Utt|t Warren iSjecarb
Published Every Wednesday By
Record Printing Company
P O Box 70, Warrenton, N. C 27589
BKiNALL JONES HOWARO F. JONES KAY HORNER
Editor Business Manager News Editor
GRACE W JONES, President
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Inflation Still Here
Officials of the Reagan Administration
who constantly contend
that inflation has been brought
under control could have learned
a sorely needed lesson in accuracy
had they attended the
meeting of the Warren County
Board of Education last week.
During that meeting it was reluctantly
agreed that the prices of
meals served in the school
cafeterias would have to be increased
this fall. The reason was
simple: the fires of inflation have
not been checked, no matter what
you might have heard.
Supt. Mike Williams told the
board that there were several factors
leading to the increased meal
price recommendation. Additional
costs have been incurred
this year in salaries, he said.
These increases ranged from 9.6
percent to 15 percent.
Moreover, there has been an increase
in health insurance
amounting to $190 per employee,
and utilities, food purchase and
equipment replacement have gone
up. And so, despite what you
might have read or heard to the
contrary, the effects of inflation
are being felt here.
There was another indication at
last week's board meeting that
what the folks in Washington are
saying about inflation simply isn't
true.
In a discussion of what firm
would receive the bid to provide
milk for the public schools during
the 1985-86 school year, it was
pointed out that Pine State had
submitted the low bid of 15Vfe cents
per half pint. School board members
were told the same half pint
cost $.1540 last year, $.1483 the
year before and $.1380 during the
1983-83 school year.
We grownups have known for
sometime that inflation has not
been brought in check. Hardly a
month goes by that a wholesale
supplier does not raise his price
on some item or another.
Now, with the advent of another
school year, it appears that
students will learn, just as have
their mothers and fathers, that
the fight against inflation is a long
way from over—despite what they
say in Washington.
Turnaround On Taxes
In The Smithf ield Herald
Well, what do you know. Governor
Jim Martin has given his blessings to
a tax increase. Not only that. He told
the N. C. Association of County Commissioners
at week's end that he
would support a tax-hike bill during
next year's session of the General
Assembly.
"How can that be?" you ask. "Mr.
Martin won election after campaigning
for cutting taxes, not raising
them."
The Republican Governor wouldn't
want to admit it, but the reason for
changing his tune is something
Ronald Reagan is doing. The Republican
President has apparently convinced
a majority of members of
Congress to end the federal revenuesharing
program a year from now.
And that means a significant loss of
annual revenue to North Carolina's
municipal and county governments.
To make up for the loss, leaders of
local government want permission
from the Legislature to raise the local
sales tax by another half-cent on the
dollar. And Governor Martin agrees
they ought to get it.
"We've got to find resources for
local governments," Mr. Martin told
a conference of the N. C. Association
of County Commissioners on Friday.
He promised to work with the association's
leadership to get the extra
half-cent sales tax authorized by the
General Assembly if Congress follows
Courthouse Squares
through with tentative plans to
eliminate revenue-sharing next year.
Now, we're not ridiculing Governor
Martin for coming out for a tax increase.
And we're not disagreeing
with President Reagan's call for end
to revenue-sharing. In this case, both
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Martin are
showing sound fiscal judgment.
Revenue-sharing shouldn't be continued
when the debt-ridden Federal
Government has no revenue to share,
yet North Carolina's local governments
are in need of new sources of
revenue to continue community
progress in an era of no more federal
aid.
What has us amazed is Governor
Martin's willingness to admit that
taxes are an essential part of this
state's progress. We only wish he
hadn't misled so many of North
Carolina's voters last year into believing
that ours is a high-tax state when
it isn't.
Every now and tfaen unusual spellings of Warren's county seat surface,
Including the familiar Warrington. This version was spotted recently on
a thermometer at Farmer's Warehouse in Warrenton.
(Staff Photo by Dianne T. Rod well)
Carolina Commentary jayL
Assorted Odds And Ends
Governor Martin appointed his
son's father-in-law to the $55,000 per
year position erf director of a study of
nepotism in state government. A
politician once said that nepotism is
all right so long as it is kept in the
family.
• * •
Fellow who recently returned from
the 40th reunion of his college class
reports that he could remember the
names of his classmates, most of
whom he hadn't seen in 40 years, better
than he can remember the names
of persons he met two weeks ago.
» • •
John Charles Memory of Raleigh,
retired after a long career in the Employment
Security Commission,
recalls that during the World War II
buildup President Franklin D. Roosevelt
rode in a Fayetteville parade.
When the presidential car came to a
temporary halt, Superior Court Judge
Clawson L. Williams shoved a court
docket to the president, who handed it
to his seatmate, U. S. Attorney General
Robert Jackson. Jackson nodded
Looking Back Into The Record
August 24,1945
Claude T. Bowers of Warrenton has
been promoted from lieutenant colonel
to full colonel, it was learned here this
week. The promotion came through on
July 20. 6>1. Bowers is serving in
Germany.
Due to the honesty of a soldier whom
he had given a ride on August 9 while
en route to Washington, D.C., W. W.
Taylor, Jr., local attorney, on Saturday
recovered a suitcase removed from his
car in Arlington, Va. through mistake.
Relatives and friends from this section
and far-away cities gathered at
Myrtle Lawn, the ancestral Williams
home at Inez on Sunday to observe the
annual family reunion and to pay
tribute to Robot Edgar Williams, who
celebrated his 78th birthday on Saturday,
Aug. 18.
I
August If, UN
Robert Duke Miles, Warrenton
salesman, was named Lion of the Year
at the regular meeting of the Warrenton
Lions Club at Hotel Warren last
Friday night.
Norman McArthur, 29, of Harnett
County has accepted a position as
vocational teacher at John Graham
High School. He has arrived in Warrenton
and is making his home at the
residence of Mrs. J. W. Scott.
J. T. Vaughan, Sr. is curing tobacco
in Waterford, Ontario, Canada.
August 21,1975
Warrenton's new restaurant, now
nearing completion on South Main
Street, will be known as The Carriage
House. W. Monroe Gardner, owner of
the old Johnson Building which will
house the restaurant, said construction
is proceeding on schedule and plans
are to open next month.
Norlina High School will have a
cosmopolitan look this year, thanks to
the arrival of two foreign exchange
students. Lena Gustavaon, 16, from
Morgonogova, Sweden and Preban
Penderson, 17, from Holstead, Denmark
are preparing to join the student
body at Norlina for a full school term.
Mrs. W. P. Conn returned home Sunday
after spending the summer with
her son, William Conn, in New York
Qty.
assent and Roosevelt scribbled his
signature on the docket before the
parade moved on.
• • *
In the 1941 General Assembly,
Shearon Harris of Albemarle was
principal clerk of the House and L. H.
Fountain of Tarboro was reading
clerk of the Senate. Harris later
became president of Carolina Power
and Light Company and Fountain was
dean of the North Carolina congressional
delegation before he retired
several years ago.
• * •
In his book "The Other Side of the
Story" (Morrow), Jody Powell, President
Carter's press secretary, writes:
"Soon after I became involved in
politics and press work, an older and
more experienced hand had warned
that it only takes about five seconds
for someone to call you an SOB, but
proving that you are not one can take
a bit longer."
• • •
The late Vice President Alben
Barkley of Kentucky in his book,
"That Reminds Me" (Doubleday),
talks about Speaker Thomas B. Reed
of Maine, a master of invective.
Barkley said Reed originated the
withering description of President
McKinley: "He has no more backbone
than a chocolate eclair."
In a floor debate, Reed said of an
opponent: "The gentleman never
opens his mouth without subtracting
from the sum total of human knowledge."
Barkley added, "On another occasion,
Reed, who was an enormous
man physically as well as a dynamic
and devastating speaker, was
engaged in acrimonious debate with a
small, wiry congressman from
Georgia. As the tension mounted, the
Georgian, who was fiery as well as
witty, exploded and shouted at the
massive Reed, 'I will say to the gentleman
from Maine that I will chew
him up and swallow him in this controversy.'
Old Reed drawled out, 'If
the gentleman from Georgia chews
me up and swallows me, he'll have
more brains in his belly than he has in
his head.'"
0 0 0
More items from "Modern
American Wit and Wisdom" (Random
House), compiled by Anne
Russell Wlgton:
"A banker is a fellow who lends his
umbrella when the sun is shining, and
wants it back the minute it begins to
rain."—Mark Twain.
"The first half of our lives is ruined
by oar parents and the second half by
our children."—Clarence Darrow.
Write The Editor
A few months ago, we received at The Warren
Record a letter to the editor taking us to task for
omitting from a news story information the writer
deemed vital.
The reader, who wrote anonymously, began by
apologizing for writing the letter, noting that it was
not in her character to complain.
What followed was a politely-worded dressing
down, rightly deserved.
Although the letters to the editor column is a
regular editorial page feature of most all
newspapers, it seems to remain the least understood.
In its best form, it is a proper forum for readers
to comment on current events and issues of community
interest; on the paper's coverage of those
events in its news columns; and on the newspaper's
opinions as set forth on the editorial page.
A lively letters column is a newspaper publisher's
assurance that his newspaper is serving as
something more than lining for the garbage can.
While publication of complimentary letters is a
pleasure, publication of controversial or critical letters
is a responsibility any newspaper with editorial
integrity takes seriously.
Of course, now and then readers turn to the editor
for answers to some of life's more perplexing issues.
One of my favorite letters came from an elderly
lady who had, for all her life, made her own chicken
soup. One day she was laid low with a case of influenza
and longed for a bowl of her homemade remedy.
Since none was available, she sent a neighbor to the
market to fetch a substitute can of chicken soup.
Her letter read as follows:
"As I poured the soup into the pan, I noticed that
it contained only three or four tiny shreds of chicken
and I just want to know how long this has been going
on."
We welcome the letters, but to some questions,
there are no easy answers.
Cowcatcher's Yarns
When E. B. Harris of Inez cornered and captured
Franklin County escapee, Barney the buffalo, a
couple of weeks ago, it came as no surprise to a
number of cattlemen who were familiar with E. B.'s
hobby and talents in cowcatching. Neither did it
shock this sister-in-law who on many occasions has
sat spellbound by E. B.'s yarns, unexaggerated I
believe, about answering the calls of livestock
owners distressed by animals gone astray.
Other residents of this area and elsewhere whose
visions of cowcatchers had been confined to the
metal frames attached to the front of locomotives of
yesteryear to remove obstructions from the tracks,
or perhaps to legendary cowboys of the Wild West,
had their knowledge broadened through the news
coverage of the famed buffalo's plight.
Some of E. B.'s anecdotes are too good to keep,
and here follows one of the family favorites, the account
of the trek by E. B. and company of cronies
and horses and dogs to recapture a 1,000-pound
steer which had escaped from a packing company
in Virginia Beach.
Arriving at sunup to take advantage of the best
time of day to track an animal, the cowcatchers
unloaded at what had been designated as the
general location of the escapee.
In the realm of that "general location" were a
pasture containing a number of high-strung horses
as well as a residential area of impressive homes
and automobiles and manicured lawns.
The dogs quickly detected the track of the steer
and, baying, took off in pursuit. Unfortunately, at a
time when the dogs were "putting the heat on," the
steer was nearing the horse pasture, which it subsequently
entered, and not through any gate.
Excited, to say the least, by the noisy invaders, the
horses charged in the opposite direction, followed
by the steer, followed by the baying dogs.
An uneasy band of cowcatchers, separated from
the mushrooming action by two fences and a maze
of canals typical of the area, attempted to formulate
strategies, each one short-lived due to the perpetual
and unpredictable motion of the animals.
Entering an L-shaped neck of the pasture, the
horses, true to their hunter training, easily cleared
the fence, trailed by steer and dogs.
In proximity (and contrast) to this scenario was
the picturesque and peaceful neighborhood, still
yawning or asleep on a leisure Sunday morning. The
horses turned down one of the tree- and Cadillacand
Mercedes Benz-lined streets and the steer took
another, with six barking and lunging Catahoula
Leopard dogs giving chase.
With domino-like spontaneity, front doors swung
open and out spilled ladies crowned by hair curlers
and holding pans of scrambled eggs, partiallyshaven
mm mopping lather from their chins and
curious children in pj'a, all sporting wide-open eyes
and mouths. From the stimulated chatter there
arose traces of astonishment, bewilderment and
hostility, and the cowcatchers were acutely aware
of the last, for which reason name-calling among
(Continued on page 3)