3 Page 4A - THE KINGS MOUNTAIN HERALD -Thursday, January 25, 1996
Opinion
Thanks to McDonalds,
people of Kings Mountain
To the editor:
I was visiting in your town and left my pocket book
at McDonalds, by mistake.
I did not remember where I left it and traced all our
steps all day. I called and visited each place. No one
had seen the purse.
Our family prayed and asked God to find the purse.
We went back to McDonalds and asked again for
my husband and I had decided we left it there. We left
our name. At 10 o'clock that evening a call came from
Julie Travis, store #4851, saying the purse was under
the counter. She called me to identify it.
Nothing was missing. We had credit cards, but no
money to speak of. We talked to Juanita Pruette, man-
ager, the next day, and thanked the person who found
the purse and put it under the counter. We gave a small
donation for her kindness.
I really think God answered our prayer. We thanked
Him, because one person said, "you are a lucky person
because this doesn't happen very often in any town."
We enjoyed our stay in Kings Mountain. We are
from Orange Park, Florida. We were visiting our son
and his family who live in the Bethlehem Community.
He is Tim McSwain.
Please print our thank you to all the people in the
McDonalds, and all the fine people in your city.
Mrs. William E. McSwain
Orange Park, Florida
What's fair for one
should be fair for all
To the editor:
On December 1, 1995 I experienced a situation in
reference to two of our city department heads misusing
city property and salaries. I felt this should be brought
to the attention of our City Council. I spoke with six
City Council members and, our Mayor at which time I
filed a formal complaint.
According to the City Personnel Policy adopted
March 28, 1989:
1) Article IV page 9 - Conditions of Employment -
Report to work on time and remain on the job until the
end of the tour of duty.
2) Section II page 13 - Use of City Supplies and
Equipment - Vehicles owned by the city shall be cared
for by an employee in the same responsible way that
he would care for his own. Such vehicles are to be
used "Exclusively" for official city business except
special approval by the Manager. No individual shall
operate or ride in a city vehicle except as is required
for the conduct of official city business.
3) Section 10 page 12 - Conduct - An employee is
expected to conduct himself/herself both on and off the
Job so as to reflect credit on.the city and on fellow em- .
ployees.
The following are a few. examples. of .unaceeptable -
behavior:
A - Engaging in a scheme for personal profit in con-
nection with official duty or city property.
B - Insufficient regard for work rules and regula-
tions.
A city employee who is guilty of the above infrac-
tions may be reprimanded, demoted, suspended or dis-
missed depending upon the City Manager's judgment
of the severity of the infraction. Department heads
shall be responsible for counseling employees about
their problems.
Excuse me. We have two department heads who
have broken quite a few personnel policies. Who is go-
ing to counsel them? So far nothing has been done.
Sure, this may have been mentioned but nothing has
been written and put in their personnel files. If these
policies are broken again, will there be another slap on
the hand and "let's try not to do it again?" Who re-
members? Nothing is in their files, and with the
turnover this city has been known to have, who's going
to know?
Another city employee broke the Personnel Policy
on 1-6-96 (a non department head), and he was written
up.
Should all employees not be treated fair? Are de-
partment heads above obeying City Personnel Policy?
Does it depend on who you are and who you know? It
appears there is no consistency within our city. I am
tired of my money as well as the other tax paying citi-
zens' money being misused, mismanaged or just
thrown away. Broke, we must not be. We have money
to be blown away.
We all know that the department heads, of all peo-
ple, should obey the Personnel Policy to set an exam-
ple to the city employees. If a city employee is seeing
policy broken by a department head, then they feel like
they can also do the same and it be ok. Not in this
case.
Those two department heads should suffer the same
punishment the non department head received, if not a
stricter punishment. Of all people, they should defi-
nitely have known better.
City Manager, Personnel Director, Mayor Neisler
and City Council, get with the program; fair for one is
fair for all, regardless of what job or job title you may
hold.
I am requesting a response to this letter from the
City Council to what type of action will be taken. If no
action is taken, please explain why.
Accept this as a formal complaint and I am request-
ing a demand for action to be taken.
Joe King
Kings Mountain
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Mail letters to The Editor, P.O. Box 769, Kings
Mountain, NC 28086.
Your Right To Say It |
Cartoonitorial
Hayes making early push for governor
State Rep. Robin Hayes attacked Governor Jim
Hunt's conservative credentials Tuesday night and says
his campaign for governor falls right in line with the
most conservative wing of his party.
The second term Republican from Cabarrus County
and the majority whip in the state House is the first gu-
bernatorial candidate to stump Cleveland County and
made the remarks at Western Steer in Shelby as he
pumped hands during a swing through the county.
Hayes has taken his campaign to 82 counties since
September and expects to beat formidable candidates
in his party's primary, Charlotte Mayor Richard
Vinroot and Guilford County Commissioner Steve
Arnold and if he does, then he plans to unseat Gov Jim
Hunt, currently one of the most popular Democratic
governors in the South. :
Hayes owns Mount Pleasant Hosiery Mill in Mount
Pleasant. He says he has talked with his own employ-
ees about issues, as well as other working class voters
and is sensitive to the recent textile job losses in
Cleveland County.
The local gathering was planned by his Cleveland
County campaign manager Bud Wilson and vice-chair-
man Robert A. Williams.
There is. another reason that Hayes and this wife of
28 years, Barbara, are hitting the campaign hard. He
likes people. The folksy legislator is anything but pre-
tentious as he talks of teaching abstinence in the public
schools and of his opposition to abortion.
He's running as though the campaign were peaking
now instead of spring and though the election is next
week, not in November 1996.
"What the people want is a strong conservative,"
Hayes said. He believes he earned his conservative
mantle with such measures as House Bill 834, the bill
he sponsored mandating that an abstinence-until-mar-
riage message be taught in the public schools.
Hayes voted to slash the Department of Education's
Raleigh bureaucracy 40 percent and return the savings
to the local schools with a requirement that core sub-
jects, reading, writing and arithmetic, be the focus. He
sponsored legislation to allow workplace drug testing,
to repeal the prison cap, voted for concealed handgun
permits and voted to require prison work programs to
include restitution for victims.
He co-sponsored legislation requiring welfare recip-
ients to work, to limit the time recipients receive bene-
fits and eliminate programs that encourage dependence
on welfare. He also co-sponsored bills to eliminate
food stamp fraud and require community service for
foodstamp recipients.
The largest personal income tax cut in North
Carolina history was co-sponsored by Hayes, who also
pushed through the state budget which was lower than
the year before. Hayes proposes a budget that virtually
eliminates the abortion fund by reducing the abortion
Lib Stewart
News Editor
JIM
HEFFNER
Columnist
budget from $1.3 million to $50,000. He shepherded a
State House welfare reform pilot plan set to begin in
Cabarrus County. The Senate has not acted on that
plan.
He thinks prisons are focused on recreation - such
as weightlifting and playing basketball - and not
enough on work. Making convicts work would help to
rehabilitate them, he said.
The Concord businessman, 50, was welcomed by
Senator Dennis Davis of Lattimore and Republican
House candidate Dean Allen of Rutherford County and
about 25 supporters who asked questions on mostly lo-
cal issues which Hayes said needed to be settled local-
ly. i
A former textile worker wanted to know if elected!”
governor he could keep jobs from going out of Kings
Mountain to Mexico, referring obviously to the recent
closing of Clevemont Mills.
"Get rid of Bill Clinton. He sent troops to Bosnia
and jobs to Mexico," said the candidate but he added
that textiles, furniture and tobacco are the small busi-
nesses that are keys to the future but conservative lead-
ership is needed to keep them.
"How would you protect the kids in Cleveland
County when one of our agencies wasn't doing its job",
asked one woman. Again, the candidate responded that
block grants should be locally controlled, not state
controlled, and as governor he would not manipulate.
In response to a question, he said he distinguishes
himself from other candidates because he takes a stand
on issues.
He said he is in favor of repealing the food tax be-
cause it punishes people who can least afford to pay.
Revenue from the food tax increases the size and
scope of government, he said, with more departments
and employees and "a heck of a chunk of change."
"I don't hide what I say from my opponents or any-
one else and I do away with politics as usual and sub-
stitute for common sense."
Some of the goals Hayes said he would champion
are in Hunt's platform as well but of all these issues,
Hayes charges Hunt is a reconstructed liberal mas-
querading in conservative garb.
"Until the Republicans took control of the House,
none of the things he's taking credit for did he show
any interest in," Hayes said.
Sidewalk Survey
Gettin’ introduced to society
This is the time of year when young ladies all over the
country are “introduced to society.” These girls are called
debutantes.
I’ve always wondered about that ritual. You hear dif-
ferent people say, “well Sara Jean will be coming out this
year.”
Now what in the wide wide world of sports does that
mean? Does it mean Sara Jean has been kept prisoner in
her house all these years and she’s finally being allowed
out?
Webster's calls debutante a young woman making her
debut in society. Society is defined as people working
together for a common purpose, or companionship. So
what we have here is a young woman making her debut
into a group of people working together for a common
cause. How that can be called “coming out” is beyond
me.
The other day, I read an account about the coming out
of debutantes in a small town. Each of them were accom-
panied by a marshal. The last time I saw anybody ac-
companied by a marshal was when my uncle was hustled
off to the county lock-up by a marshal. He had just turned
out a finger-lickin’ batch of white lightnin’
Boy you should have seen some of the snooty names
of those marshals. Of course I can’t mention them here,
but they were on the order of Reginald Algernon Pomeroy
III.
I'll just bet Reginald’s father wasn’t a telephone line-
man or a ditch digger.
That’s another thing, all the debutantes in the small
town were the daughters of doctors or bankers. That
makes me wonder if “coming out” is an activity reserved
for the medical or banking communities in that little town.
Now you take the small S.C. town in which I was born
and reared and that would have been a problem. We just
had two doctors and one banker, so I guess the debutante’s
ball would have been a small affair.
We didn’t have anybody, that I can recall, with snooty
names either, unless you consider Johnny Mack Hinshaw
snooty. I can just see a news account of the “coming out”
of debutantes in my hometown. First off, everybody
would have to attend some kind of class to find out what
a debutante was.
The news story would probably read something like
this: three young gals were presented to society at the
first annual debutante ball at the Red Cow Dance Hall
out on route 29 the other night.
Essie May Scruggs, daughter of old Jubal Scruggs and
that red haired woman he brought back from Montgom-
ery, attends a beauty school in Aiken. Her marshal was
Luther and Junie Lou Huskins’ boy Esker, from over near
Hog Farm Road. Essie May wore a beautiful dress her
aunt Minnie stitched from cow feed sacks: It was blue
with a little pink print flower on it. Essie May looked
good enough to take to your favorite fishing hole. Esker
was as polished as any corpse old Jonas Blunt ever had
over at the funeral parlor.
Olga and Gaither Baliles’ youngest daughter Pearlie
Virgiline goes to business college over in Kensley Park.
She’s studying to do taxes. Her marshal was Jeter
Kershaw, recently released on good behavior. Pearlie’s
dress was handed down from her sister Consuela, but still
looked fine after all these years. It was lime green with
purple bows on the hem. A pair of yellow knee-highs
completed her ensemble. Jeter wore a white and black
striped suit, a trendsetter every time out, Jeter is some-
thing of a fancy dan.
Ophelia Gertrude Hunsucker, daughter of Cassius and
Fronia Sue Hunsucker, who have the Freezy ice cream
store over on Highway 5, attends nurse’s aide training at
the veteran’s hospital in Columbia. Her Marshal was Hoag
Messer, who works as a trainee at the feed mill. Ophelia
looked fetching in a black Chinese dress with a split up
the side. Hoag wore a pair of freshly pressed coveralls.
After dancing to the strains of Joker Jackson's blue grass
band, the participants took turns firing a .22 rifle at pass-
ing airliners, and a good time was had by all.
I need to go to one of those debutante balls.
(Just kidding girls. All of you are beautiful)
(ED. NOTE - Opinions expressed in editorials,
letters to the editor, columns, guest columns, car-
toons, etc., are those of the writer and are not nec-
essarily the views of the Kings Mountain Herald
and other Republic Newspapers.)
* By Elizabeth Stewart
What do you think of block scheduling at KMHS?
NICKI GLADDEN
I like block scheduling
because we have more
lab time for such classes
as Chemistry. This is the
end of the first semester
and I can see some good
improvements.
and that’s good.
KAREN MABE
I like block scheduling.
As a senior, it has given
me a few more subjects
to choose from this year
CEDRIC SMITH
In a way I don’t like the
change to block schedul-
ing. The periods are too
long and if the classes
aren’t real exciting stud-
ents can go to sleep.
and
CHARLETA PETTIS
I prefer the old way. In
some classes that the
teachers do all the talking
the
minutes.
CHRIS BURNS
I don’t like block
scheduling. It’s hard to
finish a subject in one
semester. We are always
straining to do so much
in that short time.
whole 90
AT