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KINGS MOUNTAIN
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Thursday, September 16, 1999 Vol. 111 No. 37 Since 1889 50 Cents
Mounties blast BG, . o peared east of Kings Mountain gan meeting Tuesday morning TTS Ty
play at Shelby Friday : Hurric ane and headed more toward the to get their emergency plans in 8 Positic sdiialabi
: North Carolina coast, Kings ° place, and have held updated o Sion 288 Jew :
Kings Mountain's Mountain officials know a hur- meetings numerous times ipl dE
Mountaineers scored their
most one-sided victory in i
school history Friday night at ::
Bessemer City, 68-0. Things i
will get much tougher this
week when they travel to
Shelby for their annual battle
with the Golden Lions. 1B
Former KMHS coach |
lands Division I job
Priscilla i
Rickenbacker, #
former Kings
Mountain High :
basketball play-
erand JV i
coach, has land- i
edajobasas- i
sistant coach at
the University
of Wisconsin at Green Bay.
‘Rickenbacker most recently
was head coach at North
Gaston High School. 4B
COMMUNITY
New traffic signal
will help traffic flow
A long-awaited new traffic
signal at the intersection of
Battleground Avenue and
Mountain Street should help
the flow of traffic in down-
town Kings Mountain/2A
East School saluted
as one of best in NC
Phil Kirk, chairman of the
State School Board, was at
East School last Thursday to
present the school a banner
for ranking as one of the Top
K-8 schools in the state in
terms of improvement in the
ABC testing program. Kirk al-
so spoke at a business lun-
cheon at Ramada Ltd. spon-
sored by the Chamber of
Commerce and Kings
Mountain Rotary Club. 3A
Kings Mountain is
ready for year 2000
9-9-99 was supposed to be a
day when computer systems
could go through major prob-
lems, but the city of Kings
Mountain checked out all of
its system and declared it
ready for the year 2000. 5A
New Senior Center |
getting closer to goal |
Kings Mountain's new
Senior Center still lacks over
$1.1 million goal, but it’s close :
enough to begin early site :
preparation for the new center
to be located on East King
Street. 5A
Pioneer Days set
at KM State Park
The annual Pioneer Days
and Muzzleloaders Conclave
is scheduled for this weekend
at Kings Mountain State Park.
9A :
Second Baptist members
back from mission trip
Members of Kings
Mountain's Second Baptist
Church recently returned fro
a mission trip to Venezuela.
6A
FIRST NATIONAL BANK
Colebrating 125 Years
could hit
Thursday
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Kings Mountain and
Cleveland County officials were
busy Tuesday and Wednesday
bracing for a heavy hit from
Hurricane Floyd.
Floyd was rapidly approach-
ing the South Carolina coast
Wednesday morning and al-
though its current path ap-
ricane is unpredictable so they
are preparing for the worst. The
hurricane is predicted to hit
land at 8 a.m. Thursday.
Floyd has been classified as a
category 4, with winds in ex-
cess of 145 miles per hour. It is
following a path that is very
similar to Hurricane Hugo,
which came inland at
Charleston, SC on September
22,1989 and left a path of de-
struction all the way through
the Piedmont and mountains of
North Carolina and on into
Virginia and beyond.
Kings Mountain officials be-
through the day on Tuesday
and Wednesday
If the storm causes major de-
. struction here, a command cen-
ter will be set up at the new
Kings Mountain Police
Department, and emergency
shelters for the public will be
set up at the Kings Mountain
Depot, the YMCA (Community
Center), Kings Mountain Fire
Department and possibly in
Kings Mountain schools.
The emergency meetings
have dealt with everything
See Floyd, 3A
Wind 140 MPH i
AUER TE SRE gy
i A 9/15 2:00 PM 140 mph
B 9/16 2:00 AM 140 mph
fC 9/16 2:00PM 75 mph
BURT AAT] BT)
[ORL BERTI.) BRETT FT
Wednesday morning path of Hurricane Floyd, courtesy
Ricky Chapman and City of Kings Mountain.
ALAN
HODGE
/THE
cky t
be alive
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
tion of the end was completely
embedded in his skull. After a
quick ride to Kings Mountain
HERALD
Paul
Gaffney
of Kings
Mountai
n holds
up the
nail gun
which
could
have
ended
his life.
A three
inch nail
from the
gun pen-
etrated
Gaffney’s
skull last
Tuesday
ina
freak
accident.
If anyone doubts that mira-
cles can and do happen in Kings
Mountain, they should have a
chat with Paul Gaffney. While
working at a construction site
last Tuesday, Gaffney was acci-
dentally shot in the head with a
three inch nail which penetrated
to the hilt in his skull. With an
injury that could have easily
ended his life, Gaffney calmly
walked to his brother Mike
Gaffney’s truck and rode to the
hospital.
“My son in law Jeff Mantkes
was shooting nails into the floor
of a house we're building on
Gold Dust Circle,” Gaffney said.
“He swung around just as I
stepped behind him and the nail
gun went off. It was a freak acci-
dent.”
At first, Gaffney was unsure’
of what had transpired.
“1 asked Jeff if the gun had
gone off,” Gaffney recalled. It
felt like I'd been hit in the head
with a two by four. The whole
time we were riding to the hos-
pital, I kept wondering which
Hospital where he was exam-
ined, Gaffney was airlifted to
Carolinas Medical Center in
Charlotte.
“The doctors in Charlotte
gave me an examination and
CAT scan,” Gaffney said. “Then
they operated on me for over
an hour. They were afraid to
just pull the nail out, so they
cuta gircle of skull, and drew
that and the nail out.”
The operation on Gaffney’s
head was completed by placing
a piece of titanium screen wire
over the hole, then closing the
wound with fourteen metal sta-
ples.
“The surgeons said their
biggest worry was that I might
start bleeding after the opera-
tion,” said Gaffney. “I spent
Tuesday afternoon through
Friday morning in the hospital
under observation.”
One week after his brush
with death, Gaffney was back
on the job at Gold Dust Circle.
Unless he removed his hat to
show the surgical staples, you
would stop first.”
butter.
one of my bodily functions
The nail gun in question is
air driven, shoots nails with 100
pounds of pressure, and can
drive nails through kiln dried
lumber like a knife through hot
After realizing that he'd been
shot, Gaffney felt where the nail
had gone in. All but a tiny por-
would never know what a har-
rowing escape he’d just been
through.
“I really felt lucky and
blessed by what happened,”
Gaffney said. “I've had a lot of
prayers from my church and
family members. Without those
prayers, I might not be here
today.”
| Area fire departments practice
$200,000 in pledges to reach its with burning of KM M otor C ou rt
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
A Kings Mountain landmark, and a place where many
memories were made, went up in billows of black smoke
Saturday. Decades old, the abandoned Kings Mountdin
Motor Court on Highway 74 was burned as a training ex-
ercise by members of the Oak Grove and Kings Mountain
fire departments. :
“We planned the burn for about two months,” said
Kings Mountain Fire Chief Frank Burns. “An exercise like
this gives more experienced firefighters the chance to
teach newer members of the department how to operate
in actual fire conditions.”
More than just setting the motel ablaze and squirting it
with water, the exercise was carried out with precision.
First, rookie firefighters were taught how to cut holes in
the roof so that the blaze could be controlled. Once the
hay and pallets which served as tender were fired, smoke
quickly darkened the clear blue sky. Hoses and axes in
hand, teams of firefighters took turns entering the mo-
tel’s rooms-and extinguishing the flames.
“We do about ten burns like this a year,” said veteran
Kings Mountain firefighter Bobby King. “We just put five
Kings Moutain
300 W. Mountain St.
739.478]
new guys on and this is a good way to them to get nozzle
experience in a controlled situation.”
The nearly twenty firefighters who took part in the ex-
ercise had plenty of equipment on hand. Besides a mobile
emergency command post, vehicles included a pumper
truck and a remote water reservoir. When fully accou-
tered for action, firefighters were enclosed in Nomex
hoods, oxygen masks and tanks, heavy coats and
trousers, and of course, big rubber boots.
One unique piece of equipment worn by the firefight-
ers was a small device attached to their suspenders
which emitted a shrill whistle should they cease move-
ment for more than a few moments. The purpose of the
sensor is to alert others for help should a firefighter be-
come immobilized or incapacitated in a smoke filled
room. :
By the time Saturday’ fire exercise was completed
around 3 pm, all that remained of the Kings Mountain
Motor Court was smoldering rubble amidst blackened
brick walls.
“Everything went real well,” Chief Burns said. “We
burned the building, no one got hurt, and we didn’t even
scorch the power lines nearby.”
[ePTIT1T
529 New Hope Road
865-1111
Smoke boils out of the abandoned Kings
Mountain Motor Court Saturday as firefighters
from Kings Mountain and Oak Grove go into ac
tion. The fire was a joint training exercise
Shelby
Main Office
106 S. Lafayette St.
484-6200
Wiember FDIC