2A THE NEWS-JOURNAL
Raeford, N.C.
June 12,1996
Viewpoints
Project Graduation
deserves accolades
Juvenile crime is on the rise. Even in places
like Hoke County, young offenders are ar
rested daily — thefts, robbery, drugs.
Hoke County has programs to reach at-risk
children — alternatives to detention, the
alternative school, the youth task force.
But what about countless children who are
not identified as “at-fisk”? What about pro
grams for those kids?
One program, held on graduation night,
showed the difference the community can
make.
Thanks to a group of parents, Hoke’s
teenagers were provided a safe alternative to
the usual graduation-night drinking, carousing
and fighting.
While there are several organizations
geared toward teenagers in Hoke County,
none show the commitment of the entire
county like Project Graduation.
Businesses and individuals helped foot the
bill, and volunteers helped make the night a
success. Parents solicited donations and
Letters
prizes. Everyone got involved in the effort to
make graduation night memorable, fun — and
safe. The parents, businesses and volunteers
responsible for months of planning and orga
nizing should be commended for their efforts.
They did a wonderful job.
But it shouldn’t stop there. The long, lazy
summer months stretch before high school
students. Keeping those kids out of the danger
of the streets, away from drugs and alcohol is
an on-going challenge for parents and commu
nity leaders.
Parents should be challenged to get their
kids involved in other projects available — in
a Parks and Recreation team, in a scout troop,
in a church youth program.
Hoke County needs more programs like
Project Graduation. It needs more people
dedicated to students. It can be done —just
ask the people involved with Project Gradua
tion.
—Amy Clarkson
■This curfew law worries me. What are we going to do W'ey Pass
legislation saying we have to be good parents?!
Bill protects hog farms
Carolyn Phillips will
be missed
To the Editor:
As I read and heard the many
positive things said about city
manager, Tom Phillips in the
wakes of his leaving, 1 became
afraid that Carolyn Phillips might
leave Raeford without her well-
deserved accolades.
Carolyn Phillips has height
ened my appreciation for the joke
about the pig and chicken’s dis
cussion to personally donate to a
ham and egg breakfast. While there
are many people who donate eggs
to keep Hoke Reading/Literacy
Council functioning, few donate
ham.
As a volunteer tutor, Carolyn
gives the ham. Two nights a week,
she gives her time, talent and pa
tience to teaching an adult to read.
She expands our basic curriculum
to ensure that her student’s per
sonal reading goals are included.
She brings a sense of humor to the
lessons that is deeply appreciated
by her student.
Phillips is a senior tutor and our
One-to-One Volunteer of the Year.
We will always be grateful that
she became a tutor and wish the
best for her.
Sincerely,
Barbara J. Buie
Executive Director
We welcome
your letters
Letters to the editor are encour
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taste and brevity. Letters should
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nal by noon on the Tuesday of
the publication week. Due to
space limitations, we will only
print three letters a month from
an individual.
Farmers will lose in audit
Most of the decisions made by
the local elected officials 1 have
supported.
However, one of the most re
cent decisions made by the county
commissioners is a puzzlement. It
is hard for me to believe that four
people with no ax to grind would
agree for a group of so-called spe
cialists to come into the county for
the sole purpose of auditing any
one, company or individual, who
has equipment valued at $50,000
or more. The individuals doing the
auditing do not have long, white
beards or travel with people who
have wings coming out of their
shoulders. No, indeed, they do this
for profit—25 percent of the take.
To take such action, the com
missioners must have understood
they were saying to the company
or individual that you are not trust
worthy. You didn’t list your equip
ment for tax purposes correctly.
Simply put, you are a liar. Man,
that is heavy stuff for neighbor
against neighbor.
When 1 visited Dale Teal, who
heads the tax office, to get my
facts straight, he assured me that
this was a first-rate outfit. Accord
ing to Dale they had done wonders
in making people come forward
who had cheated on the listing of
their equipment. Furthermore, it
was all within the law, which 1
suppose makes it right. The folks
, A View from
^ the Country
Raz Autry
from Charlotte must have done a
whale of a selling job. Apparently
most of the commissioners or the
county manager had second
thoughts about such action.
As Dale and 1 continued to talk,
he showed me a letter from the
ones doing the auditing which said
to an individual, “You have cor
rectly listed your equipment.” Now
you must admit that is nice and
says something for the company.
Being a skeptic, I want to see the
letter which says, “You didn’t list
your equipment correctly, there
fore you owe the county x number
of dollars, of which 1 will get 25
percent.” Dale Teal is a fine man,
trustworthy and does an excellent
job for Hoke. The information he
gave me was strictly above board
and is public record. Therefore 1
have nothing but compliments to
throw his way.
While I say this, 1 find it neces
sary to challenge him on another
statement. He said, “The farmers
are the only ones complaining to
me.” I can well understand. Farm
ers have a defensive attitude and
rightly so. In this day and time,
they have no one to speak for
them. In times past it was differ
ent. From 80 to 90 percent of the
American people were engaged in
agriculture. Today less than 2 per
cent feed and cloth America and
most of the world.
Anyone with one eye and half
sense knows you can not use the
same yardstick on farm equipment
as you do in other areas. If a
S150,000 cotton picker bums and
the farmer has enough engineer
ing knowledge to take parts from
several other older pickers and
rebuild it, is he to pay tax on a new
picker? Most tractors have inter
changeable parts. Some times it
takes three old tractors to get one
that works. How do you pay tax on
such a piece of equipment? Sure
they are mad and 1 don’t blame
them. As for me, I am not on the
$50,000 list. If I am put on it, I will
sell my equipment to the gentle
men for $40,000 and they can re
sell it for 50 and make themselves
10 grand.
Hoke County has been a spe
cial place for my family and me. I
have enjoyed my years here. Un
fortunately, we are going the way
of the world. Instead of letting
trust count for something, a deci
sion has been made which says it
is more profitable to be a county of
greed.
Inoculation protects Clinton
“Inoculation.”
Remember that word. You are
going to hear it a lot of times
during this upcoming presidential
campaign.
And the political meaning of
that word might be the most im
portant determinant of the result
of the Clinton-Dole contest this
fall.
Why is the word so important?
Inoculation in health terms
means gaining immunity from a
disease by taking an injection of a
mild form of it. You get a little bit
sick, build up your body defenses,
and when you are exposed to the
real disease, your body throws it
One on One
D. G. Martin
off.
In politics, inoculation means
about the satne thing.
When you run for political of
fice these days you can expect one
thing for sure. Your opponent is
going to run a negative campaign
against you. (He is going to do it
even if you start out the “best of
friends.”)
Knowing that is going to hap
pen, if you are a wise candidate
you get prepared for the negative
campaign that always comes.
One of the most prudent things
you can do is to inventory all the
“bad things” in your background.
Put them on the table and evaluate
their potential negative impact
when they are disclosed by your
opponent. And then consider
whether or not you can minimize
the damage by taking some kind
of action now.
You know that your opponent
will put the very worst slant on the
information if you let him be the
(See MARTIN, page 3A)
RALEIGH — Is your back to
the political wall? .Are the politi
cians rallying against you juM bo
cause your industry has dum|uil
tons of hog waste into the state’s
river.s, thus killing millions ol lish
and ruining the tourism season tot
hundreds of businesses ’
Then you need lots i>l li'hby
ists, lots of campaign cash aiul a
cooker so you can ser\e a barbe
cue pork lunch some day outside
the Ixgislatise Building. Do that,
and legislators ill quickly torgei
that the folks back home are tired
of swimming with the teces and
breathing hog odor.
The hog industry, which h.is
been on the defensive all y car. has
found a way to render meaning
less all of the reforms that w ill K
passed by a General .Assembly
that is trying to look sensitive Ui
environmental concerns The in
dustry proptrscs to have farms in
spected not by environmental regu
lators, but by its best friends in
government
The industry turned to its old
friend from the Blue Ribbon Study
Commission on Animal Waste,
Rep. John Brown, R-W'ilkes Ihs
bill says that a number ol agencies
thatconsult with farmers will regu
late and inspect for env ironmental
problems. The bill says that the
Division of Environmental Man
agement will not inspect farms,
unless a major problem is found
first.
If such a provision became law,
the state would be asking consult
ants who have always worked with
farmers to suddenly become in
spectors who must regulate them.
There are also serious questions
about the ability of these consult
ants to conduct the inspections
adequately.
Brown defends his action say
ing, absurdly, that DEM failed to
protect the state’s waters from last
year’s hog spills and do not de
serve another chance. (That’s ab
surd because DEM didn’t have the
manpower to protect rivers from
hog waste last year, and doesn’t
now, either. They need more
people.)
Brown, a chicken farmer, prob
ably doesn’t have to worry about
voter backlash at home. It’s not a
bigproblem in the mountains. But
Sen. Beverly Perdue, D-Onslow,
who sponsored a similar provi
sion in the Senate, has had to back
away from it as public awarene.ss
of this scam grew. Unlike Brown,
her constituents are tired of being
at the terminus of all the floating
hog poop. Now she has re-written
her bill to say that DEM will con
duct the inspections annually and
that water and soil officials will
also check farms for environmen
tal problems when they conduct
their annual inspections.
Ms. Perdue tried to argue that
DEM doesn’t have the manpower
to do the inspections. There’s some
truth to that. But her solution to
that problem was not plausible. It
was akin to relieving the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission of author
ity to inspect nuclear power plants
and giving the job to Good Humor
Watchinu
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