The
ews
Journal
The 12th Issue of our 83rd year
RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
25
CEN-^
Wednesday, July 3,1991
County getting ont of Raeford Anto contract; will bny building
Hoke County commissioners decided to buy
their way out of a contract with a developer to fix
up the old Raeford Auto Company building on
Raeford’s Main Street as court facilities. Instead,
the county will renovate the building itself.
Plans to renovate the building has lain dead
because the state discovered the ground under the
building was contaminated by gasoline leaking
Man shot
to death
outside cluh
from rusting iron tanks.
Plans for the renovated building call for a
courtroom, judge’s chambers, the chief judge’s
office, a conference room, district attorneys’
offices, public defenders’ offices, the Clerk of
Coun and possibly child support. Much of the
office space has been housed temporarily in the
first floor of the old Bank of Raeford building
just up Main Street.
Under the current contract, Raleigh developer
Davidson and Jones bought the Raeford Auto
Company with the provision it would renovate it
and sell it back to the county.
But the developer is having some financial
trouble; company official Ray DeBruhl agreed to
rescind the contract with the county if it pays
interest and covers Davidson and Jones’ costs.
Commissioners agreed to buy out of the
contract for $102,298.91. The building originally
cost about $65,273.
In the new budget, commissioners approved
$105,000 for a line item titled “Capital outlay-
land.’’
(See COUNTY, page 14)
School Board selects
new school principals
A Raeford man was shot to death
outside a Jones Hill club late Friday
night. Another Raeford man was
charged with his murder.
Archie Purcell, 26, was found dead
by Det. Danny Wilson of the Hoke
County Sheriffs Department after be
ing called to investigate a report of
shots fired at the club.
Matthew Vidal Kelly, 18, of 1581
McBride Lake Road was charged with
the murder and placed in Hoke County
Jail without bond. He allegedly shot
Purcell in the face at close range with a
sawed-off shotgun..
Kelly and Purcell were apparently
arguing over a woman.
“This all started from a domestic-
type thing,” Det. Wilson said.
Purcell was apparently Ictming into
a car in which Kelly sal.
“As Matthew came out of the ve
hicle, Archie was looking in and then
boom,” Wilson said.
Purcell was pronounced dead on die
scene by Dr. Robert Townsend. The
botly was sent to the medical examiner’s
office in Chapel Hill.
Wilson said he planned to charge
Kelly with possession of a weapon of
mass desduction and possession of a
weapon by a felon on probation.
The murder charge would violate
five terms of probation Kelly is now
serving for prior crimes. He had been
paroled from prison only three weeks
before the shooting.
(See CRIME, page 3)
%
% I
H oke County is getting two new
principals to lead its two new
middle schools.
The School Board announced Mon
day night that Jack Burgess, a principal
at Westmore Elementary in Moore
County, will lead West Hoke Middle
School on Highway 211 West
Randy Bridges, an assistant principal
at Lee County’s East Lee Middle
School, will head East Hoke Middle
School on U.S. 401 North.
“I think my btttom line philosophy is
very simple,” Bridges said yesterday, “to
provide the best teaching and learning
experience possible.”
His teachers will have enough leeway
to use their strengths in the classroom,
he said.
“I think you achieve those goals by
allowing the teachers to have a great
deal of input,” he said.
Jack Burgess has also served as
assistant principal at Union Pines High
School in Cameron, as a teacher, coach.
and job counselor.
He cited much the same goal as
Bridges: the best possible education for
the student.
“It’s just going to take a tremendous
amount of cooperation and hard work to
meet that goal.”
“I’d like to increase the emphasis on
reading and certainly on science con
cepts and continue the programs that are
already in place with improvement in
test scores,” he said.
Burgess and Bridges replace outgoing
principals Emma Mims and Leo Salzer.
Mims retired last month and Salzer was
fired by the board of education despite a
recommendation he be continued by
then-superintendent Bob Nelson.
Burgess and Bridges were recom
mended by new superintendent Bill
Harrison at his first official board meet
ing Monday night.
He said 14 people applied for the
jobs; a search committee recommended
seven to him.
Sheriff’s hearing is over
Judge expected to decide next week
“A Coke and a smile”
Kristen Register takes a break from clowning
duties for a soft drink at Operation Celebration
in Raeford Sunday .The weather was hot, but a
crowd turned out at the old armory for a brief
ceremony to welcome home troops from Op
eration Desert Storm.
Mother, son build dream castle
T wo people in Hoke County are
working in their backyard to
make a dream come true.
That might not sound so special, if
you’ve ever built up a car or started a
small business in your garage, until
you know their dream is to build a
castle.
No, not a sand castle. And not a
wooden fort like the carpenter’s son
had when you were a kid. We’re
talking a real, live, 60-foot high castle
here.
Ingeborg Katolik, a German-born
artist living near Rockfish, said she
has been working on the castle’s
design for three years.
She said she got the dream of
building her own castle from her
childhood.
“I am raised on a castle as a child;
it’s called Schloss Solder,” she said,
located in northwest Germany.
Her mother served as a cook in the
castle.
Ingeborg’s son Gurgen (pro
nounced Yur-gen) has been building
the castle in the backyard almost
completely by himself for a year and
a half.
“We will make a little development
here with a garden,” Ingeborg said.
“I make it not for the normal
human being,” she said. “You have
enough people who like to travel and
see something beautiful.”
“I make a little paradise out here.”
She said the castle will serve
mainly as a bed-and-breakfast inn for
travelers willing to veer out of their
way for an unusual experience. An
upstairs suite will be Ingeborg’s
studio.
She plans to paint the ceiling
(See CASTLE, page 10)
Sheriff Alex Norton can rest for awhile.
The trial to decide whether or not he will
keep his job is over, Superior Court Judge
Donald W. Stephens said Wednesday he
would decide Norton’s fate by next week.
“It is one of the most difficult tasks that I
have ever been assigned for obvious rea
sons,” Stephens said at the end of closing
arguments Wednesday.
In finishing her case. District Attorney
Jean Powell said Norton lied on the witness
stand when questioned about court papers
which had been changed by one of his depu
ties. The petition charges Nonon told Sgt.
Josh Brown to illegally add his name to court
documents after it was discovered they had
been served by an underage deputy.
She said the sheriffs testimony didn’t
match that of several other wimesses; in
particular, that he ordered employee Sarah
Norris to draw up a list of papers—which
had been served by an underage deputy—for
Sergeant Josh Brown to take with him to the
Clerk of Court’s office.
“We would submit that they were very
credible witnesses and their testimony was
very consistent...with each other.”
Norris testified Norton ordered her to
draw up the list; several courthouse clerks
said on the stand they saw the same list.
“Sarah Norris was a person who was
obviously under a lot of pressure w hen she
was up here,” District Attorney Powell said,
“but...it was clear that she heard Sheriff
Norton tell Josh Brown to go up to the
courthouse.”
“It aU ties together.”
That was not the only time Norton lied,
Powell said.
“The sheriff said in his statement to the
SBI officer that Sergeant Brown was the
training officer for Robert Reaves.”
“The evidence corroborates with Sergeant
Brown’s testimony that he was not with
Roben Reaves.”
“I would question why under the shining
sun Josh Brown would say, after the
petition was filed, that he was with Rob-
(See SHERIFF, page5)
i
A castle in RoeWish rises behind its German creator, Gurgen Katolik. His mother, Ingeborg, designed the castle to
fulfill a childhood dream
Fire damages
Buie home
Lightning sparked a fire that dam
aged the old “Buie homeplace” off
Vass Road early this morning.
North Raeford and Raeford fire
departments and the Hoke Rescue
Squad were called out at about 2
a.m.. North Raeford Fire Chief
Johnny Baker said.
Baker said he believed Pauline
Buie lived in the house. She escaped
unharmed.
He said fire damage was limited
to the upstairs portion of the home,
but the downstairs was damaged by
water.
Baker said he believes lightning
ran in on the house’s wiring during a
thunderstorm just aftermidnighl. The
storm dropped three-quarters of an
inch of rain amid frequent lighming
strikes.
Baker said he was “kind of ex
pecting” a fire because of the fre
quent lighming.
Around Town
By Sam C. Morris
Summer is now with us and the tem
peratures have followed the season. The
90-dcgrec weather and the high humid
ity wears you out in no time. As this is
being written Monday afternoon it is
raining, but I don’t believe it will be
enough to wet the ground.
The forecast for the remainder of the
week calls for the temperatures during
the day to be in the 90s and the lows at
night will be in the 70s. One reporter
stated Monday that we should have fire
works on Thursday, July 4th; not fire
crackers, but thundershowers. As most
of us know with the high thermometer
readings we could have thunderstorms
any afternoon.
* * *
Many businesses will be closed
Thursday for the 4lh. This is one of the
holidays that hasn’t been moved to
Monday. According to the people who
keep the figures July 4th is the second
most traveled holiday of the year. Labor
Day is number one.
If you plan to be on the highways on
the 4th, please drive carefully. In this
day and lime you must drive defensively
e*ery step of the way.
Robert Gatlin came by the office last
week after the paper was out and said
that Lewis Upchurch was not on the
1920 football team. He said that they
played together and that Lewis didn’t
play five years of ball. 1 showed him the
picture, but Robert said it wasn’t Lewis
Upchurch.
I still would like to know who was on
the 1920 team and 1 would also like fo*'
someone to come by the office and iden
tify the people in the picture.
It would be a fine thing if everyone
would write the names on the back of
pictures. There are many old photos in
Hoke County that you can’t tell who the
people are in the pictures. So check your
photo album and pul the names on the
pictures. Yourgrandchildrcn may some
day wonder who you are?
* * *
Last Friday morning before going to
'he golf course with Tom Groome, pas
tor of the Raeford Presbyterian Church,
I left the office to get my mail. As I
headed up Elwood Avenue toward the
post office, I saw someone walking with
a lady on Elwood about in front of where
Wendell Young lives. Stopping in my
(Sec AROUND, page 12)