Newspapers / The Kings Mountain Herald … / Jan. 6, 2000, edition 1 / Page 4
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ST School trustees special people January is School Board Appreciation Month in North Carolina. I've mentioned many times my apprecia- Bob McRae tion for our school board. #Emmdsimmsmmms Piney Superintendent Y KM Schools is fortunate to have such caring citizens in- terested in its schools. Their leadership is outstanding. I doubt the community at large really comprehends how much time our board members must spend on school system busi- ness. In today’s column I would like to give you a better look at the time demands which Larry Allen, Melony Bolin, Ronnie Hawkins, Shearra Miller and Stella Putnam must face as board members. First - and most obvious - is the meeting schedule. Of course, you know there is a reg- ularly scheduled board meeting on the second Monday of each month. While that meeting will normally last only between one and two hours, the preparation time for it is considerably longer. Board members receive a packet of information related to the meeting on the Wednesday before. Our board members spend a considerable amount of time reviewing that information before they arrive * for the*formal meeting. That éri-~ ables them to better understand the issues on the agenda and to manage the meeting agenda more efficiently. There are also special meet- ings at times. During this past November the Board actually had three meetings - the regular # meetihbh 7A spitial meeting to § considerajstudentdiscipline. r+: appeal, and a special meeting to discuss property acquisition. For the meeting to discuss the property matter, most board members gave time to actually ride out and take a look at the proposed school site. Add to this schedule three other meeting demands which normally arise during the year. Our board holds twe day-long work sessions and a three day board advance to allow time to discuss matters which affect the system in depth. These meet- ings usually mean time away from work for several members and time away from families for everybody. Clearly, board mem- bership requires a significant time commitment from the. meeting standpoint alone. There are other time de- - mands, however. Our board members try to attend a variety of special events at our schools. While they do attend activities related to students such as band and chorus concerts and PTO meetings, they also attend nu- merous events designed to rec- ognize employees. There are also training activi- ties which board members at- tend. State law requires board members to participate in at least 10 hours of professional development activities each year. Members achieve that goal and more through local, state, and national activities. Our board members have been very active in the Boardsmanship Academy programs sponsored by the North Carolina School Boards Association. Those pro- grams and other activities of the Association usually cause par- ticipants to travel, at time to stay overnight. Service as a school board member also results in requests to serve other boards. Numerous organizations such as the United Way, Chamber of Commerce, and Communities in Schools request representa- tion from school boards on their governing bodies. While most of them are in Cleveland County, members occasionally serve outside our area Dr. Allen is currently serving a term as a member of the North Carolina School Boards Association which is headquartered in Raleigh. Another important function for school board members is ~ See McRae, 5A IAT PR TR SAB oy I YR 3 OPINION ARR PICTORIAL EDITORIAL 10 0000000000000006000000000000000000006000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Cold weather always brings me flashbacks As the air last week made crystal clear, cold weather is here to stay for a while. For the nk I'm one of those folks who can’t stand. Hodge i being cold. Now, a sunny day with tempera: F— tures in the 50s is not so bad, but when the sky’ re clouds up and the mercury plunges, my meat Staff Writer and bones suffer terribly. Though being cold is rough, those same conditions can make for some pretty interesting memories when they are recollected in a warm and luxurious office. One of the first flashbacks that come to mind in this regard is the time when my teenage pals Brutus and Terry Casey and I were hunting in some really deep woods on an absolutely frigid and cloudy day. Brutus was dressed in an old shin-length over- coat and looked like a Cossack. Well, we got lost and were in danger of freezing when out of the icy mist an old black man and his pack of hounds appeared. With his direction, we made it back to safety. I sometimes wonder if that guy wasn’t one of those guardian angels you hear about. Another day when Old Man Winter did his thing on yours truly happened when I was in third grade. My sister Beth, a sec- ond grader at the time, and I walked almost a mile to school ev- ery day. The fateful day in question started off warm enough and we just wore thin coats and our Buster Brown oxfords. Around lunchtime it started snowing like a fiend and before classes were dismissed several inches had accumulated. To make it home we had to stop at every store along the way to ' thaw out, then continue on. Beth's legs looked like purple can- dy canes and my toes were so cold I thought they would snap off. Cold times can also make for some warm memories. When I was but a wee lad, we lived in a house on Garrison Street in Belmont that had one of those central oil furnaces with one big grating in the floor. You know, the kind you stand on to get dressed in the morning until your feet look like fried waffles on the bottom. Anyway, one really cold night the furnace acted up and we put an old kerosene stove in the middle of the living room and made sleeping pallets around it like the spokes of a wheel to keep toasty. Keeping a storehouse of cold memories can be useful. Refer to that fact next August when eggs are frying on sidewalks. Until then, stay warm and pile on the kivvers. Alan Herald/Nimes A RRR sees esssee oe ssscccsee cssvene READY TO ROLL - Bill Herndon, in fire truck, and Kenneth Putnam are ready to go in case of any Y2K emergencies when the clock struck 12 on New Year's morning, but because of an excellent computer system which was tested and re-tested throughout the year January 1, 2000 came to Kings Mountain without a single glitch. Don’t overload county ballots with KM people Filing for County Commissioner and several Gar other local and state offices opened Monday and y will continue through noon February 7 at the Stewart Board of Elections'in Shelby. PRR It is good that there were a host of candidates E di itor on hand Monday to file their papers for public service. Only one was from Kings Mountain, and that could be good too. A race that will be closely watched in Cleveland County this year will be the County Commissioner’s race, in which three seats are available. Coming on the heels of another in a long line of school merg- er talks over the past several years, Kings Mountain folks seem especially eager to run or recruit people to run for county com- missioner. Kings Mountain School Board member Ronnie Hawkins has already filed and several other names are being mentioned as possible candidates. We appreciate the interest, but let’s not be too hasty. Kings Mountain deserves to be represented on the county board. But I can count on the fingers of one hand the Kings Mountain residents who have been elected in the past. What are our chances of having representation if the ballot is loaded down with folks from Kings Mountain? With the majori ty of the voters of Cleveland County residing in and around the city of Shelby, it would be very difficult for more than one per- son from Kings Mountain to be elected. In our way of thinking, Kings Mountain folks should get to- gether and put their support behind Hawkins, a Republican, and then recruit one well-known Democrat who is highly-quali fied and highly-respected throughout the county, to run in the primaries. Then, make a determined effort to get all Kings Mountain, Bethware and Grover area citizens to the polls for both the pri- mary-and general elections, and support only those candidates from Kings Mountain. If there are too many people from Kings Mountain on the ballot the votes would be split, making it al- most impossible for any of them to win. Short of district representation - which the county commissioners have turned a deaf ear to in the past - this is the only way we're going to have a shot at being represented. Editor: Gary Stewart 739-7496 January 6, 2000 Section A, Page 4 £75 SH rm Ne Hoel a IN N KINGS Se (The Herald today begins a new editorial page feature, Looking Back, which recalls some of the top stories of years gone by). January 3, 1980 The first week in January, 1980, saw the very building which currently houses “The Herald” featured on the front page of the newspaper. Called the “largest log building in the world,” the 20,000 square foot structure is shown under con- struction with walls up and bare roof trusses awaiting sheathing. Also making news in Kings Mountain that week was the appointment of Don Graham, chief of the Bethlehem Volunteer Fire Department, as “Fireman of the Year.” The award to Graham was present- .ed at a gala dinner by the 1979 . winner Harold Dean Farris. Headline news for the first week of January 1980 centered around a 400 page report that the City of Kings Mountain had presented to the federal govern- ment’s Department of Housing and Urban Development. The report documented the use of nearly $1 million in government funds by the city. On the sports scene, Kings Mountain High School's wrestling team whipped Shelby and increased their conference tally to 3 wins and 0 losses. In basketball, the Kings Mountain High girls jayvee team beat R-S Central 36-29 for their first win in several outings. Advertisements in the January 8, 1980 “Herald” fea- tured Arrow detergent for 69 cents at Winn-Dixie. Harris Teeter was offering pork n’ beans at four cans for a dollar. Folks in the market for a new TV could swing by Timms Furniture and buy a 25-inch RCA XL-100 console model for $569. Homes were listed in the classified section for as little as $30,000 for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath model located on Rt. 1 in Kings Mountain. In social news, it was report- ed that Dr. and Mrs. Kenneth H. McGill were getting ready to head to Africa for a mission project. The crime scene in the Kings Mountain area for the first week of January, 1980 listed a string of robberies that included Little Dan’s store on Grover Road where $850 worth of Timex watches were lifted, and the home of Marshal Van Dyke on Rt. 4 where $1,310 worth of items including a motor bike and shotgun were stolen. SIDEWALK SURVEY By ALAN HODGE Herald/Times What is a TE EB SS I sm mankind's greatest Overcoming . Learning to deal To come together To balance family To live each day ; : poverty in the with new as one. and career lives. like it might be challenge in world. technologies. your last. the 21st ntury? Pam Cogdell Don Cossett Billie Dawson Lacy Petty John Wright century Kings Mountain ~~ Kings Mountain = Kings Mountain Lawndale Kings oa ~ i na A fr En en RAT AT TTR RO man naa A A ST STE
The Kings Mountain Herald (Kings Mountain, N.C.)
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Jan. 6, 2000, edition 1
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