NEW BERN-CRAVEN COUNTY
PUBLIC library
The NEW BEKN
NEW BERN. N. C., FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1971
PUBLISHED WEEKLY
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NUMBER 38
Whenever anyone mentions
overcoming a handicap, Biily
Arthur pops up in our mindf.
This diminutive ex-New Bem-
ian not oniy unmounted the
otetacle of being iust 36 inches
tall, he capitalized on it to good
advantage.
Some of the world’s wee
people end up in carnivals or
hide their chagrin behind the
^ease-paint mask of a circus
clown. Billy, by sharp contrast,
thumbed his nose at an unkind
Fate and asked no quarter in
earning his bread at man-sized
undertakings.
In the highly competitive field
of newspapering, you’re strictly
on your own. Fellow reporters
are much too busy meeting
deadlines to worry about the
guy struggling at the next
typewriter. Editors can’t fill up
their pages with promises,
excuses or an alibi.
Billy knew that from the
moment he first faced a blank
piece of paper, and racked his
brain for ideas. Readers are
prone to believe that writing
comes easy for some of us. Good
writing never does, and that’s
what Billy, even as the rest of
us, aspired to.
Here, on the ill-fated New
Bern Tribune, he gained the
experience that enabled him to
establish and maintain a suc-
cessful newspaper at
Jacksonville. Billy was smart
enough to get a head start in the
early boom days of Camp
Lejeune, and smart enough to
keep pace.
For reasons satisfactory to
himself, he later sold his paper
and moved to Chapel Hill,
where he still writes
and still eats regularly. While
at Jacksonville, he got himself
elected to the legislature, and
after blowing out of office,
became reading clerk for the
House.
Billy may not have the reach
to pick apples off even the
lowest hanging limb, but in
every other way he measures
up. That’s all that counts. His
legs, short though they are,
reach the ground, and the
tallest Slim Jim in captivity can
claim no more than this. It’s not
the length of your lower ex
tremities, but the footprints you
can make on the sands of time
that gives you rank among
mortals and the right to look
God in the face without shame.
As a friend of Billy’s, we like
best his keen sense of humor.
He knows many a yam that’s
good for a belly laugh, and some
of them we wouldn’t think of
printing. Not (inless we planned
to leave town on the next plane.
One of his better pranks,
while he was a University of
North Carolina cheerleader,
had Ellis Fysal, an All-
Southern footballer as the
victim. Fysal, incidentally, is a
brother of Mrs. Albert Jowdy,
Sr., of New Bern.
Ellis had played a par
ticularly good game on one
occasion. In fact, he was
responsible for most of the key
tackles in a bruising battle
from which the Tar Heels
emerged victorious.
Chapel Hill’s most popular
photographer snapped a flock of
M'onibiued on page K)
★★★
RECOGNIZE SOMEBODY?-Neglected
I^otographs deteriorate over the course of many
years, and faces are no longer familiar to those still
living. That applies to this rare picture from the
^bert D. Brooks collection. Drop a line to The
Mirror, if you can identify any or aU of the men seen
here. Unless you’re weU past 65, it is liable to be a
hopeless undertaking on your part.
★★★