Officer suspended 5 days
for alleged misconduct
Kings Mountain Police Sgt.
Derek Johnson was suspended
without pay for five days Friday
morning after a hearing at City
Hall on alleged misconduct
charges lodged by Letitia Adams
Wallace, 89 Pine Manor. Bud Rhea,
the city’s Human Resources Of-
ficer who conducted the person-
nel hearing, said that other disci-
plinary action may be taken by
Kings Mountain Police Chief Bob
Hayes but because this was a per-
sonnel matter he could not com-
ment further.
Rhea said that District Attor-
ney Bill Young was presented
findings of an internal investiga-
tion conducted by Captain Rich-
ard Reynolds into the incident and
no criminal charges will be filed.
Wallace alleged in her com-
plaint to the Kings Mountain Po-
lice Department last week that
Johnson, while on routine patrol,
drove through the Pine Manor
* Apartment complex and handed
her 15-year-old daughter a piece
of paper with a cartoon drawing
of a space alien in: the right hand
corner of the page and a joke
about sex.
Early Friday morning Sgt.
Bob Myers arrested Wallace, 41, at
Pine Manor Apartment 89 on
charges of possession of mari-
juana with intent to use drug para-
phernalia, an alleged crack stick
pipe. In the police report, Myers
said he responded to a domestic
incident Thursday night at Com-
fort Inn on York Road allegedly
involving Mrs. Wallace, another
woman and two men. Myers said
Mrs. Wallace signed a complaint
alleging that she was slapped by
a male. Police are continuing in-
vestigation into the incident, ac-
cording to Myers’ report.
July 4th festival Thu
The place to be on July 4 is the Kings Mountain
Community Center and Jake Early Softball Field
where community-wide events will celebrate Inde-
pendence Day in Kings Mountain.
Mayor Scott Neisler reminds citizens they don't
want to miss the big fireworks display. A big
AMVETS flag will set the stage for the extravaganza.
TG Goforth and Tripp Hord of the city’s Parks
& Recreation Department said there’s fun planned
for all ages beginning at noon when music cranks
A
up on the stage.
Registration for field events starts at 12:30.
Events will include a water balloon toss, hy-
drant shower, three point contest in the Community
Center gymnasium, egg toss, horseshoe tournament,
bubblegum blowing contest, hot shot contest on the
outdoor basketball court, watermelon eating contest,
pie eating contest, live music/dancing and profes-
sional wrestling.
One of the big evening events is the 7 p.m. Soft-
\ oy kB
rsday in KM
Betty Hullender’s day lilies
brighten yard and life
3-A
ball Homerun Derby which offers $150 to the first
prize winner. Registration is $5 and each participant
receives a T-shirt.
Festival sponsors are Town and Country BBQ,
Harris Funeral Home, McKenney Chevrolet, Dicey
Fabrics, Carolina State Bank, Bridges Hardware, Sub
Factory, vendors, Kings Mountain Herald, Dr. Grady
Howard, McGinnis Department Store, Dellinger’s
and Subway.
Peak generation plant
BEATING THE HEAT
Photos by Lib Stewart
Crystal Ormsby, at Griffin Drug Store, and Heidi McDaniel, at Downtown Coffee & Cream, beat the
sizzling temperatures with ice cream. The weatherman is promising little respite from the heat as the
community prepares for Independence Day.
LECTURES IN RUSSIA - With the Dnipper River in the back-
ground, Bob Patterson relaxes after a day of lecturing in Kiev,
the capitol city of The Ukraine in the USSR.
KINGS MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
back on front burner
Kings Mountain's proposed
$2 million 4500 KW peak genera-
tion plant is back on the front
burner.
Because of the city’s financial
crunch, the project was put on the
back burner several times in the
last several years but now it ap-
pears to be on go again.
City Council Tuesday at a 7
a.m. special meeting conducted a
public hearing at which no one
spoke in opposition to the city’s
borrowing money to finance the
. project. The public hearing was
very brief but was required by the
N.C. Local Government Commis-
sion. The vote was 5-0 in support
of the project financing. Council-
- men Rick Murphrey and Jerry
White were absent.
The Local Government Com-
mission was meeting Tuesday af-
ternecr.and was expected to give
its blessings to the project.
Utilities Director Jimmy
Maney said that once the financial
aspect of the project is approved
that the contracts could be signed
as early as Friday and construc-
tion could start next week.
Maney estimated completion
date for the project early Novem-
ber.
Last week City Council
reawarded the construction bid to
McDaniel Construction of
Gaffney, SC and the financing bid
for the project to BB&T Leasing
Corporation of Charlotte. The first
payment is due January, 1997 and
semi-annual payments are to be
made at an interest rate of 4.77
percent.
Maney said the payback for
- See Plant, 5-A
Mullinax still questioning
mayor’s handling of vote
Ward II City Councilman
Jerry Mullinax is still question-
ing the mayor’s handling of a
vote on a controversial garbage
contract.
Mullinax said the issue
could have been settled last
week if Mayor Scott Neisler
had called for a vote after
Mullinax’s motion to rescind
the recently awarded contract
for privatization to Cleveland
Container of Shelby.
The mayor joined Attorney
Mickey Corry in putting off the
vote for a closer look at the con-
tract and the disputed savings.
“We had not advertised the
subject again in the agenda and
both Mickey and I felt that it
was better and cleaner to take
the item back to next month's
meeting for a full discussion,”
said the mayor.
Mullinax said since Coun-
cil had approved his added
agenda item on the garbage
contract at the beginning of last
week's long City Council meet-
ing that the mayor should not
have delayed the action.B u t
Mullinax said he didn’t know
at the time that he could have
immediately appealed to Coun-
cil the decision by Neisler until
he talked with the Institute of
Government and was faxed
copies of the 1996 updated
Rules of Procedures and Open
Meetings Law.
The Updated Rules cite two
See Mullinax, 5-A
—_—
Dr. Bob Patterson home from USSR
Dr. Bob Patterson didn’t speak Russian but he
communicated in a University classroom through
an interpreter for three weeks in Kiev, the capitol
city of The Ukraine in the USSR.
The Kings Mountain native, a Professor in the
Religion Department at Baylor University in Waco,
Texas, has just returned home with a new perspec-
tive and a renewed appreciation for freedom.
“The prettiest sight when I returned to the
States was seeing the US flag flying and I thanked
God for the freedom we enjoy as Americans,” he
said.
Patterson, who had traveled before and lec-
tured in Eastern block countries, said he had an
overwhelming first impression of the arrogance of
the communists.
“Their sheer arrogance led them to do things
destructive to their own peoples for 75 years and
the country is 50 years behind us,” he said this week
of his first trip to Russia as he attended the Patterson
Family Reunion in Kings Mountain.
Suspicious of visitors is how Patterson described
the people who then became friends who look to
the West for help economically.
“They told me they have no idea what democ-
racy is all about but they do know they don’t want
to return to hard line communism and are fright-
ened with the election runoffs now underway,” he
said.
Patterson said that voters will probably elect
Yeltsen but think he will squeak by in the runoff.
‘He’s their only alternative to hard line
communism,”’said Patterson who lectured at a
Christian university on the first 500 years of Chris-
See Patterson, 6-A
he average person is proud of the
Kings Mountain Rescue Squad
but sometimes they take it for
granted.
That's the observation of the
Squad'’s only living charter mem-
ber, former Captain Delbert
Dixon, who retired off the Squad
in 1988 after 26 1/2 years.
“I'd do it all again,” said
Dixon who said he used to work
all day, come home and take a
shower and then spend hours on
rescue calls or leading EMT train-
ing sessions and just get to sleep
when the telephone started ring-
ing.
2 “You have to enjoy the work
and all rescuers do but you'd be
surprised at the number of people
that think you're getting paid for
it.”
Kings Mountain Rescue
Squad was born in the basement
of City Hall in 1958. In 1964 it
moved to a new building at 312
Parker Street which was dedi-
cated to the late PA. Hawkins, a
city policeman who had worked
closely with the squad.
“Bud Ware, the late Corbet
Nicholson and I were down at
City Hall one Sunday afternoon
and heard a call come in from
Gaston County about a drown-
ing,” said Dixon.
“We started talking about
starting a Rescue Squad in this
county and 18 people formed the
first unit which was chartered as
the Cleveland County Rescue
Squad. Ollie Harris donated the
first ambulance, a 1948 model,
and the new group met for sev-
eral years in the City Hall base-
ment with Nicholson as the first
captain.
The Squad was born out of an
incident in which two Oak Grove
men were trapped in the bottom
of a well. The Harris Funeral
Home ambulance was dispatched
to aid the men but more help was
needed. The men were removed
from the well by lowering a third
man down in a bucket. Both men
survived but the town realized
something else was needed when
such emergencies arose.
During its first months of op-
eration members of the squad had
to pay dues to buy gas and the
squad was always on the go.
Dixon recalled the first calls
received by the newly chartered
organization. :
Two boys were digging a well
on Ridge Street and were over-
come by the fumes released from
dynamite blasts the previous day.
Both survived.
The first wreck call was in
Grover where three people from
Georgia were killed.
One of the worst wrecks hap-
pened at the bridge abutment on
Dixon only living charter member of KM Rescue Squad
York Road. An Air Force couple
was killed but their two small chil-
dren survived with minor injuries
and were kept by local people for |
several days until arrangements |
could be made to take them to
their out-of-town relatives.
People quickly saw the results
of the rescue squad’s work and
got behind them and supported a
fund drive to build a new home.
But Dixon said that rescuers
train themselves not to dwell in
bad memories.
Instead he recalls some of the
funny incidents that weren't so
funny when he was awakened in
See Dixon, 6-A
DELBERT DIXON
A} SE a