West Brunswick’s Trojans,
defending 3A state champs,
were surprised Friday — 10B
November 16,1994
VOLUME 64/ NUMBER 12 SOUTHPORT, N.C.
50 CENTS
mm
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Our Town
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Yaupon Beach must prove
its wastewater plant can
handle the load -- Page 2
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Neighbors
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An ‘A’ for art is the key to
expected success this year at
Southport Elementary - IB
Bus-car
collision
Tuesday
24 students
go to hospital
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Twenty-four South Brunswick Middle
School students were taken to Dosher
Memorial Hospital in Southport Tuesday
morning after a passenger car collided
with their school bus at the Military Ocean
Terminal Sunny Point intersection.
Three of the students were taken to the
hospital's emergency room by ambulance
for treatment. They were brought to the
hospital in satisfactory condition and all
were released that day, hospital spokes
person Margaret Minuth said.
Eleven of the 41 young passengers on
bus number 141 were brought to the hos
pital by a second school bus, dispatched to
the scene by school officials. Ten more
student passengers asked to be taken to
the hospital after arriving at school.
N. C. State Highway Patrol troopers on
the scene had not filed a report at the
Wilmington station Tuesday and phone
calls to them were not returned.
Witnesses said the accident occurred
when a Ford Escort driven southward on
N. C. 133 entered the Sunny Point inter
section just after 7:30 a.m. and collided
with the bus at a point near its right rear
axle. The driver of the car was pinned for
nearly an hour before Southport emer
gency volunteers using the "Jaws of Life"
extraction device could free her.
Ms. Minuth said the driver was admit
ted to the hospital from its emergency
room in good condition, but suffered or
thopedic injuries.
Assistant middle school principal Tom
Simmons said he was at school when he
received word of the accident. He and
several other school personnel went to the
scene as rescue personnel began treating
students. School officials then began the
task of notifying parents, first those taken
by ambulance, then those taken by bus to
the hospital.
Willie Holland, 13, of Southport, suf
fered bruises to his right leg, hip and chin.
He said he watched as the oncoming car
made its way into the side of the bus.
"The car went up on two wheels and
when it landed it went under the bus,"
Willie said. Upon impact, he said he heard
"horrible screaming and crying" from his
See Collision, page 6
Emergency crews worked for over an hour to free the driver
of a compact car who struck school bus 141, bound for South
Brunswick Middle School, Tuesday morning at the Sunny Point
PJioto bj Jim Harper
intersection. Twenty-four students and the driver were taken to
Dosher Memorial Hospital. All but the automobile driver were
treated and released.
School employees share bounty
$300,000 up for grabs
if test scores improve
By Holly Edwards
Feature Editor
A state-funded bonus pay program, designed
to reward teachers, principals and administra
tors for improved student performance, has
been expanded to include non-certified school
employees.
Secretaries, maintenance workers, mechan
ics and teacher assistants, among others em
ployed by the Brunswick County school sys
tem, will soon receive additional training or
bonus pay as a reward for student improve
ment.
This comes thanks to a new state law that
expands the differentiated pay program to
school personnel who do not hold state certifi
cations in education.
These employees, known as non-certified or
non-classified employees, may receive approxi
mately two percent of their annual income as a
reward for additional work they perform and
for significant improvement in test scores at
the schools in which they work.
However, each school has designed its own
plan for the allocation of differentiated pay. In
some schools, both certified and non-certified
employees use all of the state funding for
training, while others use a combination of pay
and training. In all schools that award bonuses,
additional pay is contingent upon improved
See Scores, page 13
Council
pushing
for ban
Long Beach gets
tough on pogeys
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
Finding themselves more and more fre
quently thrust into debate of regional and
state issues, Long Beach Town Council
members Tuesday night signed on to a new
draft of a proposed agreement with men
haden fishermen, offered comment to state
officials drafting saltwater fishing license
regulations and responded to a state Coastal
Resources Commission proposal to alter
erosion responses.
The town has spearheaded efforts to regu
late menhaden fishing off Brunswick
County shores, first by rule of the state’s
Marine Fisheries Commission and, failing
that, by agreement between county beach
towns and the fishermen themselves.
By a 5-1 margin Monday night, town
council approved a draft agreement which
contains several key provisions not in earlier
agreements the pogie fishermen have agreed
to observe. (See related story, page 3.)
Only councilman Horace Collier objected
to the new draft of the agreement proposal.
He said menhaden interests would never ac
See Long Beach, page 13
IBS
Wt
utility fees
stay samd
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor
,
There will be no increase in water
sewer rates at Yaupon Beach for
time being.
Commissioners, on a 3-2 vote Mon
day night, balked at a proposat to h
administrative fees for both water
sewer service in an attempt to rep]
revenue lost to a state-imposed sewi
moratorium.
, Commissioners Joe Broyles and £
Kelly supported an immediate »
in water and sewer rates.
Commissioners Bill Smith,
Davis' retirement plans are locked up
Election of deputy Lt Ronald Hewed to succeed him, says
sheriff Davis, is proof residents have regained confidence la
tbe department
x:,:x > x xx-. X. X: - ■ ■ X; . x xxx : xX.X-v x >x . x; .;
11-year veteran faced turbulent times at first
By Terry Pope
County Editor
Top law enforcement officers aren’t always
the product of selected candidates from fam
ily trees filled with men in blue. ,
And they don't always build that frame
work for allegiance, loyalty and integrity
from within an inner fraternity of political
buddies.
When John Carr Davis was asked in Au
gust, 1975, about becoming a sheriffs deputy
he was employed by the Southport-Fort Fisher -
ferry, as a deck hand and quartermaster.
, He traveled back and forth across the Cape
Fear River each day -- "no complicated job, to
say the least," says Davis - parking cars and
attending to the passengers in his patented
and friendly manner.
But sheriff Herman Strong steered Davis in
another direction. The newcomer's only prior
.. ..4. ' ' '.• " ‘ . '
police activity was in military shore patrol,
and he would have a lot to learn. However, in
quick time, Davis was promoted from his
Leland-area deputy assignment to line ser
geant, and then to chief deputy.
By 1983, Davis was in charge of the uni
form division, but all around him the Brun
swick County Sheriffs Department was fall
ing apart at the seams. The man who hired
him was among those indicted in the Opera
tion Gateway marijuana drug smuggling
scheme. Strong was convicted of providing
cover while bales of the Colombian-grown
weed were imported by shrimp trawlers into
Brunswick County and then shipped toother
' points across the United States.
When picked from among eight candi
dates by the Democratic Executive Commit
tee to succeed Strong on June 28, 1983,
Davis began the long road to recovery -
though not for himself, but for the depart
ment, the county and its shocked residents.
History would write it as perhaps the most
difficult period a sheriff has ever faced.
"1 would think so," said Davis. "I guess the
last six months of Herman's term, and the first
year of my first term, was a turbulent time. I
don't want to dwell on his situation; I don’t,
want to bring all ofthat back up. It was just the
uncertainty of what was going to happen.
Then in the first year of my term, I think there
was some lack of trust that people had in law
enforcement in general.
The first thing I did, my first job, was to go
to the other state and federal agencies to
develop a working relationship with them.
And I did not do what the public wanted at
first. They wanted everybody in the sheriffs
department fired. 1 tfid not. Most of than
were good law enforcement officersand good
people. 1 think dud has been proven over the;
See Davis, page (
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