POLK LIBRARY
° T - 3, 204 V/ALX
COLULfBUS, X c
11 noy 90
ER ST.
28722
2nd Class Postage Paid At
Tryon, North Carolina, 28782
Established January 31, 1928
THE WORLD'S SMALLEST DAILY NEWSPAPER
Founded Jan 31,1928 by Seth M. Vining
(Consolidated with the Polk County News 1955)
Jeffrey A. Byrd, Editor and Publisher
The Bulletin is published
Daily except Sat. and Sun.
106 N. Trade St., P. O. Box 790
Tryon, N. C. 28782
The Tryon Daily Bulletin
& (USPS 643-360) C '
Printed In the THERMAL BELT of Western North Carolina is pages Today
Phone859-9151
I^-No. 189 ^ONJ^.C. 28782 MONDAY, OCT. 29.1990^PeH/opi
The weather Thursday: high
62, low 45, hum. 78 percent. By
Friday at 7 a.m., .6 inches of rain
had fallen. But the sun was out
and the weekend forecast looked
bright.
The last forum for candidates
for the Polk County Board of
Education and the Polk County
Board of Commissioners before
the Nov. 6 election will be held
tomorrow night (Tuesday).
E.P.I.C. (Education in Polk
County Is Crucial) will host the
forum’ starting at 7 p.m. at the
Stearns auditorium in Columbus.
Hopefully, this forum will
produce some sense of the
candidates, because so far voters
have very little meat on their
plates in this election year meal.
A few weeks ago, a couple who
had visited in Polk County
stopped when they got home and
wrote a “Communication”
to the Bulletin complaining
that the beauty of Polk County
was being marred by fast food
signs in Columbus.
Several people have
commented that they disagreed
with the letter, and we printed
two letters to that effect Friday.
One of those “communications”
went further, however, to say
that the Bulletin should have
Contionued On Back Page
Elder Joins
Bulletin Staff
Tony Elder has joined the staff
of the Tryon Daily Bulletin as a
pressman.
Elder, 33, is a native of
Alexander County, N.C. and a
graduate of Polk Central High
School, class of 1976.
He is married to the former
Janice Wallace of Columbus, and
they have three children, Aaron,
8, Rachel, 6, and Jesse, 3.
They live on Fox Mountain
Road in Columbus.
Before joining the Bulletin,
Tony had worked with
machinery, repairing knitting
machines for Milliken and Sara
Lee Knit Products.
He also ran the silicone
spraying machine at Michelin
Tire Co. in Spartanburg.
“Without any previous
Continued On Back Page
School Board Profiles: Columbus
Each candidate for the Polk County Board of Education has been
asked a set of questions by The Tryon Daily Bulletin. What follows
is a synopsis of the answers given by the two candidates from
Columbus. Voters on Nov. 6 may choose one candidate from each
township race: Green Creek, Tryon, Columbus and Cooper's Gap.
In Cooper's Gap, Ann Whitmire is running unopposed. Green Creek
candidates were profiled Thursday. Tryon candidates. Friday. The
Polk County Board of Commissioners candidates will be profiled
starting Tuesday, and Ann Whitmire will be profiled before the
election.
PHILLIP FEAGAN
Columbus candidate for the
Polk County Board of Education
Phillip Feagan said he believes
there are changes in the air in our
education system and he wants to
be involved in helping set policies
that deal with these important
issues.
“There are a lot of changes
we’re going to see in our
education system as our society
demands more accountability
and more fiscal responsibility in
the education process,” Feagan
said.
One of Polk County’s
educational system strengths is
its dedicated and caring
teachers, a high percentage of
whom hold or are pursuing a
master’s degree in their field,
Feagan said.
In addition, the county in
general supports education, and
in the past five or six years, the
citizens have supported tax
increases translated into higher
per pupil expenditures and
higher test scores, he said
“I see us moving toward better
facilities with merger and a
stronger curriculum.”
The weaknesses that Feagan
sees are no different than those in
other systems. SAT scores are
not doing well here, statewide or
Continued On Page Two
PHILLIP FISCHER
Phillip Fischer of Columbus
said he feels that the same
leadership which brought school
merger to fruition in the county is
needed to “finish out” and he
would like to continue as a
member of the Polk County
Board of Education.
“A lot of good things are going
on and there are still a lot of
problems, but we wtill need to be
a unified board,” Fischer said.
Polk County's educational
system has quite a few strengths,
according the Fischer. “We are a
small system, we have real good
teachers and we seem to have
public support on building the
new high school,” he said
“I’m not going to say we’re
100%, but things are relatively
calm,” Fischer said
However, the increasing need
for funding and the county’s
school buildings are weaknesses
in the educational system
Fischer pointed out.
Low test scores also have
been a weakness, but the schools
are working on test scores which
have shown a lot of improvement
over the past few years, he said
^^.L said he firrnI y believes
that there needs to be course
offereings for every level of
Continued On Page Two