? The News rec. NC 28753 SERVING THE PEOPLE OF MADISON COUNTY 82nd Year No. 4 PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE COUNTY SEAT AT MARSHALL, N C WEDNESDAY, January 26, 1983 15c f-. '-"opy Application Deadline Is Feb. 15 . New Burley Tobacco Grower Quotas Available Madison County tobacco growers have until Feb. 15 to apply for new quotas for butley tobacco. William B. Zink, county executive direc tor for the Madison County Agricultural Soil Conservation Service, made the announce ment last week. To be eligible for a new grower quota, a farmer must own a farm, have no interest in a farm which already has an established burley tobacco quota, derive at least half of his income from farming or farm products and have at least two years experience in I the past five years on a farm with a current tobacco quota. Zink said that any county farmer who is interested in ap plying should contact the ASCS office in Marshall before the Feb. 15 deadline In other tobacco news, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that farmers who produced excess tobacco during last year's crop will be allowed to arrange for the tobacco to be processed and stored without having to carryover un processed tobacco. The carryover program is designed to permit tobacco producers who have marketed 110 percent of their farm's ef fective quota and have excess tobacco on hand to deliver the excess for processing and storage with the Burley Stabilization Corporation. The move will prevent insect in festation and quality deterioration. Handling of the carryover tobacco has been limited to the Burley Stabilization Corp. in order to insulate the surplus tobacco from commercial trade channels. It cannot be marketed until the 1983 marketing season begins. The Burley Stabilization Corp. will announce designated delivery points in tobacco-producing areas wher producers may deliver their carryover crop. All tobacco to be processed must be weighed and graded by an inspector of the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service before be ing accepted for storage and later sale. Carryover tobacco will not be eligible for penalty-free marketing until the start of the next marketing year on Oct. l, 1983. At that time, the carryover tobacco will be sold on a sealed bid basis to all pur chasers of tobacco, both foreign and domestic. Car ryover tobacco not bringing an acceptable price will be placed under loan in the regular inventory, by grades, at the 1983 loan rates. Farmers who do not wish to participate in the carryover program may store un processed tobacco on their own farm, in warehouses or in commercial storage. Tobacco stored in such a manner must retain its identity. It may not be comingled with tobacco produced on another farm. In order to qualify for the carryover program, the farm that produced the tobacco to be stored must have marketed within 200 pounds or less of the 110 percent of the 1982 effec tive farm quota. Farmers in terested in bringing their car ryover tobacco to the Burley Stabilization Corp. must first obtain a written statement from the county Agricultural Stabilization and Conserva tion Service stating total poun dage marketed during the 1982 marketing season and 110 per cent of the farm effective quota. Both the statement and the 1962 marketing card must be presented at the time car ryover tobacco is presented at the designated delivery points. The Burley Stabiliza tion Corp. is expected to an nounce the locations of these designated delivery points in the next few days. William Zink of the county ASCS office urges all farm operators to return their marketing cards now that all area burley markets have closed. Zink said, "The primary purpose of the cards is to pro vide the producer a simple way to officially account for the disposition of the tobacco he produces on the farm. Failure to timely return this card by the operator can result in a reduction of the farm quota for the following crop year, unless he can pre sent proof of his entire marketing in some other man: ner." Growers are required to return the cards immediately following the close of the local markets. The cards are need ed by the local ASCS office in order to reconcile marketings reported by each local warehouse. Victor Bechtol Is Acquitted In District Court Victor Bechtol was found not guilty of charges of com municating threats in last Tuesday's session of District Court. Bechtol had entered a plea of not guilty to the charge. Judge Robert Lacey ordered warrants charging Bechtol with damage to pro perty quashed. The court released Bruce Massey, charged with forgery, after a probable cause hearing. Also dismissed were charges of larceny against Bobby Pittman and Cornelus Vanhout, trespass ing charges against James C. Coates, a charge of assault with a deadly weapon with in tent to kill and trespassing against Odis Shade and charges of unauthorized use of an auto against both Terry Lee Roberts and Vicky Lynn Anders. ' ? ? The court accepted a volun tary dismissal in cases involv ing disturbing a public cemetery charges against Dellis Green and Guy Baldwin. The court continued, until Feb. 15, larceny charges against Gary Ball. Also con tinued were assault charges against both Ricky Dixon and Nickey Adams. Albert Rice, charged with shoplifting, was called and failed to appear. A case against Helen Parrott Jacob, also charged with shoplifting, was continued until the Jan. 28 session. On Wednesday, the court heard a number of unrelated cases involving driving under the influence. The court ac cepted guilty pleas from Wayne Jerry Randall, Barry John Wells, and Terry Lynn Gibson, all of Mars Hill. Gibson had also been charg ed with no operator's license, but the charge was dropped. The court ordered each defen dant to pay a $100 fine, plus court costs, ordered each to attend Alcohol Drug Educa tion School and pay the school's $100 tuition fee, and sentenced each to serve from 30 to 45 days in jail. The jail sentence was suspended for 12 months. Troy Lee Meadows, Edward LeRoy Banks, Robert Clyde Cogdill and Sam Miller, all charged with DUI, failed to appear for their hearing. Ar rest warrants were issued for each. The court also continued, at the defendants' request, DUI charges against Oakley Freeman, John Ingram and William Timothy Wilde. The court sent on to Superior Court hit and run charges against William H Stines. The court dismissed charges of leaving the scene of an accident and no liability in surance against Stines. Superior Court will conduct a probable cause hearing into charges of possession of a con trolled substance against Robert Lee Johnson. James Brace Massey Jr., charged with drunk and disorderly conduct and assault on an officer, entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to serve 30 days in the Madison County Jail. The court also issued an ar rest warrant for failing to ap pear for James Wagner, charged with drunk and disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. FmHA Rates Drop Interest rates for loan pro grams of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers Home Administration dropped on Jan. 17, according to FmHA State Director Larry W. Godwin. "These lower interest rates, which apply to most loans made by the USDA farm credit agency, will be of great benefit to the rural economy and particularly for the na tion's farmers who depend heavily on credit," Godwin said. It is the third such reduction since Oct. 1962 by the agency which makes farm, home and other loans to rural residents and communities who cannot get credit from private lenders. Godwin said the reductions are possible because of a general move toward lower in terest rates across all sectors of the economy and because of lower costs of federal borrow ing. Interest rates for farm operating loans, used to finance annual costs of pro duction, will drop from 11.5 to 10.25 percent. Farm ownership rates will drop from 11.5 to 10.75 per cent. Interest rates for "limited resource" borrowers will drop from 8.3 percent for operating loans to 7.2S percent. Limited resource farm ownership loans go from 5.75 to 5.25 per cent. The interest rate for actual loss loans due to natural disasters remains at 8 percent for those farmers unable to get .credit from private lenders. For farmers who can obtain natural disaster loans elsewhere, but choose to deal with the Farmers Home Ad (Continued on Page 6) v E. Tennessee Cave Find Unlocks Indian Mysteries By BORIS WEINTRAUB National Geographic OgMiilna nirwl oCiYiCf First, slide down the en trance hole for about eight feet at a 45-degree angle. Take a good look at that slide; it's not Just the only way in. it's the only way out. Belly down, crawl a few feet to the first "room." Crawl through a tiny hole in a wall hardy big enough for a human body, wade through an underground stream, walk bent-over beneath an overhanging rock ledge, squeeze through a second sophisticated human faces, pictures of birds and serpents and turtles, geometric designs and drawings that look like simple squiggles. Those squiggles are mean ingless to modern Americans, but they may have had some significance, to the earlier Americans who put all these glyphs here, Indians who lived in the vicinity of this east Ten name cave from the 11th through the l?oka instead of North Bun combe. At a meeting at North Bun combe High School to protest the county board's vote, an ac tion committee was elected to: ? Approach the seller of the Enka High School site for an extension of a 1988 building start-up deadline for the Enka site. ? Spearhead an approach to the Buncombe County com missioners to overturn the school board's request to ap propriate building money elsewhere. Feeling has been running high since the school board voted last Thursday to build a new high school in Enka before it builds a new high school to replace North Bun combe. "I looked forward M my children going to a new high school but now two of them are already in college," said Helen Boone of Weaverville, relfecting the fact that com munity residents have been asking for a school for a long time. "As a businessman in the community, I see the need for North Buncombe to have good vocational courses," said David Bradley of Beech, chairman of the North Bun combe Advisory Council. A member of the high school staff said that large numbers of students are unable to get vocational courses they want to take at North Buncombe because there are not enough facilities or vocational teachers. At least 85 to 100 students are turned away from welding, home economics and woodworking, for example. Judy Ball of Flat Creek said North Buncombe entirely lacks facilities for some voca tional courses like cosmetology. And perhaps the high drop out rate at North Buncombe is because so many students who want vocational courses are unable to get them, Bradley said. Not only do North Bun combe schools lack space, but they are older than schools in other parts of the county, said Rev. John Kelley of Hemphill, who chaired Monday's meeting: Kelley, pastor of the Hemphil and Beech United Presbyterian churches, said that figures from the office of the superintendent of schools show that while North Bun combe is the second fastest growing school district 'after Roberson), the district has no new schools built since 1955 and the district includes six schools that are at least 55 years old. A recent report to the North Buncombe Citizens for Better Schools from Jim Penley, chief of the Weaverville Fire Department, and Kirk Red mond, assistant chief, says that the Weaverville primary and middle schools "are not totally safe with respect to quick safe student evacuation," due to age and design. In comparison to North Bun combe, Owen, Reynolds, Roberson, and Erwin, all have three schools built since 1955, and Enka has two, John Kelley said. A new high school in North Buncombe would not only allow more space and facilities in the high school, but since the old high school could become a middle school, the new school would mean more space throughout the system. The school board voted to build a new school in Enka first because of a time limit on the use of a piece of property there, purchased at much less than the current value on the condition that a school be started on the property before 1985. Citizens in North Bun combe are saying that the school board was unwise to ac cept such a condition, which puts unfair pressure in favor 01 a school in Enka at the ex pense of other districts. Enka and Erwin, Kelley said, are the two slowest-growing districts in Buncombe County. "We are fed up with this end of the county being run over," said Roy Shepherd, of Flat Creek. "We need something in this end of the county for our children1; What's been done in the past the parents have done." The proposed suit would say that the North Buncombe School district has been discriminated against in com parison to other districts in the county.