AWARD WINNER In 1966 and 1967 the Democrat won 10 State Press Assn, awards for General Excellence, Excellence in Typography, Local News, Adver tising, Columns and Photographs. WATAUGA DEMOCRAT An independent Weekly Newspaper . . . Seventy-Ninth Year of Continuous Publication BOONE WEA' 1MT Hay 2 Hay 3 May 4 Hay S Hay 6 Hay 7 Hay 8 VOLUME LXXIX— NO. 45 BOONE, WATAUGA COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1967 10 CENTS PER COPY 26 PAGES—t SECTIONS S8SSS288B ASTC Co-ed Is Queen Of U. S.Twirlers Miss Elaine Hudson, Appa lachian State Teachers College coed who is reigning as the cur rent Majorette Queenof Ameri ca, has been named to lead the nation’s top 10 majorettes through festivities at the In dianapolis 500 Auto Race May 30. Miss Hudson, an 18-year-old Appalachian freshman, will leave for the event May 26, and will appear in a parade one day prior to the annual Me morial Day race. Elaine, who stands five-feet, three inches, is the daughter of Mrs. Laura J. Hudson of Charlotte. She is a graduate of Morganton High School. The blue-eyed brunette has won 402 trophies and 121 medals for her majorette activites over the past eight years. She began baton twirling at the age of 10, and a year later cap tured the International Twirling Championship. She has won this title each year since for total of seven, and this competition has carried her to Ohio, Maine, Missouri, Tennessee and South Carolina. America’s Majorette Queen has been the North Carolina twirling Champion for the past eight years. She was Majorette Princess of America in 1962, America’s Most Beautiful Ma jorette in 1966 and the Best Dressed Majorette in Eastern United States in 1966. Miss Hudson recently won the Majorette Queen of America title in competition with 150 girls representing every state in the nation following state elimination contests. The com petition included fancy strut ting, military strutting, twirl ing, bathing suit and evening gown appearance, and display of talent other than twirling. Other majorettes chosen to join Miss Hudson at Indiana polis are: Pamela Albrechtof La Cross, Wis„ Patsy Boyce of San Diego State College, Loretta Butler of Georgia Tech, Margaret Fleming of Western Michigan University, Pamela Forten berry of the University of Ari zona, Lina Gross of the Uni versity of Tulsa, Janie John son of Augustana (S. D.) Col lege, Gloria Kachulls of North west Missouri State College, and Cookie Richards of Iowa State College. WAMY News Sheet Draws Senator Action Republican resolution intro duced in the Senate Monday night called for North Carolina to go on record as rejecting a fed erally financed newspaper and radio program proposed in the northwestern corner of the state. Sen. Ted Dent, R—Mitchell, called the attempt to initiate the community action news demon stration project in Watauga, Avery, Mitchell, and Yancey counties (WAMY) a “blatant intervention of federal social ism.*’ He said that the paper and radio show would disseminate propaganda on the poverty pro gram in the four counties at the taxpayers* expense and asked that the state request that the funds for the Office of Economic Opportunity project (Continued on page three) Pt l WALAC HIAN’S ELAINE HUDSON—Majorette Queen of America. Dr. Graha Shriver To Tour WAMY Projects Dr. Billy Graham and Sar gent Shriver, Director of the Office of Economic Opportun ity, announced plans Tuesday to tour some of the community action projects in Avery Coun ty that are being operated by WAMY Community Action, Inc. The tour is aimed at giving Dr. Graham a first hand look Local Radio Also Has WAMYProblem » iicu u nm i V'Uiimiumij' tion, Inc., last week made known its “news demonstration pro ject” for the four counties, the North Carolina Press Associ ation offered tooppose the issue and the press made its edi torial voice heard. In the rush to protect Fed eral intervention on news papers and other free enter prises, news accounts all but forgot the plight of local radio stations, a plight which could spread throughout the broad cast system. According to WAMY’s pro posal to 0. E. 0., “It is ex pected that about three months will be required to build up the desired programming produc tion level of an hour a day for each station (WATA in Boone, WTOE in Spruce Pine).” Two paragraphs later: “The medium of radio by its very naiuie piuviaes iiiue oppor tunity for censorship as pre viewing of recorded material is a costly and time-consuming job.” The management of Radio Station WAT A in Boone stated Tuesday that they were ap proached several weeks ago by the publicity director of WAMY with a request for six 5-minute programs a day of public ser vice time. “WATA has always made ita policy to serve all worthwhile agencies and projects in the County with free, non-com mercial public service time and spot announcements and have done this for WAMY since its inception. “However, six 5-minute pro grams a day for one agency were out of all proportion to the many requests for time (Continued on page three) speaker matt will Address 675 Graduates At College David M. Britt, speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, has been named to deliver the com mencement address June 3 at Appalachian State Teachers College, Approximately 675 students are expected to receive degrees during graduation exercises In Broome-Kirk Gymnasium, Britt, Democrat representa tive from Robeson Courty, has been a member at the General Assembly since 1959, A native of McDonald, N. C., he is a graduate of Lumberton High School, Wake Forest College and Wake Forest Law School. Britt last year was present ed the Judge John J. Parker Memorial Award by the N. C. Bar Association. Ten years ago, he was named “Man of the Year** for Robeson County. He served as solicitor erf the Fairmont Recorder’s Court from 1940 to 1944. He has prac ticed law since 1937. Britt has served as president of the Board of Trustees of Southeastern General Hospital, president of the Wake Forest College Alumni Association, chairman of the Fairmont Board of Education, Rotary Club Dis trict Governor, member of Gen eral Board of the Baptist State Convention, and a teacher of Men's Bible Class. He was married in 1941 to the former Louise Teague of Fairmont and they have four children. “King Street” Moves Up Front WVMY Newspaper Proposal Draws Ire Of Free Press By ROB RIVERS Federal Newspaper ... In The Works WAMY, Inc., through its board of directors has ap proved the establishment of a standard-type newspaper for this area. . . Financed completely by Federal funds and to offer full news coverage of the local scene to 8,000 residents of our four-county area, it has caused a considerable commotion in the ranks of the free press. . . The proposal had been prepared and approved by the board 15-5 before anyone in professional newspaper circles was aware of it, so far as we can learn. . . The State Press Association, through its President and Secre tary has offered vigorous protest to WAMY President, Dr. W. H. Plemmons; the Watauga Democrat sent Dr. Plemmons a prepared statement of opposition to a Federal press, and we have alerted all our officials and Representatives in Congress of the threat to the system. . Saturday at noon the Press Assn, and area publishers were granted a hearing for Sunday. . . The Assn, asked for more time and didn’t come. . . We take the position that we can’t add or detract from our prepared state ment, that we won’t go on bended knee to plead with a board that has already taken action, but we will sit in if the Press Assn, officials come. . We are opposing the proposal in every way we know how. . . In fairness, how ever, we don’t look to succeed. Against the power of the movement and the floods of taxpayers’ money, ours is apt to be as a small voice crying in the wilder ness. The North Carolina Fund is potentially a fine thing, but it was brought here by strangers to our re gion and to our people and to our society, whose sinews forged with the power of public money can’t be matched by those of us who publish the nation’s newspapers on our own steam. . . But we’U continue to speak our piece and to defend our people and our institutions as long as we may live. We Fmin/l tin# at how the community action program is being operated, ac cording to Herbert Kramer, public affairs director of OEO. Dr. Graham, who is from Montreat, N. C., has been in terested in meeting with Shri ver for some time, Kramer said, and the two are expect ed to confer on how churches can most effectively be involv ed in the anti-poverty effort. After the tour, Dr. Graham and Shriver are expected to speak at the Toe River Com munity Center in western Avery county, which is located in the old Toe River School. Local WAMY officials said they were pleased with the news of the visit, which had been in the making for about a month and a half. Said WAMY Director Ernest Eppley, “We are pleased to learn of Dr. Graham’s deep interest in helping our low-in come citizens find a better way of life. “Naturally we are also pleas ed that WAMY was chosen as the site of this tour . . .” Although no final schedule for the tour has been announc ed, the public meeting at which Dr. Graham and Shriver are expected to speak should take place about 3 p. m. Saturday at the Toe River Center, ac-, cording to officials. DAVID M_ BRITT A lot of things we don't know, but we found out some of them when we read the plan for the newspaper and radio program of WAMY, the project which “is intended to help solve the problems of some 30,000 men, women and children who exist on family incomes of $3,000 per year. These people are scattered across 1100 square miles of mountainous, wooded country-side on tiny farms and in small, isolated settlements, in the counties of Watauga, Av ery, Mitchell and Yancey in western North Carolina. Almost without exception these people are the direct descendants of pioneers of the early 1800's with a long history erf subsis tence farming and foraging, un touched by prosperity down to the present day.” Churches, Preachers The rural churches don't es cape the notice of the WAMY proposal and the “lay preach ers’' are decried in the docu ment which is aimed at fixing things, and we quote: “The low-income people have developed psychological char acteristics consistent with their physical isolation. They are relatively ignorant of the out side world, and even of per sons and events only a few miles from their homes. They find it extremely difficult to cope with other people and are generally reserved and dis trustful of strangers. Their ca pacities for group feeling and group endeavor have not been developed. Their history shows few examples of cooperative en deavor. Their only significant tradition of groupparticipation, passive at that, is in their church congregations, but these congregations are many and small, many led by lay preach ers who continue to promote a tradition of bigoted separatism. Their “communities” are in many cases not communities at all, but merely clusters of in terrelated families, fractured by generations-old feuds stem ming from personal hurts and differences of religious belief, maintained in physical prox imity only by the formidable obstacles of establishing liveli hoods elsewhere.” WE'D SUGGEST that anyone (Continued on page four) A Giant Walks Among Us /FEDERALLY^ FINANCED PRESS FREE PRESS ^i-asrxJxAj ///oc*x^r%^ Miss Sandra Cook Is Named President WHS Student Body Edmisten To Be Counsel For U S Senate Group U. S. Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. CD.-N. C.), Chairman of the Constitutional Rights Sub committee, has announced the resignation of H. Houston Groome, Jr., as a counsel for the Subcommittee. He also an nounced that Rufus L. Edmisten of Boone will replace Groome. In praising the Greensboro native, Senator Ervin said: “Houston Groome brought to the Subcommittee a vast knowledge (Continued on page three) MJSS SANDRA COOK Leader 1 o Address Historical Group The annual spring member ship meeting of the Southern Appalachian Historical Associ ation, Monday, May 15, will be addressed by Claude F. Gaddy of Blowing Rock and Raleigh. An educator and Baptist lea CLAUDE F. GADDY der, Gaddy is a native of An son County, a graduate of Wake Forest and received his Mas ter's degree from UNC. His talk will be the feature event of the dinner meeting, which will get underway at 7 p. m. Eastern Daylight Sav ing Time. Advance tickets, at $2.50 per, may be obtained from Stanley Harris Sr., Al fred Adams, J. V.Gaudill or from the Horn in the West office in Boone. Special guests, represents business, education, industry and civic organizations wiil be introduced prior to the talk. Ned Trivette and the Rev. Richard Crowder will arrange entertainment for the evening. Gaddy taught at Mills tame in Tbomasville, 1921-25, was principal of Marshville High School, 1925-27, and Superinten (continued on page three) Student body president for 1967-68 at Watauga High School will be Miss Sandra Cook. Sandra defeated Dana Moretz and John Rainey in a school - wide election Friday, May 5. As president of the student body, she will serve as president of the 45-member student council and as official hostess for the school. Sandra comes to the office as an experienced leader. She has been a student council repre sentative for two years; this year she has served as council secretary. She is now secretary of the Debate Club and vice president of the Future Teach ers of America. She has been elected District vice-president of the National Beta Club. In May she will serve as co-chief junior marshal, the highest scholastic honor in the class, for the 1967 graduation exercises. She has been se lected to attend the Governor's School in Winston-Salemdurix^ June and July of this year. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Billy J. Cook, Sandra is the second in her family to serve as a high school student body president. Bill Jr. was presi dent at Appalachian High School in 1962. Other student body officers elected to serve next year are as follows: vice-president, (Continued on page three) WAMY Group To Meet Press Dr. W. H. Plemmons, Chair man of WAMY, says representa tives of news media will be in vited to a meeting of the eutive Committee of the poverty agency Thursday night. May 18. Dr. Plemmons indicated Mat the press will be offered a de tailed explanation of the WAMY proposal for a government-fl oored newspaper.

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