A.C. Hudson
Black Leaders
Support Boycott
by Maru Amburn
| Chowan black leaders recently
i joined in supporting the nationwide
NAACP boycott of Food Lion
grocery stores.
Edenton-Chowan Civic League
president A C-Hudson confirmed
that his organization, during their
. meeting last week, advocated the
nationwide action.
There are three Food Lion Stores
in Northeastern North Carolina: in
Edenton, Elizabeth City and Nags
Head. The Edenton store is located
at Edenton Village Shopping
Center.
While the county black leader
ship is supporting the boycott, Hud
son noted that it is not a physical
boycott, rather an educational
boycott.
According to boycott leaders, the
stores are being admonished
because black grocery suppliers
are not being used and because the
grocery chain rarely contributed to
black philanthropies.
Ad hoc committes have been
formed in each of the participating
area Pasquotank NAACP president
Harold Barnes, who is
spearheading the boycott effort in
the Albemarle.
“Food Lion Stores have 10,000
employees nationwide and only
1,000 are black," Barnes said in a
press conference last week. “They
have about 1,000 managers and on
ly 70 are black.”
“Many blacks are in part-time
positions and do not get the benefits
of full-time employment,” Barnes
added.
Barnes said that approximately
20 percent of Food Lion revenues
come from the black community.
He also charged that black leaders
will begin evaluating the number of
blacks in managerial positions in
other area stores in order to “work
for a fair share of the economic
pie.”
In earlier new accounts, it was
reported that Food Lion vice
president Eugene McKinley said
that “13 percent of our employees
are black.”
Continued on page 4
Volume XLVIII • No. 79
Edenton, North Carolina, Thursday, August 2, 1984
Sinale Copies 25 Cents
Well Enough Alone
From where we sit alongside the
Public Parade, it would appear that
the state Transportation Depart
ment would be well advised to stick
to highway planning and construc
tion, with a bridge thrown in here
and there.
These thoughts began to jell when
we read the recent recommenda
tions by traffic experts from the
department that Edenton could
solve its downtown parking pro
effective — too effective to the ex
ing ordinances and raising its fine
to five dollars per violation.
No doubt, that would prove very
blem by strictly enforcing its park
tent that it emptied downtown
streets.
There is a fine line that separates
the wise use of parking limits as a
traffic regulator and the abuse of
over-regulating the use of
downtown parking spaces in such
ways as to drive customers to the
suburbs. Some cities, rather than
look upon parking as a revenue
source, have pulled up their
modern-day hitching posts in an ef
fort to encourage the use of
downtown streets.
Other cities, in a desperate effort
to save their downtown tax base,
have not only pulled up their meters
but rushed ahead with developing
off-street lots where parking is free
and time no so strictly regulated.
Edenton has a beautiful central
city area and should be happy that
enough shoppers and sightseers are
coming down to keep its street
parking spaces pretty well filled.
The one thing it does not want to do,
in our opinion, is to make the use of
the parking so expensive as to en
courage these shoppers and
sightseers to go elsewhere.
Edenton has so far escaped the
development of huge suburban
shopping malls. Whether this is
right or wrong only history will tell.
But one reason it has been able to
do so is that the downtown area has
been developed into one of the most
beautiful, most historically authen
tic of any small city in North
Carolina.
But there is no guarantee this will
always remain the case. When a
town becomes too greedy to rent its
streets to the people who own them,
when traffic cops begin to lose the
human touch in handling the peo
ple, when the public begins to sense
it is no longer really welcome, then
the days of the central city are
numbered.
We would hate to see this happen
to Edenton.
SUMMER BOOKWORM—Amy Julia Truesdell, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hobart Truesdell of Eden
ton, has been busily rehearsing for her role in THE BOOKWORM. The play will be performed at the
Shepard-Pruden Library next week to celebrate the end of the summer reading summer program.
In the play, Amy Julia portrays a girl who comes into the library to get out of the rain. There she
meets a character named “Bookworm” who introduces her to the pleasures of reading.
Cong. Jones Encourages Fish Exports
Envisioning 40,000 new jobs, over
a billion dollars in new economic
wealth, a significant lessening of
our foreign trade deficit, and equi
ty for the depressed American
fishing industry, Walter B. Jones
(D-NC), Chairman of the House
Merchant Marine and Fisheries
Committee, recently urged his col
leagues on two other House panels
to approve his legislation to en
courage the exportation of U.S. fish
and fish products.
“This bill is very simple. It would
neither create new programs nor
call for an increase in appropria
tions. It merely would provide the
Secretary of Agriculture and the
Commodity Credit Corporation
with the discretionary authority to
allow fish and fish products to
qualify for some of the same export
programs which have served the
agriculture industry so well,’’ Jones
told a joint hearing by the Subcom
mittee on International Economic
Policy and Trade of the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, and the Sub
committee on Department Opera
ARTIFICIAL REEF A REALITY—Witnessing the first stage of reef construction in the Western
Albemarle Sound were Chowan County officials Cliff Copeland, Dallas Jethro and Doug Belch
(foreground). The artificial reef, made up of boat molds linked with steel cable, was the brainchild
of Bob Holman, who is shown (in the boat on the left) with Edenton Town Manager Sam Noble and
Lynn Henry of the State Division of Environmental Management. Waff Brothers drove the three pil
ing warning marker Tuesday morning.
.. . ■; • i " '
tions, Kesearcti, and Foreign
Agriculture of the Committee on
Agriculture.
Jones pointed out that even
though we have an estimated 20
percent of the world’s fisheries
resources within U.S. waters --
more than any other nation ™ we
have suffered a 35-year-long trade
deficit in fish and fish products.
Last year this amounted to a whop
ping $4.1 billion or 14 percent of our
entire merchandise trade deficit.
“A substantial portion of the
value of fish imports is from
shrimp, tuna, and lobster -
resources now fully harvested in
U.S. waters, thus we cannot do a
great deal to remedy the import
side of the trade deficit equation.
We do, however, have many fishery
resources which currently have no
domestic markets and penetration
of foreign markets is our best hope
to remedy this situation,” Jones
continued.
The Chairman of the Foreign Af
fairs Subcommittee, Don Bonker
(D-WA), termed the Jones bill “a
very positive approach to this
dilemma” of huge trade deficits.
The Reagan Administration has
opposed the bill as duplicative of
existing Commerce Department
programs, but this was questioned
by both Jones’ testimony and the
Subcommittees’ Members. Jones
said in fact that costly duplication
is what the bill is intended to avoid
by bringing fish within the scope of
existing Agriculture programs
rather than creating an expensive
new bureaucracy at Commerce to
administer a separate program.
Gerry Studds (D—MA), a
member of both the Foreign Affairs
and Merchant Marine and
Fisheries Committees, and a co
sponsor of the Jones bill, noted that
these Agriculture Department ex
port programs enjoy a budget of
nearly $7 billion or seven times that
of the entire agency within the
Commerce Department that
oversees fisheries. Studds also
questioned the Administration’s
testimony that it is “aggressively
Continued on page 4
Parks Selected
Top Sanitarian
Chowan County Sanitarian Jerry
Parks was recently selected by the
23-county Northeastern En
vironmental Health Association as
“Sanitarian of the Year.”
For over 10 years this award has
been presented to area sanitarians
who possess outstanding public
health credentials.
Parks is an Edenton native,
graduate of Holmes High School
and the East Carolina University
School of Environmental Health.
County Sanitarian since 1977,
Parks began his career in Nor
thhampton County where he serv
ed as sanitarian from July of 1976.
As former secretary-treasurer,
vice-chairman and chairman of the
health association, Parks has
shown leadership capabilities and
a fine personality, according to
District Health Department
spokesman Eddie Pierce.
Parks has also served as a
member of the executive commit
tee of the N.C. Environmental
Health Association. As a member
of this committee, his duties have
Continued on page 4
Land Use Grant
Twelve local governments along
the North Carolina Coast have been
awarded grants totaling $125,500 to
assist them in planning for growth
and the use of their natural
resources, N.C. Department of
Natural Resources and Communi
ty Development Secretary James
A. Summers announced today.
“We sincerely hope that the
grants will help towns and counties
in their efforts to shape a better
future through local government
planning,” Summers said.
The grants, which will be partly
matched with local funds, will
enable the six towns and counties
receiving them to update their land
use plans as required every five
years by the Coastal Management
Act.
The grant awards program
began in 1974. The 12 local govern
ments awarded money are the first
of 75 cities and coutnties in the 20
coastal counties that will be receiv
ing money to update their land use
plans over the next two years.
“I am encouraged by the par
ticipation in the coastal planning
program,” Summers said. “It is the
continued involvement of local
governments in this state/local
partnership that has made our
coastal program such a success.”
i oiHinued on page 4
Increased Fish Population Expected From Reef
By Maru Amburn
Area sport fishermen can soon
look forward to increased fish
population if the artificial reef one
mile east of Black Walnut Point in
the Albemarle Sound serves its in
tended purpose.
Over two years in planning, the
artificial reef should be secrued to
its three-piling warning marker by
September.
The first stage of reef construcion
was initiated this week when the
marker was driven into place by
the Waff Brothers Construction
Company of Edenton.
Located on the Bertie County side
of the sound, the nontoxic,
fiberglass boat molds will be plac
ed on top of one another within the
1800 by 900 foot fill area. All molds
will be filled with holes, attached
together with steel cable and
secured to the marker.
“This artificial reef should create
a new fish habitat in a well-known
nursery area of the Western
Albemarle Sound,” said project
organizer Robert E. Holman of the
State Division of Environmental
Management.
v An environmental scientist
formerly stationed by the state in
Edenton, Holman coordinated the
project with the Chowan and Ber
tie County Commissioners.
Holman said the project, one of
the first in North Carolina, was in
spired when Fiberform’s Edenton
plant was closing and saught a
boat shells.
Reef molds will consist of 17
decks and 15 hulls each measuring
25 feet x 8 feet x 6 feet.
“The reef project really shows
the volunteer spirit,” Holman said.
“Waff Brothers is driving the pil
ings, the Town of Edenton is sup
plying the utilitiy poles, Tanzer,
Marathon and Bayliner boats have
contributed the molds and Union
Camp will transport the molds to
the reef area.”
According to literature supplied
by Holman, the reef will be 10 feet
high in water with depth of 18 feet.
Supported by the Roanoke
Chowan Wildlife Club, an affiliate
of the N.C. Wildlife Federation, the
artificial reef project intends to
enhance the striped bass population
in an easily accessible location for
area fishermen.
Three Found Guilty Of Assault
In Chowan County District Court
Chowan County District Court
was in session July 31,1984 with the
honorable Judge J. Richard
Parker, presiding over the criminal
calendar.
Charlie Walter Paylin was found
guilty of Possession of stolen pro
perty. He received 90 days suspend
ed 1 year, on the condition he pay
a $75 fine and cost of court. He
appealed.
Patricia O’Brien Williams was
found guilty of DWI. She received
90 days suspended 1 year, on the
condition she pay a $150 fine, and
cost of court, She was ordered to
perform 72 hours community ser
vice and attend ADET school and
to surrender her operators license.
Edward Earl Strickland was call
ed but failed to show on a charge of
driving without a license.
Warren Matthew Holley was
found quilty of improper registra
tion. He was fined $20 and cost of
court.
Anthony Joseph Binder was call
ed but failed to show on a charge of
DWI.
Johnny Loven was found guilty of
Assault and inflicting serious in
jury. He was committed for 90
days; he appealed.
Wayland Randolph MacDonald
pleaded guilty to operating a motor
vehicle left of the center line and
DWI. He was sentenced to 6 months
suspended 2 years on the condition
that he pay a fine of $200 and cost
of court. He was ordered to sur
render his drivers license. He was
also placed on supervised probation
for 2 years on the condition that he
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