April 8, 1998 THE STATE PORT Phone 910-457-4568/Fax 910-457-9427/e-mail pilot@southport.net Volume 67, Number 33 8 Mh hJf'O * nt light - IB corn coo lately - 1C ‘Godspe Seeing religion ii Player of lx>ok what Quii County tij Southport delays aecisiun - Page 2 o 1£>Q T)© Published every Wednesday in Southport, NC Christina’s wheelchair ‘not that heavy’ Malpractice settlement will pay for medical bills, college By Holly Edwards Feature Editor Christina Price has been awarded $8 million to settle a malpractice lawsuit but she’d glad ■■ ly give it up to be able to walk again. • ■ -“The- settlement Will help take care of me ' and keep me out of the nursing home and help me go to college,” Christina said this week. “But it sure isn’t going to make me walk again. Nothing can make up for what that doc tor did to me. If anyone wants to trade places with me for $8 million, they can be my guest.” Christina and her family filed the malprac tice suit against Wilmington neurosurgeon Raymond Sattler, whom she alleged failed to take appropriate measures, to prevent.paralysis from spreading after she suffered a spinal cord injury in a 1994 automobile accident. Price’s attorney will receive 40 percent of the settle ment, leaving her $4.8 million. Her father, Larry Price, said he will invest the money and hopes to generate enough interest income to pay Christina’s $350,000 to $500,000 annual medical bill. Mr. Price said it is a relief to the family that they will no longer have to worry about’her being institutionalized. The Prices recently moved from their house into a trailer to save money, and Mr. Price said he was prepared to liquidate all of his assets to keep Christina at home as long as possible. “I don’t know how to explain the relief we feel,” he said. “We were very well-prepared to sell out, retire and face bankruptcy — whatev er we had to do to keep Christina out of a nurs ing home.” Christina’s mother, Dena Price, said all she wanted from the lawsuit was enough money to take care of Christina. “I love my kid better than life itself,” she said, fighting back tears. “I pray everyday she’ll get up and walk. I’d give my life if I See Christina, page 7 PRICE Airport proposal SBSD suggests public input on expansion plan By Richard Nubel Municipal Editor Betting Brunswick County Airport commissioners will get an earful, Southeast Brunswick Sanitary District commissioners said Monday they will ask the air port board to hold a public hearing on a proposed runway expansion project that may displace as many as 400 district residents. If airport commissioners refuse, the district will hold its own public hearing on the proposed $7.3-mil lion Brunswick County Airport expansion project, anticipated in the next five years. iu uuiti uusmcM uivuiviiig me airport, sanitary district commis sioners Monday refused to act on a request to provide the facility with sanitary sewer service until it is determined whether the airport property is inside or outside district bounds. Those residing outside the district pay a higher rate for ser vice. District commissioners also resolved to write Federal Aviation Administration officials to com plain the airport does nothing to prevent pilots from engaging in “stunt” flying over populated areas. The proposed project by which the airport runway would be lengthened from 4,000 to 5,000 feet drew most of SBSD commis sioners’ attention, as the plan did last month. The airport board is awaiting word on its application for a $6.57-million federal grant supported by U. S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth. That grant would be matched by $730,000 from Brunswick County. The expansion, as now planned, would require the acquisition of 56 additional acres of land by the air port — most of it from five mobile home parks in Southeast See Airport, page 7 I-. J & i. ■ :/; . vsmwiJ:. W _, Photo by Jim Harper 1 he Easter Bunny opened a busy schedule of appearances Saturday at the annual Southport Parks and Recreation Department egg hunt -- and bunny hug -- in Franklin Square Park- Long Beach plans another egg hunt for youngsters at 10 a.m. Saturday in Middleton Park, and a couple egg-ventures will be held at Boiling Spring Lakes. East Beach ' Time, tide taking toll By Richard Nubel Municipal Editor A small, one-story oceanfront cot tage with the letters “Gilly” hung to one side of the doorframe sat on rails Tuesday, lifted from its founda tion at 4921 East Beach Drive and awaiting the moving crew. Two lots down, at 4917 East Beach, lies the broken cement block foundation of what was once some one else’s beachfront cottage. It is a cottage that ran out of room on the beachfront and had to be moved. All along East Beach Drive, from 58th Street westward, houses are disappearing, loosing the battle to Mother Nature. East of “Gilly,” Milligan’s Moving had a crew working Tuesday, placing a home on pilings See Long Beach, page 5 ‘We’ve been trying to create a dune with trucked-in sand. But people stop me and ask, “Aren’t you the tur tle lady? Where are they going to nest?”’ Tina Pritchard Maybe Brunswick? Convention center considered in area By Terry Pope County Editor It didn’t take much of a sales pitch before the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners bought into the idea of building a regional hotel and convention center in southeastern North Carolina. Wilmington mayor Hamilton Hicks told the board Monday he is drumming-up support for a $750,000 planning grant he hopes the N. C. General Assembly will allocate next month. The funds would come from a projected $1 billion surplus state legislators are Leland school reopens April 20 Leland Middle School fire By Holly Edwards Feature Editor Leland Middle School faculty and students are “united in their sense of loss” in the wake of a fire that damaged most of the school building and destroyed an entire wing, said principal Diana Mintz. “We all have a lot of emotion invested in this school, so this hurts,” she said. “But at the same time, this gives us a sense of focus and direction and a goal to work toward.” That goal is to get most of the school ready for classes by April 20 when students are scheduled to return from spring break. Brunswick County school board members late last week approved a plan to clean-up most of the fire damage, seal-off a wing that sustained the most severe damage and rent six mobile units tor additional classroom space for See School, page 6 Damage may reach $3.5 mil By Terry Pope County Editor A Final estimates place damage to Leland Middle School at $3.5 million from last week’s blaze that demolished the eighth grade pod and blanketed the remain ing classroom wings with black soot and water. Brunswick County fire marshal Cecil Logan said it will cost $2 million to rebuild the wing of classrooms where the fire began See Damage, page 6 expected to appropriate during the short session in May. “This is an opportunity to show teamwork among the communities in the area,” said Hicks, who plans to include Pender and New Hanover counties and area beach towns. The planning grant would help plan and choose a site for the pro ject that would include a convention center to seat up to 10,000 persons, along with a hotel and concert hall. The center would benefit the entire community, so each county would have a representative on an authori ty that Hicks said he will ask the assembly to appoint. The authority would work with planners to site a facility and admin ister the $750,000 planning grant. All five county commissioners agreed a convention center is need* ed, and chairman Jo Ann Bellamy Simmons said Brunswick County would be a good location. “When your comments came out in the paper from the Pender County meeting, I was surprised,” Ms. Simmons told Hicks. “But I said, I definitely thought we needed a con vention center, and I’m sure you were talking about putting it in Brunswick County.” “If that’s the best location, then so be it,” said Hicks. “I certainly would have no problem putting it in Brunswick County.” There is no place to seat a large audience for concerts or other stage programs in southeastern North See Convention, page 7 1 NEWS on the NET: www.southport.net

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view