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PROGRESS SENTINEL
VOL. XXXXVIII NO. 4 USPS 162-860 KENANSVILLE. NC 28349 JANUARY 24, 1985 14 PAGES THIS WEEK 10 CENTS PLUS TAX
Sharps Is Kenansville Jaycees DSA Recipient
Charles Sharpe of Kenansville received the Kenansville
Jaycees Distinguished Service Award. The presen
tation, along with other plaques for outstanding
leadership and community activity, were awarded Jan.
k 19 at the Country Squire Restaurant. Sharpe is the
director of Kenansville's Guardian Care Nursing
Home, a member of the North Carolina National Bank
of Kenansville Board of Directors, a Jaycee officer, and
a member of the Kenansville Chamber of Commerce
Board of Directors. The DSA was sponsored by the
Kenansville office of the North Carolina Farm Bureau.
Pictured above, left to right, Kenansville Farm Bureau
aeent Jack Stevens, Kenansville Jaycee President
Dennis Kirby, 1985 DSA winner Charles Sharpe, and
Jaycee Week chairman and vice president of the
Kenansville chapter, Carey Wrenn.
Duplin Tobacco Farmers
Hear Discouraging Words
Their numbers indicated their
concern as about 500 Duplin County
farmers and agribusiness people
packed the Duplin County courtroom
and the courthouse corridors and
stairways for the annual county
tobacco production meeting last
week.
In most years such meetings, held
in all tobacco-producing counties
under extension service sponsorship,
draw 100 to 200 people.
Glum, grim expressions replaced
fleeting smiles of friends' and
neighbors' greetings as farmers
silently sat or stood listening to
speakers say there is little farmers
can do right now but await adminis
trative and Congressional actions on
the tobacco production control and
price support program.
Of most immediate concern is the
size of the assessment on tobacco
sold next summer. Flue-Cured To
bacco Cooperative Stabilization
Corp. has asked for a 25-cents-a
pound assessment to finance the
price support and production control
program.
A strong effort to lower the sup
port price from $1,699 a pound to
possibly as low as $1.40 is expected
in Congress. Numerous farm organi
zations and farmers are hoping a
support price reduction will make
U.S. tobacco more competitive and
enable farmers to produce more
tobacco as well as dispose of the
huge 700-million-pound surplus.
Farmers can lease tobacco acreage
allotments and poundage quotas
from owners who don't want to grow
tobacco. The deadline for leasing is
April 15. The secretary of agriculture
will announce the assessment. T.C.
Blalock, executive vice president of
the Tobacco Growers Association of
N.C., said the announcement may
come in two weeks.
Blalock said the support price
must be lowered if U.S. Tobacco is to
maintain its place in both U.S. and
world trade. He noted the assess
ment will have to be raised from its
present seven cents a pound to pay
for the support program as required
by Congress.
"If we're going to make it, we're
going to have to get this surplus off
our backs. The federal government is
going to have to take a loss.
Manufacturers have said they are
willing to help," Blalock said.
He added, "as long as tobacco is a
political thing you're going to have to
please Congress, and tobacco is a
political thing."
Blalock said that with the support
level and the assessment unknown,
about the only way an owner and a
renter of an allotment can deal with
each other is to agree to split any
profit when tobacco is sold.
Duplin County tobacco agent J.
Michael Moore said signing a lease
agreement now could mean financial
suicide to farmers.
Warsaw OKs Coal Transfer
Warsaw has given a warm
. greeting to a firm that wou/d provide
| coal for a steam-electric generating
plant near Kenansvilie.
"We couldn't promise to be a
boom to the local economy but I feel
we could make a contribution to the
business community of Warsaw,"
wrote C. Richard Smith, president of
Cumberland Elkhorn Coal and Coke
rInc.,in asking the Town Boarji to
apprve his conQsfcny s plans.
The company, based in Louisville,
Ky., wants to build a coal unloading
| and transfer facility on U.S. 117
along the Seaborad System Railroad
line. The coal would be unloaded
from railroad cars, loaded onto
trucks and taken to the Cogentrix
plant on N.C. 11 near Kenansville.
About six to eight people, in
cluding truck drivers, would be
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wrote. The company owns and
operates five other transfer stations,
three in Kentucky, one at Castle
I Hayne and one near Riegelwood.
The company expects to handle
about 120,000 railroad carloads of
coal a year, according to YV.W.
Brinson Jr. of the Duplin County
Industrial Development Commis
sion. That translates into eight
truckloads a day, six days a week,
Binson said.
The truck traffic will not go
through Warsaw.
"I think Warsaw can handle this
very easily," Mayor Sam Godwin
said last week before the Town
Board approved the concept of the
transfer station.
Before the station can be built,
however, the Town Board must
approve a zoning change, which will
require a public hearing. The site is
just outside the town limits, but
within the town's zoning jurisdiction.
In his letter to the Town Board,
Smith pointed out that the railroad
traffic generated by the company
would help keep railway service to
Warsaw.
Last year. Seaboard System had
considered abandoning rail lines
between Mount Olive and Castle
Hayne, ending rail service to Duplin
and Pender counties.
Efforts led by Duplin County
business leaders caused the
company to change those plans. In
November, the railroad tiled an
application with the federal govern
ment to abandon only the tract
between Wallace and Castle Hayne,
mostly in Pender County.
According to Smith's letter, the
facility would be built on Seaboard
System property and consist of a
conveyor belt and an unloading
building, approximately 20 feet
wide, 100 feet long and 20 feet high.
The coal will be unloaded from rail
cars directly into waiting trucks.
A "dust suppression sygfem will
ensure no effluent dust is released
into the air," Smith wrote.
The Cogentrix plant is under
construction next to the Guilford Co.
textile factory. The $30 million plant
will sell steam to the textile factory
and electricity to Carolina Power &
. Light Co. Similar plants are being
buiii beside the West Point Pep
perrell plants at Elizabethtown and
Lumberton.
Duplin Officials Seek
Grant To Win Local Jobs
The turkey plant would be In the
northern part of the county near
Scotts Store.
Duplin County officials are con
sidering whether to ask for a grant to
help finance a turkey processing
plant that could mean an $18 million
investment and 800-1,000 new jobs
for the county.
The plant would be in the northern
part of the county near Scotts Store,
said Woody Brinson of the Duplin
County Industrial Development
Commission. Scotts Store is a cross
roads about 10 miles north of
Kenansville at the intersection of
Secondary Road 1500, S.R. 1502 and
SR. 1521'.
The Board of Commissioners held
a public hearing on the question last
week. Another hearing is scheduled
for 3 p.m. Jan. 28 at the Duplin
County Courthouse in Kenansville.
Goldsboro Milling Co. and Car
roll's Foods of Warsaw have planned
the plant as a joint venture. They
and $6.6 million in bank financing or
company contributions.
The Warsaw Town Board met
Monday night to consider the UDAG
grant application.
The two companies plan to begin
construction in May if the grants are
approved, Brinson said.
The plant would employ 800
1.000 emolovees bv its third vear of
operation, Brinson said. Many tech
nicians, including refrigeration tech
nicians, would be needed, he said.
Training programs would be estab
lished at James Sprunt Technical
College and other nearby technical
schools, he said.
About 10 people attended the
County Commissioners' meeting to
ask the board to use any available
grant money for housing rehabili
tation in the Scotts Store area.
Brinson said the upcoming grant
may be used only for economic
development. Grant money may be
available later this year for housing,
he said.
have asked the county and the town
of Warsaw to help out by applying
for government grants.
Brinson said the project would
include a 200,000-square-foot turkey
processing plant, a land application
sewer system and a private water
system.
Brinson said he could not give
more details about the site of the
plant because the land purchase is
not complete. Three hundred acres
art needed and several land owners
are involved, he said.
The site must be approved by two
environmental agencies. Brinson
said.
Brinco^u-l tlt^^.f visec. fina'nc- '
ing would include $10 million from
revenue bonds to be issued by the
Duplin County Industrial Facilities
and Pollution Control Financing
Authority; $900,000 from an Urban
Development Action Grant to be
requested by Warsaw; a $500,000
Community Development Block
Grant to be requested by the county;
Jan.28-Feb. 1 v
Violinist To Appear In Duplin Schools
A well-known South Carolina vio
linist, Sarah Johnson, will visit
Duplin schools beginning Jan. 28.
Sarah is presented by the Duplin
County Arts Council and sponsored
by the Reader's Digest Association.
She was selected to join the roster of
Affiliate Artists Inc., in 1983 by the
Reader's Digest Association.
The Affiliate Artists program pro
vides performers with income, ex
tensive performance experience.
wide exposure, and the opportunity
to develop contacts and a following
nation-wide. Artists in the program
work closely with institutions like the
Duplin County Arts Council through
out tho country. In Duplin, Sarah will
appear before more than 2,000
school children.
In her home state. Sarah was the
first artist ever to receive a South
Carolina Performing Artist Fellow
ship. She currently maintains an
artist residency in Camden, S.C. She
mm
is a frequent guest artist with
numerous orchestras and chamber
groups, and Sarah served as concert
master of the South Carolina
Chamber Orchestra 1979-82.
A 1975 graduate of Curtis Institute
of Music in Philadelphia where she
studied with Ivan Galamian and
Jamie Laredo, Sarah is a native of
Iowa. She began studying the violin
at the age of seven and by the time
she was 10 she had appeared.in over
100 concerts, including her solo
debui with the Minneapolis Sym
phony Orchestra.
While in Duplin County, Sarah will
visit B.F. Grady School on Jan. 28,
North Duplin Junior High and Ele
mentary schools on Jan. 29, Wallace
Elementary and Charity Junior High
schools on Jan. 30, Warsaw Ele
mentary and Kenansville Elemen
tary schools on Jan. 31, and Beu
laville schools on Feb. 1.
Sarah Johnson
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Duplin Feels Effects Of Cold Temperatures
Arctic Wave Sots Record Cold Temperatures
A wave of arctic air maoe its way to the south and set
record cold temperatures. Duplin County was no
exception as the wave of cold air moved in Sunday with
brisk winds and rain which turned to snow. Before
ending. Duplin was blanketed with about an inch of
V
snow and temperatures dropped around the zero mark.
Pictured above is the snow-covered ground and frozen
pond at James Sprunt Technical College in Kenansville
Monday morning
Firemen Battle Fire And Temperatures
Warsaw firemen responded to a call at the Belton
Minshew home shortly before sunrise Monday morn
ing. Temperatures caused water from the fire hoses to
freeze on the structure and on fire-fighters' uniforms.
According to Mack Dail, assistant Warsaw Fire
Department Chief, the fire apparently began in the
healing furnace under the house and the Minshews
were awakened by a smoke alarm. The house is
expected to be a 75 percent loss, according to Datl, and
firemen were on the scene for about five hours. And,
Dail added, two other chimney fires were reported
while the Warsaw Department was at the Minshew
home on College Street. Pictured above is the Minshew
home early Monday morning Photographed are
uniforms standing due to water frozen on them while
firemen battled the blaze.
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