Br re Fi
TT Ty Ur NA Te SE Pe SR Srl ng i
en
Ll
€
0
Ee
nym
VOL. 105 NO. 2
By ELIZABETH STEWART 3
of The Herald Staff i
i Nearly a year ago win two
pound Dylan Shelton Blanton was
born the doctors gave him Mie,
chance of survival.
miracle child,” said proud father
Don Blanton, "Our little boy was a
Mountain were praying that he
would hang in there and beat the
: odds. are
Dylan's mother, Melissa Eng
Blanton, was rushed to Carolinas
Medical Center from Cleveland
herlabor,: |
The Baby. born two months pre-
maturely on January 23, 1992,
‘weighed 2 pounds, 11 1/8 ounces,
‘One lung was not fully developed
at least four months.
When the call came early
January 26
Gene Causby, Executive
Director of the North ‘Carolina
School Boards Association, will be
guest speaker at the annual Kings
Mountain Chamber of Commerce
banquet Monday, Jan. 25 at Kings
Mountain Middle Scheol.
~The event will get under way
with a reception at 6:30 p.m., and
dinner will be served at 7 p.m.
Chamber members may make
reservations by calling Lucille
Williams at the Chamber of
Commerce office, 739-4755. The
cost is $10 per person.
Wade Tyner, President of Wade
Ford, will be installed as Chamber
President for the coming year.
gave KM fi a Wats
quietest five people. Robbie tol
me to turn on the emer
"The Lord had a hang on our toa 10
the Lord to lear us a path" (
~ Charlotte and he made the trip in
fighter and people all over Kings 20-25 minutes. :
Intensive Care Unit was a blu ba:
: hooked up to the tiny chest.
Memorial Hospital January 12,
1992 where gociors worked 10 Stop:
for three months and then wa:
~ another month.
May 28, 1992 was a red letter
day for the whole family. The baby
‘came home. By that time the light
brown haired brown eyed boy
. weighed five pounds. He still re.
quired nursing care around the
clock until September and special
bree treatments, including
and doctors said if the infant sur-
vived he would be hospitalized for
to come to the
Charlotte ‘hospital Don: feared the
hour on 1.85 north. "We were th
ers and no one spoke a worc
we reached the hospital," Bl:
said.
Blanton said that he pray
What the parents saw in th
by on a respirator with t
A week after the birth, the bab
developed pneumonia. For weeks
the young parents spent many anx-
ious hours at his side.
The boy was in Intensive Care
moved to a Progressive Nursery fo
Ruby Alexander of Alexander
Realty is outgoing President.
Causby, a native of Morganton,
has been Executive Director of the
North Carolina School Boards
Association since 1980. He resides
in Clayton. He and his wife, Mary
Ellen, have four children.
Causby has been in education
since 1957, when he began his ca-
reer as a teacher and coach at
Boyden High School in Salisbury.
He later became head football
coach and athletic director at
Goldsboro High School and was a
coach in the Shrine Bowl and East-
Junior High in 1965.
Assistant for Goldsboro City
Schools from 1967-69, Associate
Director of the Division of Human
Relations of the N.C. Dept. of |
Public Instruction from 1969-71,
and Assistant State Supt. for
Personnel Relations and Public
Affairs from 1971-80.
He has conducted seminars,
workshops and presentations in 42 .
states, 143 local education agencies
and actively assists educational and
West all-star games in 1964. He: civic groups and organizations
became principal of Goldsboro
across the state.
He was an Administrative
Another big year for KM athletes...3-B
GENE CAUSBY
‘School Board approves materials policy
The Kings Mountain Board of
Education heard concerns from
Myron George, chairman of
Parents for Quality Education,
about the schools’ video policy and
then unanimously approved the
Selection of Instructional Materials
‘ policy presented by Asst. Supt.
Jane King at Monday night's board
meeting.
Most of the policy had been ap-
proved in November, but the board
tabled the section on video materi-
als after several parents, including
those who are members of PQE,
KM's second Habitat house
voiced concerns over a video and
some Channel 1 programs that
were shown at Kings Mountain
Middle School.
George and his group asked the
. board to name a parent to the mate-
rials advisory committee, but the
board did not agree. The policy
calls for the principal of each
school to "organize a committee to
serve in an advisory capacity in
formulating orders for instructional
materials and to review materials
prior to purchase."
Jane Talbert of North School,
representing media specialists of
all schools, urged the board to ap-
prove the policy as recommended.
She pointed out that people's taste
differ and "taste cannot be legislat-
ed."
George, who said he was object-
ing to the part of the policy dealing
with video material brought. to
school by individual teachers and
some Channel 1 programs and not
pre-approved materials, said par-
ents need to be able "to send our
children to school and not have
them watch things that they are not
to be built on Tracy Street
"This is a raw day but wonderful," said Mayor
Scott Neisler as he turned the first shovel of dirt
Saturday for Kings Mountain's second Habitat for
Humanity, the fourth project for eligible low income
families in Cleveland County.
"God has blessed us,” said Jose A. Espinales,
Department of Transportation worker who will move
in the four-room house on Tracy Street in Kings
Mountain with his wife and son after it is completed.
Their home will be built across the street from Kings
Mountain's first Habitat house occupied by Mr. and
Mrs. Brian Curry and two children.
Jose and Maria Espinales and Jose Espinales Jr.,
15, came to the United States from Jinotega,
Nicaragua five years and three months ago. They re-
side in Shelby at 623 Crow Road.
Nineteen volunteers from the Cleveland County
affiliate of Habitat for Humanity stood in the rain on
Tracy Street at 11 a.m. Sagurday to break ground on a
lot donated by the City of Kings Mountain for one
dollar. The second house marks the first partnership
between Habitat and the Kings Mountain Baptist
Association.
"Habitat is about people who have giving to peo-
ple who have not,"
affordable housing to families who agree to put up
their own "sweat equity” into the project. The mayor
said Neisler. The program offers
said the first house here was built for $19,000 be-
cause of volunteer laborers and donations.
"The ministry needs to be here for those who don't
speak English," said Neisler.
Mickey Heyward gave the opening prayer in
which he thanked God for being in the center of life
and in a project "as diverse as we are." Leland Kerr,
of the KM Baptist Association, praised the work of
Habitat and volunteers. Neisler called the building of
the first Habitat house in Kings Mountain
the best miracles of my life."
"The Lord makes rainy days too,"
"one of
said Neisler,
welcoming the Nicaraguan family to Kings
Mountain.
County.
Jose Espinales speaks English fluently. "This will
be our first real home in America and we have seen
how God has workedeto bring this about,”
The Espinales family are active participants in the
Star of Bethlehem Hispanic Mission in Cleveland
he said.
allowed to watch at home."
George pointed out that
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,
the state's largest system, has had
parents on its materials advisory
board for over 20 years and it's pol-
icy has worked well.
"We're letting one person make
the decision about what our chil-
dren see in the classroom, and we
don't have any assurances that any-
thing inappropriate will be
screened out,” he said.
See Policy, 9-A
Kings Mountain, N.C. ¢
Leaders tac.....
United Way needs your help......5-A
NAVI
*S 00l
IN NIW SONIA
9808¢
gAV INOWAA1d
avadall TVIHOWER AZ
A police officer on the campus
of KM High School and KM
Middle School during lunch hours
is the first step in a far-reaching
program geared to prevent violence
in the schools.
Education in the training of — > tl
teachers on what to do in event of
potential trouble is another goal of |
the Kings Mountain Police
Department, says Chief Warren
Goforth, who said the two inci-
dents of guns on the Middle School |
campus recently have spurred both
the Police and the KM District
Schools Board of Education (0 ini-
students, teachers and parents.
Supt. Dr. Bob McRae said the |
system is committed to working |
closely with the Police Department |
and that parents will be part of the
education. tools. "Parents need to
put their weapons in better places
at home where the kids can't get ten
them and our parent education pro-
grams will focus on these types of g
problems and, what we as parents
can do about them."
Twelve representatives of local |
law enforcement and schools, in-
cluding four members of the Board |
of Education, met at City Hall
not rousing tardies such as id
tiate programs aimed to educate |
coal 10 a
ky the sofiool’s as of
the tardy ad was
: low. reading material
rovided or the school) in the
hill-Out room and Saturday de-
Tuesday afternoon to commit |
themselves to begin preparing a
grant application which Sould raise.
back to par
Kings Mountain Schools' 1992
report card is "very promising" but
there is still a lot of room for im-
provement, Supt. Bob McRae told
the Board of Education at Monday
night's monthly meeting at the
Central Office.
Kings Mountain moved back to
a "par" rating after scoring below
par last year.
McRae pointed out that Kings
Mountain made "some nice im-
provements” in a number of areas,
bat also slipped in a few. The over-
all score was better than last year
because the state's expectation, or
Index of Advantagement, was not
as great as last year.
Kings Mountain showed overall
gains in mathematics and science,
scored about the same in readi-
ng/language and scored slightly
lower in social studies than in
1991.
California Achievement Test
scores in reading and language in
grades 3, 6 and 8, as well as the
North Carolina English and writing
tests in grades 6 and 8 are used in
determining reading/language
achievement. Kings Mountain im-
proved slightly in grade 3 reading
and grade 6 reading and showed
tremendous improvement in grade
6 writing, moving from the 48th to
the 69th percentile.
Social studies scores improved
in grades 3 and 8 but were down
slightly in grade 6; science scores
on the North Carolina test im-
proved greatly in grades 3 and 8
but were down by two percentile in
grade 6. Scores in biology, chem-
istry, physics and physical science
showed good improvement.
Mathematics scores in the CAT
were better in grades 3 and 6 an
down by two percentage points in
grade 8. Scores also improved
slightly in Algebra I and II and im-
proved significantly in geometry.
Kings Mountain's SAT scores
improved to an average of 896 in
1992. That figure was 41 points
better than the state average and
just three points under the national
average of 899.
"Overall, our achievement level
has gone up from last year," Dr.
McRae said. "We're in the best po-
sition we've been in in three years,
We have a lot of work to do but it's
encouraging to see our report card
{
¢
for this year.”
Mayor Scott Neisler, left, and Jose Espinales, his wife Maria and their son, Jose Jr., break ground for
Kings Mountain's second Habitat for Humanity house on Tracy Street.