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VOL. 108 NO. 85
Hospital
to hike
room rate
Area hospitals are following
most North Carolina hospitals in
upping room rates. Hospital
officials say the increase is due to
government reimbursements for
Medicaid and Medicare not
keeping pace with the actual cost
of the services delivered and also
for bad debts written off by the in-
stitutions due to non-paying indi-
gent care, increased cost of sup-
plies and competitive salaries.
Kings Mountain Hospital will
increase room rates effective
October 1 with rooms priced at
$233, up from $210. Intensive/spe-
cial care units at KMH will be
$710, the same as Cleveland
Memorial at Shelby which is up-
ping private rooms to $239; up
from $230; and $234 for semi-pri-
vate rooms, up from $225.
oa yonehisive care unit beds will rise at
7 ZaAH from $690 to $710 per day,
y
an increase of 2.9 percent. Skilled
beds at KM Hospital will be $95
and psychiatric beds will be $480.
The local increase is slightly less
than the average rate hike being
implemented for hospital rooms
across the state, said KMH
Administrator Huitt Reep who said
that Cape Fear Valley Hospital in
Fayetteville has increased its rates
to $340 for semi-private and pri-
vate rooms; ICU $1270; Special
Care $1190; and psychiatric rooms
$540.
Reep said that in most cases
Medicare isn't reimbursing but
about 35% of the total cost of hos-
pital care.
Gaston Memorial Hospital im-
plemented its new rates in June.
Private room rates jumped from
$215 to $233 per day.
‘mother of three rides a motorcycle
get" and loves it.
Sitting behind a grandchild or son-in-law with a
helmet on her silver hair and riding several miles is
pure heaven.
Unlike some senior citizens her age who prefer a
more non-challenging sport, Ocie rides a Harley
Davidson motorcycle and recently rode "a big scary
looking contraption called Gold Wing" her daughter
and son-in-law rode from Indiana for a visit.
Just back from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she
visited two daughters and their families, Ocie
brought back tomatoes and grapes to can soup and
Kings Mountain People
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DRAWING NUMBER
Ocie not over 'Hill' yet
Ocie Hill, 88, quit driving her car several years
ago but she still climbs on board a motorcycle.
° The spry mother of eight daughters, grandmother
of 34, great-grandmother of 65 and great-great grand-
"every chance I
jelly and bass and bream she caught on a fishing trip.
A Kings Mountain resident 10 years, Ocie likes to
fish and travel and loves the regular dances at Kings
Mountain Depot Center where she attends the Senior
Citizen activities. She has been to the Holy Land,
California and most states in the U. S. with her large
family. Every year the family gets together at Kings
Mountain State Park for a reunion and for Christmas
and her birthday. Her apartment at Battle Forest is
too small to accommodate the large crowd for gather-
Center.
ings but it's always full of kinfolk and friends. A re-
tired textile employee, she was a practical nurse for
20 years before retirement.
Ocie credits her good health and longevity to "lov-
ing the Lord and hard work" and says keeping active
keeps her on her feet. She rarely misses a service at
Piedmont Baptist Church or a program at the Senior
See Hill, 11-A
*S 00I
ON NIK SONIA
Governor Jim Martin announced
today a Community Block Grant
award of $600,000 to Kings
Mountain to rehabilitate 21 homes
in the area of Second Street.
The city is among 45 municipal-
ities and 14 county governments
approved for community revitaliza-
tion grants totaling over $29.1 mil-
lion, a portion of North Carolina's
$39.7 million CDBG allocation
from the federal government for
the program year that began April
1, 1991.
Community Planner Gene White
said the funds will be used to reha-
bilitate substandard housing, im-
prove water and sewer services to
households and finance other revi-
talization activities in the low and
moderate income neighborhood.
White, who said the city made
application in May but first began
the project in November 1990, said
it is the first grant application of
this type approved for the city
since 1974. He estimated that work *
will begin on water, sewer and
drainage improvements in early
HEISo ;
The project will include $89,888
in local option funds to be used to
improve storm drainage and
$94,000 in local funds for water
and sewer improvements.
The federal funds will be used to
rehabilitate 21 housing units, con-
nect 15 houses to the municipal
water system, install 4,950 linear
feet of sewer line and pave one
street.
White said the city was recently
among 27 units of local govern-
ment awarded funds for energy-re-
lated and other costs of rehabilitat-
ing or building affordable housing
up to $7,500 per unit or a total of
$52,500 from the N.C. Housing
Trust Fund which brings the total
grant-for the Second Street project
to $652,500.
The Governor said 105 commu-
RIDING HIGH - Ocie Hill, 88, has always liked a challenge. She
is pictured behind her grandson, Ted Burgess, on a motorcycle, her
favorite transportation since she quit driving a car.
JAMES ADAMS
James Adams keeps KM clean
James Adams took up tickets at
the old Imperial Theater before he
got hooked in the dry cleaning
business 40 years ago.
The well-known leader and busi-
nessman in the black community
still has his hand in the family-op-
erated Adams Cleaners but he re-
tired recently from the Kings
Mountain Planning & Zoning
Board where he served a dozen
years.
Adams, 64, has owned and oper-
ated Adams Cleaners since 1969
but worked at Logan Cleaners,
Sanders Cleaners, McCurdy
Cleaners, all local businesses, and
at People's Dry Cleaners in
Cherryville before he opened his
own business.
In 1949 Adams went to work for
F. R. McCurdy at McCurdy
Cleaners downtown to help out one
day. He stayed on the job 20 years
before opening his own business
on East Ridge Street of which his
wife of 39 years, Grace McClain
Adams, is manager.
Like most of Kings Mountain,
the dry cleaning business has
changed, according to Adams, who
remembers the day when cus-
tomers only took their wool gar-
ments to be dry cleaned. "Now we
get all kinds of materials," he says.
His family and church come first
with Adams but running second is
his love of politics. Although he
has never been a candidate himself,
he has worked for some and
served as Democratic registrar at
East Kings Mountain precinct four
years. His business and the front
porch of his nearby residence often
is a favorite spot for candidate
hopefuls to politic.
Adams retired from his business
in 1988 due to declining health and
stepped down from several com-
munity jobs. He was on the adviso-
ry board for Kings Mountain's first
Public Housing Authority and for
the Senior Citizen Center and on
the building committee for the
Kings Mountain Community
Center. Past president of Kings
Mountain Improvement
Association, he credits the group
with improving working conditions
for blacks. He was the first super-
intendent of the Sunday School at
the new Bynum Chapel AME Zion
Church, where he is now assistant
See Adams, 11-A
9308¢
*gAV INOWAHAId
ZUVEEIT TVINORER AINAVRH
Kings Mountain, N.C. 28086 «35¢
$600,000 grant
for 21 KM homes
nities made application for the
funds which are awarded on a
competitive basis and must meet
minimum eligibility requirements
including benefit to low-and mod-
erate-income persons. Local gov-
ernments may request a maximum
of $600,000 in any one program
year.
White said that First Union
National Bank will loan up to
$50,000 during the projected 24
months the program is expected to
run and will be looking at individu-
al requests from residents in the
project area. White said all the
home owners in the project area
are being contacted and he said, in
some cases, the owners will re-
ceive grants for the rehabilitation,
White said that 14 dwellings are
severely deteriorated, seven are
substandard.
"The target area has severe hous-
ing problems, severe sewer prob-
lems and water problems as well as
street and drainage needs and was
chosen because of its concentration
of needs and because of the severi-
ty of needs which exists," said
White.
To identify the project area city
staffers, with assistance of plan-
ning consultants with Benchmark
Inc., conducted a door-to-door sur-
vey and inspected the interior/exte-
rior of each dwelling. Twenty-two
single family homes, 17 conven-
tional homes and five mobile
homes are located in the area. Nine
houses have well systems and five
households reported contaminated
wells. Fourteen dwellings have
failing septic tanks. Six houses are
either adjacent to or front the street
with what White labeled as severe
street needs. Two houses don't
have access to a public street.
Seven dwellings have periodic
flooding due to poor or non-exis-
tent street drainage.
Utility projects
near completion
The fall months will see the
completion and dedication of ma-
jor utility projects.
Community Services Director
Tom Howard said workers are fi-
nalizing the backfill around the
five million gallon storage tank on
Piedmont Avenue to tie into the ex-
isting two million gallon water
tank. Formal dedication will be
held in October.
Weather permitting, Howard
said that construction at the
wastewater plant on U.S. 74 west
and the water plant at the KM
Reservoir will finish up in October
and dedication at the two sites will
be held in November.
The cost of the three projects--
paid by bond monies--is approxi-
mately $6 million,
Howard said that superstructures
have been erected for two new sub-
stations and work on this major
piece of construction is 70 percent
complete.
The electrical phase of the bond
projects will be last to be complet-
ed. "Everything looks good,” said
Howard.
Howard said final inspection on
the Woodside-Monroe drainage
project was held last week.
City crews will start taking or-
ders for free gas light-ups this
month. Residents may call during
the month of September for one
free light up and names must be on
the list at Public Works before
October 1 to qualify for one free
gas light-up.