North Carolina Newspapers

i V... Ar - , The Pilot Covers Brunswick County THE STATE PORT PILOT Volume 24 No. 22 8-Pages Today A Good Newspaper In A Good Community SOUTHPORT, N. C WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1964 5c A COPY PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY Helicopter Ferry Service AIRLIFT—This is one of the helicopters of the Inland Airlines of Myrtle Beach which has been in use for the past several weeks in transporting personnel and critical supplies to the l|ght tower construction project at Frying Pan Shoals. The landing pad on shore has been at the Southport waterfront at the foot of Howe street. The landings at sea have been on top of the tower structure. (Staff Photo by Allen) Tuesday Ceremony Light Tower A century old tradition came i to amend at the soals off Bruns wick county when the Frying Pan Lightship circled the area for the last time before giving way to nev' Frying Pan Light Tower during impressive commissioning ceremonies today (Tuesday). Admiral Oscar C. Rohnke, com mander of the Fifth Coast Gaurd district, inspected the light tower and, when he found it ready, ac cepted the structure from a re presentative of the J. Ray Mc Dermott Company of New Orleans, tlje contractor on the project. Admiral Roknke then gave ad ministrative control of the new Coast Guard tower to its six-man crew under Commander Howard Jonke, commander of the Fort Macon Coast Guard Station in Carteret county. The principal address at the ceremonies was made by Con gressman Alton Lennon who gave a brief history of the Coast Guard’s efforts over the years to aid navigation in the area off the Brunswick county coast. At the moment Congressman Lennon concluded his talk, the Frying Pan Lightship, which has been guarding the shoals with sister ships since the 1850’s, cir cled the new tower and pointed her bow toward Fort Macon for a five-day inspection before moving to Cape May, New Jersey, the ship’s next station. Incidentally, thep resent ship has been on duty in the area since 1929. Admiral Rohnke inspected the tower’s crew, which has been aboard the new structure for the past sev::’al days, before the dig nitaries departed the tower in three turbo-jet heil^pters for a lunchenon at Cape Fea. Country Club in Wilmington at 1 p. m. Continued From Page One Mrw Mm a/ lnewsj TWO DAY HOLIDAY All offices at the Brunswick County Courthouse will be (clos ed Thursday and Friday for the Thanksgiving holidays. FISH FRY A fish fry will be held Friday afternoon begining at 4 o'clock at Ocean View Methodist Church. There will be no sale of tickets, but a free will offering will be taken. SHIPS AT SUNNY POINT Nine vessels involved in Oper ation Steel Pike are being un loaded at Sunny Point Army Terminal near Southport, which also was the port of embarkation for a considerable part of this force when it left for Spain sever al weeks ago. CHAMBER MEETING A meeting of the membership of the Brunswick County Cham ber of Commerce will be held Monday night 7:30 o'clock at the Extension Building at Supply to elect members of the hoard of di rectors for the coming year. Of ficers will be elected from the board. President J. D. Griffin - urges a full attendance of mem bers Development Man if Accepts Position A Jacksonville man, Roy A. Stevens, manager of the Greater Jacksonville Chamber of .Com merce, has been employed as di rector of the Brunswick County Resources and Development com mission, Chairman " A. Powell announced today (Tues day). ■/. •Stevens was hired at a meeting’ of the Resources and Develop ment Commission in Southport Monday night and will assume his duties as the first director of the group on January 1. *Rie' res idents of Brunswick county voted to establish a Commission during a ■ special election in January of this year. “Roy Stevens comes to us high ly recommended by the N. C. De partment of Conservation and Development,” Chairman Powell declares. “He was the author of a publication summarizing the industrial promotion activities in North Carolina that' was of great advantage to Brunswick county in establishing the Resour ces Development Commission The publication has been widely used toy the N. C. Department of Conservation and Development in working with local commum 1 ■ ity development groups. “Stevens now plans to move his family to Brunswick County in late December in preparation of assuming his new duties on January 1, he added. otevens, wmie on a recent trip to Brunswick County with his family, stated, "Brunswick coun ty has a great potential and with the leadership that I met with re cently, I am sure that the county will grow and prosper. It is a real challenge to be a part of this growth, and I promise that I will be working for all parts of Brunswick County when I assume these new duties. “Our only reservation about making the change is the many wonderful people that we will be leaving behind when we move from Onslow County,’* the new director continued. “But from indications that I have re ceived during recent trips to Brunswick county, there are just as many wonderful people in , Brunswick county, and I am looking forward to working with , them for the development of the area.” Charles E. Bradham, president of the Greater Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce, in ac cepting Stevens’ resignation in order for him to accept the di rectorship in Brunswick County stated, “Stevens would be a hard man to ever replace. I’ve known Roy for six years, and he’s -been the hardest working Chamber Manager I’ve ever seen. He’s been a credit to Jacksonville, and it is with deep regret that we accept his resignation.” Stevens has been manager of the Greater Jacksonville Cham ber of Commerce for the past eight years and has an outstand ing record of accomplishments for Jacksonville and Onslow Continued From Page One ROY A. STEVENS Bids Run High At Brunswick Town Because the bids on the Bruns wick Town visitor’s center a i lounted to aibout $23,000 more than the General Assembly es timated, plans are underway to re-evaluate the specifications 'and call for new bids in the near fu ture, it was announced Thursday. The low bids to construct only the visitor’s center at the Bruns wick county historical are totaled $70, 774 without the plumbing bids being opened. The General Assembly budgeted the cost of the building at $57,000. Thus the low bids amounted to $23,000 more than the state body had antici pated: ; • In addition to the building it self, the state’s allocation of $80,000 was to include parking fa cilities, site improvements and other parts of the project. These aspects of the project were not included in the low bids. The plumbing bid was not open ed because only one company bid on the work. The state requires that at least three bids be made on all projects. After the bids were opened in the Woodrow Wilson building at the City Hall in Wilmington, A spokesman said the next step would probably be a re-evalua tion of the building’s specifica tions and another invitation for bids. He added that there were no plans to ask the General As sembly for additional funds at the present time. The low bids received Wednes day included F. R. King Con struction Co., $55,880, for general contracting; Temperature Control Co., $9,760, for heating and air conditioning; and Cape Fear Electric Co., $5,134, for electrical work. The General Assembly allocat ed $80,000 for the visitor’s center Continued On Page 5 Brunswick 4-H Win In District Two Brunswick vounty boys were among the major winners at the Star-News Newspapers 4-H Honor program in Wilmington Saturday. Harvey Bell Of Bolivia took top honors in tractor driving while Wayne Bellamy of Shallotte swept the artistic awards. In addition, seven other Brunswick 4-Hers won colored ribbons for the ex hibits. During the all day program, in which nine counties competed, 136 blue ribbons were awarded, 114 red and 106 white ones. A total of 714 4-H club members, leaders and parents registered for the program. ■Bell started off the tractor driv ing contest poorly, knocking over one of the first marker stakes and losing 60 points. But the Brunswick 4 -Her did not, make another mistake, finished the course in good time and won the contest by 24 points. And in winning the artistic award, Bellamy took first in water col ors, first and third in oils and fij-st and second in drawing. Another county 4-Her, Susan Gray, won four ribbons during the day. ©he won a blue for to matoes, and whites for snap beans, corn and Dixie relish pickles. Other Brunswick wirmers in cluded Lynn Hewett, a white for record books for an early-teen girl; Julian Bell, a red for a quart of soybeans; Jimmy Gray, a red for a feeding station; Julia , Hewett, a red for a blouse and skirt; Linda Cheers, a blue for shaped cookies; Angela Gallo way, a red for cakes; and Debbie Sloan, a white for a seashell col lection. The Brunswick group was ac . compunied to the achievement day activities by tA. S. Knowles, Miss Billie Hamilton and Burnett Coleman, ' all extension i -employ ees, and parents. ‘ '«’• £ Riegel People Plan Donations Riegel Paper Corporation’s em ployees at Riegelwood, have pled ged to give $14,332 to forty-two charitable agencies or character building organization in 1965. They made their pledges in con nection with the Riegel Employe es Community Fund Drive that is conducted once each year in early November. Employees may designate the agencies or organizations they want to receive their pledges in their home county, and this year 42 agencies or organizations will receive gifts from Riegel em ployees in a five-county area, and some farther away in the state, Employees who do not care to designate who will get their money canl eave itu p to the Riegel- Employees Community Fund Committee to allocate their gifts. The committee is elected ' also once each year at the start of the drive with one member being elected by popular vote from each of four counties, Col umbus New Hanover, Brunswick and Bladen. Also, each of Riegel’s two unions appoint one member to the Committees and the Com pany appoints a member to act as chairman. The committe this year is made up of R. H. Aranow, personnel manager, company re presentative, Dan Wiliams for (Continued on Page 8) Brunswick Town Nature Trail - VISITORS—-Members of the Brunswick Town Nature Trail Committee of North Carolina Garden Clubs, Inc., visited the site of this state-wide project Thurs day. Stanley South, site archaeologist, is shown here pointing to some objects of in terest at the pond. Looking on, left to right, are Mrs. Louise Parker, Mrs. Olin D. Sikes, Mrs. Roscoe McMillan,-president of the state organization, Mrs. James M. Harper, Jr., Mrs. Henry Stevens, Jr., and Mrs. D. D. Blanchard. (Staff Photo by Allen) ’ / ; Southport Boats Endangered By Storm At Sea TSvo boats from the Bruns wick Navigation Company eau „„ eftLift^ough seas and high winds with other vessels 'Thursday night in the vicinity of the treacherous shoals and currents off Cape- Hat teras were pullod to safety Sat-! urday after another boat went to the bottom. The Cozart, with a hole torn in : its hull by the heavy seas escort ed to safety by the Coast Guard cutters Cape Current and Chil ula after the Cape Fear was tow ed to port by the cutter Jonquil. Both the Cozart and the Cape Fear are owned by the Brunswick Navigation Company of South port. Some 25 fishing vessels were caught in a storm off Cape Look out Thursday night. The 140 foot Amagansett plunged to the ocean bottom Friday morning, killing one of its 16 crewmen. The other vessels rode out the storm all day Friday and into the pre dawn Saturday before heading to shore. The Cozart, a 136-footer with a crew of 17 men-aboard, was hol ed below the water line by the pounding waves. It began listing to the starboard Friday night and the Coast Guard said it was in danger of sinking. But on Satur day it was escorted to safety. The Cape Fear, with a 17-man crew, ran out of fuel and snapped its anchor Friday night. Both Brunswick county boats needed the aid of the Coast Guard lifeboat crews to remain afloat Friday night. Lifeboats, fighting through the heavy seas, put four Coast Guardsmen and three additional pumps aboard the . Cozart. The Continued From Page One TIME and TIDE It was November 25, 1969, and the Exum Community De velopment Club was declared the winner of the county develop myit award for the second year in a row. Rev. L. A. Bridges of Trinity Methodist Church in Southport was re-elected president r"-P? the Brunswick County Historical Society. Mr. and Mrs. Bobby Jones and sons of Southport returned home after spending a month in Alexandria, Virginia, where ie was attending school at Fort Bel voir. The Southport Home Demonstration club was presented a loving cup for outstanding service by the REA. It was November 24, 1954, and the Red Cross announced plans to close their relief offices in Southport and Shallotte after giving out $134,704.11 to Hurricane Hazel victims. The citizens of Orlando, Florida, sent boxes of fruit to be distributed in the county because of the hurricane. Elbert H. Gray, who was recently elected sheriff of Bruns wick county, announced that he would appoint H. G. Ratcliffe in Southport, O. W. Perry in Northwest, Leon Galloway in Shallotte and Henry Pike in Ash as his deputies. Mrs. E. B. Brunson of Southport was appointed the 1954 Christmas Seals Chairman for Brunswick county. Continued On Page Four Committee Visits Brunswick Project , ' General Bennett To Preach Sunday The First baptist Church 1 of - SM allot te ‘extends a,/ '■cordial in vitation' to eVeryohe' to ' attend preaching- services Sunday, at - Ufa. m. The visiting minister will be (General Ivan L. Bennett, re tired-Chief.'of Chaplains of the U". S."Army. General Bennett is a native Brunswick countian. Mrs. Bennett is the former Ruby Jenrette, also of this coun ty, and they now live in Alex andria, Virginia. ' High Point Man With Auto Firm W. Frank Hardy, former sales manager for Lyles Chevrolet Co. of High Point, has joined El more Motor Co. in (Bolivia as vice-president and secretary. H. Foster Mintz continues as presi dent of the firm, the oldest con tinuous automobile sales agency in Brunswick county. Hardy is a native of Lineoln ton, Ga., but has lived in High Point since 1930 save for two years of active duty during the Korean conflict. Previously he had served in .the U. S. Army during World War n. He has held various positions with the High Point agency, from assistant service manager to sales manager. He is married to the former Dorothy Jones of High Point and they have one daugh ter, Cindy. They will join Hardy here after the first of the year. He is a former colonel in Red Cross blood donor program; past director High Point Junior Cham ber of Commerce; at present an associate member of the High Point Junior Chamber of Com merce; at present an associate Continued On Page 5 Prominent Man Dies In Hospital SUPPLY—George Floyd Kirby, Sr., 73, a prominent Supply mer chant and Brunswick County na tive, died Thursday afternoon at James Walker Memorial Hos pital in Wilmington after a long illness. He was the son of the late George W. and Dora fPigott Kir by of Supply, a veteran of World War I and a member of South port’s Pythagoras Masonic Lodge No. 249. The deceased was one of the ' best known and most highly re spected business men in Bruns (Continued From Page 8) ' The Brunswick Town Nature Trail Committee of the Garden Clubs of North Carolina met on Thursday morning in their home .of its chaiirBiaft, Mrs. James M. Harper, Jr. Present for the meet ing were three other members of the committee, Mrs. D. D. Blan chard of Wallace, Mrs. Henry •Stevens, Jr. of Warsaw and Mrs. Ernest Parker of Southport, sec retary of the group. Attending in her capacity as member ex-officio was Mrs. Ros coe McMillan of Red Springs, president of the Garden Club of North Carolina, and with her was Mrs. Olin D. Sikes of Mon roe, immediate past president of the organization. Representing the Department of Archieves, and History and in charge of the Brunswick Town site at which the Nature Trail is located, was Stanley South, archaeologist. Plans were laid for a continua tion of the clearing of Brunswick Pond, which is about half com plete, the work having been com menced in January of this year. Plans were also discussed for the activity of an advisory committee which will assist with the labeling of plants and trees along the Trail. This committee is com posed of Henry Rehder and Mrs. J. Henry Gerdes of Wilmington and Waters Thompson of South port. At noon the state officers were honored at a covered dish lunch eon 'at Bailing Spring Bakes Coun try Club where they met and talk ed with members of the South port Garden Club, the Woodbine Garden Club, the Live Oak Gar Continued On Page Four Pharmacist Here Robert M. Willis, owner and operator of Watson Pharmacy in Southport, died unexpectedly; Sat His wife, the ' former Mrs. Thelma Willis, died early - this year. She had been a teacher for many years at Southport High School. His father was the late W. T. Willis, veteran coast guardsman. Dr. Willis was a graduate of the University of North Carolina and was one of its most loyal alumni. He was a member of the board of trustees at Trinity Meth odist Church and was a member of the Brunswick County Board of Health. v Final rites were held Monday at 2 p. m. at Trinity Methodist Church by the Rev. Charles H. 'Lancaster, with burial in North wood Cemetery. Survivors include a son, Charles Willis of Southport and a number of nephews and nieces. Masonic rites were observed with members of Southport’s Pytha goras Lodge 249 as pallbearers. Suddenly urday afternoon. Walker Resigns Manager’s Post At Long Beach The Long Beach Board of Com missioners has accepted the res ignation of Town Manager Dan L. Walker. The action was taken at the regular monthly meeting of the Board on a motion by Com missioner E. W. Morgan, second ed by Commissioner Underwood. Walker had announced his in tentions of resigning in a letter to Mayor E.. F. Middleton. Middleton interruped an inform al report to the Board from ac countant Dan Walker, no relation ship to the Town Manager, to state that Manager Walker would be leaving after the date of the Board Meeting. “We have not yet been able to get a new man, ' .Middleton said. The Mayor went to explain to the Board and to an unusually large number of citizens attend ing the meeting that until a new Town Manager could be hired, bookkeeping, tax work and other functions of the Town Hall would ibe handled by Mrs. Carol Willis. Mrs. Willis, until now a gen eral office worker in Town Hall, will have the title of Town Clerk. Clay Jordan, Superintendent of Public Works, will be respon sible for all physical property and outside activities of the town and Police Chief Aubrey Hickman will continue to be in sole charge of that department. As Town Clerk, Mrs. Willis will workv closely with Jordan and Hickman, Mayor Middleton said. The Mayor emphasized that the arrangement was temporary and would last only until a qualified Town Manager could be installed. Middleton said that Manager Walker would be available for the next few weeks to assist CPA Dan Walker in completing an audit of the Town's books. “I owe (Town Manager) Mr. Walker my thanks for his co operation over the past few ' weeks,” Middleton said. ’ Public Accountant Dan Walker had appeared before the board to state once again that a long over due audit of the Town’s books was still not complete. He invited questions from the Board mem bers. Continued From Page One Receive Bids On Structure Low bids totaling $74,169 for the office building at the Southport - Small Boat Harbor are being considered by the State Port Au thority, says Executive Director James Davis. Director Davis said the SPA would make an announcement on whether the contracts will be awarded to the low bidders soon. The low bids for the office building at Southport, whiteh were opened Wednesday after-, noon, included $60,000 from Spe lls Construction Co., for the general contracting; $5,525 from Temperature Control, for heat ing and air conditioning; and $6,644 from Cape Fear Elec tric for the electrical work. Other bids ranged as high a3 $74,000 for the general contract ing, $6,547 for the heating and air conditioning, and $9,999 for the electrical work. The new office facility will in clude space for a harbor master’s office, an SPA office, a restau rant, a lounge, conference room, and laundry. Tide Table Following Is the tide table for Southport during the week. These hours are approximately correct and were furnished The State Port Pilot through the courtesy of the Cape Fear Pilot’s Association. HIGH LOW Thursday, November 26 1:24 A. M. 7:36 A. M. 1:46 P. M. ■ 8:21 P. M. Friday, November 27 2:26 A. M. 8:41 A. M. 2:46 P. M. 9:18 P. M. Saturday, November 28 3:26 A. M. 9:44 A. M. 3:42 P. M. 10:11 P. M. Sunday, November 29 4:21 A. M. 10:40 A. M. 4:35 P. M. 11:00 P. M. Monday, November 30 5:13 A. M. 11:32 A. M. 5:24 P. M. 11:45 P. M. Tuesday, December 1 5:58 A. M. 12:18 A. M. 6:22 P. M. Wednesday, December 2, 6.42 A. M. 0:27 A. M. 7:04 P. M. 1:03 P. M.