His ashes lie
next to his parents, John
William and Nannie
Hamrick Cash of Boiling
Springs. Two of his sisters
who died in childhood,
Mable Ruth and Elizabeth
Lucenia Cash, are buried in
the Boiling Springs First
Baptist Cemetery.
Cash had received a Gug
genheim Fellowship follow
ing the publication of The
Mind of The South, and was
in IVrA'ifino
another book when he took
his life.
Editor’s Column
The Charlotte reporter hung up the phone. Why he
wondered, was no one answering his calls at state
government offices? It was, after all, a working dav
Monday, May 10. ^
And It was also, he was reminded, a day to honor the
dead, Confederate Memorial Day. ^
Memorial Days, both the regional holiday on Mav 10
^d the national date last Monday, have become, like
the reporter s unanswered phone call, an interruption
to our temporal business. We do not like to think of the
dead’ and for that it is we who are to be pitied, not those
m the grave.
The days should remind us, particularly at chur
chyards, that there are always two congregations, the
living and the dead, and that the connections between
them do not end with a funeral.
In death Cash has a
respectability that would
have amused him in life.
He lies less than two man-
lengths away from the
grave of Clyde R. Hoey, a
former district attorney,
governor, and senator
(“Well done, thy good and
faithful servent” reads his
stone), whom Cash often
lambasted while both were
alive.
“Mr. Hoey was the
epitome of all that Cash
distrusted,” wrote Cash’s
biographer Joseph Mor
rison, “a prohibitionist, a
Bible-class teacher, a
joiner....”
Davis was unaware of
the sign’s arrival until
phoned Tuesday morning
by the View.
“I’m glad it’s finally put
there,” he said.
watched 78-
year old Clifford Hamrick waiting as a patient grand-
grandfather’s grave for the spring rains to
younger Hamrick had recovered a lost
sroTrtijntvTtv nctamng ms granaramer's service m me
Confederate Army. Now in 1982 the grandson intended
to set it aright.
Councilman Max
Hamrick introduced Tues
day night what he called a
“bare bones” town budget
that keeps Boiling Springs
taxes at their present level
while increasing water and
sewer fees by a dollar and a
half for residents.
The budget that council
is considering increases
spending six to seven per
cent above last year, and
pays these appropriations
from a total budget for next
year of $391,671, counting,
revenue sharing funds. The
increase in spending in
cludes a general five per
cent salary increase for
town employees.
Appropriations for a new
police car are also in the
budget, as well as $7,000 in
capital outlays for the city
fire department.
The town will receive
about $23,089 in revenue
sharing funds, Hamrick
said, but even with those
funds the rate increase
would keep the town’s
water and sewer system
sewer or water costs in
creased by annexation in
the coming year would be
paid out of the town’s
reserve fund.
“We can’t go on spending
these kinds of funds an
nually and exist,” he said.
Council will hear con
siderations on the budget
until June 29, when it will
be voted on for adoption.
In other action, the coun
cil:
approved two auxiliary
patrolmen for the town,
Calvin Hoyle and John
Wayne Greene. The two
are unpaid volunteers.
went into closed session
to discuss personnel mat
ters. No action was taken.
In other town news. Boil
ing Springs police report a
woman was struck by a car
and seriously injured Sun-
day night on West
Homestead Road about
9:10 p.m.
According to police, the
pedestrian stepped in front
of a car and was knocked
Rusty Davis’ efforts in the story at left to raise a
marker for W. J. Cash, a man Davis never met, and to
honor him for writing The Mind of the South is another
example of continuity between living and dead.
We thought of Davis’ work, and of Cash, when we
visited the author’s grave in Shelby for the first time
this Monday on national Memorial Day. A mock
ingbird, startled by the company, flew off Cash’s tomb
stone and into the direction of the Palmer family,
buried a few yards away. That sweet mocker, so
quintescently Southern, carried on its wings so much
meaning; but we lose that meaning, and our own lives
are therefore diminished, unless we had remembered
Cash and not forcibly forgot him as one of inert “the
dead.”
Memories of the dead and the living should not be ar
tificially separated, for each gives to the other greater
meaning. Both are part of what a fine novelist, Michael
Shaara in The Killer Angels, said men fought and died
for at the Civil War battle of Gettysburg: together,
Shaara said, the living and dead create “the mystic
dust of home.”
councilamn noted that any
Where’s GOAL?
At Orientation
Gardner-Webb College
will hold orientation
meetings for its Greater
Opportunities for Adult
Learners (GOAL) program
Monday, June 7, from 9 to
11 a.m. and from 7 to 9 p.m.
in Room 708 on the
Cleveland Technical Col
lege campus.
Gardner-Webb currently
provides baccalaureate
degrees (Bachelors of
Science) through its GOAL
program in business ad
ministration, manage
ment, criminal justice, ear-
’y childhood education (K-
3), human services, in
termediate education (4-9),
and management informa
tion.
The GOAL degrees are
designed for students who
have earned an associate
degree or its equivalent of
64 semester hours with a
grade average of at least at
C in the above majors.
Anyone unable to attend
either of the June 7
meetings can contact the
Office of Continuing
Education and Summer
School at the college at 434-
2361, extension 376.
The toll-free number is 1-
800-222-2312.
Dr. Eugene Poston,
former president of Gard
ner-Webb College, spoke at
a wedding two Sundays
ago: his own. Dr. Poston’s
marriage to the former
Nancy Anthony of Boiling
Springs is on the inside
pages of today’s View.
The couple married May
23 at a Charlotte church,
where Dr. Poston, who is
pastor there, spoke briefly
on the husband and wife
relationship.
A J rpy.—~p Pastures Hurting
^ ^ ^ ^ Most beef breeders are Anril.* nastures have &
“There Must Be A
Place” is the title of Rev.
Linnens’ moving poem
reprinted today on page
three. Rev. Linnens read
this peom recently at the
graveside services for a
Boiling Springs resident,
Mrs. Ernestine Beam.
The schedule of swim
ming classes at Gardner-
Webb College has been
announced by Dr. Robert
Blackburn, swimming
program director.
Lessons will be held for
one hour each day Monday
through Friday for two-
week periods beginning
June 1 through June 30.
Adiilt evening classes will
be held 8 to 9 p.m., Monday
through Friday.
The purpose of the
swimming program is to
Most beef breeders are
concerned because
pastures have not gone
through the lush growing
season associated with spr
ing, say state and county
agricultural agents.
Reports of low grass hay
yields are common from all
sections of the county.
According to Dr. Jim
Green, forage specialist at
N.C. State, pastures are
showing the effects of the
early April cold spell, and
the late April-early May
dry spell.
the
progTesr'^ln swTmming j2‘®™ediate swimmers, years old to take
S InJ to hZ o^ach Classes are scheduled each lessons.
person in and ar™nd Son ChXnTuThe hUd®
water. Each class has 40TSchild and $20 per adult,
groups from beginner to inches m height and four ages 15 and above.
“Pastures turned green
and started to grow in
March,” Green said, “but
since we had the freeze in
April,* pastures have gone
down hill. Most hay cut has
been very stemmy.”
Rain in the last two
weeks has helped to
stimulate grass produc
tion, and if moisture levels
stay above normal, grazing
will be available until the
fescue goes dormant in Ju
ly, according to county per
sonnel.
Because of the short
growing season left, and
because fertilizer applied
in early spring may not
have been utilized, county
agents do not recommend
an additional application of
fertilizer now.
Growers may want to ap
ply 50-70 units of nitrogen in
late August to boost fall
growth, county agents say.
into a ditch, breaking the I
•w oncvELiTv’ a.\vox>A.3L^T , Vs , \
and femur.