The
Morrisville &. Preston
Published Monthly
Morrisville, NC
Cromwell optimistic health will hold through term
By Mary Beth Phillips
Morrisville’s new mayor was
looking for a challenge when he
decided to run for office, to get his
mind off the bone marrow cancer
that he had recently been diagnosed
with.
The challenge may have been
more than he bargained for, but
that’s another story.
Gordon Cromwell has just fin
ished a round of chemotherapy and
is likely to be undertaking a stem
cell transplant in the near future
which will potentially hospitalize
him for a few weeks and certainly
weaken him for a month or so.
But although he acknowledges his
condition is serious, he said he ex
pects to complete his term with
only a short time away from his
duties.
“The Lord led him into this,” said
his wife, Joyce, “and we feel confi
dent that he will see his four-year
term through—easily.”
In a stem cell transplant, the ex
isting bone marrow is destroyed
and replaced with healthy bone
“They’ve done a lot of it over the
past few years, and shown some
fairly good results,” Cromwell said
of the transplantation procedure.
Dr. Alan Kritz, a hematolo-
gisl/oncologist at Rex Hospital,
who is handling Cromwell’s treat
ment, said he is completing tests to
determine whether the stem cell
transplant is the best option.
The treatment involves trans
planting his own stem cells (part of
the marrow), which have been ex
tracted and frozen, back into his
body after he receives a high dose
of chemotherapy which wipes out
his existing bone marrow,
“There is a period of 10 or 12
days where he is not producing his
own blood cells, and will be sus
ceptible to infection (because of the
lack of white cells) or bleeding
(because of the lack of platelets
which help with clotting). This is a
tough period of time,” Kritz said.
“The bone marrow organ, which
produces the blood cells, is com
pletely dysfunctional,
“We will have to give him trans
fusions, and probably antibiotics to
support him through that,” Kritz
said. “Most patients tend to be hos
pitalized for a period of time. Some
can go through whole transplant
without being hospitalized.”
It takes about two days for the
chemicals to wash out of his blood
See CROMWELL, page 2
AT HOME—Gordan Cromwell likes working with wood in the shed
behind his home. He recently made a weathervane for his wife.
J.
r.vTr.-.'*-**.*"-' ." ••• • |.
Board rethinks
sewer line halt,
reverses vote
Shiloh project, grant will resume
AN UNCLUTTERED VIEW—Sarah Young of Carpenter couldn’t ville’s Christmas parade Dec. 6. There were more than 25 entries
resist the sounds of the Cary High Band as it played during Morris- along the route including the Garner and Apex High School bands.
Musically inclined
Preston soprano’s voice taking him places as Canterbury Singer
By Mary Beth Phillips
Colin Geisenhoffer can sing some
high notes.
The former second soprano says
it's kind of hard to go that high
sometimes, since Tom Sibley, di
rector of the Raleigh Boychoir,
moved him to first soprano this
year.
“Once I get warmed up, I can do
it,” said the sixth grader, who lives
in Preston and attends West Lake
Middle School.
The worst part about changing
from second soprano to first was
relearning all the notes, he added.
Despite his talent and his time
commitment to the Boychoir, Colin
says he likes to play soccer about
as much as he likes to sing. He re
ceived even more encouragement
to pursue the singing when he
found out that his soccer coach
sang in an a capella choir.
Being a member of the Canter
bury Singers, the most prestigious
ensemble in the Raleigh Boychoir,
takes away from his soccer time.
especially this time of year.
“I had a performance and three
(choir) practices last week, and one
performance and practice were on
the same day,” he said last week.
On Wednesday of last week, he
flew to the White House to sing for
a party there, and perhaps to see the
President or the First Lady.
This week, he will be singing for
the matinees at the Nutcracker
Suite at Memorial Auditorium in
Raleigh, and at 8 p.m. on Dec. 20,
See PRESTON, page 3
COLIN GEISENHOFFER
By Mary Beth Philllips
The Morrisville Board of Com
missioners in a special called ses
sion on Dec. 14, voted unani
mously to resume work on the
Shiloh Sewer Project, undoing ac
tion by the two new board members
and Mark Silver-Smith, who had
voted to halt work at the regular
meeting Dec. 10.
Commissioners Jan Faulkner and
Bill Case had voted along with
Silver-Smith to halt the project,
after Silver-Smith accused Com
missioner Leavy Barbee of initiat
ing the project for his own personal
gain.
After voting to resume the project
on Sunday, Silver-Smith said, “Ob
viously, after the report came back
from Wilkerson (the construction
firm) and we found out of course
that the contract was so far gone, it
wouldn’t pay to stop it. Of course,
the right thing to do at this point is
to finish the p'rojecl so at least some
benefit will come to the area.
“That is a project that should have
been stopp^ a long time ago,” he
said. “I’ve always voted against the
project. I would have tried stopping
it earlier, but I knew that I was only
one vote on the board. Doing it that
night, of course I appreciated
commissioners Faulkner and Case,
who understood the issue, going
along with me.”
Contractor J.T. Wilkerson and
Consulting Engineer Bass, Nixon
& Kennedy presented cost figures
to the board that showed the town
would lose money by halting the
project.
According to the accounting by
the contractor, the original contract
amount was $621,691; work in the
amount of $422,531 has been billed
for, and $199,160 has not been
billed.
However, the amount of work and
stored materials not yet billed is
$66,957, and the contractor would
seek $28,000 to secure the project
at its present status ($2,800 per day
times 10 days) and $24,465 in lost
overhead and profit. So the cash
outlay required by the town to ter
minate the project would be
$119,422. That leaves $79,738 re
maining from the original $199,160
not yet billed.
By terminating the project, the
town would lose a $100,000 Com
munity Development Block Grant
that had targeted the area of Shiloh
in question. So the town would
actually have to pay $20,262 more
if the contract were terminated than
if the contract were to proceed.
At the special called meeting,
which lasted less than five minutes,
the motion to resume the project
was made by Commissioner C.T.
Moore and seconded by Commis
sioner Leavy Barbee. It was then
approved unanimously with no
discussion.
At the regular meeting of Dec. 10,
Silver-Smith had said, during the
time for other business on the
agenda, he never favored the cur
rent configuration of the sewer line
and a more detailed plan should be
made to serve the entire commu
nity. Silver-Smith claimed at the
time that stopping the sewer line
project before it went under the
railroad tracks would save the town
about $100,000, but Town Attorney
Frank Gray cautioned that there
could be claims from the contractor
See BOARD, page 2
Preston retiree recounts struggle in Cuba
CLOSEKNIT TRIO—Michael and Carmen Ca- daughter Mary Carmen, a preschooler, while her
sas of Preston enjoy keeping their grand parents work.
By Mary Beth Phillips
“In this country, if you want
something and you work for it, you
will get it,’’ said Michael Casas of
Boltstone Court in Preston.
He should know. He came to
America from Cuba in I960 with
$5 in his pocket and a few clothes
in a suitcase. The only English he
knew was from a high school
course.
The communist regime forced his
family, which owned a factory that
manufactured metal buckets and
trash cans, out of business.
“They took everything. First they
took houses for the poor. Then they
said the factories should belong to
the people,” Casas said. “I realized
it was impossible to live in a sys
tem where there was no freedom.”
He had some confrontations with
communist officials, and got word
that they were planning to come
arrest him, so he left the day be
fore.
His wife. Carmen, and three
daughters, who were then 6, 5, and
1, followed about two months later.
The Casases spent most of their
lives in the Fort Lauderdale and
West Palm Beach areas of Florida,
but when their daughter, a me
chanical engineer with IBM, and
son-in-law, also with IBM, both got
transferred here from Boca Raton
two years ago, they followed.
“Our kids come first,” Casas ex
plained. “The family is the base of
everything, for the nation, for rela
tions with other people.”
Soon after moving to Florida, the
Casases had moved both sets of
parents in with them. Carmen
worked full time as a Spanish
teacher, and also taught adult
Spanish classes in the evenings, so
See PRESTON, page 2
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Delivered expressly to the
residents of Morrisville and
Preston