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VOL. 108 NO. 10
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Press Assoc
Thursday, March 14, 1991
Kings Mountain, N.C. 2804.
Reassignment plan approved
After several months of serious
discussions on an elementary
school reassignment plan, the
Kings Mountain Board of
Education unanimously adopted its
plan Monday night and then imme-
diately began working on a new
transfer policy which it hopes will
keep schools racially and capacity-
balanced in the future.
Supt. Bob McRae reviewed the
final plan and the board adopted it
without comment.
The plan varies only slightly
from the original computer-gener-
ated map which the school board
received from YSAC, Inc. in
December. The plan moves some
331 of the system's 1,800 elemen-
tary students to new schools next
fall. Only Grover School is unaf-
fected.
Prior to the board's approval of
the plan, Steve Boheler addressed
the group and said he was "still
concerned with the socio-economic
situation at East School," noting
that the plan was not much differ-
ent from the YSAC map and that
many parents and East School
teachers are concerned about the
matter.
"You didn't make the situation
worse, but you didn't do anything
to help it," he told the board.
Rev. MLL. Campbell commend-
ed the board for "doing the best it
can under the situation. I realize
you had a problem," he said.
Supt. Bob McRae said the plan
accomplishes the board's goal to
bring every elementary school to
within plus or minus five percent
of the system's minority percentage
of 26 percent while also keeping
Fleetwood, smartest pig in the county
Fleetwood is a five-week-old Vietnam pot belly
pig but he thinks he's human. Not only is he the only
pig in town who has gone to school but he gets royal
treatment from his masters. And, don't dare call him
a hog.
Becky Cashion Bumgardner bought Fleetwood as
the perfect Valentine gift for her husband, Mike.
Since his arrival, the whole family has fell in love
with the unusual house pet and Mike, 11, a 6th grader
at KM Middle School, and Beth, 7, a second grader
at Bethware School, delight in showing him off at ev-
ery opportunity.
Recently, Fleetwood toured the elementary classes
at Grover School and at Bethware as guest of Mrs.
Elmore's and Tamara Willis' classes. When the other
students heard that a friendly little porker was on the
campus they ran to see him.
Fleetwood is a charmer. He nips at your heels and
your shoes and runs in the yard and in the house just
like a pet dog or cat. Becky Cashion finds Fleetwood
to be less trouble than a dog or cat, feeds him a half-
cup of pig chow every morning and a half cup every
night to keep his weight off. Unlike other pigs,
Fleetwood gets a bath every day, his snout is wiped
clean after he eats from his own plate from the
kitchen floor, and he sleeps at night on a hay bed in a
dollsize house in the living room. He's house-broken
and the perfect pet, says Mike and Becky. The family
also has two Shelties, a Siamese cat, a ferret, a rabbit,
and saltwater fish in a big aquarium. Fleetwood, the
newest addition to the pet family, is unique and quite
special. What happens if Fleetwood gets fat? His
prospects are slim now although the little porker has
stiff hairs on his back just like his big brothers and
sisters who live in pig pens. He's definitely in hog
heaven-on earth.
Fleetwood has quickly. become a member of the
family.
Becky and Mike Bumgardner have been married
13 1/2 years and r 6 1/2 years ago they built a new
country home on Countryside Drive. Both are certi-
fied to teach, but Becky stayed home with the chil-
dren and later decided to get into BeautiControl
4 See Pig, 8.4... abit cndh oa
the schools within their suggested
minimum and maximum enroll-
ment,
"The plan does not leave us with
five schools that are the same so-
cio-economically but we have im-
pacted that issue in a positive way,"
he said. "The staff is comfortable
with this plan and we feel like
we've made some real progress
over where we've been in the past
several years."
The board discussed several ar-
eas of a possible transfer policy
and set a special meeting for
March 25 at 7 p.m. At that time the
board will hear from the public,
discuss the matter further and
could possibly take action. If ac-
tion is not taken, it probably will
be taken at the regular monthly
meeting on April 8.
Several board members said
they favor allowing rising fifth
graders to stay at their present
school if that is the desire of their
parents. Ronnie Hawkins, chair-
man Billy King and Doyle
Campbell all said they favored that
idea.
Rev. Billy Houze said there has
been some talk about allowing ris-
ing fifth graders "and their sib-
lings" to stay at their present
school. Hawkins said he didn't feel
like the courtesy could be extended
to siblings "if we want this (reas-
signment) plan to work."
The board discussed several rea-
sons which could be considered for
transfers and instructed Dr. McRae
and his staff to "draft" a possible
transfer policy listing how transfer
requests would be "prioritized."
See Transfers, 8-A
KM Schools consider
$3.5 million budget
Kings Mountain District Schools is considering a
$3.5 million "hold the line" budget for fiscal year
1991-92.
Supt. Bob McRae presented the preliminary budget
to the board of education at Monday night's meeting at
the Central Office. A public hearing will be held at the
next scheduled board meeting on April 8 and the pro-
posed budget will ‘be available for the public to see
two weeks prior to the meeting at the Superintendent's
office. :
The budget reflects a 9.3 percent overall increase
and 7.5 percent increase from funds requested from the
County Commissioners. McRae said the board's coun-
ty request is $1,650,000 for current expense.
"We have tried very hard to prepare a lean, hold-the-
line budget," he said. "We feel the economy is such
that it is appropriate. The increases will only allow us
to continue what we're presently doing." He said 6.8
FLEETWOOD
Redistrict
committee
begins job
A newly appointed city redis-
tricting committee will take the
first look at block-level census data
Thursday night at City Hall as
they start tackling the job of shift-
ing the population to even up the
six voter wards based on the 1990
census.
Elections Board Chairman
Becky Cook said the meeting will
begin at 7 p.m. in the second floor
conference room. In addition to
members of the elections board,
Mayor Kyle Smith has appointed
all city council members, Jim
Childers, a former city commis-
sioner, and Annie Thombs from the
community at-large. Other mem-
bers of the elections board are
Philip Hager and James Carroll.
Kings Mountain is one of 55
cities in the state that comes under
the Civil Rights Voting Act which
requires redistricting after each U.
S. census. No district in the city
can be more than 10 percent larger.
In one case there is one district that
is almost twice as large as another.
If the committee finds that current
districts contain inequalities that
are legally impermissible, then it
must shift the population of the
districts to adjust the inequalities.
See Committee, 12-A
CRISIS TEAM AT WORK-Cindy Borders, Sch
ool Health Coordinator, Jean Thrift, Director of Pupil
“a hog!
Support Services, and Elementary Counselor Paula Goforth, right, chairman, lead support personnel in
initiating a school district-wide plan for crisis intervention and are training the three-member teams
from each of the system's seven schools to implement it this year.
Schools develop crisis plan
Kings Mountain school officials
hope they won't have to use a crisis
plan now in the works.
In the planning stages for the
last three months, "Crisis
Intervention Plan" outlines a dis-
trict-wide crisis plan with each in-
dividual school crisis team devel-
oping a plan for each of the seven
schools in the system. Training is
ongoing by a nine-member group
composed of support personnel and
counselors from the seven schools
and led by elementary counselor
County to check concerns
A Cleveland County environ-
mentalist says that it could be four
months before the state could soil
test the Midpines dump.
Worried residents of the
Margrace and Midpines areas have
flooded Marty Allen's office with
. calls since they took a petition with
over 600 names and asked and got
the Kings Mountain board of com-
missioners to ask the county for
testing. Midpines is located in the
city's one-mile perimeter area. The
county owns the land on which the
old dump and the proposed
manned site are located.
Allen said no decision has been
made by the county. He said the
state doesn't require testing of a
greenbox such as the one at
Midpines which has been a dump-
ing site for over 15 years. "We
don't know if testing is necessary
but we are looking into their con-
cerns and have been in touch with
Solid Waste and Hazardous Waste
officials," he said. :
Allen was meeting with County
Manager Lane Alexander
Wednesday and said a decision on
testing would be forthcoming.
Meantime, workers with
Dedmon Concrete Co. were unable
to continue pouring the foundation
at the new proposed manned/recy-
cling site at Midpines due to rainy
weather. About one-third of the
foundation pouring was done be-
fore the rain.
Allen said testing of soil won't
hold up work on the new project.
"We will have stormwater control
over every bit of the new site. You
See Midpines, 11-A
Paula L. Goforth. Other members
are Health Coordinator Cynthia
Borders, support personnel and
counselors Chuck D. Gordon,
Florrie P. Hamrick, Anita L. Izzi,
David Owens, Kevin J. Plonk,
Amy C. Ross and Support Services
coordinator Jean Thrift.
"KM schools have been lucky
that no major crisis has occurred
this year," said Thrift, Support
Services coordinator.
Some 100 students had relatives
serving in the War in the Gulf and
le
that meant a sudden change that
disrupted the normal operation of
the schools, said Goforth, who said
counselors worked with students at
all the schools to help them get
through that crisis. Identifying
types of crisis as bus accidents,
bomb threats, acts of violence,
medical emergencies, suicide, fire,
tornado, hurricane, terrorist activi-
ties, gang conflicts, and war. Team
members put scenarios on papers
being distributed to parents of stu-
See Crisis, 11-A
War saddens Willis King
The ‘War in the Gulf has brought bitter-sweet
percent of the requested increase is for "continuation
items" and only 2.5 percent is for "improvement."
re See Budget Saber ve
NFR A
~
Grover approves
recycling plan
GROVER-Town Board voted
Tuesday night to get in the recy-
cling business, approving the pur-
chase of five Igloo bins for glass
and newspapers.
The bins cost $3812.55 and will
be placed on city property on
Cherry Street where a 7 feet x48
feet wooden fence will serve as a
"blinder" for the collection area.
"Our taxes are going to be more
if we don't start recycling our-
selves," said Mayor Pro Tem
Ronald Queen, who presided in the
absence of Mayor Bill McCarter,
an employee of FEMA called to
Mississippi due to flooding. A
driveway will be graveled between
the fence at Grover car lot and the
igloos placed in the area for clear
glass, aluminum cans, newspaper,
green glass and brown glass.
The decrease in state-shared rev-
enues due to the census will proba-
bly cut the town budget by
$60,000. An aggressive recycling
program could keep citizens from
paying tipping fees when the town
starts paying $20 per ton to
Cleveland County for garbage
dumped at the Cleveland County
Landfill.
Commissioner Sandra Ellis ob-
February 1, 1941 and went directly to Pearl Harbor
jected to the higher fees for the
bins, purchased from Cleveland
* Container Co. "These aren't the
bins we voted on," she told the
board. Clerk Debra Philbeck said
the extra charges are for self clos-
ing flaps, fire retardant inside coat-
ings and reinforced metal contain-
ers for newspapers. Ellis said the
original cost was $645 per unit.
Members also discussed but
took no action on plans for a new
walking track and picnic area at
Brice Harry Memorial Park. Queen
said he planned to call KM
Recreation . Director David
Hancock and get his suggestions
for improvements at the park.
Board members indicated they
would like to see a walking track
patterned after Kings Mountain's
new track.
The town will participate in a
Christmas parade sponsored by
Grover Fire Department. Lynn
Rowland is chairman of the Sat.,
July 6 Independence Day parade.
In other business, the board vot-
ed to hire on Chief Paul Cash's rec-
ommendation a part-time police-
man. Attorney Bill Lamb was
authorized to update the dog ordi-
nances.
WILLIS KING
memories to Willis King, 73.
King, who was wounded during World War II and
received the purple heart while stationed with the his-
tory-making ‘tropical lightning' 25th Infantry
Division on the beachheads of Guadacanal, fears the
_ fighting won't be over as long as Saddam Hussein is
alive.
"I remember just like it was yesterday when the
Japs threw a hand grenade in my foxhole and my
buddy and I were hurt. An officer waded waist-high
through a creek to bring us more ammunition and the
Lord helped us get out of there," said King. War,
then as now, interrupted many plans for young peo-
ple.
"My best girl and I were courting and thinking
about getting married. The Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor December 7, 1941 and our plans went on
hold," said King, recalling that he was drafted
without training. Discharged October 2, 1945, King
came home and married his sweetheart, Frances
Mills, on October 7, 1945.
Technician 5 King got to come home early because
of a rotation system that allowed the first group draft-
ed to be discharged early. He sperit his 25th birthday
in Honolulu and served 3 1/2 years.
Coming home to Kings Mountain was the happiest
day of his life, he recalled, and returning to work at
the Old Cora Mill was heaven. King, who went to
work at age 14, followed his father and many of his
10 brothers and sisters in the textile business. A for-
mer electrician for a number of years for Neisler
Mills, he also worked at Burlington Mills in
Cherryville as a supervisor for a while and at
Carolina Throwing and Lithium Corporation. On
December 1, 1975 he applied for work at the City of
See King, 8-A
AGVEEIT TVIYOWIN AINAVH