830104 C
Gsrdner-Uehb College Libr
F'*0. Bo>; 836
Boilind Sr^rindsr NC 28017
3 r«
The Foothills View
THURS. NOV. 11,1982
Addi'ess cor r e c t i o n requested
BOILING SPRINGS NC
Blk. postage pd. Permit 15
GARDI\
SINGLE COPY 15 CENTS
Discovered Tin Ore Here
^he Personal War And Victory-
Of Bobby Patterson
A gentle man, Patterson (above), practice^
20 years after his wounding in Korea.
Bobby Patterson may one day make the historv
books as the man who picked up a creekbed rock
on his family’s Cleveland County land and started
the nation’s first tin rush.
Since Patterson’s find, the Billiton Corporation
a Neatherlands-based subsidiary of Shell
Petroleum, has bought exploration rights this
month from several property owners between
Shelby and Boiling Springs. The lure is the ore
cassiterite, the source of tin. Further study of the
Flint Hill comunity site where Patterson found
that first rock last year has turned up 64 minerals
in the top two feet of soil, he says; many are
marketable, and, Patterson adds, “some
valuable.’’
But there is no rush on Patterson’s part to ex
ploit the find. “No contract has been signed,” he
says. We want to be sure about the environmental
part.
“We don’t want to do something that’ll make
enemies of our neighbors. There are quite a few
older people out here. . . .Suppose someone comes
m and digs down 1500 feet. Suppose it fouls
somebody’s well, or interfers with the water
supply. People can’t live on a place without good
water. You don’t want to run your neighbor out
I There’s more to life than money. ”
It’s not the first time Bobby Patterson’s con
victions have run against the grain of self-interest.
Now 51 and retired, he was working at Dover
Textiles when he was 20 - “My mother’s health
was never good. I dropped out of school to help my
dad” - when he decided to volunteer for the
I Marines and go to the Korean War.
“It was when the Chinese came into it, ’’ he says •
he thought it over, his country was out-numbered’
and it became Bobby Patterson’s personal war.
“Look, I don’t want publicity about this ” he
says. “The reason I don’t talk about it is because I
I want to forget it.... ” mendation said.
The boxes of medals are dusty, the letters of “In an effort cucm^ assauu, ne
H I yellowed when he brings them stationed himself on top of a bunker and from this
Va There are three carefully- exposed position, he brought devastating fire to
Irerolaed telegraphs to his wife Nancy that begin bear on the enemy troops. ...”
We regret to inform you. .. ” ’ Bobby Patterson, then squad leader, remembers
h or each of them there is a long-unopened box *1 in simpler terms. “We were out-numbered about
I with a purple heart. 20 to 1. It was my squad that was out there. Oh,
Another case holds — among others — the it was night; the Chinese never hit us in the
Asiatic-Pacific medal, Marine good-conduct daytime; I just took my Browning automatic rifle,
medal, the Korean medal for field action with two ■ • -When it got daylight there were 23 Chinese on
stars. There is a picture of him with several others the ground, in front of me. There were two of our 14
men and women in uniform, posing on the deck of nien left alive, Donald Wayne Vaughn and me
the presidential yacht Williamsburg. “Here’s a •”
letter from the president, inviting me to cruise the ^rid Vaughn, who now lives in Texas, are still
Potomac on his yacht,” he says off-handedly, fast friends, he says.
sharing a message frorn Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had come home from boot camp in April,
“It turned out he couldn’t go with us that time, but 1952, and married Nancy McMurray of Polkville!
|we did cruise the Potomac.” When he had to leave, soon after the wedding, it
Certainly something had led up to that. The link would be a full year of bad news and anxiety before
was another yellowed paper, a letter from Pat- she would see him again. When she did see him, in
terson s commanding general in Korea. “When the April of 1953, he was learning to walk again,
reinforced squad of which he was a member was wounded in the legs and back. Before receiving
subjected to a heavy mortar concentration, these injuries, Patterson had healed from earlier
followed by an attack of platoon strength, he wounds to return — at his request — to his unit in
unhesitantingly left the cover of his bunker in 'orea. This time there would be no going back
I search of more effective fields of fire,” the com-
A Veteran’s Day Interview
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to repel the enemy assault, he
put me back together
kmbers. “That was outside;
did inside.”
_ . -i'er. Long after he was back
pig at Dover again, deterioration of injured
’ required repeated surgery. “I worked all the
_ during all these operations,” he says.
‘Dover is one of the best companies to work for.
Mr. Charles I. Dover is one of the best men that
there are. I never worked anywhere else.”
An avid reader, Patterson meanwhile bought
and read four whole encyclopedias, and got his
G.Ed. from Cleveland Technical School.
He and Nancy raised and college-educated three
^^MSbters of their own and assumed foster
parenthood of another daughter. There are five
grandchildren, with another due soon.
“I was determined that when I came back home
that I was going to get ahead and stay ahead
honest,’t Patterson says. “I knew I had to make all
the money I possibly could. I knew I would have
children that would need an education.
“My daddy and mother gave me more than most
people give their children — they gave me a sense
of responsibility. My grandmother was a Cherokee
Indian. She told me, when I was a little boy, ‘Son if
you make a dollar, save a quarter. If you can’t
save a quarter, save a dime.’ I done what my
grandmother told me, all the time I was working
Now I’m not beholding to no man.
“One of my ancestors lost his leg at Kings
Mountain,” Bobby Patterson says, folding and
refolding the trophies of his personal war. “I
wasn’t drafted to go to war — I volunteered and
went. My primary reason for going was to defend
what my forefathers fought for, before me. This is
my country...”
Area Honors
A Day For
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving appears
to have come early for
area students who were
named to the honor rolls
at Crest Junior and
Senior High schools, and
for a Boiling Springs
man who received a
prestigious scholarship
for deaf students.
Arledge Castles, a
student in the degree
program for the deaf at
Gardner-Webb College,
has been awarded a
$1000 scholarship by the
Thomasville Lions Club.
Castles and his wife
Henrietta live in Boiling
Springs and have two
children who attend
Boiling Springs
Elementary School.
Castles teaches Sunday
School for the deaf in
Boiling Springs and
Henrietta Castles leads
a Bible study class at a
church in Gaffney, S.C.
Castles is a religion
major at G-W. He is
currently working on his
student pastor’s
practicum at Boiling
Springs Baptist Church.
Others named to
academic honors were
the following all-A
students at Crest Junior
High School:
Seventh grade:
Elizabeth Daves, Bryan
Edwards, Leslie Epps,
Angie Goode, Melissa
Hartis, Melissa
Hogston, Christine
Lancaster, Jodi Led
better, Jamey Lutz,
Nicole Nalley, Eric
Steven Self, Marty
Thomas.
Eighth grade:
Glover, Amee Forster,
Angie Greene, Sandra
Humphries, Darlene
Hunt, Patrick Kendrick,
Mike Pegram, Paige
Philbeck, Robbie
Putnam, Kate Shep
pard.
Ninth grade: Sally
Bivens, Barry Cabiness,
Greg Dover, David
Epley, Mark Greene,
Elizabeth Hicks, Nicole
Martin, Connie
Mayhew, Phonda
McBride, Anna
Packard, Phil Philbeck,
Noel Norman Sweezy,
Leslie Williams.
All As for the 10th
grade at Crest Senior
are:
Tammy Allen, Sandra
Bailey, Christie
Brabham, Bruce
Cabiness, Emily Jones,
Beth Lamb, Lynn
Lavender, Lori Mc-
Swain, Chris Melton,
Angela Morrison, Caleb
Nolley, Robert Queen,
Mike Rabb, Patti
Rollins, Craig Scruggs,
Mark Smith, Brad
Stamey, Beth Towery.
Eleventh grade:
Bobby Allen, Lisa
Bowen, Melissa
Mathews. Renee
Melton, Jeff Owens.
Thomas Burton, Tracy
Twelfth grade:
Carmen Creach, Susan
Greene, Derek Greene,
Kim Hipps, Lana Jolley,
Mary Lamb, Robert
Lamb, Deana Latham,
Susan Lavender,
Jimmy Lovelace, David
McCoy, Becky Proctor,
Pam Rollins, Suzanne
Sanford, Robert
Weaver, Lisa Willis.
School’s Out
Food’s On
City Gets Up
For Breakfast
■
The deserts are home
made, the take-out
orders are promised to
move quickly, and the
spaghetti, it is hoped,
will turn into money at
the Boiling Springs
Elementary school
supper next Thursday,
Nov. 18.
The spaghetti supper
is sponsored by the
school PTA
Food will be served
between five and eight
p.m. Tickets are three
dollars for adults, and
$1.50 for children (age
12 and under).
*
Si
Putters In Cups
The farm meets the
city Nov. 15-19 in ac
tivities planned by
county extension agents
that include a farm tour
for fifth graders from
Shelby schools and a
Farmer’s-
Businessmen’s break
fast at the county of-
ficies Nov. 23.
The breakfast will be
sponsored by the
Kiwanis Club, Federal
Land Bank Association,
and Ideal Credit
Association. Farmers
that wish to attend are
asked to invite a
businessman, and to
notify the extension
office on numbers to
attend to help with meal
planning.
Other activities
elude a farm equipment
display at the Cleveland
Mall, and a poster
contest for the fifth
grade tour participants.
Winners of the poster
contest will each be
awarded a share of
common stock from a
corporation operating in
Cleveland County.
In other extension
service news, county
agents caution that
cooler temperatures
ahead signel that now is
the time to prepare the
garden for winter
months ahead.
Agents recommend
preparing the garden
The River Bend
Junior Golf Association
conducted ita annual
putting championship
Tuesday, Oct. 19, at the
River Bend Golf Club.
The winners by age
group and score are:
Davy MeSwain, age
nine and under, score,
53;
Benjie Sanders, age
10-11, score42;
Bryan Edwards, age
12-13, score 38;
Caleb Nolley, age 14-
15, score 36;
Mike Cherry, age 16-
17, score 33.
Cherry was the
overall putting champ.
His score of 33 was three
under par.
preparing the garden
soil for next spring by jack Perry, second from left, of 1st Citizens Bank paid the team’s expenses to the national judging
first tilling the soil this presents a chaeck to Patti Whitaker, a member of contest in Kansas City, Mo. Other member are,
the Crest FFA Poultry Judging Team. The bank left, Cameron DeBrew and, right, Kelly Gragg.
in- winter
The Inside VTFW
Billy Graham
Pages
Extramarital sex seen by the light of Scrip
ture is discussed in Dr. Graham’s “My An
swer.”
Public opinion on the same subject is aisn
polled on page three; over half of women say
“no” according to a recent survey.
Boiling Springs Dlews
Flint Hill News
Page 2
Pages