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Rotary Club Spaghetti Supper
* Kings Mountain High School Cafeteria
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Volleyball team
in state playoffs
Womans Club
Fall Festival
October 20
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VOL. 105 NO. 41
Thursday, October 14, 1993
Kings Mountain, N.C. 28086 «50¢
School fighters to face the law
The 10,000 high school students
who had hoped to sing for the
President barely got in the stands at
Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill
Tuesday and a disappointed, tired
130 from Kings Mountain High
School were glad to be home at
2:30 a.m. ‘Wednesday.
Principal Jackie Lavender said
that KM Band students got in the
stadium about 8 p.m. after standing
in line for six hours but it was after
9 p.m. before Lavender, the Chorus
group and others in the five KM
buses could join them in the end
zone opposite the. field house
Students didn't get to perform for President
where President Clinton stood to
made the keynote address at the
Bicentennial celebration of the
University of North Carolina.
None of the state high school
band or choral students got to per-
form and some students only got in
" the stadium at the last minute.
Lavender said there was such a
crowd that the general public took
up the time and space and by the
time the students started arriving
the Secret Service had allowed on-
ly two. gates to remain open. There
were no reserved seats for the high
school students who had been re-
dents got through the line we didn't
even have to go through the metal
detectors since we were about the
last 400 to get in," said Lavender.
hearsing for three weeks to play
and sing during the celebration
which drew many dignitaries, in-
cluding Governor Hunt, former
Senator Sanford, Congressman
McMillan and former governors
Holshouser and Martin, among
others.
"By the time my group of stu-
Lavender said she shared her
See Students, 6-A
KM man faces
abuse charges
The father of a 11 1/2-months-
old Kings Mountain baby girl criti-
cally ill at Carolinas Medical
Center was charged Wednesday by
Kings Mountain Police with felony
child abuse.
Richard Nunez, 26, of 108
Cloninger St., was arrested
Wednesday morning by Kings
Mountain Police Chief Warren
Goforth and Det. og Houston
SCorm.
’ ‘baby
Dickson: Districting vote not a issue
Cecil Dickson, chairman of the
Cleveland County Board of
Commissioners, says voters should
"have the final say on whether they
want district representation.
"I campaigned for district repre-
sentation but the district plan we
killed last week was confusing,"
said Dickson, who, along with Sam
Gold and E. T. Vanhoy, voted
against sending the plan to the U.
S. Justice Department.
The plan was developed before
the current board of commissioners
was elected. It proposed to create
five districts for the election of
commissioners and two at-large
seats beginning in 1994.
During the last school year there were 28 fights at
Kings Mountain High School. So far this year - just
nine weeks into the year - there have already been 13
including four in one day.
Therefore, KMHS Principal Jackie Lavender and
her staff are ready to dole out more severe punishment
for students involved in fights, and at Monday night's
School Board meeting Mrs. Lavender got the board's
endorsement of a proposal to file charges against all
persons involved in fights and other serious distur-
bances on school property.
Lavender said a similar policy has substantially cut
the number of fights at other area high schools.
Lavender said the first correlate of the Effective
Schools Program is to provide a "safe and orderly en-
vironment." While that used to be taken for granted,
she said it now is very difficult and teachers are having
to deal with more and more problems which compli-
cate the process of educating students.
At present, Kings Mountain High suspends students
Dickson defended the board's
action, saying that he had received
numerous calls from minorities op-
posed to the plan and calls from
others who supported the plan.
"I was absolutely not voting
against minorities,” he said. "We're
beyond racial stuff in Cleveland
County."
Ted Arrington, chairman of the
political science department at the
University of North Carolina in
Charlotte, drew the plans which he
helped develop with a citizen's
committee. He advised commis-
sioners to submit the districting
plan to the Justice Department just
as he had advised the previous
members of the Board of
Commissioners in 1992.
Dickson said he and Vanhoy
both reside in District I, which
would have been the newly created
minority district and one of the ob-
jections he felt the Justice
Department would raise was in
having white incumbents in a
black-majority district which could
place black candidates at a disad-
vantage.
Dickson said the new minority
district rambled all over the county
and the I-85 district was just as
confusing and would have proba-
bly brought frowns from the
Justice Department. He said basi-
cally all of the Moss Lake area ex-
cept Woodbridge would have been
in the minority district.
"[ just was not comfortable with
the way any of the districts were
drawn up and I did not work to de-
feat the plan," said Dickson.
"We just didn't feel that this plan
should be rammed down a new
board's throat and overall I was un-
comfortable with it ," said Dickson.
"We had been told that
Cleveland County did not lend it-
self to district electiGn and that
election districts be contiguous,” he
said. "There were just too many
See County, 7-A
Lake Commission wants full-time officer
Moss Lake Commission will ask
City Council to hire a full-time po-
lice officer to step up enforcement
and assure safety at the city-owned
lake. :
The recommendation was made
Monday night by M. C. Pruette and
seconded by Evelyn Hamrick with
Chairman Joe Smith and Chuck
Ballew favoring the plan suggested
‘by Chief of Police Warren Goforth
who said that it's difficult for one
officer to split his duties and cover
the lake.
"The work for our officer has
tripled at the lake this season, not
only with traffic, but due to the
two tragic drownings that occurred
this summer," said Goforth, who
said police will enforce the lake
rules and regulations which were
adopted April 1, 1992 and are
spelled out in Section 14.52 of a
user's guide available at the lake
office.
But the interpretation of that
lake rule is being contested by
some lake residents who argue the
rule applies to operators and pas-
sengers of personal watercraft such
as water or jet skis, not boats.
Monday night's meeting of the
Lake Commission was devoted to
presentations by two lake residents
concerning problems they see at
the lake.
An argument in the parking lot
of Chesterfield Apartments on
Margrace Road between a tenant
and visitors ended in a shoot-out
and injuries to two people Tuesday
at 8:45 p.m.
Kings Mountain Police said
some of the parties to the argument
had been drinking.
Lucille = White,
Chesterfield Apartment 39, was
shot in the hand and James lL.ece
Brooks, 19, of "Noi 3: FE.
Kingswood Apt., was shot in the
head, chest and neck areas. They
28, of
Two injured in Chesterfield shootout
were treated at Kings Mountain
Hospital and released.
Two people were charged.
Arrested were Jessie Gene
Connor, 22, of 612 Bessemer City
- Gastonia Highway, charged with
one misdemeanor count of dis-.
charging a firearm in the city lim-
its. His $1,000 bond was secured.
Christopher Eugene Ramsey, 26,
of 37 Chesterfield Apt., was
charged with two felony counts of
assault with a deadly weapon in-
See Shooting, 6-A
Chief Goforth said he had
planned to make recommendations
requiring the wearing of life jack-
ets by anyone on the water but
found that police could enforce an
ordinance already in place that is
more strict than the one he has
planned to recommend.
Chairman Joe Smith read Section
14.52 in the user ordinance which
states that "no person shall operate
_any boat or manipulate any water
skis, jet skis or other similar device
in a careless, negligent or reckless
manner so as to endanger any per-
son or property. While water skiing
a person will wear an approved life
jacket."
Calls to police have risen from
15,000 to 19,504 in a two-year pe-
riod, a signal that crime is on the
rise in Kings Mountain.
The annual report by Kings
Mountain Police Chief Warren
Goforth to City Manager George
Wood and City Council reflects the
increase of aggravated assaults
from 58 to 140) during the past five
years but shows a decrease in prop-
erty crimes, such as larceny, motor
vehicle theft and arson.
Breaking and entering cases,
however, rose from 130 in 1987 to
227 in 1992 but larceny reports
were down for the two year period,
In bold print, a second para-
graph reads "The operator and pas-
senger of any personal watercraft
or sail boards must wear an ap-
proved life jacket. Personal water-
craft may not be operated without
the lanyard-type engine cutoff
switch attached to the body, cloth-
ing or personal flotation device."
Moss Lake resident Myron
Marchant argued that this rule ap-
plies only to skiers and that boats
would not be considered a personal
watercraft.
"It bothers me when I hear peo-
ple trying to dictate common
See Lake, 6-A
"We don't want our students fight-
ing and getting injured...we want
them to be in school to learn."
- Jackie Lavender
for fighting and other serious incidents and occasional-
ly, if a fight is witnessed by an adult, charges are filed.
However, in many cases charges can only be filed by
the individuals involved or their parents.
Beginning in about two weeks - after the school has
notified all students and parents - Lavender said
KMHS will turn all students involved in fights and
other "severe disruptive behavior" over to the local
magistrate who will file charges against all persons in-
volved. Then, it will be up to the court system to deter-
mine who is guilty and who is innocent.
Board
See Fights, 7-A
to ask
S for Central
Kings Mountain Schools offi-
cials will appear before the County
Board of Commissioners next
Tuesday night to ask that board to
request $300,000 from the
Department of Instruction's State
Literary Fund so KMDS can pro-
ceed with plans to turn Central
School into the Schools’ District
McRae owe foamed that the system
can borrow up to $300,000 from
the Literary Fund and pay it back
with six percent interest over a 10-
year period.
The funds must be requested by
the County Commissioners, but
McRae said he has been told by of-
ficials in Raleigh that the money is
available.
The School Board, meeting
Monday night at the
Superintendent's Office, voted
unanimously to request the funds.
Without the funds, the project
would probably be put on hold for
about 18 to 24 months.
McRae said a Blue Ribbon Task
Force for Facility Improvement
suggested in the early 1980s that
Central School be turned into the
Central Office, and that recommen-
dation was reaffirmed by another
study in 1991.
McRae said the Central project
was the last on the school system's
agenda for facility improvement,
and was purposely held to last be-
cause the system wanted to take
care of individual schools’ needs
first.
Board Chairman Ronnie
Hawkins and Sonny Peeler spoke
in favor of going ahead with the
Central project now, pointing out
that if nothing is done the system
would still have to spend a lot of
money on maintenance of the
three-story building.
“This is a historical building for
the city and an important building
for us," Hawkins said. "We need to
go ahead and request the funds. If
the county commissioners refuse
See Central, 7-A
KM Middle School
adds requirements
The Kings Mountain Board of
Education Monday night approved |
the Middle School's request that}
students be required to pass six}
subjects in order to be promoted. |
courses must be an-
King and KMMS Principal John
Goforth said students now must
pass only four subjects and many
students haven't performed well in
areas such as science and social
studies because they know they do
not have to pass those courses to be
promoted.
"We're very concerned about
students’ attitudes about passing
science and social studies courses,"
King said. "Students realize they
don't have to pass those courses to
pass their grade."
King pointed out that failures in
science and social studies last year
were over twice the rate of failures
in math and reading.
Goforth said the policy would be
implemented immediately and said
the school would work closely with
students who failed the first nine
weeks so they can bring their
grades up.
"You always have those who
seek the easy way out," he said,
"but we are very confident that
once they know they have to pass
those courses they will put for the
effort."
Students will be notified imme-
diately through special meetings
and videos, Goforth said, and over
the next several days all parents
will be notified by notes and tele-
phone.
Goforth said the summer school
program will be expanded to help
meet the needs of students who fail
those courses.
In other action Monday, the
board:
: See Course Load, 7-A
CALLS FOR SERVICE
Crime is on the rise in Kings Mountain
483 to 472.
Violent crime showed a slight
increase in the five year period
1987-92. Two people were mur-
dered in 1992 compared to one in
1991; two in 1990; one in
1989,1988 and 1987. Three reports
of rape were filed in 1992, an in-
crease of one from 1987 but a de-
crease of five from 1991 when
eight cases were reported.
Robberies accounted for 16
calls to police in 1992 and also in
1987. The report said that rob-
beries accounted for 11 calls in
1991 and 20 in 1990.
See Crime, 6-A
Thousands
25 +
20 15
AE le
10 -
1990
Kings Mountain Police Department
| 1 | Yearly Total