V
Weather
After a very hot week highlighted by a
high of 97 on Saturday, there will be
more of the same, at least today. The
high today is expected to be 97, the low
70, with a 60 percent chance of rain.
Things should cool off a little Thursday,
with an expected high of 87.
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PILOT
Index
Books, 2-B; Church Calendar, 3-B;
Classified Ads, 8-11-C; Collins, Sec. D;
Dear Abby, 8-B; Editorials, 1-B;
Entertainment, 4-C; Obituaries, 7-A;
Pinehurst News, 1-2-C; Social News,
2-5-A; Sports, 10-11-A.
Vol. 55-No. 40
52 Pages
Southern Pines, North Carolina Wednesday, August 6, 1975
52 Pages
Price 10 Cents
Autos Sales
Reported Up
In Sandhills
*'
Moore County automobile
dealers informally estimated
this week that their sales have
shown a “noticeable jump” in
the last few weeks.
This is in keeping with a
national trend in which sales for
the spring and early summer of
1975 are 4 percent higher than
last year’s depressed totals.
Dealers refused to give exact
percentage gains, saying that
would take too much time, but
most reported a definite come
back in sales, especially over the
last month.
Sales are still down five to ten
percent from the best years,
however. Only Clark Chevrolet
and Cadillac in Pinehurst, re
ported that it has not exper
ienced a noticeable slump in
business.
Clark’s reported a steady in
crease of six percent in sales per
year.
Bob Brookshire of Brookshire
Motors said there has been a
definite increase in small and
used car sales, but that the big
luxury cars are doing well, also.
“It is the in-between car that is
hurting,” Brookshire said. The
biggest slump for Brookshire
Motors was in the fall of 1974, he
said.
Jack Bennett, sales manager
(Continued on Page 12-A)
t
Drug Use Tapering Off;
Choice House Credited
‘■Vrt
BY JENNIFER CALDWELL
Drug use in Moore County
seems to be tapering off, ac
cording to Sheriff C.G. Wim
berly.
The peak year for drug arrests
in Moore County was 1971 when
Moore rated fifth in drug traffic
in the state.
Since then, Wimberly says,
drug users are “more sophisti
cated.” He says no “pot parties”
are being “held out in the open.”
During the crisis year of 1971
drug prevention campaigns were
launched and programs were
started. Eventually “Choice
House” emerged to become an
important part of drug abuse
treatment for the area.
Each day Choice House is open
and staffed to provide informa
tion and counseling for people
who need immediate aid.
Choice House is located at the
end of the right-hand side of
Kensington Road in Southern
Pines. The “outdated” exterior
provides for large, comfortable
rooms inside where “clients”
feel free to discuss with a coun-
(Continued on Page 12-A)
FARMERS DAY — Wagon Master Curtis Hussey, one
of the leaders since the beginning in the Robbins
celebration of Farmers Day, is shown leading the way
in the parade on Saturday. The Wagon Train had
formed at High Falls the day before and moved into
Robbins on Friday night. — (Photo by Mildred Allen).
New Collins Will Hold
Grand Opening Thursday
There is a new Collins in the
Sandhills-and it is bigger and
better. Three times bigger, in
fact. And according to its mana
ger Thad Lowder, “it’s three
times better and twice as
pretty.”
The new Collins, scheduled to
Town Election
The Southern Pines Town
Council has requested the use of
absentee ballots in the municipal
election this fall.
Chairman C. Coolidge Thomp
son of the Moore County Board of
Elections said that the request
has been forwarded to the State
board and will be returned to the
county officials.
Candidates may begin filing
for the Town Council here on
Aug. 15 and the deadline for filing
is noon on Sept. 5. If more than 10
candidates file a primary will
have to be held before the
election in November.
Candidates for municipal of
fice in other towns in Moore
County can file on Sept. 12, with a
deadline of noon on Oct. 3.
open Thursday in the Town and
Country Shopping Center, con
tains 30,000 square feet. The old
store, located at 114 W. Main
Street in Aberdeen, was less than
9,000 square feet.
Manager Lowder said the new
store is stocked with a much
greater variety in every depart
ment and has a larger number of
brand names to choose from. He
said there is also an additional
department with house furnish
ings. Other departments such as
piece goods and notions are
significantly larger.
The new Collins also has a new
name. It was previously known
as Collins Department Store but
will now be called the Collins
Company. Lowder pointed out
that all Collins stores which are
moved to shopping centers
usually undergo a name change.
There are 13 branches of Collins
in North and South Carolina.
The chain store has been
located in Aberdeen for 39 years.
It ws first established on Poplar
Street in 1936 and moved to the
Main Street location in 1950. It
was remodeled and enlarged in
1965.
(Continued on Page 8-A)
Elections
Officials
Appointed
Registrars and judges for the
21 voting precincts in Moore
County were appointed at a
meeting of the county Board of
Elections on Tuesday.
Chairman C. Coolidge Thomp
son said that under new election
laws passed by the 1975 General
Assembly judges will also serve
in the registration of new voters.
Public librarians will also be
designated to register voters.
Thompson said that board
members and staff members will
attend an elections seminar, at
which new election laws will be
explained, in Greensboro on
August 14-15.
Precinct election officials ap-
(Continued on Page 12-A)
New Postoffice
Leon Keith, Jr. of (Cameron
offered the lowest of three bids
and was awarded a contract to
build and lease a new post office
building in Vass, Donald H.
Burch, manager of the Charlotte
Postal District, said today.
The building will contain 2,320
sq. ft. of interior floor space and
will be located on a site con
trolled by the builder at the
comer of Bank St. and Seaboard
St. in Vass. The lot is 145 feet by
170 feet, for a total of 24,650 sq. ft.
When completed in February,
1976, the post office will be leased
by the Postal Service for a basic
period of ten years, with renewal
options of 20 additional years.
Hot Day Didn’t Damper
Farmers Day at Robbins
BY VALERIE NICHOLSON
It was really a hot Saturday at
Robbins, but nobody minded-
everybody was having too good a
time.
Ladies in long dresses and
pokebonnets, kids in jeans and
shorts, and teen-agers wearing
most anything“Or nearly
nothing-crowed the streets in
what many said was the biggest
Robbins Farmers Day crowd of
all.
And the parade, whitle it may
not have been the longest in the
20-year history of the event, had
more covered wagons, sleeker
horses, prettier ponies and
smarter-looking rigs.
Curtis Hussey, wagon master,
led the way in his 1906 covered
wagon, pulled by his big bay
mares, Dolly and Pat, in
traditional fashion.
As the parade of country
vehicles and mounts began
breaking up in leisurely fashion
at the town grove, Hussey found
himself in another, harder job-
(Continued on Page 12-A)
Moore In Travel Top 10;
Over $29 Million Spent
Moore County ranks in the top
ten in North Carolina counties in
travel spending, with expendi
tures of $29,113,208 in 1974,
according to a travel survey
conducted by the State Travel
Development Section.
The 1974 expenditure in Moore
was 15 percent above the
$25,347,979 reported for 1973.
Moore was in 10th place,
ranking behind Mecklenburg,
which led all counties with
$113,609,382, Guilford, Wake,
Buncombe, Dare, Forsyth, Dur
ham, New Hanover and Carteret.
Data for the 1974 North Caro
lina Travel Survey were obtained
from guest register sheets at the
five Welcome Centers in the
state, and from monthly tax data
at the county level obtained by
Eugene Dail of the Division of
(Continued on Page 6-A)
Funds Shifts
Help Sheriff
Promote Men
Sheriff C.G. Wimberly, grati
fied that the Moore County
commissioners on Monday gave
him authority to use certain
budget savings for salary pur
poses, promptly announced the
promotion of four of his deputies
to the rank of sergeant.
These are James Booth, Mar
vin Kyle, Ricky Whitaker and
Richard Graham.
Booth, Kyle and Graham have
each been in unofficial charge of
his platoon since the sheriff’s
reorgani^tion of his department
last month, and all will now
continue in official leadership.
Whitaker has been on leave
with a broken leg for more than
three months, and his place has
been filled by others on a tempo
rary basis. Wimberly said
Whitaker would return to work
before September 1, and will be a
sergeant when he is back.
“I could not make these pro
motions before because the
starting pay of a sergeant, under
our pay plan, is $676 a month, and
it just wasn’t in the budget,” the
sheriff said.
In considering departmental
requests and making up the
county budget last June, the
commissioners eliminated all
raises for county employes, also
the earned increments under the
pay plan.
One of the four new sergeants,
James Booth, was already mak
ing $676, but was not promoted to
(Continued on Page 6-A)
Leathers Resigns
Samarkand Office
Moore Plans Zoo Drive
To Aid Leopard Exhibit
Citizens of Moore County will
have an oportunity to participate
in a membership drive to aid the
North Carolina State Zoological
Park being developed in nearby
Randolph County.
A steering committee headed
by James R. Van Camp has
elected to sponsor a $40,000
leopard exhibit for the zoo’s
interior habitat building from
funds raised in the drive. The
structure will be the only indoor
building planned for the first
phase ^rican section, scheduled
to be constructed during the next
year. It will house only those
animals which require controlled
climatic conditions.
“Moore County school children
have already raised over $2,500
to purchase the animals and now
it’s up to us to give them a
permanent home,” Van Camp
said.
(Continued on Page 12-A)
THE
PILOT LIGHT
Tobacco
Prices Up
Slightly
Average tobacco prices rose a
few cents this week, from a low
of $84 per hundred at both the
Carthage and Aberdeen markets
to $89 at Carthage and $87 at
Aberdeen.
Many farmers still are not
satisfied with market prices,
however. Tom Colson, Moore
County Agricultural Extension
Agent, said that prices would
have to average $1.05 per hun
dred for farmers to break even.
Colson said there is little
chance that farmers, like Border
Belt counterparts, will ask that
markets be closed unless the low
prices continue when higher
quality tobacco is marketed.
S.R. Ransdell, an Aberdeen
farmer, said many farmers
believe tobacco companies are
holding back, not because of poor
quality tobacco but rather to
drive prices down. As evidence of
this, Ransdell pointed to the
hearing before the U.S. Depart-
(Continued on Page 12-A)
James Leathers has resigned
as director of Samarkand Manor
effective the end of August.
Leathers read his resignation
to a staff meeting on Tuesday,
and it was confirmed in Ralei^
this morning.
Commissioner of Youth Ser
vices David Jordan had no
conunent, however, on the cir
cumstances regarding the
resignation and there was no
confirmation that the resignation
had been requested.
Jordan’s office said that there
was no announcement as to a
replacement for Leathers.
Director Leathers, who has
been involved in several con
troversial issues in regard to
operations of the State training
school near Eagle Springs, had
been the personal selection of
Secretary David Jones of the
Department of Corrections,
under which the training schools
formerly operated. It is now
under the Department of Human
Resources.
During Leathers’ ad
ministration there had been an
investigation of the school by the
State Bureau of Investigation
after a runaway girl had been
shot near the campus. Reports of
drug use and of a prostitution
ring were involved in the SBI
investigation.
Smoking Policy Held Up
For Samarkand Children
A staff policy of handing out
cigarettes to students at Samar
kand Manor has been suspended
after being in effect for only a
short while.
Withdrawing the cigarettes
apparently came after questions
of legality had arisen.
Samarkand Manor is a state
training school where juvenile
delinquents from age 10 to 13 are
assigned. Some of the students
there now are age 14, however.
The policy of allowing the
students to smoke was read to
staff members by Director
James Leathers at a recent
meeting. They were told to
instruct the children to pick up
the cigarettes in the director’s
office.
On Monday of this week the
office of Commissioner David
(Continued on Page 6-A)
Debates at Temperance Hall
Could Have Been Yesterday
BY JIM BUIE
The skeleton key rattles in the
old lock, causing reverberations
throughout the hexagonal little
building. After a hard push, the
wooden door squeeks open, and
the journey through an in
teresting part of Sandhills
history logins.
Less than 30 miles from
Southern Pines, in Scotland
County near Wagram, stands the
Richmond Literary and Tem
perance Society Hall, one of the
first (if not the first), tem
perance societies in the United
States, established in 1855.
The Temperance Hall was,
fundamentally, an organization
to discourage the drinking of
alcoholic beverages and to
promote interest in literature
and current events. The two
goals were inter-related, the
founders believed, because by
becoming interested in in
tellectual virtues, men and
women would ideally be
“cleansed” and diverted from
the temptations of alcohol and
late-night carousing.
The society’s minute book,
(Continued on Page 6-A)
■ ‘
if^SCS-'-V
TOBACCO HARVEST — "Barning” tobacco is a family affair on most North
Carolina farms, and this scene from the Lewis Foster farm near Vass proves it.
Four daughters-Cynthia, Belinda, Teresa and Amey Foster-are shown priming
leaves on Monday as the tobacco harvest continues. — (Photo by Glenn M. Sides).
HYDE — Rep. Herbert Hyde of
Buncombe County is expected to
nm a strong race for Lieutenant
Governor, one of the reasons
being his leadership for enact
ment of the Equal Rights
Amendment at the 1975 session of
the General Assembly.
ERA didn’t pass, but Hyde is
sure to get support from several
women’s organizations for his
strong fight to get enactment.
At last week’s press confe
rence where Hyde announced his
candidacy for Lieutenant Gover
nor he said that there were 16
others who are seeking the
position. He added, however,
that he didn’t expect more than
five or six to be in the race when
the time comes for filing.
HEFNER —- Congressman Bill
Hefner of the Eighth Congres
sional District was one of the
Representatives who voted
against the pay raise for con
gressmen in a bill which passed
the House by one vote.
In his report this week Rep.
Hefner talked about legislation
affecting veterans before Con
gress. He is a member of the
Veterans Affairs Committee and
he said this fall the committee
will be working on programs
which involve veterans with non
service connected disabiUties,
the pension program and the
Veterans Administrations hospi-
(Continued on Page 6-A)
TEMPERANCE HALL — Located three miles outside of Wagram, this six-sided
little building was the meeting place of one of the first temperance, literary, and
debating societies in the country. Note the upside down wine glass atop a Bible on
the roof. — (Photo by Jim Buie).