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TheN
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-Journal
Volume LXXIX Number 46
RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
25 CENTS
Thursday, March 3,1988
Polls to open Tuesday
About 3,900 or 45 percent of
Hoke County’s registered voters
are expected at the polls Tuesday
as North Carolina participates for
the first time in Super Tuesday.
Elections Supervisor Caroline
Shook says the election process
should be fairly routine with no
changes except for a new provision
in state law which allows indepen-
1988
OfTicial Republican Pri
President of the Ui
INSTRI^It^l
a To vote for a can(>ddrfKa)^hc nikx mate a cross X
mark in the square V name
b If you letr ihrs balbt.
return it 10 anoiher
dent voters to participate in the
primary.
The law, enacted last year by the
state General Assembly to comply
with a US Supreme Court ruling,
gives parties participating in
primaries the option of allowing
unaffiliated voters to participate.
The N.C. Democratic party turned
down the option, but the Rep
ublican party, in hopes that unaf-
1988
Official Democratic Primary l)«ll
President of the IJduN Sf'
INST
I. To vote for a cartdi
mark in the squar^
b. If you tear gf^del
return it to
Hot make a cross X
his name.
ly mark this ballot,
■get another.
r lor m
Tl DUPONT
'AUXANOER HAIG. JR
JACK KEMP
PAT ROBERTSON
NO PREFERENCE
GEORGE BUSH
BOB DOLE
iSIDENT
for MW)
lEFERENCE
BRUCE BABBITT
□ MICHAEL S. DUKAKIS
n RICHARD GEPHARDT
a AL GORE
□ GARY HART
□ JESSE JACKSON
□ PAUL SIMON
Pnmtry t kcllt*
March 8. 1988
NORIH ( AROIIN4
Primary F.krtloit
MirckI, 1988
NORTH CAROLINA
( hairman. Stale Hoard of) Irclioi
( halrmaiL Suir Board ol Uccttotti
filiated voters will be swayed in the
fall election, approved letting them
vote in Republican primaries,
March 8th, May 3rd, and May 31st
(if needed).
Hoke County will participate in
the election with 55 percent of
eligible citizens registered. That’s
up slightly from November. Shook
says attempts will be made to add
more voters to the rolls before the
May 3rd primary. The deadline for
registering for that election is April
4. She says there are plans to con
duct a registration drive at the high
school sometime in mid-March.
She says a similar effort at the
school conducted before a recent
election failed to add significant
numbers of voters. But she says
that was probably because the
registration drive was limited to a
lunch hour. “Maybe after hearing
publicity on Super Tuesday on TV
there’ll be a little more interest
among young people,’’ Shook
said.
Polls will open at 6:30 a.m. at
the county’s 13 precincts and will
(see ELECTION, page 14)
Hoke prepared for bus ruling
Although the U.S. Department
of Labor decision to step up the
deadline for replacing student
school bus drivers with adults took
Hoke County school officials as
much by surprise as it did those in
other systems in North and South
Carolina, local educators find
themselves in a much better posi
tion to comply with the ruling than
do officials in most other systems.
Don Steed, school business
manager, said by the accelerated
deadline of April 1, Hoke County
will have only three bus drivers
who arc under age 18. The school
system will replace the three with
adult drivers by the deadline, he
said.
He said the system may current
ly have some 17 year-old drivers
but all but three of them will have
reached their 18th birthday by
April 1.
There are 5,100 students in the
Hoke County School System and
63 per cent of them ride the 61
buses the system owns.
Steed said the system planned to
have all adult drivers by the start
of the next school year in August,
ahead of the original December 31
deadline. He said he thinks the
deadline was moved up because of
some irregularities which were
discovered in the way some
systems in the two Carolinas were
operating their bus program.
Steed said he wanted to give
credit to Dwight Jackson, bus
license examiner in the transporta
tion division of the State Depart
ment of Public Instruction, for
helping Hoke County move so far
ahead in the changeover.
Steed said Jackson “bent over
backwards to get our people train
ed and ready. Anytime we had a
group ready, he would give the
training and do the testing. He’s
been extremely helpful.’’
A
Four injured
Hoke County school bus III lies on its side after a stu
dent, who allegedly wasn't supposed to be driving, lost
control of the bus near Rockfish last Thursday.
According to the Highway Patrol the bus ran off the
road into a ditch, and overturned when it hit a
driveway culvert. Four students were injured, one
seriously.
Driver not at wheel at time of wreck
Hoke school bus turns over
Federal fugitive arrested
A Moore County man wanted
by the Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms (ATF) Bureau of the
U.S. Treasury Department was
arrested last Wednesday in Hoke
County by ATF Agent Larry
Craven and Hoke County
Sheriff’s Department Detective
Ed Harris.
James David “BoBo” Cumm
ings, 30, of Rt.2, Vass, was
wanted on a federal warrant.
Federal agents and area law en
forcement officers had been
looking for him for several
weeks, said Sam Lewis, agent in
charge of the Fayetteville office
(see FUGITIVE, page 4)
Downtown store padlocked
A men’s clothing store on
Raeford’s Main Street was
padlocked by the Hoke County
Sheriff’s Department on
February 11 after a lawsuit was
filed in Robeson County against
Jamshid Rafeian, the store
operator, who has apparently left
town.
Rafeian operated his business
here at 120 Main Street under the
name Manhattan Man in the
former Hoke Drug Store. He
reportedly operated similar stores
in Red Springs and Southern
Pines and may have operated one
in Florence, S.C.
Rafeian vacated the premises
of the Red Springs store, which
he began in October 1986, owing
several month’s rent to the store
owner. Myrtle Graham. Before
she could file her lawsuit against
him, Rafeian moved all the mer-
(see PADLOCKED, page 4)
Fight at civic center here
ends with arrest of youth
Beer cans and broken wine bot
tles littered the floor and damage
was done to rear door windows at
the Hoke Civic Center after a
fight broke out during a birthday
party held there on Saturday
night.
Sheriff’s deputies investigating
the incident about 11:30 p.m.
Saturday were told people at the
party panicked and tried to get
out of the building after one of
the guests pulled out a handgun
and started waving it about.
According to a sheriff’s
department report, a fight broke
out between two of the male
guests at the party and other
guests started pushing and shov
ing trying to get out of the way of
the fight.
When another male at the par
ty pulled out a gun people started
trying to get out of the building
and the damage was done to the
rear door.
A nineteen year-old Hoke High
School student, Michael Andre
McPhaul, of Rt.l, Raeford, was
arrested and charged with going
armed to the terror of the people
and carrying a concealed weapon
in connection with the incident.
KFC comes to Raeford soon
The Kentucky Colonel is bring
ing his fried chicken to Raeford,
according to an announcement
this week by the Raeford-Hoke
Chamber of Commerce and the
Economic Development Com
mission.
Scottish Food Systems of
Laurinburg signed the franchise
papers for their 16th Kentucky
Fried Chicken Restaurant last
week and have leased property on
401 Bypass from Danny DeVane.
Charles Mullins of Scottish
Food Systems told Lawanna
Hayes, manager of the Chamber
of Commerce, his company is
“excited about coming to
Raeford and is looking forward
to working with this
community.’’
Construction of the restaurant
is scheduled to begin May I and
be completed by August.
The restaurant will be located
on property formerly occupied by
Howard’s Daytona Service Sta-
(see KENTUCKY, page 4)
Around Town
By Sam Morris
The weather the past weekend
was perfect. It was warm enough
to get outside and most folks did
just that.
The forecast is for the
temperatures to be in the 50s for
the remainder of the week. The
lowest will be in the 30s. It could
rain on Thursday and Saturday.
Most folks like this warm
weather, but the peach growers are
hoping that it doesn’t stay warm
long enough to start the peach
trees to budding. This is just the
(see AROUND, page 14)
Not only was the Hoke County
school bus which wrecked last
Ihursclay afternoon on RPR 1415
near Rockfish not being driven by
the authorized driver at the time of
the accident, it was being driven by
a 17 year-old who is not even
licensed to drive a car, and this was
not the first time he has driven the
bus.
The licensed bus driver, 18 year-
old Vincent Hollingsworth, has
been charged by the State Highway
Patrol w'ith allowing a non-
licensed driver to drive the bus and
with giving a false report to an of
ficer.
The driver at the time of the
wreck, 17 year-old Jeffrey Bernard
Melvin of Raeford, has been
charged with having no operator’s
license and failing to give his name
to an officer.
According to school officials
and State Trooper D.H. Monroe
who investigated the accident.
there were only four students left
on bus 111 when the wreck occur
red about 4 p.m. In addition to
Melvin and Hollingsworth, there
were two girls on the bus, 14 year-
old Camelitha Ray and 16 year-old
Dawn McNair. All were students
at Hoke High School.
According to one report, Melvin
told investigators Hollingsworth
pulled off the road and went to the
back of the bus to talk to the girls,
telling Melvin to drive the bus.
One of the girls then went to the
front of the bus and disturbed
Melvin as he was driving. Melvin
said this caused him to run off the
road, hit a driveway culvert and
overturn the bus which came to
rest on its side. The 1987 Ford bus
had an estimated $8,000 in
damages.
Melvin admitted to investigators
this was the fourth time he had
driven the bus under similar cir
cumstances.
Hollingsworth told investigators
that he had stopped the bus
because the passengers were
creating a disturbance and MeWin
drove the bus without his permis
sion.
Hollingsworth sustained a
hairline fracture of his skull. He
was taken to Moore Regional
Hospital for treatment and later
released. He is reportedly recover
ing from his injury. The other
three students sustained only
minor injuries.
Don Steed, school’s business
manager, said the last time such an
incident occurred in Hoke County
was eight years ago and that in
volved a non-authorized driver,
too.
He said there are no monitors on
the buses and it is difficult to guard
against such incidents.
He said, “We try to instill in
tegrity and moral responsibilty in
our drivers but that doesn’t always
work and it clearly didn’t in this
case.’’
Moore Regional gets imaging system
By June Lancaster
A $2.4 million diagnostic facility which opened in January at Moore
Regional Hospital is, in more ways than one, attracting patients from as
far away as Virginia and South Carolina.
The new Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRl) at Moore Regional makes
it possible for doctors to see inside the human body in ways never before
possible, and without exposing patients to possibly harmful radiation or
“invasive surgical procedures.’’
Preliminaries
The News-Journal's June Lancaster is prepared for imaging in Moore
Regional Hospital’s Magnetic Resonance Imager. (Nothing unusual was
found during the test.)
Dr. Steve Strasser, an American Board of Radiology certified specialist
in diagnostic radiology, says the MRI allows a diagnosis to be so much
more specific than regular X-rays or even CAT scans. Strasser says MRI is
“the screen modality of choice for diagnosing diseases or abnormalities of
the brain, the spine and the joints.”
MRI gives images which are so specific it is possible for doctors to see
bone marrow and spinal disc fluid and to determine whether it is normal
or not.
Orthopedists looking for confirmation of a preliminary diagnosis of
cartilage, ligament or bone abnormalities, or neurologists looking for con
firmation of Multiple Sclerosis, or some other neurological disease, are
recommending MRI for their patients.
Even though the Moore facility has only been in operation for two mon
ths, doctors from other regions of the state and even from out of state are
choosing Moore Regional because, Strasser says, “As one neurosurgeon
told us, we had the best MR image.”
The personalized approach Strasser and his team of highly trained
technicians have adopted is designed to put the patient at ease as he ex
periences the very latest in diagnostic tools.
Everything is done to create a soothing atmosphere for the patient who
is asked to arrive about 30 minutes ahead of actual test time so there is no
need to rush through the pre-test procedure, and so he can view a short
videotape presentation about MRI.
The tape, produced by General Electric, makers of the Signa MRI, ex
plains what magnetic resonance imaging is and what the patient will ex
perience during the diagnostic procedure in such a way that he feels relax
ed and comfortable.
Even before he sees the videotape, the patient is put at ease in what is
designed to be an attractive and comfortable reception area with its soft
pink and blue decor. Strasser says he and his staff make every effort to
create “an atmosphere of some tranquility” for each patient.
That involves treating each patient as an individual, taking the time and
trouble to help him feel relaxed. It means the staff sees fewer patients in a
day but it also means the patients who are seen are relieved of their anx
ieties.
To thoroughly understand the MRI procedure one would need a
knowledge of physics far beyond the basics. Put simply, the technique in
volves listening to the hydrogen atoms in the body (hydrogen atoms are
plentiful since the human body is 90 percent water) after having “pulsed”
those atoms with radio frequency waves.
Gary Green, director of public relations for Moore Regional, issued
some background information on MRI which explains that “when a body
(see IMAGING, page 14)