Tree lighting ceremony
Thursday night
at library
Basketball season
opens Friday
City cleans up
condemned property
v
VOL. 105 NO. 48
Christmas parade Saturday
Santa Claus and the Charlotte
Hornets Honey Bees will be the
stars of Kings Mountain's 125-unit
Christmas parade Saturday at 3
p.m.
The popular cheerleaders will
serve as grand marshals for the
holiday spectacle which tradition-
ally opens the Christmas season in
Kings Mountain. The jolly old man
from the North Pole will be riding
on McKenney Chevrolet's Santa
float at the end of the line-up.
The parade route is reversed
from last year. The parade will line
up in the area of Carolina State
Bank and will proceed west on
East Gold Street, turn right on
Battleground Avenue (at Minit
Grill), turn right on King Street and
disband near Highway 161.
For safety reasons, curbside
Arson
°® x
Arson is suspected in an early-
morning high dollar fire
Wednesday that destroyed four
classrooms in a 1940 Sunday
School addition and smoke and
water damaged the 133-year-old
sanctuary of Long Creek
Presbyterian Church on Bessemer
City Road.
parking will not be allowed on
Battleground Avenue. Parking will
. be permitted in the parking spaces
along the Southern Railway tracks.
Pretty girls, dancers, church and
business floats, the high stepping
Kings Mountain High School
marching band, the very popular
Qasis Shriners Steel Drum Band,’
and a big parade entry from
Greenville Neighborhood Group,
also of Charlotte, are included in
the line-up.
"We believe this parade will be
our best ever," said Denise
Leonard, interim recreation direc-
tor for the sponsoring Kings
Mountain Parks & Recreation
Department.
City officials and law enforce-
ment officers with the Kings
Mountain Police Department,
Thursday, December 2, 1993
Cleveland County Sheriff’ s
Department and North Carolina
Highway Patrol and Kings
Mountain Fire Department will
lead off the parade that winds
down the main part of the business
district. A color guard will precede
the grand marshals followed by
Mayor Scott Neisler and the seven
members of City Council.
Other parade participants, in the
order of their lineup in the parade:
KM Junior High varsity cheerlead-
ers, KMHS varsity cheerleaders,
KMHS marching band, KM
Middle School’ cheerleaders,
Carrousel Princess Jayda Biddix,
First National Bank's Frosty,
Homecoming float, Bethware Pack
95 Cub Scouts, KM Volunteer Fire
Department 1985 truck, KM
Rescue Squad, Bethware Fair
Queen Carrie Sizemore, Carolina
State Bank,
Homecoming nominee Christy
Robbs, Art Club Homecoming
nomineé Cindy Robbs, Band
Homecoming nominee Holly Paul,
Dance Magic, Clevemont float,
Bynum Chapel tutorial program,
Kingstown Town Council, Little
Mr. Cherryville Caleb Hughes and
Young Miss «Cherryville D
Chapman.
Also: Baby Miss Kings °
Mountain and Shelby Chelse Moss.
Baby Mr. Shelby Houston Phillips,
KM Optimist Club, Belk/Thomas
Petroleum float with Trinity Pre
School, The Clogging Station,
Cleveland Country Democratic
Party, SPO Homecoming nominee
See Parade, 10-A
Spanish Club |
Firemen froffy eight fire depart Ta:
ments responded to a 911 call from
a newspaper carrier about 3 a.m.
Firemen from Chestnut Ridge
and Mary's Grove Fire
Departments and Gaston County
police and fire marshals were still
on the scene at mid-morning.
Rev. James Welch said that
some artifacts were salvaged from
a historical room full of memora-
bilia but that four classrooms in the
addition, including a Boy Scout
meeting room built in 1940's, were
razed.
The church fire wase the fifth
fire in the Chestnut Ridge fire dis-
trict and neighborhood in recent
See Arson, 10-A
Arson is suspected in an early-morning fire Wednesday which destroyed four classrooms at Long
Creek Presbyterian Church. The 133-year-old sanctuary was saved from the blaze but had water and
smoke damage.
KM hikes natural gas rates
The 2,669 natural gas customers
of the City of Kings Mountain will
see the first major increases in four
years in their December 31 gas
bills.
City Council, after a lengthy dis-
cussion Tuesday night, voted 4-3 to
up the rates on a variable fluctuat-
ing scale depending on the market
rate which could range from a pro-
jected increase of 12-25 percent for
the city's five classes of customers.
At-Large Councilman Al Moretz
softened the bad news for 280 citi-
zens on fixed incomes who qualify
for a lower utility rate in the social
security supplement program. He
suggested an amendment that will
give a discount to those gas cus-
tomers and reflect a rate increase:
depending on usage of 8.85 per-
cent.
City Commissioners Norma
Bridges, Elvin Greene and Jerry
White voted against the rate in-
creases. Commissioners Phil
Hager and Jim Guyton's motions
were approved by Moretz and Fred
Finger.
Scott Heath, the city's gas con-
sulting engineer, said even with the
increased hike that Kings
Mountain's gas rate is well below
the City of Shelby, the City of
Lexington, Public Service
Company and Piedmont Natural
Gas Company.
The increased hike would mean
an increase of 12 percent to resi-
dential users; a 14 percent increase
to small commercial users; a 24-25
percent increase to schools and
See Gas Hike, 10-A
Patrick Yarns plans expansion
Kings Mountain City Council
okayed an agreement Tuesday with
Patrick Yarns and Cleveland
County Commissioners that will
aid a $1.5 million industry expan-
sion that could create 10 to 20 ad-
ditional jobs and add almost
$10,000 per year to the county tax
base.
Sam Tesenair of Patrick Yarns
told City Council that the county
board recently passed a resolution
of support for the plan that would
have the county pay for $20,000 in
water line improvements by the
City of Kings Mountain to Patrick
Yarn Mill.
Tesenair thanked City Manager
George Wood and Planning
Director Gene White for their co-
operation in the venture.
The mill will need an eight-inch
-water line extended 500 feet and a
hydrant installed to meet fire insur-
ance codes, said Tesenair. The
30,000-square-foot expansion will
be completed in about six months
and will be used primarily for
warehouse space, he said.
"We are ready to add a 20,000-
square foot addition now," said
Tesenair.
The county has a policy of pay-
ing for water and sewer service
projects when costs can be re-
couped in the four tax bills after
the improvements are complete.
County Economic Development
Director Steve Nye said that the
See Patrick, 9-A
PT.
Peggy Childers puts ornaments on a uniffue memory tree at Peggy's
Restaurant on Piedmont Avenue. The tree branches are full of pho-
tographs of deceased Kings Mountain residents.
Kings
_9-A
EE
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Bs
The Charlotte Hornets Hoacy Bees will be grand marshals for
Saturday's Kings Mountain Christmas parade. Front row, left to right,
Michelle Dearing, Ellen Smith. Second row, Stephani Christy, Kim
Bailey, lisa Weekly,Michelle Bagby. Back row, Angie Day, Michelle
Lee, Debbie Caddell, Amity Flowe, Felicia Fritz, Melissa Marlowe,
Holly Parham, Heather Jones, Nicole Price, Ramona Robertson.
Task Force presents
violence proposals
All six proposals by a commu-
nity task force against school vio-
lence have been adopted by the
Mountain Board of
Education. Board Chairman
Ronnie Hawkins said the tougher
measures will be implemented
quickly.
* The approved recommendations:
1) Atleast 10 percent of students
at the middle and high schools will
sbeurandoinly-gearched by four
hand-held or walk-through metal
detectors during school at least
once a week. The procedures will
be set up so that students won't
know when or where the searches
will be conducted. The school
board will hear a second reading of
the new policy on use of metal de-
tectors on December 12 and once
that vote is taken the searches will
begin.
2) A Crimestoppers hot line will
be set up so that students can
anonymously report their class-
mates who carry weapons to
school. The calls will be fielded by
Kings Mountain Police Department
and then the police will notify the
principal at the school in question.
See Proposals, 10-A
Final reading
set on policy
Final reading and vote on the
use of hand-held or walk-through
metal detectors in the schools is on
the agenda for a special meeting
Friday at 8:30 a.m. of the Kings
Mountain Board of Education.
Board «Chairman Ronnie
Hawkins said that some representa-
tives of the American Civil
Liberties Union are questioning the
search policy, saying it could vio-
late a person's civil rights.
"We disagree,” said Hawkins.
He said that the policy is becom-
ing necessary in view of the esca-
lating presence of weapons in the
schools. The detectors will be put
in use at the first Kings Mountain
‘High basketball game.
The policy reads:
School officials or law enforce-
ment officers may conduct metal
detector checks of groups of indi-
viduals if the checks are done in a
minimally intrusive, nondiscrimi-
natory manner on all students in a
See Policy, 10-A
MEMORIES
KM restaurant's tree decorated
with photos of deceased friends
The memory Christmas tree with
50 pictures in star and bell shaped
molds and twinkling lights evokes
special memories of Christmases
past.
"I could hardly put up the pic-
tures without getting a lump in my
throat," said Peggy Childers, oper-~
ator of Peggy's Restaurant, who got
the idea to begin a holiday tradition
in Kings Mountain with a memory
tree decorated with pictures of de-
ceased residents.
Peggy's sisters, Loretta Owens,
Sherry Short and Sue Rhea, give
their sister the credit for the unique
idea. They helped her decorate the
seven feet tall green tree with
memory ornaments and another 10
feet tall tree with hundreds of tradi-
tional decorations that Loretta col-
lected over the years from near and
distant places.
It's beginning to look a lot like
Christmas at the Piedmont Avenue
business where the two trees deco-
rate the dining room.
The proprieters, more familiarly
known in Kings Mountain as the
Chaney sisters, have decorated ev-
ery Christmas since they opened
the business in 1972 in what used
to be C.J. Gault Grocery. Before
that, the sisters worked at
Piedmont Lunch and the old B&B
Restaurant and before that they
cooked in the home of their par-
ents, the late Rev. and Mrs. R.L.
Chaney, in a family of seven girls
and four boys.
"It was just natural for us to get
in this type of business,’ said
Peggy, whose son, Kevin, has also
joined the kitchen staff.
Peggy's has earned its reputation
as a 'homey' atmosphere, say the
people who dine there frequently.
Childers wants the hometown fla-
vor to remain.
Loretta picked the angel for the
top of the remembrance tree. It is
so angelic that when you look at it
the angel's wings move and give
the visitor what Sherry calls an
"eerie feeling."
It took Childers hours to cut the
tiny ceramic molds and back them
with red paper, then cut out the
photographs in the shapes to trim
the tree. Pictures of young and old
alike adorn the tree and there are
numerous pictures of husbands and
wives who ate at Peggy's over the
years and who the waitresses say
they could have their food ready
even before they sat down with a
menu.
"l knew exactly what former
commissioner Jim Dickey wanted
to eat and what former seamstress
Irene Medlin wanted to eat," said
Sherri. "Irene always ordered a
grill cheese sandwich with fries but
she had to change her order after
See Memory, 10-A
Shop Downtown Kings
.......See Pages 4 & 5A