Basketball Contest—Page 4 THE WEST CRAVEN HIGHLIGHT Volume 2 No. 4 Vonceboro, N. C. - Thursday, January 25, 1979 12 Pages Price*. 20c Deadline for merger agreement set by Connie Bryan The Craven County Com missioners have set a dead line of 5 p.m. on February 23 for the Craven County Board of Education and the New Bern Board of Educa tion to respond with a merger plan to become effective by July 1, 1981. If the Boards fail to adopt a plan, then the Commission ers will prepare their own plan for merger and request that local represen tatives introduce it in the state legislature. The February 23 deadline was set after Rep. Chris Barker informed the Commission ers that March 10 is the cutoff date for controversial local bills to be submitted to the state legislature. Grover Lancaster of Vanceboro pointed out that an outside study was not needed. He added that a referendum was not neces sary either, since the elec ted officials could decide the issue. James Sugg, attorney for Craven County, submitted a proposed bill from Rep. Barker, who could not be at the meeting. As written by Barker, this bill states, “The seven members of the Craven County Board of Education shall run in dis tricts and be voted on county wide” effective with the primary and general elections of 1980. According to this bill, the Board would control the two systems beginning in December 1, 1980 and continue after their merger on July 1, 1981. Commissioner Lancaster commented that if the school boards fail to come up with a plan, the County Commissioners will not necessarily submit Barker’s bill as it is. Basketball Contest’s third week Gaskins wins six-way tie for first Jeff Gaskins survived a six-way tie for first place to win in the third week of the Basketball Contest being sponsored by the Highlights and area bus inesses through January and February. Richard Gladson was second in the tie-breaker and Jay Huff was third. All three had seven right and three misses. Brian Hudson won the “Beat the Editor” drawing out of eighteen entries. After three weeks, three entrants are deadlocked in the race for the Grand Prize of two tickets to the NCAA Eastern Regionals plus fifty dollars in expense money. Jay Huff joined Pat Troutner and Earl Wright in the three way tie. The third week’s winners are as follows: First- Jeff Gaskins (Won Tie-breaker) Second-- Richard Gladson 7-3 (Second in Tie-breaker) Third - Jay Huff 7-3 (Third in Tie-breaker) “Beat the Elditor”: Brian Hudson Last week's winning teams were Virginia, UNC, Davidson, Duke, Tennessee, Notre Dame, Ohio State, LSU, Purdue, Louisville, and (Tie breaker) Pittsburgh, 35 points. Courthouse will stay in New Bern by Connie Bryan A proposed new Craven County Courthouse complex was among the topics dis cussed at the County Com missioners’ meeting on Fri day, January 19 at 8:30 a.m. In a motion for a resolution from the Board, George Nelson of New Bern recommended that they keep the County govern ment in downtown New Bern. He defined “down town” to mean the area between Hancock Street • and the Neuse River and Johnson Street and the Trent River. Nelson added that he felt the Commis sioners should go on record as having the “intent to keep County government in New Bern.” The Commis sioners passed this resolution. In related business. Nelson suggested that the Board ask the Redevelop ment Commission and the City of New Bern, if the city would give the county three acres of land in the Urban Renewal Project adjacent to the 6.9 acres already purchased by the county. Nelson noted that there has been some con cern that the present 6.9 acres would not provide adequate space. He com mented that this additional acreage “would be neces sary to overcome the present deadlock” and to insure that the courthouse complex would be built on the urban renewal proper ty. The Commissioners agreed to this proposal. According to the archi tects the estimated cost for the new complex is between four and six mil lion dollars. Grover Lancaster of Vanceboro suggested that the Board meet with Jim Roberts, architect for the project. A meeting was scheduled for February 5. The point of zero degrees latitude and zero, degrees longitude lies in the Gulf of Guinea off the western coast of Africa. The closest land to this point is Ghana. ULTIMATUM-County Conunissioner Grover Lancaster, Jr. delivered an ultimatum to the two school boards in Craven County. Lancaster’s motion, which calls for agreement of the two school boards on merger by 5 pjn. Friday, February 23rd, passed in the recent County Commissioners’ meeting last Friday. [Photo by Tony Gatlin] COUNTY GOVERNMENT STAYS-The County Commissioners okayed a resolution by George Nelson which expressed the commissioners’ intent to stay in downtown New Bern. [Highlights File Photo] Local men join Jaycees “A Bird's Eye View of New Bern" New Column begins . . . Page 7 Congratulations go to Doug Robinson, son of Mr. and Mrs. McRay Robinson and Carroll “Butch” White Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Carroll White. Doug and Butch were inducted into the New Bern Jaycees on January 8. The Jaycees is an organiza tion for young men between the ages of 18 and 35. Some of their projects are the bike and bowl-a-- thons and tele-a-thons for Cystic Fibrosis, the basket ball games for the Heart Fund, Christmas parties for the underprivileged and handicapped children, and the current jelly sales to help build a burn center in North Carolina.