THF
SPR i ^
Twenty-seventh Year, Number It
STAFF PHOTO BY DOUG BUT1ER
LESLIE SMITH, traffic control technician with the N.C. Department of
Transportation, installs an emergency traffic light control at the intersection
of Main and Wall streets in Shallotte. The device allows
firefighters quick access to U.S. 17.
New Traffic Light Device
To rieip S'naliotte VFD
Gaining access to U.S. 17 should be easier for Shallotte firefighters
following installation last week of a device that allows them to control
the traffic light at the intersection of Main and Wall streets.
"It's mainly to give them access to the street without having to
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oiajp, oaiu i_,coiic onuui, ucuiiu cunuoi lecnnician wun ine siaie
Department of Transportation in Wilmington.
The Shallotte VFD building is situated on Wall Street off U.S. 17 in
the downtown business district. In the past, firefighters often had to
wait at the intersection, either for motorists to stop and let the trucks
through or for the light facing them to turn green.
A switch box installed at the fire department last Thursday allows
firefighters to control the light simply by pushing a button. Once the button
is pushed, Smith said it takes about five seconds for the traffic light
facing Wall Street to turn green. The light will remain green for 20
seconds or 30 seconds, he said, which is enough time to get two or three
fire trucks through the intersection.
Although the device is quite common across the state, Smith said he
believes it is the first to be installed in Brunswick County. Most area
volunteer fire departments don't experience traffic problems like those
in Shallotte or do not enter the highway at an intersection or traffic
light.
AnnnrdinP tft Smith thp pmpropnrv traffic nnntrnl Houipo woe ro_
quested by the town and the fire department. Installation followed a
state feasibility study which concluded the device was needed.
The need was based, he said, on low visibility at the intersection, the
volume of traffic on Main Street and the fact that the intersection is offset,
with Wall Street and Shallotte Avenue controlled by different traffic
light sequences.
Smith said the cost of device, which was absorbed by the state DOT,
was approximately $450. The cost would normally have been more than
$1,000, he said, but most of the supplies needed were already in stock.
Calabash Goes Outside Town
For New ABC Store Property
Calabash Town Council can expect and Mrs. Francis K.Galovich on Jar
a request for satellite annexation 16 at a cost of $118,000.
sometime in the next few years from Due to the unusual circumstance
uuc ui ius own appuiiueu uuaros. uie town ABC board had to send a le
Although construction of a new ter to the state ABC Commission pr<
ABC store may be several years mising that the land would be anne?
away, Calabash ABC Board last ed before the store was built, accoi
month took a step in that direction ding to Town Clerk Janet Thomas,
when it purchased a site for the pro- The town ABC board currentl
posed building. leases a building on N.C. 179 at th
But the land lies outside the town east end of town,
limits and its boundaries are not contiguous
with the town's perimeter. Store manager Roy Wrenn said th
Unless the town extends its boun- board now pays $375 per month fc
daries before the store is built, the rental of the 90-foot by 35-foot store,
lots will have to be "satellite" annex- five-year lease on the property wi
ed into town before any liquor can be expire in about four more years, h
sold from the new store. said, at which time the owners pla
Suzy Moore, one of three members to increase the rent an unknow
oi me town Aut amount.
board, said the And regardless of the rent ii
board recently crease, Wrenn said the town needs
bought two iK-Jr"** ji? bigger store to handle the increase
10,000-square- <- traffic created by rapid growt
foot lots fronting around town and several area go
N.C. 179 iust west fflW? coursesof
the town ^ ^**1 Ms. Moore added, "We really nee
limits. She said a bigger store with all of the peopl
the land was pur- j ' ,
chased from Mr. mookf. (SeeCALABASH, Page2-A)
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Two Che
i
1BY RAHN ADAMS
A Shallotte man and his girlfriend
were arrested Tuesday in connection
with the September 1988 slaying of
local businessman Darwin Kingsley
"King" Freeman.
Brunswick County Sheriff John C.
Davis said Tuesday that Henry Levi
Pigott, 33, of Airport Road, and
Carole Jeanette Moore, 19, of Route
1, Bolton, both were charged with
first-degree murder, first-degree
? burglary and first-degree arson.
Pigott, who allegedly shot
1 Freeman, also was charged with
! armed robbery, Davis said.
Officers from the sheriff's department
and the SBI arrested the pair
without incident Tuesday around 10
2 a.m. at Pigott's residence, Davis
i
t
! Property
BY RAHN ADAMS
Disgruntled north Holden Beach
area property owners will get a longawaited
second chance Saturday
afternoon to confront the Brunswick
County Utility Operations Board over
I being charged for water lines in their
subdivisions.
According to Holiday Acres resident
Shelba
MOTlL- Thornton, who
J-t, -i,- was spokesperO
(tL son for the group
faf" up f last October, the
st?*. property owners
will ask county
V.. >. officials to waive
assessments in
Special AssessTiiornton
ment District 1.
Conducted by the UOB, the hearing
will be held Saturday at 4 p.m. at the
Public Assembly Building in Bolivia.
County commissioners also are expected
to attend.
Suspect Says
BY RAHN ADAMS
A Calabash man who was arrested
on drug charges in South Carolina
last month claims he was working
undercover at the time of his arrest.
Jerry Lynn High, 37, was charged
by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration
with possession with intent
to sell cocaine, following a threeto
four-month investigation by the
DEA office in Charleston, S.C., and
the Horry County (S.C.) Narcotics
Division.
High also was charged with
distributing marijuana and attempting
to possess more than 400 grams
of cocaine by Horry County
authorities following his Jan. 26 arrest
at a Myrtle Beach, S.C., area
Shellfish B<
The victory was short-lived for
local shellfishermen as upstream
waters in Lockwood Folly River
opened to harvesting last Wednesday
were shut down again early this
week.
i. The closure Monday morning came
just five days after state officials had
opened a large section of the river
t- which had been off limits to clam>
mers and oystermen for nearly six
c- months.
tin i _ _i ! ? *
r- ii iias snown some improvement
in the last two or three weeks so
y that's why we opened it up," George
e Gilbert, assistant director of the
state's shellfish sanitation branch,
said last Thursday.
ie He warned at that time that state
ir environmental officials considered
A the opening a temporary one. "If we
11 get any appreciable amount of rainie
fall, this one's going to have to close
n back up," said Gilbert,
n It was rainfall over the weekend
that caused the shellfish ban to be
>- reinstated in the 153 acres, he said,
a The section of river temporarily
d opened last week was first closed
h Aug. 17, 1988, following a long-term
If study of fecal coliform bacteria
levels in the waters. The naturallyd
occurring bacteria is an indicator of
e pollution levels in the water and
shellfish meat and is transported into
the waters by stormwater runoff.
ursday, February 23, 1989
srged In F
!T.;f ' "JH
Pigott Moore ?
said. Both suspects were placed in ?
the Brunswick County Jail without <
bond pending a first court ap- I
pearance within 96 hours of their ar- 1
rests. '
"Naturally, I feel good about
(making the arrests)," Davis told the 1
Beacon, "but we've still got some '
more work to do." 1
Owners To
"I don't think the feeling among
my neighbors has changed a lot,"
Ms. Thornton said Friday, referring
to objections expressed by property '
owners at a public hearing on their
proposed assessments last October.
Commissioners slated the upcoming
hearing after the property owners 1
said they weren't given adequate
time to air their concerns in October.
Controversy has surrounded the
SAD 1 project from the start. At an
initial public hearing in March 1987,
property owners asked the UOB not
to include them in a special assessment
district?a method of extending
water lines at the owners' expenses.
However, SAD 1 was created and
water lines were installed.
According to water system
records, '238 property owners in SAD
1 had applied for water service as of
Friday. Water officials said last fall
that there were about 450 potential
> He Contacted E
motel. Agents seized more than two
kilgrams (4.4 pounds) of cocaine
from High, according to Horry County
Narcotics Det. Darris Fowler.
Last week, High was being held by
the U.S. Marshal's Service in
Charleston, after the defendant was
denied bond in federal district court,
Fowler said.
However, in a Feb. 9 letter to the
Beacon, High wrote that he had contacted
Special Agent Mike Grimes of
the Wilmington DEA office before he
became directly involved in the drug
deal that resulted in his arrest.
"On or about the first week in ,
January ... a confidential informer
came to the store where I worked
sds Closed In
Annie Smigiel, a shellfisherman
from Varnamtown and president of
the local Save Our Shellfish organization,
said the harvest was good while
it lasted, but that oystermen were
still disappointed when it was shut
AI
The rules were loosened and the fun 1:
during the third and final game of 1
munity College's first quiz bowl.
Vocational-Technical Honor Society I
West Brunswick High School team w
games. However, West won the third {
BEACC
25c Per Copy
reeman
When the murder occurred on Sept.
15, 1988, Pigott was an employee at ri
rreeman's business, Anchor Lumber w
Company on U.S. 17 south of tl
ihallotte, Davis said, adding that p
Pigott has not been employed by the
company for some time now. g
The body of 74-year-old Freeman tl
,vas found in his efficiency apart- ir
Tient at the business by firemen call- fc
;d there to extinguish a small blaze tl
ipparently set to destroy evidence,
authorities said. The victim, whose
nands and feet had been tied behind al
aim, died of a single ,22-caliber gun- Ci
shot wound to the head.
Davis said Tuesday that the ap- v
parent motive in the killing was rob- ^
bery. About $110 was taken from the "
business, he noted.
Question C
customers in the district, which con- b
sists of 788 separate parcels of land. ii
Since last October, the county has tl
bowed to most of the property tc
owners' demands. Commissioners ?]
granted the new hearing and schedul- p|
ed it for a Saturday when out-ofcounty
land owners could attend. re
The board agreed to notify the cl
owners of the hearing date by cer- hi
tified letters, after many of them said ty
they hadn't received earlier mailings th
about the project. Also, an installment
payment plan was worked out
to handle the assessments in "hard- ti
ship cases." ^
And commissioners deleted a j*
10-percent administrative fee, which J*
decreased the owners' share of the 1S
project from $322,067.16 to
$294,460.08. That measure reduced s'
the SAD 1 assessment rate from $6.64 c
to $5.98 per foot of frontage. H
But Ms. Thornton indicated that P
the property owners want the county ?
)EA Before His D
(to) try to get me to buy 50 to 100
kilos," High wrote. "I told (the infor- ?
mant) five or six times I was not in- h
terested in the deal." v
High went on to say he talked with a
Grimes in Wilmington, and that the r
agent "told me to check into it, and fi
when I saw some drugs or money to
give him a call."
High suggested that he was c
targeted by the DEA due to his in- ?
volvement in marijuana smuggling a
in the early 1980s. "The reason I'm in si
jail is my past record 10 years ago," (1
he wrote. "I was trying to correct
Unfit onrl Vinlrx ? -4 ? .? -r' A' ^
uihi. anu utijj iu i\ccp ui ugs on ine ^
street. But I (will) probably get 30 o
years for being involved in try(ing) "
to stop drugs." ii
Lockwood Fc
down again. "There were pretty si
oysters in there," she said. "We were b
satisfied with the opening." fc
Gilbert said the state will have to d
sample the river water before it can tl
reopen the beds to harvesters, but
I's Fair In Bowl Game
ncreased Friday played against four
Brunswick Com- the parents of threi
BCC's National photo above, from
team defeated a Chapman, Jimmy \1:
ith the first two Lewis consult with
tame, which was answer.
34 Pages, 3 Sections
Murder
The sheriff said Tuesday's arrests
?i r -??-c ?' '
rauucu iiuiii u liiaiii ut eviuence
e developed and surveillance" of
le suspects. No otlier arrests are exected
in the case, lie added.
A $5,000 reward offered by the
overnor's office had no bearing on
le arrests, Davis said, although he
idicated that one unidentified "iriirrnant"
may be eligible for part of
le reward.
Davis also stated that the murder
ppears to have been an "isolated
ase" unrelated to an unsolved triple
mrder case that occurred in die
finnabow area on Maco Road last
tetober. The case was similar in that
le victims' house was set on fire
illowing the murders.
Officials
oard to go one step further. "I feel
ke that (measures already taken by
le board) is just fine if we still have
? pay the assessment," she said,
but I feel it isn't fair in the first
lace."
Commissioner Benny Ludlum, who
(presents the voting district that inudes
SAD 1, said Monday that he
id heard "very little" from properowners
until he got several calls
is Dast weekend
One property owner said the cerfied
letter he recently received was
is first notification about the pro;ct,
while other individuals "just
asically say it (assessing them)
n't fair," Ludlum said.
However, the District 2 commisioner
indicated that he thinks the
aunty board should stand firm on
le assessments. "If we set the
olicies," he said, "we have to go
irough with those policies."
rug Arrest
Grimes told the Beacon Tuesday
hat High has asserted in court "that
le (High) was working for the DEA
. hen he was arrested by the DEA,"
ccording to information Grimes
eceived from the U.S. Attorney's ofice
in Charleston.
However, Grimes would neither
onfirm or deny that High had con
actea mm in January. Instead, he
sked, "What would anyone with any
ense think about whether or not he
High) was working for the DEA?"
Grimes said the Wilmington and
harleston DEA offices stay abreast
f each other's activities, and that he
wouldn't touch" an individual being
westigated by the other office.
)//y River
aid he had no idea when that might
e. "As long as there is rain in the
recast and rain coming down, it
oesn't make sense to go back in
lere," he said.
(See SHELLFISH, Page 2-A>
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STAFF PHOTO BY SUSAN USMIR
audience members that included
e WBHS leant members. In the
left, special team members Sue
arshall, William Jackson and GiGi
each other to come up with an
i