Gardner
Speci3
yebb Coliesse
1 Collections
Librarv
p.O. Bov; 836 28017
BoilinsS Springs
The Foothills View
Friday, January 20, 1984
Blk. Postage Paid
BOILING SPRINGS NC
Permit No. 15 • Address Correction Requested
SINGLE COPY 15 CENTS
Sad Tale Has Happy Ending
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Friends And The Fox,
Who Was Too Tired To Run
iliy
Greg Arnold, top, holds a little red fox he caught
on the Crest Junior High School lawn. Under the
blanket is the trap the fox had been dragging with
front paw for at least two days. At bottom, game
warden John Blanton holds the fox a Dr. Carl Ivester,
of Lawndale, removes the leash, after removing the
trapped paw.
Blanton, Bost Elected
To Gardner-Webb Posts
Shelby residents George Blan
ton Jr. and Lloyd C. Bost have
been elected secretary and
treasurer respectively of the
Gardner-Webb College board of
trustees.
Blanton, who is chairman of
the board and chief executive of
ficer of the First National Bank
in Shelby, has been a Gardner-
Webb trustee since January
1983.
He is a former chairman of the
college’s board of advisors and
currently is a member of the
steering committee for the col
lege’s financial development pro
gram “Getting Ready For
Tomorrow,” serving as chairman
of the program’s endowment
development committee.
Bost, who is president of Bost
Baker, began his present term as
a Gardner-Webb trustee in 1979.
He has served a number of
terms on the college’s board of
trustees and has previously held
the positions of board chairman,
vice chairman and treasurer.
In 1971 he was awarded the
honorary doctor of humanities
degree by Gardner-Webb for his
long-time service to the college.
Blanton and Bost will serve
one-year terms as officers of the
college’s board of trustees. Their
terms began January 1.
The fox went out on a chilly
night, about two weeks gone
right now. But she never reached
the town.
Instead, she stopped to dig in a
suspicious little mound, in the
mud of a plowed field. It looked
like where something good
might have been hid, by another
fox. And the next thing she
knew, the “prize” had snapped
shut on her paw.
It was a couple of days later,
for her foot was already dead,
when the Greg Arnolds rounded
a curve on J.W. Hamrick Road
and saw a little animal, crossing
the road, dragging a bed steel
trap behind it. Arnold stopped
and grabbed a blanket and gave
chase, as the burdened little
creature dragged up the lawn of
Crest Junior High School. “I
kept yelling at him, ‘Look out!
Look out! It will bite you!’ Ar
nold’s wife said later.
But the little red fox was too
weary to put up a fight. Arnold,
a former Boiling Springs
policeman, and now a senior at
Gardner-Webb, wrapped it up,
trap and all, and put it in the
trunk of his car and brought it
home. He and his wife called
their veterinarian, who recom
mended death to ease its suffer
ing.
They called the animal shelter,
but no one was available to help.
All calls netted the same advice:
' Kill the fox.
Then, the Arnolds contacted
Dr. Carl Ivester, of Lawndale,
who is a celebrated admirer of all
J o'xes. “Bring it on up,” Dr.
Ivester said.
So back into the trunk wen
the fox, quiet, trusting, resigned
to the worst. When they arrived.
Dr. Ivester had game warden
John Blanton with him. Blanton
was interested both in the fox
and the trap, still dangling from
one of its front paws.
The doctor slipped a loop
leash around the patient’s neck,
and seeing no hope for the in
jured paw, quickly snipped it off.
as Arnold held the bundled fox
quiet.
The wound was so old the fox,
perhaps in shock, did not com-
palin, and the leg did not bleed.
The paw remained in the trap-
which Blanton quickly observed
bore no identification. It is illegal
to trap foxes or coons in Western
North Carolina, he said. And it
is illegal to set a trap without an
identifying metal tag, with the
trapper’s name and address.
A trapper can legally, in
season, trap muskrat, mink and
bobcat if he has a state or county
license, but he must have permis-
.sion from the landowner to set
his traps. And he is bound by
law to check them every day.
“If he catches a fox or a coon,
he’s got to turn it loose,” Blanton
said.
Dr. Ivester, an avowed enemy
of such traps, said he had written
the legislature repeatedly and
had sent pictures of such sor
rowful sights as he treated the
day-still to no avail. People
often bring him wounded
wildlife, he says; “I’ll treat
anything but a polecat.”
Relieved of the trap, the fox
vented hs woe on the leash as
the doctor tried to remove it. He
put the fox in a cage in his clinic
and judged it to be in remarkable
good health, though doubtless
hungry.
The ARnolds left it, express
ing huge joy and relief. When it
is recovered, Ivester told them,
he would turn it loose on his
Lawndale farm, and he thought
it would do fine. “There are plen
ty of three-legged foxes and
coons running around,” he said.
Blanton reported this week
that he had visited the fox and it
was recovering very well. It is a
little female, he said. And there
is some indication it may have
kits on the way.
And Blanton has a rusty old
steel trap, that was once buried
in a field. Nobody is fighting to
claim it.
Thoughts On An Old House
Dr. Wyan Washburn and Charlotte architect Jack Boyte were
among a group of Cleveland County restoration enthusiasts who
visited the old Sarratt house, in number three township last Tuesday.
Boyte, an expert in the identification and restoration of historic
buildings, said he was thrilled with the old brick house, which he called
a remarkably well preserved example of 18th century architecture.
The Site Of The Fatal Assault
Murphy Man Dies
After Local Beating
The victim of the first murder
in Boiling Springs, in the
memory of many, was buried
Wednesday in the mountains of
Chfciokee County, North
Carolina.
Stephen Michael Radford, 26,
died Saturday following an
assault Friday night at the
Phillips Village Apartments,
where his brother, James Ed
ward Radford, lives.
Boiling Springs police chief
Dan Ledbetter arrived at the
scene of the fatal beating after
being summoned by a neighbor.
The Radford brothers were lying
in the apartment complex park
ing lot, Ledbetter’s report said, as
three other men stood over
them. One man kicked one of
the fallen men in the head as he
tried to get to his feet, the report
said.
The killing apparently follow
ed an evening of drinking and
card playing at James Radford’s
place, and perhaps others. The
Radfords had reportedly invited
some men into party. An argu
ment over a debt was said to br
ing about the fighting, in which
Stephen Radford was battered
with a tire iron.
Charged with the killing was
Johnny Eugene Starr, 19, of
1810 Powerline Road in Shelby.
A preliminary hearing was held
after Radford’s death and bond
set at $25,000. Starr is being held
in Cleveland County jail, charg
ed with first-degree murder.
Another hearing will be held in
district court in Shelby on
January 26.
The victim was visiting his
brother in Boiling Springs after
working a construction job in
Chicago.
Radford had left Murphy
High School before he graduated •
and had served for a time in the
U.S. Army. The youngest son in
a family of five children, he was
raised by an uncle and aunt who
had gained custody of the
children in 1961.
His brother, James Radford,
was treated and released from
Cleveland Memorial Hospital
the night of the assault.
Police Chief Ledbetter said he
could not find any historical
records, but that this was the
first killing he could remember
within at least the last 15 years
in Boiling Springs.
Flutist To Give
Recital On Tuesday
-Gardner-Webb music perfor
mance major Esther N. Perrin of
Boiling Springs will give a flute
recital on Tuesday, January 24.
She will be accompanied on
piano and harpsichord by Libby
Alexander of Shelby and assisted
during the selection “Duettino”
by flutist Pam Harris of Boiling
Springs.
Miss Perrin is the daughter of ^
Dr. and Mrs. Phil Perrin and is a
graduate of Crest Senior High
School.
A sophomore at Gardner-
Webb, Miss Perrin is a member
of the college’s orchestra and the
Gardner-Webb Chamber
Chorus. She has also performed
with the Western Piedmont
Symphony.
Miss Perrin, who studies flute
under the direction of G-W ad
junct music instructor Irene
Maddox, will perform a number
of selections including
“Fantasie” by Faure and “Sen-
timentale” by Claude Bolling.
The performance will be held
in the college’s Dover Chapel
beginning at 8 p.m. It is open to
the public at no cost.
Nancy Rebecca Vaughn
Makes Peace Honors
Raleigh - Nancy Rebecca
Vaughn of Boiling Springs is
among the 54 students on the
fall semester Dean’s List at Peace
College. She is the daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. John H. Vaughn
of 120 Woodhill Dr. in Boiling
Springs.
To be eligible for the Dean’s
List at Peace a student must
maintain a grade-point average
of 3.30 out of a possible 4.0,
receive passing grades in all sub
jects and carry at least 12 hours
of course work.