Mdnge county SEC. II, PAGE t THE NEWS—THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. 1961 EDITORIALS, FEATURES ... ■ ■ _'_. Fancy or foresight —idea is worth study The idea of obtaining the centrally-located 10-acre Ghapel Hill High School property as a municipal center is certainly a charming one. This suggestion, made to the Board of Aldermen by some interested citizens recently, is based on the as sumption that school administrators want in due time ' to move the school out of the middle of town. If the building and land were the available for some other purpose, as was the case w ith the old Carrboro School r recently, it would unquestionably be a wonderful thing i if the Town could feasibly buy it and develop the property as a permanent municipal center. ~ Of all crticism of the idea, it cannot be said that it is short-sighted. The real questions appear to be: (i> Is the School Board willing to move its schools away from these locations and (2) Can the municipality practically swing such a million-dollar-plus deal? _?• Sought "triangle" purchase postponement . . . As a part of its request that the Town investigate this genera! proposition, the citizens also asked the Board of Aldermen to hold off on purchase of another centrally located site on which a fire station would likelv be erected. This is the North Columbia St.-Airport Rd. “triangle.” a four-acre tract, purchase of which has been pending for over a year. Though the Town Board has decided to go ahead and buy the latter property with voter-approved bond funds, this decision shouldn’t affect the major and over riding proposal for a real and permanent municipal center. If there s possibility of this proposal being worked out— and the contrary certainly hasn't been shown-it merits immediate and thorough investigation. Many citizens of Chapel Hill today, recall how the idea of a* community of 25,000 and a University of 9,000 •students was thought fanciful only a few years ago. Both are realities today, and the growth isn’t likely to stop. # idea that sounds far-fetched today may in a short period prove to have been foresighted planning. Quality parents are needed for schools There’s much concern as the new school year opens that die now higher-salaried teachers give the full measure of their effort to quality education. The other side of this coin is well stated by an anony mous Chapel Hill teacher in a recent letter to the Greens boro Daily News. The teacher is appropriately critical of three situations: 1. The casual way parents take children out of school classes. In this teacher’s school last year classes were in terrupted twice a week as 31 j^ut of 400 pupils were taken out by their parents for private piano lessons. And—“On top of this parents take out students to go to dentists, doc QD()e.&etog of Grange Count? Published. Every Thursday By THE NEWS INCORPORATED Hillsboro, N. C. Chapel Hill, N. C. Box 647 Box 749 Telephone 968-4444, Chapel Hill; 4191 Hillsboro Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post Office at Hillsboro, North Carolina, under the Act of March 3, 1879 EDWIN j. HAMLIN ....Publisher ROLAND GIDUZ . Editor Hillsboro Office--- N. Churton SL Chapel Hill Office .. .311 E. Main St., Cairboro SUBSCXMPTtQN HATES *2.50, year. $1.75, abr .nasi, (inside N. C.); $3.00, on* year, outside N. X. , j; ■ .. • :i ■ It was a short summer!! / unprtitlci , i ork Gazette & Daily tors, the circus and a weekend in South./^Carolina with Grandma'.” 2. The casual way parents keep up with student prog ress. Parents who wouldn’t seek a curbstone conference with their doctor, lawyer, or dentist, don’t hesitate to “take advantage of teachers in the super market . . . while the ice cream in the grocery cart melts ... or “Let me start to broil a steak and watch for a 3o-minute call.” Please, parents, the teacher asks, call the teacher at school after teaching hours for conferences on your child’s education. 3. The effect of part-time teachers on the profession. This teacher indignantly points to “too many people teach ing who prefer it to the evils of staying home looking after three babies and keeping house . . . while the career teacher is giving the job all she has.” In summary the teacher from Chapel Hill asked the Daily News for its comments on the above. The Daily News suggested the teacher had done the job thoroughly herself. With this sentiment The News thoroughly agrees, in quot ing further from the Greensboro editor’s final footnote: “To get quality education North Carolina will require quality parents as well as quality teachers. “The education job begins at home.” Firm and final action needed on zoning law Everybody who is concerned with the attractiveness of Chapel Hill and with making democratic local govern ment effective will See a hopeful sigh in the decision of the Chapel Hill aldermen to enforce the local zoning ordi nance that has been blatantly flouted by billboard advertis ing firms. Planning Board member Jack Lasley spoke an absolute truth when he declared that the billboard firms have con tinued to be “in contempt” of the town. The zoning ordinance that was passed in 1955 under authority of the General Assembly ordered removal of billboards along the major highways by a1 deadline of five years from passage of the ordinance. Not a single billboard was voluntarily removed, and in fact a great number of additional ones were added as the deadline approached. A government that willingly allows or fails to halt disregard of its authority is dishonest to its trust. Chapel Hill officials have not been dishonest in that the billboards are still up 18 months after the deadline for their removal. The town has tried to bring about compliance, though these efforts to date have failed. Now the aldermen and the planning board, as chosen representatives of the public in this community, have made it unquestionably clear that they mean business in this mat ter; that the ordinance they passed was passed for a purpose and is to be obeyed. Those charged with directly enforcing the ordinance should now lose no time in carrying out this order. There may be threats of unconstitutionality, weeping and wailing, and more dilatory tactics on the part of bill board owners. But the town made its decision on this matter more than six years ago in an ordinance that itself "was passed after five years deliberation. This part of the zoning ordinance is now at a “put up or shut up” crossroads so far as the local government is concerned. Firm and final action is called for—if land use controls are in the future to mean anything at all here abouts. (Editorials continued on Page 2) niewirTUin s norcpao #•» i 'Pill Hill' full of memories as childhood ■-'■{ tlay grounds Soon the botany and geology buildings will rise on “Medical Hill” at the edge of the University campus, finally eliminating a primeval playground for CSwpel Hill youngsters of earlier years. Across the campus many build ings are ju9t buildings. But in the Division of Health Affairs each one marks the site of some child hood play center. Even Kenan Stadium ranks as a newcomer to south-side Chapel Hill. Shortly after arriving in Chapel Hill about 33 years ago, our family lived in one of the University-owned rental houses that stood on the site of the giant public health building now under construction. My parents recalled the clatter ing of rocks and rubble on the com position slate-shingled roof of this house while construction dynamiting was going on at Ken an Stadium. Some years later several neigh borhood boys were passing by the George Herr'.iohs’ house across the street, en route to the construction site of Chapel Hill High School— where the School of Pharmacy now stands. A blast shook the area and a rock sailed through a living room window at the Heintishs’ In a twinkling Mrs. Heintish, a high school teacher for many years, appeared in the shattered glass and asked sternly, “Roland, did you break this window?”—Still recovering from the un-expected shock of the blast moments be fore the 10-year-old lad was al most too surprised to answer. Despite the solid attractiveness of the pharmacy building now, many hometowners driving by on the Pittsboro highway still do a double take there. The mind’s eye yet sees the two-story wood columned brick building that housed the high school on this same site from 1937 till it burned in the late summer of 1942. “Stadium Woods” where the mammoth complex of Memorial Hospital new stands held a spe cial place in the hearts of neigh borhood small fry. With toy cars and imaginative minds they spent endless hours—even days—build ing cities in the light wilderness across the highway from their homes. Favorite spot of this area was “the oki scout shack”—in actual ity two old convict barracks at the high point of what is now Victory Village. Old Troop Five of the Cherokee Council had its meeting place there in a wonder ful building where the meeting night shouts of youngsters dis turbed nobody. Chapel Hill’s Troop 39 in the Occoneechee Coun cil was also founded in the “shack” about 25 years ago after Orange County was taken out of the Cherokee Council. About all that’s left of the old Stadium Woods today is a one-acre glade around what was known for several summers as “Utley’s Dam.” This is the patch of woods between the Hospital entrance drive and Wilson Hall. There must have been at least two dozen stool young hearts a (See NOTEPAD, Page g) t