Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / Feb. 2, 1994, edition 1 / Page 1
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The ews Journal The 43rd issue of our 85th year RAEFORD, NORTH CAROLINA 25 CENTS Wednesday, February 2,1994 Scotland man nominated for House seat The political suspense is over. The House of Representatives District Executive Committee Thursday chose Dr. Douglas Yates Yongue of Laurinburg to fill the 16th House district seat for the re mainder of the current term. The seat was left vacant by auc tioneer and Realtor Danny De Vane, who stepped down Jan. 17 to be come the legislative liaison for the State Department of Transporta tion. Yongue, 56, will represent Cumberland, Hoke, Moore, Robeson and Scotland counties in the state House of Representatives until a candidate is elected this fall Yongue is a former superinten dent of the Maxton City Schools and former assistant superintendent of the Robeson County Schools. He is retired, but continues to work part-time as special projects ad ministrator for the Robeson County Schools. He and his wife, Mildred, have two grown children. The District Executive Committee’s nomination awaits approval by Gov. Jim Hunt. The committee consists of two demo crats from each of the five counties in the 16th district. Yongue has not filed for elec tion to the seat. The local school board race gained one candidate this week. Mary Love of Sanders Road has filed for election to the Hoke County Board of Education. Love is a sub stitute teacher in the Hoke County Schools. She filed after her son, Steven, was suspended from Hoke High School for the rest of the school year when he turned in a pocket- knife during a random search for weapons on the campus. Candidates for offices at the na tional and state levels: •Congressman Bill Hefner of Concord filed to continue repre senting the 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. •Representative Ronnie Sutton has filed to serve his second term as N.C. Representative in the 85th District. (See ELECTION, page 14) r * A N.' Fifth-graders Sonya Daniels (left) and Marquito Ellerbee catch up on some magazines while they wait to take reading tests. New program gets Idds reading Students at West Hoke Elementary School are lining up and waiting to take reading tests, librarian B.J. Shore says. And too many students wanting to prove knowledge of the books they are reading is a nice problem for teachers and librarians to have. Shore says. West Hoke’s Accelerated Reader program, imple mented just three weeks ago, has already seen its 155 volunteer students in second through fifth grades devour 409 books outside of class reading. Students receive points for the books they read, based on the difficulty and length of the text. Shore said. The students come into the library take tests about the books and at the end of the year the student with the highest number of points will be named to the national reading honor roll. “Most of them are fifth graders and some have been asking ‘ What about next year? ’” Shore says. “When kids are asking ‘Can 1 go to the library? Can I go to the library?’ — that’s a wonderful problem to have.” Shore says that while West Hoke has the only one of the national program in Hoke County, she does plan to meet with other teachers and librarians to encourage them to pursue Accelerated Reader. West Hoke students are scoring 82 percent on the tests, which Shore says is outstanding. Research has shown extra reading improves test scores in children scoring below grade level. Shore says, and there is even (See BOOKS, page 10) tl Makwaata Oxendine gets help from librarian B.J. Shore as they score her reading test. Shooting tied to Hoke robbery attempt? A man shot dead in self-defense Monday by a Fayetteville police officer is suspected to have fled a Raeford bank after attempting an armed robbery shortly beforehand. United Carolina Bank employees warded off an attempted armed robbery at the Sunset Branch, 203 Dickson St., in Raeford. Fayetteville police suspect the man involved in the Raeford robbery attempt to be Anthony Maurice Baldwin, 22, of Parkton — the same man the police believe one of their officers killed in self-defense after a shoot-out and an extended chase in Fayetteville. The FBI is investigating the possibility that Baldwin was in fact the man attempting to hold up the Raeford bank, but “no connection has been confirmed,” Fayetteville Police Lt. Rich ard Bryant said Tuesday. It looks pretty close, but we’re waiting on the FBI to verify,” Raeford Police Chief J.E. Murdock said. Murdock said a black male armed with a Vv i Grand opening Bo Abbott of Bo’s food store, which has been in Edinborough Shopping Center since August, welcomes customers and dignitaries to the store’s grand opening. The store brought 30 jobs to Hoke County. News-Journal reporter wins awards for news writing The North Carolina Press Asso ciation recently awarded former News-Journal reporter Wendy Brown for excellence in investiga tive reporting and news enterprise reporting in its annual journalism contest. Brown won a second-place award in the news enterprise category for her coverage of the Hoke County Board of Commissioners’ struggle to disband the city-county planning board. Brown also won third place for investigating claims that a child in the local Head Start center had been over- or under dosed on his medication, all to the knowl edge of several adults. The News-Journals coverage ol the events led to government investigations and the even- P Wendy Brown Inal firings of two teachers. fhe Press Association presented ihe awards at its annual banquet Thursday night in Chapel Hill. Carrying knife costs student graduation O n Jan. 13, Steven Calloway said he forgot to take his pocketknife out of his pocket before going to classes. Little did he know that by turning in the knife, he was hand ing over his chance to graduate with the Hoke County High School class of 1994 this spring. The Hoke County Board of Edu cation voted Thursday to suspend Calloway for the rest of the year. Calloway, 18, turned in the pock etknife he uses at his after-school job at an automobile body shop during a weapons search conducted by the school. Although Calloway says he didn’t mean to bring the knife on school property, he is sub ject to the school policy regarding weapons on campus, because the policy does not address the weapon carrier’s intent, Hoke County High School Principal Randy Bridges said Tuesday (See sidebar). “The only thing the board did was to uphold the recommenda tions of the (school) administra tion,” said board Chairman John D. McAllister. Bridges recommended the sus pension based on the school’s policy regarding possession of weapons on campus. The policy. Bridges said, requireslO days out- of-school suspension with recom- (See KNIFE, page 8) Rules aren’t ^negotiable’ The Hoke County Board of Education decision to suspend Steven Calloway for the rest of the year for carrying a knife is simply a matter of following policy, school officials say. The schools’ student handbook states that no one will be allowed to possess a “knife, razor, gun, club, sharp-pointed object or any object resembling a weapon” at school or at “any school activity, ei t her on or off cam pus.” The hand book also says a student’s first offense breaking the rule requires 10 days suspension, a parent con ference, a recommendation of long-term suspension, as well as a possibility of indictment. The school board, the coqnty schools superintendent and the high school principal have been criticized by some who say the consequences dealt to Calloway were too harsh. But those authori ties maintain the possibility that Calloway’s violation of school policy was unintentional and his record of good conduct do not enter into the matter. “I don’t think we can say good kids can bring drugs and weapons to school and bad kids cannot bring drugs and weapons to school,” (See RULES, page 6) County hires EMS director shotgun and wearing a long coat and a scarf covering his face entered the bank Monday morning around 10:45. The would-be robber “pointed the shotgun at the tellers. They dropped behind the partition and the man fled the bank in a small, blue car,” Murdock said. Bryant said Dalton came out of the Southern National Bank on Raeford Road in Fayetteville around 11:17 a.m. Monday after making a de posit into the CrimeStoppers account when he (See ROBBERY, page 14) Hoke County hired Mitchell Gerald Byrd as its new director of emergency services in a special closed county commissioners’ meeting Monday, County Manager Mike Wood said. Byrd, originally from Lumberton, tentatively plans to start work in the Hoke County position Feb. 21. His duties will include those of fire marshal, emergency management director, communi cations director and administrator for Emergency Medical Services. Byrd will be paid $30,158 per year. Wood said. “I’m looking forward to helping the rural fire departments and work ing with them on a daily basis,” Byrd said in a telephone interview Monday. Headdedaparticulargoal for his work as fire marshal is to help improve the rural fire depart ments’ insurance rating, which would lower homeowner’s fire in surance policy rates in Hoke County. The position has been held on an interim basis by Anthony Mobley since Jimmy Stewart resigned from it in February 1993. Byrd has been the Director of Emergency Services for Granville County since June 1991. He holds a master’s degree in fire science from the National Fire Institute and is working toward a bachelor of science degree in hazardous mate rials. Byrd and his wife, Gayle, have two teen-aged stepdaughters, Jen nifer and Allison Seate. Around Town By Sam C. Morris The warmer weather didn’t stay around long. The cold air came in again Sunday and it has been just above freezing so far this week. 1 noticed on the television news that some schools were closed or delayed because of ice Monday morn ing. We have been lucky so far this year with no ice on the roads. The light rain on Monday didn’t freeze. According to the forecast we are m for a cold week. The forecast Wednes day through Friday calls for the highs to be in the 30s and the lows in the teens. There is a chance of snow on Thurs day. Saturday it should warm up with the high in the 40s and the low in the 2()s. I hope the ground hog doesn’t see his shadow on Wednesday, but that he stays out and that will once again bring warm weather to the area. My golf game needs for me to get back on the course. * * * 0 * Last Monday afternoon (Jan.24), Mary Alice and 1 went down to New Bern to spend the night with our son, John. He had invited us to the opening ot the new building for the United Carolina Bank. The affair was from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. We arrived in New Bern about an hour before everything began and we waited as the tables and food were pre pared for the occasion. The new building is on Tryon Palace Drive in downtown New Bern. It is designed to blend with the historic looks of the city. As the people came into the bank we were intrcxJuced to .some ol them, but as the crowd became larger that was impossible. As John was introducing the “big wheels” of UCB and others who had (See AROUND, page 6)
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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