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Bern
The NEW BERN
15B St». --'•■Y
4D^ HEART OF
EASTERN NORTH
CAROLINA
5 Per Copy
VOLUME 6
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, JUNE 28, 1963
NUMBER 13
Life hasn’t been dull for Mack
and Betty Rice since they moved
to Cocoa, Fla, He is serving
with the Air Force at Cape
Canaveral, twenty miles from
their present home. She is
working at the telephone ex
change in Cocoa, where calls
to and from the Cape are handl
ed for the outside world.
In New Bern, Betty was an
operator for Carolina Tele
phone, She has also been an
operator at Cocoa but is
currently doing clerical work
for the exchange. “I’ve had my
biggest thrills,’’ she told The
Mirror, “when I’ve taken calls
from the astronauts.’’
Mack’s duties at the Cape
are something he is in no
position to discuss, but it goes
without saying that he has had
a ringside seat for some of the
most spectacular events of our
time. He could hardly have
visualized such an experience
when he was living at Spring
Garden and attending Jasper
High school.
Even at a distance of twenty
miles from the launching site,
Betty has had something of a
ringside seat herself, “We
watched on television until the
count down was completed,’’she
says, “and then rushed to the
windows of the telephone
office.” As the missiles gained
altitude, they could be seen,and
then she heard the sound o f the
actual launching an instant
afterward.
The couple would like to live
in Florida permanently, but they
return to New Bern at every
opportunity to visit relatives.
“Cocoa is growing by leaps and
bounds,” Mack reported, “and
rent is sky high. We pay $120
a month tor our apartment, and
you have to pay $80 a month
for nothing but a hole in the
wall.”
Astronauts aren’t the only
interesting people that Betty
has handled calls for. Celebri
ties in the entertainment world
visit the section frequently, ard
the place is fairly swarming
with newsmen whenever a trip
into outer space for one of the
spacemen is scheduled.
Each reporter wants a special
line, and it requires a tre
mendous amount of detail work.
In a day or two the reporter
goes on his way, and there’s
more detail work getting back
to more normal operations. In
cidentally, Betty assured me
that the newsmen covering the
launchings have all been cour
teous and considerate when
dealing with telephone em
ployees.
Mack was employed by Car
olina Telephone in New Bern
too, before he went into the
Air Force. In fact, that’s
where he met Betty. She grad
uated from New Bern High
school in 1959, and Mack grad
uated from Jasper in 1957, While
in the Air Force he is further
ing his education at Brevard
Junior College in Cocoa.
Mack likes to fish, and for
tunately for him the Banana
river is right in front of their
home. Fishermen aren’t always
careful with the truth, but he
insists that you can reel a
nice fish in every time you
throw your line over. What’s
more he showed us a photograph
of a big catch to prove it.
He uses live shrimp for bait.
The sport has no appeal for
Betty. She prefers to spend her
leisure hours in a swimming
(Continued on page S
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HARD TO BELIEVE—Here at Union Point, 35 years
ago, was a sprawling city dump where hundreds of
giant rats had their own special paradise. This building,
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once the home of the New Bern Woman’s Club, sup
planted the dump. It is now the popular Teen Club.—
Photo by John R. Baxter.
JUST US GIRLS—These seven young ladies, all in
their eighties, gathered for a meal at Moore’s Barbe
cue to celebrate the birthdays of Mrs. Maude Foy
Moore and Mrs. John D. Whitford. Collectively, the
seven have seen more than five hundred birthdays ar
rive and depart, and are still going strong. Left to right,
first row are Mrs. Ben E. Moore, Mrs. Isabel Jordan,
Mrs. Rosa Biddle Skinner and Mrs. Laura Williams.
In the second row are Mrs. Whitford, Mrs. Moore and
Mrs. Lucy Cox.—Photo by Wray Studio.