The
ews
Journal
The 14(h issue of our 83rd year
RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
25 CENTS
Wednesday, July 17,1991
Raeford Hotel may be auctioned; owner entitled to hearing
The Raeford Hotel, the downtown building
whose empty shell is barely a reminder of its past
as center of Raeford society, may be about to
change hands.
The hotel may be auctioned at the courthouse
steps following foreclosure.
Owner Reginald Dawson, a former Fayetteville
pharmacist who now lives in Jacksonville,
Florida, has a right to a foreclosure hearing this
morning. He has failed to pay off a $70,(X)() loan
from a Fayetteville bank which allowed him to
buy the building.
If Dawson does not show cause why the
building shouldn’t be auctioned off to pay his
debt, the building will be sold on the Hoke
Courthouse steps August 7.
JJiere is speculation that First Citizens Bank,
with a branch on Campus Avenue, would like to
move to the Raeford Hotel lot. I he bank has not
made a formal statement it would like to move.
But that would mean tearing down the old
building, which Raeford Downtown Revitaliza
tion Commission President Kay Thomas called
one of the cornerstones of Raeford’s architecture.
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SBI agents called in bloodhounds from Cumberland and cotland counties
to aid in the search for James Edward Hunt Friday.
Nonetheless, she lent support to the idea.
It s heartbreaking to think of losing that
building, but my responsibility to the community
is to revitalize downtown,” she said.
She called the bank’s apparent wishes “a very
positive comment on downtown.”
Downtown Revitalization has worked with
(See HOTEL, page 4)
Assistant principals
system-wide lose duties
Revert to teachers; may reapply for jobs
H oke County assistant principals re
verted to being teachers, at least for
awhile, last week.
Hoke County’s new superintendent of
schools. Bill Harrison, decided to let princi
pals choose their assistants anew.
“We’re allowing principals to interview
assistant principals that have been on board
and interview people in the county that have
principal’s certification,” Harrison said.
“We’re not looking outside.”
Assistant principals, Harrison said, are
teachers with extra duties assigned. Any
assistant principals who don’t get their as
signments back will still keep their jobs as
teachers.
He said no one would be fired due to any
changes.
The assistant principals will be allowed to
reapply for their old jobs.
Harrison originally made the decision in
order to accomodate two new principals who
will run Hoke’s new middle schools.
“We had a couple of new' principals coming
in, ...it came up, would they be able to select
their assistant principals?” he said.
“We felt that would be fair to them.”
When Jim Spencer, principal of Scurlock
Elementary, announced he was quitting, it
would only be fair, Harrison said, to give his
replacement the same chance.
Then he made the decision system-wide.
That way, all principals would get the chance
the new ones would have, and all assistant
principals would face the same risks.
“I’m expecting a lot out of the principals
and I want them to have a say in who helps
them produce for me.”
One principal, Mitch Tyler of Hoke County
High School, has already re-appointed his
three assistant principals; one of those, Tony
DiiNapoli, has already taken a job in
Cumberland County, how'ever.
“It’s going to give the folks an opportunity
to develop leadership within their groups,”
Tyler said.
He realized some principals had “some
tough decisions to be made,” he said, “but I
can see where a lot of positive things can
happen.”
“Sometimes when you walk into situations,
you don’t have a lot of say-so about assistant
principals or teachers,” he said.
Tyler said he saw the move as an attempt
“to give the principals as much opportunity to
institute change in the fairest way possible.’’
...had a little lamb
Judy Baker, 13, accepts delivery of a little lamb to raise ber, and possibly in the Stale Fair in October. The lambs
as a 4-H project. Three Hoke County youths will enter were provided by the Fayetteville Jaycees. Also getting
their lambs in a regional show in Fayetteville in Septem- lambs are Megan Willis and Matthew Hendrix.
Drug bust
nets guard
2ii(l man escapes
An SBI drug bust Friday morn
ing caught a Hoke Correctional
Institute guard with 12 pounds of
marijuana.
Harold Kellis, 40, of Saunders
Road, Raeford, was charged with
conspiracy to possess marijuana,
possession with intent to sell or
deliver marijuana, maintaining a
drug vehicle and carrying a con
cealed weapon, said Ray Davis,
area director of the State Bureau
of Investigation in Fayetteville.
Davis himself was in the field
searching for a second man who
escaped the drug bust in a pickup
truck, then abandoned it and ran
on foot through fields and woods
near the 401 Sand Co.’s sandpit.
Searchers for the man, James
Edw'tird Hunt of Raeford, included
sheriff’s deputies, Hoke-Robeson
Drug Task Force members, state
highway patrolmen, Raeford po
lice and several SBI agents.
Hunt was spotted on several
occasions as a helicopter and air
plane circled above the sandpit
and surrounding woods and fields.
He appeared to be heading to
ward Rockfish Creek.
(See CRIME, page .‘i)
Chemical sellers gather here
for preview of new regulations
Representatives from sellers of fertilizers and
other chemicals from across the state gathered
yesterday at Hoke County’s Farm Chemical, Inc.
to learn about new regulations likely to go into
effect soon affecting the handling of chemicals.
The new regulations would require methods
and equipment to ensure that ground and surface
water are not contaminated by fertilizer or pesti
cides handled by dealers or large fimms.
Dooie Leach, president of Farm Chemicals,
said he has been working in that direction for
over two years at the company’s site on Highway
20.
To introduce the industry to the regulations,
which have been proposed in the General Assem
bly, state officials decided to come to Leach’s
operation so industry officials can get a look at
what they will have to do.
Concrete dikes surround tanks of Leach’s
chemicals; Cape Fear Construction of Lumbenon
tore up Farm Chemical’s old concrete apron at
the end of last year and laid a new loading pad
designed to funnel any spillage into a drain where
it can be pumped back to the plant’s mixing
Around Town
r
By Sam C. Morns
The weather has been hot for the
past week and over the weekend
The thermometer has registered in
the mid or high 90s during the day
and the lows at night have been in the
70s. The humidity has been high
during this period and the heat index
makes it feel like it is over 100 de
grees. We also have been missing
the afternoon thundershowers that
have hit other parts of this section of
the state.
The forecast calls for cooler
weaiherlhe first of the week with the
highs being in the 80s and the low s at
night in the 60s. Thursday it will
wami up again and by the weekend
we should have 9()-degree weather
in the daytime and the lows again
will be in the 70s.
Most people don’t like the weather
this hot, but after getting my electric
bill for July, 1 would predict that the
stockholders of CP&L are happy.
♦ * *
1 was out of tow'll Monday, July 8
and when I came to the office Tues
day 1 found the following note in the
office.
Sam,
I came by this a.m. Sorry to hear
Mary Alice’s sister is ailing. I hope
that her condition improves. Some
Industry officials look over changes made at Farm
Chemicals, Inc. to contain accidental spills.
facility.
"AH the materials are diked, so if there’s a spill
at any of the tanks, it would be recovered and
recvcled,” Leach said.
A spill would result in “no net loss of any
nutrients,” he said.
(Sec CHEMICALS, page 10)
day 1 will catch you in the office.
Come sec us when you are in Ra
leigh.
Joe Dupree
Sorry to have missed you, Joe.
Maybe if you could arrive in Raeford
and the office before 9 a.m. you
would catch me in the office. For
readers w ho don’t know, Joe Dupree
is a retired di.strict court judge and he
lived in Raeford for many years. As
many grandparents do when they
retire, he and his wife, Helen, moved
to Raleigh to be near their grandchil
dren.
♦ ♦ ♦
One day last week YoungerSnead
came by the office and wanted to see
(See AROUND, page 12)