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KMHS Basketball Team
Plays For State Championship
Saturday Night in Chapel Hill
its first-ever state 3-A championship Saturday at 6
Ri CELEBRATION TIME %.Kings M
Saturday night at Hickory. The Mou
1) Championship, More epithe 5 on £8 )
ountai Mountaineers cele
Photo by Dieter Melhorn
FIRE RAZES STROUPE'S FLORIST-Firemen, above, extinguish a fire on North Piedmont Avenue
which burned the old Stroupe Florist building which also used to house Amos and Sons. The adjoining
businesses were not damaged. Kings Mountain firemen, assisted by Oak Grove volunteers, were on the
fire scene three hours Tuesday night. :
Tuesday Fire Destroys Stroupe Florist
p.m. at Chapel Hill's Dean Smith Center.
The Mountaineers, 26-2, champions of the
Southwestern 3-A Conference, will battle D.H. Conley
High of Greenville, champions of the Coastal Carolina
Conference.
Conley is 24-5 overall and won the Eastern
Regionals championship last Saturday over Wilson
Beddington, 56-51. Kings Mountain won the Western
‘Regionals at Hickory High School, 80-74 over
Cencord's Spiders.
This will be Kings Mountain's first trip to the state
championship basketball game. In 1968, when the
Mountaineers were in the old Western North Carolina
High Schools Activities Association, they made it to
the championship game against Kannapolis and lost.
Kings Mountain Coach Larry Sipe is no stranger to
state championships. As an assistant at Washington
High in Eastern North Carolina several years ago, Sipe
sat on the bench in four state championship games.
Washington won two of them.
"But that's nothing like going as a head coach,” said
Sipe. "We're playing our best basketball of the season
right now and we're excited to be playing in Chapel
Hill for the state championship.”
Conley Coach Cobby Deans is no stranger in the
championship games either. He's been in the coaching
ranks for over 25 years and is a legend in eastern
North Carolina prep basketball. He's won a number of
championships and has turned out some excellent col-
lege players, including former Maryland star Keith
Gatlin and present Wake Forest player Phil Medlin.
"Cobby's an institution down east,” says Sipe.
"When he was at North Pitt he tuned out some very
i oustanding ¢ teams and we Qashingion) faced Him,
& ar - a
Joining the Chamber of
Commerce last week as Executive
Director was like coming home for
Loretta Husky Cozart, 29.
Her Kings Mountain friends re-
member her as Loretta Husky, a
1978 honor graduate of Kings
Mountain High School who used
the after-school skills her father
taught her in welding and use of
torches to work in the metalwork-
ing lab at UNC in Chapel Hill to
help earn her tuition and graduate
in August 1982 with a BA degree
in Radio, TV and Motion Pictures.
Last week was "old home week"
for Loretta as she visited merchants
in the business district and renewed
acquaintances. Except for visits to
her parents, Aileen and Orous
Husky Sr., she had spent little time
in her hometown. During the past
12 years her work took her to
Texas, Philadelphia and back to
Charlotte. Married in 1982 to Kip
Cozart, Director of Operations and
Kings Mountain High's basketball team will go after
school. through 2 p.m. Friday. Advance tickets are $5.
Tickets. at the game will he $6.
the main office at Kings. Mountain High
ur name on the reservation list.
of Cin Conn has char-
Seg advance tickets at the high
advanced farther than ai oth
don't have anybody 6-6 inside like we do, but they're
quick, play good defense and try to control the tempo
of the game. They don't like to run the ball up and
down the floor like we do."
The Conley-KM game Saturday will precede the
state 4-A championship game. The 1-A and 2-A boys
championships will be played during the afternoon at
the Smith Center. The girls state championship games
will be at Carmichael Auditorium.
The 26 victories by the Kings Mountain team this
year represent a school record, and by winning last
‘weekend's Western Regionals the Mountaineers have
—
of KM Chamber Of Commerce
team in the school's
Fire destroyed the old Stroupe Florist building on
North Piedmont Avenue Tuesday night at 10:30 p.m.
Fire Chief Frank Burns said that when Kings
Mountain firemen arrived on the scene the frame
building was totally in flames and fire had broken
through the windows and doors on the front of the
building.
Chief Burns said two stores nearby-Mike's Game
Room and Stroupe's Barber Shop and a frame house
about 1500 feet from the rear of the Florist- were not
damaged.
Firemen are continuing their investigation into the
fire today but speculate that the fire started around an
electrical meter. "We think it was possibly an electrical
fire," said Burns.
Oak Grove Fire Department also responded to the
call.
Firemen were on the scene three hours.
Burns said firemen forced a door open to Mike's
Game Room, the business next door to the blaze.
"The nearby house probably has a big mud puddle in
the yard this morning from all the water that was used.
They were lucky," he said.
The Stroupe's Florist building is owned by Mike
Heath. Burns said Heath has some insurance coverage.
For many years, C. E. Stroupe operated his florist
out of the building, which used to be a house, fireman
said. Stroupe also used the building for storage of
flowers, materials and boxes, said Chief Burns.
New Business Development of
Sunbelt Video in Charlotte, their
pride and joy is their daughter,
Kaysie, 2 1/2.
Loretta plans to bring the same
enthusiasm and versatility to her
new role as Chamber of Commerce
executive. "I'm excited,” she said,
acknowledging that the job will be
a challenge, nothing new to Mrs.
Cozart.
A versatile young woman,
Loretta moved to Austin, Texas in
See Chambers, 3-A
LORETTA
COZART
Kings Mountain People
Mrs.
Birmingham
" RUBY BIRMINGHAM
The environmental education
potential of Crowders Mountain
State Park was brought to the at-
tention of the school system by
Ruby Young Birmingham.
The retired Gaston County
teacher led numerous field trips to
the area and instilled in local
young folk and adults from the
Greater Kings Mountain area a
love for nature and the outdoors. In
retirement she has maintained her
love of the outdoors and her enthu-
siasm for "Adopt A Park" projects.
In the late 1960's Crowders
Mountain was in danger of being
strip mined for kyanite, a mineral
used in the production of porcelain
insulators. Ruby became concerned
and joined the fight to save
Crowders Mountain by becoming a
founding member of the Gaston
County Conservation Society, an
organization created to preserve
Crowders Mountain. The Kings
Mountain citizen played a major
part in having that area designated
as a state park.
Recently,
“Joe Sox,
Superintendent at
Crowders
Mountain Park, cited Mrs. Van
Birmingham as "Volunteer of the
Month" in "The Courier” a month-
ly publication of the N. C. Division
of Parks and Recreation.
_ "The fight for the preservation of
Crowders Mountain became a
grassroots environmental move-
ment in Gaston County due to the
hard work and dedication of volun-
tcers such as Ruby Birmingham,"
he said.
As a career science teacher,
Ruby was ideal for the role she
played in the society which pur-
Fights For Mother
sued a variety of preservation
methods, including zoning, nation-
al natural landmark designations
and county purchase of the area.
Since retirement, Ruby has vol-
unteered in outdoor education pro-
jects at the park and presented en-
vironmental education programs.
Sox credited one of Ruby's greatest
contributions to the interpretation
and education program as her lead-
ership in developing an environ-
mental education activities packet
based on the resources at. the park.
These packets, called "Discovering *
Nature
Crowders Mountain" were written
and published by a committee of
local science educators led by Mrs.
Birmingham.
With the assistance of an Adopt
A Park grant, "Discover, Crowders
Mountain packets were given to all
elementary schools in Gaston
County and a workshop introduc-
ing them to the teachers was given
at the park, said Sox. The project
later received an award in the
state's "Take Pride In America”
See People, 3-A
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