Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / Aug. 7, 1980, edition 1 / Page 1
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27-day High Average 96.3 T emperature 109 Degrees Here F riday Robert Gatlin, who has lived all of his 70 years in Raeford, said Friday's weather was the hottest he's ever seen in Raefprd. His official U.S. Department of Agriculture thermometer in the yard of his home at 301 Harris Ave., a few blocks from downtown Raeford. supported his statement at 2:25 p.m. that day. Gatlin reported the thermometer read 109 degrees. That was in the shade. A rule for location of an official USDA thermometer requires it to be on a stand shaded from the sun. Gatlin is the Weather Bureau observer for Hoke County. The bureau is in the USDA. The 109 reading at that wasn't the highest reported in the county for that day. Another Raeford man reported the temperature 112 de grees in the sun at his home at one time Friday. Gatlin reported Monday the temperature went to an average high of 96.3 degrees a day during July in Raeford. At that, he said, the figures used to compute the average didn't include the highest readings of the last four days of the month, all of which were at least 100 degrees a day. One of the latter was Friday's highest. On Thursday, the temper ature reached 104 in Raeford. Gatlin said the high daily aver age of July 1979 was 93.2 degrees. July also was dryer than normal, as well as hotter, Gatlin's Figures show. The rainfall during the month amounted to 2.75 inches. Gatlin said the normal rainfall for July is 4.25. In July 1979. a total of 4.46 inches of rain fell here. The total for the same month in 1977 was 6.7 inches. 109 degrees recorded on Robert Gatlin's official thermometer Friday afternoon. Temperature was 108 when this picture was taken after a breeze 'cooled ' it. The Hoke County News - Established 1928 ^OLUME LXXII NUMBER 1 5 RAFFORD, HOKE COUNTY. NORTH CAROLINA - journal The Hoke County Journal - Established 1905 S8 PER YEAR THURSDAY. AUGUST 7. 1980 Rescinds July 21 Action Board OK's Ambulance Service Advance * Around Town BY SAM C. MORRIS Now I don't know who has been questioning Robert Gatlin about his truthfulness of the weather, but a strange thing happened last 0riday afternoon. The phone rang and I was told that someone w anted me on it. Lo and behold it was Gatlin and he asked that someone come out to his home to verify the temperature at the time of the call. It was about 2:30 o'clock. Bill Lindau and 1 went out to the Gatlin home and along with him checked the official thermometer that he records the data for the U.S. Weather Service. The mer Miry had dropped one degree but ?ie high mark reached at 2:25 o'clock was 109 degrees. It was hot standing out in the sun watching Bill and Robert trying to get a picture of the mercury in the thermometer. When we arrived back at the office Graham Monroe stopped me and said thai the temperature on the porch at his office was 10W ^egrees and that another registered W12 degrees in the sun on the opposite side of the house. So this certainly backs up what Gatlin had on his thermometer. Most of the indoor-outdoor thermometers in the city registered 104 degrees. Gatlin said that most of these were under a ledge and would be a few degrees off. Anyway when a Baptist calls a Presbyterian to stand for his truth fulness. there must be other Bap %sts involved. After writing last week about the 1929 State High Schools final game for the championship, another instance came to mind that hap pened that day. As stated last week Raeford was playing Shelby, and the Governor of North Carolina at W'at time was O. Max Gardner. Now the Governor was at the game and was sitting with the folks from Shelby. Mr. A.J. Fuller, father of Leo Fuller who was on the Raeford team, went over into the stands where the Governor was sitting and stated that he should divide his time with the Raeford fans because he was as much Raeford's Governor as he was Shelby's. ^ I believe the Governor came over tor an inning or two. Another thing is that someone said Neill McFadyen was on the squad that year. If this is correct. 1 am sorry his name was left out last week. * * ? The subject of discipline is something that gets real close to me ^ecause of my Army years and because that I was brought up in a home that seemed to be "Children should be seen and not heard." i This is brought on by the articles [ I have been reading concerning the I rough time being had by the ? librarians at the Hoke County I Library. In talking with one of ? them last week, sne stated that ? things were some better, but still ?not what it should be. ^ Most people that use a library V (See AROUND TOWN, page 15) I he Hoke County Ambulance Service can get the $4,000 loan on its contract with Hoke County, by reversal Monday of a previous action by the Board of County Commissioners. Board members voted 2-1 in favor of rescinding the July 21 action and approving the loan, which would amount to an ad vance. payable in 12 months with out interest on the contract. The vote July 21 at the board's mid-month meeting was 2-1 also, which was against a motion to approve the request for the ad vance, made by Jim Henley. Henley and his wife Linda own and operate the service. Henley said the money was needed to pay for mechanical work on an ambulance and that he had reached the limit on borrowing from banks on collateral. Commissioner Mabel Riley voted Monday against the motion, as she had on the July 21 motion. Commissioner Neill McPhatter, however, who had voted with her against the motion, said Monday he had reconsidered, then made the motion to rescind and to approve the loan, and voted in , favor of it. The other vote in favor of the motion was made by Commissioner Danny DeVane. DeVane was ab sent from the July 21 meeting. Commissioner James Allen Hunt, who had made the motion at the July meeting and cast the vote in favor of it, abstained from voting on the motion Monday as he was serving as acting chairman of the board in the absence of Chairman John Balfour. Balfour was out of the state attending a crop meeting. Hunt would have voted on the motion it a tie had developed. Mrs. Riley, as she had at the July meeting, said "the county is not in the lending business," and that Henley should get the loan from a private financial institution. She expressed with considerable heat her opposition to the loan and to the change in the decision of two weeks ago. On the switch, she said, "We have a majority one week, then the next week on the same subject we reverse it." At Council Meeting Rate Plea Passes First Of Two Readings The Raeford City Council Mon day night gave approval to the first of two required readings of a proposal to allow a cable television rate increase. The increase, required by Jones lntcrcable. which holds the local franchise would add 50 cents per month for service and maintenance on the first outlet, bringing the total to S8 monthly after October. The charge of $1.50 for each additional outlet would remain as it is. The council action was taken on a proposal to amend the city franchise ordinance. The proposal must be approved by the council in two consecutive readings. The next is scheduled for the next monthly meeting of the council. At Monday night's meet ing the council adopted a motion to change the next meeting's date to September 8 from the regular first-Monday. The first Monday in September is the Labor Day holi day. For a while it seemed that action on the first reading wouldn't be taken. After Mayor Pro Tem Graham Clark asked if there were a motion, no one made one. Then Clark asked City Attorney Palmer Willcox about the lack of a motion, and Willcox said it meant simply that no action was taken. But then Councilman Benny McLeod made the motion, and it was seconded bv Councilman Vardell Hedgpeth. Jr. The motion then was adopted by unanimous vote. Before the council acted. Harri son Daniels of Jones Intercable. addressing three people who take the service, explained that the company will deduct from the bills sent all affected customers 25 cents for each of the 19 days the service was off. He explained that the interruption was caused by the damaging of eight converters at the Red Springs station by lightning July 12 arid by the necessary delay in getting the units repaired. He said they had to be sent to California. Daniels also said the repairs cost Jones Intercable S8.000. He also said he was looking for someone in Raeford whom Raeford area customers could call when necessary, instead of having to call long distance. People at the meet ing told him they were unable at times to get anything but a recording when thev made a call through the number designated. Daniels told them "it will be corrected." In other business, the council adopted the city's proposed Thor oughfare Plan and with it in a separate action adopted a ban on the use of Jackson Street by trucks weighing over 2.000 pounds with the exception of delivery trucks, which the action requires must take the most direct route in and out of the street. Clark presided over the meeting in the absence of Mayor John K. McNeill. Jc. . who is on vacation, and Public Works Director Bill Sellars filled in for City Manager Ron Matthews, who was in Moore Memorial Hospital under going tests. Matthews expected to return home this week. About Low-flying Aircraft Army Gives 'Phone Numbers For Complaints People bothered by Army air craft flying too low over their property are advised to call (919) .196-7804. or 396-9387, telephone numbers at Simmons Air Field, Ft. Bragg. The field is headquarters for Army Aviation there. People also may call the com manding officer at 396-6605 for help. Mrs. John Scull said last week she was given the numbers by a Simmons officer. This was a re sponse to her complaint published in The News-Journal July 17 and acted on by Seventh District Con gressman Charles Rose of Fayette ville. Mrs. Scull quoted the officer, who came to see her July 29, as saying the Simmons headquarters had heard from the congressman. Mrs. Scull said last week also that Rose had called her three times in reference to her complaint. She told The News-Journal that helicopters from Ft. Bragg had flown at tree-top level over the Scull farm July 15, three in one flight, then 10 about an hour and a halt" later, during the morning, and three others had flown low over the farm the day before. She had called the telephone numbers provided previously but no one answered. Last year, she said, one of six acres of corn her husband raises was knocked down by the propellor wash of three helicopters while they were hovering about eight feet above the ground. Mrs. Scull said last week the most recent flight came over the farm during the week of July 20 but was higher than the others. Congressman Rose's in Wash ington told The Sews Journal Friday The Simmons commander's office advised the helicopter flights over the Scull farm apparently had been accidental. Maj. Van Hoy, acting Simmons Air Field com mander. was quoted as saying (See ARMY, page 15) In regard to the loan, she said she agreed with the other commis sioners that an argument between John Roper, a garage operator, and Henley over a repair bill was none of the commissioners' business when the subject was brought up at a previous meeting. She said that by the same reasoning, the ambulance service's financial difficulty also was none of the county's business. She attributed the trouble to what she said was Henley's engage ment in other enterprises. DeVane, however, said Henley's trouble was caused by people not paying their bills, that the Henleys were doing an outstanding job with the am bulance service, and that the approval of the loan was "a vote of confidence" in the ambulance ser vice's operation. In regard to Mrs. Riley's criti cism of the vote switch, DeVane said it was good that the commis sioners could change their action when they realize they made a mistake. He also said the loss of interest on the $4,000 would be a very small price to pay compared with the loss of the excellent ambulance service. (County surplus funds accumulate interest by being left on deposit in the bank. Balfour at the July meeting said he didn't know whether the county was permitted by law to charge interest on a loan). Henley had obtained a $5,000 county contract advance before and repaid it within a year. In other business, the commis sioners adopted a motion to add $1,000 for a single quarter of the fiscal year to the total of $4,000 budgeted for the transportation expenses of developmentally dis abled people to the Scottish Craft Workshop at Laurinburg. Repre sensatives of the county association for the developmentally disabled asked at the July 21 meeting for a total of $4,000 in addition to the budgeted amount, to meet the increase in expenses of operating the bus used to cam the people to the workshop. The commissioners appointed D.S. Carthens and Harry Williamson to the Region Employment and Training Advisory Committee. They also adopted a motion approving the county's applying for a state Juvenile Justice Delinquency Program grant to continue financ ing the Alternative Learning Center at Upchurch Junior High School. By County Board of Education Teachers Hired, Attendance Policy Set The Hoke County Board of Education at its monthly meeting for August Friday night approved appointment of a part-time teacher at South Hoke School, recom mendations for employment of nine regular teachers, set a 1980-81 salary for the school system's director of compensatory educa tion, and heard a report on damage done periodically to South Hoke School buildings. The board also accepted a formal student attendance policy. The part-time appointment was given to Maxine Colston, on her application. The action was delay ed till the August meeting to give board members more time to think about it, after it was brought up at the July meeting. Board member Walter Coley said Friday night he had reconsidered after being opposed to it originally. He said he felt now that the appointment wouldn't result in a flood of applications for part-time teaching positions, in view of the fact that a part-time teacher doesn't get the benefits a regular teacher does. The appointment is for the 1980-81 school year. Ap pointment to the part-time position is subject to approval of the board year by year. Mrs. Marilyn Semones, assis tant principal at South Hoke, would handle the afternoon duties Mrs. Colston would have if she were teaching fulltime. the board had been informed at the July meeting. Afternoon duties include helping supervise students' board ing school buses for their trip home. Mrs. Colston will teach in the mornings. "You'll get the best of two excellent teachers," County Schools Supt. Raz Autry told the board Friday night, referring to Mrs. Colston and Mrs. Semones. The recommendations for em ployment the board accepted were for those of the following as teachers: Marsha Currin, Vera Barnhill, Jeanette Watson, Sarah James. George Drawhorne, Georgia Garner, Victoria Woodell, Elizabeth Burgess, and Darroll Andrew Brown. The 1980-81 salary of the com pensatory education director. Earl Oxendine, was set at 529,518 by the board by adoption of a motion to that effect. The pay includes a 10 percent salary raise, Autry ex plained to the board before the action was taken. Autry said Oxendine's pay when he was assigned last year as an assistant superintendent director of the pro gram, was the pay he was receiving as principal of Hoke County High School, S26.835. Autry said the state has no school systems from SI 7,000 to S35.000, the latter in the Cleveland County unit. Oxendine's duties include administering the Title One. U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education act program, which includes remedial reading, and instruction for children of migratory workers; and the pro gram under the U.S. Indian Edu cation Act. Vandalism at South Hoke School has become a serious problem and occurs all year around, Autry informed the board. He said some of the damage is done by people breaking into the buildings to steal. He said much of the damage was done apparently by "hangers-on" who come to the school grounds, "a lot" from Robeson County and elsewhere. He said he advised John Steed, the school systems director of community services" to tell the County Parks and Recreation de partment the South Hoke gym nasium (to department programs) would have to be closed if it (the vandalism) doesn't cease." Autry said it took about S500 to (See TEACHERS, pape 15)
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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Aug. 7, 1980, edition 1
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