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Phone 910-457-4568/Fax 910-457-9427/e-mail pilot@ southport.net
Volume 68, Number 2
Published every Wednesday in Southport, NC
McKeithan shows fellow fishermen where the Skipper sank.(Photos by Jim Harper)
Heavy wind,
waves sink
fi^hfng boat
By Jim Harper '
Staff Writer
Two Southport seamen perished, but
one was miraculously spared, when their
fishing boat sank in 17-foot waves 55
miles offshore last Thursday night.
Captain Dickie Skipper, 42, and Rodger
Goewey; 43, died and Charlie McKei
than, 26, was nearly killed by wind and
high seas from Hurricane Earl which
swept out of the Gulf of Mexico and into
North Carolina on Thursday.
“ The midnight distress of the longliner
Skipper was signaled by an emergency
electronic device called an EPIRB, and
Coast Guard aircraft located and rescued
McKeithan clinging to a piece of wreck
age around noon Friday.
He was flown to Wilmington, treated at
New Hanover Regional Medical Center
for the effects of exposure and released on
Sunday.
The bodies of Skipper and Goewey
were found by aircraft on Saturday as
Southport fishermen placed a wreath at
dockside and draped pilings with white
ribbons in their memory. Scores of sea
men, family and friends gathered at
■ funeral services for the two here Monday. *
, The 41 -foot, glass-hulled Skipper was a
Bottom longliner, routinely employed in
fishing for tilefish in the wafers where she
sank.
Skipper and McKeithan regularly fished
tvjafner, but a third crewman, Brian
•'Kincaide, had chosen to take the week off
and Goewey signed on for the voyage in
his stead.
The three, all experienced commercial •
fishermen, sailed last Wednesday for a
week-long sojourn on the tilefish grounds
off the hundred-fathom curve, where
Thursday they set seven-mile lines'with
See Storm, page 6
‘I was saved’
By Jim Harper
Staff Writer ' • *
“We left Wednesday about 10;30 in the morning,” Charlie
McKeithan recalled, “and steamed south about 65 miles, and when we
got out there we lay to for the night and started fishing Thursday
morning.
“The weather report kept getting nastier, but it was still calling for
the storm (remains of Hurricane Earl, which had come ashore in north
west Florida on Wednesday night) to pass through northeastern North
Carolina and Virginia.
“We did pretty good on the first set, catching grouper and gray tile,
and made the second set, then started to make a third but Dickie heard
the weather report and steamed up into the wind (southward) to make
sure we didn’t drift down on the ‘bandit’ boats anchored inshore.
“Dickie was an excellent fisherman. One of the best down there.
“The best down there,” McKeithan corrected, after a pause.
See Survivor, page 6
Friends, some of them survivors of sinkings, console Helen
Skipper.
Martin Marietta
Decision puts
mine case back
in judge’s court
By Terry Pope -
County Editor
Scissors, paper, rock.
On paper, the county’s battle to
keep a 1,000-acre rock quarry from
. opening north of Southport is con
sidered by residents. to be pretty
much cut and dried.
The N. C. Court of Appeals last
week upheld a Brunswick County
ordinance which bans mining with
in five miles of the Military Ocean
Terminal Sunny Point ammunitions
depot and Carolina Power and Light
Co.’s Brunswick Nuclear Plant.
Paper is stronger than rock.
But the battle over the right to
mine along the sensitive corridor
bordered by Walden Creek shellfish
nursery waters and the White
Springs Creek natural limesink
ponds is not over.
More hearings are expected in
Brunswick County Superior Court,
where the case began two years ago
after Martin Marietta Materials Inc.
filed a lawsuit in an. effort to have
the county’s regulation declared
illegal. There have been few victo
ries for the county and Southport
‘I’m not knocking
the judge, I’m •
praising the sys
tem. Everybody is
saying there are
facts to look at
here, and I think it
is all going the
right way.’
Bob Quinn
BMAC spokesman
Oak Island area residents opposed
to the quarry until now. It is just a
minor victory.
“It is in terms of time,” said county
attorney Huey Marshall. “It gives
the county time to reconsider what
See Mining, page 13
■ Fragile area
Long Beach cuts
back Point plan
By Richard Nubel
Municipal Editor *
Words acceptable when Long
Beach Town Council discussed its
Fragile Area Management Plan for
The Point Tuesday night included
"low impact,” “unobtrusive,” “nat
ural,” “traditional."
Words definitely not acceptable
when discussing the access plan for
The Point were "classroom,” “envi
ronmental education center,” “pro
gramming,” “park.”
In fact, council put off discussion
of much of the Fragile Area
Management Plan (FAMP), devel
oped* by consulting planner Bill
Farris, altogether at a workshop ses
sion. Instead, council opted to focus
its attention on what "low impact,
unobtrusive, natural and tradition
al" pursuits the Town of Long
Beach could encourage at The
Point, the westernmost section of
land on the strand, with property the
town already owns or has access to.
The larger FAMP — a plan that
envisions a number of structures
and amenities that have become the
subject of some controversy — will
be discussed later, council' said,
when it is known if the town will
have funds to purchase the entire 40
acres covered by the plan. Town
manager Jerry Walters said the
town now has but $ 100,000 in-hand
for land acquisition. Long Beach
officials should know by late
October if another $200,000 grant
has been awarded it for land acqui
sition.
Improvements with existing
resources will be discussed by a
committee council will form to
include a representative from the
town's erosion control committee,
See Point, page 10
Smith Brunswick High
Students hurt in three-bus wreck
By Terry Pope _ » •
County Editor
School officials worry when a bus is
involved in any accident. When three buses
are involved in the same wreck, it becomes
fear.
That was the’ case Tuesday afternoon
when three South Brunswick High School
buses collided along Cougar Drive in
Boiling Spring Lakes shortly after school
was released.
Rescue crews transported about 15 stu
dents and one driver to Dosher Memorial
Hospital in Southport for minor injuries
and complaints.
No one appeared to be seriously hurt, but
damage to the buses indicates students on
board toi)k a pretty bumpy hit, especially in
‘Before we could turn
around, the EMTs were
here. It was very well
organized. They did an
excellent job.’
Sue Sellers
School principal
trailing bus 133, which appeared to initiate
the chain reaction. Two buses were dis
abled following the collision and had to be
towed from the scene.
“It was bad,” said Jamila Joyner of
Bolivia, who was sitting in the second seat
from the front in bus 133. “It made every
body hit the seats:”
The students were leaving South
Brunswick High around 3:15 p.m. when a
pair of buses in front of bus 133 slowed to
stop at a stop sign at Cougar Drive and N.
C. 87 in front of South Brunswick Middle
School. Driver Linda Piner in bus 133, the
Bolivia and Midway route, failed to stop in
time and slammed into the rear of bus 30,
driven by Helen Smith and transporting
students who live in the Winnabow area.
That impact caused bus 30 to strike the
rear of bus 159, driven by Brenda Palmore
See Wreck, page 18
— ^ -
PI oto by Jim Harper
A three-bus accident on Cougar Drive Tuesday afternoon sent 15 stm tents to Dosher
Memorial Hospital under emergency medical service care.
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