The
ews
Journal
The 16th issue of our 83rd year
RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
25 CENTS
Wednesday, July 31,1991
Judge to issue decision Monday in hearing to remove Hoke sheriff
A C • _ io -I -n j__- I i__.i ^
A Superior Court judge will decide whether
Sheriff Alex Norton will keep his job Monday
morning, District Attorney Jean Powell said this
morning.
The hearing of a petition to remove Norton
from his job—delayed for several weeks—will
resume 10 a.m. Monday when Judge Donald W
Stephens from Raleigh returns to the Hoke
County Counhouse to deliver his decision.
Powell and County Attorney Duncan
McFadyen filed a petition to removed the sheriff
from office for “willful and habitual neglect and
refusal to perform the duties of his office
and... willful misconduct and maladministration
in office.”
The petition includes claims the sheriff;
• ordered a deputy to falsify records,
• failed to pursue criminals who shot up a
nightclub as he watched,
(See SHERIFF, page 10)
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This is just the first stack librarians have to go through as they add bar codes to their books. Connie Marlowe (left) is helped by Sally Markham.
Library computerizing check-out services
The Hoke County Public Library is
going high-tech!
Beginning in mid-August, the library
will be placing bar codes — those black
and white stripes that computers can read
— on its entire collection of books.
Library Director Connie Marlowe says
the system of bar codes will provide:
• faster check-in and check-out
• easier renewals
• easier telephone renewals
• automatic renewals’ for vacations
• the ability for librarians to determine if
a book is on the shelf or when it is due
back.
To switch over to the system, the Library
will be closed Monday, August 12 through
Thursday, the 15th.
All library customers will be issued a
new library “credit card.” The cards are
free, but duplicates are $3.
When customers come in to check out a
book, the librarian will wave a wand across
the bar code on the book, and voilal, the
transaction is complete.
Customers will also be able to use a
computer to find books on subjects they’re
interested in.
The bar coding system is being paid for
with a $50,000 grant for Anson, Hoke,
Montgomery, Moore and Richmond coun
ties. Each county provided $10,000 in
matching funds.
For the last five years, each county’s
library has been typing book titles into
(See LIBRARY, page 10)
18 to take part in first
leadership program
Eighteen people w ill takepan in Hoke
County’s first leadership institute.
Leadership Hoke will begin at the
end of August and continue through
April, said co-organizer Mary Archie
McNeill.
McNeill, who heads the Hoke County
campus of Sandhills Community Col
lege, said participants will learn leader
ship techniques such as parliamentary
procedure and how to motivate volun
teers.
“This will probably have the biggest
impact on the future of Hoke this de
cade,” she said.
The program is co-sponsored by the
Chamberof Commerce and Sandhills; it
was advertised largely through the
Chamber, McNeill said.
The purpose of the course is to “pro
duce informed citizens who can assume
leadership roles in the community,” she
said.
“We hope they’ll be leaders on the
Chamber board,” she said. “We hope
they’ll run for city council.”
The institute will begin with a two-
day retreat in Mtxrrc County August 29
and 30. Tlic retreat will be led by profes
sional instructors.
“Each participant will learn about
"This will probably have the
biggest impact on the future of
Hoke this decade”—Mary
Archie McNeill
himself, his strengths and weaknesses in
leading others,” McNeill said.
Besides getting to know each other
on an equal and personal level, she said,
participants will identify what they think
Hoke County’s problems and assets are.
Each participant will take on a prob
lem specific to Hoke County, study it
and, at the end of the course, offer solu
tions to the problem.
“They will identify needs and prob
lems specifically identifiable in Hoke
County.”
“We’re going to deal with issues,”
she said.
After the retreat, the group will meet
one day each month until April. Each
day will be dedicated to learning about a
different aspect of the area; for instance,
in their first meeting, participants will
hear from several local historians.
At the end of the monthly sessions,
(See ACADEMIC, page 4)
Gravestone con artist
to pay last of victims
A con artist who bilked over 20
Hoke County customers out of
money for gravestones has been
ordered to pay back the last of his
victims.
Donald Reid Nelson, 48, of
Spartanburg, South Carolina, was
convicted Wednesday of eight
counts of misdemeanor larceny in
the crime.
He was ordered to pay back a
total of $12,355.96 to people who
never received gravestones and
mausoleums. He has paid back
around $16,000 in a previous
judgement.
Nelson is to pay his victims
back over a period of a year and a
half.
IfNelson falters in hispayments,
he stands to spend up to 16 years i n
jail; he was sentenced to two years
suspended for each of the eight
charges.
Nelson committed the crimes
while heoperated Sandhills Monu
ment Corporation and Highland
Biblical Gardens between January
1987 and September 1989.
Nel-son was arrested a year ago
in Cowpens, South Carolina,
charged with 27 counts of obtain
ing property by false pretenses,
and extradited to Hoke County to
stand trial.
‘The majority of the victims
were senior citizens,” Detective
Weaver Patterson said at the time,
“and all victims had recently lost a
loved one. They were in a vulner
able state of emotion at the time.”
Witness in sheriff’s
trial not guilty
of shooting
A major witness in the petition
to remove Hoke County Sheriff
Alex Norton from office was found
not guilty Thursday in a case that
(See COURT, page 4)
Zoning scorned
in Quewhiffle
Opposition stiffens since
recent Rocldish meeting
R esidents of western Hoke County appeared wary of
plans to divide the county into zoning districts at a
meeting Monday night in the Pine Hill Volunteer Fire
Department building.
The meeting, the second of three scheduled by the county,
was held to explain zoning to county residents and get their
input before county commissioners vote on the plan.
But some among the crowd of 40 to 50 people who came to
Monday’s meeting felt their input wasn’t valued highly.
“This is going to pass whether anyone wants it or not, isn’t
it?” one man asked near the end of the meeting.
“I won’t say that,” County Commission Chairman Wyatt
Upchurch answered. “I think most of the people in this county
want it.”
“If we have enough opposition that the board feels like we
need to do some changing, then we’ll change it,” he said.
If commissioners vote for zoning and the people don’t like
it, “then don’t vote for those people the next time out,” Com
missioner Tom Howell said. Zoning laws could be repealed,
too, he said.
Howell said he supports zoning.
One woman said she felt it was unfair that she could invest
in land in Hoke County “and then someone in Raeford comes
up and says this is what you can and cannot do. I don’t call
that freedom.”
“I hate that it’s construed as a posse coming up out of
Raeford and changing things because it’s not,” Panic Zimmer,
Hoke’s planner, answered.
The Planning and Development Commission, which drew
up the proposed zoning law, is made of four members from
Raeford, four from Hoke County and two from the one-mile
wide extraterritorial ring around Raeford.
Another asked if there was anything important in the plan
that had not been explained to the crowd.
“We’ve got no reason to try to hide anything because it’ll
come out in the end and it’ll end up coming out of our hides
in the long run,” Zimmer said.
Several people pressed Zimmer to say what he would report
to the Planning Board about the consensus of the crowd. They
wanted to know whether he thought the crowd was in favor of
zoning.
“Yes,” Zimmer told The News-Journal after the meeting
ended. “They are in favor of zoning but I believe they were
concerned about the process itself. But I do feel that we
addressed most of their questions.”
“As long as they feel that they have input, I feel that they
are for it,” he explained. “I feel we’ve had good interaction at
our meetings.”
What will be gained?
People at the meeting had one question in common: what
(See ZONING, page 5)
Around Town
By Sam C. Morris
The rains came to Raeford last Satur
day morning and it has been raining off
and on ever since that time. I was told
Sunday morning that it has rained over
three inches and since that lime it must
have rained another inch. It was raining
as this column was written Monday af
ternoon and the forecast called for rain
on Tuesday.
The temperature is at a normal read
ing with the cloud cover and all the rain.
It has been in the high 80’s and low 90’s
for the weekend and Monday. This has
Slopped the air conditioners from run
ning all the lime.
The forecast calls for the rains to slop
on Wednesday. The thermometer will
register in the 80’s during the day
Wednesday and Thursday and the lows
will be near 70. Friday and Saturday the
temperatures will once again hii the 90’s
during the day and the lows will be in the
70’s.
The weather and crop growing has
been hitting it off very well. 1 don’t
know how much more rain the farmers
can take. It is time to take in tobacco and
the cotton crop is blooming and the
weed is large and green. Wet tobacco
doesn’t cure as well as the dry leaf and
the heavy stalk could hamper the growth
of the cotton boll.
One farmer staled this week that the
price of grain was not enough to make
money for the farmer. 1 heard on televi
sion that some of the grain wasn’t selling
for enough to take it out of the field.
Yes, the farmer has to gamble every
year with his crops.
♦ * *
According to Raz Autry the peach
season is aboutover. Maybe the orchard
wil I have a few peaches left, but most of
them will close shop this week.
Watermelons and cantaloupes arc
selling at most of the road-side stands.
(See AROUND, page4)