Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / Oct. 17, 1968, edition 1 / Page 1
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7 ai The Hoke County News- Established 1928 The Hoke County Journal - Established 1905 VOLUME LXIV NUMBER 23 RAEFORD, HOKE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA 14 PER YEAR 10 PER COPY THURSDAY. OCTOBER 17. 1968 Less Than 100 Counted Or . .. ... . ,;: APPROPRIA TE - Phillipe Bertheau was elected president of the newly organized French Club at Hoke High School last week. What could be more fitting than a Frenchman at the head of a French organization. Bertheau is a student from France studying here this year. From all reports, he is well satisfied and happy at the school and in the home of the Ed Murrays where he is living. Chamber Hires Gillis On Part-Time Basis Raeford-Hoke Chamber of Commerce this week moved to remain operational during its busiest season of the year by hiring Harold Gillii is part-time manager. Gillis, a long-time real estate and HAROLD GILLIS insurance man i RiRford, has agreed to man the chamber office from 8 a. m. to noon, Monday through Friday, according to Wyatt Unchurch, chamber president. " This is the busiest season of the year for the chamber," Upchurch said, and we were essentially left without anyone to hold the loose ends together following the resignation of Jim Fout, chamber manager." Fout, a retired lieutenant colonel, recently stepped out of the chamber job to take a federal job and will operate out of offices in Carthage. Fout had volunteered to work nights and on Saturdays to keep the chamber office active until some arrangements can be made to employ a full-time manager. Fout said he left the post because the chamber treasury would not have enough money to continue it i S19,OU0-a-year pace. "We must have someone in charge of the chamber, if only on a part-time basis," Upchurch said. "We will have all the Christmas planning - including a parade, installation of decorations, operation of a Christmas tree for charity, and other activities op tap for the next two months. "Moreover, we are working with one industrial prospect about locating a plant (See GILLIS, Page 4) Vote Registration Slow In Pre -Election Signnp Books To Be At Polls Again On Saturday Hoke voters not on the registration books apparently were reluctant to qualify for the November 5 presidential election - if registration figures for a day's work at the polls Saturday could be termed a barometer. J. Scott Poole, chairman of Hoke County Hoard of Elections, said registration was extremely light in all 13 precincts, with not a single sign-up before noon and less than 100 throughout the county all day. Registrars will he at the polling place in each precinct again this Saturday - and on October 2b - to accommodate prospective voters who did not register or re-register in the spring. With only some 5,000 voters on the rolls, it appeared certain that many otherwise qualified voters were not eager to get on the hooks, although the presidential and gubernatorial races arc the most spirited in recent years here. Every voter in the county was required to re-register this year when the countv switched to the popular "looseleaf5' system of keeping tabs on registered voters. Under that system, each voter has a separate page in the books and when he moves, or otherwise becomes ineligible to vote, his card can be removed. That will keep registration books current, and when new voters sign up, their "leaf" can be added to the books without registrars having to revise the ledgers. before the May primary, Hoke registration books were open four consecutive Saturdays and a total of 5,072 voters were placed on the rolls. That number included 565 voters in Racford No. 5, a brand new precinct composed predominantly of Negroes. It was expected that Negro leaders would conduct a concerted registration drive in advance of the November election, hoping to swell the number of Negro voters to near 3,000 in the county. before last Saturday, the total Negio registration was I ,027. White registration was 2,843 and 302 Indians completed the total. Democrats far outnumber Republicans on the books - 4,729 to only 245. Individual registration figures for last Saturday's session were not turned in to the board of elections, Poole said, but will be tabulated after the third Saturday of registration. November 2 will be (See V0TtR,Page7) F 5- " " I T AS"i,-JJtSi DRIVER SOT SERIOUSLY HURT- Alton Lilly Bain, 18. of Lumber Bridge Rt. 2, escaped serious injury in the above auto when it allegedly crossed the center line of Highway 20 near the Hoke-Robeson line Saturday morning and slammed into a southbound tractor-trailer. State Highway Patrolman J.P. Robinson said the truck swerved almost off the pavement trying to avoid the crash, but the car slammed into the center wheels of the rig. The tractor trailer overturned. Bain was taken to Cape Fear Valley Hospital, where his injuries were termed "not serious, " Robinson said. Ihe Hoke High School student has been charged with driving on the wrong side of the road. Prizes Await Top Community Jaycees Drop Fair A SI 00 cash award will be presented Tuesday night to the Hoke County Club which was adjudged winner in the 18 county-wide community development contest. The presentation will follow a 7 o'clock dinner at J. W. McLauchlin School. Second place prize of $50 and third of $35 also will be awarded. The top contender will vie for a greater prize in the area competition. Judges for the county contest who will visit the communities Monday are Mrs. Mavis Johnson; assistant home economics agent of Cumberland Countv; Joe Gregory, agricultural engineer of Carolina Power and Light Company, Maxton; and the Rev. Jack Mansfield, pastor of First Baptist church, Raeford. Area judging will be done on October 30 Rent Exhibit Hall 1 For the first time in something like a decade, there will be no Jaycee-sponsored fair in Hoke County this year. This means the Quewhiffle Community Fair held Saturday with success as to exhibits and attendance, will have been the only Hoke County IV68 fair. Phil Diehl, who advised Hoke County commissioners last week that there will be no fair and that the county will he ahlc to rent the building for surplus food storage and a food distribution station the year round. Diehl, a Jaycee, said the sponsoring organization had a set-back last year when the agricultural exhibits were all set and word was received that the engaged carnival could not get here. With n income to offset some $400 in priz awarded for exhibits and a carnival whiu arrived two weeks later short of normal' ample attractions to draw the crows needed, the local club went in the hole. " I his experience left a bad taste in ti mouth of everyone," Diehl said, "and decided to wait for another year to V again." 1 he metal exhibit building vs constructed in l')(3. He fore that, a tit was used. Under a rental agreement, t concrete floor was installed when e county started leasing it a couple of yrs ago. Last year, the stock of food hadu be moved out for fair week and returd later. I! i i l:3 a t ' t - mm a Twice Wounded, Hoke Soldier Volunteers For Another Year On Front In Vietnam 8 HORACE STVCXER. JR. BY JIM TAYLOR A Raeford soldier who spent 12 months in Vietnam and sustained two serious wounds is headed back to his old outfit in the thick of the fighting. Horace Stogner Jr., a sergeant E-S and a 1967 graduate of Hoke County High School, has been back in the states since April. He has used the time well -attending Vietnamese language school and taking courses in demolition and weaponry. Now, however, the prospects of his remaining service, if spent in the United States, seems a waste. The veteran of the Vietnam War quickly becomes disgusted with the Average American civilian attitude about what's going on over there," Stogner said. "The only people here who seem to be at all concerned about the war - except for its relation to their take-home pay - are families who have a son or relative fighting in Vietnam." Is the war really necessary ? "I tliink it is one of the most important wars we've ever been involved in, he said. "The moral right or wrong of our becoming involved no longer is a valid argument that we ought to pull out. The truth is, we are deeply involved, with more than a half-million people over there, and we are fighting for honorable and worth objectives. From the standpoint of military importance to the security of Southeast Asia - even to the continental United States - to lose Vietnam would he to lose the most important base of operations the communists could control in Southeast Asia. It is costing a high price in every respect to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam, but think what the price would be if we pulled out, then had to return and uproot a firmly entrenched enemy." As a combat cavalryman in historic Seventh Cavalry Regiment (General Custer's command at the Battle of the Little Big Horn), Stogner fought in the vicinity of the demilitarized zone for months. Casualties in his outfit were high, he said, and alter he left it in April, every man in his platoon was subsequently killed or wounded. Stogner sustained the first of two wounds last fall an enemy small caliber bullet (7.62 millimeter) smashed into the front of his helmet, creased his scalp, and knocked him unconscious. "There was a great deal of blood on my head," he said and it was dripping down both front and back. The medics concluded that the bullet must have entered my head under the hole in the helmet, and that the blood in back was coming from an exit wound. Believing him to he either dead or dying, a Catholic priest set about administering last rites. Stogner said he aroused from a stupor long enough to mutter just three words: "I'm . . . not . . . Catholic." Stogner sent the helmet to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Stogner of Raeford, and asked them to preserve it as a souvenir. His second wound came during a night ambush. His outfit engaged the enemy and was "cutting him up pretty good, but they dropped back and began lobbing mortar rounds of white phosphorous at us. One of the shells exploded about five feet behind Stogner, splattering his back with the burning metal. His entire back was covered with bits of the molten msterial, which will burn until the oxygen supply is cut off. "A medic saved my life," Stogner said. "There was shellhoie nearby and it was partially filled with water. He used the water to slow down the burning process, then with a knife scraped off all the stuff he could." Flesh came away with many of the scrapings, hut the quick action of the medic prevented third degree burns. "I had first and second degree burns all over my back and the back of my legs," Stogner said. "If the burns had been third degree, I am sure there would have been no way to make it." The North Vietnamese is i formidable enemy , Stogner said, but no man-to-man match for Amencans. In his outfit, he said, the casualty ratio was 15-1 in favor of the Americans. "But make no mistake about it," he said. "The troops we are fighting in the south are not Viet Cong. They're North Vietnamese regulars - well trained and wonderfully well equipped with Red Chinese and Russian weapons. Most of them are young. Their specialty is the ambush, but they'll also come at you in sucidal aves where you shoot and shoot but they keep coming and finally you have to back off or be overrun." Stogner's actions in one ambush iSvcSUX.M R. Page 4) I
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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Oct. 17, 1968, edition 1
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