ews Journal No.42VoLl00 If it happened, it’s news to us Raeford & Hoke County n.c, Wednesday, January4,2006 Hoke third most dangerous county to drive in Treacherous weather, careless driving, not alcohol cited most often in fatal crashes By Victoriana Summers Staff writer Hoke County has sustained notoriety for the third, consecutive year as one of the most dangerous counties to drive in. According to AAA Carolinas Auto- mobileClub, Hoke ranked in the top three as one in 2004 in which a motorist had the “greatest chance” of being in a crash per mile traveled. Rural Bertie County in eastern North Carolina was named most dangerous followed by Hertford County in second. Bertie and Hertford placed for the first time in this hazard ous category. Columbus County ranked fourth followed by Harnett County in fifth place. However, statistics also released by the N.C. Highway Patrol office in Aberdeen last week indicated Hoke’s fatality rate decreased slightly from 14 killed on . 'adways in 2004 to 13 in 2004. Sgt. Tyrone Ross of the Highway Patrol re leased this data. In spite of recent widening of shoul ders on U.S. 401 and Calloway Road, extra traffic lights, stop-sign warnings and turn lanes installed, the rural roads of Hoke are still taking a fatal toll. Ross said the majority of Hoke’s wrecks in 2005 resulted from motorists experienc ing treacherous weather conditions or driving carelessly or recklessly. “None of these fatal accidents were 1 isted as a result of alcohol use,” Ross said. “This was based on our toxicology re ports. A lot of factors enter into the cause (See ACCIDENTS, page 7A) Computerized dispatching OK’d Kiss those scanners goodbye By Victoriana Summers Staff writer Hoke commissioners last night ^proved a new computerized dis patching system, ensuring there will soon be a lot of “dead air” at the local command center and on scanners monitored by residents across the county. Future emergency calls will be directly transmitted via a wireless computer system to law enforce ment, rescue and fire personnel rather than by “audible” radio, according to E-9-1-1 communica tions director Jimmy Stewart However, FirstHealth of the Carolinas mt*flic's will not be on the systeiii umess I'lrsiliealth is willing to pay for the software and computers required to oper ate it. “Our emergency calls have TliisWeek Rockfish’sQark runs for Senate page IB The year’s best and worst page3A Sixth arrest made in teen’s death page 7A Index Bulh 2B Business/Farm 6A Gdendar 3B (Jassifieds 3B,5B I )eaths 8A Kditorials 2A 1 ngagemcnts 2B Ix-gals 4B RsJigion 2B VluH)! nieiui.s 6B StK ials 2B S[M)rts 4A Weddings 2B We’re on the web at www.thenews-journal.com Read by 3,000 each week grown ten percent per year,” Stew art said of demand for services. “In ten years, we have doubled our responses. “It would take a load off our dispatching for routine stuff which is becoming more of a burden. We could attend to more hot calls. “Right now, criminals can figure out where everything is at in the county.” Rather like a military stealth bomber evading radar detection by an enemy, the mobile dispatch system would prevent criminals from intercepting the location and nature of an emergency call. Mobile data terminals (MDTs) capability would also prevent criminals from monitoring the activities of the Hoke SherifFs Office when a crime or drug bust may be in progress. According to E-9-1-1 statistics, Hoke communications handled 65,000 calls requesting emer gency service from January 1 to December30,2005 that were pro cessed via radio transmissions. Other activities such as warrant information and record keeping is currently tying up the dispatch system. With MDT, telecommu nicators could inform law officers in their vehicles more efficiently (See DISPATCH, page 5A) Tim Thacker, with a plane similar to the one in which he crashed in Florida two days before Christmas. Local pilot crash-lands in Florida orange grove By Victoriana Summers Staff writer Raeford charter pilot Tim Thacker feels like a Christmas miracle, surviving withou. .serious injuries from a crash-landing in a Florida orange grove. “This is not going to be good,” Thacker said his last thought was before crash landing on December 23, feeling his plane flip tail-over-nose with him still in the cockpit. “I knew it was not going to be nice. It was a shot in the dark for me to land safely. I braced myself for the worst, but I remain^ conscious after the plane lost power, and I landed. “I said to myself, ‘this is really going to hurt,’ but I did not want to think about dying,” he said. “I was able to climb out of a window after turning off the engine so it would not explode. I know I was a pretty lucky guy.” Thacker — who also did not strike any homes, motorists or pe destrians said he has done a lot of soul-searching about the hereafter and life since returning to North Carolina. Employed by a private charter service in Raleigh, the 42-year-old Thacker was on his way to fly skydivers at a national collegiate parachuting event in Lake Wales, Florida at the time of the fluke accident. “My children, 12-year-old Al- lie and 14-year-old Morgan, were supposed to have been flying with me,” the divorced Thacker said. “Morgan had some sort of (See CRASH, page ?A) Leaders confident ethanol plant will get needed state, federal fiinds By Victoriana Summers Staff writer Jack Carlisle, founder of Clean Bum Fuels, LLC toured the Hoke County Regional In dustrial Park near Dundarrach off N.C. 20 last week, obtaining a water sample from nearby neighbor Edgar Patterson on Arabia Road. “We are committed to es tablish our plant in Hoke,” Carlisle said. Not required to do so by the state, Carlisle took the water sample merely for com mercial purposes. He said it will determine what mix in the water can be converted to sugar as the com is converted to ethanol. Carlisle is planning the $100 million plant that will serve as a manufacturer of an alternative fuel source instead of gasoline. “No water is the same,” Carlisle said. “If the water is right at the site, it could speed up the process for the com to be converted more efficiently. “We just need to know what chemical compounds are in the water around the site for the plant so we will know what formula we will need to mix the water.” Informally meeting Carlisle at the site, Hoke commissioner Charles V. Dan iels showed Car- lisle around the neighborhood, introducing him to Patterson. Daniels, like Carlisle, is dis cussing potential funding on the state level on behalfof the Hoke board of commissioners. “A lot of money has been (See ETHANOL, page 6A) jack Carlisle, founder of Clean Burn Fuels, at the ethanol plant site. le iitws News 4 Journal Other stuff Sports center ready to open doors Indoor soccer, batting cage, rock climbing featured By Ken MacDonald Publisher New Years Day I got up and re-read an article in The Sun entitl^ “Secrets of Pronoia - How the World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings.” It’s not really an article on positive thinking so much as an exercise in acknowledging that most everything in our lives goes right. Your blood flows, the article says, the air is just the right mixture of gases for our lungs, the electricity in our houses flow with a flick of the switch, our pillows are soft, our water is clean, we use machines people now long dead worked their whole lives to perfect, even our hygiene products have been carefully tested for safety. So why do we concentrate on the things that go afoul? “Let’s say it’s now 9:30 a.m. You’ve been awake for two hours, and a hundred things have already gone right for you. If three of those hundred things had not gone right - your toaster was broken, the hot water wasn’t hot enough, there was a stain on the pants you wanted to wear - you might feel that the universe was (See OTHER STUFF, page 8A) By Victoriana Summers Staff writer When someone wants to kick off a soccer game in HokeCounty in Febmary, it won’t matter if there is snow on the ground, according to George Fredericks, co owner of the new indoor Sandhills Sports Center in western Hoke. Fredericks said SSC would provide athletic ac tivities and recreation for youth and adults in Hoke and sunounding counties. The company will also enhance county sporting opportunities that may be currently lacking in Hoke’s Parks and Recreation de partment, he added. “We have skylights throughout the building to bring the feeling of the outdoors in tor our athletes in a climate-controlled environment,” Fredericks said. “We have an authen tic-looking rock-climbing wall that soars 30 feet to scale. It even has the texture of rock. “We also will offer an extensive sporting goods equipment center with special items for sale,” he said. “In our second phase, we will have outride fields for tennis, youth football, cheerleading camps and volleyball.” Thus, two y^ars after Fredericks announced that SSC would be op)ening the (See SPORTS, page 5A)

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