hurp hy Carnegie Library 4-73
Peachtree Street
Murphy, N.C., 28906
12
The Cherokee Scout
and Clay County Progress
15* Per Copy
Volume 79 ? Number 36 - Murphy, North Carolina, 28906 ? Second Class Postage Paid At Murphy, North Carolina ? Thursday, April 22, 1971
Escape Artist
Russell Lee Jones, 22, of Rob
binsville, shows how he escaped from
the Cherokee County Jail early
Monday morning after sawing bars
o^^two doors on the top floor.
Cherokee Sheriff Blain Stalcup,
keeping a close watch on Jones, taped
the hole the young prisoner went
through at 7 inches wide by 12 inches
high. Jones was recaptured about
noon Monday in Graham County,
charged with escaping, stealing a car
in Murphy, possession of the stolen
car in Graham County and failure to
stop for a Highway Patrol siren. With
another prisoner, he escaped from the
Clay County Jail last November and
was recaptured several hours later in
a stolen car back in his home county
of Graham. He was originally jailed
on charges of breaking and entering.
After the escape, Sheriff Stalcup or
dered a thorough search of the jafl
Tuesday which produced items at
right - several hacksaw blades, a
homemade knife (center) and two
keys in the process of being made
from the metal bed-slats in the cells.
(Weaver Carringer Photos)
Clean-up Projects
Paul Millsaps, left, and Hal
Bryson, are shown with Mainstream
workers cleaning up near the Har
shaw Chapel in Murphy in the top
pktura?Clyde Dayton, left, supervisor
of Mainstream in Clay County, is
shown in the bottom picture with two
of his crew tearing down an old
house in Hayesville. (Avett Photos)
Board Imposes Sales Tax
In a special meeting
meeting last Saturday, the
Cherokee County Board of
Commissioners voted to levy
the one percent local sales tax
In this county on their own
power and called off a planned
referendum on the issue.
A public hearing on the
local sales tax, which is
prescribed by the law passed
recently in the Legislature if no
countywide vote is to be held,
was scheduled by the com
missioners for next Tuesday
night at 7:30 in the main
courtroom of the Cherokee
Courthouse.
The special election on the
sales tax, which was to be held
May 22, was called off by the
commissioners, who voted to
rescind all their previous ac
tions on the sales tax matter.
W.T. Moore, the senior
member of the three-man
board, has made no secret of his
feelings on the matter all along.
He said a month ago that the
board should levy the sales tax
now on its own power, without a
vote, adding that "com
missioners are not supposed to
be popular."
Jack Simonds, chairman of
the commissioners, has been on
the other side of the fence. Too
many decisions are made
without consulting the voters,
he said, and people get the
feeling that things are cram
med down their throats." He
was for a vote.
Jack Lovingood, the newest
member of the board, was the
key man on the decision. At the
special meeting commissioners
had the last of March, in which
they decided to call for the vote,
he went along with the
referendum but seemed to lean
toward levying the tax without a
vote.
The action last Saturday
was completed without much
discussion. Moore made the
motion to levy the tax and
Lovingood seconded it, then
they convinced Simonds to go
along with them and made it
unanimous.
Their general feeling was
that the sales tax might be
defeated in the May voting and
if it was, the commissioners
would then have no choice but to
raise property taxes, adding to
the burden of the property
owners.
Both the governing bodies
of Andrews and Murphy had
passed resolutions urging the
commissioners to go ahead and
impose the sales tax now,
without a vote. Simonds ordered
that records of these
resolutions be placed in the
Hayesville
Town Slate
Unopposed
Incumbent Candler A.
Carroll, mayor of Hayesville, is
running unopposed in the
election that will be held May 4.
Town Commissioners Paul
Vaught Jr., Harold Moore and
Bob Cunningham are also
unopposed.
M.C. Moore was elected
mayor in 1967 and re-elected in
1969. After he built his new
home on Lake Chatuge and
moved out of Hayesville, he
resigned.
Harold Moore, Vaught and
Carroll were serving as com
missioners at that time. Vaught
and Harold Moore then ap
pointed Carroll to fill out the
unexpired term of M.C. Moore
and appointed Bob Cunningham
to replace Carroll as a board
member.
official minutes of the com
missioners.
The commissioners also
decided to divide the money
raised through the sales tax
with Andrews and Murphy on a
population basis rather than the
property tax formula. The
choice was theirs, according to
the law passed by the
Legislature.
Andrews will get about
$13,000 a year from the sale:
tax, Murphy will get 119,000 anc
the county will get $156,000
according to estimated figures
The towns' shares, if the
money was divided on the
property tax formula, would
have been an estimated $15,000
for Andrews and $28,000 for
Murphy, the commissioners
said.
The commissioners held a
public meeting at Hiwassee
Dam High School on Tuesday
night to discuss the sales tax
with citizens of that area and
only one man showedupile said
others had planned to come to
the meeting but had either gone
to the circus at Murphy or were
busy gardening. He said most of
the people there were not op
posed to the sales tax.
Another public meeting is
set for Thursday night at 7:30 at
the Town Hall in Andrews.
Nixon Commends
Local Heroes
Grier Ivie and Charlie Sims, Murphy
youths who saved a man trapped in a car
wrecked in Nantahala River back in late
January, have received official com
mendations from the White House.
The commendations and brief letters to
each of the youths, students at Western
Carolina University, were received last week,
signed by President Richard Nixon.
The letter signed by Nixon reads, in part,
"Your concern for a fellow human being in
danger deserves the respect of all
Americans...'" The commendations bear the
names of the youths, awarded "in recognition
of exceptional service to others, in the finest
American tradition."
Ivie and Sims were returning to school at
Cullowhee when they came upon a car,
wrecked and overturned in the icy Nantahala
River. Together with an Asheville truck
driver, who also has been commended by
Nixon, they waded into the rushing stream,
freed the man and brought him to safety.
500 Acres Burned
The past week has been one
of the worst for forest fire
conditions in recent years, with
more than 500 acres in Cherokee
County burned over.
The dry, windy weather
kept both state and federal
firefighting crews busy with a
number of small woodsfires and
two large ones near the Ten
nessee line.
Cherokee County Ranger
Harold Coleman said his state
crews fought a fire on Pack
Mountain two days last week
which was started when a
brush-burning operation got out
of control. It burned 160 acres,
he said.
Another fire in the same
general vicinity, at Wolfpen
Gap, started on Saturday, the
ranger said and that
blaze is being investigated.
Mopping up operations on that
fire were finished Monday
afternoon, after the fire had
burned about 300 acres.
Ranger Coleman said he
had more than 50 men and a
number of bulldozers and
fireplows working on the larger
fire at its pe^k.
Federal crews from the
U.S. Forest Service assisted in
the two large fires and also had
a number of their own to con
tend with on federally-owned
lands. Federal investigators
were also at work in the
Beaverdam section late last
week investigating the fires set
there by arsonists the week Wednesday morning. It has
before which burned about 40 been extremely scarce since the
acres. first of April. All burning
The smokechasers were permits were canceled last
praying for rain, which came week until further notice.
Public Housing
Bids Accepted
Construction is expected to
begin "in the very near future"
on two public housing projects
in Murphy, delayed due to high
construction costs.
Bids were opened at the
Power Board Building last week
on the two jobs, totaling
1682,600. The federal Depart
ment of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) accepted
the bids and will award the
contracts to the three low
bidders in Atlanta on Thursday.
The HUD officials had
originally planned to build the
two projects for about $600,000.
Bids were opened last July and
HUD would not accept them,
then totaling $699,069. A second
bidding .opened in September
showed a total cost of $729,419
and the job was postponed until
this Spring.
Collins and Minor got the
general contract at $58S,900f
underbidding Smith it Jones,
which had been low at the
other two biddings, by (30,000
Hughes Electric had been low
on the other two biddings but
lost the job to a Charlotte firm,
Basic Electric Co. bid $48,000 to
Hughes' $48,499.
Wells & West, low on the
plumbing section of the contract
at the other two biddings, was
low this time at $49,600.
The projects are 10 units for
the elderly on Hiawassee Street
and 30 units for lew-income
families, to be constructed on
Park Avenue near the Rimco
plant.
Glenmary
Council
Meets
The semi-annual meeting of
the advisory council for the
Glenmary Home Nursing
Service metat the Clay County
Health Center Tuesday night.
Alvin Pen land chairman
presided. Other officers of the
council are Dr. L.R. Staton vice
chairman and Mrs. Garth
Thompson secretary.
Penlgnd led a panel
discussion on problems faced by
the Home Nursing Service and
also how they can serve the
area more effectively. The
Glenmary Home Nursing
Service now serves both Clay
and Cherokee County.
In addition to other
members present for the
meeting was the Glenmary staff
which consists of: Sister Mary
Jogues, Administrator, Miss
Anita Sanford Nursing
Director, Mrs. ChrfSteen
Murray and Sister Loretto Mm
? licensed practical nurses,
Sister Nora, Home Health Aide
and Mrs. Angelia Barrett,
Secretary and Bookkeeper.
Mountain Heritage
Mrs. Robert Scott, left, wife of string music,crafts displays and a
the Governor of North Carolina, is dinner table groaning tinder the
shown talking with dance team from weight of good mountain food. The
Robbinsville Tuesday at the Camp- Heritage Week continues next week
bell Folk School at Brasstown. About with school, church and community
200 people attended the all-day event, leaders holding the sixth annual
one of theacitiviteS of the state's first Festival of Creative Arts at the
Heritage Week, of which Mrs. Scott is Hinton Rural Life center in
chairman. There was folk dancing, Hayesville. (Avett Photo)
Mainstream Cleaning Up Clay And Cherokee
A Federal program to
provide Jobs and training for
unemployed is responsible for
much of the clean-up work now
visible in Cherokee and Clay
counties.
It's Operation Mainstream,
a manpower program of the
Department of Labor,
sponsored by the Four Square
Community Action office at
Andrews.
Mainstream was put into
operation for a six-month period
last February, to wrok 100 men
in the four counties of Clay,
Cherokee, Graham and Swain,
It was fimded for $190,000 and
wtD be up for re-approval by
federal officials at the end of
July.
In Clay County, for
example, the M men allotted to
that county work under the
supervision of GydeE. Dayton.
They have cleaned up around
the county jail, at the school in
Hayesville and also atOgden
and Shooting Creek schools.
They have also hauled away
abandoned auto bodies and help
demolish old unsightly
buildings.
"They're exceptional, I
know them all and they're
excellent workers," Dayton
says. One rule of the
Mainstream program is that 40
percent of those hired must be
55 years old or older. Dayton
said one of the men in his crew
is 73 years old.
Dayton and other
supervisors have noted that the
older men of the Mainstream
program seem to get much
more work done than the youths
involved in summer programs.
They add that this is probably
because the mature workers
need the money, are more used
to work and have family
reapofMtfailities to meet.
They are paid about $70 for
a KVhour week, which is divided
into 8 hoars physical work and
8 hours of classes on Fridays at
Tri-County Tech. There they
learnbasic education and
safety.
The classroom is an
important part of the program,
according to Mack Huffman of
Robbinsville, who is the
counselor for the program in
Cherokee and Swain Counties.
Huffman estimated that 70
percent of the men employed by
the program have less than a
fifth grade education.
Huffman's counterpart for
Gay and Graham counties is
Paul Millsaps, also of
Robbinsville. Under them are
the supervisors, Dayton in Clay
County and in Cherokee County,
Hal Bryson and Fred
Haynie.Ed Bryson in the Four
Square office at Andrews is the
overall director far the project.
"Our men do work that
would probably not be done
otherwise," Bryson said. "We
certainly hope to get the project
refunded when it expires at the
end of July."
In Cherokee , the
Mainstream crews have worked
at the airport, cleaned
around the schools and <
up at the Courthouse
Murphy. They have i'
haul in Junked cars at Mfophy
and picked ep Utter ' ' "
streets in town.
Some of th
for the U.S. Foreet I
have buih grills
tables for
ptmte
Don,t Forget, This Is Clean-up W<
It ?-\ ? x&tf
....have garbage tied or bagged, ready for trucks on