Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / March 19, 1981, edition 1 / Page 1
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The Hoke County News - Established 1928 VOLUME LXXll NUMBER 47 RAEFORU, HOKE COUNTY. NORTH CAROLINA i - journal The Hoke County Journal - Established 1905 SH PER ^ EAR THURSDAY. MARCH 19, 1981 J Around Town BY SAM C. MORRIS As I write this on Monday after noon it is raining in Raeford. The forecast is for it to be cold tonight, down to the low 20s. So I would guess we won't get much rain this time. fc The forest fires over the weekend are good indications of how much we need the rain. Of course any farmer will tell you im mediately that things are really bad for the planting of crops. So maybe it will rain for a week when it does come; let's hope that it will. Mrs. Floyd McNeill was in the ^affice today and asked me to write something about the Hoke Music Booster membership Drive. The drive is now going on and will end April 7th with a combined concert with Upchurch and Hoke High. The memberships are as follows: Students - $3.00, Adult Individual, $5.00 and Family, $15.00 There is a contest among the students, so be sure and designate the group or groups you wish to Support when you purchase your membership. All contributions are tax deductible, and will be ap preciated by the musicians, the in structors and the Music Booster Club. So give to this worthy cause. Don'' forget that the .Democratic precinct meetings will me held on Thursday, March 26 at 8:00 p.m. at the polling places. There must be 10 registered voters at a precinct meeting to make it official. This is the grass roots part of the party and it is where you express how you want the leaders to perform. So be sure to attend and remind others to do the same. ? ? ? Something that upsets this writer is to hear someone in an official capacity say that we shouldn't worry about the costs in a public office or what someone's salary is because the city or county isn't paying for them. Any worker that is on the public payroll is being paid with tax payers' money and it doesn't make |any difference what pot it is com *ing out of at that time. The taxes paid by the people of Hoke County to the state and federal govern ment are tremendous and what the county receives from the taxpayers would be just a drop in the bucket. Also, any taxpayer is entitled to know what is being done with his or her money and that includes what public employees make. If you don't want taxpayers to know, ^then you must not *ork for them. I seldom care what people make, but when people come by the of fice and inqiJire what certain pro jects cost or did their change of personnel save money or cost more money, then it is the newspaper's job to inform the public. And they have a right to know. We just have a job to do, the same as other peo ple and we try to do it. > ... Sometimes what you write or say will give away your age. I have never been one to care if people (See AROUND TOWN, page 1 1) United Way Drive Continuing The 1981 Hoke County United Way is continuing with volunteers trying to raise a total of at least $19,850, the cam paign's goal. The drive, headed by chair man John Leandro, started March 1. The Boy and Girl Scouts, American Red Cross, White Cane (the Lions Club program to help the sight-handicapped), senior citizens, the develop mentally disabled, the Home Health Agency, and the Rescue Squad will benefit from the money raised in the campaign. The money will help pay for operating their programs through next year. Administrator Refers To Threatened Closing McCain Hospital Seen Still Needed McCain Hospital is on Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr.'s list for possi ble closing in the next two years by General Assembly action for state economic reasons. The governor submitted March 9 to the chairmen of the State House and Senate ap propriations committees a list of programs that could be eliminated or reduced to some extent in the next two years. McCain Hospital Administrator John Watson said in an interview Thursday, however, that the hospital, which treats people stricken with tuberculosis and other lung disorders, is needed now as much as it ever was. The hospital was opened in 1908 as Montrose Sanitarium, the first state TB hospital and the third to open in the United States. The sanitarium stood in the Montrose community east of McCain. Phasing out McCain Hospital was recommended February 17 by the fiscal research staff of the General Assembly to the joint base budget subcommittee on human resources. Replying to questions asked by the reporter for The News Journal, Watson also said figures quoted in a news report published March 10 regarding the governor's list were not correct. Hoke County officials and com munity leaders, however, are plan ning to try to get the General Assembly to keep the hospital open. State Rep. James Craven of Moore, obtained information early this month about McCain from Watson, who said he gave it to Craven on Craven's request. Craven was quoted in last week's edition of the weekly Southern Pines newspaper, The Pilot , as saying he would withhold judg ment for the time being on the pro posal to close McCain. The report added Craven said additional in formation is being sought on the McCain situation and that he will make a decision alter these data are available. Craven also was quoted as in sisting that when a decision is made on McCain Hospital and Samarkand Manor, which is in Moore County, that it will be bas ed on economics rather than political situations. Samarkand, a slate correctional school lor juveniles who have violated laws, is on Hunt's list tor consideration lor either closing or lor conversion into a regular state correctional unit. The /'//of quoted Craven as say ing the closing of Samarkand as a youth training school makes neither political nor economic sense. Hart of McCain Hospital and its grounds, looking til the /row. | Stall photo. \ At Raeford Airport Pilot Killed, Passenger Hurt In Crash An Army officer was killed and a passenger injured when a single engine plane crashed about 12:15 p.m. Sunday at Raeford Airport shortly after a group of skydivers had parachuted from the plane, a witness said. The officer was identified as Capt. William R. (Rick) Thacker, 28, of Belfry, Ky., executive of ficer of Company 'A," Second Aviation Battalion, of the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg. The passenger was Bobby Over by of Greensboro, a civilian skydiver who jumps and also serves as a skydiving instructor at the airport on weekends. The identifications were given Monday hv the officer's uncle. Gene Paul Thacker, a fixed-base Wreckage oft he plane after Sunday's crash that killed the pilot and injured a passenger. | Hoke County Rescue Squad photo. | In Separate Hoke Fires w i im Man Found Dead; Greenhouse Burns Weekend grass, brush and woods fires scattered throughout Hoke County left a man dead and a greenhouse destroyed, in burning an undetermined amount of acreage of brush and trees. Sheriff David Barrington reported one of the fires spread through woods off Saunders Street Extension behind Tucker's Grocery Friday night from the vic tim's burning body. He said he suspects the body is that of Paul Wall, Jr.. but positive identification has not yet been made by the state medical exam iner's office, which was awaiting dental records. The sheriff said Wall was reported missing the day of the Fire and has not been seen since. He added that a can which had contained flammable lliquid was found about six feet from the body, and the investigation indicated the victim's death was self-inflicted. He said the body, lying face up, was found by firemen after they were summoned to extinguish the fire. Fire of undetermined cause (See BURNING, page 10) operator at the airport, who lives at the edge of the airport. Thacker said Overby suffered fractures of an arm and a leg and was admitted to Moore Memorial Hospital at Pinehurst. He said the plane, owned by Raeford Aviation, was returning to the airport after the parachutists had jumped, when the accident happened. He said the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating and that the cause of the crash had not been determined officially. The plane crashed in woods about 50 yards from the Farmer's Air Strip, which is west of the air port. The plane's engine reportedly sputtered, then stopped shortly before the craft crashed. The Hoke County Rescue Squad arrived at the site of the accident soon after the craft crashed. Capt. Thacker lived in a mobile home at the edge of the airport. He had served in the Army seven years and had been with the aviation company a year, reporting for duty after returning from Korea follow ing 13 months service there. The officer also had served with the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Ky. Capt. Thacker received his officer's commission on graduating from Eastern Ken tucky University. He had gone through training in the university's Army Reserve Officers Training Corps. A aualified Armv paratrooper (Sec PI LOT K1LLKD. page I 1 ) . I a I Watson replying to the reporter's questions Thursday, said that "today", the day of the interview, the hospital had 99 pa tients; ot these 60 to 65 were tuber cular and the rest were being treated for other kinds ot lung ailments. He said that besides TB. the hospital treats patients suffer ing from emphysema, bronchitis, asthma and "ail sorts of" other lung conditions. Watson said an average of 90 to 100 patients are admitted to Mc Cain Hospital each month, and about the same number are discharged each month. Of the number admitted, he said, two of every three are sent for treatment of TB and the other for a non-TB lung disease. The March 10 news report says McCain Hospital "serves 30 to 40 patients with TB and other chest maladies". Watson said these ligures are incorrect and apparent ly were drawn from the report ol numbers of discharges of patients from the hospital which the hospital tiles periodically with the state. Meanwhile, word received from the State Tuberculosis Office in Raleigh by the hospital administra tion was that an expected phaseout reported earlier would not be put into effect at least for the time be ing. Watson confirmed this infor mation Friday morning in reply to a question asked by a reporter con cerning a recently issued "direc tive". The expected phaseout would eliminate some, possibly half, the hospital's 1(H) beds, he in dicated. Watson said that now "we are sitting and waiting to see what is going to happen". In the Thursday interview, he said the threatened closing ol the hospital worries him for these reasons. "We feel it will he hard on the patients," he said in starting his comment. Some community hospitals, he said, are not suited to treat tuberculosis. There is still a lot of TB in the state, Watson said later in the interview . Patients are sent to McCain by other hospitals after finding the problems they cannot handle; and by doctors and local public health departments. McCain is ihe only state hospital left in North Carolina treating lung disorders exclusively. The only other such hospital in the state is the federal Veterans Administration facility at Oteen near Asheville, but this hospital admits only veterans of the armed forces. Watson's other primary worry caused by the threat ot closing is the hospital's employees will be thrown out of work He said the hospital now has 248 people on the stall. Most ol these live in Hoke and Moore counties and the others in Cumberland. Scotland, Robeson and Richmond counties. (The hospital has I I other posi tions not filled.) He said the hospital's closing, in eliminating the jobs, would eliminate a payroll ot over S3. 5 million a year. Ot this, he said, over SI million is drawn bv the employees who live in Hoke. TB patients stay longer at the hospital than the patients with other lung troubles, he said, but thanks to the I B drug now available, not nearly as long as the TB sufferer had to in the past. The March 10 news report puts (See McCAIN HOSPITAL, page 1 1 ) . ? ? f 'A IV- 4. Woods ' floor are still smouldering late Friday afternoon from the fire that spread from a burning greenhouse about 50 yards east. The woods are behind a mobile home park on N.C. 21 1 about four miles west of Rue ford. \Sta1f photo. I
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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March 19, 1981, edition 1
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