Member
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North Carolina Press Association
Vol. 109 No. 25
Thursday ,June 19, 1997
KINGS MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
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A NEW LOOK AT LIFE
Kidney and pancreas transplant
gives Dana Drennan a new start
By GARY STEWART
Editor of the Herald
Dana Drennan ate a Reese's Cup the other
day, and didn't share it with anyone. It had
' been 18 years since the Grover fourth grade
teacher had eaten chocolate candy, and it was
one of the ways she is celebrating a new gift of
life she received on May 21 and 22 at
Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
Dana, the wife of Chip Drennan and daugh-
ter of Dub and Carolyn Blalock of Kings
Mountain, had battled kidney disease since age
12, and more recently her kidney failure had
also led to a diseased pancreas.
But, the kidney and pancreas transplant she
received in May has given her a brand new life
for which she is grateful to God, family and
neighbors who prayed for her and an unknown
donor whose organs were accepted immediate-
ly by Dana's body and have allowed her to now
be off insulin and other medication for the first
time in 18 years, and off daily dialysis for the
first time since last October.
Dana said she was first diagnosed as a dia-
betic at the age of 12, and she got by quite well
by following a strict diet and taking insulin.
But at age 18 she began developing eye prob-
lems and had to undergo numerous operations.
Not being able to do a lot of the things other
teen-agers did was hard to understand and
made her feel different, she said, and getting
sick a lot and spending a lot of time in hospi-
tals because of dehydration was very frustrat-
ing.
But things got much brighter. She had no
trouble with the disease during her four years
of college at Appalachian State University, and
she got along fairly well since then until
Ocigher 31, 1996. when her es "just gu, ’
sis unit every afternoon for an hour, and again
all night long, and that made her very sick and
sometimes strapped her of energy. She had to
take sever:l leaves of absence from teaching.
Doctors: ordered a number of tests over the
next two months and recommended a kidney
and pancreas transplant. And although they
didn't say it in so many words, Dana said she
felt transplants were her only hope for living a
long life. "They did say dialysis could do so
much,” she said. "I took that as being that was
it”
She was put on the transplant waiting list,
and on each ensuing visit to the hospital
learned that she was inching farther up the list.
When she reached #18 on the waiting list, she
was given a beeper and told that when she was
paged she would have three hours to get to the
hospital.
"Dialysis was continuing all the time," she
recalled. "Without that I wouldn't have made it
because it was pulling the poison out of my
system."
The minch-nticipated page came on
Wednesday, May 21 at 9 a.m. when Dana and
her class were riding a school bus from Grover
School for a field trip to Kings Mountain
Middle Schoal.
She admits ther first reaction was panic, but
when the bus arrived at the Middle School she
had calmed down enough to go to the princi-
pal's office an call the hospital.
"They said to get to the hospital," she re-
called. "I had to call Momma to pick me up.
We came home and packed a bag and got to
the hospital about 11 o'clock.”
She went through a number of tests that af-
terncon, and at, 9 p.m. she went into surgery. In
* the meantime, the word that she had gone to
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"The person that
decided to be a donor
saved my life."
-Dana Drennan
Many of them stopped their regular
Wednesday night service to go into special
prayer for Dana, asking God that the organs
would be a match and that Dana's body would
accept them.
oked to a di
3 1l0adia
the hospital had circulated among churches in
ain and other parts of the county,
SUMMERTIME ...And the Livin's easy -- Brian and Diane Tufelo
of Kings Mountain put their boat in the waters of Moss Lake for
an afternoon of sun and fun on the lake. Tuesday was perfect
weather for boating as numerous boaters got in a day of water
sports.
An Atlanta, Ga. firm is look-
ing at locations on Canterbury
and York Roads for a possible
facility designed to process
three trailer loads of medical
waste or approximately 23 tons
per day.
Dick Watson, Environmental
Waste Reductions Inc., asked
the city planning and zoning
board Tuesday night to consider
a text amendment to the city's
zoning ordinance that would
permit the operation of the fa-
cility five days per week two
shifts per day.
By 5-0 the city's planning
and zoning board Tuesday
night rejected Ingles Markets
Inc. proposed limited amend-
ment to the city's new zoning
ordinance and a revised site
plan.
Kings Mountain City Council
gets the recommendation at
Tuesday's 7:30 p.m. meeting.
It is the second time that the
P&Z board has rejected the re-
quest and sent it back to the
City Council which then sent it
Seg Dana, 8-A.
k Rp
Watson said waste received
during these hours would be
stored in locked trailers within
the confines of a locked fenced
area. Under no circumstances,
he said, would waste be stored
on site for periods of longer
than four days.
Watson said that initially 14
people would be hired but as
additional business increases in
the area, additional drivers and
administrative personnel would
be required.
The board tabled the redtiost
for further study but indicated
back to them with a directive to
try to work out a compromise.
"We would have to apologize
to the new Bojangles, the devel-
opers of the Doctor's Clinic,
both of Cleveland Avenue, and
to Ruby Alexander for their
new businesses going up in
Kings Mountain and complying
with the new ordinance on
landscaping,” said Chairman M.
C. Pruette after the lengthy
meeting which also included:
several other rezoning requests
pa
Wo The
director fired
Barnette
selected
as interim
Public Works Director Karl
Moss is out at City Hall and for-
mer Garage Supervisor Jackie
Barnette is in.
Barnette, 45, was named the
Interim Director of Public
Works this week by City
Manager Jimmy Maney.
Maney and the city's Human
Resources Director Bud Rhea
confirmed this week that Moss
was no longer with the city.
Both Maney and Rhea said they
could not comment further due
‘to reasons of confidentiality.
Maney notified members of
City Council by telephone
Friday afternoon that he had
discharged Moss, citing person-
nel reasons.
Moss, 56, confirmed that he
was called to City Hall Friday
about 4 p.m. and was fired.
Moss said he walked home
from City Hall, although he was
offered transportation by
Maney from a city police offi-
cer.
Moss became the city's
Superintendent of Public Works
10 years ago after serving for
two years in the street depart-
the request would be on the
agenda for the July meeting.
Watson, replying to numer-
ous questions from Lou Ballew,
said there have been no record-
ed instances of contraction of
disease from medical waste. He
said EWR employees are pro-
vided immunization for hepati-
tis B and trained extensively in
the correct handling of medical
waste and any incidents that
may occur.
Responding to Jim Belt,
Watson said EWR is expressly
prohibited from receiving,
and a request the board tabled
from Environmental Waste
Reductions of Atlanta, Ga. for a
text amendment.
"Ingles is asking us to single
out one business and we have
to .treat everybody alike," said
Pruette.
Planning: Director Steve
Killian presented supplemental
information which upgrades
previous information submitted
last December by Ingles and a
revised site plan which the
ment. He joined | the city s Street
MOSS
BARNETTE
ment from a military career. In
his position he was overseer of
the streets, grounds, mainte-
nance, sanitation and garage
departments and public build-
ings and supervised a staff of 47
people. His annual salary was
$36,649.60.
A Kings Mountain native,
Moss is a USAF veteran and re-
cipient of the Bronze Star. He
retired after 20 years of military
service and joined the city after
working with Great Dominion
plant in Kings Mountain. Before
that he worked for his uncles,
Jim Leigh at Leigh's Service
Station and Richard Barnette at
Cooper's. He and his wife,
Peggy Sanders Moss, have two
children.
A Kings Mountain native,
Barnette is a 1971 graduate of
Kings Mountain High School
and served two years in the
United States Marine Corps. He
joined the City of Kings
Mountain, | in 1985 after serving
Medical aot processor looking at KM sites
transporting or processing anv
materials classified as haz-
ardous under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act
or radioactive materials. Watson
said an autoclave, which is pro-
posed here, would have no dis-
charge to the atmosphere and
liquid discharge such as auto-
clave and boiler condensate are
easily handled in a sanitary
sewer.
He said waste would be re-
ceived by truck in either corru-
See Waste, 9-A
KM P&Z Board rejects Ingles amendment
board also rejected. The site
plan included a significant
number of trees around the pro-
posed site and inside the park
ing lot.
"This is a vast improvement
and close to what our new ordi-
nance requires,” he said.
Ingles proposed in the new
site plan a 60,000 square feet
building, instead of 56,000
square feet and additional park-
See Ingles, 9-A
COUNTDOWN TO CRUSADE
Ed. note - Today The Herald begins a weekly
series of articles on local leaders of the John
Strack Crusade to be held August 24-28 at John
Gamble Stadium.)
The football stadium stands are silent and the
players still unprepared for the opening kickoff
but Coach Ron Massey says they will be ready.
Because of his commitment to work with kids
over a 17-year coaching and teaching career, the
Kings Mountain High School Head Football
Coach and Athletic Director was the logical
choice to head the arrangements committee for
the upcoming Jay Strack Religious Crusade
August 24-28 at John Gamble Stadium.
"I tell my players to play hard and have fun,"
says Massey. He also begins each game with
prayer or a short devotional led by a local minis-
ter or chaplain.
Words like pride, loyalty, commitment, respect,
dedication, courage, dependable, behavior, de-
fense, attitude, and desire are not just words on
the board in his office to Massey. By all accounts
he a role model for his students on and off the
playing field.
Massey role model for youth
"The Crusadle is a good opportunity for all the
youth of the community to be exposed to
Christianity and our motto in sports is that good-
things happen to good people,” he says.
"We try to do a lot in athletics to make a posi-
tive influence on these kids but after teaching in
about seven schools I think we have the best crop
of students in Kings Mountain," said Massey.
Massey's life has been in sports. He played four
sports in high school in Graham and played col-
lege football at Guilford College.
He didn't always want to coach football. His
ambition was to major in business and make a lot
of money in the business world.
Now he says he wouldn't trade places with
anyone and calls athletics a people-oriented occu-
pation. "I have had rich experiences I will never
forget and I owe that to the kids," he said.
Massey invites volunteers to join his special
committee for the Crusade. He said the arrange-
ments committee will be charged with manual
labor, including setting up and cleanup of John
Gamble Stadium before and after the big event.
See Massey, 9-A
Ron Massey will have John Gamble Stadium ready for the Jay Strack Crusade August 24-28 and
the start of football season on August 29.