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Your Hometown
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eSince 1889
VOL. 103 NO. 84
Ward 2 residents
pactor and a proposed waste transfer point on N.
Piedmont Avenue brought a petition with 175 names
to city council Tuesday night.
Commissioner Jackie Barrett made the motion to
table the vote on rezoning the city's property adjoin-
ing the public works site until September 24 and vol-
unteered to take the 175 petitioners to the new recy-
cling site on Midpines Road where a similar
compactor is being used but Franklin Brackett, of
1012 N. Piedmont Ave., who lives across the street
from the public works facility, disputed the city's
claims that the area will be free of odor and increased
truck traffic and offered the commissioners a sample
of "smelly" water from a garbage truck.
"You know what goes in garbage trucks--dead
dogs, cats, rabbits, squirrels and sewage and all of it
has an odor that stinks," said Brackett during a public
hearing. "There were no garbage sites here when we
built our home 30 years ago. Why put it here to de-
grade our property?"
See Trash, 10-A
Ward 2 citizens opposing a new garbage com- |
Thursday, A:
oh ad @
Council appoints White on 3-2 vote
Xt
Oppose trash site
~ SeePage 8A
st 29, 1991
Jerry White, Detective with the
Cleveland County Sheriff's
Department, was appointed Ward 4
councilman in a split vote by city
council Tuesday.
He will take the oath of office
September 10 for the two-year
term Scott Neisler resigned to run
for mayor.
Councilwoman Norma Bridges’
motion to appoint White was sec-
onded by Ward 3 Councilman
Elvin Green and Commissioner Al
Moretz also approved. Voting "no"
were Ward 2 councilman Jackie
Barrett and Ward 5 councilman
Fred Finger. A substitute motion
by Finger to appoint Willard
Boyles died on the floor for lack of
a second.
"I believe that we should listen
to the voters from two years ago
and appoint White," said Bridges.
FRANK BRACKETT
Neisler challenged Harold Phillips
and beat him in a runoff for the
KM student needs
marrow transplant
Life has changed drastically for 6th grade Kings
Mountain student Angela Strickland. She is no longer
able to attend school regularly. She can't overexert
herself. She must be careful about getting over heated
or chilled. Angela was diagnosed last spring with a
rare bone disorder, Aplastic Anemia.
"Angela was a norm
Angela was tardy to
school. Only having to
walk a few blocks, it took
what seemed an eternity
for her to make the trek,
slowly climbing the hill to
East School. A bus driver
would notice her on her
morning route to school.
1 As the driver returned to
school, Angela was mak-
8d ing turtle like progress to-
ANGELA wards school. One teacher
would stop occasionally to give her a ride so she
, wouldn't be late again.
In class, Angela sometimes seemed sleepy, tired, or
bored. Her Sth grade teacher, Dorcas Beasley, worried
about Angela. She talked to her about what was going
on. Angela didn't seem to know. Mrs. Beasley also
talked to Angela's mom. Angela's mother took her to
the doctor. Bloodwork proved suspicious and further
tests were ordered. The diagnosis was confirmed,
Aplastic Anemia.
Aplastic Anemia is a blood/bone disorder which
doesn't allow the bone marrow to produce blood cells.
Angela underwent experimental drug therapy at
Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. It was unsuc-
cessful. Doctors now believe Angela's best hope is a
bone marrow transplant. Angela's sisters nor parents
are able to donate needed bone marrow since they are
not a match. The operation will take place in
Minnesota later this year. The cost will be great.
Angela's mom, Faye Strickland, turned to her
daughter's biggest supporters, the staff and students at
East School, for help. The family needed to raise
$75,000 for expenses not covered by insurance.
Dorcas Beasley, Angela's Sth grade teacher, respond-
ed by heading a fundraising campaign for Angela.
The Children's Organ Transplant Association, a non-
profit organization from Indiana, will help organize
the campaign and oversee the account. This is the
See Fund, 8-A
SAT SCORES: NORTH CAROLINA AND NATIONAL
15-YEAR HISTORY
ET DR ED I TSN
North Carolina National Difference
Year Verbal Math Total Total (National/NC)
1991 400 444 844 896 -52
1990 401 440 841 900 -59
397 83. 903
1989
439
838 | 906
1986 399 436 835 906 -71
1985 398 435 833 906 -73
1984 395 432 827 897 -70
1983 394 431 825 893 - 68
1982 396 431 827 893 - 66
1981 391 427 818 890 -72
1980 393 429 822 890 - 68
1979 393 426 819 894 -75
1978 390 424 814 897 -83
1977. 394 425 819 899 -80
MELVIN PROCTOR
KINGS MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
JERRY WHITE
ward 5 seat. The late Phillips was
second, White was third, Will
Sanders was fourth and Willard
Boyles was fifth. In the new redis-
tricting plan, Sanders lives in Ward
5
After the vote was taken White
SAT scores
improve in KM
Kings Mountain SAT scores had
the fifth highest gain in the state
this year and helped North
Carolina schools move out of las
place in the national rankings.
po the national average
of 896 but an overall gain of three
points which placed the state ahead
of South Carolina and the District
of Columbia and into a tie with
Georgia.
Kings Mountain went from a
777 score last year to 840, still
three points below the state aver-
age but a mark that made local
school officials very proud. Kings
Mountain's average verbal score
improved from 366 to 392 and the
math score from 411 to 448.
"We're still below the state aver-
age, but very close to it and we're
obviously quite pleased," said
Supt. Bob McRae. "The high
Cop saves woman from burning house
Force and throng
efforts, to focus
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thanked the board and voters who
supported him in 1989, "I will do
the best I can to fill this seat to the
best of my ability," he said. White,
his family and a large number of
supporters left the meeting room.
A Kings Mountain native and
son of Mary Lee White of Shelby
and the late Hood White, the new
council member has been em-
ployed by Cleveland County
Sheriff's Department 10 years, the
last eight years in the Detective
Division. He is a former Kings
Mountain Police Department pa-
trolman hired by Tom McDevitt
and before that was a reserve offi- !
cer. He went to Shelby from the i
Kings Mountain Fire Department, )
where he was a full time fireman 4
and also a former volunteer fire- J
man. He assisted Fire Chief Gene
Tignor in founding the Kings
TE
phen
rr — A ———
See White, 10-A
school deserve’ n fi
amount of cred; &
hard, both through...
th theid
on
_the improvement was a result of a
cooperative effort among teachers,
staff, students and parents.
"Really, the thing that we did the
most of was just to make students
aware that we had a problem," she
said. "I went around to all math
classes and talked to them about
their scores and what they meant to
our school and what they meant to
them when they get ready to go to
college.
"The teachers also did a lot of
talking and developed instructional
strategies to try to improve the
overall educational atmosphere.
See SAT, 10-A
-
"It was a miracle" said 27-year-old Ptl.
Melvin Proctor after he pulled a 77-year-
old woman from her burning house on
Sherwood Lane Sunday night at 11:45
p.m.
Proctor, a Kings Mountain policeman
for 4 1/2 years, acting on a cop's
"instincts," patrolled West Gate Mall in
the area of TG&Y before going on nightly
patrol at the Kings Mountain High School
and Middle School, which usually takes
him 45 minutes to complete. That decision
made the difference for Lois Murray, who
didn't know her house was on fire until
Proctor started banging on her front door
to try to get her attention from the
bedroom where she was reading when fire
plunged the house into darkness.
Murray, who is staying at the Holiday
Inn this week while her house is being
repaired, said the policeman's quick
reaction to danger spared her life but could
have resulted in serious injury for him.
"I really didn't have time to think. My
body just acted and I knew after her
neighbor told me the lady was inside the
house that I had to try to get her out," said
Proctor, whose bulletproof vest probably
spared him from serious burns although
his lungs filled with smoke.
Proctor said it was pure luck that
Murray didn't try to get out the back door,
where the fire was intense. The policeman
kept banging on the front door in an effort
to get it open. "I could feel the suction
inside and saw the wall of fire coming.
Mrs. Murray was in the living room with a
flashlight and I picked her up and tried to
get the door open but the fire sucked the
door shut but I kept beating on it to open
and it did. When I carried her to the road I
ran out of air and Ptl. Maurice Jamerson
{
put the lady in my police car and I sat
down and blew smoke out of my lungs, "
he said.
The fire started in the utility room of
Murray's three bedroom brick house from
a drop cord plugged into a freezer,
according to police and fire department
Ieports.
Proctor said he smelled the smoke
from TG&Y's parking lot and could hardly
see the Murray house for the smoke, the
driveway was thick with smoke and he
could see smoke coming from the top of
the door casing. A neighbor standing in
the yard and said he thought an elderly
woman was trapped inside the house. The
utility room door had been blown off.
When Proctor opened the door the draft
sucked all the oxygen out of the house
causing a backdraft. KMFD Chief Frank
See Cop, 9-A
By ELIZABETH STEWART
Of The Herald Staff
“Never ignore a child if he wants
to talk" is sage advice from Grace
Neisler Page, Kings Mountain na-
tive and champion skeet shooter
who wants to bag her ninth deer
this fall before she puts away her
guns.
By her own admission "a tom
boy all her life," Mrs. Page's love
for sports is as keen as it was as a
young woman beating the men in
state skeet shooting competitions
two years in a row--in 1935 and
1936--and bagging eight deer on
the Neisler family's Oakland
Plantation.
"Tom Boy' Grace Pa
Proving her point that one
should never ignore a child, she
tells the story of how her five older
brothers took her along on fishing
and hunting trips and let her play
baseball with them on North
Piedmont Avenue where about 30
teenagers lived within a block of
each other. Years after, Grace and
her husband, the late Harry E.
Page, opened their back yard to the
youngsters on West Mountain
Street who used their yard for
neighborhood football games.
A 11 point deer is mounted over
the mantel in her comfortable den
on West Mountain Street and she
has trophies to prove that she is an
expert marksman.
"Can women shoot a gun as well
as men?"
That's the question they've been
asking for years, according to a
front page story in Sandhills Daily
News January 18, 1936. That ques-
tion was answered, the story con-
tinued, when Miss Grace Neisler of
Kings Mountain held out until her
closest rival, a man, could no
longer keep pace with her in the art
of cracking clay pigeons hurled
from the traps of the Pinchurst Gun
club Skeet range.
Page was Carolina woman's
champion two ycars in a row and
participated in the national Open
. Skeet event in Miami, Fla.
She still has her 12 gauge and 20
gauge Remington shotguns she
used in the competitions there and
in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and
St. Louis, Mo., brothers Gene and
Hunt Neisler traveling with her and
brothers, Paul, Joe and Hugh and
sisters, Margaret Hunnicutt and
Pauline Brewer, applauding from
the sidelines. The five brothers are
deceased but the memories remain.
Grace started skeet shooting af-
ter college and enjoyed a round of
wins for scveral years before she
became Mrs. Harry Page. At
Central High School she played
basketball, recalling that the Class
of 1927 used the high school audi-
torium for the courts and also
played outside. She earned her de-
ge loves to bag the big game
gree in physical education from
George Peabody College in 1931
and married in 1937. The Page
family joined the Neisler clan at
Oakland Plantation on the Cape
Fear River near Wilmington every
year for deer hunts and Grace plans
to return this fall. She missed only
five fall seasons at Oakland when
she was in college and in 1985 due
to the illness of her husband.
Second and third generations of
Neislers carry on the family tradi-
tion at Oakland.
Besides skeet shooting and deer
hunting, Grace enjoys fishing and
she has a 7 1/2 pound bass mount-
cd in her den which she caught
See Page, 9-A