August 25,1999
THE STATE PORT
Phone 910-457-4568/Fax 910-457-9427/e-mail pilot@southport.net
Volume 69, Number 1
50 cents
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Published every We
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Museum
now part
of system
By Laura Kimball „
Staff Writer
A new name isn’t the only change occurring at the
Southport Maritime Museum.
The museum, which houses exhibits ranging from
shipwreck artifacts and hurricane information to the
history of the lower Cape Fear region, is now part of
the state museum system.
The museum is now the North Carolina Maritime
Museum at Southport, placing it
ajungsiue me i\orm Carolina
Maritime Museum in Beaufort
and the North Carolina Mari
time Museum on Roanoke
Island.
“For a while we’ll still be
wearing our shirts and we’ll still
have the sign up, but that will
change,” said Mary Strickland,
STRICKLAND
nuw uic ui alien ucau, rnsieau or
the executive director, of the
museum.
Having the museum adopted by the state system is a
"dream come true" for Strickland, who has been trying
since the museum's inception to obtain state support
for the facility.
"It's a dream for this board," she said. “It will be the
beginning of the future for the museum.”
The North Howe Street
I11U.M.T14U1 lit
cffot! Ur bring tourism lu a
dwindling Southport down
town. Since then, the down
town area has been bustling
with shops, restaurants and
other businesses, but the
museum has suffered from a
lack of financial support since
it relies heavily on private
donations.
Strickland has kept in touch
with state representatives
since the opening of the
museum seven years ago. She
wrote letters about four times
a year, she said, keeping them
posted on the financial situa
tion of the museum and its
local importance.
‘It’s a
dream for
this board.
It will be
the begin
ning of the
future for
the muse
um.’
raced with financial diffi
culties in the spring of this year, Strickland had an
nounced possibly closing the doors of the museum.
Her announcement prompted sizeable donations and
the county increased its support, but she still was wor
ried about the museum being sustainable in the future.
“I knew that we could not forever keep funding this
on a grassroots level,” she said. “It could not continue
without support.”
The current annual budget for the museum is
approximately $80,000. The county contributes
See Museum, page 11
BREATH CHECK
Photo by Jim Harper
Southport police officer Bryan Renn demonstrates
use of one of two Alco-Sensors made available to the
city through a grant from the Governor’s Highway
Safety Coipmission. The Alco-Sensor measures
blood-alcohol content Because it is small it can be
carried by officers in the field. “It gives us one more
piece of information to take to court in DWI cases,”
officer Renn said.
HIGH FLYER
*3 ' #
Photo by Jim Harper
Once again Sarah Patterson found herself high over Ixgion Stadium on Friday evening as she and her South
Brunswick High School cheerleading teammates participated in the BB&T Football Jamboree. The Cougar
cheering squad and varsity gridders open their season at home at 7:30 p.m. Friday against Hoggard.
Fiscal year budget
Dosher expects growth
By Richard Nubel
Staff Writer
Anticipating the opening of Dosher Memorial Hospital ">
new extended care facility and a larger medical staff admit
ting patients, hospital trustees Monday approved a $15.5
million budget for the facility’s next fiscal year.
Dosher’s fiscal year begins October 1.
The hospital projects it will next year experience operating
expenses of $15,347,560 and will be left with a modest
excess from operations of $141,973. But, to meet expenses
and have that sum left over, the hospital’s finance committee
said it actually will have to bill patients $27.3 million in the
coining year. The conv.nittee has anticipated revenue deduc
tions of nearly $12.5 million.
Revenue deductions come as bad debts and service to indi
gents, as well as services rendered tor which the hospital is
not reimbursed by government programs and managed care
providers.
While that looks like a sacrifice, hospital trustee Eugene B.
Tomlinson painted a happier picture.
"That’s 50 percent of our revenue going right back into the
community,” Tomlinson said.
Hospital rates and fees are to rise by an average of only 3.5
percent next year, the budget indicates.
See Hospital, page 12
OAK ISLAND
Deliberate
fish dump
costs town
By Richard Nubel
Staff Writer
It cost the Town of Oak Island
$10,780.08 to recover its beaches
for public use Wednesday and
Thursday after a Beaufort Fisheries
vessel deliberately released an esti
mated 200,000 dead menhaden to
wash ashore.
While a bill for that sum .was
mailed to Beaufort Fisheries on
Tuesday. Oak Island mayor Joan
Altman said the cost of mitigation
represented only a fraction of the
losses Oak Island may sustain from
the ruined vacations and bad
impressions of the town that were
left on thousands of tourists in town
last week.
“Beaufort Fisheries doesn't have
enough money to pay for the dam
age done here today." mayor
‘...for the
people who
don’t get the
true story of
what has just
happened,
Oak Island is
just a smelly
place where
dead fish
wash up on
shore.’
-an
See Dead fish, page 3
St. James plans
should continue
with Brunswick
By Terry Pope
Staff Writer
Development within St. James Plantation should continue as
usual under its long-range plan as the municipality switches
planning and zoning control from Oak Island to Brunswick
County.
The Brunswick County Planning Board voted .unanimously
last week to uphold vested rights St. James had requested for
its phase II, phase III and marina village developments along
the Intracoastal Waterway.
Those rights were held by the Town of Long Beach, and later
by the Town of Oak Island, but the island municipality agreed
to relinquish its zoning jurisdiction after the July incorporation
of St. James, That includes subdivision requirements and
inspection of construction projects.
Some portions of the golf course and residential community
fell within the one-mile extraterritorial zoning jurisdiction
(ETJ) of Oak Island, am! at least part of the area was being
See Zoning, page 6
National recognition
South RE. classes
in excellent shape
By Diana D’Abruzzo
Staff Writer
Signs hanging on the wall of South
Brunswick Middle School’s gymnasium
read, “If you’re grinning, you’re winning,”
and “Your best will do just fine.”
Backing up those statements are physical
education teachers Patrick Bellamy and
Melanie Champion, who work as a team to
teach the school’s 800 students that being
active and working one’s body and mind
are necessary for a healthy life.
And it’s that attitude — carried into the
P.E. classes at South — that account tor
the school being named a National
Physical Fitness Demonstration Center for &
the next three years.
“Programs like yours are examples of
how a physical education program can
make a difference in the lives of everyone
involved." wrote Christine Spain, director
of special projects at the President’s
Council of Physical Fitness and Sports in
Washington, D. C. “The council chal
See Physical, page 7
South Brunswick Middle School physical education teachers Patrick Bellamy and Melanie
Champion unfurl the banner proclaiming the school a National Physical Fitness
Demonstration Center.