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The place to be on Saturday is
downtown Kings Mountain for
Mountain Fest from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
A full program of fun and enter-
tainment is on tap for the whole
family, according to the sponsoring
Kings Mountain Chamber of
Commerce.
Registration for both the car
show and the 10K, 5K and fun runs
starts as early as 8 a.m. Ronnie
Whetstine will open the car- show
registration in City Stadium and
Jeeper Howard will register run-
ners at First Carolina Savings Bank
on West Mountain Street.
The car show judging will get
underway at 1 p.m. and three
awards for each of 24 classes of
competition will be presented at
4:30 p .m. Admission to the show
is $2 for adults and $1 for children
under 12. Registration is $15.
Registration for the runs is $12
on show day and awards will be
presented in different age cate-
gories to both male and female par-
ticipants. The run starts at 9 a.m.
Other big events will include a
model railroad display in the lower
level of the Kings Mountain
Woman's Club and an historical
display in the old Post Office on
West Mountain Street. The Kings
Mountain Historical Society is ar-
ranging the display of artifacts.
In addition, kids events are
planned, including an astro jump, a
little train for the small kids to
ride, face painting, and a safety
smoke house. Members of the KM
Rescue Squad will take blood pres-
Thursday, June 3, 1993.
Mountain Fest is Saturday
sure and most civic clubs in town
will have displays. There will be a
variety of food vendors and
crafters.
The entertainment from a stage
at the corner of Piedmont and
Mountain Streets will feature a va-
riety of bands. "Mink" will open
and close the festivities with a con-
cert from 9-10 a.m. and from 4-5
p.m. Other groups to perform dur-
ing the day will include two
gospel groups Southern Crusaders
and Southern Daze, Silver Stars
and Machines.
The popular model railroad dis-
play, a big drawing card for the
event, will be set up at the
Woman's Club and located in the
same area as other attractions.
The popular variety band, Mink, will open and
close Mountain Fest Saturday with a concert of
special music. The local group will play at 9 a.m.
to open the festivities downtown and at 4 p.m.
Front row, left to right, John Gillespie, Penni
Wahl and Dennis Litton; back row, Chris Cole,
Commissioners ban smoking, |
hear opinions on recreation
Cleveland County Commissioners banned smok-
ing in all county public buildings, including the jail,
during a five-hour meeting Tuesday night.
The smoking ban was a proposal by Commissioner
Ralph Gilbert of Lawndale, who says he smokes, but
outside the building. :
A standing room crowd filled the Commissioners
Chambers in Shelby, including representatives of all
school systems and municipalities in the county,
many of them who spoke, requesting that cuts not be
made in recreation grants or to schools.
City Manager George Wood of Kings Mountain
said that many outside city residents use the recre-
ation facilities at Kings Mountain and asked that the
recreation grant to Kings Mountain of $47,290 be
kept in place.
Representatives of the Town of Waco asked for a
paramedic to be stationed in the community. The re-
quest was tabled until further study by Emergency
Medical Services Director Joe Lord. ?
Hoyt Bailey, chairman of the Cleveland County
School Board and other school people wearing blue
ribbons that read "close the gap for education” asked
that school budgets not be cut and recreation monies
not be transferred from cities to schools, a proposal
that came out of a recent budget meeting of the com-
mission.
Harris received $21
Kings Mountain Senator J. Ollie Harris (D) and Gaston County Senator James
Forrester (R) were among the top 10 legislators receiving the most campaign
contributions from a political action committee. ?
Harris received PAC money totaling $21,361, or 85 percent of his campaign costs,
land Forrester received $18,450, or 53 percent of his
campaign costs. Of the 10 top PAC recipients, Harris led
the field in percentage followed by Ralph Hunt of
Durham with 84 percent or $23,354.
The price of a seat in the North Carolina General
_| Assembly more than doubled during the past eight years,
and political action committees are paying a growing
share of the tab, according to a new study by the N. C.
Center for Public Policy Research. Candidates who won
seats in the state legislature in the 1992 elections raised
$21,482 on average for their campaigns, up from $16,941
in 1988 and $9,075 in 1984, the Center found in its study.
The Center conducted its study of campaign finances as a
supplement to its latest edition of Article II, "A Guide to
the 1993-94 N.C. Legislature", which it released today.
‘Our new reports show three major trends,” says Ran
Coble, the Center's executive director. "First, campaign
costs are rising. Second, political action committees are
becoming an ever-increasing source of campaign
contributions. And third, the legislature demographic
SKIPPING CLASS
OLLIE HARRIS
Butch Ellis, Mark Blanton and Mike Roof.
248 GRADUATE KMHS - Ginger Baity accepts her diploma from Principal Jackie Lavender during
Kings Mountain High's graduation ceremony Friday night at Gamble Stadium
,361 in PAC money
makeup is continuing to change, with groups such as bankers, blacks, educators, and
women growing in numbers." ;
The Center, in its study, said that the average amounts spent by state House and
Senate winners in 1992 actually exceeded their base legislative salaries--513,026 a
year in the 1993-94 session, not including expense mgney. J
House Speaker Dan Blue (D-Wake) says that PACs have/become a much more
potent force over the past decade. "They're organized,” Blue says. "From the early
1980s to the late '80s' they proliferated. Every organization that was anybody starting
forming PACs." :
A key focus of the Center's study of campaign finances was the relative importance
of political action committees. PACS are legal devices that allow corporations, labor
unions and other organizations to raise large sums of money and channel it into
political campaigns. State law prohibits corporations, unions and other groups from
contributing directly to campaigns. But PACs, like individual citizens, can give
candidates up to $4,000 per election. A 1990 study by the Center found that North
Carolina was one of 16 states that allow PAC contributions exceeding $2,000 per
candidate.
In comparable studies, The Charlotte Observer found ‘that PACs accounted for
about 25 percent of the money contributed to the state legislative campaigns in 1984
and about 37 percent in 1988. The Center's study found that PAC contributions
increased to 47 percent of the total for winning candidates in the 1992 elections and
PAC contributions tended to favor incumbents, who tended to win elections. In the
1992 North Carolina elections, the 39 Senate incumbents who sought re-election all
won; in the House, 78 of the 87 representatives who sought re-election won.
KM junior Shannon Caveny going
Shannon Caveny, 17, is a multi-
talented rising high school senior.
She will skip the 12th grade next
year and go to college.
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
John Caveny Jr. ranks third in the
200-plus rising senior class at
Kings Mountain High School and
was a junior marshal at Friday's
commencement exercises.
"I will miss my friends and will
miss getting my high school diplo-
ma but I'm excited that I've been
accepted in the early entrance hon-
ors program at UNC at Charlotte,"
said Shannon.
Not only does Shannon rank
high in academics but she has ice
skated since the age of eight and
has 40 or 50 medals to prove her
agility and expertise on skates.
Shannon has skated every cate-
>
to UNC-Charlotte
gory of skills but dance and com-
peted in figures, free style, pairs
and couples, completing the diffi-
cult lifts, throws, spins and double
loops. She mastered eight of the 10
hurdles/levels and recently skated
in national competition in Dallas,
Texas.
"My skating outfits aren't as fan-
cy as the ones you see the Olympic
stars wear but I have worn out
about eight pairs of shoes since I
started as a little girl," said
Shannon, who is encouraged in the
sport by her mother, Beth, a sci-
ence and math teacher of 6-8th
grades at St. Michael's in Gastonia,
her father, who owns and operates
Nationwide Insurance and her sis-
ter, Heather, 18, a sophomore at
UNC at Wilmington.
See Caveny, 10-A
98087
-gAV INO
AMvEE1T TVI¥OR
Kings Mountair
Grove
defeats
@
beer, wine
Grover voters narrowly defeated a beer and wine
referendum Tuesday as 75 percent of the registered
voters, a total of 261 people, went to the polls.
The question on allowing off premises sale of beer
was defeated by 20 votes: 140 against, 120 for.
The question on allowing off premise sale of wine
was defeated 24 votes: 138 against, 114 for.
"It was a good victory," said Martha Hicks Turner,
who had been at the polls with other members of the
"dry" forces since 6:15 a.m. Tuesday morning.
"I'll work on it until it is passed," said Jackie Hope
Bennett, an observer at the polls who voted for the
referendum because she said Grover needed the rev-
enue from the sale of beer and wine and citizens
could get beer and wine just across the railroad tracks
at the South Carolina state line.
"I'll give the good Lord credit for this victory,"
* said a jubilant Turner.
John Evans, who chaired a group called Concerned
Citizens Against the referendum, agreed with
Turner's observation. He said that voters rejected the
proposal because it was "the right thing to do" and
cited organization and hard work on the part of the
opponents which had the backing of several churches
in the area.
Some workers sat in cars in the parking lot and
checked off names of voters as they came to vote,
making their own tabulations as the day passed.
Mary Lynn Falls, 28, voted in her first election.
She said she voted for the referendum because she
wanted a grocery store and bank in Grover. "I plan to
live here and raise my family and I want to see
Grover grow," she said.
Bill Lail, local merchant who also favored the ref-
erendum, could not vote because he lives outside the
city limits. Observing the sample ballots posted on
the door of the Rescue Squad Building, he said he
hoped that voters noticed that they would need to use
a pen to mark it so that the electronic'machine would
tabulate it correctly. "It's critical in today's election
that voters mark the ballots the way they want to
vote," he said.
Lail predicted the vote would either pass or fail by
about five or less.
Sam Stevenson predicted the vote would be even
closer but he said he hoped it would pass. He said a
win would bring a grocery store to compete with
convenience stores just across the line where beer
and wine are now sold and save residents from hav-
ing to «drive to Kings Mountain, Shelby or
Blacksburg, SC to shop for food.
Forty or 50 people milled around the parking lot of
the Rescue Squad Building about 15 minutes before
the votes were tabulated. By 7:45 p.m. it was all over
and onlookers left as quickly as they had come.
A number of women cheered when the results
were posted but there was no outward celebration.
"I'm just glad it's over," said Lail.
"We'll all continue to be friends," said Turner.
Tony Eastman, chairman of the Cleveland County
Board of Elections, said election day in Grover went
smoothly with no problems and no challenges. He
said it was the largest voter turnout in years for an
election where 357 people were registered and 261
went to the polls to cast a vote. Never does Grover
turn out in those numbers even for presidential elec-
tions. Just over 50: percent of the registered voters
participated in the recent liquor by the drink vote in
the City of Shelby, said Eastman, who helped elec-
tion officials Marie Beam, Jackie Rountree and Ann
McCarter Traugh.
Several days prior to the election emotions ran
high in Grover but there was no outward activity al-
though efforts to sway voters escalated.
See Grover, 13-A
A jubilant Martha Hicks Turner, left, Beryl Hambright and Frances Caveny celebrate the "drys" vic-
tory Tuesday in a close election.
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