The
ews
J ournal
Hoke Count3^s newspaper since 1905
No.32Vol.llO
Raeford & Hoke County n.c.
Wednesday, October 14,2015
Heart patients, children avoid this field
By Catharin Shepard
Staff writer
By day, the woods off of Alex Baker
Road don’t hold anything more frightening
than pine cones and the occasional squirrel,
but after dark, the innocent-looking camp
ground is transformed into a heart-pound
ing fright-fest.
It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to
tour the scary trail dubbed the “Field of
Screams,” “depending on how fast you
run,” organizer Jessica Lee said.
Lee’s family runs Gillis Hill Road
Produce and for several years hosted the
“Field of Screams” in the farm’s com maze.
However, they ran into a snag and had to
look for a new location.
“The corn has gotten where it won’t
grow, so we switched to a wooded area,”
Lee said.
Plus, people who were running wildly
to try and escape the scares would often go
tearing straight through the corn, damaging
the maze itself, she added.
So the Field of Screams moved into
Hoke County, setting up shop on the same
property that serves as the campground for
the Hoke County Wagon Train during the
summer.
At the Field of Screams, a guide steers
those bold enough to walk into the un
known through a haunted woods tour.
“It’s basically a trail. It’ll be guided with
a guide and we’ll try to scare you,” Lee
said.
The trail includes different costumed
characters frightening the guests, who move
through different scenes - like a spooky
(See FIELD OF SCREAMS, page 6)
From left, Dill (Jenna Howland), Jem (Bobby Beeler) and Scout (Hannah Sousa) talk about Boo Radley.
Hoke High presents
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
Atticus Finch (Justin Heath) tells the kids not to bother Boo Radley.
(Ken MacDonald photos)
The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written
by Harper Lee, is a classic story read in English
classes across America. Although the book
was written in 1960, the students of the Hoke
/J County High School Drama Club are finding
that many of the book’s themes still ring true in
today’s world.
In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Scout Finch
(Hannah Sousa) and her older brother Jem
(Bobby Beeler) live in sleepy Maycomb, Ala
bama, spending much of their time with their
friend Dill (Jenna Howland) and spying on their
reclusive and mysterious neighbor. Boo Radley
(See MOCKINGBIRD, page 6)
Voting in city
begins next week
6 vie for City Council
By Catharin Shepard
Staff writer
One-Stop early voting for the Raeford municipal
election starts next week at the Hoke County Board of
Elections office.
Absentee one-stop early voting will begin on Thurs
day, October 22 and ends Saturday, October 31. Election
Day is Tuesday, November 3.
Registered voters who live in the city of Raeford will
have the opportunity to cast ballots for three of six can
didates running for election to the Raeford City Council.
Incumbents running for reelection are Robert “Bobby”
Conoly, John Jordan and Mary Neil King and candidates
running for election to the council are Shirley Hart,
Jeremy Hollingsworth and Jackie McEean.
The five-member board is nonpartisan and members
serve four-year terms. Council members Charles Allen
and Wayne Willis and Mayor John K. McNeill are not
up for election this year. Their terms expire in 2017.
There are no county positions up for election this year.
Next year will be a much busier year for elections in
Hoke County. Besides the presidential and state level
(See ELECTION, page 6)
Treatment plant operating
By Catharin Shepard
Staff writer
After a bout of near-record rainfall caused operators
to delay the start date for Hoke County’s new wastewater
treatment plant, utilities company Envirolink was able to
start up the plant’s operations for the first time late last
week.
“They started up the first two pumps, and they were
going to start bringing in the sludge for feeding about
11 a.m. yesterday,” Hoke County Manager Eetitia Edens
said Tuesday.
(See TREATMENT, page 6)
This Week
Freedom East church celebrates 150 years
Browsing the Files 2 Catharin Shepard
-r J o Staff writer
Classifieds 8
^ Ereedom East Presbyterian Church was al-
Editorials 3 ready almost a century old when Nezzie Eergu-
^ son started attending services there.
“When I was a little girl back in the ‘50s,
that’s when I started coming,” she recalled.
Her grandfather, Willie Purcell, and his father,
John David Purcell, were members at the church,
as were many other locally well-known families
and individuals. Eerguson and her sister learned
to teach Sunday school at Ereedom East Presby
terian, and over the years, their family and many
others marked important events in their lives at
the church located on Doc Brown Road.
The church’s history dates back to the last
years of the Civil War, and it’s one of the oldest
churches in Hoke County, Pastor Willie Mc-
Caskill said. This year, Ereedom East Presby
terian is celebrating a big milestone: its 150th
anniversary, with a special banquet planned to
recognize its long-lived contributions to the
(See EREEDOM EAST, page 6)
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By Ken MacDonald
www.thenews-journal.com
www.raefordnj.com
We were driving in the van on last weekend’s youth
group beach trip, and I hear from the back: “Oh man, this
song gets me in my feels!” Hadn’t heard that phraseology
before, but then these young’uns are always entertaining.
And sometimes they intend to be. Yes, we are again
committing music. We have started up the youth band
after a hiatus over the summer, a result of being just plain
hotdog-and-peanut-butter-sick of playing the same half a
dozen songs over and over. How a real musician does it,
I don’t know. If I had been Lynyrd Skynyrd, for example,
(and had he been a single person). I’d have shot myself in
the head about the tenth time I had to play Sweet Home
Alabama. It’s kind of like painting a house; the first room
is an interesting adventure. “I could do this for a living,”
(See OTHER STUEE, page 4)
New band
uniforms
arrive
The new Hoke High
Mighty Bucks March
ing Band uniforms have
arrived, as modeled by
Simeon McCallum.
(With him is band di
rector DeVon Pickett.)
The uniforms cost about
$ 100,000 and come with
special panels that can be
changed for home, away
and competitive perfor
mances.