The News Record hosts at Rocky Bluff SERVING THE PEOPLE OF MADISON COUNTY Page 8 / 76th Year No. 16 PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE COUNTY SEAT AT MARSHALL, NC THURSDAY, APRIL 21. 1977 15? Per Copy Your Heritage Waits On A Worn Doorstep EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article was received a few days ago. unsigned. It contains a great deal of meaning so Is being published although we don't know who wrote It. A long lived. much weathered man knocked on our door seeking permission to walk back through our small portion of the wooded hills of Madison County. He was searching for his own almost vanished past He came back flushed and eager. having found a depression where his family's cabin had stood and the flat thick rocks of its foundation Taken from near the worn stone that had served as doorstep, he carried a mixed armful of the white, yellow centered daffodils and the butter yellow ones so often gone wild around old homesteads He had brought the flowers back to us, and from his pocket he took out a strip of leather lined with holes and stood rubbing it between his knobbed hands as he told us of evenings spent in the tiny cabin and the sound of his father's hammer tapping on the last as he made the family's shoes When he left he had grown silent, distracted with old half forgotten emotions and un t ranslatable memories. We stood and watched him go, warmed and refreshed by this sign that you can touch your past again, if only briefly, and hear the old lost voices that speak to our hearts as no others can. But I had also suffered the inner shock anyone must feel who realizes belatedly that the beaten path he has taken for granted is graveled with precious stones. For I had walked many times in those woods and even stood by the half-buried doorsteps, idly imagining how the rough cabins would have looked as I rested after a successful treasure hunt for old bottles I have conjured up little girls in flour sacking skirts and rows of corn in old fields still marked off with piles of stones among the pines and poplars. But my television trained ear had never before recognized the authentic echoes of the voices that had spoken ther e Those echoes stayed with me long after the pilgrim had disappeared down our country road with his piece of worn shoe leather in his pocket They brought me to wonder at the feeling of satisfaction I had from this brief encounter, the renewed character and life it had given to the objects we prize for their age and old uses If you are a typical Western North Carolinian, you, too, have around you many antique reminders of the generations who have prepared this ground before us. The total number of these things would surprise the majority who took the time to , count them. Recent years, especially, have seen the growth of interest in the reverence for these art ifacts of our grandparent's daily lives Old flowered dishes line cupboard shelves, green ivy curls out of worn coffee mills and old pumps hold up mailboxes Something in us finds comfort in having these things around us. They soothe the eye in a way the brightest new item cannot do. But in recent years this feeling we have always had for the old family things in our lives has become almost a craze; a national bath in nostalgia. What are we seeking for? Do these things represent for us something in the lives of those who used them that we are missing in our own lives? Is it perhaps the plainness of their ways, the solidarity of the family groups that we truly want to collect to ourselves? If so, we have been turning out the wrong attics in our search There is a legacy for us that will sustain and enrich our present lives But it does not hide inside these objects of wood and clay and metal, as much as we may love having them around us None of these things are just what they were before Our eyes see them differently, their uses have changed if they are used at all. If there ia a tangible heritage, it cannot be collected, or written on paper, or even sung. It is something bred into our bones. It is in the way a man's hand fits the smooth handle of an ax, the way a woman's hand in stinctively handles an aged plate that in its turn has held the meat for uncounted family meals. That untaught something that answers to the sound of a loom; the formerly unknown feeling that comes at the first sight through trees of sturdy logs fitted into a frame (Continued on Page 2) Marshbanks Sisters Set Scholarship Two Mars Hill natives, Fuchsia Virginia Marshbanks and Flossie Marshbanks, now residents of Raleigh, have established a scholarship fund at Mars Hill College to endow "The Marshbanks-Anderson Scholarships" as a memorial to their father and mother, William Willis Marshbanks and Dora Anderson Mar shbanks The fund totals more than 160,000. When fully im plemented, it will provide scholarships to "superior and deserving high school graduates of promise who desire to prepare themselves for service to their church, community, state, and to humanity." The sisters' family ties with the college date back to its founding in 1856. An uncle, the Rev. J. W Marshbanks. was one of the founders of the college and was a charter member of the board of trustees. It was his young slave, Joe, who was held by a contractor to secure payment of the debt on the first building erected at the college. Since then, the Anderson and Marshbanks families have played significant roles in the development of the school. The Marshbanks home, located where the college's science building now stands, was a gathering place for young people. "It is our hope," the donors said, "that the scholarships made possible by this gift will provide the opportunities and blessings which we envision for many of the future citizen; and leaders of our state." Virginia Marshbanks received her education at Mars Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the nursing division of the Medical College of Virginia. Her professional career was spent in hospital ad ministration in Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina. Flossie Marahbanks received her education at Mare Hill, Meredith, and Wake Forest. She was admitted to the North Carolina Bar and practiced law for several years. APPROXIMATELY 60 persons from the Marshall-Walnut areas attended the election of four directors to the Hot Springs health program board of directors at Madison High School Monday night. Tom Wallin, president and chairman of the Hot Springs health program, presided. Directors previously elected to the full board are: Hot Springs, Fred Tolley, Larry Plemmon ;, Eugene Wills, Harold Anderson; . . Laurel, Dennis Tweed, L. A. Zimmerman Jr., Leonard Gosnell and Walter Gosnell. MARSHALL-WALNUT directors were elected Monday night and will join previously-elected directors of the Hot Springs and Laurel areas on the board of directors of the Hot Springs health program. Left to right, Jerry Plemmons (Marshall), 0. A. Gregory (Marshall), Tom Wallin (Walnut), and Cloice Plemmons (Walnut). Marshall and Walnut have consolidated into one unit. Food Stamps: A Money - Maker In Madison By GRACE HAYNIE Outreach Coordinator There is an industry in Madison County which brings thousands of dollars into the local economy every year but which only a few people recognize as a money producing element of Madison County. What is it? The local food stamp program, operated by the Department of Social Services. Many people react to food stamps as just another ex pense paid for by their tax dollar. But what they don't know about is the money generated by having the program here. We are talking about things like the tax money paid into the county from the sales tax collected on food, a tax collected on food stamps in the same way it is collected on regular currency. That, however, is just part of the picture. There are many grocery stores which would be in bad shape if it was not for food stamps. Five dollars worth of food stamps collected by a grocery is the same as $5 collected in greenbacKs. There are still other ways that food stamps bring money into Madison County. Most people who get food stamps (Continued on Page 2) Hundreds Expected At Benefit Hundreds of mountain music lovers are expected to come to Marshall Saturday night to attend the third annual Cancer Benefit program which will be held in the Madison High School gymnasium. The program will get under way at 7 o'clock. The program will feature a variety of outstanding local talent including square dance teams, ballad singers, gospel singers and other musical groups. This program will serve a two-fold purpose by giving recognition to local talent and at the same time raising funds to support the fight against cancer. Anyone or any group in terested in participating in this event is asked to contact Rick McDevitt at 649-2905. Quentin Ramsey, local musician and one of the originators of the Sodom Old time Music Festival, will be master of ceremonies. Ramsey is a well-known master of ceremonies having served in the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Included on the program Saturday night will be old-time ballad singing, clog dancing, square dancing. Blue Grass bands, and old time bands. A special clog dance exhibition by the Erwin High School doggers will be one of the features. Among those to perform will include Carl Chandler and Band, Cas Wallin, Devie Norton, Joe Chandler, Tim Chandler and Band, Peter Gott and family, Ralph Lewis and family, in addition to dance teams from several schools in the county. It was announced that there will be no competition among the participants. Admission will be 50 cents for students and $1 for adults with all proceeds going to the American Cancer Society to "wipe out cancer in our lifetime." Refreshments will be on sale and the entire entertainment will be fun for the whole family, officials said. April is a special month in Madison County because the American Cancer Society's educational and fund raising crusade gives people a chance to DO something about cancer. "This is a time ot very concentrated action," Charles Tolley, 1977 Cancer Crusade chairman explained, "Gov. Hunt, President Carter and the members of Congress have officially named April as Cancer Control Month." Grassy Greek Being Replanted I U. S. Forest Service per sonnel oil Thursday began replanting white pine on the Grassy Creek area which was controlled burned by the agency on April It. Timber on the ridge was killed by southern pine beetles last summer and needed reforestation. Because of the large amounts of rhododendron, mountain laurel and slash, burning was needed in order to reduce competition to the white pine seedlings. Forest worker Lester Frisbee said, "I'd lots rather plant in the soot and ashea as try to climb through such thick brush." Burning should also increase huckleberries which were abundant in the 1940s and 90s and are a favorite food of many wildlife species including turkey, grouse and bear. According to Dick Owenby, assistant ranger at Hot Springs, the trees are expected to be sawtlmber sized by the time they are 40 years old. "We have ?hinn-'t ? - srea on Doe Bra run twice .